Remembering the Future?

While I was making breakfast this morning, I found myself humming the chorus to a song I wrote a few years ago: "Can't you remember tomorrow? Nothing was ever the same..maybe it's only a dream's memory--like a rainbow reaching for rain."

Bizarre use of tense for an English major, I know. But for several years, I have felt the past, present, and future overlapping in such bizarre ways in my mind. I've had incredibly vivid dreams where I am sobbing holding my baby girl, only to wake up and realize that she is gone. There is no baby girl at all. The ache in my arms is still there, though. Unexplainably. Several years ago, after a friend of our family was killed in Iraq and my cousin was badly injured in Afghanistan, I woke from nightmares of violence and personal injury to find that I was safe in my own bed. I was safe at home, but they weren't. And the ache of the past's collision with the present lingered in my heart.

Time is not a linear thing. It is of all things most circular. Returning again and again to the images, stories, and moments we know matter deeply. The past does not reside exclusively in its own world, but continuously crosses the border into our world--the present.

This afternoon, as I was surfing the web for some books on the Christian church, I came upon an online copy of my mom's 1993 book, Jason: My Child. (For more info, click here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963120034)..The book tells the story of my brother's long battle with leukemia and my family's experience as they watched him fight with God's strength and childlike faith. I never knew my brother, but I love him and think about him more than probably makes sense. BELOW: Here he is in the hospital at 6 years old (Gainesville Sun/ May 31, 1985).

You likely won't be surprised to know that I have never finished reading the book (despite the fact that my lovely mom authored it) because it leaves me so emotionally vulnerable; my eyes sting for the rest of the day, as if I was cutting onions. But today, I decided to reread the last few chapters--the same ones I read so many times when my parents' house was empty and I wanted to feel God's presence through Jason's words.

My mom writes:

"It had been a long time since I had been to his grave. The polished granite marker read —Jason Vitale February 7, 1979- January 30, 1991 Home in heaven —Jesus died for me. Emptiness shook me. What had I expected to find here, after all? The words of the verse, Why seek ye the living among the dead. He is not here... echoed in my mind.I imagined Jason shaking his head as he watched his mother, standing alone in a cold cemetery; just because she wanted to be near him.

I thought of the warmth, brightness, and beauty of heaven.

Jason was with the Lord. My emptiness vanished; I did not belong here. Looking upward, I smiled and blew Jason a kiss...

At times, when missing Jason, I picture him here, a part of the chaos we call family life. He is holding Ashley — a sister he has never seen — or laughing at Sarah’s antics, helping MaryEllen or Bryan with their schoolwork or teasing Bethany. It is nice to think that he is not missing us."

I'm Ashley, the sister he has never seen. And there's a part of that picture in my mom's head that I've replayed in my own many times. Why am I the one he never met? Why did God take him from our family so early that I got to see the inevitable results of grief but not the immense faith of my 11-year-old brother? The questions I raise are not angry or bitter, but truly curious. There must be a reason.

I like to think that God gave me Jason as a story (instead of a sibling who could stand beside me) because He knew how much a story could get my attention. He knew the way I'd fall in love with the written word--reading by age 3, correcting my sister's grammar when she was 3 grades beyond me, memorizing whole books before I could brush my own teeth. God saw the day I would weep uncontrollably in the car while reading Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie and the day I would read a simple kind email from one of my blog readers and fall in love with the man who wrote it. A man who just so happened to go by Jason's middle name.

I like to think God gave me some sort of resemblance to Jason that my older siblings never had, just like they had a relationship with him that I never had. Some days, I wake up seeing my dad's facial expression when he has told me, "You have no idea how much you remind me of Jason. Your smile and the way you think about things.." He's smiling a smile that's hard to explain, but I know it's proud. 

I kept reading backwards (as I often do) and caught something I don't remember seeing before: 

"We are forever thankful to God for allowing Jason to touch our hearts. Through him we learned much about God’s sustaining grace, love and power. While he taught us a lot about dying, he taught us much more about living as we witnessed a peace that comes from trusting God completely...

Jason once told us, “God puts us here and gives us a job to do. When it is done he takes us home to heaven. God is going to bless me by taking me home early. Do what you are supposed to do, raise your family for God and I’ll see you when you get there.”

Wow. I wish I spent every day remembering the truth of those words he gave my parents. 

Having recently married and moved, I often wonder what God has planned for the remainder of my adult life. Work, family, service, who knows? But Jason's right. No matter what, God's given me a job to do. Right now, my focus should be to do what I'm supposed to do today, raise my family (no matter how big or small) for God, and wait to see him when I get there.

I feel a little like that rainbow tonight; hanging in the sky, reaching backward for the rain whose beauty came before me. The house is getting dark as the sun moves past it, and I feel a little dark as the reality of how short life truly is hits my heart.

As I hold my nieces and nephews during the precious times I can, as I interact with my in-laws and my brothers and sisters and my friends, as I engage in important public conversations, as I seek a career and opportunities for service, as I do all the things I do in my ordinary days...I pray God would show me the job He has given me to do and help me do it well. 

I want to trust Him like Jason did, even when my best-laid plans get thrown by the roadside in favor of "new" plans God has made for me. I want to "do what I'm supposed to do" even when it isn't easy and I have a million excuses for why I can't. 

I love you, Jason. Thanks for teaching me lessons even when you aren't here to tell me in person. Thanks for trusting God when it wasn't easy so I would start to learn how...

I'll see you when I get there!