After the rain

 The morning of our friends' son's funeral was gray and rainy, the kind of perpetual, misty rain that lasts all day. The cool, damp air required rain jackets that muted the white and bright clothing that we were asked to wear. Because the funeral was for a small child who died in innocence, the Mass was a White Mass, a time for rejoicing, celebrating a new saint. I wore a light colored dress with a white cardigan; my husband wore his tan suit. Our daughters wore their school uniforms - they came from and returned to school after the Mass. My friend who had lost her little boy wore a long white dress and her girls wore their First Communion dresses; her other two boys wore white pants and shirts and little vests of the kind made for First Communions or late baptisms. 

And yet, despite the celebratory dress, it didn't really feel like a moment for celebrating. 

After the Mass we all drove sedately to the cemetery for one last goodbye. The cemetery was tucked out of the way on a tree lined plot coated with bluebonnets. Other graves were planted with roses already blooming and other budding plants, as well as assorted statuary and totems of loved ones. It seemed like a relatively new cemetery; more than one gravesite was freshly covered.  Both my husband and I were surprised they did not lower the tiny pine casket into the grave while everyone was present. All the mourners followed the parents in placing a hand or a flower on the casket and pausing for a brief prayer for the grieving family, asking for the new saint's intercession.

Then we all gathered for a reception at an historic home that now usually hosts wedding receptions. All eight of my friend's siblings and their families were in town, along with her husband's brothers and of course the grandparents, and lots of friends from the kids' school. The mood lifted a bit as a slide show played, and everyone ate. Cousins and classmates ran around. Mutual friends reconnected or met for the first time. The parents thanked everyone for coming.

After the Mass, the graveside service, and the reception, the family was going to go back home to sit with family, to change clothes, to clean up. Two days later the other kids went back to school. Time to return to the routine. Life continues. 

This is the prettiest time of year in Texas. The bluebonnets are coating the hills all along the highways, with splashes of prairie-fire (also known as Indian paintbrush) and pale pink evening primroses and occasionally sunshiny coreopsis contrasting with the blues. The redbuds just finished their purple blush, and now the fresh yellow green of new leaves are brightening the trees.  

The wildflowers announce renewal and new life and joys of beginning again, even when life is heavy. Next year the bluebonnets will return. Perhaps in remembrance we'll go back to the cemetery to say a prayer, or send bluebonnets to the family.  Today's gospel about Lazarus reminds us that Jesus wept because he loved his friends. Even if we believe in the resurrection, we, too, weep because we love our friends. And yet life goes on. I just finished reading Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" with my students - Icarus is drowning in a corner of the painting; war is waging as Auden stands in the museum, but the farmer keeps planting, travelers continue on their way, we go back to the work of surviving. 

Discomfort

 It occurs to me that perhaps I should title this post, "Beginning Again with Lent Pt 2."  I've taken a bit of a vacation from Lenten sacrifices. Last week was Spring Break, and amidst travel to New York and Boston and reuniting with family and friends, I have been very lax in practicing any sort of Lenten discipline, other than that travel is a discipline in itself in a way.

For instance, because of stormy weather over our final destination, home, on Thursday evening, the last leg of our travel, a flight from St. Louis to Austin, was cancelled. It was the last flight of the evening to that destination. We sat on the plane prepared to take off - in fact, we had taxied from the jet bridge - when the message came through that we had to wait. So we waited an hour on the plane before the flight was cancelled. Then, I had to wait in line to rebook a new flight. While I waited, I got on the phone to an agent and reserved a flight to San Antonio for the next evening, because all flights to Austin were full the next day. And I rented a car with the consideration that I could drive the 12 hours the next day and be home before this flight to San Antonio landed. Plus, I had the two girls with me, and the teenager is terrified by flying. With these reservations made, I stayed in line to see if I could get any vouchers. No vouchers were given because the cancellation was weather related, but the gate agent was able to book us on a flight that went first to Orlando and then to Austin that was leaving at 5:40 am - four hours later. 

When I conveyed this news to the girls, the teen started weeping because she didn't want to get on two more planes. However, I was calculating the time and cost of sticking with the rental car - shuttle or uber to a hotel at 1:30 in the morning, buy a few hours of sleep for a couple hundred dollars, find a ride back to the airport to pick up the rental, pay a couple hundred for the one way rental car, food and gas on the road, spend twelve hours of driving plus stops, returning the car the next day ... I hugged her and promised her that driving was more dangerous. 

Then we laid our coats on the ground and curled up on the airport floor to close our eyes for a few hundred minutes in supine position.  We might have slept an hour or two; it's hard to tell. 

The rest of the trip went as smoothly as can be expected, although a little turbulence made my daughter declare she never wanted to fly again. Our flights were packed with dozens of small children and their weary parents going to Disney World and returning from it. Their exhaustion confirmed my old decision to swear off Disney vacations - although we have enjoyed taking the kids to other amusement parks. 

Despite adding 12 hours to our trip and a terrible night of sleep, oddly enough I didn't mind the disruption. These are a part of the adventure of travel. In fact, I was slightly envious of the couple ahead of me in the line for the gate agent, even though they were taking their sweet time rebooking. The guy was a musician who was going to miss his gig in Austin, so they asked where could they go on a direct flight the next day that had a direct flight back to their home in New York on Sunday. They had a free ride to a 3 day vacation. I think they ended up going to Colorado or Oregon. What a liberating feeling to just go. 

Had this disruption happened at the beginning of our trip, we might have been more upset. And I have to say, the fewer people on the itinerary, the easier it is to deal with the discomfort. My two youngest are pretty mellow, other than the fear of flight. Sleeping on the floor wasn't a huge problem for them - or the lack of bathing. In fact, I had to make the youngest take a shower when we finally arrived home. She was ready to go play with her friend down the street in the same clothes she had had on for 2 days.  No big deal when you are 8. 

So did I think about offering it up? I actually did.  Just over a week ago, some dear friends, Navy friends whom we reconnected with here, lost their three year old son. He died in the early hours of the morning from complications from a virus. Perhaps because he had Downs, his little body couldn't fight it off. Their grief, and our own sorrow at his death, has sat heavily with me all week. And perhaps that is what helped make our own travel discomforts seem minimal.  Although I cannot know what the pain of losing a child is like firsthand, I have imagined it many times, have felt the fear of potential loss during a sickness or after an accident. What mother doesn't feel a sword pierce her heart occasionally? And yet, how we have been spared. How often potentials have never actualized.  Our little traumas are small compare to what others have suffered. 

So pray for them. Their son surely does not need prayers. They will have a White Mass next week - a mass of celebration because his heart was pure, and if anyone is in Heaven, it is children who died too young in their innocence.  This thought is a consolation, but it doesn't take away the pain of losing years together.  

Beginning again with Lent

Sometimes I look forward to Lent as a time of much needed renewal, and I plan ahead for it.  Other years, especially when Lent arrives early, I am caught off-guard. This year was in between. I did some prep, like signing up for a women's reflection group at our parish and ordering the devotional workbook, but when Ash Wednesday arrived last week, I still felt like Lent snuck up on me. A week in still feels like the beginning. 

Part of my lack of preparation on Ash Wednesday was due to being out of town the week before. We went to the mountains of North Carolina to see the house my husband designed for our cousins (they had a vision; he drew it). When we booked the trip (made possible by super sale airline tix), we laughed about it being our Mardi Gras celebration, And it was a lot of fun, until I broke my wrist at the roller rink Saturday night. The story should be that I slid while trying to win roller derby or that my husband tried to do snap the whip and sent me flying, but in reality, a reckless teen took me out from behind. Ironically, I had been trying hard to be cautious because I remember my mom breaking her tailbone while roller skating when I was a kid, and I wanted to be able to sit comfortably on the plane ride home.

After a trip to the ER (the benefit of a small town hospital - no wait at the ER even on Saturday night!), we continued to enjoy the time with family - unplugged, playing cards, making music around the campfire, etc. With my arm splinted up and wrapped in a trash bag, I even got in the hot tub. I just couldn't take a hike to a waterfall or sleep well, which was too bad because they had great mattresses. 

We returned home on Monday and had a Mardi Gras party on Tuesday as a fundraiser for our daughter, who was raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our son did almost all of the gumbo prep and dessert baking and decorating with purple, green, and gold balloons and streamers. We STILL have beads left from our stay in Mississippi. A friend brought king cake, and I bossed the kids around with my arm splinted. I don't recommend Mardi Gras parties on the actual Fat Tuesday because you are left with leftovers. All those delicious things begging to be eaten on the fast day maybe makes the sacrifice more penitential.

Fortunately, I was able to get in to see our primary doctor Tuesday about my wrist to get a referral to an orthopedic surgeon by Thursday and surgery scheduled for Monday.  Now that we are in the civilian sector for medical care, I have some strong thoughts about insurance/medical issues - and my lesson this time is to call all the involved parties and talk to a person, even if on hold for hours, to make sure all the necessary paperwork gets submitted. I may have traumatized my girls by uttering a primal scream in the car Friday afternoon - after hanging up the phone -  when I thought I was going to have to reschedule surgery because some paperwork was submitted with wrong codes (Was my strong reaction a symptom of perimenopause or low blood sugar from foregoing lunch that day?). Thankfully, someone stayed after hours to correct it and get everything submitted. Maybe she heard my quivering voice mail. Thank you, kind human being.

So I had the weekend to be grateful and to continue to endure the pain of bone on bone grating in my wrist. I did not open my Lenten devotional until Sunday afternoon, after the priest had given me a blessing after Mass on my husband's sweet request. In the prayer he reminded me to unite me suffering to the Cross.  

I am not always thoughtful about offering it up, although I remind my children of this practice. I had been intentional about not ruining our vacation with complaints about pain, although I did feel sort of nauseous the rest of the weekend. And the ache in my arm, which ranged from dull ache to stabbing pain depending on how I moved or how much ibuprofen was in my system, made me think with compassion on all those who suffer chronic pain and how tiring it must be, but I didn't think of offering my pain. Perhaps it seems too transactional - I forego complaining, so God takes away someone else's pain. I know that's not the theological explanation, but it seems that way. 

Now in the second week of Lent - with a plate in my wrist after surgery on Monday (I am typing with one hand) - I am more intentionally offering up the pain and inconvenience of being one handed as one of my Lenten practices, or at least acknowledging the pain as a reminder of the suffering of others. The priest's comment has me thinking of the nails that would have been driven through Christ's wrists. When I woke up to shooting pain in my arm on Monday night I again thought about crucifixion as a horrific way to die. If breaking my wrist was enough to make me pass out from a vagal response, how could I have endured the worse pain of being beaten, broken, and carrying a cross.  

Before my surgery on Sunday night I had trouble sleeping. This was a minor surgery, but I was kept awake by anxiety nightmares about surgeries gone wrong. I dreamed I drank something and aspirated while anesthetized - although I was completely alert in my dream. Even though risk is minimal, it exists, and it's a reminder of the finitude of life. In the morning I texted messages of love to all the kids and gave extra hugs to those here. I regretted I wasn't more sympathetic when our boys had their ACL surgeries. I probably didn't recognize their nervousness enough.

Soon enough, surely by the end of Lent, this pain will fade, unlike the chronic pain that others suffer.  We've also started our other ways to fast, pray, and give, For instance, we have substituted the divine mercy chaplet for the rosary at bedtime, and that prayer is another reminder to think of the suffering of others above my own. We aren't eating sweets or meat or drinking alcohol - which I haven't wanted since being hurt, so it's not much of a sacrifice. My daughter added drinking milk, which I'm not sure is a spiritual practice, but she doesn't like it, so it is some kind of discipline for her.  This year I'm not doing the cheap coffee thing - partly because we are stocked up on coffee right now. Nor am I really cutting back on media, because I have done that already from a lack of time.  Instead we are trying to buy less and live on what we have. I thought I'd do the buy nothing thing during Lent, but we have some birthdays coming up, and the youngest needs new cleats for soccer and an Easter dress, etc, so instead I'm just trying to buy nothing unnecessary - of course, I bought pillows for the new chairs on Ash Wednesday - so not doing so well on that.

I'm not loving my Lent devotional so far, but I think I will enjoy the group at church. I have missed my ecumenical Thursday morning Bible study because I'm teaching on Thursdays. However, since I finished the Bible in a Year in February, I've started the Catechism in a Year. Already behind with that, but I am just listening to a few episodes now and then, rather than treating it as a daily obligation. I do need something good to read (I just finished a good YA novel about the 1989 overthrow of the Ceausescus, I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys. Definitely reads like a YA book, but it offers a good insight into life in the oppressive Communist regime in Romania.)

For giving, we've got our list of groups we give to financially, but I've also got snack bags for the people asking for money at the intersections. And we're talking about signing up for some family service project. Giving time is probably one of the harder disciplines.

If I grow in any way this Lent, may it be that I give up my urge to be in control and recognize my dependence, my need to of repair - I can't heal myself. I can't get through the day without help. I have to give up things I did with two hands like tying my shoes for a time. Fasting from things - meat and sweets and alcohol and shopping - is just a way of clearing the weeds for mediating time with Christ. May I use the freed time for that, for listening rather than telling and asking. Still hoping for clarity about what's next. Still learning to be grateful for our many gifts, still learning to be less self-centered, more aware of others' needs, still learning to love God and neighbor more wholly.

And here are some things I've been grateful for:

A trip to a farm to horseback ride with dear friends

   

A boy who had a birthday:

Swinging

Time in the mountains

breaking my left wrist and not my right

Young ladies lovely within