Treaures in Grief

I have been thinking about Scott’s death a lot this week.  I am very grateful that when Scott had the heart attack that his death was quick.  I have found much to be grateful for this week that Scott didn’t suffer and wasn’t left in a position that we would have been forced to make a difficult situation or wait for the inevitable.  I have thanked God multiple times over the past nine months that Scott was not driving, alone with Jaelyn, or biking with Jaelyn and me outside of cell phone reception at the time of his heart attack.  While Scott’s death was tragic, there are many circumstances that could have made it worse, for him and for us.  I am grateful that Jaelyn doesn’t have to deal with a memory of her daddy dying in front of her.  While my heart breaks for Scott’s dad, with Scott dying in his arms, I am grateful that Scott was not alone and was with a loved one at that moment.

Last weekend, my mom, Jaelyn, and I began going through boxes and various items in storage in the garages at our old house in preparation for a yard sale.  As many of you may remember, we couldn’t schedule Scott’s burial right away due to complications with Scott’s military paperwork – the DD 214, the most important piece of paper to a veteran, had the wrong date.  Well, imagine my surprise when I opened a file box in the garage that we hadn’t used since early in our marriage, to find not one, but two original copies of the correct DD 214.  All I could do was stand there and laugh.  Scott was always so careful to keep his military paperwork together in the safe.  I can’t remember how many times Scott stressed to me the importance of the DD 214 that was in the safe, so I’m not sure how he missed those two papers in an old file bin.  There were some neat treasures that I found in sorting through boxes – treasures that in thirteen and a half years of marriage and two years of dating that I had never seen.  Scott’s hunting license from 1984 when he would have been 12 was tucked in a box.  I knew that Scott had hunted when he was younger, but he had not hunted in the almost sixteen years that we knew each other.  I have a whole box of notebooks that Scott jotted notes, spiritual lessons learned, life lessons, etc.  Yet in the garage I found many more.  These notebooks span about 20-30 years of his life.  What a treasure to see how God worked in his life and his search for God.