Sunday, November 25, 2012

conversation

I'm working on the slide show for her funeral, choosing songs.

Abby: Mom, are you playing that one at the funeral?
ccap: Yes, Abby.
Abby: Are you going to cry?
ccap: Abby, I'm going to cry from now until the day I die.
Abby: Why?
ccap: Because my mom is gone.

I took this at her bird feeder shortly after she got to the gates.
Be calm. God awaits you at the door.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

But hold me still bury my heart on the cold
And hold me still bury my heart next to yours

So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light
Cause oh they gave me such a fright
And I will hold on with all of my might
Just promise me that we'll be alright

Thursday, November 15, 2012

I have a friend who just turned eighty-eight
and she just shared with me that she's afraid of dying.
I don't know if she's AFRAID of dying but I know that she doesn't want to go yet. And she's not anywhere CLOSE to 88.

I sit here years from her experience
and try to bring her comfort.
I don't know how to bring her comfort 'cause in the long run I just can't even comfort myself.

I try to bring her comfort
But what do I know? What do I know?
She grew up singing about the glory land,
and she would testify how Jesus changed her life.
It was easy to have faith when she was thirty-four,
but now her friends are dying, and death is at her door.
It is. It's so close that some days I feel as though it's already in Landmark asking for directions to her house.

And what do I know? What do I know?

Well,I don't know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
I don't know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of these things.

She lost her husband after sixty years,
and as he slipped away she still had things to say.
43 years actually.

Death can be so inconvenient.
You try to live and love. It comes and interrupts.
And what do I know? What do I know?

Well,I don't know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
And I don't know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of these things.

But I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be pretty good.
Oh, I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be very good.

The thing is, God, I know that you want her. And I get that. She's one that's worth wanting. And I know that being present in this body that she has now is anything but good. The problem is, I want her too. Just know that when you take her you will be taking a part of me with her. From that day until the day I join her there will be a hole in my heart - a really big one.

And, please give her some dough to knead, a tree to climb, some kids to have a water fight with and a yard full of petunias that don't need weeding.