The Fight for a Wonder-full Life

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Today is Friday. It's Advent, the time leading up to Christmas. A time of waiting. Anticipation.

This is a lovely time of year. Carols. Christmas lights. Parties. Gifts. Food. Time with friends and family. Timeless movies like It's a Wonderful Life.

The "most wonderful time of the year," right?

Christmas can be a wonderful time of joy, of giving and receiving good things. But, sometimes, it is not so wonderful. Sometimes, it is a time of sadness, of loss.

I know a little about that. My father died two days after Christmas 1996. He'd been in a coma for over a year. In a way it was a blessing. He'd been fighting for so, so long. He'd had a wonderful life. But he was hurting and tired. We were hurting and tired. It was time.

But when you lose someone you love at Christmas, it hurts not just your heart but your perception of the holiday. It can change "the most wonderful time of the year" into a lonely time of year, tainted with sadness and weighed down with mourning, a time when all you wonder is how you will survive.

For five years, Christmas was like that. A fight to be happy and joyful and wonderful when all you can think of is the great big hole in the middle of the celebration.

Then something happened to change all that.

My daughter was born. To the day - and almost the hour - of her Papa's death, our baby girl made her appearance.

As she fought her way down the birth canal and exploded out, with her red hair and her Papa's green eyes and her pulsing life force, the axis of our world tilted back into place.

The time was finally wonderful - and Wonder Full - again.

I'm not sure I subscribe to the "Everything Happens for a Reason" camp. I don't believe that is always the case. I think sometimes Life just happens.

But when Life hands you something and you can find Reason in it, I think you should jump on it with all fours, wrestle it to the ground, and fight with all your might to claim it.

It doesn't matter if anyone else believes it. Only if you do.

And I think my friend Christine Luckenbaugh would agree.

Christine and I weren't exactly good friends. We were more like acquaintances, brought together through marriage when her niece and namesake married my stepson. Her sister and I share the same name, as does my stepson's mother. (Three moms named Cynthia. Poor kid...)

But back to Christine. She and her husband "Uncle" Dave felt like family the first time we met them. They shone with sincerity and friendliness, with genuine love and generosity. I got to be with her only a few times, but I heard a lot about her from her sister, from my daughter-in-law, from my son. Everyone thought the world of Aunt Chris.

Everyone except the stupid cancer.

For the past few years, Christine has been fighting a brain tumor. Brain cancer is particularly sneaky and nasty. Chris kept up her side of the battle well. For as long as she could, she was going to Live and find Reason during the fight. Cancer might take her down, but she refused to let it take her wonderful life while she was still in the process of living it!

She even chose a song for her fight. Called, appropriately, Fight Song, it was written by Rachel Platten and became popular when used on the Pretty Little Liars TV series.

Somehow Rachel Platten found out about Christine, about her fight with cancer, and about how she had chosen this song as her own personal rallying cry. And this is what happened:

That was in September. The past Saturday, December 6th, Christine passed away.

The fight is done. It may seem like she lost.

But guess what really died? The damned tumor. It will never grow again, never bother another living soul. In one final agonizing move, she took it down.

This Saturday, her family and friends will remember Christine as they say an official goodbye. In a few weeks, Christmas will happen, but it be darker without her around. Hearts will hurt. A chair will be empty. Her laughter will be missing. There will be a hole in the middle of the celebration. They will wonder why this had to happen.

But what about Christine? Well, I know her faith was in something and Someone bigger. I know she believed that leaving this life would only usher her into a Life bigger and brighter and more full of wonder than anything we could imagine.

And then there is the life she left in her wake. Like the song says, her life - her Life - put a lot of waves into motion, touched a lot of hearts, lit a lot of fires. Her hearth fires were strong - her husband, her children, her family - but her life and living spread out into her church, into her work, into her community.

That kind of life doesn't die. It's the kind that keep growing even when its originator is gone. The kind that resurrects old things. The kind that births new life into the darkest of places. The kind that lodges into people's souls and bursts into flame when its needed most. The kind that is a game changer.

My heart and love go out to those who loved and cherished Christine most. Her husband Dave. Her sweet children. Her sister Cindy. My dear daughter-in-law and son and all her other family and friends.

Find peace in remembering just how much Christine loved you. How much life she lived. How she used her small boat to leave a very large legacy in her wake. How she took her one match and exploded Life all over everyone she met. And how she would want you to do to the same.

To fight hard. To open hearts. To live large.

To be Wonder-full...all year long.

FIGHT SONG

Like a small boat
In the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
but I can make an explosion

And all those things I didn't say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time

This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me

Losing friends and I'm chasing sleep
Everybody's worried about me
In too deep
Say I'm in too deep
And it's been two years
I miss my home
But there's a fire burning in my bones
And I still believe
Yeah I still believe

And all those things I didn't say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time

This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me

Now I've still got a lot of fight left in me