Legacy

A couple of years ago I made shirts for Ben and Sabin for their birthdays. Ben’s said Legend and Sabin’s said Legacy. Sabin wore his for Ben’s funeral and I had Ben’s on the table at the front of the church the day of the funeral service. Ben was a legend of sorts. And Sabin is part of his legacy. Most parents seek to leave a legacy for their children. To some that simply means leaving assets and money. It can also mean your faith, ethics and values. It can mean living a life that is an example for others to follow. As parents, we want to pass on to the next generation the things that are most important to us.

What was most important to Ben was his faith and his family. It was his heart’s desire that his children would be raised in a Christian home where faith was not just preached but it was lived out. He sought to leave a legacy of faithful service to God that his children would follow. A legacy that they would live out for their children. It wasn’t enough to just attend church each Sunday. Living out his faith meant serving others as well. Ben had the opportunity to go on a couple of mission trips with people from the church. He went to help in a community that was devastated by a tornado. Another time he went to Houston to help with flood recovery after a hurricane went through. He also served those in our own community. For several years he faithfully served at the Foodmobile here in town. His passion was to help others in anyway that he could. I pray that his children will always remember the example he set and seek to follow in his footsteps. Ephesians 2:10: For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The last few weeks have been pretty tough. I have discovered that the first year really doesn’t end on the anniversary of your loved one’s death. It extends beyond that. One of the things that stuck out to me from the first session of GriefShare that I attended last winter was that the second year can be harder than the first year. I thought that sounded crazy because the first year was pretty awful. I couldn’t imagine it being any worse. I am only 2 weeks into the second year and it is not any easier. The first year really lasts 18 months, maybe even 2 years. Sure I made it through all the firsts but now reality begins to really set in that Ben is gone.

Each fall there is a special session of GriefShare that they do called Surviving the Holidays. That session was last week. Last year I was on auto pilot through Thanksgiving and Christmas. I did what I had to do to get through them. This year I expect that the reality of my loss will hit me even harder. The shock has now worn off and I will be much more aware of Ben’s absence from our celebrations. Last year for Thanksgiving we spent the day with Ben’s brother and his family at one of his wife’s cousin’s house. It was very low key and laid back. It was exactly what Sabin and I needed. We weren’t even a month out from Ben’s death. We needed to do something different. We will be going there again this year. When Ben’s dad still lived in Ohio we would spend Thanksgiving day with him at his brother’s house. It was fun and chaotic. If I were to go back there it would be very hard because I never went without Ben. Spending Thanksgiving weekend with Ben’s brother is not something Ben and I did together. That makes it a little easier.

I knew that the anniversary of Ben’s death would be difficult. I wanted to be sure that we honored Ben. I took the day off from my full time job. Sabin didn’t go to school. I started out the day with a 5k run with my sister. That was part of my goal for the year to run a 5k. Even though I had already run one a few weeks earlier, I decided to also run one on the anniversary of Ben’s death. After getting a quick shower, Sabin and I met my sister and a friend for lunch at a local pizza place for their lunch buffet. After lunch I had to get a tree dug up so that Sabin and I could take it over to the school where Ben had worked so we could plant it. I finally got the thing dug up and in the car. Sabin and I headed to Lakewood. We got the tree planted and I spread some of Ben’s ashes around the base of it. There will always be a piece of Ben at that school where he loved to work. Sabin and I picked up Callie and Hunter and we headed to go somewhere for dinner. Sabin chose On the Border. I made a quick stop at home to turn off the porch light off so the trick-or-treaters wouldn’t think we were home. We all enjoyed a delicious dinner. It was a decent day.