Our two youngest girls have spent a valuable year living together in a Chicago apartment, and today the year ended. It was moving day.

Louisa and Birgitta, fondly known as Weezi and Gitta, had set a goal of living “in a city” together one day, after they’d grown. Life changes rapidly for today’s young people with moving days sprinkled all over their twenty-something calendars, and last summer Nate and I were proud of them as they moved out of the cottage and moved in together. They made their check lists and narrowed their options. The winners were New York, Nashville or Chicago.

New York was too pricey. Nashville was the home of two brothers, a big draw, and since Weezi had been in school there, it was already familiar. But in the end, they chose Chicago. I’m sure God influenced their decision because he was already looking at what we couldn’t yet see. Had they chosen anyplace but Chicago, the minute they learned of Nate’s cancer they’d have uprooted, forsaking jobs and an apartment to be with him and the rest of us.

Because they were only 90 miles away, they spent four out of every seven days in Michigan during Nate’s illness and still held onto their jobs. (It also helped that their landlord was their uncle.) Apart from the misery of losing their father, which overshadowed everything, the year was an important one.

Weezi and Gitta learned the names and numbers of Chicago streets and how to navigate them. They used public transportation and figured out the complicated toll-card machines. They became skilled at parallel parking in tiny openings and discovered that walking was the best way to get where you wanted to go. They took advantage of what the city offered and learned how to carefully budget their paychecks.

When the girls moved into their place a year ago, the only negative had been the long “tunnel” between buildings that led to their door in the rear. After all, it was the city, where daytime safety became night time’s danger. Nate had heard of a new taser the size of a cell phone and was convinced the girls should have them. He’d read about wrestlers and football players volunteering to “take a hit” from the girlie-tasers, then “folding up like card tables” when shot from 15 feet. “Order two of them” he said, but we learned they weren’t legal.

Pepper spray was a poor second, but after testing it out in the apartment and coughing for hours afterwards, the girls walked their neighborhood (and the dark tunnel) with confidence. On this moving day, my gratitude to God is unbounded, because two keychain-sized cans of pepper spray are still full.

Since Gitta was at her Iowa school today and couldn’t participate in the move, Weezi took over organizing and did an excellent job, complete with regular ice water breaks for the six of us. Lars brought his truck, Jordan came from Indiana, Mike accompanied Klaus, and Klaus made the whole thing fun. In my book, each person was a reason to be thankful. Even the weather cooperated, a bonus when transporting mattresses in an open truck bed.

As children journey through their twenties, I’ve noticed God teaching them key life lessons through the many moves they make. My prayer is that as they move from place to place, role to role and challenge to challenge, they’ll also be steadily making moves closer and closer to him.

”Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)

Like most of life’s changes, new widowhood brings many mini-adjustments. Nate’s mother and my mom were both widows for well over a decade, so I got to look at that up close. But finding myself in the same category now, I’m realizing most of their day-to-day rethinking took place behind closed doors or deep in their hearts, changes that were invisible to the rest of the world.

I have several close friends who faced widowhood in their fifties, women who shared candidly with me. But the truth is, we can’t understand what it’s really like to undergo a major life-shift unless it’s us.

Hundreds of my adjustments to being a widow have taken place inside my head. Tonight my sister and brother-in-law invited us over for dinner. There were 11 of us around the dinner table, including two little ones, and the chatter was happy and animated as we ate Mary’s delicious pork chops, rice, corn-on-the-cob and fruit salad.

But I missed Nate, who had loved getting together as we did tonight to share a meal and interesting conversation. While I ate, I tried to imagine Nate’s presence at the table. The first thing that came to mind was his back pain. Absent the cancer, if he’d have been with us, he would have been suffering.

His back issues had been steadily escalating, so in reality, he probably wouldn’t have been at the dinner at all. He would have been home, lying in bed on ice packs, trying to get away from the pain. I probably wouldn’t have been at the meal, either. Although I wouldn’t have been a widow, other negative life adjustments would have been ongoing.

Nate had a multitude of back maladies: stenosis of the spine, five bulging disks, arthritis and bone spurs. He’d lost three inches in height in the last few years because of a compressed spine, and although surgery might have given him temporary relief, over the long haul the developments would have all been downhill.

Tonight as I walked out the front door by myself after our dinner together, I felt teary and frustrated. Neither scenario was any good: Nate still present but with a hurting back, or Nate out of the picture and me a widow.

I know I’m not alone in this type of dilemma, though, where the only options are unpleasant. All of us get there sooner or later, many people again and again. Fighting what we can’t control is useless, but acceptance takes work and determination.

There is an up-side to all this, though.  Whether Nate would remain with us in great pain or die of cancer, both extremely negative, it hadn’t been me who was bearing the burden of choice. I’d had no say in the matter. The burden was God’s. And he made the decision in an interesting way. Included in it was the directive that I become a widow, yes, but the other part of his choice was that Nate be released from chronic pain.

Of the two scenarios, God chose the best one.

“Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time… No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die.” (Isaiah 57:1-2)