September 29th, the third year

Today marks three years since Ramsy died, and as with the last two years, it's an odd day.  My thoughts are part memory, part imagination.  All month I've had flashes of remembering his last month: driving to the hospital to see him in palliative care; sitting on his hospital bed and reading him the letters that he and I wrote to each other when we were dating and living 2 1/2 hours apart; how he hated the hospital food but still loved chips; the nurse who gave our kids popsicles when they came to see him; visits from his siblings and his mom; adjusting to the home care schedule; eating our last meal together as a family...

There are also so many memories of the rest of our years together, and who he was before the brain tumor.  The way he held his hands when he sang in worship; his laugh; his pet names for the kids (shnerks and zip-zaps and gomers); the puppy-dog look he would give me when he knew he had done something to tick me off and didn't want me to be mad at him; his ritual of making his coffee in the morning; how he would stop and pray for people right then, rather than just promising to do so...

And then there is the imagining part: if he were here, he would say this or he would think that was so funny or that would drive him crazy.  Wondering what shape our life would have taken if he had lived and we had moved to Saskatoon as originally planned, or if he had lived but been unable to work.  Thinking about the things I've learned through this experience that I might not know yet if he had never been sick, never gone away.

And I am on a threshold.  The God of eternal surprises has brought into my life a man who was close friends with Ramsy many years ago, who has also suffered the loss of his spouse.  We will be married in a few weeks, and become part of one another's history and present and future.  It is a gift I wouldn't have dared to expect.  I am so grateful that I have him to share all of this with, that he will sit with me and hear my stories about Ramsy and laugh and cry with me, and make new memories with me.  That he will help my children remember their dad and tell them stories about when Ramsy was their age.  That I will sit with him and hear his stories about his wife and laugh and cry with him.  That I will help his children remember their mom and ask them to share their favourite memories of her with me.

It doesn't take the loss away, but it makes it into something new.

Alleluia.

Photo: Lori Fenn, 2003

Sometimes

Sometimes life glows, and sometimes it stings.

Sometimes I am silent because I have nothing to say, and sometimes because there is so much to say that it bottlenecks.

Sometimes I look after myself and my family and house really well.  Sometimes I can do only one of those at once.  Sometimes I fail to do any of it.

Sometimes I feel like I have boundless energy and optimism.  (But usually only for about 15 minutes!)

Sometimes my awe at the beauty of God's mercy makes me stand still and just...well, just stand still.

Sometimes I like my music really, really loud.

Sometimes I am so tired of personal growth.

Sometimes my kids make me laugh so hard!

Sometimes a Cinnamon Dolce Latte is necessary.  Or chips and dip.  Sometimes a walk.

Sometimes a movie reflects my own life so much that I wonder if the screenplay writers were spying on me.

Sometimes I think I know myself but then I'm surprised.  Again.

Sometimes I find someone who shares the same wacky sense of humor as me and giggles uncontrollably with me while everyone else looks at us funny.

Sometimes it's all a mystery.

Remembering

I’ve been watching some friends’ journey towards the first anniversary of the loss of a close family member.  It is a terrible thing to relive such a loss, and it is also a terrible thing to watch helplessly as someone endures it.  It’s so odd to know in a very vivid way what someone else must be feeling and to know at the same time that their experience will also be uniquely specific to them, and therefore peculiarly lonely.  I think back over what it felt like when I was coming up to the first anniversary of Ramsy’s death.

Remembering the renewed stream of memories from our family’s “old life” (before Ramsy got sick) and from the time just before he died.  How those memories were sometimes so foremost in my mind that realizing that other people were not experiencing the same memories was like hearing music that somehow nobody else could hear.  How those memories made it seem like I was constantly moving through a time warp and I wasn’t sure where or when I really was.  How I didn’t know what my kids needed from me as the anniversary approached; whether they wanted me to refer to it explicitly or just to talk about their dad more often or to be quiet about it.  How I hunted in my mind for just the right way to observe this event.  How badly I needed to know that other people were remembering Ramsy, and us, and missing his presence.  How often I needed to go for very fast walks, just to be able to stay inside my own skin. 

To the people who prayed for us through that time: thank you.

To the people who sent cards or emails: thank you.

To the people who remembered and cared but found no words and could only hug us: thank you.

To those of you who know someone who is missing someone: the small acts of kindness you think of, the seemingly inadequate words you come up with, the wordless hugs you give, the prayers you pray that just don’t feel like enough – they matter.  

Sacrifice

It’s Good Friday again, the day when Jesus chose to submit to a night and a day of interrogation, torture, mockery and the unknown in order that great good should be accomplished.  Since Ramsy was diagnosed with cancer, and since he died, this day has meant more to me than in the past.  I think before I used to feel a little bit like a child who has been told by its parents to “say thank you to Aunt Gerda for the money for your college fund”.  You know, grateful but not yet understanding what it all means, and a little obligated.  “Look at the great big sacrifice Jesus made for you.  Aren’t you grateful?  Be thankful now that he died so you don’t have to go to Hell when you die!”  All true, and I used to be awed and, yes, grateful, but it didn’t resonate with me in a profoundly personal way. 

But now I have been through a shaking and re-ordering of my world.  I’ve made a sacrifice that I had no choice but to make.  There was no decision whether or not to give up Ramsy, or even whether or not to watch him suffer the inexorable progress of the brain tumor as it stole pieces of him away.  It just happened, and I was dragged along.  It was hard.

But in that process, and since then, I have been in circumstances where sacrifice has been asked, but the decision has been up to me.  I got to choose whether I was going to insist on my own way- reach out and snatch something I wanted- or whether I was going to keep my hands to myself, open them to God, and say, “Okay.  Let’s do it your way.”  I am shocked at the sheer willpower required to stand still and keep my hands open.  It feels like childbirth.  During one of those teeth-gritting, hang-on-to-the-kitchen-counter, “don’t give in to yourself” times this past year, I wrote in my journal, “I wonder what will be born of this struggle?”  So now when I think of Jesus facing what he knew would be a devastatingly torturous day and all the fears around that, I marvel that he had the strength of will to choose the plan that God had set in front of him and trust that something very good would be born of it.

 I imagine that at the end of that terrible Friday, and on the Saturday that dawned next, Jesus’ followers struggled with agonizing questions.  Why would God let Jesus die now?  It didn’t make any sense!  How would God’s kingdom ever be established now?  How could anything ever be good again after this terrible loss?  What were they supposed to do next?  No dreams, no direction, no understanding. 

I do not understand God’s timing; it does not match mine at all.  I don’t understand why he sometimes acts to grant what we have requested and sometimes does not.  I don’t understand his solutions to the problems I keep seeing, or why there sometimes appears to be no solution.  I frequently (and sometimes vehemently) take issue with the way he runs the universe.   But I believe, more confidently than three years ago, that he does in fact know what he’s doing, that he intends good on a vast scale that I cannot even imagine, and that he is working things toward an ultimate, elegant solution at the end of time.  If Good Friday is about making the hard choice, Saturday is about sitting in the dark aftermath, waiting to be able to see again.  It can be just as torturous as making the sacrifice.

And on this side of my last three years, I am able to see the good that has come, and glimmers and flashes of the good that will come, and to believe that the light is explosively brilliant.  I’m truly, personally grateful now, in a grown-up way, to know that the promise of Easter will be, and is being, fulfilled; and that it is about very much more than avoiding Hell when my life here is done.  It allows hope in hopeless circumstances.  It offers the possibility that even though you are sitting in the dust, your spirit will rise in beauty and strength.  It’s about him setting the example and now carrying us, helping us to trust him and to open our hands. 

It’s for now, while we wait in the mix of mess and wonder, hope and despair.

Peace to you who are being wrung in a Good Friday struggle.

Peace to you who are in the strange Saturday aftermath of what now?

Peace will come, and even rejoicing.

Currently

Loving| the mid-to-late afternoon sunlight that fills my living room.  It makes my heart say, “It’s not dark yet!  There’s more to come.”

Enduring| the long, long, so-cold winter.  Does it always have to be -40?  Ok, I exaggerate slightly, but we have had almost 40 days this winter where the windchill was -30 or colder.  Right now it’s hard to believe that sometime I will go outside again in shoes instead of Sorels, in a hoodie instead of a parka, scarf, mitts and hat, or that I will get to drive Highway 331 with my windows down and the music cranked up loud.  Can’t wait!

Remembering| that Spring Break is coming up in a few weeks, and I want to make some plans for doing some fun stuff here as well as resting.  (Last year there was mostly stuff and no resting!) 

Welcoming| the lightheartedness that has visited me lately.

Listening| to my kids practice their songs for the musical they are rehearsing for.  To Tom whistling and beat-boxing and the girls singing along to iTunes in the kitchen.  To Down With Webster and OneRepublic and Anberlin, among others, on my iPod.

Choosing| to make decisions in keeping with my One Little Word for this year and the intentions I set around that.  Not giving back ground I’ve gained.  Not retreating in fear- or at least, if I do, turning right back around and moving forward again.  Working on doing things deliberately, not by default.

Trying| to be more realistic in my expectations of myself and to understand my limitations a little more compassionately. 

Seeing| God at work, both in me and around me, in staggering ways.  Seeing things to be so grateful for.  Seeing things that need to change.  Seeing that growing and learning is a process, and that it’s ok for it to be a process and not an instantaneous thing.

Anticipating| taking steps toward some long-held goals and dreams, and some newer ones too.

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.