A Lament

 How do I tell you how guilty I feel moving on with my life? How I want to keep writing you letters...about everything and nothing. About how I swept and mopped today. About how I see pictures of you from this time last year and all I can think is...were you already fighting it? 

I see the sinister trendils of cancer weaving themselves into my memories. Because for a year, that was all any of us could think about. 

Will you be here next year? How long will you make it? 

And you’re not. You didn’t make it. 

I read stories of people who survived Glioblastoma for years and years. And the sharp edges of my soul wonder why God didn’t hear our prayers. 

See I can say that and still have Faith. Still believe. Still know in my heart that Gods will is His and His ways are above my own. And His Will...was that pain and sickness and cancer and loss were never supposed to be part of our lives. The farther we get from what He wanted the more our souls know, truly know, we don’t belong here. 

People quote “O Death, where is thy sting” without stopping to allow themselves the chance to hurt. Grief is not bad. Pouring my soul out to God, asking Him why the hell He chose *my* Dad is not wrong. Crying over pictures is not wrong. Laughing about the gawd awful songs my Dad used to make up is not wrong. 

I can love God. And know where my Dads soul is. 

And still hate every single day I’ve spent without Him. 

It is a Lament. A keening of the soul. A longing for the past when I could call up my Dad or send him a trillion texts or hear him ask me to bring the kids over on a Sunday afternoon. 

Nothing about my life is the same as it was last year. We have bounced around and lived out of suitcases and struggled and cried. I have wept, bitterly, asking God, please, please...just let Daddy be the miracle. 

Not everyone gets a miracle. 

And I miss my Dad. 

And I am mad. 

I find myself yelling more than I mean to. Day dreaming. Getting lost in thought. I never feel like I’m on top of things. I always feel a step behind. And I want life to slow down. 

I am annoyed with people talking about ICU Christmas. I HAD an ICU Christmas. The hallways were bare expect for the people who had to be there. I walked those hallways with my six month old who had ear infections waiting to hear if my Dad was going to come out of surgery. I held his hand. We all did. We ate subway and prayed and cried and paced. 

And I didn’t go back when he got out of surgery. And maybe one day I’ll be able to let that go. Or maybe it will never leave me, maybe it will haunt me, like watching Dean be life flighted haunts me. 

I just want to call him. 

And all of my soul feels like a lament. 

I know Gods goodness. I know His heart for us. I know He rescued us. 

And I know, that right now, it’s not about those things and it doesn’t have to be. It can be about the pain and the hurt. For a season it can be about the mourning. 

It’s a season of Lament and Mourning. 

And it is beautiful in its rawness. 

It is mine. 

Ok? Ok.

 “It will be ok.” 

No. It won’t be. 

This is a lie I am tired of hearing. I am tired of people offering it up to me like leftovers they don’t want. 

Nothing about a slow death is ok. It is agonizing for the person going through it and the people watching. 

All the things that make my Dad, my Dad, are gone. His body is an empty shell, betrayed by sin and decay and time. 

I am not ok. This is not ok. 

And it’s ok to say....it’s not ok. 

When Dean was younger and going through procedures nurses and doctors and well meaning people would say “You’re ok buddy. It’s ok. It doesn’t hurt that bad.” I hated it. I didn’t tell him that. I told him “It hurts for just a minute son. I know you don’t like it. I know it’s not ok.” 

Today grief hit me hard. I am once again left depleted and tired and weary and lonely. Sure sure I know I have a whole tribe and my mom and my siblings...it doesn’t matter. Grief is an island. I’m thankful for the visitors but in the end...people go on with their own lives. So many people asked me if I was ok today. Asked how I was doing...

What do you want me to say? “Just dandy yall, going about my life like my dad isn’t dying slowly nine hours away...” 

it’s not ok. That was my standard answer. 

I’m not ok. 

This is not ok. 

And it never will be. 

One Foot Here, One Foot There

 I have always been a transparent person. All of my emotions, thoughts, feelings...I’m very free with them. What you see is what you get, and as I get older and older I care less and less about what people think about that. 

I am always either too much or not enough. The truth is I am just Me. I like Just Me. 

Just me grieves loudly. I have to talk about it. I just have to. I have to write about it and I can’t ignore it. I walk it and breathe it in. I cry at my desk and in the van and sometimes at three AM. It loud and invasive. It soaks into my art and my mothering. My children talk about Death and Heaven. Ellie asks me, every time I start crying again, if Grumpy is dead. 

We read books about life...and death. We talk about being sad and how to remember. I quietly put pictures up all over my house of my Dad with the kids, my Dad with my mom, my Dad with me on my wedding day, our awkward slow shuffle while he pretended to dance with me. I find shows that teach kids about Death. Daniel Tigers blue fish dies. 

When something or someone dies, they don’t come back. 

My vibrant, opinionated, goofball Dad has one foot here and one foot in Eternity. My family waits with baited breathe. 

How do you grieve and move on when the body of the person you love is still here, but their soul is gone? My Dad was loud and big. He filled a room. He had a fierce scowl when he was mad. The man loved History and we took a lot of day trips to have picnics at various abandoned places. He loved old houses. He told me once he wanted to start a website where you posted pictures of an abandoned houses to see if anyone recognized them. He said “I wonder who was born there...who lived there or died there. I wonder about the history of that house.” 

I think of him when I see houses that are abandoned. I think of him when I use the color blue and when I use gold. I think of him when Ellie tells me she has a noodle arm and when Dean prays about Chuckie Cheese. I think about him when I take back roads instead of the highway. When Ellie comes out of Sunday School after an Answers in Genesis study...

Life feels surreal. Day to day life just keeps plodding along. We pay our bills, Blair works hard, I paint, change the diapers, teach my kids, order groceries, do the dishes over and over and over. Every day bleeds into the next. I wake up thinking two things, “Is today the day” and “Please Lord let him make until I can say goodbye...”

Yesterday I was talking with Deano about counting his blessings. Last night as I laid in bed around two AM, awake, again, I had a hard time counting mine. Good things *have* happened this year. I know that. They are pushed so far back in the fog of grief I have a hard time cutting through to see them. 

Truth be told, some days I don’t want to. I don’t want to fight or feel or think. I want to completely zone out and forget for one small second that this hurts. I want to pretend my heart isn’t constantly aching. I want to pretend I can pick up the phone and call my Daddy. I want him to send me thirty billion texts until I respond. I want to hear him ask me when I’m bringing his grandkids to see him. I want to hear him tell me that all he needs is to see them to make him all better and I wish to God that was true. I want him to call up Blair and say “I need your help. I miss my boys. Your my boy here.” 

Being a mother and grieving is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. 

I can’t zone out, more importantly, my Dad would HATE me zoning out. He loved seeing me as a Mama. He loved seeing me as an Artist. He loved seeing Blair and I work and struggle and thrive together. He wouldn’t want me to be so bogged down in grief that I couldn’t function. 

So. I carry on. I wake up and Mother and Love and Encourage. I have conversations about Heaven and WHY Grumpy is going there and how Ellie can make sure she goes too. I make breakfast and do school and sometimes I yell because I’m tired and kids are intense. We go to the Library (which makes me think of my Dad...my mom hates the Library). We go to our co-op. The kids take turns going to Mimi’s house...I love the time they spend with her. I love the way Grandpa J has started to really play with Ellie and Dean. I love seeing them know...soon, he will be their only Grandpa...

And I wait. Impatiently. Anxiously. Sometimes angerly. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes loudly. Some nights I put the kids to bed and make my way down to my art space and I just sit there. 

Sometimes I hate making art I know my Dad will never see...

I worry about my baby sisters. I want to carry the grief for them. I know their grief is their own and so so so much different than mine. I worry my brothers will be annoyed with my openness and the way I speak about my grief, constantly, openly, loudly. I worry about my mom being far away from me. I hate not being able to see her face or cry with her. Or take her shopping at the mall because while we all know Retail Therapy isn’t healthy GOSH DARN SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED A NEW DRESS. I worry about my sisters in law who are more like sisters. Who each hold a special place in my heart and who are walking with my brothers through this hell...I worry what Thanksgiving and Christmas will be like. 

I wonder if I will ever feel less snappy at people. If my compassion will ever return. If I will ever feel like a good friend again. I don’t feel like I can have a compassionate conversation about much of anything right now. Everything is marred by this awful terminal cancer that has slowly taken my Daddy from me. 

My oldest brother said earlier this year, “It’s hard to remember Heaven, when you’re going through Hell.” 

Right now my Dad has one foot here and one foot in Eternity. 

And it is hell waiting for him to take the next step. Because I know when he does, I’m here. On this side. Waiting. 

Right now our lives are put into a weird limbo of waiting. Where we move forward every day knowing soon we will be stopped in our tracks. 

And quite frankly, it’s exhausting. 

Grief is really just exhausting. 

The Miracle

 My baby sister recently took time to write. I was incredibly proud of her...and suddenly reminded I too, should write down my thoughts. 

I’ve thought about writing. I tend to start posts in my brain. But that is not the same as actually writing and putting it out there. It is not the same as sharing it. And who knows? Maybe I will write and then not share for a few weeks. 

It has been difficult to write lately. Or to work in my art journals. If I’m being honest it’s been difficult to get out of bed. 

Every day right now I wake up and think “Is today the day my mom is going to call me and tell me my dad is dead? Is this it?” 

When was the last time I told him I loved him? What was the last meal I got to cook for him? Did I get a picture of me and him together? Are my baby sisters ok? I’m so far away from them...how can I be there for them and be a present mom? 

How do you grieve when the person isn’t dead and you have a life to live? 

How do you remember to find joy when every day feels tsunami waves of pain and hurt? 

We are house sitting for friends before we finally move to our own house. My kids, for the first time in two months, get to just be us. While I am so incredibly grateful for the people who have opened their homes for us, I have seen the toll it has taken on my children. Finally Ana is sleeping better, Ellie isn’t constantly overwhelmed, Dean has been whining less. 

Today Ana and Dean were silhouetted in the window while they played blocks together. Ellie made a whole town out of beanie babies. I spilled coffee on all our new school curriculum. Ellie drew pictures of Earthquakes. Ana ate a red marker. Dean practiced writing his name. 

Life goes on. 

It is beautifully slow today. And in the back of my mind I’m wondering how my Daddy is. I’m wondering how my Mama is. I wonder if she needs me to take her shopping at the mall, to get away from my Dad, from the grief that can be stifling. I wonder if my Dad wants me to make him French toast casserole or bacon and eggs. 

I just want to sit next to him and kiss his hands again. 

I want my art studio back up. So I can start the Painting. The one that’s been in my brain for months now but I can’t bring myself to even sketch out. I believe God has given me a creative heart to help people heal and grieve. But when it’s my own grief it feels deeply emotional and vulnerable. Writing is one thing...painting it...

I keep thinking about that stupid song “Live Like You we’re Dying”.  What a load of complete crap. 

Dying is harsh and brutal and consuming. It hurts. My dad doesn’t feel like sky diving or Rocky Mountain climbing. Or any of the other crap that stupid song sounds like. He *barely* made it to Chuckie Cheese with us. He got tired and had to leave. (Not that I’m knocking it, I’m incredibly proud and thankful we made that happen.) 

See this blog doesn’t make sense, does it? I can’t explain my thoughts. Some days I take all this in with Grace and Faith and some days I want to crawl back in my bed and pretend like my Dad doesn’t have cancerous brain tumors that are slowly, but surely, killing him. 

Oh and I get it guys. I know you’re tired of hearing about this. I know it’s depressing. I know I’m sort of a negative Nancy bitter Betty and I’m not particularly fun to be around. I know when people ask me how my dad is doing you don’t want to hear “Oh he’s dying slowly, so ya know, it’s pretty crappy.” But that’s literally every thought that consumes my mind. I don’t ever get to forget. 

None of my family does. 

I know a lot of families are broken and messed up and not close at all. Me and my family? We’re definitely broken and messed up but I would argue we are closer than most. I love my brothers. I love my sisters. I love my sisters in law, I love my future brothers in law. I love my nieces and nephews. I love seeing them. I love being with them. 

I hate that I can’t shoulder their grief along with my own. I hate that, for whatever reasons, God closed the doors in Tennessee and opened them here in Virginia. 

I hate that my father is slowly dying. I hate that I pray for God to end this quickly. God help me, I do. I hate it.  I hate that I panic every time my phone rings. 

And yet...my life keeps moving. Kids need teaching, diapers need changing, art needs to be made, people in my house insist on eating like a million meals a day, bills still have to be paid. 

And it all feels wrong. Because my world isn’t spinning and I feel like the rest of the world should stop too. 

Maybe by this time next year he will be in Heaven. Maybe it will all have ended and I will look back on these endless days and see the small spark of Gods plan running through it all.  Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I will never know why God chose *this* until I’m in heaven with My Jesus and my Daddy and my Babies. 

And maybe there is no big miracle meant for my Daddy. 

Maybe the big miracle is that we, my mother, my father , my siblings...all of us, maybe the miracle is we continue to chose to love God. 

Knowing He could end all of this, right now, and do a miracle so big...

We know this. And we all still chose to say, “God is good. All the time. All the time. God is good.” 

Miscarriages? God is good. 

Heart defect? God is good. 

Terminal brain cancer? God is good. 

Slow death? God. Is. Good. 

Magical Mundane Stories

The night before I got married I wrote a blog post. I’d link you to it, but I’m tired. And y’all are big kids, you can find it if you really want to.

I’m spending another last night in this big empty house. Something I never thought I’d be doing. Yet here I am, the walls echoing, the boxes packed, the plan made. Here I am. Leaving Front Royal. Ending an Era.

I hated this place. I hated my parents for making me move in between tenth and eleventh grade, dragging me away from an intensive art program, my friends, the Beach. All for goofy Front Royal with its Mountains and Hills and Rivers.

And I love goofy Front Royal with its Mountains and Hills and Rivers.

I made a Home here. I made a community of moms here. I made and birthed three beautiful children I got to meet and three who I will meet later. I laughed and cried here and made some pretty awful mistakes that I thought made me unlovable and unworthy. And God took that brokenness and gave me Blair. God gave me a Church Family here. One that has blown my mind and carried me because God gave me a lot of things I couldn’t carry.

That Church Family loved my baby’s I lost during Miscarriages. They treated me as though I’d lost any other person. If you ever want to see if a Church truly believes in the sanctity of life, look at how they treat Mothers who have had miscarriages or still births...be part of those Churches who honor even their tiniest members.

This community carried us when we had Dean. I can’t even...oh I’m not even sure I can *go* there. It’s too much. It feels too much. Because it is too much.

I’m sitting in the same room I sat in the night before I got married. The night before my Daddy walked me down the aisle. Before we slowed shuffled together.

Moving makes me *feel* like he’s dying faster. Nothing will stop that feeling. Oh I know it’s not true and I know that feelings have no intelligence and that they are simply that, feelings. But they are there. And I must take them down off the shelf and visit them so I’m not consumed by them.

I will never regret moving with my Mom and Dad. I will never regret the time I am spending with my Dad right now. I know he is dying. I have been a witness to it every day, all day, since February First when we moved in here. It was part of the deal. And I am not sorry we did it. I never will be. He has fought long and hard and I am proud of him for it. I am glad I get to see my Daddy every morning. I am glad I was here to listen to my mom rage at the injustice and unfairness of it all. I am glad I caught her when Mawmaw died in the middle of revamping the house to sell it. I am proud of the way we handled our one big fight.

If houses told stories...I think you’d want to hear the one this house could tell about our family.

I think You’d want to sit and listen about this crazy family with all the kids that was loud and messy and wonderful. You could hear all about Nate passing out on the front lawn, sledding with my sister in law Karynne, eating Thanksgiving dinner one the living room because we didn’t fit in the dining room.  Or about the time Zeb and I made a flame thrower in the garage, or Evie and ‘wrassling on the front lawn or when my moms legs cramped up in the pool we had a couple years. And all about the times we fought and yelled, because we did that. We did that a lot. It could get loud and scary. And then we forgave and moved on. Something I think more people need to learn.

You would sit and hear the story of our last Christmas together, here. How my siblings dropped everything to be here. How we crammed into the living room. How my oldest brother read the Christmas story to us all while my Dad held Dean in his lap...

The magical mundane every day things have captured my heart. They are what brings tears to my eyes. My mom sweeping the kitchen again or throwing pots and pans in the sink when she’s mad. Remember the sound of my Dads footsteps thundering down the stairs to ask me something. The way he yelled at me for not wearing pants and the time I caught him letting the dog out at 3 AM I’m his underwear. How he refused to get the AC fixed and the stupid Window. units we insisted he put in so we all didn’t  die of heat stroke.

I used to hate these magical mundane moments.

But now I realize they write the most amazing story I’ve ever been privilege to be part of. The story of a family. And honestly...that’s amazing.

Limping

It is a rainy gray day. And I’m waiting while my Dad goes through his first round of chemotherapy and radiation.

I’ve thought for a long time about writing. What I would say, what do I want to remember, what story needs to be told, is it worth it. Do I write about my Dad or do I just write about my own feelings? Do I tell the story from my own perspective?

I don’t know. I don’t have answers for this. No one has answers for this. Because it is bigger and harder and more than you can imagine.

I was there December 20th in the Emergency Room when the doctor told my parents that my Dad has brain cancer. I knew what Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) was. I let my mother cling to my hand as they delivered this news to my parents, while I swayed with Lilliana on my hip. I was the one who answered my my moms phone and told my older brother we needed him here. That we all needed to be here. Every single one of my siblings changed every single one of their plans so we could be together for Christmas...and so we could all be here Christmas Eve when my Daddy had a large tumor removed from his brain.

I’m not sure I’m even ready to write about that day. I’m not sure I can do it from my phone. I’m not sure I can convey the love that that waiting room felt or how when one of us said “we need to pray”, how it saturated in the Spirit it all felt. No words can describe those things.

My husband and I moved in with my mom and dad. Every one keeps telling me how selfless that is but the truth is, I’m selfish. I want to walk up the stairs and hug my Daddy. I want my kids to see him every day. I want Lilliana to hear his voice and know it. I want to see Dean hug him and Ellie climb into his lap and snuggle him. I want to sit with him and watch the History Channel with him. I want to joke him and laugh with him and cry when it becomes too big and too scary.

I keep painting with blue. It’s all over my journals and paintings. Not because of sadness but because blue is a color my Daddy can see. He’s always, always been a huge fan and supporter of my art. I want him to see how it’s carrying me through this.

  

You know when we found out about all this, I got angry. Not for the normal reasons. I felt like we had *just* done all this. It was only a year ago we were helping Dean recover from his third heart surgery. I thought we were done withsurgeries for a while. With hospitals. 

I am tired. That bone weary tired that you don’t feel 24/7, but man when it hits, it his hard. And I do not understand. I don’t understand why it’s my Daddy, our family who has been chosen to limp through this. That’s what I feel I’m doing. Limping. There is no walking here. Just a slow and stumbling limp. Ragged and rough to watch. But forward. And definitely not alone. 

Never in my whole life have I ever been so thankful for the strength and bond my family has. I love to see how each of my siblings strength is being called upon. I love seeing Benjamin help organize us and how he checks on each of us. I love seeing Nate’s heart wide open and willing to listen when I need it. I love seeing how amazing my brother Josh is with the legalities and finances of all of this. I love seeing Zeb working so hard and taking over the things he can so our Daddy doesn’t have to worry. I love seeing Evelynn come to the house as often as she can to sit and snuggle with her Daddy, she is most definitely his girl. I love how brave and beautiful my baby sister is, forging ahead with her plans and life and praying so diligently for our Daddy. Not to mention my amazing sisters in law, between grocery trips and helping my mother get organized...the three of them amaze me. And my

Nieces and Nephews. This tribe of people who have banded together in love. 

We’re all limping through this together. 

And that gives me a Peace I can’t even explain.