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The Journey from Grief to Glory

Last week I began to hear friends reference what they were doing a year ago, as the Pandemic began to spread throughout the US. The impact didn’t fully hit me until a new episode dropped in a TV show I had been anticipating. I watched as characters I’ve come to love received the news of an upcoming two-week lock-down in their city and I felt heaviness and grief rise up in my body.


This tangible fear and a sensation of anxiety resurfaced simply by watching these fictional characters and I thought to myself, ” they have no idea what is coming.” Just like that, I found myself face to face with the alarm and the frightening unknown that pursued me a year ago. When I had no idea what was in store.


Listening to the language of my body, I began to process what it means to near the end of a time of trauma. As I sat with the heaviness that had taken over my body, I felt gratitude for the physical sensations that would not let me just rush to the finish line in celebration. Without fully processing and bearing witness to the losses I had faced.

Grieving the losses.


We each have our own list of losses. Mine looks something like this.


The loss of solitude as an introvert in a house full of extroverts. All stuck at home together. One of them is diagnosed with ADHD but all four of them display multiple symptoms. So things can get kind of wild.


The loss of meaningful work and income. Bringing so much anxiety. While I am back at work and our business is thriving, there was a very scary time when I didn’t know if we would make it. It seemed as if the grants and loans were going to the big guys who didn’t really need it while small businesses like our own were barely hanging on. Not getting the promised relief. When we were denied benefits, though I could show proof we had not made a profit for 3 months.


The loss of relationships. People I thought were friends but showed me that my life was not as important as their comfort. But my life matters. I finally believe that now and it affects who I will spend my time with when this is all over. But the pain of losing relationships will last a long time.


The loss of places of belonging. Toxic places of belonging are still places of belonging and the human spirit yearns to belong. Pulling away from places that do not honor my life or the lives of those who matter to me has not been easy. It hurts.

Parenting 24/7. Juggling home schooling on top of everything else. My senior threw his graduation cap in the air in front of an empty auditorium last May and I wanted to ball my eyes out. My youngest, a junior this year, thrives with people and lots of activities. Doing school work at home on his iPad has nearly been the end to all of us.


The loss of travel. Gatherings of friends. Work conferences with like-minded people. The loss of rhythms and routines that bring sanity. Quiet. Order. Stability.

religious trauma


There’s more. I struggle to know how to write these words. Before the pandemic, I had stepped away from the church. Not from faith, but from the organization struggling to represent it. Please know that I am not speaking about a particular church. But the representation as a whole.


The pandemic, George Floyd’s death, and the resulting conversations on race and privilege, followed by Christian’s response to the election, have brought painful clarity. I lost the church. Or the church lost me. Either way, I don’t think I will completely recover from this. Nor do I want to. I will keep following my faith and the prophet who thought nothing of breaking religious laws so he could be kind to all. Blurring the lines between those who were “in” and those on the “outside.” For me, any remote desire to be back on the inside, died during the pandemic. Too many “Christians” gave out the message that my life (and the lives of certain others) does not matter.

listening to the language of my body


These losses are heavy. And the only way out is through. Listening to the language of my body, the heaviness, the aches and pains. To hear what they are saying to me.

“We cannot figure our way out of grief… we must turn toward our experience and touch it with the softest hands possible. Only then, in the inner terrain of silence and solitude, will our grief yield to us and offer up its most tender shoots… So much is carried in our bodies. The wisdom that is held within our tissues is something that we have almost completely forgotten. And yet there is no awareness more situated in the present moment than what is found in our bodies.”

Francis Weller in The Wild Edge of Sorrow


Listening to the language of my body has become crucial to my well-being. That particular ache in one of my shoulders that flares up. I have long known it is brought on by stress and anxiety, my body’s way of getting my attention. Telling me I have taken on too much. Reminding me that I’m longing for comforting touch and a place of belonging. Or for rest, deep deep rest. I close my eyes and find the little girl who first felt the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders and I ask her how she is doing. If I listen long enough, this little girl tells me what I need. It could be a listening ear, paper and pen to pour out my soul, or a boundary she needs me to set. She is wise beyond her years and is always within my reach.

closure


Two more things come to mind as I think about moving into the light at the end of the tunnel.


I need a grief ritual. A sacred space shared with a few close friends, to grieve the losses and metaphorically put this pandemic into the ground so we can rise and move on. Francis Weller says,

“Unlike most traditional cultures, where grief is a regular guest in the community, we have somehow been able to cloister grief and sanitize it, denying its expression as the gut-wrenching and heart-breaking event that it truly is… ritual is the means whereby we can work the ground of grief, allowing it to move, shift, and, ultimately, take a new shape in the soul.”


The terror of this past year has brought me face to face with previous traumas. I’ve jumped bravely into the deep end and discovered new ways of being in the world. One thing I’ve come to understand is that victims who are rescued from trauma, have a much harder time healing from that trauma than victims who were able to use their own resources to escape. Naturally, sometimes being rescued by another is the only possible way out but the invaluable truth from my therapy this past year is that I am my own way out.

choosing life


In reflecting on the Pandemic, I am convinced that I did what I could to stay safe and keep others safe. There were things beyond my control, but now, as we near the end, there is something I can do, for myself. I can get the vaccine as soon as I am able. I can be my own way out. It is one way of taking this trauma and putting it into the ground.


I know that this is a controversial topic for some. And yet for me, it is about choosing life. For myself and those around me. It has hurt a lot to feel as if my life hasn’t mattered to some people this past year. And I can’t change that. I can make certain however, that those around me know beyond a doubt that their health, well-being, and yes, even their lives, matter to me.


The journey from grief to glory starts by sitting with death and loss. Listening to the language of the body. Letting grief be an honest conversation of soul with the outer world . Letting flow what must flow. In the end, we must find a way to choose life.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Photo courtesy of Adrienne Gerber Photography.

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Happily Ever After

I spent my childhood outdoors, as much as possible. Making imaginary homes under the pine trees or tucked into a hillside. When the heat became too much to bear, my friends and I would spend long afternoons inside. We would raid my mom’s lingerie stash and dress up. There was a long flowing white gown with a matching robe that was perfect for playing bride. I spent hours imagining what it would be like to get married. Like most girls, I couldn’t wait for some prince charming to sweep me off my feet and live happily ever after.

Austin certainly did sweep me off my feet but the happily ever after part is still working itself out. Don’t get me wrong. We have many moments of happiness. But a good marriage takes a lot of work.

Studies show that nearly 50% of all marriages end in divorce. For those in Mixed Orientation Marriages, (MOM) only an average of 20% stay together.

Austin came out to me just before our 12th anniversary. That was nearly 11 years ago and we are still together. Not because of cultural or religious obligations. But because we wanted to make it work. Despite the pain, confusion and all the unknowns, we wanted to grow old together.

I’ve been working on a list of ideas. Things that have helped us do more than just survive these past 11 years. And I can’t wait to share these thoughts with you.

But it would all be pointless if I didn’t start here.

With Honesty.

Without honesty, there can be no happily ever after.

Before we were married, Austin struggled to decide whether or not to come out to me. Many he went to for advice said the same thing. That it would be best not to tell me. That it would just make it harder for me.

So we married and I was in complete ignorance. I feel at times that the whole world knew he was queer before I did. My gaydar was nonexistent, thanks to my conservative religious upbringing. I was led to believe that it was impossible for queer people to be Christians. It didn’t enter my mind that anyone around me could possibly be queer.

before

The early years of marriage were quite good. We had lots of fun. Didn’t fight. Traveled the world. I felt seen and loved in ways I never had before. We had a couple of babies. Settled into life. For a while it felt like happily ever after.

But unbeknownst to me, Austin was Bi. That part didn’t go away when he got married, as he had hoped. If he brought it up to a friend or counselor, they still gave the same advise. To not tell me. So he kept it to himself, cordoning off a very real part of who he is. Stuffing it deeper into the closet.

So much energy was being spent on hiding that he didn’t have the energy to truly live. Or love.

Here’s the thing. No matter who you are, how adept you are at stuffing and hiding, it takes its toll. So much energy was being spent on hiding that he didn’t have the energy to truly live. Or love.

Eventually, I picked up that something was wrong. I just didn’t know what. Couldn’t put my finger on it. But I knew that whatever it was, we were in trouble.

after

I’m glad Austin finally decided to come out to me. To bring his whole self to our marriage. But I have to be honest. The weight of hidden truths and in-authenticity grows over time. The cost of honesty grows the longer it goes. It was crushing to realize that the man I thought I had married was not who I had been led to believe he was. Everything we had was built on an illusion. It was a blow to my self-esteem and it tested all of the painstaking work I had done to heal from my own painful past. And now we had 3 little boys to think about. There was no way to just hit the pause button and figure things out.

If you’ve read my blog from the beginning, you will know that we found our way. Bit by bit. But it was difficult. Many straight spouses decide not to stay and I get that.

It’s not easy to realize the person you love the most has been hiding something from you.

I know that Austin had his reasons. But this is not a post about him. This is a post about how those reasons ended up hurting me. How his decision devastated me.

If you are in the closet, wondering whether or not to come out to the person you love, this post is also for you. If you love someone, that person deserves your honesty. They deserve to see the whole you. And you deserve to be able to show them the whole you. It’s true that they could leave you, scattering pieces of your broken heart in the mud. Yet, wouldn’t you rather be seen and loved for who you really are than them loving a fake version of yourself that you have to work so hard to keep up with? If it is meant to be, you will both find your way through and will have a love story of the century.

You must learn to love your whole self before you can truly love others. There is no happily ever after without honesty. Without stepping into wholeness and authenticity. You deserve it. The person you love deserves it too.

to the gatekeepers

My final thoughts are for the larger community, especially religious communities. The shame that keeps people in the closet starts with you. I hate to break it to you, but you are the gatekeepers that lead to much pain. Sometimes broken marriages. Or depression. Sometimes even suicide. There are more mixed-orientation marriages among you than you will ever know. So much unnecessary pain. Hiding. Betrayal.

Imagine, instead, being gatekeepers of authenticity. Honesty. Thriving. Imagine creating a community where no one has to hide a part of themselves in order to be accepted. The love and life that would flow from a place like that just might be enough to heal the broken world.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Coming Home

In my last post, I wrote about leaving toxic places, touching on the grief that surfaces when we realize certain places or people are no longer safe for us.

I need to dive in a little deeper, to the pain of grieving something we never had.

Grief is necessary when we lose something precious. When processed well, grief can be good and beautiful, true praise of what we have lost. Proof that something beautiful was in our lives.

“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson

grieving something we never had


Yet sometimes grief grabs us in the deepest places and holds on because instead of grieving what we lost, we may be grieving something we never had in the first place.

The child in the closet who pretended she was straight to maintain her place of belonging in the family, will someday have to grieve never actually belonging to that family. The boy who raised himself while caring for a parent does not weep because his father died. His tears are shed instead for the father he never had. And never will. The woman who has always struggled to feel beautiful because as a child, a boy publicly humiliated her and labeled her as disgusting. She does not weep for the loss of popularity, she weeps because she has never felt seen as beautiful. The parent who is triggered into deep anxiety when facing food insecurity because of a global pandemic is not grieving today’s hardships. He is grieving a childhood that never knew that security.

Sometimes we grieve because we have lost something. But there is an equally bottomless pain of grieving something we never had in the first place.

For all who grieve and feel the pain of loss over things that never existed – yet should have existed – you are not alone. Some losses feel forever and stretch beyond human reasoning and comprehension.

This loneliness, this deep and utter feeling of betrayal, loss and isolation is exhausting.

coming home

And yet, when the song and dance is over, when the dust clears and all that is left is the raw authenticity of our lives.

Those moments where we were the truest to ourselves.

The best versions of who we could be.

With startling clarity, we can look around and realize that there is something inside of us that has outlived the betrayal, grief and losses of life.

We want to engineer a world where everyone admires us, holds us in high esteem. Where safety and security are the norm. We try so hard to control the outcome of the broader story yet all we can really do is control our own narrative. When all else has been lost or is out of our control, we can and must speak our own narrative. Make our own way. Belong to our self.

Perhaps the only way to find our true place of belonging starts with coming home to our self. Belonging to our self.

This is not a journey I can guide you on because this journey will not look the same for any one of us. Our journey of coming home to our self is as unique as each of us.

It’s taken me decades to truly come home to, and belong to, my self. More often than not I wished I could trade in my self for another one braver, more beautiful, stronger, more articulate, and better than this one. Yet I finally love her. More than being shaped by her experiences, she now experiences life by the shaping of her narrative.

By belonging to her self, she holds the pen in her story. No matter what she gains or loses, she knows she will always have her self.

And she is more than okay.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Photo courtesy of Adrienne Gerber Photography.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Leaving Toxic Places

I find myself feeling a lot of things these days. Sadness. Happiness. Grief. Hope. Anger. Relief. Waking up in a polarized world that keeps getting a little more chaotic every day has given me the gift of clarity. So many places once familiar are now strange to me. Places of belonging that have turned toxic bring me no small amount of sadness. Keeping the raw edge of grief sharp. I look around me at people I once categorized as “my people” and it is as if I am looking at a crowd of strangers.

It’s unsettling. Waking up in a strange place. The grief is nuanced and layered. But at the heart of it, there is a loss of belonging. And when that loss is realized, brought to the surface and given space to metabolize and flow, I realize there is not much point in staying connected to a place or a relationship where I no longer belong. Especially when that place has become toxic.

The word belonging means happiness felt in a secure relationship. It is rooted in the idea of being suitable or fitting to something or someone. Toxic comes from a Greek phrase that literally meant poison used on arrows.

Toxic places

Arrows harm. Poisoned arrows destroy.

It’s more than a little startling to wake up in a place that is toxic. Where there is intent to harm and destroy. What is even more disconcerting is to see people you had imagined were safe and good, dipping their arrows into poison. Metaphorically speaking of course.

Some of us still have a painfully difficult time attempting to leave these places behind. Belonging is so deeply wired into our DNA. We need “place”. Safety. Belonging.

But when a particular place is no longer safe, you no longer belong there. Your relationship is neither happy nor secure. You might as well leave.

leaving

Give yourself time and space to grieve the loss. But whatever you do, don’t remain in that toxic place. If your church, marriage, family, friendships, workplace, social group, whatever, has become a place of poison instead of a place of safety, get out. It’s okay to leave. Okay to risk disappointing others. To make waves. To let down the people who have long ago let you down.

You matter.

Your safety matters.

Happiness and well being. These things matter.

Let your gut be your compass. The beautiful thing is that there is a place you belong to. If you are leaving toxicity behind, you may not yet know that new place. But it is there. And the only way you will find it is by leaving behind all that would poison you.

You may have to create it. Build it. Find your own people and start anew. But you can do this.

some extra help

I recently began EMDR with my therapist. Simply put, EMDR is a psychotherapy that enables one to heal from emotional distress that stems from past experiences. The thing about trauma is that when it is physically over, a part of our brain stays stuck in the event. This causes our bodies to react to current day events as if we were still experiencing that past trauma.

For me, it’s seeing my husband lay back and close his eyes. Particularly in the middle of the day. Or the middle of a conversation. It may be a normal reaction on his part. Of simply being tired. Or having a headache. But my body goes into a flight mode and I have an irresistible urge to leave the room. It takes everything I have to remain physically present.

Such a simple thing but it has a very powerful effect on my body. It subconsciously transports me back into an old trauma, as if that were the event happening today instead of my husband just being tired and needing to withdraw for a minute.

My therapist described EMDR as a way to connect the right side of our brain to the left side. So that the part that thinks it is still in the traumatic event can finally and truly understand that it is over.

my own way out

We began the EMDR process by creating a safe space in my mind that I could go to if it became too much to bear at any point in the therapy. Then, we chose an event from the past, to begin with, using tapping instead of eye movement. Part of the process involves fully entering the memory and all the feelings that go with it. We identified the negative cognition or thoughts that went with the event. For me, it was “I’m not good enough.” But when it came time to replace the negative cognition with a positive one, all the while staying in that past event, I really struggled.

But then I had a light bulb moment. I knew that my positive cognition had to be this – I am my own way out. I knew that what I was feeling was not so much that I wasn’t good enough, but that I was trapped. Using tapping, I was able to re-tell the story of my past. I gave myself a voice and freedom. Became my own way out.

I cannot, simply cannot, in the language of mankind, tell you how powerful this is for me.

changing the past

When my Grandpa passed away, I was processing another memory on my own. That phrase came to me again and I went back into the memory and found the little girl that was so hurt and confused. I talked to her and showed her who she would become. I told her how she was her own way out.

While we cannot change the past, we can change our perspective of it by changing our relationship to it. It is possible to bring an end to past trauma.

To the little girl I meet in my memories and to all of you who find yourself stuck either in toxic places or toxic memories, you are your own way out. You belong, not to those poisonous places, but to a new place that hears you, sees you and values you.

The world is big and wide and beautiful. There is enough. You are enough. If you are not in a place that tells you this every day, then go and find that place.

You are your own way out.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Let Go

New Year’s Eve often finds me perched in my room. Away from the noise and parties. Just me and my thoughts. I sit and ponder the year gone by and listen to hope, as she whispers new lines for the year ahead. Eventually, a word or phrase finds me and I know it is to be my mantra for the coming year.

My word(s) for this year were slower to come, but no less real when they did show up.

Let go.

No way!

You’re kidding, right? I do not like that particular combination of words. Never have. Never will.

They have become synonymous with a certain kind of self-disregard that was subtly held up as God’s ultimate plan and pleasure.

Looking back now it seems clearly twisted. Equating Divine Love with the call to self-sacrifice and personal pain. As if the reason for my existence was to serve others and give up whatever dreams and hopes I may have had for myself.

It has been a long journey to come to a very different realization – that my hopes and dreams and wants are good things. My pleasure mirrors that of the Divine, rather than being in dissonance with it.

And while there is much that could be written about that journey, it would take us off topic. So back to that phrase.

Let Go

Almost as soon as the “what the heck?” thought entered my mind, I was given a picture of what a healthy letting go could look like. Like a stream that branches into two smaller creeks, each being connected to and a vital part of the whole, two things began to separate and lengthen in my mind.

First, honesty. Being honest with myself about what I really want. What I need. Desire. Passion. Longing. It’s a brave and utterly honest look at all I am feeling and needing. Admitting it. Owning it.

Secondly, it’s telling myself that I will be okay, even if I don’t get that thing that I really want and need.

It was a light bulb moment for me. Maybe I was never really able to let go of things in the past because I had not had the courage or permission to wildly feel and be honest about what it is that I wanted. You can’t let go of something you are in denial about. It will own you. Haunt you. Control you.

But raw honesty about all that flows and rumbles through this human body is a beautiful and freeing thing.

Within hours of coming to this realization, I began to have physical symptoms that would later be diagnosed as COVID. As the first aches began to take over my body, I admitted how much I wanted to feel good. How hard I had worked for a very long time to be healthy. To protect my own body and the lives of my friends and neighbors.

Then I told myself that I would be okay even if I did not have those things.

I let go.

And with it I found the courage to look at many more places in my life where fear was holding my fingers tight.

Yes, I want it very much. But yes, I will be okay even if I don’t have it.

2021 is here. and I am practicing letting go.

Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Good Grief

Christmas Day found us snuggled in close. The kids all home. Snow falling and falling and falling. Piles of good food and heaps of presents. Laughter and love slipping from our hearts and filling us back up at the same time.

Heart full, I checked my phone at the end of the day. One message stared back at me from the screen. My Grandpa has passed on.

In the most poetic of ways, the great Poet of my childhood, the one who always made me feel seen, safe, and loved, had passed on. On Christmas. A man of faith who always had one eye on earth and one on eternity. A man who fully lived his life here while longing to go “home”. He was finally home. After 100 years on this earth.

grief is praise

Gone. Leaving a hole that words fail to fill. Grief washes over me like the waves of the ocean, the salt from my tears rolling with the endless expanse. My grief is praise to the greatness of my Grandpa.


“Grief expressed out loud, whether in or out of character, unchoreographed and honest, for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses. ”

~Martin Prechtel in The Smell of Rain on Dust.


Grandpa the preacher

My grandpa was called to be a preacher long before I was born. The son of an Amish farmer and author, my grandpa was ordained by lot as a pastor in the Mennonite church when he was 34 years old.

One of my earliest memories of him is both a confusing and painful one. I remember sitting in the pew one Sunday morning. Swinging my legs in the air because they did not yet reach the floor. I looked down at my new blue dress, lovingly fingering the three Holly Hobby Buttons that were stitched on the front. Admired the soft ruffle that edged the skirt. After what felt like an eternity, Grandpa got up and began his sermon.

While his exact words elude me, the admonishment passed on to me that day was that women should not wear frilly things. I looked from my cute little buttons and my ruffled skirt up to the woman I was sitting with. I can’t remember if it was my mother or one of my aunts. But I know it was a woman because the women still sat on one side of the church and the men on the other. I remember looking up in confusion, wondering what we should do about my new dress. I went from feeling pretty and happy, to confused and dismayed.

In many ways, I have spent many years since then trying to figure out what to do about that dress. The teachings of family and church in my early years left me with an unconscious belief that I, as a woman, should never look beautiful. That little girl in her cute little new dress was shut behind a door inside of me until I finally realized I could not fully live until I gave her a voice and a place.

Grandpa my friend

But here is the exquisite piece – my Grandpa loved me no matter what. He saw me, the shy little girl who grew to love crafting words as much as he did. Who shared his love for cherry delight and brown sugar frosting piled on thick. The country girl who grew to love wandering the hills and praying out loud with only the trees and stones of the brook, the birds, and the squirrels as fellow worshipers.

One of my happiest childhood days was spent at his side. My parents had moved us from Ohio to Arizona. One winter, my Grandparents drove out to stay with my brothers and I while my parents went on a trip. Now grandpa walked every day of his life that he was able. If it was icy out, he would walk loops in the house. Nothing deterred him from moving his feet to the rhythm that thrummed inside his giant heart.

So on one particular day in Phoenix, my grandpa decided to take his walk up a nearby mountain. And he wanted my brother and I to join him. He called the school to get permission and we were allowed to take the entire day off. I loved school but when I put my feet on the mountain path and breathed in the fresh clear air that only exists in places like that, the air of the classroom felt like a stuffy memory. Walking up the mountain with Grandpa woke something up inside of me and I have been in love with walking and with mountains ever since.

grandpa the famous

At church, the next Sunday, the visiting pastor, who was quite famous in our circles, nearly shrieked from the pulpit when he recognized my Grandpa sitting in the pews. I felt so proud to be linked to this famous person that my Grandpa was.

Years later I found myself sitting in another pew. This time behind my parents as they waited for my grandpa and another visiting pastor to come out of the side room with the hymnals that were used for ordination by lot in our denomination. I saw the slip of paper in my dad’s hymnal a fraction of a second before he did and I felt the weight that my grandpa felt at his own ordination. As a woman, I would never have a place of leadership in our Mennonite circle, yet I felt a weight that literally shook my shoulders as if I would be the one to bear this new responsibility.

Always welcoming

Time moved on and so did our family, eventually settling in the Carolinas. We didn’t get to see Grandpas very often. But when we made the trip back to Ohio and would walk through that door, Grandpa would always come to welcome us with arms wide open.

“Ooohhh my! If it isn’t Marita! Mamma, come see who is here!” And he would envelop me in his arms and hold me close to his heart for a minute. Letting me know that no matter where my journey took me, I would still always belong.

Black Sheep

What I wouldn’t give for one more of those hugs. Because of COVID, I didn’t get to say goodbye to him and that brings a sharp edge to my grief.

If I’m being honest though, I suppose I have kept myself away more than necessary over the past few years because I have felt like the black sheep of the family. The same ancient texts and the teachings of loving the Divine with all I’ve got. Loving my neighbor as myself. These same teachings have brought me to a very different practice of faith. It first took my feet across the ocean. Then it brought me home. Now it’s taken my feet to rallies and protests. Opened my mouth to support queer people. Refugees. Immigrants. Black Lives. Lately, it’s caused me to mask up and stay away. It’s opened my eyes to recognize the Divine in the most unexpected places and in people I would have been taught cannot house the Divine. Yet there It is.

I think part of me has kept a distance because I felt like the odd one out. The lone Democrat in a family of Republicans. The one who has left the faith – when in reality, my faith has never felt more real. More true. And my soul more whole. I didn’t want to disappoint. Neither did I like the feeling of being so different. Of perhaps not belonging anymore. In this way, my grief is praise to the tight feeling of belonging I once had.

Grandpa’s girlfriends

Yet Grandpa would always envelop me and welcome me home. No matter what. Even when his eyes could no longer recognize me, his heart did. And he would laugh and be so glad that one of his girlfriends had come to see him.

You see, there were 5 of us granddaughters and 12 grandsons. He took to calling us his 5 girlfriends. He would periodically take us out for breakfast and, after a morning of stories and laughter, he would ask the waitress for the check. Always letting her know that these were his girlfriends.

While Holmes County and the Mennonite world may know him as a preacher, he was so much more than that.

Poet. Hiker. Entrepreneur. Author. Storyteller. Historian. Generous giver. Nurturer. Leader. Teacher. Salesman. Joke-teller. Brother. Father. Lover. Grandpa. Friend.

Grief is praise

Moving across the ocean several times, compressing my belongings to several suitcases, has caused me to loosen my hands and let go of many things. Yet somehow, I kept a letter that Grandpa wrote to me when I lived in Brooklyn. I had traveled to Ohio for the holidays and left my coat at his house when I left. He took it to his store where he sent it UPS. When I pulled it from the box, in my tiny apartment in New York, I found a sweet letter that he had written to me. I pulled out that letter Christmas night and read it once again. I read again how he had given my coat a couple of extra hugs and prayed over it before he sent it. Held the letter to my heart in one hand. Squeezed the Holly Hobby buttons I had saved in the other…and wept.

Tears of grief. Tears of Praise.

I lost a great love. But I had a great love.

Loss is complex. Loss is simple. Grief is praise. And in this way, grief is good.

It leaves a hole because something was there. Something that spent a lifetime of growing and giving and blooming.

I think about all he was. The enormous role he filled for so many. The impact of his life. And I look around. At my father and his siblings. My brothers and my cousins. My children and the other great-grandchildren. The great greats who have come and those who will come. And I see him. There is a bit of him in each of us because, well, I suppose it takes that many of us to hold all the pieces of who he was. And now still is.

He was our legend. And we are always his.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

The Beauty of Brokenness and Cracks

I find myself sitting alone in a quiet house. Chilled November air dances through the wind chimes and the almost-bare tree branches wave a few remaining leaves. I sit. Still. Trying to quiet my racing mind.

There is so much to do. I want to jump and tackle it all. Create hope and bring healing. Work in a frenzy till I can cross it all off my list. And then. Then I can sit.

I’m not so good at sitting and resting. At just being. Especially when there is work to be done.

Create hope and bring healing

I recently had the privilege to sit in a circle of women. It was an unusually warm day for November. A gift of golden warmth. We sat in the park, under an open blue sky and gave presence to the slow but steady descent of the sun as it kissed the earth good night.

My heart was heavy. So weary of the division in our nation. The anger. Fighting. Tearing each other apart. Forgetting how to listen. To really see each other.

“How are we gifted,” I asked, “to be of comfort and an inspiration to others in the coming months?” How do we create hope and bring healing?

Because we are broken. Divided. Jobs, friendships, and even lives are being lost.
I want to fix it. Create hope and bring healing. Another perspective that will help.

golden truth

But then one of my friends stopped me in my tracks. She pushed back at my question with her truth that was gold.

In essence, she said she was done. Over it. No more trying to heal and mend others. All that was left now was to be her most authentic self.

I sat. Sunned. Inspired. Relieved. The truth, when it shows up, is surprisingly easy to recognize.

And this is what I heard and recognized. A truth familiar but forgotten.

It is not my job to bring healing. To mend the tears in the fabric of family, friends, community or nation. That is a load not intended for me to carry.

BUT – what is on me, is me. My very own self. To love and care for. Nurture and grow. To find the truth of my own authentic self and step fully into who I am.

I’m going to be honest. To truly live authentically takes all of the energy I have. It takes more courage than attempting to heal everyone else. It is harder work. More painful. Gosh! Most days I’d rather go help someone else heal their pain than examine my own. Ouch. There’s more there than I imagined.

authenticity

Looking back over my life I see that the moments I tried the most and worked the hardest to bring healing to others, were the most exhausting. Futile. Discouraging. Leading to complete and utter burn out.

Yet the moments when I was just being me. Like really ME. Who I truly am. People would come up to me and tell me things about myself that shocked me. Ways I had impacted them without even trying.

Maybe the world only needs what fits through the cracks of a broken soul on its way to wholeness.

So maybe the golden beauty is that when we stop trying to fix the brokenness around us and work instead on our own broken and beautiful selves, the healing we find somehow seeps out through our cracks and finds its way to where it needs to go.

Maybe the world only needs what fits through the cracks of a broken soul on its way to wholeness.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still as passionate about living in a world where all creatures, human and otherwise, can be whole and healthy. I’ve just realized anew that if that is to happen, it will only happen if I am as whole and real as I can be.

So I will take up my space in the room. I will care more fully and gently for the person whose face stares back at me in the mirror. Embrace her and put her shoes on each day. I will be her. Not who other people think she should be. Not who she thinks other people need her to be.

I will do my best to be who I know she needs me to be. Because she is me.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

From the Basement of My Soul

4 years ago, I woke up to the news that Trump had been elected. And I wept. Not for myself – as a straight, white citizen, I didn’t expect my personal life to be greatly affected. No, I carried a crushing agony inside for those I care deeply about, who I knew were going to be utterly broken during the coming years.

My tears became a lament. I grabbed pen and paper and let these words flow from the brokenness and despair I so keenly felt. They truly came from the basement of my soul.

So here, in the middle of uncertainty and anxiety, I share with you my prayer of lament. Hoping it can jar free that hope that is in you. That no matter what happens, we are the doulas and there is a birth in process.

From the basement of my soul

As darkness rises, gathers tight
Folds in upon itself
Growing thick and spreading far,
Be the light.
The light in my soul for
Only light can chase back the clutches of darkness
that threaten to take over the land I love
The community I once knew.
My neighborhood far and near.

I cannot shake the darkness
Nor did I ask for this.
Did not enslave or trample my way to the top
But yet
I bear the sin of those who did
Who today are rising even stronger.
Because of the color of my skin I also bear this sin.
While they gloat I grieve a grief
That shakes my soul to the core.
And in that shaking I am undone and lie
A tiny crumpled ball
In the basement of my soul.

And there I weep.
For we have sinned.
Have put on a pedestal those who lie and cheat and steal.
Who happily step on the soul of God’s creation and laugh the wound away. We worship those who break the law to rise to the top but
Point our fingers at those who break lesser laws just to survive.
So we send them to prison or return them to hell while
We gorge ourselves with the darkness and think it is the light.

In the basement of my soul, I am spent.
Day after day I confess the sins of those who share my race and my skin
But not my soul.
Forgive, I plead, and let the madness stop.

I open my eyes in the basement of my soul,
While screaming winds rip apart the roof of my nation
And see I am not alone.
The Light has always been with me and
Others who bear that Light are coming closer
Growing stronger and I remember that
Darkness makes the Light grow stronger.
This cursed wretched darkness is giving courage and bravery
To voices who have never felt needed before.
Out of darkness, hope is born.
Justice is birthed anew while we
The doulas believe and nurture,
Swaddle and grow it.

O Light of all light, push back this darkness.
Expose the hate for what it is.
Peel back the layers to show the fear and
Cleanse this land of self preservation.

From the basement of my soul
I dance with joy because now I see
A nation of Doulas that will never be stopped.
Driving taxis, teaching schools, serving meals, pounding nails
Black, White and all the glorious shades between.
Rich, poor, in rallies or on knees,
In courtrooms, buses, hospitals, airports, prisons.
One doula gives courage to another
And then another and another.
It spreads like a wildfire of light.
Yes!
We are the doulas and we stand guard over this birth
As if it were our own while
Light is born anew and
Given wings to deliver
The death sentence to this darkness.



Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Will I Ever Be Enough?

I thought it would get easier. And in many ways it has. But that underlying, nagging feeling that I don’t have what it takes. That I will never be enough. Rejection is surely just around the corner. Those feelings and fears I’ve had from the beginning are still are there.

It wearies me. After so many years. So much internal work. So many therapy sessions. Endless conversations. Countless tissue boxes and tears.

Yes, I see growth. Beauty. A depth that wasn’t there before. Wisdom emerging from the ashes. So much that is good.

But do our oldest and deepest wounds ever go away? Are they the ghosts of past, present, and future? Perhaps not visible, yet hauntingly and deeply felt.

I want to feel as if I’m the love of his life. The missing puzzle piece. But I feel like I’m only half of that missing piece. A love but maybe not the love.

That’s not what I want. Not what I signed up for.

It’s like fate has dealt us the best and worst of hands all in one. To walk away from the pain would also be to walk away from the deepest happiness I’ve ever had. How does one even begin to process that, much less live through it?

To quote Daniel Levy’s character, David Rose, in the show Schitt’s Creek,

“I’ve been burned so many times, I’m basically the human equivalent of the inside of a roasted marshmallow.”

David Rose

Deep inside I carry a weight that, whether I’m consciously aware of it or not, tells me I’m not enough. That I don’t have what it takes. One too many rejections leaves one feeling like the next one is just around the corner.

I mindfully breathe in the golden color of this fall day. The birds singing welcome to sunshine dripping on green and gold leaves. It strikes me that the earth is letting go of one season while fully waking up to a new day. Embracing and releasing at the same time.

I always thought it was either-or. Death or life. Acceptance or rejection. Sorrow or joy. But what if we are able to be enough and not be enough at the same time? What if I’m not his everything but still be the love of his life?

Maybe life is best lived when we figure out how to hold our grief and our happiness in the same hand. Not either-or, but both. Not enough, yet still enough, at the same time.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

What the Church Prepared Me For

Growing up in the church, in the 80s and 90s, there was zero visible representation from the *queer community. At least not in any of the half dozen churches I called home during those years. That, combined with the shudders and grimaces that would accompany any discussion of the gay community, I always assumed they were way out there somewhere. In fact, I subconsciously believed that it was impossible for a queer person to be a Christian.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up to the fact that my husband is bi…and my brother is gay.

*not all members of the LGBTQ community identify as “queer” but I use it here because Austin self identifies as queer. It was originally used as a derogatory epithet, so it’s usage should never be assumed.

an impossible reality

The impossible had just become a very real reality.

And it shook me. To the core. The startling reality I suddenly found myself in caused me to question everything. On the one hand, I was dealing with the very real issues of my self-worth and my personal journey through profound brokenness towards wholeness. On the other, there was a crisis of faith that simmered slowly on the back burner. I had to relegate that one to the back burner because suddenly discovering I wasn’t married to a straight person took a lot of energy to process. Many of my early posts share a glimpse into that portion of the journey.

So on the back burner, this pot simmered and brewed. Like the foam that rises to the top of a pot of lentils, the untruths slowly rose to the top where they could be seen and scooped away. Washed down the drain.

the church didn’t prepare me to love

What I found after years of brewing and scooping, of stirring and waiting, was that the church has done a pretty pitiful job of actually loving others. In fact, I will dare to say that the church is pretty good at creating “others”, fine-tuning the art of other-izing. The church didn’t prepare me to love, it prepared me to judge. Us vs. them. It legalized pride, barriers, and condescension. What breaks my heart the most is that it caused people to hide God-given parts of themselves in shame and try to be someone they are not.

It strikes me as odd that the very institution designed to represent the one who died because he loved those on the margins, is often responsible for creating those margins.

Think about it.

The ones who followed all the religious laws perfectly couldn’t stand the teacher from the backwoods town who constantly broke the religious laws.

This teacher seemed to relish sitting in the margins the religious leaders had created.

He became “other” himself rather than other-ize.

The folks on the margins, the ones who weren’t welcomed into the religious establishment, they felt comfortable hanging out with him. Margins disappeared and everyone shared in the experience of being uniquely human.

Beautiful.

Loved.

Worthy.

Us.

Imagine the hope for the world if we could see all of humanity as us.

Just us.

The church didn’t prepare me to love, but Jesus did. As my previously held beliefs collided with my reality, a new way of seeing things was born. As the world slowly softened around the edges once again, I discovered some beautiful things.

Man-made things like borders and margins, they can go away. They are self-protective mechanisms. Only love is ancient and inclusive.

And yes, there are queer Christians. Many of them. I am incredibly blessed to know a few of them. They have shown me a space that is lovely and inclusive.

And yet I also know there are many more who are still in the closet. Hiding. Dying a bit on the inside. Wishing it would be safe to come out. Longing to live authentically. They are your sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Your neighbors. Choir directors. Sunday School Teachers. They are us.

The pandemic has given us the gift of pausing our crazy schedules and the mad rush about life. While we long for life to return to normal, maybe there are some “normals” that should never be returned to. Maybe it’s time to replace the need to be right and “holy” with the more urgent need to love.

Maybe we could be a little more like the One we say we follow. The one who didn’t think twice about breaking ancient religious law but was passionate about welcoming everyone to the table.

Everyone.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.