The magic of tea

I had a little tea party this afternoon at three.
It was very small - three friends in all - just I, myself, and me.
Myself ate up the sandwiches, while I drank down the tea.
T'was also I who ate the pie, and pass the cake to me!

When I was a little girl I would set up tea parties with tiny plastic dishes. My dad (who was home all winter while his fields lay under snow and my mom worked as a nurse), or an unsuspecting uncle, or a collection of teddy bears would be invited to sip imaginary tea and "oooh" about its delicate aroma.

Last week I had my first tea party with tea and cakes made out of more than air and fairy dust (a less economical choice to be sure). For the first time I laid out the tablecloth and tea cups I inherited from my grandma this winter. (Oh, how I wish I could ask her who gave them to her and why! Did they remind her of a special occasion? Did she ever use them?)

I invited 7 women who have prayed for me, supported me, and laughed and cried with me through my difficult last pregnancy, Kieran's diagnosis, and my grandma's passing. This list of super models include:

My pastor's wife, who for the past 11 years has given me a weekly hug and the reassurance that I'm not as crazy as I feel, and a lot more beautiful.

My accountability partner from 6 years ago, who still meets me at Second Cup every couple months to talk about things I don't tell anyone else. So many times one of us has said something off the top of our heads that turned out to be a gift from heaven.

The friend who happened to be pregnant exactly the same times I was; she moved an hour away and still showed up at my door after my grandma passed away - just to give me a hug.

The mom who shares my love of cheesecake, ice cream, and strong coffee, and the experience of having a child intent on discovering a record number of ways to endanger life by the age of 2. Actually 3 out of 7 of the women I invited have a child with ADHD, meaning you can tell them all sorts of strange parenting stories and they don't flinch.

The single girlfriend who disagrees with me on almost everything, but has stuck with me for the past decade through thick and thin. I'll never forget the day I was too sick and pregnant to take care of Kieran or myself; she appeared at my door with white bread and real butter to make us grilled cheese sandwiches.

The mom who takes me for coffee, laughs, nods and totally gets it. She said once, I don't have a sister, but I have friends like you. And I say "ditto."

The prayer warrior who told me she woke in the middle of the night to pray for me. She sensed I wasn't sleeping sleeping well either; she felt God telling her to sing me to sleep. The only song she could think of was "O Canada" so she sang that!

Only four of my friends were able to come, but we had a lovely time. There's something about the atmosphere when you're sipping tea from real china cups and eating cakes sprinkled with flower petals and arranged on tiered, etched glass trays that makes every moment feel weightier, yet lighter.

Since I was turning "thirty-something else" they asked for my wisdom (even though they're all older) and when I couldn't produce any off the top of my head, they proceeded to share all the gifts they had received from me in the past: the encouraging words or smiles that came at just the right time.

I blessed them with loose leaf tea, homemade lemon cupcakes, and fine jelly; they blessed me with sweet words. I can't decide what was in my throat: one lump or two? I waited thirty-some years for my first teddy bear-less tea party and now I'm addicted.

Tea, anyone?

A tribute to an amazing woman

My Grandma passed away Saturday night at 10:45. I was stroking her arm when she stopped breathing. What a terrifying and beautiful experience. I'll write about it sometime. Right now I'm too tired.

I was at the hospital from noon till 11 PM Saturday, at mom's planning the funeral Sunday, teaching College in Steinbach Monday afternoon, pick up T. then back to Steinbach Monday evening for the viewing, back to Steinbach Tuesday to do the same service again, drive to Boissevain and stay for night so we could bury her beside Grandpa and then do the same service a third time. It's good to be home.

Here is the tribute I gave. It was supposed to be for the viewing but I ended up doing it at all three services.

Memories of my Grandma

For 35 years my grandma was a presence in my life. She was there for all the big moments: the family birthdays, Christmases, graduations, weddings, and shopping trips to Grand Forks. But mostly she was there for the every day moments: the pea-shelling, TV watching, chicken wing and tater moments that don’t stand out and imprint themselves on your mind.

So I don't have a lot of story-like memories of Grandma to share because all our times together were so ordinary.

I remember little things like the “I’ve just spent 3 hours in the back seat of the car with my brothers and we’re finally at Grandmas and I’m gonna burst feeling” I got walking into her farmhouse at Christmas. Playing under her ornate wood dining table. Being afraid of falling down the laundry chute. Sitting in my scratchy new nightgown at her island in Brandon watching her make coffee. Following Grandma in her silly straw hat through the flax and canola flowers, protesting that “my dad doesn’t weed his field by hand.”

I remember riding overnight in the backseat with Grandma on the way to visit my aunts in Alberta. She folded my blanket under and wrapped it around my neck because she said that's how her own children had wanted to be tucked in. I still sleep that way.

Grandma and Grandpa stayed over for weeks at a time when my parents went on vacation. When I was little she’d always French-braid my hair for school because my mom doesn’t braid. Once she stayed over when I was a teenager. Grandma sat on my bed and listened patiently to my stories about the cute boys at school. And instead of telling me I was too young for boys or when she was a girl she didn’t talk about that, she leaned in close like she was about to tell me a secret and said, “Your Grandpa and I aren’t very affectionate in public but we love each other so much.”

Especially since she moved to Niverville 10 years ago, whenever my mom and I made plans at her house we both knew that meant Grandma had be there too. And if she couldn’t, then T. and I would take the kids to her condo to ask her to retell stories about her childhood and my mom’s childhood and how a little Aunt Sharon cut her own hair.

I will treasure the past few months of visiting her in the hospital. Sitting with my mom and her mom, who for most of my life have both been too busy creating masterpieces of garden flowers or baking flours to sit much at all, was a gift. I felt connected, a third link on a beautiful chain of varied-coloured gems. I'd already left the hospital but was called back in time to cheer her over the finish line and sing Happy Birthday to her in her new life. I was stroking her arm when her breath stopped. Since then I’ve found it hard to breathe.

I've had months to prepare for that moment as I've watched her go from sitting up in bed cracking jokes about my cousin Erica’s ugly toque, to squeezing my hand and smiling from her pillow as I told her stories about my week, to opening her eyes just long enough to whisper ‘I love you’ and then fall back to sleep.

One by one over the past 12 years I've said goodbye to each of my grandparents with a final kiss on the cheek and a tear-stained tribute. Now I feel like the last of the 4 walls sheltering my inner life has been knocked down, exposing me to the harsh wind. My grandparents were all deeply spiritual, fiercely loving (and hopelessly flawed) men and women that surrounded me with prayers, ice cream cones, birthday money, loud whistling, and hugs.

And for better or worse, Grandma gave me some of her sense of humour, work ethic, left-handedness, coffee-addiction, anxiety, love of books, hair that won’t go grey (I’m hoping), stubbornness, and servant heart.

I’ll miss having a place to go when the Niverville fair gets rained out. My husband Tony looked so cute in Grandma’s fuzzy bathrobe waiting for his clothes to dry.

No one sounds as happy to hear my voice on the phone as she did. And she’s the only person who can get this non-touchy-feely grandchild to hug at the end of every visit and say ‘I love you’ at the end of every phone call.

I’ll hold in my heart the way she believed in me and in my children. Even though she loved to remind me that I was a “little handful” (a mud magnet in white leotards), and even after listening to stories of my kids’ mischief, she always had this stubborn confidence that with love and prayer we would turn out just fine. She called K. her “special boy” and loved it when G. climbed on her bed. Her eyes sparkled every time she saw them.

But mostly I’ll remember the way she was always there. I may not have long, unique, or fascinating stories to tell about her, but I have moments, and the feeling I was very loved.

And the beauty of the ordinary.

In one of my favorite novels, The Martyr's Song, a dying man slips between our world and the spiritual kingdom, where he hears Jesus and all the children in heaven singing this song:

Sing, O child of Zion; Shout, O child of mine;
Rejoice with all your heart and soul and mind.
Every tear you cried dried in the palm of my hand;
Every lonely hour was by my side.
Every loved one lost, every river crossed,
Every moment, every hour was pointing to this day,
Longing for this day...You are finally home

Only a few days to say goodbye

I just got the call that my Grandma only has days to live.


I've known she was dying since September. I've had months to prepare as I've watched her go from sitting up in bed cracking jokes, to squeezing my hand and smiling from her pillow as I told her stories about my week, to opening her eyes just long enough to whisper I love you and then fall back to sleep.

Sitting in the hospital with my mom and her mom, who for most of my life have been too busy creating masterpieces of flowers or flours to sit much at all, was a gift. I felt connected, a third link on a beautiful chain of varied coloured gems.

Now her pain is so great and her breathing so irregular that the doctors are planning to sedate her. She may not wake up again on this side of heaven.

It is like the last of the walls sheltering my inner life has been knocked down, exposing me to the harsh wind. My grandparents were all deeply spiritual, fiercely loving (and hopelessly flawed) men and women that surrounded me with prayers, fudgicles, birthday money, and whisker rubs. (My Opa had the whiskers not Grandma!) One by one over the past 12 years I've said goodbye with a final kiss on the cheek and a tear-stained tribute.

My kids weren't here for the first 2 goodbyes and they don't remember the last one. G. was a baby and K. was only 3 when my Opa, my dad's dad passed away. I fear for K., who although his diagnosis lists "delays in nonverbal communication", has a heart language with his Granny that is all their own. He has never flinched or even seemed to notice the way the way she has grown small and faded or the medical tubes that make her one with the hospital bed.

He walks straight to her bedside, smiles and holds her hand and remains there for most of the visit. Because she is still his Granny.

But only for a few more days.

Highlights and lowlights

When the kids were preschoolers I belonged to a Tuesday morning mom's group that began every meeting with "highlights" (and sometimes lowlights) - the best and worst of our week. The things you were just dying to share with someone over 4: your husband's promotion or layoff, a romantic date night or your mother-in-law's extended visit, your daughter's first words or your son's first broken bone.

More than the coffee and baking, the secret sister gifts, and the girls-only outing, what I miss most about the mom's group is having someone ask me every week about my highlights. So as I reflect on the coming of the New Year, I'd like to share my highs and lows of 2008 with you.

Highlight: Holidays.
We went to Disneyworld with my parents and little brother in May, to a cabin on Gull Lake in August, and spent a weekend visiting old friends in Brandon in September. I've always been careful (read: uptight) about spending money. I like to invest my money in something that will last or save me money in the future (like new windows or insulation) but this year I learned the value of buying experiences. Meeting the little mermaid and fishing for minnows, jumping out of our skin when we fell down Splash Mountain and when that giant pine fell on the powerline. We're going to be talking about those memories and enjoying the pictures for years!

Lowlight: Cancer
My grandma's rapidly progressing lung cancer has been a weight on my heart since September. I worry about her pain, her medication, her appetite, her spirits. I dread saying goodbye.

Highlight: Math, manners and the boys next door.
K. went from being 2 years behind in his understanding of basic numeracy in June to doing grade level math in September. We have no idea why! We're chalking it up to prayer. All the school staff are also noticing in K. a newly developed awareness of his peers. It may be partly thanks to a social skills class he took this fall in which an OT led a room full of boys with Aspergers or PDD to practice turn-taking, active listening, and saying "please" and "thank you."

But a bigger factor was the boys next door. When I asked K. today what his highlight of 2008 would be, he answered without pausing, "Meeting B." Whenever a For Sale sign goes up in our neighbourhood I pray for the new neighbours. Maybe out of fear of the unknown (Could they be gun-slinging, paint-spraying crazies?) or maybe out of a desire for a greater sense of community on our street. God has never answered my prayer like this one!

I was painting their side of our fence (but not with spray paint) when the new neighbours pulled up for the first time in September. The question "So do you have kids?" led to the realization that we both had 9-year-old boys who had already met - in the same class! B. and his younger brother have been here pretty much every weekend since. And my boy (whose idea of 'playing' used to be talking to himself beside someone else) now saves the Mars Colony right alongside B. (when he's not playing the villain), and let's him have the final say on all "Inspector Bebop" movie scripts. (I'm their videographer.)

Lowlight: Layoff and letting go
I still miss my coworkers and the creative challenges of the writing job I had to leave in September. I miss the Christmas parties, the coffee breaks (mmm...cinnamon buns), and the sometimes quirky, always brilliant visionaries I interviewed each week. In September I also had to let go of my baby as she started grade one. I went from an identity as "stay at home mother of preschoolers" to not being sure what I was! The good news is she's doing fabulously. (The fact that the rest of G.'s class isn't composed of halo-wearers also helps cast her in a more positive light!) She's only run away from class a couple times, because she "already knows everything she needs to know to be a mom!"

Highlight: Teaching
Two Christmases ago my mom said, "Wouldn't it be nice if you could use your Masters and teach a College course?" Last January I got to do just that. And I survived! What's more I fell in love with teaching and with my subject matter: the book of Revelation. I had the chance to teach Revelation again at church this fall. Wow, is it ever easier the second time around! Learning to present material creatively and clearly, stir up discussion, captivate attention, and bring ancient literature about a living God close to home is exciting stuff! I feel more confident, not just as teacher, but about everything I have to offer, because of the experience.

Now I'm set to teach College for the second time with a new subject - the minor prophets - which I suspect will reappear in my highlights of 2009. I'm hoping another week at a cabin will also be in my future!

But there are some new highlights I'm hoping for in the New Year as well. A deeper friendship with my husband. A banishment of G.'s inner whine-monster. A garage where my snow-covered car is standing (and where I can put all the tools and lawn furniture that are currently cluttering up my basement!) A closer friendship with my mom as we support each other through the process of losing our mom and grandma. Maybe even a book idea. (Hey, I can dream! My "novel" went from one page long in 2007 to eight pages in 2008, so who knows, in 2009 it might even grow into a short story!)

And above all a greater sense of peace. Of enough. Of the Hand that guides me through the losses, challenges, revelations, and joys of 2009. Happy New Year!

A tribute to ordinary

My grandma is still with us but we're already planning her funeral...with her. It feels a little weird, a little special, and very hard.

My mom asked me if I would start preparing to share some memories. I don't really have specific story-like memories of Grandma because all our times together were so ordinary. My women's group encouraged me to just start writing the ordinary. So here we go.

I remember:

- Sitting at Grandma's kitchen island in Brandon on Boxing Day in my new shiny, yet itchy nightgown and watching her prepare breakfast.

- Walking through canola fields in Boissevain with Grandma helping her pull wild oats from the seed crop, the way she half disappeared in the yellow flowers, how she looked in her old straw hat.

- Riding overnight in the backseat with Grandma on the way to visit my aunts in Calgary. She folded my blanket under and wrapped it around my neck because she said that's how her own children had wanted to be tucked in. I still sleep that way.

- Grandma taking me to a one room cabin with no plumbing and me complaining the whole time about how people on my dad's side took me to bigger, nicer cabins. I must have hurt her feelings but she didn't say anything.

- Sitting in front of her bookshelf and reading her old books for hours. One was about a girl who went to university and said no to the pressure of drugs and alcohol. That book shaped my view of drinking and drugs (in a good way-I avoided them)...and university (not so good-I never went).

- Talking for hours with Grandma the times she stayed over while my parents went on holidays. When I was a boy-crazy teenager and my parents were the ones afraid to be seen in public with me, Grandma listened patiently to my stories about the boys at school, and instead of telling me I was too young for boys, shared with me about her love for Grandpa.

- Staying at Grandma's when I was very young, I think after one of my brother's was born. Playing playdough with her at the diningroom table and building block pyramids in Grandpa's study when they were pastoring in Manitou.

- Climbing around and pretending I was the pastor in the old church on their farmyard in Boissevain, by then converted into a storage area, until they told me it wasn't safe. Carrying cats up the 4 foot high stacks of grainsacks in the big shed and sitting up there for hours daydreaming. The church is gone but that shed and the little office inside it still look and smell like they did when Grandpa was working and whistling inside.

- Sitting with Grandma in the front pew of their church listening to Grandpa preach, loving the sound of his voice and wishing I would always remember what he said, but knowing I wouldn't.

- Celebrating my tenth birthday at their farm and having everyone making a big deal of it. Going to the beach.

- The feeling I got walking into her kitchen on the farm at Christmas. Playing under her ornate wood dining table. Being afraid of falling down the laundry chute. Peeking through the hole in the office wall made for the phone.

- Going to the ice cream shop at the end of the dirt road. Never knowing which flavour to get. Driving her crazy with my indecisiveness.

- The way she stubbornly won't believe K. had a disability. The way she looks at him and calls him her special boy and always believes through love and prayer he'll turn out just fine.

For better or worse, I've inherited Margaret Froese's sense of humour, work ethic, anxious spirit, love of books, stubbornness, and servant's heart. I may not have long, unique, or fascinating stories to tell about her, but I have moments. And feelings.

And the beauty of the ordinary.

Winter

I've been preparing for winter lately. In more than one way.

There's the obvious - pulling up carrots, raking, packing away my lawn furniture (between my freezer and washing machine since I don't have a garage). We've been lucky this year with a long, warm fall. I don't know how many conversations I've had on the schoolyard that start, "This may be our last nice day..." And every nice day is filled with one more rake or one more mow or one more hour of sitting outside thinking this may be my last hour outside without windburn.

I'm still not ready; there's work left to do. There are more annuals to pull out (but they're still blooming!) and I'm told my lawnmower needs to be drained. (Oh goody, I get to smell like gasoline one more time.) And I'm not ready to let go. To trade the crunch of leaves for the crunch of snow. The colours of flowers and maple leaves, for grey, sanded streets and yellow snow. The warm sun for the biting blizzards. To watch nature around me die and be buried.

Another way I've been preparing for winter is by spending time with biblical dudes like Jonah and Hosea. That's because I'm going to be teaching Bible college again in January. The march toward winter for me means less and less time for late night Starbucks runs and House reruns, and more and more time for writing lectures, creating Powerpoints, and printing handouts. Letting go of my relaxing, balanced, organized life (and home!) and being stretched yet again. I'm not ready.

I wish it was only my free time and flowers that are dying. In September, when I blogged about explaining Terry Fox's cancer to my frightened daughter, I couldn't have known that my Grandma, who had recently fallen ill, would be diagnosed with terminal cancer one month later. Every time we visit she seems a little smaller, a little weaker, a little more medicated. Every time I leave I think, this may be our last time together. That's stretching me in ways I'm not ready to be stretched.

It's hard to watch the colours fade and something of beauty slip away. I see it every year in Manitoba. But never like this one.

Why's it called a Terry Fox run if Terry Fox isn't coming?

G. is afraid of the dark, so T. or I often lie down with her in bed for a bit to get her settled. I love those little talks. Last night as we lay cheek to cheek she said, "Guess what? Terry Fox is coming to our school tomorrow!"

When we heart started beating again I whispered, "It's called the Terry Fox run, honey, but I don't think Terry Fox will be there." Please don't make me explain this, I'm thinking.

"Why not? Because he'd dead?"

That would be the main reason, yes. "Yes, Terry Fox died many years ago," I said. "But while he was alive he did such wonderful things that people remember him. Now we run to raise money to help sick people and we name those runs after Terry."

"Mommy, what happened to his leg?"

Here's where I should have probably said, "I don't know." But instead I explained, "He had a sickness called cancer in his leg. They cut off his leg so he could live longer."

"How do you get cancer?" I'm thinking about things from the news and movies: people breathing asbestos, getting too many sunburns, Erin Brockovich and factories contaminating water. Research about needing to eat more spinach. But those aren't really answers.

"We don't know, sweetie."

"Am I going to get cancer?" Her voice is higher now and her lip is trembling.

"I don't think so. Only a few people get cancer."

"I don't want that to happen to me!" She lifts her leg from under the covers and stares at it, wide-eyed. Then she says something about Jesus I don't quite catch. "I want to tell Jesus, but I won't hear his answer."

I'm not sure what she wants to pray but I'm glad she does. It's not usually her first response. "Maybe you will, maybe you won't. You tell Jesus anyway. If I hear his answer I'll tell it to you." She wants me to tell him so I say, "Jesus, G. is sad that Terry Fox got sick and she's scared of getting cancer too."

I hear her squeak out a little, "I love you Jesus." Then she asks me, "Did he answer? Did he say if I will get cancer?"

I thought of something C.S. Lewis wrote about Lucy wanting Aslan to tell her more than she needed to know and said, "Jesus doesn't tell us the end of our stories. He only tells us what we need to know for today. Jesus, what does G. need to know for today?" As soon as I say it, I feel love pouring down on us.

"He said he loves you so much, G." She calmed a bit and a few minutes later fell asleep.

This morning I found out that my Grandma is more ill than I knew. Within the next year I will probably have to have the same conversation with G. about someone much dearer to her than Terry Fox.

"He still love us so much, G. Even now."

How great our joy

I just submitted my column for Christian Week's Christmas issue. It's about dying.
It sounds crazy, not exactly a sleigh full of jolly "ho ho hos," but trust me - it fits.

I've never liked death. (I don't suppose I'm unique on that point.) The first person I lost was my grandpa who passed away ten years ago. Even though he called me "Angie" and always asked me how my flute lessons were going (I play clarinet), I felt an emotional attachment to him and didn't want to accept that he was gone.

A few months after his funeral I had a dream. In my dream Grandpa met me at a Burger King (actually he usually took me to Dairy Queen but who's picky in their sleep?). After we'd laughed and talked over our burgers he told me, "I have to go back to the grave now." It sounds bluntly morbid, but in my dream it finally felt alright. God was telling me it was okay to let him go. And in my sleep that night, I said goodbye.

But I still struggle with the concept of death. On one hand people talk about it as a part of life; on the other hand it's a destruction of one of God's precious creations. Yes, because Jesus came back to life, I can look forward to a new pain-free, grief-free (cellulite-free?) body after I die, but God put me on earth for a purpose and I don't want to go anywhere till I've fulfilled it! (I'm not sure I've even figured out what it is yet!)

This tension comes out especially when talking with my kids:
"Put your seatbelt back on. I don't want you flying out the window."
"But then I'd go to heaven."
"I don't want you to go to heaven yet!"

And then other times it goes the other way, when I have to convince them not to be so scared of death because heaven will be great. I'm confused. They're confused.

My column was inspired by two old friends I talked to recently. One is dying of ALS, the other lost her husband three years ago to a brain tumor. And you know what they talked about?

Joy.

So I just had to dig deeper. How could people whose bodies or marriages were torn apart by a terminal illness be joyful?

You'll just have to pick up a copy of Christian Week Manitoba to find out!

But here's where the Christmas story fits in. Jesus was born to walk in our shoes, fall under our burdens, cry our tears, and die. No one else knows how we feel the way he does. He'll never abandon us, even in death. In fact, death just brings us closer to the Saviour we love. That's why my friend could talk about peace like a blanket wrapped around her in a hospital room. Or laughing as they planned their own funeral.

I'm not there yet. But the more I get to know Jesus (preparing to teach a course on the Book of Revelation helps), the less I'm afraid of leaving what I know behind.

To face what he knows already.

Why carolling meant more to me

Good news: I am no longer afraid of old ladies.

When I worked at a bookstore I must confess I did not serve them well. I cringed when they called me "dear" or patted my hand. When I saw them hunch or tremor, or heard their voices squeak, I felt cold fear, thinking about becoming one of them one day.

The time I spent with my Oma in the hospital before her death helped me see the beauty in age. But it was just last Sunday that I knew I had licked the fear.

Every Christmas our church goes carolling at a nursing home. And every year I dreaded the time after the songs were done when we were supposed to greet the residents. I was uncomfortable just looking them in the eyes.

This year I looked at the women who sang along with us and those who tried to sing but couldn't, and thought, "She was once a 3 year old girl who sang 'away in a manger,' and jabbed her little brother with her elbows as she did the actions."

I had the sense that the residents who didn't recognize their family or respond to their name could still hear Jesus' voice. And I could almost see the angels.

I'm hoping our feeble imitation of the angels we have heard on high renewed some happy childhood Christmas memories for those beautiful souls. Not that I'm throwing out my anti-wrinkle creams anytime soon, but I do believe I'll still be fabulous at 80.

You are finally home

I know, I know. I should be working, not blogging. But as I've researched Harry Lehotsky's life and watched his Final Words video played at his funeral (go to www.godtalk.com to watch) it got me thinking about my own funeral and I felt like telling someone about it.

I'm thinking, what a great idea. I'm definitely the type that would tape myself so I could speak at my own funeral. I can't imagine being at the last big event of my life and not talking! But what would my background music be?

Rev. Lehotsky's video was set to the song that goes, "Carry your candle. Run to the darkness. Seek out the helpless, confused and torn. Hold out your candle for all to see it. Take your candle, go light your world." Which fits his life to a tee.

I've always thought I'd like the Big Daddy Weave song "Neighborhoods" at my funeral:

Cause you know one day I will fly to my mansion in the sky
And I'll have no regrets when I leave this place for good
When I say my last farewell, oh, please don't forget to tell them
That I'm not really dead I'm just changing neighborhoods

I imagine people getting up and grooving to the beat, celebrating my life and my arrival with Jesus in one giant celebratory bootyshake. (Like that funeral scene on Ally McBeal that still makes me want to pee myself laughing everytime I think about it.) But my family is so Mennonite, you could fill their pants with caffeinated ferrets and they stand perfectly still, so that's probably not going to happen.

Last week I read Ted Dekker's novel The Martyr's Song, about a Bosnian priest tortured by a group of bitter soldiers during WW II. As he slips closer to death he slides between our world and the spiritual kingdom, where he hears Jesus and all the children in heaven singing this song:

Sing, O child of Zion; Shout, O child of mine;
Rejoice with all your heart and soul and mind.
Every tear you cried dried in the palm of my hand;
Every lonely hour was by my side.
Every loved one lost, every river crossed,
Every moment, every hour was pointing to this day,
Longing for this day...You are finally home

Wow, that's beautiful. The moment before my Oma passed away 8 years ago my mom says her eyes shot wide open. I don't know what she saw, but I'm thinking she heard the song too. Or maybe Jesus wrote a special one, just for her.

I feel so blessed to get to know Harry Lehotsky through his video, his writings, and his friends. I wish I had had the chance to meet him while he was alive. But then again, the pastor who fought for the West End isn't really dead - he just changed neighbourhoods.

Like Harry said at the end of his video, "I'm thankful for where I'm going and I just pray that I get to see many more of you again. I guess that's what it all comes down to. Not just to goodbyes, but to see you again. And bless each one of you as you find your way there."