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.