where the river kisses the ocean

We went to the beach for the day, finally, just he and I.  After almost two years in Oregon, two years of longing for some alone-together time at the beach, we finally made it there.  The only other time we've been to the beach together (without family or friends) was on our honeymoon in the Fresien Islands.  It was sooooo good to be back at the water's edge.  Good, good, good for our souls.  The weather was perfect and the spot we were at was secluded and quiet.

I heard this song today and it made me think of our perfect day...

It's been a long, long time
Since I opened a window
next to my bed
Since I spent the whole day
just feelin' the sun shift on my head
Since I've dug my feet in
into the edge of this continent
It's been a long, long time
It's been a long time
Home is not just where I am anymore
I know how to get there
It's where I wanna be
It's where the river kisses the ocean
Where I feel small
I feel blessed
And I feel like me

~Sung words from Melissa Ferrick: It's Been A Long Time

The following are pictures from our honeymoon in July, 2009.

The Cadillac of bicycles

National Geographic exhibit

Goofy guy!

intense listening

"Intense listening is indistinguishable from love… and love heals."

I heard this in a sermon today from the pastor of Mosaic church here in Portland.  I started listening to his sermons recently and am really enjoying.

Thank you all, my dear friends for listening to me throughout these past 10 months.  You have helped me on my healing journey and I am grateful.

Light and Darkness

I've been thinking a lot about light and darkness since I slammed my face into the nightstand the other night (see previous post titled "Ouch!").  I have an issue, as I mentioned, with staying up too late, and lately it's just been getting worse and worse.  I haven't been willing to see this an an issue, or confront myself truthfully about it because I felt honestly like I didn't have to.  I have believed for months now that because I lost my son and have been in such terrible grief, anguish and confusion, that I somehow had a "pass" in life.  I felt like I had been dealing with enough in just trying to cope and survive amidst all that's been going on with losing Rami, having G's parents in our home, all the financial burdens, and then starting the new business.  I haven't felt obligated to work on my own issues, like somehow because I was dealing with so much already, I didn't have to work on myself.   That is, until I was smacked into reality with a literal smack in the face.

This is not a new issue for me.  I have always been a "night owl", as we are called, but lately it's worse, and it's affecting my life and my husband's as well.  I've been trying to hide the issue, justify and ignore it too.  I don't do anything wrong or dishonest with that late night time, that's not the issue.  I just indulge in things that I enjoy - watching movies, reading, writing emails, journaling, making or baking things... in the quiet of the night.  Those are all lovely things in their own right, but I'm doing them at 2 or 3 in the morning - and then walking around all groggy and confused during daylight hours because I've not gotten proper sleep.  My sleep hours have shifted dramatically to where I'm not keeping the same sleeping hours as the rest of my household, and I'm missing out on quality of life during my waking hours because my body is off balance.  That blow to the head in the dark the other night happened because I was fumbling around in the dark, trying to hide my issue.  I didn't want to turn on the light because that might have made Ghaith wake up and see how late I was going to bed.

Darkness and Light.  They are likened in the Bible to issues of sin and forgiveness, evilness and righteousness.

¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  ~Psalm 139: 11-13

It humbles and relieves me to know that my God knows my inmost being.  He knows me better than I know myself.  Even if I hide these things in the darkness, He sees them.  He sees me.  

I looked up light and darkness in the Bible, and found the following verse, which are not meant to be preachy.  I am simply sharing what I've been dealing with and how the Bible is helping me to bring truth to this issue, and hopefully to overcome it.

"He reveals deep and hidden things; 

   he knows what lies in darkness, 
   and light dwells with him."   ~Daniel 2:22

"...wisdom is better than folly,
   just as light is better than darkness."  ~Ecclesiastes 2:13

"Woe to those who call evil good 

   and good evil, 
who put darkness for light 
   and light for darkness, 
who put bitter for sweet 
   and sweet for bitter."   ~Isaiah 5:20

"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."   ~1 John 1:5

Ouch!

I slammed my face into the night stand in the dark in the middle of the night the other night.  Ouch!  I'd dropped something and bent over to pick it up, not knowing the door of the nightstand cupboard was open.  I hit hard and was bleeding and almost passed out because I'm such a wimp with blood.  I had to wake Ghaith up to help me get cleaned up.  I'm glad I didn't need stitches.  For a while there, I was laying in bed with a big ice pack on my eye, embarrassed and imagining how bad the scar was gonna be. 

Truth be told, it was 4:30am and I was only then getting ready for bed.  I didn't want to turn on even a little light to help find my way to bed because I didn't want to wake Ghaith up.  I have a problem with going to bed.  I stay up WAY too late.  It bothers Ghaith and he's talked with me about it many times.  He's gotten mad at me for it, been frustrated about it, and worried for me and my health as a result of it.  I scared the crap out of him, waking him up with a bleeding face.  After he very lovingly helped me to get cleaned up, I told him I felt like God had smacked me in the face, telling me to stop the nonsense and start going to bed on time!

I talked with Ghaith about my problem, and about the rebuke I was sensing from the Lord, and I asked Ghaith's forgiveness because what I was doing was hurting him.  He prayed for me (for no scar and for my avoidance of bedtime), and then he held me until we both fell asleep - the way it should be every night, if I would just go to bed on time.

I went to bed last night by 3am.  Minor improvement.  Pray for me please.

(Prior to eyebrow blow.  I was playing around with an eyebrow pencil for the first time and I liked the results.)

green eyes. green bird.

You may not know it, but my son Rami had the most beautiful, vibrant green eyes.  I woke up this morning missing him extra special because today he would have been 10 months old.  I have thankfully had a nice slow morning at home alone, consisting of sleeping in, making myself breakfast, then eating, reading and writing while sitting on our back patio next to what I have lovingly named my Rami Garden.  I realized sometime in early spring that my tending to the garden was therapeutic for me and I vowed to keep it up regularly as a way of connecting with my mama needs and desires.  I have enjoyed nurturing my garden with love and care, and watching it grow and change, as I would have with my son if he were here with us.  I asked everyone in our household to keep their hands off the garden, explaining that it was something I needed to do for myself.  They have, for the most part, kept to my wishes.

It’s been an exceptionally quiet day around here.  There are no kids playing, no noisy birds chirping away like they normally do (only sweet, quiet ones), no neighborhood lawn or garden tools making noise, no construction work being done… nothing but the sweet breeze blowing through the lush trees that surround the condo buildings here, and the gorgeous blue sky above.  As I was realizing just how wonderful this moment felt, I stopped to take in the beauty of it all and looked up to the sky, and I felt a connection to Heaven, to the Divine.  That connection was sweet, and for a split second I felt almost blissful.  Reality quickly took over, and my bliss was defeated by thought after thought, my eyes lowering closer to the earth and my surroundings with each heavy weight I allowed in… until my eyes met the dirt of the ground below me and my heart felt heavy with the burdens of this life. 

I took out my journal and began to write about Rami.  I wrote about how much I miss him, how I long to know him, to see him face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and know him for who he is – not who I think, imagine, or speculate he is.  I had impressions of his personality while he was in my womb.  I thought from his hungry kicks that he would be eager, motivated and driven like his baba, and I liked to imagine he’d have a curious love for God’s beauty found in nature, like his mama.  I wrote about the day he was born, and how Ghaith and I had been brave enough to lift Rami’s sweet little eyelids to get our one and only glimpse into our son’s eyes, and oh, what beautiful eyes they were!  Rami had the most amazingly intense green eyes.  I can remember being impressed, thinking Rami really was his own person.  He didn’t have his baba’s dark brown Arab eyes, or his mama’s blue-grey eyes.  He had intensely green eyes, all his own.

As I sat in my Rami Garden, writing about Rami’s incredible green eyes, and feeling lost and far from him, I was suddenly visited by a hummingbird.  A shimmering, green hummingbird.  He came out of nowhere.  I mean, I have never seen a hummingbird on my back patio, and never in my life have I been that close to one.  He flew right up to me, almost eye-to-eye.  I was quite startled at first, and just as soon as I’d realized he was a hummingbird and I didn’t have to feel afraid, he backed off, floated over to a nearby tree branch, and landed.

We sat there for a moment, staring at each other, and then he flew away.  It took a few minutes for me to take it in, feeling confused at first by it all, then realizing what a sweet gift I’d been given in that visit.  I thanked the Lord, and I cried.

Tonight I told Ghaith about the visit from the green hummingbird.  His eyes teared up as my story unfolded.  I was so pleased to see his reaction to the gift I'd been given, to know that he really understood what I was so thankful for.  When I showed him this picture of a hummingbird, he was really touched and told me that he has always felt something special for hummingbirds because of the way they move.  He said they move like angels.

And then I knew the gift was not only for Rami's mama, but for Rami's baba too.  

New pictures

4th of July in our neighborhood (O.k., not so new pictures, but still worthy of sharing.)

 

I found this quote engraved on a beautiful piece of silver jewelry in a shop in Hood River recently.

A sunny afternoon with magnificent natural light and my webcam led to these photos.

Set free the sorrow by the old oak tree

Ghaith and I went to visit Rami’s grave last weekend.  We hadn’t been there in over three months.  That was way too long, especially for me.  I was really needing to get out there and be close to him.  I was so glad it was just Ghaith and I going – no one else came along this time.  Without parents or friends, Ghaith and I were free to let ourselves truly experience the emotions we were each feeling, and express our thoughts openly with each other.

At one point, I was standing and looking at the big beautiful oak tree Rami is buried next to, and remembering the day of Rami’s burial and how I’d been so busy fussing over the pictures I’d brought of the three of us, trying to get them to sit just right on the bench in front of the tree, that I missed being able to watch Ghaith as he walked across the cemetery carrying our baby boy in that little white casket.  I hadn’t realized Ghaith was behind me the whole time, making that long walk from the parking lot to the grave site, carrying our son to his resting place.  It was one of the saddest and most important, honorable moments of his life… and I’d missed it. 

As I was reminded of that memory, I reminded Ghaith about it too.  I don’t know how exactly I expected him to react to my recollection, but his response was surprising to me.  Usually when I talk about Rami, recall something about our pregnancy, or dream talk about how things might be right now if Rami were here, Ghaith doesn’t say much.  He listens, and he shows me his love and support, while remaining calmly reserved in sharing his thoughts.  But on that day in the cemetery, staring at the bark of that tall oak, lamenting about having missed that moment in Ghaith’s walk, Ghaith responded,

“Supposed to he carried me,” (He was supposed to carry me) followed by tears and weeping like I’ve never seen him do before.  Something about that time and that moment allowed my husband to open up and set free his sorrow like never before in these past ten months.  Maybe it was the lack of company, the being along together.  Maybe it was the beauty and serenity of the cemetery that day in the sunshine.  Maybe it was time.  Whatever it was, I was glad for it and relieved for him.  At the same time I was heartbroken, watching my husband break down and sob like that, but I knew it was good for him and it felt good to shed our tears together at our son’s graveside.

Rami would have been 10 months old tomorrow.  Oh how we miss him, with a depth and a pain so present, so strong.  Lord help us learn how to continue on amidst the struggle, the longing and the pain.

This is the tree our Rami is burried next to.  I took this picture on our last visit, back in May.  G's dad was having some quiet time for prayer.

Fighting for Happiness

I've really been enjoying this book I've been reading this summer (yes, I pour through books rather slowly when I want to savor and enjoy them).  It's a memoir of travel, self-discovery, and spiritual formation, and realizing how much bigger God and the world are than our own problems.  I'm getting close to the end, and was encouraged by this passage:

"...people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough.  But that's not how happiness works.  Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.  You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.  You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.  And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever...  It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments."

Now, from a Jesus follower's perspective, I read this and am reminded of the passage in Phillippians which says:

"...I know what is is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength."  ~Phillippians 4: 11-13

That last line is one of the first verses in the Bible I clung to as a young girl of 13 when I was first introduced to the word of God.  It's what I clung to when I labored my dead son for 10 unimaginable hours in the hospital that night, and it's what I cling to now as I fight for my life, my marriage, my contentment, my - dare I say it - HAPPINESS.  

Selah.