CH-CH-CHANGES...

Although I can't say I have ever been a fan of David Bowie's, this title seemed to fit. My life as of late has been more about changing rather than consistency. I admit, I miss my old life, the boring, mundane, routine one where everything had its individual place without much overlapping into other areas. My Sister-in-Law Peggy told me about a book titled,
"Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti".

a man is like a waffle (each element of his life is in a separate box), while a woman is like spaghetti (everything in her life touches everything else),

That would describe things accurately; my life is shlopping all over the place!

The next change on the short horizon is Charlie transferring up to OU (University of Oklahoma) in Norman, Oklahoma:
BOOMER SOONER!!

This has been his life's dream for as long as anyone can remember! Our son has been obsessed with weather his whole life and is pursuing his degree in Mass Communication and Broadcast Journalism, emphasis on Meteorology. We had him attend college locally for 2 years since it is cheaper than out of state tuition and now it has run its course. Come Saturday, we are OU-bound!

Last month I began gathering stuff together for his transition. He will NOT be in a dorm but rather a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom furnished apartment on campus. He is excited and yet somewhat nervous. I am excited and yet somewhat nervous. A whole new chapter is opening up in his life, filled with unlimited possibilities!

Today I am washing bedding and towels, dishes and such and organizing everything so that getting him all settled in will go a bit smoother. Saturday morning we will load up the caravan of vehicles and hit the road by 6AM for the 2.5 hour drive north up Interstate 35. We'll unload, (actually everyone ELSE will unload-I'm not risking a setback with my back), carry everything up to the 3rd floor and start putting stuff away! Being a good Mom, I am leaving him with a big batch of my Buffalo and Black Bean Chili! I have a surprise as well and will blog about it once we have him moved!

Saturday is a big ch-ch-change for this Mom. My "baby" is flying from the nest and sprouting his wings! His journey begins...

LOSS AND LOST

This week has been difficult and it's only Tuesday morning! I think all the upheaval in my life is catching up with me. Now that a little time has elapsed since my mom's death and Dave's cancer surgery I'm taking stock in my life. It felt as if I had been thrown into deep waters with no life jacket, frantically treading water, just trying to stay afloat. Now that the panic has subsided I find myself, still in deep waters but without the frantic flailing of a drowning woman. I have a calmness, a resignation if you will to the situation...

Now I am just trying to redefine myself.

My Mom is gone, 3 months ago today she drew her last breath here on earth. In some ways it feels like she's been gone so much longer than that! I have never gone this long without talking to her and I feel a bit lost. Next month is my 51st Birthday and it will be the first time in my entire life that she will not be there to sing to me, send me a card, tell me she loves me and so on.
(Mom and Dad, April 2005)
She and dad have had a tradition that as a family we always enjoy and look forward to:
Several years ago I had gotten them a little felt German hat that yodels when tapped. On our birthdays they would call us, "play" the yodeling hat and sing "Happy Birthday" to us. They called themselves, "The Happy Yodelers"! It might seem really silly to some people but it's one of the little things that I know that we as a family will miss. Last year on My 50th Birthday, Dave and I left on our trip for Banff and Jasper up in Alberta, Canada. They called me for my birthday that evening as we sat in a restaurant in Lake Louise. Instantly I wished I had let it go to my Voice Mail so that I could revisit it anytime I wanted to. There will be no yodeling from my Mom next month...

The other day when I was in Hobby Lobby I saw that they already have a lot of their Christmas stuff out. I got all excited and started down the first aisle. I automatically thought to myself,
"Oh, Mom would love that for Christmas!"
I barely made it through the aisle and got away from the Christmas section as quickly as I could! Another first for our family this year besides Birthdays; Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, all without my Mom.

My Sister-In-Law Peggy and I talked for 2 hours last night. She lost her younger sister to a drunk driver 36 years ago when her sister was just a Senior in High School. Peg told me that it does ease over time but certain things will trigger sadness; sadness over all of the things she has missed because her sister was taken so young. She told me that "it can still hurt because we have loved so deeply."

I am understanding just how true of a statement that is!

THE JOURNAL

I have enjoyed writing as far back as I can remember. I had a teacher in grade school who encouraged me to write my poems and thoughts down on paper. I had spiral bound notebooks with cartoons, song lyrics and my aimless drivel in my room. (I don't know where they are today and maybe that's for the best!) In my day, girls kept diaries, cute little books that were bound, complete with a tiny little key to unlock the pages that held our thoughts. It's pages were filled with nonsensical gigglings about boys we had crushes on or how UN-cool our parents were and how they didn't understand us! I tried the cute little diary once and went back to my spiral notebooks!

I met my best friend Brenda this past April in Little Rock, Arkansas for our annual Beth Moore Living Proof Bible seminar. We stopped at MARDEL that first evening and I bought a journal that was on clearance for $2.99. I get excited when I see all that blank paper in front of me. The anticipation of the thoughts that will be scribbled inside, gives me the same feeling as a fresh, unopened box of Crayola crayons! Remember when as children, we got a new box of 24 or if you were really lucky, you got the big box with the built-in sharpener, at the beginning of the school year? There was anticipation, excitement and a promise of good things to come. A kind of tangible HOPE, as it were.

I put my new journal in my Beth Moore bag along with my Bible and looked forward to what that weekend of teaching would bring...

God certainly met me that weekend. I will never forget during the Ministry time the Holy Spirit falling on me and I just sobbed my guts out, all over Brenda! I have cried the ugly cry too many times to count in my life but this went beyond that and then some...
(With Beth Moore at a book signing here in Dallas, 2009)

I remember telling Brenda afterwards that I felt that God had had me empty myself so that He could fill me up more with HIMSELF. Now that I look back, no truer words were ever spoken. Within 1 month, my Mom would be gone and my husband and I would be facing down the gun barrel of his prostate cancer.

In the last days I spent with my Mom I wrote in that brand new journal. It's once crisp pages are now wrinkled and tear-stained. Ironically, its exact number of pages are completely filled with all of my thoughts and events of that time, right down to the last line and my last sentence! It was predestined if you will, for that purpose.

Once we came back home to Texas at the end of May after burying my Mom and I had helped Dad to sort through some of her things, the journal has stayed in my Bible Study bag. I have YET to take it out, let alone read through it once again. While there is SO much of God's intimate and ongoing presence written in its pages, there is much pain as well.

A time is coming for me to pull it out and begin reading through it. I sense a good healing awaits me as I relive that painful chapter in my life. I believe that God gave me answers to questions that were unasked at the time; questions that have since arisen, that I don't know how to answer.

When summer winds down and the season begins to transition to Autumn, I too will begin my transition. I will slow my pace, take a deep breath and allow God to apply His healing salve to my wounded heart. My healing awaits...

"Then shall your light break forth like the morning, and your healing (your restoration and the power of a new life) shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness (your rightness, your justice, and your right relationship with God) shall go before you [conducting you to peace and prosperity], and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard."
(Isaiah 58:8 Amplified)

A LITTLE BREAK

It has been a while since I have blogged. In truthfulness I have been so completely drained by the events of the past year+ that everything has just dried up inside of me. Only the Lord's constant renewal, in the MIDST of our extreme worst time allowed ANY words at all, to flow out of me. Once He had carried us through the worst of it, I found myself taking a break altogether!

I have had a time of refreshing as well as a small amount of time to do some grieving and I am slowly beginning to feel the old me coming back to life. I didn't realize how much of me was on auto-pilot during all of this. Sometimes, it has been an incredible effort just to get up each day and put one foot in front of the other.

A new season has begun in my life. I now know what it feels like to lose a parent. This was something I had observed in my peers-Dave and other close friends-but not myself personally. I now find myself in the ill fitting position of matriarch. I do not want to be in this position because to actually BE the matriarch means I have to acknowledge that my beloved Mom is in deed, really gone. Some days it just seems like she's back home in Missouri waiting for me and at other times, the sadness rolls over me like a tsunami taking me out to the ocean''s depths...

I continually remind myself that she is with the Lord and that all of her suffering is over. She abides in the fulfillment of grace! She basks in unbroken, untainted, ongoing communion with the Lord and nothing on this earth could satisfy her after experiencing that! Still, a part of me longs to hear her voice, talk with her, just BE with her and I know that is not possible.
(A rare moment where my Mom let us see another side of her!)


The other day I was shopping at Sprawl-Mart and I ran into a little German lady right in the baked potato chip aisle. Her accent drew me instantly; not because I ever actually HEARD my Mother's accent, but it was her mannerisms, that held me frozen in time. The turn of her head, the motion of her hands, the pauses in her sentences suddenly made me see a glimpse of my Mom. I got choked up and told her that I had just lost my Mom and that I had been inexplicably drawn to her. After we parted company I cried for several aisles right there in that warehouse sized grocery store!!

I know the separation is temporary, a blink in eternity's eye but right now it seems so permanent...

This is life.

Sometimes life gives us wild and insane happiness, joy and exuberant passion just to BE alive.

Other times life gives us sadness and sorrow that swallows us up in the darkest of nights.

Through it all, ONE remains...

"I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
(Philippians 4:12-13 English Standard Version)