Blessed

Sometimes I think I should be doing more. I compare myself to my friends, who are doing really cool things - volunteering with local organizations, tutoring kids who have recently come to the US, running a community garden, teaching ESL, leading the youth group at my church. Comparatively, I'm doing next to nothing - no service, little connection with my neighbors and this neighborhood I love. I moved here to my neighborhood to be present with people and to serve, and I don't always feel like I'm doing that. 

Today in my small group we read through the Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5. As we were reading, verse 4 stuck out: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

Blessed. Blessed. Blessed are those who mourn. 

This tells me that I am blessed. I am mourning, so I am blessed. 

This makes me think that maybe mourning is just as important as doing cool things. Mourning is just as important to God as serving others - they both are a part of what being like Jesus looks like. 

And this tells me that the church should be a place where mourning is acceptable. The church should be a place where we're not afraid to talk about mourning, just like we're not afraid of talking about justice. 

I may still compare. I may still yearn for the day when I can be out there with my friends, tutoring kids and pulling weeds. But until that time comes I can follow Jesus best by mourning. May that mourning be a blessing to me, to my friends, and to my church community. May we teach one another to be more, act more like the Jesus we follow. 

Lethargy (9 months)

Yesterday marked 9 months. 

This afternoon I basked in the unseasonably warm afternoon sun that she would have enjoyed because she was always so cold. 

This evening I donned my Christmas present - knee length wool socks made in Russia that she would have rocked because socks were her favorite accessory after the stroke. 

All through today, even with the warm sun and socks, even with it being a lazy Saturday, I felt the lethargy of grief that I've been able to avoid for most of this month. The bone tired, heavy limbed lethargy that makes it hard to do anything but sit on a bench, or binge watch TV. Thankfully today I did both, and I didn't do them alone. (Thanks, friends, for being willing to let me be tired with you, for not expecting me to entertain.)

The lethargy comes in waves, just like the grief. And the waves, at least for now, are fewer and smaller than before. The moon may change the tides, though, in the next few months. But for now I hope that tomorrow the sun and the Sunday bring a little more life.

A new year

The sky is clear tonight, and the stars are bright. I sat on the swing in my backyard and just looked up at the beauty of the stars - my year-round version of Christmas lights.

It's the start of a new year, which generally means you pause and reflect on the old year. But I don't really want to do that. It's too painful, too raw, too heavy right now. And those reflections will come in their own time - we're getting near the time when the cancer came back last year, where my mom really started to die. Those reflections will be fresh this year in February, March, April. So I'll wait until then to look back at those months.

But instead of reflecting, today I caught myself thinking "what if?" What if my dad had never gotten hurt? What if my mom never had cancer? What if? What if?

And, because I'm a details person, I thought it through. I thought through the what ifs. Would I have spent as much time in San Jose caring for my mom if my dad hadn't had any physical limitations? Would she still have become my best friend? Would I be as close to my dad as I am? Would I have have such a deep friendship with person a, stayed in touch with person b, reconnected with person c? What if? What if?

The short answer: no. No, I probably wouldn't have spent as much time in San Jose, I probably wouldn't have known my mom as my best friend, I probably wouldn't be as close as my dad, or with friends a, b and c. And I wouldn't be who I am today, a woman who has done her work and engaged with her grief and come out the other side, strong and courageous, a beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk ox.

Last year was a hard year. (That's an understatement.) But it was a beautiful year, too. So I will live in that dissonance, and remember the year, in time, with tears of pain and of joy. And in the meantime I look forward to the new year. I hope to find life and joy and good things in 2014. Or at the very least, I hope it's just a little better than 2013.

So this is Christmas

First Christmas without her. First Christmas without my mom.

I was able to forget, or to be swept up in the beauty of Christmas Eve, in the joy of Christmas morning. The opening of stockings, the wearing pajamas until the afternoon, the gifts, the food, the time together near the Christmas tree.

But then it calmed down. And I realized I was sad, and mad. I was smad. And tired - tired of pretending that this Christmas was a normal one, tired of being in the "Christmas spirit."

So before I take my smadness out on the dishes, I'm stopping, and letting myself have a good cry, and letting myself ignore "Love Actually" in the other room, and instead writing this. Jotting down these unprocessed and raw emotions - not unsurprising emotions, but still raw.

I miss you, mom. I miss you so much.

Permission (8 months)

Recently I got a Christmas update letter from a friend, and at the top of the letter she had handwritten this note: 

"I think your mom would want you to enjoy the holidays, don't you?" Coming from her this wasn't just a platitude to fill awkward silence or empty space. Coming from her, someone who is both a mother and has lost a mother, who gives me a mom hug every time I see her, it was permission. 

I didn't know how much I needed permission to enjoy the holidays this year until I got this note, but when read it and started bawling I figured it out: I just needed someone to tell me it was okay to not be sad all this Christmas. I needed someone to tell me it was okay to have fun at Christmas parties, and to spend time with friends, and to love all the lights. I needed someone to tell me that I didn't have to be in sackcloth and ashes this year, during my family's favorite time of year. 

Today has not been an "enjoy the holidays" kind of day. Today has been a tidal wave of grief that I just had to ride into shore - keeping myself busy at work, watching Buffy, eating chocolate and crying with a friend. But that's okay too. Whether it's a wave of grief or a wave of joy, my mom would want me to feel it all. 

I love you, mom. I've missed you for 8 months, and I'm going to miss you for a lot longer. But I know, without a doubt, with the help of my friend, that you would want me to enjoy the holidays. 

Advent

Advent is a season of waiting. We wait for the coming King, for Christ to be born, God with us, Emmanuel. We sing lyrics like “Come, thou long expected Jesus,” and “O come, o come Emmanuel,” and light candles in the darkness to remember the coming light.

I was reminded today that waiting is countercultural to us in America. Waiting for anything – for our clothes to be washed, for the microwave to beep – can feel like agony, a waste of time. Waiting doesn’t come naturally to us. It makes us uncomfortable.

But still we wait in Advent. And I’ve learned that often we also wait in death. I was waiting for my mom to die for 20 months. It wasn’t waiting for a cure, or waiting for her to improve. It was waiting for her to decline, for her to sleep all day, for her to eventually never wake up.

Most of the time, when I think of waiting for her death, it isn’t something that ends joyfully, it wasn’t a beautiful fulfillment of my expectations. But today I remember that her death wasn’t all that I was truly waiting for. I take my words from Zechariah’s song, after he waited for years to have a son:

By the tender mercy of our God
the dawn from on high broke upon her,
to give light to those of she who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide her feet into the way of peace.

Today I was reminded that as I waited for her death, I also waited for this – for mercy, for the dawn to break on her, for her to be guided into the way of peace. I waited for this light that shone even in the midst of the shadow. I waited for death, but I also waited in hope, for the coming light of the baby Jesus.

May the lights and the candles in the face of the darkness remind me of that this Advent season. May the coming of Emmanuel give me hope in the face of despair. And may we all be guided this year into the way of peace.

Vows

I was talking to a friend this week, and she asked, “Did I ever tell you about how much your mom’s memorial service impacted me?” She hadn’t, so she told me the story.

She told me that she has been to lots of weddings in the past few years (twelve, I think), and they’ve all been beautiful, and full of love, and all that good stuff. But she said that my mom’s service, and hearing about my parents love for one another, was the most beautiful and whole picture of marriage she had seen.

She said that seeing the hard parts of the vows, the parts we tend to forget about on the wedding day, the “in sickness” and “til death do us part” portions of the vows – seeing how those played out in my parent’s marriage was beautiful. She had only met my parents once before, but through the stories people shared at the service she was still able to see their deep, abiding love for one another.

As she shared this, she started to cry, and so did I. I was so honored to hear this story from her, and to know that my parents’ love and commitment to one another was so evident, even at a funeral, in a time of mourning.

And friends, if you get married, I may write you a somewhat depressing card – about supporting one another in hard times, in sickness, in struggle. Don’t be alarmed. I write that because the best example I have of marriage, of love, and of commitment, comes from my parents, who lived out their vows even in sickness and in death.