My Cathedral

When I was in my early teens, my family took a road trip that led us along the south shore of Lake Superior. Our destination was Bayfield, but we stopped in the village of Cornucopia. The name of this town resonated with the aspiring writer in me, and I wandered away from my family to explore. The Lake was calm that day and slapped lazily against the fishing boats docked at the weather-worn pier. The air smelled vaguely of fish. Seagulls flew overhead and called to each other in off-key squawks. Tall grass scratched my bare legs as I followed the narrow path to the beach, where the full expanse of the Lake lay before me, an ocean of jewels catching the noontime sun. And I stood there, statue-still, as if any movement would destroy the moment when all that existed in my world were me and the Lake. The sights and smells and sounds from that day became so fixed in my mind that when we returned to the same place decades later, I knew exactly where I was.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Lake; we’d been to Duluth a few times and had driven along the northern shore, through Canada to Sault Ste. Marie. There’s a picture of me sitting on a ledge somewhere near the Soo Locks, looking both thrilled and terrified by the cold, deep water I was determined not to fall into and by the size of the freighters moving through. On that same trip I got seasick on the ferry to Mackinac Island and was allowed the rare treat of a bottle of root beer when we finally reached the shore, which, to the 10-year-old me, was probably the highlight of the experience. And yet, I still remember.

Years later, Kevin and I started making annual trips up to the North Shore to camp and enjoy some quiet time together. I looked forward to those trips for months, and there was nowhere else I wanted to be than sitting on a sunbaked boulder next to the Lake. I wasn’t able articulate the feeling I got whenever I was near the Lake, except that when it was time for us to leave, I was homesick for weeks afterward. A year after my mother died, it was sitting on a wooden swing within earshot of Lake Superior’s waves when I was finally able to compose the complete record of her death.

And now the Lake is a character in my story. I have only to look out my office window to see her in the distance or walk a few blocks to see her up close. I watch her, study her, try to understand her and her ever-changing personalities and moods. She’s rarely predictable, and that’s one thing I love the most about her.  

Sometimes, the wind rattles the rigging of the sailboats docked in the marina, producing a haunting clang, clang, clang, and the Lake hurls herself against the old coal dock, throwing up cold sheets of water that sting my face if I get too close. I’m drawn to her when she’s angry, fascinated by her raw strength. She could eat me alive—she has taken many down with her. And so I keep my distance.

When the sun is shining and a steady breeze stirs the trees, waves skip across the boulders that line the lakeshore in some places, sending a playful, sparkly splash into the air. If the weather is warm, I take off my shoes and put my feet in the sand at the beach, just at the edge of the water line. I close my eyes and feel the waves wash over my toes and swirl around my ankles, leaving behind a trail of bubbles and foam.

At times she’s conflicted, and the waves can’t seem to find their rhythm. She’s restless, pacing this way and that among the rocks and islands and docks, at the whim of the wind and season. I watch and feel unsettled; she is not the only one with decisions to make.

And then she rests—almost completely still but for a gentle gurgling as water meets rock. Her surface reflects the shimmering reds and purples of the setting sun, and I sit in the sand, knees to my chest, watching and waiting for the moonlight.

It’s through this Lake, this magnificent, beautiful cathedral, that my Creator speaks a language I can understand. It mirrors His power and mercy and peace. It’s where He energizes and rejuvenates me and calms my spirit. Perhaps King David knew the feeling when he spoke in his most famous psalm of being lead beside the still water and being given restoration for his soul. There is no other place I know that feels the same. It’s where I can think and create and, sometimes, just breathe.

When people ask me why we moved to Washburn, I might tell them about our desire to own a piece of land and have a little farm and about how, over a period of a few years and regular visits, we started to fall in love with the community. This
is absolutely true. But the thing that drew us to this area in the first place—the thing at the heart of our search for the perfect place to settle down for the long haul and build a life—is, quite simply, the Lake. When I tell people this, people who live here, they get a light in their eyes because they know exactly what I mean. She is, after all, part of their stories too.

Confusing the Postmaster

The postmaster of the city of Washburn, according to Kevin, is very nice and helpful. Though he does not like it if people with PO boxes go for days and days without collecting their mail. Kevin found this out last week when he went to the post office to get a PO box for us because, well, we’ve moved again, and our new place does not have a mailbox in the yard.

So we’re forwarding mail from our old address in MN to our first address in Ashland and then to our second address in Washburn (before we realized we didn’t have a mailbox) and now to our PO box. I feel like I should bake cookies or crochet wool hats or something for the fine postal employees of this part of the world who have to sort through all our address changes.

Our residence for the next year or so.

In retrospect, everything has worked out exactly as it should, though the road has at times resembled a rollercoaster…but only one of those little rollercoasters at a county fair.

When we purchased our land outside of Washburn more than two and a half years ago, we decided that when my stepson graduated from high school, we would move north. And we did. We listed our house in MN for sale on July 2 and accepted an offer on July 3, with a closing date of August 14.

We started searching Craigslist and the classifieds for rental homes in the area of our land. We made several trips up to look at different places, but because the rental market is so tight, several other wanted the same houses. It became much like looking for a job, “selling” ourselves as the perfect tenants (because, duh, who wouldn’t want us to rent their house?). As August 14 grew closer, we entertained the idea of putting our stuff in storage and camping if we needed to. I felt better knowing we at least had a plan!

Finally, two weeks before closing and one week before we were planning to move our stuff out of our MN house, two opportunities arose on the same day. It was a gamble, as both places were 5+ miles from the nearest town about a half an hour from our land, and both were way bigger than we needed. One looked really nice, but we’d have to move out in the spring, potentially before our house was built. The other seemed fine and was a month-to-month lease. We went with the latter.

A few days after officially moving in, we wondered if we made the wrong choice for a heap of reasons I won’t dwell on, but we decided we could make it work. Our motto became “It’s only temporary.” What we really wanted, though, was a hard-to-find rental house in Washburn, in town and yet close to our land.

Lo and behold, on the morning we were going to be driving to MN for a funeral and then staying the rest of the week, I saw an ad in the classifieds for a house in Washburn. We called and went to look at it that afternoon on our way out of town, deemed it “perfect,” and the next day it was ours. We put in our notice for the first rental and started moving our stuff. We finished the move less than a week ago, and now we’re now living only a few minutes from our land and six blocks from Lake Superior in a town we fall more in love with every day and in a house that, despite the fact that none of the cupboards close completely and very few of the surfaces are actually level, is exactly what we need.

I've had very little opportunity to reflect on all that's happened, but as I watch the pieces fall into place, after blinking quickly and shaking my head a little wondering "Did that really happen?," I'm just so...thankful. Many times Kev and I have been speechless, only able to speak the words, "Wow! Thank you, Lord!"

I went to the library last week (which is less than a block away) and was told that once the librarians get to know me, I won’t need to show my card. Kevin was out on our land last Saturday and met a couple who live down the road…who we found out on Sunday also go to the church we’ve been attending. One of our neighbors near the house we’re renting brought us a jar or homemade jam.

Oh, and we're very diligent about getting our mail every day (or so).

We're home!

Mimi is happy in our new home too!

A Dream Unfolds

I’ve had moments in my life of such extreme positive emotion that I can’t think or speak or really do much more than stand there with a big stupid grin on my face, eyes wide, heart racing, stomach tumbling.

These moments are relatively rare, and often they catch me off guard. My wedding day was one, for obvious reasons, but then there was the time Kev and I hiked out to a waterfall in upstate New York in the prime of autumn, and I could feel a tremendous awe for the beauty around me welling up from my toes to my throat, prompting me to throw armfuls of red and gold leaves in the air and run under them, my face turned toward the sun. Ah, the very memory gives me goose bumps.

And then there was the time just this past May when I first stepped foot on our land up north. We saw the land in November, when it was covered with brush and snow, and we purchased it in January. All winter we used the satellite image of our 9-acre square only a few miles from Lake Superior to imagine our someday homestead and its gardens, greenhouses, fruit trees, chickens, and bees, our dream of self-sufficient living nearer than it had ever been—Kevin with his hands in the dirt, lovingly growing food for our family, our neighbors, and, someday, or community; me getting to know the chickens, preserving the harvest for the winter, and sneaking off to the Big Lake to bask in its sheer magnificence and work on my novel.

 Waiting for the snow to melt from this year’s ridiculously long winter was a test of patience, and when May finally rolled around, I was about ready to burst. We drove the 3.5 hours north on a sunny Friday, and when we pulled up to our parcel, my shaky legs tripped over themselves getting out of the car. And then I was there, standing, by the grace of God, on our future, feeling for a moment like an intruder until reality sank in: This is ours! 



Our little bit of earth (May 2013)

I wanted to run and sing with my hands in the air, turn cartwheels, and spin around until I was panting and dizzy, and I might have actually done a few of these things, but I’ll never tell! Crying and laughing and feeling strongly compelled to get down on my knees and kiss the ground were it not all wet and muddy, I believed at that moment that anything is possible. I could see everything we’d talked about and planned and prayed for starting to unfold in front of me—hard work, simple pleasures, and good, clean living embodied in one little piece of earth.  Feeling like I was standing under a single beam of sunshine all my own, gratitude, humility, and hope surged through me.

I wish I could have bottled up those feelings for a discouraging day, as attaining a goal is never simple. But I have other methods for dealing with obstacles: I just close my eyes and imagine myself on our land five years from now. I smell the lilacs. I hear the laundry flapping on the clothesline. I feel the spring breeze ruffle my hair. And I know I’m where I belong.



Lake Superior--beach near our land (taken last September)

A View Without Fear

My family likes to joke that whenever I plan a vacation it somehow involves waterfalls and lighthouses, and I’ve got to admit it’s true. Lighthouses—well, anyone who knows me knows that I think lighthouses are super cool, so if there happens to be a lighthouse somewhere near our vacation destination, it’s at least worth a photo op.

Waterfalls, on the other hand, fascinate and frighten me at the same time. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to them. In our numerous trips to the North Shore of Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, we’ve hiked out to a fair share of waterfalls. Most of the waterfalls we’ve viewed are in state parks, where the hiking trails are usually well groomed, and if you stick to the trails and heed the strongly worded DANGER signs, there’s very little possibility that you’ll go tumbling down a deep gorge, break your neck, and drown in front of a bunch of horrified onlookers.

A grim picture, yes? It’s what goes through my mind every time we venture out to one of these powerful displays of nature. I know it’s silly. Kev and I and the kids make it a practice to stick to the trails and use extreme caution around steep cliffs and churning water. But what if a foot slips? What if we lose our balance? What if…

A couple of weeks ago, Kev and I were up visiting our newly acquired land on the Bayfield peninsula and decided to hike out to Houghton Falls. Most of what I’d read about the falls suggested they are relatively small and gradual as far as falls grow, so I figured it would be a fear-free hike. The hike-at-your-own-risk sign at the trail head put an end to my optimism.

The hike started out in the woods, and as we approached the river, the sloping, tree-studded walls down the gorge did not hold the danger of a sheer drop off (the trees could easily break my fall), so I treaded cautiously down the trail. We followed the gorge until it felt like we were in some sort of hidden, moss-covered cave, almost a fairyland with several small step-like falls, and as long as I stayed on the far side of the trail away from the edge of the gorge, it was a perfectly lovely view. As we progressed down the river, the characteristic roar of the water grew louder and louder, and the drop off to the gorge grew more and more pronounced. Once we approached the main falls, the trail split—one fork followed the edge of the gorge, and one fork went through the woods several feet back from the gorge. I followed the trail into the woods and then stood rooted to my spot, craning my neck to get a view over the edge of the gorge. I caught a glimpse of the top of the waterfall, and that was good enough.

Kev, however, followed the fork that lead along the edge of the gorge and started to take pictures.

“Uh, Kevin,” I called from my safe spot in the woods. “Aren’t you too close? Shouldn’t you come back now?

“Aren’t you going to come and look?” he yelled back.

“I saw it!"

He shrugged and started to whistle. I decided I couldn’t watch and started back down the trail, listening for his whistle to be sure he hadn’t plummeted into the water below.

When Kevin caught up with me, he asked me why I didn’t want to look. “That was so cool! You missed the best part,” he said.

I shrugged sheepishly. “It was too dangerous. There was no guardrail.”

“Keri, I stayed on the trail and my footing was always secure,” he said gently. “I was never in any danger.”

As we hiked back to the car, I contemplated my fear. Staying far back from the edge may have made me feel safe from the danger of death by waterfall I had concocted in my head, but I missed out on the view, which was the entire purpose of our hike.

Fear is tricky like that. Many times I’ve allowed it—yes, it is a choice—to squelch my enthusiasm and nab my joy. Since my mom’s illness and death almost two years ago, the reality that no one is immune from tragedy has left me skittish and open to fear’s cunning. Bad things don’t just happen to people on the news; therefore, I always need to expect the worst—this is what I’ve let fear hoodwink me into believing. Even when I’m handed incredible blessings, I find myself looking over my shoulder wondering if they’re going to suddenly vanish. Talk about missing out on the view! This is no way to live.

I heard it said once that safety and security are not found in the absence of danger; they’re found in the presence of God. I love this! It would be an interesting study to go through the Bible and count how many times God’s people are told not to be afraid, and for good reason. There is, after all, no place to find firmer footing than in the arms of our sovereign Lord. Absolutely nothing is out of his reach.

As waterfall season approaches, I will, of course, stick to the trails, as all good waterfall viewers should, but my prayer these days is for God to vanquish the demon of fear completely from my life and help me enjoy every view I encounter to its fullest, even if doing so means stepping a little bit closer to the edge.

What You Look At Is What You See

My mom didn’t have the best singing voice—at least I never thought so. She once told me that she only got into the high school glee club because the director felt sorry for her. She sang on pitch and could carry a tune well enough, but her voice had harshness to it, especially when she sang out of range. I’m ashamed to say that as a teenager I was embarrassed to sit next to her in church because she sang so loudly and her voice did not blend well with the others. I was certain people were staring at us.

No hymn or praise song that left my mom’s lips was ever lacking in heart, though. Maybe that’s what was embarrassing to the teenage me—instead of just accepting the fact that she wasn’t gifted with a beautiful voice and singing her praises quietly, she sang her praises like she meant them…because she did.

I still have a lot to learn from my mother.

So often I use my perceived lack of gifts to sit life out. The new recipes I try never seem to turn out, so we’ll just have spaghetti again. I’m lousy at socializing with people I don’t know well, so let’s just skip the party. My pictures never turn out right, so I’m going to leave the camera at home. I don’t know as much about the new project at work as so-and-so does, so I’ll just keep my mouth shut at meetings.

A wise friend once said, “What you look at is what you see.” My mom actually had this written in her Bible. (She had the same wise friend.) If I look at what’s lacking, I’ll see what’s lacking and it will, nine times out of ten, stop me from moving forward. If I look at what’s there in abundance…well, let me illustrate:

I’m blessed to have a husband and stepkids who graciously eat everything I cook and actually look forward to my “experiments.”

Wow, how nice to get invited to a party! What a great chance for me to be brave and step outside my comfort zone and make new friends.

The great thing about a digital camera is that you can take hundreds of shots until you get the right one!

It’s such a simple concept but so powerful too: It makes all the difference where we focus our attention. Fear can’t win when I’m looking at courage. Despair can’t win when I’m looking at hope. Self-pity can’t win when I’m looking at thanksgiving.


My mom at the front of the VBS parade, singing praises.

When my mom looked at herself sitting in the pew at church with a hymnal in her hand or walking through the neighborhood at the head of the VBS parade or driving in the car listening to her favorite Christian music CD, she saw a desire to praise the One she loved more than anyone else in the world, not a lack of singing talent (or a silly, embarrassed teenage daughter). And that made all the difference to her.

What I look at is a choice, and I pray I will choose wisely; I want to see myself not as lacking in gifts but as swimming in opportunities to be all God wants me to be. And that is an exciting view!      

Waiting for Morning

On a recent whim, I bought the entire Chronicles of Narnia collection in one volume from a thrift store. I then proceeded to read it. Actually, I stayed up way too late for too many nights and devoured it. I’d seen the three Narnia movies, but I hadn’t had my nose in any of the novels since my third-grade teacher read a few of them aloud in class, so many of them were completely new to me.

As I finished one novel and started the next, I felt a little sad each time because at the end of each novel, with the exception of The Horse and His Boy, the children from our world who are brought to Narnia have to leave. After participating in a great adventure, making new friends, growing in wisdom and understanding about themselves and the world around them, and walking side by side with Aslan the lion, the children have to say good-bye to Narnia and take up their ordinary lives again. The children actually handle this reality pretty well; I, on the other hand, felt a heaviness on me each time it happened and was tempted to chuck the whole book in the trash.

It’s like the feeling I get when I have to leave what my mother used to call a “mountaintop experience”—an empty sort of ache that comes from the realization that once a moment has passed you can never get it back again. I remember back in college when I volunteered as a camp counselor for a week each summer, after I went back home I’d write mournful poetry in my journal and lament the fact that all I had left of my week were memories and a few photos. Leaving China after living and working there for two years caused a similar ache that lasted for months and still pops up occasionally because I knew I would likely never see again this side of heaven many of the people I’d come to love. I feel an ache even now when we have to come back to the city after spending time up in northern Wisconsin near Lake Superior, a place where I feel more at peace than anywhere else on this earth. Just a few weekends ago I got choked up when I had to leave my grandma’s house after a visit. We had so much fun together as she taught me to sew. She’s 93 years old; I don’t know how many visits we have left. The older I get the more I realize the value of special moments and want to hang on to them as long as I can.

When I got to the last book in the Naria series, The Last Battle, I approached the end with caution, my heart beating faster with every page as I silently longed for the children to get to stay in Narnia. Please, Mr. Lewis, let it end well! Mr. Lewis did not disappoint; in fact, he caught me by complete surprise. If you haven’t read the book, be warned that I’m going to give some of it away.

It was a rollercoaster, this last book. Through the scheming of Shift, the evil ape, and the Calormenes, Narnia is destroyed, and nearly all the children who had been to Narnia from its beginning, though some of them were now quite old, find themselves together, walking with Aslan deeper and deeper into a world that is strangely familiar and yet different—better—than the Narnia they had known. As they walk, they grow lighter in spirit and find that no matter how far they run, they never get tired, nor are they able to feel afraid. Along the way old friends from their adventures greet them, and they experience more joy in these reunions that they ever knew was possible.

And then they ask the question that had been on their minds (and mine!) the whole time: Would they get to stay this time. Aslan explains that they are in the new Narnia, the real Narnia, Narnia as it should have always been, and that this time, because they had all been killed in a train crash, they never again have to leave. “The dream is ended,” he says. “This is the morning.”

At this point in the book, I was sobbing into my pillow from both relief and a strange sort of euphoria. Something about C. S. Lewis’s depiction of eternity resonated with me so deeply that my whole perspective changed.

I’ve known since childhood God’s promise of heaven, but to my younger self, the thought of standing around in a white robe singing praise all day didn’t sound too exciting. As I grew older, the idea of seeing my grandparents or other loved ones again in heaven became more and more appealing, but I wanted to get a bit more out of life on this earth before going down that particular road. Now, though, things are different. Now I’ve known loss that has wounded me and left scars. Now I know I’ll never be able to think away the hollow spot inside me that grows a bit bigger every time I had to say good-bye. Now I feel so deeply the discouragement of a broken world. 

By the grace of God, I’m never without hope; I’m just waiting for the morning.

I know it might sound morbid to say I can’t wait to get to heaven, because unless Jesus returns first, death is a certainty. But going to heaven is not about dying; it’s about living! It’s about using every breath and gift I’ve been given right now to live deliberately—to hug a stranger who’s hurting, speak the truth boldly and with love, give away things I want to hold onto, and pray constantly. It’s about remembering that God didn’t put me on this earth to settle in comfortably and make a good life for myself until he calls me home; he put me here to serve and glorify him, no matter the difficulty or the cost.

As God’s own daughter, I know the best is yet to come. This wonderful knowledge gives me the courage to face my fears and follow God’s lead, even though doing so might push me beyond my comfort zone. It also gives me a new perspective on the happy times in life. I don’t need to hang onto people I love with a white-knuckled grip anymore because I’m afraid I’ll lose them. Of course I’ll lose them—that’s part of life in the shadowlands: everyone dies. So I take advantage of the time we have together, apologize and forgive, and choose to be patient, loving, and unselfish (and pray for a lot of help in those areas!). When God blesses me with mountaintop moments, I accept them with thanksgiving, enjoy them, and then let them go. I realize now that no matter how hard I try, I can’t keep them forever, and that’s okay!

Even though the children loved their time in Narnia, it was only when they experienced life in the new Narnia, Narnia as it should have been, that they knew what it was like to really live. When this temporary life is over and my life in heaven begins, I’ll know joy, peace, hope, and love in ways I’ve only caught glimpses of here on earth. Not to mention, I'll get to attend the best reunion ever! Even my happiest moments in this life can’t compare to the joy of heaven. Can you imagine?

Narnia may be a fantasy, but God’s heaven is not. Morning is coming. Praise God!

The Story That Was Hard to Tell

I need to tell the story that has in many ways defined the past year of my life. My story. It nags at me. The minute my mind slows down, it runs through my head like annoying song lyrics. I’ve avoided telling it because thinking about it too much hurts like a fist in my stomach. But this is a story I need to write if I want to get to the next chapter of my life, and today the time is right. I’m sitting on a wooden swing next to Lake Superior with no distractions or responsibilities. The sound of the water is soothing, and the sun is warm but not hot. I’m ready for a new tune.

It was on April 22, 2011, Good Friday, that I had my last conversation with my mom. She was in the hospital after having emergency surgery on an infection in her foot a week before. It had been a long road for her with more than a month of foot pain and no diagnosis. The doctors said she’d recover, even though whether she’d be able to keep her foot was up in the air, and, of course, she’d needed surgery to correct the malfunctioning heart valve.

That Good Friday she wasn’t herself, and I didn’t like it. There was an emotional disconnect that I can’t explain—like she didn’t know what it meant that I was her daughter, that all the confidences and laughter we’d shared and arguments we’d had were hidden away in a part of her mind she couldn’t access any more. We were acquaintances, she and I. My little nephew asked me to take her a stuffed bunny for him, and she talked to it like a child would. When I told her it was from Kaleb, she didn’t seem to care.

Then she told me she had conspired with my grandma to make sure Kev and I had Easter baskets, and she and my grandma had compiled a grocery list so there would be food in the house for our weekend visit, including pulp free orange juice—the only kind I drink. They’d talked about what we would have for Easter dinner. What a curious thing the human brain is.

I helped her eat her supper; she couldn’t really remember how to hold her spoon. I wanted it to be over, this Good Friday visit. I wanted to go away and come back the next day, when she’d be better. She could only get better. She was dozing off when we left; I don’t think I said “I love you.” I was too selfish. It was all about how I felt, not about how she felt, and this now makes me ashamed. I was naïve to think there would be a tomorrow, but I’m not that naïve anymore. We’re not guaranteed unlimited amounts of time. Love covers over a multitude of wrongs.

After church that night, my dad, grandma, Kev, and I went to the grocery store to get the things on the list my mom and grandma had made. When we saw the hot cross buns, we picked some up to take to my mom the next day, as she looked forward to them every year.  Surely the doctor wouldn’t mind if she had one. The uneasy feeling in my stomach kept me up that night.

The next morning, Kev and I went to the hospital. My dad had talked to my mom on the phone, and she was having a bath. She hadn’t slept well but the bath was helping her feel better.  We got off the elevator and saw my aunt sitting in the lobby. She’d walked it on my mom gasping for breath, unable to find her call button. When the nurses asked my mom her name, she couldn’t say. They’d taken her to the ICU and sedated her so they could insert a breathing tube. They used words like “blood clot,” but nobody really knew. It would be days before “mini strokes” and “kidney failure” became a diagnosis. The nurse who’d cared for her that morning was shocked. “Only minutes before, she was telling me all about her granddaughter,” the nurse said. It doesn’t surprise me that my mom’s last conversation on this earth would involve her grandchildren. I think part of the reason she hung on so long was because of them, but who can really say.

Phone calls were made. My brother got in his car and drove, and my sister and nephew booked a flight for the next day. They ended up staying for a month, going home for my nephew’s kindergarten graduation, and then coming back again for another month. In the weeks ahead, I drove back and forth from Minnesota to Illinois on the weekends, but my sister was there every day through the whole thing. She has her own story to tell.

Easter Sunday I cried through “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.” That afternoon at the hospital we urged my mom to wake up. We watched every movement, looking for signs of recognition, pleading with her to give us some clue that she was in there.  The nurses told us to give it time, but they knew she should have been come out of sedation by then. For the first time in my recent memory, I saw my dad cry. We prayed she would recover—hundreds of people prayed with us. “Family of believers” took on new meaning for us. A lot of people loved my mom.

But she never really woke up. She would open her eyes but couldn’t focus on anything. The breathing tube scared her. The infectious disease doctor monitored the blood cultures; the cardiologist told us she was too weak for surgery remove the infectious growth from her heart valve; the nephrologist said her kidneys were taking a beating; the neurologist said the infection broke off from her heart valve and caused mini strokes all over her brain. When they decided to take out the breathing tube, no one knew if she could breathe on her own. We said good-bye and committed her to Jesus, but God gave us more time. She will die of kidney failure on a few days, the doctors told us.

We started planning a funeral; my dad didn’t want to wait until the last minute. He knew just who he would call—the funeral director he’d worked with many times as a pastor, a kind and compassionate man who’d lost his own 18-year-old son and believed with his whole heart in the resurrection. My sister and I picked out funeral clothes for my mom. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I said. “Try not to think about it,” my sister replied. We decided on the dress she would have worn for Easter.

Hanging on to the hope that God is stronger than brain injuries and kidney failure, we continued to pray for a miracle. “If you’re going to take her, Lord,” I begged, “please just let her wake up so I can talk to her one last time.” She would have no moment of clarity on her death bed aside from mouthing three or four words of her favorite song as my dad sang to her, “Surely it is God who saves me. I will trust in him and not be afraid.”

On June 10, after being discharged from the hospital and spending a few weeks in a nursing home, my mom died. By then we were ready. By then her death was a blessing. But I still had things to say to her. I suppose I always will. I thought by now, almost a year after her death, I wouldn’t miss her so much. I’m finding it doesn’t work that way, though. I’ll always miss her—we all will.

Her funeral was beautiful. It really was. Our family grew by hundreds that day. No one is shy about hugging at funerals. We felt loved.

Maybe the hardest part of my story was the fact that I lost the mom I knew before she even died. I think the mini strokes started before she’d even been admitted to the hospital. The doctors blamed her confusion and altered personality on the antibiotics and stress her body was under, but they didn’t know her. Even in that, though, God blessed me with a special moment. There was one day when I called her in the morning, not long after her foot surgery. She was tired. I said, “Hi mom; it’s Keri.” She said, “My Keri.” For the rest of my life I will hang on to the memory of the sound of her voice when she said that. At least at that moment, my mom knew me.

I can’t talk to my mom anymore, but I love hearing my aunt and grandma tell stories about my mom’s childhood. There’s a new appreciation for one another in my family. I love the way my relationship with my dad is deepening. It used to be when I called, it was usually to talk to my mom. Now I call to talk to my dad, and it’s nice. He also has a story to tell, and I hope one day he’ll write it down. I love that my siblings and I have common memories and that there’s no danger of my mom being forgotten. My nephew Kaleb remembers his grandma, as do my stepchildren. But my niece was only three and my nephew only a baby when she died. It will be fun to share stories with them about their grandma as they get older. I love spending time with my mom’s friends when they just call to chat or invite me for tea. Maintaining some sort of connection to my mom is important to me, and God’s blessed me with ways to do that.

Grief used to be a burden. It frustrated me that I was not in control of my emotions—that I would at unexpected times cave under the weight of how much I missed my mom. I realize now that grieving is more than just a process to get through and leave behind; the loss I’ve experienced has shaped who I am in beautiful ways. Grief is necessary, but it doesn’t have to be a constant companion. If I’m sad, I need to let the sadness in for a short visit but not invite it to move in. If I feel the tears coming, I need to cry and then blow my nose and embrace the gift that each day is. It’s time to take off the mourning clothes and focus on using my gifts, cherishing my family and friends, loving others like Jesus does, and following where my Savior leads.

That’s my story. It’s not over, though. The next chapter is only just beginning.

Beauty in Strange Places

It’s easy enough for me to find beauty in nature. The way the snow sticks to the bare tree branches and then when the sun shines drips off in glittering gems. The way I can hear the power of a waterfall before I can see it. The way the scent of lilacs reminds me of spring. Poets seeking inspiration in nature don’t need to look too far. It’s easy enough to find beauty in man-made things too. Stately century-old mansions that reflect the ingenuity of a bygone generation. Paintings that capture the reflection of the human spirit. Songs that cut to the very soul and leave listeners groping for a tissue.

I think I’m the type of person who tries to recognize and appreciate beauty and even create some of my own from time to time, but I wasn’t prepared for the beauty I discovered one morning while riding the bus to work in downtown Minneapolis. There are a several lovely old buildings in downtown Minneapolis, but they’re overshadowed by concrete and steel and glass. Some skyscrapers could be classified as interesting or even impressive from a structural standpoint, but I’d certainly never call them beautiful…on their own. But when the sun rose that morning, the whole city changed. Hundreds of windows reflected pink and purple, and when the sun hit the city just right, steel turned to silver. The beams of light encompassed the city in an almost supernatural glow, and from a distance, Minneapolis, for a few minutes, became the dazzling Atlantis. But by the time I arrived downtown, the magic was gone. The sun was higher in the sky, and the city was drab and cold once more.

I love being surprised by beauty, especially when it transforms the bleakest of circumstances into something to wonder at.

I often think experiencing loss and its repeated aftershocks that sometimes bombard a person like rapid gunfire and other times just sort of linger in the background is the worst part of being human. Having to feel so much all the time is exhausting. Grief might diminish with time, but there’s still an empty place at the table, and nothing can change that.

But maybe one of the best parts of being human is being able to experience beauty in all shapes and forms, even in strange places—even as a result of loss. Empathy for the pain of others, renewed joy in relationships, an appreciation for what hasn’t been lost—these are beautiful things that perhaps can’t be known in their fullest capacity by someone who does not know loss.

It seems like a contradiction to me, the intermingling of loss and beauty, like flowers blooming on a battlefield or a rainbow arching over the ruins left behind by a tornado. It makes me think of Job, reeling from the loss of everything he held dear and tormented by open sores all over his body perhaps declaring boldly or, more likely, croaking out through parched lips, the beautiful words, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall one day stand upon the earth.”  

Hanau, Germany

We visited a town in Germany that had at its center the remains of a bombed-out church. It would have been practical for the people in the town to just tear the whole church down, but someone saw the beauty in its mangled skeleton and rebuilt part of it while leaving another part as is, a reminder of the past. The people of that town did not seek to eliminate all traces of the terrible loss they experienced during the Second World War. What good would that have done? They weren’t ashamed of their wounds and scars encompassed in the shell of an old church, a profoundly beautiful reminder of their resilience and courage.

Maybe the people of that town knew what I’ve only recently come to realize: It would be a shame to waste loss—to experience it without seeing all the unexpected beauty brought about as a result. And it’s not the fleeting beauty of a sunrise over a city either. Rather, it’s a changed attitude…a thankful heart…an open hand…a quiet peace…a humble surrender…a bold testimony.

When it’s touched by the finger of the Creator, even the most heartbreaking loss can produce something beautiful. All we have to do is open our eyes and look.

An Advent of Thanksgiving

Not long ago, Kev and I had the opportunity to spend a Sunday afternoon at the home of Kev’s aunt and uncle when several of their grown children and their families were gathered together for a post-Thanksgiving meal. There I observed a scene that was beautiful and yet cut through me quite unexpectedly. Like slipping and falling on a patch of ice disguised as pavement, it caught me off guard and knocked the wind out of me: A mother and her lovely daughters sitting around the table sharing family stories and memories with one another, finishing each other’s sentences. They might not have been aware of it—I certainly wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t been so keenly aware of its absence in my own life—but they were sharing much more than conversation and laughter; they were sharing a connection that can only exist between a mother and her daughters.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this mother-daughter connection. It’s hard to describe my relationship with my mom because words like “friend” or “confidante” don’t do it justice. All my life, my mom was the first one I thought to call whenever something exciting or sad or confusing happened. She knew all my secrets and all my hopes, and she knew all my foibles and flaws—and loved me anyway. I miss sharing things with her—chatting for more than an hour on the phone until she’d inevitably say, “I have to let you go, Keri. I have to go to the bathroom!”—and sometimes I feel very hollow inside. But these days, I mostly feel thankful.

This feeling of thankfulness is surprising to me because throughout much of the grieving process, thankfulness has been an afterthought instead of a real, honest emotion. Of course I’m thankful my mom is in heaven and will never know pain or loss again. And I’m thankful for the assurance I’ll see her again. But thankfulness for these things hasn’t necessarily changed the fact that what I really want is another 30 years with my mom.

The thankfulness I’ve felt lately, though, is different. It’s been quietly and steadily replacing the vague, unsettled feeling that’s lingered all these months with a soothing sort of peace. Grief for what I’ve lost now mingles with thankfulness for what I had. For 36 years I had a mother who loved me, supported me, corrected me, and modeled for me what it means to be a woman of God. That is a huge blessing! Mourning that fact that my mom will not live to be over 90 like her own mother seems to cheapen the 66 years God gave my mom on this earth, 36 of which I got to spend with her. Why have I not realized this before?

Oh how the grace of God is a salve for the pieces of me that were broken and are now healing! I love how he reveals things in his own time, patiently and repeatedly for those of us who are slow to catch on. Jesus’ promise that those who mourn will be comforted rings true in so many ways that continue to leave me amazed and humbled.

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop longing for the concreteness of the relationship I had with my mom. I haven’t heard her voice since Good Friday, and I miss it every single day. But the relationship I had with my mom did not die when my mom did; it will always be a part of who I am and will continue to influence and shape my relationships with other people. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.

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.