blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

(note: this post will be a bit of a downer...read on if you'd like)

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." --Anais Nim

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I grew up at 3024 Cabrillo Avenue, then 221 Oakham Court. My walls were painted pink and purple and I played make believe on the hammock outside my window. We had birthday parties and scavenger hunts and sleepovers and things were simply beautiful. It was before I noticed skeletons creep in to steal life, before insatiable addictions took their grip, before my eyes watched a human life shatter and crumble and dissolve.

There was brokenness, then separateness.

Then attempts at reconciliation.

I called long distance to offer a paradoxical love--it was the absolute most that my heart could give to a good but painfully broken man who (despite divorce and death) will always be family, but it was never never enough. It was stabs of joy, moments of hope, maybe, but I am only human. He was only human, too. It pained me to listen to lonely words, to hear bitter resentment on his lips and to understand the fear of death in his voice. His body slipped slowly beyond restoration, one organ at a time and I held desperately to the hope that there is no such thing as a body too broken for healing.

I can't imagine that it was the life he dreamed for himself. There were years of relational conflict, hospital visits and operations and a loosening grip on health, community and love, and then that was it. I made a choice: That is not the life that I choose to remember of him. I am choosing to remember double-butt man and dancing in the living room; that stupid ugly work van that picked me up from daycare, endless M&Ms; getting my toes cracked before bed, and a hundred other things worth remembering. I am choosing to forget the rest.

There simply wasn't enough love or compassion or grace to hold him here. But blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; and oh, what a beautiful Kingdom it is--where there is enough love and compassion and grace to satisfy a tired soul for all of eternity, and it is where he rests. I'm absolutely sure of it.