How Could You?!

Jill died in 1975.  She was 10 years old.  I was away when she died, across the country at a spiritual retreat.  “How could You,” I cried!  “How could You take her while I am away, striving to do Your will, striving to come to know You better, how could You take my daughter from me?!! “  

Jill had epilepsy.  She had seizures that would last from a few minutes to several hours in a raging nightmare of non-stop seizures called status epilepticus.  She had her first seizure when she was a year and a half, chasing her new puppy across the back yard.  Suddenly she fell forward with a force that looked as though she had been thrown.  By the time of her death she had been to every doctor and hospital in the surrounding area.  There was no help for her; only an increase of medications that made her listless and unable to walk, looking more like a drunk on a sidewalk than an 8 or 9 year old child.

And yet... “How could You?”

What faith I had was sorely tested.  Gradually over the years I began to find I could almost accept her death.  There was never a time that the thought of her would not bring me close to tears or at times be ravaged by the sudden memory, clear and golden, of her beautiful face and shiny bright blue eyes.  And then the struggle to regain any sense of faith or meaning would ensue.  But gradually, I began to find a semblance of faith and trust returning.  But there was always that final place, that hidden center that would shrink back when touched... could I ever really, fully trust Him again?

And then in my sixties I too began to have seizures.  First only moments of disorientation but gradually full seizures during the night, which my husband witnessed but I only knew by my swollen tongue or bruised lip when I awoke.   For nearly five years I watched as this illness progressed aware that medical science had nothing further to offer me than it had offered my daughter but eventually, through the grace of Allah and deep tawba, these seizures stopped.  And it was then that something began to open.

In prayer one morning I began thinking about this healing and feeling such deep gratitude.  In particular I remembered thinking because these seizures had only happened at night, I had been able to keep driving.  If these had been daytime seizures I would have had to stop driving, a particular trial since my husband and I had just moved to a farm out in the country, 30 miles from the nearest town.  And as I thought about this grace,  I began thinking about Jill.  She would never have been able to drive or to have a child—how could she even give a child a bath if at any moment she could be rendered unconscious leaving the child to drown?  Jill’s life would have continued to be a series of woundings, both emotional and physical as she struggled with this debilitating illness.  And slowly I became aware that her death was a mercy for her, a gift of release from this suffering and in that dawning awareness I saw too that her death was also a mercy for me.  Who suffers more than a parent for their child?

Later, someone asked, “If this was a mercy, then why did she have epilepsy in the first place?”  My only response is that God knows who I am and who He created me to be and He knew that this trial was the only way I could come to love and trust Him from the deepest level of my soul.  And so I am grateful for His love and mercy that surrounds me and fills me and keeps us both safe.

Two Stories

Sissy-Pie Face

I just got in from a walk and am sitting in the window seat in my office, my sanctuary.  The sun is shining in over my right shoulder and I am finally writing. My Jilly-doll is holding my phone so it will not vibrated on the window ledge should it ring or a million text messages, or FB posts come through.  So I will not be disturbed here while I write.  

I called my sister, Jini, this morning to read her the story from “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott about the young boy who, when asked if he would donate a pint of blood to his younger sister who had leukemia and might die, said he needed to think about it over night and then the next morning said he would donate the blood.  In the hospital the nurse drew a pint of blood from him and as he watched, dripped that blood into his sister’s arm.  When the doctor asked how he was doing, the young boy asked, “How soon until I start to die”...  

I cried when I read the story to myself and felt an immediate need to call someone and share it.  John was getting ready to leave for his Arabic class, so he was not available.  I did a quick inventory of who might be open enough, present enough or willing enough for an emotional up-ending.  I knew how intense this bit would be to someone new to Anne Lamott or to my emotional response to her telling this story, so it had to be someone who could take the intensity cold turkey.  Jini was the only one who could be immediately and fundamentally open to receive, so I called her.

Just out of bed, barely awake, she said, “Sure, go ahead, read it.  Do you mind if I pee?”  No problemo!  So I read her the story and she grasped it, gradually at first but then full blast and we both cried.  Then I told her about the Bill Moyer interview with Wendell Berry that I had listened to the day before and as I exclaimed how beautiful, reassuring it was, she logged into her computer and pulled up that interview.  We listened together for a while, her on her computer, me listening through my iPhone, until one of her dogs had an accident on the floor behind her as she petted his head.  Jini, being a long time dog owner and dog sitter, was not overly distraught. She laughed and said she should go and we hung up.

Jini is always ready to play.  Years ago she coined the phrase “sissy-pie face,” a term of endearment for her sisters and ever since all Druliner sisters are sissy-pie face.  She is always ready to jump in with both feet into whatever might be afoot, one of her most resilient  charms.  She is older than me by three years and recently began having problems with her heart which twice put her in the emergency room. These events have cut to my core.  I am not ready Lord, to have her return to You!  

She has always been and continues to be one of my most stalwart supporters, my touchstone in stormy weather.  When in desperate need, I turn to her; her voice, her demeanor, a stabilizing presence.  My mom’s voice was never as comforting as my sister’s.  My mom had a lot to carry so no wonder she could not be there in a heart beat, but Jini can!  So let her heart continue to beat!  Let her familiar voice continue to be one I can turn to day or night, and just a phone call away.  

***

Heart, Mind, Soul, Body and Spirit

Yesterday as I was dressing and preparing for the day, I imagined saying to a group gathered to write that the heart, mind, soul, body and spirit are all levels we need to care for in ourselves.  Care of the heart, is the love, the sorrow, the longings; care of the mind, is seeking understanding and wisdom; the soul, finding our way to what is deepest and most true inside us; the body, caring for what we eat, what we see, hear, taste, touch and smell; and spirit, is that which is beyond expression yet unites us.  These are the things that need our attention, our help, our work.  There is no one aspect that can be denied or overlooked.  However, it seems that writing synthesizes all the parts, brings them out from behind the veils that distract and deform our sense of what is important or real.  Writing seems to clarify our deepest understanding of who we are and what this whole life experience is about.

When I was walking up the Farm road today, I could not contain, nor should I, the glory, the majesty, the beauty of the clouds against a pure blue sky, or the orange-gold leaves amidst the still verdant green, or the red bushes and parched green grasses and filaments of purple weeds waving in the cool breeze.  I could not grasp it nor open myself wide enough to receive it and let it consume me so that I ceased to exist.  I wanted to.  I wanted to let go of my meness and merge and disappear into this magnificence.  But I could not will it; I could only be grateful for this exquisite rendition of a perfect Fall day.  To what felt like thunderous applause from the beauty around me, all I could say was thank you; all I could do was to feel gratitude for this sublime moment.

And here I am, still sitting in the window, sun pouring in over my right shoulder, hearing the sounds of silence and pen scratching on paper, my Jilly-doll still holding my phone and my heart still longing to reach you and knowing at the same time that this is you.  All this is you.  And I get to know you in heart, mind, soul, body and spirit.