Water My Flowers

You couldn't help but notice her. Courtney was tall...very tall...even without the 5 inch heels she loved to wear.  She confidently towered over all of us women and many of the men.  And trust me, that confidence was warranted.  She was stunningly beautiful.  Elegant.  Wicked smart.  Creative.  A fashion goddess and all around diva, really.  Oh...and strong...she'd be rightfully offended if I left that out.  Maybe I tried to forget that part...I worked so hard to keep up with her on weighted squats one day that I could barely sit and stand for a week!

She majored in Agricultural Biotech (or something brainy like that), then traded career opportunities for motherhood.  She kept a lovely home.  Managed a household of seven. Schooled her own kids.  Hosted fabulous parties. Shot beautiful photos which she developed in her own dark room.  She was a devout Christian, a faithful friend, and remarkably humble in spite of her many gifts.   

A few years ago, though, her internal world began to unravel.  I guess I'll never know for sure what caused the fracture, but circadian and dopamine dysregulation spurred her already intellectual abstract mind into ideations that felt cosmically critical to her.  Her drive to pursue these ideas and capture them for the benefit of humanity was relentless.  I would sit and listen to her for hours on end, trying to navigate the blurred lines between creative genius and mania...between fantasy and reality.  Her ideas were often intellectually challenging and inspiring, forcing me to wrestle with perspectives I hadn't considered.  Sometimes they were outlandishly absurd.  Sometimes they were dark and unsettling.  Sometimes her musings were delivered in person through a torrent of analogies from biology and nature and philosophy and art and theology.  If you didn’t walk away feeling a little bit dumb, you probably weren’t listening! Sometimes they were delivered in the wee hours of the morning through dozens of manifesto-like pages of intricately woven chaos. 

On this journey, she lost everything and nearly everyone. She lost her marriage and family life, her home, her security, safety, and stability, plus many of her friends.  In some ways she lost her dignity.  She was abandoned by some, ridiculed by others.  Some disappeared because it wasn't fun to be around her in the same way, some because it was simply too painful to watch.  Some were hurt and pushed away by her unfiltered words and accusations.  

She left us recently...by her own choice, it seems.  Her absence makes me realize I never really grieved the loss of the first Courtney.  I accepted and moved forward with the changes in her.  With sadness, yes, but I never really grieved all that she had lost and all that I lost of her  healthier self.  When she glided through the world with an irresistible charm, I loved her.  When she limped through the world with an air of tragic vulnerability, I loved her.  I'm grieving the loss of both versions of her. 

I want my words to bear witness to her life. It was a life of extreme beauty and heartrending brokenness. On both sides of her illness, she was a faithful friend to me.  I cherish memories of ziplining through the jungles of Costa Rica, visiting STLs finest restaurants, vacationing with our families in Door County, exploring Vegas, scrapbooking in my basement, sharing family meals around our tables, wine tastings, untold hours of storytelling and laughter around the firepit with or without others.  As our life situations shifted and we both ended up on our own, we checked on each other regularly.  She is the ONLY person pinned at the top of my iMessages (as my sons have resentfully pointed out) because I didn't want to miss her texts.  I wanted to be available when she needed connection. 

Today, it's hard not to question why we hadn't talked since October...why I allowed myself to be so busy that I didn't push in when there was no response to my last invitation.  I look at our latest threads and see words like "Time is short." "I still love you and always will." "My health is failing." differently than I did at the time.  We shared a love of music - mostly off the beaten path stuff - but the last song link she sent me hits differently now too:

Who's gonna water my flowers? 

Who's gonna cry my name? 

When they lay me down in the cold hard ground, 

And I'm in my final hour,

Who's gonna water my flowers? 

I will, my friend.  I'll water your flowers.  Today I water them with an endless flood of tears.  I'm so sorry that you died alone.  I'm so sorry I wasn't there to talk you into staying or to hold your hand and bless you with words of comfort...reminding you of the faithfulness of Christ, of the remission of sin, of the hope of resurrection, and the promise of all things made new.   

May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.  May you wait in peace until we are reunited in wholeness at the Final Resurrection.  

I still love you too...and always will.  Shalom, my friend.

Lament for a Son

In sharing his own laments, Nicholas Wolterstorff has given us a gift.  Christians are often hard-pressed to confront grief with honesty.  In Lament for a Son, Wolterstorff removes the rose-colored glasses, and eschews Stoicism in favor of an honest wrestling with the reality of Death and the presence (or absence) of God in it.  His honesty is akin to Lewis's in A Grief Observed, though his dominant voice is one of wounding rather than anger.

 

Here are a couple of brief passages:

“All these things I recognize. I remember delighting in them —trees, art, house, music, pink morning sky, work well done, flowers, books. I still delight in them. I’m still grateful. But the zest is gone. The passion is cooled, the striving quieted, the longing stilled. My attachment is loosened. No longer do I set my heart on them. I can do without them. They don’t matter. Instead of rowing, I float. The joy that comes my way I savor. But the seeking, the clutching, the aiming, is gone. I don’t suppose anyone on the outside notices. I go through my paces. What the world gives, I still accept. But what it promises, I no longer reach for. 

I’ve become an alien in the world. I don’t belong anymore. When someone loved leaves home, home becomes mere house.”

 

"I skimmed some books on grief. They offered ways of *not* looking death and pain in the face, ways of TURNING AWAY from death out there to one's own inner 'grief process' and then, on that, laying the heavy hand of rationality. I will not have it so. I will not look away. I will indeed remind myself that there is more to life than pain. I will accept joy. But I will not look away from Eric dead. Its demonic awfulness I will not ignore. I owe that--to him and to God." 

 

"Someone said to Claire, 'I hope you're learning to live at peace with Eric's death.' Peace. Shalom. Shalom is the fulness of life in all dimensions. Shalom is dwelling in justice and delight with God, with neighbor, with oneself, in nature. Death is shalom's mortal enemy. Death is demonic. We cannot live at peace with death.

 

When the writer of Revelation spoke of the coming day of shalom, he did not say that one day we would live at peace with death. He said that on that day 'There will be no more death or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'

I shall try to keep the wound from healing, in recognition of our living still in the old order of things. I shall try to keep it from healing, in solidarity with those who sit beside me on humanity's mourning bench."  

Like Lewis, Wolterstorff ends with his trust in the Trinitarian God fully intact, but you know and feel the lingering shadow of death even in his words of hard-won faith.