Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 3, No. 3 (April 14, 2001)

Some people thought it strange, even exploitive, when three years ago in the months following the death of the angel in my life, Lana, I chose to write about it -- to write about the grieving process and the return to faith that had been so desperately challenged during that time.

On the 16th -- next Monday -- it will be three years. Three years since I got the call telling me Lana was dead. Three years since I lost command of the English language, trying to understand what the words meant I was hearing spoken on the other end of the phone. Three years since I began trying to make sense of it all.

As a writer for most of my life, I always run to paper and pen (okay, keyboard and screen) when things start swirling around inside me. Back then it was a tempest of unimaginable proportions. Three weeks after Lana’s death I went to Mexico for a week. I wrote the first of several articles about her, her death, grieving and the loss of faith. It was a long, painful and rambling piece.

Later, I fought tooth and nail with my dear friend, and then Saturday Ramblins editor, Judi Amey, to include every word of it. After all, each word was a testament to Lana, to what I felt, to the despair that was creeping at me from every corner of my world. Damn your space limitations; damn your 750-word article length! I thought. I needed to say every word that was in the original draft!

Mercifully, for my reputation as a writer and for the magazine’s readership, Judi won. Editors may have the black heart of the devil beating in their breasts (as many writers like to believe), but they’re usually right.

Exploitative or not (I’ll leave that call up to others), I went on to write six more articles over two years. My way of "working it out" is a laptop and fingers flying on the keys. It's my way of trying to understand. On one level, I did it for me. On another I wanted to believe it might help another person faced with the same or similar situation: the loss of someone they loved. But -- truth be told -- mostly, if was for me.

I haven’t written about Lana in more than a year. Well, in my head I have, but not with laptop in hand. However, I feel compelled to say something with the third anniversary of her death looming.

Next Monday, the world won’t take any note of the day other than the fact that for the Christian world, it’s the day after Easter. After all, we’re not talking about Princess Diana here. Nations, states, cities -- even my company -- won’t declare a holiday in her memory. Indeed, the world has scant evidence that she even lived much less died.

In the hearts of those of us who loved her and whom she loved, she was the universe; she was God’s great gift in our little lives. Her life and her passing were milestones, our evidence of the goodness of the Father who loves us.

So it is with most lives. Most of us pass this way barely noticed, barely remembered to the world as a whole -- if at all. That’s true of millions before us and millions who will come after us. Those of us whose lives were touched by some good person, we are their living memorials.

My life and the lives of her children are forever changed because of her. We share in the very heart of God for having known and loved such a good person. Perhaps we’ll pass that same goodness on to another and he to another and he to another ...

They won’t remember our names, or even that we lived, but they will share in God’s goodness forever. Maybe that’s what it all means.

Lucky for me to be able to say, God was the giver; Lana was the gift.