glitter, small world.

JoyDare.Day17

2012-02-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day seventeen.

3 gifts found in giving/serving.

a gift in giving time:

memories made together.

a gift in giving, from God:

the beauty of a fresh snowfall.

the gift of a husband serving by giving precious gifts:

the joy of wearing the people you love in a circle near your heart.

JoyDare.Day16

2012-02-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day sixteen.

3 gifts found in shadows.

1. the glittering lights of grass still frosted.

2. the struggling warmth of creeping sun.

3. the peaceful graves still sleeping, and other undisturbed places of rest.

JoyDare.Day15

2012-02-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day fifteen.

a gift in losing something, a gift in finding something,

a gift in making something.

the gift of losing gratitude.

it doesn't make sense alone,

but in losing gratitude i went searching for something else.

i forgot that each moment,

each mystery,

was given by a gift giver.

through my journey i have discovered the gift giver again.

and so i've also found a gift of finding happiness.

this is a real and genuine happiness.

a happiness that knows deep down that

the gift giver is good,

and that He cares for me.

and so a gift made.

a gift in making peace with the gift giver.

-----------------------

also, happy birthday to my hubs :)

JoyDare.Day14

2012-02-14T13:31:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day fourteen.

3 ways you feel the love of God.

in the past few days the Lord has been reminding me about his great love for me

in ways that i have never thought about before

and so i must add more to my story, and lucas' story.

the story, really, of all of us, on the inside.

the ways we wait for God to prove his love and

then the ways he does and we don't see.

the way he opens our eyes

and then we do.

so here are the pieces you may have missed,

not that it started right here, in uganda,

in a room rotten with smells,

or even after, with my eyes cried straight through

and thin as paper cuts.

lucas one.

lucas two.

before lucas died, and even after but before i knew,

i was nearly positive that the next time i traveled to africa

it would be to pick up my son and take him home.

it seemed that simple.

i knew there were many things that i would have to accomplish

first- things like money and home studies

and being a single twenty-one year old,

but none of that really seemed like a big enough

obstacle to stop me from keeping my promise to lucas.

really, the only obstacle big enough was death.

the thing i feared most of all.

the thing that happened and devastated my entire world.

after lucas died i knew i wouldn't go back to africa.

it hurt too bad.

no longer was it a place of beauty and kept promises,

but now it was burdens and loss.

but that wasn't true, was it?

because nine months later i was going back.

why?

i understand this part now.

God wanted to prove his love,

and this was the only way i would accept it.

but i didn't know that then.

after living through the run of emotions following lucas' death

i settled on asking why we couldn't have just been given

more time.

isn't that what we all want, really, in the end?

we don't ask to live forever.

we don't ask for everything we ever wanted.

we don't ask to change the past.

we simply ask for more time.

i wished for more moments to love like a mother

and feel that love in return from a child.

fast forward to south africa, and the One Who Has Arrived

now that The One has been adopted, i would like to introduce him to you-

please, meet Fikile-

i've been away from him now for over a year already,

and i just now am finally realizing how quietly God proved

to me that he knew i hurt. that he understood my pain in losing lucas.

and as a gift, he gave me more time.

more time to mother.

more time to be loved freely and completely.

He proved that in this great big world,

with all these messes of people,

he saw my broken heart, and he cared enough to

help me heal in the only way i could receive that healing.

and i am so, so undeserving.

and so, so grateful.

fikile loved me without fear of me leaving him,

which had sat like a poisoned question in my soul before-

will all my children die early?

will i fail them all?

but no!

he trusted me, and slowly, pieces of my heart grew back.

they are still growing back.

three ways I feel the love of God.

one. He gave lucas a father

two. He took time to prove he saw my pain

three. He gave me more time

JoyDare.Day13

2012-02-13T21:06:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day thirteen.

3 gifts found behind a door today.

behind a warehouse door:
the gift of helping women make a living in uganda

behind a plymouth breeze door:
the gift of an old car that still runs.

behind my front door:
the gift of a husband who celebrates valentines day early.

JoyDare.Day12

2012-02-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day twelve.

3 hard eucharisteos.

exerpt from ann voskamp's one thousand gifts:

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning "grace." Jesus

took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the

bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks.

But there is more, and I read it. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving,

envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its

derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning "joy." Joy. Ah... yes.

I might be needing me some of that. That might be what

the quest for more is all about - that which Augustine claimed,

"Without exception... all try their hardest to reach the same

goal, that is, joy."

so here i am, day twelve, and struggling to write

about my three hard eucharisteos.

the three things i know i should give thanks for,

with grace,

and with joy,

but i find it ever so hard to do so.

why is it so hard to be thankful for the gifts God gives?

number one. i am thankful for the gift of a son, the moments

spent with him, the memories made. i have gone through all

of the phases, and asked all of the questions. many of which have

been done right here on this blog.

i went through the shock of losing lucas.

i went through the bitterness, the blame, the burden.

i went through the anger, the spite.

i mourned, and still do.

i carry the grief in the deepest place of my soul.

but still i finally realize.

finally, finally, after all this time of asking God

why.

why he wove the story this way.

of telling God i could have done it.

i could have taken care of lucas.

been a good, loving mama.

begging with him for more time.

i now can come to the place where i thank him for the gift

that is lucas.

number two. i am thankful for the gift of lucas in heaven.

wow. that is hard for me.

but no matter what, i'm finally understanding

that no matter what i could have offered lucas here,

it is no comparison for what the Lord has offered him there.

number three. i am thankful for being here, now.

right here.

though there are times i don't feel like it.

times i want to throw in the towel and just go,

without waiting to hear His voice,

i am thankful that there is a plan for me here.

that i can be used now.

that i am learning to find joy in this time.

the gift of lucas has taught me so much more than i could have

ever imagined, but the most significant lesson has been this-

i wasn't put on this earth just to love lucas.

i was put here to love Him.

JoyDare.Day11

2012-02-11T21:11:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day eleven

3 gifts found in working.

i wake up early in the morning,

while the moon is still in the dark sky.

i slip out of bed and set my feet on the cold floor.

my arches hurt.

i crack my back, and my neck,

because they hurt, too.

the night before i worked in the warehouse,

wrapping and strapping pallets of boxes

filled with rice to be shipped out

to children in third-world countries.

joy number one in working at my job:

it accomplishes something good.

i'm sitting at the table,

scowling,

because he just doesn't understand me.

i want to shout,

or say something hurtful,

or roll my eyes.

i think of the things i could say that would

cut the deepest, scar the most.

i keep them in my mind and shut my mouth.

i remember that i love him.

that he loves me.

that no one is perfect.

i show grace.

joy number two in working on my marriage:

it grows me into a gentler, more graceful woman.

i watch the pictures slide by on the computer.

it is quiet in my house, and the only light comes

from the flickering candle and the filtered light of the screen.

tears fill my eyes, slide out, run down my face in lines.

i kneel on the hardwood floor and cry.

i lay down, then, and hug a picture of a little black boy.

i'm cold and the picture is so flat and my arms are so empty.

i pray that i wouldn't be sad anymore.

i think of his face, his tiny lips and big eyes.

i squeeze my eyes shuts and try to remember everything,

his smell and laugh.

the way his body felt nuzzled close to mine.

the way i feel now without him.

the excitement i have in seeing him again.

joy number three in working as a mother of a gone son:

it makes me someone better.

JoyDare.Day10

2012-02-10T19:19:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day ten.

3 times you heard laughter today.

1. laughter while watching david make pancakes.

2. laughter while volunteering at feed my starving children.

3. laughter while watching my wedding ceremony in fast forward.

JoyDare.Day9

2012-02-09T19:48:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day nine.

3 gifts that were surprises - unexpected grace!

my fellow african mama, alanna, had a few days off
and decided to fly in from colorado to visit me!

a delicate nest with a beautiful background on our walk around the lake.

amazing conversations at my old college study spot, overflow cafe

Liebster Blog

2012-02-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

my beautiful college friend turned blogger friend

Katie nominated me for the Liebster Blog award, for small, growing blogs!

So now I get to nominate some of my favorites for the same award... yay :)

Here are the rules-

1. Link back to the blogger who nominated you :)

2. Copy and paste the award to your blog

3. List at least three blogs (with less than 200 followers) you would like to award

Here are the blogs I chose:

1.Nancy's blog over at Layers of a Sandwich

2. Megan's blog over at Musings of a Meg

3. My lovely sister Maria's brand new blog at Love Well...

...february joy dare day nine coming soon...

JoyDare.Day8

2012-02-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day eight.

a gift broken, a gift fixed,

a gift thrifted.

a gift broken: my litte south african love's hand print,
the frame fell off the wall in our bedroom and cracked,

but the glass didn't.

a gift fixed: for anyone who knows me or has followed my blog

it will come to no surprise that after david got me this "unkillable" tree

it started to die. yes, that's right, i nearly killed a tree that is supposed to

live for hundreds of years.

however, as of now, a little tender loving care has fixed it.

i think.

a gift thrifted: these are two of my most favorite decorations.

i spray painted the frames and put special cards inside.

one is from a friend from church with the sign language symbol for friends,

the other was from david before i left for africa the third time.

JoyDare.Day7

2012-02-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day seven

three gifts red.

corners filled with memories

lights that smell like childhood.

gifts that return every day.

JoyDare.Day6

2012-02-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day six.

three gifts found outside.

one moon, that giant orb that lights my night now
and later, his.
flashes of red in the tree,
our cardinal back each day at eleven.
the wind and sound of chimes,
a reminder of things hoped for
but not yet seen.

on planes and broken hearts.

2012-02-05T22:35:00.000-08:00

on my way to watch the superbowl tonight

i passed the st.paul/minneapolis international airport.

a massive delta plane flew over,

heading back or just arriving,

bringing hundreds of people to this destination

to do who knows what.

my stomach got that weird feeling

both times i drove by-

you know that feeling,

like either you are really hungry

or you are going to be sick

or you swallowed a lump of coal.

i always feel like this when i see the airport.

isn't that weird?

that just the sight of that place

and those jumbo jets

can recall such emotions inside of me?

it is like all of my travels by air

come flooding back all at once.

i remember my trip to uganda,

that god awful long trip

and how i cried and cried because i was

actually petrified to be leaving my family and

going to africa alone.

and i remember my trip home,

still the same awful length

and how i cried and cried even harder

because i was petrified that my new son

was going to die in africa alone.

i remember my trip to johannesburg

and how i was so tired that i couldn't sleep

and i was nervous and sad

and kept thinking

"please, just turn this plane around,

i can't face this continent and those babies

and those eyes and that helpless

hopeless world."

and i remember my trip home,

bawling in my seat when the woman next to me said

she didn't realize there were orphanages in

south africa.

it has been during those twenty-three hour flights

where i realize my heart is broken.

broken again.

healed again.

broken again.

healed again.

always broken.

always healing.

JoyDare.Day5

2012-02-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

february joy dare. day five

one gift stitched, one hammered, one woven.

my africa journal.

the coat rack my brother built for us.

my ugandan basket.

JoyDare.Day4

2012-02-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

JoyDare.Day4

three gifts found when bent down.

a quiet place to trust and pray.

a new perspective.

a small friend.

-----------------------

david pinky swore he never switched the fish.

wow, picasso... you've grown...

something fishy and JoyDare.Day3

2012-02-03T15:42:00.000-08:00

the first year david and i were dating

i ended up staying at school for a few weeks

instead of going right home for the summer

to take a few extra classes.

to keep me company,

david bought me my first fish,

a betta i named scalliwag.

scalliwag lived for four years,

and just died this past year while

i was in south africa.

sad day.

so of course, after we got married

we got a new betta, picasso,

our first fish as a married couple.

i picked out the most unique, spunky little betta:

now, i have to admit something...

i don't spend hours a day studying my fish.

so today, i was sort of terrified when i took this

new picture of picasso...

now, the question for you is this-

is this the same fish?!

or did my picasso die,

and david felt too bad to tell me

so he replaced him with this

much bigger

much blue-er

fish?

please let me know what you think!

on a lighter note,

i think he also may have switched

the small puppy i chose

to this one...

-------------------------

february joy dare. day 3

three gifts found in writing.

released and recalled memories
learning my voice
beautiful lost children captured in the sky:

thank you, carly dudley, at project heal.

this will be up on the wall above our fireplace soon.

FebruaryJoyDare. day 2

2012-02-02T19:59:00.000-08:00

on the second anniversary of lucas' death

this past october, i received the book

one thousand gifts, by ann voskamp,

from my friend alanna.

the book touched me and taught me,

but most of all, it challenged me.

it challenged me to live as if the Lord

is good, everyday.

even on the days i miss lucas.

even on the days i find it hard to whisper

"God's grace"

i know follow ann's blog

a holy experience

and decided to join in on the

february joy dare.

a dare to find joy in specific things

each day during february.

i found it last night at about midnight,

so i obviously missed day one,

but i am just going to do that one on the first

day of march.

sound good?

[i make the rules here, anyway.]

so february's joy dare, day 2:

3 things overheard today, all gifts.

this morning i heard david singing in the shower:
my happy-go-lucky boy.
while running errands i heard the cry of a baby:
the beauty of small life.
i heard the dishwasher running:
without me starting it.

disclaimer: i will try to post each day, however, this is not my job, and i do have one :) if i miss a day, i will follow up with both in my next post.

letters to lucas.

2012-01-31T21:02:00.000-08:00

dear lucas,

i should be in bed,

but instead i'm writing to you.

you are the one i think of during my days,

when i'm busy running around

thoughts of you spin through my head

and when i am still and quiet

thoughts of you lay silent in my mind.

i'm counting down the days until i finally see

the place they buried you.

it scares me, how real you are still,

how as long as africa is alive,

you still somehow live.

parts of you are everywhere,

the red dirt and the beetles and the

animals that move along the plains

in the great migration.

you are the droplets of rain

coming down and going back up,

tiny little sprinkles and

furious rushing waterfalls.

you are so real to me, lucas.

you are so alive in me.

you are so perfect.

i miss you so much,

tonight,

and always.

you capture. colorful.

2012-01-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

i cannot believe that it has been a week since i posted.

the past few days have been busy

and i've been tired

and sometimes time just gets away from me.

i postponed my trip for uganda to april,

for one very big reason,

which is sorta still a secret.

but i'll tell you soon.

promise :)

this week's "you capture" is colorful.

it was a good reminder for me.

some days, and a lot recently,

i forget an important thing about God-

that He is kind,

and good,

and happy,

and creative.

He is colorful.

someone said to me on sunday,

"we forget God is the most joyful being in the world."

how true.

i do forget that.

i'm always so focused on the fact

that He doesn't always give me what i want

to realize He gives me so much more

than i deserve.

He is quick to mercy

and slow to anger.

so opposite of myself.

while i look outside and see grey,

He is colorful,

and He finds ways to remind me

that He delights in me

and making me colorful like Him.

like when i go outside with my camera

expecting clouded skies and dead trees,

but instead...

i find this.

goodnight mama

2012-01-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

When we were still young.

And we found love.

And it saved us

And instead of harm

Brought us hope

And instead of pain

It arose in us power.

When we were still young

And fear fled from the sound of our ever ringing laughter

And it was our laughter that saved us.

And from our joy

We found our justice

And we pulled our peace

From the ashes of our poverty.

When we were still young.

And we wished on stars

And threw pennies into wells

And it was our doubt that made us

Reach higher

And our desperation that made us

Look closer

At the ones we’d give our lives for.

And we are older still then before

Grief stricken

And sorrow wounded hearts

And it is love, still, that keeps us holding out our hands

Grasping for a future time

While we are

Young.

Well, friends, I am another year older.

last january at this time

i was sweating up a storm in south africa

and this year i'm wearing layers and wool socks.

you know what this means, right?

the times are changing.

and they're changing fast.

i try to hold on to time as it flies by,

and i can prove this by the wilting

evergreen that sits in front of me in our living room still.

can't i just stay young forever? i wonder

but of course not, not really,

and suddenly i'm moved out and moved on

married and grown.

sometimes i feel older than my years-

on the days when i think about my greatest fear;

the same fear that paralyzes most women, i think-

the fear of losing a child

and i remember that already happened,

and my oh my,

the grief makes me feel a thousand years old,

with all those sad tears shed.

but i still have those moments-

the ones where i am still a child.

still a daughter and a little girl.

these are the moments when i'm laughing in the falling snow,

spinning circles like a princess

where i'm giddy with excitement

planning upcoming trips

and where i leave my christmas tree up til february.

the one thing i would most love i don't wish for,

not out loud,

not anymore.

but i do know this-

that up in heaven tonight

a little boy lives content with a father,

and whispers to me before i go to sleep,

goodnight, mama, happy birthday.

sweet sixteen.

2012-01-15T22:07:00.000-08:00

we waited and waited for you;

i told all my teachers and bragged to all my friends-

i was getting a brand new baby brother or sister.

once before you were really here you tricked mom,

and man were we sad when they said, "not yet."

but soon enough, you came.

year one i held you and smelled your new smell

year two i watched you walk for the first time

year three you were talking

and at four you were full-fledged fun.

we couldn't believe you were ready for kindergarten at five

and then the years really started to fly.

you grew.

you were smart.

your little body grew taller,

you were beautiful

and you suddenly looked...

dare i say it?

grown up.

you began developing your talents:

you can cook

and bake,

better than the rest of us.

you have passions

and a heart for the needy.

you are a woman.

somehow, sometime,

you passed by all those years of being small

and today you turned sixteen.

my baby sister.

and within a few months you will come to uganda with me,

to see if your heart's desire is there as well.

a part of me hopes it is,

because who better to share my love for africa with

than you?

i love you maria.

happy birthday.

the mr.

2012-01-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

he walks out of the bedroom

with one flannel pant leg rolled up

and hair jutting out in tufts.

his black tee is ripped under the armpit

and i laugh at him.

he's a year younger than me and i see it in his eyes

green and filled with glitter,

but already he's running in the man's world

with suit pants and scuffed black shoes

and i wish i'd known him when he was small.

i make fun of him while he eats cereal from a

lime green plastic bowl,

joke that he's getting grey hair

and losing his muscles,

and i wrap my hands around his bicep.

he flexes and smirks, we both know i'm wrong.

he keeps his fishing poles,

bow and arrows,

hammer and screwdrivers

downstairs

because he's an angler,

a hunter,

and a "let me try and fix it first-er"

he knew me before i first went to africa,

before i loved lucas,

before i cried and cried

and for a while nothing he could do could make me laugh again.

he never gives up on me,

and i do laugh now.

he holds me and i feel little

because he is bigger

and stronger

and more level headed than me

and i see a man.

i poke him in the ribs and he twitches

and giggles

and i see a boy.

i love both.

those four fingered hands.

2012-01-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

i need to be honest in this post.

it has been sitting inside me for a while now.

as i've mentioned before,

a trip back to uganda is in the works.

the date is tentatively planned for february,

but depending on a few minor details [my passport...]

it might be pushed back a bit.

i'm absolutely terrified to go back.

not just a slight nervousness.

but a sick, overwhelming dizzying feeling.

it's life, here, that is trying to catch me,

and tie me up.

as soon as the whispers of a trip back started,

so did the other whispers.

the whispers to just stay.

just learn to love it here.

stay here and sleep in the arms of your husband

make your money and go to your big crowded church.

have your own babies.

walk your little dog on the swept sidewalks.

i am terrified by how short two weeks will feel.

terrified by how much two weeks will hurt.

terrified by the tired way david's eyes looked when he said yes,

you can go back.

the question that always sits there behind his green irises-

what if you love africa more than you love me?

i sit in my red car and cry.

i cry until my nose runs and my eyes sting

and i rub them raw and wipe snot on my sleeve.

i bang the steering wheel with my gloved hand.

it feels good, so i do it again. and again.

i yell at God.

i open my mouth and just yell at Him,

ask Him why I love that country,

why He brings me there but doesn't call me there,

why He gave me a son and took him away.

why I have to be so scared

and why lucas has to be so dead.

but it isn't just lucas.

for a while it was him, and only him,

that kept me connected to uganda.

but it isn't anymore.

it's them.

all of them.

it is all of those small, sweaty black bodies

and bald heads.

it's the hands reaching up, up,

me, me

always there, everywhere,

hundreds and thousands and millions

of hands attached to babies

who go to bed each night without love

and it's the hand with only four fingers

because his mom left him in the slum

and never came back

and the rats ate off his finger

before we found him.

because my God, how can i forget them

and what if they are mine?

what if that boy with four fingers is my son,

and before i realized it the rats were there

and now i'm crying again

and i'm scared but i know

that i know that i know

that i will go back,

and i must go back,

because there was a point in my life

that it was me.

i was the orphan.

in my wandering heart,

looking looking looking for love,

and He said,

"i am your father,"

and he got to me before the rats.

i look at those faces,

and i see... me.

waiting for love.

waiting for a second chance.

i'm terrified.

and so He calls me gently.

He reminds me of His strength.

and so i leave it all behind here

to gain it all there,

on the other side,

with my first small boy

who is perfectly whole.

whose body no longer burns with fever.

whose stomach is settled.

who lives with a father,

and feels no pain.

you capture. top 10 of 2011

2012-01-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

i'm linking up with this week's

you capture. top 10 of 2011

here are my top 10 memories.

the picture version.

the fall out.

2012-01-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

i'm looking at the waning crescent moon,

it looks almost full,

the way i sometimes feel.

it is bright white, with shadows of the man

they say lives on it.

a star falls, burning out

and i feel quite fully alive

as i watch it shoot above me

in brilliance

as i know you watch it,

fully and so much more alive than me

fall out so far below you.

five months ago...

2011-12-28T20:11:00.000-08:00

Our beautiful wedding highlights video

Anna & David from Joshua Olson on Vimeo.

Thanks, Joshua Olson, for capturing our day in such a unique way.

letters to lucas. christmas edition.

2011-12-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

peace on earth, goodwill to men.

I think i partially

[very partially]

understand why the

King of the World

came as a newborn baby.

it is so, so fitting.

so, so perfect.

dear lucas,

this is our third Christmas apart.

can you believe it has been so long?

there has been a lot i've done

since you've been gone.

i thought i would never go to africa again,

not after i found out that no matter what,

you were never coming home with me.

but i was wrong, like i so often am

and i went back to africa just a year

after you died.

when i was there i met a precious boy

who started to heal my heart

and who showed me how to love again,

who is with his forever family this year.

but it doesn't mean my heart is whole,

because it isn't.

when i think of you i can feel it,

and it is so, so broken.

i sit and look at the twinkling lights

on our tree,

the big, silver, glittery bulbs,

and i wonder if you're watching from heaven,

and if the stars are your twinkling lights,

and the planets your big, silver, glittery bulbs.

i'm planning to come back again,

this time straight to you.

the land is you,

the grass and dirt,

the beetles and the elephants.

all of africa is you.

and africa is me.

and i am you.

and you are me.

Merry Christmas my son.

I love you,

and i miss you everyday.

together.

2011-12-23T19:29:00.000-08:00

we can still look good.

merry Christmas Eve eve.

lost and gained.

2011-12-20T08:19:00.000-08:00

it's 7:47 monday evening and i'm

standing behind the registration table,

waiting to welcome volunteers as they come in

to pack food for starving children around the world

during our last shift of the night.

i switch my weight to my other leg

and smile, but it is my old worn out smile,

not my nice happy one

and i hope that no one notices.

i know that this is amazing work,

but it is still my job and today i'm tired

and my feet hurt

and the knot between my shoulder blades is

connected to the pain behind my forehead.

"which group are you gentlemen with?"

i direct my question toward a father and son.

the dad responds, "cub scouts."

and i point them to the clipboard in front of me.

"first and last name, please," i say.

i roll my shoulders, trying to loosen up the

big lumped frogs that sit there,

and crack my neck from side to side.

the little boy picks up a pen and begins

to write.

ell.

you.

see.

aye.

ess.

lucas.

i see those letters in a line and start to cry

right there behind the table.

i look at the boy.

he has white skin, brown freckles and brown hair.

i look at his scribbled name on the paper

and picture my lucas writing it.

in my mind i wink at him

and he grins and whispers,

"hi, mom."

but not loud enough for the other troops to hear.

he has brown skin, no freckles, and black hair.

"thanks for coming tonight," i say,

but my voice cracks and the father looks at me,

surprised. i clear my throat and pretend the sound

was just a sneeze that didn't quite make it or a cough

that i couldn't all the way suppress

but i know my eyes are red because of the

way they tingle in my head.

i stand there as the volunteers take their seats

and another leader begins to talk

but i don't hear their voice because in my mind

i'm imagining, again, how different it would be

if lucas could just have made it through that one night,

and went to the hospital the morning of october 4,

and how maybe someone could have helped him.

i wonder how it would have felt to walk through

the doors of that home in africa

and pick lucas up,

put my face in his neck and tell him,

"see, i told you i'd be back for you."

i think of what i would have lost and gained.

dear lucas,

your days here were so few,

and mine seem to be numbered long

but because of this way you live

inside of me, always shifting

and shifting inside my mind in heart,

i don't forget you

and i carry you here,

so really,

your days are numbered long, too.

saturday.

2011-12-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

8:30am

woke up, thinking about lucas.

wish he was here for Christmas.

i miss you, little boy.

9:30am

tired out jovie so i could do some work!

10am-12p

got some holiday tunes on pandora

opened the shades to find a nice dusting of white.

will it stay?

fed Picasso.

started redecorating the new fridge.

started taking care of yesterday's mess...

what have you been up to this morning?

i'm off for some lunch (canned chicken noodle soup...)

stayed tuned for the rest of my day :)

1:15p

clean bathroom!

1:17p

seriously...

1:18p-2:42p

clean kitchen,

clean living room,

st. paul sidewalks

and now, time to warm up with a little chai.

oh, and i have a question for you, friends-
our Christmas tree smells like poop.
literally.
david nicked the trunk a little when cutting off branches
at the bottom, and now it seriously stinks.
any suggestions?
should i return it and tell them,
"hey, i said Pine, not Poop!"
just kidding.
we were going to just tape the cut,
but it is too low on the trunk and it is
partially in the water...

4:00p

reheated chai in microwave and burnt tongue.

5:12p

in the middle of some intense wrapping...

6:25p

finally finished wrapping,
which took WAY longer than expected.
and yes, i do only have red wrapping paper,
i'm a newlywed, remember?
and i'll confess i didn't even buy that one roll.
i found it in our house when we moved in.
so what?

7:43p

getting my docs ready to mail in to change my name
on my passport.
let me tell you a secret.
i'm going back to uganda in february.
oh.my.gosh.

8:15p

tied strings on all our bulbs.

9:00p

i hung my first bulb.

david hung his first bulb

we took pictures of each other hanging bulbs...

9:20p

our beautiful/stinky tree!

9:25p

time for some chili.
yes, this is normal dinner time for us.

thank you.

2011-12-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

and when i trust more,

He shows me why,

makes it easier,

burdens lighter,

paths brighter.

Bully princess is out of the hospital,

no damage done.

thank you for your prayers,

and thanks, God, for keeping your promises.

trust more.

2011-12-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

whenever i come to the place where i think
i trust God as much as i can, He always asks
me to trust Him more.

it is this trust thing.
this realizing that i'm not in control thing.
it is always, always, trust Him more.

sometimes i get frustrated.
why more? why is there always more?
why can't i be comfortable, and trust you just this much?

He asks me to trust Him more when i hurt more.
when i'm angry more.
when i'm scared more and lonely more.

He says, "trust me more" when i'm sad more.
when i don't understand more.
when i need more. want more.

today has been that day for me.
i woke up this morning thinking i trusted enough.
and God whispered, "Now trust me more."

I got news from South Africa today,
about my precious Bully Princess.
Trust Me More.

can i ask you to pray with me?
to believe with me?
to trust with me?

Bully Princess fell and hit her head today.
had a concussion.
is in the hospital.

the news is slow coming,
and through my tears i heard Him-
just Trust Me More.

i want to see healing more.
i want miracles more.
i want faith more.

Lord, today i trust you more.
more than yesterday.
but less than tomorrow.

my life lately.

2011-12-11T18:43:00.001-08:00

my life lately has been

...

holiday snacking

tree hunting/cutting

holiday decorating

a bit of un-decorating...

holiday lights

me and my hubs by the St.Paul tree

Katie and Brock :)

Jovie

me time

and intentional together time

letters to lucas. big heart holes.

2011-12-05T22:14:00.001-08:00

dear lucas,
i cannot say how much i miss you,
can't feel it or speak it or touch it.
it is big, bigger than words or moons
and this huge hurt hole is my heart
if i let it.

it is suffocating and terrifying,
the way it grows when i think it
and if i really really let it live
i get dizzy, spinning spinning
stars and planets,
and i have to sit down.

you are everywhere here,
falling down in white crystals,
twinkling lights, ticking clocks,
city cars and bus stops and
country roads with a big open sky.
and i am small without you.

you never saw a christmas
never had a present
or a toy of your own,
never had a family
or a birthday
or a tiny little blanket.

i always ask why for you,
why the scars on your legs
why the burns and cuts
why not a safe place to live
why why why
why were you left
abandoned.

and the answers aren't there
just a blank space whispering
like wind inside these hollow bones
and a quiet voice saying that
no, no, no,
never alone,
i never leave my children alone.

the earth turns
the seasons change
the sun rises
and falls,
the moon shines
the stars shoot
constant and consistent
and i miss you
so big it makes a big heart hole.

i sure wish.

2011-11-29T14:37:00.001-08:00

i haven't been writing as much here about africa as i usually do.
or lucas. or the conflict that i feel daily about answering my
calling here. and there. and how to do both at once
and in one life.

it isn't because i have been thinking about it less.
sometimes i think that maybe if i just don't write about it,
if i just don't have to look at the black words on the white page,
then maybe it won't seem so... hard.

maybe if i don't let it out,
where i have to look at it and read it
and see it, then it won't seem so
real.

but then there are other times when i think
if i don't just get it out of me
i might go crazy. stir crazy. africa crazy.
missing my baby boy crazy.

so it is the balance that i strive to find now.
how much to write about it, when my heart
stays the same day to day? how much to find
about other beautiful things and write them instead?

all i truly know is this-
i sure wish lucas was here to help decorate our tree this year.
i sure wish he was here to snuggle with me.
i sure wish he was here.

i sure wish.

tis the season

2011-11-27T12:04:00.001-08:00

i love the holidays.
even though summer is my favorite season,
my favorite time of year starts in mid-october
(because i feel i can start playing christmas music)
until about february
(because i feel like i have to stop playing christmas music)

i love fall and its crispy leaves and the brisk, clean smelling air.
i love how the night seems clearer in the cold,
the stars seem brighter white.
the world seems bigger, more open, less stuffy.
i'm drawn to pumkin patches, colored gourds,
and indian corn.

i love harvests and times with
family, and voicing together the things that we're thankful for-
things that are big, like health in grandparents and family members,
togetherness, marriages, healing and miracles,
and things that are small, like jovie,
beef jerky and apple crisp candles.

trees without leaves remind me of poetry,
and finally it is the season of red cups at coffee shops
and good books about love and orphans
and i can curl in a ball and read
with a hot apple blast topped with whipped cream.

it's the tree hunting and smell of evergreens
and lights everywhere, red and green and blue and white.
it's the nativities and carols
and everyone thinking of giving.

it is the time spent and shared together,
old enough now not to want much more than
love and happiness and all of us here together.

letters to lucas. thanksgiving edition.

2011-11-24T11:25:00.001-08:00

dear lucas,
this year i'm thankful for so many things.
i'm thankful for my family and the chance i have to share this day with them.
i'm thankful for the friends i made last year,
as i spent my thanksgiving in africa, with this view-

thankful for his lovely new family, and that today he looks like this-

i'm thankful for my husband, our first thanksgiving as a family,
and the life we've been building together

i wish you could have experienced a thanksgiving with me baby.
i always wish for things like that. if you could have just had
one thanksgiving
and then one christmas
and then one birthday.
and then one more of everything,
and another and another.
pretty soon you would be grown,
and healthy and walking.
you would be laughing and smiling and talking.
you would be five, and going to kindergarten,
and then ten and playing soccer.

if you were still here, my wedding would have been different.
there wouldn't have been hundreds of these

twirling in the breeze,
reminding everyone that you weren't there,
but that you were, really.

today, i'm thankful for the time we spent together,
my beautiful, handsome son,
and that one day we will have our first thanksgiving as a family.

always waiting for that day.
always thankful for that chance of a later life with you.
an eternal life, forever.

God's heart.

2011-11-21T21:44:00.001-08:00

if you are interested in hearing

what i had to say last thursday

when i spoke to nearly one-thousand

college students about God's heart for adoption

and orphans, feel free to visit this link

and have a listen to God's heart for orphans,

archived on November 17.

the day was an amazing success.

students were connected with the heart of the message

and i felt very confident that

the Lord softened and opened many hearts.

God's heart for orphans

on forgiveness.

2011-11-20T14:27:00.001-08:00

to say to someone,
"i cannot forgive you for what you've done to me"
is completely against who Christ is and who
He calls us to be.

imagine if the Savior of the world chose to
treat us in this way.
we are called to forgive our enemies,
and we are called to forgive the ones we love.

have there been times when i have found it hard to forgive?
of course, everyone in this lifetime is hurt
and hurting in immense ways. but when do we
not break our Father's heart?

and when does He give up on us,
say He is not willing to fight for us?
when does He choose to take back His love for us,
to not protect us in our weakness?

to choose not to forgive is to choose to
live a life of sin,
and to allow that sin to build evil within you.
let us love well, in His image.

holidays.

2011-11-17T18:19:00.001-08:00

i have two new holiday favorites...

my new thanksgiving puppy, jovie, and a warm apple blast.

so sweet!

life.

2011-11-15T12:31:00.001-08:00

i've been keeping track of the littler graces in my life lately.
the comfort of crunching leaves and geese flying south,
a big pumpkin moon in the crisp night sky,
and something as simple as a quiet city street at night.
the light snow.

i'm thankful for the relationships i have with my family,
the imperfect but real love we share
and the tight knots that keep us all together,
doing this walk with one another
even when it's hard.

david and i are having fun adjusting to married life.
the first month was the hardest,
and now things have begun to fall into place.
we love reading Leif Enger's So Brave, young, and Handsome
together before bed.

we have been considering adding a little furry friend to our family
which i am excited about,
but we are making sure to think through our choices first.
i come from a dog family, and living without
one seems so strange.

on thursday i will be speaking at North Central University
about God's heart for adoption,
and my journey with Lucas.
i'm excited, but every time i practice, i cry.
of course.

Feed My Starving Children has been
more busy than ever. It is amazing to see
the amounts of volunteers that come through
the doors each day to pack food for children
starving around the world.

life has been life. trying not to sweat the small stuff.
when our fridge was broken for two weeks,
i reminded myself to be thankful that we have food.
we just have this one journey,
and i want mine to be great. and worth something.

lonely.

2011-11-12T19:52:00.001-08:00

life has been a little lonely lately.
it seems strange to say
while i work in a place where i talk
to over 300 volunteers a day.

i get off work at five
and drive home in the dark
park on my side of the driveway,
next to david's empty side.

i hit the lock of my car door
and walk quickly to the house,
hoping the motion light will turn on.
sometimes it does, and sometimes not.

the door is a little sticky and
i crank the key back and forth,
let myself in, close the door,
lock the door behind me.

it's quiet in here.
i check the clock.
five twenty-five.
six hours til the husband gets back.

i turn on music.
sometimes that helps.
i water my plants
and feed the fish.

i look out the window.
there is trash in our yard again.
the stray orange cat is under my car.
i close the blinds.

i sweep the floor for fun.
dust all my pictures of lucas.
talk to him, tell him about my day.
i'm lonely here, i whisper to him.

my mom calls, so i talk to her,
and my sisters, sometimes dad.
i fold the laundry,
load the dishwasher.

i look at the clock,
turn the music off because it's just commercials.
i sit down.
then stand back up.

it's okay, i think, to be bored.
but sometimes my eyes water a little,
because i know tomorrow is the same
and i wish our schedules could be different.

i go to bed.
i hear david get home an hour later
but then i am too tired to wake up.
i sleep.

i get up and it is still dark.
sometime during the night david ended up beside me,
but i don't remember when.
i go out to my car. it's snowing.

i drive to work in traffic,
all of us marching like ants.
i work all day and then go home.
i park on my side, and the other side is empty.

and then again with the light
the door, the key,
the plants, the fish, the floor.
the sleeping and the snow.

i feel lonely sometimes,
more recently now then ever before,
and i just wanted to talk about it
i guess.

keys.

2011-11-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

i bought my brand new computer at the end of june.

apparently i've been typing a bit too rigorously lately.

am i thankful i have a computer?

yes.

am i more thankful my warranty hasn't expired yet?

yes.

is it hard to type without an h, p, or k?

this post just took twenty years.

orphan.

2011-11-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

i've been sitting at caribou all day,
researching and planning and outlining.
next week i will have the amazing opportunity
to speak to my first university assembly.
i'm super excited as well as nervous-
because i believe so greatly in my topic:
adoption.

as i write my notes and pen down my verses
i can't help but wonder at myself...
why am i doing this?
really, what is it for?
is it simply because i fell in love with lucas,
and moved forward in my heart toward the idea of adoption,
or is it something far more important,
and far more worthy?

yes, i found my heart for adoption when i found lucas.
but i found something else as well- God's heart for adoption.
as a Christian i have read the word of God,
trusted his promises, and tried to live by his commands,
as i think all who love him do,
but i realize now that something so vitally
God ordained was completely foreign to me,
and i believe to many others living during this age,
this American Dream era.

it took the death of an orphan i had come to love
to understand it should not surprise us
that caring for, loving, and offering
a family to the most needy, abused, unloved, and poverty stricken
children in the world is commanded by God.

Of course it is!
For as we were adopted into his family,
he calls us to follow his example.
we miss a key element of the overwhelming grace
offered to us by Christ when we refuse to offer that
same grace to orphan.
because Christ offered it first to us.
and we were first the orphan.
and he commands us to follow his example.

it is seeming so simple now.
so obvious.
and yet somehow, in some way,
we still forget i think.
and we remember our own comfort.
we forget that the face of the orphaned child
with the matted hair and snot crusted face
is Jesus himself in his most distressed form.
because when we care for the needy,
we in turn care for Christ himself.
and when we turn away from them,
we reject the one who gives us life.

letters to lucas.

2011-11-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

dear lucas,
sometimes i try to talk to people about you,
but not many really understand.
sure sure, they nod, and shake their heads with sadness,
they tell me they are sorry,
and what a sad, sad story.

but the grief i feel because your gone is nothing that i can explain to anyone.
the one who has never lost a child hasn't felt this sadness,
and to the one who has lost a child, how can i say it?
that you were my son, flesh of my heart,
as strong as flesh of my flesh?

sweet love, there are these quiet prayer whispers,
of me coming back to you.
i cannot even imagine it, to be there with you,
if even for a short time, and how i wish it was me
coming to fulfill my promise,
to take you home like i said.
but what different circumstance life has dealt me here,

and you are already home,
while i stay here, thinking and thinking of you,
wishing and wishing,
wondering how to live a life of gratitude
when some days i could lay in bed and cry for my loss, your gain.

i don't though. i get up each day, and try to make you proud,
because i have this vision of you, with all your
millions and millions of brothers and sisters who had to leave earth so soon,
and you play on clouds, and you point to me and smile,
it's my mom, you tell them pointing and pointing,
see her there? she looks small, i know,
but she never forgets me,
and see there? she found our brothers
and our sisters, and she took them as her own.
i can't wait for her to get here,
so you can meet her. i know she will love you just the same.
she just loves like that.

my heart is light tonight,
though the skies are grey here in the city.
when it rains i feel closer to you, little love,
as those drops start where you are,
and fall to me.

love.

2011-11-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

i have been unimaginably blessed in this life.
i do not come from a broken home.
i have people in my life that i know love me for exactly who i am.
i have fallen in love and won that love back.
i have spent time with the most intensely beautiful children in the world.

but i have seen pain.
i have felt the terrible sting of death.
i have hurt, felt helpless, and been hopeless.
i miss my little son. everyday.

but through it all, still, unimaginably blessed.

i have been friends with the ones who come from broken homes,
and spent time with those who feel like no one loves them for exactly who they are.
it is sad, and this world is broken, and my heart hurts because the earth is a hard place to live.
but what if find the saddest is this:
coming from a broken home doesn't break you to a place where you can't be made whole.
everyone has someone who loves them for exactly who they are,
even if they choose not to acknowledge that one person who loves them the most.

the things that have hurt us,
and the things that scare us,
and the fear that binds us,
we let those things hold us back from loving well,
and from loving like Christ calls us to love.

if you are a man of God, love your wife as Christ calls you to love the church.
He doesn't suggest it, but commands it for a reason.
if you are a woman of God, stand strong for the man you love.

Love whole and clean and pure. Love each other.

the greatest threat to love is not circumstance but the absence of attention.
we do not neglect others because we have ceased to love;
rather we cease to love others because we have neglected them.

don't forget the ones who stand by you.
for in this life, what else matters but love.
we know nothing matters, but love.
so we stay with the ones we love,
but be prepared to bleed.
love suffers long.
love is all that is worth anything.

boo.

2011-10-31T21:41:00.001-07:00

carving.

2011-10-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

a few weeks ago david and i took a trip to the pumpkin patch,
and we both picked our favorite pumpkins.

after the unfortunate event of finding mine completely deflated a few days later,
we returned to the patch on friday to get a few more.

the pumpkin patch is now more of a pumpkin graveyard,
and it took quite a while to find any pumpkins still intact.

after much searching, however, i found my new choices

i couldn't help but think how much fun lucas would have had there,
running through the pumpkins and picking the very best one.
i picked the small one for him,
though i'm sure, had he been with us, he would have chosen a nice big giant one.

there was just too much extra space in that wagon,
like it was so obvious a little boy should have been sitting in it too,
laughing and holding on tight to its sides.

we brought our pumpkins home, and carved them later that night.

i got a little over zealous while carving...

we were very pleased with our finished products and laughed because they resembled us

i carved lucas' just for him, the little son of my heart

our pumpkin family.

thankful thursdays.

2011-10-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

i've been blessed lately by reading katie's blog over at The Lee Family Happenings
and loved her thankful thursday post today, so i decided i should do one.

i'm thankful for changing seasons
and crunching leaves underfoot.
i'm thankful for cool crisp days
and geese flying south, straight as an arrow.
i'm thankful for a great full moon,
a golden pumpkin hanging by a thread in the clear night.
i'm thankful for our stray orange cat,
whose glowing eyes float outside of our front window.
i'm thankful for candles that smell like home
and whispered opportunities of africa.
i'm thankful for news from the mother of a sweet boy,
safe and sound with his new family in denmark.
i'm thankful for companionship,
for love and for health.
i'm thankful for the promise of reunions
with the long for lost.
i'm thankful for hope of a boy coming home.
i'm thankful for moms and dads and sisters and laughter.
for family, here, and afar.

fall happenings.

2011-10-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

visiting my lovely sister, who now lives just twenty minutes away again.

realized we were wearing the same shirt.

we've always thought [somewhat...] alike style-wise :)

david and katie.

visiting home and my favorite furry friend.

new life, even as fall approaches.

map in our office, notice anything... odd

[like a plethora of countries named zambia...

russia... china...]

sweet drawing from a little friend,

"dear somalia, i hope you get more rain"

st.paul wildlife

grapes from our grapevine! success!

our newest addition- picasso

pumpkins with my pumpkin

doodling dreams.

new decorations.

down time.

2011-10-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

spending time away in green bay, wi,
visiting my in-laws for the first time since the wedding.
sometimes you just have to relax a little.

in the meantime, enjoying going through our edited wedding pics!

reaching upward.

2011-10-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

here, now, in this place, i am finding myself in a remarkably new season of life.
a season that at first i was a little unsure about.
a season that looked a lot like me listening.
and learning.
and hurting.
and, eventually, growing.

it must be about growth,
i keep thinking, as life changes and lessons are learned,
as some plans are revealed and some are kept secret.
it must be about hearing,
and understanding,
and choosing,
and growing pains.

and boy have i struggled and fought it,
struggled as if it was something bad for me,
struggled as if i was in a perfect place,
with no room for changing or fixing or growing.

but lately i've been realize that this season is more than i thought it was.
it is something a bit harder, but strangely, a whole lot more beautiful.
usually, when i think of growing and growing pains,
i see myself being stretched and stretched.
stretched until it hurts, and then maybe a little more.

i am slowly coming to understand that this season
is so much more than that.
it is so much more than God taking from me
and confusing me
and making me learn my lesson.

it is more about me reaching upward.
reaching up toward him, wanting his guidance,
accepting his provision in my life,
and trusting in his love for me.

as i'm reaching toward him,
suddenly my stretching is far less painful.

i want to live my life to reflect the grace i have been shown,
though many times i've seemed to live my life graceless,
as though i'd never been shown grace.
i've lived so much of my time as if i deserved something more,
when in fact... i do-
i deserve to live in the fullness of the grace my father has for me.

my best friend and fellow african mama
sent me the book One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp,
and it has been profoundly changing and rebuilding
the hurt i feel in my life,
in the empty place i saved away and wished for lucas.

there is a scene in the book where the author's young son
gets in a farm accident and is rushed to the hospital,
where doctor's are able to save his mangled hand.
on their way home the radio reports that another young boy
lost his life in a farm accident that same day.
as mother and son return from the hospital
an anxious grandmother waits to hear the news.

"they saved his hand," the mother reports.
"God's grace, God's grace," the thankful grandmother whispers.

Later in the chapter the author/mother writes:
I return to Levi and pull the blanket up over our boy
curled round his wound. I watch him sleep.
Does anyone whisper in the dead boy's house, "God's grace... God's grace"?

that quote. that question.
it pierced me.
it grabbed with me,
sat with me,
rolled around in my mind.
that question spoke straight to my heart.

Does anyone whisper in my dead boy's house, God's grace, God's grace,
God's great grace?

have i forgotten his grace because i think he did wrong to me?
have i forgotten the son he sent,
and the very promise he gave that i would see mine again some day?

how dishonoring i would be,
not not whisper of his grace throughout my day,
throughout the very hardest moments of my life.

because those are the moments he has extended his grace out to me the most.
those are the moments i need his grace the most.

because of the life he has given,
and his promise to the kingdom,
because he has adopted us into his family,
as sons and daughters,
and because his plans for us are good and true,
we must whisper of his grace
even when we cannot see his hand,
we must trust his heart.

and perhaps someday,
when i grown accustomed to my reaching upward,
i won't just whisper quietly of his grace,
but shout it loudly.

shout of his grace, even here in the dead boy's house,
because the one who has promised is faithful.

can't fight that feeling.

2011-10-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

sometimes i get this funny feeling,

that there might be something missing in my life...

something small.

where are you, child.

2011-10-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

i always hate the part when my heart starts catching up with my mind.
my heart is the piece of me that, though so thoroughly broken,
still functions as the wholest part of my being.

my heart is the greatness of my self,
the part that keeps me struggling toward good.
my heart is the steady, ever pumping need,
the constant reminding beat of africa.

thump-thump, it pumps.
come-back, it beats.
thump-thump, once again.
lucas-africa, it remains.
it doesn't forget.
it never stops measuring the time
and pushing the blood.

there is a quiet desperation in the depths of me,
residing in the chambers of that blood pumping organ.
it sits there in the shape of one huge continent.
always present.
always keeping time.

it is as real as my fingers and toes,
this remarkable, desperately bright, african-shaped hole,
and i feel it so clearly that i wonder;
if i were to open my mouth to cry out in the dark of night,
would silhouettes of dark babies dance like shadows on the ceiling,
clinging to that light projected up and out from my throat?

ever so slowly, though,
i'm afraid my heart is realigning with my brain.

"stop!" i shout at it.
thump-thump.
"please." i beg it.
thump-thump.
lucas-africa.

i am beginning to realize, now,
that my desperation to get back to africa
stems largely from my desperation to
get back to my son.

"if i could just get back," my heart thinks
thump-thump.
"if i could just be close to him again"
and my arms ache with the longing.
but gently my mind questions me... then what?

thump-thump.

and i'm scared.
because i know in my mind the reality
my heart is trying to forget.

my son is not there.
i cannot bring him home.
and maybe i'm not strong enough to leave him again.

i can go to his home, the red dirt country of my baby
and my heart would feverishly push life-blood to my veins
as i re-entered his homeland, and my second home.

i could go to the grave where lucas is buried,
and my heart would cry out,
"finally! lucas! here i am! just like i promised!"
thump-thump.
"i'm back for you!
i found you!
i love you!"
thump-thump.

i could throw my body over his,
lay six feet above him.
i could cry a thousand tears over the dirt that covers him,
cry a sea of tears to trickle down into the earth
and reunite us in sadness and in death.

thump-thump.
and then what.

slowly and sadly my heart is beginning to understand.

lucas is gone.
he was mine, my son,
and i loved him,
and no matter what,
he is gone.

the desperation to get back to africa and back to lucas
is simply because my heart doesn't understand-
because the last time i was in uganda,
my baby boy was alive.

deep inside i still think:
if i could just make it back.
if i could just get to him.

and my mind knows.

i can't live the rest of my life
on my dead son's grave.

surely, surely... my heart is learning that, too.

i long for the day when i will finally feel this,
deep within my soul-
lucas is not buried in africa,
any more than he is buried in my heart,
where the soil is as fresh as my love for him,
and new every day.

he is more here, wherever i am.
he is more here, with me, than there.

bigger than.

2011-10-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

last year i was in south africa now, starting another new season
as fall kicked off swiftly at home without me.
it is funny how the world turns no matter what we do.
it spins perfectly on its axis, whether we yell at it to
"stop!" or "slow down!" or if we all jump together at the same time.

interesting how long it is taking me to learn that this life is not about what i do,
but about what He does through me.
not about how i feel or what i love or believe my calling is or should be,
but how i can better the kingdom of glory.

i was stopped in my tracks last week while praying,
with a wake-up call that sat in the pit of my stomach like lead.
"i never called you to love the orphans more than you love me."
woah.
"you are to love me and trust me no matter what,
even if i should choose to use your talents here,
and not send you back to africa."
uh... what?

and i was so convicted.
because truly.
who am i to argue with God?
who am i to judge His great plan?
i am just clay in the hands of the potter.

i shared my heart in a post a few weeks ago, about baby R.
i was desperate to do something,
but here i was, and mad again, about being here.
i forgot that the Father loves his children more than i do.
i forgot that even if i couldn't get on a plane and change the world,
He doesn't forget his promises.

i was reminded of that yesterday,
when i read from a friend of her recent visit to see R,
and how truly happy he had become.
how he never stopped laughing throughout her visit.

thank you, Lord, for being bigger than me.

things still good.

2011-10-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

although monday was a hard day for me,
it passed as all days do,
and here i am still living,
and still finding things that are good,
and still finding blessings to be thankful for.

as i willed october third to pass me by,
a great barrier was moved for my uncle and aunt
who are working on adopting a little one from ethiopia,
and they are now able to continue on their journey.
thankful that october third brought along this miracle.

october fourth brought along another miracle,
the third birthday of my sweet david m,
a very special little boy who touched my heart in uganda,
and i am now blessed to sponsor him each month
while he lives and thrives in a children's village in Kampala.

David in 2009:

David in his village, photos courtesy of Megan McSwain

giving thanks

2011-10-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

lucas was obviously a very special boy, and in his short life has touched so many. so proud to share his story with others. thank you for sharing it with me.

october third

2011-10-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

dear lucas, my sweet boy, orphan of the world and son of my heart.

i could only imagine the morning this day in uganda.

i can picture the sunlight creeping slowly across the red dirt,
warming up the ground your body lies beneath.

two years ago someone came to lift you from your cot,

only to find that while your tiny body was there,

cold and still,

your soul had taken to the skies sometime during the blackest night.

i was told they had a beautiful ceremony for you,

and that a blue star was hung above your bed.

i know now that tears were shed for you in africa that day-

and that three months later, in the little town of pine city, minnesota,

your mama wept for days and nights, and is still today.

i miss you fiercely,
the same way i loved you.
it is hard for me to live without you here with me,
because so much of me is gone without you.
you were the love of my heart
and the light of my life-
a mother's first son,
and the heaviness in my heart is due to the fullness of love
that has grown there since i met you.

i don't think i realized it-
the profound way that you would change,
shape, and mold my life- when i first met you.

i didn't realize it while i rocked you and held your small hot body,
or when i took you to the hospital.

i think i began to realize it when i looked at you through the bars of your cot
that last time, and you smiled at me.
see, you knew all along that i was yours.

it was when i made that promise,
that whispered vow in your ear,
that i truly understood you were mine.

after i flew home i was crazy with grief.
i searched the internet everday for hours,
hoping just for some small sliver of news of you.

none came until that cold january day.

but now, even as i mourn here,
it is not because i fear for you, like it once was.
it is only because of the great loss this world has been dealt.

after two full years of leaving this sorrow-filled world behind,
you still hold a place in the front-most places of my heart and mind.

i will never forget you lucas.
as long as the rustling leaves fall from the trees
and come back new, and the rivers run onward,
and the circle of life continues,
i will never forget you.

you are not just an orphan without a name.

i know your name, lucas,

and you are mine.

lights are burning all around this world for you today.

two years.

2011-10-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

two years ago in uganda they went to get you from your cot,
only to realize that sometime during the night life had given you up from this earth.

it is hard for me to not question why your time came so soon,
but what i do know is this:

that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord.

i celebrate your beautiful life,
and i can only imagine the amazing time you are having with your father.

i trust and hold onto His amazing grace,
as tightly as i hold to the promise of seeing you again.

paint me a beautiful sunrise.
i will be up early, remembering you, as i always do.

Please remember a light for lucas tomorrow, October third.

light of my life.

2011-10-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER THIRD: A LIGHT FOR LUCAS

many of you who journey with me here

do so because of lucas.

the short life of one small, marvelous boy,

has made so many others take a closer look at their own.

at only nine months old,

lucas needlessly lost his life because he was born in a country with less.

less money.

less power.

less healthcare.

lucas was an orphan of the world,

and the treasured son of my heart.

the last day of his life on earth was october 3, 2009.

this year will mark the second year of his time in heaven.

if lucas has touched your heart,

will you light a candle for him this monday?

to remember his precious story,

and all those of his brothers and sisters that go untold.

an ode to two months of marriage.

2011-09-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

there are nights when i sleep with two inches of bed, and your big hand and fingers keep touching my head.
as soon as my eyes close you start breathing on me,
and then five minutes later you get up to pee.

i can hear you smacking cereal from fifty miles away,
i have to ask you what that smell is twenty times a day.
your shoes can be found anywhere except for on the rack,
and my oreos are always gone because you like to snack.

when we're on the freeway you tend to drive quite slow,
and you bore me right to tears with that lame talk radio.
when we're in a public place you talk loudly on the phone,
and when i'm anti-social you won't leave me alone.

on my hardest days you're always there to tell me i'm okay,
you let me pick the movies and the board games that we play.
when we walk you hold my hand and put flowers in my hair,
somehow you find little ways to show me that you care.

on that day two months ago you promised me forever,
and when i talk about africa you never tell me never.
even on our worst days, they somehow are our best,
you promised me forever, the moon, and all the rest.

follow me here.

2011-09-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

praises to Him, all around the world.

http://momentswithlove.blogspot.com/2011/09/introductions.html

my dear friend, with her new boys.

diapers and walgreens.

2011-09-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

i live in east st. paul, which many have deemed the "rough side" so to speak.
we haven't run across many problems yet, though,
aside from the stray orange tom cat that sits on our back porch and cries mercilessly
while gazing in the window at us.

we finally turned on our heat, when the temperature inside showed 60 degrees F.
now we will really see how much our electric bill is going to cost this winter.
every once in a while we get nervous about money,
because, um, we don't know what we are doing, really.

someone knocked on the door at about 8pm tonight,
and i didn't know if i should answer it or not, but i did.
it was a woman going door to door, asking for money
to buy a small pack of diapers from the walgreens down the street.

she had three dollars, and the diapers cost nearly ten,
so i gave her seven.
i thought about saying, i'm sorry, but no, maybe you aren't
going to really use that money to buy diapers.

but i was standing inside my warm house and she was the one outside.
i was watching my flat screen tv, and she was watching my face,
waiting for me to react. waiting to see my actions.
i decided we really aren't that nervous about money.

in south africa a man asked me to take his baby,
and i wondered to the desperate situations of the world.
i wondered that again tonight as the woman said God Bless You,
and ran towards walgreens.

maybe she bought diapers and maybe she didn't,
but i hope my actions were close to what Christ would have done.
i've been trying for that lately.
it's hard.

a year ago.

2011-09-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

last year, the weekend before i went to africa, we took a nice long

fall walk around the open plots of land on blueberry island road.

david and i, having a bittersweet moment.

with the ladies of the family.

and with my sister, katie.

just walking.

---------------------------------------

This year, we went back to the land on blueberry island.

i'm not leaving for africa next week.

how does time go by so fast,

and so slow?

how do things change so dramatically,

yet stay the same so consistently?

david and i, still newlyweds.

the ladies, minus one college sister.

my sister, maria.

just walking.

i think sometimes it is important to take a little time out. to breathe the fresh air and remember the things you love, and the things that are important to you. the things that are easy and happy and free. i do a lot of thinking about the things that are hard, and unfair, and that i miss and question and doubt.

but i don't want to forget the things i've been blessed with; like love and family and beauty. i don't want to forget where joy comes from.

being joyful today, in the things in life that come easier than others.

letters to lucas

2011-09-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

dear baby,
the days are flying by, and i fear i can't do anything about it.
if i could, you know i would erase time, i would rewind it, take you from it,
let you be timeless and live with me as a small boy forever.

if i could, i would skip october third altogether, every year, for the rest of my life.
we could have october second blend right into october fourth,
and i would never have to remember the third, the day life gave you up,
and you moved out of this world and into one greater than i can imagine now.

i think of you every single day, lucas.
every second if i let myself. i miss you and the things i remember of you,
the warm way your skin smelled, your breath in my ear,
your heart beating against mine, your mouth sucking on my shoulder.

i keep living, because i am here, and what else is there to do?
but sometimes baby, i think that maybe i will disapper because
of the terrifying way i miss you. it is full and real.
it overpowers me, and i weep at my loss- not at yours.

i strive everyday to make you proud.
i want you to be able to point to me down here,
and tell your friends, that's my mom,
and she loves all the orphans in the world.

do you remember when we first met? you were so small and skinny,
you were just learning to focus, and you stared so intently at
the fast moving people all around you. do you remember,
you had curly hair, they hadn't cut it yet.

do you remember when you cried in your cot?
i came and got you, i couldn't let you cry in there,
and we helped hang up balloons for the july birthdays,
and then we ate chocolate cake. and i ate yours.

my heart aches for the things you remember.
i pray you remember me and my love for you.
i pray you remember the friends God sent by,
to love you when i couldn't be there.

i pray you don't remember the first months of your life.
i pray you don't remember being abused,
i pray you don't remember being abandoned,
i pray you don't remember pain or fear.

believe my sweet boy of my heart,
i will live my life to the fullest
and i will love again, your brothers and sisters,
but i wait each day for our reunion.

things i miss today

2011-09-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

my baby boy. always.

little african feet.

my sweet little david, who lives in a village outside Kampala.

african beauty.

peaceful villages.

sweet faces. hopes for the future.

bully princesses.

south african loves.

perfect reunions.

precious moments.

remembering lucas.

family.

my "h" key.

honeymoons.

this little grouch.

you know.

the usual.

remember R.

2011-09-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

i had some precious moments to myself a few days ago.
my heart felt full when i woke up,
not with an abundance of joy, which is what i hope for,
but full with an aching for the wrongness of this
dirty sinfull world.

how wrong can it get,
before it falls apart?
how wrong can it get,
before we fall apart?

my mind was full of questions,
full of doubts and worries,
and full of such an unqualified sadness,
that i couldn't help but cry.

posts like this are hard to write for me;
harder than the hundreds of times i break open my heart
and tell you all about my shattered,
confused life, my life without lucas.

it is harder than the times i speak
of missing africa,
and of hoping for time to rewind,
and pictures of lost loves in red dirt.

but i sit here,
and it sits here next to me,
a post with dark words
that taste bad in my mouth.

and so i type them, share them,
hope that as you read them they will grow
and shrink and taste different-
more like change.

i met an incredible little boy in south africa,
i'll introduce him to you as little R.

R suffers from hydrocephalus; fluid inside the skull which leads to brain swelling.
he spent the first two years of his life in a hospital ward for abandoned babies.
random mothers fed him. doctors ignored him.
when he finally received a shunt, to drain the liquid, it appeared that it was too late,
and his head remained large and oddly shaped.

R is now four. he is astounding.
although nearly everyone said he never would,
he recently took his first steps, all on his own.
his laugh is addictive. his smile is contagious.

he is so beautiful.

the orphanage little R was in when i met him simply could not care for him for life.
he now resides in a home for the disabled,
and volunteers who have visited him reported that at his new home
he no longer laughs.
at his new home there are twenty-four disabled children to every one adult.

please understand this:
it is not that the adults at this home don't love the children-
it is simply that the need is too great.

as i had my quiet time,
a conflict raged within me, spurred on by the news of my special little friend,
growing up without a family,
without happiness,
and without a knowledge of the love of Christ.

my eyes filled with tears as i wondered how long it would take
for R to forget the love we had showed him at his first home.
how long it would be before he thought that his life now was all there ever was,
and all there ever would be.

over and over this verse repeated in my mind-
"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'"
what does this mean for me?
what does this mean for all of us?
does it mean that if the story of R doesn't move us to compassion,
if the story of R doesn't move us to action,
that we are in fact telling the Creator of the world
that He doesn't move us? that if it were His son alone
on the other side of the world, facing unimaginable suffering,
that we wouldn't care, or we would turn our heads,
because it was too uncomfortable?

my God, would we truly ignore the Savior of the world?
would we act confused by his Father's words and commands to us?
I ask him again and again, as i read "that which you did not do for the least of these,"
and I ask him to tell me what it means.
perhaps he means just what it says, and i try to make it harder,
because it is scary when it is so easy.
because to fight for, and take in a child like this
would mean that we were giving up our own lives and comfort.

is this small lost boy meant to be my son,
because i have seen him in distress?
should he be my young brother,
because there is a pull inside of me that whispers,
if you are not responsible, who will be.

when it is so easy that i know in my heart of hearts,
Christ would have given his life if it was just for R.

when he commands us to look after the orphan and the widow,
i think he really means just that.

the conflict is still here inside of me,
and as my heart anxiously pounds,
urging me, you must, you must, you must
strive strive strive strive,
hurry hurry hurry,

still i believe in something greater-
i believe in one who is called El-Roi : The strong one who sees.
He holds his children beneath the shadow of his wings.

As i struggle to find my role within this world
where so many things seem wrong,
there is one right,
and i will not refuse his call.

being twenty-three

2011-09-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

The window reflected my beating heart

I watched and waited with whispered doubt

That caught above me in spider webs

And slowly silken spider strings took and strangled my secret things.

And under the cupboard there was a clam

That I talked to while I sang my songs

And though the people laughed and laughed

You’d have never heard a shell laugh so long.

During the night I walked the streets

While the orchards and ostriches waved me on

But I was searching for you with no avail

And the pearl around my neck was turning stale.

I yelled dangerously to the rebel moon

That he better return you and it had better be soon

And to the inky midnight blackened sky

“I’m alone here world, slow down.”

If the stars weren’t so heavy then they wouldn’t fall

The sun too bright to see at all

The weeds wrapped around my skinny legs

“I’m drowning here world, slow down.”

i had a strange thought pass through my mind the other morning,
as i wondered how time passes so fast.

i couldn't help but think how crazy life is,
and how it seems to get harder before it gets easier.

"why did twenty-three come so fast?" i questioned,
"when did i ever ask to be twenty-three?"

but of course, as those words circle in my mind,
i realize how hypocritical it really is.

the hardest i have ever wished was two years ago.
i wished with all of my might to be twenty-three.

i wished to be twenty-three because that is the required
age in uganda to adopt an orphaned child.

i wished to be twenty-three because my son,
an orphaned child, was waiting for me in africa.

i wished to be twenty-three then,
because i knew that by twenty-three, lucas would be home.

i knew when i was twenty-three that i would be married,
and lucas would have a dad, and we would be a family.

and then i found out that no matter how quickly i turned twenty-three,
i was already too late.

and then i'm sure i prayed for time to go back,
and let me just be twenty-one in july of 2009 forever.

we don't always get what we want.
i want lucas.

i want peace on earth
and rain in somalia.

i want children to be fed
and to have families.

i want to grow big and strong.
i want to stay small and young.

story week. final day.

2011-09-15T16:12:00.000-07:00

if you are just joining us, please catch up with days one through six HERE.

. I suppose they assumed I was dead, a girl crumpled awkwardly on a rough grave, but when they tried to take me from you I burst into vibrant life, kicking and screaming and clawing.

“My son,” I shrieked, “my son, my son.” I wouldn’t leave you, Lucas, not now, not after all we had been through. After your mother had died it was you and me, King and Queen of our empty village. Slowly though, they lifted my scrawny corpse off of yours. I collapsed and sobbed into the neck of a young man with ice blue eyes whom I had never met and would never see again. Two other soldiers placed their thick arms under the shoulders of my bony frame and helped me stand. I tried to get back to you but they held me tight. The blue-eyed man spoke quietly to me, calming words I no longer remember. He twisted two coarse twigs together to make a cross and pulled a snapshot of a little blond boy from the side of his boot. Both he lay upon your grave. That was how I left you, covered with dirt and another man’s son.

Mornings are the hardest part of my days now. I got married on my twenty-third birthday, two years after I returned home from Africa, to the only other man I had ever loved aside from you. As I gradually shake myself from sleep I can still hear you breathing beside me, but when I turn and look I see your eyes are green. My husband has started mentioning babies to me. He does it gently and slowly in my ears. It seems like something I will never be able to give him, because I can’t forget you, Lucas, my tiny little son, and because I know the rest of my children will be white, not ebony like you, my beautiful weathered child.

---------------------------------------------------------------

and that is that, the story i wrote just months before i found out that my precious lucas actually had died, and now lays buried in the red dirt of africa.

i shuddered as i wrote the story, horrified that in order to make it feel complete, the character of lucas had to be laid to rest.

how profound, now, that the Lord was preparing my soul and mind for the real tragedy yet to come.

please do not think that i do not deeply love children of all colors, red, brown, white and black alike. the last sentence of my story is simply stating that which is true to me- no other child of mine will ever be lucas. no other child of mine will ever be my first son.

i hope you have followed along easily, and learned a bit more about my heart in the process.

thank you, truly, for being a part of the story of lucas.

story week. catch up.

2011-09-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

here is Beautiful Weathered Child, days one through six:

“Please don’t go back,” he had pleaded with me, tears streaming down both our faces. “Please don’t leave me here again.”

On the nights when I can’t sleep, which are most, I lie in bed and remember the sad way those green eyes had looked. I remember thinking that it was how I imagined the sea would look, just after a storm in which a fair maiden had been drowned.

It doesn’t seem real anymore, the fact that I haven’t always lived in Africa. Then again, Africa is a strict master of a continent, forcefully going deeper and further into you until the only thing you can recall is the way you feel now, in each single solitary moment. The rest, your past and the history that made you who you once were, is like a distant memory of a song whose tune you can recall but the lyrics have faded completely from your memory.

Tonight is one of those nights where I force myself to remember life before, however, because I need to be convinced that sometime, even if it was long ago, there was something good in this world, something right that made the things I did worthwhile. There was a time when peace was still something to be hoped for, and love was bright and burning. It is murky in my mind, hiding out in the darkest and back corners – the parts of my life where I was free and vibrant and happy, the parts of my life before everything went terribly wrong. I lie in bed and wait – for a sleep I know won’t come – and for a morning I know will come too soon.

The first and second time I had travelled to Africa, the goodbyes weren’t as hard as the last. Something inside me was always whispering secrets in my ears that softly assured me I would return. I had no doubt that I would go to this foreign land and do what I meant to do, and then turn around and come back to the place I knew, the place I was comfortable with and called my home.

What I hadn’t realized then is this: every footstep one lays in Africa is something left behind, and every time you take a child’s hand you are handing over a piece of your own heart. Africa will not let herself be up-heaved. Once you have been there she forever lives within you, in your sights and smells and sounds. You cannot be rid of Africa. I wish I had known then.

The third and final time I entered Africa, the time that brought me here with Lucas in our one room hut, the time that changed my life forever and left me cursed and alone, was only seven months ago. I can honestly say, looking back on the days before I had left America, that the difference I had felt in the goodbyes I said should have warned me, red flagged my heart, sent me running and screaming as far from the east coast as I could go, and then further still.

“Please don’t go back,” he had pleaded with me. “Please don’t leave me here again.”

“I’ll come back,” I whispered, and kissed his forehead, eyes, cheekbones, and lips. But a switch had been flipped in my brain like a tiny doubt; a silent alarm had been turned on.

Of course I’ll come back, I told myself, I will come back. I will almost definitely come back. Am I coming back? Coming. Back. The words echoed like rocks down a canyon. However, with the sound of jumbo jets leaving their runways all around, I muffled the voice, small as it was, squeezed his hand and turned, walked into my terminal, turned back again and smiled. I don’t remember now if he had smiled in return. Perhaps somehow he’d already known.

I had stepped out of the compressed air that filled the small Northwest plane which had flown me in, straight into the dry heat of Africa. I couldn’t be fazed by that, because indeed, this was my third time traveling to the Dark Continent to do a good service to the world. Peace was on my fingertips. I had then traveled by bus down a cratered road, one you might expect to find on Mars, or even the moon, but not here on earth, to a remote village outside of Uganda’s capital city. If I had known then that the rebel forces from the north were going to begin rioting months later, causing the whole village to become displaced and take what little they had as they left fearfully into the night, I would have turned around. I would have gone back the hollowed out way I came. But I had not known, of course, and so I stayed.

The first months went by quickly, and wonderfully, every moment as thrilling as it was fulfilling. Time was of no essence there. I taught English as best I could in a single tin-roofed hut, children from the village excited about learning but more excited that they were learning from a skinny, brown haired, white girl. Most were anything but shy, and I spent my days making friends with my young students, and slowly, eventually, with their parents as well. I lived with the head teacher, a young woman named Margaret, who had studied at Makerere University, a well-to-do school in Kampala. She was gone much of the time, occupying herself in the heavily populated cities, trying to recruit more teachers for our little village.

The women especially began to take a liking to me, mostly because their children had preceded them in doing so, and on the nights that I was left alone they brought meals to my door. The limited amount of Luganda I had been able to speak when I arrived grew, and I was soon capable enough to enter the homes of my neighbors and hold competent conversations with them. I learned of how Moses, the old man with the bum leg that lived three huts down, had been captured and forced to serve as a child soldier when he was young. He spoke quietly about the time he had let seven little children, only slightly younger than him, out of the makeshift jail cell he had been guarding. He told how his small right leg had been beat with a stick by the man in charge until all of the bones had been shattered and stuck jaggedly out from his broken skin.

The women laughed with me the first time I tried to make chapati bread on my own, both sides of the soft shell burned black as coal, and they scolded me when I ran outside to catch drops of water in my mouth the first time it rained for the wet season, yelling, “Acid! Acid!” while waving their arms feverishly over their heads. “Silly, stupid girl,” they clucked affectionately to each other as I sat on the ground, my eyes closed and burning.

And then there was Esther, a timid gentle woman who lived alone in a small hut kitty-corner from mine. She’d been married recently before I’d arrived, but her husband had left her for another woman, or maybe two. She told me with a sad smile how she had been welcomed upon her return, though she was alone and pregnant, to the village of her deceased parents. I began eating lunch with her every day, talking about rain and politics and men. She taught me how to crush cornmeal and I taught her how to sew with the little kit I had packed in my single suitcase. Her belly grew larger and larger until it appeared that she had swallowed an inflated balloon, and her skin was taut and stretched.

The baby came during a night as hot as any, and Esther’s screams filled the vast black sky until I was sure the clouds would be so full from her weeping that they would release on us a downpour. They hadn’t then, but still we were all soaked clear through our skin. I sat on the hard ground beside her, horrified and amazed all at once, my ears ringing as her painful cries pierced the sticky air again and again. The elder women of the village acted as midwives, and each time one of them sat back on their haunches away from Esther’s open legs to catch a breath, I could see her red blood covering their bare hands and reaching up their arms.

After Lucas was born I moved in with him and Esther. She had lost much blood during the birth and it left her handicapped and weak. Day after day I sat with her in that tepid little hut. We would take turns with Lucas, her nursing him and me pacing the small square floor with him in my arms as he cried. He cried all of the time those first weeks, and one morning when I plucked him off of Esther’s chest he was lit with fever. Every ounce of milk he drank would be vomited up seconds later. I was scared then, and cried for him and his ill mother and this country with no medicine or money. I held on to him, his tiny body a radiator, heating me up although I was much larger, until beads of sweat dripped slowly down my forehead and back. I whispered quietly to him while the minutes passed uncannily slow, “You will be okay, baby. You will be okay.” His large brown eyes stared into mine, struggles I would never know of hidden safely behind his tiny tongue.

That night men, women and children from the next village over stampeded through ours. They spoke in hushed but excited tones. I ran out into the muggy air and didn’t understand anything they said, for they were speaking too fast. Margaret found me in the crowd. She was carrying a chicken and terror raced wildly through her eyes.

“They’re here,” she told me, and I could here murmurings of rebels in the mouths of people as they passed by. “They are coming this way. We must move. We have to move now.”

“I’ll just go get Lucas,” I said to her, touching her arm, silently asking her to wait, but when I entered the little hut and saw his fragile sick body, I paused. Catching my breath I felt his forehead as it burned. I remember fearing that he would break if I tried to move him.

“You just go,” Esther’s weak voice had whispered, “we’ll be all right. You go.” I stood frozen, hovering between the pile of blankets that was her bed on the ground and the doorway. I could hear the people moving faster, and through the open windows I heard Margaret call my name just once before the sound of footsteps steadily got further away. I stood unmoving in that spot until I couldn’t hear them at all.

Time passed and we waited. Some days Lucas smoldered like coals; other days he felt cool. He cried constantly when awake, and all I could do was lay on the ground with him on my chest, kissing the top of his bald head and whispering made up rhymes in his ear while Esther faded slowly next to me. I didn’t keep track of the hours. It was all I could do to keep myself sane and time passed by unaccounted for.

A hoard of mosquitoes hummed directly outside my netting, and while the inky blackness of the night was replaced with a smoky haze, I could sense the particles of dawn slowly seeping across the clay packed floor. It was another African morning. I listened to the patterned breathing that escaped from the perfect lips of the body sleeping beside me and waited for the moment the rays would wash over him. Sunlight crept slowly up the foot of the bed, a tiger sneaking towards its prey, and moments later the golden hue was on him. He stirred and gasped, his mouth making a little ‘o’, and then he sighed and scrunched his nose. I blew softly on his face, and Lucas opened his chocolate eyes to stare up at me.

His eyes were the only things that I still had to hold me here, in this retched place of filth and death, and if it weren’t for them I would have swam the Atlantic Ocean myself to get home. If it weren’t for Lucas no force on this earth would have been able to stop me from making my way back. But there he was, looking up at me, and I knew that Africa had this planned all along; the master’s way of holding me captive, for as long as I would live and for the rest of my ordained days.

“Lukie Lou,” I cooed to him and tapped his little ebony nose with my finger, “what shall we do today?” He didn’t answer me, but shaped his mouth into a gummy grin. My heart fluttered. His tiny smile undid me every time.

Another week had passed but still Lucas cried during the nights, high pitched shrieks and long wails for his mother. Still he searched the small room from wall to wall for his dead mother. His dead mother. I sighed, remembering the reason I had stayed. The reason Lucas and I were the only one the other had. It was because of his dead mother. It was because of his dead mother that I had been left behind. His dead mother who felt like my dead mother. But my mother wasn’t dead, and nineteen days later we were reunited on American soil.

But you hadn’t come back with me, no, you aren’t here in my arms like you should be. These days I think about the time I spent with you, and about all the ways I had blamed you in my mind. I know that I will never be freed from the bondage of the guilt I feel every day, not until I see your eyes look at me and watch you smile, and know in my heart that you have forgiven me for all the things I’ve done; for leaving you behind.

We had both become skinny and frail, and I had been trying to save what little amount of food had been left. I couldn’t take you with me to go out rummaging for more because I feared the evil that had caused our whole village to upend would still be out there somewhere waiting for me, and that no matter how stealthy I was, your high pitched constant wailing would draw them to us. However, I couldn’t leave you alone to go looking by myself from terror that you would be gone when I returned.

You were becoming grossly malnourished. The gaunt way your face looked reminded me every second that I was not your mother. I couldn’t give you what your young body needed to survive, and because of that, I was slowly starving you to death. You had looked like a tiny bird as you slept, your eyes sunken deep inside your little skull, and your skeletal arms and legs twitching like featherless wings. I prayed during the nights that God would spare us, that he would somehow allow you to grow healthy and strong, and that you would live a long and easy life.

I buried your tiny body in the ground three days before being rescued by six American soldiers who had come to our abandoned village looking for supplies. Your grave is marked with the picture of another child. I used one of Esther’s wooden spoons to dig through the shrubs and clay behind our hut while you lay swaddled head to toe beside me in the dirt. I dug like a woman gone mad, my sweating body covered in a film of orange dust. I dislodged chunks of thirsty soil with my wild hair sticking to my face and eyes.

When the hole was big enough, I held you in my arms. You had died during the night of fever, but I could feel through the sheet that your body had already gone cold. You no longer cried or wailed. You didn’t move at all.

In the six years since I left that godforsaken place I have never done anything more difficult than covering your still, lifeless body with the dead earth. When I was done, I lay down atop your crude grave, my own body wracked with hunger and exhaustion. It didn’t matter though. Strongly I screamed my curses to the sky with a newfound rage. I shook my fists and beat the soiled ground. I dared God to speak to me now and spat my hatred with fury up to his ears. To this day I’m not sure if he heard me or not. I remembered reading in The Poisonwood Bible of how mourning mothers ate the dirt off the graves of their children in sorrow, and I stuffed my mouth until it was full of mud.

That’s how they found me, dirty and baking in the African sun. I had spent two nights under that dreadful sky, the moon’s light a rebel to my sensitive swollen eyes. I heard footsteps coming up behind me and lay still. I wasn’t scared. My mind and body were too fatigued to function, my soul too grieved to care. I suppose they assumed I was dead, a girl crumpled awkwardly on a rough grave, but when they tried to take me from you I burst into vibrant life, kicking and screaming and clawing.

story week. day six.

2011-09-14T18:48:00.001-07:00

if you are just joining us, please catch up with story week, days one through five.

I prayed during the nights that God would spare us, that he would somehow allow you to grow healthy and strong, and that you would live a long and easy life.

I buried your tiny body in the ground three days before being rescued by six American soldiers who had come to our abandoned village looking for supplies. Your grave is marked with the picture of another child. I used one of Esther’s wooden spoons to dig through the shrubs and clay behind our hut while you lay swaddled head to toe beside me in the dirt. I dug like a woman gone mad, my sweating body covered in a film of orange dust. I dislodged chunks of thirsty soil with my wild hair sticking to my face and eyes.

When the hole was big enough, I held you in my arms. You had died during the night of fever, but I could feel through the sheet that your body had already gone cold. You no longer cried or wailed. You didn’t move at all.

In the six years since I left that godforsaken place I have never done anything more difficult than covering your still, lifeless body with the dead earth. When I was done, I lay down atop your crude grave, my own body wracked with hunger and exhaustion. It didn’t matter though. Strongly I screamed my curses to the sky with a newfound rage. I shook my fists and beat the soiled ground. I dared God to speak to me now and spat my hatred with fury up to his ears. To this day I’m not sure if he heard me or not. I remembered reading in The Poisonwood Bible of how mourning mothers ate the dirt off the graves of their children in sorrow, and I stuffed my mouth until it was full of mud.

That’s how they found me, dirty and baking in the African sun. I had spent two nights under that dreadful sky, the moon’s light a rebel to my sensitive swollen eyes. I heard footsteps coming up behind me and lay still. I wasn’t scared. My mind and body were too fatigued to function, my soul too grieved to care. I suppose they assumed I was dead, a girl crumpled awkwardly on a rough grave, but when they tried to take me from you I burst into vibrant life, kicking and screaming and clawing.

story week. day five.

2011-09-13T09:23:00.001-07:00

are you just joining us? be sure to catch up on the past four days.

But there he was, looking up at me, and I knew that Africa had this planned all along; the master’s way of holding me captive, for as long as I would live and for the rest of my ordained days.

“Lukie Lou,” I cooed to him and tapped his little ebony nose with my finger, “what shall we do today?” He didn’t answer me, but shaped his mouth into a gummy grin. My heart fluttered. His tiny smile undid me every time.

Another week had passed but still Lucas cried during the nights, high pitched shrieks and long wails for his mother. Still he searched the small room from wall to wall for his dead mother. His dead mother. I sighed, remembering the reason I had stayed. The reason Lucas and I were the only one the other had. It was because of his dead mother. It was because of his dead mother that I had been left behind. His dead mother who felt like my dead mother. But my mother wasn’t dead, and nineteen days later we were reunited on American soil.

But you hadn’t come back with me, no, you aren’t here in my arms like you should be. These days I think about the time I spent with you, and about all the ways I had blamed you in my mind. I know that I will never be freed from the bondage of the guilt I feel every day, not until I see your eyes look at me and watch you smile, and know in my heart that you have forgiven me for all the things I’ve done; for leaving you behind.

We had both become skinny and frail, and I had been trying to save what little amount of food had been left. I couldn’t take you with me to go out rummaging for more because I feared the evil that had caused our whole village to upend would still be out there somewhere waiting for me, and that no matter how stealthy I was, your high pitched constant wailing would draw them to us. However, I couldn’t leave you alone to go looking by myself from terror that you would be gone when I returned.

You were becoming grossly malnourished. The gaunt way your face looked reminded me every second that I was not your mother. I couldn’t give you what your young body needed to survive, and because of that, I was slowly starving you to death. You had looked like a tiny bird as you slept, your eyes sunken deep inside your little skull, and your skeletal arms and legs twitching like featherless wings. I prayed during the nights that God would spare us, that he would somehow allow you to grow healthy and strong, and that you would live a long and easy life.

story week. day four.

2011-09-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

Are you just joining us? Catch up with DAY ONE. DAY TWO. DAY THREE.

Margaret found me in the crowd. She was carrying a chicken and terror raced wildly through her eyes.

“They’re here,” she told me, and I could here murmurings of rebels in the mouths of people as they passed by. “They are coming this way. We must move. We have to move now.”

“I’ll just go get Lucas,” I said to her, touching her arm, silently asking her to wait, but when I entered the little hut and saw his fragile sick body, I paused. Catching my breath I felt his forehead as it burned. I remember fearing that he would break if I tried to move him.

“You just go,” Esther’s weak voice had whispered, “we’ll be all right. You go.” I stood frozen, hovering between the pile of blankets that was her bed on the ground and the doorway. I could hear the people moving faster, and through the open windows I heard Margaret call my name just once before the sound of footsteps steadily got further away. I stood unmoving in that spot until I couldn’t hear them at all.

Time passed and we waited. Some days Lucas smoldered like coals; other days he felt cool. He cried constantly when awake, and all I could do was lay on the ground with him on my chest, kissing the top of his bald head and whispering made up rhymes in his ear while Esther faded slowly next to me. I didn’t keep track of the hours. It was all I could do to keep myself sane and time passed by unaccounted for.

A hoard of mosquitoes hummed directly outside my netting, and while the inky blackness of the night was replaced with a smoky haze, I could sense the particles of dawn slowly seeping across the clay packed floor. It was another African morning. I listened to the patterned breathing that escaped from the perfect lips of the body sleeping beside me and waited for the moment the rays would wash over him. Sunlight crept slowly up the foot of the bed, a tiger sneaking towards its prey, and moments later the golden hue was on him. He stirred and gasped, his mouth making a little ‘o’, and then he sighed and scrunched his nose. I blew softly on his face, and Lucas opened his chocolate eyes to stare up at me.

His eyes were the only things that I still had to hold me here, in this retched place of filth and death, and if it weren’t for them I would have swam the Atlantic Ocean myself to get home. If it weren’t for Lucas no force on this earth would have been able to stop me from making my way back. But there he was, looking up at me, and I knew that Africa had this planned all along; the master’s way of holding me captive, for as long as I would live and for the rest of my ordained days.

story week. day three.

2011-09-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

are you just joining us? make sure to catch up with DAY ONE and DAY TWO.

“Silly, stupidgirl,” they clucked affectionately to each other as I sat on the ground, myeyes closed and burning.

And then there wasEsther, a timid gentle woman who lived alone in a small hut kitty-corner frommine. She’d been married recently before I’d arrived, but her husband had lefther for another woman, or maybe two. She told me with a sad smile how she hadbeen welcomed upon her return, though she was alone and pregnant, to thevillage of her deceased parents. I began eating lunch with her every day,talking about rain and politics and men. She taught me how to crush cornmealand I taught her how to sew with the little kit I had packed in my singlesuitcase. Her belly grew larger and larger until it appeared that she had swallowedan inflated balloon, and her skin was taut and stretched.

The baby cameduring a night as hot as any, and Esther’s screams filled the vast black skyuntil I was sure the clouds would be so full from her weeping that they wouldrelease on us a downpour. They hadn’t then, but still we were all soaked clearthrough our skin. I sat on the hard ground beside her, horrified and amazed allat once, my ears ringing as her painful cries pierced the sticky air again andagain. The elder women of the village acted as midwives, and each time one ofthem sat back on their haunches away from Esther’s open legs to catch a breath,I could see her red blood covering their bare hands and reaching up their arms.

After Lucas wasborn I moved in with him and Esther. She had lost much blood during the birthand it left her handicapped and weak. Day after day I sat with her in thattepid little hut. We would take turns with Lucas, her nursing him and me pacingthe small square floor with him in my arms as he cried. He cried all of thetime those first weeks, and one morning when I plucked him off of Esther’schest he was lit with fever. Every ounce of milk he drank would be vomited upseconds later. I was scared then, and cried for him and his ill mother and thiscountry with no medicine or money. I held on to him, his tiny body a radiator,heating me up although I was much larger, until beads of sweat dripped slowlydown my forehead and back. I whispered quietly to him while the minutes passed uncannilyslow, “You will be okay, baby. You will be okay.” His large brown eyes staredinto mine, struggles I would never know of hidden safely behind his tinytongue.

That night men, womenand children from the next village over stampeded through ours. They spoke inhushed but excited tones. I ran out into the muggy air and didn’t understandanything they said, for they were speaking too fast. Margaret found me in thecrowd. She was carrying a chicken and terror raced wildly through her eyes.

story week. day two.

2011-09-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

if you are just joining us, please catch up with STORY WEEK. DAY ONE.

“Please don’t goback,” he had pleaded with me. “Please don’t leave me here again.”

“I’ll come back,” Iwhispered, and kissed his forehead, eyes, cheekbones, and lips. But a switchhad been flipped in my brain like a tiny doubt; a silent alarm had been turnedon.

Of course I’ll come back, I told myself,I will come back. I will almostdefinitely come back. Am I coming back? Coming. Back. The words echoed likerocks down a canyon. However, with the sound of jumbo jets leaving theirrunways all around, I muffled the voice, small as it was, squeezed his hand andturned, walked into my terminal, turned back again and smiled. I don’t remembernow if he had smiled in return. Perhaps somehow he’d already known.

I had stepped outof the compressed air that filled the small Northwest plane which had flown mein, straight into the dry heat of Africa. I couldn’t be fazed by that, becauseindeed, this was my third time traveling to the Dark Continent to do a goodservice to the world. Peace was on my fingertips. I had then traveled by busdown a cratered road, one you might expect to find on Mars, or even the moon,but not here on earth, to a remote village outside of Uganda’s capital city. IfI had known then that the rebel forces from the north were going to beginrioting months later, causing the whole village to become displaced and takewhat little they had as they left fearfully into the night, I would have turnedaround. I would have gone back the hollowed out way I came. But I had notknown, of course, and so I stayed.

The first monthswent by quickly, and wonderfully, every moment as thrilling as it wasfulfilling. Time was of no essence there. I taught English as best I could in asingle tin-roofed hut, children from the village excited about learning butmore excited that they were learning from a skinny, brown haired, white girl.Most were anything but shy, and I spent my days making friends with my youngstudents, and slowly, eventually, with their parents as well. I lived with thehead teacher, a young woman named Margaret, who had studied at MakerereUniversity, a well-to-do school in Kampala. She was gone much of the time,occupying herself in the heavily populated cities, trying to recruit moreteachers for our little village.

The women especiallybegan to take a liking to me, mostly because their children had preceded themin doing so, and on the nights that I was left alone they brought meals to mydoor. The limited amount of Luganda I had been able to speak when I arrivedgrew, and I was soon capable enough to enter the homes of my neighbors and holdcompetent conversations with them. I learned of how Moses, the old man with thebum leg that lived three huts down, had been captured and forced to serve as achild soldier when he was young. He spoke quietly about the time he had letseven little children, only slightly younger than him, out of the makeshiftjail cell he had been guarding. He told how his small right leg had been beatwith a stick by the man in charge until all of the bones had been shattered andstuck jaggedly out from his broken skin.

The women laughedwith me the first time I tried to make chapati bread on my own, both sides ofthe soft shell burned black as coal, and they scolded me when I ran outside tocatch drops of water in my mouth the first time it rained for the wet season,yelling, “Acid! Acid!” while waving their arms feverishly over their heads.“Silly, stupid girl,” they clucked affectionately to each other as I sat on theground, my eyes closed and burning.

story week. day one.

2011-09-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

have you ever wrote something that you really liked,
forgot about it, found it again,
still really liked it, and wanted to share it?

my senior year in college i was working on my English minor.
i had multiple writing classes,
where i wrote multiple stories.

sometimes it feels good to share them.
sometimes it is scary, because of how true they are,
even if they're fiction.

the first fiction story i wrote was titled, "Beautiful Weathered Child."
I wrote it in September of 2009,
after having just left Lucas a month before.

Lucas hadn't died yet.
I wouldn't find out that lucas had died for 3 more months.
i guess some things, you just feel.

i based the story on the characters of lucas and i,
but the story itself is not true.
however, many facts are true, that i wish now were not.

i hated this story for a while,
after i found out lucas had died.
i feared that somehow, i'd written him to death.

So, here begins a week of story-telling.
i will post a page a day.
let's begin the journey here.

BeautifulWeathered Child

ByAnna M. Smith

“Please don’t goback,” the man I love had pleaded with me, tears streaming down both our faces.“Please don’t leave me here again.”

On the nights when I can’t sleep, which aremost, I lie in bed and remember the sad way those green eyes had looked. Iremember thinking that it was how I imagined the sea would look, just after astorm in which a fair maiden had been drowned.

It doesn’t seemreal anymore, the fact that I haven’t always lived in Africa. Then again,Africa is a strict master of a continent, forcefully going deeper and furtherinto you until the only thing you can recall is the way you feel now, in eachsingle solitary moment. The rest, yourpast and the history that made you who you once were, is like a distant memoryof a song whose tune you can recall but the lyrics have faded completely fromyour memory.

Tonight is one ofthose nights where I force myself to remember life before, however, because Ineed to be convinced that sometime, even if it was long ago, there wassomething good in this world, something right that made the things I didworthwhile. There was a time when peace was still something to be hoped for,and love was bright and burning. It is murky in my mind, hiding out in thedarkest and back corners – the parts of my life where I was free and vibrantand happy, the parts of my life before everything went terribly wrong. I lie inbed and wait – for a sleep I know won’t come – and for a morning I know willcome too soon.

The first andsecond time I had traveled to Africa, the goodbyes weren’t as hard as thelast. Something inside me was always whispering secrets in my ears that softlyassured me I would return. I had no doubt that I would go to this foreign landand do what I meant to do, and then turn around and come back to the place Iknew, the place I was comfortable with and called my home.

What I hadn’trealized then is this: every footstep one lays in Africa is something leftbehind, and every time you take a child’s hand you are handing over a piece ofyour own heart. Africa will not let herself be up-heaved. Once you have beenthere she forever lives within you, in your sights and smells and sounds. Youcannot be rid of Africa. I wish I had known then.

The third and finaltime I entered Africa, the time that brought me here with Lucas in our one roomhut, the time that changed my life forever and left me cursed and alone, wasonly seven months ago. I can honestly say, looking back on the days before Ihad left America, that the difference I had felt in the goodbyes I said shouldhave warned me, red flagged my heart, sent me running and screaming as far fromthe east coast as I could go, and then further still.

“Please don’t goback,” he had pleaded with me. “Please don’t leave me here again.”

to be continued.

you are my story.

2011-09-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

i have a reoccurring dream
where i walk through a field of long weeds
with the sun at my back,
hitting squarely on my shoulders,
and causing my shadow to loom in front of me.

the weeds are hard to walk through.
they reach up, snagging my legs,
my hands, my arms.
i start bleeding because the grass is razor sharp
but i keep walking, following my shadow.

i come to a clearing filled with mounds of red dirt.
i am standing in a crudely dug grave site.
all of the graves are small.
i start crying, but wipe my eyes.
i need to be able to see clearly.

each mound of dirt has a jagged rock at the head.
i read the names on the rocks, searching.
i go through them all,
and then frantically start again.
lucas, i think, i've made it back, now show me where you are.

i can't find his name. lucas, it was, i know i remember it.
or was it? suddenly i'm doubting.
was it lucas?
or jacob? was it any of the other unnamed babies
in the unmarked graves.

i kneel down and begin to weep.
i came to see my son's resting place,
and now i cannot find him.
i dig frantically in the dirt, red dust and blood
cling to my hair and face. i dig like a woman gone mad.

i'm nothing without you, i whisper to him,
i have no story, i have nothing.
and then i hear clearly, in my mind, his baby boy voice:
and i am nothing without you,
i have no story, i have nothing.

we make each other whole,
and give each other life,
a purpose, and a story.
God weaves us together,
so closely that without one, there is no other.

Red Cherry Cola

2011-09-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

one of our [my dad's, mainly] dogs got hit by a car tonight.
her name was Cola and she was four years old.
i always thought she was pretty annoying,
with the dripping slobber and the heavy breathing and the obsessive drooling
and the constant dropping of huge firewood all over the yard.

now that she's gone, i just feel sad.
i hate death. i hate it when it is just the circle of life
and i hate it more when it is unexpected.
i hate it when there is someone who really loves someone, or something,
and has to say goodbye forever, and for good, and too soon.

"He is my other eyes that can see above the clouds; my other ears that hear above the winds. He is the part of me that can reach out into the sea. He has told me a thousand times over that I am his reason for being; by the way he rests against my leg; by the way he thumps his tail at my smallest smile; by the way he shows his hurt when I leave without taking him. (I think it makes him sick with worry when he is not along to care for me.) When I am wrong, he is delighted to forgive. When I am angry, he clowns to make me smile. When I am happy, he is joy unbounded. When I am a fool, he ignores it. When I succeed, he brags. Without him, I am only another man. With him, I am all-powerful. He is loyalty itself. He has taught me the meaning of devotion. With him, I know a secret comfort and a private peace. He has brought me understanding where before I was ignorant. His head on my knee can heal my human hurts. His presence by my side is protection against my fears of dark and unknown things. He has promised to wait for me... whenever... wherever - in case I need him. And I expect I will - as I always have. He is just my dog."
- Gene Hill

i don't know what life is like for animals on the other side. but i do know this- a little boy who died on a hospital bed and was brought back by the doctors, when asked about his experience in heaven, said this: "I sure was surprised by all the dogs there."

the real africa.

2011-09-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

thank you for writing this, whoever you are.
[click on the picture to view it larger :)]

fleeting.

2011-09-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

we are hoping to have internet at our house tomorrow. please, let this be true.
it is hard to feel that strange, technological disconnect from the world you're used to.

it is crazy how many times, "ohmygosh, ineedtoblog," pop into my head throughout the day.
as i'm working, or cleaning, or sleeping and talking and cleaning at once.

life is busy and messy and interesting and hard and good, and different.
and going fast. why does time go so fast? time is fleeting.

in one month and one day, my baby boy will have been in heaven for two years.
in one month and five days, it will be one year since i left home for south africa.

and here i am now, home, but not, still healing but hurting, and living but learning.
i want to know where the answers to all my questions are, but i don't know if i should be louder or more quiet to hear them?

my questions like, "please, when will you call me back to africa?"
and, "please, can you just show me my purpose and worth, here?"
and, "please, can you show me how to be a good wife and to love well and to be. here. happily."

and then, as i ask those questions, the harder and more sad and more angry questions wait right behind them in my mind.

the questions like, "why did you let that boy die?"
and, "why did you let him die without me?"
and, "why couldn't the beginning of his life just have been easy. and painless?"
and, "really, can you prove to me that you are good, because sometimes i just don't. see. it."

as i decorate our new blank space, lucas is sneaking into every room of the house.
he is on the mantle and in the den and on the kitchen counter and on the bedroom wall.

sometimes he is smiling and sometimes he is staring blank, but everywhere he is beautiful, and so real, and so gone.
just one of a few pictures, and all of which i've looked at and cried over a million times.

last night i sat on our couch and listened to the song "For Adam," by Amanda Falk, again.
the song begins:
You left too soon, I didn't even get to say goodbye to you,
And now I'm left with only the few pictures that remain
I should have taken more when I had the time
When you were mine.

is anything in life ever easy?
i'm not sure. sometimes, i think that it isn't. but then i think of the way i fall in love.
and then i think, maybe it is, sort of.

not yet.

2011-08-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

in this easy part of my life
i trail two fingers in the cool lake water.

the boat cruises slowly and effortlessly over the clear glass surface,
and i watch aimlessly as small ripples move in peaceful patterns
away from me, and towards the quiet shore.

at a protruding, run-down dock, the water breaks awkwardly and uneven.
at the end of the dock sit a pair of wooden rockers.
they look as if they haven't been used for years.

i close my eyes and imagine a happy couple,
sweet and full of life.
their hands are knotty and worn, but they fit perfectly together
as they rock back and forth.

when i open my eyes the chairs still rock,
but only from waves and memories.

the hot sun is beating on my shoulders
and suddenly i'm back in africa
and it smells like sewer and poultry
and my eyes are watering
and i'm looking for lucas
but i don't know where they've buried my son.

and then i'm crying and it's raining,
but it is only the wind and the water and the waves.

even though it is the heat of the day
i wrap my arms around myself and rock,
with ebb and flow and the memories.

my arms are empty.
i can't help but secretly wish to leave this easy side of life
and go back to a land of black arms and skinny legs
and the weight of little lives sleeping with me at night.

so i ask God, "now?"
and still He answers, "not yet."

just right now.

2011-08-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

i'm coming down slowly, to a place that i realize is just.right.here.
not just right.
and not right here.
but just.right.here.
my heart is finally realizing what it means to wait.
patiently.

i have a lot of commitments.
commitments are good.
and needed.
but commitments sometimes mean being just.right.here.

a one year commitment to Feed My Starving Children.
a one year lease on our East St.Paul [so far from Africa] house.
a lifelong commitment to my hubs.
and while it is good and exciting and needed
i sometimes see it as strings.
strings that are attached to this side of the world.
strings that are not attached to africa.

a coworker asked me what it was that caused me to be so in love with uganda.
what i said: i'm in love with the orphans there, and God has put that land on my heart
what i thought: my heart is buried there, with my only son, in a grave without a name.

i am learning to trust God in the just.right.here.
there isn't a day that passes where i don't stop and ask Him why,
but now, finally, there isn't a day that passes where i He doesn't show me His Greatness,
where He doesn't show me that while i sit and cry,
and beg and plead like the weary sinner that i am,
He is still doing miracles.
He is still saving lives.
Changing lives.

i wait patiently for the day where i will see lucas,
and feel his arms around me,
and watch him play, healthy and whole and glowing and thriving,
and finally have an answer to the why.

for now i trust and hope,
in the just.right.now.

the p. files

2011-08-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

did i just title this post the p. files?

yes, i did indeed, and for a good reason.

the reason, if you are wondering,

is because this post is about... well... p.ee.

sort of.

it isn't graphic.

don't panic.

it is just one of those south african stories i keep forgetting to share,

but it popped into my head again today,

and so i put it in my "remember to blog this" file.

which turned into my p file.

while in s. africa i visited the lovely english doctor there.

multiple times.

once for laryngitis.

once for conjunctivitis.

once for thrush.

and once for something else,

which included the p file.

i was running a fever,

which wasn't so unusual,

but i was also:

vomitting

going diarrhea [also not unusual]

having dizzy spells

and coughing fits

and probably other strange happenings.

i went to the doctor to make sure i hadn't

contracted a case of malaria while visiting

the small, remote country of lesotho.

he took my temperature.

looked at my eyes [which still had conjunctivitis. one month later.]

felt around my abdomen.

listened to my raspy, scratchy breathing,

and then suggested i do a urine sample.

fine and dandy.

the not so fine, and less dandy part,

was when he took a glass cup from his counter.

the glass cup was filled with a yellow[ish] substance,

closely resembling...

p.ee.

he dumped it in the sink,

swished a bit of water around in it,

and handed it to me.

to use.

to take my urine sample.

the strangest thing about the whole situation,

was that it seemed normal to me at the time.

oh africa, the things you do to me.

needless to say, he found out nothing from the sample,

but it wouldn't have surprised me if he would have tested it,

and then curiously told me that i was 75 years old.

or a man.