Father's Day and Loss

 Again, I offer a personal essay for my blog. Yesterday was Father's Day. I rejoiced in my husband's fathering an amazing son, but I felt that peculiar sense of loss orphans do, at least as I think they may do. I was not a child when both my parents passed away, but I clearly remember the words, "Well now I am an orphan," pass through my mind. A grownup who will never again be able to get sage advice and parental love. This is for my father who I missed keenly yesterday.

I buried my father today.

 

It was a long silent drive to the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery. I had hoped the weather would cooperate, and it did, though there is something unsettling about placing a loved one in the cold ground while the sun beams on.

 

An Air Force Honor Guard stood in formation as we took our places. With much solemnity they carefully folded a flag over the small wooden box that held the ashes of a man who had lived eighty-four years, twenty-five of which were in uniform. Those ashes were the only physical remains of a man who kept covenant with one woman for fifty-seven years, reared three children, and delighted in the exploits and successes of nine grandchildren. It was hard to imagine his 5’9” two hundred pound frame in a box that was smaller than a laptop.

 

Each motion of the flag ceremony was executed with precision. When the final fold was neatly tucked into place, the guard marched in line to a row of rifles. I knew what was coming, but I could not help the involuntary jerk that came with each report. The twenty-one gun salute: An honor reserved for those who have honorably served. Slowly, the head of the Honor Guard approached my mother with the flag and spoke quiet words no one wants to hear: “On behalf of a grateful nation…”

 

I don’t know what the Airmen in the Honor Guard thought. They do this routinely. It’s their job. Another World War II veteran dies, another ceremony. Maybe they think it’s just another old codger to bury. I only know that afterward, when I went to thank them, and told them, with tears, how much it meant to our family that they had come to honor my father, one of them reached out and shook my hand. It was a simple offer of sympathy and regard for our loss. I walked away hoping they understood that what they do matters very much.

 

A small box doesn’t require a large hole. The hole for my father was much like the hole one would dig for a fence post, only rectangular. An attendant of the cemetery placed the box gently in the grave. My mother laid a single rose, my father’s favorite flower, atop the box. She then tossed in some dirt. My sister and I chose to do the same. As the hole was filled, my mother, sister, brother, and I stood together watching the last of a lifelong relationship being buried. My father’s resting place is under a tree. As I lifted my eyes, I could see he was not alone. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of white markers surround him, each representing a soldier, marine, sailor, or airman. It was at once breathtaking and grieving.

 

The pain will come and go in waves. That’s the professional stance on the grief process. Gradually, it will get better. I believe that. But even with the intellectual foreknowledge we had of his impending death, the heart is still shocked to believe he is never coming home from the hospital. In my heart, I thought my parents would always be there. That childish hope has been shattered by the blunt reality of a marker in a cemetery.

 

As I write this, I feel the loss keenly, and it makes me want to shut out the world. I can’t begin to fathom what my mother must feel. Yet, I know, as does she, that this is how it must be. God said to Adam, “From dust you were taken and to dust you shall return.” Those words would instill utter hopelessness, were it not for the hope of the resurrection; were it not for the Cross and the Blood of the Lamb that was poured out for my father, my mother, my family, for me—for everyone who trusts in the gift of the Lord’s salvation.

 

The pain goes with the territory of living in a fallen world. Perhaps that is one of the motivators for seeking meaning and a Something greater outside ourselves and this world. For now, in the pain of loss, I can rejoice because I know the sum of one man’s life does not reside in a small box of ashes buried in the ground. The sum of my father’s life is in the countless people he touched, the lives he enriched. The Lord has kept an account, and I know he heard the words everyone wants to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant…”