Lane and I had an epiphany yesterday. For one academic year, we will have kids at all four schools! When R&R are in 4th grade at elementary school, D. will be in 6th grade at the intermediate school, J. will be in 8th grade at the middle school, and A. will be in 9th grade at the high school. Oh. My. Gosh!
Name that tune
We were jamming to some rock tunes in the car earlier, and every time we heard a song from Guitar Hero (which was often), the boys would try to guess the song before the name popped up on the dash display.
A few bars into one song, my oldest remarked: “Wow – Crazy Train sounds a lot better when someone isn’t missing notes.”
Father's Day
Nathan's marker
We dedicated the James Pool Memorial Playground this morning at Northside Christian Church in Spring. The lil kids’ classes were there, and my nephews each got a helium balloon to release and send a Happy Father’s Day message to Daddy. It was really beautiful, and such a fitting tribute by so many generous people.
We also went to the cemetery to see Nathan’s marker; it is even more beautiful than the pictures.
Happy Father’s Day, lil brother! I’m proud of you and love you so much.
Cardboard testimonies
We did an activity called “cardboard testimonies” at church on Sunday. When Pastor Cyndi first asked me to do it, I agreed right away. It sounded like a great way to share what God has done through tragedy in my life. Yet, when I stood in line waiting my turn to walk up on stage, a flood of emotions hit me all at once, and I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into, after all.
There are a lot of examples of cardboard testimonies online, but the gist is simple. On one side of a piece of cardboard, you write in bold marker print a brief phrase or a few words that describe your past – a tragedy, your life before Christ, a struggle, etc. On the other side, you write the outcome – new life in Christ, how God has changed you, blessings that came from that situation, etc.
There are several things I could have written about, but I needed to narrow it down to one, so I thought about Nathan’s death and how it has affected me. My cardboard read:
“BURIED
MY LIL’
BROTHER”
on the front side. On the back side, I wrote: “MOM5” in gigantic letters (the 5 was superscript, like mom-squared, only with the number 5). At this point in my journey, having the privilege of raising my two nephews is the greatest testimony of how God has overcome (and continues to overcome) the inexplicable tragedy of losing my baby brother.
I hope that someone who saw my cardboard that morning was touched by how God has moved in the lives of our family, and that Nathan’s death was not the end. Jan. 23, 2009, will always be a placeholder in time, but I would argue that Nathan’s death marked the beginning of a new book in this epic saga we call Life. Just imagine what God can do.
leafy greens
My oldest is the measuring rod by which all manner of unpleasant foods are assessed. Ok, fine, he’s a picky eater. That isn’t to say that he gets to eat whatever he wants. On the contrary, he knows that he has to try everything on his plate, and more often than not, there is a minimum amount that he has to eat of his veggies.
We picked lettuce from our garden this week, and I made a salad with a couple of banana peppers that were also ripe. Lo and behold, the little booger ate his whole salad without complaint! He also ate two helpings of spaghetti and walked away from the table to take his empty plate to the sink, saying repeatedly, “That was really good!”
>>proud Mama!<<
weird day
Today is a weird day. I’m not in denial; I know that Nathan is gone, and I won’t see him for the rest of my earthly existence. It’s just that I feel like I need to pick up the phone right now and give him a buzz. We haven’t talked in such a long while, and I need to catch up with him. I want to pick on him for not calling me in ages.
… I want to tell him about our garden and listen to his disbelief as I tell him that I, of all people, have managed to keep plants alive! (Lane gets all the credit for keeping the garden thriving, really, but I can still hear Nathan ribbing me for killing a poor cactus in my college days.)
… I want to explain to him in geekish detail about the cool stuff I’ve made using Gimp and how much I enjoy my virtual store – and know that he’d think it’s cool, too!
… I want to hear him talking about wedding plans so that I can poke fun at him for turning into a mushy, gushy, romantic sap. Then, I want to tell him how much I love Kristen and how thrilled I am to have her as a sister-in-law-to-be.
Then, it hits me: I’ll never have a sister-in-law – not officially, at least. (She’s already and always in my heart.) There isn’t going to be a wedding. The groom is gone. My brother is gone.
As much as I miss Nathan, my heart breaks in these moments for the many other people whose lives were dramatically and permanently altered by his death. I pray that someday his fiancé will find love and joy again and live a long, happy life with a man of her dreams.
I think about his job and co-workers. I’ve heard stories of how much they relied on his expertise. He would often get calls in the middle of the night to fix this-or-that server such-and-such. His death means a very tangible loss to the company.
remembering two horrible days
(I was cleaning out my inbox and found the following excerpt from an email that I sent on Sunday, Jan. 25. I thought it was worth posting here, because although it’s painful to re-read, it is evident to me that God was already at work, healing and providing for us in our moments of need.)
In the span of two days, I have broken the news to my two nephews that their Daddy is gone, written my own brother’s obituary, helped with funeral arrangements and cried out to my Creator from the aching crevasses of my heart.
And yet — God is good … ALL the time. In the midst of the visitors and plans and decisions and phone calls, I have had few precious moments to myself, but God remains faithful to help me put one foot in front of the other. He has graced me with rest and answered my prayers for empty dreams.
My nephews are being well cared for and loved on, and although this is still all so very confusing to them, they are holding up well. My mom is surrounded by family and church friends, and she is doing much, much better than when I first saw her Friday night in the ER, where she was in shock from hearing the news of my brother’s accidental shooting.
Please continue to keep all of us in prayer. Tell your loved ones just that … “I love you” … and give them an extra hug today.
Delete
I deleted Nathan from my Yahoo contacts today. I don’t know why it took me so long … I just liked seeing his name on the list.
I still look at his Facebook and MySpace pages every once in a while. They have memorialized his sites, so they should stay active, just not allow any new posts. There’s something heartwarming about being able to read the last few things he wrote and see his picture, all smiling and happy. 🙂
I miss him so much.
Decorating ideas for the new house
We’ve been brainstorming décor in the new house and after taking an informal poll of what the boys wanted in their rooms (being sure to make no promises … just gleaning their ideas!), we’ve decided to decorate the boys’ rooms and bathrooms as follows:
1) The oldest’s room: space/Star Wars theme. Have you ever seen “chalkboard” paint? It’s so cool – it goes on like paint and dries as a chalkboard, so you can literally write on the walls. It’s black, so you wouldn’t want to do more than one wall or part of a wall, but we thought it’d be cool in a “space” room and provide the budding genius with ample space to brainstorm (or quantify string theory … whatever). We could put glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, etc.
2) The two middle ones’ room: sports theme. The room is currently painted in bright orange/green layers. We could repaint it, but we thought the bold color scheme would lend itself well to a sports theme. I’ve seen some cool wire silhouette shapes of sports that would be neat up against the bright colors. We were even thinking of hanging old skateboards as shelves, etc. There is an abundance of sports-related décor out there.
3) The two littlest ones’ room: superheroes/comic book theme: We have some Spiderman wall border (Peel & stick! No glue!) that we originally bought for the bathroom at our current house but didn’t get around to hanging. Also, we have a pair of framed comic book stamp collections that the boys received from PawPaw and also a Spiderman rug. Again, there is a myriad of options with this theme.
4) Hall bath: jungle theme. We already have a framed giraffe print and a leopard print, as well as a wild cat hook rack that are currently in the shared bedroom. I thought it’d be a nice, neutral theme for the guest bath.
5) Shared bath (rooms 2&3): frogs theme. This is the décor that my nephews had in their bathroom back home with Daddy, and it’s still in great condition. We thought it’d be a nice familiar touch for them to have at their new home.
6) TV room: rock ‘n roll theme. We’re going to use the second living area as a tv room and leave the “nice” living room with just some comfy seating, fireplace and piano. Since the tv room doubles as the video game room – and we all LOVE Guitar Hero! – we thought it’d be perfect to decorate with music in mind.
Everyone is psyched about their new rooms, so I think we chose well. Our goal was to pick themes that would be: 1) relatively easy and inexpensive to pull off, and 2) able to “grow” with the boys over time.
As for the master bedroom and bath … well, we’re not sure yet. We definitely want it calming and soothing to the eye (polar opposite of the Mary Engelbreit-on-steroids wallpaper that the current residents have in the master bath). I still would like a place to display my porcelain doll collection (the poor girls have been in boxes for years!!), but I’m not sure where. Bless his heart, Lane said I can put them wherever I like, but I don’t want to just throw up some shelves and call it done. I’ll keep thinking about the perfect place.
greenbeans!
Tonight’s special side dish: greenbean casserole – from our very own garden! We also have lettuce and banana peppers almost ready to pick. The boys are very excited about being able to eat some of our “crops” before we move!
faith, sweat & tears 