maybe there's hope

His watch continues to count the hours and minutes as they pass. His dress watch sits on my brother’s arm and his work-out ironman watch sits on mine. His watch does not tell time for him, but counts the time that has flown by since his spirit left the earth.

It has begun to sink in, as I wrap his watchband tightly around my wrist, wishing I could tightly wrap my arms around his living and breathing body, that he is not coming back to us.

The bible and our faith promises us, assures us, that there is more. Faith is hard and confusing and weird, but if it were easy it would not be real. If there was no need to trust, what would a relationship with God look like? There are things we are not meant to understand and questions we must learn to stop asking. God has wrapped us with the goodness and faithfulness of our family & friends, but we still must ride this rollercoaster, strapped in with no exit.

The rollercoaster has moments with beautiful views, memories, wind in our faces, but also moments that leave your stomach feeling as if it is a few feet below you, your heart racing, palms sweaty, praying you’ll survive. Life would certainly be boring without the high highs and the low lows of this rollercoaster, I get that. We would cease living if everything felt flat like a pancake or Midwestern prairie. We must live, not fearful of death or completely changed by it, but aware that life is precious, each day a blessing. 

What made my dad so loveable and why he is missed so much is because he lived with energy, excitement, faith, compassion, love. He signed up for the rollercoaster and he did not chicken out- he did not sit on the sidelines. He loved. He cared. He hooped. He hollered. He danced. He laughed. He made others dance. He made others laugh. He filled us with warmth. He reminded us to pray. He inspired us to work hard. He loved so well.

My mind is filled with maybes. Maybe he’s not really gone.  Maybe it hasn’t actually been more than two weeks since he breathed in oxygen. Maybe his plane didn’t crash.

Maybe he will be there to walk me down the aisle. Maybe he will be around to hold his grandchildren. Maybe he will still sprint past me at the Marble Falls triathlon. Maybe he’ll still hold my mom’s hand as they drive down the highway.

Maybe he’ll come home and lay on his side of the bed so that I won’t have to. Maybe he’ll still meet my brother to play golf. Maybe he’ll still call William in a funny accent or to ramble about baseball. Maybe he’ll still take inventory of Mary’s pantry when we go out to the Chen’s house together. Maybe that buzzing overhead is not a stranger in an unknown plane, but my dad, buzzing the house.

Maybe he’ll build that fence with Drew like he talked about. Maybe they’ll still go smoke cigars and have a man date before our wedding. Maybe we’ll still text about if we’ll dance to “Johnny B Good” or “the Wobble” at our wedding.

Maybe this is not happening. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Just when I think this can’t get more painful, just when I find it too hard to breathe and have to concentrate really hard to swallow, hope forces its way in with those maybes. It’s not a huge amount of hope, but it’s there nonetheless.

Maybe we can get through this. Maybe my mom is as strong as she seems. Maybe all those prayers are paying off. Maybe peace that goes beyond reasoning or understanding exists. Maybe life is not fair, but life is still good. Maybe accidents happen and there is nothing we can do. Maybe if others have done this, we can too. Maybe God’s timeline is vastly different from ours, and days and years have a whole different meaning in Heaven. Maybe He loves us more than we know. Maybe we must press on.

Maybe this is just a stage in the grieving process. Maybe someday I’ll think of my dad and not want to cry out in sorrow, or hit something. Already my smile is genuine, not forced, when I think of the love he had for his family and the zest he had for life. Maybe we are called to emulate that, and move forward. Maybe we are to have more faith, and fewer questions. Maybe we are to have fewer possessions, and more memories and actions. Maybe we are called for more, and we must answer that call. 

where we are now

Where we are right now…

It’s starting to feel real. I think of funny things to text my dad, but I can’t. I have a quick question and want to call him, but I can’t. I miss my dad with every fiber of my being. People ask “how are you?” and I want to shake them by the shoulders and yell “HOW DO YOU THINK I AM!?” 

And yet, I’m beyond grateful for all of the people who have written cards, who have known exactly what to say, who haven’t known what at all to say but have shown up, who’ve brought food or toilet paper or plants or flowers or made donations in my dad’s memory.  I’m thankful for all the people who have checked on us, who have told stories, who have shared our dad’s life with us. I’m thankful for all the people, through the love of God, who have reminded us to keep living, keep breathing.

 My family, the three of us plus our new two, (Mom, Gentch, Amy, Drew) are beyond blessed. We have been SO prayed over. I have never felt more at peace. Yet, this week has been painful. My entire body hurts. My mind is scattered. It is a rollercoaster to be sure, and though doubt has not crept in about the power or love of Christ, the missing and grieving my dad’s amazing presence in my life has started.

The more I continue to fall deeper in love with Drew Prochaska, and prepare to become his wife, the more I realize what my mom has lost.

I am thankful for what we all had with my dad – the blessing of an active, involved, funny father, and a loving, devoted, passionate, quirky, hilarious, loyal husband. I wonder, how many people are not even given that gift?  I groan or feel sorry for myself, for my family, that we’ve lost him so young, so early – but at least we had him at all. Many people have absent or abusive fathers, or loveless marriages, or flames that have gone out – not us. My parents marriage was alive and well (though full of feistiness) and my dad was about as great as they come on this planet. Neither their marriage nor his parenting was flawless- but he was so real. He was so alive.

I am so thankful and find myself rejoicing that we have something to miss.

It’s getting painful over here, this breathing in and out every day. But it’s also so amazing to see the legacy my dad left, the impact he had, and the work God has been doing in all of us since Dad’s death.

I’ll close these ramblings with a final thought:  anyone who finds the concept of the “trinity” or “holy spirit” weird or full of hocus pocus is really missing something. I have never felt “the Spirit” more alive and well as the days since my dad’s plane crashed. I feel uplifted through prayer, I sense the power of God through others’ words, I feel myself and my family beginning to heal. The healing is excruciating, but it is real. I know I was able to speak at my dad’s service only through the grace of God and the power of His spirit – and though that may sound crazy, I know it to be truth.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your prayers, kind words, support, love, and friendship. I pray you’ll continue to ask how we’re doing, to check on my mom, to love on my brother. We are strong because of the Lord’s provision and the outpouring of friends.

Romans 8:26

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

dad

*I wrote this in November 2011, and posted it for Fathers Day in June. I'm filled with gratitude that by God's grace I was able to see my dad for what he was: a gift. A funny, hilarious, wise, feisty, devoted, adventurous, loving Dad. 

"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." -Helen Keller

I hate that it takes me losing something to find out just how much I loved it. The thought of losing my dad, after watching some of my closest and dearest friends lose theirs, well, the thought makes me feels as though someone has hold of my insides and is twisting their hand and clenching a fist.

I have my dad – a wonderful, loving, giving, funny, fireball of a man – everyday. To call or text or harass or hug. Everyday. What a gift.

He went to Mexico for four days last weekend to see his dad, a man he learned much from, about life and loving well and parenting. I thought of my dad in Mexico as I sat at my desk in Houston – a desk and a job I would not have if not for my dad (and mom, too.) His influence and encouragement to “give back” and “love your country” and “swing for the fences” fueled my application to intern at the White House, and that opportunity has led me literally everywhere else after.

I thought of my dad, barely taller than me yet so much wiser, and longed to hug him. Longed to tell him how much he means to me and how much he defines me and how truly blessed I am to have known him twenty-five years.

I was not worried he would not make it back from Mexico, just as I do not really worry my pilot father will die in a plane crash – he’s living life. Why would I want to worry about doing what we’re called to do: live bravely?

My friends and my students who are less fortunate than I remind me that my hero of a dad is  not something everyone’s got at their house, in their corner, in their world. As a teacher with Teach For America, I saw numerous kiddos with absent dads, or dads who brought pain into the lives of their children. I came to appreciate mine in a way I never had before. That day, sitting at my desk, I wanted to hug mine. I’m not great at hugs, something I most definitely inherited from him. So I did what I can do: I wrote.

I remember being carried on my dad’s shoulders often as a child, sunlight all around me, my five year old feet dangling with his hands safely wrapped around my ankles. I did not think, there on my dad’s shoulders, of one day being an “adult” nor what devastating sorrows and delightful joys life would one day bring. I did not know, either, that I would, in many ways, be propped on my dad’s shoulders for always.

The founder of the charter school where I taught in 2009-2011 often talked about building upon the work and success of those who have gone before us. He says: “We stand on the shoulders of giants.” My dad may not literally be a giant, but for me, that is an everyday truth.

complacency

*I wrote this last summer, July 2011, and am posting it now to share. Thank you for reading. 

Complacent, according to Webster, is when someone is “self satisfied, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.”

I am complacent on a daily basis regarding numerous things, and it is not pretty nor something of which I am proud. There are days I grow lazy in my faith, secure and happy and therefore have no need for discipline or my bible or even still silence.

Scripture tells us the Lord has plans for us. Yet I have shaken my fist towards the heavens several times at these plans. Jay Chenoweth’s cancer, hardships I’ve seen in others’ lives, the obstacles I faced after joining Teach for America. In pain, a loud, questioning “Why” has escaped from my lips, even as I know I should trust. And even recently, watching events removed from own life unfold, I wonder at the “plan for good. ” When an innocent firefighter dies while taking his son to a baseball game: tragedy that appears needless is all around us.

In my own time of rest and slowing things down a few notches these past five weeks, I have been hit in the face with what I take for granted. I have seen with new eyes the numerous blessings of my life. There is a lot of mess in this world, and quite frankly, people who are horrible parents. I speak not even of the ones that try their best and fail, no, I speak of parents abandoning, neglecting, abusing their children. I’ve witnessed it in 77024, one of the wealthiest zip codes in the entire nation, as well as 77099, where it is not uncommon for drive-bys and robberies and drug deals to happen daily.

Through no merit of my own, I have two of the most wonderful, life-giving, uplifting, caring parents on the planet. Two! I know so many out there who only have one, so I am twice blessed to be sure.

This time last year my mom had just wrapped up six weeks of radiation therapy to beat the cancer that had grown inside of her. I am not sure why she was given a green “go” card, while others have been handed the red “stop” card in life. But it is not our role or our responsibility to understand. We can and will as humans go crazy, literally crazy I believe, trying to make this puzzle of life fit. This is not a cookie cutter world. Things do not always add up.

But I know this: time with my mom is sweet. It is a gift that I hope I never take for granted again. Though she annoys me when she talks so loudly (we’re in the same room, no need to shout), or she wears strange clothes from time to time, or even as she says embarrassing things, she is my mom. In a world where those around me have loved ones taken from them in an instant, such as the young children from Briargrove who made the news last week when their parents died in a car crash while returning from Colorado, I am appreciate of mine more than ever.

Friday night my mom and I spoke in British accents and watched “The King’s Speech,” wearing sweaty workout clothes because neither of us felt like showering after a Pilates class. It was not glamorous, it was not something out of the ordinary, and yet, it was blissful. I am not sure that life gets better than those small moments.

Though I realize today as I my fingers toss out words on this computer, I may sound a bit sad. But the truth is, I have never felt more joy. I do not operate from a place of fear or frustration, but simply walk in the light that this life I’ve got is good. These people I’ve been given are incredible.

I desire no longer to be complacent with loved ones, to treat them as if there are not “actual dangers” as the dictionary says, to ignore the fact that life is a gift, that though “The grass withers and the flowers fade the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8

My prayer for any readers, friend or stranger, is that you find the time this month, this day, this hour, to love the ones you’ve been given to love, and to feel their love back. 

Jeremiah 29:12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.