Bonus Days
Dear Friend,
I love your questions. I am sitting with them and will respond soon enough. I am especially grateful for the way you asked “How do you believe in God?” but that you recognized, right our loud, that wasn’t really the question, at all. And that maybe it wasn’t even a question, but rather a confession of a longing - a longing I recognize well. When you asked the question, I didn’t have words to answer it, but I think a friend gifted them to me yesterday: Because I believe in what I behold.
I hope we can talk about that starting next time, and then continue the conversation all the way past eternity, and I suspect we might. But today is for remembering.
Monday marks five years since Abi died. There is a part of me that wants to soften that last sentence. Wants to say something like: …five years since we lost Abi, or …or five years since Abi transitioned. I honestly respect that part of me, and I want to honor it, but I also want to resist it. Abi died on December 4, 2018. That is the thing that happened.
I didn’t lose Abi, nor will I ever lose her. A friend said to me:
When you love someone, you don’t just love a physical thing. You love the way they are. The expressions they make. The way they walk and sit and laugh and get angry and wear clothes and hate cilantro and love chocolate. When we are drawn to someone, we’re not drawn to their face — the face is just a physical manifestation of being. We don’t love just their physical existence, but their existence as a whole. Their sense of humor. Their shortcomings. The experiences that they have had, their successes and failures, the things they share with us and the things that lie beyond what they share because there just aren’t enough words to share it. We love the thing that shines through.
I love the way Abi laughed at her own jokes. The way she danced and how she spent afternoons at pet stores in those little cubicle-things petting puppies. As my friend said, I did not love just her physical existence, but her existence as a whole. The thing that shines through. I still do.
So, no. I did not lose Abi.
As for Abi transitioned. Well, that feels more complicated. I don’t know where or when or how I might find the thing that shines through. But I know the thing that shines through exists, and I am pretty certain I recognize it when and where and however I happen to find it. Sometimes it’s in the sunset over Richmond, of all places. Sometimes in a Nationals song, sometimes in a poem. But it often shines through and it’s almost always when I am not looking for it, but when I am beholding what is right in front of me - seeing through the thing and catching a glimpse of the thing behind it - shining through.
Transitioned might be the best word that I know, but it falls well short. It feels incomplete to suggest Abi once was here, but now she is there. That she once was this, but now she is that. None of those seem right. None seem to acknowledge what I believe to be true: That she was always way more than simply here or this, and she is now way more than there and that. I’m trusting that you might make sense of this. Might fill in the gaps of what I am so ineptly trying to put words to. But I hope you might understand anyway, because you know it is true of every single person you love. Every single person you do not love even. Maybe this is part of what C.S. Lewis was getting at when he wrote:
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal
Anyway, it seems right to honor Abi today in her own words. Words that I want always to remember. Words that offer a hint of what shines through. Oh, I miss her everyday. But these are some of the words to remind me that I didn’t, and I cannot lose her. Not ever.
Abi wrote this in August 2017. She was six months, one First Descents Rock Climbing adventure, who knows how many chemo rounds, and all the feels into her cancer walk. She wrote it from the outer banks of North Carolina a few days after she and I watched the solar eclipse from the nearly empty beach at Corolla, and together felt the air turn cool in the middle of the day, noticed the way the birds had silently flown to wherever birds silently fly at sunset, and saw the ghost crabs dig out of their sand holes to explore the night - and then we felt the warmth of morning and heard the birds return and watched the ghost crabs retreat back into their holes just a few minutes later. Things that I never would have noticed if not for Abi’s willingness to be where she was, and to behold.
Here is what she wrote:
Yesterday, my grandmother turned 80 years old. She rented a house in the Outer Banks for two weeks and invited all her family to come celebrate. We’ve spent the first week laughing, playing and hugging. And it was all leading up to yesterday’s event to celebrate the life of a beautiful, courageous, selfless woman.
For those of you who don’t know her, allow me to paint a synopsis of her life with a very broad brush. Nilza was born outside of Rio de Janeiro. She was married to my grandfather, a Portuguese bad boy by the time she was 17, and had my aunt at 19. At 22, she and my grandfather made what I can only imagine was the hardest decision of their lives. They packed their bags and headed to the states, leaving their daughter behind for the promise of a better life, not knowing when they would be able to bring her with them.
In a stroke of pure poetic irony, they arrived on July 4th. My grandfather used to joke there were fireworks for their arrival. With time, they built a new life; collected my aunt; had my mother. My grandfather worked hard and made the decision to invest in himself by buying a company. Nilza trusted his vision. All too soon, my grandfather fell ill. My grandmother cared for him and her mother for many, many years, sacrificing much of herself in the process.
I’m skipping thousands of details and highlights, but perhaps this is enough to exemplify that my grandmother has lived a very brave and full life. So full, in fact, it seems even she is having a hard time processing this milestone. I have sensed her introspection all week, and it’s contagious.
On the drive down to Corolla, she told my aunt she wishes she had listened when my grandfather wanted to retire early and explore the world. But she promises herself to start exploring now.
At lunch, she reminisced over her pregnancy cravings from over 50 years ago. She laughed as she remembered an anecdote about canned red beans right before my mother was born.
Soon after, she and I walked aimlessly through the grocery store while her daughters scurried to collect food for the masses. She slipped into Portuguese as we spoke. Her underbite, a distinct Lopes characteristic, became even more prominent as she scolded herself. She thinks it bothers me, but in reality, I’m mesmerized by her ability to experience life in two languages. Speaking Portuguese feels like a litmus test of her comfort, and I’m proud she feels comfortable when we speak.
We headed to a cheesy souvenir shop to kill more time. I stood behind her as she meandered through the aisles of useless trinkets. I took specific notice of her growing blonde hair; her slow but steady walk; her gentle hands when she reaches for something that caught her eye. I looked at her wrinkles—the topographic evidence of her first 80 years—in complete awe. I can’t help but wonder how many times her heart has slipped into her stomach since 1937; how many tears she has shed in joy or in pain; how many lives she has touched. I stopped dead in my tracks as the enormity of her impending milestone hit my chest. I hugged her and told her how happy I am to celebrate this birthday with her. She grabbed my shoulders and gently pulled me to face her. She looked at me, eyes red and wet, and said:
“It’s all bonus from here.”
Many times this week, I have caught her looking out to a room filled with her loved ones, smiling contently. Every once in awhile, a tear slides down her cheek. I can practically see her heart swelling in her chest as she absorbs the moment. Yesterday was full of these moments. After we sang her happy birthday, I watched her walk around to hug every person at the party. Conversations with each of us varied, but all included a sincere and deeply-felt “thank you” for being there.
I woke up this morning feeling so full from her fullness. I’m intent on learning from this wise woman. I’m committed to soaking up all my bonus days with my family; to start exploring NOW; to living in my raw nerve moments and expressing gratitude at every opportunity.
So what am I doing with this? Perhaps the thing is simply to learn from this wise woman. To treat each morning as it were my last. To explore. Not to find something to be grateful for, but to be gratitude. Not to find joy, but to be joy, and to breathe joy back into the beautiful creation with every exhale. To look at things, at all the things, as if for the very first time and to take in things in, all the things, as if it were the last time I will be afforded the gifts of their there-ness. To see the shining through-ness of all of it. To behold and to behold and to behold.
To recognize that my own bonus days began long before I recognized them as such.
I’m going with that, dear friend.
Oremus,
Chris
Epic.