raw

there are lots of things that aren't much good until you get past the outside. pistachios. eggs. tootsie pops. corn on the cob.

but i'm thinking more of a watermelon.

to have a husband with whom i am completely honest, completely open, and completely raw all the time is an amazing blessing. i could never think to ask for more. but to have a friend who searches out the raw--splits me open to the get to the inside--is an incredible bonus gift.

like a watermelon.

there's good, sweet, juicy stuff inside. and some hard seeds, too, not good for much, except maybe enjoying the spitting them out. but a watermelon has a thick skin. it requires a sharp knife, a strong arm, to get through to the raw insides. which have a sweetness that compares to nothing else.

i have a beautiful, strong friend who, with the delicacy, precision, and confidence of a surgeon, splits me open.

i can count on her, whether i like it or not, to split me open. a sharp knife, applied in just the right spot with just the right amount of pressure. the juice begins to spill almost immediately. it's sticky. but she's in it all the way to the sweet center, laughing as we spit out the hard seeds and endure all the messy stickiness that comes with getting to the raw sweetness.

my skin is thick. it means nothing to her. just like a watermelon rind is good only for what is secreted away inside, so my thick skin is only what hides away what she loves about me. and she'll get it, no matter what knife she has to use.

come to think of it, those seeds we spit away probably have their purpose, too. probably.

(she'll laugh at my comparing myself to a watermelon, too. and i'll love her for it.)

family photo

(this post is supposed to be a picture thing. if you keep reading, you'll see why it's a good thing my words tend to turn out better than my pictures...)

i can't tell you how much sleep i've lost over pictures recently.

i'm not sure what i thought i'd find different there today; i go every spring, after all. she was only there once...but i had a picture in mind.

it was a spring sunday, and the azaleas promised to be at their best. we were already dressed up for church, the sun was shining, the camera was in the car. so we drove to raleigh in search of the azaleas. they were amazing, as anticipated.

(much better than my phd [push here, dummy] photography.)

pictures of the flowers, pictures of the kids.

we scoped out the perfect spot, then searched for someone we might to ask to snap a picture for us. a dad was taking pictures of the rest of his family; i offered to take one with him in it, and he did the same for us. with my little phd camera, the man i wish i could find to thank took the beautiful picture of our family that everyone knows.

what did that man think? like others who didn't know her, couldn't figure her out: wow, that's a big baby...such long hair for a baby...she's sleeping right through it...she's so well-behaved...smile for the picture! i'd like to find that man and thank him for not asking and for taking the picture that would represent our family so often.

so the neighborhood azaleas have been blooming this week. time for my annual pilgrimage. prepared, with my new fancier camera and pictures of before in hand.

i don't know what i thought i'd find there today. she was only there once, after all. but i had a picture in mind.

the garden is indeed alive and beautiful as every year. not so my camera battery, it turns out.

see, it's not the cemetery that gets to me; in my mind, in my memory, in my picture...she was alive and beautiful and mine in that garden. i didn't know what to expect going there today. but the pictures i intended to take--of what, i don't really know--weren't to be.

i can't tell you how much sleep i've lost over pictures. the pictures i didn't take. i've been plagued by my lack of pictures of her in the last month and a half of her life. the last picture i have is a halloween picture of her dressed up as a bunny; she died just before christmas. how can i recapture all those days in between if i don't have any pictures? how can i prove she was alive and beautiful and mine all those forty-two days if i don't have one picture?

how will i remember what that garden--that alive and beautiful, perfectly blooming azalea garden that was mine for just today--looked like without a picture?

i hope that man's family picture came out as well as ours.

come home

mama, i just found something that used to belong to eliza, and it makes me think about her a lot. and it makes me feel sad. it makes me think, "come home."

it's Easter Saturday, that weird, i-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it day in between Eli, Eli and He is risen. yesterday, we erected our wooden cross in the backyard; buried luke's Lambie, wrapped in a towel, in a cardboard box tomb; rolled a backyard stone in front of the box's opening. luke was sad to leave Lambie out there all by herself all night. it rained and stormed; i, too, wanted to bring her in. or at least check that she wasn't getting wet. sam went out and wrapped her in a plastic bag, just to be safe.

there's someone else i'd like to bring in from the wet dirt, too.

what did the disciples do on Easter Saturday? we can dye eggs, hunt treats, and prepare for tomorrow--He is risen, Hallelujah!--because we know tomorrow comes. all the disciples knew that saturday was that their friend, the one they thought was The One, was alone in the tomb. dead. gone. on Good Friday, we reenact the Passion, reenact the horror and absolute evil of the crucifixion; on Easter Sunday, we reenact the rejoicing and celebration and blissful surprise of the resurrection. what do we do with In-Between Saturday?

i'm usually in too much of a rush to get to sunday to worry too much about my theology of saturday. prepare the treats, cook and bake for a big dinner, dye eggs...friday's over, after all (whew), and sunday's coming. i can safely use saturday to get all the preparation for sunday done (because there's no church today, whew again), so sunday i can rest and rejoice.

but i'm hung up on saturday this year. i'm living in the already and not-yet. every day is In-Between Saturday. eliza is in the tomb, dead, gone, and i can't wrap her up to protect her from the storm. she doesn't need protection from the storm, after all, because we're not going to bring her back inside tomorrow, back to snuggling in bed with us, like luke will with Lambie. here's the thing: it's not friday anymore for eliza, but it's not sunday yet for me. her suffering is over; she's already in the already. and i'm stuck in the not-quite-yet.

but what if i use this In-Between Saturday to prepare for Easter Sunday? that is, how do i prepare for the feast, the rejoicing and celebration and blissful surprise to which eliza has gone ahead of me? the disciples mourned; they didn't know that sunday was coming. i know. i know.

i'd like to think eliza and luke might be sharing the very same thought today: Come Home. so i'm going to get ready. i'm going to clean house and tidy up and prepare for the feast. The Feast. Matthew 8:11 says that "many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." praise God.

i'm using my saturday to get ready.

officially

if you've read this post and are still here, it's okay. you can stay.

glimpsed: hope

(do you see it?)


( in context)

harbinger.

(redbuds are why i love spring in north carolina.)

...and found?

in the context of a conversation about life after eliza and my current struggles therein, and friend asked me today if it would fit to describe me as "lost."

"lost" according to google:

no longer in your possession or control

confused as to time or place or personal identity

spiritually or physically doomed or destroyed

incapable of being recovered or regained

not caught with the senses or the mind

bemused, deeply absorbed in thought

baffled, perplexed, filled with bewilderment

helpless, unable to function

do i feel out of control, confused, destroyed, bemused, helpless, unable to function? yes and yes. and i can't stand feeling lost. but am i doomed, destroyed, incapable of being recovered or regained? am i, in fact, lost?

i offer this explanation, from a journal entry i wrote a month ago yesterday, before i felt lost or knew i'd feel so:

You know when you turn off the light at night and everything looks completely pitch-black because your eyes haven't adjusted to the dark yet, and even though you can't see a thing you can flop down in precisely the right spot on your bed because you know exactly where it is because that's where it has always been despite the fact that you can't see it at all? Yeah, that's kind of how it is.

am i lost because my bedroom is pitch-black and my eyes haven't focused yet? no, i could never be lost in my own bedroom, finding my way to my own bed.

do i "see" God, can i find my moorings right now, when my eyes, my heart have yet to adjust to the change in landscape since eliza died? no. but does that mean that i'm lost, that He isn't where He's always been? no. just like my bed hasn't moved even though my eyes can't see it, neither has God left me in the dark because my heart can't see Him.

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord; I want to see You.

if not

First Lord, All's Well That Ends Well, IV.3, Wm. Shakespeare

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whip'd them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherish'd by our virtues."