laundry is life

I am going to cancel my dentist appointment in June! Is that bad?  I promise to keep up on my dental hygiene but I don't really like the dentist and can't see laying there for an hour to extend the life of my teeth.  You get that right?

I read this quote yesterday and it struck me deeply, "The art of living well and dying well are one" -Epicurus

Actions are made from moment one of life to extend and keep life safe: vaccinations, car seats, seat belts. We are trained and taught to make choices to live a long long life, to extend life and avoid death: eat right, exercise, don't smoke, don't drink, floss your teeth, take care of the body given because it, like life, is the only one you'll get. That is not a bad thing! We all want to live a long life gathering memories and balancing full life with healthy, life-extending choices.

Death is for everyone! No one is excluded from it. All the measures put in place to have a long life have shifted to another plane. There is a tension now in my life between the hopeful expectation of a miracle and the reality that my body is very ill and I need to be practical about dying.  

However, this is not a story about dying well, it is a story about living well...because they are the same.  My body will shut down. There are already things that are changing and impairing me.  But please when you look at me, don't watch me dying...watch me living...hopefully I can do both well.

So, no dentist!  I will shave my legs because I like smooth legs. But I am eating what brings me comfort. Sometimes I am turning things down because I know they will upset my stomach.  Captain Crunch will be enjoyed in the near future because I love it and haven't eaten it in 20 years.  Last night I ate yogurt and oats with fruit.  Good healthy choice but I don't typically eat dairy products or oats anymore, but it sounded good so I ate it! I love wine, and marguarita's etc., but they make my already dizzy head spin even more so I imbibe just very moderately so I can function.

And my days...well, yesterday I did some laundry! I know that sounds crazy but the calling on my life has been service to my family and our home.  I actually love it (not the laundry but that I do it serve the good of our home.). And it feels like living well. I like a clean house and folded shirts in their drawers.  I can't physically do as much as I used to and am not spending my time doing housework but I am finding everyday life doesn't start after the chores are done. The chores are part of life. I do believe that there should be fewer chores in life and way, way more people for sure but I don't begrudge the maintenance of days.

And please understand that I am not giving up or giving in...I am not losing my battle to cancer! If I was, you might see me spending my days in bed, waiting to pass on to my next chapter.  My battle is being waged on a different front and sometimes i think the real battle was never cancer anyway.

I have so much to learn still.  I want to grow and learn and be changed from glory to glory. I have promises to claim! 

People! I want people! I am thankful in these days to have so many helping me with maintenance of my days that I am getting more time with people and less on chores.

What I want is to be here for a long time to see my children have children and to love my Hugh for years and years to come. And that is where I struggle the most.  Wrestling with God, fists raised, tears, on my knees, in His face, asking for more days.  And then He asks me to trust him without boundaries for my family and their life without me physically in it (I say physically because I believe I will live in in their hearts and characters).

So I lift my head and ask for His strength for boundaryless trust and i start the laundry. I am choosing to let myself laugh and stop apologizing for my tears.  We are having rich days together laughing and planning, and yes even arguing. There is life here and that is what I am after!

high dive

as scary as the moment was for me, I am now convinced it may have been scarier for my mom to watch it happening to me.

location: amazon pool

date: 1970-something 

occasion: swim lessons

our annual swim lessons were progressing easily and organically.  I loved to swim and this skill was one that was highly valued in our family.  We all were required to not just learn but be proficient at it.  As a family we spent lots of time in and around water so the lessons were a annual requirement.

however...I never factored into the equation that I would be required to go off the high dive as part of my lessons. Evidently this was important to someone in the swim curriculum world and as we approached my final lesson, this was something that was going to prevent me from graduating out of guppy class into dolphins.  Can't be a good swimmer without a jump off the high dive I guess.

I had climbed the ladder and walked to the end of the stationary board so many times but had always turned back.  The climb of shame back down to the pool deck was always met with a stern look from my burly swim teacher and giggles from the rest of the guppies. 

"You will have to jump to pass". 

final day of class...beautiful June day finds me climbing the ladder again, standing at the edge of the board...afraid! I am so afraid!  Even now, thinking about that moment, my stomach flips and flops.

And then, like a great red swimsuit-clad fog bank, my overly muscled swim teacher rolls in beside me. She has ascended the ladder to join me at the end of the board. I know she is going to try to encourage me to make the leap, and in my mind, I think how nice it will be to have someone descend the ladder when I decide that, once again, I will not be jumping.

What happens next...well, it is one of the more traumatic moments of my youth.  It would have been easier I think if she had just pushed me off, but that is not what she did.

After some verbal "encouragement" (harassment?) she turned me to face the water and stepped in behind me. Placing her large beefy hands under my armpits, she proceeded to lift me up and take a step forward so that I was no longer standing on my own but was being held by her over the water below.  I am not sure how long I hung there but it felt like an eternity and I know for sure she talked to me for a while so it wasn't just a quick lift and drop.  It was more of a lift, let's-chat-about-what-is-happening and then drop.

I was like a dog treat being dangled over the mouth of a hungry dog being commanded to dance. And the fear I had been feeling was now about to be released into a full blown, freakishly shrieking scream as she finally let go and I tumbled to what I was sure to be my early demise...death by swimming pool.

I survived the plunge but am obviously haunted by the experience.  I still to this day cannot...will not...jump off a high dive board...nope...not ever!  Bungee jumping is probably out also.

And then there was Loretta! My mom, watching the entire thing transpire. I am pretty sure she gave that lifeguard an earful but as a mom, my perspective has become about what she saw that day.  

She had sat and watched every lesson. With pride she had encouraged me as I made my way through guppy class.  Watching as I climbed up that board again and again and then back down everyday, believing in me every step up and every ladder step back down.  And then I dangled! At the end of the stiff arms of my instructor over the chlorine filled pool. She heard my screams and watched my flailing body as I plummeted toward the pool. 

I am the mother today. 

There are my brave children, working so hard to be courageous, taking their lessons, climbing the ladder up and down. But now it feels like I am sitting watching them be hung out over the water, as they are being strong armed into facing their biggest fear.  They will survive the fall, and there will probably be screaming and flailing.  I may feel like giving God an earful but I know he is not the instructor in this story.  He is the soft landing. He is the warm dry towel waiting by the side of the pool and the hot shower in the locker room.  He is the arms of comfort. He is the laughter over the absurdity of the whole thing.

I am the mother.  

worn pillows

Lime green and white gingham-checked bedspread with matching pillow shams and coordinating lime green walls...what third grade girl in 1973 wouldn't have wanted such a room? I had the largest room in the new house and it was freshly painted and although I did share this room with everyone of my siblings at some point between the age of 8 and 15, I have to think it was decorated for me.

And then at 15 I went away all summer to work at church camp and my parents painted it a more grown up taupe (!), put in a double bed removing the two twin beds and finally made this room all mine.  By then there was only Eric and I in the house and so we each got our own room.  Nestled on the bed were 5 sweet floral-patterned pillows. Each one was sewn into the shape of a letter and spelled out my name.  If nothing else it motivated me to make my bed every morning so I could arrange the pillows properly. I loved those pillows but they may have shown their age before I moved out at 18.

Just yesterday I got an email from the now adult woman that lived next door to us.  She was born in 1976 and I was her babysitter from the time she arrived at the house just across the alley from our home.  I spent almost as much time at her home caring for her and her older brother or just hanging out with their parents than I did in my own home sometimes. I loved her mom and dad and they always made me feel safe and a part of their family.  

Today she is a mom herself, married and a math teacher here in Eugene.  She is a beautiful woman and I am so proud to call her friend all these years later.  As so many of the messages, texts and emails have this week, hers reminisced about time past and sweet memories.  But listen to this: "I remember those pillows you used to have on your bed that spelled out your name and then when I got older you got me my own."

I had to laugh because I remember thinking at the time that all I had to do to make them spell her name was to remove the U from the mix.  When I began to move from home for school, I removed said letter and gave them to her.  In her eyes they were a gift, new for her and her own set of name pillows.  They arrived well-loved but were fresh because they were a gift. I broke the news to her today that those pillows were a used gift but that they were a well-loved gift. I love that she only remembers them as new and "her own"

I am well-loved pillows. 

Today and through these past few days, I have felt so much love and care. You have all taken me and arranged me with care in a place where I and my family can rest. 

And when the time is here and I "take a turn toward heaven" I will arrive well-loved, a little worn but well-loved. And then receiving me as a gift, I will be made made new.  

Don't you think every one should arrive well-loved? You give a gift when we make people well-loved. Wear them out with that! 

I take it with great joy that I will arrived well-loved.

touching the hem

Beggars, thieves, low-life's, sick, diseased, ostracized, the people on the fringe.  They were the ones who interrupted Jesus and begged for attention, healing, hope!

I am but a beggar.

I am that woman, pressing in, believing that even a fingertip brush against his robe could bring healing.  

I am that man that was lowered through the ceiling, interrupting church, to receive what was being promised.

I am the leper, trying to get into the pool so I can be healed but reaching out to this stranger that has come to town speaking of life and performing miracles.

He brought promises and He is the promise keeper.  

I don't have to ask for His presence

I don't have to ask for rest or peace

I don't have to ask His provision and purpose.

I don't have to ask for healing.

Those things are mine already. They have been given! promised! mine!

All I have to do is reach out my hand and claim what is mine.  Like a gift, it has already been bought and wrapped and delivered.

Does that mean I will be healed? Yes! I will be healed, I am being healed.

Healing is a long process and my final call of remission may not be this side of heaven but I am being healed! 

What I want now is rest and peace...for me but also for you and my family. 

Reach out, stretch, lift your voice (even if it's just a whisper) step forward and put your foot on what has been promised to you.  

And if you see me doing the same then don't feel sorry for me that I am sick, rejoice with me that I am claiming my promises as I reach out toward the hem of His garmet.

"Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you" Joshua 1:3