2005

I have always been a traditional, sentimental person. I develop deep attachments to people, places, and things. This year, I've experienced loss in all of those areas. This year they tore down my high school. It being just down the road from my parents' house, I was able to watch as the auditorium was the first to go, the stage and closed-off balcony remaining exposed to the temper of the sky for a few days, then the west side of the school, then the east side. The classrooms where I once felt at home are no more. Also, this year I lost my grandfather, and after his death, the hog confinement was torn down and the little farmhouse where I lived until I was five was burnt to the ground along with the barn and the remaining buildings. The farmstead that has been in my family for decades, the home where my dad spent his first years and then where I and my brother learned to walk as well is now a burnt spot in the grass. My family no longer owns even that burnt spot in the grass. One of my favorite places in the entire world, where the yard rolls downward slightly, only to roll again into a hay meadow before bowling upward towards a windmill on a hill - I will probably never stand there again. And this fall, a strong storm tore through my parents' neighborhood, bringing down a huge, and I mean HUGE willow tree in my backyard. I promise you that I am not exaggerating when I say that willow tree was twice as big as any other willow tree I have ever seen in my life. It was a monster, and I loved that tree. My brother and I would literally swing from the branches when we were little - the trick was to get a decent amount of willow branches so that if one broke, the remaining branches would continue to swing. However, if you pulled too many branches together, your range of swinging was compromised. It provided shade, a backrest, and just a beautiful backdrop to the back yard. In my eyes, the tree's absence has turned our backyard from soft French Impressionism to stark Modernism.

You may wonder why I have spent more time talking about the things and structures I have lost rather than my grandfather. I don't know. Yet, what I have experienced this year is the transient nature of everything on this earth. That which I have lost this year has been here since before I was born. I have never known my grandparents' place without my grandpa. I have never known my street without the high school; I have never known my backyard without the willow tree. I have never known not being able to go out to the North Farm whenever i wanted to. What I once treasured no longer exists in this world. I'm okay with that, but it does set my heart to longing. I long for a world where I will be able to embrace without loss. I long for a world that does not require us to guard our hearts from holding onto things too tightly. I long for a world where I do not outlive that which comforted me and steadied me and was refuge for me while growing up. I long for Heaven. I long for that day when everything will be made right. I long for His embrace, I long to hear Him say my name. What a glorious, completing moment that will be. I will hear Him say my name, and my past, present, and future will no longer be vessels of regret and anxiety. I will hear Him say my name.