Hey folks,

Today is Dad’s 70th birthday and we’ve got one last hurrah on CaringBridge to celebrate the day.

Last year, we gathered around him in a resounding, off-key chorus of Happy Birthday with a pink sunset flaming in the sky and our Great Aunt Marge’s chocolate cake sliced amongst the 22 of us. In some ways, we all feared it might be the last Happy Birthday we could sing to him, and in other ways we dared to hope we would see a miracle reminiscent of the pink sky above us.

Now we find ourselves, one year later, without our Pops to sing to here in flesh. If I’ve learned anything since Dad died in June, I’ve learned that the grief of death can rob us of the joy in life. In our faith, death does not get the last word, resounding life and life anew walks away from a grave. We mourn for Dad, deeply, with every other thought; however, we will not let his death be the last thing we know of him.

On his birthday, we will take a moment to dwell in all the things his life is teaching us even now. I took a little family poll preceding this post and asked for one to two sentences summarizing what Dad is teaching us these days or what his voice sounds like in our head. You know what I got in response? 1,490 words. I shouldn’t be surprised. There is no way to convey all the things he taught us, all the ways his words are still with us today. I can tell you that his life reminds us all to slow down, love well, look people in the eye, enter into conversation, celebrate the small things, play with the kids, revel in the ordinary, show up when you’d rather stay home, and remember that God loves us and he leads us. That truth puts everything else in its right place.

At the end of all this, I know many of us have deep, gaping holes in the fabric of our worlds. I know that death sears in a way we cannot capture with words. I also know-- even when I doubt-- I know, there is something after this and it sounds a lot like seeds cracking open under our feet and it looks a lot like new things blooming in a garden and we get to be reminded of that truth as we watch the world grow and die around us. At the end of all this, we will find life and I’m thinking Dad is already there. Happy birthday, Pops. We love you. We miss you.