Mom

One Year Later

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I still remember what I was wearing. The same jeans I always wear when I want to accessorize with black. Threw on a tank top and a jacket because the Florida weather was just cool enough to get away with it. I had just gotten a new pair of Chuck’s on sale at the outlet mall over the weekend and I still had a little Christmas money left over. My plan was to shell out some cash and finally get my diplomas framed. The one from 2010 sat lopsided in a cheap Wal-Mart frame on the floor of my childhood bedroom. I saw it every time I went home to visit and shook my head at the fact that I hadn’t gotten it framed yet. The diploma from 2012 was still in the cylindrical cardboard container it arrived in.

I drove past the framing store every time I got Chick-fil-A, so on that first day back to work after Christmas vacation, I had resolved to get it done. I remember feeling so relaxed as I sauntered into the store, it was a beautiful day with a nice breeze. I remember walking around the entire store before getting up the nerve to talk to a staffer because I’m an introvert and I’d rather walk around the store until I figure things out myself before having to ask for help.

My phone was in my right back pocket and I found it odd that it would be buzzing so relentlessly as I was talking to the very helpful sales associate. After all, it was the Monday after vacation, everyone was back to running their routes, all was well. Well, it should have been.

When I stepped out of the store and checked my phone, the initial barrage of texts had little, yet terrifying information. What did he mean mommy fell, was it from her back? Did her foot go numb again? Pray, yes, ok that’s not a good sign. Ambulance? Ok, did she break something???

When under stress, my body defaults to logic. Emotions are a bit too much for me to handle so I put them in a nice little compartment for later. At this point, logic said, “Don’t call the person reporting the emergency, call the person who needs to know about the emergency most. Daddy. It’s afternoon, he’s probably at the gym. God, please don’t let him still be at the gym away from his phone… Oh good, he answered, he sounds out of breath, he must be walking down that long Motorola hallway to the car. God please let him drive safely. Do I need to come home? Call me from the hospital so I know if I need to come home.

I remember getting back in my car and driving towards the Chick-fil-A. “You need to eat, if you end up driving home, who knows when the next meal will be, eat now while you wait so you can function properly when you need to.”

I was too stressed to go back to the office so I drove past the church and straight to my apartment. I remember sitting on the couch, praying. I tried to eat what I could until my dad called back. “Your mom is very sick.”

I remember arguing with him about me driving down, I live 1.5 hours from home. He didn’t want me to get in an accident on the drive down. I was coming regardless, so I just instructed him not to call me until I got to the hospital. I picked up my keys and my purse. I remember pausing in the hallway, trying to think if I should bring a change of clothes. No time for that. I think I grabbed a charger and then I left in my jacket, tank top, jeans and Chuck’s.

I think about that day every time I wear that jacket. I think I’ve worn the Chuck’s maybe once since then. They’re pretty sweet with zippers on the sides. I don’t think I ever got to show them to her. I used to love buying new things and showing them to mom, she always had such an appreciation for it. She appreciated things, but she didn’t let them rule her.

She didn’t have any designer clothes. Any designer purses she had were gifts, most from me. One time someone gave her a really nice leather purse and she didn’t even know it was name brand. She made a home for us out of every day, run of the mill things, nothing fancy, even though she had an appreciation for the finer things in life.

A few days after Christmas that year, we were in the family room watching the latest version of Cinderella. We all know the story. After the death of her mother, Cinderella’s dad married a prideful, selfish, and greedy woman who had two children of her own. They moved into Cinderella’s home and had no sensitivity towards the fact that the place they lived used to be a home filled with a specific brand of love. As tragedy would have it, Cinderella’s father also passed away and she was left to fend for herself in her childhood home with the three intruders. The greedy step mother had acquired so much debt that they needed to sell household items for money.

There was one conversation where Cinderella expressed that her house was all she had left of her parents and that she needed to keep it at all costs.

It was then that my mother walked into the living room and said, “Pookie, sell the house, split the money with your brothers. Don’t love the house.” I laughed. That was my mother, instructing her babies to never be so attached to things that you don’t move forward with your life.

Never in my wildest nightmares would I have thought that one year and nearly one week after that conversation with my mother, would I no longer have a key to my childhood home. The place where my diploma sat for six years, untouched. The place where I thought I could always come back to and just be me, no matter what.

But mommy’s lesson still stands. It is just a house. The special brand of love that once flowed through it, though altered, can survive outside of those four walls. It must. One year later, that love is struggling, but I am praying that it will eventually thrive once more.

cinderella-mommy-tweet-12-27-16

 

 

To Redefine

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We have all heard the saying, “Everyone grieves differently.”  It’s the saying that gives people permission to feel and act on feelings as part of a process that may take days, months, or even years.  Losing mommy at the beginning of 2016 plunged my family into the grief process.  However, it’s now nearly 11 months later and truthfully, my grieving process has only just begun.

 

I am a textbook firstborn child.  I was an honors student my entire life, got a full ride to college–dean’s list, cum laude, then a graduate degree in ministry. I had to get the good grades, I had to meet expectations, I had to fit the mold as it were.  I did it dutifully, with no regrets.  After all, the mold was fine, there was nothing wrong with the mold. The mold was crafted by loving parents, supported by a community made up of friends and family…the mold worked.  Until it didn’t anymore.

 

Right now, I’m tired of the mold.  It has lost some of its meaning with the absence of mommy.  It doesn’t make sense trying to run the same routes when your personal cheerleaders are not there anymore.  When the one person who steadily cheered you on regardless of any situation is no longer in the stands, running is no longer fun.

 

There’s nothing wrong with the routes to be run.  The other people cheering from the stands don’t mean any less, but that integral piece meant so much, that running the race without her just doesn’t make sense right now.

 

That’s not to say that the race is over. Surely not.  There are goals to be met, people to see along the way.  But what it does mean, is that right now is the perfect time to stop running and rest.

 

Sometimes people don’t understand rest.  They think rest isn’t good for you because it doesn’t look the way they think it should.

 

My rest was always coming home to my family, kicking off whatever pair of shoes I was wearing and leaving them under the coffee table until I finally remembered where they were.  My rest was curling up in a corner on the couch and deciding what movie to watch with my dad while he ate pistachios in his chair. My rest was celebrating that mommy made it to Christmas vacation without strangling any of her students.  It was decorating the Christmas Tree with 29 year old ornaments and helping mommy string lights on her keyboard and daddy’s fish tank. It was dancing to Christmas music with my brothers in the living room because they never judged my dance moves.  It was kissing my mother goodnight on Christmas Eve and saying I’d be back after spending time with good friends.  It was waking up on Christmas morning and reading Luke chapter two around the Christmas tree and then going back to sleep! It was asking, “what time are we going to Grandma’s house?” and then all of us not being ready when we said we would be, except for daddy. He was always ready.  It was going to Grandma’s house and seeing whatever family/friends happened to be there that year…and then eventually the singing would start. It was mommy singing Jesus What a Wonderful Child while my aunts and uncles sang back up.  That was my rest, and I will never ever have that kind of rest ever again.

 

So, to me, it makes complete sense not to pretend that this Christmas is like any other. I have no desire to run the routes that I’m used to running because I know that my rest, the way that I am used to getting it, is not coming.

 

I have incredible friends and family that open their hearts and their homes to me and I’m so thankful.  But honestly, I don’t want it. I want my mommy and no one can give me that.  Anything other than that would be a sad comparison.

 

I don’t want to make arrangements so that I can spend Christmas Eve with friends and family because I won’t get to kiss my mother’s cheek and say, “see you later.”  I don’t want to laugh and be merry because when it’s over, I won’t be able to sit down on the couch and leave my shoes under the coffee table until I remember where I left them last. Mommy won’t be singing in grandma’s living room this year. Therefore, I don’t want to participate.

 

It’s not that I want to be sad and depressed and cry alone.  No, I just need to recover and redefine what my rest looks like.  No one can do that but me.  People can say that I need to be surrounded by others so that I feel loved and supported, people can say that I need to try to be as normal as possible, but that’s not true. I know myself, and I know that I need rest and I won’t get it at home.  At any of my homes.  I’ll be standing in someone’s kitchen knowing that everything is different and my world is not right. I’ll be sleeping in someone’s spare bedroom and it’ll be a reminder that I no longer have a key to my house and can no longer wake up in the bedroom that sometimes (even nearly three years later) I still dream about waking up in.

 

So I’m leaving.  Just for a couple of days. I’m going to somewhere I’ve never been (because I couldn’t afford a ticket to London) so that I can walk around and not feel responsible for or to anyone. No one will feel obligated to cheer me up or distract me, including myself. I can be as happy or sad as I want to be. I can sleep or shop or take in some sights.  The one thing I will do though, is redefine my rest.  When your rest is defined by one thing for nearly three decades, it will take some time to figure out what it will look like from here on out.  So, the journey begins.

Identity

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I am the observer. That was my job, to observe and to anticipate what mommy needed. I never knew a mommy without pain, so that was my job. What does she need? How is she feeling? Did this person hug her too tight? Has she taken her meds? Does she need to lay down? Did she forget that she had a busy day yesterday? She’s not going to be able to function well today. Is that bag too heavy? Has she been standing talking to that person too long?

She would fuss at me for fussing at her. “Okay, little mama!” She’d say that in frustration when she knew I was right about something, but didn’t want to listen…So stubborn. Or, I’d be fussing around her while she was on the phone, or talking and she’d stop mid sentence and say, “That’s mama number two, over there.”

In all that she would still be surprised when I would know what she needed. “Pookie! How did you know? How did you know I was hurting?! How did you know?” I would laugh…”Ma, you act like I ain’t been knowin’ you all my life!” She’d laugh.

A big part of me is doing ok even in the midst of all this.  The part of me that had to anticipate…the part of me that hurt because I had moved away and couldn’t anticipate what she needed anymore. I’m doing ok because no one knows a mother like her daughter…and I knew mommy was in pain. So her being gone from me and praising Jesus instead -no pain? Oh I’m so glad for that. I rejoice in that.

I’m sad though; taking care of mommy was a part of my identity. Praying for her when I wake up in the mornings, texting her songs that I know she would like. Calling home because I know my stories make her laugh. Going home because I know having her kids there was her great joy.

I was so happy to take care of her during Christmas break. My dad and my brothers are the most fantastic human beings…but they are boys, and sometimes they just don’t get it. Me and mommy, we were the girls. The boys could be off doing x, y, and z…but the girls would look after each other.

So that’s the hole. That’s what’s missing for me. What do I do, what do I anticipate? 28 years is a long time to learn and  anticipate what one person needs. Taking care of mommy meant I was doing my job. So now what?

Big Musics

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At this point it’s a widely known fact that my mother started the youth choir at her church at the age of 12.  I have no idea what I was doing at twelve but it probably involved reading a book in a corner and not in fact creating a work of art out of other people’s voices.

The one thread I can say that my mother wove throughout our family, other than her faith, was music.  She couldn’t help herself.  Even my father, who married into it, had to embrace music more than he ever thought he could when it came to her. My dad has a very pleasant, solid tenor voice.  Yet the only time you would hear him sing is if Rose Tennie were directing a choir.  She brought music out of people, from places they didn’t even know they had.

At one point we just started calling her, “Big Musics.”  It was the best description we could come up with.  All that love wrapped up in notes, chords and rhythms.  That was mommy.

It’s funny though, all of us kids get our love for music from her, and yet she was always surprised by it.  When we would come home for Christmas, Easter or Summer vacation there’d be no time wasted before the Tennie kids would break into song in one way or another. “Oooh, I got some musical babies,” she’d exclaim.

This last Christmas vacation, we were in the living room messing with the piano and she said, “Y’all the ones that’re, ‘Big Musics,’ you passed me!”

It’s not true though, her music, her musicality, is still the thread that runs throughout. Our music is because of her.

Tonight I had to sit through my first choir practice knowing that she wasn’t at the other end of the phone if I wanted to text her about what we were singing.  We did that pretty often, ever since I moved away and got a job at a different church. I’d take a picture of the latest octavo our director passed out and say, “Look what he’s picked out this time. Remember this one? Oh, this one is my jam!” She’d respond enthusiastically, as I knew she would…because my love of music comes from her.

So tonight I sang the alto line to, “He Never Failed Me Yet,” a song I’ve been humming for as long as I can remember because it blared through the radio at least once a Sunday in my house growing up.  Instead of texting mom and saying, “You won’t believe what we’re singing,” I had to actually mean the words I was singing from the page. “Trust and never doubt, Jesus will surely bring you out, He never failed me yet.”

18-4=14

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It’s been 14 days since we first had to say, “Mommy’s gone.”

So much of that still doesn’t make sense even though I understand it logically. I have this counseling degree under which I’m supposed to know and understand that, “everyone grieves differently.”  It’s one of those things you say until you face something that really makes you believe it. I don’t know what my grieving process will be…but the journey has begun, because Mommy’s gone.

I have to say, I’m so thankful for my faith…something my parents made a point to instill in all of us kids.  When scripture says there’s a peace that passes all understanding, I know that to be true now.  I believe that God gave me that peace while squatting on a hospital floor leaning up against a wall, holding my best friend’s left hand and someone else’s in my right.

I got that peace between when the doctor came in to say, “She’s arrested again, it doesn’t look good,” and when he came back in and my dad looked up through tears,  and said, “She’s gone, isn’t she? She’s gone?”

I don’t know how much time there was between that exchange…I just remember trying to take deep breaths and prepare myself.  But the only way I knew how to prepare, was to talk to God. Nothing made sense. The fabric of our family was being ripped in two.

“Okay, Jesus.  Okay, Jesus.  Okay, Jesus.”

I don’t know how many times I said it, it was the only prayer I could pray. I had been praying all day.  I had been praying for God to comfort my family, to protect the hearts of my dad and brothers, praying for mommy to be okay.

But that prayer, that was the most basic prayer all day.  In it, He brought me peace that I still don’t understand. Mommy’s gone.   She’s gone from us, but she is present with her Lord, Jesus.  In that prayer I stopped holding on to my mommy here on earth, because only Jesus could take care of her better than we ever could. Only Jesus could comfort us more than mommy ever could.

“Okay, Jesus,” meant that the years of mommy telling me about God’s promise of her one day having a new body-with no more pain, were over because that day had come.  No more pain.

I didn’t realize it at first, but over the years, instead of mom repeating that God promises us new bodies, it was me that had to remind her…the pain was wearing her out.  No one knows a mother like her daughter.

So, although everyone grieves in different ways, in the midst of my grief and disbelief, I have peace.  Mommy’s gone, she’s in no more pain and I am so relieved. It was the one thing I could never fix for her. Thankfully, for 14 days, she’s been well taken care of.

Mommy

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Below is the script of the words I spoke at my mother’s memorial service on January 9th, 2016.

For some reason as a child I found a reason to be afraid of many things…

Mom’s response was that God hadn’t given us a spirit of fear, and that it was our job to fight against that fear. She taught me that the best way to fight spiritual warfare, is with scripture.

So, because her daughter was a scaredy cat, she would make index cards with bible verses on them. The idea was for me to be able to memorize them and pull them out when I needed them most.

So, because of that foundation whenever I’m afraid to this day I recite:

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” Psalm 53:6.

Or:

“The name of Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are safe.” Proverbs  18:10

I was going through some of mom’s stuff this week and found this stack of index cards. It’s exactly like what she used to make for me to memorize scripture, except I see here that she wrote down the names (and immediate family members) of each and every First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale staff member to pray for.

It reminded me that mom was always praying for people and exercising her faith in a major way.

As I am coming to terms with the loss of mommy, God gave me another verse that sums up mom’s life in my opinion.

It says this,

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the LORD upholds him with His hand.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭37:23-24‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Mommy exercised her faith and worked to be a righteous person.  I believe God gave me this verse because mommy was a good woman, righteous. Therefore her steps were ordered as she delighted in the Lord. She had her battle with pain, but she was never cast down. God upheld her through the very end.

Though I wish my mommy could be here with me, I believe God ordered her steps and I will rest in that. We don’t understand why after only 56 years, mommy would be called home, but even though it was short, she lived SUCH a full life…she was so faithful in everything and she gave so much…God said, ok, faithful servant, come on home…and there’s no other place she’d rather be.