Yearly Archives: 2010

There goes Nate!

Posted on by

A couple of days ago I found myself driving in Chicago, heading to an appointment. As I waited at a red light, a dark blue SUV turned right in front of me… with Nate at the wheel!

I gasped and felt my heart stop. His window was down, and I could see his face clearly. Craning my neck to stare as he drove past me and away, I could hardly yank myself back to reality.

Of course I knew it wasn’t him. Impossible! But my senses briefly told me otherwise. Lining up what couldn’t have been true with what was true was like trying to straighten a deck of cards lying askew. It took some effort and more than a few seconds. Horns began honking for me to respond to the green light, and I quickly stepped on the gas, but it would be a while before I regained my composure.

As kids we were told, “Wishing doesn’t make it so.” My constant wish that Nate was still with me must have been the reason I’d “seen” him driving by. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. There isn’t one hour of any day that I don’t think about him, and it’s not much of a leap to then “see” him.

Last week I heard something new about my husband, a mini-story one of his friends shared with me thinking it was “just a little thing.” But to me it was a bit of precious treasure, because Nate can no longer participate in making any new stories. Those of the past are all we have.

This friend had explained how a statement Nate made nearly two years ago had come back to him recently when he was trying to get through a tough experience. Despite Nate being gone and his comment being old, this friend had been given practical encouragement to persevere in his struggle. It brought pleasure to me to know Nate’s influence was still being felt, as if he really was still with us.

If Nate was alive and had listened to his friend tell the story, he might not even have remembered making the comment. And yet there was still power in it, and that’s the lesson for all of us. People are listening. People are watching. This is especially true when we aren’t aware of it. Of course not everything Nate said was quote-worthy. As for me, I don’t think anything I’ve said is quote-worthy. But we can all attempt to speak and act in ways that uplift others.

Today I’ve been thinking about having “seen” Nate in the SUV and also in his friend’s story. Both were a glimpse of him. I think I value the story far more than the “sighting”, thrilling that it was, because there’s an important distinction between the two. One view was fantasy, and the other was truth.

“Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.” (Proverbs 23:23)

Summer Solstice

Posted on by

Back in second grade science class, we all learned about the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. As youngsters we loved studying this subject for two reasons: (1) when it occurred, we knew we’d be on summer vacation, and (2) since the sun set really late that day, we’d have more time to play outdoors.

Summer is the favorite season of many, because it brings sunshine, grilling, swimming and flip-flops. It represents lemonade on the deck, green leaves on the trees and screens on open windows. And Nate and I, born ten days apart, celebrated our birthdays together during the summer.

There is no end to the delights of this season. But something has always nagged at me. Why do the days begin to get shorter when summer has barely begun? The Summer Solstice on June 21 is that turnaround day, and it has passed. It’s as if fall peeks around summer’s corner to remind us darker days are coming.

I’m nervous about the coming fall. Along with it’s arrival will come the one year anniversary of the day we were told of Nate’s cancer, September 22. Each of the 42 days following that will be, most probably, a reliving of those painful days. I’m already planning to pull out my 2009 calendar to read what happened on each day. That exercise might seem senseless, but as we travel through that season, something inside me wants to link up with what Nate suffered.

Just last month I was finally able to stop my mind from traveling back to those excruciating days on a daily basis. Aborting that thought pattern has taken eight months, and now, as the days begin to shorten toward autumn, I’m back where I started.

Scripture makes a case for living in the present, but it also recommends looking back, with the purpose of being thankful. By suggesting we count past blessings, the Lord wants us to recognize that he cared for us in the past and will care for us in the future. Even in mentally remembering the days of Nate’s decline and demise, God’s gifts during that time stand out like the flowers in a centerpiece, prompting my gratitude.

I don’t like watching the sun set one minute earlier each evening or realizing that a month of summer has already slipped away. But once summer is over and fall arrives, once we get through those 42 days, all our “firsts” without Nate will have passed. I’m hoping that after that I’ll be able to take more deep breaths and think back without having to relive the pain. My widow warriors tell me this will be true.

Surely the Summer Solstice a year from now won’t prompt nervousness as it has this year. Instead, when the days shorten and that next fall arrives, it’ll come bringing its usual golden glow. The sting of the cancer will be gone, even in our memories. I’m looking forward to the day when I can look back and remember Nate not in terms of disease and death but as he was in the many seasons that preceeded the autumn of 2009.

”The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.” (Psalm 104:19)

Is “1” the loneliest number?

Posted on by

A popular song in the late sixties was entitled “One”:

  • “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.
  • One is the loneliest number, worse than two…”

Is that true?

During these last months my days have been about rearranging life to be about one rather than many, the reversal of a 40 year pattern. Big families are all about multiple bedrooms, multiple cars and multiple chairs at the dinner table. I used to do laundry daily but now can get away with only a few loads a week, and many days without any laundry at all. I used to do daily walk-throughs in the house, picking up and putting away on a continual, never-finished basis, but now everything stays where I put it.

Young moms who read this will think, “She’s got it made!”

I know someday I’ll see it that way, too. I’m not complaining about a lighter work load. That would be goofy. I’m just finding it difficult to adjust to rapid, radical change. There were supposed to be two of us in this empty nest, not just one.

This morning as I chose a small sauce pan in which to boil my cholesterol-fighting oatmeal, I had to smile. The pan would have fit right in with a little girl’s play kitchen set. But it was the right size for just me.

Two things came to mind, both encouraging. (1) It was God who put me into this new life of “one” and (2) I suspect he is readying me for whatever is next. It’s like Nate’s proverbial ten foot wall over which he couldn’t see. (Oct.3, 2009, “I can’t see the future.”) In his case, not knowing what was coming was a good thing, because his future held great physical pain, followed by an “early” death.

Taking a lesson from those circumstances and applying it to my life of “one”, I don’t need to know what’s ahead. And even more importantly, it’s actually best if I don’t know what’s coming. Once I can believe that wholeheartedly, I can relax in my empty nest alone and make friends with a tiny sauce pan.

Instead of the song “One”, I’m choosing to dwell on another tune popular at the same time: “Known only to Him.” Nate loved Elvis Presley’s recordings of Gospel songs, and this one was on the disc he often played in his car on the way to the Amtrak station.

  • “Known only to Him are the great hidden secrets.
  • I’ll fear not the darkness when my flame shall dim.
  • I know not what the future holds,
  • But I know who holds the future.
  • It’s a secret known only to Him.”

This old chorus, which we used to sing in high school youth group, sounds syrupy now, but its principle is profound: entrust the future to the one who knows its secrets. This is especially beneficial when that one is motivated toward you and me by unbounded love.

Thinking like this makes me eager for whatever is ahead, whether I’m cooking in a tiny sauce pan or stirring in a giant pot. Either way, I know I won’t be “a lonely number.”

“When times are good, be happy, but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.” (Ecclesiastes 7:14)