Remember to Breathe

Standing in a half inch of water, stretched across the bathroom holding up the bobber in the back of the toilet to stem the rising flood, and sobbing is NOT how I planned to start my day. Though I’m sure you’ll agree that probably woke me up far better than a cup of tea, it just was not what I was expecting. Seriously though, in retrospect, I really did look like I was trapped in a bizarre game of Twister.

My 15-year-old son had discovered the toilet clogged the night before and had decided he would need to know how to fix that someday so why not now? He’d plunged it and thought it was fixed. I was relieved. Yesterday was a bad day for grief. I was spent so I just took his word for it. In the morning, when he saw it wasn’t quite fixed, he tried again, not wanting to bug me. Only this time the plunger didn’t work. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t stopping—he needed my help.

By the time I got there, the floor had a good half inch of water. I stepped in with my slippers on and did the only thing I could think of—take the back off the toilet and hold up the floater-thingy so it would stop running. Now what? It’s the answer to that question that started the sobs. Kraig would know, I thought. But Kraig’s not here, came the reply. You need to fix this.

In that moment this was not an overflowing toilet. This was grief personified. This was all that I was missing, all that I had lost. I realized that later in the day as I started to feel ashamed that I’d completely lost it this morning. I was unable to figure out what to do. I know it’s nothing to be ashamed of but still the feeling lingered.

Thankfully my sister, Bethany, knew to tell me to turn off the water under the toilet. Thankfully the man who gives my son a ride told me which plumber to call. Thankfully the plumber who came was a worship leader at a local church, pastored by a lady who works at my radio station. Thankfully, it was a simple fix and when he found out who my husband had been, he offered to shovel the snow on my walk, just to be nice. Thankfully God intervened through people.

That’s a bunch of “thankfully.”

I felt so bad that my tears had stressed my oldest son. But again, I was thankful he helped feed his little sister and that the kids all got ready for school with minimal help from me. I am not a quitter. I am not a weak woman. But when those questions clouded my head, I was helpless for a moment.

I pulled myself together and got the kids off to school. I got the towels and clothing off the floor, soaked in water, and tossed them in the laundry. I brewed another cup of tea waiting for the plumber. And once he was done, I called the high school to see if they’d get a note to Jarod that all was fine. I didn’t want him to be stressed. The secretary sounded like she thought I was nuts. He never got the note.

I’m also thankful today is the day I scheduled to use my massage gift certificate. After all that emotion and stress, I needed it. It was good to relax and focus on the moment. Afterwards Bethany even called with some solid advice—make a how-to book to have on hand so that if an emergency arises, we know the plan. This our new reality. We need a plan to handle whatever may come. Wise words. Good idea.

I can do this. I know that. I have been doing this for the last seven months. I will continue to figure this out and I’m sure I’ll have other days when it all seems impossible…but it’s not. God did not abandon me here. He provides what I need when I need it. I just need to remember in the midst of chaos compounded by grief to take (my other sister) Alisha’s advice: breathe. Take a breath and figure it out. 

Now to go put the bathroom back together.

The Fit that Never Was

There’s a t-shirt I’ve seen that reads “I speak in fluent movie quotes.” This is so me. Ask any of my friends and they will tell you that far too many of my sentences begin, “That’s like that episode of…” or “That’s like that movie…” or “Have you heard that song where….” What’s funny is that I think like that, too. And sometimes, God even uses those images that are trapped in my head or those lines to speak to me.

Today I had a replay of a scene from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and it was not pretty. Remember the scene where the creature, Gollum, is arguing with himself? One side of his personality is drawing closer to being kind and letting go of his rage and the rage side is arguing. The argument is taking place inside his head but it is so masterfully directed that after a while, you think you are watching two people fight.

I sometimes feel like that when I get overwhelmed these days. There’s a part of me, sometimes but not often, that wants to scream. It wants to stomp my feet and throw a fit worthy of a three-year-old. Having my helper, my husband, my partner suddenly ripped from my life right as my children are becoming busy teens isn’t fair. Six months ago when my sisters came to grieve with me, they made me an offer I kind of wish I would have accepted. They offered to drive out into the Black Hills someplace and let me scream at the unfairness of it all until my throat was raw. I didn’t do it then and I didn’t do it today.

Maybe it would be cathartic. Mostly, though, I fear it would mean admitting defeat. I would feel it would be as immature as a small child, even if nobody else heard me. Or perhaps it would just open a floodgate of emotions. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not hiding from my grief. I cry and I feel sad. But I do not wallow and giving in to this seems like wallowing.

Tonight’s trigger was too many scheduled things at once and having to talk my 15-year-old through finishing dinner and trusting him to serve his siblings while I had to run to work later than was normal. It wasn’t even the worst day I’d had like this. But I was exhausted and as I drove to work, the split-screen fight was waging in my head. I’m pretty sure the one side might have been as ugly as Gollum. But it’s the smaller side.

I mean, I have friends who are doing the single parenting thing off and on and they don’t get to pitch a fit. Two of my friends have husbands working for the railroad. They can be gone 36 hours, home for 12, and gone again. Another has a husband gone in the oil fields for two to three weeks at a time. I have military wives as friends. They are doing this and therefore I do not feel I have the right to throw a pity party.

Instead I needed to put on my smile and go record my voice in a professional manner for the radio show I do. I needed to announce coming events and toss in some personal banter all with a smile in my voice so there didn’t need to be a schizophrenic fight lurking beneath the surface. Suck it up, Jenn.

But as the show went on, I think God was gently nudging me back to a place where I wasn’t focused on how hard this was. To be honest, working as a DJ at a Christian station means a lot of times the song titles are just words I’m reading. But not tonight. The very songs I was announcing were gentle reminders of God’s presence in this life I’m living.

There was “Broken Hallelujah” by The Afters reminding me to offer my praise to God even if I’m having to dig deep to find any. There was “I Am” by Crowder with its chorus reminding me where God is in this: “I am holding on to you, in the middle of the storm, I am holding on, I am.” There was Francesca Battistelli’s new song, “Write Your Story,” perfect for the journey I believe God is prompting me to pursue as a writer of the story of all He’s done in my life.

As I continued to struggle to keep the toddler inside me from pitching that fit the songs kept speaking to my heart. “Be My Rescue” by Nicole Nordeman and “Lord I Need You” by Matt Maher echoed that when the stress starts to overwhelm and exhaust me, I know where to turn. The tears were close to the surface now for a different reason. I knew that God knows this stinks. He knows this is hard and it’s gonna take time to figure it out. He knows it’s taking all my strength some days to keep moving forward.

And then I came to a song that reached me in another dark moment of my life. It was a day when my youngest child was having an MRI to see if she could handle open-heart surgery. She was three days old. In that moment of absolute helplessness to do anything for her, God sent me a song by Third Day, “Call My Name.”

Tonight as I listened to the last chords of that song play and started to talk into the commercial break, my voice cracked. I shared with whomever would be listening why this song moves me and encouraged them that God has promised to run to whomever calls on the name of Jesus. Maybe the tears in my voice will reach someone listening. I may never know. But they reached me and shut that little fit-throwing-toddler in my head right up.

Maybe there will come a day when I need to scream at the unfairness of it all—of losing my husband of twenty years with no warning, of having to care for four kids all by myself on the hectic nights when friends are too busy to help, of grief just not being fair. But not tonight. I just needed some reminders of who God is and where He is. I just needed to call His name.