When someone you love dies, you don't lose them all at once. You lose them in pieces over time, like how the mail stops coming. What I remember most to this day was my mother's scent and how I hated it when it began to disappear. First from her closets, then from her dresses she had sewn herself and then finally from her bedsheets and pillow cases. (Simon Birch).
Loss and grieving seem to be something that you can't put in a box or bottle up or schedule in the palm pilot. It just hits you unexpectedly at different moments and for different reasons. One thing is for sure...it really makes you think about eternity. To know someone's reality is no longer here because it is there just makes heaven more tangable.
I really had a sweet time going to Florida for Jeff McCay's funeral. I got to see all the kids and visit with Liz one morning. They are all so strong and it blows my mind how they are now possessing the faith that Jeff had during cancer. It's hard to believe he's not on the earth anymore. But the service was incredibly worshipful and it was great to see so many people who had been touched by his life in some way.
Our lives are really like ripples you know. I don't think we get to see the effects in big tidal waves very often. Sometimes it's easy to feel like we are not making any difference at all. But the impact of one life in the waters of peoples lives creates movement like a ripple effect that continues to move forward. Jeff created ripples and inspired me (very firmly at times) to make big leaps of faith toward God's work. May we all live to be ripple makers....greatness is often found in the mundane everyday part of life.
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