My Life and Lesser Catastrophes

8/4/2019 My Life and Lesser Catastrophes

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onthe skids

It was the King Kong of bad days, one that would denemany to ollow. Lying in a grassy ditch and staring at the sun-

bleched sky with y husbnd ight hve been rontic, except

wed just been thrown ro a otorcycle. Allen was aralyzed,and I was struck silly. But Im getting ahead o mysel. Let me

start at the beginning.

Our daughter, Lily, was three, and wed been enjoying the

best suer ever. Allen was a caus inister, so his suer

schedule was fexible. He and Lily would send aternoons to-

gether in the tiny vinyl pool on the deck. He was such a great

dad, and he gladly ket her occuied while I worked ro hoe

as a reelance illustrator. I had just received great news ro y

agent that I was being assigned a series o childrens books or


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My Life and Lesser Catastrophes

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a coany I had long resected. When she told e the news, I

screed in delight on the phone, but no one ws lred by y

shrieks. No one scrabled to see i there was an intruder witha pickax in the house. You scream and squeal a lot, people

would tell e, so everyone knew that y screas were alost

always hay ones.

Our wedding anniversary was always a signal that the college

students were rushing back to the town o Rolla, Missouri, and

things were hoing again. As Allen began sending ore tie

on cpus t Missouri S&T (Missouri University o Science nd

Technology), our anniversary always got ushed aside soehow

in all the busyness, which ade y eyebrows urrow and y ace

gru u. Late on our thirteenth anniversary, ater I had sent a

long day o chasing ater a reschooler, tending to a essy house

and longing or soe adult coanionshi, Allen was nowhere

to be ound. I tried his cell phone, but there was no answer. Itwas 10:00 p.m., then 11:00, and y annoyance turned to worry. I

tried the cell hone againno answer. I did a lot o stewing, the

extreely eale tye. Then I did what any girl in y osition

would doI ate a bunch o granola bars and distracted ysel

with online shoe shoing.

Finlly, the grge door opened nd Allen ce in, swety nd

grass stained, siling ro ear to ear. I hit hi with a achine-

gun torrent o estrogen-ed angst, and he apologized prousely.

He hd been out plying Ultite Frisbee with bunch o college

guys. He loved tht ge so uch! Everyone reerred to hi s the

Old Mn, with kind o reverent venertion. Even though Allen

would never tell you so, the atriarch oten gave those younger

boys a schooling in how to lay! In retrosect, I would coe to

regret my pettiness and be glad Allen had played that night. I

didnt know then that it was his last tie.


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On the Skids

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In art to aease e, we set aside another day two days later

to celebrate the anniversary wed issed. That one turned out to

be beutiul orning, the perect bckdrop to hng ny eoryon. Allen droed Lils o or her second day o reschool at 8:30

and then rushed hoe.

What do you want to do? I asked enthusiastically as he

bounded through the door. I was wiping up a mess o crumbs

around the toaster. Racquetball? I suggested.

I am slight, nonaggressive, uncompetitive and nonathletic.

Allen had to invent new ways to keep our games challenging

enough or hiplying with his let hnd, stnding in one plce

the whole ge . . . So he responded to y ide in sort ophone

voice, the one usully reserved or scheduling nd/or schoozing:

I dont have tie or the gy this orning. I have a eeting at

the oce in hal an hour.

I was disaointed that he was already reneging on our date,but I let it go. He kept busy nd worked hrd. We decided to ke

the best o it and take the otorcycle out or a quick joyride. It

seeed like a year since wed been on it together, and we had just

enough tie beore his eeting.

Yers erlier, when he rst proposed the ide o getting otor-

cycle, I objected. I thought I would never ride on it. But Allen was

cautious, a very sae driver. We took things slowly and hardly ever

went ore than ve or ten iles out o city liits. I cae to love

the wind in y ace on our quiet rides through the countryside.

Dont crsh! I tesed s we got on. Its our nniversry ride!

Like Id ever crash on urose, he sassed back.

We joked about whether or not our thirteenth anniversary

on the thirteenth o August was something menacing, as the

superstitious ight suppose. The bike gurgled nd chugged, not

wanting to start at rst, and I held my breath until we nally


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heard the engine turn over. Then we headed out toward our

avorite country road.

I always thought about God when we rode, and I rehearsedScriptures nd hued. I like to hu. But this prticulr orning

was dierent. We hadnt been on the bike ore than ve inutes

when I began eeling really nervous. We werent in any erceivable

danger, werent going more than about 25 miles per hour, but I

ound ysel raying a rayer I would think about over and over

in the onths tht ollowed: God, I dont like living erully, nd

I dont think it pleses You. So right here nd now, I wnt to r

y trust in YouI trust You to rotect e and kee e sae.

Moents later, our otorcycle hit a atch o loose gravel let

in heas aongst soe unarked construction. We went o the

rod towrd the ditch nd were thrown twenty eet through the ir.

Chrissy, Allen asked ater we landed, are you okay?

Yes, I relied.I love you, he said.

I love you, too I answered. Even though I said the words, I

have no eory o the. My ind was idling.

Allen lled in the details or e later. He had never lost con-

sciousness nd ieditely relized our sitution ws dire. Lord,

lease send soeone to nd us, he rayed.

In less than a inute, Rachel, a girl in our caus ellowshi

who was on her way to work, sotted us. The rst one to see us,

she called the paramedics and stayed on her knees close to my

head, shielding y eyes ro the sun. I had sustained a concus-

sion and was deterined severely looy.

Meanwhile, Tara, a retty college student, waited outside Al-

lens locked oce door in the cpus house. She ws to eet hi

at 9:00 that orning. They had a lot to get ready or; it was the

oening week o classes ater a long, lazy suer. They would


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On the Skids

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pln ctivities or every night o the week to entice coing college

students to get plugged in to a Christian ministry beore their

aith was bobarded by the allures o college lie.I igine tht Tr got dgety s Allen went ro ew inutes

late to annoyingly late. I wonder i she thought, Maybe hes on

the FBIs Ten Most Wanted list and I never really knew him. . . .

For the rest o the world, lie was passing by on a normal

Wednesday orning. Peole were checking in at work, running

errands or wondering what to do now that their little ones were

back to school. Up until this very moment, my lie had ticked

along just as predictably, and not at all soap-opera-ish. There

was no all-out draa, no duing beverages on each other in a

heated quarrel. No hanging by y ngertis ro a cli while

wering cocktil gown nd stilettos s y lie pssed in ront o

y eyes to the tune o a sotsational, one-hit wonder. Not even

any childhood angst or teenage rebellion. No sibling rivalry. Notortured regrets other than a bad mullet and some poor ash-

ion choices in the eighties. (But who doesnt regret the eighties,

tight-rolled ants and ultile airs o brightly colored socks

worn all at once?)

In a sterile eergency roo, y shell-shocked, groggy ind

nally began to wake up, and I realized at once that Id been

ctpulted into the rel o seril dr. Nurses wheeled Allen

into y roo on a gurney. I was sitting on the table in a gaing

hospitl gown. (When they keep you or observtion, they en

it in every sense o the word!)

Touch hi here, the nurse urged, so I touched his collrbone.

I can eel that, Allen said.

He was about to be taken by Lie Flight to the university hos-

ital two hours away. He had broken his neck, injuring his sinal

cord at a high level.


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Soeone had icked Lily u at reschool and ut her into y

ars on the long, tall table in the bright white roo with grahic

anatoy osters on the wall. I tried deserately to ake sense owhat was going on. The most tragic thing in my lie so ar had

been wearing Chic jeans when it wasnt chic and burying y et

hsters, Nibbles nd Wddles, so I just kind o thought everything

would turn out okay since things usually went retty well or us.

The eergency roo doctors, however, were ainting a dier-

ent picture. They werent sure Allen would survive. And i he did,

they wrned, he ight not be ble to ove or brethe on his own.

A nurse came in with a phone. Your mom is on the line,

she said.

Oh no, I thought. Everyone will be worried. I ws ebrrssed

bout cusing such ruckus. Ebrrssent sees weird thing

to eel in such a situation, but I just couldnt think roerly yet.

I was released a ew hours later. I had a terrible headache anda big strawberry on y hi. I threw u a coule o ties in ront

o people. Tht ws hubling. Otherwise I ws ne, nd couple

o riends drove e two hours u to Colubia, Missouri, where

Allen had been transorted.

I cnt reeber uch bout those rst ew dys, just sntches.

I reeber wking in the iddle o the night in hospitl witing

roo nd seeing y brothers sleeping on the rock-hrd foor. I elt

bd or the since I ws in sei-lost-prcticlly coortble

chair. I reeber Allen was on a table that tilted back and orth

constantly, and he had a halo screwed into his head. His room

was so hot, and we were so conused.

What seeed like hundreds o riends were visiting, hugging,

stung cash into y hands. I elt lost. Mo gently scolded e

when she ound alost $500 I had just set down on a coee table

in the hospitl witing roo. I hd wlked wy ro it, distrcted.


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A night guard on duty introduced hisel a day or two later

and handed me a Ziploc bag o Allens thingshis wallet, his

wedding band, a garage door reote hed ut in his ocket orour return tri hoe, which had never haened. And his watch.

The watch was all scued u and broken, the tie gibberish. My

nturl tendency ws to toss it in wstebsket, nd then I quickly

realized it was not just a junked-u doodad. It was soething o

a relic. That watch had been so important. I remembered tiny

Lily, barely talking, turning her daddys ar to look at the ace

o it and saying, Tie to go, a coent she heard Daddy say

so oten. He was always on the ove, and she had icked u on

that even at such a young age. I gave the baggie a lace o ior-

tance in y oversized urse that I carried everywhere I went. The

urse had a big, un owl sewn on the outside, which now seeed

strangely inaroriate in our sobering surroundings.

In the weeks leading up to the accident, I had had troublesleeping. I woke up lost every night t 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., unble

to trail back o to slee. So Id drag ysel out o bed, tuck y

Bible under y ar like a ootball and nd a quiet corner where

I would talk with God. Im glad we had that squint-eyed time

together, He and I, because things soon would be turned uside

down between us.

Likewise, when I rayed and ared y aith in God on theotorcycle that orning, I had no idea y aith would be tested

so soon.

Are we still friends, God? Or am I on Your poop list? I won-

dered ater the accident. Ever aware that His ercy is our only

real hoe, I ound ysel raying over and over, Please be real,

lease be real, lease be real!


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2

groAnsAndgrimACes

Im convinced that at least once in life, every personnds hisel or hersel staring eyeball-to-eyeball with that one

big question, A I right about God? I was born and raised in

church. I was Bible collegetrained and had sent years in inis-try. Yet here I was, back at the very oundation o it all, raying,

Plese be rel! Even though I ws utterly, despertely dependent

on God ore now than ever beore, doubts still nagged at e as

Allen began what would be a three-week stay in the ICU.

Faily was around uch o the tie to hel look ater Lily,

and we all retty uch lived at the hosital. Allen and I scarcely

had a oent alone together. Since I had a serious concussion,

the doctors ordered that soeone stay with e all the tie and

scoot e round in wheelchir, which I constntly wriggled out


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o nd coplined bout. It ws dys beore y ind copletely

cleared.

The doctors hd surgiclly used Allens ourth nd th verte-bre, nd his sitution bece ore criticl thn it ws initilly

blood clots, pulonry eboliss, pneuoni, collpsed lungs.

He still wasnt oving or eeling anything. Yet he was robotic in

his even-teered cal.

Finally, doctors gathered both o our ailies into a tiny roo

to tell us the news. It ell o their lis so easily that they surely

ust have rehearsed it. Allens sinal cord was badly daaged at

the C4 level, which eant he had no eeling or oveent below

his shoulders and his breathing was coroised. Tie would

tell what unctioning would coe back, i any. They didnt think

ny would. They quoted disl sttistics nd gve us sober wrn-

ings. My o looked int. I ws relieved tht I hd hed injury

and wasnt exected to understand it all.When Allen hd roused ter surgery, I slunk into his roo nd

sat in the straight-backed chair by his bedside, skootched down

in y usual sluy osture. He was ore coherent than I was.

My knee was bouncing u and down nervously, as it always does

in church or whenever I try to sit esecially still. Ater a ause, I

oved in close and said soething dub like, Honey, roise

e youre going to be okay, because I will believe you, whatever

you say.

Even now, our dynaics had not changed. I was looking or

him to take the lead and x things. Almost excessively respon-

sible by nature, he had been aying social security taxes since his

adolescence. I think he viewed hisel as stuy and serious, even

though he really wasnt. He liked it that I had some kid let in

e. He beed when he brgged to others tht I ws igintive

and un. I would blush on cue. He ade every ainstaking eort


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to shelter y erceived innocence, aking sure I wasnt bogged

down with bill aying or anything having to do with lawn ow-

ers or roerty taxes. He even heled with the enial things likesucking dead spider bits out o the corners o the windowsills

with the vacuu and washing heas o dirty laundry.

My mind wandered, a slideshow o careree moments pass-

ing through my thoughts. Lils and I dancing around in a late-

night suer rain. Drawing a curly ustache on the cat with a

eranent arker or laughs. Riding an air attress down our

baseent stairswe called our ride the Extreinator. It was

ore un with a nae.

Now I elt the weight o two worldsthis medical world o

lie and death, huge and all eclising, that orced us to ask, Are

we redy or eternity? Then the regulr world o stu tht didnt

atter by coarison, but that I would have to address at soe

pointlike the overull trash bucket at home that I needed tosquash down with my oot three or our times until it nally

wouldnt go down anyore.

People clled lost constntly to inquire bout Allens condi-

tion. It bece lughbleone ternoon I ws on the cell phone

updting our pstor, second cell phone ws ringing in y bg (

hone y aily had sulied to eld their calls) and the lobby

phone rng or e siultneously. Everyone ws hoping the doc-

tors reports would prove wrong, or tht God would tke His big,

awesoe istake eraser and rub this whole ess u like a sill.

One orning I was riding in a car with y sister-in-law, Twila,

heading back toward the hosital. Wed gone to a store to ick u

soe necessities: toothaste, deodorant, chocolate. Allens sister

was blond, smart and gorgeous by anyones standards. She was

soeone so enviable, so chock-ull o talent and char that you

ight be jealous, thinking she surely ulled the world along by a


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string. But in reality, she had been through so uchincluding a

pinul divorce. It hd only de her stronger, ore copssionte.

I conessed to her how hurt I was by Gods silence. I eltdued, orgotten, disaointed. I had loved God or as long as

I could reeber. I hd hotly pursued Hi. Now this? It ws like

He wasnt keeing u His end o things, even though I knew on

soe level that such a rationale was totally terrible.

Id just like to hear ro Hi, I told Twila as I reached or

the hone ringing again in y urse. Maybe thats Hi now,

I joked, trying to be wry.

My un-loving, jovial sister, Deb, was on the other end.

Are you a rohet o the Most High God? I asked.

No, she sid, in n unusully serious wy, but I did eel God

urging e to call you with this verse in Isaiah. She went on to

read, Can a other orget the baby at her breast . . . ? Though

she ay orget, I will not orget you! See, I have engraved you onthe als o y hands (Isaiah 49:1516).

In response, I blubbered to her ll bout y torent nd Gods

silence.

A techer doesnt tlk while the test is being given, Deb co-

orted e.

I suppose I should hve recognized t once Gods love stped

all over those early days: the hand shading y ace ro the sun;

the oney lovingly tucked into y hnds nd purse by concerned

church amily; riends and relatives traveling rom ar away to

coort nd hug on us nd sleep on hospitl foors. But I coness,

tht wul churning question, Where are You, God? ws drowning

everything else out.

Sometimes I do that thing you arent supposed to do, where

you fip your Bible open and then think the page it fops open

to is soehow utterly signicant. I cant hel yselI want to


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think God is u there, deserate or each o us to know Hi in

real, tangible ways. I want to think that He goes to great lengths

to counicate with us in ways that are relevant to our here andnow when we seek Hi. So in the ICU witing roo, in curiously

quiet oent, I cried out to Hi, You could hve prevented this,

Lord. Why didnt You? I thought we were riends.

I hoped He would spek to e in soe proound wy, like co-

ing down and knocking on the door, turning down His glowing-

ness so I wouldnt be altogether terried, and exlaining things

to e. (To date this has not yet haened, unless He was in dis-

guise, selling und-raiser cards or Rainbow vacuus or running

or ublic oce.) I oened u y Bible, sure He would seak to

e through whatever assage y eyes ell on. I was a little disa-

ointed when it oened to the story o Lazarus, so ailiar that

I was sure it had nothing new to oer.

Still, holding true to y agic-eight-ball Bible-reading tech-nique, I gave it a shake. The girls, Mary and Martha, some o

Jesus best riends, send word that their brother is gravely ill. But

instead o coing to hel and heal, Jesus takes His tie, heling

crowds o strangers and oking along. By the tie He shows u,

Lazarus is long dead, our days and counting.

Jesus pproches the outskirts o town. Mrth coes to eet

Hi, but Mary is susiciously absent. She has a tude. My tude.

Jesus iediately icks u on her intentional slighting, but He

isnt upset by it. Instead, He asks or her. Get Mary, He says

as He atiently waits at the edge o town.

O course, she coes running, s ny o us would when God in

the or o a BFF calls or us by nae. Hey, i Youd have been

here, y brother wouldnt have died, she colains.

Jesus sees her pain and weeps. In a tag-team eort, Martha

chirs in at the tob with alost redictable annoyance: Yeah,


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yeah, Lord, we know our brother will live again at the big resur-

rection thingy.

To which Jesus replies, Didnt I tell you tht i you just believe,you will see the glory o God!

Then, voil! Dead an walking!

As it turns out, it was a retty good little story to read while

eeling at odds with y Maker, wondering why He just doesnt

show u already.

Jesus had good reason or His delay en route to Bethany. Be-

cause Lazarus was dead and gone, you can iagine the stir when

olks started buing into hi days later at the cauccino bar.

In act, John tells us the very crowd that gathered to welcome

Jesus into Jerusale at His triuhal entry showed u because

Lazarus was raised ro the dead (see John 12:1718). Prohecy

was ullled, and Jesus received overdue glory because Mary and

Martha held on through sadness and questions or a ew days.Because they stuck with their Savior through disappointment,

they layed a key role in soething o eternal signicance.

I tried to hold on, too, nd pryed soething like, God, I cnt

eel the erth spinning becuse I so sll on it. Mybe You re

doing soething big here, nd I cnt eel it or the se reson

y sallness, I ean. I trying to trust You. But soeties it

eels s though You re busy with other thingsthe Middle Est,

aine-tye stu. All way ore iortant than a little aily o

three in the Ozarks. But I a hoing so hard that You care about

all this and will hel us . . .

The doctors seeed so gri, and the halls and roos o the

ICU were such a dark, dark place in every way. Yet Allen man-

aged to stay ubeat.

Im not going anyplace, he reassured me, and he meant it

in a good way.


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He seeed intent on beating whatever odds the doctors ro-

nounced. Who knows, ybe he ws just putting on convincingly

brave ace to hel all o us coe. Hes like that.My best riend rom college came into the room. We all

called her Frank, and she was surprised by Allens easy smile

and calness.

Ill bet your o wrned you bout otorcycles, Allen joked

with her. I didnt stick y landing.

Looking back, I think our ignorance ade the situation ore

bearable. We werent really able to process what was going on.

And we just kept trudging along, like the assembly line worker

who soehow perors the se wery, onotonous tsks thou-

snds o ties without thinking too uch bout it. We redjusted

to the sights and sounds o the new world we were ina stark

hosital roo, unriendly halls, an intiidating nursing station.

My days were sent at Allens bedside during visiting hours,updting his visitors on the dily hppenings, hugging old riends

nd ily who trveled long distnces to coort us nd chsing

ater our busy and extremely bored three-year-old girl. Having

already ushed y illustration deadlines to razor-thin liits, Id

send nighttie hours working late on sketches in the corridors

o the hosital.

There were other people stying overnight in the hospitl, too,waiting to hear news about their loved ones. I would study the

and try to imagine what kind o horrors they were acing. My

other-in-law was esecially good at reaching out to the, but

I didnt get much past a gooy smile. When I could no longer

deny that it was bedtie, Id ake whatever kind o bed I could

in the waiting roo and settle into it uncoortably. Hal-araid

to close y eyes, I struggled to gure out where God was in the

iddle o all this ess.

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My Life and Lesser Catastrophes