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Oxygen Masks

On a recent business trip, I had to fly to Oklahoma City.  I sat through the requisite safety briefing.  I always pay attention as I feel sorry for flight attendants.  Next to evangelists standing on a soap box in the public square, there are few others as ignored as these.

I realized something when they got to the oxygen mask portion of the briefing.  “In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling.  Please place your mask on before securing those of others around you.”

Oxygen Masks

Oxygen Masks

My family and father demand so much time and energy.  The needs are immediate, and often in the midst of a crisis.  By the end of each day I often feel as though I am reaching into my ankles for internal reserves. 

We’ve signed on as a family for counseling.  The counselor eyes grew wide as we shared our recent trials and tribulations.  We’ve walked in the pain so long it’s a pair of worn shoes, shaped to our feet, all sharp edges scuffed away.

My goals were simple.  Gain skills and help for my family to endure this time and come out stronger.  I wanted them to be okay.  I gave no thought to me.  None. Whatsoever.

In a future blog I’ll write about slaying my inner martyr.  I gave no thought to me because I don’t know how to think of me.  Truly, to love myself abundantly is a laughable, fluffy idea like cosmic cotton candy.

When I mentioned to my brother we were scheduled for counseling and I would be bringing my son to begin the dialogue, he interrupted in his cutting and blunt way.

“Why don’t you just go?”

Huh?

“Seriously, if you aren’t taking care of yourself then how can you be any good to the kids and Dad?”

You could hear the screeching brakes in my thinking.

There is no doubt the cabin of my life has lost all pressure and we are falling through the sky.  Cancer will do that.

There is also no doubt I have support systems I need to draw upon.  Like the oxygen masks which fall from the ceiling of the plane, there are those who will breathe new life into my lungs.  If I don’t, we all will suffocate.

I went to counseling.  I cried.  I began to learn relaxation techniques.  I felt better.  I could then put masks on my family, my own reserves somewhat enriched.

Where are the places you need to put on the mask first?  Where do you need to stop putting on others’ masks?

I’ll close with what my first choice of a safety briefing would be, the dear disco exercising Divo himself, Richard Simmons.

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Sidewalk Miracles and Microwaveable Manna

It was three weeks from diagnosis when one of my worst fears came to reality.  Dad couldn’t move.

His cancer ravaged body simply could not work in harmony enough to allow his legs to hold him upright.  He couldn’t walk nor stand.  He was stuck, a 200 pound stone leaning against my legs, perched at the top of the stairs.  I was completely and utterly powerless.

Our Saint of an oncologist agreed, via text, that calling an ambulance was a good idea.  They navigated him from the chair in which he was slumped, onto the litter and into the truck.

Dad waved at my boys who ran alongside the rig as we pulled up the road.  I, clutching the official ‘medical binder’, sat in the front seat.  I dialed over and over again my friend.  Rarely does she actually answer her phone, yet I kept dialing.  For the one thing I could control, maybe, was where my sons would go in the midst of this bewildering and heart stopping turn of events.  There was no response.

As we sat at a red light, I glanced to my right.  My friend, whom I had given up calling, was walking down the street, leaving a fundraiser.  I rolled down the window and barely asked, “Can you take the boys?”  Without hesitation, she and her husband answered, “Yes.”

My friend called her teenage son to let him know two hungry little boys would suddenly be spending the night.  He said, “Good thing I bought 10 t.v. dinners!”  Our manna didn’t fall like so many yeasty flakes to the ground.  Rather it filled the shopping cart of a teenage boy and the microwave oven.

In our future there will be more ambulances and events over which I will have no control.  I am thankful there will also be more sidewalk miracles and microwaveable manna.

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The Breakfast of Champions

I learned a trick which has actually worked for me.  Routine.
Once it was a dirty word for me.  Routine sounded like boredom.  Who wants to do the same thing, the same way for anything?Until I saw this cute fitness guru du jour on Dr. Oz’s show (you know the one where all the housewives learn how green tea can save their marriage)?
He said that he does the same thing for food choices everyday.  That way, he can plan ahead, save time and stay ‘on plan’.  Sounds boring, but I thought I would give it a try.

It worked.

I do the same thing for breakfast everyday at work.  Weekends are different on purpose.  Hence, I’m not bored.  I do a shake, some supplements and a coffee.
No Brainer BreakfastThe best part about this?  I don’t have to think.

With all that is going on in my life, having less to rattle around my consciousness is a very good thing.  And, when gulped fast enough, one of those weight loss shakes aren’t half bad.

What is your breakfast of champions?

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New Normal

I took my sons out for a Mommy day.  I had spent the previous days in the hospital with my Father and been a Mommy ship passing them in the night.

We dropped off Uncle Michael at the airport and went shopping in the big city.  First stop was a ginormous Toys R Us where we discussed the merits of legos over skateboards, and spiderman over some anime thing I couldn’t pronounce.

We then went to one of the boys favorite restaurants, Cracker Barrel.  Peggy, the gregarious waitress, engaged my kids in a long conversation over the apple butter and fried chicken.  Upon discovering they played baseball, she asked for their autographs for when they become famous.  I wept.

The chicken was good, but not good enough for tears.  I wept because Peggy couldn’t know the hell the children were about to face.  Their grandfather was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer just the day before.  As they chatted about baseballs and doggies and grandkids (Peggy has 8 grandkids and 1 dog who helps her take off her apron) I wept because this was so normal.  They were being loved abundantly by a stranger.  Love they will need for the journey ahead.

My new normal will consist of loving my children abundantly in the midst of this slow and unfolding tragedy.  My new normal will be to pray more while I wrestle with the questions of “Why?” and “How?”.  My new normal will be to eat less while I coax him to eat anything he wants.

I’m seasoned and humble enough to choke on platitudes and easy answers.  God’s will is as foreign as the Romanian phone book.  For now let this be the picture of the new normal.bada

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Now That’s a Load Off

The “Eat Less” version of this blog has been the least explored.  I needed some time to make it official.  11 pounds later it’s official.  I am eating less.

Weight is the heaviest issue in my physical life.  It’s the physical manifestation of my stress and doubt.  It’s the insulation I have unconsciously loaded around me, as if I can insulate myself in fat from the cold cruel world.

If food is my drug of choice to numb emotions and sugar my way through challenges, where did I even start?  By eating less.

I didn’t want to mention it on the blog until I was able to make it a few months.   After a routine visit to the doctors office, and the requisite weigh in, I made it.

I have a long, long way to go.

However, starting well has taken a load off.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

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2012: The Year of the Chisel

Artist Tony Calderone's hand

Artist Tony Calderone’s hand

For me, 2012 is the year of the chisel. Have a few minutes? Let’s watch this video together.

God’s Chisel by the Skit Guys

I thought it was living in such a small town where my history stalked me in every grocery store aisle and restaurant. CLINK.

I thought it was being convinced I was a triangle peg in the very square holes of my community; be it Starbucks, church, my kids school or Wal-Mart. CLINK.

I thought it was the crushing debt and poverty thinly veiled behind my cheerful smile where 123 Never Enough, Dead End America became my address. CLINK.

I thought it was the hangover from so many crushing losses. The previous two years took so many pieces of my heart, I wondered how it continued to beat. Family, friendships, and dreams all boxed and buried beneath sickness, betrayal and misunderstanding. CLINK.

All these became tools in the hands of the One.  The One who took me seriously when asked, from the filthy floor of a stockroom, to make something of a life worth nothing. His response? He began to chisel.

Lysa Teurkeurst in her book, “Unglued”, talked about this process of chiseling. She writes, in the section “The Unfinished Sculpture”, of the journey of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David.

david

The sculpture was actually begun before Michelangelo was even born! “The 19 foot block of marble had originally been the project of an artist named Agnostino di Duccio, but after shaping some of the legs, feet, and torso, he inexplicably abandoned the work.” Ten years later, another artist was hired to finish it but his contract was cancelled. 25 years after that, a young 26-year-old Michelangelo, “picked up a chisel and dared to believe he could complete a masterpiece.”

For more than two years the artist ate, slept and breathed the sculpture. He literally slept in the same room with the piece of marble. “I saw the angel in the marble,” he said, “and carved until I set him free. When asked how he made such a magnificent statue, Michelangelo said, ‘It is easy. You just chip away at the stone that doesn’t look like David.”

I thought I was a victim of circumstance and poor choice.  God saw an opportunity to chip away at the places which held me captive.  He removed the hard places which don’t look like me-the Me He originally created. He loves me enough to chisel at the stone around my heart, soul and mind.

It’s been painful.  It’s still a work in progress.  However, it’s progress.

Today, this first day of 2013.  I begin it hopeful.  I begin it more free.  I begin it more fully formed, thankful for some of the hard pieces having been chiseled away.  There is oh so much more to be chiseled.  At least, for now, I dare to believe it is to complete a masterpiece.

I pray you too would allow the One who designed you to pick up his chisel and find the Masterpiece inside your life.

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How do I pray?

praying-hands-e1305028683867

In the aftermath of the tragedy in Connecticut, I find myself asking God a critical question.  It isn’t “Why?” or “Whose fault?” or “What’s to Blame?”  Rather it is, “How do I pray?”

How do I pray when it seems that God was absent in His promised protection over the little ones?

How do I pray when it seems the killer was a young man with deep problems?

How do I pray when I simply cannot become comfortable with the reality of evil preying upon children?

I want to know how I can pray differently for my kids.  Time with them is more precious than gold.  How can I waste not an ounce?

I want to know how I can pray for all the families affected.  From first responders to those left with no responses I want to know how to pray.

I want to know how to dislodge the band of panic which is wrapped around my heart.  At the slightest sound, call or moment away, I wonder if I will see them again.

Lysa TerKeurst wrote a blog asking the same question I did.  Her response was heart-achingly beautiful.  Read it here: How Do I Pray

I’ll pray for the chasms to be filled.

How will you pray?