January 27, 2017 - It's what the adjectives always knew

January is something I have never felt before. I think the English language failed us in choosing the word. Maybe the Greeks failed us too. And the French.  And the Germans. And the Latins, whoever they are (Ancient Rome - see, I paid attention in school, Ms. Waicus).  I have no idea. I don’t speak those languages. I’m your typical American, affluent barely in my own language, but I know I haven’t yet excavated the words for what I feel. Or maybe there are words that perfectly encompass all that I feel, but rather it’s the adjectives that give the words scope and grandeur that continue to let me down. The words start out perfect, for you think their meaning will suffice, but later as you apply them to your circumstance you find they do anything but justice to where you currently lie. It’s like the perfectly shaped frozen yogurt that is placed into your crispy chocolate waffle cone only to minutes later dribble its way into a sticky melted puddle onto the once shiny linoleum floor.  It started out great but ended up sloppy and failed.

"Sally, how are you?"

“Sad” seems perfectly appropriate on Day 1. Day 15 shows you “sad” is a ridiculous term to use. “Out of sorts” is reasonable to describe the night you climbed into bed with your shoes still on. “Out of sorts” in no way describes the current state of wondering thoughts that find you when you can’t sleep. “Grief”, as a word, is a catch all that really catches nothing. It’s simply a starting point that doesn’t even begin to describe ache that as time morphs leaves you breathless or even vomiting when you think of the events of that day.  These words, generic nouns of feeling, are pale in comparison to what is actually being felt. Would adjectives, carefully chosen and applied to the noun as taught in English 101, fix the language folly? “Great sadness.” “Profound Sadness.” “Heart breaking Sadness.”  “Terribly Out of Sorts.” “Prolonged Grief.” (It’s only been two weeks so I am wrong to use prolonged as of yet, but I have it here for illustration.) “Unbelievably Shocking.” Adjectives do in fact help as they certainly were intended to do. They quantify. They give depth. They color. They paint a scenery that the noun can't even begin to landscape. I have a cat. But is it a long haired cat? A short haired cat?  And then it is calico? It is striped? It is evil (as many cats are)? Or loving? Or playful? See "cat" alone tells you it only has claws. Or does it? Is it a declawed cat?  Is the cat yellow? Or grey? Or black? Is it a kitten? Or elderly? Maybe it is a hairless cat and I have fooled you all along. So how in the world can "Sad" tell you of my sadness? These simple nouns of emotion do this aftermath of tragedy a terrible injustice. The ice cream starts out perfectly placed and and as time goes on, it ends up on the shiny floor.  Adjectives (and my flowery, run-on, hard-to-follow-overwhelming sentences)...well, they help me, the one who processes life through words, find some sort of purpose in the up from down of all of this stuff stuck in my heart and head. It’s nothing unique to me, any one of you have experienced the dictionary’s mistake, this lack of finding the suitable word to describe the things you are feeling, but all of us will one day experience it in a new way for the first time after losing someone like Andy and all of you will be frustrated at the lack of suitable words to describe what you feel.

As I was sharing with a coworker/friend this week, not all of the emotions are “overwhelmingly downtrodden”. I am also “awkwardly amazed”, as it caught me off guard, at how some of the things I feel are “incredibly uplifting”. It’s as if all my emotions are now “overly amplified”. I would have predicted, had I been asked in foresight, that the world instead would have been dampened or softened by the “intense grief” and “sudden sadness”, but instead it’s as if the world is magnified through a looking glass and I see everything in a finer focus. Laughter is louder, love is more evident. Grace is more gracious…to name a few. Maybe that is God’s way of getting me through it. Or maybe that is His gift to balance it all out. Either way it simply makes it all just a little more doable. I'm relishing in these "amazing emotions" that were unexpected as it makes the "less enjoyable emotions" more easily endured.

Tragedy, as experienced in Andy's death, changes us all. Look at 9/11 where we all became more tolerant of our neighbors, grasping at each other for some sense of comradery, desperately searching to find a way to back to normal on the other side. We bonded together in love, resilience, and forgiveness, and formed a cohesive unit of us in the world. Maybe the smaller (larger for me individually) scale tragedy of Andy is doing a smaller (larger) version of that in me. I’m searching for normal and pulling at things around me to bring them back close. I’m traumatized by the immediate aftermath, as we all were in those early days of the towers, but just like then it's intermingled with the great things that come too. We wanted/want to have our loved ones near. We called/call each other a little more often. We felt/feel emotions more richly. We lived/live out the adjectives. “Heartbreaking Shock.” “Strange Thoughts.” “Epic Emotions.” “Intense Love.” “Forgiving Hearts.” “Abundant Grace.” “Profound Sadness”. Everything was/is heightened to a new level.  But as time went/goes on, while we all remained/remain changed, we found/find ourselves able to thrive again in the new scenery. So shall it be for those of us moving forward without Andy. We will thrive in the new scenery, not despite the profound loss, but because of the gain and clarity that can come in the experience, even when it feels like tragedy. 

The dictionary still lets us down. We don’t have optimal words to describe the emotions that have existed for centuries, (sad is still just sad, and grief is still just grief) but our understanding of each grows as our experiences do. When you ask me how I am doing, I'm still going to say "sad". It's the only word I have to offer you. But now when I say those words I will use, there is something underneath I'm not saying. It’s what the adjectives always knew but I never did. 






It began as a story of prophylactic mastectomy and became a smattering of everyday life. I write so I can remember. I write so I can advocate. But mostly, I write to overcome. 



To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

January 24, 2017 - The Living Room

This certainly isn’t the first time you have heard me discuss my mother (Dad, we are bonded too!). We’ve had a long road. I know, a majority of children are bonded to their parents. It’s God’s gift to humanity. Nine plus months spent in a womb was purposely designed. He could have continued to create life in the snap of a finger. He created an entire world in 7 days. I can’t help but think there was some providence in his purposeful selection of 40 weeks of baby spent in mother’s womb. He carefully concocted the role of relationship and even more carefully orchestrated the complexity of family, but his master design was that of the maternal bond beginning with the first tingle of baby’s foot moving under mother’s skin or the sound of that first heart beat. My bond in specific with my mother continued to grow from that very first tingle, and even more after my traumatic birth, then again with birth defect, again as a teenager with lymphoma, and again and again when life continued to toss all three of her children with what life tosses as my mother gathered up her ducklings under her powerful wing in every attempt to save us from humanity.  Mothers do what mothers do. Every single thing she absolutely can.

Four years ago, while I was in the middle of my double mastectomy, mom moved in for a few weeks. There were many mornings spent in my living room in conversation about the given circumstance. Bandages. Breast drains. Body images. Navigating this. Navigating that. One morning in particular after Ron had already left for work, I woke up and my sheets were covered in blood, mom was there to help me pull it all back together. Twenty one years ago, I was a teenager with lymphoma. Amy and Andy were off to school, Dad was at work, and mom and I were often in her living room navigating malignancy. The conversations were different, often without words, but the bond was there because we were it doing to together. In fact, that was the start of our living room bond. These past 2 weeks, after Andy’s death (if you are new to this blog, my brother passed away just a few days ago), mom is back in my living room and kitchen. We are back to our morning discussions. The bandages are different, but we are there pulling it all back together. I made the statement just this week to her: “It’s funny how we keep finding ourselves back in the living room.” I’m not a mother, so I don’t have the mother bond all figured out. But I know as she stands in my living room and kitchen with her youngest daughter as we have always done when I am in crisis mode, she is missing the bond of middle son she lost a few weeks ago. I work in a world of mothers losing their children, but those mothers aren’t my mother. Nothing prepares you. 

This week, while in crisis in the living room, I have been swimming in the legacy of my brother, Andy, and therefore the legacy of my parents, my sister, but also now the legacy of myself. Nothing has been more therapeutic to me than to hear the amazing stories of my brother. Being his younger sister, I only got glimpses into his life. Sure, I know the stories of his life when he shoved me into the closet to play “hide and seek” and then went next door to play while I continued to hide for what was seemingly “hours” on end. Or memories of running behind trying to keep up on my bike pedaling as fast as my little legs would carry me in awe of little sister chasing big brother. There were the times we camped in sleeping bags in the living room, or lined up the dining room chairs to play “airplane”, or the times (more than once, mind you) Amy and Andy shoved me in the floor board of the car so they would have more room on the bench seat for the road trip (collateral damage of being the youngest), or memories of jumping off the top bunk over and over again yelling “Geronimo!”, or Andy telling me stories about dog doo-doo so I would throw up my Twizzlers ( I use "doo-doo" because those are the childhood words he used, and it worked), or digging the 9 foot hole in our neighbor’s (!) back yard to build a fort,  or sledding down the drive way in the mountains, or pulling my dad’s pants down to his knees while he carried groceries in the rain, or laughing until we cried as Andy told me about his last prank, or finding out Andy had a crush on my best friend and me not being so happy about that, or being locked out of his room because little sisters aren’t as cool as big brothers, or banging on the bathroom door because boys don’t need longer showers than girls but Andy didn’t understand that, or perpetual frustration at Andy always being late, or rolling my eyes at the trail of girls following Andy in high-school, or having to suffer through living in the trailer with Andy in college but sharing that same trailer with his two smelly pet ferrets, or everyone oohing and aahing over his red hair and freckles, or trying to beat him over to grandmas after school on our bike so I could be the one to spend the night. But as young life transitioned into adulthood the experience became less as our lives morphed more into independence. I didn’t know Andy bled into the lives of your children by encouraging them to be bold and confident. I didn’t know he encouraged other Christians to rely on their reading of a passage not what their pastor told them. I had no idea he still read books to his teenage kids. I didn’t know he spent hours telling you about his faith in college. I didn’t know he pranked your dad in high-school. You have so many stories I had not heard. When Andy entered your room, he left you feeling good about yourself. He would bring you to your knees in laughter. He taught you to do the right thing in middle school (Thank you, David, for telling me that story). He left you wanting more of him. Andy wasn't perfect. I know there are even stories where he let you down. But where he was on target most of the time was when he spent time with other people. He made other people feel valued. He made you want to be a better version of you. 

Do I do that? Being a woman (or having been an adolescent hormonal girl at one time), the chances are I have let you down on numerous occasions. Women are notorious for bringing other women down. We size each other up and do everything we can to make the others feel “less”. I’ve written about that before. You can find it Here - Stripes. But hearing the stories of Andy these past few weeks from each of you, I want to rethink my role in each of your lives. Am I doing enough? Do you see God in me? Do you see God INSTEAD of me? After I die (and even before I die) will you look back and see that I changed your life? Did I leave the room and leave you wanting more? Did I leave you feeling better about yourself? Do you find yourself wanting to do life better because you knew me? If not, I have let you down. And trust me, I know I have let you down. It didn’t take losing Andy for me to know this. I have been a “typical women” just as most women have, but I know that I live in God’s grace, and I know that God is the God of second, and third, and fourth chances. Losing Andy, and time spent with my mom in my living room, is re-reminding me of a few things. See, I told you God does glorious things in complicated and heartbreaking situations, even death.  My hope is that each interaction you have with me is better than the one you had the time before as God continues to grow me, and as He continues to reveal Himself to me, and as He continues to reveal MYSELF to me.  

My mom and I continue to do life in my living room. Andy brought us back together once again. Who knows what will bring us back to the living room in the future. Now, I’m inviting you to my “living room” where we are left to do our living. Some of you have already been coming here as you have been reading my posts for 4 years now. We’ve done mastectomy together. We’ve down downsizing together. We’ve done fibrosis together. Now we are grieving together. I don’t have any magic to offer you, but sometimes doing life together is all we need.  I’m starting with this question: What kind of legacy do you want to leave? One day people will be grieving you. But we need to start now. This is our chance for a do over to get it right. What kind of impression do we leave when we walk into and out of a room? That is where I am starting.

It began as a story of prophylactic mastectomy and became a smattering of everyday life. I write so I can remember. I write so I can advocate. But mostly, I write to overcome. 



To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

January 20, 2017 - Even in the death of Andy

I’ve been living in a bubble. I have no concept of your birthday. I had to be reminded we were gaining a new president in these twenty-four hours. While your world has been about going to the grocery store and driving your child to school for a semester's end exam, I have been living all things Andy. You are doing exactly what you are supposed to do. The world is to continue its course, pulsating with each turn on its orbit. You are to go about your day enjoying the things scattered throughout your hours. I would be doing the same in your shoes because I adore the ins and outs of every day life. I have purposely tried to re-enter your world. But I’m not there yet, partly by choice, mostly by necessity. I have scrolled your social media trying to excite myself in the delight of your café latte. I’ve driven to work and walked its hallways. I even pushed a cart down aisle ten in the grocery store but shortened its scavenger list after finding it overwhelming.  I’m succeeding at some tasks and failing at others. I’m still in Andy’s bubble.

It was January 11^th  and I was standing in my bathroom at the sink when my phone rang. It was 10:05 in the morning. Normally at that very hour, I  would have been at work seeing patients, but this morning in particular, I was home after having had a migraine the past 36 hours. God knew why I was at home that day. God knew I needed to be at home in my bathroom when my mother’s phone number came across the screen. “Sally, I am about to give you terrible news. Are you at work?" I don't recall how I responded but I recall the start of her next sentence. "Andy is dead…..” The conversation went on for a bit in precise, purposeful, short sentences as I was changing my clothes, grabbing items, and working my way to my car. I spent the next 6 hours right there. Precise, Purposeful, Short. There is a new piece of Sally it took 42 years to suddenly now have all figured out. Sally now knows how Sally reacts to death. Andy was my first Death. 

I’ve lost grandparents. I’ve lost in-laws. I’ve lost close friends. Nothing prepared me for losing my only brother, Andy. I spent the first six hour in a state of shock (precise, purposeful, short) being where I needed to be, doing what I need to do, asking the right questions, giving the right answers. There was a moment that day about 3 hours after getting the call that I remembering asking someone if they wanted salad dressing on their plate. Even as I said the word "salad dressing" I remember thinking how stupid it sounded to be uttering those words in the moment. I really needed to know the answer to the question as I was putting vegetables down on the plate, but I remember thinking how stupid it felt to be going through the task of fixing a plate on a day like that day. Turns out I couldn’t eat more than a single bite, and that would last almost 48 hours as my body knew what my mind didn’t, but we find a way to do what needs to be done when we are in the initial moments of tragedy. That night, while lying in bed where no sleep was to be found, I had 12 hours to feel each and every emotion that couldn’t be found earlier in the day. I relived my version of Andy’s final minutes. I swam in a sea of 42 years of sibling dynamics. I wrapped myself in a cocoon of love that comes with family. I counted with precision each passing hour building on yet another hour of accumulating loss. I mourned the finality of earthly memories. I feared the days to come. I found Joy in heavenly reunions. I wept in the details of accidental tragedy. It simply was a swirling concoction of a weary mind and a grieving heart. Grief is a powerful untamed entity of which I am just now truly becoming acquainted. I work in a world of grief. I have lost less immediate relatives and friends. I have seen you lose people you love. But how naïve we all are when we think we know what we speak of when we have not experienced something ourselves. We live in a world where we become experts because we have watched something happen around us. Boy, are we oh so very wrong. 

As I'm learning about the folly of my misdirected assumption, I am relishing in the incredible blessings that are already almost too numerous to count. This is the glory of Christianity. People say blessings happen to everyone. Yes, they do, but realize it is in the power and presence of God and in his orchestration in which they occur. Count your blessings, name them one by one. 

• Eight little girls gathered around someone’s table and created the most precious card (picture below) of bible verses for Andy’s wife. The power and belief through the eye of children.
• Over 900 people came to the funeral and over 600 to the visitation service. Through this outpouring of friendship and respect for Andy, I was able to cocoon myself love and be reminded that people and relationships is what God purposes us for here on this side of Heaven.
• My mother, sister, and I were able to meet with the man (I will call him Frank here) who found Andy and performed CPR. The day I found out about Andy I kept praying for Frank, who I could only imagine was traumatized by his experience. I prayed for him for 3 solid days for peace and healing from what he experienced. Later, circumstances led to me finding him and the joyful reunion we were able to have with him. He brought us flowers. I will forever be changed by that meeting with him, his wife, and children.
• My family has been able to grow closer to each other in ways we haven’t imagined as we grieved together and navigated unchartered territories of loss.
• Andy’s household has been covered with friends who have cleaned, organized, fed, and loved on family. God calls us to community to do life with each other. What a perfect model of this.
• Friends, and even strangers, have shared stories with us of how Andy has impacted their lives. A very large world  suddenly feels so much smaller.
• We’ve prayed for some very specific needs after Andy’s death and within hours answers to those prayers have arrived on our doorstep.
• We’ve met so many people in the last week who have shared similar loss; we are not traveling this road alone. God has now gifted me in this experience and prepared me to help one of you who, unfortunately, will experience this in your future.
• Just when I think I’ve recieved the last card, another card arrives in the mail encouraging me or filled with memories.
•  I’ve watched my niece and nephew rely on tangible faith that is more than just words in a book, but rather a reality that has been modeled to them from their father and their mentors.
• Every single human contact I have had following this tragedy has been an awesome one. You guys simply know how to support me. Be in in silence. Be in in encouraging words. Be in in showing up in a big way. Therefore my next few words do not apply to you. You did it well!

      The list goes on and it will continue to grow as these weeks morph into months. But for now after only a week of being in Andy’s bubble, I’m relying on the blessings to help me traverse from the brother-shaped bubble back to grocery store aisles, and work hallways, and café lattes of your world you continue to traverse while I am on this non-linear continuum. I’m suspicious it is going to take longer than usual, because “usual” is a word that shouldn’t be applied in such scenarios. There should be no expectations implied. No schedules demanded. No words uttered as to what normal needs to be. There is no normal anymore, but rather an “after” that will set a new tone that I haven’t experienced before.  So we all need to understand these next few words: To friends of people grieving loss or experiencing tragedy (or even navigating mastectomy) there is no way of knowing if I am on track or not because I have never been here before and there is no right way for us to do this. And you should have no opinion of whether I am on track or not because everyone does each experience differently. What a relief. Now, this does NOT mean you should stick your head in the sand and not be on the lookout for warning signs. You should not ignore downward spirals. But we as a culture should not enforce our expectations of the right or wrong way to grieve on those people around us grieving. Not our timeline. Not our method. Not our depth or degree. What we should do is make our presence known. Pray them through it. And offer as few words as possible in to the how and why. Be simple. Don’t be absent. Show up. Do life together. That is all we are commanded to do. Provide no judgement. And then, let them get through it in what ever way and on whatever timeline they go. Offer words of encouragement. That’s it. And if you have been there before, tell them that too, because they may need your listening ear one day knowing that you get it. 

      I'm removing all expectations from myself and I'm simply doing it. "It" being life after January 11. I'm getting up. I'm going to work. I'm loving on the people around me. I'm tackling the to-do list. I'm crying when I need to crying. I turned my radio on today for the first time in 7 days. I turned my TV on for the first time last night in 6. It stayed on only for a few minutes. It was too much. But it went on.  I'm trying to weave myself back into your appreciation of cafe lattes. I'm trying to write thank you notes (Bear with me! It may take a bit!).  I am trying to smile when you tell me about your funny story. Sometimes you may get a blank stare because I still have two feet in that bubble, but I am taking walks around the bubble each day. Keep telling me the story. Keep drawing me back out. There is now a Before and there is now an After. I have no idea how to do this After. But just like there was “after mastectomy”, I mastered that, so I will master this too. It’s going to look different than any of us expect. It’s going to feel different. I’m already thinking different. Once you stare at the face of your 44 year old brother in a casket you don’t see anything the same ever again. Even God seems to have changed. He’s wiser. He’s stronger. He’s more intricate. He bring light to more truth. He makes life more full. He makes mercy more prevalent. He makes family more rich. Not that He’s more of those things, God has been and always will be the same, but rather my understanding of each has more depth. I’ve changed and with that God simply seems more. This I know, there are blessings that emerge out of complication, even in the death of Andy, and with that I move from Before to After and wherever God takes me we will go. 

      Joshua 1:9  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

January 11, 2017 - Andy

People say losing your child is the worst hurt there is. Others say losing your spouse. Others, a parent. I say we need to stop comparing because I am discovering the hurt is unbearable in every situation so what is the point in comparing. Hurt is hurt, and the hurt is to your core. My toes hurt. My hair hurts. My nose hurt. Literally, my eye lashes hurt. I hurt because I loved. I had the unique luxury of getting to love him in a way only one other person on the planet got to love him, my sister, as we got to love him as a brother. Two had the special pleasure to love him as son. One had the incredible bond of loving him as husband. Two more will cherish him forever as Father. Some of your will forever be blessed in the love that came through friendship. Each way brings something unique and special to the one who gets to love. I, myself, loved him not only because he was my only brother, I loved Andy because he was so very easy to love.

If you knew him, you knew that too. Andy would walk into a room and the atmosphere would morph at the exact speed of his walk. It was as if he knew exactly what the room needed and carried a secret stash of it in his pocket. And with that you immediately became endeared to his demeanor. His simply knew how to carry the room and you along with it, almost without you knowing you were along for the glorious ride. He would walk in and the first thing you would notice was the grin. It was totally endearing and I can’t get it out of my mind. It engulfed my thoughts last night as I laid in bed. It’s impossible to miss because while it was subtle, it also somehow matched his gait. So when he walked into a room, you got the whole package, the grin and the gait, and you wanted to envelope yourself in his goodness. He was giving. He wanted to be involved in the lives of others, particularly his children where he devoted countless hours to their lives, be it in church, in school, or after school activities. He was Christ-centered and focused his family around everything God wanted it to be. Family was his core and where he grounded his life and after that, friendship is where he focused his time. His house was an open door of people coming and going. It matched his personality, an extrovert who breathed life into others and found fulfillment from being with you. And time spent with Andy was time spent doubled over in laughter. He was the funniest person I knew. Our family is a collection of stories of Andy’s pranks and funny moments in life and they are stories that deserve to be celebrated. Witty, charming, calm, brilliant, devoted. He simply knew how to do life well and therefore you couldn’t help but find yourself wanting to do life with Andy. I have so many memories of running behind Andy, simply trying to keep up. Not so much in the pace of life, he was always more laid back than I, but rather the younger sister that wanted to stay in his reach. I always wanted to have a finger in his bucket of life. He always had something I wanted to be a part of for if he was a part of it, he simply drew you in. He was a natural leader, so as he led, you wanted to follow. He was a natural giver, so as he gave, you found yourself wanting to give. He collected friends like they were blue light specials, so I wanted to be his friend. He knew how to take an idea and turn it into genius. Unfortunately, his brilliance wasn’t infectious. But his zest for life would pull you in like a tidal wave and you simply wanted to hold on for dear life with hopes of being carried along for the hundred miles. Doing life with Andy was worth doing and it was something you craved without even being aware you were craving it. He simply was infectious. And loving. And endearing. And….everything good in life.

And now, we are left doing life without Andy. I’m not quite sure how to do life without Andy. I found myself yesterday having to sit in a room without Andy walking into it. It was a room that needed to morph and Andy wasn’t there with his pocket. He leaves a tangible void. It’s a void we all feel, those of us that knew him for if we knew him we loved him, as brother, as son, as father, as husband, as friend.  It’s as though we all got to see Andy in a way others didn’t get to see him. We each hold a piece of his story, a building block that when put together build up his whole. Andy made each of who we are, but each of us also made Andy who he was. If you knew Andy, you have a story. He most certainly left you with a story. I’m hoping that story will find a way to seep into the space that sits in this room. I keep looking up to see Andy walk in around the corner. But he’s not walking in. But his story will. Tell me his story. I’m collecting his stories. For his stories are what will keep him here.  My words here are short, because there simply are no words, but it needed to be said that I loved Andy because he was so very easy to love.

This was the last passage Andy was reading. It’s the perfect testament to the legacy he leaves behind.

Romans 12:9-13 New American Standard – 

⁹ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; ^[a]give preference to one another in honor; ¹¹ not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹² rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, ¹³ contributing to the needs of the ^[b]saints, ^[c]practicing hospitality.

To access previous blog posts - click HERE.