This whole week, it has been there, just under the surface. Creativing a tension and a weariness. Adding to the unpredictable nature of my late – 40’s womanly prerogative. This awareness of a deep mourning just under the surface. 

I was able to go home last week, back to New Mexico, with the youngest two kiddos. We ate an enormous amount of Mexican food and almost satiated my need for red and green chile.

We rode Clydesdales, or thought about riding them. 

We played late night solitaire with Grandpa. 

Mostly, though, in the midst of all of this, I went home to see my Mom. I’m not sure if she knew that I was there, and those of you who have walked this road of Dementia understand that. This is the most despicable disease. I have written often in the past about the sense of a long endurance mourning which accompanies this, a mourning which does not offer any release or any healing. A mourning at the loss of the person who remains physically  present. 

Each activity is marked by an awareness of our loss of Mom’s lively personality in our midst, even though she is present. She would enjoy so much her grandchildren, and they would so enjoy her.

So, this week I have been aware of this mourning, this desire to weep, more closely present with me than at other times. 

Her Dementia continues to change her, and those changes bring a new sense of loss. A new step in the mourning.  But it is this mourning that is held in check because it is not complete, and it cannot be given completion. There is such frustration in that. A word can set off a stream of tears and then it is hard to hold back the floodgates, because they have been restricted for so long.

I don’t like to cry. I don’t like to mourn. I don’t like to think of the what ifs and the should be…and yet I am realizing that we need to make the space for that. We need, in the midst of the difficult seasons, to give ourselves the space to mourn, to weep, to shout in anger at God (he can handle it), to give our emotions the needed expression. 

So many around us are carrying such deep, deep burdens. Within my acquaintances and friends I can think of those facing divorces, bankruptcies, children dying, houses falling apart, jobs in peril….deep, aching fear and mourning and uncertainty. Most all of these people have children and have the need to keep life ticking along, as we all do, so we tuck those emotions away and try to continue on. 

Until that guy cuts us off on the freeway and we lose it.

Or the lady at the grocery store looks at us funny and we fall apart.

Or we yell at our kids.

Or we just pull in to ourselves and begin to detach to try to keep the emotions in check. And we miss…we miss the moments we could rejoice, and we miss even the moments we could mourn and find healing.

I have quoted this from Buechner before:

“some moment happens in your life that you say yes right up to the roots of your hair, that makes it worth having been born just to have happen. laughing with somebody till the tears run down your cheeks. waking up to the first snow. being in bed with somebody you love… whether you thank God for such a moment or thank your lucky stars, it is a moment that is trying to open up your whole life. If you turn your back on such a moment and hurry along to business as usual, it may lose you the ball game. if you throw your arms around such a moment and hug it like crazy, it may save your soul.” 

I wonder if the opposite is true a bit as well…if we find the moments that bear down upon our soul and break us, we need to cry out to God and weep. We need to not resist that mourning and allow ourselves the sorrow. Before it turns to anger because we have tried so valiantly to keep it in check.

David knew.

“I cry aloud to God,

Aloud to GOd and he will hear me.

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;

In the night my hand is stretched out 

Without wearying;

My soul refuses to be comforted.

When I remember God, I moan; 

when I meditate, my spirit faints.” Ps. 77

He knew how to weep and cry out to God.

I need to read more Psalms. 

My Mom was a beautiful woman.

She still is. 

She has taught us much even through this season. She will sometimes catch us with her laughter, and it makes us pause to hear it. She is completely dependent on my Dad and brothers and I have learned that they are men of faithfulness and kindness and care in a way I never would have seen otherwise. 

I still would rather be able to talk to her. But this is what it is. 

Right now she is teaching me it is ok to mourn along the way…and she is reminding me that others carry deep burdens as well. We need to give each other grace in these days. Maybe the snarky waitress is holding back tears. Maybe the irritating driver is distracted by life changing and  difficult decisions. 

I write much about finding wonder and beauty…maybe, just maybe, today we need to hear that it is ok to recognize the pain and sorrow and give it the space needed. I wrote the other day about books being able to help with that Ugly Cry.   We were made to praise and sin and shout, but we were made just as much with the sensitivities to love and mourn and weep and have deep sorrow. Sometimes we don’t need much help, we just need to give ourselves permission. I usually give myself permission in the shower. 

Wherever it is, if you have been holding it all together for too long…allow yourself some time and grace to mourn. Then come back with a little healing under you and grace for those you encounter.

Hear my cry, O God,

Listen to my prayer;

From the end of the earth I call to you

When my heart is faint

Lead me to the rock 

That is higher than I,

For you have been my refuge,

A strong tower against my the enemy.

Let me dwell in your tent forever!

Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! – Ps 61:1-4

February 4.  Happy Birthday, Dad.

Almost 24 years ago, eating McDonald’s burgers just around the corner from the radio station in Albuquerque, you asked me the question that changed everything. I was the afternoon drive host, I was music director, and I was loving working in radio. I thought I had it all, but  you knew I needed to push beyond what I was doing.  You gave me the push.

“If radio is what you want to do, where do you need to go and what do you need to do?”

Nashville.

I need to go to Nashville.

I had never put it into thoughts that clearly, I had never put actions in place. That was October, and by January I was living in Nashville working at a radio station.  Now as I a parent, I wonder how difficult that was – to encourage me to move away. 

A year later you called and asked me how the radio career was going. Not so great. Turned out the move was not exactly wonderful for my radio career.  So you pushed again…not in an overbearing way, instead in a freedom giving and empowering way. 

“How about pursuing your Master’s?”

Maybe.

“Where would you go to study and what do you need to do?”

“Regent College.”

Another whole new path was opened, another place I was supposed to be, and you were the one who gave the push to get me there. In the year I had been in Nashville I had met someone, I had settled in and found a life in Nashville. The move was what was supposed to happen, just not for the reasons I had imagined. 

 A marriage happened. A life was beginning to take shape. Because a push had been given. 

My whole life you have provided the grace and the support and the confidence for me to be who I am. Ride a motorcycle at 5? Sure! Why not! Horses and climbing trees and shooting guns?! Absolutely!  I never thought anything was impossible, or at least never thought I shouldn’t try. 

I would not be the person I am or have the life I have if you had not asked me the questions you asked 24 years ago in McDonald’s. So many things you have shaped not through demands and overbearing, but through gentle guidance and encouragement. 

Thank you for always giving us the space as kids to make mistakes, the space to work and the space to play. Thank you for teaching me to love photography and horses, to love dogs and woods and birds.

Thank you for teaching me to love well, for teaching me that sometimes that means allowing people to move away because that is what God has called them to. Sometimes that means caring for those who do not know us any more, or know us only in moments. I’m grateful for your birthday to celebrate your sense of humor, your strength and the great favor God gave me and my brothers in giving us you as our Dad. 

I’m thankful my kids know you well. I’ve always had the coolest Dad. Happy 83rd. Eat some good chocolate and know you are loved.  Always happy to write your Happy Birthday Post, every year.