Religion and Relationship Advice Column

Today, I offer you an advice column with a question coming from a friend in ministry in Southeast Asia.

Question: We have a great woman at our church but her husband, formerly a church leader, has turned away from God over a leadership concern. They have two kids and she is trying to teach them the ways of God but encounters resistance from her husband 24/7.

How can we help?

Answer:  He may have been wounded by church people. Whatever his part may have been in the break with the church and with God, he is now in a place of pain, anger, and possibly guilt and shame. That's a complicated emotional meal to swallow, and his wife keeps placing it before him by her work and support of the church.

The wife's challenge now: honor God AND honor her husband --who apparently doesn't want her to honor God in her accustomed ways.

She must not compromise her own faith. She must also not ask her husband to compromise his current stance. 

I've often wanted to walk away from the church because of the actions of those who call themselves Christian. But then I ask myself, "How many others have wanted to walk away because of ME?" I'm not immune from doing some pretty awful things in the name of Jesus.

Her husband speaks his truth: he can't do church and God now. Truth beats a lie, the pretense of being Christian. It is a good starting place. 

The wife will do best if she also speaks truth. Among other things, is she using her husband's disregard of God as an excuse to disregard her husband and his needs? I'm not saying she should leave her love for God behind. May it never be!!!! I'm saying that living out of the love of God in this situation may have to be done in a way that she has not yet considered.

The wife can live from her love for God by loving her husband fully. That means acknowledging that he is a person of value to God, even in this time of disbelief. 

Their children should see modeled loving patience, an ability to hear differing viewpoints, and gracious reception of them. This mean living the gospel without necessarily preaching it: the path of grace and invitation to the heavenly places. 

You want to comfort this woman. Be careful here--and I say this out of personal experience now. Often the person who looks the most righteous in a marital spat is the root cause of the problem--a deeper issue that surfaces as a disagreement over spiritual matters. 

In a situation like this, the wife may easily cast herself as the noble martyr with the unrighteous husband. But the kindest and most loving act she can do is encourage her husband to explore what it means for him to declare himself separated from God.  Ask him to define what that means for him personally, and what that means for them as a couple and as parents. What does he think is right for the children's Christian instruction? Is he willing  to let them hear Bible stories and learn to pray? If not, why not? If so, within what bounds? 

The wife needs to ask similar questions. What does it mean for her to continue to seek to be a woman of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ? How does that play out in the mundane tasks of caring for a household, rearing children, loving her husband, doing ministry with the church? Out of my experience, I have learned there is a fine line between living as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ and being an arrogant and hypocritical prig, looking down my nose at others who do not believe as I think they should or act in the ways I want them to.

Wish there were an easier fix.  Discipleship is always messy.

Grandfather's Letters

Last week, as I was writing on my mother's letters, I noted that my grandfather, my dad's father, didn't ever seem to write any letters.  Most of the correspondence was between my mother and Kokomo, my dad's mother. 

Kokomo died in the summer of 1971. Mother, ever faithful in her letters, kept writing and this time addressed them to Grandfather and Elaine, Elaine being my father's invalid sister who had lived with her parents after some years in the mission field.

Then, Grandfather began to write.  I don't know why I was surprised to see how well he wrote.  Like Kokomo, his livelihood had been teaching school, and he was a literate man.  But I had only known him as retired, and as the most wonderful Grandfather who could fix anything.  We all eagerly awaited his often lengthy visits from Indiana to Texas when he would get to work and do a year's worth of maintenance projects on my parent's aging and often crumbling house. 

But he could write, and he did write of his heartbreak.  He had lost the love of his life. Grief simply swallowed him.  He traded life-long superb health for chest pains and recurring bouts of pneumonia. This independent, energetic man suddenly asked if my parents would permit him to move in with them, leaving his own home behind in Indiana where he had spent his entire life.  The answer was an immediate "Yes, we'd love to have you," but every time Grandfather would decide to buy a ticket and see how to make this work, the chest pains took over.

I read of his emotional devastation, and suddenly, after weeks of bleak grief of my own, my mind and heart lightened and cleared.  This is my family.  An ordinary, American family.  Better educated than some, perhaps, but that is about the only thing that stands out. Financially conservative, we pay our bills and live middle-class lives.  We have squabbles and differences.  Difficult children and challenging marriages litter the landscape, but no divorces until my own generation said a louder "no" to marital misery than the previous ones had been able to do. 

We live ordinary lives and we have been dying ordinary deaths as well.  Most of the grandparents and great-grandparents lived into their 80's.  They had the usual decline, and then death.  We have been doing what most American families do:  figuring out a way to cope with this, and wondering why it is so hard.

As I was writing this blog, especially as my mother's death came closer and closer, I became painfully aware that most people I know don't have any idea how to handle what is inevitable for all of us.  I see too many people agonizing over a parent's decline with no preparation in receiving death as both sorrow and as gift. 

People will whisper to me, "I just can't take this much longer."  That happens when the chore of caring for the dementia-ridden, lingering, overly-medicalized parent or spouse one ends up hurting the care-givers far more than it offers help to the one being cared for. I hear words of relief when it is over, often spoken in shame rather than recognizing the normality of such a response.  Relief and grief hold hands. They are intimate friends, not enemies to be forever separated.

We don't know what to do with our relief or our grief.  My grandfather, this so alive man, missed his wife with such intensity that when he died, a year and a half after her death, his doctor actually said, "He died of a broken heart."  I understand. I had times after my mother died that I wasn't sure I could keep going.  My depression was so deep that I wanted it to end with my own death.  Just too much pain.  I also knew enough to be aware that it would pass, given enough time and sleep and decent food and good friends to listen to me.  And it has now passed.  Something about reading Grandfather's ache freed my own.  I will always miss my mother, my father, my grandparents.  I miss friends that have already died.  The places reserved in my heart for loving them still exist.  But I am no longer disabled by this loss. 

I have also learned something:  we need to accept this inevitability.  We must learn to appreciate death as a part of life, and to prepare for our own end for the sake of those who love us.

We must first address the state of our souls.  This one thing I know for sure:  the personal characteristics that you practice the most will become powerfully evident at the end of life.  One who practices impatience will become a tyrant.  One who practices kindness will be the most loved patient in any setting.  It will be revealed.  Get those holy habits in place now.  There's no "later" here. It's time.

In addition, every adult, even with few assets,  needs to have a legal will, and this is absolutely vital if there are dependent children.  Each of us also needs to make decisions about the disposal of our bodies so these decisions are not left to those who have just lost someone and are themselves lost in grief.  These are acts of love.

Assuming that most of us will die with the usual process--the slow and often lengthy decline until things just start to snowball and finally cave in, each of us need to decide just how much medical intervention we want as that inevitable decline accelerates.  Why do we expect others to make those decisions for us?  How unfair!  And when we've made them, we need to make sure that others who may have to enforce the decisions know clearly and fully what is expected to be done and what must not be done.

There are books written on how we should live with grace and power. It's time to write some on how we shall die with grace and power. 

Chaos of Life/church

I have been home sick for a couple of days and managed to get into the church office yesterday for what I had thought would be just a couple of hours--which of course turned into an all-day marathon.

But, more to the point, as I walked in, I was greeted with construction chaos.  Ladders in the hallway and storage room as electricians did some re-wiring.  More work on the new sound booth in the worship center.  The administrative office completely re-arranged.  A new and wonderful laminator has been delivered, purchased by the lengthy and laborious collection of food labels by church members under the leadership of Kristi Lounsbry, and it is HUGE and needs a place to live.

My desk sagged with work that I had hurriedly left on Tuesday thinking I'd be back on Wednesday to clear it out but became ill instead. Mail stacked high for me to look at, charge conference reports coming in and still needing to be finished, emails, people I needed to see.  The book I'm writing on my mother's death sits unfinished as I read her letters and pick out the very best for this. Yes, wonderful chaos.

I'm deep into the 1971 letters.  I can only read a few and then have to stop.  The complexity of this year for my family gets to me.  

• My brother, graduating in 1970 from Rice University, had moved to Santa Barbara, California as a computer engineer. 
• I graduated from Rice in May, 1971, and went to California in June to join Campus Crusade for Christ.  
• My sister became engaged that summer; I broke off yet one more relationship that summer (I had ended an engagement the previous summer; this summer's young man was living with my parents at the time when I broke that one off!) 
• My dad's mother, Kokomo, died on August 10.  I found the last letter she wrote to my mother on August 1.  From what I've can glean, she wrote nearly daily to my mother for 20 years.  And then she became ill from some sort of gastrointestinal situation (apparently of long standing), went into the hospital, slipped into a coma and died.  
• I moved to Seattle, Washington; my brother got engaged to Nancy, from Dearborne, Michigan. and they started making their wedding plans for February, 1972; my sister and her fiance broke up and she did a tailspin into a terrible depression.  
• I found Campus Crusade to be a very difficult environment theologically and personally (I've often said this was the first really bad decision I ever made), gained 25 pounds and watched with horror as my to-then perfect complexion turned into a mass of red welts.  
• There had long been difficulties between my mother and my father--all three of us children figured they would split when we had all left home.  They didn't split formally; they just split emotionally. 
• Money was still tight--the big delight was finding frozen dinners for $.33 apiece.  Fortunately, there was only Jill left in college, so that helped a great deal.  But still, I could see the financial pressures on all of us.

And mother just kept writing letters.  This may be the year of her highest achievement in writing.  I can almost see her trying so hard to hold everyone together as we are individually, especially me, my sister, and my grieving grandfather, disintegrating.  She wrote and she sewed frantically, as if making clothes for us (she had become quite skilled at making clothes for me, my sister and for herself as a way of saving money) would heal the wounds.  

So, on this rainy Saturday in October, 2010, five weeks after my mother's death, she is extraordinarily alive to me.  That caring heart, that need to control (that one was handed down to me in a BIG way), the hope that activity can smooth over turbulent emotions and unsettled relationships, the gift with words:  they are all here in these folders filled with onionskin copies and hard-to-decipher originals.  

It gives me hope in the midst of my own chaos. When I read my own letters written than year, I see the glimmers of an emerging maturity, even as I struggle with a deep depression and do my best to hide it and cover it up.  

All of us will always live in some kind of chaos--it is the nature of life.  And it is possible to find the holiness in the chaos, at least for me, as we're all trying to figure out our lives and how God does work in them.  It is not a neat and ordered process.  Right now, I simply feel extraordinarily lucky in the glue of my mother that sought to hold us together so tightly as our lives swirled, danced and got tangled up around us.  What a prize she was!

Souls Revealed in Our Letters

I've not written recently about my mother and my continuing grief process over losing her.  Mainly, I've not written because I just didn't want people to know how hard this is for me.  So I've shoved it inside and let it fester and now I'm sick.  Just a bad cold, but enough that I am not able to go to work right now. I know my illness and my unwillingness to write about my interior life have intertwined.  So, if I won't deal with my stuff one way, its going to come out another way.  As with all of us, my mind, soul, spirit and body together form me, and one part cannot be ignored or permitting to grow unhealthy without consequences.  

Last week, several kind souls helped me put all of my mother's saved letters (I've estimated about 8000 pages) into folders by year and also to make stacks of some personal keepsakes that I've salvaged from the piles and piles of papers I had to go through.  The first folder starts at 1949 and the last one this year, 2010.  Some are stuffed--and some years needed two folders.  Others represent lean years--primarily the early and the later years. As I think about it, the folders arrange themselves quite well into the bell curve--the outer edges barely registering on the graph, but the middle years rising sharply and hitting their peak when all three of us children were in college and starting our careers and families.

Yesterday afternoon, with a cup of hot tea and plenty of tissues to keep me company with this nasty cold, I began to read in earnest, starting with the oldest items. As I read, I am putting aside the very best letters Mother herself wrote that she kept copies of (this practice was sporadic until about 1966, unfortunately)--the ones I think most expresses mother's uniqueness.  But I'm also reading letters she decided to keep that were written to her.

We were a letter writing family.  No question about it.  Unfortunately, none of us had particularly legible handwriting.  Apparently, my dad's mother, known to all of us as "Kokomo," wrote nearly every day for quite a while, although it looks like most of those letters no longer exist.  Mostly just about routine stuff, daily happenings, family matters.  She also wrote one special letter to each of her grandchildren on their birthdays each year.  I have mine and I've seen the ones to my sister, but am not sure about the ones to my brother, but hope they are still here somewhere.  

In the oldest folders, I found letters from my aunt who was working as a nurse in a mission stations, first in Africa and then in India, and some snippets of correspondence between my mother and Kokomo.  Mother clearly did not find life easy when dealing with three small children (three of us in five years, a common pattern in our family and one that I also followed).

Personalities emerge in these letters. My brother and my dad wrote simple, factual letters, rarely expressing their emotional life and a bit shocking when they do (especially from my dad) Kokomo spoke for her husband ("Grandfather") and I don't think he ever wrote.  So far, (I'm up to 1971), I've not seen a bundle of letters from my sister, but I can hear her good voice in the ones I've read, her ability to analyze things and describe so well what what happening around her.

What has become exceptionally clear is that my grandmother, my mother and I most definitely all wrote in order to deal with our demons.  While we wrote about the everyday stuff, we wrote in order to make some sense of all that stuff and our lives in the midst of the daily challenges and chaos.  We wrote about our wishes and dreams, our financial and personal struggles, and, what I find particularly fascinating, the constant struggle for all of us to maintain decent, affordable and workable wardrobes to go with the daily demands on the lives of three very busy women.

We wrote about needing to see psychiatrists, and wrote so we could figure out how to manage our lives without actually getting professional mental health therapy.  

It looks like Mother kept most of the ones I wrote to her during my years at Rice University.  I'm loving the time-spaced dialogue that would take place between the two of us.  Questions asked in one letter found responses much later, and overlapped then with intervening questions and conversations.  

I've also become aware that I was a real twit especially during my first year at Rice.  Selfish, vain, and uncaring of others.  My social life was most definitely my number one priority.  While I managed not to flunk any of my courses my first semester there, it was a close call for me.  I had intentionally left my spiritual development behind and had no plans to ever darken the door of a church or Bible study again.  I starting thinking about the yearly birthday letters that Kokomo had written to me.  She clearly became more and more concerned about me as I grew up.  There was good reason for that concern.  What a mess I was.  

I trust that years, growing maturity, and a regaining of the willingness to be shaped by God has helped the situation.  But the more I read, the more convinced I am that Mother really was something of a saint, just for hanging in with me.  That is what mothers do, of course.  So perhaps all of us mothers are all saints in a way.

A Harem by Any Other Name

I admit it: I've watched the TLC TV Show "Sister Wives" with a fascinated horror. Here's my take on the plot of this reality show: The alpha male, Koby, takes three blond look-alike wives when he is in his 20's. Eventually, they start having children, and by the time we meet the family, these three wives have given birth to 13 offspring between them. All three are attractive and personable but . . . that's a lot of pregnancies and they've lost their 20 year old skinniness and nymphet sexual appeal as a part of the normal aging process. So, the balding Koby gets a "testimony" (apparently this is fundamentalist religious-speak in the polygamous world in Utah for "I've got the hots for another woman") and starts dating the younger, skinny, brunette Robyn. 

Yes, he dates her. With his wives' approval. And marries her.  The wedding now over, new wife Robyn gets the privileges of the marital bed every fourth night. One big happy family. 

Apparently, however, he is legally married only to the first wife. The others are in some sort of promise relationship, since the institution of multiple wives has been outlawed for quite a while now. 

So, what he really has is a harem. One wife and three concubines. 

According to wisegeek.com, a concubine is "a woman who lives with a man in a situation which is similar to marriage, although without all of the privileges of marriage.” 

Wisegeek also says, "Generally, only men of high social status have concubines. Additional wives require more wealth, especially since a well-outfitted concubine elevates a man's social status, while an obviously neglected concubine would reflect poorly upon him." 

At one point, First Wife does ask her husband something along the lines of "How would you feel if I brought another husband into the family?" Koby simply can't imagine the thought. While acknowledging that this is indeed a double standard where he, the important male, gets more privileges than the less important females, he shrugs this off as no big deal. After all, he did get his "testimony," so clearly God has ordained this. 

As I watch this, I sit amazed, and not so amazed, at our human ability to justify anything we want to do by our assurance that God has given the green light. I see this especially with sexual matters: the sex drive is so strong that the hormone-bathed brain misreads getting the hots for someone as a clear directive from God to go ahead and act on it. 

Now, for the record, I don't care if Koby has 30 concubines. It's a free country; I don't get to dictate the morality of others; and if those women aren't any smarter than to buy into this disempowering system, it's their problem. I also wonder about all the men who can't get wives because of the Koby's in the world who greedily grab more of a limited resource, but that's another issue.  

My real problem lies with the justification for his harem being anything other than his selfish ne to keep a bundle of adoring women around in order to keep his fragile ego intact and his status high in the eyes of others. I also have a really, really big problem with using the name of God to justify behavior and decisions that are anything but holy.

I will never understand a theology that says, “it's OK for me, and God wants me to do this because I'm a male (or more powerful or more privileged or more well-to-do) and therefore more important than you, but it is not OK for you because you are a (woman, minority, impoverished, without power, etc.) and therefore you are less valued in the eyes of God.” 

Either God is for all of us, or God is for none of us. There are no favorites in the kingdom of Heaven. 

Rusted Cans

Last week, I spent several hours sorting donated canned goods at the North Texas Food Bank.  During the days of the State Fair of Texas, people can get into the fair on Wednesdays at a greatly reduced price by donating three cans of food per person.  On Thursday, those thousands and thousands of cans must be sorted and boxed for distribution to various agencies around the Metroplex so the food can get to the hands of the hungry.

Instructions:  "Often, people will bring the dregs of their pantries in order to take advantage of the almost free entrance into the fair.  Some of the cans will be bulging, dented to the point of danger, or rusted.  You will need to look at every can, and toss the questionable ones."

We were also told not to worry about expiration dates.  The leader said, "It will paralyze you to find the dates.  Just look for the signs of damage."

So for the next several hours my group along with other volunteers from around Dallas grabbed armfulls of cans from big bins, inspected each one, tossed the bad ones and boxed the usable ones.

Most of the cans were in great shape.  However, a fair number did have to be discarded.  As I was sorting, tossing and boxing, I couldn't help but wonder about those who had intentionally donated such unusable items in order to get into the State Fair cheaply.  After wrinkling my nose at one severely rusted can, I thought, "Does the person who donated this item not care that it could easily make someone ill?  Is a person who needs to use a food bank for family provision of less worth than those who have the means to donate to a food bank?"

I just about always find it convenient to point the fingers of blame at others (as do most of us), so I decided I should look at myself. In what ways have I offered the dregs of my life, my heart, my talents, my closet, my pantry, to others and to God?  Where have I looked down my nose at those who need help?  It's easy to do, and is a particularly nasty form of snobbery. We all operate off a thin safety margin, even in the best of economic times.  Right now, things are unusually difficult for those on the financial edge.  The giver of today could very easily be the receiver of tomorrow.

I often see the human tendency to give from the leftovers, not from the best.  The Bible and other sacred scriptures speak clearly to this:  We are to give to God from the first fruits harvested, not the last ones dutifully gleaned after the good stuff is already picked. We are to give from the best of the harvest and the flock, not what is dented or lame or rotting or unusable.  We are to give from the top of the paycheck, not as an afterthought or because there just happens to be a little bit left after all other wants and needs have been satisfied.

Our world teaches "me first."  "God first" thinking means we turn our minds upside down and our souls inside out.  We acknowledge that we have a responsibility to handle with holiness the money, possessions and talents that come our way. We become stewards, not owners, knowing that God will someday call us to account for our choices. 

I want to hear, "Well done, Christy" at that time when God examines my life and choices. I'll hear those wonderful words when I, too, give from the precious and priceless top, not the worthless leftovers. I'll get that pat on the back when I quit thinking, "This is MINE!" and start thinking, "I've been entrusted with much.  Therefore, much is required of me."  What a privilege!

And the Hurt Goes On

Yesterday, I emailed on a friend of mine whose mother had a stroke similar to my mother's and who is also in hospice care, being wonderfully watched over.  She wrote back with "and how are YOU doing?"

Not well.  As I write that, I'm not sure what "well" is.  Maybe I'm just fine, but my "fineness" means living deep in sadness, again unable to sleep, no appetite, but when I do eat, I choose foods that are not the most healthy for me.

Going back to work has helped some, although I feel ineffective.  I also have to face the huge backlog of undone work, including the reality that Charge Conference reports are due soon and I've not even started (only United Methodist clergy can understand the horror of that situation!).  

Mostly, I think, "she's gone."  

My dining room table and my spare bedroom are littered with copies of her letters which I am trying to get into chronological order.  In December, my brother will return with a very nice scanner and we will scan all this into electronic form, but they've got to be in order first or I'll never be able to sort them out.  More than that, I simply want to talk with her about what I am reading.  I want to go deeper and understand more.  Another friend reminded me of what a treasure I have with these letters--so many people do not leave behind such a record of their lives, thoughts and ideas.  It is a great gift, and one that both brings me joy and adds to my sadness.

I've also found letters from my aunt, a trained nurse, who served at some mission stations in Africa and India from 1949-1954.  Although typed, they are hard to decipher--these are probably the third carbon done on an unreliable manual typewriter.  Every inch of the lightweight onionskin paper is covered with typeface.  Several times she wrote, "I still have an inch left on the paper so I can write some more." Obviously, she did not waste paper the way I do--for her a piece of paper was a treasure to be well-used.  Just as clearly, the work to which God had called her was extraordinarily difficult and ultimately took her physical health from her.  I wish I knew more but there is no one left to ask and other letters are long gone.

I'm troubled that I'm so off-balance by this, knowing that there are huge tragedies taking place all over the world.  The death of an elderly parent who had lived her life well, and whose final illness was mercifully brief, is not a tragedy.  It is life, and a good part of life.  But I've talked with several others who have lost their elderly parents like this and discover that our responses are similar.  We wander in a mist, doing our work, living our lives, and wondering when this fog is going to lift.

Now I must leave.  My wonderfully efficient sister, the executor of Mother's will, has given me some things I need to do in order to help finish the settling of the estate.  Tomorrow, I head back to what we are now calling "The Manor," the house my mother designed and lived in so happily, to clean out yet more closets before the next recycling/trash pickup.  

And the hurt goes on . . . 

Pieces of Her Life

I began going through my mother's correspondence yesterday: three crates full of copies of letters she had written and some that had been written to her.

It is dawning on me that my mother may have been what is called "hypergraphic."  It looks like she may have daily documented every detail of her life.  She handwrote pages and pages and pages each day and then transcribed much of this onto her trusty typewriter, and later to her computer.  I remember well her delight at the electric typewriter after years of typing and making carbons on her old manuel one.  Although she never learned the mystery of saving documents on the various computers we bought for her, she also loved the freedom of just printing out two copies of everything she wrote--one to send and one to file (or pile, actually).

Hundreds of the spiral notebooks that she always kept handy and in which she did most of her notetaking have already landed in the recycle bin.  I'm not a careful historian.  She was not some public figure whose and every word, jot and tittle will be memorialized in some public presidential library.  She was ordinary--in her unique and extraordinary way of being ordinary.  

I "googled" her yesterday: "Eileen H. Thomas."  The only places she turns up are in the obituaries that ran last week. Before Google, people used to employ clipping services.  Clipping service employees had the job of reading multiple newspapers and publications each day and cutting out all articles that mentioned a particular person.  The more clippings, the more public recognition. I found a folder of yellowed, but still preserved newspaper articles about her--one of her first jobs as a nurses aide, her honors as a beauty queen, her engagement, her wedding. Now, we just use the Google ranking system.  And she didn't make it.

I know now that I can't keep all these letters.  The organization alone of them will take days.  Ideally, then they would be scanned and electronically preserved.  And then the book written.  

It will not happen.  I am very much my mother's daughter.  This will quickly morph into one of the many projects she herself began and never finished. Then someone else will have to pick up my leavings, just as I am picking up hers. 

Ninety percent of what she wrote is already gone. Now, I'm going to have to get rid of at least 90% of what I held back.  And then maybe 90% of those leavings will still have to go.  

As I awoke this morning--which means I did at least sleep some last night--I meditated on the responsibility of being a steward of the life that God has granted me.  I am not my own--I have been bought with a price.  It then becomes my privilege to hand back this life to God as one well lived and increased in value, not decreased.

I found some release from my sadness in the thought of being a faithful steward of the time left to me in this physical body. Part of faithfulness is knowing what to keep and what to let go.  It means holding what I have with open hands, surrounding my decisions with prayer, and knowing that my life, too, will end someday.  I want to hear, "Well done, Christy!" when I come face to face with God.

Is my mother hearing those words?  It is a question to ponder.  As much as she wrote about her Bible and Sunday School lessons, I have not seen where she was able to articulate well her own theology and understanding of God.  I'm not sure that she ever really grasped grace, that gift of forgiveness and reconciliation, incarnated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that is freely poured out upon us, should we choose to receive it.  Nonetheless, with all her eccentricities and idiosyncrasies (and I use those same terms to describe myself), with the fears that often bound her and the stubbornness that used to infuriate those around her, with her geniuses and her generosities, she lived loving God and her neighbor with as much of her self as she was able to access.  

I know that as I pick my way through her papers, and read yet another letter lovingly detailing pieces of my life that I had long forgotten, I say, "Well done, Mother!  You lived as a faithful steward of the gifts God gave you.  Thanks." 

Is Ignorance Bliss?

Is it better just not to know?  To live in ignorance of basic facts?  To naively let others make decisions for you? 

As I continue to let the surprisingly paralyzing grief of my mother's death work its way through my soul, I sit and wait and read and think and pray. I also ponder the latest religious scandal to hit the news:  An Atlanta pastor who has given himself the title of Bishop, Eddie Long, has been accused of participating in the very acts he has frequently preached against, i.e., male-on-male sexual activity.  Four young men whom he had mentored have filed lawsuits against him now, claiming he engaged in such activities with them.  

This man has built a huge church.  He lives in significant luxury, driving a $350,000 car. He's invited into the highest places of political power. According to a National Public Radio article, Long preaches that Jesus was not poor, and that riches show God's blessing. He was quoted as saying this: 

"We're not just a church; we're an international corporation," he said. "We're not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can't talk and all we're doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around the world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation."

Yeah. Wow. The seduction of riches and power wins again. What an eloquent putdown of pastoral work!  In the act of baptizing a baby, we bumbling bunches of preachers, lacking Long's silver-plated tongue, stand before our often poverty-hit parishioners and remind them that God's covenant extends even to the most humble, helpless babies.  We speak of our commitment to each other to help raise those children in such a way that they grow up knowing they are surrounded by the love of God.  We make these promises so that when these children do grow up, they have the kingdom of God so integrated into their hearts and minds and habits and personalities that they will at some point be able to confirm for themselves the faith that had been handed down to them by their parents and their faith community.  

That's the work of the church.  The church is not called to be an "international corporation."  The church has one mission:  to make disciples of Jesus Christ.  A disciple is one who models his or her life on the the life of the Sent One, the one coming from God to show us the way.  And I dare you to show me anywhere in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus that such a way is one of self-absorbed riches, comfort, political power, and disdain for the least, the littlest, the lost and the last.  

This is where I come back to the question of ignorance.  Without knowing the basics about the life and teachings of Jesus, people are easily seduced by the false promise of riches that power-hungry leaders offer.  So they pour money into the bloated pockets of predatory preachers in the vain hope that they themselves might get a share of the money train.  

Jesus was not rich.  He died in poverty.  He reminded people that foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but he himself didn't have a place to lay his head.  Knowing the trap of riches, he told a rich young man that he needed to sell everything he had in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.  And the life, death and resurrection of this obscure, poor itinerant preacher changed the world.  

You really want to follow Jesus?  Start reading the Bible for yourself.  Quit expecting some magical charismatic person to wave the magic wand and stuff your pockets with money so you can stuff your backside into a luxury car.  There are real, everlasting riches to be had:  riches of redeemed souls, being set free to live, forgiven by God, and forgiving of others.  That is wealth.

Stunned, Numb, Sleepless, Tearless

I am simply shocked at my current state.  After the memorial service for my mother on Friday, a friend from high school came up to greet me. I was touched at his willingness to spend time attending this service, and to be there, as he put it, simply to support me.  He asked, "How ARE you doing?"  And I quickly said truth:  "Not well at all."

I am not doing well, whatever well is.  I spent some time with my oldest son and his wife over the weekend.  They also saw it.  I can't think well.  I'm barely coherent--if that.  

I'm not back at work.  Even simple decisions throw me.  Right now, I need some breakfast, and can't seem to make it to the kitchen to fix something.  

There are tasks everywhere that, should I do them, would leave me feeling better afterward.  It's just the getting up and doing them that seems so impossible right now.

Even in this fuddled, muddled state, I'm aware that all these are signs of depression. What I don't want to do is rush out and "fix" this depression with medication.  I think it is important that I explore this.  I need to find out what has happened here, why I am so thrown by this, and in the exploration, find a deeper healing, both for me and also a healing that might help others who are walking with me and reading about it.

Death just is.  We all experience it.  There is not one soul in this entire world that will not at some point be touched by loss and death.  It is our commonality.

However, I think for me there are two big things going on here that have made this particular death more devastating.  

The first was the fact that I spent so much time with my mother in the five weeks between the huge series of strokes that originally felled her on August 13, and her death on September 18.  I was never able to get off the roller coaster where I was being yanked back and forth from hope to despair.  All this was compounded by lack of sleep, and by the recognition that I did have medical power of attorney and did have to make decisions about this that were indeed life and death decisions and those decisions were made with a major lack of a more comprehensive understanding of how much damage the strokes did cause.

In the two weeks that we had her home under hospice care, I spent part of every day but two with her, and did not leave at all for the last five days.  I watched her die, inch by inch.  I saw the essence of her just disappear.  I have sat by the bedside of many, many dying people over the years, and especially in this last year.  I've grieved with their families.  Those experiences served me well, and gave me some strength to do what was important for my mother.  But they also mean that I walked into my own situation with a short supply of energy and emotional resources. I walked out completely empty.  That is indeed the first big thing.

But the second big thing I think is much more important.  I suddenly feel anchorless. I don't mean in the eternal, cosmic sense.  I am more aware than ever of the abiding presence of God.  I don't need to cling to that.  It clings to me.  I am in no sense abandoned.  But I have lost my anchor to place.  My mother and dad are both dead now.  My children have all moved far, far away.  Bonds to place, to geography, to a house built by my parents where family activities for that last 25 years all happened have snapped like aged and overstretched rubber bands.  

I personally don't own a house.  Since Keith and I married 12 years ago, we've lived in five different places, parsonages owned by churches, or in a townhouse we rented when a parsonage was not available.  I really, really enjoy living in Krum.  But I'm part of an itinerant clergy covenant.  I'm a sojourner here, serving at the wish and under the appointment of a Bishop.  The tenuous nature of my ties here hit me hard right now.

I told a friend yesterday that I feel like I'm floating in a hot air balloon with no idea where I'm going or how I'm going to land it again.  I have this sense that I want to toss out everything I own, divest myself of stuff and possessions, and ride the wind for a while.

But even when riding the wind, I need to eat.  I shall do that.  Now. I hope.

Morning of the Memorial Service

We'll be leaving for the memorial service for my mother shortly. It's a warm, gray, rainy, humid day, guaranteed to make my hair frizz and get out of control.  Sigh--teen angst never really fully leaves, does it?

I did sleep some last night, but continually have dreams of my mother.  Not bad ones--she's clearly at peace.  Just dreams.  Dreams of her as a young woman, dreams of her dreams.

I continue to be shocked at how numb I am and for my sadness.  As hard as the last six weeks have been, she only actually had five weeks of incapacity in her entire life and those were her last five weeks of life.  And I only had five weeks of non-stop hospital/rehab/hospice days to deal with.  

People keep suggesting I take more time off.  I keep thinking I need to get back to work.  I'm beginning to think they know more than I do about this.  

And it would be good to just clean my house, go ahead and dismantle the totally neglected garden for fall, to put in some fall flowers, to take care of a few more things at Mother's house, and to sleep.  Just sleep.  

But I'll not make a decision about this until Sunday.  I just need to honor this day, and be grateful for many, many good memories.

The Cards, Notes, Calls and Emails

I woke this morning thinking perhaps I could get at least a few hours of catch-up work done, but still have not managed to get going other than washing my hair.  At least it was something.  

But, to give myself some credit, I have opened the mail, read email, and enjoyed the sweet cards and messages made for me by the children and youth of the church.

Everything I opened and read brought a smile to my face.  What kindness and love!  

Several weeks ago, shortly after the massive stroke that eventually took my mother's life, I preached about the importance of community while recognizing that some things we must do alone.  Each of us has to die on our own--no one can do our dying for us.  But we can be accompanied by others on the way.  

And each of us has to grieve on our own.  No one can do our grieving for us.  But we can welcome the companionship of others on the way.

I'm especially aware of that essential aloneness as I prepare myself for the memorial service on Friday and also prepare myself to go back to my work life, which I have missed so much.  I feel sure that my tears, which have been further away in the last few days, will start to roll again.  Not because the sadness is worse, but because I will be touched even deeper by the power of other human beings to empathize and care for others, even as we have to walk our own journey.

Many have asked me, "What can I do?"  I know I've asked the same question of others who are going through dark and scary times.  "What can I do?"  Unfortunately, there is actually quite little.  Some household tasks have been neglected, but we will catch up on these at some point, and they are really no big deal.  We've plenty of food, so all that is covered.  No one can write my thank-you notes for me, or sort out my tangled finances for me, or go through my mother's things for me.  No one can think my thoughts for me, or take the place of my mother for me.

What can we do for others at these times?  I've realized that sometimes I just need to talk.  So, we can all listen.  Sometimes I just need to be alone.  So we can all celebrate solitude.  Sometimes I need to know that someone really does love me. And that is where the cards, the notes, the messages, the emails all add up into a solid scaffolding of love and compassion.  The hands and feet of Jesus, so to speak.

I continue to be aware of how very, very fortunate I am.  The loss of a parent, especially an elderly one, is a normal and expected part of life.  She didn't suffer long; I was able to be with her most of the time at the end.  That's about as good as it gets.

There are those whose losses are so great that my grief looks like a speck of dust compared to their mountains of anguish.  I particularly think of those who have lost a child to illness or accident.  All of us should expect to bury our parents.  None of us ever wants to bury our own children.  When faced with that kind of open wound of grief, everyone with any compassion within them says, "What can I do?  How I wish I could help!"  You can.  Prayers really do help.  A lot.  And so do the cards, notes, calls and emails.  They can't take away the sadness, but they do help us to realize that in our aloneness, we are most definitely not alone.

Thank you.

Fatigue and Darkness

I feel the fatigue today. Darkness of soul settles around me.  The slightest movement seems more than I can manage.  Simple decisions morph into complex challenges.  I'm irritable, restless, and starting to get concerned about the amount of work I've just left behind for the time being.

In other words, I'm normal.  This is what happens in the wake of loss.  I have this longing for my usual routine, for some time in my garden (pretty well gone from the necessary neglect of the last few weeks), to sit at my desk, to be studying the Scriptures, preparing to create a message, to be with my church members, to hear the children's voices at our Children's Day Out program, to participate in the organized chaos of the Midweek Miracle, our Wednesday night ministry for children. But even if I could do those things, I wouldn't have the energy to focus on them or enjoy them.

I'm also busy pondering the whole issue of stuff.  Stuff.  The things that fill our living spaces, cars, pocketbooks and briefcases, computers and phones, lockers and rented containers, mind and souls.  Stuff.  I've got it; you've got it; we've all got it.  And my mother had it.

When Daddy died, we had given his closetful of clothes to the woman who, along with her team, has faithfully and carefully cleaned my parent's house for a number of years. She said she knew some people who could use them and we were pleased at the thought that those clothes would see new life elsewhere. I had thought to give her some of Mother's stuff, but then my sister heard that the housekeeper was a hoarder herself.  That she just piled stuff given to her by her clients into her overstuffed house.  As in the kind of place they make TV shows about these days.  Hoarders.  People so trapped by their stuff that they destroy themselves and those around them in the compulsive need to get more stuff and relinquish nothing.

So, Mother's clothes went to Special Touch in Krum where I know they'll be well-distributed.  But, of course, clothes are just the tip of the iceberg, as they are for most of us.  There are so many other things we use for daily living, and so many other thing we just have.  Stuff.  

My Mother had too many books.  I have too many books.  My mother had too many files.  I have too many files (but mine are just more compact because they are on my computer:  but it doesn't mean I don't have them).  My mother had too many clothes.  I've got too many clothes. How much does it take for someone to be appropriately clothed, anyway?  Not that much.  Really.

So, while it is easy in my fatigued, irritable, overwhelmed state to think, "Mother, how could you leave me with all this to clean up," it might be better for me to think, "Why do I have so much stuff?  What good does it do?  What harm does it do?  What is really important?"

My biggest fear right now:  that the emotional numbness that follows a death is going to wear off before I can get through this week and I'm just going to collapse. That I'm not going to be able to sort through enough of the stuff to gain some sense of control over my life.  That I'm just going to have to start sitting and letting the sadness flow.  

I already miss her.

On the Other Side of the Desk

Yesterday, it fell to me to meet with the pastor of Mother's church and plan the memorial service which will be this Friday at 1:00 p.m. at East Dallas Christian Church in Dallas.  Although Keith and I have already buried three of our parents, for the other three times, we ourselves conducted the memorial services.  But for this one, the two of us will be family, not clergy.

It felt odd.  Normally, I'm the one asking, taking notes, learning more about this person, considering possible Scriptures, looking for the wholeness of the service.  Yesterday, this was all beautifully handled by Deborah Morgan.  We certainly worked together, agreed quickly on the Scriptures to be read, and pondered music options together.  I looked through an unfamiliar hymnbook, and also my mother's Sunday School class songbook, where I knew her favorite songs were.

We both agreed on the difficulty of actually singing "How Great Thou Art," although it is a beautiful piece of music.  I commented on the fact that the Disciples of Christ had not yet picked up the lovely, "Hymn of Promise," which has quickly taken a well-deserved place at funerals and memorial services.

Then we started talking about my mother, her life and heritage, her accomplishments, her generosity, her individuality, and some of the really funny stories about her.  There was the traffic ticket she received last January on the way to church (60 in a 40, and by the time Mother actually pulled over, there were four police cars trailing her!).  Then there were the infamous "Grandma's Shortcuts."  She felt strongly that no one should ever, ever drive on a freeway and was always offering to us creative ways to get places along side streets that would invariably take three times longer than the more normal way.

It was a good hour.  More, I left grateful that for this one service, I could just be.  I need that.

I returned to Mother's house and spent a couple more hours cleaning out some things as we will be having an open house for anyone who wants to join us there later Friday afternoon.  This will be a time for relaxed conversation, libations and toasts, memories and laughter, following the service and reception at the church.

I was deeply relieved when I got there to see that the hospital bed and all the other equipment we had needed at the end of her life had been removed.  That empty bed had been a difficult reminder of those challenging last few days, and it was good to have all that gone.  

My brother left in the late afternoon to take care of some computer problems at my sister's house.  My sister and I sat on the patio for a while later talking about the details of Friday and what all we need to do to get ready for it.  And then she left.  I sat there for quite a while longer.  In the twenty five years since my parents built that house, and in all the many hours, days and weeks I've spent there, this was the first time I'd ever been alone in that place.  

Although I was not lonely, I was suddenly very aware of my aloneness.  Her presence was such a constant in my life--I always knew I'd find her when I wanted her.  And she was gone.  I wandered through the house as I was getting ready to leave, turning out lights, swimming on a tide of memories.  I locked the front door when I left.  That was the first time I had ever done that upon leaving their house.  

I am grateful for the numbness that pretty well encapsulates my emotional life right now. To have felt it all yesterday would have been way, way too much.  There was just enough to acknowledge my sadness, but not so much that I could not function, or make the long drive home.  It was a great gift from God and from the prayers of the many who have offered them for me.

Today, I take her clothes to the local clothes closet and trust this act will be a continuation of my mother's never-ending generous life.  What a great legacy!

What Would I Have Done Differently, Part One

Mother has been gone about 20 hours now.  I would have liked to have slept about 19 of those twenty, but that has not been my privilege yet.  My body and brain are wired--a combination of grief, relief, questions and an exhaustion that won't yet permit sleep.

So, since I can't sleep, I may as well write.  

The question racing through my brain right now:  What would I have done differently if I had known then what I know now?

A lot.

The number one non-negotiable thing is this:  I would have absolutely insisted on much, much more information than I ever received about the extent of the damage of my mother's initial stroke on August 13, 2010 (actually series of strokes, but we didn't learn even this much until well into the process.) Neurologists can tell a great deal about what has been damaged by the areas of the brain affected by the stroke.  And I received only sketchy information about this, and nothing in written form.

As I look back on that initial hospitalization at Medical City Dallas, I see myself wandering in a fog of too little information; of one physician not talking to another physician; of no real coordination of care.  At one point, I requested a patient advocate. No one ever showed up.  Shame on me for not pursuing this more aggressively. Shame on them for expecting people who are thrown into a highly confusing experience with minimal information coming our way to expect to know what questions to ask and where to get those answers.  

It is difficult to make good decisions without an adequate knowledge base.  Only knowing that "some people can recover well from such a large stroke" was just not nearly enough. Yes, some people can and do, thanks be to God.  But are they 88 year old sedentary women with a years-long history of untreated high blood pressure and a heart that goes in and out of a-fib all the time?  Not to mention a woman who had written express medical directives in such a case--directives that were being routinely ignored?  

So, what else would I have done differently?  I would have made sure I had essentially memorized my mother's directives and would have asked to sit down with someone to talk them through rather than hurriedly signing a consent to treat in the Emergency Room.

Would this have delayed life-saving treatment?  Not in her case.  There is only a very short window of time in which clot busting drugs can be administered after a stroke and she had long since passed that window.  She actually received no treatment at all for the first 48 hours except for someone checking her vital signs every hour and a sugar water drip.  There would have been plenty of time to have considered all options.

I am not beating myself up over this.  All this is a learning experience.  It is more my hope that someone else will learn from this and that we all find ways to more effectively handle our health, life and death issues.

So, I'll just keep writing, keep thinking about all this, and see where this goes.

Thank you for all the prayers and words of support.  Despite the exhaustion, I am very aware that this has been a holy experience, and I was immensely privileged to walk with my mother as she opened her eyes at the very end and welcomed the coming of the angels.

The Uncovering

Just over four years ago, in June, 2006, I moved to Krum to be pastor of Krum UMC.  That fall, September, 2006, my husband, Keith, buried his mother.  Just five weeks later, his father died.  One year after that, my dad died.  Last night, at 9:50 p.m., my mother joined that great cloud of witnesses.

Keith and I were fortunate. We had our parents around until we ourselves were pretty well advanced in years.  Yet, both of us felt this sense of uncovering as we said our final good-byes.  We are now the oldest ones.  There is no one left to parent us, to offer that particular kind of loving, knowing wisdom.

We should now be the purveyers of wisdom. We should be the ones who have something of significance to offer those behind us. But I am asking the questions that I would guess our parents also asked:  is anyone willing to listen?

Seriously, is any generation willing to listen to the one before them?  Don't we all think we can do it better than they did?

Technological changes clearly have altered our communication and vocational landscapes, but have they have altered the wisdom necessary to live one's life well?  Have we, as human beings, fundamentally changed?  Do we not still need redeeming? Do we not still need an awareness of the need for grace in our lives as we recognize that most of us must be forgiven much?  Do we not need the power of the presence of God to transform us, so we might be transformational agents to those around us and to the world that so greatly needs it?

At 1:15 a.m. this morning, two lovely and kind women from the Dallas Country Medical Examiners office came to my mother's house to pick up her body.  My mother, generous to the end, knew that the unusual way she had dealt with her health would make her a very, very good subject for some lucky medical student.  The two women who came for her were awed at two things in particular:  first, my mother's beauty.  When the challenge of still trying to breathe finally ended, and she fully relaxed in the arms of Jesus, the physical shell left behind was also transformed into exquisite loveliness.  Second: the choices my mother had made health-wise that are going to be such a gift to the medical world.  They don't get many like her. 

I learned so much from her, and much of that were things I didn't want to learn from her.  In our disagreements, I began to understand myself better.  In her death, I've discovered more than ever who I am, and what I have to offer to the world.

So, I am now the oldest generation.  As such, I carry a holy responsibility to live with grace, wisdom and power that does everything possible to give these gifts to those coming after me, whether they want to receive them or not.  

As for me right at this moment:  I am tired, but at peace.  I did what I needed to do these last long few weeks since her catastrophic stroke on August 13, 2010.  So did the rest of her family, and this was a wonderful, final gift to her, a holy act.

I just heard from a member of my church--his dad has just died unexpectedly.  I had buried his mother last spring.  I will be going back to work sooner than expected, but that is OK.  Mother would have done the same.  Thanks be to God.

The Suction Machine and I, Day Fifteen of Hospice

Very rough four hours.  As would be right for my mother, since she didn't live normally, she also can't die normally.  Late this afternoon, she began to regurgitate something.  I think.  It all started just about the time we had a three hour period when, for complex scheduling reasons, we would not have a hospice caregiver with us.

By the grace of God, just as that period was beginning, and just as things were clearly getting very complex for Mother, one of my favorite Hospice nurses, Wanda, showed up to check on the situation.  She took stock of what was happening, made multiple phone calls, including an urgent request for a suction machine, and said, "I'm staying until your night nurse gets here."

Wanda and I are about the same age, and I had liked her immediately when I met her the day after Mother came home under Hospice care.  Mature, kind, knowledgable and wise:  about as good as it gets.  

Between the two of us, some medication was given, and we worked diligently to keep these increasing, and increasingly nasty, secretions from choking mother.  Then Wanda got a call that she was needed elsewhere, so she arranged for a social worker to at least stay with us in the interim until our night nurse showed up.  That left me as the chief secretion reliever person.  I, with my weak stomach, was charged with removing as much as i could of this constant flow of something of out of mother's mouth with only a little sponge stick for a tool. 

As Wanda left the house, I "girded my loins" so to speak, and told myself that I could do this. Just a moment later, Wanda raced back in with the suction machine she had ordered.  The truck had driven up just as she was driving off, so she turned back.  She quickly set up the machine, gave me a crash course on using it, and then took off again.

So, with the social worker on the other side of the bed for moral support, I became the suctioning queen, knowing this was far more effective than what I had been doing earlier to relieve my mother's discomfort.  The two of us talked about the whole death process and how she came into this work as I periodically pulled that nasty stuff from my mother's mouth and throat.

About an hour later, Suerae, night nurse and essentially the new member of the family, came in and I happily turned over to her my responsibilities and headed to the patio. I needed a few minutes to recoup with a glass of wine with the dark, nighttime quiet around me.

I'm a mother.  I spent my hours, weak stomach and all, dealing with the yucky part of rearing children.  I did it out of love for them.  I did what I did this evening out of love for my mother.  Someone will have to do this for me some day.  This is the part of living and dying we don't often talk about.  Parts of this are just messy.

I often say that as a pastor, I also see the messy parts of people's lives.  I get invited into those festering wounds of heart and soul that threaten to take over if they are not carefully cleaned and healed.  

I also know God is no stranger to the messy, smelly, uncomfortable parts of my life.  Everyone has them.  It's part of our human experience.  I trust God does not shrink from the need to wade into those parts and offer suction when needed, as God accompanies me on my own journey through life.

Wanda said that Mother is very, very near the end.  I'm not sure why she has not yet given up, but she hasn't. Perhaps because there was yet one more thing she needed to teach me.  I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn it.

The Clothes Horse, Day Fifteen of Hospice

My brother, sister and I have all agreed that sitting around looking at each other just waiting for Mother to pass is not the best of ideas during these days.  Keeping busy as much as possible helps all of us.  

So, my sister and I hit my mother's clothes closets today.  If you have been reading this blog from the beginning, you may have learned that my mom was a bit of a packrat.  In truth, it has been my very much unappreciated job since I was about 12 years old to come through periodically and ream through her stuff, tossing tons of it.  This was an uneasy experience for both of us.

Just over three years ago, I cleaned out my dad's stuff before his death but after the time he went into a nursing facility for what I knew would be the last time.  He, like my mother, was buried in papers.  Neither of them ever seemed to be able to prioritize what papers should be kept and what should be tossed or recycled.  

Two years ago, I did a major clean out before my middle son's family spent a week here, since their toddler would be here and was at the age when she would and did get into anything.  At that point, I tackled mostly the kitchen since that would be the area of most danger for her.  

Had I not done those two fairly recent clean-outs, what we are facing now would be far, far worse.  

Walking into the house, one would never think Mother had pack-rat tendencies.  This large and spacious house also was designed with massive storage space.  The problem with massive storage space is that massive amounts of things get stored, hidden, lost, and buried.

I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that we were all better off when our closets were small and few.

My sister had told me that she couldn't find any of mother's comfortable pull-on slacks when we moved her to the short stay in rehab.  We were both puzzled about this as we know there were a good supply of them.

Well, we found them.  Dozens of pairs of them.  And lots more things besides.  Piece by piece, we removed everything from her closet.  Most of it will go to Special Touch in Krum, the local organization there that provides food and clothing to those who have need of it in area where I live.  But a few things are most definitely keepers, either for me or for my sister.

Like most women, my mother regularly changed sizes, so we found a large range of differently sized clothes.  In the last few years, she had taken to wearing just a few favorite things (I understand this:  I do the same.  Ever so much easier!).  But as far as I can see, she had not cleaned anything out of her closet in the entire 25 years that they lived here.  Twenty-five years is a long time to go without cleaning out a closet.

She had some simply gorgeous clothes.  I was so used to seeing her in the everyday stuff, and it had been years since she had really done much socially, that I had forgotten how exquisitely glamorous she could look.  I bet she forgot about them too.  We had such fun today going through all this, and remembering those days of high heels and glittery costumes.  

Good memories for this special woman.

Mother is now deep, deep, deep into that final coma.  Very peaceful.  No need for any medications at all.  Just sleep.  Her temperature is beginning to rise, and I hear the signs of the end stage breathing now.  I've not been home since Tuesday and will not leave here until all is over.  But it is OK.  It's exactly where I need to be.

Golfers, Day Fourteen of Hospice

Mother still breathes, and still moves steadily toward the end of her life, but at her own pace.  That makes sense, as she most definitely lived her life at her own pace, which, for the most part, was at high speed.

My parent's house sits on a golf course in Richardson.  They had built it 25 years ago when it was time for them to move out of their aging house in Lakewood and get into something more convenient and also closer to my sister and me and their grandchildren.

Mother really did design this house, and it is built so the outside pours in everywhere. All of the hospice care-givers have mentioned how much they've enjoyed it, as we have situated her bed in front of a window with an expansive and enjoyable view.  And, periodically, all of us head to the back porch to sit and relax a bit and watch the golfers.  

That's what especially hit me this morning.  No one knows what kinds of stories are being played out behind the closed doors of any house.  In this house, of course, we are lovingly waiting for our mother to move from glory to glory.  In others, marriages heal and break and heal again, children are reared and loved and yelled at, people get up and go to work, or get up and despairingly long for work.  

And some people get out on the golf course for some fresh air, building of skills, friendship . . . and of course frustration (we've seen some pretty awful golfers!).  

The point is:  life goes on, even in the midst of death. It must, and it is such a good thing.  My life may have temporarily come to a standstill, but God is alive and active and in the work of redeeming all things. Births are still taking place and people are falling in love and playing games and slamming their golf clubs down (honestly: I looked out the window just as I wrote this and saw someone do that!), and joy still fills the soul.  For this, I am grateful.

Storm Coming, Day Thirteen of Hospice

Mother's breathing has changed dramatically from this morning.  The Hospice nurse came by around noon and confirmed what I had already surmised: the end is coming quickly for her.  There is no longer even a hint of consciousness, nor of pain or discomfort.  Just air going in and out of her lungs until her heart finally gives out from the effort.

I've pushed feelings far from me.  I am almost numb.  No emotions that I can describe.  Just a patient waiting.

My brother and sister went out to look at a computer possibility for my sister's husband.  I thought it was a good idea. No sense in sitting around here just staring at one another.

A few minutes ago, thunder starting rumbling, and now rain is falling.

I remember the day, now over two weeks ago now, that we finally decided to stop the medical intervention and move mother to hospice care.  It had been an emotionally exhausting day, full of self-doubt and second-guessing, yet still knowing we were doing the right thing.

I left the hospital and drove to the skilled nursing center where she had been for eight days, and retrieved her clothes and other personal items we had brought there.

After letting myself into my mother's house, and bringing everything in, I prepared to head back home.  As I left, a storm coming that day suddenly cleared and I saw the most glorious double rainbow I had ever seen.  I stopped the car and just looked at it.  It was such a gift to me to see that sign of God's promises in the sky.  

I wonder now if this storm will blow in the angels that will take her home.