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(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert
This is one of those years when I can’t talk myself into seeing the happy endings—or at least the unhappy endings that lead to deeper understanding and long-term happier endings. No matter what I said about wanting to be done with talking about unhappy topics, I am not. I can’t will myself to come up with the neat and happy moral of the story that will tie up a less-than-hope-filled post.
Although I’m feeling a bit like George Bailey on the bridge, I’m not looking to jump into the river. No, I just want to take that suitcase I bought with happy travels in mind—and run—anywhere that isn’t where I’ve been.
You see, I know God is hearing my prayers, but I’m having a hard time saying them. The good thing about God is He hears the prayers that have sunk so deep within us that we can’t even use our voices to speak them—they become so much a part of us that they rise from our very pores.
If nothing else, perhaps He’ll send me a bumbling Clarence to show me a better path than the one I am on.
Sometimes no amount of research or any continued pursuit for new solutions can fix a problem. And you especially can’t make someone else choose to see the hope in their situation if they prefer to see only loss.
You’re probably thinking I must be talking about myself, right? See, that’s the irony, isn’t it? So easy to see how to solve someone else’s problem, but then you look in the mirror and realize that maybe you’re so busy trying to solve someone else’s problem because it makes it easy not to be responsible for solving your own problems.
The years of trying to help others with celiac disease, dementia, depression, and ADD have taken their toll on me. I’m fresh out of perky solutions that are always met with a big “but”—because after all I have no idea how bad it is for someone else.
Well, the truth is they don’t know how bad it has been for me to watch them suffer. If I could, I would wave a magic wand and remove the problem. Would be much better than searching for other possible solutions that will never be good enough because the only solution the person really wants is to wake up completely healed.
They also don’t know how much I’ve suffered watching them refuse to consider anything but Plan A when I would fight to find them Plan B through Plan Infinity to aid in their movements forward. This week I realize I’m done being the pep squad. All that energy spent helping those who at this point won’t help themselves is making me feel like a failure. I know I am not—I tried, as God is my witness, I tried. Maybe I tried so hard that they didn’t think they needed to do so. But in the end all any of us really can do is help ourselves.
And during all those times of caregiving, I did not help myself. In some ways it’s just not possible to take care of yourself in the midst of others’ crises, but in other ways you have to be careful not to see any results as the only proof that what you did mattered. Some problems can’t be fixed despite anyone’s best efforts.
And so, I need a Clarence to come show me how I helped even if I could not beat back the demons of the diseases. I need to know that without me this place would have become a Potterville. Maybe I have a bit of a savior complex, but, by God, I’d like to know that sacrificing my potential trips around the world made some difference to others.
But short of that, the only thing I can control is the direction of my own footsteps in the future. A future where I stop trying to find solutions for everyone else and start looking for my own regardless of who is coming along with me on the trip.
Clarence, are you ready to earn your wings? Then help me climb down from this bridge so I can pack my suitcase for the trip of my lifetime.
(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert
It’s not so much that we’re too old or that we’ve grown tired of one another. Oh no, we’re just plain tired from the last few weeks . . . or longer.
But the activities we’ve been doing lately are what love is really about. You see, love, the verb, is an emotion turned into action.
My mother loved me from my earliest days and so it came to me to love her through her last days, as well as to try to do justice to that mother love through how I said goodbye to her in a formal ceremony.
The thing is, though, I could never have had the strength to do all the things I needed to do for her over the last few years without Sherman’s support, through the tasks he did for either her or me, during the times he just walked beside me with her, or when he held me up when I thought I could not carry on.
You see, I knew nothing of that type of love that first Valentine’s Day. I thought it was something that he cleaned his house for me as well as grilled me steaks—barefoot outside on a snowy night—and gave me chocolate—a whole lot of chocolate, actually. He was cute, funny, and thoughtful—could he be my knight in shining armor coming to my emotional rescue?
How little I knew of the real meaning behind “Grow old along with me!”
By now I’ve seen enough of old age to know that, at least on the surface, the best is not always yet to be.
But dig below that surface and maybe, just maybe, you start to realize that the best is really about knowing you have someone by your side that will stay there no matter what—God willing and the creek don’t rise.
So even though we haven’t had much time for traditional romance in the over three weeks since I lost my mother, Sherman has been at my side throughout the many tasks and whenever else I have needed him. His love language is “acts of service” and it has shown as I have had to work with my brother Scott on practical matters and both our families have had to prepare for our local memorial service this past weekend.
Yesterday Scott and his wife Lori, as well as Sherman and I, sent their son and our kids back to their college homes away from home. This morning I said goodbye to Scott and Lori as they drove off with their vehicle packed to the brim with items from the storage unit and all the paperwork to finish out the estate.
Today I’ve focused on regaining some order here while Sherman has returned to work.
Tonight we rest, but tomorrow . . . ? There are 364 other days a year for romance—still time for the best yet to be.
Trina & Sherman (with Chris Geiss) on 10/8/88
We celebrated our anniversary on Thursday at home with the kids and a home-cooked steak dinner. We were too busy cooking and baking and getting them ready to go away on a cross country trip early Friday morning to do anything else special that evening. At least we knew we would be alone to celebrate the next day.
Now two days later, with the heater humming nonstop, it’s impossible to deny the weather outside. A thin layer of ice coats the pavement and cars, no doubt sealing the fate of any flowers that had survived the deep-dipping temperatures of previous nights. Even professional baseball has had to admit that fighting Mother Nature is futile—the Colorado Rockies/Philadelphia Phillies playoff game has been rescheduled until tomorrow.
The Farmers’ Almanac has predicted a harsh winter for those of us in Colorado—and we’re starting to believe. Many of the leaves haven’t even changed from green, but I know that these kinds of freezes sometimes rob of us the glorious fall colors we’ve come to expect. That’s why yesterday, despite my almost running out of time, I had to get out for a run along the river before the latest cold front blew in.
I was not disappointed. I drank in oranges, reds, yellows, and greens alongside the moving waters where ducks often played. At that moment, the snow remained up on distant mountain peaks. The breeze ruffled through my hair but did not chill my mid-section. October bliss.
Then I thought about how, if The Farmers’ Almanac were right, I just might have to consent to running inside this winter. I don’t know which is worse the running in an enclosed area filled with noise or having to pay to run! We fitness buffs in Colorado are so spoiled—often we can look at the forecast and plan around the various storms and deep freezes. Somehow thinking of the possibility of a real winter made the run seem that much sweeter.
Later as Sherman and I drove off into the foothills for our planned anniversary celebration of dancing, a blanket of fog descended upon the highway. We continued, passing through one of the known danger areas for fog-related multi-car collisions. Weather.com had said snow would begin around midnight, but had not mentioned fog, which seemed more threatening. We, who aren’t prone to fear from weather, decided to turn around. Mother Nature won that round.
In our modern world, it’s so easy to think the right technology can take care of any threats. But in the end, we can only control so much. So we returned to a local bar, spent a short amount of time there, before leaving to find traces of snow on our car.
Back home, thankful for the technology of our furnace, we hunkered down.
No doubt we should listen to The Farmers’ Almanac and stay in, for now. Weather fluctuates year to year and throughout the seasons—as long as we turn to one another, we’ve got all the control we really need.
Trina & Sherman, 10/8/88
Cora (Dickinson) Lambert 07/07/09 (c) Christiana Lambert
The first time I met Stephen, he didn’t seem to think much of me. Sherman and I had only been dating a month when he invited me to a family celebration. He and his brother Michael were hosting their mother Pat’s birthday party at their house. It’s always a nerve-wracking situation when you are introduced to “the family” after you start dating someone. That’s probably why for once I was in the kitchen—not my usual place, thanks to my total disinterest in the domestic “arts”!
Anne & Stephen Lambert 1987
In barreled this little tow-head who soon progressed to opening cupboard doors. I had no experience as a mom, but even I knew this was a bad idea. Although the bachelor pad had been scrubbed to an amazing level of cleanliness, it was far from child-proofed. Sharp knives, cleaning chemicals, bottles of alcohol, you name it. So Stephen was not impressed with this woman who kept telling him “no” and closing doors behind him. I didn’t know what his mom, Anne, thought of me at the time, but I’m sure in her early pregnancy fatigue, she was glad for another set of eyes.
Only with Stephen, as I soon learned, you needed a lot more than a couple sets of eyes! This was the boy who later taught his sister Alex how to climb out of her crib when she was only nine months old. The same one who broke his leg and played on it a couple days before his parents realized it really must be broken if it slowed him down at all. The one who climbed the hutch and brought it down on himself—and survived to tell the tale. They even had to give him an alarm clock so he knew when he was allowed to get up in the morning since he liked to wake early and live fast and hard.
Stephen & Christiana Lambert's First Meeting 06/92 (c) Trina
Stephen is no longer a tow-head nor is he small. Now he is an energetic twenty-something who stands almost 6’5”, head and shoulders above his bride, Cora, but by her side, nonetheless.
No doubt when Cora started coming to our family gatherings, she probably noticed the energy level of some of Stephen’s relatives, such as my son—or even of some of the grown males. She shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Knowing Stephen, could it be any other way?
This week we officially welcomed Cora into our family, although she’s been part of our gatherings for several years. Now we couldn’t imagine them without her! Hope she’s got her sneakers on, just like she did beneath her wedding dress, ‘cus she’s going to need them to keep up with Stephen—and any future Stephens!
May their marriage dance be long and joyful, no matter how often the beat changes during their years together.
Cora & Stephen Lambert's 1st Dance 07/07/09 (c) Christiana Lambert
Yesterday was Father’s Day. My dad’s been gone for over seven years, so Father’s Day is an odd celebration for me. But my kids have a dad, so it was his day, complete with a new digital camera, brunch in our own home, and a water balloon fight and kite flying with the extended family. It was his opportunity to slow down for an afternoon.
Sherman isn’t one to slow down too much and he doesn’t ask for much from others. So often I am guilty of not slowing down enough to see what he might want or need. It’s so much easier to jump into taking care of the kids’ needs or doing what my mom needs because those needs are either obvious—or I get requests from the people in need.
However, without Sherman, I wouldn’t be able to take care of my mother or kids as well as I do. He’s the one who takes care of me. He goes with me to see my mother when I am afraid to go alone. He moves his schedule so I can exercise and refuel. And he’s always been the meal man around here.
I am so blessed. Yet he’s not my father. He is a father to our children like my father was to me: the dad who provides materially and supports activities. But he is also much more of a father than my dad was. When my dad came home from a hard day’s work, he sat down in his chair and let people do for him.
President Obama was quoted in several places speaking on the importance of Father’s Day, as well as his personal loss of growing up without a father. Barack Obama emphasized how important it is for all children to have an involved father. I’m sure the president would have been happy to have the kind of father Sherman and I had.
But the involved fathers of today do much more than our fathers did for us—and for sure they do a larger variety of things for their wives than our fathers did for our mothers. Sherman does even more than many of the men I know now do. He doesn’t divide up work into men’s work or women’s work or dad’s work or mom’s work. If there’s a job to do, he just does it, even if that means he never gets a chance to sit down and just relax.
My kids don’t always know how lucky they are to have their dad. I think that’s because he has always given to them at the same level throughout their lives. When they get around some other families, that’s when they are often reminded just how special he is. Yes, he can get grumpy and gruff, but at the same time, he’s there for them, usually with both his offbeat humor and support—and, as Christiana would say—with that “stupid grin” on his face—even when he’s really frustrated with any of us.
Because that same humor and support never really slows down for me either, I’ve made it through this crazy year. Happy Father’s Day to the father of my children! Keep grinning!
Sherman playing Davey Jones in Cabo 05/09 (c) CBL
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