This book is a lifeline of hope when you are drowning in sorrow. In forty years of pastoring, I have never seen a family grieve the loss of a child so thoroughly and transparently or with such faith. I urged September to share her story for those of us who need to find a better way to grieve. You will be marked by her journey—and its ultimate message of joy.
BILL HYBELS
Founder and senior pastor, Willow Creek Community Church
I need to know, deep in the sinews of my soul, that death doesn’t have the final word. I try to ignore death—my own—but I am even more committed to hiding from the potential loss of those I desperately love. September Vaudrey and her family suffered a loss most of us can’t imagine. She enters it with intense honesty and writes with the lyric power of a poet. She invites us to sing hope in the minor key. I could not read her stunning and beautiful prose without believing even more that death doesn’t win. I wish you the courage to read this holy labor and prize the radical hope it will call you to hold.
DAN B. ALLENDER, PhD
Professor of counseling psychology and founding president, The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology
Agonizing and heartrending and poignant as grief, grateful and faithful and tender as new love, these words and this story have in them the power to name what cannot be named and to bring life where it seems life could not be again.
JOHN ORTBERG
Senior pastor, Menlo Church; author of All the Places to Go
May 31, 2008, changed everything for everyone who knew and loved Katie Vaudrey. Colors of Goodbye brings you into the precious, raw, honest, defining journey of the soul as uninvited, irreversible, and horrific circumstances invade the Vaudrey family—and they begin the trek to rebuild their lives. I see and love Jesus more deeply today because of this story. You will too.
SANTIAGO “JIMMY” MELLADO
President and CEO, Compassion International
I was scared to open this book because I knew that its pages held the story of a mother who was living my worst nightmare: the loss of a child. But once I started reading, I was swept into a captivating, hopeful, and exquisitely written story. I could not put it down. Colors of Goodbye is a deeply moving memoir that will inspire you and awaken your heart to the goodness of God, even in the midst of your darkest hour.
JENNIFER DUKES LEE
Author of Love Idol
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Tyndale Momentum and the Tyndale Momentum logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Tyndale Momentum is an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois.
Colors of Goodbye: A Memoir of Holding On, Letting Go, and Reclaiming Joy in the Wake of Loss
Copyright © 2016 by September Vaudrey. All rights reserved.
Cover calligraphy copyright © gbyzy/Dollar Photo Club. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of old paper copyright © pixs4u/Dollar Photo Club. All rights reserved.
Katie’s artwork used with loving permission by September Vaudrey.
Cover photograph of Katie’s artwork taken by Bjorn Amundsen.
Interior photographs of Katie’s artwork taken by Chris Bowman, IMAGO Media.
Inside back cover photo of Katie painting at Hood wedding by Brian Kammerzelt.
All other photographs are from the personal collection of the author and are used with permission.
Cover designed by Mark Anthony Lane II
Interior designed by Julie Chen
Published in association with Christopher Ferebee, attorney and literary agent, www.christopherferebee.com.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
The names of some individuals and institutions have been changed to honor their privacy. Conversations have been recreated to the best of the author’s memory.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vaudrey, September, author.
Title: Colors of goodbye : a memoir of holding on, letting go, and reclaiming
joy in the wake of loss / September Vaudrey.
Description: Carol Stream, IL : Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042661 | ISBN 9781496408174 (sc)
Subjects: LCSH: Vaudrey, September, author. | Children—Death—Religious
aspects—Christianity. | Mother and child—Religious
aspects—Christianity. | Vaudrey, Katie, -2008.
Classification: LCC BV4907 .V38 2016 | DDC 248.8/66092—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042661
ISBN 978-1-4964-1246-1 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4964-0818-1 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-4964-1247-8 (Apple)
Build: 2016-03-14 08:59:28
For Scott,
whose wisdom, strength, and selflessness are soil for my soul,
and whose relentless encouragement brought these pages to be.
For Tember, Sam, Bethany, Andrea, and Matt,
who live each day with unflinching kindness and undaunted joy.
And for Katie,
who left ripples as she’d hoped,
and who never will be forgotten.
Contents
Foreword
Part One: Vermillion: We Cannot Look Away Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Two: Payne’s Grey: Just Enough Light Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part Three: Indigo: Above the Deep-Blue Abyss Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part Four: Burnt Sienna: Setting the Stage Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Part Five: Cadmium Green Light: A Cacophony of Color Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Part Six: Cerulean Blue: Warm and Gentle Days Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue: Hansa Yellow: With Joy Epilogue
About the Art
Discussion Questions
September’s Selected Resources on Grief and Loss
Leave Ripples
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Notes
“But One”
A pile of heavy winter boots
Makes puddles by the kitchen door,
And icy mittens, hats, and coats
Reflect the snowy day’s explore.
The day was rich and fast and fun,
And all the beds are filled, but one.
Now suppertime has come and gone,
The table full, each belly fed.
The conversation lingered on
Till weary, w
e climbed into bed.
The sun has set, the day is done,
And all the heads are kissed, but one.
We lie alone, with grateful hearts
And memories that will not fade.
But slow and long, these years apart—
Oh, how I wish our girl had stayed.
Another Christmas come and gone,
And memories made with all, but one.
But just beyond these lovely days,
Alongside streets of brilliant gold,
Our daughter dances, laughs, and plays
And paints in brushstrokes bright and bold.
Here, all the dreads of earth are gone,
And Son shines brighter than the sun,
And death has lost its sting at last,
And beds are filled, and life begun.
—S. L. V., December 2013
Foreword
by Shauna Niequist
Bestselling author of Savor and Bread and Wine
THE FIRST TIME LOSS RIPPED THROUGH MY LIFE, it left me deeply disoriented. I felt profoundly alone, like the first person on the planet to experience such grief. That’s how it is, isn’t it? Grief sends us to outer space, lost and isolated.
And then someone reaches out to us, pulls us close, whispers their own story. And it changes everything.
We live in a culture that doesn’t grieve well—we shut down, close our hearts, pretend, pretend, pretend. This book is a vision for another way, a better way, a more whole and wholehearted way of living with a broken heart. The exact circumstances of what has broken your heart do not matter; September’s story will call out to you, a much-needed voice in the silence that so often comes with loss.
My friend September is, simply put, one of the best moms I know. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. My friends and I—moms of young kids, babies, rookies—have been watching September and her family for years, taking notes, asking questions.
September and Scott have raised the kind of family you want your family to be—not perfect, but real and warm and smart and funny and totally imperfect in such lovely and endearing ways. Long before that terrible May day, that terrible phone call, that terrible everything, September was a mom we all wanted to be like.
And then in the midst of all the terrible, right there in the middle of it, September was still a mom we wanted to be like: She was devastated and yet faithful, howling and yet praying in alternating moments. If we’d been watching her before, we were watching all the more closely now as she walked through what is commonly known as every parent’s worst nightmare: losing a child.
What we saw in those days and months was such honesty and bravery. Some people run away from grief. September didn’t. Some people transform into grief itself. September didn’t. We watched her raise five beautiful, funny kids, and then we watched her bury one extraordinary daughter, and the way she did that blew our minds.
Because, frankly, sometimes I don’t think it can be done. Sometimes I think when pain like that slices through your life, you just fold. You drink first thing in the morning, maybe, or you numb yourself a million different ways. You escape into the past or a fantasy life or . . . I don’t even know what the other options are. But September presented us with a new one: You live. You live fully and with a broken heart, and some days are a mess and some are better, and you just keep living. I can’t describe to you how astonishing it was to watch her do this.
And now, several years later, we’re still watching September. She continues to teach us, giving us a vision for the moms we can be. This is a story about one amazing daughter, but it’s also a story about an extraordinary mother, a very special family, and a legacy of love and laughter and honesty and resilience that has affected thousands of people throughout the years.
This book is a love letter, but it’s also a map: Here is a way through. Not around the grief, not hiding from the pain, but right on through the center of the journey—loss, heartbreak, joy, new life, memories, mistakes, celebrations—all of it. This book is a map for many of us who have been lost in the wilderness of grief of one kind or another. This beautiful book is a hand reaching into the darkness, a voice whispering, I know the way home.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
GANDALF, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, BY J. R. R. TOLKIEN
I want to leave ripples in the lives I leave behind.
KATIE VAUDREY, 15
1
2:50 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2008
Katie races down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I am cutting brownies into squares.
“Mom! Where are my keys?” she asks, pulling on her black flats as she scans the room. “It’s ten to three! I’m gonna be late!”
Even flustered, our nineteen-year-old daughter looks electric, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement about her first day as a summer waitress at Bandito Barney’s, a sports bar fifteen minutes from our home in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Setting the brownie pan aside, I turn and help her scour countertops and tables piled high with desserts for the party we’ve been hosting since nine this morning—an end-of-year celebration for our church’s drama team. Katie’s sixteen-year-old brother, Sam, and fourteen-year-old sister, September (Tember for short), are members of the team. My friend Deanna, the team’s director, continues to fill platters as I join Katie in her search.
“I can’t believe I’m late!” Katie says, rifling through the key basket next to the fridge. “I’ve just been hanging out here all day long, waiting to go to work, but then at the last minute I got distracted and forgot to leave! Where are my keys?”
Katie rarely screws up like this. She’s the creative type, to be sure—she’s a painter majoring in studio art with a respectable portfolio already under her belt. But Katie’s artsy personality has a heavy dollop of responsibility mixed in, which usually keeps lapses like this at bay. All morning, she helped me direct party details in the kitchen, which has been overflowing with the laughter and bustle of dozens of thespians, young and old.
Cohosting this event with Katie—our middle child, a month home from her freshman year at Azusa Pacific University—has filled me up. Once things quieted after lunch, she retreated to her bedroom to check Facebook and write messages to friends as she waited to leave for work. She lost track of time, and now she’s going to be late.
I search through her purse—no keys—and then sling its strap over her shoulder. Katie checks her pants pockets for the keys, and then she rummages again through the key basket, digging deeper this time.
“Aha!” She raises her keys triumphantly from the basket. “Victory! Right where they belong! Okay, I’m off!”
She flashes an impish grin and rushes for the back door, past her dad who has come into the kitchen to see what the commotion is about. As she hurries by, Katie takes his hand, lifts it over her head, and does a quick pirouette.
“Bye, Daddy!” she calls.
“Bye, Bug,” Scott replies, using her childhood nickname, Katiebug—Bug, for short. I follow to see her off.
I am struck by how especially terrific Katie looks today. What a beauty, inside and out. She’s sporting a crisp, white blouse; jean capris; and a blue plaid men’s tie she picked up at a thrift store, knotted loosely around her neck. She has her own hippie-esque sense of fashion and consistently looks adorable, whether in sweats or a skirt. But today, for some reason, I take note. Hair, makeup, the men’s necktie—everything works.
“Thanks for all your help with the party, Katie. Have a great first day. You’ll be fantastic!”
“Thanks, Mom! Bye!” she says, closing the door behind her. As I walk back toward the kitchen, I hear the door pop open again. “Aagh!” Katie says, her voice sharp, her eyes flashing. “Someone’s car is blocking me in!” My daughter’s world is either hot or cold—rarely in-between.
“All right already, Katie,” I say. “Settle down.”
“That’s my car,” Deanna says, looking out the back door
at where Katie’s Taurus is parked. “I’ll move it!” She grabs her purse and hurries outside.
“Katie, don’t take out your frustrations on others,” I say. “It’s no one’s fault but your own that you’re running late.”
“I’m just so irritated!”
“No excuse for rudeness.”
“Fine.”
Deanna reenters the kitchen. “All set!” she says, grinning and bowing melodramatically. “Your path is clear!”
“Thanks, Deanna!” Katie says, sunny once again. “Thanks so much!”
I walk my daughter to her car—a ’94 gold Ford Taurus she bought from a family friend. She climbs in, starts the engine, backs down the driveway, and pulls onto the street. I wave goodbye, but she is focused on the road ahead and doesn’t notice. I stand there watching as she drives away. I wave again in case she looks in her rearview mirror, which she does not. Her Taurus pulls around the bend and out of sight.
It’s almost three o’clock. With a fifteen-minute drive to her new job, she will indeed be late. I know she feels bad for losing track of the time—and on her first day, to boot. But they’ll forgive her. Katie’s genuine joy and playfulness have a way of winning people over, even new bosses who have every right to be angry.
Before I head back inside, I take a pass through the backyard. Deanna and her assistant, Brooke, have gathered everyone in a semicircle for their closing ceremony. They are presenting trophies—not for Best Actor and such, but for important character traits and effort. How rich to have this community of people in my kids’ lives. It’s been a picture-perfect day.
Five minutes later, Katie calls from her cell phone.
“Mom! I need to tell my boss I’m going to be late. Can you find Bandito Barney’s phone number? It’s on my desk.”
“Sure, no problem.” I run upstairs to her room, find the number, and read it aloud to her.
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