What Would Your Rock Say?

Imagine if we spoke about the loss of a limb the way we talk about the death of a loved one.

“She’s in a better place.”

“He’s not suffering anymore.”

“She’s at peace.”

“At least you had the chance to say goodbye.”

“What a life well-lived!”

Or my personal favorite: “Hold onto the good memories.” (I remember this one time my legs and I were roller skating home from grade school with our neighbor friends – the Ison girls – and this lady from the local newspaper stopped to ask if she could take our photo. And we… aaaahahahahaha. Oh, those were good times, back in our Parkview Elementary days! Me and my legs and the Ison girls! I’ll never forget it!)

These expressions of sympathy are intended to console, but we would never say them to someone who had just traumatically lost a leg. We recognize how empty they feel in such a context. We seem to understand innately that sympathy does nothing to mitigate the loss of life and function and that occurs when one loses part of their body, and in fact, it can sound rather silly. Even insulting. When someone we love is experiencing the sorrow of death, however, we reach for anything – anything at all that might encourage, lift their countenance, or bring them a moment of peace. We long to comfort. We long to offer some emotional life preserver to buoy their spirit and pull them back from the tumult of grief. And as one who grieves, often the words don’t matter nearly as much as the fact that someone speaks into our sorrow.

But there is a very real trauma in sorrow, isn’t there? When you walk with another human being day after day, sharing your good moments and your bad moments, your hopes and your fears, your faith and your struggles, your recipes and your traditions, your home and your love, their death can leave you wobbling like a one-legged man without a cane to lean on.

I found my friend Al wobbling without a cane last year. He had lost his closest friend very suddenly, very tragically, and nothing I could say would change that. Nothing Al could say would change it. Al’s life would never be the same, and he felt every bit of that change. His friend’s death landed upon Al like a landslide of rocks too heavy to lift and too treacherous to navigate.

Rocks. Unchangeable. Unbreakable. Unyielding. Crushing. Rocks.

In his grief, Al began to capture moments of beauty by painting them upon those rocks. What could have destroyed Al became his healing. What had been unspeakably hard became an expression of great hope. And it continues to work hope in and through Al. I’ve watched as his resolve has changed this past year: He has transitioned from “surviving” to “thriving,” simply by choosing to paint his love and memories on the rocks that might have crushed him.

It reminds me of that moment at the end of the story – after Joseph’s brothers realize he should totally kill them for all the awful things they did to him and daddy’s not there to appease Joe’s wrath anymore. They beg for his mercy. His forgiveness. And Joseph tells them, “Dudes. Relax. It’s done and I’m not God. What you intended for evil, God intended for good.” (The New Sarahfied Version; for an actual Bible version, check out Genesis 50:20)

Perhaps the best part of the story (at least for me) is that what began as a healing process for Al has given him a voice to speak hope to others struggling without a leg to stand on. Every time he paints a rock, he proves that beauty can grow out of the most excruciating places. Every rock speaks life. Every rock encourages the idea that even in our suffering, we are alive and we are destined to live.

Recently, Al shared with me a new rock project. He painted several rocks white, adding lines and painted hole-punches to look like notebook paper. These he gifted to some friends at a support group and challenged them to write something on their rock – whatever would be meaningful to them – and to either keep it, gift it, or hide it where someone would undoubtedly find it in their moment of need.

It has me wondering… if Al gave you a rock today, what would you write on it?

If you knew that one person might find that rock and it might be a lifeline to them in their darkest moment, what would you want it to say? What truth in your life is worth painting on a rock? What truth in your life is worth preserving for others?

From my heart to yours,