I was there when he drew his first breath, I need to see where he breathed his last.

Exactly one month from today, July 11th, I will stand at the place of Justin’s accident. There is an invisible force pulling me there. I need to see that place, walk that ground, see the marsh and reeds that surround the pond. I need to see if his prayer card is still there embedded in the mud, it must have floated from his pocket. I need to place flowers and look up at the sky and scream. I want to walk the highway, the skid marks are long gone, but I need to see how on a straight road this could happen. No, it is not closure, it will not bring closure, there is never any closure when your child dies. Closure is for bank accounts and doors, not flesh and blood, not souls. I was there when he drew his first breath, I need to see where he breathed his last breath.

Closure is for bank accounts and doors, not flesh and blood, not souls.

I spoke a reality out loud last night, I could not sleep, I tried to step outside myself and my world and see my reflection. There are two faces, one watery. And I spoke, “she died with that boy in the pond.” Truth. The person who I was died with Justin in that brackish water. There is no going back. Unlike Justin, I came out of the water still alive. Alive but dead. So odd.

I can be in a room full of people and be so aware of the dead space inside me. Empty, yet impatient. Emptiness brings clarity. Similar to fasting, fasting brings clarity, awareness, a hyper-sensitivity to our surroundings, fasting of any sort will bring focus.  So too being empty is cleansing, liberating, lonely.

Jesus makes more sense as I invest my time in earthy stuff, brewing and gardening.

I spoke another truth last night, “I like the life we are building.” We are still moving rubble, but we are rebuilding. Much, much simpler structure, more tent like. We have dragged some things back in and they need to get dragged back out again. Does not mean they are not a good, just means that particular good does not fit in our new tent. It is not a judgement, it is an awareness and an acceptance. I get what Jesus said about not pouring new wine in old wine skins now, the old skins burst and the new wine spills. New wine, new skins. Jesus makes more sense as I invest my time in earthy stuff, brewing and gardening. Messy, dirty, teeming with life, fragile, and so full of God, God in the yeast, God in the seeds, God in the water, so present. All and everything is sacred, no lines between sacred and secular.

I wait. I wait to physically start our small pilgrimage to the Midwest. I let go of expectations, vowing to keep the space empty, to not fill it with what I expect to find, but instead be filled when I find it.

Update: We did make it to the accident site and you can read about that here.