Up, Up, Up

I went for a run this afternoon under the first wide open, blue sky we've had in what seems like a while. We live near the banks of the Mississippi River and I have a favorite route that winds it's way high above the river.

My run began with the sounds of fire engines and police cars somewhere near by and as I got down near the river I could see they were stopped above the dam, lights still flashing.

People were starting to gather near an intersection - other runners and bikers and I decided I didn't need to involve myself, but also that I didn't need to invite trauma into my line of vision either. We have a choice - sometimes the right answer is to look towards and sometimes to look away.

I stood for a brief minute watching the helicopter hover above the dam. I turned and ran with my back to the firetrucks and police cars, grateful for our first responders who don't get to make this kind of choice. But I ran none the less.

We've been watching the terrible news from Oklahoma, also trying to understand a local tragedy yesterday that killed two fourth grade students, and the death of Zach Sobiech this week as well.

On the way to help my parents last night we heard the song Clouds on the radio and all my kids heard the announcer say that Zach had died and my youngest asked if he ever got to see the video that was made for him.  I said, yes, I believe that he did.

So we sat in the car and watched the YouTube clip a few times on my cell phone (technology is amazing). I asked the kids why they thought that he felt like he had fallen "down, down, down" and they said because he was sick and scared.

I asked why did they think that even though he is the only one who falls, "they" go "up, up, up"? And my oldest said because he didn't want his family to be sad, he wanted to help them be alright.

And I finally asked why did they think that Zach says he's going "up a little higher" and they all agreed it was because he's going to heaven and that would make his family feel better.

"I think that Zach is a saint.  Not a canonized saint in the church, but a saint in the way that he was able to lift people up, in fact people all over the world with just his voice and his heart."

I asked the kids who else they knew in their lives like that and they went down a list of people we know and love.

"What can you do to be more like Zach?  To lift people up at school or at home? How can we make his impression on us be a lasting impression?"

They agreed to go to school the next day and look for people who might need lifting "up, up, up."

We all felt better, taller, stronger.

I finished my run with the sun on my face and Springsteen on my shuffle:

"Now I believe in the love that you gave me.
I believe in the faith that could save me."

I don't know yet what happened on the river this afternoon, but I hope we keep finding the way to go up, up, up and fly a little higher.

Pontificating

I was raised Catholic. Today, I'm an actual, practicing, Catholic. In some circles, I'm not near Catholic enough. I'm not sure where the grading scale is or who is the "decider" of our quantity or quality of Catholicism. I don't worry about it too much.  The Arch Mother, who raised money to build their parish church, worked for Catholic Charities, and hosted half the Archdiocese in their home, never had time for people who wanted to "judge" your level of faith.

I know who I am and what I believe. But I do understand that the Catholic church is dealing with an identity crisis - too many people associate it with scandal and decadence and not enough with social service and faith. 

Yesterday when it was announced that white smoke was drifting above the Vatican in Rome, I had an emotional response.  Honestly, a startling response. I stopped my car and sat quietly in a parking lot listening to the media reports. For me, it was a stark reminder of how deeply I care about my faith and my church family.

When the kids got home from school, we concluded it would be fun to make Argentinian food in honor of Pope Francis for dinner. Great!  Except while I love to cook - Latin influenced food has not been a big part of my repertoire (ANY part of my repertoire).

I Googled some recipes, decided that I didn't have time to reinvent the wheel and it was a bright, sunny, March afternoon (to my Minnesotan mind it looked warm).  So the four kids and I grabbed our coats, scooters and walked to the grocery story.  My thought was that while last minute Argentinian food was probably unreasonable at the end of my busy day, we could at least find some good Latin options.

No dice.  Actually, no Chimichurri. Our local grocery store, considers tacos and salsa to be the extent of their Latin foods. Maybe it's silly, but I was shocked.  Scratch that. Decided we'd go home and watch the news coverage of the new Pope while we ate our decidedly NOT Latin dinner.

Hmmm. By 6:15 pm, the bright, March afternoon was significantly chillier. The return mile from the grocery store was a lot quieter and significantly quicker.  If we could have cut through people's yards, we would have.

Arrive home! Turn on TV! American Idol? Survivor? No pope. Damn our cable free household! So I grab my laptop determined to make the kids see how fascinating the election of a new pope can be (and hoping to distract them from the slow turn towards exhausted meltdown that mom is taking - might I mention that I washed all the sheets in the house and had yet to return them to their rightful beds).   I find the clips of the new Pope's first waves and comments, finally relieved that some part of this memory making plan is working out. 

We watch for about an minute, listening to the calming translation of his Italian, when my middle son says:

"Who is that guy?"

"It's the new Pope, Jorge Maria Bergoglio, Pope Francis," I say.

"Umm, no it's not," says he.

"Yes, honey. It is. See - that's why he's standing in the balcony waving to the people in Rome."

"You're wrong. The principal told us that the new Pope was father Mark."

Father Mark is our parish priest who is very involved in our parochial school.  He's well known to the kids and we've had him a few times to the house for dinner. Clearly there had been some confusion at school and so my son was absolutely, positively certain that the principal, whom he views with reverence, had told him that Father Mark was the new Pope.

"Nope, Buddy.  Father Mark isn't the new Pope, he's not a Cardinal and he's not in Rome."

"Right, but you said the new Pope didn't have to be a Cardinal."

He was right.  I did tell him that. What I didn't say was that of course the new Pope would be a Cardinal. While the church could break with tradition, no one expected it to do so.

My son was terribly disappointed by Pope Francis.  He did not look near as young or as cool as father Mark. I made a note to call the priest and let him know that at least one person thought he deserved a promotion.

I have been critical of the Catholic Church, my most popular entry on this blog, deals with some of my struggles, and yet I found myself defensive yesterday. Listening to the critical chatter on Facebook and Twitter about "another scandalous, conservative Pope." The lines and lines of judgement without any real sense of information or experience. I was surprise by how strongly I reacted.

One poor friend got a real diatribe from me because she said she was hopeful but concerned about this new Pope and the direction of the church.

Pope Francis will have neither a perfect history nor perfect future. He is human. But because we are human, we can be honest and still be hopeful; we can be forgiving and still forthright. And so I agree with my friend. We are called to face every day and every situation with hope and concern, if we can promise to always live to this standard, everything would probably turn out better, both for our church and in our world.

We must view the church with our intellectual talents, our honest hearts and our open minds. For the first time in a long time, I feel how true this really is, and I feel we have a renewed opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit. 

Discrimination, abuse and the role of women in the church are not issues that will be solved tomorrow - but with faith and our own energy - we have a better chance today of leaving our children and grandchildren a church that is a beautiful instrument of love, light, joy and peace.

So, while Pope Francis is not Father Mark, he is a fresh step in a new faith future. We, Catholics, must take that step, that first hopeful and concerned new beginning, together. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Losers Weepers, Finders Keepers

We got take-out Chinese for dinner last night and watched Wreck It Ralph. As it ended, my husband sighed and said to me:

"I miss my brother."

 

We're having a little bit of a hard time.  My husband and I can't quite put our fingers on it. Winter doldrums? Stress at work? Just the effects of keeping so many balls in the air? Who knows. But we had the realization a few days ago that tomorrow will be the sixth anniversary of his brother's, The Chef, abrupt death.

The kids piled into the car this morning and my daughter got accidentally kicked in the head, one son threw a pencil at another and everyone was just being sour.  I turned the car off and looked at them.

Deep breath.

"I'm going to tell you something.  Look me in the eyes. Dad is having a hard time right now because he would give just about anything in the world to have another night with his brother." 

Everyone perked up, wide eyed and nervous. Maybe not my best parenting, but like I said, we're both having a hard time.

"You have many gifts. But the people in this car are the best things that have ever happened to you. Some day, I will break a hip. And one of you is going to need to get in a car and come help me. And I will be crabby about it. I will not like feeling old and fragile. And you know what you're going to do?  You're going to call each other.  You're going to NEED each other."

No one said anything.

"Someday I am going to drive you nuts. I promise you. And the only people who will empathize with your frustration are the people in this car. You're going to help us with our finances, fix whatever kind of new fangled technology that dad and I can't figure out, and deal with the fact we don't hear so good anymore."

They start to laugh.

"Mom, it sounds suspiciously like a full time job," said my oldest.

I told him, it would be.  I promised to cause him a lot of trouble.

"But it will be happy trouble.  We're going to have a lot of fun.  We're going to take care of each other. Right now I do a lot of the care giving, but soon you'll be taking more and more care of each other, and eventually of your dad and I too. That's what family does."

Everyone softened a bit. We went to the gym. It's not easy to be good to your siblings all the time. We can be competitive. We can be frustrating. Sometimes we have nothing in common except an initial address. But it is a relationship that helps us learn how to be a good friend. I'm guessing that if you were never nice to you siblings, you aren't a great friend either.  Maybe I'm wrong. But it's an interesting thought.

Today is also my friend's, The Hummingbird, birthday. The name is apt because I've never met anyone who talks or works faster. At one point or another she has cleaned my refrigerator, bathed my kids, planted tulips in my yard (in freezing rain), fed my family, cut my grass, challenged me to run faster, rewired my 2nd floor, cheered for me, read to my children, made rhubarb cake at 5 am before my first triathlon, decorated my house for Christmas, shoveled my walk, flown 1,500 miles to hold my kids and help us bury my father-in-law; but mostly we've laughed and laughed and laughed. She is beauty in motion.

We were celebrating her birthday the night The Chef died. His heart just stopped at 32 years old in front of his wife and newborn son. We were devastated.  He lived far away and we were weeks away from the birth of our third child. My siblings showed up one by one and were incredible helpful with packing and planning, with offering support and sympathy. But the next day, The Hummingbird came quietly buzzing into the house and did laundry, took our two toddlers up to her house to play, made lunches, did dishes. She was just a calming breeze that blew through that day. At the very end of the day, when we were alone in the kitchen, she asked

"What happened?"

No one had told her any details, she just showed up and filled in.  She knew he had died but had no idea how or even when exactly. The whole time she just acted with kindness, without question, without judgement or self involvement. I've always remembered. She helped without needing to know why.

This friendship changed my life. 

I love my siblings. We are all very close. But she has helped me become a better sibling by showing me how rewarding unconditional love is. She's not perfect - but she's done a lot of perfect things for me, for my kids.

I want my kids to have this kind of capacity.

About a year ago, her out of town sister learned she has cancer and is really sick. She's angry sick. And it is heartbreaking. Loving and supporting siblings from a distance is challenging work.

It doesn't matter if you lose someone slowly or suddenly, the result is the same. Today, we feel the absence of my brother-in-law in different ways than when he first died. The anger, the shock, the confusion has mostly passed. It's the inability for my husband to call him and complain about me or talk about fatherhood to the only other man who was parented by the same father, or to think through family finances and career planning. These are the phone calls and boys get-a-way trips that The Athlete still grieves.

 

We can't go back. So how to do we go forward?

• By making it count.
• By saying I love you. 
• By putting the petty stuff aside. 
• By reaching out and not holding back. 
• By offering big, generous acts that are unexpected and unnecessary.
• By encouraging relationships, fostering friendships.

This weekend, we were going to the cabin, but instead we offered it to my adult nephews who wanted to have a boys weekend. Some are married, some have kids. We can give them that - a chance to make more memories, deepen their friendships, strengthen their brotherhood. That we can do.

We've moved on in so many ways from six years ago. The physical relationship is part of the past. My brother-in-law is a part of the horizon now. We see him in the distance, simultaneously real and ethereal, yet he is still there resting between our past and our future. When we feel the loss, we grieve, but when we embrace all that we've found in the process, we feel the blessing upon our hearts.

We will see you again, brother.

Nothing Is Lost

Submitted by another parent of all boys.  Makes me think having sons makes you introspective.  I love the Irish notion of "Thin Places" - where we pass through both the ethereal and the corporeal aspects of the world.  -BTH

I have a friend whose father was in his early 50s when she was born. We were in college at the time when she said “my greatest fear is losing him since he is older.” I am happy to say that her father is now in his late 80s and very spry. He has watched her get married and held her two children who miraculously came into the world after 8 years of attempts. Her greatest fear back then hasn’t come to pass thank God. When my dear friend told me about her fear nearly 20 years ago my heart sank as I said “Lyn, you never know what will happen. My father was 42 when he died. Just take every day with him as the blessing that it is.”

I think of my dad and miss him every day. I was “Daddy’s girl” and his only girl with three brothers behind me. The other day I mourned something different.  It hit me that my husband of 10 years is a son in law without a father in law. My three beautiful boys are grandsons of a grandfather who never got to hold them. And even though this thought brings me to tears, I am somehow comforted by something that happened years before the first signs of the illness that would take him away from all of us.

In 1987 a movie starring Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis was released. It wasn't a big hit. I don't even remember it being in the theaters. A few years later my father recorded it on our blank VHS tape when it was on Cinemax. It was called "Made in Heaven" and it was a story about a man named Mike who dies in his twenties and finds himself in heaven only to fall in love with a new soul named Annie. Unfortunately, being a new soul, Annie was sent down to earth to become a baby. Mike decides that he wants to find her so he goes back to earth, but of course only remembers bits and pieces of his time with Annie. In the end these clues bring the two souls back together.

I know, it sounds pretty cheesy and predictable doesn't it? After watching it I just wanted to have hair like Kelly McGillis. My dad, who watched the movie a few times, fell in love with the picture of heaven that the movie painted. When Mike first entered heaven he found a long lost aunt. He asked her how you got around in heaven and she said "You just think about where you want to go and you're there." Annie's bedroom was a bed floating on a lake in the middle of a forest during autumn. Mike built the perfect little house with his mind for Annie. People were genuinely happy.

I once found a paper where my dad wrote his favorite quote from the movie "Anything you can imagine is and anything that is in heaven will eventually find its way back to earth--nothing is lost."

I remember it was a weekend in the Fall when we watched the movie for the first time. It was warm in our green carpeted sun room, but cold outside. I think we have just pulled the boat in for the winter. I am sure we were starting to stack up firewood for the fireplace. I could smell the heater kicking in. It was cozy. We were together.

It wasn't long after that Fall that my father was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a rare heart virus, and then a little over two years later on September 29, 1992 he was the one who went to heaven.

It's been 20 years. It seems like a lifetime ago, but it still stings as if it happened yesterday.

During nap time the other day I was able to find "Made in Heaven" in its entirety on YouTube. How far we have come from those scratchy video tapes! I wasn't sad when I watched it. In fact, it gave me great comfort. I realized that my dad loved life so much that the thought that you could come back even after you died appealed to him.

I know in my heart he has been back to visit several times. He comes back to me in music he loved and played over and over again on his mixed cassette tapes. On September 26^th I heard Paul McCartney’s “Simply having a wonderful Christmastime” on a popular Twin Cities’ radio station. I believe that was more than a weird coincidence.

When I met Pat I heard a voice inside of me say “get that guy’s address, you need to stay in touch with him.” I felt his presence at every one of my children's births. There were the times I should have gotten into an accident. There were the friends I have met that I have thought were truly heaven sent. And the conversation I had with him in the car that day where I agonized about moving my family back to New York in order to help my mother care for my grandmother and I felt him say “your mom will be OK, you need to do what’s best for your family.” Or the time when ten doctors and nurses rushed into my newborn’s room in order to help him breathe and all I heard in the commotion was a soft whisper “he is going to be OK.”

My grandmother says he visits her almost daily now and I believe her. She doesn't say much about his visits, but I know she is happy to see him again.

Sometimes I wonder if his namesake, my middle child, has a bit of my father’s soul in him. He sure has the “life of the party, live every day to the fullest” personality that my father had.

So if heaven is like the movie "Made in Heaven" on the 20th anniversary of his death my dad is probably on a boat in the middle of a lake with our beloved Dalmatian Napoleon, his father, and his dear friends who have also left this earth. There is good Italian food and wine. He is telling cheesy jokes and smiling and laughing. Maybe he is planning his next visit down to earth. Maybe he has discovered some great new music which he is mixing with his old favorites.

Wherever he is, I feel he is happy. And because I feel his presence--nothing is lost.