When the news is bad and the ache returns

A little boy, Gunnar, got a devastating diagnosis this week:  he has a large tumor on his brain stem.  

I've been following the CaringBridge website - Gunnar's dad is an old college friend.  

And I don't really feel like I have much to say or to offer to this newsletter - because I'm tired and sad; every picture and posted update touches a tender spot.

I see the photos of Gunnar's siblings - hugging him tight, preparing to say goodbye as he goes off for tests at a hospital states away...and I think about my own children - the pain they carry after a dead sibling.

As I recognize the familiar imprints of the hospital - the tubes and wires and bland-yet-comforting decor, a part of my heart and my story cracks open again; I remember Mercy Joan.

So, I've cried quietly this afternoon in this corner of Starbucks as preteens, recently released into the freedom of summer, drift in and out; my youngest at a swim party up the street.

On the one hand, this is a beautiful day - school is out, the weekend is inches away.  The children are healthy and happy and there are many good things on the horizon.

On the other hand, the dark reality is moving.  This same, beautiful world, which holds coffee-in-a-mug-with-oatmilk, also harbors horrors.  Children die, they die in hospital beds or across an ocean under bombs.  Their parents wait and watch and cry.

And how to hold it all?

A friend of mine is burying her father-in-law die this week.  About twenty years earlier, she buried her mother.  I texted this to her earlier in the week:

"I know that you are no stranger to grief - and I hope that you can be gentle with yourself, whatever comes as you remember your father-in-law, mourn your relationship with him, and support your husband too.  One loss has a way of making us remember every loss."

So, don't be surprised when grief sideswipes you - we live in a world that carries miracles and terror...and that grief, that ache, is a testament to love and to hope.  

You miss them because you loved.  You ache because you hope for a day when things are put to right.

Some very brief tips when their loss triggers yours...

1). Feel your feelings- make space to cry or to scream.  What we resist persists and those feelings will leak out sideways

2). What can you do to be helpful?  Empathy (at it's best) leads to meaningful actions - send a text, a card, a present for the siblings, pray.  

3). What else is true right now?  This is a grounding question that helps to put your feelings into a wider perspective

4). Meaningful movement.  Go for a walk, lift some weights, stretch it out on a yoga mat.  

Book Recommendation

I've recommended this book in just about every conversation I've had over the last week...

"Fever in the Heartland" by Timothy Egan is a searing, immensely important look at "the Ku Klux Klan's plot to take over America, and the woman who stopped them."

As a Hoosier, it is especially relevant - much of the drama takes place right here in Indy and climaxes at the Noblesville courthouse, just up the road.

Some sobering stats -

- In 1925, 1 in 3 white men in Indiana were in the Klan (the 2nd highest percentage in the nation)

- The largest Klan rally in the US was in Kokomo, Indiana

- In the second largest Klan rally (Washington DC), 90% of the marchers were from northern states

- Klan clubs were in high school yearbooks: there were Kiddie Klans, Klan for women, the pervasive reach was staggering.

- The payoffs and membership cut all the way through layers of local and state government

Aligned against "Negroes, Catholics, and Jews", this story is a hard but necessary read, peering deeply into a brutal, resounding chapter of our shared history.

Seriously, get your copy today.