Mija Quigley of Princeton Junction, New Jersey, embraces the name of son Patrick Quigley at the 9/11 Memorial on September 11.

***** This is intentionally reposted the day after the day we all remember. Originally posted September 2014. For those whose 9/12 is just as hard as 9/11.

He heals the brokenhearted
 and binds up their wounds.

He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.

Psalm 147:3,4 (ESV)

Rosie and I resumed our walks around the pond this week. Summertime we are banned (well, dogs are) which is fine because I don’t like the woods in the summer. Inchworms and ticks and mosquitos…yuk.

Early this morning the cool air had settled across the pond, creating a thin layer of white mist, like a small cloud hovering over the still water and as I stood on the beach staring into it, I remembered it was September 11. I cry when I think of other people who have lost their children, even if those children are 40 or 50, so I stood there looking at the mist and then the perfect blue sky, just like that day 13 years ago, and I wept for them out of that place in my own heart that still cries.

The “We will never forget” that America vowed after that horrid day is an embarrassment now, like so many campaign promises. We did forget, except for this day, which has become mostly a soppy media event, where we again are subjected to smashing planes and burning towers and somber speeches. Then September 12^th, we can forget again. But for thousands of families out there, they don’t forget. Their lives imploded, just like those two towers that came crashing down in smoke and rubble.

Someone once said that grief is not a process; grief is love. If you’ve ever read about the five stages of grief, I might add another stage; where you realize that 99% of the books written about grief, like the five stages one, are garbage, unless you’re grieving over your pet hamster. Grief is gritty but intangible, just like love. In fact as I stood there this morning, watching the mist curl upward like smoke, thinking of the horror of 911, and how many lives were forever changed in an instant, I thought this: Love stinks.

It stinks when you’re lying awake at night wondering where your prodigal child is, trying to rein in the wild and dark imagery of your child in trouble or danger, or worse… The phone rings and your heart flops over like someone just put paddles to it. You’re so mad at that kid, you could kill him. Truthfully, I remember catching myself being angry at Spence for dying. That’s what love does. I tell people with school age kids to just kick back and enjoy. And rest up. Even if the teen years go well, you still have to let go. Yes, let them go; uncurl your little mommy claws from their coattails and release. Like I said, love stinks sometimes.

My son was still alive on September 11^th, 2011, but only for about four more months. I remember him saying he would go, he would fight. That’s when America said we would never forget. He had a soldier’s heart, the same heart that put him between a knife and a friend. Like Job, for many months, I cursed the day I was born. I wanted to lie down next to Spence and let the cool earth cover me. But instead I walked around with this gaping hole where my heart was, trying to smile, hiding to cry.

But here’s the thing; love is also the only thing on this crazy planet that gives our existence meaning, shape or purpose. That makes sense, because God is love. He is the ONLY one who can mend that sad little shattered heart, can rebuild the rubble piece by piece, stronger and better than before. It’s a simple equation and easy to remember; God=Love. No matter what.

We do have an option. We can choose to just not love at all. It’s safe and secure, like savings bonds. But unless you’re made of plywood, I’m sure you will spend your whole life knowing you missed it, the one thing that matters most, more than Emmy awards and Nobel Peace prizes or being cool. I remember holding a sobbing woman who was my age after a doctor told her she was going to die from liver disease. She cried with me because I was the only one who could love her. Angry, alcoholic, a life of loving a bottle first, she knew she might have to die alone. That really stinks.

Nellie was one of my patients yesterday. She was 93, almost deaf and about four and a half feet tall. No matter what I said, she thought she was in a hotel and she kept trying to buy me lunch. “No thanks,” I had to yell at her. She smiled, gesturing to the couch in her room for me to sit. Her son was a retired teacher, she said, and I felt a bond with her because one of my sons teaches also. She asked how many children I had and I told her, again having to holler, that I had lost a child, but had two left. Her little wrinkled face creased into a sad frown.

“Oh I’m so sorry! How did he die?”

I couldn’t see myself yelling, “He was murdered!” so I simply yelled,

“It was 12 years ago.” And she nodded, accepting it as not a real answer to her question, but the one I wanted to give. Her smile was grace.

I think that’s how God is when we say, “Love stinks!” It’s not the right answer. But He knows there are no five easy steps, and then you’re done. We will never forget, whether your insides are hanging out and you are gasping for breath, or the pain has settled like an old friend in your favorite chair. The grieving really do want to move forward, to love again, instead of clinging to creepy altars, lighting candles. But we are changed, limping and frail, unfamiliar with ourselves.

Yet God, who refuses to remember our sins after we repent, can remember the name of each star. He does not forget our pain. Almighty Father, Jehovah Rapha – the Lord who heals, leans down and says, “Show me where it hurts.” And He presses His hand right there, in that place. And we love again. That comforts me today, as I think of so many broken hearts.

Love becomes grace, which turns back into praise; the right answer.

And every day, He is worthy of our praise.

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure.    Psalm 147-5 ESV

*** Dear friends- in the beautiful but sometimes perplexing spirit of Father’s Day, I am reposting this from 2017.  I pray it will bless and minister to someone!

My dad —circa 1962

Pawwwwwt Chestah!!

I can still hear the conductor holler over the clack and rattle of the train and the steady kachuk kachuk kachuk of the wheels on the rails. Port Chester, Rye, Harrison. Back then, in the 60’s, it wasn’t an odd thing for a little girl to ride the train alone. The conductors that strode like drunk men up and down the swaying cars knew my dad, knew that he worked in New York City like most men from Riverside, Connecticut and that he would be there, at Grand Central Station, watching for the wave of the conductor as he would signal me to go.

“There he is!” they would call out, as I ran from the train to my father.

New Rochelle! These places didn’t look much different to me until we reached Harlem.

“One hundred and twenty fifth Street!” I learned that was the final call before the last stop. The station was filled with people that were strange to me, dark-skinned with ragged clothes. But it was more than the way they looked, or didn’t look. They moved slower, like they had no where to get to, like trains and time didn’t matter much, not like my town, where men in crisp suits and new briefcases often ran to catch the train..

The seats were soft blue velvet and smelled like my dad, cigarettes and shaving cream. I liked to pull up the window so I could feel the air rush in and hear the tracks beat out their rhythm…kachuk, kachuk, faster and faster as we pulled away from each station. I could smell the air change as we pressed forward, farther and farther from the salt air of Long Island Sound and the heavy perfume of tall maple and elm trees, into the colorless exhaust of Harlem. It was different in so many ways.

My father took me to Radio City Music Hall several times — Nutcracker Suite, the Rockettes — all the things he knew a girl would love. I remember gawking at the bare legs flying up in the air in unison, because these women must be the “chorus girls” my mother made reference to when I behaved in a coarse way, like belching or chewing gum. But what I loved the best was going to his office, high above Manhattan, being “Bob’s little girl” and the pride he showed as he smiled down at me while people filtered through. I knew that I, his big desk and the view over New York City, made him feel special, like he did something right, and I loved sharing that moment.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

I never thought of this Father too much growing up, the one in church. For one, heaven seemed very far away, so this Father must be too. My sister thought they were saying, Harold be thy name instead of Hallowed which made more sense because we had an Uncle Harold. Who ever heard of someone named Hallowed? Anyway, I had a father, right here and he was the daddy of the big desk and the Rockettes and whisky breath, the bedtime stories that would take you to castles with swords and knights and knaves, the scratchy kiss good-night from the thick stubble on his nighttime face. I can still see him waiting for me, outside the train, smiling like a big kid waiting for a friend to come out to play.

The visits changed. One day my mother called me outside, to the porch where she shook a glass filled with ice and bourbon.

“Your father lost his job,” she said. I was 12, I couldn’t grasp the full meaning of what that meant, nor did she try to explain. But I knew that things had changed, just like when my brother died four years before. The wind was turning around again. I looked at my feet and turned away.

The next time I met my dad at Grand Central station, he took me to a bar. Everyone there knew him, just like when he took me to his office.

He ordered a drink, and took out his cigarettes, shaking the pack and offering me one.

“I know you smoke. You steal my cigarettes all the time, so I’m giving you one now.”

I took it and put it between my lips.

“Always wait for a man to give you a light,” he instructed me, as he pulled his lighter out of his jacket and flipped it open with a swift shake. He reached across the table and waited for me to draw smoke, then lit his own. I don’t remember if we ate.

There was no Radio City Music Hall that night. We got on a subway beneath Grand Central Station, sitting in the front, near the conductor, so we could see the tracks ahead, the stations appearing bleak and dirty as we stopped along the way, the doors sliding open to swallow the rancid air. Finally the subway reached the end, then jerked backwards, sending us back again. We stayed in our seats, watching the tracks disappear into the dark, not saying much.

Even after I met Jesus, at age 31, years after the subway ride and watching the daddy I loved slide into a deep pit of failure and despair, I still didn’t trust this new Father. I was grateful though. I knew He had rescued me from the same snare that caught my dad, I knew He had had somehow fixed what was broken. The mess that teachers and cops and therapists had just scratched their heads at, God reached down into my heart and in a flash – it was like new. But love? I doubted it.

My father died at age 56, when I was pregnant with my second son. He had been sober for seven years and in an awkward dance of reconciliation, we tried to build a bridge over years of my pain and his shame. I wrote letters because it was safer, describing the raw beauty of the lower Cape, and he lived within the fierce gales and the unrestrained sea. He liked that the gulls kept flying, even though they couldn’t get ahead. Cancer took him away from me for good in 1981.

Forgive your father, my new Father spoke to me. I argued a bit — we had made amends. He’s dead anyway.

Forgive your father, He insisted. So I did. And a strange thing happened. I could love again. My old dad, and my new Dad too.

This Father’s day, love your father if you can. And if you can’t, I suggest you meet the new One. And forgive.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 NIV

No one. That seems a little exclusive, I know, but you are all invited.

It’s funny — when I remember my dad, I remember the dad who loved me, the dad who sat through the Nutcracker Suite, smiling, who showed me off to his friends. He was a good dad. But I am even more grateful to my real Father, the one who gave me life, who poured His love out into my heart – a heart that quit love, quit hope, like those people a little girl on a train looked out at in Harlem 50 years ago. I couldn’t name it Despair then, but I would come to know it well.

Thank you, Father, for your love that is pure and boundless and never fails. And for Jesus, who made a way for me to find you. Your name is not Harold, it is Love. Perfect love.

**** A beautiful song “How Deep the Father’s Love For Us” sung by Selah. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKDujmtyAVk