I need as much peace as I can get today because I am on the edge, toes clinging to the side so I don't fall off. I'm looking down at the chaotic mess below and wondering WTF is going on? Watching the endless parade of train wreck events truck through our lives and the lives of our friends and family the last 8 months.
Has it only been 8 months?
I have wondered about the string of perfect days, months, years...the "run" we've been on. Could it last? Is there a cosmic price to pay for a series of FORTUNATE events? I've sensed something creeping up on us, something Grinch like with a menacing grin and rotten heart. But I dismissed it as a built in guilt, compliments of the Catholic church. Guilt for being the beneficiary of far too many blessings. I sensed it, felt it, but you can't live fearing something "may" happen, so I ignored it.
But here we are.
And this too shall pass. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. If you're going through hell, keep going. A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn. God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. When life gives you lemons...get a good wheat beer, toss them in and throw it down. That's what I've been doing this week.
My parents and my soul mate are homeless. Torn from their beautiful home in a frantic evacuation, fleeing from a man made flood. Taking everything...EVERYTHING from the house. Working almost 24 hours a day for 3 days to save whatever they could before leaving. Ripping up carpet, removing doors and built ins before walking away for 2 months? 6 months? Not knowing what will remain when they can finally return. It is true that they are fortunate to have warning, to save their possessions and know they will be safe. But the price you pay for knowing, is the pain of waiting. Waiting for your home to be inundated with water and left empty and exposed for months. Waiting to go back to see if it will again be the home you made together, or if it is gone.
And yes, they are safe, their friends and neighbors are safe. It is a blessing. And yes, when it comes down to it, it is just stuff. But, a house is more than just a big pile of "stuff", it is a home, that holds the lives that pass through it, the energy they leave behind.
Everything leaves an imprint on a home. Every hug, tear, argument, dance, sprinkling of laughter. It stays and lives and seasons a home until it is uniquely you. To have to run away from it unexpectedly is devastating. To know you are leaving it behind, unable to protect it... heartbreaking.
My parents are strong, resilient people who have never been handed anything. They have taken that "mid western work ethic" and spent their entire lives maxing it out. Everything they have was gained through sacrifice and unflinching dedication to the entrepreneurial spirit, to their ideas and to their business. And while others may cling to the rewards of their work with an iron fist, my parents feel blessed and feel a responsibility to share their blessings, to take care of others. And they do. And this year more than ever. It breaks my heart, that after the longest, most painful of winters, my parents will not get to find peace in the new life of spring. That my mother, who spent 3 days sitting beside her dying sister, waiting for Maria's peace to come, has now spent 3 days deconstructing the home she and my dad built together for 18 years. 3 days of another kind of passing, and now the waiting.
I have spent much of this year being sad. At the moment, I'm just really frick'n mad.
Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things. Allow yourself a moment of grief when life's misfortunes visit you. However, do not spend your days building a monument in honor of them. Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles. We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
But mad is not a productive emotion and I don't linger in mad for very long, because it destroys me. I prefer to take mad...and turn it into a positive action. To transform negative energy into a good deed. The world does not need me to toss "mad" into the universe. So I'm off, packing up the kids and going to help my family make a home in a temporary place. The evacuation is done, but there are a lot of hugs to give, laughter to be found and plans to make. There is a future to prepare for. An incredible future that includes us living in the same area, participating in their grand children's daily lives, building a business, impromptu dinners and shopping trips, morning cups of coffee sitting side by side instead of computer monitor to computer monitor.
Regardless of what is happening right now, we will not abandon the potential of the future.
I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
~Dr. Seuss
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