Birthday Blessings.

by Leave a Comment

This Thursday my mom will turn the big 5-0. Birthdays are always special, but this one feels especially victorious. She’s made it through a hard year struggling with treatment after treatment, surgery after surgery to combat her metastatic breast cancer.
And so we thought, what better reason to celebrate this milestone than with a surprise birthday party full of friends, family, flowers and good food?
flowers 2 cakes 1
My aunts [my dad’s sister and his brothers’ wives, and my mother’s sister], cousins and I emailed, called, schemed, and prayed for months to plan the party. And then we baked, and cooked, and whipped, and frosted, and decorated, and talked, and laughed.
bakers
It took a lot of prayer, a lot of planning, a lot of lying through my teeth and maybe more frosting than one body should really consume in one weekend, but we pulled it off. She was surprised!
No one spilled the beans, even though most of the party guests saw her in church yesterday morning. In faith, we refrained from canceling it even though she spent a few days in the hospital last week.
And in faith, we celebrated, thanking God for a beautiful day full of energy and joy and time together.
family 4
the suckrows
friends
hugs
Tina by cakes
It was everything we could have hoped for. I’m a happy, relieved, thankful kind of exhausted.
Maybe you and your family have reason to worry, to wonder what the next few months and years will be like, to think that maybe now is not the time to celebrate. I know how that feels.
But this weekend, all my fear and concern and doubt was replaced by something much more important :
Faith.
Faith to believe that even though it seems like a time to fear the future, tomorrow will be a good day. Faith to believe that life is worth celebrating, even when it’s hard. Faith to believe that He knows our hopes and plans, and He’s working on our behalf.
So, don’t hesitate to celebrate. Do it now. Do it while you can, even if you can’t be sure what today, tomorrow, or next week will hold. Do it together, because family is our best resource for support and strength.
Pray hard. Make memories. Eat everything. And whatever happens, choose to celebrate.

The Rain.

by Leave a Comment

rainy drive
Driving home from Michigan yesterday I finally found an exit that took me to the lake shore. I’ve tried before and gotten lost in loops of highway exits and side roads as my GPS chirps in the background,“recalculating, recalculating…” This time I muted the thing, took an exit I haven’t taken before and discovered the road I remembered from our honeymoon to St. Joseph, Michigan. In my memory the water gleamed blue with sunshine as husband and I said good-bye to the only vacation we’ve taken since we married nearly two years ago.
I stopped and got out of the car, grateful to stretch my legs and let the breeze air out my shirt, drenched in sweat from a drive with no air-conditioning in 85 degree weather, and to reflect on my trip home and the road ahead of me – what I was returning to and what I was leaving behind.
The aquamarine waves lapped quietly, disappearing into a hazy sky. With the sun shining and calm winds, it was hard to fathom the ominous storm forecasted to strike the midwest. Supposedly I was headed straight into the thick of it, but from where I sat things looked peaceful and incapable of being disturbed. I wanted to sit there forever, the sun and I defiantly waiting for a sign from the darkening sky to prove the weatherman right or wrong. I know that meteorology is a science, but for how often they are wrong I wanted to believe that the storms wouldn’t come.
I sweltered the whole way home, watching the sky grow darker and gray, fraught with clouds. In the distance I could see the slant sheet of rain spill over the southwest.
At long last I pulled into the lot of my apartment, and the sky, heavy with thunder, broke open in a downpour.
I stepped from the car, lifted my hands open-palmed to the sky.
For once it felt good to let the cold drops wash over me, engulf me in its soaking breeze, let the rumble of thunder ripple from my spine to my toes.
What else am I to do but welcome it now?

[Photo.]

Be Bold and Mighty Forces Will Come to Your Aid

by Leave a Comment

How was your weekend, dear readers? My weekend was a flurry of travel and visits with family in my small Michigan hometown. I’m thankful that I live in Chicagoland where I can work and visit the wide-open arms of its sweeping skyline whenever I want, and that my rural roots are just across the lake. In 4.5 hours [I’m not speeding, I promise, Dad!] I’m able to make the trek home to say hello and spend time with my parents and two younger brothers.
250 miles seems so short when I compare it to being halfway across the world or when I think about how far-flung some of my other family has become. Yet, I sometimes wonder at how far one can get in less than a day’s time. We left on a sunny Friday morning, and before I knew it, it was Sunday afternoon and my grandmother and I were driving the curve back around Lake Michigan to Chicago where I found myself sitting at a friend’s bonfire eating brats and burgers as the sun slipped behind the trees. As with many Sunday nights after a weekend visit, How did I get here? was the singular thought floating around in my head as I crawl into bed.
I’ll be headed back this weekend just to spend time with my mom for Mother’s Day. As you go about your week, I encourage you to take a moment to give thanks for your mom, or any woman in your life that has nurtured you and encouraged your dreams. If she’s here with you, healthy or fighting for her life, be sure to give thanks for the time you have together. If she’s gone, my prayers are with you as you reflect on her legacy and wish that you could tell her thank you one more time. Write her a love letter, because you and I both know that the task of raising you, helping you grow, wasn’t always a picnic, but she put her brave face on and taught you how to live life in this world anyway…

On Finding Things.

by Leave a Comment

The impossible has happened. My brother called me today: O’Hare Airport Security found his stack of vinyls that we thought were lost forever, safe and sound, right where he left them on a lobby table at the Hilton. What are the odds?
I can’t deny it. After my downer of a post yesterday, it would be wrong of me not to write in response to my own pessimism with the truth that sometimes miracles, even small ones, do happen.
Remember that list of things lost in yesterday’s post?
The grapes, the postcards, the pants, the cell phone, the camera, the laptop charger? What I didn’t tell you is that I actually did get some of those things back.
The camera I left in a cafe in Vienna was waiting for me when I dashed across the city to grab it before I missed my train home.
The pair of pants were neatly folded along with some clean sheets in the laundry room of the hostel in Florence where I left them.
The time when I got lost on a crowded street in Amsterdam it just so happened that I was in possession of our group’s cell phone, and I was able to call the one other person in our group who also had a cell phone. She found me within minutes and I was soon safe in the arms of my companions.
Why was this an unimportant piece of the story yesterday?
Sometimes, having faith makes it hard to reconcile my fear and doubt and disappointment. If we can convince ourselves that miracles don’t happen, then the pain of losing out on the things we want most might somehow be easier to deal with.
So then, what do I do with the found things in my life? The miracle moments when all of my pessimism and cynicism are met with the impossible? Against all odds, I’m standing in the moment I feared would never come, holding in my hands the thing I never thought I’d see again. And how do I reconcile that with the moments when I don’t get what I’m hoping for?
It should be obvious by now that I’m not just talking about finding records and cameras and pants. It’s not even about losing and finding myself on a street corner in Amsterdam.
Maybe what I need is not the thing I want itself. Maybe I just need to find the faith to accept life as it is, lost or found.

On Losing Things.

by Leave a Comment

I woke out of a sound sleep this morning to the ring of my cell phone. Disoriented, I answered to hear my brother’s frantic voice. After spending 5 days in Boston for the Harvard Model Congress, he was boarding his early morning flight home when it hit him: he’d left his bag of newly-purchased vinyls somewhere in Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
“I don’t know what to do! I retraced my steps, I ran all the way back to the concierge desk in the Hilton and asked around to see if they’d found anything, I talked with airport security. They can’t help me find them and I can’t remember where I left them,” he said, his voice frustrated and strained.
I listened and tried to comfort him, but we both knew that his souvenirs were lost forever. Sadly, a $75 stack of vinyls won’t wait around for the one who leaves them behind. If he’s anything like me, he’ll probably lose more than that.
I remember the feeling well. When I traveled abroad in the fall of 2008, it seemed like I left pieces of myself all over Europe. In the midst of doing something as simple as fumbling for my passport, I’d forget the item I set down next to me.
It started with a bag of fresh-market grapes I left in a train station in Slovenia, and then it was a stack of postcards (written and stamped), a pair of jeans, my cell phone, my camera, my laptop charger, and sometimes, I think, my heart. Minutes, hours and many miles later I would realize that I was empty-handed and there was nothing I could do about it.
Mementos, possessions, they’re replaceable, maybe even forgettable. Nevertheless, the moment you realize you’ve left them behind, a deep ache, an inconsolable sense of failure sets in.
Sometimes, life feels that way. Memories, bittersweet and vivid as they are, won’t replace the tangible feeling of a weathered album between your fingers or the weight of a friend in your arms.
You’re on a train, a plane, in the car, and every second is taking you further and further away from reaching back in time to that moment when you held everything in your hands.