Common ground

Yesterday was a day of reflection for me. It was voting day in America. It would have been Logan’s first time casting a ballot. He loved politics. As a young teen, he was, even more so than my husband and me, a staunch conservative, both on fiscal and social issues. In 9th grade, about the time we became computer-owning, internet-accessible people, Logan’s world view began to change. Access to a vast array of information and to people whose circumstances varied wildly from his own fascinated Logan. He became liberal in his thinking, yet remained very conservative with his finances and his second amendment rights. He and I would often discuss politics and the influence of religion on it. Our discussions often became heated. He was a talented debater--firm in his opinions and well informed on both sides of every issue. He had the ability to make me feel ignorant, grasping for words and resorting to catch phrases when my mind couldn’t keep up with his quick wit. It exasperated me and invigorated him, but I delighted in the fact that he thought I was worth arguing with. By the end of his life, I think Logan viewed himself as a socialist  more so than a democrat, evolving (or devolving, depending on your politics) from Rush Limbaugh to Noam Chomsky.  I hope he knew how hard I tried to be respectful of his opinions. I hope he understood my point that life’s journey might have brought him down a path that led right back to his conservative roots.

Throughout the course of this election process, I have wondered how many times I would have wanted to strangle my Logan. As I filled in my ballot, I knew that his votes would have cancelled mine out, right down the page. We would have loved each other anyway.  We would have worked together on many things. We would have broken bread and built bridges. I would have worked to show him that each man’s opinion is valid and should be respected, that being louder or more eloquent in speech doesn't make one more right. He would have pushed me into acting otherwise. I hope he would still have found comfort and safety in the conservative values of the people in the home where he was raised. I hope I would have peeked at the opposing side of an issue and imagined I walked in another man’s shoes for an short time. I imagine both of us would have grown a little and both of us would have groaned a lot. In the end, I think we would have agreed to disagree.

This morning, I was dismayed by the ugliness that continues in the name of politics on social media. It really amounts to bullying and gloating, to smugness and contentiousness. The party of tolerance seems hypocritical in it’s inability to respect the other side’s positions. The party of self reliance casts blame on government instead of self. Through it all, I think I’ve come to dislike people I once considered to be friends, not for their stance on issues, but for their mode of delivery of their message and the belittling of our differences. We are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We shouldn’t wonder, then, when we consider how we treat one another, that our politicians are more interested in toeing the party line than calling truces and working together for the common good.  We are different, but surely we seek what each of us views as the common good. The common good requires common ground. Common ground requires respect. Respect requires tolerance. Tolerance begins when you get over yourself. I learned that from Logan. I wish beyond wishing that he had been there to cancel out my vote yesterday.

Unbroken chains

I dropped out of college after the spring of my freshman year and moved back in with my parents. Well, technically, I hadn’t dropped out so much as I knew I wasn’t planning on going back in the fall. My parents weren’t aware of my plans, or lack of them. A high school friend, who moved to the farm across the field from us, was working at a turkey processing plant about 30 miles away. She talked me into applying for a job on the line and driving back and forth with her every day. “It rocks!” she said. “The people are awesome!” Turns out, she was half right.

They tell me there had been big improvements made in meat processing facilities across the country by that summer of 1984, which makes me wonder how bad things must have been at one time. My first morning there, I was issued a belt and scabbard, two knives, two sharpening steels, and a metal mesh glove to keep from cutting off my fingers. We were required to wear hairnets every day. I wonder if it was to keep our hair out of the meat or the meat out of our hair. The plant itself smelled of a combination of wet feathers and turkey shit. It was chronically damp and eerily gray. The sanitary conditions were, well, horrible. I remember when the line had to be shut down because maggots were dripping onto the conveyor belt which transported de-fatted turkey breasts. For excitement, someone had thrown a chunk of meat up on the machinery high above our heads, and a few days later, the maggots had moved in. And, they fit right in, too. Some of the less sanitary workers smelled vaguely of rotting flesh because they didn’t bother to scrub their mesh gloves at the end of each day, but they didn't bother to wash their white uniforms very often either, so it's probably not fair to blame the odor on the mesh gloves alone.

The days themselves were usually long and always unpredictable. Work began at 5:00 am; that meant leaving home by 4:15 am to get there on time. The line ran until no more truckloads of birds arrived. Rare were the nights I was home by 9:00 pm. I remember once when the last truck arrived at 11:00 pm and, when all the birds had finally been butchered, we were held over to rework a pallet of breasts that hadn’t passed inspection. It ended up to be a 22-hour day. We left the plant at 3:00 am, and were told to be back to work at  11:00 am, just eight hours later! A couple of indignant workers contacted OSHA, who informed them that, since turkey was a perishable food product, it was legal to work up to 22 hours as long as workers were given eight hours off before being required to return to the line.

When forced to perform under such conditions, most people form close bonds with one another, finding ways to encourage each other. Besides a healthy respect for anyone earning a living doing line work, and an urgent call to return to college, the turkey plant blessed me with a handful of salt-of-the-earth friends. One such friend was Gloria. She was 25 years older than me, but she had a real sense for what it was to be a young woman living in a fast world. She watched over us and encouraged us to be true to ourselves. She told off-color jokes that seemed to make the minutes pass more quickly.

I ended up going back to college that fall, and returned to the turkey plant the following summer. Most of my old friends were still there, but the conditions had changed for the better. 1985 was the last summer I worked at ‘the plant’. I slowly lost contact with the good friends I had made there.  Twenty-six years later, two days after Logan died, I got a phone call from Gloria. She had read Logan’s obituary in her local paper, then asked her daughter to search out my number on the internet. Gloria called to offer me her condolences. She asked a million questions about the years since we'd worked together. She encouraged me to cling to the truths of my faith. She asked if there was anything she could do for us, so I asked her to pray for the other driver in the accident. I had no idea how he was physically, but I knew he had to be an emotional wreck. I asked if she’d also put him on the prayer chain at her church.

Over the next few weeks, Gloria called me almost daily to tell me she had added the other driver to another prayer chain at another church. She would comb the yellow pages for telephone numbers. She called every number in her phone’s contact list, reached every relative she could think of, and in 3-weeks time, had listed him on over 90 prayer chains across the country! Ninety prayers is a lot of prayers, but ninety chains of prayers is mighty.

I have never seen or spoken to the driver of the other vehicle, except through our lawyers. He filed a personal injury suit against me, well beyond what I was insured for, since the vehicle Logan was driving was in my name. The man was not wearing his seat belt and was thrown from his vehicle, sustaining a head injury which required him to be air lifted to a larger medical facility. Four days later, by the grace of God, he was discharged from the hospital. I know his life will never be the same as it was before 12-noon, September 3rd, 2011, but I'm thankful he has the opportunity to make each moment of what remains of his life worthy. I pray he walks those moments with Christ.

I wish I had understood at the time that standing for endless hours in that cold, damp, dirty processing plant would turn out to be one of the biggest blessings in my life. God is good.

The poetry of grief

There is quiet poetry in grief, which reads clearest in hindsight. I wish I had had the foresight to journal my thoughts from the beginning of this journey, because there have been so many beautiful little moments that have helped to carry my pain and grant me a better understanding of faith and how best to abide in it. I believe with all my heart that these moments are the fingerprint of God on my life, His assurance that He knew best when to call Logy home. He blesses me with the comfort of knowing I do not grieve alone. Surely sin, of which the result for all of us is death, causes my Lord more pain than it does me. I may never know the why of Logan's early exit, but I believe it had to happen when it did in order that Logy not outlive his faith in Christ. My longest lasting prayer for my children has been that they die in faith, whenever that day might be. I have wanted them to know eternity in Heaven far more than I needed them to know a long life on earth. I trust that God answered my plea. I hold no anger or bitterness toward Him, nor is the weeping and gnashing of teeth, which I endure daily, a sign that I question His work. This profound sorrow is simply necessary to the grief walk, which  is as ugly as it is beautiful, which reveals as much as it affirms what was.

There was an elderly brother and his sister who belonged to our church. We knew them by name and were familiar with their faces, but I doubt they would have known us had they met us on the street. They certainly would not have known Logan. Neither of the siblings ever married. They sold the family farm sometime in the 1980s and retired into town. As age became the focus of their lives, they gradually became more reclusive, welcoming a select few people into their lives; even our new pastor wasn’t one of those few. Dolly, the sister, was legally blind. Don, her brother, ignored the signs of cancer until a friend finally talked him into going to the doctor. He was given a very short death sentence.

One afternoon at the end of October, about two months after Logan died, a friend of Don and Dolly’s stopped by the farm. During our visit, he told us about Don’s cancer and impending death, then he handed us an envelope and said, “This is from Don and Dolly. They heard about Logan and wanted to do something. Money, to Don, doesn’t matter much anymore and he and Dolly just thought they could help you out a little. Use this as you see fit.” Inside that plain white, no-nonsense envelope was a check for five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars from siblings who had lived a frugal, unassuming, very private existence, who never had children of their own, given in memory of a young man who lived his life very much the same way, to parents who were virtually strangers to them.

We were at a loss as to how to handle this kind gift. It is a humbling thing hold fruits of an old man's hard work in one's hands, knowing he is preparing to exit this life, and feeling like the message it carried must live on and do good.

We made arrangements to visit Don and Dolly at their home, where Don was confined to a hospital bed in the living room. Dolly nervously sat in the chair not far from him. My husband and I  cried as we thanked this humble pair for their generosity. Both of them, as you might guess, brushed it off as nothing. As they warmed up to us, they chatted about their lives. Both of them served their country--Don a WWII combat veteran and Dolly a Naval WAVE. Their time in the service was the only time they had been separated over the course of their lives. We stayed about an hour, and it became obvious that Don was exhausted., so we said our goodbyes. Two days later, Don passed away. The funeral was a simple graveside burial. There were maybe 12 people in attendance, including 3 employees of the funeral home, the minister, a volunteer from hospice, a church elder, two of Don’s friends, my husband, our youngest son, me, and Dolly. The men in attendance, including my then-16-year-old son, acted as pall bearers. With a few simple words and a prayer, Don was lowered into his grave that cold, windy November day.

After the service, the minister stopped us, “Do you mind if I ask how you know Don and Dolly? They are the most intensely private people I know. I’m just really astonished to see you here.” I was torn at how to answer. I cannot imagine that a man as private as Don was would want the world to know about what he did for us. Much like Logan, I think Don would have preferred to simply do the good deed and carry on his unassuming ways.

I replied, “We knew Don through Logan.” And, although I think the minister would have liked to ask more, he just nodded his head. We didn’t know Don, except through his heart and through the journey he now walks with Logy.  This is grief's haunting beauty, quiet poetry. This is the fingerprint of God.

My equal...

 “He is my most beloved friend and my bitterest rival, my confidant and my betrayer, my sustainer and my dependent, and scariest of all, my equal.” -Gregg Levoy

I think my youngest son hit the nail on the head when he said he lost his ‘best friend and worst enemy’ when Logan died. I have witnessed our boys try to kill each other. When they were younger, I could pull them apart and send them different directions. Once they grew bigger than me, I used the almighty power of groundation to stop their battles. In the end, they grew smarter than me; they knew enough to fight their battles out of my sight. Often, the only way I knew they had fought was by the injuries they sported when they sat down for supper. Through the years, as I would deal with the aftermath, cleaning up their blood and bandaging their injuries, fixing busted furniture, twisted glasses, and broken glass, the boys would sit together and laugh as if the war had never happened and they had always been trusted allies.

I wonder about the emotional battle that must rage on in the hearts of my sons since Logan left. They had wished each other dead, or at the very least, maimed over the years. They had shared toys, beds and secrets. They fought as hard for each other as they had fought against one another. What is it like to lose such a brother? One instant he was there and the next he was gone. No chance for goodbyes. No final battle royale. No lasting truce. Brotherhood, I believe, knows what words could never say anyway. Though they spent many an hour plotting to do the other in, I have no doubt that if Jesus said, "Who shall go?" Logan quietly got to his feet, nodded his head, and said, "Take me."

Grief is an insidious, deceiving bastard.

I was insistent that Logan’s death would not define our lives. We would not, could not, fall apart as a family because Logan was gone. We would find a way to celebrate what we used to be, in order to find worth in what remained. We did quite well for a while. We got complacent, though, thinking we had trudged through the worst of the agony, soldiering through the murky, muddy waters of loss until finally finding a dry bank on which to rest. Grief, it turns out, is an insidious, deceiving bastard. It is happy to watch you sink comfortably to your knees and close your eyes, taking respite. That’s when it begins to worm its way into your relationships. When you think , we’re ok, grief whispers, “The fuck you are!” and it blows its foul breath in your face. You open your eyes to see that the tide has risen and the dry land you stood on is once again covered in filthy water. The muck beneath your feet tries to suck you down. It holds your legs immobile. You get to your feet, and as far as your eyes can see, grief has set to rot what you had worked so hard to preserve.

By his own admission, my husband is a workaholic. His day begins before 5:00 am and ends about 10:00 pm. Occasionally, if it’s raining, and we’re caught up on every single act that will keep the sky from immediately falling on our heads, he will take off Sunday afternoon from noon to 4:30. The busiest time of year is spring. And summer. And fall. And winter. There is about a one-week window, usually the last one of August, when all crops of hay are up, the beef and youngstock are out to pasture, we have dried down in the barn to about 40 cows, and we have not yet started to ‘freshen’, so there are no calves to feed twice a day. During the first week of September, the milk cows start to calve and the fall field work and preparations for winter begin. That one-week time frame in August is the best time to get married, go on vacation, do a home renovation, or bury a son. Logan died September 3rd. It was early in the month; the new season wasn’t in full swing, but it had begun, and the work loomed large in the distance.  It was a very inconvenient time to die.

As I said before, thank goodness for generous people. Because of their help, we were able to get through calving season. They showed up to help us chop our corn. They helped us dig a new water line from the wood stove, which is housed in the detached garage, to the house. They helped us haul sand for a new hay shed we were building. They helped us cut wood, haul manure, and bag earlage. Their company showed us there is so much more to life than work. My husband and I would remark that we had to change how we lived. We could not exist solely for the work, and we had to reach out a helping hand to others as they had done for us. We would never look at the farm as anything other than a means of support again. The months rolled along and we concentrated so hard on slogging through our pain, that when we were finally able to fill our lungs with air again, and see without that shroud of darkness limiting our vision, we simply rested there. Before we knew it, it was spring again. The land called to my husband and he threw himself headlong into his work. 18-hour days were the norm. I would try to say, “We weren’t going to do this, remember? It’s Sunday, let’s…” And he would explode.

“If you want to spend time with me, get your ass out there and do something to help!”

 I can be made to feel I’m a lot of things, like fat, grumpy, opinionated, or ugly, and I can shrug that off.  But, being made to feel lazy is like a punch in the gut. You cannot be lazy in this marriage and have any worth. And I need worth. The stench of grief meets me each morning as I crawl from my bed to face the new day. My husband has already walked out the door to start morning chores. “You’re lazy,” grief casually nudges me, defying me to prove it wrong.  Here we are again, with no time to reach out to those in need. We are not putting marriage and family first. There have been four Sundays off in 13 months. That equals about 16 hours of time we might have devoted to family.  My husband’s eyes look upward, constantly checking that the sky is not in danger of falling. Greif encourages the fear of not having enough to outshine the understanding of what really matters. And, grief, that dirty, uncouth bastard, has shown my husband the card that trumps me every time: laziness, not measuring up to the standard he sets. Grief has the power to steal my voice and suffocate my dreams. For his part, I know my husband doesn‘t see things that way. I know he deals with life, the good and bad, by burying himself in his work. He measures success in dollars; he measures love by what he provides in terms of financial security; he measures the worth of a man’s life by his willingness to toil. It probably boils down to how we were raised, combined with the differences in males and females in general, but no matter how hard I search for success in our lives, I cannot see it in this farm. I see it in my boys and their ability to balance work and play, making a living and making a life.

My marriage isn’t the only relationship to suffer here. Our youngest son has always been moody, particularly in the morning. I attributed much of his behavior to the fact that he and Logan were often at each other’s throats. Logan usually came out the winner; he was still stronger physically, and had the advantage of being able to best my youngest verbally as well. I would often tell Logan, “When you steal someone’s voice, you’ve lost  more than you’ve won.“ However, he could usually turn my words on me and silence me, too, so I don’t think I had much effect on  him.

Over the years, I dealt with my youngest son’s moodiness by refusing to be drawn in by it. I encouraged him to remain true to himself, regardless of how Logan viewed his beliefs and interests.  As I said, mornings are especially hard for him. Daylight is not his friend. Through the years, I would go out to the barn and feed silage, then come into the house at about 6:45am to make breakfast and wake up the kids. Starting last September, I only had one kid left at home to awaken in the morning, and this year is the last year I would get to do it. I love making a hot breakfast and drinking a cup of coffee before school, but it became less enjoyable when the ‘morning boys’ left and it was just ’the baby’ and me.  I felt like an unpaid lion tamer. When he would finally get out of bed, he was sullen at best, and belligerent at worst. I was torn between cracking the whip and stroking his messy mane. One morning, about a month ago, I was a little late in getting the French toast started. I stood in the kitchen, dipping the bread into the eggs and setting them on the hot griddle. I would run to the top of the stairs and yell down, “Wake up! Breakfast is ready!” No answer. I yelled at least 5 times and finally made the trip down to turn on his light with the thought that it would slowly creep into his dreams that the new day was at hand. Finally, at 7:25, I hollered as loud as I could, “WAAAAAAAKE UUUUUUUUUUP!” I had just gotten the milk and juice out of the fridge and set them on the counter when my furious ‘baby’ stomped up the stairs. His brows were drawn down and his lips were pulled in a thin line across his teeth. Not an uncommon sight, for sure, but the tick in his cheek gave hint that this was more serious than the usual morning roar. I said, “Kiddo, you gotta start going to bed earlier.”

“I didn’t fucking hear you,” you sneered.

“What did you say?” I was incredulous.

“I didn’t FUCKING hear you, alright?! You fucking bitch at me every morning!” he bellowed.

I think my skin lost much of its leathery quality after we buried Logan. The surface of it feels like it’s lightly bruised all over. The tiny hairs covering it are stiff and sensitive, like they are coated in a mist of super-hold hair spray. The wound in my heart hasn’t crusted over yet, so it still bleeds tears when it’s bumped too hard. I set the French toast in front of him. I would have grabbed the juice and set it there, too, but I couldn’t see through the tears in my eyes. My poor wounded heart couldn‘t  pump on its own and the blood backed up in my veins. Grief overloaded my system and reminded me that I still have more boys to lose. Of the hundred ways I could have, and in the past would have, diffused the situation, I chose instead to slog through more shit.  “That is the last breakfast I hurry in to make for you,” I said. “You are on your own in the mornings from here on out.” And he has been. I no longer rush in to get him up and out the door on time. One morning it was nearly 9:00 when I got in the house. I didn’t know it, but he was still asleep. He as awakened by the ringing phone, which caused him to scrurry into action. “You gonna write me a note?” he asked accusingly.

“What would I write?” I asked.

“I don’t care what you write. Tell them I had to help Dad.”

“No. I will write a  note that says you overslept, though. You’ll have to ask your  dad for note that lies.” The Bitch of Grief that had taken up residence in my body wanted my husband to know that the lazy member of our union had been taking care of things he didn’t even know required taking care of through the years. And she dared my baby to ask his father to lie for him.

“Why the fuck didn’t you just get me up?”

“You know why I won’t go there anymore. You are 17 years old. You are either responsible for yourself in the morning or you are civil to the person who is responsible for you.” I still don’t know if his dad wrote the note or if he went to school without one. He hasn’t spoken to me in a civil tone since the last-French-toast day. I’ve tried everything to build a bridge, except offer an apology, which I just don‘t know how to frame. Maybe my heart has finally crusted over.

My oldest son has made a life for himself about 90 miles away from us. 90 miles seems far enough for him not to feel the gravitational pull of the farm and all its work. He appears to have abandoned his love of hunting and fishing, and concentrates on his girlfriend and his dog. My husband is taken aback by the fact that he could be content living in an apartment in an urban area, no longer rushing home to bow or rifle hunt, or shoot at targets just for fun. He can’t imagine what kind of man would spend the weekend catching up on laundry and housework, and whiling away the hours with a woman. I think he turned out to be the kind of man who refuses to devote his life to work, who cannot separate the intimacy of grief from the intimacy of immediate family, who needs distance from where he came in order to be who he wants to be. Our oldest has been working to convince our youngest, who has dreams of taking over the farm, to move to the city for a while, after graduation next spring, and work a normal job before marrying the land. I am silently cheering his efforts. I believe it’s his way of loving the baby brother he has so little in common with these days. He still calls a couple of times a week. He stops in every couple of months for a short visit. He isn’t comfortable in the home in which he grew up, but I’m not sure any of are these days.

The grief contest...

Grief is a strange contest sometimes. I've been told it's harder to lose a child than a teenager; that grandparents grieve harder than parents; that it's worse to watch a loved one fade away, ravaged by cancer; it's more painful to lose a spouse, a daughter, an infant, a war hero. People like to tell me about friends and relatives who've suffered worse or the same or more. I, however, believe grief is relative to what we've lost in the past. I have suffered grief before in my life; I miscarried a baby at 13 weeks and buried my father when he was 67 years old. The grief I live this day is Logan. I knew him from 2 weeks after his conception. He grew inside me. His heart grew under mine, from mine; it beat within the same body mine does. That body bears scars from him. I have silver stretch marks, some a quarter-inch wide, where my abdomen grew beyond its limits to hold him within me. When it was time, I pushed him, all eight-plus pounds of him, from inside me and out into the waiting world. I counted his toes and fingers. I diapered him. I cried when breast feeding didn't work for us and I was forced to put him on formula. I rubbed him down with udder balm, head to toe, every night, to soothe his chronic eczema. I held his hand and encouraged him to walk. I helped him form his first words and taught him to wipe his own butt. I taught him to tie his shoes, zip his pants, button his shirts, and use scissors. We practiced ABCs, learned to write his name, memorized his address and phone number. We read books, drew pictures, and shared dreams. He bought me beautiful gifts, like huge earrings shaped like stop signs, and a necklace Cleopatra would have envied. I encouraged him to walk away from the bullies who picked on him at noon and stole his lunch. I bribed him into taking a summer school class in 8th grade to help him organize his thought patterns. I encouraged him to keep smiling while he waited for the best time to put braces on his buck teeth. I knew what he loved to eat, enjoyed reading, hated to wear, and dreamed about seeing. I bought his underwear, his socks, his jeans, his toothpaste. I taught him to parallel park.  I helped him choose all of the things he'd need to furnish a college dorm room. And then one day, I was told he was dead. I never saw his face again, just the closed casket that I assume held his broken body. There was no slow progression to death, no sweet goodbye, no sorries, no I love you, and no final kiss to his brow. He was gone. And, while I can appreciate the blessings in the way that he left, I can't seem to appreciate anyone else pointing them out to me. They are mine alone to count and hold in my aching chest. God whispers them into my ear and I know that He reads my heart and knows all of the things that my lips cannot lift to Him in prayer. He knows I have been angry, felt guilty, and wished beyond wishing that it had been me instead. This is the loss and the grief that I know. Nolo contendere.

Death is a thief

In the quiet of the night, grief sneaks in like a thief to rob me of the rest my mind and body need to carry the burden of loss through the light of consciousness. Daylight always brought with it the challenges of life, but with the rising moon came a break from being ever on guard with and for my family. The principal never called after bedtime. The bullies were asleep and my sons were, too, safe from the influences of a sinful world. At night I would lay awake and think of my slumbering children, tucked in their warm beds, protected from the world by the walls of our happy home.

When our oldest son, at 18, left for Marine Corps boot camp,  my husband and I stayed up most of the night and wept. The dynamics of our household were changed forever, and like every loving parent who had come before us, we struggled with letting go. Knowing he had to go, if we had done our jobs right, didn’t make it any easier. Three months later, on his first ten-day leave, we were stunned by what the Corps returned to us. We had rushed to get done the work that needed to done in order to spend time with our son. I made his favorite meals. I was careful to keep his room just as it was when he was in school, only cleaner. We discussed some fun things we would do as a family when he arrived. However, we didn’t recognize the Marine who stepped over the threshold. We gave them a young man who was responsible, trustworthy and polite.  What we got back was a brooding, short tempered, hellion who was more interested in drinking with old friends than the life he used to live. It took a few visits home for us realize the boy we raised was gone to us forever. This new man would take some getting used to.

Our oldest went on to do 3 combat deployments-one to Iraq and two to Afghanistan-as a combat engineer. Although those deployments were brutal and ugly, I never doubted he would come home safely to us. I learned to trust God and let Him carry the worry and fear.  Letting go didn’t mean I didn’t love my son, it meant I loved him enough to allow him to follow his own path. So I focused my priorities to finish raising two more young boys who would enter the world as responsible, trustworthy and polite young men, confident enough to blaze their own trails. On those rare occasions that our oldest spent a night under our roof, I once again lay in bed and reveled in the joy of being safe, together, and sleeping, believing I truly understood this gift was rare and fleeting.

Logan was obsessed with brushing his teeth. His was a life of mini rituals, patterns, and habits. At about eleven o’clock each night, he would floss, then put toothpaste on his toothbrush. He’d look in the mirror for a few seconds as he brushed, then he would start walking around. He’d pace around the kitchen, repeating a circle from there to the living room, to the dining room, and back into the kitchen. Round and round he’d go, head down, thoughts dancing through his head, brushing, brushing, brushing as he paced.  This usually went on for fifteen minutes or so. Many was the night I paused my prayers from the room below, listening to him. Ksh, ksh, ksh, went the toothbrush across his teeth. Now and again he’d chuckle; usually he‘d talk to himself. Round and round that circle he went, his distinctive footfalls leaving tracks across my memory.

The night before Logy was to leave for college, I once again stretched out  in bed and listened as he paced and brushed. I could pick his footfalls out of a crowd, I thought. Tears dripped from the corners of my eyes.  They dripped from my heart. A slow and tender mourning took hold of me. I will never hear this again. This I knew. Ridiculous! I thought. Logy was moving to college, not marching off to war. He would be a little over an hour from home. He could drive here on the weekend. I could drive there during the week. I could call. He could call. It was the ever-changing dynamics of the family that I mourned, I reassured myself. Our oldest was home safe, 3-months separated from the Marine Corps and the dirty fingers of war. This was our time to live free from the feeling of impending doom. Our sons were set to follow their bliss.

That car accident at noon on September 3, 2011 changed everything for me. Never again will I have that peace of knowing my sons are all accounted for, safe in the home in which they were raised. Grief likes to kick me awake at night. It delights in reminding me that life is fragile and death is a cunning defalcator, which enables grief to come and go as it pleases through the torn screen and broken window death left in its wake. Rest will never come easy again, and it never visits fully. Yet, I’ve found a somewhat gentle peace in the hard reality of loss. My Logan is safe in the arms of Jesus. His trials are over; the victory won. He walks with us daily. He watches over us at night. Death, thanks to Christ, could not rob me of what never mine to keep.

Food for the grieving soul

 Logan loved good food. He loved a home cooked, sit down meal. When he was here, we ate two big meals a day. He'd walk into the kitchen and lift the lid off the kettle or open the door to the oven and he'd say, "Whatcha makin', Mama?" Then he'd snitch a little of whatever it was before he set the table. Logan taught us to turn off the television and bow our heads to say grace. He always led the prayer and sat at the head of the table. He'd fold his hands, bow his head a bit, then give us an expectant stare to get our attention, or a little 'ahem', before he'd say, "Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen. Oh, give thanks to the Lord for He is good, and His mercy endures forever. Amen." Then he'd dig in. If the meal met his approval, he'd always say, "Good, Mama," when he finished. If it didn't meet his approval, he ate very little and said nothing. He refused most leftovers; he detested them. He also hated hot dish, even fresh, because it was 'too mooshed together'. He was a foodie. The other men in the family treat food as a fuel source. They don't care what it is or what it tastes like, as long as they don't have to make it. Or clean it up. They never say thanks or offer a compliment. They simply consume. But Logan delighted in the process and the product.

Walmart was a favorite of Logan's, so we went there about once a week. He rarely bought anything, but he loved to look at the electronics, then he'd move to the the reading section, where he'd browse through the gun magazines while I shopped. Occasionally, he'd buy one. About the time I hit the grocery area, he'd catch up to me. He'd drop this and that into the cart. He'd drop little hints as we walked, like, "You thinking about making stir fry soon, Mama?" or, "You know what we haven't had in a while? Pulled pork sandwiches." He'd choose his favorite yogurts, grab a gallon of apple cider, a box of Honey Bunches of Oats, some tea, macaroon cookies, and a small bottle of milk to drink on the ride home. That kid drank milk like a beef calf, but he never consumed pop. If we'd stop to put gas in the car, he'd go in to grab a bottle of milk. When we went out to eat, he always ordered milk. He often called it 'the nectar of the gods'.

On my first trip to Walmart after Logan's funeral, I nearly had to crawl out of the building and back to the car. I grieved my way through the whole store. Down every aisle, the memories washed over me. I heard his voice in nearly every row. It was the cereal, stacked five rows high that did me in; the sight of  his Honey Bunches of Oats on the shelf seemed to cause the earth to shift beneath my feet. My vision tunneled and my heart wept. I finally had to leave the cart right there, and I cried my way out to the parking lot. I got in the car and sobbed dry, heaving gusts of air. I crawled into the back seat and curled up in a ball and mourned. So much of my adult life had been spent making grocery lists, clipping coupons, and shopping. I'd haul home bags upon bags of groceries. Then I'd stand in the kitchen and prove my love to my family with my hands as they made the  that food that nourished their bodies and fed my soul. When Logan died, I lost the gift of delighting in this. Everything I made tasted like crap. I couldn't read a recipe and follow the directions. I couldn't clean my kitchen or bake a pan of brownies. My biggest fan was gone. No one lifts the lid on the pot anymore. No one rushes to set the table or say grace. Conversation is stilted. The room is cold. There is a 160 lb. hole in my life. I feel like an airplane flying with the passenger doors open; debris is flying everywhere, yet it's eerily quiet. 1/3 of every good thing I have done is gone.

I have forced myself, finally, after 13 months, to cook something each day. One good meal. I am still putting in the love, but I can't keep out the ache of loss. What once was joy is now simply good. As my husband and youngest sit down to eat, I know they have no idea the grief the simple art of cooking again has wrought in me. With the love, my heart has forced my hands to begin to process of feeding their grieving souls, while healing mine.

I so miss the us we used to be.

Angels on Earth

 When you blink your eyes and suddenly cannot recognize your own world, God takes the wheel and does the steering. When you have no idea how to get through the next moment, He sends people rushing to your side to carry you into the new hour of your life. Looking back over the year proceeding Logan's death, I can see so clearly the hand of God already working to soften the blow of his leaving us. When I look at the minutes, the hours, the days and the weeks that followed, I have no doubt He sent in an army of angels to shoulder much of the weight of our grief. I cannot imagine how we'd have lived to see September 4th, 2011, without the selfless people who reached out to us.

From the moment we got the news, people were there to carry us home. By droves, they arrived in our yard to offer their condolences and assistance with everything from chores to housework to fieldwork to funeral planning. They arrived bearing trays and crock pots and pans and casserole dishes of food. Some people were lifelong friends, some we knew casually, some we barely knew at all. People flagged us down on the highway, stopped us in the store, called us on the phone, sent us heartfelt words of sympathy in the mail. It was all so stunning. Humbling. I stood and watched and wondered where people get their courage. Before Logan died, I would have hesitated to stop someone and express my sympathies. I'd have balked at knocking on somone's door to bring a casserole. I thought my discomfort would have caused more distress...probably mostly for me. However, I think it the person who struggles with words, who breaks down in tears over a boy the hardly knew, who just stops by to look you in the eye to say, "I am just so sorry", these are the sentiments I remember most. I hope that I have lost my fear of me. I think of my dad and wonder at how he was never afraid to drive into a person's yard and hobble to the door to say, "I heard about your loss. I'm real sorry". Then he'd give them a little money or a loaf of bread, and hobble back to the truck. He'd offer his vehicle to anyone who needed a way to get around for awhile. He'd show up and combine their corn or bale their hay. It was his way of easing the grief. I wish I'd known then how amazing he was. I hope I'm more like him now that I've seen his kind of angel show up at my door during our darkest hour to offer us hope.

Bittersweet

Bittersweet:  Producing or expressing a mixture of pain and pleasure

Bittersweet. That's a term I always assumed I understood. Bittersweet, though, must be lived to be fully appreciated; it requires a loss of innocence with the yearning to look back, and a fear of not being able to move forward. Bittersweet, to me, brings a whispered longing in my soul for who we were, and a raw, weeping regret that I didn't hold fast enough to what I had when I had it. That's the thing about bittersweet, though--you can never know how intensely good the best days are until they are no longer available to you.

I found this picture of Logan the other day. He was 11 years old. We were out in the woods, searching for a Christmas tree, a tradition we started when the kids were really little. We always ended up with some sort of Charlie Brown tree that had to be tied to the wall in order to stay standing. Finding the perfect tree took an entire Sunday afternoon, and, like all the girls in the bar getting prettier at closing time, all the trees in the forest started looking perfect as the boys got tired. You can see my husband and younger son in the distance, dragging the chosen tree home behind them.

When I see my little Logan here, I have a hard time not crawling into that picture and into the comfort of the past. I want to reach out and cup his face with my hands. I want to press my lips to his forehead and breathe in his scent. Just one more time, I think. I can't remember the last time I did that. I guess life is like that; we move to the next stage of it without realizing how many last times we've left in the mist. I miss this boy, and I  miss us.

I don't want Logan's life to be defined by his death. He was far too interesting a person for that. I have found that, when I celebrate who Logan was, I grieve less for what he didn't get the chance to become. I try to be honest about who he was, both the good and the bad, because he played life pretty straight. I don't want his memory to evolve into something his brothers do not recognize, or feel they have to live up to. I don't want to wrap myself so securely in the past that they end up feeling I loved Logan more than them, yet I need to remember. I do not want these two beautiful boys I still have with me to say that they buried me the day they buried Logan. It's a very fine line to walk, this celebrating, loving, remembering, and grieving honestly.

I hope that, with time, the bitter regrets can be harvested and blended with the good memories in the perfect sweet/tart balance that lingers long on my tongue and ever my mind.

.

Things aren't supposed to happen this way

The State Patrol officer, who delivered the news about Logan, gave us a card with the name and number of the funeral home where he had been taken. I spoke to the undertaker at the local funeral home about 9 pm that night. When he answered his phone, I gave him my name. Then I said, "My son...Logan..." and that was all I could get to come out of my mouth. I sat at the end of the table, reaching for words beyond what my mind could grasp. Dead. Killed. Those just weren't words that belonged in the same sentence with Logan's name. They didn't belong in our house or on my lips. Those kind of words bleed hearts dry; those words wreck lives and relationships and families. Those words end dreams.

The gentleman on the other end of line, I believe his name was Shawn, said, "I got a call earlier this afternoon from the funeral home that has Logan now. I want to express how sorry I am for your loss. They called me thinking you might want us to handle the arrangements. I've waited up in case you would call yet tonight. I want you to know I will leave right now and bring him back to wherever you want him--whether it's with us or with another funeral home. Let's just get him as close to home as we can get him tonight." Then he said, "I understand that his injuries were extensive and that the funeral director there suggests a closed casket."  He expressed his sympathies again and I hung up the phone. I set my head on the table and wept. My husband and sons did the same. It was weeping without feeling. It was grief that cannot see or hear or feel. It was larger than the room in which we sat. We don't bury healthy children in this country. We don't bury beautiful, bright young men who got it pretty much right from the start. Our oldest son had just come back from his 3rd combat tour with the Marine Corps. He had seen enough loss. He wasn't supposed to come home and bury his little brother. He had left Death in Afghanistan. Our youngest son had a love/hate relationship with Logan. They were best friends and worst enemies. He wasn't supposed to bury his older brother, just when he'd gotten a chance to enjoy full access to the PS3 controller.

Keep your house in order

The month leading up to Logy's accident had been busy. My aunt and uncle sold their home on the lake and were preparing to auction off most of their belongings. Logy and I were making the 60-mile round trip every day for about a month to help them. In the process, I think they sent home with me more of their worldly goods than they sold! I stacked most of the things I'd accumulated in the living room, adding more and more each night when we got home. My house looked like it had been sadly neglected every single hour of the month prior...and it had.

Logan's 19th birthday would have been September 5th. It was Monday-Memorial Day 2011. We made a plan that I would bake his favorite German chocolate cake, pick up my mother-in-law, and drive down to the college to spend the day with him. His maternal grandmother knew it was Logan's time to fly free. His paternal grandmother really, really needed to see him in his college setting. She wanted to see his dorm room, the campus, the town. She wanted to bake him some chocolate chip cookies to remind him of her and to celebrate his birthday. Not many 19-year-olds, finally free from the restraints of home for the first time, would concede to celebrating the day with two old ladies, but Logan was the kind of kid who would have done just that. He'd have eaten the cake, walked with Grandma as she shuffled at a snail's pace around his college campus, sat quietly at the table and listened to his mom and grandma discuss grocery prices, then hugged us goodbye and, tucking the cookies under his arm, he'd have talked to himself as he walked back to his new life. When his friends asked him about it later, he'd probably have said his birthday was boring as hell, but he'd have been kind to us as we celebrated.

The day of the auction finally arrived. Saturday, September 3, 2011. My plan was to spend Sunday cleaning and re-organizing the house and baking that chocolate cake. But, God doesn't seem to care if your house is ready for a death in the family. The real disaster, for about 20 hours after I got the news about Logy, was that my house was not fit for company. I have come to see that, when the world falls down around you, when you have lost sight of your feet and the feel of the earth beneath you, God does what it takes to keep your mind from caving in on itself. I have heard stories of how detached and cold some people are when they receive the news that they've lost someone dear to them. It's especially shocking when it is the reaction of a mother. Mothers, as a general rule, invest everything they have--emotionally, physically, mentally--in their children. We expect mothers to collapse on the spot from the weight of such a loss. Sometimes God steps in, wrapping the mind carefully with the things it can still control, and little by little, allows reality to trickle down through the layers, in amounts large enough to allow the grief to begin, but small enough to keep sanity from escaping.

That night, my husband and I crawled into bed. It took every effort I had to breathe in and back out again. I had to concentrate to make it happen. It felt like an elephant had wedged its ass between my heart and my lungs. I whispered, "Do you think he knew that I loved him? Did I show it? Did I just say it? Did I boss and push and peck and point and correct, or did I show him what he was to me? Did I love him big enough?" We whispered our fears back and forth in the dark. Exhausted, my husband finally fell asleep. I kept pushing air in and out, around the elephant's ass, but sleep eluded me. I crawled out of bed and started cleaning my house. I finished at 5 am. It wasn't perfect, but it was mourner ready.

Here's a little background on my son. His name was Logan; he was the second of three brothers. Bright and quirky, he was an observer, a listener, a sage. His life's longest lasting dream was to attend college. On August 21st, 2011, we loaded his belongings into the old Ford Taurus he drove. He didn't want to take the car to school. He felt, instead, that I should simply drop him off. He loved to walk, the town was small, and he couldn't see the sense in paying for parking a car he really didn't need. He was practical, like that. I talked him into taking it anyway. I told him that, if he decided it was completely useless, he could always leave it home on his next visit. I was pushy, like that. Twelve days later, on September 3rd, 2011, two days shy of his 19th birthday, Logan drove that car through a stop sign at a rural intersection, was broadsided by a truck, and died at the scene of the accident. Due to the extent of his injuries, we never got to see him before he was buried. I dropped him off at college to begin living his dream, and I never saw his face again. He was here, then he was gone. It still doesn't seem real.

I was at my uncle's auction, bidding on a dresser, when I felt a tug on my arm. I turned around and there stood my husband. We are dairy farmers by trade, and he was wearing his dirty barn clothes; I could smell the farm on him, and it was out of place there. He had a look that made me think he was furious at me. He pulled me toward the door and I stumbled, trying to get my footing. My first thought was that he was upset that I had bought two dressers. He's not the kind of fellow who gets mad easy. Definitely not about two auction sale dressers. I said, "What are you doing?" He walked faster, forcing me to follow him. "What in the hell is the matter with you?!"

He dragged me out the door and turned to me and said, "Logan was in an accident. He didn't make it." I was still thinking about the dressers I had bought, but didn't really need. I stared at him. What I had thought was fury on his face was actually something I'd never seen before. I simply didn't recognize it.

"What are you talking about? Why are you here?"

"Logan was in an accident, Mom. He died. The State trooper came and told me." In an instant my vision narrowed, the outer edges of it filling with black sand. What lay before me was not the concrete on which I stood, but rather a huge black hole. I felt my feet tilting forward, pulled by a force heavier than me. The sand kept pouring around the frame of my sight, working ever closer to the middle, suffocating me with its weight. My husband grabbed me and hugged me. In that moment, I felt like I could do one of two things: I could free fall forward, into that great abyss, or I could start clawing for a hold that would at least keep me rooted until I figured out where in the hell my world had gone. Everything inside me told me to fall...except one small point of light that I could still see through that sand. I sat down on the concrete, and I don't remember much, other than, when I stood up again, there was a large crowd of people around us. I thought, dear God, my house is such a mess and these people will probably follow us home!

A year, two weeks, three days, ten hours.

I started this blog as a way to write myself through the grief of losing my son. Every time I'd come here to write, however, the words just turned to cold molasses in my brain. I would have thought the burning in my chest and eyes would have warmed them up again and helped them flow a little. No such luck. Here I am, one year, two weeks, three days, and 10 hours since my boy died, finally making an honest effort at it.

It's been quite a year. Anguishing in many ways. Peaceful in strange ways. A blessing in humbling ways. September 3rd, 2011 either changed me or revealed me. I'm very unsure which it is, or if it's both. When I look back to the person I was on September 2nd, 2011, I simply don't want to recognize myself. If grief has gifted me with anything, it is more passion, compassion, and humility. If it has taken anything from me, it is confidence, pride, and innocence.

People remark all the time "I'm so blessed". I see it every day on facebook. I used to say the same thing. I still do; only now I actually understand the depth of the blessings in my life. I realize that it is the very essence of death that makes the spirit of life so sweet. It is in looking back that I understand how rich I was. It is in looking back that I see how rich I am.

It's been 11 months, today, since we lost this boy. Not a day, not a minute, not a second, not a heartbeat passes that I don't hold his name like a prayer in my soul. I think I'm figuring out, bit by bit, who to be, how to be, without him physically here. That gossamer veil between time and eternity gives me hope and strength.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird...

Maybe it's OK to just be a mom...

...gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost...

You can pray without a facebook announcement!

Footprints on the sands of time...

No explanation necessary...

He carries me...

Certainly we will be united...

I say to you, Arise...

Be content to be you...

This is to be my symphony...

A grief that softens the spirit...

Tolerance

Ah, politics!

A moonbeam to cheer you...

My soul pants for you, O God...

You give me hope

Brother, where art thou?

One for another

Even the saddest of days are blessed

Edit before you speak...

Dream bigger than gravity.

It's your life; it's your path to choose.