Over
the last few weeks, the Kirby home has been in a paradoxical state of conflict.
How do you celebrate with the victorious and support the disappointed
simultaneously? Mosie and Chloe, one grade apart, trained hard all
cross country season, improved tremendously, and both consistently
moved up the ranks each meet. When the announcement was made on who
would represent the Greyhounds at the District Meet, Mosie's name was
called, Chloe's not.
Just a girl. wife. mom. sister. clergy fashionista. I'm Learning. Living. Becoming. Transforming. Growing. Loving. Letting go. Journeying on. Returning to God one vulnerable breath at a time. A puzzle of seven with one piece forever missing And, yet, somehow I live! That's the story...Well that and other randomness, life stuff, clergy musings, whatever else comes to mind.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Rewriting the Story...
Why do we go to the grave? While I meticulously arranged and rearranged the flowers we had brought with us to adorn the headstone of our second born son, Jeremy, this thought swirled in my imagination. Why am I here? The reality is Jeremy is not here. I certainly don't believe that his spirit is held captive in the casket we laid his body to rest in 3 years ago yesterday.
My heart sunk. A wave of nauseas energy overtook me. I shuddered imagining what was actually left of his broken body now six feet under along with all the other bodies. As my eyes scanned headstone upon headstone reaching out to Hwy 90, separating the grave from the water's edge, I was brought to my knees. With jealous rage the grave seeks to devour, yet, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" I know that I know that I know the grave cannot contain Jeremy.
So,
why do we make this annual trek to mark Jeremy's birth, death,
Christmas, Easter and other special occasions? I guess somehow in the
ritual of the rhythm of returning to the grave we find comfort as we
remember. We seek closure. We find consistency. We
seek to make sense out of a situation that otherwise makes little to
no sense. We find the death of a child remains. The. death. of. a.
child...Have you really ever stopped to imagine the brutal life long
implications?
It's
not just the loss of the child. That's painful enough to bear. You
love that child. You delight in that child. "This
is my dearly loved son, who brings me great joy." You
are that child. That child is you. Mothers carry that child for nine
months. Fathers help to carry mothers as they carry that child for
nine long months. That child is so intertwined to who you are it's as
if an eternal umbilical cord connects your souls. When they
leave a piece of your very soul, the connective tissue holding you
and that child together, rips away, too.
But,
there's more. Parents are the link to the past for the child. The
generation upon generation the child was brought forth from. The
heritage. Lineage. Pillar the child is building their life
upon. Parents hold the familiar stories of old days that are told and
retold to the child. In a reciprocal fashion, the child holds the
parent's future in their tiny little hand.
Oh
the dreams and plans we make in our imaginations for what are
children will grow to be? Do? Achieve? We hope, plan, and prepare
for them to go further than us. We willing sacrifice in order for them to have a better life than us. We
long for them to grow in knowledge and stature and far exceed us. We
create stories in our mind filled with us helping our children along
the journey. We "see" ourselves loading them up in
their car and sending them off to college as we silently weep. We
envision ourselves sheltering them from heartache when their first
serious relationship breaks apart. We are there when they enter
the workforce, cheering them on. We see ourselves a nervous wreck as
they take the hand of their loved one and vow "to death do us
part. " We sit in the waiting room, anticipating yet
another generation that will be a branch in our family's tree. And we feel the warmth of Christmas after Christmas gathered around the fireplace telling
and retelling the stories of old that link us to our past, and
provide a foundation that will take us into our preferred future, together.
All
those carefully ordered dreams that felt like definites are suddenly, violently ripped
away. A branch is torn from the tree. With the shattering of the future dreams comes the equally
disturbing ripping away of the innocent, yet blissfully ignorant,
sense of security, hope and promise that the future would hold
uninhibited blessing. Now, you are left with your family tree missing a branch that cannot be replaced or reformed. A wound in your heart
for the child you are missing in the everyday present, but also you are tasked with the daunting reality of recreating a new vision of a family future. A future, if you are completely honest with yourself, that you are not looking as forward to journeying through because someone is missing
from the story. Your story. You scramble to begin to rewrite the
story. You have a spouse. Other children perhaps. The story must go
on...
There
is nothing left to do but muster up the courage to journey on. To
write new chapters. To sing new songs. Not clinging too tightly to a
vision of what you think should be. Nor getting stuck in the past of
what could have been. In ninja like fashion you become keenly
aware that all we have is now. Today. This moment. This breath. So you embrace this fleeting moment. Breathe in all its complexities.
Embrace the joy, as well as the pain. Be still as the winds of change blow you onward. Living in the moment, loving extravagantly, and laying your head down at night thankful for what you do have.
Labels:
children are our future,
future,
hope,
live in moment,
loss of child,
the grave
Location:
Jackson, MS, USA
Monday, May 6, 2013
At the CrossRoads

I'm not exactly sure how we decided who would get the privilege of actually going to get Rayanne and negotiating the family's terms. What I do remember is thinking it was perhaps the most difficult, and definitely the most dangerous, leg of the journey.
Labels:
choice,
I volunteer,
indecision,
mission impossible,
transformation
Location:
Biloxi, MS
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Generation Beautiful Dirty Rich
I left a voicemail on the House of Promise machine that Saturday afternoon--fully expecting to have to call back Monday morning. From Saturday to Monday I was burdened by a stress migraine that I did not realize was just settling in for the long haul. On Monday morning I called, again, got the recording, but did not leave another message. I was not "sure" we were pressing in the right direction, and decided to just cool it.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Someone was Going to Die
On April 5th, 2013, a series of timeline pictures came across my FB news feed, and I knew in that instant someone was going to die. I could smell death. Feel death. Almost see death crouching in the corner.
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