New Eyes

The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes - Marcel Proust

When I first met my wife, this quote was one of several she had displayed on the walls of her middle school classroom where she taught English language arts. The idea of having “new eyes” has been on my mind a lot lately.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. - 1 Corinthians 13:12

It’s been two years since my son left for better shores. As some of the weightier clouds of grief have parted just a little, I’ve found some margin in my mind to think about his passing in different ways. In our home, we daily see the void of the space he left, and the empty seat at the table. When the date of the anniversary of his passing comes around, it’s rightfully somber as we recall the gut-wrenching, overwhelming emotion of the week, the day, and the moment he drew his last breath. It really was the worst day of our lives. We remember and grieve from our own dim perspective, like holding a lantern in your hand while trying to walk through a thick fog.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

What if we had new eyes to look at the unseen? What if we saw that last moment through Asher’s eyes? What if, by God’s grace, we could dry our tears for a moment and see what Asher’s reality was in that last moment instead of ours? After all, the reality he stepped into that day is the truer and better reality. I think we would find the contrast to be quite stark. It wasn’t his last moment… it was his first real moment.

Our worst day was his best day. There was fullness of joy - to a degree we’ve never experienced - in the presence of the King of Kings. While his body here was silenced after months of being shackled to it, not even being able to have a meaningful two-way conversation, there was the greatest sense of liberation and probably more chatter than the whole host of heaven had seen in a while. Where there was once nothing to look forward to but the deterioration each day would bring, now each day would be better than any day he could have ever had in this life.

Grief can be a cruel companion who will harass you in what seems like the most unlikely places. But this year, I was given a gracious perspective that gave me hope that January seventh, while always a day of mourning for us, could perhaps one day also have a consistent, growing element of celebration about it too, to be filled with joy and gratitude at Asher’s reality. Much like the season of advent, I long to celebrate what has already come for my son, and what surely is to come for us in Christ.