Dear Husband, (Epistolary Wednesday)

Dear Husband,

We made a deal, you and me, seventeen-and-a-half years ago that we were in it for better and for worse, and oh, there’s been a lot of worse-that-we-hoped-would-get-better. And after seventeen years and three children and two houses and four neighborhoods and too many deaths and too-many-arguments-to-count and a million peaceful moments that we wish we could sink into for the rest of our lives, we learn that sometimes worse doesn’t get better and sometimes it does just enough.

However, I don’t remember signing up specifically for this Surgery Thing you had to have last week.  A perforated eardrum, you told me they told you. Which maybe explains the partial hearing loss (-what?!) and the constant ringing in your ears (-really? Constantly?). You can fall apart and have, like I have over the years, in a million ways, but this physical falling apart sends me to some far distant place from our bodies in the recovery room—me helping you dress--and then while I push your wheelchair through the hospital skywalk while your ear’s packed tight with cotton stuffing and your jaw aches like you’ve been to the dentist for drilling. It’s some place in the future that I go, wondering if this is what it’s gonna be like—one or both of us hardly able to pull our socks on--not because of narcotics but because of age.

And old age reminds me of our mortality, of how close we are, of how this stage we’re set upon could collapse so suddenly. It’s also why I can’t look at the wounds of friends or strangers without wincing and my stomach turning, because wounds speak of such vulnerability and loss--and I’m not ready to lose. This whole list of post-op prohibitions doesn’t help, either—no lifting more than ten pounds, no sneezing or straining or getting excited about anything. All of it, along with the cotton in your ear and the scab where they stole some skin to patch up your eardrum is making me nervous in a rickety-rackety sort of way. I want to shoo that ringing-in-the-ears away and have you wake up the next morning all brand new, but they tell me this is not the way of surgery. With surgery, they rip us into pieces and rearrange. And then we heal. And healing takes time and rest. And sometimes drugs. But drugs and pain make us foggy and disconnected and generally Not Right in the world while our cells are regenerating and our nerves recalibrating. Come to think of it, maybe this is just the way of all recovery, how all of the Worse turns Better--painful, discombobulating, slow, but healing nonetheless.




***Heather Weber is the author of Dear Boy,: An Epistolary Memoir

"Dear Boy, is a brilliant and unusual memoir of distance and absence--the absence of a beloved brother from his sister's life and the absence of healthy mothering that, over the years, drove brother and sister apart. Weber deftly shifts point of view so that, piece by piece, readers gather the sum of confusion and loss. Yet there is so much love and forgiveness in the narrator that, in a way, each character is redeemed. I'm moved by this life, this telling of it." --Fleda Brown, author of Driving with Dvorak.

For the Modern-Day Kittys and Lydias, (Epistolary Wednesday)

For You Modern-Day Kittys and Lydias,

I’m addressing you metaphorically, of course, as Austen’s characters are merely that. But, I find no better way to warn you, Girl, of the downside to obsessively fixating on potential matches and romance all around you in the seventh grade. You remember, don’t you, how Lydia’s obsession with “the officers” and her mother’s relentless matchmaking led to shame and embarrassment for her whole family, how she threw caution to the wind and put undeserved faith in Wickham, who was interested in sex and money and very little in Lydia? In Austen’s days, of course, Lydia was old enough to marry, but hitched and pregnant is not where I want you or any of your friends at sixteen. Need a contemporary warning? Lorelei Gilmore (albeit with the worst parents on earth). Pregnant at 16. Yes, it all turned out all right after she lived in a garden shed with her daughter and was estranged from her family for many years. It’s good now, but might I remind you of the years her romance cost her?

All this is to say, it concerns me that you take so much pleasure in matchmaking your friends at the junior high school dance, that you are “so happy for” the “couple” who has just placed tentative hands on one another’s shoulders and hips for the first time in their lives after only glancing at each other fearfully in the hallway for the first two months of school. You’re happy and squeally for them--as if they’ve just announced an engagement, a wedding, a baby. And this leaves me unsettled and wondering what on earth you think this means—two children swaying together for three minutes in a gymnasium. I hope you know this is not the end of their story. That they will (99.99999% likely) “break up” in the next two weeks, that their hearts will get broken over and over again in the context of this not-quite-real world of global studies tests, bus rides, field trips, hall passes, AP exams, choir concerts and track meets. They might do things they wished they hadn’t.

Sweetheart, some of these kids will take this "romance" in the serious way that you seem to be taking it--up to the next level. You should know: there will be pregnancies you will not see evidence of. There will be diseases you hear nothing about. Some of your friends, too, will end up used and abused by other children who haven't learned anything about real love. There will be appointments and counseling and parents tearing their hair out and crying because these poor parents are strapped with the job of helping these not-quite-or-even-close-to adults navigate adult-like decisions and adult-like hormones and adult-like bodies.

Please accept my kind but urgent rebuke. How about we celebrate romance later? Let’s pull out our dancing shoes when these children understand that romance is as temporary as the cold, solid ice pop you get handed at the Fourth of July parade. What seems so solid and dependable in romance can liquefy in the wrong climates. Let’s laugh and smile when these creatures learn how to own their choices and take responsibility for their lives. Let’s do the Macarena when they learn selflessness, because that's what helps love last; it's what gives romance a fighting chance at re-forming once it's become a puddly mess. Let’s do the Cha Cha Slide and the Chicken when they’ve learned how to suffer long for someone else, when they know how true love hopes and waits and defers and hangs in there and doesn’t give up. Okay, sweetheart? Okay? Okay??

***Heather Weber is the author of Dear Boy,: An Epistolary Memoir

"Dear Boy, is a brilliant and unusual memoir of distance and absence--the absence of a beloved brother from his sister's life and the absence of healthy mothering that, over the years, drove brother and sister apart. Weber deftly shifts point of view so that, piece by piece, readers gather the sum of confusion and loss. Yet there is so much love and forgiveness in the narrator that, in a way, each character is redeemed. I'm moved by this life, this telling of it." --Fleda Brown, author of Driving with Dvorak.

Monday Must-Reads and Watches (September 1)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Happy September to you readers! I've got a great list of reads this week, starting out with something reminiscent of a topic we'll be covering at our women's retreat this coming October (all ya locals are invited!)--it's What I Want You To Know About Being the Stepmom.

There's also a humorous account of a parent's "back-to-school" experience in 2014 vs. 1970, which dovetails nicely with Health, Home, & Happiness's post about helping children feel content without feeling deprived.

Kate Conner has a great meditation "On Ripening" and Sarah Bessey writes to her husband about their married love, which will go down in the family history books as the stuff of legend. 

Owlhaven is challenging us all to spend less and save on groceries this month, something I will have a hard time doing because of all the back-to-school extras we've been buying. 

On a more serious-but-funny-to-make-a-point is Jon Stewart on White Privilege.

Also, Matthew Paul Turner's Lingering Effects of Fundamentalism is for those still raw from harsh religious church cultures and, speaking of church culture, this is the latest on Seattle's Mars Hill church: the board of elders are asking for Mark Driscoll to resign and seek personal help. 

Until next time!

Monday Must-Reads (August 11, 2014)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

It's been too long! And I missed a week of Must-Reads because I was either traipsing all over the country or recovering from the traipsing. All that means is that there're more links than usual today.

I really appreciated this post by Sarah Markley on road-tripping with her kids without her husband because that is exactly what I just got done doing this week. Strange, yes, but empowering all the same.

Reality-check post for the week: How to Get Rich by Blogging.

Most grateful for this one: "Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million For Poisoning Town." Thank God, thank God, thank God. This company needs to be held accountable on so many levels and stop getting free passes at every intersection for the impact they are having on communities and economies. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's something.

I sent "The Parenting Books Were Wrong" to a new mom of a newborn this week:

"Jesus has said, 'Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself.' And, yes, I find that each day does have its own trouble. But far worse than the particular trouble of each day is our despair when we believe that all we can hope for are storms."

Helpful during my work-at-home/parenting-kids-at-home summer was this from the Nesting Place: "Because Choosing Your Battles Saves Your Sanity: How Having One Decent Space Makes All the Difference."

And here's some heavier stuff. Have you heard of ISIS? An Islamic extremist group that is systematically taking over towns in Northern Iraq and targeting religious minorities? There are reports of beheaded children and mothers and forced "conversions" and other terribleness. Right now there are thousands taking refuge in mountainous areas without access to food or water. Meanwhile, the U.S. is dropping a few bombs on ISIS and airdropping water to the refugees. Google for more info. If you are the praying type, pray.

Because I've been such an avid observer of all things Mark Driscoll, it's been interesting to see the Christian community's response to a growing understanding of some of his poor behavior from 14 years ago. I met Mark right about that time, toured his then-little church building in Seattle, spoke with his worship leaders. The man was "edgy," he was someone who had the vibe of us Gen-Xers, a prophetic voice, and I claimed him as a leader of my generation for a couple years, until I was stung and stung again by the continually vicious comments against different demographics in the body of Christ. Some feel his most recent apology is not enough to heal the wounds said to have been caused by his leadership. Others are asking what "grace" means for Driscoll in this context. The church network he founded (Acts 29) has recently decided to remove him and his church as members of the network. Honestly, I'm thankful that he is being called out by a wider array of the Christian community and not just those of us on the fringes who have been disturbed by his leadership tactics and his message for so long. The last thing I want is to see this man destroyed, but I would like to see him restored and to see relationships with the wounded restored as well. What would create restitution for those who've been harmed and for those who are hurt by now reading these latest comments, albeit 14 years old?

Must-Reads and Watches

It's been a week of inspiring, important, and simply moving video and blog posts around the internet. I wanted to share some of what moved me.

If you follow my Facebook updates (or anyone's FB updates), this will probably look familiar: Bloggers and tweeters everywhere are trying to get our attention about the kidnapping of almost 300 teenage girls in Nigeria. On Rage Against the Minivan, Kristen Howerton explains "Why Girls in Nigeria Should Matter to You." Sarah Bessey added a prayer to the conversation: "In Which We Pray: Bring Back Our Girls."

For you married readers, Glennon Melton offers a true-to-life portrait of what happily-ever-really means: "The Lie and Truth about Marriage."

And then, I happened upon this little gem of a happy ending--the sort of thing that sounds too good to be true, so good its's probably made up. But it wasn't. This was a real deal--a preemie twin born at 27 weeks, pronounced dead, but comes back to life over the two hours that his Australian mother practices Kangaroo care.

And for those of you who've been wondering at all the feminists springing up in your churches, this talk about the compatibility of faith with feminism, given by the so-smart twenty-something, Sarah Schwartz, from Biola University, is a wonderful place to start your investigation.