Grace at the Lake

I didn't want to go.

In fact, if I could have reverted to my small child self...I might have had a tantrum and just refused to move.

Another week-end.

Another soccer tournament.

I am over it.

I should know better.

I got into the car on a Friday night and began a three hour trek into the mountains.

My 12 year old grabbed the cell phone and made a comment about how I needed a better phone.

What?

She complained about the car we were in.

She didn't like my music.

I didn't like her vibe.

As I sat in traffic, I fumed.

I couldn't take one more millisecond of the ingratitude.

I lost it.

Like a surveyor, I reminded her of the topographical lines of her life...the deepest blessings coming first...

Did you notice that you're healthy?

That I'm healthy?

That we have a car to drive?

That we have gas in the car?

We have the amazing ability to spend a week-end playing soccer?

You have a mom who is willing to devote a week-end to soccer?

That we are together when so many moms and daughters don't get that chance?

As I assailed her with her blessings...

the boomerang effect took place.

Hey, Beth, are you listening to yourself?

Stop your complaining and start noticing.

As we meandered at dusk through the mountains, the reset button was pushed.

We stopped for dinner and we both took a deep breath...

we inhaled the scent of the pines...

it was going to be okay.

We had a soccer game at a high school where giant pines surround the field.

I tripped over a giant root and noticed extra large pine cones...

the sky was a shade of blue that made me consider paint colors:

Cobalt

Cerulean

Cornflower

True Blue

Azure

After some weeks of fires and smoke near me, the color of the sky was a long lost friend.

We had a break and some time until the next game.

Some moms had rented a cabin together so they invited the team to hang out there.

We walked into a welcome where the team cheered when Caroline came in.

She had been injured in the game - a serious bonk to the head - and her team, in that moment,  let her know that she mattered.

I could see her body relax...comfortably finding a spot at the big table to paint a few paper flowers.

Parents were tracing flowers, cutting flowers, making paint and paintbrushes available to anyone -

it was an anthill of effort.

The flowers were for our coach, who had lost his mother during the week.

The hand-painted flowers would be a perpetual bouquet for Coach Mike...

a way for 12 year old girls to say:

We see you going through this hard thing...we are so sorry...we are sending love and friendship.

I was so humbled watching these mothers (and fathers) showing their daughters how to love someone through something hard.

I picked up a tracer and a pencil and swallowed hard.

These parents were strangers to me...

but they were mothering my daughter...

right in front of my eyes.

Their love was better than any ice pack.

She was given the gift of thinking of someone else...

the gift of doing good with paper and paint.

Together, we were reminded that it is so often the simplest acts of kindness that last.

After another soccer game, we had the grim consideration of dinner for 40.

How would that work?

What restaurant would serve us?

Instead, another group of moms opened up their cabin...and told us all to bring a little something.

Something turned into quite the banquet.

Moms know how to feed their people.

The girls devoured bowls of pasta, while the adults ate tasty tidbits and watched with wonder more flowers being painted...the designs getting more intricate and beautiful with each effort.

The cabin was at the edge of Lake Tahoe and so the team wandered down to the lake...the girls swam and the sun did its downward dance...gilding the sky...reminding us that this ordinary holiness...this beauty of light...tattoos our world every day for the briefest of moments.

Against the backdrop of waves and feet buried in sand and a chill in the air and a purplish dusk, a group of moms talked about family and the challenges that go with helping our girls grow up...we talked writing and teaching blanketing over the real messages of care and love.

One mom echoed what we all were feeling:

how grateful she was that her daughter was surrounded by these moms (and dads)

...she called it a clan...

a tribe...

an echo from the times when grandmothers and aunties and cousins and others watched over the little ones and made sure it was all as it should be.

In that last little breath of light before the dark, my heart was full.

She was exactly right.

This team has traversed the territory of strangers on the sidelines and moved to a higher plane:

 a community that cares.

It was seemingly effortless...but it wasn't.

It took one mom to consider the coach and find a way for 12 year olds to deal with grief.

It took another mom to open her cabin.

It took moms and dads to buy food and take the time to make food and create 

a space that welcomed everyone.

It took coaches who had loosened their control on the team for something organic to grow.

It took problem solvers to figure out seating and clean up and all sorts of other glitches.

It took effort.

There, at Lake Tahoe in the middle of a soccer tournament, grace was in abundance.

I didn't have a cabin to offer...

I brought very little food...

I didn't bring art supplies or any ideas.

I pretty much was on the sidelines just watching the miracle unfold.

I guess I'll be the recorder.

When's the next tournament?

Crazy Love

I would often see him when I was dropping Caroline off at school.

He would zip in and drop his girls off at school and head off.

He was a great big bear of a man.

His love was palpable.

Crazy love.

I knew it well.

My husband has that same kind of crazy love.

We rarely exchanged words...

maybe an occasional smile.

But because of that crazy love,

I knew I liked him.

I could feel the blanket of love he wrapped around his two girls, myself.

I didn't even know his name.

Oh, but I knew him.

Knew he'd be the kind of guy I could hang out with at a barbeque.

Someone I could dish with...

...because that crazy love was something we had in common.

Now, my chance is gone.

Yesterday, I learned his name.

Mark left us...

bound for a place filled with even crazier love.

Deeper, more mysterious.

Jaw-dropping and wonderful.

It's hard to imagine...

and all of us left behind just want another few days,

well, maybe weeks or years or 

damn it, decades.

*****

I read a book a while ago called The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

It's about two teenagers who have cancer.

I don't want to give anything away because I want you to read it...

it's really amazing...

but at the end someone has to speak about the terrible torture of a shortened life and uses this quote:

"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. 

I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for _____. 

But, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. 

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."

"a forever within the numbered days"

"our little infinity"

That's all any of us get.

Yes, some infinities are bigger than other infinities

and none of it makes any sense.

Why should someone with so much crazy love

go so soon?

Why should someone else who is a rock solid criminal live into old age in prison?

In moments like this I wonder why this love, this life, 

this chance to breathe deep and hold close those we love the most,

why must that end?

But again, I know, that I don't get to know...

not just yet.

On this side, I get to sink into the questions;

try to fight the quicksand of believing we can figure it out.

What I know...all I know...

is that energy doesn't disappear.

I know for sure that Mark's crazy love is cosmic bubble wrap surrounding his girls 

and his wife, Debi, forever.

I know that we are all better for witnessing that kind of love.

I know that his girls have been loved oh so well by their dad.

Isn't that all that matters?

How well did you love?

How deep did you love?

Who did you love?

Mark wasn't stingy.

His crazy love surrounds us all.

*****

"We are travelers on a cosmic journey,

stardust,

swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity.

Life is eternal.

We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other,

to meet,

to love,

to share.

This is a precious moment.

It is a little parenthesis in eternity."

-- Paul Coelho, The Alchemist

365 More

"525,600 minutes, 525,600 moments so dear.  

525,600 minutes.  

How do you measure? Measure a year? 

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. 

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In 525,600 minutes -- how do you measure a year in the life?  How about love?  

How about love?  How about love? Love.  

Measure in love.  Seasons of love." 

-- "Seasons of Love" from Rent (the musical)

I've had her for three hundred and sixty five more days.

An entire extra year.

Hundreds of thousands of minutes, countless moments, dozens of books and a myriad of chances to squeeze tighter, hold closer, give second chances and measure in love.

Today, of all days, it happened to be her First Reconciliation.

The irony of talking about sin and transgressions with someone who still believes in Santa and carefully writes notes to the Tooth Fairy and still sleeps with a multitude of stuffed of animals is not lost on me.

She knows about making good choices.  She knows how to be kind and thoughtful.

She does it pretty much every day.

I'm not too worried about her spiritual health.  

She's closer to God than almost anyone I know.

And yet, this is when our church says she's ready...and on this terrible anniversary of losing 20 six year olds, 

a whole bunch of seven year olds made another step forward.

In the glow of candles, amid family and friends, they spread out among four different priests and went up there and asked for forgiveness.

So much lighter now!

Caroline was worried about this whole process and so her teacher helped her out.  She asked her to hold a book.  Then she piled another one on top, and another, and another -- until she was holding five heavy books.  She told Caroline that when you do something wrong, it feels heavy and weighs you down. Then she swooped in and removed all the books.  She told her that she would feel so much lighter after Reconciliation. 


As we walked up to church, Caroline wondered aloud if she would "feel lighter".  She couldn't wait to find out.
She wasn't fearful.  She wasn't anxious.
She was curious.

Afterward, she sighed and said, "I'm so much lighter!"

I smiled...that lucky smile.
The smile of a momma who had someone else give their child a gift.
Someone else had given her another way to see the world.
I was so so grateful.

Walking home, I tried to hold her hand but she was skipping ahead.
My heart is always lifted when she skips...but then it remembered the twenty who no longer skip...and the many, many heavy hearts surrounding those twenty.
My heart always holds those twenty close.
I can't look at Caroline and not see them.

At her birthday, I thought of the quiet homes with no extra candle to add.
When she lost another tooth; got bolder swimming; started voraciously reading.
All of the days she spent singing, dancing, creating, laughing and telling knock knock jokes.


Six moving to seven -- 525,600 extra minutes.


What did I do with those precious extra?
How did I spend them?
Sadly and beautifully, we just went about our days...taking hikes, trying new things, making new pictures,
learning and wondering and asking and celebrating...
nothing too special...

until it's gone.

So, Newtown, Connecticut and most especially the families who have not had that extra,
I want you to know that your insane, mind-numbing loss is not forgotten.

You are alongside us on our journey now...forever.

We are lighting candles,
remembering
and choosing love every chance we get.

Dear Winters

"What we have done alone for ourselves dies with us; 

what we have done for others and the world remains immortal."  

--Albert Pike

Dear Winters, California,

You are so darling.  

You are a small community...connected and close.  

You have natural beauty and the authentic beauty of a community that cares.  You are special and rare.

Last Monday morning, your beautiful town was forever scarred.

You lost a citizen to murder, in broad daylight, going about her everyday routine of living in your town being a single mom.  Her boyfriend, filled with anger and hate, stole a life and created a shadow of darkness and fear.

I am so so sorry.  

Know that many are praying for you, sending their love and surrounding you in good thoughts.

In your grief you have a choice. 

You can choose love.

You have a chance to honor the person stolen from you.  You have a chance to remember her light and her beauty.  You can share her stories, her humor, her acts of kindness and her strength.  You can look this act of rage and anger straight in the face and recognize that these sorts of stories need outside support and greater acceptance.  You don't have to be ashamed if you are being mistreated or abused. 

When we stand with people at the margins, there are no margins. 

(Wish I could claim credit for that line but that is the wisdom of Father Greg Boyle who has seen more than his fair share of loss and murder working with the gangs of east LA.)

Or you can choose fear.

You can close yourself off from the outside world.  You can suspect the outsider and shut your heart off with judgment and criticism.  You can pretend it didn't happen.  Never speak of it again.  You can comfort yourself with the numbing idea that those sorts of stories only happen to other families and other people or that this was a one-time-only weird thing.

I hope you choose love.

I pray that with your broken hearts you can recognize the crack in others' hearts and see that we all need forgiveness, kindness and light.  I hope that as a town you can do something big that honors this woman and creates a safe haven for the many others that are just like her.

I hope that Winters becomes the ground-zero of bringing community compassion and care to a whole new level.  

I know you are that kind of place.

And I want to remind you of one of the laws of physics: the conservation of energy.

Energy doesn't just disappear.

It transforms.

Although Leslie's physical self is no longer here, her energy most certainly is.

It is surrounding you, transforming you -- moving and calming and guiding.

You can already see this in the way people are responding in this terrible moment.

Hold this knowledge close...let that be your comfort.

Hold each other close.

Choose love.

We are with you.every.step.of.the.way.

Finding Each Other

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." 

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

America doesn't do grief.  

Americans are downright wimpy when it comes to facing loss head on.  

We want the path to be easy, the bumps to be light and we cringe when we have to go to the bad place of real loss.

When my friend lost her mother in her twenties, her young husband asked, 

"Just how long do you think it will be until you are over it?"

She wanted to punch him.  

But instead she looked him straight in the eye and let him know the truth:

"I'm never going to be over it.  I'm forever going to have this hole.  I am going to be different."

I'm pretty sure he didn't want to hear this because that's how Americans are.

We want a fast food method to grieving.

Let's get this over with.

Let's move on.

Let's pretend it never really happened.

This intent to gloss over the pain of loss is so classically American and so unnerving to deal with that rarely do we discuss it.

We shut it out.

We steel ourselves for the sad moment...the funeral, the hug, the up close shot of grief...and think we're done.

Thank God for the Irish.

My friend, Carolyne, lost her mother a month ago.

She travelled alone to Ireland to say good-bye and to grieve with her family and friends.

Out of necessity, she left her children here.

So it only made sense that Carolyne would observe the Irish tradition of the Month's Mind.

I got an invitation to it and thought to myself, "Alleluia!" 

I knew nothing of what a Month's Mind entailed but I did know enough to understand that it would be a way to share in Carolyne's grief, if even for a moment, and I wanted to be there.

I was grateful for the chance.

I had no idea.

The Month's Mind is basically a mass held in your home one month exactly after the person has passed away.  The fog of shock and the harboring clouds of the initial, deep sadness have had thirty days to clear out...some sense of clarity and a willingness to remember and honor and cherish the person are present.  

In essence, the person grieving can finally take a deep breath.

One month into it, the eyes of the heart have adjusted somewhat to the deep darkness of loss and some stars can be seen.

It's a beautiful time and a real gift.

We gathered for the Month's Mind at Carolyne's home.

All of us knew Carolyne from very disparate parts of her life and it was wonderful to see her house filling up with the people who loved her and wanted to remember with her.

Her children were there.

Her children's friends were there.

Their dining room table was made into an altar.

Their living room into a chapel.

It was intimate and close and a chance to see grief head on.

But it was also a chance to laugh and be light hearted and sing songs that wouldn't normally make it into a traditional mass.
There was darling Father Dan teasing about the supremacy of Kerry versus Carolyne's Galway.

There were You Tube videos of a famous Irish folk singer leading us in song.

There was a rendition from U2.

There was time for grandchildren to speak and Carolyne to speak and an opportunity to see pictures and get to know Carolyne's mom in a way I never did.

We said prayers and received blessings but mostly we were together.
We were together for the official Bailey's toast.
We were together as we rocked out to Hail Holy Queen from Sister Act.
And some were together long into the night singing at the piano with dear Father Bong.

We felt the love of family and friendship and together we knew that grief, although overwhelming, terrible and debilitating in its isolation was being shared right here, right now.

It was palpable and powerful.

At the end, Carolyne read a poem from the book Benedictus, a gift her dear brother Bobby had given her years before with the very page marked with this blessing.  

Beannacht

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

 And you stumble,

May the clay dance

To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The grey window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colours,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue,

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the currach of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And may a slow

wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.
 -- John O'Donohue 

In that moment, cloaked in John O'Donohue's words, our group found each other.

Strangers held hands and prayed.

Tears were shared.

Remembrance was thick.

It was a sacred moment.

A clock stopped.

Later that night, as Carolyne and I and a few others were talking, Carolyne took an astonished breath. 

Her clock on her book shelf had stopped at the exact moment of her mother's passing.

The clock would stay forever at 5:15...reminding and tending and holding us close...time is relational and fleeting...time does stand still...in sacred moments...in holy places...where love is a cloak.

Grief can be beautiful...Carolyne taught me that.

Tonight I'm grateful for friends, for the hard times and for the moments that bind us.

Maybe us Americans can be a little more Irish.