The Valley Road of Grief

Isn't it ironic that dad's memorial would fall the week of mom's passing?  If the grief weren't so deep, we would find that aptly fitting.  Dad has missed mom with an intensity that has never lessened with time.

We have all felt the grief come in waves this past week.  Dad's memorial service was on Monday and the anniversary of Mom's passing fell on Wednesday... We have journeyed the valley one faltering step at a time.

I believe that only God can sustain a body when the sadness would crush a soul.

Dad's service was small, a private gathering of his loved ones, family and friends that cherished and loved him so.

We shared stories, we sang his favorite hymns...there were tears and there was laughter... a promise of grace for the days ahead.

And a peace that felt right as we settled their urn into the columbarium, together, just as they had planned so many years before...

Family came from near and far.  A reminder of all the good there is along the valley road.  They cheered us, loved us, cried with us, and held us as we stepped into the unfamiliar, new normal of life without dad.

Then Wednesday morning found me walking back through the doors of the columbarium, alone, bearing the yellow rose that dad always brought on the anniversary of mom's passing...

Only this time, the chair he sat in was empty...

The memorial service was finished, the family lunch served, sympathy cards read and the friends and family gone... the suddenness of being alone on this day, missing dad and feeling the weight of these 8 years since I heard mom's voice and leaned in to her hug... the tears fell unheeded and the grieving tore my heart as I sat in the chair that had always been reserved for dad. 

Now it was my turn to sit and mourn. And remember. To reflect and grieve. And simply miss their very presence like crazy.  The tears would not be stopped...

And perhaps that is exactly what I needed.  A time to stop, and breathe deep, let the tears soak through, allowing the sadness and grief to just be.  For missing mom and dad is and will be my new normal.  And so are the tears...

"There is a sacredness in tears.
They are not the mark of weakness,

but of power.
They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.
They are the messengers of overwhelming grief,
of deep contrition
and of unspeakable love."
                        ~ Washington Irving

Blessed with an unspeakable love this night,

Graced to grieve and hope and remember on this valley road...
For that is part of my new normal as well.

Resting on God's faithfulness,
Always,

     Jane

Walking out the Chaos in an Ordinary, Everyday Life

This month past has been hi-jacked by Chaos.

Pure and Simple.

Complete disorder.  Run amok.  Disheartening lows.  Crazy highs.

We moved into our long-dreamed-for Log Cabin  {Finally!}  With boxes piled high and scattered belongings in complete disarray, we can at last say, We are Home!

It's a happy chaos, this putting our life into order one messy box at a time... How we've longed for this day!

And within moments of crossing the threshold of that dream, the call came from nurses that dad was being rushed to the Emergency Room.

Breath coming in gasps, his COPD had flared and became life-threatening within hours.  Hours became days, stranded in the hospital, speaking in hushed whispers, living out of overnight bags and hanging onto each new report... Life in Chaos... striving for calm, but losing the battle as we struggled with the truth of this insidious disease.

I've decided that the clean, quiet, sterile halls of a hospital hide a frightening, scary, dark side.  Ordinary people are facing overwhelming news and difficult prognoses behind most every door we passed.   Throwing lives into turmoil...a miserable kind of chaos to be sure.

The roller-coaster ride of this COPD journey found us heading home with dad after a week of breathing treatments, heavy-duty antibiotics and LOTS of steroids.

The chaos of that week faded back into a grateful "normal" as dad found his smile (and his appetite... thank you prednisone!)  With thankful hearts, we hugged him hard and headed for a brief respite to recoup .. fall camping with friends in the hills of central Texas...

But the very next week found us back in the Emergency room with dad's breathing even worse than before.  Doctor consults, tests and IV's, the concerned murmurs... Chaos returned with a vengance.

COPD is an agonizingly slow descent into sheer panic.  The air hunger, the labored breathing, the subtle, sly loss of everyday activities we take for granted, the terrifying feeling of suffocating in the dark midnight hours... this is a chaos of the hardest kind.  Fighting an implacable disease that does not relent.

No winning. No cure. No Hope.

As dad's breathing worsened, his doctor gently approached us with the difficult news... there was nothing more that could be done to ease the ache in his lungs.

Air left the room.

We have long prepared ourselves for this moment, but there is no preparing...

Dad is transitioning into hospice care and our hearts tremble between an anguished grief for the road ahead and an intense relief that there is a comfort available for which dad is so desperate.

The hours and days to come?  A Hard Chaos that we are determined to walk out well.

We have been in this place before.

Mom walked it out almost 8 years ago, and Dad remembers well the compassion and grace offered by the hands of her hospice team.

Now, he faces the work of this last mile.

And we will be there each step of the way, he does not walk alone.  It is the prayer of our heart, the sacrifice of family from far and wide, that ensures he will be loved much in the days ahead.

That love can turn the chaos into peace... of that I am sure.

Resting in the God who makes order out of chaos and chooses to love us better than we could ever imagine.

That is Peace for tonight.

When the Familiar Slips Away...

I am utterly spent... my heart aches and I have struggled for words to wrap up these long days past.

2 weeks ago, Dad sold his house.  That's the black and white of it.

But, oh, it covers a multitude of deep and hard emotions...

That house... our home.  The place we all last remember mom, sitting in her recliner, smiling happy... cooking up a storm in her kitchen... entertaining friends joyful around her welcoming table... the boisterous Christmas celebrations all together...

That home is now empty... belongs to strangers... and the weeks leading up to the sale have been hard... filled with packing, so much packing and sorting... and talking... reminiscing... and just plain hard work, inside and out...

The sale makes sense.  It does, in the black and white of it all... After Dad moved into the assisted living at the end of the year, his house sat empty, utility bills piling up, taxes coming due.

The realtor was compassionate, but a bull-dog, and the home sold quickly... estate sale was a whirlwind, and all of a sudden, much too soon, the house was empty...

That was a hard thing... closing that front door and walking away from all the memories we have made over the years...

A piece of our heart remains...

for this has been a home filled with love and laughter

Being gentle with ourselves these days as we allow the sadness, weep over the goodbye, trace the legacy created here, and determine to carry the joy forward.

Trusting in the strength of family and God's sweet Grace

as we walk into our next chapter... with Hope

For There is Hope even in the midst of transition,

My Love, Always,

            Jane

A New Christmas Wrinkle...

Losing Mom right before Christmas has become a complicated part of our journey.

Pancreatic cancer didn't care about our wonderful Christmas traditions, nor the pain her death would cause each year as we faced the season without her... these past 5 years have seen our traditions change in many ways as we try to balance the beauty and grace of Christmas with the aching loss we will always feel.

And this year the tightrope of balance has been shaken hard, for after much agonizing, too many health  scares, and oh, so much prayer, Dad has made the decision to move into an Assisted Living Home.

This past month has been an emotional cauldron.

Decisions, questions, tours, talking, praying, discussing... and finally deciding...

Deep breath.  {It will be ok}

Dad has chosen a beautiful new facility just down the street.  And he moved in with a smile born of equal amounts grace and grit. This has not been easy.

We are calling it his apartment... and decorating like mad... making it home... learning new names to go with new faces... developing new routines... finding our footing...

It would seem that Christmas in our family is destined to be colored by change.  Even as I long for those traditions that comfort and soothe, we are breaking from the old and preparing for the new...

And a lightbulb blinks on in this weary head of mine... for that is exactly what Christmas is all about... yes?

A Christ-Child born to us... come to make all things new... for the old will pass away in the light of his wholly transforming gift of Grace.

 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away;behold, all things are become new."

 II Corinthians 5:17

Amen... Amen... Balm to this aching heart...

{It will be ok!}

Hitting the Pause Button...

Right here... in the middle of our 31 Day Challenge, we are hitting the Pause Button...

And taking Dad on a trip.  The kind of trip that makes breathing easier and living richer.  It has been a hard year and it's time to redeem those miserable, gray days!

We are boarding the Celebrity Summit today for a 7 day cruise in the Southern Caribbean...

Dad and his kids, together, celebrating life with all we've got!

It is his favorite thing to do... and we are planning on some legacy living out on the high seas :-)

Pictures and stories sure to come in the days ahead.  And while we're taking a Pause on this 31 Day Challenge, there is so much still to share on The Truth About Cancer.   We will be back in 7 days to finish up what we've begun... promise!

Until then... Bon Voyage and Happy Sailing!

An Unconventional Solution...

An elderly parent...

A chronic illness...

Widowed and alone...

What's a family to do?

Ya'll have followed our journey...you know how Mom's pancreatic cancer diagnosis hit from out of the blue and tore our hearts into shreds.  It was never supposed to be like this!  Mom was younger than dad, healthier than dad and certain to live longer than dad... assumptions that we realized much too late left us anchorless and clueless as how to live life well without her.

And these last few years have seen us stumble through the journey in rather regular bursts and sputters.

The grieving, the growing, the learning...we've all come to accept (but not always like) the new normal of our lives.

That new normal revolves around Dad.  For all of us...

But mostly, that new normal has happened for me and my brothers...

Through these past few years, it has increasingly fallen on us to make sure he was cared for emotionally and physically. 

We carefully navigated the obstacle course of respecting his independence while at the same time ensuring his safety and quality of life at home.

And then the emergencies and hospital stays began.  For the past 8 months we have experienced multiple health crises and emotional decisions...

Rehab centers and a army of specialists... 

Tests and prescriptions and nebulizers and therapists...

Dr appts and naps...

Breakfasts and lunches and dinners...

And thru it all dad has wanted, desperately, to stay in his home.  Would we be any different??

Watching his favorite tree blossom in the spring...

Enjoying fellowship and shortcake with a visiting brother-in-law...

Sitting out on his own patio, just because he can...

(wind was nippy that day, blanket cocoon!)

Dinner party with family...in his own dining room...

And breakfast in his favorite recliner...

And so... in a God-thing, perfect timing, never underestimate your strength or His plan kind of way, the Farmer and I found ourselves between homes, and very available to step in and be the help he needed.

The between-homes part has been a journey in and of itself and perhaps one of these days I will find the words to share the back story of our grand adventure {and the way some dreams take on a perfectly splendid life of their own}

But the between-homes part is where we are now and we've come to realize with greater clarity than ever before how God placed us in this space and time for a ministry so much larger than we could ever have imagined.

We have become the Care-Givers for Dad.  In a rather unconventional way.  Rather than move him to our home, we've taken over his guest room and become, simply, the hands and feet he needs for this portion of his life's journey.

These past 8 months have been filled with a completely full and overwhelming amount of emotional baggage, and I'd be lying if I said that it's been all roses and rainbows.  I have shared much about the real (and ugly) part of caregiving... it's true, we're not saints, just real,(so real) love-you-no-matter-what, don't-have-a-clue-how-to-do-this kind of people.  We've been there.  We are there... 

It's been the little things as well as the big ones. The mundane and the monotonous mixed in with the frantic and dramatic.  Fixing the meals, minding the meds, watching his favorite sports with him, paying the bills, midnight ER runs, picking up milk, trimming the rose-bushes, changing the sheets, wringing our hands waiting on test results, wrangling with insurance, chauffeuring to dr appts, giving hugs, listening to stories, cleaning toilets and doing laundry... and always, always watching the time dwindle.

And we know that day is coming...

So, for today, we will fix a meal, dole out meds, watch some pre-season football

and give a big hug.

Just because we are Blessed to be able to.

It is Grace enough for this moment...

Love, Always,

            Jane