Elegy

It’s one of those days where Melissa senses that she is closer to getting out than she was yesterday, that each day she is getting stronger.

On those kinds of days, one of the things that happens is we start to talking about the little things she wants to do, the little things we used to; the things that really aren’t so little. She’ll say things like she can’t wait to be able to drop the boys off at school, make a grocery list, do the shopping.

See, there was this time when how we thought of ourselves was that we were at work in the fields of the Lord. We have simply always wanted to live on a small piece of land, have a big garden. Like the John Prine song says, “Blow up your t.v., throw away your paper/move to the country, build you a home./ Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches/Try and find Jesus on your own.”

But since we were going to be a family in Methodist ministry, maybe we needed to refine our vision of the garden, or the farm. We began to see the lives that God had given us to care for, especially the lives of people who did not yet know they belonged to God, as our fields.

And in that time, we were in a church where the parsonage was right next door, and there was a big garden out back, and John and Joe helped me load veggies into their wagon. And up and down the roads I went, preaching and praying. John and Joseph were at home, with Melissa like as not playing with them, teaching them. And sometimes they would come with me to visit some of the older parishioners who loved to see the little boys.

Then came cancer and all of this idyll came to a screeching stop. So when we think of what do we want to do, I guess it comes down to getting back to normal, whatever that is. Not just the simple, normal things, but getting back to that work that we are called to as a family. In the end, that was a pretty simple, normal thing. One day, I think it will be there again. I think we’ll get back to the life we had, in whatever new and surprising ways that God has for us. The Little Seminary will be in full effect. It’s already good to take the boys places, visiting in the neighborhood. It’ll be a dream to have Melissa in town, in the church with us.