Community

I think of community and wonder if it’s really necessary for so many to suffer together. I mean, Tim, Margaret and I have to suffer because Jack was ours. Grieving is the price we pay for loving him so very much. But the sadness that slammed a tiny school, descended on a town, and spread throughout this country and beyond through friends and social media? Is that sadness too much to put on others?

Is it right to want others to share our grief with us? To walk this path by our sides? Or is that asking too much?

I really hate to use a drowning analogy because my oh my how I’ve been struck over the past year with how many hymns, praise songs, and even references to grief refer to drowning. Ick. That’s a lot for me to take. Last week Margaret and I counted 5 songs in a row on our Christian radio station dealing with storms, waves, being pulled under, drowning and floods.

Ugh.

However, there is an image that keeps coming to me when I think of community. It is of our little family huddled together out in the middle of a pond on very thin ice. It’s lonely out there. And the weight of our grief and longing for Jack are so heavy, bearing down on us, the pond starts to crack.

Then I see us getting down on our bellies, and spreading our arms and legs out, almost as if we are embracing the ice. Friends, those we have met and those we may not meet for a long time spread out too, grabbing onto our hands or our feet, until we’ve redistributed the weight, making a web or a snowflake pattern that reaches to the far edges of the pond and keeps us safe. Tim’s and Margaret’s and my weight remains the same, but we don’t go crashing through.

I’m not sure if that’s really how ice works. Or grief works. But there is a real feeling of blessing and relief that comes from being connected to others in grief and pain.

Thank you for that today and always.

What Would Anna Do?

…if she woke up and saw there was just this much milk left in the jug?

And she feels grumpy, off, and a little bit crazy if she doesn’t follow her routine of tea, newspaper, and two big bowls of Special K Red Berries? And her son's equally rigid ritual includes having ample milk in which to bathe his 6 at a time, yes exactly 6, Frosted Mini Wheats?

She’s alone in the kitchen.

She ponders, bargains with herself, justifies her position, takes this picture and…

shares it equally with him even though she knows it won’t entirely coat her first bowl, let alone her second.

She does not comment when he still has milk left in the bowl when he’s finished. But she does notice.