Category Archives: Learning from our past

Summer Solstice

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Back in second grade science class, we all learned about the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. As youngsters we loved studying this subject for two reasons: (1) when it occurred, we knew we’d be on summer vacation, and (2) since the sun set really late that day, we’d have more time to play outdoors.

Summer is the favorite season of many, because it brings sunshine, grilling, swimming and flip-flops. It represents lemonade on the deck, green leaves on the trees and screens on open windows. And Nate and I, born ten days apart, celebrated our birthdays together during the summer.

There is no end to the delights of this season. But something has always nagged at me. Why do the days begin to get shorter when summer has barely begun? The Summer Solstice on June 21 is that turnaround day, and it has passed. It’s as if fall peeks around summer’s corner to remind us darker days are coming.

I’m nervous about the coming fall. Along with it’s arrival will come the one year anniversary of the day we were told of Nate’s cancer, September 22. Each of the 42 days following that will be, most probably, a reliving of those painful days. I’m already planning to pull out my 2009 calendar to read what happened on each day. That exercise might seem senseless, but as we travel through that season, something inside me wants to link up with what Nate suffered.

Just last month I was finally able to stop my mind from traveling back to those excruciating days on a daily basis. Aborting that thought pattern has taken eight months, and now, as the days begin to shorten toward autumn, I’m back where I started.

Scripture makes a case for living in the present, but it also recommends looking back, with the purpose of being thankful. By suggesting we count past blessings, the Lord wants us to recognize that he cared for us in the past and will care for us in the future. Even in mentally remembering the days of Nate’s decline and demise, God’s gifts during that time stand out like the flowers in a centerpiece, prompting my gratitude.

I don’t like watching the sun set one minute earlier each evening or realizing that a month of summer has already slipped away. But once summer is over and fall arrives, once we get through those 42 days, all our “firsts” without Nate will have passed. I’m hoping that after that I’ll be able to take more deep breaths and think back without having to relive the pain. My widow warriors tell me this will be true.

Surely the Summer Solstice a year from now won’t prompt nervousness as it has this year. Instead, when the days shorten and that next fall arrives, it’ll come bringing its usual golden glow. The sting of the cancer will be gone, even in our memories. I’m looking forward to the day when I can look back and remember Nate not in terms of disease and death but as he was in the many seasons that preceeded the autumn of 2009.

”The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.” (Psalm 104:19)

As time goes by…

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Is it possible I’ve been in England at Hans and Katy’s house for 12 days already? That’s what the calendar says, but none of us believe it. Although we haven’t done much running around and have lived our days at home base, the hours have flown by, and it’s nearly time for me to climb back on a plane and head home.

 

While Hans has been at work, Katy and I have been consumed with the daily tending of their young flock. Nicholas cut another tooth this week, and we’ve celebrated Katy’s father’s birthday with a multi-course feast. Hans has explained his plan for their large vegetable garden and pointed out the herbs he’s already growing. We’ve pushed the triple stroller uphill and hiked along sheep pastures. I’ve marveled at watching Hans make a cream sauce that went over asparagus, which went over salmon. But mostly we’ve all participated in parenting and grandparenting, and that’s what I’ll miss most when it comes time to leave.

The last time I saw Nicholas was during the weeks of Nate’s illness and death. He was only ten months old, and when I saw him this time, he had no recollection of our relationship. Nearly seven months had gone by, during which he’d changed dramatically. How much more time will slip past us all before we can be together again? I try not to think about it. And of course the changes in Nicholas between now and then will be nothing compared with the changes in the twins.

Nate used to tap on his watch face with his index finger and say, “Nobody beats this guy.”

As a grandma, I’ve been labeling “distance” as my enemy, when in reality the enemy has been “time”. Its relentless march never slows, not for a second. Katy, Hans and I have had lengthy conversations this week during our evenings together, recently chatting about the passing of time. We’ve looked back and seen how we wasted it as youths and only appreciated time’s value when we seemed to have very little of it. I see these two young parents, fresh and strong in their mid-twenties, as having most of their lives ahead of them, while I view my life as waning. In truth, none of that may be accurate, since we can’t predict our futures.

When Hans and Katy called last year to announce a new baby would be coming this spring, I thought Nate and I would be traveling together to meet him or her (him and her, as it turned out). But time ran out sooner than we thought it would. This harsh reality, that time ends in different lives for different reasons, hovers over all of us.

Scripture puts the whole thing into perspective, describing our lives as a morning mist. In other places we’re likened to early dew that disappears, chaff swirling from a threshing floor or smoke escaping through a window. God is telling us that earthly life is fleeting and brief, over before we know it. Compared to eternity, it doesn’t matter much. When we ponder that broad truth, the ongoing mini-crises in our lives fall into proper perspective, and we become free to stop worrying, even about when we’ll next visit the children and grandchildren we love.  

”You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14)

Hold on.

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Nate would be appalled. Without realizing it, I’ve been running around without any health insurance. I went over the handlebars on my bike without insurance and spent six hours in the emergency room without insurance. I had a full head scan and 21 x-rays without insurance and today at my annual ob-gyn appointment, the woman at the desk said, “Did you know you don’t have insurance?”

After telling her that wasn’t possible, she mentioned my insurance company was going out of business. I knew that. Two months ago I’d signed up for a new plan with a new company (which translated to several hours of being “on hold”) and pulled the new insurance card from my purse to prove it.

But after 30 minutes staring at her computer while she brought up my accounts with both insurance companies, we concluded she was right. I was wrong. Apparently there was a three week gap between the end of one and the beginning of the other.

Oh how I miss Nate! He would never have let this happen. Although I’d asked what seemed like hundreds of questions in the process of terminating the old insurance and setting up the new (with additional “hold time” while waiting for the answers), apparently I hadn’t asked the one question that could have saved me from the mess I’m in, which was, “When does it start?”

Today I’d driven from Michigan to see the doctor but heard the lady behind the desk say, “If you keep your appointment today, you’ll have to pay for everything yourself, which we call self-pay.”

Since I’d waited three months to get in and needed a new prescription to combat osteoporosis, I nodded and said, “OK.”

The doctor, who has become like a friend after many years, spent 45 minutes with me, taking time to ask questions about Nate and all that’s happened. I left her office with a fist full of prescriptions (mammogram, colonoscopy, bone density test, Fosamax) and in my usual daze, walked right past the girl at the desk and straight out the door. On my mind was whether or not Jack had gotten hot while waiting in the car for two hours. (He was OK.)

An hour later, just as my car was driving over the Michigan state line, my cell phone rang with the doctor’s office on the caller ID. “Did you walk out without paying after you said you would?” the girl at the desk asked. “I’ll take your credit card number right now.”

I’m learning the hard way, and tomorrow will most likely be another day spent “on hold” as I try to talk to both insurance companies and my insurance man. Hopefully, after enough time “holding on,” I’ll be able to unravel the confusion.

By now I’m used to the fact that as a new widow, my part time job is listening to “musak” and hearing a phone robot tell me my call is important to her.

But never mind. I’ve got a Bluetooth, a skein of yarn and two eager knitting needles to make all that “hold time” worthwhile.

“The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8-9)