Lint, socks, tents, and grace

This weekend is our annual family camping on an island. I've described it in the past, what is is that we do. This year will be the first time that we do it without my sister in law. It was five days after the last family camp that she began to feel nauseous, a terrible Friday night and Saturday morning that my wife, my brother in law, my wife's best friend and I (who were all there) will never fully get over. Nor will the rest of the family and friends, who rushed up to the cottage within hours.

I am not entirely certain how this weekend will go. Since it has been a year, everybody's grief has gone from being an unbearable wound to a constant but manageable ache. But this was the culmination of our year, every year. This event is like Christmas to us, and knowing that our last days with her were spent at Family Camp last year will cast a long shadow over everything we do this weekend. It will be a rite of passage for my brother in law, I am sure. He has crossed all the other important events already – anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas – but this is the first time he crosses our family camping event, the most important event of our year.

My wife internalizes these things too. I know the scope and impact of each one of these journeys crossed without her sister, but she rarely makes it apparent to anyone else (myself included) how much it is affecting her.

But we have been overseen with great care and concern by God. It is difficult for me to explain how present, kind, and loving he was in the aftermath of last year, but I know that anyone who has lost family probably understands what I mean. Grace is not solely reserved for salvation. It is also concerned with the here and now, and we have benefited abundantly. Grace was a lifeline when we were floundering under the waves. It brought a smile to our faces when all we could think to do was cry. It brought laughter, when all we could hope for was weeping. And it brought tears that were like fresh rain, the great relief of crying unreservedly as St. Augustine described the loss of his mother St. Monica.

We will be watched. And my sister-in-law will be with us. She'll be a little harder to see, I know. But I know she'd never miss this weekend. We will laugh with her again.