TO FIND, MUST WE LOSE?


A few days after the recent passing of my sister, Kim, from this earthly life into her eternal life with Jesus, my eighteen year old son, Brock, asked me if it was hard to wrap my brain around the fact that she was no longer with us.  I tried to explain how it felt:  "like something had been removed from underneath me,"  "like there was a piece of  me that was missing,"  "like the very familiar had suddenly become unfamiliar."  Instantly, I felt angry that while she was here on this earth,  I didn't even realize these simple yet amazing factors... that in losing her I would feel a void that could never be replaced; that there were minute pieces of our hearts that were knit together so well, (of which I could not begin to explain); that there were a spectrum of simple things to special traditions  we shared that were so familiar that they went unnoticed.  I boisterously ask myself...is my mind simply incapable of realizing these things until they are removed!?  Is this one of those "blessings in disguise"?  "We don't know what we've got 'til it's gone?"  Can I even give the advice to others to greatly appreciate their loved ones in any way possible, to make willing sacrifices for one another, to not just tolerate one another or even so much as get along great, but, instead, look each other in the eyes and tell the ones you love how amazing they are?  Why?  For what good?  Will that advice, even when heeded to its best, make the hurt less when your loved one is called to eternity, and you are left here to carry on?  Do our earthly eyes have the capacity to see these blessings of which my heart now stretches to grasp?  I must tell you honestly, my sister and I began to touch on these things in our relationship, thanks be to God and an organ donor who blessed both her and I, but mostly me, with  an extra two and a half years together.   And I articulate my answer to you... it doesn't lessen the hurt, it doesn't make the emotions less fragile or the desperate recalling of memories any more vivid when you have loved and lost!    But this I know is true...it does give a life lived, extravagant value;  relationships shared, greater meaning and the ripple effect of a family's lifetime of memories much weightier when carrying on the precious heritage of someone so dear.  Yes, some things must be lost in order to truly know what they mean to us, for our heart to find and our eyes to see!