Taste and See

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.  Taste it. See it.  Feel it.  Bite it. Take a HUGE bite!  For He is good, forever good, infinitely good and wonderful.  He gives us this life as a gift, a gift with a purpose, to glorify Him in all we do.  To taste His goodness, and then to revel in the sensation, to feel every burst of flavor.  The sweetness of love, the bitterness of loss, the sharpness of pain, the mellowness of contentment.  All the myriad flavors, swirled together in a wonderful concoction of conflicting, yet somehow complementary, emotions.  These are my thoughts and my feelings as I struggle with yet another loss, the death of someone dear, and I find myself being sucked into the quicksand of self-pity and sorrow.  

First my father-in-law, then his wife, and two months later, my dad, and now, my stepmom, Sheila--my husband and I have lost all four parents in the space of 30 months, three of them within the past 8 months.  And during that same period, some dear friends of ours left this life, and suddenly I am feeling my mortality, and pondering the reason for my existence.  I try to immerse myself into tasks and checklists and the numbing comfort of busy-ness, stuffing the sadness back down every time it starts to bubble up.  I comfort others, and explain what happened, and try to make sense out of it for them.  Then, yesterday, there was this overwhelming pallor of hopelessness and sorrow hanging over me, smothering me, until I just had to get away.  I got in the car and drove and drove and drove, with no real destination, no purpose, trying to grasp my feelings and shake them until something would pop, so I would be able to see everything clearly.  Suddenly, I am driving down a dark road, and tears are streaming down my face, onto my shirt and my lap, and I am screaming "WHY?" at the top of my lungs.  The words come tumbling out, and all the feelings jumble together: confusion and anger and disbelief and guilt and sadness.  

And I realize there is no answer to my questions, none that can make the sadness go away, or make sense of it all.  Nor should there be.  As I sit on the front porch the next day and listen to the wind in the trees and the birds and the insects, and later as we drive down the road and I look up and see the sun shining through the tall trees and the mountains in the distance...that is when it becomes clear.  We are in this life to leave a legacy of actions that point to our creator, an inheritance of memories that evoke smiles and tears.  There is no shame in the tears, just as there is no shame in the laughter, for both are merely two sides of the same coin.  God created us in His image, to glorify Him, and we do that regardless of our emotional state at the time...or at least we should.  I don't always do a great job of that, because I get mired in my sufferings, and I fail to see the beauty of an experience just because that experience brings sadness or pain.  I get so damn stuck on the "why me?" and "why not me?" that I forget to thank Him for another day, another moment, another second.  I take shit for granted, and even worse, I waste more time afterwards bemoaning how I take things for granted.  Totally unproductive.  Because beating myself up (or anyone else) over what I didn't do or should have done does not get anything done, does it?  And fussing and cussing about how hard life is, how unfair it all is, also totally a waste of time.  Because none of that makes it any easier to swallow this bitter pill of loss.  

And yeah, I know a lot of this waxes really poetic and perhaps a bit high-brow, but I am feeling a bit poetic right now, as I listen to folk acoustic on Spotify and my husband of 28 years snore from across the room.  See, today was our anniversary, and it amazes me that 28 years have gone by so quickly, and I taste and see again how fortunate I am to still be in this life, to still be able to savor everything life has to offer:  the good with the bad, the happy with the sad, the joys with the sorrows, and the births with the deaths.  Because if it did not hurt so much to lose someone, wouldn't that be even worse?  Because hurting and yearning to see them again means we loved them, that they were something special to us, and that they added meaning to our lives.  Memories are always there for us to reach back into and taste that sweetness of their presence again.  And if we are sad when we taste that memory yet again, well, then we can count ourselves blessed for having known them.  

Like I said, today was our 28th anniversary, and I tried to taste and see it all, to taste and SEE the goodness that God has given me.  Sophie jumping on my bed this morning, the low pressure system that hangs over us all day, generating a  huge migraine, then the sudden thunderstorm that equalizes the pressure and blessedly releases me from the migraine, the delicious and delicate flavors of a homemade pad Thai prepared by my daughter as an anniversary gift, the evening air as we drive down the road, and the rich, creamy taste of Dolly's ice cream.  All of these tastes--tastes of the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the skin, the mind--reminding me that God is good, He is in charge, He is wonderful, and He does have a purpose.  To everything turn turn turn.  There is a season turn turn turn. And a time for every purpose, under heaven.

Thank you, Daddy, Connie, Dad, Sheila, Steve, Ronshella, Tim, Patrick, Karen, Bill, and everyone else who has gone on to that great beyond. Thank you for adding to my life, for flavoring my existence, for leaving me with so many precious, wonderful, crazy, bittersweet memories.  

I will try to taste and see God's goodness in every moment.