How are YOU?

"How are you?" This is a questioned asked all over the place by lots of different people. I remember when Regan was alive people used to ask me "How's Regan?" I found it difficult to answer that question too. You know that what people really want to hear is "Fine!...just fine! Most people want to hear this because when we ask this question we really don't want to know because when we do we feel pain. Our culture avoids pain but we constantly want to feel guilty. Guilt is the emotion of our culture. So, people don't want to know how you are because they are going to feel guilt that they did not lose a child or that their children are not born with a disability. Guilty that their life is easier. I know because sometimes I feel guilty that I have a great husband, or a loving family, or great kids.....or that I live in America...that I know Jesus and other people don't. So you would think I would have experience at answering this question. I still don't know what to day...I feel like my response will fall short.

So back to my original thought. "How are you?" I usually say, "I am sad" or "I am doing" because I think most people think I set around and cry all day. This is not that case. Yet while I am "doing" I am always sad. I don't mind the sadness because right now it is a link to Regan. I am fine....but that is because God is good. Strangely enough one of Regan's great lesson's to me when she was living was that I am fine even when I am sad. I spend many sad days during her life on earth. It was hard to watch her struggle to breathe....to be awake....to live. She had some good days but she had a lot of really hard days to. A lot harder than I have ever known. Yet strangely when you looked in her eyes...she was fine. She knew the goodness of the Lord in a way I am only starting to understand. I goodness that is not about my situation but about my soul.

I don't set around and cry too much. Usually the tears hit while I am going. Like at Walmart when I don't get to buy diapers any more. Or when I pass by Memorial Home Care and I don't need any medical supplies...or when I run to the grocery and I don't need a handicap parking space anymore....or when Rylee and I are shopping for summer cloths and we aren't getting matching outfits for them for the first time...or when we sit and she isn't at the table when we pray and eat. I am fine...but I am sad....God is good so I am too but I am sad and that is good. I loved my little girl. I miss her terrible (Have I mentioned that?)
Rylee is with her teacher at her awards assembly this week. She received a "Citizenship" award, an award for being in the school paper, and also the "Homework" award for having all her homework in each day. This was no easy task since they both missed three weeks of school. Rylee is a very loving little lady. She feels God's compassion towards hurting people. She wants to help them because Jesus would do that. I love her and she reminds me God is good.
Ryder here with one of his best friends Hannah. They both were in the top 15 students in the 6th grade for their school. He also received student of the month for May and and a "service" award in his homeroom class. I am proud of him for his witness. Ryder loves Jesus and the people around him know it and experience it. Ryder knows God is good. This picture was taken on Memorial Day...isn't it beautiful. So many pretty flowers. My family is doing a great job caring for her little plot of ground. Still so fresh. My sister in law Tiffany said, "You should get to cry all you want if the ground is still broken from Regan's burial you can be too!" It is one of the best things anyone has ever said to me. I also love all the little people that go visit her regularly. You can see their little feet and bodies in this picture. It somehow seems right. This all helps me see God's goodness.

Remembering

A couple of days ago..Rylee was putting her shoes on for school. She was setting on the kitchen floor. Ryder was in the front living room reading. Brian was gone to work already. I was finishing up making lunches. She looked up at me and said, "Do you ever hear Regan?" I replied with a resounding "Of course!" "I think I hear her all the time and that is normal." She said, "Good because I thought maybe I might be going crazy." I continued to explain that when she was a baby I use to think I heard her cry but I would check on her and she was sleeping away. Your brains hold lots of information..they contain lots of memories. Our brains are powerful they remember even when we aren't thinking about it.

That night Ryder came out of his room about 9:45pm with big tears in his eyes. He said, "Mama I think I am forgetting how she smelled....I keep thinking about it but can't figure it out." I instructed him to go into Regan's room and open the closet and put his head in her cloths. I do it several times a day so I know it works. I told him not to do it for very long and to make sure to close it when he was done because we want to retain it for as long as we can. It is the only place that still smells like her. A few moments later he came back with a big smile on his face and said, "Your right and now I remember....good-night."

Brian said recently that in his remembering he had forgotten how hard many parts of Regan's life was. How for several years she didn't feel well. The last year was pretty easy for all of us compared to other years. He said remembering how hard it was helps him be glad for her now.

Yesterday I heard about the Steven Curtis Chapman family and how their little five year old girl died. I meet another lady last night in my community who just a few months ago lost her 17 year old daughter. I cried both times. I remembered the stinging pain of the realization that the person you love so much is gone from your life. Instantly I remember this pain. The pain of knowing you get no more opportunites to make new memories. You don't want to make new ones with her not in it. You get no more opportunities to say how much you love them. No new..... only remembering. Honestly the reality of heaven does not ease this pain.

I have so many good memories. I love to be with people who had memories of her. Yesterday Kate (7 yrs old) thought the sky looked like the day Regan died. She remembers that day. She and I agree that day still feels unreal. Our friend Noah (5yr) calls the funeral the "F word" and asks his family to call it that too... because he remembering the funeral makes him sad. He has no reference for the other f word......He does however say "cheers" for Regan's new life. He remembers where she is and doesn't want to remember the f-word. We have one picture of Regan after she died before the funeral home came to take her...it is of Ryder holding Regan...he says it is his favorite....He remembers the night she died. He wrote this about that night. "...surreal, it is horrible, it is quite honestly:hell. That one syllable can describe the tears, the pain and that empty place that can never be filled." He remembers that moment. God was so near...the pain was so deep.

God tells us who Know Him to remember. "Remember this fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me." (Isaiah 46:8-9) I remember in Job how his friends wanted Job to blame God and not remember. Job had his moments too yet he kept his integrity before God. I want to be this way...so I will remember what Jesus said, "You are blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. You are blessed when you feel you have lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you." (Matthew 5 Message). Part of me died the moment Regan died. So I know now I am less.....I am open to more of him....ready for a deeper embrace. I remember that though I am often a rebel that there is No other like Him...He is God and I am not.

Mother's Day Muses

It's the first Mother's Day for me that I have no pictures of me with the ones who make me a mother. We just couldn't do it. One of my favorite pictures of myself is on the Mother's Day right before she was born (her birthday is a month away). I was huge but I loved being pregnant. I thought about it a couple of times. That we should take a picture. I took the camera with me to church, then to Panera to eat, into Lowe's, over to the Irwin's while we had supper....but I didn't have the courage to do it. I simply don't want to take a picture with just the four of us. It feels to sad. Way to empty. Regan's presence was always strong in family photos.

Family pictures have always been somewhat weird. We can't do cute little poses where everyone sits on the grass. We are always posed around a sweet little curly headed girl who sat in a a wheel chair. At first we tried to disguise it by putting a black blanket on the back. Sometimes we even took her out but the last four years or so we just wanted it like it is....Regan in her chair...it was Regan too is some strange way. Now it sets empty in her room. It really is great that she doesn't need it any more. It is powerful to think of. It is our hope. That one day we will have no limits to our expression of worship. No sin to hold up back, to physical pain to be concerned about, no bills worry about, no relationships that are too hard. Right now that empty chair is also our pain because we want her and she isn't in it.

We took a last family photo in the hospital. I couldn't even smile. I knew. We all knew. Shannon knew when we took it. Tears rolled down her checks while she took it. She wasn't in her chair. Her chair wasn't there. We left it at home because she and I rode in an ambulance. I was glad we didn't have to push it out of the hospital. OR even worse drive home with it empty in our van. It was one of God's tender mercies to us. It was waiting us on when we got home.
We have taken one picture without her. Her body was with us but she was gone. My sister Jennifer took this picture. Tears streaming down her sweet face too. She knew in a second we were going to close that "bed box" as I came to call it...and never lay our eyes on her sweet body again. Regan looks a lot like my sister. I love that. We loved that body. We loved on it it so much that before the viewing in Oklahoma they had to put more make up on her hands and face because we had rubbed it off with our strokes and kisses. I think Ryder more than anybody. Mother's Day will always be hard. I have cried every Mother's Day for years in anticipation of this one...the one without Regan. I didn't cry too much. I am really glad I have Ryder and Rylee. They bought me a really funny card. They are funny. Mostly Rylee is funny. I think she picked the card out. She also drew me a great card. I am glad that the four of us have each other to be in our next family photo with. I don't know when or where the photo might be. I can tell you this. It won't be around a hospital bed, or a bed box, or a wheel chair. Maybe we will pose on the grass...or on the beach...or on a mountain top. Places that we couldn't go with Regan but now in the garden place where Regan is she can experience.

Rear View Mirror

Today I had to adjust my rear view mirror. I was driving home from taking Rylee to school and I looked in the mirror only to see the ceiling of the van. Thursday we got the lift taken out of the van. Our van has always had Regan's lift in it. Regan doesn't need it anymore. We are glad for that. But the empty space in the van felt like our hearts...so we decided to get it taken out. Now it is just an ordinary van. It feels like a new van. No rattle, my view out the drivers side is clear, it now seats seven instead of five. I never used the rear view mirror to see out the back. I always used the rear view mirror to see Regan. She loved to ride in the van...I loved to watch her ride. Today after I dropped Rylee of I automatically looked to see her. She is not there. I wonder when will I stop expecting her to be there.

We keep saying the hardest part of life now is that all of you wants to go back but life keeps making you go forward. Rylee says she wants to go back to her mornings with Regan. Brian wants to kiss her before work like he did every day. Ryder just misses her company while he reads. I miss her all day...yesterday I mowed the lawn by myself. Normally she watches me from the front porch or the back deck. It made me cry. I loved life with Regan. I miss talking things through with her. I miss reading her your blog comments. That is the life I want. I know it is good for her now but our hearts are sad because when we ride in our van she is not there.

When Regan was alive our family talked a lot about "the Forward life" it was one of our battle cries. It was the truth that a life in Christ is anchored forward. It is not a life anchored in the past. Many people anchor their lives in past hurt, pain, lose, experience, victory, happiness...but God has called His people to anchor our lives forward. This forward life finds stability not in he present or in the past but but in our future hope. That forward life brought us hope because we knew Regan would only suffer here on earth but that there would be an end to the pain. We knew that pain would be nothing compared to the future glory in Christ and that it would be like no time at all compared to eternity with Him. Now that forward life is our battle cry for our pain and suffering. That this pain that we will always feel because she is gone will one day be wiped away. We know this pain will be nothing compared to the future glory in Christ and that it will be like no time at all compared to eternity with Him. So we find stability in the future hope not in the past but this is work because in the past is where Regan is.

You see we know that one day we will see her again but the Regan we knew is not the Regan that IS now. What we knew of her is only a sliver of who she is now. That is great for her but we are still slivers ourselves and we really liked the sliver of who she was. A friend of ours drew a picture of Regan running to Jesus. We love it because with all our hearts we want to see her face. All we can see is this picture is her long curly hair bouncing and her strong legs running. But you see Regan isn't running to us. She isn't interested in us anymore because she knows Jesus. She sees his glory and the pain is nothing, the time on earth with us mean less because she is WITH CHRIST in the fullest sense of that phrase. This picture is painful to look at because we want to see her face..we want her to turn around and see the four of us standing here and run back, or wave, or blow us a kiss, or tell Jesus to let us come too. She however is memorized with Jesus. We are just a sliver. We know when we see Jesus we will feel the same way about her. We aren't frustrated with her about this fact. We just have to live with it but as little slivers of who we will be it is painful. In the words of our sweet Rylee last Sunday after church..."Heaven is not a family reunion!" She continued on to say, "When I die I want to see Jesus!"

So the pain we feel is that we want to move forward looking back in the rear view mirror. We really want to look in it all the time. Driving forward often feels empty because the life we desire is back there. But that is not safe for us or those driving around us. Most of all it isn't what faith in Christ looks like. We are called to remember but not with a longing to go back...we are called to remember because it encourages us to anchor forward knowing the future hope is better than what was back there...even if it was Regan