A Hug from Heaven Release Day!

November is Children's Grief Awareness Month, so it seemed like a most appropriate time to release my children's book A Hug from Heaven.

If you preordered the book, it should arrive any day now! If you haven't ordered it yet, keep your eyes, ears, and hearts open for any grieving children in your midst who might be comforted by the book.

People often ask me where they should buy my books. This is a great question, especially since I chose self-publishing this time around. What I usually suggest is that people who know me (family, blog readers like you) order directly from the publisher. This helps me earn back my investment.

I direct other people to Amazon because it's so simple. This helps me get reviews, which then introduces the book to people who are unfamiliar with me and might find themselves wading through many books in the middle of the night, not sure what would be a good choice. I make very little money through sales on Amazon, but it is good exposure for the book.

Either way, my hope is that the book will get "out there" and touch lives!

Speaking of reviews, if you have read the book, please consider leaving an honest review on Amazon, whether or not you purchased a book there. I wouldn't buy a can opener without reading reviews first, let alone a book for grieving children.

Well, that's about all for now. Andrew is sick again with the croup, so it could be another long day and night. Thank you, again, for your continued support. It means the world to me!

And remember: If you are local to Northern Virginia, please come to my book party at Caffe Amouri in Vienna, VA on Nov 7 at 7 pm. We'll have coffee, tea, wine, and goodies to eat. I'll be selling and signing books. 

P.S. If you didn't see it on Facebook yet, Andrew was a scary monster for Halloween. Here he is with his grandma:

Redeemable

Found this little coupon recently that I guess Jack gave me at some point for a birthday or other holiday. "One date of your choice with Jack. Expires: never."

I sure wish I'd redeemed it so we'd have another memory together.

But what a "date" it will be when we are together again!

p.s. If you have coupons like this sitting around, I suggest redeeming them before the teen years. I tried to get Margaret to pay up for "70 minutes of snuggle time" last week but she was not interested! :)

p.p.s. Look at her grumpy little face in her two year old portrait! Ha!

Sticky Love

I lost a beautiful friend to sudden death exactly one year ago. We had known each other over a dozen years. She had an epic laugh. Living across town from each other, we didn't see each other all that often, except for a smile from one balcony seat to another across our large church on Sundays. After Jack died, I didn't hear much from her. I assumed that she, like others, had to do the hard work of trying to process a mother's nightmare come to life on her own time, in her own way.

The night we found out she died, so sudden and shocking, I got into my car and drove through the rain and darkness across town. I wanted to show up. Not because we had been that close in the past few years-- she had far better friends who would step in to take care of so many needs-- but because I had learned something about being there from the ones who drove through rain on another dark night for my family. I fought back feelings of, "You don't belong here," and pushed onward, in case my presence could do or mean anything at all.

A week or so later, my friend's precious daughter came to stay with us for a month to finish out the school year. I, too, knew the shock of losing a mom suddenly. The incredulity that the soft curves and the lap and the hair I knew as well as my own were no longer available to me in the way I wanted and needed, especially as a teenager finding her way in the world.

I don't know if I helped this sweet girl, a beautiful mix of sensitivity and strength, maturity and tenderness, but I know I was blessed by her presence. We talked about books we were reading. The pain of losing a mom. I hoped that she could see that early mother loss does not have to mean a bad life, even as I worried that I was not the best poster child for the good life. I just hoped my hugs, a very poor substitute for the genuine article, could substitute somewhat for a mama's hug.

I don't know if I told her anything remotely wise or meaningful during that month, but this is what I wish I'd said:

Beautiful L, 

It's a hard road to walk without a mom by your side, and your mom was one of a kind! She understood you better than anyone except for God, and her love for you ran deep. You were her delight and her pride. She prayed for you, cheered you on, and cherished you. 

Wait! Why am I writing this in past tense?

If I have learned anything from losing my mom and Jack, it's that the love you share is not dead. It did not die with your mom. That understanding and being known are still there too; in fact, she can now know those parts of you that were unspoken between you while she lived.  You can continue to cherish, experience, and work through your relationship with you here and her "there" by telling her how you feel, and by keeping your heart open and soft, even though it hurts. 

I'm guessing you are wondering if having her with you on earth for 14 short years is enough for her to "stick." I worried about this with my mom, too. But when I make someone laugh or help them feel good, that's my mom's influence coming through. When I share my mess with someone else? Mom. When you bake a pie, hug your future child tightly, or start some crazy big project involving fancy paper and tulle, that will be your mom. When your eyes light up with great big plans? What about when you buy a friend a thoughtful gift because it is just the thing to cheer her up? Yeah, your mom. 

Sweetie, a mother's love is the stickiest stuff around. I know that even on hard days, my love is stuck all over Margaret here and Jack in heaven. You are your own person, and so are they, but you, made up of so many complex parts, will never be entirely separate from the mother-love that held you hour after hour, got to know you by peering into your eyes, unlocked the wonderful code of what made you tick, worried for you, and wanted the rest of the world to see in you what she did (and does!) 

Sticky.

I know "there" seems so very far away, especially when you're such a hugger. I'd love to ask your mom if you were a cuddle-bug as a baby, because I'm guessing the answer is yes! You are the best hugger I know.

14 years were not enough, L. 

You wanted more. You want more.

I do too. 

But in this, I promise, fourteen years were more than enough to make her STICK. 

Love,

Anna

Under the Yucatan Sky

 The stars shone more brightly than I’d ever seen before. We were so far from a city, a town, or any electricity, that we were able to make out individual stars against the inky black sky in a way that I was unable to do at home in the suburbs of D.C. I stood surrounded by Mayan women in traditional embroidered cotton dresses. I wore one too against my sunburned skin.

It was our last night in this remote Mayan village on the Yucatan Peninsula. For one week of our two week trip, we’d been mixing cement, gravel and water on the ground, hauling it in buckets to the church rooftop, and pouring it on top of the cinderblocks and beams we'd put there. The villagers had taken years to build the walls of the building out of rocks and cement, but they didn't have the resources to put a roof on the church. The process had to be done quickly, all at once and at great expense, whereas the walls were built over time, rock by rock.

It was 1985 and this was my church youth group’s first international mission trip. I was the youngest participant at 15. It had been a week of hard work, laughter, and inspiration, and next week we’d head to a different village to do it again. Sleeping in a hammock in a thatch hut, turning over my steel toed work boots each morning to shake out wayward scorpions, and belting out Barry Manilow tunes while hoisting buckets of concretet overhead gave me an experience of a lifetime.

My best self showed up here. Not my vain, petty, self-conscious self. But a girl who could look beyond her physical comfort for just a little while, and be connected to God and His people. Trench latrines didn't bother me, and showering fully dressed outside in the rain during afternoon thunderstorms made me feel cleaner than my shower at home. I felt born for this.

Standing among the short Mayan women, I felt tall even at just 5.5. But I also felt small. For the first time I was experiencing a world beyond my suburban lifestyle, and I was experiencing God beyond Sunday School classes and youth group.

I was among people who believed in God’s provision, in miracles, and the transforming power of faith not as an add-on to their regular, busy lives, but as the cornerstone. Their everything. Not for a week, but every day.

I thought of the church walls as a metaphor for a daily life of faith, little by little, growing and reaching toward the sky.

As we stood outside that night, looking at the dark sky, cuddling the swaddled babies one last time, we said our goodbyes. Even though I would come back year after year, it would not be to this village ever again. The women said something in Mayan, and someone translated it into Spanish. One of the Spanish speakers in our group repeated it in English, “Until we meet again in heaven, Until we meet again in heaven.”

And I couldn’t fathom in this great big world that I’d see these new friends again. I wasn’t even sure that’s how it all worked, but I knew that they loved God, and I loved God, so we were connected.

 Under the Yucatan sky.

Friday Shorts

I was sitting in my office at work early this morning when a sweet man came in carrying a plate of deviled eggs. He was looking for a place to drop the eggs for a funeral reception at our church later in the day. I am not a picky eater, but deviled eggs are one of my least favorite foods. I don't like how they look, taste, and certainly not how they smell. I ushered him out as politely and quickly as possible.

My former students will tell you I can be sensitive about smell. Unfortunately, my B.O. meter is as accurate as my B.S. meter, which is to say... finely tuned. And don't even get me stared on tuna fish. I had a "no tuna" rule with the teenagers who would hang out in my classroom at lunchtime because much as I like to eat tuna, I don't want my classroom trash to smell like it all day long.

So, this dear man came in carrying a plate of deviled eggs quite early this morning. Oh, have I told you I was back at work after being home sick in bed all day yesterday? Ugh. Fortunately, the smell dissipated before I needed to take another sick day.

But this little post isn't about eggs; I think it's about funerals.

The funeral was for one of my mother's best friends. She was a lovely woman who died at age 82 after a long struggle with cancer. She was a huge Bible scholar and teacher, as well as a champion of  women's rights and social justice. She made us think, and in many ways served as a moral compass at our church, always listening, nodding, and pointing us back to grace.

I have been to a handful of funerals in our church in the year since Jack's service. All have been for older people, with grown kids and grand kids. As I sat there, I did not have flashbacks to Jack's service because, well, most of it is a blur to me, and the feel of a funeral for an elderly person is so entirely different from that of a child. Jack's and my mother's dying so young makes me think of what they missed out on, and that's hard.

But with this beloved woman, there was a real quality of completion and a life well lived. She will be missed greatly, as evidenced by the tears shed and the stories shared, but there's also an excitement that all those years of digging and studying were leading up to this moment. She is free from her cancer and can go right to the source of her devotion to gain rest, to gain answers, and perhaps to keep teaching!

I'm no expert on how all of this works, but that's how it seems to me today. Someday I will see it all clearly.

Oh, I skipped the deviled egg table and went straight to the desserts.