“Peering Through the Blinds”: A Lesson from the House of Mourning

In 2008 I received one of those phone calls that alters the course of your life, that shapes the fabric of who you are as a person. Tiffany and I were headed to church with the kids for a Saturday night service. Not long after we had pulled out of the neighborhood, my sister called me …

“Mike, are you sitting down?”

Before I could even answer the question, the words came out of her mouth, “He’s gone!”

Those two words plunged like a sword deep into my soul. My dad was gone! I would never see him again. He had been found dead in his home, apparently from a heart attack. In the coming weeks and months, I learned firsthand what I had seen only from a distance before; the pain and suffering caused by death. I was completely wrecked. I remember thinking to myself, “Now I know what it means to weep. Now I know what it means to grieve.”

“He’s gone!”

I can still hear those words to this day; they continue to reverberate in my soul, like an echo that won’t go away. I have dreams of my father in the night, only to wake up and realize it was a cruel joke. He is not here: He’s gone. Oh, how I despise those words.

But the thing about those words that pains me the most is that they do not echo in the voice of my sister. No, I had heard them once before.

Almost a year before I received that devastating phone call, my dad had flown in from South Carolina to visit Tiffany and me for about a week at our new home. His trip was cut short when one night he and I got into an argument. He had been drinking (as usual) and said something disrespectful to my family.

Unfortunately, this was before I had quit drinking, and I had just enough liquid courage to finally stand up to him. He was in my home. He had disrespected my family. And I wasn’t going to tolerate it. This would be the night that I would show him I was a man.

 And that’s what I did. I stood up to him.  I did not back down … And neither did he.

Our argument continued to escalate until I made a decision that I now regret with all my heart; I told him to go pack his stuff up because he wasn’t welcome in my home any longer. I called the airline, changed his flight, and told him to go wait outside until his taxi arrived.

About ten minutes after he’d walked out the door, with anger and pride still coursing through my veins, I went into the office at the front of our home and peered through the blinds to see if the taxi had picked him up yet. It hadn’t. He was sitting on the curb waiting. As soon as I saw him sitting there, a knot welled up in my stomach and I thought to myself, “What have I done?”

But the anger, and the pride, and the resentments were too strong. I closed the blinds and walked away.

Less than five minutes later I went back into the office and peered through those blinds again, but he was no longer there. I said to myself, “He’s gone!”

The image of him sitting on the curb that night, as he waited for that taxi, will never leave my mind. It was the last time I would ever see him.

Nearly six months of silence went by after that night, until one afternoon he finally called me. The conversation was short and awkward. We never truly addressed what happened. I think we were both waiting for apologies, but neither of us was ready to give them. We said goodbye and hung up. Although there was clearly still tension, and I didn’t get the apology I wanted, I remember thinking to myself that I was still so grateful to hear from him. If only I had known that it would be the last time I would hear his voice.

There is a great sage who once said, “The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning” (Ecclesiastes 7:4a). Those words make sense to me now. I have found death to be the most brutal, and yet the most thorough, of teachers in this life. The lessons learned in the schoolhouse of pain and suffering will never be forgotten.

I now know firsthand why it is so much better to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39).

I understand what the wise man meant when he said, “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).

Oh, how the schoolmaster of death has carved those words of James into my soul: “For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

If only I could have that night over. If only I could have a redo; I would do things so differently. I would turn the other cheek. I would overlook the offense.

If only I could have that last phone call back. I would tell him how much I loved him and make amends.

If only I could peer through those blinds and see him one more time – before he vanished.

My friend, is there someone you need to make amends with? Please learn from my pain. I beg you to reconcile while you have the chance. Have they wronged you? Maybe today is the day to overlook the offense – to turn the other cheek. Maybe today is the day to forgive … while you still have the chance.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” – Colossians 3:12–13