Christina Grimmie’s young frands from those days are all adults today. They have entered the larger world and face new circumstances, new possibilities, new successes (and probably failures too), and new challenges that no one would have imagined in 2016. I feel this decade of change in a vicarious but proximate way through the experiences of my own kids. A decade ago, we had all teens and preteens… and all five of them were still “growing up” in this small house.
We are a close family, and have been through a lot together. Now our “kids” have their own adult lives, and although Eileen and I have different roles in our relationships with them (along with our daughter-in-law, two sons-in-law, and three grandchildren), we still love them with the special intensity that parents always feel. But it is “different” in its discretion and wider horizons, its confidence in their maturity, and its transition from (parental) “responsibility” to the ongoing “availability” that enlarges our hearts and continues to surprise and amaze us in new ways.
It strikes me that Team Grimmie has also grown up, although many people of all ages have discovered (and continue to discover) the incredible singer, songwriter, and inspiring young person that Christina was in her 22 years in this world. Now, when I think of Christina, I have a more vivid sense of how young she was. Even if she had such a fullness and depth of life and creativity, and such a powerful maturity and courage, nevertheless she was still so young….
Our human lives and their completion and fulfillment are truly mysterious: particular and unique for every person. Life is given and shaped by a Wisdom and Love beyond our understanding. Christina Grimmie’s brief and beautiful life — already passed beyond this world, her unique vocation already fulfilled — reminds me that the One who is Wisdom and Love is always worthy of our trust… even in the face of sorrow, even in circumstances that seem incomprehensible to us.
