No words

"No words." "I have no words."

This is now a thing people say when reacting to tragedy or when offering words of comfort in times of suffering or loss.

"No words," they say, with a sad shake of the head, or with a gesture of the hand to the heart.

It sounds solemn and sad and dignified. It has the virtue of avoiding foolish woods or statements that turn out to be more about the speaker than the bereaved, and people who have listened to the condolences of long lines of friends and acquaintances at funerals and memorial services know that there are words that would have been better avoided. To say "no words" deeply, with emotion, as your hand moves to some place near your throat can be genuinely kind as it is unimposing.

But it bothers me, because if we can't find words to share and shape our feelings, can't find words to communicate and specify feelings in this moment--well, what hope is there for us miserable human beings? Complex language is what sets us apart from other mammals, what makes it possible to collaborate and compromise and work things out. Presence, embraces, sympathetic faces are all important, but they cannot do what words do. Words are out there at the edges where we challenge ourselves to understand, where we reach for words to be returned to us, in affirmation, agreement, antithesis.

And yet—tonight I have no words.

Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of the death of my son Kris. And what I feel I am not feeling in words, I cannot describe in words. There is a space in my chest where, when I inhale and raise the floodgates, everything Kris flows in--what it was like to be around him, his grin, his love, his four-year-old charm, his flashes of anger, his pride, his enthusiasm, his conversation, his maturity. His fierceness in the fight against ALS. His desire to stay and be present for those he loved even as death came closer and closer, a fight that was hard, but worth it (his words).

I can feel those things like he's still here, and those feelings are so strong, so particular to Kris and his Kris-ness, that trying to put words to them is all but useless. Somewhere, perhaps, in the epigrammatic world of poetry (in Emily Dickenson perhaps?) there may be words that fit and surprise the moment, that talk about the ache of grief and hint at the unwillingness to let it go--but I do not know what these words are. I do know that the mental labor of finding them and typing them is a process far apart from feeling the feelings.

So where I find myself tonight, grieving the death of my oldest child, is in a place where I have no words. Where it's hard to write. Where words never quite get it right. (This is happening in 21st century America where the meaning of words is endlessly and unethically manipulated, un-attaching them from stable, felt, rational truth.)

In words I would love to tell you about my son--Eliza and Kurt's brother, Michelle's husband, Dan's and Mark's and Tim's and Jeff's and John's friend. And I hope to find all  those words and more someday. But now, this last week of July in 2019, I have no words, only that place in my heart where Kris, child of my body, still smiles at me.

Robin, at work

Sunday afternoon as I sat working on my computer at the patio table, I heard a ruckus behind me, a small explosion in the dead leaves I had minutes earlier swept neatly against the chain-link fence with my new broom. What made this sudden noise? I watched as it happened again. Leaves scattered, and a robin hopped backwards, yanking something from the ground. Had she surprised a worm? Was she after a necessary piece of twig or bark for her nest? Just seven inches tall, she had dislodged an amount of yard detritus equal to herself in volume.

But she was not satisfied. She hadn’t found what she wanted. She hopped to her left, to the next interval between hostas and weeds and tried it again. She dug her head into the pile and pulled back hard, throwing leaves and dust and odd bits of this and that into the air, then ducked back in to inspect the ground and get what was there for her. She flew off when a squirrel chased across the patio cement, but was back at it, again and again, a few minutes later.

So much energy and purpose under those plain brown wings, that small brown head, and the red breast. She was light on her feet, light in every way, feathers puffed dry and weightless over hollow bird bones. Of course she could fly, but what a disrupter she was on the ground, connected to a purpose, a task, the thing that robins are wired to do in the spring.

I went back to my work, pulling quotes and ideas together into sentences, yanking on them, testing their truth, clearing away the clutter, searching for how to say it. Flew off (to Twitter!) for a few minutes, then back at it, doing the work God put in front of me.

Photo: "robin in garden, 15 April 2011" by mwms1916 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

#IAmALS

As I write this, on June 1, a month of #ALSAwareness has come to an end. This year the new organization I Am ALS was all over the place on social media: “I am …. You in? #IAmALS.” Statements of I’m hopeful. I’m pushing for change. We can do this. We’ll find a cure. Cheering on new drugs, new infusions, new trials. Cheering on those who find their way into these things, find their way into taking part. Cheering on those who just got a trach. Cheering all who fight hard and pubicly.

And also remembering to cheer for simpler things, for getting on with life. To cheer when folks with ALS travel or just get out in the back yard or tweet or post. To cheer for caregivers and spouses and children and parents. Remembering those who grieve, because #IAmALS includes everyone — even those who live with loss because of ALS. Because — it’s a horrible disease and it moves so quickly. A few intense years of living and loving and recognizing all the good in life, the way you can perhaps only when you are all too aware that it ends and will end quickly.

Standing as someone who has stood at the memorial service, committed ashes to the ground, what does it look like to fight on? How do you hold the soft edge of hope?

So many things rise up to harden the heart. Religion and religious explanations for tragedy. (“God has a purpose.” Or whatever). Cynicism — we all die. Tough luck. Bad genes. The way of the cross. Soldier on. Something better is waiting in the future, or at least something else.

But losing a son at the age of 30 to ALS hurts like hell. Losing a child, a loved one to anything hurts like hell.

What would it feel like, to have a cure for ALS emerge in the next few years? Some drug that would manage the disease, slow it, turn it into something to be lived with for a long time, if not cured completely. What would it feel like to know that if only Kris had gotten ALS ten years later, it would not have ended in his death? Sometimes I wonder about this—about how I will feel. I hope to find out.

Kris talked, wrote, hoped about finding a cure so that others after him would not have to endure and resign themselves to death from ALS. I know he embraced that sincerely. It has been the thing that has most impressed me, most weighed on me about ALS warriors raising money for research, taking to social media, walking, biking, everything they throw themselves into to raise awareness and raise funds. They know they’re doing this for a cure in the future, a future too far off in years to help them. Though perhaps that is changing.

On some days, certain cloudy days in June, perhaps, or when I am too much on my own or worn out by work and boredom, it’s very hard to keep a soft edge on hope, a soft growing edge, or to look positively into the future. After handling all the crappy tragedy of the last 20 years — Lon, Kris, neurologic disease — it’s hard to escape the sense of dread, anxiety, worry. What’s the next damn thing around the corner?

I think myself a fool for not knowing life would be this hard. (Am I?) I am far more vulnerable than I wish to be, less strong than I think I should be. I cherish my pain because it’s what’s left of love.

“I want to know what love is,” goes the song. Well, there it is—it hurts. But this, I think, is also what keeps hope alive.

In memoriam: Hertha Holstein

In the last two weeks there have been three deaths in the various worlds to which I belong -- church, my daughter's world of friends, and today, family. My Aunt Hertha died this morning, peacefully, in her sleep. She was my long-dead father's younger sister, mother of the cousins I grew up with, a first-grade teacher, firm, formidable, even a little scary, at least from the point of view of my nine-year-old self.

I am trying to hold all this sadness and grief carefully, fully, lightly, while trusting that life, that resurrection, triumphs. So much of who I am, of where my Christian family roots are, can be found in Hertha -- and so today I am thinking about who she was -- or at least who I knew her to be.

Hertha was an outspoken woman of faith. She knew her Bible and her Lutheran theology and could (and would) go head-to-head with almost anyone. She preached the love of Jesus to her many classes of kindergartners and first graders at the Lutheran parochial school where she taught. In retirement she led Bible classes. Always she paid attention. She showed up for people in need.

Here's a story I heard directly from her. Long ago, when I was a child, Hertha started a Sunday School class for people with intellectual disabilities. She wrote the lessons and her husband, Herman, drew illustrations. Her kids and others helped out in the class, and when Christmas rolled around she insisted that the children and young adults in her class be included in the Sunday School Christmas program. She got a surprising amount of pushback from the Sunday School leaders, but she went straight to Pastor Erwin Paul and together they set some people straight about who all was fully included in the kingdom of God and what that meant for Sunday School Christmas programs in God's church.

Hertha was a knitter. She was not good at sitting still and I'm sure knitting was a way to deal with this. She knit through meetings and through her sons' wrestling meets. She knitted and crocheted lap robes for veterans served by the nearby VA hospital, combining colors from donated and purchased yarn, often successfully; sometimes, well, with originality.

Through the years, as I've talked with people I know who knew Hertha back in the day, I've heard many fiercesome stories. At the core of many of these is something she said with great conviction but a shortage of tact. This was one of the differences between my dad and his sister. He was patient and tactful, if occasionally clueless. She was impetuous and outspoken. He was the son, petted and doted upon by his mother and aunts. She was the girl with opinions of her own, restless and rebellious against the "good, quiet girl" standards imposed by church and society and reiterated by her mother and aunt.

Born a generation later, Hertha might have entered the ministry--though she would have had to part ways with the Lutheran church in which she grew up. Many years ago, when un-ordained me was the homilist at a mid-week Lenten service at my church, she came to hear. I treasure that.

Hertha was far gone into dementia at her death. I had not seen her since Christmas 2017, when she gave a welcoming speech at the extended-family Christmas celebration, saying "I don't know who you are, but I'm glad you're all here." Did we all say grace at that point? I don't think so -- we'd done it a half hour before, but whatever. That evening she insisted that my daughter, Eliza (who has Down syndrome) come and sit by her for a while. Eliza has had some experience with people with Alzheimer's, so she sat and answered Hertha's questions, many of them more than once.

In ordinary times, when I think about heaven, my ideas are pretty abstract. I try to hold the not-knowing that is appropriate for one who is a creature contemplating her eternal Creator. But in the hours and days after someone I know and love has crossed the River Jordan,  I revert to the concrete--to the image of my dad perched on the bench of the great heavenly organ with J. S. Bach himself turning the pages. I imagine my son Kris on a lawn by a lake, running hard to catch a Frisbee, gracefully and in good humor, with a bottle of Island Wheat in his other hand.

Today I imagined Hertha entering heaven, meeting old friends, getting caught up on the news, slowly recalling names that she had not been able to remember on earth. She's talking to other Lutherans who've gone before her about forgiveness and humility, God's love for little children, and how to crochet a granny square.  And I'm pretty sure she probably has a few things she's planning to say directly to God, who is smiling and ready to listen.

At rest in Christ

Reposting from September of 2018, in memory of Paul Bouman, who died on April 28, 2019. We sang his setting of "Now Rest Beneath Night's Shadow" at the funeral service today.

There are other losses I am thinking of today, including Christian writer Rachel Held Evans and the father of one of Eliza's friends. And of course, I never sing this hymn without thinking of my dad, of Lon, and of my children, especially Kris.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Rest

Now rest beneath night's shadow the woodland, field and meadow.
The world in slumber lies.
But you, my heart, awaking, and prayer and music making
Let praise to your Creator rise.

The text is from Paul Gerhardt, prolific Lutheran hymn-writer of the 17th century. It is (obviously) a hymn for the evening. You could also call it, perhaps, a hymn for night owls, for people who cannot sleep. Though nature and the world of humans are fading into rest and quiet, the singer stays awake--not to toss and turn, but to pray and sing.

Lord Jesus, since you love me, now spread your wings above me
And shield me from alarm.
Though evil would assail me, your mercy will not fail me;
I rest in your protecting arm.

This hymn has many memories attached to it for me. This second stanza I learned as a bedtime prayer when I was a child. My father taught it to me, as his mother, I believe, taught it to him. Back any further in the generations and my ancestors would have prayed and taught these words in Gerhardt's original German. By the time I sang them to my own children, I was singing them in the slightly altered English translation of the Lutheran Book of Worship, published in 1978. The rhymes are the same, but the antiquated phrase "Lord Jesus, who dost love me" becomes the more direct "since you love me." I like the change.

My loved ones, rest securely, for God this night will surely
From peril guard your heads.
Sweet slumbers may he send you and bid his hosts attend you
And through the night watch o'er your beds.

Because this was a song heard often in our house, I asked that it be sung at my husband's funeral two years ago. It had been sung at my dad's funeral twenty-two years earlier. I sang it, by myself, as I had sung it to the kids at night, when my mother-in-law, my younger son, and our pastor went to see Lon's body and to pray there shortly after his death. It's appropriate, I think, to use sleep as a metaphor for death, since we will all wake again in some way unimaginable to us now, when God's kingdom comes at last.

As I sang that stanza at the close of the Bach Cantata vesper service this afternoon, I remembered that morning--the coldness of Lon's body, our wonder at his death. My eyes filled with tears--at the choir's rehearsal before the service and during the actual performance. The tears were a moment of indulgence, of stopping to acknowledge grief that has faded, that rests in shadows of the past. I didn't stay long in that place. There were some unfamiliar fancy notes on the last phrase of the stanza that needed my full musical attention. And the whole hymn was sung in a lovely, lush new setting for orchestra and choir by Paul Bouman, who recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday.

Even as I let go of the sadness, I thought of my children, who I had prayed for and reassured with this hymn. Back in the days when I sang my children to sleep, we all crowded together under the covers for books and songs at bedtime. First there was only my oldest, Kristoffer, and me. Seven or eight years later, Kris went to bed in an upper bunk, still within reach of my voice, and his two preschool-aged siblings, Eliza and Kurt, cuddled up on either side of me on the double-bed-sized mattress below. Sometimes Lon listened from the the hallway.

This afternoon I thought, who will sing this blessing about me? As a mother, I sang even the second stanza ("Lord Jesus, since you love me") for my children, not really for me. It was their faith, their peaceful sleep that I prayed for. After they had fallen asleep, I crawled out of the bed and went off to fight my own late-night battles with the world, ducking out from under those divine wings spread above me.

This afternoon I realized that it's time to put the memories away and start singing this hymn for me. The music this afternoon helped with that. Paul's setting of this beautiful five-hundred-year-old tune has those heavenly wings beating in eighth notes in the orchestra accompaniment and also in the unaccompanied four-part choral setting of stanza two. Singers can relax and sing easily with the support of that rhythm, carried by the reassurance of God's unfailing mercy.

Ear worm

These days I am spending time moving waves of children ("the Israelite army") in and out of a 30 x 12 foot space enclosed by blue painter tape on the floor of Fellowship Hall. We're rehearsing a musical titled "The Rock Slinger and His Greatest Hit" that includes 66 children, first grade through fourth. My colleague Janel teaches and directs the songs; a local dance teacher leads the kids in simple choreography; I figure out how to put the pieces together to tell the story. There's a small spark of creativity involved and a massive amount of problem-solving.

There's also the danger—tough on every adult who comes in contact with this show—of ear worms.

Ear worm is the term for a song that gets stuck in your head and won't go away. Over-exposure to a song can cause ear worms. When my daughter was young I sang "The Wheels on the Bus" constantly, sometimes to her, but mostly over and over again in my brain.

It's early morning as I write this, after a night spent wrestling with an ear worm from a song called "My God Is." Over and over again, in my sleeping and while I was awake. The song is sung first by little David as he resolves to fight Goliath, trusting in a God who is much bigger than the nine-foot bully he is about to face.—a God who is "taller than a mountain," "faster than a meteor," and many more such comparisons, sung on ever-rising intervals. We worked on the piece yesterday and while it's sounding pretty good, it doesn't look like much yet. So it's on my list of problems to be solved, and the amorphous mass of kids singing it appeared behind my closed eyes through the night.

"My God is this and more" says the lyric at the big key change. Big step forward for everyone on stage? Come together tighter as a group? Spread out? High fives with David—an easy-to-execute direction for kids this age? I don't know yet. But I did wake up thinking about "and more."

This has been a rough week. The news from Washington grows ever more disturbing. "Who Will Fight the Giant?" is another song in our show and it's a question that coming up in other contexts, not just the Old Testament battle between the Israelites and the Philistines who taunt them. (The kids in my show love to say Philistines. It's more phonetically expressive than "bullies.")

Closer to home there is the sadness and concern my daughter and I are feeling for vulnerable people after a sudden death in that family. "Taller than a mountain" and "stronger than a panther" don't seem to answer the needs of people in this situation--maybe they're not the words for any of us when we're riding the bumps in the atmosphere that remind us that we are all vulnerable, that we will all die, that sadness is a big part of life and not one to be batted away with swelling music and proclamations of power.

Where is God? My God is -- what?

I'm not looking at the power in nature (though it's nice to see the sun today). But other signs and wonders appeared yesterday.

The kind and concerned hearts of those who rushed in to do the hard, loving work of caring for people trying to comprehend sudden loss. The fierce advocacy of Ady Barkan, testifying before Congress about healthcare, using his own battle with ALS to make life better for others. My God is found in these kinds of places.

I hope, too, that God will be found in me today, in lightness and hope as I am patient with my own sadness and vulnerability, and in skill in clearing away obstacles to children telling a story about God siding with a vulnerable young boy.

Peace!

Easter joy

I have a large forsythia bush along the side of my house, under the bay window in the dining room, and another one a few feet away under the kitchen window. The green leaves are appearing, but there are no yellow flowers this year, none at all, except for one odd curved branch, bouncing just above the ground. Six inches of blossoms stand out against the dead leaves on the ground, in conversation with the daffodils straggling nearby.

Most years these two bushes are a fountain of yellow blossoms. They have rarely been pruned and I like them in their natural shape. Other forsythia bushes I see in front yards around town are often clipped into someone else's idea of the right shape for a bush, with no allowances made for branches that want to reach and curve and bend.

I've seen very few forsythia blossoms this spring. Perhaps all these plants could do was stay alive through the cold, cold winter of 2018-19. There was no energy left over to make flowers. (A quick search of "why doesn't my forsythia bloom" confirmed this theory.)

I miss those yellow flowers. The silk ones that decorate the chancel at my church during the Easter season are no substitute. They're lovely, carefully chosen, bundled and tied into artful sprays, integrated into the decor. But they are a performance of Easter joy, not the real thing.

Real joy at Easter?

(I wish I had poetic skills!)

Today I think (and today is only today)
Easter joy is a wild thing.
unkempt, unpruned, exuberant,
but sometimes vanquished,
or hidden, by a hard winter.

Just a few blossoms, close to the earth,
but still dancing in the wind,
are enough to recall the bigger, heavenly thing.
We will all see it someday.