Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [72]
As we got closer to the cemetery, my heart was beating faster and faster. I wanted to jump out of the car and run as far away as I could.
Then, even though I was anxious, it seemed as though everything stopped and went into super slow motion. I looked around the car that carried the people most important to me. Will, with the pink blanket around his neck, clinging to his girlfriend Ruthy. Emily holding tightly to Tanner’s hand. Caleb and Julia holding on to each other for dear life. And right in the middle of it all were Shaoey and Stevey Joy. Too young to completely understand, they kept our minds from going completely crazy.
I held Steven’s hand. And after taking a long look at my surviving children, I blankly stared out the window the rest of the way to the beautiful but awful place where Maria’s shell would be planted to wait for the new body that Jesus would bring her one day.
We drove past many of our friends gathering to celebrate the graduation of their high school seniors from Franklin Classical School. In fact, some of our closest friends, Geoff and Jan Moore, who were at the memorial service for Maria, were now watching their son graduate instead of being able to come to the burial service.
It seemed so strange . . . one family celebrating the ending of a chapter of life called high school and the beginning of a new chapter of hopes and dreams called adulthood . . . and at the very same moment our family was grieving the reality that our earthly hopes and dreams for one of our children had suddenly and tragically come to an end and that the future of our family had been forever changed.
We arrived at Williamson Memorial Gardens and walked to the spot we had selected just two days earlier as the place where Maria – and eventually Steven and I, the sooner the better as far as I was concerned – would be buried.
I smelled fresh dirt and grass as we took our green, velvet-covered family seats. There were beautiful flowers, plants, and fresh-cut roses for people to hold so that they could throw them on the casket when it was time to say goodbye.
Many of our friends gathered around and our pastor, Scotty Smith, began to speak. He talked about this day being a day of planting . . . planting a seed that was the body of Maria. He read from 1 Corinthians 15:
What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:42–44
Scotty talked about what it meant to plant a seed and wait . . . that until a seed falls to the ground and dies, it can’t come to life. But because of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and His promise of our coming resurrection, and because the gospel is true, this seed of Maria’s body that we were planting was going to be raised imperishable.
He talked about the promised spring that is coming when all things will be made new. He reminded us of those hopeful words of Revelation 21 and the coming day when God will wipe every tear from our eyes.
Somehow we were able to grasp that. Not fully . . . not even close to fully. But just enough that we were able to throw beautiful roses on the casket, believing that the story of Maria’s life was far from over . . . that there was in fact a spring when we really will see her again . . . more alive than ever.
These are the truths that got us through that unbearable day and have kept us breathing in the days since, even when we don’t want to anymore. We know – even when we can’t feel it – that that ultimate spring really is coming.
After everyone else had left the graveside, I told Steven to go on to the limousine with the others and that Will and I were going to sit for a while.
I put my arm around Will’s shoulders and hugged him hard. “There are no words for this,” I said. “It’s as hard as hard gets. But I promise you one thing right here by your sister’s grave: it’s going to be a long, long journey that won’t end until we get to heaven, but it’s going to be okay.”