Sounds of Hope

First thing in the morning, as I sit up in bed, I take my iPhone from under my pillow.  Now that I'm not working, I don't need it there as an alarm except on Sunday.  I have it there because all night it has been monitoring my sleep quality.  Last night was really good - 100%!  I have this cool little app that I got called sleep cycle.  It has the best alarm on it and it also monitors your sleep quality.  The more peaks and valleys, the better your sleep!  But this morning, before I could slide the snooze off and see my graph and numbers there were two alerts from my calendar.  Both were reminding me of the same thing - not the luncheon I'm going to later this morning but the day I could never forget.  Today is February 6, 2014.  Today is the 17th anniversary of the day our precious granddaughter went to Jesus.  I have this date set on my calendars because I never want to forget her. I never want to forget the joy of her sweet ...

I walked to the pay phone in the hallway.   Everything was green, the walls, the floor, a dull green to match the mood.   I picked up the phone and dropped my coin.   I dialed the familiar number of the church.   My call interrupted the merriment of an Afterglow, a time of fellowship after a Sunday evening service.   Pastor Calloway soon said “hello.”   I said, “my father is dead.”   He said, “I’ll be right there.” We stood in the hall.   I don’t remember for sure who was there.   I know I was there.   I think my husband was there, but then he might have been with our son.   I think my brother was there, perhaps his wife or one of his boys.   Marta, the nurse my mother loved was probably there.   We waited as the body was disconnected from the tubes and wires.   A day before a young doctor knelt by his urine bag begging for it to fill with yellow liquid.   That liquid was like gold.   It meant my dad would ...

I knew my stepfather but never really did know him. My mother’s relationship with him was probably as complex and complicated as any marriage. I am sure a marriage later in life, a second marriage where both have been widowed is very different from anything I have experienced. I think that overall, they were happy. I know the day he died suddenly and unexpectedly, they were happy. As I recall they had gone out for a dinner. I know he had just finished his new shed that would become his workshop. He did wood carvings. This shed had electricity for his tools and lots of room. They had moved from a large house into a two-bedroom two-bath mobile home. The shed would supplement for storage as well. My mother married her second husband in December before Bethany was born , one month before the beating and three months after I had remarried Alvin. It was a quick romance. It was so odd to see my mother with the blush of new love.  Even odder was to see my mother change into a holiness w...

Every few hours last night, I awakened with a start. My mother was on my mind. Nothing bad, nothing good, nothing sad, nothing glad, she was just in the forefront of my thoughts.  My brain rarely stops so usually if I wake up in the middle of the night I have a hard time falling back asleep. My brain is always ready to go. I think it is part of the letting go process. I am beginning to come out of whatever surreal state I’ve been in for the last two weeks. Yesterday it was two weeks since she signaled the end had come. I noticed it first when we returned to the apartment. I am prone to caffeine headaches. I had one that day for the first time in weeks. Like those first tingles when your mouth awakens from the dentist’s Novocain, my emotions and body was awakening. It’s odd this numbness I feel.  While it makes decisions difficult, it has been a soothing anesthesia.  I think I am ready to wake up.  When you are numbed for a medical or dental procedure, you may have ...

Like the moment of silence at a ceremony, to commemorate the dead, I have been silent. The moment of silence is now over. Ordinary days will begin again. I suspect they will not be the same as ordinary days before. From here on out, ordinary will have mix of sadness at moments when I remember. Tomorrow I will stumble out to the apartment kitchen in Brookings looking for coffee. My youngest daughter gave a latte style mug. It is my favorite. I’ve had other favorite mugs. Perhaps my all time favorite mug was a mug that said MOM. We were on a trip to Hershey PA. All the children were told pick out something for yourself. They had a dollar limit. Jason, one of my older sons, took his money and bought that coffee mug for me. His sacrifice touched me deeply. I never let anyone else touch that mug. I still have it. The MOM is worn to where you can barely see it. This latest favorite mug does not have a story with it. My youngest daughter Shahnaz gave it to me for mother’s day. It says: A mo...

When I was a college student, I worked at the Center for Research in Social Behavior on the University of Missouri campus. I needed a work-study job. They needed someone to do some clerical work. I would work with a social gerontologist. I was planning to go to grad school in sociology. I was interested in gerontology. This was perfect. I applied. They accepted me. I loved it. They were some of the first people who took me seriously and thought I had potential. I was single welfare mother with three small children trying to “make something” of myself. Single mothers were more of a rarity then. Most people saw me as “low-life.” The doctoral student working for the social gerontologist was my “boss.” She had an apartment somewhere but usually slept on the floor in her office in the old Tudor-style building on Stewart Road. She had a hot plate surrounded by cans of beans and spaghetti-o's and lots of peanut butter. I often wondered if she really did have an apartment. She was...

How wonderful it is when a new day breaks. When I first moved to Tennessee in the cool of the new day I would marvel at the sunrises. I had never lived on a farm and to see the sun come up over the river left me spellbound. This morning there is no river or farm, only a suburban raised ranch on a large lot. I have this habit that annoys my husband. I like to open windows. I prefer open windows to air conditioning. Even on a cold morning in Tennessee like today, I fling open the only window I can open, the bathroom window. It looks out over part of our driveway. Just beyond the driveway is a wooded area. Yesterday as we returned to our home, there was a beautiful male cardinal in the yard. His red was different that the cartoonish red you sometimes see. This red had a tinge of blue in it. He was magnificent. A good story would be to tell you that my mother loved cardinals. That in seeing this bird it was a reminder that she was watching me. The thought of your mother watching you i...

When I graduated from sixth grade in Brooklyn NY I had an autograph book. Once upon a time those things were very popular. It was sort of a bit like signing a yearbook although we had that too. I remember it was white. I asked my mother and father to write on the first pages. Three years later when I graduated from Pershing Junior High School in Brooklyn, I had an official PJHS autograph book. It was blue and gold, had the school emblem on the front and closed with a zipper. I asked my mother and father to write on the first pages again. I think my dad wrote first. He wrote: Only one life will soon be past Only what’s done for Christ will last My mother wrote: Isn't it strange  t hat princes and kings,   And clowns that caper  i n sawdust rings,   And common people  l ike you and me   Are builders for eternity? Each is given a bag of tools,  a  shapeless mass,   A book of rules;   And each must make- Ere life is flown-   A...

So many thoughts whirl around in my head. I think it is because I don’t have anyone to talk to right now. My husband says we are like the Democrats and Republicans. In their case, they both have the good of the country at heart, but they see things very, very differently. In our case, we are all thinking about my mother and yet our thoughts couldn't be more different. In my romanticized view of how family should be, I see us clinging to each other as we allow our loved one to go to the one she loves the most, her Lord. Rather, some cling to a life that is nearly over. Their desperations want some heroic measure to snatch her from the jaws of death. If it were possible, I would too. I, as the lone member of my political party, silently pray for Jesus to hasten to come to her aid and snatch her to her eternal home. I dare not utter my feelings because I feel outnumbered. The practicality of my personality is viewed as cold and indifferent. Nothing can be further from the truth. I...

Death is a great teacher. I am sure there is someone quotable who said this. Certainly, they said it more eloquently than I. Death becomes like a magnifying glass. In its presence, as it begins to invade not only the body of the one on their final journey, but those who attend to them, relationships are examined under its lens. My mother is on her final journey. Death has come to claim her. She is breathing heavier but still aided by oxygen. Loving grandchildren crowd around her. Occasionally one breaks down in tears. They are tears of sadness about their loss. The one she shamelessly professed to favor refuses to leave her side.  She loving swabs her mouth with water. She refused to go last night for fear no one would swab her mouth. While she does not practice the faith taught to her by her mother or grandmother, she bought a Bible for her grandmother to keep at the Nursing Home. She even reads the difficult language of King James. There is tension in the room as nurses c...

As I wait…wait…waiting is hard. I’ve waited for many thing in my life. I don’t like to wait. I’ve written before about waiting on another blog I author, you can read it here . Like the ordinary day I long to return, today is not ordinary waiting. In pastoral care class, we learned that there are two Christian views of death.  God rarely gives us one option. I sometimes wish God would be more absolute. It seems the saying that God puts comas rather than periods is true. One view of death is that it is the enemy that must be conquered. As we approach Easter, we will sing Up from the grave He arose with a might triumph o’er His foes . Our songs of triumph will echo Christ’s triumph over the death and grave. Healing, whether medical or spiritual, wants to prolong life and conquer death. From the search for the Fountain of Youth to late night TV infomercials we cling to life. From the latest advances in science to the latest book on how to receive healing, we challenge death. Death ...

I wrote about ordinary days before but today I am appreciating them again. I think we should never take an ordinary day for granted. Yesterday was not an ordinary day. I knew it wouldn't be an ordinary day. What I didn't know was that the day would end with one of those phone calls that breaks into your life and changes everything. Two years ago we had one of those phone calls. It was our anniversary. We were in Florida celebrating at the beach. A call came from South Dakota with a job offer. That phone call broke into the celebration of the day causing joy for my husband and dread for me. I hate those type of phone calls.  It is like a sharp discordant sound in the midst of a flowing melody. They break into your life with such violent force. They turn everything in your life upside down. All of a sudden, you have new decisions to make. I had an interview for a doctoral program yesterday. That is not ordinary. I had to get dressed up and make sure my make-up was perfect....

An Ending and A Beginning I am coming to the end of the reflections of the life and death of Rukhsanah Israel. I am sure I have much more to share. However, I think this reflection is ending. I have never written about her. I have talked about her many times, most of the time in snippets.  I am told that when I do talk about this and many other painful things in my life that I speak of them as if I am telling a story of someone I hardly know. They tell me that I am missing the emotion of the story. It isn’t that I don’t feel it, it is that I just am so good at compartmentalizing things. And of course, I am Norwegian and we are known for this. Today is the anniversary of the funeral. Funerals are supposed to bring closure. I am not sure that we had closure or that we ever will. However, while funerals are a looking back, they are also a looking forward. My church home was a wonderful place. We were small and like family. Barely two years before these same people had banded toget...

Birth and Death Collide It’s always odd how normal life creeps in during a crisis. On this day, thirteen years ago, as we huddled together as a family, we celebrated a birthday. Normally birthdays are happy times. The birthday boy was my oldest son. I hadn’t been with him on his birthday for many years. He had come for the funeral though, not for his birthday. I had a teacher in college who said to me once, it seems to be your family’s tradition to marry young and have children young. I don’t think we planned it that way, but it seems to be somewhat true. Here I am now a great grandmother because of a sixteen-year-old father. I was seventeen when I became a mother on this day forty-one years ago.  (Okay, I know you are doing the math and while I hate to admit my age, I am 58. Anyone who wants to email me and tell me how shocked you are would make me very happy J .) Nathan was born at 5:30 p.m. on February 9, 1969. I was seven months pregnant. The day before, my mot...

Like the day in 1997, I am in the interlude today. Interludes are difficult places. We waited for the body of Rukhsanah to be released from the autopsy. We waited to plan the funeral. We waited for the return of  Alysabeth and Jesse. It was so hard to focus on the present when the past and the future demanded so much. That is the way it is with interludes. They are times when you can let go of the past and the future is screaming for attention. And yet you can’t go forward, and you can’t go back. You can’t undo what has happened nor can you step into the future. It can be a paralyzing place. We took our son to the hospital in this interlude. Immediately they put us in isolation. He needed our attention. His need was serious. I don’t think I was fully there in that room with him. As I think of it now, I think how scared he must have been to be put in isolation. We were with him as everyone else who came in the room was masked and covered up. They feared meningitis. I was probably...

Today is that day. Today is that day when there is no avoiding thinking about Rukhsanah. Today is the day that you wonder what she’d look like today. What type of girl would she be? Would she be a tomboy or a girlie girl? What would be her favorite color? What color would her hair be? Dark or light? Curly or Straight? What happened after that prayer that day as we began to let go? As I left the hospital with my daughter to take her to her apartment, now considered a potential crime scene, I thought I can’t fix this. I am a fixer. I always want to fix things for people, especially my children. I couldn’t fix this one. Nothing was going to make this right. There were reporters everywhere. Living in the inner city as they did, always makes you suspect.  There had been several deaths, some from abuse, of children that winter. TV cameras, snapshots, people with pads of paper all calling after the van as we drove away. The radio and TV had already covered yet another death of a child i...