New Things

I walked through Barnes and Nobles today looking for a date book.  There's a particular brand I like that I've used for a few years now.  I went searching;  I had delayed buying. Acknowledging the turning of time ...a new year without my girl wasn't something that interested me all that much.  All over were books about changing your life ...breaking old habits, establishing new, gaining influence, power, success, peace, money ...all sorts of things.  Whatever your mission for this year, there's a book out there offering a road map.  Once you've decided to make a change, there's plenty hoping it will be there book you choose to get you started.  But what about when life changes and you haven't chosen to transform, head down a different path.  We all know life is not linear ...things happen all the time to change our morning, our day, our week ...that's not surprising.  Dealing with curve balls is just part of life.  But sometimes there are things that are out of orbit ...not the usual, outrageous in fact.  I wasn't looking for a book to help me change my life.  I was just looking for a book to chronicle our first year without Phoebe.  I found it ... a horrible color.  That's what happens when you wait too long ...choices become limited.
So, I filled in some of the squares ...what I know for this month, the birthdays.  I wrote Phoebe's 18th birthday in and noticed her day, her night is a full moon.  Phoebe had written quite a bit about the moon.  She loved the moon ...loved that she could always count on it hanging up there in the sky.  She wrote beautiful words about the light of the moon, its loveliness.  I smiled when I saw that full moon day, on her birthday.  I probably wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't died.  There would be lots of things that same week, her sports banquet, senior breakfast, graduation.  Those don't get filled in now ...they won't happen.  A change I didn't want.  Hmmm!  I don't understand why God would give me something so extreme, so painful to help me change. And I know I am changing, but into what?  If I had planned on some kind of change I could buy a book.  But there are no books for this ...just time, patience and a whole lot of faith ...and trust. Life will go on, and there will be good things that happen along the way ...even without her.  Again, not by choice ...it just will be.
For Christmas my husband gave me the gift of drawing lessons.  I've wanted to take an art class for a long time, but like most moms ...couldn't figure out how to fit something in just for me.  Its a great gift, and I jumped on it ...with a little reservation.  I started last week, and tomorrow I'll go again.  A drawing class ...we draw lines.  When our teacher told us we would spend six weeks drawing lines I was perplexed ...six weeks, how about six minutes, I thought to myself.  As she explained and demonstrated I began to see that everything is a line.  Line meeting line meeting line transforms into all sorts of things, bringing texture, dimension and interest to the world.  My eyes saw something new.  My eyes saw in a different way carrying my mind along too.  She gave us a simple picture to copy.  I looked at it hard wanting to please her.  My "drawing tool" ready (art terminology) I planned my approach.  "Turn it upside down ...and just draw the lines that you see." I thought that odd.  Just draw the lines?  So, I did.  "Now turn it around." she told us.  As the papers turned, the image came into view ...and there was a near perfect copy of the original ...with a few variations.  I was startled.  She explained our natural desire to focus on one little element as we begin, hoping to perfect each little piece of the whole ...hoping to capture the whole.  It doesn't work that way.  We must begin with the whole ...using line, sweeping lines that capture movement, a state of being ...a gesture line. From that move to contour line ...the outline,  a sort-of simple mold that suggests definition, but does not impose it.  Construction line gives the object(s) their name.  We know what we are looking at.  Had she given us the picture right side up ...we would have been far less successful at capturing the image ...its beauty.
Our teacher had gone around the room asking us why we were there.  Five of us, different reasons ...most of them to further cultivate their artistic pursuit.  I wanted to cry ...I wanted to say "I'm here because my daughter died and I can think of nothing else ...and I'm hoping this will distract me for a bit."  But instead, I told her it was a gift from my husband and I wanted to learn something I could share with my kids.
She had looked at me squarely, right into me.  "It is a gift far greater than you know that will go beyond the time you spend here."  At the time it had sounded prophetic, but I thought it was just me ...feeling sensitive, raw.  As the class went on ....and after, I thought about how much these lessons applied to life, my life.
So many times I've thought ...what am I to do now?  Of course, I have these wonderful children with lives to live and embrace ...but what about this gaping hole in my life.  My world had been turned upside down ...life cannot be lived that way.  I thought of the picture we drew upside down ...who would ever draw upside down?  Yet when we turned it around, the image made by our simple lines, had transformed into a beautiful swan.  This life lived upside down is creating a beautiful image ...a beautiful life.  Phoebe turned my world upside down when she impulsively chose to leave it ...but what beauty may come from it ...I don't know. 
God works on me in mysterious ways.  I can see how He works simply by learning to draw.  Imagine.  I'm taken by this new approach, way of thinking ...way of seeing.  I know God is offering me a new perspective ...a new way to trust.  "I know it seems crazy Carolyn, painful, outrageous ...but there is beauty and definition ....purpose in this plan."  He seems to say to me.  I don't mean Phoebe dying ...that wasn't His plan.  But for me now, this life I have ...He is bringing purpose, beauty, definition through the upside downness of my life.
I pray I can trust and be open to His ways ...follow His lead.  I pray I can.

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and let perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace, Amen.