|
| McJOURNEY THANKS - A VIDEOJuly 5th, 2008 – I was here in South Carolina, waiting most of the day for the phone call. When it came, it tilted my world to a precarious angle and shifted the foundation of all I thought was solid in my life. Breast cancer. The second cancer in one year. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to fight.
July 5th, 2009 – One year already. And here I am, staying in the same home in South Carolina, surrounded by the same friends who saw me through the initial shock of this day in 2008. Twelve months have passed, twelve months during which I was upheld and comforted by an army of friends around the globe who never wavered in their love and support.
This five-minute video is my testimony and my thank you card—to each of you and to the God you expressed to me so powerfully in this year of ups and downs, of hope and set-backs, of grief and, ultimately, of joy. On this anniversary day, I thank God for placing you in my life.
Please click on the link to be taken to Youtube to view the video. If for some reason, it doesn’t work, simply go to http://www.youtube.com and enter (in quotes) “A McJourney Thank You” in the search bar. My video should appear among the first 3 listed. Just click on it to view it.
With so much love to each of you,
Michele
| | |
| KINDRED SCARS
Finally. F-I-N-A-L-L-Y! Dotsy and I met over the Internet many months ago. Her daughter found me by Googling Microcystic Adnexal Carcinoma and, as it turns out, the two of us are among the only 300 reported cases of MAC worldwide. And that's just the beginning of what we have in common! We'd never met until yesterday, not scar-to-scar anyway, and a trip that took me through Louisville (Looih-vuhl) happened to intersect with a trip that brought Dotsy there too.
Louisville - Home of the Louisville Slugger
In some of our emails, we'd talked about meeting in New York, at Serendipity, for one of their signature ice-cream treats. Instead, we had dinner at a quirky and wonderful restaurant called "Lynn's Paradise Café," whose food has been featured on the Food Network (Bobby Flay's "Throwdown") and Oprah.
As a surprise, Charlotte (Dotsy's sister-in-law) had arranged for a party table and for the cook to put together a giant banana split, something not usually on the menu. Thus, Serendipity came to Louisville. How special is that?
Though the meal was amazing (pan fried pecan chicken with mustard maple cream sauce?!), it paled in comparison to FINALLY meeting "my" Dotsy face to face, two MAC survivors celebrating their surgery-after-surgery healing. There was so much catching up to do that I'm afraid we somewhat neglected the others who were there for the big event: my mom, Dotsy's husband (Larry), and her brother and sister-in-law (Buddy and Charlotte). Boy, did we TALK! In fact, we ended up meeting again for breakfast the next morning just to be sure that everything that needed to be said had been said.
This encounter was without a doubt one of the most significant events of my recent history. It was just...moving and exhilarating and sobering. A few months ago, when Dotsy was preparing for the extensive surgery that had a terrifying "worst case scenario," she mused about how her grandchildren might perceive her if she ended up more disfigured than (thank God) she is. At that time, I wrote to her to share what I'd clung to in my own pre-surgery anxiety: the eyes are the windows to the soul, and if they're alive with love and zest and confidence and trust, the scars won't be the center of attention. If our eyes express something beautiful and true, the focus of others will be only on them once they've gotten past the initial surprise of post-surgery traces.
Websters defines beauty as: "The quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind."
Having met Dotsy, I'd suggest that the definition of beauty is much simpler--"beauty is smiling through the scars that healed you." I assure you that after my surprise at how minimal her scars are (her surgeon is a genius!), I saw nothing but the spirit reflected so powerfully in Dotsy's eyes.
The next morning at breakfast!
Please continue to pray for Dotsy as she faces more reconstructive surgery in October. The BFA choir took her on as a special prayer project this year, and I assure you that we'll praying again in the fall. Dotsy--how incredible to finally meet you. You're everything I thought you were and more. I'm so, so, so grateful to know you!
| | |
| DEFLATER MOUSE(Don't see a red background? Please click here to be redirected! http://www.xanga.com/serenitymine)
Photos taken during and after a recent rainstorm.
My mom and I were driving back from the airport after I arrived in the States a couple weeks ago, and I was behind the wheel. Jetlag, you see, isn't much of an issue when there are O'Charley's chicken fingers at the end of the road and the fact that I was driving ensured that we'd get there all the faster!
We were cruising along the highway between Detroit and Port Franks, Ontario (ie. "The Ends of the Earth") when she informed me that we'd be attending a performance of Deflater Mouse in a few days. Deflater Mouse? My slightly sleep-deprived mind conjured up images of a mousy superhero who flew from emergency to emergency, wielding his thumbtack with cold precision.
Expanding buttocks? Call Deflater Mouse! Swollen ankles? Deflater Mouse can help! Overblown ego? Nothing Deflater Mouse can't cure! I gave my mom a weird look--she's not the Superhero movie type--and repeated, "Deflater Mouse?" She gave me her usual tilted-head, squinty-eyed look and finally got it. "No!" she said, "Not Deflater Mouse! Die Fledermaus--the Strauss opera!"
Oh! Well, that cleared it up.
We did see Die Fledermaus this past Thursday evening (all THREE HOURS of it...Strauss had issues with brevity), and my ears are still ringing from the wall of serrated sound that assaulted us even in the nosebleed section of the U of M theater. Sopranos should come with warning labels. Or at least with free earplugs. Astounding. There was nothing deflated about the production, from the volume of the singing to the acting to the slightly-larger-than-the-norm ballerina who attempted to cavort airily onstage but succeeded only in evoking the Fantasia hippo ballet.
As it turned out, "deflate" was quite an apt word for Thursday, considering the inordinate time I spent that morning standing in front of a mammogram machine and singing Barry Manilow songs in my head to distract myself from the "crushing reality" being inflicted on parts of my body that were feeling...yes...more and more DEFLATED by the minute! I'm sure I'm either boring you or making you extremely uncomfortable with my retelling of Thursday's events, so I--unlike Strauss--will not go on ad nauseum.
Results--that's the important part! They came in the form of more or less Conclusive Conclusions:
1. The sites of last year's cancer appear to be clear of any tumors or calcifications! Hallelujah and pass the whole grain, no-sugar-added donuts. Never mind, I'll just chew on some cardboard.
2. There is another "something" that is...cause for some concern. Repeated tests (ouch and ouch) showed nothing concrete, but the doctor thought it might be a pre-cancerous symptom. So it's wait-and-see until June 2010, at which point we'll know if the "something" has turned into a "What?! Not again!" kind of thing. Looks like cardboard-chewing might become a fixture in my life.
3. I have the best doctor in the world. Nothing inconclusive about that! She has recently won her own hard-fought medical battle and came back to work only a couple of weeks ago. She passed her next appointment off to her nurse practitioner so we'd have time to chat and catch up, and it was truly the highlight of my summer so far. Big hug--fast talking on both sides to review each other's journey--personal questions about surviving and thriving--laughter--heads shaking in wonder at all that has transpired in less than a year. It was a divinely orchestrated interaction that truly moved me. I love "my" Dr. Diehl!
THANK YOU for your prayers and your concern! Sorry this update took so long coming. I was trying to sketch my own version of Deflater Mouse (it involved a rodent wearing a purple and green cape with matching plaid tights, wielding a giant thumbtack). The absence of any art in this entry is an accurate testament to my drawing skills. Feel free to submit your own Deflater Mouse portrait!
| | |
| PHILOSOPHY HIATUS
My world has been somewhat focused on renovations, lately. And not just because my decrepit kitchen was recently replaced by a shiny new one (thank you, dear landlady!). No, my obsession with renovation came from a writing project that has monopolized my imagination for the better part of the past five months. My new novel takes place in the castle in which I grew up (in Lamorlaye, France) and spans the time it takes for an American-born project supervisor to restore it to its previous glory--while investigating mysterious midnight disturbances linked to a sordid past that dates back to World War II.
And--hurray--I finally submitted it to the publisher yesterday! It'll be out by August. Now THAT's cause for celebration! In the process of designing the cover of the new novel, my wonderful graphic artist, Lindsey, took a picture of the castle's stairwell that I had given her and painstakingly aged it into a photo that evokes both erosion and hope.
And as I spent the past months researching the strategy and effort required for remodeling old buildings, I kept telling myself that there HAD to be a spiritual parallel to the process. Here's the problem, though. After too many days glued to the manuscript, trying to rid it of any remaining typos, my mind has taken a vacation, and the nifty life-applications I'd planned on sharing have gone the way of sleep hours and calorie counting, in other words, AWOL.
And then I visited this most inspiring site:
It's an old farm house not far from here (Port Franks, Canada), abandoned years ago. There are still objects on the shelves inside the dilapidated home and the grounds are something of a car and tractor cemetery. I didn't dare go inside for fear of injury (ceilings and floors have long given out), but I did indulge in taking over 200 pictures through windows and around waist-high weeds, all the while imagining what the house and its surroundings MIGHT look like if they were to be remodeled by a slightly-richer-than-me benefactor.
Again, I was certain that I'd find a meaningful analogy for which the pictures would be an apt illustration, and yet...nothing's there. Yes, God can take our broken-down-ness and turn it into rebuilt-and-redeemed-ness. Yes, we're all under construction and attempting to build futures on the rubbles of our past. Yes, it takes divine perspective to see beyond our brokenness and to the potential for healed wholeness. I'm sure you can fill in your own brilliant interpretation, but right now--just this once--I'd like to take a break from philosophizing and let the pictures below do the talking. And by the way, if anyone out there would like to restore the beautiful GMC truck and donate it to a missionary...I'll take it!  And if you have applications/illustrations for the pictures below, PLEASE SHARE THEM!
Stock Photo of a 1948 John Deere like the one below.
 Stock photo of the GMC truck as it might have looked decades ago! | | |
| Oy...
* A gallery of grad-week pictures follows this post *
Graduation was yesterday, and though I tend to think I’m a bit of a sap when it comes to these events at BFA, I was comforted to read our director’s words this morning. I guess it hits us all in similar ways. Tim Shuman, who graduated his own son yesterday, wrote: “[I’m] trying to think of a word to describe this sadness, this excitement, this deep-down satisfaction, this emotional depletion, optimism, gratitude, this bonding and letting go, this exhaustion, and all these tears. What is that word?”
That word is love.
In a place like BFA, love comes with inflexible boundaries. It can exist—fully exist—only within the timeframe allotted to us, and with graduation, the love must transform into something different, something long-distance and usually changing. It’s the nature of this beast we call missions. All good things do indeed come to an end, an abrupt, jarring end, and the transglobal nature of our lives further broadens the chasm between what was so very real and tangible yesterday and is now a vestige of the past.
Several days ago, the senior girls were invited to a mother-daughter tea, and I was honored to be asked to stand in for Squirt’s mom. As we wandered around the Art Factory afterwards, I found these inscriptions on the walls outside, traces of passages that would not be forgotten as long as they were marked on unshifting stone.
I’m a firm believer in “marking moments.” Again—that’s probably a consequence of life as an MK. We experience so much and go through so many changes that it feels like we need evidence of joys past, of lives that have brushed ours and events that have shaped us. We need to be able to point at something and say, “See? It really did happen!” It’s the reason we sign yearbooks.
It’s the reason we leave messages on walls.
It’s the reason I have students leave their imprint on anything of mine that has meant something to them.
I need proof—visible proof. Because once the dust of something as momentous as graduation at BFA settles and those who have been such important parts of my life have vanished to other homes and other worlds, it often feels like there’s nothing left. And that void—that emptiness that used to feel so animatedly and lovingly FULL—becomes a yawning wound. There are exceptions. Thank God, there are exceptions. And Fiona’s return for this year’s grad was a balm and a promise for me. But I’ve been at this too long to ignore the fact that these relationships, these tandem-lives, will never be again what they were.
With Fiona
Graduation in other places means receiving a diploma, then wandering home and spending the summer with the same people who shared high school with you, waiting for college to begin and planning to see each other again on every break. At BFA? Well, at BFA, students arrive at grad like this:
And they know. They know that within 24 hours, they’ll have flown across the globe to places where their BFA experience will feel remote and surreal. So the aftermath of the ceremony is painful. The goodbyes are brutal. And for those of us who have been through 18 years of endings, they’re depleting.
I didn’t have the courage to mill around with the rest of the post-grad revelers this year. I’m ashamed to admit my cowardice. I sat in the open window of a second-floor English room and took pictures. My Canon is my barrier of choice when it comes to distancing myself from what is too achingly real. And these three (below)—these three whom I love more than I thought was possible—found me in my refuge. They came one by one to say their goodbyes and their love gave me the courage to venture down into the fray.
They’ve left their mark on the stone walls of my life in more ways than I can list. There’s a fan in my kitchen that Bear gave to me. He’d rush out of choir when he saw me “overheating” and return with it, placing it strategically to cool off his Tamoxifen-warmed teacher. It now says, in bold white letters, “The Giver of Life – Love, Bear.” Who knew that a fan could make me tear up every time I look at it?
But it’s the goodbye letters I read last night that mean the most to me. Those notes “my” seniors found the time to write in the insanity of their final days, their words of love and gratitude, they fill the aching void left by their departure with a welling joy. Because, you see, I often fear that though their names are engraved on my wall, I might have somehow misjudged my contribution to their lives. I might have failed to make a difference or leave a mark or guide them toward Truth or comfort them or cheer them on or challenge them or show God’s love to them in a way that might have jostled and deepened their faith. But the words I read yesterday…they comfort me. We will never be able to recapture what we’ve lived together, now that graduation’s milestone has passed. But what we did have was good—it was beautiful and significant and God-seeking. And those traces of joy and struggles and love that still surround me will remind me of His Faithfulness in making of this part of the journey something precious and true.
(Erin on her way up to say goodbye to me.)
At 2 am, last week, I sat outside against the wall of my house, staring up at the sky with three students and a saintly RA (who sacrificed sleep in order to allow the moment) while candles flickered in the grass. We were talking about BFA’s staff, and Erin—my dear, whimsical, sensitive and strong Erin—said, “I guess you’re paid to love us, aren’t you.” It wasn’t meant as cynically as it sounds… But I’ve learned one thing from working with teenagers all these years: if you take too much time to come up with a response, you lose credibility. So I fired back immediately with my heart’s best answer. “Nope—I’m paid to teach you. Loving you? That’s all me.” It’s not a job or an assignment. It’s the most natural and wonderful thing in the world.
As I posed with swollen eyes and aching heart for a few last pictures yesterday—a few last traces of what we’ve lived together—I realized that I have seldom loved more deeply than with these seniors this year. And if this day-after pain is a testament to that, I’ll gladly embrace it.
At the mother-daughter tea
Please pray for the graduates as they leave here today after a full night of goodbye’ing. For many of them, there will be a marrow-deep feeling of being adrift and bereft, at least until they get settled into their new college lives. Pray that they will seek God in the emptiness and follow Him in their pursuit of the future wide open before them. Pray that the Truths engraved in their lives by all they’ve experienced at BFA will continue to guide them and boundary them as they venture into an uncharted next phase. Lest you missed it—I love them. And I’d covet your prayers for them.
  PICTURES!
I asked Autumn for a quarter, so I could go out and buy myself a life... she gave me two. Yay. Two lives.  Sheer exhaustion.  Alumni games the day before graduation  Saying some tough goodbyes to staff on awards night.  Grad practice. Not much concentration there!  And now--life beyond grad begins in earnest. | | |
|
