One Year

From this:

to this:



Everything I want to say seems so cliched so I'll simply say that tonight my tears are infinitely sweeter than they were a year and a day ago.

A more beautiful me

They swirl and flutter around me, bright as birds, their words coming at me from every direction. My nickname echoes down the hallway, shouted exuberantly.

"Lindiebooooo!"

"You look hot, Lin!"

"I love that skirt! You made it? That's awesome!"

"You're so talented."

I watch them, fascinated. They are tall and small, short hair and long, curls and heavy flowing strands, pale skin with blue eyes, darker with glowing brown, and a fascinating green thrown into the mix. Every one of them captures me, takes my breath away. That they love me, that they want to hang out with me and run to hug me and love my baby makes me astonished. My girls, that's how I think of them.

I'm not a natural with teenagers, ask anyone. I wasn't a graceful teen myself, in any sense of the word. I grew too fast to achieve any sort of comfort with my body; for years I was all gangly arms and legs, forever tripping over any random thing. My figure developed fast but late. And my beliefs were never compatible with a high school environment. So, scarred by high school, I found myself intimidated by teenagers for years regardless of the fact that I was older, more confident in my identity and had fought much bigger battles.

Until now. Until these girls. I don't know how it happened, exactly. Suddenly one day they were there, a beautiful part of my life. Suddenly I was privileged to hear their secrets and dreams, share in their hopes for the future. Suddenly their parents were thanking me for "spending time" with their kids. I always find myself mumbling something about "my pleasure" when that happens but what I really want to say is:

"Are you kidding me? I am SO getting the better end of the deal here."

"Your daughter is a treasure."

"Her heart is amazing. I am humbled."

"I love every minute of time I spend with her."

I can never get myself together enough to articulate that but that's what I want to say.

I often fall asleep at night with my girls on my mind. I think of all the challenges they face in life. Being a teen girl is different now than it was when I was younger. Some of these girls are handling things that blow my mind. I have no idea what to say to them half the time and I pray for wisdom on the fly, that what I say would build them up, that I would root them in a foundation that is firm, that they would know their incredible value, worth and beauty. Because this is what I hear from their lips, the regugurgitation of what the world is telling them:

"I'm too thin. I don't have enough of a shape."

"I need to lose weight. But at least I know if a guy likes me now, before I change, he likes me for who I am and not how I look."

"My hair is too curly. I wish it was straight."

"I'm too short."

"I'm a giant!"

It makes me want to cry. I wish I could show them how I see them in my mind, peacock-bright, shining like stars, each of them unique and amazing. I see their beautiful hearts, each one so gifted in a different way. They are passionate and quiet, strong and gentle, caring and intelligent, clever and funny, and all of them are incredibly generous in spirit. They enrich the fabric of my life; I cannot remember how it was before I recieved random text messages from them throughout the day, before they saved my life some Sunday afternoons by helping me take care of Sam, before they barreled down the hallways Sunday morning, shouting my nickname, to hug me passionately. 

If all that were not enough, they have given me one last gift, one which is truly priceless. I can finally look back and see myself at 13, 14, 15, 16 and se the girl I was then. We haven't ever been at peace, that girl and I. She said all the same things these girls say to me now. But here in the present I can be kinder to my teenage self and I can see her for who she was; a girl on the verge, someone just becoming. The seeds of Linda. I can see a more beautiful me. And I feel at peace.

One year ago today...

...we got the call that we had been selected to be the parents of a little boy, due to be born on June 25th. And life has not been the same since!









Thank God.

I love you, Samster Hamster.

Feeling so small

Sometimes I'm reminded of how small my own issues are these days.

This morning Jeff read this article. Go read it, it's short and I can wait. Because of his memory issues, he didn't immediately recognize the name of the surviving crewmember. But later in the day I got this email from a longtime friend:

Mark was able to see Lee and Stacy this evening.

Mark said that Lee was unrecognizable.  He's in the ICU and has had

multiple surgeries so far...he's extremely swollen...he has all sort of tubes coming in and out of his body...has had quite a few rods put in.

Apparently, the aircraft that Lee and the pilot were on became unstable at 20,000 ft - and they ejected.

At the time, a husband and wife were out in the middle of nowhere, and saw the plane and Lee parachuting down.

This couple was able drive out to where Lee landed and the wife was at Lee's side, while the husband was able to aid the rescuers in finding him.

This is a blessing - that helped arrived so quickly at such a critical time.

Mark met Lee's surgeon - he's prior airforce - and the surgeon's wife opened her house up for Stacy to stay...just a very nice couple.  At the moment, they are in Bakersfield...which is about an 1 hr 1/2 from Edwards AFB.

Lee will be transported to a hospital in San Diego in a few days.

Lee's parents are on their way out as well.

Stacy has been given much support from the commander and his wife, neighbors, and the wives of Lee's test pilot program.

Lee is in really good spirits.

 

love to you all!

christina

 

I put my hand over my mouth after reading the first sentence and then crumpled into tears. This would be awful news for any family to recieve but the idea of my friends having to suffer this just breaks my heart.

 

This is what I want you to know about Stacy and Lee: they were an integral part of a group of people that kept me alive and functioning when Sarge was newly ill. During that whole horrible first year when he was in the hosital more than out, when he was trying to kill himself, when he'd go for days without speaking, when medication didn't work or when it wracked his body with side effects that landed him the ER and the ICU, Stacy and Lee were there.

 

They have this huge dog, a cross between an Irish Setter and a St. Bernard. He looks like Clifford the Big Red Dog. I'm a tall person but Napolean's head comes to the top of my hip. He's the size of a small pony; I could practically ride him. He's as gentle as can be, just a really lovely animal. Stacy and Lee let me use him as my therapy dog. There were days when I just showed up at their house, my heart so heavy I could barely walk and Stacy would open the door, park me on her couch, and call Napolean. There we'd sit, the dog with his head in my lap, and I'd just pet him and pet him and pet him. Some days we'd all go for a walk. If Stacy and Lee traveled, I took care of Napolean. I spoiled him rotten those days. I just needed the companionship.

 

Stacy taught me to scrapbook. I haven't done it since; the fun of doing it was being with her, parked at her sunny kitchen table, using her cutting tools and gabbing away. The best thing about Stacy was that she never talked too much. It was okay to be quiet with her, too. The silence was beautiful, never awkward. But even with that, she never hesitated to ask me questions about Sarge's health or how he was progressing. She asked about his voices, whether he'd get better, how the medical board process was going. Things that should have been awkward to discuss, weren't.

 

During the hardest times, Stacy (along with others in my special group) sent cards to encourage me. She brought a meal when I had to have surgery. She prayed with me. I thought of myself as a flimsy wall and Stacy as one of many sturdy beams that propped me up and kept me from falling. I know I couldn't have made it without her.

 

Lee was a friend to Sarge too, during a time when friendship was extremely difficult for him. Anyone in uniform was a reminder of all that he was losing and additionally, a goad to his spirit. He felt like a failure, as though he wasn't a good provider for me, among other things. Lee embodied so many things that Sarge would never get to accomplish in his career. At that time Sarge was also wrestling with the stigma of mental illness. I won't lie, it was tough for the guys of our group to reach past the natural reticence that men feel in the face of such things but they did.  Lee prayed with Sarge, encouraged him, visited him. He asked me how I was doing. Later, when their daughter was born, he made it possible for Stacy to come out with me so that I in turn was refreshed enough to go home and serve my husband with a renewed heart.

 

And now this awful thing has happened to my friends. Time and geography have separated us but I have never forgotten the way they heaped blessing upon blessing over our small family. I think about Lee laying in the hospital and I wonder what sort of road lies before them now. I know they'll have great interim care; the military is good at that. What sort of disabilites will Lee have long term? I pray that he'll have none. I wonder what their future will hold. I don't want them to have to shoulder the burden we've borne, to have to wrestle the VA for benefits and treatment. I don't want them to know any of what we've known. I wish with all my heart that I was near enough to bring them meals and babysit their children and bless them the way they blessed us. My heart is broken into a million pieces for them. Please, if you pray, pray for my friends.

 

Parent/hack

Today was an interesting day.

At lunch we saw our neighbor from down the street wandering past on her daily walk with her four very small grandchildren in tow, a giant pickaxe firmly gripped in her right hand.  I have no idea what that was all about as she doesn't speak a lick of English but she was headed toward the park.  A few minutes later two teenagers staggered by, one of them limping with a cane.  Jeff and I speculated that the two events might be related.  Message recieved: don't cross Awuh.

Then we put Sam down for his nap.  As usual, a cacophony of bangs accompanied his incarceration.  Normally that stops in about five minutes and he's sound asleep, out like a light.  In the mean time it always sounds like an elephant is coming through the ceiling but we generally ignore it.  Our crib is one with a changing table attached the side which means that it's basically the perfect drum set for little feet.

Jeff found the banging unusual and asked me what I thought.  "Oh, it's just our son, communicating to you in Morse Code." I replied.  "'Dear Dad, How are you?  I am fine.  The weather is nice.  Please get me out of here.  Love, Sam.'"  Jeff, ignoring me, was sprinting up the steps to check on our son while I sat on the couch thinking to myself that he was fine and how cute it was that my husband still overreacts even though Sam is no longer a tiny baby.  (It's true, he really does overreact a lot.)

Suddenly from upstairs I heard Jeff's voice boom a loud "NO!  SAM, NO!"  My turn to sprint up the stairs, no longer convinced of anyone's overreaction, wondering what on earth....  Sam, our moneky, our pirate monkey, climbed out of his crib and was sitting on top of his changing table, back the room, banging merrily away on the wood between his legs, an inch of space separating his bum and a three foot fall.  I'll let you take that in for a minute.

MY NINE MONTH OLD CHILD CLIMBED OUT OF HIS CRIB ON HIS OWN AND ALMOST FELL TO HIS MERRLY LITTLE DEATH.

He wasn't sorry about it all either, the little snot.  Every single follicle of my hair is currently gray.  We cancelled the afternoon wagon ride and went on a fruitless many-hour pursuit of a crib tent that was rumored by store associates to be at that big store with the backwards "R" but which was in fact NOT there and would never be there again.  My mother ordered us one but it won't be here for a week.

In an attempt to keep Sam alive until the crib tent could come, we removed his bumpers, rightly assuming he was using them as stepladders.  And he most certainly was; without them he can't get out.  He also lost his tiny little mind at all the open space and had a crying hyperventilating panic attack.  He would. not. sleep. without. the bumpers.  This is a kid who's max cry time is 20 minutes.  He was still going strong at 45 minutes after no nap at all and a trip to the store so we took pity on him and brought him down to be with us before dinner.  We'd thought maybe a nap in the bumperless crib would help him adjust for the evening but ummmm....not so much.

That is when genius struck me.  Using several yards of grey flannel recently given to me by my friend Lorie and some old scraps of quilt binding I made curtains to tie around the outside of Sam's bed.  They're eye-achingly uncoordinated color-wise but they make for the illusion of a cozy cocoon.  He went to sleep tonight with minimal fuss (I think being tired helped too) and I ate my dinner feeling like a superhero.  Hah son, I've foiled you again!

Until next time.

Buwahahahaha!

Degrees of heat

There are times that being a parent is scary to me.  I don't mean that in a funny way, scary as in "ha ha, this kid is my mother's revenge."  I mean scary in the way that makes my pulse race, a way that makes my mind snap into that automatic mode that is never far away, a product of my days working in the hospital.  Those days I roll over  instantly awake, assesing breathing patterns, pulse, skin tone, lethargy and a million other variable in the time it takes me to say to my husband (in a carefully neutral tone) "Let me take a look at Sam.  Come here, sweetheart."

The week before last, we had too many of those days.  Sam developed a small fever before bed one day so we dosed him with Motrin and put him down to sleep as usual.  In the middle of the night I awoke to Jeff's hand on my shoulder.  He was standing at the side of the bed, Sam in his arms, asking me "At what number is a fever dangerous?  Can you look at Sam?  He's really hot."  Hot he was, burning up in fact, his temperature at 104.8 F.  "It's okay" I soothed, stripping off his sleeper, even though it was anything but.  We dosed him again with Motrin, sat him in a cool bath for as long as he would stand it and dressed him in the lightest short-sleeved onesie we had before I rocked him back to sleep.  In the morning his fever was back down and we breathed a sigh of relief.  Jeff and I were exhausted from being up all night but more exhausted from the worry that accompanies a sick child, especially OUR sick child.  Our dearly loved, hard-won, much-sought and only child.

We took him to the doctor and she pronounced him on the right side of a virus, on his way up.  She noted his nose looked a little stuffed and told us that if his fever rose again we were to admit him to the hospital right away.  This seemed strange to me at the time; normally they keep you home for fevers under 105.  We'd called the emergency line the night before and their advice to us had reflected that paradigm.  Later that week, however, we read two separate blogs, tertiary friends of mine, whose children had died of respiratory complications, one of them involving a high fever.  I found out much later that this has been a bad year; my friends are not the only ones who've lost their babies.  Many kids are severly sick.

When Sam's nose started to run in the next few days I didn't pay much attention to it because I remembered that Dr. C noted it had been stuffed.  I thought it was the end of the virus clearing out.  A few days later his chest began to rattle and he started to wheeze and I knew it wasn't the end of anything but rather the beginning.  Jeff woke me up again in the middle of the night to ask me if Sam looked like he was retracting (a breathing issue that can signal severe distress.)  Thankfully he wasn't but I was glad we had an appointment to see Dr. C. the next day all the same.  My gut told me not to let him try to fight this one on his own.   Back to the doctor we went and she grimly told us that Sam had bronchiolitis yet again, his third or fourth time this winter.  She placed him back on Amoxil for the infection and Albuterol nebulizer treatments to help his breathing.  She told me that Sam's lungs seem peculiarly susceptible to infection and because of that she was adding a new medication: Pulmicort.  We were to infuse it with the nebulizer twice a day for four weeks.

Pulmicort was a big deal to me and still is.  It's an asthma medication routinely given to children over six years of age but rarely given to babies.  The only time I've ever seen it used for babies is when a pulmonary problem exists, such as in preemies whose immature lungs need support during their first years of life.  And now Sam is on this drug and I find myself watching him closely, looking for signs of...what?  I'm not sure.  He seems fully recovered from his bronchiolitis.  He managed to pass it on to me before he was done and I turned it into a sinus infection.  (Who knows what Jeff will do with it?)  His lungs seem okay for now.  I'm hoping that the Pulmicort will buy us some time, get us through the last of this unnaturally cold and wet spring into the dry heat of summer.  Maybe by the end of a long, dry summer Sam's lungs will be strong enough to face the fall without threat of constant infection.

Until then, I'm wishing for boring nights with no racing pulse.

Safari

When I was little, I had a deep fear of Africa.  I had once heard a reference to "darkest Africa" (probably someone quoting Joseph Conrad) and in my youthful mind I took that to mean that the sun shone very dimly there.  Even as a child I was solar-powered and the thought of not seeing bright sunshine every day struck fear into my heart.  My limited knowledge of Africa also included the fact that the Sahara desert was there and that it was full of wild animals.  (That Africa had elephants was its only plus and not even my love of that particular pachyderm was enough to induce me to want to travel there.)  Put it all together, throw in some adventure stories I'd read, and this is what I knew about Africa: if you went there you would die in the middle of the desert after you got lost and your camel shriveled up from dehydration.  If you were lucky you'd get kidnapped by a tribe of bedouins, sold as a slave, and wind up in some dusty village getting speared by a native.  Or you'd get juju'd to death.

I was very, very afraid.

This was unfortunate for me because the feature of every missionary story told in Sunday School was Africa.  It seemed that if you wanted to be a missionary, that was the place you went.  I was all for serving God because I really, really loved Him but I was petrified down to my core that He was going to make me go there.  One day I asked my mother about it, afraid she'd tell me that this was one of life's hardships and that I'd have to deal with my eventual exile and death.  I remember her smiling just a little as she told me that not every missionary went to Africa and that God would not send me there if I were that scared.  "Honey, He'll prepare your heart if He wants you to go there.  He won't make you go like this."  What a huge relief!  I was so glad to be standing there on our stone driveway in the full sun, knowing I'd never have to leave the comfort of my house to get speared by hostile tribesman.

Whew.

A few years later my youngest cousin Holly was severely burned while carrying a cup of hot tea upstairs to my aunt, who had the flu.  She tripped on the way up, splashing boiling water all over the side of her face and shoulder.  I remember getting the phone call.  I remember the way the bandages wrapped around her poor little head and neck disappeared into her shirt when we saw her next.  I remember her face shiny with salve.  Mostly I remember sitting in the quiet darkness of the living room, absorbing the news that this small girl, one half of a miracle set of twins, might be permanently scarred.  I couldn't bear that thought so I bargained with God, offering Him the thing that cost me the most.  I knew He wouldn't want the locket I treasured or even the stuffed animal I'd had since infancy.  I was old enough by then to know that God doesn't want things.  But service, that was something I could see Him wanting.  So I promised Him that night if He would heal Holly without a scar on her face and neck, I would go to Africa and be a missionary for at least two years, longer if that's what He wanted.  It was the only thing I had that I thought God could truly want.

Looking back I can see how misinformed I was about God, not to mention Africa.  As an adult, I know Africa is a continent, not a country (crucial to my minsunderstanding as a child) and I also know that as a continent it is anything but homogenous.  I also know my chances of getting eaten by a wild animal or speared by someone is pretty slim provided I use my common sense.  And I don't think I'll be traveling across the Sahara by camel anytime soon.  As an adult I know that God is not a bargainer.  I can just imagine His pained sigh as I prayed with fear seventeen years ago.  There wasn't any need for that; He would have healed Holly just for the asking.  Any price that needed to be paid was paid long ago, and not by me. 

Here's where I'd like to point out that if you met my cousin today you'd never know how badly she was scalded all those years ago.  She has a relatively small scar on her shoulder that I know bothers her sometimes.  But her face and neck are pristine.  And I've yet to set foot on any part of the continent of Africa.

Last weekend our church hosted the West Africa Partnership Summit.  Africa came to me, in a sense, particularly Ivory Coast, Senegal and Togo.  The pastors I met in November came back again, spoke to us again through translators, and were in turn revived and refreshed by our hospitality.  It was a beautiful time of fellowship for all of us.  We greatly enjoyed serving them and hearing from them; they were in turn happy to be here with us, giving us perspective on their very different lives.  Their struggles are so very different from my own and yet at the heart of the matter we have so much in common.



As I listened to one of the pastors speak, I thought about the idea of the global church.  It occured to me that these men are my brothers even though we look nothing alike, don't speak more than a handful of common words, and have met only a few times.  According to what I believe, I will be spending eternity with these guys.  It made me wonder who else I bump into on the street that may be my brother and I just don't know it.  It's a good basis for thinking about people; how can I treat anyone as "less than" if they are my family?

I haven't felt afraid of Africa for a very long time but this weekend, for the first time, I actively desired to go there.  I'm not sure when a trip will happen; my time's not as free as it used to be.  But I'm sure now that my mother was right; God has prepared my heart for Africa.  When I go it will not be with reluctance, because I feel I must; it will be because I have the desire to love the people there.   I have made the most important journey right here at home, from fear into freedom.