Intrepid Journey — Grateful, yet Grieving
By Judy Hunsberger
It was supposed to turn out differently. At 43, I joked about being the oldest first-time bride and, again, two years later, becoming the oldest first-time parents with our daughter. None of this was expected, but by the grace of God, it happened in 2004.
By 2019, we were living the dream, raising our daughter, now a high school sophomore, and acknowledging that we had three more summers before life would march on, ushering her into adulthood and delivering us an empty nest.
Making the most of those summers, we dreamed of exploring the USA in a motorhome, aiming to begin in 2019.
However, in 2019, our plans were disrupted by the need for my husband to undergo a heart transplant. Despite this setback, we remained hopeful and shifted our dream from “never” to “not now,” focusing on his health and the transplant journey instead of our RV trip.
It was a long journey. Summer turned into fall, which gave way to winter. We continued to be hopeful and shifted our dream to say, “When the transplant is complete, we will find an RV and resume our dream in the summer of 2020.”
But it didn’t turn out that way.
Unexpectedly, on the last day of December 2019, while awaiting a new heart, Mark didn’t make it. The first day of 2020 saw my daughter and I begin to create a new normal, only to face the entire world creating a new normal just 90 days after losing our family’s rock.
As the stay-at-home orders wore on and grief took hold, I began to fear that not only did I lose the man of my dreams, but I was losing my daughter, too.
Like most teens, trying to make sense of life in lockdown and feeling isolated without access to friends was difficult. Suffice it to say it was exponentially harder for my teen to process the enormous feelings of loss given the volume of it she was facing.
The momma bear in me knew I had to do something. With summer swiftly approaching and the added burden of only having two summers left, I knew I had to fulfill the dream.
My sister called me intrepid. I had to look the word up and discovered that it means resolute fearlessness and fortitude. I called it doing what I had to do and a way to fulfill the dream.
With a few people’s help, I acquired a 25-foot motorhome. Most days on that trip, I didn’t feel very intrepid. Yet I was intrepid when I found some amazing places along our route, including a ranch in Utah where the owners insisted my child hold a goat that had been born hours earlier. The same date that marked the seventh month since her dad had died. It felt like a “circle of life” moment.
Looking back, I can acknowledge that I had been intrepid over the 28 days and 6,793 miles. I lost count of how many times I recited Psalm 145:14 in my head throughout the journey: The Lord helps the fallen and lifts those bent beneath their loads. (NLT)
I’m grateful that I became intrepid to fulfill the dream I had shared with my husband. It gave me a glimpse of the child I knew before her world crashed. It put a smile on my face, knowing that although it didn’t turn out how I had envisioned, it was a worthwhile journey—one that was orchestrated and guided by our loving and merciful God.
While these past few years have been riddled with challenges, and I discovered that sometimes grief is like riding endless waves, I’ve never been closer in my walk with the Lord. I marvel at how He has truly defined what it means to be intrepid. It’s His unwavering love for me and my daughter. It’s also His gift of helping me become fearless in more ways than I could ever have imagined. Because of our loving Father, I could fulfill the dream created with my husband, a dream with no doubt, a much more meaningful, graced-filled journey than I originally intended. So yes, it was meant to happen exactly as God had designed.
