For Who She Is Right Now

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She used to stand on top of a box, frozen in the rapturous potential of her wardrobe. I don’t know how we accumulated so many princess dresses, but she loved them all, and choosing one took time. At first I would hurry her. Getting dressed shouldn’t take all day, I was sure of it. But over time, I learned to give her space to make her decision. She would emerge twenty minutes with a tiara, a vain smile, and a dress of sky-blue silk.

And an hour later, she’d be wearing a yellow one.

It was a hilarious, adorable phase. I didn’t want it to end. But as every Cinderella knows, the magic only lasts so long. Soon, she discovered dirt and bugs and adventures. When she was five, she argued with her buddy Natiq about their shared future. He wanted to be a fireman, but she wanted to be fashionable. They decided on a compromise: they would be firemen who wore pink.

Jenna turns sixteen today, and I can’t help but think of all those costumes she used to wear. All of us try on costumes as we grow, I think. We adopt new postures, new moods, new outlooks. We look for original preferences. We seek personas that will make us stand out, or blend in. We climb and climb in search of that elusive identity that will last not just for today, but for always.

Someday… Someday we’ll learn who we really are.

We take personality tests, and discover we are a list of letters and traits and strange descriptors. We are INTP with top strengths of ideation and adaptability; we are fours with a five wing, who speak love with quality time. We are choleric sanguins with a dash of steadiness.

At least, we are those things until tomorrow, when we retake the tests without being so hangry.

Someday… Someday we’ll learn who we really are.

Growing up is hard enough when you think there’s a finish line. But I am forty, and I still haven’t arrived. My floor is littered with the worn out costumes; the embarrassing remnants of images attempted and discarded.

But what if there is no finish line to get to? What if there is no plateau? Change is already woven into our world; what if it’s woven into ourselves as well? If that’s true, we owe ourselves some grace on the quest toward self-discovery. And we owe our children even more.

I look at my daughter today, and I wonder if she would have ever become who she is today–the coffee-sipping artist; the patient, protective, sister; the theater nerd who just wants to know everybody’s having a good time–if not for other clothes she tried on in her journey. And that makes me thankful for each one of them: the princess phase, the fireman phase, even the phase where she thought she loved professional golfer Phil Mickelson! Every era brought its own charm; its own delight.

In five years, will she still love theater? Will she still be an ardent student of Michael Scott and Dwight K. Schrute? Will she retain her irrepressible quirkiness?

Perhaps she won’t. Maybe one day, I’ll drop a quote from The Office, and she won’t remember it. Maybe she’ll put down her paint brush. Maybe she’ll pass on the espresso.

If that happens, I’ll miss these golden days in the same way I miss the princess dresses.

But I don’t ever want to mourn them. No. I’d rather give her time to try on the new dress. I’d rather live with her in the middle of those changes. I’d rather enjoy the ride. Because we only get one chance to watch our children grow.

So today, I watch her. She is tall and lovely and full of winsome grace. For some reason, God has placed her in my charge for just a little while longer. I’ll continue to watch her and love her not only for who she is becoming, but for who she is right now.

When Joy Can Breathe Again

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Can I tell you of our last adventure with Janae? It was Christmas time. She gave us all winter hats and a night at the Oregon Gardens. The place was a yuletide forest wonderland, complete with ice skating, cider-kiosks, and a hundred zillion lights. She was giddy when we unwrapped the tickets.

I told you already how she loved to give perfect presents. Well, with this one, she struck gold. The snow-less sledding was a massive hit with our kids, especially Jack. As a general rule, our autistic son avoids crowds as much as he does new experiences. Not that night. The boy laughed and spun and slid and flew down the long ramp with unbridled exhilaration. His auntie whooped and hollered for him. I’m not sure I ever saw her so proud of herself.

At the end of the evening, we sat in the restaurant at the lodge and ate dinner around a table, and drank drinks near the fireplace. It did not occur to me until later how significant that meal was. Truly, because of Jack’s constant anxiety, we never go to actual restaurants as a family. Never. It’s been at least five years since we’ve even attempted it. And Janae made it happen.

We decided we would go again the next year. It would be a new Christmas tradition. Janae’s eyes beamed when she proposed it, and there was hearty agreement.

I doubt we will follow through now that she’s gone, though. The sting would be too great.

Nevertheless, that evening remains a source of gladness in my mourning; a full sand dollar memory on the shores of grief. It lasted maybe three hours, and then it was over forever, but I cannot deny that it happened once, and that it was wonderful. I can drown the memory in tears if I want. I can write poems about the cruelty of a God who strangle our merriment. But I cannot kill the happiness of the memory itself.

And here we find the tug-o-war between grief and gratitude; mourning and thanks. The rope is laced with irony, for those who shake the heavens with their complaints about not having enough time are, themselves, tacitly acknowledging the truth about time itself: that it is a gift no matter the increment. We who cry over loved ones “taken away” are presupposing that someone gave them to us in the first place.

Janae was in our lives for sixteen years. Sixteen. And in those years, she brought to my family a brand of lavish affection we didn’t know existed. She was both the children’s godmother and their fairy godmother, granting movie nights and birthday wishes with a winsome wave of her wand. And to Sara and I, she gave a loyalty and presence we never expected and did nothing to deserve.

Sixteen years. Sixteen of her forty-two years, she spent with us.

I’ve been tugging at the rope from both ends these last two months. Because mourning is a disorienting affair. On the one hand, death is still a brigand not made for this world. When he strikes, it is only right and good that we weep and mourn for the ones we lost; for the gifts gone too soon.

But on the other hand, if we mourn that way—if we weep at all over the lives cut short—we must at least acknowledge the magic of our memories; the miracle of life itself. Isn’t that only right? For even a gift cut short is, first, a gift.

Some days, I am still tempted to get stuck in deep despair; to let the sad memories grow sadder still, and the happy ones sour to the point of pain. This kind of thing is like gravity to a melancholy soul like mine. Sorrow slouches towards petulance, where nothing is ever enough. No amount of years will ever suffice.

But if we give ourselves over to those shadows, what then? The only real gifts would be the ones that go on forever and ever till the end of time. And even at that point, what would we say? Would we not raise our fists that time itself has an end?

How sad the Author of life must be to hear us babble on and on about the unfairness of His world. He hangs a painting in our lives, and all we do is rage about the frame. We want canvases without limit—paintings that stretch out and cover the wall, and wrap around our existence until nothing exists but easy beauty and the comfort of constancy. Why can’t we see that the frame is part of the painting, and the limit a part of the gift?

Can you tell, friend, that I am speaking to my own soul with these words? Because sixteen years is too short, but it is a long time, too. And I have come to see one thing quite clearly in my own journeys through aching joy: the best way to push back against the petulant slide of despair is by giving thanks.

And I know, it isn’t easy. Not while the pain is so fresh. Don’t worry, friend, for God is patient. He can handle our tears. He can handle our questions. He can even handle our limp flashes of rage. It takes time for hearts to mend.

We will mend, though. I promise you, we will. And that journey begins when we recall, even through our tears, that every good and perfect gift comes from above. Joy begins to breathe again when I remember to bow my head and say, “Thank you, Lord, for the gift of my sister.”