Baby Steps

I regret I’ve gotten sidetracked from my blog. But I have a good excuse: I’m working on a young adult novel. I’ll write more about that at a later time, though. I just wanted to write a quick reflection while I have the time.
A month ago, I felt like I was in a different skin, and I didn’t quite know how it fit. Many of the things I used to enjoy doing, like going shopping or baking, no longer held any appeal for me because they reminded me of time I’d spent with my mom doing the same thing. Shopping just seemed like a chore, and baking took too much effort. I couldn't even drive through the neighborhood where I spent more of my childhood without falling to pieces in the car. But with the change of seasons has come a time of healing and rejuvenation. I can’t explain it except as God’s incredible grace and mercy.

Since my mom’s death, I’ve been in a hamster wheel chasing after something to just help me feel good again. I’m not talking about drugs or anything like that—I’m talking about lifestyle changes. I’ve changed my diet to include much less refined sugar and white flour. I’ve started going to an upper cervical chiropractor to try to get rid of the heavy fatigue that’s hung over me most of the summer and fall. I’ve gotten a new job with a much shorter commute and more chances for challenge and growth. I’ve started to invest once again in my relationships with the people who’ve held me up in prayer all these months.

But something else triggered a change only this past weekend. I took my stepdaughter shopping for a Confirmation dress. It was a very short shopping trip, as we’d done our research online before hitting the store, but it was enough to launch me forward. The next day, my sister commented that my nephew needed new pants because he’d worn holes in all his jeans. “If Mom were alive, he’d never need pants,” my sister said. “I’ll get him pants!” I volunteered. Shopping is such a silly, unimportant thing, and it makes absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things whether I like to go shopping or not. But I feel like I’ve regained a piece of me that was lost, and that is good.

The grieving process still continues, though. I can’t look at recent pictures of my mom without breaking down, and I can’t yet read her notes and emails. It’s too exhausting to deal with all of that right now. But I can talk about her. I love to talk about her. I love to tell stories from my childhood and tell my stepkids things she used to tell me. That’s something, right?

There was so much more I wanted to say, but I need to get to bed, and I can’t remember what I was going to say anyway. All I know is that God’s promise to be near to the broken-hearted is true. He’s so good.   

A Matter of Time

Grief is a curious thing. These days I feel like I’m part of a science experiment, waiting to see each day the form grief will take. Early on I thought the listlessness I woke up with week after week was the result of a vitamin D deficiency or too much sugar in my diet or the blasted heat and humidity…until I talked to my sister and discovered she felt the same way. I’m not sure why missing my mom would drain me of energy to the point that I found nothing even remotely interesting or appealing, or why the mere thought of going about a normal day as if nothing was wrong made me want to hide under the covers like a child having a nightmare. Thankfully, as the summer has faded so has my lethargy.

I was actually feeling really good up until a few days ago. I thought maybe I’d reached a turning point. My mom’s birthday came and went, and I barely cried; instead I felt thankful and at peace. But now I think the permanence of my mom’s death is setting in, and I find myself wishing we’d just had more time.

I had a very vivid dream about my mom last night, my first one in a long time. In my dream, my sister and I were trying to make a pizza for us and my parents to eat. I was charged with finding the right pizza pan, but my parents’ kitchen (you might call it their “dream kitchen”) had about as many shelves as a department store, and I could not find the pan I wanted. My mom was across the street talking to a neighbor, and when I went over to her and asked her where to find the pan, she told me she was busy. So I continued looking, all the while getting angrier and angrier with my mom for not helping me.

When my mom finally came back home, she apologized for not coming home right away but said she wanted to talk with the neighbor. In my anger, I threw down the pan I was holding (apparently not the right pan) and stomped away. But my dad stopped me. He asked me if it was worth it to be angry with my mom over this. He told me I might regret it. At that moment, I (in my dream) knew my mom was actually dead. I said to my dad, “I think I understand what you’re saying.” And then I went back to my mom and gave her a hug so tight I could actually feel it, and she hugged me back.

Needless to say, I woke up rather confused.

I don’t place a lot of stock in dreams or pretend to know how to interpret them, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I wish I had taken better advantage of the opportunities I had to spend time with my mom and do stuff for her. I’m not angry with my mom; I’m frustrated with myself. I wish I had visited more often, called more often, offered to help more often. I wish I had asked her more about her childhood and college years and written down her memories. I wish I had loved her as selflessly as she loved me, but often the opposite was true.

Maybe this is the guilt stage of grief, if there even is one.

But God has always been and continues to be so good to me and my family. While I wander the land of “I wish,” I know it’s pointless to long for opportunities that I let slip away, and I’m continually reminded to be thankful for the opportunities I grabbed onto.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my mom loved me as much as one human being could possibly love another, and I loved her as well as I knew how. There were no unresolved issues or conflicts. There were no hurtful words or actions left unforgiven. There was no bitterness or anger between us. What an incredible blessing!

Kev and I were talking recently about the week my whole family spent with my dad in Illinois after my mom’s funeral. We were reflecting on how even though I was a bit nervous about all of us being in close proximity for a week when we hadn’t been together for that long since the time all of us lived at home, it turned out to be a really good thing. At some point, Kev asked me what I’d like to be different if we were to repeat the experience in the future. I said, “For my mom to be there.” Kev said, “I don’t think she’d much like leaving heaven, even for that.”

He’s right. My mom’s experiencing joy we can’t even come close to this side of heaven. Though I often wish we could have her back just for a little while, the permanence of my mom’s new residence by Jesus’ side is something to rejoice about. And one day when we’re experiencing eternity together, we’ll have all the time in the world.

That thought makes me smile.   

The one I needed to write

I was a senior in college the year my parents went to Africa. It was an experience of a lifetime for them, but it was also incredibly hard on my whole family to be apart for so long. After we took them to the airport for their flight first to Paris and then to who knows how many places before they arrived in Cameroon, my siblings and I went out for pizza, and we sat in the restaurant and talked about how strange our world suddenly seemed with Mom and Dad half the planet away. It wasn’t like they had gone to a developed country with reliable high-speed Internet and telephone lines you never thought twice about; they were in a place where they were lucky to receive e-mail once a week, and I can count on one hand the number of times we talked on the phone the year they were gone.

            All of us kids felt their absence differently. I felt lost. Here I was, almost finished with college, trying to figure out what to do next, not quite sure what to think about the young man who had his eye on me, wondering how best to help my grandparents as they struggled along with daily life, and I couldn’t ask my parents for advice. I especially missed my mom—our long conversations about boys, our shopping trips when I was home for the weekend. I’d get on the phone with my sister, who felt equally lost, and we’d just cry.

            One night after a particularly difficult day, I dreamed that my mom came into my room and gave me a hug. I could actually feel her arms around me, soothing me. She didn’t say anything; she just held me. When I woke up, for a moment I thought she was actually there, and even though I was disappointed that she wasn’t, I still felt comforted. To this day, almost fifteen years later, I remember that dream as vividly as my favorite memories. I don’t know if it was a little present from God or it was just my subconscious playing out my deepest longing. I do know that in the past months I’ve often wished for the same dream over again.  

            When my mom was sick this past spring, I dreamed about her a lot. She was in what the doctors called a semi-coma, which essentially meant she opened her eyes and responded to pain, but she didn’t respond to anything else, including our voices. In one dream, she was awake and sitting on her bed at home reading. I talked to her, and she talked to me, but I don’t remember what she said. In another part of the house, I found my sister. I told her Mom was awake and this had to be a dream because Mom was unconscious. My sister said (I remember it clearly), “If she’s awake, it’s a miracle. If you’re dreaming, it’s a hug from God.” I liked that.

            After my mom’s death, for a few weeks I dreamed she was alive, but I could never reach her. She was always too far away for me to talk to, and I just couldn’t get to her. I woke up frustrated and confused. Why wouldn’t she talk to me? Why wouldn’t she acknowledge me?

I don’t dream about her much anymore, at least not right now. She occasionally shows up as an extra in a dream, but she’s rarely the main character. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not sure how I feel about anything actually. My mom’s death is a vague and unsettling concept I can’t quite hold in my hands or get straight on my head. Not a day goes by when the notion to call my mom goes fluttering through my head followed a split second later by the gut-wrenching realization that I can’t. Nor will I be able to ever again as long as I’m here and she’s there. But I try not to look too far into the future. One day at a time without my mom is much easier to accept than never hearing her voice again or feeling her arms around me for the rest of my earthly life. I try not to go there.

But at the same time, I want to go there. I want it to be real, to just sink in all at once so I can deal with it and move on. No more of this breaking into tears at random moments, usually when I don’t have a tissue nearby. No more of this ending up a slobbery mess, wiping my nose on my hands and hoping no one saw me. No more of this getting angry at the guy on the radio for praising God for how his mother recovered from a life-threatening illness and wanting to say, “Why don’t you just keep it to yourself, buddy? Not everyone’s mom recovers.” No more of this smiling and nodding when good-intentioned people have it all wrong and tell me my mom is an angel watching me from heaven or is with us in spirit. What does that even mean, with us in spirit?  

I know the truth. My six-year-old nephew knows the truth. Ask him where his grandma is, and he’ll tell you she’s in heaven with Jesus. I know we’ll see her again someday, and it will be amazing. But it’s hard to live in “someday.”

Someday, memories of my mom will comfort instead of hurt. I can barely even look at pictures without feeling a physical ache. Every little thought of her pierces my heart. I know I’ll be thankful for the cards and letters and e-mails I’ve saved, safely tucked away for someday.

Someday, my praise will ring out louder than my cries. My thankfulness for all the years I had with my mother will replace the bitter loneliness for that one person I can’t get near. Someday the unsettled feeling that all is certainly not right with the world will be replaced by the promised peace that passes understanding. Bit by bit, maybe it already is.

But someday is still too far away. Each hour brings it closer, though, and with God and time, I’ve no doubt someday will come. As for right now…right now, I just want a hug from my mom.

Facing the Giants

It's 1:00 in the morning. I really should be sleeping, but I can't. My younger brother called and woke me at 11:00. He wasn't calling about anything important; he thought I'd be asleep and intended to leave a message. But these days I sleep with my phone's volume on high and jump to answer when it rings, my heart pounding in my ears, because all of a sudden life got unpredictable.

Who am I kidding? Life has always been unpredictable. Once on my way home from work I saw a car along the side of the road smashed into an accordian shape as if it were a toy, and I knew that despite all wishful thinking the person in the car couldn't possibly have survived. The realization that someone was waiting at home for that person hit me in the stomach. It was a Friday night. They probably had plans; maybe supper was already on the table, and the person in the car never made it home. Who can prepare for that?

My brother-in-law's dear father went to the doctor with what he thought was some sort of flu and weeks later found himself in the operating room having a brain tumor removed. Only the doctors couldn't get it all, and a handful of months later my brother-in-law's father went home to Jesus. It was just an ordinary day when my brother-in-law got the phone call that his dad had cancer. No one saw it coming.

I'm not a fan of unpredicatbility. One of my worst fears, the one that keeps me up at night, is getting a phone call that something bad has happened to someone I love. This fear ties my insides in knots and brings me instantly to tears. I know better than to be afraid; I know God holds the future. But I want to hold on to the people I love with a white-knuckled grip. When the phone call came last week that my mom was seriously ill and in the hospital, my fear to some extent was realized.

An infection was raging through my mom's body. Thankfully, it's mostly under control now, but the toughest part is still to come. Surgery today revealed a great deal of damage to her foot. The weeks and months and maybe even years ahead are going to require more patience and strength than my family has ever mustered before, and I'm scared. I'm scared for my mom. She's got an inner strength to rival Abraham's, but my heart breaks for the loss of her use of her foot for an undetermined amount of time, and I wonder how one even starts to deal with such a thing. I'm scared for my dad. He's been a kind a gentle caregiver, but how he's got big decisions to make and a lot more care to give, and none of us kids are near enough to be there all the time. And I'm scared for me, in a selfish way I suppose. I wonder what I can do, how I can help. I live the closest and want to there, but I have a job and family too; I don't know what the balance should be. I wonder how all of this will change my mom and dad. I feel helpless, and I hate that.

I suppose that's why I'm awake at now 2:00 in the morning. All of this will take time to process and understand. I'm thankful God spared my mom's life and pray for his continued healing and mercy. I know what God says about fear; I have dozens of Bible passages at the tip of my tongue. I know Jesus said time and time again, "Do not be afraid." I know all this. But like everything else, surrender also takes time. It will come, of that I am certain. And certainty in God's promises wins over the unpredictability of this life every single time.

I think maybe I can sleep now.

The Simple Things, part 2

Last Friday evening, Kev and Teenage Stepson went to a retreat at church, so Teenage Stepdaughter and I had the house to ourselves. After tidying up in the kitchen a little bit, I decided to go to the grocery store to pick up some things for the weekend meals, and I asked Teenage Stepdaughter if she wanted to come along. Though the prospect of grocery shopping on a Friday night didn't exactly put a spring in her step, perhaps due to sheer boredom or a lack of a better offer she shrugged and said, "I suppose."

At the grocery store, after gathering ingredients for build-your-own burritos and while the browsing the organic section for quick freezer meals, Teenage Stepdaughter said something about how Amy's Pizza Snacks look like Pizza Rolls. She had me at "Pizza Rolls." We'd eaten supper early so the guys could get off to their retreat, and my stomach was growling. I couldn't get Pizza Rolls out of my head.

"Those sound really good," I said. "Should we get some?"

She was on board.

As we hurried to the freezer aisle, I had a moment of deja vu and laughed out loud. In my preteen and early teen years, my dad was on several synod committees that required him to travel to Wisconsin for meetings three or four times a year. He usually stayed overnight in Wisconsin, and on those nights he was gone, my mom took us kids to the store to pick out TV dinners. On the way home from the store, we often stopped at the library to get a video to watch. As we sat in front of TV trays in the living room and savored our salisbury steak and chicken nuggets and, if we were lucky, the warm chocolate pudding that usually came with the salisbury steak or chicken nuggets, while we watched the movie from the library, we wished we could have this ritual every night.

Those rare evening three or four times a year were pretty much the only times we didn't eat at the table, and they were certainly the only times we had TV dinners, and so they were special. 

After I finished college and moved back to Minnesota, not too far from but not too close to my parents' house, my mom would call me when my dad had to go out of town. She'd pick up eclairs from the grocery store and order a pizza, and we'd eat in the living room while watching a movie--usually something with Sean Connery.

While laughing out loud in the freezer aisle, I shared this memory with Teenage Stepdaughter. We checked the bakery aisle and snatched up the last box of eclairs. Then we went home, curled up on the couch with our Pizza Rolls and eclairs, and watched one of the movies I'd watched with my mom years ago.

You just gotta love the simple things.

Generations

My great-grandmother's house had what I liked to think of as a parlor. I suppose most people would call it a living room, but with the roses blooming on the wallpaper and the old pump organ in the corner, it was everything I imagined a parlor to be.

I never met my great-grandmother, but my grandma's sister, my great-aunt Esther, lived in that old farmhouse her whole life, looking after her mother throughout the stages of what might have been Alzheimer's and tending the cows in the pasture and the flowers lovingly planted all around the yard. Esther never married, and though I was too young to really talk about such things with her, I think she must have been lonely sometimes. My grandma said she fancied a young man at one time, but he thought of her more as a sister than a potential bride and married another.

Esther was a true salt-of-the-earth woman. She was small and reed-thin, with skin ruddy from the sun and wind and gray hair cropped just below her ears. In my mind she always wore a cotton dress with an apron, knee-high stockings, and black buckled shoes, and her voice crackled when she talked. All those years she lived in that house, she never installed indoor plumbing but instead used the little outhouse from her childhood. She had a small pump for water in the kitchen, but my siblings and I especially enjoyed helping Esther get water from the big pump out in the pump house.

Though my grandma had two sisters, neither had children of their own, so my dad was the only child among the three, and from what I've heard, my dad's aunts adored their red-headed nephew like no other. When he was a kid, my dad spent time during the summers out at Esther's farm building playhouses in the fields and chasing after his dog Penny. He also spent time keeping his grandma company so Esther could get her work done. Esther's mother, I'm told, was in the habit of wandering off, so Esther would bring her along when she did her chores around the farm and try to keep her occupied by having her hold the tails of the cows while Esther milked them.

It was during those summers when my dad and his grandma sat in the parlor and played church. I'm sure my dad knows the story much better than I do, but I've heard he preached many a sermon long before the idea of attending seminary ever sparked his imagination. And my great-grandmother sang the hymns so deeply embedded in her memory the dementia couldn't touch them. I can envision the scene in my mind so clearly--a little freckled-faced boy and his grandma enjoying time with their Savior.

Fast-forward some forty years, and the scene isn't that different. The youngest son of the freckled-face boy is standing on a small platform in the living room of his house wearing a "gown" his grandma made from an old white dress and preaching a sermon on John 3:16. The sermon is followed by his older sister plunking out "Silent Night" and "Glory Be To Jesus" (the only two hymns she can play with both hands) on the piano, while both children sing the words they know by heart.

What started in the parlor of the old farmhouse continued in the living room of the house in the suburbs. That's powerful stuff.

I'm just saying is all.

I'm not the kind of person who jumps on every rickety wagon that goes clattering by when it comes to my health and well-being. With all the "studies" that reveal conflicting information and "new research" that may either solidify or debunk old research, not to mention the "oh, we said this but now we realize something else is actually true" scenarios, I've really had to educate myself about what I should and should not do to be conscientious consumer.

Until about a year ago, I never thought much about things like where my food came from or what kind of impact my lifestyle had on the environment and on other people. Maybe the fact that I do think about such things now has to do with my generation. It seems to be a common goal among many of my friends and acquaintances to live more like people did a hundred years ago in terms of getting food from a farm instead of a corporate conglomerate, being active despite having a desk job, conserving natural resources, and trying to buy local products instead of those produced by exploited people in developing countries.

Of course, with this new awareness comes a great deal of responsibility--and that for me is the hardest part. I cannot feed myself or my family feed-lot-raised beef or eggs and meat from antibiotic-and hormone-filled chickens that never see the light of day. I just can't do it. This means paying more for grass-fed beef and free-range chicken and eggs from the farmer's market or co-op and eating less of it because it costs more. This also means very little fast food. Knowing where my meat comes from and not eating fast food are healthy decisions, but sometimes I want a McDonald's cheeseburger so much it hurts. Seriously.

When it comes to label reading, we tried the baby-step method. We started simply--no foods containing high fructose corn syrup or anything hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated were allowed in the shopping cart. It wasn't too much of a sacrifice, as there are usually alternatives. But then we started looking at food labels for anything modified, I knew my Little Debbie days were over, as were the days of pretty much anything packaged. I had to draw the line, though, when it came to refined sugar. Giving up Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines was not a problem, as I bake at home using raw sugar. It was the bread products that broke me. I tried making bread and buns in my bread machine, but I just couldn't get them to taste the same...not to mention the fact that it takes four hours.

And then there's the organic-or-not-organic debate. Frankly, I think buying organic has become much too trendy for the label to mean much of anything. Many organic brands are owned by large food-producing empires that also produce non-organic brands, so I don't really trust them. That's just me being skeptical. But there are some organic brands I know and trust, and while we get our produce from the farmer's market in the summer, we do try to get organic produce from the store in the winter.  

Being socially conscious has even reached into my chocolate-eating habits. Several of my coworkers feel the same way about food as I do, so we share information. Around Halloween, someone e-mailed me a list of chocolate manufacturers that use child labor in developing countries to harvest the cocoa beans. And so the Hershey's chocolate went the way of the McDonald's cheeseburgers and the Little Debbies. Who'd have thought the choice of which chocolate I buy would matter? But even on the smallest level, it does. At least I keep believing that at some level the choices I've made and continue to make will make a positive difference in the grand scheme of things.

I still have so much to learn and many changes to make to be the best steward I can of the body and resources I've been given. Someday we'd like to have a few acres of land so we can have a big garden and some chickens, but until then I need to work on my canning skills and read up on how to actually get the eggs from the chickens. I sometimes think if I didn't have a job and if I actually liked to spend time in the kitchen, I could do a whole lot more to provide the absolute best for my family, like cook grains in a rice cooker and figure out creative ways to use tofu. But I do have a job and I don't like to cook, so that's that. Between Kev and me, we do what we can with what we have, and for now that will have to be good enough.