With the morning sun wrapping rays around the two windows in the bedroom, causing a pale light to creep steadily in from their edges, my oldest child rustles the bedsheets. It’s like she can feel the idea of warmth, the promise of warmth, better than my cold toes pressed beside a space heater ever could.
This isn’t surprising. She still sleeps in the bed with me, a treasured ritual I’m not ready to let go of yet, and her body temperature would rival an incubator. A gift I’m thankful for during New England winters. She’s awake now, which means I’m awake.
Justin Cox
“What day is it?” she asks. Time, calendars and schedules hold no power or importance to her. I tell her it’s Monday. No preschool for her today. From somewhere downstairs, there is the noise of her younger sister sliding across the wooden floor on her “busy bee” toy she received for Christmas.
She hears this, her gaze meets mine, and a second later, she flips the heavy blanket back over her head. I hear a muffled “hide” come from her burrowed state. I indulge her as I often do and scurry under the covers.
There, lost to the world and with our noses inches apart, she whispers, “Is today my birthday?”
“There, lost to the world and with our noses inches apart, she whispers, ‘Is today my birthday?’”
Her actual birthday was earlier this week. Her birthday party was a few days later. I can see how this is confusing to someone still struggling to distinguish which shoe goes on the right foot some mornings. I tell her no and try to explain she has a whole year before the next one.
“I’m still this many, right daddy?” She says the number and holds up her hand. I tell her she’s right. She then asks me how old I am. I use her method and hold up both hands and appropriate digits; a four and two stare back at her.
“Four two?”
“Forty-two,” I tell her.
She looks again at my hands and then into my face.
“That’s too many,” she says.
Under the blanket, engulfed in her warmth and shared darkness, the truth escapes me more effortlessly. “On most days, it is kiddo.”
On most days it is.
Those “most days” fell in succession this past week. In my 10 years of congregational ministry, I can’t recall a heavier load of 24-hour periods.
A kid’s birthday, complete with Trolls-themed decorations and multiple renditions of “What’s the time, Mr. Wolf?” resulting in children scattering in every direction when “dinner time” finally flies from someone’s lips.
My mother-in-law was visiting from the Midwest to celebrate the occasion with us. We enjoy her visits, long or short as they can be, but it doesn’t change the fact there’s another adult in the house, and routines get shaken and stirred to breaking points.
The beasts needing weekly slaying were present. Staff meetings, emails, phone calls, sermon preparation, worship planning, visitations to schedule. A full calendar, one producing an emptiness that left me to wonder if I’m doing any of it at an adequate level.
“With plates spinning, I picked up two more.”
With plates spinning, I picked up two more: an Ash Wednesday service and a book study series to kick off Lent. I’ll give up this year what I’ve given up the last few: any notion of time for myself. And like the pandemic, I have a funny suspicion I won’t believe those voices telling me Lent is over when I look around and see myself and others are still living in the wilderness.
Finally, there were the funerals. Two celebrations of life, four days apart. I’ve officiated six since the first of the year.
Funerals are hard. They are difficult. They are draining. To say otherwise would be to downplay the significance of loss. In those spaces, I’ve learned my best practice is to take care of practical concerns first and then ask questions that allow me to shut up and listen. Talking for a preacher is easy; you’re expected to. Listening and learning to be quiet? Not so much. It’s a skill, and fortunately, I knew to hone it long before I received the “Rev” in front of my name.
I spent time with both families and took notes as they told me about the ones they loved. A man who was involved in local sports, coaching his own kids, grandkids and a slew of others. His passing was unexpected. A woman whose ancestors are founders of the community where I now reside. Her people literally built the town. Sitting with her family, I learned her granddaughters think her banana bread is the best in the world.
Both are people I didn’t know from Adam.
And somehow, I’ll lead both families through one of the most emotional days they’ll ever experience.
By the second service, I was operating on muscle memory. The funeral director, who I’m comfortable calling by his first name, came into my office and asked how I’m holding up. I didn’t have the energy to put up the facade.
“Right now, I’m toast.”
He didn’t reassure me we’d get through the next hour. He didn’t even give me anything resembling a rehearsed regurgitation. No thoughts and prayers from him. He just looked me in the eye and said, “I bet you are.” Sometimes being seen and heard is more than enough.
I don’t remember too much from the service. My notes worked as my crutch, and I leaned on them as much as I did the pulpit. All but the part about the banana bread. When I mentioned this detail during the eulogy, I locked eyes with both young women telling them, “Grandmas always make the best banana bread. Mine did too.” When everything ended, I was thanked and told the departed would have loved what was said.
“The family and friends there shifted their feet, appearing as if they didn’t want to leave but were unsure of what to do if they stayed.”
The following morning, we gathered for the act of committal at the cemetery. It was cold. A winter storm was closing in, and flurries of snow kissed the ground and the foreheads of a family looking to say one last goodbye. My part was short. The presence of death is finalizing, often lingering longer than it should, but this wasn’t the case here. It felt quick, and the family and friends there shifted their feet, appearing as if they didn’t want to leave but were unsure of what to do if they stayed. I stood off to the side, feeling more like a trespasser as the seconds ticked on. With my purpose no longer needed, I try blending in with the headstones around me. Slowly the family found their footing and began to move, and somewhere amid handshakes, a wrapped bundle of tinfoil was placed in my hand.
“We went home after the funeral yesterday and made this. We heard you like to bake and wanted you to have some too.”
For once, my reputation preceded me in a good way. The granddaughters had made their grandmother’s banana bread to remember her. Sharing one last story of who she was to me in a way I could take into myself. Now it was my turn to thank them.
I left soon after. Climbing into my vehicle, I peeled back the tinfoil, pinching off a chunk, and was filled with the gospel that grandmas really do make the best banana bread.
Most days, be they days of Lent or any other exhausting time, I need reminding of such goodness. I blasted the heat on my face all the way home — barely noticing the drying tears still clinging to my cheeks.
If my daughter saw them, I’m sure she would say they’re “too many.”
Justin Cox received his theological education from Campbell University and Wake Forest University School of Divinity. He is an ordained minister affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and enrolled in the doctor of ministry program at McAfee School of Theology. Besides reading, spending time in the kitchen and amateur gardening, Justin spends time with his spouse, Lauren, and their two daughters. He began his tenure as senior pastor of Second Baptist Church in Suffield, Ct. in August. Find his ramblings at blacksheepbaptist.com.