Never Forget

Flowers, Peace, and Joy – even today

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“Amy’s Flowers”

I purchased these flowers on a whim today…well, not actually a whim. It all started last night. The Plan that is.

When I got home last night, I had already been worrying about what to do today, on this the 3rd anniversary of my wife’s journey Heaven-ward. I was worried I’d wake up at the same time I’ve woken up for the last 3 years: 5:46 a.m. I was worried 1 or more of my sons would have a terrible dream or meltdown or anxiety attack. I was worried one of them wouldn’t go to school today and the day was be a roller coaster of tears, and sobs, and Why God? prayers. I was worried.

So…what do I do when I’m worried? I ask for prayer. Last night at my men’s Bible study, I asked the guys who keep me accountable in my daily life to pray for peace. Then I came home again. To my surprise, my worry was gone. I thought about my plan for the day (I’d already secured a substitute teacher and had taken the day off). I’d take whichever boy who wanted a ride to school; I’d have coffee with my close friend who came to my house that fateful morning (to check in and to say thanks…again); I’d catch a movie, maybe get a rose and lunch at Applebee’s – the site of our first date. Plan made, I fell asleep. When my alarm woke me at 6:00 a.m. I was at peace. Anxiety and fear of the day was nowhere to be found. It was as if Abba God was saying I got you, Thom – just like He did on that morning. I woke the boys and went about the morning.

No one wanted a ride to school. I had to pick up my car from the repair shop (that’s a whole different post), so I headed out for my day. After picking up the van, I swung into the grocery store to get ingredients for a special dinner for tonight with my boys. When I walked into Trader Joe’s, there were the flowers. I remembered my “plan” and looked for a long stem, white rose. There weren’t any, but that didn’t matter. Stareing me in the face was this bunch of flowers that took me back to my first date with Amy. I’d stopped to get her flowers late that morning, 22 years ago. Not knowing if I was actually going out for coffee or actually going on a first date, I wanted to be prepared. I decided to pick up flowers but didn’t want to send the wrong message. I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in an old folks home!

I knew not to pick red roses; those stand for impassioned love. I was head over heals for Amy, but I didn’t want to drive her away.

I knew not to pick pink roses; those stand for admiration and joy. They are too close to red roses and I still didn’t want to spook her (especially if it wasn’t a real date – which is a longer story for another time).

I knew not to pick white roses; those stand for purity and weddings.

And yellow roses meant friendship, but I didn’t want to be in the “friend-zone”.

So I prayed; right there in the florist shop, I asked God what flowers to pick up for an I’m-pretty-sure-this-is-a-date date. A boquet caught my attention. It was more colorful than what I bought this morning, but it had a white flower in the middle of it that looked amazing.

When I handed the flowers to Amy, she said, “White roses are my favorite!” I panicked. Really panicked.

After a sharp inhale, I replied, “…but I didn’t buy white roses…”, trying to sound sure of myself and not fall apart like I’d done on all my first dates in college. (To sum up…all 4 of them were TERRIBLE! I was nauseous all day and too afraid to talk to my date! Each one was a bigger disaster than the last!)

Amy inspected the flowers and unwrapped them. Sure enough, I hadn’t bought a bouquet with a white rose, but the flower, all bunched up in the florist plastic could have passed for a rose. I don’t know the name of the flower. I think it’s a mum. But it’s the same flower that was staring me down at Trader Joe’s this morning. So, I bought them. They are in my house right now. A man from church once told me, “I think men deserve to have flowers in the house now and then. Guys deserve beautiful things to look at too.” I’ve been looking at these flowers off and on today. Each time I’m filled with a warm sensation, a mixture of peace and joy. Amy would have loved them.

I chose to punt my idea of a movie until after my boys got home. I found a “second run” theater showing the live action Alladin tonight at 6:30. If you know our family, you know we always took the boys to the new Disney films. And we, Amy and I, thoroughly enjoyed them along with our boys – maybe even more (I mean, we did go see Cars 2 without them on opening night!).

I’ve texted with my oldest – only because his day is so jam packed (we talked last night) – to make sure he was doing okay. He’s nervous, but for good reasons. He’s casting his first musical with auditions today. His mom would have been so very proud of him.

When my youngest two got home from school today, they were peaceable. No one looked as if they’d had an emotionally haggard day. They changed clothes and are now at the swimming pool. They’ll be home soon, ready to make homemade pizza like Mom started making with them a year before she passed away. It’s a family favorite. In fact, when my oldest was home from his internship last week, he’d requested it. I’m going to prep for pizza and then a movie. Tonight’s ending with the same warm feeling I was blessed with at the beginning of the day. Abba God, You are so incredible to smile down on one so insignificant as me and make my day so wonderful. Thank you!

Passion

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It’s an interesting word. Passion literally means “strong and barely controllable emotion.” We often pair it with a goal to achieve, a driving force, or romantic love. But that’s not what I witnessed at my house this weekend.

Heading into Easter, my youngest and I watched Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus of Nazareth. It was my third time experiencing the movie, and it affected me no less than the previous two showings (one in a theater and one on a Christmas Eve a long time ago with Amy and her parents).

We had just been reading the Easter story in our morning devotions this week when I suggested to my son that we watch it. Knowing how it affected me, I should not have been surprised at my son’s visceral passion as he put voice to his confusion, grief, and passion. I can still hear him screaming at the Roman guards and at Caiaphas, the High Priest.

Each viewing, my body has reacted violently to every crack of the cane and whip, each lash of the cat-of-nine-tails, and every jarring fall under the weight of the Cross. It astounds me that the brutality depicted in the movie was “toned down” to receive an “R” rating. The violent handling of my Lord and Maker was much worse than depicted in the movie… and what I witnessed in the movie left me physically ill.

Each time I’ve watched that movie I’ve been struck by many things, but a different one seems to hang onto me for hours and days after the viewing. The first time I watched it the epiphany that Mary most likely watched each painful step of her son’s excruciating crawl down the Via Dolorosa. She also felt each smack of the hammer as it struck the spikes. When Mary’s memory takes the story back to a time when Jesus, as a little boy, falls, she runs to him to comfort him. I was undone. Watching her seemingly stare down Satan seconds later shows a determination, and resignation, I never ascribed to the Virgin Mother.

The second time I watched it, finishing in the wee hours of Christmas morning, I was struggling for breath when I realized the symbolism of God the Father crying. The dad in me was again undone, filleted by the deeper understanding of God the Father. It was then that I began referring to The Father as Abba. I finally saw His “daddy’s heart” after so many years of only viewing him akin to Zeus.

This time watching the epic was much different than the last two viewings. Those were marked by an eerie quiet with an undertone of quiet sobbing and nearly silent sniffing. My son’s reaction could not be contained like so many adults. He was so enraged by Caiaphas, Pilot, and the Roman soldiers.

“How can they do that?”

“Can’t they see they are killing him?!?”

“How could you be so evil?”

“This is all your fault!”

My son’s jabs were hurled at a deaf television while the characters continued on without acknowledging him. I, however, was neither deaf nor blind to him. His sobs could not be muted. His cries could not be ignored. His flinches could not be unheard.

When the scene where Mary tries to comfort her bloodied son came on screen, I heard wailing, bolstered by a realization…or maybe it was a new understanding that only the grief my little one has wrestled with of late could comprehend.

This daddy’s heart was rent, watching my youngest wrestle with some of the same “strong and barely controllable emotion” I never understood until I was at least twice his age.

The global church has done a good job romanticizing the event and the weapon of such

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Picture courtesy of DeseretBook.com

demonic physical and mental torture. Do I understand, yes… and no. Watching such a visceral depiction of something I was originally taught on a flannel graph in Sunday School made me feel cheated… actually, no, I felt ashamed because I never understood the depths of pain and agony Yeshua allowed Himself to receive at the hands of wicked men so that I could be saved. Can children handle the level of violence this event held, no, but somewhere along the road, I feel as if I should have realized, or been shown, just how wholly evil, brutal, and wicked this event truly was. I can no longer look at the symbol of the cross without replaying the violence in my head. I am so ever grateful for the sacrifice of my Lord and Savior. May I never again romanticize the event as a thing of beauty.

 

“Of Whales And Of Malaga I Sing…”

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It’s been a while since I’ve stopped myself long enough to sit and write. Somewhere in the midst of the last 2 months, I decided that I didn’t have time to grieve. There was too much to do. Too many late nights finishing lesson plans, folding laundry, and picking up the house. Too many long afternoons filled with appointments for the “dad taxi”. Too many weekends filled with catching up on sleep and taking care of my boys (whatever I could pack into the day so I wouldn’t have time to think, to ache, to cry).

It all started with my decision in August, on a plane back to Portland after returning my oldest son to college for his Sophomore year. There was a commercial for Ralph Breaks the Internet. I decided to boycott Disney. The last three Disney movies have left me in a puddle of my own making. It started out as an inside joke…with myself. Then it became an unfeeling reality. It was easier not to feel, or rather, not to tempt my heart to feel deeply. So I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong. It bubbled out every 5 or 6 weeks, but I was usually alone or in a setting where I could blend in and not have to deal with it. Sadly, along with the decision to stop grieving came a less conscious one…I put my book on hold. I allowed the busy-ness of life to come in and push aside a dream and a calling.

Once school started, I began treading water, trying to get everything done. It took nearly 3 months for me — the unstoppable force that is single-parenting — to hit the proverbial wall — the unmovable object with which I had a divine appointment.

I am truly tired of tears. They take too much time. They’ve been present so much in the last two and a half years. Amy and I made so many happy, joy-filled, ecstatic memories. Where were those? The truth? They were there, but the joy was marred by grief and the laughter was replaced by a small smile, followed by tears.

Somewhere I bought into a lie: It gets easier, Thom. Once I’d swallowed that destructive lie, it was followed by another one, more maniacal, more evil: It’s been long enough, Thom. It’s time to stop dwelling. It’s time to move on. Somewhere in our culture, we’ve accepted that everything fits into tidy timetables. Right? Don’t believe me? Get out your planner and begin to fill every half hour slot with the things that need to get done. When the slots are all full, that which doesn’t have room sits in the waiting room awaiting its “assigned appointment”.

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy CoverThe immovable wall came in the form of a novel I was set to teach this year. I’ve taught it before with great success. It’s one of my favorite “YA” author’s books. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, by Gary D. Schmidt, has won many awards, including the ever-coveted Newbery Honor. My 6th graders and I began reading it during the last week of October. The curriculum requires me to read the book aloud with the students and not to let them take the book home. Why? To teach them to be active readers. To teach them how to understand literary devices. To teach me a very difficult truth.

It’s a book about a boy living in Phippsburg, Maine, in 1912. He meets an incredible girl his own age, and the two become more than friends; they become soul mates. Along the way, he encounters loneliness and loss, severe loss. Near the middle of the book, the main character comes within a few feet of a whale while he’s struggling against the tides and the waves to steer a small rowboat, with little success. For the remainder of the book, he is spurred on by the spiritual encounter he had with the whale. He longs to know “What was in the eye of the whale?”

The boy’s schooling requires him to read of the adventures and bravery of Aeneas as he leaves Troy and heads into the unknown to a destination, not of his choosing, in order to found an Empire he never imagined. The boy has his own adventure, his own unknown destination, and quite possibly his own Empire to found.

During the chapter where a significant character dies, I was not at school; I had a sub. I was relieved. I wouldn’t have to come anywhere close to that emotional part of the story. I could discuss it later with the students, no problem. But reading it aloud…well…I didn’t want to test my fortitude and my wherewithal to stay the course and not grieve.

On the last day of reading to the class, I broke. The thirteen-year-old boy was wrestling with his new normal. Instead of demanding he was done grieving, he vowed to never forget “to look at things straight” and he broke down in grief — he would never forget. At one point the main character says he has no one to talk with about the state of his heart, but he turns to a new friend a few lines later and bears his soul. Life continues. Grief continues…and may not ever go away. Life can only be lived through the grief, not avoiding it.

I stood in front of my class, silently crying, unable to read aloud as the realization hit me. I’ve been trying so hard not to feel. A colleague came into my next class period and read the end of the book with my next class since I was unable to do so.WIR2_Poster2

That was last Monday. But it wasn’t until Thursday night when a new friend of mine asked me about the state of my heart. I opened my mouth and I consciously realized all the things I’ve just described. On my way home, God reminded me of a memory from many years ago. It made me laugh, then cry, then laugh while crying.

I’ve dusted off the book and will begin seeking the help I need to get it published. And I might swing into a theater and watch Ralph Breaks the Internet. Who knows…maybe it’ll remind me of an incredible memory with Amy. It does center around a unique friendship: a beautiful young girl befriends a clumsy oaf and they go on life-changing adventures together. Now, why does that sound familiar?

“I remember exactly what I was doing…”

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Never Forget 9-11
Image curtesy of: http://www.krbe.com/2018/09/11/should-9-11-be-a-federal-holiday/

Every generation has an “I remember exactly what I was doing when ___” moment. For my grandparents’ generation, it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor, for my parent’s generation, it was the shooting of JFK. For me, it was 9/11.

I had awoken early that morning to go into school and grade essays (yes, I’m that teacher who assigns a writing assignment in the first few days of school). I’d told Amy I was going in to be alone so I could grade papers without anyone bothering me. It was just after 5:30 a.m. when my cell phone rang. I was standing at the front door of my school, arms loaded down with too much to carry, while trying to unlock the front door, and deal with the building’s alarm. I was not happy the phone was ringing.

“What?!?” I snapped into the phone, thinking I was justified for not wanting to be bothered…I mean, I had told her as much.

“Turn on the news.” Click. There was no angry response, just a flat, simple direction. I huffed into the building, opened my classroom, and dropped everything on my desk without ceremony. Grimacing, knowing that turning on the internet would be my demise, that I wouldn’t get papers graded, I switched on the monitor and booted up my desktop. What I saw put me in my place immediately. I was watching live as the second tower was struck…as the mobs of people were running for their lives…as the nation stopped.

I don’t remember my apology word for word, but I do remember my gracious wife answering the phone and talking with me for the next hour while we watched simultaneously in horror.

“I thought you’d want to know,” she said at last. “I didn’t want you to not be aware when your students arrived.” I was flabbergasted. My irritation was so petty compared to the devastation and acts of heroism happening before my eyes on the screen.

“I love you, Honey,” I managed. “Thank you.” Then I realized God’s hand in the whole mix. “Why are you up so early?” I asked, pretty much knowing her response. Amy was anything but a morning person.

“I was laying in bed and something woke me up. It heard a loud crash in the living room and went to investigate. When I turned on the lights, I couldn’t find the reason for the noise. I grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and snuggled into the recliner while turning on the TV.”

I sighed. It was clear to me that God had awoken my wife, in order to alert me, so that my fleshly agenda could be set aside for His purpose. We didn’t “do school” much that day. In fact, as my students – from Heritage Christian School – poured into the building, we went into “crash cart” mode, as we called it. TV’s were turned on and we watched the other accounts come pouring in: the grounded plane that never took off, the Pentagon tragedy, and the United Airlines flight 93 crash.

That evening, Amy and I tried to entertain a toddler while being glued to the television awaiting any rhyme or reason.

Every year I’ve taught since, I’ve spent a day reliving those events, sharing with students, and talking about heroes. Heroes, without capes. Like the telephone operator who talked with a man on one of the planes that flew into the towers – and recorded the conversation so that his wife and family could hear his last words. Like the hundreds of first responders who charged into the rubble without a care for their own safety, some to be claimed by the on-going tragedy. Like the men and women of United flight 93 who charged the hijackers in the cockpit and possibly saved thousands of lives at their own expense. Each year, at one point, I get so choked up I can barely make a sound. As I struggle to find my voice, my tears inform students that I’m a little more human than they previously thought. I hate crying in front of my students because I’m never sure I’ll be able to stop once the tears begin to fall. I am, however, okay with the message this specific lesson brings to my students.

Standing in front of a generation who doesn’t remember that travesty, but who has “heard all about it year after year”, is a bit daunting. Especially on days like today when one 8th grader raised a hand and said, “But the hijackers were heroes…at least to someone who believed they were right.” There were more than a handful of students who supported that argument, one even went so far as to say America deserved the attack: “The American people were self-righteous and complimentary to the men who created the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And America still is happy they won that war.” Only God could have directed my words at that moment because my flesh was speechless. Both statements had an ounce of truth in them, but both were missing more than either student could comprehend.

I heard the words which poured from my mouth as if I were listening to them, not saying them myself: “When the purpose is to claim as many lives as possible in the name of Religion – no matter the Religion – the act is evil and the perpetrators are anything but heroes.”

It’s been over 10 hours since that conversation, and I’m still affected by it. As this night winds down, I am caught by the juxtaposition of a generation of Americans who are grieving, being watched by a generation of Americans who are struggling to define terms that society now says are “up to the individual to define” – the same generation who have resorted to posting “funny” memes about the worst terrorist attack on US soil. I pray I have the wisdom to look at my students tomorrow and show them the love of their Creator, even if they do not know or accept Him at this point.