One More Truth

My friend died last week. I echo innumerable voices – victims, survivors, loved ones standing by or standing without – in saying, “Cancer sucks.”

It sucked when my friend was diagnosed 18 months ago and when she endured an aggressive treatment plan only to learn cancer hadn’t left, it just found a new place to reside. During her next round of treatments, I took her to Friday chemo and watched a day in her fight. Benadryl was first, a precautionary measure to keep her body from reacting poorly to the chemicals about to drip into her veins and sicken her for most the weekend. She’d sleep the weakness away, enjoy a couple good days, then go back for more. And after months of this, her body scan didn’t read clean.

There were hospital visits and texts. I rallied the prayers of family and friends while she rallied her war cry. She watched her son’s college graduation online and during the graduation party everyone ate and laughed while she lay in another room coughing and breathing from a tank, but she never complained. She allowed me in and we talked for a while about our kids, about their futures, about anxiety created by motherhood or breathing machines or simply by life itself.

When her husband texted ‘It doesn’t look good’, I didn’t finish drying my hair, I just left. ‘It doesn’t look good’ are words of urgency, not words to ready a person. And indeed, no one was ready. Not her children or husband, nor her mother and father, or her oncologist who’d been so positive last month. The fighter herself said it all morning: ‘I’m not ready.’ She’d intended to write letters to her kids. She’d expected to see her youngest through high school and she’d hoped to attend the weddings of her older children – grown, but not grown enough to be motherless.

I just listened and nodded my head because my mouth wasn’t working so well. The living don’t advise the dying, and anyway, it’s best not to speak about things you don’t understand. And I didn’t understand.

I’d prayed healing for my friend throughout her battle; many of my loved ones prayed too. Healing prayers and miracle pleas are natural prayers, natural as verbalizing hopes and admitting we don’t understand. But that morning, my prayers were for a soul, not a body. They were prayers my friend would be ready.

The previous Sunday, I’d listened to the words, ‘It is well with my soul’ and I’d tried to sing them, but I choked up instead. I’d never really liked the song that much, but I’d heard it and sung it since I was a child, and suddenly I couldn’t escape the message of it: Trusting God means ‘even though’ and ‘in spite of’, ‘but’ and ‘without’ must become ‘it is well with my soul.’ What if I lost plans, possibilities, people – would the song of my soul be peace? Could I trust Him enough to say ‘I don’t understand this world, but my spirit is good. God is good. It is well.’?

A week later I was watching my friend face those questions for real – no hypotheticals. The battle for remission was now the battle of reconciling finality. In our years together we’d talked about hope and living well, but we didn’t talk about God. We didn’t talk about God that morning either – we talked to God, together. She said her plans were different from God’s, but she’d trust Him anyway, and she gave Him the hopes she had for her children, knowing she wouldn’t be part of their futures. It was a big deal moment for the both of us. It still shakes me.

And then she got ready. She poured copious ‘I love yous’ on her family, righted wrongs, and let grace fall where only grace fits. She blessed her children and they sang her praises. She said things that matter, things we know we should live by but can’t because we’re busy taking life for granted. Things like, ‘Be patient with each other. Don’t work yourself to death. Spend more time with your family.’ Not a word was wasted, not a minute spilled. And the next day, she was gone.

Grief is a tragically brand new experience each and every time, and although loss is a universal language, there aren’t words good enough to explain it. When I pass my friend’s house or see her kids with my kids and think to send her a picture, it hurts. I expect it will for a long time.

Uncertain tomorrows are certain, so I’ll do my best with today. I’ll trust God more instead of trying to understand first. I’ll practice more patience, open my mouth for truth and grace, and when I’m brave enough, I’ll ask those close to me if I’m getting any better at it. I’ll spend more simple moments with loved ones and I’ll write more notes to my children. I’ll allow ‘it is well’ to shape my prayers. And I’ll look forward to seeing my friend again one day.

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This post is featured on Ruminate Magazine.

Cruising into Manitou, the Incline comes into view. Once an old railroad, the narrow path is etched with more than 2700 railroad ties – an intimidating and seemingly endless stairway to heaven. It’s less than a mile to the top, but the distance isn’t the threat, it’s the steep and severe grades of incline.  We were three brave souls on our drive, but now, peering toward the sky, we begin doubting our readiness.

The August sun is menacing, but other adventurers march ahead and we take flight with them, making bets as to how long before we stand like kings at the top. We agree to one rule: we are here together, but we journey alone. I make a personal rule: no breaks, just constant motion. Slow and steady, or even slower and steady – but always steady.

Eight minutes in and I’m sweating as if the sun’s only target. Accustomed to running in the fire wind of a Phoenix July, I remind my screaming muscles they’ve felt worse. I keep climbing. Before long, it’s my lungs complaining, heaving in and out as if they’re being crushed, and in truth, they are. I want to breathe deeply, but the thin air burns my nose and insides, making me want to empty my lungs completely, but when I try, I choke. The elevation is a menacing resistance. I’ve no music on this trek and I’m forced to step in time with my own wheezing, and my lungs and legs find harmony in the rhythm…

To continue reading, click here to go to Ruminate Magazine.

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It’s Sunday morning and I’m in my closet, deciding if I’m changing my outfit or not. My husband and I are in casual conversation about the different people we were when newly married compared to who we are 17 years later. I used to drink sugary mochas with my carb-filled bagel and didn’t think twice. He used to view work as a specific place with specific hours, and now his weeks look like an endless string of tasks. And both of us seem to be wondering the same thing: How do we get back to that ‘Life is delicious, I can’t not do this fantastic thing, Whoa, what just happened to the time’ kind of life?

Our younger two barge in, holding ukuleles.

“Hey mom, look what we’re bringing back! We’ve been practicing.”

My kids know they’ve got an old school mom who loves watching them do awesome things – and yes, that includes playing ukulele. Not long ago, these two took ukulele lessons and the house was filled with singing and strumming, but the lessons ended and practicing dwindled, and the island sounds disappeared. Occasionally, I’d suggest they pick up their picks again, but I dropped it knowing music – true to its name – is a muse, and one day, it’d draw my children back.

This is that ‘one day’.

This also happens to be the day my son must finish reading the remaining 100 pages of his book, because the 24 hour countdown for the book report he was assigned last month is running out…and he’s playing ukulele.

This is the morning after a student election poster-making extravaganza, when my daughter promised to clean up the bottles of paint and layer of glitter strewn over my dining room floor…and she’s searching ukulele chords on YouTube.

I shake my head at my husband who’s smirking much like I am, because what else can we do? A procrastinating minstrel is smiling at us. They know they have deadlines, and we all know the clock is ticking, and it seems there will be rushing in the final minutes, but somehow, the important things will get done. My husband and I aren’t angry – proof we’re not the same people we were years ago. And yet simply by enjoying a ‘right now’ moment, without thinking any further than this minute we’re living, we’re assured that somewhere in these older bodies, we’re still the same people we were once.

I tell my kids I love hearing them make music and they nod, and I remind them there are only so many hours in a day and they pluck their way out the door, humming as they go.

By bedtime, the report is printed and the dining room looks less like a construction zone. I finish a few important things and push off the rest. They’ll get done. The sibling duet is camped on the landing, playing their newest favorite for the 67^th time, and I sit on the step next to them, not wishing to be anywhere else. ‘One last time’ turns into 12 more times, but eventually, they lay down their strings, promising to practice again in the morning.

It’s late and my husband’s in bed, but he smiles when I come in the room. Our morning conversation was never resumed, because in some strange way, music answered our question. There will always be plans and busyness, and the clock will continue counting the minutes until something, but those are precious minutes. We’ll just keep practicing the balance of important things for as many years as God allows, giving time an occasional glance, and giving more attention to the songs being played in between.

Jesus modeled a full life, not a busy life. Want to model that kind of balanced life? My guest blog on TheBetterMom.com may help!

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I wake up and immediately feel it – the emptiness of my daughter’s room.

I begin the morning routine of making sure teenagers and a preteen are getting ready for school, knocking on 3 bedroom doors, hearing 3 sleepy voices. When I walk past the empty room, I close the door.

I’d peeked in last night, just to face it. There are a few pieces of furniture she didn’t want, some things for her siblings to pick through, and her high school graduation gown hanging in the closet, but no bed, no clothes on the floor, no makeup on the dresser. And it isn’t just her empty room, it’s that her contacts are no longer on her bathroom sink. Her car keys aren’t on the foyer table, and when I pack lunches, I notice her prescriptions and vitamins are no longer in front of the peanut butter. Her shoes aren’t by the door, and I’m choking back tears because even though the pile of shoes used to drive me a bit crazy, I’ve been patiently reminding myself the past few months that seeing her shoes meant she still lived here.

I’d adjusted to sharing space and time with another adult to whom I’m not married, often postponing workouts to see her before she left for work and getting laundry done during the week so she could wash clothes on weekends. We had our rhythm. Sometimes our paths never crossed. She’d come home to a sleeping house and the rest of us would wake and leave before she got rolling, and this would go on several days in a row until she’d come through the door while we sat at dinner, and we’d all enjoy the surprise of eating together as 6. She’d grown into her own life more than her own rhythm, and all of us tried to believe it might not be so hard when she made a place of her own.

Last night, we did what families do and helped her situate, feeling happy for her and happy for a chance to be depended on. We waved from the foot of her stairs and she smiled behind her new door – proud, happy, ready – and we drove home, where only 5 people live.

Her shoes are no doubt sitting by her new door, where her dream of independence is being fulfilled. And I’m happy and I’m sad, and I’ve got plenty of happy-sad moments under my belt already, but I didn’t cry on first days of kindergarten. I didn’t cry when toys were willingly stuffed into donation bags, when I was no longer needed or wanted for reading books aloud, or when I could no longer help with math homework surpassing my intellect. I didn’t cry at elementary, middle, or high school graduations. And even this morning, when I carried my youngest and laid her in bed because she was too stuffy for school and too dizzy for stairs, I didn’t cry that my baby is nowhere near the size of a baby.

I’ve sent children off to camp and watched them disappear down airport hallways for their first flight alone. I raised them to grow, want more, and need me less, so they could dream and try and become. I’m raising them to fly, but it feels different when they do, and I realize the choosing of motherhood and extravagant love is also the choosing of inevitable empty places. This is life – mine, theirs, hers – and life feels different when it’s no longer neatly framed in the ‘ours’ of the same house. Love feels different. That’s reason to cry, I suppose.

A friend asks how I’m doing and since she knows about empty rooms, I tell her I usually know little about feelings, but I can’t unfeel the empty places, I can’t make sense of an emptier house when my heart is so absolutely full. And I know it will be ok, just not today.

“Yep,” she answers back. And that’s good enough for me.

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