The snow was coming down harder than we thought. The interstate was icy and the traffic was heavy. Southern Minnesota meant we inched along as the prairie winds coated the cleared road and made travel treacherous. I stared out the window with my face away from my husband.

Tears were making little rivers down my face. I didn’t want him to see. He had his own thoughts and pain to deal with and didn’t need mine at the moment. I looked at a distant barn and a billboard and thought about all that Bill had missed. He knew Don had become someone who succeeded in his career and his family. But did he know about the kids he had mentored that others had a hard time believing in? Did he know about the phenomenal dad he was and the sacrifices he made to his own career to be present for them? Did he know that he gave large tips to waitresses who did bad jobs to let them know they were loved anyway? Did he know that he gave rides to employees with DUI’s and cared deeply about those around him under his “I don’t care” exterior? Did he know the ways he supported me in my ministry and how much he gave of himself so I could do the things I did? I so wished his dad had known. I grieved the fact that my husband’s dad never got to know him in this way.

Also, I grieved the fact that my husband never had the interactions with a dad that he needed. I wondered about all the things he didn’t know about his dad. He knew that his dad bowled and  golfed. He owned a carpet store at one time. He was everyone’s friend in the small, Kansas town. He was scared of the big city and driving in traffic. My guess is that fear drove a lot of why those important interactions never took place. I felt the loss that Bill must have felt not being able to share all of life with his son.

There was no judgement. No blame. No shaming. Circumstances made it complicated. Hard. And people involved did the best they knew to do.

What caught me during the days surrounding the funeral and even the last trip back to say goodbye- was grace. It was matter of fact. Here are the facts. Here is what it was. What it is. No judgment just seeking to understand. Love winning.

I hold tightly to that last picture of my husband with his ailing but smiling dad wrapped in a red Nebraska blanket, arms around each other, leaning in toward one another with grace abounding. Forgiveness. Love the best they knew how to give it.

____________________________________

We sat at the local small-town Pizza Hut. The same one where my husband’s mom would bring the three boys to celebrate grade cards. They joked about it being my brother-in law’s grades that earned them the pizza. We had conversations with the owner. We pulled slices of pizza from the middle of the table and washed it down with Pepsi- an unusual type of communion among those who loved one another. We were the only ones there right in the middle of the restaurant. It felt like coming home.

It was the same one we had gathered with our kids and Bill years ago during one of our stop-in trips on the way to Colorado. There on the other side of the room was the table we had surrounded and leaned against as we ate pizza and drank Pepsi. I remembered how Bill smiled and laughed and soaked it all in. He was incredibly excited to have us there- on his turf- telling us all the things and visiting the carpet store and showing us the bowling and golf trophies. I remember how he called my husband, Donnie, and how Don answered to it even though I knew he hated to be called that. He never told his father. He just let it be.

We sat around the table this time after a long day of the sibling breakfast (and meeting a few siblings for the first time) and a side vintage shopping trip (resulting in a card catalogue from the local elementary school for me and a prized lectern from the local courthouse for my attorney brother-in-law) and a filled-to-the-brim with people memorial service and finally a reception full of laughter and reconnecting with relatives. Pulled up to the table, my husband, my brother and sister-in-law and niece and I reminisced about all the childhood and adult things over the years some dealing with Bill and some without.

Dave, my brother-in-law, sat back in his chair and said, “Do you know what Dad’s last words were?”

He set the story up complete with a never-ending line of visitors saying goodbye, a much-loved sister bringing communion and all the things that show up in your last days. Then Bill had slipped into that sleep that was labored and you knew the end was coming.

Dave told us that Bill had awakened long enough to exclaim, “I want grilled cheese and a bottle of wine.” Then slipped back into that sleep that would soon lead to his eternal rest.

Grilled cheese and a bottle of wine.

Who says that for their last words? Leaving the relatives scratching their heads and murmuring and wondering what in the world? Was it the drugs? Was he hungry? Was he thirsty?  And why wine and not just a sip of water?

When my husband lived with Bill, it was the years of alcohol abuse and addiction. It was the years of love and trauma all mixed into one. But Bill had been sober for 42 years.

42 years is no small feat. One I respect immensely. One that speaks volumes about him.

So why a bottle of wine?

Dave leaned back in his chair.

“What do you get when you take away the cheese?”

Bread

“What do you get when you take away the bottle?”

Wine

Oh. We collectively nodded.

Dave leaned in, “He was saying ‘I want Christ.’”

This is my body broken for you.  Bread.

This is my blood poured out for you. Wine

Jesus. Christ. The Messiah. The author and finisher of our faith. The one who gives mercy and grace and forgiveness and love. The one who completes all things.

And so, at the end. . . Bill with his last words said the most important thing. . . I want Jesus.

The thing is. . . as much as we cling to those we love, to the things we have, to the job that makes us feel purposeful and useful, to the power position brings, to the money that gives us a false security, to whatever it is that makes us think we are important. . . in the end. . .there is only one thing. Jesus.

That is everything.

______________________________

I’m stuck lately thinking about paradoxes. About how broken people are and how they do such rotten things. And then they do such beautiful loving things. In every single church yuck situation I’ve witnessed or been a part of there are people desperately trying to love Jesus and yet making a mess of things due to our own brokenness. I’ve tried to make sense of it. I’m still doing that. I’ve always thought if you loved Jesus that love would flow right through onto everything you touch. And yet. Why do we get it so wrong?

In that moment at the table in Pizza Hut in Oberlin, Kansas. . .all the hurt and brokenness and complications disappeared. And in its place was Jesus.

In the light of those last words, strangely everything else mattered less. Sure, there was still the consequences of the brokenness. Scars remained. Wounds were still healing. Yet in light of eternity they didn’t seem to matter much.

There was Bill in the presence of God for eternity.

There was forgiveness.

There was grace.

There was mercy.

There was completion.

There was Jesus.

I’m so grateful for you, Bill. For giving life to my husband. For giving love the best you knew how. For passing on the traits of laughter and positivity. And most of all in the end . . . For pointing us all to the most important thing.