The Cut of Nostalgia
I stumbled across a picture—snapped through the windshield, stopped at a light. Palm trees blurred by rain. But it wasn’t just weather streaking that glass. It was grief, hot and invisible, fogging up the inside of my chest.
We were leaving Orange Beach, Alabama. Leaving the place Grandma Carolyn loved. She didn’t love it because it was a tropical paradise; she loved it because we were there, with the kids–together. That’s why she loved it. And that’s why she wanted to go again this year… but never made it.
Maybe she was closer than we knew. Maybe those clouds weren’t the only ones crying. Maybe Heaven was leaking tears through the sky, because she could feel us driving away.
Hebrews 12:1 whispers through the thunder:
“Since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us…”
The theologians say it’s the Hall of Faith—Abel, Abraham, Sarah, Moses—saints sealed into the pages of Hebrews 11. They say their testimonies surround us in memory, not in flesh.
But tell that to my soul. Because the Bible is literal more often than we dare to admit. Literal enough that I believe it. We are surrounded. By prophets and apostles. By Grandma Carolyn. By the ones we’ve lost and the ones we’re still losing.
Surrounded.
Just like when Elisha opened his servant’s eyes and the hills burned alive with chariots of fire (2 Kings 6:16–17). Just like when the world will gape at the Antichrist’s carcass and gasp, “Is this the one who shook the earth?” (Isaiah 14:16).
They see. Don’t doubt it. From Heaven they glimpse Hell. From Heaven they glimpse Earth. They are witnesses—not just telling their stories, but watching ours unfold. Witnesses ‘witnessing’ our tears. They watch our endurance. They watch our failures and our flickering flames.
And so when the wipers squeaked across glass and the palms faded in the rearview, it wasn’t just a vacation ending. It was memories ripping at the seams. Nostalgia carving open old wounds.
Mom had been with us this year up until April. April 8. Four months ago. Four months that feel like four eternities. Four months of Hell.
I don’t even want to count tomorrow. I don’t want to measure the ache by weeks or months or years. Because every calendar page is another reminder that more will be leaving us. More will go Home. More pieces of my heart will be buried under Heaven’s floorboards.
And yet… it makes me hunger for that Far Country more. It makes me steel my soul. Makes me swear to fight through this vapor called life. Because Eternity waits. They wait.
This thing called Eternity.
This thing called Forever.
This thing called heartbreak until the trumpet sounds.
This thing called the long goodbye.
Momma, I’m comin’ home. We’re all comin’ Home.
