A Beautiful Day for a Neighbor

Given my middle child's recent obsession with Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, I am lucky my head hasn't yet exploded from having the theme song on a continual stuck loop in my head. Seriously...stuck there ALL. DAY. LONG.

But today, it felt a little bit like reality.

Some of you might remember that when we moved in here we saw a long list of yard projects looming before us. About a month ago, I decided to tackle the never-ending hedge that was attempting to take over the road on the side of our house. Rather than pay $1000 to have the hedge removed or severely trimmed, I decided to make it into a row of trees.

I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty pleased with my thrifty plan that turned out to actually look rather stately.

Used to be an overgrown hedge, now a tree lined street!

But the saving of the money in cutting them down also meant that I was left with a backyard full of tree limbs. TONS of tree limbs. And our county doesn't have any kind of limb or leaf pickup. (Really, Chesterfield?)

Last week I called a tree company to get an estimate on hauling all the limbs away. $350 to load up a truck, my friends.

Seeing all my hard work on saving money quickly slipping away, I tried to reason that this was at least still significantly less money than having that company trim or pull them out.

So.

I happened to mention this to a new neighbor who is fast becoming a good friend (and whose son is my son's playmate just about every day now and has thus made my day.)

Her reply?

"STOP. Don't do it."

And within minutes she had arranged for us to borrow a different neighbor's truck. His words to her when she explained what I was going to do to take care of the limbs: "We don't pay for stuff like that on this corner."

Well.

We said "yes" to that generously offered truck.

And then this morning, my neighbor shows up with my favorite starbucks drink and her work gloves and we go to town on that backyard. Together. Within hours, we've hauled a whole load to the dump and reloaded the truck and trailer. Most of the work was done while my littlest slept and my two older ones were at school.

Loaded up and ready for a second run to the dump

And the bonus to a now-cleaned-up backyard? Getting to enjoy my awesome neighbor's company while doing a job that feels very rewarding.

Were we the only two women at the dump mucking out a trailer? Yep.
Was my minivan the only one there? Of course.
Was my toddler the only baby watching a load of people empty backyard waste into a huge pile and loving every minute of said entertainment? Darn straight he was.

You see, friends, neighbors are pretty awesome. This is the fourth home we've owned. Every time we move, we pray hard, hoping that our new neighbors will be as awesome as our old ones. And each new place, we encounter a totally different set of people who surprise us in new and tremendously beautiful, human ways.

So, here's to my new neighborhood. To their generous and fun-loving spirits. To their smiles and welcomes and trucks and attitude that says "we are family when we live next door."

Richmond, keep up the lovely surprises. Perhaps God was planning some redemption for us here all along.

It really is a beautiful day for a neighbor.

Untangling RVA

In just a few short months we'll head south again to Richmond. Back to where our family began. We met there, married there, bought our first home there, got our first pet there, had our first child there. You know, became adults. Or at least we looked like adults. When do you really start feeling like an adult, anyway?

Richmond was not first on our list to return to. In fact, in some ways, it was probably last. It was a place we never planned to return. A place that, for me at least, represented pain. Represented exhaustion and chaos and all the ways I didn't want our family to function. When we left it for NC seven years ago, we left it with a big sigh of relief.

It was a chance to start over. Fresh. New.

I still remember those first few months after we moved. The days were calm and joyful, filled with house projects and playing and attempting not to melt in the Durham humidity as we met our awesome neighbors. The evenings were filled with family dinners and twilight walks and long conversations with my husband after our son, then only 2, went to sleep for the night.

It was peace.

And in the midst of that peace, I blamed all of what I had felt IN Richmond ON Richmond.

The overwhelmed. The exhausted. The angry. The alone. The sadness.

It was Richmond's fault.

Even those first few years in NC, if I drove through RVA on the way north, I would tense up. I couldn't stop for a fill-up or a coffee. I drove through it as quickly as possible and kept my eyes facing forward.

It was in NC that I started blogging. Made the attempt to move from unable to even articulate a feeling to myself from occasionally being brave enough to share a feeling with the public. I shared about our miscarriage. Our infertility. Our adoption process. Parenting. Friendships. Marriage.

But never once did I write about Richmond.

It was, until a few months ago, a place I kept closed off. Until we got that call from VCU. And began to ask God if it was maybe, just maybe, a chance for a do-over. An adventure in redemption.

Friends, I had to get down on my knees. I had to surrender my anger. Surrender my fear.

And in so doing, I began to see that it wasn't Richmond's fault at all.

It was me, and me alone.

Those who know me now, know that I share about the hard places. I blog, I write, I try to find funny things to say in the midst of the hard moments. I work at being open.

But back then, I was one big secret. I was fine. All the time.

So much so that I was actually going through a miscarriage in the middle of a church leadership meeting, chose to stay there, not tell anyone it was happening and just occasionally rush off to the bathroom to panic and breathe and come back as if nothing was wrong.

So much so that I went away on a retreat with my colleagues during that same time and only told the woman I roomed with. 3 whole days away togther in a beach house and no one knew a thing was wrong. They just thought I was tired.

So much so that during that drawn-out month in which we lost our daughter, when a good friend called and asked if she could bring us a meal(because clearly she knew something was wrong), I chose to pretend that nothing was wrong at all and didn't tell her what was going on. And refused the meal.

So much so that I began to avoid our friends because I didn't want to answer any questions about why I was sad or distant. I focused on packing. I focused on thinking ahead and ignoring the now.

So much so that my marriage was basically a setup of excellent roommates who were over-committed and exhausted. Ships passing in the night who traded off childcare. Because to interact was to deal with pain that we weren't sharing with anyone else. And who had the time to interact, anyway, with all the ways we were involved in life around us?

Ironically, we were a part of a very intentional community of people at that time. A new church plant, people who had moved into the city to be in each other's lives. We were on church committees, worship teams, small groups. We had friends nearby.

But we had put our community BEFORE our marriage rather than inviting our community INTO our marriage.

There is a big difference, friends.

One way allows me to present the illusion of service and love and the other let's me actually LIVE a life of service and love.

I chose the wrong way.

I am a long way away from untangling all this. I know that almost 10 years later, I am no longer a walking secret. I have talked about the miscarriage. I have adopted two beautiful sons. I have dealt, as best one can, with the infertility. I have a good marriage that is way more than a roommate situation. I keep a feelings chart handy because, on top of trying to figure out what I am feeling at any given moment, I am trying to teach my children how to identify what they feel. I am clearly not equipped for that particular quirk of parenting but I soldier on and we learn together.

But as I look forward, there are things I need to do.

I have never apologized to the friends I shut out. I hope to do that.

I have never driven by our home in Church Hill on my trips through Richmond. I want to do that.

I have only once been back to our church community there and, at the time, all it did was dredge up the pain. I have to visit and let the Lord practice his work of redemption.

Most of all, I hope as I continue to untangle and forgive myself and move forward, that we can start fresh as a family. 10 years later. 2 more pets. 2 more children. 2 more sets of goodbyes under our belts. We have changed and so has RVA.

Ready or not, here we come.

Moment of Grace

I was sitting on the deck stairs, the early evening autumn light trickling across the backyard through the neighbors' trees. The baby was in my arms, watching his brothers laugh and play with their father alongside them. And I felt a sudden quickening of my heart, an inexplicable intake of breath.

It was a moment of grace.

One moment in a constant day of feeding and changing and discipline and hurry.

But in that moment, that light coming through the trees was like a shaft of light to my heart.

"You made it. Look around you. Smiles, laughter, health, bounty. You made it."

Sometimes you are in something painful or challenging or dark for so long that you almost don't notice when the darkness shifts. And it might only shift by millimeters, but it starts to recede. Little by little, moment by moment. And then that light streaks in and you can see. See what God has done, see the scars and the hope, see the good even in the midst of the everyday challenges.

A moment of grace.

I will always be marked by our miscarriage. Our years of infertility have left their scars. The ups and downs of waiting on our boys changed who I am. This past year of tantrums and battles and fatigue and the completely overwhelming nature of being a mom to two children under two has challenged me to love deeper and more unconditionally than I thought possible.

And in that moment of grace, I could see.

See my laughing toddler and realize with a shock that he hadn't had any meltdowns that day. Not one. See my eight-year-old who went from being an only child in a calm, quiet house to the oldest of three boys in nonstop chaos in just a year and a half's time. And to see him loving it, embracing it. To see it changing him for good. To see this baby who is emerging from the newborn phase laughing and sleeping and staring us down when we eat in front of him and remembering that we didn't even know about him five months ago. To see this man with whom I've chosen to walk life, a true partner, encourager, the hardest-working and most generous man I know, who loves his family with unwavering fierceness.

A moment of grace.

To drink it in, give thanks, take stock and look forward in hope to what our family is becoming. To know these moments will come and go, that some days will still be long and hard, but that God is faithful. That he gives grace and strength. That he gifts us with these moments where we can suddenly see and know that He is good.

This morning, as I reflect on that moment I am reminded of the words of one of my favorite songs:

"Let hope rise and darkness tremble
In your Holy light
That every eye will see
Jesus, Our God
Great and mighty to be praised "  (From "With Everything" by Hillsong United )

Even sitting among the dirty dishes and the long lists for the day ahead, I am asking hope to continue to rise. To see the darkness continue to fade. To move boldly forward in ways that draw myself and others to know God better.

To see more moments of grace and light and make them as much a part of who I am as the scars have been. I don't need the scars to fade - but they are so much more beautiful in the light.

The Shirt

The shirt made a brief debut in December 2008. Size 3T, "Awesome Big Brother." I found it at a little second-hand shop the same day I found out we were expecting. These days, everyone tends to think early on about how they'll announce such joyful news - I was going to have Josh wear it and post the picture. And invite the world to rejoice with us.

But just 4 weeks later I was packing that shirt away, deep in the throes of silent grief. I remember thinking that I should just trash it - what were the chances it would still fit him if and when we ever got that chance to announce? 

Months went by, then years. 

I forgot about the shirt.

Just a few weeks ago I was going through our 3T box and pulling out clothes for my ginormous 16 month old and there it was. 

Size 3T, "Awesome Big Brother."  

Just days after we found out that he would, indeed, be one. And soon.

It's funny how life works. You find out news, you plan something out. You dream, you hope, you mourn. You roll with what life brings next or scream about it's unfairness. You rail at God some days, you forget to care others. You pray and then stop and then pray again.

And then suddenly you are this family of five. And this shirt that was meant to announce joy to the world 7 years ago, this shirt that you so painfully packed away, gets new life. New, unexpected life.

Isn't that the way things happen sometimes? One dream dies and we even forget about the little ancillary details that might have surrounded it. Meanwhile, God is working in the background. Things are happening that we can't see and wouldn't understand in their uncompleted form anyway. They are too big for our human mind. Life moves forward and we never see the ways that dreams might come back around in a renewed form until they are thrust before us.

And let me be clear here: I am not saying that God likes that my two younger boys have lost their first familues or that years ago when I bought this shirt God was working then to make it so my kids would go through that pain of loss and possible eventual struggles with identity that can come with adoption. In my opinion, it is never his plan that families would not stay together- but situations happen and adoption exists for a reason. These boys are not the lucky ones  - we are the ones privileged to have them be a part of our family, to enrich our lives, to be our sons even as they deal eventually with their own losses and questions.What I AM saying is that we dreamed of being parents to more than one child. We mourned and waited and struggled and almost gave up. But in just 20 months, we now have two more children and feel overwhelmed with fullness and joy. (And, obviously, sleep deprivation ;-)

My sweet oldest boy never wore that shirt. But man has he lived up to it's wording. And just a year and a half after becoming that awesome big brother that he so longed to be, he gets to do it again and watch his little brother become one, too. 

My oldest actually leapt up from the table and did a happy dance when he found out the news and asks constantly to hold him and feed him and cuddle him. My middle boy has no idea who this little person is who has invaded his life, his space, his parents' attention.

Sweet boy in his drooly shirt- give him a break, he's working on 4 molars!

But he's wearing that shirt. That shirt that represented a lost dream, a deep sadness, an unfulfilled announcement. 

That shirt is living proof that God is faithful.