Dying Alone With a Tiny Rainbow in the Sky

My eyes are welling again and I was wondering if I could just tell you something? I don’t feel like I can get anything else done unless I get it out and separate it from the rest of life which will eventually blur together. 

I think I said goodbye to two friends yesterday. They came and went during the conversation, in and out of sleep or consciousness-it’s not always easy to tell. But they were there long enough to tell me I was a beautiful person and that I’ve been a wonderful friend, and I told them the same thing. 

For me, it’s a little easier to be with the dying when they are closer to death. When they can no longer look into your face and tell you that your eyes are beautiful and they love you. When they express their love and deep appreciation for knowing you, you can’t pretend it is one-sided or that it’s all just part of the job. But the hardest parts are also the best parts.

It was easier earlier in the week when I got to be alone with a dying woman I’d never met before. Her spirit felt far away and her body was trailing close behind. I sat at her bedside for a couple of hours—praying and singing and feeling as observant and objective about death as I’ve ever been. There was no conversation nor grief to distract me from bearing witness to the sacred act of dying—the rise and fall of peaceful breaths with space growing gently between them…

But there was a rainbow. 

And that little rainbow reminded me that sometimes I don’t believe dying alone is necessarily a bad thing. Because how alone are we? 

There is wonder and stillness which becomes the thin place where heaven and earth meet. Death is personal and private, no matter how many people are in the room.  When my time comes, I think it will be hard for me to let go if someone is holding my hand. I feel certain I will try to stay for them, even if I’m past ready and feeling impatient. I might have to wait until they go to Whataburger or the bathroom.

But it’s not my time to die. It’s my time to write and to let you know that it’s not your time either. But when the time comes, you should know that there might be a tiny rainbow in the sky, even if no one else is around to see it. 

When Christmas Isn’t the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I thought I’d be better by now. I don’t know why it’s so hard this year. I feel like I’m on a ladder whose bottom has been chopped off and I just can’t get out of this pit…

Christmas seems to be the most horrible time of the year if it isn’t the most wonderful, like the song says. 

As I continue to accompany my grieving friends, it makes sense to me that a Christmas list once fulfilled in a time that has passed, is very heavy indeed. Especially with well wishes, short days and long nights, wistfulness for love and burning hearths, romantic and cheery songs, and Hallmark movies doing their darndest to keep everyone but well-paid actors in miserable shape. 

I took this picture on Christmas Eve. It captured well what I have been pondering. The task at hand.

 Knowing that life has ended (and how) or that it will end one day, will you still choose to celebrate? Can you? 

The painful ending is already known and displayed for all to see in the background. In the foreground, the Christmas tree urges us to celebrate the beginning, the present, and the future. Each seems to be in its rightful place. Background. Foreground. Past. Present and future. Grief and joy seem to insist on co-mingling.

I’ve noticed a temptation to hold on to sorrow. It seems more honoring of the one who has gone or our painful pasts. To leave sorrow behind seems to betray depth of love and pain and grief, especially if it is perceived to be a lessening in any way. But does one emotion honor love or pain better than all others? Perhaps, we can choose. 

This day, I will honor you with my ________________.

Sadness. Joy. Laughter. Tears. Creativity. Memories. Adventure-seeking. Christmas lights.

I took this picture on my walk tonight. I can’t help but wonder about the atmosphere inside this home outlined by Christmas lights-just enough to separate it from the surrounding landscape. What do the lights mean for those who hung them? 

I don’t know and will probably never knock on that door, but I know what they mean to me. And since I am writing this post and nearing the end, I’m going with faith - that when the sun has set and light is waning, we can continue to remember the light of day and lives well-lived and keep them burning until the sun rises again in the morning. With joy and sorrow and whatever the day may bring.

Chick Fil A-nniversary

Today is our 21st wedding anniversary. If our marriage wanted to publicly consume alcohol, it may legally do so now. And I think it may.

But not today. Today our marriage wants to celebrate by staying in and eating this. Pictured together, but eaten separately.

My husband of 21 years is sick with one of those bugs going around. But I dressed up for work just in case he was feeling better and wanted to go to dinner when I got home. He was willing but common sense prevailed. 

I gave him his gift in the plastic bag I brought it home in, changed into my sweats, and thought about what I would make of this anniversary with no flowers, dressing up, or dinner out. After shrugging off disappointment and completing a quick mental review of other disappointments (because we do that, don’t we?), I will tell you my conclusion is different than ever before. 

It’s different because yesterday my grief support group for spouses learned that one of our newest members took her life. She missed her husband so desperately and could not imagine living even one more day without him. She received ongoing and tireless love and support from our members: Phone calls, texts, visits at her house and theirs, lunches, dinners, and walks with people who have been there and are there—and yet we could not take away the one choice she chose.

Today, we grieve together and ask ourselves all of the same questions. What a comfort we receive in one another as we face the limits of our power but never, ever our love.

Marriage is not Hallmark movies and walks on the beach. At least not always or even most of the time.

Sometimes it is being left behind and losing yourself afterward. Sometimes it is weeks (months?) of ships-passing-in-the-night dotted by fleeting moments of profound connection. Sometimes it is caregiving or being disappointed. Sometimes it is splitting up so you can cart kids to different places at different times on different planets. Sometimes it is being grateful for Alzheimer’s disease because it gave you the opportunity to be together 24/7 for 15 years, along with the realization that without it you would still have been working (and apart). Sometimes it is years of living together followed by years of living alone. And sometimes it is eating chicken noodle soup by yourself from a cardboard bowl on your 21st anniversary. 

When you do life with married people who have been left behind by their spouse, you’re grateful for however you can get it. You know how profoundly interwoven two lives can become and you know how separation leaves every thread bare and aching. 

And because you know this, you can be content on a rainy anniversary—knowing that not grieving the one you love is gift enough. Except when you’re wishing for a little bit more, at which time you can remember he de-bones the chicken every time without being asked and a hundred other things just like it, because he loves you every day and not just on the special ones.

Bridging the Gap

Our Mom was paralyzed in a car accident 29 years ago today.  She didn’t realize that today was the day because she was playing Bingo.  But, her kids did.  

My younger brother and I remember the knock on the door in the wee hours of the morning.  We were the only ones still living at home.  I was 16, he was 14.  My sister was newly married and my older brother was in boot camp at the Naval Training Center in Illinois. 

It was our Uncle and Mom’s best friend at the door.  Mom had been in an accident.  She hurt her back, so she was flown to the nearest city with better doctors, is what I remember.  But, I also remember thinking she just wouldn’t be able to lift anything heavy for awhile.  

That turned out to be true.  But, how true, I had no way of knowing.  

My brother remembers a yellow envelope with her belongings, cut rings, and money covered in blood. I remember seeing her in the ICU, how bad the room smelled, metal coming out of her head and arm, asking her how she got some random abrasion, and hearing her robot voice say she would walk again. 

I left the next day for Disney World for my planned Spring Break trip with my high school choir.  I didn’t want to go, but staying wasn’t helpful to anyone.  She came home from the rehabilitation hospital three months later.  My brother and I became caregivers, and adults who looked like children.

Today, 29 years later, I’ve been very unlike me.  Fighting tears most of the day, actually.

I heard River of Dreams on Saturday while I was making dinner.  I heard it because I put it on my Spotify playlist awhile ago, because it reminds me of my Mom.  She used to play it on the piano and the piano itself would come to life.  But, Saturday, while standing in my kitchen, it brought my walking, piano-playing Mom and my little girl self into Room 167 at the nursing home, and I wept for all of us.  

So many losses over such a long period of time.  If you’re 29 years of age, you’re still young.  But, if you’ve been in a wheelchair for 29 years, or caring for and loving someone who has, it seems like a different kind of 29.  Maybe like dog years, where 1 year is really 7 years.  Or something like that. 

But, I need to write today, because I’m still surprised by my emotions, which tells me I’m not as smart as I think I am.  Especially after sooo long, and after Saturday.  I thought I got “it” out of my system.  Whatever “it” is, exactly.  

After talking to Mom today, and realizing that today is just another day for her, I think I am figuring it out.  

Today, I am sad for me and my brother, and for losing the last few years of our childhood.  I am sad for my older siblings, too, but in a different way.  We all bear and have borne different kinds, levels, and layers of suffering because of our Mom’s accident and the upside-downness that follows.  Where we went to college, or not.  Where we lived, or not.  How far we dared to dream, or not…

Even now, she is often at the center of our thoughts.  Our emotions vary widely, depending on what is happening with her, what she needs, or what we wish were different.  

But, because her suffering is and has been so great, her children’s suffering, as it relates to her own, remains unseen.  She is like a ship making her way through the ocean.  We are tied off in little inner tubes bumping along behind her, riding the waves as they come.  

It’s not that she doesn’t care, she just can’t see us back there. 

I was recently trying to convey some uneasiness I had about some changes in her health.  She said, “Well, how do you think I feel?”  

She’s right, of course.  

But, that didn’t keep me from feeling my feelings, just like it hasn’t for 29 years.  But, there’s often no place for them because her suffering is so giant and unending, it hogs all the room.  So, I stuff them, and cry for her instead because there’s plenty to cry about.  

And now I know something else.  I am familiar with pain created by a gap in understanding.  

I am writing a story about what life is like after losing a spouse.  I am an interesting author for such a story, because I have not lived that life.  I hope I never will, but am not naive enough to think I won’t.  But, I meet weekly with people who are.  I hear their stories and recognize their great suffering because their spouse died, but also that their suffering is unnecessarily greater because it is not seen nor understood.  

After today, I understand my motivation and my ability to write about someone else’s suffering a little better.  I see them and I see a gap.  

I don’t like gaps.  They’re unnecessary.  Love and compassion and listening and trying to understand can close them, or at least come close.

Dear Mom, Josh, Mike, and Michelle, spouses missing their spouses and all who live with a gap in understanding,

I see you.  I hear you.  I love you. And I want to understand…

P.S. Heidi, same goes for you…

Love, 

Me

 

A Case For Marriage

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary.  Yes, we can believe it.  And no, we can’t believe it!  

Once upon a time, a ranch foreman who had given up on women and a horse trainer with a boyfriend back in Kansas, met on Valentine’s Day in the Hill Country…

“Your boyfriend let you come to Texas without a ring on your finger?!  Your boyfriend is a fool.”

We were engaged a month later and married eight months after that.  St. Isidore’s Catholic Church.  K-State campus.  November 9, 2002.  A fall wedding in Kansas is a bit of a gamble, but it was 70-something and sunny.  Because, why wouldn’t it be?  It was a game day and there were a lot of happy Wildcats honking and cheering us on as we crossed the threshold as husband and wife.

20 years later, we have three teenage boys, good jobs, and all we need.  I just finished my second class in my graduate program, and my husband has been unbelievably supportive.  Not only like not complaining when I’m holed up on the computer, or saying “You’ve got this!”, but also like…

Plate delivered, meat cut up, potato mashed and buttered with salt and pepper, and salad with just the right amount of the right kind of dressing.  I mean, freaking amazing.  

I could go on and on and on about all of the reasons I love my husband and why he is the best and why I am so glad I married him.  But, you might think your husband is better than mine and then we might have to fight, or you might think your husband is a loser compared to mine and then I would have to console you, so I’m going to switch tracks, because as much as I want to celebrate our 20 years, which I will, with him, tonight, I want to encourage you in your marriage, right now. 

Marriage is one of the best and hardest things there is.  I have talked to three different people this week who may or may not have used the “D” word, but are wondering if their marriages are going to survive, or if they’re going to die trying to make it work.  I’ve never forgotten what my married friends said, both having been married twice before…

“We could have made our first marriage work, if we had just known how much work marriage is.”  Yesterday, she lived through the date of his death for the fourth time.  It’s hard to call it an anniversary.  

I no longer have the privilege of celebrating an anniversary without thinking about a time when celebrating them might end, and dreading them might begin.  Grieving spouses are great teachers.  They help me believe in the depth of my husband’s love for me.

Two years after her death, a grieving husband told me on Monday, “I still look for her.”

“I know she’s not there, but I still look for her.”

This helps me to know that if I should die, I will not be dead to my husband.  Even after a long time.  It also reminds me that he is looking for me, now.  

And this is a really good thing to see and know and be reminded of.  Because sometimes my husband is bringing me a plate of bite-sized meat and buttered potatoes, and sometimes he’s gone for two weeks, and I feel like an acquaintance on a good day and a beggar on a bad one.  Please, sir, can you spare just a little bit of time?  Under the right circumstances, I can convince myself that I am destined for leftovers, and it’s embarrassingly easy to despair.

As much I would like to say this is old news, I just about blew it again this weekend.  More time away for him, a big paper due for me, and patience, charity, and anything that feels like love at all seems to fly right out the window.  We were supposed to overnight in San Antonio to watch a boy and a band march at the Alamodome and go for a hike the next day.  Storms were coming in, I was on the fence, and he didn’t want to spend the trip in silence, so…

So, after 20 years, I realized something.  I realized that I was withholding my love because in my wounded and selfish heart, I didn’t think he deserved it.  When I actually admitted this to myself, I was ashamed.  I was ashamed because that is not who I am.  I believe in giving my love to everyone, especially to those who don’t deserve it.  And he does deserve it.  Every bit of it. 

I assured him the weekend wouldn’t pass in silence.  We went, and had a wonderful time.  

I cringe at the thought that I almost bagged the whole thing.  Over seven miles, we walked and talked about the meaning of life and happiness and the two times in our 20 years of marriage I told him to go-fly-a-kite with fewer words and no kite.  He’s forgiven me, but he still remembers how many times it happened.  Twice…

I was reading a book about parenting teenagers yesterday because it’s so easy and I love reading about how easy it is.  (HA.Ha.ha)  Anyway, I came across this great quote.  I think it fits nicely here, as we own our mistakes, and let the good and bad all go together somehow, like they do…

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities:  That a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc.  Men are not like that…men are like rivers…every river narrows here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm.  It is the same with men.  Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.      -Tolstoy

The only thing harder than living with someone in marriage, is living without them.  Yes, it is normal for it to be “this hard.” Keep fighting for what is worth fighting for.  Find the good and circle around it.  Forgive the rest and begin again.  

Happy 20th Anniversary to Us, and Love and Encouragement to all… 

The Cedar Waxwing

Our cat brought a bird in this morning, like cats do from time to time.  Only it was beautiful and looked completely unharmed, except for how still it lay.  We picked it up in a towel and took it outside, hoping it would die quickly or recover enough to fly away.

I googled “bird with red on its wings and yellow on its tail”.  It was a Cedar Waxwing.  Beautiful.  When I went back outside to check on it, wondering if there was more I could do, it was sitting up.  

I unsuccessfully tried to give it some water with a syringe and decided that holding it to give it warmth might be the kindest thing I could do.  And it died in my hand.

Yesterday was a full day of new death and fresh grief, as working in hospice can be.  But this morning,  I am reminded of the weight of it.  The literal and figurative weight of it.  I feel the weight of a single Cedar Waxwing, sadness for this bird, for myself, and the world full of people who are accosted by death, both seen and unseen in its approach.  

At the same time, I marvel at how our final flight looks like lying still, even when you are a bird. 

And I wonder if  “Not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it”, if the same is true for Cedar Waxwings and for me, and for you.  Ones who are not to be afraid because we are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.  Matt 10:30-31

We are the ones who are not to worry about our lives, what we will eat or drink, about our bodies, or what we will wear because life is more important than food, and the body more important than clothes.  “Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”  

Matt 6:25-27  

Yes, we are more valuable.  No, we cannot add a single hour to our lives by worrying.  But, we can be sad when a bird dies and when people die, and remember that God can send hands to hold us as we make our final flight or watch someone else take their's. 

Love Is...

Love is…

Everything.  Never ends.  Forever.  Taking care of him when he can’t take care of himself.  Strength to do what you need to do.  A need.  Learning to love in a different way.  God-given…We love because He first loved us. 

These are good descriptions of love.  But, they gain a shocking amount of power when you meet the ones who spoke them.   Ones who continue to learn daily about a “love stronger than death.”  Widows and widowers.

 They have suffered the deep and unrelenting pain of losing a spouse.  And they would do it again.  100% of them would do it again.  They understand grief as the price of love and they are willing to pay it. 

“Ask any young man in love if the suffering that he has known is worth the hour that it has brought him to, or if he would now forego his love to be exempt from future sorrow.  It is not necessary for me to tell you his answer.  Suppose that God gave every man the choice between a world in which there was no suffering, but also no capacity for love, or a world in which suffering remains, but everyone has the power to love.  Which do you think mankind would choose?  Which would you choose?  Quite certainly the power to love, even at the cost of suffering.” – Caryll Houselander

These men and women inspire and embolden as they live out their answers with their unanimous and resounding YES.

 They show up weekly to profess their love for their spouse and the depth of their grief, which is its only equal.  They take chances on sharing these most-sacred-of-things with strangers who quickly become friends.  Safe friends.  Because they know. 

Through the eyes of the only person in the room who has not experienced the devastating and life-altering loss of a spouse, I marvel at them.  I do not know.  And they let me come, anyway.  They welcome me and love me, even. 

 I tell them they are my personal superheroes, and I mean it.  They have lived through one of my worst fears and continue to find and take their next steps, all while not knowing how.  They are the embodiment of courage, resilience, and incredible faith.

 They teach me how to keep going when you don’t feel like it.  They show me how to offer and receive lunch invitations.  They model how to start, build, celebrate, and sustain friendships.  They take chances on people, and they remind me it is the little things that represent the greatest of loves.  A dirty cup lid, because your husband used to wash it, an empty passenger’s seat where your road-trip partner used to be, and a red shop rag in the back pocket of a pair of overalls tell the tale. 

 Happy Valentine’s Day to all who continue to celebrate a love stronger than death.  Your love continues to make the world a better place.  Thank you for sharing it so generously.  May you continue to love well and be loved well, in return.  God be with you. 

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – C.S. Lewis

 

 

 

 

All In a Day’s Work

Today is a need-to-write-it-out day.  Not that it was a bad day.  It wasn’t.  It was a good day, full of lots of different things that all fall under the same umbrella, which is my job, which doesn’t feel like a job at all.  

It started with a team meeting to discuss plans of care for our hospice patients, just like we do - every two weeks.  

I found myself with an hour to spare before my next visit, so I made an impromptu visit to a friend and recent widow.  She served me lunch and wondered how I do my job.  She encouraged me to use the bathroom before I left for my next visit, not to speed, and sent me with cookies to go.  I marveled at how she was caring for me while learning how to get through a day in her new life.

Next, a scheduled visit to a beautiful home in the country.  (I only sped a little.)  Bath and lunch were finished just in time for a living room concert for mother and daughter.  Conversation about how glad they are to be together in their home, and not separated because of COVID visiting restrictions was a welcome topic between songs.  

This, on the heels of singing Christmas-in-July carols in the rain yesterday with some of my coworkers and volunteers at a couple of nursing facilities - because the residents aren’t sitting in their living rooms with someone they love, and because we can.

Got a call on the way home from a relative of one of our patients who recently passed away.  She taught me a lot about faith and perseverance, and a little secret about making a wish when you see a red bird, and stamping it onto your hand before the red bird flew away - just like her Mom taught her.  I only taught her how to make a paper flower.  Anyway... 

They were cleaning out her room and wanted to donate some things, so I stopped by to pick them up.  I reclaimed the hummingbird feeder I bought for her and the plant stand she no longer needed.  No doubt they will find another hook to hang on and a plant to hold.  They will continue to do their part in bringing the little bit of joy they’re able, which reminds me all of the people I have the privilege of working with and the people that we serve— and know, too, so will we. 

To All the Moms With Empty Birdfeeders

It’s Mother’s Day.  This day feels a little like Christmas to me, because it is a celebration of one of my most-prized roles and my greatest contribution to the world - my three sons.

But, as is often the case, when my joy surges, I remember that the same causes for my joy are sources of pain and sadness for others.  And I need to acknowledgement that.

I recently did a “window visit” to a woman in a nursing home, per ongoing COVID-19 visiting restrictions.  She is and has been many things, but is most often identified as a hospice patient and a mother.  As I knelt down by her window A/C unit and her empty bird feeder, we conversed about how we got here, how we didn’t all start out trying to live into the 100’s, how she would gladly give what time she has to someone else, how no one will touch her, and how she has to manage her expectations of her children so she’s not perpetually disappointed, and subsequently heartbroken.

Motherhood.  The source of the greatest joy and greatest pain.

For all mothers whose pain outweighs or comes in equal measure with your joys, this is for you.
 
If Mother’s Day is something to be endured rather than enjoyed, this is for you.
If you always wanted children, but were never able to conceive, this is for you.
If your children lived only long enough to catch a glimpse on an ultrasound, this is for you.
If you carried your child to term, and they went to heaven before you got them home, this is for you.
If your children got a “head start” in the life beyond and left you behind, this is for you.
If your children blame you for everything, this is for you.
If your children struggle with depression or addiction, this is for you.
If you’re a grandmother raising your grandchildren, this is for you.
If you’re waiting for your children to visit and your bird feeder is empty, this is for you.

Mothers are people who make room for others.  Very often within our very own bodies, but very often in other ways, too.  Children can come to us in many ways, and sometimes, it is through the front door.  After all, I am often visiting someone else’s mother while someone else is visiting mine.

Thank you to all of you who have sacrificed your own bodies, preferences, comforts, safety, and living for yourselves, so that others may have life.   Happy Mother’s Day!

COVID-19: Another Perspective

We are on day two of schools being closed and all other activities limited or stopped completely to slow the spread of COVID-19, a novel coronavirus.  People are hoarding groceries and toilet paper, facing extreme illness and mortality, unemployment or crazy overtime, decreased personal interaction, no childcare, and no idea when or where it will end.  Fears for our personal health and for those we love abound.

But, I just keep coming back to what Naomi said.

“I’ve survived the worst thing of my life.”

Naomi is a newly bereaved wife with four young children to raise.  She was one of the ones that didn’t stock up and knows this will pass, as most things do.  She recognizes her outlook on everything has changed, and in this case, that is a good thing.

Naomi inspires me and makes me think about the beatitudes.  Matthew 5:4 to be exact.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

When normalcy, pleasure, fantasies, and distractions melt away because of a worldwide pandemic, a terminal illness, or the death of someone you love, maybe part of the comfort promised in these mystifying verses is that the fear of anything worse ceases to exist.  Your worst fear is behind you and you’ve survived it.  And you know this.   

This gives me hope for those who have faced unimaginable loss and who persevere in living, as well as hope for the rest of us.  Especially now. 

As I ponder the most likely impact of COVID-19 on my immediate family, my thoughts turn to food. It is embarrassing even to admit this considering the threat to life itself, but the shortages tell the truth.  It is on everyone’s mind.  The canned food aisle won the most-ransacked-award when I went shopping a few days ago.  Except for canned peas.  There were plenty of those.  (Who knew?!)

Canned peas aside, we eat well. We could pare down a lot and be just fine.  But, it makes me think about the divide between what we have and what we actually need to live.  This divide is what makes us panic over empty shelves and stocking delays.  We are used to having way more than we need.  We don’t know what we can get by with, and we don’t want to know. 

But, there is a group of people who do know what they need because that is all they have, and all they are used to having.  There is no surplus and no division between have and need,  and yet, an entire kingdom seems to have their name on it.  They are called the poor in spirit.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

   Matt 5:3

Being poor and poor in spirit are not necessarily, nor always the same thing.  But, our poor are often poor in spirit, and I am thinking about them.  They are used to limited supply.  Not because the shelves are empty, but because their wallets are.  Food stamps and food banks routinely remind them they are beneficiaries.  People at the mercy of other people.  Making room for blessings not earned is mandatory.  Going without, a way of life.

Mother Teresa said, “Even God Himself cannot fill what is already full.”  Well, guess what?  We are making room.  Our circumstances demand it.  As we tackle the uncertainties of living day-to-day in a scenario we never could have imagined, our shelves and calendars have emptied, but our capacity to survive, serve, bless, love, and receive is growing (if we let it).

Amidst all of the unknowing, my hope is that those who can recognize themselves in the beatitudes will find the comfort and the kingdom they have been promised — and that the rest of us can learn something from their hard-won perspective secured along the way.

 God be with us.

Mom's Heart

I am reposting this with permission of the author, the daughter of one of our hospice patients.  She sent it to me by email earlier this week.  I appreciate her allowing me to share it here, so you can allow her Mom and her writing to inspire and bless you, too...

Life lessons come in unexpected packages. I have long known of a company Artful Ashes in Seattle. They take a small amount of your loved ones cremated remains and hand blow either a heart or an orb incorporating the ashes into the glass. They are extraordinary and there are many color choices for the glass. After much consideration, I chose a heart with brown and amber gold swirls. It reminded me of her.

The heart arrived this week and it is beautiful - and comforting to have a bit of Mother with me. After the first day, I noticed that the heart is more than just a bit asymmetrical as one side is decidedly bigger than the other. My first reaction was that while the heart is beautiful, it was not perfect. I wanted it to be perfect. In anticipation of my call to Artful Ashes, I was prepared to tell them that of course they never knew my Mom, but perfectionism was something she was known for.

I have a vivid memory of accompanying Mom on a visit with her alteration lady, Mrs. Simmons, at her home. She had a fitting room complete with a three sided tall mirror on a raised platform and all the fascinating accouterments of sewing - pincushions of all sorts, one of which was worn on her wrist, and a skirt hem marker that with a squeeze of the rubber bulb would make little horizontal lines of chalk as the client slowly turned. Fascinating stuff indeed. The purpose of this visit was to correct a back zipper in a skirt that did not lay completely flat against Mom's backside. This newly purchased suit still had the tags, but Mom absolutely would not wear it until the offending zipper was replaced with one that laid properly. In my child's mind, and perhaps in Mrs. Simmons' as well, was the thought - who cares, the jacket covers it! I can still see Mom on that raised platform in her stiletto heels patiently saying to Mrs. Simmons, "It simply does not lay right." It was not perfect.  Mother struggled with this idea that all had to be perfect for most all of her adult life. A notion that also dovetailed with the "I'll be happy when . . . " issue.

So as I gazed at this imperfect, asymmetrical heart I thought that Mom simply would not want this to be how a part of her spent her eternity - in this decidedly one sided heart. And then I began to think. I thought about how Mom was in the last few years and I started to form this realization that she definitely had two sides to her heart. Almost to the very end, Mother could be demanding, petulant, and critical. She could make you wish you were anywhere else on the planet rather than have to deal with her! But more and more in those last few years, that side of her heart got smaller and smaller, and the side of her heart that was kind, generous, and loving got larger and larger.

Daughters inherit many things from their Mothers and both my sister and me inherited this desire for perfectionism - we struggle with it even now. When I would call Mom with some complaint that something I had attempted to do did not come out as I wanted - that it wasn't perfect - she would say, "Oh honey, I'm sure it's beautiful. It will be okay just like it is." And then I thought - she was always like this with us - loving us in spite of our imperfections.

This heart, that I will look at every day for the remainder of my life on this earth, will be a reminder to me to let the good side of my heart always be bigger than the other. So Mom, thank you for the life lesson. You continue to inspire me.

Becoming Secondary

Sometimes, there is a downside to working in hospice and it is different than what you might think.  It's not too much death or dying, but a hyper-awareness of time in my normal every-day living.

Nothing brings this home more than when I'm trying to track down my percussionist in the orbit of high school marching band when I can't get him on the phone.

Does that seem like a weird set of circumstances to bring the old sand-filled hourglass center stage?

I'm hoping I can explain, and figure it out for myself at the same time...

I get to meet people in the evening of life on a routine basis.  Very often, they've become secondary to the people in their lives for whom they were primary for a good long while.  Spouses and kids, mostly.  They were wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, and their best years were the same years I'm living now.  But, their people slowly moved on.  They were moved from the center of their lives to the periphery, and became someone to check in on, rather than someone to be included and enjoyed.

My eyes are wide open to this shift.  I'm becoming aware of the people in my life who may feel like they've been dropped in a secondary slot, permanently.  I am still primary for my children because I can drive and grocery shop and facilitate everything that is important to them.  But, I am inching my way to the periphery and every time I'm holding my phone and there is no answer on the other end, I know.

An unscheduled weekend rolls in and feels like a blessing and a curse because time together is so important.  But, finding more than two people who want to do the same thing is a chore and getting all five to agree is nearly impossible.

So, we compromise. 

At the river, a couple of us fished down the bank a little ways, I sat on an uncomfortable rock until my butt hurt and then filled a trash bag with other people's trash, while someone else threw rocks at spiders the size of grapefruits, hoping to pass a few minutes while noting, "this is the-most-redneck-vacation."  It seemed like the best bonding moment was our unanimous relief to be back home, savoring the memory that we created.  Mainly, that we didn't want to go back there any time soon.  No discussion needed.
 
Sunday kept us altogether for breakfast and Mass, but separate for the rest due to attractions that couldn't be resisted and commitments that needed to be kept.  But, fortunately for me, my plans included sitting poolside and holding a baby for a couple of hours which seemed to slow time a bit.  Gratefully.

Unless I am hitting Sonic at Happy Hour, there are few things my boys are interested in joining me for, and doing things as a family is, well, usually a compromise for most of us.  So, I sit on the futon as long as anyone will sit by me, deliver pigs in a blanket to a fort in the woods, change my schedule to steal a lunch date at Subway, and go to the skate park when it's almost dark because "they have lights, you know".

I know I am becoming secondary.  Just in little moments for now, but they are coming more frequently and I know they will keep coming, as they should.  Occasionally, someone will notice a little tear and recognize that I'm not okay and while I'm trying to find the words to explain, they decide they didn't really want an explanation, anyway.  And I'm relieved, because I couldn't really explain it, anyway.

Mr. Al

A friend was laid to rest yesterday.  I learned that he died through a Facebook post by someone I didn't know, shared by someone I did know.  And I wept.  The flood of emotion surprised me, as we never talked on the phone, visited each other's homes, or saw each other very often.

Twelve years ago, we worked in the same place.  He swept and carried donated goods to the back.  I coordinated payment of overdue bills and wrote food and clothing vouchers.  We'd share a meal on the days I brought enough for two, and he would bless it.  Thanking God for it and asking for protection against sickness from it.  

I don't know if he was paid for his work, or if he was just happy to be of service.  But, there was a misunderstanding along the way, and he stopped coming.  From then on, our meetings were a little more happenstance and much less frequent, but always a delight.  He loved my children and I loved him.

More than a decade has passed since our friendship began.  I never understood how he lived and maybe it was that that kept me from realizing that, one day, he would die?

This makes me feel pretty stupid because I work in hospice and yet, Al's death caught me off-guard and knocked me for a loop.  

 I've heard that all grief is selfish and this sentiment has never been more true.

Selfishly, I wish I would have seen him more recently.  I wish I could have been there with him at the end, or at least in the days preceding.  I wish I could have offered him something, or let him know about the place he held in my heart.  But, my loss is my own.  

He was the epitome of one who died as they lived.  He did it his way.  Alone, outside, under a tree.  By all appearances, he just went to sleep.  And I can't feel sorry for that.  That is a good way to go, if that is the way it best suited you to live the last 30 years of your life.  

I will feel blessed if I am able to walk to the place where I lay down for the last time and someone finds me the next day.  It's the dying over months and years that I want to avoid.  But, I wonder.  Did he know he was so near death?  What was he thinking as he prepared to lay down on the hard ground for the last time?  

Certainly, he did not know that the local media would be covering his funeral with full military honors, or informing all about his stint as an IRS attorney, after serving in Vietnam with the Air Force.

What would he say about that?

I can't help but think he wouldn't have a lot to say.  He'd simply be watching quietly from a distance, on a bench tucked away in the shade.

"...part of the secret of heaven:  that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."  

Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Being Married on a Saturday Morning

I've been thinking about something and this Saturday morning has been the perfect crucible for my thoughts. 

I've had a lot of conversations lately with men and women who are grieving the loss of their spouse and with people who find it difficult to have their needs remotely met in the context of marriage.  In the case of the former, I hear the intensity of a husband's love for his wife, how he wished he would have appreciated her more, how a wife would give anything for five more minutes with her husband, and how many question the value of their own life without their spouse in it to give it meaning.

I find this incredibly poignant, beautiful, and heart-rending.  I can never hear too much about one person's love for another and I grieve with them. 

But, then I wake up in my own marriage on Saturday morning.

I don't see my husband in the mornings during the work week, because he's hitting the gym long before I care to be awake.  But, on Saturdays, we're both home, and I'm tricked into thinking that starting our day together in separate rooms means something.  That checking in with the outside world first thing, is an indication that everything else (including me) is the last thing. 

My mind swings back and forth between the reality of those who are grieving the loss of their person and sitting alone on my futon, feeling like we're getting it all wrong.  I start to feel resentful and pull away in this black-and-white-world-where-you-wish-you-had-five-more-minutes-with-the-one-you-love or you sleep walk through the next forty years. 

And I pray.  I pray that the Lord will illuminate the truths that I've forgotten and help me to see what I'm inclined to ignore.

And He answers. 

I remember that it would be impossible to live forward in time with the intensity of frustrated love, which belongs to the grieving.  That to buy more gifts, spend more time, appreciate every moment and opportunity to love sounds so wonderful, but is impossible to maintain. 

I remember that human beings have a certain capacity to love and give and invest in others.  This same capacity is largely influenced by hunger, sleep, intro and extroverted natures, schedules, time, emotional strain, and how long you have to keep it up.

The intensity of love in a marriage is often shrouded by the dailiness of it all.  Love looks like washing dishes and bringing the grill back in and going places you don't want to go and being awake when you'd rather be napping.  But, it's there.

We don't have to see something to know that it exists.  Ask any dog who lives in a yard with an invisible fence.   

Love is there and so often, it looks like beginning again.  Trusting again in that love which you cannot see and as often, cannot feel.  And it's worth everything you can throw at it, commit to it, or sacrifice on its altar. 

This time, in my case, it will look like an apology for being cold with no explanation and refusing kindness without gratitude, and maybe a blog post which encourages us to believe again in a love that we're tempted to doubt. 

The outstretched and enduring nature of our mission as married folks is daunting.  It is impossible to do it perfectly, but possible to do it well.  And part of doing it well is persevering...until death do us part.  And between now and then, taking advantage of what is, to feel fully that which you have to give, and giving it. 

 

 

And Did You Get What You Wanted From This Life Even So?

This post is a little different from the others, in that I'm not sure what the point is going to be.  But, I am pretty confident I will know at the end of reflecting with you, here.

This week I started the fourth and final unit of my Clinical Pastoral Education program.  A requirement for becoming a certified chaplain.  This only matters because that's where the question was posed.  The question that has me sifting through past memories and photographs.

After a brief description of the six types of loss (not to be confused with the stages of grief), my classmates and I were challenged to make an elementary timeline of our biggest losses, what type of losses they were, and how old we were when they occurred.  That step was fairly easy.  Mine looked like this:

Pretty self-explanatory except where "systemic" is crossed out in a couple of places.  I was unsure if it applied.  It did.

This exercise was the last one of the day.  We went round-table, shared, and went home.  That seemed fine.  Until I got home.  I pulled in the driveway and didn't even have the emotional energy to get out of the car.  I texted a friend from my class and we met for coffee, which helped a lot.  But, afterward, I still felt like I had entered a time traveling machine, and for whatever reason, like I needed to stay in the past, ask questions and get answers.  Only the person I need to ask is me.  And I'm 39-years-old.

In trying to examine the past from a great distance, all squinting, telescopes, and magnifying glasses fall short. I'm just not really sure about a lot of it.  Do my feelings now accurately reflect my feelings then?  Do memories mirror actual events or are they products of creative writing without the inconvenience of writer's cramp?  Was my most self-sacrificing moment really my most self-sacrificing moment? Does it matter?

Looking through old photos for clues, there were poignant surprises in both directions.  Happiness where I remembered sadness and sadness where I remembered joy.

In the end, as I heard someone say recently, life is full of "mixed blessings".  If you could only use two words to sum up life, these two should be in the running.  Shade tree or not, this seems like a good bench to rest on, along the rocky road of what ifs and did I really's and why didn't I's.

In the world of mixed blessings and pleasant surprises, Traveling Mercies - Some Thoughts on Faith, has been a great one!  I thought it was going to be cutesy and maybe quotable at best, but it is raw and very honest, instead.  I always prefer the latter.

I'm only a third of the way in, but life looms large.  Faith is a minor character in the distant hills, but there just the same.  This morning, with all of this other stuff swirling around in my head, Anne Lamott starts Part Two with a poem by Raymond Carver entitled Late Fragment:

And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Yes.  This.  This is what matters.  Being beloved.

In looking at pictures from throughout my life, I'm surprised at how many pictures exist of people and things I've loved at different times.

For example, I've devoted years of my life to horses - riding them, caring for them, and caring for people who rode them.  But, I haven't ridden a horse in nine years. The pile of pictures of the girl on as many horses in as many places look like me, but they don't feel like me.  In a way, I would like to be her again.  Fearless and free.

But, the reality is, I traded fearless and free for beloved.  Horses for a husband and boys who make my home feel like a barn without the hay.  And I would do it again.  

I guess those are life's victories.  Those things that you would do again.  And again.  And again.

Losses can be grieved, weighed, examined, and considered.  Life can be reflected upon, and it probably is worthwhile to do so, as long as you return to where you are.  Here.  Now.

The river of life has never left me in an eddy or changed directions.  It has gently and steadily moved me downstream, as it will continue to do.  Always with something bittersweet from the past, something to be enjoyed in the moment, and something to look forward to.  And none of it, alone.

My front door keeps slamming.  Shirtless boys are shouting - running in and out, playing in the rain.  A pork tenderloin is roasting in the oven, Andy Griffith is on TV, and I am beloved.

Consoling the Grieving With Awkwardness and Goodwill

As you probably know, I don't write an advice column.  All of my posts are the fruit of my thought-life and experience, shared for your entertainment or very optimistically, to offer hope or help.   I have very few thoughts I am willing to impose on others as ideal or best-practice.  I generally assume people have already thought about what they are doing or saying and are motivated by their own reasons, in which case advice is neither sought nor appreciated.

However...

I've been in a few situations lately, which have stirred something within me.  I've stayed up late writing about it, only to leave it again, afraid to offend or create scandal.  These situations involve being at someone's side whose world has been turned upside down by the death of someone they love.  I've been there at different stages for different people - during the dying, at the death, at the moment they learned about the death, days and months later.  

I count every one of these moments as a privilege and something sacred.  But, they are uncomfortable.  And yet, what is just as uncomfortable, is finding myself cringing in these same moments.

Not cringing at the love, which manifests itself as pain, tears, and grief in every form, but at what little we have to offer in the way of words.  But, we use them anyway.  And they fail to land in the heart of the hearer.  My fear is not that they do little good, but have the potential to harm.  To create distance.  A feeling of not being understood.

If there is little else, there is always a lot of goodwill in anyone at the side of a grieving person.  It is not an easy place to be.  We are likely struggling with our own grief and trying to help another with theirs.  We struggle to understand why spouses leave widows, children leave parents, parents leave children, and how full-term babies can die on their birth-day.  

We no more understand these things than the man on the moon.  But, if we're Christians, we know God is involved, so we run to the safe-place.  God's will.  It's the only way we can preserve our sanity and our faith.  This is all we have, and consequently, many times, what we offer to the grief-stricken.

In our attempt to console a grieving person, we offer the only comfort we can find for ourselves.  We remind them that the death of the one they loved is "for a reason".  "All part of God's plan".  Or that "God needed him/her more than you did."  Said another way, "All is as it should be."

If the grieving say and believe these things, then by all means, we can readily agree (if we believe them, too).  But, unless we're asked for our opinion, we should let the grieving one take the lead here.  It is hard to receive, "All is as it should be" when every fiber of your being says, "Nothing is as it should be."  

1 Corinthians 2:11 says, "For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him?  So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."

We can know God is good.  We can know that He will bring good out of everything, as Romans 8:28 proclaims ("We know that in everything God works for the good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose."), but we cannot know what God is thinking when he commands or allows a person to die.  We would do well to remember this when our turn comes to comfort the grieving.    

When someone is grieving, even a person with great faith, it is very possible that the God they believe in changes.  Maybe forever.  If you believed someone was responsible for causing you greater pain than you ever could have imagined, would it be any immediate consolation that the person responsible thought it out thoroughly ahead of time?    

The box made of our thoughts about God and how we relate to Him shatters.  But, we know God doesn't change.  God is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  We change. Understandably so, and probably for the best.  Ultimately, if we don't abandon faith altogether, we are forced to let God be God and to accept what we cannot know or understand.  An uncomfortable, but properly ordered relationship between creature and Creator.

No one has ever had the nerve to say it to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if amidst their distress, they were thinking, "To hell with God's plan."  The incredible thing is that God's plan did go to hell, as we're told in the Apostle's Creed: https://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/creed2.html.  He made provision for that, too.

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

Even hell or our thoughts of what belong there cannot change Who has been there and rose again. Jesus Christ.   This is our Christian hope.  The hope of the resurrection.  We do not need to know God's thoughts to know history.  

I am not an expert on any of this.  I believe everything we profess in the Creed.  But, I also believe the kindest thing can be to hold off on holding it out as our means to comfort.  Maybe I'm projecting my pain onto the grieving, but my heart hurts for them when their friends and family take away their freedom to express their pain, bewilderment, doubt, or anger with "God's plan".

 I thank God for the faith he has granted to me and the many truths related to it.  But, that doesn't mean they are a source of consolation in every moment, especially when you just want to be held.    

Please know that this post is the fruit of a growing conviction.  I have done and said everything here that I've advised against.  But, until we see God, Face to face, can I challenge you as I challenge myself, to grow more comfortable with your discomfort when consoling the grieving?

Appreciate the power of your presence.  Don't overestimate your need to say the right thing.  They will remember you were there, but probably won't remember what you said.  Stick with what you know.  Need some ideas?  "I love you."  "I'm sorry.  This is really hard."  "I don't know why this happened."  "Lord, increase our faith."  And if pressed, "God is going to bring good.  I don't know when or how, but I believe that He will."

God's plan reveals itself.  It doesn't need our words to herald it in.  Yet, I believe we are a big part of it - showing up in all of our awkwardness and goodwill, day after day.  Our presence, faith, hope, and love are our greatest gifts to the grieving, and other than God himself, the only remedy for suffering.  "The only thing worse than suffering, is suffering alone."  (Unknown source)