14 Thursday Jan 2010
Posted in daily life, Mom
::world events notwithstanding::
This has been the LONGEST week. How is today only Thursday?!
Today would have been my Mom’s birthday and I’m consumed by how much I miss her. I’m feeling overwhelmed and crappy and sad.
25 Wednesday Nov 2009
What an unusual day today was. All day long, I was reminded so clearly of the day my Mom died. The temperature outside. The sun shining. It’s hard to explain. There have been lots of cool-ish, partially sunny days since that terrible day…but none that felt as much like that one as this one. I clearly remember sitting outside and talking on my phone and being cool but not cold. I remember it being sunny but not bright. I was reminded of things today that I haven’t thought of in years.
Hearing from friends today (hi Sara and Sarah!) has been such a blessing and a reminder of how I am surrounded by friends who love me better than I deserve. It was a long, slow-moving day, and it was mostly good. (There were lots of flashes of sad, and a good bit of mad, but that’s pretty much how I roll day to day.) I know, cognitively, that there’s nothing particularly different about yesterday vs. today. I also understand that imparting too much significance onto these anniversary dates can make things unnecessarily difficult but honestly, I’m glad it’s over. Even if only because it’s not in front of me anymore. I said last year that I wanted to travel this year but I didn’t do enough planning to make that happen.
Next year, though…on the road.
Also: looking forward to more color and less grey in the next year. That would be good.
24 Tuesday Nov 2009
Posted in Mom
When I got home that Wednesday night, my sister was still at my parents’ house. We all sat around in the living room, the four of us, chatting and talking and catching up. I remember telling my family about stuff at work, my small group at church, other stuff. We talked about our Thanksgiving dinner plans for the next day: who was coming and what still needed to be done. We talked for a couple of hours before we called it a night. We all said our goodnights, then my sister headed to her house, my Mom went to bed, I went upstairs to read and my Dad stayed up to read.
“I’m headed to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”
Those would be the last words I remember hearing from my Mom. I can’t remember telling her I loved her. She knew, though, right? Surely she knew. I have replayed this scene over and over in my head. I’ve tortured myself with it (and sometimes, I still do) and I can’t remember telling her I loved her. It was all so mind-numbingly normal that I simply can’t remember.
I think I read about three pages of the book I brought home before I abandoned it for fitful sleep. I haven’t touched it since. That book, When Life and Beliefs Collide, might have been exactly what I needed, but I have to admit that I absolutely felt abandoned by God that next morning and for much of the four years since. My life and my beliefs were absolutely colliding and I needed my God to show up and be God (in the form of the ultimate fixer/miracle worker), to make this un-happen, to make this nightmare not my reality. I still don’t understand why she’s dead and I’ll tell anyone who asks that I want her back. My faith is not so great that I’m ready to say “Okay, Lord. Not my will, but yours. This is not what I would have chosen, but I trust you.” Not on this issue, not yet.
I long to get to that place of peace…being mad at God is hard. It’s exhausting and I know that I can’t get to where I want to be spiritually with this chip on my shoulder. Tears are streaming down my face as I write this because I know the Lord is calling me to surrender to him on this issue, again and completely, but I can’t do it on my own. I don’t know how and I’m not even sure I want to.
After suffering loss in her own life, my friend M told me that she’s let go of the need to know why. For her own sanity, she had to let that need go. She said there will never be anything that anyone could say, not even God, that would make her losses justified. Writing that now, it sounds so arrogant, but I get what she meant.
I don’t know where I was going with this post when I started it, but I can unequivocally tell you this as I wrap it up: I miss my mother. I miss her every single day, not just today, the anniversary of her death. When I left the admissions office and took a new job, I wrote that her death expands to fill the new spaces in our lives. For a long time, I allowed her death to define me because it was somehow easier. I don’t want to do that anymore, but I am terrified of moving forward without her. I don’t want to forget the sound of her voice or the way it felt to be in her embrace. How do I walk that line, to remember her and honor her without living in the past? I’m not sure. Looking at her death in a new way is a little like starting over.
Maybe it’s time to pick up that book again.
12 Thursday Nov 2009
Posted in Mom
Those of you who know me may know that Roxie is my car. Did you know she was my Mom’s car? The weekend that my Mom died I was actually planning to purchase a new vehicle, but I ended up with hers instead. I love driving this car. I love that it was hers. For many months, maybe even a few years, I left a few things exactly as she had them. I didn’t change the radio’s preset buttons until I moved back to Texas last year! There are still a few items in the driver’s door map pocket that were hers, including a phone number of one of her good friends who was planning to join us for Thanksgiving dinner. I see this number, written in my Mom’s handwriting, almost everytime I exit my vehicle. It’s a nice reminder.
I have an updated insurance card so I was going through the glove box today and realized that my Mom kept a log of every time she filled up her gas tank. I had seen the little notebook in there, of course, but I didn’t realize the log was kept current. I can trace every tank of gas she bought from this car’s very first until her last, about ten days before she died.
I don’t know why this has made me so sad. Maybe it’s seeing her diligence in action…maybe it’s the handwriting…maybe it’s just because I miss her. I removed all of the old and outdated insurance info, but I put that gas log right back where it was. That seems to be the best place for it.
03 Tuesday Nov 2009
Posted in Mom, old song/new thoughts
From my quiet time this morning: Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 90:14.
I don’t know where you are in your spiritual journey, but don’t ever doubt that God speaks to us, directly, intentionally and exactly as we need, through the Scriptures! It happens all of the time and it happened to me today. If my joy is found in things on this earth, I will be joyless much of time. I am mercurial and overly analytical. My self-worth rises and falls with the numbers on the scale, my ability to do this thing or that, an unanswered text. That’s not what we are called into as believers! God’s unfailing love, hesed, is love based on a committed relationship with us. There’s an expectation that we will respond in a like manner because of our love for him. My joy, therefore, can’t be based on what’s around me. It has to have a firm foundation in the one who created joy in the first place.
You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
I’ve just decided that I’m reclaiming Thanksgiving this year. I don’t know exactly what that will look like, but I’m not going to try to avoid it anymore. First of all, that’s a pointless endeavor. (Have you ever tried to dodge a national holiday? Futile!) Secondly, I have SO MUCH for which to be thankful! Between my family, friends and friends who are family, I have been richly blessed. I have friends both near and far (wherever you are, I know that my heart will go on…) and that’s a wonderful thing.
I don’t know what this “reclaiming Thanksgiving” will look like. It won’t involve turkey and dressing…I don’t know that I’ll ever be excited about traditional food on this food-centered holiday, but maybe the biggest change is in how I feel about it. It’s not that this time of year doesn’t still make me sad. It does. I miss my Mom and she loved this time of year. She would have thoroughly enjoyed a beautiful fall day like today! She even chose to get married the day after Thanksgiving because she loved this season so much. My preference would be to freeze time so that no more days pass between when she was alive and the present, but I can’t figure out how to do that. It seems time is going to keep marching forward. I can let it walk on me or I can get up and march with it.
Walk on.
I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
31 Saturday Oct 2009
When I was in junior high, I took a “computer programming” class. It was six or twelve lessons of basic computer literacy and there was a short bit on programming.
Start.
Run.
End.
One of the things I remember most vividly from this class is the conditional if, then statement.
If X happens or is true, then Y must happen.
In the process of getting moved into my new computer, I’ve been going through old pictures. I see so much of my life in Arkansas represented and I’m drawn to pictures that were taken from about August to October, 2005. I can’t stop looking at these images. That was a particularly tough period in my life–drama with a boy, issues with communication in my workplace–and I thought that it was about over. Things were largely resolved. When I look at pictures taken during Homecoming weekend in late October, I seem relaxed. My sister was in town, Kristi and Michele were around. Tunes was great. I had no idea what was coming, of course.
If I knew what was about to happen, then I would have paid more attention.
If I would have…, then I could have….
There are a few things that torture me about that fall, and one of them is that I just breezed through it, relentlessly self-centered, like things were always going to be as they were then. Other people might call it simply living life and at the time, I would have, too. I guess I just want to tell the girl in those pictures to hold on to her hat because things were about to change. I want to tell her to pay attention. I look at her face, my face, and I want to see some shadow of what’s coming but of course there is none.
Every single day since my Mom died, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop: I don’t ever want to be that surprised again. And if you’re wondering, yes, that’s a terrible way to live. It’s exhausting and it’s draining. Part of the journey I’ve been on with the Lord is learning to relax in him. Not that difficult times won’t happen, because they will. It’s just that I needn’t be destroyed by the difficulty. And it’s not even that I’m being assured of some sort of warning…it’s just that maintaining and strengthening my relationship with the Lord provides a firm, ready foundation for when life is hard.
If I believe God is who he says he is, then I must believe what he says. I know that if some of it is true, then all of it is true. Because I’ve seen God move in my life and in the lives of strangers, friends, family and others I love, I know that his word, the Bible, is true.
I can stare at those pictures all day long but there’s no way to change who I was when those pictures were taken. Everything that’s happened to me since, the unspeakable, the joyful and all of the rest have all worked together to bring me to where I am right now. My responsibility is not to look back, to warn about what’s coming. Time doesn’t work that way! My responsibility is to ask the Lord every day “what can I do today to serve you? How do I advance your kingdom on earth today? What will I do for you with this day you have given me?” I am ashamed at how self-centered I have been. I am amazed at God’s grace and his willingness to rescue me from my sin.
If…then: a conditional statement that (paradoxically?) proves to me how faithful my God is.
If I believe, then I will be saved.
If I call upon him, he will answer me.
If I seek him, [then] he will be found.
If I draw near to him, then he will draw near to me.
That’s Good News, indeed.
I miss my sweet Mother. Hug yours for me, will you?
30 Friday Oct 2009
Posted in inner monologue, Mom
Lord, help me to navigate this season of my life. I know that it’s not purposeless. Grant me the wisdom to learn what you’re teaching me and the grace to let go of the rest.
25 Sunday Oct 2009
Posted in daily life, Mom, work
I’m in the middle of a battle.
02 Friday Oct 2009
Posted in daily life, Mom
Firstly, it’s October and it’s just beautiful outside! Yay! for that. I’m actually sitting outside on the patio as I type this. I love this time of year. I’ve not been this…relaxed…in October for years. (It was before I fully understood the weight of Tunes.) I say that, but as I type, I can see my own reflection in the screen and my brow is furrowed. I don’t even feel it. I should loosen up or that’ll be a wrinkle in forty years. November is coming, but, you know…one day at a time.
Ahem.
I have a storage unit where I store most of my stuff. I went there today to take some things there and to look for another thing (a mission on which I scored one out of two, sadly). While I was there, I took a look around and I thought about the stuff. My stuff. I have to admit, I miss my stuff. I miss my decorations, I miss my kitchen towels, I miss opening the drawer in my kitchen and seeing my rolling pin. I miss seeing my books. I will also freely admit that I have too much stuff.
I was joking around with one of my favorite people a few weeks ago and I admitted that I even keep email messages that are long past their prime. (Case in point: I have messages that people sent to me my very first day at my job in admissions. In February of 2002. See? I told you!) Unfortunately, my need to keep things extends to the physical world as well. I have all kinds of detritus from various stages in my life. It’s time to simplify. As it happens, I had the opportunity to retrieve (in other words, it was moved out of the place where it was and was then being stored in the garage in giant trash bags) some items I’d left at my Dad’s house when it was still my Mom and Dad’s house. The room I grew up in had two closets and I was using one of them for items I wanted to keep but didn’t really want to keep with me as I moved from place to place. When I bought my house in Arkansas, my Mom told me that it was time to get my stuff. I replied that I had no place to put that stuff in my 956 sq. foot house, so I bought a little bit more time.
Fast forward several years and I’m confronted with these bags of closet contents and it’s time to purge. I went through these bags today and am flooded/overwhelmed with memories. I found the t-shirt from the first church camp I went to (I believe it was the summer after fourth grade), t-shirts from college and many, many from the years in between. My Mom used to sew and I’ve kept just about everything she ever made for me. Those items were in the bags too. Years of church camp/mission trip tees. Old drill sheets from high school band. The wills from my high school senior class. I even found some of my girl scout patches! My letter jacket. The gown I wore when I graduated from college. Costumes and uniforms. What on earth do I do with all of this stuff? Most of it got thrown away, but I did keep the letter jacket (not sure why, but I’m not ready to get rid of it just yet), some of my favorite t-shirts, the items made by my mother and the very first letter shirt I received after pledge week. I also stumbled across my sole piece of Units clothing from high school. Those of you who are my contemporaries remember this stuff, and I had a navy jumpsuit/one piece and I loved it. It was a birthday gift, so this is the time of year that I would have been wearing it. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I not only kept the Units outfit (and the matching stretchy belt), but I’m currently wearing it. Right now. It’s very comfortable. It’s not pretty (and by that I mean if the house caught on fire, I’d change out of this get-up before I left the premises) but it’s cozy.
There was also a few items that belonged to my Mom mixed in there as she also used a closet in that room for storage. I’m not entirely sure how we missed these items when we sorted through her clothes, but I’m glad we did. I am much shorter and (currently) smaller than my Mom was, so I can’t wear her clothes, but I kept them just the same.
It’s been a good day, but I can see it going downhill if I don’t refocus my energy and my thoughts. I’m going to spend some more time on the patio this evening and enjoy this lovely fall day. I love October. I love this time of year. I miss my Mom and I probably miss you.
I wonder how much longer fall is going to make me feel like I should be on the road, traveling?
01 Tuesday Sep 2009
So, I don’t tithe. I never really have. As I learn more about God and being obedient to him, he keeps reminding me that it’s obedience in all things, including my finances.
I, somehow, manage to spend pretty much what I make. I’m beginning to track those purchases to see where in the heck it all goes, but part of that is also me figuring out, “so, if I give God ten percent, what does that mean for the rest of the budget?” Oh wait, I don’t really have one of those either. I sort of do, but it’s not nearly as formal and laid out as it should be.
I have goals, things I want to do, places I want to go (literally and otherwise) and I can’t do that without getting my priorities right. I’m sort of overwhelmed and discouraged right now, but this is just the beginning.
For those of you that do tithe, and even give additional funds away, was it something that you worked toward or did you always have that as a part of your plan? Would God be disgusted by my offering if I can only do 5 or 7 percent right now? Would he honor that or should I not mess with it until I can do the ten?
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I so wish my Mom were here. Every new corner I turn is a reminder that she’s gone, and it’s the small things that get me the most, again and again and again. Sometimes, I can manage not to think of it for a few hours or more, but then like a damaged limb that’s healing but not quite healed, I take a misstep and the searing pain reminds me that she’s gone. I want more than anything for this wound to heal, but I also can’t imagine a more disloyal desire. How can I truly move forward without forgetting her, leaving her behind? There’s no manual for this and figuring it out is excruciating. When I get it right, I don’t get the reward of feeling good, it just doesn’t feel bad. There’s been so much bad.
I’m so ready for the good.
(For the handful of people who read this, this wasn’t much fun, but it needed to be said. I promise not to talk about tithing and death in the next post.)
