Love in a Crawl Space

Before we moved from Illinois to Michigan, the girls and I emptied a very full crawl space measuring 25 ft. square. The most valuable thing in it was a trunk-sized cardboard box I hadn’t looked into since before we got married.

But it was time to downsize, and we needed to be cut-throat about trimming debris from our lives. The box was marked “Memorabilia” and I had no idea what was inside. It was also marked with water stains from a basement flood two houses back, and I wondered if the box was even worth opening.

After peeling off the dried out, curly-edged masking tape, I opened it to find every letter I’d received during high school and college years, each one still in its envelope, the oldest with four cent stamps. In a day without cell phones, texts or Facebook, handwritten correspondence was the only way we kept in touch. The letters were organized by author, nearly 30 different people, each stack secured with a rubber band and ordered by date. Although the rubber bands had rotted and the letters were stuck together, all were readable.

Tucked in the bottom of the box were my journals from the same time period. Although I didn’t have the letters I had written in answer to the ones I’d received, my journals showed what was on my mind.

After finding the letters, I went upstairs and announced to Nate I’d be taking a few days off from packing up the house to take a trip down Memory Lane. I invited him to join me, but he smiled and said, “No thanks.” He knew how goofy I was as a kid and had better things to do than wade through hundreds of old letters.

Every evening after dinner I “descended” and sat among stacks of boxes that were packed and ready for our move. Author by author I went through the massive letter-box, “visiting” each friend and our shared past.

There were cousins, girlfriends, boyfriends, my sister (after she went to college), my brother (after I went to college), my parents (mostly lectures-in-envelopes), and a number of letters from military guys fighting the Viet Nam war. The whole assemblage was a storyline of life in the sixties, from the peaceful beginning of that decade to its tumultuous end.

I’d forgotten most of the details in the letters but certainly remembered the people. After reading what the girls had written, I packaged those bunches up and sent them to each author. Some guffawed, some cried and some went through a crisis after reading their own writings. As for the guy letters, I read each one, then filed them all in the recycling bin.

The most interesting part of my trip down Memory Lane was to note how all of us had changed, what decisions we’d made since the sixties and who was doing what now. Some have compiled many years of marriage, others had suffered through divorce. Some had no children, others had lots. Some now live in foreign lands, others haven’t gone much of anywhere. Some are wealthy, others are struggling. And a handful have already graduated to eternity.

The letter-box had nothing in it from Nate. That’s because once he and I got to writing, his stack grew so well, it needed its own box. I kept that “set” to open after we’d moved. Going down our own private tour of Memory Lane would be, I thought, something the two of us would have time to share, once we moved to Michigan.

But God had a different plan, and we never got to open that box. My guess is that Nate now owns all knowledge of our past, even without the letters to jog his memory. It no longer matters to him like it still does to me. I believe when we get to heaven, we won’t have forgotten a thing. To the contrary, we’ll probably remember everything more precisely.

One of these days I’ll “descend” to our Michigan basement and open that box marked “Letters from Nate” to make that  trip down Memory Lane by myself.

But not yet.

“The memory of the righteous will be a blessing.” (Proverbs 10:7)

 

Heavenly Hope

Not one of us escapes a ride in a hearse. As Pastor Erwin Lutzer says, “We’re all born with an expiration date.” Today I was poignantly reminded of that while attending the funeral of a beloved 87 year old friend. Although I knew there would be tears, at this funeral they would be shed through smiling eyes for two reasons: 1) this lady had lived a life that sparkled, and 2) there was no question she was now living in heaven.

Raye Jeanne was the kind of person whose entrance into a room could not be missed. She approached life with an eye to its blessings and looked for the positives in every situation. She loved people, friends and strangers alike, from a heart overflowing with compassion. Her smile was broad and her laugh contagious as she remained future-focused until the day she died.

Traveling the globe in her last years, Raye Jeanne left familiar places and creature comforts to experience foreign lands with strange foods and customs. Her sense of adventure was that of a child. As her children put it, she “grabbed life with both hands.”

Even her death was accomplished with flair. After lunching out with her daughter-in-law, the two of them visited the local grocery store where she conversed lovingly with a stranger in a wheelchair, asking his name, communicating caring. She also bargained with the manager to get the next day’s sale price on the bag of oranges she was buying that day.

Shortly after she put chocolate milk into her cart, they were on their way to the check-out when her body crumbled to the floor. Her heart had stopped without warning or pain. Her daughter-in-law, store personnel, paramedics and a surgeon made valiant efforts to save her, but Raye Jeanne’s expiration date had arrived.

Today’s funeral was a lively celebration of her very full, widely influential life. This morning while dressing, I’d wondered if Nate’s recent death and our funeral for him would come rushing back to me in a way that would cause anguish. I needn’t have worried. The minute we stepped into the funeral home, the mood was ebullient, a reflection of Raye Jeanne. One son read a spirited eulogy, another told of his recent trip with her to Jerusalem. No speech was without points of humor, and all of us chuckled while honoring her memory.

How is it possible to laugh heartily at a funeral? There’s only one reason, and it’s our sure knowledge that she’s in a much better place today than she was in her life on earth. Her family knows the separation is only temporary and that they’ll be reunited with her in the presence of Jesus Christ one day. This awareness makes today’s goodbyes easier.

When I approached the casket, Raye Jeanne’s eleven year old grandson Michael was standing as close as he could get to his Granny. “What are you thinking, Michael?” I asked.

“It doesn’t seem like her because she’s not smiling,” he said, picking up her lifeless hand and lovingly stroking it. “And she’s cold.”

His honest response was recognition that the Granny he knew was no longer there. But Michael is confident he’ll see her smile at him again later, so he doesn’t despair.

The pastor detailed the difference between funerals he’s performed at which the mourners aren’t sure what happens after death and funerals like Raye Jeanne’s where mourners are confident of heaven. One group clings to the body and life on earth. The other clings to Christ and life in heaven. Scripture talks about those who have no hope when a loved one dies and those who grieve in a different way because they have hope that life after death is superior to life before it.

Christ is the doorway to that life, the doorway to God. He says it himself in Scripture (John 10:9) and makes it easy for anyone to walk through it. Raye Jeanne accepted this truth while on earth, and because of that, on Thursday of last week, she stepped into an eternity of total bliss.

“Jesus said… ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’.” (John 14:6)