As I write this, one of my dearest friends in the world is watching as her eleven year old daughter begins to die. It’s hard for me to write anything of any substance (or any levity) when I think of the mountain my friend is carrying—and how I can’t help her carry it.
What’s more is that tomorrow is my friend’s birthday. While I do not know the true inner workings of her mind, I feel fairly certain that she will be in no mood to celebrate herself. If she could ask for anything, it’d likely be for this entire scenario to be a nightmare that she could wake from, but it just cannot be. And so here we are. Waiting for what is to come and dreading it, because it is real. And it shouldn’t be.
When my mother died in January of 2017, I remember feeling like I was watching a movie of someone else’s life that I was somehow the director of. I made the memorial arrangements, found pallbearers, had my husband draft a program that mourners would hold. I sat on a plane and flew to a state I no longer lived in to bury a mother that was larger than life but had somehow exited it. There were stale finger sandwiches and really pathetic looks of sympathy and my anger when the mortician royal fucked up my mother’s makeup (I’ve never wanted to hit someone as much as I did then). But the life wasn’t mine. It was a movie I was watching—a movie I was in—and was reluctantly given the role as lead. I have looked for the IMDb page for this movie for a solid eight years and have yet to find it. Out of body experience or not, it was real.
Grief and loss are bedfellows and both are dirty sluts.
So, I am making a list of good things. I am writing this down because, as Yeats said, the center cannot hold. This is a chaotic list because these are disastrous times. We are all just one step from disaster, and so, in honor of my friend’s little girl, here is my list of what is good. Because someday, my friend might want to celebrate her birthday again. Nothing will ever be the same and the pain will always be there, but life is so much more precious to those who have sat with death. We make the lists of good things and wage war.
Lilac trees that grow together in two different shades
Yards full of dandelions
Bahn mi sandwiches eaten in the backyard with friends
Blueberry raspberry crisps and French vanilla ice cream
Sunlight at 8pm
Raised cedar garden beds
“Arkansas Traveler” tomatoes
Bare feet in ankle-high grass
Linen clothing
A good cheap hand cream
Lavender scented epsom salts
Hydrangea stems on the dining room table
A day without getting junk mail
Chore swapping with a friend
Looking in someone’s eyes for at least five minutes
Gingham
Reading books aloud and giving each character a different voice
Homemade pad see ew
Taking my bra off
Aleve
Coconut water and lime juice with salt
A cold glass of pinot grigio
An open sunroof
Watching a child pretend play like they are victors in a war
Prince Caspian
Touch feet with a loved one as you fall asleep
A really good book and a softly lit lamp
A great bible study
A Cranberries and Fleetwood Mac heavy playlist
A small dog who pushes their back into your leg to cuddle
Hanging flower baskets
Sugar snap pea starts
The weekend
Star Wars movie marathons
Pie season
Beeswax taper candles
A surprise visit from a friend who is also in the trenches
The sauna at the YMCA
When you sing at church and it sounds like one voice and a hundred at the same time
Snail mail
Being able and having the energy to say “yes”
Being wise enough to say “no”
Clean laundry
A kiss
“I love you, even when you’re angry”
Local libraries
When the joke lands
Researching gardening tips on ChatGPT
A hopeful phone call
An eschatological worldview
Stretchy pants
In a Bible study David and I are co-hosting, we recently learned more about the firmament of heaven, or rather the “hard shell” that keeps us from glancing right up into the heavenly realm. It doesn’t matter if you believe in an actual hard shell or not, but the divide is there. That much seems certain. We were told that when heaven and earth were both created both were good. Nothing was wrong or lesser with either of them, but heaven was a static place. Nothing aged or died or grew. It was filled and remained the same, while Earth became and matured—something that God seems to have a particular interest in. God wanted to join these two places. Places of being and becoming, but still a divide was put into place. I asked our leader that if both places were good and there was a desire to unite them, why the firmament? Why the hard shell division to begin with? His answer:
So that one day, God could roll it up.
One day, we won’t have to make lists of “good things”. One day the premature death of loved ones will be explained. One day we’ll eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we won’t die.
But not today.
Today I need a hammer to whack at the hard shell myself. I know I won’t make much progress, but I need to try. For myself, for my friend, for my wish to understand and love and be closer to God. I need to stick my fingers in his side. I need to doubt His plan and still know that it is good. I need to know that He’s big enough for me to do both. I need to know that I’m capable of seeing the good and the bad and not allowing the paradox to make me ugly.
Always,
Emily
P.S. My friend Anne is still in need of financial assistance for her daughter’s upcoming burial costs. Please consider donating here. Her daughter’s name is Amelia. Please, say her name in your prayers.
God’s hands be upon Ann and Amelia. All those questions you say you need to bounce off God, I think you already know. Its the revelation that takes time.
I’ll certainly keep Anne and Amelia in my prayers. Your writing always makes me think. At my age, I do have the luxury of time to ponder, although many of my friends struggle with issues that fill their thoughts and time. At any stage of life, we all need to think on the good things despite our losses and trials. The chaos can’t be negated but we can sure wage war!