Beautiful feet

Feeling beautiful has never been an easy task for me.  I never felt gaggle-toothed-monstrous, hide-in-the-belfries ugly but I never had the inner confidence that would have helped pull of my 5 foot 10 inch pre-teen frame. I can't even admit the inner dialog I practiced when I would go around a room and find the girl with prettier feet, the one with prettier hair, the girl with the prettier waistline, the one with a prettier smile on and on and on.

Then I went to BYU.  Where in the heck are these girls manufactured?  I am convinced there are factories that spew out blonde,  blue-eyed, 5 foot 2 bombshells peppering the Utah-Idaho border.  Not to mention the bronzed beauties coming from the Pacific Islands or the long haired knock outs with a Hispanic background.  My inner comparison went into high drive.

This lack of confidence got an eighteen month respite as I served a full-time mission.  Missionaries didn't have to be beautiful, they just needed to work hard.  So I rolled up my sleeves, worked hard and stopped the silly worry. 

One night while kneeling in prayer on the floor in a small apartment on my mission, I discussed with the Lord the blessings needed for the families we were teaching.  Out of nowhere He turned my mind to a passage I had just read in the Book of Mormon.  The passage was explaining how the early prophets testified of Christ.  It reads, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that are still publishing peace."  I was overcome with personal, however trivial, inspiration. The personal logic was lightening fast and flawless.  I gathered the facts.  "I have feet". "I had published peace".  "BYU is the mountains" thus I WOULD HAVE BEAUTIFUL FEET ON THE MOUNTAINS.  I would be beautiful there.  I didn't think I needed this truth right then but my Father slipped this little nugget into my basket to use later.  My attempts to fulfill my calling would result in the confidence to feel beautiful. I had beautiful feet.

I returned home, finished my time at BYU, went on to post-graduate work, started my career in a new city and got swept off my feet by my sweetheart.  Yes, he thought I was beautiful but my own confidence came from knowing I had lived my life worthy of the blessing of him.  Just like on my mission, my beauty came from knowing I had pleased the Lord with my "publishing peace" and righteous living.  I had beautiful feet.

Time passed as we built our world together.  And with time came a physical change that 40 brings.  I still had his hand as we attempted to live our lives in accordance to God's will.  I had confidence even if my eyebrows weren't where they used to be and laugh lines creased my eyes.  I had beautiful feet.

But the biggest change to my beauty came post-diagnosis.  Cancer is at its worst when the sun goes down.  And the caregiver gets slapped by its cruel timing as hard as the patient.  I slept at his feet for 7 weeks to be at the ready for anything he would need.  And he needed.  My waking hours were full of worry and stress and concern and heartbreak.  None of these were good companions to a beauty routine. 

Yet with all this, something magic happened.  While rushing from bathroom to kitchen to serve the man I loved, I would catch a reflection of myself in the mirror and I was amazed at my beauty.  The face of a woman fiercely devoted to her children looked back at me.  A wife madly in love with her husband was obvious from her eyes.  Her mouth fixed strong showed someone who was determined to make it through the challenges rocking her world.  An inner grace and peace accompanied her every move.

Then I lost him.  And again the magic continued.  As I followed behind his casket holding the hands of his gorgeous boys, I was stunning.  As I laid him to rest in the sweltering heat of a Phoenician summer, I glowed.  As I mourn him and learn to live with only a fraction of my heart, I radiate.

How could this be?  Simple.  It is the same doctrine I was taught long ago in that moment of personal prayer on my mission.  "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that are still publishing peace."  My publication task might have changed from preaching the gospel to Texans to raising righteous boys without my eternal companion as a physical presence.  My task is now to pick up the pieces of my life to shelter my children.  My task is to rely wholly on the Lord when my own strength is deplete from grief.  My task is to testify to all that know me that Leonard continues to live through Jesus Christ's ultimate sacrifice.  And in accomplishing these tasks, I will qualify for beauty.  I have an inner glow.  I have beautiful feet.

My birthday gift to you, my Leonard

Things these days are code protected.  You have to know what 4 numbers give you access to your money at the bank. You have to supply a snappy one liner each time you log on to a computer at work. You have to answer a secret question about what your kindergarten teacher was wearing the first day back from Christmas break to change your cable TV settings.    There are a lot of codes.

It must stem from the prevalence of fraud in our society.  I understand that when it comes to my hard earned cash.  But is there really some entity scheming to add channels to my cable TV subscription?  My cartoon mind conjures up an image of men sitting around a table tucked away in a cave in some desert country.  One says to the other "She will never see it coming.  Tomorrow when she turns on the TV she will have HBO!  I knew Ms. Winkler wore that red dress after Christmas at Laidlaw Elementary in 1977."

So now you know what was going through my mind during Leonard's varied medical procedures.  When I brought him to appointments, the first question was always "What is his name?" followed by "And his birthday?"  11-14-75 became our free pass.  If we could supply it ( and prove that they didn't have Leonard Murley Lorton the first or second sitting there)  we could move forward with whatever medical step was next.

So those numbers became a code for me.  In the beginning there was hope embedded in those 6 random digits.  They were on the intravenous antibiotics they started with when they thought his gall bladder was infected.  They were on the sleeping pill that would give him some relief in a dual occupant hospital room.  They were on the bag of poison we pumped into him that would let him see his boys go to high school.  They were hope.

Then it changed.  Each time I rattled off 11-14-75, I could hear the code screaming the obvious to everyone.  Yes this robust healthy man born in 1975 is the same one you just read about in his chart.  Yes, he is the one with metastasized cancer throughout his body who appears as asymptomatic to his young wife as to you.  Yes, that makes him 37.  37. 37.

Quicker than either of us ever imagined, the meaning behind the numbers changed again.  Supplying those precious numbers, 11-14-75, became a pathway to relief.  If I could utter them for him when the pain halted his own response, a bolus of morphine could be administered while we waited for the IV to work.  If I could provide the code, the home delivery would leave me a 200 mg bag of relief so I would be ready as soon as the last one was empty.  If I could supply the code, our journey would be bearable, manageable, possible.

Now it is 11-14-2013, the first time those numbers hit me here alone.  What does the code mean to me now?  I don't see them as a backstage pass anymore.  They are no longer hope.  They don't scream as loud.  They don't bring with them relief.  They remind me that my sweetheart, my love, my giant will forever be 37.  He won't be gray.  He won't be stooped over.  He won't be weary.  He won't age.  He won't get Medicare.  He won't share pudding with me in the old age home.  He won't subscribe to ARP magazines.  He won't even see 38 let alone 58 or 78 or 98.

But again, my cartoon mind thinks that maybe the next realm required a new code.  Maybe heaven requires a password change.  Maybe St. Peter follows the same protocol.  Maybe Peter greeted my Leonard at the Pearly Gates and asked "What is your name?"  and then "When is your birthday?"  Maybe, just maybe, when my Leonard rattled off 11-14-75 he was told that wasn't accurate any longer.  The code had been changed.  Now his code is 8-6-13.   
8-6-13 wouldn't need morphine.   
8-6-13 wouldn't endure the irritation of shared hospital rooms.   
8-6-13 doesn't have a midnight delivery from a hospice pharmacy.   
8-6-13 would give the opportunity to gain eternal knowledge in God's presence.   
8-6-13 would signify that through an Infinite Sacrifice, Leonard's soul continues.   
8-6-13 means hope.

So on this day, 11-14-2013, my birthday gift to him, is my acknowledgement of this hope.  I count the days until I, too,  require a password change and we are reunited making up for not getting to share pudding in our old age.

His wings' shadows

Everything got torn down when Leonard went home.  And I mean everything.  Not one single portion of my life wasn't touched and altered.  (I avoid the word "destroyed" since I long for a perspective on this that doesn't enact the vision of natural disaster relief.)  My bank account changed. The place where we store our car keys changed.  The way the pillows in my bed look changed.  The laundry changed.  Our Sunday night activities changed.  Our television habits changed.  The use of toothpaste and towels in the bathroom changed.  THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING.

There is no place that didn't change.  And with the destruction (see, I can't avoid the word!) of all parts of our life, so are my islands of refuge all gone.  The comfort of jumping on his lap after a hard day is gone.  The peace of sitting with him at church is gone.  The intimacy of reviewing hopes and dreams with my head propped up on an elbow is gone.  IT IS ALL GONE.

But the crazy thing is, I still have refuge.  As the storm rages, I'm not left to endure it wet with rain.  And the Lord taught me this through the eloquence of Psalms.  The phrase, "In the shadow of His wings" gave me a better visual picture of this tsunami in my life.  The Lord would offer His wings to me.  And wings can travel.  The bird of his comfort could find me anywhere.  I didn't need nor would I have my old places of refuge.  But the Lord found my heartbroken soul out in the worst storm humanity would ever endure (or at least that how it feels to me).

So right now, I find refuge from this deluge under His all capable wing. 

Seeking leperchauns

I keep getting the advice from voices both of this world and beyond that I need to write.  I need to document.  I need to publish.

I imagine it is part of the desire to give this horrific experience meaning.  And that is the somewhat impossible quest I'm on.  How can the death of such a giant at the tender age of 37 have meaning?  How can raising two boys without their hero have meaning?  How can the deep stab of loneliness have meaning?  How can one income, pool maintenance, project finishing, life insurance pay out have meaning?  How can widowhood and partial orphancy have meaning?

I can't even begin to answer that but realize that the Holy Grail of my seeking is the answer to my "'why's?".  I long for the answers.  Yet from the very beginning when the doctor said "cancer" before his entire body had joined us in the examination room, I KNEW I WOULD KNOW.  I knew with complete assurance, that I would know why this happened. I would feel the meaning.  I would understand.

Thirteen weeks later, I don't know.  But I do have cliff hangers on my journey that reminded me the answers are out there and I will grasp them sometime.  So for now, I will keep field notes as I hike through this ridiculous trial to help myself document those clues I gather towards the goal of knowing.  The leprechaun's pot at the end of this rainbow is filled with answers and I still have enough hope/naiveté/delusion to believe there is a reward out there for my seeking.

Text messages on my heart

"How can you be gone?"  I find myself asking his picture when I wake up and when I go to bed.  Some days I assault his picture with a more harsh version, "How can you be dead?"  Dead, gone, left, disappeared, missing, abandoned; the verbs change based on how large the fissure through my heart is at the moment. The paper version of him propped up in my makeshift shrine never answers.

And that is the worst part of this journey; him not answering.  I am so reliant on his answers.  That is what I miss the most. 

Just a few short weeks back, Leonard answered everything I threw his way.  I remember a couple of years ago, the boys and I went on a vacation with my parents.  Leonard stayed behind to work and planned on meeting up with us on the later portion of the three week escape to the Rockies.  But I had him in my pocket the whole time.  When Kirby said something funny, I grabbed my phone and called Leonard.  When Carter caught a fish with his grandpa, out came the phone.  When I went to bed, ring-a-ding ding, I called him.  All day long I would reach out to him in his absence.  Then one afternoon we were all sitting on a boat dock on the side of a lake in Colorado.  It was raining slightly but we were sure just a few more minutes would result in that elusive "big catch" all fishers long for.  I watched my line with lazy intent.  And all of the sudden I saw what I thought was a bobber go under water.  I quickly realized I wasn't watching a red bobber get pulled under by a big catch but witnessing my red cell phone going to a watery grave.

MY LIFE LINE TO HIM WAS GONE.  I reassured myself it was no big deal.  He would be coming out in a few days and my dad had a cell phone I could borrow.  Breathe in, breathe out, no need to panic.  So I proceeded to borrow Dad's phone for all the trivial happenings I knew Leonard would want to know about.  On about my third request of the morning, Dad said "Don't you think you have called that boy enough?"  THAT BOY?!?!  That 35 year old MAN I love?  Don't you mean my husband of over 10 years?  The father of my children?  My co-pilot to eternity? How quickly my dad and I returned to the time of my early adolescence  when I needed to be taught the social expectancies of a girl with a silly crush.  JUST GIVE ME THE PHONE, I wanted to scream.

And it all worked out.  My sweetheart joined me a few days later with a new cell phone in hand.  We reunited in person and continued with the reassurance that technology offers to parted lovers in the modern day.  We were connected again.

And that is what I miss.  The non-stop everywhere connection. Maybe that is why I continue to pay for a cell phone that won't be used anytime soon.  703-1317 still works even if its owner doesn't. 

Shout as I may, that polaroid likeness that stares back at me from my bedside table never answers.  I gave up daily texts of him reminding me he was there the minute he was diagnosed with a horrible disease that would take with it our connection.

Now I strive to feel him in my life instead of feel him buzzing in my pocket.  And I do.  I feel his love for our children emanating from my little heart.  I hear his voice when acquaintances enter the realm of dear friends.  I sense his love for me when coincidences can only be contributed to his orchestration of getting us through this.  I get his messages through simple truths uttered by his progeny.  He IS still here but I don't need to use my cell phone minutes anymore to know that.