Camel Down

“I can’t . . . do this . . . ALONE!”  

I stared in disbelief at the chaos lying on the dog-hair covered floor. All I did was hang up one more shirt on a rolling clothes rack that’s tucked into the corner of my little apartment and realized, too late, it was literally the straw that broke the camel’s back. There was a loud SNAP! and my four-foot-tall rack was reduced to four and a half inches.

Tears and sobs erupted as I stood there in my pajamas at bedtime. Alone with a minor inconvenience that felt as catastrophic as a Mount St. Helens eruption, I wept in the room again, “I can’t do this alone!”

Then I did it alone.

I was angry, but I did it, saying all the while, “I guess I can do this. I can do this. I’m doing this!” I picked up handfuls of hangered garments, threw them across the sofa and a couple of chairs and finally reached the traitorous pile of poles that lay askew beneath everything instead of standing tall and proud the way they were supposed to. The metal poles pointed to the real culprit in it all – a flimsy plastic joint that had snapped under the overwhelming weight it was never meant to carry.

I hate it when my furniture behaves like me.

The next morning, I stood on the driveway talking with my daughter, Katy, telling her about the late-night drama in my room. “Oh, no, Mama,” she sympathized.

“I had a little temper tantrum,” I said. The corners of her mouth turned up the way her dad’s used to, barely concealing a smile.

“Then I had a fight with your father,” I added, and the smile went full-scale grin. “I feel really silly doing that,” I admitted, easy to understand since her father, my husband, rests in peace in faraway Florida. Another brilliant move on his part. There isn’t always a lot of peace these days if you hang around me. 

“I have to do everything myself now, I told him, all of it while my heart is shattered. It’s like learning to walk again but without legs. Learning to breathe without lungs.”

 My wise daughter nodded, waiting for the rest of the story.

“Meanwhile,” I’d said to Rob, “you’re busy flying around heaven, having tons of fun with absolutely no idea of what I’m going through.” At that point I’d thrown another shirt on a chair. “I’m tired of talking to you, Rob,” I finished. “I’m going to bed. Just . . . go off and enjoy another conversation with Moses or Abraham or Pharoah or somebody, although Pharoah probably isn’t there.”

Looking at my daughter, I confessed, “I worry about my sanity sometimes, Kate.”

Katy, so much like her dad, was chuckling, picturing me telling Rob to go find some ancient prophet to hang out with and leave me alone. “I think, Mom, when I hear you say things like that to Dad, that he’s probably cracking up the way he always did when he got tickled by something. I bet his face was turning red and he was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe.”

She’s probably right. My one-sided fight with him sounded a lot like all the other one-sided fights we used to have. I always thought it was because he avoided conflict. But maybe it was just because he was laughing so hard inside, he couldn’t answer me.

Nothing ever got the best of Rob McLeod. Not my temper. Not the opinions of others. And now, I am realizing, not even death.

He’s still my hero.

With thanks to Adair Broughton for permission to use the photo seen above. The original can be viewed from this link: camel bow | my humps, my humps, my sexy camel humps? | adair broughton | Flickr

Untethered

I’m weary. I’m weary of grieving. I’m weary of adjusting. Weary of missing the man I loved to be with. Weary of finding my way in the dark. Everything I once clung to for safety and security, comfort and familiarity, is gone. There are days when I feel like a hapless balloon, escaped from the grip of its birthday party guest. Set loose with no destination in mind, I float along at the whim of the wind, helpless to navigate direction because, in part, I don’t know where I’ll land.

This is faith.

I didn’t know that until now. I don’t think you can know what faith is until it’s all you have left. I knew it in my head. I knew all the right answers—I teethed on a Baptist pew, after all. But I didn’t know it in my experience. Because what I thought I knew had never been tested like this before. Now that it has, I’ve come to this conclusion.

I don’t like to live by faith.

I like to live by sight. I like my feet on solid ground unless I’m in an airplane and even then I can still touch the floor. I feel safe when I have some control over where I am and where I’m headed. Doesn’t the Bible have something to say about not being blown about by every wind of doctrine? It sounds like the wind is a troublemaker. So, whose idea was it for me to be blown about by every gust of circumstance? I didn’t ask for this. I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid grief and loss. More than once in the last year I’ve screamed at my Creator for letting go of the string on my balloon. A lot of good that does. He’s not afraid of heights.

Not long ago I heard my son say on his Sunday podcast that God created everything both visible and invisible. I never used to think much about the things that are invisible. They don’t quiz you on that in school unless you plan to be a microbiologist or an astronomer and even then, if you have powerful enough lenses, you can see things that are invisible to the naked eye. Instead, I memorized dates and places and names of dead people. I learned to manage numbers and pronouns and musical notes. I didn’t learn geography, though, until Rob and I picked up a roadmap and started driving across America, but today I can tell you with certainty that the east coast is crowded and I like Montana. That’s because I saw them in person, not just in a geography book. Which is a pretty good way to see the visible things God made.

But the invisible? From his pulpit, Lee asked the young ones in his congregation to name things that we can’t see. Oxygen, one child told him. Germs, another said. God, was the obvious answer. For being so short, they’re all pretty smart. There were a few others that came to mind for me. I can’t see Rob right now. I can’t see heaven either. And even with the strongest microscope, I don’t think anyone has seen the particles of an atom. We know they exist, but we can’t see them. Like the wind, we see their effects, but we cannot see them. It doesn’t stop us from believing these things are real, though. If we see only their effects, does it still take faith to believe they’re there?

Maybe the altitude is getting to me.

I looked up “faith.” From the world’s most reliable source of information—Wikipedia. Faith is “a firm belief in something for which there may be no tangible proof; complete trust, confidence, reliance, or devotion.”

Then I looked up what God had to say about it. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…” (Hebrews 11)

Faith confuses me.

Something I can’t see is evidence. It’s proof of the existence of a thing hidden from view. It is substance, but I can’t see it or touch it or smell it or hear it or taste it. There may be no tangible expression for something I firmly believe in. To make it even more confusing, I read that things which are seen don't last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal.

Faith sounds foolish.

How do I know Rob is still alive, waiting for me, loving me, anxious to take me on another road trip, this time through the galaxy? How do I know I belong to Jesus, and I can believe Him when He said whosoever will may come? How do I know God loves me to the moon and back even though He stood by and let my heart shatter in a million pieces? How do I know He will somehow turn what the enemy meant for evil into good?

I don’t. Not without faith.

Because it’s all invisible. For now. That’s the rub. The God of all the universes, brilliance times infinity, wants us to lean into the things we cannot see and come out believing. He wants to give us a new heart so we can trust Him, but walking by faith is still up to us. Rational thinking has its place right up until we can’t explain the way God intervenes—or doesn’t—in the affairs of men. There’s a reason for that.

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1)

I don’t know why I lost Rob. Nobody does, though many have tried to explain it to me. They mean well, but they don’t know either. I don’t know why everything I was anchored to disappeared overnight and my life was suddenly set adrift. I am confident of this, though. Rob is still very much alive. He’s more alive than I am. And because of that, I have an investment in the invisible that has changed my point of view.

Oh, I guess I’m just rambling now. Like I said, I’m weary. Untethered. Waiting to see where the wind takes me today. There’s not a lot to do up here when you’re floating aimlessly through the air except think deep thoughts and try to see life from a new perspective.

I’ll tell you what, though. I’ve gained a whole new respect for balloons up here. They may be untethered, too, but they're survivors.

 

Things that are seen don’t last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal. 

This is why we keep our minds on the things that cannot be seen.

(2 Corinthians 4:18)

With thanks to A. Currell for permission to borrow the phine photo seen above. The original can be viewed from the following link:  Going... | A.Currell | Flickr

Titanic

There are many losses when your best friend and lover dies. And mini-losses that appear later, much later, after the numbness wears off and the swelling from your shattered heart begins to subside. That’s when the throbbing pain takes over.

For months I’ve been unable to remember much from all the years Rob and I enjoyed together. Finally, I realized it wasn’t due to shock. It was self-protection. I was putting up a barrier every time a memory tried to show up because it hurt too much to recall all that I’ve lost.

But now I know I need those memories to comfort me in whatever way they can. The problem is, they will still hurt even while they help. I suppose it’s similar somehow to getting a root canal, coarse as that analogy may appear. Pain will accompany the remedy, but there’s no other way to save my broken heart.

I need to remember.

Lately, when the memories float up like artifacts from the Titanic’s debris field, instead of pushing them away, I’m learning to let them materialize. To pick them up. Inspect them. Weep while I hold them in my hands. And let them live again.

It’s a blessing, and it’s a curse of sorts, because now, even though they are cherished treasures from a happy marriage, they are still evidence of what I no longer have. It was my counselor who first described them to me as mini-losses. There are thousands of them, floating to the surface of my mind at inopportune times. They always catch me off guard, leaving me with only two ways of handling them. Either push them away or face them.

I have many friends who have stood beside me in my sorrow, sharing in this loss we all still cannot comprehend. Few of them are single. They’ve taken me to lunch. Visited my temporary home. Laughed with me and filled me in on their lives. And I watch as these couples finish each other’s sentences. Laugh together before I hear their punchlines. Work toward their dreams. All the things. It takes decades of commitment and sacrifice to build a relationship like that. I had that once.

I bought a car on my own for the first time last June. I knew how to do it because Rob and I have done it together several times over the years. I was able to pay for it. Insure it. Care for it. But rarely will I ever relax in the passenger seat. Seldom does anyone help me navigate. If I see a hawk in flight, I have to pull over to snap a photo—no one can do it for me. I had to move the toothpicks to the console because I can’t reach the glovebox from my side of the car. I nearly always drive alone now.

At Christmas this year, it was a friend who came with me to see Christmas lights. I don’t date my husband anymore. Rob and I have driven tens of thousands of miles together across America. We’ve been in forty-eight states together. If I want to pick up the remaining two, I’ll have to do it without him. Now if I travel, I either go on my own or with a good friend. I ate at our favorite restaurant today and ordered the meal Rob and I always shared. Tonight, I finished off his half as my supper. Service for one.

I’ll never hear him call me sweetheart or babe or darlin’ anymore. The endearments were silenced when Rob’s voice was. It was only last week that I recognized this particular grief.

Mini-losses. They feel like major losses. I’ve pushed them away like too many floatable toys in a bathtub, but I can’t keep them all under water anymore. I knew from watching other people live and die that this could happen. It’s a risk to love someone as deeply as I loved Rob. It means someday you might lose them. You might cry your eyes out every day, sleep with their t-shirt instead of with them, and order one sandwich at your favorite sub shop for the rest of your life. It’s scary enough to imagine even those things.

What I never saw coming was the aftermath of disaster. The ongoing parade of pain. Pieces of my shattered world floating to the surface all around me while I tread water and try to survive. As I said, I need our memories now. I suppose if I cling to some of the larger pieces that maybe I won’t drown. Or maybe they’ll form a flotilla and help me find my way back to solid ground.

One mini-loss at a time. Still, I'm not convinced grief is ever small.

It feels titanic.

With thanks to Travis for the use of the photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: Titanic | There would be larger ships and worse disasters at… | Flickr

This Time

It’s a sad anniversary. Not in honor of a wedding forty-five years ago. No longer a celebration of our first date in 1974. That one was always a bigger deal for you than the day we said I Do.  It’s not even the one coming up in February.

A year ago today was the last time we ever lived together. Last night was a year since I slept beside you. The last time I kissed your lips. The last time we had a home. And a life. Dreams. And one another.

A year ago today I lost everything.

I didn’t see this pain coming, Baby. I’ve been bracing for February 19, not January 13. But the nightmare began weeks before we had to let you go. Nine days in the hospital for me, worrying about you from a separate room. Four weeks once I got here, waiting for the phone to ring twice a day. Your sister kept us updated with news from your doctors while we all held our breath and hoped against hope . . .

That you’d make it. We all believed you would. We’d been believing it ever since Dan drove up and called for the ambulances. I was so relieved when they all arrived. I just needed someone to take care of me. To take care of you. To take care of Brody. We were so sick. I was grateful for oxygen. Grateful for doctors and nurses and a place to rest. I knew we’d get well. You always got well, Rob. So did I. But this time . . .

Well, this time was different.

You sent me a picture of you in your hospital bed, blowing me a kiss while wearing the bi-pap oxygen line, tethered to all those monitors. I was so full of hope. And relief. And delusion. We didn’t know how sick we were, did we, darlin’? Especially, how sick you were. It took five long weeks for all of us to realize that this time . . .

This time. It was the last photo taken of you.

I began to cry last week, dreading today. Knowing it would all roll back in on me. The nightmare days I spent in the hospital while the nurses danced around the truth every time I asked how you were doing. The guilt I felt when I had to tell you they were going to release me. The catch in your struggling breath as you answered, “I’m so glad for you, darlin’.” You couldn’t come with me. I couldn’t stay. They wouldn’t let me come back. Not until . . .

The last time I saw you. That’s the next hurdle. That day will be here in a few weeks—when it’s been three hundred sixty-five days since I touched your hand and kissed your forehead and watched you fade away. I always thought you were going to make it, Babe. No one could have had more faith than me that you’d rally and we’d have one heck of a story to tell. This wasn’t the story I had in mind.

I’m talking to God again, honey. I guess you already know that. It’s different now. I don’t even know what prayer is anymore. It’s not what I thought. It’s not what everyone else thought either. But the other night I cried out to Him, asking Him to comfort me and give me hope. Right away Romans 8:28 rose up. For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God.  That’s a tall order. Losing you wasn’t God’s fault, no matter what anyone has tried to tell me. If they believe that, they don’t know God.

The first time I asked God to comfort me after you left was the first time I’ve ever had a vision from Him. As hard as it was for me to focus in those early days without you here, I sat with my eyes closed and tried to wait for hope. I saw God reach for me with His left arm and pull me in close to Him. It was pure and tender, and I knew He saw my anguish. When He turned to face me, I saw his right arm was wrapped around you, Babe. He saw the heartbreak in us and held us close to Himself. All three of us just stood there.

I think I’ve spent most of my life telling people I love goodbye. Waiting until I could see them again. Separation is the story of this broken world. But in that moment, hope pulled back the veil and I saw God’s heart for us. Sharing in our pain. Standing as the connection between us. Promising that He’d make good come out of even this horror.

I don’t know how He’s going to do it. I’m not even sure I believe it. I’m tired of pretending I have all the answers. None of us know. None of us have any idea what we’re doing. You know more than any of us now—you don’t even need faith anymore.

But I do. I need faith. I need hope. I need to get through the next five weeks as the last year finally counts down and I can put the “year of firsts” behind me. If only I didn’t have to. If only this time . . .

I could wake up and you’d still be here.

The Angel and the Drummer

Christmas came and went my love, but you weren’t here. 

It wasn’t the first one I’ve spent without you. Remember how you flew home to be with your family in Florida the year we began to date? We bought ornaments together before you left—a little angel in a blue dress for me and a gold-edged drum for you. You put the angel on your parents’ tree as you spent Christmas with them, and the drum stayed here on the tree in my family’s house. So we could think of each other while we were apart. Then you brought the drum back and left it with me while you did that tour in Germany with the Air Force. That was the first year the angel and the drum were on the same tree, but your Angel and my Drummer were apart at Christmas for the second year in a row. I began to wonder when we would ever celebrate this holiday together.

This afternoon, the day after my first Christmas since you went home to be with Jesus, I bought a sandwich from Firehouse Subs. I always think of you when I walk through their doors and see all the firefighter décor everywhere. They’ve become my favorite sub place ever since they kept me alive while I was in the hospital in Show Low. I think that medical facility is misnamed. When it comes to hospital food, "Summit" has reached a whole new low. I brought my Hook and Ladder Sandwich back here and found a post-Christmas Hallmark movie to watch. It wasn’t a comedy like I usually prefer. It felt a bit like a mystery, and I got sucked into it on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Everything was fine and semi-predictable right up until the cheesy ending. That’s what always happens, Baby. I let my guard down, I think I’m doing pretty good especially on the day after my first Christmas as your widow, and then out of the blue something triggers me and I’m flat on my face, sobbing again. After the typical crisis at the end of the movie where the two lovers misunderstand each other and one of them says, “I think you should leave now,” somehow they figure out where they went wrong, prove they can weather that storm and all the others ahead, and reunite so they can live happily ever after.

The woman saw her love coming toward her, took off running in his direction and, as the credits rolled, he caught her up in his arms and love conquered all again. Except that a forty-five-year-old memory flooded my heart, my breath caught, and I began to drown again in sorrow.

I’ve had a hard time remembering all the things that made up our life together, honey. I think because it hurts so much to realize how fast it went and recall all that I’ve lost in losing you. So, maybe I can thank Hallmark for these tears. Maybe with every painful memory of how happy we were I can reclaim the beautiful life we shared and find comfort in the remembering instead of fearing it.

When the Air Force gave you your discharge, and once you got that job in Florida, you flew back here to Phoenix. We hadn’t been together in sixteen months. I stood in the old terminal two at Sky Harbor Airport, anxiously scanning the crowd of passengers as they walked down the plane’s stairs and out onto the tarmac. And then there you were. Walking steadily toward me. I waited as long as I could and then I ran to you. I nearly knocked you over as we collided, but you wrapped your arms around me and gave me the first kiss I’d had from you in a year and a half. After that, the longest time we ever spent apart were two weeks stints when you had conferences to attend.

I never wanted to be away from you again. And we almost pulled it off. But now look at me. Look at us. The angel and the drummer aren’t even on my little tabletop tree this year the way they’ve always been every Christmas tree since 1975. Now they’re packed away in a storage shed with our furniture and all the rest of the ornaments we gathered as mementos of a life together well loved. I guess that’s appropriate, isn’t it, Baby? I loved all those memories represented by each ornament. Pulling them out of hibernation and hanging each one on just the right branch was a walk down memory lane together. From now on, I’ll walk that lane alone.

I can't handle that yet.

But I made it through yesterday, Rob. I felt your presence a couple of times. For that, I am grateful. In a strange way, I’m glad this sweet memory of our young love resurfaced even though it was carried by another tsunami of tears.

Still, I’m starting to think Hallmark movies are a little rough on a shattered heart like mine.

Maybe that's why you always preferred sci-fi and shoot 'em up films. No cheesy endings. Nothing to trigger a bittersweet memory and leave you sobbing in your sub sandwich.

Just a straight-forward flick where good conquers evil and nothing except giant fake gorillas can tug at your heart strings. I'll admit, watching Mighty Joe Young fall from that burning ferris wheel was sobering, but I'd have never cried over it the way you did, Rob. After all, I have my pride to think about.

I only cry at Hallmark movies that talk about angels.

And drummers.

More Than Just A Woman

Bent over, she sobbed at his feet, listening to the labored breathing of the man she loved more than life itself. He was dying and she was helpless to stop it. How did it come to this, she questioned, as confusion put her faith in jeopardy. What could she have done differently? What had she missed? Worse, what had he done to deserve this? He was the first to love her purely. The strongest man she’d ever known. The kindest heart ever born – everyone said so.

Now she was losing him, and with that loss, “a sword pierced her own soul.” His mother. A peasant woman without acclaim or influence, she was brushed aside by the political machine intent on killing her son. Helpless as she watched him die.

I thought about her this morning as I awoke to another day of my own brokenness, the tears from my face soaking into my pillow. Did she blame herself like I did? Wonder if somehow it was her fault that his life ended like that? Ridiculous, of course. Completely normal, though. “If only,” is the hallmark of every shattered heart, including mine. I sobbed at the side of my beloved, too, wondering what I could have done differently to prevent his death.

I had no influence, either, as I faced the political machine in charge of a pandemic. But since second guessing is the twin of 20/20 hindsight, I wonder if things would have turned out differently if I’d been a man. A man can command attention where a woman cannot. Maybe I’d have been consulted more often if I weren’t just the wife. Or, at the least, perhaps I’d have been treated with more respect by the hospital staff in Rob’s final moments if I'd been more than just a woman.

There is a frustrating, insulting imbalance when you’re a woman. I’m not a feminist, but I have no problem standing on the same ground where the apostle Paul stood when he wrote that “in Christ there is no longer male or female.” In the world, though, and even in the church, it is often a different story.

I’m not comparing myself to the mother of Jesus here. I’m relating to her as a woman. In her culture and time, women were less than second-class citizens—property, really—and openly treated that way. Except by Jesus, which shocked everyone. But Jesus made it clear, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Both he and his Father gave women equal value with men. It didn’t exactly make him popular with the religious culture of his time, though. So, why did he do it?

Because God created humanity in His own image—male and female created He them. This may surprise you, but God is neither male nor female. He encompasses in His wholeness all the qualities and uniqueness of both male and female. Neither is more significant than the other in the Godhead. And He calls His Church “the Bride of Christ.” A bride made up of both men and women. Yet, across the globe women are still disregarded, enslaved, impoverished, abused—and worse—simply because of their gender. A gender which is a reflection of God.

As someone who’s spent her entire life as a girl, I’m here to affirm that there is still a bias against women even here in the land of the free. I experience it often. Ask any woman you know, and she can give you any number of examples of disrespect that have come her way simply because she’s not a man. I guarantee it.

If women are created in the image of God, why are we so often pushed aside and treated as inferior? More than that, why are we the focus of hostility and suppression as seen throughout all of history?

Because of a promise. A promise made to the first woman at the moment of her worst defeat.

We are a unique prey, hunted by the adversary of God. The promise God made to Eve, after she was targeted by the snake in the Garden, was that the offspring of another woman would one day crush the evil viper’s head. Mary’s son did just that. And while the devil considers God his enemy, he knows he’s out of his league trying to compete with Him. There’s no way he can overpower his own Creator. Instead, in his hatred, he turns against those for whom Christ died—us. The sons and daughters of God, but especially God’s daughters.

It makes sense. If I were an enraged tyrant determined to use oppression as a weapon of mass destruction, I’d take aim on the vulnerable, too. Let’s face it. The enemy of our souls hates us. Here’s the twist—the devil bullies us to get at God.

The evil one who so hates God knows that the way to wound our Champion is to target us. Especially women. To make them feel less than. Defenseless. Insignificant. Worthless.

But we aren’t. We are daughters of the King.

We are warriors. It was not the strong, muscular body of a man which was chosen to protect and provide for new, innocent life and then endure excruciating pain, even potential death, to give birth. That endowment was entrusted to a woman. Entrusted to every daughter of Eve and of Mary, subjected to abuse and scorn they are the chosen vessels from which life springs. The mama bears who would sacrifice their own lives to protect their families. A dear friend of mine has a tiny tattoo on her wrist that says it all: Fierce. When it comes to defending their loved ones, women are fierce.

It was a woman who gave birth to the Savior, risking her life and protecting his. It was a woman who poured expensive perfume on his feet, foretelling his death. Women who wept at the foot of the cross while Jesus’ disciples scattered to parts unknown. Women who went to the tomb first, only to discover he was no longer dead. Women, with their intuitive natures and fearless devotion, recognized Jesus as the Messiah long before most of the men around them did.

And, as the psalmist states, “the women who proclaim the Good News are a great army.”

Maybe that’s the answer to the question on my mind. The reason the enemy of God hunts down and mistreats His daughters is because he can read. He knows we are a great army. And he’s panicking.

The Good News that has him running scared is this ~ God is for us. The King of the universe, Ruler of heaven and earth, all powerful, all knowing, the only eternal God Who is the embodiment of love, this is God and He is for us. All of us. Each of us. Every man, woman and child. Just as He was for Mary, holding her in the worst hours of her life, He is also for me, carrying me while I journey a long road of grief, looking for relief in this season of hope.

God is for us. The surprise of Christmas is Emmanuel—that God is with us. God became one of us. He’s with us in our heartbreaks. Our suffering. Our confusion. Mistreatment. Even in a loss like mine, God is with me every painful step of the way. I can’t see where I’m going, but I feel His arms around me.

The surprise of Christmas. The surprise in our sorrow. The promise that Jesus personally gave us in His birth and death and resurrection, “I Am with you always ~ even unto the end of the world.” Even unto the end of my world in that hospital room. For “if God is for us, who can be against us? Who can be our foe if God is on our side?”

Merry Christmas once again. Whatever the new year brings, I hope you face it knowing you are not alone. Emmanuel has come. And He is for you.

Joy To The World

Maybe I can blame it on low blood sugar. Or high blood sugar. I get those two mixed up. Does eating too much chocolate make you cry or does crying make you eat too much chocolate? This is as philosophical as it gets, I know.

Clearly, there’s too little clarity here. Just a lot of crying.

And that’s not right. It’s the wrong time of year for crying. This is the “hap - happiest season of all.” “The most wonderful time of the year.” I used to keep myself insulated from pain this time of year. Once Hallmark and Hobby Lobby opened their Pandora boxes of Christmas ribbon and fake snow, I put on my red and green blinders and refused to look at anything that didn’t scream “Happy Holidays!” I wanted my Christmas, and I wouldn’t let anything ruin it for me.

You know my family has suffered a tremendous loss this year. In February, my Rob succumbed to covid and Jesus gathered him into His arms. We let him go. We had to. In a few days it will be ten months since I last held Rob’s hand. I’ve been making my way through all the “firsts” ever since. The first Valentine’s Day without my true love. The first Easter. All our birthdays. Our anniversary. Last month was Thanksgiving. In less than two weeks, Christmas. None of them have felt the same without Rob.

We’re not alone in our loss. In fact, we are surrounded by so much suffering I’ve begun to wonder if we have any right to celebrate anything anymore. A friend lost her son soon after Rob died. Several firefighters have lost their cancer battles this year, men my son-in-law worked with. Another friend’s son, a father with young children, has a terminal diagnosis. More friends of Rob’s parents have passed this fall. Multiple friends of mine have endured their own covid crises, some of them hospitalized, most surviving after strenuous battles, while others still fight in ICU. And that doesn’t take into account the wearying state of the world as we each determine how best to navigate an abnormal normal. Always, as Jesus foretold, there are wars and rumors of wars. Weather peculiarities have been so frequent, they’re becoming the norm. Yesterday the worst tornado on record scoured America’s heartland and tonight close to one hundred families are grieving the loss of people they loved. Our son and his family in Kentucky were spared. Others were not. At Christmas.

How, under the low hanging clouds of sorrow, can we dare allow joy in any measure to invade our lives? How dare we sing of Joy To The World?

I took my daughter and her family to see a play this afternoon. My son loves this story, too, and quotes the unexpected heroine on social media every Christmas morn. Katy read “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” to her children (and me) a couple of weeks ago, so when we found out a local children’s theater group was performing a musical rendition of it today, I bought tickets. We needed some laughter and hope in a season that has arrived with heartbreak. The story of a rowdy group of outcast siblings who invade the sanctimonious performance of a local church’s annual Christmas play is hilarious on its own. But when the new arrivals steal the show with their own startling realization that the baby in the manger is just like them, tradition and ego are tossed out like discarded wrapping paper and the ground beneath the cradle proves level. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

“Hey!” Imogene Herdman yelled with genuine enthusiasm, her halo askew and her face smattered with dirt. “Unto you a Child is born!” She wasn’t your ordinary, everyday angel. But it wasn’t an ordinary, everyday newborn either. Babies arrive wrapped in hope, little miracles that remind us not to give up.

Here on the mini-farm where two sheep, two dogs, one tortoise, and multiple chickens reside, there are also three little pigs. Appropriate, right? One male and two females: Boris, Natasha, and Maggie. Boris and Natasha became parents early this morning. The timing was incredible. After weeks of speculation about whether Natasha was eating like a pig or just eating for two (or ten), close inspection yesterday revealed that the little lady was about to become a mother. Boris and Maggie were ousted from their family’s enclosure, the pig pen was mucked out, fresh hay brought in, a heat lamp set up, and though no one knew the timing, everyone prepared and waited. For a minute.

This morning I wandered out to see the little ones after reading the proclamation of their birth in an excited text message. There inside a small stable, surrounded by warm hay, Natasha lay resting while the newborns, Dasher and Dancer (well, it is Christmas), brother and sister, enjoyed their first ever breakfast. Baby pigs are almost as cute as baby goats. The Brady Farm has birthed quite a number of animals over the years, but this is the first time I’ve been here to witness such fresh arrivals.

Last night, surprised as we all were by the delightful news that baby animals would soon be born, I told Katy, “New life is always wonderful.”  Death has paid too many visits to us and our family, our friends, and our world this year. Though my shattered heart recovers slowly, even I felt it—a tiny sparkle of joy at the news that soon we would have a reason to celebrate the miracle of life again. I was caught off-guard by the thrill I felt. I guess even in frightening, uncertain times, Carl Sandburg continues to be right. “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” Even if the baby belongs to a pig named Natasha.

While the world, whether corporately or personally, may appear to have plunged into total darkness, it has not. Because unto us a Child was born—the Life, the apostle John said, that is the Light of men. And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it.

And it never will. Finally, after a year of horror, a sparkle of hope invades my heart, and I remember again that love always wins.

Hey! Unto you a Child is born!

Love Letters

I see you crying. Leaning against that bookcase in your temporary home, head on your hands beneath your favorite picture of me. I’m here, Babe. I hear you. I love you. 

Reaching for me when the lights go out in your heart, I heard you say you’ve got an investment in heaven because I’m here. I’m watching and praying for you where I stand in the presence of Father. We see you. You’re not alone even though I know you feel like you are.

I’m here. He’s here. Fighting for you.

The hummingbirds that hover outside your window—they’re a reminder from me. Remember how I took care of them? Now they help care for you, reminding you I’m near, that the veil is thin. I’m praying for you to hold fast, Overcomer. This isn’t forever, this separation. We will be together again. You know that’s the truth.

That day in Montana when you stood in the cedar forest and had to lean against the tree for support. I was there, too. I saw you. I heard you. You said against the rough bark of that tree, “I wish I could show all of this to you, Rob.” We both enjoyed being in the woods together. I answered you there. “Wait til I can show you everything that I see here.” Remember? I watched your face. I know you heard me. Of course, we can still hear each other. We’re both in Christ and He’s in us.

That paper you framed and hung on the wall near the table in your room? The one Allie found after I left? It was a love letter from me. I want you to always know. Always remember. I know you—that broken heart of yours, wounded since you were a kid. Remember this always—you are “my love, my life, my all!” You’re still my Sanserai.

Watching you cry beside the rose bush today. The replacement for the one I bought you when you were the one who was sick. My name below it. I know that’s hard—to see my name and not see me. The feather dropped there beside it was for you. I’m so close and you don’t even know it.

Another tear. You can cry with me.

Baby, it’s going to be okay! We’ll be together again. Count on it. Face to face, in each other’s arms. Wait until you see what I can see, Babe. I’m still here. I’m more alive than I ever was. I know you hate to wait. I know how much you miss having me there. I’m so proud of you. I’ve always been proud to have you for my wife.

Hold on, My Love. Remember, this is temporary. Hold fast, Overcomer, hold fast. Hang on! I’m here. I’m waiting for you.

I love you, darlin’.

 

I re-read your letter tonight, honey. I've gathered up some of the things you’ve shared with my spirit in the last nine months and put them down on paper. Today was a day of sadness and delights. My first Thanksgiving without you, Rob.

There have been others, of course, when you were on duty and we visited you at the fire station. There’s no way to visit you now, but I felt your presence tonight as we all sat down at Katy’s dinner table—the one you grew up sitting around in your mother’s dining room. We bowed our heads and while Dan prayed thanksgiving, I felt you. I knew you were standing beside me, present with us. I prayed you were felt at Lee and Jess’s Thanksgiving today, too. Sometimes I just know when you’re near. Like tonight.

Katy and I talked at her counter while she pulled food from the fridge hours earlier. “I miss him today,” she said suddenly, and I nodded. “There’s such an empty space here that he used to fill.” She’s right. I felt it, too. I’ve felt it all day, trying to put on a brave face, throwing a spin on my perspective. “It’s just an American holiday,” I tell myself. “There’s no reason to cry. I’ve never even met a pilgrim.” It doesn’t work, though. It’s tradition. You loved Thanksgiving. Now we all celebrate the day that rings of paradox—thankful for God’s care. Brokenhearted that you’re gone.

I’ve tried to explain what this emptiness, this void without you, feels like. The closest I can come is to describe it like an amputation. You’ve been beside me for forty-four years. The vacancy is massive. It’s like I walk around in an empty stadium, looking for you, listening to the echo of my own voice, my arms swinging through oceans of air but feeling nothing. No one.

We miss you, Baby. I hear it in our son’s voice when we talk. I see it in our daughter’s eyes every day. I guess none of us knows what an impact is left by our wake when we set sail for the other side. Only those left behind see and feel its effects.

How I wish we saw and held you instead.

I am grateful, though, that you continue to make your presence known. Thankful for the reminders of your continuing love. Thankful that we can commune in spirit even if separated physically right now. I’m grateful for the signs you send my way that reinforce the burgeoning recognition that you and Father see our sorrow and provide comfort. Like the feather I picked up this evening near the pasture gate, to remind me you are near and I am held.

Happy Thanksgiving, Baby. I love you.

With gratefulness to Liz West for permission to use her photo above. The original can be viewed at the following link:

letters | I bought this packet of letters at an auction; it … | Flickr

And Hope Does Not Disappoint

From where I sit in this borrowed space, sunlight invading through the twin windows opposite my chair, there is peace. There is order. And there is silence.

Everywhere are reminders of him. His helmet on the wall. His favorite hat atop the high bookshelf. The gifted windchimes spinning outside which bear his name. His two flags, presented to me in his honor and memory, stand at attention near his photos.

The tabletop Christmas tree I put up yesterday makes me aware of the season we’ve just entered. Last year he put up the giant one in our little lost cabin. This year I walk out my courage once more, even though decorating reminds me there will be no more magical Christmases spent with him.

The silence is deafening, my also-widowed friend wrote.

It is.

But it is also stalwart. There is strength here. A slowly revealing hope. A tranquility which plays out in the cool blues and grays of this borrowed space echoes the promise of my daughter’s favorite plaque, hung on the wall inside her home nextdoor.

All shall be well ~ All shall be well ~ And all manner of things shall be well

My tears cry out in daily desperation, praying this comfort is true.

How can one live in both hope and unbearable sorrow at the same time? How can I put one foot before the other one more time after time after time? How do I keep taking in one breath after the next after the next?

Daily, in all the pain in which I live, with all the grief I am learning to carry, I know this:

God is for me. He carries me. He loves me deeply.

In this dark, yet joy-filled, season where morning sunlight filters hope, it is all I know.

Many thanks to Richard Walker for permission to use the lovely photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: 

Windermere Rays | Rays of sunlight fall on Windermere, Lake … | Flickr

Echoes

I guess at the very moment I got that call, the one no one ever wants to believe they’ll have to answer, my mind went numb. Paralysis set in. For weeks afterwards, months actually, I couldn’t remember our life together. I forgot the sound of his voice. Couldn’t recall his mannerisms or his body language. If a happy memory tried to surface, something interrupted and it disappeared, the way a soap bubble bursts just as you reach out for it.

I became afraid that I’d never remember anything about our life together. “That’s silly,” some might say. “You’re just in shock. It’ll all come back to comfort you.” But how would I know that? I’ve never lost my husband before. Have you?

I filled the dresser with his photos. Then I packed them all up again. “I’ll face those later,” I whispered. He looks too alive in them. I can’t make the connection between a normal moment from a year ago when we took our marriage for granted, certain that death didn’t know our home address, until today where I sit alone in my room, craving his voice and his scent and his touch. How could I have ever been so deluded as to believe we’d always be together, just because we signed all our cards that way every Christmas?

Gradually the swelling that surrounds my broken heart begins to subside. With every morning that I wake up without Rob beside me, I become a little more accustomed to his absence. I squint in the new day’s light at meager glimpses of our life together, cautiously testing recall’s tenderness the way you’d put a toe in a tub of hot water. Still wary of the pain of remembering the way he loved me, how comfortable we were together, how easy it was to move in a rhythm created by years of trial and error and laughter and living, an unexpected irony emerges.

The first memories that flood my mind arrive with regret.

I recall how, when our children first left home to create their own adult lives, I was deluged with the luxury of remorse. Instead of relishing smiling moments, shared jokes, proud accomplishments, and answered prayer, I remembered my failures as a mother, wishing that, somehow, I could hit a rewind button and apply all that I’d learned from those mistakes and change my reactions. The pain I caused my children because of my ignorance and pride screamed so loudly in my conscience it silenced the multitude of happy times we spent as a family.

Just so, the memory of Rob’s and my life together works its way backward from now, unavoidably passing through the troubled waters of our illness, our hospitalization, our forced separation due to hospital policies, the stress of moving away from family and friends, selling a home we loved, the surprise of retirement’s adjustments and stresses, until, exhausted, I can gaze at these images no longer.  I realized quickly that I, as the surviving spouse, have been left as the curator of all our memories. There is no one else to call in to question the details. My version is recognized on the witness stand as gospel. Whether or not my recall is accurate, the only other eyewitness to our life is no longer here and no longer has a voice.

Unfortunately for me, my inner critic is experienced at condemnation. Once again, I see my failures. Regret my words, my self-centered moments, my insecurities, my neediness. I wish I had done things differently. Been kinder. More understanding. More generous. More . . . everything. I bargain with God, begging for even one minute with Rob again. In a dream or a vision, anything, somehow to tell him face to face how much I love him and always will love him and am sorry I wasn’t a better wife and playmate and partner and friend and . . . listener.

Regret rolls in where Rob’s laughing eyes once dismissed worries like these.

I tell myself that if I think about all those memories we built together and cherished for the future and invested in for the lean times, if I remember the millions of happy times we shared, that they will push away the sadness and remorse and help me, as someone told me who still has her husband, to “just be thankful for all the years you had together.”

Perhaps it’s just my melancholy personality. My tendency toward guilt and self-condemnation. My ongoing shock that he’ll never hold me in his wonderful arms again, that I’ll never bury my face against his neck, or smell the fragrance of his skin again.

Or maybe it’s this. The day I had to say good-bye took me so by surprise that I have spent the last nine months second guessing everything that brought us to that point. And still I have no answers. Only, as I have said, regrets. And questions that are hard to move past to where the happy memories live.

And then I realize. At first startling, the truth of this comes packaged in understanding and hope.

Wherever you’re standing when the door slams shut is the place where its sound echoes loudest.

Many thanks to Kerry O'Connor for permission to use the photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link:

Door Eighteen | Very old doorway from an abandoned house. I … | Flickr

Widow's Dance

Two steps back . . .

One step forward,

Two steps . . .

That’s the wrong way to dance. But I’m not dancing. I’m barely breathing sometimes. I’m just pantomiming the life I know I have to live. Bowing to the shadows, taking my cue from the rising sun, I make my way out of bed, do the things, shut out the lights, and go back to bed at the end of a long day of surviving.

Day after day after day.

There’s no calendar for this. No roadmap. I don’t know where I’m going or when I’m supposed to get there. I don’t know if I’m doing this right. Or wrong. Most of the time I feel like I’m carried along by momentum. Caught up in this awkward, painful dance. Trying. God, how I am trying. But I can’t feel the rhythm. It doesn’t seem to exist in this silent vacuum devoid of Rob.

I don’t know what my purpose is anymore. I am loved. Surrounded by family, supported by them and my friends, I know I am loved. I take care of my own business. Pay my bills. Clean my room. Do my laundry. Drum my fingernails. Escape in my truck. Eat too much sugar. Hope for a sign that Rob sees me and prays for me. That’s not very Baptist of me, but I’m not much of a Baptist anymore.

What I am is, suddenly, against my will, retired. I’m a retired housewife. An out of work homemaker. Once skilled at caring for my husband, my services are no longer required. There’s no employment bureau to turn to. How weird would that be? The worst part is how inexperienced I am at being a widow. Turns out you don’t need to know anything about it before you’re placed in that position. It goes hand in hand with retirement. I even qualified for a widow’s pension, courtesy of the Social Security Administration. They gave me a one-time paycheck of $255.00 for being my husband’s widow. I don’t know how they arrived at that figure or whether it was a reflection on me or Rob, but it was an insult regardless.

That’s what death feels like. An insult of the worst kind. No matter how well you took care of yourself and the one you loved, death is inevitable and rarely is it a "buy one get one free" opportunity. One of you is gone. One of you is retired. Left to dance alone. In the dark and the silent void.

One step forward.

Two steps back.

Out of rhythm.

Bowing to the shadows in pantomime.

With thanks to Soffie Hicks for permission to use the phine photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following the link below:

Dancing ghost feet | Soffie Hicks | Flickr

Down

And she’s down. Face down on the table again. Five minutes earlier she was laughing with the grands, beating the card shark at her own game, giving robot hugs and blowing kisses. Picking up the cell phone/daily calendar/keeper of the memories, his picture flashes across the screen. Three years ago in Texas, they stood by a river together, acting like life was normal and nothing could go wrong. Unaware that all they had left was three more years. She took a photo of him taking a photo, his turquoise wedding band always evident on that hand she loved so much. The one that held her face so often. The one that wiped the tears from her eyes. Held the steering wheel while his other hand held hers across the console. The world was theirs.

Until it wasn’t.

Tears flowing freely, she’s always amazed at how quickly she can be knocked on her back by a reminder. He always looks so real in these pictures.  That jawline she first fell in love with. She knows every expression on his face. Every voice inflection he ever made. She’s held his hand so many times, when she lies alone in bed she can imagine it holding hers again. She remembers every detail of the body that once was hers and hers alone.

And she weeps. Face down on the dining room table, knees buckling again, she weeps. Grief holding her in its vice, unexpectedly seizing her heart again, she gives in to the moment and sits in the pain. Someday, she once read, the vice will relax a bit. The pain will loosen somewhat and, along with love, the two will find new pathways. Little by little, all on their own. Unforced, impervious to willpower or pressure, when they are ready, not when she demands it. Until that happens,

She is down again. On her face. Weeping

Everywhere and Nowhere

I sit at their dining room table. The one you and I brought back here to Arizona from your childhood home. The one with the memories of all the Thanksgivings and Christmases celebrated year after year as a different generation of McLeods gathered together in your parents’ house in Florida. Our daughter makes the meals for this table now, in her home where her children laugh and learn, a wealth of guests are made welcome, and extended family, like me, are included.

And I remember. I remember the first night I sat at this table. The first night I met your family. I was terrified, young, so inexperienced. Sixteen years old, with the sparkling diamond you’d just given me hidden in my lap, I tried to relax and join in the dinnertime banter bouncing around the room, this mahogany expanse between us all. A bowl of fresh strawberries in front of me, nervously I brought the spoon to my mouth only to have the ripe, red fruit roll off and onto my blue jeans. I glanced around, relieved that no one had seen what happened. No one but you, Babe. And you sold me out.

Your dad, the intimidating Scotsman whose jovial eyes betrayed his next move, stood up and went quietly into the kitchen. Grabbing one of your mother’s aprons, he walked around the table to me and secured the cotton ties around my neck, the whole of my clothing now protected by a giant, makeshift bib.

“There now, darlin’,” your dad teased, “you can drop as many strawberries in your lap as you want to.” He took his seat as laughter exploded around this very table and my face went as red as my dessert. I loved your dad forever for making me feel part of your crazy family that night. And I never forgave you for ratting me out.

“YaYa,” the young voice calls, breaking into my memories, “it’s your turn to deal.” Tonight, my nine-year-old granddaughter and I sit at one end of the long expanse of dining table playing cards together. I shuffle, deal, and sit back again, absentmindedly staring out the wide picture window on my left. Waiting expectantly, unconsciously noting the time and how long it’s been since we ate supper, I watch for your truck. Listen for your step. Yearn for your smile. In a split second, my heart leans forward in full awareness that you are missing from this small gathering, that you’re late, you’re not here when you should be, only to have my mind jump in and coldly remind me that you’re not coming home. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

You’ll never sit beside me at this table again.

Baby, you have no idea what a gaping hole has been blown through my life. The way I can do something as casual and innocent as play a game of cards, when suddenly I realize for the millionth time that you’re not here. This isn’t our table. Our life together has ended. In those brief moments, grief takes advantage of my inattention and pulls me back down again into its quicksand of sorrow. This is the slog of grief.

I had no idea what this was like until it happened to me. Trying to adjust to life without “us”, without you, is probably going to take the rest of my life. The fog that filters in and out of my mind is strangely blinding. There are moments after all these months since you left when I think I’m getting it. The paperwork is all completed. The mail arrives with only my name on it—usually. The memorials are all behind us. I’ve made it through half a year of “firsts.” I go to bed alone. Wake up alone. Day after day, alone. There’s no reason to expect you to show up at this point. No reason at all except that for forty-seven years of my life, you were my person. You were my everything. I have no idea if that’s some kind of idolatry when God is supposed to be our all, but since coming up with marriage between one man and one woman was His idea, a picture of His love for His Church, I’m gonna say “no.” Missing you is normal. What’s abnormal is that you’re not here.

And that makes me a sitting duck for grief’s cruel reminders. A target for familiarity. You are still a massive part of me, woven into the fiber of my soul. Nothing fills the place where you lived and breathed into my life. My empty heart cries out when I’m not even thinking about you, pulling my attention back to its painful awareness that you’re gone. I have no answer for its questions. Only tears.

I see you everywhere. And nowhere. I see you in the mountains where we picnicked. At our favorite restaurants where we celebrated. In the gas stations where you always parked me in the shade. In the grocery where you knew which eggs I always bought and where you waited for me at the registers. Your fire helmet hangs on the wall in this room, across from where I sleep on the mattress you bought. The folded flags they gave me stand in respect behind your photos and your favorite ballcap. But you’re not here. Only these shadows of you remain.

Life is like that. Exhilarating and cruel, almost in the same breath. One minute you’re a teenager in love, dropping strawberries in your lap at the family table, and the next you’re a widow playing cards at that same table with your granddaughter, wishing to God for something as ordinary as the sound of your husband's footsteps in the hall.

I miss you. I will always look for you and miss you.

You are everywhere and nowhere.

With thanks to Veronica Aguilar for the exceptional photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: Such a lovely day in London! | Veronica Aguilar | Flickr