SPOILER ALERT: Depressing zone ahead…

It’s a sunny, blue skied day. Cool and sweet smelling but somehow distant.

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken the dogs for a walk around my pond. When Joe was in elementary school 3 years ago, I’d walk them every morning when I walked to school. There was a couple from France who I would meet and chat with as our dogs played. 

I met him this morning for the first time in years. He, of course, had been seeing Philip all the time when Philip ran the dogs. They found out from another neighbor that Phillip was sick and today found out that Philip has passed.

I told him with such nonchalant blahness. If I looked at myself from the outside, as someone else, I would be surprised at such emotional vacancy. I didn’t know what to say except for the facts. I offered a vague ‘tough times’ comment. I could see the lament in his eyes.

I want to be authentic, genuine, not a sobbing sad sack but I can’t muster either.

My boys, my mom, their presence seems a constant pull on me to come back to my life.  Maybe the thing is I’m not so interested in being back in my life just now. I want to be strong for them, to be capable… But not so much today so I’m taking today off to be vacantly depressed. I guess it’s okay. I have, afterall, earned it.

Anne
March 4, 2021

I’m tearful, tired and troubled today. Buried under a mountain of paperwork with teeny tiny words. My to-do list mounting an unrelenting attack. My head hurts. My heart aches. As I look for a way out under my covers, I am reminded of:

Matthew 11:28

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

and Acts 23:11

11 That night the Lord stood near him and said, “Take courage!”

“Come,” my Savior says gently, “you need not walk this path alone. I will come with you.” “Lean on Me. I will give you My courage for the journey and you will be all right. I promise.”

(Paraphrased by me)

Leaning, sprawling really, on the promises of God, my Savior, my only hope.

Anne

March 3, 2022

So it’s all said and done. People have surrounded me so completely with such blessing; a thorough outpouring of the sweetest grace. They have held me up.

But where do I go from here? I’m tired and dry. Dry of both spirit and thirst. The haze of the baseball field lingers still.

I guess I could begin by taking Joe to school. Walking my dogs in the field. I could make a plan for making dinner. That’s something I haven’t had to do this entire year. I could kneel down in the dirt to pray even when I have no words…

As I kneel, wordless, my pups come running from a distance, persistent in their interruption, nudging my hands and bowed head as if to bring me back to truth. I am not alone though the dryness and fatigue of grief lead me away.

I am loved. Perhaps I need to rename my pups my precious Pennies.

I walk out of my field with a spring in my step…

Who am I kidding? There is no spring but my dryness is watered and that is a beginning.

Anne

I am so unfocused today, overwhelmed easily, on the verge of confusion. I felt competent at home until a chair fell out from under me planting me hard on the tile floor. It appears to have shaken loose my tentative grip on reality and on controlling my dogs. What was easy yesterday became untenable today as they ran on the baseball field in the middle of a game.

Like the cool wind blows the air and the invigorated dogs run every which way., So do my thoughts and emotions. I am as flurried a  mess, as they are a furried one. Thank God for Marijo who is keeping me steady.

Of course, I just got hit in the back of my head by a flying errant baseball so we’ll see how that goes…

Anne

February 28, 2021

Ahh, my sweet Philip. His favorite beer company, New Belgium, just put out a new seasonal beer called Wild Ride. It is intended to celebrate their 30th anniversary but I think it should be intended to celebrate Philip’s Wild Ride of life. What a wild ride it’s been.

After successfully completing his six months of chemo for Leukemia, and then, fiercely fighting Covid, Philip was called home to Jesus earlier this month but I have not lost a good man because I know where he is.

And what I’ve learned from grieving these past 20 years is that the Bible nails it.  I do not grieve as one who has no faith because I know my God is Good all the time. I know my God is FOR me. He does not leave me nor forsake me when I don’t understand. He holds me up instead.

Now, I don’t know why Jesus brought Philip home, but I do know that when I see Jesus myself and He tells me His plan,  I will be smiling, mind blown in the shear brilliance of it all.

That doesn’t make this road any more smooth but it does remind me that I am never and will never be out of the double grip of God in John 10:28.

So you were given a penny at the door.  As some of you know, when Philip finds a penny, he says it’s God’s way of reminding him of its inscription: In God we trust. (Read John 10) Take the penny and put it in your left hand and make it fist around it and take your right hand and put it over your left hand. If you are the penny, trusting God, you are in his double grip and cannot fall out.

John 10:28-29 NIV  

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of My hand. 

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand.

That is where Philip is. And I am too.

I still get panicked, angry, overcome by farfanoogin sadness and even hopefully explosive one of these days but I do it safely in the arms of my Jesus knowing He can take whatever I dish out. He takes it into Himself and FROM me. And He promises that as we come to Him, all of us who are weary and heavy laden, He  WILL  give us rest.                     

Philip believed and he is at rest.

So take your Philip penny with you and when you struggle with life’s inevitable difficulty, remember that Philip is not lost, he’s found and you can be too when you trust God with all the rest. Philip and I believe Him with all our hearts only Philip is maybe better at it now. Trust God with your sadness. Philip would be so honored if you did.

Anne

February 27, 2021
Philip’s Celebration of Life

The fear is working its way up. Like magma in a volcano slowly, surely rising, pushing, insistent, penetrating. It is that that shall not be ignored. The pressure continues its journey upward beginning low, building in its intensity. It reaches my diaphragm, constricting my breathing capacity, slicking it’s way to my core.

Here my magma of grief spills over, bubbling up in splattering bursts of hot emotion; into my throat, it’s burning coloring my cheeks in brilliant crimson as its explosive spewing is released from my eyes; a raucous, uncontrollable explosion of sadness, mixed with joy and pain spilling across the pages of my life.

Anne 

February, 2021

11 That night the Lord stood near him and said, “Take courage!”

Acts 23:11

She stood at the top of a very long winding staircase. It was dark at the far away bottom. She’s shivered with fear. It was far too dark. Far too long. How could she ever manage it?

She turned to go back into the lengthening shadows of evening and was surprised to see her companion standing beside her. He took her hand as He took His first step down the long winding path of the stairway. “Come,” He said gently, “you need not walk this path alone. I will come with you.” “Lean on Me. I will give you My courage for the journey and you will be all right. I promise.”

He said this as she,too, took her first step into the darkness of her fear.

Anne

February, 2021

“Such a heavy heart”, I thought to myself this morning. I have heard people say that before, probably said it myself. I get it now, both figuratively and literally. It is an euphemism to describe grief but it is also a physical feeling.

I have been hesitant to talk about it, being a nurse, I know my nurse friends would send me right to the ER but it’s not that kind of chest heaviness. It is a sort of a pressure, a gripping, a constriction; the kind that comes, in part, from my unwitting breath holding, though breathing doesn’t seem to lessen it. It makes me feel like I want to explode but, at the same time, it prevents it.

Perhaps it is the body’s way of clamping down on the new gaping hole in the center of my being; like a uterus clamps down right after birth to control the hemorrhage. There’s no break from it, no respite, no forgetting. I imagine it will be my near constant companion until this process is complete in me.

But, you know what? Something about it is right, fitting, as it should be, despite the aching pain of it all.

In fact, a part of me is okay with it because somewhere inside me, I know that:

“We will never be the same as we were before this loss but we are ever so much better for having had something so great to lose.”

~Leigh~

Indeed,

Anne

February 21, 2021

When presented with a new accessory, it is important to follow a few simple rules before claiming it as your own…

It may be helpful to try it on; to drape it across your shoulders and look in the mirror; side to side, back to the front, see how it fits. Ask some questions, is it too big, too small, too light, too heavy, too young, too old for you? Does it drown out your other features? Does it accentuate the positives while diminishing your negatives? Is it easy to wear or is it too bulky and cumbersome? And, perhaps, most importantly, how does wearing it make you feel? Beautiful, Old, vibrant, Happy, exotic, forlorn? If it doesn’t feel right, put it back.

During a recent acquisition, I applied these rules. I tried on my new accessory and carefully considered all of that. In the end, however, it did not feel right. It felt so tangled, heavy, awkward, suffocating even; much too old for me so I decided to give it back.

I found, however, that there were no tag backs, no returns, no refunds. In fact, I even realized that it had been becoming a part of me before I even noticed. This new accessory was mine whether I wanted it or not. 

So today, I will wear it for all the world to see even if the truth feels like I am a small child wearing grown-up clothes that trip and boggle me.

I will wear it because I know that sharing it is the only way to make the beauty of all that caused it, to rise above the tangle.

I will wear it because it will make me brave as I walk alongside those who love me.

Anne

Living you forever and ever, Amen.

February 9, 2021

No visible change for Philip but I believe that God is working under the surface of things. As Joseph said to his brothers in Genesis 50:20-21, paraphrased by me,

“Covid intended to harm me, but God intends it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.”

All this to say I believe God is working behind the scenes. He is good. His plan is good. And He will accomplish good through this covid chapter of our lives. 

So come on, Philip, do your thing, God is accomplishing good in and through you. 

I look forward to the tales we will tell about the workings of God in all of us.

Anne

February 1, 2021