A Year of What It Might Be Like In Heaven – A Tribute to My Dad

It’s been a year since I kissed your bald forehead, that tumultuous day, and walked out of the room after saying my last goodye.

And yet, in my heart, you are still alive.

I saw you the other day, in the grey-haired grandpa behind me at the grocery store. He befriended me, just like you would have, to anyone standing in the aisle in front of you.

No one was a stranger to you; especially the unseen, the hidden, the forgotten or unaccepted.

You didn’t just love the high up, those representing wealth, position, power, or religion…

And I loved that about you, Dad.

In me, you are still alive.

We have all been Ukraine.

We each have terrain; flattened, destitute and destroyed…Despite our best efforts, our heroic hearts of courage.

You too were Ukraine…

I knew that.

I had heard your story and saw your face in my daughters, the children you loved unconditionally…Each foster child, I brought into your home.

You didn’t look down, scorn, scoot them aside as if they were “less than”, a charity project or just something you could brag about to your high up friends.

You saw the heart, laughed with each individual, let them wear your hat, that was your crown of glory…Time and time again.

You knew, being abandoned or hurt by grown ups you trusted, isn’t something that heals with invisible scars, whether five or ten or one hundred years old.

In them, my children who lived in our home permanently or temporarily….You are still alive.

The homelessness in our region is becoming too great.

We move away from it and it chases us, until the corners are litered with beggars, and my heart that once gave and kept giving…And even stopped, got out of my car, and talked to them…

Has changed.

It has become bitter. Why is that?

The tender is constantly at war with the calloused. The innocent suffers at the hands of the cynic, the proud and self-righteous…

Like I have too often been.

And yet, to cave to my own arrogance doesn’t take any strength.

To create narratives that aren’t flattering or kind, doesn’t take any wisdom.

Still, as a child, I remember you Dad, picking up a wandering hitch-hiker and treating him with respect, buying food for the beggar and always looking him in the eyes…

You always looked people in their eyes. I loved that about you.

You saw, really looked at those others choose to ignore.

And while I know this aspect of you is still alive in me…I ache for the safety of your arms, where even the most evil villian didn’t make you flinch…

And the homeless? You would correct me, “Don’t judge them, until you have walked in their shoes.”

You had told me as a child…

Your friend was a beggar. He had been a vietnam vet. But one day, he got his leg ripped off by a train. From that day on, he became one of those faces on the streets…

Not a twisted drug addict…

But a hero of our nation…a man worth of respect…Now begging desperately for food.

“Never judge someone until you have walked in their shoes.” You had told me like thunder that day.

You are alive in the lost, dad, in their faces….If I will choose to see you. 

I sat in a trial, many years ago, of the daugher I loved. Photos, stories, miracles even. And there in one of my most difficult moments…

You showed up.

You always showed up on the hard days, Dad….You always did.

Not to talk or project, or instruct, or speculate…But to just sit in the silence of every single trial of my life.

You were always there.

And yet, even then, you were not hard-hearted and pious.

I knew, when I looked over at you, our child testifying on the stand…Your face flooded with tears…

It was not easy for you to be there. But Dad, you came. You always ran towards the things others would run away from.

It was not easy to see the scars of my daughter you loved. But you engaged….With every ounce of your being...

You were present. And for that I will always thank you.

In the courage of my beautiful daughter that day Dad, I could see you.

You were brave, kind, always by the side of the most hurting. Always by the side of me.

And while, it has been a year since I lost you, it says in Scripture, a man who loves Jesus will never die. (John 11:26) They say his soul is eternal…

So, on that very same breath I lost you, you saw the face of Jesus and tasted the weightlessness of His glory.

They say paths of gold were greeting you, pearly gates invited you, and the people who’ve gone before you were waiting and welcoming you in.

And yet, I ache for you today, Daddy.

I can barely breathe sometimes at the thoughts of not wrapping my arms around your freshly aftershaved face…

But, I know I will see you again. I know you are here. You are with me….In my children, in the hurting, in the most compassionate parts of my life…

That is where I am most like you.

And I wonder…

As you flood with everlasting love, in the glory of heaven…Will your powder blue eyes sparkle even more…

As you see your one-legged friend, like the poor beggar, Lazarus, in Scripture (Luke 16:19-31).

Will you realize he was like us…Forgotten and dealt a bad hand….And yet, seen by God.

Will the lost and forgotten in this world run to you? The orphans. Will they greet you, as you saw them on this earth…And thank you?

Will they hug you and cry out, “Thank you for seeing us!”

Will you find the lost and destitute, those nobody saw, like the homeless ones under the bridge?

Will the beggar be reaping their reward, though starved and poor, leaving an unforgiving earth?

Is heaven an upside-down Kingdom? The last will be first and the first, truly last?

Will you meet Mary the Prostitute, David the cheater, Esther the slave, and Moses the murderer?

And I wonder, the song about limousine’s in heaven, the one I sang boldly as a fourth grader…Is none of it true?

Will our notions of polished preachers, unapproachable leaders, “perfect” and pious people that segregate and shout, point fingers, while living proud…

All be unfound in heaven?

And instead, will the humble fill the heavens? Those not posturing or promoting, but the meek and contrite, honest and sincerely seeking?

Will they look at you, and say, “I see you, because you first saw us?”

While the glory of all humility fill up the width of heaven?

Dad, on this year anniversary of your passing, I commit to seeing you, seeing the unseen, seeing Jesus….in the hearts of those forgotten.

Knowing, you are here in the least of us.

And one day, I will see you again.

You took your last breath that day…But you didn’t die.

You were ushered into heaven by God himself…But also by all those people groups who were lost and forgotten.

Because, you saw them.

And you still see me…

From the balcony of heaven.