Today
“Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
These are today words, with-ness words. Unlikely words. Words for unlikely people. Words of comfort and grace. These are words spoken by Jesus from the cross. Words moments before death. Words worth paying attention to. Today, words. Said to rebels, Lord, I feel it.
My words.
These words take on new meaning each year around St. Patty’s Day. While people get hammered on adult beverages, and drown their sorrows in green milkshakes, we remember and mourn. Fourteen years ago, our daughter Samantha Lynn passed from life-to-death-to-life. Paradise.
Did Sam hear those with-me words in-between cries of pain with broken limbs? Were the today-words downed out in-between the beeps of breathing-assisting-machines? I don’t know, but I have questions.
Samantha left the current version of earth after four days on this spinning ball of rock. No walking down the aisle. No logging hours in a sandbox or feeling the slap of ocean water from the Pacific against her ankles. Sam would never experience the beauty of a Midwest sunset, or the glory of guacamole.
Sammy’s lived experience included the beige and sterile walls of a NICU, and the touch of her father, mother, aunts, grandparents, brother, cousins, and friends. She heard the whispers and touch of doctors and nurses and social workers. The sobs of her father late into the night crying to God for a miracle.
No miracles came. Perhaps the miracle of time will suffice. Four days, ninety hours, that sweet baby smell of new life. Those fiery red curls. Soft skin. Mangled limbs. Time. Many hours of cuddling and crying and wondering and hard decisions. Lots of prayers, and more tears.
Today… those words haunt me. Today, not later, not someday, but today in the here and now. Today will come for all of us. We selfishly wanted a long life for Sam. Her body mangled from a one in a million genetic blip. All seen and known by her Creator. No surprises here. Samantha’s life would not have been a life. A life aided by machines. Not the way it’s supposed to be.
Did Samantha hear those Paradise words? Those words of today-ness, and with-ness. Did she experience, is she experiencing, the gentle and merciful arms of Jesus who made her, loves her, and in his infinite wisdom only gave her ninety six hours on the earth? I want to believe so. Lord, help my unbelief…
Do I understand? Will I? Do I need to? No. Some things are sometimes better left undone. Room for mystery isn’t all bad. We stopped guessing long ago.
Does the pain still exist? Not every day, but many days, and the what ifs and what happened and the whys are real. Those questions are hard to shake. Often it feels like five minutes ago, and depending on the day, another lifetime. But I’m sure sharing this grief with my wife, and now four children, is a gift and some version of grace.
So today, thinking back fourteen years ago, I wonder if she heard the Voice. The voice of the Creator and Sustainer, of all things. Today, you get to be with me, and experience my with-ness.
Nobody is beyond the Voice. Criminals are welcome, swindlers, people from the wrong side of the tracks. Sweet red-heads named Samantha with only four days of breath. We all need grace.
Enjoy Paradise baby girl, and we’ll see you soon. Resurrection Day is right around the corner.