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 Gentle Disintegration

Yesterday, we took our first daytrip to the beach without all of the boys.  The oldest was working. Today, the middle one drove solo for the first time.  He got his driver’s license on Friday.  He’s the really busy one and his busyness always necessitated a ride in the middle of my free time.  So, we celebrate this new freedom right along with him, rather than validate the pit in our stomach provoked by the thought that “this is really happening.”    

As a wise friend’s wise mother used to say, “Only sick birds don’t leave the nest.”

So, I don’t ask for time to stop or slow down because it is all well, and happening as it should.  I’ve mentioned it before, but my friend calls the years your children are home, before anyone can drive, the “sweet spot”.  Everybody is home, safe and secure under a loving and watchful eye.  My sweet spot is disintegrating, but I am grateful that it has been slow and gentle.  Measured in days and years, not seconds and minutes.  

These past two weeks, many young people have lost their lives to murdering madmen.  I get lost in trying to accompany their parents in their grief.  I don’t know any of them, but I obsess, pray, and force myself into the present.  And repeat.  I see social media posts of people continuing to smile and live their lives like nothing has happened.  I am amazed at this, at first.  And then I join them, because I need the distraction.  It is refreshing to see and share the good, as well as the bad, I reason.  Like some weird balance in this land of unrelated-but-loosely-connected people.

Though social media wasn’t born, yet, Dr. Haim Ginott in “Between Parent and Teenager” describes the benefit of these loose connections, well. “Many teenagers are tormented by terrors they think private and personal.  They do not know that their anxieties and doubts are universal.  This insight is hard to convey.  Each teenager must attain it on their own.  It takes time and wisdom to realize that the personal parallels the universal, and what pains one man pains mankind.”

We have so much to learn from one another.

I sat with her again on Friday.  She was asleep at the dining room table and came to with a touch on the shoulder and mention of her name.  We flipped through her book, looking at the pictures.  She didn’t remember writing it, seem to recognize her name on the cover, nor think it odd that if someone else wrote it, they sure included a lot of pictures of her family.  

I was grateful again that she has given us so much to talk about in these pages of hers.  Laugh-out-loud moments with her children, layers of loss, years of sacrifice, and joys beyond all telling.  If we didn’t have them, I fear the shallowness of what would remain in their absence.

It is my ability to share her story with her (because she had written it down for herself), that I do the same.

One day, I may be dependent upon a stranger who visits frequently to tell me again who she is and what is this, again?  Hopefully, hearing the stories will pluck the strings in my soul, releasing all of the chords to my favorite song.  I will remember how we all “survived being alive”, and marvel at how whole and integrated I feel after a long life of unhurried and gentle disintegration, and a visit from a stranger.

One Room Away

I’m outlining a pink bunny in red embroidery thread.  It’s part of a quilt top I started making for my niece when she was born.  A year ago.  I hope it doesn’t become her wedding present.  

One room away, Predator vs. Alien is on the TV, and the rest of my household is discussing saliva made out of acid.

Seasons are changing.  In this one, I can no longer count on everyone being at the dinner table and day trips are catch as catch can.  We have work and workouts, band and birthday parties, and school is just around the corner.  Graduation dates are creeping onto real-life calendars and you can’t help but wish you could freeze time.  

But, the time you do have is, well…interesting.  

You eat together, watch highlights of the latest kickboxing video, and get fruit stickers on your arm from the boy eating an apple next to you.  You tickle their backs when they lay on your lap, but they don’t want to sew and you sure don’t want to watch what’s on TV.  

So, you enjoy their presence from a room away, and you think about…

Yesterday’s conversations, the passage of time, and daily tragedies that we survive, but cannot fix - all while trying to make sure your tears don’t fall on your sewing project because water makes the pattern disappear.  

Sometimes, you just plain stumble on a metaphor.

My mind became a gathering place for the people on my heart.  They didn’t seem to mind that they’d never met and the furniture was old.    

A friend suffered another stroke.  Mom is too young for a nursing home.  An aging child cares for an aging parent, both wondering if they can survive the arrangement.  An elderly widower has plenty of money, but no companion nor ability to drive.  No, he’s never heard of Uber.  Who is he?

I feel the weight of each one more than I care to.  Maybe.  But, especially because discomfort always gives way to hunting solutions, and I can’t find any.  It seems I am close enough to feel their pain, but too far away to offer any real comfort.  

Maybe it would be different if you weren’t just one person in one place.  Maybe there is no such thing as lasting comfort.  Maybe comfort only exists when it is fresh and given again and again and again.  And maybe it just feels better to write it all out, and hope that what you’ve written can comfort someone other than yourself. 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Cor:3-4

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. 

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.

An Unraveled Hem - A Tribute to Mothers Who Have Been Left Behind For Now

Mother's Day.  My children are all alive and live under my roof.  I talk to my mom every Wednesday on the phone, have a stepmom who loves me like her own, and live two doors down from my mother-in-law, whom I adore.  I don't think I've ever been more grateful for these richly layered blessings, and on this Mother's Day, in particular. 

Over the past year and a half, working as a hospital chaplain, I've had a most privileged view of motherhood.   There has been more good than bad, but the good is expected and the bad is really bad.  Really bad, in that it is really hard to make sense of and impossible to forget.  In the world, there are probably more children losing mothers to old age than mothers losing children of all ages, but not in my world.

Only a mother knows that an 11-week old fetus can be born with hands that look like they're folded in prayer, and that this same child who lived secretly within her will largely remain a secret.  Others carry their children into labor along with their dreams for them, only to never hear them cry.  Even once.

Some have their children long enough to see them grow into successful college students, marry, or become parents of young children and then...they're gone.  How can God take them now?  Just when...

As proposed by a meditation whose source I can't recall, I agree that whenever possible "What now?" is a much more fruitful question than "Why?!".  Stack all of the good things that can come from the death of a child (or anyone we love) as high as the stars, and it will likely still be too short to satisfy our why.  So, what now? 

Children are always on the brink of starting something new.  Elementary school, middle school, high school, military service, college, being married, having babies, a new career, retirement, grandchildren...

Every day is a "just when" day when you're a mother.  That's who we are.  We anticipate the good things that lie ahead for our children, as we should.

These women who have lost children, young and old, come home with me.  They show up in my tears when I tuck my children in at night and stand invisibly near our table during mealtime prayer.  Psychological jargon will tell you this has a name.  Transference.  Wikipedia defines it as "a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another."

Yes.  Maybe.  Maybe it is unconscious in the beginning, but not for long.  I carry these mothers with me consciously and intentionally.  They are my heroes.  They make me a better mother and help me to stay present.  They remind me that when I am not overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood, I will grieve the absence of them.  These women are honest (yet, great actresses, too), courageous, generous, and humble.  They know their limitations, which they feel poignantly.  They are the greatest proof that living when you'd rather die is not only possible, but beautiful - and empowers others for whom living may be hard, too - whatever the reasons.

These women do not belong to me, but I want to keep them close and hold on to the hem of their garment.  I want to feel the flow of strength they cannot feel, but that I can see, so vividly.  I'm not sure, but I think everyone can.  You may be one of these women and wondering why strangers keep pulling on your clothes.  If not, you undoubtedly know one.

If you can, please join me in saying,

"Thank you, Moms, for letting us remain near you and for your example.  Sorry about the hem.  You should probably find a good seamstress, 'cause we're not turning loose any time soon..

For you, we eagerly await the day that you are with your children who have gone before you, and all will be well in your world once again.  May God continue to grant you grace sufficient for the moment, as we continually and unfailingly see Him doing, in you.  Happy Mother's Day."




 

Going, Going, Gone

A few stories from the lives of people I love.  People who are saying good-bye or wishing they had the chance...

~I helped a friend go through some of her belongings last night; Some were 50 years old or better.  I pulled stuff out from under her bed and went through her kitchen cabinets.  I boxed up what she didn't want and brought it home.  My friend is 95-years-old, and is moving away to her old hometown, where she can see the ocean from her living room. 

She moved several times within her retirement facility in the last couple of years, and each time, she has gotten rid of things she's held onto for most of her life.  The green dress she wore in Las Vegas once was not about to go, but that was an exception.  During this final purge, amongst boxes of jello, wine glasses, and an old sugar crock, I was fighting back the tears.  It didn't seem to be the least bit painful for her, but watching her have to let go of the simplest things because there will no longer be room nor need of them, were little deaths for me.

In the midst of a season, in a world, where acquiring is life, I know she's on the other side.  She will be moving mid-January.  God willing,  I will see her a couple more times after the Christmas Break, but that will probably be it, for good.  And that is a hard thing to know.

I hate good-byes.  I especially hate them when they are forever.  Although, fortunately, we can only move through life going forward, so I have rarely known these ahead of time.   A friendship made between rides to hair appointments and lunches at Whataburger is going, going,...

~Another friend celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary this year.  She and her husband split up a few months later.  But, only because they had to.  He left the retirement facility one-too-many times without signing out, and became a liability.  (Going to the donut shop is fine, but be careful if you are too young or too old).  His mental faculties are declining, and can no longer safely stay put, with his wife of 60 years.  He was moved to his own apartment in a nearby building, which his wife can reach by a short bus ride.  He calls her all day long.  Her voice is the only thing familiar.  Their marriage, as they know it, is going, going...

~One of my dearest friends over the past nine years lost her daughter on October 30th of this year.  She was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, who had been stalking her for months.  He killed her, set her house on fire, and shot himself.  She was 41-years-old.  A well-loved beauty who loved dogs, motorcycles, and life. 

I was helping my friend clean out her daughter's house a couple weeks ago.  Everything was just as she left it, except it was all covered in soot.  There was plenty of food in the pantry, dishes in the dishwasher, and cigarettes in the ashtray.  The days were marked off on the calendar up to the day before she died. 

On earth, all that is left of Tabitha is the incredible love her family and friends have for her, which will never be able to cover the excruciating pain they feel at having her ripped out of their lives.  From the outside looking in, it seems the only pain that comes close, is that of not getting to say good-bye. 

Sometimes, we get to prepare for the end.  The end of a relationship or the end of a life. 

And, sometimes, we don't.

Dear God, thank you for old and new friends.  Thank you for the way our lives get all tangled up, so that we can't help but be influenced by one another.  I know You hear the cries of anguish from Your beloved people.  Please comfort them, as only You can.  My hands are sweaty on the keyboard and I feel shaky inside, putting these stories together on one page, when each one has impacted me so deeply.  Please, please, please let their pain be fruitful for all who are touched by it - That we may love better and more - That we may forgive and make our forgiveness known - Like we don't have forever to get it right.  Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto Tabitha, O Lord, and let Perpetual Light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace.  Amen.

Craving Change and Loathing Transition

Human beings don't like change.  Right?  Wrong, according to Patrick Lencioni, business consultant and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  According to Patrick, human beings crave change, but we don't like transitioning. 

After watching a video by Patrick Lencioni about transition management, based on Bill Bridges' work, I want to share what I've learned.  I really feel like knowing what the stages are in a transition, and what to expect at each stage, could highly transform how smoothly and victoriously we embrace change in our lives.  
I am not currently in transition to or from anything, but I know a lot of people who are.  They are in between jobs, have a child who is graduating from high school, preparing for a move, or adjusting to someone new living in their house.  Change, and necessary transition, come in as many forms as there are people. 

My hope is that if you are not in transition, this will prepare you for what's ahead.  And, if you are in transition, that this outline will bring a new perspective.  A new perspective that reinvigorates you and gives you hope, wherever you are in the process.

NOTES:

There are three stages to pass through when going from x to y:

1.  Endings - Saying goodbye to the old.
     a.  Loss
     b.  Response to loss
     c.  Ceremony
2.  Neutral zone - Not sure if the new way is better or if you're ever going to get there.
     a.  Need 2 Cs - Care and Concern
     b.  Need 4 Ps - Purpose, picture, plan, and part.
3.  New Beginnings - just happen.  Once here, you can't imagine life being any other way, and you wonder why it took so long to get here.
__________________________________________________

Endings

When we are in the "Endings" portion of transition, we are dealing with loss.  All change brings about loss.  Several people can experience the same event, but feel loss in different areas of their lives.  The different areas we can experience loss are:
1.  Structure
2.  Control
3.  Identity
4.  Future - How we thought it would play out.
5.  Meaning
6.  Attachments to people
7.  Turf

According to He Leadeth Me by Walter Ciscek and Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, nervous breakdowns happen because people don't realize they have a choice of how to respond to loss.

There are four possible responses to loss (the 4 Rs):
1.  Restore what was lost. 
Examples:  Get lost job back, rebuild damaged house in same location, just as it was before).
2.  Replace what was lost with something similar. 
Examples:  Get a similar job or similar house in a similar neighborhood.  *This is what we usually do.
3.  Redesign.  Change the way we live.  Choose something new.
Examples:  Start your own business.  Live in a different environment. 
4.  Relinquish.  Give up an idea, plan, unrealistic goal, or pursuit. 
Example:  Give up the idea of being an Olympic runner.

Ceremony:  To end the "Endings" phase of transition, we need ceremony.  We need ceremony because when we don't let go of the past, we get stuck in it.  Ceremony is how we make sure the past is left behind. 
Examples:  When Cortez's ships finally landed, he burned them.  There was no going back!  We have a wedding ceremony to indicate to all (especially ourselves) that we are no longer single!  We need an external event to signify the internal change/shift. 

Neutral Zone

When we enter into the neutral zone, we experience the greatest anxiety, fear, growth, and innovation.  To maximize our productivity and progress, we need the 2 Cs (take care not to poo-poo these.  Bad things happen if we don't get them!): 
1.  Care
2.  Concern

If we don't get these 2 critical things during this time, one of three things will likely happen:
1.  We will go back to the "old".
2.  We will leave.  Opt out.
3.  We will quit and stay where we are. 

In addition to the 2 Cs, we also need the 4 Ps:
1.  Purpose:  Remember why we're going through this difficult time.
2.  Picture:  Where we are headed.  Why it's going to be better.  What it's going to look like when we get there.
3.  Plan:  Lay out a bare minimum plan.  Manageable chunks/steps to be taken to achieve goal.
4.  Part:  Play your part.  If in a team setting, make sure all who are involved have an active role in being a part of the solution.

New Beginnings - Celebrate!  You made it through the transition!


Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the rain and for safekeeping through the storm last night.  Thank you for reminding us of Your power.  If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as the Scriptures say, increase my fear of You.  I would rather fear You too much, than underestimate You.  But really, I want to love You more than I fear You, which I do.  Thank you for opportunities to gather together with fellow believers, and learn more about the transitions that are inescapable in our lives.  Help us to resist the lie that transition "shouldn't be this hard", so that we can accept it for what it is, and keep moving forward.  Help us to remember that "This too, shall pass."  Please bless all of those who are in transition.  Especially those who are trying to say goodbye to something because it has been taken from them.  Amen.