Grief

When it all feels wrong

Tessa

 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26

Okay, when is it going to feel like God is ACTUALLY and ALWAYS my strength and my portion?  I’ve got the failing flesh and a broken heart down.  No issues THERE.  But Spiritual satisfaction, that ultimate inheritance and all that I need for eternity, my portion – where do I sign up FOR THAT?  Right now God doesn’t seem to be ‘more than enough’ for me to get by.  Is that sacrilege?  Maybe.  I’m complaining, lamenting really. I’ve been expressing my sorrow and asking for God to heal my heart – it’s a running prayer. It’s hope.  It’s faith. It SUCKS.

Let me tell you a little about what I’VE been up to.  It’s good to catch up, isn’t it?  Keep reading if you’re interested. Trigger warning: Melancholia ahead.  Have you seen that movie with Kirsten Dunst? It’s old now.  My daughter wanted to watch it a while back, and listen, it is SO slow, and the music and imagery makes you feel SO woozy and anxious and heavy-hearted, you have to admit that’s some damn GOOD acting.  Depression is well depicted.  But I don’t NEED that.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty OKAY, which is good for me until we learned that our long awaited camping trip to Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park was canceled.  It had been hit by a tornado.  Yup. Seems about right. It’s next to impossible to find a campsite for our enormous trailer a MONTH before going, let alone 5 months early.  We already played that game back in March.  So, NO camping.  No time in nature to unwind and BREATHE.

The day before our lease was up on the truck and we were in the midst of transferring to a ‘finance to own’ plan, just before it was scheduled to be safetied, and one day before the beginning of vacation, I BROKE the mother loving truck.  Twisted around a pole coming out of the hospital parking lot.  It was SO embarrassing.  I saw the guy in the lineup behind me roll his eyes, so I got out of the truck and walked over to his window.  He saw my clergy collar and screwed up his face.  I apologized for the delay and asked HIM what HE thought I needed to do to get untangled.  Always good to involve bystanders, get them to become invested in the effort rather than complaining at me.  I drove home like a bat out of hell.

So, for our spectacular VACAY, we went to my parents house. It’s tucked into the bush in the middle of nowhere with a lake within walking distance.  But I tell yuh, we SORELY missed the air conditioning and wi-fi in our trailer.  Not to mention the house has iffy toilets and a mouse infestation.  It was OKAY except it was so unbearably hot and humid. We were all miserable. 

I’d taken the Sunday off (I’m a pastor), so we went to my home church.  It was ALL WRONG.  The pastor was away.  My parents didn’t even sit with us and they left the building before we got through the greeting line.  I THOUGHT going would make THEM happy.  No such luck.  In fact, the whole time we were staying with them, as lovely as it was to have tennis or game shows always in the background (with the volume at 79) and be able to sit with my parents as they slept – I wanted to go HOME.  My mother’s dementia is difficult.  I think us being there confused her.  Oh, and, my old dog Tessa was unsettled by the mice.  She heard a noise and climbed the stairs in the middle of the night, only to slip and fall down the ENTIRE flight.  It was so awful.  I hugged her LOTS.

Being home was just another kind of hell.  One of my daughter’s gerbils, TED, got sick.  We took him to the vet for antibiotics.  He needed baby food to take the medicine so we stopped at the grocery store.  When I came out I ALMOST got hit by a car, got flustered, and got into the WRONG truck.  The driver was very nice.  He thought it was great that I’d picked a Chevy instead of a Ford.  The gerbil died two hours later. OOF.

So it took several attempts to get Andy (my husband) to bury Ted –  HALF a hole was ready for a few days.  The gerbil saga kept getting better.  I enjoyed an ‘oat vs spelt’ tasting at midnight while preparing gerbil food for the remaining gerbil- WHY no labels Bulk Barn? My daughter had me messaging breeders in search of a new companion for BEN (the bereaved) – before he gets depressed.  Enter AL.  Gerbil world is like a bad Soap Opera.  Now they have to bond. Fun times.

A couple days later my son gave Tessa her pills at the designated time and Andy, for a reason unknown, gave them to her a second time.  She got really disoriented.  We thought we RUINED her.  She had a yucky tummy for a few days.  I hugged her LOTS.

And then – here’s where my failing heart crashed and burned.  One ordinary morning I went upstairs to get dressed and ready to take my Tessa girl for her walk.  Shouting ensued.  By the time I got back down the stairs she had ALREADY suffered a stroke.  I can’t tell you how shocked we were.  My son and I scooped her up and got her to the vet – where we made the decision to help her die faster – it was ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE.  My son picked up his dead dog and we took her home where I hugged her body LOTS.  She’s been gone almost 3 weeks and I am no longer able to behave in an emotionally acceptable way – even at home I’ve been told to knock it off.  I cannot.  I hug myself LOTS


 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Back to lamenting.  Hard pressed? Check.  Perplexed? Check.  Persecuted (for crying too much)? Check. Struck down? Check.  But contrary to scripture I ALSO feel crushed, despairing, abandoned, and destroyed.  St. Paul says some stuff about how our weakness reveals God’s power.  Sometimes I CAN’T hear this message.  I want the hurting to stop.  I don’t want to be shown death over and over again.  I guess God knows we are forgetful creatures.  We carry around the death and the resurrection of Jesus in our piddly human flesh so that WE KNOW what both mean and can truly live as if our own resurrection has already happened.  If it’s true and God IS love, then I know Tessa is waiting for me through the gate – because God knows she makes me so happy.  It wouldn’t be heaven without her.   

All caught up.

We good?

Advent

My pastor father always waited until Christmas Eve to ALLOW Christmas music.  On that long-awaited night,  singing Christmas carols brought an uncontainable BURST of joy.   At home, once we were tucked into bed, my parents would ‘play Santa’.  We knew the GAME had begun when the sweet voices of the Medical Mission Sisters reached our bedrooms. 

I CAN’T wait until Christmas anymore.  Years ago, I searched out, “Gold, Incense, and Myrrh” on CD.  I  listen to it as soon as the Advent season begins.  My favorite song from the album is based on Isaiah 35: 1-10.  The chorus is balm to my heart in ANY season. 

 “Strengthen all the weary hands, steady all the trembling knees. Say to all faint hearts ‘take courage’, for he comes the Prince of Peace.”

THIS is the blessing I pray reaches each of you, especially during this time of preparation and through Christmastide.  It is a very difficult time of year for all who are experiencing any kind of loss.  Anxiety related to health and financial security is augmented by seasonal expectations.  Broken relationships sting.  Loss associated with unrealized dreams, the absence of loved ones,  especially due to the gaping pain of death and grief, EACH surface bittersweet emotions that are particularly deep during times that emphasize family and happiness.  

As we wait for the Advent, the coming of Christ, which we recognize in the growing light of our Christmas preparations, I encourage you to be EXTRA kind to yourself.  Relish in all the small ways the joy of Christmas touches you.   You can give yourself permission to listen to your heart.  Although pressure to DO things or FEEL ways that you don’t or CAN’T will surely arise, be gentle with yourself and make choices that bring you the most peace.  It is FOR YOU, for all your beautiful and sacred humanity, for your hurts and your hopes, that Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, is born.  Lean on this wonderful Counselor, the very Prince of eternal peace, to strengthen you and bring you courage this Christmas and always.

Withering Grass

For “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.  The grass withers, and the flower falls,but the word of the Lord remains forever.”    (1 Peter 1:24-25)

It was unsettling.  I stood beside my father as he bantered lightheartedly  with the monument salesman in the outdoor display yard.  We surveyed a variety of tombstones as we walked around this ‘PRETEND’ cemetery. Dad wanted something simple so as not to UPSTAGE the family marker of his ill-fated parents, brother and sister, next to which my mother’s and his shared stone would be erected within THE YEAR (whether they are dead or NOT).  

Dad made up something PITHY to be inscribed, and was pleased with himself.  I had no idea how much these things cost and was flabbergasted that my Dad just paid for it OUTRIGHT, that is, after he asked for a seniors discount.  Always a clown. My Dad instinctively began to put the monument man’s pen in his OWN pocket.  The guy had a sense of humour.  He said, “Well THERE’S your discount.”  My Dad, a retired pastor, pulled two more pens from his pocket to show them off.  BOTH were from funeral homes.  It drew out a good laugh.  When the salesman said, “IT’S YOURS!  The stone on the lot is the VERY stone that will be placed on your grave!”, it took the breath right out of me. I shuddered. Dad said, “Now your mom and I can die in peace.” “AWESOME”, I said.  “…and Nadine, since we are being cremated this lot can accomodate 4 MORE urns.” “Yup, Dad, that’s TERRIFIC news.”

I’m sure this kind of shopping trip happens in other families.  The weird bit for me is that AS WE WERE sampling textures, colours, and wording, my Mom was undergoing ANGIOPLASTY in a hospital more than two hours away.  We weren’t allowed to accompany her, so this is how we were KILLING (HA HA) time. Granted, this UNDERTAKING (Heh heh) was a PLANNED part of their trip to the area: Visit my sister at her cottage, duck into town to visit some family,  purchase their cemetery plot, and buy their tombstone.  A wholly PRODUCTIVE itinerary.

Things were going well.  They visited my sister.  CHECK.  They visited some aging family members.  CHECK.  They bought the cemetery plot.  CHECK.  This is where it all went to hell.  OF COURSE they NEEDED to go check out their new real estate!  It was a very hot day and a very steep hill.  Their grave site was down near the bottom.  Down, down they went, only Mom didn’t get back up – at least not without help.  My Mom had suddenly crumpled to the ground, practically ON TOP of her future resting place.  When her dementia allows it, and, she remembers bits of what happened, she says with a smile – “I just wanted to lie down for a while and try it out.” VERY FUNNY.  I don’t know what’s wrong with my parents.

When I got the news of her heart attack, I took a TERRIBLE 8 and a half hour train ride. My brother picked me up after midnight.  He lives 2 hours away from where my mother was in hospital, so by noon the next day we were by her side.  AND SO IT WENT.  My sister, my brother, and I, my nieces,  my aunt and uncle took turns reminding my Mom where she was and why she was there.  It got OLD really FAST. Dementia is incredibly difficult.

After days of waiting (it was a weekend), she was FINALLY transferred, alone, to the Ottawa Cardiovascular Centre where she underwent an angiogram and had two stents put in.  She was returned to Pembroke hospital at night. In the morning it was CLEAR she had been in MUCH distress and was VERY disoriented.  She embraced my Dad like a rescued child clings to their saviour.  I’d never seen either of them like this.

Recently, when I’ve had my parents on the phone,  before saying goodbye, I began telling them that I love them.  My kids, my husband, and I, tell each other ALL the time, but within my family of origin, admitting love just wasn’t necessary.  Love was always expressed in action rather than in words.  It took a few goes, but my parents had both reciprocated my profession a few times before these unfortunate happenings.  I think they welcomed it at the hospital.  In fact, they seemed a little surprised and delighted to hear those words.  It did wonders to my personal journey of healing from, well, LIFE.  

After her very hard night in the hospital, an unusual thing happened.  My parents began to recount the early days of their courtship.  I heard their love stories like I’ve never heard before.  Thankfully, my mother has retained some good long term remembering.  It was heartening to listen to them.

I had the privilege of accompanying them home to their rather isolated house, tucked into the woods near Burleigh Falls.  Things got a lot better for my mother.  Although she couldn’t recall all that had happened she eventually recognized that she was, in fact, HOME.  After a couple of days she was humming to herself and skipping around the house like she always did, feeding the birds, sitting on the deck, talking about good reads, and looking at photo albums.  This time was PRECIOUS.  I feel so blessed to have glimpsed my Mother as herself – these fleeting moments were beautiful.  All is well with the world when she is in her own home with her beloved and a sense that everyone and everything that she holds dear are all okay.  God I MISS her. (that’s a prayer, by the way)

The glory of the flesh is like the flowering of the grass.  Although a part of it withers away, God’s good purposes remain.  The Holy Spirit within continues to burn with the heat of love, and whistles out the rhythms of sweet memories that comfort us.

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22)

I wish my parents didn’t have to change.  I know that we learn about God through the ebb and flow of nature.  The seasons illustrate the balance between change and changelessness.  At first, the idea of things simultaneously transforming and staying the same, seems impossible.  Change is impermanent and permanence is unchanging.  God is hidden in mystery AND is being revealed through it. It’s mind boggling.

My mother’s heart attack sent me down a path of reflection.  How do the joys of our lives BALANCE with the suffering?  How do we accept the change and all the work that IMPRESSED upon us?  I am relieved that nature ALWAYS finds a way to return to balance.  The difficulties we experience DO NOT last forever.  God is AWAYS taking all that hard stuff, holding it, reworking it, re-creating our lives and the world around and enables us to adapt and grow with the changes.  God is always working to make ALL things new.  My Mom is already in God’s loving care, being gently enveloped in God’s creative force.  She is not in the process of ending, but in becoming.  She dwells in love just as she always has and always will.

I am easily distracted with all the things I THINK I still have to do with my parents and my family. Sometimes I forget to appreciate everything we’ve ALREADY done; the experiences we’ve had, the memories we’ve made, and the things we’ve accomplished.   I don’t readily notice that these are the very elements that are steadily pushing us all FORWARD to new life.   

I hope that the changes in YOUR life compel YOU to REFLECT, to find all those little bits of gratitude that get LOST in the hussle.  I hope you find moments to cultivate whatever is in you that tells you that you are a part of something GREATER than yourself.  That all stages of life are sacred puzzle pieces that lead to some kind of cosmic WHOLENESS.  For me that is the ground of all being whom I know as God, and the Holy Spirit of Christ dwelling in MY heart.  Somehow this mysterious unity gives meaning and purpose to all that we experience.  Savour the earthly moments.  Delight in transformation.  Don’t be afraid.

An aside:  Being prepared for one’s funeral is beneficial to those who continue to walk the earthly walk.  I don’t, however, recommend you physically try out your purchases before the big day.

Requiem

A letter to my dead brother.

*Trigger Warning. Suicide*

Requiem is Latin for REST.  But you ALREADY knew that, didn’t you?  You were always so well read, so smart, and so articulate.  Are you resting now?  Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine. ‘Eternal rest grant them, O Lord’ – has eternal rest been granted to YOU?  You were forty-four when your otherworldly quest for peace began.  It was your birthday this week.  I thought of you. You would’ve been fifty-six. You’ve missed 11 earthly birthdays. Still life rolls forward even though there are many things left unsaid.

Do you know that ALL I ever wanted from you was approval?  A smile, a nod, a kind word.  I understand that you were deeply troubled. I’ve become QUITE familiar with mental health derailment. When you and I  were kids the labels and the help DIDN’T exist.  Eleven years ago it wasn’t much better.  Today it seems EVERYBODY wants a piece and it makes it difficult to get proper care – until you REALLY lose your mind or cause harm.  There are no neat categories.  No definitive diagnosis or prognosis. But if you are willing to jump through the hoops, endure all the chaos, allow the endless poking and prodding, eventually, if you are lucky – perhaps only by God’s grace, someone FINALLY stamps your hand and gives you passage into the shakey world of treatment and accommodations.    

The medical and psychological powers never did nail down YOUR disease.  Granted, from what I understand, the process of your personal detangling didn’t start until you were well into adulthood. Nevertheless, bi-polar or whatever you were, I ALWAYS sensed it.  My angry, hurtful, terrifying big brother.  Although you just could NOT like me, I adored you. Even when you screamed in my face, threatened me, thwarted me, squashed the caterpillar I was admiring, and said vile, hateful things to me, I loved you and I wanted you to care.  But you couldn’t.

You were so kind and so funny, and obliging to EVERYONE else, even to my silly friends who thought you were the coolest.  I thought you were the coolest – but you left me in the shadows.  You didn’t know it, but I watched you from a distance, longing to sit close.  Even so, I peeked out to marvel at your radiance.

I built a wall around myself once.  It protected me. I needed SOMETHING to guard me, to buffer the insults – to muffle the direct and horrible hits to my self-worth, to block out the overwhelming question about whether I DESERVED to draw air, to be in YOUR presence.  EVERYDAY you were alive, I clung to the hope that ONE DAY YOU WOULD CHANGE YOUR MIND.  You’d LET ME be a part of YOUR amazing life.  You’d show me the art you created and let me listen with you to your favorite music, you’d tell me about the best books you’d read, about your wilderness adventures, you’d laugh and tease and appreciate me – your reverent little sister.

When you died that hope was LOST.  Our children would never benefit from the carefree days of cousinhood and you and I would never enjoy a comfortable, unspoken, unconditional bond, as many siblings do. There would be NO camping trips, NO Christmas dinners, NO friendly check ins, NO growing relationship. To this day, I am reinventing myself as someone who doesn’t NEED your APPROVAL, or anyone else’s for that matter.  It’s funny how much of my identity was threatened when the wall became IRRELEVANT.  I kept it, out of habit, I suppose.  My perception of myself broke into a thousand bits that I’m STILL struggling to put back together. The wall looks different now – parts of it have crumbled and fallen, but

I still hide behind it sometimes.  

You had your 10 year chip.  A HUGE accomplishment. The autopsy confirmed you were not drinking. You were working SO hard on yourself. I’m proud of your valiant efforts. I’m not sure who you chose to make amends with when you did your ninth step.  Did you DO your ninth step?  It’s none of my business…but I can’t help but wonder, WAS IT TOO MUCH for me to wish that you’d acknowledge the damage you’d inflicted upon ME?  DIDN’T YOU KNOW THAT YOU HURT ME over and over and over again?  Did you have any faith, REALLY?  The AA steps are steeped in God language – regardless of changing the words to ‘higher power’ and ‘making amends’ – faith in something bigger and benevolent is the undertone. [that’s my uninformed impression – I don’t really know anything – just that it confuses me] Anyway, it doesn’t seem to fit with who I THOUGHT you were. Well, YOU didn’t know ME EITHER.  So here we are.

I sound angry.  I AM angry.  I can be angry and still love you.  I can be hurt and still forgive you.  I forgive you.  I love you.

Were you scared, big brother? Did you have second thoughts?  Were you sad? Did you make your peace?  Were you anxious for whatever would come next?  You should know that you highly UNDERESTIMATED the IMPACT your death would have on all of us still left to this life.  Thank you for including my name in your final note, listed with the people you loved.  It provided great comfort.  I understand liking and loving are different. I can accept that.  I’m so sorry that you were just SO exhausted by the WORK of living that relief, even death, was a welcome companion.  I hope that in your last moments you didn’t feel alone.  I hope LOVE held you and holds you STILL.

  Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine.

Wise Hearts

Well, maybe you haven’t heard (why would you?) but it’s true. I have lived exactly FIVE decades plus one year. Today, I am 51. According to the mostly white-haired congregation I serve, I’m still a BABY. They’re right, of course.  BUT, this year, I am more aware and feel a little unsettled knowing that I’m closer to being a SENIOR than I am to my YOUTH. It means my parents are actually old and my children are almost grown. (But not yet!)

It’s okay, though, really. A few of my dearest friends have at LEAST a decade on me. Some even have decadeS – PLURAL. Not everyone is so lucky. Aging is a gift. If we are willing, it gives us more time to learn HOW to love. To LEARN to be ourselves.

Since I’m (a bit) of a Bible nerd, I can pair this thought with an appropriate verse. I’m not a fan of cherry-picking Bible verses to prove a point. HOWEVER, I love the Psalms, and this particular verse just happens to bring comfort to my personal struggle with time FLEETING away.

So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

Psalm 90:12

Moses (yes, THE MOSES who parts the Red Sea) is the ascribed author.  He is PROBABLY inspired while leading a caravan of Israelites through the desert to the promised land (Canaan – roughly modern day Palestine and Israel) AFTER being liberated from CENTURIES of  slavery in Egypt.   The people have grown restless and distracted.  Like PETULANT toddlers, Moses can’t stop them from getting into trouble.  For instance, when he turns his back (to receive the 10 Commandments – no less) their babysitter (Aaron) CAN’T keep them from being consumed by sin. They make and begin worshiping a golden calf. Pesky buggers. Their repeated rebellion against Moses and their lack of trust in his and their God added years, GENERATIONS, to their time of wandering. Different people from those who BEGAN the journey actually FINISHED it. The old people died. Babies were born. An altogether NEW people emerged.

This Psalm is for them and for anyone who is tired and restless like you and me.  Old Moses reminds us that the one he, I, and many call GOD and just as many describe as our one SOURCE, The CREATOR, the GREAT SPIRIT, is ETERNAL. God is beyond time and the universe; our Source has no origin or creation.  The Creator, the Great Spirit simply “IS.” Human beings, on the other hand, die and return to the dust from which they are made (Psalm 90:1–4). (Even Moses didn’t make it to the promised land on earth). To begin to understand our Source is to realize our own MORTALITY.

Moses introduces God as both a refuge and the Creator for we – whose days are numbered.

If I count my days, it has been 18627 days since my birth. I feel that in this time, I’ve SURELY accumulated SOME wisdom.  My heart is informed by many instances of joy and pain. It’s brought me this far. I’m still learning and relearning, uncovering and embracing my TRUEST me. Sounds easy enough. Nope. Not easy.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried or that I’m ready for tomorrow. I AM worried and I’m NOT ready.  I admit that this is NOT where I thought I’d be at 51.  Life takes us through so many unforeseeable twists and turns, doesn’t it?  What I expected of myself and where I’m at simply DON’T match up.

By 51 I had thought that I’d be out of debt and own a house, that my family and I would be healthy and well adjusted, that I’d always get along with my husband, enjoy my work, have time for fun, and that I’d be a ROCK STAR. Alas, it is not so.

It’s OKAY. Although it is super hard to stop beating ourselves up about the way things ARE, the gift of GROWING wisdom is always there. Waiting. Ready for us. Life is beautiful. Some of that beauty comes from recognizing that it is REALLY SHORT. Because of this, we are more apt to savour the moments we share and make the best of our relationships. LOVE through the pain. Find STRENGTH in the joy.

This week, I’ve been setting up an RDSP (disability savings) for my 19 year old daughter.  I never dreamed I’d make retirement plans for one of my children. Yesterday (it feels like only yesterday) when she was free to swirl and twirl with ferocity and creativity, we loved her spunk and assumed she’d grow out of her more troublesome emotional and mental conditions. We THOUGHT we had all the time in the world. We love her quirkiness. Now we understand that there is more to it than expected. It’s all a part of how she is wonderfully and mysteriously made and LOVED.  We don’t know what her life will be like when she is sixty, but there is comfort in knowing she’ll ALWAYS have her siblings and have a modest income EVEN when I’m long gone.

I like to think I won’t be gone. Not REALLY. I hope that the energy that animates my body, the vibrations of my soul will LINGER – perhaps as electricity and spirit. ‘Is that light bulb flickering, or is it auntie so and so?’ I don’t know, but I do believe in the connection the living and the dead SHARE in what Christians call the Communion of Saints. Others may be familiar with the phrase, ‘the great cloud of witnesses’. Different faiths turn to the spirits of their ancestors for wisdom and guidance. Somehow, we continue to EXIST and experience each other’s presence in life and in death. Signs, dreams, and feelings that loved ones are near are common across the boundaries of time and space.

It makes me think of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (Rose & Jack) in the movie ‘Titanic’ and Celine Dione’s sappy song, “My heart will go on”.  Our time as human beings is limited.  Our hearts/souls/godsparks WILL GO ON. It makes me weep and smile at the same time.  What we do in this life is temporary. We have ETERNITY to figure things out together.  We are NEVER alone.

51 years is pretty cool. I’ll take it. Today and every day, I hope you will join me in counting our blessings as well as our days. Learn, grow, LIVE. Embrace the season. Time will hold us. Our hearts belong to the ETERNAL ONE.

God has made everything beautiful in its time. God has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Cry Laughing (mental health)

It seems I am always tired, angry, and laughing too loud.  Depression is EXHAUSTING. During this current bout of it, I listened to an audiobook for the first time. If you’re wondering, I find that it takes just as much focus as actually reading the words.  The lovely part is that there is a storytelling presence. It feels intimate. It feels like a connection, like someone sitting next to you, keeping your heaviness in check, engaging in a relationship. Listening to this voice feels like you have a FRIEND.

It disturbs me that I was listening to the authour of a ”TELL ALL” memoir narrate her own words this week, and I was feeling all kinds of validation and solidarity with her when I heard about the death of Sinéad O’Connor.  GULP. It was HER voice, HER memoir, “Rememberings” that I’d been listening to.  It makes me shiver in shock.

I’ve admired Sinéad since I was a teenager.  Back then, she was mesmerizing and terrifying. She was so angry on behalf of the causes she supported that she stopped at NOTHING to clearly advocate.  She was about the age of my older brother.  It wowed me that she was so young and passionate about things I’d not given a thought to, if I was even aware of them. 

I’ve just invested hours into getting to know her, to understand her more, to LOVE her, and to look forward to MORE from her.  My respect for her has done nothing but expand. She endured SO MUCH.  And now THIS.

Despite abuse and misogyny, she spoke TRUTH. She did everything she did on her own terms.  Despite multiple mental illness diagnoses, she kept on keeping on. She was a mother, a woman of faith, and an advocate for the helpless.

My parishioners are familiar with what I call our Godsparks – the Holy Spirit dwelling IN each of us. Sinéad expressed that she strongly felt the Spirit, the Comforter whom Jesus promised, in and around her.  She said that when she was speaking, the divine in her spoke to the divine in another. Her music was her ministry, and  she followed her Godspark wherever it led. 

During coffee time after church this morning, a friend and I were discussing how no one goes untouched by trauma.  We may not be aware of what influences our behaviour or that of others. I know I wasn’t.  We are so quick to label and judge.  Mental illness is still so STIGMATIZED that we who have serious risks often go unchecked.  Even under close supervision, disaster can strike.

No medical cause for her death has been offered, but we know Sinéad O’Connor lost her son to mental illness by suicide.  I lost my brother to mental illness by suicide, too.  Suicidal ideation is sneaky.  I’ve always maintained that I could NEVER go through with it.

This week reminded me of my own vulnerability. There WAS a time in my first pastorate when I was young, I was married, and I held the world.  YET, one snowy night on a back road, my little sports car started to get hard to handle. I was sliding and DECIDED there was nothing I could do. I didn’t even try.  I GAVE UP.  I just surrendered to the darkness. I let go of the wheel and let whatever was coming COME.  I denied being clinically  depressed.  I hadn’t sought diagnosis, treatment, or any help at all.  Thankfully, the car slid off the road, cleared the ditch, and sunk deeply into the snow just inches from a tree.  I liked the adrenaline rush and the attention I got when I shared the carefully edited story about what happened.

Mental illness, unresolved trauma, impulsive behaviour – it can MESS with your brain even unto death.

We do a lot of praying in church. I pray almost constantly wherever I am.  When things go sideways, my impulse isn’t to blame God. Instead, I CONVINCE myself that I must be praying WRONG, or I’m so BAD that God’s not listening. Really awful theology, I know.

Two things that will stick with me from that memoir I listened to this week. First, Sinéad O’Connor thought ‘cry laughing’ was the best expression of the mania and depression of so many mental illnesses. “Nothing feels better than cry laughing,” she said. She also said, “God doesn’t always GET to answering our prayers IN TIME because sometimes God is TOO busy WEEPING.”  Indeed.

Look after yourselves.  Pray. Feel your Godspark at work and let God answer prayer in, with, and through you.  Peace friends.

A Sibling’s experience of tragic death.

My brother and his son.

My oldest brother would have been fifty-five years alive on July 4th.  He died by suicide in 2012. Eleven years later, I find it hard to express how it affected me and continues to weigh on my being.  

His only child, a son, turned sixteen this year.  He and his mother daily face the stark reality of my brother’s death. I have the LUXURY of distance. I can choose to avoid the pain of it, at least temporarily.

His death demarcates the EXACT moment my parents began to visibly and mentally age.  They were in their mid seventies then, enjoying retirement and grandparenthood. A wonderful life stage. For a time, their loss numbed their energy and emotional availability for the rest of us, the sibling survivors, and our families. Our relationships have been forever altered.

The night IT happened, my second oldest brother called me in the middle of the night.  We had a very strange conversation. I wasn’t really awake. I wasn’t aware of the time and tried to sound like it was just an ORDINARY call.  But it wasn’t. It was surreal. My brother, on the other end of the phone, was clearly not himself. It took the rest of the night for our words to translate into a small hint of understanding that my oldest brother was ACTUALLY DEAD.

I spent that first day sitting at the computer, watching all the messages stream in on Facebook, where I’d unceremoniously dumped the news.  I was too overwhelmed to do anything else.

I did not see the place where it happened. I did not have the opportunity to go through my brother’s things. I didn’t even see his body (only his wife identified him). He was cremated. I arrived TOO LATE to be a part of those moments. We’d had to make many arrangements for a long road trip with young children and an uncertain date of return..

I did get to go with my disoriented father to “PICK HIM UP” when the funeral home said he was “READY”.  Dad got lost on the way. He pulled into a fire station to get directions. Irrelevant details. Everything was irrelevant. We were stunned and enduring what we thought were necessities. We were moving like puppets with no self resolve, through what felt like someone else’s nightmare.

When I first saw my mother, she hugged me, tearfully saying, “This doesn’t happen to OUR family”. After the funeral, my father said to my sister, brother and I, “Don’t any of you PULL anything LIKE this on us again.”  Their words have remained in my ear as my mental health struggles play out and my own family’s difficulties have evolved. What Mark opened up (that was his name, MARK,) was a Pandora’s box of all the things that were NOT talked about in our family.  We knew my brother was a recovering alcoholic. We knew he took medication for mental illness. We knew he’d been a psychiatric in-patient. WE KNEW. 

I always worried he’d get killed doing something wild like rock climbing or from a grizzly bear attack. An accident was probable (a gruesome, unintentional death would have, perhaps, been easier for us, I don’t know).  I wasn’t prepared for his death by his own hand.

I held what was my brother in an urn on my lap. That’s the closest we’d been in many years.  We’d always  had a complicated relationship. I feared him as much as I adored him. Clutching his urn felt like a violation on my part. It was a much needed confirmation of his death.  However, I wondered for months whether it was really him in that jar. Maybe he faked his own death? He was smart like that.

During the ensuing months, I morbidly pored over the internet for information and descriptions of the “how’s” and the “what’s” of his method of dispatch.  I think he wanted to feel it, to know it was happening. You know, to be sure. I wonder if he changed his mind when it was too late?

I understand that he was in so much emotional agony that death seemed his only way to relief. Maybe he didn’t want to die, but it is certain he needed the pain to stop. The health system had worn out their resources without giving him peace. 

He loved his son more than anything. It doesn’t make sense that he would leave him or believe his son or any of us would be better off without him.  How could such an intelligent, creative man think so little of himself?  It is simply irrevocably tragic.

My faith tells me that God is not the source of our suffering. God walks this road with us and leaves no one alone. Suicide does not deter God’s love.  I take comfort in knowing God was with Mark, even if he wasn’t aware of this truth.  I believe God wept for my brother and received him into all peace.

We don’t remember him for that terrible day or his final desperate act for relief. We remember him for his life, and we honour him by living out  what we loved about him.  

I empathize deeply with his pain. I am angry with him, and with the powers that be that failed him. I am ashamed for not supporting him in his struggle.  I know now.  I will do everything I humanly can to make sure my children, my husband, and all whom I love really know it. I will tell them how important they are and how worthy they are to live. I will take my meds and engage in self care to ward off the lure of that horrible surrender.

Please take good care.  Be gentle with yourself and make lots of room to hold space for the ones you hold dear.

Me and Mark.