The Surprises of Life...

It was an ordinary Halloween Day.  

Walking in the nature park is routine for me.  I love watching the trees and prairie change with each season.  Misty and quiet, water hung on the trees and grasses that morning. The light was soft and filtered. 

And as I rounded the bend I looked up to see a four point buck!

He froze, standing tall and regal intent on me and my movements.  The rain started softly falling and then I noticed his doe standing just in front of him.  And yes, there was a young one with short velvety points.  

All three statue still staring back at me.

Slowly I opened my umbrella.  They jumped and moved, the buck putting his head down, pushing his doe forward with his antlers.  Reluctantly she moved a little.  Then they stopped and stared again.  

  I didn't move.  

I was in awe.  

     I was in worship.

My counselor talks about creating space in my life.  

Space to process my grief and my life.  

Space to soak in God's creation and be fully present. 

Space to connect with Him.

Later that day, I went to my counseling session.  As I left her office I began walking towards my car.  The sun had come out and glistened off the wet sidewalk covered in red and yellow leaves.  The gutter was full of rain.  

Tentatively, I thought, "I feel hopeful again.  It's going to be ok."   

My spirits had lifted by the buck that morning and my conversation with 

Barbara. 

And then I tripped catching my boot on a crack in the sidewalk.  I walk at a fast clip and so my momentum pulled me forward as I lost my balance and I knew I was going down.  Somehow I rolled landing flat on my back in the rain filled gutter just behind my car.

"I'm actually lying in the gutter!" I thought and I laid there taking it all in.

And then I laughed out loud.  

It felt like the whole world was laughing with me.

And I was happy.  

Ah, the surprises of life.

Turning water into wine...

When I was a child my mother and one of her best friends, Pat,  filled a drinking glass with water, set it on their kitchen window sills and declared to all of their children and husbands that Jesus was going to turn that ordinary glass of water into wine.

He had done it in the Bible.  He would do it again...for them.

Pat and my mother, Patty, believed with all of their hearts that Jesus would perform this miracle.  Pat had three children as did my mother.  Pat's children and husband laughed and snickered behind her back.  I'm not sure how or what my brothers or father felt, I on the other hand was confused.

I would come home from school each day and glance at the glass of water.  It was still water. An ordinary glass of water sitting on the kitchen window sill.

 I would go to Pat's house to play with her daughters and yes, the water in the glass on her kitchen window sill was still water.  Pat's daughters joked about putting red food coloring in the water just to see how their mother reacted.  Her husband laughed that he was going to dump out the water and fill it with real wine.  I don't remember that they actually followed through.

One day, I came home and the glass with it's water was gone and it was never spoken of again.

This is a perfect picture of my mother and her faith.  All of her life she prayed and believed with every ounce of her being that God would perform one of her miracles.

He never did.

We never got that private jet she said we should have so my husband could travel to Africa with ease for his ministry work.  She never got that seed money of 3.3 million dollars which she had sown by generously donating her money to that televangelist.  Jesus never healed that spot on her face and she had to have plastic surgery to remove it and repair the damage...twice.  My mother would command the wind to stop in Jesus name or declare the sun must shine.  She never begged God for her desires.

She demanded them.

My mother was a broken, hurting, gorgeous woman who lived in denial of real life, because reality was too painful.  She couldn't be present when her grandson was diagnosed with cancer or when he endured a year of treatment and a year of trying to fix the fall out from radiation.

It was too emotionally painful for her, she said.

She couldn't visit her own mother when she lie dying in a stark, sterile hospital room all alone.

It was too emotionally painful for her, she said.

Reality did not match up with my mother's world view.

This became more extreme as she aged.

Yes, this thinking and belief system messed me up.
Grieving her has been complicated.

What my mother never learned, as I have, is that Jesus stands with us in the pain.  He is Present when we journey through childhood cancer or the tragedy of a son's suicide or the death of a parent or the murder of our loved one.

And that Presence is often seen and felt and known through us, His people.

We are Jesus, as we grieve with our friends, as we carry their burdens, as we hurt with others.

My mother could never accept that we lived in a broken hurting world.  She often said it "should" be this way or it "should" be that way.

But it never was.

My mother missed out on His Presence.

His Presence in the pain and heartache of Life.

The Bible sums it up this way:

Jesus Wept.






  

Frozen moments...

There are moments in life when time freezes and your brain focuses on one small detail before your eyes.  And you realize life will never be the same, that your world as you knew it has shattered and you have no idea what is next, but all you hear in your head is some insignificant sentence going round and round your brain.  

"Wow, look how beautiful that tree is.  It looks like it's raining golden leaves."  

I was perched on a hard wooden chair next to a soft chair where my friend sat weeping.  I held her hand as she shook and I stared out her living room window at the sun shining through a gorgeous golden tree while the leaves fluttered softly down to the ground like snow.  

Only four and a half hours had passed since  9 am that morning when she had found her eighteen year old son dead by his own hand.

Time was frozen.  
Her son was gone.  
Golden leaves were fluttering down to the ground like feathers.

"Look how the candle flames dance and shimmer around the photos."  

Multiple candles glowed in the dark room where music, soft and peaceful filled the air.  I lay on my mother's bed listening to her steady breaths as she lie in a coma in the hospital bed just a couple feet away.  Overwhelmed with emotion I began praising God in my head.  My baby brother and his new wife from a foreign land quietly knelt beside her bed. The gentle sounds of their voices blended in perfect harmony as they sang and prayed together in French.    I was in a sacred place.

Time was frozen
My mother was dying.
Candlelight flickered off of an old framed photo of my mother, young and fresh  sitting next to me, two years old with thin scraggly hair and freckles. 

"He sure looks tall and strong, but why are his pants too short?"

I sat in a tiny airless room off of the side of the main surgery family waiting area with my husband and a number of his male friends.  I wished I was alone. The doctor walked in and sat directly in front of me and softly reported that the biopsy surgery went well, but yes they had found round blue-cells in the tumor. 

Time was frozen.
My four year old son had cancer.
The doctor was tall and strong with glasses, short brown hair and he wore his pants too short. 

In each of these frozen moments, my life was completely altered along with the lives of others.  
We are all connected.  
In each of these frozen moments, Christ was with me.
In each of these frozen moments, Jesus Wept.

A phone call from my dead mother...

I walked into a Sports Bar at LAX, headed straight towards my husband who sat watching a game, my wheeled luggage in tow behind me.  Just as I leaned over his table to speak to him, my phone rang. Straightening up, I pulled my IPhone out of my back pocket looking to see who was calling.

Patty Dobbins...

I stared at the screen.  

Patty Dobbins...

Time stood still.

Patty Dobbins...

I held the screen up for my husband to see.  His mouth dropped open.

Slowly I slid my finger across the arrow on the screen and quietly, very tentatively said, "hello?"  

I quickly walked out into the concourse away from the noise of the bar.

A young woman's voice answered, "Hello, who is this?  You called me.  Who is this?"

"No, I did not call you.  Who is this?  You are calling from my mother's phone" I accused.

"I'm Tiffany. No, this is my phone.  I'm calling from my number 503-701-****. You called me."

"No, that number is my mother's phone number.  You are calling from my dead mother's phone."

Silence hung in the air.

"I'm sorry", I continued, "my mother died last July and that phone number is hers.  She's on my phone. It says Patty Dobbins!"

"I...I just got this phone and number about four weeks ago.  This is my new number.  You called me" she stuttered.

"Well, I didn't call you.  I'm at an airport and was just reading while my phone was charging in a recharge station here at LAX. I'm sorry. My dad has her phone. Maybe he lost it." 

"Was it an IPhone?  I have a new IPhone and this is my new number" she questioned. 

"No, my mom didn't have an IPhone.  My dad has her phone. I'm sorry.  Maybe they gave you my mom's number. Maybe I accidentally dialed her number" I apologized. 

What followed was more awkward confusing conversation with death and phone numbers hanging in the air.  

Then it was time to board.  I said I was sorry again.  I hung up and had to rush to get in line to board.

I couldn't really process it then.  

I've thought about it a lot since.  

I found out my dad had canceled her number with AT&T. He still has her phone.

I've wondered if Tiffany likes knowing that her new number is a dead woman's phone number.  Does it bother her?

I wish my mother would call me...I wish she could.  

I miss her. I was so busy being mad at her these last few years that I didn't see she was dying.  

In some ways my mother died very quickly.  From diagnosis to her death was about three months.  But as I look back shuffling through my memories, she had begun dying...slowly...shutting down...long before.  

My friend, Lauren, who knows about death, real loss, raw and fierce tells me grief is like a tidal wave. It will hit washing over us causing us to choke and sputter when we least expect it.  I am finding this to be true.

I was at the airport when I got the "call from my dead mother" because we had gone to visit our second daughter.  I was so excited to see her and meet her new boyfriend.  But when I stood in the kitchen of our friend's home where we were staying, a tidal wave hit me.

So unexpected was this wave that it took me a minute to figure out why tears were streaming down my face.  The last time I had been in that very kitchen was my daughter's college graduation party.  

My father, traveling from home, had been there, but not my mother.  She had chosen to stay home because she had had surgery on her face.  My mother was, admittedly, vain.  She didn't want anyone to see her with bandages on her face.  So she missed out.  

And ...CRASH...I realized she would never come to this place and see this beautiful home and meet our wonderful friends.  

Not ever.  

She would never meet my daughter's love.  She wouldn't be at any of their weddings, or graduations, or Christmas's or Easters.  Not ever.

It was too late.

Tidal Wave.  And the waves crashed over me all weekend.

I wish my mother could call me.  
I would tell her I love her.  
I would tell her I'm sorry for not understanding her.  
I would tell her I tried to make her happy when I was a girl, then again as a young mother, but finally I gave up. 

And maybe that's when she began dying. 

I would tell her I am sorry I couldn't help her.  

Patty Lou Wilson was born April 27, 1940 to Allyen Elwood and Mariah Beulah Wilson in Fort Collins, Colorado. She attended Fort Collins High School where she was voted Lambkin Queen her senior year. She also attended Colorado State University. She married Dale G. Dobbins in 1960 and they had three children. They moved to Portland, Oregon in 1970 where they raised their family. 

Patty was a loving mother and excellent homemaker. She enjoyed ice skating, watercolor and oil painting, and was a profession fashion model during the 1970's.

She is survived by her husband of 51 years, Dale G. Dobbins. Her surviving siblings are Connie Steadman of Houston, Texas and Allyen Wilson of Littleton, Colorado. Her children include daughter April Brenneman and son-in-law, Don Brenneman of Tigard, Oregon, her son Christopher Dobbins of Ouray, Colorado and son Timothy Dobbins and daughter-in-law Giselle Dobbins of Trukee, California.

Known as Nana Patty to her grandchildren, she was a loving and dedicated grandmother to Jasmine, Joy, Jubilee, Jordyn and Joshua Brenneman. Finally, she was Nina to her great-grandson, Cyrus Nelson, son of Jasmine Brenneman. 

She passed away in her home on July 28, 2012 after suffering from cancer for three months. She was attended by her family. 

Patty Lou is remembered for her strong Christian faith. She will be interred at Riverview Cemetery in Portland, Oregon in a private family ceremony