pieces of time

 we've moved back into our house after a renovation and i feel spoiled and extravagant every moment. but it's delicious. i now have a bathtub. in the tub my feet face north and if i scoot to the end and look west i can see the sun setting through my neighbors tree that stretches to the sky with a thick trunk curving and branches reaching without leaf cover. the way the light hits the side, the empty space before the canopy, it looks just like the great trees that top the hills in uganda. for that moment, at the foot of my tub, i am back there. the light, the memory, the extreme joy. i kept returning until the sun set. even then as the light closed out and the shadow of that tree remained, i was still held somewhere else, back in years, with a deep longing.

sitting on my porch now, listening to caroline herring. i first heard her live at eddies attic in decatur GA. it must have been 2009, i had babies at home, boys i could still pick up and hold, i had met africa but i didn't know it well, friends that are now divorced were still married. zoe was a beautiful challening mystery who took most of my oxygen. i wrote every evening under the water oaks on my back porch drinking white wine with ice cubes while my children played at my feet. 

now i live in new england. my back yard is filled with a forest of maple trees and ferns. my babies are grown and can pick me up now. africa is deep in my heart after a decade there. zoe lives nearby - she is beautiful, less mystery and i've learned to breathe. i rarely write and i don't drink wine. but i miss the writing. i'd love to hear caroline herring live again. 

i'm 55 now. it's wonderful and hard and beautiful and challenging and a mystery. time. how things change and stay the same. and the longings. 

i miss the seasons of my little people desperately but i'm so glad they are grown and i love knowing them as they grow up. i have such a longing for those days, that i know i can never have back, and i'm so grateful for where we are now in life. it's holding the tension of the opposites. i wouldn't change a thing- but i would give anything for someone to sit beside me and ask if i would rather have no arms or turtle arms. 

this is a strange season. parents are sick, or in need of care and time, young adult kids are differentiating and pulling away as they should. i'm finding myself happy, satisfied, curious and yet there is still longing. i go back to places with a song, with the light on a neighbors tree, the sound of the wind. 

there is so much to be grateful for. 

the swans

we've been living with my in-laws for the past 4 and a half months while we do a home renvoation project. it's been interesting. it's been hard. it's been wonderful. it's been over the summer so slowly our kids have come home from colleges and travel and the house has expanded and now is beginning to shrink again. as it always has.

this is the house we returned to on fulough during our decade in uganda. this house is a haven. these people, mike's parents, have welcomed us over and over, no matter what or when, or what was happening in their lives, again and again. there was always a space and a place for us here. we have had seasons where we rebuilt here, where we came so broken down that we didn't know how to go on, and this was our safe space. i'm so deeply grateful for his parents and for this home. 

this home gave my children a groundedness during years of overseas life. this was US home base. it's where they first remember seeing snow, where they did a semester of elementary school, where they began to develop their understanding of their american identities. the consistency provided by these 3 acres and Marmi's pies was essential for each of my kids to trust that life may throw curveballs but there is steadiness. it fleshed out the constant presence of God. 

this house was built when my husband was in middle school and his father did all the finish carpentry. they worked together all summer hammering and staining floors, tiling and painting. it is the same house i came to as an 18 year old when i began dating my husband, it was large and fancy and full of art. 

while Poppi built much of the house, we call it Marmi and Poppi's house. she made all the curtains, picked out the furniture, cleans it, cooks most of the meals and manages the aesthetic. she loves fine things. she had a humble beginning, born on her grandmothers farm in the big brass bed, the only one of 4 sisters to attend university. she left the small town of dallas wisconsin, married a new zealander and they settled in the boston area. she is an artist at her core, and her home is filled with paintings- both hers and others she's collected. marmi took a job with delta airlines which opened up the world for the family. travel was a major part of my husbands childhood. europe, africa, new zealand, bermuda, he even went to the prom on the eiffel tower. 

marmi deeply loves beauty and beautiful experiences. she talks about the english countryside and painting the hills and sheep, and of provence and the fields of flowers or hay bales.  sometimes she would bring back some treasure that she found, a gold bracelet from greece, a porcelain sculpture from china, but what i remember the most is the swans.

the swans were purchased in england and shipped over to the US before i met my husband. they lived in the basement in anticipation of their eventual placement in the garden outside of an art studio yet to be built. 

marmi's painting studio for most of her life was in the basement. it was a place of privacy, quiet, and  escape but there was no natural light. she dreamed of a true artists studio, full of light, with a palladian window overlooking a garden, displaying her swans. she dreamed and she saved for this space for decades. those swans were her hope. purchased from her art sales, they were a symbol of her promise to herself to have that studio. 

after she retired from delta, about 25 years after buying those swans, my husband who had since become an architect, designed a studio for her and it was built, palladian window and all. and leading the charge are the 2 swans atop of granite bases. 

if i'm honest, i used to hate those swans. i thought they were ridiculous. that they were an extravagant purchase, a silly use of money especially since they sat in the basement for 25 years. but now i see them so differently, i see so much more.

these are not typical swan sculptures. not the imagined serene birds calmly paddling through a pond. they are they exact opposite. the swans are 2 feet high each. their beaks are fully open, tongues slightly curled, clearly sounding an alarm. their eyes are wide and alert, necks swung forward in a C, wings are pulled back ready for either flight or fight. they are making themselves known. they are full of emotion, in distress and appear to be trying to get attention, yet they are frozen in place. it reminds me of the white witch in narnia, who with the wave of her magic wand, petrifies the animals turning them into stone in mid-motion. the only thing that can unfreeze them is Aslan's breath. 

i think for 25 years those swans represented more that the dream of a studio, they also symbolized parts of Marmi, as they squawked passionately from the basement but were frozen in the silence of bronze. they are wanting so desperately to be heard, to be seen, to be known fully, waiting for Aslan's breath.

in C.S. Lewis's Narnia, Aslan represents Jesus. Jesus who knows us fully. who see's our years of painting in the basement without natural light, who knew that Marmi needed that studio with a palladian window. who sees our years of needing to return to the same place on furlough and provided that stability. who knew that my kids needed her pies and paintings as part of their safe space, their identity. 

a week ago we found out that Marmi has a non-treatable cancer. she is 89 years old but of course no one wants this diagnosis for themselves or their loved ones. somehow this news has landed for her like aslan's breath, freeing. there is something unfrozen now, that i can only explain as God's grace. 

our renovation is almost done. in 2 weeks we will move back thankfully only 2 miles down the street. our home has a very different style. we don't have fancy things, mostly our collected treasures are reminders of our ugandan life. but as i look out marmi's palladian window, i am so grateful for those swans. for their final landing in the garden, for their position in mid-motion reminding me of how we can get stuck, frozen, silenced but that we are seen and known fully and freed in God's love. 

"it's like this now"

 it's the last day of my very lovely vacation and i just read a beautifully written 'perspective' piece in the new england journal of medicine. the author Grace Yi, has just finished her intern year, full of trauma, death, sorrow, grief, and overwhelm with little room for processing and she goes on a week long buddist silent retreat prior to starting her next year of medical training. she wrestles with the concept that pain is inevitable but suffering is not- that suffering comes from wanting the world to be something other than what it is, from not accepting that some things don't work out, children do die, people who are mean win, things are often unfair. for the author, seeing all of the pain with eyes wide open, she hopes, expands her capacity for caring well for others, for tapping into our shared humanity, and ultimately feeling more alive and united. the silence of the retreat is broken when they are asked to share their mantras, the woman near her who had lost her husband recently said, 'it's now like this'.

i was reading james this week, and annie dillards 'holy the firm' and trying to be quiet and be out of doors - in the green and by the sea and closer to God. i've been trying to sit with sad feelings of a strange stage of life that seems surprisingly scattered with losses- aging, dying parents, children moving out of the house. big shifts in family culture come with those things maybe especially when when the family was rarely defined with a consistent address and only by the 6 of us who often found ourselves in the same room of whatever house we were living in- doing our life together, in very close proximity. so i've been sitting with this.

august is the month we are now in. the month that will mark the 1 year anniversary of my dad dying. the month of my 32 wedding anniversary. the month my 3rd born will go off to college for the first time- leaving us with one at home- we've gone from 6 to 3. poor rose. 

i'm sitting with the anticipated silences. the awaited spaces at tables. the known longings. it's hard. it's now like this. and will be and will continue to be as we will lose more parents, as rose will get ready and leave the nest too. 

for most of my life i've avoided sitting with these things. i've filled up my days with anything that could distract me- we are getting ready to do a home renovation project, that would be the ideal candidate for occupying control, order, to do listing, busyness, obsessiveness. so intentionally on this vacation, i didn't do any of that - i read and walked and ate good food and had good conversations and wrote letters to my kids at camp. i paused and let tears come when they wanted to and talked to girlfriends who are saying goodbye to their babies too. feeling the feelings is hard when the feelings aren't just happy- but i'm learning. 

i'm learning and it's like this now.

 

3 days away

today it was -4 degrees when i left for work. somehow it's still beautiful. there is snow on the ground. the house is warm and so was my office and the light going and coming from work was calm and holding- a closed sky. 

i just returned from 3 days away in newport, RI with mike. one day of decompressing, the body lets go of the stress of it all. one day of being, just being in the moments, walking the ocean trail between the sea and the mansions built a century ago, preferring the view of the waves and rocks. listening to the wind, the pull of the tide on rock and sand. crawling up boulders, past different shades of lichen, far from my typical days. then one day of opening up, dreaming, sharing, remembering older versions of selves. talking about how to hold that, bring it back, keep it in our days. 

so good.

i read an article by tish harrison the day i got back about change in hard times, impossible circumstances, it was also about bearing. it was called 'go slow and repair things'. i've been in a season of hard things at work in a job that i care desperately about. i care so much about it that it wakes me in the middle of the night most nights and i do the best thing i can do, i pray. i pray for people by name. i work with people with disabilities, and with people who care for people with disabilities, who also require care because the job is hard. and in my patients i see my daughter. i hear her voice, her struggle to be understood, her frustration, her hypersensitivity to the world around her, her overwhelm. and i see someones brother, son, sister, aunt. 

i am by nature, a sprinter. my life has been trying to teach me long distance running over and over for decades there is no sprinting in autism.  i like pushing hard and overcoming. i like moving fast and winning. i don't like pain. enduring. pacing. i want to get it over with. but what i'm realizing, again, is that many things require time, long-suffering, going actually slowly, and repair. 

the article was about how we often want big moves, powerful changes to bring about things, quick fixes that get the job done, but so often the actual right moves are slow repairs- small scale shifts, gentle nudges, one person, (or turtle) at a time. we each do our part, or we make what seems like a slight adjustment, we have a conversation, we invite someone, show kindness, respond differently, find the third way. eventually that is how change happens. 

initially i was thinking about this in terms of work- and it's very applicable. but then i began to think about it personally too. what if i held on to day 3 of my trip by going slow and repairing the abandoning of self that can happen.  what if i made small shifts to find those old versions of myself that painted and did collage and wrote? what if i dreamed? what if i looked at the lichen colors and climbed more rocks? 

3 days away gave that space to see more broadly. to remember. to reconnect. to slow down. to look at what might need repair.

a moment in january

 i'm looking out over snowy roof tops in newport RI. it's the end of January, cold as can be and the light is a somber whiny afternoon light, pretty but yellowed, muted. 

it's the end of january and i never sent Christmas cards,  i just now made the new years photo calendar that i make for the grandparents ever year. i delayed because there is one less grandparent. i didn't send the cards because how do you say in a short summary card that you lost someone who was a part of you? it seemed too much. so i didn't send the cards, and in the calendar my dad's photo is the only picture in May- his birth month. i never imagined shutterfly would play a role in my grieving process. 

but maybe it's not just losing my dad that kept me quiet this year, from sending out the end of the year card. maybe it's the kids all being grown or near grown and having their own selves to speak from. how can i wrap them up in where they are studying or what sport team they play on. i see their big beautiful selves as so layered and unique and their own, that i don't dare speak for them or try to sum them up quickly. really what comes to mind is awe. how these four people are my absolute favorites, i can't put it into words and maybe i shouldn't. and maybe i don't know where i'd begin to sum up any of it.

this is a strange season in life. i'm past the middle of my own and straddling the generations. i still have kids at home but am losing them as they become adults which is the whole point after all. my parents are having needs and then i'm losing them in death which is to be expected. yet somehow, i wasn't expecting this season of loss in my 50's. 

the thing is it's not all bad. but i'm finding that i need to adjust to a new normal.  a new way of being with my older parents and help them as they experience decline and loss. a new way of being with my kids as they leave home and become adults outside of my home starting their own lives, adventures, separate and appropriately independent. it's so exciting and i'm so overwhelmed with gratitude. 

and i'm left with with a season of looking at me differently. who am i when i'm not the mom of kids at home? what shift in identity is that? what opportunities are waiting? what newness? what is waiting to be birthed? 

the light has gone and a quiet calm has settled over the bald trees and roofs. i watched as the amber faded to rose and then this blue- dusty grey. the lights are coming on in the houses, soon a star will be seen. i think i will send a new year card- maybe this year, no words, only pictures, this year, they will tell their own story.

WCW

 i've been watching my father's decline for a few years. a man who i have turned to for advice in so many areas of medicine and life, has been slowly slipping away. i don't recall the exact moment when i realized that i was now the senior doctor in the family, no longer he. the cross taper had happened, he was calling me for advice. it was slightly unsettling at first. this was the man whose footsteps i had literally followed in as we rushed down the basement halls of Massachusetts General Hospital, following the stripped lines on the tiled floor to the Baker and White buildings as he was on-call as a surgical resident. this was the man whose bedside manner i'd observed over and over again as he comforted anxious patients awaiting surgery or recovering, who greeted everyone en route with the same level of respect whether they were sweeping the floor or his supervisor. this was the man who was always impeccably dressed and prepared, white coat pressed, hair combed, who read the chart before entering each room and had a note card for each patient in his breast pocket with updated data written with a gold plated fountain pen. 

my dad was of the generation of physicians where the history of present illness and the physical exam were the keys to diagnosis. the labs and imaging were supportive evidence- yes, essential, but a truly good diagnostician, as my father was, knows which questions to ask, and how to push on the body and listen to it's reply to know what is wrong. he was of the generation when a resident really was residing at the hospital- he was on call every other night on his general surgery rotations. this was how he learned to hear and know illness, to respect the body's working and timing and how rapidly things can fall apart. as the science progressed over the years, i believe the art of medicine has had a hard time keeping a float. my dad was a man of both.

in march, during his 3rd hospitalization in 4 months, i flew down to be with him and he told me he was done. he didn't want to come back to the hospital, the next time he got sick, we was ready to die at home. i did the typical things, like made sure he was oriented and fully alert and understood what he was saying. i reviewed several scenarios and their outcomes and how he would likely recover from many things after a relatively short stay in the hospital. he was clearly understanding and he was clear in his wishes as well. during that stay, at a top rated hospital, he saw 4 different nurse practitioners in 4 days.  i don't believe he ever saw a doctor once he reached the floor. people were nice, but causal, not introducing themselves, often not knowing what meds he was on, misspeaking about his diagnosis and data. if anything they talked down to him like a little old man, no one asked about him, so no one knew he was a brilliant surgeon who had changed the way breast cancer is treated, who ran international clinical trials, who ran a dept of surgery, who treated everyone he met with kindness and equality and respect. in those 4 days he never received a shower or a bed bath, he didn't get a his sheets changed or bed straightened and he waited long to get assistance to go to the bathroom. this man who had spent his life committed to caring for others when they were sick, was not given that courtesy when  he now, at 83, was sick. i couldn't help but wonder if that was why he decided he was done? is this what has become of medicine?

'kris i know that i don't want to come back here and then end up at rehab for a month and then back and that revolving door- i want to go be with Jesus the next time i get sick.' 

'ok dad, then i think you should be on hospice so you can get the care and support you'll need.'

'i agree' he said. 

he left that stay, as predicted discharged to a rehab for a month where he was fairly miserable and in the meantime, we arranged for him and my mother to move from independent living to assisted living, with in their current community so they'd have more help, and we set him up with hospice. 

in may he turned 84. in june my mom turned 80. they adjusted to life in assisted living with more supports then they thought they needed, rejecting much of what was offered. my dad continued to lose weight. he became quieter, didn't call as much and sometimes his answers to questions or his comments were just slightly off- his dementia was worsening. 

i began to feel like large parts of him were already gone. how do you grieve someone who is still here?

but i realized, it felt familiar.

zoe.

this bittersweet longing. this feeling of being out in a scented meadow at sunset, where you want to hold on to the warmth of the day for a bit longer, to the light, but something also feels very sad, lonely, off.

i adore zoe, i cherish her, who she is. and i also grieve the 24 year old who she is not. all the milestones that she has missed- i have grieved them while loving the girl she is fully. both and.

so i am acquainted somehow with this strange type of grief, it's a guilty grief. 

but now, my dad is gone. and we are left to fully grieve. 

he waited until his 60th wedding anniversary- a true gentleman. he celebrated and had a dinner out with my mom and aunt and uncle and my sister and her family and then next morning, he didn't open his eyes, he barely spoke, he didn't get up, he didn't eat. he was done. he wasn't in pain. but he was dying. 

i got on a plane and over the next 72 hours i watched as the life slowly left him. it's a strange thing watching someone die. the spirit almost hovering, lingering. it felt liminal. we sang and cried and we prayed. we told him how much we loved him and how much he meant to us, how he had impact. my mom retold stories about their travels, their first date and what a wonderful life they had had together. we told him he had finished well and was free to go, that we would be okay. we cried some more and we told him we were there with him. zoe called and sang him a song from cinderella. she called about 20 times asking "is he dead yet?" in the blunt way that only she can. and we waited. 

it was a terrible kind of waiting. we held the tension of two opposites - wanting him to go to his heavenly father and not wanting to completely lose my father. an impossible situation. knowing that to end his dying, will mean our complete  earthly loss of him. trusting we will see him again. missing him already.

and in the one moment when no one was in the room, we heard one last gasp, rushed to his side and he slipped away. the spirit left. there were 4 of us. our leader was gone. the waft of slightly turned lily's and roses from their 60th wedding anniversary bouquet still filled the apartment. it was 3:30 on a sunday. 

once again, my father has gone before me. death i suppose feels less unknown, less scary, and we will gather together to create our new normals as people do. losing a parent is like losing a part of yourself. they were a part of you before you even existed, i am flesh of his flesh. a part that shaped me, formed me, gave me life and poured themselves into me, teaching, directing, correcting, nudging, asking me to pause, questioning, giving a thumbs up, years and years of investment in who i am, is now gone. i am left with myself and my memory of his words to me, his stories, to carry on his legacy. 

we will gather next month to memorialize him. for now, i sit in thanks for the blessing of my dad.

on visiting what still feels like home

 how many times have i packed up and left here? how many times have i said 'goodbye'?

each time leaving a bit of myself behind. i wonder what the ratio is now? how much of me is where. 

when i am in uganda, i feel like i make sense in a way that doesn't make sense, and yet after 1 week, it's time to go home. 

all the reasons we left 2 and a half years ago are calling to us from across the ocean. my dad is in the hospital, zoe missing us, jude comes home for his winter break next week and bryn and rose need to get back to school. and on the list goes, but what a week it was.

we spent the first night in our old home in mukono on campus sleeping in our old rooms, waking to the sounds of the most familiar birdsongs. 

the next two nights were a lakeside camping reunion with our group of close friends who shared life with us in kampala for years.

then mike when north to gulu for 3 nights of master planning work and the kids and i stayed in kampala. i taught a class at the medical school and met with my old colleagues. each night we shared dinner with a different family friend. we went downtown to the marketplace and bought fabric. we went to our old food market and saw the people we know and who know us in a way that we still don't have in the US. the kids went to school and spent time with their friends after school - reconnection is a blessing and a reminder of how hard life as a TCK is. 

then yesterday we visited with roses birth parents. a beautiful emotional exhausting morning that i wouldn't trade for the world. then a hair cut at my favorite place, followed by dinner with friends at an ethiopian restaurant we love. a dusty walk home in the warm night on roads we've walked for years to sleep under nets with the sounds of loudly chirping frogs.

tonight we fly.

it's hot and green, dusty and familiar and i suppose it always will be. oh uganda how we love you. 

the light

 i revisited a dark season this week by accident. 

memory is remarkable. only a sliver will land us somewhere far away and long ago. i'm surprised i'm surprised actually- i should have seen it coming, but i think i assumed that because i was at work, because i was in my place of profession, wearing different hats then "mom", i would be safe from revisiting the trauma. that my role would serve as a boundary and would give enough distance to keep me from identifying, from imagining, from remembering her in those rudolf fleece pajama pants being tranasported to a locked autism crisis unit. 

but there i was on a locked crisis unit with a young person with autism in crisis and it all came flooding back. all the complex emotions. 

i remember zoe's pacing, her agitation, confusion, fear and her repetitive statement, "there must be a terrible mistake, this must be a terrible mistake." for how else could we be here? how else could things have ended up like this- with no other options but to fly across the world just the two of us, the rest of the family back in uganda, to try to find some help, some medications, some supports to calm her brain, her nervous system, her emotions. 

zoe means life in greek. and zoe is so full of life. there are so many things she loves, and so many parts of her person that i love. she is so much more than how she appears. she can seem simple and rote, but there is so much inside of her. she remembers the names of everyone who means something to her - the workers at trader joes from when she was 4, kevin who fitted her eyeglasses a few years ago, the names of everyone's pets. she can differentiate the different riffs from a disney movie and tell you which scene it's from if you hum it. she is direct to a fault and will tell you if you have wronged someone even if it was 20 years ago, and she will expect you to apologize. she loves to be tickled and she loves to tell jokes. she is a victim of her own "sticky thoughts" and tries not to let them get the best of her. she hates vacuums and loud sounds and babies crying and can't stand jeans or tags or tight things touching her. she makes me laugh and she has made me cry and i stand baffled by her often, trying to understand the inner-workings of her mind, but she is a light where ever she goes and she makes my world bigger.

as i read through this persons chart as one of his doctors, i saw his years of struggle, his diagnoses, and his humanity. all the things he says, what he likes to do, and eat,  and what he loves. the picture grew of this person, who like my daughter was a few years ago, is now, in crisis.  as i read, i knew that right on the other side of the wall from my office, he was having a version of zoe's rudolf fleece pants moment. he was trying to process, in whatever way that could be for him, that he was now in the crisis unit and that has to be scary. new people, new place, new everything and for people with autism especially, that's very threatening. 

i remember when zoe and i first arrived at the psych ER and we landed in a yellow locked windowless room, she instantly calmed down while i felt totally ramped up. i hated that room, i felt like i was being punished, no windows and locked. but for her it felt safe and devoid of stimuli. calming. no threats. just me and her and a mattress on the floor. secure. i was fascinated and i remember in that moment realizing that i didn't know what was best for her, i was too close to her, i was thinking as if it were me. i had to try my best to see things from her perspective.

when we got to the autism crisis unit and she was pacing in her fleece pants behind another locked door, a door i couldn't pass through, i was sure this had gone too far. i remember changing my mind after that locked door shut behind her. i ramped up. i panicked. i found the staff and told them i didn't think i could do this, maybe there had in fact been a terrible mistake, maybe i should take her home. the staff calmly asked if i thought i could handle her at home? did i think that was the best thing for her? i said "no" and "no". then, he said, you have made the right choice and you should leave her here with us. she'll be okay. i wept the whole 45 minute drive home in the dark on those wet windy new england roads and i cried out to God. i told him he had better have her in His hands. that this better be the right thing. that He better keep her safe. they weren't really threats, there were just groans of desperation.

when i got home i took a shower and got in bed and i called the unit and asked to speak with zoe- i was so afraid. afraid she'd be furious with me. afraid she'd beg me to come get her. afraid she'd be catatonic. the staff answered, "oh hey, zoe's doing great. 'zoe your mom's on the phone!"

  "hey mom. we are watching a movie. yeah, i'm fine."

i didn't think i had anymore tears, but i did. tears of such deep gratitude. she felt safe- again. after feeling so out of control with herself and her world for so long, being on that unit, locked and with other kids in crisis, actually felt safe for her. thank you God.

back in my office, we met with his parents and our team. his parents have been on a long journey, one that i know and share parts of. i could feel their love and their hope for their son. i know those feelings so well. i have sat in those meetings and been the one on zoom being asked the questions, entrusting my child to specialists and carers and hoping and praying that they will care enough about my girl to care for her as closely as possible to how i do, but knowing it can't be the same. as i listened to my team, i was reminded  that part of this transition for him is learning the boundaries so he feels safe. reminding me of zoe, and how she felt secure when she was removed from her typical life when life became too much. knowing that this unit is a place for him to get the help and support he needs to be able to live his best life. to get to his light, to make his world bigger. 

 

yes i revisited the dark season, but i was reminded of the light.

half empty nest

 and just like that there are two left. 

what a strange thing, raising children. they leave and it's kind of wonderfully awful and awfully wonderful. it's the goal after all to help them become independent individuals but just when they do and they go through all that teenage drama - stretching and pushing against you and pulling into themselves- they come out lovely and promptly pack up their things and leave you. 

it has been a strange summer. jude was away at camp in a leadership development program and so he was sort of already gone, but as the time time grew closer for us to pick him up, do laundry and pack up for college and drive him half way across the country, i found myself crazed. i was running around with his suit in my car, trying to find a dry-cleaner. i was worried he didn't have enough underwear, i was 'nesting' for his leaving. i think i needed a second maternity leave to prepare for his going- legit- it's actually harder in some ways then preparing for his intial worldly arrival.

i'm still in illinois, i haven't even gotten to the absence. we just said goodbye. 

in reflecting on this man-child, all 6 foot 9 inches of him, i see all the stages of jude. he wasn't little for very long and in some ways he was born an old soul. as a child  he was always kind and generous and very clear in what he wanted- he is not complicated and doesn't make things complicated. if he was upset, he was either hungry, tired or occasionally afraid, usually of something new. 

i released him long ago. it wasn't in a bargaining way with God, it was done freely with a deep knowing that he was his own, and he was of God and that i was just entrusted to do my best with him and painful as it was, it was a great gift for all my children. in his infancy, when we found out he had a brain tumor that was inoperable, there was nothing to do but pray and we did. it was a prayer for healing and it was a prayer of release. i had asked for 5 years to get pregnant and i finally had, a prayer answered, and just like hannah in the bible, i was going to acknowledge that my baby belonged to God- no matter what. and God gave us the grace to experience his full healing and also to keep ourselves from a sense of ownership over him and really over any of our kids. 

they are themselves, not extensions of us, not to fulfill things we failed to, not to represent us. they are themselves and hopefully very different from us. 

today i thought i would cry but i didn't. i love this kid (all my kids) more than anything on this earth, but i'm not sad, i'm so happy. he is right where he wants to be. there will be challenges, and there will be support and growth. he's got this.i'm so proud of who jude is, of the kind of man he is becoming. i will miss him for sure and i look forward to his next trip home and to hear about his world that now spins on with out me in it- what a beautiful thing!

the dogwood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the flowers on the korean dogwood are almost gone. that beautiful tree perched like a white peacock at the edge of the yard where it meets the small forest of mostly maple trees. it only blooms for the month of june. so now there are only a few scattered white spots in a sea of green that is my back yard.

it is lush. it is the rainy season. apparently, this year, new england has a rainy season. it's as green as uganda in the rain but the shapes and sounds don't match. the bird song is different. the rain song is different. the roof material that it hits is different. ratios of pavement to dirt, different and the force and pause of there, are replaced by the soft constancy of here. 

i am not soft and constant. maybe that is my problem. 

i am longing for the force and the pause. 

today i feel like i have become a very old woman. my children are gone and my house is quiet and time itself has changed. just yesterday that dogwood bloomed now it has joined the rest of the them in their sameness. 

it's hard to feel like you don't belong.

i admit that i long for things that have past. places and times and ages. 

but this season right here, summer, it's as close as i will get, so i need to cherish it. rain or shine, because it is so full of life.

spring

today i am home sick, and i'm homesick. for warmth. green. the constant sound of birds. tan feet and flip-flops and the absence of layers. maybe it's because i was looking at old photos. maybe it's because it feels like winter lasts forever. or maybe it's because we left uganda before we were ready. i've had friends tell me that they reach a point where a season of life has come to a close and there is a knowing that that season of life is clearly over. it's a sense of closure that happens in ones bones. that's not the way our leaving was. we knew in our minds it was time to go. that it was the right thing to do, and that our hearts would get there but our bones hold a different truth. 

last year when i returned to uganda with my boys, i distinctly remember my bones settling when we landed. a long exhale and a release that i felt in my bones. like i was home. i remember feeling like i could just send for the rest of the family and so easily resume life there, the things didn't matter, my bones were back where they belonged. 

one of the 4 books i'm reading right now is michelle obama's latest book, the light we carry. she talks about her dad and the important lesson he taught her about being satisfied with what he had and where he was in life, not always comparing himself with others and what he didn't have. she talks about how this is a key to happiness, choosing to be satisfied and not always wanting something else. it's true and important. 

today the daffodils beside the steps have bloomed. the bluebells too and the grass is greener. there are buds on some of the trees and even though it's 40 degrees outside, spring is coming. i can't feel it yet, but i can see its beginnings. 

will my eyes fall on the forest of dry maples stretching bare to the sky? or the carpet of brightening green? the piles of brown fallen leaves? or the purple flower pushing through? 

it is a choice.

i will look for the signs and mark them, even if they are few. there is hope, it's moving toward the light.

ashes

 new england is doing her best job of reminding me of why i never wanted to live here. it's all brown bald bark and white sky with some dull muted greens thrown in and the hollow sounds of prolonged winter. the weather feels lonely. people seem either closed up in houses or going places in cars. there is no hanging around outside, no strolls, maybe just some brave brisk walks. i'm desperate for spring but i know it's a good 2 months away. 

today is ash wednesday. today begins lent. 

i love the church calendar. i love the provision of place and time set aside for reflection and attention when my tendency is to hibernate and disappear until spring. these seasons give purpose during times when it's  opportunity may be easily missed. 

advent invites us to wait in anticipation for the birth of Jesus, in a time of the year crazed with busyness and bustle and buying things, spending money and making cards and attending parties- all good things, but the joy and the peace and the love of the divine entering humanity is seen more clearly with advent.

lent invites us to draw near to God in preparation for easter, for Christ's death and resurrection. for me, i can be so hunkered down in the doldrums of winter, holding my breath for spring, that i can miss the life-giving Love of easter. Lent, when i enter the season, is a gift to me as i look inward at the winter spaces inside of myself. what parts of me have i let dry up? have i let wither and hollow? where has grief or sorrow vacuumed the life, the joy away? how can i let the Light in? the Love in? 

there is a humility in lent- ashes to ashes- from dust we came and to dust we shall return. it's a healthy humility.  there is freedom in acknowledging the truth of things, of our lack of control, our limitations. from this truth, i can invite God in- the indwelling Spirit- to bring that light, the vibrant greens and the joy, to water the wintering of my soul. 

the new england weather is humbling itself. it reminds me that life isn't always what i'd choose and that's okay, you put on a scarf and hat and go on. lent in the north east lends itself well to reflection if i let myself chose it rather than distraction. as i reflect on my interior world and my dry bits and wintery spaces, i will try to be gentle and draw near to God from where i am with eyes of honesty and patiently trust in the coming spring.

holy graditude

 a few weeks ago the sermon was on gratitude and the importance of the practice of gratitude. how it's life changing, the choosing to be grateful. the psalms are full of gratitude. they are often a call to remember who God is, what God did in the past, and to the promises that can be trusted. often the psalms of praise and thanks, follow a psalm of lament.

Jesus talked a lot about love. and peace and caring for each other and forgiveness and generosity, but he didn't talk a lot about gratitude.  maybe he cared more about sitting with us in our lament. there is something about being seen that is necessary for feeling loved, and sometimes gratitude can interfere in this. Jesus never told the bride and groom they should be grateful because at least they only ran out of wine at their wedding and not food- no instead, he made more wine, his first miracle. he didn't say to the bleeding woman, ' you should be grateful, it could be worse, at least you can walk." Jesus saw people in their suffering and let them be who they were, where they were and sat with them, ate with them and sometimes healed them with out judging them or  telling them to just be grateful.

when people placate us with gratitude it can feel like neglect. it can undermine our experience or trauma. 

i remember after i had zoe and was desperately trying and failing to get pregnant again for 4 and a half years, people would say, "well at least you already have a baby, it could be worse." leaving me feeling guilty for my sorrow, unworthy of my grief and very alone. or when i was upset about zoe's disabilities people would try to help me 'feel better' with statements like, "it could be worse, at least she is verbal." people who are suffering don't want to be shamed by hearing how much worse it could be. no one needs to be silenced and told that they should really choose gratitude. Jesus got it. Jesus allows the full on ugly crying of all of us over whatever it is, puts out his arms and says, "i know". it's allowed.

and.

so is gratitude. 

i used to think that it wasn't a 'both, and' thing. i used to think that it was 'either or'. either you were in a season of gratitude or a season of lament. kind of like the psalms. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yesterday i was on a walk. it was cool but not cold and cloudy but not raining and the bald trees were scraping at the winter sky the way they do in the wind. it was beautiful and i was filled with a holy gratitude. it felt sacred because for many years i couldn't see this scene as beautiful and i wouldn't have been filled with gratitude. i saw it as ugly new england in the winter with no snow. i saw it as dull and brown and leafless and lifeless. but what i saw yesterday was the beauty in what is right now in new england on that december day. a necessary step in the process of life- the period of hibernation, the time of rest for the earth.

i reflected on gratitude and the practice of it. how i can chose to see beauty and be thankful for it while in seasons of grief. i can long for the green of uganda and appreciate the cloudy december sky with a few scattered still golden leafed tree tops meeting it. i can wrestle with zoe's disabilities and rejoice in the creative person that she is. the gratitude doesn't have to cancel the grief nor does the sorrow prevent the thanksgiving. 

that is holy gratitude.

holy wonder

 the other day i went out to the car, early morning, on the way to work. the light was beautiful - gold, lighting the tops of trees and edges of things, spilling itself on the new day. overhead, a "V" of 30 canadian geese flew honking above me, their underbellies gilded, lit by the rising sun. holy wonder.

i try to freeze these moments when i have them. when the colors and the light and the air holds joy. 

we are finding ourselves here, back where we found each other 33 years ago. in fields between towns, along stone walls and beside oceans. we have landed back where we began, before we grew all these limbs of children and barnacles and scars. holy wonder. 

now when we walk those fields and return to beaches, just the two of us, we are finding ourselves again- old and new- picking through our history and deciding what pieces to keep and what to toss to the ocean as we move forward together.

today i walked alone out for about a mile to a quiet spot, to a sandy rocky spot on the beach. as i walked i realized that i never do this. i never walk alone into wooded spaces, quiet uninhabited places where who knows what could be lurking who knows where. i felt uncomfortable when i left the roadside and disappeared into the fields and woods and it bothered me. but i walked on anyway- a muddy path though pampas grass, hopping on stones across a tidal pool to a green grass clearing. in my mind i walked back through many places much more green and lush and warm, i walked back to africa, to the rushing nile river, to all the opposites of here, the color and vibrancy, the largeness of it, sound and smell and perspective. soon the path ended, it was just me and the wind and 2 seagulls and the tide pulling away. i think it may have been the first time i have been alone and in silence and with the earth maybe ever or at least in many years. there was no one. it was just stillness, and my boots suctioning the sandy mud and the wind in the dry marsh grasses and the bit of drizzle on my face, like the end of the world. joy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

there was something in that being alone in the cool early winter morning with the ocean nearby. i felt small and insignificant in the right way, and held and loved in the best way too. i was so happy to be in that quiet and to feel free.  to be okay to look back and look ahead. holy wonder.

holy waiting

 the first sunday of advent. my most favorite of seasons perhaps. an opportunity for choosing pause and wonder in long dark cold days. the winter stretches out it's arms in the north to show how much of the year it takes up with it's bare trees and brown grass. in uganda advent felt important in a different way, it was a chance to interrupt the sameness of the year, the constancy, to disrupt the natural equatorial rhythm and invite a new routine for the month. to light the candles, to read specific scriptures, sing carols and sit in the wonder- the entering of the divine. God drawing near.

each year as i get older it means more to me. God drawing near. both that God did and how God did. and then given that, that that was our example, the Divine, entering humanity through a pregnant young single mother who birthed him in a barn with out support of a midwife in a night with some shepherds around- likely undesirables - and given who Jesus chose to spend his life hanging around with- that given all that, we the church, have so often gotten it wrong! we have made it about power and money and wearing your best and not letting people see our ugly bits and judging those who aren't doing it 'right'. when we just go back to the beginning, when we remember how God came, Jesus's birth, the humility, the simplicity, that example- i want that to be my starting place. 

because for me the contrast is startling. the emphasis in america on consumption especially during advent, is impressive. but here is this example, this entering of Love into our world, to show a new way for peace and joy, and it has nothing to do with money and buying things. Love enters the world into dirt, to grubby hands, with no running water, to poor people, but is sought after by the wealthy and wise. 

advent calls us to stillness this month because the world is so full of noise. advent calls us to wonder, what child is this ? advent calls us to a holy pause, a holy waiting to see what may unfold as humanity encounters divine.

oh come oh come Immanuel

 

goodbye

i have watched myself slowly leave this space. it's been an interesting process. as the years have gone on, i've written less and less and wondered is it that i have less to say or less time to say it? or is it that my kids who were so small when i began here are now fully their own people and somehow writing about them is a breach into sacred space- they own their stories now. 

for months and even years i have wrestled and judged myself for not being more disciplined to sit and write, to make time to show up here. then i would occasionally find a word about seasons of silence or dormancy being of great value and importance and i would cling to that, rest in it, trust it. 

and when i did rest in that silence, what i came to see is that this season, here, is over. this blog that began 12 years ago when zoe was 11 and had eaten 3 large earthworms on a february afternoon, has served its purpose. i needed to write. i was about to explode. i was alone and i needed to share my days without needing to see the faces of the people who were hearing about it- i didn't want pity or that awkward look from a parent of a neurotypical kid who looks guilty for their  'normal' life. and i wanted anyone who was going through the same thing to not feel alone. and i wanted to remember. i wanted a record. our histories are important. perhaps most of all, writing my days was transformative for me- i started in one space and at the end of it, i had arrived at another, a better place. i would bring myself further along - it was my work.

now, zoe doesn't live at home.  i have 3 teenagers who do, 2 high schoolers and 1 in middle school. my internal work has shifted as we try to love each other well in a complicated world. 

i read this mary oliver poem today that seems so fitting- it's called:

WE SHOULD BE WELL PREPARED

The way the plovers cry goodbye.

The way the dead fox keeps on looking down the hill with open eye.

The way the leaves fall, and then there's the long wait.

The way someone says; we must never meet again.

The way mold spots the cake, the way the sourness overtakes the cream.

The way the river water rushes by, never to return.

The way the days go by, never to return.

The way somebody comes back, but only in a dream.  

this day will never return like all those years when my kids were littles. we must live into our days as fully as we can and love each other well. i have loved this space so much- it was a place of birth for me- it was life giving and i hesitate to say goodbye. living overseas 'goodbye' became such a part of life that in order to survive you had to become 'friends' with goodbye. goodbyes are complicated because they are hard, and sad and no one likes them but they are so important and they are such an opportunity for connection and goodness, that is too often missed because of the fear of discomfort. goodbye's bring closure so we can begin again.

i'm beginning to get ready to begin again. to start something new. whatever that looks like- it may be here with a different focus, a different name, or not. i will wait ad see. and so it's time to say goodbye to this space as it has been. thank you all for listening!

 

 

the light that is you

it's hard to not want to stay and be the light that is me, here. 

it's hard to imagine leaving again in 2 days. 

i'm in uganda. the part of the broken world that has become to feel more like home than any other part actually (strangely) ever did.  i don't expect anyone to get it, or even believe it, but i'm also not going to apologize for it. it is what it is.

yesterday, i interviewed potential medical students for the incoming class at UCU school of medicine. i listened to stories of war-torn somalian childhoods, executed fathers, of brothers with rheumatic heart disease, siblings who died of preventable diarrheal infections, illiterate mothers trained as village health workers who inspired their daughters to pursue this- this dream of doctoring. Midwives returning to study ob/gyn because they need to know more, to be able to do more, to help their fellow ugandans. Twenty year old kids who knew first hand what malnutrition looks like, death during childbirth and not being able to access care in time because there is no hospital, or no doctor at the hospital, or no medicine at the clinic. 

after they would explain their reasons for why they wanted to study medicine, they would explain how they planned on paying their tuition. 'my brother is going to pay my way'. 'i have been saving for 2 years'.  'my village ngo is going to sponsor me so that we will now have a doctor when i finish.'  there are no loans, there were  a few kids whose parents could pay the tuition  which is about $5000 per year. 

there is no need to be comparative about suffering and i believe that there is a deep power in the shared experience of collective trauma that allows a certain level of resilience. but, it was all so humbling. the clear need. their passionate awareness of it.  their desire to help. their willingness to assume the cost. i couldn't help but compare it to the usa. to how quickly we spend $5000, how much we complain about, how little we have seen.

i left the day teary eyed and hopeful. encouraged by the quality of the candidates and knowing that we will continue raising up the quality of ugandan health care and increasing the number of doctors committed to serving their communities. 

there was so much in those tears. for the brokenness of here. and the brokenness of where i am returning. for the years i got to spend here and that they shaped my kids and opened their eyes. for how hard it is for them now that their eyes are opened. for how hard it is to leave. for my deep longing to be back. for the great tension of a heart torn between two homes. for the gratitude of that tension as hard as it is. for the Grace that mends me enough to try to love intentionally and extravagantly and be the light wherever i may be.

why i love wordle

 

in world of excess, there is wordle. 

just one puzzle to solve.

no more.

even if you want another one, you have to wait until tomorrow. 

there is no temptation to sit for an hour on your phone endlessly striving to get to the next level, to open some wrapped package with coins, no real points tallied. you don't find yourself landing there when bored. no. wordle is different.

wordle has reminded me that i'm still in control of my choices. it's reminded me that i don't need to be a victim of the mindsuck of even "good" games that claim to ward off dementia. wordle has gifted me with restraint. with patience. with old school waiting. 

i'm finding that i'm reading more. i'm routining more. this might sound extreme, but i'm slightly happier. 

i keep waiting for it to be capitalized on- some massive wordled algorithm with levels and larger words and presents to be opened with coins. with adds and sounds and graphics and endless opportunities to solve it faster, immediately and to stay and play for hours. while i know my brain would love that dopaminergic feast, i hope it doesn't happen. i want to stick with the simple 5 squares, and three color, green,yellow, and gray. no images, no bells and whistles.

there are so few simple things left.  let us have this one.

acceptance and surrender

it's miserable outside, slushy and drizzly and cold as the sun sets at just after 5pm, but the house is warm and its quiet. 

i forget how much i crave this. need this. enjoy this. the quiet moments.

2021 ended hard, in some ways, as it had started. it ended with mike and me having covid. zoe having a seizure, rose being in a hard place on top of 2 new jobs, 4 teens in a new school situation, buying a house, moving across the world, leaving a community we loved and work we felt called into, to return to part of the country i never wanted to live in again after i left at 22. 

last night it rained a hard but gentle rain - steady and consistent. i awoke in the night and felt the lulled feeling i had in uganda when through the screen i would hear that familiar soothing downpour. maybe because the sun rises and sets at the same time year round, it is the rains that helped signal where or when  we were in the year- a connection to the earth- to the bigger world around us. i listened with remembrance and longing, there was some longing.

because it has been hard. 

trying to find our feet here is dizzying. america is busy. the pace is faster and convenience costs not just money but time. i miss daily walks on dusty roads with potholes filled with tile chips and letting the sun tell me what time it is and all the birds songs (yes even the ibis) and the heat of the day and the sounds of the night and that rain that was gifted to me in sound last night.

i listened to a podcast with Martha Beck about happiness and listening to ourselves and not the consensus of the voices of the world, about moving toward the Warmth, the Knowing. the Light. letting that be our guide. there have been times when i have done this and times when i have not and times when the other people in my life who i am responsible for needed warmth and light and the Knowing lead me there, but it overshadowed what felt warmest to me had i been alone.

zoe just left after being with us for 5 days. i picked her up on wednesday, she had 2 appointments and we had family time and now mike is driving her back to her program. it's hard to put into words the feeling around both her being here and her leaving. it's familiar and strange, it's bittersweet, it's heartwarming and heartbreaking. i feel strong and weak, like i'm doing the right thing and the wrong thing, that i have come to know what is probably best and that i know nothing. that i will really never know. that this will always be our life- a question. a wondering. a bittersweet tension of opposites and the challenge of holding that tension while also keeping our hands open to what comes- to letting go. 

 i used to describe life with zoe as groundhog day- that movie when everyday they wake up and it's the same as the day before- life on repeat. you can predict what is going to happen in a given situation. i know her triggers, i know what makes her laugh, her expressions, her refusals, what will be a fight. now that the other kids are older, and they begin their last chapters at home as children - i am reminded of how zoe's life doesn't change that much. she is like a ugandan day- 7am, 7pm constantly - consistently -predictably. or the year- rainy season, dry season, but the leaves don't turn color, whither and fall, nothing freezes, goes dormant and blooms again. 

when we first got to uganda i had a hard time with the lack of seasons and the constant 7pm sunset. i was used to rhythms that spoke of time and movement. it was easy to lose oneself in the abyss of that sameness. 'african time' made more sense, days weren't gaining or losing minutes year round, a day was just a day 12 hours same as the one before. 

after a while, maybe a year, i grew to love it. i learned to tell time by that reliable sun in the sky- new patterns. the seasons weren't as extreme as summer to winter in new england, but we welcomed the rain after months of hot dust. 

in that podcast Martha Beck also talked about healing and to start from a place of taking a deep breath in and saying to yourself that you can allow everything in the universe to be the way it is right now in this moment, in your world, my world all the good and the bad of it, the truth of it, allow it to be. then breath out and drop your resistance to reality being as it is right now. a cycle of  breath, of allowing and surrendering, allowing and surrendering, to the moment and the moment becomes okay. 

accepting and surrendering to my life as it is right now. as 2022 begins, as we still transition to living in the USA. as we still long for the warmth and rains of africa, as we find our place in new jobs and new schools and sometimes fear and wonder about a future with a special young adult who won't leave us to go off on her own, i am called back to this moment- to accept it, drop my resistance to it- breath and it becomes okay.

blessed are we who have sat down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

today i am waiting. today i am weary. 

it is raining. the world here is wet, a brown and leafless wet, a maybe 40 degrees stark tree, white winter sky wet.

zoe had a seizure on monday. she was at school, i was at work, we drove 2 hours, thankful that it wasn't 2 long plane flights anymore. i witnessed again, the world trying to interact with her challenges- the ways they get it right and the ways they don't.  sweet zoe, another thing to add to her list.

rose is in a season. adoption is always complicated. and my boys, bless them, strung between, still finding their way as third culture kids in the overly busy american life when they would rather be in uganda.

mike is upstairs, quarantined away with covid, mild thankfully because he's vaccinated, but as i work with the elderly, he's keeping his distance.

all of it feels heavy. like i'm constantly checking in on 5 other people's emotions and physical well being. and i wonder where i am? i wonder whether in this season i will have time to breathe. what is normal? our new normal seems to keep expanding to add more stressors, my muscles feel continually tighter.

today's advent reading ended with something that resonated- (thank you Kate Bowler)

"blessed are we who wait for You in the desert of our longing and isolation, in the wilderness that is this our present struggle. 

blessed are we who have sat down."

the desert of our longing and isolation 

yes. despite how wet it is outside, i feel inside a desert of longing and isolation.

the wilderness that is this our present struggle.  

yes. at times i feel lost in this wilderness of present struggle. 

but unlike past seasons where i may have sprinted through, or treated it like an escape room, a puzzle to solve my way out of, somehow in this season, by God's grace, i have sat down.

sat down in solidarity. 

sat down in surrender.

but not in hopelessness. 

i have sat down to join my life, my people, where we are, hard as this season is, and this is the awe of advent.

God sat down too.

we are all seen in our longing, our isolation, and our wildernesses and God sits down in it with us. just like He sat with me in the basement of the hospital waiting for jude to get out of the MRI as an infant. just like She speaks in the tree tops when the wind whips. just like in the silence of this moment. 

Christmas is about when the divine sat down with us in solidarity and in Love. 

today i wait in remembrance, seated in my life.