What's the Word?

Yesterday I hired a babysitter, Nadia, so I could write run errands.

At the last minute, a workman I've been trying to connect with came over, so I had to stick around. Our twice a month cleaning lady, Marie, was also there. So, for an hour or so, we had a full house, and Nadia and Marie had a chance to chat.

Later, Nadia said to me, "Marie says Andrew looks just like your other boy did. She says he was very clever, and Andrew is clever too. See? We don't know how God works. You are lucky. Lucky!"

The word lucky struck me as a little off, but something could have been lost in the translation. There were several languages in play as Marie and Nadia, two women of faith from distant parts of the world, admired and talked about the baby.

With my story, I don't know if anyone would call me "lucky."

Besides, lucky sounds so random.

Christians tend to use the word BLESSED instead. Blessed is a way to say, "I don't think this is random, but it also doesn't come just from my own hard work or striving." When Christians say they are blessed, to describe a new house, car, job, and, yes, even their children, it's a way of expressing deep gratitude...but it can also be problematic. This article sums that up pretty well.

It makes me think of when people say, "There but for the grace of God go I," in describing terrible things that happen to children. I get that this sentiment is a way to connect, to say, "Hey, what happened to you could have happened to anyone!" But it can also make a person feel as if she's somehow outside of God's grace when terrible things do happen.

And of course that's not true.

Words can be confusing.

In speaking to groups, I sometimes unpack my troubled relationship with the verse: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

BLESSED?

I didn't feel blessed to not have my mom at my wedding.

I didn't feel blessed to have Margaret lose her very best friend in a stupid creek.

And I didn't feel blessed last week when Jack's precious classmates generously gave up a Sunday afternoon to meet Andrew and spend time with us. Instead, I felt stricken and depressed, missing spending day after day with these kids whom I have loved since they were 6 years old, and hurting so much that they are about to go to off to college and more new adventures without Jack.

In Jesus's upside down view of the world, however, grievers ARE blessed.

Why? Not because they are free from pain, or they receive some sort of material or physical reward for the hell they've been through, but because they will receive comfort, often in the form of love from others, and always in a spiritual way from God himself, who never leaves us alone in our pain.

Time after time I have been comforted in my grief. I now know this verse is true.

And I think every baby is a blessing, an undeserved gift for which to be grateful. But I don't know why some people who desperately want children are not able to have them. Is it random? Is it luck?

Back to the babysitter's words. Am I lucky to have a baby in the house when I'm 47? Andrew's surprise appearance certainly defied great odds.

Am I blessed? Yes, if being blessed is really another way of framing the word GRATEFUL. And does it ease some of the pain of losing Jack that Andrew, with the exception of his eyes being almond-shaped to Jack's round, looks just like his big brother? Does buying little boy clothes again, wiping a baby boy tush, and getting Jack's wooden trains out of storage feel somehow redemptive and healing?  It sure does. That's what the baby sitter was getting at.

Lucky?

Blessed?

I'll go with comforted.

For I do still mourn, and I am comforted. God can do that, and I believe Andrew is one way He's doing it in my life.

Tender Spot

Last week I was at Bible Study with my dear friends. We’ve been meeting together since Jack’s death, wrestling with faith and holding each other up in the hard times. We couldn’t meet until 9 pm, which is pretty late for a weeknight. I didn’t plan to stay too long because I wanted to tuck Margaret in bed and possibly watch The Americans with Tim after that. 

At 10 o’clock, I stood up and said I had to go. It seemed like a decent stopping point between the sharing and the Bible study. 

On my short drive home, I got a text from my friend Allie that said, “I’m sorry. XOXO” I texted back, “I’m fine. Love you.” And I truly thought I was. But in an attempt to be more open, something I’ve been working on, I began to wonder if there was something more. Something Allie had picked up on at our meeting that I hadn’t. So, I added a while later, “Home now. Sometimes I have to leave to protect myself from extra pain. XO.”

Woah. Where did THAT come from? 

I truly had planned on leaving at 10. My friends were talking about high school sporting events, and prom, and dating, and cell phone use, but there was nothing new there. It’s what moms talk about. So why did I add that bit about ‘extra pain’ to my text? 

Crap! I’m sure it made my friends feel bad, and these friends are some of the very ones who have stood by me every step of the way, embracing and including me when it would be so much easier not to. 

Now, my friends would probably beat themselves up, second-guessing the whole conversation, wondering which topics should be off-limits around me, even after all this time. There would be apologies. And awkward conversations. Oh boy.

In my attempt to be transparent, I was making things much worse, and maybe even hurting those closest to me, all because in my response to Allie's concerned text, I had led her to believe that something about the conversation that night was taboo. 

I realize now, that in my weird response, I was trying to protect Allie and my closest friends from something much worse: The truth. 

The terrible truth is that our gathering that night didn’t hurt worse than any other night. They all hurt. To be best friends with Jennie means to remember that her sweet daughter Alexis was playing in the rain with my kids that terrible day, but mercifully was called inside 5 minutes before the accident. To be friends with Jane is to remember that she was the one who watched Jack while I was at the hospital giving birth to Margaret, and that we fumbled and found our legs as mothers together in those exhausting, innocent early years, sharing family dinners, planning egg hunts, and fretting. So many memories. And to hear about the sons in the group, whether it's their sports schedules or tentative forays into dating, is to miss Jack even more. So, I immediately knew what Allie must be alluding to when she typed, “I’m sorry. XOXO.” I guess I just didn’t want her to know, how it goes way beyond that one conversation. How much it still hurts every day-- how I am still living life on two tracks after all this time. Darn.

Being around people hurts. Yet to try to avoid pain is to avoid people and avoid living and loving, and that is not acceptable to me. Living in community is not perfect, but it’s absolutely worth it. 

Friendship requires sensitivity and acknowledgment, for sure. But while shortly after Jack’s death I hoped friends would spare me the details of their children’s lives, I do not want that any longer. I want to be a true friend who knows what’s going on in my friends’ lives and their children’s lives, too. I don’t want our relationships to be one-sided. I can’t NOT know about my beloved nephew’s driver’s license, new truck, or date to the prom, even though it stings mightily to hear it. 

I want to share others’ joy and pain with them, as they do for me, and if that means keeping the second track under wraps a lot of the time, then it's worth it. 

And we all make mistakes.  I know I do! How callous it is for me to complain about something Tim does that bugs me, when Heather’s husband starts chemo this week. Or to forget in the 27 years I’ve lived without my mom, that the pain of mother-loss looms so fresh for Allie at every holiday and family gathering. I'm glad my friends show me grace when I fail them.

I’m grateful for Allie’s text, and in a way I’m even grateful for my messy and muddled response to it. Because it reminds me that in general I am making it through my days in a way that doesn't scream “pain!” and “brokenness!” at first glance any more. In fact, I think my life sometimes manages to whisper "hope" and "joy" and "friendship." So that's something.

And the text also reminds me what a privilege it is to love each other through the messiness: mine, my dear Bible study friends' and yours.

New Home Sweet Home

We are in our new house, and it feels really, really good.

Moving was a trial, and a few times I thought I'd be crushed under the weight of our junk, of both the physical and emotional nature.

When I went to the shed where I'd stored Jack's  Legos, complete with original boxes and directions, I discovered they were covered with ants and ant larvae. Teeming waves of black covered every box, inside and out. I was so angry and defeated. "How much, Oh Lord, How much?" I groaned as I spread everything in the yard and started clean up. Then I saw the mouse droppings. Really???

Around me, neighborhood kids played and squealed, enjoying the last days of summer, and hot tears sprang into my eyes as I thought ALL OF THIS -- this move, this day, this life--- should not be going down this way!

Yet it is.

It took 8 movers 10 hours to load and unload our stuff, even though I thought I'd done a lot of culling beforehand.  That's a lot of junk. I found I was much more willing to let go of things on a steamy moving day than I had been just a few months ago. So I started piling stuff in the carport to get rid of. And I just let myself be led. Because pages of Jack's doodles might look junky to someone else but are important to me, while some wedding presents, or an uncomfortable chair, barely used these last 17 years, were better off going to new homes.

There is something about this new house that feels gracious and good.

I'm not sure what it is. It's not much different from our old one, with the exception of a massive master bedroom and bathroom. Was there a lot of frolicking and cavorting going on in master suites toward the end of the Carter administration when this house was built? Because these rooms are JUMBO.

The main living areas are smaller, cozier, and situated pretty much exactly like the old house, so I was able to quickly figure out where to place things. Old me would have relished the challenge of a new floor plan. Anna 2.0 was just glad that the paint colors were non-offensive and I didn't have too many decisions to make. I do hope I'll have some small projects to share with you in the months to come.

I worked round the clock emptying boxes even as my shoulders ached. This is the kind of work I like. Sorting, organizing, beating a stack of boxes into submission. Seeing tangible progress. Moving things here and there and back again.

The spiritual, emotional work comes less readily, and is easy to avoid it under an armload of boxes or yet another "quick trip" to Home Depot.

That is the work that says: Today is the first day of school. Today is the day I should have become a high school mom. In just a few days Margaret will outlive her older brother. How does that feel? What do I do with that? How do we integrate Jack into our new home? Did I run away from our old house? Will I be able to write a book that in some way captures what all of this is like?

The spiritual work follows me as I assure Margaret I will spend much of the day praying for her, and then she asks me, "Do you do that every first day of school?" "Yes." An unasked follow-up question hangs in the air between us, "Did you do it two years ago?" And I think of the mysterious nature of God, because of course I prayed for them both. For their health. And their safety. And their friendships. And their growth.

The mystery follows us outside when we take our traditional First Day of School pictures on the stoop, our new front stoop, and an enormous praying mantis is in Jack's space to the side of the door, right where he would be standing, and I smile and wonder about this crazy life. Praying mantis. Praying. Yes, there will be lots of prayers for this little girl today. And some will be answered the way we want while others may not.

This blog is the place where I do a lot of the emotional and spiritual work. It has been tough to be away from it and from you. But the boxes are now broken down, I can find my devotional books and most of my underwear, and I'm enjoying the calm, peaceful setting and being here with you.