A Letter to Katherine

I have debated about whether or not the following is too personal to share, but decided that the significance of this day is too great to let it pass without some acknowledgment and reflection. One year ago today, I was told that it was very likely that our daughter Katherine would be "on a machine" or in a coma following her catastrophic AVM rupture. Thank God we didn't realize at the time that the much greater possibility was death.

To commemorate the day that "Katherine Lived," Jay has asked those of us who were still in the lobby of UCLA Hospital in the wee morning hours of April 22 to write a brief letter to her about that time. Since I am currently without a laptop, there is no opportunity for me to write an in-depth blog reflecting back on the experience. Because of that, I have decided to share this personal letter to Katherine, quickly written yesterday on a borrowed laptop.

For those of you reading this today (the 22nd), please do not say anything to Katherine about it, as Jay is planning on printing the letters out and giving them all to her tonight.

As I write these words, Katherine and Jay are at UCLA meeting with the doctor who will perform the very intricate and complicated surgery next Wednesday. With God's help, we have come very far from where we were a year ago...but there are still many miles of wilderness ahead. Our entire family sends you our deepest thanks for your consistent concern and prayers during the course of this journey.

Bless you!

*****************************

Dear Katherine,

It seems like 100 years ago...and like yesterday. April 21, 2008...our last ordinary day.

Some parts of it are blurred into a hazy dream-like recollection, but other parts are crystal clear. I remember hanging up the phone after talking to Big J, and walking around the end of the bed. As clearly as if someone had spoken to me, I heard the words, "Talitha Cumi" in my head.

I wonder what was going on in the heavenlies at that exact moment.

I wonder if that was when Jesus said "No!" to Satan's plan to take your life.

He exercised his God-given authority over all of creation and poured his life back into your body, as it was pouring out its life's blood.

Just yesterday, my daily reading "happened" to be Luke 8. "...But the crowd laughed at him because they all knew she had died. Then Jesus took her by the hand and said in a loud voice, "My child, get up!" And at that moment her life returned, and she immediately stood up!"

You did not stand up immediately, as did Jairus' daughter, but I believe that you received healing at that moment. Obviously, you are coming into a complete healing "little by little, so that faith may increase." It has not been easy. You have had to endure many unendurable things.

But I do know that the night of April 21, 2008, was full of miracles. I don't think we will know about all of them until heaven.

Even though the morning of April 22 seemed horrific beyond our worst imagining, the real battle had already been won. The Lord proclaimed that you would rise again and "declare the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

And that is exactly what you have done. You have reached more people with the Good News of God's love from this position of weakness than you ever could have from a position of strength. What Satan meant for evil, God has used for good.

There are many things I (thankfully) don't remember about the morning of April 22, 2008. I remember our conversation with Dr. Gonzalez like a strange nightmare. I remember hearing a loud screaming in the lobby, and then realizing it was me. Then, Amie waking up and screaming "Is she dead???" in a horrible, hoarse voice. Mia holding her. I remember lying on the floor of the chapel, collapsing on the floor of your room in ICU. I remember prayers being sobbed outloud, people watching us.

I also remember being surrounded by a circle of love like a soft cocoon.

But, most vividly, I remember all the prophetic words that were spoken...by Andrew and JT and Big J and many more....

Katherine WILL rise up again...she WILL have a ministry...she WILL have abundant LIFE!!!

All Praise to God, our dear Father, who always keeps his promises!

How grateful I am to Him today for giving me the gift of Katherine not once, but twice....even though He himself "did not spare his own son..."

I am so very thankful that He spared my precious daughter.

INTILYTM,IJTILYTL

Love you forever,

Mommy

Incommunicado

Dear Friends,

Just a note to let you know that my computer is broken and is being sent off to the hospital for...(gasp)...4 weeks. I was just about to post a spring photo album when it died. 

As if that weren't enough, our phone service in the apartment, which is extremely inconsistent, is back to VERY BAD. You have to hang off the balcony to get a signal. And James has evidently thrown away my new bluetooth, which at least enabled me to put the phone outside on the ledge and have a conversation indoors. 

This is why women my age hate technology. Too many complications.

Amie has very graciously loaned me her Mac for the day so that I can check my email. I just had to make a solemn vow not to look at her Facebook pictures.

Hmmmm.....

Anyway, I just had the opportunity to read Katherine's latest caringbridge entry on her difficulties in communicating. It has been such a sad thing for all of us, but, of course, especially for her. How I miss the sound of her voice! I fervently pray that I will hear it again one day.

Communication is something we take for granted until deprived of it. 

Perhaps we're supposed to learn to listen better during those times. 

********************

In the meantime, please forgive me for being incommunicado. 

(And maybe someone could pray that BestBuy's prognosis was overly pessimistic?)

Thank you for your faithfulness.

Love,

Kim 

Messes

(Note: This one is not for the squeamish, the prudish, or the easily-offended.)


********************


Pardon my (Old) French,*

(*Medieval Latin)

but I’ve been dealing with a lot of crap lately.


Literally.


The highlight of last week may have been when I was scooping poop off the freshly-professionally-cleaned carpet with a serving spoon. Employing a diversionary tactic to stave off the dry heaves, I started thinking about what great lyrics that would be for a country song. “I’m just sittin’ here scoopin’ up poop with a servin’ spoon...” Feel free to make up your own tune.

Sometimes it seems like that’s just what life is. One fine mess to clean up after the next.

It was my own fault, actually.

We were trying a new experiment, where James lived at the apartment in LA with me for a week, while Katherine and Jay went back to Casa Colina for therapy. We had a grand old time together, grandma and grandboy. We went on outings to the beach, to the park, to UCLA...we read books and watched Sesame Street and went swimming....we took naps and ate snacks together...and we played housekeeping tug-of-war. This is where the grandboy does things like turns over the trash can and starts eating stuff out of it while the grandmother is cleaning up the shampoo he emptied out on the bathroom floor. Then, while she’s cleaning up the trash, he sneaks back in the bathroom and starts flushing her earrings down the toilet. While she tries to fish out the earrings, he runs back to the kitchen and brandishes a knife from the dishwasher. When she (calmly) retrieves the knife and resumes cleaning up the trash, she discovers a stash of silverware hidden in it...purloined from the same source. By that point, he’s pulled the placemats off of the dining table, the books off the bookshelf, and is playing with matches. It’s an action-packed game that can go on all day. (17-month-olds are fast little buggers, whereas grandmas are 'slowing down,' so he usually won.)

I think there are many reasons why it should be deemed medically unethical for doctors to artificially inseminate 50-somethings.

Anyway, we kind of had a routine and a flow going. I knew the ground rules. The existing condition was that James was teething molars. Four of them at the same time. Evidently that provokes the development of several unsavory symptoms. They include the production of a unique type of diarrhea multiple times a day, a constantly running nose, and a personality change so severe that, at one point, I was looking in the Yellow Pages under “Exorcists.” (Thanks, George.) James was a Mean, Green, Poopin’ Machine.

I’d already made the mistake once. I had impulsively pulled off a dirty diaper in the living room without first checking to see if there were any wipes around. I instructed James to lie on the floor without moving and continue watching “Yeah-yo.” I sprinted around to the bedroom and back in about 30 seconds...to discover a nice, fresh, juicy pile awaiting me. James scrunched up his face, sniffed loudly, and said, “Euuuuuwwwwhhhhhhhh” so adorably that I just had to laugh.

You’d think I’d learn from my mistakes. On the day in question, we were getting ready to get in the bathtub. In the amount of time it took to take the diaper off and test the water with my hand, James had produced a puddle on the bathroom floor the size of Lake Michigan and was happily splashing around in it. We slipped and slid our way into the tub and got nice and clean. As we were getting out, the phone rang. I wasn’t planning on answering it, but James was so excited at the thought that it might be his grandfather (“BigB!!! BigB!!! Hello! Hello!"), that I ran for it. After a sweet little conversation, I put him down for a second while I finished talking grownup talk. James ran around the corner in his monkey towel. Literally less than a minute later, I ran after him....to find a gushy volcanic eruption decorating the carpet, guilty little footprints trailing away from it. When James saw his grandmother’s face, he started wailing.

We got back in the bathtub.

After putting James down for his nap, I began my job with the serving spoon. About half way through the cleaning, I had an epiphany:

Life is full of messes.

Some are inevitable, but most are of our own creation. We want our freedom. We despise confinement. We want to do what we want to do, whenever and wherever we feel like doing it.

In addition to that high-schooler, I think there’s a 17-month-old that still resides inside us all.

I wish I could allow James all the freedom he desires. I’d love to let him run wild and free. (And naked as the day he came.) But when I do, he just makes another huge mess and then steps in it...leaving behind a trail of the tracks of his guilt. I find myself constantly having to confine him for his own good. Constantly having to deprive him of things he thinks he wants.

But my love for him is fierce and strong. I am willing to do whatever it takes to form the kind of character in him that is pleasing to his Maker...as his Maker does for me. Sometimes that causes conflict between us. Because of the unique set of circumstances in which our family is living right now, sometimes I have to discipline him in a way that grandmothers hate to do. (We’re just supposed to be doling out candy.)

Here’s the irony: after the discipline, through tears of anger and frustration at not getting his own way, to whom does he turn for comfort?? He buries his head in the policewoman’s shoulder, and hugs her neck. Sometimes I even get a little kiss.

Scooping up the poop that day, I realized that no matter how many messes I have to clean up, it is a joy because of how much I love the little mess himself. I can put up with his crap from now until the cows come home, but I’m not going to let him wallow in it. I will clean him up as many times as he gets dirty.

Praise be to God, my Father, who daily does the same for me....whatever mess I get myself into.

********************

Etymology:
2 British dialect crap, craps residue from rendered fat, from Middle English crappe, perhaps from Old French crappe chaff, residue, from Medieval Latin
nonsense , rubbish ; also : stuff

“His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff..." (Luke 3:17)

"God renders the working of grace slow and obscure, so that he may keep us in the darkness of faith......He frees us from self by revealing our weaknesses and corruptions in a multitude of backslidings. All this dealing seems perfectly natural, and it is by this succession of natural means that we are burnt as by a slow fire. We should like to be consumed at once by the flames of pure love, but such an end would scarcely cost us anything. It is only an excessive self-love that desires to become perfect in a moment and at so cheap a rate...

Is the surgeon cruel because he cuts to the quick? No, on the contrary, it is both love and skill. He would treat his only and well-beloved son.

It is the same way with God. He never afflicts us except against his own inclination. His fatherly heart is not gladdened at the sight of our misery, but he cuts to the quick, that he may heal the disease in our soul. He must snatch away from us whatever we cling to too fondly, and all that we love inordinately, contrary to his claim upon us. He acts in this as we do by our children. They cry because we take away the knife which was their amusement but might have been their death. We weep, we become discouraged, we cry aloud. We are ready to murmur against God, as children get angry with their mothers. But God lets us weep and secures our salvation. He afflicts only to amend. Even when he seems to overwhelm, he means nothing but good: it is only to spare us the evils we were preparing for ourselves. The things we now lament for a little while would have caused us to mourn forever..."

Francois Fenelon (1651-1715)