Category Archives: Life’s disappointments

The Journal: A While in Denial

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Although a year ago Nate’s bad back was forcing him to deal with a boatload of trouble, the cancer diagnosis didn’t surface until the end of September. Symptoms of its secret presence were evident much earlier, but none of us knew its name.

When Nate began losing weight, which might have been a clue, we attributed it to his lessened appetite because of increased pain in his back. Then he began receiving compliments. “You look good! Losing weight?” Having put on quite a few middle-age-pounds in recent years, he enjoyed the accolades and decided to work at losing more, taking smaller portions and eliminating desserts.

When he continued to lose, we were both proud of him. I said, “You men are so lucky. One little dietary change and the pounds melt away.” How could something that looked so good be so insidious?

In August, when he began complaining of a stomach ache, which was probably his pancreas immediately next to the stomach, even his back doctor agreed it was probably the pain meds irritating him. The solution was to change his prescription.

When extreme exhaustion swamped him and he trudged up the stairs to collapse on the bed by 7:00 PM, he credited his age. “I think this is just what mid-sixties feels like,” he said.

When he developed a wisp of wheezing at the end of each breath, we labeled it “stress”. When he ran an occasional fever, he asked for ginger ale and said, “I should have gotten a flu shot.”

The mind is a complicated piece of equipment. One of its best tricks is to filter bad news through a screen of let’s-ponder-that-later. And both of our brains bought into every logical reason for dismissing cancer’s symptoms.

It’s not all bad that we spent a while in denial. When bad news comes crashing in, the brain has work to do and needs a buffer zone in which to do it. This week I learned via email of a good friend’s new cancer diagnosis. After my gasp in front of the computer screen and a spontaneous rush of sadness for him and his family, the only thing to do was pray. “Lord, give him the courage to accept the truth as soon as he can. Cause him to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself with his family and others because of his cancer.”

Among all the  negatives that cancer is, it’s also something positive: a fistful of opportunities. I look back at Nate’s six weeks of coping with his cancer and marvel at how quickly he accepted his “fate” (tomorrow’s blog) and determined to finish well, even while undergoing intense emotional and physical upheaval. His actions and comments were calm, so much so they could only have been inspired by God, who supplied the know-how Nate needed.

For those who understand death is coming soon and who desire to honor the Lord through it, I believe God supernaturally supplies. And that stands true not just in cases of cancer but in all life-threatening circumstances. Being suspended in a period of denial might be more than just a place for the brain to do the work of adjusting. It might also be God’s place to ready people to accept their new harsh reality.

And once acceptance occurs, even while disease is killing, new opportunities are being born.

“Blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 28:2)

A Healthy, Happy Husband

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As we’ve moved through our last vacation day at Afterglow, I’ve missed my husband. When our family used to travel from home in years past, Nate wasn’t just my spouse. He was my same-age buddy, a pal, someone I could talk to and share with, knowing he’d see things from my same-age perspective.

Today for example, our last chance to pursue Northwoods activities, my vote was to travel 20 minutes into Upper Michigan to revisit the spectacular Bond Falls, but with the complication of baby naps and the guys wanting to fish, there were no takers. But if Nate had been here, he’d have gone with me.

This week of family time has brought several unexpected jolts related to the problem of not having Nate with me as a vacationing peer. Last night as we finished a late dinner, I watched and listened to our adult kids talking, laughing, moving in and out of topics, and suddenly I felt like a fifth wheel. It was a quick flash of, “I’m the odd-man-out here.”

I know the kids weren’t thinking like that, but as I looked around the table, my mental status made a major shift from co-parent to single mom, something that hadn’t occurred to me yet. And it felt awkward. Although the label “single mom” is accurate, it doesn’t dictate I’m now a fifth wheel around my children.

I miss my partner a great deal, especially at our shared vacation place. But would I have wanted him here this past week with piercing back pain, struggling to maintain his composure with crying babies and crazy schedules?

Would Nate have been able to cope with sleeping in a set of bunk beds as I have this week? Would he have been ok with the two young families using the two bigger bedrooms?

Would I have been glad he was with us if he’d had the cancer death sentence hanging over his head and ours?

“No” to all of the above.

The Nate I’ve been missing was the one who stacked all our vacation debris on a makeshift trailer and towed it behind a station wagon for 350 miles each summer. I missed the guy who taught the kids to bait a hook, cast a line, reel in a fish and fry it in a pound of butter. I longed for the man who’d been happy to ride double on a horse with a toddler, triple on a motorcycle with two pre-schoolers and who’d run off the high dive like he was a kid himself.

But that man, that pal, that father… can’t be here.

The bottom line, as always, is that our family scenario worked out this way because God orchestrated it as such. But I trusted him back when Nate was healthy and happy at Afterglow, and I’m trusting him now.

After all, Nate is, indeed, healthy and happy again. He’s just not at Afterglow Lake.

“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

Battling Birth Questions

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Last week I heard a radio broadcast focused on stem cell research, which has recently been in the news again. The topic of frozen embryos came up, as well as the competition for control of these potential children by two groups: eager science labs and willing adoptive parents. Because couples attempting in vitro fertilization usually end up with more embryos than they use, hundreds of thousands of these are awaiting release to one group or the other.

Embryo adoption seems like a wise solution, although an explanation of the child’s origins might be tricky. All of us are curious about how we came to be. Why did we end up male or female, and why did we land first, middle or last in the birth order?

The Nyman family was designed like this: boy-boy-girl-boy-boy-girl-girl. I say “designed” because I believe God puts families together purposefully, one child at a time. Whether born-into, adopted or originating as a frozen embryo, the Lord considers all the factors in his decision-making: which parents, what sex for each child, what birth position, what personality, what physical appearance, when in human history he/she should arrive and every other detail.

I remember Linnea approaching me at the age of four. “It isn’t fair!” she said, her freckled face full of fury. “You had four boys and only me for a girl!”

Before I could comment, she launched into a lecture letting me know I had no business tipping the scales so heavily toward the boy side. “Why did you?” she cried.

Yes, it appeared unfair. If we were voting on babies, her impression was I’d stuffed the ballot box in favor of boys because I liked them four times better than girls.

The answer that came to me was only two words: “God decided.”

Like it or not, that was the truth; the buck always stopped with him. I’ve been thankful on more than one occasion for his permission to use his omnipotence in this way, and as always when God shows up in authority, the debate ceases. Even a six year old knew she couldn’t fight him.

All of us have wondered at one time or another why we were born as we were. Because faith in God is the fulcrum of my life, I’ve always wondered why I was born to Christian parents who led the way to Jesus. What if Mom and Dad had been Muslim? Or Buddist? Or Hindu? Would I have followed their lead?

We aren’t in a position to demand answers to those questions. But I believe one day in heaven we’ll be shown, and when we hear God’s explanation we’ll say, “Ohhhh. Now I understand.”

Linnea eventually accepted her feminine fate, and I worked harder to partner with her in family femininity. Once she accepted that it was God who made her and her siblings as they were, she chose to partner with him in finding a solution to her problem, asking him every night to make a sister for her.

After she asked for many years, he made her two.

“I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. And how happy I was with the world the Lord created; how I rejoiced with the human family!” (Proverbs 8:12,31)