I sat in church today and witnessed three sisters getting baptized…young daughters of a friend who died from cancer 16 months ago.  As I listened to each one share a bit of their journey and what had brought them to this day, I felt the tears rise.  Memories from when their mom and I were just a little bit older than these girls, rushed in and grew the wonder of God’s grace anew in me.  He was far from our radar screens then…if you had asked either of us if we could have envisioned this day I suspect we would have thought you were off your rocker, though we might have been intrigued.  We were living broken, lonely lives in tough circumstances, trying to find meaning in many of the foolish ways teenagers in similar circumstances do.

As the years went by, our paths would cross and diverge many times, and each time of crossing would bear witness that God was at work, knitting our lives together in ways we could never have imagined.  We witnessed each other coming to faith, held a significant voice in each other’s early journey, and even kept in touch when we diverged for a time in how we expressed that faith. 

We weren’t really “close” as some people like to measure relationships. After high school we didn’t hang out on a regular basis and we each went through some seasons of trial and celebration without the other.  We weren’t each other’s confidante yet we never hid anything from each other.  Neither of us was the first person the other called when something exciting or tragic happened, but we did at some point connect and share some of the more critical and special elements of our lives. 

The door was always open and the phone was always answered and we always picked up where we had left off, sharing and laughing and enjoying one another, sometimes challenging one another, sometimes talking in quieter tones as we remembered mutual friends who had met death way too soon. 

Perhaps one of the gifts of our friendship was never having to explain ourselves to each other because we both knew where the other had come from and some of the struggles that each still faced because of that.  And that was okay.

In the final years of my friend’s life, our paths not only crossed but aligned as we attended the same church and I had opportunity to journey with her and her family as one of the pastors at the church.  Even when I moved on from that role, we would still connect in the church foyer or on her back patio and catch up with each other, sharing where we were at and where our kids were at in their faith journey. 

Just a few days before she died, I visited my friend in the hospice and we had some quiet moments alone.  It really wasn’t until then that I realized how much I loved her and had the courage to say so, and how much I had appreciated the gift of her in my life.  It wasn’t until then that I realized how deeply God had blessed each of us, and taught each of us grace…bringing us the meaning that we had been so hungry for way back when.  As we said our goodbyes, and I assured her that I would join many others and continue to be there for her kids, and we finally let the tears we had so often held back through the years, softly land…I don’t think either of us envisioned the tremendous grace that would be at work to bring her daughters to today’s display of faith…in fact, she was deeply concerned that her dying would wound too deeply and become a hindrance to their still tender faith.

And so, as I listened to each of her daughters share their own personal perspective on the influence of their mom, and the impact of her death, and their desire to follow the One who was making it possible for them to walk with increasing strength in grace and to find meaning, I was thankful that in one sense things had come full circle.  What we had longed for but could not name as teenagers was today being named without hesitation by her girls.  As I talked with my friend’s mom and sister afterward, they agreed with me that such was the case.

I have struggled with my friend’s death – struggled with feeling so strongly about it…with feeling the grief so deeply.  There are so many that were much closer to her than I was.  So many times I have tried to dismiss it thinking I was making more of it than I should.  Those thoughts were revived again today as I came home and felt the loss of my friend mixed with the joy of seeing her daughters continue to grab onto life.

Then I came across something that challenged…in fact, exploded… the myth of friendships and relationships that measures loss by the degree of “closeness”.  

“Relationships needn’t be painted as “close” or “not-close,” but rather as meaningful.” 

The author was talking about how the impact of a loss is rooted not just in whether someone was in your inner circle or not, but also by their overall role in your life – how your lives had been weaved together over the course of time.  This helped her to reconcile the deep sense of loss she felt when the doorman at her building took ill and was in the hospital dying.  He had been a daily constant for years, greeting her as she left in the morning, and welcoming her home at the end of the day.  He faithfully took note of when she was coming home late on Tuesdays after her chemotherapy treatment.  She realized her grief was tied to the the fact that their relationship had been intensely meaningful even if hardly “close”.

These were much needed words of consolation.  I find it incredibly hard to be “close” to anyone though I feel deeply and can be wounded to tears  by the suffering or death of even a complete stranger.  In fact, relationships scare me, mostly because I have little confidence that I can sustain them in healthy ways.  I don’t have to look far or hard to find evidence of my inability.  But “meaningful” I can understand.  Relationships can be meaningful no matter where on the continuum of “closeness” they land. 

This measure of meaningfulness doesn’t negate my longing that I could be someone that could both offer and receive “closeness” much more than I do.  But it soothes the grief of not being able to do so (at least not yet) by reminding me my life does indeed matter and brings meaning, in different measures and ways, to other people’s lives.