They wedded, we sang, they ate.

I dipped my hand into the clear water of Seneca lake and ripples encircled the disturbed area, bounding off into a distance.
People.
We're like that: sheets of water held together by polar covalent bonds, each one experiencing something that drip-drops onto the surface of another's life. The ripples might venture far and wide and become a little less close to home, but each one is still meaningful, even after it's reverberated itself onto another shoreside.

I was dressed in white, the culturally appropriate color for the wedding day. My hair was done-up, I still remember the aching that the hairdresser's hands had caused my head. But besides that and the momentous walk down the aisle beside his side, I don't remember very much, it was mostly a blur actually. Of course, I don't expect to have remembered a lot, for I was only four years old after all.

And he was holding my arm as I scattered flower petals one by one upon the aisle. He whispered to me, "Throw them in handfuls! Not just one by one!" but ever insistent upon consistency I replied, "No, I want to throw them this way." Oh the conversations that occur between ring-bearer and flower girl! I thought we were getting married, which was natural enough for my wee-little mind, but even if our ages hadn't prohibited it, the fact of our being cousins was the most compelling component keeping us from matrimony. Even though he was a 2nd or 3rd cousin, you can never be too careful.

Had it not been for that wedding ceremony, I wouldn't have had any connection at all with him besides knowing him as Daniel Wilber, my cousin whom I never see. After that, he didn't enter my world again till till this past Summer as I walked to the movie theater with my family. It was then that we got the phone call and he came crashing back into my world. But the tragedy was that he had crashed his motorcycle and left this world altogether.

Life. My age. Gone. Justlikethat.

Another ripple came in the mid-part of Autumn, when the trees are so close to peak and decline that you cannot tell which is which. I wouldn't have known of this family except that I was there for the father's baptism, and there's something intimate about that. It makes you realize how connected we all are when you see another proclaiming the same death and life that you proclaimed. The sun shone down, the sky was blue, there was only rejoicing and thanksgiving that day. His children, sweet and adorable, I'd noticed them on the dock, gathered like a flock of ducklings that are excited to see the event. He came out of the water, he'd buried his life with Christ--it was a moment of dying that foreshadowed one to come. But it was also a burst of life, light, and song: 

I have decided to follow Jesus

Though I may wonder, I still will follow;

The world behind me, the cross before me;
Though none go with me, still I will follow;
No turning back, no turning back.

That was in August, and then I heard of a sad, sad story. A man was biking across the street, pulling his daughter and son behind him in a bike trailer. A truck came around a corner and dragged the trailer underneath tire, rubber, death. The daughter lived, the son did not. This was sad enough until I was told who it had been: the father, he was the one I'd witnessed get baptized. His children I'd seen playing and laughing.

And now that son is playing and laughing in a place so much more wonderful than this earth, but we're still here and we grieve. 

No turning back. No turning back.

The last ripple comes, and I didn't even know this man until I heard of his story. He was having a party with his friends as it was a time for celebration. There was eating, drinking and much sincere conversation, closer friends you could not find. There was something about that night though that struck the people as they remembered in retrospect, for they had sensed that something was happening. They were together late into the night and decided to go out for a walk. He seemed worried, as if he knew what was coming. 

A crowd of angry people, armed with swords and clubs came and kidnapped him. But he did not resist, he gave himself up into their power. They killed him, though he could have prevented it. He let it happen, knowing that it was the only way to save those he so greatly loved. His friends mourned and were deeply grieved, had they not just been fellowshipping with him? eating, drinking, and laughing with him? And now he was gone. Forever. But the thing about this story is that it wasn't forever. 

The thing about this story was that afterwards. After three days. There was life.

Not just, "Oh I'm in Heaven now" life--he was back, flesh and blood. He left no mistaking: he was the image of the Father, and He came that we might know what He was like, and enter into everlasting life with Him. He came humbled, He came in a manger surrounded by braying animals that smelled awful. But He's returning in glory, and in Him and Him alone, we have hope of life eternal. We shall be with Him and those that have gone before. Suddenly, this isn't just a story, it's the very marrow of your life. 

There will be a wedding like never seen before. There will be laughing and playing as only children can do. There will be feasting and talking, fellowshipping and rejoicing...and unlike all other times, it shall not end. No unexpected terminations, no heart-shattering news, no ripples that disturb the immense joy of that celebration. 

Only life, and life forever.