It’s Thanksgiving. For many, many years, we’ve spent this day with the Crutchfield side of the family.
Food. Family. Football. That’s been our day for the past 20 years.
And so, here we are, in Arkansas, with Vance’s family but without Vance.
I silently cried when we crossed the state line. I’ve been here dozens of times. I know my way around his hometown. But it’s his town, not mine. Without Vance, I’d have never come here. Coming without him just seems wrong.
But here we are, with people who love us and who love him. With people who just might miss him as much as we do.
As a family, we went to out eat shortly after we got here. It was karaoke night. There was no way we were going to go up and sing. But…Eli was sitting next to me and he told me I should do it. He even offered me a little liquid courage, which in my case, was his Pepsi. After sitting there a while, I told Whitney to put our names down.
So with my little Crutchfield niece, born just a couple months after I joined her family, I stood in front of a table full of family and a room full of strangers and belted out “Nine to Five” in my best Dolly impersonation.
It wasn’t great. It really wasn’t even good. But it was fun. It was a new memory in an old place.
And as I sang, I thought of all the times I’d caught Vance smiling at me over the years. As I belted out Christmas carols in the kitchen. As I danced, much to the embarrassment of our children, around the living room. And on our honeymoon, when I got up with a couple other girls and sang in front of a different group of strangers. He was my biggest cheerleader. My slightly off-key crooning always made him smile. Tonight he wouldn’t have been embarrassed. He would have be grinning and genuinely happy that I was doing something fun. I wish he’d been here to see it.
Two are stronger than one and a three-fold cord cannot easily be broken.
That’s probably the first Bible verse any of my kids memorized. It’s from the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes and long ago Vance adopted it as our family motto.
He would randomly just ask the kids, “What’s the family motto?” And from the time they could talk, they would answer him.
Family was the most important thing to Vance; second only to his faith in God. He wanted us to work together, to be a team. To be a strong cord that was hard to break.
Vance understood that the third cord, what made the braid truly strong, was and is Jesus. Without the strength he brings to our family, we are just puny little runts and unable to withstand adversity. But a three-fold cord, one woven together with Christ at the center, that’s one that will hold up when times get tough.
We certainly don’t have it all together. But we are together. We are always and forever woven into the fabric of one another’s lives, enriching them, jointly creating a stronger, more resilient, more useful, more wonderful cord that will not easily be broken.
These seem to be the words that stuck with people from the funeral. They’re the words the guys at Vance’s work put on the wall. What relatives are getting tattooed on their bodies. That my dear friend so kindly had put on a necklace for me. They are powerful words.
They are also apparently a major theme in the new Frozen II movie. Multiple friends and family members saw it this weekend and my phone was blowing up with them telling me to go see it. Apparently Anna has a major defeat scene and she just can’t hardly get up off the floor. But these words keep going through her head. I’m hoping to take the family over Thanksgiving.
Anyhoo…
Vance coached a lot of teams. A lot of teams. He was the kind of coach you wanted your kids to have. He taught them to learn from their mistakes, not to dwell on them.
If you swung at a pitch and missed, it wasn’t a big deal. Get the next one.
If the ball went over your head, so what? Do the next right thing and go get it. Throw it in. Don’t stand in the outfield and wallow in self-pity. Go do the next right thing.
If your man got past you last time, do what it takes to block next time.
If you mess up, take responsibility, apologize and move on. It’s never too late to do the next thing right. Yes, you’ll have to deal with the consequences of the wrong actions, but you can always, always choose the right thing next time.
Vance used to ask the kids that all the time. The answer was always “People.” People are always more important than things.
Practically, that plays out in a lot of ways. By putting down or turning off electronic devices when people need your attention. If you’re watching a movie and someone knocks on the door, you pause the movie and talk to the person. When your notifications buzz and you’re in the middle of a face-to-face conversation, you don’t look down at your phone. You stay focused on the people in front of you.
When your brother breaks your new toy, you forgive him. The brother is more important than the toy.
When your kid wants to become better at baseball, you put a pitching mound in your front yard and it kills all the grass. And the spots where he sets up his tee and net are rubbed bare but you’re raising kids, not a lawn. Because the baseball player is more important than curb appeal.
Vance tried to teach me this, too. I was a poor student. Often, I thought the house being cleaned was more important than the house being peaceful. That the chores took precedence over relaxation. I’m working harder to find that balance. To nag less and love more. To put people over things, as they should be.
It’s such an American thing to say. We don’t even mean it most of the time. Usually you could replace the phrase with a simple “hello” and no one would care.
But when your person dies and you see someone for the first time, “How are you?” becomes “How are you?”
It’s not a bad thing. It’s just…I don’t know….another thing that’s hard. Because now when people ask me, they have pity in their eyes. They don’t just mean hello. They mean, “How are you dealing with your husband’s death? Are you sleeping? Do you miss Vance all the time? Are you okay? Are you going to cry right now? Right here in the grocery store? Because I don’t know if I can handle that. Oh, geez, maybe I should go ahead and change the subject now.“
And my response can’t just be “fine.” Because I’m not fine. SometimesI’ve been crying in the car before working up the courage to come inside. Or my grief has manifested itself in anger and I blew up at my kids or maybe I just dealt with them not knowing how to deal with their own grief and I feel like a failure of a mother. But I don’t really want to say any of that. Because do they really want to hear it?
Or maybe I am fine. Maybe for just a few minutes I’ve managed to forget that Vance is dead and that I’m now a widow; that my kids don’t have a dad. Maybe I’m just thinking about getting bananas or gasoline or picking up the mail. But if I say that, do I come off as calloused? Does it mean I don’t love him enough? Will people judge me for being “good” in what they think is too soon?
So mostly I just shrug my shoulders and say something like, “About like you’d expect.” Because that’s the truth. Sometimes I’m far from okay and other times I see the light at the end of the tunnel and think we are going to make it through to the other side.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask a grieving person how they are. In fact, you should ask. But only if you’re sincere in wanting to know. And know that the real answer to that question is a very complex one. Just thinking about it might be enough to bring tears. Be ready for that. Be ready to listen. Be ready for a hug. And be ready for me to give you my best, toughest smile and lie to you saying, “fine, thanks for asking.”
And should I ever need reminding What power set me free There is a grave that holds no body And now that power lives in me
Another in the Fire, Hillsong UNITED
Jesus’s sacrifice was amazing enough in itself. I mean, God became flesh and took on the sins of the world because he loved us that much. But that’s not the end of the story.
On that cross, Christ died. He was really, truly and completely dead. It didn’t seem like a victory. How could this be the end of the story? How can one kill a God? Was it all a lie?
I can only imagine the thoughts running through people’s heads that day. The faithful doubting. Wondering how the man they saw doing such miraculous things could now be in the grave? The pious bragging and smug in their apparent victory. Mary, the mother of Jesus, wondering if she had been wrong all those years before when she had seen and heard an angel telling her that she would be blessed.
From Friday to Sunday, the world was in chaos. Darkness. Earthquake. Shattered hopes. A torn veil.
But on Sunday…on Sunday everything changed again.
The women who went to take care of the body found no body. The grave had been robbed! Not by men but by angels who had rolled the stone away and made way for Jesus to overcome the final obstacle; death.
Jesus didn’t stay dead.
His enemy and ours, Satan, couldn’t hold him down. He wasn’t about to let a little thing like a crucifixion keep him from the people he had so lovingly created. The cross and the empty tomb, together they tell the whole story. The story of a God who loves us so much and who is so powerful not even the grave can defeat him.
And should I ever need reminding Of how I’ve been set free There is a cross that bears the burden Where another died for me
Another in the Fire, Hillsong UNITED
Obviously, as a Christian, I know this part of the song is the most important. It’s the Gospel. It’s Jesus.
But maybe it’s not so obvious to everyone. I know there are people who don’t know the good news. Who haven’t been set free.
Set free from what? That’s a great question and I’ll come back to it in a minute. But first, can I tell you another story?
Once upon a time, before time, actually, there was God. Unlike any other being, God was one but he was also three. God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. It’s a hard thing to wrap your mind around, but isn’t that what we need in God? For him to be more than us? For him to be just a little bit un-understandable? After all, if he were just like us, how could he be God?
Anyway, this God, who exists beyond and outside of time decided to create. He spoke this world into existence. At his command, something came from nothing. He changed nothing into everything. And according to his own words, “It was good.”
After making the heavens, the earth, vegetation, and all kinds of animals, God wasn’t done. He was just starting on his magnum opus: humanity. And so he created man and woman. He gave them everything they need to thrive. He walked and talked with them and he gave them free-will. As we all know, they blew it pretty much right away and sin entered the world, corrupting and destroying it ever since.
A perfect God couldn’t be around sin. He was pure in all ways and corrupt people couldn’t touch him or even be around him. So he immeadiately put into place a plan for humanity to reunite with him. It would be hard. It would require a blood sacrifice. But it would be done. It would work. It would allow God and man to be together again.
Throughout time, God gave people many chances to get things right. He spoke to them through prophets and angels and once, even the mouth of a stubborn donkey! And sometimes they would listen for a while but always, always, the people returned to their sin.
There was no way for the creation to reconcile itself with the creator. Nothing humans did could make up for their imperfections; their transgressions against their maker. But the maker loved his people and he longed for them to be together. So he decided to become the reconciliation himself.
Jesus, the part of God that takes on physical form, who was there at the beginning of time, came to earth as a humble baby. He lived a mortal life for 33 years, walking the ground as a man.
He wasn’t what the people were expecting. He didn’t have an army or a political following. He had something better. He had love. He had forgiveness. He had the bread of life and living water.
Jesus wasn’t shy about telling others that they missed the point. That all of their religion and pomp and circumstance meant nothing if their hearts weren’t right with God. Oh, that ruffled some feathers. The religious elite, they weren’t having any of that. They hatched up some crazy charges and had the Romans put the Son of God on a cross.
It isn’t that he wanted to die. In fact, it certainly seems like he was hoping for a way out. Any other way.
But the only way to reconcile the sinners and the sinless God was a blood sacrifice. So Jesus took the lashes, the beating, and the nails through his hands and feet. In doing so, he took on the sins of the world. Every. Single. One.
And that blood sacrifice was enough. That blood sacrifice sets us free from our sin and free to know and love and be in the presence of the one who created us.
Jesus loves us enough that he quite literally gave his own life for ours. He went through Hell to make a way for us to go to Heaven.
In the days after Vance’s death, our twelve-year-old tore up the house. He took stuff out of drawers, cabinets, closets. At the time I didn’t think too much of it. Just that he was looking for some tangible things of his dad’s; something to physically hold onto.
I had no idea that it was so much more than that.
A year earlier, Ezra had woken up early and found his dad at the kitchen table, writing letters. None of us know why Vance was writing. He didn’t ever tell me they even existed. He made Ezra promise not to tell anyone that he knew about them. He kept that promise until about a week after Vance died, when he finally found the portfolio full of envelopes.
I don’t know what his plan was for them. He didn’t know he would die the next year. But he did know what he wanted his kids to learn from him.
And so he sat, early in the mornings while the rest of us were sleeping, and wrote a few letters. Each was in a sealed envelope with a kid’s name and the date on the outside. I’m not going to share with you what was in those letters, as they’re private. I haven’t even read all of them myself. They are just between the kids and Vance.
But I will tell you this. At his funeral, we got the big things right. His letters told the kids “people or things? People,” and “Do the next right thing,” the family motto of “Two are stronger than one and a three-fold cord cannot easily be broken,” and Nahum 1:7. Those were all in there. They were all things he wanted to pass on to his kids. They have become his legacy.
Over the past few days one of my kids has been reading those letters every night at bedtime. Seeing in Dad’s own handwriting, the important things. It’s hard to watch. The reading of letters from a dead person. The tears. The anger. The longing for just one more hug or one more time of hearing his voice. But these letters, they are priceless gifts that Vance left behind.
Dads. Moms. Write a letter this week. Just one. To someone who will miss you when you’re gone. Hand write it and tell them you love them. Tell them what you want for their lives and what you’re proud of. Tell them your big things.
Someday you’ll be gone and those letters will become more precious than gold.
And just like that, a year has passed since I took this picture of you, smiling while the kids and I sang to you.
I had no idea that 48 would be your last birthday. I’d naively assumed that was somewhere in the middle of your life, not so very close to the end.
You’d finally gotten the job you’d wanted for so long. You were giving up Coke and slimming down and getting healthy. We were planning vacations and home improvements and to watch our kids become teens and our teenagers become adults. Who’d have thought to hold on to every second like it was the last?
I miss you today, like I always do. But also maybe a little bit more, because today I should be able to gross out the kiddos and give you a big wet birthday kiss. I miss that.
Tonight I’ll make Shake-n-Bake pork chops, mashed potatoes and corn and we’ll think of you while we do our best to eat your favorite foods and remember our favorite things about you.
I don’t know if I can handle cake. It might just be too much but we’ll see.
I don’t know what today will bring. Hopefully the tears will be happy ones and the memories will be, too.
This life without Vance, all of it is hard. But right now the hardest part is parenting alone. Even on the hardest of days, when I didn’t know if our marriage would make it, I never once saw myself parenting alone. Vance was always in the picture. He was a dad who was present and involved. That’s a big part of what attracted me to him in the first place, knowing that he would be an amazing dad.
My kids are generally good kids, but like their parents, they’re human. They mess up. We’re doing our best to keep the life altering mistakes to a minimum, because, hey, that’s really what parenting is, isn’t it?
That said, as humans, we struggle. The kids. Me. We mess up. We fight. We yell. We stand our ground when we should back down and vice-versa. It’s hard. This parenting thing, it’s not for the weak. It’s meant to be a tag-team and it’s all the harder when you’re doing it solo.
I miss having Vance to bounce ideas off of. To hold me accountable and to act as the school principal when needed. I miss being able to lay in bed at the end of a hard day and cry while he told me it was going to be okay. I miss having someone else on this earth who loves these kids just as much as I do. Don’t get me wrong, they are so very loved by so very many, but no one loves quite like a parent.
Being the only one to go to parent-teacher conferences, the one who gets all the calls from the school, the one who chooses the punishments and rewards, who decides the curfew…all of that is now solely on me. It’s a big load and I’m not sure I can carry it.
So to all you single parents out there, I salute you. I knew you were amazing before but now that I’m in the trenches with you, I see it even more. I see you. I applaud you. I’m cheering you on. And if you’ve got any tips, please pass them on. I could really use them.
Grace in the Grief 