RAMBLINGS ON GRIEF

A few weeks ago, we did a double dinner date with some friends.  Our waiter was extra chatty, and in the course of our evening, he realized that I'm not a big wine person.  He decided to recommend a sweet wine that he thought I would enjoy and handed the name to me on a scrap of receipt paper.



I glanced at it, and then I stared.  His handwriting was eerily similar to my father's, and a wave of missing rushed through me.  This time of year, I am often surprised by the little jogs of grief that will come.  It looks so very different than it did years ago when the pain was fresh and new.  But, my whole body seems to remember this season.

It was spring as I watched my father fade away from us.

It was a spring break that was our last family vacation all together, and even then, my dad did not have much energy.

It was Easter weekend when I last really spoke to my dad, because his decline was rapid in the next couple of weeks, and I was not there for most of the end until the very end.

I still love the spring, because of the flowers and the freshness and my birthday and the unexpected and long-desired warmth.  But there are shadows in it for me now - reminders that this world is not my home.  The spring rain seems to say some of those words for me - the gloom contrasting the sunshine and brightness twisted so tightly with the coming of warmer weather.

Though I don't expect the sadness, it always returns in some form or another, though usually pretty mild now that its been 13 years.  I've thought and written a lot about how my dad's passing changed my life forever and how much God has used it to shape me.  I will always miss him, but I don't fault God's plan for the hole there.  God has shown me time and again that he will fill in the gaps in ways that I can't imagine.

And while I would pick in a heartbeat to have my dad here, there is some joy in a preserved memory. I don't idealize or idolize who my father was, but I get to keep him a little sacred, because we don't deal in present realities.

Present realities are much messier - even when they're good.  I've recently had a front row seat to a lot of family pain - both personally and with friends' families.  It is so much harder than I want it to be.  People get hurt.  People are sick.  People make mistakes, and the fall out from each of those things is really painful.

It all leaves me wanting more of the Lord.  I need him to work in my heart, because the love I have on my own falls far short of what I need for those in my life.  And in many ways, I'm jealous that my father has already left all of this behind.  I'm so thankful that we can look forward to a place where we will see clearly and be known and loved fully just as we are.  What a joy that will be!

THERE ARE SOME BOOKS I SHOULDN'T READ

In the last two weeks I've finished three books and am about half-way through another one.  I really do love reading, and I've had a lot of travel time where I could dive in.  Attachments took me one day and was breezy fun.  Modern Romance was interesting, free to borrow from the library and helped pass my drive to Wichita.  The Kitchen House was a different story entirely.

It was first recommended to me back at Camp Create by someone whose reading taste seemed to overlap mine a great deal.  After seeing it plugged in several different places, I didn't read many reviews and dove in.  I should have read more reviews.

Let me just say that the writing is beautiful, and the story is compelling.  The characters are well-developed, and I found myself loving them.  The subject matter is extremely important and based in history.  But the book was not for me.

Here's the summary from Amazon: In this gripping New York Times bestseller, Kathleen Grissom brings to life a thriving plantation in Virginia in the decades before the Civil War, where a dark secret threatens to expose the best and worst in everyone tied to the estate.

This book follows people over the course of about 20 years in the late 1700s on a plantation and focuses both on the slaves and the masters at the home.  Their relationships are familial, complex, multi-faceted and laden with tragedy, because people should not own other people.  There are horrors throughout the book, and I've realized that I don't do well with horrors.  The book does end on a hopeful note in the last couple of paragraphs, but that was not enough of a payoff to redeem the reading experience for me.

It got me thinking about a lot of things, obviously.  First off, the characters kept swirling around my mind, which was part of my problem with this book.  I cared so much and so many bad things kept happening to them, one after another - usually each one more awful than the last.  Then, I tried to parse out if I'm just a wimp for not wanting to deal with such heavy subject matter, or if there is something to be said for guarding my highly sensitive wiring.

Have you ever heard the term "HSP," which stands for Highly Sensitive Person?  I came across it on the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog and immediately related to it.  I certainly don't tick all of the boxes, because I would still score as an extravert (though I am more introverted than I used to be), and I can multi-task and take in a lot of information at once.  But, I do not like really loud environments and am usually overly attuned to the noise level wherever I am.  I have also always been extremely sensitive to any kind of graphic content in books or movies.  I vividly remember watching The Princess Bride as a kid and being shaken by the torture scenes in the movie.  We attended Sunday night church after watching it that afternoon, and I started crying uncontrollably when I thought back to it and had to be taken out of church.

To this day, I rarely watch R rated movies, and when I do, I have thoroughly researched what I will be getting myself into.  And forget any horror movies - I never go there.  I also usually research any book I choose to read for several reasons - I don't want to read a dud, and I don't want to end up in content too graphic for my sensitive tastes.

Even as I talked through this with John, I wondered if I am just a giant wuss.  I don't like hard anything, in my life or anyone else's.  He helped me come to a better understanding of the standards I need to have for myself.  We also made some critical distinctions - I don't back away from real, actual hard things in real life.  I've walked my own roads of pain, and I've walked beside friends and family in their difficulties - I'm not a wimp about real life. (most of the time)  I also do want to be informed about history, especially the kind of history that affects the racial tensions still present in our country.

But - for me - I don't need to read about it in a novel format where my emotional investment in characters that don't actually exist is too deep.  I become fixated in unhealthy ways that impact my entire mood and demeanor, and I'm not exactly in a stage of life that affords me that time and space.  Reading this book was an ongoing reminder that being careful about what I put into my mind is critical for my well-being, and we all have different sensitivity levels.  Mine are probably higher than a lot of other people's, and that is okay.  It's the way that God made me, and I'm thankful for the empathy that it affords in normal life.

DEAR FUTURE HUSBAND

You know I've been busy with my magical tidying this year, and in doing so, I've unearthed some things.  Lots of things, really, because we've lived in this home six years now and brought home three children into it and lived a lot of life.  When I was going through our books, I found the letters that I wrote to my future husband starting from my high school years.  Here they are, and I handily numbered and dated them, because I am nothing if not thorough when it comes to life documentation.



Bless my heart.  I came of age in the time when "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" was all the rage, and though I didn't kiss dating goodbye at all, I was always looking to "guard my heart" and "wait for God's perfect plan," keeping one eye on my current dating conquests and the other on my future husband to be.  Now - those sentiments did serve me well in many ways.  Though I did date several guys in high school and college, I never had any truly serious relationship until John, and I am thankful for the ways that naturally safeguarded my emotions.

I forced myself to read through these letters (while cringing a bit) to get a sense of what I hoped for and expected in my future spouse.  My naiveté is complete and precious all at once.  I dreamed of a perfect love that brought happiness and fulfillment and where I would always be understood entirely and cherished sincerely.  I had confidence in God's plan for our shared life and hopes for what it would look like.

To be honest, so many dreams have come true.  We've had a rich and loving marriage and many fun days and seasons.  I'm so thankful for John, and I know without a doubt that God brought us together for our good and his glory.  John is my best friend and does love me unconditionally.

But - I want to shake my head at the girl who wanted happiness more than holiness.  I didn't know, and sometimes I still don't know, that real life and real marriage is real work.  It costs a lot of everyone involved, and it works like sandpaper on any rough patch that I have.  I thought I was smooth before marriage (because I couldn't see myself clearly), and it is revealed over and over to me the dark places inside my heart as they are mirrored back to me in our family setting.  You don't get to hide your mess from people who live with you, and I didn't realize that I had so much mess until my husband and then children were there to see it firsthand.  Ick.

I glorified marriage and my future spouse and had expectations that bore little relationship to reality.  Now I see how much work it takes from both husband and wife to seek God first and then our spouse's well-being next.  This does not come easily or naturally.  My self wants to fight for my "rights" and to be right and dictate the state of our home.  I can still fall back into glorifying what my marriage could or should be instead of looking to what God is calling our lives to look like.  He wants me to be a servant and lay down my life and love others before myself, as Christ loved the church.

These letters made me realize what a work in progress I will always be.  I remember thinking I knew about life as I wrote them with all of the confidence of an 18, 19 and 20 year old.  As an almost 35 year old, I understand how little I knew then, and how little I still know now.  I pray that the Lord continues to reveal himself to me as life goes on and shows me the places where I need to trust and rely on him.  And I'm so thankful that my husband doesn't remember reading these letters, because I sheepishly gave them to him before we got married, and though he read them at the time, he had forgotten they had ever existed.  Bless his heart.

HIGHS & LOWS OF LATELY

It's March and was 70 degrees today - my birthday month is starting off right!  It's feeling a bit on the crazy side here these days - this is what's up.

High:  The warm winter.  We have LOVED the lack of major snow this winter.  We've been outside more, and that is good for everyone.  Business has also been good at the restaurant, and we had our biggest month ever in February.

Low:  William does not want to use his incredibly capable little legs to walk himself anywhere, and we've finally drawn the line to make him.  This is what that looks like.  Today he cried ALL the way into church and ALL the way out as I dragged him by the hand.  Walking is so hard.

High:  As the twins have gotten older, they have definitely developed into fun little people who love to play and have sweet sisters who love them dearly.  I love capturing those moments.



Low:  I've been pitiful at half-heartedly potty training Violet, which means the whole process has stalled at this very annoying place where she is fully in diapers and fully wanting to go potty everywhere.  I know it is my fault, but I just haven't had the emotional energy or time to invest and really go there.  But - girl knows how to rock some boots.

High:  John got all brilliant this weekend and strapped the twins' mattresses to their bed frames using luggage straps that run under their sheets.  It prevents the scene pictured below and has worked beautifully.  But, even as we were attaching them, we noticed Violet in particular looking over and under and around.  It sort of felt like we were saying, "Your move, babies."  So far, the mattresses have stayed securely in place, so it feels like we are winning this little battle.

Low:  A couple of weeks ago, it was parent/teacher conference day at school, and I was scheduled at 10:30 a.m.  I was on the phone with John at 10:45 a.m., when he gently asked if I had remembered to go.  Which I had not.  I screwed up the scheduling of conferences last time around, so basically I felt like a giant parent failure.  I immediately started texting and messaging the teacher apologies, and she  graciously worked me in that afternoon where I continued to apologize.  Maybe someday I will get this right - just not this year, apparently.

High:  John's dad is making a full recovery at our house and should be well enough to travel tomorrow.  The kiddos have had a great time having their grandparents in town to give them extra loving.

High:  I had a great time in Wichita with my family, and the girls were great travel companions.  It's nice to get glimpses of the future and realize that things really do get better, and some things are really great right now.




Low:  Earlier in the day on Saturday, Bella had fallen off the porch and cut her face near her eye.  (Hearing the girls tell the story does nothing to clarify what actually happened.)  It didn't appear too bad (to my very untrained eyes), so I cleaned it, put anti-bacterial ointment on it and a bandaid and drove to Wichita.  At bedtime, it occurred to me that maybe I should have my nurse mother and sister-in-law look at it, which they did.  And they both said we should go get stitches.  This news was not what Bella wanted to hear, and it took a bowl of ice cream and the promise of a movie just to get her to the car.

Thankfully, once we got to the ER, she did great.  They numbed her up with a cream, reopened the wound a bit because it had already begun to heal, and then stitched her up - a real delight to watch.  She did not bat even the eye close to her wound.  I'm sure it helped that she had an iPad to stare at and couldn't feel a thing.  Having Aunt Ashley along and working on bunting for Aunt Laura's shower helped make it all more fun.

High:  This picture of my awesome brother.  I really love him.

Low:  Our time in Wichita was too short (less than 24 hours), and the girls and I left after the shower clean-up, around 5:30.  They did great in the car, but it meant that we got home around midnight, and Monday morning came fast and early and with all of its usual intensity.  The pace of the last couple of weeks has us spinning a bit, and we're all still trying to catch our bearings.



As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we're starting another month, and we're trying to catch our breath.  I'm not sure that March will bring the breathing room we want, but I know that God will give us what we need, as we need it.