New Year's Eve

I'm taking a little time this evening, on the edge between years, to finish up my One Little Word project from this year.  In July I wrote about an online worskshop I have participated in, run by Ali Edwards.  At the beginning of 2013 I chose the word rise as a theme for this year.

It's interesting to look back over my projects (some photography, some journaling, some art journaling, some collage) and see how this word applied to me at various points.  There were times when it was an encouragement to me and spurred me forward.  Sometimes I was able to move towards a challenging task in my life simply because I knew others were doing the same.  Sometimes, though, I felt absolutely defeated by this word.  All through the summer it seemed that all the things I had determined to rise above - stress, fear, chaos, uncertainty, weariness - were just settling with their immense weight and not moving.

Then autumn hit, and a switch to full-time teaching for the first time in 18 years, and my word simply dropped off my radar.  Each month I would open the emailed assignment, think, "Oh, cool," and completely forget about it.  Finally now, in this past two days, I have had the energy to look at the projects again and finish them.  The 12th one, which I did tonight, asks me to look back over the year and reflect on my experience with this word.

Wow.  I can hardly believe the things I've tackled this year: creative projects.  Speaking engagements.  Adjusting to half-time, then full-time teaching.  Renovating my daughter's room.  Organizing the re-siding of our house.  Planning a summer trip to BC.  Unexpected water in the basement right during report cards.  Challenging relationships.  Being presented with opportunities I had to learn to say "no" to.  Kids' talent shows/dance lessons/band-or-choir concerts/campus visits/college decisions/sports/camp/jobs/appointments. And many of these things were the first time I had done them without Ramsy.  Oh, right.  No wonder I was tired.  No wonder I questioned my own capabilities.  No wonder I constantly felt pushed out of my comfort zone.  Because I was constantly pushed out of my comfort zone. 

And now I look at that word- rise- and think, "I did it."  I made it through the year.  I pushed through the doubts and challenges and moments of collapse and found my way.  I grew.  I missed Ramsy in new ways and still survived.  I made amazing new friends.  I tried new things.  I let my heart be light.  I laughed.  I got to be silly.  I was reminded that God would not drop me and walk away.  And I don't know that I would have recognized all of this if I hadn't had the chance to look hard.  I'm still in the middle of some really hard things, but seeing this strengthens me to push through.  Thanks, Ali.

And hello there, 2014.

Christmas 2013

   

  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."  This is what John writes in his gospel.  Ann Voskamp, in her book The Greatest Gift, echoes him: "In the press of a dark world, laughter comes to the Sarahs and the sufferers and the stressed as the reliever and then the reminder - that ache is not the last word for those who believe God.  Jesus is.  Jesus is the last word."

Amen and amen.  

Equilibrium

It's been an odd month.  Between September and November, we go through a series of significant dates related to Ramsy's loss. September is the month in which I had to admit him to the hospital, arranged for equipment and home care so I could bring him back home, got him home to rest, and then faced his death.  October marks the funeral and burial, his birthday, the time when we first noticed that something was wrong with him, and his resignation from his job with the intent to move to Saskatoon.  November is the month of his first seizure, the trip to the ER, the news that he had a brain tumor, the biopsy and diagnosis of terminal cancer, the switch to a new world of Cancer Care and oncologists and radiation and chemo and blood tests. It's a bit of a time warp, a reverse of the usual beginning-to-end procession of time.  It's a revisitation of some of the fear and uncertainty of that time.  It's a looking back on those events as if I am watching a movie where I know the dreadful ending before the characters do.  I was not expecting it to hit me so hard this year, but it did.  I've spent a lot of time thinking and processing and realizing this month.  I've spent a lot of evenings up later than usual, either talking it over with friends or writing out my thoughts.  I have not needed that amount of introspection in quite a long time, but I feel okay with it and know it will pass when it has done its work.

Out of all the swirling thoughts and memories, I caught myself thinking this: someday I will regain my equilibrium.  There are still days when I feel off-balance, mildly confused or forgetful, like things are falling off my plate and I'm not even seeing it.  There is still such a steep learning curve as I cope with the house and kids and vehicle and finances and social situations and work and holidays and all of it instead of sharing the responsibility of it all.  I am more used to it, to be sure, but I am also seeing the cumulative effects of the absence of one of the two people-in-charge. 

When I recognized my own thoughts the other day, that wish for things to get back into balance, I realized that I meant that I hope things will get back to the way they used to be.  And I had to begin to come to grips with the fact that this is never going to happen, ever.  Yes, we are managing and even thriving in some ways without Ramsy here.  But our household and our lives will never again be exactly as they used to be.  That's a hard pill to get down. It's so uncomfortable to be continually off-balance. I think it will be a truth I run up against many times, each time surprised that I am still thinking my life might take on its old form again. 

But there are good things, too, about the new form.  I am continually grateful for my work- the way it challenges me and engages me, the way my colleagues make me laugh every single day and encourage me and have come to be my friends.  I'm thankful for old friends who keep checking in with me, and for newer ones who help ease the way.  For teenage kids who are still willing to be seen walking with me in public and who notice when I'm overwhelmed and pitch in a little more. For a trustworthy mechanic.  You all keep me from falling off the high wire.

A link

You know how it's so terribly hard to know what to say to someone who is suffering, or to their loved ones?  It just is, even when you know suffering yourself.  I know for a fact that even in the last two years I have said things to hurting people that I immediately felt were trite or presumptious or too negative or too sunshiney or...

This is why I am so glad to have received an email from my sister-in-law today with a link to an article about how to know what to say to which people.  The woman who came up with this is a freaking genius, in my opinion.  So if you also feel sometimes that you don't know what's appropriate to say in difficult circumstances, click on over to the LA Times website:

How to know whether it's a good thing to say to this person

2 years

And man, it feels like forever.

Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days.

 For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those 

whose boat is on the running stream.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Black Dog (Approach)

Here it is again.

Familiar but in different incarnation.

After my first startled glance I eye it now and then.  It is still some distance off, maybe, silhouetted, or perhaps has sprung at me from cover.  It waits, and even while my gaze is fixed elsewhere I know it regards me.

I take its measure: what will you be this time?  Cannot tell until it is upon me: understated/sorrowful/poignant/joy-tinged/terrible/overwhelming/empty/consuming/alarming/disappointing - or something new?

I am wary as we meet. It greets me in its fashion.  It passes.  It will pass again, familiar yet not.
It is the anniversary
of our meeting
our marriage
the birth of our child
the first time he kissed me
our weekly date
the making of coffee
of the surgery, the needles, the seizures, the silence -
it is the anniversary of the beginning
of the end
of all the days that didn't used to matter.

 

Moments

A collection of memories from this summer:

• finding three of my favourite (out-of-print) books at a great used bookstore in Saskatoon...in hardcover...for only $10 apiece.
• tasting chocolate-covered bacon at the Night Market in Richmond with my kids and in-laws.  I think it would be less weird if the bacon was actually crispy.
• my kids losing 1 cell phone, 2 iPods and 1 Nintendo DS.  Cell phone has been found, other three still MIA.
• coming in from an evening walk to be greeted by my teenage son saying he missed me. :)
• looking in my button box for extra buttons and seeing two black ones in a little bag labelled "Ramsy's black suit".  I hate it that we don't need these anymore.  I put them back where I found them.
• watching Despicable Me 2 in the theatre with my kids.
• hanging out with my Sherlock-watching buddy.
• grieving for three friends who had sudden losses in their families this summer.
• feeling so thankful for dehumidifying air conditioning.  And hair gel.  Manitoba got all its summer weather this week. 
• finally realizing that the weariness I felt was not just tiredness but actually camouflaged sadness over how very long it seems since I saw Rams.
• connecting with some of my infrequently-seen cousins in the city and noticing all kinds of family traits in each other.
• excitedly telling my sister on the phone that I had to go because I heard the ice cream truck, running for my wallet, hollering to the kids, "Ice cream truck!!!" and then realizing that the little tune was actually coming from the basement where my daughter was playing one of those toy electronic keyboards.
• making the 50-minute drive to and from camp multiple times to drop off or pick up kids.
• feeling so proud of my kids as they interacted with younger children.  I love seeing all that other people have invested in them being poured into other kids' lives.
• missing Ramsy's help in managing the house and yard and activities.  Missing him coming up with spur-of-the-moment adventures.
• listening to really loud music in the van with the windows down, driving on the highway.  That's summer.
• celebrating my sister's 40th birthday with friends we grew up with.  Reminiscing over the silliness of our youth.
• going to see Les Mis with friends and afterwards laughing hysterically over napkins in the restaurant we had supper at.
• feeling like I will never, ever have everything ready for my students in September.  Feeling thankful to have a job in a place I love with people I love working with.  Feeling excited about teaching.

Rise

On my bedroom wall is a collection of sticky notes with the word “rise” written on them.  They are there to remind me of the theme word I’ve chosen for this year in Ali Edwards’ online class One Little Word.  In this class, which I signed up for at the beginning of the year, you select a word that represents something important to you: an area of change, or of encouragement, a quality you want to develop in yourself, a challenge you want to set for yourself.  Each month through the year, Ali sets an assignment that helps you to be mindful of your word, to explore its various meanings, and to see evidence of it in your life. 
It’s been so interesting, and many times surprising, to see how this has played out for me so far.  It’s surprising how this word connects in such varied ways to my thoughts and attitudes and circumstances.  I chose it both as an encouragement to myself- a word of hope- and also as a challenge.  It certainly functions as both.  It reminds me, “You can do it,” and it says, “Get up off your keister and do it.”  It helps me redirect and reshape my thinking, particularly that inner dialogue that we engage in without being conscious of it.

This is something that Ramsy used to do for me when he was here.  He often had more confidence in me than I had in myself, or saw character traits that I didn’t recognize on my own.  Once, about 13 years ago, he and I attended a leadership conference with some other staff members from the church he worked at, and in which I ran a drama group.  All the staff spouses came along, and in my mind I was just there as the wife of a leader.  That is the filter through which I listened to every speaker, relating what they said to Ramsy’s role and work.  At some point in the conference, he asked me what I was learning.  I replied that most of it didn’t apply to me, and he said, “It does apply to you.  You are a leader.  You need to start thinking of yourself as a leader.” 

Wow- there’s a paradigm shift for you!  He completely changed my perspective by telling me what he saw in me.  And that’s just one instance of how he urged me on and encouraged me and pressed me forward.  Sometimes it was uncomfortable.  It’s hard to change and grow.  Sometimes I couldn’t really see what he saw.  He wouldn’t give up, though.  He believed that I could teach, write, speak, learn to play piano a different way, lead a group, run a Sunday School, learn to use tools and figure things out and relate in a new style and see things from a positive angle rather than a negative one.  And so now I can.

I miss his voice.  It’s hard to do new things without him telling me the whole way, “You can do it.”  But I have supportive friends who say similar things to me, and I am learning to notice when I need that voice and to say to myself: Rise to the challenge.  Rise in impossible circumstances.  Let your hopes rise.  Rise on eagle’s wings.  Don't be afraid.  It will be alright.  Remember Isaiah 30:18 - The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. 

Mirror, mirror

I’ve just finished reading a wonderful book.  It’s called When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead, and won the Newbery Medal.  It’s a story that you don’t want to stop reading, moving and clever, but I think my favourite thing about the book is the way Ms. Stead reflects us to ourselves.  She writes a conversation, and the narrator’s thoughts that accompany it, and I find myself saying, “Yes!  That’s exactly how it is!” (or “how I am”, or “how I felt”.)  That, in my opinion, is what any good art does.  It holds up a mirror so we can see ourselves, and at the same time recognize that we are not alone in feeling or thinking that particular thing, because clearly the artist has also seen this thing in himself. 

That’s something that has always been valuable to me, and it’s become even more so since Ramsy died.  I wrote in a post one time that he had been my mirror, and now I struggle to see myself clearly.  One thing I’ve heard from other people who lost spouses through death or divorce is that social life becomes tricky; that they have felt excluded from old circles.  I have been grateful to find that so far, that hasn’t been my experience.  However, what I do find tricky around the social end of things is within me, in my own mind and emotions, in not being able to see my reflection.

My brain plays tricks on me, trying to be its own mirror, questioning my voice tone or facial expression when I speak to people: did that sound self-pitying?  Did that joke about Rams shock them?  Do I sound like the new kid in the lunch room, begging for a place at the table?  Even though (I think) I mostly act the same as I used to, I wonder if I come across differently. I suppose sometimes I must, since the circumstances or factors or what have you are different.  I no longer have the security, I guess I’ll call it, of being a wife. 

Now how can I explain what I mean and what I don’t mean by that?  I don’t mean that I feel like I lack status or identity or that kind of thing.  It’s more that when you grow used to a role you play in any area of your life, it’s strange when you no longer play it.  When you retire or become an empty nester, I imagine the experience is similar to this. How do you embrace your new role when you’re not exactly sure what it is?  How do you function in a normal fashion when the normal parameters have gone away?

Here’s what the experience of being here not-with-Ramsy feels like:  it’s like having had a privacy fence around your back yard for 20 years, having grown accustomed to doing your yard work and sunbathing and barbequing without being seen by the neighbourhood, and then having that fence become invisible.  Suddenly all you do is exposed to view, and even though you might be continuing to do precisely what you have done for 20 years and even though there is nothing weird about your activities, you suddenly wonder if you look weird to everyone.  (Do you know the song “Graceland” by Paul Simon?  “And I see losing love is like a window in your heart: everybody sees you’re blown apart.  Everybody sees the wind blow.”)  It feels naked. It feels like everyone can look right into me without me being able to see into them.  It is immensely unsettling.

But.

When something becomes transparent, it can also become luminous, can’t it?  It can become a vehicle for light to be transmitted.  It can allow that light to shine on the surroundings, to illuminate murky areas.  To guide other people trying to find their way.  Oh.

In the Christian faith, there is a doctrine of faith and works being intertwined, meaning that our belief and our actions have to co-ordinate; that while we are rescued from wrong simply by grabbing on to the grace that God extends to us, regardless of our moral state, we must then become participants in positive change in our own life and the lives of people we encounter.  Because of this we tend to constantly feel a responsibility to do something, particularly something that is visible to others as acts of kindness, as acts of courage, as acts of hospitality – in other words, to take action.  I have asked myself over the last year and a half, “What can I do that will help others in difficult situations?  What example can I set?  What answer do I need to give and what action should I take?”  I think this is right.  I think I have a responsibility to always think of others in addition to looking after myself.

But.

As I thought about all of these ideas over the last few days, a new idea came to me.  Maybe our action in circumstances like this is simply to allow our protective covering to be gone, and to sit in this exposed back yard and be transparent.  Be shone through.  Be a vehicle for illumination.  Allow the light that comes through to help create mirrors for others.  It might be terrifying, but it might also be exactly right.

 

 

May 23

Easter

Today is Easter Sunday, the highest festival in the church calendar.  This year, in Manitoba, it coincides with beginning to dare to believe that winter might not really last forever.  The snow is (mostly) off the roads and you can see part of our front walk. The waist-high drifts on our yard are slowly shrinking.  Winter will lose... eventually.   I have noticed in myself a leaning towards spring, a wish for things to start growing and coming out of hiding, a desire to go for a walk in full stride instead of having to mince over ice, to wear runners rather than Sorels.  But not yet - it's still waiting time.

These longings for change and renewal and for things to be the way they're supposed to be, already! are so similar to my feelings about the invisible world- the Kingdom of God, or call it the Kingdom of Heaven.  Ramsy is already where things are restored, but here there is still breaking and rending and twisting.  Sometimes it's hard to be here.  Easter reminds me that someday, suddenly, like spring arriving, history will be over and the Kingdom will be fully realized.  But not yet - it's still waiting time.  We celebrate what Jesus already accomplished and the evidence we see of his Kingdom, and we lean towards the hope of what is to come.

This morning my girls and I get to sing about this in our church.  This song is by The City Harmonic, and it references the Book of Revelation (chapter 21).  It sums up all of history and the future, and it reminds us that Death has already lost.  Christ is risen indeed; we'll be risen indeed.

Alleluia.


Holy (Wedding Day)

This is the story of the Son of God
     hanging on a cross for me - 
But it ends with a bride and groom and a wedding by a glassy sea.

O Death, where is your sting?
     'Cause I'll be there singing
               Holy
                   Holy
                       Holy is the Lord.

This is a story of a bride in white
     waiting on her wedding day,
Anticipation welling up inside 
     as her groom is crowned a king.

O Death, where is your sting?
     'Cause we'll all be singing
               Holy
                   Holy
                        Holy is the Lord.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty,
     who was and is and is to come.

This is the story of the Son of God 
     hanging on a cross for me
And it ends with a bride and groom and a wedding by a glassy sea.

This is the story of a bride in white
     singing on her wedding day - 
All together, all that was and is will stand before her God and say:

               Holy, holy,
                    Holy, holy,
                         Holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.

How to get your paperwork done

1.  Put on some fun music.

2.  Clear the stuff off your kitchen table so you have room to work, including the appliance light bulbs you took out of storage earlier.

3.  Decide to actually change the oven light bulb instead putting it off.

4.  End up with only the glass portion of the bulb in your hand, with the metal end still in the oven socket.

5.  Grumble.

6.  Pull the oven away from the wall in order to access the electric plug.

7.  Say, "GROSS!" and get out the broom to sweep up the nameless detritus lurking under the oven.

8.  Wrestle with the huge oven plug until you begin to worry that you'll get a shock.

9.  Put on rubber-lined gloves and get the dang plug out of the wall.

10.  Attempt to use half a potato to remove the rest of the light bulb, as per Heloise's Helpful Hints, which you bought at a garage sale 20 years ago and read but never used.

11.  Give up with the potato and head to Google to read other ideas.

12.  Decide to go with the good ol' pliers (which are, happily, still on the kitchen table!).

13.  Try 4 non-working flashlights to help you see the oven socket, and a 5th which behaves like a strobe light.

14.  Abandon the flashlights and use the pliers in the dark recesses of the oven to unscrew the piece.

15.  Let the potato juice dry in the socket before installing the new bulb.

16.  Pause to write a blog post about the ridiculousness of your life, the fact that the last 3 light bulbs you've tried to change (each a different kind of bulb- are the light bulb people trying to keep up with the yogurt people??) has broken in the socket or gotten jammed or otherwise refused to work, and repeat that this kind of stuff used to be Ramsy's job.

17.  Install oven bulb, plug in oven, shove it back.  If possible, pinch cord behind stove so the stove won't fit back into its space and you are forced to pull it out again, partially unhinging the oven door.

18.  Refrain from saying bad words.  Put it all back.

19.  What was it I was doing again?

Universe 4, Paperwork 0

Side effect #342

As I lay in bed this morning, just this side of awake, a task that I have not yet done came drifting into my consciousness.  That's not an uncommon event in my life, by any means, and it made me realize again that there are so very many side effects of losing Ramsy.  This one: memory lapses.

During the year that Ramsy was in treatment, all kinds of details and events and even relationships became peripheral.  This was natural and typical, I believe; when you suddenly have to organize crucial medical/financial/insurance details/appointments/paperwork and keep them organized, other things have to fall away.  After he died, there were all kinds of other new details/processes/experiences to deal with, and other things continued to fall away.  Your short-term memory only has so much space, apparently, and, like the PVR on our tv, will automatically delete other stuff to make room for the new stuff.

The distressing thing for me about this is that, although it's completely understandable and normal, it turns out that I actually have no control over which things my brain deletes.  One of those things is people's names, even the names of people I've known well for years.  I still experience moments of panic when I run into this person or that and realize that there is just a big empty spot where their name should be in my memory.  And if I'm pretty sure that, say, their name starts with an "L", I'm usually wrong.

Another weird thing my brain does is to fail to connect the dots between stored bits of information.  I will arrange to be in two different places at the same time, not because I forget about either appointment, but because my brain declines to take into account the fact that it takes more than four and a half seconds to drive from one place to the other.  Or another example: I do not forget personal stuff that my friends tell me - that is, when it comes up again in conversation, the information is not a surprise to me, or I recall that I did in fact know this at an earlier time, but I will have absolutely failed to think of it in the intervening time.

That really bothers me.  Partly because it's so annoying to have to say over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm going to be late," partly because it's disturbing to recognize that to some extent I am not in control of my own mind, and partly because in our home, people and relationships have been our focus and our actual work for 20 years and it upsets me that I would neglect to check in with people about important stuff in their lives.

I know that many people will say, "Don't be so hard on yourself during this stage," and I think that I am remembering to be kind to myself, to remember that this is a long and arduous process.  It's just a new process for me, and the twists and turns and complications continue both to surprise and to fascinate.  I think I just want to make a note of this for myself and for others: this, too, sucks - but it's ok.

Backstory blues

Man, it's a long time since I collected my thoughts and set them down here.  The month has sped by with Christmas travels, preparing to start my new teaching job, and finding my footing in the classroom.  I am enjoying my students very much.  I spend a lot of my time thinking about them, and about school, and about lessons, and not much else at this stage (besides how badly my dishes need to be washed, etc.).  I know that after a few more weeks my mind will have room for other stuff, but I'm ok with mentally being at school most of the time right now.

I had an unexpected encounter recently, however, which reminded me that even though our lives have certainly been shaken up, our reality permanently altered, not everyone knows that.  It was pretty typical of the awkward situations that spring up out of nowhere, and which I wish I could learn to handle gracefully.  Here's a sampling of the sometimes funny, sometimes painful, and often odd moments we run into:

• when the salesperson looks up my account on the computer via my phone number and says, "Are you Ramsy?"
• when a high school teacher asks my child, "Are your parents coming to parent-teacher interviews?"
• when I inform the very young bank teller that I wish to make a withdrawal from my husband's estate account and she responds with, "Is it a joint account?" 
• when an old friend from 20 years ago, not even knowing that I was married to a music guy, asks if I still sing.
• when a person I worked with a few years ago sees me in line at Wal-mart and asks how things are going since she last saw me.

What are the right answer to these questions?  Sometimes the dilemma is that the short answer, which is all there's time for, is not the truthful answer.  Sometimes the setting does not allow for a complete explanation.  Sometimes you are so stunned at the incongruity of the question that you can't think of what to say.  And mostly, you are choked by the backstory- the facts and memories and growth and history and tears and all of it- and it leaves no room for the short answer to make its way out.

I keep thinking that I will get used to this, that I will learn to expect the unexpected and have some kind of answer prepared, and I always end up with my mouth hanging open instead. 

Ah, well.

And anyway, the more I run into this experience, the more I become aware that so many, many people feel the same about questions that we ask as a matter of course.  "How many grandchildren do you have now?"  "Where is your wife tonight?"  "Are you still working there?"  "When are we going to see you at the altar?"  I think most of us are actually in the same boat; it's just hard to figure out how to let each other know the backstory.