.jpg)
"ms. daniele," she asked, "do you ever get sad when you think about eliza and miss her?"
we were "watching" the superbowl, she eating tortilla chips with "wine" (that is, lime), and apparently, something made her think of eliza. so she asked. no apology, no explanation; she just asked. an exceptionally articulate three-year-old she is now, she who was once more fascinated by and in love with eliza ("a-ya-yaz," she called her) as a toddler than any of eliza's other little friends.
i do, my sweet friend. and thanks for asking.
because what preschoolers know is that it's not their fault if you're sad. it didn't enter my god-daughter's little head that asking me might upset me--and she was right, because it didn't. she didn't question whether she should ask or whether it was a good time or whether other people around us might be uncomfortable or any of the million other questions we adults ask ourselves before we introduce a potentially upsetting topic. and had i been upset--had i teared up or not been able to answer or whatever--she might have asked why just as simply, or perhaps she would have thought it the logical proof of my answer, "yes, i do get sad and i do miss her." uncomplicated. no more a difficult question than any of a million other questions she asks all day long.
"and He said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (matthew 18:3).
Sunday, February 7, 2010
of olympic proportions
it's amazing the things that bring it all back.
i saw a commercial a couple of days ago for the opening ceremonies of the winter olympics. this friday--and the olympic junkie in me gets a little tremor just thinking about it--will begin my favorite two weeks of television (rivalled only by the summer olympics, i suppose). it's been four years in the waiting, and i can hardly wait these last few days.
four years ago, i had it all planned out. eliza was due to be born on valentine's day, though having delivered luke five days early, i was sure eliza wouldn't keep me waiting all that long. the olympics were starting on february 10, perfect timing for what would no doubt be the very sedentary first few weeks of our baby's life. two-year-old luke, who watched very little television, would certainly be fascinated by whatever sport was on, and i'd have something to occupy me round the clock during long nursing sessions. my little girl was going to arrive just in time to be my perfect excuse for spending too many hours watching luge and ski jumping and snowboarding and of course every minute of figure skating coverage.
"the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry," said robert burns. indeed.
i didn't watch the winter olympics in 2006. at all. i'm not sure i saw one minute of ice dancing or curling or one human interest story about turin or apolo ohno or any of the rest of it that i love so well. because, of course, i was practically living in the nicu those weeks and many more to follow, where--windowless hell that it is--neither day nor night nor tuesday nor sunday nor winter nor summer is any different from any other day or week or month. olympics or no.
all of which came flooding back as i saw the commercial for this year's opening ceremonies. it's amazing the things that bring it all back.
i saw a commercial a couple of days ago for the opening ceremonies of the winter olympics. this friday--and the olympic junkie in me gets a little tremor just thinking about it--will begin my favorite two weeks of television (rivalled only by the summer olympics, i suppose). it's been four years in the waiting, and i can hardly wait these last few days.
four years ago, i had it all planned out. eliza was due to be born on valentine's day, though having delivered luke five days early, i was sure eliza wouldn't keep me waiting all that long. the olympics were starting on february 10, perfect timing for what would no doubt be the very sedentary first few weeks of our baby's life. two-year-old luke, who watched very little television, would certainly be fascinated by whatever sport was on, and i'd have something to occupy me round the clock during long nursing sessions. my little girl was going to arrive just in time to be my perfect excuse for spending too many hours watching luge and ski jumping and snowboarding and of course every minute of figure skating coverage.
"the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry," said robert burns. indeed.
i didn't watch the winter olympics in 2006. at all. i'm not sure i saw one minute of ice dancing or curling or one human interest story about turin or apolo ohno or any of the rest of it that i love so well. because, of course, i was practically living in the nicu those weeks and many more to follow, where--windowless hell that it is--neither day nor night nor tuesday nor sunday nor winter nor summer is any different from any other day or week or month. olympics or no.
all of which came flooding back as i saw the commercial for this year's opening ceremonies. it's amazing the things that bring it all back.
Friday, February 5, 2010
order (or what kindergarteners already know)
as i sat in the unlighted, empty, quiet (so quiet!) sanctuary, i was struck by--comforted by, symmetry-obsessed as i am--a sense of order.
the chairs, in orderly rows, perfectly parallel and straight and predictable. the fibers in the carpet with their understated tan on tan pattern, mechanically orderly. the ceiling tiles, squares bordered by perfectly aligned, perfectly fitted metal borders, perfectly square themselves individually and square to each other, too. the service, which was not being held that day but nonetheless echoes from those so quiet walls, defined by order, liturgy (noun: a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship; a customary repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances, says merriam webster). the predictability of the robes, the candles, the elements. yes, i am comforted by order.
it is man-made order, this. God didn't line up those chairs or carpet fibers or ceiling tiles. God didn't make the machines that wove the carpet or punched the holes in the tiles or cut the wood for the legs of those chairs. nor did He invent the orderly liturgical worship that we do here, when the sanctuary is lighted and inhabited and ordered. it's man-made, artificial. but i can't forget Who made the men that make all this order as i look around this room.
because the light that filters in through the windows creates orderly shadows. the light flows through and around and between all these orderly man-made things, silently unimpeded by their presence, persistent despite their solid orderliness. the shadows, even, betray less an absence of light than its presence despite obstacles; without the light, there would be no orderly shadows, after all. i would not know the contrast between the soldier-like order of the chairs and the slanted, gentle order of the shadows cast by those chairs on those orderly carpet fibers and ceiling tiles but for that light.
there's something to this, i think. order. and light. and order created, defined by light. there's something to the liturgy--that is, the customary orderly repertoire, be it of ideas or worship or chairs--that is not of man. we are created for order, and in fact, scripture is full of order God has defined for His people, from creation and the food and clothing laws of the old testament to paul's instructions for worship and prophecy in the new testament. there is no question that men function better with a prescribed order: ask any kindergarten teacher for her opinion on the matter, and you'll be reminded how like children we order-craving grown-ups really are.
but order defined--surrounded by, encompassed by, overcome by--light, like those chairs in the sanctuary, standing in the light, casting shadows with the light. in all of my symmetry-obsessed, schedule-loving, woman-with-a-plan life, the order i crave is not order itself, but order defined by light, light silently unimpeded by the presence of the orderly obstacles men create.
which is how, when i think about it, i can be grateful for shadows. dark and light-less though they may be, it is in the very existence of the shadows that i am reminded that beyond the solid, soldierly, orderly obstacles remains the light that is the reason for the shadows. without the light, there would be no shadows. ask any kindergarten teacher--or kindergartener, for that matter--about his shadow: what it is, why it exists. he'll tell you.
the chairs, in orderly rows, perfectly parallel and straight and predictable. the fibers in the carpet with their understated tan on tan pattern, mechanically orderly. the ceiling tiles, squares bordered by perfectly aligned, perfectly fitted metal borders, perfectly square themselves individually and square to each other, too. the service, which was not being held that day but nonetheless echoes from those so quiet walls, defined by order, liturgy (noun: a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship; a customary repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances, says merriam webster). the predictability of the robes, the candles, the elements. yes, i am comforted by order.
it is man-made order, this. God didn't line up those chairs or carpet fibers or ceiling tiles. God didn't make the machines that wove the carpet or punched the holes in the tiles or cut the wood for the legs of those chairs. nor did He invent the orderly liturgical worship that we do here, when the sanctuary is lighted and inhabited and ordered. it's man-made, artificial. but i can't forget Who made the men that make all this order as i look around this room.
because the light that filters in through the windows creates orderly shadows. the light flows through and around and between all these orderly man-made things, silently unimpeded by their presence, persistent despite their solid orderliness. the shadows, even, betray less an absence of light than its presence despite obstacles; without the light, there would be no orderly shadows, after all. i would not know the contrast between the soldier-like order of the chairs and the slanted, gentle order of the shadows cast by those chairs on those orderly carpet fibers and ceiling tiles but for that light.
there's something to this, i think. order. and light. and order created, defined by light. there's something to the liturgy--that is, the customary orderly repertoire, be it of ideas or worship or chairs--that is not of man. we are created for order, and in fact, scripture is full of order God has defined for His people, from creation and the food and clothing laws of the old testament to paul's instructions for worship and prophecy in the new testament. there is no question that men function better with a prescribed order: ask any kindergarten teacher for her opinion on the matter, and you'll be reminded how like children we order-craving grown-ups really are.
but order defined--surrounded by, encompassed by, overcome by--light, like those chairs in the sanctuary, standing in the light, casting shadows with the light. in all of my symmetry-obsessed, schedule-loving, woman-with-a-plan life, the order i crave is not order itself, but order defined by light, light silently unimpeded by the presence of the orderly obstacles men create.
which is how, when i think about it, i can be grateful for shadows. dark and light-less though they may be, it is in the very existence of the shadows that i am reminded that beyond the solid, soldierly, orderly obstacles remains the light that is the reason for the shadows. without the light, there would be no shadows. ask any kindergarten teacher--or kindergartener, for that matter--about his shadow: what it is, why it exists. he'll tell you.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
familiar
(adj): closely acquainted, of or relating to a family, having intimate knowledge of.
the familiar section of the always-crowded parking garage that no one else seems to realize is convenient and sometimes has empty spaces--my section of the parking garage is still the same.
the rectangular-ish revolving door unlike any i have ever seen anywhere else, glass and confusing for newcomers, easy for familiars to navigate even with strollers and wheelchairs and iv poles.
a snippet of a cell phone conversation, "...and then another doctor came in and said they're not doing that test today; they're doing it tomorrow..." all too familiar.
beep-beeping of pulse oximeters, bonging of monitors registering leads that have lost their signal--the familiar discordant music that will always be in my head.
the people, so familiar.
and familiarity is the problem.
it's so easy to come back to. she could be there right now, and i could so easily slip back into the routine of paging in, scrubbing--that smell of hospital soap, so familiar, like the smell of a food that brings back a long-ago travel adventure or the lotion whose scent is distinctly your grandmother's--familiar is the problem. and the gift.
she could be there now, in this place that i hate, cared for by these people that i love but hate to see again...i hated this place, hated her life here, ours...and i wish she were back here, waiting for me to scrub and gown and get to her. always in a hurry to get to her. i hate this place for what it was and is...and for her not being in it.
too familiar.
it occurred to me during this year's birthday gift delivery to the intensive care nursery where eliza spent her first ten weeks fighting for her life that family is really what her life was--and is--about. from the nurses and doctors in that hateful place who became our and her daily companions and her loving caregivers in our stead to our parents and siblings who made so many sacrifices to help us and care for us over the course of her life to the school and church and neighbor friends who have loved us in incomprehensible ways to the many surrogate aunts and uncles and grandparents eliza and luke acquired--we have been surrounded and loved on and cared for by an incredible family these past four years.
and so even as i cringe at the familiar--the parking space, the monitors, the overheard conversations--i am thankful for it because i know it to be a gift. i recognize divine love even in the familiar hateful fallenness that sickness and suffering and hospitals and death represent. even as i cringe at the memories and the grief and the love lost with my eliza, i am thankful for the gift of so many new familiar things she gave me in her suffering.
the familiar section of the always-crowded parking garage that no one else seems to realize is convenient and sometimes has empty spaces--my section of the parking garage is still the same.
the rectangular-ish revolving door unlike any i have ever seen anywhere else, glass and confusing for newcomers, easy for familiars to navigate even with strollers and wheelchairs and iv poles.
a snippet of a cell phone conversation, "...and then another doctor came in and said they're not doing that test today; they're doing it tomorrow..." all too familiar.
beep-beeping of pulse oximeters, bonging of monitors registering leads that have lost their signal--the familiar discordant music that will always be in my head.
the people, so familiar.
and familiarity is the problem.
it's so easy to come back to. she could be there right now, and i could so easily slip back into the routine of paging in, scrubbing--that smell of hospital soap, so familiar, like the smell of a food that brings back a long-ago travel adventure or the lotion whose scent is distinctly your grandmother's--familiar is the problem. and the gift.
she could be there now, in this place that i hate, cared for by these people that i love but hate to see again...i hated this place, hated her life here, ours...and i wish she were back here, waiting for me to scrub and gown and get to her. always in a hurry to get to her. i hate this place for what it was and is...and for her not being in it.
too familiar.
it occurred to me during this year's birthday gift delivery to the intensive care nursery where eliza spent her first ten weeks fighting for her life that family is really what her life was--and is--about. from the nurses and doctors in that hateful place who became our and her daily companions and her loving caregivers in our stead to our parents and siblings who made so many sacrifices to help us and care for us over the course of her life to the school and church and neighbor friends who have loved us in incomprehensible ways to the many surrogate aunts and uncles and grandparents eliza and luke acquired--we have been surrounded and loved on and cared for by an incredible family these past four years.
and so even as i cringe at the familiar--the parking space, the monitors, the overheard conversations--i am thankful for it because i know it to be a gift. i recognize divine love even in the familiar hateful fallenness that sickness and suffering and hospitals and death represent. even as i cringe at the memories and the grief and the love lost with my eliza, i am thankful for the gift of so many new familiar things she gave me in her suffering.
Friday, January 29, 2010
and as for 2010, i'll let you know
january 29, 2006
january 29, 2007
january 29, 2008
january 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
seen in my closet
yes, that's a very skinny, wiry monkey...wearing pirate boxers.
and in case you were hadn't figured it out, he's the one being strong; i'm the one being calm (ish) and grateful.
and in case you were hadn't figured it out, he's the one being strong; i'm the one being calm (ish) and grateful.
(i don't doubt that my mother-in-law has some photos resembling this one of sam. i'll stash these away in case a future wife [mercy!] needs some warning of what to expect...that is, after all, sam's chin-up bar from which he's hanging. where do you think he got the idea?)
Saturday, January 23, 2010
questionable
"i think it's because there's electricity under the ground and the static from my hair is attracted to the electricity," is luke's explanation for why a helium balloon, when rubbed on your head, will stick to the carpet instead of rising to the ceiling.
"i already got rid of all my food and now i'm working on getting rid of the germs," says luke, in explanation for hours and hours of dry heaves during a recent bout with a stomach flu.
we chuckle when our kids use what information they have to explain things they observe and come up with such creative--however implausable--explanations. but don't we do the same thing?
"God gives you only as much as you can handle," followed by the implied, if not verbalized, "so you must be very strong and able to handle more than most people."
"God is teaching you something/refining you/using you to teach something."
"one day you'll look back at this and laugh."
"it's for the best/better off this way."
of course, my own experience of losing a child colors my collection of the explanations i have been offered, but we all do it to each other in the face of all sorts of inexplicable griefs, be it death or divorce or miscarriage or job loss or any number of other terrible things we face. we all do it.
because, just like luke who takes what little information he has about static electricity and helium and the way he knows them to behave, we too take what little we know and try to make sense of what we observe. in my case, many well-intentioned people who know that God works all things for the good of those who love Him and who knew that sam and i would survive caring for and losing eliza put two and two together and concluded that eliza was given to us because we were somehow more equipped to deal with her life and death than would be another family.
pardon me, but that's crap. (and hear me say this, please, if you have ever made this comment to me or to anyone else: the well-meant intention was heard and received as love. absolutely, unquestionably. thank you for loving me enough and being brave enough to want to say something, and thank you for the compliment implied in your gesture.)
but just as luke's dry heaves had very little to do with his stomach trying to rid itself of germs, so were eliza's life and death not some cosmic consequence proportional to the strength of my family. God knows better than that. which is not to say that God doesn't use stories like eliza's to teach people things, and no one more than her family. and of course, you may someday look back and laugh at a terrible situation with a friend. maybe it is for the best that you lost your job or had to move out of your house. but i refuse to believe in what one friend calls "eliza the concept," that is, that eliza was an object lesson sent to our family so that we and a whole bunch of other people could learn some stuff. bull-loney (everybody loves raymond, anyone?). it's just not true.
eliza was a person with a purpose, yes. but that purpose is so much more than we can cobble together from our feeble understanding of a few things we observe. can you neatly summarize the purpose of your healthy child? i can no more tell you the reason for luke than i can for eliza. can i tell you some lessons i've learned from him? sure. is God using very specific parts of his little personality to refine me as i parent him? of course. did i reach the "one day" when i could look back at his nearly-life-ending 30-minute-nap phase and laugh? sure (although some days it still makes me shudder six years later, i must confess). but none of those things, nor the summary of those things, is the reason for luke.
but what to do? we're wired to search for reasons. indeed, God gave us the very brains that are made for such questions, such searches for purpose. some of us like to think--myself among them--that the answer is just to store up all these questions for that someday when we get to heaven and can rattle of the list of why-why-whys and get all our answers. what a relief it will be to finally know it all! but isn't that the trap that adam and eve fell into, too, when the serpent promised them they would be like God if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? didn't they want all the answers just like God had? (oh, how frustrating! what questions did they even have in their perfect prelapsarian world? fools!) as for me, when i covet all the answers and want to rush to get to God so i can tick off my whole list of whys, i'm reminded of c.s. lewis's answer, which i much prefer: in the great divorce (yup, still hung up on it, so i still think you should go read it if you haven't!), when one character (referred to as the "big ghost") arrives on the cusp of heaven and is met by an already-resident who was once upon a time a murderer, the cusp-dweller is up in arms and ultimately refuses to go, determined as he is for heaven to be a place where justice is finally served.
"What I'd like to understand," said the Ghost, "is what you're here for, as pleased as Punch, you, a bloody murderer, while I've been walking the streets down there and living in a place like a pigstye all these years."
"That is a little hard to understand at first. But it is all over now. You will be pleased about it presently. Till then there is no need to bother about it."
"No need to bother about it? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"No, not as you mean. I do not look at myself. I have given up myself. I had to, you know, after the murder. That was what it did for me. And that was how everything began."
"Personally," said the Big Ghost with an emphasis which contradicted the ordinary meaning of the word, "personally, I'd have thought you and I to be the other way round. That's my personal opinion. [...] I'm asking for nothing but my rights. [...] I got to have my rights, same as you, see?"
"Oh, no. It's not so bad as that. I haven't got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You'll get something far better. Never fear."
something far better. i find myself hoping that, rather than the answers to all my feeble human questions, when i get into the presence of God, i'll get something far better, something that erases the fact that my questions ever even existed, something that erases the fact that eliza ever suffered, that relationships ever failed, that people ever hurt each other, that expectations were never met, that people died or lost or left or failed. all of which misses the mark, of course, of solving the problem of all the questions that still rattle around in my head today...but to imagine something better than answers? i can at least rest on that.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9
"i already got rid of all my food and now i'm working on getting rid of the germs," says luke, in explanation for hours and hours of dry heaves during a recent bout with a stomach flu.
we chuckle when our kids use what information they have to explain things they observe and come up with such creative--however implausable--explanations. but don't we do the same thing?
"God gives you only as much as you can handle," followed by the implied, if not verbalized, "so you must be very strong and able to handle more than most people."
"God is teaching you something/refining you/using you to teach something."
"one day you'll look back at this and laugh."
"it's for the best/better off this way."
of course, my own experience of losing a child colors my collection of the explanations i have been offered, but we all do it to each other in the face of all sorts of inexplicable griefs, be it death or divorce or miscarriage or job loss or any number of other terrible things we face. we all do it.
because, just like luke who takes what little information he has about static electricity and helium and the way he knows them to behave, we too take what little we know and try to make sense of what we observe. in my case, many well-intentioned people who know that God works all things for the good of those who love Him and who knew that sam and i would survive caring for and losing eliza put two and two together and concluded that eliza was given to us because we were somehow more equipped to deal with her life and death than would be another family.
pardon me, but that's crap. (and hear me say this, please, if you have ever made this comment to me or to anyone else: the well-meant intention was heard and received as love. absolutely, unquestionably. thank you for loving me enough and being brave enough to want to say something, and thank you for the compliment implied in your gesture.)
but just as luke's dry heaves had very little to do with his stomach trying to rid itself of germs, so were eliza's life and death not some cosmic consequence proportional to the strength of my family. God knows better than that. which is not to say that God doesn't use stories like eliza's to teach people things, and no one more than her family. and of course, you may someday look back and laugh at a terrible situation with a friend. maybe it is for the best that you lost your job or had to move out of your house. but i refuse to believe in what one friend calls "eliza the concept," that is, that eliza was an object lesson sent to our family so that we and a whole bunch of other people could learn some stuff. bull-loney (everybody loves raymond, anyone?). it's just not true.
eliza was a person with a purpose, yes. but that purpose is so much more than we can cobble together from our feeble understanding of a few things we observe. can you neatly summarize the purpose of your healthy child? i can no more tell you the reason for luke than i can for eliza. can i tell you some lessons i've learned from him? sure. is God using very specific parts of his little personality to refine me as i parent him? of course. did i reach the "one day" when i could look back at his nearly-life-ending 30-minute-nap phase and laugh? sure (although some days it still makes me shudder six years later, i must confess). but none of those things, nor the summary of those things, is the reason for luke.
but what to do? we're wired to search for reasons. indeed, God gave us the very brains that are made for such questions, such searches for purpose. some of us like to think--myself among them--that the answer is just to store up all these questions for that someday when we get to heaven and can rattle of the list of why-why-whys and get all our answers. what a relief it will be to finally know it all! but isn't that the trap that adam and eve fell into, too, when the serpent promised them they would be like God if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? didn't they want all the answers just like God had? (oh, how frustrating! what questions did they even have in their perfect prelapsarian world? fools!) as for me, when i covet all the answers and want to rush to get to God so i can tick off my whole list of whys, i'm reminded of c.s. lewis's answer, which i much prefer: in the great divorce (yup, still hung up on it, so i still think you should go read it if you haven't!), when one character (referred to as the "big ghost") arrives on the cusp of heaven and is met by an already-resident who was once upon a time a murderer, the cusp-dweller is up in arms and ultimately refuses to go, determined as he is for heaven to be a place where justice is finally served.
"What I'd like to understand," said the Ghost, "is what you're here for, as pleased as Punch, you, a bloody murderer, while I've been walking the streets down there and living in a place like a pigstye all these years."
"That is a little hard to understand at first. But it is all over now. You will be pleased about it presently. Till then there is no need to bother about it."
"No need to bother about it? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"No, not as you mean. I do not look at myself. I have given up myself. I had to, you know, after the murder. That was what it did for me. And that was how everything began."
"Personally," said the Big Ghost with an emphasis which contradicted the ordinary meaning of the word, "personally, I'd have thought you and I to be the other way round. That's my personal opinion. [...] I'm asking for nothing but my rights. [...] I got to have my rights, same as you, see?"
"Oh, no. It's not so bad as that. I haven't got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You'll get something far better. Never fear."
something far better. i find myself hoping that, rather than the answers to all my feeble human questions, when i get into the presence of God, i'll get something far better, something that erases the fact that my questions ever even existed, something that erases the fact that eliza ever suffered, that relationships ever failed, that people ever hurt each other, that expectations were never met, that people died or lost or left or failed. all of which misses the mark, of course, of solving the problem of all the questions that still rattle around in my head today...but to imagine something better than answers? i can at least rest on that.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9
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