Shattered Hopes and Dreams

Assumptions become entwined in our very being from the start. Indeed, a secure infancy includes knowing that one’s basic needs will be met. Those basic needs are about more than food and shelter. An infant quickly comes to assume love and safety by a parent meeting his or her needs. As a person matures, we begin to assume and take for granted many things such as the parent should outlive a child; a child should be safe at school; hard work pays off; people get what they deserve, and my favorite, if I pray hard enough I will get what I am praying for. I was no different because I did pray each and every day for Phil’s safety and I did assume that at his rank and in his position he was safe. When he was killed, my core was shaken and for a time lay in tatters. I no longer trusted the world I was a part of. I no longer trusted myself and I lived in abject fear and hopelessness. I stood by and watched in horror the Sandy Hook story and I realized something. I need to take a strong stance. While I may never understand the events or the why, I do believe all people have choices and that not everything in life is fair.   I decided to change my attitude.

I may not be able to control events or even the thoughts that sometimes creep into my heart—the quiet longing of what I once had–, but I can change how I respond to my day to day life. People matter more than they have ever mattered to me. Relationships take time and transparency. Where once that time was not a priority, I strive to make it a priority now. Just today, a woman with whom I have had the most basic conversations with, walked into my office weeping. She trusted me enough to share that her sister had just moments before been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She trusted me because of my transparency with my journey. Where I once would have worried that perhaps I might get into trouble for taking thirty minutes with someone at work, now I would rather give that thirty minutes back by working a little later.

I have also changed in my isolationism. While I still am not very socially connected with people in my local area, I have learned that I can never be one person deep again. My girl friendships mean everything to me because I am well aware that if I live long enough there will be other unexpected body slams for me and for those I love. I want to be a friend as much as I need a friend. I have changed because I have had to change. While I do not have the same rose colored glasses on, and while I am no longer surprised by unfair events, I still do believe in the basic good of mankind and I still cling to my faith that carries me.

People wonder how I can stand firm in my faith in spite of praying daily for Phil’s safety. It is this simple. People have choices. God is not Santa Claus. I get stuck in thinking that this temporal life is all there is because I do not know what is beyond life on earth. I do know this. Eternity is longer than every breath put together here on earth. Sure, I wanted more time with Phil. Sure, I thought there would always be tomorrow, but I am thankful for the days I did have and I stand confident that all things are working for good in spite of an evil monster’s choice. I stand in expectant hope that there might be a chapter two and I stand in the quiet understanding that even if there is not, I will be okay and that perhaps I can leave the world a little better for having lived.

Seasons of Life

I always loved the promise of spring until about ten years ago. I loved the promise of life and the energy that thrummed through the atmosphere. I loved the lengthening daylight hours and the almost frantic pace to grab life and to live those moments, but there came a time when my eyes began to see something else. One fall day as I ran through a Colorado Springs park near my house, something totally shifted. My paradigms began to see the beauty in the dying leaves and in the hint of the brisk fall day. Could it be that leaves are the prettiest just before they die? Could it be that people often shine their brightest just before they die young?

Think about it. Leaves fall from the trees. Some of the leaves are green and still full of promise. The wind just carried them away far too early. The red and orange leaves blaze with the beauty of full blossom and color both the sky and ground as they fall. Other leaves fall fully spent. They lie brown and curled having long passed the bloom of promise or beauty.

Life is like that. Some people die before they ever live life. Others die while they are at the peak of their existence and while they are shining so brightly that people often gape in wonder. Still others use everything they are given and live until they are much like the spent curled leaf that flutters in the wind. In the fall, all three stages of the leaf cycle are apparent to the peeping eyes. There is stunning beauty at watching the cycle of life and death unfolding one fall day at a time—one lifetime at a time.

Fall resets my batteries because it simply reminds me that while there is beauty and promise in new life and beginnings, there is also a stunning beauty in the expiration of life. Some lives have more time on the branch and some flutter to the ground far before their time, but those that fall early are often the prettiest of all. They blaze and dot the earth in a quiet shroud of glory. There is a quieting warmth in watching it all unfold. One day I will be the leaf that falls to the ground. One day, I will be the leaf giving way to the starkness of the empty branch who waits for the promise of new life in the spring months.

Seasons of Life

I always loved the promise of spring until about ten years ago. I loved the promise of life and the energy that thrummed through the atmosphere. I loved the lengthening daylight hours and the almost frantic pace to grab life and to live those moments, but there came a time when my eyes began to see something else. One fall day as I ran through a Colorado Springs park near my house, something totally shifted. My paradigms began to see the beauty in the dying leaves and in the hint of the brisk fall day. Could it be that leaves are the prettiest just before they die? Could it be that people often shine their brightest just before they die young?

Think about it. Leaves fall from the trees. Some of the leaves are green and still full of promise. The wind just carried them away far too early. The red and orange leaves blaze with the beauty of full blossom and color both the sky and ground as they fall. Other leaves fall fully spent. They lie brown and curled having long passed the bloom of promise or beauty.

Life is like that. Some people die before they ever live life. Others die while they are at the peak of their existence and while they are shining so brightly that people often gape in wonder. Still others use everything they are given and live until they are much like the spent curled leaf that flutters in the wind. In the fall, all three stages of the leaf cycle are apparent to the peeping eyes. There is stunning beauty at watching the cycle of life and death unfolding one fall day at a time—one lifetime at a time.

Fall resets my batteries because it simply reminds me that while there is beauty and promise in new life and beginnings, there is also a stunning beauty in the expiration of life. Some lives have more time on the branch and some flutter to the ground far before their time, but those that fall early are often the prettiest of all. They blaze and dot the earth in a quiet shroud of glory. There is a quieting warmth in watching it all unfold. One day I will be the leaf that falls to the ground. One day, I will be the leaf giving way to the starkness of the empty branch who waits for the promise of new life in the spring months.

Promises

Sometimes I feel like a poser playing a part upon the stage.  This isn’t supposed to be my life.  At times, times like now, I can barely recognize the girl I have become.  The person I have become was so far from my realm of possibility that it literally brings me to my knees at times.  How could a quiet homebody become the girl with a voice?  How is it that I am considered to be a subject matter expert in military loss and resiliency when my life before was being a subject matter expert in running, swimming instruction, and youth?  Who is this girl peering back?

Three and a half years ago, my life was following the trajectory that I expected.  Things were falling into place.  My children were grown and out of the house and Phil and I were starting to talk about where we wanted to retire and build out “death house.”  Phil’s retirement seemed really far away and on the e-mails or in the conversations we had, life was filled with promise and hope.  I was content being Phil’s wife and watching all of my children stepping into the world.  It wasn’t as if I felt marginalized, I had grown to embrace being the pillar of strength behind my Phil and my children.  While everyone else pursued lofty goals and had important jobs, I was content to be the person in the shadows quietly supporting, encouraging, and creating a positive environment that was able to put a positive spin on the military life style.

Some how, that girl is gone.  While I know that she is there in the shadows, it is as if I have outgrown the woman I once was.  When Phil was killed, life as I knew it ended. I was lost and adrift trying to figure out where I fit, what to do, and how to get through the days that loomed large without him. One thing that helped me the past three and a half years was one of the two promises I made to Phil. In the very last moments before he deployed, Phil wanted to have the what if conversation. I wanted none of it, yet he was insistent. We had never had that talk before.

To understand the first of the two promises I made, one must understand that running was part of my life before Phil. I ran in high school and in college. When I was 17, a girl ran across the United States with her father. I wanted to do the same thing, but my parents understandably said no. When I dated Phil, I told him that running across the United States was my childhood dream. Years later as the last of our children left the house, Phil felt that I needed something to give me something to give me something to put my energies into. He was the one who came up with the plan for me to run across the United States one state at a time, one marathon at a time.

This was a costly selfish suggestion, but he wanted me to have my dream. When he was in those waning face to face moments, he wanted me to press on an finish those last twelve states. While I am sure that his focus was on me completing as many of those twelve as possible while he was deployed because it would give me something to connect with people and look forward to in the year of his deployment, that simple promise became something more when he was killed.

That promise became something I kept my eyes and heart fixed on. In running, I first found happiness again. It surprised me. One day I was out running and I realized my heart was quiet and I felt a spark of joy. Those races became a barometer of where I was on my grief journey. I was that girl that second guessed every decision and who felt totally adrift. A running promise helped me to bridge my past and my future. Running gave me a focused dream that helped me to lace up my shoes and press ahead in the moments when I was the most broken. I knew that if I could lace up those running shoes and go out the door for even a few minutes, I would feel better.

This weekend I finished my 50^th state marathon. That finish belies just how far I have come in the past three and a half years. Nothing about a marathon is easy. 26.2 miles hurts and this weekend was even more fitting as it rained during the entire more than four hours that I ran. Grieving is like a marathon. Nothing is easy. At times, the journey seems too long, too hard, and too much, but by staying the course, keeping the faith, and just putting one foot in front of the other, I am hitting my stride and finding my way. Like a marathon, it hurts. Sometimes it hurts so much that I literally want to quit, but I recognize that I just need to keep moving forward the best I can whether it be running like the wind or stumbling one faltering step in front of another.

Now that the first promise is completed, I am considering how far I have come and what comes next. Completion means that one door is closed and there is only one promise left that I made to my Phil. That one seems harder. While that promise has nothing to do with physical exertion, it has everything to do with my heart. My other promise to Phil was to find a chapter two—find love again. He loved me enough that when I protested and made nervous jokes, he stopped me with one simple question, “Linda, would you want me to be happy again if you died first?” It is hard to think about, hard to even imagine he possibility of anyone but Phil, but I recognize how perfect both promises were. Those promises gave me something that I cling to and they help me step forward. I know that the journey is going to have moments that really hurt, but I also know that when I complete both promises I will have honored the love Phil and I had and I will have created a different life separate from him. It is a little frightening, but it is fitting as I press on trusting that my feet will carry me to the finish line that I cannot see. I know it is there and I press on through the raging storms because it will come.

Building Resilient Youth

Resiliency is a trait that we are all born with. Babies display different levels of hardiness from birth. Babies that should thrive, sometimes do not. Other times, fragile infants beat the odds and live. People are also born with an innate disposition; some are born with a more flexible outgoing personality that allows for a natural buffer through life challenges. The natural resiliency varies in all people, but it is not the whole story. Our starting point is just that. People build their resiliency, or procoping strategies by life experiences, practice, and trying new techniques. It is easy to say that resiliency training is not needed or that it is another wasted training when things are going well in a person’s life, but resiliency strategies are very difficult to learn during moments of the big stressors (or body slams) in life. The only way to build the most resilient adults is to start early in life and through continuous practice and education.

Practice with exposure to real world stressors and setbacks begin in childhood. While some parents might think that sheltering children from stressors or that by swooping in to save children from the repercussions of their choices, they are being a good paren. The reality is that children need to be taught through smaller events that life isn’t always fair and that there are consequences to behaviors and choices. Those small stressors and setbacks help a child develop deeper roots of resiliency so that they are able to withstand bigger storms later.

Remember the Biosphere in Arizona? The idea was that the enclosed structure would be self-sustaining for ten years. After a little more than two years, the project had to be abandoned because the plants and trees died. Essentially, plants and trees need the wind and the rain and the weather extremes to develop deep lasting roots. The minor storms help the roots reach deeper which makes the plants and trees strong enough to stand through the bigger storms. People are the same. They need practice and smaller events to learn how they respond in times of set-backs, challenges, loss, or conflict.

Parents can provide that base for their children in many ways. The first step is in sending the message that the child matters and that the parent believes in them no matter what. Consider for a second that when an infant comes into the world, every parent has hopes and dreams for this baby. School starts. As every kindergarten parent can attest to, parents flock to the school for validation on how great their child is. Go to a high school open house. Very few parents are in attendance. Often there comes a point when the parent feels like the child doesn’t need or want the parent involvement or the parent becomes weary of hearing all of the negatives about their child. Maybe the parent is worn out and maybe the child has grown into a hard to manage teenager. The child needs to know that even if they make a mistake that the parent believes in him/her no matter what and that one mistake will not define the belief and love a parent has in the child. In other words, the parent does not keep reminding their child of the failure.

When I taught high school English, I found that the most successful students had parents that showed up for the conferences, held their children accountable for missing assignments, and they watched over the projects that were due. They did not do the assignments, but they provided materials, check-ups on the status, and discussions on the project. Two small actions that I passed on to many people was something I did for my children: I checked Infinite Campus once a week so I had a pulse on where my children were in any given class. I could monitor tardiness and absences, also. The second thing is that my children knew that they could get any grade in any given class if they turns in every assignment and did whatever they could do extra for their grade. They knew that if they had an A in a class with missing assignments, there would be accountability.

Another way to foster resiliency in youth is to give them chores that must be done because they are a member of the family. These chores are based on the idea that every member of the family lives here and every member must make a meaningful contribution to the house.
Lastly, children need help learning to deal with disappointments, setbacks, and loss. All of us suffer from these at different levels, but the idea is to expose them to minor events before the more major body slams happen. Children need to see how we deal with the minor setbacks versus being sheltered and they need to live the consequences to the choices they make. Often, we as parents want to fix the conflicts, the setbacks, or the consequences to the choices our children make. For a child to learn to fix conflicts, they need role playing, talking it through, and practice. For a child to learn about loss, they need help discussing death or loss of a friendship, and they need to practice with smaller losses like the death of a pet. For a child to learn to deal with consequences, they need coached and helped with negotiation at a young age. Giving a child simple choices and encouraging them to use their words, helps them develop negotiation and relationship flexibility later in life.

Parents have a critical role in helping to foster resilient adults. Recognizing that we all are given one chance to parent a child with no do-overs, the intentionality must be present and developed. Our own resiliency is part of the equation. When we model resiliency in our daily life by our choices, life style, and words, our children are developing their own resiliency. While children are born with different levels of resiliency, it is only part of the story. The biggest component of resiliency is in what comes next—exposure, practice, and belief in a person is what leads to a resilient adult who can weather the storms.

Hoping Against All Hope

Like most people, I assumed that I knew how my life trajectory would evolve and I trusted that prayers would keep my Phil safe from harm. I believed that ultimately life was fair and that good things happened if I just waited long enough or believed strong enough. Phil’s death cause a quake in my belief system and it has caused me question who that I am, what I stand for, and what I carry in my heart. I am different because I know better.

When Phil deployed, I signed every e-mail the same: Stay Safe and come home to me. I prayed every day for his safety even though I didn’t really think he was in danger. It was sort of a safety net and the prayers were rattled perfunctorily rattled off in haste. I looked at the deployment as a one year inconvenience. I was a shy girl who invested everything into my husband and children. The children were grown and while I knew that year would be lonely and long, there was an end to it. I didn’t stop to consider what would happen if Phil was killed because that thought wasn’t part of my paradigm.

When he was assassinated, my first step of finding footing came with the choice I made as I heard those awful words. As they read the words to me, I fell to my knees keening. As I fell, one thought crossed my mind: how could I claim to have faith if in my darkest hour I turn from my faith? I chose my faith and that choice has helped carry me, but I understand those that struggle because of what feels like unanswered prayers or unfair life schematics. There is no judgment of others because my faith was and is rocked by something beyond my capacity to understand, but I think with that choice, I can believe in life beyond what is temporal and I can see the signs that have rained down from heaven. I also know that many people of faith have had crisis of belief and God sent signs to show he was still there. I am no different. I wanted Phil back, but that didn’t happen. Instead, unexplained signs came. Maybe others get these Godwinks, but for me, I have asked a handful of times for a burning bush—a sign so transparent that it cannot be ignored. Those signs have come. These signs have not always come when I wanted them or when I demanded them, but they have been regular and out of the ordinary.

The first sign came on 24 June 2011. Phil’s autopsy report and pictures had just come. I handle injuries and reports like this fairly well, but when it was my Phil I broke. I read the words and when they did not match what I had been told, I looked at the pictures. My heart broke. My spirit broke and I crawled into bed and wept. I was cocooned in the blankets. I asked God why him and why not me because Phil had so much more to give. As I wept, I felt an electric jolt. This jolt was like a shock. As I felt the shock, I could see and feel (I do not have the words for this) me standing at the altar with a man in front of a minister. I could not see who it was, but it wasn’t Phil and I could feel the joy in that room. I was mortified. I dismissed it and cried on. I felt a jolt again—stronger—and I saw and felt the same picture. I was terrified. I jumped out of bed, tripped in the covers, and fell. When I looked up, I saw the first double rainbow I had ever seen in entirety.

Do I think that Phil can be replaced? Never, but that sign gave me hope that one day I will find happiness again and that there might be room for a Chapter Two. That double rainbow led to other signs being noticed. For the longest time, when I thought of Phil and was sad, I found money—usually dimes, but once I found over 190 pennies in front of my office door at 0530 in the morning. Another time, I found a handful of pennies together stamped with 1988, the year we got married. On the day of our anniversary, our two songs played back to back on two different radio stations. Our songs, songs from 1988 (How Do I Get You Alone, and Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now), are never played any more. I can never predict these Godwinks, but the signs come when I least expect them or when I am at some type of crossroad or crisis.

The signs have helped me stay grounded and they have given me hope. One of my favorite Bible verses uses the phrase “hoping against all hope”. Hoping against all hope is what grounds me. I may not understand and I certainly cannot rejoice at how Phil’s death came, I believe that there is something more than what I know. I can’t say that I have a Pollyanna worldview any more. I do pray and I do believe, but I also recognize that my prayers are not to a Santa Claus and that the answer may sometimes be counter to what I want or understand. Look at Sandy Hook. Children should be able to go to school and should be able to celebrate the magic of Christmas without worrying that a madman will come into their school wreaking a reality far beyond any nightmare they could have conjured up themselves. I don’t have answers, I just have what works for me. I believe and at times I question God, but essentially it comes down to one unshakeable belief. I believe that Phil’s assassin had a choice and that while God knew what his choice was going to be, he let him choose. That man choice evil and I believe that the angels wept as they received my Phil home that day. I choose to hope against all hope that will one day see my Phil again, but until then I find peace in the Godwinks and in my quiet faith that blazes even still.