What's the Plan, Stan?

I've heard from others, and maybe even said to people before: "God knows just how you feel because he had to experience the death of his own beloved son."

Here's the thing: I do believe God knows exactly how I feel because, well, he's God. He knows everything and He cares deeply. But acknowledging that He suffered when Jesus died just doesn't do it for me. I mean, God is GOD. I am a 42 year old mortal woman. He breathed life into the Universe. I just breathe.

God willingly sacrificed His son to save us from our sins. I just let my 12 year old go outside and play under very questionable circumstances. God had a plan with the death of Jesus. God knew the plan, and Jesus did too.

I am not privy to what the plan is here. It certainly doesn't mesh with my simple, possibly mundane life goals of raising 2 kids to love God, love others, have decent taste, and hopefully not turn out to be big jerks. As a family-- to know each other and be known. Oh, and to eventually get at least a few grand kids out of the deal.

In the loss of His son, God had the big picture in mind. I have a limited, dim picture, and what I can see is too hard and unsatisfying.

Just as we have more than amply ascertained that I am NOT God, Jack is NOT Jesus. He is just a kid. A special, soulful kid who got caught up in a bad situation. And besides, Jesus got to come back after 3 days and hang out with his friends and family.

I don't think that's asking too much.

Dream Weaver

A while ago Margaret and I were looking through one of the "junk drawers" in the kitchen. We found a yellow folder with page after page of Jack's handwriting from when he was 9 or 10 years old. The pages were a Dream Chart he kept for 70 days. The first page had a rating key with two components -- a color and a number-- with which he rated his dreams each morning.





Green=Funny
Blue= Happy
Red=Scary
Purple=Weird or Other

After the color, came an overall score:


1=Terrible
2=Bad
3=OK (not bad, medium)
4=Good
5=Great :)

The next 7 Pages, labeled "Jack 1" through "Jack 7" each listed 10 dreams and their ratings.

Examples include:


Scaffolding: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible

Mysterious Forest: "Blue, 4" or Happy, Good

Christmas: "Blue, 4" or Happy, Good

Reality: "Purple, 3" or Weird or Other, OK

Sponge Bob #1: "Green, 2" or Funny, Bad

Exhibit of Fun: "Blue, 5" or Happy, Great

Public School: "Red, 4" or Scary, Good

Kidnapped by Playdoh: "Purple, 5" or Weird or Other, Great


Some of his worst dreams centered around the demise of Margaret's (now departed) hermit crab, Smiley, which doesn't surprise me, given how worried Jack was about that crab back in the day.


For five nights his dreams were titled...
"Smiley's Destruction" and were rated: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible.

Tim has taken comfort in seeing these dreams listed:
Down the River: "Blue, 3" or Happy, OK
Bounding, Swirling and Slipping: "Green, 5" or Funny, Great
and
Water and Things: "Green, 4" or Funny, Good

I have laughed about the ones I was included in:

Mom Goes Mad: "Red, 3" or Scary, OK
and
Bee Mom: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible

Most leave me intrigued and wanting more details:
Freedom: "Purple, 1" or Weird or Other, Terrible
and
Cathead: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible

I like Jack's Dream Chart for so many reasons, mainly because it represents what I love about Jack.

First, it shows perseverance, as I can't think of very many things I've kept up with for 70 straight days (diets? journaling? exercise routines?). I don't have that kind of stick-to-it-ive-ness at age 42, let alone at age 10. Jack could focus on something for a long, long time. As I've written before, he had patience with people and with tasks.

The chart is also so darn quirky and creative, traits I will always admire about Jack. It didn't serve to accomplish anything by the world's standards, but I guess it fulfilled a desire of Jack's to track something fascinating and try to understand or make sense of it.

The quiet way Jack maintained this list each day while his dreams were still fresh, reminds me of the way he operated at home: quietly, methodically, always thinking. Whether he was building, doodling, or working his way through a logic puzzle book, Jack was quietly doing SOMETHING.

His humor and creativity, which we're learning was quite evident in school (although not always in the most appropriate manner!) shine through in the names Jack gave his dreams, just as they did in the many elaborate games he made up to play with Margaret and his friends.

I can't really sum up why I love this chart so much, but I do.

I'll just ask, what's not to love about someone who takes the time to record and remember a dream like this:

"Desert Neighborhood Parking Lot Mansion On Our Hill Theme Park Foreign Food Wars" ???

By the way, that one got a Green, 4 (Funny, Good)

Rare Bird, Part 2

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

I am amazed and grateful at how gifts of comfort come at just the right time. While this post may come across as long and convoluted, I hope you’ll hang on for the ride.

First of all, I feel as if the poem I posted on Friday was divinely inspired. While my friend’s son and Jack hadn’t played together since preschool, and she and I had only seen each other a handful of times in recent years, she chose a bird as her primary image to beautifully convey Jack in the poem. It could not have been a more perfect gift to us. We treasure it.

I had already written the “Rare Bird” post but was unable to publish it Thursday night because the electricity went out, shutting down my computer. As you know, Jack died on a Thursday evening during a terrible storm, and the lack of electricity was a big factor in his death.

So here I was on another shitty Thursday, shortly after 6 pm (the exact time Jack disappeared), alone in my dark house, a crazy storm raging outside my window. I asked God, “Seriously????” but was filled with a sense of calm, knowing that many, many people were praying for me at that instant. Instead of replaying the horror of that night in my mind, as would be my nature, I was able to sit calmly for hours until Tom and Margaret got home. One of the reasons I could be so calm was a little bird.

As had happened in another part of the house one week before, I heard a bird singing, so loudly and beautifully that it seemed to be inside the house. The first time it happened, I was in the family room. It was sunny and calm outside, so I didn’t think much of it except, to note, “That is one LOUD bird.”

But how a bird could sing during such a storm was beyond me. I just cherished it as I sat on the living room couch in the dark, a little smile on my face, knowing that when the electricity came on I already had a post ready to share with you about my boy entitled, “Rare Bird.” I loved that.

What could have been a horrible night was the opposite, because of many prayers and the visit of a little songbird. Margaret and Tim eventually came home and the three of us tucked ourselves into our queen-sized bed, the electricity still out. We were able to laugh and talk before falling asleep, which was far different from the moaning sobs that stormy night 5 weeks ago.

The next morning I told them about the bird and as I did, the loud singing began again. We looked around and found a cute brown songbird sitting contentedly in a flowerpot on our screened porch. He must have gotten trapped inside and ridden out the storm there. We let him out, and I smiled again. Bird.

What I hadn’t told you yet was that a different friend, whom I have not seen in 20 years and who, therefore, had never met Jack, had been lifting us up via loving emails each day. Several of her emails over these past few weeks, in addition to prayers and hugs, mentioned sending a little blue jay my way. Well, umm, okay. Not sure what that meant. And I’ve never really liked blue jays, but I decided I’d take all the love I could get.

It wasn’t until she read Friday’s blog post, that this friend let me know what she meant in those previous emails. She had seen a particular bird often since the accident, and each time she saw it was filled with a sense that my Jack was MORE THAN OKAY. When she would look at the blue jay, the words, “Rare Bird” came to her, again and again, which she found odd, because blue jays are not rare. After reading the poem on Friday, and seeing the title, "Rare Bird," she immediately KNEW that the “rare bird” she had been thinking of was not a bird, but was Jack.

She was able to pass along to me many comforting assurances about Jack, and because of the beautiful poem, and the bird that had sung to me Thursday night, I was able to hear her and be comforted. Wow.

Well, there’s more:

So yesterday, while we were getting ready to go to go to a school picnic, something we dreaded because Jack wouldn’t be there with his friends, my cell phone started playing music. I say cell phone, because even though it’s an iPhone, I am not a music-girl, and I didn’t even know it had music on it. Turns out, Tim loaded some songs when I first got the phone, but I had no idea.

The song playing, “The Solace of You,” was one of our favorites when were dating many years ago in our Mix-tape days. Tim and I were able to smile, hug, take solace, get in the car, and do something hard.

The music would not have touched me if all of these other things hadn’t happened to help me be open to the idea of COMFORT coming to us through varied ways. I would have just thought-- “Wow, my cell phone is jacked up!”

So, I realize I’ve been being eased into accepting this comfort, from the Bible verse showing up on my phone that first terrible night, friends telling me they sensed Jack was reunited with my mother in heaven, and the prescient Bible verse Margaret found last summer. It goes on and on.

Just as God has used numbness and shock to NOT let me feel the weight of this grief all at once, he seems to be giving comfort in just the right doses, lots and lots of doses, to bring me solace.

So later last night, when I heard music playing on my phone inside my purse, I wasn’t all that surprised. It was another song from our dating years. When I asked Tim what it was called, he said:

“’Song Bird’ by Fleetwood Mac.”

Of course it was.

Thanks, God! Thanks, Jack!