A DIVINE DANCE
This excerpt from 2017 will remain one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. I bring it out of the archives each fall as I remember the amazing life my brother lived for 20 years on this earth. I will always remember him with tears of joy. I count it a great blessing and immense gift to have been the little sister to such a genuinely full-of-life human.
‘A Divine Dance’ — written Oct. 2017
“The dance of life finds its beginnings in grief... Here a completely new way of living is revealed. It is the way in which pain can be embraced, not out of a desire to suffer, but in the knowledge that something new will be born in pain.” -Henri Nouwen
…Alas, fall is here! The aspens are sprinkling the mountains with a golden yellow, and finely planted trees along Denver’s streets are embracing a colorful change. I imagine back home in the Appalachians leaves are now dancing in the wind with color as they give way to dying. It is a beautiful sight, I am sure of it.
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Flashback to the mid-nineties here and you’ll find three kids joyfully in love with fall. We were the childhood helpers that accomplished as much as one adult in twice the amount of time. I can guarantee the lack of efficiency was actually more fun. I still remember how tiny my rake was for raking leaves, and how inefficient a kid’s one is when it’s just the size of a very large hand. I thought my part in the process really mattered though. Perhaps the people surrounding me made me feel that way... Probably so.
Behind us in the photograph is a kiddie pool. It was the leaf transporter my dad rigged up to easily carry piles and piles of leaves to the street above us. We had very specific jobs for this task: “Scooper-whooper,” “Puller-whuller,” and “Push- er-whusher.” But in this instance here, after dumping more piles of leaves on the street, we were racing for our lives down the driveway. At least that’s how I felt with the littlest legs. (One must never fall too far behind as the youngest.)
I know without a doubt my mom took this shot that has now become a favorite. She was the designated photographer (thanks so much, mom), and I’m glad she snapped so many photos then. These moments help jog the memory, and remind me how sweet a life I’ve been given.
God was very kind.
Knowing my mom took this shot also makes me realize the whole family was outside, together, that day. Dad was the leaf raking leader, mom was documenting, and the kids were busy making a chore something much more fun. Life together was a very sweet thing.
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Fast forward a decade or so later and you find a different sort of story about family unfolding. At this time in October in Tennessee, the leaves were still dying, still falling, as they did. My dad was still raking them up. The kids were now grown up, and still helped some, though the roles we filled were different and less exciting. No longer was life as carefree as scooping up colorful, crackling leaves; and no longer were leaves the only things dying.
Life proved to be more life-altering than a changing of seasons that year. My family changed that season too, and there was absolutely no part of it that felt pretty.
The fun, lively guy on the right in the photo died at a time when most would say the colors of his life weren’t given enough time to change before falling. I guess if it’s time we crave and strive to free up for ourselves in this busy culture of efficiency, then perhaps that seems true. However, I learned in the grief of his sudden passing that time and change are difficult things to measure.
Loss is a difficult thing to measure too.
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Fast forward another decade, and more, and you’ll find a family of not five, but four still forging their way ahead through the aftermath of deep loss. Time does little to advance the mind, and heart, from erasing a pain that will always--at varying degrees--linger. It is the same for others grieving their own losses too, I know.
In the states of suffering we all find ourselves in at any point in life, the ‘dance of life’ must go on: We grieve, we put our grief to rest, we fall, we change, we grow again. The colors never cease changing. God, in His mercy, continues to mend.
Praise Jesus.
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I look back over the years of my short existence and see within time the mysterious way of pain: of feeling it and finding healing within it. I notice in the surrounding beauty of all that God’s created, a story of renewal in this world that’s bigger than my story. I believe it to be a Divine dance, full of the vast array of human emotions and experiences we tend to devour in novels, but actually live out too. I trust a Creator that’s designed a world as beautiful as the season of fall (in addition to so much else) to know what’s been done in time and why.
And I believe God to be kind, as He ever was in all those years, long suffering or not.
In loving memory of Erik Streufert 08.21.84 - 10.12.04
