Till We Are Home

When a family in our church moves from home to home, several in our church come out with trucks, muscle, and sweat to help. In the past, I’d usually bring my crew of muscle along. My son and daughters would spring to help these families along with me. At some point during the move, though, my sweet daughters would eventually find a way to make the whole affair more interesting. Finding a dolly or a cart and loading it with whatever they could, they’d then race around to deliver the goods or just race around period. 

I remember one such time helping a sweet couple move to our town to be closer to family. Some of their belongings were moved to their temporary housing while the rest were moved into a temperature controlled self-storage facility. As I grabbed pieces one-by-one, my daughters – the Danger Monkeys – zoomed past me with a cart full of goods. In they’d come with the cart full of lamps and boxes taped up with books, dish towels, holiday décor, and more. Out they’d go replacing the items with one sister on the cart while the other gleefully pushed. Sounds of laughter, squealing, crashes and cries of “oops”.

Today, our family walked those same halls finding a new storage unit…this time to put my youngest daughter’s belongings in.

Gone were the gleeful cheers racing down the hallway. Gone was the delight in helping others move. Gone was half of the Danger Monkeys crew.

It’s been nearly three years since my youngest died, but we finally reached the point where we could handle changing her room. In the past, soon after losing her, my wife and I would go in there to just “experience” her. We wanted to see how she left her hairbrush that she would use every night, the water bottle still full from the night before she died, the last book she read worn and loved on top of her bedside table. We would look at her bookcase full of her favorite books, the knick-knacks we bought over time together, the gifts and trinkets she accumulated from friends and events all so neatly and orderly arranged. Next to her bed lay a backpack and a book along with the last thing she worked on before meeting her Savior: a menu and pricing sheet of cookies she wanted to bake and sell.

Her room held a shadow of our girl now gone. For a time, we could go in there and cry and remember. 

But the time had come to take her things out and make it new. This was one of a few things we knew would be really hard to do after she died…if fact, it was the last of them. We know there are hard things yet to endure, but early on we identified four hard events we would need to endure. First was revisiting the place of her death. Second, experiencing a family dinner around the kitchen table without her. Third, taking care of her headstone. Last, moving her belongings out and changing her room. 

As we approached today, we felt increasing anxiety about it all. Even waking up this morning, I did not want to get up, I did not want to think about what we needed to do. My wife spent the morning with a friend gathering the last supplies, but it was the first time I did not want her to come home so we could get started. 

When my wife arrived, we now had all four of us at home to tackle this together. So, after lunch, we went into Izzy’s room, sat down on her bed, and sought the Lord’s help first. We read a liturgy by Douglas McKelvey in Every Moment Holy, Volume II titled, ‘A Liturgy for Sorting Through a Loved One’s Things’, then opened the Bible to 1 Corinthians 15:50-57, and finished in prayer. 

With the Lord’s help, we stood up…and, I broke. 

What were we doing? Where is my little girl? Why is she not here? How can we do this?? 

So many questions and thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there in her room. The anxiety and sadness I felt coming into this moment caught up with me, deepening my sadness, even turning some of it to anger. I hated what we were about to do.

Absolutely hated it all. 

My wife nuzzled up next to me as I cried and stood there, tears in her eyes as well. My son and daughter surrounded us, and we just stood for a moment in the middle of her room. None of us wanted to take her things away. Why couldn’t it be that we were re-doing her room for her instead? Re-designing her room with Izzy right in the middle of our family hug like she always would be? 

Despite our wishes, we moved from there and got to work. First, her bed needed to be broken down. Putting her mattress – sheets, comforter, and all – into a large plastic bag, then out onto the truck followed by the box springs, bed frame, and metal headboard. Underneath her bed, my little girl stored some of her favorite childhood things in plastic bins.

A large bin full of American Girl doll clothes and toys. Oh, how spoiled my sweet girl was!

Her favorite toys – Hatchimals – were separated into different containers…one for the Hatchimals, one for the shells they came in, one for the cartons they were sold in. She’s too much like me keeping even non-sensical things.

All her Legos were packed in separate Ziploc bags, one each for the different colored Legos. My sweet Izzy loved colors (like her Mama!), loved order, and all of this was reflected in the kaleidoscope baggies within that container. Pale greens, forest greens, and brilliant greens all neatly packed into one Ziploc with their rainbow counterparts in their own baggies. 

I stood there in the room in complete silence. Looking at each of her things, I can see her playing with the toys, wearing the clothes, reading the books. She’s not moving out to go to college or get married. She’s not following her dreams to visit Paris. These belongings of hers are not going into storage because she’s older and doesn’t want “kid” stuff around anymore. 

We are moving this all out because she’s never coming back here again. 

My son and I lift the dresser out of the room and move it to the truck. All her clothes left exactly as she folded them in the drawers. Her shorts and jeans rolled tightly into nice rows. A drawer full of jammies and shirts carefully rolled with her socks balled up neatly in a small cube. The dresser goes to the far wall of the truck bed with the mattress, box springs, and bed frame tightly against it. My wife and daughter take some of the storage containers out and we close the tailgate. 

Only her small bookcase remains. For this, my wife and I still want to be able to look at it from time-to-time to just be reminded of how cute she was…she is. Taking pictures of exactly how she had each shelf, we remove the knick-knacks but leave the books, and my son and I lift the bookcase with books to move into the closet in our bedroom. Soon, we will put all the knick-knacks back just how she had them and leave the bookcase there for however long we want.

After cleaning up some of the dust and dirt that accumulated over time, we come back together as a family to pray. We thank the Lord for His help, for giving us Isabel, and the joy and love she brought to our family as we wrap up the last of the four. 

I still don’t know what to think about it all, my silence weighs heavy in the room. 

In the evening, we have our Good Friday service to go to. It’s a few hours away, so we have time to recover a little bit and get ready. One thought comes to mind…it’s Good Friday, the day we as Christians celebrate the crucifixion of our Lord on that old Roman cross. Hanging on that cross, Jesus took upon Himself – the innocent and perfect sacrificial Lamb of God – the penalty for and ignominy of our sins. 

The penalty for our sins is death (Rom 6:23). 

The ignominy – I like that word…it just sounds so ugly and perfect for what happened on that cross, doesn’t it? It means, shame, disgrace, dishonor. Jesus took our shame on the cross for the sins we committed (Heb 12:2). 

On that day, on that Good Friday, Jesus removed the burden of our sin for those who would believe on Him (1 Pet 2:24, 1 Jn 3:5). On this Good Friday, a burden was lifted from our family. Though it wrecked us – though Christ was wrecked for our sin on the cross – in the wrecking, in the agony, in the grief, the Lord helped to unburden us from the weight that room became. We would always choose to have our girl back with us and enjoying her room as she did. But the Lord saw fit to call her home at the time He did, so things must inevitably change including rooms our loved one once enjoyed. 

Good Friday can seem like a misnomer. Jesus was punished horrifically for something He did not deserve. He faced the wrath of the Father for our sins. The cross was ugly. Our precious Lord hung in front of a crowd that hated Him deeply. His loved ones stood there weeping for the One they were losing. The world turned dark. 

How could that be good?

Yet, it is. In the heartache, through the ugliness, amid the darkness, good wins. A burden was lifted from a people in that last agonized cry of our Lord. And in our agony of cleaning out our little girl’s room, the Lord lifted a burden from us providentially on a Good Friday. 

Though I still cannot believe what we have just done, in the midst of my deep sadness I know the Lord has worked good for me…for us. His timing does not escape me either. All I can do now is worship and keep trusting Him…

Till we are home…