This past weekend was a holiday for most. I had to work. Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon I could be found at the office. All in all, it was a good weekend. Useful. Important to me for the whole summer and beyond, but also important to the lifetime of a child or two…or more. I am energized at the end of that kind of weekend. Success is so slow in coming together, but completion of that kind of weekend means success.
When I arrived home from work on Sunday night, I decided to take the dog for our walk. That wasn’t to go as planned. This ill fated decision will also impact my summer, at least part of it will. You see, as I went down the steps to the garage I managed to rather ungraciously…fall. Instant knee pain, handicapping knee pain, unable to move kind of knee pain. As the knee pain began to subside just a bit, I noticed rather shockingly that I also had foot pain. Hmm, ouch!!! Suddenly the knee and foot were in neck and neck competition for the blue ribbon of hurt! Do I grab my foot or hang onto the knee? Rocking back and forth from the floor hanging on to one body part, then the other my family came to rescue me. Mama had suddenly become injured child. Tearful and writhing amid escruciating trauma.
As I was comforted by my girls, my Eagle Scout son in law gently took control of the situation. He wrapped the foot, iced it, raised it, evaluated. The knee pain became secondary to the foot having been broken off of my body. Okay, I an exaggerating, but the foot pain WAS increasing, throbbing and swelling. Like contractions in childbirth, the pain would rise and fall with unbearable frequency. A trip to the ER, followed with strong pain meds and a follow up to the orthpedic guru yesterday and our suspicion was confirmed. I was broken in 3 places.
The timing of this unfortunate accident has not “fallen” on deaf senses. Yesterday was my birthday. Both the fall and the birthday remind me again that I have a direct opportunity to muse on this second half of my life.
What is the 2nd half going to look like? What will it feel like? What will it teach me? What will I have to offer those I love, those I haven’t yet met, those who have loved me? Will I be laden with physical maladies? Will I be in constant turmoil of one kind or the other? Will I be able to enjoy my life? Will I travel, teach, write? Will I be a grandmother at some point? Will I love as I have opportunity? Will I? What do I want out of the 2nd half? What does God want for me?
I hope that my life will be testimony to compassion, loyalty, peace and hospitality. I want to be known as one who does not exercise God’s judgment. I want to grateful for all things (especially that judgment belongs only to Him.) I hope that I will make the most of every opportunity. I pray that my conversations will always be full of grace and seasoned with salt so that I will know how to answer everyone. I hope that I will be by my very nature a servant, a clay pot filled with the Holy Spirit. I want my life to be such that people will see God and know Him through me. It is my goal to handle the failures and misdeeds that I am sure to make with humility and repentance. And when this next half is over, I hope the first words I hear will be “Welcome home. Well done.”
As a child, when we would pass a cemetery my Dad sometimes said, “Well, their chance is up!” It was a funny remark referring to the deceased. As I have grown older this dark comedy of his has continued to play as a memory tape in my head. When I pass a cemetery, I can almost hear him say it. The principle is very poignant. Every day is a new opportunity to start fresh in pursuit of our hopes and dreams. Some day my “chance will be up.” Today, I am using the chance, broken foot and all.
Time takes pleasure in kicking our butts. For even the strongest of us it seems to play tricks. Slowing down… hovering until it freezes. Leaving us stuck in a moment- unable to move in one direction or the other.
At any given moment, the brain has 14 billion neurons firing at a speed of 450 miles per hour. We don’t have control over most of them. When we get a chill…goose bumps. When we get excited…adrenaline. The body naturally follows its impulses, which I think is part of what makes it so hard for us to control ours. Of course, sometimes we have impulses we would rather not control, that we later wish we had.
The body is a slave to its impulses. But the thing that makes us human is what we can control. After the storm, after the rush, after the heat of the moment has passed, we can cool off and clean up the messes we made. We can try to let go of what was. Then again…
The fantasy is simple. Pleasure is good, and twice as much pleasure is better. That pain is bad, and no pain is better. But the reality is different. The reality is that pain is there to tell us something, and there’s only so much pleasure we can take without getting a stomach ache. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe some fantasies are only supposed to live in our dreams.
Harm happens and then guilt happens. And there is no oath for how to deal with that. Guilt never goes anywhere on its own, it brings its friends – doubt and insecurity.
Not all wounds are superficial. Most wounds run deeper than you can imagine. You can’t see them with the naked eye. And then there are the wounds that take us by surprise.
~Grey’s Anatomy.
Have you ever been driving down the road thinking about others things and then suddenly come back to reality and realize that you are lost? I did that several times yesterday. My brain was on auto-pilot for several reasons I won’t go into here. I will say the phone rang and it began to bring me back to awareness. I took the phone call, hung up, thought about the call for a while longer, driving several minutes before I came to realize that I was actually driving and had a purpose in the car!!! I was driving to a work appointment. I struggled to think of who I was going to see, where it was and how was I suppose to be getting there. It is a panicky kind of feeling. After a minute or two, I pulled over into a parking lot, pulled out my daytimer, then re-located my directions that had fallen to the floor. I was able to determine what street I had just pulled away from and back tracked to where I was supposed to be in the first place. It cost me 20 minutes. I am told that this is a mid-life thing that happens to people all of the time. It is both confusing and frustrating. Later in the day, this experience came back to me.
I read an article that defined the Greek word for “lost” as written in the Bible. The word for misplaced and lost is the same in Greek. How interesting! In the story about Zaccheus, he had heard a lot about Jesus and wanted to get a look at him. He stopped what he was doing and found a perch to get a visual. He wasn’t where people usually go. Jesus noticed him in the sycamore tree because he was misplaced. Birds hung out where Zach was, not people.
The scene struck me in light of my adventure in UN-awareness earlier in the day. I want to carry it a bit further here.
I once read one of George Orwell’s essays a description of a graphic image of human lostness. Orwell describes a wasp that “was sucking jam on my plate and I cut him in half. He paid no attention, merely went on with his meal, while a tiny stream of jam trickled out of his severed esophagus. Only when he tried to fly away did he grasp the dreadful thing that had happened to him.”
The wasp and people without Christ have much in common. Severed from their souls, but greedy and unaware, people continue to consume life’s sweetness. Only when it’s time to fly away will they gasp their dreadful condition.
I think of my life as a whole and wonder if I am “misplaced” sometimes. Are there times I lose sight of my goal, forget where I am going, get off track, start heading somewhere else? Will I notice before I start to try to fly again? Will someone help me out of my bird cage or will they chop me in half when I make a wrong turn? Or will they just sit back and watch me flail about until I have made a grand mess of my situation?
What do I do when I see people who are misplaced? When do I step in? Is it when I see them eyeballing the jam from their perch in the tree? OR, is it when the bad choice chops them in half? What do I do? What SHOULD I do?
If we are to live like Jesus, are we noticing the people who are in trees as we journey? If we look at these people in their own cuckoo nest as misplaced instead of as lost in the traditional sense, it makes it easier to understand how we can help them get back onto the right track, the road they were meant and created to follow, the purpose God has for their lives.
There is this friendship of 23 years I want to share here. This week, this friend of mine and I shared some serious conversation about the topic ‘What does it mean to ‘be there no matter what’? In that conversation, I realized that people can have different perceptions of what that kind of statement means.
For us, it meant standing at the grave of one of my parents and her saying she is glad that we can pick up where we leave off no matter what is going on. That was her being there for me no matter what. When her Dad died I checked in specifically and asked how she was doing with his passing at least once a month for a long time and sent her mom cards regularly for a year. That was me being there for her no matter what. Our children having tifts as they have grown up and us remaining friends is being there for each other no matter what. When she was going through some extremely traumatic life experiences I did not judge. I tried to stay close and available. She did the same for me through my life’s trauma. That is being there no matter what. The rare occasion when she has been sad or when she has been trying to reach a goal, when she has had other things on her radar I have consistently cheered her on, helped and provided support. Here is what being there no matter what still means to us. If she were in another state and needed me, I would go. I would still come over at 11 at night if she asked or talk to her on the phone at 2AM if she needed me there. We’ve done that! I would still honor her privacy and be a confidant. I would still not pass judgment when she makes hard choices. I would still share what I have with her. And, it wouldn’t be conditional. I would be loyal. I am grateful our paths have crossed and that our hearts were joined so closely for so many years. I have no regrets.
In fact, I have more fond memories of our friendship than the ones listed above. Memories of chasing a shoplifter (I think it was) through the parking lot of a mall. Memories of delivering new phone books to neighborhoods together. Memories of ice cream in the evenings while our families played together. Shopping. Memories of trips together. Hanging cable tags (long story) Falling on icy sidewalks in winter. Those Lucy and Ethel moments. Mexican food. BBQ. Lots and lots of laughter. Sharing secrets. Good, happy memories. I’ll take them to that nursing home at the mall where we will watch people shop and will make up stories about them as they go by. No matter what!
Through a friendship that has spanned almost a quarter of a century, I have grown to better appreciate other relationships I have been blessed to experience. I can’t help but consider my relationship with God. He is there for me no matter what in ways that “human” relationships can’t begin to touch. In the hours when I am struggling with a decision between right and wrong he is there. When I make the wrong choice, he stays. When I make the right one, he celebrates. That is such a blessing. It reminds me once again of Job 23. Paraphrasing,
I can look to the north and not find him. I can look to the south and he is not there. I look east and west but see nothing. But, I take comfort in knowing that HE KNOWS WHERE I AM.
That is truly being there no matter what. Tell me about your friendship. What does being there no matter what mean to you?
I haven’t thought much about Mother’s Day this year. Since my mother is now deceased there is no planning for a special day on my part. My children will make the day special, but that requires no forethought on my part. Yet, this morning in the quiet I cannot help but reflect on motherhood and the Mother that I had.
My mother was an old school mom. She stayed at home and worked there for dawn to dusk. Her job was her family. She took that job seriously. Each step of every day was taken with our future in mind. She had a butter-paddle a relic from churning days that she used generously to “press” any points that she felt she were not being adequately learned.
She always preferred to wear dresses and she rarely sat down during the daytime unless it was to sew. She sewed, cooked, canned and froze vegetables, cleaned, taught, admonished, watched, listened, encouraged, laughed, wept, rejoiced, sang and immersed herself in others. Her kitchen was always in use in waking hours. If she wasn’t cooking for us, she was cooking for an ill or bereaved friend or neighbor. I still think of her when I smell certain foods…or the perfume she preferred…or Pine Sol!!!
She had little sayings and words that I miss hearing. “Oh Lawww” (Lord) is one of them. This was her expression for being tired of something. She had a nickname for me. She had nicknames for each of her children. I don’t know where mine came from, what it means, nor do I like for anyone else to use it so I won’t tell you what it is. It was special between me and my parents. But, I miss hearing her say it. It was only used in endearing moments. To us, it symbolized unconditional love and acceptance.
I miss other things too. I miss her music. She made songs up. She had one she sang every morning to wake me. I sang it to my children. They will sing it to theirs, I am sure. It started with “Rise and shine little birdie” and the words that followed described what was planned for the day. For example, Sundays would go something like “Rise and shine little birdie, Today is the Lord’s day…” You get the picture. She could play the piano by ear (not her made up songs, but real music). As a little girl she would play the piano in the afternoon and I would sing, both of us with great vigor, then we would laugh at ourselves. I wonder what the neighbors must have thought. There was no air conditioning, so we all heard each other at times.
Most of all, I miss her hugs. My family was not very affectionate in my early years. Hugs were few and far between. Saying I love you was not something you did very often. All of this changed in later years. When I married, my husband’s family was very affectionate. I think he startled my parents the first few times he hugged them. They liked it. Over time, they became more affectionate and more expressive. As a little girl, the hugs were more special in a way. They just weren’t given unless there were just no words to explain an emotion. In those instances they were powerful and strong and affirming. In the later years when they with more frequency, they were sweet, meaningful and nurturing. There is no substitute for a parent’s affection.
This past week I met a lady who looked at me like she had seen a ghost. She was speechless for the first few minutes. I thought maybe I had a booger on my face or something. I checked my clothes to make sure everything was buttoned/zipped and in place. Finally, she spoke. She said, “I knew your mother 55 years ago and when you approached….” Her voiced trailed off. She sort of shook her head like she was trying to slough off the memory, but just couldn’t. “Wow, this is amazing, she said. You look just like her.” The older I get, the more I am told that very thing, but I have never seen such shock. It is kind of funny in retrospect. I see it too. When I look in the mirror there are times I see her face looking back at me, the face of my childhood.
So, today as Mother’s Day begins I am thinking of her and only her. I think of her special place in my life, her smiles, her hugs, her voice, her lessons, her scent, her history. I am overwhelmed with the memory of her. I am also comforted by those memories. Precious, sweet, funny memories live on in my heart as though they all occurred just yesterday. I miss her.
