It Shall Come in Waves

"You need to get up."

It was just before 6:25 a.m. and still dark.  Geoff was standing in the doorway to our bedroom, iPhone in hand.  My dad had died around 4 a.m., and family members in Florida had been calling incessantly for two hours.  My phone was, as it often is at night, on vibrate.

I sat on the couch and called my mom, a conversation filled with teary silences in which we both knew there was nothing more to say than that Dad was gone.  "Are you okay?" is a pretty stupid question under such circumstances, and asking for details...  Well, when death is this fresh, details either don't matter or haven't developed.

The initial numbness is wearing off, and waves of grief are rolling in.  And waves they are.  Sometimes gut-wrenching, sometimes silently, invisibly present - and sometimes, because diapers still have to be changed and mouths fed, grief must be laid aside.  Life retains its tender, humorous moments in the midst of anguish, so smiles must now and then shine through tears.  Like the waves of the ocean - ranging in intensity from a massive force threatening to drag one down beneath its roaring fury and out to sea forever, to a warm and gentle presence lulling one to secure, peaceful rest in the faithfulness of waves to guide one to shores of sandy earth - so rolls grief.

It shall come in waves, and by the grace of Him who made the wild ocean, we shall learn to surf.