Friday, June 29, 2018

Three Years


It’s June 29 and I’m thinking about Laura.  It has been three years since I watched her breath leave her body. This is a day that holds a lot of emotion and meaning for me.  She encouraged me to blog and was so supportive of my writing and yet, three years later I barely blog.  I could give a million reasons why, not the least of which is the current political climate that leaves me with so many emotions and thoughts it is difficult to sit down in quiet and put anything into words.  Another reason is because I have gotten out of the habit of constant public vulnerability.  I used to preach every Sunday and anyone who has heard one of my sermons can tell you I get pretty vulnerable.  Now I preach about four times per year.  I am not used to putting myself out there like that all the time.  Now I put myself out there with close friends at a play group or a conversation with a lifetime friend or a book group where I have built trust.  But I still think vulnerability is so important and Laura modeled it so well.  She put herself out there over and over again.  She revealed her heart, her fears, her joys, her frustrations and it connected with more people than she ever knew. 

I have been thinking about her vulnerability lately, particularly with her children.  She loved them and protected them so fiercely up until that last breath.  She poured her heart into them and gave us all a glimpse as she shared pieces of the tough conversations at the end.  I will never forget when she wrote about telling them she was going to die.  I remember the way her struggled breathing, the painful sounds of death all slowed down when I told her that they were ok and cared for.  I told her that they said good bye and were doing ok and immediately her breathing slowed and within minutes it stopped.  The tear that streamed down her cheek as the hospice nurse commented on the photo of them next to her bed.  She never stopped opening her heart even when it hurt so much.

I have been thinking about this as I face that struggle every parent faces of learning how to let go a little each day and allow your children to be the independent wonderful people they are created to be.  I sobbed after I dropped off my oldest at kindergarten and prayed to God to help me turn off the news images of school shootings playing through my mind when I tried to fall asleep.  These things take an emotional toll on parents today.  Images of scared teens running to their parents and separated children crying at the border can make us want to hold on tight to our littles and never let go. 

Soon I am traveling out of the country and it will be the longest I have ever been away from my kids.  For months I have been thinking of things to tell their grandma who will be caring for them: remind the oldest to practice piano, don’t let the youngest eat too much sugar, they will want to sleep in the same room but only let them every couple of nights because they won’t sleep, they need this kind of lotion after a bath, etc.  I find myself thinking “maybe I should think of somewhere they can go in the event of a wildfire.”  It’s too much and for goodness sakes it’s only ten days! 

The truth is we have to learn to let go whether we want to or not because these children do not belong to us.  They are these wonderful little people preparing to take on this great big world and make it better than we ever could.  I remember when I had my first baby, people would say “he’s beautiful” and I would say “I know, it’s amazing!”  I soon learned that the proper response is “thank you.”  Thank you felt weird because to me he was so clearly created by God and I was just lucky enough to be part of that.  Why would I say thank you for a compliment not for me but for this amazing little human? 

We live in a world where we do need to be cautious.  We need to know who is with our child and are they safe.  We need to know where our children are and take time to connect with them, hear what they are feeling and offer them guidance.  At the same time, we need to trust.

Laura had to do that hard thing and trust her most precious gifts to the care of others and to God.  And now they are still completely wonderful. 

It has been three years since she died.  I remember the sounds and smells of that hospice room, the look in her eye before it unfocused, the feel of the tears down my cheek and the realization of what an amazing life and death I had just been given the privilege to witness.  It’s been three years since she died, a lot has changed but I am still unpacking all of the things I learned from her.

Today is also my nephew’s birthday.  Five years ago I got a text message with a picture of a baby in a rainbow shirt.  A rainbow baby- a beautiful gift from God after much sadness and loss.  Hope after despair.  June 29 is a special day for me.  It holds together loss, joy, love, sadness, death and birth.  It seems that the best way to acknowledge all of these things is to be vulnerable.