"How did we get here?" My sister asked that of me at Jason's funeral. I think what she meant was that we started with this beautiful, smart, funny, loving boy and ended at a funeral chapel before he was 26. Where did we fail him? How could things have gone so horribly wrong?
Christmas is a brutal time of year. The thoughts and memories I can successfully ignore during most of the year bombard me when I get out the ornaments that we made. Favorite decorations evoke scenes in my mind that are hard to push away. The usual distractions of socializing, work, reading, TV, whatever, are not effective and I've cried more secret tears than I have in months.
I try to replace the emotional thoughts with practical, logical ones. "Things weren't as rosy as you are remembering." "You don't know where/how he would be if he were still alive." "He's free now of the things that hurt him in life." All true but powerless to stop the longing just to see, touch, smell him.
During this year, I've lost some people very close to me, prompting me to question closely God's mercy. One after another, they died, quickly and unexpectedly. I shared my belief that God is omnipotent and omniscient, but I didn't understand His "higher ways" with the sister of my best friend, who died in September. She is a believer, but her response was, "Sometimes bad things just happen."
I suspect that was comforting to her, otherwise would she say it? But it made me feel like life was chaotic and out of control, like a train gone off the tracks.
If God is real, if He is our Maker and our Father, then things don't "just happen". The role of God dictates His planning and execution of the events in our lives. Our reactions to those events are controlled by our free will, but He is the author. This brings me to the conclusion that He must have a plan; He meant something good to come out of pain. Maybe I'm supposed to learn something. Another grieving friend said she didn't think she had learned anything for her loss, and that nothing good came from the death of a child.
I've recently become acquainted with another story of loss - the unexpected death of a young girl and the unbelievable strength and optimism displayed by the members of her family. While not mitigating their sorrow, I'm sure, they have been able to help others in their daughter's name.
Maybe that is something I can learn. I find that I don't look at people the same way I did before Jason's last years, the years he spent with the "outcasts" of our community. I'm drawn to the ones that need family. I'm driven to make a family for them. Not fulltime, not to exclude their real families, but to maybe fill in some gaps.
While walking with a co-worker the other day, we were laughing about our various infirmities - my feet, his knees, and I said, "I guess that's the price you pay for living." We don't get through this ride without injury. I want to make those wounds count for something.
Merry Christmas. Hug on the people God has put in your life and enjoy each little minute you can.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Vulnerability
Nothing in my experience has made me more vulnerable than being a parent. From the moment Jason was born, I became hostage to another person. His health, safety, happiness became central to my contentment. When my children were young, I worried about things like their falling down, or getting sick. Then the relationship things started - what influence their friends have on them, do they have any friends...
In some ways, that's the hardest. You have some influence when they are little, but that, rightly, diminishes as they get older.
I'm in the phase now when Andrew and Emily are well on the road to adulthood. They are making their own decisions, choosing their own paths. It's my role to be a cheerleader and a shoulder to cry on - an ear for a rant session. My advice is seldom sought, nor is it appreciated when offered. The time between visits is long, and the visits are short. Phone calls are infrequent. You hear the highlights of their lives, and not the daily experiences that add up to real life.
I've struggled with living in the past. In my quest for "moving on", I refocus those thoughts on present events. Sometimes that's successful, often not. Today, I cleaned out my closet and found a couple of boxes of memories. One was old cards, but the devastating one contained pictures. Random pictures to remind me that I used to have children. That I used to know them, and I mattered to them.
I realize how pathetic that sounds, believe me. I had my finger on the backspace key, but what is the point of this blog if I'm not going to be honest.
I like to think of myself as a strong person. I have survived many disappointments and grief along the road. Survived. I'm still breathing and functioning like a rational person. But there are some holes that never get filled. And maybe they won't.
I am not sorry to have been a mother. I'm delighted in my children, even when they are misguided. Even when I disagree with them. Missing Jason often consists of wondering what his life would be like now, and the conversations we would have about his experiences. I'm certain I would miss out on the daily events of his life, just as I do with Andrew and Emily.
So, I guess I will always be vulnerable. Probably I will always wish for more involvement in their lives. That's being a mom.
Here's some hope, though:
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again - my Savior and my God!
Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you -
Even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,
From the land of Mount Mizar.
I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs,
Praying to God who gives me life. (Psalm 42:5-8 NLT)
In some ways, that's the hardest. You have some influence when they are little, but that, rightly, diminishes as they get older.
I'm in the phase now when Andrew and Emily are well on the road to adulthood. They are making their own decisions, choosing their own paths. It's my role to be a cheerleader and a shoulder to cry on - an ear for a rant session. My advice is seldom sought, nor is it appreciated when offered. The time between visits is long, and the visits are short. Phone calls are infrequent. You hear the highlights of their lives, and not the daily experiences that add up to real life.
I've struggled with living in the past. In my quest for "moving on", I refocus those thoughts on present events. Sometimes that's successful, often not. Today, I cleaned out my closet and found a couple of boxes of memories. One was old cards, but the devastating one contained pictures. Random pictures to remind me that I used to have children. That I used to know them, and I mattered to them.
I realize how pathetic that sounds, believe me. I had my finger on the backspace key, but what is the point of this blog if I'm not going to be honest.
I like to think of myself as a strong person. I have survived many disappointments and grief along the road. Survived. I'm still breathing and functioning like a rational person. But there are some holes that never get filled. And maybe they won't.
I am not sorry to have been a mother. I'm delighted in my children, even when they are misguided. Even when I disagree with them. Missing Jason often consists of wondering what his life would be like now, and the conversations we would have about his experiences. I'm certain I would miss out on the daily events of his life, just as I do with Andrew and Emily.
So, I guess I will always be vulnerable. Probably I will always wish for more involvement in their lives. That's being a mom.
Here's some hope, though:
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again - my Savior and my God!
Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you -
Even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,
From the land of Mount Mizar.
I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs,
Praying to God who gives me life. (Psalm 42:5-8 NLT)
Friday, April 26, 2013
Moving On
You might think from the title of this post that I am ready to move on from the all-consuming grief of loosing my son. I don't see that will happen, ever. Instead, what I have decided that my next task is will to be to stop living in the past.
The origin of the concept for this post was the sale of the land that is the repository for Jason's ashes. If you have read the previous post entitled Ode To A Festival, you will know how important this property is to me. When Jason died, I struggled with what to do with his remains. Cornerstone Festival grounds seemed to me the perfect place. My kids and I had a tie with that place, and it was a location that I knew we would be visiting, sometimes together, for many years to come.
And then, several days ago, there was this little post on Facebook from Wilson Abbey - a division of JPUSA, the hosts of Cornerstone Festival - that they had sold the land. "Praise the Lord," is what they said, I think. And my world just dissolved again.
I had pictured, in years to come, pilgrimages to Bushnell, Illinois with Craig and the kids. Staying in a trailer and touring the property. Spending time reliving memories, reminiscing, crying and laughing together. I pictured it sort of like visiting a cemetery.
So, I got the idea to make a photo diary of Cornerstone Through The Years. I even made a folder in my computer for all the pictures. I searched, I scanned, I looked and looked and I cried a lot.
And it occurred to me that I was exhausted from crying. Tears of missing Jason. Tears of missing Andrew and Emily. Tears for the times we had together that we will never have again. I was wallowing in memories.
I think it's an indulgence that is keeping me from living here today. The past is comforting and rosy. The pain and worry of that time is lost, and all that's remembered are those moments where smiles and sunshine abounds. If hard times are recalled, it's with the temperance of having lived through it, and come through the other side. The uncertainty of daily life is taken out of the picture. It's not an accurate representation. But it is a comforting one.
And it is distracting. It can't compare, no matter how much I love my present life.
So, I am moving on. I am going to carry these memories with me, and take them out and look sometimes, but I'm going to work on living today. Y'all come along with me, be a part of my present.
The origin of the concept for this post was the sale of the land that is the repository for Jason's ashes. If you have read the previous post entitled Ode To A Festival, you will know how important this property is to me. When Jason died, I struggled with what to do with his remains. Cornerstone Festival grounds seemed to me the perfect place. My kids and I had a tie with that place, and it was a location that I knew we would be visiting, sometimes together, for many years to come.
And then, several days ago, there was this little post on Facebook from Wilson Abbey - a division of JPUSA, the hosts of Cornerstone Festival - that they had sold the land. "Praise the Lord," is what they said, I think. And my world just dissolved again.
I had pictured, in years to come, pilgrimages to Bushnell, Illinois with Craig and the kids. Staying in a trailer and touring the property. Spending time reliving memories, reminiscing, crying and laughing together. I pictured it sort of like visiting a cemetery.
So, I got the idea to make a photo diary of Cornerstone Through The Years. I even made a folder in my computer for all the pictures. I searched, I scanned, I looked and looked and I cried a lot.
And it occurred to me that I was exhausted from crying. Tears of missing Jason. Tears of missing Andrew and Emily. Tears for the times we had together that we will never have again. I was wallowing in memories.
I think it's an indulgence that is keeping me from living here today. The past is comforting and rosy. The pain and worry of that time is lost, and all that's remembered are those moments where smiles and sunshine abounds. If hard times are recalled, it's with the temperance of having lived through it, and come through the other side. The uncertainty of daily life is taken out of the picture. It's not an accurate representation. But it is a comforting one.
And it is distracting. It can't compare, no matter how much I love my present life.
So, I am moving on. I am going to carry these memories with me, and take them out and look sometimes, but I'm going to work on living today. Y'all come along with me, be a part of my present.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Book Report
For well over a year, I have been reading the complete works of George MacDonald. He was a Scottish minister/writer/poet who lived from 1824 to 1905. He deeply influenced such writers as C.S. Lewis and Madeline L'Engle. He was also a mentor to Lewis Carroll. When I tell people about him, I don't often get recognition. This is sad, because he was a very important author.
As you might expect, while reading many thousands of pages, the ideas that most interested me were those dealing with death, eternal life, grief. I will endeavor to share some of these things with you, in the hope that they bring comfort and hope to you, as they did for me.
For those who face the grief of death of someone we love:
On the scripture "Jesus wept"and Lazarus' grieving sisters - "It was the aching, loving heart of humanity for which he wept, that needed God so awfully, and could not yet trust in him. Their brother was only hidden in the skirts of their Father's garment, but they could not believe that; they said he was dead-lost-away-all gone, as the children say. And it was so sad to think of a whole world full of the grief of death, that he could not bear it without the human tears to help his heart, as they help ours. It was for our dark sorrows that he wept."
"But things are unbearable just until we have them to bear; their possibility comes with them. For we are not the roots of our own being."
"The merest trifles sometimes rivet the attention in the deepest misery; the intellect has so little to do with grief."
"For I found, as I read [the gospel], that Thy very presence in my thoughts, not as the theologians show Thee, but as Thou showedst Thyself to them who report Thee to us, smoothed the troubled waters of my spirit, so that, even while the storm lasted, I was able to walk upon them to go to Thee."
Regarding the hope of eternity:
"Jesus wanted to make them know and feel that the dead were alive all the time, and could not be far away, seeing they were all with God in whom we live; that they had not lost them though they could not see them, for they were quite within his reach-as much so as ever; that they were just as safe with, and as well looked after by his father and their father, as they had ever been in all their lives. It was no doubt a dreadful-looking thing to have them put in a hole, and waste away to dust, but they were not therefore gone out-they were only gone in! To teach them all this he did not say much, but just called one or two of them back for a while. Of course Lazarus was going to die again, but can you think his two sisters either loved him less, ore wept as much over him the next time he died?"
Narrator is speaking to an old woman who had lost several sons to the sea. " 'But,' I said...'some of your sons were drowned for all that you say about their safety.' 'Well, sir,' she answered, with a sigh, 'I trust they're none the less safe for that.' "
"We have yet learned but little of the blessed power of death. We call it evil! It is a holy, friendly thing. We are not left shivering all the world's night in a stately portico with no house behind it; death is the door to the temple-house, whose God is not seated aloft in motionless state, but walks about among his children, receiving his pilgrim sons in his arms, and washing the sore feet of the weary ones."
And my favorite:
"He who made this room so well worth living in, may surely be trusted with the next!"
As you might expect, while reading many thousands of pages, the ideas that most interested me were those dealing with death, eternal life, grief. I will endeavor to share some of these things with you, in the hope that they bring comfort and hope to you, as they did for me.
For those who face the grief of death of someone we love:
On the scripture "Jesus wept"and Lazarus' grieving sisters - "It was the aching, loving heart of humanity for which he wept, that needed God so awfully, and could not yet trust in him. Their brother was only hidden in the skirts of their Father's garment, but they could not believe that; they said he was dead-lost-away-all gone, as the children say. And it was so sad to think of a whole world full of the grief of death, that he could not bear it without the human tears to help his heart, as they help ours. It was for our dark sorrows that he wept."
"But things are unbearable just until we have them to bear; their possibility comes with them. For we are not the roots of our own being."
"The merest trifles sometimes rivet the attention in the deepest misery; the intellect has so little to do with grief."
"For I found, as I read [the gospel], that Thy very presence in my thoughts, not as the theologians show Thee, but as Thou showedst Thyself to them who report Thee to us, smoothed the troubled waters of my spirit, so that, even while the storm lasted, I was able to walk upon them to go to Thee."
Regarding the hope of eternity:
"Jesus wanted to make them know and feel that the dead were alive all the time, and could not be far away, seeing they were all with God in whom we live; that they had not lost them though they could not see them, for they were quite within his reach-as much so as ever; that they were just as safe with, and as well looked after by his father and their father, as they had ever been in all their lives. It was no doubt a dreadful-looking thing to have them put in a hole, and waste away to dust, but they were not therefore gone out-they were only gone in! To teach them all this he did not say much, but just called one or two of them back for a while. Of course Lazarus was going to die again, but can you think his two sisters either loved him less, ore wept as much over him the next time he died?"
Narrator is speaking to an old woman who had lost several sons to the sea. " 'But,' I said...'some of your sons were drowned for all that you say about their safety.' 'Well, sir,' she answered, with a sigh, 'I trust they're none the less safe for that.' "
"We have yet learned but little of the blessed power of death. We call it evil! It is a holy, friendly thing. We are not left shivering all the world's night in a stately portico with no house behind it; death is the door to the temple-house, whose God is not seated aloft in motionless state, but walks about among his children, receiving his pilgrim sons in his arms, and washing the sore feet of the weary ones."
And my favorite:
"He who made this room so well worth living in, may surely be trusted with the next!"
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Just An Average Day
Something spectacular happened to me today.
I was driving my high school route (I'm a school bus driver) and in the neighborhood I drive there was a group of boys. Probably about 4th grade. They were huddled in the garage of a house, Nerf guns at the ready, prepared for the "attack". Crouched down and very stealthy. I noticed them, but I didn't think they noticed me.
I turned the corner and started down another street. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied the boys again. One was dressed in camouflage. They were all very intent on their enemy, but the one in front, the one in camouflage, noticed me. And he saluted me.
Why do we worry about this generation? They are fantastic.
I was driving my high school route (I'm a school bus driver) and in the neighborhood I drive there was a group of boys. Probably about 4th grade. They were huddled in the garage of a house, Nerf guns at the ready, prepared for the "attack". Crouched down and very stealthy. I noticed them, but I didn't think they noticed me.
I turned the corner and started down another street. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied the boys again. One was dressed in camouflage. They were all very intent on their enemy, but the one in front, the one in camouflage, noticed me. And he saluted me.
Why do we worry about this generation? They are fantastic.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Crying
I spend a lot of time crying. I do it by myself. Most people (until now) don't even know I do it.
Am I embarrased? Why should I be embarrased by tears for my first born child? Why?
But I am. I make people uncomfortable. When I tear up, I see the panic in their faces. It doesn't matter who they are - close friends, family, aquaintances. I learned quickly that it wasn't a good idea to let others know that I am NOT over "it".
Perhaps I am not being fair. Most people have no idea what it is like to loose a child. It's every parents worst nightmare. Of course it is; it's my worst nightmare.
Am I embarrased? Why should I be embarrased by tears for my first born child? Why?
But I am. I make people uncomfortable. When I tear up, I see the panic in their faces. It doesn't matter who they are - close friends, family, aquaintances. I learned quickly that it wasn't a good idea to let others know that I am NOT over "it".
Perhaps I am not being fair. Most people have no idea what it is like to loose a child. It's every parents worst nightmare. Of course it is; it's my worst nightmare.
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