Part of Me

I dance. It's not that I necessarily ought to run out onto the dance floor at wedding receptions with the 20- and 30-something-year-olds, but I do. And yes, I wake up the next morning thinking maybe I should have sat and talked more with "the people," but I couldn't have not danced. And only Martinelli's is involved, honest.

However, when a deejay plays a song I don't love or that sounds foreign to me (which is mostly everything written after 1980), I am able to sit it out. And those digital-ish new songs that kids jump vertically to give me a chance to sit down as well. My generation dances back and forth, not up and down.

I didn't always dance. Years ago, a family wedding was approaching for my nephew Bryan and his fiance, Karis. "You won't catch me on the dance floor," I explained to Kelley, my son's girlfriend at the time, now his wife. "I'm too self-conscious and am not that great at dancing." She gave me some wise instruction. "Watch everyone who is out there dancing. Almost everybody looks goofy. So just go out there, be goofy with everyone else, and have fun."

My husband still mostly refuses to dance, but when the song "Unforgettable" plays at a reception, he knows wherever he is in the room, that's his signal to join me on the dance floor. He holds me tight, and we sway, and for that three minutes and twelve seconds, all is well in this world.

It was fall in 1974, and my junior high school was throwing a dance. Not a get-invited-by-a boy-and-wear-a-corsage dance, just a lunchtime dance. My friends and I confessed to each other we weren't sure how to dance. So we did what every insecure adolescent girl would do: we asked a popular girl to show us how.

I felt brave approaching Kati in the locker room after gym class, asking her to show me and my friends how to dance. She kindly showed us. First the feet. Step left. Then bring your right foot to a tap towards the left. Step right. Then bring your left foot to a tap towards the right. Add a little swing with the arms, left in front, right behind, then switch, and you've got it. Over and over we practiced until these two steps became a part of us.

That junior high dance step is still a part of me. When I am dancing and run out of moves consisting mostly of choreography (if the singer is singing about living on a prayer and being halfway there, I choreograph accordingly) and of copying anyone around me who seems to have something original going on, I return to my junior high basic steps. And I picture the locker room benches, the lockers, the aisles, and the popular-but-approachable instructor teaching us to sway back and forth.

I woke up with wet eyes this morning. I woke up thinking about dancing. I woke up thinking about dancing when the deejay plays a song you disdain. The song that was never on your playlist. The song that you would never have chosen for yourself. The song that sends you running to the restroom to not have to hear it or has you thinking you must be at the wrong party entirely. The new widow has it playing at her house, as does the family ordering a hospital bed for their loved one to be comfortable living out his last days at home. The young couple leaving the hospital maternity unit to return home with empty arms.

My dad's life ended with a foreign, unpleasant song, living his last year and a half as a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic. "Unbelievable," he would sometimes utter, even just mouthing the word when his ventilator would not allow him to speak. Tears would sometimes run down his cheeks, tears he was unable to wipe away himself. Yes, he said and did many inspiring things in his injured state as well, but there were times he just had to be sad and mad awhile, times he refused to join the dance for a time.

He would have turned 85 this month but died at 66. I've walked through April saying out loud, thinking to myself, praying, I suppose, "There are many 85-year-old men in this world. Why couldn't my dad have been one of them?" The question goes unanswered, but I find myself asking it again anyway, wondering why the song of my life doesn't include having parents who are still alive.

We're having a family party Monday night, of all times, because Tuesday my son Kyle's first book is to be released. Desserts, a photo booth, games, and black and yellow bee-themed decorations are in the works. We won't turn on music and clear a spot to dance, but we'll be dancing just the same, to one of those I-can't-help-but-dance tunes.

I enjoyed breakfast out with my two daughters and two daughters-in-law this week. I want my dad to see the beautiful young ladies his granddaughters have become, to meet the lovely girls my sons chose to marry, who bring even more love into our family. I want to hear him to laugh out loud at my son's writings. I want to see his eyes get wet with happy tears. I want to overhear my mom calling forty of her friends to tell them what's happening in our family.

I want them to be at the party. They won't be at the party.

When I am happy mixed with that bit of sad as we celebrate and I don't know quite how to move, I'll reach way down deep to that first song of love God ever sang over me. I will see him showing me, step left, then right. Now add the arms. And I'll dance.

It's just part of me.

The Tear

Early Thursday my car rolled across Walnut Avenue while my navigation system steered me away from the freeway to avoid stopped traffic. My mind wandered to a healing moment I had experienced years ago. My mom and I were at a women's event at church. It was a Saturday morning, and round tables filled the church hall. We were sitting across the room from each other, both surrounded by our own friends as we sang worship songs. We began to sing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." Through the crowd of standing women, my mom stooped and leaned to find a space through which she could peer at me. She waved her hands until I saw her. Our eyes met, and she smiled a smile that said, "I see you, and I love you."

This stemmed from one of my family of origin's remember-the-time stories we often told. "Remember the time eight-year-old Diane went forward in church to receive Christ and no one saw her? We were sitting in the late room behind the sanctuary listening to the sermon. She asked Mom and Dad, 'Can I go now?' and they said, 'Yes,' thinking she was running off to Sunday School early. On the ride home, she noticed no one was saying anything about her big decision. So when we got home, she sat at the piano and played 'I Have Decided to Follow Jesus' over and over and over again, hoping we would notice. Finally, Ginger telephoned and said, 'I saw Diane go forward in church today. How exciting!'"

The look from my mom brought a smile to my face, a tear to my eye, and healing to a place deep inside me I didn't even realize needed healing. I will always cherish our moment of exchanged glances.

I drove further westward on surface streets and thought about the word "compensation." There are times I notice God giving back to me and others something we previously went without. While growing up, my cousin Dave had one sister, and their parents had a fancy car. He envied our crazy family of eight, whose clunky VW van offered a bumpy and noisy ride. He now has 14 children and drives them in a mini-bus! I have a friend whose mom died when she was young, and she now has friendships with older women and herself mentors moms with young children. I notice God giving these compensatory gifts in ways I least expect. He provides, but not necessarily in the way we expect or through the people we think he would use. I grew up feeling I wasn't seen, being in the middle of a large, busy family. So the times God reminds me he sees me are extra meaningful.

I pulled up to a stop sign at Reservoir Street, where a surprise tear ran down my cheek. Thankfully no one was behind me, so I lingered there a bit, cherishing my tear and letting my heart expand with gratitude. Where the two roads intersected, a memory of my mom's intentional glance intersected with a month-old memory. 

I was in Israel touring with a group from the church my little brother pastors. We visited the Jordan River, and Rod performed baptisms there for whoever wanted to be baptized. A couple from our group had a guitar and sang some songs as we lined up and one by one were prayed over and immersed into the river then lifted up from it. Right before I stepped into the river, I asked the couple to sing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." 

When my turn came, Rod had one hand on my shoulder and one hand on my clasped hands while an assistant on the other side did the same thing. He asked me if Jesus was my Lord, if I had trusted him as my savior and wanted to declare my love for him. "Yes, absolutely, yes!" I beamed. Rod prayed the most beautiful prayer over me—a prayer that elicited deep sobs of gratitude as he thanked God for my children, for my healing from hepatitis C, and asked God's blessing and guidance over me as I sought to grow more in love with God and to love others with his love. It was a prayer that said "I see you. I see your heart."

As I sat at the stop sign, lingering with my rolling tear, I knew God had peered through the hazy morning, around the many cars, stooped down, leaned in, and looked at me with a smile that said, "I see you, and I love you." 

Timeless Time

"Huh-huh." My husband chuckled as he walked into the family room this afternoon to find me assembling a firepit. Packaging materials, instructions, and parts were spread across the room. It wasn't a mean laugh, just a surprised laugh, the kind I might let out if I were to step into the kitchen to find him kneading dough to make bread. I can now count the number of items I have assembled in my life on one hand—honestly, it may be on one finger. OK, most of one finger, as it's not quite finished yet. I thought maybe doing something linear before sitting to write might help my thoughts settle.

A friend and I met for breakfast this week at ten a.m. at a charming restaurant in an old renovated home with a generous front porch, the kind of porch that invites you to sit and chat awhile. There wasn't a firepit to gather around, but there may as well have been. Time seems to be of no consequence when people sit around a fire. Thoughts flow. Something beautiful happens. Memories are shared and made there. No one looks at a clock and says, "OK. Twenty-nine more minutes of intimate sharing, spontaneous singing, and humorous stories before we snuff the flame." People linger. Even silence is comfortable as people gaze at the dancing, crackling show of flames.

The waitress refilled our water and coffee cups several times. The porch became quieter around us. We finally looked up to realize the restaurant was closing. The restaurant closes at three p.m.! That's five hours we shared together. We've done this once before, this friend and I, but the time before this, we had arrived an hour earlier! I explained to her as we walked back to our cars that the Bible has Greek words for time that are different from each other: "chronos" and "kairos." Chronos is time that can be counted, while kairos is a sort of timeless time, a passing of time that is unmeasured. No doubt we were operating on kairos during our time together. My husband asked what we talked about for all that time. I couldn't quite say. I just know we shared our hearts and enjoyed each other.

Brent and I attended a funeral this morning of Pete, a man who was killed in an auto accident last week. Pete and his wife, Lori, went to the same church we did while we raised our children. He and Brent played softball together, while we wives sat in the stands talking, cheering on our husbands, and watching our kids. Lori taught my girls in dance lessons. Brent taught their boys in Awana and took them on some camping trips with the Awana group.

After the funeral, Brent got to speak with Peter, their oldest son, who shared memories of having worn numerous layers of pants and underwear to pad himself while sliding down rocks at Joshua Tree but still tearing holes through all of them. Then there was the fire young Peter started that was not remotely near the fire ring. Other memories surfaced for us: Lori choreographing church performances and leading fun picnic recitals; Pete and Lori, when they were dating, starring in "West Side Story" together, their affection for each other quite obvious on the stage; all-church camping trips; babies born; miscarriages; worshiping together.

I made my way through the crowd after the funeral and saw others with whom I've shared "kairos" moments. I saw a lady I was in Bible study with 20 years ago. I remembered a story she shared about a hummingbird flying in her bedroom window and hovering over her when she was depressed. Another, whose mother had dementia. I remember the humor God provided during the heartache of watching her mother's mind diminish. That couple who thought they would never see their son again, who eventually did.

The pastor who led the funeral reminded us we will all see Pete in heaven one day. I can't help but think, when I look upon soul-sharing "kairos" moments, that in a sense we have "seen each other in heaven."  Those moments were times when timeless heaven came to us, inviting us to gather around the fire, share, and enjoy each other.

Well, a half hour ago, Brent asked me how long before I wanted to have him help me complete the fire-ring assembly project.  "Twelve minutes," I told him. "Just give me twelve more minutes." Time marches on—except for those times it just doesn't.

I think I am going to like heaven.

Packages, Poems, and Pressure

I received a text from a good friend this week. "I'm doing what you always do before your kids' bridal and baby showers," she wrote. "My brain is running wild with things I should get or what I will wear. It's exhausting and expensive!"

Her daughter's bridal shower is today. Her only daughter's only bridal shower. It should be special. It must be special. And Tammi is feeling the pressure.

We explored the angst a bit and concluded we very much want our children to know how much they mean to us.

I felt it before my children's birthday parties. I had this one day, this one event to express how dear they are to me. Would these paper plates and napkins make them feel special? This wrapping paper? This game for their friends to play? Would if I could I would buy them a ride in the Space Shuttle to show them they meant the world to me. What if whatever I do isn't enough? This fear robbed me of the joy of preparing for their parties.

Tammi's daughter, Kyleigh, is special to me. I remember the day her mom told me she was expecting her as we stood by the trunk of her car in the Chino McDonald's parking lot. I rejoiced with her. Tammi and I have known each other since birth, and our parents were best friends, so this is a longstanding friendship between our families. Our children grew up as friends and shared many happy times together.

Because this family is so special to me, I am experiencing some of the same angst I experience before I do something for one of my own children. I am helping with Kyleigh's bridal shower today. I purchased some meaningful gifts and wrote a family recipe out for the bride to be. I was asked to give a blessing at the shower and chose to read a poem about marriage written by my and Tammi's piano teacher. This morning I was searching the wrong book for the right poem I had in mind and was physically shaking. What if I don't find the poem I'm thinking of?

Something not so good happens when I think something should be special. It happened on my trip to Israel. The places I visited I thought would be the most special I had heightened anxiety about. The garden tomb, for crying out loud. Would that not be the most special place? I found myself mostly "in my head" at such places. Sometimes my brother, who led the tour, would say, "Okay, guys, get ready for a goosebump moment. This is one of those amazing places," and that, along with my own already heightened anxiety, always killed it for me somehow.

But the most meaning-filled times were when I noticed things that caught me off guard: the wind blowing the trees above me in Capernaum; the frivolity of my brothers dancing while my sister-in-law belted out in song, "Oh, here comes Jesus, see Him walking on the water," while we were on the Sea of Galilee; the little Jewish boy on a trail who, with a bright smile, said to me, "You from America? You are good here."

My Aunt Barb told me once, when I was wound up about preparing for Christmas, "Christmas is special not because we make it so. Jesus has already made it special. How can you and Jesus prepare for the celebration together?" I think of that this morning as I prepare to go to Kyleigh's shower. The event is already special. Kyleigh is already special. Jesus has invited me to be part of this joyful celebration.

Something I realized years ago comes to mind: I am not the whole bouquet. Women will gather today, each bringing gifts and well wishes, each bringing her affection for the bride-to-be. Decorations will be placed and strung, food will be served, gifts given, and love will be expressed in a way one person alone could not express love. It will all come together in a beautiful, one-of-a-kind bouquet.

And I get to be part of that. I am not the bouquet arranger, I am not the bouquet itself, but I, with my poem and packages in hand, am a flower in the hands of the florist, who is already there and is arranging it all.

And that sounds like enough.