Love Never Dies 2016

I could stop writing blog posts right now. I wrote the first post as an outlet to release the frustrations of dealing with my perception of an unfair world. I kept writing because I found I had more to say. I kept writing because I had lost my mother to cancer just a few weeks before my first post. This year that we call two thousand and sixteen ends today. The naming of the years is helpful in navigating our lives, but has no real basis in reality. Marking the trips our planet makes around an insignificant star in an infinite cosmos is an act in futility. In the infinite, you cannot mark time because there is no end and there is no beginning. Saying that I am writing my last blog post would be a guess at this point. I have no idea if I will ever type another sentence or draw another breath. And the cold hard reality and the beautiful possibility is that none of us do.

Soon after I began dating the love of my life, she introduced me to a film from 1971 called Harold and Maude. It’s known as a dark comedy. It was a box office flop and panned by critics. It was seen as distasteful and depressing. But I fell in love with this movie and more deeply in love with the woman who first showed me the film. This movie challenges us to rebel against conformity and to never settle for complacency. It teaches us to embrace life and all of its potential, but also all of its challenges. It assures us that change is what makes life beautiful and that includes death. As the character Maude says, “It's all change. All revolving. Burials and births. The end to the beginning and the beginning to the end.” But change is painful. How can we find beauty in pain? It’s a question that artists, poets, scholars, writers, clerics, and philosophers have attempted to portray an answer to since the beginning of our conscious existence. I certainly do not have an answer. But I understand that we must walk through the deepest and darkest forests to emerge into the vast openness of the horizon that is always waiting for us hanging over the sea filled with brilliant colors and light.

There is a scene in the movie Harold and Maude in which Harold gives Maude a gift as they walk near the sea. She tells him it’s beautiful and then she casts it wildly into the ocean.  Harold looks startled.  Maude says, “So, I’ll always know where it is.” It’s an important moment in the movie. If casting a token of affection into the vastness of the ocean means that it will never be lost, then how can we lose anything? Or anyone? They are always there in the vastness of the heavens. The token that Harold gave Maude now swishes about on the seabed, or hangs upon some coral reef, maybe new life in the form of coral has now sprung forth from it, or maybe it hitched a ride on the back of a sea turtle and traveled to an exotic island where the local natives now see it as a sign from a distant world. But the love expressed by that token remains with Maude. Our loved ones that leave us travel the galaxies, adventure through the infinite, but they remain with us. The true essence of who they were, are, and always will be remain within us in the form of love. 

Love never dies.

So to the year 2016 I say you have been my darkest stretch of forest yet. I know it will grow darker still. But shafts of light have already blasted through the crevices between the boughs and limbs overhead and give me courage and hope to keep moving toward the constant light that is always on the horizon.

The Gift by Guest Blogger Randy

Guest Post by Randy 

From LeGette:

 I am thankful for the gift of this guest post written by my brother Randy.  Every creative effort I have made has been inspired and nourished by him. As children, he taught me to create imaginary worlds where my Teddy Bear played in a hard rock band and lived in a fancy apartment in my desk drawer. A world where the ultra clean cut police from the TV show Adam-12 were replaced with cops more like Dirty Harry. A world where improvisational songs about his roommate's smelly shoes could tell an hour long story.  He taught me that as long as we can be creative, we are never confined to this earth. We can go anywhere and we can be whoever we want. 

Luke 24:5 “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

The Gift

Often in literature and motion pictures, the question is raised, “what if you could have one more day with the departed?” My family received that gift last Christmas.

My mother had been valiantly fighting cancer for almost three years. Although she put up a brave front, in the final few months of the disease, it had clearly taken its toll. The double edged sword of chemotherapy had aged her tremendously. It had slowed her walk, shortened her breath, affected her mood and mental clearness, and revealed to the rest of us what we already knew but did not speak of. Her time remaining was short.

As we approached the holidays, this reality cast a dark cloud over our family and spirit. Joyous festivities of cooking, shopping, wrapping presents were replaced with hospital visits and doctor consultations.

Thanksgiving came and went; my mother was present at the table but had no appetite. She was unusually quiet and withdrawn.

Despite these changes that we all could see, my eldest brother planned a family reunion Christmas gathering at his house. It was scheduled just a few days before Christmas. We weren’t sure if my mother would even feel up to attending. However, invitations were sent and accepted, and our entire extended family, 25 strong and spread out over hundreds of miles, gathered on a Sunday afternoon.

And a glorious afternoon it was. The sky was of a brilliant blue that would have made Van Gogh envious.  On what typically would have been a cold day in our city, instead was a borrowed day from June, with temperatures flirting in the low 80s. And as if time was suspended for this one day, my mother arrived renewed, refreshed, her fashion reputation intact; dressed in her finest holiday attire with matching accessories.

Her smile was as brilliant as the sun, her disposition as light as the breeze that accompanied us as we gathered for an outdoor photograph. She relished holding the great-grandchildren newborns, playing with the toddlers, and engaging in conversations with the older grandchildren, about their lives and future plans.  My Dad never took his adoring eyes off of her, their 6 decade marriage on display as a life and love lesson for all gathered.

For that one day, we did not talk about doctors.

For that one day, we did not talk about hospitals.

For that one day, we did not talk about cancer.

For that one day, we got our mother back.

And on that one day, once again she was the strong, beautiful, radiant, rock of our family.

After exchanging gifts and many hugs, the day ended as quickly as it had begun. And reality returned on the back of the setting sun.

Mom passed away 8 weeks later, her frail body mercifully granted rest.  As long as I live I will never forget that December day. Out mother returned to us that glorious day, a Christmas gift above all others past and present.  

I thank God for that gift.

And I no longer look for the living among the dead.

Giving Thanks in the Face of Hoplessness

Thanksgiving will never be the same again. My mother was always at her happiest when family gathered together to share food and laughter. This year we will all miss the enthusiasm that my mother displayed for all things holiday related. I knew this was coming. I knew that it would be a difficult day. But until November 12, I had no idea how hopeless I would feel this Thanksgiving.

The election results kicked me in the gut and left me with a sick feeling. It feels like the time I wiped out on my bike and the handlebar made a direct hit to my spleen. I was bleeding internally. It’s a uniquely sick type of feeling. I was sweating, but cold to the touch. I felt completely wiped out. I could not catch my breath at first, and then felt an overwhelming desire to just let go and fall asleep. My parents arrived home just as the neighbor called to check on me. The neighbor had helped me get home after the wipeout, but assumed my parents were home because both cars were there. But my parents had gone for a boat ride on the lake we lived on.

It was not that unusual when I was a teenager to find me taking a snooze in the middle of the day. But after the phone call, my mother came to check on me. My mother was a certified medical assistant and had worked in the medical field for several years at the time of my accident. She gently woke me up. She had that motherly look of concern on her face. She asked me details about the accident. She asked what happened when I got home. When I reported that I had vomited, I saw the worry grow on her face. She felt my head. I might have said something like, “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” I was accident prone, but I had never felt sick in this way before as a result of any previous falls or crashes. Mom said that we needed to see a doctor.

Dad drove us to the hospital in the city which was about a 30-minute drive. I believe we made it much quicker than that. Hospital regulations required that I sit in a wheelchair. As we waited to see the Doctor, I began to start feeling like myself again. My parents were beginning to doubt the rush to the hospital as I started racing around and popping wheelies in the wheelchair. We might have left except that the doctor arrived at just the right time. If we had left, I would not be typing this sentence right now. I would have been the first in my immediate family to leave this realm. By earthly measure, it would have been a long wait for my mother to join me. In cosmic time, it probably would have felt instantaneous.

The Doc took me to an examination room. He said that he was going to poke around my abdomen and I should let him know if I felt pain anywhere at all. He poked me under the left ribcage. I felt an immediate searing pain in my right shoulder. I remember telling him that it might seem strange but that his prodding in my gut had made my shoulder hurt. He stood up and said,” Yep. That’s your spleen.” They brought my parents in and explained that I had most likely ruptured my spleen. They would need to inject a dye into my blood and look at my spleen on an x-ray to see if it was bleeding. He explained that spleens were unnecessary organs and that if it was bleeding that they would need to do emergency surgery to remove it.

I’m much like my mother. Inside I am a ball of nerves, but I can display calm when crisis hits. So my mother and I both displayed calmness while our insides churned. This was major surgery. I watched on a screen the short x-ray video of blood leaking out of what they said was my spleen. I had never heard of a spleen before, but they made it sound no more important than tonsils or an appendix. Dying during surgery never occurred to me. But as a parent of teenagers now, I realize that must have been a real fear for my mom and dad at that moment.

My parents had to wait in the hall while the nurses prepped me for surgery. They had to shave the peach fuzz off of my belly where the incision would be made. They let my parents back in to see me off to surgery. They were all smiles and full of reassurances. I was in good hands. The doctor would take good care of me. As the nurse showed up to wheel the gurney to the O.R. my mother and father told me they loved me. My mother stroked my hair with one hand and held my hand with her other for as long as she could until the nurse said to them, “This is where we have to leave you. He will be fine.” I looked back at my parents and saw the color draining from their faces.

Then it was through the doors to the operating room and suddenly there was a rush of activity around me. A man dressed in scrubs and wearing a mask came to my side and talked to me. He said that he would be monitoring me during the surgery. He would make sure that I was OK. He also said that he was going to inject something into the I.V. that would put me to sleep and that when I woke up I would be in recovery. Then came instant darkness and all awareness was gone. It seemed only a moment passed and I was awake in a different part of the hospital. It took a minute to remember why I was there.

A friendly nurse greeted me with, “Good morning! Glad you decided to wake up!
There are people waiting outside who are eager to see you." 

My mother was first through the door. She had that look you get when you are bracing yourself for a potentially shocking sight. Would I look gaunt? Would I have tubes running everywhere?  Her face was prepared for these possibilities and more, but only for an instant. Her expression immediately changed to one of pure joy. Her son was fine. Dad was immediately behind her and was already smiling and saying, “How ya doin’, buddy?” Mom told me how happy she was that I was alright and how worried she had been. My parents loved me in that deep way that you don’t even know exists until you become a parent yourself. 

It is a burdensome kind of love. 

A love intertwined with hopes and fears.

It’s that love for my children that weighs so heavily upon me this Thanksgiving. I am afraid for them as I witness the emboldening of white nationalists. I watched in disgust as grown white people made Nazi salutes to our President-elect. I am discouraged by his weak response to the clear rise in hate crimes stirred up by his divisive rhetoric. I fear that my children have a long battle ahead. I worry that they will face bigotry because they are not Christian or white.  I struggle to put on the “everything is going to be OK” face that my mother was so good at.      

          Today we give thanks.

  And I understand that my privileged status gives me much to be thankful for, but with an awareness that finding comfort in that privilege is shameful. I am thankful that I am alive. I am thankful that my mother recognized an emergency when she saw one. I am thankful for the love that my parents gave me. I am thankful for the memories of my mother overseeing the family gatherings that made her so happy. I am thankful that I will create new memories with my wife and children.

And I am thankful for the burdensome love of being a father. Only this love can defeat hopelessness.