I’m coming out of a year of more disappointment and loss than I have experienced in most of the past decade. The losses were not as dramatic as the death of my father, or moving away from a city full of friends I loved. The losses have been like an incessant, low, slow prairie wind blowing away a summer garden bit by bit. I’ve lost more friends, relatives, and former colleagues to death in the past few months than through the entire time of the pandemic. The count is at fourteen since spring flowers bloomed. Many were not as close as immediate family, some I spoke or wrote to regularly, and some I had not spoken to in months, if not years, but they still had an influence in forming who I am and we had a connection. The degree of pain from their loss surprised me. I want another deep conversation, another project to work on together, another evening of laughter.

This past month, I have taken time to process these and other losses before heading into the new year. Recently, I have also been disappointed by people, including myself, (especially myself) who promised more than they could deliver. I’ve seen exciting possibilities fade and blow away like dried leaves of grass and brittle browning petals. It’s hard to let go.

Usually I head into a New Years Day with optimism and a declaration that this is the year of breakthrough into greater things. I do believe that greater capacity to hold on to love and the empowering grace of God lies ahead. I do believe that his unfailing kindness will be with me all the days of my life and that I will see more of his goodness in the land of the living, but there is a bittersweet aspect to the view from here. In this place of the now and the not yet, there is a reconciling with the fact that all of us eventually die and the world goes on without us.

When my father was old and knew he didn’t have much time left on this earth, he talked to me about feeling the responsibility of keeping memories of dear ones alive. He was the last one who remembered his little brother and baby sister who died the same year and whose wooden grave markers in an untended cemetery have long since disintegrated in the harsh northern climate. He reminisced about characters who were old when he was just a lad. One time, without realizing it, he reached down to pet the dog, long since gone, who saved his life once. He warned me to prepare my heart to let go when I reached an age when old friends departed more frequently. “All flesh is grass,” he said, “but our spirits live on. I know I will see them again.”

It’s in seasons of leaving the past behind and choosing to move on that we realize how much comfort comes from knowing that whether we live or die, the Lord never forgets us. He never leaves us. His love is eternal. His mercies are ever new. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.
 But from everlasting to everlasting
    the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
    and his righteousness with their children’s children—
 with those who keep his covenant
    and remember to obey his precepts.

(Psalm 103:15-18 NIV)