A Six Month Check-In

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, 
is God in his holy dwelling." -Psalm 68:5






I'll never be able to erase it from my memory....


Chaplain Joe: Is there someone I can call?
Me: I...I don't...m-my grandparents. Please. Grandparents.
Chaplain Joe: Are they here in Tucson? 
Me: (shakes head) Please. Please. Grandparents.
Chaplain Joe: Ok. Is there anyone I can call locally though?
Me: I don't know...I don't....know....
Chaplain Joe: What are their names? Your grandparents?
Me: P-P-Paul and M-Marilyn. 


The hospital chaplain dialed my grandparents number. My grandma answered the phone and put me on speakerphone. They knew that Marie was in surgery, but they didn't know they outcome yet. My grandma had already volunteered to come help me take care of Marie, but I had turned the offer down. Now I needed her. Desperately. If she didn't get to Tucson soon, my .38 and I would be getting friendly as soon as I got home. By the time I actually got the words out Gram was crying too. But, being the daddy's girl that I am (and always will be), I wanted Dad. I've only heard his cry twice in 23 years. This was one of those times. 


Me: Daddy?! Where's Dad?
Dad: (in tears) I'm here, hon!
Me: Daddy?! Daddy!!!!!
Dad: (crying) I'm here! We're coming!
Me: Daddy!!! Please hurry!!! Please! Please hurry!!!
Dad: We're coming! We're on our way!


And in about four hours, Dad (and Gram) were with me. 

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:9-11

A human father could come to his child's aid. The Heavenly Father did nothing. 






Six months ago, I was on Marie's side of the bed, holding her photo and the teddy bear that she always "left hugs with" when she was gone for a while. I sobbed because I loved her, I missed her, and because it was emotionally and physically painful to an extent that words would cheapen in a vain attempt to describe. My heart has had many chunks torn out of it, but none like this one. 
And six months later, it is still raw. If anything so much as brushes against the wound, it is still absolutely brutal. It is still as close to being unbearable as it was that night. I still want to follow her as badly as I did that night and for the many nights of pill-popping and binge drinking that followed. And I thought that my "Father" would have noticed. I really, honestly didn't think I would still be here. I thought it was a well known fact that Marie and I were inseparable; in fact, we often joked that the world would implode if we were ever apart for too long. I thought that certainly God would come to the rescue. Either He would come back for His children, I would be killed soon, or I would wake up crying and shaking from what turned out to be a horrible nightmare that I would have trouble remembering. But, alas...
Nothing.
Tonight, I am laying on my side of the bed in a house we used to housesit in. The dog tolerates me since his doting sitter is no longer here. I reach over to her side, only to feel cool sheets. I sob as hard as I did six months ago. I moan and howl in the same intense pain. I replay the awful fight we had the last time we housesat here, and I think of all the ways that I could have ended that fight and showed her how much I loved her rather than carrying on about something that, in the grand scheme of eternity, was completely trivial and unworthy of a single harsh word. I agonize. He doesn't answer.
My grandparents are currently visiting for the holidays. If I cry loud enough for them to hear, I guarantee that both of them will be in my room immediately, doing anything and everything they can to make the pain go away. But God does nothing. He watched her die. And He watched me watch her die. 


I recently asked a widow from my old church why God, being the wonderful "Father" that He is, not to mention the compassionate defender of widows that He claims to be, doesn't step in like our human "evil" fathers do. She said that if I were very young I might call my dad crying, begging him to come pick me up because I was in pain and I was scared. She said that, in my limited understanding, I might not realize that my dad was leaving me in a scary hospital to undergo a painful procedure that would save my life and enable me to have a quality of life that I never knew was possible. I would think him cruel, and his heart would break to hear me crying on the phone, just wanting my daddy to take me home. But he would leave me at the hospital until the time was right. 


Maybe that's what He's doing.
Maybe not.