How Do You Survive When You're Left Behind?

     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