JENNIFER HARTLINE — When I was 16 years old, the boy I thought I was desperately in love with, who had promised his love for me, broke my heart with all the characteristic grace of a teenager. One day he was mine, all hand-written love notes and romantic songs, and the next day he was over and done with me. I was crushed. Humiliated. Rejected.

Instinctively, I ran to the only person my fragile heart wanted — my Daddy. I found him outside at his workbench, tinkering and fixing something as he always was, and threw myself into his arms and cried. He hugged me tight and just let me sob for a while. I don’t remember what he said. I only remember that I found comfort and strength in his embrace. I felt reassured that I was loved and lovable, and that my heart would mend.

Here was a man who kept his promises to me. He never left; never abandoned; never lied; never gave his love and then took it back. He protected me faithfully. In him, there was security. In his love and affection, there was constancy.

I’ve thought of that day (and the countless other times my father consoled and cared for me) with a particular sting since I got the news recently that he had had a stroke. Then, as it turned out, it wasn’t a stroke after all. It was much worse — a cancerous brain tumor. In a strike of lightning, my Daddy — my Superman — was laid low and forever changed.

Now here I am, all grown up with a loving husband and children of my own, yet in my deepest heart I can feel the wrenching away of my father’s strong, protective arms, and it frightens me to a panic. No longer can he lend me his strength, give his sage wisdom or comfort me in his caring arms. Never again.

I wasn’t ready for this, if one ever can be ready. I’m not finished needing him. Cancer doesn’t care. This kryptonite called glioblastoma has stolen pieces of his mind and plundered his clever genius and unusual ability. He’s still here with us, and yet in some ways he’s already gone.

Ironically, my heart is breaking now because of him. That’s the high and bitter price of love. Love is all-giving and all-demanding. No one who has tasted the joy avoids the pain. Love makes no exceptions: not for me, and not for any of my dearest ones.

We are all thrilled by the delights of love; we are surrounded by the warmth of love; we are held steady by the anchor of love; yet we cannot, will not ever escape the truest form of love: the cross. Crosses must be carried. The unbearable pain of love in sorrow and grief must be borne. We are fools to try to avoid it.

I’m reminded of a scene in The Passion of the Christ where Jesus, having fallen under the weight of His cross, leans into it and almost seems to cling to the wood in an embrace. So it is: love bids us lean into the cross of sorrow, illness, death and grief.

The same Love that breaks hearts open and unleashes rivers of tears will sustain us by its enduring strength.

Love Never Fails

So I plod this road with a new constant companion — this invisible thing sitting on my chest. This ache I cannot articulate. This weariness and dread and fear. And the endless tears. I have known intellectually that this season would come, but I’m still shocked by the audacity of mortality. I wanted Love to leave me and mine untouched by sorrow and suffering.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

― Leo Tolstoy

But if this present sorrow could evaporate if only I forfeited the inheritance my father has given me every single day of my life, which is Love, I would not do it. God, in His goodness, knows that, and so as autumn leaves reveal colors hidden in the summer, now Love pierces me with pain and bitter loss.

I am one of the very fortunate ones. I’ve always known the gentle, steadfast love of a good father. Whatever far away road his mind and body may wander down as death approaches, I know his love for me remains.

One side effect of this forced descent into the valley of the shadow of death is the clarity it brings, as well as the freedom from compunction. Knowing I am one of the few fortunate ones, and feeling the loss I feel today, I see now so much more clearly the utter lunacy and hollowness of our culture — and it becomes intolerable. Into the stupid ruckus of obtuse, indulgent politics I want to scream bloody murder: FATHERS!

It’s not money or legislation or more restrictions or more oversight or more of your stupid, impotent rhetoric we need. We need FATHERS! We need MEN who are capable of love, and are willing to love unto death. We need fathers who will honor their vows and be the rock their families will stand on. Our ills, our violence and hopelessness are a want of love only. Children who are given no inheritance of love cannot easily love.

Don’t think me a sadist, but if I could give a gift to every troubled soul in America today, it would be the unbearable sorrow I feel as I face the loss of my father. It is inseparable from the inheritance of love. Not the anger and woundedness left by an abusive father or an absent father or a selfish father, but the immovable, rich, eternal touch of Love from a good and faithful father.

I’m not walking this road as much as I’m being dragged along it. I would turn and run if I could take Daddy with me. O Love all-giving, Love all-demanding, Love so costly, Love so enduring, give me courage. Love, hold him tight.