Appropriate that another birthday draws me back to this blog. I am thankful for the time to reflect on one of the kiddos. This moment it is Sammy. He is growing before our eyes, and I am already beginning to realize we call him Sam more often than Sammy these days. 
Eleven. Seems like such a big change from 10. Each year he seems more and more grown, maturing every day.

His love of music continues, now developing in new ways as he begins the discipline of learning to play piano. He has flourished with this, and I love watching him learn new things…love the joy he derives from playing well and mastering a piece. He also benefits, of course, from growing up in a town where music surrounds us. He has had the chance to see some truly gifted musicians, and beyond that has had the opportunity to meet these musicians.

This birthday boy continues to loves to play soccer…

And we love watching him play!

Sammy, and yes I insist on still calling him that, is in his happy place on a computer hanging out at the coffee shop with us.

Eleven years. He has learned to move from being the little brother of all to being a big brother to one. He made the transition with grace…he has been patient and kind and a teacher to Maddie. Showing his characteristics of compassion and patience with her, and his great humor throughout. 

Eleven years, he is sneaking up on being more man than child, but I am thankful he is still filled with the joy of childhood. He still giggles uncontrollably at silly things. He has learned to become absorbed in stories, and I am thrilled that his love of story is growing. His love of God is tender and true. He has spoken nearly the same prayer every night in nightly prayers for probably close to two years. It is not a redundancy…it is a liturgy for him. 

So thankful for eleven years of his laughter and smile, his affection and his love of so many things. Thankful for the very key part of our family he is…for the way he lightens our lives and brings joy. I cannot wait to see how he continues to mature and to grow. Cannot wait to see how he develops in his skills in soccer and piano. Cannot wait to see the man beginning to show in the midst of his childhood delights and innocence. I’ll also delight in the fact that he is still child enough to want hugs and cuddles and being read to at night.

So, Happy Birthday, Samuel. Enjoy the sliders tonight and the cake and ice cream. Enjoy the presents and the notes from those who love you. Embrace 11 and continue to bring joy and delight and wonder along with you.

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. 

I am so glad it is Friday. This week has exhausted me. Maybe it is simply nearing another birthday…mine is two weeks away…mixed with all the emotions of this election and the issues being hilighted. Maybe it is the awareness of my mother’s presence and yet longing for her true presence. Maybe it is migraines that have been annoying me all week. I’m not sure…maybe just the culmination of all of that, but I am worn out today. 

I am thankful for Friday morning in the coffee shop with the oldest boy. Thankful for laughter and watching goofy videos.  Thankful for good books to read and for warm fireplaces.

Last night we had an Arts Night at the homeschool tutorial. Such talented kids, and so much joy. 

Sometimes it is easy, and I know this is stating the obvious, it is easy to think that everything is falling apart and the world is ending. It is easy to be overwhelmed. There is much to occupy our thoughts in a somber and heavy manner, and we need to take the time to think through heavy issues.

We need to take the time to breathe as well. And we need to take the time to rejoice whenever we can. We need the youth around us to celebrate and remind us to dance and turn the music up too loud. We need their talent and their energy. 

Driving yesterday with the youngest two I was caught by their delight. Silly, goofy delight in simple things. Running around with sticks like light sabers and building fires out of sticks and leaves. Pretending. Delighting. 

Living.

They do not have the weight of sober thoughts bearing down on them. 

I’m so thankful for their delight. 

So, it is Friday. Let’s take a breath and find something to bring delight, something to celebrate. Something to refresh. Something to bring wonder. We cannot exhaust ourselves in the heavy things only, or we will not have the endurance for the long journey we are on. We need these Friday mornings of reflection and calm. I know I needed it this morning. 

Let’s find a way to model for our kids today that we know how to delight and how to dance, how to rejoice. Especially in this season when they sense the tension and the uncertainty around them. Let’s remind ourselves of the good the Lord has done in our midst, and let’s point it out. 

I have the goofiest thing from last night, but it almost made me cry. I had a terrible headache and it had been a long day. Of course Arts Night involves a lot of sound. So, I picked up a coffee and came back a bit late…and realized I had the consequence of parking about a block away.

I forgot to mention the blister I was working on, didn’t I?

I parked and sat there for a few minutes, then simply told the Lord that I didn’t have the energy to walk that far and if he wouldn’t mind opening up a space for me. In the middle of the performance. You know, one of the six spaces in front of the building with 200 people. 

He did.  Actually two spaces. Maybe someone else had a headache and a blister.

Now, I can hear an atheist friend of mine snickering right now, and guffawing at my naïveté that the God of the Universe would open up a parking space. I know.

That’s why it almost brought me to tears. I would rather He would sweep in and solve some of our big issues and overwhelming prayers. I would love several things to happen so easily…but here’s the thing. Sometimes something very simple and very clear happens. We can guffaw and pass it off….or we can stop and realize He is telling us He is listening. 

I’ll take the latter interpretation. 

Leaving you all with two of the seniors from last night, Lilliana Napier and Joseph Gunnells, singing “The Prayer” from David Foster.​ Grace, my friends…we sure need it. And these kids are a great blessing of grace and delight.

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