041914
holy Saturday. Day of Dad’s memorial service. Not possible. Writing it like that ravages my soul. And this morning there will soon be chaos and ensuring this and that and suddenly the service will happen and the reception and I want to be there and I’m afraid I’ll scoot through it and it will all be over and I won’t have been really there. Really present. Because somehow in my head I think to be there is to be so present that time itself can’t pass. Being there somehow should transcend time and rule time and yet...time keeps passing and proving that we’re not really here...not fully...not wholly...not truly. Someday we will be here.
so glad I awoke so early in this holy darkness...awoke surrounded by all the disciples...trying to get their head around what just happened...how horrible it was to watch him die like that. Totally expected—he had told them he was going to die like that—but totally surprising. Horrifying. Unthinkable. I’m sure they swirled heady and light with both fear and hope, doubt and sustaining story. Remembering what Isaiah said. Remembering Moses. The psalmist. It is written. It is written. Inscribed. Spoken. The only truth that matters, the only power that sustains, the spoken written word. They gathered as we are going to do to remind each other of what he said and did, of what was written, they had yet to see the resurrection...they were in that horrible state of loss and shock and doubt and hope and fear and connection and reassurance and unknowing. Perhaps one of them remembered the 139th psalm...when I awake, I am still with you...
It is also the 19th anniversary of the murrah bombing. Dad was there for that. He said he heard it as he was leaving the house, but it sounded like a sonic boom and as they lived nearer to stretches of country he thought perhaps maneuvers were being practiced. Except that the dog started barking. He knew it was something else. And then his phone started ringing. He coordinated the emergency phone information center for that day...turned out he was there for something like 72 hours without sleep connecting people and information... That day then did not fall on holy Saturday as it does today...but those who survived have felt this same range of feelings and questions and ... this same sense of unreal movement of time impossible to grasp...
So blessedly quiet right now. I have not awakened to such blessed quiet in a long time. I have not been able to write in a long time. Not from a place of peace and reflection. I do not want to get up from this place...I do not want the day and the time to sweep me into the unconscious of survival but I know it will. I know that soon keri and her family will come and we will go to the chapel and make sure the equipment is there. I know that soon music will fill a chapel haunted by those of us who gather to talk about Dad and then we’ll move into reception and talk and laugh and tell stories and eat...and that will last for who knows how long and then we will slowly reluctantly eventually retire into the night and it will be over and life will go on impossibly and uncertainly and folks will then tomorrow attend the Easter services in the hope of resurrection...
And life will go on. Nothing will ever really be right again until the hope becomes real...
