A Light for My Path

This time of year is always painful for me. My younger daughter, Rachel, died in a car accident the Tuesday before Easter nine years ago. The date April 11, 2017 is etched in my soul. But, because Easter isn’t a set date like Christmas, and instead varies with the liturgical calendar, my heart is also heavy the week before Easter every year, regardless of the exact date.

If you commemorate Lent, the Christian season of preparing for Easter (based on Jesus’s 40 days of fasting in the desert), you recognize the significance of, and the fluctuation of emotions associated with this period of time. Especially as we approach Palm Sunday. The jubilant arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem when crowds were hailing Him as their king and Messiah. And one short week later, the throng was calling for his crucifixion.

People poured into the city to celebrate Passover. The apostles were there with Jesus along with people He loved such as Mary and Martha (and perhaps their brother Lazarus, who Jesus had recently raised from the dead). The scriptures say His mother was there (Jesus addresses Mary and the disciple John from the cross: John 19:25-27). This time of recognizing a holy ritual and renewal from thousands of years prior was marred by, and revived by, the creation of a new holiday created two days later by the resurrection of Christ – i.e., Easter.

I struggle with the potential heresy of what I’m about to say. My pain of losing my daughter is always wrapped up with the events we mourn and eventually celebrate during the Easter season. I don’t conflate Rachel’s death with that of Jesus; but I can’t help but compare the timing of her death with His. And the thankful assurance I have that she will be resurrected just as He was.

Grief is complicated. I can only imagine the pain people feel at the loss of a loved one when they do not believe in an afterlife: when someone dies – that’s it. But, even for believers, the loss of a loved one is a crushing blow, and we grieve that loss until we are gathered up to Heaven ourselves.

For sure, the knowledge that we will eventually be together for eternity is a comfort. Still, we miss them. And every year brings certain dates that exacerbate that missing. Birthdays (ours and theirs), anniversaries, holidays, homegoing days.

So, here I sit, nine years later writing about the same thing that’s always on my mind this time of year. I wish I could say that Resurrection Sunday is my primary focus. But I have to get past the anniversary of my daughter’s death. Yes, that date is and will always remain April 11, 2017. Easter that year was April 16^th. Her memorial service was Saturday, April 15^th – the day before Easter. Easter is not the same date this year.

Regardless of dates on the calendar, it’s that time of year again. The date that means I’m another year longer missing my daughter. But another year closer to Easter. To that time when we are together.

Again.

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Laura