Processing grief...

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I’ve been trying to write this week.  ‘Trying’ would be the operative word.

Somehow putting finger to keyboard seems, well, it seems a little trite in the aftermath of life changing events in my family.

The giving…

Yeah, I know the words…God knows I have spoken them hundreds of times in attempts at consolation.  They go a little like this:

“I am so sorry to hear of the death of _______. I know how meaningful they were in your life.  Whatever suffering they were in, they now have been released.  Realizing this is the process of life doesn’t fill the hole in one’s heart…the void that seems so empty at the moment.  You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers…”

These words or iterations of them have always been heart felt when they were spoken or written…when they were on the giving end…when they were the only tools available to express the sense of community and appreciation for the common journey upon which every living creature embarks and departs.

Indeed, I have no doubt this life transitions to another place of continued intelligent growth…that she is cradled in the Hand of God.  From a child I had this teaching, the alphabet of faith.  It has matured to a life experience of ‘knowing’ its truth…yet, the departure tears the fabric nonetheless.

The taking…

When one is on the receiving end of these words and expressions of love and care, however, it is harder to find a place to put them.  It’s not that they are not appreciated…for in fact they surely are.  There is so much going on in the abruptness and ending of a life that it all mashes together, and like a hard falling rain on a summer’s evening, doesn’t always get absorbed. 

One would expect the earth of one’s soul to be tender at a time like this…to be able to take the words and feelings from friends and loved ones, like the soft and gentle rain on fertile soil…fully absorbed…sinking to a place of gentle comfort.  Instead there is a numbness that holds court, hanging on to the scepter with an unrelenting grip.  In some respects the sense of aloneness in the maddening crowd is almost overwhelming.

Then something happens that is equally unexpected…or at least in my case something happened that broke the bonds of self-absorption of my loss.

A village no doubt…

As my sister began to enter the house of horrors in her life, she became more and more isolated.  At first, after her retirement, she would go out to lunch or for coffee if someone asked, but those times were few and as time passed stopped happening. 

More and more she withdrew into her home – a metaphor for the withdrawal into confines of her mind.  Her retreat became so contained, over the days and weeks and months that she spent most of her time in her bedroom where she slept or watched television, and the kitchen where she ate.

Before she moved into assisted living a little less than a year ago, there were three day-to-day constants in her life. 

Riley…what more could be said?

The greatest of these was Riley her dog.  The expression a “…dog is man’s best friend…” pales to the reality of Riley’s companionship.  There is little doubt, this loving and ALWAYS enthusiastic animal provided a lifeline of consistency to which my sister clung…always there…always attentive...always loving.

The health-care provider…

A second constant was Sue.  Sue – the healthcare provider hired to make sure Nancy got her meals, took her medicine, attended to her personal hygiene.  You know the kind of people you pay to take family responsibility when the family is far flung as we were.  No amount of persuasion could get Nancy to come to California (with us) or Virginia (with our other sister).  Jefferson City is where she was going to stay…Sue became our daytime surrogate.

This was a business deal…you know…pay the company…they pay Sue…just business.  The problem, of course, is that humanity is not business.  Business is how we live, it is NOT who we are…and so it was with Sue.  This woman became a part of our family.  Like the postman – as borrowed from the Greek historian Herodotus (“Neither snow, or rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”) – Sue was ALWAYS there…an unsung heroine.

Sue came to deeply love her charge.  As had been Nancy’s gift, even in her most desperate moments, she had captured yet another soul as she had almost everyone she had met. 

The neighbors…

It is hard to know what happens when a person’s mind begins to unravel and slip away.  It’s hard to know what they are thinking in a world of diminishing returns.  It’s hard to know what drives their behavior.

Somehow through the blinding snowstorm in the winter’s evening of Nancy’s mind, Karen and Ed were the third anchor in my sister’s life.  They were her neighbors across the street, and she would visit them, sometimes several times a day with some problem, or paranoia or fear…seeking comfort in some way.  Without exception they met her with love and care that defied my understanding.  When alarmed about something in particular, they would call.

In my frequent trips to Missouri, I found myself apologizing for my sister’s unbridled visits to their home.  I was embarrassed that these kind people were so put upon.  They always told me, for I frequently brought the subject up, Nancy was not a big problem…for the life of me I thought they were just being polite.

The note…

Then came the epiphany…a sense of clarity from without that reminded me that we, as human beings, are truly a family.  It would be self-serving to say I came to this on my own.  In my sorrow, I needed help to recognize how truly meaningful and loving and helpful and caring people genuinely are and want to be. 

I had been apologizing to Karen and Ed for my sister’s behavior like some parent to the school principal…and then…and then this arrived from Karen this morning…for my sister Nancy…in reality for me…to open my eyes and my heart.

Thank you Nancy

Has it only been a week since we celebrated your life with a gathering of family, friends, and acquaintances?

I didn't say this then.  Sometimes it takes a little distance before we realize the journey.

Though you and I weren't lifelong friends you gave me life-long memories and learned lessons.

Your need filled my need to help.

You gave so much.  You encouraged others to help others always.

Nancy, your life expressed the reality that anything is possible when we help each other.

Through you I met examples of strength, love, and devotion…

I believe in the adage, “It is better to give than to receive.”  I have tried to follow that teaching, because it has brought both satisfaction and meaning to my life.  On the other hand, one cannot give if there is not one who receives.  Receiving, for me, has been a more challenging task.  My sister’s loving neighbor reminded me with these simple heartfelt words, how important and healing it is to be as able to receive.

To all those who have reached out to share my sorrow…touched my life and those of my family…all of your words have found a place in the fertile ground of my mind, seeping deeply into my heart…

- ted

The long flight home...

"We are family

I got all my sisters with me

We are family

Get up ev'rybody and sing..."

- Sister Sledge...lyrics by Edwards, Logan, 

Rogers and More

It was done…good-bye’s said…family dispersed to their respective parts of the country and I was sitting at 35,000 feet (10.6km) on the flight home reflecting on the week that had just gone by in a blur.  There was time to think…time to begin to process…

A Celebration…

“Hello…hello.” She said tapping the microphone. 

“…I’d like to thank everyone for coming today.  I’m overwhelmed by all the faces I see, past and present, people in our lives…it is just amazing seeing everyone coming together around such an incredible woman….It will probably be different than any celebration or memorial service you have been to, but if you knew my mom, you would know she was anything but mainstream…”

While the hair was a different color, there was the statuesque look and elegance that could not be mistaken.  There was little doubt Mariah was her mother’s daughter.  And so the afternoon began with some 250 people who had come to celebrate the life of my sister Nancy. 

It started a week earlier…

It began when Mariah made the call to come to Missouri.  No, that’s not right…it had begun long before this.  The Friday appeal simply signaled that the ‘beginning of the end’ had arrived.

The Saturday arrival had come with some anxiousness…the flight in, not knowing whether she had survived…was she waiting for me? I hoped she was waiting for me, but what did that mean?  Waiting for me for what?  Surely not for her.  For her, the die was cast, the impending result irrevocable – except…except, as she had always lived, maybe she would hang on…a final gift to me.

We were all there, holding her in our arms.  It was the strangest of mixed feelings…”Please, O God, end this now!” “Jesus, hasn’t this gentle soul suffered enough??”  While at the same time, “Please stay a little longer!!  It ‘s too soon for you to go!!” 

The mind and the heart at war in the instantaneousness of the moment…

It was the former prayer, of course, that was answered.  The cry for a little more time, reflected in the hunger to be able to say a few more consoling words. 

In all the honesty I can muster – words of consolation were for me, for my heart, for my soul…a few more moments that might bring some sort of order and understanding that had continued to elude me as the wind that comes from and goes to some invisible, unknown place.

And so for a few moments we looked into each other’s eyes.  I desperately wanted to find some sense of recognition before she was gone.  As I held her eyes, I heard a small groan…it matched in conversation the groan coming from my own heart and lungs.  The scriptures says when we need to pray, but cannot find the words, the spirit groans…we groaned and it was in the most primal and intimate of ways.

I felt the connection, the last connection I would have before the door closed to the room of her life like the last sentence of the novel you had read, hoping to find another 100 pages hidden somewhere – a few more paragraphs of life. 

I understood in the words of Cosette to her father Jean Valjean…

Valjean:
“Now you are here
Again beside me
Now I can die in peace
For now my life is best”

Cosette:
You will live,
Papa you're going to live!
It's too soon, too soon to say goodbye

Valjean:
Yes Cosette, forbid me now to die
I'll obey, I will try…” – Les Miserables

But, of course there would be no trying…

Within 5 minutes her eyes closed for the last time and the gentle gasp that releases the soul from this mortal body escaped those gentle and loving lips that had so often whispered to me in life. The scripture says, “…weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning…” It wasn’t morning yet!

And then she was gone…

It is surprising how much can be accomplished in a short period of time, and under circumstances of distress.  It happens in different iterations millions of times a day with a sense of loss to all those from whom a loved one is taken.  That, of course would be them – this was me…my family…my loved one…my sister no longer in the conversation of life.

The week was eaten up with funeral arrangements, finding an appropriate place for the memorial celebration, getting a sound system in place, pictures edited to be put  on posters…signs for the front of the building so those who came to celebrate would be able to find the right place.

So much to do and so much to absorb…so much to say and no time to say it….so many thoughts...so much to feel…yet no space to reflect…no sir, too much to get done!

In most funerals or memorials ministers or priests or rabbis ask the family for a few anecdotes of the person’s life in order to provide a sense of the humanness of the person who has deceased. 

We, that is the family, of course were going to be doing the celebration ourselves…no ministers, no rabbis, no priests…just us.  It wasn’t a matter of finding one or two stories about this amazing woman, it was about trying to sort out what not to say among thousands of stories that could have been told.

And so it was that each of us participating, would slip into the quietness of our own minds trying to capture just the right phrase…the right idea…the right texture that would provide a special shade to the brush stroke of our life experience with her.

The celebration began…

“Hello…hello.” She said tapping the microphone. 

“…I’d like to thank everyone for coming today.  I’m overwhelmed by all the faces I see, past and present, people in our lives…”

It was a joyous time.  We prayed, we sang, we spoke, and at the end of a wonderful celebration, we fellowshipped and danced to the music from the 1960s and 1970s that Nancy so loved.

It was different than most people had ever experienced at a memorial service for someone they had come to honor, but then again, the woman they came to honor was so uniquely different than anyone they had ever known.

The day was best summed up in the words of a six-year old girl who had just met Nancy in the last few weeks of her life.  On the way home from the celebration with her mother she said this,

"…that was a fun party, I got to play with my friends, dance with Mariah and take home some flowers, and I didn't see anybody crying…"

I smiled some and wept some during that flight home thinking about the event, the week, but mostly about the exceptional celebration of my sister’s uniquely powerful life.

I have little doubt Nancy would not have wanted it any other way.

- ted

A turning of the page...

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption,

and this mortal must put on immortality.  So when this

corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal

shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the

saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

1 Corinthians 15:53, 54 - Bible

Her head was tilted back and to the right…eyes closed….mouth agape.

Breath in…breath out…breath in…breath out...

The breaths were shallow and while coming fairly regularly, they were clearly not normal.  It was a hollow almost mechanical sound; a sound that if it were dark and one were alone, it might be unnerving…indeed it ‘was’ unnerving.

Her first breath, as for all of us, had been a deep gasp – from darkness to light…fighting for a new life…a birth…an open check book…a tabula rasa – everything in front of her…pages to be turned…experiences yet to find their way to the novel that would become her life…all in front her of her with nothing but blue sky!

It is not that way for these breaths – breath in….breath out….breath in….breath out.  No, these breaths were increasingly shallower by the smallest of increments and they signaled the other end of the journey…the ‘end’ of the journey...

Back to Missouri…

It was getting to be the end of the whale watching season and I had a friend visiting from the East.  I thought a mid-morning kayaking adventure might be fun.  The tour had been planned for several weeks, and after missing the whales the last time out, there was hope of success this time.  The day before a Grey Whale had breached a couple of miles from shore…would it happen again? 

The phone was in the car…the calls came, but there was no one to answer.  When we finished the ‘whale-less’ watching event, we headed back to the shop, changed from wet suits to our street clothes and headed for the car…the car and my phone. 

There were six text messages and three calls on the ‘you missed me’ list.  It was pretty clear something was terribly wrong.  Dark thunderclouds were gathering on the horizon of that sunny Southern California sky.

Nancy had aspirated some liquid.  This led to a compromise in her breathing a reduction in her blood oxygen levels…not a good sign.  Rushed to the hospital, she was stabilized, but it was clear the end was near.  She had ‘do not resuscitate’ wishes, as do all in our family…not wanting extraordinary medical interventions taking place when the quality of our lives no longer had meaning.

“When can you be here?”

The question was both matter of fact and urgent.  Mariah related the doctor’s opinion that her mother might not last the night.  It was all happening too fast…fast, but with clarity.  “I’ll be out first thing in the morning, in St. Louis by 5:30 and the hospital by 8PM,” I replied.  “She might not make it.”  Mariah said, but it was the best that could be done.

I called my other sister in Virginia, made flight reservations, ate a quiet dinner and headed for bed.  Of little doubt, the next day would be long.  Anne met me in St. Louis and we made the, by now all too familiar, drive together to Columbia.

It was not good…

We arrived to a varied group of people both at the door and in the room my sister occupied.  A number of Mariah’s classmates had set vigil with her, as well as folk from Nancy’s former church – some older and some that had grown up around her from childhood.  She had a way with children…she had a way with everyone!

Anne asked to spend a few minutes of private time with Nancy. When she was finished, I slipped in to hold her in my arms, to thank her for the life she had given to me, to say how proud I was to have been her brother, and wondered out loud if the decisions I had made had been the best…I asked forgiveness if they had not.

After most of the folk left, Mariah, Anne and I were alone in the room with Nancy.  We chatted quietly as Mariah gently put eye drops into her mother’s eyes, some moisturizer around her nose, and softly swabbed her mouth…all the while kissing her, speaking to her, touching her, stroking her and ministering in the holiest of ways known only to a daughter and best friend.  We talked to Nancy letting her know it was okay to let go…it was time…it was right…it was safe. 

Mariah had been up for three days, by now and needed some sleep.  Before tucking into a chair across the hall for a few hours, she slipped into bed with her mother and snuggled close as they had done so often in their lives.  Her head resting on Nancy’s shoulder and hand on her chest…the tenderness of this act exquisite.

The breathing more ragged now...…breath in……breath out……breath in…….breath out……

Anne and I stayed up...kept the watch – she reclined on a chair by the bed and I sat in front of my keyboard trying to understand the fearfulness and serenity of the moment.  I was watching my sister die, and in the most ironic of ways…in ways words fail to express…it was the most loving and intimate experience I ever had with her. 

Breath in…………breath out…………breath in............breath out...........

She slipped quietly away from us this afternoon, and I was reminded of these words, “…into thy hands I commend my spirit…”

Breath out………..

- ted

The string no longer vibrates...

“…For what is your life? It is even a vapour,

that appeareth for a little time,

and then vanisheth away."

- James 4:14: Bible

“…and in the end, it's not the

years in your life that count. 

It's the life in your years. 

- Abraham Lincoln

“Please forward this as I don’t have access to all reunion addresses on my phone.”

And so it was that I learned of the death of one of my high school classmates. The subject line of the email read: “Arrangements for Dick J.”

A different time and place…

It was 1957 and our family had just moved to Fairmont, West Virginia from Cleveland, Ohio…more precisely from Euclid, Ohio where my father pastored the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church.  It was a small congregation of 300 or so souls, and his first pastorate in the United States.

We had come from Toronto in 1951 in the night.  If our first ‘Green Card’ pictures were any indication, we looked to be Eastern European immigrants rather than a small family unit a mere 285 miles from the city in which we were born and my parents had grown up.  There was excitement, however, in this new land with similar language and only nuanced differences from the country of the Union Jack – the flag subsequently replaced by the Maple Leaf.

We spent six years in Euclid in a lower middle class neighborhood, where the parishioners were factory workers, bus drivers, mailmen and other such folk.  Good people…hard working people.

A little religious background…

The Baptist Church – that would be ‘American Baptists’ – does not have much of an organizational infrastructure.  While Baptists had been around since the late 1700s, it was a split, with what became the Southern Baptists, during the ‘Second Great [spiritual] Awakening’ in the mid-1800’s, when the American Baptists found their own feet – the ‘…First Great Awakening…’ had swept the American Colonies in the early 1700s.

Baptist churches are independent, meaning they are each responsible for their own affairs including the recruitment of new ministers.  When they have a need, they send a small group of elders to hear someone preach somewhere.  The visit is not necessarily announced.  When they find a minister they like, they invite them to preach in their church…you know, to ‘squeeze the melon’ to see if it is ripe and a good fit.  If it all works, an offer is made, negotiated and a deal done.

So it was that Dad was visited by the First Baptist Church of Fairmont, West Virginia in 1957 and before we knew it, we headed into those “…almost heaven…” West Virginia Hills, and our assigned home at 912 8^th Street where we would reside through my high school years.

A place to find a friend…

Once settled, it was off to a new school...new people,  and peculiar new southern accents to understand.  Butcher Elementary was the starting place.  There were two things that stood out about that school:

•       The fire escape was a circular slide from the upper floors to the ground, and
•       Dick J was my first friend

It wasn’t that I made any effort to befriend him…I was new and pretty uncomfortable.  He simply captured me and treated me as though he and I had known each other our whole lives.  Even at that age, he seemed to have that way about him…a comfort with practically everyone.  Dick had made me his friend, and that gave me credibility with the other kids. 

He lived on 1^st street near the bridge on Fairmont Avenue and I lived on 8^th street near the high school.  There is little doubt his presence made my transition to this new community as seamless as it possibly could have been.  In the second year, just before junior high, he and another friend Tim S, came with my family to our cottage in Canada for a week or so.  You see Dick wasn’t just my first friend in Fairmont, but the only friend I had had to that point in my life.

The river flows…

As junior high turned into high school, athletics took over most of my discretionary time, and while Dick and I remained friends, the time we spent together became less and less.  After high school we lost touch, and it wasn’t until my 40^th class reunion that we saw one another again. 

When we met that year and caught up with one another’s lives, I learned he had suffered some significant health challenges, but that smile, the twinkle in his eye, the genuineness of his spirit transported me almost immediately to the playground at Butcher school when it seemed that he had always been in my life. 

I experienced a twinge of regret that I had not gotten to know him in his adult life…the wine had matured…clearly richer, wiser and even more thoughtful – I had missed something. 

Subject: Arrangements for Dick J…

The funeral home had a website with an electronic guestbook you could sign…I left a note, and as I read the comments from so many others, it was clear Dick had touched a lot of lives with the same spirit I had felt, lo those many years ago.  It wasn’t that I was special…it was his spirit that made me feel special…a gift…a gift he undoubtedly cultivated his entire life.

There is something about early connections in life…something about the sparkle of youth…something about the genuine and authentic spirit that never diminishes.  This week I found myself transported to another place…another time…and wept for that fearless little boy who had made me his friend...

- ted

It's hard to say out of the room...

“In my Father's house are

many mansions [rooms]:

if it were not so,

I would have told you…”

- John 14:2: Bible

Sometimes it is simply impossible to stay out of that room.  


Actually, there are a lot of rooms in the house.  More rooms than a fellow could possible visit…at least not all at one time.

The reading room is a great place to spend time.  There seems to be so much to learn …things one would never experience on their own…mostly because there simply isn’t time.  Voyeurism at its most meaningful – full of adventures, mysteries, histories of remarkable women and men filling them all.  In the reading room, one gets the sense just how delicate and interconnected we all are.  How the tiniest ripple in the pond of humanity can change an entire course of history.  In this room, it is very easy to say, “I didn’t know that!” or “So that’s how that works!” It is here where one finds a whole range of emotion…out loud laughter, gentle tears, heart pounding excitement, one’s deepest fears…Yes sir, that reading room is something else.

Then there is the music room…what a great place that is.  Wow!  The amount of music that has gone through the walls of that place – it is unimaginable!  It seems the great thing about the music room is the amazing variety of both sound and feeling that comes when listening to all of those wonderful noises – for they are, in many ways simply that…organized noises vibrating through the air (no wires here) and touching us in the deepest of places.  Gospel, rock and roll, country, bluegrass, opera, symphony, folk, musical theatre, African, South American…the words, the rhythms…there is so much, it is impossible to try to recall…sometimes even parts of it.  The great thing about this room is not just the variety, but the way one can find just the right music that touches them…you know, custom fit – tailored just for each one of us.

I particularly like the cooking room – I mean, who doesn’t?  The things in that larder are almost overwhelming, what with the amazing variety and combinations of plants and animals and fish and fowl.  The bounty that passes through this room is awesome.  It’s not just what is there, but the process of preparing it.  Who could not recall the smell of warm bread in the oven or coffee brewing in the early morning hours?  The comfort of having something warm on a cold winter’s day, or cold in the heat of the summer.  There is such an assortment; it is difficult to imagine all the variations. Try closing your eyes and imagine all the food you might eat in a lifetime, sitting in one big pile.  It would be almost impossible to even know where to begin eating all that stuff.

The workroom occupies a lot of time.  In the beginning, of course, lots of is spent in the school room – whether it be learning a mental or physical task… the school room is a must, just to get permission to enter the work room.  There surely are lessons learned outside the formality of school, but NOTHING is accomplished without time spent formally or informally in that place…but the point here is the work room.  The great thing about this room is the continual sharpening of the sword that happens here.  It turns out the work room is really just the schoolroom in disguise.  The more time spent in this room, the better skilled one becomes, and the more skilled one becomes, the more one learns…it is a marvelous cycle!

Lots of us spend time in the management room…the management room – the place where one works through the issues confronted on a daily basis. We are creatures designed to ask questions and to solve problems that pop up as we float on the river of life…you know, the unexpected swiftness of rapids…the water falls…the tree across the way…all of the unanticipated things we engage, problems we solve and issues we undertake.  You see, in addition to question askers, we are problem solvers.  We like nothing better than successfully solving a problem.  This is how the great adventurers and conquerors of history created civilizations…spurred by questions – the ‘what if’ – entering the unknown. Somehow we are just wired that way – success bringing a degree of satisfaction…failure disappointment and frustration. 

Then there is the distraction room.  In fact, one could argue, depending how one spends their time in the variety of rooms available in our house, the distraction room may influence all the others.  You know what I mean…the reading room, the music room, the cooking room, the work/school room, the management room…all of it occupying time to avoid the reality room.

Yeah – the reality room…hmmm.  Sometimes this is a meaningful and helpful place.  It puts things in perspective…creates a sense of objectivity…clarity.  Sitting there quietly and assessing the elements of our lives often brings a little realism to our thought process. Occasionally this room needs the help of others to get it properly furnished.  We don’t always see thing as they are (whatever that really means); so a little assistance from an outside source can be helpful. 

I have avoided talking about the family room.  This room can be complicated…very complicated.  You pick your friends, but you are, well, born into your family right?  This has been a great room in my life.  It provided the foundation materials for all the other rooms of the house…set the context…focused the view…created the basic template.  Even with the loss of my parents, it has remained strong and solid.  This room has a lot of smaller rooms, and one of those smaller rooms is, at this time of my life, the most painful…the ‘brother room.’

The past couple of years, I’ve been spending as much time as possible in the rooms mentioned here, and many more, it might be added.  All of them, however have been colored by the ‘distraction room’ to avoid the ‘reality room,’ but mostly to keep out of the ‘brother room.’

The brother room was always my favorite.  It was secure room…a place of comfort…a known commodity.  It was such a familiar room; it was easy to simply take it for granted.  Even being the single male with two sisters, it has been a great room full of so many meaningful experiences.

But now…but now as my sister’s health and mind deteriorate at an astounding pace…it is a fearful and frustrating place.  It is a room where knowledge fails me…where the music plays only chaotic dissonance…the food left a little a little too long on the counter…the work meaningless and the management…well, the management seems nothing more than a series of diminishing efforts in a losing battle.  No solution to the problem, no gratification for success…simply the emptiness of the unavoidable conclusion.

For the most part, I stay out of this room…but there are the moments in the quiet of the night when it seems all the rooms I so love, are locked up tight, and I am driven to the ‘brother room.’  It is here where the remembered laughter and joy turns to tears…it is here where the ‘…tigers come…’ to tear at the fabric of memory.

And yet, it is in these quiet moments of despair, when I am unable to keep from sinking into the quagmire of self pity, she comes to me in all the vibrancy and strength that was her life…she comes with the quickness of wit and the quietness we often shared just being together.  She draws me into the memory room, pulling me from the darkness, reminding me there is a context…there is a meaning, even if for the moment it is unknown.  In this room, the air is filled with the knowledge of a lifetime of experience, the aroma of love, the music of faith, and the hope of the yet unseen. 

Of all the rooms God has created in the house that is my mind…it is here in my memories where I find solace for my soul.

- ted

Christmas in January...

“He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin' home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door.”

- John Denver, Rocky Mountain High

Clarice and Charlotte had just spent the day at the World Trade Center in Dallas…Bob and I were picking them up for dinner. 

It would be an evening of good food and pleasant conversation – Bob and Charlotte own a gift shop in Brenham, Texas and Clarice had been one of their best customers.  A staffing need had arisen at the store and Clarice enthusiastically filled the bill…Gift shop, an interesting metaphor…for it became clear, in the course of the evening, both of these women were gifted.

We had a Texas style family meal of ‘chicken fried chicken’ (a new and delicious dish for me), fried okra, mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas – not quite the gluten free diet I have been eating at home, but you know, “…when in Rome…”

How did that happen?

Life is a series of opportunities to say yes and to say no.  As the minutes, hours, days, months and years slip by; we are presented with thousands and thousands of circumstances providing the opportunity to embrace or reject every one of them. 

A ‘no’ provides a predictable outcome – nothing happens.  A yes?  Well two possibilities: Nothing happens…or…OR...something happens.  If something happens, once again we are confronted with the next decision – pretty simple right? Well, maybe…

Life can can get complicated…or at least sometimes we find ourselves in complicated circumstances – all of which, in fact, come from simple ‘two possibility’ decisions we have made along the way…so much can happen from those two completely unavoidable responses to the river circumstance that filters through our minds every day.

Dallas this week was the result of apparently two unrelated situations that provided the opportunity to say yes or no.

Everything has a starting point…

In the late fall of the preceding year, I had met Bob on an airplane on my way to Orlando for some business. It was one of those unguarded moments when it becomes clear, in the rear view mirror of life, it was meant to be.  I was flying an airline I don’t frequently use – a ‘two-legger’ stopping in Houston before heading to the final destination.  The plane was full with the exception of the seat next to me.  I was pretty sure it would remain empty and was looking forward to a little extra room.  Just as I was congratulating myself for a little more comfort, a fairly healthy sized fellow got on late, spotted the seat next to me asked if he might take it…this was my new, yet unknown friend Bob.

Circumstance one: I’m flying an airline I seldom use for the sake of last minute convenience.

Circumstance two: Bob is one of the last people on the flight taking the only seat left on the aircraft.

That flight, and the conversation that unfolded, led to a few emails back and forth, you know, getting to know one another a little.  I told him about the blog and the interest I had in writing in a little broader fashion.  He read some of these weekly wanderings and indicated he had done a little writing too.  Then he suggested we write a little together.

A pause…

The strangeness or maybe better said, fate of Bob’s suggestion is the internal dialogue I have been having for the past several years….I would like to write more, but have not been able to find the theme or words. Blogging weekly has been therapeutic – a whole other topic – BUT expanding this exercise has proved difficult. Two weeks before the flight, I had been talking to my wife about this very thing.

Back on point…

So, I find myself meeting a fellow on a plane, exchanging a couple of emails, and out of the blue he suggests we write something together.   Here was the proposal.  Bob would begin with a few pages and send them to me; I would take that and write a few pages back to him.  No rules, no expectations…more curiously, no storyline!! 

That’s write, er…I mean that’s right!!  There would be no story ahead of time.  We would get our installation and add to it with no prompting from the other fellow.  My first thought was, “Are you kidding me?  I can’t do that…I struggle with the weekly writing.  PLUS I really don’t even know Bob!!”

Be careful what you ask for…

I was then reminded of the story of the old man sitting on his porch watching the rainfall.

“Pretty soon the water was coming over the porch and into the house. A rescue boat came and the people on board said, "You can't stay here you have to come with us."

The old man replied, "No, God will save me." As the waters continued to rise, the old man climbed higher into his house.  Three more rescue boats came by to which the old man responded, "No thanks, God will save me."

Finally, the water overcame the house and the man drowned.

When he got to heaven and saw God he asked,  "Why didn't you save me?"
God replied, "I sent four boats after you man!! What more did you expect me to do?"

I had been looking for a pathway, and out of nowhere Bob entered my life suggesting we write something together….Not only this, he was experienced and could provide guidance.  What more could I expect God to do!!??

So we began to write, and by now have exchanged installments four or five times with about 20 pages of continuity and dialogue – something I have never done.  The best part is that Bob is gentle and encouraging, and by the way, more than a pretty good writer! 

Oh yeah, Dallas….

Bob thought it might be a good idea to get together sometime.  I was going to be in Austin in the fall, so maybe Molly and I could drive from there for a visit.  He said, Austin would be good, but it seemed a long way off…I got it, but what can you do?

A week later, I was asked to participate in a site visit to Dallas the third week in January for a professional society to which I belong.  As it turned out Bob, Charlotte and Clarice were going to be there on business too. He would, by the way, have a little free time. Wait a minute!! After my site visit I would, by the oddest of circumstance, have a little free time.

As an old friend might have said, “Even a dead rabbit would get this.”

It turns out, in the gift store business, storeowners purchase much of what is seen on the shelves at Christmas, in January.  Now, as I learned at dinner, one could wait until June, but by then the best things would be gone.  So here were Charlotte and Clarice betting on their years of experience and good judgment to get ready for Christmas next year.  Here I was for a site visit, and here was Bob…none of this could hardly have been planned by any of us!

There's a meaning here somewhere...

There is little that happens in life that doesn’t require action.  Indeed life really only rewards action.  Well, I suspect it would be important for action to produce a result.  But all of it…all of it begins with an affirmation or rejection of the circumstances presented to us.

Dinner in Dallas was the result of a couple of strangers on an airplane to Florida…in an unforeseen moment in time…saying yes.  ‘Yes’ to the unknown…’yes’ to a destination uncertain…’yes’ to a friendship, whatever shape it may take.  Certainty? There is none, but must everything be certain?  After all, isn’t it really about the journey?

I don’t know where any of this will go, but man, that fried okra was excellent!!

- ted

It’s good to come home...

“Homeward bound, I wish I was homeward bound
Home, where my thoughts escapin',

home, where my music's playin'
Home, where my love lies waitin'

silently for me.”

- Paul Simon

Sometimes you have the opportunity to catch your breath…take a look around and settle into a comforting thought or two.  Life can be so busy with things occupying our time that we don’t often have moments to reflect.

Reflection [ri flékshan]: 1.The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected. 

2 - An image; representation; counterpart. 

3 - fixing of the thoughts on something; careful consideration. 

4 - A thought occurring in consideration or meditation.

Outward bound…

When I was younger, I looked forward to traveling.  I can remember the first time I journeyed overseas.  Well, the first time was to Vietnam and that time was so hectic and full of things to do, from a military standpoint, it is a bit of a blur.  No, the first time would come many years later, 26 years to be precise, when I had an opportunity to speak in Würzburg, Germany. 

I remember sitting in a small circle of researchers in the Marriot Hotel in La Jolla, California.  We had just finished a spine conference and a few of the faculty were reviewing the conference.  A couple of Swiss folks were going to put on a conference in Wüzburg the next year and asked whether I might be interested in speaking.  I said casually, “I think I can do this.  I’ll check my calendar to confirm the dates.” 

That’s what I said.  My thoughts were quite different…“Are you kidding me?? You want me to do what???  Europe?? Pay me??”  In truth, the excitement was so extreme I had to clasp my hands together to keep them from shaking with excitement!

Well prepped…

As a youngster, my mother provided the guiding light for my life.  During the day, she did the things most mum’s do, but at night just before that kiss good night, the stories would come.  Family stories…Bible stories…Children’s stories…Historical stories…stories about practically everything – or at least it seemed so to a little boy.  The world opened to my eyes through the words spoken by this amazing woman, I was privileged to call ‘mother.’

Her family roots were Scottish, but she loved the English.  She told me stories of England and London…enough that I had a longing to visit.  My father’s chosen profession was the ministry – not one that provided much economic freedom.  There would not be money to travel and see the world, so my mother’s stories would have to suffice.  They did, however, light a fire that I would carry to this very day!

It happened and more…

I did go to Germany that year, and on the way home spent three days in London!  My life was now complete.  I felt I could have stayed there forever.  Too soon, the time ended and I reluctantly was homeward bound.  Unexpectedly at the time, I found myself in Europe a number of times in subsequent years…a blessing, no doubt!

Several years later, an opportunity came to visit China and Singapore, places I had only heard about, but had occupied a place of strong interest in my heart.  My friend WingLee arranged for us to make this trip.  I remember, a similar feeling I had on my first visit to Europe…until I actually got on the plane and it left the ground, I was unsure whether this was real or a dream!  China was everything I had imagined and so much more…what I imagined had been started by that woman telling stories to a little boy, just before that kiss goodnight…the reality only confirmed the love that had driven those stories.

The dance continues, but changes…

Since that first trip, there have been many more places, all of which have led to the same feelings of anticipation and excitement.  In my sixth decade, I still feel the same stirrings in my stomach and heart for the ‘unknown’ that lies ahead as I buckle my seatbelt preparing for the next adventure.

Something, however, has changed over these years.  In the oddest of ways, there has been a shift in the slipstream of time.  I am not sure exactly how to express it, but there has been a definite alteration in feelings when traveling.

In the early years (early years being in my forties when I made that first trip), the excitement to go, far outweighed the longing to return home.  The ‘outbound’ simply overwhelmed the ‘inbound.’  It is not that I didn’t look forward to coming home…I did, but it was, well…simply less exciting than heading out.

Somewhere in the mix, a balance developed…meaning; coming home was equally as pleasant a thought as going out.  By now, the curve has shifted.  I still love to go out – there is little doubt of that – BUT coming home…coming home is as comforting a thought as I can imagine.

I think this is a metaphor for life itself.  In the beginning, there is so much going on; there is no time for reflection or thought.  Stuff just happens – you will live forever! 

As time goes on, and enough things have happened to permit a bit of contemplation, things take on a context.  Epictetus says:

“The unexamined life is not worth living, in this way we should never simply accept an impression…but say to it? ‘Just a minute; let me see what you are and where you come from.’ ” – Epictetus, Discourses

As I reflect on the journey thus far, thoughts of mortality are unavoidable.  A recognition that no matter what has been done or accomplished, there is an end…or is there? 

Looking at the unavoidable horizon of life, I find an excitement building for the flight to the next unknown.  It is hard to put this into words…indeed, I simply do not have them…BUT as curious as I am about the impending flight from which there is no mortal return…I simply cannot wait to get home!!

- ted