The Visitation (65 page)

The mandolin player from my band. My old buddy Vern, with his second wife. Al and Rose Chiardelli, my “other parents,” who would always love me and consider me as their son. Some of the old youth group from Northwest Mission, with their wives and husbands and children, so grown and changed that I hardly recognized them. Joe and Emily Kelmer—Joe still healthy, and his family all saved. Bruce and Libby Hiddle, the only ones who could truly understand our shared tragedy, and our shared joy. Jim, Dee, and Darlene Baylor, sitting together as a family.

To my left stood my brother, Steve, living proof that a man doesn’t have to enter the ministry to honor God in every aspect of his life. Behind me stood Dad, decked out in his tuxedo. Tradition did not dictate that he wear one, and he never did for the hundreds of other weddings he had performed. But when he married his own kids, he put it on. That was
his
tradition.

From the front pew, my sister, Rene, winked at me, and I winked back. I used to wonder what in the world her “problem” was, but now I knew what she knew: It was never a
problem
, but a
passage
.

We had come far, these friends and family and I. Most of the journey we’d made separately, but today we journeyed together.

As a sweet lady who once sang in a rock band told me,
we
were what Jesus was all about. Over the years we’d dispersed ourselves among many churches, denominations, traditions, and little things held sacred, but today none of that mattered.
Jesus
mattered.
We
mattered.

And
she
mattered. Everyone rose to their feet as she entered the room. Morgan’s widowed father came all the way from Michigan to escort her down the aisle. Her son, Michael, had a front-row seat, and her sister from Florida was her matron of honor. Both our former congregations were there to honor her.

As she came down the aisle in a gown of pastel blue, her eyes shining and never leaving mine, I could hear the same voice in my heart I’d been hearing since I was in kindergarten:
I carried you, Travis, just as a father carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.

He was still the same old God, ordering my life and doing all things well.