It was 1:13am on January 17, 2016, when I was pulled from a dreamless sleep by the sound of my phone ringing. Still groggy, I quickly scooped up my phone and saw Hannah’s mom’s name on the caller I.D. With my breathing coming in irregular spurts I tiptoed out into the hallway and answered with a desperate hopefulness, pleading with God in my head all the while, “No God, no, please don’t let this be happening.”
“She’s gone."
At those words, everything around me ceased to be important and I hit the floor, still holding the phone to my ear and only vaguely hearing the sobs on the other end of the line. I had no words, only a ringing silence in my mind. The rest of the call is a blur, all I know is that I got up off the floor and walked back in the room to wake my roommate (also a close friend of Hannah’s) only to discover that she was still watching a movie down at the end of the hall. I walked down, not really comprehending what was happening, focusing only on the fact that her mom had asked me to tell her other friends here. Within the scope of 30 minutes, I said the words, “Hannah died,” 7 times.
After everyone who needed to be told immediately was told, I finally managed to get a hold of my parents on the phone. At the sound of my mom’s voice my grief tore through me and exited my body with a scream issuing from somewhere deep inside and my tears flowed freely. When I hung up about 20 minutes later, I stood up and began crying out to God. Why? Why? Why? Why? I started to feel angrier and angrier and my voice raised to almost a shriek. WHY? WHY? WHY?! WHY?!
All of a sudden, when my anger reached a peak and I felt utterly betrayed by Him, I felt this gentle wave of grief roll over me that was not my own. God was letting me know that He felt immense sorrow at my sadness, but it was a gentle wave because after years of suffering, He had called His daughter home at last, she had fulfilled His purpose on earth and was now in the home she had been created to inhabit.
Eventually, we all gathered in my best friends’ room with another friend and one of our InterVarsity small group leaders and we started to talk. And, surprisingly, laugh. Hannah is hooked up to no more tubes, on no more medications, and in no more pain. She is worshiping her God that she loved so dearly and so unreservedly. That night our grief was less noticeable than in the days following (perhaps because it hadn’t sunk in yet) and we felt joy, and a bit of jealously, that Hannah gets to see Jesus face to face while we’re stuck down here on earth.
That night we realized that it’s perfectly normal and human to feel grief, Jesus himself wept at the loss of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35), but that while we grieve, we grieve with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We grieve while knowing that the person has gone to a place where there is no mourning, no tears, and no pain (Revelation 21:4). We grieve while keeping faith that God has everything worked out for our good (Romans 8:28).
I spent some time during those early morning hours looking up towards Heaven chatting with God and with Hannah, asking Hannah to give Jesus a big hug for me and for Jesus to hold her tight because I couldn’t turn back time and hug her harder, tell her I loved her more. During that short time I felt peace, peace with what had happened and peace with what was to come, regardless of how difficult I knew it was going to be. God held me that night, just as He was holding Hannah. He made his presence known to me and I felt His arms around me, carrying me because I couldn’t stand on my own. He stroked my hair with His hand as I drifted into a quiet sleep.
When I woke up in the morning, it was snowing.
