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)

Home

One thing I’ve learned for sure living in Tinseltown is that all that glitters ain’t gold.

The “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

I used to be envious of those people with multiple addresses you’d read about in Town and Country. “Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Astorbutt of New York, Palm Beach, and Nantucket announce the engagement of their daughter Abigail to Mr. Gregory Q. Gottrocks, IV, son of Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Q. Gottrocks, III of Washington, D.C., Martha’s Vineyard, and Paris, France.”

Or movie stars you’d read about in People: “Brangelina (or whoever) just purchased a $22.5 million villa on the Cote d’Azur. They also have residences in Beverly Hills, New York, and a 2,500 acre spread in Wyoming...”

Well, Mrs. F. Brooks Arnold of Athens, Georgia, Los Angeles, and Pomona, California thinks they might be crazy.

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

As is usually the case, the reality is far removed from the illusion. The vagabond life is not as carefree as it seems. You can’t just call Mayflower and have the movers show up each time a change in locale is necessitated. Personal belongings are strewn across the country. In this constant state of flux, just getting dressed in the morning poses a challenge. Throwing on a pair of pants in Athens, I realize that the only belt that works with them is still in Pomona. The shoes with the right heel height are in LA. In LA, I get dressed for church on a cold day, and go to grab my coat before running out the door. No coat in that closet. God only knows where the lipliner that matches that shade of lipstick is hiding. Probably in a purse in the pile on the closet floor in Georgia. And forget keeping up with little things like glasses and phone chargers and checkbooks.

Books are probably the worst, though. I’m usually messing around in 5 or 6 at a time. There are a few that are like security blankets...I lug them around with me wherever I go just in case I need a quick fix of Mr. Lewis or Dame Julian or Brennan Manning. Old friends.

It gets heavy carting all this stuff around.

I constantly feel unsettled, scattered, fragmented.

Even a little homesick.

It’s strange that I can manage to feel that way wherever I happen to be at the time. When I’m in California, I miss Athens. When I’m in Athens, I can’t wait to get back to California. I feel like the curious Rum Tum Tugger in T. S. Eliot’s Cats:

The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:
If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house...
The Rum Tum Tugger is a terrible bore:
When you let him in, then he wants to be out;
He's always on the wrong side of every door,
And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.

No matter where I am, there’s always someone to miss...and something missing.

Shortly after Katherine’s AVM rupture, our wise friend Howard said to Brooks, “Well, you can be miserable both places. When you’re in Athens, you can worry about Katherine. When you’re in California, you can worry about Grace!” (She was finishing up high school last spring.) I guess you have to know Howard to get this...it was actually a subtle reminder that we all need to trust more, worry less. I think he was also offering empathy for that feeling of being ripped apart that parents occasionally suffer.

The experience of the past 11 months has crystallized a thought for me:

I want to learn to live more lightly.

I want to be less weighed down by baggage of every kind...less “possessed by my possessions.” I want to get rid of STUFF. I want to clean out all my closets...both tangible and intangible. Like the detritus in the pile going to Goodwill, I want to lay down things like worry and expectations and bondage to old habits and thought patterns. I want to live more freely, less attached to this world and its systems and its junk. I want to be less entrenched here.

I’ve been trying to clean out one closet at home for years. I (abashedly) admit that it is larger than my bedroom in LA. I was standing in it the last time I was home, utterly confounded about where to begin. I must have rolled my eyes to the heavens in desperation. An old Victorian sampler perched on the top shelf caught my eye: “Heaven Is My Home.”

...a subtle reminder that this is not my natural habitat.

We are as ‘strangers and aliens’ on this earth.

Because of that, I think we must carry a little homesickness with us wherever we are. We will always have a secret ache for that place where we feel completely safe, loved, protected, and fully known. Those places simply don’t last on earth. People die...houses crumble.

As C.S. Lewis expresses it: “The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world...We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God...Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.” (The Problem of Pain)

Heaven is my home?

Surely it is my destination.

But what about now? How do I banish those feelings of homesickness here...before I arrive at my true home, where every tear will be wiped away?

This is where I feel the most at home now:

I lie in bed, with a pillow over my face. I still myself and shut out all the loud voices in my head. I inhale, slowly, the peace of God. I exhale the unrelenting demands of Self. I invite. I wait. And sometimes wait a while longer. Maybe I need to confess something first, get rid of a barrier.

And He comes.

He in me and I in Him.

“Abide* in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.....As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” (from John 15)

He is my home.

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

(*dwell, live)

After beginning these thoughts on “home,” I happened to run across this excerpt from the writings of Brennan Manning. He is one of my favorites, and Katherine and I were privileged to hear him speak at Belair Presbyterian a couple of years (different lifetime) ago. When the crowd gave him a standing ovation, he turned around and lifted his arms in homage to the large cross behind him.

“Jesus says simply, “make your home in me, as I make mine in you.” Home is not a heavenly mansion in the afterlife, but a safe place right in the midst of our anxious world...
Home is that sacred place-external or internal- where we don’t have to be afraid, were we are confident of hospitality and love. In our society we have not only many homeless people sleeping on the streets...but also vagabonds who are in flight, who never come home to themselves. They seek a safe place through alcohol or drugs, or security in success, competence, friends, pleasure, notoriety, knowledge, or even a little religion. They have become strangers to themselves, people who have an address but are never home, who never hear the voice of love or experience the freedom of God’s children. To those of us who are in flight, who are afraid to turn around lest we run into ourselves, Jesus says: “You have a home...I am your home...claim me as your home...you will find it to be the intimate place where I have found my home...it is right where you are...in your innermost being...in your heart."

Amen.

Hi Friends,

We've been having internet connection problems ever since we got back to California. Hopefully, this will soon be remedied.

In the meantime, I would just like to ask for prayers for wisdom for us in the coming weeks. We face many complicated decisions. There are many unknowns. Fear lurks around, waiting for a chance to settle in.

Please pray that we will receive divine guidance and assurance...and a peace that passes understanding.

Thank you so much for your faithful concern, support, love, and prayers.

May blessings rain upon your head...

Love,
Kim

Til We Have Faces

The world is a much uglier place without Katherine’s smile.

I have never let myself consider the possibility that its absence could be a permanent state of affairs. That would be too, too cruel.

I haven’t allowed myself to grieve the loss of her former face at all.

It is a loss.

Twenty seven years ago today, I saw those enormous blue eyes for the first time. Two huge, aqua pools stared at me as she latched on, full of questions and immediate, intense love. The nurses commented that this was no ordinary baby. She was born looking much older than a newborn....almost a Benjamin Button baby. She had the face of a sage. Her hair was already quite long, and she reminded me a little of a wise, old man. It’s hard to describe. She was different...unique....special.

To say that Katherine was “full of life” is a ridiculous understatement. Even as a baby, her face was a constantly changeable mask of animation. We realized that she was probably going to be an actress by age two. What drama those big eyes could express...what pathos, what ecstasy, what righteous indignation! That little face was never still unless she was asleep...especially the mouth. I’ve never seen a baby that could talk so much, so early. Illustration: When I was pregnant with my second one, Katherine went up to some poor woman at the grocery store and tugged at her skirt. When the woman looked around, she said, “See my mommy over dere? She has a baby in her tummy. She’s goin’ to the hospital and the doctor’s gonna help her PUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSHHHH it out!” It was only after having two others that I realized how unusual that was for a 21- or 22-month-old. (I have a hard time imagining James making a speech like that in a couple of months.)

Most of you who know Katherine will probably agree that she was one of the most ‘animated’ people of your acquaintance. (Those of you who don’t can verify this statement by watching her appearance on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? She almost blew Jeff Foxworthy off the stage.) But although Katherine’s speech was highly expressive, her face could speak volumes without a word. Her face was an open book, an invitation into her passionate soul. She went through a particularly awkward Awkward Stage, gawkily towering over all the boys in her grade for a couple of years. But as Katherine grew up, she grew into her body and grew to be beautiful. Her face was particularly so. It opened many doors for her. Beauty seems to do that in our culture. It ultimately provided a livelihood.

But Katherine has always been one of the least vain people on the planet. Unlike the rest of the female family members, she hates buying clothes, putting on makeup, jewelry, any of the girly stuff. She just doesn’t like to waste the time when she could be doing something more constructive...usually something having to do with ministering to other people. I used to beg her to at least put on a little makeup before heading out the door....in ironical imitation of my mother beseeching me to “Just put on a little lipstick...” in the zipper-part hippie days of the early 70’s.

“The sins of the mothers.......”

As a culture, we are obsessed with physical beauty. (Dear Lord, what have I spent on creams and potions and camouflage in the past few years??? Please forgive me...) Interestingly, Katherine and Jay gave me the book, You, Being Beautiful by Drs. Oz (Oprah fame) and Roizen, as one of my Christmas presents. Although I haven’t had time to read it yet, I was intrigued by some of the information in the first chapter. The authors write,

“Beauty is not as much a physical property of the person, but an end product of a complex mental process that translates millions of meaningless dots of light on the back of our retinas into 3D shapes, objects, and faces. Embedded in the software of the mind is a set of rules that are used to decode these real “bytes” of visual information. These observations are automatic—a beauty reflex, if you will.” (The docs go on to explain “phi” and the golden ratio that exists in nature. )“Phi is also a driving force in human attraction—men and women around the globe prefer a mate whose face is symmetrical and follows this ratio....The most information-dense visible area in nature is the human face, so we process a small area of the face and extend our conclusions to the entire surface. The richest connection of nerve and muscle density in the body is actually around the larynx (voice box) and the face is second—underscoring how important it is that you read subtle messages through speech and body language. The theory is that the more symmetrical a face, the healthier it is. ...Scientists also believe that symmetry is equated with a strong immune system—indicating that more robust genes make a person more attractive.”

...So, there is a scientific explanation for why our first impulse is to judge a book by its cover.

Intellectually, we know that all beauty is transitory, fleeting, ephemeral. “The grass withers, and the flowers fade...” But Katherine’s face, rather than enduring the gradual ravaging of time that most suffer, was altered abruptly, violently. Its symmetry has been destroyed. It is as if Katherine awakened from a dream to find that a cruel joke had been played on her: Her face has been stolen, replaced by a strange mask she doesn’t recognize. How terrifyingly vertiginous, to stare in the mirror at a complete stranger.

It’s a very good thing Katherine’s greatest strength is in knowing where her identity truly lies. Although this core belief has been tested beyond the breaking point, it has held fast.

Still, she is human. She particularly hates seeing pictures of herself now. Every Christmas morning (for 20-something years now) we always make the kids sit on the stairs in descending order of age for a photo op before the mad dash into the family room. This year, just as I snapped the shot, Katherine grabbed the right corner of her mouth and forceably held it up in a smile. It makes her angry that it won’t behave.

It makes me very angry, too.

I’ve been thinking about a line from a Dylan Thomas poem: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” He was talking about the process of aging and death. But I am raging against the dying of the light in Katherine’s eyes, the light that entered a room with her brilliant smile.

I know someone who creates light, however. I am asking the creator of light and beauty to restore his ravaged work of art, his marred creation. I don’t think it’s inappropriate to ask. I believe he hates it even more than I do when the other side messes up his good works.

I believe he loves to restore, rebuild, recreate. The whole Book is the story of that. From page 1 to page 1000+something, it is the story of the restoration of a marred creation. The restoration of all good and beautiful things.

I know that he will accomplish his purposes. I know that he will ultimately restore everything that has been lost, including Katherine’s smile. But I don’t know when. It may serve his greater purposes for this prayer to be answered later than I would like. Perhaps it may not be until Katherine sees him face to face. I pray that it will be before then. But I believe she—and all of us who miss that smile the most--will be given the grace to accept his timing.

In the meantime, her inner radiance suffuses the surface so that, in reality, she has never been more beautiful.

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

“Show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. (Song of Songs 2:14) Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. (Ps. 34:5) ...and her face was no longer downcast.(I Samuel 1:18)

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.(I John 3:2) Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. (I Cor. 13:12) And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.(II Cor. 3:2)


(Although I began this on Katherine’s birthday, March 8, I am finishing it on the 11th, which is the day she happens to be going for a facial surgery consultation. Please join us in praying for wisdom.)

Some Thoughts on Snow Day

We’ve been going Medieval for the past couple of days.

Of course, we never believe the weatherman when he says it’s going to snow in Georgia. There have been far too many devastating disappointments in our collective pasts. Far too many little flakes that disappeared before morning’s light, turning a possible glorious Snow Day into just another boring School Day. (One with a quiz, most likely, to add insult to injury.)

So when they talked of snow coming on Sunday, we thought, "Yeah, yeah...maybe in Dahlonega or Brasstown Bald. It never sticks in Athens.”

It looked like Narnia by Sunday afternoon.

Jay’s mom Mary Ruth has been doing the nanny shift, so I’m in Georgia now, trying to finish some of the things I left undone last April 21. The “to-do” list is staggering...exhausting. Life here is much more complicated because there are so many choices and players and jigsaw pieces that won’t fit. Life in California is tough, but simple.

So... I was secretly elated by that beautiful blanket of white stillness that brought everything to a screeching halt. I acted like a child, running out in my fancy high-heeled ‘church’ boots to take too many pictures. Our visiting niece from Connecticut thought I was nuts. This is the kind of weather she is trying to escape, moving ever further south of the Mason Dixon line in her educational pursuits. (She was down here checking out Emory and UGA law schools.)

But after a while, Liz admitted that this was a heck of a snowstorm, even by Connecticut standards. So we raided her cousins’ abandoned closets and the old ski clothes box for warm castoffs, and ventured out into the icy beauty of it all...until breaking limbs started splintering off of trees with explosive cracks. Then we high-tailed it back to the warmth of fake logs, real fire. The power had gone off in our absence.

No light. No noise. No TV, CD’s, DVD’s, internet, radio. No oven, range top, microwave. Just quiet and dark. And the gas logs.

For that night and the next.

We lit every candle we could find and huddled around the fireplace, while Brooks found something to grill out in the still-cascading snow. We read by candlelight.

It was beautiful.

Eventually, the cell phones died along with the cordless house phones, so communication with the outside world was curtailed. Many of our friends knew about Katherine’s latest Caringbridge entry before we did.

But that was okay.

Why are we so afraid of quiet and stillness?

It is only then that we can hear the still, small voice.

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

silken snow
spills from the sky
like salt sprinkled
from celestial shaker

crystalline purity
pours over dark, dank earth,
covering the rankness
of rotting leaves and dirt
like soothing salve
on a bloody hurt

through the quiet,
a loud crack-
as another tree falls
from the terrible
unbearable weight
of it all

then, like a kiss,
not a slap,
a fluffy flake
stings my frozen face:

scarlet sins
completely covered
by pure white

grace

"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow...” (Isaiah 1:18)

Dreams, Deferred

(This was begun a while ago, before violent viruses and other “cares of this world” intervened. But it seems fitting somehow to finish these thoughts just after the Oscars.)


What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

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

It’s not all sackcloth and ashes out here.

Sometimes we still live life in the fast lane.

Recently, we were privileged to attend Cousin Johnny’s latest movie premiere. Unfortunately, we made the movie star, his adorable mom, Cindy, and the studio-hired driver wait in the car about 20 minutes while we finished getting ready. Not cool. (His manager was probably eating Xanax like jellybeans.) Still, Johnny managed to hit the red carpet just before they rolled it up and turned it into “I Dream Of Jeanie’s” Goodwill donation.

We got to see several “People” magazine favorites. We took lots of pictures. We petted the primary canine star. Jawja Dawg that I am, I even let out a yelp or two in Johnny’s honor when he appeared on screen. (We thought he absolutely dominated.)

After the red carpet thing ended, we had rushed into the theatre to claim seats in the “reserved” section. Electric excitement charged the atmosphere. Young cast members whooped and cheered for each other. It brought back vivid memories of Katherine’s theatre days: the Dickensian camaraderie of the Troupe...the ‘smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd’...the euphoria of a successful production after months of agonizing rehearsal. How many times had I sat expectantly in the dark, awaiting the rising of a red velvet curtain with butterflies in my stomach? Silently praying, “Lord, just don’t let her trip.”

Our entourage had perfect seats, just far enough back, and dead center. Fortunately, there was room for a wheelchair right in the middle. As activity swirled all around her, Katherine waited patiently for the film to begin. Johnny brought people like his agent and manager over to meet her, and they were kind, gracious, and respectful.

When everyone had turned away for a moment, I noticed Katherine staring off into space. I got closer, and saw that her eyes were glistening. “Are you okay?” I whispered.

“This was my life,” she mouthed, wistfully.

This was her dream, I thought.

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

Where do dreams begin?

I am fascinated with dreams, both the nocturnal sort and those that are the daytime constructions of our imaginations. I’ve always been a "Walter Mitty." My first very distinct memory is of lecturing my imaginary playmates about their behavior during our move from Atlanta to Athens. I was not quite 2 years old. There were so many of them that I had to line them up on bleachers for the lecture. (My mother even wrote down some of the names as proof of what an odd child she’d birthed.) That same overactive imagination fueled dreams of future fame once I started dance lessons at age four. Throughout our sheltered childhood, my best friend and I forced the other unfortunate neighborhood children and our patient parents to sit through lengthy homegrown shows. “Let us entertain you” was our mantra, as we sang and danced and performed strange little plays until the audience started falling off of their seats in boredom. We watched movies with Hayley Mills and Marilyn Monroe. We acted out Bonanza. We dreamed of Broadway and Hollywood.

With necessary reality checks, my dreams shifted and changed over the years; but my cloud-surfing little head was never empty of them. There were dreams of exotic travel, brilliant careers, causes to be won, accomplishments to be made, books to be written. I dreamed of my future spouse and perfect children. I designed Dreamhouses on the blueprint of my mind. I savored the contemplation of Extreme Happily-Ever-Afters.

After I married my prince and presented him with the first little princess, I began passing her my keys to the Kingdom of Imagination. We had, arguably, the best dress-up box in town. We made puppet theatres that looked like castles. We read books that opened up the world, told stories never heard before. We went on spontaneous adventures and explorations. We talked about the Meaning of Life. And we had shows. Lots and lots and lots of shows.

I taught that firstborn and her two sisters to dream big dreams. I told them that anything was possible.

They believed me.

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

I think it’s safe to say that, at certain stages, the majority of little girls are convinced they want to grow up to be princesses or movie stars. (My middle one was an exception, consistently asserting that she wanted to be a “cheeyuh-leeduh” when she grew up.) We loving parents stoke their imaginations with princess costumes and Disney movies. The media and toy companies bombard them with the allure of fame and fortune, glamour and glitz. (Yes, darlin’, you too can be Hannah Montana one day.) But while encouraging their dreams, we can unconsciously abet the formation of illusions about life:

You can have it all.

You can be whatever you want to be.

You have a right to a happy ending.

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

From the time she was a little girl, Katherine dreamed of performing. Unlike those of her mother, Katherine’s were not just empty dreams: she had talent and the determination to make those dreams come true. During her junior year of college, she’d asked me whether I thought she should go to Law School, or to New York or LA to try to act. I told her she could always go to Law School later. Acting was her gift.

Within a relatively short time of moving to LA, Katherine had acquired a SAG card, a manager, and signed with two agencies. She worked hard at developing her craft. She persevered in an industry where rejection is a way of life. She was disciplined, industrious, and focused. She got to experience the thrill of living off what she earned doing what she loved to do. She was the primary bread winner while Jay was in Law School. Although all of her dreams were not fulfilled overnight, she had the potential and the drive to keep going until they were.

But now, her dreams have been deferred...indefinitely.

The Langston Hughes poem at the top has haunted me since I first read it. Although the specific dream to which the poet refers is the same dream best articulated by MLK, I think its application is more universal. Consciously or not, we all have dreams and desires. We imagine the way things should be in order for us to be happy. We dream of perfect marriages, happy children, fulfilling careers, booming businesses, financial freedom. We dream of things we think will satisfy. We dream of rosy futures where we get to do exactly what we want to do, go exactly where we want to go. We dream of things we want to accomplish before we leave here...of making a difference, impacting the world, using our gifts. We dream of golden opportunities and opened doors and winning the lottery. We dream of retiring rich and healthy. We dream of finally coming to a place in life where we have no problems...no pain. We dream up endless scenarios of happily-ever-afters. Then we start dreaming them up for our children.

I think dreams must be necessary. (“Without a vision, my people perish.”) Life without them would be colorless, drab, static. Dreams are inspiration for all creative endeavor. But there is a danger in our dreams. Sometimes we can hold on to them so tightly that they hold us instead. We become Dream-Captives, bound to the Idols of our own desires and imaginations.

As Hughes’ poem so graphically illustrates, a terrible bitterness can come from shattered dreams...along with despair, defeat, disillusionment, and anger. Walking around town these days, I see one shuttered little business after the next...each representing someone’s dream that evaporated along with the Dow. I am reminded of the haunting ocean-front mansions I once saw at dusk on Long Island, abandoned to the relentless surf that eroded their foundations and carried them, piece by piece, out to sea. Each one was someone’s Dream House. Most were uninsured against such Acts of Nature. Quite literally, a picture of shattered dreams.

Sometimes dreams do come true. Saturday night, as Kate Winslet embraced her Oscar, she said, “This was always my dream. From the time I was 8, I practiced this speech in front of the bathroom mirror.” I think that’s great...good for her. But I wonder what happens when the shine wears off.

It looks like Katherine won’t be up for an Oscar anytime soon. Not even a little modeling gig. Her chosen vocation is on hold...perhaps forever. Dreams cherished from childhood gone up in smoke. I think she may need to go through some grieving over those broken dreams. I am grieving for her.

It seems that there are times when we just have to lay down the dreams we’ve given birth to... like children on Abraham’s altar. Then, perhaps, those big dreams of ours may be turned into little prayers that end something like, “...but not my will, but yours..."

Our Christmas card for 1983 featured a picture of Katherine, huge-eyed with anticipation, digging her hand down into a Christmas stocking. The borrowed caption read, “May all your impossible dreams come true.” Since then, we’ve learned that there’s only One who can do that.

In discussing suffering in Sunday School this week, someone mentioned the broken dreams she had for her children. The teacher said, “The more we abide in God, the more His dreams become our dreams.” Reading some of the letters of Francois Fenelon lately, I’ve been intrigued by his descriptions of the peace and intimacy that come from complete abandonment to God’s plans and purposes....abiding, resting, saturating ourselves in His presence.

Laying it all down...all our own dreams, desires, ambitions, wishes...

And waiting.


I imagine, first, a quiet...

Then, an expectant excitement, as I allow the inventor of dreams to take over.

And the DreamMaker paints a 4-D Technicolor future in colors I’ve never even seen before.


I believe He is doing that for Katherine.

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

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Eph. 3:20-21)

granny made another oops

Okay, I got too big for my britches and tried to upload a picture from the Darius website. Obviously, it was unsuccessful, and now I can't get Blogger to let me take it off. Do any of you young people have any advice for grandma? Help!!!

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

Thanks so much for the good tech advice! It worked! Yaaaaay!

(For pictures of Darius and crew, please go to the link at the bottom of the previous blog, click on "Press" at the top, and scroll down and click on "Download Stills "on the left.)

com-passion

(I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Several unfinished blogs are haunting me, but it's been busy and I've been sick. This one was begun on Thursday, Feb. 5)










I felt absolutely flattened by bad news today.

So many people I know are in horrendous pain.

Betrayal, addiction, depression, suffering children, terminal illness, violent death:
I’ve heard instances of all of these today.

When I picked up a fluff magazine to mentally escape for a moment, I read of more horrors. Throwing it down, I turned on the boob tube: the local breaking news was of a young single mother being doused with gasoline and set on fire. Burns over 60% of her body.

why oh why oh why

There are so many things on this planet which are simply unbearable. Impossible to be borne.

Life isn’t fair. Innocents suffer. The wicked seem to prosper. All our “strutting and fretting” ends in death. As Paul puts it, “The whole world groans as in travail until now...” Centuries of flawed mankind screaming through the painful process of metamorphosis. Against such a flood of pain, such a collective cry of anguish that crescendos to unearthly roar, what can be the response? How are we to address so much suffering? We can’t fix it all. We can’t fix anybody, especially ourselves.

Platitudes don’t help much. Sometimes words are not only inadequate, they are next to impossible.

The word “compassion” keeps resonating in my head. I wonder about the deeper meanings. I think com is “with.” “With feeling,” maybe? (Why didn’t I ever take Latin?) I am happily surprised to find it defined as “bearing with.” Of course. From the Latin, com: with and pati: to bear.

Compassion, then, is to come alongside someone who is trying to bear the unbearable...and to bear it with them. A load that threatens to crush and destroy becomes just light enough to carry, after all.

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

I don’t normally sleep during the day anymore, but this afternoon I was so drained...completely wiped out...there was no other option. The news of the violent and senseless murder of the son (Katherine’s age) of one of the most precious staff members here at Casa Colina had left me stunned and sickened: last emotional straw. After putting a certain fussy baby down for his nap, I finally just “took to bed” myself.

The nap was a drooler. I heard voices and tried to swim up to reality’s surface, but drifted back down into dreams until hearing a polite tap at the door. It was Jay telling me we had company. I stumbled into the family room, still more than half-asleep.

There, of all people, was Daniel.

“What in the world are you doing in Pomona, California?!?” I sputtered.

Daniel laughed his wonderful trademark laugh and smiled his wonderful trademark grin.

The world seemed okay again.

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

I’ve known Daniel for most of his life. I’ve known his family forever, and I’ve had the privilege of watching him grow up. He was one of my all-time favorite little rapscallions in Sunday School. He has matured into a remarkable young man. Actually, Daniel is like a force of nature...great gusty wind and sunshine.

All the members of Daniel’s family are amazingly talented and highly creative multi-taskers. You never know what they’ll do next. So it was no surprise to find him involved in an undertaking such as Darius Goes West.

DGW is a documentary film made by some college kids from my hometown. It started as a little dream fueled by a barbeque sale, and blossomed into a life-changing experience and multi-award-winning movie. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. It will make your life richer. You will simultaneously laugh and cry, and be inspired to live and think differently.

Darius is an Athens boy who suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, the most common fatal genetic disorder to affect children worldwide. Most kids who suffer from it die by the age of 20, as Darius’ brother Mario did. Before he died, Mario elicited a promise from his friend Logan: he asked him to watch out for his baby brother. Logan has kept his word, coming alongside Darius and helping him to bear the heavy load of increasingly heavy limbs and the wheelchair they necessitate. And bearing with him the burden of a young life evaporating much too quickly.

But, of course, it is the quality, not the quantity, of our days that matter in the end...the lushness of our lives, not the longevity. Darius had never been beyond the borders of our town. Logan enlisted 10 of his most big-hearted, life-affirming, adventure-loving friends to take Darius on the trip of a lifetime...or many lifetimes...and in doing so, to raise awareness and funds for Duchenne’s research. The documentary is the story of that riotous roadtrip. Our friend Daniel was the official Crazy Driver/Chief Comedian/Heavy Load-Lifter of the expedition.

So what in the world was Daniel doing calmly sitting on the sofa in Pomona? He explained that the Darius crew was on tour promoting the next phase of their endeavor, which is an initiative to sell a million DVD’s in a year. Every penny of the profits will go towards Duchenne research. The crew is once again traveling the country in an RV, but this time a donated van has accompanied them as well. So Daniel, head driver, was able to take off from Anaheim or wherever during rush hour(s) and somehow find his way to us in Pomona...not an easy feat even for a California native. (His high school nickname wasn’t “Braveheart” for nothing.)

Daniel said, “I told myself the one thing I was gonna do when I got near LA was to go find Katherine. So here I am.”

Daniel brought us love, hugs, humor, news, and a copy of the new DVD. He also brought Katherine a t-shirt that says “goslabi” on it. (See the movie if you’re curious.) And after Katherine and Jay had to leave for acupuncture, he stuck around for a while with James and me to see if he could lend a fresh ear.

Compassion.

I tried to get him back on the road before it got too late, plying him with food for the journey, and reminding him to make a last pit stop before battling the giant. He just laughed and reminded me where he’s driven in the past couple of years.

After he left, I thought about what could inspire a young man in his twenties to put his own life on hold for so long and devote it to the care of another. In our conversation, Daniel had reminded me of some of the nitty-gritty care-taking responsibilities he and his friends have taken on with Darius. Much of it is not pretty. I imagine most of it is tiring. Darius weighs a good bit more than any of the guys. Just moving him from point A to point B is strenuous. But the look in their eyes as they help him makes me hear “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” playing in the background.

One of the most beautiful scenes in the movie is when Darius sees an ocean for the first time. He wheels himself down to the end of the boardwalk, but there’s no way to get from there to the sparklingly inviting ocean. His friends innovate, working together to carry planks and whatever else they can find to make a pathway. They laboriously push the heavy wheelchair and its occupant down to the shore and into the crystal water. There they pull the confining chair away from Darius and hold him up in their arms to rock with the waves. He laughs the most unselfconsciously raucous, joyful laughter I’ve ever heard; and, liberated from the weight of his encumbered body, he floats...secure in the arms of his loving friends.

Compassion.

Unbearable sadness is all around us. For any of us, tragedy is just one phone call away. It is easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed. It is equally easy to become callused and self-focused. For some reason, a young man named Logan Smalley made the decision to help another young man bear the unbearably heavy burden of a fatal illness. Just one person deciding to help just one other person.

Just one.

The ripple effect from that decision grows bigger by the day. I pray that by this time next year a million more will have been touched by its waves.

Daniel’s timely visit reminded me (again) that I don’t have to bear the weight of the world alone. No one can.

As God’s dearly-loved children, we are all members of the same family...soldiers fighting in the same war...pilgrims scratching and scrambling our way up the same rocky path. A burden that seems impossibly heavy for one may be light for another. Your leaden cross might seem light to me; mine to you.

We can help each other shoulder the load. One on one, for a start. And carry each other when we’re incapable of continuing to walk on...

...remembering that the arms of our prayers are even longer and stronger than the ones hanging at our sides.

Thank you all for helping us to bear the unbearable.

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

“Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.” (Mark 1:41)


“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ...” (Gal. 6:2 nkjv)

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

*Darius Goes West has won over 30 film awards. It has been featured on NBC’s Today Show, two segments on ABC’s Nightline, the Ellen DeGeneres Show, the Dennis Miller Show, and on multiple regional news shows. It has been applauded in Forbes, Variety, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. Please click on the link below for more details:

www.dariusgoeswest.org

Check out the Today Show video (under “Press”) for part of the ocean scene. It will make your day.

Grandma's Brag Book

Never, ever ask a grandmother to see more pictures of her baby unless you really, really mean it.

I've had several requests lately, so I've spent the morning trying to figure out how to post one of our family albums on here. If you are incredibly bored, feel free to click...but I must warn you they are not photoshopped, re-touched, or edited with a very discerning eye. It's just us, being us.

They are in more or less chronological order, from about early October until now. (And there are way too many.)

Someone let me know if it worked, please!

blessings, kim


http://picasaweb.google.com/kta2754/LifeGoesOn#

Darkness into Light

It rarely rains in southern California. It’s been predicted all week. Yesterday, finally, the sky was heavy-laden with clouds. It matched my mood. I had been “heading south” for most of the day, each negative thought compounded by the next. My efforts at fighting them off only served to invite even more to jump aboard. Then sick anxiety decided to show up. My heart started tightening like a clenched fist, lifted up in defiance to the sodden sky.

James was infected by his grandmother’s jolly mood, and somberly stared at me with big, brown, questioning eyes. He didn’t buy my half-hearted efforts at being funny as we roamed up and down the unfamiliar grocery store aisles. He laughed, but it was almost as lame as my jokes. He was just trying to be polite. He knew his Mimi wasn’t herself. Kids sense these things. You can’t fake them out, no matter how good an actress you are.

Watching the leaden skies for signs of imminent downpour, I leadenly loaded up the car and the baby. None came. Just an oppressive stillness in the air. Like the dulling limbo we’re living in right now, trapped in a bureaucratic maze of insurance approval.

On the way home, I tried to come up with a Happy Thought. Didn’t work. Then I tried praying again, as I had throughout the day. Most often, it was the prayer from Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. I tried chanting it in my mind, like a Russian monk. Still no peace.

I stared off into space for a minute at a stoplight. When I looked back ahead, I saw an intensely beautiful sight.

The sky was a wonderfully chaotic mix of clouds of all shades and sizes. A huge dark gray one swooped down from the east, fierce in its sudden emergence. It scuttled a stream of smaller bluish-gray ones out to the west. Suddenly, a wide band of blindingly brilliant light came down between and through them, like a shaft descending straight from heaven’s store of luminosity.

It was a startlingly surreal vision. It might have been a scene from one of those good old 1960’s Biblical epics we used to watch in Panoramic vibrancy, wide-eyed in the dark.


Oh, did I mention I’d prayed for some kind of a “sign” earlier in the day?

It never did rain.

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

"You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD turns my darkness into light." (2 Samuel 22:29)


"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." (Isaiah 42:16)

A Time for Tears

It’s weird how little crying I’ve done since all this happened.

I was born super-sensitive and high-strung, and have cried easily and frequently throughout my life. There was a time a few years ago when I simply couldn’t stop crying. One time I cried so hysterically that my kids actually discussed calling 911.

But crying won’t kill you.

Several years ago, my sister, with strange foreshadowing, gave Katherine a picture with a scripture verse on it. It was of a beautiful woman with long blonde hair, weeping. The verse was:

“You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.*
You have recorded each one in your book. (Psalm 56:8 NLT)

(*Other translations say “wineskins.")

I must have contributed many magnums to heaven’s wine cellar by now.

I’ve discovered that there are times, though, when you just can’t cry. I have shed strangely few tears since April. (For me, anyway.) Prior to that time, much lesser things have completely done me in. Maybe this is just too big. Much, much, much too big. Maybe I’ve been in a benign type of denial.

I think I realize, subconsciously, that if I let myself really get started, I won’t be able to stop.

When I was home for the holidays, I’d run into someone I hadn’t seen since before April 21. That person, seeing me for the first time, might try to say something comforting, but would start crying before they could get it out. Now, normally, I always cry when other people cry. The faucet immediately turns on full blast. It’s like when someone else is throwing up, I start gagging. (Actually, if I even smell it, I start gagging.) But in these holiday encounters, even though the person was crying on my behalf, I didn’t shed a tear. Not a drop. I could almost feel something inside of my chest turning to steel against the hug.

I wonder if there’s been some kind of internal mechanism operating in survival mode. Maybe there’s a mental gate that slams down when I get too close to the edge of the cliff.

Oh well...enough navel-gazing for now.

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

Last Sunday, everyone came to the apartment in LA for lunch after church. This has become a weekly tradition. I usually hate to cook, but for some reason I really pull out all the stops for Sunday lunch. It’s the closest thing we have to being home out here. Everyone stays all day, and then sometimes it turns into supper. Jay says it’s my “Nenie” thing. My grandmother Nenie was a fantastic southern cook; I am barely a decent mushroom-soup-can cook...but it’s more about the spirit of the thing. Last week we had about 10 people and 3 babies crammed into this miniscule place. In addition to the immediate family, we had Jay’s cousin Johnny, whom I’ve adopted, and two couples who are among Katherine and Jay’s very closest friends. The two mothers, Anna and Abby, were pregnant when Katherine’s AVM rupture occurred, so those babies incubated at UCLA. They were there practically every day of their inter-uterine lives, at least until we moved to Casa Colina. Anna and her husband Andy took care of James for us for a couple of months.

Anyway, it was a happy, sweet afternoon with very well-loved ones. Katherine was parked in her corner of the shabby shabby-chic couch I got off Craig’s List, watching as we ate baked salmon and goat cheese omelettes and drank peach tea and mimosas. We’ve almost gotten over our guilt about indulging ourselves in front of her by now. Just a quick twinge now and then. She watched as we passed around the little babies and took cute pictures...as we rescued James from perilous perches and picked him up from falls...as the mothers discreetly retired to the tiny bedroom to nurse.

That night, Katherine and I were alone with James in the apartment for a while. As I desultorily cleaned, she read on the couch. When I asked her what she was reading, she held up “The Purpose-Driven Life.” “Katherine, haven’t you read that before?” I asked. She nodded yes. “Why are you reading it again?” A few seconds went by. Then big crocodile tears started streaming down her cheeks. “Because I need a purpose.” I didn’t say anything, I just sat down and held her. “How many mothers can’t go to their baby when he cries? That’s what mothers DO.” I nodded on her shoulder. I knew she was deeply touched by the mother-baby interactions she had just witnessed with her friends. “Those babies are close to the age James was when this happened to you. Is that sad for you?” Fresh tears streamed down, and Katherine’s tiny shoulders shook with pain. “I don't know how much longer I can take this. How many mothers can’t pick their baby up when he’s hurt? Do you know how that FEELS?”

Hmmmm.

Suddenly, I felt that steel bar start turning into rubber.

My baby and I just sat on that sofa and wept.


I have a feeling the dam’s about to break.

It’s time.

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

“...a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance..." (Ecclesiastes 3:4)


“This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.” (II Kings 20:5)

“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” (Psalm 126:5)

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:4)

Changes

I hate changes—
like when God rearranges
my tidy little blocks
and ungently rocks
my world apart.
But then I start
to see a new design-
a better one than mine-
emerge from all the mess,
and must sheepishly confess
I don’t know it all.
Though I weep and fall,
shaken to the core,
I get up off the floor
and place my trembling hand
in His to stand.

Cringing, stumbling,
crying, mumbling,
limping, bleeding,
empty, needing...

Love drags me, blindly,
to the Promised land.

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

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)


May the new year be full of the gifts of change for us all.

Yellow Ribbons of Love

Unfortunately, James already seems to be developing an addictive personality. For those who’re out of the baby scene, some woman is laughing all the way to the bank because of her creation of “Baby Einstein.” We refer to it as Baby Crack because it is so highly addicting to the under-two set. It’s kind of like Sesame Street used to be, only even more low-tech and geared towards 9-month-olds. Whenever anyone in that demographic is feeling a little tense, anxious, jittery, or exhibiting any other symptoms of withdrawal, you can just pop one in and soon all’s well. Your little loved one is in the Zone as he watches grownup hands demonstrate how to play with baby toys, splashes of pretty colors flashing by, and extremely simplistic hand puppets doing quirky things accompanied by the music and poetry of the Great Masters. (I have to admit that they do learn a lot from it, whatever my disparagements may be.)

Anyway, anyway, anyway...James was really cranky the week before we left Pomona. He had a bad cold and didn’t feel well, so he got coddled with a lot of Crack. As he was watching Baby Van Gogh for the third time one day, he had a Helen Keller moment. “YEAH-YOA!” he yelled, as he bolted off his rocking horse. Spontaneous eruptions of “Yeah-yoa! Yeah-yoa! Yeah-yoaaaaa!!!” continued for the remainder of that week. We could be discussing doggies or fire trucks, but his invariable response was a loud “Yeah-yoa!” with a meaning look in his eyes.

I had no idea what he was talking about. But when we got back to Athens, I found out.

James had evidently received some kind of prophetic word.

“Yellow” is the color of hope.

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

My friend (and across-the-street neighbor) Betty Perno had her own “aha!” moment while in the shower one day. She was thinking about Katherine's trip home for Christmas, and how she could welcome her back. We live on a pretty little street named ‘Two Oaks’ after the massive, ancient trees that stand sentinel on either side of the road. Suddenly, the words of that song about the “old oak tree” came into her head.

The difference between Betty and me is that she acted on the inspiration. She called a few other neighbors to get the word out. Then she called the headmaster of Katherine’s alma mater. A friend who is a former mayor sent out emails to the Chamber of Commerce. Yellow (Yeah-yoa!) ribbons would be tied around trees to welcome Katherine back to her hometown and remind her that she has not been forgotten.

My middle child let the surprise slip out. I thought it was an incredible idea. But by the evening of December 23, I saw only two ribbons as I drove through the neighborhood. “Everyone’s too busy with Christmas,” I thought sympathetically. (Sometimes ‘just one more thing’ can drive you over the edge at Christmastime.)

But when I made a Walmart run on Christmas Eve, there were yellow ribbons all over the place, mingling with red Christmas bows. They were on mailboxes, sign posts, and random trees throughout the neighborhood. There were signs at the entrance and in people’s yards welcoming Katherine home. Katherine’s brave (or crazy?) life-long friend, Sally, even talked her brother and father into helping her put a banner up on the interstate from Atlanta!

Although there was a little miscommunication about the time, a wonderful group of neighbors still braved the cold drizzle to wait at the neighborhood's entrance for Katherine’s arrival. She cried when she saw what love inspired them to do.

I really love my town sometimes.

In this past (mostly-dreary/drizzly) week, we’ve discovered yellow ribbons all over Athens, scattered like bright Easter eggs throughout the city. We’ve found them everywhere from quaint, old neighborhoods, to banks and businesses and churches, to the school Katherine attended for 14 years. It’s like getting little hugs every time you turn around...symbols of caring that whisper, “You are not alone.”

Emory nerd that I am, I had to investigate the symbolism and origin of the yellow ribbon thing.

There is not one definitive consensus on it's symbolic value. In the early 20th Century, it was associated with awaiting the return of a loved one, usually a soldier off at war. In the 70’s, a story of a prisoner seeking confirmation of his welcome home upon release became the ubiquitous song. In the 80’s, it became a symbol of support for the hostages in Iran.

I think all of these manifestations....soldier, prisoner, hostage...are appropriate in Katherine’s case.

She is in a war, fighting vicious battles for liberation every day. She is a prisoner of her own broken body. She is held hostage by her physical limitations. But the ribbons sprinkled through her native town like beautiful, big, yellow petals tell her that she isn’t fighting alone. The Resistance is with her, doing battle behind the scenes on her behalf with the power of their love and prayers.

The encyclopedia goes on to tell me that the 20th Century usages of the yellow ribbon symbol may have evolved from earlier traditions: “The song/poem "She wore a yellow ribbon" has appeared in various forms for at least four centuries. It is based upon the same general theme. A woman of destiny is under some sort of test or trial as she waits for her beloved to return. Will she be true to him? This seems to be the lingering question and the basis for a great unfolding drama.” (Wikipedia)

Yes.

The answer is YES.

Katherine, a woman of extraordinary destiny, is staying true to her Beloved through the terrible, torturing tests and trials.

There is, at least, no 'lingering question' about that.

Those yellow ribbons of love and hope testify that we are all waiting with her until those trials are over.

Thank you.

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

An afterthought:

It dawns on me that a hostage is usually freed by the payment of a ransom...and that one has already been paid.

Freedom is coming, as surely as the sun.


“Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice.
He ransoms me unharmed from the battle waged against me,
even though many oppose me.” (Ps. 55:17-18)

“...and the ransomed of the LORD will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” (Is. 35:10)