Orange Ice and the Sound of Locusts: Mourning My Dad in the Simplicity He Loved

  My dad died last week. I had been anticipating it for a while. His body had been slowly failing for years—Parkinson’s disease, congestive heart failure, and perhaps things we never fully understood. His death wasn’t a shock, but it still shattered something inside me. Because outside of my wife, my best friend died. He was more than a father. He was a steady presence, a quiet protector, a man who helped me steer clear of destructive patterns common to many young men—not by shame or force, but by showing up. He used to lean against my bedroom doorframe at night and just ask what was on my mind. No pressure, no preaching. Just presence. We’d talk about what I was afraid of. What I didn’t understand. What I hoped for. He played catch with me almost every evening the weather allowed. He came to every basketball game and every baseball game. I can still see him sitting in the stands—arms crossed, calm smile on his face—rarely yelling, just there. I never had to wonder if he was proud of me. I knew. He carried himself with a kindness and gentleness that made me feel steady. He didn’t draw attention to himself. He didn’t try to be impressive. But there was a quiet strength in him—a calm that helped anchor me when I needed it. He wasn’t loud or forceful, but he was consistent, present, and kind. He was strong in the ways that mattered most. He lead me as I learned to live into who God made me to be. They say a heart attack took him. But it was years of sickness that prepared me for it. Still, when he went, he went quickly and without pain. For that, I’m deeply grateful. My dad grew up on a small dairy farm. He’d tell stories of a fast-running stream, of rolling hills, of a slingshot mishap that earned him more trouble than he planned. He talked about a legalistic church that pushed him away from the Lord in his youth—and about the wandering that followed. He had a slightly hippie-ish streak, a rebellious edge softened by curiosity and kindness. And then came a near-death experience—one that turned his heart back to God. That moment changed the course of his life. It led to a 55-year marriage with my mom, and a life marked by faithfulness, loyalty, quiet dedication, and deep love—for both creation and the Creator. He also loved children’s literature. He read me E.B. White, Charles Schulz, and Donald Duck comics. He wrote magazine stories, and even a book where I was the main character. He delighted in those stories, not just because they were fun, but because they held beauty, humor, and truth. That love of words was one of the many ways he poured himself into my life. He didn’t just tell stories. He lived one—a good one. And I got to be part of it. The Kindness of Others—and the Limits of Words Since his passing, people have been incredibly kind. Friends and colleagues—many of them counselors, as I’m at a residency training other therapists—have offered their support. They’ve told me they’re sorry. They’ve asked what they can do. They’ve told me they’re praying. They’ve sat beside me in the quiet. It’s all well-meant, and I am deeply thankful. But there’s a strange truth about grief: I don’t need people to be sorry. They haven’t done anything wrong. And honestly, I don’t want to tell the story of what happened another fifty times. I don’t want to narrate his death. I want someone to sit with me in the weight of it. What I need most is something no words can give. I need presence. When my strength falters, I need others to be strong beside me—not to talk me out of my pain, but to stand in it with me. To point me quietly back to Jesus. Not with advice or even encouragement. But with silence, compassion, and presence. And honestly? Many of the people around me have done this well. They didn’t rush in with sermons or platitudes. They didn’t minimize the pain. They didn’t fix it. They stayed. Their kindness taught me what we often forget—even as counselors. What Mourning People Really Need Grief doesn’t ask for answers. It doesn’t require theology. It demands witness—someone to acknowledge the depth of loss and not turn away. And yet, many of us, even those trained to sit with sorrow, still rush in to make things better. We offer clichés. We fumble with tasks. We do something to avoid doing nothing. But here’s the truth: in grief, nothing is often the most powerful thing you can offer. What to Do When Someone Is Mourning Grief is not something to be solved. It’s something to be witnessed, honored, and carried. When someone you love is mourning, your job is not to fix it. It’s to show up and stay. Here’s what that actually looks like: 1. Be Present—Not Performative Don’t try to be profound. Don’t force conversation. Just be present. Sit down. Stay longer than is comfortable. When you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. 2. Offer Simple, Specific Help “Let me know if you need anything” puts the burden back on the grieving. Instead, offer something tangible: “Can I bring you a meal? Would Tuesday work?” “Can I watch the kids for two hours?” “Would a walk together help?” 3. Acknowledge the Loss—Then Let Silence Do the Work You can say “I’m so sorry.” You don’t need to ask for details. Retelling a loved one’s death can retraumatize. Let the grieving person offer what they want, when they want. 4. Avoid Platitudes and Preaching Don’t say “He’s in a better place” or “Everything happens for a reason.” Even quoting Scripture can feel like a dismissal when not invited. The truth of God is not the same as the timing of God. Be sensitive. 5. Be the One Who Remembers Grief doesn’t follow a calendar. The day of the funeral isn’t the end—it’s the beginning. Text them one month later. Say their loved one’s name. Show up again. And again. 6. Pray Without Preaching Yes, pray. But don’t pray the pain away. Sit with it. Welcome God into it. Let your prayer be, “Lord, be near.” Why Presence Matters: Because That’s What Jesus Gave Why does it matter that we offer presence instead of platitudes? Why resist the urge to fill silence with words or offer help only when asked? Because this is exactly how Jesus met those in mourning. His actions weren’t reactive. They were incarnational. Jesus didn’t just perform miracles—He entered sorrow. He saw people in their pain, understood what that pain cost them, and moved toward them with compassion before they even knew what to ask. One of the most powerful examples of this is found in Luke 7, when Jesus encounters a widow whose only son has died. She didn’t plead. She didn’t have to. Her grief was enough. Biblical Reflection: Jesus and the Widow of Nain Luke 7:11–17 – Compassion That Restores a Life Jesus is walking into the small village of Nain when He sees a funeral procession. A widow is burying her only son. She says nothing. She doesn’t even know He’s coming. But Jesus sees her—and everything that her son’s death represents. In first-century Jewish society, widows were some of the most vulnerable people. Without a husband or son, a woman had no legal standing, no source of provision, no social safety net. This woman wasn’t just grieving her child. She was facing total collapse—financial, relational, communal. Darrell Bock notes: “The son’s death meant more than personal grief. It meant social death. It meant poverty, marginalization, and abandonment” (Bock, 1994, p. 213). Jesus doesn’t wait for her to call out. He moves first. He sees her, and Luke tells us He is “moved with compassion” (v. 13). The Greek word used is splagchnizomai—a gut-wrenching, deeply felt compassion. Jesus isn’t just noticing. He is feeling with her. He touches the bier—an unclean act under Jewish law—because grief never kept Him at a distance. He enters it. And when He raises the son, Luke records: “Jesus gave him to his mother” (v. 15). He restores her—not just her son, but her future. R. Kent Hughes writes: “Jesus not only raised her son, He raised her future” (Hughes, 1998, p. 249). This is the model: Jesus saw the depth of loss, and He entered it. He didn’t rush to fix. He didn’t avoid the mess. He stood in it, touched it, and restored from within it. That is our call too. For the Christian Counseling Community This is where we can grow—not just in theory, but in practice. In the presence of real grief, people don’t need advice. They need presence. Not polished words. Not clever insight. Not strategic support. They need us to stay. To sit in sacred silence. To bring Jesus not by explaining Him—but by embodying His nearness. This is how we reflect Him. This is how we become safe places for the mourning. So the next time you sit with someone who has lost what they loved, resist the urge to say more than you should. Stay. And trust that your quiet presence may be the most Christlike thing you ever offer. References (APA 7th Edition) Bock, D. L. (1994). Luke 1:1–9:50 (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament). Baker Academic. Hughes, R. K. (1998). Luke: That You May Know the Truth (Preaching the Word Commentary Series). Crossway.

I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. Part of that is the sinus infection. The headaches have been regular and dull, the kind that sit behind your eyes and make rest shallow even when you do sleep. But that isn’t really why I was awake. My mom died at 9:47 p.m. last night. I met my oldest sister a few miles away and we both drove down to Kalamazoo where they had taken her. They told us she had suffered what they described as a massive brain bleed. By the time we arrived, they said she was brain dead. When we got there, the youngest of my three older sisters was already at the hospital with her husband, so the four of us were there together. That detail feels more significant now than it did in the moment. Not because anything dramatic was said, but because we were simply present in the same place, facing the same reality at the same time. Clinical language is strange in moments like that. Words like “massive brain bleed” and “brain dead” are spoken calmly and clearly, and yet you are standing in a hospital room looking at your mother, and the words do not feel large enough to hold what is actually happening. We went into the room together, said our goodbyes, and gave permission to take her off life support because we knew she would not have wanted that. Eventually, we left the hospital and drove home, and there is something deeply disorienting about that part. You walk out of a hospital room where your mother has just died, and then you get into a car and drive the same roads you have always driven. Traffic lights still change, other cars pass you, and people are going about ordinary evenings. Nothing around you signals that anything has changed, and yet everything has. We all grieve in different ways. Some people stand back. Others move in closer, not wanting to lose the last connection point. Some hesitate. Others try to avoid the moment altogether. I found myself doing what I have always done. I hugged my mom and kissed her on the forehead, more than once, because that is what I have always done with her. My mom was tall, very tall at a young age, about 5 foot 11 by the time she reached eighth grade. My dad wasn’t short either, but I have always understood that I got most of my height from her. When you are 6 foot 8, it becomes second nature to lean down, put your arm around your mom, and kiss her on the forehead, and she would simply stand there and lean into it like it was the most normal thing in the world. So I did the same thing last night. It felt normal and familiar even in a room filled with machines, quiet voices, and finality. My mom was always there. When I woke up in the morning, she was there sending me off to school. When I got home, she was there ready for me. After hard practices, she would comfort me. At night, she was calm and present yet again. She had a gentle touch and a soft, soothing voice, and I think I will miss that more than anything else. Not the big moments or dramatic conversations, but the steady presence she carried into ordinary life. She could be firm at times, and there were moments where you could see the strength that life had required of her, but for the most part she was one of the most gentle people I have ever known. Her childhood was not easy. She described her home life as chaotic, with strained family relationships, frequent arguing, and even some physical conflict that affected her well into adulthood. There were unsafe environments, difficult dynamics, and times she spent at friends’ houses simply to get away from the noise. And yet, much of that rarely spilled over into how she parented us. There were moments where you could glimpse the weight of what she had lived through, but she rarely allowed those experiences to define how she loved her children. She was a good student and, as I understand it, one of the first on her side of the family to go to college. Her younger brother followed her, and her older brother went into the military. She came from difficulty, but she lived with steadiness. She enjoyed simple things. Card games, board games, and competition in general. Unlike my dad, who passed seven months before her and was happy but quiet, my mom was loud and joyful at basketball games. She would whoop and holler, stomp her feet, and yell things like “oh yeah,” while my dad would just sit smiling. At home, life was simple. We ate out of the garden, and in the summers we swam in the above-ground pool our grandparents had given us. Mom would sit on the swing across from my dad when she wasn’t in the pool with us, cutting the ends off green beans, making zucchini bread, and singing songs with the words wrong. She always sang the words wrong, forgetting lines here and there, but she sang loudly anyway and never seemed bothered by the imperfections. Her voice was good enough in her early years to travel with the youth choir and sing periodically in the church choir, and we never minded the mistakes. We enjoyed hearing her sing. My mom’s love for Jesus was never loud in a performative sense, but it was steady and woven into the way she lived. It was not something she constantly talked about in grand terms, but something that showed up in her gentleness, her patience, and her contentment with a life that, by most cultural standards, would have been considered simple. She did not chase recognition. She did not seem driven by the need to prove anything. She was satisfied with her family, her routines, and the ordinary rhythms of life. Her faith was not abstract; it was lived quietly in the background of daily life, in the way she loved, stayed, and endured. Even in hardship, her faith seemed to anchor her rather than harden her. In the years after her stroke, when recalling certain words, names, or places became more difficult, she was still present with us. It wasn’t dementia. It was more a lack of recall, as though the word was somewhere just out of reach. You could see her searching for it sometimes, but she remained engaged in the moment, attentive to the people in front of her, and emotionally present in a way that never felt distracted or divided. She wasn’t constantly living in the next thing or preoccupied with what was ahead. She lived where she was, and she lived with the people in front of her. After my dad passed, she missed him deeply and spoke of it often, but in a steady and simple way. She would just say that she missed her husband. Not dramatically, not theatrically, just plainly and honestly. There was something deeply revealing in that simplicity. It spoke to a long-term commitment, a calm love, and a life oriented toward faithfulness over intensity. Their relationship was not without difficulty at times, but you never questioned their loyalty to one another or their willingness to stay committed across decades. I cannot help but think that her faith in Christ shaped the way she endured loss, forgave, stayed, and continued loving even in the face of grief. That stands in contrast to my own nature more than I would like to admit. I have great ambition and a deep desire to do meaningful things for the kingdom, to build something that points to Jesus rather than to myself, and to see lives changed in lasting ways. And yet, even as I say that, I know there is still some part of me in the building. A restlessness that looks ahead, plans ahead, and often lives mentally in what is next rather than what is now. My wife has told me for years that I am rarely fully present, often distracted, and how difficult that can be, and she is right. She has been right for a long time. My mom rarely lived that way. She knew the future existed, but she did not seem preoccupied by it. She was present with her family, present in conversations, present in ordinary routines, and present in quiet moments that did not seem significant at the time but now feel incredibly weighty in hindsight. Her faith seemed to steady that posture. Not in a dramatic or outwardly expressive way, but in a quiet orientation toward Christ that shaped how she lived day after day, year after year, without needing recognition. I have spent much of my life looking ahead, wanting to steward my calling well, wanting to build meaningful things, and wanting to do work that matters for the kingdom. But in the quiet of this morning, filled with grief, exhaustion, and memories, I find myself less interested in turning any of this into a lesson and more interested in remembering the kind of life she actually lived. A gentle life. A faithful life. A life shaped not by ambition, but by steady devotion to Jesus, to her husband, and to her children. She lived out her faith in ways that were not flashy, not platform-driven, and not loud, but deeply consistent. She showed up. She loved her family. She stayed committed. She found joy in simple things. She sang, even when the words were wrong. She remained present with us even when her memory struggled with recall. And through it all, there was a quiet love for Jesus that seemed to steady the rest of her life and shape the way she loved the people around her. She lived a gentle life, and I have lived a restless one. In her absence, what stands out most is not anything dramatic or extraordinary, but the quiet reality that her love for Jesus shaped the way she loved people, endured difficulty, and remained present across decades of ordinary days. As I sit here at 5 a.m., unable to sleep and thinking back over those years, I realize that the things I am most grateful for were never the grand events of life, but the steady presence of a mother whose faith was not merely spoken, but patiently, consistently, and quietly lived in front of us.