Stuck Between

It's December.

• 26 months ago my mom moved from my (and her) childhood home in Hawaii to a retirement and assisted living complex down the street from me in Virginia. 
• 3 years ago my husband and I had our youngest child.  
• 3.5 years ago my mom was diagnosed with dementia.  
• 6 years ago our first baby was born.
• 7 years ago it became clear something was going on with my mom's cognition.  
• 8 years ago we moved to Virginia
• 33 years ago I was born to a bad ass mom who raised me as a single parent and gave me an amazing life. 

I'm often referred to as sandwiched.  I'm in between caring for my sick parent and raising my little kids.  My sandwich is a little more of a panini... I am smashed in.  I have a 6 year old, an *almost* 4 year old, I am a full time lay minister at a large church, and I have a mom with dementia.  Most people in the sandwich generation have teenagers and elderly parents.  I have neither.  You could call me advanced.

This is not what I imagined 33 looking like.  

Some of you are reading this because you love my mama.  She was the best friend you could ask for.  Loyal as the day is long, funny as shit, and an amazing baker.  

Some of you are reading this because you love me and take really good care of me.  I have inherited my mom's gift of surrounding myself with amazing people.  I did not inherit her wit but I can bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

Some of you are reading this because no one tells you how the hell you are supposed to do this!  Spoiler alert:  I have no damn clue but come on down for some solidarity and swears.

Some of you are reading this because my mom was the best story teller there is and you think I'm the crazy daughter who has locked her mom up behind bars and told her she's sick when there is nothing wrong with her.  I appreciate how much you love my mom and that you think I'm so clever... sadly, I'm not, she really is sick, and her assisted living community is nicer than any hotel I've ever stayed in.  Thanks for fiercely believing my mom.  You are welcome to come on down anytime to have coffee with her in her normal spot each morning in the coffee shop, go on an afternoon stroll with her around the swanky subdivision, and pet her dog.  Having a friend as young as my mom (currently 67) with dementia is earth-shattering and hard.  I would want me to be the bad guy, too, and for my friend to be healthy.  I wish that was the truth.

The past few months have been extra rough.  Mom has had a big drop in cognition that we were hoping was due to an infection or some other medically fixable reason.  She has the great care and patient and attentive doctors who went down every road with me but it seems that this is just one more step in this shitty disease.

The great news is: mom is happy.  She laughs and jokes and the fact that her short term memory is completely gone means that even after one of those heart wrenching moments of confusion, she is able to move on and enjoy her day.

Writing has always been my safe space, my therapy, my release.  I am at the point in this disease where I need a lot of that.  I have lost my mom while she is still right in-front of me.  I want to keep everyone up to date but there are so many of you and the act of sharing the details of her decline make me ill.  Just typing this now makes stomach acid creep into my throat but I know I need to do it.  I know many of you need to hear it.

Caretaking is not only a lonely place but a vulnerable one.  I have a wildly supportive husband and friends.  My goal is to give my mom the most dignity possible and the fullest life attainable with this disease which means I live in an alternate world.  HER world, a constantly shifting and fluid place.  There are stories of times that never existed but in her mind are more real than any past we shared.  The past is mine to hold now, mine to remember.  Those stories are not for my mom anymore... her world is her truth and we do everything we can not to shatter it.  Shattering her reality destroys her.  Some days I have a gaggle of brothers, other days I have children much older than my own, and some days I am just a nice woman that takes my mom to Target.

This sandwiched life, it's damn painful and hard but it's also teaching me more about grace and living than I thought imaginable.

I am gaining some major ninja skills.  Last week I stealth removed my mom's entire wardrobe that didn't fit (can you imagine gaining weight -- not remembering -- and putting on clothes that used to fit and are now too small EVERY DAY ... it's basically my hell) and replaced it with a completely new wardrobe mimicking her old that I scoured the Internet looking for.

I am gaining the amazing skill of letting shit go.  Don't think I'm a good daughter but don't know me... let that shit go.  Expectations of my adult life with my mom (wine on the porch, phone calls about parenting, week long vacations with my husband while my mom took care of my kids)... I'm letting that shit go.

All I have is now.  A mom that loves me deeply even if she can't always show it.  Kids that love my mom better than the rest of us can hope to.  And the promise that even though today is the best day we have left I get the privilege of being my mom's person.

So here I am, sandwiched in.  Welcome to my life.  

McKellar's Eulogy: One of Our Own.

This is the last thing I ever thought I would be doing… but here we are.  

I have been McKellar’s youth minister for the past 4 years.  I am a better minister, mom, and human because of what we have shared.  McKellar is the kind of person you meet and are changed by… that is evident by you all… here… missing him.  But before I even touch on the man he was and the ways he made this world better I have to address the thing we all don’t want to think about and some of you may be hoping I ignore.  McKellar and I stood firmly on the side of Mumford & Sons and not leaving things unsaid.  

I met McKellar when he was deep in the pit of depression.  His family knew he needed connection and he was desperate for it. He wanted nothing more than to be well.  He was brave and entered our youth community to quickly become a pillar of joy, unity, and transparency.  He openly shared about his battles with depression and anxiety making this a safe place for others to share their own struggles.  McKellar died because of an illness.  He fought it, his family actively fighting alongside him, giving him every possible treatment and support.  Just as many lose their life to cancer and heart disease, McKellar lost his life to mental illness.  This tragic loss of a wonderful soul falls on no one.  There is no blame, there is no condemnation, there is only grief over the loss of a son, brother, grandson, and friend and the peace in knowing that in Christ there is no more darkness and that McKellar has found the wholeness he has always longed for.

To know McKellar was to love him.  The outpouring of love and support that has been given to McKellar’s parents, Scott & Amy, step-parents, Beth & Kerry, siblings, Will, Claire, & Luke, grandmothers, Anne, Carolyn & Joel and the rest of his loving family... has been staggering.  

McKellar loved his family above all else.  

I had never met a student who not only loved but liked and respected his parents as much as McKellar.  

Last year when Amy was having health issues McKellar wanted to care for his mom.  Always her protector and baby, McKellar would not leave her side.  To spend time with them together was to know the bond they shared.  It was magical.  McKellar gave Amy the gift of her true calling… motherhood and she gave him her ability to love people without limitations.  At some point in high school McKellar and I were talking about parties.  They were NOT his thing but because of his stupid good looks and perfect hair many thought it would be (he broke stereotypes left and right).  He would get so frustrated at the ways people tried to box him in… he told me, “I have zero interest in partying… why would I stay up late and be hungover when I could go to bed early and wake up to fish or hunt with my dad”.  Scott was his hero.  Scott’s dedication to his children shines through them.  McKellar was so proud of who his dad was and longed to grow up to be like him.  Their most precious moments were shared in the quiet of a deer stand and fishing on the water.   Being a big brother to Will & Claire gave him immense pride.  He constantly talked about how much ‘cooler’ they were than him and how gifted they were in everything they did.  He was beyond excited to get to drive them to school his senior year and felt responsible for protecting them from basically everything.  Luke was his joy.  It brought him closer to Beth and sealed the bond that they shared.  Always the big brother, he would play guitar for Luke as he was getting ready for bed and invariably Luke would want to stay up and play with him.  If you were near McKellar and he had his phone you saw the most recent picture or video of Luke.

When I met McKellar his grandfather, Chuck, was already in the throws of Alzheimer’s.  Alongside his Mimi, McKellar cared for him, sleeping next to him on an air mattress on hard nights and in his last hours on earth playing guitar for him as he left his earthly body.  Mimi and McKellar were a team, snarky and silly and overflowing with love for each other.  When it was time to pick a college CNU was the only one on his list.  He was excited to live near the ocean, his grandmother Cee Cee, and possibly commandeer her boat as often as possible.  Cee Cee was one of the insiders who knew the big secret McKellar kept covered by that ridiculous hair… he was a super nerd.  At 10 he took a trip with her to Colorado and Utah to dig for dinosaur bones and study cave paintings.  

Late elementary school was difficult for McKellar and he felt like he didn’t have a place or friends.  When he started at the Field School everything changed.  He found a place that nourished his kind heart and encouraged his unique soul.  He also found guitar.  The years that McKellar struggled socially colored how he viewed the world and how he wanted to interact with it.

When we got McKellar here at COOS he was a sophomore at Albemarle.  He had hair that hid his face and was hungry for what he was being fed here… belonging.  Acceptance.  Christ.  

This week Amy found a note McKellar wrote after Chuck died.  In it he wrote:

I went through life kinda lost for a while not really knowing what to believe when my mom talked to me about joining the youth group at this church. I was a little scared at first because I didn't really know too many people besides Ailish and this weird kid named Matt that  I went to elementary school with. But I went anyway.

It's the best thing I've ever done. In the youth group I found friends and discovered this guy my mom had brought me up to know. Having God in my life has been the most tremendous thing in the world. I think the biggest effect having God as part of my life is realizing that he has a plan for me. How awesome is that? This guy, who loves me with all his heart, has set up my life, and has laid out this beautiful, terrifying, confusing plan.

He and I often came back to the verse from 1 Samuel 16:7 that says, “The Lord does not look at the things people look at.  People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  The struggles McKellar experienced in school early on changed his life. He saw every person-- no matter their age, gender, sexuality, social status, or creed as a worthy soul to know and celebrate.  As a senior McKellar choose to always sit with the 6th graders at our Wednesday night gatherings.  While older kids were vying for his attention (many because they were not so secretly in love with him) he could care less.  He took a vested interest in the lives of the kids that no one else saw.  He made them feel worthy and wonderful and was Christ to them.  He saw their hearts.  We met more than once to discuss a major issue he was having socially… he could not understand why people who wouldn’t give him the time of day as an outcast tween now wanted to buddy up to him. We would joke that he needed a life size cutout of himself as a 6th grader and if people wanted to be around that kid they could be his friend.  A WW2 history buff and passionate musician McKellar didn’t let the world tell him who to be.  He was a creation of God, unique and wonderful.

I have shared some of the most pivotal moments of my own life with McKellar.  Two and a half years ago my friend Jenn died of ALS.  Her son Chris and daughter Kate were sledding with the Cox Kids when I got the call to get them home.   Through a series of mishaps with cell phones and battery life the only person I could get on the phone was McKellar.  He heard my voice and I didn’t even have to say the words.  He got those kids home. Later that night McKellar joined us in the Durant home as we mourned the loss of a mother, wife, and friend.  Not many 16 year olds can show up for other people in the way McKellar did.  When my own mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the disease that took his grandfather, McKellar reached out to remind me that I was not alone.  

McKellar met people where they were.

As he struggled with his own depression and anxiety he fought hard and showed up.  He loved people well and was well loved.  He didn’t feel isolated and alone.  He didn’t feel unlovable or unworthy.  His love of Christ showed through all he did.  I am friends with Mr. Bunin, one of McKellar’s teachers from AHS.  Whenever we would speak about him we would come back to the same spot:  we hoped that someday we could raise sons like McKellar.  There is still not a truer statement.  

A week ago, none of us would have predicted we would be here.  We are here because McKellar had the sometimes fatal disease of depression.  Depression turns everything upside down.  It changes how we think and turns rational thoughts backwards.  We want desperately for McKellar’s death to make sense but because of the very nature of depression it won’t.  We want a rational answer to a question there is no rational answer for.  You have the choice to live with that or to make things up.  You may be thinking of what you left unsaid or the things you wish you’d done.  Whatever you are making up… it’s not the answer.  There is no rational answer.  McKellar had a disease that is sometimes fatal.  

What we do know is that McKellar lived a life battling this sometimes fatal disease and in the process of living that life changed each of us.  McKellar was Christ in this brutal and beautiful world (brutiful as Glennon Doyle says).  He loved well.  He encouraged and supported.  He made music and laughed in a way many can only dream to.  

He taught many of us what it means to see as God sees… to look at other’s hearts.

As one of God’s beloved children McKellar was given some irrevocable promises:

• He would never be alone; neither depth nor height nor anything else in all creation would separate him from the love of God.  He was not alone at his death and is not alone now.
• He will be loved forever… no matter what… no exceptions
• He is promised everlasting life.  Jesus has prepared a place for McKellar

This day is a whole mess of brutiful.  The life McKellar lived was rich and full and meaningful.  His death leaves a giant hole and unanswerable questions.  Ultimately, we know that God is the source of all healing.  God can take the worst, the most painful, and this takes the cake on that, and find ways for love and light to shine through.  The God of redemption is at work, even now, in this darkness, to bring hope to Her people.  

I pray the God of love continues in us the radical work McKellar did in his life: meeting, affirming, and loving people as the are --where they are-- and through this darkness that transformative love breaks through.  

Amen.  

Aubrey Grace, you are F I V E

My darling girl,

Today you turned five.  I laid in bed with you this morning as we watched the time tick by to your exact moment of birth, 6:40 am.  Your sweet self made me WAIT to wake up your brother so you could walk into his room, wake him up, hand him his toothbrush in his crib, and create a song about it being your birthday.

We met you at school later on to eat lunch with you and deliver cupcakes and you smiled and ate and were all kinds of Kindergarten and FIVE.  I looked around the room to see so many children that you have known and loved for years that make up your elementary school class.  Neighbors and ballet friends and preschool buddies and church people.  It reminded me of what it was like for me growing up in a small town (that is no longer such a small town) and how being surrounded by that much love seems normal until you leave it.

Last night you prayed for Dad, Mom, Deacon, Dixie, and your friends and your friends and your friends.  Because saying it once wouldn't cover all of them.

Hold tight to that, girl.  Cling to it.  YOU ARE SO LOVED.

This past year has brought on change and transition and tears and joy. At each turn you responded with an open heart and the assumption that everything was okay.  I am in awe of the ways you feel safe in this world ... I'm also jealous of it.

A few months ago we were praying before bed and I prayed all that I normally do with you, that you grown in mind body and spirit... I thanked God for the girl you are, always cautious of my words and that I am focusing on your insides.  You interjected, "thank you God for making me so pretty."

Well there it is.

My own fears about believing in yourself and being more than a body can be so extreme that I forgot that there is good in knowing your beauty.  You are my mini-me, and when I see your outward beauty it forces me to recognize my own.

I grew up different from you, my fierce girl.  I was loud and scared. I was loud because I was scared. I was overweight and different and alone.  That me still exists so close to my skin that I am aware of it at all the best and worst moments.  I can taste what it felt like to be who I was and it is sometimes nearer to me than my true self.




Each day our goal is to let you be as true to you as possible.
Feel all.  the.  things.
Do all.  the.  things.
Say all.  the.  things.
We just don't want you to need to BE all the things, only the ones that speak to your heart.

You are silly and kind and compassionate.  You've already become every hope we had for you.  If you are those things we really don't care about the rest.  Ms. Jayme told me that the other day you helped a student who struggles in PE.  She was asked to do something that was beyond her capabilities and instead of watch her struggle you jumped in and walked alongside her helping her succeed.

All the pride.

That is all you need in life, my girl.  To be kind. Honestly, nothing else matters. (I am sure I will act like other stuff does but it's my mom job to do that: i.e. homework, a job, brushing your teeth).

This year was amazing for you.  You discovered the awesome reality of living in our neighborhood and all the adventure and fun that holds.  We went on our first ever family vacation, you did ballet, and went to music festivals, and grew and grew and grew.


You are a WHOLE HAND now.  You are definitely a whole person.  You made us a family when you were born and you glue us together on our worst and best days.

I love you... more, my sweet girl.

Mama