It hurts. It hurts horribly. Like your soul is ripped out and flung aside. You want to cry (no-- WAIL!) but you can't. The tears won't come. They are tapped out. You've cried them all. So, then you just have an ache. A crushing ache in your chest that won't go away. You miss her so terribly and so viscerally that you think you won't ever become normal again. She is gone. She has gone to a "better place". She is healed. She is complete. But she is gone. And you are left to try to trudge on without her. Putting on a brave face and a weary smile so that others will feel okay. Accepting the heartfelt words of condolence with a smile while internally wanting to shake the speaker and scream, "WHERE DID SHE GO?! WHY IS SHE GONE?!" Looking into the eyes of her brother and sister and seeing pain and confusion. Looking into the eyes of her mother and seeing the same weary, bone-crushing sadness that you feel so deeply. She is gone. She is gone. But, never forgotten...
On February 19, 2014, Elizabeth Leigh Rowan, our fighting Diva, the angel among us, our beautiful daughter, went home to be with her Savior. It was sudden and unforeseen. And, yet...this was the day we had always known would eventually come. From the moment we were told--over four years ago--that Elizabeth would arrive on this Earth with dozens of "problems", a underdeveloped brain, the inability to breathe, eat or even function in the most basic ways on her own, Kathryn and I were steeled up for the eventuality of her passing. But, you are never—never!--prepared for this. It has taken me over three weeks to even muster up the courage to write about it. The words spin around in my head in ever-increasing spirals of information, but I can't physically put it down on paper. The hurt is too new, the cut too deep, the loss too great. But, today, the spiraling maelstrom began to calm--the million little details and pieces of events began to coalesce into a bigger picture of grace. Elizabeth's face emerged out of the mist of my sadness and hurt to remind me that her story was one of amazing perseverance. She told a dynamic and dramatic story with every breath she took of how God was bigger than a diagnosis, was wiser than a limitation, was gloriously present when all hope was seemingly lost. The story Elizabeth told --and is still telling-- is one of marvelous hope! A story of how God desires for us to see people as they are--not who we want them to be. How God is in control and his route is not always the easiest, but it is always the best. Elizabeth was the lens many of us used to see God more clearly. She was amazing and strong. She was loved and adored. She was a beater of odds, a befuddler of doctors. She fought continuously and courageously. She was a diva. She was my daughter and I love her fiercely.
So, where do we all go from here? From this moment where we are united in our grief and wanting desperately to find a meaning in all this sadness. Well, I'm not sure, honestly. I'm new at this grief game. And, if I'm being honest, I kind of don't like it very much. One moment you are okay--remembering the feisty Elizabeth, full of mischief in her eyes, gloriously reveling in time she was playing with her beloved brother and sister. She was laughing, cackling really, just marinating in the love she had for and received from her siblings. And, then, in a flash, I am a puddle of emotions longing to hold Elizabeth one more time, cuddle with her as she falls asleep, brush back that curly, unruly, gorgeous hair. It's awful and wonderful all at once. It's happiness and despair playing at the same time. It's confusing and peaceful. It's exhausting and inspiring. It's just weird. (And, while I am sure there are many wonderful books that delve into how to properly grieve, I would put out there that they are all wrong! Grief is an inherently personal thing--different for everyone and understood by none. If you try to grieve according to someone else's seven-point plan--then you are only guaranteeing that you are grieving their way and it won't mean anything to you.)
"You are braver than you believe; stronger than you seem; smarter than you think..." --A.A. Milne
Elizabeth was, at her most basic core, a warrior. She fought expectations and assumptions about her at every turn. She was never intimidated by the odds against her--she just fought through them. She was never convinced by the doubters--she confounded them. She was nothing short of a wonder. She taught me how to fight with honor and confidence. And, I will continue to fight for her. We all will.
There are many beautiful stories of God's obvious hand in all of this surrounding Elizabeth's last days with us. Kathryn and I have told many of you some of these stories and will no doubt tell them many more times. But, here is just one: Elizabeth went home to be with her Creator on a Wednesday night. We were in Tyler, so eventually, late that night, we went to go get our kids from a friend's house where they were staying. This has to be the hardest thing Kathryn and I have ever done. To have to go and tell your precious children that their beloved sister has passed away is a heart wrenching duty I truly don't wish on anyone. It was a very "grown up" moment. It was raw and unfiltered and horrible. But, it was necessary. Once we did that, we all went home and collapsed in a heap and hugged and prayed and cried and questioned and remembered. No one slept.
The next morning, word had gotten out and friends and family descended upon the house to comfort and commiserate. Kathryn and I had our eyes on Caroline and Michael like hawks, worrying about when they would break down and vowing to be right there. Caroline was coping as she should. Hugging everyone and crying buckets. But, not hopeless sad, just emotional. She calls it "happy sad." Michael on the other hand was watching cartoons, uncharacteristically quiet and serious. I was watching him the closest. I was convinced, based upon my studious review of all proper Christian self-help texts, that he was just about to burst and emotionally download his feelings, and I was going to be there for him to have some wise statement to buck him up and give him hope. Isn't that silly?! Anyway, Michael decided he wanted to go out into the backyard and shoot baskets. As he was exiting the door, I got up and followed him at a text-approved distance. Kathryn had also noticed Michael's departure and was following me at a text-approved distance. And, so out we went.
It was VERY windy that day. Unusually so. As Michael headed towards the basketball goal, he stopped and let the wind blow through his hair, and raised his face just a bit to catch the breeze. He was enjoying the breeze. Then he got a smile on his face. At that moment, the alarm on Kathryn's watch went off. (Apparently, Kathryn still had the watch on that she always wore which had all of Elizabeth's feeding and medicine schedules on it.) Michael turned around to see us and had a grin on his face.
"It's windy out here!" he said, "Elizabeth's talking to us."
"Really, buddy?" I replied. "And what is she saying?"
Michael looked straight at Kathryn and pointed to her watch. "She says, 'Don't worry, Mom, I don't need my meds anymore.' ...and Michael doesn't need to take a nap today."
With that, he strode over to shoot baskets and Kathryn and I were left stunned. Our 7 year old son, the one we thought would be most fragile in this time of grief, had just shown us that he was amazingly in tune with the big picture of all of this. We were so worried that he was ignoring the issue--bottling it up--when in fact he was just listening to the breeze. He understood that Elizabeth was finally set free from her physical limitations and was able to be in Heaven running--running!--with God, a perfect creation finally made perfect. He knew that our lives as a family were changed significantly, but we would not fret. Elizabeth was healed. She was fine. Turn off the watch alarms because we won't need them anymore. How unfathomably cool is that? (Now, I wasn't too thrilled with the self-serving "no nap" addendum he put on there, but boys will be boys! :))
We had a beautiful and perfect service for Elizabeth that Sunday. It was a graveside service, but we had made the decision to open it up to everyone. Elizabeth really didn't live a private life. She was never kept under a bushel. She wasn't made for that. She was made to shine. So, we wanted to make sure her service was also made to shine. At the service we had a dear family friend, Fred Smith, say some words. I can't really encapsulate how perfect his thoughts were that day. He is one of the smartest, most truly wise people I know. He had followed Elizabeth's journey as a friend since we first were given that life-changing news. He knew every twist and turn of her amazing journey. So, when he agreed to speak, Kathryn and I told him: all we want is for everyone to leave that service with a sense of who Elizabeth was and what she meant to us. And, we want it to be positive and hopeful. And, boy, did he deliver!
His speech was one I will truly never forget. If you will indulge me, I want to share something he said because it so perfectly expresses the way we feel about our Elizabeth:
"All of us have said one time or another that the purpose of our life is to point others to God. For Elizabeth everything she did pointed toward God because she could not do anything without Him. While we fight that sense of helplessness, it was not helplessness for Elizabeth. It was her very nature to depend on God's love. And it was the nature of their relationship that made everyone who knew her look through her to a loving Father in Heaven whose love was reckless, real and eternal. While anyone just watching from the outside would see a family with a child who needed nurturing and care, it so obvious that Matt, Kathryn, Caroline and Michael realized Elizabeth nurtured them. She somehow over the course of those three and a half years made them more like what they had been created to be. Everyone around her became better than they were 3 1/2 years ago. They learned not only to bear each other's burdens, but to share each other’s happiness, sorrows, small successes and to find themselves pointing others to God through Elizabeth...You have begun to understand that you were before time chosen to receive this child into your lives. You were not chosen for who you were, but for who you would become through the life of Elizabeth. Elizabeth had a purpose for her life--and part of that purpose was hand delivering--in person--a message of God's love to you."
I mean, wow. Just wow. Elizabeth was a gift. A cherished gift we treasure above any other. She had a message to everyone: God loves you. We all have "stuff"--hardships we have to carry. But, God is bigger than the "stuff". He desires most to help you with your burdens. Elizabeth gave all her stuff to God and look how gloriously she lived!
I know this is not anything like you thought/
the story of your life was going to be/
and it feels like the end has started closing in on you/
but it's just not true!
There is so much of this story that is still yet to unfold/
and this is going to be a glorious unfolding/
just you wait and see/
and you will be amazed!
You've just got to believe the story is so far from over/
so hold on to all the promises God has made to us/
and watch the glorious unfolding!
--"Glorious Unfolding" Steven Curtis Chapman
The story Elizabeth tells is one of seeing God in the most dramatic and also the most mundane things. She always pointed to God in everything she did. She had to. It was what she was here for. If we discontinued that, we would be short-changing her story. So, this blog will evolve, too, just like we are all going to have to as a family. If you all will go along with us, we'll all begin again to learn how to waltz and dance evermore to the beat of the song Elizabeth is playing.
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This is extraordinary. That word is overused but it was meant for just this kind of writing.
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