A week ago Jim and Molly were hunting with Gramps in Wyoming. This morning my father-in-law, George Gallagher, moved his residence to heaven.
A week ago Jim and Molly were hunting with Gramps in Wyoming. This morning my father-in-law, George Gallagher, moved his residence to heaven.
I share my letter to him from yesterday, because George’s pathway to Jesus and redemption can also be yours! God’s grace is greater than all your regrets, and his face is toward you!
September 27, 2020
Dear Pops,
I am hovering today between grief and wonder.
Today may be your last day on this earth, and my heart aches at the loss I know is coming.
I’m flipping through my photos of the last 7 years with you, the years since that September day when I drove home to find you sitting on my sofa, grinning at me. You were weird that way: you would often arrive or leave without a word. I wonder if you were unsure if you would be welcomed? But your presence here in our home was so welcome, Dad.
I think Molly was 6 when you finally met her. You were distant with us when we left California to move to Oregon, and didn’t want to return our calls. Tensions and old grievances exploded between you and Jim, and heart wounds simmered unhealed on both sides. I wondered if I’d ever see you again, if you’d ever meet your granddaughter. We moved on. But I didn’t forget you.
Once we bought the property in the country, while we were still building the home you later came to live in, I used to meet in the wee hours with friends to pray. We sat on the carpeted steps of our sanctuary, waiting for God to guide our prayers, alternately reading scripture and bringing our burdens to the Lord. One morning God’s Spirit kept guiding me back to one thing only: you. I couldn’t escape it. I needed to pray for you, for your soul. I ached for you to know God’s forgiveness and love; I wanted to know you’d be in heaven when I got there. I prayed, but the burden would not lift. I prayed again. I sat on the steps and wept for you, and prayed again and again, with tears. “God, melt George’s heart! Let him find you, and know the peace of being forgiven and free.”
I remember exactly where we were when you called a few months later, and talked to Jim as though there had not been years and words between you. Jim was painting our cabinet doors, and couldn’t lay down the spray gun until it was complete, lest the paint dry weird, but he didn’t want to set down the phone either. He would make a mistake, try to even out the paint blotch while still carrying on the conversation, sweat on the paint, try again to smooth it out, but he wasn’t going to hang up!
You were the one to build the bridge. I didn’t hear your words, but you eventually told Jim that you weren’t calling just to chat, that you wanted to apologize for the way you had treated him—not just in that watershed moment when Jim shouted out a lifetime of hurt and you walked away, but for the lifetime of hurt as well. You owned your part. You forgave Jim for his.
The paint dried on that cabinet with that blotch there in plain sight, and the scab on our cabinet door is a proud memorial of a healing, of a second start of life with you. I ran my fingers over it just this morning, though now, maybe 16 years later, the scar blends nicely with all the other nicks and scuffs.
Humility had not been your character--not in the time I had known you before that day. What had changed in you? It seemed impossible that the George I knew would ever humble himself, or reach out to heal his son’s hurting heart.
Later as Mark and I compared notes, he told me of your trip to Pennsylvania with him, and how the two of you talked about God’s grace and forgiveness. He told you that day that the first step to peace with God was acknowledging your own garbage—what the Bible calls sin. And you did that! You humbled yourself, acknowledged your brokenness, and accepted the free gift of grace that God offered. His Son’s death paid for your wrongs, and mine, and Jim’s, and all the rest of this broken world. And your faith that Christ’s death and resurrection was enough to wash away every broken story, every fault and failure, was enough. God counted your faith as righteousness.
A fresh start happened that day. Your life was made new.
Mark and I looked at the calendar, and as near as we could figure, my friends and I were praying as you were choosing to lay down your pride and your sin, and follow Jesus.
Soon you were saying goodbye to your sweet wife, Rita. The years ahead would be hard, with loss upon loss. But for us, we felt whole again; we were in relationship with you again. Life was right again. Oh, sure, we (Jim and I and also you) were still messed up and broken in so many ways. But not hopelessly broken, for God walked with us, worked his grace into our hearts.
And so when you came to our home, first for a long visit, then for good, it was a pleasure to be in relationship with you, to enfold you into our family, to share holidays, and make a garden together, and watch your happy dance when you ate your favorite foods, and sit next to you in church and hear your wonderful, horrible, scratchy voice growling out Amazing Grace. You enriched our lives by riding along with our own brokenness, always forgiving and loving us despite our grumpiness, our busyness, and a few teenage tantrums.
Today I’m thinking of the day we revealed your attic bedroom to you, and how you cried. I’m thinking of the times we sat around the fire pit, laughing. Our talks at the kitchen table, your forays with Jim to Sportsmen’s Warehouse, the deer blind where you and Jim would sit with a propane heater keeping you warm. I’m thinking of how in deer season you would simply turn your favorite chair toward your window, and sit with your rifle across your lap—old man hunting! I’m thinking of how you wore your camouflage sweats day and night, and how Christmas morning was sweeter when you were there. I’m thinking of the day your pants slid down while your arms were full of groceries, and how you told that and other stories with great relish, though the veracity of them was not always verifiable.
Pops, you enriched our lives.
Thank you for adding your brand of redeemed brokenness to ours.
Thanks for loving us anyway.
Thanks for your forgiveness.
Thanks for being family.
I’ve been crying for days, already grieving that soon you’ll be permanently absent from my life, and that I cannot touch you and tell you I love you one more time. But I’m also giddy at the thought that for you the very best chapter of your “life” is about to begin. Dad, when you walk into heaven, you will be just as welcomed and honored and celebrated as Billy Graham, because, Dad, Christ has showered his grace upon you. Every single regret is gone, forgiven—not because you deserve it, but because God is grace itself! He loves you; he has purified your heart; he is smiling toward you.
Pops, my own Dad stepped out of this world and into the next 42 days ago. I didn’t know that August 17th would be his last day on earth, and on that day I assured him I’d be back tomorrow, and readied myself to leave. But I hesitated, my heart uneasy. You know I’m not very outspoken, but no one else was watching, so I stood at the foot of my Dad’s hospital bed and raising my hands over him, I closed my eyes and boldly spoke this blessing over him with all the passion and ache in my heart. And in this moment, as I sit in my bed typing a letter you will never read, I am praying this for you, too, Dad:
May the Lord bless you and keep you!
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you
And give you peace.
Dad, when you walk into heaven, the Lord’s face will be turned toward you. His grace has settled every account, and his smile will shine upon you as he welcomes you home. You are forever welcome and loved and forgiven, there in heaven, and in our hearts as well.
I already miss you so much. Be waiting for me when it’s my turn to come, because I can’t wait to hug you and laugh together again.
All my love,
Kathy
He looks like Charlie here.