You cannot prepare them for this

She couldn’t speak.  She had spent the afternoon crying.  She was in shock and devastated.  The best she could do was send me a message on Skype.   “I have something that you need to hear.”   This is the message that beeped into my skype stream late one afternoon.  The tears and sorrow flowed through as the words poured out of her.

I watched the instant messages from my daughter as she shares with me that one of her dearest friends had suddenly passed away.  Noone knew what happened, noone saw it coming, noone could believe it.   I knew that she was not prepared to deal with this.

Are we ever ready to deal with this?  Certainly not.   She has experienced the loss of great grandparents.  She lives 1200 miles away from my childhood home so these were family members that were not a part of her day to day life.   This time…this was close to her home.  Lee was special.  Lee was someone who she had spent three years with at college…hanging out in each others dorms, going to school events together, studying together, eating together, taking road trips together, laughing together, crying together.   He had graduated a year before my daughter, but they remained close.  Lee and his girlfriend had recently spent some time over the holidays in our home.  Our home was one of the stops on their “couch surfing” tour as they visited good friends.

Lee had the biggest heart.  It was evident to everyone who came near him.  Just to be in the same room with him, you knew that you were being wrapped in love and kindness.  In the end, it was his heart, it was just too big.  He shared what he was supposed to share with us mere mortals, and now God has asked him to expand his influence from heaven.

How do you prepare your children for this kind of devastating loss?  I don’t think you do.  The hardest part is that my daughter lives 200 miles away from me and I could only give her virtual hugs.  All I could do was encourage her to take the time to travel to Lee’s home town to honor his life.  He is also from Colorado (my home state), so my family members were called, plans were made, weather reports were consulted, and she and a friend set off for Colorado.

I feel better that even though I cannot wrap my arms around her in comfort, my family will be able to.  Thanks Steve and Arlene, and everyone else back home, for taking care of my baby girl!