Memorial Day

 

     Yesterday's poem and picture were about our son's grave on Memorial Day. This poem is about the ones for whom this holiday was proclaimed--specifically those who gave their lives for our country. Volunteers put flags on the graves of all the veterans in our local cemeteries, both to honor their service and because some have died years, even decades, later as a result of something they were exposed to during their time in the military. The format of this poem is the same as yesterday's, and the first verse is nearly identical, but this one is for those who fought for and protect our nation.

 

Memorial Day

The flowers resting near their stones

show that the dead are not alone,

forgotten.

 

The flags beside our veterans’ graves

pay tribute to the ones who gave

their service.

 

At newer markers, loved ones cry

or spend a quiet moment by

the graveside.

 

The children play above the graves

of those who gave their lives to save

    our freedom.

 

Because of those who purchased peace

we celebrate this day of ease,

Memorial Day.

A Break in the Clouds

     We have been trying for a couple weeks to get to Fairview Cemetery to decorate Tracy's grave, but we were waiting for a break in the clouds. It is supposed to be nice on Monday, but in my experience Memorial Day is usually what I call a STINC holiday, (So Thankful I'm Not Camping). And to make the odds of bad weather even more likely, our church holds an annual campout Memorial Day weekend. But the main reason I did not want to wait until Monday is that we are used to having the small country cemetery to ourselves and I knew Memorial Day would be busy. Today, we had what is now called a sun break between downpours, so we raced to the cemetery and put up crosses with flowers. There were a few people there, but not on the side where Tracy is buried. We enjoyed the sun while it lasted and went home to a torrent of rain. Life is like that, the serene and the stormy. We cannot control the weather, but we can search for a break in the clouds.

                                                         Memorial Day

                                       The flowers resting near your stone 

                                          bear witness you are not alone,

                                                            forgotten.

                                        The tears that trickle now and then

                                        are there because your life has been 

                                                          remembered.

                                       Yet hope stands firm within my heart

                                     we'll meet where loved ones do not part,

                                                                forever.

 

Why Fentanyl?

    Although I accepted the message God gave me before Tracy's memorial, that March 22, 2022 was the time God had chosen for him to die, still I wondered, why fentanyl? I was thankful that Tracy didn't suffer, fentanyl is a killer, but a somewhat kindly one. I was grateful that God let him have years of sobriety and success before he died, but I think Tracy would be ashamed to have died from drugs. It is only now that the dealer has been sentenced that I begin to see answers to the why fentanyl question. For one thing, the dealer has been sentenced to 38 years, which will make the streets of Helena a little safer for a while. More importantly, the dealer, Neil, seems truly broken by Tracy's death and I firmly believe God will use this circumstance, prayer, and possibly my Lament book, to bring salvation to Neil and his family. 

   And though I feel bad about his long, possibly permanent, separation from his family, seeing these consequences instead of Dad going out to sell drugs, may prevent his children from following in his footsteps. Also, from looking at his criminal record, minus whatever might be in a sealed juvenile record, Neil has been imprisoned in a sin cycle he could not break out of, for decades. If he finds forgiveness through Christ, despite being in prison, he will be free for the first time in his life. 

   The prosecutor also accepted a copy of my book, so perhaps she will be reached too, or give it to someone facing the same sorrow. Perhaps I will write another book, a follow up to Lament of the Lamb, but I don't want it to end with Neil being imprisoned, I want it to end with Neil being saved. God has told me often, There is purpose in all I do, so there is purpose in Tracy's death being from fentanyl. Maybe Neil's long sentence will discourage other drug dealers. Maybe local law enforcement will see merit in trying to find the dealer whose fentanyl killed a 16 year old here last summer. And, of course, there will be both earthly and eternal effects that I will not know about until heaven. Nothing is wasted in the sovereignty of God, not even the evil of drugs. The Savior who brought life from death can bring fruit from fentanyl.

Will and Grace

    The title is not a reference to the television show of some years back. I never even watched it. This blog is about my Will, who I believe I can safely write about because he doesn't read this. I want to expand a little on the encounter I mentioned briefly between Will and the drug dealer, Neil. I would like to think I can tell when someone is lying, but that would be lying to myself, some people are very good at lying. Lance, our spare son, knew just how much detail to add to make a lie believable. When Neil said he was sorry for what happened to Tracy, through his defense attorney, to our family in court, to Will and I after sentencing, when such a statement would do him no good, I was inclined to believe him. Neil has a son, so he would understand how it would feel to lose him. I have few illusions about human nature, but I am not a pessimist. A pessimist would naturally assume that he was only sorry he got caught.

    It is logical for a criminal to apologize in court for his crime, especially when the victim died. It might give an advantage with a jury or at sentencing. But logic also tells me that Neil, a 40 year veteran of the legal system, knew that if he contested the charges, especially if it became a jury trial, he would have months, even years, in which to spend time with his family while he waited for the glacially slow gears of justice to catch up with him. He probably would not have fared well in a jury trial, but he would be unlikely to get a longer sentence than the 38 years the judge gave. The fact that he took ownership for Tracy's death by admitting to it speaks volumes for the sincerity of his Sorry.

    And that is what Will was responding to. By acknowledging his guilt, he saved our family months of uncertainty waiting for resolution. I am sure Will's words of thanks were as healing to Neil as my words of forgiveness. And the handshake affirmed that despite what had happened, he still had value as a man. I knew my children were exceptionally intelligent and talented, but to see past the great wrong Neil had done to commend the thing he did right, displayed a greater measure of grace than I have ever witnessed. And grace does not come from genetics, logic, talent or intelligence, it comes from God.

The Hole in Mother's Day

    I had a massage appointment a couple days after Mother's Day. My massage therapist does not have children. Since she is 40, single, and doesn't have time in her schedule for a parakeet, much less a marriage, she is unlikely to have any. So I didn't talk about Mother's Day with her until it kind of came up in conversation toward the end of the massage. I asked if she did anything with her mom on Sunday. She told me about her broken relationship with her mother and that she hated Mother's Day. I understood. My mother's mental illness warped our relationship. There is no schizophrenia selection in the Mother's Day card rack. I was the girl with no mom at the Mother's Day tea at school or church. So I wrote this poem for her, for me, for those for whom Mother's Day is bittersweet.

 

    The Hole in Mother's Day

 

By the time I was old enough to know 

what Mother's Day was about, 

there was already a hole in it--

a Mom shaped hole called schizophrenia.

 

Year by year the hole got bigger

as more and more of the person I knew,

the mother I wished she could be,

was drawn into that vortex of chaos.

 

Mother's Day became a grim reminder

of what our family could not have.

I bought her cards with holes in them

where flowery sentiments tend to be.

 

When I married and moved away

the hole came with me,

but now it was not so large,

so sad, so everyday.

There was still a hole in Mother's Day

but it became less painful

when I had children of my own

and became the mom I had wished for.

When my mother died

and there were no more dreaded visits,

pointless cards, and useless gifts,

the hole was nearly healed.

And then I lost my son.

I still have two remaining children

with children of their own,

who fill my life in wonderful ways,

Though the hole is back in Mother's Day.

I will not let it drain away

the beauty of the life I have

the love they give throughout the year. 

There is a hole in Mother's Day

shaped just like you, my son

but this time I'll embrace the pain

until you fill the hole again.

                5/18/24

 

 

 

No Happy Ending

    Although the outcome of Thursday's sentencing hearing was what we hoped, a long sentence for the dealer, it was not a happy ending. Tracy was just as gone from our lives and he had been before. The dealer, Neil, will be gone from his family's life, probably forever. God had thrown so many Christians into our path the two days preceding the hearing, by the time we were on our way to Helena, if I had looked out my side window and saw one of my friends loping beside the car promising to pray for us, I would not have been greatly surprised. I am thankful for all the reassurances because, when we got to Ronan, Reed found an email from the court giving the Zoom link for the hearing at 10 a.m.!! I had emailed the scheduler and asked her to notify me if the time had changed, otherwise we would be there at 1:30. I assumed no reply meant it hadn't. I made a frantic call and email to the prosecutor, Mary. Britten and Will had spent Wednesday night in Helena, so they quickly zipped to the courthouse and we sent photos of our statements to Britten so she could read them if needed. We were not going to make it all the way into Missoula by 10, so we stopped at a truck stop outside of town to use their WiFi and set up our phones for Zoom. 

   To our immense relief, Mary called and said the judge moved our hearing to the end of 3:30 court session. The change was made easier by the fact that the defense attorney didn't know the hearing was at 10 either. Despite the unintentional cardio workout we got when we thought we would miss the hearing, we recognized God's hand. For the first time, we decided to go Helena via Missoula because our daughter said there were road construction traffic delays on our usual route through Seely Lake that delayed them 30-40 minutes when they drove through the day before. If we had gone that way, we would not have had cell service to receive the message about the hearing.

    Meanwhile I wondered if God gave us all that encouragement to soften the blow of not being present for the hearing, or perhaps for a disappointing sentence. I also wondered if this was God's way of getting Britten and Will to finally speak. But the main message I got from all that divine intervention was that whatever the result of the hearing was, it would be God's will. Unsurprisingly, God wove all the details together perfectly--hotel check in and check out times, granddaughters having hours to swim, the lenient judge was not presiding, being last on the schedule so we could share more privately. Although, after nearly losing our chance to testify, we were no longer reluctant to share, we were determined to. I spoke. Then Reed. The gist of both was that, based on his history, Neil would return to dealing drugs if he was not in prison. The prosecutor gave a well presented closing argument about the intent of the legislature in enacting the enhanced charge. Then she listed the aggravating circumstances in Neil's case that would justify a long sentence, and asked for 40 years. Neil did not speak in his own defense. He turned around to apologize to our family. His attorney stated how well how Neil had done in the past two years, that 40 years would be a life sentence, and suggested 20 years with 15 suspended.

    The judge looked at Neil's 40 year criminal history, listed assaults we weren't aware of, and that Neil had already had years of his previous sentences suspended. She sentenced him to 38 years, none suspended. I think the two years difference from the plea agreement was for his recent good behavior. Instead of coming up for parole in 10 years, he will be eligible in 9.5, but with a criminal record condemning Neil and the stack of letters commending Tracy, he is unlikely to get it. He apologized to me again when I gave him my Lament book and my forgiveness. Then he apologized to Will, who showed grace that amazed me by thanking Neil for not fighting the charges and shook his hand, man to man. Neil truly seemed broken by Tracy's death, I hope it leads him to the One who restores broken people.

     But, as I said, there is no happy ending. The dealer's family was also broken, crying. I think Tracy would have felt compassion for Neil's family, but I think he would have more concern about protecting other families from Neil's drugs, so I am glad we could protect them his place. We were satisfied with the sentence, but I cannot say we got what we wanted. What we wanted was Tracy back.

The God Who Hears My Heart

    The wait will soon be over. Sentencing of the dealer whose drugs killed Tracy two years ago will happen tomorrow afternoon. After the initial shock of learning Tracy had died, I saw the many ways God had been preparing our path to make this easier for us. Having Luke in Helena, but not making him be the one to find Tracy's body, having us at Britten's house for dinner so Luke could tell her and she could tell us. Dozens of other things. 

    And as the hearing nears, God has heard my heart again and placed Christian friends in my, seemingly random, path. My massage appointment yesterday had been scheduled for weeks, but along with the massage, I got a hug and a promise to pray. Also yesterday, a friend from church asked me about sharing at a baby shower Friday evening. Explaining the reason I would not be there, added her to my army of prayer warriors. Plus, I got a much needed hug from her when I dropped off my baby gift today. And though it is not unusual for me to see people I know in Costco, both of the ones I saw today were from BSF and knew about Tracy and the drug dealer. That gave me two more hugs, and prayer partners to add to an already substantial list. 

   Meanwhile, my cousin who is also my hairdresser, and shares my name and my faith, left a message to see if I wanted to come in for my next appointment one day earlier. When I called her back, I was able to give her my prayer request. An author friend sent me an invitation to her book signing and the whole author's group got my prayer request through that. At first, I thought God was using those encounters as a message to expand our prayer circle--which I did when I got home, I put our request on Facebook. But the truth that had me in tears at the grocery store was not about recruiting people to pray. God had placed these Christian friends in my path, to show that He heard me. He heard my heart and sent people to encourage me.

   I do not expect anything to be easy about speaking in court for the first time, seeing the dealer face to face, or relying on an unknown judge for justice, but I know God has prepared this path for us. People of prayer are, and will be, speaking to God, the perfect judge, on our behalf, calling for justice for Tracy, and repentance for the dealer. God's sovereign will is not dependent on our prayers, but through prayer, we get to participate in His plan. 

    In the Bible, names for God were often forged in the fire of hard circumstances--Jehovah Jireh, God provides, when God revealed a ram for Abraham to sacrifice in Isaac's place; Beer-lahai-roi, well of the living God who sees me, when God provided a well and words of hope to Hagar as she was dying in the desert. And now in my own fiery trial, without the benefit and beauty of Hebrew, I shall add mine--the God who hears my heart.

One Last Sentence

     I do not believe our family gets to say anything at the dealer's sentencing hearing. The prosecutor has not indicated this, and I think that is why she asked us to send in letters ahead of time. But if we are allowed to speak, this is what I want to say--

Dear Judge

   Several people have asked me if the drugs Neil sold killed anyone else. The truth is, I do not know. Perhaps even he does not know. There have been many fentanyl deaths in Helena, but not every victim has a person as skilled and driven as our daughter to unlock their phone and find the evidence. Sadly, in some places in Montana, law enforcement is not even trying to investigate these deaths, so I am thankful Lewis and Clark County took this case seriously. It reaffirms that our son's life had value.

    What I do know is that Neil has had decades to turn his life around and has chosen to keep selling drugs. And that by selling fentanyl, he has removed that chance to get back on course from at least one victim. I also know that Neil is not compliant with terms of probation because he was on probation for drug dealing when he sold to Tracy. I believe the only way to protect the citizens of Helena from this chronic offender, is to keep him incarcerated for a very long time. That is the only way to guarantee that this latest sentence will be his last.