The Big D: The Kids

16 April
I can't begin to describe how much I dreaded telling our kids. They had been through so much already with having my husband gone for the last six months for BCT/AIT, moving away from family, starting a new school and now THIS?!?! I felt horrible for dumping this on them on top of everything else. The main thing I can say is that I act normal. I get up every morning on time, I keep the usual routine, I take them out for ice cream every once in a while, and maybe the biggest thing I do is to just expect them to be fine. If I'm not tip-toeing around them, waiting for them to have a mental breakdown, I guess I hope it won't occur to them to have one, ya know?

That's not to say that everything is just fine and peachy. My 7 year old (my middle one, tends to internalize things and take things to heart--she's the one who's always homesick) started complaining of tummy problems last night at bedtime. I gave her a puke bucket and let her be. (I'm not very sympathetic, lol). She never got sick and went to school the next morning. The nurse called me later in the day and the convo went something like this:

Her: I'm calling because your daughter came in complaining of an upset stomach.
Me: Crap. She WAS sick. Er...um...yeah, she was having problems last night.
Her: She was also complaining of a pain in her ankle.
Me: Really?
Her: She also said bad things seem to keep happening ever since she moved here.
Me. Huh?
Her: Look, my husband is deployed too and I recognized some things when I was talking to her. I asked her if Daddy was gone and she said yes. I asked how long and she said, 'about a month.' I asked if she'd like to talk to Miss Emma, the school counselor. Would it be all right with you if she did?
Me: Oh, sweet mother of relief. Yes. Please, have her talk to Miss Emma. That would help her out sooo much. Thank you, thank you, thank you for seeing that she needed someone to talk to.

What a blessing to my family, right?!? I'm so thankful for the school and their familiarity with deployment and military issues. And for the fact that the Army takes this seriously and makes sure counseling is available for people who need it. They don't want families back home falling apart while Daddy's away.          

The Big D: How We Deal

03 May
Well, it's been a weird week. I've been debating posting anything about this week because I didn't want to cause unecessary stress or fear for anyone who might come across it down the road but I decided that it's not going to help anyone to pretend that it doesn't happen.

Sooo....apparently the bad guys are still at it over there. I know, I know, the "drawdown" and "the war's over" and no one's talking about Afganistan anymore. But I'm telling ya, my husband's base has taken some mortar rounds over the last few days and once it was bad enough that he got to spend some quality time with some other guys in a bunker, waiting for it to end. There have been some other things I probably shouldn't talk about here and he's got a mission coming up that makes my heart go pitter-pat and not in a good way. Ok, it kinda scares the be-jeepers out of me.

I haven't breathed a word of this to my kids, obviously, and I'm a little divided on whether or not even I should be privy to it. That's what makes daily communication both a blessing and a curse. I don't even stop to think what stuff he keeps from me or isn't allowed to tell me (imagination is good but not in situations like this).

Scary stuff, right? I just wanted to share with you all how I'm choosing to deal with it. I could sit around the house all day, biting my fingernails and calling my mother-in-law so we can feed off of each other's fear. But I don't want to live like that. My husband wouldn't want me to. He's actually looking forward to his mission. He said it would be kind of fun and he's glad he gets to do something important. That's WHY he joined the Army in the first place. He's not some kind of thrill-seeking adrenaline junky, but he's the kind of guy who wants to be doing something with his life that matters. And in his totally irreverent way, he says he wants to come home with some good stories, lol.

So I'm just carrying on with life as usual. I took my kids to the bookfair last night and got them each a new book. We made sugar cookie fruit pizzas when we got home and watched "Ella Enchanted." Then we skyped with Daddy for a few minutes and off to bed they went. Just normal, fun, peaceful stuff.

That's the key, I guess, to have peace despite our circumstances. A lot of us make the mistake of thinking that we can only have peace if the world around us is peaceful. But I would challenge you with the thought that true peace is not found in the absence of conflict, or hardship, or trial, or unexpected challenges. True peace is not something you can have *only* when your husband is safe and sound next to you and far away from imminent danger.

My 9 year old daughter lost the first, of many I'm sure, friends who pcs'ed last weekend. She sat in her room at bedtime, crying and carrying on about how awful everything was so I opened up her bible and told her to read Philipians 4. The whole chapter (I show no mercy, lol). I want her to learn to be joyful in all circumstances, to pray instead of worry, and to be thankful for all she has, so that she will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.

I thought that was a lesson for her but what a treasure that little passage has been to me over the last few days.          

The Big D: 9 Deployment Fun Facts

12 August
Nine Deployment Fun Facts:

1. Every once in a while I hear the neighbor's garage door go down and even though I know in my head it's not mine, there is a rebellious little subconscious synapse that fires in my brain that cries "He's home!! He's home!!" Then the conscious side of my brain takes over and I have a quick moment of plunging sadness that takes a minute to recover from.

2. It is my husband's job to turn on the fan before we go to bed. That's why, nearly every night for the last 150 days or so, I have kicked the dog out of the way, climbed into bed, gotten comfortable, then had to get out of bed to turn the fan on. Almost without exception.

3. I have come to treasure that precious 2 hours of blissful peace and quiet between the hours of 9pm and 11pm (sometimes midnight) after the kids go to bed and before I go to bed. Sometimes I plan all day what I will do with those hours: read a book I haven't gotten to all day, watch a movie I've had DVRed for 3 weeks, take a bath with Pandora blasting from the computer in the other room. Whatever. Those hours are MINE and I'm not going to give them up easily when my husband gets home and we have to go to bed at 9:30 because he has to be up for PT so stinking early.

4. I probably spend about half on groceries what I spend when my husband is home because I have daughters who graze like I do and are happy to have a bowl of popcorn, some cheese slices, grapes, and maybe some carrot sticks for dinner. I will probably also gain 10 pounds in the first month after my husband comes home because I'll have to eat a real dinner every night...like the kind you need a fork to eat.

5. Sometimes you haven't any idea what you are capable of handling until you have no choice but to do it on your own and that's not always a bad thing. It can be very empowering if you can keep yourself from self-pity.

6. Sometimes things happen that you just can't handle on your own. So you learn that you can't really make real friends until you are forced to depend on someone because your husband is gone and you have no other choice. But then you get to return the favor and friendship blossoms.

7. Every bad thing that happens will pass.

8. I love my kids. I have always been thankful for them. But lets be honest--kids spend their entire lives learning how to push your buttons. There are days when they can drive me so crazy that I question why I wanted to have kids so bad in the first place. But not on a Sunday evening when we're watching a movie together and all three of them--and the dog--are crowded together on the couch with me and I can feel their warmth and hear their giggles when I would otherwise be totally alone. I appreciate the company of my kids in the absence of my husband more than ever before.

9. I fantasize about my husband's homecoming and *ahem* his first night home (or the first 10 minutes when we sneak up to the walk-in closet and lock the door) like every wife whose husband has been gone for a long time. But sometimes I just fantasize about being hugged.          

Delivered

Evelyn settled herself into the cushioned chair, set her purse on the floor, and used her orthotics-clad foot to slide it under her seat.  There were 20 or 30 chairs in this small, shadowy room and thanks to the thoughtful design of stadium seating, the spectators would get a great view.  As if they had come here to watch a movie or a ball game and not to watch somebody die.

There was an armed guard standing in the corner, wearing a baseball cap of all things (the casualization of society, she called this), watching people trickle in.  There were a few she figured were reporters.  Who else would want to memorialize this event with a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen?  Some faces she recognized from the trial as families of the victims.  One of them was a victim.  Evelyn tried not to look at her.  She sat two seats away and one row down.  The woman had been shot and raped and left to die but somehow survived.  Her testimony at the trial was horrific and is probably what convinced the jury to vote unanimously for death.  In a perverted sort of way that Evelyn would have denied if anyone had asked her about it, she hoped the woman got some kind of satisfaction out of today.  Then at least one good thing would come out of her son's life.

She kept her eyes on the window in front of her and wondered if it was a one-way glass.  Maybe Richard wouldn't even know she was here.  Maybe it was best that way.  She thought of him as a boy and how he would stick out his hand, and wave a big goofy wave, and say, "Hi, Mom!" when he saw her, the way he did when she was 15 minutes late picking him up from school once.  He was the only student left and stood on the sidewalk with a teacher who lifted her watch and stared at it when Evelyn arrived.  Richard never doubted that she would be there for him eventually.  She hadn't once come to visit him in prison.  

Time had stopped for her around the time he was convicted 11 years ago.  She knew intellectually that he was no longer a boy and that a grown man of 29 would walk through the door on the other side of that glass, but she preferred to live in her memories, a time of promises made, before she knew they wouldn't come to pass.  Not in Richard's lifetime anyway.

The door to the room beyond the glass opened and Richard walked through in his baggy orange jumper, hands behind his back, followed by a physician and a man in a suit.  Richard said, "You want me to sit?"  Evelyn was shocked she could hear voices.  She thought it would be sound proof and panicked a bit at what she might hear in his last moments.  Despite everything, she didn't want to hear him suffer.  The man in the suit told him not to sit just yet and took the handcuffs off.  He bumped Richard lightly as he moved around him in the small space and Evelyn heard her son's voice again saying, "Pardon me," as he rubbed his wrists.

They nudged Richard toward a gurney in the center of the room and sat him down on a plastic green mattress and hooked him up to a heartrate monitor, which seemed to her like a waste.  Thin black velcro straps dangled limp from the sides of the bed, jostling with Richard's weight in a grotesque little dance. 

Richard was calm.  More calm than she'd ever seen him, though to be fair, the last time they were together he was on drugs.  For six excruciating years, his eyes were either dilated and darting all over the place or glazed over, hollow and sunken.  Now they were clear and blue.  His face was clean shaven.  He looked so...healthy.  There wasn't even a tremor in his hand as he stretched his arm out to have the inside of his elbow swabbed with alcohol by the physician, another waste of time it seemed to her, and have an IV started.  

He laid down and inched his body up the mattress a bit to position his head on the little white pillow.  The man in the suit fastened the velcro around Richard's arms and legs.  He mumbled something she couldn't hear and Richard looked up at him and nodded.  She thought Richard would be scared but he wasn't.  He was just expectant, as if he was being strapped into a ride at an amusement park and had just been asked by the bored, sweaty, zit-plagued employee if the straps were tight enough.  "Enjoy the ride," the teenaged boy would say, and it would have been vaguely appropriate here but that's not what the man said.  He asked Richard if he had any last words.  Richard stared unblinking at the ceiling and said, "Life is death, death is life. I hope that someday this absurdity that humanity has come to will come to an end.  Life is too short. I hope anyone that has negative energy towards me will resolve that.  Life is too short to harbor feelings of hatred and anger. That's it, Warden."

Evelyn gripped the arms of her chair.  It was all she could do to keep herself from standing up and facing the room and giving a proper statement for Richard.  She wanted them to know that he was sorry for killing his own brother with a 20-gauge shotgun.  He was sorry for shooting those two other women, raping one of them, and leaving them all for dead.  He had to be.  She wasn't mother to a monster. 

She labored for 26 hours to bring Richard into the world.  His head was stuck for so long in the birth canal, when he finally emerged it was misshapen and lopsided and covered in meconium.  His nose never did quite straighten out but she loved him even more for it.  "Look what we did!" she had whispered excitedly to her husband in the dark early morning hours after his birth.  "This is the one.  Our deliverer," she said, welling with pride over her beautiful boy.  He was born with the promise of greatness and he could get Evelyn back home where she belonged.  She didn't deserve to go back after what she had done but the promise had been made and she trusted that it would be kept.  Richard would save them all.

She reminded him of it often, even when he began resenting her for it.  The summer Richard turned 12 was when her faith in him began to waver.  He'd been in trouble more than he was out of it and she stood at the stove, stirring a pot of pasta and letting him have it.  In her mind, she liked to see herself as June Cleaver with her apron, flats, and pearls, in control of every situation, telling him why he needed to stop this behavior and come to his senses.  "We're all depending on you, Richard.  Don't forget that."  But in reality, she was barefoot, uncombed, exhausted, stressed to the point of sickness, and the pasta water had boiled over, hissing and bubbling, scorching the glass stove top. 

"I don't give a (the foulest expletive in the English language, in her opinion) about the promise!" Richard shouted.  Her fingers froze, just short of the knob to turn the heat down, and she stood like a statue while he railed at her.  "Andy never gets this bull(another vile expletive that makes her cringe to remember).  Why don't you do this to Andy?  You leave Andy alone and you're always on my back!"  Of course that was peppered with proclamations of hating her and wishing she was dead, but that wasn't what haunted Evelyn about the exchange.  Later, she scrubbed furiously at the stovetop with her brillo and Softscrub, stunned that he was jealous of Andy.  If anyone had a reason to resent her, it was Andy, who was always being overlooked and disregarded in favor of Richard. She didn't mean for it to be like that but so much was at stake for Richard and Andy just...was.  Andy, eternally sweet Andy, never held it against her.  He loved everyone and did everything that was asked of him without complaint.  He was probably professing his love for his brother right up until Richard shot him.   

Evelyn was constantly going over the years leading up to that nightmare in her mind, redoing scenes in her imagination that might have changed the trajectory, if only she would have known what Richard was capable of.  One scene she would have like to do over was the evening her husband had been working late in the fields.  Richard approached him and demanded to be paid for his labor.  His father laughed in his face and told him his labor was unacceptable, and that it took a lot of nerve to walk up to him in this field with his hand out, as if he owed Richard something.  Richard faunched and fumed and sputtered horrible things about hating his father then too. 

Evelyn would have gone beyond praying if she had another chance at that night.  She would have begged and pleaded with him, disgracing herself if need be, to get him to return to his father with a contrite and humble heart, knowing her husband would never turn him away.  Nothing would have worked though; she knew that now.  Richard's resentment morphed into an all-consuming bitterness.  The whole family walked on eggshells around him.  His anger bubbled to the surface any time he didn't get his way.  Drugs entered their house.  Richard dropped out of high school.  A stolen car led to jail, then probation.  Finally, the unthinkable in a field 16 miles outside town.  An act so heinous, Evelyn refused to believe it until she watched Richard in the courtroom, cold and remorseless, not denying that he had done it.

Richard came back to the house after killing Andy to sleep off a drug-induced high.  He woke up famished, drank half of a gallon of milk while he stood in front of the open refrigerator, and kissed Evelyn on the top of her head before walking out the door to take care of his "business," which she now knew was to pay off a drug dealer with money from an earlier robbery.

She shuddered in her seat, remembering that kiss, as the warden gave a little nod.  Someone somewhere was flicking a switch, or pushing a button, or depressing a plunger that was shooting poison into Richard's body.   Seconds passed and Richard twisted his head back, raising it up off the pillow, to find the warden who stood behind him. 

"Wow!" Richard shouted. Evelyn jumped in her seat at his outburst.  "That is great. That is awesome! Thank you, (that foul expletive again, an adjective this time) Warden!"  His head fell back on the pillow at an angle that looked like it should have been painful.  His mouth and eyes stayed open but everyone watching from the other side of the glass knew the end had come for Richard.  He was gone.  But the promise wasn't gone with him. 

It was foolish of her to believe that it would be her son.  Her own sins were too greivous.  She never thought in a million years that murder would be the result and she would give her life to undo her mistakes.  But she wouldn't spend the rest of her life grieving Richard either.  He always believed he had a right to his anger and his life reflected that.  He chose to hate and to hurt others.  Now, looking at his dead body, Evelyn could see that the one who was really destroyed was him.  

All around Evelyn, hugs were exchanged, sighs of relief that had been held in for 11 long years were expelled.  But the woman who had been raped hadn't moved.  She stared at Richard's body, seeming totally unsatisfied, maybe even feeling a little jipped.  She probably came here to see him suffer or cry like a pathetic, scared child.  Evelyn wished she didn't feel the inclination to apologize to the woman because her son wasn't more pathetic but there it was.  She was burdened for this woman who would walk out of the room this day with a choice to make as well.

People began to trickle out.  They had seen what they'd come for.  Now it was dinnertime and they would celebrate as they broke bread together at the TGI Friday's across town.

After 15 minutes the doctor entered the room and pronounced Richard dead.  They unhooked the heartrate monitor and wheeled the gurney through the door and out of sight.  Evelyn had already checked the boxes and signed the papers for the prison.  There was nothing left for her to do except to leave this room as well and go home to get on with the rest of her life.  She pulled her purse out from under the chair, hooked it over her shoulder, and stood up, realizing that the woman had remained in her chair, staring through the glass into the now empty execution room.  They locked eyes for a second and Evelyn looked away. 

"You had another child," the woman said rather than asked.  Evelyn choked out a hoarse, "Yes."  She cleared her throat and said it again, clearer this time.  On the one year anniversay of Andy's death, baby Seth had arrived via c-section to her aged body.  In the quiet, early morning hours after his birth, she had whispered to her husband through tears of grief, "The Lord has given us another son in the place of Andy."  Her husband had agreed at the time but as Seth grew, Evelyn realized that Seth was different than Andy. Seth was obedient like Andy, but he also had a love for God that came from somewhere beyond Evelyn's doing or understanding.

Evelyn shuffled through the narrow path between the chairs and timidly laid a hand on the woman's shoulder.  "Choose love.  Choose life."  She paused and said, "So that you can live long after this life is over."  The woman remained stiff and unaffected but Evelyn gave a motherly squeeze and left the room.

Seth had a son named Enosh.
Enosh
Kenan
Mahalelel
Jared
Enoch
Methuselah
Lamech
Noah
Shem
Arphaxad
Shelah
Eber
Peleg
Reu
Serug
Nahor
Terah
Abram
Isaac
Jacob
Judah
...
David
...
Jesus, the promised Deliverer, referred to himself as a Son of Adam (Man) more often than as the Son of God.  





This allegory of Genesis 3:15-4:25 is loosely based on the story of Texas inmate, Richard Cobb's execution in Hunstville on April 25, 2013 as reported by Michael Graczyk, AP.
http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/man-put-to-death-for-texas-store-abduction-slaying

Death by Beans

That's going to be the epithet on my daughters' tombstones.  All three of them.  Underneath that pithy phrase will be something along the lines of, "My mom is a cruel and heartless woman who fed me nothing but beans for forty days.  Blech."

I feel sorry for them.  I really do.  Two out of the three of them HATE beans.  And the one who doesn't hate beans doesn't eat rice.  This is going to be one long Lenten season as we choose to subsist on rice and beans for the weeks that lead up to Easter. 

Why am I doing this to them you ask?  And any mother who's ever sat over their picky eater, begging them to eat just one more bite is asking, why am I doing this to myself? 

Let me tell you a story.  Once upon a time I had a friend who traveled to Honduras on a mission trip.  He was warmly welcomed by the local community who was so dirt poor, he could barely describe their living conditions.  Nevertheless, they banded together and showed him a fantastic time.  Their times of worship, he said, were full of joy and gratitude to the God they loved, the God who provided all that they needed.  They sang and danced to the Lord, not just on Sunday like we do, but on every single night of the week, so full were their hearts.  Not only that, but they were excellent hosts to their new American friends who helped them in so many ways.  They were happy to provide the meals and served plates heaped with regional favorites: plantains, rice, avacado, and that old pantry staple, refried beans.  The only problem was, their food began to run out as the week wore on with all those extra mouths to feed.  My friend noticed that towards the end of the week the beans were thinner and thinner.  Because when they were gone, they were gone.

I thought a lot about that story after I heard it.  I thought about it when I looked in my pantry and saw it overflowing with fancy stuff like store-bought cereal, chocolate chips, packaged cookies, Nutella, and even the occassional can of refriend beans. 

I thought about it on those nights when I didn't feel like cooking and we splurged on a $10 gas station pizza.

I thought about it at dinners when my girls wrinkled up their noses at what I had prepared.  I've never made my girls be members of the clean plate club so I inevitably end up washing the food they don't like down the garbage disposal with a sigh and a wish that they would at least show a little more gratitude.

I thought about it as Lent approached and I had to consider how I should use the season to prepare my heart for Easter.  Lent is a man-made holiday.  You'll not find the word anywhere in the bible.  Even so, I find it a wonderful tool, instituted by the church, to give its people a physical way to draw close to God.  It's physical because you are depriving yourself of something.  Some people fast from alcohol, chocolate, red meat, whatever.  This season, I am fasting from normal.

Why?  Because normal equals self-reliance in my little middle-America corner of the world.  I bring the paycheck home.  I spend the money at Hy-Vee.  I have all that I  need to prepare meals for my family for a least a week or two.  Or until I get tired of cooking and want to splurge on pizza. 

But do have all that I need?  Do I really?  I don't recall a time when I have EVER danced at church because my heart was overflowing with gratitude to the God who provided everything that I needed.  And here I sit with a pantry full of food, a checking account with plenty of money, and grocery store down the street that is stocked with every type of food I could imagine and more.  Something is very, very wrong with this.

With apologies to my sweet bean-hating girls, they are coming along with me on the journey to right this wrong.  I can't make them feel that kind of gratitude to God.  I can't even make them love God.  But as a parent, I am charged with the reponsibility of putting them in the path of the divine so that He can do the work in their hearts.

And maybe by eating the same food that billions of people all over the world eat because it's ALL THEY HAVE, my girls will gain a new perpective on all that WE have.  I expect it to be difficult.  I dread day 14 or 15 when I have to face the kitchen and prepare a meal that I am sick and tired of eating.

But we will not give up, as Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 4:16!  For, "though our bodies are [being deprived], our spirits are being renewed every day."  I look foward to telling the story of our rice and beans Lent experience as the days unfold and I pray for 5 hearts changed when Easter arrives in April.

Inspiration has struck!

Did you know that the Pilgrims spent nearly 10 years in Holland before coming to America?  They left England not with the original intent of laying the foundation of the greatest nation to ever grace this broken earth.  They just wanted to get out from under the corruption of the Church of England and escape the persecution they faced for resisting its authority.  Not very romantic, is it?

I'm not sure why they picked Holland.  Maybe the politics of the region led them to believe they'd be left alone there.  Maybe someone had family there.

I want to share a paragraph that I read in a book about the early days of American history that just fascinates me.  This came from a letter written by William Bradford, a man who, though not the pastor of the congregation, had been with them from the beginning and was always considered a leader among them.  These are his reasons for giving up on Holland by the time 1620 rolled around:

"1. Their life (though they never complained of it) was so hard that almost no others were coming from England to join them..., 2. Their life was aging them prematurely (everyone old enough to hold a job worked 12 to 15 hours a day), and was so debilitating them that, should the time come when they would have to move again, they might not physically be able to do so, 3. Their children were also being worn down, and many were being drawn away by the lures of the world around them, 4. They had cherished a 'great hope and inward zeal' of at least playing a part, if as only a stepping stone for others, in the carrying forth of the Light of Christ to remote parts of the world."

Can you guess which sentence in the paragraph above sparked an idea for a new story?  Ok, ok, I'll just tell you.  It's sentence number 3 about their children.  I read that and thought to myself, "Aha!  They were humans like us!  They had the same challenges in raising their kids to love God--just like us!" 

I forget this when my kids bring home worksheets every Thanksgiving with silly-looking Pilgrims donning huge black hats and shaking hands with Squanto.  They bury the fish with the corn kernels and the next thing you know, it's time to eat!  Happy Thanksg-er, uh, Happy Turkey Day!

The Pilgrims become cartoon characters to us, ceasing to be real. But if you dig around through history, you'll find that they were, in fact very real.  Both in their superhero-like abilities to deal with hardship, and in their weaknesses, of which they had in abundance too. 

This is what makes a story really great, I think.  I don't need my hero or heroine to be so pure and flawless that his/her perfection is completely unattainable and thereby unrelatable.  In the same way, I want my villain to have some redeeming qualities because we ALL have a little bit of darkness in us, right?   

To think of the Pilgrims, or any other historical figures as any less complex than that is to misunderstand history.  And to miss out on a great story.

So, inspiration has struck.  I'm living in the world of 17th Century Holland, at least in my mind.  And when you're a teenage girl who has lived a brutally challenging life and you finally get a taste of freedom, who is the villain?  Why it's your parents, of course, who want you to stay the course of a faithful life of servitude and sacrifice.  Or maybe...it's the hunky guy who calls himself a Christian but who only lives for himself and diminishes your parents and their crazy notion to go to the New World.

Will she she make the choice in the end that honors God?  Will she end up on the Mayflower with her family?  I can't even say for sure because the characters and the plot tend to take on a life of their own as they develop in my mind.  But one thing I DO know.  They will be human.  They will breath life into a group of people that seem plastic and cartoonish even to those of us today who know our American history.

As a Christian and an American who has benefited in so many ways from the toil and sacrifice of these 102 brave souls who left such a giant thumbprint on the world, it's the least I can do.