One Year Ago

As the anniversary of Nathan and Midi's death has approached, I've definitely been thinking a lot about "this time last year". A year ago on the 26th, Midi and I went out to dinner and to see "Juno" together, our last girls-night-out. A year ago on the 30th, our family spent the night at the Mikasa house; the kids ran around in and outside of the house for hours, we had a nice dinner together, we shared about the highlights of 2007 for each of us, the kids jumped on the boys' beds post-bath in various stages of dress, the adults actually got to have a nice evening together after the kids went to bed. My last memory of Midi and Nathan is of the two of them, along with Mark and Lucas, waving good-bye to us in their front yard the next morning.

Looking back on those couple of days a year ago, they seem to me in retrospect the last time I experienced a sense of contentment with my life. That kind of peace is much harder to achieve for me these days. While I can't wait for 2008 to be over, I find it hard to be very hopeful about 2009. I am more relieved that I won't have to get through the first year without Midi and Nathan again than hopeful that the coming year will be better in any way. Both the big picture hopes and dreams I had for my life, as well as many of the smaller plans I made even during the course of this year, have been eroded. Other than wanting Emma and Soren to mature and thrive, there's not a whole lot left that I'm hoping for in life right now.

I don't necessarily think this will be a permanent state. The times I've experienced God's love most strongly this last year have been the few occasions where I've seen Him initiate things in my life in definite and unexpected ways. So there's also some hope and experience that He will continue to make a path for me and my family. But right now that path is rather murky, and it's hard for me to have much sense of anticipation or excitement for it. I'm going into 2009 still upright but pretty weary and somewhat aimless. But perhaps God will make up for my lack of energy and vision, and do better for me than I could do on my own.

What If

Nathan and Lucas' birthday was on Monday. I remember getting the call from Midi very early in the morning on December 1st, 2003. She had been in the hospital for weeks because her pregnancy was high risk, and she finally was going to have the boys that morning. I handed off Emma as fast as I could, but made it up to the hospital just after their arrival. Lucas' part is on Saturday; I think the kids will be fine, but it's going to be a rough day for most of the adults.

It's been odd what triggers mourning for me these days. While Midi and I were in regular contact, between the 4 jobs, 4 kids and 4 extended families between my house and hers, we weren't apart of each others day-to-day lives for the most part. Our time together was in phone calls, occasional times out together, and gathering our families about once a month.

So what reminds me of the loss of her and Nathan on a daily basis is not anything directly connected to her. There is the relational hole I experience, the absence of someone who knew me better than anyone, perhaps, that is like missing some vital part of who I am like an arm or leg. I can cope relationally and spiritually without her presence in my life, but it looks so different than it did before.

And then there are the random things that remind me of her being gone, the things that I wouldn't be doing now if it weren't for her death. For example, I've been running and swimming on a regular basis the last few months, activities that were pretty rare for me before this year, because I don't enjoy the former and seldom have time for the latter. But I did this mini-biathalon in September where I did both, and they've now become more of my exercise routine as a result. But I only did the biathalon because I was on sabbatical, and I was only on sabbatical this year because of Midi's death. So running and swimming, these seemingly unconnected parts of my life to the loss of Midi, are intertwined with her being gone and are constant reminders of my grief as a result.

I keep wondering what life would be like for me had Midi and Nathan not died. How different would my relationships be, my relationship with God, how my year was spent? It's an impossible question to answer, and a somewhat useless one, except that I can already tell, in both significant and meaningless ways, that my life has shifted perceptibly because they're gone. "What if...?" is less about the answer and more about life taking a turn.

Pleasant Inns

"...God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them."

"The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy... Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
-both quotes from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

While it certainly has made life more full this fall, I continue to be grateful for the seminary class I'm taking on C.S. Lewis currently. His reflections time and time again fit exactly with some of the things I've been thinking and feeling the last month or two as I struggle to get back to "normal life" while still grieving. This world isn't it, God has better for us... and yet, this is all we know so far, and it's normal for us to want to the "pleasant inns" to feel like home. Even more gut-wrenching for me is the stuff he says about the "happiness of our children". Any good and healthy parent must want their kids to be happy. But that happiness is never guaranteed by God.

While I miss Midi more, Nathan's death is almost the more difficult of the two for me. Every night when I tuck the kids in and they pray to Jesus, there's the constant tension for me of wanting every good thing for them here on earth and the constant reminder of Nathan that I have no ability to ensure bringing that about. Lewis' stuff isn't exactly comforting along those lines, but I appreciate the bigger picture. So even as I try to make the pleasant inns as comfortable, fun and as home-like as possible for my kids, and really shouldn't be doing anything less as a parent, keeping in mind the better home with God does help reconcile all the ways the inn isn't as great as I want it to be.

Life on Thulcandra

It's been hard for me to come up with a title for this blog. It seems too dark and too narrow to have it focused solely on grief, although the mourning process is certainly what instigated it. But I think the point of it is not just as a vehicle to share or vent about my journey of grief. It's more about the tension of living in broken and difficult world without simply giving into the brokenness. There are two extreme responses to this tension that seem really easy to fall into. On end is cynicism, despair, resignation, etc. On the other end is the elevation of pleasure and happiness above all else, and to ignore suffering. Both extremes seem difficult to reconcile with faith in God. Somewhere in between there is the hope of redemption but the acceptance of suffering, the belief in God's goodness even when not all is good around you, loving the giver of the good things rather than the gifts themselves.



This tension has been very palpable for me. I'm very aware of the brokenness of the world right now, and everything I see and experience seems tainted in some way. But falling into a morass of depression or anger doesn't seem wholly possible either. I do still see very tangible ways God is still at work in me and around me. There is still joy in the midst of the pain, represented most often through my kids (who can be depressed around a very affectionate and mushy 3 year-old boy?). Figuring out how to navigate this fallen but not wholly depressing or hopeless world looms in my thoughts a lot.



Given all of that, I have been very drawn to a lot of what I see in C.S. Lewis' writings. I am taking a seminary class on him currently, so have been reading more of his work. One of the overriding themes is how broken the world we live in is. But no matter how dark his depictions are, his characters aren't mystical, otherwordly, and passive, or cynical and despairing. They aren't saints, and it's clear they won't ever be this side of heaven. But they also clearly believe in God's goodness and strive to live out that goodness here on earth as much as possible, despite the adverse conditions they live in. In short, they avoid the extremes of despair or obliviousness. Lewis, in his science fiction trilogy, paints a clear picture of our world being as "bent", dark, and says Earth's true name is "Thulcandra" or the "silent planet", its oppression keeping it from true communion/communication with God. But there are still good people and goodness to be found in this bent world. I'm still trying to figure out how to reconcile the realities of joy and pain in how I live now, to strive after goodness while still feeling the suffering. So really this blog isn't just about mourning, but what it looks like for me to live in Thulcandra.

Back in the Saddle

I've been back at work after my six month sabbatical for two weeks now. I can't really say I came back feeling refreshed and re-energized. Ending the sabbatical felt more like getting out of the hospital after a needed procedure and recovery time rather than returning from a pleasant vacation. It was certainly helpful for me, and probably my family, to function at such a slower pace for such a sustained period of time, particularly during a season when David's job was pretty intense. And I tried to take advantage of the time I had to do as many restful and restorative things as I could think of: reading, swimming, watching movies, prayer retreats, counseling, etc. But I kind of knew going into it that the time away from ministry would more make it possible for me to keep going rather than renew me for the next season. For that reason, I postponed some of the re-visioning for my call and commitment to InterVarsity that I had intended to do during the sabbatical to a later time. I'm just not in a place to make major decisions right now. And I feel fine about staying the course with a ministry I value for another few years until I'm more in a place to decide about the next season of my life.

I have enjoyed reconnecting with the students and staff that I work with. While it was helpful to step back from those relationships during the sabbatical, it certainly wasn't because I didn't value them or enjoy their company. I'm glad to be back in their lives, even if they're getting a somewhat more subdued Anne, at least right now. After all that's gone on this year, I'm curious to see the effects on how I minister to others.

On an unrelated note, I had a somewhat distressing conversation with my son today about politics (who, for those who might not know, is 3). We were looking at a picture in the newspaper and talking about the debate we had on TV last night. I asked him who he would vote for. He thought for a minute and replied, "Papa." I asked, "What about Mama?" He said no, only boys could be president, causing an inward gasp of dismay from me. I protested that girls could be president too, and he thought about that for a minute. "Well," he said, "maybe if you wear glasses, Mama," referring, I'm sure, to a certain VP candidate. I must admit that, personally, I found both comments equally disturbing, but for different reasons. May the conversation be different with him in four years...

The Passage of Time

I have only two weeks left in my sabbatical. Once upon a time, having two weeks off would have felt like an eternity. But given that the last 5 1/2 months, actually this whole year so far, has gone by like lightening, I know this time will be gone before I know it.

I've experienced just enough of life to know that time never keeps to a constant pace. Emma's first 3 months seemed like an eternity as I struggled with no sleep and all the anxieties of a first-time parent. Soren's first 3 months were a blur; I was too busy caring for a newborn and toddler simultaneously to care about sleep or to be anxious. And having lived through the newborn stage once, I knew I would make it through it again, thereby ensuring its quick passage.

But this year has been a whole other experience. In some ways, life seems stuck on pause at different moments: getting the call that Midi was gone and Nathan was dying, walking into the wake with Midi's mother, the memorial service... times played over and over again in my head that I never seem to get beyond. But the rest of the year has been on fast forward; perhaps because I'm still stuck on New Year's Day, I can't believe it's September now.

In some ways, that could seem like a mercy, to get through the first throes of grief as quickly as possible. But as I get ready to resume "normal" life in a few weeks, going back to work, getting the kids in a routine with school, beginning to figure out things for our family that have been on pause thus far this year, it's beginning to dawn on me that perhaps the worst part of the grieving process is yet to come, the part where I have to get used to life without Midi and Nathan, to manufacture an existence that isn't merely a reaction to their absence. It's so much easier to either try to ignore your grief altogether or to embrace it fully than to walk with it hand in hand while trying to go about with all the other business of life. Especially the happy or peaceful times. Reconciling joy and satisfaction with life with incalcuable loss... I think by the time I get to the place where that comes more naturally to me, I will have gotten the pause and fast forward buttons unstuck in my soul.

First day of kindergarten

Emma's first day of kindergarten was yesterday. She was excited and a little nervous, but handled the whole thing like a pro, backed up by a new backpack and lunchbox. So great has her zeal for kindergarten been that she stopped sucking her thumb overnight in the quest to be a big kindergartener.


A friend who's daughter also started kindergarten this week reported that the younger brother was "a little lost soul" without his older sister around. Soren, on the other hand, upon realizing that he had the house to himself while Emma is at school, promptly requested to ride in Emma's car seat and sit in her seat at the kitchen table. Let the sibling analysis begin.

Since Emma is in PM kindergarten, when we drop her off, the AM parents are picking their kids up. With the amount of cameras present yesterday, you would've thought Britney Spears was starting kindergarten yesterday. My personal reaction was a little more depressing, when I realized that I'll be 50 by the time Soren graduates from high school. So begins the Hong family's adventures with public school...

Memories of Midi

There are too many to number, but here are a few highlights from our friendship...

• Walking the perimeter at UCLA our freshmen year in rainstorm so strong the rain was coming at us horizontally as we shared the stories of our lives thus far


• Praying with each other until 3 am at Berkeley Presbyterian Church as God did some major things in Midi


• Sharing a room and all of our clothes not only with each other our sophomore year, but much of Sproul Hall 2North as well


• Midi having meatloaf for the first time in her life at my parents' house, me getting introduced to kimchi at her parents'


• Meeting to pray, encourage and challenge each other for 16 years


• Getting to overlap as couples when Midi and Mark started dating not long after David and I got married; we had a couple of very fun trips together as couples to Palm Springs and Monterrey.


• Helping Midi will all of the wedding stuff as she got ready to marry Mark


• Midi present and helping with Emma's birth/my getting to be at the hospital shortly after Nathan and Lucas arrived.


• Being one of the first visitors to meet Nathan and Lucas on their first day of life


• Having our kids grow up together; there was a whole season where Emma had to drink her bottle just like the twins, calling it "Nathan and Lucas" style.


• "Girls night out" where we'd hang out without our husbands or kids, but of course, spend a good portion of the time talking about those same loved ones


• Our last night out, a week before Midi died, having dinner together, talking about how excited she was about adopting a girl this next year, watching Juno together afterwards


• Our last family time, as we all stayed over at the Mikasas' on December 30th, watching the kids have a blast together, and then enjoying a lovely evening hanging out as couples

There's much more that could be said; those snapshots don't do justice to how much joy and familiarity was in our friendship. Iwas reading a book today that had a chapter in it about heaven. I wasn't particularly into it, but as I read about the author's ideas of reconnecting with loved ones, I teared up thinking of the joy it will be for me to enjoy Midi's company again. Theologically I know it will be nothing compared to God's, but I hope that it is a "joy set before me" nonetheless...

Lessons from the Lion

Inspired by the Prince Caspian movie that came out earlier this summer... which I thought was really well done and enjoyable despite not sticking strictly to the book... I decided to re-read the Chronicles of Narnia. Besides just enjoying the books themselves, I found that some of C.S. Lewis' indirect theology speaking to me pretty powerfully. Here are some of the things that stood out from the series:

• "He is not a tame lion." This gets said periodically about the lion Aslan, the God figure in the books. In other words, you can't control him or predict how he will respond to things. He can't be manipulated, persuaded or even defined the way you may want to. His ways, timing, and modes of relating don't follow any patterns that you're used to. Life with him is exciting and powerful, but also overwhelming.
• "No one is told any story but their own." In almost every book, one of the characters asks Aslan why one of their friends gets treated differently or experiences different things than they do, sometimes out of concern or genuine confusion, but often because things feel unfair or hard for themselves. The answer is always the same from Aslan, that he will only tell them their story, not anothers. And even their own story doesn't always get explained until later on. I found that really profound. I ask God "why" a lot and can easily get caught up in comparison with others. Having my focus just be on what God wants to say and do with me alone is a discipline I don't always have.
• The Last Battle. All 7 books chronicle some kind of struggle, quest or battle, often against what might be considered "forces of evil", but sometimes just against people who are broken and selfish. The characters encounter danger, sometimes that they have brought on themselves, but even more often that gets thrust upon them. Lewis mentions centuries of peace that occur in Narnia between each of the stories, but that's not what gets chronicled. It's the struggle, the difficulties and tragedies that his characters contend with. Given what the last several years have been like, not only for me and my family but for many of the people around us, life really does feel like a struggle, sometimes against the general brokenness in the world and sometimes against the particular ways people are broken and unkind with each other. Giving up or complaining doesn't make the struggle go any better, however tempting those options might seem. But there is character and some good relationships to be gained along the way, and life after the "shadowlands" to gotten later on, if we persevere in the struggle.

While I wouldn't subscribe to everything Lewis paints in his Chronicles (the way his characters handle conflict seems very British to me... "Don't mention it, my dear"... for example.), I find his perspectives on God, what it means to be a person of character and faith, what life is like now, and what the world to come may be like to be very helpful. I'm grateful for the parables he's left us.

Seeing clearly

I haven't been able to see well for about 4 months now. I wish it was a metaphor for some kind of spiritual or emotional haze, but it's very literal. I lost one of my contacts just before going on my sabbatical back in mid-March, and 8 pairs of contacts later, I still haven't gotten a fit/perscription that's working completely well. Part of the problem is that for over 20 years, I've worn gas permeable, or rigid, lenses. Hardly anyone wears them now, so they're harder to order and fit. The first pair I got was made a newer, supposedly better material that ended up scratching my eyes every time I blinked. So then came 3 pairs of "older material" contacts that had issues with glare. After 3 months of that, I finally agreed to make the switch to soft lenses. One of the advantages with gas permeable lenses (besides not having to be replaced that often; my last pair lasted me 8 years) is that it acts like a brace for your cornea. Well, now that that brace is gone, my eyes have deteoriated rapidly. In two weeks, I've needed to change perscriptions twice. I'm still not sure the latest pair I got today will work. My eyes just can't seem to adjust to the soft lenses, and I spend most of the day squinting, trying to get my eyes to stay focused. Needless to say, laser surgery is looking more appealing, despite not having the budget for it currently.

It feels like this whole contact/eye saga should have some deeper significance, especially since I've now spent much of my sabbatical in the optimetrist's office. But if there is "meaning" behind it all, I haven't figured it out yet. I did realize one somewhat bright note (if I could only see it clearly) is that I've actually had the time and space to sit in that office. I've been doing a lot of reading anyway, and I haven't minded reading there vs. in a bookstore or coffeeshop somewhere. Under normal circumstances, I think I'd be frustrated to the nth degree by now. But minus really wanting to be able to see clearly all day long and feeling kind of depressed for how long it's taking to figure it all out, I'm okay about it.

On a more serious note, in the last 2 weeks I found out a good friend had a cancerous tumor removed from her colon (she's my age and has two little kids) and that another friend discovered their young child had been molested by a neighborhood kid. My heart breaks for them both. I almost can't believe how much suffering there is in this world (and yet I can; I think both sets of news would have upset me more a year ago). Maybe that's the other reason I'm not more upset about the contact saga; in the face of the trauma around me, a little thing like vision problems doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

Timeline

I hit another wave of sadness this week that crested at church this morning. Nothing really triggered it, other than some of the avenues I've had for letting out some of my grief have been less present the last few weeks. The grief class, taking communion on Sundays, and visiting Midi and Nathan's graves on my way up to Pasadena for class all provided some outlet for the everpresent grief that I feel. But with no class, no travel that takes me up towards Rose Hills/Whittier, and with either be gone from church or working in the nursery the last month, I've either been alone in bookstore or coffeeshop somewhere or with the kids, not the most conducive experiences for a good cry.

So it all kind of hit this morning during the service. I'm not sure the topic would have made any difference at this point, but it happened to be on God redeeming the hard things in our lives and giving us comfort. I don't think I'm anywhere near the redemption/comfort stage yet. While I think I may get there eventually, I'm not even really in a hurry for it. I loved Midi too much to want to just "get over it" simply because the pain of her death is hard to bear. But I am starting to find it hard to explain to others how I feel. I know people want me to feel better because they care about me, and I think it must be difficult to know how to respond to someone who 6 months later is still very much in mourning. But there really can't be a timeline for this. I both couldn't and wouldn't be on one. I don't like life very much right now, but I don't want to take a shortcut, no matter how much better it might feel, at least in the shortrun.

I couldn't connect to the idea of God comforting me currently this morning. But I did hear Isaiah 54:11 in prayer. Right now, I am "afflicted...and not comforted". But there will be a day in the future where God will change that. I can accept that better than I can the idea that I should feel better in the present.

Good grief

I haven't posted in a while in part because it's taken me a while to get into full "rest" mode. Now that I have finished the grief class, I really haven't had anything I had to do (if you don't count cooking, cleaning, and chauffering two kids around). So of course, I have still filled up the time, but with more frivolous things like trying new recipes (if I have to cook, I might as well enjoy it a bit... if it has goat cheese in it, it sounds good to me), reading Harry Potter and the Sorcer's Stone in German, taking the kids to the Wild Animal Park with Gia and Tea Hamilton, going to Campus By the Sea on Catalina for a retreat with David and the kids, and having Mark and Lucas over (where the kids took the opportunity to dress up, Lucas as a ninja, Soren as... a guy wearing camouflage and a wicker purse), amongst other things.

So it hasn't been slow, but it has been good for me to have a minimum of things I am required to do. But all that free time has come with a cost. I very much feel that I should be making the most of this sabbatical, to get rest and to be restored. So I'm trying to choose to do things that are restful and restorative for me, like reading or swimming. But the more time I have to myself, to reflect or even just to do things for fun, the more it hits me that nothing feels good right now. If I keep busy, it at least masks a bit how horrible life feels right now. But then I feel bad for not resting more, so I slow down, only to have this wave of melancholy sweep over me again. I realize that the grief class served to give a very structured setting for my own mourning; when you're taking a class on death, there is no real attempt to feel good about it at all. So I could keep busy, and experience my grief all at the same time.

So now I'm just sitting in my grief, probably more than I have since Midi and Nathan died. It's probably "good" for me, in the sense that it's healthy, therapeutic, etc. It certainly doesn't feel good. The irony of having everything feel off to me during a season that in many other respects is quite idyllic...

Studying Grief

Today was the last day of the Fuller seminary class I have been taking on grief and death. I am glad I took it, although it certainly was emotionally overwhelming at times (every week, a film clip of some weepy movie was shown, think "Steel Magnolias", "Shadowlands", "Ordinary People", etc.). It also made these first two months of my sabbatical more full than I had anticipated. Leave it to me to need two whole months just to begin resting. And after 13 years of no schooling, jumping in with a 20-30 page research paper was a bit daunting. A friend recently told me that in her whole time at Fuller, she only had one professor assign a paper that long... the same one who happens to be teaching my class.

But despite the various costs, I don't regret taking the class. While I had read through much of the required reading before the class even started, I would have never picked up some of the other books otherwise. In particular, I found Ernest Becker's Denial of Death helpful. He posits that it is the fear of death that is the more basic anxiety for mankind, rather than the freudian view of sexual anxiety. And while in the book he backs away from totally accepting Soren Kierkegaard's solution to that fear of trusting in God, it turns out that Becker became a Christian shortly after completing his book, just a few months before his own death from cancer. Having only read smatterings of Kierkegaard's work before, I came away with a heightened appreciation for him and with a renewed enthusiasm for our son's name.

While the anxiety over completing that long of a paper wasn't great, the paper itself was also a good experience for me overall. The topic was up to us, and I elected to focus on children and grief. The material was interesting and relevant; I found myself agreeing or arguing along, based on my observations of Emma, Soren, and Lucas the last 5 months. I think it will also be helpful in my work with college students; it seems like every few years, there is a student in one of the fellowships I work with who loses a parent or some other close family member. Since most of their peers haven't experienced that kind of loss (or even all of the staff I work with), having more materials and expertise to draw from in caring for them seems helpful.

So I'm glad for the grief class. And I'm also glad for its end. It feels a bit like the beginning of the first "summer vacation" I've had in many years. It's not quite the same with a 5 year-old and a 3 year-old in tow, but I'll take it nonetheless.

Theodicy

Several images/experiences have haunted me the last few months.

David getting off the phone in the middle of the night and saying "Midi's gone"... stroking Nathan's face and talking to him before he died...watching him later die in Mark's arms... going back to the Mikasas' home with David and putting away the laundry and dishes that had been left around when they had gone out to the family gathering they had been at... picking out an outfit for Midi with her mother... finding the locket that had the twins' pictures in it for Midi to wear... the stench of all the flowers at the funeral home and how unlike herself Midi's body was... how small Nathan looked in his coffin... talking to one of the sheriffs who had responded to the accident and finding out that Midi had been pushed into Mark's lap by the truck that had crashed into them... the way Midi's mother hugs me and starts to cry whenever we see each other...

At times all these memories seem too much to bear. But the last few weeks, with the enormity of all the calamities happening in Asia, I have been reminded that my suffering, while great, is certainly not the worst it could be. I'm not sure how useful it is to compare. Jerry Sittser in his book A Grace Disguised questions whether loss should be quantified or compared at all. "Loss is loss, whatever the circumstances," he says. "All losses are bad, only bad in different ways...Each loss stands on its own and inflicts a unique kind of pain."

That being said, it is helpful for me to remember that the horrors I've experienced recently aren't unique, really. There is an appropriate humility of recognizing that I'm not special in my suffering. We live in a broken world, and many of us are suffering from the evil in it, whether it be of human origin or so-called "natural" disasters.

In my seminary class on grief today, we looked at "theodicy", the branch of theology that tries to reconcile God's goodness, omnipotence and the presence of evil in the world. A lot of the discussion and theories seemed too theoretical or pat to me. But some of the material seemed to contain some wisdom, particularly that which argued against a "tidy answer" to the problem of suffering. And the take on theodicy that resonates the most to me in the midst of my own pain really is Jesus as the suffering servant. "Suffering is in the nature of God who participates in the pain, anguish, and travail of a suffering creation and of each creature. We do not know why, but we can know (He) who stands with us in our pain." Amen. I can't escape my own horrors, nor can I make total sense of anybody else's, but I can experience the compassion of savior who suffered as well.

In my head

I hadn't thought I was angry with God these last few months. While I certainly can't even pretend to understand why this has all happened, I have felt fairly strong in my belief that despite my finite understanding and the horror of it all, God is still good. I felt solid enough in my faith and have had enough years under my belt of experiencing the goodness of God to not feel fundamentally shaken in my trust of God by the loss of Midi and Nathan.

But I've realized that anger, despair, and the questioning of God are still there for me. Those things exist on a layer that's pretty submerged for me, and therefore not what I'm aware of on a daily basis. But they are there nonetheless. I think it's that layer that surfaces for me during communion. Something about connecting with God as I contemplate the way He has suffered with and for mankind allows my despair and faith co-exist for a while. In communion I can ask God why He would take soulmate like Midi away from me and at the same trust Him to be my confort in the midst of that anguish.

The other factor keeping that layer submerged is that I am far more comfortable dealing with all of this with my head than my heart. Analysis, reflection, doing something with my grief... that I can handle. Simply mourning all the time, staying in touch with the sense of desolation I feel from losing Midi on a constant basis, those things I can only seem to manage on a every-so-often basis. Someone pointed out to me this last week that not everyone in the midst of intense mourning would take a seminary class on grief and dying. Perhaps that should have been obvious to me, but it caught me off-guard. It revealed more to me how much I'm "in my head" about all of this.

I'm not sure I could change that about myself even if I wanted to, which I don't really. But I do want to try to give that submerged layer in my heart a few more outlets than simply a once-a-week-during-communion coming up for air.

A good weekend

I turned 35 yesterday, and there were several low-key birthday things planned for this last weekend. The highlight definitely was Saturday. Instead of a birthday present, I asked David and the kids to take me to Huntington Gardens in Pasadena and to the Tea Room there. The kids had never been, and having a 5 and almost 3 year-old make through a high tea was somewhat of a dicey proposition. But we had a great time. The weather was gorgeous, the kids loved the gardens (especially the koi and some ducklings that were running around), it was much more restful than our usual excursions with the kids since we would sit down and just look at the flowers from time to time, and much to my delight, tea was a big hit and was fuss-free. This particular tea room happened to be set up buffet-style, so getting to pick out multiple desserts went over really well with the younger contingent. The only rough part was the art museum (Huntington Gardens also has a library with things like a Guttenberg Bible in it, and a small selection of art, including the "Pinkie" and "Blue Boy" paintings, for the uninitiated.). Soren had a hard time with the "no touching" rule and, immediately after we left the building, asked if we were allowed to talk now. But overall, we all had a great time there, which made for a delightful excursion.

Between that and a nice dinner at my mother-in-law's, it was a nice birthday weekend. But what made it particularly good for me was that it wasn't completely divorced from the other things in my life that are more difficult right now. We spent Friday night at Mark's house, and went to Lucas' T-ball game on Saturday before going to the gardens. I think it would have been harder for me to enjoy the weekend as much if it had not included the reality of loss on some level. It's probably the most at peace I've felt in a long while, which was both odd and nice simultaneously. But what kept it from feeling escapist or schizophrenic was spending the night at Midi's house and watching her son trot around a baseball field with a bunch of other 4 year-olds with her mother and in-laws.

I don't think I'm getting to a point of things feeling better all the time yet, but I'm grateful for this glimpse of how life might begin to reorganize, including both the hard and the good in the future.

As existentialist as I ever get

I think I'm coming to terms with the fact that I can't do anything to feel better right now, nor will any circumstances changing substantially help. My basic wiring is to want answer and resolution, to want to fix things and make them better. It's taken me a while to realize that none of that really works or is possible in this situation. There are things that I can and should do that will help: reading, prayer, counseling, time with friends, self-awareness, etc. But all the self-knowledge in the world, or the best care from others, won't make much of a dent on the desolation I feel right now. There is a deeper despair going on for me that isn't immdiately fixable.

If the chief end of man is to "glorify God and to enjoy Him forever", I guess I'm struggling with the "enjoying" part. I wouldn't have ever argued that enjoying God meant complete happiness or pleasure constantly. I think, instead, it means havin gyour identity and worth rooted firmly in God an dexperiencing the peace and contentedness that comes from that. I still think that that is possible for me. In fact, there are some ways that my identity is being even more deeply rooted in God through this experience.

But the peace and contentedness feel a long way off now, if not unobtainable. What the "good life" would look like for me now is a mystery. I wonder if things will ever feel good, now that the loss of Midi and Nathan will always be in the backdrop for me. It seems to me that the best I can hope for is carving out some kind of peace or acceptance for this version of the future that will never be what I would have really wanted.

Hence my question about enjoying God. Will I get to a place where I'm able to be completely content in Him again? Was I ever there before, if my version of contentment hinged so much on circumstances being to my liking? Will the sense of desolation ebb at some point or will that always be there for me, at least to some degree?

Sister

It has felt inadequate for me to say, when asked what's been going on in my life, merely that I had a friend that died. Even relating that Midi was my best friend doesn't seem to cover it either. "Best friend" sounds like two little girls playing on the swings and sharing secrets to me. Midi was so much more to me than simply a close friend or confidant.

In a casual conversation or with someone I don't know as well, the best I way I can describe the unique nature of my friendship with her is to relate that we had talked about raising each other's children should anything have happened to either of us, in essence to act as family to each other. But probably the most apt analogy I've found comes out of the story of Jonathan and David in I Samuel.

I've always found that story a bit odd. There's no real build-up or backstory to their friendship; they all of a sudden have their souls "bound" to one another. We don't see anything that they really do together; what's related in scripture about their conversations is almost all to do with David trying to escape Jonathan's father Saul trying to kill him. But I resonate with the story deeply. Like Jonathan, I too felt that my soul was bound to Midi's and that I loved (love) her as much as I do myself. Like the two of them, it was the Lord that was between the two of us, why we were friends. While we enjoyed doing things together, even frivolous things like shopping or going to spas, the basis of our friendship really was helping each other follow Jesus, nurturing our souls and our relationships with God.

At a gathering last week of some of Midi's friends, a mutual friend Andrea who has a similarly deep friendship shared how she and Midi had talked about how blessed they were to have friends that were as close as a sister to them, Andrea with her friend Gaby and Midi with me. It meant a lot to me. Partly just to have someone else recognize and relate with how I'm feeling about losing Midi. Partly to hear again via Andrea how Midi felt about me. And to affirm the part of my soul that, like Jonathan, continues to say to Midi, "The Lord shall be between me and you, between my descendents and your descendents forever." Societal conventions may not allow me to say that my sister died on January 1st, but that's what happened.

Communion

Connecting with God has looked a bit different for me the last few months. Some things have stayed the same; weekly times to journal have been vital in terms of self-reflection and talking to God, while daily prayer times tend to be more terse (this has been my spiritual rhythm since the advent of my kids). The overall feel, though, very much has been that I'm going through "the valley of the shadow of death", and in that place, God is present but not necessarily immediately seen or felt. I know He's with me, but in the same way you might know the road ahead of you is there as you drive through fog.

The one time each week the fog seems to lift has been during communion on Sunday mornings. At our church, communion is sort of a free-for-all; any time during the last set of worship, people can go by themselves or in pairs to take communion and go pray. Pretty much every Sunday morning in the last 3 1/2 months, I've spent that whole time of worship kneeling in front of a cross in our church, praying and crying. For some reason, that time of prayer is when I'm able to connect most directly with God. It's been a combination of mourning, being angry, asking questions, and hearing back from the Lord about what's been going on for me.

It's also been a fairly solitary experience, some of which has been hard for me as Midi's death has brought up a deep loneliness for me. But some of that seems appropriate, too. I need to hear what God wants to say to me, not what someone else thinks. And as I read today in Nicholas Wolterstorff's Lament for a Son, "Each person's suffering has its own quality. No outsider can fully enter into it." Those times of communion have been a sacred time for God and I to connect, for him to meet me in my suffering in a way that probably no one else ever could.

Midi's voice

Today I heard Midi's voice. I listened to a tape she made for David and I ten years ago for our engagement party. Midi was living in Korea at that time; she returned to the States just before our wedding. So she made a tape with her thoughts about our engagement that she sent over to be played at the engagement party.

I had honestly forgotten about this recording, until someone mentioned it in their recollections about Midi for the memory boxes Mark asked people to contribute to. But David had the tape stored away in a box and found it a week or two ago. I've been waiting to listen to it until I had some time to be alone.

It was as poignant as I thought it would be. The tape was full of her love for David and I, excitement for what was ahead of us, prayers she had for us. The thing that really shocked me was that she read Proverbs 31 to David regarding me. That particular chapter has been one I've been drawn to the last year or two especially. Some of that is that there just aren't that many passages of Scripture directed specifically to women. But the themes of a woman balancing family, ministry to others and love of God have been particularly relevant to me as of late. Even more gripping to me was that just 3 days ago, I had to write an epitaph for myself (this is the kind of homework you get when you take a seminary class on grief and death) and had chosen Prov. 31: 31 as part of it. It lent a sense of the prophetic to Midi's words 10 years before.

I also was just overwhelmed with the love Midi had for me, and for David and I as a couple. At one point in the tape she choked up as she was praying for us. I was so, so blessed to have her as friend. It makes me miss her all the more as I listen to this very tangible reminder of how wonderful she was to me.

Frustration and Vanity

This has been the first week of my sabbatical, but thus far it hasn't felt very restful. Some of this is the reality of children; colleagues who have gone on sabbatical have told me that they spent the first week or so just sleeping. They obviously don't live with little beings who bound into their room at 6:30 every morning.

But the deeper thing that has made it less restful has been the environment of frustration I seem to be living in recently. None of the aggravations have been anything horrible: lost contacts that took 2 1/2 weeks to replace, salary changes that didn't go through as scheduled, getting waitlisted for the one seminary class I wanted to take this spring, etc. But it has certainly felt than any smaller, logistical thing that could go amiss, has. Add to that everyday frustrations like hyper kids who missed their naps or holes in a new shirt, stir in my generally low emotional reserves, and I am definitely limping into this sabbatical.

I've been reading Ecclesiastes since Midi's death. Something has resonated for me with the idea that most of life is "vanity and chasing after the wind". It is especially true that many of the logistics causing me frustration these days aren't really that important, vanity in the larger scheme of things. I hope that as I do get some chances to rest a bit more, I will not experience as much angst over these insignificant things. It's also very clear to me none of these things are the real issue. The class I wanted to take (and which I did get into eventually) is called "Grief, Loss, Death and Dying"; during the first lecture I cried through half of it. So I'm hoping God doesn't just relieve the frustrations, but actually brings some deeper peace to me at some point.

Missing Midi

This last week or so has been particularly hard. Circumstances have been difficult: David has been either working late or not home much of the last week, I've been working hard to finish up a number of tasks before my sabbatical, and there have been a number of ongoing "frustrations", such as contacts that were promised to arrive but never did. I'm not sure if being on my own so much with the kids is more of a cause or an effect, but both the isolation and fatigure/stress of being more a single parent for the week have certainly played into me not doing as well.

In the midst of all of that, I definitely have been grieving more. Often when things had been busier for David, I would make a point of setting up a "girls night out" with Midi soon after. So under normal circumstances, she and I would have been meeting up sometime this week to catch up with each other. The week before the accident, we went out to dinner and saw "Juno" together, and it was such a fun night. Being with her like that, especially in the midst of our busy lives and all of the other relationships and responsibilities we had, was always such a joy for me. I miss her companionship, how known I was by her and how well I knew her, her care for me, being with each other in the momentous things, like how her adoption process was going (Mark and Midi were going to adopt a girl from Korea in the next year), to the little things, like enjoying a movie together or finding great clothes on sale for the kids.

I'm sure I will go out with other girl friends to see a movie or catch up with each other over a meal. But there are some things that will never be the same. There are so many tangibles and intangibles that are noticeably gone from my life now without Midi in it.

Sabbatical Countdown

In 2 weeks, I will officially be on sabbatical with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. For the next 6 months, my only job responsibilities will be to rest, connect with Jesus, and spend some time discerning next steps, both in terms of my vocation as well as for my family.

Things I will miss:

• Seeing first-hand the good things God is doing in the students I work with, especially the crew at UC Irvine where I've had more of a hands-on role the last 2 years. It felt very bittersweet saying good-bye to them at UCI's last large group meeting of the quarter last week.
• The team experience with my staff partners
• Believe it or not... work in general. I like having things to do.

Things I won't miss:

• Having many, if not most, of my evenings and weekends taken up with meetings
• Multi-tasking and the to-do list I never seem to have the time to finish
• It being a herculean effort to have any time to myself
• Having my schedule booked up months in advance

I think it's going to feel odd to me to have so much time at my disposal. And I know I will need to be very intentional about making some changes, particularly when it comes to seeing other people. I think I could very happily use the time I'll have while the kids are in school to just read and rest for the first few weeks, but especially since I won't be seeing my colleagues and students, I think I will eventually be starved for some peer companionship without some adroit planning. So those of you in the area, I'm up for coffee dates sans kids, and playdates with, almost anytime starting in April!

The kids

To say I've had mixed emotions about my children the last 2 months is an understatement. On the on hand, they are all the more precious to me after watching Nathan die. I kept thinking that the primary job of any parent is to help their children grow into happy and healthy adults, and Mark was cheated out of being able to do that with Nathan (he talks about something similar in his own blog, http://mmmikasa.blogspot.com/). I think it's any parent's worst nightmare to lose one of their children, and I don't take it for granted that I have the privilege of caring for and loving Emma and Soren.

So somewhere on a deep level, my love for my children is stronger than ever. But on the surface, it's been incredibly hard to care for them these days. There's a twinge of guilt, especially for being grateful that I still have them when my friend's child is gone. There's a layer of distraction; between ministry responsbilities, especially while trying to get everything set up for me being gone on sabbatical, helping with Mark and Lucas, all the mundane household stuff like groceries and laundry, not to mention any space for myself to grieve, I'm just worn out and preoccupied most of the time. But the thing that's most draining for me on just about any level... emotional, physical, relational, spiritual... is taking care of Emma and Soren.

Under normal circumstances and on a good day, it's a challenge to handle life with a 5 year-old and 2 year-old. Just today I dealt with vomit, a broken glass on the carpet I had vacuumed an hour earlier, diarrhea, getting Soren to take 6 different doses of medicine, and all of it by myself since David is gone tonight. But the circumstances aren't normal; I have no emotional reserves right now because of all that's going on in me and around me. Thankfully, Soren started preschool last week, which is probably saving all of us from their mother totally losing it. The other godsend has been the MP3 player David gave me for Christmas, set low enough to hear any major crises but loud enough to drown out most whining.

I'm hoping me going on sabbatical next month will help me be able to reside more frequently on that deep level where I am able to treasure Emma and Soren as the incredible gifts they truly are to me. In the meanwhile, may God give me the grace to be a good parent to them and may my MP3 player not break.

Second family

There was a lot going this last weekend, emotionally. I spent most of Saturday with Mark and Lucas, first visiting the cemetary, the first time I've been back since the burials, and then going with them to the first birthday party of one of Midi's counsin's sons. I'm glad I did all of those things; I have wanted to connect with Midi's family when I can. Her extended family is fairly close, and I feel like I know them all pretty well after the many years of talking about them and praying for them with Midi. There was a video at the party, and it included clips of Nathan and Midi with the family, the first time I've seen video of them since the accident.

But the thing I was most grateful from the weekend was the extended time with Lucas. For a while now I've been aware that my feelings toward Lucas have been shifting. I have always loved him and Nathan. I spent the whole day at the hospital the day they were born, just as Midi did with Emma. While we had never formalized anything between us, David and I considered Mark and Midi godparents to our children, and they had communicated similar sentiments to us regarding the twins. Nathan and Lucas were the closest thing I had to nephews, and my affection and concern for them was on par with that.

But with Midi's death, something changed for me in regards to Lucas. A few days after the accident, David and I had offered to Mark that we would move to be with them or near them if he wanted us to. But by about a week later, I realized that even if Mark never asked us, I would still want to relocate to be near them, that I wanted our family to overlap more with him and Lucas from here on. And in the weeks since, I've felt more and more that particularly with Lucas, I want to not be a substitute mother for him, but to fill as much of the gap that Midi's death left for him as much as possible.

My role so far has been more of a logistical one with Lucas and Mark, helping to manage all the details that have followed in the wake of the accident. I and the kids and often David have managed to get up to their house at least once a week, but I often have spent most of my time there making phone calls or handling various things. And quite frankly, with Emma and Soren visiting, Lucas is far more interested in running around with them than connecting with me. So it was nice to have a day where it was just me with Mark and Lucas. When it was time for me to leave, Lucas asked me not to go but to come with them to the next place they were going, which meant a lot to me.

I (and David) talked with Mark about my desire to help fill the mother gap for Lucas on Friday night. I've been very aware that no matter how strongly I may feel, it is Mark's decision what role I will have in his son's life. And while Mark has welcomed my help as manager, I wasn't sure how he'd feel about this. It was a good talk, and I think we are on the same page about it all. Mark talked about the idea of "second family", that he got from one of the books on raising boys that he's read, that boys have various circles of families around them. He said he sees us as Lucas' second family. We both agreed that how close our circle is to that of Lucas' first family, Mark and probably Midi's parents right now, will vary at certain points. If we are able to move closer to them, that will help bring it in tighter, as will our continuing to be around Lucas on a more regular basis in the short term. And if down the road, 5 or 10 years from now, Mark and Lucas' circumstances change and they don't need us to be so close in, our circle can extend out a bit more.

It has been a strange experience for me to have this little boy become so close to my heart, especially because of the suddenness of the shift in how I view him and because it almost has less to do with him than it does my friendship with Midi. I feel committed to him because of my commitment to her. I pray that God makes it clear to me, to Mark and to David what my role in his life should look like, both now and in the time to come.

Heaven

I had never really thought much about heaven before. Part of this was simply my practical mindset. I didn't see the point in thinking about something that I could empirically know very little about. And I felt bolstered in this position theologically. Scripture dwells very little on what comes after this life; the focus is almost on how we are to live in the here and now.


But there was one major flaw in my position. Without really meaning to, and while it certainly wasn't a stance I would articulate for myself, with my focus on the present world, it became easy for me to equate hope in God with hope in him giving me a good life now. I certainly don't believe, either before or now, that just because you trust in God you won't ever suffer. But given the level of suffering I had experienced up until now in my life, it was easier to trust that God works all things together for good, making all the bad stuff good in fairly short order.


But with the loss of Midi and Nathan, it became clear to me how much I was counting on everything working out well in this life. And now suddenly, my life will never again be good in the way I would want it to be. It will always fall short of what I had hoped for. It hit me fully for the first time, that the only time I will be fully content will be in God's presence in eternity. I expect to be happy again, or at least happier than I am now, within this lifetime. I expect God to redeem much of the suffering that I and so many others are currently experiencing, both now and in the future. But if my hope is truly in God and not just in the circumstances He surrounds me with, than it is only to be expected that this life will always fall short of what it could be.


Midi's death has driven home for me in a new way how fallen the world is that we inhabit. I need, the world needs a redeemer. And while God does redeem much of what we live in here, He hasn't promised full redemption until we are again in His presence. I am raising two children who I am doing everything in my power to protect, love and nourish, to keep any harm from befalling them, externally or internally. But already they have been to the funerals of their grandfather, great-grandfather, their beloved "Auntie Midi" and their friend Nathan. Instead of drawing flowers and princesses, Emma drew the above picture with her bathcrayons of the car accident that killed Midi and Nathan (the rectangle on the right) and of their burial (the boxes on the left). Maybe Emma and Soren will grow up with a more right view of God and this world than I have because of the suffering they are witnessing at such a young age. I hope and pray that they experience not just this world's suffering, but God's redemption, in part now, and also in the world to come, that world that I am more fully hoping in that I ever have before. While being able to be with my beloved friend Midi is certainly a motivation for me, I also long to live in the world God has for us where my children won't draw pictures of burials anymore.

The bomb in the landscape

I was in a meeting yesterday where we were discussing a chapter in a book about God's love for us and the things that keep us from understanding/accepting that love. Two months ago I think I could have shared intelligently about ways I have experienced God's love or the ways I struggled to accept it. But now I simply don't know. A bomb has gone in the midst of the landscape of my soul, and I really don't know where everything has landed yet.

Some things seem to have remained in tact; I still believe in God's goodness and feel His presence in my life. But other things seem completely up-ended. I have found myself making decisions based almost solely on emotion and/or intuition, something I don't think I have ever done thus far in my life. Parts of my theology seem to be shifting. What used to be a normal week for me, working, doing ministry, taking care of the kids, family chores, now is almost torture for me to get through. And then I'll switch into "business" mode and be fine taking care of all sorts of things, from giving advice to the staff I supervise to doing the laundry to picking clothes out for Midi's burial with her mother.

Maybe the new contours of my soul will become evident fairly quickly, but I suspect the ground will remain a bit unstable for some time. Maybe that's what this blog will be for me... a way to point out the new landmarks as they become evident to me.

Sharing myself

I have decided to start a blog. I have ambivalent feelings for this form of technology. It seems like such an artificial way to share with people. And yet, I have enjoyed staying connected with far-flung friends with this.

But I realized this could serve several purposes. It's mostly for myself, to have another place to process what is going in on my life right now. But it also seems to a good way to keep those of you who do want to know how I'm doing up to speed. Much of what I'm feeling and thinking these days can't easily be encapsulated into a quick response to "how are you doing?". I mostly say "not good" and leave it at that unless time really allows for much more in-depth reply.

So we'll see how this goes. I am hoping to start a sabbatical with my job with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship starting in April, so I could both have more time than usual to keep up something like this and a desire to stay connected to more folks that I won't see as often for a little while. I'll leave the deeper thoughts for another time for now.