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I feel lost without my sister, my dearest friend. She died just before Christmas. She had leukemia. She was only 49. She left a 6 year old son, Josiah, and a loving husband, Stephen. With tears, my mother asked me the question we were all thinking, "What will we do without Marilyn?"
Marilyn was unique-one in a million. Even her DNA was impossible to match for a bone marrow transplant. One person, one personality-never to be duplicated or replaced. Gone.
I will miss a million things about her, but I will especially miss three things she said to me over and over. These simple lines of love can give relationships health and hope. I want to keep on saying them. You can say them to people in your family too, because we really do need each other's encouragement.
"I'm so glad you came." Whenever I walked into her home--12 hours driving distance from mine-- or picked her up at the airport, Marilyn said with genuineness, "I'm so glad you came!" It is one of the last things she said to me in the hospital.
Maybe Marilyn learned this enthusiastic welcome from our mother. I was driving one of my nephews from his school to my mother's house some years ago. He was five years old, and from the back seat I heard him muse, "She's gonna be SO glad to see me." He looked out the window and added, "My other grandmother isn't very glad to see me."
He was right about one thing. My mother was SO glad to see him. She greets us all with joy and wonder every time we come through her door. She claps her hands, then opens her arms to enfold. She immediately notices a new haircut or compliments a winning soccer score or asks about a recent exam. She has the same, "I'm so glad to see YOU!" for the grandchild who comes every week as she does for the one she sees only once a year. Her welcome says, "This particular child is grand." This is part of God's grace in our family--His love in human flesh.
"I'm so glad you came," says that each one in the family is very valuable. God shows us this love by His open arms to the prodigal son and by Jesus' gentle knowing love to Mary as she discovered Him risen. This welcome is outstretched arms, unselfconscious warmth not dependent on the response received. It creates an atmosphere of enthusiasm for God's creation of "our family." We really do need each other's unique personalities.
"I know that God is powerful and I know that He loves me." That's another thing my sister Marilyn always said that I miss so much. She said that just hours before her death. Her certainty is a great comfort to me.
Marilyn ended almost every one of our daily phone conversations with some statement that reflected this basic faith. She would say, "Well, I've got to go, we just need to keep praying." Or, "Don't be discouraged, God is working. Goodbye, Love you." We could share any problem, talk for hours about a worry or disappointment, but in the end she would remind me that God was in control. He loves us.
Every thank you card and valentine card that she ever wrote to anyone had a scripture at the close of it. She knew that we need a knot to hold on to.
One of the simple ways that she held on (and it was a battle) to this faith in Christ was counting her blessings. In the hospital or on the long drive to the doctor, she and her husband often said, "OK, let's list what we're thankful for…" I witnessed their determined childlike faith that was more than a statement of faith-it was defiance against doubt and evil.
Marilyn fought cancer, had dealt with infertility, and before that had prayed for a believing husband for many years (God brought her Stephen when she was 40!). But she had learned through suffering that God loved her dearly, "I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." Isaiah 49:15-16 was a verse she repeated often. She believed it until she died. Now she knows it by sight.
Marilyn 'lived" in the Psalms and her honest relationship with the living God was passed on to her son, Josiah. Last year, after being home schooled, he started public school, so that his mom could go to her chemotherapy. He was very unhappy at first, and he struggled not to cry during the day. His dad dropped him off one morning and noticed in his rear-view mirror that his eyes were squeezed shut. "Josiah, are you praying?"
"Yes, Dad, I pray everyday that I won't cry in school. What would we do if we weren't Christians?"
Madeleine L'Engle wrote that our familiar comfort to children, "Don't be afraid. It's alright." is at the basis of our ultimate hope. They are words that that tie us to a gracious Father--else they are foolishness-- because we know that we don't have any action-plan that can truly make everything all right. We really do need each other to speak faith into our circumstances. Especially scripture's truth.
"I will miss you so much" that's what Marilyn said at the end of every visit. Goodbyes were always tear-filled. And now, with tears, we say, "We will miss you so much." I miss her because she knew me so well. Because she cared so much. She cared about my children, my husband. Not in general, but in specific. She knew. She prayed. She loved.
We wonder how we will organize family holidays because she was the one who cared enough to make specific plans (make reservations at the museum!), to buy extravagant gifts (she had great taste in ties), to make sure the food was right (we have to make corn casserole), to invite people who needed to be there (let's invite the Le's). When I would say, "This is good enough." Marilyn would say, "No, it has to be better. It matters." That intensity and caring made our holidays great memories.
We wonder, too, how we will laugh again-laugh hard. Marilyn had the wit, the sharp insight that saw things with a slant. Her quick comments brought us all to tears with laughter. She was willing to say what we were careful not to say. Her insights into human motivation were razor sharp. She remembered funny family stories that we all have forgotten, and she told them at the right moment.
The writer to the Hebrews reminded, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God" (12:15). Marilyn was a giver of grace in our family because she knew she had received grace. We give grace by knowing deeply and loving anyway; we receive grace by admitting who we are and accepting love.
When one person goes to God, we have lost someone so significant--everyone else in the family seems bigger, more important than ever before. I look differently now at each encounter: I listen and watch my other sister, Sara, talking (even though I think I know what she is saying already). I lean back to visit with my mother-my errands don't seem so crucial. I hug her longer when I say goodbye. I call my own daughter every day, or she calls me. I want to check on the connections because I know that they are irreplaceable and fragile. We really do need each other. Period.
In a family, each person matters-the difficult ones too. And we each matter to God, so much that He wants to live with us forever. Until forever, He wants us to love each other. He wants us especially to love each one in our family. Virginia Stem Owens wrote, "Everybody's death is a death in the family, somebody's family. … It is the family that does the final sweeping up of the dust we are all made of." We really do need each other always.
I will miss Marilyn everyday. But I won't miss her forever. I know she is with God. I know that her love lasts. I know that God had a plan for her good and has a plan for mine. I want to keep saying to my family those words that she said to me: "I'm so glad you came." "I know that God is powerful and I know He loves me." "I will miss you so much."
 -- Emily Y. Lemley |
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