I have spent the last week trying to process an event which
holds within it so many different layers of tragedy that it is truly hard to
fathom. I have been spilling over with thoughts and emotions, and finally
decided to write them down.
A young woman I had the pleasure of knowing, though not very
well, was killed last Friday when the small plane she was on with her fiancé,
his dad, and his brother, crashed into I-285 in Atlanta. Miraculously, nobody
on the highway was killed, but all four people on the plane died. They were
heading to her fiancé's little brother’s graduation from their alma mater, Ole
Miss. What promised to be a fun filled weekend celebrating and reliving college
memories turned into a loss the likes of which these families have likely never
known.
I had the pleasure of participating in the Komen 3 Day Walk
with Jackie, the young woman who died, in 2011. I have run into her here and
there since then, but most of my memories of her come from that weekend when
our team got to know one another very well rather quickly. (When you’re
comparing the sizes of the blisters on your feet and embracing through tears at
the memory of loved ones lost, you tend to bond pretty fast.) What I know of
her is that she was a young woman full of life whose loyalty to her friends was
fierce, whose drive was impressive, whose faith was strong, who was a whole lot
of fun to be around, and who is gone way, way too soon.
It’s hard to contemplate a death without relating it to your
life. Jackie and her soon to be husband planned to wed in October. They had
just purchased their first home a few miles down the road from mine. They had recently
gotten a golden doodle puppy. They were young and looking forward to the rest
of their lives. They were, essentially, in the exact same place that Bryan and
I were in a few short years ago. Thinking about her death makes me think of how
lucky I am and how thankful I am to have made it to my 29th
birthday. While I am still so young, I’ve gotten to experience the wedding of
my dreams and know the love of a kind husband who I adore. I have gotten to
have a home of my own with a precious dog we love and to plant flowers in my own
front yard. I have gotten to see the word “Pregnant” on a test, to excitedly share
the news with my husband, and to feel my son’s first kicks deep inside of me.
How lucky I am to have lived these past few years! It’s a normal part of processing
a loss to feel overwhelmingly thankful, I think. After all- you’re still here.
The question, then, becomes- now how are you going to live this life you have?
I was getting ready to attend Jackie’s funeral this morning,
and was struck by something. I had planned to attend firstly, to honor Jackie,
though I was not a close friend of hers and knew her primarily through our
wonderful 3 Day weekend together and through our mutual close family friends,
the Martins. I am a firm believer that when in doubt, you just show up.
Side note: Too often
people worry whether it’s appropriate to attend a funeral, to place a call to
someone when they’re thinking of them, or to speak to a stranger that they
think looks like he or she may be having a particularly hard day. But, you know
what? If that was me sitting in the front row mourning the loss of my daughter
or sister, I would want to look out and see as many faces as I could. I would
want all of the people to come and to honor my loved one, no matter how close
they were them. Showing up is our way of saying, I knew them, I will remember
them, they touched me in some way, and their life mattered. It’s so important to stop asking questions
and just show up.
My second reason for attending the funeral was to be there
for our family friends, the Martins, the eldest of whom is one of my dearest
friends and loved Jackie like a sister. Her younger sister was her best friend,
and their entire family considered her to be one of their own. This has been a
huge loss for them, and it was important to show up to support them. However,
as I got ready this morning, I was struck by the calls and texts I received
from my friends and family telling me that they would be thinking of and
praying for ME. Me- someone who was certainly touched by Jackie in the brief
time we knew one another, but who wouldn’t be feeling this loss on the same
level that so many others there today would be for the days and months to come.
They understood that today would still be a hard day, even for me, and that to
sit in church and sing those familiar songs of prayer and hear the words that
would attempt to put perspective on this whole ordeal would be overwhelming and
deeply touching.
So here I am, trying to show up to support my friends, and
these other people in my life are going out of their way to show up for me and
to let me know that they love me. It got me thinking about the impact that
something like this has. If you take the time to process that every person in
the church today was showing up for Jackie and for one another, and that others
at home were thinking of and praying for those in attendance, just imagine the
sheer number of prayers and thoughts that went up this morning- ultimately
because of this one life. It really is breath taking when you pause to think of
it. It’s like an enormous web, reaching across long distances to cover and
protect everyone there.
Monsignor Lopez, a beloved and pretty much famous priest (at
least to anyone who attended St. Pius Catholic High School), gave the homily
(which is a Catholic word for sermon for my Protestant peeps) today. To say he
is an incredible speaker would be an understatement. He speaks with conviction,
with compassion, and with so much confidence that you don’t even consider
stopping to doubt anything he says. He did a beautiful job of acknowledging the
tragedy of this loss- of these four losses. He said that the people gathered
today were expecting a wedding, and what they got was a funeral. Can there be
anything that will knock the wind out of you quite like that? The biggest take
away from his words, though, was that amidst this tragedy- amidst any tragedy
with which we are faced- we cannot allow ourselves to stop trusting our God or
to stop praying. He reminded us that our God is one who literally came down to
Earth to intentionally suffer agony and death so that He could be united with
us in our pain and so that He could offer us eternal peace if we would just
trust in His love and come to Him on our knees when we are broken. When He says
He is with us, He means it because He has been there. He has felt the fear,
experienced the pain, and conquered it. And when you stop to think of the
goodness of people- of the web of compassion which covered those in mourning
today- how could we not believe? When people choose to love one another so well,
to come out of the woodwork and fly to another city to be there for one
another, and to call and text their “I love you”s from near and far- how can we
not trust that our God is with us? We are called to be the hands of Christ to
one another, and experiencing a day like today makes you feel just how that
works in the world.
I am so thankful to have gotten the chance to know Jackie,
and to have been a part of the web that covered her people today. My prayers is
that her family and friends felt it too.
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