Never Before

A Part of My Heart Is in Heaven

Never before have I needed Him more.

This past week, I picked up my nephew to bring him along to our family's weekly BMX race. It's about a thirty-minute drive to his house and another fifteen to the track, but he was more than worth the detour. Only days earlier, this sweet little boy had stood at his father's funeral—my younger brother's funeral—and as we each laid a white rose on the casket, he turned to everyone gathered and shouted through his tears, "He was the BEST DAD, and I will NEVER forget him!" Then he walked back into his mother's arms, his round, freckled face streaked with tears.

Every time I look at my nephew, my heart aches, because I see my brother. Hold a photo of the two of them at the same age side by side, and you can barely tell them apart. Twins, a generation apart.

At the track that day, while I got the kids registered, my nephew's tears started up again. I sat down and pulled him close. "What's wrong?" He cried out, "I HATE my helmet! I HATE my bike!" My oldest explained that he'd need a full-face helmet just to be allowed on the track. But I knew the helmet wasn't really it. I knew those tears were about everything he'd had no control over—everything surrounding the loss of his dad.

So I squeezed him tight and said, "Let's get you a full-face helmet, okay?" I pulled up the app on my phone. "What color do you like best?" His tears slowed as he leaned in to look at the options. "Blue!" he said. "Blue is my favorite." He found one he loved, with matching gloves and goggles, and it was on its way before the next race.

Who he was

My brother was the tender heart of our family. Of the three of us sisters who share the same father, he was the one who carried our dad's spirit—his humor, his warmth, the way he loved. So many times I've turned to my kids after he did something and said, "That's exactly what my dad would have done." He was a replica of the father we lost. And now his little boy is a replica of him.

He was my confidant—two years younger than me and somehow wiser. He knew everything about me, even my deepest sorrows, and he would call just to tell me he loved me and ask if I needed anything. He held our whole family together. He carried far more than his share of its weight.

He had moved in with our mother for a season, to help with repairs on her home and to be a comfort to her after her husband had passed away. Just two months after losing her husband, she would lose her son. He died peacefully in his sleep, and my mother was the one who found him.

"Tell my children how much I love them"

When my sister and I got the call, we drove straight there. On the way, she told me about a dream she'd had the week before—a dream that he was going to die. In it, she had seen him sign "I love you" to her, and she had signed it back. That day, as we watched him carried gently from our mother's home, she remembered the dream and she knew, instantly, what he was asking of her: Tell my children how much I love them. She promised she would.

I made the very same vow. Standing there before we said our final goodbyes, I promised that for as long as I live, every chance I get, I will make sure his children know how deeply their father loved them.

That blue helmet is part of keeping that promise. My brother loved riding when he was young, and he loved cheering at my son's races. My son had his very first race just days before the funeral, and as I strained to see the track, I kept teasing him in my mind that he had a much better view of it now than I did. At the park last week, his little boy beamed with pride when his big cousin took first place. We caught a photo of the two of them—the littlest guy with his arms wrapped around his hero. The sweetest thing I've seen in a while.

The tree and the seedling

As I drove the kids to the track that day, I cried quietly to myself, and a picture formed in my mind.

My brother was an enormous tree—strong and sheltering, shade and refuge to his mother, his siblings, his children, all of us. And it felt as though that great tree had been burned to the ground. I saw all of us gathered around the empty place where it once stood, weeping.

And then, through my tears, I watched the storm-dark sky part, and a shaft of golden light fell to the exact spot where the tree had been. There, in the earth, a tiny seedling was pushing up toward the light. The great tree had given its seed to the ground, and something new was already taking root. I knelt down beside that little seedling and promised it—promised him—that I would do everything in my power to protect it, and to help it grow.

Why my heart can keep beating

Easter is fifteen days away; my daughter reminds me of the countdown every single morning. And I honestly don't know how my heart could keep beating right now if I didn't believe in the resurrection. The unbearable pain of losing my brother has been eased by only one thing: the hope that I will see him alive again.

I've asked myself the questions people ask—was Jesus really the Son of God? Did He really overcome death? For me, the witnesses line up. You can draw a thousand lines through a single point, and a lone testimony can be read a thousand ways. But two points fix one line between them. I hold two testimonies of a risen Christ—from two peoples, on two continents—and together they steady my faith that He truly conquered the grave.

Because He did, I know my brother is not gone. Physical death is not the end. It's a gift already given to every one of us through Christ, and one day we will stand together again.

More than anything, I want my nephew—and his little sister, and their mother—to carry that same assurance: that because of Jesus Christ, we will see the ones we love again.

There's a poem I've held onto through all of this—it calls the love between two hearts a "golden chain of memories." I won't reprint the whole thing here, but the picture has stayed with me: that love becomes a chain grief cannot snap, one that only grows longer and stronger with the years. That's exactly how it feels. The love doesn't end. It just keeps growing.

When the grief threatens to pull me under, I keep my eyes on Christ. I even wrote it on my mirror, so I'd see it every morning: Keep your eyes on Christ. The moment I look away, I start to sink. So, moment by moment, I keep breathing, and I keep hoping in the promise that we will all be together again.

I never really understood the phrase "a part of my heart is in heaven" until now.

Never before have I needed Him more.

With much love,

Steffi