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When the path to 'whole' takes an unexpected turn

February 3, 2015

I will confess to having high expectations and a buoyant hope when I began the year focusing on the word “whole.”

After all, it sounds so good, this idea that after years and years of feeling broken and worn down that maybe this would be the year some of those things could be mended and repaired, that the areas I’ve felt were lacking would somehow find completion.

We are one month into the year, and I am now discovering that this journey to becoming whole is going to be a lot harder than I thought. And sometimes it feels like this:

Why wasn’t she ready to fully release all the pent-up sorrow and pain? Because she feared if she fully acknowledged what she’d been holding inside for so long, it would overwhelm her, flood her, and she’d break. She wasn’t strong enough. She was getting by, but healing took work, courage, strength she didn’t have. — Sabotaged by Dani Pettrey, p. 166

But, I’m also discovering that just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, it might make it that much better than if it were easy.

Tom Butler | Creative Commons | via unsplash

I still have hopes for transformation this year. I’m taking positive steps toward wholeness, like counseling and medication and acknowledging my needs and grieving losses. But on the way forward, I’m finding that I have to look back. And sometimes in looking back, old hurts resurface, and wounds I thought were healed prove that they were only temporarily numbed.

As I’ve sought “whole” I’ve stumbled onto a lot of “broken.” And I’m seeing that this will be the first step in my healing–to break again. Not as a consequence of poor decisions but as an act of healing.

Sometimes on the road to healing, you must reopen an old wound. It will hurt again, maybe as much as or more than it did when it was first inflicted, but as you reconnect with and embrace the healing process, it will begin to hurt less. … That’s the only way it can heal. — Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner, p. 318

For the deepest wounds I’ve suffered, I realize I’ve merely done the barest amount of work to survive. I thought I had healed, but I only covered them up. Like a broken bone improperly set, I haven’t healed the right way and so I must break again so that I can restore full function to the broken parts.

It’s terrible. Sometimes.

It hurts. But it’s not pointless.

And though it’s early in the process I can already feel the difference in the healing.

I covered over my hurts, my heart, my feelings which kept the bad things from hurting but also held some of them in. And it kept the good things from penetrating the barrier.

Sometimes, when you’re broken, light shines through the cracks. And the pieces you thought were holding you together get rearranged to make something else.

I was so moved by this song and video when a friend blogged about this idea of being shattered. I might have to add it to my list of theme music for the year. I’m also now totally obsessed with this violinist.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49tpIMDy9BE]
My pain and sorrows have festered in the darkness, and it’s time to let the light in.

But light hurts sometimes, too. When you’ve been in darkness, light has a way of shocking your sense of sight. Blinding almost.

It’s the same with the kind of light that penetrates the darkness in your soul. One of the hardest things about my therapy sessions is when my counselor says life-affirming things to me. Things like “You are strong and brave” and “You are worth it.”

Those words sneak through the cracks and light up the darkness and even when I try to push them away, they settle in. And push the cracks open a little more.

I’m no gardener so I don’t know what kinds of things thrive in the darkness, but I know that my heart is not one of them.

Leon Ephraïm | Creative Commons | via unsplash

I need light.

And sometimes the light needs an opening.

And sometimes the opening has to come through a crack or a break.

Falling, breaking, failing–it all used to scare me because I thought it meant the end.

But I think that’s wrong.

More often than not, the breaking is just the beginning.

Are you pursuing a OneWord this year? How have you seen it working in your life?

For more information on the OneWord365 movement, visit oneword365.com.

War changes everything: Review of Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner

January 28, 2015

I hope last week’s interview with Susan Meissner piqued your interest in her new book, Secrets of a Charmed Life. Today, you’ll get to read more about it and what I thought about the book, as well as enter for a chance to win a copy! (I love free books, don’t you? I received my copy free in exchange for my review, but my opinion is my own.)

The one thing I love about every book of Meissner’s I’ve read is how she blends a contemporary story with a historical one. I love the connections between two stories from different eras that on the surface seem to be unrelated. She always weaves them together with such skill that I’m as awed by the storytelling as I am by the story.

In this book, her newest release, grad student Kendra arrives at a cottage in the English Cotswolds to interview 93-year-old Isabel McFarland about her experiences during the London Blitz of World War II. But the interview takes a turn when Isabel reveals two secrets she’s been keeping for decades. Thus begins the story of Emmy Downtree, a teenager in 1940s London with dreams of opening a bridal shop. She’s the daughter of an unmarried mother with a younger half-sister she looks after. Just when Emmy glimpses a chance for her dream to come true someday, London’s children are evacuated to the countryside. Emmy and her sister Julia find refuge at Thistle House, but Emmy can’t let go of her dream. She plans a return to London on the very night the Blitz begins setting off a series of events that will alter her future and change the lives of those she loves.

I couldn’t be exactly sure where the story was going or how it was going to turn out, which is one of Meissner’s storytelling strengths. She keeps the story moving in a way that’s hard to step away from. And this particular circumstance, children being separated from parents during a time of war, was one I didn’t know much about. It’s both heart-breaking and inspiring because it was true for thousands of families.

Are there secrets to living a charmed life? Emmy believes there are if she can only discover them. As Isabel tells the story, she presents Kendra with the same question. Though it’s not the interview she expects when she walks into the cottage, Kendra leaves with something far better.

You can’t go wrong with a Susan Meissner novel, and if you’re a fan of fiction set in World War II, this is a not-miss book.

And guess what? I get to give a FREE signed copy to one of you, (if you live in the U.S. or Canada) if you leave a comment on this post.

Tell me this in your comment:

What is one sacrifice you’ve had to make for your children or that your parents made for you?

(Could you send your kids away to the country for months, maybe years, if it meant they would live in safety? I don’t know!)

If that’s too deep then tell me your favorite World War II book, fiction or non-fiction, and why it’s your favorite.

I will choose one random winner on Tuesday, Feb. 3, the official release day of Secrets of a Charmed Life. Good luck to you!

And if you missed the interview with Susan from last week, click here to catch up!

What if what I want is right in front of me?

January 26, 2015

I’ve been thinking about grass lately. You know, the typically green kind that surrounds my house. Maybe that’s because it’s currently buried under a few inches of snow and even if it wasn’t it would be more brown than green.

Winter.

Kind of unavoidable unless I choose to live in some tropical location and that just wouldn’t work at all.

I can handle winter mostly because I know that spring is sure to follow.

Even if I can’t see the grass, I know it’s there. And even if the trees are brown and gray, I know it won’t be long until they pop with the kind of color that’s almost indescribable.

There’s peace in that.

Some of you might remember that I get a bit restless sometimes. Even if I’m happy about our present circumstances, I start to dream, imagine, wonder what life would be like somewhere else. In some other set of circumstances.

It’s the old “grass is always greener” syndrome and I am not immune to its charms.

Dave Robinson | Creative Commons | via unsplash—

—

Just this week, we had that awkward “where is home?” discussion again. We sometimes refer to Illinois as home and sometimes we call Pennsylvania home and it’s terribly confusing, even to us.

No matter where we are right now, if I see a home for sale I almost always look it up just out of curiosity. I guess I’m nosy or HGTV deprived. I made the “mistake” of asking my nosy questions out loud in my parents’ hearing which prompted all kinds of not-so-subtle hints about properties that were available practically next door.

Even I began to wonder: What are we still doing in Pennsylvania? Should we move back to Illinois?

My heart tugs toward this option any time I spend time with my family because it is harder than I ever thought it would be to live 800 miles from home, even as a grown-up with great friends and great community. My heart seems permanently torn between two places.

But God made it clear, as He always does, that now is not the time to go anywhere. The very day I was plotting our return to Illinois, I read the story of Abraham and Sarah in the Bible, the couple who leaves what is familiar to go to a place that is unknown all because God says. And while their story is not ours completely (no baby in old age, please and thank you), it is the one story that has been consistent in our journey toward whatever we’re journeying toward.

So, when people ask us if we’d move back to Illinois in a heartbeat if we had no ties here, our answer is complicated. It isn’t jobs or schools or church or even relationships that keep us here.

It is God. (So, if you need someone to blame, you can go straight to the top!)

Believe me, I’m not always okay with that.

But I also can’t deny it.

When I want to “go,” He says “stay.”

And I protest that maybe I’d like to see what that grass over there is like. It might be greener than the grass we have here.

And though I know that I need to tend my own proverbial grass if I want it to be greener, the lesson doesn’t always stick.

This week, though, a familiar verse from the Psalms settled anew in my soul.

Maybe you know it.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures.”

It’s the second verse of Psalm 23, and until this week, I just passed right over it.

I’ve heard the pastures described as not exactly lush or overwhelmingly green, but that’s not what stuck with me this time.

No, it’s the whole “lie down” thing.

Not pass through. Not run across. Not stand and admire and be on my way.

Lie. Down.

Another version says “he lets me rest in green meadows.”

I can’t remember the last time I lay in the grass looking up at the sky. Who has time for that kind of juvenile behavior? Plus, I’d probably get bugs and dirt in my hair. And the ground might be cold.

But seriously, this concept of resting, even lying down, in this grass right here, was kind of mind-blowing.

Dave Robinson | Creative Commons | via unsplash

Basically, I hear God saying: Look around you. There is a green pasture right here, and it’s all for you. Rest. Lie down, even. There’s no need to rush on to the next thing. I’ll let you know when it’s time to get up and move on.

There’s peace in that, too, even if it makes me worry because I’m not the one in control.

I can’t promise that I’ll never pine for greener grass over there somewhere, but I feel like this is a breakthrough. I’m going to rest in the green grass right here. Or try to.

What about you? How easy is it for you to rest in your circumstances?

What helps you remain content with God’s plan?

When my favorite author talks about her new book: Q&A with Susan Meissner

January 21, 2015

Forgive this moment of gushing, but Susan Meissner is among my top favorite authors for no other reason than she writes a story I can’t put down and blends contemporary and historical storylines in a way I admire (and envy and aspire to!).

So, it’s with great pleasure that I give you the scoop on her newest book, Secrets of a Charmed Life. We’ll take two weeks to talk about it. Up first, an interview with the author including some teasers from the book and background on the historical storyline. Scroll down to read all about an aspect of World War II that isn’t often talked about, at least not in the U.S. (and get a sneak peek at her next book!) Then, come back next Wednesday to read my review of the book and enter for a chance to win your very own copy! (You’ll want it, I know.) Between now and then, watch Facebook and Twitter for some hints at the themes in the book. (You should know that I received a free copy of the book from the author in exchange for my review and help promoting the book, and although I’m not obligated to give a favorable review, I can say without hesitation that you should buy/read this book!)

Okay. Got it? Author interview this week. Review and giveaway next week.

Without further ado … here’s Susan Meissner!

Susan Meissner is the multi-published author of seventeen books, including A Fall of Marigolds, and The Shape of Mercy. She is also a speaker and writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. She and her husband make their home in Southern California.

Susan, tell us where the idea for Secrets of a Charmed Life came from.

The story began first as an image in my head of an impoverished girl on the brink of adulthood sketching wedding dresses in the tiny bedroom she shares with a younger half-sister. I could see her in my mind’s eye imagining a life far different from the one she is living. She wants a fairy tale life where love and comfort and happiness are in abundance, and for her, that charmed life begins with a wedding dress worn on that blissful day a girl’s childhood dreams come true. I decided to set her in London at the start of the war because I knew that even for a young woman not yet sixteen, war is a crucible. It is a tester of dreams and desires and determination. I knew the London Blitz was an opposition that would bring out the very best and the very worst in this girl, as war so often does. The Cotswolds

What is the story about, in a nutshell?

Like many of my other novels, Secrets of a Charmed Life is historical fiction framed by a contemporary layer that links to a story in the past. An American college student named Kendra, who is studying abroad at Oxford, interviews Blitz survivor Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets she has kept all her life – beginning with who she really is. The story then takes the reader to England in 1940. An unprecedented war against London’s civilian population is about to take place and half a million children are evacuated to foster homes in the countryside. Fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, but Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. The sisters’ lives are forever changed when—acting at cross purposes—they secretly return to London on the first day of the Blitz.

What drew you to include in your story the evacuation of London’s children?

Prior to researching for this book, I was only minimally aware of what London’s parents did to keep their children safe during World War II. I’d long ago read C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and I knew the four children in those stories had been sent out of London into the countryside at the start of the war. But I didn’t know that for tens of thousands of children just like them that stay in the countryside lasted for the duration of the war. We’re talking five years. How difficult it must have been for the parents and their kids to be separated from each other – with just occasional visits – for half a decade, and during a time of fear, danger, and deprivation. From a storyteller’s standpoint, the emotional pull of this situation is intense. I knew I wanted to explore what this scenario might have been like for two young sisters. evacuees=poster

Is this a book about sisters, then?

It is that, but it is also a book about mothers and daughters, and other family bonds as they relate to children. The universe of children is rather small – home and family are pretty much their world. They don’t always see how their decisions are impacted by the decision of others, nor do they have much frame of reference for war, which is an especially cruel teacher to a child.

What is the significance of Emmy’s wedding dress sketches?

Those bridal gown designs represent Emmy’s naïve notions about the happily-ever-after life that she believes begins for a girl on the day she wears a dress emblematic of bliss and perfection. Emmy sees her unwed mother as someone on whom fate has frowned and that she is somewhat to blame for that. Emmy’s vision for her future is to rise above the constraints of her mother’s unlucky life. But those sketches blind her at first to the larger forces at work. And there are always larger forces at work. Little girl 1940 London2a

What were you most surprised by in your research for Secrets of a Charmed Life?

I think many of us who were born after World War II have a limited understanding of what England suffered because there were so many other more shocking situations, like the slaughter of millions of Jews, the occupations of nations like Poland and France, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the storming at the beach at Normandy, and the Bataan Death March, to name just a few. I didn’t realize the magnitude of what London suffered until I took a closer look. The city was never occupied by Hitler’s forces but it was bombed relentlessly. Seven of Christopher Wren’s beautiful churches were destroyed, as were thousands upon thousands of homes. More than sixty thousand civilians were killed in the whole of the British Isles. Those are staggering losses. And yet the British people were and are resilient. Their rallying cry of Keep Calm and Carry On (I truly can’t stand trivializations of this motto!) is truly the hallmark of that resiliency. You can go to London’s East End now and see street after street of 1950’s-era buildings, framed by a quiet horizon of much older buildings that the war did not flatten. London, Coventry and the other bombed cities rebuilt what was destroyed and moved on. The memories of the war aren’t in the streets but in the museums, and in national cemeteries, and sometimes, if you look closely enough, in the faces of those who survived it.

What would you especially like readers to take away from Secrets of a Charmed Life?

The title of this book, which I love, is meant to cause the reader to wonder if there really are secrets to living a life that has happily-ever-after written all over it. The title seems to suggest there are hidden truths to being able to have everything you’ve always wanted. But in actuality, and what I hope readers will take away, is that a happy life is not made up of what you have chased and achieved, but rather who you have poured your life into, who has poured their life into yours, and the difference you’ve made in the lives of others. Most of the dreams we pursue don’t have intrinsic worth, but people always do. It’s not a perfect world, and we can only play our own hand of cards – if you will – but if we play the hand as best we can with love for others as the motivation, I think we can rest content.

What are you working on right now?

My next book is set primarily in Hollywood’s golden age, specifically in 1939 when a treasure trove of timeless movies was released, including the most iconic movie of all time, Gone With The Wind. Two studio secretaries who become friends on the set of this movie forge a tale of love, desire, and survival that hints at the dynamic between the characters Scarlett and Melanie. The contemporary thread features a woman whose vintage clothing shop specializes in updated designs of classic Hollywood fashions. When her version of the infamous Gone With the Wind curtain dress is photographed for a local newspaper, a surprising delivery comes her way that ushers the reader back to old Hollywood and the two studio secretaries who, like Scarlett O’Hara, must decide what they are willing to do to get what they want most. The novel will release in February 2016 and is tentatively titled Stars Over Sunset Boulevard. I’ve always loved the movie Gone With the Wind; the sound track alone can stop me in my tracks. It has been a wonderful experience researching the details of how this film came to be made. Like most unprecedented endeavors, there was plenty of drama!

So, are you intrigued yet? Don’t forget to come back next week for a chance to win your copy!

And the winner is …

January 19, 2015

If you’re wondering who won the copy of The Day the Angels Fell by Shawn Smucker, the answer is:

Kristen H. (Yay, Kristen! I’ll be in touch!)

Her response about the book that stuck with her from childhood was:

For some reason, reading “Hatchet” in elementary school has always stuck with me. I also enjoyed “The Boxcar Children” series and “The Babysitters Club” series.

I totally agree about The Babysitters Club. I wanted to be in it!

Thanks to everyone who checked out the book and entered the giveaway. If you like book giveaways (who doesn’t?), check back again next week when I’ll have another book to give away!

Who wants a free book?

January 14, 2015

It is two weeks into January and I am cold. Yep, I’m a complaining about winter and I grew up in the Midwest.

My favorite way to forget about winter is to curl up with a good book and a blanket and a hot cup of coffee or tea. Two active kiddos and being our family’s taxi driver don’t give me as many days like that as I’d like, but I’m never at a loss for books to read when the mood and opportunity align.

In case you are one of those people who can’t find a good book to read, you’re in luck! I’m giving one away today.

It’s called The Day Angels Fell. It’s by Shawn Smucker who is one of my favorite bloggers. He has written numerous nonfiction books with fun titles like How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp, but this is his first fiction release.

And you don’t want to miss it.

Here’s my review:

The Day the Angels Fell is a captivating debut novel from a talented author and blogger who takes time to see the world in a way few others do.

Part bedtime story, part fictional memoir, part adventure story, I loved this tale of Sam and Abra and what happened after Sam’s mother died. I kept turning the pages because I had no idea what was going to happen next or how things were going to work out. As with Lord of the Rings, I couldn’t be sure Sam would make the right decisions (or the ones I thought he should make) until the very end. And I liked how we got two perspectives on Sam’s life–what happened when he was a boy, and him as an old man about to attend a funeral.

The best part, though? There’s a follow-up story in the works!

The Day the Angels Fell stars two children as its main characters but the themes are deep enough for adults and reading it reminded me of everything I loved about adventures and mysteries as a kid.

—

Sound like something you’d like to read? Or do you have a young reader in your house who plows through books faster than you can get to the library? Shawn wrote the book for his 10- and 11-year-old kids, so that’s one target age range, but don’t write this off as only a children’s book. Perfect for adults, too.

I have an extra copy and I want you to have it! Which “you”? Well, that remains to be seen!

Leave a comment here on the blog telling me a story that you read as a child that stuck with you. (For me, it was Nancy Drew mysteries. I couldn’t get enough!) I’ll pick a random winner on Monday, January 19. If you don’t already follow Shawn’s blog, why not? Click here. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter, also. No extra entries for connecting with him, just the benefit of reading his writing!

Don’t forget to share your childhood favorites, then check back here on Monday to see if you won! (U.S. entries only.)

When music takes me back in time (and I'm not sure I want to leave the past)

January 13, 2015

We’d been away from church for a couple of weeks, and I always forget how dry and empty I am when we go through a stretch like that where we’re traveling on Sundays or visiting family. I think it’ll be no big deal and when we’re finally back with our church family it hits me. Then, all of a sudden, I find myself sobbing in the middle of singing. Tears of gratitude to be back. Tears of sorrow at my own pitiful state. Tears of joy because I am safe and there is hope.

I’m learning to never leave home for church without some tissues tucked in my bag because I’m sure to need them if I don’t have them.

So, it was all of those things that had tears streaming down my cheeks at church on Sunday. But it was something else, as well.

It was the songs themselves. And the older I get the more I believe that songs are a portal to another time and place. If a book can sweep me into another time and place, one I’ve never lived, then songs have the same power to connect me with my former self.

Joshua Earle | Creative Commons | via unsplash

Our song time opened with one we sang at church camp, where my husband and I served as staff to high schoolers who were dealing with a lot of the same issues we struggled with as 20-somethings. That song was followed by one that broke me in college, just a year or two after I’d opened my life to Jesus’s leading.

And in an instant I was no longer in the middle of sanctuary in the middle of winter crying with my husband by side and children nearby. I was sweating in a simple chapel in the woods, surrounded by teenagers jumping, shouting, passionately declaring that God was the cry of their heart. I was flat on my face in the basement of a college chapel, undone by my sin and the love of a King who would sacrifice Himself so I could live. I was a girl again, a decade or more younger, with fresh hopes and dreams who couldn’t imagine knowing any other life than one that had Jesus in it.

Snapped back to my present state, I cried again, wondering where that girl had gone. She had no idea what was to come, and had she been given a clue, I think she would have ignored it as impossible. I cried because there are days I want to be that girl again. To believe the best. To still have hope and dreams. To be passionately pursuing the God who changed everything.

And there are days I would never want to be her again because she was so naive and unaware of the world around her. Of the hard realities of life. She knew little about what it means to persevere, to forgive, to endure. Hers was a simple faith that didn’t always ask questions. She was motivated by good behavior and what others thought and her grown-up counterpart wouldn’t trade the faith she has now, as hard as it is, for what she had before.

The girl who sang those songs years ago and the woman who sings them now, they’re one. I cannot be who I am today without that girl from long ago. Even if I sometimes pity her. Even if I sometimes wish it could all be different.

But I can’t go back. I can only go forward. And words like this spur me on:

There is a kind of bravery born from understanding that what lies in front of you is merely the end result of every choice you’ve ever made, and there is nothing left but to follow that path to its end. (Billy Coffey, In the Heart of the Dark Wood, p. 348)

And,

I was learning the secrets of life: that you could become the woman you’d dared to dream of being, but to do so you were going to have to fall in love with your own crazy, ruined self. (Anne Lamott, Small Victories, p. 101)

This is where I find myself when the tears pool and my present self fades. When I remember who I was and compare her to who I am. I am needing to leave the old behind, to follow this path to its end, even if it’s not the path I would have chosen, and accept the pieces of myself that I want to hide and dismiss, those places where I see only wrong and not enough and different.

I want to love my “crazy, ruined self.” The me I was and the me I am now.

This is what I want from the year ahead. This is what I mean when I say I want to be “whole.”

What was the last song that took you back to another time and place?

When what I need is less not more

January 12, 2015

“Mommy, what did you get for Christmas?”

We were unpacking our suitcases and the boxes full of presents we’d carried with us to and from a visit to family in the Midwest over the Christmas and New Year holiday. My 5-year-old son had a long list of answers to this question for himself, as did his sister. I answered him honestly.

“That pretty necklace from Daddy. Time with family. A little bit of money. A coffee mug.” I listed a few things of importance, not wanting to dwell on what I did or didn’t get at Christmas. Sometimes, it’s hard, even as an adult, to remember that the holiday isn’t about gifts and getting.

“And what else?”

I think I told him that I didn’t need anything else, that all of those things were enough. I hope that somewhere in his preschool mind he sees that it’s okay to not get at Christmas.

—

Our Christmas plans were different this year. We took an airplane to visit family. We spent time in Colorado with family. The kids and I stayed extra time while my husband returned to our home to work.

And one thing people asked us was: “So, did you take all the presents with you?”

Today, I’m blogging over at Putting on the New. You can read the rest of this post here.

Like listening to a ghost story around a campfire: Review of In the Heart of the Dark Wood by Billy Coffey

January 7, 2015

Billy Coffey is fast becoming one of my favorite authors, and if your fiction reading tends toward gritty and deep, then he will be one of yours also.
In the Heart of the Dark Wood is the second of Coffey’s books I’ve read, and they are equal parts disturbing and inspiring. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the Booklook Blogging Program in exchange for my review.) You will not find sugar-coated scenarios and shallow characters from Coffey. And at times, he will make you squirm. Case in point: in this book, Allie, the 11-year-old main character, starts her period early on in the story, and Coffey is detailed (though not graphic) about this motherless girl’s transition to womanhood.

So, the story. Allie’s mom was taken in a tornado that happened in Mattingly, Virginia about 18 months before this story takes place. She is not convinced her mama is dead, just gone, and when the Mary disappears from her front lawn Nativity, Allie and her best friend, Zach, set off into the woods on a search that leads them where they never thought they’d go.

In the Heart of the Dark Wood is a story of growing up, of pressing into the hard times to find that the light still shines. It’s about hope and moving on and overcoming. It’s the kind of story that sticks with you long after you’re done reading it.

Coffey’s writing style is that of a campfire storyteller on whose every word you hang. You’ll look over your shoulder to the dark to see if the monsters are sneaking up on you. You’ll shiver a bit. You’ll let your guard down when the story takes a turn for the better. And you’ll study the storyteller trying to decide if this is, in fact, true or not. Coffey absorbs his readers into the lives and hearts of the residents of Mattingly. And I, for one, don’t want to leave.

The blessing and burden of family

January 5, 2015

Four generations, age 5 to 89, set out on a wild west adventure the day after Christmas in a beast of a rental RV through snow and cold, across 900 miles (one way).

Why?

One word: family.

We spent twice as much time, maybe more, on the road than we did in Denver, which probably makes us crazy, but love is a strong motivator.

It’s been a month since my uncle died, since my grandparents lost a son, my mom a brother, my cousin his dad, and while I don’t know what purpose our trip accomplished, I know it wasn’t a mistake, even with the bumps along the way.

Bumps like snowstorms that delayed travel on multiple fronts and days. And a kid who spent two nights puking in my cousin’s house for unexplainable reasons. And bumps like navigating the emotional states of 12 people in various stages of grief and weariness, including two children who can’t be expected to sit for terribly long periods of time.

On paper, this trip was a disaster in the making. Or a grand adventure full of memories. In truth, it was both and neither.

Some of my favorite things about the trip are not extraordinary, awe-inspiring moments (though I do enjoy the Rocky Mountains). They are ordinary moments of time that I wouldn’t know I was missing had they not happened.

Moments like when two strangers at two different restaurants shook my grandfather’s hand because of the “World War II veteran” hat he wore. A simple gesture that reminds me why this 89-year-old man is important beyond our family.

And how my cousin and my son bonded over Transformers. And my aunt and daughter discovered their shared love of dolls and doll clothing.

How I was transported to the past watching my daughter play a card game with my grandma. It was my childhood playing out in front of me.

How normal and grown-up it felt to go out with my brother and cousin and two of our three spouses. The three of us used to spend summers together in my hometown, cooking up adventure and a bit of trouble. Those meetings have been fewer and farther between as we’ve grown up and put more physical distance between us. Weddings have brought us together in the past few years but it was fun to spend normal time together, learning about each other again and just being in the same place.

On Sunday, we sat around in my uncle’s house eating pizza and cake and watching the Broncos. I wondered if this was a normal thing, to occupy the living space of a dead man, and to be celebrating, no less. (Three birthdays and a Broncos win.)

My uncle, he didn’t want a fuss over his death, didn’t want anyone to make an extreme effort to mourn him (well, we showed him!), but he cared about family in a way I didn’t fully appreciate.

He always sent cards for Thanksgiving and Christmas. He liked every status update and post I put on Facebook. He called on birthdays and holidays. Even as his days dwindled and the disease took him closer to death, he e-mailed to update us.

And when we would visit Colorado in years past, he loved to show us around, to point us to places we’d love, to host us in his home. I don’t have a lot of these memories. I’ll need to ask more questions to recover the details.

So I think we did right. I think my uncle would approve of us sitting together, eating his favorite pizza, celebrating birthdays in his house.

I don’t know much, if anything, about closing out a person’s life or the hole that never quite fills when they’re gone. I don’t know if our presence was helpful or stressful, a blessing or a burden. Maybe it was both. I know that family life is messy whether traveling or not and that sometimes extreme circumstances bring out the best and worst in people.

But at the end of the day, we’re still family.

Bound by blood.

And love.

In good times and bad.