Vacay

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since I posted...

I'm still here.

Earlier this week we went on a vacation-within-a-vacation to Lipa City, located outside of Metro Manila.  It was very quiet and peaceful.  We stayed in a home for missionaries who need a bit of rest.  We slept deeply.  None of us brought our electronic equipment along (except for our cameras, obviously. :)

On our second day we visited a nearby resort which was pretty much empty.  We were glad to support the local economy and enjoyed their lovely pools.  

I also spent some time reading a selection of Fenelon's letters in the book The Seeking Heart.  Good stuff, especially if you're interested in spiritual formation and direction.  I may be quoting him in the future.

Coincidence?

Today my mom brought me out for a mani-pedi, a major indulgence that I was looking forward to all week.

My manicurist named Irish was such a joyful woman - she did her work super thoroughly and was really excited about the bright nail polish I brought in (a nifty OPI set I purchased in the middle of Vinnie's fight with cancer). We started talking about her kids, and her face lit up as she told me about them (including one set of twins) and how her 5 month old daughter now sleeps through the night. I said something to the effect of "wow, that's such a blessing."  She paused while filing my nails and her face clouded over.  That's when she told me.  Her six year old son has leukemia.

Leukemia? What kind? AML? ALL?

He has AML. Diagnosed at the age of six months, he's fought it this long with the help of the local pediatric state-run hospital. Unfortunately, the state hospitals in the Philippines tend to be woefully inadequate (they have decent private hospitals, but those are out of the financial reach of most people). You have to buy all the "extras" at state hospitals - food, medications, (chemo??) the cost of keeping you there... in the end it's quite expensive.

Plus she has five other children to look after.

To recover, her son needs a bone marrow transplant. It was unclear to me whether they can't find a donor, whether the hospital doesn't do transplants, or whether they just can't afford it. Either way, it looks bad. He's at home now to stay. She told me all this in bits and pieces and then I told her our story as well. We talked about feeding tubes, nausea, picky appetites, and low blood counts. We held back our tears, but just barely.

Her son sees angels now. I told her mine is with the angels. And when I gave her the tip, she literally fell to her knees in astonishment.  It was only around 50 bucks, small beans when you need tens of thousands.

I hope it helps. And I hope she knows that when we come to the end of our rope in the valley of the shadow of death, there's a hand reaching out to help us cross to the other side.

Open

On our second night here in the Philippines I woke up feeling rather warm. Our a/c was blasting, but the door was open and so the cold air was leaking out into the hall.

This is the same door I securely latched and locked from the inside before being the last person to get into bed. I even wondered to myself while I was locking the door about what kind of metal the latch was comprised of. For the record, the latch is out of Theo's reach (designed that way so he can't get out and climb on the not-childproof stairs.)

I wasn't freaked out at first. After a few minutes I began to wonder how the heck it became unlocked from the inside with no wind and nobody opening it (neither Dan or I sleepwalk, and we were safely ensconced underneath the covers when I woke up) and so I looked in all closets, verified that all our stuff and persons were present, and then promptly went back to sleep.

The next morning I found out that Theo dreamt he and Vincent were playing together with a big white balloon. Theo said he felt "happy and proud" and that Vincent was "getting bigger" and he can "almost" walk.

So I think that Vincent and his baby-sitting angel came to see us. I know he didn't need to physically unlock the door, but I think it was a message letting us know that something special happened, that someone was there.

I know, it sounds weird. But Vincent's as real as you or me, and of course he's going to visit us. Night is a perfect time since I'm usually not raging or crying in my sleep, so he can visit me without seeing my pain. In fact, I'm told by my hubby that I look rather happy as I sleep. I'd love for Vincent to see me at my best, even if it's when I'm sleeping.

Maybe next time I can even join in the balloon game.

Good Morning!

It's a beautiful day. I'm feeling one with God and the world.

Later this morning we are going to a spa.

Please don't hate me too much!

Faith Academy

Today Dan and I visited our alma mater, Faith Academy, where we graduated from high school back in 1999.  It's an awesome school, swarming with students from around the world, and the campus itself has been drastically remodeled in recent years. It was exciting to walk around, chatting with old teachers and friends.  Here's Dan and I in their new Fine Arts building.... it's huge, air-conditioned, and equipped with state-of-the-art acoustics.  Awesome!

I also felt sort of crazy. (Those of you who know me are probably thinking, "She finally figured it out!")

As I've mentioned before, one of the most difficult aspects of grief work is the sudden wash of emotions, the kind that take me from being a friendly, caring person to being a sobbing mess within moments, though not usually in public.  I can turn on a dime from acting like a "normal" person (whatever that is) to being pretty scary.

No, there were no crazy blow-ups today.  I didn't do anything nutty.  I don't have any new tattoos.  Instead, I felt really cheerful and happy up on campus, as if I were a carefree 17 year old again.  But I'm not.  I wonder how I can be doing "so well" and yet feel so crappy.  How is this possible?  How am I still functional?

Perhaps I shouldn't ask "how" I'm still functional and just be thankful that I am.  I can get up in the morning, I can cook food for my family.  I can smile and chat, at least some of the time.

Part of the problem is that when I do feel fine, (like today) I experience such guilt afterwards.  How can I be so cheerful (and even happy) when I've lost the apple of my eye, my beautiful baby Vincent?  How can I act as if life has been favorable to us when I've seen my child slowly die before my eyes, the cancer literally eating him away?  After valiantly fighting the aggressive cancer cells for months, he lost the war, exhausted from his chemo treatments, engorged with tumors.  I remember bringing him home from the hospital for the last time. I can still see his little body slowly shrinking for 11 horrible freaking days on hospice, living quietly without food or water, surviving solely on love and morphine.  How in God's name do I "get over" that?  That is NOT OK.

And yet, somehow inside, I find myself still loving God, experiencing feelings of hope and even—dare I say it— joy.  I should be excited about that, but I'm not.  It makes me feel that somehow I'm cheating Vincent as well as the deepest part of me which seems to be locked in a very long primal scream.

What's difficult too is that there are no visible signs of grieving in our culture. We don't wear black or put sackcloth and ashes on our heads.  There is no immediate way for people to know when something horrible has happened to you.  You look somewhat normal on the outside.  And if you talk to me for a few minutes, you might think I'm fine.

And sometimes I am.  I would call that a small miracle.

Costly

I've been in the Philippines now for less than 48 hours, and already I've seen beautiful sunsets, bustling shopping centers, half-starved begging children and cardboard-shack houses.  My parents' Bible School is on a gorgeous compound nestled against a low-income neighborhood.  To get to their place, we drive on a winding road weaving between open sewers and little kids playing without shoes.  It's been a while since I've seen poverty like this.  We have desperately poor people in the United States too - there are huge amounts of American children considered to be going hungry every year, but that's simply no comparison to what it is like in more developing countries.

As we were loading our luggage into the car at the Philippine airport, we were accosted by a sweet little boy about the size of Theo.  I would estimate he was probably around 6-7 years old, perhaps even older.  His breastbones were jutting out of his too-large shirt, and as he held out his hand, he asked us for food. Not for money, but for food.  He looked hungry.  Really hungry.

I got out Theo's puffed rice cereal from the plane and gave it to the boy. When Theo saw this happening, he started crying because HE wanted to eat the cereal.  And then the boy asked for more.  A local guard noticed the commotion and came to gently shoo the child away, and as we got into the car I tried to get Theo to stop crying as I explained why we gave his cereal away. I told Theo how I could buy or make him food when he was hungry, but some kids don't have any food because their parents don't have money to buy any, or the kids simply don't have any parents at all.  Upon hearing this, Theo cried harder, wanting to buy more food and give it to all the hungry kids.

But first he wanted his cereal back.

I think sometimes we're all a bit like Theo.  We want to help when we see people who are hungry or in need of medicine or shelter, but we also don't want to have to give up what we already have.  We're more than happy to buy lunch for someone who needs it, but who wants to give up the lunch they've been planning on eating themselves?  We're fine with donating money when we have a little surplus in our budget, but what about when it's something we've been counting on personally using?  We're a bit more reluctant.  That kind of giving often costs us more than we're willing to part with.

One of the things I love so much about the Christian story is that God is shown throughout human history to be a generous giver.  He doesn't just give us a small minutiae out of his surplus.  Instead, God gives us his all.  He offers us His wounds for our healing, His death for our resurrection, His life for our life.  And when we finally come home after a lifetime in a faraway land, He kills the fatted calf he's been saving to throw us a party. That's some kind of God.

I'm logging off now to buy some cereal and snacks.  A LOT of them.

Crying into my beer: a prayer when feeling miserable

God, right now I think that my wounds hurt
more than everyone else's.

I hurt more than you
I need more help than has been given 
I deserve a better life
I've worked hard but reaped little 
I've lost more than I've found

In these dark self-pitying moments
help me to see through my trauma
to the promised healing,
past the darkness to the coming light,
and beyond this death to the coming Resurrection.

Amen.