Resurrection

Last Thursday a friend of mine asked a mutual friend, “Have you chosen your word for the year?”

“Yes, I have,” our friend said, a smile illuminating her face. “It’s ‘resurrection.’”

I didn’t realize till that moment how much I needed that word. I immediately pictured a bright red cardinal (I’d just seen one with his mate earlier that day in the crepe myrtle off our back patio). Cardinals symbolize many things, one of which is heavenly visitors who bring messages from loved ones in heaven, but I’ve always thought of them in relation to resurrection. They remind me of Philippians 3:20-21:

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

We had that verse, along with a cardinal and dogwood blossoms, etched onto Keren’s gravemarker. This past Friday, January 28, the day after my friend told us her word, was the thirteenth anniversary of Keren’s death. We’ve had thirteen years of looking toward resurrection. 

There is so much life in that word, and I know my friend was particularly considering the emotional and spiritual aspects of resurrection for her and her family this year. As much as I hope and long for the eventual physical resurrection, I needed the reminder that there can be other kinds of resurrection in my life right now.

For some reason this January has been darker than the past few years. Maybe it’s the fact that we had a busy, wonderful visit with Kraig’s family over Christmas that ended with a dragging cold (just the regular kind, but still blah). Maybe it was the thread running throughout the visit reminding us that our parents are all getting older, and Kraig’s parents are facing serious health challenges, and I’ve had a few conversations with friends my age who are facing that same realization. Maybe it’s the knowledge that this March I’ll hit half a century, and that Kraig and my kids and their many cousins are speeding toward adulthood. Maybe it’s the fact that my friend Pam faced the first anniversary of her son’s death this January. Maybe it’s that the world seems to be in more and more chaos—Covid and other illnesses cancel events, U.S. politics grow increasingly partisan, Russia bullies Ukraine, China presses harder and harder on those within its borders…and without. Our local church limps through the process of identifying who we are and who we should be, and what hurts need to be healed. The darkness presses in.

We arrived home from Michigan late New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day was cloudy and warm. Our Japanese maple put out a couple premature blooms, cups of fuschia held against the gray sky. I was happy to see the color after two weeks of northern winter deadness, but any time that tree blooms early I flinch because I know the blooms won’t last. Sure enough, the temperatures plummeted by January 2, and the few blooms drooped and browned. The rest of the buds have kept closed since, and though they often bloom at the end of January, right around Keren’s heaven-day, they haven’t yet this year. I miss them, but I am content to wait, because the later they bloom, the less likely they are to get zapped by frost. Resurrection is worth waiting for.

But yes, January has been bleaker than usual. We’ve kept our Christmas tree up with its jewel-toned lights beating back the dark. I learned about Candlemas this year, the feast on February 2 that celebrates the day Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple and Simeon held him and said, “…my eyes have seen your salvation that you prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” My friend Sunny said Candlemas was the traditional day for taking down the lights. I’ve usually done it around Ephiphany—Three Kings Day—on January 6, but decided this year that February was quite good enough. We have time tomorrow, February 1, so the kids and I will get the Christmas paraphernalia put away. But we will still keep up some lights. The white strand on the mantlepiece lasted all of last year.

I wonder what this year will bring. Despite the undercurrent of bleak this January there are bright points of light and some incredibly exciting things we’re anticipating. But it all goes by so quickly. Life is fleeting, and it seems like so much time is wasting away. Maybe that thought is why I’ve needed more light this January.

The kids and I have been working our way through Dante’s Divine Comedy this year alongside an invaluable resource, The 100 Days of Dante. This past Friday we read the 28th Canto of Purgatory. It seemed more than coincidence to me that on the 28th day of January, Keren’s heaven-day, we read the 28th Canto of Purgatory where Dante enters early paradise at the foot of Empyrion, the heavenly paradise. Since September we’ve taken the long road with him through the agonizing imagery of the Inferno, and the slow sanctification of Purgatory, so as we read Dante’s wonder as he stepped into the beautiful wood of earthly paradise, I felt like I had also stepped into the light. It’s amazing to me how God works like that. The sun shone brightly outside and my kids and I grasped a few lovely truths. I discovered that two friends of mine both have birthdays on the 28th and was thrilled to remember that life happened on the 28th, not just death. 

Miracles happen. Each day I can remember there will be resurrection. In the meantime, I will focus on the Life and the Light.

Dates

This morning the kids and I watched a feature about the tragedy of the Space Shuttle Challenger.  Today was the thirty-fifth anniversary of its explosion.  The feature showed old grainy footage of the explosion and the kids watched wide-eyed…and I remembered.  I didn’t see the explosion live, but I remember where I was the day it happened.  I remember hearing about it in Mrs. Balconi’s eighth grade U. S. History class and our hubbub of discussion and shock after we’d heard about it. 

Thirty-five years ago today!  It’s strange to look back and realize that when it happened it seemed a momentous date in my personal history, but in reality I’d completely forgotten the date.  Days and years erased the exact point on the calendar, and when our daughter Keren died twelve years ago today I didn’t once connect it to the Challenger explosion.  I wonder if next year I’ll remember. 

My dad loves to connect people and events with dates.  It’s not unusual for him to say on the occasion of someone’s birthday, “Did you know that on this date in —year, so-and-so died?” Or, “This was the same day that we headed to the Philippines in 1977.” (Actually, I don’t know what date that was, and what other events might have happened on that date.  Dad?  Want to fill me in? 😀 ).  The older I get, the more I see these overlaps and connections, and yet I forget the specific dates.

January has a fair share of depressing dates.  Back in the ‘80s, before the shuttle explosion, January was marked by my grandfather’s death.  I think it was a year after we lost Keren that the daughter of family friends was killed in a car accident.  Two years after she died, on the same date, one of my friends from church lost her husband to cancer.  Two years ago the young son of a colleague of Kraig’s died suddenly and unexpectedly.  That same January or the one after the grown son of family friends died leaving behind a wife and young kids.  And then on January 14 of this year another friend back in Michigan tragically lost her sixteen-year-old son.  My friend will never forget the significance of January 14.

Yet I probably will forget that particular date.  I can’t tell you what the date was when most of those other January tragedies occurred.  I just know they happened in January.  I probably wouldn’t even remember the month if Keren hadn’t died in January.  It makes me a little sad that my brain can be so traitorous to forget exact moments that were life-changing to friends and loved ones.  I want to remember with them, and comfort them.

But dates on the calendar are about as concrete as minutes on a clock.  We see them on paper and on a clock face, but they aren’t really things.  The memories themselves, though, are real, and they stick.

And I remember that there are beautiful things that happened in cold January as well as the sorrowful losses.  I remember a bitter winter morning early in the month when Keren was only three months old and had just gotten through her first cold.  The house was packed with family over the holidays because none of us knew how long Keren would live, and all wanted to be with us and her.  Kraig and I were exhausted from sleepless nights of trying to feed Keren and making sure she was breathing okay.  That morning, though, the house was silent.  Everyone had gone to church and I stayed home with Keren.  She was resting in her bassinet, and I leaned over to look at her, and she looked up and smiled at me—her first, true smile.  I will never forget the way the room filled with light.

I remember the day Keren died, the snow falling on snow, driving after the ambulance that carried her to the hospital when I didn’t know if she was still alive.  I remember glancing out at a field and seeing the sun pierce through the clouds and send a ray down, illuminating the white with radiance.  

I remember the following year when we welcomed family and friends, Keren’s teachers, and some of her classmates and their parents, and we celebrated the memory of Keren and how she had touched all of our lives.  It was another frigid January day in Michigan and the sun filled the house with light.  Children dashed among the adults, and laughter rang through the rooms.

I remember January in Guadalajara when we remembered Keren’s heaven-day for the first time in a home far from Michigan, and how it didn’t seem so hard because everything was new, and the weather was like spring.

I remember January here in Texas and watching the blooms burst open on the magnolia tree outside our dining room window.  This year they’re growing more slowly, but I’m watching the buds increase each day, and I’m looking forward to the exuberant pink that will soon explode from the fuzzy green-gray pods.  

I probably will never be as skillful as my dad at remembering the dates.  Thankfully, though, God continues to give the memories.

A lament for home and humanity

When we put our house in Michigan up for sale last week the one thing I didn't anticipate was the bitter sting of rejection. We would never say that our home was perfect, but there is no denying that it is lovely, even after three years of a rental occupancy. Apparently, though, the majority of prospective buyers have no "scope for the imagination," as Anne of Green Gables would say, and can only see what is before them. They see the scuffs and marks in paint (which may not be a color they like), the kitchen floor that needs repair because of a dishwasher leak we've just discovered, the few loose outlets and missing towel racks, the massive furniture of the tenant that dwarfs each room, the scum left in a sink that hasn't been scrubbed down, and the carpets that need to be cleaned. To the uninspired buyer, it doesn't make any difference that as soon as the tenant moves out, all of these defects will be fixed. Prospective buyers also see the cracks in the walls of our unfinished basement and unfortunately they don't have a civil engineer with them (reason #152 why I married Kraig) to let them know this is typical for Michigan basements, and that there are no structural issues, nor are there leaks or mold. Little consideration is given to the solid roof, the energy-saving windows, three-year-old sink faucet and dishwasher, or the two-year-old microwave and stove. New water heater? Who cares? The furniture takes up too much space and the tenant's packing boxes are beside the front door. This house "does not show well."

I feel like crying a bit--or fuming.

I think of the home we bought in Texas last year, and all of its idiosyncrasies. It has a lot more work that needs to be done than our Michigan home will ever need, but I love it. We are friends with the woman who grew up in that house, and I learned about her parents building it, and a little about their lives there. Neighbors speak of the previous owners with fondness, and we reap the pecans from the trees planted by them. There are so many stories we will never know, but it is a home that was consecrated by love. It is also full to the brim with potential, and in our first year there we have already stocked it with new stories. Rooms are slowly given a fresh coat of paint, windows will be replaced, kitchens and bathrooms updated. It will take time, but in the process we will live and love and work, and sometimes pull our hair out with frustration. This is life. Homes require work.

When I look at our home in Michigan, I see its lovely qualities and all of the layers of memories.

I see the way the light pours through the many windows even on gray January days.

I admire the sunset through the kitchen window, and the view of my neighbor Barb's gorgeous perennial garden through the bay window in the dining area.

I remember Keren and Ev playing on the floor in the kitchen while we worked to get the house move-in ready in the winter of 2008. The only room in the house that didn't need paint and carpet was the kitchen, so that became the safe zone while we worked. Clare, at two, helped paint...a little! I remember writing Philippians 4:6-8 on our plywood floors before the new carpet was laid and believing every word of it even in the struggles. I still hold those words close.

I remember family parties.

I remember our final Christmas there with Keren, when Jon was just beginning to be a new family dream.

I remember the cold, snowy January day when my sister Carrie watched Clare and Ev and I rushed Keren to the hospital, not knowing she would never come back to that home. I remember the house full of family and friends surrounding us with so much love in those months that followed, and the dance between pain and joy as we grieved Keren, but laughed over Clare and Ev's antics, and looked forward to Jon's arrival.

Keren's dogwood

I remember bringing Jon home and the joy of watching him grow and seeing the new shape that our family took with all of its complexity.

I remember the pleasure we had in forming our vegetable garden, and how each spring our neighbor, Barb, would hand me some perennials and say, "I'm splitting these, so feel free to plant them. They bloom at such-and-such point in the summer."

I remember the first days of school for each kid, the playdates with friends, and the neighborhood tribe of kids that played around our court and through our backyards.

I remember the slow process God took Kraig and I through toward a new life, a life that would take our family from this dear home to a sunny apartment and new friends in Guadalajara, Mexico, and then two years later, to a shady, rambling ranch house in Longview, Texas. I know now the hope and prayer that we will be in Texas for a long time.

Our new home in Texas

Life is an adventure, and our houses are a part of that. They are integral to our lives, whether we live alone or have big, crazy families that fill spaces to the limit. But houses are what we make of them; they are not simply what they appear on the surface. They are so much more than a limited first impression. They are homes.

We're praying that a family will walk into our home and realize that, not just because we want to sell the house, but because we want others to have the chance to build beauty there.