The end. It’s a topic that’s been creeping up on me for the last year or so. I’ve successfully ignored it as I’ve watched my mom (the definition of super mom) get older, her steps more cautious, her hands less capable. And kept the thoughts at bay through the serious surgeries of my father-in-law, aunts, and my husband’s uncle. And even pushed down the inevitable as I’ve mourned the loss of the last of my grandparents.
I’ve been able to hold it all at arms length a bit. Things were just falling apart a bit, sure, but nothing irreparable. Nothing out of the norm or hugely unexpected . . .
Until we got the call early on a Monday morning. Chris’s uncle, the man who’d been the master of ceremonies for our wedding, had passed away. Uncle Roger had had heart surgery, but was doing well, last we knew. I saw him walking through church just a few weeks before, smiling, bestowing grace on everyone he passed.
Uncle Roger was that guy. The guy who made everyone feel special, who drove across the city to help you cut up the tree that fell in your back yard. The guy who regularly watched his grandkids. And the guy who was asked to be a first responder in Haiti after the earthquake to help rebuild cities, churches, and lives.
Because he could . . . only now he can’t.
That’s when I couldn’t ignore the brokenness any longer. That someday, in the not-too-distant future, we’re all going to not be. We won’t be able to fix it, help it, speak into it. We will be gone too. I will be gone.
For a moment, I saw that we were all beautiful woven tapestries, frayed at the bottom.
The threads seemed to be unraveling—sick kids at home, meals to fix, couches to move with neighbors, bake sales for athletes.
Threads pulling free, falling, twirling, curling, piling on the floor. For a moment my heart thrashed with the sight of disaster mounding under the weaving undone.
But then I realized that’s not how Uncle Roger would have seen it.
I am incomplete not because I am falling apart, but because I’m not finished yet.
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I’m a masterpiece in the making. Those threads aren’t on the floor because they’ve come undone. Those threads are there waiting to become part of life’s tapestry.
Each moment of my life is another thread woven in until I am complete. Whole.
On that Monday morning, life didn’t unravel for Uncle Roger, it was completed.
Happy completion day, Uncle Roger. Well done. See you soon.
What a beautiful reflection and tribute given in honor of Roger’s life. We don’t know when the Lord will call us home. Reflecting on your image of a tapestry – when the Lord calls me home, will my tapestry be as plush as God intended it to be. Or will there be treads left unwoven because I wasted time on frivolous activities rather than what the Lord had designed me to do for Him.