Category: Heart Musings

Life pushes through.

It’s happening in our backyard right now, between the old, worn wooden slats of the fence that separates our yard from that of our dear neighbor Pat.  The fresh green leaves and new blooms of Spring are defying the odds against them.  They’ve persevered and found their way to burst into beauty despite the surrounding decay.

This image strikes me, especially now as Pat has just returned home on hospice care after more than her share of hospital visits.  In her nineties now, Pat’s physical life is nearing its end.  Her body is tired and in need of rest.  It feels odd to think of Pat this way.  When we moved back to the neighborhood almost two years ago she was just as feisty as when we first moved to Andreo Avenue after getting married in September 2000.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time on our block would agree that Pat has served as the anchor of the neighborhood for over sixty years.  She and her husband Roger moved into the house next door the decade after it was built in 1942.  They raised their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren here in a charming home that is still trimmed in Pat’s signature sunshine yellow inside and out.  They hosted dozens of Christmas dinners and Easter egg hunts for the family, which were marked with laughter and the distinct cracking sound of the break at the beginning of each game on their pool table.  And year after year they generously kept our chairs reserved in their front yard for fireworks viewing on the 4^th of July.  Family matters most to the Hornbacks, everything else takes a back seat.  Family, hard work, respect, and the simple life. Pat and Roger have always been a breath of fresh air to me in this world that seems continually more impressed with its own sophistication.

I’ve often joked that Pat is the eyes of Andreo Ave.  Though she was well into her seventies and did not spend much time outdoors when we first moved to the neighborhood, nothing ever got past her.  I remember getting a call from her once when we were young newlyweds.  There was no small talk or casual conversation, she got straight to the point.  “Y’know honey, for the life of me I can’t figure out Jon’s schedule.  Yours I know, you leave at the same time every morning and come back the same time every afternoon.  But Jon, he’s all over the place.  I don’t understand it.”  Some might have presumed her to be a busybody, but I knew better.  Pat loved her street and her neighbors and liked to make sure everything was as it should be.  Her presence here gives me the sense of small town living that my heart yearns for.

The days of Pat’s sharp vision and regular phone calls are gone now.  Her house is quiet, the only signs of movement happening during shift change for the caregivers.   During my last few visits with her sitting on her still-perfectly-tidy yellow flowered couch Pat teared up as she shared with Isaiah and I the frustrations of growing old.  “Oh honey, it’s so hard not to be able to do all of the things I used to do for myself.  Taking out the trash, cooking my meals, even going out to see the flowers in my yard.”  She paused.   “You’ll see someday…it will happen to you too.”  For Pat “all of the things” meant pretty much everything, as God doesn’t make ‘em more independent than she is.  Than she was.

Yet and still, life pushes through.  These flowers that have forced their way into our backyard are Pat’s legacy in more ways than one.  Not only do they grow from her yard but they are cared for by my son who secured his first job when Pat hired him to water her lawn and plants every Monday and Thursday.  Though it sometimes takes a little nudging from Mom, he puts on his shoes, grabs his house keys, and yells, “I’m going to water” as he runs out the door.  Like most thirteen year olds Isaiah is not a fan of work, but much like Pat he has a heart for his neighbors.  While he does get paid for his work, he also does it because he loves her, and as she has told me many a time over the years, she loves him too.

Love is the thing that allows life to push through.  God’s love for us is revealed in so many things, particularly the relationships that He creates to teach us, refine us, grow us into who we are meant to be.  Pat will live on because of the love that we have for her.  She resides not only in memories but in who we are and will become.

Life is what it is – filled with hope and opportunity yet fragile and uncertain.  For some like Pat it lasts decades, for others like my daughter, less than minutes.  But life pushes through connecting us each one to another with a beauty and grace that we may never understand.

“You are wonderful, I just want you to know that.”  The biggest, most brilliant smile took over his face as he responded, “Thank you, miss.  I appreciate that.”  The exchange itself seemed simple enough.  No one would ever detect all of the nervous anxiety and embarrassment I had to overcome to stop our server George on his way back to the kitchen just to say those ten words to him.  But I couldn’t not say them because they were true, he was wonderful.  And he made a significant impact on my perspective.

Throughout our breakfast, I was taken with the way that George interacted with his world and the people in it.  He was genuinely welcoming and very polite to every person that he encountered, co-workers and customers alike.  It also stood out to me that he was older than most of the servers or staff we usually meet at a Disneyland resort restaurant.  I found myself wondering how he ended up in that line of work and at that specific location.  It wasn’t until I found the courage to speak to George that I realized how presumptuous it was of me to assume that he had “ended up” there or anywhere.

“Your demeanor and attitude is so positive.  And you seem to truly love what you do.” He replied, “I do, I love what I do.”  I asked how long he had been working there and he said, “I’ve been at this restaurant for eleven years and I also work at Napolini.  I’ve been there even longer, about thirteen years.  This place has been good to me.  It’s given me the opportunity to make a life for myself, to raise my family.”

Perhaps because I so often find myself starved for gratitude and humility from day to day, my eyes immediately welled up with tears.  I felt the contentment in this man’s heart and was blessed by his willingness to share even a little bit of it with me.  I paused to examine my own heart and the assumptions I had made about George prior to our three-minute conversation.  And I recognized that I often allow opportunities like this to escape me because I’m wrapped up in my own preoccupations.  This particular day was no exception.

I’d be lying if I said that my outlook was positive on the morning that I met George.  But my encounter with him convicted my heart and replaced my jaded perspective with gratefulness.  I knew that I was exactly where God wanted me to be that day.  All of the noise and traffic around me didn’t matter because God had designed a quiet moment to recapture my gaze and bring my focus back to Him.  Only the Creator of love, life, humanity, and relationships could drown out the distractions of a bitter world to make space for such an unexpected, meaningful connection.  I could see that my reaching out blessed George, and without question, his response affected me.  But I would be foolish to think that I created any of it.

People often have a negative view of submission and obedience but God’s truth reveals that when we submit our own will and obey Him, He creates beauty from ashes.  His intentions and desires for our lives are far greater than what we could dream for ourselves.  This doesn’t mean that when we face hardships God is absent.  Instead, those experiences of suffering and the outcomes point to His eternal presence and willingness to refine us.  George may not know it but he served as a vessel of the Lord that morning and his story was beautifully woven into my own.  His gratitude was contagious, and I’m so glad God positioned me to catch it.

The complexity of a mother’s heart can never be captured by the expression she wears on her face.  As a child you don’t realize how cavernous and powerful her love is for you. You don’t understand that your pain hurts her twice as deeply, or that your joy breathes new life into her lungs.  Her bright smile or thoughtful gaze may seem to simply say that she is happy, but underneath and throughout her being her love for you is breaking, mending, and stretching her heart in a thousand different directions.

She gives all that she has and goes to bed each night praying for an even greater capacity. She clings to your now while grieving the loss of your yesterday and anticipating your tomorrow with hope.

I couldn’t see it until I became a mother myself but I recognize it now in each of these faces.  My great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and me. We all wrestle with this love that overtakes us and teaches us over and again about ourselves.

To all the women who have loved me, my mother, and her mother before her – to all who mother the children that they hold and those that they’ve had to let go – thank you. You are beautiful, courageous, and stronger than you give yourself credit for.

Today and every day is yours.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Sixteen.

It makes sense.

Our marriage is often like that rebellious adolescent who thinks he knows everything and then gets put in his place. The one who confidently asks for the keys to Dad’s car and only hours later has to conquer that nervous pit in her stomach to call home after a fender bender.

One thing I’ve learned for certain in the past sixteen years is that marriage is not love. Marriage and love are two very distinctly different entities. At its most pure love is all of the things that the Bible tells us it is — patient and kind, not boastful or proud. It seeks to honor the other not just please itself. It does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. It protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres.

Marriage thrives on these things, but it is not these things, because WE are not these things. Marriage is partnership and sacrifice. It is work, really hard work, and structure. Marriage requires us to show up, not just phone it in. Marriage is what happens AFTER the pomp and circumstance of the wedding day.

Though they are distinct and different, love and marriage are not mutually exclusive. They have a unique relationship, able to exist apart from each other but live and flourish most abundantly together. Usually one plays a more prominent role than the other, depending on what circumstances are faced. Sometimes we need the softness and carefree spirit of love to feed our souls and inspire us to take the next steps forward. Other times, particularly when we face grief and hardship, marriage has to take the lead and be the shoulder we lean our weary selves against, the firm ground that holds us. Love and marriage rely on each other, draw from each other, and together create something new that no other one word can adequately describe.

Sixteen years of marriage is somewhat vague and adolescent. It’s more than the tin of ten years but not quite the silver or gold of twenty-five and fifty. Sixteen has no traditional gift or element to call its own. For me it’s a space of simultaneous gratitude for what has been and hope for what is to be. I know I have a lot more to learn, and I expect to be challenged in the learning.

Today I celebrate love and marriage together, and all of the abundance that they have brought to my life.

The word sounds like lip gloss and trips to the mall.  Like posters of cute boys and long, late night phone conversations with a best friend.  Fourteen is the windows rolled down and the music turned up.  It’s your face buried in my neck, muffling the quiet sobs of your first broken heart.  It’s the loud slamming of doors and an all too familiar, “Mooooommm, Isaiah won’t get out of my room!”

Fourteen is discovery and maturity.  It’s when I start to see you as a woman and you start to recognize me as a friend.

That’s fourteen, in my mind at least.  I don’t really know for sure what it would be for you, and I never will.  For me the reality of fourteen is wonder and wishes and that still-empty seat at the table.

My mental image of you has lost its definition.  You’re not a baby anymore.  The few photos I have of you detail a tiny baby body, all wrapped up in a blanket of pink and blue stripes.  But that’s not who you would be now.  Fourteen seems so far from that image.  In that way you feel less familiar to me.  I long to know who you are, but I’m only sure of who you are not.

Fourteen years ago today I was a mom for the very first time, blissfully unaware of whether you were in fact a “she” at all.  I’m old fashioned that way, I wanted to wait and be surprised.  The wait only lasted until the next afternoon when the surprise was revealed.  You came and then just as quickly you were gone.  But what matters most is that you came.  The heartbreak of your leaving will never surpass the joy that I have in knowing you are mine.

Fourteen doesn’t look, sound, or feel anything like I thought it would, but that’s okay.  I don’t need to experience what I had hoped fourteen would be in order to honor what it is.  You will always be my joy, my first born.  You will never leave my heart.  And at fourteen, like every year before and every year yet to come, your life will always be a reason to celebrate.

Good things come in dozens. Sweet and delicious things. Practical things. Beautiful things. Precious things.

Cookies, donuts, and eggs. Pens, pencils, and socks. Roses. Hours.

These and dozens of other wonderful things escaped you. You won’t ever see or touch, taste or smell them. You won’t experience places or time. Hours don’t have meaning when I think of you because they didn’t come. We barely had minutes. Minutes that no matter how much we wished and how hard we tried, could not be stretched into even one hour, let alone a dozen.

Today makes twelve. A dozen years since we met you and said goodbye all at once. It doesn’t seem possible that so much time has passed until I think about all of the life that I have lived in twelve years. Life that has come not in spite of or because of you, but life that has been completely inspired by you.

I’ve been searching within myself for some word or expression that could adequately define how I feel about today, but I don’t know that one exists. I can’t say that I’m happy or sad, nothing is quite that simple. Emotions became far less distinct a dozen years ago. Since you came they bleed outside the lines and blend into each other to form ways of being and feeling that are entirely new. I am alive and affected, aware of the fact that it’s never been this many years before, and yet it will never again be this few.

What I do know is that true living is not about checklists or counting the dozens of things I’ve missed. Though this day marks an absence it’s also filled with presence. Today I give thanks for dozens of breaths and smiles, flowers and sunsets. Dozens of mistakes made and lessons learned. I welcome gratitude for the dozens of tears and hugs, conversations and connections which have forged authentic relationships. Dozens of reasons for living and loving.

Good things come in dozens. Sweet and delicious things. Practical things. Beautiful things. Precious things.

Like my thoughts of you.

The dynamic nature of human emotions is such a fascinating thing.  Sometimes I wonder if we ever really feel just one thing at a time.  Regardless of my immediate circumstances I am usually experiencing a number of emotions all at once.  Or maybe it’s just that my mind is in a million places at the same time and I can’t keep my heart from trying to tag along.

Tonight I type through tears of sadness while my heart swells with pride.  A few hours ago I learned that my sixth grade teacher Mr. Dan Christensen, or “Mr. C” as he was lovingly called by students and colleagues alike, has passed away.  My heart aches for his family who has lost a true gentle giant of a husband and father, and yet I celebrate with joy all of the lives that he guided and inspired, including my own.

Mr. C had about as much presence as a man can possibly get.  His tall stature made him stand out in just about any crowd and his deep, booming voice made it impossible for him to go unnoticed.   Most days he wore a smile so big you couldn’t get around it and his laughter leapt out the two open doors of his classroom and echoed down the halls and across the playground.  For Mr. C teaching a lesson was about so much more than reading or talking.  He approached every concept with physicality – wide, outstretched arms and large steps that would take him back and forth across the front of the classroom dozens of times, keeping his students enthralled. It was as if he was so excited about our learning potential that he couldn’t contain himself enough to stand in one place.

But it’s not his height or the sound of his voice that Mr. C’s students will remember most, for those traits could never compare with the size of his heart.  Mr. C loved his students because he genuinely cared about people.  If you were talking to him there was never a doubt that he was fully invested in the conversation, but more so in the person. When you were in his presence he made sure you knew that you mattered.

About ten years ago I walked back onto the campus of Bonita Street Elementary School.  My baby sister was in the fifth grade and she was lucky enough to be in Mr. C’s class, so I jumped at the chance to attend “Back to School Night.”  After all his years of teaching and all the students who had passed through those doors, I knew there was no way he would remember me.  When we got to the classroom it was exactly as I had remembered it.  The walls were covered with inspirational sayings and photos that spanned the years of Mr. C’s career.  Since he was talking with a parent I decided to wait quietly while perusing the photos.  I smiled as I looked at all of the faces looking back at me who clearly knew, as I did, what a difference a great teacher makes.

As his conversation wrapped up and the parent walked away Mr. C looked across the room at me and said, “Hi there.”  I said, “I know you probably don’t remember me.”  After eighteen years and without missing a beat he smiled and said, “Carrie Fisher, how could I forget you?”   If ever there was a moment that restored my faith in humanity and gave me hope for caring in this dark world, that was it.

The reason my spirit soars high tonight in the midst of loss is that I know I am only one of many who found her way to that hope because of a teacher like Mr. C.  I am only one who was taught to look within to find value, only one who stumbled awkwardly into confidence because of a few gentle nudges from a caring soul.  Out in the world there are countless leaders, thinkers…and other teachers who found their path because of one man who told them they were worth it and then came back every day to prove it.

So tonight I cry because when you lose something of value it is painful.  But I also celebrate life and legacy because they will always outshine even the darkest night.

Thank you, Mr. C.