Purple Fingers

It's just like any old Tuesday, only today I am going to visit friends who has just had a loss in their family. A wife. A mother. A sister.

And what calls for my particular visit today? Hair dye.

She loved purple, they tell me. She was a bright character with a soft spot for bright colours and her youngest son wants to remember her by doing what any one would do - dyeing his hair purple and silver. I turn up to a house full of rowdy, broad shouldered boys with a cacophony of personalities, and their dad wiggling out the front door in order to escape. Me, a tiny little woman with my bleach and peroxide in a plastic bag, eager to get to work on this masterpiece.

The laughter heightens, the progression shots and selfies endless, and the feeling that I'm where I need to be is realised. 

We grieve how we grieve. In the last two months I've met and treasured this family. I've been served meals, I've gone along with boyish conversations, I've shared cake and words of love. But I left that house feeling blessed. It hit me: "this family is going through a loss, and you've got to be a part of it." 

The boys lost a mother.

The dad lost a wife.

The friend lost her closest ally.

And this grief is also my own. 

We rejoice at her acknowledgment of Jesus as her Saviour. We rejoice at His love for her. We rejoice that in the midst of suffering, there was shelter in the time of storm. But we are perplexed. They are perplexed. And how we choose to celebrate, grieve, and mourn the loss of a great human can be as simple as day old cake or as messy as purple dye underneath my finger nails. 

Thank you, Raelene, for my purple fingers. Lord I only just met her but the impact that she's had on my life is unforgettable. In the midst of my own storm you gave me peace, purpose, and people. I can't imagine it any other way.