There’s a country song playing on the radio right now that destroys me. I can’t help but stop, pause, and let go of the tightness in my chest.
It forces me to FEEL the emotions I push away to function.
Music does that.
It interferes. It squeezes the heart. It pulls and tugs and finds the release for all those clogged up tears.
So, what’s the magical song?
It’s called “Drink A Beer” by Luke Bryan.
Eloquent right?
Honestly, I don’t even drink beer (although I do like the smell on my man’s breath), but it could be a glass of wine (or a margarita) for all I care.
This song is exactly how I feel watching my daddy slip away and my mama fight this cancer battle.
So, today, I’ll be standing up at the top of my stairs—like I do every day—folding endless loads of laundry, sipping a glass of my favorite red-Menage a Trois and watching another breathtaking sunset through the best view in my house. I’ll wave at my darling neighbors and giggle as I watch toddlers in princess dresses and heels trip from house to house. I’ll cringe as the older boys’ dash into the street as cars fly around the corner despite our “slow down” signs.
And I’ll cry and play this song just one more time.
Drink A Beer
When I got the news today
I didn’t know what to say.
So I just hung up the phone.
I took a walk to clear my head,
This is where the walking lead
Can’t believe you’re really gone
Don’t feel like going home
So I’m gonna sit right here
On the edge of this pier
Watch the sunset disappear
And drink a beer
Funny how the good ones go
Too soon, but the good Lord knows
The reasons why, I guess
Sometimes the greater plan
Is kinda hard to understand
Right now it don’t make sense
I can’t make it all make sense
So I’m gonna sit right here
On the edge of this pier
Watch the sunset disappear
And drink a beer
So long my friend
Until we meet again
I’ll remember you
And all the times that we used to…
…sit right here on the edge of this pier
And watch the sunset disappear
And drink a beer
Drink a beer,
Drink a beer.
–Cheers my friends and Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you for your friendship and love, thank you for taking your precious time to read my little blog. I hope and pray you enjoy every sacred moment over the holidays with your loved ones. Take mental snapshots of every smile and remember how very blessed we all are.
“Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” –Princess Leih
My favorite tales always begin with a crisis moment where the protagonist is forced to turn in a new direction.
Going back is no longer an option.
Remember Luke Skywalker in Star Wars?—the mystery of a lovely Princess and a spunky R2 unit whisper of adventure and a different life. Luke wants to pursue, but he is held back by fear and obligation, that is until his aunt and uncle’s farm blows up.
A good story is like that.
We want to live a grand adventure, free and spontaneous, but the safety net of reality stems us in—until one day our security (our job or a relationship or our health) explodes and our only option is to travel to new and dark places.
Places we don’t want to go.
Scary Places. Places that reveal our brokenness. Places of testing and places of redemption.
The road behind us is gone. And despite our cries out to God of unbearable grief and terror, there is only the road before us.
I am at that crossroads.
And like Luke, I’m unsure of this journey ahead. I want to live a grand story and run towards what God has for me—but this cup of suffering isn’t what I had in mind.
On Thursday, I met with my dad’s neurologist and received the news no one wants to hear. “Prepare for the end. We don’t know how long. His brain is shrinking and atrophying rapidly all the way around.”
Insert a bad word. Insert gut-wrenching sadness.
My dad tried to accept the words. His disease–Picks–now makes it hard for him to get out his thoughts coherently, but I knew what he was saying.
“It’s ok. God knows. I hope I lived a good life.”
We went to Chili’s. I held my daddy’s hand. We had a margarita. We laughed the jittery laughs of shock and wiped up the tears silently creeping out of our nose.
This weekend was hard. Greif is like that. One minute you are fine and the next—blubbering over a song or a stupid USC flag. For my dad’s sake, I hope my Bruins lose this year. Just this once. Just to make my daddy gloat and smile.
But Monday was the final explosion. It was the no going back moment.
I got the call.
They found a large mass on my mom’s pancreas. They said the two words you never want to hear—Pancreas and Cancer.
And now we wait for biopsies and treatment plans and a new journey into a place of unknown.
And so I am crying out like the desperate princess watching her planet blow up, “Help me Jesus, You’re my only hope.”
My parents are not old.
They are brilliant and strong and beautiful. I am not ready to lose them. I am greedy for their care, their protection, their covering. My mom and dad are supposed to help pick out my Faith’s formal dress, and be at graduations and Kyle’s Varsity football games and recitals where little Kolby wears a halo and sings about Baby Jesus.
There is so much life I want to share.
I feel robbed.
As a Christian—as a speaker and writer, as someone who is supposed to encourage and motivate people to draw closer to Christ—I want to be better at this. But I’m not.
I feel like a fraud. I don’t have any pat answers.
I’m supposed to put on the happy face and smile and say it’s ok. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah.
But I don’t feel that way. I’m DEVESTATED. I want my mommy and my daddy. Here. Now. I want my blankie, and my teddy and to suck my thumb with a vengeance until everything is put back together right.
I don’t believe life is fair. Suffering sucks. Death was never meant to be.
But what I cling to is that God sees. He hears. He comforts. He is close. I don’t have to fear this journey. I have an eternal home where death is a merely a blip until I see my loved ones again. They might beat me there, but God provides a way though the pain and to this Jesus I lay down my life.
I also have an enemy who is out to steal and kill and destroy—who delights in crushing hope and joy. I’ve got two middle fingers pointed in his direction. (Sorry church people, I’m a little raw right now)
But I refuse to let him distract me from sharing the one thing that can never be taken away from me–and that’s Jesus.
And so I can choose to pick up my feet and march forward or I can linger in this wooing darkness—suffering, stalled, and bitter. I can ask “why” all day long and get pissed and hold on to a pain I was never meant to carry.
Or, I start a new story. I trust. I praise. I hope for miracles. I choose a double fisted faith despite the outcome. I get out of bed tomorrow and believe somehow, some way, some good will come out of this trial.
And I learn to use a light saber while blind folded—apparently I will need this skill where I am going.
If you know my mom, I’ve started a Caring Bridge site for her. Click here to visit.
“Mom, Dad, we have something we want to discuss with you.”
My husband and I looked at each other in apprehension. It’s always a little scary when your three kids—even the toddler—band together for a “family discussion.”
My oldest son Kyle took the lead, “You said if mom didn’t get pregnant by Christmas, we could get a puppy.”
The girls nodded their head in agreement and three-year-old Kolby chimed in with a chant, “puppy, puppy, puppy!”
I exhaled a big whoosh of exasperation, delighted at my children’s tenacity and complete frustration at my old and rusty uterus.
The kids are right. We’ve tried and tried and it’s time to own up and pay our puppy dues.
I really do want my kids to get their dream dog. I also really want one more baby. I guess I want both.
I don’t want to throw in the towel yet (I’ve still got a month) but my biological clock seems to have stalled and stuck—it’s been two years and two miscarriages—so unless we explore infertility, I am more likely picking up dog poop in the near future than changing diapers.
(Insert a melancholy tune)
Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who feels this breathtaking sadness at hanging up the cleats in the baby making department.
I see women all the time who have one or two kids and are so adamant they are DONE.
While I respect their resolve, I’ve never had that feeling stick. Not even once!
No timer dinged loudly in my brain or heart. The only thing holding me back from the Brangelina adoption of a mini-tribe is money.
As far as I concerned, the more (munchkins) the merrier.
When I hear people complain about their kids I cover my ears. Yes, these little (and big) suckers drive me bazonkers, but it’s a beautiful chaos.
Call me crazy, but I just want more. More kisses, more cuddles, more baseball games and tutu’s, more giggles and yes…even more teenage angst.
Children are life—ravishing reminders of God’s blessing and love in a world of chaos.
Maybe my thinking is broken. Maybe it’s letting go of control? I don’t know. It’s just hard to watch the baby years come to a halt.
Maybe I’m afraid of who I am when I don’t have a passel of children around to distract me. Before I had kids, I was a little lonely. I was a (mostly) only child with a large age gap between myself and my half-brother. A large family fills that gap.
The laughter, the noise, the energy…I love it.
Tim and I told the kids we would seriously consider our prior agreement.
I also told them to ignore any strange noises from our bedroom.
“EEEEWWWWWW!!!!! Gross!” yelled my middle schooler. Kyle just smirked.
(This is one way to guarantee you will never have sex, because kids are smarter. Kyle simply stays up until 1:00am doing homework, Kolby and Faith wake up at 5:00am since the time change and just for good measure, Kolby also wakes up in the middle of the night to go potty)
We have to be sneaky in this house.
And we just might need to call a handyman to repair the broken fence on our dog run (just in case).
I saw lots of adorable scarecrows costumes this Halloween—dainty Dorothy’s with a Toto peeping from a basket spilling over with candy—and of course, spooky green witches—but not once did I encounter my favorite character—the cowardly lion.
In all honesty, I believe it’s the costume that best represents us all—a fearful people—raging and roaring in image management as we tremble in our boots and hope no one see through us.
We have moments of glory where we roar our terrible roars and knash our terrible teeth, and then reality rears its ugly head and we go back to worrying about the bills and our health, Obamacare and North Korea, our marriages, teenagers, and a million other concerns.
Fear steals our joy and anxiety makes tyrants of all, but courage—glorious courage—when it breaks through—shines like the light of a million stars.
I saw a glimpse of a courageous little lion stepping out of her comfort zone and into bravery the other night.
On Halloween evening, a friend of Kyle’s—a specific Girl friend stopped by the house to meet us. The beautiful young lady, accompanied by a friend and her mom, walked up to the door and introduced herself.
Grace and Kyle—while not officially dating—have a strong fondness for each other. I can see the sparkle in her eyes when she looks at my son. At the Varsity football games, when they call his name over the loud-speaker for a tackle, she squeals with delight. She wears his number #34 proudly on her cheek and she even dressed in one of old jerseys for Halloween.
They are sweet together—it’s high emotion and furious texting and the blood racing tingles of high school romance.
And to their benefit, these two are trying to navigate the space of family, church, age-appropriateness and really liking each other in a God honoring way
So what was so scary to Grace? Apparently us.
Meeting the parent’s—the scary dating experts—the pastor and the blogger—the mom of her crush—were all just terrifying to the poor girl.
I can’t imagine how awkward it was for her. I was dressed as a saloon girl and Tim was a cowboy. Our porch was covered in candles, strobe lights, pumpkins, bats and thumping ghoulie tunes. Kids and neighbors poured over our walkway.
It was funny way to meet the first girl he’s ever brought home—strangely formal, bizarre, and so endearing.
But I knew if Kyle was making the effort to include us we’d better pay attention.
And so little Grace—the competitive gymnast with the strawberry blond hair—bucked up, put on her big girl pants and braved the parents.
Although I don’t know her very well and I’m not sure I’m ready for dating, I like how Grace operates.
Fear does not define her. She moved at the scary ‘meet the parents “moment with quaking feet and a fluttering heart, (our son told us this all later) but the point is she moved. She planted those feet on our porch and stuck out her hand with a smile.
Grace defined her circumstances instead of letting her fear (or circumstances) define her.
The cowardly lion ends up learning courage because there is something MORE important enough in his life than the fear to make it worth the frightening journey.
And it makes this mama smile to think my son was the important thing that motivated her to be brave.
Is there something scary or overwhelming in your life where you need an extra dose of courage?
