Category Archives: Remembrance

Learning to Live the Loss

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IMG_1410If there were a day to strike from the calendar—Feb 27 would be that day for me—a day three of the most beautiful young people on the planet departed, eleven years ago. Every day in the news, I hear of events that would make others wish to erase another day.

As I type, a reminder pops up in the corner of my computer screen- A day to get through. A month ago I typed those words on this day. Now it asks me if I want to close or snooze—could erase be an option?

I find that the dread of a day can be worse than the day itself. As I was writing in my journal the day before, I decided music should be a part of this preparation. “All right, God—you can select the songs.” I put the setting to random. I never know what will play, usually a mixture of spiritual, folk, John Fogarty, Christmas carols, and my foreign language lessons. I had the sneaky suspicion I was trying to put God to the music test,  just to see if He was listening.

The first song takes me back to when my now-in-heaven-daughter was thirteen. This was a signature song for her that year. Through the register vents Twyla Paris would sing: God is in control, we will choose to remember and never be shaken, there is no power above or below. Oh-oh-oh God is in control. That is a great start. I could not have picked better.

The next song is from the Christmas album given by that same daughter her last Christmas, and Sue Chick sings … Heaven comes down, the hearts of men rise … do we dare take a chance … and the heart longs for more. Then Steve Bell tells me that Into the darkness we must go, gone, gone is the light.

And I notice increased number of age spots on the hand that holds the pen. I sit there thinking this is kind of silly and any moment the Arabic lesson would come through. I was interrupted by a call from the florist for a delivery. But, song after song encouraged me. At song 14, I thought perhaps I should get on with my day. Johnny Reid finishes the set of fifteen with I left my hometown years ago … to let all this love surround me. I would have said, to let all this beauty surround me. And I realize Love and Beauty often feel synonymous. Both are heavenly gifts. I contemplate the power of the words, and the themes of love, loss and suffering … songwriters capture the struggles we have. Music soothes and inspires, it reminds me that I am not in control, I am not alone on the journey, and I must continue. Sauntering in sacredness is an option.

I sent my sister-in-law a thank you for the flowers, she responded with an email about an image she had of new green shoots coming forth. Later that afternoon, I went for a walk … and found a likeness of her vision:IMG_1961

Never before have I seen shoots in February. These green and burgundy shoots brimmed with hope of new life. For this day, I head to the mountains, to contemplate the gifts of the journey … and to sit in the beauty, this is what I left my hometown for.

From John O’Donohue’s book Beauty, a poem by Dietrich Boenhoffer:

The Unfilled Gap

Nothing can fill the gap                                                                                                  When we are away from those we love and it would be                                    Wrong to try to find anything                                                                                      

Since leaving the gap unfilled preserves the bond between                                   Us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap.                                                           

He does not fill it but keeps it empty, so that our communion                          With another may be kept alive even at the cost of pain.

Travel from room to room

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The work to forget, can be as difficult as the trying to remember.

Frederick Buechner

“The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts….We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.”
― Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces
Four years ago on the first of September, I landed in an unknown hometown. A wary excitement filled me for this new beginning, a fourth new beginning of what had been a series of unrequested life events. I remember the excitement of seeing the mountains from my dining room window, this prairie girl with prairie bicycle legs. A town in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains was a scenery change of significant elevation.
Landscapes of the physical variety are easier to modify than the minefields of the mind. For many people, it seems easier to plod on in a difficult known, than to move into the unknown.
And yet radical life changes require radical responses. Radical choices.
My mother of ninety-one lives in the room to remember. She may not remember what she had for lunch, but, start her up on a memory lane conversation and she can tell you how the fly ball felt as it smacked into her bare hands to clinch the game. She was the hero of her country school! Of the days of her drinking husband, she says: “Those were hard times, but we got through them.”
She has a selective memory. Memory can be revisited.
I would like to remember my life as worthwhile and wonderful.
The past is a foundation for the day, the future gives hope. The past and future collide into this IMG_6694moment of today, this present, which is exactly that – a present moment, a gift to be opened and deeply appreciated. I want to live my life in such a way, that when I am my mother’s age, my room to remember will be positively full. For today I am here, in this moment celebrating the lives I have lived!
Here’s to the anniversaries you celebrate today. A reason to be grateful. Thanks to my sister-in-law for introducing me to this musical artist, Josh Garrels, and this song about understanding further along:  Check out this song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IctD9l4F-ag

Jocelyn is the Author of Who is Talking out Of My Head, Grief as an out of Body experience. 

 

Hope is a Choice

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Whoever you hold in the heart of youIMG_1970

Is forever and always a part of you.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Ps 116:15 NIV

Ten years ago … the world lost three wonderful young people, my son, my daughter, my future daughter-in-law … leaving a massive vacancy.

This morning, my still-on-the-planet daughter called to remember the day of loss … she told me how she and her husband had been at a cafe and were speaking to their three children about the remembering. And the sadness felt because the children never got to meet their auntie and uncle … My daughter was getting teary and her five year old asked “Why are you crying Mom?” She explained the loss, and my granddaughter(8) spoke up to say … “Oh we’ll meet them already.” “Really?” asks Zech (5) “when?” “In heaven,” his sister explained confidently. “Oh,” he said, down cast, “That’s like in a hundred years.”

I can tell you Zecher, I feel that way too, sometimes. But, for me, having two treasures in heaven, makes the prospect of eternity, that much more tangible.

I know there are many others that carry the weight of sorrow, and loss … May you be blessed this day.

Hold on to Hope, it is a gift.

Hope is a choiceIMG_1969

Hope has given me my voice

to question to doubt, to scream to shout

Hope has been in the midst

as a spark, as a river

a cause to shiver

Hope behind, hope before

Hope surrounds as it opens and shuts the door

The taste of hope and I want more

More of the source, more of the truth,

more of the grace it has given

I want Hope on this earth

And a taste of Heaven.

The edges of God are tragedy. The depths of God are joy, beauty, resurrection, life. Resurrection answers crucifixion; life answers death.     Marjorie Hewitt Suchoki

IN remembrance of Brittany Jane Marie, Jordan David Isaac, Jamie K, all three shone like the stars of heaven … you are missed more than words can say.

 

Jocelyn is the author of: Who is Talking out of My Head – Grief as an Out of Body Experience  

 

Tribute Tarries

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(Photo by Joel Krahn, African River tributaries)

Like a river that flowed and reached into dry corners
she spread her love and acceptance
Beneath Martha she hid her Mary soul
But that woman, she knew how to clean ….
She opened both her well vacuumed home and her heart …
Her brother said, her walls always had a window,
a window that had been recently cleaned …
She loved, she accepted, she cared, she stayed in touch …
All spokes led to the mamma … the hub of the family.
I don’t think she ever missed a game.
She was loyal, caring, kind
Her faith always practical
Thank you for being my friend.

The initial message of her passing came via email … and said that she “had gone to her eternal rest.” One thing I know about my friend, she wouldn’t want to be in eternal rest. She was an active person. I don’t think rest is what Heaven’s about. I used to wonder about eternity … if it was going to be forever anyways, I saw no rush to get there. But after I had two term deposits, my perspective changed. Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven, paints a phenomenal picture of experience and beauty, an exciting future he believes will greet us upon arrival. He is convinced that we continue on in our creativity, and work in the eternal future. Somehow, I don’t think my friend will be vacuuming her days away.

IMG_6150While kayaking last week, heavy with thoughts of my friend’s life, and the upcoming funeral, I saw the most exquisite flowers, unlike any I had ever seen before, what made them so unique? They were underwater. I have seen enough seaweed and lily pads, to know this was exceptional … I kayaked over the clear blue green mountain lake waters again, to be sure my eyes had not deceived … yes, there a few feet below the water glass top, tiny yellow and white flowers smiled up at me … the water dimmed their colours, but they truly were blooming where planted. What a picture of hope for me … under the ocean of grief new flowers can bloom.
The reason I like Sudoku is that there are nine squares, nine numbers fill those squares, only one way to do it. Simple, clean, no deep mystery.
Grief is not like that.
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Emily Dickinson says:
On subjects of which we know nothing, we both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an Hour, which keeps Believing nimble.

The Waiting Place

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Sometimes-I-feel-like-Im-waiting-for-somethingThe Waiting Place

According to Dr Seuss, it is a most useless place … the waiting place where people are just waiting.”

The place where plea bargains happen, oaths to the Creator made, and life priorities re-evaluated.
But when your back is up against the wall, desperately wanting an outcome …
The messages kept coming back as prayer requests …
Mom’s not well, she’s being admitted.
It looks like endocarditis (an infection of the heart’s inner lining)
Antibiotics not effective …
Medivac’d in the night to a bigger cardiology centre
(They are all displaced-this is not even their home province)
Surgery scheduled, cancelled, then rescheduled
Twelve hours in surgery …
Bleeding, she had to go back to OR …

With those texts as background, I picked up a book … Moving the Hand of IMG_2878God, by John Avanzini(1990). The book disappoints, and I argue my way through the introduction, I don’t see God as Formulaic, as one who cannot see through this as attempted manipulation.
My friend’s life hangs in the balance. She is younger than I, she may not know she is in the waiting place … where is one’s spirit when drugs render unconsciousness? Her family gathered are also in that waiting place. Waiting for good news, waiting for improvement …. waiting for the rain to stop.

The sign should read: WELCOME TO THE WAITING ROOM…
Waiting feels helpless, we are geared to do something.
Pause, Breathe …
When Life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear.
Lamentations 3:28, 29. But how does one wait with hope?

Can I Trust You?
Dear God
I woke with knots in my stomach … so many questions whirling my head …IMG_0001
can I trust You with the knots?
Heavy heart as her life hangs in the balance … machines breathe for her
Can I trust you with that?
Life not being what I or they thought it should be or would be…..
Can I trust you with the future?
Despair and doubt want to hinder any Bold prayer
Can I trust you with that?
Even as I speak these words I KNOW without a doubt, I have no one else that I could trust these things to, so why do I hold back?
Can I trust you with that?

And your answer is a Resounding—YES YES YES!

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope. Alfred Lord Tennyson

Quack-grass like Apathy

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DSC_0527After fourteen hours on the road, across two and a half provinces I arrived at the memorial garden dedicated to my son and daughter, in what has become my annual trek to plant the garden. It did not help that dark rain clouds hovered, and cold north winds blew, or that the harsh winter had killed off perennials of a half dozen years. Quack-grass had spread like apathy and despair, it crept in to take over where a lush garden thrived. As I stood shivering all I could feel was the extreme loss that had brought this garden into being. I felt like the lone still-grieving mother doing battle against the universe. In my tiredness, I saw the garden as unkempt, impossible to clean and full of weeds. And the beauty was hidden from my eyes.
I paused, and breathed a prayer. Surely the quack-grass should not dominate!
After the next morning’s rain and a good night’s sleep, I returned in the sunshine to discover, there was still much beauty here, the fountain was flowing, as was the offer from camp staff to help dig … spirits lifted.

Today the garden lesson for me was in persistence for beauty, that joys fought for are worth the battle, that passion for beauty nourishes the soul.
People have come alongside. Unearthing beauty and joy is my challenge and delight in the garden and in my day … so let me laugh in this moment, let me keep the weeds at bay … and let me use Round Up wherever I need to.
In preparation for this year’s garden trip, weather worn signs needed replacing and rewording.
What can you say as an epitaph for two vibrant young people?
In my search for words I came across this poem, and knew it was the one.

I Will Not Die an Unlived LifeDSC_0508
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
To allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
More accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova

Photos are from previous years at the garden, evidence that beauty is present, and needs to be fertilized.

Mamma said …

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IMG_4581Mama said there’d be days like this ….

The flowers I bought myself smile to me. The mountains observe in silence.
And I ponder what means to be a mother. There is no one portrait that describes what we desire from a mother, or what we hope to be as a mother. Both perspectives are different, and on both counts disappointment has been experienced. For most of us there is still a deep connection to the one who birthed us, and to those we have birthed, no matter their age or location.
Today I think of the many women, who’s role does not fit that fictitious angel mother persona.

The word Mother evokes a lot of responses.IMG_3420

Three years ago I stood beside a father, as we waited for an ambulance to arrive for his drugged, semi-comatose daughter.
“She’s completely Motherless,” he said.
What is it to be a mother?
To stand by, to love. To have pieces of one’s heart beating outside one’s own body.

And then I think of God … Like a mother hen, who longs to gather up the children …
Let the little children come to me
We are all little at times,
in need a mother’s hug.

I could weep, but I can also rejoice.
Hug a Mom today!

Here’s a great little video on what it would be like to be interviewed for the most important job in the world.


And here’s a link on what mothers aged 100+ have to say:
http://wp.me/p47Ltb-Cp

Missing Magic 29

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Magic Twenty-Nine

Twenty-nine on the 29th IMG_4216
As hard as I try to make it palatable
The magic is missing for me.
Ten birthday cakes I could not make …
She may be having heavenly tea
Alongside Angel food cake with berries
Small comfort this day.
I see her as she was in the old photos
I remember her Little Mermaid birthday cake
Her shy smile, or vivacious big grin
She never knew her true beauty
I remember her as she sang in church,
Slight hands cupped upward
face glowing
I knew she was connecting to Heaven.
I miss her when the tulip tips poke through the soft April earth
She shared the gardener’s heart.
I miss her every Christmas,
Her CD brings me to tears
As (Hark) the Herald Angels sing to me her gift of Love.
I miss her when I see the three lovely ones
who never got to meet their precious auntie.
I miss the beauty and life she brought to the room by just being present.
And I always wonder?
And I think I will wonder that till the day I die.
DSCN7439But for this day
I choose again to remember her beauty
To remember her “gift of poverty”
Her ability to connect with those on the social edges
She loved life, and the author of it.
I choose to be grateful that I was blessed to have a daughter as lovely as her.

I always thought spring was a wonderful time to have babies, new life, new hope.
And for this day, I choose Hope.
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Happy Birthday Precious girl!

Two website on Hope in the grieving:
http://www.griefhaven.org/memory.html
http://www.opentohope.com/death-of-a-child/

Parallel Tracks

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Clickety-clack, clickety clack

Wonder if I can get off or get back
Cold, Hard, Steely
Warmed by the sun,
Racing, embracing
For the most part,
A-takes people where they’d rather not-B
Cold Hard Steely
The fresh ones ask questions
Do I need a ticket?
Eyes avert
Heroine roped to the tracks
that mark her arms.
Roast beef on first class silver
Under class waits in line
Mothers pace at the station,
That terminal place.

Joy and Sorrow
Laid out side by sideIMG_4384
Slatted together by
Oiled hopes and dreams,
Sunflower fields flash by on right
Greyed weather wood is left
The Prairie Dog Express
Steam rollered over by frequency
Bullet Train, the Red Lizard, The Orient Express
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Derailed men divert trains with grandsons
Where styrofoam tunnels are light
Cold hard steely
Next stop, last stop.

Clickety …. Clack
Clickety Clack IMG_4327

This poem stemmed from a conversation with a neighbour who lost her husband and a few years later her twenty-something daughter. The mix of Joy and Sorrow in each life, and sometimes the sorrow brings the scales down to despair. Yes, there are references to numerous struggles that we face while on this train of life.
The Joy is that Hope conducts.

Scars-Tattoos with a Better Story

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IMG_9584 An article in the Calgary Sun caught my eye yesterday, “Rising out of the Fire/Man rises above horrifying crime” (Calgary Sun March 2, 2014 article by Nadia Moharib) After a few lines, the story sounded vaguely familiar, and then it became evident why: this crime happened in a small Mennonite community thirty miles from my Manitoba home town in October, 1990. The event shocked with its brutality. Yesterday was a follow up story on Tyler Pelke, who had been assaulted, had his throat slashed, set on fire, and left for dead. Pelke survived, Curtis Klassen, his friend and fellow hockey player did not. Earl Giesbrecht (17 at the time) was sentenced to life in prison for this crime. Because of the proximity and cultural background, I followed that story as it went though the court system, but eventually filed it on a back shelf. My life continued on, but Tyler’s was altered forever. Yesterday’s article told the tale of this young man’s long road to recovery, starting with a description of the fire-boiled scars that cover his chest while a thick one crosses his throat, daily reminders of what happened more than two decades ago. The scars exist,quotes-girl-cute-love-text-Favim.com-666887_large visible and invisible, but he refuses to be defined by them. Pelke, now an assistant deputy chief with the Calgary Fire Department was quoted re his scars: “It’s a reminder of what I have overcome—I’ve been through fire, some days it’s a reminder to be thankful. Some days I don’t even see them.” And Pelke has chosen not to let his scars or what happened to haunt him, but he strives to be the best person he can be, and he shares his story with various groups in the hopes that he can encourage others to reach their full potential, and overcome the obstacles they face. For me, it was inspirational to read Tyler’s further story, to hear in a nutshell what will have taken him years to process and heal from.
Elbert Hubbard said “God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”
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