Month: January 2019

Forgiving Debts

On By LisaIn Arrow, Faith, Stella, The Chef4 Comments

As the time approached for Arrow to return home from prison, to begin his life again, we rearranged bedrooms, we got rid of all the alcohol we had massed, we installed a landline again for his ankle monitoring system. We discussed rules and boundaries and set a plan to get him back to independence. We filled our days with hopes and tasks and considered each step carefully, knowing full well that his success and our sanity depended on creating a safe place, one that included support as well as accountability. I am reminded of all the hours spent on the phone with him as the days grew closer to his freedom, each of us considering that while prison had been horrific, the real work lay ahead. Even with all the intentionality that process held, we made mistakes, we blew it and we all lost. I take comfort in knowing not that while we were not perfect, we didn’t prevent his relapse, we did give our best efforts, we did the best we could at the time. My regrets often feel like a debt I can never touch, a steady reminder of how I fell short.

Every day I see the scribbled card that hangs on the refrigerator, the one where we recorded his debt. Like a talisman, it has hung there for years now, showing not only the money we offered him that he insisted he would pay back, the money he hoped always to pay back as a show that he had become a responsible man and not a child getting an allowance, not a dependent kid. We paid to have a tooth implanted to replace the one lost in a prison fight, we paid to have his driver’s license reinstated, we paid for a gym membership. The truth is that I would have willingly gifted all of this to him but understood my need to rescue him could be the very thing that undermined his success. My boy went to prison, I struggled to see the man who had returned. He grew confident each time he offered up $20 and marked it on the card, understanding that the thousands we had spent while he was locked up were certainly forever out of his reach but he could stop the slide further. Of course not everything made the list, the cost of new clothes and shoes and a winter coat and meals out and the pantry stocked with food we wouldn’t normally purchase, these were considered the cost of parenting.

The card remains on the fridge, a reminder of debt that has been abandoned. Mostly I view it with great sadness, not that we won’t recoup the funds, (we spent equally on Stella but that is a very different blog post) but rather the reminder that we will never have a chance to see him to restoration, to redemption, not on this side of the heavens. No , I look at this list of money owed and know that maybe, just maybe, if he had stuck to the plan, we would be celebrating him rather than mourning him. Maybe if we had written everything down, he would have recognized how much we had to offer and he would have felt humility and respect rather than noting the loopholes and means to manipulate. But I think this card reminds me of more, brings sadness t my own shortcomings rather than just Arrow’s. More than what this card says about us and our failed attempts to keep him sober, I see that I also carry a list of debts and know that I will never pay them off.

Pastor Pat once told me and probably many others in the congregation, (was it a sermon, the words echoed so loudly with me that it is hard to remember he surely was speaking to us all) that God has my picture on his fridge. A simple deep message, that I am honored and cherished by my creator. He didn’t say that God has a list of my transgressions, not a quid pro quo of my blessings and what I need to do to get us even. My picture. I can never repay my debts, I daily even scoff at my blessings as I want more and different ones. I forget that God has already provided, that He sent His son to pay for it all. What if I chose to face daily not the list that outlines how my son fell short but the one that I carry with me, the tattered card full of scribbles that describe how I fell short? Would I notice the ways I did work on the debt, the ways I have held myself accountable and sought to be better or only the ways I didn’t? Indeed, it is a choice, to look at a life and see the losses or to celebrate the gains. Does God celebrate each time I offer up $20 to pay for the groceries of the person in front of me who is silently, embarrassedly putting items aside because the total is too high, the wallet is too empty? Does God rejoice when I notice the least of His, when I recognize another broken soul? Do these count as my offerings, accepted with the same sense of delight as I pocketed that $20 from Arrow? I think He does, I think I have missed the point of being indebted all this time.

My birthday is approaching, days away now. It has almost never been a happy day for me, not something I wanted to share. Vivid memories of childhood horrors when I experienced the conflicting messages that I was to be simultaneously feted and molested have created deep ruts where I find myself stuck, year after year. I hate surprise parties, recalling the year my father took me away from home while friends gathered, away to pick up my birthday cake and to a country road where he violated my body and my soul and then returned me to the party, shell shocked and unable to find sanctuary. No, my birthday has never been cause for celebration for me, one met with trepidation and hyper vigilance. Yet something strange happened this year, as January brought a relief from the intense grief of the holidays and I began to breathe. I felt God nudging me to accept the present of my birthday, to accept life and see that those who have celebrated with me through the years were not just showing up for cake. While my picture may not be on any of their fridges, I hold a place in the hearts of many and that is good. The danger has passed and I am being invited into life. Ever mindful that I not seem proud or boastful, I wondered, what if? What if I looked not at how I fall short but rather on the ways I thrive and survive and say that is enough, just for one day, that is worthy, I am worthy?

Before you wonder why you weren’t invited to my own celebration of me, know that my plan didn’t come to be. While I am not this year throwing a party for me, cooking food I want to share with you and opening the door of this closed off home to your laughter and your friendship, maybe one year soon. I am getting closer to acknowledging my debt to God and also the ways in which He rejoices at my birth. I am removing the card that lists my son’s debts and instead am remembering all the ways he lived. My gift to me this year is to intentionally begin living, growing into me. I hope you will forgive my debts and yours as well, that you will destroy the accounting of wrongs and embrace the fresh start we have been given. I think that counts as another payment to our creator who keeps cleaning up our messes and offering a fresh start.

A New Year

On By LisaIn Arrow, Faith, Plum, Stella, The Chef2 Comments

Like any good horror movie where the star runs through the scene alternately looking forward for an escape and back to see monitor how close the threat is, I can see how I experienced this last year. Looking over my shoulder, seeing hurts and memories that threatened to consume me, I looked forward to upcoming holidays and birthdays and knew the danger lay ahead as well. Stuck in an endless loop of running and hiding, constantly feeling like I was one wrong step away from losing all of me. Like a bright light, a gust of fresh air, suddenly I find myself on the other side, out from under the cloud of doom and into a calendar that is fresh and waiting for new memories and safe. Sure the same holidays and birthdays and special events await, yet somehow just surviving the first grief-filled year has brought some clarity and a healthy dash of hope.

The truth of grieving my son has shown what even I cannot deny, I do have a desire to survive. Too many times I wondered why someone else got cancer, was in a horrible accident, when I had no desire to take the next breath. Not actively suicidal, no worries friends, but also not actively living. I heard of someone who died of a broken heart and wondered to God why my life was continuing. When the pain felt unbearable, I got another text from a friend saying they felt the strong call to pray for me right then. I cannot say I always welcomed those but I recognized them for what they were, a lifeline, a rope thrown to a drowning woman. When I asked God to let me stop this survival run, I found in the mail another card, a sweet message from a friend near or far who acted on the impulse to remind me there is a greater world outside of my mourning and I was welcome to rejoin when I could. Couldn’t they sense my resentment at their kindness, why wouldn’t they leave me alone in my misery? Cards and calls and dinners arrived inspire of my surliness, breaching the walls I was erecting. I was offered bits of hope and just enough air to endure the next minute, to exist another day.

As the new year arrived, I realized I no longer wanted to run from pain and look back to all that chased me. So bizarre that merely flipping the calendar could bring a fresh start, an awaking to the blessing of a new day and yet, it seems it is so. Certainly all the resolutions and goal setting that begins on this day each year would hint that I am not alone in embracing another chance to get it right, be healthier, find joy again. The grief group I attended surely assisted in gaining this different perspective, 6 weekly meetings that provided a safe space to be angry and broken as well as the offer to see even a tiny bit beyond my limited view. Imagine running in the darkness, desperate to avoid the dangers of sorrow all around and then the lights come back on, casting out the shadows of “what-ifs” and “if onlys”, illuminating the truth that I was running for no reason, the threats were all in my head. I was given the larger view, that my Arrow is in a better place, words that angered me in the darkness but reassured in the light.

I survived a year of firsts, a year spent mostly sitting silently in my grief, sometimes showing my tears but most often putting on a fake brave face. I thought I was getting through each empty day mired in memories without making progress, what really would progress look like? Trudging through every morning, long nights that brought no relief, and yet I find I have moved forward, into an unknown life without the joy of my son, also without the worry and despair that comes from loving an addict. I was freed from the demons that haunted us for 11 years, it just took some time to stop the habit of fretting and wringing our hands and checking the local police blotter every day. We survived against most of my efforts and even as I questioned the wisdom of a God who refuse to offer me the out I desired, I was slowly given the knowledge that I still had more to live for, more to experience, more life ahead.

I didn’t get the blessing of dying from a broken heart, instead I am offered the chance to live with one. The energy, the adrenaline rush that comes after the crisis has passed now fills my soul, even as I resist the fresh air and look suspiciously at the empty calendar and the hope that flutters within. We are embarking on the second year, one surely filled with more tears and sadness and dark days and yet… we are moving forward into a light that exposes happy memories as well. Plum, Chef and I celebrated New Year’s Eve with root beer floats just as we always did with my Stella and Arrow. We played games and built Lego sets and were asleep by 8:30, safe in the belief that we didn’t have to watch the clock to know another day was coming. As the first day of the new year dawned, we lit sparklers and celebrated both the darkness and the light, both surviving and living as we breathed in deeply the possibilities of this new 24 hours. We have entered year 2, a year of seconds that seems to be inviting us into different firsts.

Happy New Year friends, thank you all for continuing to read a blog filled with longing and sorrow, thank you for the texts and dinners and cards and your couches. Thank you for walking through the darkness with me, bringing your light and showing me I had nothing to fear. You are the angels of God who knew I would follow you back to Him. This isn’t a horror movie, this is a life, full of minutes and moments and months, full of joys and sorrows. I have survived thus far, I might as well see what is ahead, I might as well grasp the joys that also lurk just around the corner. Be blessed friends.