artykins

So the last few days have been really tough.  It's not so much the news itself anymore.  I think people are coming to accept that part of it.  What's hard is seeing everyone react in different ways and at different times.  My uncles, who never say 'I love you' to me or my brothers (there's no real need for it because we just inherently know for sure that they do) have both verbally said that they love me and both times I started crying.

I suppose in the midst of so much sorrow people realize that they're glad of the people around them.  Priorities change.  You find yourself thinking about what you would do without a certain person and I suppose it comes down to this: you'd cry, mourn, get angry with God or other people, spend sleepless nights wondering over things, but there's nothing that can be done to bring that person back.  And at that point, I think the healthiest thing to start doing is celebrating life.  Not just your own, but that of the person you've lost.

I've been blessed my entire life with a family that puts laughter at the center of anything.  And I have some freaking hilarious family.  I remember very vividly all the laughter at Nana's (the true matriarch of the Solero family) funeral.  We all loved her.  Some of us knew her longer than others, but Nana was a lifetime full of fodder for a good laugh.  It helped when the end came and she went home to be with a Jesus she loved so much.  And to see Bello again, oh I can only just imagine the kind of laughing that went on in heaven that day.

Granted, things are a little different this time.  Nana had lived a full life.  Connor, though, was still a young man.  And it seems to go against nature for someone so young to die.  It's natural that a child bury a parent and while not terribly uncommon, there's still something wrong about a parent having to bury a child.  And there's nothing right about this.  There's nothing easy.  There's nothing redeeming about his parents having to go through this.  There's nothing okay with his grandparents having to go through it.  And there's no understanding that any of us can grasp.  It's just wrong.  Plainly.  Simply.

But there is something to be found in the midst of this.  I'm not sure I have a word for it, but it kind of feels like hope.  Connor comes from good family, good believing stock with a long history of being involved in church.  Bello was a pastor.  His children were raised in a loving Christian home and their children were raised the same.  Great-grandchildren were raised going to church, knowing nothing of the concept of seeing the weekend as a two day break from school.  It was just a part of life, getting up on Sunday mornings and gathering together to worship.

And in many ways, we're just gathering once more to worship God, who had Connor's days numbered from before time knew him.  he is home with Jesus, with Nana and Bello, Uncle Robert and grandpa.  And while we will miss him terribly here with us, I can't help but rejoice that he is with God and with all those we love that have gone before us.  What's not to find comforting in knowing this?  And I know the pain and grief is still very much present.  I can testify to this myself.  I'm still shaken up over the whole ordeal, but I can find solace in knowing that Connor is in the presence of God who has promised that he is feeling no sadness and no pain and no fear of anything.

So I like to think that Connor is just sleeping until the day when he will be given a new body, one that will not fail him and one that cannot be taken away from God or from us when we join him.  Others might not be at this point of finding this joy worth celebrating, but I am at the beginning part of this.

So I hope that people will remember the good things about Connor.  His unique quirks, his habits that make us laugh.  I hope we will remember who God made him to be here on Earth and how God is seeing him in heaven, not as we can see him now.