Before I Forget // October

Maybe your absence won’t be remembered, but your presence will be felt.

“I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.” - Leif Enger, Peace Like A River

Yesterday I turned 34.

The day before that I went to calling hours for a kid who was 13 the last time I saw him, but had, much to my dismay, grown up while I was busy getting married and having babies. Nine years ago my neighbors were looking for a math tutor and I was looking for some extra cash, so I said “Yeah, I can tutor your son in a subject I changed majors to avoid.” Every Tuesday afternoon, Ben and I sat at his kitchen counter and I tried to help him with pre-algebra.

When I saw his parents at the funeral home, they introduced me to some family as Ben’s old math tutor. “We could never get him to do his homework.” They said. Then his step-mom looked at me. “But he would do it with you. He never fought us when he knew you were coming.”

Would you believe me if I told you that my outfit (or rather the fear of saying something stupid disguised as a preoccupation with my outfit) almost kept me from going to the calling hours?

I was on my way home from my book club’s annual retreat, and the only non-athleisure clothing I’d brought for the weekend was my favorite dress, a flowy green and white tiered number with black hand painted suns smiling softly. Smiling. Suns. How funeral appropriate. It turns out grief doesn’t care about your outfit. Grief just wants company, the blessing of a long hug and shared tears.

I’d spent the weekend sitting around the table, the fire place, the kitchen counter with four good friends. We compared breast pump models and nursing bras. We took turns holding babies and telling stories. We laughed and cried and solved all the world’s problems over charcuterie and queso. One of my favorite moments was sitting around the table on the back porch on Friday night. I’d made Carbonara and set the table and we sat in the fading light, talking and laughing between forkfuls of cheesy pasta. At some point the conversation turned to the dreams we’d had as children of who we’d be when we grew up. A teacher, a mom, an author, the list went on.

How often I underestimate the power of just showing up, sitting next to a middle schooler doing his pre-algebra homework, closing my computer and grabbing the paint brushes when Lucy asks me to paint with her, setting down my book when Jeff starts talking about his day, listening closely to a friend who’s not sure they’ll ever fully heal from this most recent hurt.

We don’t think much at all about who didn’t come to the funeral, who opted out of the trip, who didn’t call on our birthday. But we remember who did.

Reading

Peace Like A River by Leif Enger - Well. This was maybe the perfect book and if I wasn’t listening to the audio on my phone I would have been tempted to throw it across the room. We follow the Land family in the lead up to and aftermath of a series of choices and events that change the course of all their lives forever. Funny, devastating, brimming with deep truth about the God who loves us in tangible ways, this will be near the top of my favorites of the year.

The One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood - My friend

Valerie S

recommended this book in her recent newsletter and when I saw it was available from the library, I reserved a copy immediately. A tragic loss unites an unlikely cast of characters and brings them each back to life in unexpected ways.

Soundtracks by Jon Acuff - Jon Acuff’s writing id funny and easy to read. This is a book about mindset. How to notice our thoughts, how to call them into question, and rewrite them when they’re working against us instead of for us. Definitely worth a listen if you feel like your mind is sabotaging you.

The Mystics Would Like A Word by Shannon K. Evans -

Shannon K. Evans

latest release is equal parts comfort and rallying cry. Shannon presents us with six female mystics whose lives offer us a spiritual ecosystem for the lives we actually have, free of cliches and shame, filled with hope and freedom. Together, these seven women will hold your hand as you clean out the closet of your religious experience and fill in the empty spaces with color and life.

Eating

I dirtied just about every dish in the kitchen to make Pasta Carbonara on our book club retreat, and it was absolutely worth it.

If you haven’t made a sheet tray charcuterie board, this is your sign. It’s the first thing I did when I got to our cabin last weekend and it kept us fed all weekend long. All I do is cover a sheet pan in tin foil then load it up with meats (Prosciutto, salami, capacola), cheeses (Boursin, brie, TJ’s Unexpected Cheddar and Toscano soaked in Syrah), veggies, fruit, nuts, spreads, and crackers. I replenished as needed throughout the weekend, pulling it out when we were hungry and putting it back in the fridge to stay fresh between snacking sessions. At the end of the weekend all I had to do was wrap up the foil, toss it in the trash and put the still clean pan away.

Loving

For our anniversary, Jeff gave me this bathrobe and it checks all the boxes. Absorbent AND soft WITH pockets!!

Jeff once said to me “Sometimes I wish you liked football more” to which I said “Then who would be with our kids while you went to the games?” And that, my friend, was the end of that conversation. ANYWAY, we’re going to watch the Bengals play the Browns in Cleveland this weekend, all four of us, and I refuse to pay for overpriced spirit wear so instead I bought an overpriced t-shirt covered in tigers that I’ll wear to the game and all fall long. Girl math.

The nice thing about working out in my basement (besides the fact that I can do it barefoot in nothing but an old nursing sports bra and shorts) is that I can start weeping mid warm-up while listening to NF’s song, Hope and it’s no one’s business but mine.

Contemplating

“There is no such thing as falling behind; there is no such thing as getting ahead; there is even no such thing as losing our way, for it is the Way who carries us.” -

Shannon K. Evans

, The Mystics Would Like A Word

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