Seeds

“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-30).

So Young’s father died last week. We buried him on Friday, a seed in the ground.

The week Dad passed away, some flowers blossomed in our front yard. Audrey planted them last year. They didn’t grow when she planted the seeds, but they grew and blossomed this year. She planted them because they are So Young’s favorite flowers—stargazer lilies.

Each day leading up to today—her birthday, the day of her father’s funeral, the day of her 10-year memorial—a few petals fell off the flowers, like a countdown. Today, there is just one flower, all its petals intact. That flower will wither too.

Jesus tells us that we are like the lilies that So Young loved. Lilies are beautiful, and so are we. God clothes the lilies, and so he cares for us. Don’t worry.

But how, when we see that life here is so short?

Because in life we are like flowers, but in death we are like seeds. Paul writes: “This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, MSG).

That faith—that we are flowers in life and seeds in death—is So Young’s legacy to us.

I see other, smaller legacies daily. Tonight, I heard the laughter of her daughters watching old home movies. I heard Lindsay strumming a guitar and singing one of So Young’s favorite songs in my living room, like So Young did so many times to ease her own anxious mind. So Young left a lot behind, including all of us.’

As we celebrate her on her 51^st birthday and 10 years after her passing, let’s remember her enduring legacy—her faith in Christ. In him, wildflowers like So Young, like her dad, like you and me, have hope.

Remembering So Young with Sadness and Joy

What thought or impression comes to your mind when you remember So Young? These days, I just think of her laughter. She had so much laughter and joy. I’m reposting this video that Shannon created to remember her, which captures that part of So Young well.

Last night, I read her friends’ remembrances again (https://mynewmarathon.wordpress.com/remembrances/). Apparently, I do that often on this anniversary. I love all the stories and memories, like Linda rolling her around the pond in her wheelchair. Still one of the craziest and bravest things I’ve ever heard of a friend doing!

I think of her surprise 40th birthday party and Kim giving her that special plant. There’s a famous picture of So Young sitting there on the curb next to the Westridge clubhouse, smiling.

There are so many stories of ways friends and family showed love to her and how she, over her lifetime, loved them. We were living out a rare example of a loving community.

When a person is gone and we all remember them on anniversaries like this, there’s a purity to the appreciation we have for them. There’s no obligation to buy a card or a present or to plan a date or special meal. You just remember and appreciate them. Nothing planned. No obligation. For me this morning, it’s just a big, blubbering cry, and then on with my day. With sadness and joy.

Five Years Asleep

This morning, I had one of those moments when the bible passage I was reading was eerily apropos. I kid you not; this was the passage:

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

It’s the fifth anniversary of So Young’s passing, and this passage is completely “her.” She was preoccupied with the second coming of Christ more than anyone I’ve known. She was delighted at the prospect. She hoped she would either die before she got old or be taken away in the rapture. She was one of those “Amen Come Lord Jesus” Christians that my pastor preached about last Sunday (in another eerie cooincidence, by the way, considering today’s bible reading and this anniversary). So Young saw the rapture as all Christians should see it, not necessarily as most of us do: The delightful hope of all wrong things being made right.

Including So Young not being here.

So thank you, whoever led me to that passage this morning. We are all still grieving, but we wait — encouraged by this hope.

Remembering So Young: Four Years

This year, So Young will miss the first time that the Gage household will be occupied by three teenagers simultaneously. She’ll miss Lindsay’s sweet 16 and Audrey turning 13. She’ll miss Shannon graduating from high school and Audrey from elementary school. In the fall, she’ll miss Shannon going to college, Lindsay starting her junior year, and Audrey starting middle school. She’ll miss countless other milestones, and she’ll be missed as each one passes.

February 27, 2017

 

So much has changed since February 28, 2013. A new marriage, a new mom, a new house, new jobs, new friends, a new school… So Young’s loss is a constancy for all of us — one that didn’t make much sense at the time and still doesn’t, one that changed everything then and affects everything now. But our sense of who So Young (“Mommy,” “Ruby”) was as a person is just as much a constancy — and a challenge.

So Young was far from perfect. I know this, because I was married to her. (Note that she would say without hesitation that I am much more imperfect!) But her faith was one of the simplest and purest faiths I’ve seen. The innocence and certainty of her relationship with Christ, the realness of her experience of his love, healing, and forgiveness… I hope that those aspects of who So Young was will continue to haunt us just as much as her absence.

So when we remember her, let’s not just remember the way that she died or the fact that she isn’t here (but is somewhere else) or even the life she lived. Let’s remember who she was. Mother, wife, friend, daughter, sister So Young. Remembering you until we see you again.

October 30, 2009

Remembrance-athon

Short version: Will you take a minute, either on Facebook or this blog, to post a memory about So Young, even if it’s just a memory about a character or personality trait or quirk?

Long version: I’ve been poking around the blog over the past few weeks, reading old posts and thinking about what I’ll write about this coming Sunday, February 28, which will be the three-year anniversary since So Young passed away. The blog can be pretty sad and hard to read, because it ends a certain way. But the overall theme is a joyful one — the hope we have in God and that God loves us.

Tonight I read the “Remembrances” page, and it really touched me (https://mynewmarathon.wordpress.com/remembrances/). I was struck by the number of people whose lives were touched by her. I thought it might be good to try that idea again. This is a great way to remember her.

If you have a moment and can think of something to write, will you post a memory of So Young that you have?

Here’s mine.

I remember So Young playing the guitar in the living room. She would sit on the floor with sheet music spread around her, strumming either the purple electric/acoustic I gave her or the old guitar that she got from her brother Josh. She would sing as  she played. It was one of the ways she would worship God.  One of her favorite songs — and one of my favorites to hear — was “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.”  That was a common theme among her favorites: God’s love for us.

Two Years

How much is she missed?

How often have we wondered what it would be like if she was here? Would she have run in this ice-cold weather, as crazy as she was? What wisecrack would she have said at the women’s retreat this weekend? What surprising, piercing wisdom would she offer to a new or old friend encountering another stage in life or hardship?

Every once in a while, I think to myself, “I wonder what she would have thought about that.” Or, “I wonder what she would have said…” I knew her well enough to guess.

And how much has she missed?

Audrey turning 10, Lindsay turning 13, Shannon turning 16, and me turning 40, for starters. Shannon starting to drive and getting her black belt. Lindsay starting horseback riding and navigating middle school. A few hundred nights of reading books and snuggling with Audrey.

So much missed so far, and so much more to miss.

This weekend marked two years after So Young’s death. The girls didn’t want to go to the grave (too sad, they said), so we decided to go out to dinner to remember her. We had a great time, but Audrey cried at bedtime, so we snuggled and talked until she felt better.

Nothing really makes losing your mom (or spouse) completely OK, but we have a lot to be thankful for these days. God is in the business of restoration — big-picture and small-picture healing. When the big-picture healing is complete one day, Jesus will say, “Behold, I make all things new.” Meanwhile, I’m grateful for the daily, “some things” healing He provides.

I think of her often in one way or another, but the thoughts have slowly become less grief from a tragedy and more memories from 20 years of life together. Emily has also been an instrument of God’s daily healing for all of us, unafraid of So Young’s memory, a true, godly partner and companion to me, and a loving, adoptive mother to the girls.

When a young person dies, it’s natural to think mostly of the tragedy at first, but how much more does it honor her to remember the way she lived and reflect on where she is now? The sadness and beauty of So Young’s passing is that she is painfully and acutely not here, and yet she is wonderfully and eternally somewhere else now, in heaven.

If you could hear me now, So Young, I’d say thank you for the legacy that continues to this day of being my wife and friend and a godly mother to the girls. You lived joyfully but with the weakness we all share. You struggled much in death, but even then, your faith and hope inspired us. Your young, strong body was ultimately frail, like we all are, but nothing could take the grace of God from you, and Jesus never left your side. Even as we continue to reluctantly say good-bye, we look forward in hope to being restored with you in heaven, in a little while. Until then…

A Hope that Fills the Vastness of the Sea

From James:

Today marks one year after So Young went to heaven. She is much happier now than she was here with us, but her time on earth was punctuated with sweet moments of joy, whether it was hours spent enjoying her girls or solitary moments of gratitude for what God had done for her. Here’s a journal entry So Young wrote that I found recently. It was written after her brain tumor diagnosis. It shows so many things about the So Young we knew for the short time she was here: her love of God and understanding of his character, her gratitude despite suffering, and her persistent heart for people who don’t know Jesus.

This year, So Young is going to miss some important birthdays: Audrey’s 10th, Lindsay’s 13th, Shannon’s 16th, and my 40th. Loss isn’t a single event but many lifetimes of reminders of absence, all of us missing, all of us grieving, all of us remembering. We’ll never forget you, So Young. Until we see you again… 

Overcome with emotions this morning. It’s 4:30 a.m., and you’ve called me downstairs to pray — prayers of intercession, prayers of thanksgiving. Overwhelmed at the kind of God I serve and love, who loves me. So thankful that my family sleeps peacefully upstairs, but more than anything, grateful that we are all saved. A household of true believers. It’s something to cry about. Lord, you are too good to me, to us!

Praying especially for the lost. Anyone of us could lose our physical lives at any moment, but if Jesus has saved us, we live with an immeasurable hope, a hope that fills the vastness of the sea. No — more!

Praise God I could read what I’ve written and was able to see the song list on the iPod. Amazed!

So Young with a very tiny Audrey

Celebrating So Young Gage: A Eulogy

Today is the birthday of So Young’s best friend, Kim. So Young had a lot of people she would call her best friend, but Kim was close to So Young for nearly 30 years. Kim delivered this eulogy with great poise and eloquence during So Young’s funeral on March 2, 2013. To me, it so fittingly represents So Young and her life that I don’t know if anymore words need to be said. Thanks, Kim, for loving my wife all those years, in good times and bad. I hope you know that you brought great joy to her life. This was clear even when So Young was diminished to the point that she could only listen but couldn’t talk. It makes me so sad to remember how sick she was, to the point she couldn’t talk to you. Still, you had this underlying connection so deep that for her, it didn’t really seem to matter. You were her best friend Kim. Your reunion on the other side will be so sweet, Kim. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to talk about, and you won’t have to get of the phone…

Every few years, So Young and I would stop and count how long we’ve known each other. In the end, the Lord gave us just over 28 years of friendship.  Her first memory of me is my rainbow suspenders (which are due to come back in style in about five years!). My first memory of her is hearing her reply to a classmate who asked about her longer hair: tossing her hair and saying, “Yeah, I’m letting it grow.” That was sixth grade. Over these past 28 years, the Lord brought several precious friends into our lives, many of whom are in this room. And yet I realize that there is something unique about our relationship, and I think it goes beyond the fact that we’ve known each other for so long. Ours is a friendship that God Himself preserved through the infamous 8th grade silent treatment, protected from time and distance, and ultimately used to help shape the women we became.

First, the silly stuff! We used to talk on the phone ALL the time! We’d talk and talk for hours and hours. And we enjoyed a lot of great meals together. During the brief season when we were both working, before the kids came along, we would meet for lunch. So we talked all the time, and we ate, and sometimes we would do both at the same time. Like if she was eating lasagna…

“I’m eating lasagna.”

“Ooh, that sounds yummy!”

Can you smell it over the phone?”

“Yeah!”

“Here, want to taste some?”

“Oohh, that IS good!”

So we did this when we were girls, and when we grew up we did it every now and then for old times’ sake, but only when no one else was around.

We went shopping together, and on each trip we would eat, and we would buy matching things. The first things I remember were matching gray leggings from Paul Harris at Fair Oaks Mall, which I wore until they had holes and had to be thrown away. Once, we bought matching earrings… Our last outing was to Potomac Mills in a wheelchair (those ramps are steeper than they look!) where we bought matching lotion. We had picked out some things for our husbands, but we ended up putting those back and buying ourselves more stuff, and we bought matching glitter body spray. I asked her, “Where do you want to be sparkly?” She said, “My face.” So I sprayed her face.

And then we got Auntie Annie’s cinnamon sugar pretzels! This was our last indulgence together. We sat in Starbucks, eating Annie’s pretzels, and they were sooo good, and we got cinnamon sugar all over ourselves. Now she was having trouble using both hands by then, but we were both just covered. I was blessed with a chance to enjoy those same pretzels with the girls a couple of months ago.

Our friendship was also marked by unconditional love. Now, I know this is a eulogy, and I’m only supposed to be saying good things about So Young, but she wasn’t always all smiling and peaceful like in her picture! And Lord knows I’m not. But that’s where unconditional love comes in. So Young knew the best things about me and the worst things about me, and she loved me. She knew my secrets, and carried them with her to the grave. Unconditional love comes in when you’ve made a bad decision, or when you’ve loved Jesus for years but you’re having trouble following Him. Unconditional love is there to say, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And speaking of Him, So Young was the first person under 30 who I’d ever heard talk about Jesus. When we met, she was already a Christian, but I wasn’t. So she’d ask me, “What do you think about God? Where will you go when you die?” I became a Christian a few years later.

We would also bear one another’s burdens. When I consider the major milestones of my life, and the major milestones of So Young’s life, there is always a memory of celebrating together, or crying together. And remember: for So Young and I, “together” could happen even when we were miles apart. I remember happiness when she met her James, and it didn’t take long to discover that he would be the first — and ultimately the last love of her life.  I remember falling to my knees and bawling when her mother died. There was the brief shared joy of being pregnant together, and So Young crying all the way home when I lost my baby. I remember rejoicing when God worked a miracle to give So Young her dream job (Stay-at-Home Mom!) and sharing the joys of watching her three girls and my two boys grow. I remember bawling over So Young’s diagnosis and the thought that someday, this day may come far sooner than any of us had ever imagined. At every milestone, every turning point, So Young and I laughed together or wept together.

Except for this one.

Now I’m down here drowning in tears, and she’s up there all happy with Jesus! But I must say: she expects us to be celebrating, too. When James shared her funeral wishes with me I was thinking, “What is this supposed to be, a party or something?!” I mean, I’ve spent the last few days wondering if I should be buying balloons and streamers!

And yet, my dear friend wasn’t crazy to suggest such a thing. In fact, it’s the stuff of the New Testament: to live is Christ and to die is gain…” “hard pressed between the two…”  “Consider it all joy…” In fact, So Young’s faithful God challenges and even commands us to have such an attitude, because it is characteristic of a spiritual maturity that knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that God is real, His word is truth, His love is unfailing, His promises are guaranteed, and His heaven is filled with all sorts of phenomenal things that our eyes haven’t seen, our ears haven’t heard — things that haven’t even entered into the heart of man! And better yet, the key to gaining all these treasures is as simple as recognizing that you are a sinner and surrendering to the One who has the power to wash away that sin: Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

So Young possessed that key. She knew for certain that when our good God saw fit to call her home, He would welcome her into His heaven and sustain her James and Shannon and Lindsay and Audrey all the days of their life as well. And if we know him and trust Him this way, then surely we would find this day worth celebrating So Young’s restored vision, her freedom to walk and run… and not just her renewal from the sickness that overtook her body, but in fact her deliverance from the fleshly, sin-sick bodies that we all have.

And I too believe in Jesus. Completely. Despite my questions, my pains, my sadness and my fears. I know Him and I love Him. So I can celebrate today for what God has done for So Young Gage, my truest and dearest friend. But I also mourn. Not as those who have no hope, but mourning nonetheless for the two glasses of lemonade that we never got to share on my front porch, and for the loss of all the moments we thought we’d share before we knew how soon her time would run out.

In these seasons of mourning, I am thankful for the memories: 28 years of everything from insignificant chats to life-changing experiences with So Young. And I am thankful for the three treasures that she has left behind, and that I can see So Young’s creative brilliance in Shannon, her undying passions in Lindsay, and her sweet, carefree spunkiness in Audrey. And to God be the glory for the hope of salvation, which guarantees that if we confess our sin and trust Him as Savior, then we will see So Young again, and we’ll all be happy with Jesus forever and ever. Amen!

God Gave Us a Chance

Audrey (8) came downstairs crying tonight and told me she misses Mommy. She said she just wanted to hold her hand and hug her and for her to be here and well again. It surprises me how infrequently this has happened since So Young died. The kids really don’t sit and cry a lot about So Young being gone.

Later Audrey said, “I remember I held her hand. God gave us a chance. I had no idea.”

Audrey was talking about the night So Young died. We were pretty sure that she was going to go very, very soon, maybe in a couple of days or a week, so that night we made a special effort to have the girls say “good night” to their mother while she slept — unresponsive — on the bed. Shannon sat next to Audrey on the bed while Audrey wordlessly held her mom’s beautiful left hand, which So Young hadn’t moved in several days. I didn’t tell Audrey that her mom was going to die. I had told the older two, but I just couldn’t bring myself to crush an 8-year-old like that, only to crush her again by telling her after her mom had passed. So like she said, she had no idea. That was Audrey’s last moment with her mom.

Audrey brought home a graded writing assignment the other day. She got an S+ on it, which is the best grade you can get. The teacher had filled in a title for her: “An Interesting Story.”

“Would you like to hear an interesting story? On day my mom had a bran tomer and I held her hand. When I woke up I was waiting for someone to wake me up. Then my dad came in. Mom went to heven last night. He said as a tear droped down his eye. I have lots of memorys about mommy!”

That pretty well summarizes what it was like to tell her. Audrey was the last I told and the one I least wanted to tell. But God gave her that one last chance.

Two Months After She’s Gone, and Sure Enough I’m Still Thinking about Her

I feel like I am commemorating little anniversaries, like So Young and I did when we were college kids and first dating. “Wow, it’s been two weeks! Happy anniversary! I made you a card and wrote a poem…”

April 28 marks two months after So Young died. I have this strong feeling these days that I want to leave it behind me. By “it,” I’m not sure what I mean, but I think I mean this blog, ruminating about the fact that she has died, I’m alone, my kids have no mom, the whole mourning thing (good luck with that), etc., etc. The problem is that it’s like getting your right arm cut off and somebody telling you to stop thinking about your right arm.

I’ve met a few fellow young widow(er)s recently, and it has been refreshing. Before, I felt like nobody understood. Now I know that (besides God) there are people on earth who understand and are going through the same thing. We have similar frustrations, similar preoccupations.

Kenji reminded me in another one of those life-altering meetings  that occurs when I’m going in the wrong direction (we have too many of those) that I need to not primarily identify as a widower but as a disciple of Christ. He really pressed me on this over and over again while we sat there at Chipotle for an hour and I laughed uncomfortably, because I was clearly preoccupied with certain things (not just being a widower, but about certain things that are sort of ancillary to my condition) to the extent that he was wondering if I wasn’t idolizing those things. Anyway, long story short he’s right, and I’m struggling to reorient myself toward God rather than all these distractions and my grief. It ain’t easy. I talk to other widow(er)s, and they’re in the same boat. Still thinking about that dumb right arm.

I have a lot of new goals now, in addition to my primary life mission of being a disciple and follower of Christ. For one thing, I want to commemorate So Young properly, especially for the girls. She left a lot of journals from all stages of her life. I want to type those up for the girls, and maybe our letters, and maybe my (sanitized) journals, too. I want them to hear their mom’s voice as they grow up. New goals or not, I realize that the day-to-day running of my little family is time-consuming enough, such that as much as I want to achieve humanistic perfection in addition to becoming this really devout individual, I might have to settle for fumbling attempts at both.

I have one more eulogy to post on this blog. I reorganized the blog already to reflect the fact that she is dead. I’m not sure how many more posts I want to do. So Young is gone. I wake up in the morning and hesitate, as if I am about to put my wedding ring on. It’s a habit and I sort of pause there. I don’t put it on anymore. I’m not married to her.

Today I ran and thought about how I don’t really run for her, because she doesn’t see me. She isn’t here. I should run for Jesus. I said to myself there would be a sign at that moment if she was here. Sure enough, there was this strong breeze and a lot of petals from a cherry blossom or some such tree came blowing in front of me, across my path. It was like the snow at the funeral. It just came drifting down, right at the moment it should have, just like the snow. Winter has turned to spring. They said she wouldn’t make it to the spring.

The coolest picture I have seen in a while: So Young’s friend Sara ran the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville yesterday in So Young’s honor and tweeted me this picture of the shoes she wore. It was a really tough run through a heavy downpour. So Young would have loved that on several levels.