The past twelve months have taught me once again the grace and mercy in not knowing what the future holds.
My father’s stroke last September changed everything.
He isn’t able to make the connection between my own grief over the death of Dominic with his grief over the life he lost the morning the clot stopped blood flow to part of his brain.
I can, though.
And so much of what I have learned in this grief journey is applicable to his. He was able to fully enjoy every minute up to the very second the stroke occurred.
How awful to be robbed of today’s joy by tomorrow’s sorrows.
Many years ago my grandparents had a lovely Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration with family and friends.
My dad videotaped it and the tape was full of fun moments where my grandmother was smiling, laughing and having a wonderful day.
It was a short time afterward that she began to show signs of dementia and not very long after that she left us.
We watched the videotape a year or two after her leaving and I thought, “What a mercy she didn’t know what was coming!”
Those moments were full of unadulterated joy because a sorrowful future was hidden from her heart.
What a mercy that curves in the road obscure my vision and mountaintop to mountaintop hides valleys in between.
I am so very thankful that I did not live the 23+ years I had with Dominic knowing his accident was coming. I was free to love him without fear.
If I, like God, knew the end from the beginning my heart could never bear the burden of foresight.
But He, in kindness, withholds the knowledge from my feeble frame and leads me step by step each day.
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