As I’ve mentioned before, the author Tom Zuba makes a very important point in his book, “Permission to Mourn.” He says what we believe is the most powerful thing there is. What you think and say about your child’s death, about yourself, about God, about what happens after you die — those ARE your reality. Those thoughts frame not just this experience of death, but your whole life’s journey. Belief is what determines how you see what happens now and next. Beliefs can carry you into peace or away from it.
To Dwell – Part 1
....Last things last
By the grace of the fire and the flames
You're the face of the future, the blood in my veins, oh ooh
The blood in my veins, oh ooh
But they never did, ever lived, ebbing and flowing
Inhibited, limited
'Til it broke up and it rained down
It rained down, like
PAIN.
You made me a, you made me a believer, believer (Pain, pain)
You break me down, you built me up, believer, believer (Pain)
I let the bullets fly, oh let them rain
My life, my love, my drive, it came from (Pain)
You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
Imagine Dragons, 2017*
I recently joined a rather large – more than 1200 members – closed Facebook group for bereaved parents.
The Dreaded Holidays: Round #3
We made it. (I don’t consider New Years – coming up this weekend – much of a holiday, as we didn’t really woohoo that one up as a family.)
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. In fact, large chunks of it were just a flat-out Festival of Suckery (sorry Mom and Dad; we all know my vocabulary is better, but this is just apt). I either thought of Mark “too much” – letting the grim and terrible reality of his death, his physical absence really sink into my marrow – or I got so busy that I almost forgot to think about him, and then I felt like an Awful Mom. But there were tiny glimmers here and there.
Sunday Prayer – December 2, 2017
Good morning God of joy, God of surprises –
We are so grateful for a new Advent season, a renewed encouragement to slow down and find space in each day to focus on the reality of your gift to us in Jesus.
We can get so lost, God, in our sense of guilt, or shame, or inadequacy, that we forget who you really are and what you’ve already done for us, for every single person. We may feel you calling, deep unto deep, and yet we hide…oh God, we hide in so many ways, behind so many things. We hide because our burdens are often already more than we can bear, and we mistakenly think even more will be handed us; we forget you promise that you are walking with us through every valley. We hide because facing our past, our pain, our mistakes, is too much. We hide and we forget that we are your delight, the pinnacle of your creation…you made us, crafting us tenderly to each uniquely reflect the very light and glory of God, whether we are playing the piano, clapping and appreciating, smiling at strangers, praying, drawing, crying with a friend, creating a delicious dinner, striving for justice, or fighting for freedom.
Today, Lord, help us to remember that LOVE is who you are and LOVE is what you DO…help us remember that you sent your son, Immanuel, GOD WITH US, because you love us and want us to be free. You want us to come out of hiding, to lay down our burdens and shed all those onion-y layers we’ve piled on. May we trust you enough to open our eyes and be surprised with joy… to allow our sense of wonder to reawaken until we might be just as speechless as Zechariah, or like Mary, filled to the point of overflowing with humble words of delight and awe.
Amen
The Water Bears, The Water Washes
As October 8th approached again, I appreciated one particular thing: I no longer felt like I/we “had to” do something big – like last year’s Movie Night at our church – ON that day. It was OK if we moved it later in the month. It wouldn’t take away a thing from his memory. And we could only bear so much. So for the 8th, we decided to invite just a few people along – relatives, close friends of Mark’s, of our family as a whole – as we went down to our beloved lake to do a memorial of sorts.
Steve
About a year ago, in late November 2016, Steve went to visit one of our clients in North Carolina. It’s a long drive — too much for one day.
Before he left, we were talking about Mark, and grief, and processing, and how we differ. I had been concerned that Steve, still operating under his usual habit of putting BIG EMOTIONAL THINGS in tightly-lidded boxes and stowing them on a shelf in his mental closet, was going to discover – far down the road – that grief only gets bigger and scarier, the longer you put it off and refuse to face it. I kept telling him: “Talk to God. Talk to Mark.”
More Things I’ve Learned
1. There will be people who are INCREDIBLY wonderful, well-intentioned human beings (just like me, just like you) who will unwittingly drag you down as you grieve. For me, it’s those who are trying so hard (really, I am not being snarky) to empathize and to care for your heart, but who still manage to inject sad
ness into your every day life right when you were actually having a kind of decent, semi-normal day.
This happened last year, in August, while Steve and I were on vacation. We were having…fun. And it was also closing on the 8th of the month (the 10th month, in this case). I was aware of this, but had put it on the back burner of my brain. I even posted a few pictures on Facebook (of us, having fun), and there it went…in one of the comments, this wonderful person said something like this: “I am amazed that you can enjoy yourself when your heart is so broken.”
The Mark He Made
After enormous (and mostly age-appropriate!) fun with long-time friends in Lexington, Kentucky in the middle of this past month, Steve and I took a side trip, as we began the drive home, to visit Camp Shawnee – about 2 hours east of Lexington, in Floyd County. It was here, we had recently learned, that a beautiful outdoor chapel was dedicated – on Mark’s (future) birth date, in 1955, no less – to the memory of my grandfather, John T. Parker, who we did not have the privilege of knowing (he died of leukemia when my dad was just 22).
Let’s All Get Together and Cry
That ^^^ was probably our deepest fear when Steve and I decided to attend a Bereaved Parents USA (BPUSA) national conference last month.
In the nearly two years since Mark’s death, we had sought out this kind of gathering just once. We went to a “Compassionate Friends” (the other national organization for parents grieving the loss of a child) chapter meeting in late 2016 or early 2017 where, in all honesty…I was kind of a jerk.
Sunday Prayer – September 24, 2017
Good and gracious God:
Sometimes it is easy for us to forget that Jesus was a human…that Jesus cried, that he was a child. A gooey, sweaty toddler, a dusty, laughing 7 year old running through the streets, a teen that might have challenged his parents’ wisdom and authority a few times. We know he was drawn to the temple, we know that he did ask questions, probing the rabbis’ understanding of scriptures and of the character of God who mysteriously filled his human frame.
We can rest in that knowledge in this moment; we can take a breath and rest in the knowledge that Jesus, God-Immanuel, God With Us, lived our lives, that he understands all our questions, especially the WHY WHY WHY ones that so often go unanswered or are not answered to our human satisfaction. Help us, God, to lean into your boundless love and compassion…to trust that You are so much bigger and more creative and more at work than we can imagine, that we are still held and never ever left alone even when all seems lost, feels lost.
We pray for our world that seems to shaking, burning and drowning all at once. We pray for the unity of humanity, that our love for our neighbors would grow apace and beyond these tragedies. Help us to dig deep and give sacrificially, in whatever form that takes.
Amen
BLUE SKIES REMIND ME 