Resisting change on a cellular level

I'm allergic to change.

I know this because last month my husband switched cellphone networks. Just like that. Without drawing a pros and cons chart or talking about it for weeks or getting my grade one teacher's opinion. And I was so stressed I thought I was going to be sick. Surprise charges, disappearing benefits we'd taken for granted, disgruntled relatives who were no longer on the same network and couldn't call us for free and therefore would stop inviting us over for coffee - I thought of all the possible side-effects to this deceptively cheap and beautiful new phone. That week I dreamed my husband signed me up for dunk in a Hawaiian shark tank. Switching phones, watching sharks - both got a crazy reaction.

I used to like change. The first 18 years of my life didn't have enough of it. Same town, same bullies, same pressures, same long, cold morning wait for the privilege of standing in the aisle of a school bus. My bed and dresser traded walls every few weeks just to keep me from going crazy with the fixedness of everything in my life that wasn't made of arborite.

When we got married I didn't want to feel stuck anywhere (except with the same guy). We moved apartments every couple years and were always looking for new jobs. A few years ago when I was a pastoral intern I remember agreeing with the leadership books that said the greatest leaders are those who aren't afraid of change.

Now buying a can of paint triggers makes me shake. What if I hate the colour? What if I have to redo it or live with it for 10 years? After the first coat I can't sleep and I feel prickly all over. You move my arm chair to the other side of the room and I feel all upside-down inside. And don't even suggest that I might ever sell my house. God would have to do a huge overhaul of my insides before that would ever happen. (I realize he's good at that and gets a kick out of it.)

I don't like being so uptight. (My husband likes it even less. But thanks to my knack for chicken dinners and my sense of humour he's still here.) Worry takes all the joy out of new things. And we can't stop change. But I've finally created a life, a home, a garden, that I like - it's hard to think about letting any of that go. It really comes down to trust. Do I believe the Truth can set me free even when I'm bound to a 3 year wireless contract in a non-symmetrical living room?

Our house is currently embroiled in garage negotiations. We've been saving up for a garage for a while. But I'm scared we'll spend all that money and then hate it. It won't have the exact same siding as our house - what if they look silly side by side? Or what if it takes away too much of our yard space? Or we get laid off the year after we drain our savings? And if we spend all summer working on it how will that affect our relationship?

Or in the interests of our marriage, maybe we should use the money for a sunroom instead so we have a place to nurture our relationship that doesn't smell like Petro? (But that would require me to change the location of the bookcase and chair in the photo to make room for the doorway.) Better yet, I'll go live at my parents' house till all the renovations are done.

Maybe they'll let me rearrange the drawers in my old dresser.

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.

How am I doing?

It's easy to say how I'm doing physically: I have a head cold, I didn't sleep well because the hamster cage fell apart in the middle of the night with a crash, and my cuticles look terrible.

It's not so easy to say I'm doing in life. What do I compare it to? The "Ghost of Sunday School Past" in my head tells me I should compare myself to Jesus. Not helpful. Compared to him I'm a worm.

I had my first day of teaching my new course on Monday. I think it went well. Considering it was my second time teaching. Considering I'm just learning how to use Microsoft Powerpoint. Considering I was very nervous and had a confusing morning of fighting with a printer and fielding calls from the kids' school.

I felt good about it because we got into some great discussions about meaningful issues. There were quite a few students that jumped in with questions and comments. They all seemed interested. But was that because I was interesting-strange or because I was interesting-informative? (They were taking lots of notes but I think some of them may end up in the professor-roasting section of the newsletter....)

My inner "Ghost of Therapists Past" tells me not to compare myself to anyone. I am me and that's all that matters. Still not helpful. There are many "ME"s. Nobody would want the "bath-robed, grouchy, couch potato ME of 10 PM" teaching them Hosea. Or the "giggling, recipe-swapping, parenting-horror-story-telling, out with my girlfriends ME."

"Professor Angeline" is only one part of me. She's like an outfit I put on with my suit jacket. But she's very closely related to "study everything I can about the Bible" Angeline and the "I love these students and want the best for them" Angeline. Those come naturally.

Unfortunately so does playing nervously with my whiteboard marker.