Loss – Page 2

June 13, 2016

Don’t Be Cliche`

Dear friends,

Not only am I proud to be Spencer’s mom, but Miles and Jake’s mom too. I have been bugging my son Miles for a blog for four years. Finally, he sent a copy of a baccalaureate graduation speech he gave for his high school students. The last third of this speech is his beautiful testimony. Enjoy and please pass along to your graduate friends!

Baccalaureate Speech by Miles MacLeod

It is truly an honor to be here. I am humbled by this opportunity. Heritage graduates, don’t be afraid of failure. Be true to thyself. This is the first day of the rest of your life. Follow your heart/ (backslash) passion/ (backslash) dreams. Be the change you wish to see. This is not the end; this is the beginning. Never stop learning. The future is what you want it to be. Everything happens for a reason. Take chances. Pay it forward. Congratulations. Good luck and God bless.

In some ways, all of us are slaves to custom. It is certainly not reason that tells you to wear matching polyester robes and funny square hats whenever you successfully finish a pre-determined period of education. And so it does not surprise me that this week of celebration, known as graduation week, has similarly become beholden to custom’s literary cousin, the cliché. In an ironic twist, a week that is meant to celebrate the hard work of our young scholars is often framed by phrases that many English teachers consider lazy. Sure, they sound cool and make for good hashtags, but unwrap most clichés and underneath these nuggets of cultural wisdom is a nebulous blob of bland impracticality. I, for one, think that our Heritage graduates deserve better. So without delay, let’s take off our funny square hats, put on our thinking caps, and see where this speech takes us

So, where do we start? How about with three words to live by? Ready for it? Never… stop… breathing. Sounds a bit obvious right? Well, so is our first overused graduation cliché: Never stop learning. Sure, it sounds like good advice, especially in this setting, but here’s the thing. Your body is stuffed with 100 billion neurons and an equal amount of sensory receptors that make it their unending job to process information and, without fail, learn from it. In fact, our bodies are made to learn in much the same way that we are made to breathe or sneeze or blink. Without my encouragement, there is no doubt that 100% of you will continue to process information at an amazing rate. So how about some advice that is not so certain and far less cliché. Try this one: “Never stop… teaching.”

From Martin Luther King to Ms. Singh; from Coach K to Coach Kennedy; from Dr. Seuss to Dr. Savage –the men and women who have dedicated their life to teaching is a long and impressive list. For those that accept this challenge, it is a difficult and often thankless path. But it is so necessary. Teaching is what progresses not only our society but our humanity. Conflicts around the world will not end without people to teach forgiveness and reconciliation. Poverty will never end unless literacy and compassion are taught to the poor and rich respectively. Teaching is the reason that cars go faster, buildings get higher, and phones get bigger… and then smaller… and then bigger again. In short, if we want to continue to progress, we need more teachers.

Now for our graduates, teaching does not have to be a profession. But it needs to be a choice. My hope tonight, is that as you increase in experience and knowledge, you would, more often than not, make the decision, whenever it arises, to teach. On the one hand, you could say and do nothing. This will always be the easiest option. On the other hand, you could instruct, inspire, or, best of all, lead through example. This will take effort, creativity, and, at times, courage. It is the hardest option. I hope, for the sake of others, you choose it.

Another common graduation cliché reads like this: The future is what you want it to be. The reality, I am somewhat sad to say, is that the future is not what you want it to be. When I graduated from high school, I wanted lots of money, huge muscles, and a beautiful wife. I got one of them. I will let you try to guess which one. But believe me when I say, it was not from a lack of wanting that I nearly struck out. I mean think about it. If dictating the future was that simple, we could simply blame all the world’s current problems – world hunger, global conflicts, the Kardashians — on our previous graduates.

So if the future is not yours to mold and shape, then what are you to make of it? Make lemonade, says another common cliché. I say that’s a lot of sugar for a lifetime of disappointments. Instead, save your teeth, and remember this instead: The present can be what you want it to be.

You see, the original cliché got it wrong. You can’t control the future any more than you can wish away bad weather. But when rain clouds appear, and be certain they will, you can make sure your boots and umbrella are close by. Or, even better, kick off your boots and jump in some puddles. Whatever you do just remember, the only thing you might be able to control about the future, is your reaction to it. Throughout my life, I have observed that the happiest people are the ones who have learned this truth. My hope tonight is that most of you will too.

Now, I wish I could tell you that the bad advice will stop with graduation, but it won’t. Inevitably things will go wrong in life and when they do, you might hear something like this: everything happens for a reason. Or perhaps this: when God closes a door, he opens a window. Or my personal favorite: the Lord doesn’t give you more than you can handle.

As sweet and reassuring as these may be, like all clichés, they are dangerously simple. They represent, not reality, but a mixture of misplaced idealism and simplified half-truths. Problems arise when we come to believe that every bad thing will be accompanied with an opportunity and an explanation; we are, to a very large extent, setting ourselves up for disappointment and resentment.

I remember when I graduated high school, I was like a cliché myself. My life was simple, and it was fun. My entire belief system could be summarized into neat, little phrases, and on occasion, I would get them made into a tattoo for the world to see. A year into college, however, my world was rocked when my older brother was murdered in a senseless act of violence. For the first time, I realized how shallow my faith really was and how little my collection of cool sayings actually helped. There was no new window for me to climb through; there was no rainbow on the horizon; and as much as I pleaded with God to reason with me, I was met with only silence.

In the years that followed, it felt like I was slowly drowning in an ocean of anger and grief, and the only things being thrown to me were life preservers that didn’t float – a recycled cliché here, an out-of-context Bible verse there, and a promise of thoughts and prayers to come. I was growing tired of treading water. I craved a resting place, somewhere where the waters of doubt would not sweep me away.

Finally, too tired to do anything else, I decided to float. I spread my arms wide, trusted in something other than my own ability, and then…I did nothing.

When God saw that I was floating, he met me at those troubling waters. He did not offer me an explanation or point me towards a window he had just opened. Instead, He promised me heavy burdens with little explanation along the way, and the only thing he pointed out to me was my own weakness. And as bad as this may seem, it was strangely encouraging to discover that my pain and my shortcomings were all part of the plan. But they weren’t the only part. Also included in this plan was a heavenly father who could empathize with my grief and a personal savior who knew what it was like to walk alone in times of darkness.

Needless to say, I was eager to deal my handful of recycled clichés for 31,102 verses of Biblical truth. And when I finally made the trade, I learned something else: I learned that the old cliché – the Lord doesn’t give you more than you can handle – had gotten something terribly wrong. You see, my brother’s murder was more than I could bear. Luckily, however, the Lord doesn’t give you more than He can handle. And this realization has made all the difference.

In conclusion, the sooner you come to realize that life cannot be summarized by a bunch of over-simplified phrases of positive affirmation, the sooner you will get better at it.

Now, I know what you are probably thinking. Mr. Macleod, that advice is good and all, but it’s too long and impossible to remember. We need something catchy, something cool. Something we can remember forever and always. Fine, if I could boil down my entire speech into three simple words, words for you to live by and be inspired by, it would be these…

Don’t….be….cliché.

And if you are sitting there thinking that this is a rather lazy, over-simplified summary of the speech that doesn’t really help you in any way as you navigate the murky waters of adulthood,… well, you’re on the right path.

Heritage High School, Class of 2016, you can put your funny hats back on.

Thank you.

The girls sharing the spotlight with daddy at his Teacher of the Year acceptance speech.
For more, click here

March 1, 2016

Waiting on Empty

Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. James 5:7 ESV

The dog was a disaster. My husband told me to wait, but I had become slowly obsessed about getting a new dog after my sweet Rosie died in October. It started with just informational reading on breeds and dog training. Then I became a Craig’s List and rescue site stalker, staring at pictures of puppies or abandoned dogs looking for “forever homes”, sort of a magical term that begs the breaking heart to cave in.

Then I saw her! Why she was even the breed I was looking for, at least that week! It had to be God. I called and arranged a meeting in a parking lot in Dennis. A trembling Toy Aussie was handed over to me. She was scared, but everything would be all right, I thought as I drove to Christmas Tree Shop and Petsmart so I could buy beds, toys, snacks – all a dog could ever want.

My husband kind of sighed, because he knew this was coming even though I had agreed to wait, and we welcomed the little dog into our home. But it was wrong, on several levels, and slowly my divine appointment unraveled to reveal what it really was – self-gratification.

How often we put the “God – thing” spin on our own selfishness. My pastor used to say what you think is the voice of God is sometimes just your own voice on reverb. A telltale sign is when we begin to obsess over “must-haves” in order to be complete. Jesus is asked to step down from His throne for just a little while so we can wrestle this new thing into place. Then we want His blessing. Another sign you missed it is a gnawing lack of peace, real peace that comes from self-control and just waiting.

In three short days I realized I had blown it and little Halley went back up on Craig’s List. I prayed for God’s forgiveness and that He would help me redeem my mistake. Then I saw a new ad, “Senior looking for small dog”. I called and spoke with an elderly man who had lost his dog a year earlier and wanted a small dog to be his constant companion. He was retired and had all the time that I did not have to give to a frightened little dog. It was, just perhaps, a match made in heaven. Whew!

It’s been a time of letting go. The last few years, I have watched people I loved a lot walk away. And I’ve placed each one lovingly in God’s hands, hands that can hold a universe and string stars like party decorations across the immeasurable sky. Their names are engraved in those hands and I know His love for them far exceeds my best.

Then my dog died, the dog Jesus gave me after Spence died, and I let her go too, sort-of. I secretly became fixated on replacing her like a new widow that scans e-harmony and envies every couple they see. Your world begins slightly off kilter, then becomes a wild wobble.

Lately I’ve thought that God has had a purpose in removing so many of the familiar props from beside me. The best and most obvious result is that it forces me to find my completeness in Him. This is not a new lesson for me, but as life moves through different seasons, there are new players in the field, new positions to take that require a fresh perspective and I get scared. Frankly, I don’t like to lose things. But sometimes what feels like an unfair stripping away, is God’s preparation for what is to come. We see this a lot in the Bible – a time of separation, sometimes complete obscurity before God reveals a new and wonderful place.

I fully believe the best is yet to come, that the latter rain will be an abundant display of God’s power and glory. But I must be willing to walk through the darkness of the midnight hour, knowing He is there when I can’t see Him, that He loves when I can’t feel it and that He speaks, though I may not always hear.

It’s March 1^st and it is hardly a roaring lion. The daffodils in my yard are faked out, pushing through the ground a month early. For me, coming through winter is a bit like coming up from the depths of darkness for a huge breath of glorious air. I might be faked out too but it’s okay. My Savior is on His throne and I am not alone. And I am fully blessed by what I do have. (Special thanks to my husband who loves me through it all.)

I’ll leave you with a poem I wrote in mid-winter called Empty. The Lord gives and He takes away, but we are never left empty if we seek Him first… not Craig’s List. Happy March!

Empty hands I raise to you

again

I have no tools, no clever thoughts on this

I’m lonely father and you already knew it.

Fourteen years

the reel plays again,

and it’s just like then

empty hands, I went home

without my son.

They will say, “Something’s not quite right

with her” fourteen years, after all

is enough time to forget, to go on, to shut the door

on a night 14 years ago,

when I said, “That’s my son,” and You

knew it all along,

death, burial and the awful cycle of

moving on.

No tools, just You,

Your hand holding me,

lifting hands

in surrender, lifting hands

in praise, and

letting the greater weight of your glory

outweigh the pain

fill me sweet Savior

again

January 10, 2016

Good Courage

Buried treasure

“Treasure” the neatly penned label read. I scanned the pile of boxes stacked against my desk. Something made me label this one box, besides the occasional urge to organize my life. When I sit at my desk, I can reach all the things I love; pictures of husband, kids, grandkids, changing with the calendar – and faces of those that are gone now, framed memories. My dad smiles, tan and shirtless from a beach, my brother Timmy and I arm in arm in front of a green canvas tent at a campground, and Spence to my right, his little Cambodian sister Jade smiling from atop is shoulders, his face focused, not smiling but not sad, the gaze deep and searching. A corkboard above is covered in sheathes of photos, scriptures I must never forget, a note scrawled by my granddaughter, “Hello I hope you are not feling lonely – hope you r filt wif joy”, and some of Spencer’s prayers he wrote to God alone.

I smiled and pulled the Treasure box out from under the pile. Whatever it was, was important, I mused. As I lifted the lid, I saw letters and cards, and as I thumbed through each one, I remembered those who dared to love me, reaching deep into my pain 14 years ago this month. I had culled the best of the best and named them appropriately; Treasure.

The cast of players was peculiar. There were letters from my sons, including Spencer, from my husband, encouraging me to live again, from the assistant DA, and a copy of a letter from Samuel Rutherford, a brazen Scottish preacher from the 1600’s who reached into my heart with his council to a young mother who had lost her daughter. Lining the bottom were Kina’s letters to my mother, written 50 years ago after my brother Timmy’s death. There was also a letter from Elisabeth Elliot, who went home this past year. She very promptly returned my correspondence twice when I wrote her after Spence died. I told her she was my spiritual mom and she thanked me for that. Then a letter from another spiritual mom, Marian, a woman who touched my life when I was in my 20’s and left a lasting imprint.

Marian was married to my grandfather’s first cousin and neighbor, J.G.. My grandfather left home for good as a young man and became a doctor. J.G. was also educated, but decided he loved raising cattle, children and pecan trees along the airy marshland of Edisto Island. Marian was a teacher from the mountains, inquisitive, a traveler and the hardest worker I ever met. She loved J.G. with an amused sideways glance, and they were both the first real Christians I ever met.

They took me into their lives and loved me, a free-range poet from New York City who landed on their porch in a jet stream of cocaine and Jack Daniels. There, side by side with this couple in the ebb and flow of farm life and the raw wild of this coastal island, I learned that God was among us, in the field, in the storm, in the broken down trucks. Marian showed me patience with humor, grace with humility. She held up a mirror and showed me Christ’s reflection before I could even put a word to it.

I pulled the yellow folded papers from the box, the familiar scrawl, hands that must’ve been 80 and arthritic; hands that worked and loved the energy of life and dirt and things that could grow. She had loved Spencer too. “A note from Marian Murray “ was at the top of the stationary with a birdhouse on it.

Courage is the basic virtue on which all others depend for vitality and life.

As I reread the words, I retraced the surprise I felt nearly 14 years ago. Amid a flood of flowery Hallmark sympathy notes, the word Courage had leapt out at me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. Courage? But it was Marian so I had held the message tighter.

Of what use is wisdom if one hasn’t the courage to act wisely?

Of what value is love is one hasn’t the courage to love?

Of what value is truth if one hasn’t the courage to speak it?

Of what consequence is faith if one hasn’t the courage to embrace it?

There was no signature, no wrap up, no “praying for you” or “May the Lord etc. etc.”.

Then on a page stapled to this were three scriptures.

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed or broken. We are perplexed, but we do not give up and quit. 2^nd Corinthians 4:8

Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

There was that word again – be courageous. I was intrigued. Then lastly,

I waited patiently for God to help me; and He listened and heard my cry, He lifted me out of the pit of despair. Psalm 40:1-2

Rereading this unusual sympathy note now, I realized how deeply these words had directed my path. She was taking me by the shoulders, and in an amazing act of love and rescue, shaking me and pointing upward. She was correcting my posture.

In a journal I kept after my son died, I wrote this over a year later, starting with Kina’s words to my mother:

“Courage is more than just grim determination – hanging on.” Real courage is stepping out into His “fullness of joy” when all of your sensibilities tell you to stop and hover at the edge of darkness, in the shadows of sorrow. I could live there always and I’m quite sure it is a place I will visit often. I don’t miss Spence any less or feel less sad that he’s not here. But my eternal life seems to start where I want it to. I can wait until I die, or I can meet God here on this side, and ask for the fullness of His joy – His joy strengthening me. I still stand at the edge and weigh this out. October 18, 2003

Marian came to visit me in June 2002, 5 months after Spence died. Her knees were bad but she would only let me help her down the stairs. She had never been to Cape Cod; maybe even Massachusetts. We drove along the Old Kings Highway, comfortable with silence, distracted by the rambling roses and lilacs. I was still stunned and exhausted with the daily work of grief. She was in her eighties, her presence there was all that had to be said. I drove her to Logan airport at sunrise. I don’t remember if we ever said “I love you” but watching her disappear into the airport, small and frail, I knew she had to love me a lot. Less than a year later she died peacefully, pneumonia finally overtaking the “lousy lungs” she endured since childhood.

“ I don’t know if I’m more of a grandmother, or mother or just friend to you,” she remarked once while we picked tomatoes in the full Carolina sun, sweat dripping off my face onto my dusty hands.

“Maybe all of them,” I suggested, and we laughed, an easy laugh that Marian taught me. A laugh that is not afraid.

I gently laid the note on top of the rest of the letters and cards and shut the lid.

January is a month of shadows, of hovering at the edge of sorrow in my life. Orion appears in the sky, sword drawn, signaling a time of year that is tough for me; an anniversary, a birthday. But I know God wants more than just a posture of grim determination. He wants to see me reach up past Orion, and touch His throne. He wants to hear me sing.

I could add to Marian’s message:

And of what use is life without the courage to really live it?

Be of good courage – for the Lord, your God is with you, bringing treasure.

You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. Psalm 16:11

November 1, 2015

The Next Step

Saying goodbye

Sunday morning. I swung the back door open, the door Rosie always used, but this time she circled the car three times, stopping at the door for a few seconds then looking up at me, and walking away. I knew what it meant. But the last time she circled she took a small jump into the car, dragging her back legs. As I picked her up, she flopped over onto her back, and looked at me, like Now what?

I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her up off the floor, enough for her to get enough leverage to climb up on the seat. Seventy pounds – my back was straining. I was talking to her the whole time, forgetting that she can no longer hear.

At the pond, where we have walked for the last six years, I open her door, and she looks down at the suddenly steep drop from the car seat to the ground, then she looks at me, apologetically. “Oh Rosie!” I touch her head, running my hand behind her ears, caressing her soft black fur. “Okay, it’s alright.” And I shut the door, returning to my seat, realizing we would not walk together again. She flopped against the back door, leaning her head out of the window and as we drove off I cried.

Wednesday morning. It was a long night. We could hear Rosie groaning, a strange new noise, unable to move. My husband got up and lifted her, helping her adjust, in the middle of the night, and I listened to her labored breathing, my heart aching. In the morning, she will not lift her head or thump her tail on the floor. She looks up at me sideways, panting, and looks away. I get ready for work, trying to entice her with food. Nothing.

At work I am distracted, which is not good in an ICU, so I ask to go home. I call the vet. Yes, they have one appointment at five, then nothing until next Monday. I circle the house, the yard, sobbing, stopping to talk to Rosie, who lies outside now. I lift her to her feet and she staggers, looking tired but attentive. She always knew when I cried. Her tail moves back and forth. There, there now, I am here, no need to cry.

My husband is painting the house, and trying to gently reason with me as I stand there, sobbing and shaking. She’s in pain, she won’t get better, just worse. He hugs me, and then picks up the brush. I call the vet.

I rode in the back seat with my hand on Rosie, who leaned out of the window, enjoying the fall air. It feels so wrong to kill what you have loved so much. CB lifted her out of the car to her feet, but she stumbled and fell going up the one step into the vet’s. I lifted her, now sobbing, “Oh Rosie, I’m so sorry. Oh Rosie!”

The Demerol worked quickly and she fell into my lap. Her breathing was easy and she slowly closed her eyes as I stroked her head and ears, and I realized this was the best time she has had in months. The vet sat on the floor too, and as we talked, Rosie slipped away. She was warm and soft in my lap but she was gone. I gently lowered her head to the floor and we went home.

So that you know, I am not Doctor Doolittle. When my sons’ gerbils began procreating, I took them and threw them off the back porch into the woods, two by two, with a final blessing of “Watch out for owls!” I have owned dogs that I wanted to kill. Rosie was different. (Read Rosie the Rescue Dog.)

Job, in the midst of epic loss proclaimed,

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

This is a posture I’ve tried to attain ever since I lost my son. I want to recognize first of all that everything that is mine is first God’s, and is a gift to me, as temporary as my own life, which he also holds in his hands. I want to love but also hold loosely. It’s a balance I strive for, knowing that I can trust my Father with this unpredictable ebb and flow of life.

And I knew when He took my son home, He would provide whatever it was I needed to survive. I couldn’t have even guessed at what that would be. But He knew, and one thing was a puppy named Rosie and nearly 14 years of faithfulness.

When we got home, I cleaned, which for me, is a crazy grief response. I bagged Rosie’s food and treats and C.B brought them to our neighbor, Will, whose two dogs are like his frat buddies. We were leaving in the morning for Maine so I packed, and cleaned some more, vacuuming up swirls of black fur and discovering two tennis balls under the car seats.

So much of life is just doing the next thing, taking the next step. We get caught and snared when we freeze. I know that sometimes the next step feels like a triathlon and every cell in your body is screaming, “Just lie down and quit!” Yet in the going is exactly where God meets us. Because the next step has another name for it: Faith.

I’ll be honest. Many of my steps in those haunting days of bottomless sorrow were more like running steps, escaping steps. I knew if I stopped it was over, that despair would swallow me whole, like the monsters I would run from in the dark as a child. So I kept running and Rosie would be beside me. As we aged together, the run turned to a walk, then a stroll and finally she had to say No, I can’t do it anymore. The Lord gives and then He takes away.

As I said when my cat died in May, I don’t do well with loss. You would think I would have a handy Rolodex, with coping skills in alphabetical order: Anger, Denial, all the way to Yada -Yada. But I don’t, it’s a big scrap pile and when I face another loss I seem to re-grieve the whole mess; my brother, my dad, my son, then the usual stuff like kids that grow up and no longer need you to help them with their Next Step. It’s tiring. I wake up to the stillness of another day and say, “Jesus help me.” And He does.

There are a couple of feral cats that have been showing up more frequently in my back yard. They must’ve mistakenly thought that Rosie, who was deaf and half-blind and liked cats anyway, would hurt them. I hid a bag of cat food behind the birdseed and I’ve been filling a little plastic bowl near the shed.

The other day C.B. said, “Have you been feeding those cats?” and I hid behind my magazine I was reading. I haven’t told him that in my spare time I look at pictures of puppies. It soothes, like cello music.

I want to get another dog someday, but first I’m trying to be grateful for Rosie, to seal every good gift from above with nothing but praise. I haven’t quite mastered this yet. I’m moody, prone to tears and sometimes cussing under my breath. But before we left for Maine, I drove down to the pond in the early morning, when Rosie and I would’ve walked, and I grabbed the two tennis balls and walked just a little ways, then rolled them both down the familiar dirt path, for the next dog who is maybe helping their Person walk off some kind of loss too. Then I looked at the mist rising off of the black pond, to the woods on the other side that I walked for six years, and the clouds dipped in orange lighting the eastern sky and not for the last time said, “Thank you Jesus” and turned towards the car, taking the next step.

June 19, 2015

The Story of Stella

Jake and Stella…with four feet.

The cat died. I keep looking for her as I step outside or pull into the driveway at night and then I have to remind myself: she’s gone. I saw it coming six months ago when she stopped grooming herself and her plush soft fur turned into matted dreads with leaves and sticks trailing from her tail. Then the days evolved into huge Nap-a-thons with small breaks for food. Then eating stopped and she began to look for a good place to die – somewhere protected and quiet.

I called in to work and said my cat was dying which made the supervisor cry. If I had said I was dying she would’ve said nothing or maybe,

“So does this mean you’re not coming in?”

We got this cat 16 years ago when my son Jake, tired of burying goldfish, announced he wanted a pet with four feet. She was a tiny calico orphan at the shelter and he named her Stella Luna after his favorite book about a bat. Spence liked Stella because she came when you called her like a dog and she had the most beautiful fur, thick and silky, which she took great pride in.

There were many days after Spence died when relationships with people were too complex and exhausting and I retreated to the stillness of my home, the dog at my side and Stella would stretch out across my chest and stomach like an exotic throw and her warmth and breathing would somehow bring peace.

Every time we moved she disappeared for a week, out into the woods. Once we found out that she had been hanging out with the feral cats, like a feline street gang, and she seemed a little less enamored with us humans when she returned. The last few years were predictable. She loved being outdoors and her hiding places, but was smart enough to stay close. She liked me and I think my husband after he rescued her in a blizzard but I told everyone else not to go near her. She drew blood, without warning, on a few occasions. So it was just CB and me at the funeral.

I don’t manage loss well. You would think I would be a professional, with a large file of coping mechanisms and wisdom from previous and much greater losses. But I fall apart. Anything that jostles or shakes my emotional frame sends me scrambling to catch the falling pieces, like china hurtling off a narrow shelf. I can’t differentiate the pieces. It’s all just a big mess to me and I plead with God to let me go home but He says the same thing every time – nothing. Yet His eyes burn with compassion and sorrow. Even for a cat.

Stella was 16 and I looked it up – that’s 86 in cat years. She had a good life and a good death too. I held her dirty body next to mine under the half moon as the sweet May breeze carried the last of the fading lilacs and wept. Sometimes the world just seems to turn too fast. I try to make mental notes of all the things that are no longer where they used to be, but I forget and look anyway. You can make yourself not care, but then you run the risk of…well, not caring – about all of it. Then what’s the point?

I love that Jesus didn’t come as a philosopher or professor that stood in front of the class with a pointer because I never would’ve gotten it. Instead he pulls a chair up and sits with us, patient and ever so kind. He even stoops down and helps us pick up the broken pieces, one by one. And I know this is crazy, but I asked him if he could take Stella to Spence. I can just see it.

“Hey Jesus, where are you going with the cat? “and he would just smile and shake his head..

Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God.

Hebrews 2:17

I shouldn’t have done it, but I looked up how old Rosie is, my 13-year-old dog. The first site said 96 and I almost fell over. I felt bad for making her take walks. The next site said 82 and that was easier to accept. But it still made me sad. So lately I’ve been giving her extra treats even though she’s a little fat…and deaf.

In Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place, she befriends the ants that crawl through her cell while she is in solitary confinement. Their life gave her purpose. As long as we still care, we have hope. Sometimes a lifeline comes from an unlikely source; mean cats, old dogs and small children. Or ants.

They go from strength to strength;

each one appears before God in Zion. Psalm 84:7

My doughter-in-law sent this text yesterday:

How are you doing with no Stella?

Before she married my son, she was my pet sitter when we went away. We used to laugh at how sweet Rosie was and how not- so-sweet Stella was. I told her I still looked for her and that I ‘m sure I was over reacting, to which she responded:

16 years is a long time…she was family. Sweet cranky Stella. She lived a whole lot of life with you guys.

Maybe I’m not so crazy. Or maybe I’m blessed enough to have amazing daughter-in-laws – two of them- that always bring comfort when I get jostled.

Strength to strength. God marks each step and lays the way before us until one day we will look up and see we are home. Maybe Stella will be there too with her fur fixed. I’m not sure of that part. But this I know. No more broken pieces to pick up, no more looking for things that should be there but are gone. Everything will be just right.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV

May 5, 2015

A Mother’s Day KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

One of the best cards –

A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment.

—Anna Jarvis

and inside…

Anna Jarvis. You probably don’t know the name, but during a memorial for her mother, Ann Jarvis, in 1905, she decided it was a great idea to honor your mother, so she campaigned and lobbied tirelessly to make it an official American holiday. Naively, she thought it would just be nice to write mom a letter of appreciation, or just say I love you. When Hallmark began selling Mothers Day cards in 1912, she got mad – so mad she tried to get Mother’s Day rescinded. She even got arrested at a carnation distributor’s plant in Philadelphia. America won out. There was, after all, a lot of profit to be made in this confusing holiday.

I remember my dad giving us five bucks to run to the corner store and buy a big box of chocolates for my mother. The funny thing is, she hated chocolate. The box lay open on the kitchen counter for days, and we nibbled on them like mice, leaving those gross jelly filled chocolates ripped open on display, like someone might come along and say, “Hey, that looks irresistible!” Maybe my dad…

The 21^st century Mother’s Day has morphed into a grotesque commercial blowout, like so many American holidays, plying shamelessly on the consumers guilt or gullibility. I read an article about a woman who went on a website for people who want to commit adultery – sort of like a Sleazeball.com – because her husband did not give her jewelry for Mother’s Day.

My husband feels bad for me on Mother’s Day because A) my own mom is alive but has no idea who I am or what Mother’s Day is and B) my sons are far away – two in North Carolina and one in heaven. He has offered to buy me things but I remind him that I am not his mother. This seems evident. And I am blessed 365 days a year by two wonderful sons and their wives.

My children have bought me little trinkets over the years, including a necklace I still own and wear each Mother’s Day, but they know that my most favorite gift is a card or letter, just sharing their hearts with me. I guess if you have daughters this is not so uncommon, but sons emerge emotionally on rare occasions, like the seventeen-year cicadas. I have saved some of the Best of the Best over the years, including a box of poster paint handprints and IOU’s for doing dishes, back rubs and five dollars. Who knows? I may need them someday.

When you lose a child, the holiday screams at you at first, then over the years it becomes another reminder that we are not complete. There is a quirkiness that comes with this type of loss. My own mother, who lost a child when she was 36, skipped Quirky and went right to Crazy for many years. It did level off into an odd type of neurosis; sort of a combo Anxiety mixed with Fatalism and Reclusiveness. She loved her kids reluctantly after that. Motherhood had become risky and unpredictable. When my older brother had to tell her that my son had died, she started beating him in the chest with her little bony fists, yelling No! No! No! I think she was saying No more for me than Spence.

My mother grew up in the upper echelon of Southern society, where table settings and debutante parties trumped family time. Her mother’s alcoholism was a secret she shoved into a full family closet, until she was old enough to run, and she did – all the way to New York City. My father offered every thing she did not have; security, sanity and a family that fit nicely into a big station wagon. When my brother Timmy died suddenly in 1964, her world imploded and she accepted a twisted lie as her truth – she was no better at mothering than her own mom. She retreated into a purgatory of fear and self-doubt.

I think that the thought of her own daughter carrying the same legacy caused her to spin out into a gale storm of anger and confusion after Spencer died. My brothers intercepted and kept her away for a time so she could heal and I could breathe. Then for just a few years before her first brain hemorrhage, we became friends, and I discovered a bond we shared. We had both buried a son. After decades of being at odds and circling each other with suspicion, we found a common ground; a place of such unimaginable pain and sorrow that to this day I can only share with other women who have also lost a child. Then the connection is immediate. Deep calls unto deep. And there I found my mother’s love.

Like mom, I am quirky too – but with one outstanding difference. The anchor for my soul that is in Jesus Christ holds me securely from busting loose into a dark abyss without gravity or bearing. Yet I know what that dark place is like and it causes me to stay close to Jesus and look upward, using heaven to navigate by. For that, for this “thorn in the side”, I am grateful. There is no better place to spend your life than in Christ. And in that place of pain, He has made a garden. All kinds of things grow there. It’s crazy – good crazy.

I think grief is the most pure form of love. My heart is heavy for those who are new to this journey, who are spending their first Mother’s Day without a child that should be there, but is gone …the footstep, the laughter, the goofy cards and the clumsy words from a heart that loves their mom. If you know one of these moms, the broken ones, give them the best gift of all; let them talk about their son or daughter, or tell them you miss them too. The fear that you might awaken sadness is ridiculous. It never sleeps, trust me.

Spring is here. For those of us that endured the Big Freeze of 2015, we are a little amazed that anything can grow but it’s no big deal for God. The fragile bud opens, the pale green leaf uncurls like a baby’s hand and stretches out into new life.

In the hospital where I work, they play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” overhead when a baby is born. When I tell patients and families what it means, it never fails to illicit an “Awwwww” and a smile, even among the sickest or grumpiest. Upstairs a young woman holds out her arms and a squirming, wet and bewildered infant is laid there. She is mom, whether she is Princess Kate or a heroin addict. God has just changed her forever. The cord is cut but the heart is sealed with the most powerful love on earth. For as the little life unfolds and blossoms and someday leaves her, she is Protector and Keeper of the nest. Her job is to hold, then let go.

Can I suggest that this Mother’s Day we return to the humble beginnings of this day? Men, use words. Ladies, just love your imperfect mom. She did the best she knew how to do. Life is ever changing and in an instant, she could be gone. In the spirit of the first mother’s day, just say I love you and lots of Thanks. It really beats a box of chocolates.

***Anna Jarvis died at 84 in a sanitarium in Pennsylvania, never taking a penny of profit for Mother’s Day. Although she was the 10^th of 13 children, 7 who died before she was born, she never married or became a mother. She insisted the day was Mother’s day, singular not plural, so that people would make an effort to honor their very own mom, in a personal way. Although she fought tirelessly to keep it simple and not commercial, she lost that battle. Like my own mom, she spent the last few years of her life with dementia and finally happy.

Being silly, just a few months before her second stroke. Love you mom!