Early Thursday Morning

Whenever I cannot sleep because my mind is going, going, going as if it were running a marathon that never ends, I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and force my mind to visualize myself laying cozily in the hand of God.  Usually after a few extra deep breaths, I can relax and go back to sleep. Thursday morning was not one of those times. I just couldn’t get comfortable in God’s hand this time. I’ve always felt “held” in the past, but at that moment, I did not.

I climbed carefully out of bed and walked out to the great room and looked outside to see if it was raining. It was dark and warm with a slight breeze but no rain. I opened the sliding door and walked with bare feet out and sat down on a damp chair, put my head down in my hands and began to sob.  I’ve been holding my emotions together by a thread lately and at that moment I just railed at God and the Universe into the gentle breeze, not with words, but with sobs and sighs and deep breaths.

My own sobbing brought me back to a time when my son was only 10 years old and had tried out for a travel baseball team that he had been involved with the previous year. I had just gone over to the park district to look at the posting of the players for the new season listed on the door of the building. His name was not included. As a mom of an anxious boy, I was very aware of how much he wanted to be a part of this team and a huge sense of disappointment rushed over me and I felt so helpless for him. It was probably the first real let-down that he was to experience, and I was going to have to be the one tell him.

I remember going in to work at the church preschool that morning and before facing anybody else, I went directly up into the sanctuary and sat down in the quiet space and prayed for peace and understanding…but inside I was a wreck. I didn’t speak out loud, but my thoughts railed at God as I looked up at the altar with sobs and sighs and deep breaths.

This memory kind of seems ridiculous now as I look back on it some 25 years after it happened. It seems like such an insignificant moment that in retrospect doesn’t even count in the course of life’s storms. However, it occurred to me on Thursday morning that after my current moment of despair, that my son had moved on after the disappointment. He joined a wonderful team, coached by his dad. They went on to win the championship at the local level and had a very good time with all of his friends, minus the pressure and the competitive nature of the whole “travel” team. It turned out just as it needed to be, just as God intended it to be.

I realized in that moment, that what we think is the “best” situation or solution to a problem may not be the “right” one. I’ve learned this multiple times, yet I still wail angrily at God when it doesn’t seem to be moving in MY preferred way…This living with uncertainty and disappointment while waiting for God to reveal WHAT the next thing is, is so difficult. I just keep forgetting the lessons I have learned.  

After I got the grief and anger out of my system, I knew that I was just being impatient. God was still holding me in the palm of his hand. My concern for my  children has not changed, nor do I think it ever will. The issues and concerns I pray over my children are related to health, mental health, job security, financial stability and the very lives of my grandchildren. All of these issues seem to be so much more important and life altering than 5th grade baseball in the grand scheme of things. It seemed as though I had been looking at “travel” baseball tryouts through a huge magnifying glass back when it happened. It seemed so very important at the time and it wasn’t easy to trust that things were going to work out, but they did. I longed to take the magnifying glass off of the current problems the my children were facing and tried to see them through a lens that would bring me closer to God. I want to trust, but then that darn doubt creeps into my brain in the wee hours of the night. I do know in my heart that the issues will resolve, one way or another, in God’s perfect timing.  He doesn’t seem to mind that I’m not a fan of His timing, but God is usually right. 

After my good crying jag and some sobering thoughts and realizations that I cannot control any of it, I swore at the devil out loud, 

“Leave me and my family alone, dammit!” and went back inside.  

I turned on the shower, stepped into it and let the warm water run over me as I stood there.  It felt to me like a renewal of my baptism.  The water was softly flowing over me and cleansing me as if it held the power of the Holy Spirit to restore me. The Spirit was rinsing away all of my resentments, fears, negative thoughts and anxieties. Afterwards, I felt better, stronger and closer to God. I was dressed and ready face the day by the time the sun began lightening the sky.

Gail Mehlan

June 2019

Wish You Were Here!

Retrospect

I have been reading in my journals and thinking about a time in my life when I was dealing with a difficult and frustrated child of mine.  He was just beginning high school and had been having difficulties in school and dealing with his emotions.  He was just struggling.  I was trying so hard to be a good parent and I often had conversations with him that seemed, at the time, to be meaningful.  In retrospect, though, I missed the point sometimes.  I had asked him once, “Were you ever happy?” And his answer was, “When I was five, I was happy.”

He was so unhappy then.

Sept. 2002

 I want to relate a discussion I had with my son but I’m not sure I can explain it well. He tried out for the Variety Show today singing the song, “Wish You Were Here”.

“So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?”

He said he had a “thought” or a “revelation” about the words to the song.  He said, “I feel like I miss the me who was involved with painting, scouts, soccer and orchestra. I miss the old me.”

“How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.”

Perhaps he feels that he could handle things better “before” his little breakdown, and wishes his “Boy Self” could be here now.

I must confess, I enjoyed the “Boy Self” too, an enthusiastic player, looking forward to activities, wanting to try out for orchestra, wanting to take a painting class. He was confident and energetic.  Sometimes I miss that child, too.

But, for now, I am content with him for who he is, not afraid of his great potential and not afraid to make mistakes…to learn from them…continuing to plug away at some things that are challenging for him. 

Missed opportunity

Sadly I had missed an opportunity to tell him about forgiveness, the essence of what my faith is all about.  I didn’t tell him that God’s promises are new every morning, or that he could start fresh at any time.  I didn’t tell him he was loved and forgiven…that we would get through this somehow, together. I didn’t even tell him that I was content with who he was at that moment, even though I had written it in my journal.  I just kept emphasizing that I wanted him to “plug away” at things that seemed to be so important. I didn’t understand that depression and substance abuse can steal the enthusiasm, the confidence, the spunkiness. I thought he had to push through it, plug away at it. I thought that medication and counseling would “fix” him so I kept…“Going over the same old ground”. I didn’t fully “get” that he was so unhappy with who he was back then or why. Depression.

I missed a “moment”. 

I regret that now as I look back on those difficult times. 

Fast Forward

But fast forward to this past weekend.  I had a visit from my other son, his wife and their daughter.  Our house was full of the patter of two-year-old granddaughter feet.  The weekend was busy and as we drove downtown to visit the children’s museum with my daughter and all of my grand children, I hear on the radio the very song by Pink Floyd that my son sang for the Variety Show way back then…

“And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

And how we found
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.”[1]

Suddenly, I had tears in my eyes as I recalled that heartbreaking conversation with my son from years ago. It all came flooding back to me.  I just did not get it back then. I think I do now.

But in that moment, hearing the words to that song, I had such a longing for my son, their brother, to be with us NOW. I wanted my family to be together and I softly whispered to myself, “Wish you were here.”

Later on that evening we were all together for dinner at our house.  The kids were running around the house giggling and playing. There was much laughter, talking and reminiscing.  My two adult children were looking at videos from Christmas years ago.  This was fun…and as we were watching the clips, there appeared on the screen, the “little boy” brother who was not with us today…so cute, so sweet…that child that was “happy”.  This was the “Boy Self” that my son missed when he was going through those dark adolescent days.

Those dark days are hopefully long behind us…and we are moving forward day by day, week by week.  But as I spent this weekend with my family, there was one missing link.  Our son was home in Wisconsin, working and living his own life. 

So I sent him a text that said, “Wish you were here”. 

And I did. I just missed him.

---

[1] “Wish You Were Here”-Songwriters: WATERS, ROGER/GILMOUR, DAVID JON

Read more: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Introduction

Among the Sunflowers

Written by Michael
January, 2007

Who I am, as I am now, is at the least summed up in threes: Three songs, Three sayings, Three movies, and Three stories. All of which have a special meaning to me in my life. As a man, I am three things now, a Christian, an artist, and a son. But I would not be these things as I am without the first or the second or the third. This is three stories in three parts that make me. The first of which takes me back three years ago, to a hospital, a conversation, and a boy who was lost and hurting, an addict.

"Hey Wha' Happens?" (Skeletons and the Kings of all Cities)

It was visiting time at the Behavioral Health Hospital, a Wednesday, I believe, it's so hard to remember the details sometimes. My parents were visiting me, but I had no desire to see them. Seven days earlier I had overdosed on cough medicine, heroine, and cocaine. The doctors were surprised that I had even made it through the night. The following days were some of the most painful I had ever experienced. Between the vomiting and the cold sweats, the last people I wanted to see were my parents. I couldn't face them. They had been the ones who had found me unconscious and unresponsive. I didn't want to feel those judging eyes pressing my heart into my chest. But I swallowed the rock I had lingering in my throat and gave my mom a hug. It was the coldest hug I had ever received from her. She was scared and lost about what to do with me and a tear welled up in her eye. I loved her even then. Even after all our arguments and fights. I may have said I hated her to her face, but deep down I hated myself.

Our conversation went, to the best of my memories, well. My dad spoke first, as always, being the proud father and husband he is and asked, "How are you?"

I replied, "I'm fine. How are you?"

I hated answering my father's question. Everyone of them seemed loaded and threatening so I would always try to avoid answering them by turning it around on him.

"Worried." He said.

"Oh, yeah." I said.

"Yeah, Mike, I don't know what to do with you. This is the 3rd time this has happened and I'm done with it!"

"Whatever." I said, disgusted.

My mother cut in at that point. "Whatever? Mike, is that all you can say is "whatever"? You almost died and your father and I have been going crazy and all you can say is "whatever"?"

I began getting angry. "Yes! That's all I can say. I'm not happy. I'm not sad. I don't feel anything anymore and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not feeling anything."

"Well, what do you want us to do about it?" My mom cut in.

"Nothing, I don't want you to do anything. I just don't want to feel like this anymore, so I'm going to California with Kyle and his girlfriend." I got a little quieter. "Then I'll be out of your hair and you can just forget about me."

"Mike." My dad said sternly. "You can't go to California, you're sick, you'll die!"

I began getting frustrated. "I'll be fine. I just need to get away from you guys for awhile 'cause I'm losing it."

My mom cut in again, off topic. "Mike, where you ever happy?"

I answered abruptly, "Of course I was."

She said quickly, "When?"

The last time I was truly happy was when I was in Spain with my mother standing in the endless fields of sunflowers. It was one of those times my mother and I actually got along for more than a few minutes. I took a picture of my mom and she was smiling so wide. She was happy, too. Spain was her Eden, she had studied there in college and she talked about it constantly when I was a child. I made me happy to be there with her.

I couldn't tell her this of course, so I just said the next thing that came to my head. "I don't know, when I was five."

My mother rolled her eyes. My dad stood up and said, "We should be going now, our time is up."

There was a long pause. No one said a word until my dad said with contempt, "Goodbye, Mike."

"Goodbye, Dad."

I began getting a little sheepish. "I love you." He said.

"Love you too, Dad."

"Mom", I said softly as I gave her a hug. She hugged me so tightly I couldn't maintain composure and I began to cry.

"Goodbye, Mike." She said to me. I knew she was crying.

"I love you." She said.

"Love you, too."

This would be the last time I would speak to my parents face to face for seven or eight months.
Little did I know this was really them saying goodbye.(End of first story, more next time. Michael was escorted to a Therapeutic Boarding School in the Dominican Republic.)