Two Turns in the Journey

For the life of me I can’t find the connection between a first-born child and open-heart surgery.

But I experienced both within 10 days just a couple months ago.

Which brings me to a bit of an announcement. On June 8, 2014 Jessica and I welcomed Reade Edwin into the world—five weeks early, beating us to the punch on picking a pediatrician and a name.

We learned of both baby and leaky heart valve last fall. The valve news came in September by way of a routine screening that I had asked for. The baby news came in November by way of a stick. Actually two sticks. We couldn’t believe our eyes.

Jessica and I had casually talked about family and had intended to have a “serious” conversation on the subject. Well, we never had that conversation, and now we don’t have to. At our first official OB/GYN visit last December a due date of July 15 was set.

With regard to the leaky valve, I had asked, as part of my 50,000 mile check up, and on advice from bro-in-law Rick, for a baseline stress echocardiogram (“echo”). I’ve had no symptoms and truly was expecting to establish nothing but a heart function baseline. I now have a new question I will never forget, posed to me by the cardiologist who was called into the room by the tech in mid screening: “You know you have this leaky valve, right?” Uhh, no. I do now. The doctor indicated that the leak would simply be something to be monitored, assuring me that only 10 percent of leaky valves need treatment. And of course, at my first official cardiologist appointment a few weeks later we learned that I was in the 10 percent. It was measuring as a “severe” leak and treatment was a matter of “when,” not “if,” sooner rather than later (with “treatment” being open-heart surgery). Our knee-jerk thinking was to wait until after our delivery date in that the leak wasn’t an emergency. But a couple second opinions and an opening at the clinic at the University of Michigan (where my cardiologist wanted to send me; and btw, if you are in need of cardiology in the Middletown area, I would highly recommend Gary Brown, MD, and his great team) pointed to a date before Reade’s due date. We scheduled the surgery for May 30, a date that would accommodate a 30-day recovery with a two-week buffer before the July 15 due date.

So I spent about six weeks contemplating my life as a younger-than-usual heart patient and an older-than-usual new dad. When people joked with me about being an older dad they would unknowingly assure me with something like, “Well, at least you’re healthy.” To which I would have to say, “Well, let me share something with you.”

Thankfully, after successful valve repair surgery, and thanks to the world class skills of surgeon Stephen Bolling and his world class team, led by his amazing nurse Marguerite, I am healthy.

And not a moment too soon.

Within minutes of being discharged from the University of Michigan Medical Center, while working on my prescriptions list in our hospital hotel room, Jessica began experiencing some alarming pre-labor symptoms. Her OB/GYN in Ohio said, “Well, I know the University of Michigan has a great labor and delivery department. I’ve seen it. Go ahead and have them check you out.”

My mom and dad, the blessed Bonnie and Miles, phoned my sister and her husband, the blessed Beck and Rick, who had just left the facility to head home. They made a U-turn. We called our newest best friend, my nurse Marguerite, who had championed me through my entire surgery process. Rick came back to our room to pick up Jessica in a wheelchair. Marguerite met them in the hotel lobby to wheel Jessica to labor and delivery.

 

I laid on my bed in the hotel room like a slug. It was my only way to help. (Bonus points to you if you get that reference.)

 

After the labor/delivery folks monitored Jessica for several hours, we learned that she was having contractions, was dilated one centimeter and had a possible placental abruption. So, they admitted her.

My thought, as I lay in the hotel room like a slug: This can’t be happening.

But it was.

It was a harrowing thought to realize that if our baby was born at that time that I would not be able to do one thing to help or support. If he would happen to be over 10 pounds (though unlikely), I wouldn’t even be able to lift him for 30 days.

Jessica, after having been admitted on Monday (June 2) was discharged on Wednesday, giving us two days of great care in yet another of the University of Michigan’s great health centers. She made best friends out of all her docs which included Dr. Breed (I know! Great OB/GYN name) who looked like a 12-year old kid (but a very gifted OB), and Dr. Berman who came to U of M on a gymnastics scholarship, attended medical school there and stayed and who constantly asked Jessica “Who ARE you?” as she learned more about Jessica’s career and accomplishments. We were asking the same question of her as we learned of her career and accomplishments. The two-day stay also included a visit from Marguerite and Dr. Bolling, my healthcare team.

We left the University of Michigan on Thursday, and Reade, probably in a move to hold out until we crossed the Ohio line, was born on Sunday.

With me still unable to drive, we had our dear friends and neighbors, David and Angie Miller, drive us to the hospital after Jessica’s contractions began. David is a urologist and Angie is a nurse. We were in good hands. We left for the hospital around 9:30 p.m.  Reade entered this world at 11:46 p.m. Yep, that quick. And he weighed five pounds, six ounces, thoughtfully coming in a good four pounds under my lift limit.

Arriving five weeks early, Reade was soon taken to the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) where, because of his prematurity, he could be monitored for any complications. Thankfully, these were few, probably because of the great care (and two steroid shots to Jessica to help Reade’s lungs) at the University of Michigan.

While the NICU stay did mean that we were now spending extra days at the hospital, it also meant getting exposed to some of the kindest, wisest, gentlest, best-all-around-est people on the planet: NICU nurses.

But you know, as I ponder the connection between these two watershed life events, open-heart surgery and a newborn, here’s what I got so far (admittedly, it’s pretty simple): it’s the strengthening of our receiving and giving muscles by deepening our connections with people. The NICU nurses were actually the lead band in a parade of the kindest, wisest, gentlest, best-all-around-est people on the planet. Jessica and I had a curbside seat. We saw kindness and wisdom and gentleness we would not have otherwise seen, and we saw it from a position of flat on our backs. All of us sometimes find ourselves in that position, times when we can do nothing but lay there like a slug. We have to depend. To rely upon. To, and this is the kicker, lose control. This causes us to engage emotional and spiritual muscles that we seldom use. I’m convinced that the more we exercise our receiving muscles, the more we fire up our giving muscles. Then as we become more upright, we can’t wait to give. And it’s a deeper, better give.

Throughout this stretch I have said several times to myself, sometimes out loud: “I can’t believe how giving people are.” We’ve had: Neighbors mowing our lawn, friends organizing meals, guy friends throwing me a “diaper” shower at a local pub (we have a wall full of diapers and a shelf full of “toys your kids liked when you were a new dad”, girl friends throwing bi-coastal showers for Jessica and setting us for life in baby gear, our families stepping up in countless ways (like my mom and sister taking the night shift several nights a week!), friends bringing food to us in the baby hospital, friends making the trip to Michigan to visit us in the heart hospital, lactation nurses inspiring us with new levels of persistence, labor and post-partum nurses in the Dayton hospital making sure I’m doing okay, heart surgery nurses in the Michigan hospital making sure that Jessica is doing okay, my heart surgeon and nurse visiting Jessica in the labor department, Reade’s neonatologist and nurses making sure I was getting rest (and watching my coffee intake). We even made an unexpected friend out of my hospital roommate (both of us had asked about the availability of private rooms).

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been pondering what God might be trying to teach us—if anything (everything doesn’t have to be a lesson)—through these concurrent life events. Then this happened. A few days ago, the day I started writing this post, I took my first “normal” bike ride—no babying of the heart and pushing as hard as I wanted. While on the final leg, a near-professional bike rider, all decked out in the latest gear with more logos than a NASCAR car, went zooming past. As he passed he said, “Did you see those deer back there?” To which I said, “No! How did I miss that?!” I mean really, how could I miss that? I quickly turned, and there in the edge of the woods, two doe. And two fawns.

Then, as if to put a giant exclamation point on the whole deal, as if to leave no doubt that God is up to something in all this, later that evening Jessica and I saw one of the biggest, boldest rainbows we’ve seen in a long time. I haven’t had a deer/rainbow combo since June 2011, the week Jessica and I met.

If you are new to this blog, this deer story post [click here] will help bring you up to speed on why these sightings of a deer and rainbow are significant. (Strangely, I don’t think I ever wrote a post about the rainbow story, but just directed folks to the newspaper story, which is no longer active. So, rainbow post coming soon. Meanwhile, if you search "rainbow" on this blog you will get some good background.) Simply put, I am in a blessed position (whether flat on my back or upright) to experience new life and a repaired heart, a heart that was broken in more ways than one.

Thankfully, more than one kind of healing has happened, too. Bring on new life. There is much to experience, much to receive, and much to give.

Thank you for journeying along.

First Comes Love...

You know the familiar adage:

First comes love…

Then comes marriage…
Then comes Jessica and Barry pushing a baby carriage.

Or actually a Chicco Cortina KeyFit 30 Travel System.

Yes, we are with child. As in Jessica is pregnant. As in due mid-July. As in Abraham is my new Bible hero. As in: I’m learning they don’t make strollers like they used to. Thank goodness.

And yes, it is a bit of a surprise. Though it is not an oops, nor complete surprise.

Being that we were theoretical potential parents, we had planned to have “the conversation” last May on the subject of family. That month, however, was crazy on many levels, so crazy that even Jessica, who was leaning more toward family at the moment than I, had said, “We can’t even think about that right now.”

We never had that conversation.

And now we don’t have to.

This is, what I like to say, historic.

Parenthood is something that neither Jessica nor I, in our pre “Jessica and Barry” era, thought we would experience. With a career spiraling upward and no husband on the horizon, Jessica had not only dismissed parenthood, but also marriage. And because chemo and cancer had taken its toll on Dana, I had plowed through the emotion of not being a dad. And I was fine with that.

And now, if you run the numbers, I will be a 70-year old dad at his kid’s high school graduation.

Rock on. I am fine with that, too. (Even though I might joke that I’m not; a man’s got to get some mileage out of life situations.)

We learned this past November, by way of a stick (and confirmed by a second stick the next day) that we were pregnant. It was a few weeks later when we first heard the words from an OB/GYN nurse, by way of a urine sample, “Yep, you’re pregnant,” that it sank in a little deeper. Actually “freaked us out a bit” might be more descriptive. We’ve come to understand the reason for a nine-month gestation period. It’s not only for the baby. It’s also for the parents-elect. But as we look toward a July 15 due date we feel we are way ahead of the curve in progressing from a bit freaked out to full-on embracing.

We rolled the news out to our close friends and families over the Christmas season.  My parents broke out in the most spontaneous tears I’ve ever seen. Jessica’s family, which has welcomed several babies to the fold over the past few years, is equally as elated—lots of tears and hugs. Over the past few weeks we have begun our public rollout.

Aside from a couple of performance engagements just after the due date that Jessica has had to step away from, we plan for her singing to keep right on clicking along. In fact, she will be singing Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen with the Cincinnati Opera in June. Thankfully we have great examples and role models for blending parenthood with a fulfilling operatic career.

They say a baby changes everything and I feel I’ve caught a few glimpses of that, even in simple things like working the word “trimester” into everyday speak. As we’ve begun to think about baby paraphernalia I took my first solo foray into baby retail land at Target a few days ago. I found myself wondering the most basic questions, like: So is baby gear in the same section as “maternity”? I think just the act of posing the question in my mind slightly panicked me in that, I asked for help from the first person I saw with a badge, who happened to be a staff person from the hospital hitting Target on her way home from work. I think she registered my panic, and was very helpful.

When I finally did step into the baby gear section (which wasn’t in the “maternity” section) I had what can only be described as an out of body experience. This can’t be me!

But it is me. And it’s us. And it’s a blessing.

And it’s a boy.

Marking Four Years

Today, December 23, 2013, marks year four since Dana’s passing from here to There.

 

The moments of December 23, 2009 are still so very vivid. It’s hard to believe that we’ve already spanned the length of a high school career, or the duration of an Olympiad, or the length of a U.S. presidential term.

 
Last year on this date I wrote of a haunting game you play when battling a terminal disease­—it’s the game of picturing future scenes without you. This hit hard with Dane one particular Christmas—at every family gathering she would picture that same gathering without her. In her mind she pictured everyone cruising along in life, not noticing that she was gone, sort of “It’s a Wonderful Life” in reverse.  

This little thought game was in stark contrast to her inspiringly brave fight and hopeful thoughts of heaven. It’s occurred to me recently that this game is likely driven by a lurking anxiety that we all have, no matter how hopeful and brave we are: we want to be remembered after we’re gone.

For those of us left behind, we know that it’s impossible to not remember Dana in any gathering that she would have been a part of. Her laughs, her smiles, her love of the moment, her cut-to-the-chase sense that took conversations to meaningful levels. But I guess at year four I do begin to think about Dana’s lasting legacy more than I have before.  So, maybe sometime today, or sometime soon, take a moment to pause, think, reflect, remember.

Now to my second thought.

But first, a side note that is either random coincidence or something more divine. Here I am writing this post and using the 4-year high school career to describe a time period while also writing about the act of remembering. As I type, there is a TV show on in the background, The Sing-Off, an a cappella group singing competition. A group just gave a butt-kicking rendition of the song “Don’t You Forget About Me,” which comes from the high-school based movie, “The Breakfast Club.” Really?? I’m going with something more divine. I can’t make this stuff up!

Now to my second thought, for real.

 When I posted my last blog entry (Elk Envy), I had a funny sense that folks could be thinking, “Why, after finding new love and being happily married, is Barry still writing about something painful and sad?” Frankly, I have even found myself thinking the same thing. It’s a logical, natural question.

Here’s my answer (so far): While I was journeying through the epicenter of pain and sadness I experienced things I would not have otherwise experienced. I saw God in ways I would not have otherwise seen. And I feel that I am in a unique position to say, despite the pain and sadness, that God is still good. While in my darkest, fear-filled hours, God mercifully made His presence known. He didn’t have to do that. He could have let me rely on belief and trust and faith. God has shown us in His Word that He is with us no matter what. God could have said, “Well, you’ve’ been telling people to know and trust God’s Word, let’s see how you do.” But He didn’t stay quiet. God poked His finger through the thin veil between here and There. He did it many times. I feel a bit of a psalmist’s calling in that I have experienced God’s tender mercies and I want, even need, to tell about it.

These pokes through the thin veil, or “God stamps” as we’ve come to call them, at times came fast and furious. Some, like the elk story of the previous post, have taken a few months, or years, to come to full fruition. But they need to be shared. I definitely have not been the best steward of this testimony, a point at which I feel fairly convicted.

Thank you for observing this journey with me—for your encouragement, for your prayers, for your support. Thank you for your patience as I figure out the best way to share of God’s tender mercies from past loss, as I also grow in deep, new love with Jessica (which is a merciful journey in itself!).

The veil is thin. God is near. His mercies are generous.

Thank you!

Barry

Elk Envy

I will try to be brief. But this story—or “God stamp” actually—was a long time in the making.

It started shortly after Dana and I began the fight against her recurrent breast cancer which was diagnosed in August 2006. The story became an official “God stamp” just this past fall, six years later.  (For backstory on "God stamps," you may want to click to this post, or search for "deer" or "rainbow" on this blog.)

In the second year of battling recurrence, it became clear that this round of breast cancer was not going away easily, if at all. As we settled into the slog, Dana began reading a book by John Eldredge with her good friend Kay. Eldredge is a writer, teacher, counselor who touches a great deal on what some might call the “chick-if-i-cation” of the church—asking men, who are of the hunter/gatherer nature, to share emotions and sing, etc., things guys are not inclined to do, unless they are talking about football or cheering with 50,000 other fans.

In this particular book (I am still searching for the exact book, Eldredge, a prolific writer, has written many) Eldredge told a story about taking his son elk hunting. In recounting the story, he told of what a great father/son bonding time he had envisioned for this particular experience. But as the hunting excursion wore on, they hadn’t seen one elk. So Eldridge began to pray. He prayed that they might run across an elk, justifying the request by reminding God of the terrific bonding experience it would be. And, lo and behold, near the end of the hunting day, an elk sauntered across their path. Boom. His son got his elk. Eldridge, then, went on to use that story as an illustration for prayer.

This caused Dana to respond in an email to Kay: Oh that’s just great. I am praying against cancer, in hopes of living, and I am getting nothing. He prays for an elk, in hopes to kill it, and God comes through for him.

To which Kay responded, in her usual poignant way: Dana, you have elk envy. Don’t have elk envy. Just because God answers prayer one way doesn’t mean He is going to answer your prayer the same way.

Which is true. Very true. Undeniably, biblically, and theologically true.

So, “no elk envy” became one of our bumper sticker phrases (Kay actually needle-pointed the phrase, and a facsimile of an elk, into a pillow case) throughout the cancer fight, and as best we could, we made it the framework for our praying.

In the fall of 2009 the battle took a hard turn. The cancer spread in a way that affected Dana’s cognitive and motor capabilities. So, not only did she transition into a bedridden condition, but in what was probably the cruelest turn in the fight, Dana lost her ability to communicate, or more specifically, to express. Her communication was simply “yes” or “no” responses to questions and occasionally she phrased a sentence or two.

Here’s why it was cruel. Our ability to communicate and express is what attracted us to each other in the first place, and it’s what eventually placed us into what we called “one of the top five loves of all time.” We loved making each other laugh. We loved sharing and processing together. Dana was invigorated by the art of writing and expressing. It was in the DNA of her personality. And now, as we were moving into the most challenging era of our marriage, we were doing it with one-word answers to life’s most difficult questions and high-stakes dilemmas.    

While we were in, what I’ve labeled, “hospice mode,” Dana and I would touch on the subject of heaven, but she was not comfortable in making that a topic of conversation. We had long said that if one of us got to heaven before the other, then heaven was not going to be all it was cracked up to be. And we’d both said, in our more expressive moments, that neither of us will give the other permission to “go.” We would both be hanging onto the leg of the other.

Knowing Dana was not comfortable with the subject of heaven, I concluded, whether rightly or wrongly, that talking about heaven might create more fear and anxiety than comfort and assurance—pulling together info from our conversations from our expressive days and mixing that with Dana’s one-word answers to my questions about the subject. Yet, here we are, approaching our ultimate goodbye and Dana’s big hello, with scant ability to communicate.

And so, you plow through on your own, navigating the high-wire balancing act that care-giving forces upon you: protection vs. reality; the presence of hospice and palliative care vs. the appearance of throwing in the towel; the desire, and need, to enter into end of life conversation vs. creating fear.

It’s an impossible balance, and you do the best you can.

During hospice mode those were the tensions occupying my mind which was in a constant state of whirring and spinning, like the whirring and spinning you hear in your computer from time to time. Only my whirring and spinning never wound down. There was no CTL+ALT+DEL keyboard sequence.

That November our friends Randy and Kay came to visit from Montana. Yes, the Kay with whom Dana shared the John Eldredge book, which by now had been two years prior. Dana knew they were coming. As soon as they walked through the door, before anything else was said, Dana piped up, “No elk envy.”

I am not sure there has ever been a better placed, better prepared phrase in all of history. If you’ve ever read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, it was a “timshel” moment. For in that phrase, Dana told all of us that she knew the seriousness of the situation. And perhaps most importantly, she told us all, especially me, that she was okay with that.

In that phrase she showed humor, expression, connection. I laughed. I cried. But mostly, I sighed heavily—a deep-body sigh. It’s not that it made anything easier, but I was able to feel, ever so slightly, that we were in this thing together. It was a boost I needed as we navigated the final days, which, it turned out, would be just around the corner from Randy and Kay’s visit.

But here is where the story takes a turn toward God-stamp status. Last November, Randy took their 12-year old son Ben elk hunting for the first time on the ranch where they live in Montana. I know. Elk hunting. Father and son. It was the first season that Ben was age eligible to hunt elk. They saw a few elk throughout the day but never had a clear shot. Then, by late afternoon they tried one more area. Three elk finally walked out into the open. Ben set up and took one shot. Boom. Ben got his elk. Randy would later note, being a fittingly proud dad, it was a “perfect lung shot.”

And we all knew this was more than Ben’s first elk.

It was a near-perfect repeat of the scenario that generated our prayer chant “no elk envy”—a father-son elk hunting excursion. Extraordinarily, Ben saw and killed an elk at pretty much the earliest possible moment—the first shot he took on the first day he hunted of the first year he was eligible to hunt.

I don’t know if there’s much theological backing for this (and it’s not the first time I’ve pushed through the limits of theology in this whole journey), but I have taken this as a divine imprimatur—a God stamp—on a couple levels: number one, that yes, indeed, Dana’s declaration of “no elk envy” on Randy and Kay’s visit stands as a window into her thinking that she knew how bad things were, and she was okay with that. Secondly, and more importantly, our prayers are to have the flavor of “no elk envy.”

That’s huge. And it goes against our nature.

Just because God does not move or answer prayers the way we want or hope or expect doesn’t mean that God is any less good than when He does answer prayers the way we want or hope or expect. This, though, is a tough nut to crack. Just look at the prayer request lists of any church. First, our requests take on the flavor of a Christmas list, stating things that we want. Then, when things do turn out the way we want, we heap on the praise (“God is good!” we will say). When they don’t, the flavor is a little different (“Keep praying!” we will say).

Why is this? Do we oversell how God will intervene in our lives thus creating an expectation God never expected us to have? The only fail-safe promise we have from God is that He will be with us. But, because of expectations we’ve created, we’ve worked ourselves into a corner where God’s presence doesn’t really matter—we would rather have our way than His presence.

When I look at how Jesus taught us to pray (Matthew 6 and Luke 11), I can only find two personal items we can expect from God based on our requests: 1.) our daily sustenance; 2.) to be lead away from temptation.

So how is it that we are brazenly disappointed when things don’t go our way? Maybe it’s because we see in the gospels people asking for healing and Jesus heals them, so we think we should get the same treatment. But isn’t this classic “elk envy”? To quote our friend Kay: Just because Jesus answered one prayer one way doesn’t mean He will answer our prayers the same way.

Curiously, when I started writing this blog post—a post on the subject of our desires versus God’s ways—while in California with Jessica and her family, I received news that my mom was rushed to the hospital with chest pains—a first for her. Of course, I prayed like crazy for my own desires and wishes—that everything would be okay—and gave a patronizing nod to “God’s ways.”

Nice test, God.

Isn’t that just like Him? I knew that writing about prayer was likely to bring on a test, but I didn’t think it would come so quickly. For the record, mom did not appear to have a heart attack (God is good!) and will undergo some follow up tests this week (Please keep praying!).

The timing of Mom’s hospital run feels like a gentle nudge from God that says: Make sure you’re not giving the impression to not pray like crazy for desires and wishes (especially since we see a fair amount of Scripture telling us to do just that). I guess though, that the point where we get off track is the expectation we place on the results. Scripture does tell us to bring our desires and requests to God, but the healthy attitude seems to ask that we not base our opinion of God on how He honors our desires and requests. If things do not go as we hoped, we will naturally be mad, sad, hurt, disappointed and myriad other emotions. I think this is healthy. Where it gets less healthy, or even unhealthy, is when these emotions morph into mindsets of bitterness or skepticism or into a thinking that God is not on our side, which, candidly, is what Dana and I were thinking throughout much of the recurrence battle. By reminding ourselves of “no elk envy” we stayed out of a dangerous hole.

From my perspective, the less God’s people freak out over things not going our way, the more we show an observing world that we trust God’s ways. The issue of suffering is a big sticking point for those who are testing the waters of Christianity but have yet to jump in. Our reaction to suffering, or more poignantly, our reaction to things not going our way, displays whether or not we believe what Scripture says about suffering, chiefly, that we will experience it. And it displays whether or not we believe, and even appreciate, God’s fail-safe promise that He will be with us in the suffering.

To train myself to think and pray this way, I may adopt a new phrase for the close of my prayers, “No elk envy.” It may not be as poetic as “Amen,” but it forces me to think “Your will be done” and actually mean it.

Thank you for observing this journey with me.

Barry

Follow-Up Note: My mom’s follow-up tests all went well and things seem to be okay with her heart. Also, I received a note from Randy and Kay saying that Ben’s first elk hunting excursion this season was unproductive, adding a little more credence to last season’s divinely-timed, God-stamped elk.

Bible Follow-Up: In taking the observations of this journey to a next level, I've created a bare-bones Bible experience to accompany this post. It's an opportunity to explore, and even evaluate, some of my biblical assertions. You can get it here. (By the way, we need a new word for "devotional" or "Bible study." Right now "experience" is all I got, but I know we can do better.)

Walking Wounded



"Fountain of Tears" in Granada, Spain

 

I have something strange going on.

This “something strange” has happened a few times recently, two instances I can remember with some detail.

It goes something like this: I’ll be clicking through my day, minding my own business, thinking my usual random thoughts (“Concrete was a great invention.”). I’ll be in a public place like a big box store and my path will cross, for a fleeting moment, with someone who has apparently spent his or her entire life overcoming a major physical challenge. They’re on their own at the moment in this busy arena, and seem to be doing fine.

It brings me to immediate tears.

The first instance that I noticed this becoming a trend was a few months ago while riding on an airport tram. I was probably doing some internal kvetching about airport life. I had noticed a man a little younger than I carrying an equal amount of travel bags—an over-stuffed roller bag and a heavy-laden back pack over a shoulder. (This probably sparked the random thought, “I wonder if the 50-pound baggage limit was set by the chiropractor lobby.”) The tram made a stop. The doors opened, my fellow traveler stood from his seat, gathered his bags, and with considerable effort, drug his barely functioning leg with his maximum-stuffed roller bag through the tram door onto his next destination. He exited as if he’d done it hundreds of times, maybe thousands.

 

I stayed on the tram, awaiting my next stop. With tears streaming down my cheeks.

The most recent instance of this “something strange” was at one of Jessica’s concerts in Miami, Fla. She was singing Maria in excerpts from "West Side Story" with the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, a world-renown conductor who actually worked with Leonard Bernstein, composer of "West Side Story."

When I arrived at my row before the concert began I had to ask a patron seated on the end to stand in order for me to get to my seat. She was seated by herself and politely, even enthusiastically, obliged. Her movements were noticeably labored, but confident. I could sense she had a challenge of some sort. But it wasn’t until the end of the concert, when she applauded with her wrists, that I could see the extent of her challenge, perhaps a type of palsy.

Applauding. With her wrists. With a huge smile. And then, before the applause was over, she turned to walk with a limp up the aisle to exit, no doubt to beat the crowd—something she had done hundreds of times. Maybe thousands.

I kept clapping. With tears streaming down my cheeks.

At that moment my applause took on more meaning than celebration of the transcendent moments I had experienced through the music, but I began to feel myself as a cheerleader. First I was cheering how anyone, no matter their situation of life, can enjoy beautiful music. I was also cheering how my wife Jessica was able to, with her gifted voice, reach into the spirit of my applauding neighbor. And of course, I was cheering how my neighbor, despite her challenges, or maybe even because of her challenges, was able to enjoy beautiful music.

Later that day, after the concert, Jessica and I were walking down Lincoln Road, a famous pedestrian mall in South Beach. We happened upon my seat mate from the concert, sitting at an outdoor table enjoying a nice dish of frozen yogurt. I introduced myself by saying “I enjoyed listening to that beautiful concert with you!” After a couple of confused seconds she said, “You changed your clothes!” Which I had, going from diva-spouse afternoon concert attire to shorts and a t-shirt. And then she said, “That was so beautiful.” I introduced Jessica as one of the singers. Our friend asked “Which one?” to which we replied “Maria.” You could see gratitude come over our friend as she seemed privileged to share how beautiful the experience was to her.

As we walked away, I cried again. Now I had to explain my tears. “She touched me,” I said to Jessica, whose gift of tenderness may actually surpass her gift of music. She always lets me cry, and enters into the cry with me.

I have been around folks with physical challenges my entire life, whether challenges since birth or brought on through accident or disease. I’ve done my best to help when I can, to empathize as best I can, and mostly to not let the challenge define the person.

But something is now different. This is a new look for me, this immediate, spontaneous crying thing.

I want to pay attention to it.

It seems that in one instantaneous moment the journeys of these folks, with all the dynamic moments on journeys like these, wash over my heart like a rogue wave.

Those moments when they realized their condition, whether gradually from a birth abnormality or all at once through an accident or disease (Was it shock? Was it surprise?); the struggle behind the acceptance of the fact that they don’t have it as easy as others; the whipsaw moments of weakness with every intention to throw in the towel, followed by moments of sheer resolve and determination, and then the cruel reverse of that sequence. But here they are: functioning in mass public—a busy airport, a packed concert hall—with aplomb.

I’ve been trying to assess the crying. Why the immediate well-up of tears? Later that evening in Miami I dropped Jessica off at the hall to practice for her next gig and I made the 25 minute walk back to the apartment where we were staying. I tried to get a handle on this. I’m sure it’s related to the journey of loss, the experience of a broken heart. But could it be something more specific? And then I was prompted by a memory.

Dana had been on chemo for about a year with her recurrent breast cancer (BC round 2, as we would call it) when we were driving on Breiel Blvd. in Middletown and happened upon a fender bender. But it wasn’t two cars. It was a car and a deer. The deer was badly wounded but was still alive and trying to pull itself off the road into the safety of the nearby woods. Dana immediately began to cry , and she couldn't stop crying. This was more than her usual soft spot for all things animal and “all the kitties in the world.” As we drove she expressed that she was identifying with the deer. She and the deer were both wounded. They were both fighting to survive. They were both longing for safety and the familiarity of normal. That event stuck with us for days.

And it came flooding into my mind and heart on that walk in Miami.

 

I am wounded.

I can identify with the challenges of these folks whose paths I’m crossing. I can empathize with the rapid-fire whipsaw of resolve vs. despair, denial vs. acceptance. I know what it’s like to walk with a crippling hole of hurt and loss, laboring to function in a world that caters to normal.

But here’s the thing: We’re all wounded.

We all carry something.

And I think that’s what my visceral reactions to the walking wounded around me are tapping into. My journey of loss has reworked my emotional DNA and I’m just now beginning to realize to what degree this has occurred. Yes, my heart is more generally moved these days (I tear up at some point during every episode of “Blue Bloods,” a new series on ABC that Jessica and I have locked into; and I don’t think it’s simply sleep deprivation), but connecting with those who have visibly pressed through insurmountable obstacles provides a window into just how re-worked my emotional DNA is.

The phrase “world of hurt” comes to mind, with new meaning. We’re all carrying something. We’re all asked to overcome something. To borrow the words of a new friend, Leneita Fix, who does urban youth ministry near New York City, “All teens are urban. It doesn’t matter where they live or what their circumstances are; given today’s teen predicament, they’re all trying to survive something.” (As a side, you may want to check out Leneita’s book, “Everybody’s Urban.”) The same is true for all of us. In some cases the striving to survive is visible: exiting a tram with a debilitated leg, applauding beautiful music with wrists. In other cases the striving to survive lurks behind the masks of our stoic faces as we navigate our daily routines of waiting in lines, paying bills, meeting deadlines.

I’m reminded of something written in 2 Corinthians 1:4, that “[God] comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

That’s pretty cool, and I think it describes why I’m having such a strong reaction to “those in any trouble.” This verse, perhaps more than any other, paints the picture of redemption that can emerge from “our troubles.” We are naturally and organically drawn to the wounds of others. And it’s good to react.

For now, I’m reacting with tears. I’m going to keep paying attention to this reaction, grabbing tightly to this thread, watching hopefully to see what fabric of redemption God might be weaving together. I’ve felt compelled to share this point in the journey. While it’s certainly a work in progress, I’m sensing there are more of us who have hidden wounds needing to heal, or healed wounds needing to be shared with others.

 

Maybe we can all cheer and applaud for each other—with our hearts, with our hands, and even with our wrists.

"Where are you?"

“Where are you?”

It’s a question we’ve been asking of God lately, especially since the tragedy in Newtown, Conn. It’s an honest, heart-felt question. The question sounds a bit mocking, with a tad of derision. It’s not necessarily declaring a state of apostasy, but more of a natural reaction. Sometimes it just sounds good to ask the question even if we know the answer. But it doesn’t catch God off guard.

Especially since, He asked it of us first.

They were His first spoken words in the world’s newly realized fallen state, moments after the fateful bite of the fruit, or at least after just enough time to sew a few fig leaves together.

Adam and Eve were hiding in the garden and God asked, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9)

In His omniscience, God knew the answer. I’m certain He knew the whereabouts of Adam and Eve. But He asked the question, maybe just to get it down on paper for us to see, knowing that we’d be asking that question of Him, now that the world was in its fallen state.

And we have been asking that question ever since. Israel asked it. Psalmists asked it. Martha asked it. Even Jesus asked it.

I have asked it.

And I thought I’d use the occasion of the three-year anniversary of Dana’s passing to comment on that question.

I think the time I felt most abandoned by God was when we were in the slog of the fight. It seemed that any time we hit a juncture where things could take a turn for better or worse, a time when God could show His hand, it was then that things would turn for worse. In our short-sighted humanness it’s natural to feel that we’re on the wrong side of God.

But, in the cosmic scheme of things, we’re not the ones who moved. I think it’s because of the things we have to navigate in this fallen world that cause us to question the presence of God. It has broken my heart to hear people this past week ask, almost with a shaking fist, “Where is God?”

In my journey God has been extra merciful in reminding us of His presence. Rainbows in the sky, deer in the yard, and even a heart in the clouds. (You may want to search this blog for the key words in that last sentence to get geeked up on what’s come to be known as “God stamps.”) I say merciful because He has already told all of us in His Word that He is with us, that His Comforter is walking with us, that He will never leave us nor forsake us. And He told us those things in almost the same breath when He says that we will have trouble.

God saw it coming. And I think that’s why He asked the question first.

So these days, when I find myself asking that question of God, I want to ask it of myself. Where am I? I think that keeps me on a better track. Because the reality is, God is near. Always. Everywhere.

I want to leave you with a thought that’s more connected to marking three years than to the question “Where is God?” I remember about the second Christmas into the cancer recurrence fight (probably Christmas 2008) that Dana had a bit of a spooky thought. We were at a family gathering and she was picturing that gathering without her in the picture. With the threat of a serious illness, that picture can be more vivid. She was picturing all of us carrying on as if nothing had happened.

Those of us who are still here, fighting through the fallen world, know that nothing can be further from the truth. I have said this before: you can’t have known Dane for even a minute without having something change in you. We are all different.

As we reflect on three years on this earth without Dane, I might ask that you tap into that part of your personal DNA that was impacted by Dane. Keep it fanned and flamed.

And I think there’s something else going on that Dane would have no way of foreseeing. I don’t know about any of you, but we here have felt some kind of extra special encouragement that can only come from the Dana corner of heaven. There is more to tell, but suffice it to say I think Dane is having an absolute blast in more ways than one. More on all of that soon.

Return to the Fire

Through a quirky chain of events, I returned to the scene of the fire last Friday.

If you’re new to this blog, a quick recap of what I mean by “fire.” It’s the pain and fear that come from losing the person on this earth who has been the closest to you, the person with whom you have shared what you both called “one of the top five loves of all time.” My recovery modus operandi in my journey of losing Dana has been to adopt the military strategy of running toward enemy fire; when soldiers see or hear enemy fire they run toward it. My MO has been to run toward the pain and not run away from it. (You may want to check out this blog post for more detail.) Last week I had the chance to see how the philosophy of running toward the fire was working out for me.

And here’s what I mean by quirky chain of events: This past summer I added to my plate the task of serving as interim pastor at Breiel Blvd. Church of God in Middletown, the church that brought me to Middletown in the first place as youth pastor many years ago. “Interim” means I serve until a new pastor is in place.

Serving part-time, my primary responsibilities with the church are teaching/speaking on Sunday and meeting with the staff (a blessed, great staff I might add) through the week. I’ve had on my radar the possibility of helping with the pastoral care component, including hospital visits, if the need were to arise and if I had the time. Last Friday, the need arose. I’m not sure I had the time, but I was compelled to make the time.

It’s ironic that I would voluntarily make the time because it hasn’t always been that way.

When I first came to Middletown to serve as youth pastor at Breiel Church one of my duties as a member of the pastoral staff was to help with hospital visits two days a week, Wednesdays and Fridays. I confess that as I navigated the calendar-packed, high-energy nature of youth ministry, hospital rounds did not factor as a favorite “to do.” And inevitably, the Wednesday I was launching a new series in our youth programming (our big night was Wednesday night, and series launches meant more detail to tend to than usual) was the day I’d not only have several people to visit in the Middletown hospital, but also someone in Dayton (north of Middletown) and Cincinnati (south of Middletown). Before I sound too gripey, I need to say that the moment I would arrive at the hospital room, I embraced that time. I certainly understood that this was some of the purest, most consistent ministry I would be doing every week. I enjoyed talking and praying with the folks and they seemed to be encouraged by my visits. But that didn’t keep me from grousing a bit on my drives to and fro.

I left that youth pastor position having never resolved the experience of blending hospital/pastoral care with youth ministry. I was compliant to the duty and respectful of the task, but I probably didn’t full on embrace the experience.

It was during Dana’s cancer fight years later, when I lived in a hospital room for a month as a caregiver, that I revisited that unresolved experience. As you might expect, my recent journey has left me heartbroken for what takes place in a hospital room. But I hadn’t really had a chance to act on that heartbreak and was even beginning to wonder if it was real.

This is why I felt compelled to make the time for the hospital rounds this past Friday. I needed to take the heartbreak for a test drive. But in doing this, I knew that meant running to the fire. I knew I would be walking through a particular set of doors. The last time I walked through these doors was when I was walking out of them and into an ambulette for the 4 mile ride home to hospice care. So when I said, “I’ll visit the hospital this Friday,” I was saying it through the nervous lump in my throat: What if the flood of memories, which were bound to be filled with details I had forgotten, would render me useless? What if I were to walk boldly through those front doors, get a whiff of hospital and hear myself say “nope,” u-turning to walk just as boldly out of those front doors, not even giving myself a chance to tap into the heartbreak? There were some unnerving unknowns. Of course, they were familiar unknowns. They’re the kind of questions you face every time you run toward the fire.

What I underestimated was how God could use the flood of memories, the “fire” you might say, to massage the heartbreak.

I should have known that God was up to something because the visit started rather ominously.

Wouldn’t you know that on this my first visit back to the hospital where Dana’s final spiral began there would be a parishioner to visit on “Fourth Floor North,” the floor where Dana and I spent a month treating her cancer’s final play, the floor where I learned how to define progress as three steps backwards and only two steps forward, the floor where I learned to squeeze as much hope as I could from the smallest morsels the fight would offer up. And just to be sure I didn’t miss a trickle of the flood that was to wash over me, fate would have it that when I walked past the nurse’s station to say hello to a friend, I ended up standing in front of the very room where it all took place.

Walking into the hospital wasn’t as difficult as I thought. It was as I stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor when I was surprised at the first thing that started the flood of memories: the tile patterns in the floor. As a caregiver during a lengthy hospital stay you have many opportunities to stare at the floor. For me, it was usually when I was talking with family and friends on the phone. I would step out of the room to find a place where I could talk (and maybe cry) without waking up Dana (or alarming her), where I wouldn’t be bothering hospital staff at the nurse’s station or other caregivers in waiting areas (even though I was anxious and nervous, I was still loud).  My “step out” would usually take me to the elevator landing area: it had a big window with a spacious view and if anyone came by they were always passing through, never congregating. It was this area that I would talk and pace while on the phone. As I shared bad news, good news, and bad news with spin, the back channel of my mind would study the tile patterns in the floor: I like how they put a curve here; but it made for a tough cut of that tile piece; it was a good idea to change color tile at this break in the pattern; those are nice, warm colors; when I place the tip of my shoe in the corner of that tile it looks like a parabola from my geometry days; I wonder how Mrs. Hypes is doing; and now it’s an asymptote—the shoe line and tile line will never meet if you follow them to infinity. And on it goes.

I think it’s something your mind does (or at least my mind) to keep you grounded. It notices inane, ordinary things, things that have nothing to do with the fears you’re facing. It’s probably a bit of an escape mechanism, as in, wouldn’t it be nice if this was all you had to worry about? Seeing this forgotten but familiar tile pattern reminded me of the intensity of those days, the relentless monitoring of symptoms, the draining interplay of hope and reality, the constant nagging of the haunting question, “What if this is it?” Your mind will relish the smallest things for a break, including a cup of coffee. Every sip of coffee in that hospital stay provided me a two to three second mental break. It was a moment when I didn’t have to make a decision, or worry about an outcome, and I knew what I was doing when I took that sip. It was a moment that was the complete opposite of every other moment during the stay.

The folks I visited last Friday were dear friends from my time as youth pastor at Breiel Church. The visits were rich and full of good conversation, much of which centered around questions and comments like “Where’s your wife Jessica? I can’t wait to meet her!” Jessica, of course, is a favorite. These comments then led to the redemptive work that God is doing in all the experiences of our lives. And yes, it was impossible to be in any of these hospital rooms without my eyes doing a scan of the surroundings: the whiteboard with the day’s date, the futon that made into a more comfortable bed than you would expect (thankfully), the patient wristbands that increase in number as the stay lengthens in days (allergies, “fall risk,” DNR).

As I left the building I was also reminded of the first time I was in Middletown's new hospital, Atrium Medical Center, even before it opened. Every three years the hospital’s foundation hosts a gala. I wrote about the one I attended shortly after Dana passed…a gala she helped plan.(I posted about that here.) The gala preceding that was in 2007 and Dana and I attended. It also was the celebration of the opening of Atrium Medical Center and included a dessert reception inside the hospital at the close of the gala, which was held outdoors under a beautifully decorated giant white tent. Dana and I were one year into the cancer recurrence battle at the time. I remember standing in the atrium of Atrium and thinking, “This place is fresh and new, there has been no bad news shared with anyone yet, there have been no deaths in here yet. It’s a clean slate.” I think it was the slog of battling cancer that took my mind down the negative trail. Because you can also go down the positive trail, which my mind eventually did, as I thought, “This will also be a place where good news is shared: the surgery was successful; the scan is clear; it’s a boy (or a girl).”

I’ve learned that life happens somewhere between those two trails, a truth that might have been part of my compulsion last Friday as to why I wanted to MAKE time for the hospital rounds. The Bible tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12). There aren’t too many physical places in this world that actually provide opportunity for both: rejoicing and mourning. A hospital is certainly one of them.

One more thought. The picture below is the floor of the elevator. When I realized the significant role the tile floor played in my hospital experience, I snapped this to document the tile formations that I had studied while riding the elevator several times a day during that September in 2009, wishfully overhearing hopeful conversations of short hospital stays and “heading home to recover.” The framing of the picture was completely random; I simply pointed my phone down and snapped. It was while studying the picture more closely that I noticed what I captured—a cross.  In all my trips up and down that elevator in the month of living at the hospital, I don’t think I noticed the cross formation. It was simply a tile pattern, a pattern I studied as a mental break on an elevator ride. But the cross was there the entire time, whether I noticed it or not.

This is when God began to do a number on me, when He used my experience in the “fire” to massage my heartbreak to help others in their own fire—showing me that the heartbreak is real and giving me clarity on how to use it. I think that the tile on the elevator floor depicts our role with each other: reminding each other that the cross is there whether we see it or not. Whether it’s good news or bad news; whether it’s a short hospital stay that leads to recovery or a long hospital stay that ends in death; the cross, a symbol of victory over suffering and triumph over death, is always there.

 

Whether I knew it or not as a youth pastor years ago making my obligatory hospital “rounds,” I was reminding people that the cross was there whether they knew it or not. It may not have been anything I said or did, but just the fact that I came as a representative of the gospel—the gospel that delivers peace and comfort and eternal hope.

So the next time I have an opportunity to visit the hospital, I will make the time. There’s one other thing about fire that we all know: it refines. Maybe that’s what running toward the fire is all about, or at least a big part of what it’s all about. The fire does more than massage the heartrbreak, it refines the heartbreak and helps clarify the path of redemption that emerges from the pain.

I’ll keep working on that.

 

Meanwhile thank you for your patience, not only for the length of this post, but for the length of time since the last post. I apologize for the dry spell. More soon!