Full disclosure

I leave for Mission trip in two weeks - and for the first time in over a decade, I'm not ready.
I haven't prepared this years devotional booklet, T-shirts aren't done and I'm just not motivated.

Obviously I have mixed feelings about this years trip...
and knowing I'm not alone in that feeling isn't much of a help.

It's hard to do something 'wholeheartedly' when a piece of your heart is missing.

This will be the first trip to the reservation without Andy beside me - at the wheel of the van, as well as in so many other ways! Driving solo being only the 'first' of so many things that will reinforce that a profound change has truly occurred... a change I'm not happy about it at all.

There's something so uniquely personal and, at the same time, so universal about grieving the loss of someone you love.

No matter how many times you've traveled the road before - and think you know the territory - there are still things that catch you by surprise; things that are unique reminders of the person who's died because they were unique - and then you remember, again, that each grief is unlike the one you waded through before.
Each loss feels like a fresh cut because it is.

You're gone,
leaving me stunned
by the suddenness,
the finality of your departure.


Last year
we were teasing each other,
cruising down the highway
like two shopping carts
with all the wheels going in the same direction


Now, the awkward, clumsy
wonky wheeled cart, 
the one abandoned within feet of being chosen,
is noisily pulling me in different directions...
none of them where I want to be going
because they're not with you.


A part of me has been ripped away without my permission.
I am angry.


A part of me is lonely,
knowing I will never see your smile,
except in my memory.


Yet part of me knows
that you are alive somewhere beyond my reach.


Lord, even though I'm incredibly angry at you for allowing it to happen,
I know my friend is with you face to face even now,
with more happiness and love
than I could ever hope to have given.

My friend,
I miss you.
I will see you again someday.


In fact, I'll see you everywhere I look on the reservation.


Damn, it's hard letting go.