crocuses again

Around this time last year, I was enjoying a great game new homeowners get to play: Guess What the Previous Owner Planted in the Yard.  It was lots of fun to see a variety of flowers pop up in the beds in front of the house and to watch the blossoms come out on the peach tree.  Most surprising of all was seeing this:

Yup, that’s one lone yellow tulip, growing right beside the driveway, at least five feet away from the other tulips, and obviously not part of a landscaping plan.  My guess is a clever squirrel thought he would hide the bulb there for the winter and then did what squirrels do best: forgot about it.

The Lone Tulip has begun to grow again this year; currently it is just some thick shoots of leaves and what will eventually be the stem.  But the Lone Tulip is no longer alone.  This morning, I noticed a cluster of smaller yellow flowers growing right next to it.  My roommate took a picture of them, posted it on facebook, and asked if anyone knew what they were.  The answer, according to the facebook public, is crocuses.

Remember this post?

Call me what you will, but I think it is no mere coincidence that some crocuses showed up in my yard.  At the risk of sounding silly, I think it is entirely possible that Cindy had a little conversation with God when she arrived in heaven about how peeved she is that she didn’t get to plant her crocuses this year.  (I can even imagine her with a hand on one hip, the other hand pointing a stern finger at God.)  And perhaps God, in his great mercy and tremendous sense of humor, replied, “Okay, Cindy.  You can go plant a cluster of crocuses in Allison’s yard to remind her of you and Me.”

Regardless of how they got there, the crocuses are a great reminder to me of Cindy’s new life in heaven and the truth that God has the power to do what He wills, when He wills it.  This, then, is my conclusion: A small cluster of crocuses display the power of God in my life today.  That’s what they were made for anyway, right?

my grief observed

If you’ve been following this blog, then you know that I have had more than enough opportunities lately to grieve the loss of people I love.  And I recently found out that one more person I love has cancer; the cancer is apparently in the early stages but requires surgery.  For those of you who are keeping count, that’s five.  Five people I love have been diagnosed with cancer in the past year and a half.

This has got to stop, folks.

Since Cindy passed away last Thursday, I have frequently found myself reflecting on how strange grief is.  As I wrote to one friend, if death happens to us all, why do we always find it surprising and shocking?  Why does grief disrupt the normalcy of our lives, ambushing us at the most inconvenient and seemingly random of times?  And why is it that in the midst of grief, I can still enjoy a gorgeous sunrise and sing a Glee song at the top of my lungs while I’m driving?

I have no answers, of course.  This would probably be a good time to re-read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis.

Here are a few of my own observations of grief:

• Grief is not just an emotional process.  Apparently it is a holistic process, in that it takes over (for a majority of the day) my body, my thoughts, my reactions.
• Yet somehow, I am able to go about the responsibilities of my day, most of the time without crying.
• At times, grief pushes rationality out the window altogether.  On any other day, I would be unable to justify sitting on the kitchen floor and crying, eating a ridiculous amount of chocolate, and taking long naps.  But when I’m grieving, these behaviors are perfectly acceptable.
• Grief wears me out.  My body aches, my eyes hurt, and I am exhausted at the end of the day.  Going along with the irrationality aspect, it has not been unusual for me to go to bed before 8:30 some nights recently.  I am totally okay with that.
• In the midst of grief, I find moments of tremendous joy.  In the midst of the joy, I usually end up asking myself, “Should I really be feeling this happy if my friend just died?”  It’s a momentary pang of guilt, but it doesn’t last.  Cindy would want me to enjoy life, I reassure myself.
• I become very selfish.  I can’t help but think how unfair this is to me, how the grief is affecting me, how I wish didn’t have to grieve the loss of a second friend in 13 months.  A lot of what I choose to do and think while grieving is in an effort to provide myself with more comfort or to buffer the blow of the intense emotions grief stirs up.  Thankfully, most of this does not affect the people around me, but it’s pretty darn ugly inside.  The most apparent manifestation is my desire to wear pajamas 24/7.
• I seek a sense of completion in grief, which is why I am actually looking forward to attending Cindy’s funeral tomorrow.  It is why I traveled to Chicago to attend Leah’s funeral last year.  The irony is, as I am sure you have guessed, that I will probably never quite obtain the completion I am hoping for.

a series of unfortunate events

First, a dear friend and influencer of many finds out she has an aggressive cancer–tumors in several parts of her body.  She is younger than I am, with more vision and drive in her little finger than most of us could muster in a lifetime.  Some doctors who have treated her say there is nothing else they can do.  She has just enough strength to say a word at a time now, and struggles to keep food down.

Next, the earthquake in Haiti.

Then, a coworker finds out she has cancer, too.  It’s treatable, but it still has me concerned.

To top it all off, I watched “Marley and Me” for the first time last weekend.  (Stupid, Allison…just stupid!)

I think I’ve reached my capacity for human suffering.  Honestly, I might  have an easier time if the horrible news were for me, not for people who are close to my heart.  I hate watching others suffer.  I have gone through a cycle of anger, grief, acceptance, and anger again over the course of about five weeks.  Maybe less–the intense emotion makes the passage of time a blur.

I have been praying a lot, but most of my prayers have started out as accusations: “Really, God?  Her?  Now?  What in the world are You up to…?”  I haven’t heard too many answers to those questions, other than the deep-down reassurance that God is still the same God who was with me when life was happy and easy and everyone around me was healthy.

I’ll be honest: I don’t really have the capacity to truly care about the people of Haiti right now.  Sure, my heart goes out to them and I pray for quick rescues and delivery of aid, but if I really cared–if I truly let myself experience the full gravity of devastation among innocent, impoverished people–I think I would cease to function.  I’d call in sick at work, curl up in the fetal position, and survive on tears and cookie dough.  There have been times in my life when the reality of suffering in the world–the AIDS crisis in Africa, for example–has literally physically crippled me.  I become a tearful, messy puddle of a person.

I think the emotions I am walking through are natural and good.  Crying daily has been an appropriate release for them.  But my fear is that I will become bitter.  I fear that I will begin to believe that God cannot handle my accusations.  Right now, I know He can, but if another tragedy happens…

For now, I’ll soak in a hot bath and then watch “The Office.”  And maybe eat cookie dough.