Floating

I was sitting in this very spot in my study a year ago when the call came. It was my brother-in-law, telling me that Daddy had collapsed and they were taking him to the hospital. My Pa was the original drama king. We always said that we'd never know if it was truly the end, because he had a hypochondriac way of making everything huge...he lived large with a full range of emotions on every occasion. He loved and was loved by virtually everyone who knew him. Only an evil person could have resisted his loving, fun personality. But when this call came, I knew it was the last one. I dropped everything and ran out the door. We had three days of travail, because they technically revived him and got his heart beating again. I still don't know if his spirit had already gone to Jesus, because it seemed like it at times. When we let him go, it was heaven on earth. Our entire humongous family crowded into his room and sang him home. 

It's funny how the circles of life ebb and flow around us. I've had a year of freefall, in some sense, not tending to my health as I ought. Who wants to be tough when there's a beautiful brownie in your future? Life is short. Eat up. Ken and I got the delightful opportunity to really vacate this last week -- to the crystal waters of Seagrove Beach, where we ate and slept, read books, floated around and thought about everything and nothing. Ken loves the ocean, but that doesn't involve actually getting in the water. I would live in it, if I could. Our 38-year-old habit is that he sets up base camp on the sand, I sit until I can't stand the heat another minute, then I throw myself in the water. When the water gets about waist-high, the ahhhhhhhhs start to happen. There's simply nothing like looking at God's magnificent creation and getting to float right there in it. I can still feel it. My Daddy loved the beach too. We would saunter out into the water and talk, sometimes for hours. He was blessed that his funny, goofy inner child never left him and that he died with his boots on (he mowed his grass the day he arrested!) If we could all be so lucky. 

The last day of our trip, on my last foray into the blissful water, I started floating back to shore. I had just spent a few minutes thinking of Daddy, crying and then thanking God for blessing me with a Pa like that. I was not 50 feet from shore, when a man arrested and died in front of us. Kind people worked to revive him, but he met his Maker right there on the white sand. Suddenly there were people, strangers, praying, comforting one another, crying, waiting...a surreal day that I will never forget. When all was said and done, I stood still, alone, and gazed out to the sky and the water and asked the Lord to help the family, to help the little 7-year old boy Aidan who saw it all and didn't understand, to help all of us to see that our days are numbered and how to have peace with that and with Him...I thought of His word saying, "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Ps. 121
The Keeper of souls and the maker of the universe...may you rest in Him.