1000 Small Sorrows

     When a loss first happens, there is big sorrow, a time of great grieving, but most of the grief happens in small, daily doses. A few weeks ago I lost my granddaughter, McKenzie, not to death, but when my son and her mother broke up. I cried. . . hard. . . a couple times. But now I have reached the phase of small sorrows:

• seeing her picture on the wall and wondering if I will ever see her again
• looking with longing at Woodland Park, where she loved to play 
• seeing the fruit roll ups she loved to eat in the cupboard
• finding the playdough we made together in the crayon box 
• driving past the part of town where she lives
• finding out her mother did not let her continue dance lessons I paid for
• hearing the music from "Frozen"
• seeing the blue shirt I bought for her birthday and never got to give her
• realizing we will not be going to the swimming pool or lake together this summer
• wondering how McKenzie is dealing with her feelings with fewer coping skills
• . . .

     These are the 1000 small sorrows that heal my grief on a daily basis. But it doesn't feel like healing. It feels like reopening a wound.

My Heart Finds a Way

      I have been waiting for this poem to come for the three weeks since my son and his fiance broke up. Poetry has been my outlet for emotion for many years now, and I knew eventually I would be able to express my sorrow over losing my granddaughter.

 My Heart Finds a Way

You were just a stranger when you came into my life,

but as welcome as a blue skied day,

you would be my grandchild when my son married your mom,

so I loved you, my heart found a way.

Just a smiling stranger, when you first came to my house

I looked on as you and momma played.

Before long us blued-eyed gals were giggling side by side.

We’d become friends, our hearts found a way.

But your mother did not become my son’s wife

and they both have walked away,

leaving me no place to be a grandmother to you.

Can I let go? My heart must find a way.

Though I always knew this day might come

and parting was the price we would pay,

still it’s not as costly as holding back on love.

I can’t see you, but you’re in my heart to stay.

There are many things in life that we cannot control--

my mind says goodbye, but my heart says stay.

I am not a stranger to the grief that tears me now.

I am waiting for my heart to find a way.

Doesn't It Make More Sense?

     I believe the biggest logical fallacy of our time is that correlation equals causation. A simple example of this is that most murderers are right handed. This is because most people are right handed, not because being right handed drives people to murder. There are a plethora of studies linking one thing to another, each implying that whatever their particular emphasis is significantly influences a behavior or condition. A recent example of this has been our governor's push for preschool education, citing a study showing children who attend preschool are less likely to become criminals later in life. But doesn't it make more sense that since most preschools now are private pay, the parents willing to invest in paying for preschool are also more involved in every other area of their child's development? Involved parents are less likely to raise criminals. The same argument applies to why I have noticed more overweight students in the public school choir than in the Christian school. Parents willing to sacrifice that much because they care what goes into their children's minds also care what goes into their bodies. Christian school doesn't make you slim. Here are a few other examples.

     Antidepressants now come with a warning about increased risk of suicide, especially in young people. But doesn't it make more sense that since virtually all suicides are committed by depressed people, and that depressed people are more likely to be taking antidepressants, the suicides are linked to the depression, not the meds. This is especially true for young people who would be unlikely to need antidepressants for the other health conditions they are sometimes used to treat in adults.

     At the 2012 primaries, a lot of Democrats voted Republican for the first time and chose fairly liberal candidates. This fueled theories that the Democrats were conspiring to get bad Republican candidates on the November ballot. But doesn't it make more sense that Democrats, unhappy with their party over Obamacare cramming, voted for Republicans most like the Democrats they had previously chosen.

     If you search the internet, you will find studies linking being overweight and/or diabetes to consumption of french fries/soda/wheat/doughnuts/you name it. But doesn't it make more sense that these things are single elements of a generally unhealthy lifestyle rather than causes themselves.

     Between the general misunderstanding of the relationship of correlation versus cause, the biases of study sponsors and/or those of the researchers themselves, the information age has become the misinformation age, of which sloppy journalism is just one of the signs. I don't have studies to verify my conclusions, but doesn't it just make sense?

   

Kaarmalizing Iran

     Any western Montanan who has not been living under a rock for the past year should recognize the name Marcus Kaarma. He is the man who shot and killed a 17 year old German exchange student who was burglarizing, aka garage hopping, his garage. I do not intend to retry the case, but I think the part most would agree on is that the disliked, neighborhood nut overreacted when he killed a likeable, neighborhood teenager for burglary. I think it is a good illustration of the deal our president is trying to broker with nuclear Iran. Iran is the nutty, unstable neighbor in the Middle Eastern neighborhood. Lifting sanctions against Iran would be like helping Marcus Kaarma make a better living knowing he would use some of that money to buy more guns and ammunition. Even if Kaarma promised that this time he would not use the weapons to kill anybody, most people would know that the word of the neighborhood nut isn't worth very much. It would mean especially little to the next door neighbor, in Iran's case, Israel, if Kaarma had repeatedly expressed the desire to wipe them out. These Israeli next door neighbors are not garage hopping, they are on their own property, minding their own business. And we clueless buttinskys, led by President Neville Chamberlain, are parking a weapons welcome wagon in their driveway. Kaarma reaped his karma when he went to prison for murder and, if our president has his way, we will reap ours.

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."