Best Red Sox Game Ever!

The boys and I were at the Red Sox game yesterday. Of course we didn't plan it this way, but it was probably the first big public event in Boston since the end of the lock down on Friday. Emotions were high, tributes were paid, and Big Papi made a memorable and heart-felt, if not very family-friendly, speech, and the Red Sox beat the Royals, 4-3.

To top it all off, Neil Diamond was there to sing live during the 8th inning stretch. I didn't catch very much of it on camera, but feel free to sing the rest of the chorus at home.

At home in the middle of a manhunt

Much of the last two years had has a surreal quality, but today ranks up there near the top. Neighboring towns are essentially closed -- "cities under siege" (Boston Globe words, not mine) -- while 2,000 police officers and other agents search for one of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects. The other one, as everyone knows by now, is already dead.

Photos of Boston show a ghost town, and photos from Watertown look like a war zone. Here, close to but outside of the towns on lockdown, we're staying inside with our doors locked anyway. This is not entirely rational, but there is news to watch compulsively and blogs and news websites to constantly refresh. It feels as though nothing has happened for hours and hours, but something will eventually happen.

At our house, the kids are on school vacation. I was planning to leave the kids with a babysitter and go in to the office, but the office -- located in a city on lockdown -- is closed. I'm trying to work from home with pretty limited success. It's hard to focus. This is only partly related to the ongoing events of the day: the kids' activities -- a birthday party and a church party -- have been cancelled. So the kids are entertaining themselves with friends indoors. It's not helping my concentration.

We spent two days of our school vacation week in New York City, and announced our identity as Boston-area residents with my eight-year-old's Patriots jersey. Several people offered their condolences to us after making the connection between us and the Boston Marathon bombing.

Let me get this straight: New Yorkers offered condolences to us. Talk about surreal.

"Boston has been in the news," one of them said. "I'm sorry."

Or, "It's terrible what happened."

Yes, it is. We were not directly affected by the events of Monday, but  we offer our condolences to those who were. We, with many, many others, will spend the next days and weeks, maybe even months and years, trying to understand why this happened. I suspect there won't be a satisfactory explanation. How can there be?

Happy Easter

The Mormon church has a lay clergy, so members of the congregation take turns delivering sermons on Sundays. I was asked to speak last Easter, which I did with some difficulty. Here is a short excerpt. Happy Easter.

Christ was crucified on a Friday and on Sunday morning, his tomb was found empty. There is a space between death and the resurrection, and for Christ this was Saturday. We cannot yet follow Christ to the place where he spent that day, to spirit paradise.  Instead, I want to talk about how Christ’s disciples might have spent this day.  It is on this Saturday that death was real and resurrection was only a hope.  It is pretty clear from the scriptures that Christ’s disciples had a limited understanding of the resurrection, probably much like ours, and on Saturday I’m sure they grieved the loss of their Lord and Savior. 

Many – maybe most – of us will spend time during our lives as the disciples did, separated by death from someone we love.  I don’t know why it is, but it seems to be that an important part of our probationary period for many of us will be to spend part of our lives without some of the people we love most.

Saturday – this period of time when death is real and the resurrection is a hope – is hard. This is where it can feel like the resurrection and its glorious promise falls short. When Mat first died, I tried to sell my kids on the promise of the resurrection and it really didn’t work. One night we were trying to have a family home evening, and Colin said, “I want Dad.” I tried to make him feel better by telling him that we’re still a family, and that dad still loves him, and maybe he was even here with us, or could see what we were doing, and he said, “I want dad!” And I tried to talk more about how we’re going to see him someday, and he said “I WANT DAD RIGHT NOW!” And he is right. This is hard, and there is no getting around that.

1 Corinthians 15:55 says: O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Death has no sting? Actually, I feel pretty stung by death. The scripture quoted by itself is taken out of context. If you read the previous verse, you will notice that there is a qualifier:  “… When this corruptible [body] shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

D&C 42:45 instructs us to feel sad, saying:  “live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die…”

Saturday is long, but eventually it will be Sunday, the day of the glorious resurrection. On that day we will be redeemed. That the resurrection is real is my hope and my testimony.  

Valentine's Day Heart Attack

I opened the door this morning for Colin to take the garbage out, and saw this.  I'm not sure whether he actually took the garbage out or not -- I was too busy laughing and wiping tears from my eyes to be able to tell. It's hard to feel sorry for myself with friends like this -- dozens of messages from people who love our family and dozens more paper hearts. This has EP written all over it.

Year 2

It's a common perception that the first year after a loved one dies is the hardest.

Let me straighten you out. It's not true.

A widow friend let me in on a secret last March: year two is harder. At the beginning of my second year without Mat on this planet, I was horrified by the idea that the coming year could be worse than the previous one. But she was right.

It's true that the first year is one of, well, firsts: the first Father's Day without dad, the first wedding anniversary without my husband, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas. (It's enough to make you wonder why there are so many damn holidays and special events.) And Valentine's Day ... well, the days leading up to that were their own special kind of torture. The store decorations, the candy, the local public radio station's fundraiser (long-stemmed roses for your sweetheart) all seemed designed to rub my face in Mat's passing.

But there was also an outpouring of support and love from all corners. There were cards and condolences (sometimes emotionally difficult to receive but also much needed), flowers, food, invitations to dinner, small acts of kindness and generosity, and plenty of slack.

Oddly, there was also energy and a sense of possibility. Not knowing what I was in for, I gave myself a pep talk: "I can survive this! I can help the kids survive this! We will be OK!" Knowing I had God on my side, I expected Him to open possibilities for me that I couldn't have imagined for myself. Thus pepped, I poured myself into trying to solve the knots that repeatedly came up during the year.

By March 2012 I was tired. I had tried literally dozens of different ways to make life function more smoothly and more happily for me and the boys, and felt I had largely failed. God's help was too subtle for my taste. (The recovered diamond was a notable exception.) Friends and family were still kind but mostly back to their usual concerns and routines. And some people lost patience with me: Why was I still struggling? It had been a year -- I was over it, right? The worst was behind me.

And then the permanence of Mat's death and what that meant sank in.

Last year sucked.

But in the last two weeks, I have felt ... hopeful. For the first time since Mat died, I have had a feeling -- more than once even -- that there's a possibility that life will someday be good again. With 13 days until the end of year two, I think it's a sign. Year three will be better.

Happy New Year

I’ve been trying out a new anthem for the last few weeks.  It’s a little more upbeat than “The Fighter,” but not quite as good for running up a long hill.  

It’s “Keep Your Head Up,” by Andy Grammer:

I've got my hands in my pockets,

Kickin these rocks.

Its kinda hard to watch this life go by.

I'm buyin into skeptics,

Skeptics mess with, the confidence in my eyes …

My life and the purpose.

Is it all worth it?

Am I gonna turn out fine?
Oh, you'll turn out fine.

Fine, oh, you'll turn out fine. …

I know it's hard, know its hard,

To remember sometimes,

But you gotta keep your head up, oh,

And you can let your hair down, eh.

The funny thing about both of these songs – “The Fighter” and “Keep Your Head Up” – is that my 11-year-old picked them out.  Other than the music I listened to in high school, I really only know the songs that my son buys on iTunes.  There are about 20 of them, and they end up on my phone and then in my ear when I take my phone jogging with me.  

Does my sixth-grader know that these songs sometimes get me through the day? Is there a wise purpose behind his selections, or is this blind coincidence? 

And if there is a wise purpose, what am I to understand from “Goofy Goober Rock” from Spongebob Squarepants?

I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Happy new year.

Invictus II

Some days are good.  I wake up, get the kids to school, go to work, pick them up after school.  Then I nag the boys to practice the piano and finish their homework.  We have fun together sometimes.  We drink hot chocolate, and watch movies, and play games, and wrestle in the big bean bags in the basement, and read together before bed.  Many days are good. 

But some days it is all I can do to keep from flying apart.  Something sets off a trigger, and sadness and pain wash over me like a tidal wave.  The intensity is the same as it was the day Mat died – higher because now I truly know what I have lost – but now there is no one grieving with me.  For everyone else, it’s been 21 months.  For me, my soul is being torn in half right now.

When this happens it helps to get it out, and then I do everything I can to pull myself back together.  I have no choice – my kids have only one parent.  Sometimes my outlet is screaming in the car where no one else can hear me.  Sometimes it’s putting on my old running shoes and pounding up the hill next to my house – the best sledding hill for miles – hoping to trade physical pain for the emotional pain that feels so much worse.  I run up the hill hoping to make myself throw up.  No luck. Try again. Again. Again.

I’m listening to a song, a modern-day version of “Invictus” (a horrifying comparison on literary grounds, but better for playing on an iPod while running).  It’s “The Fighter,” by Gym Class Heroes:

Until the referee rings the bell, until both your eyes start to swell,

Until the crowd goes home, what we gonna do y’all?

Give ‘em hell.  Turn their heads, gonna live life ‘til we’re dead.

Give me scars, give me pain.

Then they’ll say to me (say to me, say to me),

There goes the fighter, there goes the fighter.

Here comes the fighter.

That’s what they’ll say to me (say to me, say to me),

This one’s a fighter.

Some days this motivates me to keep going.  (It also makes me want to take up boxing.)

When I can’t get away to scream or cry or run it’s worse.  Then I have to count backwards from 10,000 by seven.  I’m not good at doing math in my head, so it requires a lot of concentration.  This is key to distancing myself from the emotions that otherwise will not stay tamped down.

When you see me next, I will most likely be fine.  I will be thinking the same thoughts you’re probably thinking. ‘What should I make for dinner?’ or ‘Is there any hope at all for the Red Sox next season?’ or ‘Hello, Mary Ellen, the eighties are calling.  They want their mom jeans back.’

But if I look deep in concentration, and maybe I’m even moving my lips a little, then what I’m thinking is, “Seven thousand nine hundred and ninety eight, seven thousand nine hundred and ninety one, seven thousand nine hundred and eighty four …”