Hearts Newsflash
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Living with Less so Your Family has More| A Birthday the Day Before Easter |
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| Written by Holly Schurter | |
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Even the weather seems delightful, at least part of the time. Flowers bloom, grass is green, and birds can't keep from singing. It's almost easy to forget that Easter has to do with death. Easy, that is, unless someone you love has died recently. My Dad died this past January, and Easter is not the same this year. We didn't expect Dad to die. He was hospitalized -- for encephalitis, his doctors thought -- from early August until late September. Much of that time he was in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. Twice his doctors asked us to call in other family members, as death seemed imminent. But as one of his nurses told us, he was one tough customer. He survived the illness, but not without serious consequences to his health. He worked hard to regain his strength, his ability to walk, his freedom to go and do as he pleased. It wasn't easy, but over a period of weeks he got out of the wheelchair, then discarded the walker. He still used a cane, mostly because of a lingering balance problem. He wasn't able yet to drive or play golf, but he was working on it. What he could do was tell jokes and laugh, even when he was frustrated with the lingering limitations his illness had imposed. He got up every morning ready to make the most of whatever the day held. We celebrated the holiday season, tired but grateful to God, aware we had been given the gift of spending another Thanksgiving and Christmas together. Recurring chest pain became a problem for Dad right after Christmas. He went back into the hospital for tests. Sudden complications resulted in his death, a little less than four months before his 70th birthday. His birthday would have been today, the day before Easter. Often as moms we are responsible to coordinate celebrations for our families. For years Mom has planned birthday parties for Dad. My brothers would take the day off work to play golf with him, and there would be a family dinner, complete with cake, ice cream, and presents. As the grandkids came along, they joined the celebration, much to Dad's delight. This year, there will not be a birthday party like that for Dad. Instead, today will be a quiet day for us, a day of remembering Dad, of missing him. This year, our celebration for Dad will happen tomorrow, on Easter. It is life we will be celebrating this Easter: life after death, abundant, eternal life, the life Jesus lived and died to give us. It is that life Dad is enjoying, even now. This life-after-death is a wonderful gift from God, a gift born of God's great love for us, but in a world where death seems to overcome everything and everyone we care about, how are we to understand this great love of God? We begin to understand it as we experience the love of our family and friends. In those relationships, we learn a bit about what love is. Even though we are not perfect ourselves, and even though the people who love us are not perfect, the love we share is enough to hint at what God's love is like. We can see something of God's love in the faithfulness of a dad who works extra jobs so his kids will have food, clothing, shelter, and Christmas presents. We can see something of God's love in the tenderness of a dad who knows a skinned knee will heal, but knows, too, that right now it hurts, and might need a hug. We can see something of God's love in a dad who, with great, gentle strength, doesn't quit believing the prodigal will come home soon. We can see something of God's love in a dad whose greatest joy, at the end of a long day, is to hear one of his kids say, "Daddy, I sure love you." This is a love willing to sacrifice comfort, rest, pleasure, time, money, expectations and dreams, even life itself if necessary, for the sake of the ones who are loved, yet this love is only a suggestion of the love God has for us. God's love for us, perfect and strong, is at work in the world even now, in our families, in our churches, in our hearts. It is a faithful, tender, powerful love that takes joy in working on our behalf. It is a love that does not die. It is the love we celebrate at Easter. Holly Schurter is wife to John and mom of eight, grandma of ten, and a volunteer with Hearts at Home on the publications team as well as the radio team. She works as a free-lance writer, and in her spare time likes to read, bake, and play in the garden. Originally published on April 18, 2000 in The Pantagraph.
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Stores are full of Easter goodies these days. Pretty dresses and hats charm any shopper who passes them; crisp shirts and ties for boys and young men suggest the possibility of refined dinners and civilized conversation. There is plenty of chocolate -- and marshmallow eggs and jelly beans -- to go around.