April 12, 2009
The house had broken. A darkness consuming everyone in its wake. I had just gotten home from church along with my mother and my sister. My maternal grandparents were there and I didn’t know why.
I sat down on the couch and looked askance at my grandfather as his words broke the silence. “Something’s happened to your daddy.”
It was as if the language wasn’t even English. My heart was in my throat and the world was blurry. Each syllable was like a rock hitting the mirror of my life, shattering the glass.
It took everything within me to remain hopeful, because there was no possible way he could be saying what I thought he was. “Is he going to be okay?” My voice rose and cracked.
The answer was ‘No’. And nothing was real anymore.
I had always thought to myself that I was so lucky that I had both parents who were still married. Not having your parents like that—That just happened to the other kids at school. Things didn’t happen to me. I was a snotty, prideful little child to think that way. Ignorance was bliss.
Well, that all changed. Like, literally all of it. I’m a totally different person with a different family dynamic and I am so blessed to have the beautiful, loving family that I do.
On April 12, 2009, my father took his own life in the early hours of the morning. There were no clear indications that he was depressed in any way, at least none that my twelve-year-old self was aware of. When his life was over, I thought my life was over. My daddy killed himself and it was as if he emotionally took everyone else with him. If it’s possible to pull every negative emotion into one entity all at one time, I was that entity. Devastated, angry, confused, shocked, depressed, all of it.
I asked myself why he could have done that. Why on earth could he have thought that his life was so awful that the only fix was to leave the world? What made him figure that was a great idea? He had a wife, two kids, a good job (wherein he thought he was going to get fired, but actually he was about to get a raise), the family pets, and everything else with which many people would be wholly satisfied. That’s basically the American Dream, right? Surely he knew how much he was loved. He was told that daily.
I’m a psychology minor for a reason. I want to know what must be going on in the brain to result in behavior that makes zero sense. His behavior made zero sense. He wasn’t himself, and when someone wants to go and his mind isn’t changed, he goes. He knew he was loved. Sometimes, it isn’t enough for them to know how much they’re loved because they may be too far mentally gone to even understand that in their particular state of mind.
I’m not going to get it, and contemplating the reason behind it is not why I’m sharing all of this.
When my daddy left the world, it may have been his end, but it was not my end. It was a new beginning with a pretty rough start. But pretty rough starts turn into pretty amazing journeys every day. His ending was my beginning to a new life that I thought would absolutely suck. But surprisingly, it didn’t. In this new chapter of my life, I found so many beautiful people, but first and foremost, I found Jesus. I am traveling all over my world with my head held high, walking hand-in-hand with the one who died for every trip and stumble that I take on this adventure through life. And this adventure is still beautiful despite my daddy not being there. You know what? He doesn’t have to be here for me to make him proud. It’s sad to not have him around, but in his honor I do my best. I use this opportunity to try harder in all that I do.
I’m writing this to tell anyone and everyone who has ever lost someone that although their life is over, yours is not. It will get better. IT WILL GET BETTER. YOU WILL BE OKAY. Life can still be amazing no matter who is or isn’t there. They may not be taking physical space, but they are in your heart and always will be. They want you to live a long and happy life. They love you like you loved them and love does not disappear. It’s still right there with you, glowing as if they were here.
Have faith. Have faith that God is in control and He knows your plan. Jeremiah 29:11 (my life quote) tells us “’For I know the plans that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.’” God is granting us a future that is so miraculous, we can’t even begin to imagine how amazing and awesome it is. You may have lost someone, but with every loss comes a great gain that the Lord packaged just for you. I lost my daddy and gained an amazing step-father and step-family who loves me like I was there the whole time. I never saw that coming, and my future is still flourishing with awesome things that I still don’t see coming.
You will never expect what the Lord has planned for you, it’s a divine surprise you must have faith in. Your loved one would want you to think positively and prosper with them gone. They don’t want you to remain broken. The Lord uses himself as the immaculate glue that can repair the broken. I am repaired. All of that did not weaken me, but made me stronger. I would not be the person I am today had that not happened. God used that tragedy, which occurred due to the gift of free will, to create something so amazing, I can’t even come up with a new more appropriate adjective to describe it.
Jesus was and is my light in the darkness. John 1:5 - “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.” No matter how dark my life became, and may become in my everyday life, the Lord is a candle with a flame that does not waver nor blow out. It is eternal, and it is bright, and it lights up a room with love.
When I was little, my daddy gave me a rock he found while hunting. This isn’t just a rock, though. It is a beautiful quartz stone. It has imperfections, it’s cracked, it’s clouded, and it still is a bit rough around the edges with dirt still stuck on it from when it was in the woods. But guess what. It is still a gorgeous rock, no matter what’s wrong with it. To me, nothing is actually wrong with it. That rock is every one of us, and when the Light hits it, it shines. That rock could go through hell and back and it will still be beautiful.
It’s all in how you look at it. It’s all in how Jesus looks at us. With him shining in our lives, broken can become beautiful. I am different now, ever changing, humbled by what happened to me. It took such a hit to knock some sense into me. I am blessed by what God did with my darkness and I want everyone to know, and I would scream it at the mountaintops, that He can do amazing, miraculous, divine things with everyone’s darkness.
