Mother's Day, a mortgage and Michael Knight

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Wait, you? … Do you mean it? Yes. Yes, I do.

This is my first Mother’s Day. This time last year I wasn’t a mother. I hadn’t heard a second heartbeat happily hammer inside me yet. I hadn’t realized that a tiny peanut-shaped life could determine my eating habits and sleeping patterns. And I hadn’t delivered a baby – one of the most surreal, mind-blowing experiences known. Sure, it’s different to be my kind of Mom, but that doesn’t make me any less of a Mom to my one son. And for that I am blessed and will raise my Mimosa high to my Mom, my Bonus Mom, and every Mom – no matter the circumstances that made us mommies. Be grateful. It begets joy. And that’s when you see the blessings, which naturally make you more grateful. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I was wrapping up this oh-so-long, ever-so-therapeutic post yesterday when Fed Ex dropped off something at my door. Wouldn’t you know it, a Mother’s Day present from my Bonus Sister! This whole post is about the floodgate of love that has opened before us and the timing surrounding it all. If you read no further than this, know that my Bonus Sister just summed it up in three perfect sentences:  “On this, your first Mother’s Day, we wanted to let you know we’re thinking about you. We hope you can feel the prayers, love, and hugs we’re sending your way. We love you!”  The pre-printed card said, “I’m not sure what you’re feeling right now – probably a lot of different things… hopefully loved is at the top of the list … because you are.”

I DO feel it. The latest love blessing arrived within 15 minutes of this moment. I just can’t keep up with the awesomeness of love.

Speaking of the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, I’ve been wondering lately, which comes first: the blessing itself or the eyes to see it? Some are scary obvious and some are hidden.

First, the subtle: I was driving down Interstate 40 the other day going to meet an HVAC guy at a house I had for sale. In front of me was an 18-wheeler that normally holds a single row of something heavy and flat except this one was totally empty. No forklifts on top, no broken down something, just a long, ascending, on-ramp straight into the low-hanging clouds. “Heaven may be closer than we think,” my widow friend likes to say. I’m officially changing her name here, by the way. Henceforth, I will call her Christian. Widow friend is narrowing and pins her down in a way I don’t want to do. Christian preserves her identity and allows her to stand as the strong example she is of, well, a believing Christian. Suffering and being a Christian go hand-in-hand. It’s not if – it’s when – something shocking will happen to you, to every human. It’s how you handle it that counts. Christian, she is.

Back in my car, I suddenly envisioned Gabriel close because heaven is close – we just can’t see it. I pictured Gabriel playing on top of a toddler-sized truck similar to that one. Just playing and vrrrroom, vrrrroom, vrrrooming and being close. Is heaven THAT close? There was something warm, restful and comforting about both of these mental images. This truck with its short path into paradise; my baby boy having fun like all the other baby boys I play trucks with on earth.

I see heaven close in the raindrops on my deck too. A good hard rain makes the hurried human stop. It reminds me of how the ocean shines like diamonds when you’re at the beach just watching. You let ice cubes and hours melt away without reproof. Kevin recently put a sealant on our deck, which makes the drops play off the reflections of something to look like the ocean looks with those diamond drops. Heaven will be paved in gold. I see little shimmering glimpses of that here on earth. You just have to tune in to The Gratitude Radio Station and never tune out. It’s there – a counter-cultural frequency; the opposite of what the world tells us – me, me, me. No, it’s He, He, He. He created the world, the diamond drops in it, and my babe Gabe. He made the men who made the trucks who transport the machinery on the highway to heaven. How close is it?

Close enough for me to feel hugs out of thin air. Close enough for me to smile with satisfaction during a normal commute to a normal place for a normal task. It creates a wonderful circle of thanks. When I smile, I feel joy. When I feel joy, I want to say thank you for the joy. Saying thank you leads to being more aware of the subtle signs that make me smile. As I contemplated these things – yes while still trailing my truckin’ travelin’ friend – I also had a flashback to Knight Rider and the black, stealth office-on-wheels that Kit (or Knight Industries Two-Thousand, to some) would maneuver into at a moment’s notice. It would always catch me off guard when I watched as a child. Somehow I never caught on until he was practically inside. It was always so cool. The director always knows more than the audience member. Thank you, Heavenly Director. I’m glad I don’t know what the next scene holds. I’m glad only you have an advance copy of the script. It’s so much cooler this way. Thank you.

So those are just two of the blissful blessings that recently bounced through my buoyant brain. Now to the flat-out physical blessings – the ones so in-your-face, that you are speechless. This is, in large part, is why you haven’t heard from me in so long. It takes awhile to process the profound.

How do you express gratitude when merely accepting the gift is overwhelming all by itself? Overwhelming because it’s big and overwhelming because sometimes you can’t say thank you enough to show true and deep thanks – it’s too lopsided. It’s a see-saw with a 400-pound gorilla sitting on one end and an ant hanging on the very tip of the other end held with only its fragile antenna-like grip.  The ant wants to say, “Ok, my turn to push!”  But that’s laughable. The big friend is big and the small friend is small. It’s just too much. In our case, our friendly gorilla is too much love, too much generosity, too much anonymous kindness – but it’s pointing us so hard and headlong into Christ that I can’t skim over the overwhelming and humbling stuff.  Uncomfortable as it is, how dare I stop being honest now?

It’s kind of like when that carpenter who never did anything wrong in his whole life died in my place. I didn’t deserve that – because I have done tons of wrong – and I can never repay him for that sacrifice. And, most counter-intuitively, He doesn’t want me to try to pay Him back.  The people we know who’ve loved us so well – so crushingly well – have said they don’t want to be “paid back” either. That’s the story of grace, again.

Like Baby Tomato in Pulp Fiction, allow me to try to Ketchup without getting squashed. 

Much earlier in the day on January 25, the day Gabriel met Jesus, Kevin’s dad had called us and we hadn’t had a chance to call back. He was calling to say that he and Bonus Mom – years ago - had set up trusts for their grandchildren’s educations and they wanted Gabriel to be no different. And so they gave us a huge gift. We haven’t touched it yet. We were stunned and speechless with their love. It was a mighty, mighty physical blessing.

And, you may remember, about that time our oven went kaput. And our church started feeding us insane amounts of food and friends started bringing breakfast and lunch and gift cards – and we didn’t really need an oven since we were literally being fed so consistently. But despite that, after they gave us the huge monetary gift, my Bonus Parents bought us a new oven calling it an early wedding anniversary present. Oven arrival: Feb. 5. – our 3rd anniversary: March 5. They know us well and knew we would not touch Gabriel’s grant until we had time to be clear-headed, prayerful, and patient. The early weeks – a time of healing – was not the time for that. So they forged on with even more mind-blowing generosity – loving us unconditionally.

A few weeks later, also back in February, a close friend got the idea of asking around at church to raise some money for us to take a vacation. They wanted to do something even though we had told them we were doing fine. That friend and his wife took us to lunch at Rafferty’s one Sunday after church and handed us an unassuming gift bag. We didn’t know what it contained until we got home. It was way more than a vacation – way more. It wasn’t something to add to our budget. It could be its own budget. We sat on our sofa thoroughly bewildered and read the note our friend had written. We folded our upper bodies over in each other’s arms and prayed, thanking God and thanking people we couldn’t mention by name because we had no idea who contributed or why or how.

At that Sunday lunch, even before I knew the amount that was in the gift bag, I had a hard time accepting it – literally taking it in my hand. Our friends said nice things about how they thought we’d been good friends to other people over the years. The husband, in particular, said we’d washed the feet of many and now it was time to have our feet washed. I still resisted. Finally, he said, “If this were happening to us, you would have done the same thing for us.” And with that, a couple of tears fell out because I knew he was 100% right. If he and his wife were the ones in our shoes, we would’ve been the frontline fundraisers for them – whether they wanted it or not. We had told everyone we were OK with money because we are.  But still, they poured into us in a way we could not have imagined.

We didn’t deserve it.

Kevin is a saver and has maintained an emergency fund and always lived under his means. God is in the details of that too. We had Gabriel on Jan. 25, 2014. We paid off our house Jan. 25, 2013. I didn’t realize the timing of it until I was looking through a five-year journal I keep and saw it in black and white in my own handwriting.  Here’s what I wrote on that date in 2013: “Friday, what a hard week. PAID OFF THE HOUSE. God is good – all the time!”

I noticed it when I was back-writing the three-line entry for Jan. 25, 2014 which read: “Blog is leedholt.blogspot.com. It says it all. Praise God – Gabriel went to Jesus today. God is good.” Why did I write my blog address in my own journal? It’s because I want to give it to my granddaughter some day so she can see how her grandmother lived during the first five years of my marriage. I want her to follow the trail even if other evidence of my life has faded or is left undiscovered until she finds it in a box of my old stuff and happens to turn to that page.

 ((Um, I know I don’t have a child on earth much less a grandchild, much less a granddaughter. … Faith. Faith. Faith. That’s faith in God’s plan for me – not in what I want, of course. Double parentheses indicate my awareness that you may think me wildly off in some way – now more than ever.  Too bad.))

 As a result of God’s provision, we had a year’s worth of saved mortgage payments on hand to pay for expenses that were unexpected to us but well known to God.  In our budget January of 2013, it started as a Baby Fund, a hopeful thing since we didn’t know how much raising a child would cost. Then it became a Medical Fund when I got pregnant in July, meaning I would be due one month before our new insurance company’s maternity coverage would kick in. No big deal; we were prepared and so excited to be pregnant! Then in November it became a Sick Baby Fund as our needs increased; then it became a Funeral Fund and more and more and more. Throughout it all, God provided exactly enough; exactly when; in exactly His way. Manna for the day.  Each day.

As a planner, I put labels on what I think we’ll do with what I so wrongly think is our money. It’s not. It’s God’s money, and we are stewards of it for Him. Money doesn’t have an afterlife.  God gave Kevin, in particular, the skills to save in the sunny days so we would be Ok in the rainy days. Mercy upon mercy.

In 2013, we had no clue what the future held. Today, I continue to have no clue. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s why I depend on God while trying to use my brain. I am so glad I have a Heavenly Director who financially prepared us for this and who knows us so intimately that he put a year’s worth of savings into our hands for His purpose in our lives to be fulfilled in His way. I still remember the brightly colored Vision Board (poster) we had put up on our bedroom wall August 30, 2011 with 40 $1 dollar bills in four sections representing the last $40,000 we had to go on the house. I gazed at that board – I became a little obsessed – pinching every penny, saying no to fun things, eating chicken ‘n pasta  – to knock it out one dollar bill at a time. The 16-month process wrapped up when we took that last dollar down and mailed the last check. We celebrated a little and then got to the business of saving for babies.

Money comes and goes and having a lot of it or a little of it is not the end all be all. I say all of this so you can imagine our surprise and humility when we received my Bonus Parents’ gifts and our church friend’s vacation money out of the blue. Our church friend said sometimes he didn’t even know the person who was making a donation. He said people in the hallways gave him handshakes exchanging cash without a word about why or who they were. Matthew 6: 3-4 talks about that that’s it’s good to give without seeking recognition because Our Heavenly Daddy sees what you do and it’s what you do when you think no other humans are watching that makes the measure of a person. It’s fun to be the giver of that; it’s incredibly hard to be the receiver of it.

This was all in early March, or possibly late February, and then just a couple weeks later, that friend went to lunch with Kevin again and handed him another envelope from people who missed him the last time around. Gospel love. Radical grace in real time.

You can see how it would be hard for me to put this kind of honesty – and jaw-dropping acknowledgement of timing and purpose – into words. Again, we didn’t deserve it. We didn’t earn it. And we can’t repay it. But we’re so much better off for having received it. That’s exactly how God gives out His grace. Similarities abound if He opens your eyes to it. It’s an all-in kind of love.

In the weeks following, we also received countless donations to charities and causes in Gabriel’s honor.  A college friend provided us with beautiful personalized thank you notes – at no cost. Gabriel has trees planted in the Holy Land and money at work at the Mayo Clinic and a week’s worth of care given at the Church Health Center and on and on and on. I shouldn’t say it was countless. Like everything else, I tried to keep track of the cards/notes/meals/donations in an organized way so it did end up having a number associated with it and that number was 217.

I wrote 217 thank you notes – no more, no less. I made an Excel spreadsheet to keep up with everything and it took a long time to write them all because it was emotional and personal. Gabriel lived inside of me for 217 days. (Again, I hadn’t thought of it in terms of days by myself, but our pastor referenced his life in that way during his graveside remarks, and I remembered that number as I closed the spreadsheet for the last time.) I double-checked the reference, and it was true. I imagined God chuckling like any wise father: “Told ya, I’ve got this. Now stop being so neurotic and go outside or something.”

God used people to bless us – with great intention and diversity of action – for each day we had with Gabriel. How personal is that? How intimately does He reach out to me? One touch at a time scattered over His time.  And I so love touch. He used His believers – and non-believers alike – to do His work of touching me. Thank you, thank you. Joy feels so good.

A roommate of mine sent us a care pack which happened to arrive on our anniversary date giving us a fun surprise on an already special K-Love Day. Another roommate dedicated a mass to Gabriel in Atlanta. It happened to be the same day that my Women’s Bible Study dedicated the Sunday flowers in our sanctuary in Gabriel’s honor. I didn’t know about either acknowledgement until it happened. More Holy than even that timing – the song sung in Atlanta came from Psalm 130. That was the same Scripture my preacher taught from that morning in Memphis. One God being glorified in two cities on the same day – the same hour – and it made this Momma’s heart sing that her little boy could be a part of it.

Where does the time go?

March 17-29: Due dates:  I had two of them in my mind. March 29 was our original due date – a generally good day for the Holts, family of two plus one in heaven. March 17 was our two-weeks-prior unspoken due date. If Gabriel had stayed with us until March 17 we would have been induced that day in hopes of holding him in our arms and cooing into his tiny ears until his heartbeat hushed. Instead, this March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day) we hit the road for New Orleans for two nights and then Destin for nine more. In yet another act of love and generosity, one of my best friend’s mom’s gave us the use of her condo in Destin for as long as we wanted. So grateful.  So relaxing.

It was good to get away. New Orleans is easily our favorite city to visit because of the food and laid-back atmosphere. And after that, we hit the beach. The nice thing about the beach is that your goal is to do nothing. And nothing we did. One morning on a beach walk, I saw a girl’s name written in the sand. Brooke. We walked a little further and I stopped in an empty stretch of beach and wrote “Gab” in the sand. I motioned for Kevin to write the rest – “riel” in the sand. Then we prayed for a second. Then we walked on. I didn’t walk back to that part of the shore. I knew his name would go out with the tide. Kevin simply said, “I’m glad you did that” and held my hand as I felt a few more tears cut through my sun block.

I read a lot of grief books and child loss books. One of my favorite lines was from a Dr. Rogers book in which his wife had quoted him as saying, “remember to love your neighbor.”  Duh.  It’s Mr. Rogers. I think we all know he wants us to be his neighbor. But then his wife referenced his old words that made a new impact on me. He had said, “And remember, your neighbor is the person in front of you right now. Right now.  And again, right now.”  I love that. It makes it easier to be genuinely kind to the people in the grocery stores.

March 29: It was our first day back in Memphis and we woke up well rested on this day, the most memorable date my calendar had ever held. This March 29 was many things to many people: my dad’s cousin’s birthday, my cousin’s child’s birthday, two of my friends’ wedding anniversaries, a couple of friends’ kids’ birthdays, and more. Kevin prayed a sweet prayer that morning to frame our day with peace. Bonus Mom had sent an encouraging text.

I had a hair appointment that morning, a Saturday. In the salon parking lot, I felt the tears start leaking and I prayed for courage and peace to get out of the car and walk inside. I knew no one inside would know this was my due date – how could they – my belly was empty. I needed more God; more supernatural strength. I wiped my eyes and went inside.

They put me in a room that was entirely empty. That was good and bad. Good because there were no distractions, but bad, because every time I was physically alone, the tears started leaking again. I say leaking because I wasn’t crying, intentionally, I was just a dripping faucet. I had no ability to tighten the nozzle, to keep things in the shut position. Oh well, this has happened before. Then a loud, wild-haired woman walked in and sat in the only other customer seat in the small room. I looked at her, incredulous, checked Facebook to make sure I had the right person, then practically shouted her name and told her mine. It clicked – long lost relatives reunited. God gave me a miracle in the madness, a partner in pain. Someone who understands. I knew she knew our story even though we hadn’t talked about it together.  I had had five minutes of fear and would have 55 minutes of joy.

 I blurted out, “Our due date is today!” and I said it with gladness not sadness. She said her husband was probably playing with Gabriel, or dancing, I can’t remember the action-packed word she picked, but it was one of motion and goodness. The last time I had seen her was at her husband’s funeral in February of 2012. Her husband was a builder – of homes and of people’s spirits. He was known for etching scripture into the foundations of the houses he built. He was known for inserting contagious laughter into the hearts of the downtrodden. His widowed wife was at my salon because one of their sons was getting married the following weekend. God gave me a happy, personable, long-lost-relative to talk to – candidly – about grief bursts, and heaven, and hope, and our shared Father. I had prayed for my own human strength – silly me – and God gave me the gift of another human’s strength – so much better! He always knows what’s best for me – even when I don’t know how to ask him for help. Yay! Again and again. Amen and amen.

My salon is on Brookfield which is right by Memorial Park, so I surprised myself by turning into the cemetery after my appointment to look at Gabriel’s plot. (We still haven’t ordered a monument. I have the words written out; we just need to email it to the monument company. I could have sent that email in the amount of time it took to type this sentence. Or this one.  Or maybe this one. You get my point. I am an expert procrastinator.) Anyway, it turned out I didn’t need a headstone to show me where Gabriel’s body was buried. The tiny rectangular ground was sunken in and held new sod. That was the spot. I was peaceful and pleased. Pleased to know that Gabe my Babe wasn’t really in the ground; he is dancing in God’s Glory. A little to the left there were signs of an even more recent baby burial. That reminded me how common it is; I prayed for that baby’s parents who are on a different but similar road. We are not alone.

That afternoon I wrote a thank you note to the friend’s mom who had let us borrow her condo in Destin. I paused to ponder as I dated it 3/29/14 – I never could have predicted that we’d be wrapping up a two-week vacation on this day, in this way.  

April 1 – This was the self-appointed day I had said I was going back to work full-time. But I decided to actually go back April 2 (didn’t seem wise to go back on April Fool’s Day) and having that time off helped me jump back into things rather than feel numb by going back too soon.  My mentor covered for me while I was off keeping my business chugging along. Hers was a gift of time and expertise – and therefore, money – that I again cannot repay.  

Of course regardless of how long you take off, going back into a routine that should be familiar but is somehow inalterably changed is weird. It took me a long time to figure out how to answer the question: “Do you have kids?” I said no a couple of times only to recant the statement quickly through tears feeling I’d betrayed a fresh memory when I was trying to protect myself from pain. My answer is now, “Yes. We have one son in heaven and we’d like to have some on earth, so if you pray, please pray that for us.” I never thought I’d be one of those people who use an elevator speech. But I do. I know it is one because I had to practice it for a long time to myself before I could say it out loud. The grief books say there’s no wrong way to answer that question and that you can change your answer based on each circumstance. Ok.

Oh, one more thing I’d recommend: counseling. I highly recommend grief counseling. Any kind of counseling really. We went twice in the early month after Gabriel’s homegoing. Turns out we aren’t crazy. Turns out everyone grieves differently. Turns out God was in those details too because our grief counselor happens to go to our church and had been praying for us before she met us. Hooray for instant trust and credibility! Love her. I’m thankful to the Forrest Spence Fund for providing us with free counseling – generous and forward-thinking and good. Do it. Please don’t leave it up to yourself to decide if you’re OK. You’re the one going through it, so how could you know? Please ask an expert.  

April 16^th, a Wednesday, was Kevin’s 40^th birthday, and we had a fun ‘n fancy candlelit dinner at my parent’s house. Kevin surprised them by showing up in his tux with a fake martini in hand and his best Bond accent. They loved it. The Friday night before, we had a party in our backyard with exactly 48 40-ounce beers sunken in ice inside a hollowed-out tree stump. Tiki torches, shiny stars in trees, hand-crafted chalk-inspired, fence-sized signs from our magically creative friend. And the weather was perfect.  I served almost all meat – Rendezvous-style sausage and cheese; tenderloin sandwiches; Caesar salad and 208 pieces of fried chicken. We finished it off with two Costco buttercream cakes – a chocolate one with a big 4 on it and a vanilla one with a big 0 on it. You can’t fit group love for Super K into just one cake.

Then the next weekend, we hit the road for Atlanta to celebrate Kevin’s aunt and uncle’s 50^th Wedding Anniversary. It was a surprise and was so great to have time with them at their luxury lake house, see my Bonus Parents, Bonus Sister and family, and cousin’s family. A good time was had by all. My allergies were off the charts so I often sipped sherry like a 90-year-old little lady and we made the best of it!

Needless to say, this spring we walked God’s path despite my delusions of being a planner. I can’t count the blessings, physical and spiritual, that have come our way in these last months. Your prayers are everything to us – everything. They work, and we feel them. That’s the highest and best use of all of our time. God is cradling us in His arms and loving us through His people. That doesn’t mean we don’t recognize the sad, it just means we appreciate the glad. The good, good news is Jesus Christ saving us from ourselves and ensuring our eternal life. I rest in that for today because we don’t know what tomorrow holds.

Say it with me: HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

 “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live.” – John 11:25