Gone, Just Gone

They went out and got into the boat.

John 21:3b

Her house is gone, just gone. In its place is a garden.

But when I stand there, listening to the creek that has not altered with time, I feel her front porch beckoning me. The swing sings on the wind, inviting me to sit awhile. I can smell the pungent odor of her marigolds, which she swore kept the mosquitoes away. I can see the sparkle of her blue cut-glass candy dish with the fancy lid, always full of cinnamon candy and butterscotch drops.

It’s as real as it ever was.

But my grandmother’s house is gone. Just gone. It was razed to the ground after a terrible loss. Nothing could ever be the same after that fateful day.

So now there is a garden, and her shed, and her wheelbarrow with the irises she loved, and the creek. Always the creek and its song.

Grief is like that. We go to the familiar places, to feel the familiar feelings, to smell the familiar smells, to lean against the familiar walls for familiar strength, and they are gone. Just gone.

But in that empty space, if we linger a moment, we can feel the good that was there once. We can hear the songs once sung on the wind. We can smell the comfort of something that was. Something that surely was. We can see the sparkle of sweetness always brimming over, waiting for us.

It’s as real as it ever was, even though it’s gone.

In John 21, Peter is searching for comfort. He goes back to the boat, that familiar place where Jesus shaped him, changed him, challenged him. Peter could never look at boats without thinking of Jesus.

But the night stretches long and silent across the emptiness of what once was. Jesus is not in the boat now. He’s gone, just gone.

Or is He?

Just as day broke, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus (verse 4).

As light breaks over the darkness of an empty night, Peter sees what he thought was gone. Who he knew was gone.

The emptiness fills. With provision, with hope, with stunning, inexplainable new life. 

Peter jumps into the water and scramble-swims his way to worship again.

As the morning sun peeks over the mountain, I stand in the garden that was once my grandmother’s house. I can hear the laughter again. I see the blue lights she loved to hang on the drooping fir tree glowing against heavy snow on Christmas Eve. The mouth-watering smell of fresh biscuits invites me to come, sit at the table. Eat more than one.

The good that once filled this empty space was. And that has not changed with the razing.

Nothing can take away the reality of the good that was. Not even loss and razing to the ground, planting a garden instead, and trying to forget.

The good that was, was. And it can never be gone.

We can hold on to that now. And somehow, in the strange oxymoronic mystery of life and death, it comforts and helps me let go. Bids me run to Jesus, who is calling to me from the shore as morning light pierces the darkness.

Lord, Thank you for the fact of good that cannot be erased by loss. The good that has been, the good that carries me into the good that is to come. Amen.

Photo by Pedro Kümmel on Unsplash