Happy Mothers Day and a few more thoughts, to my siblings, and the rest of you have been cc'ed lovingly

To my two Brothers, and my Sister,

This is draft #2, and we’ll see if it sticks. I hope you three are doing well. The hardest part of living in Utah is feeling helpless to really be there if any of you need something from me. I wonder how you’re doing, but it’s rare the phone conversation that lasts long enough to get a really good sense.

Do you miss Mom? Do you miss Dad? I do. I teach Wyatt to know that the black and white picture of dad opening the refrigerator is “Granpa,” which he’s pretty much figured out. It seems my memories of Mom are mostly tied to photographs, with occasional multi-sensory scenes: I remember she would take us to baseball games, I remember trying to match my voice to hers at Good Samaritan during the hymns, and that warbley chord we would strike once in a while. I remember when Dad would be the battle cat, and we would ride on his back. I remember once he took me to Zones, just he and I. But I have a lot more memories of him recently. I remember visiting him at the Shop occasionally, and being impressed with all the stuff he was doing. I would actually hope he had calls to make so I could sit and listen to him wheel and deal over the phone.

I remember that every once in a while, he would say to me, “I miss your mom.” I never knew what to say to that, and I usually said something hollow, like, “I know Dad. I miss her too,” of course in those moments, I never meant it like he must have. I didn’t know what it was like to be married to your best friend, your confidant, the one person who helped you try to be the best you, the person that was next to you in the car, on the couch, at night in bed, and then, they were gone. I never could have known what that was like then, but I know now. Or rather, I have a frame of reference, in which I can imagine very vividly what that would feel like. It would be the loneliest feeling. I think, what Dad was looking for at those times was someone to cry to, or someone to reminisce with. Someone to say, “I remember mom had a violin, but she only got it out once that I can recall, did she ever play it for you?” Or maybe, “I miss her too, I remember her coming in to wake us up in the morning when we were little,” or “Do you remember you used to get her a new frying pan every year? What was the deal with that?”

I can imagine what maybe he meant when he would tell me, “I miss your mom,” like he had been holding in that very phrase for months, maybe years, knowing nobody missed her like he did, but finally not being able to hold in that little confession. I can imagine the disappointment every time he tried, to find out he’d been right, I didn’t really know what he meant. And even now, my experience falls short of the understanding I imagine he was searching for. I can imagine losing my wife, but I can never know what it was like to lose Martha Bland McCrery as my wife.

We’ve lost two parents, and I’ve learned remarkably different things from each experience. I have been taught a number of things from the loss of Dad, but one thing comes up pretty often, and it is this: people move on. Like a perfect diagram I see people in position around Dad, relative to their personal relationship with him, and the further out they are, the sooner their point fades, or cools off, or I don’t know. To say anyone “gets over it” is insensitive and inaccurate, and to say they “accept it” feels equally inadequate. But the fact remains: everyone seems to feel the thud at first; but one day you notice that very few people can still relate.

I think it’s part of a plan. I think it’s a gift. If Dad were only a man I knew from a chance encounter at the grocery store, I would have had very little to learn from losing him. It seems the closer you are to a person, the more you have to gain, or grow, or perhaps learn, from losing them. And the other blessing is this: without disregarding the important differences in who the four of us are, we still know what it feels like to lose Sharrel Clinton McCrery as a father. We know it hurts, and within a few degrees of each other, we know how much.

I think this is a gift. I think it’s purpose is to help us understand Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Christ volunteered to atone for us. Not only for our sins, or our mistakes, but for the consequences of them, and for every other sadness that seems to loom over us infinitely at times. He volunteered, essentially saying, “I will suffer everything that can possibly be suffered, to reset the balance.” Because Christ was perfectly just, every injustice that he suffered through, was like a credit to the human race, he paid the price for each mistake so we wouldn’t, eventually have to do it ourselves (your can’t avoid justice in an organized universe). And it had this wonderful side effect (amongst many, many others): Jesus Christ felt what it felt like to lose Martha Bland McCrery as a wife, and He felt what it felt like to lose Martha Bland McCrery as a mother at the age of five, seven, eleven, and twelve. He felt what it felt like to lose Martha Bland McCrery as a daughter, and as a sister, and so forth. And he felt how it felt when you lost your Dad. Not some approximation imagined from a similar experience. Jesus Christ knows the very feeling of a phone call to tell you that your Dad, Sharrel Clinton McCrery, is dead. He knows the feeling of fear, of sadness, of anger. And because He is perfect, he was able to survive that infinite sadness.

When I lose someone I love, it is a chance to understand a little piece of what Christ felt. And the added gift for the four of us, is to have three people, beyond the Ultimate Comforter, to turn to when you just need to cry, or reminisce. And I wanted you to know that I know you’ve still got open wounds from this whole thing, and so do I.

With love,

Bill