“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”- John 1:5

We lost my step-dad, Al, a few days before Thanksgiving 2001, he was 62 years young. He battled cancer for six years, and after a record-breaking eighteen months of hospice care, he passed away. He was a strong, funny, hard-working, stubborn Texan with broad shoulders and hands the size of baseball mitts. He loved country music, cowboy hats, jalapeno peppers straight from the garden, playing practical jokes, and Jesus. He came into my life at age twelve. I wasn’t too impressed when he thought I was a boy (perhaps it was my pixie haircut and my skinny undeveloped body.) We had a rocky relationship, at best, but, years later, we came to know Jesus together, and our relationship was miraculously restored. We had wonderful conversations about God. He loved me like a daughter, and I adored him.

When he passed the week of Thanksgiving, I felt nothing but relief. We prayed for months for his transition to heaven. Hospice volunteers and nurses attended our family vigilantly while Al wasted away in the rented hospital bed, set up in our living room. My mom cared for his every need. It’s how they wanted it. Nothing was left unsaid in our relationship. The day of his funeral we had 26 inches of snow in west central Minnesota. We stood in the cemetery under the flimsy awning laughing at how absurd all the snow was, and how Al would be laughing with us, if he were there.