The moment after I told my friend Jan to smile for the camera, I showed her the photo.     
     “Who’s that?” she asked.     
     “It’s you,” I said.     
     “Really?”     
     Jan didn’t know who she was anymore. I pointed to a photo on her wall. “That’s where you taught school in the Philippines.”     
     “Me?”     
     “Then when you returned you volunteered as a hospice chaplain.”     
     “You sure?”     
     I’m sure. I’ve known Jan for years, always observing her gentle ways. Once when we were out to eat, she picked up the tab for another woman who was hard-pressed for cash, while Jan wasn’t flush either.   
     She had wit. In her sixties, she attended a rock concert with younger women, wearing a fake nose ring just for fun. When little confusions set in, friends brought in food, made sure her bills were paid, and hired help for housework. Then that awful time came, and we cleaned out her home.     
     First it was assisted living. Then memory care, a cruel name because Jan had no memory to care for. When I visited, we’d sing, but she couldn’t remember the familiar words to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Yet I knew Jan was still there, like a fragile caterpillar trapped in a dark cocoon.     
     Then it happened - the butterfly broke out of its shell and took wing. Jan slipped through the thin veil separating this world from the next. Now she knows herself better than ever and grasps what a friend she has in Jesus.   
     That's a great rescue to look forward to.

     Could I recover beauty in brokenness? When I first spotted these chairs, they were nothing but wobbly legs, tattered upholstery, and scarred wood. They once belonged to our retired neighbors Lyle and Nan. He was the center of attention at block parties, cracking jokes and snapping photos, while she was his grinning sidekick. But seasons passed, and Lyle and Nan’s steps faltered. They shifted to the sidelines at social events, then stopped attending. No more jokes, no more photos, but still smiles when we visited next door.     
     A daughter moved in to provide care. Duane and I would get a frantic call - Lyle had fallen - and run over to help pick him up.     
     Then Lyle died. Nan couldn’t connect the dots anymore and moved to assisted living. When their family began disposing of a lifetime of accumulation, I spied these two chairs and saw potential. Duane forced glue into joints, and they firmed up as though they’d had calcium injections. I applied stain to thirsty wood, and the pockmarks took on a respectable patina. We reupholstered the seats with a soft teal fabric.     
     Now in our living room, these ancient chairs don’t take center stage, but from the sidelines, they radiate a tarnished beauty like elders who have earned their wrinkles and wear them with dignity.     
     As Lyle and Nan did, and as I hope we radiate when we become side chairs in life.

     Grief is awkward, whether we’re trying to comfort someone in the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one. I’m on the receiving end as we mourn the death of our six-year-old granddaughter Lydia. We’ve received kind expressions of love, plus some well-intentioned fumbles. With gratitude for everyone’s attempts to console, here’s what I’m learning to avoid and what really helps:  
AVOID SAYING:
     * I know how you feel because my dog died recently. (That’s painful, but please don’t make comparisons to my loss.)     
     * I remember when  _________ . (Your ten-minute grief story follows, in which your burden shifts onto my already slumping shoulders.)      
     * God knew best. (So my struggles aren’t legitimate?)     
     * How are you? (Please don’t ask me to describe the searing pain running through me.)      
     * Have a good day. (Really?)     
     * If there’s anything I can do, let me know. ( But I can’t think beyond this moment.)     
     * Could this have been prevented if ________? (Please don’t ask me to read something you saw online.)     
     * Here’s what will help you get over your grief. (I need to travel through it, not get over it.)
BEST THINGS TO SAY:     
     * It’s good to see you.     
     * I’m so sorry.     
     * I miss (Name), too.  
BEST THINGS TO DO:     
     * Give a hug and don’t try to fill the silence.     
     * Drop off a meal in disposable containers.     
     * Offer SPECIFIC help. “I’m going to the grocery store today; what do you need?” or “Friday is your laundry day? Can I come over to help?”     
      Giving comfort isn’t comfortable, and we all stumble sometimes - me included. Perhaps the best we can do for each other is to keep our arms wide and our words few.

     The late-night phone call stabbed our hearts: “Maggie had a seizure.”    
     How could this happen to our four-year-old granddaughter when her older sister died following a seizure this spring?      
     Maggie and her parents had flown to California to make fresh, good memories. But before they reached the Magic Kingdom, Maggie fell unconscious in her father’s arms.     
     The thought of losing Maggie, my little Magpie, pierced me. She and I sing a kids’ song in which we stoop down to touch our toes, but she leans over and touches mine because I don’t have the flexibility to bend that low. Now would she leave me to touch the sky?     
     When paramedics arrived and pricked her with an IV, Maggie regained consciousness. Then she spent two days in the hospital where doctors ran tests. Nothing conclusive…seizure perhaps brought on by a fever…didn’t seem related to her sister’s mysterious death.     
     We exhaled the breath we’d held too long, and I pondered how thin the thread of life is. How quickly it can be severed.      
     Recently I’d attended the funeral of a cousin and observed how wisely he invested his eighty-four years. And at a high school reunion I’d studied two poster boards filled with photos of classmates who have passed on.     
​     Whether we’re four or eighty-four, life is precious. Magpie should have decades more to touch toes and touch lives. My days are fewer, and I want each to count before I arrive at that ultimate Magic Kingdom. So I’m learning to number my days. To make each moment matter.

My Magpie Maggie in the hospital.

     How do you survive when you’re left behind after your older sister dies?
     That’s what’s happened to our four-year-old granddaughter Maggie last week. Her big sister Lydia died from a sudden, unnamed illness. Her bunkmate and playmate - gone.
     No explanations work fully for her, not even that Lydia has gone to Heaven to be with Jesus. That doesn’t work fully for us either. We can’t wrap our heads around it.
     My heart aches for Maggie because I was about her age when my mommy told me Daddy had gone to Heaven to be with Jesus. A sudden, unnamed illness then, too.
     I watch my daughter trying to explain things to Maggie, and I remember my mommy trying to explain things to me. So as I observe Maggie, I’m seeing myself as a little girl. The grief. The aloneness. Feelings too heavy to hold. Questions too big to answer.
     Even Moses, the Hebrew prophet who knew God closely, couldn’t wrap his head around all the mysteries. Moses reconciled this by concluding that the secret things belong to God, and the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, and that was good enough.
     We’re wrestling with a lot of secret things now. A lot of mystery.
​     But of this I’m clear: the death of a loved one dents a life forever, yet hope intertwines with the sorrow. From the time I learned that Daddy’s in Heaven with Jesus, I’ve understood that who I am and what I do lasts forever.
     My sorrow hasn’t been wasted. Maggie’s won’t be either, and that’s good enough.

Maggie and Lydia beach bumming together