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/

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.

My Old Kentucky Home

ridges2 (Originally published in the Grant County News Oct 13th, 2016)

Sherman Mt Zion Road. That’s where the Pennington’s live. All of them. Well, we used to.

My father, Donald Pennington, has 6 brothers and sisters, and I remember a time in my life when every single one of them and their families lived on our road.

We lived in the white brick house on the curve from the time I was born till the time I graduated high school and moved to Cincinnati. My parents sold the white brick house that Fall of 2003. They moved exactly one quarter mile down the road to the old red brick farmhouse that was my Father’s childhood home.

My mom started a greenhouse and then partnering with two other siblings, they started Country Pumpkins, a pumpkin patch and fall festival on the old farm. Practically the whole family is involved. After a few years, my mom was ready to retire, and wanted to be closer to her own aging mother in Somerset. So they sold the old farmhouse and moved south and Country Pumpkins relocated to my aunt and uncle’s dairy farm down the road.

Other siblings have moved away now as well, and us kids have moved north to Cincinnati or south to Georgetown or Lexington and have families of our own. But there was a time when we all lived in the same place, on Sherman Mt Zion Road, in Dry Ridge, Kentucky.

I remember running through backyards to play baseball with my cousins and skipping rocks in the creek behind Mamaw Lucy’s, we spent Summers splashing in the pool at my house, we would fish in the ponds down on the ridge, and climb trees and barn lofts anywhere we found them. There were a lot of us – so you always had someone to play with. We worked on the farm when the tobacco harvest came, or early in the season when it was time to plant. We worked together, we played together, we all went to church together, we ate together. The older I get, the more I realize how unique and special a childhood I had in that small town, on that country road.

In high school, all I could think about was getting out of that town and into the big city.

I used to go back and visit a lot to see my parents. But since they moved to Cumberland four years ago, our visits have become fewer and fewer, till they are almost none.

Just this past weekend, we drove south those 60 miles on I75 and pulled onto that road. We were headed for an Autumn excursion at Country Pumpkins. (Mainly, I was just looking for new, seasonally-appropriate profile pictures.) But as we drove down that road, I found myself pointing things out to my husband, things I’m sure I’ve told him about a hundred other times. Every turn held a myriad of old memories.

As the sun started to set, I stood next to that old white barn on my parent’s farm and looked over the valley of wildflowers to the next ridge freshly trimmed and bailed. I could see more ridges in the distance with various crops on them and the whole scene was awe-inspiring.

I had forgotten the beauty of this place, or maybe I couldn’t even see it before, because it was so familiar. But now, it was like I was seeing it for the first time and it was breathtaking.

I thought to myself, how could you look upon landscapes like this and ever doubt there is a Creator?

I didn’t realize how much I missed the peace and the calm until I was standing there soaking it all in again.

It’s amazing how different a world exists just an hour away. A place where my life is hurried and scheduled and jam-packed with work and commitments. And here, everything right down to the wildflowers are settled and relaxed, with a peaceful assurance that everything is just as it should be.

The wildflowers essentially rival the hundreds of dollars-worth of perfectly manicured landscaping I pay for at my house in the suburbs. They, like I, are trying so hard to achieve what these field weeds just are. Living comfortably in their purpose. Existing to please those around them and most importantly, their Creator.

No striving, or straining, or stressing. Just being.

I am learning the incorporate rhythms of rest into my hectic life right now. In the midst of working full time, while launching a blog, a book, a public speaking career and a ministry all in a year’s time, rest is not a luxury I feel like I have time for.

Home is always the best place to rest. When my parents moved away, I told my husband I felt like I no longer had a place to “go home” to. But this weekend I realized home was never a house, it’s these fields and these hills and this family on this road, this place is still home.

I don’t know if I will ever live on Sherman Mt Zion Road again myself, but it sure makes for a refreshing place to visit and rest and feel at home. And I feel like we will be doing that a lot more often.

I Can’t Stand the Way He Loads the Dishwasher

I heard an all-too-familiar story this week about a newlywed couple I know having the same kind of toxic, merry-go-round fights that were a constant, continual pattern in my life at one point.

Young wives, can I share with you the two best pieces of wisdom I learned after failing miserably at my first marriage?

First: Choose. your. battles.

I know as you blissfully walked down the aisle on your wedding day you could never imagine your Prince Charming ever doing anything that would cause you to want to fight with him, but let me tell you a truth: at some point, he’s going to.

Even if you lived together prior, there’s just something about after it’s official, sharing all finances and responsibilities, and the pressure of life that eventually snaps you out of the dreamlike daze of your dating and honeymoon into reality.

Every day you will see and learn new things about each other that you didn’t notice before (no matter how long you dated) and you won’t like some of them.

You May Have To(3) Obviously, you can’t fight about everything, every day. That gets exhausting for both of you and it wears at the emotional connection/closeness you have. Making it harder for you to enjoy the good times/days you do have together.

But you can choose your battles.

Can I tell you a secret?
I can’t stand the way Barry loads the dish washer.

But, he does do the dishes (almost) every day, and I appreciate that. Me correcting, criticizing or complaining to him for the way he positions the bowls or which end up he puts the silverware will only cause him to lash out, or shut down, or both.

Have you experienced this? The, “Fine, then you do it yourself!”

If you lean toward perfectionism like me you think, “Well, the only way it will get done right is if I do it myself anyway, so I might as well just do it.”

But when I took this approach in my first marriage, it only led to burnout and bitterness over time. I felt overwhelmed and that he was never helping out around the house at all. Working full-time, and running another business on the side, I couldn’t possible handle everything myself.

Sweet friend, does it really matter how the dishes get done (as long as they get clean)?
Or which way the toilet paper roll is facing? Or how the towels get folded? Or how his shirts are hung? Or that he left his socks/shoes/coat/shirt/whatever article of clothing in the middle of the living room again? No. None of that really matters.

A good litmus test for things that really matter is to ask yourself, “Is this going to matter in 5 years?” If the answer is no, then it doesn’t matter now. Let it go.

But fighting, criticizing and complaining about everything now, can and will absolutely effect what the atmosphere of your relationship and your home is like in 5 years.
Please trust me, it is so not worth it in the long run.

The sweetest reminder I ever had of this lesson was a dear friend of mine talking about her late husband. She said she remembered all the times she used to nag him and complain every time he left his socks out somewhere around the house and she had to pick them up. Now that he was gone, she would look around her empty house and wish she still had socks to pick up. That he was still there to leave socks around.
“What a silly thing to complain about,” she told us in reflection.

be selective in your battles After learning this the hard way in my first marriage, there are countless, needless arguments I have prevented in my marriage with Barry. Even if he has criticized me about something that doesn’t matter or said something I interpreted as hurtful, I have learned not to react because I know it will only start a fight.

And our home is much more peaceful and stress-free because I learned this practice.

Am I perfect at this? Ha! HARDLY! There are still times I find myself in the middle is rattling off about something he did (or didn’t do) before I catch myself and realize, why did I even start this?

And sometimes I sneak into the kitchen and rearrange some things to fit more in the dishwasher before pressing start! 😉 (shhh, don’t tell him.)

The second lesson I learned is: There’s a time and a place for everything.

Given all I just said, there are certainly things in your marriage that require you to speak up: how the finances are being handled, how children are being parented, how work around the house is being distributed, how and how much time is being spent outside the home, etc.

Listen to me closely: how and when you bring these things up is WAY more important than the issue itself. Bringing things up at the wrong time and/or in the wrong tone, can cause the exact same reaction as fighting too much or about things that don’t matter.

And by the time you’re shouting insults at each other, your husband has not only not gotten your point, the same behavior or issue will likely continue.

If you’re husband is tired, or grumpy, or stressed, just wait a little bit. (I know this is not easy because as women when we are stewing about something, we want to get it out and handled right then and there!) But I promise, the message will be much better received and effective if you wait until he is in a more favorable and relaxed mood.

Sometimes that may even mean waiting until tomorrow. :-S
I know you’ve been told never to go to bed angry, but unless you want to go to bed even more angry, and after a fight, take my advice and give it a little time.

You May Have To If Barry says something to me that’s hurtful, I try not to react in that moment, taking the bait to start an argument. But if it’s still bothering me a day or two later and we’re in a good place, I might say, “Hey, the other night you said this to me and that hurt. That’s something I’m self conscious about….”

Most of the time he doesn’t realize he said it, or he didn’t mean it the way I took it, or, if he did, he didn’t realize the way it effected me. He apologizes and makes a cognizant effort not to say that again. (And I do the same for him when he mentions something to me).

But if my first husband ever said something to me I interpreted as hurtful, I immediately retorted back with a flaw or downfall of his, to make myself feel better in the moment. Except all that tactic resulted in was both of us being hurt and likely finding ourselves in an escalating argument.

Let’s talk about place. Never, ever, ever criticize or complain at/about your husband in front of other people (including family). Unless you are deliberately trying to obliterate his self-image and cause him to shut down. Because that is what will happen, even if it is delayed.

“There is a time to speak and a time not to speak, and happy is the man whose wife can discern between the two.” Stormie Omartian says in the opening chapter of her book The Power of a Praying Wife. “Anyone who has been married for any length of time realizes that there are things that are better left unsaid. A wife has the ability to hurt her husband more deeply than anyone else can, and he can do the same to her. No matter how much apology the words can not be erased. They can only be forgiven and that is not always easy.”

There is so much power in just biting your tongue. I’ve found I make a lot greater impact with the things I don’t say in my marriage than with the things I do.

The same goes for Barry. I know I’m not perfect, there are things I’m still working on every day. And the last thing I need is to be reminded of them by the person who is supposed to have my back, facing the world with me.

You guys will have plenty of external battles to fight throughout your life, it’s way easier if you are fighting them together. Instead of going into battle alone and exhausted because you just spent all night waging war at home.

When in doubt, Omartian says she has learned to just “shut up and pray”.

Lord, show us when to speak up and when to choose our battles wisely and keep silent. Amen.