I’m posting a series called Messy Stories. These are stories from others detailing pain and heartache; they are stories of cancer, death, divorce, betrayal, and disease; they are ultimately stories that bind each of us to one another in this messy thing known as life. If you have a messy story, anonymous or not, I would love to hear about it and post it for others in order that we all might gain insight and understanding from our different journeys. Send me a message at jessplusthemess@gmail.com.
This story is from my eleven year old son, Caleb.
I didn’t think my dad would die.
Instead I thought that God would heal him completely and that he would be perfectly fine within the next week or so, but I was wrong.
After my dad died, I was very, very sad because after all the fun things we’d done together he just went away. I was horrified when I saw him there, lying motionless in the bed, no breathing, no heartbeat and it felt strange seeing my mom cry after his death.
I believed he went to Heaven that day. My mom had told me that he had been a very Godly man so I believed he went to Heaven after his death. I thought it would have been really strange if my mom had found a new man to marry especially if we ended up having new kids in our family.
I often thought it was all God’s fault because he could have healed him instantly, and occasionally I still get mad at God about his death. I really got distracted at the last part of the funeral because I had so many of my relatives there, and they would all comfort me. The last part of the funeral was basically a party with all sorts of fun stuff. Even a few of my classmates showed up. At my school my classmates had all made a bunch of cards for me and a different class made me one of those bound notebooks that said, “What I think Heaven is like.” Inside there were a bunch of drawings of what other kids thought heaven was like and at the bottom of the drawing there was a little note from each of them saying they were sorry my dad died and all that stuff.
I will always remember my dad and how kind he was to me.
Just keep livin…
