I didn’t wake up one morning and decide I wanted to write a book about death. That sounds like a terrible way to start a Tuesday.
I didn’t sit down with a cup of tea and think, You know what the world needs? A book about burial arrangements. There are probably easier ways to get invited to dinner parties.
But somewhere between becoming a Family Service Counselor, sitting across from families during some of the hardest moments of their lives, talking about things most of us would rather avoid, and realizing how quickly an ordinary day can become a day someone would give anything to have back, something began changing in me.
I started seeing death differently, but more importantly, I started seeing life differently.
And that is how No More Tuesdays: What Love Looks Like After You’re Gone was born.
When I began working as a Family Service Counselor, I came into it with a heart for people, a faith in Jesus, and a willingness to sit beside someone when life hurts. I am still learning every single day, and I think that’s part of what has made this work affect me so deeply. I haven’t become numb to it. I don’t want to become numb to it. When someone tells me about the person they loved for forty or fifty years, I want to hear the story. When somebody starts crying, I don’t want to rush them through the tears. When a family is afraid to talk about death, I want them to know that the conversation doesn’t have to be cold, scary, or hopeless.
Because death may be part of the conversation, but love is the reason for it.
That’s what I wish more people understood about pre-need planning.
We plan almost everything else.
We plan weddings a year in advance. We plan vacations months ahead. We make retirement plans, birthday plans, dinner plans, Christmas plans, weekend plans, and sometimes plans about when we’re going to sit down and make more plans. We will spend forty-five minutes reading reviews before buying a toaster, but mention making arrangements for the one event every human being will eventually face and suddenly everybody remembers they have somewhere else to be.
I understand it.
Death is uncomfortable.
But I’ve learned that refusing to talk about death doesn’t stop it from coming. It simply means the conversation may eventually fall into the hands of someone whose heart is already broken.
That’s the part I can’t forget.
I think about the daughter who has just lost her mother and suddenly everyone is asking her questions. I think about the husband who has lost the woman who made every important decision beside him for decades and now has to make permanent decisions without her. I think about children trying to determine what Dad “probably would have wanted” when what they really want is five more minutes with Dad.
Grief is already heavy.
Why would we knowingly add confusion to it if we have the opportunity to remove some of that weight today?
That question became the heartbeat of this book.
But something unexpected happened while I was writing it. The more I wrote about preparing for death, the more I found myself writing about living.
I wrote about laughter. I wrote about ridiculous families, church potlucks, family group texts, junk drawers, old recliners, and all those wonderfully ordinary things that somehow become priceless when the person connected to them is gone. I wrote about children. I wrote about spouses. I wrote about empty chairs, shoes left by the door, phone numbers we can’t bring ourselves to delete, and the strange way grief can turn the most ordinary object into something sacred.
And, of course, I wrote about Jesus.
Because I don’t know how to talk about death without talking about Jesus who defeated it.
My faith doesn’t mean death doesn’t hurt. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, and if Jesus could weep, I think we can stop pretending Christians aren’t supposed to hurt when somebody dies. Faith doesn’t erase grief. Faith gives grief somewhere to go. It gives us hope when the chair is empty. It gives us something stronger than the cemetery. It reminds us that for those who belong to Christ, goodbye is not the end of the story.
Somewhere in all that writing, the title came to me:
No More Tuesdays.
And suddenly the entire book made sense.
Why Tuesdays?
Because nobody thinks much about Tuesday.
We notice Christmas. We celebrate birthdays. We photograph weddings. We count down to vacations. But Tuesday? Tuesday is laundry and work and grocery shopping and figuring out what we’re having for dinner. Tuesday is calling Mom on the drive home. Tuesday is your husband stealing food off your plate even though he ordered his own. Tuesday is hearing your children laughing in another room. Tuesday is sitting beside somebody you love and not realizing that this completely ordinary moment will someday become one of your favorite memories.
Life is mostly Tuesdays.
And one day, there will be no more of them.
Not one of us knows when that Tuesday will come, and I don’t say that to frighten anyone. I say it because maybe knowing our Tuesdays are numbered should make us stop wasting so many of them.
Maybe we should make the phone call.
Maybe we should forgive.
Maybe we should take the picture even though our hair looks terrible.
Maybe we should sit on the porch another twenty minutes.
Maybe we should tell our children we’re proud of them.
Maybe we should pray together tonight instead of assuming we’ll do it tomorrow.
Maybe we should stop putting off the uncomfortable conversation about what we want when our life here is over.
Maybe planning ahead isn’t giving death power at all.
Maybe it’s refusing to let death steal anything more from our families than it already will.
That is why the subtitle became What Love Looks Like After You’re Gone.
Because I believe love can keep taking care of people even after we are no longer physically here to do it ourselves.
Love can leave instructions instead of questions. Love can leave arrangements instead of uncertainty. Love can leave stories, letters, prayers, memories, laughter, faith and peace. Love can say, I knew this day would hurt you, so while I was still here, I did what I could to make sure you didn’t have to carry anything unnecessary.
There is something incredibly beautiful about that to me.
I thought I was writing a book about pre-planning.
God had other plans.
I think I’m writing a book about paying attention.
Paying attention to the people sitting across the table. Paying attention to the ordinary days we keep rushing through. Paying attention to the legacy we’re building without realizing it. Paying attention to the fact that the people we love don’t need perfection from us; they need our presence, our honesty, our faith and sometimes our willingness to have a difficult conversation before circumstances force them to have it without us.
So yes, No More Tuesdays talks about death.
But I hope nobody finishes it wanting to die better.
I hope they finish it wanting to live better.
I hope somebody closes the book and calls their mother.
I hope somebody reaches across the couch and grabs their husband’s hand.
I hope somebody forgives something they’ve carried far too long.
I hope somebody talks to their family about pre-planning.
I hope somebody decides that following Jesus can’t keep being something they intend to get serious about “someday.”
And I hope somebody wakes up on an ordinary Tuesday morning, pours a cup of coffee, looks around at the people God has given them and realizes:
This isn’t just Tuesday.
This is my life.
And while God has given me another one, I’m going to love people well.
Because eventually there will be no more Tuesdays.
But if we have loved well, prepared well, served well, forgiven well, laughed often, and followed Jesus faithfully, then perhaps the greatest thing we leave behind won’t be what we owned at all.
It will be the peace our love left in the hearts of the people who remain.
And that is exactly why I wrote this book.
Love you all,
Annie Stewart Lambert