Thanks, Walmart for the tire and tutu.

Thanks, Walmart!

Yesterday I was shopping at Walmart for some ballet accessories for my granddaughter’s dance class. As I lifted a pink tutu off of the rack and began to imagine her spinning around with delight, my mind went back to her mother’s dance classes when she was the same age. I remembered how she wore her tutu just below her plump little belly and the serious look on her face as she counted every step. I was lost in my memories when I thought I heard my daughter’s name over the loud speaker. Maybe it was my imagination. No, there it was again. “____, come to auto repair to pick up your tire, paging ____”.  My heart started pounding because my daughter had been in a fatal car accident three years ago.Why were they calling her name?

I had forgotten that on my way into the store I dropped off a flat tire and had given them my phone number for their records.  The man behind the desk said, “OK you are in our computer and we will page you when it is finished”.  Apparently several years ago we brought her car in for work and we gave them my number as a contact.  I put the tutu in my basket and headed for the tire center. As I walked, a strange feeling rose up… I was grateful to hear her name. Her father and I spent months picking out that name and for 29 years we spoke that name countless times. Even after friends and family used a different nick name for her, we always called her by the name we felt God gave us.

I get a similar feeling when I come across her name on a piece of mail, or find an item that was hers tucked away in a drawer or see pictures of her. All of these things remind me she was, she is, she always will be. Each of them stir my heart but hearing her name, now that is priceless.

I often wonder why people don’t use her name more. If you have ever questioned whether it is right to bring up my daughter’s name in conversation, let me share a few thoughts:

1. Yes, yes and yes!
2. I don’t expect you to speak in hushed tones or even elevate her to sainthood. It is just nice to hear her name especially if she has been part of your life too.
3. You may be thinking that I might cry if you bring her up in conversation and jog my memory. Let me assure you that I’m already thinking about her. I might cry, I usually don’t but crying or laughing is a good response to thoughts of people that we love.
4. In these last few years, I have rehearsed all of my memories over and over so if you have one that I wasn’t privy to, I would love to hear it. After time, memories can become one dimensional like a photograph. When you share a new story with me, it is as if she is lifted off a page and begins to move and breathe. Just recently I went to a hair stylist who was a friend of Bethany’s and she shared stories that I had never heard. Our conversation that day was a holy experience and both of us had the same sense she was somehow a part of our time together.
5. Don’t feel that you have to talk about her every time you see me. I lead a full life and have great joy. But when her name comes naturally into a conversation, it is sweet.

I’m sharing this to assure you that bringing up her name or laughing together about a memory is healing not harmful. Experiencing her death has deeply changed me. Separation is not as complete or final as I previously believed. For those of us who live in the assurance that there is an eternity in Heaven, this time on earth is but the blink of an eye. Relationships, especially those that are family, are forever. I have no doubt that she is alive and with Christ so why would I stop talking about her? If I were to guess… she probably has a pink tutu too.

God’s presence is in the midst of the memory.

So when we talk, feel free to talk about her. If not, I may be forced to go to Walmart with another flat tire!

Maybe someone else you know

needs to hear a story about their loved one.

Remember to speak their name!

A lesson on grief from Psalm 137

I love the imagery that Psalm 137 paints. It is the story of God’s people forced out of their homes by the Babylonians and taken to a strange land. All of their hopes and dreams were destroyed in a forced exile along with the lives of people they loved.  So they sat by the river, under the shade of the willow trees and wept. The instruments they used for praise now hung in the trees waiting for better days.

I’ve often wondered how their harps could have hung on the tender branches of a willow so I started to research the type of tree that sat by the Babylonian rivers in biblical times. After hours of study and conflicting conclusions I finally decided it doesn’t matter! The important part of this beautiful poetic song is that God’s people were grieving and they chose for a time, to hang up their harps, simply sit and remember their past.

Did they recall feasts that they had celebrated together? Or maybe they spoke in hushed tones of high Holy days. Someone may have remembered a funny story about one of their friends from home. And while they remembered, their harps sat silent.

I like to picture them huddled together under the boughs of those trees. I can almost see the branches swaying in a sorrowful dance.  I’m thankful for this Psalm and the messy truth about grief. These brave exiles help me walk through my own grieving with honesty. Here are just a few “takeaways” as I read this Psalm.

1. They sat together and cried. A whole community grieved. No one should have to grieve alone. I encourage you to find a support group who will sit with you as you remember.

2. They took time to remember Zion. They didn’t just remember their losses, they remembered the whole story. It is easier to center on what has been taken away or what we won’t get to experience in the future. Remembering can be a holy act and remembering that heals encompasses good memories as well as the pain.

3. They hung their harps up on the trees. They didn’t throw them away. There is something hopeful about the future in the act of placing them out in the open just above their heads. Those harps hanging precariously in the wind were reminders that there would come another day for singing. They had hope that God would make things right again. The author of Revelation in chapter 14 writes that he hears the sound of harps being played again. That reference tells me that God intends to make right all that is wrong on this side of Heaven.

4. They chose not to sing or play their instruments simply because their captors wanted them too. If you have experienced grief you know what I’m talking about. People around you will want you to be OK and some may feel uncomfortable when you break down and cry. Grief isn’t a linear forward moving process. If you were to draw it, you might see squiggles and circles and lines going every which way.  A person in grief may choose when and where to express sorrow but shouldn’t ever feel pressure to pretend that everything is “fine”.

5. Later in the Psalm the writer took an oath that they would never forget Jerusalem. Anyone who has lost a loved one will have made the same oath. It is painful when it seems like the world just goes on as if the person never existed. Psalm 103 says that the days of human life are like grass, that even the ground where it stood doesn’t remember it. Naturally we want to remember those that we have lost. But the truth is we are not responsible to keep them alive by our memories. Those in Christ are eternal beings alive in Christ. So yes keep sharing your memories because you love them but not out of duty.

6. The psalmist, in graphic detail blamed the Babylonians for their national pain. He was angry, vengeful and honest but he sang all of this pain in a prayer to God. Rather than blame God or simply walk away from faith because of loss, he took all of his hate, unforgiveness, pain and remorse to the only one who could understand.

 Walking through Grief the Willow Way!

ISBN #notaseasyasitlooks

Psalm 137 is beautiful, messy, unforgiving, painful and God fearing. It can’t be wrapped up in a pretty package and used as the perfect self-help guide entitled, Walking through Grief the Willow Way. It isn’t that simple or easy. In fact, grieving involves more sitting than walking.

Three years after my daughter’s death, I keep my harp hanging on a lower branch so I can use it often. I move in and out of my willow tree’s shade. It has become a sacred space with memories and laughter and tears. I sway to the rhythm of the dancing leaves and dance or sit depending on the day. Anyone is welcome to sit and remember under the willow with me and if invited, I’ll sit and remember with you… until the day we sing a new song before the throne!

“I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps. They sang as it were a new song before the throne.”  (Revelation 14)

You say Vacation. I say Recalibration!

 

 

I’m not going to call it vacation anymore!

When I come home to the Jersey shore it is anything but restful. There is never lounging around, no lollygagging or frittering the days away! There is no rest for the weary!

Time at the Jersey shore brings to mind words like conquer, subdue, celebration, delectable food and multitudes of people! Those words aptly describe the Jersey people too.

I am always tired when I go back to my current home in Kentucky, which I lovingly call my state of exile since leaving the Motherland. Every year I think maybe I will vacation differently this time but I never do. This place is my past, my family’s heritage and it calls to me when I am away.

Vacation has become more of a holy pilgrimage since our daughter passed from this life and moved on to Heaven three years ago. She loved this place, she got it! When our family came back to the Jersey Shore, she and I would sit down on the sand and one of us would make the statement, “Oh my heart is beginning to recalibrate!”

I looked up that word in the Cambridge English Dictionary to make sure we were using it right all these years and it defined it as:

Recalibrate is to make a small change to an instrument

so that it measures accurately.

Ah yes, that is exactly what happens every time!

Each year since her home going, we have been able to bring her children back here and share with them all the treasures of her favorite place on earth. They get it! Both of them sense the holy in the smell of the clams as we drive to the beach, the sand between their toes and the salt on their faces.

I believe they know that the pizza and the birch beer, the morning crème donuts and the evening Cape May Diamonds are not just food and pebbles. They understand that these are holy acts of remembering and honoring the things their mother loves. They meet with and love on her extended family, her friends… her people and instinctively know that they are also their people too.

It isn’t sad to trace her life and her loves, we don’t mourn with a sense of hopelessness. If you could watch us, it looks more like a frenzied dance as we move from one experience to the next. But all of this activity will be remembered throughout the coming year with pictures and conversations that become tiny recalibrations for each of our hearts.

I’d write more but… it’s time to get in line for the Kohler’s crème donuts!

Heavenly Kohler’s Donuts!

Out of sight, out of mind

 

Since the day she was born, I worried when she was out of my sight. She was three weeks early when she entered this world and neither of us made it through that delivery without battle wounds. She was jaundiced and got a five-day vacation, lounging under lights while I sat in my hospital bed crying because I couldn’t see her. I worried because the nurses wouldn’t bring her and fear took hold of my heart.

 

Her first summer, the stroller got close to the edge of a pier and the thought of her rolling into the bay gripped my mind and it took years to loosen its hold.

 

Her first day of Kindergarten, she rode the bus with the ‘big kids’ who were twice her size. At the end of the day, her dad and I met the bus but she didn’t get off. Neither I, nor the bus driver could see an older child had blocked the aisle and she was stuck. I ran to the next bus stop so she wouldn’t be scared and fear took another grasp at me.

 

Her first time at summer camp, her first sleep over, job, date with a boy, attending public school after 7 years of homeschooling, first night at college… all of those times she was out of my sight, I was afraid.

 

The saying, ‘out of sight out of mind’ never occurred to me.

 

I wasn’t just afraid for her life, I worried about her well-being, her salvation and her eternity. Somehow I believed that if I could see her, she was safe. She couldn’t get hurt or lost or make bad decisions or God forbid even die.

 

My fear often times was a wedge in our relationship. It kept me from trusting her and trusting God. Somehow, she still grew into a beautiful, godly, wise woman over those 29 years. The day she died, fear was the last thing on my mind.

 

Fear reared its ugly head when my phone rang that morning and a stranger gave me an address and told me to hurry. Fear tried to take control as I drove to the site. Fear thought it had won as the Sheriff took my arm and led me to a spot on the grass and told me to wait. But something happened in those moments of silence. Fear had taken its final blow and nothing changed.

 

Don’t misread my words. There was life altering loss but it didn’t change my love for her, it couldn’t take away our shared faith in Christ, it didn’t break our forever relationship; in fact, fear didn’t even take her life. The moment I realized she was in the presence of her Savior for eternity, I lost all reason to fear.

 

Fear is debilitating, crippling, and eventually paralyzing. Scripture tells us in 1 John 4:18, ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

 

In many ways I love her better now than I did those first 29 years. I no longer worry when I can’t see her. Why was I so afraid? Those hospital nursery lights may have been the reason she loved to lay out in the sun on the beach. She wasn’t lost that day on the school bus and all those first experiences in her life didn’t destroy her, they made her.

 

I don’t have many regrets in our relationship but wasting time in fear is certainly one of them.

 

I still won’t ever be able to say, ‘out of sight, out of mind’, but now when I think about the wonder of her life, fear has no sway.

 

              

     Out of my sight, means she’s present with the Lord.

Choose Life: wise words from Downton Abbey

While grieving the last season of Downton Abbey is not in the same category as losing a loved one, it is indeed loss. How can we say goodbye to these characters that we have laughed and cried with for 7 years? Last night, Jan 3, 2016 was the beginning of the end of our weekly relationship with this beautiful British drama.  In honor of this last season, it seemed right to post about one particular God moment I experienced while watching this show.

Spoiler alert from Season 4 opener:

Episode 4.01 aired on Jan 5, 2014 here in the U.S. Mary was in mourning and sinking into despair (for those two or three people who didn’t see the finale to season 3, I won’t tell you who dies). In one scene, her grandmother, Lady Violet Crawley, sits at the side of Mary’s bed and shares with her this truth,

“the fact is you have a straightforward choice before you, you must choose either death or life”.

Some people don’t believe that God speaks through anything other than scripture but I have often heard God’s voice through music, media, art, literature, creation etc. Don’t take my word for it! St Augustine said, “but let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master”. All Truth is God’s truth.

Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess of  Grantham, may or may not have known she was quoting the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 30, Moses gives the Israelites the same choice. He implores them to choose obedience to God and live or choose disobedience and die.

I’m not trying to equate grief and disobedience.  Jesus, God’s son, grieved when his close friend, Lazarus died. Grief is natural when we lose someone. I do believe it is possible to grieve and still choose between life and death. Some people almost stop living when a loved one dies. If you have experienced loss, you know what I mean.  You may not be ready to move from mourning to dancing but each day you are given the choice of life over death. Here is how that choice looks in my life.

• When I live constantly looking backward to days before loss, rather than forward, I choose death.
• When I continue asking the what ifs rather than what now or what next, I choose death.
• When I relive my memories over and over rather than also create new ones with those who are still living, I choose death.

However:

• When I move outside my own pain and share in another person’s grief or joy, I choose life.
• When I honor my loved one by giving time or money to something about which she was passionate, I choose life.
• When I keep living and loving others, I choose life.

I watched the scene between Mary and her grandmother 7 months after my daughter’s death. I heard God’s truth and it spoke to my heart. God gave me a straightforward choice between death and life. I chose Life! Maybe you have been given the same choice today. The death you have experienced may be a person or a relationship or even a dream that was never fulfilled. If you are grieving, listen to God’s Truth and choose life!

If you are watching Downton Abbey for one last season, join me in looking for more God moments! Searching for God’s truth in all things can sometimes include sipping tea and eating scones on Sunday night with our good friends across the pond.

 

I take you with me into the new year

I remember the first New Year’s Eve after our daughter’s death. I didn’t want the calendar year to change because that meant I was starting a new year without her. I didn’t want to have new adventures, memories, stories that I couldn’t share with her and it wasn’t the way it was meant to be! That first year I sat and wondered about the ‘what ifs’  and ‘if onlys’ for the coming year.

This is the third NYE that I will move into a new year knowing that she is not on speed dial, not down the street, not physically in my life. I read Psalm 139 through again today. The psalmist tells us in verse 16, “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.” NASV

Some people read those words and wrestle with whether God chooses how and when we will die. Does He foreordain or simply foreknow? Others believe God really doesn’t know the future at all; they believe He wonders about the future along with us. For me, there is no comfort or peace in any of those questions.

When I read this passage, I hear that God gave her to us for 29 years and leaving this world simply meant entering His presence for eternity. God wasn’t surprised when she arrived, like we might be by unexpected guests. He wasn’t tidying  up and making sure the bed sheets were clean. Jesus told his disciples in the upper room, “I go to prepare a place for you,” and I am sure that on the day she entered Heaven, that place was ready. She was welcomed home.

I am not afraid of leaving her behind anymore. She isn’t gone, she isn’t lost, she isn’t dead. She lives in the place that Jesus prepared for her and she showed up at the exact time that was set for her… which is something she never did in her 29 years on this side of eternity!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How can I dance this Christmas?

It’s the holidays and everyone’s days are merry and bright…aren’t they? 

Even Frosty puts on a magical hat and dances around.  Everyone seems to be rocking around the Christmas tree yet maybe you sit in silence. Others are frolicking in their Holiday garb while you wear your mourning clothes. Sackcloth and ashes don’t lend themselves to merry making! For those of us who have lost a loved one, Christmas can be a difficult season.

Two years ago our daughter was in a fatal car accident. That Christmas, the memories were so painful that we decided to use a friend’s cabin in the mountains to get away. Many of our extended family joined us and as I looked around the room, my heart felt like dancing but I didn’t. Last year we spent Christmas with family in another state. Bethany always made her famous artichoke dip for Christmas Eve so last year her siblings had a cook-off to see who could create the best version of her recipe. While tasting and laughing, my heart did a little jig.  This year we will go to my brother’s, sit with my elderly parents and overlook the ocean. She always said that each year she needed time by the sea to re-calibrate her heart. I’ll do that and listen to the rhythm. I wonder what dance my heart will do this year? I doubt it will be a salsa, or line dance and probably not hip-hop. But this I know, the Psalmist promises us in Chapter 30, “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy”.

I have started this blog so that I can explore the ways God moves me from mourning to dancing. You may want to join me in this adventure. I have learned a few dance steps in the last two and a half years and will keep learning new moves until the day I rest in the arms of Christ. Here is one dance tip: the Hebrew word for ‘joyful dancing’ is machowl. This is a round dance done with others, not a solemn or solitary one. So this holiday, find people who knew and loved your family member and ask them to ‘remember’ with you. You may just find your heart re-calibrating. Listen to the rhythm and even if your body won’t cooperate, let your heart start to dance.