Grieving

In early April, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Shocking, as he wasn’t a smoker. My wife, kids, and I had been visiting him weekly throughout April and May– we were visiting bi-weekly prior to this diagnosis. He was alert and did not seem frail, even throughout his treatments at the hospital, so we did not expect him to go so quickly.

It was a Thursday morning when my brother texted me, asking if I could take a day off work to come visit our father. I contacted my boss and was getting ready to leave when another text came in, not 15 minutes later.

Our dad had passed away. He had gotten out of bed when he heard I was coming, collapsed on his way to his recliner, and drew his last breath while lying in my brother’s arms.

The thought of this saddens me terribly. Yet, I have not shed a single tear since my father’s death.

Am I unfeeling? Indifferent? Or just numb?

I don’t think it’s any of the above.

As my brother and I wade through the aftermath of a parent’s passing, exhausted from combing through our father’s belongings to find important paperwork, I glance at my phone for the occasional moment of respite and find Facebook reminders that my family left for Japan four years ago and returned to the USA two years ago this week.

It occurred to me that I have been experiencing a sense of loss throughout the past six years.

It wasn’t just losing my mother in 2011. We lost our sense of being rooted when we sold our home to go to Japan.

We felt the loss of community when we said goodbye to our friends and family, unsure of when we would ever return. (Ironically, we’d return to this community just two years later, then grieve losing them again when we left them after a job transition, which I also grieved– and am still grieving.)

I lost my sense of equilibrium upon arriving in Japan, unable to communicate unassisted, having to relearn basic skills like a child.

Then, when we moved to the tsunami-ravaged coast of Northeastern Japan, I had to lose much of my old theology and relearn what it means to follow Jesus.

As a Christian, I had been reared in Orange County, the cradle of prosperity gospel where church was often about finding your purpose, your destiny, your passion in life, and worship was about feeling good after a rousing round of song and dance, performed with fog machines and laser beams in full effect on stages in magnificent cathedrals of crystal located on sprawling campuses boasting lakes, skate parks, and parking trams. My time in Japan exposed to me just how much of my own theology had become infected with prosperity gospel.

Surrounded by devastation, ministering to those who had lost everything– loved ones, homes, livelihoods– and serving alongside Japanese Christians who face a form of persecution, even in their own families, I could no longer tell anyone that if they did the right things or said the right prayers, everything in their life would suddenly work out. That’s baloney, and I couldn’t believe I had peddled it for so long.

Instead, I focused on the eternal hope we have in Christ, who will come back and make all things new, making right all that has gone wrong in this broken, fallen world (Rev 21:1-5).

The world is fallen. People die. It’s inevitable, whether in a disaster or to cancer. So what matters most in this lifetime?

Knowing Christ, who offers a hope that outlives this broken, finite existence.

My father accepted Jesus as his savior over twenty years ago. I believe his conversion was real, as I could see the dramatic transformation in his life. We would pray together every time we visited him during his last two months, and my brother, who lived with him, told me our father would pray by himself every night.

My father died at home, in the arms of his first son while waiting for his youngest son to come for a visit. He was alert and walking around until his last few breaths. My brother and I are thankful that he seemed to have a quick, peaceful exit. When I arrived at his house and saw his body on the floor, frozen in a pose as though he were resting on an invisible being’s lap, I took a look at his countenance.

He looked like he had simply fallen asleep.

Perhaps this is why I haven’t cried yet.

For one, I’ve come to understand that grief and loss are a normal part of life and should be embraced, not ignored or minimized, as part of our journey in following Jesus. Christianity isn’t about feeling good or trying to manipulate a deity to make everything go your way (although some Christians have made it this, but I digress). Christianity is about following a Savior who wept when his friends died (John 11:35), suffered unjustly, and died a criminal’s death on a cross. What about this says anything about being a better you and having a better life? Whatever happened to taking up your cross daily to follow Christ (Luke 9:23)?

For another, I see God’s mercy upon my father, even if he ultimately succumbed to cancer. My family is thankful that we have been home from Japan for the past two years and were able to visit my father regularly. Perhaps this is why God called us to leave Japan.

But most of all, I have peace in trusting that my father placed his hope in Jesus.

Either that, or I’m just stuck in the denial phase of grief.