The Game

I don’t know what to do with my time. I used to long for days with nothing to do, days to be lazy, to putter around the house, to lie on the couch and read a good book. Now time is something that burdens me.

Every morning I wake up and realize that I have another day ahead of me. Another day of trying to meet needs that cannot be met, another day of hurting, another day of decision making. My energy is spent just trying to fill the hours until I can go back to bed, take my pill and enter the dreamless sleep where I cease to exist.

It’s not depression…it’s the sense of being lost. Of having my life rearranged beneath me with no clear guidelines as to how to live it anymore. Tasks are merely ways of pushing ahead the clock, hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to the moment when I too am called home.

I keep asking God, what now? What do I do with my life? What are my goals, my dreams? The world Myron and I designed together had a balance. His work was supported by my work. Mine by his. Now his career, his ministry, his work in the community have vanished, taking with it my part in it. My world has suddenly shrunk to a very small space, filled with four very beautiful children who need me. But the shock of having the world reduced to these rooms, these few tasks that take up so much time, is difficult.

I am longing for creativity. I am longing for purpose. I am longing to look outside of ourselves and yet I have neither the time nor the ability to do that right now. I ask God, What do you want from me, how do you want me to use this situation, and I hear only the word, "Wait". But waiting takes patience. Waiting is hearing silence when I want words, direction, help. I am not good at waiting.

One of the most difficult things I now do is to drive past the baseball fields. It is spring. The teams are out, warming up, practicing, playing games. Myron loved baseball. He loved coaching. He was good at it. Each time I drive past I see where he once played as a boy, then as a man, and most recently as a coach.

It feels as though the children and I were playing a game of baseball when suddenly, without warning, our pitcher disappeared. They look to me for help but I am as confused as they. I too am looking out at the empty pitcher’s mound. I played back-catcher. My glove was designed to take his pitches. It was well broken in, the leather soft, the pocket deep. I knew how to play from here. I don’t know any other way.

Lauren knew how to play first base. Now I can see her hesitating, wondering if she as the oldest is to walk to the mound, but I look at her and shake my head. She needs to stay on first, although neither of us knows what first base is anymore. Karson was just learning. His glove is still new, needing time to break in, to play catch with daddy, to learn. Taeryn and Bryn have played but barely knew the game and now the rules have suddenly changed. What are the rules? What is the goal? How can we continue to play when a team member is suddenly gone? There is only the knowledge that we cannot step off of the field. We must wait to be taught. It makes us feel stranded and alone. We all stand on our bases, staring numbly at one another, wanting to encourage each other but not knowing how.

So we just keep mouthing the words, "I love you," and suddenly the pitcher's mound becomes a mound of dirt, a grave, and we realize that he will never again be standing there, throwing his pitches, walking to the bases to whisper something in our ears, giving us his crooked smile or saying something to make us laugh. The game as we knew it is over. We need to learn a new one.