Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Living in the Light

The last couple of days I have been reminded in a number of ways that the light of hope is all around me.

I thought that I would be spending this Advent season pregnant and learning about new life and hope through my pregnancy. I expected to find myself identifying with Mary, commiserating with her as she walked the miles to Bethlehem, feeling along with her all the aches and pains of pregnancy.

Instead, I find myself identifying with the Israelites in their waiting. Generation after generation, prophet after prophet, they waited for the promised Messiah. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Hosea, all over the Hebrew Scriptures, the promise is everywhere.

So many of these prophecies talk about darkness and light. Isaiah 9:2 says,
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined. 
The first verses of Isaiah 60, also speak of darkness,
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
It seems that only by walking in darkness can we fully appreciate the Light. Sometimes we enter the darkness by choice. Other times we are thrust into darkness unprepared and unwillingly. My darkness is not by choice, but I can choose my attitude toward the darkness. I can allow the darkness to overwhelm me or I can allow the darkness to become my friend and my teacher. I can learn to know the darkness and allow it to make the Light brighter in me.

This Advent I choose to let the Light grow in my darkness. The author of Lamentations will be my guide. Lamentations 3 says,
I am one who has seen affliction
under the rod of God’s wrath;
he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
against me alone he turns his hand,
again and again, all day long... 
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘therefore I will hope in him...’ 
For the Lord will not reject for ever.
Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
May you know the Light this Advent, may you let that Light shine for those walking in darkness, and may we all be blessed by the Light in new and unexpected ways. 

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Post-Thanksgiving Thoughts

I don't know if you noticed this or not, but last week I added two tabs at the top of the page for "A Little Gratitude" and "A LOT of Gratitude." Starting with the first Sunday in November, our church had several sermons on gratitude. You might have guessed this already, but I've had trouble with gratitude this year. These lists have been good reminders for me as well as a good exercise in focusing on the things I have to be grateful for rather than focusing on self-pity. If you get a minute and you haven't taken a look at those tabs, feel free to do so. I'd love to hear a few of your "little gratitude-s" and your "lot of gratitude-s."

One of my "little gratitude-s" has become a "lot of gratitude" over the last couple days. Wednesday night at eight or nine, M discovered a dripping sound in our bathroom and realized that we had a leak in the wall. Water was starting to leak through the ceiling in our basement bathroom as well as under the shower unit in our bathroom. My gratitude grew when my father-in-law came over, opened up the wall so we could access the leak and jerry-rigged the pipes to buy us a few more days until we could have it repaired. Yesterday, after more than a week and a half of waiting for the plumber, we finally have all of our plumbing working! The gratitude just kept growing!

While the plumber was working, we put up our Christmas tree. I think if we weren't having people at our house over the next few weeks we probably wouldn't put up our tree this year, but I'm glad we did. Putting the tree up is one of those things I was looking forward to doing pregnant this year, so it wasn't my favorite thing to do, but it went better than I expected. No tears!! It looks great, but more than that we ended up with a lot of entertainment out of the process!

Step one was easy, put the tree together. Step two: fluff out the branches. This was fine until I started working on the lower branches. Our kitten, Lilly, decided she wanted to help, and here's where things got complicated. Lilly quickly figured out that she could climb up the tree. The next thing we knew we had this:


She really seemed to like it in there. Step three: add lights and decorate the tree. No problem. She found other ways to entertain herself for the most part. M's family stopped by to drop off a spotlight for our outside decorations and they stayed for coffee. While we were visiting, Lilly decided to try again. Unfortunately, her second try at snuggling in the tree proved hazardous for our tree stand. The tree started to lean and then wouldn't stay up at all. Thanks (again) to my father-in-law (seriously, the man has MacGyver-like abilities!) and a piece of red yarn the tree never completely fell, but for a couple hours it really looked like we'd hanged our Christmas tree.

It is now standing straight and tall and kitty-proof. Lilly can climb around to her heart's content and all she does is shake the tree. My father-in-law created a very sturdy stand for us which raises our tree's height by quite a bit. Take a look:


One final picture for your entertainment:

(Tail courtesy of Tiger Lilly)

Monday, November 21, 2011

One month...

My daughter was born one month ago today. The last few days have not been easy. Saturday was one month since our lives changed and we began to learn about grief. I relived those awful moments in the doctor's office of waiting and reheard those words, "no heartbeat" over and over in my head. Yesterday, I mentally relived the induction, the hours of waiting. Last night, I slept restlessly knowing the moment would come when it was one month since our daughter was born. Today, I drove by my daughter's grave in the church cemetery. Today, I am sad.

Even in my sadness, I realize how much I've grown over the last month. I would still go back and change, well, everything if I had the chance, but I have grown.

I have learned a lot about pastoral care. I know now that there really aren't "right" things to say to someone who is grieving, but there are definitely "wrong" things to say. I know that a hug (even though the books might tell you hugs are crossing boundaries) can communicate far beyond words strength and love to someone who is grieving. I know that personal tragedy can make pastors more empathetic and compassionate. I have always known that the cloud of witnesses on the other side is waiting to welcome us when our bodies give out, but I now know on a personal level just how comforting it is to be able to look forward to that reunion, to seeing someone you love so deeply as the whole, perfect person they could have been or were in life.

I have learned, too, that this experience is making me a better parent. I think I would have been a wonderful mother to my daughter, but I think I will be an even better parent to any other children we may have. I will be more patient when my child is colicky because I know just how lucky I am to have a healthy, breathing baby. I will be more intentional in protecting my time with my child because every moment will feel like a privilege. I will love more, laugh harder, and enjoy every minute. I will also be an overprotective worrier the entire time, and I will probably embarrass the heck out of my kids because of it. But, who cares? No parent is perfect, and I think losing my daughter earns me the right to be a bit of an anxious parent!

I have also learned that grief, in the words of a former English teacher and friend, sucks! There really are few words in the English language that define grief in quite so accurate a way. Grief on good days is like a broken bone, the dull ache that just refuses to go away. On bad days, grief is like labor pains without the happy end of a baby, sharp waves of pain that don't allow you to focus on anything but what you feel. I realize that this analogy misses many people, but there really is no better way to describe bad days when you're grieving. Like labor pains that give birth to a stillborn baby, grief feel like a slap in the face, like the brokenness of the world is mocking you. It just sucks!

So, today is a sad day, but I have reasons to be grateful. I am grateful that I can get through these "one month" days now rather than in a couple days. Thanksgiving may bring with it struggles of its own, but at least the "one month" days are not the day of Thanksgiving (or for that matter, Christmas next month!). I am grateful that I have a husband who reminds me that maybe one month is not so much a marker of what we've lost but something to celebrate. We have survived. We have learned to find hope in the midst of our sadness. We are not feeling the heartbreak of our loss the way we were one month ago. I am grateful that I am "grieving well." This loss has been devastating, but somehow I have managed to put my life back together. Each day I find new ways to keep going, new things to look forward to, new hope. For example, I found these verses from Isaiah 54 just yesterday. While they don't speak to my exact situation, they still feel a bit like a promise.
"Sing, O barren one who did not bear;
burst into song and shout, 
you who have not been in labor! 
For the children of the desolate woman 
will be more than the children of her that is married, 
says the Lord
Enlarge the site of your tent, 
and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; 
do not hold back; 
lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. 
For you will spread out to the right and to the left, 
and your descendants will possess the nations 
and will settle the desolate towns."
We named our daughter Faith as a reminder that God is faithful, that this is not the end of our story, but the beginning, that God gives good gifts, that we will one day be parents to a healthy child. Today, even in my sadness, I claim these words from Isaiah 54, as a promise that one day my silent house will be overflowing with the noise of children and my time will be filled with the pleasures of parenthood rather than a blog about my journey. (Sorry, but I will trade this blog in quite easily if it means I'm spending time being a mom!!)

Friday, November 18, 2011

Tears from the Pulpit and Other Awkward and Embarrassing Moments

If you were in my church this past Sunday, you had the unfortunate honor of seeing me break down and cry before, during and after praying from the pulpit. For those of you who were not present, let me explain. In our congregation, the Morning Prayer (also known as the Congregational Prayer or Pastoral Prayer) usually follows the "Songs of Praise and Worship." This past Sunday was no exception. We sang three songs and I made it through the first two without too much difficulty. Our third song, "I Love You, Lord," happened to be one of many on my mental list of songs I planned to sing to our baby. I had completely forgotten about that list until the song started, and I lost it. I never even got one word or note of the song out. I just stood there and cried. I tried really hard to shut out the song and regain my composure. It just didn't happen. I suppose I can be proud that I made it the whole way through my prayer without stopping, but it was ugly. My voice was cracking, and there were times when I could barely read what I had written. The best thing anyone can say is that I survived and the congregation survived. I usually enjoy participating in the service in this way, but I think it might be a while before I am brave enough to try again. Tears may be healing, but that doesn't stop "crying in the pulpit" from getting added to the list of embarrassing moments I've had over the last four weeks! Here's a few more:

  • Being rude to someone I ran into in the grocery store and knowing I was being rude even as I did it because I simply didn't have the energy to explain that we'd just lost our daughter. (She was very gracious when my mother-in-law apologized for me a couple weeks later.)
  • Crying in coffee shops. Coffee shops are a great place to meet people to talk, but when the topic of conversation is something emotional like losing a child, it can be a bit uncomfortable for everyone. (Suggestions of better places to meet for these conversations would be appreciated! These are good conversations which I plan to continue even if they have to be in public places.)
  • Explaining to the plumber who put in our new furnace a few weeks ago and returned to fix our leaky shower that I no longer have a due date, that my daughter arrived three weeks ago with no heartbeat. These conversations are not so much embarrassing as they are awkward. The person who asked always feels horrible for asking, and I have yet to find a way of making that moment less awkward or helping the other person feel better about asking! (By the way, that plumber did not fix the leaky shower and has not been back to try again. We've called and are still waiting. Not sure how I feel about that, but I'm hoping it doesn't have anything to do with the awkwardness of our last conversation. Shout out to my father-in-law who put a cap on the end of the pipe so that the leak is temporarily solved!!)
In spite of the embarrassing nature of crying in public places, I am incredibly grateful for the community of other mothers who have lost their daughters. Don't get me wrong! This is one club in which I would rather not be a member, but it is surprising good to talk to, cry with, and get to know other women who have lost their children and in particular their daughters. I spent my entire morning today with a woman who lost her daughter a few months ago, and I feel so blessed by our time together. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was not what I ended up getting!

I hope that this doesn't burst your bubble, but pastors are human. We don't always know the right thing to say. We don't have this sense of "divine confidence" that allows us to walk into situations without fear or anxiety. We are human. We get nervous. We question our own abilities. We sometimes put our foot in our mouth.

I was nervous going into my meeting this morning. I am a control freak who likes to know the outcome of conversations before she has them. It has been hard for me to put myself out there without having expectations for a conversation, and I have gone into more than one conversation in the last four weeks dreading the outcome because I simply didn't know what to expect. I had no idea that I would leave the coffee shop this morning feeling so hopeful and so happy. I laughed. I cried. I talked. I listened. I feel like I found a kindred spirit, another grieving soul who tries to live every day with hope, who chooses to see the light at the end of the tunnel even when it's hard. I have been blessed, and I am learning that good grieving is grieving with hope. May you find light and hope and promise no matter what you face today, tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after, and may we all find ways to "grieve good."

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Thoughts on Blogging

If you found my first blog on Facebook yesterday, I'm sure you noticed my note that I never thought I'd be a blogger. Starting in middle school or maybe even before, I started keeping a journal, but I have long realized that the thoughts in my journal are far from profound. There have been challenging times in my life, but for the most part, these experiences have not seemed blog-worthy. To be perfectly honest, even three weeks ago I would have said that you would never find me blogging about my life. I realized that the experience of losing my daughter was something that I could blog about, but I simply couldn't imagine sharing such a private, emotional experience on the internet. I have changed my mind (obviously!). Here's why.

Within days of Faith's birth, I received no less than three suggestions that I contact a woman who had lost her daughter in March and had started a blog. If you're curious about her blog you can find it here: http://hardermagic.blogspot.com/. I started reading her story and realized that much of what she said in her early posts resonated with my own experience. She is very honest in her blogging, and when I started reading her blog, I couldn't imagine being that honest with people who care about me, much less with strangers who might find my blog by chance. I have been profoundly touched by R's blog, so much so that I suddenly found myself wanting to share my own story. I hope that by sharing through this blog I might reach out to someone else in my situation, that I can help those around me understand my struggles, and that I might find healing.

R's blog is not the only one by far that I have found over the last weeks that has been helpful. Another blog, found here http://www.dazeddad.com/, tells the story of loss from a father's perspective. The author of this blog is also a United Methodist pastor. His blog both echos many of my feelings and also has helped me understand my husband's experience better. This is a perspective that often gets lost and forgotten, and I know that in my own grief it's easy to forget that M lost his daughter, too, that while I felt her move within me, he never experienced her in the same way and that creates an entirely different kind of grief.

I hope that you'll keep reading even when my posts tend to focus on the mundane rather than the profound as they undoubtedly will. I have list of post ideas that will at least get us through a few weeks, things that have been rumbling around in my head and are finally in a form that I feel comfortable sharing. So, along those lines, here are a few both profound and mundane things I have learned in the last four weeks.

  • There are entirely too many parents out there blogging about the loss of their children. Yes, we live in a broken world. Yes, the brokenness of our world means that there will always be parents who lose their children. That doesn't mean we have to be okay with it. God can walk with us in our anger, frustration, confusion, and disappointment!
  • Prayer works in ways that are impossible to understand. Whether I'm present with you or not, your prayers are keeping me together, so keep praying! Even on days when things appear to be going well on the surface, I still need to know that people are praying, so don't stop telling me!
  • Hugs, shoulder squeezes, any simple touch, all these are great ways to communicate to me what you feel when you don't know what to say. Honestly, I don't know what to say either. We don't have words for this experience. Hugs really do help!
  • Hope is hard to kill. Yes, this ironic since my name happens to be Hope, but I mean this on a much deeper level than my own physical body. It may currently be a shriveled, sad-looking shell of what used to exist in my heart, but I still have hope. Even when I feel my worst and my face feels chapped from crying, I still have hope that life will get better, that joy will come, that I will be able to listen to stations other than NPR on the radio without getting emotional, that I will once again be able to plan for the future, and that one day there will be another pregnancy with a happier ending.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

No Matter What Goes Right Lyrics

If the mountains never crumble,
And the rivers don't run dry,
The oceans keep on pounding,
The sun stays in the sky;
If apples keep on falling,
And three and two is five,
I'll still be loving you
No matter what goes right.
If the world keeps on turning,
And snow keeps falling white,
Fire keeps on burning,
And daylight follows every night;
If flowers bloom in springtime,
And birds remember how to fly,
I'll still be loving you
No matter what goes right.
No matter what goes right,
I'll still be loving you;
No matter what goes right,
I will stand by you.
And when couples fight their troubles,
It unites their hearts,
When the good times roll,
they can drift apart;
I'll still be loving you
No matter what goes right.
When all this work is over,
And my ship comes sailing in,
You'll always be my lover,
You'll always be my friend.
If the stars up in the heavens
Keep on shining clear and bright,
I'll still be loving you,
No matter what goes right.
No matter what goes right,
I'll still be loving you;
No matter what goes right,
I will stand by you.
And when couples fight their troubles,
It unites their hearts,
When the good times roll,
they can drift apart;
I'll still be loving you
No matter what goes right.
No matter what goes right,
I'll still be loving you;
No matter what goes right,
I will stand by you.
And when couples fight their troubles,
It unites their hearts,
When the good times roll,
they can drift apart;
I'll still be loving you
No matter what goes right.

No Matter What Goes Right

When I was fourteen or fifteen, I heard the song "No Matter What Goes Right" by Trout Fishing in America. Anyone who know them knows that the vast majority of their songs are quite humorous. "No Matter What Goes Right" is a song about marriage and loving your spouse no matter what goes right in life. It is an answer to all the songs about relationships surviving all the obstacles. While I recognized (and the song acknowledges) that no life will be completely free of challenges, I (being a complete idealist and a teenager) began to expect that my life and my future marriage would be just this way. Of course there would be challenges, but I had made all the right choices and fully expected that I would have a "No Matter What Goes Right" kind of life.The last eight weeks or so have forced me to face reality in a way no idealist ever hopes they must. I'll start at the beginning.
In late September, my husband, M, and I had our furnace inspected and discovered two cracks in the heat exchanger. This resulted in a couple of weeks of no heat, no air conditioning, and a hefty bill. It also saved us from the awful fate of carbon monoxide poisoning. Since I was seventeen weeks pregnant with our first child, we gladly paid and inspected our brand new furnace. Thank you, Lennox! While this changed how we planned to spend our money, we quickly embraced this bump in the road.

Just a few weeks later, on October 19 and exactly four months to the day after finding out we were expecting our first baby, we went to the doctors office for a sonogram appointment only to learn the devastating news that our baby did not have a heart beat. Less than 24 hours later, we found ourselves in the Labor and Delivery department of the hospital awaiting the birth of our daughter, Faith, and learning what it means to say goodbye before even saying hello. There really is no way to explain what this experience is like. If you don't know, I pray you never find out. If you do, my heart hurts for you.

Faith was born on October 21, 2011, at 2:38 in the morning, was seven inches long and weighed 6 ounces. Before she was delivered we had no idea of her gender, but I decided (in my sleepy, morphine-induced stupor) that if she was a girl her name would be Faith. I believe with all my heart that God is good and God is love and that only by walking in faith will my life, will all of our lives, be worth living. My daughter's name is a reminder to me every day to abide in God's love and walk in faith that life will again be good and that no amount of sadness, anger, disappointment, or fear can separate me from God's love.

The same day that we said goodbye to our daughter we also had our five-month-old kitten, Lilly, spayed. We brought her home the next day, just hours before we buried Faith in the children's section of the cemetery at the church where I am youth pastor. She was sleepy and a bit dopey from the pain medication prescribed by our vet. M looked up the medication on the internet and discovered that it was not recommended for use in cats, but our vet had prescribed it so we went ahead and gave it to her. Ten days later she reacted. I watched as within one hour she went from being her normal, feisty, playful self to a nearly comatose kitten. She was hidden under the back of the couch, and all I could do was watch her hoping she wouldn't stop breathing before M and I could get her to the vet. They were able to stop her "episode" and the next day we brought her home only to have her go into another after the vet's office had closed for the day. We took another emergency drive to the vet and he was able to stop the episode, but had no idea what was going on or how to keep her from having another. Finally, after a total of three episodes, cleaning our entire house trying to find out if she'd been eating something she shouldn't, and feeling like horrible pet owners, the vet decided to put her on a low protein diet in hopes that her episodes were caused by her cat food. Four days later, we brought her home. It's been one week, but so far so good. No more sick, Lilly.

In the midst of our sick kitty woes, we returned to the doctor's office for my post-delivery, follow-up appointment. How I feel about the news of that appointment changes from day to day and hour to hour. There was nothing physically wrong with Faith and there is nothing physically wrong with me. There was evidence of an infection in the placenta, diagnosis: acute chorioamnionitis. There is no way to know for certain that this is what killed my daughter. It could be that the infection was caused by the amount of time I carried her after she died. The bad news, I will worry about this the entire pregnancy if I am ever pregnant again. The good news, there is no reason to think that we will necessarily lose another baby.

That brings me to this week. In any other week the events of this week would be minor, but we are beginning to feel a bit like Job. This week's challenges: a leaky shower that requires the water be turned off when we are not actively using it (I mean, seriously, we can't even shut off the shower! It just runs!!) and a funny noise from the engine of the car (thankfully, this appears to be minor!).

So, now what? Next week is Thanksgiving, and I can find only tiny things for which to be thankful (more on that later). I feel pushed to my limit and exhausted, but can't sleep (Thank God for Ambien!!). I cry when I listen to most music. I am grateful for the many women God placed in my life who have lost a child and understand my loss, but I hurt for each of them knowing they have felt or continue to feel what I feel. I REALLY want a week to go by without any major incidents. I know it won't make me hurt less, but I would be ever so grateful for one uneventful week, one lousy, "no matter what goes right" kind of week! Prayers for this would be much appreciated!