Afraid

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. 

– C.S. Lewis

 

I keep trying to write this post and find it hard to type the words. A couple of years ago, I wrote about how death is like taking someone to the airport. That feels truer to me now than ever.

I think about death a lot, actually. Maybe not death as itself, as the thing where someone stops breathing or as the moving from one plane to the next or even as the lack of being in the universe -- I just keep thinking about how death means separation. Separation from your earthly body, separation from the people you love who are here, present in the world.

I think about death a lot. I think it must be hardest on the people who are left, the ones who haven’t left the ground yet. You know that panicky, sick feeling you get when you’re saying goodbye to someone and you know it might be a long time before you see them again and you think, I can’t NOT be with you in the world? That’s what makes me afraid. I keep hearing Heathcliff in my head: “Be with me always…only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God, it is unutterable. I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul.”

I know that death does not have to mean eternal separation. But I can’t imagine anything harder or more frightening than that earthly separation. I am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of being left behind.

love, elizabeth

PS: I’ve missed a week of blogging for the Blog Every Day in May challenge but I am determined to catch up. My apologies, in advance, to your blog feed.

Our Love Story (Chapter 2)

This took longer than I had planned to write! If you haven’t had a chance to read the first chapter of our love story, you can read it here. Thanks for letting me share this with you…it’s the first time I’ve ever written it all down.

Cuckoo-Pants

I never thought that you would be the one to hold my heart.

- Christina Perri

In my defense, I was 17 and an idiot. It’s completely like escargot. You have to try it to know you don’t like it (or love it). I had to date a cuckoo-pants to a) know he was a cuckoo-pants and b) know that I’m not really a cuckoo-pants kind of girl. Everyone gets one cuckoo-pants freebie. And so I was an idiot romantically involved with a bigger idiot when rehearsals for Our Town first began. Coupled with the inexplicably large amount of attention I was getting from the male population at the time (did I mention that I was 17 and an idiot and boy-crazy?), I hardly noticed Kyle.

Kyle has always been calm. If you ever meet him, you’ll know what I mean. Kyle just exudes like…an oasis of calm. This is what makes him so fantastic in a crisis. It’s what makes him an insanely good stage manager. He just has this way of making you feel like if the world is about to end, you might as well eat that last slice of pizza. He’s quiet and he thinks a lot and when he listens to you, he looks at you with these big sea-green eyes that somehow say, “I know what it’s like to be sad and I can be sad with you right now. And that’s okay.” (7 plus years later, I’ve learned that his eyes also say things like, “I don’t want to take out the garbage. You do it.” and “Me Kyle. Me want buffalo wings.” His eyes are very verbose.)

But I didn’t pay attention to any of this because I was busy being heavily stalked courted by a young man with an excessive amount of bling, a man living in his parents’ basement, a teenager I had to drive home after rehearsals, a dude that started bets about the state of my maidenly honor, and aforementioned Sir Cuckoo-Pants himself. And me (the idiot, you’ll recall), I’m like “lalala, I’m so popular and pretty and I’m the star of this show.”

Then a couple things happened that really altered the course of our lives. One, Sir Cuckoo-Pants was like, “I’m going cray-cray, ain’t nobody gonna stop me…” and started being more of a royal you-know-what than I had imagined possible. Secondly, Kyle’s older brother Orion, his hero, his mentor, passed away very suddenly.

It’s funny the things that stick in the memory. I remember our director, Courtney, making the announcement to the cast that Kyle’s brother had died, that Kyle had understandably left the show to go and be with his family, that he was welcome to return to the production but that we, of course, would understand if he did not. And then she passed around a sympathy card for us to sign. I remember this clearly. I remember holding in the card in my hand and suddenly feeling ashamed because I couldn’t exactly remember who Kyle was, couldn’t remember ever having spoken to him really, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. I read the many comments: “You’re in our thoughts and prayers.” “You’ll get through this.” “Our hearts are with you.” “So sorry for your loss.” All well-meaning. And all utterly pointless. I was sorry for his loss. But that wouldn’t matter to him. I sat there with the pencil in my hand, staring at the card and thinking, I can’t even remember if we’ve had a conversation. What on earth could I possibly write that wouldn’t be completely irrelevant and arrogant? I signed my name in small letters and passed the card on as quickly as possible, strangely wishing I had known Kyle well enough to be allowed to care. What I didn’t know until much later was that Kyle had looked for my name on the card, that he had paused when he saw my signature, that he had been grateful for it. “Honesty. Nothing fake,” he would tell me, “That meant so much to me.”



I consider this a pivotal moment in our love story because if Kyle had chosen not to come back, if he had decided to stay with his mom after the funeral, to help look after his family…it would have been completely understandable. And he and I would never have spoken.

To Be Continued

Easter Morning

We got up this morning and found that the Easter Bunny had left this…he and I worked it out in advance because I told him we were going to the sunrise service this year. He’s a good guy, real accommodating.

Our church held their sunrise service at the cemetery which I think is really cool…I love the reminder that because of Jesus, death has lost its power over us…

After the service, we took a walk through to see the old graves. The earliest tombstone we could find was dated 1838. I think if I was going to be buried, I’d like it if someone held an Easter service near my tombstone. I just don’t think there’s anything more hopeful than that.

Bundled up in the chilly Easter morning…

When we got back to the church this morning, I slipped into the sanctuary before the service and just sat in a pew in the dark, looking up at the skylight, smelling the Easter lilies and staring at the cross. It was a quiet moment and I was so aware of the presence of God. Like the rest of my life, I so often rush through prayer, like it’s something to check off a list. But this morning I felt like I could just sit, without really knowing what to say.

And then we had a wonderful Easter breakfast with our congregation.

To my Christian friends, Happy Easter! To my Jewish friends, Chag Semeach!

love, elizabeth

Death is like taking someone to the airport

via

Sometimes they’re in a hurry and you just drop them at the curb. You leave your hazards on and you pull their suitcase out of the trunk and you hug them and they tell you what a great time they had, how good it was to see you. You know they have to go. Their plane is leaving. They can’t stay any longer.

Sometimes they let you park and come inside with them. You watch them check-in and promise they’re not carrying contraband. You watch them check their bags and you say meaningless things like “Wow, $25 for that little duffel bag…” and “How long is your lay-over in Atlanta? Oh, nice and short then.” You make it as far as security. You need a ticket go on but you don’t have one. Because this is their flight. Not yours.

They shrug and say, “I guess this is it.”

And you say, “Yeah, don’t forget to take off your shoes.”

They head for the back of the line and you call out their name. Just one more hug, one more kiss, one more “I wish we had more time.: One more goodbye.

You’re only prolonging it now but you stand at the top of the stairs and watch their progress through security. You see the wand waving and you see them step through that last metal doorway.

You can’t even see them now but you walk to the impossibly large windows now and stare out, trying to decide which plane is taking them away from you. Eventually, you watch one taxiing down the runway, farther and farther away, faster and faster it goes, until it’s up, up in the air taking someone away from someone else and it just seems so unbelievably unfair.

But it would be selfish, wouldn’t it, to want to keep those planes on the ground forever? It would be selfish to keep those passengers from reaching their destinations.

Today I’m feeling a little selfish and a little sad.

love, elizabeth

PS: I apologize for my absence from blog-land for the past few days. I have been reading your blogs and trying to comment (my log-in wasn’t working). I think things are fixed now and I should be back to regular posting and reading, too. Hope everyone is having a restful weekend!