The Cruel Trick of Humanity

This past weekend, just a few days before Christmas - a day set aside to celebrate life and renewal and salvation - we headed from our little Texas neighborhood across 4 state lines into Georgia to honor my step-father and lay him to rest.  Not exactly the holiday I had in mind.

I don't want to eulogize him.  I know my attempts would be feeble and couldn't really capture the magnitude of his love and compassion.  But I want to share a quality about him that I find especially endearing:  he chose to love me, when he certainly didn't have to.  I was an adult when Loran, my step-dad, came into the picture.  In fact, I met him for the first time at my own high school graduation.  I was a little perturbed that my mom would choose that exact moment to announce her new romance, but it wasn't exactly unlike her to upstage me.  At any rate, Loran was under no obligation to give me the time of day.  He loved my mother, deeply and purely.  And I think he tried to make my brother and I feel comfortable and pleased with him.  But he never seemed to be pretending to enjoy us in order to meet that end.  I believe he genuinely liked our company.  We were a bit foreign to him, having grown up in Southern California and he in middle Georgia.  But I think we were equally fascinated with his strange accent and quiet, gentle style of conversation.  He was jolly and smiled a lot, a quality I was immediately suspicious of, but then grew to love.  He served in Vietnam, though he didn't really ever talk about it.  He always humbly declined his VA benefits, saying that there was another veteran somewhere who needed it more.  He never spoke ill of anyone, even when he had every right to.  He always found that elusive silver lining.  He was hardly critical, even when the occasion called for it.  He was just genuine, and kind, and giving.  And here I was, an 18-year-old girl who thought, as most teenagers do, that I knew everything.  He forgive me time and time again for my attitude, without ever telling me that my attitude was foul.  He just simply let me do what I was going to do, and allowing me some pity when my plans backfired.  He gave me a room in his home, asking little from me in return except a few chores and consideration in the late evening.  He helped me buy a car.  He helped me get a job.  He helped me navigate the choppy waters of my strained relationship with my mother.  And never once said a cross word or raised his voice in protest.  He loved me.  He genuinely loved me.  And my husband.  And my children.  He called my children his grandchildren, and referred to me as his daughter.  Not in a pushy way, or in a way that forces my biological father, a man I remain very close to, out of the picture.  But in a I'll-be-here-if-you-need-me kind of way.  And he was.  He gave me away at my wedding.  He witnessed the birth of my oldest child.  And he held me lovingly the day we laid my mother to rest.  No, none of this was required of him.  But he gladly chose of his own free will to love me.  And I can never express enough my appreciation.  If I were to eulogize him, I believe I could sum it up:  He served courageously.  He gave generously.  He lived richly.  And he loved passionately.

During the visitation, several people came up to hug me or shake my hand.  "You're Vicki's daughter! I would recognize you anywhere!"  They would say, but I wouldn't have any idea who they were.  Mostly friends of my parents.  They would say, "it's so terrible about your mom and Loran.  They were such wonderful people."  And I would smile, reply politely, and think for a moment... yes, they were.  Everyone loved them.  Maybe for reasons I couldn't always understand.  But it was lovely to think, in my moment of grief, that people missed my parents because they truly felt that they had spent so much time with them, getting to know them, and loving them for who they were.  It was an investment with increasing dividends.  They had built a family, a network of sorts, with these amazing relationships that had such an impact.  And now, in the same chapel where we held visitation for my mother, we were seeing the same faces, and some new ones, expressing their sincere sadness that such an incredible man was gone.  

I visited the grave site the day following the funeral to pay one last tribute to Loran, and give my mom a kiss.  Her grave site was covered up to allow for Loran's funeral.  Seeing them, side by side once again, brought emotions up in me that I couldn't quite explain.  Tears welled up in my eyes, and just when I thought I was cried out.  I half smiled, half moaned at the sight of the two of them, once again reunited.  Both turned back to the dust from which mankind was brought forth.  I stared at the flowers left over from the service, and the few fresh ones placed on Mom's headstone.  It became clear to me that we all meet the same fate.  Regardless of your faith, religion, or other beliefs.  No one escapes this life alive.  For some, this comes tragically quick, and for others, painfully slow.  Hopefully there are enough memories, experiences, and relationships in between the day you breathe your first breath and the day you breathe your last to satisfy our human need and primal urge to live.  And hopefully, you don't die alone.

My mom was surrounded by family when she passed.  Loran was with his boys.  He was loved by many, even if they were not physically present.  Seeing the tearful faces at his service, and hearing the stories of so many touched by his joyful spirit, I know that he was special, and not just to me.  

These relationships, however strange their beginning, are so vital to us.  Oh the lengths Loran went to for my mother, my brothers, and myself!  For our children.  For his family.  We loved him, and we can be sure he adored us.  But when I think of the almost 20 years I spent learning about him, getting to know him, loving him, and being ministered to by him, in his own special, quiet way... it just seems wrong that I have to say good-bye to him.

You see, the cruel trick of humanity is that one day, you have to let go of a love you spent so much time and effort maintaining.  

Rest peacefully, Loran... you've earned it.