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A dessert shop taught me how to grieve

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Today I woke up stronger and better and healthier than I have been in years. and I cried. Because life is still really hard. I thought if I just find a way to make the good days outnumber the bad days. If I finally committed to a workout routine and started seeing results. If I had a job that I liked and liked the people I worked with. If I found a husband who loves me and I genuinely enjoy spending time with. If I wrote a poem and thought it was beautiful then I would be fine.If I faced my grief instead of running from it, I would be ok.

But all I can think is, “I wish I could tell her how well I’m doing.”

and I can’t.

Isn’t that what you do? You call your Mom on the bad days and she tells you that no, you shouldn’t cook raw chicken in the microwave, only thaw it. She’ll tell you that if you keep crying you’ll get too upset and to just put a cold washcloth on your forehead and take a nap. Or sit on the toilet or something. You call your Mom on the good days too. If you do something right, she brags about you to other people. She doesn’t shut up about you, because she raised you and by some miracle she likes hanging out with adult you.

and just when you’re starting to step into the next chapter entitled “You can actually be friends with your Mom now.” You turn the page and it says “To be continued.”and you know it’s going to be a long, long time before you get an answer. and it’s not going to be here.

I wish it was here.

You’d think seeing daughters spending time with their Moms makes me sad, but it really doesn’t. There is a Mom and daughter who come into the shop where I work and get a sugar cookie and a cupcake every Monday night. and it makes me really, really happy. Cause they get it, it’s the here, it’s the now. It’s the ritual of a Monday night. They know that the secret isn’t quality time vs. quantity of time. It’s just constantly choosing to be together over and over and over so that when that time runs out (and you never really know when it will) you have bouquet of memories to dry in the pages of old books and hang on your wall with just a hint of fragrance left to them. We’d trade them for flowers in a heartbeat. But at least we have petals to scatter across the waters of our sorrows.

My Mom, Dad, and brother were in a car accident on a really rainy day on the freeway about three years before she died of cancer. I hated that car accident so much. I didn’t like seeing my brother in a hospital bed (even though it wasn’t serious), and I really, really hated seeing my Mom standing beside him with only one earring on. When I pointed out to her that her other earring was missing she didn’t even realize that she’d lost it. I loathed the whole experience. I did not enjoy being reminded that at any moment your whole life can change and just how quickly it can happen. Nothing was taken from me that day, instead I was given a reprieve, a gentle nudge to hold my loved ones closer. I was so grateful I had hugged each of them before they had left and said “I love you!” to each of them. In the following years I made sure to give each of my family members a hug and to say “I love you” any time we said goodbye. I was given divine homework, and like any good student I took it seriously.

“I guess we’re all one phone call

From our knees.”

Mat Kearney

We’ve all been given divine homework. Nobody is getting graded, and there’s no clear deadline. I’m not just talking about good works or kind words or buying a strangers coffee (these are all really, really good things though) I’m talking the hard, the hate, the heartbreaking, backbreaking thorn-in-my-flesh, I must fight this with God by my side or else I will fail challenges that we face. We don’t have to chase it, or search for it, it somehow finds us.  It often doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the emotions run deeper and clearer than a frozen river.

So yes, a dessert shop taught me to grieve, because day after day I see friends meeting friends for coffee and cake. I see families lighting birthday candles, their faces lit by the glow. I put together a box of sugar cookies for a lady who has just received the call that yes, she does have breast cancer. And she has no idea what she’ll be fighting. The pink curtains of the front window are pulled back and for a moment you can see a glimpse into heaven. A cupcake can’t really fix anything, but the kindness and the joy surrounding it remind me that the darkness can be fought. What battle are you on the front lines of? If the curtain is pulled back and you saw what Jesus saw, what would your divine homework be? 

“And afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

Joel 2:28

Goals.

 

Five years ago. Five years ago I was 19, living in a small, dark apartment we called “The Granny Cave,” and biking to campus to make it to my Shakespeare 120 class which took place in a theatre-like lecture hall underneath the campus Subway restaurant. My classroom’s location meant it always smelled like bread. and a pound of flesh! (Merchant of Venice, anyone? anyone?). If I remember correctly I was adamantly trying to perfect the Katniss braid and pretty much settling for the “messy” braid look. The messy braid better always be in style or I’m never braiding my hair ever again. Some of you out there are loosening and tossing your braids every which way on purpose, for a “look.” I do this naturally.

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This is a blurry picture-phone snapshot of the giant pillowfort we made in “The Granny Cave.” Those were the days…

 

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

-L.M. Montogmery, Anne of Green Gables.

This time of year always makes me a little nostalgic for school. Not for the tests, stress, and occasional backpack back pain, but for the casual walks across bricks covered in crunchy leaves, and professors who start out fresh from vacation and have convinced themselves to believe in 20 something’s intelligence again. And you swear you’re going to check and write in your planner and color code it, and instead 2 months later a pear rots in your backpack and your beautiful planners smells like a Bath and Body Works from Hades. Ah, to be a student again. The hard part about school is that it’s supposed to be training you for life. But no one has all the answers, and most can only give you very specialized answers, or the very vague “We’re all on a journey…” Well, College is a very specific journey with parameters and it’s really really expensive for most people. And one day, you graduate. And five years after that Shakespeare class, you only make it through 2 minutes of a Ukulele tutorial video because learning is hard.

So goals. Where do you see yourself in five years?  I see myself on a stage giving motivational speeches on groundbreaking research on the power of sugar cookies and having a little bit of heart. And Martha Stewart calls ME for advice about her beekeeping skills. All silliness aside, I’m still stuck in thinking that five-year goals have to be ambitious, powerful, and almost always involving a stage. But what if I make simple goals in the future? Never letting go of the illusive confetti filled balloon goals that make your heart soar, while acknowledging the truer, more stable goals of starting a consistent workout routine, writing that really hard letter, and accepting that you can’t control people are more life-giving and usually help you reach for those loftier confetti goals.

But really, making goals for the future makes me nervous, because it takes committment, consistency, and probably some grit. And I would much rather try to play ukulele and quit for the 3rd time. And even if you work really hard, you still going to have to ask other people for help, because sometimes you don’t have all the answers and you’re on a journey and five years down the road you’re going to look back nostalgically and think “those were the days…” and realize you really do like clichés .

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Now go out there and change the world! Just do it!

Beautiful Lies.

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I don’t think we have to choose between living in the present or in the past. We create the future with each step we take, and even if we don’t want time to move forward or things to change, we are forced or invited to each evolving second. When I was seventeen years old, I found myself confronted with my own nihilistic worldview in my Philosophy 101 class at the local community college. We were talking about time and hoping for things to get better, and I was spoked up and articulated my deepest fears: that we’re really just always waiting for something better. Always looking for the next thing to save or improve us. And discontent in each situation. And my very cheery, impossibly optimistic philosophy professor (an unexpected combo) exclaimed “That’s just depressing!” I realized I wasn’t just talking in the abstract, my seventeen-year-old self was already realizing this world isn’t enough. Sometimes when I get caught trapped in the thinking “Well, if I only did this, or if this job, or this person, in the future…” I hear my professor’s almost cartoon exclamation: “That’s just DEPRESSING!”

and I tell myself to chill out. Isn’t that what summer is supposed to be about? “Chilling out.” Vacations, relaxation, and sipping cold lemonades. And our thirsty souls drink it al up. Ahem, my thirsty soul drinks it up.

Cause I want to be forever
Like smoke in the air
Float like a feather going nowhere
Lost in the silence
I don’t need to be free
Kill me with kindness
And please
Tell me beautiful lies
– Beautiful Lies, Birdy.
These lyrics, I believe, are really written about summer. Summer is just a bunch of beautiful lies. Float like a feather going nowhere? If that doesn’t epitomize summer, I don’t know what does. It must be the former teacher in me, but when fall rolls around I get the overwhelming sense that things need to prepped and fixed and clothes need to be bought. Crockpot recipes must be pinned. Cold, hard reality sets in. Pumpkin spice is the only cure. Don’t tell me that the pumpkin spice faze is soooo over. I refuse to accept this.
At work, I’m anticipating the arrival of apple ginger spice cake, white chocolate pear bars, and pumpkin muffins. My first child will be named Pumpkin Muffin. They will be adorable and no one will accept that Pumpkin Muffin is their real name and it will psychologically damage them forever. Just have to get Jesse to agree. Kidding, aside, I feel healthier and more soul-happy than I ever thought possible a year ago. Life still has it’s up and downs but the pace has changed. A vast majority of fall and winter last year was sucked up by a low-level sadness that was my constant companion. I couldn’t shake it off by myself. I couldn’t outpace it. Grief can be a real a monster, and it can be a breath of fresh air.  It’s power and forcefulness in your life is a reflection of the depth of love you had for the person who is gone. And that’s where the breath of fresh air comes, you breathe deeply in the memories and realize that so much of us matters. Death is so painful because life is so abundant. I’m nowhere near being “done” with this process, I just have some more words to articulate it. Please, please, please, please don’t ask people who have recently lost someone to explain what they’ve “learned” in this situation. They’ve learned they really loved someone and they’re gone. That’s enough to try to unpack for a lifetime.
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We all want the pretty story, the final chapter, the sequel that answers all of the questions. We want the triumph and the glory. The gold medal ceremony. But when we rush the story, or scrap the struggle, we cheapen our stories. We limit our opportunities. We accept beautiful lies, in the name of a better story. One thing I have found very freeing about not being in school anymore is no longer having grades attached to all or most of my work. Sure, it’s harder to figure out if you’re passing or failing, but no longer are values attached to each move you make. It was easier, somehow, because even if you spilled your coffee, got a parking ticket, and ate chips and salsa for dinner you still got a passing grade on that paper, your life is alright. I don’t want to settle for for a life of tidy “lessons” and assigning grades to myself and the people around me. That’s not enough. That life may sound tidier, but it’s one that I won’t settle for.
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 -Katrina