WRITE!

How to get started?…

“WRITE! Brittany, you need to write, write, write. Keep writing. Whether you share it publicly or not, keep writing.” This is essentially what my counselor has been telling me for the last few years. I’ve tried. I have a couple half-started, half-finished posts in my files. But each time I tried to sit down and write I drew a blank. I especially had a hard time writing about my sister, I just couldn’t. What could I say? What hasn’t been said by others? What still needs to be said? What am I feeling? All of these are questions I couldn’t bring myself to contemplate. I had no answers. It’s like the trauma of what was happening with my sister and how it affected me caused my memories and thoughts to scatter like a box of spilled puzzle pieces. All the parts were there, but I couldn’t piece them together. They were so jumbled up and maybe even one or two had slid into some sort of hiding place (like under a sofa). I just couldn’t make the picture come into clarity. 

Emotional pain, fear of judgement, and deep loss kept me from being able to really dive into the subject matter that hasn’t been discussed in this blog yet. Some of you reading this post already know the events of the past 3 years, but others of you are just getting to know me and don’t really have any idea of what transpired for me and my family.

History…

I suppose I’ll start by saying, I have a sister. Her name is Lynette. I love her deeply and she treated me like I was her baby. She was seven years older than me. She loves to share the story with me that she wanted a baby sister so badly and then I finally came along. She was overjoyed and from then on our sisterly bond formed. My big sister, my second mother, my first teacher, my baking buddy, my reading buddy, my music buddy, my encourager, my defender, my cheerleader… what a list! It’s not an exhaustive one either.

Lynette played a big role in my faith journey too. When I was four years old, after our parents had put us to bed in our shared room, we started talking. From the bottom bunk, I told my big sister up on the top bunk that I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart. I don’t remember what we had been talking about before that part in the memory, but I bet she was asking me about Jesus, or at the very least, answering my questions. Immediately, she knew we should get a parent. Dad came in and as he held my hand, I prayed for Jesus to enter into my heart and lead my life. I can still sense the tears falling at four years old from saying, ‘Yes’ to Jesus. My sister was witness to all of it.

Throughout my life, she shared her ‘cool big sister’ Christian music with me and helped me to know what books were especially good to read and which weren’t. When I was in college, she and her husband paid my way to a major missions conference called, Urbana. And even later in life, when I was pregnant, she shared her philosophy of how beautiful it is that God allows us to be part of his creative process by carrying our babies in our bodies. Sure, our bodies change and reshape, they hurt and ache, but the joy and conviction Lynette shared with me about sacrificially giving our bodies to the Lord for the process of creating new life, gave me a new perspective. I was doing something holy!

Lynette saw things in ways that were so different from me. Yes, we had a lot of similar core beliefs, but the way they fleshed themselves out or the nuances of them were always interesting to discuss. As we both entered the same adult stage of life, we sharpened each other. She challenged me in my thoughts and actions. She encouraged me with her one-liners that were ingrained in her, but felt fresh and vibrant when I heard them. It was just a natural way of how she lived out her convictions, and spoke them out, that taught me so many things. I learned so much by watching her simply live her life. She was a no frills, direct speaking, conviction living gal. She was opposite from me in so many ways, yet we fit. Sister and sister… yellow and pink, vegetables and fruit, country and suburban… we fit. Like the jigsaw puzzles we loved doing together so much, our pieces matched and fit together. 

When Time Stands Still…

Then the unthinkable happened. As she was busy raising her ten kids, keeping herself in excellent nutrition, and living her dream on 10+ acres, she collapsed. I wasn’t there. I was over 700 miles away! She had just moved only a little over a year before. I was so far away and my sister was having a medical emergency. I couldn’t rush to the hospital to see her. I couldn’t ‘take over’ at home until she got back. I couldn’t hug my nieces and nephews and my sister. I was stuck at home. I knew they could manage without me, but I still felt helpless. Even if they didn’t need my help, I still wished I could be there. All I could do was wait. I talked on the phone with my Mom. I shrugged off the possibility of anything really bad happening and just assumed that whatever caused her to collapse would be easily solved by the doctors. I mean, the medical community really has come up with so many ways to solve health issues. I kept myself from thinking the worst and thrust myself into my work and tried my best to ignore the ‘what-ifs’. 

After some time, Lynette went home from the hospital and eventually they got her results. It was a tumor. “Okay, she’s got this. The medical community has got this. I’ve known people who had brain tumors and I never heard of anyone who hadn’t had it resolved.” I prayed for her healing and I expected the best outcome. Why shouldn’t I? What I didn’t know was what kind of tumor she had and what the life expectancy was. I didn’t grasp the gravity of her situation. As much as I hoped for the best, I still felt the deep worry and concern. Our church at that time was having a Worship Night and I knew I just had to go to it. We went as a family, but I needed a bit of space. I felt the tears coming and I just wouldn’t be able to really interact with the Lord deeply if I was worried about my kids seeing my tears or interrupting me while I was processing with the Lord. So, I stepped away from our row and walked over the other side of the auditorium. The tears came. They dripped down my face. I turned my face heavenward and let the presence of the glory of God fall on me. I needed him. I needed his strength because I was scared. 

We continued to worship. The room was dark, but there were some spotlights being used from time to time. As I looked to the right, across the room, it felt like time suddenly stood still. I saw a woman in the crowd with brown hair, seated while everyone else was standing. Her arm was lifted up as was her head and the spotlight shown on her just at that moment. She was highlighted to me and I felt an impression from the Lord. “This is your sister. She’ll be worshipping me in Heaven, surrounded by many others worshiping along with the angels.” I quickly shook that thought off because it felt imminent. It felt like the Lord was showing me that Lynette would not find her healing here on earth. I couldn’t accept that. I had to keep believing that this tumor would not be the end of her. 

Facing Reality Up Close…

The time had come. She was going to have surgery to remove as much of the tumor as they could. I wrestled with whether or not I should go see her before or after the surgery. It was likely she’d live through the surgery, but I had no idea what state she’d be in at that time. I spoke with a pastor and friend who had had a family member go through a similar surgery and she was able to give me some great perspective about the situation I was facing. My husband wanted me to go and was ready to do whatever was needed at home to make that possible. But I didn’t want to go. The truth is, I was so afraid. I was afraid to fly alone for the first time. I was afraid of the emotional toll it’d take on me to see my sister as she was. I was already in a fragile state because of some previous losses I had suffered and I hadn’t bounced back yet. I was afraid to see my sister in her immobile state, still suffering from regular seizures in her hand and arm. I didn’t want to face reality up close. I just felt so much fear and panic.

But, I had to. I had to go. I had to see her before her surgery. I didn’t know what things would be like after, but I knew what things were like at that point. For a person who was suffering with underlying anxiety, I was doing something incredibly hard. It took all my strength to agree to make the trip plans out to see her and on my own to boot! I can’t put into words the trouble I was having with taking these steps to do something that seems like it’d be so simple and straightforward. Who wouldn’t want to jump on a plane and visit their sister before a major surgery? Who wouldn’t be able to do that? Why would that be hard for anyone? What would keep someone from doing something that others do every day? That person was me and I was bound up in fears, anxieties and so much grief. 

I had to face the truth that I wasn’t fully recovered from the major transitions of life. (Yet another topic I haven’t been able to give much writing towards because of the knotted mess that it all became inside. There had just been so. much change and so fast) I still had to do more hard things in the midst of such inner turmoil. I had to face my fear of being unable to cope with the present reality. I had to face my anxiety that I would melt into panic as I took steps towards that awful truth that my sister was … different. I had to face the grief that what she and I had was gone… at least for the present. I didn’t know if it’d ever come back. I didn’t know if she and I would ever have the chance to have a carefree conversation again. This tumor, this cancer, had come in and obliterated the road we were on. From now on, we’d be taking one jagged step at a time. We’d be jumping over potholes, and getting our footing on the slippery grounds of medical feedback. We’d be racing ahead only to abruptly put on the brakes. Our inching forward would one day turn into a standstill. Gradually that standstill would steadily begin to move backwards. Backwards in progress, backwards in hope, backwards towards the end. 

(To be continued in a future blog post)…

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