A year ago, I was back in my hometown of Radford, Virginia, sitting beside my 91-year-old mother’s bed. November felt like one long, emotional tide—rolling in, rolling out, never still. Some mornings she was alert, talking about life, faith, and family with that familiar spark in her eyes. Other days she slept, withdrawn, agitated, or simply tired of the weight of going on. Every hour carried a different version of her, and the emotional toll on all of us was heavier than I ever expected.
On December 2nd, she slipped quietly and peacefully into heaven. For that, I’m grateful. But the gap she left—between me here on earth and her now in glory—feels enormous. It’s a distance I can’t measure, and a silence I still don’t quite know what to do with.
Months before losing my mom, something similar—though different—happened. Our 12-year-old mini labradoodle, Maggie, whom we adopted just two years earlier, woke up with a purple abscess on her belly. One emergency vet visit turned into another, and by the end of that horrible day… Maggie was gone too.
My wife and I both broke that day.
And if I’m honest… I’m still broken.
And if we rewind another six months, I lost someone else—someone who shaped my life in immeasurable ways. A man I met in 2005 at the Rock Church in San Diego, where he served as Executive Pastor and I had just come on staff to help build the new facility. He was the one who persuaded me to go to Sudan… the first of many mission trips that would forever change my faith and life. A best friend. A confidante. A pastor. A mentor. A brother. I loved that man. I learned so much about God through him.
These are the gaps in my life.
They’re the echoing voids—the empty spaces that don’t get filled, the hollows that remind me every day that something or someone once lived there. I try to ignore them sometimes. Other times I try to fill them with distractions or busyness. And some days, I try to just sit in the darkness of them, letting the ache wash over me.
But still… they remain.
I don’t know that they’ll ever fully go away. I’m not sure they’re supposed to. And I certainly don’t want the memories to fade or get watered down with time.
But their presence—their continued, pulsing presence—reminds me how deeply I loved them and how deeply they loved me. It reminds me of laughter, joy, purpose, faith, and seasons of my life that were richer because they were in them.
I’m grateful—truly—for having had them. I’m better because of them. Their fingerprints are on my soul.
But I miss them.
Terribly.
And maybe that’s what grief really is…
the sacred space between what was and what remains.
The gap.
The echo.
The reminder of love that still has nowhere to go…