“Love never fails.”  ~1 Corinthian 13:5

“Love is not proud.

Love does not boast.

Love after all matters the most.”

It was about this time last year when the fields had a golden hue to them.  The sun was still warm, and yet, there was a change in the air.  I remember standing at the gate of my dad’s garden.  This big, billowing garden that used to be our horse arena when I was a teen.  Around and around, I would ride my horse, Buffy, training for our horse shows.

Much time has passed since then.  The horse shows ended as I went off to college, got married, and entered law school.  My dad, in his wisdom and love of gardening, turned the riding arena into our family garden shortly after his grandchildren entered into the picture.

It became our ritual to plant it each spring.  He loved the garden and loved what it yielded.  I learned from him how to can tomatoes, and in the years just prior to his passing, I tried my hand at pickling and salsa.  He loved my pickles, and loved that I was interested in what he loved.

Feeling the warmness of the gate in my hand in the late summer sun, I stood there quietly with tears streaming down my face.  How did we get here?

“Love does not run.

Love does not hide.

Love does not keep locked inside.”

You see, a year ago, right before Labor Day, we had arrived back at his home after weeks at Mayo Clinic.  There we had learned that he was dying.  It was there in a hallway, in my pain, a song spoke quietly to my heart.  As I stood at the fence, listening to that song and looking at the garden, I wept.

It’s funny how we are designed.  Our bodies–they are amazing things.  We are so much more than our minds can comprehend.  You see, when things are scary, uncertain, painful–especially when painful–our bodies detail all of the surrounding information for future reference.  It is how sometimes people get trapped with their memories after experiencing something particularly tragic, like a soldier watching a friend die in a battle.  But it also happens in the tragedies of life that befall all of us.

“Love is the river that flows through.”

It has been awhile since I have listened, truly listened, and thought upon that song.  However, the other day, I saw it on my playlist and decided to stop hedging around it. I pushed play wanting to remember my dad.  In fact, I played it over and over again while on a walk.  What had once been a tremendous comfort to me, now thrust me back into the past as if it was only yesterday.  I could feel the warm fence.  I could see the yellow flowers.  I could smell the end of summer.  As these moments danced in front of me, I knew the song and the memory were beckoning me to draw closer.

So I hurried home feeling a strong desire to write.  With pen in hand, words just flowed out and then…then came the tears, the sobs and the pain.  I cried so hard that I think I startled my husband and son.  They both came in to check on me, but quietly disappeared when I did not look up.

“Love will sustain.

Love will provide.

Love will not cease at the end of time.”

Knowing that grief and moments like this have a purpose, I waited patiently to understand the pain.  And there, in the corner of my mind, sat my father’s hospital bed.  I wrestled away from it for the moment, not wanting to look, but I knew it wasn’t going anywhere until I came back to it.

You see, I didn’t like what it represented.  This medical necessity that he needed for the days ahead, in all its cold metal frame and flimsy, thin mattress, stated what none of us wanted to see.  Now–and yes, back then–I couldn’t bear to look at it.  I could do what I had to do to put it where it needed to be, but stare it…absorb it…accept it?  I couldn’t.

“Love will protect.

Love always hopes.

Love still believes when you don’t.”

To me, it spoke sharply and cruelly of the end…something I didn’t want to believe….not then, and yes, sometimes, even not now.  The coldness, the smallness, the lack of warmth or comfort no matter how we tried to disguise it–it spoke of pain, no more hope, and loss.  For me personally, I could barely breathe looking at it.  It smacked of the realization that there was no way for me to stop the train that was coming down the tracks to pick up my dad.  Darn, that bed for what it represented, for being so blatantly harsh in its demands!

So in my desire to escape the reality of what it was screaming, I pulled out my headphones and turned on my I-pod.  I needed to shut out the message.  And there waiting was that song.  The one that had comforted me all the way home from Mayo; the one that spoke loudly of my dad’s very fiber and being.  But…much to my surprise and horror, it pushed me over the edge.  As soon as I could, almost immediately, I fled my parents’ room.  Out the door, through the living room, looking at no one, I fled outside. I had to flee or I would have been reduced to a weeping pile on the floor, and I couldn’t…just couldn’t do that.

“When my heart won’t make a sound.

When I can’t turn back around.

When the sky is falling down.

Nothing is greater than this

Greater than this.”

So there, I stood at the garden.  This place where dad and I had delighted to be, listening to a song that now suddenly seemed to speak also of the end.  Looking down, dandelions, in a gentle breeze, waved with their full blooms slowly releasing the last remnants of their very being.  In front of me, the tall grass was bending under the weight of a summer of over growing.  The very bottoms of their leaves turning a deep yellow and orange.  Not far away were flowers spent with only a bloom or two left.  There, at that moment, the world and this song seemed to speak of what was coming; what would not survive much longer; and yet, of what does not fail even though it appears to be the end of its time.

Looking back, almost a year later, these painful memories of the days before his passing creep back in like the sunshine through a kitchen window on a late summer afternoon.  Without warning, they tumble in.  Interestingly, though, I am finding in the ruins of this pain…that my dad’s love is still very much here.  Sifting through the hurt and the memories of those days, I can feel it strongly.  Maybe even more strongly than before.  I have not found my love for him to have diminished either.  That despite this pain, his love is rising to the surface as this grief passes through.  Truly, his love has not ceased despite the end of his time.

“Love is right here.

Love is alive.

Love is the way, the truth, the life.”

Knowing my dad, he would want each of us to realize that love…it is the key…within us and in each other.  Once I had asked my dad how he could tolerate someone who treated him and those he loved so poorly, and he said “Because I love her.”  It was literally love that allowed him not to react, be disgruntled or overcome by hate.  It drove him to embrace, to find kindness, to tolerate, and to care.

Love is the one thing that can unite us, bring us together, heal our pain, cause us to forgive, help us to set aside our differences, to overlook offenses…love is what draws us closer together.  It cannot fail.  No cold bed can overcome it.  No evil can stop it.  Not even death is greater than the power of love.  And I now firmly know, it is by such love that he will always, always be with us.

“Love is the river that flows through.

Love is the arms that are holding you.

Love is the place you will fly to.
Love never fails you.”  ~Brandon Heath, Love Never Fails, 2011

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.”  ~1 Corinthians 13:13