My Word for 2016

At the end of every December, I identify a word that will be MY word for the upcoming year.

Last December, after Christmas, after the funeral, I found my word, or perhaps it found me.

Free.

I found it as I read the story of the crippled woman in the gospel of Luke,

Jesus was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath. There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he called her over. “Woman, you’re free!” He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God. Luke 13:10-13

My heart found a home in that woman's story. Eighteen years, crippled, unable to stand, unable to look up.

Nathan Sawaya's Grasp

Just recently I was cleaning out some bookshelves, and I found an old prayer journal from 10 years ago. I picked it up and started skimming through the pages. I was struck by the desperation, the pain, the loneliness. And then I found it. The day when Ross confessed that he had been fantasizing about what it would be like to be hanging from a tree. I remember I had found the print out of instructions about how to make a hangman's noose in his dresser drawer. 

I don't remember what I did or said after hearing those words. In hindsight, I probably didn't say or do enough. But I have to give my 10-year younger self a break. She was a mom of three, all under the age of 5, the youngest just weeks old. She hadn't slept for a very long time. She also was terrified of her husband's anger - she knew that any disclosure to others would be seen as a breach of confidence - an act of high treason - and she'd be the recipient of a lot of hateful words and anger if she crossed that line.

Free.

I have spent a large chunk of my life afraid. Of sparking anger. Making things worse. Of a future that just looked the same as today. Of a moment when all things would go horribly wrong. That, despite all of my prayers, there would never be healing.

Ross spent a very long time in a very dark place, and he lost all perspective sometime between the night of December 19 and the morning of December 21, 2015. I'm still so angry that his story ended as it did. It's just not right. It's so unjust. This was supposed to be a story of triumph, overcoming, prayers answered.

Nathan Sawaya's My Boy

Ultimately, it is, I suppose. As Ross sits in heaven, with his healthy mind, no longer Satan's playground, no longer clouded by lies. He's hanging out with my Savior, and his Grandma June and my dad, all of whom I'm sure gave him a good smack when they saw him. But as I look around, at the faces of his children, his parents, his friends, me...I see the carnage that's been left behind. 

Free.

As I think back on these last 12 months, I relate to the crippled woman, who was suddenly able to stand straight and tall. I hadn't realized how much space in my mind had been occupied with worry and fear over Ross. I'm free of that now. I'm not worried about what I'll find in my text messages from him. I'm not scared about the phone calls I would receive. I'm not fretting over whether he would show up when he said he would. I'm not required to choose my words with painful precision. His mood and his pain no longer govern my day, my decision making, my future. 

My story of triumph, of overcoming, of prayers answered....it's still being written. I am free, to stand straight and tall, and give glory to God. In this last year, Christ has put his hands on my face, gently lifted my eyes, and cried with me, saying, "Woman, you are free." 

And so free shall I be.

Nathan Sawaya's Gray

Keeping it Together

I've been processing a lot lately. The deep work that a good therapist forces you to do. I was going to write about it. But then, as I opened up this blog, and starting reading the drafts that I never published, I found this one from nearly 3 years ago. I don't remember writing it.  

So much has happened since then. My little world looks so different. The big world I read about in the news has changed so much. But the truth remains the same.

If you feel like it's in your job description to keep it together, I am sharing this for you. 


(Written September 3, 2013) September 2, 2012. One year ago. It was a Sunday - I was making my list of all the things I was going to accomplish the following day, Labor Day. Since I've returned to full-time work, three day weekends smell sweeter and feel full of possibility and promise. The children had 3 days in their new school under their belts. I had completed 8 months of working with my team at work and was enjoying my teammates and responsibilities. My husband was going to weekly counseling appointments, and though I did have to hear on a regular basis how much he didn't want to be with us, I at least no longer was having panic attacks and was feeling, physically, a bit healthier.

It's strange to look back at your year-ago yourself, before the bombs had gone off and your world fell apart, and think about the difference a day can make. How unaware I was of all that was preparing itself for me. Similar to watching a horror movie, as you watch the heroine turn the knob on the bedroom door, unaware of the danger that lurks inside - but you know what's about to happen and you yell at the screen, "Run away! Turn around! Don't go in that room!" - that's how I feel as I consider that day.

Perhaps we all have a day like that. A turning point. A twist in the story. A key battle.

The next day, as I carried out my list of tasks, between the Verizon store and Staples, I got the news that my dad was in the ER. Within an hour - maybe it was more, it feels like an instant now - he was gone.

As I drove the 8 hours with my children and husband to Delaware, with feelings raw and senses heightened, I started to see how dark my days had become. I felt suffocated with fear that my children would make a noise and receive the words of wrath from their dad. I couldn't listen to the radio, or enjoy the noise of children being children, because I was scared of how he would respond. As I helped my mom at the funeral home make preparations, I received phone calls - how dare I abandon him with the kids for this long - I could feel my insides twist and churn with hurt. As we pulled into our driveway, and he ran for his vehicle and took off for destinations unknown, never to return until the next morning, I was left with 3 children's faces looking to me for answers.

Within two months he moved out. Perhaps we see him once a week. Often less. When the youngest is hurt or doesn't get her way, she cries for daddy. The middle child has periodic meltdowns, when she no longer can be brave. The oldest didn't say a word, just prayed for him. And I was alone, doing the work of two, trying to hold it together.

Then my team at work dissolved, as several moved on to different positions, different states, different employers. And I was almost alone in my job with only one other member of my team remaining, doing the work of several, trying to hold it together.

Then my son started having problems at school, hitting himself, biting himself, severe anxiety, hiding under desks and in bathrooms, ripping up papers, staring at schoolwork unable to start a sentence. A battery of tests came back with an Asperger's diagnosis. Weekly phone calls from teachers and principals reporting on the latest, asking me what they can do. Doctor's appointments, tests, counseling services, long evenings of homework, re-creating torn up assignments, researching, dietary changes, planning, negative self-talk, discussions of suicide and worthlessness and brokenness, navigating medicaid and insurance and support services and IEPs. And I was alone, doing the work of a full medical team, trying to hold it together.

And then I was promoted after a long process of interviews and nausea-inducing waiting, and hired a new team and started fresh. Difficult goals, stretching, learning new things, identifying strategies, making it up as I go along, trying to hold it together.

Friendships have taken a back burner as  I lack the energy to talk or make plans, schedule lunches, even post on Facebook. Isolated, alone, self-absorbed. Trying to hold it together.

This year has nearly broken me.

Everything I know has been stripped to the bones. Exposed.

I wish I could say that's all behind me. But I'm still in the same place - still wandering through marital separation and lacking clarity about our future, still looking at the bite marks on my son's arms after a school day, still forming my plans and teams and identifying best practices in my job, still not able to keep up with friends and family as I'd like.

But this isn't a triumph of the human spirit story. This isn't about me.

Colossians 1:17,

Christ was before all things. All things are held together by Him.

God throughout this year, has shown me on a regular basis that he is holding me together. Whether it be the treats and meals a neighbor would bring me, or a text from a friend, or the financial provision to pay the bills, or the comfort of praying in community with others.

I don't know what I'm doing. I screw up daily.

But I'm not responsible for holding it all together. I'm going to try to remember that. Because only God knows what a year will bring.

Birthday week

This week has felt very sad.

I've been surprised by that.

I keep thinking, it'll get better. Others have said that to me. When my kids sprain their wrist or ankle, I can tell them with authority that it will hurt the worst in the beginning, but in a couple of weeks, they'll barely notice the discomfort.

But then there are other injuries, when it seems to hurt the most in the middle. Times when the process of healing creates a deep, painful itch in the wound.

Right now, almost 6 weeks since his death, I feel like I'm in the middle of a deep, painful itch in my spirit.

We celebrated his birthday on Monday. He would have been 41. He despised birthdays. He felt that they were some sort of relational facade - a fabricated reason to celebrate someone that you wouldn't normally treat special any other day of the week. Really, I think it was deeply tied to the fact that, in his mind, he wasn't worth the party or the attention.

So I tried to honor him on this birthday. We played video games at an arcade. I pushed a couple of kids to be brave and climb on ropes courses as he has done in the past. We ate pasta. I think we successfully had a little fun.

But it was also just a twisted reminder of how lost he was. Year after year, he really felt we were lying or delusional when we tried to express love to him on the day of his birth. He felt he knew the "truth", that there was nothing in him, to his core, worth an ounce of celebration. That always made me sad, year after year. Because I had tried desperately to point out to him everything I knew that was amazing and honorable and lovable about him. And in the end, he just couldn't or wouldn't believe it.

Twenty years ago, I visited Ross on Dickinson's campus to help him celebrate his 21st birthday. I hadn't realized that he was plotting to propose to me, and I unwittingly foiled attempt after romantic attempt that weekend. He finally managed to get me alone in the Stuart House laundry room and said something like, "I've warned you before, how I can be. Are you sure you want to be with me?" You know, the typical intro that makes you feel like your relationship's about to end. Of course I responded with affirmation. And then he proposed.

That was a long time ago. We were so young.

I know that life never turns out the way you plan or expect. That seems like a pretty obvious statement. But it's been haunting me this week.

Happy birthday Ross. 

You are amazing. 

You are honorable. 

You are lovable. 

You are worth it all.