I came to her crying. It was Iggy Pop’s fault. A song, memories, a broken narrative.
I knew it was coming. “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” played on the drive to her house. I felt the desperation with which I begged God to save my wife three years ago. Bargaining. I ran through the stages of grief like a series of ineveitable, twisting rapids in six nights sleeping by her side in the hospital. Alone. So many people moving in and out, but lonely and only a nascent relationship with Jesus to comfort me.
Grief is a long river. The rapids are always ahead. No matter how practiced you become, they remain dangerous and unpredictable. The nasty bitch that Nature can be. Anger.
In traffic, on the way to see my girlfriend, I forged into the tumult. Better to welcome the ugly crying and regain myself before we were reunited.
Reunited. No language is safe from the past.
I didn’t lose it in the car. It waited until I was in her driveway. I was upturned as she wrapped her arms around me. Slow tears. Hot and heavy (no language is safe) tears.
She listened. She made me dinner. She made love with me. The guilt and confusion don’t go away, they take breaks.
Now I’m alone in her house, but not lonely. I have Mary in my heart. I have Kristen in my heart. I have Jesus in my heart. God has blessed me with Unending Love.
It’s so green here. Mary would have loved it. She would love how cared for her sons and I feel here.
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A close friend was redoing his driveway shortly after Mary passed away. He invited her sons to leave a permenant memorial next to the future site of a fire pit area.
Mary loved fires and being outside. To see the project completed and be reminded of how much those little hands have grown in three years was comforting to us all.
It’s a mystery to me why I stopped writing poetry in my twenties.
I’m sure drinking had something to do with it. But that’s not enough. It was part of a process that had been working in me for years. An intentional repression of my empathetic self.
Poetry worked against that process. I learned that to excel in the art I needed to be open to emotions, mine and others’. I had been walking away from that deep well of emotion for years and wasn’t prepared to change my course.
In my last semesters before leaving college, I took more poetry workshops than were allowed. I worked the system to spend more time on the one thing that brought me value in the university.
In doing so, I started writing about a secret in confusing ways. I had bottled it up and needed to share, but it wasn’t all mine, so my poems became increasingly opaque.
I don’t yet have the courage to write about it.
I played with words today, like I did when I was young. I still feel the block. I still feel that secret holding me back.
These feelings emerge as I remember that April is National Poetry Month. This used to be a big deal in my world.
I wasn’t looking for a new challenge, but I believe one has found me. I’m going to publish poetry every day for the next month. It’ll be bad, like the wordplay below. I’ll write until I can’t contain that ancient secret any longer. I’ll write until I produce that poem I promised Mary when we were dating. I’ll find the words I need on these magnetic tiles until I can form my own.
I don’t struggle with faith, exactly. I struggle with understanding, deepening, and living in harmony with my faith.
This conversation between Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau is the first time I’ve heard Peterson identify as a Christian and volunteer the fact that he doesn’t go to church.
Perhaps my favorite thing about Peterson is the personal investment he brings to intellectual discussion. It can be painful, as important learning must be.
Attending worship services has never settled into routine for us.
Before we were Baptized, Mary and I sought community and stability. We thought we could find that in church. After we had children, Sunday mornings became more challenging. One Sunday, once we had two children and resolved to expose them to regular worship, Mary went to tears before they were awake. We never talked about it deeply, I gave her time. It was months before we started attending again. And then a few months later she asked me about faith.
Mary’s faith was easy. Baptism was a formal declaration of what was on her heart. I was, and am, the overthinker.
I’m confident that Jesus moved my heart, but Peterson did a lot of work on by brain.
Worship as a widower has been different. It feels lonely, especially when one son would rather read Deadpool comics in the front pew than listen to the sermon (mind you, he ALWAYS choses the first or second row as his reading spot). The scripture and the message never fail to carry meaning for me, but there’s something out of place about our little family.
This past year has been especially difficult. I tried virtual worship, virtual Bible study, and virtual Sunday school. It all fell flat for all of us. When I was invited onto a Spanish league soccer team that played on Sundays, there was no conflict. I had begun a daily and developing prayer practice and was feeling closer to God, despite missing fellowship with my Christian brothers and sisters.
Soccer shifted indoors and to different days just as I was invited into a new fellowship. There hardly seemed to be a choice to make when I had the opportunity to meet new people and worship unencumbered by regulations that do not ring true to the way I believe Jesus showed us how to behave.
We are becoming a part of this new fellowship. We have been welcomed and I am leading a small in-person study group.
And soccer season approaches.
Not all the games will interfere with worship, but many will. My body craves the level of competition and comraderie of this league and team. My sense of loyalty and gratitude is activated by last year’s invitation to play “normal” soccer when nothing else was. That one invitation has led to dozens of hours of soccer in places where white people don’t usually get welcomed.
I thank God every day for my actively physical life. Mary knew better than I how important soccer is for me. I’ve embraced that somatic need and I feel closer to God when I thank him for my gifts.
There is an ego-driven piece of me that fears explaining to my Monday group that I missed service for soccer. I wonder if this makes me “less of a Christian.” There is comfort in knowing that Peterson has a similar disconnect in his Christian life. I also try to take heart in God’s Grace not being a thing that humans can sort out among themselves. Being Saved isn’t about works, but what is in one’s heart. God knows that better than we do ourselves.
It’s the aim that counts. I can love God and play soccer in an effort to honor the body that God gave me. I don’t worship the game or the body, I worship the Creator and strive to aim at His Kingdom every day.
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Mary wasn’t woo-woo, but she did practice occasional magic.
Snow in Delaware is rarely guaranteed. Mary grew up in central Pennsylvania and loved the white stuff, so helping it along with some fun has been a family tradition.
Last night the forecast was for anything from freezing rain to sleet to snow. Again, in Delaware, that means a messy, freezing mix. To combat the forecast, my sons employed our magic trick.
First, pajamas must be worn inside out. As unschoolers, there’s a 15 percent chance that’s already the case. Next, a candle is lit and a spoon is placed under each pillow. The last step is the most important part because it’s the silliest. An ice cube is placed in the toilet after the evening’s business is done. Approximately eight cubes were used last night for good measure.
A modest blanket of snow greeted me before I stepped outside for Wim Hof Method Breathing. Sleet gently pelted me through the practice and it fell like music through the branches. I felt a connection to God and His Creation, I felt the magic of the Holy Spirit move through me.
As I sit now, writing in the warmth of our dining room, the sleet has changed back to snow. Mary’s magic. This room has become the place I feel her most. The magnolia she loved so much stands through the picture window before me. Evergreen and beautiful all year, its deep green leaves collect the snow perfectly.
These moments may be the best part of grief, when the soul of a loved one reaches down from Heaven in comfort. I can smile and cry and feel her magic.
It is almost three years since I lost Mary. Two days ago the TV digital date read “12 February.” I never had a need to set it correctly and now it’s reminding me of the upcoming anniversary.
And now a friend sends me pictures from January 30th, the day Mary first felt ill.
One of my dearest friends also lost her husband on this day, four years ago.
All here to remind me of the worst two weeks I have known. Two weeks that exploded in my brain, shattering who I thought I was.
Worst and best? How would I know myself so well now if I hadn’t had my mind dashed against the rocks, destroying the roles I had substituted for Self. How would I have this journey and a clear path to ever deepening self awareness without all that pain?
There’s a story I can’t find. A story I could swear my dad told me as a child that he doesn’t recall. It’s a story of a petulant god who went to his mistress, whining about having nothing with which to entertain himself. The powerful mistress smashed him into pieces and launched them toward Earth saying, “Go find yourself.” The pieces became the first humans.
This, apparently fake, story lodged in my brain. I wasn’t connecting with people for a long time. I connected deeply with Mary and then that connection was demolished. I started to reach out to people, largely out of loneliness. Mary and I communicated and shared with each other constantly, exchanging messages throughout our days. I felt that missing part of my life the hardest, at first. I connected with people from my past, strangers, and widows. It took time, but I realized that my loneliness wasn’t driven by fear of being alone, but by a love for other people.
Now, I’m much more comfortable with creating relationships and letting go of expectations. I embrace what is and allow what will be to come. I value each connection and see it as one step closer to wholeness.
