Very Close to Home; Jess Time

It Started with an Embrace

Note the wrapped right hand for IVs

It started with an embrace in the delivery room.  And then, another embrace, 9 months later, as we were unexpectedly back in the pediatrics ward of Huntington Hospital with a very feverish lump of 9 month old baby girl resting on my shoulder.  She would be in that hospital for nearly a week, overcoming a serious infection. It was a frightening time.

In that pediatrics ward her mother and I were quite worried.  Our little girl had a very high fever and was listless and lethargic.  Among the marks of real Providence in our lives was the alert response of our pediatrician, who admitted our baby girl immediately.  As it turned out, she was exactly correct.  Several days of serious intravenous medication ensued, followed by a surgical procedure, and finally, gratefully, discharge from the hospital.

I will never forget those moments in pediatrics admitting, holding that baby girl, wondering where this suddenly very scary journey might take us.  I had no idea, and I was petrified.  She was so little.

But in those moments of fear, I also experienced a feeling that was entirely unique, solitary, and mysterious.  It's something I have only spoken of a couple of times since; it is too difficult to articulate.  There, in the bustle of a hospital, holding that child, I felt an almost tangible sense of God's presence.  Strangely, as if something far more infinite was there with us all, in that room.  Something Sacred. 

And at the same moment, a single vivid and entirely unexpected thought seemed to overwhelm me and become more clear than just about anything I have thought or felt in all my years.

"I will be with you, wherever this leads."  

More than anything else that scary day, I knew we were not alone.  I can't explain where this came from, or even what it meant at its deepest level.  This baby's sickness was not a random event.  This was Peace, washing over me.  And I needed it.

I have been reflecting on those days, and the arc of that girl's life these past days, as her mother and I have returned from Seattle, going the slow way home through Washington, Oregon, and the coast of California.  On the road you have a lot of time to reflect on the mystery and wonders of the past seasons of your life.  And you have time to ponder where God showed up in your life as a family.  The road gives you the gift to forget your schedule for a while, and helps you put all those years of raising a family in perspective.  The long road home helps you enjoy the slowness of the journey, and reminds you of where you have been.  I think we spend too much time flying over life; the road connects us with what really happens down here on earth.

It started in a hospital admitting room, and, in part, it ended on an open quad at college, in a slightly tearful goodbye for the start of freshman year.  This is the point when we all, parents and child, admit that its time to begin to part - to all find our own way in the world.

On that day last week, strangely I had a reminder of that same sense of Peace from almost 19 years before.  It came in that sacred moment when I watched daughter and Mom embrace for a moment of parting.  A hug.  Tears.  Peace.  Right there, in front of me.  How could that be?  She was leaving us - how would she do?  What would her future be like?  Millions of questions.  And yet, Peace.

I know this because 10 days ago, that same little girl, now grown and entirely ready to go, rested her head, for just a moment in a hug, on that same shoulder of mine.  Then, she turned, smiling and making fun of her emotional parents, and walked confidently forward toward her new life in college.

So many years have passed, each one filled with a unique mixture of tears and laughter, frustration and joy, challenge and opportunity.  I have this other name besides Steve.  This girl calls me Dad.  It will be the most sacred and joy-filled name I will ever be called.

Friends ask us how we are doing.  Thankful.  The word hardly begins to describe how we feel.

The Heavens declare the glory of God

This certainly illustrates the point of Psalm 19.  Make sure to watch it full screen.

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

Are We Paying Attention to All This?

Its late summer now and the daylight here is growing shorter.  Past is the 54th anniversary of my arrival on this planet.  Lately, over the course of this summer, I have been reflecting on how much of this life I am really understanding.  Or appreciating. Or celebrating.  And I don't blog here as much as I did during my late 40s - I should change that.  Maybe that could become an exercise in more frequent reflection and celebration.

How much do I grasp of this journey and the remarkable relationships I have been given?  And as we all move from day to day, how often am I missing the presence Divine in the midst of the everyday?  I might be missing a lot, and I would like to change that.

Now deep in middle age, and passing more milestones in life, do I even have something close to a sense of wonder and mystery about it all?    Is there, deep within me, a glimpse of a vague understanding of my part in this relentless, remarkable, enchanting, mysterious gift I have been given in the form of friends and family?

Older Daughter is back beginning her final year in college at DePaul in Chicago, after a great summer at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, helping to lead the Sting Rays Swim Team.  Younger Daughter is weeks away from starting her own remarkable journey at the University of Washington.  As the seasons of adulthood change, am I really taking in all of this amazing ride?  Do I get it; do I really understand?

It seems we hold these moments of life with our children like some kind of impossible net made of gossamer threads.  We can never get a complete or permanent grip.  And, it seems, this is the way it is meant to be.


Kevin Kling is a storyteller, and I recently heard him interviewed.  He said this, that completely struck me; it was an epiphany of sorts:

"As children, we are closer in time to the Creator.  I realized who I connected with.  As a kid, I connected with my grandparents.  We were in the same light. I was in the dawn, and they were in the twilight, but we were in the same light.  They were heading to the Creator, and I was coming from the Creator.  And, because of that, we spoke a very similar language.  I wondered as I was getting older and as I looked back, where that goes.  Because it does go.  We become entrenched in this world.  As time goes on, and we come to the end of our lives, we return to that point."

"Because it does go".  My goodness!  Where has it gone for me?  In the busy-ness of running my own business?  In the blur of the everyday? Sometimes, we just get lost in the immediate, don't we?  We become entrenched in this world.  I love that phrasing.  Heading off to work each day, dealing with the immediacy of life. We are like the people in the Rockwell painting"Lift Up Thine Eyes".  Although its too small to see, the print on the sign reads, of course, "Lift up Thine Eyes".  Beneath it, the hoards of the city trudge onward to work, heads downcast.

As this new chapter of life in the form of "empty nest" comes into focus, I want to pay attention, to make a difference in the lives of others, and to remember and celebrate it.