Adrift

I may be one of the few people disappointed when their week of jury duty is cancelled. I was informed that since there were no trials scheduled for District Court, my obligation was complete. I was looking forward to a week when I could spend my evenings with family in Puyallup, saving the time of driving from Olympia to Tacoma. Now, I suddenly have an open calendar, and had to create a different list of the things to do, take care of some delayed phone calls, reschedule some appointments, fill my time. If I was being graded on my life skills, I imagine being described as “surprisingly slow to adjust to unexpected changes.”

Whether or not John Lennon originated it or only repeated common wisdom, it is still true: “Life is what happens when you are making other plans.” Trying to plan my days is a way to regain control over what felt beyond my power for so long. The days of Larry’s illness required careful planning and specific routines. There were limited choices, little spontaneity, restricted freedoms, constant vigilance, and stress. It was my consuming reality. Evidently I am still working through the reality that I am dependent on myself alone, to take action, to meet my needs, to discover and create community. Obviously some days are better and easier.

Over the last year I have been diligent about making plans. Aware of the triggers of holidays and birthdays, events and places that would be filled with sweet but sometimes hard memories, I have prided myself in finding new experiences, doing common things in new ways, creating new memories, banishing the lingering shadows and sadness. Jury duty would have been one of those new, independent things. Those who keep track of my life on Facebook remark what a great time I am having. Of course. What else would I want people to see?

Last week I drove over Snoqualmie Pass, enjoying the reds and yellows and oranges of leaves against the evergreens. I spent three days at Lazy F camp with other retirees. I was determined to make the hike to the cross at the top of the hill. It had been more than twelve years. I tell myself I was halfway up when it felt like work, and the trip down would have been rushed, and just as hard on my arthritic knees. I told my companions to go on without me. Instead, I turned and leisurely strolled down the trail and onto the camp grounds, following a creek and finding the labyrinth, giving myself time for the solace of nature.

 As always, a hymn crept into my consciousness and accompanied me on my course.  It was planted in my heart the night before as we worshiped. Our singing, and the location, reminded of the abiding faith of a friend I had visited daily (12 years ago) while he was hospitalized for three weeks. Each time I left, he and his family, keeping vigil, sang together “In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful, In the Lord I will rejoice! Look to God, do not be afraid. Lift up your voices, the Lord is near, Lift up your voices, the Lord is near.”

Words I need every day. Reminders. Gifts of faith. I will not be afraid. I am finding solid ground.

The Knot of Grief

Grief can be like a toothache, tender, sensitive, always in the background, waiting for something cold or hot, or the pressure of an abscess to wake it up and make it rage. The complications of doing nothing about it until absolutely necessary only make the pain worsen; the cost of ignoring it can be debilitating. 

Sunday was a day I felt my grief in tangible ways. Once again, sitting in church, I could not stop the tears. It wasn’t just the hymns of my childhood, reminding me of a simpler, safer time. It wasn’t only the morning message about home-coming, reminding me of the significance of the church as my home for my entire life, and the feeling of being displaced from that home, or the memories that surfaced about the rootlessness that comes with itinerant ministry and leaving communities of faithful people seven times in our thirty four year marriage. 

The flood gates truly opened as we began “I Was There to Hear your Borning Cry,”  even though it’s message is the promise of God’s presence in all of life. I anticipated the  familiar, cherished words “If you find someone to share your time and you join your lives as one, I’ll be there to make your verses rhyme from dusk till rising sun.” I grieved having no one to share my life with anymore, to write new verses.

The grief had already resurfaced the day before while I was visiting good friends, married for over 50 years, discussing the trials and inevitable losses of aging; holding the concern I feel for another dear friend facing heart surgery; my prepare-for-the-worst-so-the-good-news-comes-as-a-surprise mindset does not always serve me well. Yet, after nursing Larry for four years, worrying about his health for our entire marriage, I understand there is no way to shield oneself, to avoid the ache of loss.

I recently saw a description of grief as a tangled web of pain at the center of ones being. Instead of the web growing smaller and disintegrating, the premise offered that we feel it less as our lives expand and the pain takes up less relative space. As I have worked to clear the spaces in my home, and as I have run away from time to time for respite in changed scenery or to replace hard memories with new ones, I have not really expanded my life experiences. Even though others observe my full and busy my life through my FaceBook posts, no one ever reveals the full story there. The comments of my children assure me that "I am better than I was six months ago." And I am. Yet, I let the knot of grief fester, sometimes filling the center of my being, waiting to rage.

I cannot extract my grief like an abscessed tooth. I cannot wait for it to go away. 

Instead, I purchased a lovely cherry wood Secretary, creating a new space dedicated for disciplined writing. I am ready to give myself grace and space, being willing to love and enjoy my family, without hovering or interfering, to receive and offer forgiveness. I am eager to find new ways to engage my community and the world, to rely on others for support when needed, admitting my needs and uncertainties and loneliness. Most of all, I offer myself permission to dream,

 to create beauty, 

to engage, 

to love living enough to take care of myself, 

to thrive whether alone or in the company of others, 

to embrace and embody and fully accept my gift of compassion,

 to love and be loved, just as I am.