How Rumors Get Started

So, I was playing around on Facebook and such and clicked back to my blog to click on some of the blogs I like to read. I didn't post today, but I noticed that my counter showed a little activity. I clicked to find out where it came from.

Imagine my surprise when I clicked to find out what search engines had led to my site. Apparently, a couple people typed in "Amy Brooke died" or "Did Amy Brooke die?"

It's a little disconcerting to see that statement and that question roaming around blogdom. I tried to follow it a bit, but quickly decided I didn't really want to go where those links appeared to be taking me.

Some legitimate links between me and the idea of death popped up. I wrote an article for InterVarsity's Student Leadership Journal many, many years ago. That popped up. A quote from the a chapter I wrote in the book Faith on the Edge:Daring to Follow Jesus popped up to. And then there was a link to the eulogy I wrote earlier this month.

There is more than one Amy Brooke. I don't know how many of us share the Louise part. Given the vastness of the world, there is probably another.

Still, it took me by surprise and tickled that feeling of mortality. Maybe a degree of that is healthy. It keeps us and our lives in perspective.

But, for the moment, I am alive and well.

Still, it is an odd feeling.

Goodbyes

There are parts of life that I remember clearly and other, probably the majority, that blend into the background of my life. One that I remember clearly was on January 5, 1992. It was the middle of several hard days. The minister was at the front of the room and he was talking. I don't remember much of what he said, until suddenly he asked, "Would anyone like to say something?"

I panicked and stayed firmly glued to my seat. I shared my disappointment with myself over that situation with someone recently. Her response was reassuring. "Not many 23-year-olds could eulogize a parent." I don't know if that is true, but it was comforting.

Maybe my silence wouldn't have been so discomforting even 18-years later if someone, anyone, had spoken.

My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer my senior year in college. She was sick all that year. Actually, she had been sick months before her diagnosis. But she was stubborn about doctors. I graduated and started on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. My senior year and those first seven months on staff, I did school or work during the week and traveled back to Cincinnati to visit my mom on the weekends.

It was an up and down 18 months or so. She would get really bad and then pull through. A month or two later, the cycle would repeat.

At 23, I had only ever been to one funeral. That had been seven years before. I didn't know what to expect. And I didn't know the word eulogy. Apparently, the minister didn't know that no one had been asked to say a few words. So, no one did.

It makes me sad to think of it now. Everyone should have someone say something.

So, I am doing it 18-years and two days later. In retrospect, it gives me perspective on my mom that I don't believe I would have had then.

My Mom:

I don't know a lot about my mom's growing up. But I do know it was hard. My mom was born in Hazard, KY of Dukes of Hazard fame. She was the youngest child of 17 (10 full and 7 half siblings) all born to James Sparks. My grandfather was not a man of means. He was coal miner while living in Kentucky. At some point, he packed up my grandmother and the children still living at home and moved to Cincinnati where he found work as a night watchman at the Cincinnati Zoo and a taxi cab driver.

So, my mom didn't have a lot of the advantages that I had growing up. But I think that made her approach parenting as an effort to give her girls things that she never had. With such a large family, resources were scarce. Her parents had both been orphaned young -- at around 11, I believe. There was no precedent for education. However, from what I gather, my mom made it through high school.

I say "From what I gather" because she didn't talk about growing up much. With that many siblings, I grew up thinking many of my cousins were aunts and uncles because they were my mom's age or older and had kids that were older than we were. I could tell that life was hard even in watching my grandmother, Sarah Sparks. While my grandmother Brooke was the bake cookies and play checkers grandmother, grandma Sparks was small, shriveled, and looked decades older than she was. My mom talked only once or twice about her father. Once was about how stern he was and if he yelled up the stairs for them to get up and they even heard one footfall on the step, they were out of bed. A second time was just relating that he had died when she was only 18 from Black Lung.

All of that is to say that things were hard for her.

I wonder at times if that lack of education or just not having a lot of attention growing up made my mom so insecure. How do you get individual attention with so many brothers and sisters? I think that insecurity is what made it hard to get to know her and hard for her to know how to express affection.

Recently, I was talking to a mom of two about the snow. She told me how she had abandoned shoveling for sliding through the snow with her girls instead. I remember playing in the snow as a child, but I don't remember my mom ever playing in the snow with us. She is strangely absent from all the play images in my memories. But people who grow up in poverty don't often learn to play.

I wish my mom could have played with us.

She didn't express a lot of affection and it was hard not to hear, "I love you" often, but if you knew how to read her, you could see her care. While we were playing, we would smell brownies baking. We would rush upstairs and she would be sitting at the kitchen counter and tell us the Brownie Fairy had come. We would giggle. Before the brownies had time to cool, she let us have some for a tea party. (If only she had come to the tea party too!).

Baking was a sign of care. She had a little tiny book of cut out cakes. Every year for our birthday, we got to select one (my twin and I each got one though we shared a birthday). She would stay up to all hours to make those cakes. The same was true of Halloween costumes. I don't remember store bought costumes. I remember pioneer and pilgrim and princess and Indian girl costumes sewn just for us.

My mom wanted so much more for us. Even though she didn't have a higher education, she instilled in us how important it was. Honestly, I didn't know that college was optional until I was in high school. And then, it had been ingrained in me that I was going.

I think my mom would be proud. All three of her girls not only went to undergrad but went on to get master level degrees.

My feelings for my mom are complex. There are disappointments and hurts, but then I also miss her at times too. I missed having someone help me figure out how to get a start in life. My mom wasn't that open to questions, but I miss the idea of having a mom to go to to ask things even if it is something like what "folding" in a recipe means.

My mom pretty much refused to talk about her illness. In fact, I remember her kicking a social worker out of her hospital room when she stopped by to say she was available to talk to my mom or anyone in the family. I know it would have been scary, but I so wish she could have talked to us about her illness. In not talking about it, though we theoretically had the chance, we never got to tell her what she meant to us and she never got to tell us what we meant to her. We never got to say a heartfelt goodbye.

This eulogy is 18-years and 2 days past when that minister naively asked, "Would anyone like to say something?" Yes, I would. I miss you mom. I'm sorry that I didn't love you better in the end, that I let my fear and your fear get in the way of really loving you well. I do love you. I hope you might be just a bit proud of me.

Not Why but Who -- Hope Chronicles 28

Katy, my older cat, loves to sleep next to me. I lie on my side and hold the blanket up and she curls up next to my tummy as I let the blankets gently cover her. Often, I can't hear her purr, but as I rub her belly I can feel the vibrations, the contentment. It's a soothing ritual the two of us have developed.

As you have guessed, I like cats. I also like useless bits of trivia. Without using Google see if you know the following:

1. Only one type of cat lives in a group and it is _________.
2. The first state to ratify the constitution was _________.
3. The first female doctor was _____________.
4. Why do hummingbirds hum? (No, it isn't, he he, that they don't know the words)
5. The movement to get women the right to vote began in 1848. How many years did it take to achieve it?
6. How many stripes are on the American flag?
7. What Midwestern city adds coco to it's famous chili and what is the brand name?

Stop right now and write down the answers. No peeking as I've put them at the very bottom. I'll send a small gift card to whomever gets the most right first. (You can only play in the next 48 hours!) You are all on the honor system.

That was a long prelude to what this post is really about -- that "Why?" question. Even more than knowing useless bits of trivia, I like to understand the why of things. I like to know why it works and why you don't do it this other way. I like to know why things need to be this way rather than that way. I don't know that I actually pestered my parents so much with the questions. (I would have gotten immediate consequences if I had not had immediate obedience.) But, to the extent I was able, there was a quest for "Why?"

Even today, "why" still comes into play. Please don't tell me to do something without explaining the reason behind it. In my mind, comprehension is everything.

I don't think I'm that far off from a lot of people. I may do it more than most in day to day interactions, but when the really big things happen, we all find ourselves asking "Why?"

November 2006 I started dating Bill. After the first date, we pretty much saw each other every day. We hit a rough patch the end of March, but I anticipated getting back together. I didn't think it was a forever break. I thought we both needed to get our bearings. After all, we had been moving pretty fast over the last several months -- to the point that we had spoken of marriage. Bill had vowed, "I'd marry you tomorrow if you'd let me."

The middle of April Bill suffered an aortic aneurysm. His gentle heart split open. They managed to do surgery and he lingered a few days, but he never truly came around. I got to talk to him and pray with him in a one-sided kind of way, but we never had the final conversation that I longed for.

When it first happened I went to a grief support group for a time. Eventually, I needed it less and less. But tonight I went back. That year anniversary is coming quickly and I don't want to be caught off guard. Anniversaries can be tricky to navigate.

Lots of people in the room had much more recent losses than mine -- November, December, January. And several expressed "why" questions. "Why so quickly?" "Why with all the medical advances?" "Why wasn't I there at the very end? I only left for a moment."

It was interesting because everyone in the room tonight expressed some type of faith. That hasn't always been the case. I came away thinking that "why" questions have their merits, but the better question is "Who?"

• Who walked this earth and is intimately acquainted with our grief? (Isaiah 53:3)
• Who wept when His friend died? (John 11:35)
• Who comforts those who walk through the valley of the shadow of death? (Psalm 23)
• Who prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies? (Psalm 23)
• Who has compassion on the heavy laden? (Matthew 11:28)
• Who rejoices over us with singing? (Zephaniah 3:17)

Knowing the "why" pales in comparison of knowing the WHO that is Jesus who has welcomed our loved ones home and stands with arms open wide to comfort us in our grief as we wrestle with the "why". Just as Katy snuggles in close to me, we can snuggle into Jesus.

And I was serious about that small gift card! Leave me those answers..... and then check to see if you are right!

Answers:

1. Lions 2. Delaware 3. Elizabeth Blackwell 4. It's the sound that their wings make from moving so fast. 5. 72 years with the first legal voting happening in 1920 6. 13 -- one for each of the original colonies 7. Cincinnati's Skyline Chili -- very yummy. Of course, I grew up on it . . . .

Hope Dwells With Us -- Hope Chronicles 2

This past year was a rough one. A year ago last fall, I fell off a horse and broke my tailbone. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt something so painful! I couldn’t walk or sit comfortably. I couldn’t bend without aggravating it. I resorted to a donut pillow to make it through work.

At the end of March I was playing Hide-and-Seek with my 5-year-old niece. As I stealthily tip toed up the stairs, I missed a step and fell all the way down the stairs. I sprained my ankle, my knee, and fractured a couple of fingers. I suppose I should have been grateful that it wasn’t my dominant hand, but do you know how many things require two hands to do them? I made huge messes in the kitchen and because of my ankle and knee they were painful to clean up.

Within a month, a dear friend had died and I was an emotional wreck. I ended up with major stomach problems. I couldn’t keep anything down for 8 days and had to go to the ER to get fluids.

I mention all of these times because they are times when I felt helpless to do even the most basic thing. And with that helplessness came a sense of hopelessness. What was the use of trying?

Recently, I was watching a TV show. They referenced Dante’s Inferno. In the story, Dante visits the eight circles of hell. The quote they referenced was a quote on entering hell, “Abandon hope all who enter here.”

Abandon hope. Most of probably don’t like the sound of that. I don’t know that Dante’s description of hell is accurate, but in this one thing, I think it is probably right. Hell, it would stand to reason, would be a hopeless place.

I admit that there are times that I’ve abandoned hope. I tell myself that things won’t get better. I say that I could pray but God wouldn’t hear me. I tell myself all the things that are wrong with me. My thinking often does me few favors in times like those.

Luckily with prayer, counsel, and sometimes medication, I’ve come out of those dark places of the soul.

But really what brought me out of those places was that even though I may have abandoned hope at times, hope –the HOPE – has never abandoned me. In fact, that HOPE – Jesus – came from heaven to earth and then to the cross so that I would never have to truly be without hope.

Matthew 1:22-23 says, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ – which means ‘God with us.’”

Immanuel. God with us. I remember learning once that the more literal translation means something along the lines of “He will pitch his tent among us.” In other words, he wasn’t just passing through. When God came to his people, he dwelt among them, lived among them.

And His presence remains with us to this day. Immanuel. God with us.

We may abandon hope, but HOPE never abandons us. HOPE goes to the ends of the earth so that we know we need never be without hope. Immanuel. God with us.