Reality Revisited

Every once in a while the reality of our situation revisits me.  Those painful things that normally run in the background find their way to the forefront.  It is inescapable, necessary and ultimately even desirable -- as strange as that may sound.

Over the past few weeks, despite all the media build up, I was mostly oblivious to the fact that Super Bowl Sunday was creeping up on me.  The press of ministry, family or other business mercifully intervened.  Perhaps God spared me the daily reminders.  But its coming was all the while inevitable.

Like so many things on this particular journey, I suspect both the conventional wisdom and the so-called "experts" would have told me that the days leading up to the event would be worse than the event itself.  It is a myth that, at least for me, has proven itself to be untrue time and time again.  Today, like so many other milestones and anniversaries, proved to be everything I imagined it would be and more.  I simply cannot separate the spectacle of the biggest event in American sports from the most painful moment of my life.   Everything about today is a vivid reminder of that terrible phone call -- that moment that changed our lives so dramatically.

I don't really love the pain.  Nor do I fear it.  What I do fear is forgetting.  I fear my memory fading, or even getting to the point where Jonathan himself seems more like a dream than an intricate part of my family and my reality.