Inventory Your Losses

The Shot Heart Round the County

When my brother was 17, he made a half-court basketball shot that changed his life.

He was not a basketball player, save for the one year he joined the team in elementary school, when he learned it was not his passion. But like a lot of kids, we had a hoop in our driveway and grew up shooting H.O.R.S.E. and P.I.G. on the makeshift blacktop court with cousins and friends.

In our small, sleepy Kentucky town, high school basketball games were practically a social engagement. Everyone goes. Same with football.

Local businesses sponsor the team and host special events at the games to boost attendance (and for advertising, of course.) One of those events was the half-time, half-court shot sponsored by the local Chevrolet dealership. Every Friday night, one or two lucky crowd-members would be called by their ticket number to come down to the court and attempt the shot. A successful shooter would be rewarded with $10,000. It had been attempted a hundred times or more – even by former decorated athletes. No one ever came close to making it.

The night my brother’s name was called, he unassumingly stepped up to the line in his wrangler jeans and cowboy boots. He took a couple steps and thrust the ball straight out from his chest as hard as he could. The ball made a beeline for the backboard and, just above the hoop, it suddenly dropped through the net.

It was so absurd and unexpected my brother stood dumbfounded as every single body in the bleachers erupted to their feet in a rowdy cheer. Hundreds raced down to the court floor to slap his back and congratulate the dazed teenager. Shake his hand. And dozens of people joked about asking for a loan from the winnings check. (Apparently, I also asked for a year’s supply of gum, per the write up in the local paper! HA!)

The dealership owner probably pooped himself. But, he made good on his word and delivered the check a couple weeks later.

The tab was on my brother that night when he went out to celebrate with his friends, and a couple dozen of his newest acquaintances. And the next night. And the next night. It took less than six months for him to spend the entirety of the reward and rack up debt trying to keep the charade going.

I often think about how that financial windfall changed the trajectory of his life. The story is common enough – many lottery winners end up deeply in debt or destitute.

My brother never stopped pretending to be rich after that night. And it cost him a lot more than his eventually-wrecked credit score.

Journal Entry from March 5th, 2021

It’s a pretty well-known fact that grief comes in waves.

I guess that’s because you don’t grieve losing a person, like they were a one-time singular event or thing. You grieve every single loss you would have had with that person. Every piece of them you lose gradually in your life.

Yesterday, I heard a basketball bouncing on the street in front of our house.

I started crying as mental movies of my brother and I shooting H.O.R.S.E. in the driveway of our childhood home played in my mind.

But mostly, I was crying for my son’s loss.

Uncle John likely would have been the one to teach him to play basketball. And I imagine they would have spent countless hours shooting H.O.R.S.E. together as he grew up. My heart aches for the loss of that experience.

I’m starting to recognize other individual losses:

Last night, I grieved that I’ll never hear his voice again, as I listened to the voicemail clips people were sweetly sending me and that I had in my own messenger.

I’ll never get to hear him say “later dude” or “hey maaan” or recite any of the million movie quotes we would quip back and forth.

It hurts to question why John would not want to get to know his Baby nephew. Why he wouldn’t want to spend his life with him.

My Grandfather ran away from home when I was about 12. I remember thinking, sure, I understand why you would want to leave your wife, but why did you never want to see or spend time with me – your only granddaughter – again for the rest of your life? Or your only daughter?

I didn’t know then that my Grandfather was a haunted man. Haunted by the war, and POW camps, and alcohol. He told himself we were better off without him.

I’m sure that’s what my brother thought as well.

I’ve battled that same thought before, so I am familiar with how easy a lie it is to believe. But it’s still a lie.

What you just read were all the thoughts I had bouncing around my head on March 5^th, 2021. Two days after my brother’s remains were found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

I would journal over the next weeks and months about each part of that loss I grieved. It would be two years before I made a full inventory list of my losses. Making that list was one of the most cathartic journaling exercises I’ve done.

When my brother decided to end his life, I didn’t just lose my brother, I lost:

My protector, my safe place
My friend
Samson’s Uncle
The me that existed before
My mom that existed before
My dad that existed before
My husband that existed before
My car detailer
My errand runner
My gift buyer
Big Brother Hugs
Our family unit/dynamic
Sweet Summertime family gatherings
“Normal” holidays
My movie quote partner
Family game/card nights
Our foursome for golf
My electronics expert
My automotive expert
My identity in our family – little sister to only child
Help/support with my aging parents
My biggest laughs
Most of my memories from childhood/my early 20’s
The person who believed in me/cheered for me most
Clarity of thought
My capacity for what I can/can’t handle
My husband’s brother-in-law
My picture-taker
My problem-solver
My figure-it-outer
My husband’s helper
My mom & dad’s helper
My ability to experience a “normal” maternity leave, postpartum experience, first year with my son

And on and on for two more pages. Some of the things felt so shallow and selfish to write down. But they were real losses to me, despite how trivial. And I needed to say them out loud and make space to grieve each one of them. My subconscious mind felt each of these pains immediately upon receiving that late-night phone call. But it would be a long and gradual process to identify and name them.

Grief is a lot of work. And it’s hard. Writing helps.

A Grief Observed

“Losing a beloved is an amputation.” – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I once listened to a podcast in which a psychiatrist was talking about why it feels like we lose a part of ourselves when we lose a loved one.

He said that, unwittingly, we store information, memories and experiences in the brains of other people we are close to; like an external hard drive. Our own minds have limited capacity to keep all the data we need, so we share mental and emotional data resources with others.

We see this phenomenon to be particularly true when someone loses a spouse and has no idea what the bank password is, or what type of oil the car takes, or where the Tupperware is located in the cupboard… Those pieces of information were stored in the other person for easy access. Just as we store information for them as well.

We never expect to need to know those things ourselves because we expect the other person to always be there.

There was a specific piece, or version, of me that was reserved just for when my brother and I were together. We had a special bond our whole lives.

In his data bank I stored all our inside jokes, movie quotes, random road trips, family history, all the techie/internet answers I needed, car maintenance advice, and much more. He was a fixer, a finder, ever-resourceful. I knew certain things were only one text away if I needed them.

When I got the call that his body was found at the bottom of the canyon, it felt like a very tangible part was cut out of me. Like there’s an empty/missing place inside now.

Pictures and memories and stories will soften the sting I know, but that void will always be there, this side of Heaven.

And that’s just the way it is when we live in close relationship with others. When we love. It’s hard and it hurts, but it’s the cost of this benefit of the human existence.

***

In the weeks following my brother’s death, I listened to C.S. Lewis’ book, A Grief Observed. It was the first book of Lewis’ I ever read, actually. So different than what I imagined from the famed theologian, the book is a collection of his journals following the death of his beloved wife, Joy, opened wide for the world to see.

His pain is visceral. The deepest, rawest places of his soul on display. There are times he questions his faith and shouts at God. C.S. Lewis! It was the most relatable thing I’ve ever read.

By that point, I already had a running notepad in my phone, to which I added bits and pieces every day about all I was thinking and feeling. My own version of a grief journal. It was the only thing I could do at the time, while being physically attached to a newborn breastfeeding for eight hours a day.

The only thing that kept me from going lit-rally insane in that season was the fact I could get words and sentences out of my own soul and onto “paper”. In his book, Lewis stated, “What we work out in our journals, we don’t take out on our loved ones.” I think I was doing both, but I imagine it could have been a lot worse if I’d kept everything inside!

The excerpt at the beginning of this post is from this journal of mine on March 10th, 2021.

Some things I wrote and shared in real time on social media, but most of it, I kept tucked away. Some of it will only ever be for my own eyes, but some of it, I just wasn’t ready to share yet. I have been waiting for the right time and place – and headspace – to bring these words to light.

Mostly I think I had to wait to tell the story without being angry. Well, only angry. Which I was, for the longest time.

White-hot rage was the prominent emotion I could pinpoint after my brother decided to ride his motorcycle off the Grand Canyon. It took me a solid 12 months – and therapy – before I ever got to sad.

I was:
Angry that he made another selfish decision, in a long list of them.
Enraged by the timing – three weeks after I gave birth to my first son, when I needed my parents the most, when I needed it to be all about me.
Incensed he tainted this time that is supposed to be sweet and pure and full of joy.
Irate he would put my parents through that.
Livid he stole years of cognition with my father from me, from us, from my son. I knew the mental toll it would take on both of my parents – particularly my father, who was already diagnosed with Alzheimers, but whose symptoms were mild.
Furious about the fact that I would never get to be the same again – I would be forever altered by his choice.
Seething over the mess he left behind I had to clean up. That he made me an only child. That he abandoned me to struggle with aging parents and Dad’s diagnosis alone.
And on and on.

Even when I did experience moments or days of sadness, it would be overshadowed by my anger that his choice was the reason I had to feel that way.

The rage became its own entity within me. I finally made space for therapy when I was afraid of that rage, of who I was with it churning inside me.

People thought they knew my brother, thought they knew the story. They did not. The “public” didn’t even know it was suicide. My family and I told people we knew, who we’re close with, in one-on-one conversations, but that was it. And I wanted to tell the whole, stark-naked truth of what he had done to us over a loudspeaker.

But about 18 months after John’s death, God whispered a Truth to my heart. It was after I had told one more person the whole story. The one that I’m beginning to unfold here. Her reaction was exactly what I wanted: shock, solidarity, anger alongside me. But the bitterness and burning rage in me didn’t regress for even a minute. If anything, it was prodded and stoked hotter.

And God gently said to me, “You can tell as many people as you want, but it’s not going to make you feel better. Or more free. Relieved from the pain or frustration. It’s not going to make you feel justified.” It was like a veil was removed in my mind and my emotions.

My therapist once asked me what it would take for me to stop being angry at my brother. I listed: “An apology, reconciliation, changed behavior…” She pointed out that even if my brother was alive, I may never have gotten those things. But, since he’s dead, I sure as shit wasn’t getting them now. So I had to figure something else out.

God reminded me of this prior conversation while He was speaking to me then.

That very same weekend in the Fall of 2022, I was sitting in a conference when the speaker stopped the event to pray over a person/persons in the crowd who needed to “let go of something”. Her prayer was vivid, visual: She said [once you decided to let go], it would feel like fresh Spring air. Like when you open the windows of your house on the first warm, Spring day and let the fresh air blow the stale scent of Winter away.

I had been sitting in my stale house of rage for 18 months, but that day I opened the windows and let God breathe something new inside me. I felt a shift. The anger didn’t magically get better or go away overnight, but I felt lighter. Freer. More hopeful. That I could and would feel different moving forward.

It’s been another 18 months. The anger still comes in waves at times. But the waves are few and far between, they aren’t as high or as violent, and they pass back out to sea quickly. Mostly, I just feel an aching longing when I think of my brother now. I wish he weren’t gone. And at last, I feel a release in being able to tell his story. Our story.

It’s true, I don’t ever get to be the same person I was before he chose to end his life, but the person I am now has a depth of knowledge, experience, compassion, and empathy that I can use for myself and others.

I have found immeasurable comfort in being able to write all of this down over the last three years, but my prayer is that I can share it without triggering any of that old bitterness and rage. And that I can tell it in a way that is helpful to others who are also walking through an earth-shattering encounter with grief, and not just as a continued therapeutic exercise for myself.

I hope you stick with me on this journey. But I understand if this content isn’t for you right now. You are loved, and I will still be here sharing all of the #RealTalk if you need me in the future.

***

This post is part 4 in a series that starts with: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/reads-like-fiction/

It’s Got to Be Like Planning a Party, Right?

Confetti, Hope and 3/16

My mom plopped down across from me in the nursery looking hurried and determined as she readied to leave my house. She and my Dad had stayed with us three of the four weeks since my son was born, but today they were rushing back home. It had been less than 12 hours since the phone call that changed our lives. They were trying to beat the news back to my Grandmother – my Memaw – so she could hear about the death of her only grandson from them instead of Channel 12.

They didn’t make it, by the way. The story broke before they could drive the three hours to their house in Southern Kentucky.

“I don’t want a funeral, I want a celebration of life,” She said, “And I want you to do it.”

“Oh! Ok.” I responded, not knowing what else to say, but certain I would do whatever she needed of me in that moment. I had never planned or preached a funeral before, but I had done plenty of public speaking and I reasoned, it’s got to be like planning a party, right? “I’ll figure it out.”

My sister-in-law, Susie, said I was in survival mode. The way I didn’t react at all and could just go about normal duties like my entire world hadn’t just been flipped upside down.

Turns out, it happens often after the loss of a loved one. A normal part of grief. Your mind isn’t able to process the traumatic event, so it shifts into hyper-efficiency as you plan details and arrangements, share the news with relatives, and go about your day-to-day. Once the flourish of activity ends, the numbing and coping mechanism stops and reality sets in. Most of the time.

“And, I want you to read his letter.” she added.

“Oh.” I looked pointedly at my mom, “Are we…….saying it out loud? His letter doesn’t leave much to the imagination, so we are telling everyone he did it on purpose?”

“I don’t have anything to hide.” Her clipped reply caught me off-guard, but filled me with a strange pride. This was not a normal response in my family. We have been hiding things on behalf of my brother for most of my life.

Her final request was that we play the hymn, I’ll Fly Away.

In the following days as I prepared, I prayed God would give me the right words to say and that I would be able to deliver them without my voice shaking on that day.

3.16.21

It would be two weeks before we received my brother’s ashes – there was some back and forth with evidence and autopsies and processing time, etc. Once they were ready, the crematorium in Arizona shipped them – like, FedEx, I’m not kidding – and they ended up getting delayed at a depot, missing the delivery window for the service.

My brother was literally late to his own funeral, which was on par for him. We made a joke of it that day.

His remains would be buried in a second-hand gravesite that had belonged to my Memaw’s family. The cemetery is only one lot over from her house. We walk over there once a year on Memorial Day to put flowers on my Great-Grandparents grave. (They didn’t serve in the military, it’s just tradition in those parts.) I grew up playing in that cemetery anytime we would visit my Memaw and Grandad, riding my bike or running laps around the circular drive. My Memaw already has her headstone fixed on her plot – even though she’s very much alive – and now my brother’s body would be tucked in the earth right beside hers.

My mom requested the event be small – immediate family, and John’s girlfriend, only. There was confetti and balloons, music and singing (I found the Etta James version of I’ll Fly Away), a little crying, and fake, press-on mustaches. (That’s a story for another day.)

The pastor from my parents’ church and I co-led the service. This was my message:

“My brother committed suicide” is not something I ever wanted to be a part of my story. Neither was getting divorced.

But what I’ve learned in the last decade and a half is that God can take the broken, unwanted parts of our story and use them anyway, if we let Him. For our good and His glory.

He even promised it right in His Word through the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans: He causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

I’ve learned if we share the vulnerable parts of our story out loud, we give other people who are hurting and broken permission to share theirs as well.

It makes them feel less alone.

So that’s what we’re doing today. We are saying the TRUTH out loud so that we can begin to process and heal together. And bringing the truth to light so it cannot stay hidden to fester in the dark.

It’s our secrets that keep us sick. And we want to be healthy and whole and free from the bondage of secrecy.

….

My husband recently pointed out that in just a couple weeks, it will be Sammy’s first Easter. But it will also be our first Easter without John.

I cried when he said that. I hadn’t thought of it yet. I am heartbroken and even angry that now these special moments of joy will be forever entwined with sorrow. Marred. Tainted.

Easter, or, “Resurrection Sunday”, as my brother would call it, has always been a big holiday for my family. We celebrate right here in Somerset every year.

It’s dripping in tradition for us.

We always buy new Easter outfits – most often complete with hats – and wear them to church. We sing hymns about the cross and the blood and Jesus’s triumphant resurrection. We take communion. We hunt eggs in the church yard afterward. We take pictures on Memaw’s back deck. We eat a big lunch and spend the day together, if not the whole weekend.

In recent years, we have played cards for hours, as that’s become our family’s most beloved pastime.

For half of my life, that’s all Easter was for me. A day of religious and familial tradition.

But the last decade or so, I have started studying and meditating on the meaning and significance of Easter and Holy Week.

Easter is earmarked by many themes and symbols: Love, Sacrifice, Blood, Redemption, Forgiveness, Grace, Victory, Freedom, Covenants, the Cross and the Crown, the Lamb and the Lion….

But for me, the strongest resounding theme of the whole holiday (at least this year) is: Hope.

Easter represents the Hope of the Promise for reunion.

After the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God vowed to make a Way to be reunited with His beloved creation, humans. He set a Plan in motion, a Plan that culminated thousands of years later with the Roman crucifixion of His Son on that old rugged cross.

That Friday, as the sun went dark, all of Israel, all of Jesus’s followers, and all of Heaven (except the Father himself) were hopeless.

If that’s where the story had ended, we too, would be hopeless. Our bodies would die and that would also be our end.

But we all know that three days later, Jesus walked out of Hell and out of His grave, and God’s Plan was completed. His Promise was fulfilled.

And because we have accepted that promise as our own, we now live with the Hope of life after death. And an eternity of union and fellowship with our Father.

And because we know John was also in on that Promise, we get to live with the Hope of being reunited with him again one day as well.

So today, we are celebrating the time we had with him here and the Promise of an eternity of laughter and joy and adventure with him there.

We can rejoice, like John’s letter asked us to.

Miraculously, my voice didn’t quiver one time.

Afterward, we walked back to my Memaw’s house and had lunch on the back deck. We ate fried chicken and lingered in the warmth of the sun and family.

The next week I journaled,

On March 16^th, 2021, we celebrated my brother’s life. The 40 years, 6 months, and 10 days we had with him here on earth.

We celebrated the fact that we know where he is, and that we will get to see him again one day.

The day was perfect and beautiful and Holy in a way that only God could orchestrate. (71 and sunny in mid-March!)

Only after-the-fact did my cousin Kara point out that the celebration was on 3.16.

The 16th verse in the third chapter of the book of {JOHN} is one of the most well-known and well-quoted Bible verses in history. It is the first that most children are taught to memorize in Sunday School. You can probably call it to mind and rattle it off right now without much thought.

It’s the core of the Christian belief system and THE reason we will be reunited with my brother in Heaven.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Amen. Selah.

See you when we get there, brother.

***

This post is part 3 in a series that starts with: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/reads-like-fiction/

The Call

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021

It was just after 9pm when the call came. I was in the rocking chair in the nursery, breastfeeding my son. My husband, who had been fielding all of the phone calls for the last week – from investigators, and search parties, and the news reporters – was presently on a flight to Arizona, to join the search for my missing brother.

“Mrs. Neuberger?”

“Yes, this is her,” I answered in a low voice, not wanting to involve my newborn in what was likely to be a life-altering conversation.

She chose her next words carefully and delivered them with a clinical degree of care, “We located John below the rim. He was deceased.” I didn’t respond right away. “I’m sorry.” She added.

“Thank you,” I replied, and then, “I’m sorry you have to make these phone calls.”

“Thank you.” She said with an exhale that demonstrated the exhaustion of it in her bones.

She described the location. Exactly where my husband had predicted, and where he was planning to search first. She told me he fell 464 feet.

“His death would have been instant.”

I asked the only question that mattered to me at the time, “Can I ask, did it look…intentional?”

“Without video footage, there’s no way to know for certain. But,” She continued tentatively, “Based on the location of his body and bike in the canyon, that’s the way it appears.”

We were both silent for a while.

“What happens now?” I asked.

She explained all the next steps for his “remains”. It was jarring to hear my brother being referred to by that word, but that’s all that was left of him, I supposed.

In a haze, I ended the call, placed my baby back in his crib and robotically made my way downstairs. I called my sister (my brother’s ex-wife) and told her I needed her to come over.

I was numb.

It was nearly 10pm. I needed to eat dinner so I would have enough nourishment to pump five more ounces of milk to give my baby in another hour. And, sometime before that, I had to wake my parents and tell them their son was dead.

My brother was missing for one week – from the time of his last social media post to the time the Park Rangers recovered his body – it was a week like no other in my life.

I can’t begin to explain what life is like when a loved one is missing. Everything is suspended in mid-air, but reality goes on around you. You hold your breath. Every text, every message, every phone call could be the one.

Every opening door you expect them to walk through. You can think of virtually nothing else. Your mind reels with what if’s and possibilities. You become a real-life private investigator, trying to piece together clues and information. You go crazy looking for them, for answers, anywhere, everywhere.

It’s still surreal even now.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to go months or years or forever with a loved one still unaccounted for.

Toward the end of that week, my mother was sick with the thoughts of my brother’s body being out there somewhere alone. Broken. Abandoned Among the wild animals. She broke down in tears and in a desperate, guttural plea cried out to my husband, “Just go get him…Please!”

Seeing her so utterly fragmented was harder than my own grief.

The hardest part for me of that week is the fact he was dead for four days before I even knew he was missing. My heart aches at that detail. Somehow it feels like my fault.

Two days before the call, the first thought I had upon waking was, My brother is not alive anymore. I just knew it, in my bones. As plainly as I knew my own name.

Hours later, I’ll never see my brother again, rolled through my head with a fresh, and different, layer of grief. The two sentences carry the same truth but are two distinct losses.

It would be a full year before I would write out a full inventory of my losses from his death.

On the day of the call, I wrote in my journal:

This phone call was just a confirmation of what I already knew. I know more layers of grief will come. In waves over the next few days, months, years…For the rest of life on this side of Heaven.

When you experience such a profound loss, every part of you just wants to shut down. Stop eating, stop getting out of bed, stop caring. But, having a newborn at the time, none of that was an option for me.

I ended that journal entry:

But for now, life goes on. My baby still has to eat. I still have to feed by body for him.

And I’ve been putting one foot in front of the other ever since.

***

This post is part 2 in a series that starts with: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/reads-like-fiction/

Reads Like Fiction

February 27th, 2021

It was an unseasonably warm Saturday for late February in Ohio. So warm, in fact, that we opened the windows, letting the fresh air blow through my house. An oasis in the dead of winter.

My husband and I were sitting at our kitchen table playing cards with my parents, feeling like actual human beings considering it was the first time we’d been able to do anything besides eat or sleep since the day my water burst and a newborn was thrust into our world. We were new parents drowning in all the wonderful, exhausting chaos that comes with the role. Our son was napping in the living room just behind me. Finally sleeping peacefully enough we could resurface and see a glimpse of our “normal” life again.

I checked my phone between hands of Canasta to see if I had a response from my brother. I had forgotten about the strange email I received from him that morning until that instant. No reply.

Hours earlier, while bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, I stumbled into my home office and sat at my desk. I attached the pump parts to my body that would prepare my son’s mid-morning bottle of breastmilk and opened the lid of my laptop. The most recent email in my inbox was from my brother.

“Good Morning!” Chirped the subject line cheerily. I briefly wondered why he was emailing instead of texting.

I started reading but I couldn’t make sense of it.

Well hey there my precious people!! 👪👵👨 👩
Random right!?! 
This can't be real!! 😲
-Oh, it's as real as you and me my friend. 😉
Please don't cry 😭. REJOICE, REJOICE and I again I say REJOICE!! 
🎉 🎊

Now, just so you're not Totally confused...Noo, no ... you're not 
receiving an email from heaven ... although that's where I now call 
home 👑

Heaven? What?! My brother had been traveling out west earlier in the week, but was back home and in bed at his girlfriend’s house ten minutes from mine, as far as I knew.

The note continued and only got more bizarre:

How could I message you after I'm gone? Ya know, that whole Back to 
the Future thing where the postman found Doc in 1955 and gave him a 
letter from 1985? Unfortunately we can't rely on USPS 📭 like that 
these days, so thanks to email "timed delivery" 📧⏰ I've been 
working on this for years.

Any time I was flying on a plane, or some other "risky" adventure 
I would set this email to be delivered a few days later. Of course 
I have to account for the time it takes for you to be notified of 
my home-going to begin with... before receiving this email.

Of course he did, I thought.

The next paragraph mentioned going skydiving in Phoenix – which I knew about, he had posted the video on social media a few days earlier – and explained that he planned to skydive again the following day at the Grand Canyon.

Wait…Was this email saying that my brother died while skydiving? No, that can’t be right… that would have been three days ago, we hadn’t been notified of any accident.

I jumped to the most logical conclusion: he had forgotten to rescind the ridiculously grandiose contingency plan after his trip. I shot him a quick text, “Hey jackass, recall that email you sent before my parents see it and freak out.”

Now it was four hours later and I still had no reply. Which was odd for my constantly-attached-to-his-cell-phone brother.

Before picking my cards back up, I messaged his girlfriend, “Hey! I got a weird email from John…. Are you with him?”

Within a few minutes, my phone rang. Her name was on the caller ID. Oh boy, I thought, What has he gotten himself into now? I slipped out of the room to take the call. My parents didn’t need to know the drama if they didn’t have to.

I assumed my brother was in jail – again – or some other ridiculous predicament. And that’s why his bizarre auto-timed email had been delivered to my inbox.

“I’m not with John. I’m actually out of town and I also got a strange email from him this morning,” She said, “I haven’t heard from him since Tuesday.”

My stomach sank. My mind jumped to the worst case, but there were so many other possible scenarios, I pushed it aside.

Either way, my brother was missing, and had been for four days.

The next details unfolded rapidly.

His girlfriend told me that after receiving his email that morning and not being able to reach him, she had already contacted the Skydiving company at the Grand Canyon. He never even had a reservation, much less a fatal accident.

Next, she contacted the Grand Canyon Park Rangers and the Phoenix Police Department. They were reaching out to other local authorities, hospitals, morgues, police stations, etc. and would keep her updated.

It was like listening to a TV drama script, except these were words in my actual life.

We compared notes from our emails and dissected each sentence. “My guess would be jail over death,” I told his girlfriend, “He probably got pulled over somewhere between Phoenix and the canyon driving without a valid driver’s license. It wouldn’t be the first time. His phone is probably sealed in a personal effects bag and that’s why he didn’t cancel the email.”

I couldn’t stop the next stream of words that passed through my lips, “I’m usually the one he calls to get bailed out though, so I’m surprised I haven’t heard from him…

…He could have been in a car accident and is unconscious in some random hospital in the middle of no where. There are so many possibilities… You let me know if you hear from him, or the authorities and I will do the same.”

I walked back in my kitchen and resumed the card game, feigning nonchalance.

“What did John do now?” My mom asked. Ain’t nothing gets past that lady.

Within 24 hours of contacting the authorities, it was confirmed that my brother had arrived at the Grand Canyon but no one knew if he was still inside the National Park or not. There were cameras at the entrance showing that he pulled in with his motorcycle strapped to the back of his SUV, and they found his SUV in a parking lot, but the bike was missing.

Unfortunately, there are no cameras on the exit, so, for all we knew he was presently riding cross-country on his motorcycle, just to say he had, and would pull in our driveway any minute with a crazy story and a busted phone. Every time I heard a motorcycle engine growling thru our neighborhood my heart would leap with expectancy.

Or, maybe he had tried trail riding in the canyon and wrecked or had gotten stuck somewhere. It was Winter there too, after all. They could have had snow that week. Both cases plausible.

By the end of that day, my brother was a National Missing Person.

My husband and I were pulling into one of our favorite dinner spots on Sunday when my phone started blowing up. It was our first night out since the birth of our son. My mom had insisted we go on a date and took over at home. Even though we still didn’t know the whereabouts of my brother, we went out anyway. I felt a little guilty, but we needed it so badly.

The news had gone live. Dozens of people were messaging me with links to news articles about the missing person. “Is this our John Pennington?” “This has to be a mistake.” “What’s going on?” “Is he ok?” “Is this your brother?” It was so overwhelming I couldn’t even respond. We didn’t have all the details ourselves, what was I supposed to say? And this surely would turn out to be some idiotic mistake or scandal my brother got himself into.

John’s Girlfriend and I talked on the phone a few times each day trading information back and forth. My husband took over communication with the various law forces.

The Grand Canyon National Park Rangers were out searching the canyon on foot and would be sending out the helicopter on Monday.

But for now, all we could do was wait.

Sabbatical

About 18 months ago, I was in a meeting with a client in Miami when the woman I was meeting with pulled a second person in the room. She announced she was leaving the company in two weeks, and this was her replacement. This was not entirely uncommon, but what happened next was.

I asked her what she was going to do, “Are you staying in the industry?”

“No,” she said, “I’m going back home (some country in South America) to take a sabbatical. I’m going to spend time with family and take time to figure out what I want to do.”

I started crying. Right there, in the middle of her office.

Her words were like a salve to my soul. That was exactly what I wanted. The only problem was, there’s no such thing as sabbaticals in Corporate America. You can’t just take months off of work to figure out what you want to do with your life. There are bills to pay and adult responsibilities to fulfill.

But this woman’s plan was like a refreshing oasis in the middle of my desert wilderness of exhaustion. I couldn’t stop thinking about her words, or the peaceful calm on her face when she said them.

I cried because I wanted to be that brave. I wanted to give myself that kind of time and space for my soul to breathe and my head to think clearly again. I wanted a sabbatical too. But that wasn’t realistic for me at the time.

There’s a song on the radio right now with the lyrics,

He makes a way where there ain’t no way,

let me tell you ‘bout my Jesus.

Ready?

Monday morning, May 2nd, 2022, I was a nervous wreck. The weekend prior, my husband and I had decided I would ask my company for some time off and a new position when I returned. With a knotted stomach and sweaty hands, I emailed my boss to ask if he had time for a call.

Once we connected, I told him everything that I had been wrestling with the last eight months. All my indecision, doubt, fears, uncertainty about what God was asking me to do. Travel or stay home? Work part time or full-time? Or, should I leave the workforce all together and “just” be a mom? What if I did that and hated it? How would I come back?

My company had already been SO gracious to me after my brother’s death, which happened in the middle of my maternity leave. They had given me additional time off for bereavement, and then more time again once I had been back to work a few months, when I was overwhelmed getting everything in order with my brother’s possessions and estate. And now I was asking for even more.

I couldn’t even verbalize what I needed because my head was so overloaded and scrambled I didn’t even know myself! I just knew SOMETHING had to give.

“Look,” I said, “I know there’s no such thing as sabbaticals in corporate America, but that’s what I’m asking for. I want a significant chunk of time off – like three months – so I can even have the time and space to breathe and think a clear thought about what my next steps should be. Basically, I want to take the Summer off.”

My boss said many empathetic and reassuring things to me that day. He was an absolute gem about the whole thing – a part I attribute to God. But the last words he said to me were, “As far as I know, we don’t have a sabbatical program (how he said that without laughing I’ll never know), what I imagine will happen is you will be separated on good terms and can come back anytime you’re ready, but hey, check with HR, they have more knowledge about what we can and can’t do than I do.”

My next phone call was to HR. I relayed the whole scenario and conversation with my boss. And when I was done, I kid you not, that woman opened her mouth and said, “Actually, we do have an administrative leave program. It’s kind of like a medical leave of absence, except with that you need a doctor’s note, with this, you just need your managers to sign off, which it sounds like they already have. And it lasts up to 12 weeks.”

Twelve weeks. Three months.

I was getting my sabbatical. I was going to get to take the Summer off to spend with my son and hear from God.

What. In. the. Actual. Was. Happening?

Sparing all the side-stories and details, suffice it to say, God’s provision went so far over and above what I could even imagine during this time. It was one blessing after another. More and more and more abundant overflow of His goodness than I would have ever asked for.

It was honestly bananas.

The one story I want to tell you about is this: The week that I called my boss – the VERY week – my husband got a phone call from a prospective client to do his largest project to date. If he won the job, it would net as much as his entire previous year’s income combined. And then, he got another call like that. And another. Three calls, in one week. Each would individually exceed the last year’s income. He ended up winning two of the three projects.

It’s been a year now, and the calls haven’t stopped coming.

What I didn’t know when I worked my last day on Friday, June 3rd, was that I wouldn’t go back to work at all.

My Summer never ended.

On Death, Loss and Resurrection

Easter looked different for us this year.

I hesitated to even post this picture because it is so shockingly deceiving.

What you see is the smiling faces that have posed on this same back deck for the last 20+ years.

What you don’t see is the pain, the heaviness, and the deep, deep grief that is carried behind each of those smiles.

At first glance, you might notice my brother is missing. Not uncommon, as there were years in the past he was “too busy” to come to Easter. But, my brother died two years ago, so, of course, he will never be in another Easter photo again. That’s an image I’ve already come to grips with.

What you can’t see through the pixels on this screen is that my Father is also missing.

He is there – physically present – with the same, iconic smile he’s worn his entire life, but my Daddy – his unique personality and identity – left us, realistically, last Fall.

Six, or so, years ago he was diagnosed with some form of Dementia. His mother died from Alzheimers in her 80’s, and his older brother is nearing the end of his battle with the horrid disease presently.

My dad’s progression has been slow. So slow that if you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t even have known anything was off. A missed word here or there, a little fogginess on details… Until last Summer.

Within weeks of one another, two events back-to-back effectively stole my father from us.

First, he fell at our house and broke his foot. A minor break that only required wearing a boot for six weeks. And, simultaneously, his doctor told my mother that he could stop taking one of his memory medications as it had “been as effective as it could” to that point.

Within two weeks of those two events, it was like a light switch was turned off in my Father’s brain.

Daylight and dark.

One day he was there and the next he was not.

He went from being able to keep up well enough in a game of Canasta (a strategy-based card game we played as a family) to not being able to dress or groom himself in the correct manner.

He hasn’t shaved in months. And his body looks weak and emaciated. He is unsteady when he walks or sits and rises.

It happens all the time. A common earmark of dementia is fall-injury-decline. The way I understand it, the person’s body diverts all of its energy and resources to the site of the new injury/trauma that it has nothing left to support the preexisting, chronic cognitive trauma. So a significant regression occurs.

I haven’t posted anything on social media about my Father’s diagnosis because, until this Fall, he was still; regularly checking his own Facebook account. And, we are none of us, certain how aware or unaware my father is about his disease and progression. I didn’t want him reading something about himself he may not have even realized yet.

In October, my mom told me my dad was talking in his sleep. She heard him say, “I wonder what I’ll be like six months from now.” It was the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard. But, it let’s me know that he’s aware on some level, some of the time.

And also, I have felt almost like not saying it out loud might keep it from being real. Or permanent.

But at this point, my father can’t even use a TV remote without my mother’s assistance.

And as much as I want to pretend this image is the same as all the others we’ve snapped, I also don’t want to be living in – or portraying – a false reality.

Following the second anniversary of my brother’s death in February. I called my mom and told her I was having a strong need for familial/holiday traditions. Things will never look the same again, because a literal quarter of our family is missing, but I am needing to establish new rhythms and traditions for my son and my own healing.

Because of that, on Easter morning, we got up and went to my parents’ small country church – alone. I have never once in my life attended church on Easter without my parents.

They haven’t been able to attend for months due to my father’s physical limitations. My heart breaks over this, as their church was always their strongest form of community and identity.

I read their names in the bulletin on the prayer list under “shut ins”, and felt like I was being punched in the gut. Men “Amen’d” when the Hymns ended, and my eyes stung with tears at the absence of my father’s voice in that chorus.

Samson got to hunt eggs after the service, and we took some sweet family photos in our color-coordinated outfits. Which was one of the parts I needed most, as trivial as that is.

And when we got home, my mom had my dad all dressed up and groomed. The first time I’d seen him that way in months. All so we could snap this photograph. And because that’s what I needed.

Because grief is hard. And we are all drowning in it together. And just trying to hold on to each other in the waves as best we can.

We visited my brother’s grave Sunday afternoon and planted some Easter lilies there. It was the flower my brother brought to my mother every year on the holiday.

My brother’s funeral was two weeks before Easter in 2021. At it, I preached a message on Resurrection and the promise we have to be reunited with my brother again one day. It seems bitterly unfair that just two years later we are grappling with another loss as monumental to our family, but the promise is still the same.

The hard part, of course, is the living without them between now and then.

******

Footnote: I know this blog post is so very different than what you are used to reading here. And maybe not what you signed up for. Me either. Be aware, as I move forward through my grief journey, I will be posting more about it here. If that’s not what you want or need in your inbox right now, I totally understand, and will not be offended if we break up.

I want you to know you are still loved, you are never alone, and your – and my – story is so far from over. You keep telling yours and I’ll be here telling mine.

I Never Wanted to Be A Mommy Blogger

This time last year, I went to bed about 9pm on a Wednesday just like any other night. Save for the fact I was VERY pregnant – 38 ½ weeks.

Around 1am, I woke up to the sound of a pop and the sensation of a gush – my water broke.

Twenty hours later, I went from wife-and-woman-only to: mama.
When it was over, I cried, but only because it was the most grueling two hours [of active labor] of my life and we both survived.

I never wanted to go through labor and delivery. In my naivete, I always told people if I ever had a baby, I would schedule a c-section to avoid it. In fact, I never really even wanted to be pregnant. I begrudged the whole process most of the nine months.

Children were a theory, of something, sometime, in the future. And mostly, I planned on adopting them. My son, Samson, was a total surprise.

But now I understand why women do this physically-illogical thing over and over to themselves. Which was always the most baffling part to me.

Those nine months of my life, and the 20 hours of labor, are such small slivers of time in the grand scheme of the 37 years of my life so far.

While yes, the first three months I was only nauseous, and last three months I was ONLY tired and uncomfortable. And while I can vividly remember how utterly depleted my tiny body was after pushing “just one more push” for 45 straight minutes…
… all of that pales in comparison to the fact that I’ve now had a whole year with this tiny human I call my own son.

Don’t get me wrong, at first, it was totally awkward and strange.
I remember sitting in the NICU, looking down at this stranger-baby against my chest and feeling disconnected. All I sensed was a mere protective obligation for this small creature now solely in my (and my husband’s) care.

It took almost three months at home with him before I felt any sort of attachment or bond. Not until he started becoming something other than a blob that only demanded more than I wanted to give, at all hours of the day.

But now, every day, I get to know him better. Every day, more of “him” emerges. And every day, I fall more and more helplessly in love with who he is.

I am wholly, entirely smitten.

The sound of his voice, his laugh, the smell of his skin, the sweetness of this touch, the look in his eyes when he looks at me – when I can tell he is just as enamored with me.

I fall recklessly, head-over-heels, irrevocably in love.

When I started to understand, I described loving him with pieces of me I didn’t know existed. It was so weird finding this new capacity in my heart, when I thought it was already so full. I couldn’t imagine it containing anything more, but it was overflowing to the point it felt like it would literally burst!

I have heard all of these sentiments from other mamas before me. So much so that it’s almost trite. But it doesn’t make all of it any less true.

Being a mother is the most exhausting thing I’ve ever experienced. Just making it through a single day, he takes every ounce of energy and bandwidth and love I have to give. Then, the minute I put him in his crib and walk out of his room, I miss him. I want to go wake him up so I can spend more time with him.

This love is reckless because I already know he’s not mine forever. He never was. He’s merely on loan to me. Entrusted to me to steward and shepherd, for a time. And then let go. To turn him back over to God and the world as he ventures out on his own. To walk out his own path and purpose. To find another woman to love, if he chooses to.

I am already praying over her. Whoever that little girl may be. Who may one day come and steal my little boy’s heart. Who will join him and walk alongside him in all that God has for him to do on this earth. I pray she will love him well.

But for now, he’s my little love alone.

My whole life has flipped upside down in the last 12 months, and I am still trying to wrap my head around it all. I can’t believe a year has already passed since I met him. And one thing I know is that the time I do have with him will never feel like long enough.

So yesterday, I savored the last day of his 11th month, and today I am basking in the first day of his 12th. And I will fall more in love.

Nov 4th, 2016

Three years ago on this day, I sat on my living room couch in my snack-stained bathrobe and messy bedhead bun – on what should have been one of the happiest days of my life – only feeling confused and disappointed.

I remember thinking, this is not at all what I imagined this would be like. I thought I would feel…..different. I thought I would feel something at least.

Anything but the way I did.

It was launch day for my first book, Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them. This was the culmination of a six-year journey. The achievement of a dream I had held in my heart since the third grade. The pinnacle moment for the project I had poured every bit of myself into for the last four years.

And I felt nothing.

The night before, I had been up late waiting to push “publish” on the Amazon CreateSpace platform that would send my words to every corner of the globe with an internet connection.

As the second hand tipped over the minute line and the clock struck midnight, I pushed that button with great expectation – as if my whole world would magically transform in an instant. When a confirmation page loaded on the browser I thought, well that was anticlimactic.

I walked around in a daze that Friday.

My book launch party was still a week away; there was still plenty to do, so I threw myself into the last-minute details of that and convinced myself that on that day – surrounded by my closest friends and family, toasting lattes to my accomplishment – I would finally feel that mountaintop moment of arrival I was expecting.

But November 11^th came and went, and while I relished every moment of celebrating the milestone, surrounded by my biggest cheerleaders, nothing changed on the inside of me.

In fact, I plummeted so fast and so far south on my emotional rollercoaster, I felt more disenchantment than elation. Disillusionment than excitement.

I checked the sales report every morning for weeks – expecting to see numbers in the thousands. When it barely tipped over 60 copies in the first month, I was in a full-on depression.

What was happening?

If God really called me to write this book, and He opened all the doors for me to put it out in the world like He did, wouldn’t He also cause it to fly off the shelves?Wouldn’t He want as many copies in the hands of as many people as possible? Wouldn’t He want to make it a best-seller?

Did I hear Him wrong? Is this my fault? What’s wrong with me?

Then came the shame. Mountains and oceans of shame.

Shouldn’t Jesus be enough?

I mean, sure, those “lost” people out in the world deal with feeling unfulfilled, but not Christians, right?

I mean, I literally learned this lesson in junior high youth group: Every human on earth is walking around with a Jesus-sized hole inside them. Most people go around trying to fill it up with relationships, or sex, or drugs and alcohol. But once you “get saved” and “have Jesus”, all that goes away.

…Then why did I still have a hole?

What I have learned in the last three years is that achievement is empty. Achievement alone.

Even if it is the achievement of something good.

Even if it is something God called you to.

Even if it is in ministry.

Even if your heart is pure.

And no body prepared me for this.

No one ever told me that people inside the church – even inside ministry – can still feel emptiness in their souls.

I had enough foresight to see that if accomplishing the number one goal in my life made me feel this hollow, than any other goal I set from here would only result in the same cavernous hole. And I needed to do something about it.

So I set out on a journey. To wrestle with God about the ideas of success and accomplishment I held so deeply. To seek to understand the balance between expectation and contentment. Striving and satisfaction.

And it’s been great!

And scary. And fulfilling. And challenging. And burden-lifting. And freeing. And seemingly never-ending.

But, I’m starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m starting to grasp some firm answers and see through the fogginess to clarity.

It’s time to start talking about it. I’m excited to begin sharing this journey with you.

If you’ve ever been disappointed by a dream come true, I hope you’ll come along with me.

Dear 21 Year Old Self…

060107 129 Twelve years ago – on this very day (as Shutterfly so aptly reminded me) – I was saying “I do” for the first time in my life.

I was young, naïve, blissfully ignorant…. And so, so, so misinformed.

I meant the words I said with all of my 21-year-old heart, but I was ill-equipped to fulfill them.

I was short-tempered, self-righteous, and lacked any understanding of the word Grace whatsoever.

The bigger problem was my mountain of unrealistic expectations. I was expecting marriage to fulfill me. My husband to complete me. And thought we would live happily-ever-after day-after-day.

I read recently that, “Expectations are disappointments waiting to happen.”

I did not hide my disappointment in my first husband.

Soon, disappointment led to disenchantment. Then to disdain and disgust. Which eventually led to the most gut-wrenching D-word of all: Divorce. And that led to months and years of darkness and depression. 20190607_210309

But tonight, 12 years later, I’m sitting on my deck watching the sunset, listening to my husband chipping golfballs in our backyard. My life has been totally redeemed.

If I could go back and talk to the girl in this photo, I would explain that marriage is not so much about who you are married to, but how you are in the marriage.

This marriage is honestly not terribly different than the last.

My husband still does things that annoy me, sometimes forgets things, or breaks a promise… we disagree, argue and sometimes even shout at each other.

My marriage is imperfect. My husband is imperfect.

Unfortunately, it took my entire life falling apart to realize that so am I.

But the breaking of me made way for the best of me in its place.

A friend recently asked me if I knew what I knew now, could I have made my first marriage work? My answer was yes, but, I wouldn’t know what I know now had I not gone through my first marriage failing.

I had to be humbled. Today, I am patient and kind (on my good days!), but most of all, I am full of grace.

I know the last time my husband and I argued, will not be the last time we argue. I know the last time he broke a promise, will not be the last time he breaks a promise. Or the last time he hurt me will be the last time he hurts me.

But I have done those things too. And I will do them again. At times, I take him for granted, and often don’t speak to him in a polite tone.

I have a limitless supply of grace for him and he does for me.

I would tell the young girl in the white dress that grace – not love, as we were sold – is the most important part of making a marriage work.

There is an indescribable peace that comes with knowing that despite your imperfections – even at your ugliest, even when you don’t deserve it – the other person is never giving up on you.

This is exactly how Jesus love us.

And giving that peace to another human being is what walking out a lifetime of real love looks like.