Grieving With Hope
Daddy’s in heaven now. I can hardly believe it. I miss him more with each passing day.
Every year as spring nears, my excitement grows. Despite the dreary, cold days of winter, there’s a sense of anticipation. The holidays are over, the old year has passed and the new year has begun. I begin to thumb through seed catalogs and plan the layout of my garden beds. On sunny days, I roam about the yard, scratching aside fallen leaves in search of any signs of life stirring beneath.
This year’s different. As new daylily foliage spikes up through the pine straw, I feel a twinge of sadness. Daddy won’t be here to see the flowers bloom.
Most of the daylilies I have are transplants from Daddy’s flower beds. Frequently, he’d arrive at my house with a bag of tubers, or bulbs, or cuttings from some flower or bush he was eager to share. His friends have stories of being urged to stop by the roadside so he could gather some specimen that had caught his eye. In the last years of his life, he wasn’t able walk around his yard and admire the beautiful blooms and flowering shrubs he loved so much.
“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.”
Standing by Daddy’s hospital bedside, I watched him slip quietly away. All the while I had the overwhelming sense that his life wasn’t ending. Rather, it was beginning somewhere new. The words Jesus spoke to Martha at Lazarus’ death suddenly seemed so clear. “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in me will live; even if he dies.” John 11:25 NASB.
In my herb garden where cardinals and chipmunks play, my very first tulips have made an appearance. A gift to Daddy last Easter from a church friend, the plastic container of hardened potting soil sat neglected on my patio for months. Then, just after Christmas, I decided to put them in the ground and hope for the best. Their fat, pointy foliage feels like a reward for the effort, and the smidgen of faith.
Pulling back a layer of crunchy leaf matter, I stoop to examine the tender green tulip shoots. I wonder, will the flowers look the same as they did when they sat in the grocery store container beside Daddy’s chair? Or will they be changed somehow? The same, yet different.
“For while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened [often weighed down, oppressed], not that we want to be unclothed [separated by death from the body], but to be clothed, so that what is mortal [the body] will be swallowed up by life [after the resurrection].”
Daddy’s walking now. More than that, he’s able to run and frolic as he does in my memories. He’s been gloriously changed. Different, yet still the same.
Right now, he’s probably combing the hillsides of heaven, gathering transplants and cuttings from specimens he’s never seen before. I imagine his childlike wonder as he admires the never ending array of new species and their colorful blooms. When I get there, he’ll greet me wearing the familiar grin I know so well, ready to share the discoveries he’s made while we’ve been apart. With a twinkle in his eye, he’ll deliver a joke or pun he’s been itching to tell, and together we’ll laugh.
I’m looking forward to it.
James Douglas Royster
December 6, 1942 - January 12, 2025