Parallel Tracks

 I shake my head at the irony of it all as I type a comment on a friend's social media... Three Marines - two dead, one alive - all with a tie to the same date five years apart. Two I'm reflecting on their memory while the other thanks God for another day on earth and I type back a response to his post saying that I celebrate him...

And mustn't joy and sorrow find a way to co-exist in this world? Doesn't each run on a parallel track to the other? 

The profound significance of it all is not lost on me in this moment. The irony that a single day can symbolize both an ending and a beginning all at once. For one young man, it was the day he took his last breaths... on a mission he never returned from; for his best friend - my dear Alex - it was one of the worst days of his life as he helplessly had to witness his Marine brother's death... a day he never forgot and talked to me about often... a day I still remember and commemorate each year even now that Alex is gone too. 

And yet, the very same date signifies, for another friend of mine, the day it could've ended but didn't. The day he could've died and yet survived. He lost a leg but not his life and here I am, a friend of them all, searching for words to match all the conflicting feelings that this one day can bring. 

Isn't it wild how you can find yourself rejoicing with those who rejoice one minute, only to weep with those who weep the next? Isn't it strange how life can take you on emotional roller-coaster rides you never thought you'd go? 

The one who celebrates his alive day never knew the one who bears the same date on his headstone. And yet, my life intersected with both. And somehow, I must find a way to live with the reality of the happy-sad because that's the journey we all go on at some point... learning to live with all the feels at all the times and still be okay. Learning to accept the mixed bag that is life and call it all Grace and embrace it all as gift. 

I text the sergeant who was in command when the young Marine died that day. He's back in my life after nearly twelve years and even though nobody has to say it out loud, we know. We remember. And in our own way, we still mourn. But we have one another and family in whatever form it comes always did get a hurting soul through and help them feel less alone. 

The guy who lost his leg talks in his social media post about his journey since that fateful day - how it led to a new life: a life filled with pain on all levels he never knew was possible but also a life still filled with light. He mentions how telling his own story in order to help others is what has helped to heal the pain and how gratitude continues to be the way forward in the wake of his injury all those years ago. 

Pain redefines the concept of healing and once you've ached and lost, you are forever changed. And healing stops becoming all about getting rid of the hurt and more about growing through it. 

Every year, I know this date will pop up and with it will come countless memories and stories of a young man who's life was cut short but who left a lasting impact before his death. And now, this date has a new meaning because I also get to bless God for giving another Marine more time. And isn't that always the way He works... spinning hope through all our troubles and giving us cause for thankfulness even when we hurt the most? 

My heart must seek to welcome both realities - to grieve but also to celebrate. To mourn but also to live fully. To remember the past but also to do something in the present, knowing that there are lives left here to embrace even as I can no longer love on those who have gone. I can acknowledge the existence of death while at the same time looking around me to appreciate life and all its goodness because the Author of Life is forever moving us onward, forward. 

We cannot deny the existence of the past and all the difficulty it has brought us. We cannot dismiss the fact that we have been irreparably moulded by the things that have happened to us - just as the one Marine cannot deny the reality that his leg is gone. But we also cannot shut out the joy that still exists even when the darkness settles in for awhile. Life is never all of one and nothing of the other, for God makes certain that we taste enough of both to remind us that these parallel tracks are essential to a whole life - live it only by halves and you miss much of what God is after. 

Don't be afraid of a smile in the midst of tears or the tears that follow a laugh - we were made to know and feel both and to sense it all is to be human, right where we're at in that very instant. There will be days where it all feels like a jumble and you aren't sure what to feel. Roll with it all because your one constant in it all is Jesus Himself...the God-Man who also felt all the things we feel and didn't reject any of them but instead, turned His face into them and let them shape Him. And so should we.