A Big Man

To look at him, you might think Al Gruber was a small man. I'm sure endless passers-by made that mistake, especially as he surrounded himself with friends like Mark Borgwardt and Hap Klammer. But even next to those giants, in every memory I have of him, he is larger than life. 

Larger than life climbing out of the river at dusk covered in mud and weeds to scare a bunch of kids on their first camping trip. Building his own home and later his sons' homes. Blasting a building-sized hole in the Cedar River with an inflatable dolphin and a roll of toilet paper. Having a little party on a Friday night with a hundred or so guest. Shooting holes in a tent trying to kill the mosquitoes. Hiding six kids under the seats of his over capacity boat when the river patrol came by. And those are the ones I saw with my own eyes.

I feel sorry for future generations who will never hear my Uncle Al and my Dad swapping tales around a fire. I'm glad that most of them wouldn't stand up in a court of law, though. I believed his friend Mark really was a magic giant until I was ten years old. I cringe for children who got on his bad side at school. I will never assume I have privacy on a remote piece of river. I still laugh until it hurts when I recount his call to his youngest sister the day after her daughter's wedding. It's not the most exciting, but my favorite is probably the day he first met my Aunt Trulla, and how he told his friend on the bus that he was going to marry that girl. He loved her to his last breath.

I know we'll all miss that cat-who-ate-the-canary grin and the way he yelled "Angie" even when she was standing right there. We'll miss that guy who would show up to help you with any project and had the best music. The man would do his best to get you out of a jam, even if he's the one who got you into it. He left a huge hole in all our lives. Big guys do that.

Weariness

I'm so done with death - the specter, the cult, the culture of it. I'm sick of hospice being the first answer instead of the last. I'm sick of women sacrificing their own babies. I'm sick of cancer killing children. I'm sick of hospitals and funerals and the Planned Parenthood where I was praying when I found out a friend has an incurable disease today. I'm sick of begging God for miracles and trying to find the will not to be mad at Him when He doesn't adjust the order of the universe to fit my pleas. 

I'm tired of feeling small and powerless and selfish. I believe that all things come together for the glory of God. But sometimes I just want my friend Bill's baby to be healthy and home a little more than I want the glory of God. I just want Justin to be back in the pulpit, not in the ICU. I want to spend my Tuesdays taking care of my home and my husband rather than being mocked by random strangers while I try to offer a lifeline to a woman who is being sold death at every turn. 

I'm tired of it being used to that. I used to sob and sometimes be sick after being outside Planned Parenthood on "procedure day." I watch those women go in so casually to take the abortion pill and I know real human beings are being lethally poisoned just steps away from me. It's just another Tuesday. I'm rather sick of the fact that I can be there and not be sick and sobbing. 

Here lies the valley of the shadow of death. I am struggling today to fear no evil.

The Dark Side

Hello, Darkness, my old friend.

We go back, don't we? I don't even remember meeting you. Was it junior high, when we first started sitting up nights pondering my dark and hopeless existence?  You told me no one would ever love me. You promised me the world would be better off without me. I almost let you win that game time and time again. Only God stopped us from ending our relationship by ending me. We can agree that He still had work for me, even while we debate whether that is a blessing or a curse.

Were you around when I sat by myself at recess in elementary school wondering what was so wrong with me and asking why people did not like me? I know our friend, Introversion, was there then, but I failed to understand that people disliked me because I did not like people all that much. Still, I think it was you who told me I was unlikeable, insisted I was different and I cannot remember not knowing those things about myself. 

We might have been voted worst couple in high school, if such things were voted on. I floundered at love and friendships but you stuck by me all four years. People did try to break us up. They saw the signed of abuse, I think. The isolation. Somehow you made me angry that my parents loved me when other people did not. As if any remnant of human connection was a threat to you. Which is absurd, of course, because when were we closer than when I failed at love, just like you said I would? Every step I took towards the heights was another agony on the way back down. 

I got help in college. Pills made it harder for you to get your claws into me. Easier for me to roll with life's punches. At first, I thought you might be gone for good. It cost me Ambition and Libido, but if I was not going to be a sexy CEO, I also was not going to be on an agoraphobe on disability. 

Except I very nearly was, wasn't I? The pills could only keep us apart for a while. Having you around seems so natural that I did not even realize you had returned until I had turned my whole life sideways. Our pal, Panic Attacks, and you cost me my job ruined my finances and locked me in parents' basement. I could not even make a phone call. I was trapped and paralyzed and so sure it was not you because I had the pills. No one told me they would stop working. 

I wish I could say you only tricked me that once, but that is not true, is it? No matter how well I know you, I am still likely to sit next to you for weeks completely unaware of why I feel irritable and empty. 

Not today, though. I recognized you almost at once when you arrived yesterday like a cold drizzle interrupting a sunny afternoon. You have been dropping by a lot lately, but for short visits only. The doctors are not concerned. They know there are limits to their power.

So, today we may have a good cry. We will reminisce about my failures and examine my worst habits. Perhaps we will discuss unconceived children and other permanently interrupted dreams, reject solutions and lament the way the dirty dishes sink and the laundry hamper refuse to stay empty even for a minute. We will apologize to everyone who does not deserve my short temper and entertain unkind thoughts about people who probably do but who are spared by the sliver of self-control I retain, bolstered by my suspicion that I would be more miserable for giving them a piece of my mind than I am for keeping it. 

Do not worry if you remember a prior engagement or get called to a family emergency. I will not complain. I know you would stay if you could. I know you will be back. Isn't that what old friend do?