A Sacred Hour

This morning was a taste of"jumping in puddles".

I think it was last winter when Jen and I began talking about some day...jumping in puddles together.  She was in the midst of grueling radiation treatments and horrible burn pain but the end was in sight and like we did each time "the end was in sight" of these nightmarish stages of her cancer, we would talk about what we would do "when"...

There is so much we wanted to do, or perhaps it was more of what we wanted to "be".  I think we truly just wanted to "be" together and share our lives.  The growing of our friendship happened mid-cancer which meant that there was a lifetime of each other that we were so hoping to enjoy. We did not have years and years of a strong friendship to fall back on and yet we shared this undeniable bond...this "kindred-spirit" way about "us".  Neither of us could explain it--it was just there.  We joked once how we sounded like lovers because we just had to catch each other's eye and we were somehow "together".

We still have not jumped in puddles.  Every so often she would send me a text that would read, "we still have to jump in puddles together."   Sometimes I would respond because I tried to believe we really would.  Sometimes I would even speak this dream...I so wanted to believe it would happen for her...for us. 

This morning she walked into church supported by her walker, pale and weak.  I wept with my arms around her.  I find my grieving comes in waves.  I think my grieving started over a year ago...months before we even knew this monster disease was back.  But "something" beastly was eating away at my friend and I began losing her to pain and exhaustion and appointments, procedures and eventually treatment.  Grief holds much.  And slowly, incrementally, it opens, and you realize that "this too" has been taken away and so you acknowledge it and name it and grieve it, not always even knowing that this place of grief is filling again with something new for the next wave...

This morning my grief wave undid me.  I wept at different times throughout the morning as I sat beside my friend holding her hand.  At times, audible sobs escaped from my being and I thought, "to hell with trying to keep this inside...I love my friend and I will grieve this slipping away of her beautiful life!!! 

That sacred hour this morning was so rich...so drink-in-my-soul-rich.  I did not want to move an inch...even when my hand was going numb at one point. haha  I DIDN'T CARE!!  To watch her worship, to see her raise her weak hand in praise of our God...the time she gently clapped her hands together in celebration of Jesus...rich.  I held a -side-by-side seat of a woman whose faith is spilling forth from her dying body.  Is this not the deepest-living- for- Jesus!!!

We also "jumped in puddles" this morning.  At least I felt, in a manner of speaking, we did this.  She's on heavy pain meds which cause hallucinations and she was experiencing this throughout the service.  Honestly, it made us quietly giggle. One time she held out her hands and looked at her husband and then whispered to him asking if she was supposed to be feeding a baby.  He smiled at her and whispered "No".   We pressed our foreheads together and laughed quietly.  (It was church after all!!)  I think it was our version of puddle jumping...being little girls giggling in church. 

We're not going to be able to splash in puddles, enjoying side-splitting laughter with all of our cares thrown aside.  I know this...I grieve this.  But this morning was for me, this beautiful gift tied up with a bright red-like-rain-boots-bow. 

Who knows, maybe Jesus will give us each a pair of red rain boots when we arrive in heaven and take us to a gigantic puddle...just for us.

The Miles Between Us

Written Monday July 16 2018

I thought it would be routine this time around.  It's just shy of three years since she moved cross country and I felt SURE we were mastering this "together", then "apart" seesaw.  But this time has felt new for me again.  The week before she arrived I fought this overwhelming fear of our goodbye.  Yes I know it's absurd!  The cart-before-the-horse-scenario-but like I said--I was fighting it. 

We both share the same love of the anticipation.  We know the time will seem fleeting and so we rather enjoy the count down of sleeps and excitement which precedes the homecoming.  In the past there has often been this inner frenzy to then suck the marrow of life out of every moment.  I was more at peace this time, allowing the moments to unfold as they did.  I think it helped that I had spent five gloriously selfish days alone with my girl in May and so I was more free to share her with her besties. 

There are some given, shared factors to this" together" and "apart" dance which we live.

1.  It will never be long enough.  Whether it's three weeks or ten days, we will always want "just one more day."

2.  The everyday stresses of life are always blown out of proportion.  Because our time is limited it feels so out of place to have something go wrong.  Even hormones, computer glitches and line-ups.

3.  The length of homecoming hugs and farewell hugs are the same.  Even the depth of emotion is equal.  Yet they are polar opposites without words to describe.

4.  We always overthink everything.  Always.  Everything.  We over analyze, overthink, over-feel, and talk about it all in one gloriously long 10 day run-on sentence.  It's exhausting and freeing and crazy and us.

**Her plane landed safely in her other home city six hours ago.  She was sad to leave and excited to return.  I've laundered the sheets and tidied her room and though I will have other guests before Christmas, it really is awaiting her next homecoming.

Thursday October 4, 2018

Tomorrow marks the start of Thanksgiving Weekend.  I'm eager to spend time with Cam and Sonya and Brian's family.  We haven't seen Cam and Sonya for a few weeks and so I am missing our face to face conversations and hugs.  I love just having them in the room, listening to them interact with others.  Though this is the third Thanksgiving Ashley won't be home it almost feels like the first.  Why is it that this year is upping the ante on missing my girl???  One half of my heart says "she should be home".  And the other half is still fully convinced that "she shouldn't be"! 

A part of me wonders if the landing of her first "big girl job" this past spring is settling into my psyche.  Because SHE is settling in more and more to a home across the country.  Another factor may be that about a year ago she starting talking more and more about returning "home".  And though I wasn't getting my hopes up, it was something I listened to her talk about often.  Until about four months ago when everything changed.  Quite honestly, I'm celebrating the "everything changed" nature of her life.  There is so much good which has unfolded for her.   Except that now I think I've returned to a stronger reality of this ongoing "together" and "apart" dance. 

So Thanksgiving is almost here and we will be in the part of the dance that is "apart."  And yes, I'm sad.  Sad that we can't be together as a family...sad that she and I can't be together and just lounge on the sofa and talk...face to face. 

But this is our reality.  This is our "now."  It might not be our "always" but is is our "now."

I will miss her this weekend.  I will miss a full-on-hug that squishes us both.  I will miss her perfectly prepared bedroom being messy in less than 30 minutes.  I will miss her using the counter as the drop zone for her keys and purse and phone. I will miss her offering to get her own breakfast but being not -so-secretly-delighted that her Mama wants to.  I will miss her lounging in bed with her hair up in a pony asking for just "five more minutes" til she crawls out from the covers and I get another hug. I will just plain miss her.

She will miss me too...she will miss family and everyone being together.  She really misses family, especially at "family" times.  We will text and talk on the phone and hopefully Skype because we are blessed by this part of technology.  I will move through the weekend one day at a time, enjoying moments, and missing ones that aren't being shared.  And then before I know it, Thanksgiving will be a memory and I will have come through still intact, soon to begin the Christmas homecoming countdown.

Because this is how I walk the miles between us.