(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.

(maybe time doesn't heal but God does: four year birthdays)

Today is our little son Gabe's fourth birthday.

Last year I wrote about scars and said that time heals wounds.

Daniel and I talked about that late into the night of our littlest man's third birthday and he told me:

It's not true.

Time doesn't heal.

How can you say that?

It's not better, he's still gone, we still have this beautiful-sad-awkward day of January 12 to get through.

How can you say it's not as bitter?  It's bitter for me. . .

And I knew then that he was right and my ability to be strong was only as strong as my tenuous grip on my emotions.  I wept hard that night last year.

I told him I would take down what I had written, because it is so important to me to speak truth, even in the grieving process.

Always incredibly supportive of my writing, he said, no, I needed to leave it, because if that's what I felt, I should say it. 

But that little statement:

[time heals]

has been in the corner of my heart for a year now.

I've wrestled with the concept. 

Does time heal?

When I was writing, I was referring to scars; if properly cared for, wounds stop bleeding and scar over.  You still see the mark of the wound;  it's not the same, but also not torn and bloody anymore. 

And so, in the case of skin tissue, time can be a part of healing.

Whenever the eternal is involved, our human analogies can break down and fail to communicate. How do you communicate the terror and beauty of Heaven touching Earth in Death?  Terror at the power and horror of severing ties with here; the beauty is the knowledge that a human soul is eternal.

Maybe time doesn't heal.

Maybe only God can give the grace and strength to go on, to work and live and see another day and another. 

Maybe time is a vehicle in which healing rides?

the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. . .

and the time vehicle brings us to number four.

HOW DO YOU CELEBRATE YOUR DEAD SON'S BIRTHDAY?

I'm sorry to be blunt, but it is just a ridiculously awkward conundrum. 

It's a happy day.

It's a horrible day.

Should we have a party?  Go to Chuck E Cheeses?

Should we pretend it's a normal day and skip all the questions, tears, drama, people, hugs, and just hide out somewhere?

Should we acknowledge him publicly?  I mean, do you say, hey, it's my little son's birthday.  He'd be four.  But he's not here. 

Do you invite your family and let your closest people share in your day?  After year four isn't that a little weird?  I mean, do you wanna be the people that just never moved on?  (Those pour souls.)

 These are the very real thoughts faced by people who lose anyone close to them.

I have learned from experience that physically you cannot skip grief.  It rears it's ugly head in other ways if you choose to ignore it, stuff it under the rug, block it out with laughter and pointless TV.  It shows up in insomnia, heart palpitations, excessive sleeping, depression, panic, nightmares, and all other sorts of junk. 

As hard as it is, it's better to take a deep breath and face the fear of crumbling, the fear of not making it through, the fear of what people will think and just swim through.  You feel like you're drowning, and it's awful, but if you face it, then you come out on the other side of whatever battle you just faced and there's perspective and a bit of healing and a tentative strength and a gratefulness to God for His grace. 

So even if we wouldn't acknowledge the day of our son's birth, we would be faced with remembering because of the oddest things that happen right before significant dates. This week Daniel dreamed that two little babies died . . . but he was able to resuscitate and they ended up all okay, living, breathing.  Also this week I overheard a whispered argument behind the couch:

Cambria:  "I wanna know."

JD:  "I'm telling you, don't ask."

C: "I'm asking."

JD:  "I wouldn't if I were you!"

I said:  "What's up, guys?"

Cambria:  "I want to know if anyone did CPR on Gabe."

JD: "I told you not to ask, Cambria, you shouldn't ask!"

Ahhhh, four years later, and there's still stuff like that that makes your heart stop for a moment.

I think of the sweet missionary lady in her eighties whose baby girl died when she rolled off her bed and suffocated while her missionary mama baked a birthday cake.  This woman poured her life out in South America for the cause of the Gospel, she's wise and strong and has a firm grasp of theology and she said: "I still can't eat cake."   So if birthday cake still makes her heart twist, maybe it's not super weird that my little family starts processing Gabe's death and life again around about January 12?




We woke up this morning, a Sunday, got ready for church, ate the customary yogurts, started the coffee, loaded the van.  Daniel is technically on duty today, but took off a couple hours in vacation time in order to be with us for the day.  He asks me on the way to church if I'm okay and I say yes and then I return the favor and he says yes. 

I have a tight grip on my emotions because I am about to see 150 people and I have chosen not to hide out at home, but I don't want to go in and cause a scene either.  I tell him I am okay, it's not so sad, but that mostly I just wonder what Gabe would look like.  Four isn't a baby anymore. . . I trail off and feel the tears coming and blink and try to regain control since our 2 mile drive to church doesn't lend itself to emotional dumping and kleenex - make-up repairing.

Sweet Mrs A. hugs me tight and I manage to hold it together for that and I tell her I'm okay.  She says in typical Mrs. A fashion: "Well, I'm not okay!" and just a tiny crack in my armor happens because this woman I respect so much gives me permission to not be okay.

I can't concentrate on the worship music because I keep thinking about that day, and Gabe's birth, and how crazy happy it was and then since music is inextricably wound through all the highs and lows of our lives, I think about the playlists we've created for the births of each of our children. 

The music choices are quite . . . eclectic because our music loves are wide and varied. If you're a kid of ours, you may be born to gentle flower child praise music or quite possibly, Lady Antebellum.

I sit.

I stand.

I pass the offering plate.

Jacob was born on Newsong's Cherish.

Cambria, Phillips Craig and Dean's Pour My Love On You.

And little Gabe. . . I smile thinking that we did have quite a range on his playlist:  Lady A, Switchfoot, the flower child praise group 2nd Chapter of Acts singing O For a Thousand Tongues and Holy Holy Holy. . .

And suddenly I realize that's what I'm hearing: Holy, Holy, Holy.  The offertory.  O dear, this isn't good.  There is no stopping the hot tears overflowing.  I'd get up and leave but it's so awkward.  We're supposed to be stronger that that by now and sitting towards the front everyone would see.  I try to stem the tide but it's just not happening:

. . .right back in that hospital room with soft lighting and his little cries and it's really a boy and my sisters. . .

tears run down the inside of my nose and I try to wipe them with the back of my hand but it's just no use. 

This is why people who are grieving are afraid to come to church sometimes.  You have no control over moments like that and it's embarrassing and frightening to be so utterly at the mercy of being blindsided by a memory that is going to make you want to ugly cry into your husband's shoulder.

I pinch the inside of my hand with my fingernails until all I can think about is how much my palm hurts and that's the most effective way to stem the tide. 

Daniel has meetings and he promises to get a ride home with someone else:  I flee the people who love us, support us, care so much, because. . . I just am going to be a mess.  Right.  I shouldn't run.  I know.  But I have just a very fragile grip on my social competence today and I flee with the children, home to fajitas and Cambria making cupcakes for our little Gabe.  I bought orange balloons the other day and Jacob and Eli blow them up in the living room.

The balloons weren't necessary though, since besides all the love people continue to shower on us through phone calls and hugs and texts and emails and messages, we received no less than three deliveries of 4 balloons for our little man's fourth.  I think the Hy-Vee people wanted in on the party by the end of the afternoon.  Our people- even when I flee and run- are the best support, the best heart caregivers, the most kindest bunch of friends EVER. 

We take him a cupcake, something we've done every year.  We take the #4 candle.  This is the first year it's stayed lit.  We take the balloons.  The kids throw snowballs.  I'm spent and cried out.  Eli loses his shoe in the snowbank.  Jacob's balloon gets stuck in a tree.  He's mad because all on his own, he spent a lot of time writing a note to Gabe and attaching it to the balloon: "Now no one will see it."  Cambria, on a huge gymnastics/AmericanGirl McKenna doll kick,  writes a note to Gabe on her balloon: I love u, Gabe, Love, McKenna (cambria) I Love You God To. Jacob frees his balloon by throwing snowballs at it. 

They rise, little orange pin dots into the January gray sky and we watch till we can't see anymore. 

I kiss my husband, out there in the snow and with gravestones all around, including our son's:  I love you, Daniel. 

And I do.

We made it through another birthday, and my whole soul exhales with relief. 

Tomorrow we start back to school, and our nights are booked and our lives are full.  We are planning a mission trip, pouring into local church life, teaching our kids, preparing our taxes, skiing with family, loving how sweet and purposeful and just plain fun life is right now. It's pinch yourself amazing most of the time. 

Today is a bitter, sweet, salty tear, breaking heart reminder to me of the pain that exists here on earth. 

I am grateful for the gift of my little son's life, and that he was born four years ago today.  I don't think I'll ever forget his birthday; and if time doesn't heal, I know that God is close to the broken hearted, and that's enough for me.

Happy birthday, my sweet sweet Gabriel James.

letter to a grieving mom

Was it uploading files of photos to Shutterfly and running across 25 pictures of Gabe's pacifier that made me think of how far God has brought us?

Was it seeing other people just beginning the grief road?

I don't know why, but I've had these thoughts whirling around in my head these days, things I would have told the grieving, shattered young woman that was me. 



Dear Mamma-of-a-child-in-Heaven,

It is so hard.

I know.

It does hurt to breathe.

Your arms do physically ache.  It's not your imagination.  You're not going crazy.

Your heart does do weird stuff.  Grief affects us physically.  It's normal.

It's not normal.

It hurts so bad.

You are seeing people that reach out to you, people that have lost children, and they seem okay.  That is freaky scary.  How are they okay?  That intimidates you.  Don't let it.  Grasp the reaching hand they are stretching.  They aren't okay, they just want you to know there is hope. 

You can't sleep.  It's okay.  It's normal.  Your mind runs a movie reel of your child's death endlessly and you can't block it.  That's normal too.  Your mind needs to convince your heart that your baby isn't there anymore.  It's a process.  You can't rush it.  The movie reel won't always keep running, out of your control. 

That little boy wearing the same shirt as your son's-  take a deep breath.  This will not always be the sharp knife that it is now.  His mamma doesn't hate you.  It's not her fault.  If his mamma knew that was your son's outfit too, she never would have made you endure that.  It won't always be so wrenching.  Grief will tell your mind crazy things.  Don't let it lie to you about people.

The family reunion photos that seem like a prison sentence. . . I know, it's not a real family photo.  I know, you're thinking about the glaring omission and a cold little grave and everyone else is smiling.  Don't hate them for smiling.  I know.  I understand.  Take a deep breath.  It's okay not to smile.  It won't always be so brutal. 

Your first phone call hearing someone died, visiting a funeral home again - I know, you feel like you're panicking and going to vomit and you can't do it.  Cry out to Jesus.  Hug those sad people hard.  Get some more Kleenex.  Let the tears flow.  It's healing. 


Your kids talk about death, or play that they die, or their dolls die-  that is normal.  They cry.  It's normal.  They don't cry.  That's okay too.  Children are resilient.  Love them.  Give them hugs.  They hurt to see you sad too.  They will be okay.  The grief road for your kids is much shorter than it is for you.  Be thankful for that. 


Find the safe people.  You might not feel strong enough to look, but they are there. Find them.  You can pour it out to them.    In almost every situation and at almost every social event, there's someone who understands pain. . . you might find that safe place when everyone is laughing and you see a face, a heart, that isn't.  Don't expect everyone to be safe.  It's too much to ask of the entire world.

There are no ways to soften first birthdays, first holidays, death anniversaries.  It's just going to be sad.  I'm so sorry.  I wish you didn't have to go through it. 

You do things to cope.  You take pictures of keepsakes.  You carry little mementos in your purse.  You hope no one notices and then pray that they will.  Maybe then someone will ask how you're doing, let you cry on their shoulder, tell you that they love you and that they know you loved him.  You will always feel the need to commemorate and acknowledge but the ways of doing it will change.  And that's good.  

You won't get over it.  You will learn how to live with it.  You don't get over part of your heart being gone.  That's just your painful reality.  But you will laugh, you will smile, you will live again.  You can. 

What do I wish I could tell you, you with the dark circles under your eyes and the light on late into the night?  I want you to know that God will carry you if you let Him.  He will carry your pain.  He is so near to the broken hearted.  When He seems far away- and He seems light years away sometimes- cry out to Him.  He is there. 

There are things that happen, words that hurt deeply, that people say and do inadvertently now.  You will cringe and ache.  They don't mean to hurt you.  You will see this in a few years, but it will take years.  Be gentle with them and gentle with yourself, too.  It's okay to back up a little from painful situations, but don't think people mean to hurt you.  They don't.  Believe me. You'll see someday.

Oh dear one, weighed down with the heavy load of grief, know that someday the load will be lighter, and God will give you the incredible gift of helping someone else carry their own burden.  You don't know now, but healing will come from weeping with those who weep. 

One day you will wake up and realize. . .

we have this treasure in jars of clay

 to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us

we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;

perplexed, but not in despair; 

persecuted, but not abandoned;

struck down, but not destroyed

. . .therefore we do not lose heart

{from II Corinthians 4}

 

don't lose heart

 

Love,

 

hayley

three year birthdays & what scars represent

 

Today our littlest man would be three.

 

It's such a sweet thought. . . not as bitter as the last two years.

 

Healing is slow.

 

Much like  deep wounds, at first the grief bleeds, throbs, you don't have a life outside the all-consuming pain.

 

Then there's a break in the pain, there's check ups, flare-ups, maybe infection, or tearing open and sutures needed again.

 

But if cared for, a wound heals. 

 

One day, all that's left is scarring, marking what once consumed, tore, ached, changed the landscape. 

 

Are scars beautiful?

 

I don't know, maybe they are.

 

The scar on my soul left from losing my son, my precious little Gabe, who should be in the throes of potty-training and first real sledding trips - that scar represents so much to me.

 

It does have a strange kind of beauty.

 

That scar has taught me that life is precious.

 

That scar has taught me that the role people play in caring for the hurting is monumental.

 

It's taught me sometimes tragedy is just plain out of our control.

 

(I should have known that, you say.  I know, I should have.  But I didn't.)

 

I learned that God is truly near to the broken-hearted.

 

I learned that sometimes strong people don't want to live anymore, and sometimes weakness looks strong on the outside.

 

I learned that underneath our happy small talk, every single person struggles with something.

 

 

And healing. . . it does come.

 

 

Time heals.

 

 

It's true, it does. 

 

 

I heard someone say the other day that you don't realize how much you've healed until you look back and remember how broken you were.  I wanted to stand up and shout, yes yes yes. 

 

 

Healing looks different on everybody.  Maybe it just means you can smile.

 

Maybe healing is being able to breathe. 

 

Maybe it's just knowing it's okay to remember and not cry. 

 

I didn't dread Gabe's birthday this year;  it was just sweet, to look back and realize how much he changed my life.  I smiled remembering how difficult the transition from two to three children was for me.  I was exhausted. 

 

One of my favorite moments with Gabe was at one-thirty in the morning when he was about two months old.  He was awake, crying, and wanting to cuddle.  I was tired, sleep deprived, yet something just nudged me to savor him.  I took him downstairs, curled up in my favorite big chair and just drank him in.  I  kissed him, stroked his dark, dark hair, smelled his still-newborn scent.  I clearly remember looking out the window at the dark night and just thinking this is going to fly by.  I don't want to forget.  I want to sear this moment in my heart.  Of course I was thinking of first cars and college, not of tiny caskets or death certificates.  But God knew, and He gave me that precious moment with my little son. 

 

 

Healing is knowing that Heaven is real.

 

Healing is knowing here isn't the end.

 

Healing is knowing that the process isn't over.

 

Losing a child isn't something that is ever over.

 

Healing is embracing what the scars show. 

 

I'm thankful for my little son's life. 

 

I wouldn't wish losing a child on my worst enemy, yet I'm truly thankful for what I've learned on the grief road.

 

I'm so glad that three years ago little Gabriel James was born. 

 

Happy birthday, my sweet, sweet baby.  I love you so much.

 

{and just because it's his birthday. . . some of my very favorite pictures, in no particular order}

9 years of Christmas pics

Mmmm. . . I love Christmas pictures.  I remember getting the mail as a child and carefully feeling along the edge hoping for a picture inside. 

Our online-driven society has made real photos you can hold in your hands a thing of the past.  The last time I printed photos was. . . um . . . last Christmas.  Yes.  That's bad.  Anyway, I stubbornly insist on sending real Christmas pictures every year maybe just because I enjoy receiving them so much. 

Today's advent activity for the kids was helping with Christmas cards. 

We have about 220 to do. 

We finished 8. 

I will be up all night. 

I started thinking about all the previous Christmas pictures. . . how life changes. . .

I just snapped pictures of pictures below.  You'll definitely be able to tell when we go digital.  (Seriously, the subtitle of my blog should be you aren't here for the photography.)

 

2003

stars in our eyes. 

 

 

 

 

2004

 

we had just discovered that jd was on the way.

if we look a little shell shocked. . . well, we were shocked.  wow.  obviously he turned out to be the best shock ever. :)

 



 

Mmm.  oh.  I guess this wasn't a Christmas picture.  Well anyway, I'm a sucker for dress blues and he's mine!  Wow, how lucky can a girl get?

2005

 

Aww, it's 3 of us.  It was snowing and we begged our neighbor Jenny to take our picture.  Daniel bought me that coat as a gift, and I loved it.  I also loved the curtains in the window of our little love nest that we were quickly outgrowing.  That was such a happy year.  I remember working together, making Jacob wooden blocks for Christmas.  Oh the sweet joys of being young penniless parents.  :)

 



 

 

This is 2006.

 

The 'year of the boat' as we like to call it.

Grandpa wanted his boat kept in the family;  it was our turn that year. 

I bet he had lots of laughs looking down from Heaven at us and our friends and our boating escapades. 



2007

 

 

This is not the picture we sent out that year, but I can't find the real one.  Here is where our sweet girl joined us.  I love her little bow!  I think JD is sucking on a piece of candy from the parade we had just attended.

 

 



2008

 

I can't find the real 08 picture.  This will do.

 

Apparently I was still into tying green bows on Cambria's head.  :) This was taken at Gettysburg when we were on the East Coast for my friend Lisa's wedding.

 

Here's another one from that time frame, early 2009, in Oregon for Daniel's younger sister's wedding. 

 



Love love love the Pacific Ocean!

 

 

 

 

 

 

2009

 

{this is just a random funny one I pulled from the folder of the Christmas 09)

 

My friend Rebecca started taking our pictures here.  Gabe is a little twinkle in my tummy here. . .

Sweet smiles unaware that our lives would be shattered in the next year with his birth, life and death.

 

 



 

2010

 

Sweet little Gabe. . . he changed our lives forever.  Miss him every.single.day.

 



I will never, as long as I live, forget the darkness of that year.  Christmas was unbearable.  That year has forever changed how I view the holidays and brought an awareness that it's not always the happiest time of the year for everyone.

 

2011

 

Healing

Grace.

Still an empty chair.

Eli David.

Tears.

Gratefulness.

Thankful.

 

 

Next up 2012! 

(be still)

Dark and cold and rainy evening and I am listening to The Fray's Be Still  and trying to formulate thoughts into words

Be still and know that I Am with you

Be still and know that I Am here



I wrote this awesome little quote on my chalkboard wall today:

Stop the glorification of busy.

 

-author unknown

 

It stares down at me as I rush by, this thought that busy isn't always good.

 

I am hiding in the busy, drowning in it, running away from all that I need to slow down and pray through. 

 

I say no to two separate events today, give way and say yes to the third.

 

I try to glorify the stillness, but in the stillness is grief and pain.

 

The stillness and maybe the rain bring thoughts and thoughts bring pain.

 

Being still means that I have a few q's for God, some things I don't understand, and I think being busy I can just ignore what I'm thinking and throw a few God is goods and thankful for graces (protestant Hail Marys) at the doubts and we'll be good to go.



When darkness comes upon you

And covers you with fear and shame

Be still and know that I Am with you

And I will say your name


The quietness always reveals the gaping hole, the void of our son.

Gabe is a shadow of my imagination these days, all the memories and joy and pain so distant.  Apparently two and a half years is a long time frame.  I can't remember things.  This drives me crazy and I can't even allow my mind to remember what it can't remember. 

But my children, they remember with startling clarity and once again I wonder if they're okay.

I sit on the front porch with Jacob and a few of his buddies.  They are crouched on their little haunches, little boy style, talking about nothing and everything. 

Jacob, matter-of fact: "My little brother died in my bedroom and I know where his bed was and I don't like to be there when I sleep."

I am stunned and panicky and the mama bear in me instantly has our house listed with a SOLD sign on it and I am far away from all this pain, wanting to protect this boy from memories, from death, from fear.

If terror falls upon your bed

And sleep no longer comes

Remember all the words I've said

Be still, be still and know.

I wait, wait to be calm, wait to be rational, and that night up in his room,  I sit on his bed and rub his little boy back, feel his bristly short hair that won't grow long the way he wants it to, pray for the words that I should say, pray to listen.

Hey, I heard you say you remember that Gabe died in here.  Can you talk to me about that? Cuz I remember too.

He rolls over. 

Yeah, I just know it, Mom.

I cringe.  Do you want to trade bedrooms? I would do anything, anything to take away a little pain from anyone here; these walls have seen too many tears.

Well. . . I don't know, I like having a big room, you know, with my stuff, and my desk. . . he trails off.  The materialism in him is winning over his memories. Unbelievable.  Maybe this isn't all as deep and crushing as it initially sounded.

I relax a little.  Well, we can always trade around bedrooms.  I don't want you to be scared.  Really.

He sits up a little, his big brown eyes serious.  Well, yes, I am scared because sometimes I do think there are rattlesnakes in here. 

I want to laugh and cry.  He just needs to relay facts, hear truth, be loved, be secure.  He needs to say that his brother died.  He needs to read too many westerns and be scared of rattlesnakes.  He is just a boy and he will be okay.

I think.


When you go through the valley

And shadow comes down from the hill

If morning never comes to be

Be still, be still, be still


My sister Elizabeth and I are sweating and fuming and vowing to never touch peel and stick linoleum squares ever again in a basement bathroom, snapping chalklines and using squares and still having problems and then Mom calls, with Cambria on the other end of the phone for me. 

She has long endless details about the bike ride Mom took her for and Grandma pushed Eli in the stroller and I waited for her at the corners

and then we went to see Gabe, Mom, I showed Grandma where to go cuz I know how to get there and I rode my bike and showed Grandma.  And we were there with Eli and I looked up and Grandma was crying not really loud, just a little.  And then I cried, too, Mom.

I left the linoleum squares.

And then Grandma prayed, Mom, and she asked me if I wanted to pray too and I said yes.  So we both prayed there. 

I bless my mom for loving my daughter and walking her through this moment.  I don't know what to say.  I feel far away even though I'm just across town and the phone between us amplifies the loss because I want to reach out an hug her little warm self and take the pain away.


And in the middle of my busy-running, in the middle of the pain-burying, our precious Eli turns one and I realize the enormous amount of healing and relief he has brought to our home.

In true over-busy style I buy him a cake from the Walmart deli case and we put a little blue candle in it and watch his little face in the glow of the flame;  I'm struck by the fact that I don't have a driving need to make his first birthday perfect, like I did for Gabe. 

Because he's here.  He doesn't care about the perfect cupcakes, and I don't either, because I can kiss his bald little head and pinch his solid little legs and chase him all over the house and out of messes, all day long. 

I thank God for him, this little Eli David constantly.  I try not to hold him too tight.  I teach him "no" and "obey" and Cambria and I roll with laughter when he learns to hokey-pokey.

I think of a paragraph in a book I never finished once I found that the grieving father's young son returns as a ghost;  (I don't need any additional weird thoughts in my head)

Mark sat back down on the stool, his heart beating too fast.  For the second time that day, he wondered how on earth he'd managed to become the person he was: a man who felt like weeping whenever someone he loved left the room.

You Came Back, by Christopher Coake, ch.2, pg.15 



If you forget the way to go

And lose where you came from

If no ones standing beside you

Be still and know I Am



Be still and know that I am God, He says to me.  All the answers are not here, but He is.

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper. {1 Kings 19:11-13}

He was there, in the stillness.


Be still and know that I Am with you

Be still and know I Am.

when sleeping through the night isn't happy

It was a beautiful day to spend at the zoo today. . .

it was such a crazy long week and weekend . . .without my man. . . 

normally Monday is not a day I would relish, but today was different because we spent it with Daniel.

We spent some time watching Daniel's work and then spent the entire day at the zoo with him.  It was so fun.  I didn't want to come home.

Coming home would force me to face what was really on my mind. . .

Gabe slept through the night three nights in a row.  He slept through the fourth night, too and never woke up.

I have avoided and avoided teaching Eli to sleep through the night but the time has come for my sanity and his.

Tonight is Eli's fourth night.

I dragged and dragged my feet.

I let him get in the pool.

He had a bath. 

I sorted out pajamas for him.

I let him crawl all over our bed naked.  (he loves being naked)

He said goodnight to his peeps aka JD and Cambria.

I got my dumb camera phone out and made Daniel take a bunch of pictures of him.

He's so stinking cute.

Daniel started calling him "Bacon" today.

 And then I kissed his little self all over and put him in bed.

How do you ever have enough time???

You don't, that's all.

I plodded downstairs to piles of laundry to fold and children who wouldn't go to bed and were coming up with fantabulous stall tactics.

changing bed sheets.

(mom, i had a bloody nose on the sheet.) (why am I just now finding out about this?!)

oiling the fan.

it's squeaky.

I thought they were in bed and I sat down on the couch to try to manage my tattered emotions and what do you know. . . there the two little people were.  Looking at books just as chill as you please. 

Dad told us we could look at books because we're going to rub his back.

I'd like to pretend that a cherishing the moment mentality was present, but it wasn't and they were sent off to bed on no uncertain terms.

I started folding all the little pieces of clothing, bright summer colors and sturdy little jeans, bigger than Gabe's ever were, and I realize that I'm not really scared for Eli.

He's quite okay.

I am nervous, yes, because it's a milestone that snuck up on me, but what it's really about is Gabe.  It's that little deja vu feeling of normal happy evening, put the baby in bed, wake up in the morning and oh, the world crashed in today.

I don't want the world to come crashing in again tomorrow morning.

It won't my stronger, farther-in-the-healing-process psyche assures me.  But my heart falters and I cry as I fold the socks and the shorts and wish for the laughter that I won't hear again.

The grainy phone pictures. . . what were those about? If it was really Eli's last night, we would hardly settle for snapshots of him with poor quality lighting.  But it's not about Eli, it's about missing Gabe and wishing I would have taken another photo, had a recording of his chuckles, kissed and kissed and kissed him again.

The powerful presence of God through music is something that I will never underestimate.  While I was battling and wishing and sorting laundry through the tears, the words in the quiet background music spoke, no, shouted to my heart.

Here I am
Begging for certainty again
But simple trust
Is what you're asking me to give
If I am saved
You tell me it will not be by sight
So when I pray
I'll close my eyes, I'll close my eyes

I'll reach for your hand in the night
When the shadows swallow the light
'Cause I'm giving up, giving in
Once again a childlike faith
Is my only way
To see in the dark

The question mark
Hung at the end of every fear
Is answered by
The promise that you are with me here
And that's all I've got
When the lights go out and I lose my way
So I'll close my eyes
I won't be afraid, I won't be afraid

As I reach for your hand in the night
When the shadows swallow the light
'Cause I'm giving up, giving in
Once again a childlike faith
Is my only way
To see in the dark

If every star falls and the sun fails to rise
Still in my blindness I'll see
If You are my help, my hope and my vision
One step at a time You will lead

(Jason Gray)

Shadows. . .

Sunshine. . .

What a crazy world we live in, so much joy and so much pain.

Tonight I pray this for my little chubby son, the words written above his bed:

I will lie down in peace and sleep, because You alone O Lord make me dwell in safety.

(Psalm 4:8)

 

Jesus!

You are the Way, the Truth, the LIFE and the only way to see in the dark.



25,000 graves & 10,000 reasons

You would think by looking at the little brick building with it's steep roof and swooping covered drive that it was from a fairy tale. . . 

The covered drive breaks away to cobblestones and then asphalt,  lined with trees, magnificent grandfather trees, strong, old, wise, shading the path that sharply rises.

At the crest of the hill, up through that  tree-canopied drive, is my little man's resting place.

And that's why we're in the little brick building, which isn't a fairy tale at all.  It's hot and stuffy and lined with monuments and markers and urns.  Daniel and I are seated in 1970's era squeaky chairs with papers spread on the Formica table.  Polly, the lady helping us design Gabe's stone is new to our ideas.  She isn't familiar with substituting different fonts.  She wants to add clip art.  We don't want clip art.  She seems relieved to answer the phone and her associate begins to small talk.

Twenty-five thousand people buried out there, he begins, waving his arm in the general direction of the tree lined drive and we're quite aware that he is just referring to the size of the cemetery. . . but my baby is numbered there now. 

Maybe thirty thousand.

Maybe I hate death.

Maybe I never wanted to drive through cemeteries trying to pick a spot to bury our son.

Maybe I'd rather be anywhere but here in your office.

I think back to the days of wanting to scream at the unthinking comments of well-meaning people.  I did scream. 

Two weeks after Gabe's death Daniel asked me if I was going to stop crying.  I remember being incoherent, retching, wailing, screaming the grief out at him. . . I want my babyyyyyyyyy. . . . .

He didn't know.  He was just scared, too, unsure, life spun out of control and searching desperately for mooring.  He wasn't finding any stability in me.

I bring myself  back to the present, a startling new concept for me. The Hayley of a year ago didn't have the strength to overcome insensitive words. This is a new Hayley, a different one.  Mr. Cemetery Man (Tom? Ted?) is rambling on about how they do rubbings of grave markers all the time. 

We finalize a bunch of details and write a check for an enormous sum that still doesn't feel like enough and then we leave and I feel spent and wasted.

There won't be Cubbies, swimming lessons, drivers ed or football. No snow-shoveling businesses, no camping trips, no first car, no graduation parties, no wedding plans.

I feel like this is the last thing I get to plan for my little man.

Yay!  We get to plan a grave stone!

Oh, I'd so much rather plan little boy stuff right now. . .



My friend Loren asks me how I'm doing and I tell her that I'm fine.

I tell her that I think I'm just stuffing the grief away because life is so good right now and the grief. . . two years of it. . .was so very dark.

It was, frankly, a nightmare.

I've reached the point in my grieving that it feels like reopening a deep wound to go back to the grief, the loss. 

It took so much time.  It was exhausting.  It was sleepless night upon sleepless night.  It was so dark.  I cry just thinking about the darkness. 

And now it's different.  I don't know exactly at what point it changed, but now I have the ability to cope, to laugh, to sleep, to smile about Gabe.

This is freeing.

It is not fun to be the people with red rimmed eyes.

It is not fun to be the drain on your friends and family.

It is not fun to be broken and needy.

But the grief didn't really go away, it just sinks below the surface, and the calm, apparently still waters of life hold so much deep pain.

On Mother's Day this year. . . that's the last time I broke down and wept for everything that could have been.

That was . . .well, two months ago.  Initially I never imagined being able to go a day without the screaming, burning pain being eased by tears.  But even in the tears of today, the calmer, gentler tears, there is a different sort of grief.

On Mother's Day. . .  Cambria (with much help from my sister Elizabeth) brings me breakfast in bed at 6:30 am.  I am thinking about Mother's Day two years ago and our happy little family, untouched by loss.  Gabe "wrote" me a mother's day card too, and I still have it, treasured. We ate at Las Lomas and he nibbled on beans and rice.  Details that would normally be forgotten are seared in my brain because it's all I have left of him. One week away will mark two years without Gabe and the grief is mixed up with Eli's laughter and the music playing. . .

The sun comes up

It's a new day dawning

It's time to sing Your song again

Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me

Let me be singing when the evening comes

The tears spill over and I weep for all of the pain and the growing and the changing and I cry because God is still so good.

I cry for the weariness that comes from "fighting the lies of the economy of deficit."  I cry for the simple trust that is broken and will never return, because I found out that life was cruel and earth is not my home not by being told, but by finding my little son asleep forever in his safe little bed.

That cruelty, that brokenness, that's not a reflection of God.

Those twenty-five thousand graves (or thirty) - that's not about God, that's about sin.

He is not okay with all of this pain.

He is not sitting in the Heavens watching suffering, cold and unmoving.

He is the only way out.

He is the only reprieve from the suffering.

You're rich in love and You're slow to anger

Your name is great and Your heart is kind

For all Your goodness I will keep on singing

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

So I while I weep for the 25,000 graves (mostly just one), I look for the 10,000 reasons that His heart is kind.



Well, it's not tidy and it's not neat, but there's the grief post for the summer. 

when carpe diem seems like a good idea

Thud.

Little Eli fell.

The details aren't important; he cried and we both soothed him and worried a little. 

Then he quit crying and started holding his breath with silent, jerky little sobs.

oh, Eli, don't do this. . . Daniel was telling him and my whole body went cold again.

We are going to get some help here. . . I was shaking, running for my phone.  Couldn't find it.  Couldn't find any phone.  Wasn't thinking.

Yes, yes, call. Daniel is saying, just standing there, dazed, holding him.

We can get there faster ourselves, I say and start putting shoes on my man and starting the van and crying to my son to breathe and be okay. 

Drive drive drive I say and then realize he can't drive while he holds him and I can't leave the kids so they have to come with us. I call them out of bed, hating the fear that they are going to feel and load them in.  I am moving like the wind. I leave the door open and candles burning.  I am not thinking.

Still jerky weird gasps from Eli.

I pray, out loud, and words stream out of my mouth as I drive the route I rode fourteen months ago to say goodbye to Gabe.

God, make him breathe,

You are a Healer, God.

God, I need my son,

God You are a Giver. . . be a Giver, God!

Daniel tells me to park at the ER and I refuse and drive to the double doors.  Go, go go, just go get him in there. . .

I see my husband carry my son through those doors through a haze of tears as I park and I hate what he is reliving and I hate what I could find when I too, walk through those doors again. 

I should have come back sooner, I think as I go in, realizing that I'm barefoot.  I just couldn't bring myself to return.  Daniel is here every other day. . . how does he do it?  Same corridors, same trauma rooms, same little private family lounges where peoples nightmares start.

I find my husband and two nurses and I lean against the door jamb and take it all in.  Eli is sitting up in Daniel's arms and making sad little coos to the nurses and they are all smiling and agreeing with Daniel that his respirations sound good but it's good to check and how far did he fall and they have a relaxed camaraderie from working together and everyone knowing why we're paranoid.

I am limp with relief and my face is wet with tears as I sit on the cot and hold him close to my heart.

He's okay?  All that heart-stopping stress?  The doctor looks so young and I feel so old and tired and weary.  He says our son is fine and that he'll run any x-rays or scans that we would like, but really doesn't think it's necessary.  Why was he jerking and not breathing? I ask and the doctor shrugs and laughs and says he was probably really mad.  Eli. . .seriously. . .you took another couple years off my life and reinforced the need for my Loreal 5N.

I left the room, I left the emergency department, I walked out into the parking lot. . . retracing awful steps.  But I was holding my son.  I got into the van and held his face to mine and sobbed. 

I know in my head that these are just childhood events that happen to everyone and and yet . . . he fell and immediately my mind spins an awful movie reel that my heart has already lived.

I'm sorry.

There's nothing we can do.

Going home with empty arms.

Newspaper notices with a photo of my baby.

Tiny grave.


I can't believe Eli's okay because I find myself always braced for the worst.  It's eleven pm and I hold him and think back on my demanding words to God and wonder why He even answered.  I don't deserve any of the good gifts He's already given me.

I am not entitled to my children.

My heart twists and I think of the sweet couple in our Compassionate Friends group who lost both of their little boys in a tragic car accident. 

Their days are not promised.

I think of the Don't Carpe Diem post that has been wildly popular among all of my mamma friends and even though I totally agree and have so been there . . . I realize that each day is an incredible gift.

It all blurs together in my mind and I drift into a troubled sleep.

And unbelievably I dream of Gabe.  This is a first for me.  I have wished that I could dream about him because then I could have another memory, even though it wouldn't be real, only a figment of an exhausted imagination.

Someone brings him to a party as a gift to us.

I know he's there, but just assimilate him back into my little nest, like he never left at all.

There's crying and eating and unwrapping gifts and breaking up children's fights, smiling and taking pictures and then the party is over.

The nameless person who brought Gabe as a gift hands me a photo from the party of all of us together and I realize that he had been there.

Where is he??  Why didn't I go crazy with joy??  Why didn't I realize the gift??

He's not here anymore.

And I am left with only a picture, again.

I wake up and can't sleep again, disturbed by the realness of the dream and the reality of never seeing Gabe this side of Heaven. 

Eli is wiggling and talking and I take him downstairs in the early morning dark and start some coffee;  I lay him a blanket and sit next to him, my back propped against my favorite big chair, and I take it in.  He laughs at my feet and I wave them at him.  I pick him up and kiss him.  I take in the moment.  I feel the joy. I am still tingly with gratefulness and relief.

Daniel comes downstairs, headed to a long twenty four hours at work, fixing other peoples emergencies and seeing their raw grief and pain and he stops, too, and takes Eli in.  He picks him up and holds him close.  I tell him about my dream and cry against him, thankful for a man to lean on and love me through life.


And Saturday begins.  Eli goes back to sleep.  Cambria is up, asking in a demanding and whiny way for pancakes. I'm pretty sure I have poison ivy on my face (no idea how it got there).  There are piles of laundry to fold and put away and beds to make and I don't feel super organized today.

It's real life, and it's not glamorized and I know that I will feel irritation today and I know the edgy surreal gratefulness for an uneventful ER visit will wear off and I won't always feel this thankful.

I will wish Eli would just stop crying.

I will say Cambria, you are entirely too old to be sucking your thumb!  Take it out of your mouth!

I will say You will not say "I want pancakes and put syrup on top" to your mamma.

But that gratefulness is right there, under the surface, springing out in a big hurry when I realize how quickly life can change.

So if you're reading this, wallowing in bad attitudes and sleepless nights and groceries and runny noses and toddlerhood. . . I know. 

I am too.

But just maybe carpe minute. In the middle of the crazy unending childhood drama of the diem.

Hug your babies. 

Breathe them in.

Tell them you love them.

Kiss their little baby toes, their little preschooler noses, their little I'm-almost-seven-and-too-big-for-kisses cheeks.

Because tomorrow isn't promised and today -though long and weary and sometimes frustrating- today is what God has given.

Live it!