Simple

Peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  It’s amazing how good the simple things can taste when you are really hungry.  It’s the first time I have had peanut butter on a sandwich since Makiah died.  Peanut butter in any form was her favorite food, and I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it.  Until today.  And it was good.  And I think she would have smiled.

There are a lot of things that I locked away and wouldn’t, couldn’t  do since she left us.  I wish I could say that I was quoting scripture and saying faith promises as I dug my way through the heavy dirt of the first year’s grief.  But I didn’t.  In fact, I didn’t really read my bible for an entire year.  A verse here and there maybe, but I just couldn’t seem to bear to read it.  The promises rang hollow, and it felt as though the words were mocking me.  But this January I decided something had to change in me or I would wither up and die inside.  Well, actually I thought I already had, and I needed a resurrection. 

So I bought a one year chronological bible.  I have never read the bible in a year (and I still might not because I am a month behind right now!), and I have never read it in chronological order.  I love that I just flip to the next date and read and the stories make so much sense in context!  I know there is great merit in lengthy scripture study and meditation.  But when you are really hungry and you haven’t eaten in long time, the simple things taste best.

Somehow as I am reading the Old Testament stories each night, I feel life blooming deep again.  I see the faith and pain of others and the mystery of a God whose ways are beyond our understanding but whose love is within our grasp.  And I know that for me the next step really is simple.  Just keep reading.  Don’t stop turning the pages.  Of  the Book.  Or the next day.

Happy Birthday Sweet Makiah!

Dearest Makiah,
Mommy and Daddy were there for both.  Your coming into this world and your going out.  Both were painful and messy- although in very different ways- but how beautiful were the moments in between!  Four years, four months, and twenty eight days of precious minutes.  Full of diapers and sillies and tears and messes.  Mermaids and "tiny fings."   Trips to the "liberry" and dreams of princess hair that "went all the way down to the bottom!"   Tickles in your "armpicks," peanut butter on a spoon that was "galicious" and veggies that were "asgusting." Memories pressed deeply into your mommy's heart.  Even if the details slip away when my mind is old and worn, the love of you is permanently engraved.

Makiah.  Makiah Kaitlyn King.  You told me often that you wanted people to call you by your whole name, silly girl!  Your name is special to my heart.  Makiah comes from a Hebrew name (spelled Macaiah) found in 2 Chronicles 18.  The story is of a prophet who spoke only the truth in the face of an entire generation of prophets that had become people pleasers and left God behind.  He was also one of the few people in the bible who had a vision of the throne room of God and stood in His Presence.  But most special to me is what the Hebrew word means- "Who is like Yahweh?"  Sometimes I would stop and think about how every time we said your name, we were really saying "Who is like God?"  And Kaitlyn means "pure."  So all together it meant "Who is pure like Yahweh?"  Your whole life was meant to point to Him.  Before you took your first breath, your name declared His goodness.  And now, even though you have taken your last, I pray that your story will ring out the truth that is still true.  That Yahweh is good and pure and there is no one like Him.  And though I cannot understand why your life story was written so short, I hope it will stand out against a generation of naysayers who have forgotten that there is but One God, and no other is like Him.

So that is mommy's birthday present to you today sweet Makiah.  On your 6th birthday, as you stand in the throne room of God and celebrate life in heaven, your mommy will shout through my fingertips and the tears- Makiah...  "Who is like Yahweh?"  Faithful.  Mysterious.  Good.  Pure.  Love.  The moments we had on this earth together could not have come from anyone less.  And in the eternity we have yet to spend in heaven together I know we will declare the mystery of your name in praise to the One who created us both.  Happy Birthday my sweet baby girl!

Love All Ways Always,
Mommy

May 11 2006... Makiah's First Breaths

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

4th Birthday

Makiah aka Ariel with "Cinderella" and "Belle"

A Glimmer Remains

I pushed it down all week.  Deep inside I shoved the words.  I ran from the image.  Several time it seized my thoughts, but I shoved it away with the power of distraction.  Until today.  I am alone.  The ride home from work.  No one to distract.  No tv or Facebook.  No demanding cries.  The radio can't seem to play loud enough.

Wailing escapes and my defense crumbles.  The memories triggered.  The brakes and the crunching.  The goodbye I cant escape.  The little one I cannot find.

The lawyers have been to visit the impounded cars again this week.  She said she could not help but cry when she looked inside.  Shattered windows.  Cobwebs now growing.  But they are still there.  Her pink sparkly flip flops.  The ones she wore that day.  A sign of my princess and her life and glittering love.  Now sitting in the mass of tangled metal and mildew.

A reflection of this journey.  Here sits nuggets of beauty and brightness and sparkle of life.   But nestled in such messy brokenness. In such a crumpled wad of death.

Now parked.  I drop my head and clutch the steering wheel.  Quieting the torrent.  I say I am sorry  to the little one listening now inside me.  Then I hear the words springing from my dashboard.  "... So cry out to Jesus."   Again and again he sings it.  Pointing me to the way I should go.  Another glimmer in the mess.  I call and cling.  Desperate for more than a glimmer.

The Waiting

In the pristine exercise studio the tan instructor (who is nice and thin and not pregnant!) instructs the expecting ladies around her in a perfectly orchestrated workout.  They move smoothly through the routine without breaking into a sweat and smiling sweetly all the time.  If only they could see this workout video played out in a real house with real tiny children and an out of shape pregnant mom!  I am on all fours trying to do the seriously modified pushups with Abby clinging to my middle in protest and Alena whacking me in the face and laughing hilariously each time I come up!

I just give up and lay there laughing.  I am truly glad that there is no video of us!  Sometimes having two tiny ones can make life seem a little crazy.  Nevertheless, after some recent conversations with friends whose children are teenagers, I realize that I might be in the easiest part of parenting after all.  It's true that last week I found a girl and her crib covered in poop, barely stopped her sister from munching the dead grasshopper on the porch, and heard my husband yell for help when one of them decided the tub was a good place to relieve constipation!   On the other hand, my little ones can't hop in the car and drive away, and every decision they make does not have the potential to impact the rest of their lives.  I find myself contemplating how so much of my time in the future years will be spent waiting for outcomes.

My thoughts circle this idea of waiting...Waiting for your teenager to come home at night.  Waiting as your child deals with some form of the pain that is sure to find us all in this life.  Waiting for a distant spouse to re-engage.  Waiting for the doctor's test results.  Waiting for your baby to be born healthy.  Waiting to see your little girl again when she has slipped into heaven before you.

Perhaps most of life is about waiting.  About being in between.  That strange place where you realize your grasp of control is much looser than you would like.  Will we wait well?  Will I wait well?  I read once that the only thing we can grasp without damaging our souls is His hand.  I wish that were as simple a it sounds!  But maybe it is.  Maybe the flip side of waiting is abiding.  And the journey here  is really about turning the impatient minutes and seconds into breath prayers that say " I trust you."  Even when it doesn' t feel that way.

16 Weeks and 5 Days

16 weeks and 5 days today.   That's how long I have been carrying this little one.  Last night I lay in bed and felt anxious for no particular reason.  I knew that this time was approaching, but I hadn't figured out exactly the day.  As I lay there calculating, it dawned on me that it would be tomorrow.  It's amazing how your subconscious can be aware of things without you even realizing it.  Our counselor had warned us this sort of thing would happen as the girls grew older.

So this morning I sit on the back porch watching the pink sky and trying not to think about it.  That when I was 16 weeks and 5 days pregnant with the twins, Makiah died.   She asked me constantly before she died if the girls could hear her voice yet.  She would talk to them and tell them how cute they were.  She would exclaim, "Little babies, you are soooo loved!"  Every night she would give them each a kiss and a "hug" through my belly.  It was her own idea!

The girls are toddling around the porch blissfully unaware of mommy's inner turmoil.  I don't know if they could hear her voice yet.  One website says yes and another no.   I feel anxious.  October 8th started off as perfectly as today.  I think that we will stay home all day and hold my breath until it is over.  Then I read the words in my little book... There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears has not been made perfect in love.  1 John 4:18  I can't believe that is the scripture for today!  I read it to the girls a few times.  I whisper to the pink sky.  Oh God please help me to be perfected in your love!  I don't understand so many things.  I don't know how to face each day bravely when the outcome is veiled... how to trust you are with me when I know what feelings of abandonment can seize us in a an instant as life turns on its head.  But here are your words in black and white-  Perfect love casts out fear!  Drive it far from me today and embrace me with your love as I embrace the mystery of this truth!

And He did.  I packed the girls up and started with a trip to the store.  We have read books in Makiah's room and looked at her pictures and cried (well, I did anyway... little ones just wanted to slobber on them!).   We made oatmeal cookies together... sort of.  The main ingredients included several spills, screaming (the twins), and laughter (me- what else can you do?).   So now we are eating hot, yummy cookies and celebrating instead that today I am 16 weeks and 5 days pregnant with what appears to be another little princess!  What was a disastrous day during my last pregnancy,  has turned out to be a perfectly ordinary, messy one this time.  And I whisper again... this time a thanks for the embrace of peace breathed into me in early morning light.

A Resurrection

Makiah's Daddy says bedtime prayers with her the same as every night.   Sun beating on our backs.  He names each family member in the order that she likes.  Tears and names intermingle with sobs barely suppressed.  He prayers for her his daily special requests.  Words straining to reach the throne room but seeming instead to drop like weighty rocks into hard, uncaring earth that has just been dug.  Her Daddy sings Jesus Loves Me just like every night.  Voice cracking.  Faltering.  The people have all gone except a few who stand in waiting.  He finishes... "the Bible tells me so."  Kisses her good night.   Tiny, pink roses and  delicate petals all around.  I lean down and press quivering lips into the dainty pink smocking across her chest.  As if to kiss her heart again.  One last time.  Before they close the little, white box forever.  Before we drive away.  Just the two of us.

And it seems that all fairy tales are lies.  That my wistful, childhood dreaming of a life that ends with happily ever after are being sealed up in that little box with red clay piled up on top.  We kissed the princess, but in this story she does not wake up.   At least not yet.

As I sit here now, typing, the seconds and minutes of our final goodbye at the grave-site are etched in my memory as clear as glass.  But I read that I see through the glass but dimly.  When the blackness of despair creeps in and covers over my eyes lately, I push back with a thought.  Words penned to me in a card after she died.  "There is a Resurrection!"  I say it out loud.  "There is a Resurrection!"  I say it again, and courage begins to rise.  "There is a Resurrection!"   Despair shrinks back and hope fills the foggy mirror of my view instead. 

Last year on Easter I wrote that Jesus tomb is empty and so is Makiah's room.  Tomorrow is Easter again, and I can't help but notice it falls exactly 18 months from her heaven day.  It has been a year and a half  since she went home to be with Him.  But this year I can write that Jesus tomb is empty and so will Makiah's be!  The princess will indeed arise... as will all of us who have "... fallen asleep in Christ!"  It is my hope.  It is my lifeline.  It pushes back the dark thoughts now.  But one day it will push back the dark decay of Death once and for all!  There is a Resurrection!

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."  1 Corinthians 13:12

Pressing

There are little teeth that need brushing in our house again.  I dig under the sink for Makiah's toothbrush holder.  I pull it out to wash it and then look inside.  There on the bottom is that dried up toothpasty stuff that drips off of used toothbrushes.  And I stop still.  I stare with eyes wide.  I can't wash it away.  It is gross, but it is evidence of her here.  Of the realness of a little girl whose mermaid toothbrush dripped wet every morning and night.  Proof that she really lived with us and laughed with us and was tangibly here with us.  So I put it back.

Later I am looking through her hair bows to see if any will work with the twin's fine, baby hair.  I pull out a tiny, pink bow with a heart.  There is blonde hair still hanging from the clip.  What should I do with these traces?   I can't wipe them away.  Not now.  I put the clip in a special place and give up on my hair bow hunt.  It is too painful.

I read something by Jerry Sittser in "A Grace Disguised" recently that comes to mind in these moments.  "Forgiveness is a lifelong process, for victims of catastrophic wrong may spend a lifetime discovering the many dimensions of their loss.  I have no vain notions that I have finally and forever forgiven the one who was responsible for the accident.  I may have to forgive many times more... for these (future) events will remind me not only of gracious gifts given but also of precious people taken away.  Though forgiveness may not have an ending, it has a beginning."

And we have begun.  But each of these unpredictable moments when the breath is snatched from your body brings a fresh wash of grief.  And a fresh opportunity to forgive.  People talk about "walking in forgiveness," but we rarely think about the difficult pressing that comes with lifting heavy feet ever forward.  Maybe they feel lighter after miles of trudging? 

Pressing.  I heard a teacher this morning say that no one can choose to press for you.  They can pray for you and encourage you.  But only you can decide for yourself that you will press on... past the pain... to do what is right... to be who God wants you to be... to do what He has for you... to the eternal prize that Paul writes about.                   

The pressing is not unique to me.  We each must choose to press forward or else be squeezed out and away from the full life that can be ours.  And so today I call out for strength to press forward!  And also for grace to see that messes of toothpaste by the sink (our children's or our spouse's!) are not gross... but beautiful.  Markers of moments made precious by the ones who filled them... not to be passed by or wiped up too hastily. 


"Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth!"  Hosea 6:3