Tag: loss

  • Ten Minute Talks with Tom

    Ten Minute Talks with Tom

    My friend stunned me the day she offered to make a memory quilt out of Steve’s shirts. Her kindness opened up a friendship between the quilter and the “widow on the hill.” Over three years later Marlene gave me another gift as you’ll see in the video below. The source of a person’s compassion is never an easy story because compassion is born in hearts who have needed kindness themselves.

    The Treasure: Praise be to God … the Father of compassion and  the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

    If you’d rather read than watch the video, here’s the full video transcript:

    No fire in the fireplace today! Temperatures reach 104 degrees. That’s too hot for this New England girl. But I want to tell you about – remembering my friend Marlene who called to say her husband Tom would be driving me to all of my PT sessions until I could drive myself. Physical therapy – there was going to be a lot of it. Post-surgery inflammation and pre-session narcotics made driving dangerous for me. So three days a week Tom would walk from their home to mine, scale my steep driveway with his bi-lingual book on democracy, and off we’d go.

    Tom thought his driving me to PT was no big deal because, after all, I had so many friends. He was sure someone would volunteer. He thought he was doing what anyone could do. But in reality, Tom took something that to me was actually lonely, painful, and scary … and he made it steady. No phone calls or juggling of schedules. All I had to do was get in the car. He was to me the visible comfort of God. I came to realize that each ten-minute ride to physical therapy was more than a ride; it was a gift of safe presence and thoughtful conversation. I did not expect such treasure on a 2.7-mile drive. And although many of our talks were interrupted upon arrival, we picked up where we left off on the 2.7-mile return trip home.

    I did the math today. Tom drove me to and from forty appointments! That equals eighty ten-minute talks … or eight hundred minutes, which totals over thirteen hours.

     At a recent dinner party I wistfully told some widow friends that my ten-minute talks with Tom were about to end since I no longer needed pain pills. One leaned in with a simple solution: “Don’t tell him!” Laughter reminded me that friendships don’t need to end. Sometimes they just need to take on new dimensions.

    So, next week I get to have Tom and Marlene at my table for a meal and we’ll get to have more than a ten-minute talk.

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  • Bull’s-Eye

    Bull’s-Eye

    I ponder the power of seasons, months, or even the rustic smell of outdoors to spark strong memories. My husband Steve has increasingly entered my thoughts in recent days. It’s no wonder. Four years ago this week we drove to Vermont to pick up our teardrop camper for retirement adventures. It was a “bull’s-eye plan” formed during high elevation moments like when we looked out from the Rockies onto a future we thought was certain. Today the plan looks much different than we thought. Steve is in heaven and I’m traveling in the camper—without him.

    Actually, remembering Steve breathes life into me today. He’s still the “bull’s-eye” soulmate whose influence I carry in my heart—a gift of having been loved well. I remember the day Steve told me that this life is the only opportunity we have to trust God. As I continue to fight doubt and fear with hope and confidence, I can count on this: life will shake me to the core, but I can trust that God’s plan is a good plan with a future full of hope. Many of you have been the evidence of that hope to me.

    I believe living a “bull’s-eye” life is one with Jesus at the center of my being and all other facets of life finding their place within the surrounding rings. I’d love to hear your definition. In the three-second video below Steve and I had a “bulls-eye” moment that surprised both of us!

    The Treasure: “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

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  • Wild Serenity

    Wild Serenity

    When my husband Steve died, I looked out toward a vast, empty horizon. It was neither dark nor light—just empty and wide. I would come to realize that Steve’s death gave me the kind of freedom that I never wanted … but freedom nonetheless. And so, this summer I went to Montana for a whole month to be with my fast-growing Montana grands and their parents. I stayed half the time in a VRBO. It was a really great plan, except for the hard parts. If you are living in the aftermath of loss, you know that you can feel full of joy one moment, and hollowed out from loneliness the next. In Traveling Light, Eugene Peterson normalizes the “pain of being human” and those “moments of emptiness and waiting.” His words reassure me. He also inspires his readers to never “abandon the awesome silence of worship.” Alone in a Montana mountain town, I captured a moment of balance between the emptiness of solitude and the silent worship of God under His vast blue sky (see video).

    The Treasure: “Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” (Romans 1:20 NIV)

    If you’d rather read than watch the video, here’s the full video transcript:

    It’s a great way to start the day here at Red Lodge, Montana at Wild Bill’s Cabin in a hot tub on a 57degree crisp, cool morning. Beautiful blue sky. I’m remembering the introduction to my blog series, where Pilgrim and I are inside the fence and we haven’t gone anywhere because I’m afraid to go anywhere because everything’s changed in my life. And Pilgrim, the camper, represents courage to go beyond fear and loss so that we don’t shrink our lives. Well, when I was getting ready to come up here to Red Lodge, one hour and a half from my family’s home here in Montana, I felt really empty, saying to myself, “What the heck are you doing?” It was hard to come away. It was a little … not scary, but a little unsure. But oh my gosh, I have been on a hike, I’ve seen beautiful sights. When we do familiar things in different ways, there are treasures along the way. So, as you go along your way, maybe life has made a big change for you too … you may not be in a hot tub at Wild Bill’s Cabin, but there will be other things that you do where you take risk, so you don’t shrink your life either.

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  • Maybe It Ain’t So Bad

    Maybe It Ain’t So Bad

    I met a woman who lost everything. The tree took down an electrical line that set fire to her log home on a mountain lane. Only she and her pets escaped. I had the privilege of meeting this seventy-nine-year-old widow in a motel lobby where she works to rebuild her life.

    The resilience in her voice and her gratitude for the outpouring of comfort and support in her community made me take pause for the next hour and listen. Then she locked her eyes with mine and said, “Maybe starting all over ain’t so bad after all.”

    My new friend is choosing to find the riches within her suffering. Dr. Robert Grant writes:

    “All [victims] must come to accept that life involves a series of losses that have the potential to hollow them out [missing their inherent] riches … [becoming] detached critics rather than vital participants in life.”1

    We might not be able to say, “Maybe starting over ain’t so bad after all.” But God’s promise to watch over us and to never sleep (Psalm 121) can inspire us to participate fully in life (see video).

    1 Robert Grant PhD, The Way of the Wound, (Oakland: copyright by Robert Grant 1996),

      The Treasure:  Our help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth who never slumbers.

      If you’d rather read than watch the video, here’s the full video transcript:

      The day is settling down; you can hear the birds, and I’m looking out to the mountains. I’m in Orange, Virginia and I’ll be picking up Pilgrim in the morning and taking her back home with her new air conditioner. It’s so beautiful here! I love the sky; I love what it means…such a great Creator that we have. And I love that He’s awake all the time. The sun may sleep and hopefully we sleep but I love that He never sleeps. Psalm 121 says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip. Indeed, he who watches over you will not slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you.” It says, “He will watch over your life. He will watch over your coming and going both now and forever. That’s what I think of when I see the mountains … well, that’s not all I think of. Sometimes I think about how I want to be in them and walk trails in them. but for tonight I’m at this very economical hotel called Round Hill Inn, in Orange—$120.00 total for the night. It’s really a sweet spot. It’s time for a few laps in the pool. Wish you could be here with me, but there’s no one in the pool right now.

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