Letting go - Part 5: Coming Home

It was a moment I'll never forget.  Canon in D had stopped playing, and we stood nervously, ritualistically at the altar after our procession.  Our parents stood proudly behind us, as our friend Jason (an ordained minister) asked who would be giving us away this day.  After our parents' words, "We do," rang happily through the sanctuary, the crowd of loved ones behind us unexpectedly erupted in laughter.  "What in the WORLD just happened??"  raced through my mind.  As we turned to uncover the mystery, we found that our fathers had high-fived each other before returning to their seats.  It was perfect.  It was a perfect, joy-filled moment, that smashed our anxieties into smithereens and enabled us to continue our wedding ceremony with a lightness in our hearts.

A few hours later, "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole pumped through the sound system as we swayed back and forth.  I clung to him, as if I was still a child, tears streaming down my face.  He hummed sweetly in my ear.  No words were spoken... such warm comfort I felt in his arms as we danced.  I was fully aware of how public, how vulnerable the whole thing was.  I just couldn't help my tears.  I wanted to honor this moment by allowing my feelings to spill out from inside me.  It was too important to hold in.  Something so symbolic... so deep-seated, is this ritual of the father-daughter dance.  I grieved for him.  The man in my life.  I grieved for my family, as I was "leaving them to become one flesh with my husband."  We held tightly to each other, as we were letting go.  Letting go/grieving and celebrating at the same time, the love that I had found.... the love that would grow our family, and bring us all such happiness.

I had my last conversation with my father, as he was fully-functioning, on October 9th, 2013.  The day before his brain surgery (surgeries).  He cried, as he told me that his heart was at peace.  That he felt that God had spoken to him, telling him not to be afraid.  Not to worry - that God would bring him home.  It was another gift to my anxious heart, his peace that night.  I knew I had to let him go... into the hands of the surgeon and the medical teams and into the uncertainty of the future.

I play these cherished moments over and over again in my mind this week.  This week, one of the hardest of my life.  This week, where my mother and my sisters and I are searching our souls, kneeling before God, holding each other up, and making the most difficult decisions we've ever had to make.

Things have not turned out the way we hoped.  A journey of excruciating ups and downs, filled with fear, trauma, confusion, anger, sadness, hope, weariness, helplessness, guilt, and more.  Complex and twisty and uncertain and inconsistent.  The ground has shifted and rocked and quaked beneath our feet, and we have had to figure out how to stay standing.  It's more than we ever thought we'd have to handle.  My warrior mother, most of all.

After Dad had 3 brain surgeries and an emergency spinal surgery all in a week;  after multiple unforeseen complications and sustaining permanent damage to his brain and spine, which has left him partially paralyzed from the waist down, unable to speak much, and at times largely unresponsive; after his body has been so weakened from spending 6.5 months in a medical bed;   after suffering from a series of mini-strokes;  after infection after inevitable infection and multiple rounds of anti-biotics; after becoming resistant to several anti-biotics;  after his kidneys have begun to fail; after a very difficult meeting with his team of doctors at UVA, who feel that Dad is in his final weeks...

It is time to let him go, once again.

He has been a valiant fighter, and he has won some small victories along the way.  But he's been through enough.  As we honor his wishes, and honor him, the best way we know how... we are letting go of aggressive medicine and our hopes for his physical healing.  Hospice care will ease his suffering and give him the best quality of life for the rest of his days.

He hasn't been home in 6.5 months.  He hasn't seen those walls... those walls, that wood, those bricks... so familiar.  He hasn't smelled those smells, sat in his favorite chair, or seen the fruits of his labors - in which he holds great pride.  He hasn't seen the fabric of his love manifested, or been reminded of all the cherished memories in this place.  Where there is more laughter than beeping machines, and more color than the white of walls and jackets.  This safe place.  His home.

It's time to bring him home.

It's time to let him go, and bring him home.  To bring him home, to reconnect with all that is a part of him and his beautiful life.  Before God brings him forever home.

We feel relief that his struggle will end.  We are at peace, although we grieve deeply.  We have grieved for some time. We will continue to grieve.

And I know in my heart, that although his body and his brain will not heal here on earth, that he will be whole again.

And we will dance.

"Give sorrow words;  the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."  ~William Shakespeare

  

How do you truly honor a life?

Saying goodbye has always been so difficult for me.  I really struggle with it, and most of the time I avoid the painful feelings that saying goodbye can evoke.  Like my nephew, when he was a toddler... he never wanted to say goodbye.  We would come into town for the weekend and have the best time.  And when we were getting ready to leave, his mood completely changed.  He would get all grumpy, hide his face, leave the room, and not speak a word.  I get it, little dude.  I SO get it.

My Auntie Jan - one of my mom's sisters - is currently in hospice care, losing her 10 year fight with ovarian cancer.  Doctors are projecting that she has very little time left.  Days, maybe weeks.  I am so sad.  And so stuck in trying to figure out how to properly deal with this loss.  How to truly honor her life.  How to say goodbye.

A while back, I read a random person's status update on Facebook - it was a friend of a friend type thing, and my friend had re-shared this person's post.  It has really stuck with me... I think it might be one of the most important things I'll ever read in my life.  It was a man who had just lost his father, and was explaining what he had learned in his father's final days.  I will never forget what he learned and what he shared.  And if I could remember his name, I would credit him here.  He said that he struggled with what to say to his father in these last hard moments.  He figured out that it was most important to say these four things:

1) I'm sorry.
2) I forgive you.
3) Thank you.
4) I love you.  

To really honor his relationship with his father, he needed to say these four things.  Wow.  So simple, but it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I don't have much trouble saying the second two things.  But the first two things are very hard for me.  And I can see why they would be so important to say, especially to someone with whom you have/had a close relationship.

In the end, nothing else really matters.  These things matter.  

I feel like I have taken the easy way out of goodbyes too many times in my life thus far.  I avoid break-ups.  I don't make it to the goodbye party.   My childhood best friend's mother passed away a few years ago from breast cancer, and I couldn't make it home for the funeral.  I was secretly relieved.  I chickened out.  And I'm still so disappointed in myself for not properly honoring this woman's life.  This woman, who is so present in my childhood memories, and was like a second mother to me during that time.  It just felt so huge to me, and I was overwhelmed with the idea of laying her to rest in my heart.

And that brings me to today.  How I'm feeling about saying goodbye to my spunky, funny, loving, courageous Auntie Jan.  Someone so dear to my family and my mom, and so present in all my family memories.  Someone so important in the scope of my extended family life and so close to the beating heart of my collective kin.  Someone who has loved me well, although we live far away and don't see each other often.  It feels so huge, so hard.

I don't want to open myself up to the pain.  I don't want to feel the weight of this loss.  I want to hide my face and leave the room.

However, I really don't want to keep chickening out of goodbyes, either.  This is so important.  It is a basic tenant of the human life.  You say hello, you say goodbye.  You enter this world, you leave it.  Why is it so difficult when people leave?

My husband and I talked the other night about why losing someone is so hard.  I asked, "Why is loss always so sad?  Why can't we celebrate someone's life when they are at the end of it?  Why can't we be happy about the life they lived?  Why does it hurt so much?"  My wise husband brought up the idea that we tend to emotionally attach to people - to each other - and therefore it's hard and sad to let them go.  Rather than trying to see our time with each other as a gift and stay a bit more un-attached.  It wouldn't mean that we don't love... it would mean that we love without selfish attachment.  It's a very zen Buddhist concept.  One that I aspire to attain in my own life, as I think and write a lot about being able to let go of things.  But I am not quite there yet with people.  Not at all yet there.

I want to do the right thing.  I want to be brave and to let the pain in, to wash through me, so that I can honor my Aunt the best way that I know how... to acknowledge her in my heart.  To acknowledge what she has meant to me in my life.  To celebrate hers.

So that I can peacefully, and presently, let her go.

I'm trying.

I'm so sorry for everything you've endured.  I'm sorry we didn't have more time together, and that I didn't visit more often.  I forgive you, although there is nothing you've done that really needs my forgiveness.  Thank you for your heart, your humor, for loving us all - for everything you are.  I love you always, dear Auntie Jan.  

Making Room for Tears

"We need never be ashamed of our tears." ~  Charles Dickens

For years and years and probably always and forever, well-meaning parents have been telling their children, directly or non-directly (verbally or non-verbally), not to cry.  To be strong in the face of disappointment, adversity, seemingly trivial encounters, etc.  Sometimes trying to hug the tears away, and sometimes trying to force quit the flood of emotions erupting from their child.  It is pure instinct.  We don't want our children to be upset.  We want them to be happy little people who go with the flow.  It would be so great if they would always do what we say, always feel good, and never show any overt signs of intense anger or pain or sadness.  Raising little robots would be so much easier, wouldn't it?

Even as adults, when someone feels pain and expresses it, it often automatically triggers anxiety and uncomfortable feelings in a person who is witness.  And although we may want to, we can't really tell an adult to "stop crying, please."  But when it's our children, we often DO tell them to stop crying.  To toughen up.  "Chin up," we say.  "There is nothing to cry about."  We say these things, perhaps to ease our own discomfort.  Instead of doing some internal work to reduce our own anxiety reactions, and to make room for their tears.  To let them know that their expressions of frustration and feelings are okay.  I believe that most of us don't even consider the ramifications that this has on our children and our society at large.  

We are such a repressed people.  And people make terrible robots.  When we learn not to feel or to suppress what we feel, bad things can happen.  People with no feelings (or suppressed feelings) hurt other people, and hurt themselves.

We do all kinds of things to keep our feelings hidden... we run like mad from them.  So that we don't have to feel or to be vulnerable.  So we can numb out the pain.  We drink, we drug, we work too much.  We have affairs, we obsess about our bodies, we control everything we can.  Because we learned, somewhere, that it wasn't okay to have feelings.  Or we think that because they sometimes feel bad, we should keep them inside.  But here's the kicker - as humans, we DO have them.  Some people are wired to feel more.  Some people are wired to feel less.  But everyone has them.  Whether we admit it or not. 

I learn so much from being a mother.  Raising a toddler - developmentally the most transparent group of people ever - has brought me face to face with this reality that as adults, we don't want to feel.  This reality, that I have already been uncovering for myself for the past several years.  My almost three year old sometimes seamlessly turns into my life lesson guru.  And recently, she has been unknowingly teaching me a very important lesson about her tears.  And about my discomfort with them.  So often, mid-tantrum, I feel my anxiety levels creep higher and higher and higher.  I ask her, "What do you need? What is wrong?"  And our favorite new attempt to nip the typical toddler no-apparent-reason-tears in the bud, "WHY ARE YOU CRYING?"  This used to stop her for a few moments, while she thought and searched for an answer... and then went back to crying.  But her most recent answer to this question, which she has given several times, floors me.

"Because I NEED to crrrrrryyyyyyyy."

Silence.

Oh, Lord, yes.  She needs to cry.  The child NEEDS to cry and to express her feelings and this is the only way she knows how.  She doesn't need a reason.  Who am I to stop her from doing this?  Because of my own shortcomings and discomfort with her pain?  It shuts me down.  Every.  Single.  Time.  I take a deep breath and try to get comfortable with the sounds of her cries.  And almost always, when I relax and make space and let her express her emotions in this way, she calms down.  She gets it out and returns to a more even state.  But when I keep trying to get her to stop,  or to rationalize with her that she has nothing to cry about, she continues and cries even louder.  Hmmmm.

What we can learn from children, if we just listen to what they are saying. 

It can be uncomfortable... it can be awful.... but we will not be washed away by our feelings - our own  or someone else's.  They come and they go.  But when we suppress them - that can leave a permanent mark.  It is important and so necessary to express what is inside of us.  For all of us.

Children, teenagers, adults, alike.

Here's a recent personal example.  On Christmas eve, we were home in Lynchburg with my family.  We had been there since Dec. 19th, and we were leaving that day to head back to NOVA.  My Dad, after 4 more weeks at UVA medical center (due to getting pneumonia, sepsis, and suffering a series of mini-strokes) had just been discharged from the hospital the day before and had arrived in Lynchburg.  He was back at the same skilled nursing facility, just in time for Christmas.  I had these visions and hopes of our whole family being together with Dad at the nursing home, on Christmas Eve.  Singing him Christmas carols, etc.  It was really all I wanted for Christmas.  But my children had just contracted the black plague of colds, the day we got into town.  And since my Dad's immune system had been compromised and any infection could be potentially life-threatening, I knew that I couldn't take the kids over to see Dad.  I knew.

But instead of being honest about how sad that made me feel... about how devastated I was that my family wouldn't all be together, for the first Christmas in maybe my whole life... about this grief I feel about what has happened to my Dad the last few months.... I pushed those feelings aside.  I was cranky all morning, spewing meanness onto everyone.  I don't even think that I consciously realized what was going on.

And then, when I finally allowed those feelings to enter my consciousness and rise to the surface... and I allowed that wall that I had constructed to come down....

I cried.

I cried, hugged my mom and my sisters and my husband, and I told them that I was sad.

And amazingly, I didn't explode.  My tears didn't wash we away.   They served a very real purpose.  They gave me release.  

I felt better.  I was able to make peace with the fact that my daughters would not be with Papa this Christmas.  It didn't completely dissolve my sadness, but it lessened it.  Because I had allowed myself to grieve it by expressing what I really felt.  

All this to say, that I think it's possible that this pattern of shutting down our feelings all starts at the very beginning.  We need to fight the urge as parents to stop our children's tears.  To stop them from expressing intense or negative emotions, and instead, help them to find a healthy way to express what is happening on the inside.  For if they feel nurtured in their pain, or even that there is time and space to let it out (no matter the cause of it), they may grow up to be healthier adults.  And to take it a (few) steps further, we may just be able to change our society as a whole.  One child at a time, into one that is more tolerant of emotional expression.  One that is honest and wholehearted and has a chance to heal.

One that makes room for tears, instead of repressing and numbing and hurting in silence.

In all truth, it is one of my greatest hopes and dreams for myself, for those I love, and for all humans everywhere.  Some people hope for world peace... I just want people to feel.  And I believe that those two things could have a very close correlation.

Acknowledge what we honestly feel, express it, and only THEN, can we work on letting it go.

Peace could be waiting patiently for us, on the other side of our tears.  

"To weep is to make less the depth of grief." ~ William Shakespeare

A Day in (my) Life: Searching for the Ground

Last night, Charlie was up 3 times.  She woke at 11:30pm, 3:30am, and 5:45am.  At 5:45am, she wouldn't do her typical nurse for 10 minutes and go back to bed.  She had several discomforts -  gas, congestion, and maybe teething gums.  We were up for a bit.  I went back to bed around 6:30am, and was awakened by Mike leaving for work at 8:15am with a goodbye kiss.  At 8:30am, Hazel was calling for me.

I stumbled into her room, where we played with puzzles, my mind still half asleep. I was remembering the dream I was deeply embedded in when I heard her calling.  Hoping she wouldn't notice that I couldn't yet form complete sentences and how clumsy and slowly my hands were moving.  After a while we went downstairs to get some breakfast.  Hazel played and I fixed breakfast and put the much needed coffee on.  Even though I make it half-caffeinated because I'm still nursing, it is an important part of my tired morning routine.  I'll take whatever small amount of caffeine I can get pumping into my weary bod.

After breakfast, Hazel watched a show while I did some online Christmas shopping and checked my email.  I browsed job listings for part-time social work jobs.  My mind raced about how nice it has been (mostly) to be home with both kids for these past 6 months.  One of the hardest jobs I've ever done, no doubt in my mind.  But as much as it stretches me... I love being with the girls.  And I thought about how nice it has been to be more available to travel at a moment's notice to be with my family, since Dad's first surgery on October 10th.  Since he hasn't been well, and we have been clinging to each other to get through these weeks/days/moments of difficulty and to process the unknowns of the future.

I thought about dance, and how therapeutic it is for me.  And how it plays no role in my life at the current moment.  And how I miss it so very much.  And I rack my brain about how I can get it back.

As I looked at jobs online, my thoughts drifted to our finances.  And how we are just not making it on one income.  We knew we wouldn't.  We planned for this time.  And talked about how it would be worth it for me to be home for this temporary period, and then I would look for work eventually.  I've been browsing part-time listings for months.  And as each month gets financially tighter, we realize it's go time.  Every time I think about it my heart does flip flops in my chest.  I have such mixed emotions about proceeding back into the working-outside-of-the-home world.  I feel both a weighty heaviness and also some nervous excitement.   So much complexity wrapped up in this "little" decision.

The struggle for the elusive balance continues.

And then Charlie wakes around 9:30am... so I get her up, change her diaper, feed her, and bring her downstairs.  We play on the floor next to Hazel while she watches her show.  Charlie's laughter fills my heart until it almost bursts... it shuts down my thoughts, so that my mind is no where else but with her and her happiness.  It is a real light in my life... a gift, that brings me out of my swirling thoughts and into the beauty of the present.  

It is around then that Hazel's foot knocks over the stool where her bowl of snacks and my beloved coffee sits.  Both tumble to the floor, soaking the blanket that Charlie is playing on, the carpet, and me.  In slow motion, peanuts and raisins fly through the air, landing everywhere.  Momentarily, I lose it.  I grumble at Hazel, asking her if she understands what she has just done and tell her to be more careful.  Then, after the frustration subsides, I feel bad for not displaying more patience.  I start to clean it all up and as I look at the spilled coffee and strewn snacks, I see how disgustingly dirty our floor is.  It is REALLY dirty.  Like living with two kids and a cat dirty.  Like I need to vacuum 4 times a week but I only vacuum once a week -  maybe - dirty.

And I think, wow... sometimes I'm just not good at this.  I'm not good at staying home with the kids and having endless patience and taking care of the house.  I'm so tired and so foggy and so scattered... so sad about my Dad and so worried about our finances and so nervous about going back to work.  And I just feel so... lost.  And dizzy.  And guilty.  And inadequate.

The opposite of grounded.

Juggling identities and responsibilities and feelings and oh, the constant stream of these pressing thoughts.  What am I doing, where am I going, and how am I going to get there?  A lot going on in the old noggin these days.

And then it hits me. The biggest thing I'm not doing well is this:  Grace.   What gives with all this meanness to myself?  All the high expectations?

My family gives me grace, my friends give me grace.  My God, my church, and my community give me grace.   Why can't I give it to myself?  I can extend it to others, but when life gets tough or confusing or sad or tedious or overwhelming and I just can't cope, I turn the blame inward.  With no where else to throw my frustrations, I let myself take the bullet.  I begin to self-destruct.

Grace.

Life is going to be hard sometimes.  And in the hardest moments, God whispers the message that I so need to hear, so very gently in my ear....

Give yourself grace.  Give yourself buckets of grace.

I imagine Him saying these words, "It's okay.  You're okay.  Take some space.  Breathe.  You are enough.  You are good.  I love your dirty floors and your messy heart.  You will find your way through the darkness.  You will find the ground.  I will lead you.  Be still and cast your arrows away from your gentle exterior, and into my arms.  My arms are tough.  I will catch them."  

And so, a new day dawns and I begin again.   Weary, I pray for grace.  And I start by reaching my feet toward the ground.

Flecks and Nuggets: The Dance of Grief and Hope

I read these words yesterday. They're from Anne Lamott's book, Traveling Mercies:  Some Thoughts on Faith.  I apparently really needed to hear them.

"The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it, like a nicotine craving, I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.  After a while, it was like an inside shower, washing off some of the rust and calcification in my pipes.  It was like giving a dry garden a good watering.  Don't get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does.  Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit.  Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible.  You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people;  shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession.  Martyrdom can't be beat.  While too much exercise works for many people, it doesn't for me, but I have found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering.  But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you.  A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart.  But since your life may have indeed fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion.  You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying;  and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things:  softness and illumination."

Today, I am holding on and falling apart.  I've been avoiding writing for the past several weeks.  I knew that if I wrote, I would write about this.  And I'm just so ridiculously good at avoiding.  If there was a medal for top avoider in the whole world, I would probably win it.  But today, I can't.  I can't win OR avoid.

Today, I'm in it.  I'm fearful and sad and confused.  There is a pit in my stomach, that comes and goes.  It has been growing there the past several weeks.  I don't feel it constantly... it sneaks up on me and hits me like a wave of salt water, stinging my open wounds, grinding in my gut... and then retreats.  I've been trying to figure out what it is.  And after reading Anne Lamott yesterday I think I've figured IT out.

It's grief.

I've been holding on to hope for the past several weeks.  Since we found out that Dad would have another brain surgery on Sept. 27th.  Since the (first) surgery on October 10th.  Since all these other things have gone so wrong.  And as the days go by, I continue to hope, but this other thing has been visiting.  Grief.  It comes suddenly and then washes away, as I continue my daily routines.  As I continue living.

How strange, to continue living.   How difficult, to do this dance between grief and hope.

This morning, I drove to pick Hazel up from preschool.  I talked with my mom on the phone, hearing the latest updates on Dad's condition.  He is less responsive now than he was in the week following his four major surgeries. (Yes, four. That's 3 brain surgeries and a bonus emergency spinal surgery to attempt to correct lower body paralysis that came from a complication).  Maybe it's due to the effects of the bacterial meningitis he contracted... maybe it's due to the side effects of the sedating anti-biotic he is on for the meningitis... maybe it's because he had three brain surgeries and he needs more time to heal from the trauma of that.  But no one can tell us.  The doctors can't tell us.  The surgeons can't tell us.  The physical therapists and speech therapists can't tell us.  No one knows.   All we know is that he has "significant neurological impairment."  Those three words, that keep pinging around in my head and my heart, leaving bruises along the way.  

The science of the brain is still so unfounded.  Still such a mystery.  

I pulled into the preschool, swallowed mom's tears, and shoved that pit in my stomach down hard.  I strapped on my baby and my armor and I went inside.  I smiled at the other parents in Hazel's class, as I passed and said hello. 

I have gotten quite used to avoiding the grief and stomping it out and shoving it down over the past many weeks.  It's been over a month since my father walked (walked!) into the hospital at UVA for surgery to remove his growing brain tumor.  Now he has a feeding tube, rarely speaks, cannot stand, only sometimes gives us signs of recognition, and sleeps most of the time.  

He is still physically with us, but we feel the loss of him.  And we continue to pray for his return to us.  

How can we grieve, while simultaneously fighting for our hope?    

This morning at 5am, Charlie woke as usual and I got up to feed her.  As I was nursing her, half awake,  my thoughts drifted to the dream that I was just having when I awakened to her cries.  I was dreaming about many different people, who intersected different seasons of my life, all in the same place.  We were celebrating something.  And as I drifted into the sequence of the dream, I remember my Dad being there.  Standing with my family, around a table.  Laughing, talking.  As I remembered this part of the dream, there it was... that pit in my stomach again.  That ache.  In the dim light of the nursery, with my babe in my arms at my breast, I let it hang around for a bit.  The grief.  Then the sting slowly faded enough to move and I put Charlie back to bed.

When I went back to sleep, I dreamt of Dad again.  But this time, we were somewhere else.  It appeared to be some type of resort.  Some type of place where people go to heal.  But quite unlike the skilled nursing facility where he is currently, in real life.  We traveled for miles to see him, up winding roads and through lush green mountains.  When we finally arrived, my whole family was there.  Dad's house was beautiful... ornate and decadent, with jeweled tiles and lofty, serene hues of blue.  We entered the house and all of the family poured inside, loud and boisterous.  Several of us plopped down in the living area, playing games and enjoying each other.  But I didn't know where Dad was.  I continued searching and journeyed outside, onto a huge, beautiful deck that overlooked the mountainside.  I turned a corner, and there was Dad... in a wheelchair looking out, with Mom by his side.  I approached, and before I reached them I woke again.  This time, to the sleepy morning sounds of a toddler's voice.

The more I think it through, it's as if the first dream represents my grief.  Thinking of Dad, the way he used to be.  Fully functioning.  Even with that brain tumor.  He was himself.  And the second dream... represents my hope.  Or as Lamott puts it, a softness and illumination that comes after the grief.  This hope, that Dad will still be with us, and we will still have a beautiful life with him... even if we don't yet know how it looks.  Or if it looks different than we have always imagined.

When we got home from preschool, I nursed Charlie with the pit fully present in my gut.  I looked into her eyes and tears blurred my vision.  Again, I let the ache stick around until Charlie finished eating and smiled her sweet smile at me.  She smiled relentlessly, and almost involuntarily, I smiled back.  She started to giggle and coo, and I couldn't resist smiling and cooing, too.  Pretty soon I found myself feeling moments of joy, amidst the painful sting, and I thanked God.  For the blessing of my children and for these moments.

For these moments when I am present, in the pain and the joy and the realness of life.

These flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling the grief will give you.  

These moments, when I can figure out how to move back and forth and forward simultaneously, in this dance of grief and hope.

Letting go - Part 4

This is another post in my series on parenting/letting go.  It is in two sections.  Section I, I wrote after spending some quality time with my family in the beginning of September.  It was not complete/finished.  And after some recent developments, I wrote Section II today.

Section I

As I write this post, I'm covered in spit up, bubbles, tears, and some unidentifiable food item from lunch.  Pretty much like any other day.  But it's not really any other day.

In my heart, it's a very different day.

Earlier today, Grandma and Papa (my parents) left to go back home after spending a week together.  5 days in Lynchburg with my whole family, and two days back here in DC with my parents. I was so grateful to have the time with my family, and the extra hands this whole past week.  What a gift.

As Grandma and Papa were leaving, Hazel started to get fussy and became difficult to manage.  I wasn't sure what was wrong, but wondered if she just didn't want them to go.  She got used to them being around, and to having the extra attention.  This shift into sharing her parents with her new sibling has been hard on her.  Hazel cried when they left, and said to Grandma several times, "I want to go with you."  It fills my heart that she has such a connection to them.  But it hurt at the same time.  She was so sad to see them go.  And frankly, so was I.

When I put Hazel down for her quiet time today, she didn't want me to leave the room.  And Charlie didn't want to be put down either.  So I rocked a crying baby in one arm, and a crying toddler in the other.  My arm muscles burned and my heart ached, as I knew I'd eventually have to put one of them down.  To let one of them go, so I could tend to the other.

How wonderfully amazing and how wonderfully terrifying, to be needed so desperately.

Children need their parents.  And I was sad to see my parents go today.  For many reasons.

Section II

My father has a brain tumor.  A benign meningioma, which he was first diagnosed with in 2008.  He had invasive brain surgery in May of 2008, and most of the tumor was removed.  I wrote some about it here. We got word this past December after a routine MRI that the remaining part of the tumor is growing again.  And it's too large to do anything but another invasive surgery.  My parents decided to wait until this month to do another MRI to check the status of the tumor and plan for when the surgery should take place.  Yesterday was the MRI and since December, the tumor has grown upward and sideways, dangerously close to the brain stem.  My mom told me that she has been praying for a definitive answer... that after this MRI, things would be clear about what direction we needed to go in.  About whether another surgery would be a risk we absolutely needed to take.

Clarity was found.  Thank God for that.

Surgery is scheduled for October 10th at UVA.

My Dad is 73 years old.  I know that the tumor and impending surgery is on everyone's mind in my family.  But we don't talk about it much.

Since December, I've been slipping back into my normal coping strategies to deal with this whole tumor regrowth.  I've been avoiding.  I've been pushing it aside.  I've also been (conveniently) distracted by my pregnancy and having another baby.  Now that surgery is imminent, I am really trying to be more present with my feelings about it all.  It's not easy.  And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared.

After his first surgery in 2008, the road was hard, but eventually he recovered incredibly well.  He recovered probably 95% of his functioning.  So there is no reason to believe that he won't also do just as well this time.  The seeds of doubt threaten to creep into my thoughts... but the fact that we've been through this before and he has done so well, comforts me.  Also - my father is an angel, and his positive attitude and peaceful resolve about this surgery gives me hope.  It calms my heart.  He is a peaceful warrior, displaying major courage in the midst of having to go through this all again.

Each time we are together, it's there, in the back of my mind.  And each time he leaves, it feels harder and harder to let him go.

I can't help but think about the similarities, generation after generation... how children, of all ages, need their parents.  My children need me, and I need my mom and dad.  And it's always been that way.  We go through these phases in life of separating and coming back together.  I don't need them the same way I did when I was a child, but I still need them.  And there have been many moments in the past several months that remind me how hard it is sometimes, to do the separating.  It's hard to let go.

Hard for my children to let go of me.  Hard for me to let go of them.  Hard for me to let go of my parents.  Hard for my children to let go of their grandparents.  And I can reasonably assume, that it's hard for my parents to let go of their children and grandchildren, too.

Our human hearts can be so fragile, so vulnerable.  Oh, how we need each other.

It's times like these that bring all things back into perspective.  It's times like these that I remember to cherish every moment with those I love.  It's times like these that bring me closer to God in a big way.

This time, I am coming face to face with my vulnerabilities.  This time, I am choosing not to run from that which I am afraid.  And thus, in the presence of my honest, scared, shaking heart, I find my strength. 

I find it in my faith.  I find it in my family.  I find it in myself.  

In clarity, we will proceed.  Together, because we need each other.  And no matter what, all will be well.  

Lay it down

There are so many struggles in the lives and hearts of people I love today.  So many things on my mind.  About parenting, about loss, about responsibility.  About friendship, about work, about identity, and who I want to be in this life.  Life continues to get more complex, more deep, more involved with each new day that I experience.  Sometimes, I feel so overwhelmed in my thoughts, that I'm not sure what to do with them.  And in my life these days, there isn't a lot of time to figure out what to do with them.  Sometimes I write.  Sometimes I pray.  Sometimes I talk.  Sometimes I dance.  Sometimes I cry.  Most of the time, I distract myself with something else, which is the least successful strategy.  But each day, I'm learning as I go.  Learning more about about how to cope.  How I cope.  And how others cope.  I'm a person of faith.  I believe in God.  And I believe, as they say, that He won't give us more than we can handle.  More weight, more burden, more heartache.

That being said, some people are carrying huge friggin' loads.  And it sure can't be good for their backs.

Today this thought came to me.  If we want some relief from those burdens... if we want help to make it through... no matter what we believe... we've got to lay them down first.

Before we drown under the sea of confusion, get crushed under the weight of sorrow, or get burned by the heat of exhaustion... we have to lay it all down.   Before God, before a therapist, before your best friend, on your yoga mat.  Before your mom, before your neighbor, before your husband, on a hike in the gracious company of the natural world.

As long as you are safe in the process, it doesn't matter much where you put it.  But don't hold on.  You have to lay it down.

When you're lost in life, and don't know what to do next.  When you're not sure who you are or where you're going:  Lay it down.

When you're suffering under an immobilizing, black cloud of guilt or shame for choices you've made in the past:  Lay it down.  

When your beloved family member or friend is sick, facing surgery/treatment, or fading away:  Lay it down.

When you're devastated by loss and can't get your heart to stop reeling from the pain:  Lay it down.

When you're missing your best friend so much that you are sick from the separation - tell him/her.  Lay it down.

When the fear of making a million mistakes in parenting strangles you, and you don't know if you'll ever breathe deeply again:  Lay it down.

When depression creeps in and holds you underwater while the waves keep crashing overhead:  Lay it down.

When major disappointment strikes, and you don't know if you'll be able to recover:  Lay it down.

When you've been abused or treated as anything less than you are:  Lay it down.

When you look in the mirror, and don't like what you see there... When you feel like you're not worthy of happiness or good things or that you have nothing to contribute to this world - this is a lie.  Lay it down.

Anything that you NEED to pick up again at some point, will still be there.  Give yourself a break... don't hold on.  Be gentle with your heart.  Set aside your fears and your pride.  Ask for help.

Lay it down, and let someone/something else carry it for a while.