Anniversary

As much as I want to hide, I cannot not write today. All day I have been either sleeping or putting on the mask of the happy Christmas guy that I always was. I did a nice job too. My son said it was the best Christmas ever. Maybe that is just because he doesn't have much in his memory to gauge from, except last year. I have tried very hard to strike dead any memory of any feeling that has re-occurred from last year. The phone ringing, the drive to his house, the sight of the lights blinking in my front yard that night, the feel of the cold rain fall and freeze in my hair. But now I sit here alone. The house is asleep as it should be, as I wanted it to be. Now I will let it in, when no one is looking. 12 months have passed since I have seen him dead or alive. It still hurts just as much, maybe in different ways, but my stomach still drops when I think about him.

Tonight is a quiet night. Drove around looking for Chinese earlier. Nothing was open and no one was on the road. Hard not to sit and remember without stimulation the tears rolling down the window to the pane. The blurred vision as I drove home from his house. The look on his mom's face. Hard to keep it out. In reality, I don't want to keep it out. I have to keep it out. I have to give my kids the absolute greatest memory of Christmas. I can't let my blood seep into theirs. They miss him so much already. Caeden has been mentioning all week how he hopes no one dies this year. This may have contributed to his best Christmas ever declaration. In that sentiment, I agree. I'm thankful for who remains in my life and who I have gained.

Set em up the dead end kids.

May you have a very merry Christmas Will. May you sing songs directly to the face of Jesus. May you build things a man could never imagine with tools never even thought of. May you remember me and smile. You had so much to smile about here, but I can only imagine what you have to make you smile in Heaven. I am glad you aren't hurting anymore. I smile when I think of you now. Took many months to get there though. But the important part is that I am there. You are finally happy and I am making my way back. I am not going back big brother. God is healing me. It was Him who gave me the strength to endure this in the first place, only He knows how much I doubted that He could.

I miss you and will always wish you were still here. I will always think of you when things get quiet. When the moon looks over the lights on Christmas and reflects it's light in beams like lasers from the eyes of God. I will never forget you, especially on Christmas, but I will never forget the Christ that came on this day so you can be with Him. That is what Christmas is all about isn't it.












Sing.
Migrate.









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Happy Birthday Brother

Happy birthday big brother. 33 today if you were still here. Where you are now, they don't count years. There is no aging or looming ends. Last year, I looked into your eyes and you were somewhere else. I thank God that you are where you wanted to be.

It's been a rough year brother. I have been mad at you more times than I can count. I have thought about you every day. I have a bag in my basement filled with your things. I open it and you seem to still be in there, however I know it is just evidence that you were here. I like to imagine that you still are. Last year today was the last time I saw you breathing. We had so much fun. We played musical chairs and once again it came down to you and me. Once again, we called it a draw. I could never beat you, you could never beat me. It was a battle of wills, but we were both smart enough to disengage before we spent the entire night in battle. Just like in Twister.

I wonder what you are doing now. Your mom believes you are working. Building things. I like that. I hope you have every tool you could ever think of. I still have that one we made with the torch. I took it from your toolbox, hope you don't mind.  I don't know how I have made it here buddy. When you got in your rocket and flew away, I never believed I would survive it. For so very long you and Joe were all I had. But here I am. God wasn't gonna let me go, just like He never left you. My wife and kids and our family have leaned with me. Your aunt made these beautiful pillows for the kids for Christmas. They were made of your t-shirts and pictures of you with each one of them. It was their favorite thing. I don't know what God tells you about what is going on down here, but if you can read this, we are doing OK. We all still grieving in both healthy and unhealthy ways, but we are all different and experience things differently. We sure miss you around here. I had to replace my own faucet last week. A job Laura would have conned you into doing I think.

I watched Aidan play this Christmas song last week at school on the recorder. It was a beautiful song. It brought me to tears. I am proud of those kids, you would be too. A little less twinkle in their eyes. A little less twinkle in the lights this year, but with God's help we are all gonna make it through. We have never been closer as a family, thanks to you. So there are positives.

It is quite beautiful outside right now. Reminds me of when we wanted to start that snow plowing business because it is so pretty and peaceful at night in the winter. I miss you a lot.


"A long December, and there's reason to believe...maybe this year will be better than the last..." Counting Crows










Sing.
Migrate.






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What Is Life

What is life? I know the answer in the Biblical sense I think and that is simply, to glorify God. The getting to that part is the hardest thing God could have ever asked us to do. Except He didn't ask us, He told us, because he has that right. He is the Maker of everything. But practically. Right here. Right  now. What is life?

Every day I open my eyes. This is something a living person usually cannot avoid. I blink a few times and lay there still...as if to trick my body into believing I am still sleeping. I look at the wall and up at the window as the sun pours through like fire in a wheat field. Most mornings I can do without that. I think about things. Not ordinary things like what I have to accomplish today or how I am going to meet goals; but strange things like how I am going to get up and brush my teeth, get dressed, and eat something without getting up one second too early to make it on time to wherever.

Some days are passionate. You can go all day on this adrenaline feeling of love and mission. Others you are lucky to feel anything at all. Understand that this blog is not a cry for help, so really, I am Ok! It is a description of normal feelings had by a person sitting in a boat in the middle of the ocean alone at times and flying over the entire world others. I told you I struggle with depression, but not without hope. Hope is life in real life I think. Hope is the difference between the living and the walking dead. There is always tomorrow and the sun may not seem so bad then. If it does, there is always Heaven. Hope is the thing that saves lives. Hope is what God wanted us to understand when He came down and laid down in the straw, just like us. He wanted us to know, He would suffer worse, yet stand tall, praying through bloody tears for help and strength. If Jesus, the very Son of God had to live through it, so do we. We are able because the same God that gave Jesus the power to rise up from the dead, is the God that wipes away our tears when we have been broken.

I know that there are some out there that don't understand me. Some that do not have the same experience of life as I do and can't see it through my eyes. I do realize that in many ways I am abnormal. But the thing that brings me so much comfort is that God made me this way. God allowed so much to make me who He wants me to be, which is so far from where I am, but hope means believing you will get there. Never while breathing, but one day.










Sing.
Migrate.








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Prowlers

My dog roams the night. She thinks she owns the house, at least when we are asleep. She lurks and in the night chews up our most precious memories. She is a puppy. Puppies are jerks.

However, I can't help but to think about the rest of the jerks that roam the night, thinking we own the world as long as no one can see.

We need to remember that God is present all the time. Might seem like an infantile concept, but is it really?

We were never promised alone time...away from God and anything or anyone else that might judge your actions. God is always there.

May God remind us of that whenever we have the desire to be stupid.







Sing.
Migrate.








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On The Other Side Of Lights

So what comes next? What unexpected monster awaits behind the fog? This is the feeling I always have. What comes next? I don't know. There is both beauty and anxiety in that feeling. What is in front of me covered in the darkness and wrapped in the unknown may be the most wonderful thing I have ever experienced. It may be the beauty that lights the sun itself. It may be rapture. Or it may be more sorrow. I may be a disaster that rages like a hungry beast feasting on blood. It may be what happens next.

Unknown is scary for anyone I would imagine. It is hard to close your eyes and allow your faith to see for you. It is hard for me because so many things have gone wrong...then again, so much has gone right too. God has built me in fire. Melted away my pride and what most people would call dignity. I call it pride. David experienced this when he danced. He danced with no shame, he had nothing but God and he knew it. We are at His divine mercy. Some people think this is unfair. I can relate to that. I have felt like a pawn at times too...like God has made me for much less noble reasons. But who am I to question the potter when I am made from clay? Reality can be very relative to some. Some will only see the things they want to see and believe what they want to believe...true or not. Fear drives it. Fear fans the flames. People are afraid of the unknown and afraid that the worst could really happen.

I have seen beauty giggling in my arms and I have seen death so close I can smell it's awful stench. Both go together. There is no beauty without the death. A baby would never be so innocent and precious if we hadn't been profoundly hurt by the less than innocent. I often come across other Christians who are singing with me who just refuse to hear the wailing in the hearts of God's people. Things must be perfect for them to have peace, they must not allow any of the other side of reality to become known. I sympathize with them too. When I was a kid, I covered my eyes at the scary parts too. It would be easier to keep your eyes covered than to take a peek at the other side. For some, the other side is forced upon them. Keep your eyes closed all you want, but the rest of your senses will compensate. It will get in.


Maybe we can stop just for a moment and listen and crack those fingers apart just a little and try to understand those that don't see the world and faith exactly as you do. Maybe we can open our arms to them and embrace them. Be a shoulder to weep on, because the world's shoulders are cold and I don't have to tell you that. People need you. People need to be loved. People need to see God in the little things that God dwells in. People need to remember that as dark as it may seem, there is so much beauty still surrounding them. People need others to remember their names and listen to them when they speak. People need love.









Sing.
Migrate.









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Lights Of A Cold City

Finally got the Christmas lights up. I have been dreading it all year. I expected to see the lights and be transported back to the misery that was last year. I expected to see it all and feel it all so intensely again, erasing a year of time elapsed from the worst day of my life. Christmas 2009. One for the books. One that will never be forgotten or looked upon in a positive light. I expected all of these things, but they didn't come. I put up the lights outside with my usual frustration and fury. I sawed down the pole of the Christmas tree so it does protrude through the drop ceiling again, to my wife's embarrassment. I strung the lights around the tree and hung them on the walls. It felt good. I have always loved Christmas, like really loved Christmas. I was transformed, but not back to Christmas of 2009, but to every great Christmas I had ever had. It truly is a Christmas miracle that I survived last year, but an even bigger miracle that God mends the torn heart. It still hurts like crazy and at times I sit and stare out windows and wish Will were out there somewhere. But I can breathe. I am a fighter and I wanted more than anything to give up. This is the strength that only God possesses.

Last Christmas, they wheeled my brother out of his garage into the back of a van. Face covered, with rain falling in buckets all over us. What a way to say goodbye. I am beginning to let that go. It won't leave my memory, but lately I can think about him without getting sad. He was funny. He was always joking. We was a manipulator. He would grab onto his mom's leg in high school and beg her for money, and if she said no, he would refuse to let go until she gave him five bucks..."Anything helps" he would say. He did legendary things. At times he was larger than life, figuratively and literally. Other times he was meek and quiet, reserving his most important and delicate words for moments that really meant something. Sometimes he desired hundreds of people around and other times, he was a loner and would disappear like a ghost into the darkness. For the past year, I could only picture him walking away. I picture him now laughing as he always did and see the day that I meet him again. Gives me more motivation to finish life strongly. To keep running.










Sing.
Migrate.









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