Working

I'm working this week with fifteen fifth graders, helping them prepare for their state writing test next week. It has been fun and exhausting. Sweet kids from a low income school with such limited life experiences.

Back to writing another day!

My Journey: Empty Arms

There is a story in the old testament of a woman named Ruth. You are probably familiar with the lines from the story that are often read of sung at weddings: whither thou goest… Many people don’t know that these words in the context of the story had nothing to do with the romantic love assigned to them at weddings. Rather they are the cry of a grieving wife who does not want to lose what family she has left.

The story begins with Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, her husband, and two sons who were Israelites. There was famine in their homeland, so they moved to Moab. Naomi’s husband dies, her sons marry foreign women, then both sons die. Naomi, left with nothing but two foreign daughters-in-law, decides to go home. The girls think to go with her, but Naomi discourages them. Ruth refuses to leave. Here is the verse in a more modern translation, in context: But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

So the two women return to Israel—Naomi, a bitter old woman, and Ruth, a foreigner. Ruth goes out to glean grain in the fields, or pick up leftovers from the harvest, so they can eat. She happens to land in the field of Boaz, an older man and a kinsman. Naomi walks her through the traditions of claiming her right to be redeemed by her husband’s family. Boaz agrees and marries Ruth. When their first child is born, Ruth lays the baby boy on Naomi’s lap, inviting the older woman to be the child’s nurse.

In the story, Boaz was Ruth’s redeemer, but he was also Naomi’s, until she had what she needed, until the child was laid on her lap. Once she had the child to care for, she didn’t need Boaz to care for her any longer.

Boaz, in Christian theology, represents a type of Christ as redeemer, something I very much needed in my state of mind. Much of the anger that welled up in me was a result of having nothing to do with my hands, nothing that I should normally be attending to after nine months of pregnancy.

My sweet husband was wise enough to see my frustration and understand the root of that anger. He reminded me of Naomi’s story. Christ, he said, was the only one who could redeem the emptiness of my arms. My husband and my children could comfort me, but they could not replace what I had lost. Only God could do that. Could I somehow allow Christ to be something to me that he had not been before, to be a redeemer in a way I had never known? He understood the emptiness. Remember his cry on the cross, My God, why have you forsaken me?

What did all this mean? How did it work? Would it work? I didn’t have an answer for those questions, but I pondered it for a long time. When I was angry or frustrated or lonely, I tried to imagine myself like Naomi, sitting in Boaz’s house, waiting for the child to be laid on my lap. I have a pretty good imagination and I have no problems using it to place myself into the stories of the Bible, or into my picture of who and what God is to me. If God is supernatural and he created us, then he had to give us some way to intuit that supernatural presence in our natural world. I believe the imagination is His gift, a tool we can use for that purpose.

Boaz’s house was a good place for me to be.



[Lest you think I've totally lost my mind about using the imagination in this way, see these references:
Ignatian Contemplation
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Feb 10, Feb 11.
Interview with musician, Michael Card.
Leanne Payne writes extensively about the "true imagination" in her book, The Healing Presence.
Google "holy imagination." You'll get some crackpot stuff, but also some valuable information.]

My Journey: So Angry!

I didn’t think I would get angry. Whatever gave me the idea I was immune from the full gamut of human emotions, I don’t know. Maybe it was immaturity. Maybe it was pride. But the first time my broken frame filled with rage, I was shocked, almost as though I stood outside myself wondering who this woman was that wanted to beat someone to a bloody pulp.

I was sitting beside the fireplace that night, feet propped on the hearth, staring into the fire when I suddenly wanted to throw something. If I could just break something, anything, I would be alright. But throwing dishes and screaming at my family was not in my nature, not something I could allow myself to do. I knew if I screamed at them, even in my rage, I would only be making things worse by hurting the ones I loved that were left to me. And besides, if I broke my dishes, I’d just have to go buy new ones so we could eat.

Who was I mad at anyway? It wasn’t Cliff’s fault or the children’s. Myself? Was there something I could have done to stop it? What if I had just done something that day I realized my child had stopped moving? The doctor had assured me there was nothing I could have done. Even if I had known the exact moment that blood vessel in the cord burst, I would have had only two minutes at the most to save my sweet baby. Nothing. Nothing I could have done.

God was the only one left to blame.

Now I was raised in a good Southern Baptist home where blaspheming God was not something to be considered. Even though I had left that tradition of my childhood to find my own expression of faith, I still had a hard time with the idea. However, I’ve never had a problem with asking God hard questions.

My children had a whiffle ball set that stayed in a carton on the back patio. When the rage would build until I thought it would pour out my throat, I would storm outside, grab that whiffle bat and beat the hell out of whatever happened to be in reach—the kids’ wagon, the fence post, the thin-trunked maple tree—until the anger was spent.

Eventually I had to face it. I was mad at God. And just like being mad at Cliff, that unexpressed anger was building a wall between us. And as mad as I was at him, I didn’t like the distance. So I began doing what I do with my husband when I’m angry. I wrote down everything I felt, so that when I talked to him, I wouldn’t forget anything. Then I went outside and started my conversation. The words fired from me like an arrow shot at a blue-jay. I picked up rocks and threw them at the sky. I threw and threw them until I collapsed to the ground and cried, ”I don’t understand! Help me understand! Please.”

The heavens didn’t resound with a message from God, nor did lightning strike me dead. But the wall crumbled.

I didn’t have an answer. I still didn’t understand. But I knew I wasn’t alone.

This scene from Steel Magnolias still resonates with me. The movie came out four years after Allison died. I was totally unprepared for the movie’s ending, had no idea of what was coming. When M’Lynn (Sally Field) leaves her daughter's grave, rage bursts out of her. It’s so real, so truly portrayed. I sat in the theater and wept.

Laughter and love. So good for the grieving heart!

Poetry Friday: The Letter

 For more Poetry Friday, stop over with Sheri Doyle, our host this week.

During the month of January, my blog posts have been primarily recounting the grieving process I experienced after the loss of a child, a full-term stillbirth many years ago. The impetus for revisiting this period of my life was the expected death of my father. While writing these posts, I opened myself to the deep sadness that I knew was approaching. In a way, I began the grieving process before he was gone, and Allison's death was the tool for allowing me to go there.

Daddy died almost two weeks ago. These two weeks have been full of grace and peace. Yesterday I wrote my memorial to this dear man. I am working my way back to a normal routine that no longer includes a regular visit to his assisted living apartment. This poem is rich in the emotions that play through me as I think of him.

Next week, I hope to finish the story of Allison. Once started, I feel strongly that I need to complete this accounting. For myself and for anyone else who needs to hear this journey. Thanks for reading.

This was a Father's Day card I gave to my dad years ago. The inside message said: Dad, Next to your heart is still my favorite place to be!

He wrote a response on the facing page: I wish my heart was bigger, then I could be closer to you. H.

THE LETTER
by: Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1906)

 HELD his letter in my hand,

And even while I read

The lightning flashed across the land

The word that he was dead.

 

How strange it seemed! His living voice

Was speaking from the page

Those courteous phrases, tersely choice,

Light-hearted, witty, sage.

 

I wondered what it was that died!

The man himself was here,

His modesty, his scholar's pride,

His soul serene and clear.

 

These neither death nor time shall dim,

Still this sad thing must be--

Henceforth I may not speak to him,

Though he can speak to me!

In Memory of My Daddy

Herman Davis Reynolds 1927-2013

Daddy loved taking pictures. Here in Vienna, Austria, while in the Army. A place he always wanted to go back and see again. 

My daddy died on February 10, Sunday in the wee hours of the morning, peacefully, in his sleep. My brother and I were with him, although somehow that sweet man, determined to protect his children to the very end,  waited until we had both drifted off to sleep before he took his final breath.

Somewhere just before midnight, I sat on his bed, held his hand, laid my head on his shoulder, and said my final goodbye. Although he had not opened his eyes for more than a few seconds at a time on Saturday, I'm sure he knew I was there.

My daddy's smile.

My daddy could fix most anything. He was a diesel bus mechanic on Fort Benning for 30 years. He could wire a house, plumb a bathroom, lay tile, hang sheet rock  and cover up any of his unmatched corners with "a little caulk and flashing." When I was in third grade, he built us a house  while he was still working full time. He even dug the well himself.

He knew cars and engines, and was always working on somebody's vehicle in our backyard. I can remember standing on the bumper or leaning against the fender of some car or truck while he worked, his coveralls stained, his hands black with grease. When necessary, he attached a "come along" tool to the top bar of an old swing set frame and pulled the engine. I was always fascinated by that word. To this day, I don't know if that tool has an official name, but I have fond memories of Daddy and his come along.

Most of my childhood is chronicled in some form of home movies. Here he is with my son Andrew and my brother, Gary. Daddy kept up with the changing technology from 8mm to Super 8 to Camcorder. In fact he was learning to use my iPad the week before he went to Hospice House.

He was still cutting grass for people on his riding lawn mower until he went into the hospital in November.
My daddy was never still for very long. Oh, he knew how to rest, he wasn't a workaholic, but he loved to be doing something, and usually that doing took some form of helping people.

He loved to laugh and could pull off an occasional practical joke. Once when all of my mother's family had gathered for dinner at my uncle's south Georgia home, my aunt from Atlanta fixed herself a plate of leftovers to carry back home with her. She piled up the fried catfish and down home vegetables and Aunt Alma's 8-layer chocolate cake. While she wasn't looking, my daddy scraped all the table scraps onto a paper plate, wrapped it in tin foil, and switched the plates. We still laugh at the thought of her nursing those table scraps in her lap all the way to Atlanta.

My younger daughter, Jeanetta, was here with me for the dying part through the funeral. 

My older daughter, Jen, was here with me for the funeral and the cleaning out the house part. 

Andrew came just for the funeral 

and we Skyped Stephen in from Nigeria for the service.

While going through all the stuff, we happened upon a stack of old cards--birthday cards and Father's Day cards that my brother and I and our children had sent him over the years. He had scrawled his response to each message somewhere on the card. What a treasure we found!

The inside of this one said: 

And so God bless you, Dad, 

for all you are...for all you do,

There can't be many fathers 

who are loved as much as you. 

And his response: I would like to have been more but you must know I have always loved you.

And I did. What greater legacy than that could a father leave to his children. I always knew I was loved. 

Poetry Friday: Walt Whitman

 Our Poetry Friday host today is Tara at A Teaching Life.

A Clear Midnight
by Walt Whitman

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, 

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, 

Night, sleep, death and the stars.

My Journey: Jen's Thoughts

I appreciate my children adding their thoughts to this process. The timing this week has been good, too. I needed a break, and I have a magazine to get out at the Bugler. I have had interviews with the Chief of Infantry and the Commanding General at Fort Benning. Between transcribing and revising, I haven’t had much time for other writing.

Jenifer was almost six when Allison died.

Today she is thirty-three, the lead esthetician at Zama Massage in Portland, Oregon, and does small business accounting on the side.

From Jen: 

You have asked before if I thought Allison's death could be connected to some of my struggles as an adult today. I haven't really connected with that question. I didn't think it did. I don't feel sad. I don't feel grief. I don't really remember that much about what I felt at the time.
 

I remember wanting to go to the appointments with you because afterwards we would get a chocolate milkshake at that little milkshake stand around the corner from the hospital. At one of the appointments I remember going into the bathroom with you. You had to pee in a cup and pass it through a little sliding door where lab people worked on the other side. I remember you getting your finger pricked for a blood check. The doctor asked if I wanted to get my finger pricked too, but I chickened out. I remember dad picking us up and thinking that grandmother and granddaddy looked sad but I didn't suspect why.

Reading your blog post did stir some emotion at one point. It was the post where you said I ran into the living room and saw dad crying. I came up to him and said I knew why he was crying. It was because I reminded him of Allison. I told him that he had me and that I was going to take care of him. that triggered something. A memory. An emotion of feeling responsible and wanting to take care of things I wasn't supposed to have taken care of at six years old -- you, dad, the family, the house. It made me think for the first time that maybe you are right. Maybe there is some layer of my overly responsible attitude, my inability to let go and just have fun, the response I have to always see what needs to be taken care of...maybe it is more tied to Allison's death than I realized.

I pondered your post for a few days. I guess it made me a little sad. Then a little angry. I wondered what my personality would be like today if Allison hadn't died and her loss wasn't a part of my early childhood years. I wondered how much of her death formed me into who I am today, especially the part of my overly responsible personality that as an adult has caused me and others so much struggle, misunderstanding and even pain.

I don't feel angry at God or you or dad. I think I just feel sad. It's not all bad. I am a responsible person. That makes me a good employee. I am a successful business owner. I am a hard worker. People learn quickly that I am dependable. I can carry a lot and am quick to do so. I am very perceptive of other's feelings. I know what other people need and give it, often at the cost of my own needs.

As an adult I am serious. I am often uptight and focused. It is hard for me to just let go and have fun. Having fun and laughing doesn't come naturally to me. I have wrestled with that for years. I have even hated it in myself. I have had to learn how to laugh as an adult and it has not been an easy thing for me to learn. I am better, but I am still not as free as I wish I could be.

So perhaps you are right. Perhaps some of that is rooted in Allison's death. I responded to her death by stepping into responsibility mode. It is a mode that as an adult I still function out of a lot of the time.

Jen with her husband, Spirit.