Alpha Omega

This morning we prepped Griffin for a private viewing for our immediate family.  I think an important part of beginning the grieving process and giving closure to the life lived is to spend time with their body.  Though their soul has long left and that absence is palpable, the reality of the time to come without Griffin had a chance to sink in for everybody there.

Gretchen and I arrived an hour early and were escorted down to the prep room.  It's a lonely, empty room as the corporation that owns Sandy Springs Chapel has a centralized preparation operation down the road, so it was just Gretchen and I in a no longer used room.  Since we had opted for cremation Griffin required no embalming and we were able to handle his preparation ourselves.  We played Third Day's "Cry Out Jesus" on repeat as we worked.

He was still wearing the hospital gown from when we saw him last. But a look under the gown showed a body battered more by the autopsy.  It seemed fitting that after being cut open 23 times in his young life he would endure one last time being cut, explored and sewed back together.  It was the first of several pieces of the Alpha and Omega of Griffin's time here on Earth and our journey raising him.

On the way to the funeral home Gretchen insisted on a stop at Target to get fresh towels and wash cloths to work with. We had brought soap and hand lotion from home that I use.  It was always important to Griffin to use products I used.  There was many a call from the barber shop asking me what number I use on the sides and what my current hair product was.  So it was just fitting that we bathe and moisturize him with my products.  Alpha.  Omega.

We began to wash him.  From his bent, beaten, deformed toes to his stitched chest, we bathed our son just as we had bathed him hundreds if not thousands of times.  He had difficulty reaching places on his body. He often asked us to help him in the shower him as he lay prone on the floor while we washed the most delicate parts of his body, well into adulthood.  It was a frustrating task when he was with us.  But this morning it felt healing to wash him.  One of Jesus' last acts on earth was to wash the feet of his disciples.  There was a love and a humility and above all a privilege involved in such an act.  And we felt it.  Alpha.  Omega.

While Gretchen dried him, I borrowed a cheap razor and shaving cream and began shaving him.  He hadn't shaved in weeks (he hated it; his fine motor skill deficit made it difficult).  So, just as we had done the first time he shaved, I took the razor gently in my hands and did it for him.  Careful to avoid nicks, repositioning his nose to get those hard spots, moving with and against the grain as needed, I shaved my son for the last time.  Alpha.  Omega.

Time to dress him.  Khakis.  White t-shirt.  Navy Polo half-zip.  His favorite dressing up for dinner outfit.  And as we moved his now less pliable extremities, we recalled together the number of times we had helped him dress.  And as we log-rolled his pants on, we laughed. Log rolling is a method that ensures the pants find their way all the way up to the waist.  It was a method Griffin refused to employ which left him often looking more ready for a hip hop performance than for school.  And when we finally got his pants all the way on, I realized we had forgotten a belt.  Another accessory Griffin found difficult to use and therefore never wore.  Perfect.  Alpha.  Omega.

Our time with Griffin was meaningful beyond words.  We wept, we laughed and we held him as we prepped him. We blessed him and were blessed by him.  Our last moments with Griffin were just like nearly every moment we spent with him.  They were exhausting.  They were frustrating.  They were rewarding.  They were most of all holy.  Alpha.  Omega.

My final thought on this incredibly meaningful final morning with my son is this: we know that God is the Alpha and the Omega.  And if it is true that we are made in God's image, we too share some of that Alpha and Omega.  Ours, though, is mortal.  We know when the moment of Alpha occurs.  We do not know when our Omega will come.  But every moment in between is holy.  And it's our job to find the holy in those moments.  Our proximity to Griffin because of his disability made it, possibly, more necessary to find the holy because those moments could be so difficult and often humbling.  So finding the holy that morning was just natural.  My challenge to myself now is to find the holy in those more unnatural moments.  Because we just don't know.  Alpha.  Omega.

Frozen Sun

The sun shines bright in the Georgia sky

Bright as any summer morn

A gentle breeze passes
through the trees I see
Through the window.

But a step outside, a snap of cold

And I am shaken
from my slumber.

It is still February and he
is still gone.

Taken from us in a moment

That stretches to eternity.

The sun through the glass
lulls us into forgetting

that it is yet winter

the ground yet frozen.

like our memories of him
before they fade.

And shiver as I may,

I hope summer never comes

lest my memories thaw and he

become more distant, less real.

I prefer the raw, biting wind

that reminds me I am here

That he was here

Just a few short days ago.

Lengthen Your Stride

I have been writing this blog on and off for more than ten years.  This year I committed myself to making writing a priority. My writing is a way to force myself to ponder, to challenge myself and to live out my desire to evolve as a human being and reach ever so timidly for the One who created me.  I am really only writing for myself and you, those few who find yourself in my musings, you are my accountability.  For words spoken to oneself create nothing.  Words spoken to others create our world.  God spoke the world into existence in Genesis and dozens of other creation stories.  And so I am attempting to speak into life a different reality, a different me.

You might wonder, why now?  Why commit to writing now?  Let me take a moment and write more for you than for me and explain.

On September 25^th I suffered a stroke.  It was at the base of my brain stem, in the cerebellum.  My neurologist described the cerebellum as Grand Central Station for our mind-body connection.  Every nerve and function in our body flows through this part of the brain.  And I had five small explosions there, leaving me blind in my right field of vision and numb on the left side from the top of my head to my toes.  I was lucky: strokes in this part of the brain can be major explosions.  Those are the ones that leave the patient locked in: fully aware but unable to move anything but their eyes.

So, though the stroke was mild the complications were serious.  Where we have two large arteries feeding blood to the back of the brain.  I was born with one.  And this lonely highway of life giving blood had developed a plaque and a clot right at the point where those that artery, the vertebral artery, meet the basilar artery, the main artery into the brain.  The usual simple procedures weren’t an option due to my being born with only one of two vertebral arteries.  And thus I found myself being airlifted less than ten miles from Emory St. Joseph’s to the Stroke Clinic at Emory University.  I spent a week in the ICU, my body being flooded with Heparin to gently loosen the clot without causing any further strokes.

Fast forward.  Within a few weeks I recovered full eyesight.  Over the course of a few months I recovered my balance, my strength and my agility with the help of some phenomenal physical and occupational therapists. Over the holidays I began to recover my sense of balance emotionally as I spent time differently than I have with my family and friends. 

But the whole experience had stripped me bare.  I felt vulnerable in ways that I had never felt before.  I had my first real glimpse at my own mortality.  For the first time truly understood how much I am loved by my family.  And I ultimately had to face the fact that I was not centered spiritually and that true joy in the third chapter of my life was going to come from finding that connection.  And writing is a huge part of how I am wired.

I’ll end this post on a cold, rainy Atlanta winter morning.  I was tempted to get on the stationary bike but Birdie gave me the look only a Springer can and I suddenly remembered that I grew up in Seattle.  We went for our usual 3.5 mile run, just like we had the morning of the stroke.

As we hit the half-mile point Birdie gave me a look that said, “this is colder than I anticipated and I think I regret my decision.”  Rather than pulling me along with her poorly functioning adenoids causing her to heave breaths like the Tasmanian Devil on those Looney Tune cartoons, she was trailing slightly behind me.  I was surprised by the cold as well.

So I made a decision to get this over as quickly as we could.  I lengthened my stride and ran like I hadn’t before the stroke.  We ran those hills at pace and Birdie had to at points actually run rather than trot (and if you know Springers you’ll know how rare that is).  First the in months I was running rather than jogging.  I was lengthening my stride rather than limping through he motions.

And that has been my choice for this year.  To lengthen my stride.  To hit the road not just in spite of but because of the cold and rain.  Lengthen my stride in my career, in my writing, in my life.  And most importantly, lengthen my stride toward God.

Which leads me to ask: how are you lengthening your stride this year?  Is it with your family?  Or your job?  Or your physical health?  There are no answers too small or big to the question.  The important thing is just to choose.  And lengthen your stride.

Interruptions

Life occurs

in the interruptions

Lazy Saturday

watching a show in bed

Girls run in, jump and scream

“Hey, I’m watching this!”

And life moves forward,

leaving me behind.

Life occurs

in the interruptions

Busy writing a report due

He wheels in

with yet another

Quiz show question,

smart phone in hand,

“Why don’t you

look it up on your phone?”

And life moves forward,

leaving me behind.

Life occurs in the interruptions

Television on as I cook dinner,

She enters the door and

puts down her purse

“How was your day?”

She asks in the middle

Of the news of the day and I say ,

“Fine”

And life moves forward,

leaving me behind.

My life occurs in the interruptions

God comes to us disguised as one

Will I be present or will

Life move forward without me?

The Road Shortens

The road shortens with the passage of time.

The anticipation that lengthens the drive on the way

to the destination is shortened

on the return.

The looking forward to

is much longer than the looking back

In the back of the Country Squire

looking at the road, at the cars behind

my brother’s breath on the glass.

"HELP WE'RE BEING KIDNAPPED"

And I laugh as the drivers following

smirk, if worriedly, at the two

crew-cut near-twins giggling.

As the smirking drivers each passed on the left

We were but two or three miles of one hundred and sixty.

The trip dragged on,

"Are we there yet?"

Nerves were fraying, for there were cousins long unseen, 
games to be played, sisters yet to torment.

"When are we stopping to eat?"
"He's cheating at Slug Bug, my arm hurts!"  

"He's sitting to close!"

Blessed arrival cannot come too soon.

In the back of the Country Squire

Two toe-headed near-twins sleep

most of the way.

Three hours that felt like three days now pass

in three minutes.

I am as close to eighty as I am to thirty-two.

It feels like it’s been a much longer

journey getting here than it will be

getting there
I have much to do
I best not sleep through the journey.