This is one of those days when my brother keeps coming to mind. I miss him.

You may have experienced loss and know what grief is like. The emotions often come like waves: sometimes mild, with the quiet lapping of warm memories that bring up other memories, which bring up any myriad of feelings, joy mingling with pain.

Sometimes a wave builds and crashes, rolling in and sending me tumbling around in the surf. I come up for air and see recurring questions bob on the surface around me. Hurt and disappointment over some seemingly unanswered prayers prick my feet like sharp stones on the bottom as I try to gain my footing.

Sometimes, it all recedes, and the low tide reveals an empty damp shoreline of emotional weariness and the resulting numbness. Little “what ifs” scutter about like crabs coming out of hiding.

Today, I’m sad that for pretty much the entire 15 months my brother, Jon, battled glioblastoma, we couldn’t really talk with him or have him talk to us because his brain couldn’t process speech or clear thoughts like before. I wanted desperately to sit with him and ask how he was feeling or if he was afraid or how his heart and soul were doing.

We did try to encourage him, pray with him and for him. I believe he received a lot of that. He was able to convey to us in his cryptic, not-quite-the-right-words, almost funny way, that he knew we loved him. One time, he reassured us via Marco Polo that he felt God with him, and that “the Holy Spirit was in all of his parts.” We got a good chuckle out of that keeper of a message.

We had to resort to simplistic communication eventually—hand gestures and emojis toward the end—then unspoken “conversation” like when I bent to hug him on my last visit. I’ll never forget his face as we looked each other in the eye right before I had to leave him for the last time. I felt so clearly our hearts were both aching for a different ending to the story.

I still sometimes feel angry when I think about the agonizing, arduous struggle he (and his family) endured. It is just so unfair. Brain cancer is a cruel disease that robs its victims of the ability to be human, piece by precious piece.

There is no answer to “Why?” But I don’t really expect God to tell me why. I know this world, fragmented and warped by sin, has disease and deterioration that eventually end the physical body’s life. I also believe that there is much more to each person than their human shell – we have an eternal soul.

I’m glad God is okay with questions. He understands our emotions. He is emotional, too. It says in the Gospel of John that when Jesus was standing outside his friend Lazarus’s tomb and witnessed friends and family grieving, He wept along with them. It also says He was “deeply moved” and “disturbed,” which, translated from the original Greek, means “snorting with anger”, “murmuring against” and “troubled.” (John 11:33-38)

Jesus was not just sad that his friend had died. He was angry at death, at the effect sin had in the world God originally created to be perfect and unharmed by evil. Death was not supposed to be in the picture.

I will always wish I could have my brother back and hate that we were robbed by cancer, but I also trust God. I do believe He is good, that He is in control, and ultimately, all will be well. Then, hopefully, I will sit and talk with my brother at last. I’m looking forward to that.