When I told Anna that my aunt Robin was probably going to die, her brow furrowed darkening her face for a moment.   

"When…" she asked me a bit alarmed, "…right now?"

"We don’t know, Anna.  It will probably be soon."

How do you explain terms like cancer, chemo, and terminal illness to a five year old?  Is it even appropriate to do so?  I find these types of real-life questions challenging.  Christa and I have decided that we want to provide a real picture of the world to our children without causing them undue stress and emotional trauma.  In some ways raising children is about applying and gradually removing the appropriate filters on reality so that by the time they are grown they can engage with it in healthy ways.

But death is an undeniable, unavoidable part of life. 

So we discuss it with Anna.  But in my short 33 years I have not had a lot of firsthand experience with it.   I moved to China in 2005.  Since then, my grandmother and now my aunt have found their way back to the Father.  Putting it that way (i.e returning to Jesus) makes it sound like a euphemism, but it isn’t.  I see it as a beautiful reality–one that far surpasses this one we slouch around in.  The things that she sees now we can only dream about, but even when it is the right thing and time, when the suffering is too much for us or them to bear, when they have lived the good (sometimes long) life, we find we still miss them profoundly–the hole that they leave in their wake aches within us.  And that’s where grief’s tension lies–we know it’s for their best, but it feels so much like our loss.

I recently heard a Chinese believer sharing warmly about her believing grandfather.  When talking about how he passed away, she used the term jiēzǒu (接走).  In Chinese, jiēzǒu means "to pick up" as in "I picked up my friend at the airport."  She said lovingly that God had [dropped in and] picked up her grandfather.  I really like this way of expressing it.  There is an intimate familiarity in this term that shows our Father’s gentle love and care for us.  When it’s finally time to go home, it’s always nice to have Dad swing by and get us.

So when I finally got the nerve to tell Anna that my aunt Robin had been picked up by her Savior, I was glad that there was good news along with the bad.  In the midst of processing what death’s loss really is, Anna remembered where Aunt Robin really is right now.  And her face just lit up like Christmas. 

"She is with Jesus now.  She knows what He looks like.  She can walk with Him.  She’s not sad anymore.  She’s in heaven…"  And as she said these statements (some in repetition) and as the joy welled innocently all over her demeanor, I thought to myself:  "Who’s parenting who here?"

Anna’s got it right.  She gets it.  She understands.  In the complexity of death and loss and sadness and grief, everything pales in comparison to Christ.  The glory of who He is should astound and delight us to the point of pushing everything else to the margins.  My aunt is experiencing that right now.  And while most of us are not quite ready to stick up our own thumbs for that quick lift Home, it’s so assuring to know when our loved ones are in His good nail-scarred Hands.

***
Robin, I hope you can read this from where you are.  Our grief is fresh, but thankfully so is our gratitude and wonder–knowing where you are now and, more importantly, Who you are with.  From here, looking out there somewhere, I can imagine you, with a big smile on your face, sitting on the front porch of your Indiana farmhouse.  (It’s a little souped up from the old version though…hope you don’t mind.)  You’re sipping a cool ice-tea (the cigarettes don’t do it for you anymore,)  the weather is warm but not hot, and you are staring out at an incredible pink sunset.  As your family and friends look on from the front yard (maybe we all just pulled up in a big van,) you get a mischievous look in your eye and yell, "I beat ya, I beat ya.  Where y’all been?  I’ve been waitin’ here for hours."  But you don’t really look too impatient and we hold no guilt over our tardiness.  Instead you look pleased, content, and at peace.  More so than we’ve ever seen you look.  And we’re just glad to see you again after such a seemingly long and hard separation– as the world around us hums in the chirp of cicadas and daylight blushes into dusk– from pink to purple.