It was a bright day in October. It was cold, just a tiny bit chilly. I sat in the platform swing on the deck of our cabin in the woods sipping coffee, thinking about when I would leave for my office. I wanted to delay it as long as possible to avoid the gridlock on the expressway. But, there were dozens of things waiting.
The dog sat beside me, patiently he waited. He knew I’d leave soon. When I did he got his dog biscuit for the day. I pulled on his ears as I watched the horse grazing in the pasture across the street. Finally, I planted my feet. I remember saying to the dog, “Well, I can’t put it off, beagle. I need to go to work.” It was a code phrase he’d learned over the years. Off the swing he leaped, over to the door, and waited.
In the kitchen I pulled a biscuit from the cookie jar on the side table. I tossed it toward him and enjoyed his leap to catch it midair. He scampered off to enjoy his snack. I opened the dishwasher and put in my coffee cup. It was as I was pouring the detergent into the holder my wife walked in. “Oh, I was going to do that,” she said. “Don’t start it yet. Let me get my coffee cup.”
I heard her footsteps as she bounded up the stairs. She called down to tell me about a meeting she was going to that night. While waiting I retrieved my briefcase, latched the back door, filled the dog’s water bowl. She still hadn’t come down. I called. She didn’t answer. “Must be in the bathroom,” I thought. I checked the thermostat, pulled some meat from the freezer to thaw during the day. I called again. Still she didn’t answer.
I went up the stairs calling her name. No answer. I then I saw her. The coffee cup was in her hand. She was on the floor. She was dead.
I remember the numbness. I remember the EMT’s taking her body out the door on the gurney and the beagle stretching up to lick her face. I remember the sterile ER room where they put her body. In deference to my calling the Chaplain had arranged some special considerations. They wouldn’t take her body away until all the family arrived. A lot of people came. A lot of people hugged me. A lot of people were crying as hard as was I.
Did I sign papers? I think so? Maybe my kids signed them? How did I get home? I remember my brother walking in the front door. How did he get here from Alaska? I remember my kids forming a protective ring around me. People would express their sympathies. When some lingered too long one of the kids' would graciously say, “Have you met dad’s cousin?” and steer them away. Did I sleep that night? When did that day end? When did the day after she died arrive?
I know how the disciples felt on that Saturday. I suspect they’d locked themselves in that room mostly out of fear of the future, fear of a future without him, fear of knowing not what to do. Everything had changed. Life had suddenly been turned wrong side up.
The day after my Geri died I was lost. I was lost in a cavern of remorse. I was a robot led by the hand from here to there by children whose faces grimaced in an effort to take my pain upon them. I don’t remember anything about that day, except that I was in it and I was useless.
I was an empty shell. I had not yet claimed the resurrection.
Give me the faith, O Lord, that in the shadow of the Good Fridays and the empty Holy Saturdays of my living I will always move toward the resurrection. Amen.
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