NEW CHAPTER

I’ve heard it said that the loss of a loved one can be much like losing part of oneself.

Perhaps like losing an arm or a leg.

The pain is physical at first and hard to ignore. A trauma so intense that the mind cannot cope with the loss. The only thing that can ease the pain is time. The body begins to recover – and the brain figures out new ways to go on.

With it being just over a year since my dad’s passing, I wonder how did I get here? How have I learned to go on?

My dad was not only my parent, he was my only parent. In him was everything that encapsulated family to me, and losing him was like losing everything. I look back to last February, and the memories are not only surreal but physical. In those early days and months following his death, the physical pain was so strong that even the thought of it today causes my stomach to stir nauseously.

I’ve also heard it said that grief is a privilege because it means we had something worth grieving for. The more loss we experience, the more grateful we should be for whatever it is we had to lose.

Gratitude has come with time. I think more about his life than his death. I cherish our memories and can think fondly on them, rather than thinking on the stinging reality that there will be no more. Calling him my dad, and being his deeply loved daughter, will always be a privilege unique to me. What a gift.

Johnny Cash once said, “There’s no way around grief and loss: You can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.”

I’ve had to go through it, and the world does look different to me now. This year at our church, the focus is on story. Not only what we can learn from the stories within our Bibles, but exploring our individual stories and how those can be used to express our faith.

I’ve been asked to speak about my story, to which I had to reply, I don’t really know what my story is yet. Certainly, it is a story of profound loss and grief, but I knew that wasn’t the story I needed to tell. There’s more to it than that, thankfully.

For a year, I’ve prayed and sought the answer to what God’s purpose was in my dad’s untimely death. I’ve prayed that this pain would not be in vain and that something beautiful would come forth in my life as a result.

One day, it was as if God stepped down from heaven and whispered in my ear, “This is my love story to you.” I felt a deep sense of comfort that God has been hurting with me all along. This terrible, awful thing happened, but it wasn’t what He wanted either. And my mind was flooded of all the divine things that have happened in my life from the day I lost him and even up to this very day.

In the early weeks after my dad passed, I couldn’t get into my car without hearing a song by Chris Tomlin called “Jesus Loves Me” with lyrics that repeat “Jesus, He loves me, He loves me, He is for me.”

During my most difficult moments and even some of my happiest moments, cardinals, or red birds, as I like to call them, have appeared. Red birds have deep symbolism in death. Some believe they are our loved ones who have passed coming to check in on us. While others, like myself, take a red bird as a symbol from Heaven that God is with us and everything is going to be okay.

God has used the people in my life and their stories to strengthen my own life. They’ve taken time out of their crazy mom schedules to have coffee, lunch, work out, make me endless batches of pimento cheese and even sweep me off to Dallas for a weekend of spa, relaxation, dance parties, mischief and laughter.

And even today, as I sit here writing my thoughts on love and loss, the church bells at First Baptist Church begin ringing out “It is Well with My Soul.” I close my eyes and listen, allowing my heart to fully absorb the message, “When peace like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.”

A year later, I find my life seasoned with divine encounters and my heart filled with hope. Although my future looks much different than I had intended, I do not journey alone. I have the love of two fathers to lead me on my way – the love of my earthly dad and my Father in heaven.

Stephanie Jordan is a local journalist, marketer and blogger.

Her blog can be found at www.stephanienetherton.blogspot.com, and she can be contacted at [email protected].