It’s eight feet at best, if even that. When you’re a kid you run with the natural assumption that life will fall in your favor. It grants exceptions and kind of looks out for you. You think of life as some sort of doting grandparent and adventurous friend all in one; inviting you out to wild frolicking play while hovering close enough to catch you if you fall. It’s the best of both worlds; of all worlds really. It makes life terribly wild and inordinately safe all at the same time. So, it’s only e...
It’s eight feet at best, if even that. When you’re a kid you run with the natural assumption that life will fall in your favor. It grants exceptions and kind of looks out for you. You think of life as some sort of doting grandparent and adventurous friend all in one; inviting you out to wild frolicking play while hovering close enough to catch you if you fall. It’s the best of both worlds; of all worlds really. It makes life terribly wild and inordinately safe all at the same time. So, it’s only eight feet. The next limb up was probably another four feet at least. That was a stretch. But eight feet; that was just about perfect.
We had spent days raking those leaves; several days. Pungent remnants of a summer nudged off fall’s calendar. When we had raked them when they were still electric; royal gold’s, velvety reds and sizzling oranges. Pigments liberally scattered from an artist’s pallet, the ground had been magically transformed to a patchwork potpourri of splendor on a canvas of faded summer grasses. We hated to rake it up really; to desecrate the canvas. But the passion for fun prevailed and so they were raked into massive piles, clearing summer’s faded canvas to wait for a distant spring.
It was only eight feet. But with both the wild child and protective grandparent of life begging us to jump, we could do no other. Eight feet is only eight feet. But when you’re a child entirely wrapped warm in the embrace of the wild and protection of life you leap, you plummet in a manner that feels much more like flying through a tract-less sky fully abandoned to the gracious mercy of life . . . and then you land.
It seemed that you fell forever, but it was all terribly immediate at the same time. Both the vast endlessness and terrific brevity of it wove a puzzling dichotomy, giving the eight foot plummet two sides; providing me two entirely unique experiences at the very same time. It seemed part of life’s mystical ability to be inexplicably different and wildly divergent about a single experience; God being relentlessly fresh every time He touches us.
In the landing, at that very moment the exhilaration of the entire adventure distills itself down into some sort of crazy tonic that instantly saturates your brain, electrifying every neuron with emotion. And there, gazing up eight feet to the branch above and another fifty feet to the massive canopy that bequeathed these leaves, life surges with tsunami force within you. You can’t move but all you want to do is move. It’s incredible, and it is good.
Off in the distance, the last of autumns leaves pirouette from trees now heavy with fall’s slumber. The breeze has turned a bit brisk, slightly seasoned by the chilled hand of an approaching winter. Birds gathered in mass as throbbing clouds of aviary sojourners bouncing south under heavy skies.
It was only eight feet, but the descent and the landing dramatically sharpened the senses to allow every ounce of fall's vitality to surge in all at once. Life becomes so electrifying that you have to shut it off or you feel that you’ll explode from the inside out. And so, it’s back up the tree for another eight feet of wonder.
And Then Adulthood
Columns of stately maples, elms and oaks stood at attention; woodland sentries stoutly ringing a small, broad pond. Its glassy expanse thinned in the middle, drawing its banks close enough to permit a small bridge to cast a slight arch across its tepid waters. A slight chill permeated the air. Tentative but timely, the thin crispness was just strong enough to hint at the turn of the season on that mid October’s day. Yet it was sufficiently subtle to cull a rich aromatic delight from the first of freshly fallen leaves. Fall was back . . . early.
Fall had come quietly that year, unobtrusively as if heeding something reverent and austere. The leaves held a bit that October. Slightly pausing, they turned from summer’s tired green to the exuberant blaze of fall. They seemed to hold their canopies close, refusing as of yet to fully surrender to a season turning on the axis of the year. Life, it seems, is so very profuse that even the pending death ever engulfing me was muted and restrained in the swell. It’s breath-taking and life-taking all at once. Mom was dying. Fall had turned another side to me that I had never known or wished to know. The plunge was infinitely more than the eight feet of childhood. This time the descent was endless as the emotional freefall of her dying felt bottomless. The wonder of that season remained, but it has become tightly woven and inseparable with the loss in the turning.
The doting grandparent and adventurous friend seem to have backed away, if not disappeared altogether. “To grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable” (Madeleine L’Egle). Yet vulnerability is exacting and devastating, especially when the colors turn early.
Mallards slid from low slung fall skies, cutting smooth lines in the glassy surface of the pond; sending glistening ripples in the same V-formations that these waterfowl had drawn across a graying firmament. With the momentum of migration propelling them, they skimmed under the wooden bridge’s span and briefly settled on fall’s waters, preening translucent feathers before fall called them back to her skies.
The ornate bridge's sturdy wooden beams and gently curved rails invited the grieving to pause over reflective waters. Death invites lingering and pondering. It provokes it as death raises innumerable and terribly tangled questions about life. Death is a reality that calls the rest of life and all of our assorted strivings into sharp relief, begging dark and foreboding questions. It forces the questions that we are able to deftly deny . . . until death comes. And death had come unexpectedly that fall, ramming the fist of adulthood squarely against the sweet memories of wild laughter and eight foot plunges. The disparity was stunning and wholly paralyzing.
Several figures lingered on the bridge’s broad oak and maple spine. They too wrestled with death, giving us a shared experience that mystically forged comrades from complete strangers. A hospice wrapped in fading gardens invited such pondering and the melding that results from a mutual experience.
Strolling the bridge's oak span, they paused over glassy waters in a momentous struggle to understand how something as final as death figures into the exuberance of life. Behind them leaves pirouetted and avian voyagers charted paths southward as always, but there was a sharp relief of what the child side of me wished to grasp in the momentum of fall and what the adult side of me was mercilessly forced to deal with.
I stood a short distance away at the edge of a sandy bank generously hemmed with dried reeds and brittle cattails that tiptoed through glistening shallows. Even from there, I felt the thoughts of those on the bridge as sharp and leaden as if they were my own. How does it all work, this life and death thing? How does it hold itself against all the wonder of life to which it seems so contradictory? The suddenness and incongruity of it all pressed upon me with a blackened vigor; I found myself standing in a slumped stupor weighed by forces and crushed by realities that descended without notice or warning. How does it all work; the beauty and tragedy of life? A hospice created a place where such questions were gently entertained in lives where those questions were now being forced.
Tinges of fall color in the surrounding forest reflected in the mirrored surface, dancing on the slight wakes of arriving geese and shimmering when a passive breeze gently rippled the calm waters. Hedges of blueberries and tangles of wild grape filled in the forest floor, hemming in this place of wonder and solace. Inside the hospice, a few feet from that pond and the surrounding woods my mother was dying . . . quickly, unexpectedly and without remedy. Nature itself was turning in what was always her favorite season of the year. That fall, she would depart with it. Even though I was desperate to do so, I could no more hold on to her than stop the roll of the season turning in front of me.
Grand and Grievous All at Once
How can life be so terribly grand and so utterly grievous at the same time? I sat but a handful of feet away from a dying mother and attempted to reconcile this most glorious season with a suffocating loss that pressed my heart with such weight that it labored to pound out each precarious beat. Yet I was at the same time drawn back to an eight foot jump in the arms of a wild grandparent who always bid me gracious favors and loving protection. I saw nature in spectacular display all around me with forested vistas rolling off to vividly painted horizons. Yet, in front of me there walked those whose faces were veiled ashen in the pending death of a loved one.
How do you reconcile it all? I wanted to believe that life was either good or bad. In resting in one or the other I freed myself of the gargantuan task of having to believe in both. In doing that, I removed the hideous disappointment that befell me when the bad prevailed, and I kept myself safe from unsustainable joy and hope when the good abounds. Either way, I know that one or the other will seize the landscape of my life and just as quickly leave it to the other. I would simply prefer to rest in one rather than have to alternate between both. I was falling much farther than a mere eight feet and the exhilaration of it all had turned terribly black.
My mother was dying. The juxtaposition between an eight foot fall and a mother’s death was entirely unfathomable. I sat at the ponds edge groping to seize and hold close the wonder of life on one side in order to believe that life makes sense and that good is sustained even in great and terrible pain . . . or more so, in great evil. On the other side, with great trepidation I tried to reach out and touch the pain ringing both cold and hollow; knowing that I could not deny it nor could I ignore it.
An eight foot drop and a dying mother seemed as from horizon to horizon in distance from one another, yet I knew that I had to embrace them both. Sitting by that pond, a handful of feet away from a dying mother, I could not span the gapingly impossible expanse.
It was here, in these places that we realize the vast dichotomy of life. At one end of the created framework there is set intoxicating joys that exhilarate and enthuse us to the end of our emotions and beyond. At the other end there looms the specter of devastating pain and chillingly dark moments. Life embodies both of these dramatic extremes. And at times we are helplessly tossed between both of them.
Managing the vastness of life is about managing our response to it. When the colors turn early and the riotous leaps of eight feet turn bottomless, we can choose our disposition and thereby navigate these extremes. Martha Washington wrote, “I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances (italics mine).”
More than simply navigating these extremes simply to survive, we can put ourselves in a position to effectively savor the vast dichotomy of life. We live in a world of immense and incomprehensible variety. Incredibly, we are shaped and created with the capacity to fully embrace, experience and incorporate the full depth and breadth of that marvelous diversity. In the embracing, we can experience the vastness of life as both dark and light, subsequently growing in ways unimaginable while managing the venture by choosing our disposition. I prefer eight foot leaps, but I likewise see the opportunity in bottomless falls.
Turns that Leave the Precious Behind
Peering over the pond and out to the deep woods beyond, the seasons were changing. Life was rolling on leaving behind something immensely precious. Nearly, it seems, discarding something it should not. At times life seems insensitive, casting aside that which yet has some remnant of life remaining. Something seems incomplete, a resource not yet exhausted; something seized and stolen before its time.
Sometimes life seems unfinished, the edges not yet sanded smooth, the final touch not yet having been rendered on a canvas bathed in colors of near perfection; a finish line not yet crossed swelling with applause and exhilaration. It simply should not be over. So it seems. There should be more eight foot leaps to make, but eventually there will be the final jump. And it had come.
Sometimes completion is not what we think it to be. We hold some idea of what something will look like when it's complete or has fulfilled its purpose. We apply a standard that in most cases is terribly inferior to the perfect destiny for which this person or this time or this thing had been created. We see the loss of the moment and are blinded to the larger purpose. Life tips on finely orchestrated events that vastly supersede our comprehension. Jesus uttered “it is finished,” (John 19:30, New International Version) to an event that his followers could not believe should have finished in that manner. In their minds something was not completed, yet it was completed perfectly.
Grieving acknowledges completion. Whether we can see it or not, it’s resting in the belief that there's a completion that gives sense, meaning and a rationale to our loss. Completion means that anything more is unnecessary. That loss is not about a future now stolen. It takes unfairness away and replaces it with an appropriate closure.
Twice Stolen
In the taking, it’s all relegated to the whimsy of memory. Memory is what’s left after something’s over. It seems wholly incapable of fully holding on to the thing that it's attempting to recall. It’s but a lean shadow, a thinning recollection of something marvelous and grand. Memory can only hold a piece of that which we lose. In the holding, it often takes artistic license and amends the memory so that it’s either less painful or visually richer. In either case, it’s easier to hold. So when we lose something wonderful, in great part we lose a great part of it forever.
Goldfinches and orioles skirted the woods edge and lighted on bustling feeders hanging sturdy at the bridge’s edge. Having been left far behind the hem of a summer long thrown off the edge of the hemisphere, they reminded me of a season past . . . harbingers of what was. Summer itself walked with us through lush green days caressing us with warm kisses of new life. It granted us sultry nights be-speckled with galaxy upon galaxy of stars packed into its rotund, velvety canopy. It begged us to smell dandelions, to run sandy beaches, to roll in mounds of wildflowers, to ascend the muscular limbs of maple and aspen, to climb lofty peaks and to wonder in a way that makes reveling sublime.
It was all fading now, relegated to the back alleys of my mind, conjured up in anemic images void of the flurry and flourish, of scent and the sacred. But its time was over even though we presumed there to be more life to be had. Summer had more to give it seems. But sometimes the colors change early.
Inside this hospice, a few steps from fall itself my mother was passing just like summer was passing. From the inside of her room, her window framed the glorious scene of transition unfolding in front of me. But from the outside looking in, this same window only served to frame her in death. She had yet to draw her final breath, although it was terribly close. Already the images of her were fading. Already she was passing into the far corridors of my mind cloaked in ever deepening shadow before I felt she should. Already the tone of her voice, soft around the edges was becoming muffled. Already her gestures, her mannerisms and smile, her tone and touch, the dancing crystalline blue eyes so full of life were slipping as turning wisps of smoke through my fingers. I couldn’t remember the eight foot fall anymore although I was desperate to do so.
“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror” (I Corinthians 13:12, New International Version) says Paul as he squints, cants his head a bit and gazes into the next life. I saw but a poor reflection gazing at this life as it unfolded inside a window where the colors turning early. Already I was grieving not being able to hold her or the memories so poignant and sweet. The colors were indeed turning earlier than I presume they should. But colors were turning anyway.
Turns of Life Turning Forward
“I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2, American Standard Bible) says Jesus. “Whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62, American Standard Bible). “I have come from the Father and must return to the Father” (John 16:28, American Standard Bible).
Jesus actions in the present were all about the future . . . that time which stands a nanosecond in front of us and beyond the larger season that we call today. Out there is something called eternity; that thing which seasons cannot define or contain. Eternity is the future infinitely multiplied against itself. It’s the ultimate destination that always held Jesus gaze, yet it didn’t hold mine as much as I wish it did.
Was this season over? Was eternity rushing upon my mother? Or was that all simply a marginalized perspective drawn tight by blinders of fear or absence of vision or thinness of faith?
In actuality, it’s a step into something that will never be over. Eternity is the end of the end. There are no more endings there. The end of this life is the beginning of an endless eternity of ceaseless beginnings. And so, is the end really an end, or the beginning of that which will never end? Is eternity the extermination of even the notion of an end? Then we are obligated, if not forced to ask, “what is more in death . . . loss or gain? Are we losing something, or is what we’re gaining so vast and terribly grand that it essentially wipes out any loss whatsoever?” Does it eclipse eight foot jumps?
Does it matter . . . really? Was it suggestive of a past now being lost before its time, or was it a past being set aside upon which an endless future was to be built? Was it about the limits that the past imposes upon us because its story is unchangeable history written in incomplete relief, or was it about limitlessness of a future as a story yet to be crafted, formed and told that will not be held hostage to whatever the past was or was not? Was life about a checklist of accomplishments completed and thoroughly marked off with some prescribed tedium? Or was it about joining a much vaster adventure that is not defined by our expectations, but by the hand of a God who perfectly brings every life to closure at the perfect time in order to seize that exact adventure and set us out on horizon-less hills? Will it make eight foot jumps in the throes of childhood appear terribly minor by comparison? I think so.
How it All Fits
My mother was dying. For the first time in my life I found myself caught between a past on the verge of passing that seemed premature, and a future that I was not ready for. It was fall. October was slipping away and my mother with it. In it I felt both my dread of loss and my lack of faith in the future. If my Mom didn’t somehow figure into my future, any vision that I would cast instantly disintegrated into a bitter talcum that blew an acidic residue all around me. I couldn’t let go because the past was fading fast, the future was inconceivable and eternity was simply too incomprehensible.
Panic stricken, facing uncertainties behind and before, I held on to that which I couldn’t hold on to without seeing both the promises for her and I. I sensed something infinitely grander, but at that raw place of unexpected loss I couldn’t grasp it. I could see it all around me in the flush of a season celebrating death so that it could celebrate life. But the bridge that this created for me, much like the stout maple and oak arch that spanned the waters before me was simply too difficult to cross. I edged up to its footing and I knew the passage that it called me to. I needed to cross. I wanted to cross. But I could go no further.
The Colors are Turning
The leaves rustled in the wind, its fingers culling nature forward in both death and dance. It was an odd combination indeed . . . celebration and cessation all at once. A non-negotiable bargain struck for us by the sin of the first man; a counter offer on a cross without which life would stall, stagnate and eventually cease to be life. Seasons must turn. Season is built upon season in an escalating dance. Oddly, the cross itself was accomplished so that we can pass from the season of this life to the season of the next. On the cross, Jesus built the ultimate bridge. He jumped, but infinitely further than eight feet.
Geese and an assortment of waterfowl moved in slight circles on glassy waters. Massive assemblages of birds skimmed the treetops as feathered aviaries on a mystical journey to southern skies. The grand arch of the sky lent itself gray and cold. Nature was beginning to tuck itself in. The colors were changing early and I was not ready.
I turned to leave. As I did, my gaze was drawn to a small metal plaque by the bridge. I stumbled upon the words that were etched there, “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11, New International Version – italics mine). I was and I am grateful for the promise, but I stood at both bridge and woods edge, running fingers over the raised wording on this simple plaque unable to claim its message. The colors were turning early and I was being prepared to let them turn. I was being prepared to let life go out of my reach, to let it all run ahead of me without me. Around me life was advancing in dark directions that were not of my creating. Yet I had to let it advance and in the advancing find some hope or rationale that would permit me to join it; to know that out there in terribly unpleasant places there lay a hope and a future. I had to let go and I had to leap.
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