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The Weight of Grief – Part 1
I remember it all too clearly – the first time after Chad’s death that I was confronted with a row of tiny boxes requesting my “marital status.”
Single. Married. Divorced.
The question, one I’d answered hundreds of times before in my single and married life, now felt cruel and intrusive; a literal reminder that my life no longer fit neatly in the box that it used to.
I felt the hot sting of tears coming to my eyes as I sat there paralyzed, pen in hand, head down, staring at the form on the clipboard in my lap. I was pretty fine, as fine as a person whose husband just died could be, until I came to that question. Then all of a sudden, I’m trying not to ugly-cry in the middle of this office, in front of all these people who don’t know a thing about me or my situation.
The early weeks and months after loss are filled with phenomena like this. I call them grief landmines. One minute you’re okay. The next, you’re accosted by something you never saw coming, something so insignificant to everyone else. And without any warning at all…
BOOM.
By the time you realize you’ve stepped on a landmine, your composure has already been vaporized by the force of your emotions literally exploding out of you.
In the first days after a death, you’re literally triggered by just about everything. It feels as if everywhere you turn, something is put there to mock your loss… The sign for their favorite restaurant. The brand of mints they used to like that are by the register at the grocery store. The song on the radio. The truck next to you at the stoplight that looks like theirs. Happy people, because you used to be happy. Sad people, because you are sad. Married people, because you used to be married. Fathers, because your kids used to have one.
Every memory you have hidden in your brain connected to the person who has died will find a way to leap from the recesses of your frontal lobe to the forefront of your conscious in an attempt to relate to whatever you are experiencing, wherever you are. Every single thing you encounter throughout the day illuminates the giant hole in your heart where your person used to be.
It doesn’t matter whether the person who died was a sibling, spouse, parent, child, or close friend. The sudden crippling of emotional landmines is not unique to any specific type of loss. If you know someone who has lost a loved one, they have experienced this.
It’s estimated there are about 110 Million unexploded landmines still buried across the globe. This number feels accurate for grief landmines as well.
If you’re a griever, you no doubt understand this all too well. We often find ourselves paralyzed and unable to explain what’s just happened, while our friends, and even strangers, ask us repeatedly, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
If you’re supporting a griever, you can look for some tell-tale signs that the person you care about has just encountered an emotional landmine – things like blank stares; sudden withdrawal from conversation; sudden and unexplainable nausea; sudden crying (obviously), although most people get good at keeping the tears at bay until they’re alone; the need to leave immediately; and even sudden outbursts of anger.
What can you do if someone you love seems emotionally bewildered all of a sudden?
1. Help them process the trigger. Ask them open-ended questions that open a door to actual conversation instead of “Are you okay?”
If you ask, “Are you okay?” you’re going to be told, “Yeah, I’m fine.” 99.9% of the time, and chances are, they’re less than “fine.”
2. I’d even go as far as to suggest confronting the obvious, in a compassionate way of course – “Did something upset you? I noticed you shut down all of a sudden when xyz happened.”
Grieving people already feel awkward and like such an emotional burden to those around us. It’s a giant relief if someone wants to know what’s going on in our heads as opposed to feeling like we have to keep it locked inside because we’ll ruin your day too by just dumping it on you.
3. Listen. Don’t problem solve. Don’t try to make sense of it. There is a good chance it won’t make sense to you. After all, it wasn’t your person that died. Even if you knew the deceased person, you didn’t have the same relationship with them, so their grief triggers are most likely drastically different than yours.
4. Respect the need for space. Everyone processes differently. More experienced grievers may identify the trigger, why it affected them, and are okay talking about it right away. Others might need time alone to think about what happened and why it was so upsetting before they’re ready to talk about it.
Whether the person is capable and willing to verbalize what just triggered their grief right then is not important. What is important is that they process it in general. If the person seemed closed-off in the moment, follow up with them later and offer support, letting them know you’re willing to listen if they want to share what’s going on in their head.
Memories of the person we loved the most can be hard to contend with, but one thing I’ve learned through my grief process is that sharing memories of my husband makes the weight of my grief feel lighter, even if it takes a few hours or days before I’m ready to talk about it.
5. Resist the urge to make their grief about you. This can mean a lot of things. This topic will eventually get its very own post, as I feel it needs to be addressed in depth, but for starters, saying things like “I wish you weren’t so sad” or “Please don’t cry” are not helpful at all and implies that our emotion making you uncomfortable is your biggest concern, even if it’s not.
Instead, I’d suggest something like “I’m sorry this has upset you. Do you want to talk about it?” or “I might not fully understand, but I’m here for you.”
6. Give them a hug. Pat them on the shoulder; whatever level of physical touch you feel is appropriate for your relationship with them. A simple hug from a caring friend can be the thing that keeps a grieving person from being completely overtaken by waves of emotion when they’ve stumbled upon a landmine.
7. Lastly, and this is more general advise, but don’t back away from the grieving people you care about. You aren’t going to trigger us by saying our person’s name or telling us a funny story you remember about them. The opposite is actually true.
As months and years go by after a loss, it feels like the world has totally forgotten the person who is still so dear to us. Hearing people speak their name and share memories is a comforting treasure, as it’s validation that they are still loved and missed by others besides us.
Grief is heavy, and it’s not well-carried alone. If this is someone you truly care about, don’t walk away. Lean in.
So what did I do about the boxes?
It didn’t seem fair that divorced people got their own box, being that they’re technically “single” as well, so I passive-aggressively drew my own box out to the side and wrote ‘WIDOWED’ in all caps next to it and put a giant ‘X’ in that box.
On to the next landmine…
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Peace, Hope, and Joy
Originally posted December 25, 2019
I’ve always loved Christmas. I love the music and the movies and the home-made goodies. I love the traditions and the family gatherings and telling random people “Merry Christmas!” everywhere I go. And don’t forget the lights… There is no such thing as too many Christmas lights. I won’t be completely satisfied until my house is a beacon of holiday happiness visible from the International Space Station.
I LOVE Christmas. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
The origins of my love for Christmas go much deeper than just the magical belief in Santa Claus as a small child. It’s actually much more tangible than that, because even before I came to faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior in my late teens, Christmas still meant two things to me: peace and joy.
There were many years of my childhood that felt pretty tumultuous. My parents’ marriage died a slow and difficult death, and for the last decade they were married, our house was often filled with tension and arguing. But something mysterious and magical always happened in December – I like to call it “The Great Family Armistice”.
It was like an unspoken treaty: There is no fighting during Christmas.
I don’t know whether it’s because my Mom’s birthday is in December or that her love language is gift giving or just the joy of the holiday season in general, but as soon as those boxes came down from the attic and the tree went up, happiness filled the house.
I’d always watch in amazement as she decorated the fireplace mantel with such beauty and precision, finding every little trinket its own perfect place to be showcased, like watching someone create a masterpiece. She’d string the tree with lights and then let us decorate it. We’d tune a radio to a station playing Christmas music, she’d bake things that smelled delicious, and we’d all bask in the warm, fuzzy glow of Christmas lights and holiday cheer.
We’d go to family gatherings and smile and laugh, not in fakeness, but in my recollection, like the happy family we wanted to be. I’d see my parents who struggled to have civil conversations band together to become the best Christmas shopping duo you’ve ever seen in action. I’ve never seen two adults more willing to temporarily lay down their own grudges to work together to make something special for their children. And I still see this happen every day as they co-grandparent my kids without any post-divorce drama or spite.
My mom has always been a last minute wrapper. Even long after we stopped believing in Santa, she still never put presents under the tree until we’d gone to bed on Christmas Eve, which made the excitement of Christmas morning even more suspenseful.
I’d wake up on Christmas morning, usually first, and creep toward the living room with anticipation leaping from my chest. I’d peek around the corner and find that Christmas had exploded in the living room. My young self probably even audibly squealed in delight.
I’d usually wake up my sister, and then we’d wake up my parents and beckon them to the living room like giddy school children. There would always be a groggy demand for coffee and food, so my sister and I would go put on a pot of coffee and pop some cinnamon rolls in the oven as payment for their marathon night of gift wrapping.
We’d summon them again, but this time with hot cinnamon rolls, and that usually seemed to do the trick. And once we finally got them in the living room, coffee in hand, we’d sit with visual anticipation waiting for mom to tell us which gifts to open. She always had a method to the gift opening, like she was building us up to a grand finale that couldn’t be spoiled by one of us accidentally opening a box out of order.
And for a couple of hours, we’d sit and open gifts and smile and laugh and marvel at the perfect presents they somehow knew we wanted even though we’d never actually mentioned them before.
I’d hear my parents refer to each other as “Dear”, something that was definitely not common. They’d even get each other meaningful and heartfelt gifts, and every year the thought would cross my mind that maybe they actually could be happy together.
There was relaxation and maybe even relief on their faces, because they had done it again. One more year, they were able to give us a Christmas Miracle – the perfect day full of love and peace and joy.
Even in the months after Christmas, when home life slowly returned to its unpredictable volatility, I’d often think to myself, “Well, at least there is always Christmas.”
And there was always a magical Christmas… until 2004 when my parents finally filed for divorce during the Spring of my Senior year of high school – something everyone knew had been a long time coming, but was still difficult for all of us, nonetheless.
And when the Christmas season arrived that first winter, I was still optimistic and cheerful as usual. After all, Christmas had never let me down before.
I took such care to make sure that our house looked just like it did all the years before. I’d watched my Mom do it for so many years, so I knew just where to put every knick-knack and every bow to make it look just right.
Everything seemed pretty normal, until Christmas Eve, when I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning wrapping presents by myself. I carefully arranged them all underneath the tree and then stepped back across the room to behold the wonder of everything Christmas, when suddenly, one of the saddest feelings I’d ever felt hit me like an avalanche.
I stood there looking at this beautiful tree glowing in the darkness with all its treasures tucked beneath, when tears began streaming down my cheeks. I could no longer pretend that tomorrow was going to be the happiest day of the year. Our perfect Christmas mornings were over. And no matter how hard I tried to replicate the years past, no Christmas going forward would ever be the same. And I went to bed devastated.
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Fast-forward a few years, after the dust from the divorce settled, and we actually all started celebrating Christmas morning and gift-opening together again like we always did. Like I said before, my parents have a unique ability to put their differences aside for their kids, and now their grand-kids. It’s something you don’t see very often, but it’s something I’m incredibly grateful for.
Our family Christmas evolved over the years and began to take on new life when I got married in 2013, and then when we quickly started adding kids to the family.
In the fall of 2015, my husband and I started looking for a house with a little more room, since we’d added 2 kids in less than 2 years and were busting from the seams in our first home.
From the first time we viewed the house we live in now, I was already dreaming of what our family Christmas would be like in this big, open living room, with space for the big, full Christmas tree I’d never had to room to put up in our other house. Visions of garland and tinsel danced in my head.
We closed on this house a few days before Christmas and actually decided to move most of our things and spend the first night here on Christmas day of 2015. It was the best Christmas gift ever, and I already couldn’t wait to decorate for Christmas 2016.
We spent two amazing Christmases together in this house as a family of 4, soon to be 5. We had room to host the whole family on Christmas morning. Christmas had begun to feel magical again, through the eyes of my children.
And then tragically, my husband unexpectedly passed away in March of 2018, leaving me with two small kids and another one on the way. We were, and still are in so many ways, completely devastated.
Christmas of 2018 was our first holiday season without him, and to be quite honest, it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. Everyone says the first year is the hardest, but I’d have to say the second year has been much harder emotionally. I don’t know if it’s because at Christmas of last year, I was still full of hopeful optimism that I’d make it through this valley without losing my mind, but 365 more days of being a single-mom of three kids 5 and under has definitely threatened to beat out of me every ounce of optimism I had last year.
Life is hard. And exhausting. And lonely. And the things I’d come to love about sharing Christmas with my husband and our kids just obviously aren’t the same.
This holiday season has just been a struggle. I’ve spent most days feeling myself withdraw into emotional survival mode just to get myself through the family event or bedtime with the kids. I keep finding myself lost in thought, staring blankly across the room, thinking about my husband, all the things he’s missed in almost two years and all the things he’ll continue to miss in the future.
I think about my two older kids, and I wonder if they even remember Christmas with their Dad, and then I think about the youngest one who was deprived of knowing him at all.
I think about what I would have bought him for Christmas this year, or what he would have bought me. And what ridiculous boy toy he would have insisted on getting our oldest son that would have been way too mature for him; or what girly thing he would have been convinced his little princess needed.
I think about how proudly he would have paraded his beautiful kids around to all the family events this year, especially the youngest one who looks just like him.
I find myself thinking about the day he died, which I haven’t done in a long time, and I feel like I get stuck in the fog of disbelief that overshadows the early days and months of loss – something I thought I was passed by now.
I’ve tried so hard to get myself out of this funk. I’ve done all the things I normally do at Christmas. I’ve decorated everywhere. I bought and wrapped all the gifts. We’ve done all the craft projects, baked all the cookies, sang all the songs, watched all the movies, read all the stories, and seen all the lights. I’ve done all the things, but yet I haven’t been able to shake that 2004 feeling that Christmas is broken.
Then, I was sitting on my couch one night a few days ago, enjoying the silence and staring at the glow of the Christmas tree, when I caught a glimpse of the wooden cross that hangs on the wall behind it, peaking out from the side of the tree. That’s where this cross normally hangs, and for whatever reason I didn’t move it before I changed out the decor for Christmas. It’d been there on display behind the tree for a few weeks, but for some reason, at that moment, whether because of the angle or the lighting, the cross behind the tree jumped out at me with profound symbolism, and I began to think about the night Christ was born in a manger.
By the Biblical account, it was truly a divine moment in history. The sky lit up with a bright star, angels sang so loudly to shepherds in a field that they fell to the ground in terror, strangers traveled from afar to worship this unknown child. When you read the Bible, you can’t help but get the feeling that creation was announcing the arrival of something, someone, extraordinary – a celestial celebration.
And yet, before one king bowed the knee to the Christ child, the cross was already foreshadowed in his future. The saddest day in history – the day the sky turned black and the earth violently quaked with the Son of God slain on a cross – already looming behind the basket of hay that baby Jesus rested upon.
What is Christmas, if anything, without the cross?
If Christmas is about gifts, then what happens to your idea of Christmas when you have no money to exchange gifts? If Christmas is solely about family, then what happens to your idea of Christmas when the people you love the most are no longer here? When they die?
Without the cross, Christmas is relegated to any number of finite things that will eventually lose meaning or cease to exist altogether, and then what?
When we forget the cross behind the tree, we lose sight of the greatest gift and the real meaning of Christmas – the gift of Hope. That’s what this day was 2,000 years ago – the day Hope was born into humanity.
The birth of Christ, as Holy as it was, was a mere security deposit on the things God had promised. There was no salvation with his birth. There was no redemption with his birth, but yet Creation loudly proclaimed the hope of his coming glory.
I think the song “O Holy Night” says it best when it says,
“The thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
for yonder breaks a new and glorious morning.”
After 400 years of silence from God, no wonder the “weary world” rejoiced. It was proof that God had not forgotten them. It was a sign that salvation was near. It was and still is a reason to hope.
So If you’re finding yourself in a season like me, where life feels broken and like it will never be the same, or maybe it’s just never been what you thought it would be, I pray that when you look at the manger, you see the hope of the cross.
If you’re trying so hard to make Christmas magical for your family amid the emptiness in your own heart, I pray you let “the thrill of hope” carry you through this season, and rest in the knowledge that God has not forgotten you.
May we all let the Prince of Peace reign in our hearts, so that we can hold tightly to the true meaning of Hope this Christmas.
Blessings,
Shannon
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The Family Meeting
Originally posted June 21, 2019
I woke up this morning to the precious sound of my three year old daughter beckoning me to the playroom. “Mom,” she whispered loudly, “are you awake?”
“Yes, Baby,” I replied, eyes still shut.
“We need you to come to the playroom,” she continued, with an underlying excitement hidden beneath her whisper. Even with closed eyes, I could hear the smile on her lips.
“Hurry! It’s very important!” she implored, as I began rolling out of bed.
“Okay, okay! What is it?” I asked, but she just took off running down the hall in front of me yelling, “She’s coming!”
I tried to wipe the sleep from my tired eyes, hoping I’d be able to see whatever in the world was so important, since this was such a big deal that I was denied the 30 seconds needed to locate my glasses. I came out of the hall and around the corner into the playroom, and what I found still makes me laugh hours later.
My oldest son who just turned 5 had drug the piano bench into the middle of the room and had arranged two chairs across the bench from each other. He sat there on the opposite side of the bench with a spiral notebook placed oh-so-neatly in front of him and a sharpened No. 2 pencil in his hand. His lips were pursed tightly, hiding a confident smile behind his attempt at professionalism.
He looked at me and said, “I’m having an important family meeting. Please set in that chair,” as he motioned with his tye-dye pencil to the child-size pink tufted chair in front of me.
His posture and tone of voice was so matter-of-fact that I immediately had deja-vu of every performance evaluation I’d ever endured in my previous working-life, except today my Boss was a small boy in blue pajamas covered with sharks eating pizzas.
“Oh really?” I played along. “What is this meeting about?”
He leaned forward, propped both elbows on the bench, laced his little fingers together, and looked straight into my soul – the look of a seasoned negotiator.
“We’re here to talk about Lilly’s birthday party,” he began.
“Okay, what do we need to talk about?” I asked the Boss Baby.
He looked toward his sister who was flanking his right shoulder and said, “Lilly, what do you want for your birthday?” using a noticeably deeper, more stern, and intense tone of voice.
“A pinata! A sunshine pinata!” she practically yelled, unable to contain her excitement, knowing at that moment, her wish was his command.
He turned back to me like some kind of tiny mediator and repeats as though I didn’t just hear her myself, “Lilly wants a sunshine pinata at her birthday party. You know her party is soon. That’s what she wants.”
“Okay, we can probably do that,” I said, not sure whether to be intimidated or impressed.
As soon as the word “okay” was almost off my lips, he took the pencil and begin scribbling on the pad like he was taking notes. Then he immediately turned back to Lilly and said, “Okay, Lilly, you’re getting a pinata. What else do you want for your party?”
“A Frozen cake!” she exclaimed.
“She needs cake for her friends. Can she have a Frozen cake?” he mediates back to me again, with very little question in his request.
“I think we can do that,” I said unconfidently.
“Great,” he said bluntly, and scribbled more fake notes on the paper.
Then, just as soon as this early morning interrogation began, it was over. He closed the notebook, placed the pencil firmly down, perfectly parallel to the pad, used both hands to push himself up from his chair and said, “Okay, this meeting is over. Thanks for coming. Now I have to go on vacation. Lilly, you’re in charge while I’m gone.”
As he stepped away from behind the desk, his countenance melted from serious boss back to my funny five year old, and off he ran out of the playroom, on to his next adventure.
I sat there for a moment with a smile on my face, trying to commit the magic of his personality to permanent memory. And any time I’ve had a free moment today, my mind has wandered back to our “family meeting” this morning.
It’s not news to anyone who knows Samuel that he has strong “leadership qualities”, as I like to say. He’s independent, likes to be in charge, loves to delegate anything and everything, and isn’t afraid to make decisions. He’s definitely a leader.
As I was sitting across from him this morning, taking in the scene, I couldn’t help but think of all the times I have joked that he has a bright future in upper management waiting for him. I just know that no matter what he does, Samuel is going to be leading something. Whether it’s sheep in a field or people in a meeting, he’s destined to be directing.
What an awesome privilege and responsibility it is as parents to be able recognize the giftings and talents and personality traits of our kids in order to help guide and grow them into who God has made them to be. Even at 3 and 5, they’re already showing us who they are.
Sometimes it’s hard to see beneath the tantrums and tears, but it’s buried in there, just waiting to be nurtured and developed. And lately, I’ve felt so strongly that it’s our job as parents to steer our kids toward the things that will develop the talents and giftings we recognize in them.
One day, it’s going to be so cool to be able to see him at whatever level he reaches and be able to say, “I have seen this day coming since you were five years old!”
At the same time, my encounter with Mr. Robinson Jr this morning also made me wonder what God sees in us. Not like it’s a surprise for Him to figure out, since He put it there to begin with, but in the same way that we look at our children and see things about them that they are incapable of recognizing, what things does God already see about us that we don’t even see in ourselves yet?
Just like the true personality of our kids can become muddied beneath the fits and fights, the daily grind of life has a way of doing the same thing to adults. Our talents turn rusty as we’re thrown into the sea of responsibility, where priorities take precedence over personal development.
I know I’ve felt this way many times over the course of my life, and especially in the 5 years I’ve been a mom. Nothing like parenthood has made me ask the question “Who am I?”
Sometimes it’s hard to remember. Other times I’m not sure I ever knew to begin with. But thankfully, we all have people around us to remind us of who we are and to call out the greatness they see in us, so I want to end this post a little differently.
Call your mom, dad, sister, brother, grandpa, grandma, mentor, family friend – just someone who has known you for a lonnnng time – and ask them what personality traits, gifts, natural talents/skills they recognized in you as a child.
Think about their responses and how these things that God put inside you have gotten you to where you are today.
When you think about who you are at your core, do you feel any clearer direction of where you see yourself in the future?
I’d love to read your responses if you’d like to share them!
Blessings!
Shannon
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Father’s Day
Originally posted June 16, 2019
Father’s Day 2018 was a hard day, to say the least. Chad had only been gone a little over two months, so to say the laceration from our loss was still open and raw is an understatement. All I could do was think about the Dad who was no longer here, all the Dad things he’d never do again, and all the Dad things he’d been robbed of doing in the future.
No “Daddy Daughter” dances; no Father/Son hunting trips; no walking Lilly down the aisle; no cheering for his kids at sporting events or carrying them on his shoulders or teaching them important life lessons or how to shoot guns or how to love Jesus and how to live with integrity. Every ordinary yet amazing Dad-thing he’d ever done and every dream he’d ever shared with me about his aspirations for Fatherhood were on the forefront of my mind for days leading up to Father’s Day. The mounting pressure of this day felt like an approaching hurricane that I could see miles ahead, gaining momentum as it crept closer, day by day.
In real life, there are only two ways you deal with a hurricane – you can evacuate, or you can ride out the storm. The problem with emotional hurricanes is there is nowhere to evacuate your mind to escape the impending and paralyzing grief of milestone or anniversary days … no healthy way anyway.
I’ve lived enough life to know that your problems and feelings are still there when you wake up from your hangover. There is no drink or pill that will take the pain of life away, and far too many times have I watched people I know try to escape their personal suffering with drugs and alcohol or relationships or any number of distractions the world has to offer, only to end up in a much deeper hole with steeper walls to climb in order to get out.
You can’t outrun grief… with substances or with denial. Whatever unhealthy (non)coping mechanism you choose will eventually fail.
There is really only one way to deal with storms like these – you face them head on. You board up the windows and you bunker down, if necessary, but you stand and face the whirlwind of despair, knowing that it won’t last forever, because there is always a calm on the other side of the storm.
Everyone’s grief journey is unique, so everyone will probably have an equally unique method of getting through hard days and weathering emotional storms, and these methods will likely continue to evolve as the intensity of grief changes over time, but for Father’s Day 2018, my idea of “board up and bunker down” went something like this – “June 17, 2018 is a completely normal day just like any other.”
I sent no cards. I went to no celebrations. I gave no presents. I ate no cake. I released no balloons. I did nothing special or appreciative or commemorative. I didn’t tell my kids it was Father’s Day. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t check Facebook to see everyone’s “My husband is the best Dad ever” posts. I did nothing except stay home, feed my kids, think about Chad, and wait for the day to end.
Feel. Process. Repeat. All day.
That probably sounds selfish and callous to some of you. Like, “Geez, you’re so self-absorbed that you couldn’t even celebrate your own Dad on Father’s Day?”
And my answer to that is just simply, “Yes.”
Because you don’t have to understand something to choose not to judge it or be offended by it. And that’s what I needed to do on that day to survive. And what you soon realize in situations like this, is that your mental survival is far more important than other people’s opinions.
But luckily for me, I have the most amazing Dad and Fathers-in-Law who did neither of those things and just let Father’s Day pass quietly without even a smidgen of guilt or contention.
Which brings me to the real reason for this post….
Happy Father’s Day to the most amazing Dad – Randy Manek, and Father-in-Law Steve Robinson and Kelly Ferguson. You have each stood by me and supported me in your own unique and powerful ways. In your humility and sacrifice to put me and the kids above yourselves, I’ve seen the truest heart of a Father – one that would deny himself any right and gladly lay down any entitlement just to lessen the burden of his child; one that would willingly bear the heaviest load on his shoulders just to ease the suffering of his children. For everything you have done over the last year especially, I hope you know that I am eternally grateful. I thank the Lord all the time for your love for me and for your involvement and influence on my kids. I love you all, from the bottom of my heart.
I also feel like I’d like to wish a Happy Father’s Day to all the other men out there who have looked upon my kids with compassion over this last year and stepped into their world, whether regularly or momentarily, to lend them the love of a Father. When you offer to kick a ball with them or help them tie their shoelace or implore them to “respect their mother”, you show them that while their Father isn’t here any longer, the love of a Father is something that resides in many, and there are many who will care for them and teach them in his absence. You remind them of what it’s like to have someone else who thinks they are special; you give them someone else to look up to; and you fill a tiny fragment of the hole in their hearts, even if only for a moment, in ways that I cannot.
This Father’s Day, I’m really just overwhelmed with appreciation for all the Fathers in our lives. I am so thankful for you all, and I know if Chad can see us, he’d be so overwhelmed with gratitude for how you have cared for and shown so much love and kindness to the people he loved the most in this life.
Happy Father’s Day to you all,
Shannon & the Kids
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A Thousand Years
Originally posted on March 26, 2019
If you’ve spent any time at all in the Christian world, you’ve probably heard people say, “a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years are like a day,” – a quote from 2 Peter 3:8, which Peter is actually quoting from the 90th Psalm in the Old Testament. It’s a line in scripture that we use to try to explain the eternality of the living God of the Bible who is not bound by this 4th dimension of time – a God who is never-ending and whose end and beginning are one in the same. Truly, a difficult concept to wrap our human minds around while we’re stuck in this linear existence of young and old, life and death, and those who are here and those who are not.
Admittedly, this notion of a thousand years being like a day has often eluded me, much like the string-theory of quantum physics (*scratches head and moves right along*)…. that is, until days like today.
A year ago today my sweet husband left this earth, and there is nothing quite like processing the death of someone you love dearly that forces you to decide where you stand on the issue of eternity. Are we here and gone and that’s that or are we truly eternal souls housed in mortal bodies?
I’ve spent the last week leading up to this day wondering how it’s physically possible that it has been 365 days since I last saw the light in his eyes, heard the tenderness of his voice, felt the warmth of his embrace, or the kindness of his smile. How has it been 12 whole months since he forced me to listen to Christian rap or one of his goofy rhymes. How has it been a year since I listened to him tell a wild bed-time story or watched him rock a small child to sleep? How has it been an entire year when it feels like yesterday? It feels like yesterday, but then it simultaneously feels like a lifetime ago as well.
In many ways, I’m a different person now than I was when I woke up on March 26, 2018 and found him lifeless in the kitchen, and that makes it feel like forever ago. Some days I’m not even sure I remember who I was then, only who I’ve become now. But the love I have for him and the fondness in my heart for the memories we shared together feel as fresh and as recent as yesterday. And there in that place between memories and now, the mystery of a thousand years and a day seems to reveal itself.
God is eternal, and God is love. Therefore, love is eternal. It doesn’t fade with time or distance, even when that distance is literally the span of eternity. When I remember my husband tomorrow and a thousand years from tomorrow, the love I have for him will be the same. I believe this is what the Apostle Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous “love” chapter in the Bible, when he talks about how love believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. He ends the chapter by saying that everything in this life will come to and end, but faith, hope and love will remain forever, “and the greatest of these is love.”
Today, I’m thankful for the hope of eternity. I’m thankful for the never-ending love of a God who didn’t spare his only son so that we can actually experience this eternity with Him and those whom we’ve temporarily lost. I’m thankful for the people around me who’ve exemplified and projected the light and love of Jesus to me and my kids on the days when the world seemed the darkest. This is obviously a weighty milestone of a day, and I’m feeling quite a bit of things today, but above all else, today I’m mostly thankful. I’m thankful for the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and I’m thankful for the real, everlasting love that can only come from the Lord himself that existed between Chad and me, because it’s the truth behind this love that will endure forever.
Happy 1 year in Heaven, Love. We still miss you just as much as we did 365 days ago. The pain of our loss has faded, but the love you left in our hearts is just as present as it was the last time we saw you. We still talk about you all the time and laugh at the funny things you did and the passionate way you lived your life. Thank you for teaching us how to be strong, live happy, and love well. You definitely set the bar high. We will never forget you.
Love you Forever. Miss you Always,
Shannon & the Kids
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Best and Worst
Originally posted January 3, 2019
I try not to use superlative word forms like “best” and “worst” when it come to comparing calendar years to each other. If I did, I could easily qualify 2018 as the absolute worst and most stressful and exhausting 365 days of my life so far. Most people only judge a year by the last few events in their memory, but I can honestly say it was just difficult from start to finish.
2017 ended with a giant sigh of relief, and we had such great expectations that 2018 was going to be “our year”… the year that everything turned around. But 3 days into the new year, Chad fell 15 feet off a ladder and fractured his spine.
A year ago today, January 3rd, I was literally walking into my OBs office at 28 weeks pregnant when Chad sent me a text message at 2:30 pm that said, “I fell off the ladder. I think I’m okay. Homeowners called 911.”
I called him immediately and could tell the adrenaline had him in some kind of euphoric state that was masking a lot of the pain. He could move his legs though, so that was a relief. I was already in the Dr. office and was scheduled for my dreaded glucose test that day, so I just decided to stay and get it over with, partly for convenience, partly because I was in a little bit of shock and didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there.
As soon as my test was complete, I made a straight line for the hospital. The entire 30-minute drive across town, I prayed furiously. I probably looked like a crazy person to anyone who glanced through my windows, yelling into thin air like I needed to be in a psychiatric ward. I was angry. And confused. By all authority and power vested in me, this was NOT how this year was going to go.
Even as hard and fervently as I prayed, quoting every scripture I knew to quote and proclaiming everything in faith I could think to proclaim and rebuking every demon in a thousand mile radius of my family, I still had this eerie feeling like I was praying against a brick wall; some solid force that I didn’t have the power to move. I felt no different. Not encouraged nor empowered or protected. Nothing. Like my words had made no difference at all. But then I reckoned that faith isn’t the sum of our feelings, so I just determined to believe that everything was going to be okay. I would have never believed that January 3rd was actually the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it; an awful foreshadowing; a train set in motion that no one had the power to stop.
Chad had barely recovered from the fall when he unexpectedly passed away on March 26th.
Eight days later, I had our third baby on April 3rd. I never would have imagined that three months to the day that he fell, I’d be welcoming our third child into this world without him.
We endured Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, every family birthday, every Thanksgiving Dinner, every Christmas gathering, and every day in between without him. We ended the year on NYE with Samuel having a massive meltdown about Chad where he cried for well over 30 minutes because “he wasn’t ready for his daddy to die.”
Me neither, kid.
I have no clue what his trigger was. He was fine, and then all of a sudden, not fine. Almost like an instant realization as he was staring out the windows of the van that 2018 had cheated him out of something; robbed him of all the happy things he’d never do with his daddy, and so apropos that it was on the last day of the year. It ended a lot like it started. So much heartbreak and disappointment.
I have more awful experiences from wading through the waters of grief with a newborn and two small children than I care to bog anyone down with. But even in light of all the awful, there is this new sense of understanding that things could always be worse.
On January 1, 2018, I would have said 2017 was the “worst” year of my life. We almost lost our house, were drowning in debt, considered bankruptcy at one point, and lost another baby. But as soon as you even utter the word “worst”, it’s as if you’re presenting the forces at bay with a challenge. So just don’t; don’t categorize your year, your life, your decisions, your experiences with words like best and worst.
Instead, analyze your experiences and learn from them. Reflect on what you’ve learned and grow – grow into a more compassionate, well-rounded, emotionally and spiritually mature person than you were before.
So here are some of the things I’ve learned from 2018 (and part of 2017):
- God is faithful.
- Money and things are fleeting.
- Sorrow and Happiness are temporary emotions.
- Joy is a state of being.
- Inner strength isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something gained from standing under the weight of adversity.
- My foundation of faith in Jesus Christ is firm. As the old song goes – “The Anchor Holds”
- The Church is alive, people care, and there is still enough good in the world to bring you to your knees in gratitude.
- If you’re too busy to let people know you care, you need to re-evaluate your priorities.
- Most people have good intentions, but often say dumb things. Give them grace.
- Your friends want to share your burdens, but they just don’t know how. So tell them.
- The sun will, in fact, come up tomorrow, because His mercies are new each morning.
- Death sucks.
- Single parenting is hard. Hug a single parent that you know.
- The hope of eternity isn’t just an idea, it’s a real and tangible thing you feel in your soul.
- God is faithful.
- Things WILL happen to you in life that you can’t stop, prevent, or control.
- You CAN control how you respond.
- Tragedy forces you to evaluate what you truly believe about life, death, God, and eternity. It further solidifies what is already firm, and it shakes loose everything that is not established, leaving you with a solid bedrock to rest upon or shifting sands that threaten to swallow you up. Which are you standing on – solid rock or sinking sand? You don’t have to wait for someone to die to figure this out.
- Life is far too short to be concerned about what everyone else thinks about you. Make a short list of people whose opinion you deeply value and let the other voices fade.
- It’s okay to receive and not feel guilty about it. Grateful, not guilty.
- It’s okay to be happy.
- It’s possible to feel happiness in the midst of grief.
- Read the word of God. It truly is life for your weary soul.
- God still has a plan for my life. Dreams I had that died with Chad are being rebirthed into new dreams for my future and my family.
- Hope is healing.
- Because GOD IS FAITHFUL.
It’s only three days into this new year and I already know people who are facing trials today that they never imaged they would a week ago. No matter what you face over the next 12 months, I hope you rest assured, knowing that the King of the Universe knows what your year holds and will be with you through all the hard days, the happy days, and every mediocre day in between.
If you find yourself staring out from a vast mountaintop, I pray you humbly keep the truth and glory of heaven hidden in your heart, for it is far greater than any earthly accomplishment we can attain. And if you find yourself at the lowest of lows, staring into the pit of a grave (whether literal or proverbial), wondering what on earth you’re supposed to do now, I pray you find comfort in the One who knows the depth of your sorrow and resolve to believe that the God of the resurrection will bring forth new life from that which you lost. I pray you always have the ability to see the blessings in your life and the wisdom to realize that it could be worse; and yes, in fact, it will be better.
Lastly, I’ll leave you with the verse that got me through 2018:
“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of God in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14 NASBI’m looking forward to experiencing and learning and growing with each of you in 2019.
Blessings,
Shannon
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Back to the Beginning
Originally posted June 27, 2018
June 26, 2018 – three months to the day that my beloved husband, Chad, left this world, and exactly 12 weeks since our third child, Levi, entered it. The two timelines collided, and it felt like a good place to start something new or start something over – a journey back to old things in hopes of creating new things. So I went back to the place that has seemed to be there at the beginning of so many new seasons of my life – the track.
I grew up playing competitive softball, and while that was great for developing so many other skills, one thing it did not develop in me was an ability to run long distances. I pitched and was never a home-run hitter, so rarely did I sprint much farther than first base – a mere 90 feet. I’m not sure I’d ever ran farther than 100 meters until the spring of my freshman year of college.
My long-time boyfriend and I officially ended things, and I was particularly annoyed with the dreaded freshman 15 that I had gained, being that I was newly single again.
(Side Note: The culprit wasn’t booze, but biscuits and gravy 3 days a week in the student union after my 8:30 am Calculus class! Who even takes an 8:30 am math class in college??? I obviously needed the biscuits and gravy to survive 8:30 am Calculus.)
Anyhow, there I was, 19 and busting out of my size 4 “fat pants” (insert eyeroll). I wish I could tell my 19 year old self to get a real problem.. because I’m 32 now and we got real weight problems! Ha!
So I decided to try running… more like jogging, which is way more accurate because saying “I run” is really a disservice to people who do run, but it just sounds cooler. So running it is…
“Running” is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do. I’ve always been moderately athletic, well-coordinated, and not intimidated by sports, but this… this was brutal. It took me months of going to the track 3-4 days a week before I could run 3 miles without stopping. But never having done anything like that before, 3 miles felt like a massive accomplishment. That was probably the first inkling I had of understanding that we are capable of so much more than we think we are – something Chad used to tell me all the time.
I wish I would have stuck with my newfound hobby, but just about the time I really started to like the way running was reshaping my body and mind, I began another relationship… and started eating out way too much and slowly sinking back into that all-too-familiar comfort zone of complacency.
Fast forward 4 more years and we broke up too. So there I was, 23 this time, and heading back to the track. I needed to clear my head, and nothing does that for me like running. Because I literally can’t think about anything other than not dying while I’m sweating to death in the Oklahoma heat. Every step feels like a struggle. But the struggle forces me to focus on the moment instead of worrying about my life. It’s like torture and therapy at the same time. This time I stuck with running for quite a few years. I did a handful of 5k races with some friends, and really wanted to do a half-marathon, but never found the will to push myself that hard.
In the winter of 2012, my then-just-friend Chad, decided he wanted to run the OK Memorial Marathon that April, so we started running together a lot of nights in the evening. He’d never ran before January of that year, and he didn’t have much time, so he was training hard for April. He’d run his laps, I’d run my one or two and then we’d walk and talk. Talk about God, about life, about love (but not with each other because we literally had no interest at all in each other at this point).
It was on these running adventures with Chad that a lot of things changed for me. I learned a lot more about myself than I knew before. I realized even more that determination trumps ability, and Chad had such a gentle way of pushing me to exceed my expectations of myself. When I thought I was ready to quit, he’d tell me “you can’t quit now; you’re only at 40%; you’ve got so much left to give” or “there is no such thing as can’t; there is only will or won’t” or “your body doesn’t tell your mind what to do; your mind tells your body what to do.”
Sometimes when I really thought I had hit my max, he’d get in front of me and run backwards and say, “This is the best mile of your life; don’t stop now,” with this funny grin on his face, because he knew if I could have caught him in that moment, I might have choked him. But it always worked. It was on one of those runs with Chad that I broke a 10-minute mile for the first time, which to all you real runners, it probably sounds hilarious to celebrate such running mediocrity, but to me that was a huge accomplishment, because like the T-shirt says, “I’m slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter.” True story.
I fell in love with Chad while we were running. We’d been friends for a year and a half, but I saw a side of him I’d never seen before over those months – a side that cared about helping me reach my goals for no other reason than just to see me proud of myself. I saw his determination in action as he went from a non-runner in January to someone running consistent 7-minute miles by the end of April. I learned a lot more about his faith and his past hurts and his dreams for the future as we talked during our cooldown walks. I realized that the man I thought was so wrong for me, was really the person I’d been searching for all along.
He told me he loved for the first time at the track. It was later in the summer after I’d confessed my undying love to him in dramatic fashion weeks earlier. We were walking and talking about life and he just suddenly stopped, turned to face me, grabbed both my hands and said, “I think I love you, and it scares the hell out of me.”
Seven months later, we were married.
But much like the first years of marriage often require, we lost pieces of ourselves in trying to figure out who we were together. Love seemed so much easier before we were married. The first year was so hard, mostly because I didn’t realize just how resistant to change I was until Chad moved into my house and wanted to change everything. I spent the first 4 months we were married trying to decide if marrying my best friend was a horrible mistake. And then just about the time I decided this might work, I found out I was pregnant with Samuel, which was just more change I wasn’t ready for at that moment. Samuel was 5 months old when I found out I was pregnant with Lilly. Lilly was 9 months old when I got pregnant again, which ended in miscarriage. A year later, I was pregnant for the 4th time in a little over 4 years, with Levi being born 2 months after our 5th anniversary. We celebrated our 1st, 2nd, and 5th wedding anniversaries while I was pregnant.
With all this being pregnant and recovering from being pregnant and raising children, our running adventures really fell to the wayside. It probably would have done wonders for my mental state if I could have found the wherewithal to keep doing it, but raising kids is exhausting, and energy is a precious commodity. Plus, I knew Chad loved me the way I was, even 50 lbs heavier than the day we got married. I didn’t love my body, but he did because it created life, and he loved my soul even more. He made me feel beautiful every day, so killing myself at the track didn’t seem like a huge priority.
But I’ve found myself in this awful place now where he’s gone, and there is no one here to make me feel beautiful when I look at myself in the mirror and feel disgusted. He wasn’t here in the aftermath of Levi’s birth, when my belly looked like a deflated balloon, to give me his speech about how amazing my body was for growing a human and how that was way cooler than having abs even if it meant softer curves and less toned skin. He hasn’t been here for the last few months of sleepless nights and unwashed hair and 2-day-old clothes and bags under my eyes to make me believe that I’m totally rocking this mom thing. He isn’t here to bandage my broken soul. He just isn’t here. It’s just me, lost in my thoughts, losing myself in my mind a lot of days.
So I went to the track today; in search of something old buried within me, in hopes that it might birth something new.
Determination; perseverance; love; faith; hope. Hope that if I keep going, one day I’ll look up and life won’t be so hard or lonely anymore. Faith that God is going to bring something beautiful out of my devastation. Love for myself and my life. Perseverance and determination to not just survive but to thrive.I ran pitifully, but I ran. My feet were hurting from all the extra weight. My lungs gave in to huffing and puffing too quickly. My legs were on fire after just a short distance, but I kept my eyes on the road and just kept going, because all I could hear was his voice in my head saying, “You can’t quit now, Baby. You’re only at 40%. You’ve got so much left to give.”
Blessings,
Shannon
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Recap and Reflect
Originally posted May 9, 2018
In 2009, I treated myself to a European vacation under the guise of a summer study-abroad in Italy. And by treated myself, I mean added way too much money to my student loan debt to afford myself a “college experience” since I felt so sorry for myself for having to work full-time all through college. Blah, blah, self-pity, more blah, but that’s another story for a different day.
Anyhow, as if 5,500 miles wasn’t enough of a getaway, a handful of us students decided to take a weekend trip from where we were studying in the Tuscany area to Cinque Terre – a beautiful cluster of five quaint little towns tucked into the rocky cliffside on the northwestern coast of Italy. We decided to venture to a beach on one of the days of this weekend excursion, which proved to be an education in and of itself.
*Side Note: Did you know that on the beaches of Vernazzo, you’ll pay money to pee in a hole in the ground while other people watch and wait in line for their turn to do the same? True story. Public restrooms aren’t free and feel very… um, public. I just saved you from spending $10,000 to find this out for yourself. You’re welcome.
So after the beachside bathroom debacle, a few of us decided to go for a swim. The surf was particularly rough that day from the storm that we could see brewing in the distance, but we hadn’t ridden a train on the edge of a cliff, stayed in a hostel, and hiked 5 miles to come this far and not swim in Italian water, by gosh! So in we went!
We waded out into choppy water and immediately discovered the ocean bottom felt like shards of glass, and there were what seemed to be giant boulders strategically hidden under the water, which reminded me of whacking your shin on the edge of a coffee table repeatedly, wave after wave. One girl cut her knee open on one of these rocks and decided to turn back, but another girl and I decided to swim out a little further to try to make the most of this “experience.”
We finally got out far enough that we weren’t being assaulted by the ocean floor, and we relaxed a little… sort of. At this point, we were probably 20 yards from the beach, and I was no longer cutting my legs on rocks, but the waves had grown quite large at this distance. It was like the wave pool at your favorite swim park on steroids, but we didn’t have a giant donut shaped innertube to ride this out. So after about 20 minutes of pretending that trying not to drown was fun and enjoyable, we decided it was time to head back to shore.
Here is where this adventure went terribly awry.
We let the waves push us toward the shore until we reached the point where we felt the rocks of agony reappear. We were about 30 feet from the beach, the water was still waist deep, and we were stuck in the middle of a minefield of rocks. The waves had become so intense that we could see the water being sucked backward from the beach before each wave came crashing back down. We were being picked up and thrown forward and sucked backward and thrown forward again with such force that it was becoming quite obvious we needed to do something quickly. Staying in this spot wasn’t an option.
I looked over at my friend, and we decided to go for the shore. We waited for the next wave to pass, and then we made a break for it – kicking, clawing, feet in glass, knees in rocks, just moving through waist-high water as fast as we could, hoping to avoid the pounding of the next wave. I had covered almost half the distance to safety, when all of a sudden, I felt weightless…
A surge of water lifted me up from the back, and the next thing I knew, I was upside down under water; my head was being crammed into the sand, my feet were in the air, and I’m being turned end over end like I’m attempting giant underwater cartwheels. I felt my head against the sand twice before I was violently vomited out of the water and onto the shore like a discarded baby doll. If Jonah was really spit out of the mouth of a giant fish onto the beaches of Nineveh, I imagine it had to have looked (and felt) something like that.
I had sand up my nose, my bathing suit top was twisted sideways, I might have had broken bones – who knew at that point – all I knew was I was alive, and I was out of the water. I looked over at my friend, who somehow ended up way farther down the beach than we had started out, and she appeared to be in the same condition as me – battered, but breathing. We exchanged a sigh of relief and a laugh at our disheveled appearances and headed back to find our other (and apparently wiser) friend who skipped this fiasco.
*****
This story has kept coming to my mind over the last few weeks. The last 12 months have felt a lot like the violent waves of Vernazzo. Up until 6 weeks ago, I would have said 2017 was the most challenging and stressful year of my adult life. It seemed like the waves of life were assaulting us from every direction – financially, emotionally, physically.
The winter of 2016 was hard on us financially, and then to add insult to injury, Chad’s business had been uncharacteristically slow the following spring. By June of 2017, we’d yet to make one house payment on time. We were barely making it, but in true form, God always pulled us through at the last minute.
I was getting my resume ready and considering going back to work to contribute financially when I found out I was pregnant with our 3rd child that August. There was a sudden joy, but also a fear – what are we going to do now? We can’t afford THREE kids in daycare in order for me to work, and we’re still just barely making it.
By September, we’d made the decision to let all our non-essential debts go bad in an attempt to keep the mortgage, van and other true necessities afloat. Our phones were soon ringing non-stop from people trying to collect payments. The stress just kept piling on.
At the beginning of October, I miscarried. We were devastated but kept trusting God. Maybe this was for the best. At least I could potentially afford to work now.
At the beginning of November, I found out I was, in fact, still pregnant. The baby I’d lost the month before was actually a twin, and we didn’t know it until finding out I was still pregnant. It was a miracle! We were overjoyed!
Chad spent the better part of the rest of November working out of town trying to make enough money to get us caught up on our house payment before the end of the year.
We’d been so close to losing everything more than once that year. Everything we’d worked so hard to build seemed like it was slipping through our fingers like sand, and no matter how hard we tried to hold onto it, it just kept disappearing.
I was really seeking the Lord a lot during the fall; trying to figure out “the reason” for all of this. “Lord, have we not been faithful? Have we done something to deserve this? Are you going to let us lose everything?” – questions that plagued my mind.
I finally got to a place of peace, and I had just decided that it didn’t matter if we lost everything. God was still good. We’d be just fine. We’d make it work. I even remember telling his parents this very thing at Thanksgiving. “We can lose the house, the van, everything. Those are things. What does it really matter in the scheme of eternity? All those things are replaceable. As long as we have each other, we’ll be fine.”
Being able to say that and actually mean it was a giant spiritual victory for me. I’d built a world of false security based on things that money could buy, and we found ourselves in a place with no money. But for the first time in my adult life, I felt like I was actually putting my physical trust in God’s hands. “Everything we’ve tried has failed, Lord. We can’t do this anymore. Have your way with it.”
December was an equally slow month for the business. We had a deadline to get our loan caught up or else we knew we’d end up at a point of no return and go into pre-foreclosure. Christmas was meek, which was hard for me, because anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE Christmas and gift-giving and decorating and celebrating. We didn’t buy our kids or each other anything in an attempt to scrape every dollar we could. We still didn’t have enough by the deadline, so as embarrassing as it was, we borrowed some money from family – something I had never done in my adult life.
We closed out 2017 feeling like we’d been in a 15 round boxing match that ended in a split decision with no clear winner. We felt bloodied, bruised, and broken but somehow hopeful for the new year. God hadn’t brought us this far to abandon us here. He’d given us a miracle baby. He was going to take care of us.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018: Chad was supposed to be starting a new interior job in Edmond. That morning… foreshadowing maybe? It was 14 degrees outside. He broke the key off in the lock at his storage unit because it was so cold. His truck tires were low (also from the cold) so he stopped to air up his tires, and his truck battery died at 7/11. He couldn’t get ahold of anyone because it was early, and I was still sleeping. The goof decided to walk home 3 miles in the cold, and spent the rest of the day getting a new battery and retrieving his truck from 7/11. We’ll try this “new year, new you” gig again tomorrow…
Wednesday, January 3, 2018: I was currently 7 months pregnant. It was 2:00 pm. I was walking into a regular OB appt when I got a text message from Chad saying he’d fallen off his ladder from 15 feet, landed on his back on top of the ladder, and was going to the hospital via ambulance. I immediately called him. He sounded like he was in shock, but somewhat okay. Probably adrenaline. He wasn’tt paralyzed because he could move. That was good, but he was still in a lot of pain. The homeowners were insistent on calling an ambulance.
I felt shocked. And confused. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just proceeded with my appt. I told the nurse my husband just fell off a ladder. She said, “Well I’m sure your blood pressure is going to be through the roof!”
It was an icy 98/65. She took it twice. Maybe I was the one in shock.
I thought to myself, “What in the world is happening right now?” as I drove across town to the hospital, rebuking satan the entire way. This was NOT how this year is supposed to go. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. Now I was angry.
I got to the hospital and found my sweet husband writhing in pain, with blood coming out of his mouth from where he’d almost bit his tongue in half from the jar of the fall. The CT results just came back and confirmed a compression fracture of his T11 vertebrae. Third day of the new year, we had all of $200 in our checking account, I was 7 months pregnant, and he had a broken back. I was simultaneously aghast at the situation, but thankful he is alive and not hurt any worse. They said he’d be fine. Not require surgery, just needed 10-12 weeks to recover.
The image of my strong and fearless husband lying there helpless with tears in his eyes is burned into my mind. He looked up at me through brokenness and said, “I’m so sorry. I feel like I’ve failed you.” And as concerned as I was about our situation, I did what any wife would do – I brushed the tears off his face and told him we’d get through this together. It didn’t matter what happened as long as we had each other – something I absolutely meant; something I’d just told his parents a month before at Thanksgiving dinner; words I’d get the opportunity to prove.
The weeks that followed were nothing short of miraculous. The Lord provided for us personally like I’ve never experienced before. We couldn’t do a thing to help ourselves. Chad was literally on his back, but the Lord showed himself so faithful to us. We had people lining up to help us physically, emotionally, and financially. I had never felt so secure in the midst of what looked like so much uncertainty in my entire life. We felt the Lord carrying us in the palm of his hand. We KNEW we’d be just fine. We had so much hope. 2018 could only get better from there…
February 3, 2018: It’d been 4 weeks since the fall. Chad was doing remarkably better, although it was still evident he’d need a lot more time before he could go back to work. We went to the Cheesecake Factory (my fav special occasion restaurant) to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Then we went to the mall and played virtual reality video games and home to relish in a kid-free evening together. We ended up staying up until 4 or 5 am just talking about life and love and marriage and kids; our dreams and goals for this year and lessons learned over the last 5 years. We were like 2 high school kids who couldn’t get enough of each other. It was by far one of the most precious nights we’d ever spent together.
I remember telling him how I felt like we’d overcome so much, and we’d just now come into this really beautiful place in our marriage where I was so genuinely happy to be married to him and so loved our life and our family and was so excited about our miracle baby and what was ahead for us. I vividly remember telling him through teary eyes, “If anything ever happens to you, I’m not sure I want to do this again with anyone else. It took so much work to get here, to this place of peace and happiness and cohesiveness. I don’t know if I want to go through that again, because it was so much work.”
Words I might also get the chance to prove.
Over the next month, Chad’s back was healing, but something else was going on that we couldn’t figure out. He was nauseous all the time and experiencing upper abdominal pain on his right side. We just assumed it was his gallbladder, so we found him a new physician to check it out. He had tests ran and bloodwork done, but the Dr wasn’t convinced his gallbladder was the issue. His symptoms continued.
By mid-March, it had been 10 weeks since his fall, and Chad felt like he was ready to start back to work, even though he was still getting nauseous all the time. He begins work on an inside job and was really excited to be productive again. His phone had been ringing with bid requests, which was encouraging that this year was indeed going to be a better year for his business.
I was 2 weeks from my scheduled c-section date at this point. I was starting to feel the pressure of having a 3rd child in the family. Our house didn’t feel ready. We were in the middle of a small renovation project. It felt like we still had so much to do in 2 short weeks.
Chad seemed increasingly tired, but I just assumed it was because he’d started working again and wasn’t used to the rigor of that anymore after having laid around the house for 10 weeks. Although, I found it odd for him (and slightly annoying) that he seemed to be falling asleep all the time.
March 25, 2018: I woke up late for church. I got up and started getting ready, hoping Chad would get up too. He knew that me having to motivate him to get up and get ready for church was one of my biggest pet peeves. I was 38 weeks pregnant and feeling a little cranky, so I didn’t pester him about it. He finally came in the bedroom after I was already mostly ready and about to leave, and asked if I was taking the kids with me. To which I replied, “NOPE!” and left.
I picked up Amara and took her to church. I was so late for service that I didn’t even go in the building. I was feeling really annoyed at this point. Annoyed at myself and us for not getting up this morning. I sat in the parking lot for 30 minutes while Amara was in kids’ church. Took her home, texted Chad and told him I was going to Target.
I wandered the aisles aimlessly for a bit, got some fast food and headed home. I walked in the door and found him asleep (again) on the couch while the kids were running amuck in the living room. Annoyed again. “You’ve been asleep all day!” I thought to myself.
I asked him to get up. He finally did.
At that point, I thought I was going to go into a fit of hormonal rage for some unknown reason. I knew I was being irrationally irritable and felt awful about it. So I got in bed and just started crying.
Chad, being the kind and forgiving man he was, just walked up to me and said, “It’s okay, Baby. You won’t be pregnant much longer. You’re almost done.” And then he put his hand on my shoulder and started praying over me just like he always did when he knew I needed it. He prayed for peace and comfort and strength, and then told me he loved me and to take a nap. He was going to work on the list of To-Do items I’d written on our board in the kitchen.
I took a 3 hour nap and woke up feeling quite refreshed. I found him in the garage working on these coffee tables that he was refinishing for me. He had a new pep in his step. I could tell he was in his “get it done” mode where he accomplishes so much in such a short period of time. Always amazed me what he could get done.
I watched our evening church service online, which turned out to be a testimony service. A handful of us were watching via the live stream and decided to write our own testimonies in the chatbox. I wrote about how Chad had fallen 15 feet almost 12 weeks ago and miraculously had no long-term damage or extreme injuries. I gave God all the glory that he wasn’t killed or paralyzed, and that tomorrow, March 26, he was going back to the house where he’d fallen off the ladder to finish that job. I gave God all the glory for his miraculous provisions for us over the last 3 months, and how we both had grown so much in our faith since his accident. Chad going back to the job he fell on seemed like a huge win.
We put the kids to bed and then he really put it into high gear. He spent the entire evening marking things off my honey-do list… vacuuming the van, bringing the crib downstairs, taking the other crib apart and upstairs, getting the carseat out of the attic, washing it, laundry, so many things.
We’d both had a nap that day, so we weren’t tired and ended up staying up really late. It was around 2:30 am before we laid down. We laid there and talked a little more like we always do. He held my hand like he always did. I felt so overcome with love and appreciation for all he’d done that evening, because it was such a stress relief for me. I told him I loved him probably 12 times as I was falling asleep. I saw him quietly get up and walk toward the bedroom door. I whispered I love you one more time as he was walking by, and then I fell asleep.
March 26, 2018: I woke up and found the man I loved more than life, my best friend and my soul mate, dead in our kitchen floor.
*****
Tumbling. Head in the sand. Feet in the air. End over end. Upside down. Underwater. Catapulted onto the shore in complete disarray.
After months and months and months of swimming in choppy water and being beaten down and smashed against the rocks by the waves of life, we made a break for the shore, only to be picked up and slammed back down again by a force completely beyond our control.
I was 8 days from delivering our 3rd baby, and I’d just found my beloved husband dead. Just like the Italian waters of Vernazzo vomited me onto the beach with such ferocity that day in 2009, I felt like life had literally chewed me up and spit me out the morning of March 26th, except this time there was no person to dust me off and laugh about what we’d just survived. There was just me; standing there feeling completely wounded and exposed, wondering what I was supposed to do now. Where do I go from here?
I’ve spent the last 6 weeks trying to figure that out.
*****
Be Still, My Soul
By: Catharina von Schlegel, Published in 1752“Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In every change the faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; your best, your heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.Be still, my soul; your God will undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and wind still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.Be still, my soul; though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears;
Then you will better know his love, his heart,
Who comes to soothe your sorrows and your fears.
Be still, my soul; your Jesus can repay
From his own fullness all he takes away.Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.” -
Untitled
Originally posted April 24, 2018
Untitled.
I wish I could come up with a title, a word, anything, to describe what’s happened in my life over the last year. But I can’t. Nothing seems to capture the level of dismay that has settled over my life over the last 12 months.
I started this blog last summer in what felt like a step of obedience, naively hoping that maybe something I’d have to say would positively impact someone else. I thought I had a clear vision of what this writer/reader relationship was supposed to be about. But then something funny happened. I made my first post, oozing with inspiration and motivation, and then nothing else seemed to come. I kept waiting for a thought, a feeling, a message, something that I could wrap up nicely with a proverbial bow and present to the masses to fulfill my spoken commitment to offer some newfound revelation in the midst of all the internet garbage.
Oddly enough, the content of my own life seemed largely off limits. Mostly because I was still processing everything that was happening. We were in the middle of a storm – a storm with clouds too dense to see the sun shining through at that moment, and I was afraid of letting anyone see the weakness in my thoughts while I was processing, trying to find perspective; afraid people would think I should be more mature or have more faith or whatever. If I’d only known then what was still yet to come…
I thought I was creating a blog to write for everyone else, but after everything that’s happened over the last year, I think this was always supposed to be for me. I never imagined when I named this blog that I’d be describing my own life so accurately. Life is weird.
Beauty and Ashes
My life feels like a giant pile of ash right now. And I’ve decided to process the only way I know how – with words. Maybe you want to go on this journey with me as I try to discover some meaning in all the chaos and heartache of the last year, and maybe you don’t. All I know is that I have to get this out of me. I have to begin to make some sense of all these raw emotions before they overtake me. Framing my feelings with words is the only way I know to attempt to regain part of that which was stolen from me.
For those of you who tag along, thanks in advance. First stop – 2017.
-Shannon
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Ashes and Obedience
Originally posted July 2017
I remember reading a story a few years ago about a little boy who’d been earmarked as the next child-prodigy. At the tender age of six, while most kids are just learning to clap their hands to music on-time, young Jonathan Okseniuk was not just performing, but conducting famous orchestras across the nation. The words he used to describe his love for music during an interview after his debut performance are burned into my soul. He said, “I was born with music in my bones.”
Music wasn’t something he learned. It was something that flowed out of him from the depths of his very framework – from his bones. Pretty profound for six!
His words cut like a knife through my heart, because I too felt like I was born with something in my bones.
Words.
From my earliest school memories, I’ve always had a thing for writing, describing, communicating. I remember being in third grade and not understanding why my classmates were having such a hard time understanding where to put commas and semicolons. In high school, I was the designated essay and book report editor in my circle of friends. But it wasn’t until years later that I realized why I like writing so much. It’s the only thing I’ve ever done that makes me feel creative – that gives me a voice.
I’ve always been the quiet one; the one who gets talked over; the one who people forget was even at the event. Not the life of the party. Not the popular one. Not the one people are craning their necks to hear what is being said. If I had a dollar for every time I tried to share in a group setting and was interrupted, only then to face that awkward moment when the group realizes you were talking and tries to act like they care about what you were going to say, I’d probably have a lot more money than I do right now.
But when I write, there is this brief moment where there is no competition, no interruptions, no embarrassment. I can be myself. I can bare my soul. I can contribute to the conversation. For a moment, someone chooses to listen because they want to. For a moment, I get the opportunity to make someone feel, hope, dream, realize. That moment is pure magic for me.
But the truth is, as much as I like writing, this blog terrifies me.
What if no one reads it? What if I offend people? What if people leave mean comments? There are tons of really talented bloggers, what could I possibly say that hasn’t already been said or that they couldn’t say better?
Terrified.
I’ve actually started a blog two other times in the past and never posted anything. So this right here, post numero uno, this is a milestone. This is me taking a step of faith and believing in the things that God has put in my heart. I’ve neglected my gift for so long. I’m so guilty of pursuing other things and ignoring what God has put right in front of me. I’m rusty. I don’t feel equipped enough to do this. I don’t feel like I’m half as good of a writer as so many other bloggers I follow, but this is me choosing to be obedient to the call of God.
Obedience
Gosh, I kind of loathe this word. It’s the thing you think you’ll get to forget once you’re an adult, but then you realize that it follows you everywhere, and that being obedient to your parents was, in a lot of ways, less of a commitment than being obedient to God.
When I reflect on my life (which I do a lot lol), I can see just how much of my heartache has been from my own disobedience. Disobedience to my parents. Disobedience to God. My life hasn’t turned out anything like I planned. But when I look around at the messes I’ve made – these piles of ash – I’m reminded of Isaiah 61.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me… to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow upon them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61: 1-3 NIV
Literally, this promise is a one-time event – the imminent return of the Lord when He will restore everything to the way it was meant to be. But even so, I feel like this exchange of beauty for ashes represents the cycles we go through. Even when we’re victims of our own arson, we can humbly hold up the ashes of our lives to the Lord and hope for something beautiful in return.
This blog is ‘holding up ashes’ in a lot ways for me. I’ve tried so many things on my own and nothing has ever panned out like I thought it would. Failures. Wasted money. Lost time. It’s sounds kind of dramatic to think that all my hopes and dreams are linked to words on a screen. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. I don’t really know. I’m just trying to be obedient.
——
So I’ll leave you with this question – What were you born with ‘in your bones?’ What gift, dream, passion has God given you that you been neglecting that is just dying to rise to the surface? Music? Photography? Art? Business?
It doesn’t matter what it is. God gave it to you for a reason. There might be other people who can sing, but no one will be able to sing like you. There are lots of people who do photography, but no one else will be able to capture the world through your point of view. There are many talented artists on this planet, but no one else will be able to bring the visions inside your mind to life.
God is the ultimate Creator, and I truly believe He gave each of us an element of his creative ability. When we tap into this, we have the unique opportunity to bring Him glory by letting others share in the gifts He has bestowed upon us. God doesn’t ask us to be awesome; He just asks us to be obedient. What is He asking you to do?
Only you know what is buried in the depths of your framework. I hope you’ll take a step of faith with me and bring them out of the recesses and let them shine.
and I hope you don’t leave mean comments… and make me cry.
Okay, Post #1 – Done! This obedience thing might not be so hard after all 😉