Non-Required Reading: A New Years Reflection of Sorts
(from the desk of Michelle)
2021 has been a year. It has been a painful year of waiting and longing, but maybe just maybe, it has also been a year sprinkled with bits of hope and healing as well?
Most of of us know what the initial sharp pain of getting hurt feels like but the pain that accompanies healing is a bit more nebulous, and 2021 has felt more nebulous to me.
The most fitting illustration of 2021 involves our Dottie and her right arm. At the end of her kindergarten school year, Dottie fell off of the high bar at recess. I remember getting the call and asking her teacher how sure she was about whether it was broken or maybe just sprained, as I had a car full of groceries and needed to stop at home to put them away. She very clearly responded, “Ya… its 100% broken”. When we got there, Dottie was sitting outside in pain and in shock with her crooked, very broken arm supported by a clip board, so we swiftly made our way to the ER.
After hours of waiting in the ER, it was clear they needed to reset the bones. The resetting of bones is quite barbaric and a seemingly primitive process. In fact, it didn’t really even work, so she needed surgery and six screws placed in her arm to hopefully correct the break. What ensued were multiple splints, casts, and a lot of waiting.
Dottie rarely to never complained, but when the tears came, they poured. There were tears of frustration and exhaustion from needing to learn to do everything with her left arm. There were tears of longing for the freedom to swim and play unencumbered as summer drew near. It was no longer the acute pain of the break that got to her, but the dull consistent pain of the healing process and all of the waiting and patience it required.
Her tears also flowed at the doctors appointments when she would get a new cast. The changing of casts is a positive thing right? The shift from a long arm cast to a short arm cast means the bones are stronger, she has more freedom, and she gets to deck it out in whatever color glitter she wants. But getting a cast cut off is still scary and loud and you have to face “the scar”. This was perhaps the worst part for her. Her skin was puckered and sewed together by black spidery threads that seemed to communicate the violence of the whole event. I’m not sure if it reminded her of the pain of the break or if it reinforced the idea that she would never quite be the same, but these beginning stages of her skin and bones weaving themselves back together again, seemed to shatter her the most.
This whole process finally came to an end this fall with one last surgery to remove the screws. Seeing her withered and fragile little arm free from the cast was glorious and daunting. There were now six holes in her bone where the screws had been, that would eventually fill in over time; a weak dominant arm that would need to be strengthened and reminded of its role; and some gnarly scars that have started to look increasingly more like a star and a dragonfly.
This is a very long and drawn out metaphor for how this year has felt to me.
The break and loss and shock of 2020 is still very real, but the prevailing journey through 2021 has been one of waiting, longing and slow painful healing; a process that cannot be rushed or willed and for sure is not linear. The scars that have been left on personal relationships and entire communities, still feel puckered and taut, and yet the hope that I have, not in humanity but in the God of humanity, leads me to believe there is healing to be found, healing taking place; sometimes painful and uncomfortable; sometimes frustratingly small and slow; many times beneath the surface and unseen.
For me personally, this year has looked like a lot more solitude and silence than this extrovert would ever choose. I have had to sit in the midst of loss: the loss of half of my family moving back home to Georgia; the loss of multiple friendships; the loss of community; the loss of any perceived sense of control. While I realize my losses are but a drop in the collective sea of sorrows, I also know suffering is not comparable. So, I have been forced to park myself right in the middle of it and let sadness and joy and all of the other emotions in between roll through. I have worked at letting go of what I can’t hold onto any longer and have clung to the few things I know to be unwavering. Some of the tools that have helped me through this year have been: spiritual direction and counseling, books on books on books, a lot of writing (specifically poetry), a lot of crying out to the Holy Spirit, and a lot of listening. It has felt difficult and lonely at times, and yet when I reflect on where this year began and where I am now, I can see a wandering thread of hope and healing scars.
If I’m honest I would have preferred that cast to stay on Dottie’s arm for a good several more months just to ensure her safety and protection. Maybe this speaks to the control I think I have or want to have, or maybe it speaks to preferring the known as opposed to the unknown. However, ultimately, I knew that her arm could not fully heal inside a hard shell. Her arm needed resistance and weight to get stronger; to recover. It needed time and space for the stitches to fall out one by one. So I guess more than safety, I hope for resilience. I have seen it in Dottie, as she went from initially shielding her right arm with her left, to using it without even thinking, whether she was swimming or swinging or bravely blocking her brothers tackles. I have also seen it in so many people who, in the midst of pain and suffering, have chosen joy and hope or sometimes have merely chosen to place one foot in front of the other. Maybe we are all carrying a lot of new scars with us, but cheers to moving through the pain and having the courage to keep on hoping.
Lest I continue to ramble, here is a poem I wrote for Dot and Rock after reading the Goldfinch this past year:
My loves:
Life is catastrophe.
Pain will find you,
And death will take you.
Tears will fall from your big brown eyes;
Whether from skinned knees or a wounded heart,
And loneliness will make herself known.
But there is still beauty and joy to be found,
As we all continue dying.
I hope you see it-
Sprinkled in the air like dust
And maybe even let it settle on your skin.
And though sorrow is certain,
May joy be as well.
- M