We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. Hebrews 6:19
I am putting my fingers on the keys and forcing myself to type. I have waited to write these words, hoping that a little distance will make them easier to look at in black and white, but that does not seem to be the case. So I will weep and write and get these thoughts from my head to the screen...because I never want to forget.
We had already sent Dad on the first flight home two days before, on the 4th of July. I had taken to putting on snorkel gear and talking to Papaw underwater, believing if ever two people had a fighting chance at telepathy, it was the pair of us. On the 5th, I forced myself to tell him it was okay to let go. I thought maybe he needed to feel somehow that it was all right with me. Did you know you can cry underwater? It is possible. Mom and I did a lot of crying in the Gulf of Mexico. I also remember sitting on the balcony alone, rocking and singing hymns. It is well.
I was sitting in a chair on the balcony watching the storm roll in over the Gulf around 3:30 the next morning (we were all still up) while I read The Paris Wife on my Kindle with a light. When Mom's phone rang with the call from Daddy, I knew. I turned off the light and braced myself for the impact of what she would say. "He's gone." It's been almost a month now, and those words still feel like they could crush my chest. I trembled all over, and my teeth began to chatter. Then the weeping came. Then silence. Matt said, This is the ache I was talking about. He went to get a roll of toilet paper for me (he knows my crying well enough by now to know you just get the whole roll). Mom tried to see if there was anything she could do for me. I half-yelled that I needed him. Just him. I needed the man who, when I was a baby, would pick me up, and my magically silence my crying. I needed the man who understood my worries because he had the same ones. I needed the man who showed up like a shining knight when I forgot my lunch at Central Elementary. I needed the man who could walk into the middle of my panic with half a can of Diet Rite and a few quiet words, wrap his arms around me, and stop me from hyperventilating. I needed the man who could hold me up through the visitation and funeral of my father-in-law as I tried my best to be strong for my husband. For the first time in my life, I was facing my biggest fear without him there to carry me on the shoulder he said he retired when I grew up, even though I never stopped using it. I was lost.
Watching that storm, I knew Jesus was telling me He had him. Matt stretched out over two chairs; I crawled into his lap and lay under a blanket like that for hours, waiting for the sun to come up. It never did. It stormed all night long into the morning. Matt was perfect, gently answering my questions and tenderly helping me come to terms with this loss, following less than six months after we lost his father.
The next day, I was trying to explain my feelings to Mom. I was trying to say that it wasn't just like losing someone you loved a lot and would miss terribly. It was more because he was more. She just looked at me and said, You lost an anchor. The words hit me like a smack in the face because they were perfect. She gave a voice to everything swimming around in my head, and once I had the words for it, I felt a little bit steadier. She followed that with a reminder--You have other anchors, too. I felt and still feel unmoored, but I do know I have other anchors...perhaps one in particular. Matt reminded me that he had to take care of me because Papaw told him to do so at our wedding. He shook Matt's hand and said through tears, You take care of my baby. That is the reason I am sobbing in this picture.
Calling hours were held at my uncle's church. I did not have to face the hardest days of my life in the funeral home that provided many of my happiest moments. I was grateful for that. To be in the place where he taught me my states by working puzzles (Louisiana looks like a boot; Kansas and Nebraska are easy to mix up); where we watched Fraggle Rock every morning (because he liked it); where we prepared for Coffee Club and opened the funeral home each day (wind the clock, make the coffee, unlock the side door for our Bicknell buddies); where he made my pancakes (and ate the sausage because I didn't like it); where I dumped all my candy after every Labor Day Parade (except for the year we rode in the convertible with him because he was Parade Marshall); where I found my trampoline on Christmas (because Papaw insisted it be set up for me indoors first as a surprise...he did the same with my Army jeep); where he taught me how to build garages out of Duplo blocks (while watching Fraggle Rock, mind you); where he ever-so-carefully placed labeled tabs on each book of the new bible he bought me (so I could look up verses faster); where he slept in a two-inch-wide space (because I'd pushed him all the way to the edge of the bed and slept right up against him--and he didn't have the heart to move me); where I tore through the halls to his office after almost setting the microwave on fire yelling, It's an emergency! It's an emergency! (with my younger cousin tagging along yelling, What's an emergency?!). The memories, as they did in Florida, come over me in waves.
I always marveled at how put-together people look at funerals. How do they get ready when their lives just fell apart? The morning of Papaw's visitation, I was scrambling around like an insane person. Full disclosure: my sweet mama washed my hair and did my nails. Well...she tried to do my toenails. She got so overwhelmed and nervous and sad and confused by my tiny toenails that she did a few sweeping motions, and we called it good enough. I'm pretty sure I put on makeup in the car before forcing down a sandwich (which Mom made for me) and a Diet Coke (which Mom got for me...ain't she a peach?).
I had been grieving for awhile, in some ways. When my Grammy and I drove to Indianapolis before Papaw's surgery and I had to pray over him and try desperately to hold myself together, I grieved. When I stayed for the day in the nursing home with him shortly before the end, I grieved. When I kissed him goodbye before we left, I grieved, having a feeling it might be the last time I told him I loved him this side of Heaven. But walking into the church that morning, some part of me thought running would keep it from being real. I walked as slowly down the church's center aisle as I could, with my hands clasped as if in prayer. My father came and took me by the arm and urged me forward, telling me it would help. Telling me he was part of the host cheering us on now. I have never shaken so violently in my whole life; it felt like the lump sum of my worst panic attacks balled up into a fist and punched me. Thank God for my loving father who held me steady. Grace under fire, just like his father taught him. I made my way up, shaking and sobbing, put my head in my Granny's lap, and told her I was so sorry for not staying stronger for her.
No fewer than 500 people came through the line that night. I counted the names in the book because I wanted to know for sure. Oh, to live a life worthy of having 500 people show up to pay respects when I my work on this earth is done! The lady at the flower shop he had done business with for years; a guy he knew in embalming school; an Army roommate from Texas; a worker from his Emmaus walk; the family he'd flown home from his own Florida vacation for when they'd lost someone; his hospice nurses; a girl who said he was the reason she became a doctor; close friends--one-by-one, they came. People I had never met had tears streaming down their faces. The wait to get to the casket was ninety minutes long. Instead of ending at 8:00, we ended at 9:30. I was terribly, terribly sad, but my heart was full of pride. I was, and will always be, the granddaughter of Ralph McClure. Walking away from him that night was just as difficult as walking toward him had been that morning.
The next day was no easier. I was feeling unsure of the very ground beneath my feet when I turned around and saw Becky was there, just waiting for me to call on her for prayer. I am eternally grateful for the friends who hold me up when I don't have the strength. We sang "Because He Lives," a favorite of both of my grandfathers and mine. I knew I had to sing those words even when I didn't want to face tomorrow. My father gave the message at the funeral, and he did it perfectly. Papaw had asked him to, and I worried about him, but in the end it was exactly right. He captured him in stories and memories--like the way Papaw used to rush to work fires wearing only a helmet, if that! I particularly love the story of Dad calling him from our basement to make sure he was alright during a terrible storm. He asked Papaw to come down to our basement, and Papaw fired back, Why would I do that when I have a perfectly good view from the porch? But I will always remember the story about Dad seeing Papaw make his workers fix a casket after a funeral by challenging, Okay, boys, it's your grandma! Needless to say, the problem was fixed. I will never, ever forget the crack in my daddy's voice as he summed up Papaw's life by saying he always did the right thing, even when no one was looking...even when no one would ever have known the difference.
Leaving the church again was awful, so I played a bit of a diva card and made everyone wait for me. I didn't really mean to, but I didn't really hurry. It took me a long time to figure out a way to say goodbye. Driving in the caravan (behind cops and ambulances alike), I looked across 67 to see Tony Cabello standing outside his restaurant with his hat in his hand. I lost it all over again, and that was before I found out his family had prepared a meal for us and would be delivering it to my uncle's house while we were at the cemetery. We crowded under the cemetery tent, and I held Gran's hand. Before reading a few scriptures, Daddy talked about asking the nurses at Bridgepoint where the baby ducks in the pond outside Papaw's window had gone. Tears came to his eyes as he told us, The nurses explained that they had to take them out of the gates because they didn't have enough room to fly there. And Dad didn't have enough room to fly there.. Then he added that Papaw's only unfulfilled request was to go home. He was too weak and too sick to be moved. We could not have taken care of him there. But he's home now. After he spoke, I heard tones drop on the EMT's radio behind me. Through tears, I laughed and told Gran that was very fitting. Papaw was one of the first certified EMT's in Indiana and ran an ambulance service in addition to the funeral home. I thought it was just a coincidence until I realized the volume wasn't being turned down. A voice came over the radio saying that this was the final call out for Unit 1 (Papaw's number). He had completed his final work here on earth. Everyone put their heads in their hands and cried. It was one of the most moving experiences of my entire life.
Throughout this journey, I have felt my loving Heavenly Father take my hand in his and lead me through the pain. We are talking about a quarter of a century's worth of sheer terror at the thought of this event. I expected it to end me, I really did. God gave me time. He gave me time to find a great doctor who is helping me take control over O.C.D. and anxiety so that it doesn't rule with the iron fist as it had for 25 years. When Papaw had to undergo an extremely risky surgery to save his life, I cried out to God and begged him not to take him that way. Seeing him like that was horrifying to me. I couldn't bear to lose him like that, and God brought him through--the man went on to make it through a Life Flight trip back to Indy and a few more scares to boot.
The Lord let me lean on Papaw as late as January, when he was still well enough to work my father-in-law's funeral. I had to be strong for Matt, and I could not have done that without him.
Not long after that, I was visiting him when he said something I continue to lean on. He was sitting in his chair, with the I Love You More sign I bought for him sitting on his table (the only way I could think to win that game was to put it in writing), and he asked how Matt was doing. Then he looked me in the eye and quietly said, Time really does heal. I tried to block those words out at the time, because I was terrified they might be meant for me in time. I didn't realize how short that time would be. Now I'm grateful for them. He told me it wouldn't feel like it at first, but it would heal. I'm praying that is true with every fiber of my being. I am trusting that my anchor will hold, and I am rejoicing in the promise of Heaven. I will not mourn as those who have no hope.
I'm especially grateful that I got to hear him say, Hi Baby, and I love you, too. The last time he talked to me, he even told me I smelled good. I had just bought new perfume. He knew me and he loved me and he knew I loved him (more). Even in the end, finding out the way I did felt like divine intervention, as my great, great, Aunt Ruth would have called it. It came at a time when I had found a little peace and in a way that gave me assurance he was in good hands.
He also used it as yet another time to look at my incredible friends and count them for the blessings they are--driving three hours round-trip to wait ninety minutes in line just to give me a hug; or waiting in line for ninety minutes with a potty-training two-year-old only to get to the front of the line and hear that he had to go right then; or holding my family up so firmly in prayer I didn't have a chance to fall; or loading up the cars with all the food; or throwing your arms around me at just the right moment before spending the evening redoing Mom's questionable pedicure job and rubbing my shoulders; or sending me a sweet message to let me know you're there if I need anything but without any pressure to reply. Matt and I are blessed beyond measure with the people in our lives.
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 1 Thes. 4:13-14
I Agree With Papaw
Ralph K. McClure-Obituary
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