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The Last

Everyone talks about how hard the big firsts are: Christmas, Easter, Birthday, anniversaries. The first time you ______ (fill in the blank with the event or daily task.) These also are hard, but in a more private way.

What I wasn’t expecting was how hard the last would be. Most of the lasts happened in the first year of my widowhood, but I kept the clothing he wore. Not the “work clothes”, suits, ties and dress shirts that he hated to wear — but the “fun” clothing he wore around the house. I packed them in plastic, keeping his scent on them. They were safe from time. They would always be safe.

My life had changed, it had become impossible to keep the house we shared. Time to move, in his closet they sat, both a reminder of the good times and what I was missing. It had become obvious that it was time to rip the Band-Aid off and donate them to a shelter. It meant unpacking them from their safe hermetically sealed plastic, washing, folding and giving them away. They weren’t the last pieces of his life, but they represented the mundane, the daily tasks of caring for him. The daily task of showing love to another person. The intimate part of life together really was over. This was why I held on to them, –I didn’t want that part of my life to be done.

I packed everything up and went to a laundromat. “Quicker to do the loads all at one time and in public, I won’t break down.,” I thought. I brought with Wayne Gruden’s Systemic Theology, what better antidote to crying, use your mind. Also, since it weighs five pounds, I can drop it on my foot, then have a reason to be crying. It was quiet, no one else there when I started. Washers loaded, time to wait.

I didn’t open Gruden, but found myself searching the recesses of my mind for all the verses on God’s faithfulness and enduring love. Here in the quiet, I see His steadfast love that endures forever. (Ps 118), it never ends, His mercies are new each morning, great is His faithfulness (Lam 3:22-23). God is faithful, keeping covenant and steadfast love (Duet 7:9). God is faithful and loving to me, a covenant breaker. For His steadfast love endures forever, is repeated in Psalm 136 twenty-six times. Twenty-six times God promises to love me forever!!!

Folding his clothing for the last time, the tears came, little ones, not a down pour, but the kind that drip out. I had a lighter heart. A bit of joy creeped in. I knew His steadfast love endures forever. I’m on a journey, that I’ve described as grief, but it’s a journey to God, who’s steadfast love endures forever.

Thank you, Father, You are the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. You hold our lasts in Your hands. Your love is steadfast, enduring forever, never ending. With You there will be no last, only joy in Your eternal love.