(this)

Why can't I write?  I wonder tonight while I run, cicadas threatening to drown my soundtrack, sunlight fading, running, not because I love to run, but because my sisters run and because I'll never be thin and because I love food and because running is supposed to negate everything I ate last weekend.

 

Why is pain seemingly easier to write about than happy days and good stuff?

 

I could write books on grief and loss and pain and loneliness but my husband took me to Jamaica for a week in November and I don't know how to write about that.  Is it because it's all too beautiful and fragile, these days, months, now years of joy creeping through?  We leave the kids with their grandparents and drive to O'Hare, pinching ourselves like two little kids, buying mismatched clearanced swimsuits because it's winter in Chicago and I hadn't thought about that; chocolate and granola bars and Nike sun visors at Target and carefully laying out our super crisp passports (we are green to world travel) and asking the hotel desk for a three am wake up call.

 

We fly to Montego Bay groggy and hungry and disoriented and squinting in the blinding sunlight and then a sweltering bus trip and free-flowing alcohol and winding streets and smells and the ragged beggars and haunting faces out of broken hut windows and I wonder why us, why here? We don't belong here, tourists, vacationing Americans, I don't deserve this, I could never have dreamed of this back when we had nothing but each other and nothing to our names but hard work and delivering papers and furniture and babysitting and stretching ends to meet each other. This is too good to be true. 

 

Cool tile and palms and pools and the ocean right there and hours on the sand with books;  at the pool bar we order everything under the sun sans alcohol and the salt cracks my lips; we eat jerk chicken on the beach with our fingers; fresh coconut milk, which tastes exactly like soap, cracked open with a knife right in front of us, and we drink it for the experience.  We promise to watch the sun rise and never do, exhausted and spent from our demanding life, we sleep in like kids on summer break.  Lying in bed one night watching TV, I hear Sara Bareilles' Brave on a HP commercial and wonder why I've never noticed it before:

 

Maybe there's a way out of the cage you live

Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

Show me how big your brave is

 

And it's easy to let the light in here, on an island, with chocolate croissants for breakfast and music late into the night, but sometimes it's scary to let the light in at home, back in my little hometown with so much responsibility and our uneasy truce on whether or not to move and my entrepreneur husband's goals that seem to take him further out of my life. 

 

I want to be brave and sometimes brave is being happy.  Sometimes brave is letting go of the grief.  Sometimes it's closing a chapter and moving on.

 

And maybe fear would have been saying no to this beautiful week, choosing to stay in the mundane, choosing to close the door to adventure and choosing to play it safe and secure and so much less extravagance.

 

We rent a sailboat and go out in the bay and then to the ocean and watch another boat capsize;  I'm terrified and lose a twenty dollar bill out of my pocket in the wind and Daniel laughs harder than I've heard in a long time. We can see clear to the bottom, light all the way down to the sand, but we can't find my lost twenty and it doesn't matter anyway because money can't buy happiness, only a little freedom, and money can't prevent heartache, only pay for the aftermath, and we know all of this from painful experience. 

 

I've held a $127 masculine wedding band in my hand and said I will and I do,

 

and I've held a tinny (and tiny) navy blue cell phone and begged my girlfriend Allison to come visit me in this town where I'm so lonely and know no one,

 

and I've held a pregnancy test with two lines through it far before I thought I was ready to be a mama.

 

I've held nothing, I've held loneliness, I've held invitations, tentative friendships, I've held shingles and helped my husband roof our first little house, I've held my first child and felt my heart burst wide open with love.

 

I've held toddler hands and preschool pencils and a little sister's wedding invitations and one morning my little son who wasn't alive anymore and then I held loss in my hands.

 

I held kleenex and my sobbing mouth and dirt on a grave and cold winter snow; held on too tight and let go of some things I shouldn't have and held my husband as he drifted away from me; in humiliation held the edge of a counselor's couch and in shame I've held letters written with my own hands, wishing I could have taken back bitter, angry words, hurting the broken man I loved. 

 

I held grief and years of darkness and then another tiny son and I held him and terror, too, watching him creep toward the one hundred twenty-eight day mark.

 

And I wrote, wrote, wrote about all of this.  What do you have in your hand? God asks.

 

This, God.

 

This sorrow.  That's all. 

 

Tears are healing and life can be wildly healing and our people breathed grace into our broken hearts and then one day my hands held hope.

 

I held another shocked grieving mother, crushed her to me and stroked her matted hair and rocked her on my shoulder and looked into her swollen eyes and met the grief and I held little black babies all the way in Africa who were alive, but without love, and I learned about this, too, a different kind of loss, and maybe my grief tunnel had gotten a bit narrow and maybe I wasn't the only one suffering.

 

I held soccer schedules and then school books and choir programs and so much work;  Jamaica and rest and joy and somehow the iCloud loses all of my photos but it happened and I hold it in my heart:   this, sun and salt and water and joy and ten years with someone who loves me all the way to my soul.

 

And then I held my coffee cup in a restaurant and watched my husband buy a business;  held a pen and signed under his name, too, in shaky handwriting, and I held packing tape and moved to a dream house, brick, and front porch and on the same street as my beloved library, held my breath and said goodbye to that little bedroom where my son had breathed his last, held a cloth and wept as I wiped off the chalkboard wall:

 

love will hold us together

make us a shelter to weather the storm

 

Somehow the storm seems weathered and I don't know how to document this, the joy.  I feel so undeserving.  I remember being the sleepless insomniac, reading grief blogs, resenting and almost hating the ones who were happy again.  How could they forget the pain?

 

But now I know you don't ever forget the pain; your heart just opens up wider to hold everything- loss, joy, pain, happiness again- and this, this is a gift.

 

Lewis writes, "Aim at Heaven and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you will get neither."  Earth is thrown in  now for me, and peace and happiness are fragile, unexpected gifts.

 

 

What is that in your hand?

Exodus 4:2

 

 

This is in my hand, now, God - joy, and thankfulness and I will thank You and and let the light in again.

when you don't have 52 date night ideas, steal some moments

I roll my eyes at the date night idea lists.

They're often so unrealistic. 

The lists don't factor in paying a sitter, drive time if you live in po-dunk-ville, your husband's crazy work schedule or any form of reason or sanity.

Do people really have free weekends out there in the big universe?  Free weeknights?  (Maybe my world is really on an alternate planet.)

And besides sometimes they're dumb.  For example, maybe your husband isn't jazzed by free massages at the massage school that you thought was a fantastic date night idea.  Don't ask me how I know this. 

Lately my circles have been talking about who the priority is supposed to be, husband vs. kids; it's an interesting discussion.  We were lucky enough to be counseled from the very beginning that our unit of marriage, one man and one woman, was complete in God's eyes, and therefore a very sacred priority.  Children are a blessing to marriage - they aren't intrinsically part of it. 

So I guess this is something I've always thought was really important. 

I married him.

I said no to a lot of things to spend my life with him.

I like to be with him- especially while our kids are little.  Time with Daniel charges me up to deal with everybody else.

While men aren't always super great at planning things, they are generally enthusiastic about hanging out with their wives.  I've found it doesn't hurt to plan things myself: silently holding out for the perfect date night invite might leave me without a date. . . . for a very long time.  Hey. . . you married a man, right?

When an educated culture routinely denigrates masculinity and manhood,

then women will be perpetually stuck with boys.

Camille Paglia, Time, 2013: The Year Men Became Obsolete? 

I didn't marry a boy, that's for sure.



It's hard to think of when pouring into your marriage is a waste of time.  I've never regretted it.

I've regretted:

not answering my phone when he calls

angry words

shutting him out

being too busy for him

surfing the 'net

allowing my kids to drain the life out of me

choosing my husband to be the place to unload all of my frustration 

But I haven't regretted choosing to carve out time for our marriage.

Here are some of my favorite dates over the past year: 

There are a million excuses why you can't pour into your marriage:

broken trust, broken heart, anger, betrayal, grief, depression, pregnancy, jobs, job stress, kids, finances, other commitments, other ministries, good busy, bad busy, teaching, he's an early bird / you're a night owl and the list goes on. . .and on and on and on. . .

Don't cling to the excuses.  Cling to the person God gave you and hang on. 


Valentine's Day.  Daniel's shift usually discusses what they are going to do for their significant others and during the brainstorm session {ladies: men truly try.  they really do.} Daniel came up with the brilliant idea of cooking dinner for me. Oh my word.  So special.  He put the kids to bed at seven and told me I couldn't come downstairs until eight.  When I did I really couldn't believe my eyes.  

table set, goblets, candles

fresh fruit chocolate bar

stuffed zucchini boats

with sausage and red bell peppers and muenster cheese (almost a year later and I still can't believe my husband went to a grocery store and bought muenster cheese)

ahhh so special and I felt so loved. 

Not so brilliant was the idea of letting a bunch of prank-crazy buddies know what his plan was: lots and lots of phone calls during our dinner hour and even a mysteriously anonymous honking drive-by.


Not exciting, not fun, but needed:  having older, wiser people sit and help us sort stuff out when we can't trace the end of a problem from the beginning.  So much wisdom.  So much value.  Hardly considered a date- but definitely pouring into our marriage. 

Is it a date to go on a mission trip for two weeks with your husband and not even sleep in the same room?  Umm, probably not, but one of the best things we did for our marriage in the history of us.  I cringe to think that I almost didn't go because of our kids.  They were fine.  They barely remember.  But we remember that shared life experience, shared horror at extreme poverty, shared tears, shared frustration at our own complacence.  We remember.  It was us.  Priceless. 

Sitting on the porch swing watching a thunderstorm, toes on the concrete porch, together for five minutes.  Yes.  It matters.  The bookwork, the phonecalls, the stress, the planning - it can wait for five minutes.

Bank Meetings.  Closings.  I am sorry to report that some of the most fun, happiest, most peaceful moments of our summer were spent at a long table overlooking the river waiting for our attorney.  That feeling of it's you and me against the world, baby! And we are so, so, so crazy. (And probably stupid.) But it was us. It wasn't my husband off doing his thing.  We're in this* together. 
*This refers to working every spare minute between May and October to make those bank meeting / house closing decisions be wise and not stupid. 

Midnight swim in the pool MINUS snorkels, floaties, screaming, dive sticks, donuts, all manner of  squirt gun apparatus, kick boards and swim diapers.  It's awesome.  I highly recommend. 

Taco + Phone Lunch Date.  I look back at this one and wish I wouldn't have been frustrated.  Daniel's mom had taken the kids and we were feverishly working through hot summer days and nights trying to meet deadlines for a house.  We took a break and met at Taco John's for lunch, both dirty and tired.  Daniel's phone rings constantly and sometimes he can turn it off, other times, he just can't.  That was a lunch where I looked out the window while I ate.  Retrospect: special.  We were able to work together, I got to see his world, I should have realized how much pressure and stress he was managing and congratulated him on how well he was spinning all of his plates.  Actual: not special, I felt frustrated. I can't undo that date, but I can hopefully choose a different attitude next time it happens. (And it probably will.)


Working the Boot Drive together. This is an annual event that firefighters participate in to raise money for kids with MD.  It involves standing in traffic with fire boots and yes, I suppose, begging.  You meet a lot of crazy generous people and a lot of really grumpy ones but it's a great experience.  Once again, I think it's so easy to opt out of these things using kids as an excuse, but again, they're so fine.  They chalked on the driveway with their beloved Jess and I spent an hour in my husband's world.  We're all better for that morning (except maybe Jess).

Bought black patent leather heels. That purchase practically counts as a date because it was a decision to say goodbye boring, hello LBD, and you still matter to me babe.

Visiting Daniel at MFD one night without the kids.  Make-up, hoop earrings, we sit outside on a concrete patio, treat it like speed dating. Fifteen minutes.  Worth it.  All the other nameless, pointless things that we could have done that night-  watching the news or an email that could wait or loading the eternal dishwasher?  Yuck, at nine pm?

Stopping each other to listen to a song that moves us.

Texts.

Phone calls.

It matters.  It's little.  It's actually big.  They add up.  All those stolen moments. . . they add up to life.

We're building this home, this life, this marriage, with our words, with our actions, with our moments and how we spend our time.

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.  Proverbs 14:1 

Ahh, I want to be a wise woman.

This year I'm going to keep stealing moments.

ten years together and this was our first time christmas shopping together!  stolen. sweet.

ten reasons i am leaving my children for two weeks: here we come south africa

Daniel and I leave in four weeks to go to South Africa with a team of eight people from our church, serving the least of these at the Restoring Hope Village.

Three million + orphans in SA.  That is a staggering number.  Our tiny offering of time and love to give is a drop in an endless sea of need, but we want to start there, giving our little bit. 

This has been a matter of prayer and in the works for some time and we are so excited to go and follow God's leading. 

The trip was overwhelmingly and promptly funded, confirming that money is rarely an issue if God calls you to do something.  We're so thankful for the people who gave so freely. {you know who you are}

Below are my notes from sharing with our church family the reasons we each chose to go. 



I love top ten lists; some of you know that Daniel even used a top ten list to ask me to marry him.  There are so many reasons I want to go to South Africa, but I decided to put them in my favorite top ten format. 

So here they are.

1.  Thankful for the hope of eternal life that my salvation brings; wanting to share hope, knowing that only Christ brings hope for the pain life brings.  I accepted Christ as a child and knew the talk, walked the walk, but our son's death changed everything I believed into something more real.  You can't just be here, then gone, and that's the end, with just this little shell left of you.  There has to be something more.  There has to be eternity;  because if not, where does your soul go,  the part of you that's you?  Everything I believed about God became startling and clear and real to me.  Eternity = hope.  I want to share that.

2.  I know what hopelessness feels like.  It's crushing, it's demotivating, it's dark, dark, dark.

3.  I know what it means to be given the gift of hope.  That gift- that so many of you have given to us. . . is priceless.

4.  I want to honor and follow my husband's leadership. It can be a little scary to be married to a man who walks with God.  You kinda never know what he's going to do.  Daniel told me over a year ago that he was going to go on a mission trip, and I was like. .  . oooookaaaay!  When Louis and Amber came, during their presentation, Daniel leaned over to me and said, this is it, I'm going there!  I was really happy for him but then I started thinking. . . what if God tells him something big while he's there, like adopt or move to Africa. . .   maybe I should go so that I could know what my future might look like!  But I also want to go just to share in this experience with him, rather than haave him explain it to me when we get home.

5.  I want to say yes to God.  I'm blessed by so many people in our church who say yes to God and lead by example, and I want to be that.  I just don't want to start saying no to Him:  I want to say yes.

6.  I want to listen to wise counsel.  When we first started talking about me going too, we sought counsel from people that we were sure would advise me to stay home with our children.  Our parents floored us by enthusiastically supporting the idea and tripping over themselves to watch the kids during our absence; no, don't go wasn't what we heard.  I then went to my beautiful Mrs. A. . .sure that she would tell me to stay home and take care of my children.  Instead she pointed out that they would be fine, following God was more important than following safety, marriage priority > children priority and she also made me aware of point # 7.

7.  I want to teach three little white kids that the world is bigger than smalltown, USA.  And they are so excited and supportive of us going.  They want to go.  I hope they will eventually.  We aren't fans of children running family direction, but we wouldn't go if they weren't okay with it.  They're okay.  They care about these little people without any mom or dad.

8.  Because there's no substitute for human touch and compassion; $$ can't hug.  Just that.

9.  Seeking a wider perspective of the work God is doing globally. We don't have the corner on ministry here.  I know that zooming out can bring clarity to our vision and I'm so excited to see what God is doing in another part of the world.

10.  Because the world will know we are Christians by our love for one another.  And I think that extends to loving the least of these.

And then there's the many who are called to be faithful at home;  Africa isn't in your future, but lots and lots of endless laundry and Sunday School teaching and feeding hungry neighbor kids and being there when people need you and sharing hope with your coworkers and employees and the list goes on and on. . .

You are important, you are needed, we are not all that and a bag of chips because we're going a little farther than across the street. 

My sister writes about staying home when others go.  Read it, she's awesome.  That's her quote below.

This is my life, Lord,
Help me not to wish it away,
Waste it away
Or, not taste the joy of the people around me.
Lord, help me to be a joyful giver of Me.

February Thoughts

 So I made a coffee filter wreath.  It was really easy; basically just poking coffee filters into a foam wreath with the end of a small paint brush.  I used a whole package of 4 cup size filters (accidentally bought by me. . . . who in the world would bother making only 4 cups of coffee?).

 It's cute if I have the front door open. . .

but since we can see through our glass door I should have put more filters on the back so that you don't see the green foam.  I should do that soon.  Someday.  Before I take the wreath down.  Time, time, where art thou? 

Looking at the above pictures make me want to change the paint color in our living room.  I've been toying with the grey idea.  And the next minute I feel exhausted by the idea of painting and decide that tan is fine.  Sometimes I wonder where the girl who loved to flip houses went.  (Maybe she is turning thirty?!) 

You can also see that window on the wall; it's from my mom and dad's farmhouse.  I'm in the middle of wiping off the Christmas song my mom wrote on it, mulling over what I should write on next.  Thinking about this quote:

I will confess

I do not see Who I believe

but I have a choice to make

and I choose to believe

until someday I shall see

(taken from Little Mama's blog)

And then, of course, my Eli. . . oh such joy he is. So many rolls!  Squishing him is. . . like dessert.

 "Hi, Mamma. . . I do believe I've outgrown these 0-3 month onesies."

(could he be any more bald?)

 Game invented by JD & Cambria:  Eli - Eli - O (to the tune of Old MacDonald)

 Oh the endless entertainment of having a sister who does your own personal puppet shows.



"Oh, no.  Seems like I got too many friends!"  (that caption courtesy of JD)

 This little hat (I bought it from this Etsy shop for $12) just never gets old.  I think it's the cutest baby thing I've ever bought.

 I'm in the middle of this book right now. . . so thankful that God gives me grace; how often I fall short in giving grace to my children.  This has been a refreshing read for me.  Many parenting books leave me overwhelmed with "things to do" and "ground I've lost."  Dr. Kimmel's approach is hopeful and uplifting.  I love how he applies this passage on grace to parenting.  I've never read Titus 2:11-14 through "mommy lenses" but I'm glad I have now!

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and teaches

us to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,

while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God

and Savior, Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from

all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are His very own,

eager to do what is good.

Underneath the busy and the crazy, I struggle to find the balance between life and actually living,

between being married and having a marriage,

between housekeeping and making a home,

the balance between caring for my children and loving my man.

(If I ever find the secret, I'll be sure to pass it on.)



(please come home to me)

It's one am and I am sitting curled on my couch with my laptop saying things to myself like

You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee

and

this is it! it's too scary!  do some other job!

and

clicking refresh on the different facebook statuses of my friends whose husbands are also out tonight

fighting fire and

making their wives crazy with worry.


A long, long time ago, I visited Daniel at the FD and they got called out while I was there.  The address was on my way home, so I drove by the fire.  There was a gray haze and the lights flashing made everything look ominous and eerie and even though at that time I was well accustomed to the fire service, I drove home f.r.e.a.k.ing out.  There's something about seeing the stuff your man is walking into and your mind wickedly replaying those awful scenes from Ladder 49 (that I never should have watched). . . and after that night I told myself that I would never do that ever again.


Tonight. . . broke my promise to myself and oh I am getting sorrier by the minute.  We returned our Christmas movies and Cambria begged to see Daddy.  I called him and he said to stop by; we did and he came out to the van to chat with me and the kids.   The alarm went off while we were there and I was like, oh, whatever, it's probably totally nothing and they get to see their cool dad be the engine driver and what kid doesn't dig that.

So we followed,  at a subdued distance, Cambria informing me that when she grew up, her daddy {read: husband} would be a fighterfire and she would live right here in this area.

I started getting a bad feeling when they all just kept going.  So often alarms get cancelled, everyone turns around and goes home, and it's just cool lights and wasted fuel.  I like wasted fuel.

When I saw an orange glow coming out of one of the industrial buildings and the cops blocking the road I regretted my decision to follow.  Lights flashing and gray haze and the weird odor of burning destruction and we turned around and came home.  Stupid me.

And my guy goes in there.  Oh please, be smart, be safe, don't let anyone be in there, just let the building burn, please be okay. . .

I put my babies to bed and hope to hear that everything is okay.  I wait for a response to my texts.  One of our friends is now in the hospital from burns.  I am going c.r.a.z.y.  After two hours, I get a garbled text from Daniel saying that he is ok and it's a  BigveryBad fire.  

Um, I knew that. . . please, please, come home to me.

I think that I'm so thankful I kissed him goodbye and I think that why on earth was he talking about life insurance and I think that I wish he'd get just a little bit hurt so he wouldn't be out there anymore and I'd know that he's okay and then I berate myself for thinking that.  I think that I couldn't be a military wife and I think that I couldn't handle my husband being a cop and I think that he'll be so tired and crabby when he comes home and I eat four magic cookie bars and berate myself for that, too.

This will all be funny in the morning, right?  He will have his big story to tell and I will be limp and groggy with relief and we will make some strong coffee for me and some cappuccino for him and we will just chill out and continue our Christmas vacation.

Please come home to me.

Nesting Pt. 1

So if you talked to my husband he would tell you that I am nesting.

I think that may be too kind of a term.

Nesting at our house sounds a little more like Angry Birds than soft cheeping and layering of layette pieces.

Ever read P.D. Eastman's The Best Nest? I texted my sister in law the other day that I was becoming the mean mamma bird in the book. . . she sends the papa bird all over the place frantically trying to find the perfect spot for her baby and is really quite crabby in the process. I always thought she was mean. And then, this week, I was reflecting on my nesting and this thought popped into my head. . .. I nest like. . . . . oh my goodness, I nest like the mamma in P.D. Eastman's book!

Anyway, my husband promised me two days at home and that he would do all in his power to cross off all items on my honey-do / baby-get-ready / nesting list.  My absolute favorite item on this list is not baby related at all, but I am in love with it.   Daniel doesn't want anyone to know that he made it because he fails to see the beauty in reclaimed trash and doesn't want his name or carpentry skills attached to something that took him two minutes to make and two minutes to hang. But, drumroll, I have a pallet shelf rack now!

Did I say that I love it?

Now I think I need some words in the space between the pallet shelf and the alphabet board (from Loren. . . the giver of perfect gifts).

I keep mulling over ideas for a short phrase that would just fit.

Grab a Kleenex, blow your nose and keep studying. not kind enough

Study to show thyself approved too King James-y {Jacob was reading something in the unfamiliar-to-him King James Version the other day: "Mom, is this supposed to be Godlier or something?!"}

Readers are leaders ummm. . . no.

Oh well, I'll think of something. Suggestions welcome!

Nesting Part 2 tomorrow. . . check back for instructions for a DIY roman shade out of existing blinds.   I love this allllmost as much as the pallet shelf.   But not quite.

{eight years}

Eight years together.  .  .

It's good. 

I think of the wild joy and beauty of first love and first kisses and first homes and the way his face looked when I walked down the aisle to spend the rest of my life with him.

I think of the crazy-high expectations of new brides and the sheer inadequacy of humans to meet each others every need. 

I think of the glitter {from our car - thanks groomsmen} we tracked everywhere on our honeymoon.

I think of the desire for our love to be perfect . . . for our marriage to be strong.

I remember red roses and a white veil and how much all of that rice hurt my face and my big strong man carrying me out of the church.

I remember my heart feeling like it would burst wide open with joy.



Fast forward eight years. . .

A lot of life has lost the glitter.

The rose colored glasses are definitely put away.

You know each other.

For some, maybe, that's bad.

For us, its so good.

No glitter, just reality. 

It's you and me, just liked I dreamed.

Reality is:

four days away to be together.

still loving kicking hotel room doors shut and hanging out the I'm too comfortable to be disturbed, please come back later sign. (Gotta love how different hotels phrase "Don't bother us.")

the freedom and security that comes from years together. . .  I don't feel like I have to stay at Best Buy and agonize over the second laptop decision.  I can leave.  He's still happy.  I can also come back an hour later and he still hasn't moved. 

that we both love watching nerdy financial corruption documentaries together. 

when he says you're beautiful . . . and  I'm one month away from having our fourth child.

staying together when life isn't glitter and roses.

I think of how easy it can be to want to throw in the proverbial towel and give up on the commitments that we made and I'm thankful that we haven't.

The reward of being with someone who knows everything about you and still chooses to love is incredible, unique, fantastic.  {thrilling}

So glad I married the love of my life!


I love you, Daniel!

when the story isn't mine to write

I'm not good at faking life.

I'm just not into fake.

I find so much joy and release in just spilling my heart out and being honest.

I'm brutally honest with the people closest to me. . . but pretty honest with those who aren't, too.  I've been known to confess to my Bible Study group that I have thrown spoons in anger and I can cry with complete strangers.

Is this a personality trait or because I am a woman?

Probably some of both.

I know that writing about Gabe has been so incredibly healing for me.  It has helped me sort out my thoughts, my heart, what I still believe about God, and helped me grieve the loss of my son.

Men aren't as open.

I am always baffled by this.

Is it because they don't want to admit weakness?

Putting themselves out there and admitting doubts and fears is probably just not helpful to them.

Endless personal reflection?

Not any guys I know!

So as I watch my husband grieve and walk through steps I walked through months ago. . . my heart breaks.  I feel a little bit like you all must feel as you stand on the outside of our grief looking in, wanting to help, but not able to take away the pain.

I want to write about it; but it's  his story and not mine to write.

So I don't have a lot of words right now.

I know that Daniel has been so strong for me. . . for so long.  You can only be strong for so long. 

I tell him it's okay.

He doesn't have to be happy.

He doesn't have to be strong. 

I cry.

I physically ache to take the pain away from him, knowing that there's no way to go but through.

I tell him I believe for him like so many have believed for me

that when the road is too dark

and the way is too long

and little places where Gabe should be are too quiet

I'll still be here. . .

and we are going to hang on. . .

and I don't know what to say

but I love him.

Ahh. . . he is such a good man.

I pray that God will bring healing to his heart and that I will be a refuge for him. . .

I love him so much.

love isn't always red tissue

I remember our first Valentine's Day.

We were tentatively doing the long distance dating dance across two thousand miles and we aren't poster children for great communication.

My mom elevates the great pink and red holiday to quite an occasion. . . little tissue wrapped gifts at each place during breakfast and of course everyone must wear the appropriate colors.

I'm not really sure Daniel even knew the significance of February 14.

That first year together (and I use that term very loosely) I was away from home, staying for a week as a live-in nanny with a military family that were (and still are) great friends of mine.

I still remember where I was standing in their house when their phone rang.

"It's for you." Janie hisses at me, with a crazy smile on her face. . . "I totally think it's Daniel!"

I  stand in stocking feet on the hardwood floor in their dining room, looking out the window at the white fields and brittle branches of winter, then down at the phone in my hand.

"Hello, it's Hayley," I say.

Hey. . .  {deep voice} hi. . . yep, it's him.

"Hey! What's going on? Are you at work or at school?"  {This was early enough in our relationship that I had no clue what his schedule was, much less whether or not he loved me.}

So it seems that I have botched Valentine's Day pretty bad. . . he continues and my heart flips. (Hello, heart, he is acknowledging the Great Holiday Of Love.)

. . .and it must be kind of a big deal to you, so I feel really bad that I just totally missed it and I just wanted to call you and tell you that you are really special to me.  I can't talk long cuz I'm at work but I just wanted you to know that.

I try to calmly wrap up our conversation without saying anything too stupid and when we disconnect Janie and I shriek with endless speculation the rest of the day.  I think he loves me.  Do you think so? What are your wedding colors again?

I found out later that my future mother-in-law had just happened to call my mom that day and Mom mentioned what the morning had entailed, probably mentioning the cherries on top of the french toast and the flowers Dad had just sent.  It didn't take my mother in law long to phone her son at the fire department and clue him in to the cultural differences between our two families.

But that was almost ten years ago and we've enjoyed many fun dates and flowers and chocolates since that awkward phonecall.


Love is so not about the flowers this year.


Right now I battle to know what love means to my husband.

I want to love him the way he needs to be loved.

I don't always know what that looks like.

When your world turns upside down, you change.  Your whole outlook changes.  You aren't the same person anymore.

In a marriage that's kind of scary.

Who is she, he wonders and who is he, she cries.

Initially most couples cling so tightly to each other.  They desperately grasp one thing that they know for certain. . . each other.  That frantic clinging lasts for awhile, and in some couples just stays.

Yay for them.

But for us  (just being painfully honest, here) . . . the differences in the way we grieve, in the way we process, in the way we view each other and God. . . gave way to confusion and distance. . . pushing each other away so that we wouldn't hurt any more than we were already hurting.

Exhaustion.

Sleeplessness.

Panic.

Physical ache.

Receiving our son's autopsy report.

Oh we aren't madly in love.

Drowning out the pain in work.

Crying in the bathroom at events.

Misunderstanding.

Loneliness.

Missing each other.

Oh how not sweet our marriage is!

God intervened in our marriage in a big way by sending us away, far away and pouring out His love on us in such a safe environment.  We realized there, that we needed each other still. . . that neither of us could make it better. But we could hang on and not let go.



I think that's where we are now. . .

We're hanging on and not letting go.



I think of Daniel's tentative phonecall all those years ago. . .

. . . reaching out. . .

. . .showing that little glimmer of kindness and love. . .

. . . and my woman's heart, ever optimistic in matters of love, opens wide to those tentative steps.



What can my tentative step be?

Being a safe place for my man. . .

For once, being strong for him.

Maybe realizing it's not always about me.

What if it's just shutting my mouth?

Maybe telling him that even when life is cold and hard and cruel there's still no one I'd rather walk with than him.


That's a little different than chocolate and hot dates and red tissue wrapped gifts; but it's what love looks like this year.




I'm hanging on, Daniel. . . so glad God gave you to me.

ice rescue class

Can I just say "SUPER SUPER COLD" ?

Eleven degrees!