FAMILY

Archive for the ‘FAMILY’ Category

A Lung-Cleansing Exhale

Posted in FAMILY, WONDER, tagged #alungcleansingexhale, #compromisedimmunesystems, #covid19, #covidvaccination, #pandemic, #protectothers, #soexcitedtogetvaccine, #thankfulfortheshot on April 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Today I will be getting my first vaccination for Covid and I feel a bit like a kid at Christmas.

I have been telling people the vaccination is my ticket to travel again … but you don’t have to think exotic places, for I just want to be able to fly to the other coast of Canada to see my family (especially my mom who has experienced this Covid year largely alone).

But, this vaccination is more than just that for me.

It is also an exhale from deep in my lungs … like I have been holding my breath for over a year, as we have two daughters with a chronic health disease that requires being on a medication that can lower the body’s ability to fight off an infection … aka a greater possibility of being extremely sick (or death) if they acquire Covid. Though we are cautious and following guidelines from public health, it has been a yearlong concern that we might acquire then pass the virus on to one of them.

This has been a constant concern for the past year.

Added to that have been the glib perspectives that I have had to encounter from those who feel the whole Covid thing is a world-wide government plot, or that it is “just like the flu”, or “enough already with the shutdowns and closures”.

Most of the time I file such perspectives as arrogant, thoughtless or simply idiotic … a couple of times my inner momma hen has verbally pecked the one whose words cut so close to this momma’s heart … most of the time, I just try to ignore and pray they don’t ever have to be in the position I am in, as a mom, feeling such concern for their own kids.

Each wave of Covid has literally felt like a punch to the gut, as I check in with them, ask about their job safety and find myself on my knees on their behalf.

So, today, I get to roll up my sleeve and I consider myself privileged, blessed, thankful. One step closer to being in a position where I will not share this virus with my girls (or anyone else).

And exhale from deep in my lungs.

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Family Table

Posted in FAMILY, life, WONDER, tagged #familytable, #foodandfaith, #heboughtmetohisbanquetingtable, #hisbannerovermeislove, #laughteroverameal, #newtable on April 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Good food, good conversation, laughter … these are what we often think of when we imagine a family meal.

Over the past few months I have been in search of a new, bigger dining table for our home.

When we moved, almost three years ago, I sold our farmhouse table. This table that I had picked up (for free) early one Saturday morning. I re-painted the black base and legs a creamy white. Then I sanded the top to bare word, stained it a lovely red walnut and then rubbed on a protective topcoat.

I loved that table. I loved that I scored it for free. I loved that I made it ours with my own hands. At that table sat our five plus so many others, from all over the world. So many friends of our kids and ourselves. Visitors and friends from the church, the school, swimming and football and … just so many friends. So many meals … not all good, gourmet-quality ones … but they filled our tummies. There wasn’t always laughter around the table. Sometimes there were raised voices, angry tones or even blaring silence … yet, sustenance, space and time were shared. Sometimes it was just a glass of water, or milk or a cup of coffee or tea. Sometimes extra chairs were packed around and sometimes just me, staring out at the sun rising behind the ‘yellow’ tree (forsythia) with a warm cup in hand and my feet resting on the seat of another chair.

It was going to be too big for our townhome, so I sold it. I was rather picky about who to sell it to, because that table wasn’t just word and paint and stain … it was a treasure chest that held our memories. Eventually I chose a lovely young family. After picking it up, the lady messaged me to say that their kids were already making a puzzle on it … new memories with our dinner table.

I still remember times of laughter over a meal around that wooden structure.

But now I have found a new (used) table. One that comes with it’s own stories, it’s own memories (the owner said she chose me as didn’t want it to go to just anyone, but someone who would see the treasure of it, who would treasure it. I have to do some work, because it’s a little rough around the edges … much like those who will eventually sit around it for a meal.

sharing a meal (be it pizza from a box or turkey dinner with all the trimmings),

sharing conversation (be it whispers of affection, silence, shouts of anger or laughter straight from the belly),

sharing space … inhaling and exhaling the air … together.

In Isaiah 25:6, we read :

“In Jerusalem, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat.”

This is prophesy, for the future. But, this is also our great hope … and it is all about a gathering around the table. A gathering, prepared by God himself, for people from around the world (Jews and Gentiles). At this banquet God will serve the best there is to ingest, from wines to meats, to everything in between. It will be the ultimate family meal.

This is God’s plan. Christ is the treasure at this table. This is our hope in Him.

Imagine the joyful laughter around the table.

“He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love”
Song of Solomon 2:4

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Happy Birthday West Coast Girl!

Posted in life, The Kids, tagged #feelathome, #happybirthday, #happybirthdaydaughter, #happybirthdaywestcoastgirl, Home on April 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Happy birthday to our West Coast girl! Born twenty-four years ago … about nine months after we arrived here, to this place we now call home.

But it has always been home for you. The addresses may have changed, the occupants too, but home for you is the west coast, it is where you belong.

I associate your birth with spring, blooming magnolia trees and Easter … these are parts that are always part of your life, your home.

Though you do not live at my home anymore my mother heart will always think that my home is yours too.

I will eagerly make a place at the table, have a blanket ready to cover you as you snooze on my couch or bed, invite you to help trim the tree … all because your moving out on your own does not make you less a part of my home.

When you come to visit, I send you back to your place with food or flowers or goods … because I want to share a little of my home with you.

I plan and plot when I know that you are coming, hoping that you feel at home when you are here.

Honestly, it is never long enough and my selfishness bristles when you’re running late, or have to leave early. But, that is my problem, my expectations and I remind myself that to have you for a little while in my home is blessing. And I am thankful that you’ve come.

You see, when we parents have a home that we have built for our loves we want them to love being here as much as we do. I guess we parents have to learn from nature, from the birds that encourage and even push their birds from the nest they’ve made … because that is the way.

Just days before your birth we celebrated Easter and your presence inside of me brought me different and intimate understanding of the Spirit within us. Though we are the residence or home of the Spirit, it is the risen Jesus who gives us home feels like none other. I remember reading (just days before your birth) “when everything is ready, then I will come and get you, so that you can always be with me where I am” … this is the home without me needing to do any of the preparing, the cooking, the cleaning … I just have to show up, and I will be home.

The magnolia trees outside our home are beginning to prepare to bloom in the warming spring sun. They whisper to me your name, remind me of your pink skin … they remind me of when we brought you home.

May today be the budding of spring in your life. May you know the security, the warmth, the nourishment and the love of home. May you know this, your original home, with your dad and I, always has a door open, a place at the table, a room to rest your head, a warm hug …

love lives here for you.

Happy birthday my west coast girl.

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who has inspired you and why?

Posted in The Kids, WONDER, tagged #influencer, #inspirational, #inspring, #leaders, #rolemodels, #setanexample, #whohasinspiredyouandwhy on March 16, 2021| 2 Comments »

We sat there, enjoying our meal together, when the conversation moved into an area of gold.

“So, who has inspired you and why?”

What followed was great revelation, great insight into those who have been the influencers in the life of my, now adult, son.

The people named were not surprising to me, though I did find it interesting the order of who was mentioned. Then there was the why question … why did this person, or that, stick in your mind as inspiring?

Youth leaders, teachers, camp leaders … those were the areas of leadership that they all originated from. Mostly men (as this was my son), but women as well. Descriptors such as authentic, available, consistent, interested, solid, challenged to work harder, be better flowed from his lips.

I found myself to be so encouraged.

As a mom, a parent, it is always good to know that your child received encouragement towards growth from someone else. It is good to see that our children are not just impacted by us, as parents, but by others around them. That they take into adulthood the whispers of encouragement from others.

“If your actions inspire others to
dream more, learn more, do more and become more,
you are a leader.”
John Quincy Adams

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The True Burden

Posted in FAMILY, life, The Kids, WONDER, tagged #masters, #parenting, #parentingistough, #thetrueburden, #thisistheway, #yoda on March 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Over the past weeks, my son has had me on a steady weekly diet of Star Wars films and animated series (Clone Wars and Rebels) to prepare me for season two of The Mandalorian. He felt I needed more background knowledge of the Mandalorians as well as a better understanding of how things fit together in the Star Wars narrative.

I just want to watch Season 2 of The Mandalorian!!

He, though, sees the bigger picture. He wants me to not just see season 2 as a show, but as a part of a bigger picture …

where did he learn this bigger picture emphasis?

Okay, so … maybe from his mother.

“Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, hmm… but weakness, folly, failure also. Yes: failure, most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.“

Those words, spoken from Yoda to Luke, in the Last Jedi, could fit as appropriately when speaking of the parent/child relationship.

As my own three apprentices are now adults, I feel much of the teaching, the passing on, is done. Now I am watching them reach out into the world with their training done, making their own choices of which lessons to keep and which to abandon (temporarily or permanent? who is to say?).

In my parental passing on of what I have learned, I have equally passes on strengths and weaknesses, wisdom and folly. In my human imperfection, I have also failed them at times … and that failure is also part of the package that I hand over to them.

This is how the human race has a tendency to repeat past mistakes, for history’s teachers impart both the good and the bad, the blessings and the curses from within themselves.

As their parent (master 🙂 ) I have handed down to them many things, but my legacy is not just what I have modelled, taught or insisted upon … my legacy is also what they do with the treasures (and trash) I have shared with them.

Just like a teacher to a student in a classroom, there is no formula for guaranteed success.

If we look beyond human parents and Jedi masters, even in the mastery of Jesus himself, to his disciples, there was not perfection in the following of his teachings. Yet, two thousand years later, his word and his way (“this is the way”) are still being taught, still being modelled … imperfectly.

Though the burden, or struggle of all masters, all teachers, all parents is that our legacy is not in what we impart, but in how our apprentices, our students, our children use what we have given them.

And this is the greatest burden, but also the greatest learning of all parents.

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Posted in FAMILY, tagged #family, #familydaybc, #thankfulforfamily, #wearefamily on February 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Here in our Pacific Northwest corner of the Canadian world, we celebrated Family Day yesterday.

It’s a holiday when schools and businesses are closed. It is on the calendar right between the end of the Christmas break and start of the Spring one. In our pre-pandemic life people might have prepared a weekend away, activities to do as families, or a meal together.

For many, everyday has been family day since about mid-March, 2020, when so much of what was normal closed, cancelled or became restricted. Family homes became hubs of every area of life, from meals, to work, to school, to entertainment and sports and the arts.

But there have been other families for whom family day would have different reflections of the past year. The inability to physically be near, to hug, to hold the hand of an older parent or grandparent, or spouse. The restrictions on travel, or border crossing that have prevented families at a distance from drawing near. The loss of the life of a loved one.

Yesterday, as I looked at our family photo, I looked at the faces of my family. Each one of those faces is an individual with different gifts, struggles and purposes. Each one of them hand-picked for our family, for each other. Sometimes we need a day to reflect and remember the gifts that are those who make up our family. It can be a day to connect (in person, or afar), a day to pray for each one, thanking God for them.

“What can you do to promote world peace?
Go home and love your family.”
Mother Teresa

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Love and Cleaning the Bathroom

Posted in FAMILY, Love, WONDER, tagged ##loveinwordandaction, #howwesayiloveyou, #love, #loveandcleaningthebathroom, #loveinwordanddeed on February 9, 2021| 2 Comments »

February … the month of love …

As I drove to work yesterday I voiced three voice texts, one to each of our adult kids. It has become a (mostly) weekly ritual, so that I am being intentional about connecting with them, wishing them a good week and reminding them they are loved.

As I finished the third voice-to-text, I laughed out loud. Our son’s text was longer than to our two daughter’s for it included, and don’t forget to clean your bathroom.

I love you and don’t forget to clean your bathroom …

This is the struggle of loving each other up close and personal, under the same roof. It is where my business is your business and love is often interpreted as putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher, making a B+ (or higher) grade meal (family joke), not letting the dog on the bed, spraying the bathroom before you leave it and don’t forget to clean your bathroom … because we have to cohabitate together.

Living together means love isn’t just heart-warming words, kisses in the moonlight or sharing an episode of the Mandalorian together … it is living out our love as respect and service to each other.

And that’s the tough where the rubber meets the road truth.

Loving words are important, are good to share. They can be the gas that keeps love on the road. But our daily deeds, done in love are the oil which reduces the friction of bumping up against each other everyday. No love vehicle can stay on the road without both.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18

… by the way, I came home to a sparkling clean bathroom

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Hey Birthday Boy

Posted in FAMILY, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged #breathoflife, #heybirthdayboy, #hubby, #tobeheard, #worthcelebrating on December 22, 2020| 3 Comments »

So it’s your birthday today!

Yes, I ended that sentence with an exclamation mark, even though birthdays have never been something to celebrate in your mind.

I remember the first time I celebrated your birthday with you, your mood would have indicated that you would rather do just about anything except acknowledge you were turning a year older … you were twenty-three.

Though birthdays are not something you wish to celebrate, you are worthy of celebration.

Your roles in life include being a son, a husband, a father but there is one area of your life that I have seen this year (and every year before) that makes my admiration for you grow exponentially.

I have come home from work many days to the awareness that you are having a FaceTime conversation with someone, usually an older person who you once worked with/for, whose home you once lived, or knew somehow in the past. Or it might be a call with that guy who is a security guard at a local shopping strip mall, or the elderly man who you met at the barber. As Covid has snuck into the senior’s home where you work as a chaplain, preventing you from doing your work onsite, you have spent countless hours making phone calls to the residents, making contact by voice and heart, being received with happy excitement as well as teary thankfulness.

And each time I overhear your conversations, my heart is reminded of yours.

Your words speak love, encouragement and hope. Your listening speaks even greater volumes. You remind these people that they are still worthy of one’s time and attention, that they are still alive, that the breath of … not just life, but living and purpose is great within them. And through it all, you are the whisper into their souls that they are a valuable child of God …

A few weeks ago your phone rang, just after we climbed, weary-eyed, into bed. It was that English gentleman you’d met at the barber. He was calling to see if you’d heard if the lady barber (who, herself, is seventy-something) you share is still working. Though exhausted, my attention was fixed on the conversation between you and he. You discussed the barber situation, British television programs, historical events … both of you speaking and listening in turn. It was obvious that he was not eager to hang up, to go back to his silent apartment and you did not rush, but continued the conversation joyfully.

And I lie there, silently beaming with pride in how you gave this man the gift of being valued, being seen, being heard.

This is your gift, your greatest calling, giving attention to those who so easily get pushed aside, forgotten.

Now, today, as we celebrate your taking another turn around the sun, I hope you see the value in every breath you take. I hope you are able to receive attention directed to you. That you feel and know that you you are alive and that the breath of … not just life, but living and purpose is great within you.

May you hear the whisper into you soul that you are worth celebrating!

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Walking Through Year One

Posted in FAMILY, Grief, life, WONDER, tagged #griefthefirstyear, #howdoesonedescribeloss, #ripplesinthewater, #sorrow, #thefirstsofgrief, #thespanofoneslife, #walkingthroughyearone on November 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I thought that I was done with this subject … then … more words flowed out onto the screen. I guess the ripples are still in motion …

It is akin to floating, or maybe I just long to feel the motion of the ripples on the water. I long for peace …

Nope, that doesn’t do …

Most of time I live and move through my days as always, then something jogs my memory, or I bump my knee and like the pain of an old injury resurfacing, I dissolve in a puddle …

No … still inadequate …

I’ll see him in one of my kids and I almost burst with a combination of joy and sorrow …

Nope …

How does one describe walking through the first 365 days without a loved one? How does one, adequately, define the experience of great loss? How does one say, at the same time … the pain of loss is always there and life goes on? How does one meander through year one with everything the same, yet every first a reminder that everything is different?

Short answer …

I don’t know.

This experience of year one without my/our dad, my mom’s husband, the next generation’s grandfather, a friend, neighbor, cousin does not make us experienced, experts. It just leaves us longing for what was, for time snuffed out.

Not only do we feel the void his death has left, we feel and know that it has changed us, our relationships with each other, for his empty space has removed scaffolding in our relationships with each other, causing us to either be stubbornly unmoved (a fallacy, as Seismic Shifts move us all) or completely unmoored, bounced around by every wave, every ripple.

Every ripple … the ripples of his life, breathless for almost a year, are still moving.

I saw it when my younger daughter filled my kitchen with biscuits from his biscuit recipe, when my nephew worked in his garden in spring and when my niece showed up to help clean his garden as summer was fading. I see it when my older daughter calls her grandmother to check in on her, when my son wrapped his arms around me, offering wordless comfort as I melted into a puddle. In how all the grands love their dogs and cats.

I saw it in the stubborn, in the drop everything and run, in the sadness and the frustrations and the avoidance techniques of my brothers … of myself.

He is in our risqué humor, our desire to help each other, our love of music and movement, in the colors of fall and the earliest maple syrup and pussy willows in spring. He is in the late night game, the local hockey team, eyes closed, but don’t you think about turning the channel. He is in the beauty and fluttering of a hummingbirds wings, the enjoyment of an ice cream cone or a meal surrounded by one another. He is in the contradiction of our striving and contentment. He is laughing … that deep belly laugh that often ended in him coughing up a lung. He is on the swing in the cool of a summer evening, reminiscing with our mom.

“In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”
Terry Pratchett – Reaper Man

Dad,

the water still ripples.
the clock is still wound.
the wine is still ripening.

and dad … the crop you planted … it’s growing strong,
and the bounty of it will never come to an end.

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The Storm After the Calm

Posted in FAMILY, Grief, life, WONDER, tagged #365daysago, #goingthroughgrief, #thecalmafterthestorm, #thestormafterthecalm, Grief on November 20, 2020| 9 Comments »

It was a Thursday morning, just like today.

Just like today, the sun shone brightly that day, after days of grey and gloom and rain.

At a glance, one might say that it was the calm after the storm … for me, a year ago, it was the beginning of the storm after the calm.

Twelve months later it is still a mix of calm and storms, everyday life and everything is changed, laughter and tears, stability and wobbling.

Twelve months of grief for my dad, followed by grief for his sister and her husband, a cancer diagnosis and treatment for a brother, the diagnosis of chronic disease for a daughter as well as illness for another, the loneliness of our mom and a world pandemic to round it all out.

Grief doesn’t happen in isolation. Life, with it’s joys and horrors just keeps happening, with little concern for our pain and processing.

There have been times when I have felt, metaphorically, buried alive with grief, disappointment, fear, tragedy and sorrow. Days when I got out of bed, but stayed on my dung heap from morning ’til night. Days when I didn’t have anything left to give … to anyone, even myself.

And the one who I had previously gone to, when there was no other … he was gone too. And I felt it. I felt the vacuum of his absence, the loss of the undergirding he had always provided.

And what have I learned?

I have learned that life is short … too short for regrets, excuses. We have today, this moment … that is all we know we have.
I have learned that speaking of your pain validates the pain felt by another.
I have learned to say I love you instead of good bye … to family, to friends … it will one day be too late to speak them, don’t save them like fancy china … throw them around like confetti.
I have learned to lean into my sadness, to cry when the tears surface, to say the words, “I am sad today,” to feel the feels of grief.
I have learned that it’s okay to take a break from helping others … saying no or not volunteering to help someone else is okay when your cup is empty.
I have learned that even helpers need helpers … from my husband, to a couple of friends, to my counsellor … these people have been the ones throwing me flotation devices when I was taking on water.
I have learned that even though I have struggled to write during this year, I have managed to continue to practice this daily discipline.
I have learned (again) that God never leaves us in the valleys of life, including grief … and he shows himself in people and wonders that can only be of him.
I have learned that grief is not something one can go around, but we must go through it.

It has been a year … started with a beautiful, sunny morning and ended the same.

Though the void left behind will never again be filled, I am hoping that this sunrise was the calm after the great storm.

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