A long overdue update
On death, moving, and saying goodbye to June.
I’ve been meaning to send this email for the last month. As you probably know, moving sucks. It is all-consuming. It tramples all other desires. It raises a stiff Resistance to putting words on a page.
But, yes, we are moved. We are in. We are slowly but surely beating back the corrugated hoards. (Just last night I put my books on the built-ins in the living room. It was good to see so many old friends again.) We are reclaiming the land of Normalcy—or something approximating it. Yet when I look back on the last 30 days, I can a) hardly believe June itself is moving on, and b) scarcely begin to process and categorize all that has happened.
Let me do my best Inigo Montoya impersonation. There is too much to explain, but there are one or two things I would like to try to sum up—as a way of saying that I have missed you, dear, reader, and that this newsletter / blog is still a thing.
We moved off of Uranus and into our new home on Friday, May 27. Four days later, on June 1, Granddad passed away in the hospice wing of a dementia care facility in Greeley.
The last thing I wrote on the blog was about Granddad. About his life, about how he adopted my dad, about how he helped repair the playhouse at our old house. I posted it about two weeks before he died. It was a tribute before I knew I’d need it.
Granddad got pneumonia and went downhill quickly. He was in hospice care for maybe 48 hours. The night he died, Lindsey and the kids and I were going to say our last goodbyes. Right before we left home, we learned that a friend who had been over a couple days prior to help unpack had tested positive for COVID.
We talked to my dad, who was there (along with lots of our family) with Granddad, and we decided it was wisest to not go.
That night before bed, I sat huddled with our kids on the couch. We were praying for Grandad, praying that God would bless the dying and soothe the suffering. James was crying, lamenting all the death from this year: my Grandma Phyllis (my mom’s mom), his biological father, Rick, and now Granddad Jake. It was just after 8:30 p.m.
I put the kids to bed, came back upstairs and checked my phone. A voicemail from Mom. A text from my aunt, saying Jake went to be with the Lord at 8:33 p.m.
So there I was, in my new living room, with three of Jake’s 17 great-grandkids, praying for him at the moment he moved from this life to the next.
June reads
Now that I think about it, that’s the main story I wanted to sum up. We had many other adventures this month as we got the old house ready for its first tenant (yes, we are renting out Uranus) and finished renovations in the new one (like me replacing the gas line for our new stove). But I was not intending for this letter to be extensive. I have ambitions to find a more consistent writing flow in the second half of summer.
For now, though, I want to leave with you two June-centric posts from the newsletter archives. June, like hope, is a memory, and there’s still time to remember.
As always, thanks for reading.
Hope is a memory
I wrote this in June 2019, before our girls were adopted. It’s about the fullness of June. Of all the months, June brims with possibility, daylight, and reminders of a longing for something better that, depending on the day, we’re not sure will come.
It’s interesting to look back on something I wrote three years ago. But reflecting on those days in the midst of our current family moment has been helpful. Because while this June has been too full at times, I am thankful for the abundance of God’s steadfast love through it all—deaths, birthdays, and Adoption Day celebrations.
The Golden State Warriors and the faithful presence of God
Tell ya what, it was good for the soul to have the Golden State Warriors back in the NBA Finals this year. And winning the NBA Finals. Lots could be said here—about the Warriors’ beautiful brand of basketball, their top-to-the-bottom-to-the-top-again arch, how fun it was to watch the games with my kids—but I won’t get into that now. Some of our family’s most significant storylines have run parallel with the Warriors’ playoff runs, and being able to partake of this year’s title chase felt right and familiar and normal.
One last thing…
There’s no Poet’s Corner in this email. So I’ll leave you with a song that aches with hope and memory befitting of June.