All Saint's Day

Today we shared the following as part of a special and very meaningful service at Shalom honoring persons whom we love whose physical presence is no longer with us:

Jason

We will be sharing reflections today about our second child. Yesterday would have been Nora’s third birthday, but she only lived for 7 short months. During her life and since her death, this group accepted her as a part of our congregational life, even though most of you never had a chance to meet her. As time passes, we are grateful for opportunities to continue reflecting on Nora’s contributions to our understanding of what it means to be human.

Janelle

At the time of committing to this sharing, I was feeling positive. Life was full and the lessons of Nora’s life were not only apparent to me, I even felt I was embodying some of them. We were in our first trimester with our third child and I felt grateful, excited and amazed at how my emotions were much steadier than I might have expected.

That was several weeks ago. Recently, when I sat down to prepare these thoughts I felt like a hypocrite and was not sure I had anything much to say. As we approach the halfway point in this pregnancy, my emotions have begun to overwhelm me. It was that day that a daily quote I receive said the following: “Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” And that same challenge also came to me from a friend who encouraged me to be present to all of my emotions, even those that I normally label as negative or bad. So I’m modifying the quote for myself to encourage me to risk being honest with both myself and my community and in doing so I will be able to be more fully present to all that is unfolding in our lives.

And maybe that is one of the most important lessons that I did learn from Nora’s life. While we have always benefited from being part of community, we never felt that as keenly as we did in the weeks leading up to Nora’s birth, during her life and in the weeks following her death. She needed us to help her live as fully as possible for the time she had with us, and we desperately needed others to help us to keep living fully, creating memories, and facing the challenges with courage and as much grace as we could muster.

So, in short, my honest confession: Sometimes I’m scared! I’ve had anxious dreams about our 20 week ultrasound when we will know if this little one is on the right trajectory with growth. I have trouble finding the courage, strength and hope that have been so real to me at times over the past 3 years. And, if this baby comes to us with needs beyond our own ability to provide, I wonder if I can really do it again.

Admittedly, I’m a perfectionist through and through. And so these times are often perceived by me as lapses in strength or a failure to honor Nora’s life and her memory. I tend to think that somehow I’m backsliding, losing all the ground I had gained. Jason has reminded me multiple times since Nora’s death that he sees the journey as being much more fluid than that. That we rise and fall, have moments of vulnerability in which we need others to help us see our way, and that it is all part of the journey.

One of the things Nora did so well was accepting life for what it gave to her. Not that she didn’t protest at times the perceived “unfairness,” particularly towards the end of her life when she resisted both her feeding tube and oxygen being delivered through an uncomfortable devise in her nose. But she didn’t let those impediments stop her from soaking in her surroundings and being fully present to life’s experiences. We are so grateful that among our memories are those times when her face lit up to be in her big sister’s arms, craning her neck to get a good look at her face; when she turned and twisted and strained to roll her little 6 pound body over, and then was surprised at her accomplishment; her fascination with every aspect and angle of her pacifier, though she was quite indignant if anyone tried to convince her that an appropriate use for such a contraption was to suck it; her determination to hold and turn the pages of her little books all by herself despite them almost being too heavy for her; and of course her coos and smiles. She did not approach the world, as many of us hate to admit that we do, as if it owed her anything. Those beautiful moments that came were gifts, and they could be found in the darkest of times, even at death’s door.

I know deep down after having Nora grace me with her presence, trust and love that I do believe, even when I falter, that loving is worth the risk. I still remember holding Nora and crying as I listened to the words of a song (by “Over the Rhine”), “I was born to laugh, I learned to laugh through my tears. I was born to love, I’m gonna learn to love without fear.” I’m still aspiring to that.

Several weeks back, as I was taking out the compost, I was thinking about Nora and how, as much as I don’t profess to understand a lot about how those of us still living communicate with or relate to those we love and loved who are no longer physically with us, I really wanted her to talk to me. I wanted to have her tell me that I was okay, that her little brother or sister was going to be okay, that she was okay with us having another baby. I had this odd realization that here I was wanting Nora to relate to me in a way that she had never related to me in her time with us; verbal communication, outside of coos, was not part of our life together. And in that moment what I realized was all the things that Nora’s little spirit was – she was a presence in my life that was unassuming, nonjudgmental, accepting, always giving and receiving, needy and yet rich, beautifully imperfect, and fully present to the moment. It will always be a gift to have had someone in my life who so innocently and without effort lived these qualities for me to get a glimpse of.

Jason

One evening a year and a half ago some of you came with divisions of perennials from your own yards and helped us fill the planting bed of Nora’s memorial garden. I wrote the following poem around that time, but I find many of the thoughts and sentiments expressed in it to be what I would want to say today, and so I offer it now:

Reiterations

A father’s love ignores the border death presents. I worked for you in every way I knew, now
what to do with this: my aimless drive to help, my hoeing the abyss? There’s nothing you could need from me; I’ll turn my hoe toward earth and let the rocks and soil absorb my effort, and I'll wait for birth among the blooming celebrations. I can work on these reiterations.

And so we put together what we can: we scrape the weeds aside and mark a place where, when it needs to huddle with the memories, a heart may hide. We’ve caught a hold on changes
in the calendar and seasons, have made spaces full of time: ad hoc creations. We’ve established these reiterations.

I think it helps a little. Do I need to see reflections of my baby girl out there exposed to wild, swirling air to keep me from forgetting? Maybe not, but there is satisfaction in the knowledge that in moments when I need to whittle down into the quick of loss, or glory in parental, proud elation, I can turn to these reiterations.

Thank you, child! You never read the clock to know the shame of dallying too long. Your fingers never curled around a cent. When it was time for you to go, you didn’t worry, you just went. Your heart and mind and palms were full of room; your presence was a balm for wounds we couldn’t feel. How many repetitions of your memory will be required for me to heal? What is my hurry? If I sit awhile in a place, perhaps an insect sipping from a bloom will show the way to freedom from the hectic expectations. I’ll depend on these reiterations.

I didn’t know I feared a fading of your presence, but I found that when I cleared the soil space I knew relief, anticipating sprouting seeds. Your memory’s alive, and here is how I know: I’ve seen it grow! How can this be: while thinking of the years ahead, a smile? I’m eager to be watching all you were to us becoming what it is, what it will be, and relishing your place within our family. Our love is strong, so time will find us living out a leafy incarnation, still repeating these reiterations.