|
Monthly Archives: October 2013
I need for him to still carry weight four years after he left this earth. I long to look at him, to hold something tangible of him in my hands. I thought maybe I could post a picture of him, but they are too painful, too sensational. So I took out my camera and examined the evidence of his coming and going. This is a document of missing him
The pot I bought in art school at a ceramic sale, that we carried his ashes to the ocean in.
The bag that they gave us his ashes in.
I wished later that I would have kept one bit of his bone. A few months after Joshua died, David found this shell at the beach where we let go his ashes. It reminded me of the bits of bone and ash they gave us in the bag and so I kept it.
 His hair.
His hospital bracelet.
His feet.
The twelve rocks I picked up when I last walked with him full inside of me. Twelve rocks that I gathered on the journey, unknowing of what lay ahead. Twelve rocks that I place to remember the good God has done, just like Joshua did in that ancient book.
Joshua Dash McKeeman exists.
He was born on October 30th at 11:50pm.
He weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and was 22 in long.
He wasn’t breathing when he was born, and I think a lot about that short time with his body here on earth.
Last week my friend’s mom told me to “not have any bad imaginations.” I was about to drive down a mountain, which embarrassingly enough, I was terrified to do. But I kept my eyes fixed on the white line beside me and my husband’s tail lights in front of me, and I made it to the bottom safe and sound and better for it.
I have “bad imaginations” about the night we lost Joshua all the time. The problem is those bad imaginations are true. He was born ten minutes before Halloween, and the nurse who held me down while I birthed him was dressed as Hannah Montana. His hands were cold and his lips were bruised. I could not see his eyes, but his nose was the cutest one I have ever seen. His forehead was soft when I kissed it and his fingers kept flicking against mine.
Still there is a deeper truth and that is him strong and whole, running deeper in and further up, alive as our Maker meant us to be. We are better for having him, better even for losing him. We have woken up to this great drama God is writing and been blessed since with a blond baby to soothe our aching hearts.
It is four years of missing him. The dreams started a few days ago. Asleep, I would find myself deaf or blind, without an arm, or missing a leg. I am sure there are professionals that could tell me what these dreams mean, but I do not need them. I know. He is absent, as clearly felt each day as if I were missing a limb. I’m not saying those losses are the same, but in a way I wish they were. Somewhere deep inside wishes his absence could be seen clearly every moment as if a part of my body were gone, too awkward to speak of like a missing eye or mangled fingers. And this need grows greater as the day I lost him draws near again. At first four years ago, I was caught up in shock, grief and survival. Then I felt too imperfect a mother to mourn a child lost, ungrateful if I didn’t just focus on the three I had before me.
But fours years has given space to just miss him and that feels like a safe place to sink into. The more I rest in that empty space he left, the more “bad imaginations” cease. I don’t have to remember, question and remain in all that surrounded losing him. I can exist in that space where he does not. An empty place here on earth, part of my body missing, an ache in my heart that will only be healed after this life. This writing is a scar, bared for all to see.
He existed here on earth, kicking and dancing inside of me. I do not mourn for his life. It is already more rich and full than mine in the presence of His maker, but
I can just miss him, and that is enough.
My friends loaned me a documentary of Sally Mann to watch. It had life, death and some nakedness in it.
I thought it was funny when she took pictures of her husband clipping his toe nails while their dog licked his leg. Of course the dog wore a raw scar on his side. I’m not sure what the photo was about, I’m probably not clever enough to know. She’s truly captivating and known as a bold, courageous artist, but she seemed afraid to me.
There was one thing that I grabbed hold of in that video. One thing really, that grabbed hold of me. It has me in its’ clutches now, and I don’t think it will ever let go. Not her brazen images of death, or her excruciatingly intimate portraits of youth. It wasn’t even something she had made or said herself. She quoted a line from a book that I should have already read. I have no excuse as an artist for never having read it, except that maybe I wasn’t ready to hear this line until that very moment last weekend. Maybe if I had read it before I would have skipped over it, discounting it as something I had already seen in a book once. I wonder if you will hear these words?
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
She spoke these words from A Moveable Feast by Hemingway. I’m sure they are in most writers’ self help books. I’m sure there is an entire brand of guru giving inspiring conferences based on this truth. But I had never heard these words in this way, and for me they have little to do with writing.
My first drawing teacher in art school was a bear of a man. He shuffled when he walked and showed us how to sharpen our pencils just so. I loved him dearly.
He was obsessed with mark making, the putting of pencil to paper, making a mark. It was not enough for him that we made areas of light and dark on our page. The shading had to be built of a myriad of marks, painstakingly laid. The image was nothing without the process.
He could always tell if the marks were authentic. And he had no patience for trying to cover up a mistake. Erasing was to him the ultimate beauty, a tearing back down to find what we had already built. Every mistake a chance to go deeper, to find if the layers were true. To dance and smear a fog of charcoal across the paper, spend hours laying line upon line, cutting back through with the white of the eraser, nothing was a waste to him. The only sin was a frantic covering up, bearing down upon a seeming mistake in order to disguise it. This he hated, this alone would draw anger quick from the towering teddy bear of a man. His soft step and and easy way would draw up solid against this disrespect. Disrespect of the process, and of the paper that welcomed us and gave us ground to create the image. He would yank the charcoal or pencil from our hands and grieving tell us how the paper was ruined, it had no integrity left, it’s woven strands broken and mashed under our impatient hands. No mistake was to be bullied in his classroom. He would crank the old windows open wide for sun and air to bathe us, pulling our drawings close to the light to inspect every line the pressure of our pencil made, judging if it was true. Was it building, and describing, or was it tearing back down, purifying and defining? Either were fine, but a deceitful covering up was not acceptable – that was senseless destruction. We grew more afraid of his displeasure than of letting our flaws and failures show. As long as we were honest with the marks we had made, as long as we were brave enough to dive back down through the layers with our gum erasers, then he was always redeeming. There was no way to fail in his class if we did not disguise. He required only that each mark be made with every bit of passion our souls could muster. Each mark layed as if it was our signature even if it was to be buried, a foundation for a thousand others.
“…write one true sentence.”
The same friends loaned me another documentary. This one on Richard Avedon. It blew my mind, his images are mighty, indescribably powerful. But I wondered – If he had to trick his subjects to get to truth… Did he write a true sentence?
“Write the truest sentence that you know.”
I read a lot of Donald Miller. I have never met him but I think he gets me, and I get him. Except for the part about my story. The part about story in general I get. God’s story, the story of the world He created, the story of humanity, history. Got it, it’s an epic written by an all powerful, all knowing, loving author who is far beyond our comprehension but cares about our heartbreaks and the flowers on our windowsill. A story where the creator comes into our mess, offering us new life, His life. A story of good news, that’s made up of innumerable individual stories. Yep all that I believe and I love the no holds barred, irreverent way he writes about it. But when I get down to my story, that’s when I have a hard time. I know there are workshops and conferences for these things. If I were to break down and go to one, I could have all the little subplots in my life figured out so they would support a big, beautiful plot arch reaching from now until whenever I die. Then I would be assured I could live a meaningful life, once scene at a time. Then I would be a whole and healthy, fully redeemed character in my correct place in God’s story. But what if I just can’t quite believe that? I just can’t do what him and all the other writers, speakers, pastors, artists etc want me to – micromanage my story until I find fulfillment. They seem to be pointing to a path that doesn’t feel true to me. With so many people out there, if every scene in our story matters and if we can write these scenes in a way that fits the narrative we want, it feels like maybe they will only matter to ourselves. And if they only matter to ourselves then they will be forgotten and can’t make a difference to others. A friend told me that we waver between Pride and Despair. Always pride and despair hot on our trail.
Maybe the problem of thinking of my life as a story is that it makes me want to flesh out my character, set the scene a bit better, understand the journey fully. A story needs details – details like money, success, prestige, a nice house, the correct number of children. When we read a story there are lots of sentences, we know what the words mean. But I have tried to write a God approved story for myself. It didn’t work. I can’t even co author one page with Him it seems. From the moment I get up in the morning my day is off track compared with what I think would make a “good, humble, unselfish, productive” story. The minute I make a calendar or a to do list, life and death crash in with other plans. As soon as I read a book that explains everything, all new questions crop up, mend one relationship and another one breaks. In trying to write a story, the only true word I am left with is GRACE. I don’t want to write my story with God because I am afraid to get distracted by the details I can add.
Instead of trying to sort out my story, I would rather write a true sentence with my Creator. This makes more sense to me, I am one sentence in His story.
I can’t possibly wade through it all, navigate the land mines or construct what should be. I can only ask… Is this the truest sentence that I know?
I have been making marks. Pencil to paper, babies born, dishes washed, laundry done, meals made, lessons taught, lullabies sung. Mark making upon mark making, the layers build upon the humble marks. It is an ordering of chaos, books read, images made and my thoughts whirl. I sense the image growing dim, too many marks to see. A slip across the paper makes me want to crumple the sheet and start again. I remember my drawing teacher “Honor the grounds on which you built these marks, respect the hours you have labored. But don’t be afraid to cut back into it, removing, clearing space to see.” I could never get back to pure white, all the ghosts of marks made still floating on the paper, making the finished drawing all the more lovely. White space giving place to breath, defining what I am left with – the image I have been seeking since I first began putting pen to paper.
One true sentence.
If I am being honest I will say that I wish my sentence contained a beautiful home in the perfect location. I wish that my sentence held more money, recognition, an easy life, understanding, a bit of ego, philanthropy, mother of the year awards, a career, a better body, perfect children, the future all wrapped up with a pretty bow on top, etc, etc…
But I know He cares if the sparrows are hungry. He makes sure the flowers are clothed. So how much more you and I? If I can let go all the story, just make the marks, and cut through to the one sentence he meant for me to write – The one line I am to speak in His epic play, the few notes I am to sing in His grand symphony – Then I am free. Free to do this one thing and do it well in Him. I know others, only a few, who are speaking their truest sentence into existence. They give me hope that I can also.
My one true sentence, the truest one I know
lies naked with my husband. Gives birth to four boys. Moves faithful together with them. And when it comes to creating with my Maker, all I can do is simply ask – Is this the truest that I can speak for Him? Is this the line he made me to be in His epic? There is nothing else, no matter how much I would like to write it into my story.
images from early summer 2013 . Hasselblad 500/cm . expired Portra 800
The words come first this time.
I did not love my husband.
I toyed with the wording inside my mind, trying to figure out if this was really the truth. Maybe I just did not like him? Maybe I loved him, but he didn’t love me anymore?
I thought I used to love him, but maybe that was only a memory of a time in which I was too different of a person to relate to anything I am now. I remembered looking at him young and being enthralled, revering his every movement, but now I could not find that passion or that peace. There are distinctions to be made between loving someone and being in love, receiving their love in a give and take or being absolutely completely taken with each other,
but I was weary of making sense of empty hollow words rattling. And the days pressed heavy, I couldn’t breath.
The weight would lift when I would spew out everything that was wrong, everything that had come upon us in our eleven years together to take us off the course I had counted on. But then the weight would settle heavier, our souls sick from fear and blame and doubt. Still naked together, but rubbed thin to the breaking point. We were a fearful grasping.
I know he felt the same and I hated him for it. Hated myself for being unloveable. Grew ever angrier at God for giving us more than we could handle. Each new struggle was a reminder. Our dead child. That’s all, defined by our dead child. Never escaping the things that came of those moments when I couldn’t hold him tight enough, couldn’t bind him to life. Our dead child.
We tried to think of someone to talk to. They all seemed dangerous, speaking of all the nothingness seemed hopeless, more than we could bear. Yes there were moments of beauty, joyful times with friends, always our children close to us. But we knew what lay deep inside was not as it had been, was not as it should be. We did not see enough of God in “church” so we stopped going. Then one Sunday we returned, just to be inside the four walls where Jesus’ name would be spoken, not hoping for anything more. And then we were standing amidst the crowds that do not know us, tears streaming down. We didn’t know much, just that we had said we were sorry. Not to each other, we didn’t have strength enough for that yet, but to Him, the One who binds us together. I walked home hopeful that the air had cleared, but then the next week came, and work came, and the children came, and all the same pain persisted.
And then after him and our boys had gone camping for the weekend, the phone call came. My grandma, my Gran who I was supposed to have more years to see. Who I NEEDED. Who I hadn’t been to see. She was dying. And it was one death too many and I fell empty. Just empty.
I didn’t know if she would see the next week and I could not get to her. Children felt like a sprawling weight around my neck, my husband a chain, the miles between us like running through air thick in a dream where the horizon is always fading farther away. I could not get to her. Really? Losing a child and birthing another meant that I couldn’t go to her in all this time? How had four, five years gone by? I had been in my moment of pain, holding the bits of joy close in a bubble and time had passed me by. I blamed him and I blamed me and I blamed our one enormous loss leading to countless smaller ones. And this one felt like one loss too many, the signal that my life was irreversibly off course.
I could not get to her and so I ran. Ran down the street outside my house, through dusty fields and along the waves. I ran back through all the time, back to moonlit swims and her wise words, back to the sun beating down while ice cream ran in rivers through my skinny legs onto her pool chairs. I ran back down her street in Kansas and into college days where my love proposed to me sitting on her daughter’s bed. Tiny pink flowers flecking a white bedspread, ivy curling off the dresser while I cried tears of happiness, innocent of all our lives would bring. I ran and ran, back to our white house by the honeysuckle bush, shuttered windows and her sitting with me on the golden couch by the window. I ran til I could touch her hair, forever died brown and up in a beehive, til I could smell her, everything that touched her, vanilla. Ran until all I could hear were her familiar words – that even though she left her hometown and family farm for a life traveling with the military, though she had lost her husband, him shot down and missing seven years, though she had raised three children on her own. Even through all of this, her life had been rich and the Good Lord had taken care of her. While I ran, her words came clear and soothing to me, but when I stopped all I heard was the static of a world spinning wildly out of my control. Doubt and fear buzzing in my ears.
He came home, told me he was sorry and that work and school, all that was expected of us, driving for days and expenses didn’t matter… He asked me how soon did I want to leave, to go to her? And in those words I felt the wall between us break.
I can’t tell you of all the rest. Can’t give voice to it properly. I will say what I can. I am not good at speaking, only slightly more comfortable at typing and so I punch these words out because they are the only ones I know. We stepped off that plane, out of California’s mad dash and into space – wide, open and free. We drove through trees, back into the heart of that place where we had begun, the midwestern states. Clattered up the gravel driveway and the sky dipped and spun as I walked familiar hills round my teenage home. I was beyond unable to breath. My heart ached so fierce that I thought sorrow would crush me. A great tearing ache, welling up for all the pieces I just couldn’t put together as I watched my children run through trees I had not greeted in years and up the steps to their grandparent’s home. A home they had not spent time within since their father was far away at war, had not visited since the Christmas after their baby brother was not born. I did not know what to do with the grief rolling over me. I did not feel I could survive it and so I took up a camera. It didn’t matter which one… I picked up my camera like I did after I lost my Joshua and I pointed it in the direction of beauty. The camera body against my face, a shield. I looked through it at light falling across my boys running through green, and that was all that mattered. And when my heart almost burst to see them helping their grandma in her kitchen, knowing they were twice the age since they had done that last, I just pressed the shutter and told the story of here and now. And that story healed the lost years. Each time I found within all that used to be familiar, a new oddity, I did the same. Each time I didn’t understand a piece of where I had come from or where I had journeyed to, I made an image as a way to deal with this strangeness. Document, process and the pain eased as I accepted each frame as it came to me.
And then there was her room. The place I did not take my camera. A sacred space, suspended between life and death. I needed to be in that moment with her, that long drawn out last breath. I needed to hold her hand incessantly, to feel her cheek against mine and look straight into her eyes even when they began to stare as she slipped away. I threw the shield away here, I did not need it. All was peace beside her. I could not bear to look through a viewfinder, a lens, nothing to distort the reality that she and I were together again. And nothing had changed, time had not stolen even a tiny piece away. I wanted to see everything in my periphery, the silly plastic flowers on her window sill, the tree growing up strong outside, it’s leaves sheltering us. My children’s photos on her jewelry box next to her, black and white in her wedding dress and him helmet under one arm, stepping out of the cockpit. Yes her face was drawn and I could see the blood pulsing tired within her veins, but her words held as much weight as ever and that is all I needed to carry from that room. She said she understood and she was proud of us. Proud of how we had handled the death of our son, proud of our living boys growing, laughing and swimming in the water she loves. The boys stroked her fingers painted pretty, kissed her cheek and I waited that night as she was born into another life. The nurse a midwife by her side, her daughter coaching, reassuring her that it was time she let go. A sacred space, as we circled round and gave what comfort we could as she made her way through pain into rest.
I drove home through the rain that morning and into my husband’s arms. He held me and I knew it would be different. We had not fallen out of love. We just could not find each other.
I could not find him. He could not find me. We could not even find ourselves.
And so we set out, headed to what we did not know. Him on a plane back to California, work and waves and a quiet home. Me in a car with children and my brother, eleven hours of states stretching past. Back to a house that still smelled of my Gran, she hung heavy everywhere, the air drenched with her. Again I could not fathom the sorrow of a season passed by, so I drew out my camera. Not to hide behind this time, but to hold out an offering, hoping to catch any last glimpse before her light faded. I was not capable of making the images that should have been made in her home, days after her death, her great grandchildren swimming in the pride and joy, her pool. I was just a clumsy girl, clicking away, trying to harvest any of the memories that had grown rich in that space.
We criss crossed from Wichita back to Missouri, a town so small I didn’t know any of its’ kind still existed. My Gran’s senior picture still upon the high school walls. Her grave lying next to her love’s tombstone and the cows watched as we lowered her down. Her family loved her so much, that we couldn’t bear not to see it all, even the dirt rising up all around as they sealed her body into the ground. There was no planning, no wondering if we should, we drove to her mother’s farm like it was drawing us itself. And we walked, each child, grandchild and great grandchild through trees and streams, into barns, around ponds and finally up to the old farm house. Pumping water out of the rusted pump, without a word, compelled. Into the old farmhouse we trickled to see a new refrigerator and ancestors upon the walls. We trod that ground, pressing our life down firm into it, picking up bones and antlers, throwing walnuts and laughing long in the light. The sun bathing us golden, until it could reach no more above the trees and sunk splendid beyond what we could see. And still we lingered in the car headlights, till all was black and we gathered round coffee and catfish bigger than I had ever seen. We had a feast, her legacy.
Then everyone went their way, back to their lives. And I had to wait for a plane to fly me back to mine. Completely exhausted, and my children at their worst, friends took us in for three days as we waited. I did not mind the waiting. I was afraid to go back, did not know where to go from here. There was honest joy, people gathered in those friends’ home, dinners shared and a big breakfast cooked and laid out on a weathered wooden table. There I had time to think of all the people who had gathered round our journey. My Gran’s friends, tears running down their cheeks, distant relatives cooking and cooking more than we could ever eat after her service, hometown friends round fires and tables lazy with good food and the comfort of shared memories. Chickens, tree houses, parks and always the leaves whispering, the trees sheltering us. I was full of a peaceful grief and gratitude.
And the last night in my friend’s home, I told her the things I tell NO ONE. The thoughts I never let outside my head. The ones I kid myself to believe He does not know or will not answer. I said it all and God spoke supernatural. He filled that lamp lit room and spoke right through her mouth and so deep into my soul, it shattered me. I didn’t tell her that I couldn’t see through all the years and loss, fights and bills and messes to find the man I love. She knows about that. I just told her the questions haunting me. And I found out I had forgotten the good news, or never known it as fully as I do now. All our sin, all our mess for His righteousness, she said. That’s the deal, it’s gone. And we are covered in Christ.
Covered in Christ.
God doesn’t have to look through all my mess to catch a glimpse deep inside of Jesus. I don’t have to hope that his view is uncluttered enough to find His son and spare me. When He lays His eyes on flawed, sinful me, He just sees Christ, his perfect son clothed in righteousness. And when he looks at my father, and my husband’s father, and everyone who has done good in this world and all of us who have done wrong, He either sees His son, or He doesn’t. I told her how I had believed in Him since I was a little girl, but after everything I had seen I was afraid I didn’t feel enough faith to keep hold of His son. She told me it was Him who was holding me with a grasp that can never let go, whispering that He has me. Him who had given me the faith to be found in Him.
I heard those words and breathed free, relaxed into His arms. I knew a miracle when I heard one. Good news.
I barely slept that night, after she finally trailed upstairs to bed I packed suitcases and made lists for the morning. Three hours later I drove through a sunrise like none I have ever seen, full of the joy of that week. Solemn. As our plane hurtled through the air, pitching and tossing in a Pacific storm, my baby’s golden hair asleep on my lap, I thought of the man I would see in a few minutes. I was tired, ready to be home, but scared for what lay ahead. I did not know how my heart or his would feel. I was afraid we would not find each other.
As he walked through the airport toward us I did not see that boy I fell in love with and promised to walk beside, better or worse. But then he grabbed me, wrapped me in arms as strong as the day we walked down the aisle and he kissed me like it was that day. I knew the miracle had been done. I didn’t know how, or why or exactly when…
I just knew we had been found and could see each other again, in Him. Once was lost, but now am found. We love each other because He first loved us.
Now the images.
These images of my husband and I are not beautiful, or flattering or even “good” images. But they are honest. We are simply looking at each other, looking for each other. After all the years have tossed at us, after everything our Lord has walked us through, we are finding in each other a love that makes our minds spin. Love that lights every inch of our hearts and bodies. We are seeing each other as more than just the scared, naive kid the other one married, more than the lines on our faces and faded clothes. We are amazed to see each other as the undeservedly beautiful creatures God created and truly knows us as. When he holds me I feel all the years a blessing now. Lost, then found.
Hasselblad 500 c/m . Ilford 50? . taken of each other
|
.jpg)
