The Inevitable Waiting

     Dash is dying and I’m watching it happen in slow motion. My 10-year-old mini schnauzer, diagnosed with kidney disease a year ago, appeared healthy at her annual physical three weeks ago. The veterinarian was surprised to see her still going strong. Sadly, the blood work told a different story. Less than a week after her exam, the vet called to say the disease is now in stage three. 

     Looking back, it made sense. For the past few weeks, Dash had not been finishing her bowls of kibble in the mornings. She was visibly skinnier. It wasn’t long after the vet called that Dash began refusing both food and water. 

 

     She had always been my shadow, following me all over the house and up and down the stairs. As soon as I asked her, “Want to go for a walk?” she spun in circles and barked with excitement. I could barely get her to stay still long enough to fasten her leash. Now, Dash looks at me from her spot on the red couch, barely lifting her head to watch as I climb the stairs to my room alone. 

 

     I let her sleep with me now. I never wanted that when she was a puppy. I didn’t want her to get used to it. I crate-trained her and the nightly ritual of closing that metal door made her feel safe. I also knew exactly where she was all night. During the past few months, as the disease progressed, she drank more and more water, especially in the mornings after being in her crate all night. I decided to let her sleep with me. Being in my bed gave her the freedom to go downstairs to her water bowl whenever she needed it. 

 

     I want her near me. I want to hear her breathe. I try to sleep and listen at the same time. Any variation in the rhythm of her breathing and I hold my breath. I reach to rub her belly to reassure her and me. I doze, off and on, and then panic when I realize I’ve fallen asleep. I’m afraid.  

 

     This brings up feelings that are eerily familiar. I remembered listening to my father breathe through a bedroom monitor as he was dying of cancer two-and-a-half years ago. I panicked then too, when I drifted off for a few hours. If I couldn’t hear any movement from dad through the monitor, I got out of bed and tiptoed out of the room, trying not to wake my mother. I stood at the door to the living room where my dad slept in a hospital bed. I watched dad’s chest. When I saw it move, I was relieved.  

 

     And now I wonder why I felt responsible for keeping track of my father’s breathing? Why do I feel the same way about Dash? Why do I feel the need to listen for it and measure its duration? Neither are or were in my control, but I still wanted to hear it. I wanted to be there for my father’s last breath and I want the same with Dash. I don’t want to miss it. 

 

     I thought I had grieved those anxious moments from the last few weeks of my father’s death, but they are sitting heavy on my chest. Watching Dash die has ripped open a well of grief I saved to deal with later. I didn’t have time to let grief overwhelm me then. Now I listen to Dash breathing and I hear my father’s labored breathing. The fear and grief are right back where they were before, as fresh as if my dad had just died. I move right into the uncertainty of it as if it never left. I feel helpless.

 

     “It’s the inevitable waiting that is the hardest,” mom reminds me as I lift Dash onto the couch. She remembers too.

 

     I went for a walk this morning around the lake. My brother Jay and I used to walk around my parents’ Tennessee neighborhood while dad was dying. We climbed the hilly roads and circled the cul-de-sacs. It was winter and we had to bundle up in coats, toboggans and gloves. It gave us time away from seeing our dad in a hospital bed in the living room. For a few minutes each day, we could talk about the weather, sports or our kids. It didn’t change anything but our view, but we never missed a day. I remembered the importance of that as I walked today. I must remember that I am still living, though I’m sitting with the dying.  

     Nothing feels more important right now than sitting with Dash, stroking her belly, and watching her breathe. I see her as the tiny pup I picked up from her foster home. I loved her coal black hair and the way she loved to cuddle. Curious and a bit mischievous, Dash would open cabinets and go through the trash. She hid packs of crackers or candy she stole from bedside tables or closets in couch cushions or the creases of her dog bed. When scolded, she bowed her head and looked at the ground. She was so cute I couldn’t stay mad at her. I found her at the perfect time. My boys were grown and didn’t need me the way they had when they were little. I needed someone else to care for and it felt right to care for her. 

Puppy problems at Christmas. 

     Now she is grey-haired like me, and she struggles to walk, and to eat. Her mother had been rescued from a local puppy mill and soon after had a litter of four pups. I wonder if her sickness goes back to her mom’s time at the puppy mill. Did my girl get all she needed from a mother that was forced to have litter after litter of puppies? I can’t change that, but I need answers for the changes in my once healthy dog. She should have had at least three more years. I’ll always wonder.  

Dash loved to cuddle.

 

     Dash has been with me through my empty nest days, my separation and divorce, my father’s death, and building a new life and home. Through all of this, having her greet me at the door every time with excitement made me happy. I have a feeling that is what I will miss the most. 

 

     I wouldn’t let myself cry as I watched my father die. Maybe I didn’t want him to feel the massive hole his leaving would cause in my life. I sat with my father and held his hand even when he stopped squeezing mine back. But I didn’t let myself cry until he took that last breath. As I mourn the loss of Dash, I cry easily. Grief often works that way. Its timing is never what I think it might be. Maybe these tears for Dash are also tears for my father. The tears were sitting in the well of grief that I had hidden away. They waited for their moment to flow. That time is now. 

 

     Dash is dying. It is inevitable. I’m here listening for her last breath. 

 

    I was with Dash as she took her last breath on Monday, October 2, at 10:45 a.m. I’m forever grateful for the joy she brought to my life. Life's a journey. Pay Attention. 

     

Barbaric Yawps

     They called me “Queen of the Johnnies” when I was 11 years old. I worked at a preschool not far from Bayshore Elementary in LaPorte, Texas. I cleaned Playdough off tiny tables and chairs and wrestled with a mop and vacuum on a regular basis. I made the $1.60 minimum wage and an extra $5 when I mowed the grass.

     I got the nickname because I loved to tell the story about having to clean the walls of the little boys’ bathroom. Left unsupervised to do their business, they had a peeing contest to see who could reach the highest spot.

 

     I’m not sure what the owner was thinking when she hired a scrawny sixth grader, but I’m glad she gave me the chance to earn my own money. It was how I paid for the name-brand tennis shoes and jeans that I desperately wanted but knew we couldn’t afford on my dad’s minister of music salary. 

    I’ve had a job ever since. Through high school I cleaned homes, a dance studio, and a financial office. In college, I helped to pay my way through Gardner-Webb University, a private Christian school. I started in the cafeteria my first year and talked my way into the sports information office the next three. I kept stats for football and basketball and helped by writing Bulldog club letters and releases.

 

     I declared English as my major when I arrived on campus as a 17-year-old because I knew I wanted to be a writer. One weekend during my freshman year at college while doing my required reading for religion class, God whispered to me and confirmed that writing was indeed my true calling. That day, God’s word and my desire came together. I Cor. 2:12-13 says: 

 

     “Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. Which things we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.” 

 

     Reading those verses showed me that not only did God want me to write, but that He promised he would give me the words I needed.

 

     New Testament verses weren’t my only assignment that weekend. I was also immersed in American literature and the poetry of Walt Whitman. I had the dorm hall mostly to myself that Saturday, so I climbed up on top of my desk and called upon my inner Walt Whitman. I shouted my version of a “barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world” declaring my joy in knowing my true calling (Song of Myself, 52, Walt Whitman). 

 

     It hasn’t always been an easy road to becoming a writer. After graduation, I did a stint at my alma mater, writing press releases and newsletters while using my creative skills to write a $5 a week column for The Cleveland Times newspaper. After a move, I went back to my cleaning roots as a Molly Maid before finding a job writing ad copy for a newspaper.

 

     I finally hit my stride as a writer at The Concord Tribune. I left there after a few years to be a fulltime mom, keeping journals of those times and writing two children’s books in my spare time. I did stints as a preschool teacher and a sporting goods salesperson before heading back to fulltime writing with The Greer Citizen. From there, I landed my current job in marketing and communications at Greer Community Ministries in 2013.

 

     Today, that journey comes to an end. I am retiring. Though I had moments of feeding the call to write throughout my career, I haven’t always had the peace or confidence that I felt that day on top of my desk in my dorm room at Gardner-Webb. 

 

     Until now.

 

     Once again, I will sound the barbaric yawp of my calling as I find a seat behind my desk and slide into that place where God’s whisper and my desire merge. With a boisterous cry I summon my muses and ink up my fountain pens to tell my stories.

 

Life’s a journey. Pay attention. 

 

“Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you.” (Whitman)

Grief Part 2: Sludge and Grace

 

     Grief is a permanent tattoo I didn’t choose. Like Florida muck fires in summer, the flames of grief aren’t always seen, but the stench and smoke from the underground compost burning is ever present.

     Muck fires are ignited by lightning strikes. The powerful force of nature reaches depths instantaneously. My grief, like the muck, ignited when my dad died. It still smolders as I navigate life without his voice and his tangible love.

     Nothing feels right. Not work. Not workouts. Not special moments. My feet feel weighted in the sludge. Grief has left me exposed like freshly pruned crepe myrtle trees when all I want is to be shielded by a thicket of intertwined vines.

     I cry when the tears come to own my grief. The tears are a balm that soothe the ache.

     I listen when people try to comfort me and comment, “He died well.” “Wasn’t it great that we all got to say goodbye?” “Weren’t you lucky to have such a great relationship with your dad?” “You were blessed to have time with him at the end.” Even when the words aren’t exactly what I need to hear, I know people say them with the best of intentions. 

    But he’s still dead. All the lovely sentiments won’t bring him back or soothe the ache in my heart.

     Nonetheless, the grace in their words is not lost on me. It’s their way of letting me know that one day I will breathe again. That God still sees me and holds me even when I can’t see or feel him. That one day a heavy rain will finally put out the muck fire of my grief.

     God made me to be resilient. God gives me grace to keep walking in the sludge. No one has found the perfect remedy to unlock what is next, but I know there is a next. I can feel it and there are hints that I may even want it.

    The path of grief is the only way to get there. So I’ll put on my wellies and keep walking one day at a time until God lights up my next path.

Life’s a journey. Pay Attention.

Grief Part 1: Smash and Grab

      They took my journal. They took my healthy snacks. They took my phone. All while I worked out at 6:45 a.m. I have so many questions: Did they think my lunch bag was a purse? Did they use that safety tool from ‘As Seen on TV’ to break my window? Why was my car targeted?  

     I’m still finding tiny cubes of broken glass in the car. The police officer used his special gloves and brush to kindly wipe off the seat for me, and a car wash vacuum sucked most of the remaining bits away, but as I find remnants of glass I’m reminded of what the thieves stole from me.

 

     The smash and grab happened just three weeks after purchasing that car and a mere month after my father’s death. The timing of this unexpected invasion further disrupted my already fragile sense of security.

 

     Flash back to a Friday afternoon last November when my brother the doctor texted me,  “I need to talk to you.” I called him from the parking lot of my apartment complex. I heard the words so many others hear about their loved ones – the cancer had metastasized to the lungs. Barring a miracle, our dad was dying.

 

     I couldn’t breathe as I made my way to my apartment door. Once inside, the tears came hard and fast. I crumpled into my bed, doubled over as months of worry escaped in guttural cries and tears.

 

     Over the next four months, I swallowed my tears and navigated trips from South Carolina to Missouri to Tennessee and back. To help my mom and dad, yes, but mostly to stay busy and try to soothe the ache of losing him.

 

     This time it was a different thief shaking my foundation. Cancer smashed the glass of my secure world leaving little shards of grief everywhere I turned. They prick me at the oddest times. One shard exposes anger and another tears. Most leave me sitting in thick clouds of sadness. 

 

     The journal that chronicled my devastating loss was in the lunch bag stolen from my car. I hadn’t even had time to process cancer’s own smash and grab before a similar invasion took place in the gym’s parking lot.

 

     I grieve the immense loss of my dad. As a writer, I also grieve the loss of the journal that helped me through his death. It helps to know that grief is universal. Not one of us is immune to loss. I hold on to that. 

 

Life’s a journey. Pay attention.   

 

 

 

 

Dixie Cups and Slider Buns

      I don’t want my daddy to die. The two tracks we chose to believe after his cancer diagnosis were the miracle track and the reality track.

     Reality is winning.

     The only man I ever let call me darling is leaving. I check my phone every morning to see if the scripture he sends out to his kids and grandkids is there. When I see it pop up on the screen, it says that I have one more day. Lately he chooses the Psalms for comfort or New Testament calls to be strong in the Lord. You might think that it’s for him, but it’s for us, the readers, who send our little heart and thumbs up emojis to let him know we see him and his love for us.

     He is always, always, always bringing us back to Jesus.

     A month ago, he started giving blessings to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Many of them drove a long way to come and receive words from our patriarch. When unable to make it in person, they listened over the phone or on FaceTime.

     

     One Sunday in January, a large group of us gathered around his hospital bed in the middle of the living room as he spoke words of encouragement. My mom filled Dixie Cups with grape juice and my brother Jay broke slider buns into bite-sized pieces for this beautiful Christian ceremony that asks us to remember Jesus.

     He led us through a tearful Communion and then we sang together.

     “Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.”

     Then he prayed:

     “Father, thank you for my family, thank you for the legacy. Thank you that they will continue to honor You and love You. I praise you in Jesus name. Amen.”

     I don’t want my daddy to die, but by pouring into all of us here, at the end, he is reminding us all to live in the legacy he has created, one that always chooses to pour into others the love that Jesus has given to us.

     Life's a journey. Pay attention. 

Photo credits to my nieces Laura Fischer and Amanda Colle. 

    

A Rebel and a Pleaser Wage War

 

     Mike Tatz inked one tattoo on my left wrist and one on my left chest shortly after my 50^th birthday. It was my half-century gift to myself. Why two? I loved the gorgeous artwork Mike created but it would have covered my entire wrist.

     The rebel wanted the complete tattoo, but she compromised and let the pleaser hide it under her shirt. The pleaser chose a smaller, visible version for her wrist. Both won that way. Story of my life: compromise. Hide the rebel long enough to let the pleaser shine.

     But I have always loved the rebel in me. She is fierce and she is tired of hiding.

     I grew up in a black and white world. The rebel wore black. The pleaser wore white. I liked both, but the church said rebellion was wrong and following all the rules was the only way to live. I believed them.

                                                                                                                                    Photo by John Hain

     The first time I cursed, the word flicked off my tongue like a spark.

     “You shouldn’t say that,” said my elementary school friend.

     “I know.”

     Minister’s kids always know. Early on, we learn the written and unwritten rules of how to get through life, even though the forbidden always appealed to me. When you live your life under the microscope as a church leader’s kid, life plays out on a stage. You want to hold secrets in your pocket where no one can see. You want something to call your own without anyone knowing and judging it. Sometimes you just want to curse out loud.

     Then you grow up, turn 50 and get permanently inked without anyone knowing and let the chips fall where they may. I see my wrist tattoo, a fountain pen nib, and am reminded of the gift God has given me. I see my larger tattoo with the nib and ink splats, and I smile at the impact of words and art.

     I have often wondered: What if God created the rebel in me too? What if questioning the establishment comes from him? What if the very trait I have fought against all my life is exactly who I should have been all along, right out in the open?

     Early on, I wanted to rebel against silly rules even if it cost me. That elementary school friend never played with me again.

     In sixth grade, I played the trombone because the band director told us that boys play brass and girls play woodwinds. That brass trombone was bigger than me and as a girl, I earned first chair for several years, nonetheless.

     I played Stevie Nicks in my car on the way to youth group even after a friend put me on the prayer list for my “sin” of listening to secular music.

     I accepted the invitation to preach at student led revival at my Baptist college, even though many of the preacher boys condemned it and wouldn’t attend because women “weren’t allowed” in the pulpit to preach in their world.

     It has been a lifelong battle. My church told me to be a good Christian woman. My gut consistently told me that there was more to a relationship with Jesus than all the rules I tried to follow.

     I believe the nudge I feel to smash the box that Christians put God in comes directly from him. I believe his beautiful heart loves my rebel heart. He calls to me through tattoos and music and art and all the things that light me up. Legalism never lit a fire in me, and I think that makes him happy.

      Meet me at the altar and let’s take off our masks and empty our pockets. Let's dive deep into what he has called us to do because life is too hard not to welcome each other as the rebels we were made to be. 

Life’s a journey. Pay attention.

Beyond Platitudes

    I’ve got a pile of platitudes and inspirational quotes I want to chunk in the trash. Let go and let God. Just pray more. Have enough faith and you will make it through the rough waters.

     Not working.

     Not for this season of my life.

     Hi. My name is Krista. I was married for 13,011 days. Now I am not. My life did not turn out like I planned. You can judge me for that, but please know I have already spent too much time judging myself for the end of what I thought was forever.

     God gave me permission to leave. In fact, he told me that I had walked around this mountain long enough. Now, turn north.

     The first time I heard him it felt like a revelation. Then it didn’t. All the spiritual platitudes crept in like vines to wrap up my resolve. They nearly strangled me. Even though I knew what God told me was truth, I started listening to the voices from my youth that told me I must have done something wrong to be here, alone after so many years.

     

     

    I did all the right things I had learned would help. I chose joy. I screenshot lovely sayings that helped me through my day. I read words of encouragement from friends and family. I retreated to the Sunday School lessons and five-point sermons that had gotten me through my youth and early adulthood.

  The gestures got me through a moment or a day, but I could not hold on long enough for them to get me to the other side of my grief. Inspiration could not lift the lid to reveal what was stewing deep within my heart. I do not care how many times I chose joy or positive thoughts, the turmoil in my heart was still there.

     Words are my primary love language, but fix-it-all sayings began to read like a language I couldn’t translate any more.

       I met the feelings head on recently as I sat on the same black futon that I sat on more than two years ago; when the reality of the rejection sunk in and I broke into a million pieces. As I sat there again, purging belongings I'm not sure I need in this part of my journey, I cried again. The buried parts started making their way to the surface, wanting reconciliation. They had waited a long time to be seen and dealt with, buried beneath the sayings and songs and words I used to keep moving forward. The platitudes retreated to the background, leaving my grief on the stage alone. 

                                    

 

     Turn north, God said again gently as I sat there. Hold fast to My words, they are the only ones that matter.

     I still don’t understand so many things. Sometimes I still feel like a quitter, but I didn’t have anything left to give. God saw that before I did. Now I’m crossing the bridge to the other side with His hand in mine. I’m ready to see where ‘north’ takes me.   

     Life's a journey. Pay attention.