Summer Solstice

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Back in second grade science class, we all learned about the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. As youngsters we loved studying this subject for two reasons: (1) when it occurred, we knew we’d be on summer vacation, and (2) since the sun set really late that day, we’d have more time to play outdoors.

Summer is the favorite season of many, because it brings sunshine, grilling, swimming and flip-flops. It represents lemonade on the deck, green leaves on the trees and screens on open windows. And Nate and I, born ten days apart, celebrated our birthdays together during the summer.

There is no end to the delights of this season. But something has always nagged at me. Why do the days begin to get shorter when summer has barely begun? The Summer Solstice on June 21 is that turnaround day, and it has passed. It’s as if fall peeks around summer’s corner to remind us darker days are coming.

I’m nervous about the coming fall. Along with it’s arrival will come the one year anniversary of the day we were told of Nate’s cancer, September 22. Each of the 42 days following that will be, most probably, a reliving of those painful days. I’m already planning to pull out my 2009 calendar to read what happened on each day. That exercise might seem senseless, but as we travel through that season, something inside me wants to link up with what Nate suffered.

Just last month I was finally able to stop my mind from traveling back to those excruciating days on a daily basis. Aborting that thought pattern has taken eight months, and now, as the days begin to shorten toward autumn, I’m back where I started.

Scripture makes a case for living in the present, but it also recommends looking back, with the purpose of being thankful. By suggesting we count past blessings, the Lord wants us to recognize that he cared for us in the past and will care for us in the future. Even in mentally remembering the days of Nate’s decline and demise, God’s gifts during that time stand out like the flowers in a centerpiece, prompting my gratitude.

I don’t like watching the sun set one minute earlier each evening or realizing that a month of summer has already slipped away. But once summer is over and fall arrives, once we get through those 42 days, all our “firsts” without Nate will have passed. I’m hoping that after that I’ll be able to take more deep breaths and think back without having to relive the pain. My widow warriors tell me this will be true.

Surely the Summer Solstice a year from now won’t prompt nervousness as it has this year. Instead, when the days shorten and that next fall arrives, it’ll come bringing its usual golden glow. The sting of the cancer will be gone, even in our memories. I’m looking forward to the day when I can look back and remember Nate not in terms of disease and death but as he was in the many seasons that preceeded the autumn of 2009.

”The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.” (Psalm 104:19)

Is “1” the loneliest number?

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A popular song in the late sixties was entitled “One”:

  • “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.
  • One is the loneliest number, worse than two…”

Is that true?

During these last months my days have been about rearranging life to be about one rather than many, the reversal of a 40 year pattern. Big families are all about multiple bedrooms, multiple cars and multiple chairs at the dinner table. I used to do laundry daily but now can get away with only a few loads a week, and many days without any laundry at all. I used to do daily walk-throughs in the house, picking up and putting away on a continual, never-finished basis, but now everything stays where I put it.

Young moms who read this will think, “She’s got it made!”

I know someday I’ll see it that way, too. I’m not complaining about a lighter work load. That would be goofy. I’m just finding it difficult to adjust to rapid, radical change. There were supposed to be two of us in this empty nest, not just one.

This morning as I chose a small sauce pan in which to boil my cholesterol-fighting oatmeal, I had to smile. The pan would have fit right in with a little girl’s play kitchen set. But it was the right size for just me.

Two things came to mind, both encouraging. (1) It was God who put me into this new life of “one” and (2) I suspect he is readying me for whatever is next. It’s like Nate’s proverbial ten foot wall over which he couldn’t see. (Oct.3, 2009, “I can’t see the future.”) In his case, not knowing what was coming was a good thing, because his future held great physical pain, followed by an “early” death.

Taking a lesson from those circumstances and applying it to my life of “one”, I don’t need to know what’s ahead. And even more importantly, it’s actually best if I don’t know what’s coming. Once I can believe that wholeheartedly, I can relax in my empty nest alone and make friends with a tiny sauce pan.

Instead of the song “One”, I’m choosing to dwell on another tune popular at the same time: “Known only to Him.” Nate loved Elvis Presley’s recordings of Gospel songs, and this one was on the disc he often played in his car on the way to the Amtrak station.

  • “Known only to Him are the great hidden secrets.
  • I’ll fear not the darkness when my flame shall dim.
  • I know not what the future holds,
  • But I know who holds the future.
  • It’s a secret known only to Him.”

This old chorus, which we used to sing in high school youth group, sounds syrupy now, but its principle is profound: entrust the future to the one who knows its secrets. This is especially beneficial when that one is motivated toward you and me by unbounded love.

Thinking like this makes me eager for whatever is ahead, whether I’m cooking in a tiny sauce pan or stirring in a giant pot. Either way, I know I won’t be “a lonely number.”

“When times are good, be happy, but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.” (Ecclesiastes 7:14)

A word from Linnea

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June was a great month for me, mainly because I spent over half of it at my mom’s house. Though I live in Florida with my husband and two kids, my heart and mind are often at my mom’s place in Michigan these days.

I hadn’t been back since I left last November after my dad’s funeral. On my first afternoon back I sat in a chair and looked at the living room. In my mind I saw my brothers and sisters sitting in our nightly circle, eating dinner together the way we did during the weeks before my dad’s death. Nelson would be carrying wood in from outside to keep the fire going. Nicholas and Skylar, the only two grandchildren at that time, would be eating and chattering, making plenty of noise and a total mess. There’d be a lot of laughing and talking, though we’d all be thinking of Papa with sadness at the same time. And my mom would be serving my dad faithfully, getting his pills and ice packs, and encouraging him to eat something.

The house feels different now. It’s my mom’s house instead of my parents’. My dad’s chair is empty and there are no newspapers scattered on the floor next to it. It’s summertime, so instead of chilly fall winds and orange leaves on the ground, everything outside is bright green and the air is thick and humid. During my last visit I was pregnant; this time I spent hours walking outside with baby Micah in my arms. Being outside calms him down when he’s fussy, so we’d go for slow walks down the road, just the way my dad did during his final weeks.

Each day as I traced my dad’s steps, I’d think about the end of his life. I hate that he had to die and I hate that my mom is now a widow. But as I’d stare up at the tall trees lining the road, their leaves making a shady covering for Micah and me, I couldn’t help but remember God’s faithfulness and goodness to my family, even as He took my dad away. I’ll never forget the moment my dad died—the way my mom sat and held his hand, and how all of us kids were right there in the house when it happened. After he was gone, we stood around his bed, said our goodbyes to him, and cried. If any of us had been missing—out running an errand or walking the dog—it would have been different. God arranged the timing perfectly and that was a gift. One of many.

It’s scary to think that death can reach out and touch us without much warning, without our permission. We are not in control of our lives the way we like to think. In the end, all that matters is our faith in God. Do I belong to Him? If my answer is yes, then I don’t have to live in fear—not of cancer, not of being alone, and not even of death. God has promised to work everything together for my good. Watching my dad die was awful. I don’t think I’ll understand in this lifetime why it had to happen the way it did. But God has left the evidence of His love for my family all over our memories, and when He says someday He’ll wipe away our tears for good, I believe Him.

“Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:17b-18)