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…”
