Nearly every morning I send friends a snap of me smiling - greeting them for the day - sending out warm thoughts and positivity. Most days, I add a fun filter - hearts encircling my head - teddy bear ears or something else that feels fun. The filter doesn't just add cartoon art - it smooths out my face, trims my jaw line, brightens my eyes, removes uneven skin tone and wrinkles. It's me - but not really. Of course my friends know that I have dark circles under my eyes, the beginning of a double chin and uneven skin tone. But we all enjoy the snap - they accept the airbrushed version, even though they know the truth.
Life is kind of like that with B right now. There's this pseudo-reality in our calls and emails. First - everything is monitored and record and read or overheard by other people - so there is only so open you can be. But more than that, there is an understanding that reality isn't great, but it also can't change anytime soon. So we know the truth, but choose to look through the airbrushed lens of life.
Just two days ago when I spoke to her on the phone I said "Hey Bun!" in my usual excited tone. "Hey Mom", was her response - but it sounded weary and ragged. "What's up? Everything ok? You sound glum." And immediately her voice jumped half an octave, got a jolt of energy and she replied "Nope, I'm chill." We moved on.
There was this understanding that she probably is weary and ragged - but there was nothing she or I could do to change it. We were at the 1 month mark for her time in LaPorte - and we have at least 7 more to go. If she was sitting beside me, I would have thrown my arm around her and pulled her close and told her it was fine to open up; that I was here for her and tried to encourage her in any way possible. That is not an option right now. Right now, we both had this need to sound ok. I don't want her to hear my pain and feel any extra weight of guilt with all that she is going through. She doesn't want me to worry about how she is doing.
I tell her it's ok to feel - to not be fine - to be sad or lonely or angry or disappointed. Just like all my friends tell me it's ok for me to feel all my feelings. But the reality is we are both trying to protect each other from the difficulty. I can't imagine how hard her life is right now - and I don't want to do a single thing that would make it worse. She already feels so guilty for everything we are going through - and she doesn't want to make me worry more than I already do. Right or wrong, we can't help ourselves. We want to protect each other. She knows I'm hurting. I know she's lonely. But we're both "fine" or "great" or "chill'. We keep it light and positive - like someone is drawing teddy bears and hearts around the phone line.
I wonder when we will have the space and time to process this together. I have aspirations of writing a book about this time with her - not that it would be some best seller - or even ever be something ever be published. But as we both love to write and it is something we do together, I have this desire that some day, she and I could put together our experiences - see how we both grew stronger - how we changed - and the things that would always stay the same.
Someday we will be filter free...but for now we keep on the rose colored glasses....
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Sojourning in the land of promise
Hebrews 11 is my favorite singular book of the whole bible - full of hope - and yet unafraid to look death and suffering in the eye. Hebrews 11 acknowledges all that lived in faith - those who received the fruit of great miracles and those who were martyred and died. And Hebrews says that they all looked to a better country. They were strangers and aliens in the land, looking to a city "which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God." In my life so far, none of these earthly cities have had firm foundations.
David and I got married in August 2000 and we have yet to share an address for the entirety of our stay. Nutley, NJ - David leaves in January 2003 to join the Army and I stay in our little one bedroom place until I move to Indiana in September that same year.
West Lafayette - I live in two residences (first with my amazingly hospitable in-laws) and then with my infant twin sons in a basement apartment. David never shares those dwellings as he is in training or deployed the entire 20 months I live there.
Colorado - June 2005, I move in a month before David arrives. Deployed again right after the birth of Bunny, we leave to a house in Lafayette and David goes to war. Again.
Lafayette - My three kids (under 3) and I move in September 2006. David finally returns from Iraq in April 2008.
West Lafayette - We move to our house on Grackle in October 2013. Nathan and I move to Evansville June 2019.
Evansville apartment - Nathan and I have been living in the apartment 7.5 months before David and AJ join us in February 2020. Bunny will never know this space as her home.
Evansville house - expected move date - May 27 - expected date to be reunited with Bunny - TBD - maybe December 2020, maybe later.
Maybe David and I will live in this Evansville home the same length of time. That would be a first, despite our marriage of 20 years this year. Twenty years of sharing a life and never once has our address contained all of our immediate family under the roof for the same length of time. It's not how most people picture home.
But that's why I love Hebrews 11 so much. Life doesn't have to look "right" or "normal" to be good and faithful and full of promise. We are all sojourners in this land, even if you live your whole life in the same town.
Easter Sunday - the resurrection - isn't about Jesus rising from the dead and staying on earth. He goes to that city - whose builder is God. If my hope was in normalcy, I would have succumbed to despair a long time ago. If I thought that the promise of "a future and a hope" was for this lifetime...I'd have no faith at all. Easter doesn't just say that the cross and the grave are empty - it means everything in this mortal frame has a degree of emptiness - a feeling that we are strangers - a longing for eternity.
And so like Abram, we set out into whatever is next, not knowing were we are going. We journey on, not hoping that this NEXT thing is THE thing we have been longing for - but seeing that God is faithful and good and full of promise along our way to the FINAL thing.
David and I got married in August 2000 and we have yet to share an address for the entirety of our stay. Nutley, NJ - David leaves in January 2003 to join the Army and I stay in our little one bedroom place until I move to Indiana in September that same year.
West Lafayette - I live in two residences (first with my amazingly hospitable in-laws) and then with my infant twin sons in a basement apartment. David never shares those dwellings as he is in training or deployed the entire 20 months I live there.
Colorado - June 2005, I move in a month before David arrives. Deployed again right after the birth of Bunny, we leave to a house in Lafayette and David goes to war. Again.
Lafayette - My three kids (under 3) and I move in September 2006. David finally returns from Iraq in April 2008.
West Lafayette - We move to our house on Grackle in October 2013. Nathan and I move to Evansville June 2019.
Evansville apartment - Nathan and I have been living in the apartment 7.5 months before David and AJ join us in February 2020. Bunny will never know this space as her home.
Evansville house - expected move date - May 27 - expected date to be reunited with Bunny - TBD - maybe December 2020, maybe later.
Maybe David and I will live in this Evansville home the same length of time. That would be a first, despite our marriage of 20 years this year. Twenty years of sharing a life and never once has our address contained all of our immediate family under the roof for the same length of time. It's not how most people picture home.
But that's why I love Hebrews 11 so much. Life doesn't have to look "right" or "normal" to be good and faithful and full of promise. We are all sojourners in this land, even if you live your whole life in the same town.
Easter Sunday - the resurrection - isn't about Jesus rising from the dead and staying on earth. He goes to that city - whose builder is God. If my hope was in normalcy, I would have succumbed to despair a long time ago. If I thought that the promise of "a future and a hope" was for this lifetime...I'd have no faith at all. Easter doesn't just say that the cross and the grave are empty - it means everything in this mortal frame has a degree of emptiness - a feeling that we are strangers - a longing for eternity.
And so like Abram, we set out into whatever is next, not knowing were we are going. We journey on, not hoping that this NEXT thing is THE thing we have been longing for - but seeing that God is faithful and good and full of promise along our way to the FINAL thing.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
It was only one hour ago, it was all so different then
"It is the new norm with which we must learn to live": regarding "Acceptance" the final stage of grief according to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler.
This idea of living in a new normal is something so many people are struggling with right now due to COVID-19. With most of the United States and many parts of the world under a "Stay at Home" order of some kind, our new realities are shockingly small and extraordinarily tech dependent. For our graduating seniors of HS and college, many are grieving missing out on the spring semester of senior year - things they looked forward to for nearly 3.5 years. Weddings are being canceled. Funerals are being postponed. Birthdays now center on drive-by parades or virtual parties through FaceTime and Zoom. It is temporary - but long enough that real life changes must be made. We must find new routines and create new normals.
This mirrors what our family is experiencing with Bunny gone. It's a whole laundry list of new norms and routines that are pretty much centered around our home, but without her in it. Like COVID-19, it is not the final reality - but it is long enough that we cannot live as if we have simply pressed "pause" on life and things will restart as they should soon. Events, holidays, birthdays and significant moments will be missed, never to come again. In some ways, everyone now has a small taste of what it is like to be a part of the justice system we are experiencing. I think people can empathize more with isolation and limited freedom and missing out on what seemed to be a regular activity just last month.
I - personally - am struggling with this push towards a new reality.
I found myself setting out 4 plates, not 5. For the longest time I automatically got out 5 plates and had to put 1 back. I've finally learned that I am only counting to 4. And that reality makes me grieve all over again.
Knowing it will be at least 8-12 months without her in our home, I told the boys to think of a fun summer vacation - assuming COVID will have passed. We are no longer expecting her home this summer so the four of us might as well do something together. And that reality made me grieve again.
Bunny's favorite blanket "Fuzzy" keeps ending up on the floor by morning. I've been clutching it through the night like a life preserver for months. Now it's a blanket that gets kicked off when it's too warm in bed. And that reality makes me grieve again.
A new normal without her - even for a just a season - makes me feel like I've given up on her. Like I've stopped fighting to keep her her. Like I've accepted the 20 minutes of contact via phone each week as the fullness of our connection. And that makes me grieve...
I feel guilty for being so helpless. I feel guilty for even seeming to move on in the smallest ways. I feel like every moment that I accept her absence will make it that much harder to fit her back in when she returns. And I don't want that. I want a permanent Bunny-shaped hole in my heart and in our home that can only be filled by her upon her return. I want an empty place setting - and empty chair - a fuzzy wrapped around me at night.
But like COVID 19, the other end of this experience will not go back to the normal that was before. We will continue into a NEW normal. Maybe one that is more empathetic. That values connection. That has freakishly clean hands. It makes me think maybe I shouldn't save a Bunny-sized whole - because she may need a different size or shape when she returns. Because she too will be changed.
And the forces changing her...that too makes me grieve.....
This idea of living in a new normal is something so many people are struggling with right now due to COVID-19. With most of the United States and many parts of the world under a "Stay at Home" order of some kind, our new realities are shockingly small and extraordinarily tech dependent. For our graduating seniors of HS and college, many are grieving missing out on the spring semester of senior year - things they looked forward to for nearly 3.5 years. Weddings are being canceled. Funerals are being postponed. Birthdays now center on drive-by parades or virtual parties through FaceTime and Zoom. It is temporary - but long enough that real life changes must be made. We must find new routines and create new normals.
This mirrors what our family is experiencing with Bunny gone. It's a whole laundry list of new norms and routines that are pretty much centered around our home, but without her in it. Like COVID-19, it is not the final reality - but it is long enough that we cannot live as if we have simply pressed "pause" on life and things will restart as they should soon. Events, holidays, birthdays and significant moments will be missed, never to come again. In some ways, everyone now has a small taste of what it is like to be a part of the justice system we are experiencing. I think people can empathize more with isolation and limited freedom and missing out on what seemed to be a regular activity just last month.
I - personally - am struggling with this push towards a new reality.
I found myself setting out 4 plates, not 5. For the longest time I automatically got out 5 plates and had to put 1 back. I've finally learned that I am only counting to 4. And that reality makes me grieve all over again.
Knowing it will be at least 8-12 months without her in our home, I told the boys to think of a fun summer vacation - assuming COVID will have passed. We are no longer expecting her home this summer so the four of us might as well do something together. And that reality made me grieve again.
Bunny's favorite blanket "Fuzzy" keeps ending up on the floor by morning. I've been clutching it through the night like a life preserver for months. Now it's a blanket that gets kicked off when it's too warm in bed. And that reality makes me grieve again.
A new normal without her - even for a just a season - makes me feel like I've given up on her. Like I've stopped fighting to keep her her. Like I've accepted the 20 minutes of contact via phone each week as the fullness of our connection. And that makes me grieve...
I feel guilty for being so helpless. I feel guilty for even seeming to move on in the smallest ways. I feel like every moment that I accept her absence will make it that much harder to fit her back in when she returns. And I don't want that. I want a permanent Bunny-shaped hole in my heart and in our home that can only be filled by her upon her return. I want an empty place setting - and empty chair - a fuzzy wrapped around me at night.
But like COVID 19, the other end of this experience will not go back to the normal that was before. We will continue into a NEW normal. Maybe one that is more empathetic. That values connection. That has freakishly clean hands. It makes me think maybe I shouldn't save a Bunny-sized whole - because she may need a different size or shape when she returns. Because she too will be changed.
And the forces changing her...that too makes me grieve.....
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