What Cowlicks and Warriors Would Tell You about Living Well

The fir tree has a cowlick. Spouting out from conical symmetry is a two-foot-long branch, and I want to snip it each time I see it, but it's twenty feet up and in my neighbor's yard. The branch points north to my neighbor's front yard where at night Orion the Warrior is tangled in a tree.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Erica Franck, Creative Commons cc license

One month into my Dad's stage IV terminal cancer diagnosis, and I find myself scrolling websites, scrawling notes at doctors' appointments, and counting calendar months. Chest tight some mornings, I pull my Bible closer while Daniel sits beside me untangling addition problems, and I wonder about subtractions.

Yesterday we took a break from math and phonics to refill bird feeders. Charcoal-colored sunflower seeds spilled dusty from the bag, whooshing against my fingers on cold metal frame. I sliced old juicy oranges into halves for the orioles. Crushed citrus a fragrance on my skin. Daniel and I placed vivid orange slices between lines of drizzled seeds on the deck railing, then slipped back inside to watch the birds come. Black-capped chickadees soared tremulously close, skittish but hopeful.

And I remember it, recounting the ways that God has tenderly laid bread crumb trails of hope and wonder for me this spring, long before I even knew I would need them. I line them up in my mind, and shake my head in gentle wonder. He is so good. In January, I stepped out and chose my very first Word of the Year --Brave --thinking I meant it to be moving more boldly into my writing and speaking ministries. God knew of Dad's impending cancer, though, and kindly tucked the word inside me. Earlier, in November Mark and I co-taught a sermon at our church, stating that joyful thanks-giving is always possible, even in the darkest nights. We mentioned our daughter's young cancer scare when she was five years old, and other crises over the years. Meanwhile my Dad's cancer grew in silence. The breadcrumbs continue in my mind, and I see it clearly, God's loving trail for me.

Pulling my Bible nearer, I pause to answer Daniel's math question before sinking deeper into God's words. "I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand," his book tells me, and I lean into that.

"Mom, I listened to Grandpa's song a lot yesterday," my tall twenty-one year old said quietly to me. Jeremy Camp's song "Reckless" has become my dad's mantra these months. He air drums away to it, nodding his head.

"Can we play it again?" my Dad says softly. "I'm not afraid to die. I know where I'm going," he smiles. Jeremy Camp sings about wanting to love and live recklessly, boldly, because of Jesus's love for us.

"I want to die well," my Dad says, thinking of a Henri Nouwen quote. He and Mom have been sharing their stories of God's rescues and passionate love all the more boldly now to the people they meet.

Outside my window, I can see it, the fir tree with a cowlick. Beyond the Warrior Orion hangs the Big Dipper constellation.

"If you're ever lost and need to find north," my Dad had taught me, "follow the mouth of the Big Dipper. It will pour out into the North Star."

And now it changes how I see the cowlick. It's directing me to a poured out life that always points me home.

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When Your Stakes Seem Higher

The stakes seemed higher. It's funny how that happened. Every week without a blogpost here raised the cost of words for me, and weighted each one heavier.

Photo: Martin O_ob, Creative Commons, cc license

Busyness first halted me, carrying me away from my desk and you. Days passed, weeks mounted, though, and suddenly fear crept in. I wanted the words to have beauty, to hold meaning, and to be worthy of your time. And that wrangled a finger hold around my throat. It choked my words inside me.

Simple images of grandpas and gardens, and two sons in the dirt. My dad, silver-haired, looking more and more like his dad, kneels on dew-dropped grass blades. "I forgot my knee pads," he murmurs, dipping an orange-handled shovel into a shallow channel.

We're building four raised garden beds again, in the new yard. His hair is starting to curl around the edges, "Like Uncle Kurt," my mom and I notice, and he is so much stronger since September's cancer surgeries and the ceremonial-eating of the only apple on the tree. 

My twenty-year old son is there for his strength and his love of the outdoors. He and his grandpa wield a borrowed yellow mallet, heavy enough to tip me over when I pass it unexpectedly at one point.

"Can I help? What can I hammer?" hopes six year old Daniel aloud.

"Hey, Daniel. Here's a spot you can hammer." John points to an upraised metal reebar tip and crouches beside his brother, and my mama heart sings.

A red cardinal crows birdeee birdeeee birdeee from the highest point of a silver balsam tree behind us, and the rising morning sun warms us. My nose runs from the cold air. A wind shakes cottonwood seeds down around us from the neighbor's tree.

"Ready for the next post, John?" my dad asks, and I snap out of reverie and jump green corduroy sneakers onto my pitch fork, preparing the soil before them.

Write what you know, right? I know about heavy squares of sod chopped and shaken to save any garden dirt; black-capped chicadees and cardinal soliloquies, and sons with grandpas wielding mallets. I know french-pressed coffee oils swirling atop hot mugs, and dirt under the nails despite three washings. I see hard-working loved ones, and smell rain-fresh brown dirt, sliced grass sod, and lilacs from the neighbor's front yard.

And the moment captured is enough. My job is to see and note.

For you? Is there anything that looms taller with each passing day? Step in, pull up the chair, take that first action. The fear will still be there, I confess, but the hidden joy that comes from doing what you were made to do will spring up and delight you. I promise.

How are you? I've missed you. Catch me up?