a sacred haunt.

His eyes.  They hang in those moments between words, lost.  Nowhere do they find rest or comfort, or even familiarity. He shifts constantly for new position in his seat never settled for more than a handful of minutes.  He’s not nervous.  He’s hiding, moving back and forth to break the emotion looking to free itself from his holding.  He shifts again as not to cry as stories of survivors and victims, the only thing familiar, are brought forth in memoriam and confession; recountings of their loved ones dead.

The wedding band still wraps around his finger.  “She’s only been gone since June,” he struggles the words out.  And then he fades back into the chair and the stories shared from the others sitting in the circle.

:::::::

It’s been awhile since I’ve listened to someone new in our grief support group speak of their loss so recent and fresh.  Usually, their words are few and plain, partly guarded and mostly numb still.  Two emotions gripped me in the six grueling words he shared: familiar and sadness.

I know the road he has suddenly found himself on.  I remember, all too well, the disoriented feeling to every day, how my feet ambiguously shuffled forward because the day behind ripped through me, how my thoughts sank even in smiles and words rattled safety because I didn’t really want to be found.  No day stretches too far to forget and no night rests soundly in dreams giving harbor to relentless grief.

It’s a sacred haunt, one lurking in memories and love and life belonging to a day that has come and gone without approval and despite a fight.

He’s in a bad spot.  But at least he’s here.

What I want to tell him as my chance to speak in the circle draws near is that he’s okay, more than he can know right now.  He’s not forgotten.  He’s not alone.  And most of what he thinks right now is untrustworthy; he will make it.

He’s gazing at the floor most of the time, but I notice his eyes break and look up briefly as the each person shares of their loss.  At least he’s listening.

Rather than tell him what and where he’ll be one day soon as he continues his grief journey, I tell the group humorous stories of my struggles (and surprising progression) learning to do my daughters’ hair, painting fingernails and shopping for clothes.  I then reminded them that this month marks two years since my wife’s death.

He’ll get there, here and further, if he only continues through pain and loneliness and the deepest of sadness.

:::::::

On the drive home from our grief support group, I talked to the girls about what they learned and discussed in their groups.  They talked about memories.  So many of their memories of Marianne are amazing ones.  Dancing in the living room until they were too tired to have fun, summer days lazy at the pool, cooking cookies at night, friends sleeping over waiting giddy for Marianne to inspire another hair brained scheme of adventure, bedtime jokes and prayers...  Some are haunting and even undefined.  They speak of those more and more infrequently at night, but I know those haunting thoughts exist.  They must in order for their hearts to heal.  It’s a sacred haunt that I can help them and support them in, but they, too, must continue through into a day new.

Do we ever stop grieving?

To a large degree, I don’t think we do.

Grieving is growth through the greatest pain and rising from the deepest loss.

I really hope and pray I see him again next time.

the mountains whisper tomorrow.

at 3am we left under the cover of morning dark.  life bending flat, brushing close to the ground.  wilting tired from days long and nights somehow longer.  this is precisely when vacation means more than sand and waves and souvenirs lost on the drive home; if you’re even lucky enough for them to last that long.  the dates set aside for no work, the work I run to and find identity in and the work I feel chained to, seemed to rest ahead for weeks.  the closer I got, the more I felt I needed time away, from work, from writing, from planning, from thinking about the next step; disconnect to rest, stretch and allow meandering thoughts to roam and echo with no worry of when they’d return with answer or solution. I knew our vacation held this type of rest when I packed my mountain bike.  a week in the mountains of Colorado without a schedule to ream us in or rush us.  just the four of us, me and the girls, visiting friends that feel more like family.

driving through the early morning dark, they slept warmly in the back seat of the car.  I prayed for moments together, the kind that etch themselves on hearts‘ memory and last forever.  I wanted to see breathtaking beauty, the kind that’s new and foreign, uncommon to everyday and them remember it.  I felt like we needed it, the break together, the fresh breath, the change of pace.

as dark gave way to dawn, each girl began to wake to a new day.  the sun casting gently on the mountains all around us, a sense of adventure freed us from the rut we settled in to.  they shared hopes for the week ahead in the mountains.  together, we explored Pikes Peak, Estes Park, the Rocky Mountains and plenty of other spots holding so much historied beauty.  just the night before we left, after hiking through mountains, standing at waterfalls, being dwarfed by cliffs and feeling like we could touch the sky, Elizabeth, my oldest, popped open her heart deeper.

through warm tears, she shared the pain of her grief, hurts of today in seeing friends with their mothers and fears of tomorrow unknown.  she just cried.  she was letting go again.  “thank God for these mountains,” I thought.

for what felt like an eternal day that I’d never leave, we talked through each pain, hurt and fear.  and she let go.

...and that’s when remembered all over again that parenting is really just about being there.

we lived little adventures during our week in the mountains that will always be owned in our hearts.  the laughs and jokes, the challenges of pushing through physically for miles just to spy a waterfall, the drives to peaks lifting us above all holding to us too tightly, they will always be remembered.  my little girls who are stretching for what’s ahead and me wanting more, we all heard the whispering of tomorrow in the mountains together.

here’s to many more adventures in our lives leading us, stretching us, connecting us together.  it’s my hope and prayer that in each day both regular and exhilarating, God would guide and I would listen.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"]

at the end of their lives.

Two images set fixed in my mind always.  One projected by my hopes and sweat and prayers, the other locked forever in sweetest memory.  Both hold beginnings.  One day the projected image will exist.  My job is to make sure it is not some maladapted version of what I see and hope for now. For each of my daughters, I hold two images.  I will forever remember the first moment I held them as newborns sucking in life and breathing out identity.

Each time, my heart melted completely different, like it never had before.  As their little eyes opened they couldn’t see much or make sense of what was all around them.  They squirmed and cried announcing arrival and beginning.  That is when the second image began to form: who they would one day be.

The two images fixed in place hold each other in supportive tension.

God had much to do with their first beginning and arrival into the world.  I have a momentous and deeply impressionable role in what I think of as their second beginning when they stand on their own cutting their own way in life.

For now, I am protector and guide to them, and if what I read about father/daughter relationships holds true, years from now at the end of their lives, I will be on their mind.  That’s such a heavy and strong thought that keeps me praying and shaping them with what I learn and know.  So I try to envision the end of their lives, what they might think, remember, have lived through and most importantly how they may have made it.

Did they live well? ...risk all for dreams and desires? ...love deeply and forever?

What I can’t handle is the opposite possibility of what I hope for in their lives.

I never want them to live hemmed in by fear, insecurity or whatever clings and pulls them closer to the ground, remaining small and insignificant.  The thought of them at the end of their lives regretting, lonely for dreams formed in youth, loved incompletely and somehow misaligned from what we once hoped for, absolutely breaks my heart now.

This heartache serves to be a very capable guide for me as their father.  Beyond parenting strategies and developmental challenges, those two images fixed together in my heart in cause and effect relationship, uncover resolve and undying determination to love them despite difficulty and guide them through precarious.  Courage and god-like bravery defy any distortion of who I hope them to be in life.

After all, God made me for this, for them.  And them for me.  I’m sure of it.

As a parent, it is likely easy for you to fall into ruts and routine cut into your relationship with your kids by fear.  Fear that our effort will one day reach a threshold where they overcome by normally accepted statistics and hormonal changes.  I hold tightly to the truth that perfect love casts out fear.  1 John 4:18.

As God perfectly and completely loves me, fear has been displaced.  His love teaches me to love fearlessly as I love and teach my daughters the same.

At the end of their lives, when I’m told I will be on their minds, I want them to still be breathing in life and exhaling identity.  The feeling of satisfaction and love deeply rooted in their hearts as they think of their own kids that they helped steer and establish from the heart that I helped form within them from the beginning of their lives.

where promise will take you.

I miss home.  The smell of fresh cut grass.  Air heavy and sticky hanging on shoulders slowing time and holding memories.  Playing outside until it’s too late to see.  Laying under stars still brightly shining.  The ease of day holding tomorrow comfortably and capably when what is yet to come comes in dreams pleasant and waiting; never rushed to get too, for the day still is where you want to be. The way life used to put together and make sense. I woke up this morning missing the life I once knew, wanting to go home, forget about where I am, lose myself in her familiar embrace.  I say her of home because she embraced me well.

I am a sojourner moving at the speed of yesterday’s sound.  I once felt found.  Now, I’m more lost.  The path buried beneath leaves of a season past.

Hope rings in my ears a bit louder, clearer and sweeter, with each passing day.  And now, I’m just walking from there to somewhere every step forward further and closer defining what will be.

It’s not c’est la vie.  We are not bound to life’s swing and circumstance.  The path is not life’s to lead.  It’s ours to follow.

I heard a friend share a promise yesterday that I no longer believed in.  Until he reminded me, at least.

“...that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.”

Promise.  It’s the magic of home, why all makes sense, why you would never want another day too badly.

All roads of promise always lead home.  No matter the detour, impasse or difficulty; the gaps in life you don’t want to remember and the days you wish would burn away, promise reigns over all whether you bow in thankful exhale and submission or break and run in anxiety and fear.

I still miss home today.  Days will rest easier again.  Until then, God’s promise to keep at it guides in the up and down, the twisting and falling and the reach to summit.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"]

they won't go looking.

“Oh, wow...  You have three daughters?!!  Dad, you better get your shotgun ready!”

Lots of vulnerabilities exist in my effort to father my three little girls as a single parent.  Little things may fall through the cracks here and there like hair and nails and most fashion related decisions, but one thing I am invariably good at is trust. I feel as though I’m a pro when it comes to adventure in their lives.  But then again, I’ve always had an uncanny ability to swoop in, sweep them off their little steadying feet and launch them into motion.  They love it.  Them momentarily suspended in air just above the ground or flying through the air and room onto the couch.  As they soar and float, even descending, a look lingers on their face.  It’s a look that affirms me.  Trust.

Without reason not to, they trust me completely.  Up until this point, I’ve given them more reason to trust than not.

It’s quite simple.  I’ve done what I said, I’d do.  And when I mess up and don’t follow through, I apologize.  I like to think of apologizing to my kids as emotional adventure taking them deeper into trust’s woods or higher and closer to trust’s summit.

Establishing and nurturing trust in a child’s heart is absolutely essential to healthy maturation.  Without trust, a child grows sideways, roots shallow, leaving them emotionally malnourished.

Think of it plainly in this way::

absence of trust + unquenchable lack, never enough = they go looking

As a parent, you never have to be a pro or know all of the answers.  In fact, the feeling of inadequacy can be an invaluable commodity.  Not having all of the answers and making mistakes earns trust quicker than parenting from a pedestal.

Your primary objective in parenting should not be friendship at any cost.  It should be friendship at great cost.

It will cost great effort in values of forgiveness and love on both ends.  Placing high value and seriousness on friendship and relationship not only strengthens trust but also portrays healthy relationships in the giving and receiving.

Just as sweet as the trusting look lighting up their faces when I send them sailing through the air, the look they give sitting on the edge of their bed watching my eyes well up, holding wordless apologies before anything is spoken - that similar look that I see on their forgiving little face finds me.

Trust’s roots thrust deeper into the soil of their hearts and our relationship.

So I don’t anticipate needing to threaten some boy who has yet to earn their trust with the presence of a shotgun someday.  I will have staked claim in my daughters’ hearts long before that kid steps foot on my scene.  And I imagine (and hope), I’ll be quite fond of him because in some distinct way, he’ll resemble me.

That day, vulnerabilities won’t exist in my heart.  If they do and I’m leaning on a shotgun to establish my place, I will have missed the mark.

My father effort is full here in establishing trust so that we find all that they need together and they won’t go looking somewhere else for what they think they need.

photograph by Jim Richardson

on fathering: be there.

One summer day, driving in his truck, windows down and summer air swirling freely between us, I remember feeling invincible.  No worry too big or fear too dark.  Life was summer sprawl, undisturbed still.  Unawakened to circumstance affecting. We were just driving down a wide, smooth road, but we might as well have been precariously navigating across a narrow ridge thousands of feet in the air.  Maybe it was the summer air that always seems to inspire adventure or his truck which always held the perfect balanced smell of work and dirt.  I think most of all, it was the courage I felt when we did things together, just the two of us.

In many respects, my dad will always be an anchor in my life formidable to each and every wave threatening capsize.

He wasn’t the perfect dad.  No dad ever really is.  He was the disciplinarian who enforced consequences but wasn’t always the firm parent.  In fact, sometimes he’d crumble faster than a dry sand castle.  I don’t think he ever gave too much thought to parenting strategies or thought about parenting goals stretching further than the moment.

And that’s precisely where he won as a dad, in the moment.  Perhaps more unknowingly than not.

Standing at third base, coaching and giving instruction as I walked to the batter’s box.  At the starting line reviewing strategy again, reassuring me that the miles spent on my bike training had fully prepared me to win.  Under the hood of his truck asking for the oil filter wrench then handing me back the tool I gave him and explaining what exactly the oil filter wrench looked like. Teaching me to fight and defend myself and stand up for what was right, at any cost.  “Every fight can be won.  Be the one who wins.”

Thinking back, I’m sure my dad faced many situations when he was uncertain as a father.  He definitely made mistakes, chose wrongly and came up short, but in my young boyish eyes, my dad was myth and legend making sense of a world that felt infinitely bigger than me.

Parenting is such as tremendous undertaking.  There are so many ways to get it wrong.  So many mistakes lie in waiting.

...when and how to discipline. ...when to say yes and stick to no, despite pulling tears. ...embarrassing them. ...emotional parenting. ...saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. ...not saying anything. ...working too much. ...not noticing little important details to them. ...discounting their effort given.

The list grows infinite as opportunity for mistake lies in each day and moment.

Beyond mistakes marring the past and those potential ones threatening in years ahead, the surefire way to get parenting all wrong is to be absent.

Present in form, missing in action.  There is no mistake greater than abandonment.  And sometimes abandonment happens with the parent sitting in the stands still distracted by the day, not noticing the only one truly needing to be noticed.

I’ve known plenty of parents who say the wrong thing often, break the rules of what’s considered good parenting and semi-obliviously stumble in and out of situations, yet still they succeed in being a good parent.  When dust kicked around in childhood and adolescent years settles and years are apparent, there stand their kids somehow ready to figure life out, prepared to take steps on their own.

The one fail safe parenting secret that always works: YOU

Dad, you can give no greater gift to your child than yourself.  Mistakes and all.

Get over your idea of providing enough, success, happiness and proper parenting, and move into their little lives.  Create residence in their hearts where they need strength and adventure and affirmation.

Don’t show up on time when it matters.  Be there.

Being there in your kids’ lives doesn’t mean knowing.  It means willing.  And that is far greater a commodity in shaping their lives than knowing yet being unwilling.

In very rudimentary effort, I am moving closer into my daughters’ hearts this summer.  We set a goal together to begin reading through C.S. Lewis’ series, “The Chronicles of Narnia”.  Our family bet was that we’d make it through book three by summer’s end.

My dad left when I was 17.  My sister, 13. One of my distinct, floor level goals as a dad has been to never leave.

And that’s more than an adequate start.  It’s my greatest gift and a framework for effective fathering.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"]

all wiped away.

All wiped away. In the blurring winds circling in and out of days, blowing chaotic and careless, rest gets lost in the reach, in those breaths drawn in deeply and in tears that cut paths across dry cheeks.

I laid easy under a clear sky yesterday.  For hours, just floating in and out of thoughts as gentle waves reached and recoiled.  The sound whispered hypnotic abandon.

Rest alludes us.  Always seemingly ahead waving empty in mirage heat while finding escape in the details of life and circumstance.  We don’t rest.  What we do is recharge to catch up and prepare for whatever’s next.  We give regular pause when day gives way to night, but our minds race and unravel, our dreams reveal and recover and our hearts crave true belonging.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

...from racing ...from wanting ...from sinking ...from spinning ...from being lost ...from being apart

Rest lies real in the divine.

“I will give you rest. ...you will find rest for your souls.”

Wake up to start again.  Our hearts paused only to resume once more.

Yes, rest alludes.

Even the happiest and most well kept individuals recharge, at best.

Our sin, all the wrong that takes residence in our heart, the imperfections we tolerate, the energy in wondering of what more, these bear more weight than mere happiness and resourcefulness.  Our souls search for more.  Something that will appease the unrest residing in every existing minute.  Are we enough?  Are we right?  Are we okay?  

Can we truly ever rest?

Truth is, the soul quenching rest that quiets all fear innate and intrinsic is otherworldly.  We are incapable of such now.

We feel it in moments when we gaze at the sky or give honest observation to natural beauty.  All else fades, including time passing, and rest passes close by.  There, we unhinge from this life and feel the warmth of eternity and how much grander it is than all of the choking cares of now.  It is magical and deeply invigorating.  But rest, as in reprieve,

There will be a day when grace concedes to glory.  Rest will truly come then.

When worries wean and fears exist no more, when struggle ends and doubts prove empty, when the last redemptive stroke is made, in a day perfected by God’s glory, rest will be the inheritance of those clinched to grace today.

Ahead, pulling us forward.  Kingdom come.

The sky yesterday expanded in such unending, new beauty.  I felt as though I could look into forever and be found in each floating cloud.  I laid on my back in the sand next to my oldest daughter and together we spied eternity, not in clouds rolling gently but in time slowing between us and words together wondering.

Still echoing in her words and heart, “Why did mom die?” “What will life be like?” “Where will she rest when her thoughts run?”

There will be a day when all that once violated her heart, eroded her innocence and kept me up worrying, will forever fade in the glory of God.  Until that day somewhere ahead, we live in his Kingdom come here and now.  We find rest now amidst all wrong.  That rest in founded and supported continual in our residence established in God’s glory in a indescribable day to come.

All wiped away as night gives way to day, warm and new.  Rest in that tomorrow today.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."   (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-11)

[gallery link="file" columns="5"]