Easter Mourning

     I am dreading the coming of Easter this year, which is a shame because Easter and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays. But this year there will be no hiding an Easter basket for my granddaughter, no watching her hunt eggs in a frilly dress, none of those unspiritual distractions from the reality of the resurrection. And no granddaughter. I always knew the bond between McKenzie and I was dependent on the tenuous one between my son and her mother. I have no claim on her beyond that. At this point that bond is very weak and I have lost my only grandchild. I have pushed that knowledge away for a week, but now that it is time to prepare for Easter, I can no longer avoid it.
     My dear default drive, logic, tells me that because I knew this could happen, it should not hurt so much, but I have learned enough about grief to know you can't logic your way out of it. And I have learned that when you do lose loved ones, the greatest comfort is knowing you loved them as well as you could for as long as you could. Loving from a safe distance is a bitter consolation. McKenzie and I had some wonderful times together and I am thankful for that. Thankful, and sad. This year I am mourning Easter for more than the cruelty inflicted on Christ for my sin, I mourn the brokenness sin still causes in lives and homes and hearts. I don't know how to finish this post, but that somehow seems fitting.

The Art of Being a Dog

     Since my granddog is no longer spending his days with my son's girlfriend, he is at our house quite a bit. We even put up an electric fence at the places Odin was getting out. I suggested testing it by flinging our least favorite cat at it, but my husband vetoed that on the grounds that the cat wouldn't be grounded, so it wouldn't be an accurate test. I am hoping Odin, Tracy's irrepressibly happy Husky mix, will teach Keely, our stodgy-old-man of a Schnoodle, how to be a dog. Keely, though only two, is more of a doorstop. He has only a stub of a tail, but if he had a long one, he wouldn't wag it anyway. Outside of the brief happy dance he does in honor of his twice daily feeding, Keely is basically a couch accessory. On the plus side, he matches our color scheme.
     The weather is getting warmer and grass is not only showing, but growing in the back yard, so I am leaving the dogs outside more often. Keely thinks outside is for potty purposes only. We might as well have a sign by the back door of a dog lifting his leg. Keely spends nearly all his outdoor time standing at the back door waiting to get in. Odin likes to roll in the grass and other unmentionable substances. Dog things. He tried to play a spirited game of keep away with a little black and white ball and our gray and curmudgeon butterball. Odin won. Keely isn't good at keeping away. He practically imbeds himself in someone sitting on the couch. But sometimes, when Odin is running laps around the shop in the backyard, or racing to the back fence to bark at people who dare to walk past it, Keely follows him. Just like a real dog.
     Keely may know less about playing fetch or tug-of-war than a chia pet, but he is still young,  maybe he can be taught a few new tricks like--the art of being a dog.

Longsuffering 201

"Excuse me, you in white over there, I think I'm in the wrong classroom.
I don't remember signing up for Longsuffering, and certainly not the advanced course.
Isn't it an elective? No? Well I'm not sure I've had the prerequisite.

Love someone? Oh yes, I've done that. I love a lot of people.
And not be able to control what happens to them? Well I know that's true, but it's kind of a waste. I've got such good ideas for how to fix people's lives. I've offered God a lot of suggestions for how to answer my prayers through the years and He has never used one of them.

Who have I loved?
I loved my mom through 50 years of mental illness that made her a stranger to me.
I have watched loved ones in the sad, slow spiral of Alzheimer's.
I've seen others ridiculed for handicaps that God Himself gave them.
I loved the homeless boys God brought into our lives, one of them, like he was my own. And when they left and God asked me if I could love them the way He did, for years at a time, without getting anything in return, I said yes, but it was hard at first.
I loved my tiny grandchild who died at twelve weeks in the womb.
And I love the granddaughter I gained when my son got engaged to her mother, and lost when they broke up.
I have waited for loved ones to know and follow Christ, and watched some die without doing either.

My previous suffering experience? 
Can I count twenty plus years of migraines even though the meds I have now usually help?
I have never known poverty or hunger, but I spent three and a half years in the School of Depression. That counts double? Good, I didn't know if I would make it through that one.

I'd like to get a few credits for child rearing, a few more for childbirth, but the greater suffering was having them grow up and leave home. I want extra credits for that. I know letting them go was in the syllabus from the beginning, but I still was not prepared for how hard that final test would be.

And I got my Master's Degree in Grief when our youngest son died at 34. I'm just beginning to put that education to use.

I have had a good lab partner for most of these classes, but for a couple years there, we weren't sure we'd be able to keep working together.

So, just how long is this class? The rest of my life? Well, I don't know how well I will do in this course, but I love the sweet, fruity smell coming from the classroom."

The Rosebud

     I have mentioned before that I have wanted a grandchild for a long time. It seemed like the least my children could do for me after all the trouble I went through raising them. Still I considered it a mixed blessing when my Christmas gift from my son and his fiance was a sonogram of the baby they were expecting. Babies are wonderful, of course, but we had raised our children to know God's way was marriage first, then kids. I was disappointed because the baby's father had also been my baby and I had better dreams for him than the choices he made for himself. But I was not nearly as disappointed then as I was a month later when he called to say the baby had miscarried. I had called the baby Peanut and the sonogram sat on my nightstand so it was the first and last thing I saw everyday.
     Though many of the women I know had miscarried, I had never lost a baby. I knew from scripture that babies go to heaven, but I hadn't before thought deeply about what form these unborn babies have there. The Bible doesn't say. Though I do not take my theology from books and movies, I was intrigued by the story in "Heaven's For Real" where the little boy who saw heaven was being hugged by a girl he didn't know. She said she was his sister who died in their mommy's tummy. She looked like his other sister and her age fit the years since the miscarriage. Surely God would not leave these tiny ones in embryonic form where they could not experience the wonders of heaven. I have asked the Lord that when I die, Peanut is one of the first people I see. Though I call the baby Peanut, I think of  him/her as a rosebud.

                                                            The Rosebud

In God’s garden, there is a place

where tiny rosebuds bloom--

the babies, not yet fully formed,

who leave the earth before they’re born,

gone early from the womb.

My grandchild is among them now,

a rosebud picked too soon,

just partly formed, but wholly loved

and when we meet in heaven above

I know I’ll see the bloom.

To Peanut--miscarried 1/21/15

Eternal Spring

     My husband and I will never be part of the sandwich generation, those caught between taking care of their young children and elderly parents at the same time. Our parents had the good grace not to age much until our kids were long gone from the home. But both we and our parents can see a time coming when they will need more help and we will be sandwiched between Kalispell and Missoula. It is easy to be discouraged about the inevitable hard changes that are coming, but it is comforting to know they are temporary, that we will not be facing them alone.

                                                                      Eternal Spring

 Late in life, the seasons change

and not to spring.

At our autumn, when we have gathered most

of family, friends, rich years and things,

the friends begin to fall away,

our siblings, and our homes.

Our bodies start a slow decay

and we are left alone

without the spouse who shared our life

sometimes, without even

 our memories.

We fear the unknown winter,

but not the One who turns the seasons.

Who gave us the comforts of family,

friends, home, health

and years to enjoy them.

The Restorer of bodies and loved ones.

The Keeper of our memories,

the One who gave them meaning.

And by His light, we all will change

to find our lives have just begun--

Eternal spring.

A Poem Was Passing By

     Last night I was able to attend Stillwater Christian School's annual "For Such a Time as This" banquet. The evening was well organized, the food was good, the band played and the choir sang beautifully, and I was really looking forward to hearing Mike Huckabee speak. The only problem was that in the midst of all this merriment, I was having a poetry attack. Not a severe one. Just a pesky little poem trying to capture my attention when I wanted to give it fully to the event I was at. I found myself writing lines on the back of the program schedule just so they wouldn't distract me longer than necessary. That is the illustrious background of today's poem.

     

 A Poem Was Passing By

 A poem was passing by and caught me,

snagged me with its tempting hook

not enough to outright trip me,

just enough to make me look,    

studying the little thing,

wondering what it might mean.

Is it sad or sentimental,

anger filled or saccharine sweet,

or maybe it is just a story

laying dormant at my feet?

Should I pick it up and hold it

knowing all the work it means?

Twisting lines to create meter,

warping words to make them rhyme.

Maybe I should just release it,

pick it up and let it fly,

let the wind catch it, and free me

from a poem just passing by.

Then & Now

    One of the benefits of aging is the perspective that comes from experience. Perspective is why I no longer jump on diet or health fad bandwagons, (perspective, and the fact that I am too old and fat to jump). I now realize the wagons are just passing through and only a moronic kangaroo would try to jump on all of them. Here are some of the "science" swaps of my adulthood. In the 70's the miracle vitamin was C, followed later by E, then B12. Now the cure for all ills is D3. Then the undiagnosed illness everyone was afraid they had was low blood sugar, which was a real issue--for about seven people. Now the illness you must have even though you don't realize it, is gluten intolerance. The reason gluten intolerance has become epidemic is because the list of symptoms consists of things experienced by every human on the planet, such as occasional sneezing.
     The impending weather disaster of the 70's was the coming ice age. Now, based on the same scientific expertise, it is global warming. The first sign of warming being the "cooking" of the statistics. The political ideology we feared back then was communism, which would usher in nuclear war. Now we fear terrorism, but not as much as being politically incorrect, even regarding terrorism. The enemy nations which inspired "James Bond" movies were Russia and China. Now our enemies are North Korea, who at least has the courtesy to admit it, and most Muslim countries, especially Iran. Unfortunately, our president is too busy being politically correct to attend briefings on our enemies. The bomb shelters of the 50's are back in vogue for the doomsday preppers of the 2010's, only now they contain more guns which will be needed to protect your hoard of trail mix from looters, not to mention protecting your brains from marauding zombies.
     In the 80's whether you went to the doctor for blood pressure or nail fungus, the culprit was coffee. Now three cups a day are the minimum requirement for health. When I had my first child, we were taught laying a baby on its back might cause it to aspirate and die, and the preferred thing to lay them on was faux sheepskin. Now laying a baby in any position except back would practically be considered a death wish, as would the sheepskin. Unfortunately, when this science shifts, it will be too late for the flat-headed babies. The immunization scare of the 80's was the supposed link between autism and the pertussis vaccine. In order to appease paranoid parents, a DT (diphtheria, tetanus) option was available. Now par(anoid)ents are omitting the MMR immunization because of (see above).
     Speaking of immunities, after years of being told to douse everything that might touch children with disinfectant, science now concludes that their bored immune systems are creating allergies just to have something to do. Along the same line, after school lunchrooms have made possession of a peanut butter sandwich as threatening as bringing a handgun to school (or pointing a cracker shaped like a handgun), doctors now say the upswing in peanut allergies is caused by introducing them too late. In a further food fad, coconut oil, which dieticians believed would clog arteries on contact, is now the current miracle cure. We know it works because it is endorsed by Dr. Oz, who is correct almost as often as the weatherman. There have been too many diets to count since the 70's, but one of the most popular now is the paleo, the diet that kept our hunter/gatherer forebearers slim for life--which was about 40 years.
     There are better ways to lose weight than jumping on and off of bandwagons and frankly, it makes us look a little gullible. Remember: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me over and over--we call that Obamacare.

     
                                                            

God's Day Off

    Many Christians today act as if our president got elected on God's day off. As though the leader of the nation that, at present, God most uses to spread the gospel, alleviate suffering, and speak out for justice in the world, was not of particular interest to Him. Even those who accept Romans 13:l,2 "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.", often look for an escape clause. Others feel that our president is God's punishment on America, but if that is true, isn't it still our duty to accept it in the way God commands. It's not as if The Lord doesn't know believers live here.
     The last time I gave in to despair about our leadership, Bill Clinton had just been reelected.  We were studying the history of Israel in BSF that year, and I felt as if Ahab and Jezebel had won the election. However, I could not help but notice that God was Sovereign, that He blessed for generations following one faithful king, and brought that faithfulness from the most unlikely lineage. Israel had little choice in who became king and even a rotten one could reign for decades. We have the privilege of having, supporting and voting for worthy candidates, but God gets the deciding vote. And He doesn't take days off.

Walk in the Wind

     I had so many months of creativity constipation since my surgery, I began believing my ability to write resided in my replaced, right knee. Fortunately (or not), my brain is now fertile again, probably because of the constipation previously mentioned, and I am producing brainchildren at a prodigious rate. Hence the following.

                                                  Walk in the Wind

Today we must go for a walk in the wind,

out of the door we go.

and we must follow the path that it takes

wherever the wind may blow.

We are as free as the waves on the sea

riding the gusts so high,

coats spread out wide like the sails on a ship

watching leaf-boats blow by.

We feel as high as the clouds in the sky,

feather-light wisps of white,

over the mountains, not knowing the place

where will shall be tonight.

If you should see my granddaughter and me

out in the cool, March wind

you will not guess the adventures we’ve had

or places that we have been.

We have not hasted and rushed through our day

and surely must pay the cost,

but time that is wasted on walks in the wind

never is truly lost.

Secret at Blackbird Cafe

     The fun of a rhyme is finding out
     as I write line by line
     what the poem is about.

     That was certainly my experience with this poem, which is strictly a work of fiction that, I hope, does not resemble anyone's real life. All I knew when I started writing was that I wanted a certain rhythm, a secret, and a twist. This is definitely twisted.

      Secret at Blackbird Café

That’s Roscoe O’Toole and his favorite stool

is the one in the corner there.

He eats twice a day at the Blackbird Café

because home is too lonely to bear.

He had a good wife he will love all his life,

although she passed away years ago.

A drunk hit her car as he drove from a bar

and she died by the side of the road.

The law never did catch up with the kid,

but Roscoe found out who he was

and shot him down dead with a round to the head

like the sniper he’d been in the war.

I helped him then because I was his friend,

and that body will never be found.

I declare to this day that the boy moved away,

and sometimes, that I’ve seen him around.

No one would guess from Roscoe’s quietness

at his stool in the Blackbird Café

the secret we share and the stain that we bear

for the bloodshed that happened that day.

Say what you will of a man’s right to kill,

we believe justice was done.

And I feel no regret for my part in the death

of my worthless excuse of a son.

 

Without Words

     The older I get, the more I become persuaded as a Christian that the exhortation of I Peter 3:1 for wives to win their husbands to the Lord without words has a broader application.  I believe it also applies to mothers of grown children, especially sons.  One of the reasons I believe this is because the more I pray for wisdom in how to approach spiritual issues with my children, the more God tells me to shut up--in more sanctified terms, of course, but that is the gist of it. This is a shame because I think I have so much wisdom to share, but since I have noticed the Holy Spirit doesn't use any of my suggestions to change other people's lives, I will have to trust Him on this also. That is the heart of the issue--do I trust God enough to believe He can guide my loved ones without my words?
     I had 18 years of their childhoods to plant, pour and pound God's word into my children's hearts. We supplemented that with both church and school that taught God's word. Now I must do the same thing Christ did when He left the earth just weeks after his disciples finally figured out who He was, I must trust the Holy Spirit to bring to their minds what they have been taught. My job is to develop that gentle and quiet spirit that God values so highly. I have messed up enough myself to be gentle with those who struggle. Quiet is an ongoing project.
     Faith aside, having lived with my husband for 37 years and sons for 30, I have noticed that the way to a man's heart is seldom his mama or his mate's mouth. God typically uses men to challenge men. When I started going to BSF years ago, I told my husband how much I was blessed by it but, in a rare stroke of wisdom, I did not push him to go. I prayed for another man to invite him. That not only led to my husband joining BSF, but to him inviting other men. At a family gathering some time ago, a female relative was lecturing a male family member about church attendance in a fairly public setting. My husband told me, "That won't work. It will only push him away." I am a pragmatist. I want to do what works. Not only am I not my husband's Holy Spirit, but my words can actually obscure His. That is like a friend's story of their faithful dog trying to protect her husband from the paramedics that came to help him when he fell off the roof.  I am by nature that well meaning, but clueless, dog. I hope someday to find that winsome, wordless wisdom of a woman of worth.

Waking Up

    This afternoon I did something I have not tried for a long time. Alas, it is not losing weight. It is sketching.  I wear Sketchers, but I am not a sketcher. Art has always been frustrating for me. The pictures I draw are nothing like the pictures in my head. My medium is words. With words I can express my thoughts with accuracy, and occasionally, beauty. Nevertheless, I found myself sitting on our back deck with a spiral notebook, a well-used pencil and tiny stub of talent. My only goal was to draw what was right in front of me. After drawing the back fence, spindly sumacs and leafless apple tree, there was an uninteresting empty spot, which in real life was only dead leaves and dormant grass.  I decided to push myself further and write a poem.
     Despite what I said above about expressing myself in words, my writing brain has been as dormant as the grass for months now. I am beginning to think it will never grow back, which is no great loss to the world of literature, but still disturbing to me. Perhaps I have blogged a piece of my mind too many times and now there is nothing left. I decided that, like the drawing, I would simply try to represent what was right in front of me which was the coming of spring.

Waking Up

Beneath the newly melted snow

before the grass begins to grow,

the promise of the coming spring

makes welcome, even common things

like dead grass, leaves and dog poop.

Rejoicing in the cloudless sky

the dog, the cat, the sun and I

enjoy the music of the birds

without the need for thought or words,

like leafless branches waking up.