Monday, September 21, 2009 : 12:04 AM

A soul exercised

I have created Google Earth markers for somewhere between 500 and 700 of the locations of photos on phoons.com (background). There are more than 4000 Phoons, so I have a loooong way to go.

Aha! It occurred to me that I have a file that contains the stories that accompany the photos. Those stories include the city information. What if I could bulk convert the city information into Google Earth markers? Sure, the markers would not be accurate; they'd just be central to each city; but at least I'd be creating markers in the general area and get closer to my goal far faster. And, so, I made a copy of the data file and began whittling it down to city details.

Fortunately, most of the city/story details in this file are in a very consistent form and I was able to bulk-convert most of the lines to city names in just a few minutes. The rest I'd have to read individually and hand-tweak to the form that I needed before I could convert the whole list to Google Earth markers.

I found I was typing "Portland, Oregon" a lot. I was encountering story after story written by my sister Jan. Her stories, written in a certain span of years, did not fit the pattern that cleaned up easily in the prior bulk conversion. And, so, now, here I was having to read story after story to trim down to city details. And I was being immersed in her journey with cancer: there were nurses and doctors who phooned at her request, fellow chemo patients who phooned (one lady boldly pulled her wig off to phoon with shiny scalp); family members phooned on an overpass between hospital buildings, Matt visited her in the hospital in the days before dating his future bride (Jan's daughter). Story after story. Wham, wham, wham. Jan, Jan, Jan.

There was extra intensity to this because of the month and because of this weekend. It's September. Jan died two years ago this month. And Dan, once her husband, is here this weekend, visiting Mom and me with his new wife Denise. What a wonderful gal; what a fortunate man. Dan reminded me that he and his son A.J. had visited us some time in the last two years. I remember that visit as well as I don't remember most of elementary school, likely fallout from grief. What I remember as his last trip was him and Jan working in Mom's garage to help sort things. On their trip home, Jan's body went goofy and the emergency room folks x-rayed to find a bunch of big brain tumors that had seemed to give her no trouble in her days here. (A few days later, Jan wrote about it in her typical light-hearted, God-trusting style.) What dear people Dan and Denise are. I cried with joy at their wedding, rejoicing in God's provision for each of them. I grieved then and grieved this week at not yet "having my own." I wouldn't be surprised that I will forever have unresolved loss around my sister's life, my sister's dying, and my sister's death. I'm so glad to have had this time with Dan and Denise. The scatteredness of this paragraph is fortunately not representative of how I have handled this weekend. It has been a delight to love when it's time to love. There has been a considerable weight, too, and I have found that I have needed more sleep.

And here's this Phoon story activity that flooded my thinking with Jan and her gifts in the middle of her cancer. Well, I got to the point where I wasn't up for continuing to swim in those thoughts any more at the moment. Blogging seemed like a good outlet in this moment. I'm sure I'll be fine tomorrow.

Sunday, September 06, 2009 : 11:00 PM

Unsettled by Dad

Four years since losing Dad. Last week, he and I walked around my house and talked about the different rooms. He magically pushed through a wall and led me into a room I had never seen before, beautifully furnished with old everything, like from a museum. After a bit, I awoke from the dream.

Whoa, that was powerful. There was a depth to it like I hadn't experienced in a long time. It was good to see him, good to remember that man I valued. Soon after, though, I felt the pain of missing him. The pain outweighed the good feeling in the dream. I was shaken for a couple of days.

Last night, I went to church service. As we made our way through the many songs that kicked off the service, I observed that the African American man directly ahead of me continued to receive hugs and hand grips from those nearby. As is our tradition there, midway into the service, singing continues and folks are invited to slip out of their seats and make their way to the front; some stand, some kneel. While there's nothing magical about the front of the church versus the back or even the inside of the building, it's definitely evidence of something big going on for your heart that you'd leave the comfort and anonymity of your seat, make people shift so you can get out of your aisle, and end up in front with a bunch of other folks. The man ahead of me slipped out to head forward. Two brothers slipped out and hung their hands on his shoulders as they joined him to the front. On his return, he got more hugs. Another guy discretely slipped a handful of tissues into this guy's hand.

I knew that "meet and greet" time was coming in the service when we'd have the chance to say hello to folks around us we don't know. I remember how bizarre and how emotional it was to go to church for the first time after Dad died. No one else feels your particular loss; many of them are just enjoying participating in the joyful-feeling, toe-tapping singing. "This is supposed to be joyful, right?" was part of the storm of thinking on that Sunday long ago. And as we now continued in joyful song, my heart grew heavy from thinking of what this young man was probably going through. What was it like for him to be in the middle of joyous singing? What would "meet and greet" time be like for him?

Meet and greet time arrived and folks rose to their feet to begin the dance of who to connect with first. I dropped my hand on his shoulder from behind, and he rotated around. I used our shaking hands to pull him closer. "People are lovin' on ya like you lost someone," I said with a straight look in his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Who did you lose?" "My father just passed away," he said.

In hindsight, I'm a little embarrassed at my actions--were they more about me in the moment than about where he might be at?--but I was genuine then and emotionally I meant it for him: I pulled this stranger close, hugging him. I told him I was so sorry, that I understood because I'd lost my father. I tried to express my understanding of the significance. He relaxed into the hug and conveyed this was a huge loss for him.

Yeah, there was a beauty in seeing folks rally around this guy, offering loving words, hugs. And I remember now how beautiful it was to me in the weeks and months after losing Dad how love came from so many people, how people I didn't know very well told me of their love for Dad or of how he had touched their lives. I guess I just wanted to be part of that memory for this guy, to be part of the wave of love that he needs right now, even from strangers. Maybe I got it wrong; maybe I was out of place. But I'm thinking the benefit of my love outweighed any oddity in my reaching out. Hoping.

That was it. The service went on, and I met with other folks after the service.

Last week, before I had that dream, I emailed the church and asked if I could help out in any way in their upcoming Grief Share program for those facing losses of all sorts. Interesting that I had these two events since then. They intensified my awareness that there's loss all around us. Loss goes on. We need to share in the journey. Will that guy be in the group? 'twill be interesting to see.