Paying for beauty

I went backpacking last weekend. We started after a deluge flooded the area we were walking in. The rivers were overflowing their banks, making lakes across the path and in some places, washing the path away. The power of water and the residue of the massive rainfall was spectacular. Little creeks were now raging rivers. The roar of the water was breathtaking. It created obstacles, but the overall effect was a fierce form of beauty.

The bugs were worse than I EVER have experienced before. They flew around my face, bounced between my face and my glasses, flying into my eyes. And then there were the bites. They were relentless. You couldn't stand still. My son built a fire and the choice as stand away from the smoke and be ravaged by the bugs, or stand in the smoke and tear up.

I started thinking about beauty and pain. There is a price exacted for viewing beauty, like an admission fee. Maybe the more we are willing to pay, the more beauty we are permitted to see. Remembering my friend, Nancy, her beauty radiated in proportion to the direness of her condition. I was able to see more of her beauty as I was willing to enter into the sadness of her loss.

Now a week and a half later I struggle to refrain from scratching my bites, I think back on the beauty I saw. Was it worth it? I think it was. I wouldn't have seen the beauty if it wasn't for the obstacles.

I see real beauty when I am willing to experience the pain that goes along with it.

Alone

Yesterday was Nancy's funeral. I expected to be red-eyed throughout. I wasn't. The times I cried were when the I saw acts of comfort being delivered to the overwhelmed. I watched as one of Nancy's good friends, rubbed Nancy's mom's shoulder when the coffin lid was shut. The amount of shuddering of the shoulders let those behind her know that she was having a rough go of it. Denise, Nancy's friend, now comforted Nancy's mom. The shuddering subsided and she dabbed a tissue under her glasses. Those were the times when I teared up.

That scenario was repeated over and over. As grief swelled to overwhelm the attendee, another close by would rub their back, hug them, and just let the overwhelmed know that they were not alone.

Is'nt that what scares us? I know it does me. To be alone. It is so healing when someone else is able to acknowledge our pain and demonstrate in a physical way that there is comfort.

In memory of a good friend

Today, my good friend, Nancy Brusletten, died. She died with friends and family surrounding her with love, after a year and a half battle with lung cancer.

We worked together as therapists and there were a few times where I had the privilege of doing co-therapy with her. What I realized during those times was how gifted she was. As I worked with her the things that came to the surface were that she was very skilled, and she cared about the people she involved herself with. You realized when you worked with her or were her clients that you mattered deeply to her.

The months have passed by and we all watched her succumb to the disease that ended her life here. While her body faltered, her soul never did. As the physical started to deteriorate, her spirit glowed even brighter. She was an amazing person with amazing resolve. She will be missed by those who love her.

As the days went on and she got sicker, it was very hard to say she was "dying". It was almost as if those words were they uttered, would take away the hope that something else would happen. I watched it in the journal that was kept about her journey. I was even afraid to say it. It was Nancy who gave the person who was journaling, permission to say that she was dying.

She has a wonderful husband and three precious children that will have to go on without her physical presence, but the gift of her life that she gave so freely and so unselfishly will live on forever.

I have included the latest journal article that was submitted to CaringBridge. You can read the journal that was kept if you are interested. The link is http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/nancybrusletten . It is a powerful testament of unquestioning submission to God's love and faithfulness and cherishing God even in difficult times. It is also a testament to the fact that all that is important in this life is the love that we share. Things will not satisfy. To see the sacrifices of those around Nancy on her behalf and for her were awe inspiring to say the least. Politics, religion, and the other things that consume our lives are irrelevant. Totally irrelevant!

And now, the latest journal article.

Our prayers for peace have been answered with Nancy passing on to God early this morning. Ron, her mother and her good friend Bobbie were with her. We are all so saddened but so thankful she can be at rest and that her boys now know she will be an Angel for them along their journeys in life. It has been a long journey for Nancy that we all wish could have had a different ending. She fought so very hard to do everything she could to remain here on earth with all of us. She also showed us how strong her faith was and how she was not at all afraid to die and to go to God. She never once got angry or questioned his will. Her love for him will continue to show through all of us she has touched for so long and even through people she just met briefly because this is what Nancy did …she always made an impact and left a special mark along the way of her path. Ron and her boys will continue to love her even though she is gone and Ron will see to it her boys are safe and happy. He has taken such good care of her and shown how he loves her so very much. His boys will be so proud of him as they get older and understand just what he has done for Nancy. I will update more often these next few days with all the arrangements but for now the family would prefer no calls unless it is the returning of a call they made. Right now they need to take care of the boys. Thank you for all the help and support and we will need to continue to support Ron and the boys and pray for them through this very sad time. She is so missed already.
God bless all of you.
Denise

Rich Mullins made a great statement about the meaning of death in our lives.

It is the living that mourn at a funeral-not the dead. We mourn because the lives of the dead have made ours more lively, and since we are (or have been) so knit together, the loss or another's strand will eventually cause our own unraveling. Fellowship is the mingling of threads that make up a fabric, and only in a fabric do we have some kind of meaningfulness. Peace is not the opposite of conflict, it is the opposite of chaos.

Thank you Nancy. You have taught me much by your life and death. I will miss you, and I believe you are now finally at peace.

Sorrow overwhelming

I read about the murder of a little girl, age 2, who was beaten to death. There were descriptions of the guardians hurling her into a wall across the room and beating her with belts and sticks. I feel teary-eyed, sick and shaky even writing this.

There was a program on TV that had the last letters sent home by soldiers from war, read by family members. I cried along with the images of people who were reading and crying as well.

My friend is dying. She will leave behind her husband who adores her and children who need her around.

Nineteen people are killed in an explosion in Sri Lanka. Thousands killed in a cyclone in Bangladesh. Death and pain enfold us.

I have been listening to "A world lit by fire" a history of the "dark ages". The murders, the horrifying torture of "heretics" the debauchery, the love of watching people die.

It's too much! What I have documented doesn't even dent the amazing amount of pain around me.

It's amazing that we are not drowned in sorrow and tears! It's no wonder we insulates ourselves. We very well may never recover!

A roll to remember

This weekend I was a part of a very special occasion. I was asked to sing at a wedding of a good friend of mine. The rub was that she was already married to the man she married this weekend.

My friend is struggling with lung cancer and the prognosis is bleak. She wanted to be able to convert to Catholicism so her children can be confirmed in the church. The event was one of the more moving occasions that I have attended.

She was hoping to walk down the isle, but her walking has deteriorated. So she had her father push her wheelchair down the isle. It doesn't matter sometimes how things get done, it is more important that they get done. My friend is the ultimate pragmatist. She adapts and makes the best of any situation.

She couldn't walk, her eye is patched, because it is for the most part useless. Her face droops on one side and her hair under the wig is mostly gone. And yet, in the midst of all of the things she has had to adapt to in fighting her disease, the true beauty of who she is has not only not been diminished, but has blossomed.

She was a beautiful bride, and we as witnesses to this sacred sacrament stood in awe of her.

The posture of care

I was listening to podcast from Mars Hill Church. The speaker talked very poignantly and powerfully about the experiences he and his wife had after a miscarrage, how they were treated by well meaning people, who appeared increasingly uncomfortable interacting with them because they didn't know what to say.

I visited with a friend of mine who is battling lung cancer. When I got to the door her dog was barking furiously. My friend came to the door, told me to come in and moved to her knees to comfort the dog. I came in the door and moved to my knees as well and hugged her. We stayed in that position for at least a minute. There was no hurry to get up, but rather to communicate through touch and tears. Words were incredibly inadequate.

The speaker on the podcast talked about how his friend had had a child the same day that he and his wife miscarried. He talked about how his friend told him that he would wait as long as the couple that miscarried needed to, to introduce them to their baby. His friend knew the pain it would cause and was willing to wait His friend informed him that he would do anything the couple that lost their child needed him to do.

Care is like that. First and foremost, you can't care effectively for others when you haven't dealt with your own pain. You don't have the ability to be present for the other person because your own issues are screaming too loud.

After that, the posture assumed is whatever the other person needs to be able to deal with what life has dealt them.

Kneeling on the floor of a friend's house may have been a strange sight to some. There were no second thoughts or worries about what others were thinking about it. It was on our knees where we connected in her pain, her courage, her loss, and her hope.

Life is unfair!

I got a tough call late this afternoon. I was informed that a very good friend of mine has stage four lung cancer. It was horrible news to get. She is one of the nicest people I know. She is beautiful both inside and out. She has a great husband and three small children. She doesn’t deserve this.

Life is just unfair. In our busy lives of attempting to get ahead, we have the false belief that we control our lives. When it comes right down to it, we have little control over what happens to us. It is an illusion. A diagnosis, like a slap, wakes us up from our stupor, revealing what we really control: our response to the information. When life is stripped down to the basics that is all it boils down to.

So they choose to fight. Her mom said it best. “When you combine God with medicine, wonderful things can happen.

Fight, my friend! We will be praying for you, sending you our love and best wishes, and anything else we can do to supply the courage to keep fighting.