A Firm Foundation?

On bright summer mornings when I wake up before the kids, I make my coffee, grab my bible and go out on the deck to read. I'm working my way through the book of Luke. I'm reading as a skeptic, as someone who strongly questions the notion of inerrancy. I'm picking it apart. Did Jesus really say that? Why was this story considered important enough to include here?

This morning I read the passage where Jesus says anyone who hears his words and puts them into practice is like a man who builds his house on a firm foundation, so that when the storms come it doesn't wash away (Luke 6:47-49). It struck me that Christians can fall into the mistake of judging someone's "foundation" by how they respond to crisis. If someone falls apart, if their life is a mess, they must not have the foundation Jesus talks about. How unfair to the Christian with mental health issues. Sometimes bible stories like these give Christians performance anxiety. Other Christians are watching, so they feel they have to appear as though their foundation is solid when inside they're hurting and they're internal house has completely washed away.

I finished a first draft of my novel. It's a shitty first draft as Anne Lamott would say, a Port-a-Potty worthy shitty first draft. I've gotten some good feedback, and I think I know what I need to do to make the story better, but I get tripped up. The story I'm telling isn't nice and happy and Christian-y. Because those aren't the stories I like to tell. Sometimes I feel guilty about that.

People talk about Catholic guilt, but I was raised Catholic, spent 12 years in Catholic schools, got married in the Catholic church, and I've never felt guilt like I have since joining the ranks of evangelical Christians. I've been second guessing my every move for almost 30 years, worried that my salvation would be ripped away, that I wouldn't properly discern the will of God, that everyone around me would know I hadn't properly discerned the will of God.

I know plenty of people who have walked away from the religion of their youth, both Catholics and evangelical Christians. I'm not ready to do that. I still go to church every week. I still pray. I'm still hanging on, hoping God can hear me. But I need to tear down everything I once thought was true. And I need to do it guilt-free, not worrying about what other Christians think about me or my performance, whether or not my foundation is firm. Or whether or not the book I'm writing is Christian-y.

I didn't intend for this blog to be an examination of my faith. I didn't intend for it to be about grief either. But here I am.

Christianity?

I am not a good Christian. In fact, I'm not sure I can even call myself a Christian anymore. I'm a God believer, and that's as far as I'm willing to go. Because to say I'm a Christian says I believe in Christ, that he was the son of God, sent to earth to save us from our sins. And that's where I stop and say, "What? Who sets up a system like this? Who creates a beautiful place, fills it with amazing creatures, adds humans, and then sits back and waits knowing they'll fail, and then according to this plan, need to be redeemed? What?"

My relationship with the bible is tenuous at best. The God of the bible isn't a God I want to know. That's blasphemous to say. I should be afraid. But I don't want a relationship with a God I need to be afraid of. If I can't question a document created by people to describe him without incurring his wrath, then he's not for me.

In the last few years I've come to feel like a relationship with the God of the bible is like an abusive relationship. We're supposed defer to him in all things, praise him, and then take whatever he hands out without question. Or maybe that's not the God of the bible and just what Christians say.

I've always thought God's existence is made obvious by everything around me. I don't believe the world was a happy accident, that everything lined up just perfectly and--bam!--the world came into being. I'm not saying there wasn't a big bang, just that someone or something lit the match. Even if you don't believe in God and do think this was all a happy accident, what came before? What are the origins of the universe? Where did all the matter come from?

I said in a previous post that I've been dismantling my religious beliefs piece by piece since Mark died. It's as though I'm sitting surrounded by bricks, each one representing something I used to believe, bricks with words written on them: God, The Bible, Christianity, The Trinity, Jesus, Heaven. The only bricks I've put back are the bricks labeled God and Heaven, but I've crossed out the word Heaven and written Afterlife. All the other bricks sit off to the side.

So I believe in a God of creation. And I believe we're trapped in space and time and there's something else out there, some kind of afterlife of energy where I'll see Mark again. If the God of creation is exactly the God of the bible, then so be it. If the afterlife is exactly the heaven as described in the bible, then so be that, too. If God set up the system as described in the bible, if Jesus is his son who came to redeem our sins, then I'm guessing God will reveal that truth to me. Truth is truth and can't be hidden.

Edited to add:
I wrote this post and then let it sit for a few days. The next Sunday in church my pastor called Jesus truth. "Truth walked the earth," he said. I picked up the Jesus brick.

Here's the thing: church has become a place of miracles for me. A couple months ago as I stood in the sanctuary singing the opening song, I prayed that God would show me a miracle, a really good, physical miracle. And then that day at the end of the service I had a conversation with a little girl who was brain damaged and put on hospice. A CONVERSATION! She complimented my jewelry. We high fived. She was supposed to be dead, and if not dead, certainly not able to communicate verbally.

On the way home from church that day I asked God for a second miracle. Yes, that first one was amazing, but I asked for more, oh me of little faith. I asked for it to involve a large animal and assumed a majestic buck would cross the road in front of me, stop and stare, and I'd know that was my miracle. But this is what happened. The next week at church there was a very large stuffed lion reclining on some fake rocks in a winter scene at the back of the stage. I came in late, so I have no idea why that lion was there. There was a lamp post next to the lion, so I assume it was a reference to C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, but I really don't know. I didn't ask anyone because I was a little freaked out. There was a large animal in front of me!

I haven't asked for any more miracles, but it hasn't escaped me that the two I asked for were both delivered at church. And my pastor's words about Jesus, "Truth walked the earth," have been sitting on my heart. I have the Jesus brick in my hand, but I'm not ready to put it back yet. I've divided the Bible brick into pieces, each book getting its own chunk. If the Jesus brick goes back, then the four gospels do, too. And that's where I get stuck.

If I put the Jesus brick back, can I call myself a Christian again even if the only books of the bible I'm willing to give any attention to are the four gospels?

Thanksgiving

Things I've had to ignore this week:

• The fact that my jeans are too tight after a monthlong potato chip binge, each chip an attempt at distraction from the fact that Mark's been dead for four years.
• My friend pretending to shoot herself in the head to make a point about being frustrated.
• My heart squeezing upon hearing the laughter of my older kids home from college, their presence making it harder to ignore Mark's absence.

But I'm thankful. Thankful my potato chip fixation has diminished. Thankful for my friend despite her thoughtless attempt at humor. And so thankful for these kids of mine.

The Hitch

There's a phenomenon I've come to refer to as "the hitch." It happens when I'm talking to a friend, often it's a Christian friend, and I start talking from the heart, maybe about something I'm struggling with, or maybe it's about how my views on homosexuality have changed. Suddenly they're not listening anymore. Their head tilts ever so slightly, and I can see the wheels turning, the formulation of a counter argument as to why I shouldn't feel the way I feel or think the way I think, a bible verse at the ready. I get it. I used to be that person, head tilted, ready to take advantage of a God-ordained moment to share "truth." I might even have felt obliged to do so, fearing the person's very soul depended on that moment, their salvation in my hands.

I don't think God works that way. (Did your head just tilt?) I believe I'm called to listen and to love. And I'm so beaten down, I can't take anyone's salvation as my responsibility. But I can be a safe place to share what's truly troubling someone, to love unconditionally even when I disagree with what they're saying. I can nod in agreement with the struggle. I can support the person without interjecting my thoughts or sharing a bible verse. God will have to work out the salvation part.

Because here's the truth: people stop talking when they feel judged, and the hitch is judgment in a nutshell. When I keep my head upright and listen with my mouth shut, I keep the door open to future conversations.

What we all need is people around us who will listen. Just listen. Without judgment. Without the need to share a differing opinion. There's always time for that. Later. And only after a specific request for said opinion, to be shared with care and love.

In the meantime, ditch the hitch.

What's Your Numb?

For some it's alcohol. For some it's work. For me, Netflix.

What do you go to when you want to shut out the world, when your mind races and your thoughts jumble until you're incapacitated?

I'm not one of those people who deal with difficult situations by running, or gardening, or one of a number of healthy and productive ways to numb my mind. When I need to calm my brain, I watch TV. I gobble up the HGTV offerings on Netflix, one show after the other, as I daydream about marble backsplashes and an updated fireplace.

I'm glad my numb doesn't include alcohol or running away. I'm here. I'm sober. But I have a new understanding for anyone who chooses unhealthy, or even destructive, means of numbing.

So, what's your numb? Or are you one of the lucky people who don't need a numb? Do those people exist?

Breathe

A very difficult year is finally over, what should have been Mark's senior year. His friends have all left for colleges around the country. I won't have my breath taken away when I see them in person and realize how much they've grown. I won't have to listen to their happy parents discussing college acceptance letters. And I can go to the high school and not be slapped in the face by what they're doing that Mark isn't. It was a year to be endured, culminating in me sending very late graduation cards with heartfelt wishes for his friends to go out and be the best they can be. It hurts to think about all the things Mark isn't doing, but I sincerely want his friends to live wonderful lives, especially knowing how his death might have shaped their high school days.

Saturday is Mark's 19th birthday. How can that be? The anticipation of the day is the hardest part. I feel unsettled, erratic, like I want to yell at strangers for no good reason, smoke cigarettes, blast AC/DC and Aerosmith until the neighbors complain. If past years are any indication, I should be back to myself by Sunday--quiet, non-smoking and polite.

This doesn't get easier, you just figure out how to live with your heart split wide open. How to protect it. How to avoid those who can't see it. How to surround yourself with those who can. How to fall into the grief hole, climb out, brush yourself off, and breathe again.

I'm in Vienna. Why, you ask, are you in Vienna? I'm meeting my oldest and her university choir here later today, and then on Friday she and I will go on to Germany to stay with the family of the German exchange student who lived with us five years ago. We have a tradition of taking the kids on a trip somewhere in the US one-on-one with either mom or dad when they turn 7 and 15, and now, apparently, we're setting the precedent that at age 21 you get an international trip. That's fine by me!

Until the choir arrives, I'm touring Vienna alone. It isn't the first time I've been alone in a European city. In college I visited a friend doing a semester in Rome. She had class during the day, so I saw Rome by myself. And when I went to school in Japan, I spent plenty of time wandering around both Kyoto and Osaka alone. But I was younger then, and invincible. Now I'm old and a little bit scared. I've had to reawaken my self-reliance and tap into my forgotten invincibility. When I arrived safely at my hotel yesterday, I patted myself on the back for successfully getting myself on three different flights, and then finding my way to the hotel by train and subway, pulling a too-big blue suitcase behind me.

Back home Mark's classmates are preparing for graduation in a couple of weeks. I don't know where I'll be the evening of graduation, but I do know I won't be anywhere near the high school. My heart can't take seeing happy families celebrating what we can't. Envy is an ugly emotion and the one that has surprised me the most since Mark died. I should probably talk myself out of it, but like other emotions I've experienced the last 2 1/2 years, I just let it be. These days I'm most comfortable around people who live with their emotions openly and honestly, and who give me the grace to do the same.

For the next week, though, I get to enjoy Austria and Germany. I'm not sure I could ask for a better distraction from what can't be. Prost!

Rotting Vegetables

Another cucumber went bad in my fridge.

It's a symptom of my brain not working.
It's evidence of my inability to plan meals and execute that plan.
I forget. I forget that I have fresh vegetables. I buy fresh vegetables like I used to, before when my brain worked, when my brain had room, room for things like a mental inventory of the fresh fruits and vegetables in my fridge.

I'm at the store nearly every day buying that day's dinner ingredients because I can't plan ahead. But some days I get overconfident. I buy like I used to, but I have no plan, and so I forget.

There's asparagus in there, too. I was going to make it the same day I bought it, but when I got home, I forgot. We had leftovers and hot dogs for dinner that night. Now the asparagus is limp.

Grief lives in my refrigerator as rotting vegetables.

Mothering

When your primary occupation for years and years has been mothering, and then when your child takes his life, you know people are judging your skill as a mother, and you know this because you did it yourself, before, with friends, speculated about why a child would take their own life, and always it came back to bad parenting. And as a mother whose primary occupation for years and years has been mothering, you feel defeated, and you act particularly upbeat out in public with your children, especially at their school, proving to the world over and over again that your son came from a good home with a loving mother. But you question yourself, your ability to mother, wondering if anything you do really makes a difference, exhausted by the most basic daily tasks, so that a simple trip to the dentist with your children feels like an accomplishment above and beyond what it should, because making the appointment, and getting everyone dressed and there on time requires monumental effort. 

"See, I am a good mother," you say to no one in particular, and to everyone who might think you're not.

Grief is like . . .

Grief is like a colostomy bag.

It's this thing you carry with you, tucked away, hidden.

Ever present on your mind, distracting, demanding.

People who know about it don't talk about it out of politeness.

People you've just met get uncomfortable if you mention it, so you learn not to.

You can't blame them for not wanting to hear about your shit.

Grief, grief, grief

Grief is boring. My blog is boring. Who wants to hear one more word about grief? I know I don't.

But I can't get away from it.

My primary identity is as a grieving parent. I don't remember feeling this way about other difficult things I've dealt with. I'm the parent of a child with Down syndrome, but it's never felt like my primary identity. I'm a cancer mom, but, again, it's never felt like my primary identity. But this? This is huge.

Mark died over 20 months ago. That's a long time. And no time at all.

If you've never lost a child and you think you can possibly imagine what it's like, you can't. It's like trying to explain to expectant parents the amazing feeling of love you have for your own kids. You can't really understand it until you experience it.

There's little that interests me these days. I keep my family loved, comforted, fed, and clothed. When I'm not actively engaged in any of those activities, I just exist. Joy comes in little bursts, and then it's back to the grind of grief. Not crying all the time, just weighed down.

Grief, grief, grief. Ugh.

No Happy Ending

Everyone loves a good story. People gobble up tales of those who overcome adversity. You see it on magazine covers, hear it in the "feel good" stories on the news. Some sort of difficulty is faced and overcome, the person learns a lesson, grows, and is changed for the better. I often listen to Christian talk radio in the car. It seems recently the programs have all featured people who've had bad things happen, but who are now able to share how God saw them through, a neat package of adversity tied up with a big bright bow.

Three weeks before Mark died I spoke at a women's retreat. I told the women about the times I faced adversity and how I grew with God's help. I told the story of my husband's mom coming to live with us, how we felt it was the right thing to do, but how it was very difficult to carry out on a daily basis. I told them how things started off great, then went sour, but how my attitude changed and I came to appreciate her. I was also able to tell about John's birth, how hearing the words "Down syndrome" knocked the wind out of me, and how I felt God revealed to me the blessing John is. I challenged the women to seek God and trust in him. Happy, happy.  Adversity overcome. Yada, yada, yada. It all feels like a cruel joke now.

The morning of the retreat as we gathered, a murmur went through the group when one woman came through the door. "I'm surprised to see her here," someone said. When I asked why, I was told her adult son had taken his life that week. I knew I had nothing to offer that woman. All my happy talk about overcoming adversity couldn't touch what she was going through. As I spoke I specifically avoided making eye contact with her. What did it feel like to lose a child? What did it feel like to lose a child to suicide? Little did I know what lay ahead for me.

So here I am nearly 17 months after my own son's death, February conveniently including a 29th this year so I could properly count the month. I am stuck in my adversity and see no way out. I wrote before about hanging onto my faith, and I'm trying, I really am, but I'm angry at God. I don't think I'll ever be able to talk about this event with a positive twist. Could I tell a nice group of women at a retreat on a Saturday morning that I cuss like a sailor, that I use the f-word freely, that without it I feel unable to properly express my continued bewilderment and incredulity? Would any nice Christian want to hear from a woman who's abrasive and coarse?

There's nothing happy here, no positive twist. There's only broken and frustrated and sad with the ache of missing, missing, missing.

Carpe Diem: Seize the Carp

I need a lot of downtime, whole days with nothing on the schedule.

I'm not the mother with a successful photography business raising five kids, two with special needs. I'm not the mom selling real estate while juggling the schedules of three boys in various sports. I'm not the mom who after hearing that her daughter had a lifelong intractable seizure disorder reacted by painting her home's interior. These are all women I know--real people!--but that's not how I operate.

It takes me a long time to react to new situations, to figure out where I'm going and what I'm doing. It took me three years to get used to the idea that I needed to register for summer sports in February. Who thinks about summer when you're just trying to stay warm in February? I was always the mom running to someone's house with a registration form and check in March.

I can handle only one event at a time. All my attention focuses on the band concert dress that needs to be hemmed before the band concert on Tuesday completely forgetting that another child needs an outfit for a choir concert on Thursday.

Have you ever seen the videos of people in boats traveling down a river while Jumping Asian Carp fly out of the water and whack them? That's me. That's how life feels. Make dinner, hem the dress, find the shoes, go to church, go to speech therapy, read the book, answer the e-mail, go to the play. Life keeps coming at me like those Asian Carp. I duck my head and bat them away one by one, but I need to stop often and crawl into the bottom of the boat to rest.

I don't have a type A personality. I don't even have a type B personality. I'm way down the alphabet at C, D or E.

None of this was helped by Mark dying. Now I see the carp coming, duck down and just hope no one notices I'm not even batting them away anymore. I celebrate the fact that I've managed to keep everyone in clean underwear for the last year. Seriously. Everything beyond that is gravy.

And what made me think about this today? John has needed to have his nails clipped for about a week. I beat myself up this morning as he was getting on the bus and I realized I had forgotten . . . again. Off he went to school with claws on his hands. But wait! I thought. His iPad is charged!

His teacher won't appreciate it, but today that was the carp I was able to knock down. I'm hunkered down in the bottom of the boat. All other carp are being ignored. 

Letting Go

I've come to realize that the only way to go on living without being debilitated by grief is to let Mark go. Last year at Christmastime I could have told you what he wanted. This year, I didn't know. What new interest would he have discovered? What new gadget, trend, or sport? I don't know. I don't know because Mark is gone.  Just gone.

Every day I wake up and he's not here. Letting go feels like sawing off a limb in slow motion. Every single day.  Saw . . . saw . . . saw. He's not here. He's not coming back. He was here and we have great memories, but we're not making new ones with him. We're making new memories without him. That hurts like hell.

Every day I go about life the best I can, still weighed down by grief, trying to move on. Saw . . . saw . . . saw. I have the sense that people around me expect more of me.

Every day when you get up and enjoy your morning coffee, I'm here slowly sawing off a limb. You head out to face the day with the buzz of a little caffeine. I head out to face the day with the pain of the sawing still throbbing.

Birthday Oxygen

Today I remember the day 17 years ago, almost to the minute as I sit writing this, that I gave birth to my second child and heard from my husband, "It's a boy!"

Mark

This morning I went to walk around Lake Harriet, a place full of warm memories both old and new, on a day of beauty in direct proportion to my heartache.  How can the world be so achingly beautiful and Mark not be in it?

I passed the usual bikers, runners and walkers, the mothers with babies in strollers, the elderly on benches.  I passed toddlers whose parents waited patiently as they made their way down the path.

The airplanes fly low over the lake just a few miles west of the airport, and while some might find their noise annoying, each one makes me smile.  After passing over Lake Harriet they go on to pass over my childhood home, lower and louder, their familiar underbellies a testament to man's optimism.

I passed dogs of every variety, one so covered in fur I could barely tell his head from his tail.  I got to stop and pet an old basset hound lounging in the grass with his owner.

I passed an acquaintance who told me last spring she had lost a one week old baby to SIDS many years ago.  I would have said hello to her, but she was sitting at the water's edge laughing and chatting with a friend.  She doesn't know she gave me hope today.

Life and hope all around, and me with tears streaming down my face.  Like folding laundry and doing dishes, walking is something I avoid because it gives me time to think.  And when I think, I cry.

An older man on a bike rode past.  He was in a group of four and as he passed he turned to one of his companions, said something that made him chuckle, then looked at me with a big grin on his face.  I was impressed that a man his age was out riding his bike around the lake.  I was even more impressed by the oxygen tank strapped to his back and the nasal cannula across his face.  He's who I want to be, I thought to myself.

I will always celebrate this day.  I will always remember how my hospital room filled up with well wishers 17 years ago.  But on this day in 2015 I claim oxygen.  I claim God as my oxygen.  I claim my family, my husband, and each of my sweet babies as my oxygen.  I claim my extended family and the many, many loving friends who have reached out since Mark died as my oxygen.  And I breathe through the tears trying to hold onto the hope of better days.

My Kryptonite

Gangly teenaged boys will forever be my kryptonite.  Seeing them brings me to tears.  There's the one who took a whole flight of 5 stairs in a single leap as I entered a hotel on my way to a fundraiser.  There's the one I followed at the Mall of America who was wearing Mark's clothes and could have been my son from the back but for a couple of inches in height and bad posture.  There's the long-limbed one who checked me out at Target, his pimply face a familiar sight.  Their mothers don't know how lucky they are.  They get to see their sons mature into young men, to marry and maybe have kids of their own.  What I wouldn't give to see Mark as an adult, to see what he would have accomplished, who he would have been.

During the school year I learned to avoid doing errands on weekends when teenaged boys were out and about.  I only ventured out on weekdays when I knew they were all tucked away within school walls.  But now it's summer and they're everywhere, and I forget and find myself trying to control my breathing so I don't break down in public.  I'm only safe early in the morning when their teenaged selves are still asleep.  I'm looking forward to school starting again.

I miss my boy.  I miss him, miss him, miss him.  And no amount of missing will bring him back.

Don't Confuse Dumb Luck with Skill

I spend a fair amount of time on facebook. OK, I spend way too much time on facebook. It's a nice distraction, and for now distraction is my friend. If you're a parent and have friends who are parents, you may have noticed the many links posted by your friends on facebook to articles and blog posts about parenting. Links to lists of things to do with and for your kids. Links to articles about ways to boost your child's self-esteem, or methods of positive discipline. There was even an article discussing the reasons why kids these days self-report depression more so than previous generations, with broad leaps to conclusions without proper consideration of all the variables, much of the blame being placed squarely on the shoulders of their parents.

I used to read these articles and blog posts and take it all to heart. I'd read the recommendations and evaluate my parenting, making mental notes about the things I needed to change. I'd pat myself on the back, taking full credit for my kids' successes. And worst of all, I'd look around at what I thought other parents were doing wrong and pass judgment on them. Self-righteous and judgmental.

Then an ugly disease called depression landed on my doorstep. Suddenly all the parenting advice in the world wasn't enough to combat a force beyond my control. For those of you who think what my son did was somehow due to my parenting, think again. For those of you who think you can ward off a chemical imbalance in the brain with positive discipline techniques, you can't. And for anyone who's been wondering what I did wrong and why my kid did what he did and yours didn't, stop.

I'm a stay-at-home mom. Nineteen years ago I was working as a CPA at a public accounting firm about to head out to a client's office when my water broke in the reception area of my office. That was my last day of full-time work outside the home. Staying home with my kids was important to me, so I put my professional life on hold to tend to my little people. Over the years I've read countless children's books, mated innumerable socks, applied band-aids, guided, comforted, listened, just like any other parent.

My husband read an article about the importance of family meal time and made it a priority to be home for dinner every night. And I made the dinner, from scratch, trying to keep it healthy, always including fresh vegetables and fruit. As my big kids got older, the conversation moved from just checking in, highs and lows, to lively discussions about current events, politics, movies, or the probability of a massive earthquake taking out all of California. (Some of my happiest family times include sitting at the table chatting with my older kids long after the little ones had finished eating and wandered away. What I wouldn't give to relive one of those nights with Mark!)

A friend of my oldest was over one summer day when they were about seven. When my daughter asked if they could watch TV, the friend said she wasn't allowed to watch TV in the summertime. This gave me an idea. Much to the dismay of my children, I implemented a TV-free summer policy. If you think this was easy, it was not.

All this to say, I took my role as a parent very seriously, which is why depression came as such a shock to me. I couldn't protect my son from the thoughts that plagued him. He was a happy, resilient kid, and then he wasn't. No amount of denying TV in favor of creative play, or engaging him at the dinner table, or implementing any of 100 different parenting techniques could overcome the chemical forces at work in his brain.

My experience as a parent, my skill, couldn't keep mental illness at bay.

Don't have a child with cancer? Dumb luck.
Don't have a child with autism? Dumb luck.
Don't have a child with food allergies? Dumb luck.
Don't have a child with a chronic disease? Dumb luck.
Don't have a child who suffers from depression? Dumb luck.
Don't have a child with Down syndrome? Your loss. (Seriously, I'm the lucky one here.  Just ask anyone with a child with Down syndrome.)

The best parenting won't prevent cancer. It won't prevent autism. It won't prevent allergies, or chronic disease. Or depression. So don't confuse dumb luck with skill. If your life is easy and your children healthy and happy, breathe a sigh of relief and know that you're very, very lucky.

As for me, it's summertime and the TV is on. My kids had chocolate chip cookies for lunch. I've quit reading parenting advice. And I won't be giving parenting advice either.

Oh wait, just one thing: please do your kids a favor and teach them to chew with their mouths closed. That's all, just teach your kids to chew with their mouths closed.

Unholy Mantra

This might seem like a strange follow-up to my last post, but in the interest of keeping it real, here it is.

WARNING: If you're offended by profanity, stop here.  And if after reading this you feel the need to correct me, suggest that I change my attitude, or comment negatively, please don't do it, just don't.

I have a half written blog post from last year about whether or not it's appropriate for Christians to swear.  My short answer is that words are just words and it really depends on your attitude and your audience.  I don't really swear, but I don't mind if you do.

Ever since Mark died my brain has had a very hard time processing the fact that he's gone and the way he went.  When I revisit the events of that day all I can do is shake my head and say, "Fuck!"  The fact that he's gone is unfathomable.  The only word that adequately expresses my disbelief is fuck.  Sometimes I yell it alone in the car.  Sometimes I repeat it in my head over and over like some kind of mantra.  It's the only word I've found that can clear my head of horrible thoughts.

You might be thinking that I should have some other mantra, a more peaceful, holy mantra. I'm not there yet.  I've tried saying Jesus over and over again.  It's not the same.  Maybe someday.

Today we celebrate that we're ten years out from John's leukemia diagnosis.  This is also the day last year that Mark was diagnosed with depression.  The beginning of the end.  Fuck.

On Faith

I've heard of people abandoning their faith in God after bad things happened to them.  I've always wondered about that. Why is your faith adequate when bad things happen to other people, and then suddenly invalid when bad things happen to you?  If you could remain faithful after learning about the Holocaust, for goodness' sake, then why abandon it when suffering touches you personally?

And yet.

Losing Mark has knocked me loose.  I've had to step back and reconsider everything I believe.  Everything.  I've had to pull it apart piece by piece to see if it's still valid.

Is there a God?  I admit that at first I wanted to abandon my belief that God even existed. After all, he allowed Mark to die, didn't he?  But it's hard to look around at creation and not believe in God.  I recently heard the world referred to as "an amazing accident."  I can't believe this was all an accident. When I'm confronted by the complexity of it all, the amazing intertwining, it seems obvious it was all carefully planned.

So, if there is a God, is he the God revealed in the bible?  In January I joined a women's bible study in the middle of studying the life of Moses and jumped right in at the book of Leviticus. Ouch.  It was not an easy study.  The God of the old testament feels very judgmental, a God who sees things in black and white and delivers swift punishment, a God who commands the obliteration of whole communities.  I haven't studied the old testament much in the past and I came away feeling rebellious, questioning passages and struggling to understand.  In the new testament (Matthew 22) Jesus says I am to love God with all my heart, soul and mind, and he says I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself.  Verse 40 says: "All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments."  In other words, without love the whole old testament, every rule it puts in place and every decree delivered by Moses and the prophets, falls apart.  It's as though Jesus is reminding me that I only need to worry about loving God and people, and the rest will fall into place.  I can better understand the old testament when see through Jesus' words.

So, God exists, and he's the God of the bible.  Then why, oh why, does he allow suffering? And not just my suffering, but horrible, unspeakable suffering?  In 2 Corinthians 4:17 Paul says, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."  How can he describe what we experience on earth as "light and momentary"?

Unless.

Could it be that our time on earth is insignificant when compared to what waits for us in heaven?  It's hard to imagine our whole lives being insignificant when compared to eternity. It's really hard to imagine eternity.  We're stuck here on earth  We're stuck in time.  We're stuck inside our own little brains.  We're stuck not understanding, and we're asked to trust, to trust in a God great enough to create everything--everything--we see, know and love.  In the same way a parent asks a child to trust and believe, we're asked to trust and believe in God's goodness.  I've spent my time since Mark died alternately kicking God in the shins in anger and grabbing onto his knees looking for comfort.

If God is all powerful, then he allowed Mark to die.  He allowed Mark to take his own life. People tell me it will all make sense when we get to heaven, but I think when I get to heaven it won't even matter.  I think when I get to heaven and see all its glory and understand eternity, whatever happened here on earth will be so insignificant that no explanation will be necessary.  So I rest in the knowledge that God's in control, that he allowed Mark to leave earth and join him in heaven, and that I'll see Mark again.  Sometimes for very brief moments, it's as if a curtain opens and I'm able to see eternity stretch out before me, and God's perfect peace washes over me.

Just because I get glimpses of eternity doesn't mean I have this all figured out.  Grief is a tricky thing.  No matter what I believe, Mark is still dead and I miss his physical presence. But I choose to believe in God.  Every day I choose God, even on the days I want to kick him in the shins.

Friends

It's difficult being my friend right now.  I'm abrasive.  I'm prickly.  I'm still hurting in a way that makes other people uncomfortable.  No one wants to hear about Mark anymore, but that's all I think about.  When I talk about my life, what's going on and how I really feel, people around me get quiet and wait for me to finish.  I don't always use pretty language.  They don't comment.  Or else they try to talk me out of my feelings telling me I shouldn't think or say what I'm thinking and saying.  Then they quickly change the subject and steer back to the lighthearted.  I'd love for the conversation to be lighthearted, and I can fake it for a while, but my heart is so heavy I can't keep it up for very long.  It's as though I have an open, gaping wound, but no one sees it.

How can they not see it?

The blessing of being in the pediatric cancer world is that I know several people who have lost children.  A couple weeks ago I ran into a woman whose son died in July.  She invited me out for coffee.  We talked and cried and laughed and cried, the conversation circling effortlessly from our dead kids to the lighthearted and back again.  To her I wasn't difficult, abrasive or prickly.  She listened and nodded in agreement as I strung together expletives.  She didn't try to talk me out of any of my feelings, just agreed that what we were both feeling really stunk and hoped with me that we wouldn't always feel this way.  And while the circumstances of our children's deaths are different, so much else is the same: the wishing for one more minute, one more hug, the worry about our other kids, the feeling of having failed as a parent.  Finally someone willing to listen without judgment or fear or discomfort.  Finally another mom who knows the desperate, impossible longing to go back in time.

We sat together at Starbucks for three hours on a bitterly cold Wednesday, two moms for whom the open wounds we each carry are so obvious as to need no explanation.