Half A Lifetime Ago

My first high school boyfriend was buried this week.  I’m heartsick for his family and in an incredible funk.

In an extremely unusual move, I made myself “visible” on Facebook a week ago Monday.  I still don’t know what made me do it.  I find chatting awkward, difficult to pace and to keep going with the interruptions that come with a family of five.

But I did and Kelley came up asking “What’s up?”

I spoke with him, uneasily.  It seems odd now, but the biggest thing on my mind was propriety.    Sure, it was almost 20 years ago, but chatting with almost any man seems disrespectful to my husband–and this was one I once loved.

So I fessed up to Matt and continued.

He wanted to ask me about my life.  I wanted to ask about his illness, treatment, etc.  He kept turning the conversation back to me.  And five days later he was gone.

I lived every moment of his last hours along with his close friends and family due to the awful intimacy of Facebook.  There were requests for prayer as he was rushed to Indianapolis with sudden complications.  More updates when the doctors delivered news that he had only hours…assurances his children were on their way to say goodbye…a notice that the ventilator had been shut off…and finally, the next morning…confirmation that he was gone.

I retreated from the kids so I could fall apart without giving explanation.  I had none.  Of course it was awful, but my close experience with this man was so many years in our past.  We had only occasional meetings over the last couple of years.  During them, I felt awkward.  He didn’t seem to.

He was full of gratitude that although his life had taken some darker turns after our parting, God Himself pulled him out and pulled him through.  He said this to me after his second brain surgery.  He had nothing.  But he had everything.  It always gave me pause.  In some ways I have everything…but often live as if I have nothing.

Part of my discomfort around him was my guilt about our parting.  I didn’t want to hurt him so our end was the equivalent of pulling a bandage off with sadistic lethargy.  I was clumsy and naive in my belief we could stop being what we were and transition to basic friendship.  My attempt to reduce the pain of the situation increased it.  I over corrected.  It was years before we spoke again.

The last time we talked, I wish I could have felt free to thank Kelley for being good to me.  I wish I could have asked him if I was good to him.  And I would have liked for him to know that the fear that I wasn’t is a haunting concern.  A sickness in the pit of stomach that refuses to settle.

Notes From A Small Town

Last Thursday my brother overturned a truckload of hogs near a busy highway when his brake line broke.  I read about it in the paper because my dad’s family does the opposite of gossipping.  The newspaper account assured readers all of the pigs were unharmed.  I discovered independently that my brother was okay, too.

Funny Kid Stuff

Logan:  Hot pink is the best color.  Pretty much all the girls like hot pink.

Funny Kid Stuff

Jesse’s side of a phone conversation about the first day of school:

Yes.

Mrs. Browning.

Kind of young.

Well she’s a LOT younger than my mom.

First Day

I trucked six boxes of Kleenexes into that school and didn’t have a single one for when I got back in the car.

Funny Kid Stuff

I don’t love going to a public restroom in the middle of a meal.  It’s odd.  I’m kind of a slob, but I have germ freak tendencies.

Having two little girls, however, means I rarely finish food without checking out the facilities at some point.  I always ask if we can wait a few minutes until the food is finished.  I always get a painfully uncertain nod and we always just go before anything tragic happens.  It’s a bit of a running joke between Matt and me.  I tell him the next time we have twins, they’ll be boys.

So after this process at Cheeseburger in Paradise this week, Jesse turns those beautiful blue eyes up to Matt and tells him, “I’m sorry you have to move daddy, so that I can go to the potty.”

Matt smirks at me and gives Jesse his best martyr act.  “That’s okay honey.  I don’t mind interrupting my dinner for you.”

When we returned, boys being boys and all, they kind of expected a report.  I declined and suggested we put the matter behind us (so to speak) so I could finish eating.  Jesse opted for some typical honest exuberance:

“Daddy, I think I’m skinnier!”

The World Beneath

There are so many ways I can confirm in my spirit the existence of God: the stars, the remarkable human body, the ocean, the millions (billions?) of different forms and varieties of life…

I have a new one for my list.

Three caves were on our vacation agenda this year:  Marengo, Squire Boone and Bluespring Caverns.

I love the way we humans can walk around our state, glumly and dumbly wishing to be somewhere else, while below us there is undiscovered majesty.  Bluespring was discovered in the 1940’s.  A farmer woke up to find his pond missing. There was a pond, and then there was none.  The limestome bottom gave way and an entire world was opened.

I believe I read there are some 3,000 caves in Indiana alone.  It makes you wonder how much is left to be discovered.

When it comes to matters of spirituality, it’s easy to believe we only see the tip of God’s iceberg.  But, it’s also easy to second guess, doubt, and shake our tiny fists armed with what little we do know.

My perspective lesson this week is simpy to remember the world beneath and let it help me focus on the world beyond.

R.emembering I.cons P.assed

It’s funny how certain individual people become time capsules for the rest of us.  Seeing their picture, hearing their songs snaps us back to a period of our own lives instantly.  I’ve had lots of conversations in the last couple of days since one of the biggest symbols from the seventies and THE personification of the eighties died within hours of each other Thursday.

These people help us communicate our place generationally in an instant.  I was speaking to an older lady at work who described how she went to a beauty shop and asked for anything besides the Farrah Fawcett since that’s all anyone was wearing.  I laughed and told her I had gone and asked for the “Rachel from Friends,” before I realized I was part of a whole wave of twenty-somethings doing the same thing.

Now I’m sitting here happily in the midst of an all-day Michael Jackson video fest with my little girls.  It’s really nice to share him with them.  I was in the third grade in 1983 and I don’t know anyone who wore the vinyl as thin on “Thriller” as I did.  And I was going to marry him.

It’s difficult, but you have to ignore twenty years of baffling and tragic images to be able to truly embrace how amazing he was.  I liked his music through Bad, but I had to stop watching the videos long before.  He was the personification of cool.  From the sparkly socks to the lighter than air moves.

The three of us were remarking on how great his dancing was.

“He was the best,” I say.  “There was never anyone who danced like him.”

“Well, Miley Cyrus.  She’s the best dancer,” offers Jesse.

I cough to cover my snort and disagree gently.

“And Pink,” Logan presses.  “She’s a really good dancer.”

“Okay, sweetie.”

That horrifying mug shot was released three days after my girls were born.  But now that his tragedy no longer confronts us, we can all be that girl in the Thriller video, rubbing our eyes as if from a nightmare.  We can ignore all of the evidence that pointed otherwise and just focus on the fresh faced, talented twenty-something oozing cool and pretend there were never any monsters in the room.

For The Husbands

Fellas, what would happen if your wives were “in the mood” as often as you were “in the mood” to cook?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

It’s called Hamburger Helper.  Aisle 7.  Think how proud you’ll be when you “help her make a great meal.”  It’s the four fingered hand you can always count on.

And we’ll leave it up to you.  Once a week, once a month.  It’s really fine either way.

Labels, Formulas and Freedom

When my children tell me how well they do things lately, I have been letting them know that accolades mean a heck of a lot more coming from someone other than oneself.  You didn’t see John Wayne or Clint Eastwood announcing themselves as bad asses.  They didn’t have to.

I have been thinking about that a lot in relation to how uncomfortable I have been announcing myself as a follower of Christ.

In the past, I would announce my salvation with my initial feverish rush, make some clumsy, uncomfortable evangelizing moves, fail to act in a Christian manner often and immediately after, and then kind of throw up my hands until the next cycle started.

I think I’ll just try to be a Christian and see if maybe people won’t eventually be able to tell for themselves.  By doing so, I think I’ll even be following Jesus’ example.  Not only did He not waste time with pronouncements, He didn’t even always answer when directly questioned.  He let His actions do the talking.

Besides, why start a relationship with a dividing line like that?  “I’m ‘this’ (and you should be too, we can talk about that after we get this relationship formed…)”

Another thing I’ve been thinking on (bear with me, I realize this is all quite basic), is that the more I let Christ live in me, the more I can trust “my own” impulses and judgment and not search out some kind of formula.  I had also been looking for a formula for “letting Christ live in me,” but they have only left me frustrated in the past (read x number of pages per day, it doesn’t count unless it’s the first thing you do, pray for x minutes x times per day…).

Every day is different.  Not every day can accommodate “the formula.”  Every person is different.  And quite intentionally so.  We’re only asked to “seek.”  We’re not even told how we have to do that.

What if freedom is something more than a word we recite or hymn lyrics we sing?