Letting Go of Forever

Today I completed an errand and got some exercise and an object lesson all in less than an hour. I needed to run into town to pick up a few groceries and a Fourth of July treat for the children’s lesson in tomorrow morning’s worship. It’s only a mile, so I decided I would bike in, making a circuit through the country and stopping at the store on my way back. I usually haven’t gone in that direction when I’ve biked on my own because the highway that runs through town and the main intersection are so busy. When I’ve biked just for exercise, I’ve gone the opposite direction out into the rural countryside. Now and then, Peg and I would bike into town. She liked to ride the streets through the neighborhoods and sometimes we would head out into the rural area north of town just for a change of scenery. That’s the area that I headed for today to extend my riding time, an area I haven’t ridden through for at least two years. I suppose I was a little more observant today than I might have been when Peg and I biked together because we used communicators and talked to each other as we rode. So even though I must have seen it a number of times before, a big oak tree standing all alone in a farm field caught my attention. It’s not in the center of the huge field. It’s about sixty feet from the road, so as I approached it I could see it quite well. I noticed how symmetrical in shape it was and how stately it looked featured there all by itself – quite a specimen of an oak tree. As I got closer and began to pass by, my angle of view changed, and I noticed the tree seemed to have more branches and foliage on the west side, the direction from which I had come. It was still nicely shaped, like an umbrella, but the east side seemed much less full. Then I noticed a huge scar about a third of the way up where a big patch of bark was missing. Obviously at one time there had been a very large branch attached there. In fact, it might have been a fork in the main tree trunk. It had evidently been gone for quite awhile because the exposed wood was gray and weathered and the bark had rounded off and sealed over the way bark does along the edges of such a scar. I wondered what might have happened to that old tree. Standing out there all by itself like that, it could have been a lightning strike, or perhaps strong west winds had broken away a part of it from the east side. As I continued on through the countryside, I thought with admiration about that old tree. It probably withstood a lot of storms until one day a disaster took down a large part of its structure. But it had survived, healing over from its loss, filling out the best it could, and resuming its shape so that it continued to be a substantial oak tree out there in that field. As I rode on, I decided I had a lot in common with that old oak tree. I was riding past it alone because the storm of cancer had taken down a significant part of my life. Perhaps when Peg and I rode past that tree for the first time years back, that tree was full and complete too. Now neither me or that tree were the same. You can tell what it’s been through because of the scar but, as old oak trees go, it was doing OK. It is living proof we can survive with scars. It is possible to go on after the storms and be what we were meant to be resuming a semblance of completeness, even though on close examination anyone can tell there is something missing. If the part of that tree that was lost was a substantial part of the trunk, what remained straightened up pretty well and it looks like it could go on being a substantial oak in that field for a long time yet. Of course, the next storm could ruin it forever, or so disfigure it that it would never be the same again – we never know such things – but in the mean time, it continues being what it was meant to be. Many of the resources on grief I’ve consulted talk about healing and it taking time but I don’t recall any that have told me what I observed in that tree – that healing doesn’t mean there will not be a visible scar. In fact, I’ve been afraid there wouldn’t. I don’t want to move on and forget – I want to move on and remember. Just as the scar on that tree is a sign of what it’s been through, the scars of grief and loss are signs of my life experience as well. I’m discovering I can function on my own with some semblance of the past, although there is much that is missing in what I do and the levels at which I do it. Peg was a main stem in ministry and life itself, functioning for us both in some things, and with me in others. I’m branching out to cover some of the void she left, but I’ll never fill it all in, though I’m trying to keep the general shape of life in tact. I’m continuing to stand where I am planted in my field of ministry doing what I believe I was meant to do. For how long, I do not know – I leave that to the Lord who put me here. Although I only saw that tree for a few minutes as I biked past, I have gained a lot from it, so I’m sure I’ll bike by it again. I’m sure the ride will bring Peg to mind because we usually only went that way together but now I have a kindred creature standing alone I may want to check on now and then – an object lesson I probably will need to see more than once to absorb. Besides, that tree seems to lend dignity to being older, and I guess, at my age, it wouldn’t do me any harm to face facts and learn that either.