Psalm 24 - March 5th

All day today I had this strange feeling that today should mean something to me. It was like I was supposed to be somewhere, or something was supposed to be happening, but I couldn’t remember. It just hit me. I glanced at my clock as I was getting ready to go to bed and it was 10:42….and then I saw the date….3-05….March 5th….my brother died today. Well, not today, but on this date. It was Monday, March 5, 2001. It was exactly 7 years ago today. They say that “time heals all wounds”. I don’t know that that is true….or maybe the operative word is “time”. How much time? I can honestly say that there are still wounds and not all of them are healed. But, as the years pass, the date seems to be slipping by unnoticed. Is that the way it works? Do you just forget? The first couple of years the date was met with tears and sadness. There was so much that was unfinished with our relationship, never a chance to say goodbye…..quite honestly never really a chance to even get to know one another. How is it that families can grow up together in the close proximity of the same house and yet have so much distance relationally? My brother was 44 years old when he died and I had to learn from his hospital report after his death that he had been a 2 pack a day smoker for the past 20 years. How is it possible to be around a person for that many years and never once detect the scent of smoke or see a pack of cigarettes? I have no idea. I just know it is possible because that was my reality. It seems pathetically sad to learn more about someone on the occasion of their death than in the previous 44 years of their life. One thing I do know. The date may be starting to slip by unnoticed, but the hole that is left in a heart is impossible to ignore. As I look back over the last 7 years, the gaping wound that was exposed on this date…March 5, 2001…is being healed. Not in the way that I would have expected within the context of my birth family. God removed that and replaced it with the gift of another. I guess sometimes we have to lose something to actually find what we had been looking for in the first place. I am finally finding me. Not the one that my family defined….but the “me” that I was created to be.