July 24, 2024
I was preparing to return to work this week, trying to diligently tie off loose ends and take care of some household business. Then I got sad this morning.
It actually started last night. We gathered around the kitchen table, and just outside the window, a gentle summer shower was carrying on. The empty chair was silent, but it drew the most attention–a void we couldn’t avoid as it wouldn’t let itself go unnoticed. The three of us were going around, taking turns reading through the stack of “My Kathy Story” notes that dozens of people wrote and left for us at her memorial service. Our family’s previous four-count cadence of kitchen table banter was now skipping a beat in this reading cycle. One-Rest…Three-Four…the bleak pauses and the interrupted rhythm signaled that our circle had been broken, and we would have to reset our soul’s metronome for the remaining 3/4 of our band.
This jam session was tough. Toggling among sweet smiles, silly giggles, and sad frowns, it was hard to find the groove of what to feel, or what kind of tune and tempo would best express it. We strained to follow the stunted staccato of each other’s voices as we stumbled through deciphering the scribbled handwriting of some, or paused to rank order the stylized font of others. Through it all, the rain kept falling outside the window. The sizzling static of the drizzle was irregularly punctuated by the bigger drops drippity-drip-dripping from the eave of our nook, creating an un-patterned syncopation. Like a jazz drummer behind his plexiglass cage, rolling brushes on the high-hat disrupted with slappity-tap–rappity-tip-taps on the snare drum. Despite the beginner-like clumsiness of our rehearsal, this wasn’t our first attempt to practice since we lost our beloved lead singer.
We had begun reading the sympathy cards and celebration stories earlier this summer, but quickly discovered that making it through even one round was emotionally challenging, so we decided to pace ourselves and spread them out. Indefinitely? Here in late July, nearing the end of our summer break, I pushed us to finish the job. I’ve used this intermittent exercise to try to light a lantern on our hearts’ back porch. More like a beacon with a tractor beam. The centrifugal forces of summer trips, gatherings, and activities have kept us going in many directions. I wanted to reel us in periodically to make sure we weren’t running away from the sad feelings while chasing the otherwise happy summer delights. Capturing a still moment gathered around the hearth, however brief it may be, keeps us anchored. A sailor who never returns to the moorings of his home is a pirate.
I also wanted to give you what you were looking for, even if it’s not what you were asking for. You requested my parental consent to get a permanent butterfly tattoo in honor of Mom. I wasn’t ready to enable that bold of a move yet, matey. What’s next–an eye patch and a peg leg? Granted, your idea of a commemorative butterfly would be a relatively reasonable and endearingly understandable choice given the “regerts” some inked-up adults live with. But No, for now. You can settle for a temporary one. We still have some left from when all four of us stamped a butterfly on our forearms before Mom was transferred to the hospital. In the meantime, instead, I was intent on tattooing your heart, helping you hold the memory of your mother close, treasuring her by slowly etching this collective eulogy into our impressionable mind in this tender season.
As we approached the end of the stack of notes, tears came more easily. The dwindling pile signaled that soon we would be out of condolences and tributes to read. Would this mean that our open-ended season of mourning would come to a conclusion? Would this mean we have to move on? Would this mean the beginning of the end of keeping Mom’s memory fresh? As long as the unread side of the basket was bigger, there was always more time to reflect and be reminded of her. Would reading these last few cards be like unwinding the last few loops of our tie ropes from the dock, to be shoved off into the deeper waters of unknown futures. No matter how enticing the prospects are out there in the open ocean, pushing away from this port could mean we begin forgetting the motherland as it shrinks in our view, feeling it fade from memory as it fades from sight. I’ve been using these mourners’ messages to build a lighthouse, so as you go sailing by in the years to come, you’ll see and remember, know and treasure.
We read the last one in the stack. Turning it upside down on top of the completed pile, like the final discard to the deck signaling the end of a game. But if it is a game, I was unclear what the objective was, and it didn’t feel like anyone won. We sat there in silence. Stunned with a somber, solemn reverence that needed to linger. Tears streaming down our cheeks like the rain on the window beside us. No words. Only deep sobbing breaths and sniffles. Feel the needle carving your flesh, the ink filling the wound. This heart tattoo will honor your Mom as an indelible mark made from the lives of so many and so many different people who saw her good works and glorified our Father in heaven. This emotional stamp of her life and legacy is made with the eternal ink of salt and light, water and blood, flesh and spirit. A living letter written on our hearts.
This is not the end. Not the end of feeling sad or missing her. Not the end of mourning death in this life. Not the end of celebrating her life, cherishing her impact, and cultivating her legacy in our own lives. But it may be the end of this initial stage of grief and this interim phase of laying her to rest. It’s hard to know when one phase, if that’s what these are, ends and another begins. Like the changing tides, the outgoing currents get tangled up in the incoming waves. Holding close, letting go. Ebb and flow. Attention drifts, memories rush in. Riptides of responsibility drag you out, then the mail comes.
Her ashes arrived today. That’s when I got sad this morning. The mailman left a note on our door a few days ago letting me know there was a delivery requiring my signature and I would have to pick it up at the post office. I went there this morning and knocked on the blue door by all the PO boxes, and stood in line behind the man who said he comes there every day to check his box. I’m hoping this will be the last time I ever have to come. “Next!” I signed the slip, and the lady disappeared behind the door that must remained closed. When she returned, she squinted her face into a sympathetic tilt and offered her condolences. I didn’t know how she could have known what I knew until I saw the package: in bright orange letters emblazoned on each side of the toaster oven-sized box was the make-no-mistake-message, “cremation remains.” How are you supposed to hide this? How are you supposed to hold this? When I was a pall bearer for my Dad’s casket almost 30 years ago, I wore my white gloves with my dress blue Marine uniform. Today, I just have my cargo-carrying, errand-running clothes on. Should I have an escort or an entourage? Actually, I feel like I should keep my distance from others. “Unclean!”
I carried the eerily heavy box to our Odyssey, opened the sliding side door, and set it gently in the seat like a small child — which, I’m now reminded, was the whole reason we upgraded to a minivan 13 years ago: because it was easier to load and unload, especially two small children in and out of car seats. That minivan represented our whole future ahead of us, our hopes of raising a family and growing old together. Now I drive alone in the front seat of a hearse. I thought about turning on my headlights to see if anyone would follow, or pull over. Instead, I just waited at all the red lights, reminding me I may never get to where I was trying to go.
I eventually arrived back home, and walked up to our red front door. In different cultures in different eras, red doors have meant “welcome” to strangers and refugees, a place of protection and safety. Our home has been that to others at times, but now I feel like the one approaching trepidatiously. Those steps on our front porch have felt steeper lately, and that red seems to be fading into a more sinister shade, as I don’t recognize my unmarried life on the other side. I check for clues hanging on the knob or resting on the welcome mat. Nothing this time, but I remember a few days ago when there were two door hangers left on the stoop: one from the post office on behalf of “Life Tree Anatomical Services” that cued my awkward errand, and one for “Jacob Salgado’s Tree Trimming services,” reminding me of neglected, “aw, c’mon” chores. Hmm, which “tree service” would I like to choose this week? I doublechecked for a third, perhaps hiding under the rug or blown into the bushes, in case it had been angelically delivered on behalf of the Tree of Life services. Not yet, I suppose. Very well, it’s all DIY pruning and composting in the meantime. Thorns and weeds, ashes and worms, rust and moths, dust to dust.
If you think I sound jaded, blame it on the salty seen-some-things Seaman who wrote Ecclesiastes. On one of the My Kathy Story cards, someone signed their name with a Scripture reference. We misread it initially, so we were less than inspired, worse than confused, when we looked up Ecclesiastes 1:2-3. “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” Um, huh? After an awkward silence and skeptical side eyes around the table, we looked again, closer. The 1 might have been a weak 7. Ecclesiastes 7:2-3 says, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.” A bit more appropriate, I suppose, but still left us wondering, not sure what the takeaway is. Gleaning applications from this kind of wisdom literature can be tricky, needing to discern which parts are to be taken “as if” with a wink or with tongue in cheek. But, whether chapter 1, 7, or the rest, I think I’m actually tracking with the existential honesty of the author, grappling with life’s otherwise futility, and the twisted path of realizing we’re stuck with everything under the sun, until we’re not.
The most precious person, the most beautiful being, in my whole life–my wonderful wife and your mother, is gone; and the only physical remains of her are now sealed in a Ziplock bag in a cardboard box the backseat of a hot car. Meaningless! Only those acquainted with death understand this life’s experience as a mist. Only those acquainted with eternal life understand that the pursuits of power, pleasure, and wealth in the city of man––an endless cycle of rock-paper-scissors will be trumped by the Spirit as the City of God takes over. Everything goes down in flames and up in smoke. Except that which remains, refined and resurrected. The Phoenix destiny uniquely displays magnanimity amidst such vanity. The Thestral vision uniquely grasps valor amidst such vapor.
Blue doors of doom, orange labels of horror, red doors of dread…I was surprised by how much depressing angst this colorful errand triggered. I suppose I wasn’t ready for it. I knew the day would come when we would have to figure out what to do with her ashes, just not so soon. Kathy donated her body to medical research and practice, so after they came and took her body from the hospital, they told me it could take six months to a year to receive her ashes. But hey, sure, this Wednesday, only three months later, will do. Ash Wednesday?
More like Cash Wednesday. The other errand I had to run right after the post office was to the bank. I had a refund check from the IRS made out to both Kathy and me because we had filed jointly, and my mobile deposit attempt failed because I only signed my name. So these quick morning errands were a little tour of the only two things certain in life: death and taxes. But in the financial case, it was in my favor. The best $13 I ever had the pleasure to deposit in my account. It felt like $13,000, because it almost WAS that much that I was told I had to pay. A few weeks ago, I received a notice from the IRS that, due to a missing form on our 2022 return, we owed some ten thousand dollars plus interest and penalties. Fortunately, Kathy had recommended that we select the legal insurance for audit protection when we filed with TurboTax, so when I contacted them, they reassured me not to panic and not to pay it. Sure enough, by the time it was cleared up, the government actually owed us twelve dollars, plus interest, thank you very much. I guess I’m waiving the penalties this time.
I had pondered this pairing of death and taxes back on tax day of this year, because April 15 happened to be the Monday the Hospice team showed up on our front porch. We discussed Kathy’s needs following that previous Friday’s fateful conversation with the oncologist when we decided to abandon any further treatment. My solidly red door, unlike the Israelite’s blood-swiped doorframe, was not enough to ward off the government or the grim reaper this time. If given the choice, I would have paid the fake taxes if I could have been spared her death. But perhaps there’s a parable to be gleaned from this unfortunate coincidence. The tax threat sank my stomach with the fear of a devastating and crippling bill based on past errors. However, with proper representation and clutch advocacy, the accuser’s case was foiled, and in fact turned around to my benefit. Imagine if I could accumulate the interest compounded over my lifetime on their little false accusation. Could it be that death, like those taxes, feels like a grand theft punch in the gut. It has broken my self’s bank and taken my life’s savings. But what if in the hands of the one who conquered sin and death, who intercedes for us, paid our debt, and pleads our case, it gets turned into our advantage after we die. And what if the interest compounds for eternity. Would we not make that trade? Government, take your best shot with your faulty fallible automated calculations. Grimm Reaper, do your worst, with your sickle of sickness and scythe of death. My baby’s resting in peace with her Savior. He is faithful and true––everything you’re not; and He will have his reckoning. She will rise again, because He did. Any bill you think is due you, is actually your IOU we’ll collect when this life gets sorted out. You’re playing with marked bills, sucker. Anything you’ve killed, stolen, or destroyed, will be paid back a hundredfold.
So, yes, Captain Been-there-done-that pirate preacher, I think I shall eat and drink and be merry after all. This is why I tacked on a third errand on the way home from the post office and bank. I had Kathy’s phone with me, and her Chick-fil-A app was loaded with points that she didn’t get the chance to redeem before she moved on to prepare for the ultimate catered feast. So, I came home with a box of nuggets to share. That’s right, this was not the day I picked up Mom’s ashes; this was the day she posthumously treated us to our favorite restaurant. Just like this wasn’t the summer Mom died, it was the summer we went to Disney World; and that summer Mom got cancer was the summer we got a puppy. These are not deceptions, diversions, or delusions, trying to mask something, misdirect everything, or make believe anything else. These little parties are protests of the absurdity of this short life. For the redeemed who await redemption of all things, we delight in doing everything, whether we eat or drink, to the glory of God. We who are living eternal life mock this momentary mortal mess, lest it take itself too seriously and attempt to build its own towers to its own gods, make its own rules, and make shrines out of urns. We will use anything this fleeting flesh, withering world, and ephemeral existence has to offer to store up treasure in heaven. As long as it can lead to praiseworthy excellence, and manifest the good, true, and beautiful in faith, hope, and love, the stuff of earth is raw material in our hands. Come let us make chairs for conversing, tables for feasting, counters for serving, desks for learning, easels for creating, workbenches for repairing, and beds for resting. Not because they will last forever, but because we will.
Do you hear that? It’s a melody you’ve never heard but have always known by heart. God has prepared it for you from the foundations of the world, and is now walking with you as it emerges in real time. God has a magic loop pedal. He is snagging snippets of our songs–he’s sampling our best and worst, and arranging a mesmerizing mash-up of greatest hits and comeback tours. Wait till we see how all things work together for the good of those of us who are in His band.
Come let us learn this music. Its lyrics, written by the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Its tune, written by the Composer-Conductor of all creation. Its tempo, set by the steadfast beat of God’s long-suffering justice and righteous lovingkindness. Its record, produced by holy and wise, almighty and compassionate Providence. Its genre, crossing over Beauty from Ashes. And each of us gets our own personalized track on the album.
If you listen closely, you can hear its echo from the future. Hear it in the pitter patter of the rain on your window, or the pitter patter of Potter’s eager paws on the wood floor when he thinks a treat is around the corner. Hear it in the silence of an empty chair or the stillness of an empty bed. Hear it standing at a red door or sitting at a red light. Hear it in the opening of a mail box, or the closing of a bank vault. Hear it in salve-like words that soothe your soul, and hear it in the stutter and stammer when the right words remain out of reach. Hear it in the victorious tap on another found puzzle piece and in the nervous tapping of a shaking foot waiting to hear what happened. He who has ears to hear can hear it anywhere.
Hear it everywhere, my son. The commands and promises of God are to be in your heart and on your chest, in your mind and on your head, in your home and on your house (Deut 6:4-9). Shema tattoo? Your forehead, like the lintel above the doorpost of your life, ought to be covered by the sacrificial blood of the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep (Exodus 12:21-23). Passover tattoo? The day before the Lenten season on the run up to Easter, many Christians around the world will have a cross of ashes smeared across their forehead. Lent tattoo? How ironic it would be if the humbling smudge that should swiftly wash away, like this quickly-passing life it is meant to remind us of, left a permanent mark. Here’s the real twist: even tattoos, those icons of momentary choices with lifelong consequences, will one day all be in the ash heap, along with the cremains of cancer cells and the dross from golden crowns.
Ashes scatter on the wind, like chaff; skin withers, like the grass; flesh falls apart, like the flowers. The cross made of ash represents the death that opens the door to faith unending, hope everlasting, love forevermore. The butterfly painted in ink represents the transformative resurrection that flies through the door to joy eternal, peace transcendent, and grace victorious. It all came from dirt, and will return to dirt. What matters is what happens in between. The dirt was good, and we dirt creatures were very good. The basic elements of creation: earth, water, air, and fire, and the spirit with which He breathed into them are what God is using to build his temple where heaven and earth will commune. But only the holy can dwell there. Endure the process. God is rebooting existence. Our incompatibilities and corrupted files must be dismantled and destroyed, then everything can be purified and upgraded. Pearls from sand, diamonds from carbon, park benches from recycled water bottles, songs from pain, plowshares from swords, good from evil… these are resurrection rehearsals, and a declaration that beauty will come from ashes.
On this, our family’s Ash Wednesday in the summer,
Remember that we are dust,
and to dust we shall return.
Treasure not what moth and rust
can take, nor what fire can burn.
In God alone do we trust,
to walk in His ways, we learn
to invest in heav’n, we must
not hope in bigger barns, but yearn
for living water, not lust
for bitten fruit. Let us turn
our focus away from us
toward Him, our utmost concern
rather than on what we’d earn
or fear we’ve lost in the urn.
For God breathed life in the dust—
heaven on earth, to discern;
one day even dirt’ll resus-
citate, dead to life return,
darkness into light combust,
ashes to beauty, He’ll churn.
Love, Dad