Good morning, 2012.

I think New Year's Eve is overrated.  It's my least favorite holiday.  It's possible that I have written about this before in the archives of this blog's five years, but I don't really feel like checking.  I just feel like saying I don't like New Year's Eve.

It's so high pressure.

First there's the dating scene.  If you're married or with someone, then you're supposed to have some fine, exquisite plan to ring in the new year, something memorable and remarkable.  Something to tuck away so you can later say, "Remember New Year's Eve 2007?"  And you can knowingly smile and nod.

Then there's the resolution scene.  What do you wish you could do better?  What do you wish you would do more of, less of, and ultimately what might make you a better person?  If you're not the type of person to ask yourself these questions on a daily basis, then really, why wait until it's time to buy a new calendar?

I woke up somewhat cynical this morning.  Perhaps you can read it in my tone.

Dear 2011:
You have taught me much.  I had no idea how strong I could be, how complete I truly am.  I didn't know a heartbreak could last so long, that joy could mean so much.  I didn't know.  You taught me.  Together we learned.

Of all of my years, behind and before, I am confident I will never, ever forget you.  Even though now, I barely remember you.  I think your pieces will come together in my mind.  On the timeline of my life, your numbers will be thick and bold.  Remember that year?  It was thick and bold.

I finish your last page, but I don't really close your book, because you seamlessly spill into today, a new year.  (Plus, I went to bed at 8:15, long before your official farewell.)

And that brings me to you, 2012.  Twenty-twelve.  Look at you, already with the two names.

I imagine you have a thing or two to teach me.  Please don't give me a bulleted, itemized list.  No syllabus.  It's better if I don't know.  Just, please, be kind.  And most of all, be patient.

Let's try a million recipes this year.  Let's become good friends with Betty Crocker.  Let's see what else there is out there besides chicken.

This will be my year of the baked goods.  I already have the ingredients for double chocolate chip cookies (with dried cherries in them - how about that?  We'll see.), a strawberry pie, and a coconut cream pie.  Let's bake.  And let's love people with what comes out of the oven.

Maybe we'll write a book together this year, you and me, 2012.  I've gotta tell you: 2011 and I have a solid start.  But I welcome your insights.

January 1, 2012.  Let's do this thing.

Lace Up Those Skates

Let me let you in on a family secret:

My dad taught me to rollerskate when I was five,

and he taught me the magic words that keep you from falling.

Hibbidy.  Hobbidy.  Hoobidy.

If you say those three words, you won't fall.

It's true.

And it works on ice skates, too.

By the end of the day, the boys were teaching this trick to other little skaters.  

Moms were saying to me, "What are those magic words again?"

"You guys are doing a good job getting back up again..."

They are old enough to remember the first time they went ice skating.  

Someday, they will know we did this on December 23, 2011,

on that first anniversary.

A lump caught in my throat as I was lacing Tucker's skates.

"Mommy, why are you crying?  Oh, wait... I know. I just forgot for one second.  

Mommy, just for one second.  I know you miss daddy.  I know you do."

Someday they will fathom how much I love them.

"Girl, you are hard-core determined to make room for joy in your life." 

~ my friend, Melanie O.

(Indeed, I am.)

Unnatural, Unspeakable

I cannot explain it.  It is unnatural.  Unspeakable.  Beyond human logic.  Entirely supernatural.

I am doing okay.  I really, truly am.

I have delighted in the music, the festivities, the wrapping and the giving.  My heart is light and full.  I'm smiling.

What is that old adage? "Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow."  I have felt the measure of this equation in my deepest moments this week, when my heart could breathe because someone else (many someones) carried my load.

The anniversary of this week feels dear to my heart, but not crushing to my spirit.  In some moments, it has felt as though I walked with someone else through the loss of her husband a year ago, not that I lost my very own.

(Disassociation?  Perhaps.
Effective cocktail of meds?  Perhaps.
My name on the breaths and prayers of the invisible, anonymous you?  Most certainly.
Sheer grace of God?  Absolutely.)

"May it be unto me as you have said."


"Emmanuel, Emmanuel.  God incarnate, here to dwell."


"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Go tell it on the mountain: we have had a Merry Christmas.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Not to be Afraid

The God of love who gave us life

sent his only Son 

to be with us at all times 

and in all places,

so that we never have to feel lost in our struggles

but always can trust that he walks with us ....

Christmas is the renewed invitation 

not to be afraid and let him -- 

whose love is greater than our own hearts and minds can comprehend -- 

be our companion.

~ Henri Nouwen

King David and Joni Mitchell

Confession: I have been waiting for a Christmas miracle. 

I didn't know I had this hope in my heart until I awoke this morning, the day after The One Year, and my heart still hurt. 

Shouldn't I be able to think about other things? 
Shouldn't I be able to write about something else?
Shouldn't there be more joy, less sadness?

I mean, after all, I made it. I survived the year.  And many, many people walked, carried, prayed, and survived it with me.

Isn't there some kind of refreshment on this side of the finish line?

***

It's coming near Christmas,
they're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer,
and singing songs of joy and peace.
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on.
I wish I had a river so long
I could teach my feet to fly.
Oh, I wish I had a river, I could skate away on.

~ Joni Mitchell, River

***

"Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest -
I would flee far away and stay in the desert;
I would hurry to my place of shelter,
far from the tempest and the storm."

~ David, Psalm 55:6-8

***

Joni Mitchell. 
King David. 
They both wrote songs of lament,
O, to escape it all. 

I sing with them both this morning, on Christmas Eve.

Paper and Tags

This morning after The One Year is also Christmas Eve.  In so many ways, this feels like the first Christmas without him.

Did you know Christmas Eve was his favorite day of the year?  He most loved being a dad on this day, every year.  We stayed up late, putting toys together.  We had a gift-wrapping assembly line: he wrapped, I tagged and bowed.  He was the practical; I was the pretty.

I haven't wrapped a single gift yet.  Wrap without him?  I haven't done that in twelve years. 

Wrapping without Robb: that is the metaphor for anything good that's lacking the very best part.

And yet, two little boys are sure they've made the Nice List and Santa is bringing some amazing things.  Indeed he is.

Mommy needs to wrap them.

Changes: Subtle and Profound

And So I Will Write

As I write this story, it can take days, weeks, months for me to verbally construct the most important scenes of my story, the moments before and after the hingepoint of my life.  A draft of a complete chapter is the product of dozens of hours of writing and - what's more - a thousand vivid revisits to my bedroom on the morning of December 23.

Let me tell you, this process can lay patterns and pictures in a girl's mind that can begin to shape her days.

And so, I've been counseled, advised, and requested to please put such writing on hold.  At least until I live this season.  Live it, then write about it.

Except in living it, I'm remembering, recalling it, putting words to it.  Every single day.

And if I'm remembering it, I can't let it go.  It's how artists work: the idea simmers and stirs until it twists and starts, bursting to breathe.

I can't very easily put a lid on this pot.

After and throughout such a tragic crisis, many people have said, "I just needed to get back to work.  I needed to do my job, engage the routines of my mind, and do the familiar."

Writing is my work.  I am writing this story.  

In the early days of this year, people, kindly and wisely, said to me, "You should wait 3-6 months before you see a counselor, before you begin therapy."  I guess there is a theory that one's mind should recover from the trauma before healing can truly take place.

And yet I thought, and said to them, "But what do I do until then?"  Do I just sit in this until somebody sets me free to start putting the pieces together?

No.  I began therapy right away.  This has been one of my best decisions this year.

And here I am, faced with the questions: to write or not to write?  To revisit the trauma with words or only in my mind?  To get through this month or to write through it?

But how do I get through it if I don't write through it?

The final verdict, from the therapist who holds my deepest respect and all of my story: 

"Tricia, get writing.  Trust that need like you trust your appetites.  Just like you eat when you're hungry, please write when you're stirring.  When you feel like you've written enough, or if you feel like you're writing too much and pushing too hard, then give yourself a break.  If it's helping you, lean into it.  Get writing, girl."

And so I will write.  

Through sunshine and rain, 

Christmas lights and Christmas carols, 

silver bells and jingle bells, 

holding on and letting go,

I will write.  And this is how I will live.

Let Every Heart

Joy to the world,

the Lord has come.

Let earth receive her king.

Let every heart prepare him room,

and heaven and nature sing.

I am realizing that I always thought of this lyric as my reminder to set aside the wrapping paper, shopping lists and bows, to slow down with the glitter and the ornaments, long enough to make room in my heart - for even a moment - to remember that this season is about so much more.

I know now: sadness will take up every inch it's allowed.

This Christmas could easily pass with my heart wrapped entirely in grief and gray.  As I listen to this song, it causes me to think differently.  

To make room in my sadness for joy.  

To allow my darkness to be soft enough to be aware of the light.  

To let sadness step aside sometimes.

To remember - for even a moment - that this season is about so much more than death, loss, and heartache.  

(Because I could very easily give my holiday to those three.)

May my broken heart prepare him room.

* * *

"May his light shine in our darkness and may I be ready to receive it with joy and thanksgiving." 

~ Henri Nouwen

Cheese Cubes and Orange Jello

I made an iPhoto slideshow, photos of Robb at Christmas.  I paired it with Sarah McLachlan's WinterSong, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Song for a Winter's Night.  These are the lyrics and melodies of my heart this season.

Dozens of pictures.

Robb hugging me in falling snow.
Robb teaching Tucker how to unwind the lights to hang outside.
Robb giving them their Christmas jammies that Santa always brought early.
Robb holding Tucker in the Baby Bjorn while he ironed the red satin bows for our Christmas tree.
The Christmas when Tyler was the bump inside my belly.
Tyler with a big, red bow on his noggin.
Robb teaching Tucker how to run the remote for the Christmas train, the one that circles our tree this year.
A picture of four Starbucks cups lined in a row, our treat last year before we drove around town looking at lights.
Robb playing his trombone at our church's event last Christmas, days before he would die.

I showed it to the boys tonight.  I wanted it to matter to them.  My expectations were perhaps unfair.  They wiggled and squirmed.  They had the attention spans of a four-year-old and six-year-old.  Imagine that.

"Look, boys.  Look.  Look.  Look!"  I became exasperated as I watched pictures go by - one of Robb helping Tucker play the trombone, another one of him wearing matching Santa hats with Tyler.

Please, boys, look.  I want you to know that this happened.

"Mommy, are you crying because we were so cute?"

"No, I'm crying because I miss Daddy.  I miss him."

"Mommy, I want my hot chocolate."

"Mommy, I want my blanket."

"Boys, I don't want to talk right now.  I don't want you to talk.  I want you to watch.  Please watch."

I wanted them to see the proof.  I am terrified they are forgetting.  I want them to know it happened.  It happened, boys. He was here.

The movie finished.  I was furious.
Furious that they didn't watch,
furious that my heart spills into my lungs and makes it hard to breathe,
furious that he isn't here.
Tears streamed down my cheeks.  
I held a tissue over my face to hide 'the ugly cry.'

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Tuck."

"I love Daddy.  And I miss him."

"Me, too, Tuck."

"But, Mommy?"

"Yes, Tuck."

He whispered, as if he were telling a shameful secret, "I'm just not sad right now."

Well said, my little man.  I understand that.  "It's okay, buddy. You don't have to be."

Tyler brought to me the painting of the panda Tucker made in kindergarten Art Club.  "Here, Mommy.  This will cheer you up."

I set it on the coffee table, amidst my wads of tissues.

They didn't need the movie tonight. I did.
They didn't need the reminders.  I did.
They are not forgetting him.
We talk about him everyday.
They haven't gone a year without looking at him.
His pictures line our walls.
He is alive in their minds.  Very alive in their minds.

And someday that movie will be a keepsake for them.  Proof: it really, truly happened.  He was really, truly here.

Tyler ate cheese cubes and orange jello for breakfast because I couldn't get out of bed this morning.  I couldn't get out of the damn bed.

And tomorrow waits for me.  And I'm pretty sure there's another day after that.

The One I Learned to Know

It's great to be known.
There is a dance in knowing - in the pursuit of the dozens of details.

The lyrics that matter,
the way she takes her coffee,
the way he likes his eggs,
what it means when she smirks that way,
what it means when he clears his throat that way,
how she taps the steering wheel with two fingers,
how he gestures when he's most emphatic,
the way her face changes when she doesn't want to cry,
what he's thinking across the room,
when it's time to leave the party,
yellow roses or white daisies,
lemonade or iced tea,
beach vacation or mountain getaway,
when to speak and when to listen,
what matters most and not at all.

I learned to know Robb,
the million lines that connected his dots.
There are a million I never learned.
Our rough patches popped up when we stopped finding each other interesting,
when we thought we had learned it all.
Then it was time to leave town and let a new environment teach us a few new things.
Now, as I wait to see him again,
I feel like I am learning him all over again.
In some ways, he makes more sense to me than ever.

I learned to know Tucker.
As he grew inside me,
folded in half, sitting in my pelvis,
his head bumped into my ribs.
He got hiccups every afternoon.
When he was born,
I knew the roundess of his head,
I knew those hiccups that still came every afternoon.
I had learned to know him.

I learned to know Tyler,
active as a litter of puppies swimming in my stomach.
The pointed chin on the ultrasound screen,
the pointed heels in my sternum.
He folded up when he slept.
When he was born,
I knew that chin, I knew those heels.
I held my folded, sleeping bundle.
I had learned to know him.

Waiting is a period of learning.
Pregnancy,
engagement,
long distance friendship,
Advent.
Waiting is learning.
The longer we wait, the more we learn.

Henri Nouwen writes,
"Just as a mother feels the child grow in her and is not surprised on the day of the birth but joyfully receives the one she learned to know during her waiting,
so Jesus can be born in my life slowly and steadily and be received as the one I learned to know while waiting."

May he be the One I learn to know.

Disassociation in the Final Countdown

It is the final countdown.  Only a matter of days until Robb has been gone for a year, until Christmas will happen around me, until we will wrap a neat and tidy bow on this neat and tidy year.

How do I feel, as the clock ticks?

Afraid.

Afraid of 2012.  Afraid that the one-year-mark will somehow lead others to believe I am stronger than I am, that this matters less than it does, that time heals all wounds.

Deceived.  Like I'm in the homestretch, the last lap, the end of the journey.  Like December 23 is some kind of finish line.  I am near none of those things.

My therapist says, "Tricia, time to nestle in for a long winter's nap.  Please consider hibernating.  Say no to as much as you can, and stop asking yourself why you can't keep up." 

My doctor says, "Tricia, you are absolutely normal.  And if you wake up tomorrow and you can't get out of bed?  That will be absolutely normal."

I find myself thinking and writing in third person.  I'm learning that it is far easier to think about how to write about this season than it is to actually live it.  It is far easier to think about the story of a widow at Christmas than it is to actually be one.

The professionals call this dissociation, a crucial survival mechanism that protects you during a crisis and afterwards. It helps you stay on task so you can protect yourself. If you are able to function without fully experiencing the emotional impact of an event, you can accomplish tasks until it is safer to face your emotions.

And so I attend Christmas pageants and sing boys to sleep and teach Christmas carols and shop for gifts and hang stockings and fold laundry and live and breathe and do this thing.  And perhaps I will think about it - really, truly think about it - later.

How do I feel about this final countdown?

Fine.  Fine, I guess.

Best Christmas Pageants Ever

The boys are pros at the Christmas Pageant scene.  

Two years ago, we had a cow and a (self proclaimed) pig.  Tyler wasn't really in the pageant at age two, but he was convinced he should be.  He even stepped up to the microphone afterward and said, "Merry Christmas.  I'm Tyler.  I'm a pig."

Last year, we had a 'shepherd' and a 'long road.'  

Tuck was so delighted to see his daddy sitting with me in the second row - he cried when he saw Robb.  "My Daddy!"  It was the first time I saw my son cry tears of joy.  Robb scooped him up and said, "Of course I'm here, buddy.  Of course I'm here."

This year, I cheered for the wiseman.  He delivered his line flawlessly.

 

 

 

That's sacred space, next to those Christmas trees.

Well done, little wise men.

It's not just a role to play.

You are my heart's joy.

The Nothing Everything

"Did you know Jesus was born in a hay house?"

"Yes, and the word for that is 'stable.'"

"Because there was no room at the hotel.  No room at the inside."

"No room at the inn, yes."

"I just made a hay house with my cheese."

"Mary and Joseph rode in their car.  For real."

"Well, they didn't have cars yet.  Do you know how they got there?"

"On a horse.  Or a goat."

"Or, a donkey."

"Katie is Mary in the Christmas Pageant.  Charlotte is the star."

"Do I have to eat one bite of chicken or two?"

"You can choose: one big or two small."

"We were playing batman.  Tucker was the daddy and I was the baby."

"Except it's almost Christmas, so the daddy will die soon."

We flit in and out of these conversations: the nothing and the everything.

Under the Wise Man's Robes

Our mornings are scattered and frenzied, so when the boys opted to flip-flop the routine, I wasn't opposed.  We're not exactly a well-oiled machine around here, so maybe an upturned schedule is what we need to make it out the door without mutual frustration.  Maybe they're on to something.

Usually they must get dressed before they come down the stairs, but today we decided to start with breakfast.  I laid out clothes on the coffee table, flipped the TV on to Dinosaur Train, set the timer to guide them, and reminded them to get dressed as soon as they finished their PopTarts and hot cocoa.  The guideline: "Please be dressed by the time I come back downstairs."

Right.  Sometimes my optimism gets the best of me. 

It didn't happen that way.  By the time I learned my lesson, we were running behind without time to recover.  One thing remained consistent: I watched the clock and called out reminders and pulled out my hair and scooted them out the door.

I have read "there is no grace in hurrying."  And yet I cannot seem to get my children to school without a large measure of both.

When Tyler and I arrived at his morning PreK, the classroom was dark.  Oh, that's right: today is the dress rehearsal for Wednesday morning's Christmas pageant.  We hung his coat in his cubby and put his boots on the shelf - that's when I realized he wasn't wearing any socks. 

(It's two degrees in Denver today, and my son isn't wearing socks.  I did not authorize this.)

With bare feet inside his shoes, we scuttled off to the auditorium.  We found his classmates in the dressing room, an environment of controlled chaos as they all put on their costumes. The room abounded with cows, sheep, angels, and chickens.

Tyler found his costume: he is a wise man, complete with velvet robes; a braided, golden belt; and a bejeweled crown.  As I helped him transform into the Magi, I learned that the missing socks were the least of our problem. 

One wise man is commando this morning.  (I did not authorize this.)

Tomorrow, we return to our regularly scheduled morning programming.  Frenzied though it is, everyone makes it out the door wearing underwear.  Generally.

We Trimmed a Tree

 

New tree,

new ornaments,

not a thing we've used before.

Tyler helped put the star on top, since they both remembered Tucker helped Daddy do it last year.

We did it.

Somehow, it seems like our most beautiful tree yet.

Somehow

Someday soon
we all will be together
If the Lord allows.
Until then, we'll have to muddle through 
somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

~

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full on his wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace.


It is likely that I never would have wed these two songs.

And yet they are the perfect marriage
of my right hand and my left,
my heart and my mind,
my hurt and my hope.

"Merry Christmas."

I always loved to say, "Merry Christmas." 

To anyone who crossed my path, I wished them this greeting or farewell.  They really are beautiful words, melodic every time.

I heard someone say it yesterday, in thanks for his red Starbucks cup.

I thought, 'I'm not saying those words this year.'

Something in me felt entitled to stop saying it, to scratch those words from my vocabulary.

It's perhaps the same root of entitlement that led me to stop talking to God for most of the month of January. 

Then and now, I gently realized I was only robbing myself.

So, I said it today.  "Thank you, and Merry Christmas."

I've been robbed of enough.  No sense in being my own thief.

Merry Christmas to you. 

Holiday Wardrobe

Thanksgiving is a hinge holiday.  It's a cornerstone.  Round the fourth Thursday in November, and you're in the homestretch to the end of the year.

My city pulled out its holiday wardrobe while I was gone for Thanksgiving.  Carols sang through the airport, and as we drove home, the boys played their own frantic version of  "I Spy With My Little Eye: Christmas Lights!"

I rode home in a state of numbness, in disbelief over the truth that Christmas is upon me.  I wondered how much of my neighborhood would sparkle and twinkle.  Robb would have turned our lights on days ago, and he would have 'scrooged' everyone who hadn't lit up yet.  He would hate to see our home dark for the holidays, but I just can't bring myself to do anything about it.

"I imagine I can put a wreath on the door.  This I can do," I thought to myself.

We drove up our street, and the boys shrieked with the ultimate 'I Spy.' 

"Our house!  There are lights on our house!"

Sure enough, white icicle lights laced the front of the house.  The pillars of the porch are striped like a candy cane.  Christmas came to our house, too.

I looked at my mom.  "Who did this?  What is this?"

Her face was soft, her eyes glistening.  "Your Tuesdays. They came over with their husbands, and they hung your lights.  They borrowed the lights Robb always hung on our house.  They couldn't let you come home to a dark house."

It is perfect.  Just enough.
I didn't even know I wanted any decorations.  
I cried in my driveway.

Christmas is coming here too.

Giving in the Thanks

We traveled to Ohio this week for the familiar Thanksgiving traditions deeply rooted in my family tree.  Three generations sat around a table, and I am now considered one of the 'adults'.  With two children of my own, I suppose this is reasonable, but somehow I felt like I should still sit at the kids' table. 

Amy and I commented that we really wanted to sit in the corner and talk, that taking care of all these children really seemed like something 'the moms' should do. 

Oh, wait.  We are 'the moms.' 

And our moms are the grandmas, the beloved matriarchs with treasures in their purses and cookies in their cupboards.  The children played in all the rooms we once scattered, mimicking our childhod games and making up their own.

There is a deep knowing in my aunt's house.  Her sprawling rooms, her wooden floors, her shelved library, and her perpetual pots of fresh coffee.  I grew up here.  In this home, I am every age I have ever been. 

I have hunted for Easter eggs in the bushes, roasted marshmallows in the ravine, introduced Robb to his new in-laws-to-be.  I have been showered with wedding gifts and maternity clothes.  I have passed my newborn from one pair of hands to another as my far away family brought him up close.  This time, I learned the unwritten family technique for a homemade pie crust, in all its flaky goodness.

We have spent perhaps a decade of Thanksgivings apart, this family crew that now stretches to a list of nearly forty.  This week, they showered me with their memories, love, desserts, and laughter.  We are not as many as we were, not as many as we will be.

There is giving in the thanks, thanks in the giving.