C'est La Vie, Y'all! : August 2013

Monday, August 19, 2013

Faith Without Understanding

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost a month since Shea went to heaven. I think of her every day - probably more like every hour - just as I knew I would. I started working on this blog post in early July and didn’t finish it until I got home. I wrote this more for myself than for anything else but I wanted to share in hope that it might help anyone else dealing with similar feelings.

I feel like I have been in complete and utter denial for over a year. What I find so amazing is how well I can lie to myself. When people would ask me how I was doing, which they did often, I would answer that I was doing ok. The scary part is, I actually believed myself.

In recent weeks I changed my response to, "I think I'm ok" because I started to realize there was no possible way that I could actually be doing as ok as I felt.

I am not sure why I didn't realize I was going to lose my sister sooner. In all honesty, I didn't actually get it until I saw her miserably sick and finally realized there was no fixing this situation. Finally accepting that a terrible situation can't be fixed is really difficult, especially for someone with my type of personality. I don't admit this often, but I am stubborn as hell. I don't believe something until I want to believe it, and the last thing I wanted to believe was that cancer was going to take my sister away from me.

I think one huge contributing factor to my denial was my faith in God. For as long as I can remember, I have always believed in the amazing healing power of God. I truly believed he would fix this situation, and by some miracle that can only be described as a “God thing,” Shea's cancer would be taken away. I have said before that this whole situation has been a huge test of my faith. I am not ashamed to admit that at times I found myself utterly pissed at God. I still don't know why he would let this happen, but as some friends reminded me, true faith is about finding peace without understanding, which is what I am trying to do. (Thank you Robert and Kristen!)

I landed in Atlanta on June 5^th not exactly knowing what to expect. At this point I was still in my fight with God. I cried during the plane ride – thank goodness for sleeping masks. I wasn’t able to find any peace in the situation until one Sunday at the end of June. Shea had been admitted into an inpatient hospice facility for a few days to control a high fever. That Sunday morning I was sleeping in the hospital bed with her and she was talking – not to me but to someone, somewhere that I couldn’t see. It was a happy conversation. She was talking about the things she was going to be able to do when she got there. It was at that point, right there that I was able to find my peace because I realized how excited I was for her.

Shea would get to go to heaven. She would be able to do all of the things she wanted to do again with no limitations and no pain. She would spend time with family and friends that had gone on before her. She would be made new. Her smile would shine brighter than ever. This is what was best for my sister whom I loved dearly, and this is where I found my peace.

Shea and Todd’s minister, Brother Bobby, spent a lot of time with our family. On this very particular Sunday night, he shared with us that while it is hard to understand why things like this happen – especially to someone so young – he has never seen someone pass away and it not strengthen his faith even more. I didn’t admit it then, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. This is probably going to sound crazy, but I don’t think I have ever felt so close to heaven as I have when I have been by the side of someone passing.

You see, I had spent so much time for the past almost 3 years being sad for my sister. My heart broke when she was diagnosed in 2010, when the cancer returned in 2012, when we learned her tumors couldn’t be removed in March, and after every single trial along the way. BUT, then it finally hit me, when Shea went to heaven my sadness would no longer be for her. Shea was going to the best place anyone could ever imagine.

I never lost my faith through all of this. I just think my anger and misunderstanding clouded things. Shea always said she never wanted to be anyone’s excuse, and I will not let her be my excuse for not believing in what I have always believed and always will.

There were two songs that have really spoken to my heart over the past month. They are both Chris Tomlin songs. One we played at Shea’s service – Whom Shall I Fear and the other, I Will Rise, has very special meaning because my Aunt Alice heard it and called me immediately and told me I had to download it. I did what she said and played it for Shea and Mom. We were all three piled into the bedroom together and listened to it the night before Shea passed away. Thank you Aunt Alice!

Whom Shall I Fear – (The chorus is my favorite part) “I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever, he is a friend of mine, the God of angel armies is always by my side.”

I Will Rise – (This is my favorite line) “There’s a day that’s drawing near when this darkness breaks to light and the shadows disappear and my faith shall be my eyes.”

C’est la vie, y’all! Thanks for reading!

Monday, August 5, 2013

Barcelona

I wrote this blog post back in May. Things have obviously been a bit crazy in my life for the past two months and I am just getting around to posting it.

For the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about how life is never exactly what you thought it was going to be. I don’t really consider myself a dreamer but I am really bad about visualizing something before it happens. And you know what? It is never what I imagined. Sometimes that is a good thing and other times it’s not so great. I always like to be pleasantly surprised, doesn’t everyone?

So it’s usually a unique situation when I have no preconceived expectations about something, someone or some place. This happened to me recently when Mark and I traveled to Barcelona for the weekend. I have always wanted to go to Spain but since I did not take Spanish in high school or college, I really didn’t have too much knowledge on what we should do. Thank goodness for recommendations from close friends, Trip Advisor and Yelp! (Side note, I am starting to believe that Mark and I couldn’t function without Yelp. We use it religiously. “Yelp it” is a term used way too frequently in our household.) I also have to say a special thank you to Tim Friend, our friend from Mark’s MBA program. He helped us pick out a hotel location, gave us advice on the sites, and I’m pretty sure we ate at every restaurant he recommended. He really helped make our trip awesome.

Anyways…Spain was great and I think going into the weekend with an open mind made it even more exciting. The only thing I really had high expectations for was the sangria and it DID NOT disappoint. So here is the point where I help out the Spanish tourism office – Barcelona is fabulous, go there! The food is delicious, the people are very nice, the city is clean and beautiful, if you love architecture it’s a must see, it’s a lot cheaper than Paris and the sangria and cava are AWESOME!

I will say that as an American living in Paris trying my best to speak French, landing in a Spanish speaking country was interesting to say the least. My knowledge of Spanish is VERY LIMITED. Other than being able to count from one to seven, these are the words I know:

Hola

Gracias

Tu madre

Muy caliente

Cerveza

Bano

So basically I can say this: “Hola, cerveza muy caliente. Tu madre bano, gracias.” Makes sense? No? I didn’t think so either.

The first time I tried to say hola or gracias I actually laughed while I said it because I realized how funny I sounded. What I did not expect was when I was forced to speak Spanish and I didn’t know what to say, I would revert to French instead of English. That was odd.

I do have to call out Mark just a little here, he was as bad at speaking Spanish as me. I thought since he had taken about 4-5 years of it he would be better off, NOPE! Don’t worry, I made sure to tell him regularly how disappointed I was. His response was that he could understand it better through reading but I didn’t see any of that put into action. He relies on me to help teach him French, the least he could do was return the favor. Right?

So here is a spot where I get a little political but hold tight, if you have ever traveled to a non-English speaking country you will know what I am saying. When I was still living in Alabama there was some discussion/controversy over whether directional signs such as a bathroom sign in an airport should be listed in both English and Spanish. At the time I didn’t really think too much about it. However, I have changed my tune. I believe that anyone who has ever been in a country where they don’t speak the language can agree with me on how thankful they are to see multiple languages on signs. I would not survive.

Ok that’s enough political mumbo jumbo, that’s not what this blog is about.

One of Mark’s coworkers at GE and his wife were also in Barcelona so we were able to spend the day with them on Saturday touring the Costa Brava. Meeting Robert and Kristen was a lot of fun and added so much to the trip. Now I just have to convince them to visit Paris!

I could try to explain how beautiful Spain is but I think photos will do it better justice. So here are some photos from our trip. I am also including some photos of Lilly. When Mark and I go out of town – which happens quite often – she goes to the French countryside to stay with Gabi. Lilly gets to run around in the forest off leash and go swimming, she LOVES it!