Anna Resurget

Below is my journal entry from June 6.  We had recently returned to Indonesia from our three-week time in America.  While in the states we had three memorial services for Anna–in Richmond, VA; Louisville, KY; and San Mateo, CA.  At the end we were exhausted and ready to go back “home”.  We thought at the time that we were through the hard part and could get on with making something out of the wreckage that was our family.  We were wrong.  Very wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Samuel recently brought home a school assignment with an odd question.  His class is reading Anne of Green Gables, a book and series that Anna loved and read several times.  His assignment included a question about the meaning of a phrase included in the first chapter:

With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green
Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about on one
side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim Lombardies.
Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would have
seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla
Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One could
have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial
peck of dirt.

We had to find the meaning of the final phrase “the proverbial peck of dirt.”  After a bit of looking we found out that the peck of dirt is the amount of dirt one is said to eat in a lifetime.  It is the dirt that remains on food or is ingested in other ways.  Its use as a proverb relates to the lifespan of a person.  Once the peck of dirt has been eaten, a person’s life is said to be full and complete.  A person who dies prematurely could be said to have died before he ate his peck of dirt.

As with everything else, my thoughts return to Anna.  Did Anna eat her proverbial peck of dirt?  Or did she die too soon?  I had satisfied myself that Anna had led a complete life.  My mother said the day after Anna died that Anna did more in her nine years than most adults do in their entire lives.  But also, spiritually, Anna lived a full life.  She knew she was a sinner.  She knew the Lord who died to save her from her sin.  She read through the Bible.  She shared her faith with others.  She loved people deeply.

And then I remembered back to an odd memory.  When Anna was a toddler we could not stop her from eating dirt.  One particular memory stands out.  We were at the beach and we saw Anna near the water on all fours with her little rear end sticking up in the air.  Her face on the ground.  She sat up and turned around and we saw wet sand covering her face.  Her teeth and mouth were full of the sticky goo.  And she gave us a big smile before going down to dig up some more.  I laughed to myself as I remembered that day and thought to myself, “Yes, Anna did eat her peck of dirt.”

Below is my journal entry from May 20.  We were in California before the memorial service there.  Although we had been in America for a few weeks at the time, you will see the effects of jet lag on me.  At the time I, thirteen days after Anna died, I was still trying to process what her loss meant to our family.  I was beginning to see how the loss of a person is different for every family.  Every person is unique.  Every relationship is unique.  Every loss is unique.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our decision to leave America for Indonesia was made with prayer and consideration.  Of course our children were a big factor in that decision, but ultimately we did what we perceived God calling us to.

The response from others was varied.  Those who knew us well were generally supportve although also sorry to see us go.  Sometimes the responses were bewildering if well-intentionied.  I recall one older woman asking us, after she heard we would be going to Indonesia, “Will you be taking your children with you?”

“No,” I thought, “they are about six and four.  They will be just fine on their own.”  But out loud I smiled and said, “Oh yes, we will take them.”

The  general consensus among family, I think, was that the children were going to suffer.  They would be deprived of all that is familiar and be thrust into a strange world.  We tried to dispel those ideas as best we could, but with our limited knowledge of the country were unable to really quell their fears.  And besides, for the most part they were right.  It was just that Timberley and I were not convinced that “all that is familiar”–when talking about American youth culture–was such a bad thing to be deprived of.

Of course there were larger issues than just the children’s education and social well-being.  The world at the time was in the midst of being overturned by Islamic terrorism.  This was after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but before the US invaded Iraq.  The people of the United Staes were angry, frustrated, zealous, but at the same time confused because of a real lack of knowledge about this mysterious enemy.

One evening as we were packing some things at our house to prepare to leave, my father expressed his own misgivings.  “Todd, I understand about wanting to move overseas, but I don’t understand why you have to go someplace where they hate Americans.”

My father is not a bigot, but of anyone I know, he has good reason to harbor resentment towards Asians.  When he was just ten years old he received the news that his father had been killed by a Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.  My grandfather, along with over a thousand others on board the battleship Arizona, died that morning on December 7, 1941.  My father has never talked much about that time.  He doesn’t talk much about his response at hearing the news.  I guess now that I have seen my own eleven-year-old son deal with the loss of his sister, I can better understand why my father does not talk much about it.

The surprise for me came when my father went to Japan.  He was nearing the end of a long career working for American Airlines.  The company had recently opened up a route to Tokyo and they needed a ground mechanic to work in Tokyo to coordinate with the Japanese workers there.  My father volunteered and for more than six months he lived in Tokyo with my mother taking several trips over to see him.  Later on, as he reflected on different assignments he had taken, he told me that his time in Japan was among his favorites.  I remember asking him if being with the Japanese was difficult in light of the history with his father.  He seemed honestly surprised by the question.  I don’t think he had ever considered it.  He really loved Japan and the Japanese people.

When my father asked me why we had to go someplace where they hate Americans I answered that we had to go where we felt God leading us.  But I knew that with my father things were far from settled.

About six months later we were in Indonesia doing language study in the town of Salatiga in Central Java.  We had some neighbors next door who had been very helpful to us.  They had a son named Adi who was a student at the local university.  One morning the two of us went out jogging.  It made me feel good to run with Adi because, although I rarely exercise, I could still run faster than him.  I think the fact that he smokes far too much than is healthy for him does not help.

But on this particular morning as we were walking and jogging along our street Adi asked me, “Mr. Todd, why do Americans hate us so much?”

I laughed at his question, which confused Adi and caused a bit of a cultural embarrassment for him, but then I said, “Adi, before I left for Indoneisa my father asked me why I had to come to a place where they hate Americans.”

Adi looked crestfallen and confused.  “But we don’t hate you, Mr. Todd.  We like you.”

“And we like you, too.  It’s just that most Americans dont’ know very much about Indonesia, just like many Indonesians never get to meet an American.  Each one thinks the other hates him, but really we just don’t know each other.”

But as we were packing up our house, going to meetings and orientation, and getting over a dozen inoculations to fight illnesses I had never head of, our families were worried about us going.  It did not help things that we had tickets to fly on March 23, 2003.  On March 22 the US invaded Iraq and drew even more hatred from the Islamic world, including Indonesia.

The news of the invasion of Iraq on the day of our departure brought phone calls from worried family members across the country.  We tried to be as reassuring as we could be wth our limited knowledge.  We finally made a phone call to our contact in Jakarta who was going to be receiving us there.  He assured us that things were fine and to come on.

“There is rioting in the main part of the city,” he said, “but as of this time the main roads leading from the airport are still clear.  As long as we can get you out of the airport then you will be fine.”

Those were not the most reassuring words at the time.  Later after we arrived in Jakarta we had lunch with the man’s wife.  She said, “I told him not to let you come.  It’s not a good time right now.  He just looked at me and said, ‘There’s never a good time to come to Indonesia.'”

I have been teaching from the Psalms on Wednesday evenings in our church.  This past Wednesday was the third week and next week will be the last.  It has been a very rewarding experience for me and I hope it has been helpful for the church.  It has been helpful for me because of the content, of course, but perhaps more so because it is the first opportunity I have had to do some teaching since Anna’s death.  It has helped me to get back to what I do best, and to help to see some things apart from Anna.

This past Wednesday I discussed the topic of life, death, and resurrection in the Psalms.  The topic was chosen by me mainly as a platform to speak on some issues I had been reading about.  I was not sure what I would find in the Psalms about it, but I thought that I could at least use it as a starting point for seeing what is in the rest of the Bible.  In the end I was pleasantly surprised by what I found there and we had a good time with the subject.

In concluding my teaching I mentioned a misunderstanding I had at the time of Anna’s death about the resurrection.   I shared a story of an incident that happened shortly after her death.  When I arrived home after Anna died, her body was in our front room and I had a few moments alone with her.  As I sat with her I prayed that God would raise her from the dead, just as Jesus raised the little girl in the Gospel story.  As I prayed I heard what seemed to be a clear answer, saying, “I have already raised her.  I have already answered your prayer.”  I was filled with a tremendous peace at that moment.  I knew that Anna was taken care of.  I thought of her as being with the Lord, but more than that, I pictured in my mind that everything was finished for her.  We even spoke of physical infirmities that Anna had here on earth that were already healed in her new body.  She was with the Lord, and all was right. 

While these thoughts brought me some comfort, I was aware that there was a major problem with my thinking.  The resurrection has not occurred yet.  It will not happen until Jesus comes again.

At first, I had a nagging feeling that the way I was thinking about Anna, that is, thinking that she was already enjoying heaven in her new body, was not right. But  I knew of no alternative as a framework in which to think of her.  A book that was sent to me by a friend really helped me to understand where the flaw in my thinking lay.

By thinking that Anna was already enjoying her newly resurrected body, I had pressed a future event–the resurrection–into a present setting.  I think I had always unconsciously thought and spoken of the dead in this way.  And yet the Bible is so clear.  The dead will be raised anew at the appearing of the Lord Jesus.  It is so clear and repeated so often in the Bible.

At first I was uncomfortable with the thought.  Questions filled my mind.  Where is she now?  What will happen to her earthly body, which was burned up?  I was forced into thinking about some issues regarding life after death that I for so long had pushed to the background of my faith.  These questions I had always thought of as unanswerable and did not want to do the heavy lifting needed to really explore them.

The real discomfort, however, came because I wanted so much to think of Anna enjoying all the fruits of her rewards.  I wanted her to have her new resurrected body.  I wanted to imagine her dancing before the Lord.  But if her body was not yet raised, then where does that leave her?

My despair at this point was countered by another thought.  I realized that Anna was still waiting for the return of her Lord Jesus Christ.  She is waiting just as much as I am now.  I remembered a discussion that Anna and Samuel had one day not long before she died.  One of them, probably Anna, said that she so much wanted Jesus to return before she died so that she would not have to see death.  Samuel replied that if one of them died first, then that one would get to see Jesus first since it says in the New Testament that the dead will be raised first and be caught up with Him in the air at the time of the his second coming.  Those still alive would have to wait until after that first meeting takes place before they meet the Lord.  The children debated which would be better.  To remain alive or to die but be the first to see Christ at his second coming.  What a precious conversation to hear!

Now Anna has died.  But she is still waiting for Jesus to come when her body will be raised anew and she will be caught up with Him in the air.  I know that she is anxiously awaiting that day!  And I am filled with a great deal of excitement, even in the midst of my grief, knowing that Anna and I are still living part of a great adventure as we both await the coming of our Lord.  Anna and I can say together, “Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus.”

Below is my first journal entry after the death of Anna.  I wrote it during our flight back to America.  In it I describe some of the situation on the day Anna died.  THERE ARE SOME GRAPHIC NOTES ABOUT HER INJURIES.  Parents may want to read it first before letting their young children read.

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Today is November 6.  Tomorrow it will be six months since Anna died from her bicycle accident.  Tomorrow I will post my first journal entry that I wrote after the accident.  I have been hesitant to post it up to now.  I wasn’t sure if it was necessary, but on reflection I think it might be helpful for those of you who do not know some of the details surrounding her death.  Please read it if you would like.  Feel free to pass it up if you do not care to know about it.  No problem here.

I am also preparing a longer post discussing some issues related to the resurrection of believers.  I originally planned to include it in this post, but because it began to grow long I thought it deserved its own post.  I will try to have that ready for you tomorrow as well.

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day.  The really hard days seem to be getting less common.  When they come, however, they come with a vengeance.  Immediately after Anna’s death we were told that grief comes like waves over you.  No.  I have spent a good deal of time in the ocean.  I like waves.  They lift you up and set you down.  You can play in them.  If you are not careful they can sometimes be dangerous.  No.  The grief has stopped coming like waves.  When it comes now it is more a punch to the stomach.  There is an almost physical pain inside that does not go away.

Anyway, yesterday morning Timberley found me in the kitchen pretty messed up.  I was still functioning, getting coffee, making breakfast, whatever it was, but let me just say that everything was pretty wet.  I have no idea what spurred this, but in the middle of whatever it was I was doing, I had a sudden and extremely clear memory of Timberley’s phone call to me when she called to say that Anna was dead.  I could hear every word on the other end, but more than that I could hear the screams of anguish coming over the phone.  I could hear every sob in her voice as she screamed out those words to me.  For just a moment in the kitchen I was transported back to my car in Central Java where I was when I received the phone call.

I am getting better now at controlling my thoughts, especially when I am in public, so that I can choose the times when I mourn and when I cry.  That didn’t happen yesterday.  If this one was a wave it was like a tsunami.  All I could do was hang on for the ride.   But hang on I did.  And soon the tsunami passed.  Life moves on.  But then, it doesn’t.  Maybe they were right when they said that grief comes like a wave.  It just happens to be a really nasty wave.

“The ache I feel inside is where the light has left your eyes.  I’m alone for our last goodbye, but you’re free.”

I reminded my parents of the following story.  A few of the details were not exactly right, but they said it was pretty close to the way it was.  Apparently my dad was not quite so brusque with the policeman at the end of the story as I portray him, but my parents liked it well enough the way I put it.  My mom reminded me of the incident at my brother’s house in Chicago when they were en route to San Francisco.  I added that event here. Read the rest of this entry »