Tears of sorrow do not stain these coffee colored cheeks. Nor does my heart ache with the burden of regret. There are no wishes from me of extended mortality. Nor the anguish of wondering about your soul's eternity.
You see, today I celebrate my birth, but today I also celebrate your death. For your death forces me to analyze your living, your life. A life that as I flip back through the pages of my memories of you, I read you. I read your life and it was a good book. I stop some where near the beginning of our book of memories, and I read about that time you asked me to help clean the church. Clean the church? Your voice was so soft, so gentle, so entreating. There was no way I could say no. So we came on Saturdays to God's house to clean. There were so many other ways in which you, elegant, sophisticated you, could have served, but that is what you chose to do in His house. That is how you chose to serve Him because His house should look like Him. We cleaned the toilets and the pews, the doors and floors. We, you, kept His house clean and in order. Clean, pure, without the stains of life that was you.
The tears that stain these coffee colored cheeks are not tears of sorrow. My heart does not ache with the burden of regret. I did not wish for your extended mortality and I do not anguish over your soul's eternity. Today, I celebrate my birth but today I also celebrate your death because your death forces me to meditate on my life and my living. Your book had a couple more chapters in it than mine. Today I start chapter thirty-three and I hope, I really, really hope and pray and ask God to please help me live my life like you lived your life. Totally and completely unashamedly for Him. I hope and I pray that my life will touch as many lives as yours. I hope and I pray that I can be a lady because you always were a lady and a fashionista. Before I took the title you embodied the title of royalty, of a queen. Just the way you walked and carried yourself spoke of that royalty. Today I pay homage to you my queen.
Though the tears that stain my coffee colored face blur my vision right now, I am not crying tears of grief, sorrow, regret or anguish. I do not have any questions for God because He let us have you for an appointed time. Before Christmas you came to our Bible study group to say good bye and I had the privilege of taking you home. It was the first time we had been anywhere alone together. You being you, would not let me help you inside your place. I think I knew then what we who are left here are living through now. Yet even then I could not find it in me to question God and throw that temper tantrum that I wanted to throw, asking why. Even now I find myself waiting for that anger or that grief but it doesn't come.
I do not want to run the risk of sounding cliche, but I am just happy that I knew you. That I know you. The essence of a Godly woman and you, your character, your faith, your memory is immortalized in my heart. Yesterday, I wanted to call you to tell you that I loved you, but I felt those three words would not have been enough so I didn't call. I didn't text. I didn't email. I know now that it was the moment of that thought that you were meeting Jesus. Death can not steal the joy I had from knowing you, touching you, loving you because you are one of those few people who left an imprint on my life. I will miss you and I will continue to love you from this distance, knowing that one day we will meet again. I wondered what I would write about today, my birthday. I'm glad I am writing about you.
Today I celebrate my birth but today I also celebrate your death because your death forces me to make sure I live a life worth celebrating. I know you did, my sister, my friend.
Kendy Ward
