I used to think in words on paper
before the cancer came
Words and letters floated in my mind,
Looking for a soft place to land
But now the cancer
The cancer, the cancer the cancer
The fucking cancer
And the words still light up, like fireflies
that I cannot catch 

I am a Helicopter Mom. Proudly.

Last week when I took Jasmine to the DMV, the smart ass behind the counter motioned his head towards me and asked Jasmine, "Does she always hover like that?"

"Yes!" I said, "Yes I do! And we are in the right line, right? The one where you give my baby girl a driving permit so she can hop in a tin can and be chased around the OC by boys smoking and texting and speeding? Not to mention all the massive, wobbly trucks barreling down the high way changing lanes haphazardly like there's no one else on the planet! And, oh yeah, there's this little tiny issue with the thing called DRUNKS ON THE ROAD!"

Actually, I didn't really say any of that. I just gave him a warning scowl and then mumbled something about how this is my third daughter to get her permit and I think I know what I'm doing and then I quietly took my seat in the Nervous Parent Waiting Area.

I hold my breath. I hold my breath to see if she passes the test. Let me be clear, I am not an over-achiever mom. Some may say I'm even an under achiever, 5 unfinished semesters of junior college and absolutely nothing to show for it. It's the straight up truth. I signed up, 5 times. I paid, 5 times. I picked out classes and bought books, 5 times. And then I dropped out half way, sometimes three quarters of the way, 5 times. I do not make brownies, I do not go to PTA meetings and I do not volunteer at school.

But still...I hold my breath for her. I hold my breath to see if she's happy, if she feels good about the test. Each day, I hold my breath to see if she accomplishes her goals and if she has grace and light for herself when she doesn't. I hold my breath to hear if she feels strong and confident and brave. I hold my breath to hear if she shares laughter and feels like she belongs. And I hold my breath for all her itty-bitty parts that can seem so big. I hold my breath to see if she feels good about her outfit, her hair, her weight. I hold my breath and imagine I'm in the halls, at the lunch tables, sitting in class trying to retain Algebra 2. I hold my breath to hear if the mean girls were maybe just a little bit... after all my praying and begging...nicer today. And I daydream about hovering in and watching over. And I pray the Holy Spirit goes with her where I cannot.  

And when I pick her up, I listen and wait. I wait to hear the things that give me permission to exhale...I'm pretty sure I got most of the answers right on the quiz...I'm having a great hair day, don't ya think mom...It was so funny at lunch when...

And so it goes, today I will breathe.

I can hear her now, strumming her guitar, she tells me she’s trying to learn a new song. Her voice is gentle and powerful all at once. Innocent and wise…as she is becoming.

And I hover, I certainly do…

Email Beats Phone Call

An email beats a call from the doctor, hands-down any day of the week. When I woke up and saw the email from the Dermatology Center I opened it like a kid on Christmas morning.

It said... I was free! 

Well, It didn't actually say that, but what it did say was, "Good news Tamara! Your biopsy showed NO signs of melanoma. No further treatment is needed at this time. We will see you in August for your check up. Have a great day!"

A great day!

Freedom.

Sweet, sweet freedom. 

Free to go to yoga.

Free to plant dahlias on my porch.

Free to go pick up Summer and help move her boxes home.

Free to go to May's graduation. 

Free to plan May's wedding.

Free to hold my new baby nephew and smell the top of his head. 

Free to go to my brother's wedding in Oregon.

Free to go to the beach...

of course with a wee bit more rules, but no mind that...

I am free of cancer.

 

Some people say that you should live one day at a time, but in Melanoma world you kinda live 3 months at a time...

 

and I'm gonna live the hell out of the next 3 months!

 

Woohoo!

Today is day 12 that I've been waiting for the phone to ring. I am not afraid. For I know that no matter what my doctor says, I am whole and I am healed and I will live forever. But most importantly I know that, whatever happens, God is good all the time. I know this in my bones.

But still, this has been a super rough 12 days. When she did the biopsy I barely flinched. My doctor is pregnant with a baby girl and I was busy cooing. As she removed the mole, I was preoccupied talking about baby names and how hard it is to be pregnant through the August heat. She and I have become good friends over this last difficult year.

It wasn't til later that night when the bandaid fell off that I gave the site a second thought. It was angry. Dark purple around the edges and black in the middle. I gasped and Jon came into the bathroom, examined the site, and with big eyes, put one hand over his mouth and shook his head. We've been here before.

And that's the real problem. I know the toll this takes on my family. It throws off our family rhythm,  it's exhausting for everyone, and it's expensive. Plus, I don't love surgery, and after the first few days when the happy pain pills wear off, I get cabin fever and I get whiny. I get tired of asking for a drink of water, I get tired of needing help to get dressed and I will always be tired of needing help to get to the bathroom. I'm the mom, and these things put me in opposite-land.

Also, I simply don't have time for surgery right now. It's almost summertime, and I have wonderful plans. May graduates college this Saturday and we have much planning to do for her wedding. Summer is coming home from studying in the mountains for the semester. I haven't seen her since February! Her and I have months of coffee and tea time to make up for. And my baby sister and her husband are coming to stay with us in two weeks, from very far across the pond, and bringing my new nephew who I have only seen in pictures and not yet smelled the top of his sweet baby head. Plus, Jazi loves to go to Laguna now with her friends, of course drenched in sunscreen, but I love driving them all there, we roll down the windows and blast Aurora on the stereo. It makes me feel like one of the girls. And in June we are traveling to Oregon to see my brother finally wed his lovely lady of 20 years. And my other sister and nieces and nephews are flying out from Tennessee and we have several beach days planned.

 

I have purchased a very wide brimmed hat and a sun-protection shawl and painted my toes bright watermelon pink, so as you can see, I simply have no time for melanoma.

I hope God gets my memo about this. Maybe the fall would work better for me, I could probably squeeze it in after my birthday in September but before Thanksgiving, or maybe even after Christmas but before the new year, like last year's surgery. That is better timing for me.

But I'd really like this summer to be cancer free. Free is such a great word. Free to splash in the waves, free to spread my toes in the warm sand, free to eat tuna sandwiches with sweet pickles while I watch the kids make sandcastles. You can take the melanoma out of the girl, but you can't take the beach out of the girl.

I promise to where my hat.

I promise to where my shawl.

I promise to wear my sunscreen.

I promise.

So now can the phone please ring?

I had another cancer dream last night. They always leave me groggy and unsettled when I wake.

I had a little bit of cancer at Christmas time. They say they got it all, but my dreams still worry. 

In last night's dream, my stitches were growing out of my chest and belly like unruly old-man grey hairs. I was trying to tweeze them, but they were thin and wiry and moving like seaweed under the waves.

At the roots, where they crept through my skin, were tiny rivers of blood and Jon was angry with me for making them fester. I tried to cover the sites with bandages, but the stitches weaved their way up through the gauze, along with tiny patches of blood. 

The thing is, it's been almost 4 months, but my stitches are really still in there. They were supposed to dissolve, but my body always spits them out for years after any incision. I know this because these last two surgeries make 12 spots where they have cut at me. And when I run my hand over the scars, they are lumpy and pokey and sore. 

But they really did say they got it all...at least for now. And I have been living, really living as deeply and honestly and creatively and thankfully as much as I possibly can. 

My mind moves slower, stays longer to meditate on the gifts that surround me. Jasmine's cheek. I touch it with the back of my hand and it is still as soft as when she was a baby. 

Music is ridiculously soothing, seeping into every part of me and making me whole. 

Fresh bread and butter and strawberry jam have changed my life.

And oh how I wish you could see the rain falling on the purple pansies on my porch right now, they're wiggling like happy puppies in a garden hose as they drink in the water.

People say, "it's the little things" and it's the truest of truths. It can be that the little thing is the worst of all things, a little bit of cancer. It could be the end of the world, and somewhere inside me, when I try to sleep, my body likes to tell me that.

But it's morning now, and joy comes in the morning. And I am awake now and in charge of my thoughts. And for this moment, I am thinking of my warm cup of coffee and my husband's silly morning hair and the rain outside that our dry land so desperately needs.

Park Day

"...but I'm free!"
She says to me
"My sandcastles
my walls
have all been
taken by the sea
and I'm really free!"

And the way
the sunlight
catches in her long lashes
I know it's true
I am quiet,
for seeing
where Jesus
has come
deserves a pause
a breath...

and her laughter
carried in the wind
is water and food
where I am
hungry

"to be continued..."
she says
A teared smile and a kiss
the little ones
are waiting...
in flower halos

some early morning thoughts

Thank God for fall. Things will again be tethered to rhythms and golden leaves and school bells. In years past, summer has been my reprieve, my freedom, but this year, it's only mid July and the long days and relentless sun have worn me down. There has been too much unsettled, too much unknown, too many ghosts to chase.

My babies are grown, almost. But as their long tanned legs drape over the couch and coffee table, their deep worried sighs carry that angst of being trapped between child and adulthood. There are relentless pressures on them these days. Who they will become, what they will do, who they will love. I know they feel untethered too. I know they need to still belong to Jon and I but long to find their own way too.

It's an anxious place. We rise with racing minds, fumble through the days and meet pillow again with monkey mind.

It was easier when they were small, and I knew it. Beach time, tuna sandwiches and a nap under the umbrella. When they awoke the ocean air lifted white hairs from their sweaty necks as they yawned in my lap. We spent long hours watching the waters crash on the shore under the pink setting sun.

But it's all so disorienting now. Everone is going their seperate ways. Spreading their still fuzzy feathered wings and perching at the edge of the nest. One..two...three... and a flight of faith. I want them to fly. I want them to fly so very, very high. But I don't want them to fall...although they will. And odds are I won't be there to catch them.

At 19 and 20, so much of them is no longer mine. I can still coddle the baby a bit, but at 14 she is 3 inches taller than me and already in many ways, wiser. I know I will always be Mom, they will still come to me in peppered moments of life, but nothing will ever again be as consistant and simple  as bathtime... booktime...bedtime.  

wee poem

Fire had blackend the land and ash swirled in the sky
Dirty rain poured down and made tiny dark rivers on the broken land
As we walked, the filth sloshed between our toes
The smell of dead things rose from the ground

We kept walking, our eyes burning...we kept walking

Humanness

People are experiential. In the same way that we buy tickets for the experience of hearing someone sing in a concert or dance on a stage, every person we encounter, each child of God, we experience them, as they pack up our groceries or sit next to us at the taco place or sweat it out on the mat next to us. We feel them, we feel them as energy, we feel when someone is afraid or angry or frustrated. We can feel their joy too, their hopefulness, their bright company. And we say, "I feel you," when we look each other in the eye.

This is most true when it's someone that we love. It is not the clothes they wear or even the things that they say, but rather how they move through the house, how they open a window, their footsteps in the hall. It's how they smell and how they hum in the shower and how their body brings warmth. God did this perfectly, this communion of the spirit, that fills the empty spaces.

There is no fame or fortune or far away land or drink that soothes the soul nearly as well, as the hand of someone who loves you on your back.

People are God's greatest gift to us, over every sunset, over every mountain range and river bend. It's the miracle of flesh and blood. With each new born baby, the Heaven's rejoice and trumpets sound. Sometimes we forget about this, when those babies grow up and cut us off on the highway or become annoying neighbors. And it is so disorienting when those babies grow up and do evil things.

But even still, the endless value of humanness does not change. And what each person brings is so intricately created and unique. How is it possible that there are no two fingerprints alike?

So I think the goal here, at least as I see it, is to try and be gracious when that newborn baby cuts me off or plays their music too loud. And then to carve out the time, hand the doorman my ticket, sit quietly in the theater, whether that be home or grocery store or taco place, and as the curtains open, silence my cellphone, look up and see... as the people in front of me... sing and dance...miracles that they are.

March 2015, The Month of Serendipity

This past month has been nearly flawless. Yesterday totally sucked, I'll get to that part later, but I am still going to call March of 2015 the Month of Serendipity.

It was crazy good, in some big ways but in all the tiny little details too. The days unfolded before me like that scene in the movie where Marilyn Monroe is gliding through a sea of men in tuxedos and being lavished in diamonds and squealing at the Cartier's and Tiffany's as she's belting out "diamonds are a girl's best friend." But screw the diamonds, I've been squealing over spring's bursting jasmine and this wild tree in front of my house that is blooming like never before.The tree has lived here as long as we have but we have never seen such flowers on it. The branches are weighing heavy with pure white blossoms and carpeting the path underneath. Even the neighbors have come over to ooh and ah at it's glory.

But more importantly, I've been belting out about Jesus. He's done a New Thing in me. A while back, my sister in law Jif started praying a scripture over me. She read it to me at some point when I was still neck deep in fear and confusion. But already knowing the scripture in my head, I mumbled off a quick thank you and then returned promptly to my mire.

The scripture is Ephesians 3:16-19, "I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

I must have read those words a thousand times in the last twenty years, I'm sure I spouted them off more than once to one friend or another whilst trying to sound deep and super spiritual.

But now, I know these words in my heart...and they know me.

Ut oh, I feel another tattoo coming on.

Earlier this month I tattooed Isaiah 43:18-19 on my wrist. I know, I know, scandalous! My kids were shocked. I have always forbidden them from getting tattoos. Like super forbidden, like I-won't-pay-for-college-if-you-get-a-tattoo-forbidden. But now I may have to re-evaluate my rules.

Isaiah 43:18-19, " Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a New Thing! It springs up now, Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wasteland and streams in the desert."

Almost 5 years ago God gave me this verse seven times in ten days. I know that sounds crazy but it's true. It just kept coming to me, the first time, it leapt off the page at me during a bible study with such weight that I called Jon at work to read it to him. He was working at a super crappy low-paying job at the time and was quiet on the other end of the phone.

Later that day I bumped into my neighbor Elisha and told her about the verse. The whole neighborhood was knee deep in the recession at the time and the verse was very encouraging to her as well.

The next day I went sobbing to a local church that has a prayer room.  It's a beautiful place, a candle lit room with pillows scattered on the floor. You don't need an appointment, you don't even have to say anything. You just lie down on a pillow and people will come and lay hands on you and pray for you. I was crying so hard I just collapsed on the first pillow I saw. Things hadn't been going so well. Like everybody else, we were broke, in fear of losing our house, Jon and I were fighting all the time and it seemed like each of our kids had insurmountable challenges going on. And then there was the whole part of my heart that deeply believed I would never be good enough, that I wasn't really a child of God and that one day I would surely go mad and ruin the lives of everyone I love.

A woman with a soft voice put her hands on my back and soothed me as I whimpered hunched over like a child in a schoolyard. I don't even remember what she prayed, I just knew the Holy Spirit was there. And eventually I began to catch my breath as I rested my head on the pillow. She sat with me for a few moments and then she said I could lay there as long as I like and she went to pray with someone else on a nearby pillow.

After a little bit, I rubbed my eyes clear, tucked my hair behind my ears and got up to leave. But as I walked to the door, the lady who prayed for me, stopped me.

"Oh, wait sweetie," she says, "God wants me to give you something," and she hands me a thin piece of paper, pre-cut and pre-typed. #2

I raced home and showed the paper to Elisha, "Wow," she says, "God really wants you to hear that."

We laughed and marveled at the coincidence and then I went inside to start dinner.

But first I checked my email and then got stuck in some rabbit whole on the internet. I don't even remember what I was looking up...but #3 the verse came flashing across the computer screen. I stood up and held my hand over my mouth.

Then I picked up the phone and called Elisha.

"Come over" , I said.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Just come over", I repeated.

When she got here I was standing about ten feet back from my computer and I just pointed.

We just stood there quietly in awe for several moments.

Then the next day it was again repeated in my bible study, #4, I just chuckled to myself and said, "Okay God, I hear you."

But apparently He wasn't totally sure I did because a couple days later, my mother in law called me and she says, "Ya know, Tami I heard the best sermon on Sunday and I was totally thinking about you. It was on the verse...#5.

Then the next day I bump into my friend Sylvia and she says to me, no joke, she says" You know what verse has really been speaking to me lately?" #6

Then I went to my women's group, and of course the verse they were studying that day...drumroll please...#7

Yeah, so now I tattooed it on my arm.

But the grueling work God has been doing these past five years was no slight thing. So many days I pounded my fists on my bedroom floor saying, "No God, No! I do not perceive it! I do not perceive a new thing, I feel stuck in the same old crap and the same old fears!"

I fought Him hard.

And I also fought several demons...

and then I gave up. I gave up fighting...

and then for a while there, I even gave up hoping.

And I felt like I was left with nothing. The story of the verses from Isaiah given to me seven times, fading and still not really making much sense.

Jon eventually got a better job and gratefully we didn't lose our house, and the stuff with the kids worked out, but of course there's always new stuff. So life remained that ebb and flow of good and bad days, but still so many fearful days where my heart felt hard and always exhausted. And even on good days, I never felt like I was fully engaged, I felt like an outsider in my own life. But still... I pressed on, catching the glimpses of hope in my children or in nature or in art, but always still just waiting for that other shoe to drop.

But then something changed, this month on March 1st, my heart re-opened. I don't really know how else to describe it. I wish I could tell you a formula or tell you where to buy a magic potion, but it is truly nothing short of a miracle. It wasn't something I did or conjured up, it just happened, it happened to me.

I was standing in church barely singing, believing still the lie that I will never be good enough and that I don't belong and that I was probably already going mad and surely destined to ruin the lives of everyone I love, and then I started to weep uncontrollably and I couldn't catch my breath...

...and then it stopped.

The lies stopped, they just stopped.

And I heard the truth.

And I realized... I am the New Thing! My heart is a New Thing!

And all these years, these long quiet years... He has been reshaping my heart to fully receive Him, without restraints. I had so many restraints, so many conditions. And he has been taking my broken parts, the parts that really scared me...shamed me...confused me...the old things... and replacing them with ways in the wastelands and streams in the desert...

So that, I could be rooted and established in love...so that I may know...and not just know it in my head, but in my heart, my whole heart...how wide, how long, how deep and high is the love of Christ, that surpasses all understanding... that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God!

Man, heart surgery hurts! And it takes too long!

But now everything feels brighter, lighter, the spell has been lifted. Satin can't use that lie anymore, He's been exposed. I belong. I am a New Thing. I am Loved. I am a child of God.

I jokingly said to my sister in law, "I think I became a Christian!" She had a good laugh. But that's how fresh it feels, like that day twenty-five years ago when I wandered into that Calvary Chapel and became born again. Now, I'm born again...again!


(oh, and never mind about yesterday, it doesn't matter anymore.)

Meghan

My friend Elisha invited me to her daughter's grave. She went yesterday and texted me from the site. She said that she would love for me to come with her sometime because it would be sort of like I could meet a part of her. She said, "kind of like how we like to show off our kids cause of how proud we are of them."

My heart swelled. I met Elisha a few years after her daughter had died and several years since mine had died. Our friendship met deep from the start as we bonded in sorrow and longing for our daughters in Heaven.

Today would have been her daughter's 18th birthday. There should have been 18 parties, 18 cakes, 18 candles, but the virus took her before she even saw her first.

Yesterday, before she went to her grave, she stopped at the cemetery gift shop. She says she rarely stops there, even though the people there are warm and they place nice music, there is a smell in the shop that is unsettling. She bought a small jar of oil and a dusting cloth and a handful of bright yellow daises. She said the flower petals reminded her of baby's slender fingers.

She told me how she knelt down in the grass, and with her finger, traced each letter of her daughter's name... Meghan Noelle Towles... She dusted the letters with the cloth and rubbed the oil deep into the stone until it shone in the sunlight. She wept heart-washing tears as she retrieved the water from the spout and placed the daises in the ground. She lay at the grave and told her daughter about good things...great things...how she and daddy were still married, still in love and how she had two more brothers now.

She told me that she thought it would make Meghan happy and proud to know that her family was still intact in this complicated old world.

It was noisy at the cemetery. There was construction going on just behind the hill near Mehgan's grave. But Elisha said she didn't mind, because the hammering and voices of the crewman were the sound of life happening.

This morning over coffee Elisha and I talked about Heaven. She said she would be lost without it.

We are all lost without it. It is where life is happening. Sure we get glimpses of it here, wonderful glimpses even, in our children, in friendship, in nature and in art.

But there is still so much darkness, so much death.

But in Heaven... Meghan is alive! All the babies are alive there...and they will never die. No one will ever die there, no more sorrow, no more death.

Imprinted on Meghan's gravestone are the words of Jesus, "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God."   

See God! Meghan sees God!

I can't even begin to grasp that.

But I can see it in Elisha's eyes, the quiet knowing of a mama that she will see her baby girl again. It's undeniable. So much of Elisha's spirit is so obviously trapped between this world and the next.

And maybe that's just where we are all supposed to be...

December

I went for a walk this morning. It was hard. My body didn't feel up to it, it rarely does. But while my full house breathed deep and heavy, I pulled May's college sweatshirt over my head, and tip-toed out the front door. I love mornings, you wouldn't think this was true, because I do own a mug that says in bold black letters, "Good F-ing Morning", but really I do think mornings are absolutely lovely, I just also happen to think the mug is funny.

It was kind of a hazy morning. Winter in California doesn't really know what it wants to be. The honeysuckle and jasmine are always so confused. Just when you see snowy peaks over the Inland Empire, a string of days will come so bright and warm that random blossoms will spring from the greyest of vines.

I stuck my nose deep in the yellow of a honeysuckle this morning. I inhaled the velvety sweetness and closed my eyes. I wanted so badly to pick it, stuff it into the pocket of May's sweatshirt, so I could take it out and smell it later. But it was all alone out there this morning, peeking out from it's wiry branch, and I thought it best to leave it for the next passerby. Although, I don't know if many of my fellow morning trail blazers would crouch down, booty in the air, eyes closed, face pressed into this quiet solo bloom, but one has to hope.

It's four days before Christmas and the faces of my community are mostly friendly but also frantic and tired, and I'm sure mine reflects the same. We are all doing our best to be merry in this season. Along the way, people pass me a lot, I walk slow, but I keep hearing Annie Lamott telling me, "One does what one can, one does what one can..." She is so good to me. I practiced grace for my legs, they kept going, they were good to me this morning too.

I walk in flip-flops, my wide-spread German feet need to breathe, only my dad really gets this. So I trade blisters for shin splints, but my feet hug the earth and I think this connects me more to God.

And I had so much to talk to Him about this morning. My kids, my friends, my husband, my siblings, my mom, my dad, the general state of the universe. My head was so foggy, blurred by the traffic and the shopping and the wrapping and the hoping of the last few weeks. I asked God to put a song in my heart but nothing really came, so I just kept on walking and breathing, step after step and eventually some of the holiday anxiety lifted.

As I came to the end of my walk, I rounded the corner near the bottom of my street and a butterfly crossed my path and landed on one of the square bushes that lines the trail. I have never seen a butterfly like it before. It was magnificent. It was sort of a blend of copper and mulled wine, like it was a holiday-themed butterfly. It sat still on a leaf, wings spread wide, displaying it's intricate beauty, shimmering in the light and a wild contrast to the bland backdrop of trees and bushes.

I immediately thought of my friend Julie, I think if she was a butterfly, that's the kind she would be.
She's Italian and passionate and smart and witty. And she sparkles in all the right ways, not show-offy, just talented and kind and dedicated to God and her husband and her kids. She is my Jewel.

And then I started to cry. And God stopped me in my tracks. I said out loud, "I just want to be a bush." And then I said it again, "Do you hear me God? I just want to be a bush!"

He said no.

And I realized something about myself that may not be a new realization, but when God reflects something back at me from His creation, I tend to take notice.

I've always wanted to be a bush. I work really hard at trying to be a bush, to just blend in to the backdrop, to be "normal". Hah!

But now I'm thinking maybe that's not really what God wants me to be.

Maybe God wants me to be a butterfly, like my Jewel. Maybe God wants me to spread my wings a bit...show off my intricate beauty... and  maybe even fly...maybe He's got colors all picked out just for me...and maybe, I too...will shimmer in the light. 

I bleed a lot. I always have, and I'm not really sure why. Every doctor seems to have a different opinion. But the flow is heavy and it can be super painful. From the loss of blood, my body has become depleted. A few times a year I go in for an IV drip of iron. It's so expensive. As I sit and watch the black liquid poor into my vein, I think of all the things I could have bought, all the things my girls need, all the bills I could have paid.


When I'm bleeding super heavy, I seem a little bit crazy. I can't focus, I can't finish my thoughts. I don't understand the things people are saying around me. I get tired and irritable. It's embarrassing. And its so gross.


Sometimes it can cause terrible nightmares. Last night I dreamt I had lost my glasses and I couldn't see and someone had stolen my purse and my license and my phone. There was a man sitting between me and my children. I called to them saying, "Girls, call Daddy, I can't see anything, tell him to pick us up, I've lost my purse." The man started yelling at me and threatened to call the police if I came any closer. "What are you talking about?" I said, "These are my kids." The man started dialing 911. Then the man called someone else and told them he'd called the police and to please pray for the children because their mom was crazy. I called out to my babies, "Girls, you have to call Daddy, I've lost everything!" They just stared down at their phones. The man laughed. "No!" I shouted, "This isn't right!" The man's laugh grew louder. "Nope, nope, no way!" I yelled as I pointed my finger at his face. "This isn't real, my children wouldn't treat me this way, you're not real, this is a dream!" And poof, I awoke.


I went to the bathroom to bleed some more. Then I grabbed my glasses and my bible and went to the couch. I wanted to read about the miracle of when Jesus healed the bleeding woman. I began to read in Mark, and I read, "she had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse."


And I cried. I cried because I realized that the miracle wasn't really about the healing. The miracle was that... He saw, that He sees me, that He knows when I'm bleeding, when I'm hurting. He knows. That's the miracle. Emanuel, that's the secret! He knows each tear that falls. The miracle is His compassion. Emanuel. Emanuel. Emanuel. God loves me...and today it feels brand new.







   

Summer

The summer flowers in my pots are blown out and wild. Save only one young green shoot that has sprung up through the leftovers of July's glory. I remember planting it many months ago. I had picked up the bag of bulbs for a dollar, knowing at the time it was well past their planting season. But I shoved them deep in the soil anyway, under summer's chamomile and lavender, with the hopes of maybe a few blooms in the spring. But this early one is such a sweet surprise. I have been watching it unfold throughout the week, in between the endless trips to Target and the mall.


"Oh, mom, I forgot to get...and what if I need...and do you think my dorm will have?"


So we make the list and off we go again. My Summer is my planner, my prepared girl. She could live on an island for a year, from the boxes of supplies stacking up in our garage.


 "Sweetie, you are only an hour away, if you forget something, I can bring it to you," I tell her.


But I don't think she can hear me. I can see the wheels turning in her mind. She hasn't really been here for weeks now. So much of her is already there, walking the pathway's to her classes, lost in all those daydreams of what is to come, and come ever so quickly they will.


Tomorrow, 9am.


It is no surprise to me that in this morning's warm sunlight, that young green shoot is in full bloom. It is also no surprise to me that it is yellow. Eighteen years ago I brought my little Summer baby home in yellow. It has always been her color, my sunshine girl.


Soon I will clean out the pots on my porch and make room for falls wine and wheat colored mums. I will shake out the dried sprigs of chamomile and lavender and the wind will carry their seeds away. I pray they will land and take root somewhere kind. They have quite a journey to brave. They will have to hide from the militant gardener, with his ceaseless noise polluting blower. I'll never understand the need to push leaves around with a bossy machine, when God does a pretty decent job of it all on His own, swirling the fallen shades of gold and red in the Autumn breeze.

The Sea

Tick, tock goes that mean old clock. One, two, three and four... and then no more. My little LuLu stretches big under the covers, in her boxed-up room. The past few days her heart has raced and teeter-tottered between joy and thrill to nausea and fret. She fears she will have no friends. My sparkling girl.


This Sabbath morning the house is full and still deep in slumber. A chorus of deep and slow melodic breathing sounds out from every room. Even the couch cradles two baby girls with scraps of midnight crafts scattered half finished on the coffee table. Just like thirteen year olds at a sleep over, but they're not. They are twenty and spent the late hours of the night creating pintristy decorations for October's wedding. Lace will be the first baby girl to marry come this fall.


And in six days, another adventure begins for my May. Hah! Was she ever really mine? Up, up, up, and away, her wings stretch like an eagle... and she soars, oh sweet Lord, she soars!  And even though my tired and fragile heart rattles around in my chest, I accept that her mission is bigger than mama and any attempts to tether her would wound those beautiful wings. But I will have grace on myself, I will not let Shame accuse me in my episodes of worry.


My Jasmine, who is in all perceptions, still sort of mine, starts high school tomorrow. Each day her petals delicately unfold into loveliness and leave behind the baby bud she used to be. And now comes dances and football games...and boys!


And the man who holds us all stirs behind me. Rest is a hot commodity for this sweet guitar playing hippy boy turned Vice President in a tie.


And the sea...


still touches the shore and recedes...


and repeat, repeat, repeat...
 

Sunday

I trace my fingers over the words


...love one another, as I have loved you...


My lip trembles


I press in...


with fear


so much fear.


The band plays...


Go before me, through the valley


Speak to me, for I know your voice.


Do I?


Lead me homeward, gentle Shepherd,


God of love, God of grace.


Tap, tap, tap...


goes the knock at my door.


and with fear


so much fear...


I look to see if He's still there.

Just Another Day in May

It's too quiet here...again. The stretches have been peppered in over the past few years, while at dance practices and friend's houses, but the inevitable long stretch of silence is within days and I'm finding it hard to catch my breath.


May stirs in her bed, her last sleeping-in day before the early rise of her summertime job. I try to type quietly as to not disturb her in her sand-in-the-hourglass morning of rest. She leaves Monday for the mountains, the kids at Camp Pondo need her, she tells me with a smirk.


Summer is at school for her very last Friday ever of high school, next Friday she will graduate and next Saturday she will be on a plane to visit a long lost friend in a distant land. And come ever-so-quickly in the fall, she's off to college.


I will pour myself joyfully into Jasmine the next four years and savor her still-left moments of being a young girl. But the opening ceremonies of this season of her life are upon us. Today I will only see her for an hour, I will pick her up from school and than drop her off at a sleepover birthday party.


and so it begins...


But I hate the term "empty nest". It's so dismissive of my continuing job description. May's first year at college she called me three to four times a week in the middle of the night. I'd awake in a panic assuming the worst.


"Hi mom, I wanted to tell you about my classes today."


And as I settled into my pillow and listened to her soft voice, I remembered college kids keep all hours...just like newborns.

So I'll tend to the nest, weave in new leaves and grasses, branches and scavenged yarn. I'll keep it warm and open.

And I'll keep my eyes lifted to the sky...because I know their wings will always fly them home.

Hope Abounds

All was lost. There was no more breath. The enemy had ravaged through the land, like locusts, leaving a dry and barren desert.  Hurt and bitterness had consumed the sweet rhythms of the heart.

It had been nearly five years since I had heard the laughter of my dear old friend...twelve...since I had seen my sister's smile.

The smell of gunfire still in the air, the enemy had won the battle.


And left only was the ache and the empty space where there was once flesh and blood, flesh and blood made in the image of God. The mind races, loops over the conversations, the ugly words. One tries to zip themselves tight, shut out the memories of kindnesses and rescue...but then a song plays or the scent of Tuberose wafts through...and the heart sinks, the belly turns.


And in the darkness of night there is no rest...


But then on a seemingly average day...a letter arrives in the mail...or a phone call is made...and suddenly there is breath once again... and rivers of heart-washing tears replenish the land. New growth cracks through the hard surface. And where there was death, there is now new life.


Resurrection.


I had forgotten about Grace. The miraculous and
transcending magic of Grace. The Grace that means that no one is ever really lost...and that Hope abounds.


My daffodils have been chanting this at me for several weeks now, as they stretch tall through the sea rocks I had scattered above them last September.


I know as they push through the heaviness of the stones, it will make them stronger. And their bright shining faces will turn towards the Son in a grand celebration of life. It's been a long time coming. The winter was cold and dark and had no foreseeable end.


But now I bathe long in the sweetness of forgiveness... the laughter of kindred hearts...what a tender surprise!


And I am reminded of the ridiculous reality of Hope.


Oh sweet Resurrection just never gets old!
I could hear it's story for a thousand years ...
and still want for a thousand more.

All the Poor and Powerless...

As the black leather glove pummels the side of my face, the slow motion camera catches my blood and spit and sweat as it flies through the air. The crowd goes wild.


I try to shake it off, but my vision is still blurry. I try to duck as the glove strikes my other cheek but now I'm down for the count...


And the scene plays out as I travel back through all the ugly and all the good...and I can hear the growing rumble of the crowd, "Tami...Tami...Tami..."


"It's not how hard you can hit...but how hard you can get hit...keep moving forward...Get up! Get Up! Get up!"


(Yes, I am now getting my guidance from Rocky Balboa.)


But the truth is, I've been in the ring for as long as I can remember. I always get up and I always move forward, but the troubling thing is that so much of me is still broken, still bleeding.


I guess I thought I'd be all healed up by now. Surely that's what I was told. I am a new creation after all.


But it's just not that simple.


And in so many of my circles, I am still cowering in the corner with Shame that I am not "choosing joy."


"Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances..."


"Jesus Wept."


Touché! 


And so we're back here again as the inner battle rages on, debating my state of mind, with the politicians, the lobbyists, and the spastic court jesters all chiming in. 


But something new is happening...standing in church yesterday, I heard that Faint Whisper...


All the poor and powerless
And all the lost and lonely
All the thieves will come confess
And know that You are holy
And know that You are holy

And all will sing out
Hallelujah
And we will cry out
Hallelujah
All the hearts who are content
And all who feel unworthy
And all who hurt with nothing left
Will know that You are holy

And all will sing out
Hallelujah
And we will cry out
Hallelujah

Shout it
Go on scream it from the mountains
Go on and tell it to the masses
That He is God
We will sing out
Hallelujah
And we will cry out
Hallelujah


And as the band played on...Shame started losing her grip.


Truth is, I so often feel poor and powerless and completely unworthy. I can be 9 years old again in a heartbeat. And time and time again, I feel lost and lonely.


Sometimes, I do have fantastically happy moments, joyful even. Those hilltop ah-ha's where the Son shines blindingly through. But even when those hilltop moments come, like when I was on an actual hilltop in the Andes with my lovely, healthy daughter, my heart was still heavy and overwhelmed by the poor and powerless circling around us, begging for our loose change.


So now I'm starting to think that this part of me that I've been trying to cure for so many moons, might just be here to stay. And maybe it's supposed to. Maybe having immediate access to all that raw pain is just who I am. Maybe it's even somewhat useful to the universe. Maybe Shame needs to be bitch-slapped so I can get on with my life, but maybe, when the dust settles, my authentic self will still be a bit gloomy, and maybe, just maybe, that's just how I am supposed to be.

Summer Grace: STOP

Summer Grace: STOP: What if we all just stopped  Fell silent For once, what if we looked up and around us What if, just for a moment, every sing...