Bags

     Bags, bags everywhere, all the time.  This has been a breakthrough year.  Never so much a need for bags.  It started in January when I took Mike's things to the rehab center where nothing much more than his Bible, work and dress clothes were allowed.  Then, after months of consideration Megan packed her bags for Georgia to take an advisor's position in hopes of being loosed from her debt in a year's time.  Melody, having never been to the ER, has been 5 times in the last 2 months but is now packing her bags to be a camp leader and Biblical intern for 8 weeks, all because a sweet lady she works with in the kitchen at church took it upon herself to raise the majority of the money.  Miranda trying to maintain steadiness in all the storms has bags of Bible school materials ready to teach her 4 year olds next week.  McKala became engaged while away on the yearly deep sea fishing excursion with her sisters and my parents this month and will pack her bags in August to live her new life.  Macklynn's baseball bag sits here as the season that almost didn't begin is coming to an end.  And Madalynn, laying down her karate one and packing another for anything any of us will let her go along with us for.
     My bags: one for Virgie's, one for DJ, and one for the Y, they are empty.  Last week, the tables turned at Virgie's.  I hadn't planned it; but in hindsight, I see the pieces that were falling in place.  Michael's final payment was made to the school.  Another caregiver had come on board.  And we were asking God if I needed to stay long enough to pay for McKala's wedding.  But it was a gnawing question, and I was becoming restless in a setting that was no longer mine to be in.  That chapter was closing but not before I got off my chest things that had to be said.  And I said them.  Boy, did I say them.  But at least now, I can go to her funeral, knowing I did all I could possibly do to persuade her that in the end, the "good Christian life" she quoted does not suffice for the unkindness that permeates from her core and always has.   
     DJ, his mental health doctor assessed him and told him he was "free," free from his sedation for the depression and voices he hears.  But what surfaced is he not free from the psychosis that his mother contributed to when she took advantage of him sexually.  Like always, I was quickly helping him with his church clothes Wednesday night and yawning incessantly when I told him I needed to go  home and go straight to bed since in the last 3 weeks, there were 6 nights I slept 3 hours or less.  He laughed and said, "You can lay with me."  I immediately scolded him, "That's the opposite of what the Bible teaches!" He laughed again and said, "Mike doesn't have to know."
     And that's when I knew he was very aware of what he was saying and that we had a problem.  You see, I know it is never a woman's place to minister to any man other than her husband, but in the state of mind I met him in, that rule didn't seem to apply.  Actually, I'm still okay with that initial decision to grant him his request to go to church with us.  But now, this season also has come to a close.  I've emptied the bag I carried his things in.  I earnestly pray that someone, a man, takes the baton from me so that DJ isn't forgotten.
     The Y - a few weeks ago we had a misunderstanding and Macklynn was "lost" for nearly 20 minutes.  Every available employee was looking for him.  His name was called across the intercom.  The building was put on lockdown.  No Macklynn.  Toward the end, I actually sought God that if Macklynn had been dragged away from the building, He would just end it, that he would not have to endure the suffering, the torture, the innocent confusion.  I don't know if that is a right prayer to pray but at that moment, I just wanted him to be safe. 
      Finally, someone found him playing in the kiddy pool.  He must've been under water when I looked and couldn't make out the page when it went out.  He was truly bewildered at all the commotion.  I was so relieved that I got light headed.  Instead of in the weight room, I wound up lying on the bleachers by the pool for an hour.  I haven't been back. 
      Part of it is that I've been overcome with activity.  Part of it is that I've neglected my progress and gained 6 or 7 pounds in the last while.  Some days gluttonous but most of them just not careful.  Funny, instead of fasting under stress that we would grow fat instead.  Rebellion.
      The last hurdle of the month was Michael's graduation party.  It was a gathering of mostly men who have sewn into Michael's life come to see the harvest.  Little did we know when we arrived in Fork Union, Virginia, Saturday morning that at an awards banquet the night before, he had received not only the overall MVP for football 9th through 12th grades but also the "Distinguished Cadet" Award that is given to one individual in each grade.  He took what was given to him and made the very best of it, despite several classmates who purposefully made it hard on him. 
     But upon the final announcement of their graduation, I saw something else, a brotherhood.  Young men seeking him out in the crowd and he doing the same.  Big hugs between comrades. 
     He was invited to an afterparty.  Mike and I decided to indulge the idea.  I was disheartened at what I saw but was glad that we got to be privy to it as a family.  Only select young men were invited, but unfortunately the "selects" of this world are often taught to make bad choices.  The catered food was terrific, the house the same Colonial one Michael and Melody got to stay in for the Military Ball.  But this time, there was alcohol around every corner.  And anyone, perhaps especially the underaged, were permitted by the parents.  Parents from all corners of the world, almost every continent. 
     Finally a bottle of Tequila and a shot glass arrived from another set of parents and began circulating.  I saw Michael step away from the group of his classmates who were partaking.  Perhaps, in respect to his father.  I hope moreso in respect to his Father and the reputation and example that ought to go hand in hand with a believer. 
     Mike has not had a drink since the first week of January.  This was just one of many trials he's had since his return home.  Since we've laid all the cards on the table, he's found out some devastating things.  It's also been hard to reorient into the family.  I don't know that anyone has put in writing how intricate a task it is for an addict to come to terms with his sober personality.  But I know by his prayers that his heart is intent on finishing the course, no matter how much is body objects sometimes.  No one said dying daily to ourselves would be easy, for any of us.
     He has again a good excuse for any addict to return to his feeding ground, an injury, a shoulder injury.  Instead of seeking pain killers, he told his doctor the truth about his addiction and was prescribed sleep medicine until he can get treatment, which is where it plays out well that the job he was promised 3 months finally came through but not before he acquired another one!  He intends to keep them both.  Starting last Friday night, I am going with him on a dedicated run to Ohio, back in 24 hours.  It is the equivalent to what I was making at Virgie's so we can still pay toward McKala's wedding AND I can be home with my husband and children weeknights again.
     Back to the bag, I grabbed a few things and stuffed them into the overnight one from Virgie's and off we went, trucking together for the first time in over 3 years.  I didn't talk the whole way trip up except to answer him.  He talked on and on.  And that was okay.  I needed to just be.  It's been that kind of month.
     Melody's had a real go of it, averaging being in the emergency department more than once a week lately.  First a CT to rule out a brain tumor after a routine eye exam, then onto a spinal puncture to check the fluid pressure.  Bingo, that's what was causing the swollen optic nerves, headaches, and wouldbe vision loss.  The second trip was worse than the first because she had developed the "spinal headache" associated with lumbar taps.  The pain is basically untreatable until a "blood patch" is done to stop the leakage from the puncture site.  The diuretic that inhibits the production of spinal fluid also caused her to return to the ER for invasive treatment.  After a surgeon chose to admit her, the doctors had no explanation after the blockage "disappeared."  But I know that my God knows when a person has had enough and that He answers the most basic of prayers. 
     Then, we went ahead against the advice of her attending Neurologist and Opthamologist to have her scheduled Tonsillectomy.  She said she could not stand to be as sick as she was last summer at camp, having every bug around going straight to her throat. 
     Lo and behold, she had a super swelling of her uvula, touching her tongue and making it impossible to sleep and all but closing the airway, inducing another run to the ER where they administered steroids.  Then, when all seemed clear after a few days, one side began to bleed, pulsating blood.  The gargling ice water seemed no opponent for the blood that was pouring out of her nose and mouth.  I hadn't had coffee nor could find my glasses, so I screamed for Mike to take her on.  It took quite some time for them to stop the bleeding.
     All these procedures and introductions to medical staff who answered her many questions fed the appetite she's always had for the medical field.  And she has learned in quick time empathy as a patient. This is the girl who instead of reading romance novels reads and memorizes anatomy for fun, who watches surgery videos for entertainment..  She's always wanted to be an ER surgeon.  And I can't help but believe she's got what it takes.  She's beginning to own her own education and is ready to enter the public realm.  As long as she follows Michael's footsteps as a leader and not a follower, all will be well.
     Michael hit the ground running when he got home.  Monday morning he was in the office of his "sponsor," aka his middle school basketball coach who recruited Michael to his Fork Union alma mater.  Michael was drilling holes for his blasting company on Tuesday, "pulling" a calf with Dr. Miller on Wednesday, got an offer for some other job, and had a forth job in the works by Thursday, a man who needs help pressure washing houses.  Under the advice of several coaches, Michael is passing up significant scholarships and returning for a post grad season at Fork Union to get more exposure and to continue gaining strength as in the 4 am workouts he's already been doing with the PG team.  He plans to fund as much of it as he can himself.  And I have to support that kind of dedication. 
       And to Megan's cause , I must give my support although she is being put through the ringer.  She's screamed at daily by her boss or customers or both.  She is a worker, a pleaser.  Her self induced obligation makes her do well but take unwarranted disapproval all the harder.  She is 6th in the line of Harpers who have within the last year been face to face with employers or coworkers who have been virtually unbearable.  It has become evident that we are being trained for something, broken for something, bigger than ourselves. 
       McKala escaped her toxic work environment and was even paid more for less effort, which opened the door for her focus on getting well.  She went to the gym, even though it was prescribed anogony.  The specialists at Duke told her it would be for the first 4 or 5 months, until her heart gained strength to overcome the imbalance of her other systems (and that was after she fought her third bought with Walking Pneumonia).  All this without her regular medications, because at the end  February she lost insurance coverage.  But a couple of weeks ago, she looked at me in the kitchen and said, "I missed a couple of days of my heart pills and my heart rate didn't go up."  That's huge!  It means she's getting well, finally after 5 years.
       And to think, in less than 3 months, she will be rightly married in white to a man who loves the Lord and knows to guard her heart.  It's making me well up just to think of the grace shed on her after all her entanglements with disease.
       Then there's Miranda, no big bags moving to speak of right now, still just unpacking the ones from the gulf of Florida.  But that's good.  For Miranda steady is good.  For someone who is moved easily to become firmer is good.  Her heart, I see it moving though.  Her heart is always toward people, not always so for her mouth, but her heart is ever moving toward the Lord.  Those kinds of moves don't get awards or job promotions or reciprocating relationships, but they are noticed by the Lord, and by me.   Miranda is more like me than she would ever wish on herself.  Bless the child's heart, we realize daily the things we have in common and they are not always good.  But at least, it enables me to understand what she's getting at and to know what to pray for her!
       At last, there are my littles, which Macklynn says they do not qualify for anymore.   He proved it at his first baseball practice, after having nearly blown his thumb and index finger off altogether last August.   I hadn't told the coaches of his injury since I had informed them he had just come off a 5 day stomach flu. 
       Wouldn't you know, there at the end of practice, the coach hit a pop fly right to him in left field?  It hit him square on the scar, and he began to cry.  When the outfield coach took off his glove, he saw why.  I sat on the bleachers stoic, as he was escorted to the dugout to the head coach.  After the evaluation, I walked slowly over but not too awfully close, unemotionally as possible nodding asking him how it felt.  I didn't want to cater to his pain so that he would have more reason to up and quit.  He sat and nursed the sting, and I sat back on the bleachers.  When batting practice started, he decided to participate.  And I knew then, my little boy had taken a step into manhood. 
      McKala did her part and got him a palm guard, some pants, and his very own baseball bag from the sports store she works at.  I never bought the others their own bag, and she just wanted him to have that.
      We all are going to miss more than we think the nuances of the family innerworkings.  We're already down one member.  This fall, it will be one off to college as it were, one off to marriage, and one off to high school.  All with more bags than I care to imagine. 
       But as God would have it in the cycle of a large family, I still will have my Macklynn and Madalynn to dwell on.  My Macklynn who is busy being rescued from his inward world into the world of the only man who can fitly draw him out, his father.  They already have been working on mowers, cleaning gutters, and beyond, while at night reading the Word and praying, without the all intrusive sound of a television.  This is happening for an 11 year old boy who when I took out the DVO on his father, I asked, "How do you feel about this?" couldn't get out the words, only a beleaguered thumbs up sitting there beside me in the courthouse.  A boy who in the midst of the fallout said he hated us all AND God. Big words in a house where those words are not allowed.
       And the little girl who wants to be big, who has been using her sisters' razors unbenounced and panicked when there were none to be found while they were away at the beach for 10 days, the girl who's already sporting bras and believing crushes are the norm, BUT also in her own words "helped a girl get saved" in the bathroom at a baseball game.  She outrightly asks if people are Christians.  I too have a "little me" on my hands and much work to do.  This never gets any easier.  Every child is so very different. 
      I'm hoping sometime soon we'll get to those camping and hiking trips we haven't taken.  And I can pack up my old LL Bean bag with my new ENO hammock and Camelbak the girls got me for Mother's Day.  And we can act a little like normal folk, because I'm just plain worn out.  My whole right side has turned arthritic, and I could use some good times.  However it comes, I'll take it.  I'm brought back to a place where my family is my only service, not that I could ever leave the house and miss an opportunity to share my Lord.  But we're back to "us"... "us" is all I can be right now and I trust that all the "you's" out there will understand and take the time to consider your own "us" and what bags you yourselves should be setting down or picking up ...