Dear diary,
A couple months ago, at a local farmer's market [I attended fully expecting to come home with fresh produce and maybe a chicken or two, but apparently a "farmer's market" isn't a market where farmers sell their harvests... who'd have thought?], I met a lovely couple who were on a mission to bring skin-healthy products to the community in innovative ways. They were awesome. And so friendly.
I left their stand with some homemade sleepytime massage oil for the baby, peppermint beard oil [I don't have a beard, but it just smelled soooo good], and a sample tin of customized powdered dry shampoo that was not yet on their website for purchase. It's tailored to blend in with your hair color and absorb excess oil from your roots/scalp while nourishing your follicles. However that works. 🤷♀️ Dry shampoo has always been a mystery to me, but I was excited to try it.
Except I ended up forgetting that I had it.
Now, rewind... or fast forward... [whichever came first or last, I can't remember]...
For Christmas, my sister Tris put together thoughtful care packages for our oldest sister Jenn, and me. It had chapstick, sentimental jewelry, necessities, all sorts of things she knew we each liked, and a new kind of charcoal toothpaste that wasn't paste at all... it was more like black tooth dust. I was intrigued. What you do is, you moisten your toothbrush, coating it with some of the dust, and then brush your teeth as usual; the end result: a whiter, brighter, healthier smile.
No one prepared me for the 'during' result though. The dark dust turns into a ghastly liquid coating on your teeth that doesn't go away until you thoroughly brush and rinse. [I like to scare my husband sometimes and smile at him with my black-tar-looking teeth when he least expects it. It's hilarious. You should try it sometime.]
Fast-forward to this morning.
I saw a matte black unlabeled tin on our dresser and suddenly remembered what was in it... Oh, no! I never tried the dry shampoo powder! I didn't know if my hair really needed it, but I was determined to gather some feedback for the generous woman (Ashley? Lauren? Rachael? I can't remember her first name, unfortunately) who trusted me to supply her with an honest review and had already been waiting a long time for it.
The problem was... I didn't know how I was meant to apply it. I tried dabbing my fingertip into the mixture to see if my skin would be able to act as a transfer... nope. Then, I tried to tilt and tap some of it into my cupped hand to sprinkle over my head... but as soon as I did, an impressively large smoky cloud expanded into the air and all over my face... like you'd see in a cartoon where Wile E. Coyote waited just a little too long before throwing the stick of dynamite.
So, with hair-colored powder all over my face, I found my way to the bathroom, setting the tin down near the sink to search for a makeup powder-brush instead (I have no idea why that wasn't my initial course of action to begin with). As I reached down into the drawer, my "Look, if you don't get all of your butts out the door and into the car within the next 15 minutes (including the baby's), you'll have to duck under the live stream camera to get to your seats and potentially get called out by Pastor Trent for being late" alarm went off.
Shoot! I still had to brush my teeth, somehow get all of this dust off of my face, make a fresh bottle, and get the baby dressed...
Mom-mode kicked in. Multitasking upon multitasking. I set everything down and took care of the baby, reminding the girls not to forget their Bibles and to make sure they're dressed appropriately for the chilly weather, made a bottle with one hand while pouring cereal with another and balancing the baby on my hip while using the other one to close the pantry door. It was empowering. [In hindsight, I should've just asked my husband for help, who would have gladly lent a hand, but it's so easy to get into the misplaced mindset of "I've got this" for everything that sometimes we forget that we've got help.]
I set the baby down and rushed off to brush my teeth, turned on the faucet, ran the bristles under, and caught my reflection... UGH, powdered dry shampoo all over my face like a poorly-done spray tan... I forgot all about it! So I took my glasses off, picked up the powder brush with my other hand, and started gently coaxing the particles off my skin while dipping my toothbrush into the charcoal tin to start brushing my teeth.
... Except... it wasn't the charcoal toothpaste container I'd dipped my toothbrush into. It was the dry shampoo tin right beside it... simultaneously, what I was now brushing into my scalp was powdered toothpaste.
They are NOT interchangeable.
So, we were a few minutes late to church today and my hair was a bit darker in a patch on top... and my mouth tasted like my hair was supposed to feel... but we showed up. And I didn't even mind ducking underneath the live feed camera... because we were surrounded by family and exactly where we were meant to be. No judgement, just love.
As Pastor Trent says, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly."
I don't think he means to purposely mess up or to not put forth a genuine effort... but rather, that if something is worth doing, it's worth it to take the first steps to get there... even if they're wobbly, imperfect, or nothing like you'd imagined... they're still steps in the right direction.
I'm not quite sure what the takeaway is... there were so many:
Wake up earlier and you'll have more time to get ready, ask for help instead of being pig-headed in thinking you can do it all yourself, make sure you know the accurate location of similarly-shaped containers before you take your glasses off, or even that right before church isn't a good time for experimenting with cosmetic samples...
But whatever it may be, we'll definitely be on time next Sunday and you're invited too.
Sincerely,
a perpetual work in progress,
me.
Dear Mom,
I haven't stopped wishing you were here. And I know that's selfish, but looking back through our last messages has me feeling like I lost you all over again. Except the grief isn't the same. It's still raw, but without the denial.
I should probably take comfort in knowing I can talk to God about all of the things I still want to tell you... I feel like I'm in a conference call with Him when I write to you... He knows it all... down to how many tears I've cried missing you and the ones that were over other things. I'm just a person... one who cries a lot, apparently. You didn't though. Cry a lot, I mean... at least not that I ever saw.
I couldn't sleep... there's too much on my mind... and I know you'd tell me first to cast my cares... and I do, mostly... but sometimes a stray one slips through... and sometimes my fickle heart reels a few back. I'm a person.
I hadn't looked at our conversations here in a while... or maybe not as far back as I did today... and I just felt so ashamed. I was so wrapped up in something I was going through back then that seemed so hopeless at the time that I didn't even notice the change in your replies.
Your usual lengthy, thorough responses dwindling down to sentence fragments and stray emojis as the days went on... and I just kept going on about my problems... oblivious to yours... and that huge situation in my life... the one I was messaging about so much during your last weeks... it doesn't even matter anymore. It's irrelevant... I didn't know I was wasting our time together because I didn't think we were going to lose you. I trusted that we had more of it together.
...and then I get to thinking that if I'd have just listened and casted my cares from the start, I wouldn't have been too blinded by the overwhelm of my own life to ask you more about yours. And we'd have fonder conversations to remember... but that's selfish, too... because you don't need to remember them... I do.
I know I can't change it. The outcome. And I know that I should learn from it... but here I am again... wishing I could talk to you about my life. Not that I'd have called you at 1 in the morning anyway... but somehow just knowing I had the option to was reassurance enough.
So I'll close my eyes, work harder on casting my cares (1 Peter 5:7) without reeling them back in, and wake up with more answers than I had when I fell asleep.
I'm sorry for the times I took you for granted... I don't anymore... because I can't.
I miss you something terrible, Mom.
Love always,
"Pookie"
Dear Mom,
I'm actually doing it. I've been a bit nervous to share this with anyone because I wasn't sure I was going to go through with it, but I am. It's confirmed.
A couple months ago, I went to open up a document in Microsoft Word... and it wouldn't work. Something about needing to be licensed and yadda yadda... and when I looked up how to go about renewing it, I saw a promotion about enrolled students being able to have free access to Microsoft Office. "Heh, wouldn't that be nice!"
A seed was planted in such a silly way
...but nonetheless, it grew.
I thought about it. And then I thought about it again. And then I saw an ad for a university days later that sounded like exactly what I'd be looking for... IF I were actually looking... even though I wasn't.
It went from, "Well, there's no harm in applying, right?" to "Okay, well I was accepted into the program, but that doesn't mean I have to do it..." to, "I can fill out the FAFSA just to see how it pans out... but that doesn't mean anything..." to "I'll hypothetically budget for it...time-wise, too" to, "let's see how many credits would transfer" to, "hmm... I'll map out class requirements... just to see" to, "okay...this is actually doable!" to, "Wow, I'm back to being a full-time student again... let's do this!"
If anyone would have asked me months ago if I'd be going back to finish my English degree, I'd have brushed them off with reason after reason about how I'm needed more in my other roles and that maybe one day, I'd pursue the dreams I had for myself before life unfolded otherwise, but who knows when.
And then I'd have been thinking about it wistfully for hours afterwards-- the subtle heartache of wanting more, but not feeling like those wants are justified... or even that they're selfish. So they get buried again. And again. And again. You know how I am.
I prayed about it, though. I didn't realize how long I actually had been praying over it... the silent kind of heartbeat prayer that only God can hear... but He does hear them.
I brought it up to Nathan when the idea was just a little sproutling. He encouraged me to go for it... just the nudge I needed.
So I start in January. Already sent in the photo for my ID and all. 💜
I know you'd be happy for me, Mom. You'd say you always knew I had it in me and you'd be there for the times it might feel overwhelming or I start to doubt. And then you'd make some joke about the time I had to get an ID photo taken... in PA... the DMV. Hah! Yeah, I remember it. And I'll cast my cares.I miss you, Mom.
Love always,
"Pookie"
Dear God,
I almost didn't go to church today. Almost. We didn't go last Sunday because we were on a drive and then a plane... and then another plane... and then another drive back from a wedding that was well worth the sleep deprivation.
And then Wednesday came... Wednesday night... and I missed our weekly small group meeting because the baby was teething and cranky and I wasn't feeling my best either. So I stayed home with her. I shouldn't have, but I did.
And then this morning rolled around... even with that extra hour... the baby was still teething and irritable. I might as well have been teething and irritable too-- there's a noticeable difference in your spirit when you stop pressing in. I was reading my devotionals... I was praying... but where was my heart in all of this? I was short with my husband. Sometimes losing patience with the girls after a long day. Going through the motions without calibration. I allowed myself to feel depressed and wallow in sadness instead of claiming victory over it. I wasn't digging in. I felt it. The weight on your shoulders gets heavier the longer you stay in mindsets that steal your joy.
So, how did I so easily talk myself out of going?
"Ooh... I just heard the baby sniffle... I should probably stay home with her. She might cry during service and be disruptive... yeah, for the benefit of everyone else there, I definitely need to stay back with her...plus, she just whined again. So that confirms it. I'll watch the live feed instead."
But as I put off getting ready, there was a single thought that broke through the myriad of excuses... "Wouldn't that be even more of a reason to go? ...to a place where there's healing... to a place where there's prayer?"
I've found that usually the times when I hear an internal barrage of reasons NOT to be somewhere... those are the times when I really NEED to make sure I'm there. I started getting ready. I wasn't going to let the excuses win. I thought we'd be late. I hate being late. Another excuse creeping in... "You're going to be late anyway, so you just might as well not go at all."
I picked up my phone and texted my friend to say we'd be there. She might have been confused as to why I would randomly announce my attendance, but it was for accountability. I said I would be there, so I needed to follow through and show up. Surprise, surprise... we were actually early. [If you know us, you realize how much of a big deal it is.]
I knew I made the right decision.
Today, I was forced to ask some tough questions. To confront myself on a deeper level. To face some uncomfortable realities. One of the biggest being, "If you really believed He changed your life, you'd live your life differently." It was said with love, not condemnation. Not as a scare tactic. Not as a guilt trip. Love.Conviction isn't meant to tear down, but to build up. (Proverbs 27:17 - "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.")
I'd much prefer being confronted with an uncomfortable truth that sharpens my spirit than any amount of cozy untruths keeping me complacent in stagnancy.
I needed to be there today. I know that God meets us where we are [and doesn't leave us there], but today I also needed to get over myself and meet Him where He is, too.
Sincerely,
this lump of clay--a work in progress
Lord, help me to be someone who digs in and does something for You. ♡
Dear Mom,
It’s been a while since I’ve had so much to say to ‘you’ openly. Some might take it as a sign that I started to close off… to compartmentalize my grief. Others might assume it means I’ve reached a transition from sorrow to acceptance. The reality is that I haven’t started missing or thinking of you any less; I’ve just been talking to God more. Directly. We’ve been hashing it out.
He showed me that even though I kept saying I understood and wasn’t mad at Him for ‘taking you away’… it was all just words; I didn’t actually understand, and I was actually furious. First at God, then at me, then at God, then at God AND me… marinating in the guilt that maybe if I were a ‘more Christiany Christian’ at the time (whatever that means) … maybe if my prayers held more weight… if I pleaded more… if I were louder… then maybe you’d still be here. You’re not though. Nothing is changing that. And that was silly of me to think, but I’m also human.
Remember when I was a little girl and I used to take turns in the pages of my diary writing, “Dear God,” then the next one would start off with, “Dear Jesus,” cycling through the trinity ‘so no one would feel left out’? I did that more recently with my frustration too… except I didn’t have the endearing nature of childhood naivety to obscure my intent. It was adult immaturity… a pachyderm ‘hiding’ behind a bonsai. I was bitter towards Them ‘all’. Shaken, but not stirred.
I stopped writing for a while. Internal suffocation. I don’t know if I did it as a subconscious effort to ‘punish’ myself… to sever my passion, my habitual outlet, to ‘punish’ God by keeping it all in (which is futile, really, because none of our thoughts or actions are hidden: Psalm 139), or because I just felt like none of it really mattered anymore… the same emotions cycled on repeat… who would want to relive it all in words, too?
I need to start writing again. But not about the same things as before—not the cataclysmic spectrum of past relationships, or the woes of a broken heart: passive-aggressive verbal arson. I see now that it was all just self-gratifying hollow justification for plank-eyed indignation—no matter how eloquently penned. I’m not going to live there anymore. The pain. The sorrow. It shook me without harvest.
I have a new purpose—or perhaps, I’m finally discovering one that was there all along. It wasn’t writer’s block… it was an intentional shift of focus—I was looking down when what I really needed was to be reaching up.
Yesterday, I heard Pastor Art Thomas say something that resonated quite loudly: “There’s life wherever the rivers flow.” And it brought to mind the very last song I ever sang at your bedside:
All who are thirsty, all who are weak
Come to the fountainDip your heart in the streams of life
Let the pain and the sorrow be washed away
In the waves of His mercy
As deep cries out to deep
We sing, come, Lord Jesus, come
Holy Spirit, come.
As I sing it again now, I realize that I was the one who was thirsty. I was the one who was weak. I was the one whose heart needed new life… a new purpose… all I needed to do was to let go of all the wrong things and fully embrace the right One.
You already figured it out.
I miss you, Mom… but we’re in good hands. And so are you.
Love always,
“Pookie”
I'm sorry for any confusion; there really hasn't been an appropriate time to make a special announcement with everything going on the past few months... so we were going to wait a while longer.
But my Mom's writeup in the "Morning Call" sort of made the announcement for us.
My Mom would have wanted it written that way, though. She believed that each life is precious right from the start... even before birth [and so do I]. She was already excited to meet her newest grandbaby in 2021... we talked about different name suggestions and their meanings; she was never bashful about telling me which combinations sounded weird or if the potential initials/monogram would spell out an uncouth acronym.
While I stood next to my Mom's bedside early Thursday morning, I leaned over to whisper the name we chose for our little girl. So, yes... "Norah Jane" is ours... and she is named after the most remarkable woman I've ever known... Patty Jane Terry. ♡
I just saw that I have a 12-second voicemail from my Mom from August 22nd... the day Nate and I got engaged... and I haven't even listened to it yet. 😞
I don't know the protocol for things like this.
Narration. (Sorry about the planes in the background towards the middle/end)
Transplant Procedure Update #1: Day 1: [Un-revised Mind-Rambles]
This morning, my parents made the 3-hour(ish) trek to Philadelphia to start the journey toward my Mom's healing/recovery. As I’m writing this, she’s enduring her first round of radiation… and for those of you who know its process, you understand what it means…”enduring”. For this procedure, it’s needed. Before they left (around 2:30-3:00 a.m.), I gave her the biggest but most gentle hug I’ve ever given in my life and reminded her, “don’t forget to cast your cares”. Hopefully, I’ll get to see her on Wednesday when I join her at the hospital (from my understanding, we will be in different places throughout the entire week—so I don’t even know if I’ll get to actually be with her at any point during my part of the transplant) but if not, I know that heartfelt hug will carry us through the days ahead.
To be honest, I felt a bit empowered yesterday—being the only one really able to embrace her since she’s going to be sharing my blood soon enough anyway. I had to forcefully tug my ego down a notch. (just kidding). [Humor has always been my default ‘defense’ mechanism of sorts when I have something serious to say; those of you who know me, or who have been following my quirkily-eccentric life adventures over the years, can probably already identify the pattern in the way that I write.] It’s time to be serious now, though. [I wrote the first part for her birthday, but didn’t get a chance to finish it until today when it sort of took off in its own direction.]
---
What more can I say to honor a woman who already speaks for herself through the selfless way she lives?—the very same woman who had been cultivating within me the meaning of sacrifice since the day her piercing gaze locked onto the blue of my father's eyes and she proclaimed that if it ever came down to the wire and a choice needed to be made between her or me during childbirth, she would choose me in a heartbeat and he must too. We were both nearly lost in the process of my delivery; I firmly believe that my parents' unwavering faith and the inconceivable strength of my mother's love saved our lives that day.
As an infant, there were times when she wasn’t around as often as I’d have liked. I have traces of memories from the early years on Liberty Street [don’t worry, it’s not the answer to any of my security questions…but it might be my sister’s!]—missing the warmth of her voice when she left to work nights to help make ends meet for our family.
One of the biggest sacrifices a parent can make is to have to spend time away from their child(ren) in order to offer them their best chance at life. I can’t even imagine the number of times she laced up her shoes and kissed me goodnight with tears in her eyes before walking through the door to head off to the Manor to clock in. Or how many soiled bed sheets she changed while watching the clock and praying time would go by faster so she could get off her feet and wrap her arms around her husband and children instead of an IV pole that needed to be wheeled down the hall to room 13. She must’ve been worn out by the time she returned through the doorway to the apartment… top floor, I believe. My sisters would know; they were older. [It was the ground floor; I stand corrected.]
Through her, I learned what sacrifice means—the way she never spent a cent on herself when it was needed for her children. The times we’ve all fallen ill—including/especially her—and she kept going… steadying herself, as frail as she was, against the counter top just to make soup for us or measure out our antibiotics. She was always there with a warm cup of tea, a splash of milk and two sugars—she still is. “Nonnie tea,” Aria calls it.
And for as much as she talks and opinionates (she’s Slovak, it’s expected), she also listens. I honestly don’t know how I’d have gotten through the past year had it not been for her shoulder to lean on when the rest of my life felt like it was crumbling right from under me.
Don’t get me wrong though… we didn’t always get along so well.
One time during high school when I was sitting on my bed (it was arranged in the room differently than it is now—parallel to the door instead of perpendicular, against the wall) and we were having a discussion—I don’t quite remember now if she went to grab something from me, or what the context was… but she ended up accidentally leaning forward too far too quickly and smacking her face on the doorknob. She had a bruised eye for quite a few weeks from that. I remember going to church that month and feeling bad when my Dad was getting the side-eye from some of the other congregation members—as if he were the one responsible for it when really it was indirectly my fault. My Dad has put up with a lot over the years… he’s a champ too. The angriest I’ve ever seen him towards my Mom resulted in him setting a remote controller down on the table slightly louder than usual. That’s it. He has always set a fine example of unconditional love and respect in his relationship with my Mom. Her being sick has been very hard on him too… maybe even especially him in ways… but I’m digressing—as I usually do when jotting my thoughts down in a candid series… you can see the way the gears twist and concepts connect from one to the other to create the big picture as a whole… fragments coming together.
Speaking of the big picture… I haven’t even started packing yet. Am I scared? Parts of me are… like my stomach that finds itself in tangles thinking about what she must be going through right now. How humbling (for a delicate choice of verbiage) it must be to have to sit vulnerably and uncomfortably-positioned in a cold room with cold air in a cold chair surrounded by unfamiliar machinery—left with nothing except for maybe a 1-ply dollhouse-ratio napkin to cover the essentials and unbridled thoughts bouncing around in a frenzy… flesh invaded by dangerous particles making a war zone out of you. “Don’t move.” Stillness in body, synapses transmitting a billion miles a minute.
My mother’s tenacity is contagious. I learned the true meaning of strength the night we almost lost my older sister, Tristina, when a tumor inside of her burst. My parents sped to Lebanon, PA in the middle of the night as she was rushed in for emergency surgery. This isn’t the first time mom’s had to fight it… cancer… the first time was for her child. She’ll win again. We all will. There has to be a reason for it all. And I’m going to keep searching until I find out what it is.
She doesn’t expect this to be easy…the procedure…but there isn’t a bone in her body that has ever been spoiled with the overuse of the definition of that word. “Easy.” She’s tough.
So, what more can I say to honor a woman who already speaks for herself through the selfless way she lives?—the very same woman who had been cultivating within me the meaning of sacrifice since the day her piercing gaze locked onto the blue of my father's eyes and she proclaimed that if it ever came down to the wire and a choice needed to be made between her or me, she would choose me in a heartbeat and he must too... this time, years later, the decision is non-negotiable... "Both."
We’ll get through this the same way we’ve conquered all of the other trials in the history of our family… unwavering faith [yours too] and the inconceivable strength of a mother's love.
Kaleidoscopic Grace 