Time. What a strange concept it is. Do any of God’s creations, other than humans, have any capacity for understanding the passage of time? Does The General Sherman Sequoia Tree in California know that it has been standing in that spot, bearing witness to the unfolding of history around it, since before the birth of Christ? Does the mayfly know when it changes from a nymph to an adult that it will be dead by the end of the next day? And if it does know, does it envy the seeming immortality of the sequoia?
Two days is the entire adult life of the mayfly, if it makes it that long. What is two days to the sequoia? What is two years, or even two hundred years to the sequoia? It is barely a blip in the course of its life. But to a mayfly, two days is a lifetime; and two years would seem to be an eternity – a number far beyond its comprehension.
Last Sunday marked two years since Renee left this world for another place. Two years – that’s just three percent of my life – a number with virtually no statistical significance. And, to be honest, as I have promised I will be in these little musings, that day did not bring with it any extra grief or sorrow as I had anticipated. Yes, I remembered the events of that terrible day. That is, I remembered the events as best I can now - the shock of the suddenness with which everything happened that day has, mercifully I’m sure, erased some of those moments from my memory. But I don’t know if I sat and thought of those events on the two-year anniversary of her death any more than I might on any typical day. There was nothing really any different about that two year mark - nothing that I could see anyway. It wasn’t the second Christmas or second wedding anniversary without her. It just seemed like another day without her – a day that happened to be exactly two years from the day she left.
Which, once again, made me wonder if maybe I’m messing up this grieving process. Wasn’t this supposed to be a “special” day of grief and sorrow? Wasn’t I supposed to do, to feel, to act in some kind of different way on this, the two-year anniversary of her death? Can I not do anything right? Sigh.
Sometimes, these two years have seemed like an eternity – especially on those long and lonely nights when sleep escapes me, and all there is is the silence, and the stillness, and the darkness, and the memories, and the thoughts.
But sometimes these two years have seemed like a blip. How can it be two years already? How did I get here so quickly? How can there be so much to do? Where has my life gone? Nothing has turned out as I, or we, had planned. What is going to happen next?
And now, it is already two years and a week since the day she left. The days are flying by. If I live that long, by this time next year, it will then be 4.47% of my life – a bigger percentage than this year. Will the three year anniversary of her death be worse, better, or no different than the two year anniversary?
I don’t know. And it’s probably foolish to even wonder about such things.
But here’s what’s true. Two years ago, she left for a place that I cannot go to, not yet. My own departure date for that place is now two years closer.
And so is yours.
Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd
