Nice People

Enough whining about me. Let's whine about something else!

Just kidding. While this is fire-related and me-related, it isn't actually whining. Just time for observation.

People have been so nice. (And I'm thankful, trust me.) Not just everyday polite, but nice. It's as if everyone thinks before they react to me. There's a little mental neon sign somewhere in their head that says, "Don't respond like usual. This person deserves a little TLC right now." This attitude is most apparent at work, because it's hard to tell at church where everyone's already expected to be all lovey-dovey, and especially at a new church when you're still meeting people for the first time and they all want to make a good impression.

Now, please don't get me wrong. I work with really great people. But it's a job. We work together 40+ hours a week. We can rub each other the wrong way. Our priorities and personalities differ and there's plenty of drama from day-to-day. So we get irritated when someone interrupts a project or asks too many questions or disagrees with the way we want to do something. It's human nature.

But somehow, human nature is put on hold when there's a problem in someone's life. This is where it comes to me, not because I happen to be the one with the "tragedy" right now, but because I'm guilty of this behavior, too. Maybe more than anyone else.

B's brother died of cancer last year, so I was extra-considerate and accommodating if she needed anything from me. Speaking of cancer, J just successfully defeated breast cancer. Yay for her, and I made sure to help her with some of her projects while she was here at work during that difficult time (we normally don't cross paths). D just got through a major surgery and we're all concerned about how he's doing. I'm sure when he returns to work we'll do everything we can to make things easier on him. For a while at least.

I'm noticing the same consideration for me. The witty people are still witty, just not so bitingly at my expense. People are more patient, more willing to get what I need when I need it. There's a flexibility with me needing to cut into work time for personal things that normally wouldn't exist if it was a more mundane situation.

This is grace, I suppose, in all the little ways we don't usually afford it to each other. And it's not that I'm finding fault with the way people typically treat me. Not at all. It just has me wondering why something negative needs to happen personally to someone for us to give each other this grace. It doesn't seem to cause any extra stress. In fact, this mutual understanding people around a "tragic figure" have about treating that figure appears to unify them and change the atmosphere. It breaks into our normal behaviors and softens us, allowing us to show a tender side in a place where tender often means weak.

So this is both a wonderful thing that's happening around me - this proven capability to emerge from relational stupor to grace - and it's also a little sad. Because at some point, the crisis will be over and it will be back to "business as usual" until the next problem. God, please let me learn this lesson, to always treat others with the patience and kindness you've called me to, and not with the less graceful attitude I often choose.

The On-Going Battle

OK, let's get something straight: It's not just "stuff" I lost in the fire. And I'm not referring to any personal, sentimental attachment to inanimate objects like teddy bears and creative writing and dog-eared books.

I lost quite a few plans and dreams. I just turned 30, and I had finally developed a sense of myself. I finally had some 5-year plans. I finally came to grips with the real possibility I will be single for the rest of my life and I needed to live it, not keep it on hold. I wanted to get out of debt, get my own house, get my education. I finally had confidence that I could do it. I finally had a life - things to do, friends to hang out with, goals to reach.

My life has been hi-jacked. Everything's on hold, or simply gone. The money I had just received (and it wasn't that much, so don't get excited), the money I was going to use to invest in a part-time business, get that software I needed to do the freelance projects people are asking me to do, that I was going to set aside for future college expenses, that I would finally have as a "cushion" or that emergency fund all those money experts recommend - all that is now going to be sucked into this black hole that used to be my life. To try to fix it. And it still won't be enough.

So I'm now in this constant struggle. Temper-tantrums and mourning for myself - my plans, my stuff, my life - versus the sacrifice and humility I know I'm called to. I want to be that uber-spiritual person who constantly walks in the recognition that all I considered mine was a gift from God, that this is actually a wonderful opportunity at a fresh start. And sometimes I do feel A-OK about it. But not most of the time.

Pray for me. Pray that I make the most of this time - not by playing off people's sympathies, but by seizing the attitude that the God I serve is bigger than this and, in fact, this may be just the chance I've been asking for to lose my materialism and selfishness. Because I'm not doing too well with that right now.

Peace... or Shell-Shock?

It's been just over 2 weeks since the fire. All this time, with some exceptions, I have been able to just do the trusting God thing. I have talked about that "peace that passes all understanding, guarding my heart and my mind." Until this weekend, especially Sunday and Monday. I haven't really had a good cry even yet, but there's more anger than before and the tears come easier and faster than before.

So where's that peace now? I'm back in a good mood today, but moods are moods. I'm mature enough to realize that. What happens when I'm struck again with remembering something I lost and can't get back, not like it was before? When the anger and tears bubble up and I'm tired of putting on a happy face? Does God's peace disappear? Was it there to begin with, or was I just shell-shocked and reality's setting in now? And if that is true and I didn't have His peace, where does that leave me - deluded about God or deluded about my relationship with Him?

Good questions or semantics? Hmmm...

But this is what I am left with: analyzing my feelings. Trying to probe beyond moods, but still trapped within myself. So let's move beyond me to the facts.

Fact #1: My aunt is alive, even though she was asleep when the fire started, even though she can be a heavy sleeper. She still heard the pounding on the door and the people yelling, though her room is at the other end of the condo and her door was closed, and she ignored her instincts to ignore it (which usually would have been right, a good clue as to what kind of place we were living in). She got up, against her desire to roll over (again!) and go back to sleep to check out what was going on.

Fact #2: I am alive. This does not seem to be as big a deal, since I'm usually all over the place on Monday nights (and Tuesday nights, and Wednesday nights, and....). But it's still a fact.

Fact #3: No one else was killed. Someone was treated for serious burns (the guy in whose unit the fire started) and some pets were lost, but for a fire that destroyed 16 units and cost $2 million in damage, it is amazing no one lost their lives.

Fact #4: Our most precious possessions, the family photo albums, were salvaged. This is big for me, and while I miss many other things that are definitely gone, absolutely nothing could replace those pictures. I snuck up the burnt and crumbling stairs this last Saturday to see the condo for myself. I saw the desk these photos were stored in. This is really is a big deal.

Fact #5: People are so amazing. I could never have expected the response from so many people, especially so many I don't know. The immediate outpouring from the community towards the victims and the generosity of all kinds of folks from all kinds of places (friends, family, and 2nd-hand and 3rd-hand parties) just toward Lou and myself is astounding. And it's still coming in (and it is still hugely needed - shameless plug!).

Fact #6: Past experience. There is a certainty at all times, beyond moods and feelings, that lies underneath. A foundational, personal knowledge of God's goodness. I would be the most horrible liar if I were to deny everything else I've been through to say I can't trust God to see me blessed at the "end" of all this. This is way past being "Oh, everything'll turn out in the end." I'm not going to share my life story here, but I have seen His providence proved too many times to play dumb. This certainty is a quiet voice that nags, if you will, whenever I doubt. It always brings me back around. Always.

Of course, fact #6 brings us back to me. (It's always about me, didn't you know that? ;) ) But unless you have that same rock-solid underlying knowledge, I guess you can't understand it. I just know it as a fact, not an opinion.

I may be missing something here. Philosophical argument, while fascinating to me, is not exactly my forte. So feel free to contribute your 2 cents.

Tracks

I am sitting in front of the train tracks in my car, thinking of all that's happened in the last week. I am on my way back to my dad's house from Don and Tana's, which has been a relieving distraction. It's after 12:30 am Saturday morning, and I am tired - mentally and emotionally drained - and a little resentful of this train that is keeping me from a much-needed appointment with bed and sleep.

Staring at the tracks, the wheels seem to go by in a patterned blur. Thankfully, the train is going by very fast, and I look up at the train itself to see the individual cars speeding past. Except that when I look from the track to the train, the train doesn't seem to be moving as quickly. The cars differ enough from each other that my eyes follow them better. My focus has shifted.

It is late, and I am in a contemplative mood. So I begin to wonder about the metaphor I am witnessing here, letting my eyes shift from train to track, track to train, slow to fast, fast to slow. I think about this week, and my own radical shift in focus. I think about all the plans I had before the fire, and how they have all changed.

I look again at the track, and I think of how I had seen my life laid out with all my desires for the future and my plans to make them come true. I see the wheels as my daily routine, my comfortable, familiar routine of actions and behaviors that kept me speeding along.

Then I move my eyes and switch my focus. I see the cars carrying the full weight of my daily routine. I see them one by one, passing slower yet somehow at the same speed. I am able to count them. I can see the different colors, the shapes, the graffiti, even the empty trailers. I notice each car for itself, wondering at its purpose.

My life feels like it has been derailed now. I have no routine. My plans have changed. There is no pattern. I have been forced to refocus, to live moment-by-moment and wonder at its purpose, noticing things I could never see before and caring about things that seemed mundane or irrelevant before.

All my plans have burned away, and I am becoming thankful for each day as it happens.

Beauty From Ashes...

It is an arresting sight - the charred, icy rubble spread out around the skeleton of my former home. Everyone who walks or drives by has no choice but to stare, transfixed, at a building that used to house 16 families but is now condemned and will soon be scheduled for demolition. I park as close as possible but avoid my old carport spot, now littered with pine cones, needles, clumps of mud and other debris. I grab the disposable camera and hurriedly duck under the yellow tape, snapping pictures almost immediately. The light is fading, and I don't want to get kicked out before I finish.

Of course, I am most interested in seeing what I can of my old condo unit, and the same temptation to ignore the rules, risk my safety and climb the stairs grips me as it did earlier in the day . . .

[Earlier.] I am standing on a pile of burnt wood, broken glass, and God knows what else, just inside what's left of the doors to my section of building B. I am at the foot of the stairs I had climbed so often before. The walls are black in most places, and the handrail has gone from gray to rust. The stairs are charred and crumbling. It is cold and the wind is blowing flakes of ash down into my hair and onto my clothes, like a flurry of dirty snow.

I am standing in a place I took for granted as just being there, now grateful simply for my aunt's life. Except for the clothes I was wearing Monday and the items in my car, everything I used to call mine is gone. Up in smoke. This is funny in its morbidly humorous way, and I am also grateful for the ability to smile. My aunt and I have been given an uncomprehensible peace and a sense of humor almost immediately. We have lost track of how many different variations of, "I know you wanted to _____, but you didn't have to torch the place," we have told each other.

My aunt was standing behind me, talking to neighbors who are also waiting to see what's salvagable of their past, but she has gone back to the clubhouse where it's warm. I am waiting, grateful but anxious. Despite being told several times there is absolutely nothing left, I know that what I really want has survived. It had to. And while I appreciate these men risking their safety to look around on my behalf (they won't let me up), I know no one cares like I do. I am tempted to rush up the stairs and look for myself. So I am surprised by my surprise when the association president comes gingerly down the steps to hand me my first meager handful of what's left in my old desk. It is just a pack of colored pencils and cheap art supplies, but it is mine. More gratefulness, especially when another neighbor offers a black garbage bag to put my armful in.

We all laugh when he carries down a muffin pan which has braved the fire - probably because it was wasting away stored in a closet! It is our memento that not everything we had was useful to us, a reminder to us in the future that all the things we could own may not be worth owning.

A few more minutes, and another careful trip down the stairs. This time, he's got more of what I'm looking for - a photo album and a few loose photos. I keep repeating my thanks. He asks if there's anything more, as the bottom drawer of my desk is blocked by a bunch of debris and it will take a bit of work to access it. I say yes, knowing the contents of that drawer and praying it's made it through as well as the other things. And ten long minutes later, when he's holding my grandmother and great-grandmother's photo albums out to me, I can't help but get teary-eyed. I can't thank them enough, and I tell them so. The albums are sopping wet, and I hope they're not damaged beyond repair, but just holding them in my arms means so much.

So now, all that's left of the belongings in my home is in a garbage bag. It's heavy, and I struggle to carry it to the clubhouse, but I am excited to see the look on my aunt's face when she sees its contents. I feel vindicated for insisting on trying to find it, but also very humbled that God has shown us this favor. When my aunt casually asks what's in the bag (flashback: Dorothy asking the Wizard, "I don't suppose you've got anything in that black bag for me"), I am happy to see her eyes also tear up when I pull out the albums and we discover together that the photos inside have survived.

I am still struggling to let go of my stuff, reminding myself that even photos aren't eternal, that in the end even they don't matter. I am still struggling to learn to be bold in asking for help without guilt or shame. I am still struggling with adjusting to living in someone else's space, abiding by their routines and rules, reminding myself of my Savior who had "no place to lay his head." I can share this with Him - all of it, even the anger and frustration - and He will continue to give me His peace.

And that is beautiful.

A Year Ago Today...

A year ago today, Paul Carl Kirsch passed away as he had lived - gently, quietly - in his little home along Lake Erie on the outskirts of Cleveland. My great uncle Paul, proud World War II veteran, traveler, gentleman, avid reader, art and history aficionado, and lover of Christmas. After several chronic illnesses in the last few years, prostate cancer and spinal stenosis to name a couple, he died from respiratory failure while lying in a hospital bed in his former living room, surrounded by just some of the hundreds, most likely thousands, of books he had collected in his 88 years.

I wish I could say I got my love of learning and literature from him. I wish I could say that his genuine appreciation of art had translated into my small talent in design. But we were not blood relations, my mom and her twin sister having been adopted by his sister and brother-in-law.

I do know I can say he made Christmas more special whenever I had the chance to see him around the holidays. I know I want to develop his same keen interest in so many subjects, to become the fascinating and well-rounded individual he was. And I know the world needs more gentlemen of his caliber.

I miss Uncle Paul. I regret I did not make the time to see him more often. I regret I never finished the letter I started to write him because I know he would have loved it. I regret I never really let him know how much I admired him and enjoyed him. Thankfully, I know I will be reunited with him eventually, in whatever form heaven really is, and we will worship the God we both loved on this side.

So here, for the seaman he was when he served our country and for the lover of literature he remained until his death a year ago today...

Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
- Lord Alfred Tennyson