365 Days

I’m a sentimental fool. I have always been one who loves to celebrate anniversaries and who has a strange penchant for remembering (and therefore celebrating!) random dates. Anniversaries of our first date, anniversaries of our first kiss, anniversaries of the day we met… you get the point. It is fun, it’s weird, it’s just who I am. I also find myself often reflecting aloud with Cole, “Do you remember what we were doing a year ago right now?” With these last few years chock full of change, it is fun to remember and reflect on how much can change in a year.  For example, on our wedding anniversary this year, we were marveling at the fact that we spent last year’s anniversary in Hawai’i watching a tropical storm buffet a beach full of palm trees while crew teams raced the waves in the distance. We’ve looked back and marveled at how our family has changed in a year – new babies, new cousins… all sorts of new additions.

This penchant for remembering is all well and good and actually kind of fun for things like that. Then, July 22, 2013, happened. And sometimes, that same penchant for remembering is not such a blessing.
My grandmother went in for a routine surgery from which she never recovered.  And thus began a two week flurry of emails, texts, phone calls and tears. And then, one year ago today, my grandmother's faith became sight, and the heavenly chorus gained one heck of an alto.

So, these last ten days have been full of very hard “Do you remember what we were doing a year ago today?”s. They are full of memories of uncertainty, fear, deep sadness, and long, dark nights. It amazes me how all the feelings can come flooding back without a moment’s notice. Grief is a funny, fickle thing.

We've now lived 365 days without Grandma. The gravity of it all is sometimes so overwhelming. I’m still not used to Grandpa arriving for dinner solo. I’m still not used to receiving mail signed only by Grandpa. I still have “Gma & Gpa B” programmed in my phone and my heart does weird flip-flop things when I see it pop up on my caller ID.  I can still occasionally smell her perfume in their house. Even after 365 days, I’m still not used to life without her.

I suppose such is the process of grief.  I have heard it said that the hole in your heart left by the absence of a loved one does not shrink with time; rather your heart grows with time to where the hole is still very present and certainly no smaller, but it no longer feels so big, so consuming, so cavernous – slowly dwarfed by the passage of time, the presence of life.  They say the first year is the hardest. (Whoever ‘they’ is) And this year has, in so many ways, been so very hard. There is so much that has happened in my life that I wish desperately to share with her. And, in many ways, I still can’t quite believe that she’s gone.

I suppose it will get easier as time continues to go by, though I’m not sure I want it to. In a way, the pain of grief still feels like a way to hang on to her, to make it feel like she’s not really gone. Though we do not grieve as those who have no hope, we still grieve. It’s hard to believe that it has already been a year and it’s hard to believe that it has only been a year and it’s hard to believe that we have so many more years to live without her. So tonight, I’m going to pour myself a glass of Chardonnay, splash two ice cubes in it, and sit at the piano and remember her incredible, beautiful life and the blessing it was to bear witness to it for nearly 25 years.

August 2nd will never be the same and I will never be the same.

...And a Happy New Year

I went to Grandma's grave today.  Those words are still bitter on my tongue.  Seeing her name carved in the silvery granite like that sent a shiver through my spine, though the sub-zero temperature outside didn't help things either.  The phrase "carved in stone" came to mind, and I was once again struck by the definitive finality of this.  That she's gone.  That she's not here anymore. And she's not coming back.

******

I wrote those few sentences almost a month ago when I was home visiting my parents.  My mom and I had stopped by the cemetery while we were out running errands. It shook me so deeply, but when I tried to string words together in an effort to process it all, that was as far as I got.  

The depth and breadth of my grief has continued to take me by complete surprise.  I had known that I loved her deeply and I had known that she had a profound impact on my life.  What I did not anticipate was the incredibly profound impact she would have on my life in her death.  Grappling with the idea of death, losing someone I love, and the fact that - unless Jesus comes back very soon - I will have to continue to say goodbye to those that I love. This grappling rocked me to my very core.

This holiday season has been extremely difficult - being the first without her.  She is so much a part of my holiday memories, it is as though it didn't feel like the holidays without her there: without her beautiful voice calling to sing me "Happy Birthday," without singing carols with her around her piano, without her welcoming hugs and the lingering scent of her perfume, without that twinkle in her eye....

Today, December 30, she would have been 81.  Today, we will raise a glass of Chardonnay (with two ice cubes in it!) in her honor - remembering the incredible woman that she was and the multitude of ways that she so profoundly impacted my (and so many others') life.  Today, I am thankful.  Thankful for the 25+ years that I knew her, thankful that I see bits of her in me, thankful for the woman who brought so much love and music to our family.

As we enter 2014, the first year without her, I pray that our grief would grow to joy, knowing - with as much assurance as we can have here on this earth - that she is ringing in the New Year with greater joy than she has ever known.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!  We love you and miss you more than you could ever know.

When the Music Returns

Four weeks ago, my beautiful grandmother was promoted to Glory.  She shed the heavy things of this world and her faith finally became sight.  The heavenly chorus gained one heck of an alto; and Earth lost one incredible woman.  And, as C.S. Lewis said in the final book of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”  And what a sunrise she must be experiencing!

Three weeks ago, I cried as my grandfather, a tall, big, impressive retired Airforce Colonel, bid his last farewell to his life’s longest love as she was lowered into the ground.  This big, strong man never looked so small as he knelt beside her casket, laid a rose atop the polished, pale blue wood, and choked through his tears, “Goodbye, my love.  Thank you for loving me.”

Two weeks ago – and far sooner than I had thought – I sat on a piano bench for the first time in months. 

Everything about the piano reminds me of her.  When I walked into the house she shared with my grandfather for over 30 years for the first time since her death, I walked up to her beautiful grand piano and wept.  I lightly touched the keys and remembered song after song that she would play for us - once seated upon her lap, then seated by her side as we played duets, then seated by ourselves as she stood behind, beaming with pride.  I remembered the times that she would let us play her piano, but only after insisting that we wash our hands.  I remembered her taking the effort to turn off all other sounds – radio, tv, etc. – when we played her piano so she could hear every note.  And I remembered, whenever we’d hit a wrong note, she’d hum the correct note repeatedly until we found it.

I remembered all of the after-dinner sing-alongs around that piano.  I remembered her silly look of aggravation when her aging hands couldn’t find the notes as easily as they used to.  I remembered every Christmas gathered around that beautiful instrument as she played and we all sang, “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and I cried to think of this year’s December 25 without her - and all the other ones to follow.  The memories flooded back with the tears as I barely touched those ivories and I wondered how life would ever be the same again and I knew it wouldn’t.

I knew, after seeing her piano sitting empty in their living room, that it would be a very long time before I could play again. She supported our every musical endeavor – attending every recital, buying music books that we would actually enjoy practicing, and even listening to my original compositions laced with teenaged angst – and calling it beautiful.  To me, the piano means her.  So, when I found myself at my in-laws’ house in the week following her funeral, I walked straight passed the beautiful piano in their office without even blinking.  For the first three days of our stay, I walked passed it.  Then, on Thursday, I sat at the bench; fifteen minutes later, I rose – not having played a single note.  Then, on Friday, August 16 – two weeks after the woman from whom I inherited my alto voice joined the alto section of the Heavenly chorus – I played the piano again.

Through my shaky hands and my tear-blurred vision, I plunked out the hymn, “It Is Well.”  There seemed no better song.  After all, this had been my anthem since the day I heard about her cancer diagnosis.  Verse after verse, I played.  After that, “The Entertainer,” a song that will forever remind me of her. Then, hymn after hymn, I realized an hour had passed and that I’d played the piano again.  And then I cried all over again.

I cannot sit before those keys without thinking of her, and I hope it is always that way.  I figured it would be months before I could play again.  But, music was so important to her; and, because of that, music is so very important to me.  What better way to honor her than to keep playing, to keep sharing the gift that she so selflessly shared with me (and SO many others).  Undoubtedly, my eyes will brim with tears each time I wed fingers to keys and play; but, it does not matter, for she loved music, I love music, and I am speechlessly proud to follow – even though hardly half as good – in her petite (yet very impressive) footsteps.

I miss her more than words can say.

In My Valley

There have been times in my life when prayer has not come easily.  For one reason or another I am occasionally rendered uncharacteristically speechless, whether I cannot put words to the pain or joy in my heart, or I am simply so confused that I do not know where to start.  It is in those times that I lean heavily on Scripture.  Praying through Psalms or other passages has often been a source of comfort and peace. Other times, I have been incredibly encouraged through the prayers of other saints.  

These last few weeks have seemingly stripped my prayers of any content.  So many days, struggling to put one foot in front of the other, I fall before the throne of Grace with no words, just tears.  My prayers sounded more like, "Please, please, please..." than anything else. I read and reread Romans 8, hoping desperately that the Spirit would intercede and make sense of my senselessness.  And then, I came across this prayer (from Valley of Vision) that echoed so deeply in my heart:

"Lord, in the daytime, stars can be seen from the deepest wells, and the deeper the well, the brighter the stars shine.  Let me find your light in my darkness, your life in my death, your joy in my sorrow, your grace in my sin, your riches in my poverty, your glory in my valley."   -Valley of Vision

This is it.  This is my prayer.  This is my prayer for me.  This is my prayer for my husband. This is my prayer for my family.  All of it.  May He shine more brightly in my brokenness, may I seek His glory in my valley.

At a Loss

Grief is a funny thing.  (Funny as in strange, odd, or ironic – not comical.) It never seems to look the same and often jumps in at the oddest times, commandeering all attention.  It can look like hours of unending tears punctuated by moments of shocked silence.  Grief can look like you go about your business day in and day out as if nothing has changed, then break down and cry while folding laundry. Grief can look like losing a record amount of hair in a small amount of time. Grief can look like writing a blog post in the middle of the night that you really don't need to read, but I really needed to write.

My grandma died yesterday.

I can barely type those words.  I will write more, I need to write more, but I do not have the right words right now to do justice to the incredible woman that she was.  After two weeks in the hospital, she was finally healed – just not on this earth.  I am so very grateful to know that she is at peace and no longer in pain, but this whole losing-someone-you-love thing?  It is really lousy.

I have often haughtily observed how blessed I have been to have experienced so little loss in my life.  As a 25-year-old, I was often alone in my peer group for having all four grandparents still alive.  My siblings and I would marvel at our good luck and the blessing that comes with having a wonderful relationship with all of our grandparents – a luxury our parents and most of our friends were not afforded.  But this is the hard part.  We loved her, we knew her, she knew us, she loved us - she was not some distant grandparent who only visited on holidays and only talked with the adults.  She came to basketball games and piano recitals and took us out to lunch every year for our birthday - and now she is gone.

We are leaving Hawai’i two weeks earlier than we planned to get home for the funeral and to be with family.  Even though our time here has been wonderful, I had long been looking forward to heading home.  Then, today, it hit me.  As I folded my tears in with Cole’s dress shirts, in our (likely over the 50lb weight limit) suitcases, I realized that home was the last place I wanted to be.

Don’t get me wrong… for the last two weeks that my grandmother had been in the hospital, I would have given anything to be home – holding her hand, talking to her, and surrounded by family.  Yet now, as I crammed the last of our unworn sweatshirts into the carry-on, Spokane was the last place I wanted to be.  And I couldn’t figure out why.  I knew it was not because I was sad to leave Hawai’i and the beaches and the sun… And I knew that I was longing to get home and hug my mom and family, but I could not pinpoint what it was.

Sometimes, grief looks like cleaning out your shower drain more in the last two days than in the last two months altogether.  Sometimes grief looks like crying through the memories so your husband hears the story about how she often forgot the peas in the microwave.  And, sometimes, grief looks like sitting on the bathroom floor writing at 1am because your sleepless mind will not stop.  My sleepless mind put the pieces together and realized why I was so reluctant to leave.  I realized that I just don’t want to know what home is like without her.  I have been okay in Hawai’i because it is as though, at times, I can deny the reality that she is gone because she was not supposed to be here, Hawaii, in the first place.  I could go to Portland and not feel ripped apart.   San Francisco, Sunnyside, Seattle… anywhere other than Spokane.  She is supposed to be in Spokane.  She is supposed to be standing at the top of the stairs of their split-level waiting for my hug.  She is supposed to step out of the car when Grandpa comes over for dinner.  She is supposed to ask for an ice cube for her glass of chardonnay.  She is supposed to teach my kids the spaghetti song.  I want to be with my family, but I know that once we’re all together, I will have to face the reality that she is actually gone.

I know I need to be thankful that I have had twenty-five years of memories with this one astounding lady, and I am. I am so very blessed to be her granddaughter.  And I am grateful beyond words to know that she is finally Home and at rest.  Selfishly though, I miss her like crazy and I know Spokane will never be the same.

"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words."   -  1 Thess. 4:13-18