Do you have a ‘it-wasn’t-supposed-to-end-like-this’ story?
Sure you do. We all do.
A fire destroys all you held dear. Cancer takes your life-long traveling companion. The one who promised “to love and to cherish you until death do you part,” departs, maybe for someone else, leaving you alienated, isolated, rejected.
An unhappily-ever-after story is likely more typical than not for all of us.
Pictured here are my mom and dad. How tickled they were in their old age to have an old Model A. We have photos of every nut and bolt, frame and fender, laid out on the shop floor. Then it all comes together, is painted my dad’s favorite color from his teenage era, and exits the shop for the first time. Dad opens the door, mom takes her place, their picture is taken.
What a marriage they had, what joy they experienced with one another and their growing family over the years, what a fitting chapter to write of their dream car restoration.
But, as with all love, and all things, the end inevitably comes.
Mom died from cancer, dad from heart failure.
The Model A would be destroyed in a fire.
How do you deal with grief? Truth be told, I don’t know. Stay tuned. I’m going to Grief Share to find out. I lost my wife to cancer just over 10 months ago.
That phrase ‘Stay tuned’ is idiomatic for hope.
‘Stay tuned’ means to keep watching, keep listening, keep hoping because “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say you’re about to hear.
There’s something about that story – your story, my story – that is yet to be told.
‘Stay tuned’ is sometimes said just before a break in programming, leading the listener to continue to pay attention. Watch for future developments. There’s more to the story.
How does something so devasting turn into something so meaningful?
I don’t know.
Yet.
Stay tuned.
