Grey's Anatomy A Few Season Ago......

Grey’s Anatomy


I was all set to share my first experience at the Gemein House in Laurel Ridge (our church camp) and then everything shifted in my mind and in my heart.

Do you watch Grey’s Anatomy on TV on Thursday nights? Last night I did and I hope if you are an avid watcher you will forgive me if I do an injustice to the dialogue but for those who missed it, I want to let you in on what happened.

The father of one of the young doctors died on last night’s episode (this is all fiction) and one of his peers followed him outside and welcomed him into the “ Kids With Dead Dads Club”. She explained that her Dad had died when she was nine and that she was so sorry that her friend had to pay such a high price to join the club. He told her that he just did not know how to exist in a world with his father was no longer in it. She replied that the sad part is that we never learn how to do that. Tears were pouring down my cheeks and I was doubled over in grief-ridden pain.

My father died when I was thirty five, my mother when I was forty two. At the HELP circle at church a few weeks ago one of the women shared that when her parents died she had felt like an orphan. I wanted to hug her and say, “Yes, that is what I felt like, and some days still do. An orphan without a home.”.

When my two older children’s father died when he was forty-two, I had a few moments with my Mother before I saw them. I remember her holding me so tight, I was sobbing and telling her that I just wasn’t old enough or wise enough to say the right words to them and she replied, “Oh, my dear baby girl, we never are.”

I later returned to Missouri to go back to work. A couple days later one of the ministers I worked with called me. I answered the phone and no one said a word for a minute. Then finally I heard Tim say that this was one of the hardest phone calls he had ever made and that he didn’t know what to say to me. I told him the fact that he had taken the time to breathe my pain with me, even for a moment, was enough. And it was. Are the words ever adequate anyway?

And, after all these years, when the grief can still come with the force of a tidal wave and knock my legs out from under me, I know that there are those of you that breathe it with me. That you have gone through the same experiences and more. We are becoming family to each other in a different but loving way as we all continue our journey home

God will continue to dry the tears, give us strength and peace. Thanks be to God