PROLOGUE
Steven shoveled the dirt into the pit, covering the small wooden box in the dry, caked soil of winter. With each soft ‘thud’, the hole in the ground grew smaller, and the hole in Steven’s chest sunk deeper. He paused and rubbed his doubly-chafed hands, wiped the tears and sweat from his face, and shuddered. The sky was grey and a wind blew flurried snow harshly against his hair and clothing, as tiny white spots began to freckle the upturned earth. But Steven could feel only the biting chill of his emptiness as he quietly tossed yet another shovelful into the half-filled pit.
When the grave was finished and covered, he knelt down and hammered in a wooden headstone, carved and embossed beautifully. He made sure it wouldn’t move, and when he was ready, Steven stood, walked around to face the pile, and turned away. He could conjure up no final one-sided remarks. As he walked down the hill from the burial site, shivering at the wind’s remorselessness, he wondered how he was ever going to make it through the remaining six weeks.
PART 1
“Laughter.”Steven mumbled the word, trying to trace it back to the beginning. “Her happiness. Her spirit. She loved jokes.” He ran his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes, remembering her face, her eyes, her smile. The empty cabin creaked as the wind carried on through the mountain ridge, and though the room was lit, only grey shown through the paneled windows.“It was her sense of humor.” Steven said it aloud, and the room seemed to react to his voice. “I loved her sense of humor. It was what I woke up to, and it got me through the toughest days. No one could laugh as much as she could.” He leaned back in the overstuffed chair. “I think God gave her that humor. You did, right? Your smile was hers.” Once Steven had decided who he was actually talking to, his speech to no one in particular converted to a thoughtful monologue. Images of her, of both of them together, flashed around his head: She, laughing her sweet laugh, and he snorting atrociously beside her. He could always make her laugh, and she could always lift his spirits.He was smiling now, and remembering all the good things about her, her laughter. He wondered why it was always easier to remember emotions after they’d been felt. He didn’t want to go on having different memories- he wanted her back. “Tracie…”
Then he sat up quickly. “No. No, I’m sorry.” Shook his head, cleared his mind. “God, please tell her how much I miss her. You know. And let her know that this week, I’m going to give back her laughter. I’m going to offer it all back to you, and let you take every bit from me. And I’m going to let you fill me with your own once more.”
Steven got up from his chair and walked outside to the shed. He stayed there for three hours, and when it was dark, he went back to the cabin and fell asleep.
PART 2
Four months after their engagement, Tracie came back from a checkup and told Steven they were testing her for a rare form of brain disease. They both waited the obligatory three weeks, praying and hoping for the best. When the results came back positive and Tracie was admitted to an intensive care center, Steven began to lose his faith. He stopped praying, cut off all fellowship with his church, and spent all his time and energy on Tracie. He refused to be the stereotypical selfish male who deserted his wife at the first sign of trouble. It wasn’t until a month before their wedding day, just after the second MRI that afternoon, when Tracie turned to him and very quietly reminded him of his priorities.“You need to figure out which is more important to you. Because even if we make it through this, I’m still not going to be around forever.”It was his final wake-up call, and Steven knew it. He had one chance to get his life back in order, or he’d never be ready to marry her. So he spent that entire month praying. He prayed for forgiveness, for strength, for peace, and for his future wife to be healed. He wanted to trust God with the outcome, but still, he felt safer when he was working his hardest all the time.The eve of their wedding arrived, and Steven lassoed Tracie away from her girlfriends and sat her down. Her wonderful smile was covering her face, and her body was covered in particles of a still-unfinished wedding dress, but Steven looked straight into her eyes and held her gaze.
“Tracie, I need you to decide right now if I’m worthy of you. Because if this goes wrong, and you can’t rely on me-“ He stopped talking, because her face said so.
She hung her head and breathed in and out slowly. “Did I scare you with what I said at the hospital?” He looked away, and nodded slightly. “Okay. Well, I’m glad. I wanted to scare you, because I didn’t want you to lose God. If you let God slip, everything slips.”
He nodded again, and started to speak, but she stopped him. “But you know I love you. And even if you had forgotten God and you were still out of touch with Him, I’d have still married you. There’s nothing I would enjoy more than helping bring you back to Him. Then I would get to support you.”
She paused and messed with his hair playfully. “Steven, you’ve been my man for the last couple months. No one else has worked so hard for me, ever. I thank you and love you for that, and I always will. Now go downstairs and have a cigar with the guys. We need to finish this dress.”
He smiled back at her and kissed her cheek, helped her up, and then headed for his groomsmen. As he skipped down the stairs, he thanked God for his wife.
PART 3
“Her friendship. Before we were dating, we were friends. And we stayed friends after we were married. To me, her friendship was more important than her romance.”Steven was slouched in his easy chair, mug in hand, watching the storm outside. The fireplace was warming the den from the below-freezing temperatures outside, the whistling sound of the wind and the thousands of tiny hard ice particles blowing against the window panes. The coziness was enough to put anyone to sleep within seconds, and Steven was having trouble staying awake. But he needed to find the third root, and after five hours of hard thought and prayer, he had.“It took me three years before I started dating her to figure out I could be her friend and her love interest side by side. So many people forget that, forget how important that quality is. She never did. Actually, she wouldn’t take the relationship further unless I promised to still be her friend.” Steven took a sip of coffee and smiled. “I remember that. That was a weird night.” He leaned back, reminiscing, and fell asleep.It was dark when he woke up, but he still began to put on his boots and coat, all the while talking. “Lord God, it was her friendship that got me through the last bit. I couldn’t have done it on just romance- it’s too weak on its own. But to have a friendship, a strong friendship built on solid emotions and actual Love…”
He opened the door a crack and had to shut it quickly. The storm had turned into a mini-blizzard, and he would have to wait until tomorrow. He turned away, then ignored the little caution in his head and plunged out to the porch, slamming the door behind him. Stumbling and bent over, he made his way to the shed, all the while thanking God for Tracie’s friendship. His words were blown away the moment he spoke them, but Steven knew his audience could understand him perfectly.
PART 4
The rest of that week was almost relaxing. Each day, Steven would spend his time completely absorbed in his Bible and finding every possible reference to friendship and relationships he possibly could. A few mornings, he got up early and ran down the mountain, singing all the best worship songs he could think of. He even caught himself smiling on several occasions. He prayed often, and though he received no communication back, he was sure he could make it the rest of the month.Sunday arrived, and Steven could feel his spirit sinking as he trudged out to the field behind the cabin, shovel in one hand and a bookbag in the other. When he got back at dusk that night, he noted the remarkable decline in interest he now felt, the dull throb of low self-worth and deepening apathy. He knew the lowest point was soon to come. And, as predicted, he spent most of Monday flat on the couch, unable to move, barely breathing, eyes wide open and bone dry. He couldn’t think of Tracie’s incredible blessings, or do any of what he was supposed to for three full days- only lie still and wish her there with him.* * * * *This wasn’t the first time he’d experienced this kind of depression. Almost two years into their marriage, Tracie’s disease was getting progressively worse and the doctors were quickly running out of options. One day, they came home from an especially discouraging appointment. Steven left her in the bedroom to lie down for a bit, and walked into their small kitchen to get a glass of water and think. His job was making enough to support them both and pay for her treatments, and it left him plenty of time to spend with her; he wasn’t worried about that.
He waited several minutes, then crept down the hall and quietly peeked into the bedroom. Tracie lay curled on the bed, breathing lightly and quietly humming in her sleep. The usual color in her face and glow in her skin had disappeared in the last few months, and her headaches had increased with terrifying ferocity. She was in daily, non-stop pain, and Steven could do nothing about it. He hated it. He hated her brain, and her disease, and he wanted to kill something.
Twenty minutes later, Tracie found him kneeling in front of the couch, fists clenched in a fearful sweat, hissing through his teeth and sobbing softly. She got to her knees next to him and put both arms around his waist. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m okay.”
* * * * *
Steven sobbed like that now, and wished the smooth, slender arms would appear and wrap around him, comfort him. But they didn’t, and he knew they never would again.
PART 5
The Thursday light, muffled by the light grey clouds blanketing the sky, began to bring a dull haze to the cabin. Evergreen trees outside the windows shook and bent as the wind picked up speed. A huge storm was nearing, but Steven paid no attention. After a long night of thinking and praying, he had just found a trail to follow, and was busy talking himself through it.“Lies. She hated lies. And no side-stepping, either. It was tell her straight, or don’t tell her at all. Lies…” He ran his mind off-track, and struggled to concentrate. “This is getting harder and harder, you know. It was easy to think of her beauty the first week, but now I have to get deeper.” He stopped and thought it through again.“Truth…her love for truth drove her. She was on an unstoppable hunt for the ultimate truth in everyone’s life. She never accepted a lie as an excuse. And she never lied herself, and so she could tell when someone was lying to her. The face of falsity is ripped away by the strength of honesty.”He sat up. “So, Honesty?” Is that a virtue? Yeah, that’s a virtue. It’s a Fruit of the Spirit, too, I think.” He rubbed his eyes, crusted from dried tears and sleep. “I’ll never be as honest as she was, and I don’t think I’ll meet someone like that again, either.”
Steven stood and paced the room for a moment. “Lord, help me to offer back her Honesty, her beautiful obsession with Truth. Help me develop those passions in my own life this week.”
He ended his prayer, put on his boots, grabbed a few water bottles, and went out to the shed. He didn’t come back for two days.
PART 6
The fifth week at the cabin, Steven began to get restless. He walked around both buildings when the storms let up, restoring rotted wood or repainting sealant. He scrubbed windows, added bathroom and bedroom fixtures, replaced damaged kitchen tiles, and even fixed several leaks in the plumbing and heating. Still, he took to running in the mornings and chopping wood in the afternoons, and these chores helped him to stay busy, and carry on his own restoration. Between swings of his ax, he could be heard muttering and speaking to the surrounding trees.
“Tracie was always joyful. She found joy in everything.” Whump. “I think she even managed a smile the night she got the news. What the–“ Whump. “It never seemed fair to me. She got to be happy, and I was completely stressed out. You’d think I had the friggin’–“ Whump. “Well, I needed her to be joyful, because I never would have made it through if she was as gloomy as me.”
Steven put the ax down and brushed the sweat from his eyebrows before it froze. He remembered one of the countless times Tracie had kissed him, smiled, and touched his face when the depression was starting to close in. “It’s in God’s hands, Steven. Be joyful, for we have a Great Provider, and He knows what He’s doing.” The she’d stretch her arms out as if waking up, throw her head back, and twirl in circles, laughing, until Steven caught her. It was his most beautiful memory of her, and now he had to find a way to lay it to rest this week. He picked up the ax and swung it high. Whump.
* * * * *
The storm, which had been holding off east of the range, suddenly turned and breached upon the mountain, covering the terrain in huge piles of snow and broken tree limbs. White-tailed deer ran by the windows in groups of two and three, and Steven even saw a bear lumber by in the relentless wind.
Inside, the fire in the hearth gave off enough heat to keep him from putting on a coat, although he needed his thick socks and a hooded jacket for comfort. It was the beginning of week six, and he was glad he had chopped wood for three days and fixed the outside enough to trust it in a storm this fierce. So as the coffee seeped through the strainer in a painfully slow drip, he went back to the previous subject and started his prayer.
“I thought of it while I was back at Joy, but I didn’t want to get distracted. So here’s the next one: Hope. She was so joyful, because she was filled with Hope.” He paused, thinking. “She didn’t hope for impossible things, or selfish things. Not even for things, period. She had hope for each person in her life, that what she was going through would open eyes and move hearts. Everything she hoped for was exactly what You want.”
The coffee finished, but Steven wasn’t paying attention. He was bent over the counter, grasping his hair. “I don’t think I had the same hope she did. I wish I had.” His voice was muffled by the jacket, and the room fell completely silent. He stood in this position, remembering, unable to forget. “Lord, she was my wife. She was my wife. I married her three years ago. I loved her more than I’ve loved anyone else- even You.”
He had said it. He’d known it for a long time, but was too afraid to admit it. “God, You wouldn’t take her from me because my priorities were wrong! You aren’t cruel!” Steven pushed away from the counter, shaking. “She had hope for me too! She prayed for me all the time, that I would put You back in Your place. No, that’s not why. You aren’t cruel.” He regained control of his thoughts, and then his body. The quaking stopped, and he calmed down. “Lord, I’m sorry. I have no right to blame you. Please help me through this week. Help me to lay her Hope to rest, in Your name.”
The coffee sat in the clear pot, cold and untouched for the remainder of the night.
PART 7
It was three in the afternoon, and Steven had just gotten back from his last shift that week. When he opened the front door and saw Tracie lying still on the floor, he lost his sane mind, and went into emergency mode. Checking her pulse and finding it still beating, he mechanically called 911 and then the specialist. When the response team arrived, he quickly briefed them, offered his help to no avail, and sat in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. When they successfully revived her, he was standing outside the glass wall, pacing and mentally checking every procedure he’d performed in a frenzy to be sure he hadn’t done something wrong. The doctor approached him and let him know she had been revived, and was now sleeping, fully monitored. Steven thanked him, stood for several moments with an twitch in his left hand, then walked into the bathroom and shook uncontrollably for twenty minutes. Even after he’d recovered enough to unwrap his arms from his body, the short, sharp breathing from inside the stall worried someone enough to call a doctor, and Steven was taken to a recovery room until he could speak and inform the nurse he was fine.
A few hours later, when they let him in her room, and he was sitting and watching her, he heard a voice. It was one of those voices where he wasn’t quite sure if it was God or one of the many in his head. He listened as it spoke: You’re afraid of losing her. You’re terrified, not just from fear of loss, but from your lack of control. She’s dying, and YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
Steven grabbed his head and shook it intensely. He wouldn’t listen to that. It wasn’t hopeful, or encouraging. He needed comfort, and that was not comforting.
“Hi Steven.”
He looked up quickly and grabbed Tracie’s hand. “Baby-“
“Steven, I love you so much, but you need to calm down.” She smiled at him and stroked his arm.
“Tracie.” He covered her hand with his. “I found you on the floor. They said you had a seizure.”
She pursed her lips and sighed through her nose. “Did you get me here?”
“The ambulance came.”
She turned towards the ceiling and closed her eyes. Steven studied her profile; she looked so frail, and the tubes in her nose just added to her frailty. He felt his stomach sink and swallowed.
“Steven, are you scared?” Tracie spoke towards the roof, quietly, calmly.
He almost answered, then stopped himself. “Is that a question you already know?”
She nodded. “You can’t be scared. You have to fight your fear and face this with me, because I won’t be around too much longer.” She grabbed his hand while she spoke.
He felt her grasp, and the weight of her words. His fear also crept in and grabbed his chest. It took him a few tries before he could successfully stammer an “okay” out.
She faced him and give him a little grin. “I have something for you. It’s at home, in an envelope on the dresser. When you go back, please open it.” He nodded, and held her hand in both of his. Her face grew serious. “You need to promise me something.”
Steven nodded quickly.
“I want you to follow the instructions. Whatever I’ve told you, you need to do.” She paused at his confused look. “I think God told me what to write, because He knew you wouldn’t follow the instructions if He gave them to you. So you have to promise me.”
He leaned over and locked her gaze completely. It was the way he’d held her gaze at the altar three years ago. “I promise.”
A tear slid down the side of her face as she smiled. “Thank you.”
They spent the rest of the evening silently, his head against her shoulder as he slumped forward in the chair.
* * * * *
Steven stayed at the hospital with Tracie for two more days. When he woke up on the third morning, she was gone.
PART 8
The last week of his retreat, and Steven was back on the couch, thinking. He felt tired, drained, devoid of all physical and emotional energy. His heart was sore; each week was spent ripping out memories and emotions, kissing them fervently goodbye, and handing them up to God. It was a visual he was familiar with, but incapable of spiritually fathoming. He knew he was losing the battle, because one relapse, one miscalculated feeling, would bring it all flooding back. He knew the problem wasn’t being properly dealt with- instead, he was sweeping it away, effectively hiding it from sight until the next gust of wind blew it all into view.
“An all-abounding love.”
The silence was broken. Since the storm had passed, the only noise he’d heard this morning was the sound of the pillow falling on the floor. Now, the soft peace was broken.
“She loved with all her heart. When she loved someone, they knew it, without a doubt.” He pictured countless scenes of Tracie dancing with her friends and family. “And she was much loved. You loved her more than anyone, right? More than I ever could; and I loved her…” His voice cracked. “I loved her so much. So much.” Softer, whispering. “So much.”
He fell asleep, dreaming. Her voice, the last words he remembered so clearly: “Thank you.” It wasn’t just an acknowledgement of his promise. It was a sincere gratefulness. For what? His help? His selfishness?
Steven woke in a sweat, head throbbing. The fire had kept going and made the room too warm. He kicked a few pieces of wood onto the hearth and pulled on his boots. It was dark outside.
He turned on the outside lights and threw the door open. The wind had disappeared, and snow was falling quietly. He shut the door behind him and trudged out to the shed. A half-foot of snow covered the ground and crunched beneath his feet with each step. Stars, more than he’d seen in a long time, were spread out across the sky in clumps, and scattered between were the falling flakes that melted on his face. Steven stopped halfway and stood still, breathing quietly in the silence, and trying to clear his head. With each flake that touched his hands and face, he imagined her hair brushing against him as he kissed her for the first time at the altar; as she leaned her head on his shoulders during the reception dinner; when she was buried in his chest at one of a hundred treatment centers. And he almost fell over with the realization that holding her was all he really could do before. She was a shadow on the surface of the world, and just like the snow on the ground, she had melted away.
Steven almost lost it his mind. His stomach was churning and his head was spinning. He was angry and terrified and filled with an indescribable sorrow all at once. He grabbed his hair and yelled as loud as he could, as long as he could. It was the scream of a man who had been weakened beyond comprehension, brought down to his lowest point. And when his lungs were spent, he wept.
The sobs of a broken man are the saddest sounds in the world. All the pain he feels, all the hopelessness and helplessness he has experienced, the understanding that his strength is not enough sometimes; It’s all poured out upon the air, awaiting help. And the only help that can heal a broken man is in God. Steven knew this. So he turned his sobs upon his Lord. He cried out all his pain upon his God, and his God answered him. His heart was flooded with a Love full and rich and wondrous, of the kind he’d never been filled with before. The emptiness of his soul, the aching in his heart, were healed with a Peace so eternal and warm, he’d never be without again. His voice whispered, of its own accord. “Thank you.”
The snow, the falling contradiction to his now overflowing heart, rained down softly on his head as he lay, unmoving, untouched by the cold.
When he rose, he turned and went back into the house. His first thought was sleep, but he decided against it. Instead, we want into the bedroom and retrieved a white envelope. It was hastily opened, and written in a flourish on the front was his name.
Steven almost didn’t open it. He knew he was done; his task had been fulfilled. But he pressed himself, and took the letter out. One last time, he would hear the voice of his wife through the written words. And then he would lay her to rest forever.
PART 9 – Tracie’s Letter
My dearest Steven,
If you’re reading this, it’s because I have left this world and gone to be with our Lord. We’ve often talked about what heaven is like- now I will finally get to see it. I will miss you, even in the perfect holiness of God, because I know how much you will miss me.
Right now, God is speaking to me, and I must write what He dictates. It is an instruction for you, to follow word-for-word, and live out in your life from now on. Do not take these instructions lightly. I’m still your wife, you know; at least, for now.
Steven, when you are finished reading this letter, I want you to pack a suitcase and move out to the cabin for seven weeks. The weeks will start on Monday, and end Sunday night. You cannot leave the mountain until the end of the seven weeks. Bring enough food with you to last the whole time.
Each Monday, I want you to think of a quality in me, one that you married me for. I’m not talking about my looks, or my accent, or my laugh- I mean the real, rooted reasons you love me. Each Monday, you need to find it, and for the rest of the week, you need to give it up. By Sunday evening, that part of me must be buried, and gone from you.
Remember these conversations? The offerings to God; the constant repentance and renewal of what breaks us. You are broken, Steven, and you must be healed. I suppose most healing is gradual, but I believe God has something else planned for you. Something that requires your immediate renewal.
You have seven weeks to bring my gifts before the Lord, and offer them back. Along with these gifts, you must include every precious memory of me, and every physical object that will rekindle your sorrow. When you walk down from that mountain, you must be completely restored.
Also, when you pray, pray to God. Do not talk to me, Steven, because I can’t answer you anymore.
Do you know why? You understand why you must put me behind you like this, don’t you? You love shamelessly and heroically, but you love me more than your God. He should be your everything, and you should be able to carry on without me through him; and we both know that unless you fall upon Him now, at your weakest, you will be unable to stand up on your own.
I’m scolding you in my letter, dear, and I’m sorry for that. I only do so because you can tell when I’m being serious in my written words. Please read the next part- you will understand my heart better.
Do you know how much I love you, Steven? I love you so much. Since the first month I met you, I’ve loved you as a fellow brother in Christ’s church. Since the first year I’ve known you, I’ve loved you as my heart’s romance. And since our marriage, I’ve loved you second only to God, and that is nearly boundless, I hear. You have been so good to me, and cared for me with a passion rarely seen anywhere. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend or a more perfect husband. I am deeply honored to have had you at my side these years (too few!) and blessed beyond measure.
I must end this letter soon. If I do not, it will never end. Steven, please follow the instructions. For me. There is only time separating us, and that, as we both know, is fragile and mortal. It won’t be long, my love. Grab hold of God, Steven, and never let go. NEVER LET GO.
Until the New Beginning, and Eternity,
Tracie
EPILOGUE
Steven patted down the last pile of dirt, straightened up, and cracked his back. The snow was still lightly falling, and the hardened ground made the weekly duty more and more difficult, but he had finished. Quietly, and with reverence, he unfolded a beautifully-carved wooden headpiece from his bookbag and placed it in the ground, standing at the top of the grave. He stepped back and blew on his blistered hands.To the left of the grave rose six similar piles with identical headstones, all aligned perfectly. Each wooden marker was carved from red oak, decorated with grapevines and roses, and bearing a single, calligraphic title at the center. Woven around and throughout each carving were people, faces, houses, things that Steven was leaving behind.This was how he let go. The figurative act of sacrifice was not enough for this man. So each day he would walk down the short path to the woodshed and carve that week’s marker. And each Sunday, he would write Tracie a letter. Every letter was a plan, an idea, a hope he had, that he was now instructed to offer away. Then, when he was done, he would gather up his headstone and hike to an old fenced area above the cabin, and bury the letter. At the head of each grave, the carved wood announced his offering. Beauty. Humor. Friendship. Honesty. Joy. Hope. Love. And beneath his gift of Love, he buried Tracie’s letter to him. Seven weeks, seven letters, seven gifts to be sacrificed.Steven knelt on the ground and thanked the Lord for his renewal, and his purpose. His sadness, once thoughtless and desperate, was now followed by peace and an all-powerful hope. He was incapable of regarding eternal salvation with anything but glorious, joyful Love.
He stood and turned away. Glorious Love. As he slowly walked down the mountainside towards the cabin, through the falling snow and chilling wind, Steven made up his mind. He would live the rest of his life with reckless abandon. He would refuse to be brought low again by the weakened tests of this world. If Love, unending and almighty, awaited him where Tracie was now, he would be bold enough to earn what he could. Because that kind of Love is worth waiting for.
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