remember | most hopeful

Sep 30 2015

grief and trauma, on, the calendar, what they are teaching me

Lord willing, we won’t keep growing

Our Jackson Home posted a piece I wrote reflecting on this year’s Remember Me Walk for survivor’s of homicide loss. This group is astounding to me, and I’ve copied some of the post below with a link to read it in its entirety. And if you have not yet checked out Our Jackson Home, you should probably get on the ball.

The crowd was larger this year than any crowd the past seven. The Carl Grant Events Center at Union University was filled with tables surrounded by people of all kinds, ages, colors, and worlds held together by the sad reality that someone they loved has been murdered—some of them fifty years ago and some five months ago. The reality that no one truly understands this grief is echoed in the camaraderie across the room. “Lord-willing,” they say, “we won’t keep growing. We don’t want other people to know what this feels like.”

Grief is breathtaking. All have experienced it, and we know the deep-down grumbling in our guts that must be an echo of the deep-down grumbling in our souls.

A life is lost. A story ends. …

Click here to keep reading on Our Jackson Home…

Tagged death, donald jordan, faith, grief, homicide, hope, humanity, loss, remember, resilience, TFR initiative, trauma

May 04 2014

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from the archives, grief and trauma, guest post, learning to live, what they are teaching me

Remembering Sam Bomar today

In remembering the life and legacy of Sam Bomar today, even as just a few days ago multiple scholarships were given from the Sam Bomar Scholarship Fund, special thanks again and as usual to Rayna Bomar for her important and thoughtful words.

Originally posted April 2, 2012 as a guest post by Rayna Bomar, that post and its subsequent comments can be found HERE.

This is the first guest post here on mosthopeful.com, and I couldn’t be more convinced of its appropriateness. Hugh and Rayna Bomar have become friends of mine these last few years, and their ongoing journey of remembering their son Sam has had an impact in my own life. I hope you glean from Rayna’s words about what has helped and what has not helped as she has been on her own very personal journey with grief.

In August 2009, as my son Sam started his senior year of high school, I happened upon an essay by a woman named Mimi Swartz entitled “Empty Nest: In a Week He’ll Be Gone – And I Can’t Stand It.” Her son, also named Sam, was leaving for college a year before my Sam would leave, and I read her words to prepare for what, I thought, I would be experiencing the following August. And, the following August, I did share some of the life changes described by Swartz – dinner for three became dinner for two, my schedule no longer revolved around the school calendar, and the “mundane rituals of child rearing,” just as Swartz had predicted, were gone. But my role as a mother changed for a reason not anticipated. My Sam didn’t leave for college. Instead, he died on May 4, 2010, ten days before graduation.

There are many things that I could say about the past almost 23 months, but what I would like to do now is share some of the ways that others have helped us get through those months – and a few things that have hindered us.

My husband Hugh and I quickly realized that all grief is personal. What you have experienced losing a loved one, even a child, is not the same as what I have experienced losing Sam. My experience is not the same as Hugh’s experience. Therefore, things that I mention that have helped (or hindered) us may not help (or hinder) you. I am an expert only about my own grief.

We have been most touched by the kindnesses that have been shown by Sam’s friends. We are in awe of the young men and women who are so naturally compassionate and who have put aside their own grief to help us with ours. They have taken us out to eat on Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, visited on holidays, designed t-shirts and bumper stickers in Sam’s memory, mowed our yard, shared stories about Sam (what we love the most), written letters and sent cards, laughed with us and cried with us, helped with chores, preserved Sam’s spot in the high school parking lot, invited us to their celebrations- I could go on and on. We are greeted with open arms and a hug. Sometimes we get more than one hug. They tell us that they love us. They share their lives with us and allow us to be part of their future. Their actions are drops of water on parched ground.

What they don’t do is, perhaps, more important. They don’t tell us that it’s almost two years since the accident and it’s time to “move on.” They don’t give us any advice. They understand that our world changed when Sam died and that we will never be the same. They don’t expect us to be the same because they will never be the same after losing their friend. They don’t try to “fix” us. They don’t make any demands on us. If we feel like a visit, that’s great. If we don’t, they understand, and they don’t take it personally.

Maybe because of their relatively young ages (late teens to early twenties) they don’t have any preconceived ideas about how we should act or feel. Therefore, they don’t think they know what’s best for us, and they don’t try to impose their own feelings on us or try to dictate what is appropriate behavior.

Instead of trying to make us be who they think we should be, they already know who we are. We are Sam’s parents, and we always will be. That’s good enough for them, and it’s good enough for us.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” Robert Benchley.

One of the upcoming ways you can join the Bomars in remembering Sam is by attending the 3rd annual Sam Bomar Night at the Jackson Generals. Half of each ticket pre-ordered with the promo code SamBomar goes to the Sam Bomar Scholarship Fund.

For other most hopeful posts on grief, loss, trauma and resilience, CLICK HERE.

Tagged meaning, rayna bomar, remember, remembering, sam, sam board scholarship fund, sam bomar, scholarship fund

Jun 27 2013

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learning to live, what they are teaching me

catching fireflies

Screen Shot 2013-06-27 at 9.33.44 PM

When I arrived, she was painting with water on the driveway.
“We’re painting, see?” she yelled when I closed the car door.
“I see! Awesome!” I said, halfway faking excitement, and halfway excited because she was.
She then led me to a small raisin snack box on the bumper of her mother’s car.
“I got a new pet!” she yelled! She grabbed the raisin box.
“You did? What is it?”

I had recently been invited over for dinner by her parents, and arrived with a fish. She named it LuLu. It died a month later.

“See?” she said, opening the raisin box revealing a lady bug crawling around the almost white cardboard.
“I see! What’s her name?”
“Anna. Do you want to paint with me?”

Looking in that tiny raisin box at that sad little lady bug, knowing it’s fate would be much like the fate of LuLu the fish, I remembered this time of year as a child. My grandfather owned a printing company, so our home was filled with paper and paper boxes. I would take a paper box, cut holes in the right places, line it with plastic wrap, build walls inside with cardboard and rolls of scotch tape, and catch fireflies to put inside. The plastic wrap windows made the house a home in my opinion, and mom would give me orange slices to put “in the kitchen” so the lightning bugs would have something to eat when they were hungry.

So they could live a long time.

The fate of the fireflies was much like the fate of LuLu.

+++

It’s been a week filled with real life.
Stresses.
Joys.
Meetings.
Bills.
Rides with the windows down and the music up.
Dinners with laughter and tears and arguments.
Meetings with questions and difficulties and projections and risks and hopes.
Nights with questions and friends and acceptance.

Everything in me wants to catch it.
Box it.
Package it.
Remember it.
Put it in a box with plastic wrap windows
or the almost white walls of a raisin box
in an attempt to capture it and then remember it when I’m not sure why I’m doing all this, or why we work for all of this.

But I know what she doesn’t know yet as she shows me Anna in the cardboard box. I can’t capture it. I can’t trap the moments where things make sense and time feels right and answers seem clear even though I desperately want to. My only hope is to be present enough in those moments where I know and feel and understand and trust something true enough that I can remember it when I’ve lost my mind or lost my reason or lost my hope that good news can ever be true.

I can pause the lighting of the firefly long enough to remember it, but not long enough to keep it forever. Faith ends up being the jump between what I remember and what I hope. That’s the only way to keep the fireflies alive.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Tagged catch, Firefly, good, goodness, hope, let go, memories, own, plastic wrap, Raisin, release, remember, saran wrap, summer, trap, wait

Mar 13 2013

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grief and trauma, learning to live, what they are teaching me

in the dark

If you say you’ve never had to make an emergency bathroom break, I think you’re probably lying.

Tonight, leaving a service at church and on my way to dinner, I called my mom and asked if I could swing by and use the restroom before running right back out the door. She agreed.

I found myself making way to the guest bathroom, late enough in the evening even in our new savings of daylight time for it to be dark outside. Down the steps into the library and around the corner into the guest bedroom, I remembered while walking that there are no lights on the ceiling, so there were no switches to turn on to light the path.

As much as has changed in the last ten years that I have not lived in that home, I found myself walking surely while completely in the dark. The house has changed, my parents have changed, and I no doubt have changed. But in a moment of emergency, I walked and maneuvered out of habit and memory. I made my way down steps and around furniture and corners completely in dark, hands not even out feeling for what I already knew was there.

When turning into the bathroom, I reached my hand around the corner and onto the wall, thoughtlessly, immediately touching the dimmer switch as I have hundreds of times before. The light came on. Emergency over. On my way to dinner.

Driving to dinner it occurred to me that in those moments where we face emergencies and uncertainties, we know exactly what to do. We do it surely even though we often find ourselves completely in the dark. We take the steps we remember taking when we could see what we were doing, and somehow, by the ridiculous grace of God, those same steps work when we can’t see at all what we are doing. We walk and maneuver out of habit and memory, without even stretching out our hands to see if we know where we are going.

And we make it, finally, to the dinner table after all is said and done with. And were it not for the habits from easier times, times when we could see clearly and weren’t in a rush, the habits which have been buried deep inside of us somewhere, we would have been stranded in the dark.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged dark, darkness, emergency, in the dark, light, memory, remember, remembering, tough, trouble

Oct 02 2012

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grief and trauma, learning to live, what they are teaching me

the class who shows up | on the 5th annual homicide-loss walk

After five years of standing in line watching men and women, propped up babies on hips and grandparents escorted with walkers, this year was different altogether.

It is both encouraging and discouraging to see the crowd grow year after year at the Commemorative Walk for survivors of homicide-loss. It’s been my privilege to listen to and learn from these men and women in a weekly support group, but to see them walk through candlelit paths holding photos of their murdered husbands, sons, grandsons, wives, mothers and grandmothers is altogether horrifying and holy at the same time.

And it has been every year these last five years since the very first walk. It is always holy in the way honestly telling the honest truth is always holy and almost always horrifying.

But this year, there was something new for me as I stood in the evening’s mist.

Looking into the line of men and women with faces barely glowing from the candles in their hands, I saw my students. The clock strikes nine every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and my students are faithful to be patient with me in class as I dance onto tangents, threaten with grades and bribe with food. They have listened to me grow awkwardly teary about the histories of movers and shakers from the margins of the field whom God has used to bring kingdom change across the globe. They have held on as we’ve acted out counseling sessions, as we’ve debated the reasons for poverty and welfare, and as we have pushed the questions of power dynamics and our goodwill to the limits. They always show up.

But this night, lining the sidewalks where women and men who have become dear to me walk through their glowing candles and make clear that their murdered loved ones will not be forgotten, my students showed up. As tears filled my own eyes, I lost my breath in thinking that these very students were standing physically and symbolically right on a dangerous line. They were being both witness to the hard and horrible and hopeless truths like rampant homicide in a community, and were also making a symbolic promise that as social workers who are Christians they will join in the kingdom work to make peace on earth as it is in heaven.

My prayer for those students and any of my students, is that some day in the not-so-distant future there will be professors of Social Work or Theology or Education or Business standing up in front of their own classes telling the names of my students, and talking about how they pushed in from the margins to make peace and to change the world with and for Christ and his kingdom.

And when I hear those stories told, I’ll remember the way their faces glowed this night.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged Christ, commemorate, death, God, grief, homicide, jackson, loss, remember, Remember Me, social work, students, Support group, tn, trauma

Sep 24 2012

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learning to live

laughter and tears | when the work is thick and the nights are long

The conversations where serious things are turned around and around, or stories long buried are finally brought to the surface, or where we hear ourselves say for the first time the things we’ve wondered about the world for a long time…those conversations are rich and true and thick. No doubt.

But when the work is thick and the nights are long and the task is still both right at hand and also waiting long in the distance, there is nothing better than the kind of sturdy laugh that makes you leave your seat to catch your breath or keep from ruining your seat altogether.

And the people I end up shaking my head in grateful disbelief about most often are those people who I have been sitting with at tables or counters or back yard fire pits and have found myself in the middle of both. There is a precious few of women and men and even children glowing by candlelight in one setting or another who have marked for me the occasions where all we are able to do is weep and also the occasions where all we are able to do is belly laugh.

And it is with these people that I have told the most truth. And have heard the most truth.

And it is with these people that I have been the most alive.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged communitas, community, friends, heavy, hoping, laugh, laughter, light, remember, remembering, the kingdom

Sep 16 2012

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art and photography, from the archives, what they are teaching me

i dusted the picture frame

I dusted the picture frame that sits on my bathroom counter. I think it has been in the same space four or five years.

I would be lying if I said I have dusted it in the last four or five months. I’m sorry, Mom.

But today I dusted that joker. I cleaned, as in scrubbed, that obnoxious tile in the space between the toilet and the wall. I swiffered the heck out of the space between the bottom of the bed in the guest bedrooom and the floor. I found books, the dog’s collars, and chargers to phones that I’ve long stuffed into the drawers that I have no idea what actually hold.

But for some reason, it was the picture frame in today’s cleaning that stood out to me.

I’ve got a buddy coming in from out of town for the week, and so I found my Sunday evening, usually wrapped up in preparing for work, also cleaning the spaces that have long ago moved off the last-minute-cleaning to-do list.

I picked up the picture frame, long abandoned as jobs and times schedules have shifted, and froze for a moment while wiping the dust off the image.

The last two weeks have been unusually weighed heavily with late-night meetings and early-morning conversations, catch-up schedules and bedtime questions about the worthwhileness of the work itself.

And tonight, in dusting off of photos that sit and are looked at daily on the bathroom counter, I remembered, all over again, of how I am changed, and privileged, by the work.

All is worth it. All is unearned. All is prized.

And all is worth a space in the middle of the daily routine, even the bathroom counter space of the daily routine, as a reminder that the world goes not well, but the kingdom comes.

Thanks to the boys in the picture, David and Kevin, for the voice of the gospel that they continue to bear, and to a friend visiting for the week who forces me to clean the tiles and dust the picture and remember.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged Cleanliness, el ayudante, nica, nicaragua, Picture frame, remember, remembering, reminders

Jun 25 2012

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learning to live, poems