Snowflakes

I drove to Hope today, to pick up two of my girls. They were at a grief camp for children, organized by the Hospice Society. It was a wonderful weekend for the both of them and I was so grateful for the efforts of the volunteers to provide what they did. I sat at the closing ceremonies, my heart aching for the roomful of children whose lives have been altered by death. Beautiful, energetic children who are facing at their tender ages losses monumental enough to change who they are. Who they will become.

I was sad. I was sad for all of them, for their families, for the very fact that there was a need to send them there, despite the beauty of a weekend shared. It wasn't until I had loaded everyone up and was heading for home, fighting yet again the tears that never end, thinking about the unalterable events that shape the lives of so many, that I remembered the snowflake.

I recently read about an Englishman, Wilson Bentley, who is given the credit of coining the phrase, "No two snowflakes are alike." As an obsessive analyzer, I have always been annoyed with that statement. How can anybody really know if two are alike? Has someone actually caught and studied every snowflake? How is it possible to definitively make that statement? But as usual, I realized while reading, I was missing the point.

It was the beauty of the ice-crystals that fascinated him. During his lifetime, Bentley caught on glass and photographed more than five thousand snowflakes, studying them, comparing them, drawn in by their delicate and intricate beauty. Imagine the patience that must have taken, the skill and the appreciation that would have driven him to do such a thing, over and over again. Despite my admiration for a man who took the time to explore the beauty of something we take for granted every winter, it was the explanation of how a snowflake was in fact created, of what made them so beautiful, so individual, that stirred my heart. A snowflake is birthed, if you will, as a tiny lump of ice, a crystal that falls from its height in the sky to the ground below. Thousands of factors affects its appearance: wind trajectory, changes in temperature, the height from which it falls, the other crystals it collides with. And everything it encounters serves to sculpt and chip at it until the once unremarkable lump of ice becomes an exquisitely, intricate design. The scars of the journey are what makes it extraordinary. The real mystery doesn't lie in whether or not two are the same. The mystery lies in how something so ordinary becomes something worth looking at.

My children will bear scars. They will bear physical scars and they will bear emotional ones. I have found myself fearful, wondering what these scars will do to them.  How has this shaped them?  How has this accident knocked them, us, off of our intended pathway and what will the repercutions of that look like. But then I remember the snowflake. How if you look closely, its scars shape it into something beautiful and individual. How the hand of God designed something as insignificant as minute lumps of ice into works of art. And I think that surely, surely, our scars could serve to do the same.

I am sure it is the desire and hope of every parent to see their children grow characters of beauty. It would also be their desire to shield and protect their children from tragedy, from pain and suffering. Nobody chooses the childhood cancer. Nobody prays for autism. Nobody chooses or prays for a life-ending accident and injuries. Not every person will need to suffer in order to be extraordinary. But some will. The reality seems to be that some will be as flowers, planted and blooming in the soil of stability and good circumstance. And some will be, I remembered today, as the snowflake, made beautiful by the force of the journey and the grace of God. As a parent, I must be thankful that both are possible.

The Land of Disbelief

We`ve begun homeschooling again and while it is taxing, there is some consolation in the familiarity of it. I am finding the girls doing well, but Karson is having difficulties concentrating.

Each time one of the children exhibits new behaviour, I find myself wondering if it is ‘normal’, or istead indications of grief, anger and confusion. I realize that I am still on high alert, still trying to monitor and assess if they are healthy enough, healing enough, whole enough. Will I ever know? I am sensing that they are becoming more aware of Myron’s absence. The fall schedule seems only to highlight what is missing. And what is missing is agonizing.

I continue to live in the mystifying land of disbelief. There are no words to accurately describe the difficulty of pressing into something you cannot understand. To comprehend the incomprehensible. One night I lay in bed struggling to sleep, struggling to understand why the pillow next to me was empty. Suddenly I had to know it was real, had to prove it to myself again or go crazy. I got up and found a stack of photos taken by a relative, pictures of the kids in the hospital, pictures taken at the funeral home, a picture taken of Myron lying in the coffin. He was lying in the coffin. Not beside me. I sobbed over that picture, because it was true. And at that moment I hated the truth even though I was desperate to know what was real and what wasn’t. Sometimes it is hard to know what is real.

A couple of wonderful men took the time to spend a few minutes with my younger kids, throwing them up in the air and catching them, making them giggle and beg for more. It was wonderful to see them having fun, but later I couldn’t help asking Karson if it reminded him of when Daddy used to do that. It took him a moment. As the memory floated back, of how daddy would throw him spinning into the air at the pool, of how daddy would say, “Hey Karson, you want a swirly?”, of how he would catch him only to throw him up higher the next time, I was sucker-punched with that hated truth once again. The truth that he would never play with them again.  They will never feel his arms around them again.  The opportunity to be their daddy, to do the daddy things, the things he loved, the things I have pictures of him doing for the past 14 years, is gone. He’s gone. And inside I began to scream in pain at the injustice of a man being torn away from the family he loved.

But as I well know, life is not about justice.

Why are some days bearable and others so incredibly painful? How can his picture make me smile one night, and tear me apart the next? And what do I do with all this pain?

I could say, “Give it to God”, but I don’t know how to do that. Not in a practical sense. I wish I did. I wish I knew how to hand it over and not have it hurt so badly, but I don’t. Yesterday I came home from physiotherapy and attacked our front cupboard, emptied its contents and began reorganizing. Then I emptied out the cupboard below the sink, and then the Tupperware drawers. I sorted and threw away, tidied things up, put everything back in perfect order and realized that this is often what I have to do with the pain. I need to distract it.  I push it away from my heart to the outer edges of my mind where it serves only to remind me instead of debilitate me, and then I wait for a time, like right now, when I can let it wash over me in a swamping, defeating wave of truth and sorrow. It is all I know how to do, especially when I am with the kids.

Time may be healing the physical scars but the emotional wounds continue to bleed profusely. It is difficult not to feel utterly alone when the one person you depended on is no longer there.

A Movie

I watched a movie last night, only the second one since the accident. Somehow watching movies by yourself after years of watching them together is not what it used to be. But I had a copy of “The King’s Speech” and finally popped it in last night.

In this true account, King George V has died and his son, Prince Edward, abdicates the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, a soon-to-be second-time divorcee. Edward’s younger brother, played by Colin Firth, who struggles with a debilitating speech impediment, realizes that now by default, he must now reign as King of the British Empire. There is a scene in which he sits at his desk, a mass of paperwork before him, none of which he understands. His wife enters to check on him and he breaks down, overwhelmed with what lies before him. Stricken that a life he did not want has now forced itself upon him, the full weight of his future stares him straight in the face. He has no choice but to walk this agonizing journey, feeling inadequate and unprepared. Trapped by the reality of his position. Chained to circumstances he knows he cannot run from.

And although I will never rule an empire, his tears were my tears.

I cannot run. I cannot ignore. I cannot pretend. I am where I am and there is no changing any of it. I, like so many others in so many situations, are chained to circumstances not of my choosing. And in those circumstances I find myself faced with two choices: I can allow it to soften me, to change me for the better, or I can allow it to harden me. And so I pray, Lord, wherever I can be better…a better parent, a better friend, a better person…allow it to be so. Do not let me waste these circumstances. Even as I grieve and question you, even as I long for my husband, my friend, for the father of my children, do not let me miss what you have to say next. In this darkness, do not let me miss the beauty of your stars.

It would be so easy to miss the beauty.
　
　
　
　

September 4th

Eighteen years ago today, Myron and I got married. I have struggled all day how to say this:

"Today is our anniversary."
"Today would have been our anniversary."

Its was difficult to say it either way. Is it? Or would it have been? How could it not be when I still feel married, still feel committed to someone, still feel the spiritual connection of two flesh living as one.

I took the kids for a walk along the river. Myron often took us there on Sunday afternoons. He loved having us all doing something active, something outdoors, something together. It was good to be there. It suddenly struck me that we were all walking. Some were limping, some were slower than others, some limbs were still swollen, but all were walking.  No wheel-chairs, no crutches. Just ten feet meeting the earth. Something I have for years taken completely for granted, suddenly felt magical. We were all walking.

Every couple of hours throughout the day I checked my watch and told the kids what we had been doing, eighteen years ago. Driving to the church, taking pictures, arriving at the reception. And then at supper I lifted my glass and toasted the day we began our marriage, began the journey that produced the four beautiful children that sat next to me at the table. To Myron. To Gillian. To our life together and all that it produced.

Afterwards, Karson asked, "Mommy, what if I get married and she doesn't cheer for the Canucks?" He looked very concerned. "What if you get married and she doesn't even like hockey?" I asked him back. "Do you like hockey?" he asked suspiciously. "Sometimes," I replied. Karson gasped. "SOME...TIMES??!" His look of horror made us all burst out laughing. As we continued on eating I studied his face, looking for Myron. And I couldn't find him.

Today would have been our anniversary.

Defining Moments

I have travelled through a good part of my life relatively uncertain about who I am. It is apparently too late to backpack around Europe trying to “find myself", or at least it would be difficult with four children tagging along. And so in my moments of uncertainty, I end up relying upon those “defining moments” of life…moments or snippets of my past upon which I have built my perception of who I am.

Defining moments are not always pretty.

I was thinking today about summer camp. I loved my summer youth camp. It was full of Jesus, horses, the outdoors, and counsellors I looked up to. I began at 13, I think, as a camper, and worked there at 19. Last year, for the first time, Myron and I took our kids out for family camp.

Back in my camper days, at the end of every week, each camper was given a verbal award. Every night we’d have a campfire chapel time where we sang songs, drank hot chocolate and listened to a short message. The final night was different. That night we each were given The ____ Award, the summing up of what ever it was that the camp staff had noticed about us individually over the week. Each camper had to stand up while it was announced. Most were humorous: The Trick Riding Award to someone who‘s saddle had slipped off; or maybe The Bareback Award to the one who managed to fall off during the late night bareback ride. I really don’t remember what the others were given. I only remember mine.

It was the “I Can’t Do That!” Award.

I was devastated. It felt so negative. I remember I was sitting at the back of the circle, thankful to be in the shadows where no-one would see my flaming face. I quickly reviewed the past week. Did I actually say that often? Often enough that it was now the definition of who I was? Was that the way others looked at me, as someone who didn’t feel they could try anything, that they would surely fail? I felt branded, and although undoubtedly nobody else remembers it, for me, it was indeed a defining moment. And I hated it.

Thus began a new journey of what I now look back upon as the “foolishly setting out to prove otherwise” stage. Fine. If people thought I was afraid or too insecure to attempt things, I would do the opposite. I would be fearless. I would try everything (within my moral code). I obnoxiously insisted that if someone said I shouldn't...I instead would. I couldn't? Let me prove you wrong. It was stupid. I even insisted on playing on all-male sports teams (TACKLE-FOOTBALL for Pete’s sake! And not the kind where you put on gear…the kind where a group of guys meet out in the rain, in the mud, and set out to inflict pain on each other. For fun. It was idiotic.) I’d find myself in the most awkward situations, all because I was trying to disprove my award. Once in high school, a guy I barely knew asked me if I cut hair. I heard myself answer that yes, of course I did. After all, how difficult could it be? Actually, in the end and sadly for him, fairly difficult.

When I was 21, I went skiing with some friends. I didn’t ski but again was too stubborn to admit that maybe I needed some time on the bunny hills. No, instead I headed straight up to the Black Diamond runs. It was halfway down in a particularly treacherous stretch that I came to another defining moment. This was stupid. What was I hoping to accomplish? Realizing that I was close to breaking my neck, I sat down, undid my skis and slid down on my rear-end. I realized that it could possibly be okay to admit that there were SOME things I couldn’t do. Or at least shouldn’t.

But now I find myself in what is possibly the most difficult period of my life. As we head into the fall I am fighting the rising panic that I just cannot do this. I just don’t think I can. How can I raise four kids, manage their educations, their activities, their ups and downs, their needs and wants by myself! How can I possibly drive them, cook for them, look after the house, the finances, the medical needs, the appointments, the shopping, the discipline, the birthday parties, the leaky pipes, the gutters, the spiritual needs, the learning…alone? How? I don’t know how.

And so today I panicked. I felt it rising up and gripping my throat, my thoughts, until it was everything I could do to not just put the kids in the car and drive away. But I can’t run from it. And yet I don’t think I can do it. I just don’t think I can.

Which voice is right? The one that says I can’t do that, or the one that says of course you can, you can do anything. They fight for position in my thinking, swirling around in the panic, highlighting the pure reality that this just feels like too much. And I’m afraid that I’m going to mess it up, make things worse for my kids, destroy what little we have left. Or create defining moments for them that will ruin who they really are.

I am scared. Terrified. I know the verses that say otherwise, but I have to admit that I find myself thinking, will even God be enough? I know, deep down inside of me that He has to be. But today that knowledge is not seeping into the rest of me. The parts of me that cry out saying this was a two-person job! This was supposed to be something we did together, Myron and I. Never alone. Never alone. We were never supposed to do this alone.

I can only hope that in the end this too will turn out to be a defining moment, but one that is real. Not one that I've taken too personally or one I've created out of pure stubbourness. It will take humility. It will take me asking and then asking again for someone to help me. It will take me relying fully on something I cannot feel right now. It will take perseverance and the desire for something good out of all this pain. But I am struggling to find the ability to believe in all that. Right now, I just hear those voices. And I don't know which one to believe.