Chapter 21: Myth—Everybody Gets To Go

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Myth—Everybody Gets To Go

As I approach the second Christmas without Jackie, I can’t help but

reflect back on that fateful day when we received notice of her limited time remaining. I remember distinctly being challenged by God with one central question to my soul. “Ed, do you really believe in Me? Can you trust in Me even in the face of the loss of the most precious person your heart has ever

loved and known on earth?” I experienced the heart crushing moments of Jackie’s impending loss with a distinct personal horror. All of our dreams were suddenly being broken into pieces and I wondered if I could stay alive. Something physical was manifesting itself inside of me in a most destructive

way. For the moment I set God’s question aside mentally. I didn’t know if I could survive Jackie’s death or for that matter even if I wanted to survive.

Yet there lies the fundamental question God asks of all of us. “Do you really believe?” Do you? If so, do you likewise believe in obedience or

is your faith based on the mythology that obedience doesn’t matter? For me, obedience has not been an issue for 26-years. No, the question God had for me to consume was whether given such a loss, did I still believe that He was real. I have told several people that Jackie’s death was a very defining

moment for my faith. Verily I say unto you that none of the misery I have suffered on this earth comes remotely close to the pain that I felt losing her.

In the moments of my despair and in the depths of my grief I still felt

my Lord walking with me. Deep despair and grief is what the disciples and others felt with the loss of Jesus on the cross. For them it also represented broken dreams. My passion ran deep for Jackie and as we had children I was forced to subdue some of that passion to raise our children. We both

acknowledged we had committed to giving up 25-years of our previously intense passion for one another to raise our family. I had always had the dream that after the kids were raised we could return to the passion we once shared before children arrived. Business struggles and other life events

delayed that and then, of course, one day it was all over. Our dreams were broken and would never be realized. As I reflected on this human existence, I have come to realize that this is one of the more awful realities of death. Broken dreams. No more future and the hope that was inherent within the

potential of human life, then suddenly snuffed out. We survive struggles with the hopes and dreams of the future. What happens when they die?