Rogue Wave

I've read a few books on grief, the process, the feelings ...what we can expect, what we can't predict.  There are generic phases of grief and then there are the precise phases, so to speak.  I remember when my mother died, five years after my father, the distinct feeling of being an orphan.  I was 40.  But that process of losing a parent, of being the lead generation, is particular.  And I don't know the feeling or process of losing a spouse.  But I do know the process, so far, of losing Phoebe, my child.  There's much written, and really the only writings I'm interested in are ones authored by someone who's experienced it.  Plenty have written and commented who have no idea what its like, even though they may believe they do.  I've learned something from every book, every exposed heart of a mother or father living the great want of their lost child.  But there's one that grabbed me far more than any other, Sugar Cookies and a Nightmare, by Carol Kearns.
I'm not far into it, but as soon as it was offered to me, the second I felt it in my hand I knew it was a personal, intimate letter that would echo back my walk.  I looked at the title and remembered a few winters ago, readying for Christmas.  We've always tried to do more craft type things than shopping kind of things, so we bake a lot and make candy, toffee to be exact.  But this season a few years ago Phoebe and I wanted to decorate sugar cookies.  Finding a really good sugar cookie recipe isn't as easy as it sounds.  Baking multiple batches from different recipes we found one we liked best, but truthfully, we liked them all The adventure of finding the perfect recipe kept us on a joint mission we both took very seriously.  So when I saw the title it spoke to me and brought me back to that joyful season and the nightmare that would subsequently follow a few years later.  Yes, I thought, this woman knows something of me.
It's a book I think any person could learn from ...certainly those of us with the shattered heart, but also those who struggle to really understand the process and life of losing a child.  Some people understand it instinctively to the degree they can ..they are remarkable people really.  But many either assume a parent should be over it by a certain point, or quite simply, really don't care.  I think they might learn a thing or two ...and potentially salvage friendships, relationships that do probably matter to them, but drift because of the great divide in life experience.
Kearns writes a letter to "Dr. Expert," a radio talk show host who advises a friend of a woman who's lost her daughter to not acknowledge the woman's  daughter's birthday or death day, suggesting that she needs to help her friend move forward ...out of her grief.  I don't need to give it all away, but if you're the least bit interested, it might be a good read.
I've read and heard so many stories of loss ....and there are plenty.  Yet, none of them tugged me like this one.  Off to a family weekend, excited for the break from routine, her family headed to the coast of Oregon.  Excited to see friends, they started with playing on the beach in November and then off to a lunch of hotdogs.  The gang of kids headed back to the beach while the moms tidied after lunch.  It was within a few short minutes the kids would come barreling back, frenzied, confused and frightened ....missing one.  While playing on the beach, a rogue wave had come from nowhere and swept Kearn's daughter away.  She was seven. 
I've played on the beach in Oregon with my kids, and have never gone beyond my ankles, nor would I allow my children to go any further.  I'm an Atlantic girl, I know that ocean, I know August is the cautious season where riptides hide in the surf.  I know September finds the water warmer than July.  But the Pacific ...a completely different body of water.  The few times I've been on the Pacific coast, I've had a constant fear of that water.  It's simply too strong and powerful, too deep too quick.  The coastline is breathtaking, especially in Oregon where the rock formations soar out of the  ocean.  I wasn't on the same piece of coastline as the author of this book, but the visual is there for me.  While I was stunned by its beauty, it filled me with anxiety, fear.
The kids weren't playing in the water, they were playing on the sand, in their cool weather jackets.  It was November.  Imagine sending your child to play in the sand ...my kids have grown up playing in the sand.  It's healthy and fun ...and free!  Out of nowhere the Pacific snatched her little girl, never to be seen again.  In an instant she was gone and their lives were and are forever changed.  Kearns writes this book now.  Her daughter died nearly forty years ago! No parent is ever over such a loss, nor should they be.
We chart our lives, organize it in such a way, even practice our faith with expectation of things going a certain way.  I think if I live a particular way of life, practice and cultivate qualities and character, it will protect me, my kids from pain and hardship.  In practical terms that's all true.  Don't touch the stove you won't get burned,  and the list goes on.  But life with God just isn't that simple.  When you choose to follow Him, really follow Him you accept (because at the time it doesn't seem all that hard, at least for me) that life may bring you struggle and challenge and hardship.  And then ...it really comes, in a way you never would have imagined, from seemingly nowhere ...like a rogue wave.  I wonder if God watches those rogue waves come at us to see if we still stand.  Or does He watch us to see if we try to get up.  I'm not really sure.  Or maybe, if we let Him, He lifts us up out of the sand and water and holds us while we brush off the sand ...and cry.
I had a deep thought today as I was talking to God, wondering where He's gone.  It seems that God doesn't answer me, I don't hear Him, or see Him, or feel Him ...and I'm not so angry about that anymore because I trust Him.  What I saw and thought at the same time was His silence, but I also saw Him weeping as if He knew the way of my heart ...because He really does, like no other. 
I love my life, and I feel extraordinarily blessed ...I know I am.  God has been very generous to me.  I just don't know why He would allow such a rogue wave to sweep away my daughter.  I live in a place called World's End.  My world ended the day Phoebe died ...literally ended.  But it also began, and it is a climb to claim that, an effort to believe and trust it.  If you know this place, you know the majesty, the beauty that surrounds me in this place.  When I go there, I see her.  I imagine a tidal wave could wreak some havoc if it crossed over into the bay, a rogue wave. 
Phoebe loved waves, she was natural in them, wore them like skin.  If she had to be a wave, she wouldn't be just any wave, she'd be a rogue wave ...and she was.

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace. Amen.