THERE IS LIFE AFTER TRAGEDY

Saying Goodbye

Triple funerals—all together on the same day. Triple caskets—could a family bear more than that? Can life lost be reduced to a four-foot by six-foot box or three four-foot by six-foot boxes? Exponentially—rapidly becoming greater in size—clearly defines the scene. Grief multiplied somehow seems harder. Does anyone remotely know where to start to bury the grief, the shock, the pain, the past? Sure, others have been there; it’s just different when the loss is yours.

One thing was certain; there had been no time to prearrange any of it. It now had to be done off the cuff, spare of the moment, with no time for do-overs. And who among the hurting could even think straight? Could any of this be the unseen hand of the Heavenly One this family served? Would God—their parents’ God—help these shell-shocked adult children now? Was He even here in this strange, new place they now found themselves—gut-wrenching pain they had never before thought about, much less experienced? Or had they even thought about pain before today? Would they be paralyzed by a pain they didn’t know existed? Their family history tells stories of challenges, hardships, loss of life and yes, pain. Yet making sense of it all would have to wait. There were more pressing issues—and a triple funeral to plan and attend. After all, we all leave here the same way. Well, mostly.

Walking through days of grief in a state of shock is much like sleepwalking: you’re not in control and you don’t know where you’re going. You just walk. You walk because you have to and because others expect you to. Things have to be done—decisions, arrangements, purchases, and details, details, details. Yet how do you condense three lives into one memorial service? Can you cover fifty-six years, fifty-five years, and thirty-five years of living in only a few hours? That is a total of 146 years of down-to-earth living, 53,290 working days and sleeping nights, meals around a family table, hugs, hopes, and holidays. Who will ensure that you do it right—accomplishments, honor, respect, admiration—all deserved? Lives well-lived can’t be diminished into too little space. There must be room to tell all that is important, show all, and acknowledge all.

Two thousand people, reported one newspaper, filed into the small Texas town with hardly room to park a few hundred cars. Yet a sea of cars squeezed their way into yards, into driveways, between buildings, and on sidewalks. People were standing everywhere, since one small-town Methodist church could barely hold a good-sized grieving family.

In her book The Way of Abundance, author Ann Voskamp reminds us of a familiar Bible story in the book of John where Jesus encountered a man who was born blind. The disciples wanted to know who had sinned: the man or his parents. Jesus answered them, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here.”9 “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”10

Jesus’s disciples were looking for answers. Isn’t that what we all want? We need to blame someone thinking that perhaps it will relieve our pain. A cause-and-effect response could seriously help us cope. At least we think so. But we don’t hear any sort of reasonableness embedded in Jesus’s answer. No, none whatsoever. What we do hear is a rather shocking statement that God had a higher plan than we expected: a plan that would turn the focus on Him and His power. That’s all. You mean that is it? It doesn’t make sense to our small earthly thinking, but even beyond that, we still cannot see anything positive in such brokenness. God would have to show them, and like everything God does, He isn’t in a hurry.

The road ahead would be crooked, veering around steep and narrow places, attempting to avoid gigantic rocks clearly in the pathway to healing—healing of a pain that refuses to go away. So painful that no one would talk about it even decades later—not until every member of the immediate family had departed this life. And that was their choice—a choice that had been respected.

Ann Voskamp’s words cause me to think beyond what I have ever imagined about pain or brokenness. Is it because we all focus so much on getting over the pain that we fail to see the intent of God that was right there all along? In her amazing poetic style, she continues.

There’s brokenness that’s not about blame. There’s brokenness that makes a canvas for God’s light to be lavishly splashed across the darkness. There’s brokenness that carves windows straight into our souls. Brokenness cracks open a soul so the power of God can crack the darkness of the world.11

Light versus darkness—isn’t that what God’s plan has always been about? We were flung into darkness the day our earliest ancestors ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, and ever since, God has looked for ways to get light into our dark world. We need light to survive. We need light to find our way. What we need more than anything is the Light of the World. If we can accept it, God’s bigger and higher plan is always greater than our immediate need.

One thing was certain for this family: light was needed simply to take another step. And for now, none of them knew what that next step would be. Yet as with any hard trial, the dark clouds overhead do not diminish the presence of God. They just keep us from seeing Him for a while. His glory will yet appear to us again.