On Tuesday evening, May 22nd, I decided to leave the hospital with my mother to get food for our family. Not that we had a huge appetite, but because it was necessary for our sanity.
We hadn't felt hungry... well except for my father... and therefore many of us were thinner than usual. I joked that this was the silver lining in it all, grasping at any semblance of humor.
While walking through the parking lot, I moved my hair from under my purse strap to the other side of my shoulder... causing one of my rings to slip from my finger in the process. But this was not just any ring.
The ring is seen here on my middle finger, worn around my knuckle like my mother's.
This ring was the most important material thing I owned in that moment and it was gone.
A month prior during my stay in Sacramento for my younger sister's bridal shower, my brother gave me this ring. It was not initially bought for me but he wanted me to have it. And I wanted to have it, knowing it was from him. We weren't able to be close in proximity to each other for our entire adult lives and this ring made him feel close to me. I cherished it.
And then, just like that, it was lost.
I tried to stay calm, alerting my mother of what had just happened and we began scouring the grounds. We looked for thirty minutes before we called a friend with a metal detector and I sent my mother on ahead of me to get the food. I kept looking... and praying... and crying. Anything but this ring.
At last the man of the hour showed up with his shiny ring-finder and we proceeded to dig up every bush and bundle of bark at even the hint of a beep. All to no avail.
Finally, after almost an hour, I found it. I clutched it with both hands and collapsed on the parking lot cement sobbing the whole way down.
I looked like a buffoon out there with my burgundy leggings and matching burgundy sweater (thank you frantic packing for the lack of options), metal detector in tow, but I didn't care. My cousin had seen me on his way in, not realizing it was me, and had literally joked about some crazy woman dressed as an ice-skater upon arriving into the hospital waiting room. Yea thanks, that was me.
The image he would send me later that night just to make sure I got the message. Loud and clear, cousin, loud and clear.
I would have stayed out there all night because I could not fathom the loss of such a special gift as we waded through such uncertain waters. This ring was my only comfort. The only thing I could keep close to me that reminded me of John as we rode the roller coaster of what would end up to be my brother's death.
I think back to this memory often. Especially in deep moments of grief.
What I would give to hug you one more time, John. To hear you say my name or crack a joke.
What I would give to know that you were just a text away. To tell me about your job or the things you were doing.
What I would give to tell you that I haven't let that ring escape my finger after that day, that I hold it close and think of you every time my eyes glance upon it.
What I would give.
These are the thoughts that plague my dreams. The things that whip me from moments of happiness back into the reality of loss. Your absence is at times, unbearable, brother.
I think of you every day and I try to make sense of it all - knowing there is no making sense of it at all.
I think to myself, "This must be what the Lord feels continually". To have loved us and to have had us snatched from His embrace. I think my pain must be His pain. That He too knows what it is to feel the incredible loss and absence. How the world feels incomplete without you. How He would search night and day and be unrelenting with His pursuit if it meant we could be placed back in the palm of His hand.
I find strength and comfort in this. I find understanding that my pain is not unknown to Him.
And when my sorrow has gotten the best of me and I am at my end, I find God there. I see His face full of sorrow for what He has to continually endure. I see a broken heart that is desperate for the children He has lost.
This is why the woman searches so intently for the lost coin. This is why the Shepherd leaves the ninety-nine. This is why God gave His only Son. And this is why I allowed myself to be dressed so terribly, hunched over in a hospital parking lot, with a hunk of equipment that beeped at literally everything causing me to rip to shreds the beautifully manicured rose bushes, for the even slightest chance my ring would be found.
Desperation.
And just as I am desperate to feel my brother each day in my life, our God is desperate for us. He is desperate for a relationship with us where we don't lose contact or grow apathetic, and He is desperate for those torn away from Him to be restored.
I want to help God look for the ones missing. I want to get so desperate for their return that I am willing to risk my pride and my reputation on it. I want to be a part of His great love affair with humanity and be a part of the greatest adventure (and biggest sorrow) He faces: "to seek and save the lost".
Will you join me?
-XOXO Sissy
- - - - -
Luke 19:1-10 "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.' So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.' But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.' Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'”