Anyways, there was a point during the service when we could walk up to a minister and ask him to pray for healing. Holding Grant, Clay and I walked up to Charles, this sweet older man that I just love for some reason; whenever he prays during church, I feel myself relaxing and recharging...I introduced myself and asked him to pray for..."Grant," he said. Puzzled, I said "yes." How did he know? Wow, these ministers are good. Later, I asked Clay about it, and Clay told me that Charles had visited the hospital several times to check on us. I never saw him. But he was there, and he kept returning.
There are good people in this world, friends. I'm talking GOOD. A goodness that takes your breath away and restores your faith in life and gives you hope and shows you the way and holds your hand through the crap of life goodness.
Oh my soul, thank God for these people.
And what I am learning is that most people are this amazingly good. Life throws people lemons and the crowds come out of the woodwork and make the sweetest frickin' lemonade. Friends don't let friends hurt alone. They see the pain and they MOBILIZE. As one of my dearest friends, Nina, told me, "I'm going to hold onto the hope for you until you're ready to take it back. In the meantime, I am HERE."
If you are reading this and you know someone who is going through a tough time and you've done something--anything--to help, you are bringing light into that person's world. Don't stop. I know firsthand how powerful being loved is. I am not saying it is justified (I have a beautiful baby lying next to me as I type this, so I realize that at some point I need to stop processing this and just. move. on.), but I have had some tough moments since Grant's birth, moments when I felt lost and alone and scared, and--no joke--every time, someone has reached out at THAT moment and reminded me that love wins.
Amazing grace indeed.
I know there will come a day when I don't need someone else to pick me up off the floor or to look me in the eyes and tell me everything is going to be okay. There will come a day when I hopefully can be that person for someone else. I know I won't be in this place forever; I won't let myself stay here. But I am letting myself BE in this place now in the hopes that I won't ever come back here. I want to feel and think and process and retreat and pray now so that I can one day close this chapter and welcome in a more joyful chapter of this new story of ours. I referenced the following in my poem the other day, but I couldn't believe it when Glennon Doyle Melton (of Momastery.com fame--if you don't read her, you should. Love her) herself responded to a comment I left her on her blog the other day. I thanked her for her post on life being hard (again: grace that she wrote this post at this time) and she responded to my comment with the following: "It is okay to feel broken and lost right up to the point when you don't. Let yourself, and your babe, be. Let it be, sister."
I am letting it all be. And as I be, I find that grace is happening all around me.
Without further ado, here are some stories of grace from the past five weeks:
1. I met my dear friend Ariana at the movies the other night. Saw The Book Thief. Perfect movie to see right now. It's all about love in the midst of life that doesn't always make sense. As I got in my car to pick her up, I noticed a Visa gift card tucked inside my driver's side window. No note. Someone just left it. It paid for our movie night. Amazing.
2. One thing I looked forward to doing during my maternity leave was actually visiting Will's preschool class and joining in on the fun. His awesome teachers email a weekly narrative about the class, and in the latest one, they informed us parents that the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series was their favorite. Wanting to be a cool mom, I go online and then allow Will to pick the one that he would like to gift his class, thinking that I could bring it and read it when I visit. He picks If You Give a Pig a Party. The next day while Will is at school, I go to Carmichael's bookstore in the hopes of buying it, but alas, no copy is available. Someone had just bought it. Darn. I head back to Will's school to pick him up, and he excitedly hops in the backseat. "Look, Mom! We got a present!" It was a huge gift bag from our Sunday School classmates. What's the first present we open? Yup. If You Give a Pig a Party. Will was SO excited. I was speechless. What grace.
3. For a month, I stayed off Facebook. On Grant's one month birthday, though, I posted a little birth announcement. Holy Moly. It received over 100 comments from people from all parts of our life. I cherished each and every one of them, feeling like I was being hugged over and over again from these dear, dear friends who were so immediately and graciously welcoming little Grant into the world. But my favorite has to be a comment from a former student of mine. She was on the cross country team both years that I coached at GPS, and the first year she ran, she often struggled at the back of the pack. As the coach bringing up the rear, I was often her default companion on the trails. Whenever she would start to falter, I would urge her along with "keep going, friend," a phrase I'm pretty sure she hated; in fact, I'm pretty sure she sometimes wished I would fall off the nearest cliff so she could finish her run in peace. Anyways, she and I actually grew pretty close over those two years, and then she graduated and went to college and I moved away to NYC. Haven't talked with her since. Well, she commented on Grant's birth:
"An unforgettable cross country coach [Sara note: aka super annoying cross country coach] told me once 'keep going friend.'"
The way life comes full circle amazes me sometimes.
4. When I got on FB to post the announcement, the very first post on my NewsFeed was from Frederick Buechner's page. I never see his posts, but this one was staring me in the face:
Depression is itself a kind of calm, as in becalmed, and a kind of quiet, as in a quiet despair.
Only then do you discover that he is speaking of something entirely different. He says it twice to make sure everybody understands. "Like a child quieted at its mother's breast," he says, and then again "like a child that is quieted is my soul." A kind of blessed languor that comes with being filled and somehow also fulfilled; the sense that no dark time that has ever been and no dark time that will ever be can touch this true and only time; shalom—something like that is the calm and quiet he has found. And the Lord in whom he has found it is the Lady Mother of us all. It is from her breast that he has drunk it to his soul's quieting.
Finally he tells us that hope is what his mouth is milky with, hope, which is to the hopelessness of depression what love is to the lovesick and lovelorn. "O Israel, hope in the Lord," he says, "from this time forth and for evermore." Hope like Israel. Hope for deliverance the way Israel hoped and you are already half delivered. Hope beyond hope, and—like Israel in Egypt, in Babylon, in Dachau—you hope also beyond the bounds of your own captivity, which is what depression is.
Hope in the Father who is the Mother, the Lady who is the Lord. Do not raise your eyes too high, but lower them to that holy place within you where you are fed and quieted, to that innermost manger where you are yourself the Child.
Wow.
5. One more FB reflection: In addition to all of the comments published under Grant's announcement, I have received many private messages from people who are hurting or struggling or dealing with some challenge of their own here lately...I probably would never have known about what these friends are going through if it weren't for Grant. It's been such a reminder that we must be kind to all people; we never know what battles people might be fighting. I so appreciate these friends reaching out, too;
6. I whined to Clay the other day that I never saw Christmas cards with kiddos with DS in them. Went out to lunch with a mom of a child with DS soon thereafter, and as soon I saw her, she opened her purse and pulled out a stack of Christmas cards. "I just got all these in the mail, Sara. Thought you would want to see them." She gave me one to keep; it is my new bookmark. I have no idea who these people are, but I look at their cute picture multiple times a day. I have become a stalker.
7. My college roommates have been amazing. They continue to walk with me through this 90 degree life turn, reassuring me that they want to hear what I am really feeling, not what I think I should be feeling. Still, I couldn't help but laugh when one of them texted me individually and said, "Sometimes you just need to cuss. Feel free to text me and cuss whenever you need to." Don't judge me, but I text her a lot. We've gotten closer through profanity. I love it.
8. I went to UVA, where secret societies are all the rage. Don't tell, but I've been welcomed into a secret society here in Louisville. The members are all women who are super devoted mamas, strong individuals, and upbeat friends. They are also mamas to children with DS. And they are AWESOME. They have come out of the woodwork to sit with me, talk with me, and cry with me as I walk through this...they tell me, "this is the club you never thought you'd join, and maybe the club you don't want to join, but it will be okay. And we're here for you." And without fail, they continue to text and email me encouraging, reassuring words as they pave the way for our little family to follow in their inspiring footsteps.
9. I took Grant to school on the last day before break. I was admittedly a little nervous to see everybody, but my colleagues and students loved on us the minute we walked in the door. It made me cherish our school so much more. One of the first people I saw was one of my advisees, a girl who has grown to mean a lot to me over the past two years. I gave her a hug and then she disappeared...only to return a few minutes later with a long card she had written me. How did she know I was coming? I read the card as soon as I was back in my car: "Stay positive and keep going, Mrs. Gahan. We love you, and we love Grant." This from a 16 year old. I think I'll keep those words in my back pocket forever.
Life ain't easy, and grief sucks. But love heals. And people are GOOD.
Thank you for loving us through this. And I do mean through this. Your love has inspired us.
Someone told me that Grant is going to "break your heart. WIDE OPEN." Like the Grinch, I feel like my little heart grew "three sizes that day" he was born. There have been some very real growing pains, but I know I am growing.
Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out.
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