Dear Grandma, Thank You.

Dear Grandma.

Dear Grandma, there are many things that I said to you in the past months.  Things that I hoped registered, somewhere deep inside, in a place the horrors of Alzheimer's cannot reach.  Today, I say them for the last time.

Dear Grandma, thank you.

Thank you for your courage.

People tend to resort to hyperbole in the wake of death, making the deceased out to be far greater than the life they actually lived.  But oh, my grandma, you are the bravest woman I know.

You were brave enough to forsake your South Hill heritage to marry a cowboy from Seven Mile.  I cannot imagine, coming from a life of wealth, what those years living in an unfinished house in only the basement were like for you.

You walked through the terrors of infertility, only to see the goodness of God in your eleven children that honored you today, and the one that you are finally reunited with in heaven.

And, you lived out your final years with courage and dignity, during both the times of "light fantasies and grim terrors".

Dear Grandma, thank you.

Thank you for your strength.

As I try to raise four daughters to be strong women, they only need to look to you as their model for a feminine, determined, unwavering life well lived.

You were strong as you faced the possibility of losing a second child, and strong as you tirelessly cared for her, knowing you would forever care for her.  And you did, so, so well.

You were strong as you walked through the illness and death of not one, but two husbands.  You modeled for all of us what it means to live out our marriage vows.

Dear Grandma, thank you.

Thank you for your love.

When I was 23 and scared of the road ahead, facing my dad's terminal cancer diagnosis, you were there.  You were there on the bad days when no one really knew what to say.  You were there as his breathing stilled and we stood at his bedside, unsure of how to face the pain of life without him.  I'll never forget you opening your bible and reading Psalm 23, reminding us that it was not truly his end.

When I was 24 and immobilized with grief over the death of my infant daughter, you were there.  I was not brave.  I was not strong.  I did not know how to face the pain of life without her.  And then, you stood and spoke.  You spoke of the grief over your own child, Robert Walker, and as you wept, you freed me to grieve as long as needed.  To grieve a lifetime over a lifetime lost.

Dear Grandma.

Dear Grandma, today, as dozens rose up to call you blessed, we rejoice in a life well lived and we grieve.  We'll be grieving for a lifetime.

Dear Grandma, I love you.  We love you.  Thank you.

It's Your Breath

It's your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise...

Awkward a-frame hug in the maternity ward, trying to draw near around a distended abdomen.
The cloying scent of newborn baby and hope and anticipation enveloping us.
Rejoicing.
For this one moment, suspended.
Suspended in hope.
Suspended in expectation.
"Soon.  Soon it will be us."
The elevator alerts us of its presence.
And for just that moment, we are suspended.
If I could freeze one moment in the last 1 million seconds of my life, it would be that.
Persist, daughter.
Oh, my love, persist.

It's your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise to you only.

No movement.
Kick counts.
Ice cream.
No.
Kick counts.
Ice cream.
No.
Showering, filled with fear.
A hidden depth acknowledging what the brain cannot.
No.
Maternity ward, again.
Labor and delivery, again.
No.
The cloying scent of newborn baby and hope enveloping us, again.
Only this time, the hope smells tenuous.
The anticipation, sickening.
"This is where the heartbeat should be."
No.

You give life, You are love
You bring light to the darkness

"She's gone.  You need to come."
"Pitocin...cervix ripeners..."
"Tests..."
"Select a funeral home to recover the body..."
"Funeral arrangements..."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
Breathe.

You give hope, You restore
Every heart that is broken

"I can't..."
"Push..."
"Oh my JesusJesusJesus"
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you..."
"Megan, you're almost done..."
"No, my Lord.  No, my Lord."
"...and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you..."
"Push."
"Behold your daughter."
"When you pass through the fire, you shall not be burned..."
Grave clothes woven of pink flannel, too small.
Atrociously small.
OhmyJesus, too small.
Dark hair.
Red lips.
Too small.
Tiny fingers lying limp in my hand.
"My God, my God..."
"....and the flame shall not consume you..."
"Your nose."
"Your hair."
"We love you."
"We love you."
"We love you."
"Goodbye."

All the earth will shout Your praise

Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing

Great are you, Lord.

(Listen to "Great Are You Lord" by All Sons and Daughters:  Here)

2015 In the Rearview

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you." Isaiah 43:2

Just over a year ago, I believed I knew exactly where God was taking my family.  Loren was in his eleventh year of vocational ministry with just over a year left until he had his Master's in Biblical Theology.  It was a life that was not always easy, sometimes overwhelming, filled with joy and laughter, people I dearly loved, tears, heartache, and ultimately, thanksgiving.  I loved my life.  And it was beautiful.

Then, my life changed.  The change was nothing as dramatic as a middle-of-the-night phone call or the police knocking on my door.  It quietly came in the form of my husband walking through the door of my workplace, a short nod that our doubts had been confirmed, and a hug that stretched into eternity.  With that, I walked into everything I feared.

This year has been God answering the questions that keep you awake at night, the questions that your subconscious has a way of entertaining even as you fight against the idea that they could ever become reality.  How would our family cope with the loss of the ministry we loved?  How would we tell our children that their father would no longer be working at the church we'd been a part of for eight years, that he would no longer be youth pastor to two of them?  What would it look like to say goodbye to all of the people we loved so deeply, who loved us so selflessly for nearly a decade?  What if I were to be thrust into the role of primary provider for our family?  How would our children cope with a radical shift in the very rhythm of our family, with their mom working full time and their dad working evenings and weekends, largely absent from the devotions and weekend activities that used to make up the pulse of our time together?  In the face of loss upon loss upon loss, would any one of us come out with our faith intact?

This year, this gut wrenching, terrifying, agonizing year, has been the Lord answering each of those questions, though not necessarily in our timing or how we would have scripted our story.  It was a God providing full-time employment for me and providing a job for Loren after so many years out of the secular workforce.  It was a year of quiet tears and long hugs when a too-familiar worship song overwhelmed one of us with memories.  It was a year of pouring the grief and doubt into pages of journals and late night conversations instead of public blog posts.  It was a year of staring at boxes piled in our dining room until, one evening as a family, we breathlessly opened them and unpacked Loren's office onto bookshelves in our home, smiling through tears at dusty mementos of a life past.  It was getting out of bed for 365 days, and whispering through our disbelief, "I trust you, Lord."

I trust you.

I trust you.

I trust you.

And at the end of the year, we are breathing.  Each of us is still healing, in our own ways, at our own pace.  We still cry at familiar worship songs that bring those that we said goodbye to close enough to touch.  I can't say the future is any more clear than it was a year ago.  Most days still find me grieving my old life.  

And yet, it also has me slowly growing to accept this life.  It is a life that is not always easy, sometimes overwhelming, filled with joy and laughter, people I dearly love, tears, heartache, and ultimately, thanksgiving.  I love my life.  And it is beautiful.

Goodnight

(Over the summer, my cousin Jaime asked me to dig out some of my high school creative writing assignments that centered around our family.  I promised her I'd post them, mostly funny anecdotes about camping trips and our shenanigans.  This one, however, I believe was assigned to be written as an important day in our life.  The summer before, my dad had sustained a traumatic brain injury and spent weeks in ICU.  6 years before he'd be diagnosed with unrelated, terminal brain cancer, I thought our family had overcome the worst, in my 16 years of wisdom.  As tempting as it is to improve upon what I wrote 17 years ago, I resisted the temptation and left it unchanged.  So Jaime, here's the first of the McLellan memoirs.  It seemed a fitting choice as we said our final goodnight to my dad 10 years ago this week.)


"What next? Soup?"

He nodded his head as well as he could, although the combination of the medication and neck brace made the move little more than a subtle shift.

"How can you eat this?  It looks disgusting!"  I didn't mention that he had no choice, that I was cramming food down his throat much in the same fashion that you give a cat a pill.  As we sat there, he in a chair and me on his hospital bed, I found myself actually contented for the first time that week.  The sun poured in on us, warming the room slightly and adding a false cheer to the dismal surroundings.  Who knew one could find happiness sitting in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit, feeding your brain-injured father?

I glanced at my watch: 5:15.  I had told my friends I would meet them at 6:00.

"Well, Dad, I need to go.  I'm meeting people at 6:00."  He nodded, and I rose, handing his fork to my mom, who was leaning against the wall.  After a hug, I kissed my dad's forehead, told him I loved him, and turned to leave.

"I love you, too." 

I froze.  It was little more than a hoarse whisper, but it meant the world.  He hadn't said much since the accident, and certainly not that.  I half-nodded as my eyes began to burn, turned, and left.

Something was bothering me as I went home to change my clothes, before meeting my friends.  I decided to call my mom, just to make sure that everything was okay.

"Your dad's taken a turn for the worse."

The words echoed painfully through my ears as I drove through yet another red light.  The thirty-minute drive to the hospital was likely to take me less than twenty, as I drastically exceeded every speed limit in existence.  The dangers of driving as if I were drunk, half blinded by tears, didn't even occur to me.

It had been nearly a week since the initial accident, when my dad had been thrown off one of our horses, landing on his head.  At first, there had been problems such as bleeding and swelling inside his brain, and he was listed in "serious" condition.  "But, he has been doing so well," I thought.  "He was supposed to get out of intensive care tomorrow."  Now, something was wrong.  My mom didn't say what, but I could hear in her voice she'd been crying.

I flew up the stairs at the hospital two at a time.  Bursting through the door to Intensive Care, I saw my mom, aunt, and grandmother standing in a heart-wrenching circle of naked grief and fear.  I approached, asking point-blank, "What's wrong?"

My mom took my arm, leading me to some chairs, sat me down, and began speaking.  "Megan, your dad has slipped into a coma.  A few minutes after you left, he put his head down, and we couldn't wake him.  They're doing tests right now, but we don't know what's going on."

I got up and walked to the waiting room.  Sitting down, tears flowed from my eyes as I finally gave release to all the pent-up emotions I had been feeling.  I had never known the kind of fear I knew then.  I glanced up, and swimming through tears, I saw the pay phone.  I desperately tried to think of whom I could talk to.  Who could comfort me?  A new and profound wave of sadness overcame me as I realized that the one I wanted to talk to was my dad who was now laying lifeless.  I desperately longed for him back, and let my mind drift off to simpler times.

"The drop fell from the leaf."  His low voice carried easily over the crackling of the fire, and I could feel his chest expand with each breath he drew.  I opened my eyes long enough to see the familiar faces of family friends I'd known all of my six years, then settled back against my dad's chest to hear the rest of his tale.  The familiar smells of camping lingered on his thick wool shirt: the sweet perfume of small fires, the sharp repugnancy of insect spray, roasted marshmallows, and cigar smoke.  His soft voice, accompanied by the chirping crickets and croaking frogs, began to lull me asleep.  Cuddled in my pink, footed pajamas and winter coat, I let the story carry me away.

I awoke to a soft whispering in my ear.  "Wake up, Megan." I slowly opened my eyes to see people beginning to rise from their webbed lawn chairs and head to their respective tents or trailers.  Still not fully awake, I felt myself be lifted up and carried towards our trailer, located on the edge of a large clearing.  I instantly felt the warm air when my dad opened the door.  He lay me on my bed and gently pulled a blanket over me.  From that faraway place somewhere between awake and asleep, I felt him lightly kiss my forehead and whisper, "Goodnight.  I love you."

I feel a hand on my arm.

"Megan, your dad's back in his room now."  My mom's red-rimmed eyes and tousled hair made her seem a stranger to me.  "They won't have the test results back for a while, though."

My heart dropped.  I had expected to know by now.  As the time rapidly approached midnight, I began to fear the worst.  I feared he would die.  Still, the doctors told us nothing.

Rising, I tried to get the cramps out of my muscles as I walked toward room 247.  I walked blindly past my grandma and aunt, who each cast sympathetic glances in my direction.

I walked hesitantly into the room.  My stomach turned at the pungent odors of ICU: the strong smells of antiseptic and unwashed bodied not in control of their own functions.  I glanced at his three roommates, then walked to his side.  Once again, warm tears began to trickle down my face.  The IVs attached to his arm and the tube in his nose sickeningly complemented the black eyes and scraped head.  Yet, he still looked like my dad - My strong, loving dad.

Not able to stand it, I turned from him and looked outside.  The lights of downtown Spokane glowed bright, reminding me that people's lives were still going on outside of the hospital.  Perhaps that was all the hope I needed, or maybe it was simply all the hope I had.  Either way, I turned back.  I ignored all the IVs, tubes, smells, and monitors, and just saw him: the man who had raised me, who I had laughed with, cried to, and learned from.  Taking his hand, I found a comfort in simply knowing that he was still alive.  I found hope.

In the dark room, he was illuminated only by the monitors which gave proof of his existence.  I knew everything would work out, one way or another.  That was all I needed.  Not knowing how to say goodbye, I leaned down and kissed his forehead, whispering, "Goodnight, dad.  I love you," and left.

The God of Brokenness

Nine years ago this week, I cried as our fourth daughter came into the world with a shock of hair, impossibly long eyelashes, and delicate fingers.  Loren and I held hands, and the room remained silent. Nine years ago, Tirzah Irene was born broken and I was broken and some things God purposes to remain so.

These are things my soul fights against.  I want to live a life of Instagram photos and pithy Facebook posts, where our dog is a maniac and our children are beautiful, mildly sarcastic reflections of their parents and I still wake up in amazement that I finally (FINALLY!) convinced the guy of my dreams to go on that date with me!  And while all of that is true, in this world of social media, is it possible that we've perhaps bought into the lie that this really is our best life, now?

Reading through the gospels this summer, I see Jesus not only confronted with the brokenness of this world, but intentionally entering into it.  He's seeking out the prostitutes, the demon possessed, the sick, the dying, the outcast.  The broken things of this world seem to be his priority, above the bright and shiny "Instagram world" I so often long to live in.

Frankly, this brings me great comfort.  Because as much as I'd like my life to look like my social media accounts, there are still nights where I'm awake at 2 am, repenting of anger at the loss of a friendship or haunted by things from decades ago.  I cry out to the Lord for an answer to prayers I've prayed hundreds, thousands of times, and at my weakest moments question whether he hears, or whether he cares.  And sometimes, in the happiest times as a family, when I should feel like the world is at its most right, it is in those times I grieve the most for the one who isn't.

Yet, in the midst of this, there is a strange peace.  I was broken long before Tirzah.  Burying our daughter only serves as a lifelong reminder, as I meet others in their own suffering, that we are all subject to Eve's choice.  Whether it's abuse or anger or apathy, from the stay at home mom struggling to love her husband well to the unimaginable heartache that tests my limits of comprehension in stories here in this neighborhood, we all suffer.  We are all broken.

When my daughter died, I thought I had failed to understand the goodness of God.  In retrospect, I hadn't grasped the brokenness of this world.

It is that brokenness that now has me pressing farther into the darkness.  To recognize, finally, that there may be parts of me that the Lord purposes to remain broken.  And in that brokenness, perhaps He can reach a world of people that I wouldn't be able to apart from the valleys in my life.  Truly our infinite brokenness is not beyond our Savior's infinite goodness.

So happy, happy birthday, beloved Tirzah.  I only carried you for a matter of hours, but I will continue to carry you for a lifetime.

"The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;

you hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance."

Psalm 16:5-6

School Supplies and the Gospel

Dear daughters,
Today, we went school supply shopping, and in the span of four hours you broke my heart.

The afternoon started reasonably well.  The shopping was already done for the sophomore and freshman, so we only needed to tackle the lists for the 5th grade and 2nd grade at the classical Christian academy you've attended for most of your school years.

Nothing on the lists had changed.  Green pens.  Ticonderoga pencils.  2" binders.  Large backpacks.  The mundane trappings of your education, wrapped in pink molded plastic or bedazzled ponies.  And yet, you began to speak of the pencil pouches that I did not buy you last year, that were simply beyond our ministry salary budget, that all of the "cool" kids in school had.  You spoke of mechanical pencils that cost $6 apiece that were considered status symbols, of $25 lunch boxes that made a statement.  And oh how I wish that these words were only coming from the high schoolers.

Beloved daughters, I was naive to think that uniforms were equalizers, that sinful hearts would not grasp for other material things to set us apart.  Our sinful hearts will always grasp for things to set us apart.  The hard, painful truth of this world is this: There is nothing you can own, nothing you can look like, nothing you can be, that will ever be enough for this world to accept you.  The standard is transient, and you will spend a lifetime chasing after it.

And yet, daughters.  And yet.  The gospel message is this.  Even as this world is telling you to buy things in order to be accepted, your Savior is telling you that your very life was bought at the price of His life.  You are perfectly accepted because of His sacrifice.  You've each put your trust in Him, which means your identity rests in Him.

So what does that mean for this school year?  Well, as your daddy would say, be who you are.  Live as daughters of the king, freed from the bondage of sin and death and freed from the bondage of materialism and the need to make any kind of statement about your life based on what you own.  Live free to radically give money away to those in desperate need on the other side of the world and support the gospel going out to the lost, without having to explain to anyone why you aren't wearing more expensive clothes or driving newer cars.  Live free to show lavish love to others based on their value as image bearers of the king, not based on what they wear, or the color of their skin, or how they smell or if their hair is combed.  Why?  Because the gospel has freed you from all of that!

And do it with a really, really cool pencil pouch, because that's okay too.

Your fellow daughter of the king,
Mom

1,461 Days

Today, I sat in the waiting room at Lily's pulmonologist.  While she happily played Minecraft on my phone, I sat.  Sure, I could've read an outdated magazine about golf, but instead, I forced myself to simply wait.  There was little I could do about the situation.  Sure, we could leave, but otherwise, we would sit in that waiting room for an undetermined amount of time, until the doctor himself finally came and called us.

The parallels are obvious.  In this life, how do we cope with waiting?  Frankly, of all the places I could have been this afternoon, a waiting room was a pretty appropriate picture of my last 4 years.

The day was utterly insignificant.  I was rallying after celebrating Lily and Jaime's birthdays, stressed over a leaky roof and an injured husband, frazzled and nervous as I drove to speak at an event, worried about how I was going to pull my upcoming shifts as an EMT with the ensuing chaos.  And then, I got into a car accident.  No MedStar, no ICU, just a simple, forgettable car accident.  I had no idea my spine had already begun its slow crumble, and the force sustained was enough to cause discs to succumb.

In the narrative that is my life, tonight marks nothing particularly memorable, with one exception.  1,461 days ago was the last day I lived without pain.

35,064 hours, most of them not sleeping.

2,103,840 minutes readjusting. Stretching.  Arching back.  Bending over.  Repeat. 

126,230,400 seconds of breathing in and breathing out.

Before you get out your tissues, here's the point (and it's not that I have a sad, sad life).  For 1,461 days, I have prayed for healing.  I've cried out to God through sleepless nights and the pain-filled, exhausted days.  And, thus far, I am not healed.  And, believing that the purpose of this life is to bring God glory, I rest in the knowledge that, for today, for the last 2,103,840 minutes, God has been more glorified in my suffering than in my healing.  And I wait.  I wait, confident that one day, He will call my name, and I will be done with the waiting room, done with the pain.  And I pray, secure in the faith that God is good and does good and has a good, pleasing and perfect plan for my life that I continue to hope includes healing.

If we're honest, we're all kind of there.  Sure, maybe it's not a jacked up spinal column, but we all wait.  Wait for a spouse.  Wait for depression to lift.  Wait for a baby.  Wait to be reunited in heaven.  I'm not special.  It's a universal state that we're all in, to one degree or another.

So what do I do, stuck in this waiting room?  Well, I live.  And, though it's a pretty broken offering, I wouldn't trade it.  I have known God, and known my own spiritual brokenness, in a way I would not have been able to if it wasn't for the physical brokenness that has become my reality (which, as an aside, I would argue is very different than it being my identity).  In the last four years, I've watched each of my daughters grow into young women.  I've celebrated 10 years of marriage in Hawaii.  I've traveled to Florida with friends, toured my husband's college campus in Portland, taken a group of teenagers to England, ran through the surf in Oregon, flown in an impossibly small plane above Washington.  I've lived.

So tonight, I go to bed with the same prayer on my lips, crying out to the Lord to take this cup.  And there's peace.  I wait.  And I live.