The Biggest Heart I've Ever Known

Twenty-four hours ago I answered the phone and heard her voice. Her broken, weary voice. "Matt died. Matt died yesterday. He's gone." Amy proceeded to tell me in shock-induced detail the most heartbreaking story. Of deserted beaches and tides and gasping for air. Of being stranded on the sandbar with her two sons for over an hour, watching as the sea took her husband's body away. Of flagging down help and a ride in an ambulance. Of not needing to identify the body because his was the only one missing in the water.

Over two years ago I got a call. Amy was at the hospital. She was losing her baby. After miscarriage upon miscarriage, she had gotten this baby to 22 weeks. I spent the night with her boys while she and Matt spent the night laboring to bring a not-yet-ready-to-be-born baby into this world.

Two days later Amy poured her heart out in the most beautiful words which many of you read, which I shared in my post "No Words, Just Tears." Because there are times that there are no words, just tears.

There really is no way to fathom this loss. Matt was her stronghold. The love of her life. Her kind, compassionate, strong, wise, gentle, creative, goofy, quirky, hilarious husband of 20 years. And he was the father that every kid would dream of.

Who wouldn't want a father who was part Peter Pan, part Norm Abrams (the This Old House guy)? Who could build your tiny home and expansive lot by Bee Tree Creek into an Appalachian Neverland?

Matt Auten was all heart. The biggest heart I have ever known. All tender, gentle, humble, and often broken heart. He felt deeply and loved deeply. He was a brilliant musician with a voice smooth as butter. He was a witty wordsmith. He saw life the way it was. No delusions. No pretending.

He was the closest thing I have ever had to a little brother. He was a kindred spirit and fellow weather junky. He called me one day, "I am over by Home Depot and the sky is a Kermit Frog green." We shared a dream of storm chasing. We shared a love of severe weather and Diet Dr. Pepper and a hatred for poison ivy.

You could pour your heart out to Matt and know that he not only listened, but he felt it with you. No condescension. No fixes. No heady theological answers. Just compassion and empathy and a mutual need to cling to the grace and mercy of God in a world we don't understand.

On Tuesday that grace and mercy he so clung to was made made fully known...to him. I picture him now, singing praises to Jesus on guitar, maybe those hymns I begged him time and time again to record. I see him there, surrounded by those babies he never touched, and by Baby Christopher, whose tiny finger he held for those few brief moments. I see him there, rejoicing and loving and maybe even building tree houses in heaven, while wearing shorts, no less. With a Diet Dr. Pepper in hand. I see his tears washed away.

But for his dear wife, Amy, who has experienced too much loss already, of babies who just weren't meant for this world, and now of her lover, rock, and best friend, my heart breaks. For his sons, who at ages 9 and 7, have lost their hero, there are no words.

No words. Just tears.

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