death | Elaine Olsen

Will I See You in the Morning?

July 17, 2026

Granny Camp ended on Tuesday when her parents came to pick her up after their four-day getaway to celebrate their anniversary.

What a time we had – Granny, Poppy, Aunt Mimi and our grand-girl, Finley. As a six-year-old, she has turned a corner on former interests. Gone is Paw Patrol. Come is Super Smash Brothers. It’s a joy to enter into and to be a part of her shifting season, even if it means accepting the reality of a clock that never stops.

Time.

It spends easily. It passes quickly. It leaves a mark. It writes a memory.

And she left me with one – a mark. A memory.

On Monday evening, while putting her to bed, Finley asked me a question that has been echoing in my spirit ever since. Knowing that she was leaving the next morning and that I had to go to work prior to her departure, she threw her hands around my neck and softly whispered in my ear,

I knew what she was asking. I knew why she was asking.

Granny Camp, by all accounts, was a success – a time of championing and lifting up a little girl who relished the attention and who celebrated each moment, even the little ones. Finley didn’t want Granny Camp to end, but Finley knew that the end was coming. She simply wanted to get a final look at her granny on her final day of feasting.

Time.

It spends easily. It passes quickly. It leaves a mark. It writes a memory.

As I’ve pondered Finley’s question this week, my heart remains tenderly tied to another time-sensitive memory – a recent wound that remains open despite the finality of the carnage.

My daddy died a month ago. His departure was expected. Still and yet, I hold my grief as if I imagined it never being mine. Ten years of watching daddy’s decline did not fully prepare me for death’s ugly entrance.

Real. Raw. Unfiltered. Layered. Full in moments; partial in others. Occasionally it is hidden, but it is always here … simmering in the soul … yearning for discovery.

I have not walked with this grief before. It is new to me. Willingly, I hold it; reluctantly, I allow it to mess with me.

And in the messing – in all the questions and the tears and remembrances leading up to his closing moments on this earth – the messiness comes clean and is more defined with the innocence and earnestness of a grand-girl’s question…

By all accounts, my life with dad was a huge success – 60 years of being championed and lifted up by a father who delighted in spending time with his daughter. I didn’t want our time together to end, but I knew that the end was coming. However, unlike Finley and her recent time at Granny Camp, I received no verbal assurances from my daddy that I would, in fact, see him in the morning. Instead, he slipped from my sight during the night with unrecognizable groans that only assured me of his struggle, not his gain.

And here I am, on the other side of that “letting go,” and the only solid answer I have regarding the morning and the visioning therein is my faith. Not my feelings. Heavens no – not my feelings. My feelings leave me mired in the questions. My feelings rob me of truth. My feelings aren’t reliable when juxtaposed next to my faith. My feelings DO write a witness all their own – sometimes lovely, sometimes tinged with nastiness, but they are not the fullness of all that is me.

They cannot reign in this messiness named Grief because the pain requires a salve that has the capacity to heal deeply, not just to cover temporarily.

My faith tells me “Yes;” mostly, my feelings echo similarly. But every now and again, grief’s wound is just big enough to allow in a few niggling questions, ones whose answers seem purposefully just out of reach.

Maybe that’s the deal, this eternal yearning for understanding attached to a question that speaks of the morning – the brilliant dawn after the darkened night.

When all is said and done in this tenure we call life (when the closing lines of Granny Camp are written) the question won’t necessarily be about where we’ve been or what we’ve done but, instead, will be a question about when we get to do this again.

Will you be with me when I arrive at the glorious dawn of the new day? Will we be together again – to laugh, to love, to do life side-by-side when time doesn’t spend easily or pass quickly but, instead, lives endlessly? Will you hold my hand, hold me in your arms, point me further down the road, make sure I get there safely? What light lies beyond the night? What promise holds despite the questions?

There is something so very calming and beautiful when resting in this question … to park a heart amid such love and reassurance. To know that you are wanted in the morning, that your presence has been requested … expected … almost as if there is nothing more natural than having you there with the ones that you love, continuing the party and deepening the bond.

Friends, there are chapters to be written into our stories – mornings that will come to us after the messiness of our nights. I could write so much more about it and my feelings therein. But you deserve better than my feelings, thoughts more solid than what I can give you in a few paragraphs. I am not an expert on grief; I have few tips therein. But what I do have is a memory, a very special moment between a grand-girl’s heart and her granny’s.

Whatever questions shadow your steps today, whatever loss lingers closely and tethers tightly to your feelings, may this single question marinate in and around your heart to do the soul-work that God desires.

I hope so.

I really do.

Peace for the journey,

a flower for Inez (“Inie”) Perkins

August 21, 2019

a favorite flower from a friend in one of her vases

We said good-bye to her last evening. Elegantly adorned in a deep fuchsia dress with her silvery, full coiffure swept perfectly to her right side, Inez Perkins was laid to rest in a pecan-wood coffin next to her beloved Calbert. During the service, she was surrounded by colorful sprays of the most delicious variety, a veritable garden that would rival the finest of Biltmore. It was as if God himself planted a garden and then, most tenderly, lowered his precious daughter to rest amongst the splendor of its blossoms.

Inez resting in her garden. She would have liked that very much.

Inez was at home in her garden. She was a woman of the earth. Whether picking beans, shelling pecans, shucking corn, or tending to her flowers, Inez loved getting her hands dirty and getting next to God’s creation. Like her Father, Inez was good at growing things.

She planted.
She tended.
She watered.
She harvested.
And, ultimately, she relished the fruits of her labor–a wide variety of seeds come to fruition that would both bless her stomach and enrich her soul.

My friendship with Inez was one of those soul seeds planted in the summer of 2004 when ministry life led us to pitch our tent in Goldsboro, NC. Despite the thirty-six-year gap in our ages, we became fast friends. I had two toddlers and two teenagers under roof and she was a recent widow, living alone in her house yet amply surrounded by other family homes on what I affectionately would term the “Perkins’ Compound.”

Inez felt like “home” to me; apparently, she felt the same because she welcomed me into her life as if I had always been there … always been one of hers … a friendship waiting to be planted, tended, watered, harvested, and relished by the deep well of love springing up from her heart.

One of my favorites of Inie at Nick & Chelsea’s wedding shower

For fifteen years, I have known the love of Inez Perkins, and although ministry life would move my family away from Goldsboro in 2010, Inez never lost sight of me. She cared for me from a distance and, on occasion, up close. Our friendship required it; it was just that special.

But last year, through no fault of our own, we did lose sight of one another for a season. Our lives changed in dramatic ways. My life centered around the survival and physical needs of my son while Inez’s centered around the survival and physical demands of her aging body. Time was lost; words between us were few. But even then, even there in that space of separation where the seed of our friendship laid seemingly dormant in the dark of winter, God was planning … planting … a spring garden. He is, after all, in the resurrection business.

In June of this year, our ministry moved us back closer to Goldsboro. And when the call came in regarding Inez’s failing health, I was granted a ring-side seat to the last mile of her earthly pilgrimage. In our final visit together last Thursday, I talked to Inez about going home; I even brought my classroom flashcards that illustrate heaven in an elementary yet concrete way. I prayed for her, held her hand, and as the tears began to fall from my eyes, she lifted her hand to wipe them away. Gently I cradled her beautiful face in my palms and told her,

“Well done, good and faithful servant. Your Father is waiting for you. We’ll be right behind you, friend. I love you, Inez Perkins.”

Unexpectedly she returned my words: “I love you too.”

And with that benediction, we released one another to the journey ahead. My journey took me back to Benson. Her journey took her home to heaven–a resurrection garden planted by God himself, the likes of which colors and blossoms we’ve yet to see but can only imagine.

Inez resting in her garden. Yes, I imagine that she likes it very much. And so I say …

Until then, peace for the journey,

post signature

PS: I first learned about gerbera daisies from Inez. She grew them in her garden, and I fell in love with them upon seeing them for the first time. Last night, I plucked one from an arrangement to bring home as inspiration. I have no doubt that the gardens of heaven will be filled with them, especially if Inie has any say in the matter. I like imagining her in that role. Also, for those paying attention, you just might see Inie’s influence on the front cover of Peace for the Journey. Not only is that her farm path, but Amelia is holding her daisies. Inie’s beauty lives on in the hearts of those who have eyes to see, minds to conceive, and hearts to believe that God is all around us.

A Mapmaker and a Grace Giver (a tribute to Bill Olsen)

June 20, 2017

Grace’s words surprised me that night. I wasn’t expecting them. What I was expecting … well, I’m not quite sure. I’d never been down this road before. Just an hour earlier, I was eating orange sherbet while sitting on a couch next to my mother-in-law, Rosalie, when the call came telling us what I was expecting to hear—that my father-in-law, Bill, had stepped peacefully from this side of the eternal veil to the other.

As quickly as we could find our shoes (as well as our pulse), we made the five-minute walk from Rosalie’s new apartment to the nursing facility where Bill had been residing. This living arrangement had been a dream of theirs, selling their home on Tinkerbell Rd. and moving to Carolina Meadows—a retirement community that would afford them a peaceful and pleasant pasture to write their final chapter together.

The dream had a few revisions along the way. Two years earlier, Bill’s cancer (as well as a fractured hip, diminished mobility, and several late-night trips to the emergency room) interrupted their plans. Despite the multiple roadblocks along the way, both Bill and Rosalie eventually arrived at their new address. And while they would no longer share a bathroom or eat sherbet beside one another on those light-green, chenille couches that had cradled their marriage of nearly fifty-three years, they could at least spy each other’s bedroom windows across the verdant lawn that now separated them—a chasm that could not be crossed quickly enough in those late hours on Wednesday, June 14th.

Soberly and tenderly, Rosalie and I entered Bill’s room as well as the sacred moment. I have often said that the ground we stand upon is never more hallowed than in those moments that exist between the now and the next. Just two hours earlier, we’d been sitting in this same room with Bill, singing hymns, praying prayers, and speaking words of release to him while he peacefully slept. That was the now. This moment, well this was the next, and the difference between the two was stunningly apparent to us both.

While Rosalie cradled her grief as well as Bill’s fragile frame, I quietly removed the wedding band from his ring finger and slipped it onto the chain around Rosalie’s neck. I stood in the shadows, watching a bride say good-bye to her husband. I was profoundly moved to a place of deeper understanding, a deeper connection to all things eternal. Indeed, what God hath wrought together, no man had been able to put asunder (Mark 10:9).

And that gift … being witness to such love … would have been enough to salve the grief that began to fill our hearts. But God gave us another gift that night, the gift of Grace—the nurse’s aide assigned to Bill in his final hours and in the many weeks preceding his departure. We met her in the hallway while making our way back to Rosalie’s apartment. She told us a story about a recent encounter she’d had with Bill:

And these, friends, were the words that surprised me that night, shook me and sweetly startled me at my core. I’m not quite sure the reason behind Grace relaying this particular story about Bill, but as soon as she released it to us for safe-keeping, I knew that no finer epitaph could ever be carved in stone to best memorialize the life and witness of Bill Olsen, Jr.—a man who lived on Tinkerbell Road, always ready with a cup of water for anyone whose thirst led them to his door.

Bill was always looking for the best route in and around his town … in and around this life … while watering his town and this life with a generous cup of goodness. He was a mapmaker and a grace giver.

A mapmaker and a grace giver. God has replayed this message over and over again in my mind these past six days since Bill’s departure. More significantly, God has etched these words onto my heart eternally.

Indeed, Bill is not here with us in body any longer. He has gone home. But God, because of his great mercy and love for all humanity, granted Bill the holy privilege of drawing us a map so that we, too, may find our way home. Additionally, whenever a thirsty soul came knocking, Bill was faithful to fill our cups with a ladle of water from the well of God’s amazing grace, more than enough to fuel us for the journey that lies ahead.

A mapmaker and a grace giver. Bill’s life was a life well-lived. He lived simply and quietly. He loved purely and certainly.

He left a map and he left a ladle.

A mapmaker and a grace giver. The trail has clearly been blazed. The mission has clearly been defined. May we endeavor (with God’s help) to follow the map, to fill the cups of the thirsty, and to live ever so rightly, vigilantly and attentively, all of our remaining days on this earth. Amen. So be it.

Peace for the journey, friends.

In the Olive Press with Jesus {part seven: Doing Grief}

March 17, 2012

It’s been two months since she died… their mom, my friend (you can read about it here). This past week, my husband and I made the six-hour round trip to their home to share with them in their sorrow. To do grief. To remember her and to allow that remembrance to touch us deeply where it hurts.

Doing grief. It wasn’t easy; grief never is. I don’t suppose I’ve ever really witnessed this kind of sorrow… in many ways unfamiliar territory for me. Funeral grief—the kind of grief that packs in and around the initial parting of a loved one—has been my common experience. Grief that comes two months later? Well, that kind of grief is easier to pack away for those of us who sit on the outside of its unwrapping. We aren’t privy to this kind of gut-wrenching grief unless we are the direct recipients of its painful prod. But just because we don’t feel the sorrow, see the sorrow, hold the sorrow as profoundly as those who’ve lost someone close, doesn’t mean that sorrow no longer exists.

They feel it. They see it. They hold it. They grieve deeply behind hidden doors, behind expectations, behind forced smiles, trying desperately to fit into a world that’s moving on, despite the fact that grief isn’t in any hurry to leave. And that, friends, is an added burden to a grieving soul. Grief cannot live outside the boundaries of human existence. Grief cannot separate itself from common conversation and daily deliberations. When grief moves into a heart, grief stays. Certainly, over time, grief changes, but I’m not convinced it ever really leaves. What I am convinced of is the need to allow grief room enough, time enough, and respect enough to breathe—to work itself into and out of our hearts as it comes.

We must acknowledge it, whether a deeply felt, personal grief or the deep grief of a friend. We mustn’t clutter it, stuff it, or bury it. We simply and profoundly need to let it breathe and then to do the seemingly impossible—breathe alongside it. Not underestimate or overestimate what it is, but to let what “is”… just be.

This is our grieving season, friends … a lengthy round trip to Calvary and back where we come alongside God’s grief to feel it, see it, and hold it. Just for awhile. Just long enough for it to breathe strong remembrance into our souls. We weren’t there at the funeral some 2000 years ago; we’ve only heard stories about it. But here we are today, walking into that story, standing heart-to-heart with the One who wrote that story, and receiving its painful truth as our portion. His grief belongs to us; it is now part of our stories forever forward.

There’s no room for cluttering, stuffing, and burying the truth of Christ’s cross… not for those of us who call ourselves by his name. Easter pilgrims are those who willingly carry the suffering cross for self and for others, knowing it will hurt… greater still, knowing it will consecrate our hearts for a deeper identification with Jesus. The cross is what he came to do; in doing so, he and the world around him, “did grief” … continues to do grief. Why should we do any less?

Do better for Jesus this week; do better for those you love. Come alongside them to breathe with them. In doing so, you give them Easter’s breath … Easter’s best. As always…

Peace for the Journey,

winter comes…

January 6, 2012

I pulled my jacket tighter around me while out for a walk this afternoon.

It’s cold outside. Last week, it was seventy degrees. Today? Somewhere in the upper 40’s. Not too bad if the wind wasn’t blowing, but it was. I thought I was adequately prepared, but I wasn’t. And so, I pulled my jacket tighter around me, dug my hands a little deeper into my pockets, and cursed the winter for catching me by surprise.

As it goes with the weather, so it goes with my heart.

It’s cold inside. The wind is blowing, and I am not adequately prepared for winter’s arrival.

Death has reared its ugly witness… again, claiming the earthly tenure of my precious friend, Juliana. She had a heart transplant three weeks ago. On Tuesday, she had a massive stroke. On Wednesday, she died, and none of us were prepared for her departure.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She was supposed to live long enough to raise her five-year-old twin sons and to grow old with her beloved, Patrick. Instead she went home to Jesus, and she took a part of our hearts with her. We are the ones in mourning, not her. We are the ones left behind to hold and to manage an eternal ache that shouts, “This should not be; not yet.”

To love is a great thing. To grieve, a direct reflection of that love. I just wish that love didn’t have to hurt so much. I just wish that I could take the pain away for all of us. I just wish that God would peel back the heavens long enough for us to see Juliana there, dancing with her infant daughter, knowing that one day soon, their steps will be ours. Their joy, ours. Their peace, ours. Their forever, ours.

But God keeps a few secrets… keeps the heavens hidden because he knows that should we catch a glimpse of glory, we would no longer need our lives here. We’d only want to be there, with Him. With her. With all the other saints gathered together around the throne. A peek into glory wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the soul cravings within.

To see that and then to stay here? Well, I don’t think we’d ever recover.

And so, we live with the mystery. We pull our jackets tighter around us and do our best to block our hearts from the howling wind. We curse the winter for catching us by surprise. And we think about home. It’s warmth. It’s shelter. It’s protection. About how long it will take us to get there. About how many more deliberate steps of faith will be required of us before we see the welcome mat and the faces of loved ones who are glad to see that we’ve made it home safely.

Yes, it’s cold today. Winter has paid us a visit. I can’t see Spring. I can only imagine it. It won’t be long in coming, but for now, right now, I pull my jacket tighter around me and keep walking forward. I cast my eyes to the horizon, searching for any signs of home. And I look down at my bracelet, and I read those two words that I’ve promised to remember for 2012.

Movement wins.

And I keep moving, even on a winter day.

May God keep us all focused forward and forever tethered to our forever. And may he grant each one of us enough hope, comfort, certainty, and peace for the journey ahead.

~elaine

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