Chronology of a week
what if we wonder?
Dear reader, I don’t know how April has snuck up on you. If you’re tired or delighted. If the year has been an exhale after a hard season or if you’re holding your breath because the punches keep coming. I know that I wrote in January that the week had been wonky, and I’m quite certain I could say that of every week since. I could sit and chronicle the peculiarities but I don’t think that would help either of us here. You should hold your own life openly before God instead. For me, it has been a strange year. Not bad. But certainly difficult. I’ve debated if part of it is spiritual warfare. Or if God is testing me. Or if it’s just life and we forget the American dream is not actually real.1 Most likely, it’s complex. Some part of all of those things may be true and also I might be completely missing something. Either way, here’s a glimpse at the week.2
I wanted to arrive in your inbox with a thoughtful post on Easter. A well-knit personal essay that ties in the theme of God’s victory over evil, or the long silence of Saturday. A theological treatise that simplifies big words and helps us tuck our theology in our hearts instead of leaving it on shelves. Instead I started this post on Friday.
I was sitting on my basement couch with a boy nestled against me. Despite the fact that it was a Friday morning, I was working through the homework that was left this week, purposefully pushing off responses to my classmates until the next day, a Saturday that would be mostly consumed by three soccer games. After homework, I needed to pick up strep medicine for the second to be ill this week and then move on to work that must be finished.
Despite it being Holy Week, I had been distracted. Last Sunday, my husband burst an eardrum in the midst of a sinus and ear infection. It’s perforated. I had never really considered my eardrums, but now, after watching him this week, I feel compelled to tell strangers to protect their eardrums. They matter. It’s going to hurt a lot if something happens.
I’ve gone back and forth caring for him. I worked from home so I could take him to an appointment Monday morning (he was certainly in no shape to drive) and before his appointment, I picked a different boy up from school. I took that one to the doctor the next day when he still didn’t feel well. I had taken a sick day to avoid the mental vertigo that hits when I try to multitask too many things for too long. His test came back negative and we baked and planted spring veggies and a flower bed. The following day, I tried to catch up on school work only to get the call that he had strep after all and leave to collect him from school. Later that day, my oldest son’s bracket fell off his tooth when we were driving home from school and I took him to get it repaired.3
The next day, two boys stayed home and I went to work for a few hours. Then I took the second boy to the doctor and, again, a strep test was negative. I went to a meeting for a different boy and then worked in the car before pickup and again while we were at the horse farm.
While walking to school Friday morning, we got the call. Strep again. And probably not for the last time. I’ve opened my computer and worked on homework and closed it a little later because it’s been a long week and I needed to go to bed. I’ve opened my computer in the van, at the office, at home, to catch up on some work. Though I’ve wanted to write, I haven’t felt like spending more time in front of a computer. I’ve written a paragraph and then been called away.
Last Thursday I went to a tall building downtown and entered my name in a kiosk. Large windows allowed the dingy waiting room to shimmer while I waited on the elevator. The third floor was dim, the walls covered with scuffs and posters. I sat, waiting, for seven minutes before the receptionist told me I was on the wrong floor and I went on up to the fifth. The fifth floor felt cozy, womblike. I would have curled up on a cushion and napped except I hate for people to see me sleep.
There was a stunning view of the fountain in the river from the bathroom but the conference room was lined with a u-shape of folding tables, one person at each table, armored in behind computers and name tags. I sat down beside the one other person I knew while the moderator called my husband so he could join the meeting. Everyone was introduced and then I shared four sentences about Micah and why the services he was receiving mattered and should continue. I described his genetic disorder and its complications and watched eyes widen. The summary seemed to satisfy everyone but me. These meetings have a tendency to reduce Micah to a paragraph, a list of what makes him different, bullet points that cause other people to startle.
A woman with dark hair that flowed across her shoulders started to suggest some waivers that we could apply for to cover these specific services and also others. She pointed out that we would need to be very specific about the care and attention that Micah needs during the home visit. She then listed off some particulars of life that would cause one to be approved, noting that they were “worst case scenarios.” But her “worst case scenarios” are all my life and I don’t think it’s a bad life.
I bit back my response because it wasn’t the place, because we were asking them for a “favor,” because she probably meant well. People don’t learn from bitten back responses, but I’ve stopped thinking it’s my job to teach everyone. Her words cut deep, reminding me of why I protect Micah’s story, why I am so careful what I say and to whom. Some people only want the summary. Some people don’t realize that they stomp on the heart you have no choice but to expose.4
I’ve remembered it was Holy Week in the midst of checking on people and checking email. Saturday night I finally wondered what standing at the cross felt like for Mary the mother of Jesus. Did his whole life flash through her mind? Did she see him nestled at her breast nursing? Did she see him reach up to hold her hand while she smiled down at him? Did she remember how she felt when she found him safe, in the temple, when they came back to Jerusalem? Did all of the prophecies—the angels, Anna, Simeon—come back, knocking her to the ground? Was she silent? Did she wail? What was her hope? If anyone understood what Jesus was up to, it would have been her. Did she know? We don’t know. We can only wonder: wonder at her life but also our own. How big God is and how little we understand.
Perhaps there is far less certainty, far less to be controlled, than we imagine.
At least not without a lot of power and privilege and people to do our dirty work for us.
And my boys were incredible this week with all the changes and shifts. My tulips started blooming. I have an incredibly flexible job. I trust that you all will allow me to contain more than one thing at a time.
I was truly so grateful for doctor appointment and antibiotics and orthodontics and how amazingly all of our appointment times worked out. I was also exhausted.
This woman works with our disabled community. It is her actual job. I am disappointed that she is not more careful with her words which can dignify or demean.