grace and the girl.

Her tears always kill me. Emily’s a very happy kid who strides light through each day and whose heart presses soft into the relationships and interactions connected to her.  She is easy to get along with and has little problem building friendships quickly, yet meaningfully.  She loves the people in her life and the exact moment she finds herself in.

That’s what she lives for. The moment she’s in with the people in it with her.  Her little heart holds a good tension of bold and honest meekness, daring and strong but tender soft.

I love how she loses herself in moments, fully engaged in and bought in, not yet thinking about the next.

Consequence is never as worthy as immediate context.

This both works for and against her, but lost in the moment, she thinks nothing of the consequence of her action.

Emily is adventurer pushing hard on boundaries and most alive at the edge.

In a way our hearts, hers and mine, meet closest along lines of adventure and discovery.  I see her heart clearly as it resembles much of mine as a child so there’s a familiarity when I speak to her heart in correction and instruction, nurturing her growing stature.

:::::::

As she walked back toward me and the spot I stood, the spot where I sent her off from, the spot where I stooped down strongly to look her eye to eye as to peer serious and straight into her, I could see her already breaking.  With each step closer to me she tightened inwardly.  I could tell she was sinking in her wrong and more so in the realization of what she’d done; the hurt she caused now clearly perceived after the fact.

Only moments before, my oldest, Elizabeth, burst through the door out of breath and more frenzied than a result of mere play.

“DAD!  Emily is throwing acorns at me and my friends!!  She hit one of my friends in the face!!!”

Instantly, I could visualize Emily, red-faced, glazed-eyed and all smiles, lost in a moment lacking any trace of pre-thought or consequence.  And instantly, I was on my feet, running through the door to assess the damage done.

The sidewalk in front of our house was empty. Acorns strewn out everywhere like some squirrel’s haven gone awry.

Elizabeth’s friends sat together at the park across the street.  Emily emerged from our backyard in clear retreat and realization following the acorn incident.  After the moment, when she realizes consequence, her eyes widen as if to hold the tears filling them and she sinks quickly in guilt and regret.

I know she privately judges herself harshly.  I used to do the same.

::::::: Grace.  The thing about grace that confounds us is that it’s unearnable.  We do nothing to get it.  We sin.  We apologize and repent.  He doles out grace extravagantly like an unlimited supply.

Grace kills good and fills us with right.

Being a good person leaves the door open to so many mistakes and pitfalls not owned by responsibility.  Being a right person sets us above good to a place where we act responsibly when we both do good and bad, when we do right and wrong.

Grace teaches us responsibility and how to flourish most in mistakes.

:::::::

I called Emily to me and stooped down on one knee to where our eyes could meet levelly.

“Emily, did you throw acorns at those girls?”

Her eyes answered as they lowered to the ground and filled with regret.

“Emily, what you did was wrong.  You could have seriously injured those girls.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I know.  But what you did was still serious and wrong.”

I didn’t say much else, but sent her to make things right.  I watched her walk toward the group of girls all older than her.  They stopped talking as she met them and looked at her as she stood there.  I’m not sure that Emily said anything else but “I’m sorry” to the group of girls, but it was enough.  And then she walked back to the spot I was still standing and waiting.

She wanted to hide both embarrassed and guilty.  I didn’t let her.  She had to feel it, the beauty of grace letting you go.

“Emily, being a good person is not about just always being good; its about what you do when you make a mistake.  You make it right and then you move on.”

She looked at me in the eyes and smiled softly.  I smiled back thankful that grace found my little girl bound in her mistake and let her go.

A Deeper Family :: Grief, 3 little girls and God somewhere.

Recently, I received an invitation to join a team of storytellers focused on drawing back the curtain on family by sharing pieces of life both lived through and learned.  I'm quite honored to be part of such a talented team of writers.  Diversity runs rampant between us, but one thing weaves consistent through us all: God.  And a few virtues we feel endearing and necessary: honesty, vulnerability, grace and tomorrow. Below is an excerpt from my first post for A Deeper Family.

It’s been two years since my wife drew her last breath in an ICU room after five days of being supported by medicine and machines, and finally I feel as though we are just beginning to level out.  You could imagine the polarized difference between a household balanced with two loving parents being reduced to half and the weight it would add.  Add sorrow and grief into the mix and the emptiness of daughter without mother.  And now add the emotional differences of three little girls and a hollowed out, shell-shocked dad.  That’s a recipe for implosion, full meltdown.

Continuing reading at A DEEPER FAMILY

you write the days.

Everyone has a story. Each day, a page in a chapter; your life written in words that hold more of the form of action than letters.  We lose sight of one day certain ahead when our lives sealed up by time will no longer be.  It will happen despite all effort given to keep it at an appropriate distance.  Every day the distance closes and we move every bit closer to the end.  But don’t lose value in the finiteness of life when death is remembered.  Much of life and living is discovered in death, the fine reality that one day we will reach the end.  Whether we are prepared or not, every story reaches resolve, or at least the end.

Greater treasure lies in death spied ahead than in life alone.  Trust me. ::::::::

Earlier in the week, we spent the evening running through a fairly normal routine.  The only difference being a camera following and documenting our activity both mundane and extraordinary.  The videographer planned to collect our family story on film for an organization that has become a tremendous shelter in our lives.  That organization is called, GriefWorks.  Hours of film documented our movement and recollected words guiding the story from grief to grace.

He observed through lens our family cooking night.  Tower pizza, one of our apparent specialities, on the menu.  We all pitch in.  At least that’s how the cooking adventure begins, with all of us assigned to jobs preparing food.  Ten minutes in, it’s me in the kitchen lost and guessing measurements.

Even sharing the meal was documented.  Several times throughout, I dreamed of hiring the videographer to film every meal we eat together into the foreseeable future.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the girls on that level of behavior.  Maybe the fact that they asked if the filming was sort of like a reality tv show.  At yes, their behavior and advanced conversation morphed into angelic attention and Brady Bunch like coordination.  Amazing...truly.

I loved watching them interact with his questions during their interview together.  They sat on the couch and waited and joked about being tv stars.  I love seeing them smile easily.

Right as the videographer was set to begin, he looked at me once more to make sure I was okay with the questions he prepared for them.  He didn’t know, but we’ve been deep in conversation bathed and drowned in tears.  They’ve shared hurts, questions and fears and given space for grief to exist.  In turn, healing blooms in their hearts like rose buds among thorns.

But still, I appreciated his concern.

:::::::

Easy questions first to prime the pump and set the stage and work out all of the squirming and laughter, mostly.

Then onto heavier words.  They talked about the day Marianne was rushed to the hospital.  It was interesting hearing them talk to someone else.  I just sat out of camera frame, on the side lines, listening and watching how they spoke about easily the most devastating occurrence of their lives.

“Our mom died and we didn’t really know at first.  We waited for her to come home from the hospital and made treats for our whole family.  On one bag we wrote, ‘Mom and Dad.’”

I sometimes forget that for five days while she laid moving between life and not that my girls lived in one world still where all was alright, while I moved into another where my wife disappearing.

The girls shared descriptions of their mom both funny and adoring.  Smiles drew across their faces and mine as each described characteristics found in their lives, her indelible imprint.  I will forever love those characteristics planted deeply within them.

“How is life now with Dad?  Could you describe it?”

And then one of the greatest affirmations of my life ensued.  Their words shifted from past to present and tomorrow.

Fun.  Happy.  Crazy.  ...adventurous.

And there it was ...clouds parting, sun shining, hope rising, day passing from one to another.

“We’re okay, I thought.  Much more than I give credit for.”

:::::::

Adventure was my number one goal in starting life new just me and my girls.  That is what they will remember.  They do now.  Not getting everything right or playing it safe, but moving onward and out boldly.  Treading heavy on the ground soaked in tears stained the color sorrow.  We left one life behind moving swiftly because that day disappeared as all days behind do.  Staying there would mean so would we.

In my heart, adventure was the key unlocking a new door.  I needed courage so I took it.  The man my little daughters came to know in the wake of death and tragedy was a man pulling hard at life and God, cutting deep a path for their feet to walk.  As much as I could, I stretched.  I spent more money investing in experiences together.  We stayed out later, drew new lines, created new traditions and took on new challenges.  Not only did they see me more adventurous in a cavalier way.  They felt me lean into them more in shared fears, broken hearted moments and uncertainty.  But so far, we’ve kept moving.  Together, we jumped two-footed into every challenge.

I had to remake us.  I had to write our days.

:::::::

Undoubtedly, you have been and will only continue to be tossed around by the swelling tide of life and circumstance.  But more lasting than the ugliest moments in your life is the horizon swallowing the sea.  When all settles, and trust me, it will at some point, you will see hope as it burns ahead.

You write the days.  Cling to promise and love and faith through tossing waves both crashing and threatening.  Not one of them is as big and lasting as the God painted horizon ahead.

2.

Two. What are two years worth? Can days be discarded, undesirable and unwanted ones?

In a telling shortness, the two years behind me are worth all that’s ahead.  I’ve cursed plenty of those days playing the victim drunk stumbling on circumstance violating what I measured fair in my life.  Death never seems fair or fitting in its happening and the lonelier days following.

Tomorrow marks 2 years completed since my wife unexpectedly died.  On a Wednesday like countless other ordinary Wednesdays before it, she was rushed from home to hospital.  And I think it was then, not on the following Monday when she breathed her last, that our paths began to pull apart.  I say this because for five days while she lay in an ICU bed, machines pushed air into her and fluids through her.  She was gone.  All that she was was no more.

Time stopped even as I watched it continue all around me and my life, the one lovingly built with her, ended.  A new one started where I was a minor character in a major lead role, often overwhelmed with wordless emotion swirling in the context of grief resting heavy and constant.

I hated the new life that I had no choosing in.  I resented God and if I’m honest in confession, parts of me still do.  Those are the real hurt parts of me pierced by inexplicable, but not out of the question circumstance of a loved one dying.

Killing those hurting and accusing parts of me by allowing time, love and hope to heal is a daily exercise in trusting God and his goodness both universally for all people, but more intimately, for me.

We all die someday, I suppose.

We certainly do die, everyone of us.  Saying, ‘I suppose,’ comes from one of those hurt parts of me that finds a slighting satisfaction in reminding God that I don’t agree nor expected such tragedy to find me then.  But death and tragedy in its wake did find us.  That’s right where our new life started, the one that we are two years into now.

:::::::

Like morning fogged with sky fallen as low as our feet, Ahead ambiguously hangs on the fading tail of days bled through, lost in and even the smallest celebratory moments in clouds knifed through by sun.  The promise of life in the closing distance warming more with each step away from life tearing apart glows on the horizon.  We are not yet there at the glowing destination where all seems as though it rests only calm and giving.  Maybe we never will be fully there.  And maybe not being there is a good thing; a sort of guiding beauty always prompting us onward to a land and place of promise and peace.

We’re drifting, sliding sideways some days, but mostly moving forward in tossing waves frothing and foaming of grief and grace ...a heart-healing, God-stirred elixir.

Days old and aged in effort given and attempts overcome are also effective little liars.  Creepers finding cracks to grow in; the unwanted searching for higher position than truth just standing stoic.  Those days must be let go of as our hands grasp and hold to a new day.  Faith. Grief. Healing.

Rocks hold well in the sea stirring and are a sure welcomed sight for one drowning, but waves don’t relent in crashing.  Unconcerned of their breaking, they keep coming and breaking, again and again.  Life and waves can feel much of the same in this way.

Rock holds and waves break.

:::::::

So what of the two years behind?

I’m braver. I’m bolder. I’m stronger.

I’m more lost. I’m lonelier. I’m smaller.

I’m more convinced of good. I’m wrapped in dawning grace. I’m rescued.

I’m a better father. I’m a contradicting son. I’m an honest man lying in moments precarious.

...a loser won.

:::::::

And what of them, the girls, my daughters? Well, they’re still watching, always waiting and regularly wondering and dreaming of tomorrow.  They simply are the best thing for me, and I would surely be someone different without them.  My daughters hurt and are still found in tears.  In moments where moms fit appropriately, they have no one of exact measurement.  That is the deepest bruise.  Their little hearts have journeyed further and lived more than mine at that age.  And smiles defy all wrong in their day with an honesty inspiring each of my steps.

:::::::

These two years have beat the hell out of me, honestly.  But I’m here everyday gazing upon a glowing distance still blurry in my eyes.

You are where you are, precisely.  Circumstance, both good and not, will always loom and exist.  Your choosing just as mine is simple: onward and through; no matter the depth nor height.

:::::::

And now three.

a sacred haunt.

His eyes.  They hang in those moments between words, lost.  Nowhere do they find rest or comfort, or even familiarity. He shifts constantly for new position in his seat never settled for more than a handful of minutes.  He’s not nervous.  He’s hiding, moving back and forth to break the emotion looking to free itself from his holding.  He shifts again as not to cry as stories of survivors and victims, the only thing familiar, are brought forth in memoriam and confession; recountings of their loved ones dead.

The wedding band still wraps around his finger.  “She’s only been gone since June,” he struggles the words out.  And then he fades back into the chair and the stories shared from the others sitting in the circle.

:::::::

It’s been awhile since I’ve listened to someone new in our grief support group speak of their loss so recent and fresh.  Usually, their words are few and plain, partly guarded and mostly numb still.  Two emotions gripped me in the six grueling words he shared: familiar and sadness.

I know the road he has suddenly found himself on.  I remember, all too well, the disoriented feeling to every day, how my feet ambiguously shuffled forward because the day behind ripped through me, how my thoughts sank even in smiles and words rattled safety because I didn’t really want to be found.  No day stretches too far to forget and no night rests soundly in dreams giving harbor to relentless grief.

It’s a sacred haunt, one lurking in memories and love and life belonging to a day that has come and gone without approval and despite a fight.

He’s in a bad spot.  But at least he’s here.

What I want to tell him as my chance to speak in the circle draws near is that he’s okay, more than he can know right now.  He’s not forgotten.  He’s not alone.  And most of what he thinks right now is untrustworthy; he will make it.

He’s gazing at the floor most of the time, but I notice his eyes break and look up briefly as the each person shares of their loss.  At least he’s listening.

Rather than tell him what and where he’ll be one day soon as he continues his grief journey, I tell the group humorous stories of my struggles (and surprising progression) learning to do my daughters’ hair, painting fingernails and shopping for clothes.  I then reminded them that this month marks two years since my wife’s death.

He’ll get there, here and further, if he only continues through pain and loneliness and the deepest of sadness.

:::::::

On the drive home from our grief support group, I talked to the girls about what they learned and discussed in their groups.  They talked about memories.  So many of their memories of Marianne are amazing ones.  Dancing in the living room until they were too tired to have fun, summer days lazy at the pool, cooking cookies at night, friends sleeping over waiting giddy for Marianne to inspire another hair brained scheme of adventure, bedtime jokes and prayers...  Some are haunting and even undefined.  They speak of those more and more infrequently at night, but I know those haunting thoughts exist.  They must in order for their hearts to heal.  It’s a sacred haunt that I can help them and support them in, but they, too, must continue through into a day new.

Do we ever stop grieving?

To a large degree, I don’t think we do.

Grieving is growth through the greatest pain and rising from the deepest loss.

I really hope and pray I see him again next time.