Christmas Days: The Good, the Bad, The Worst

Facebook post, December 1, 2015:

We only got two Christmases with our Libby. I can't figure out if that makes it easier or harder than if we'd had more. Probably both. She was there in infancy and again as a toddler and now that's it. Last year she was fascinated as she took it all in. But there's no part of Christmas where we can look and know, that was Libby's favorite. No tradition, except putting things beyond her reach, that really feels like it belonged to her. It makes it easier to do Christmas as usual, maybe because it's just out of habit. But even though it hurts like crazy, I still want to feel like she's part of it somehow. Which maybe means we need new traditions, even if they are bittersweet.

I'm finding myself more in the Christmas spirit, at least most days, than what I would have expected. These are the good days. I'm into the hustle of shopping, the gatherings, and our family's Advent traditions. Because we only had the two Christmases with Libby, I'm finding it manageable to go about the routines of the season. It's easy to stay busy which is very helpful. But I'm definitely no Super Woman. Doing stuff is still hard, so I'm learning to prioritize. I've apparently given up cooking. This is not popular with the family, as their priorities seem to differ from mine. Around here, Progresso soups are the taste of the season. Our decorations this year are much simpler. Friends surprised us with gussying up our house while we were out of town over Thanksgiving. What an amazing gift that was to come home to! I had bins of decorations that I was still planning to put out, but after a couple days with no one asking for more I realized I didn't have to do more. How exciting! I'm realizing that the things I thought were essential are not necessarily important to the rest of my family. My mom was right again, simpler is often better. And I am giving myself the gift of peace (or something closer to it) by not running myself ragged trying to do more than I can.

I tend to question these good days. Early on they made no sense and for some reason I wanted a rational explanation for them. I certainly felt guilty about them, as if my misery was the only measure of my love for Libby. (Mind you, I also felt guilty when I had my bad days, because then I was making things so much harder for my family. So really, there was just no winning.) I have (mostly) learned to be grateful for my good days, to realize that they are a gift. If I had had to predict how I would react to the death of one of my children, it would not look like it has looked over the past five months. It would look like me not getting out of bed, watching Netflix, and eating ice cream. God gave me something else (most days at least). And yes, it's for my good and my family's, that they can have a mostly-functioning mom and wife, but it's also for His greater good, for something that goes beyond the little circle of our family, our friends, and even our community. We know that God works all things for good (Romans 8:28). Yes, even this. It doesn't mean that I need to come to a place where I can say, "Oh, I'm glad this happened." It doesn't even mean that I have to accept that all the good will outweigh the one really bad thing. I ache for my daughter daily. But Jesus is where my Hope is. I have Hope because I know I will see her again. And I have Hope because our God is a God of redemption, He is the only one who can bring good from this horrible thing. It doesn't make the horrible thing okay, but I need to see good come from something like this. I need to see beauty coming up from these ashes. 

And make no mistake. There are still bad days. Thankfully, I don't have too many of those. I do have lots of bad moments, minutes, and hours. And a good day is often filled with lots of emotional roller coasters. A memory, a sensation, a song, and suddenly there's an ache in my chest and the tears are threatening to spill. But I can handle the bad days. I can handle crying. I've gotten pretty good at controlling it, because while it's not good to shove our feelings away, who really wants to stand sobbing in a thrift store becasue "Shut Up and Dance With Me" came on the radio? Well, I've done it and I don't care to do it again, thank you very much. The good part about the bad minutes and hours, is that I still feel there's some semblance of control over my emotions which means there's still a chance of turning things around. All of this feels a tiny price to pay for having gotten to be Libby's momma. 

But then there are the Worst Days. These are the ones I dread. The thing with the Worst Days is you can't control the crying. It needs out and I'm not strong enough to stop it. I had a Worst Day last Thursday. It was a couple days after I'd written the Facebook post above, so I had in my mind that I needed to find ways of incorporating Libby into our Christmas. See, the thing is, she is there, she's all around. She's just sprinkled over everything, with no real Libby-concentration in a certain bite. I know if we'd had even one more Christmas she would have had a different presense in the season because we would know more about what she loved from the holiday. But Christmas is full of traditions, so I thought I needed one for Libby and I thought I needed it now. So I decide that I was going to buy a special stocking for Libby and have a friend embroider her name on it and we could write notes to her and put them in the stocking and you get the idea. Well, I started crying in the first store, and I kept trying to control it but was pretty much failing. Why? Well, I was probably short on sleep, and grief and exhaustion are a horrible combination. And then the obvious element of trying to buy a stocking for my Libby girl who won't be with us for any more Christmases. All good reasons for a melt down. The thing is, we do hard things every day and I don't have meltdowns every day. Grief is like walking through a mine field, never knowing when something is going to set me off.

I eventually gave up on the shopping. It was just too hard and I could feel myself falling apart. So I went home and I got in bed and I put on Netflix and ate chips. (No ice cream in the house. Rookie mistake.) We had learned very early on how important distractions were, anything to keep us not solely focused on the pain. I was in agony and I just wanted that feeling to go away. I cried until it became physically painful. And then I cried some more because I just couldn't make it stop. 

Unfortunately, a life of bed and Netflix isn't a great long-term grief plan. Especially since I still have these two great kids to take care of. So like a good mom, I pulled myself out of bed and went to pick them up from school. Luckily they had counseling right after school, because when I am having a Worst Day I like to share that with those closest to me. I'm snappy, irritable, impatient, and apathetic. During their sessions I colored, which I've found to be a quick, successful distraction for me. It always helps calm me down when things start getting churned up inside. But on Worst Days, the benefits don't last. Nothing but the bad mood lasts. So I went home and tried to make my husband as miserable as me. Poor guy. 

That evening I was supposed to go to a craft night a sweet friend had organized and he was basically insisting that I go. Smart man. Now normally this is something I wouldn't  miss for the world. Doing crafts (my favorite!) that I don't have to organize (even more my favorite!) with My People (no stranger danger: favorite!) would be a dream night on any other occasion. But as I dreaded the thought of having to go to this event, I knew I had reached a new low, one that concerned even me. I didn't want to go, but I know it's good to sometimes do the things I don't want to do. And once I've done them, I'm usually glad I did. I had some time on my hands and a wish to turn this day around, so I turned to my Bible. All day long, the refrain from "Hallelujah" by Heather Williams had been running through my head, mainly the lines, "Jesus, please come, please come today." And that's what I wanted. I wanted Him here. And not just in a help-me-get-through-this-day way, but in a hey-wouldn't-today-be-a-good-day-for-You-to-COME-and-bring-us-all-to-heaven way. (And I write that not as a cry for help or as anything super-dark. I was just feeling so low that only Heaven seemed big enough to take away that kind of pain.) I often journal song lyrics in my Bible and I'll try to match them to fitting verses. In this case the most fitting thing seemed to be to just turn to the end of my Bible and journal there. There was no planning or sketching. I just grabbed some markers and got my letters down. Then the chalks, because there's no better way to add lots of color fast. Another pen to scribble my thoughts at the moment. Here's a bit of what I wrote. "Today I don't want any calling. I don't want a purpose. Days like today I just want this world over. I just want Jesus to come back. I want away from this pain. I don't want to be responsible for anything. I want the burden lifted. Thank you, God, that not every day is like this. I couldn't handle it, my family couldn't handle it. Today has felt hopeless. I've been discouraged. I'm just praying I wake up better tomorrow." 

And that's the thing. As awful as a Worst Day is, I know the next day will be better. God knows how weak I truly am and He has never given me two Worst Days in a row. I went to the craft party. I was not good company, but I participated. Until I couldn't anymore, because I guess that's just too much to expect on a Worst Day. I left in tears mid-craft, because on Worst Days the tears just can't be contained, even if you're doing your favorite thing with some of your favorite people. On the Worst Days you just need the day to be over. So I went home and I took my first sleeping pill in over four months, because I just needed it to be tomorrow. "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning." (Psalm 30:5) Here's a Bible verse that has brought on new meaning. Grief is always hardest in the evenings, as our bodies, our emotions are depleted and there is nothing left to manage the burden of our sorrow. As I look on my Bible page I'm filled with Hope. I have Hope because I know He is with me, I know He grieves with me, and He understands my grieving heart better than anyone. I have Hope for myself, because even on my Worst Day I was able to color in some bright yellow on the corner of my page, my confidence that there was something better coming.

Beauty for Ashes

This isn't the blog post that first started rolling around in my head. I was playing around with a more acerbic title. Something like, "Buying Your Daughter's Urn." I know. There was a story there and that story will still be here, but over the last few days, God has made it so much more, has given me another gift in the reminder of His presence. There are really two stories here. One abour buying Libby's urn and one about three words that have been following me around these past five months. Before there was no real connection between these little stories, but how God has brought them together has filled me with awe, again, at His love and awareness of me.

I'll start with what might have been called Buying Your Daughter's Urn, because when you lose your little girl, these are the things you suddenly have to think about. I had wondered, in spare moments over the years, whether I would want to be cremated or buried. I never really came to any conclusion. Pros and cons on both sides, but either way, you're still dead. I had thought that I should ask my husband what he would want for himself, but that seemed too difficult, so I skipped that one as well. I figured we still had a lot of time to figure these things out. Not once did I ever think about what I would do if it was one of my kids. But when we were suddenly having to decide what to do with Libby's body, there was no inner debate. Cremation was the way to keep her at home with us. It was in the worst way possible, but it seemed a small comfort over having her far away at a cemetery. And after having spent my life moving on a regular basis, I couldn't handle the thought of one day just leaving her here, a plane ride away. Maybe these decisions shouldn't matter so much. I know in the core of my being that she is in Heaven and is doing awesome. She is my one child I don't have to worry about anymore. But when we lost Libby so suddenly, I just needed to have her at home and close, in whatever way I could.

There's a little nook in the hallway where all our bedrooms are,
so she still has her little space.

I didn't buy Libby's first urn. The easiest way to handle that would have been to buy something when we were at the funeral home making arrangements. The problem there is that everything is crazy expensive and just downright ugly. Angels and lambs and chintz. Just No. So my best friend Erin and her husband went to Target and bought a simple gray canister with a wooden lid. It was meant to be temporary, but I liked it and figured it would be with us a long time.

But then three weeks after Libby died, Kurt and I flew to Montana to visit my grandparents. It was a trip I was supposed to have made with Libby. (You can read about it here,) Montana has always been so special to me. Libby is actually named after the town where my mom grew up and where I would spend summers with my sweet grandparents. Our first morning in Kalispell a craft fair full of Montana artisans opened in the park across from our hotel. One of the first booths we came to had this gorgeous pottery I just fell in love with. I made a purchase and we moved on. But suddenly the idea struck that we should ask this artist, Theresa Gong, to make Libby's urn. She was lovely and kind and we were able to pick a number of different Libby-themed elements to include in the design. I had known that when it came to finding Libby's permanent urn that I would just "know" and that was exactly what happened.

The second part of this story was not something I ever thought would be part of a bigger, blog-worthy story. Just a little footnote in my own mind, something recorded in my Bible for my own benefit.

The day after Libby's funeral I sat in the church service weeping as the band played a song called Beauty for Ashes by Chris McClarney. My heart just broke some more and I prayed that those promises of God would be fulfilled. I had ashes in the most real, literal sense of the word. And I yearned to see beauty come from this great, gaping pain. I needed assurance that there would be some beauty in the long-term, big-picture of things. Beauty for ashes. I know it's not a fair trade by any means, but Jesus clearly isn't concerned about things being fair. We have the cross as evidence of that. That's His promise to us in Isaiah 61:3. To give us a crown of beauty instead of ashes. And we all have, and will become, ashes. There's only one real source for Beauty.

So these are the words that have been following me around. After Libby died I was using bible journaling as a way of working through my grief, engaging in therapeutic creativity, and mostly as a way of spending time with God. These verses from Isaiah have been on my jounaling to-do list almost from the beginning. But the close-to-my-heart verses are often the toughest, because I want to get them just right. I want the art to be beautiful, I want the verses to be as special on my page as they are in my heart. That's a lot of pressure! And that's why these verses don't get done for months at a time.

There were so many nudges from God. The verses would turn up in devotions, the song kept popping up at church. I looked on Pinterest to get some ideas. And I did get ideas... they were just all beyond my artistic capabilities and I was so scared of messing it up so I did nothing. The song played at church again this past Sunday. On Monday I was working through an amazing book/devotional called Writing in the Margins. One journaling prompt gave four choices of verses to dig into. Without looking in my Bible I eliminated three of the choices for various reasons and turned to the last option. Of course it was my beauty for ashes verses, Isaiah 61:1-6. But this time I decided to face it, to just start writing in my Bible. (I was immediately planning that I would find a beautiful image online that I could print on cardstock and put in my Bible to cover my notes so that there would still be beauty on this special page of mine.)

When I'm teaching people about Bible journaling, I always tell them to write the date on their entries. (I also tell them that the art is not important, it's the time spent with God that counts. If only I'd been practicing what I preached, huh?) Well, as I went through these 6 verses line by line I felt like I needed a stopwatch to record the minutes and seconds of revelation. Almost every line seemed to hold personal significance. I could feel my soul just filling up, excitement as I realized how these words were from Him, to me, for this very moment. Looking back, I'm not really sure why Libby's urn (which hadn't even arrived yet) was on my mind at all, but when I came to the line "to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes" it suddenly hit me. Libby's urn was our literal beauty for ashes. That would be the art that graced this page of my Bible.

But I was only halfway through my verses and God wasn't quite done yet. I kept making notes and saw through His words how He has already been so faithful in keeping His promises to us, for giving us so much hope and comfort. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," connected me right back to Acts 1:8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses." I journaled this page early on, because this is what I felt had happened from the moment I found Libby in the pool. God's gift to me was the presence of the Holy Spirit, and now He was reaffirming that gift to me. "That He may be glorified," this is what we pray will happen through Libby's story! "Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks." Oh my goodness! This feels like what we've been living! So many friends and loved ones have been caring for us, but the role of strangers has been shocking and humbling, and beautiful (again, out of the ashes). As I studied the Word, God just kept unfolding things for me, as if these words written thousands of years ago were just meant for me. [Please know this is not how my daily devotions normally go. (And daily is the ideal, not always the reality.) I struggle to stay connected. I'm just seeking and needing to find and He is there waiting for me when I put the time in.]

By the time I was done with these six verses, I knew I had met God on the page, in the margins of my Bible. And I realized that there was nothing more beautiful to me. There was no artwork that could match that. When I look at this page I am immediately taken back to that connection I felt with God, a beautiful assurance of all that He has promised each of us. Libby's urn arrived the next day and it is beautiful. We opened the box as a family. We haven't transferred the ashes yet, and those will be some difficult, real moments. I'm going to put a small picture of her urn in the upper right corner of my Bible page. God makes such big promises to us and He keeps them all. And then He cares enough to give us extra, sometimes in an urn by a Montana artist who used the gifts God gave her to give us more beauty for ashes.

Here are some photos of Libby's urn. The sword and shield represent the meaning of her name, God's promised armed warrior, which was a surprisingly fitting name for such a little girl. The moon and stars that Oma would take her out to look at. The birds that she and Daddy would see at the bird feeders. The la-los (flowers) she loved to go and pick from neighbors' yards. The lizards she would chase around our yard. Water at the bottom, because despite her ending, she spent her life loving all things water.

The Ache of the Details

Even with Halloween upon us, it's the images from this little Easter video that have been sneaking into my brain and breaking my heart this week. Her precious little pigtails. The little arm squeeze thing she does out of excitement. That beautiful, beautiful smile. 

It's so much easier to keep her general. I can do that and it doesn't hurt too bad. Or at least not as bad as it should. It's all those details, all those little things that made her so real, so ours; that's what makes me crumble.