your presence in our lives, so that we must keep talking about you, and holding to each other.
I never realized before this week how much you and Tim and Sarah are virtual Siamese triplets joined hip and shoulder, and now you are torn out of the middle. Dammit Peter, we had three children, and we loved it that way. And you and Linda having become one, and Chelsey—God, Peter, what gaping emptiness you’ve left all over the place.
So in your absence, we keep telling stories about your presence. Mom was just remembering the time in St. Louis, that Sunday morning, when I was already at church, and as usual Mom was going through the hectic work of getting you three out the door and you saw the cat about to escape and you helpfully slammed the door, unfortunately not quite quickly enough to avoid nearly amputating his tail. And I got this frantic phone call from Mom describing our bloody Siamese cat orbiting our living room at somewhere near the ceiling level and could I manage to come home and do something about it?
And I remember that weekend in the Ozarks, when you were about 12, just around this time of the year, the warm night air perfumed with spring, frogs croaking down at the creek, campfire glowing near our tent, and I will never forget the way you said, “Wow, Dad, this is really neat!” smiling with surprised delight at how unimaginably good the time was. It is like the smile which your body is wearing now, Peter, perhaps because you have once again discovered an unimaginably good time.
I’ve said it thousands of times, but this time I’m asking it for us: “Now to the One who by his power at work among us is able to do far more than we ever dare to ask, or even imagine . . .” We are daring to ask God for all the love God can pour out for us. We need it. And we need each other so much. Of course, we believe that you are okay now. But we worry about the rest of us—because we loved you so much. You loved us greatly too, in ways which were only yours Peter. There was no love like it ever before nor will there ever be another love like it, because nobody else will ever be you among us.
Fortunately, we believe that God knows what it feels like for us to lose you, God knows how much we disbelieve that we can get through it all without you. We trust that God understands how it is with us. God went through his own holy week once and surely God hurts for our hurt. But after the horror of good Fridays, and the black emptiness of those Saturdays, there are Easter Sundays. We trust that in time, with the comfort of God’s compassionate, life-giving spirit, we will come to know about Easter more fully than ever before.
We trust you already know about Easter, Peter, more fully, personally, and wonderfully than you had ever imagined. And maybe that is another reason for your smile.
Unbelievable Absence
April 16, morning
Dear Peter,
As I write the words “Dear Peter” I find myself shaking my head. I discover myself doing that a lot, while I’m sitting, walking, and driving, quite without being aware of it at the time. I suppose that means that I still can’t believe that you are gone, forever, irrevocably out of our lives, and that you have been out, gone, for eleven days. I can’t take it in. I suppose I shake my head because I don’t want to take it in.
When we drove away from the church Saturday morning, having brought pictures of you and the stone oil lamp and the candle, I saw the hearse bringing your body up Capitol Highway. It was quite a jolt. Later, I thought your body looked less like you than it did when Mom and I saw it on Wednesday. But it certainly looked enough like you to set Chelsey and all the rest of us into long, heavy, wailing sobs.
Today, it seems unreal all over again. Less real than last week. Perhaps that’s why the sobs which convulse me have not happened for a while. This is now more of a shadowed time, a time when we experience everything from the shadow of your death.
But not all the time, Pete. Sometimes we just seem to forget that your death has happened. The world goes on doing its daily stuff and we go on doing it with the world which does not seem to know that the world has been irrevocably changed. Better to say, the world ended just after ll p.m., April 5 and a new world began so quickly that a lot of the world never noticed. But there are some in that world who notice. A letter came today addressed to “the estate of Peter Mayer.”
All of us wish the change were revocable, that the world had not ended. It was a much happier world with you in it, Pete. How often in our fantasies we wish you had had your seatbelt buckled and airbag deployed, allowing you miraculously to escape death.
Chelsey’s wish is expressed differently: “Isn’t God strong enough to bring my daddy back to life?” It’s a question which is far more significant and logical for the season than questions about the Easter bunny. God brought Jesus back, why not Daddy?
The shadow of your death, Peter, falls on everything and often we are angry about it. Sarah sheds tears of rage about the now shadowed joy in the birth of little Peter, because you are not here to hold your namesake.
And what a party we planned to have at Sarah and Jim’s new house, celebrating the new place for them plus your move to your new home in Birmingham. You know, not one of us wanted you to go in the first place, but you converted us all with your excitement about it. We will still celebrate at Sarah and Jim’s new place but it will be a shadowed celebration.
We all went with Tim and Sue on Easter Sunday afternoon to see the new bed and bath addition to their house. Tim expressed the mood for all of us: “Now we really feel the anger—all the parties are over.” Right. And we are left with your deadness, Peter.
Having said that, it was an unbelievable party after your memorial service. You really missed a good one, Pete! It was wonderful for Mom and me to meet and talk with a multitude of your friends. People came down from Bainbridge Island. And two of your best friends from your high school days traveled way across the country—how wonderful to see Kathy and Lisa again!
You must have been a great encourager, Peter. We keep hearing personal testimonies about that. “I’d never be doing such and such if Pete had not got me going with it.” We love it that you were so loved. Because you had a love affair going with the world, there is no sting in your death, no venom. That’s not to say we are not angry about you leaving us the way you did. There is a sting in your abrupt forever gone-ness.
Since the big party, it’s been getting more and more quiet. Few visits, calls. People leaving one by one. I don’t feel it so much now as at some other times, but God, I already miss you Peter. Even if I can’t believe you are forever gone.
Love, Dad
Auto Reliquary
April 16, later in the day
Dear Peter,
The auto insurance agent in Birmingham called this morning. Paperwork is slow there because they are loaded with claims from the tornadoes. But they will send your stuff back, and the police report. With pictures, I think he said.
He said you had a lot of stuff in your car. Golf clubs, etc. It’s odd: it did not occur to me that you would have a lot of stuff with you in the car that they would send back. It’s like your stuff survived but you didn’t.
As I said before, Pete, each of us at different times gets pretty steamed about your carelessness. We sometimes felt anyway that you didn’t pay enough attention to family stuff.
As Tim said you’d go out of your way to help any family person or friend in need—as long as we were up on your screen. But if we dropped off . . . (I think he was remembering the time you were supposed to pick up Miles for the weekend and completely
