On A Wing and A Prayer (Meb)

    It’s been a rough five+ years. In The Miracle Chase, I write about my dissolving marriage and the hope I feel about the future and the trust I have that, as Julian of Norwich says, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” At the time, I also was fearful and uncertain---to be more accurate, I was scared out of my mind, incredibly sad, lonely, angry, and feeling like God had given me more than I could handle. Without sounding too much like a country western song, then my brother died, my mother died, and my dog died.

     Divorce usually means you have to move on. And usually, you have to move out. So, I sold the family home and moved into a mother-in-law apartment with Daniel who was finishing high school. I got a mutt puppy for me and a brother mutt puppy for Daniel to replace our beloved Maddox and we promptly got evicted from the apartment when they got too big for the landlord. I had a hysterectomy and struggled to get back in the work force. I bought a condo so no one could evict us, and then lost money on the condo in the real estate crash. Speaking of crashes, there were several car crashes which were scary and expensive.  I moved Elizabeth back to the Bay Area and twice again before finally helping her find a decent place to live. Just when things seemed to get calmer, I had an emergency appendectomy. Right when I was changing jobs again, my Dad got very sick and quickly passed away.

     Although I have also had many gifts along the way, as I write this I have an overwhelming feeling of loss unlike all the others. I was just getting to know my Dad. I've moved pretty fast to stay ahead of it but I think Loss may have finally caught up with me.  Which brings me to Memorial Day.

     My Dad was a World War II Veteran who enlisted in the Army Air Corps at seventeen. A big farm kid, he was supposed to go with his unit to the front in Europe, but got mumps on the troop train and was put in the hospital. Told he would never have children, when he got well, he was sent with another unit to the Alaskan islands to wait for the Japanese invasion that never came. He returned from the war, fell in love with geology and my mother and had five kids. At the end of his life, he looked around at his children and grandchildren gathered near his bed, smiled and said, “I think I did OK.”

     You did OK Dad. You did great. I can only hope that I will be as certain when my time comes.

     There have been lots of lessons for me over these last few years about permanence and impermanence. You think you will love and be loved forever and it doesn't always work out that way. When your children are little, you think they won’t ever give you a moment’s peace; you can’t imagine the young adults who can’t make the family get together because of work. You think doing a really good job will ensure that you keep it, but many times it doesn't.

     Last weekend, my brothers and I started the process of going through our childhood home to get it ready to sell and to take the things we valued. It’s a very strange feeling to be the oldest person in the family. I don’t feel wiser, just older. While I sorted through not just my parents belongings, but my mother’s part of my grandparents belongings,  I had an overwhelming sense that I needed to start giving my stuff away right now. So much of what my parents had was special because of the memories we children associated with my parents, the house and its contents. But, at the end, all Dad cared about was that we were there to say “I Love You” and “Good Bye.”

     The valuable things my parents left me are intangible. One thing about my father’s generation, (they say it was the Greatest Generation), is their motivation, as Tom Brokaw writes, to do the “right thing.”  My parents had a way of working hard at things and staying the course, hoping for the best.  I think about my Dad on that troop train at seventeen. He thought it was a miracle he was sent to Alaska and never doubted that he would be a father.  He had a kind of certainty, no doubt based in his deep faith that God was watching over him. I’d like to think I inherited some of this kind of faith, though, at times, I confess, I have conversations with God to please stop watching and start intervening.

     This Memorial Day, I want to honor my Dad in a special way. I've decided to call my troops together (virtually) and share five lessons my parents taught me through the way they lived their lives. Here’s the List:

1) Have Faith: God has a Plan and is there when you need Him.

2) Do the Right Thing.

3) Love Your Family.

4) Care More About Experiences Than Stuff.

               5) Keep Calm and Carry On. Hope for the Best. (This one comes from the British side of the family.)

     Anyone can be deeply saddened by all the tragedies and hardships in this world. Maybe it’s true that as my then six-year-old daughter said, “Life is hard so you appreciate heaven.”  I am humbled by how transitory life is. Life will push you over, knock you down sometimes. What matters is truly the Now of how we carry on and live well anyway, and then, of course, if you believe, what happens at the end. I think about my Dad and I know he is with God. I imagine him turning in his hospital bed toward the bright white light from the other side. He waves to my impatient Mother and whispers, “Fran, I’m coming!  I’m coming in on a wing and a prayer.”  (Meb)