Singing Her Song ... As Best I Can (September 2015)

It’s been over two months now since Laura died.  Her name is no longer on my “recently messaged” for text messages.  I no longer instinctively pick up my phone to text her after I put the boys to bed to tell her something funny or see about getting together or ask how she is or vent about something.  I’ve started referring to her house as Aaron’s house now.  And yet in many ways it still feels like it just happened.

I knew the funeral would be hard, but I also knew it was something we had together.  We worked on it together and I felt her presence so strongly.  I got to meet all these people I had heard about or had seen on facebook.  I got to see pictures of her and hear stories about her, stories from long before our five years of friendship.  I knew the hard part would be when it ended.  As I walked down that long aisle when the service ended I looked straight ahead and there was that picture of her, like she was looking right at me.  I went in the sacristy and cried the tears I almost kept back during the funeral.

I miss her.  I feel like I can barely breathe when Sarah comes on the radio.  I wish her supportive and attentive eyes were still in the congregations I preach to.  I wish she was still one of the first “likes” when I share pictures of my babies on facebook.  I miss the way she understood me.  Whether it was deep talks about belief and theology or figuring out parenting, I miss the nods.  The nods that said “yes, I get you.”
I sent her this text eight days before she died:
“You sang my song.  Do you remember when you sang the song I wrote in church?  I was nervous and felt really vulnerable sharing words I wrote like that, but you sang it with confidence and love.  And in so many other ways you sang my song, supported me, talked me up to people, got on board with projects, Bible studies, etc.  And you sang my song and still sing my song because you get me.  You get my sermons, you connect with the deepest sharing of my heart and that gives me courage to dig deeper.   When I was having a hard time figuring out how to preach at all these strange churches  with people I don’t know, I figured out that if I pretended you were in the congregation it was so much easier and I did much better.  Thank you for singing my song.  I will try my best to sing yours.”
She texted back “I have no doubt you will sing my song beautifully Jen.  I love you and trust you.”

I’ve been debating with myself what I should share about that night that Laura died.  Even though she shared so openly through her blog and facebook posts, there were many things she kept private.  Plus, her final moments were such a profound gift to me that I want to hold them close and keep them for myself and forever have that intimate moment in my heart.  Yet I also know that Laura shared this journey and she did not hold back whether it was about foobs or her anger at cancer or grieving her loved ones.  She even shared with us that moment that I know many of us will never forget reading- when she told her children she would soon die.

And I know that she wanted good to come from this.  As Tammy and I talked outside the Hospice room she told me that Laura told her to make sure that good came from this.  She wanted others to be strengthened in their faith through her sharing.  She wanted to bring others closer to God and help people find joy and peace in what she called a “brutiful” world.

So in an effort to keep singing her song, I want to share the way she courageously and with faith and love left this world.

When I got there the room was full of people.  I just started talking in her ear because … it was a hard situation.  Aaron was always by her side, encouraging her, telling her he loved her, holding her hand.  She just got there around 12:30pm, it was only around 7pm when I got there but the end was very close.  She was still talking and in many ways herself the day before.  It all just seemed to happen so quickly.  She didn’t want to linger in a way that would prolong the pain for her family.  Her closest friends and family bravely and sincerely said goodbye with open hearts and deep love.  The crowd grew much smaller and the Hospice nurse said they would clean her and make her more comfortable.   We went in the hallway.  Who knows what we talked about, it was a strange blur.  It was getting late and I knew that her brother and Aaron were staying by her side through the night.  I saw that the nurses were finished and I asked Aaron if I could go in and say goodbye.  I held her hand and talked to her.  I told the Hospice Nurse about her, how we actually met there at that same Hospice when I was visiting her father.  I told her all the many, many people who love Laura, all the lives she touched.  I noticed that Laura’s eyes were open, they had been closed since I arrived hours before.  I commented on this to the nurse and she told me that when the nurses were cleaning her they saw the picture of her children and told her how beautiful her children were and they saw tears come down Laura’s cheek.  I immediately started telling Laura about how well her kids did when they said goodbye.  I told her everything Aaron told me about their strength, resilience and understanding.  Laura’s eyes were looking around the room but not at anything I could see.  Her breathing slowed and that’s when the nurse ran to get Aaron.  In that time of just the two of us I sang in her ear “I believe in the sun, I believe in the sun, even when, even when it’s not shining …”  Her brother and her husband quickly came and each held a hand.  I sat at her feet and smiled through my tears.  She looked around, her breathing slow, calm and steady and she took two last breaths and then was gone.

This is what I mean when I say she went peacefully.  The scars on her body, the swollen liver, the pain in her bones was not peaceful.  The agony she felt in saying goodbye to her children was not peaceful.  The tear-stained faces on her best friends as they could barely breathe their goodbyes were not peaceful.  But somehow, by what I believe to be the power of the Holy Spirit the end was.  She  never wavered in her faith.  She knew she would be ok.  So she did it bravely, she faced it, she fought as hard as she could for every day she could watch her children grow but when it was time she faced it with honesty, courage and faith.  I know that for me, it has and will always have a big impact on my faith.  I will hold on to the memory of that forever and it will fight against all of my fears of death.  The peace in that room, the courage in her soul, the faith in her words throughout her final days.  I will never forget.

When I was ordained my husband invited my friends and family to contribute to a custom made journey stole.  A stole is the scarf that ordained clergy wear when they lead worship and a woman in New Jersey (Colleen Hintz, Fruit of the Vine Vestments) hand makes custom stoles that tell a story about the person.  So she incorporates symbols and images from your journey onto the stole.  My stole has an image of the woman at the well because it is my favorite scripture.  It was Laura’s favorite too and the one she chose for me to preach on at her funeral.  Six years ago when I was given the stole I would have never imagined how powerful that symbol would become.  Now she represents Laura.  A part of my journey, a part of my soul, a part of my voice as I preach.  And in all the congregations I preach to, in all of the new places, those times when I need to prove myself, or help people understand what I am saying or bare my soul to pews full of people … she will be there.

“If I know only one thing, it’s that everything that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak
Yeah I’m tongue-tied and dizzy and I can’t keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues, why should I wait for anyone else?”
-Fleet Foxes