It's been a long time

I've pushed writing aside for quite some time. I hear the voice longing to express itself in my head but then shut it out. There are so many reasons for this and I've expressed some of them before. But the turmoil in my head has been so great these past few months. I have wrestled with my faith and really feel myself searching for a redefinition of what it is I truly believe. This is unsettling to many people in my life and so on top of my own struggle I think I've wanted to avoid dealing with some of those unhelpful opinions and voices. I don't know if things will ever fully shake out. I know I am forever changed and can never see the world the way I once did. If anything, my ignorance is gone and with it a certain amount of bliss. I told Brad the other day that it's not that I don't believe anymore. In fact, I long more for Truth than ever before. I think I realize now how skewed we all perceive it. If anything, I think I am glimpsing more of Truth than before, and it is a bit more daunting, more frightening than I ever thought. So, Truth hasn't changed but I have.

I think Brad and I realize that we may never have answers to some of our toughest questions. But one day, we hope that we will be able to come to a little more peace about it all, a bit more acceptance than we've felt over these past few months. Maybe we will finally settle into and figure out how to live with the not knowing or understanding why.

So where does that leave us with Christmas before us. I thought I'd be able to handle it all, at least put on the good face for my kids. But the weekend we pulled out all the decorations I just wasn't feeling any Christmas cheer. As I went to put the first wreath up over the mantle, I fell apart. I thought of the ten month old that should be crawling around my feet, that should be getting into things and mesmerized by all of these new sights. It all felt so empty and not the way it should have been.

We took the kids to the Polar Express at the Botanical Gardens to see the lights. I watched families with their bundled up babies and thought about the little one I should have had bundled up on my lap. As we rode through, we enjoyed the lights but I just felt dull inside. It's like the anger has melted into dullness. Everything I do seems to have a film over it making every experience not quite as cheery as I once thought it was.

Until today...

Edmarc offered to have carolers and Santa Claus come with presents to visit us in this first year after losing Sully. At first I hesitated. How would the kids react? How would I react? Finally, Brad and I decided that it might be fun and an opportunity not to be missed. After all, how many kids get a day visit from Santa to their house? We heard the singing coming up our driveway this afternoon and raced to the front door. And, there, following them was Santa Claus, and, no kidding, he was the real Santa Claus! Brad said he looked like they took him right out of Miracle on 34th Street. The kids were mesmerized watching him walk up to our house and I teared up as the carolers sang. It was such a good moment, a moment of joy and excitement and Christmas cheer for all of us, and I felt the hope that maybe the dullness wouldn't last forever.

A Happy Halloween

Moments

While Sully was with us, we made his hand print and foot print that now hang on our living room wall. I look at them all the time. Not a stop and stare look but always here and there out of the corner of my eye as I go about my day. From where I sit at our family table they are in my direct line of vision. A while back the double sided tape gave way to the weight of the clay and his hand print came off the mat and fell an inch or so to the bottom of the shadow box frame. I noticed it right away. I didn't fix it right away. I wondered if other people noticed when they came in and out of our house. Does anyone see his hand print has fallen? Do they wonder that I haven't repaired it? Do they wonder if I've even noticed? Strange things go through your head. Last night, in a fit of orderliness, I finally pulled it down and super glued the clay back to the foam tape. As I pulled the cold clay out of the box frame, I traced his sweet little hand. How small it was. I remember the day we made the impression. It all comes rushing back to me as I feel the little crevices of his fingers and wrinkly skin. I can't believe what has happened. I break down and cry and realize, this is why I couldn't fix it for so long. Maybe somewhere inside me I knew how hard it would be and so I let myself stare at the fallen hand print instead of facing the weeping mother in my heart.


It happened again one afternoon as I looked at a photo of Ella and Zane holding Sully. I noticed the white headband in Ella's hair and wondered where it was. She doesn't like to fuss much with her hair, but that was one of the headbands she rarely would choose to wear on her own. A while back, I gave most of her headbands away, and suddenly I panicked that I had given that one away. I raced to her room and went through her draw of random stuff and hair things. I couldn't find it and hated myself for giving it away. I just wanted to hold it. Weird, I know. But it felt like a piece of that moment that Sully was with us, and somehow in the irrationality of grief, I believed holding that headband would give me that moment back. Despite fearing looking stupid, I asked for the white headband back, and when I saw it again and held it, I cried.

Saying it out loud

Today I had a chance to talk with a friend who I find very dear but don't get to spend a lot of time with. She is good at asking deeper questions, real questions and actually seeming like she's interested in my rambling answers. I love that about her. As I spoke with her, I found myself sorting out some things in my heart, saying some things out loud that I haven't said out loud before. And when I said them, I could finally hear for myself how silly they sounded. Yet why is it as they are going around in your brain they seem much more threatening? My friend was gracious with me and encouraging. She eased my silly fears with her kind words and assurance. I am thankful that when the thoughts creep back in as threatening, I can replay in my mind her response and be comforted.

Disillusionment

I'm up early or in the middle of the night whichever you want to call it. I guess if I can get myself back to sleep it will be the middle of the night - otherwise just up early. I always think of Sully when this happens. I was awake so many times at odd hours through my pregnancy with him. The beautiful thing about these hours is the intense stillness and quiet. My thoughts seem so much clearer, like I have the space and time to let them work themselves out without any of the distractions of the normal waking hours.

I had been thinking about the title of an entry - perhaps "Retreat into Normalcy" or something of the sort. As I get comments from people or clips of my writing mentioned through others so often there is misinterpretation or just the strangeness of people knowing more about me than I might tell them on my own. I suppose that is the nature of writing in a public space. I've often thought about making a private blog. But then, I hear of someone facing a similar situation who was able to read through those Sully days of ours and find some comfort even in knowing they are not the only ones to walk through such difficulty, and for that reason I know I can't close down this space. And then, there are those dear souls who read and do get it, and do offer such encouragement and beautiful insight and for them I am so thankful. I suppose a blog is just like life, full of the ups and downs, those who get you and those who don't, full of the great moments and also the moments of disillusionment.

That is where I have been lately with relationships in general, maybe with life in general thus making for the relational difficulty. Disillusioned. There are certain gifts of friendship in my life that have stood the test of time, been through struggle and still come through as solid, beautiful relationships. I think for most these types of friendships are fewer and thus all the more valuable. Yes, we do things in those relationships to foster their growth but there seems to be a certain naturalness to them that can't just be recreated in two people who might not "click" quite as well. Yet that's not always the case. In one of my dearest friendships there was never an initial click but more of a gradual growing together. Or maybe there is an initial "click" but time reveals that the connection lacks depth and so you both move on. In the dearest relationships, is there less expectation and thus the opportunity for relational freedom and growth? No, I think my friends and I expect certain things from one another. Perhaps, because of the connection and the longevity there is a large well of love to draw from, offering one another forgiveness or a willingness to overlook certain things. Or that could also be part of the "click" - that your personality doesn't rub that other person quite as raw as it might someone else. So it seems you have to have both connection and depth for the making of a true friend.

But why is it that in the people you hope most for closeness and deepness there seems to always be disappointment? After years of tensions and in the middle of grief and now carrying a new child, I just find myself too tired to want to try anymore. I feel so disillusioned. Life has not turned out as I would have hoped, people are not who I hoped they would be, I am not able to respond as I would have once hoped I could. All "illusions" are shattered.

And then I read by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that if I am ever to have knowledge of genuine fellowship, "so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves...Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it."

So maybe this is right where I'm supposed to be. Maybe in this disillusioned state I can recognize the limits of certain relationships and just allow them to be what God intended them to be (instead of all I had intended them to be). How foolish of me to believe I could have or expect to have with everyone the depth of closeness and friendship I have with a handful of cherished souls. But this does not mean that I cannot love in those relationships; in fact, I feel like it gives me a freedom to love by letting go of the expectations and false hopes to which I once clung. And it gives me freedom to just be where I am and who I am. Maybe this is all a part of Sully's gift to me, part of learning to live in the wake of his absence, part of accepting the brokenness in us all.

Portraits

Every year I take the kid's portraits. This year, there wasn't ever a question as to where I would take them. I knew I wanted to photograph them on their brother's playground. It just seemed right. I took Zane's a few weeks back when he turned three and Ella's last weekend.

Ella is Five!

Ella turned five October 9. We had lots of fun turning her and her girlfriends into princess ponies.