A Short Goodbye

  Some of my fondest memories are of our family visits to our grandmother's home on the bay in Avalon, N.J. We would make the annual trek ( Parents and 5 children) crowded into a station wagon in anticipation of time on the beach and more importantly time with our grandmother who was a widow. My mother lost her father to cancer when she was 5 years old. My grandmother became pregnant with my mother over the age of 40 which was very unusual at that time. She hid the pregnancy from the neighbors. Since my mom was the youngest of her siblings it was hard for my grandmother to let her go when she married my father at the tender age of 19.
  As children we didn't understand the depth of the family dynamics of our parents and how they related to their families. At the end of our vacations I remembered that my mother would always get very teary eyed and almost break down. My mother understood something that we all need to remember and learn deeply, life is all about relationships. Having lost her father at the age of 5 she knew more than most just how precious time with her mother was. As we packed the station wagon and began the task of readying to leave Avalon, a dramatic and important ritual would take place. My grandmother would stand at the top of the porch and hold back the tears as my mom struggled to leave. They would wave in an exaggerated and prolonged semi-circular wave. My dad who was always in a hurry would attempt to pull away. My mom would quietly but firmly let him know.... not yet. We would linger. You could feel the emotion. I didn't know what it was. I felt it nevertheless and understood that there was no one or nothing more important to my mother right then than to fully embrace that moment. My mother understood that the time she had with her own mother was precious and needed to be savored.
  At the age of 10, tragedy struck in the midst of our annual traditional trip to Avalon. One very warm day I was asked to look outside for my grandmother since she was not in the kitchen where she was needed. I went around the side of the house to find my grandmother prostrate on the ground and unresponsive. I froze and felt sheer fear strike me. My precious grandmother.... always strong, always doing, always loving was now helplessly lying on the ground. Something came into my mind that I struggled with silently for years..... a sense of guilt. In a few twisted seconds of incomprehension I thought somehow that something I had done had caused my grandmother to collapse on the ground. In a few seconds I realized I needed to get help and ran around to summon the adults.
 An ambulance came. My grandmother had suffered a massive stroke. I never saw her again. Whispered conversations among adults made decisions regarding what to do. We were not allowed to attend the funeral. The goodbye never happened for me. We were handed a "Mass Card" with a picture of Jesus on it and a few details about the life of my grandmother (she was Catholic) and told we should light a candle and pray for her soul...that she would make it to heaven. We were all devastated. My grandmother was poor. She lived on a pittance of Social security income...but she was rich in her relationships and the void left behind was immense. My mother was devastated. When we left Avalon that summer there was no one to wave goodbye to. Grand mom was gone!
  Years later as we aged and left home my mother restored the tradition of the lingering wave whenever we would visit and later leave our childhood home....until her premature death in 1995 from Leukemia. The last time I saw her was in the driveway of our home. I was taking my family back to Pakistan to serve in a mission hospital. In spite of her suffering from Leukemia and knowing she might never see me again she told me to go back and do what God had called me to do. I wept. Her wave pierced my soul. I knew somehow deep in my heart that it was the last time on this earth that I would see that wave. That wave symbolized not a forever good bye...but an acknowledgement that the pain of goodbye... the tears... the feeling of separation won't last forever.
  The Bible tells us about a forever place where the long goodbyes of death are forever transformed. Faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross enables us to see beyond the overwhelming grief of death. In Revelation chapter 21 and verse 3, "I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more deaths or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever."
  When we put our faith and hope in Jesus all our goodbyes....even the ones involving death are short ones. There really is a reunion coming of those we love and whom we miss so much. Soon and very soon it will be time to laugh together again.... and remember those precious times of relationship which God gave us as a foretaste of what was to come.... a forever love and place where we'll never have to say goodbye again.

Jim