Pizza Stones and Camel Straws

I could have made the title of this something deeply melodramatic, like, "When the pizza stone broke like my shattered heart." My wry sense of humor won't let me go that far, though in a way it's true.

My pizza stone did break. My beloved Pampered Chef pizza stone, dark with years of use, deeply seasoned with memories; all those years of pulling homemade pizza from the oven to feed my eager family.

This morning, I'm making biscuits, and it hasn't gone well. It was nothing big, just that string of petty frustrations that get under my skin. I spilled the dog's water dish, spilled more water down my leg while putting away dishes that weren't quite dry, knocked things over, dropped things into the sink and onto the floor. Petty things, but so many of them, one after another, was getting under my skin.

Hungry and harassed by all these irritating incidents, I stood for a moment, leaning against the counter, head bowed, eyes closed. Praying? No. For just a few seconds, I let it all wash over me. I thought of how, if I didn't have so many food restrictions, I would just give up and ask Lee to take me somewhere for breakfast.

Much as I would love to drive into town, find some cute little diner and sit down to a stack of hotcakes and a pile of hash browns with bacon...I can't.

If I want to eat, I have to cook, even when everything goes wrong.

So...I pulled myself together, pushed back the waves of self-pity and moved on.

We have a little gas oven in the trailer, one that we have to light each time we use it. I got out the lighter and opened the oven door....and saw my pizza stone on the oven rack, broken in two.

It's nobody's fault that it broke. It just happened one day while I was gone.

I stood there with the pieces in my hands, struggling with tears.

Before you think, "Wow, she's weirdly attached to her kitchen equipment," let me tell you about straws.

Not drinking straws, though the whole nation is worked-up about them right now.

I'm talking about the "straw that broke the camel's back" kind of straws.

The whole point of that analogy is that the straw itself is insignificant. What is one single dry wisp of grass among thousands? What is one more petty frustration, piled upon a whole string of other small irritations?

But what about one more small loss, one more small heartbreak, on top of a mountain of other losses and shattering heartbreak?

The thing itself, the thing that breaks me, is often something small and rather meaningless.

Last week, it was a drink shaker.

You know those plastic tumblers with lids, that people use for mixing up protein drinks? That was the thing that made me cry. A drink shaker was my straw; the thing that broke me.

Was there any special significance to the shaker itself? Maybe a little. It was Michael's, and made me think of all the times he must have used it. It reminded me of the years he invested in body-building, and how intently he'd researched fitness nutrition, to give his body what it needed to be strong and resilient.

Still, that would not usually be enough to break me. It's a fairly small thing, on the scale of things that hurt.

Except that, this time, that piece of plastic was my straw. It was that one more seemingly insignificant thing, piled on top of so many others, that suddenly became too much.

For three weeks, I had been reveling joyously in getting to see so many of my precious people...and then having to say goodbye to them all over again. I had been fully immersed in the life that I miss so much. That week, we had emptied one of our storage units back in Oregon and hauled a load up to our long-term storage in Washington. Added to the physical exhaustion was a heavy emotional burden, as a good share of what we moved were Michael's belongings. All of them. Everything that is left of the life he had built.

I had soldiered on for days on end, bravely facing those remnants of his life, handling mementos of his passions and dreams. Lifting, packing, moving. Every piece of that sad puzzle was a small hurt, added a small weight to my heart.

As I sat in my mom's living room, going through yet another box of his things (hunting for the title to his pickup), the pain was building. One book, one dish, one piece of mail with his name on it at a time, the suffering of my loss crept in on me. Finally, when I picked up that silly drink shaker, it all became too much and I broke. I sat on my mom's floor and cried, for all we've lost and all that's ended; all he worked for and dreamed of that will never be.

It's just a drink shaker; just a pizza stone...just a straw.

The point of the camel analogy is not that single bit of straw, but the thousands and millions of straws that came before.

The pizza stone is just a pizza stone.

It is also one more loss.

On top of loss after loss after loss after heart-breaking loss.

After selling our family home, moving into a travel trailer, and wandering a thousand miles from our children, family and beloved friends...after leaving behind community, work and ministry that I loved...after having my entire life ripped up by the roots, torn into a hundred pieces and cast to the wind...after receiving the news that our son was dead, and that death had been his choice...after loss after loss, after letting-go after letting-go after letting-go...my heart is raw on this topic.

Strong as I seem, I am deeply fragile in ways I never was before.

After enduring so much loss and letting go of almost everything and everyone that matters to me, any fresh loss, no matter how small, hits me hard.

The nerves of my heart are raw, my reserves are fragile and low.

And so, some days, a broken pizza stone is enough to break my heart.

"Don't let it ruin your vacation..."

A while back, I started to write about things not to say to a person who is grieving. People have asked me to help them know how to respond to loss and, as this is an important part of that, I feel I should share what I've learned.

What I learned while trying to write that post is that I have a lot of unprocessed, painful emotion around some things that were said to us in the past year. I pulled open that internal door and was floored by what poured out. I am not ready yet to talk about those things publicly.

I do think it is a deeply important conversation, though, so I thought I'd start talking about it through a trauma that is not quite so fresh.

Some of you know about a traumatic experience that our family had in the summer of 1994.

Lee and I had taken our two little children camping, along with our first Golden Retriever, Mandy.

We had camped at the Standish Hickey State Recreation Area on the Eel River in California.

I think it was on the second day of our time there that we walked over to play in the river. We have some wonderful pictures of our little two- and four-year old kiddos playing in the sparkling blue water in their bright orange life jackets.

What the pictures don't show is what branded that day on all our memories, for life.

As we were enjoying our fun water time, Lee suddenly said, "I think those people are calling for help." I had not heard anything, but he had. We gathered up our little troop and headed upriver. The shore was rocky, so we were wearing sturdy shoes. As we got closer, Lee heard what the people were shouting. He gave me his watch and rushed into the water, swimming across the deep hole to where a frantic man and woman stood, on the far bank.

A family with four or five growing boys was having a fun camping trip in the same park. One of them, a boy of around twelve, wanted to play on the river, so he took one of those floaty-mattress pool toys to use. He went in where the water was shallower and started floating down. At some point he fell off, and ended up in a deep pool.

He could not swim, and neither could his parents. They crashed through the shallower water upriver and scrambled along the rocky bank. They could see him down in the water, but they could do nothing to save him. They stood on the bank, helpless and desperate, screaming for someone to come.

Without hesitating, Lee dove down to the bottom of the hole and pulled up their boy. He was not breathing. We had no experience or training with life-saving, but Lee started doing what he could, trying to express the water and give him mouth-to-mouth. We were all so focused on the boy that it took Lee's startled shout to make me realize that the dad had disappeared into the water. Maybe he had a heart attack or stroke from the intense distress. We don't know. We only know that he was there, and then he was gone, sinking to the bottom of the same deep pool that took his son.

Leaving the boy up on the rocks with his mom, Lee again dove down to the bottom of that deep hole. He brought the man to the surface, but Lee was tiring so quickly that he could not hold him up pand bring him to shore. He had to let the man go. I told our little Heather, four years old, "Hold onto Mandy and Michael. Do not let them in the water!" I told little two-year-old Michael, "Stay with Heather!"

Though I am a poor swimmer at best, I headed into the water.

There was no-one else to do it. I had to.

I dove down, pushing myself all the way to the bottom of the hole, grabbed that big man by the arm, and hauled him to the surface. I have always been convinced that God sent angels to help me that day. The guy was tall and heavy, probably well over two hundred pounds...and I pulled him from twelve feet down to the surface, with one hand. Angels.

I towed him over and passed him off to Lee and the man's wife, then struggled back to the shore where our little kids waited. I barely made it. I was exhausted by the time I staggered from the water.

Like I said, we had absolutely no experience or training with life-saving, so it had not occurred to either of us to take off our shoes before diving in. We just didn't know. Wearing heavy sneakers to swim and dive, under intense stress, will do you in.

We had no background to help us. We were simply the only two people on that whole stretch of river, besides those frantic parents.

After I made it back to shore, another guy showed up and swam across to help. Soon, others came. I remember shouting, "Call 911!!!" over and over, until someone assured me that one of the others had gone to make the call.

Soon, the sirens came screaming. Professionals helped bring father and son across, using our kids' life jackets to help float them, and rushed them away in ambulances. It was much too late, as both were gone before we pulled them from the water, but still every effort was made to bring them back.

The ambulances left, and the crowd milled around, excitedly talking over what had happened. I saw this wife and mother standing, stunned, alone in the crowd. I went to her and wrapped my arms around her. I think I was the only one there who realized who she was. She held onto me so tightly.

That whole scene is a vivid scar on all our memories. For me, the worst parts are the memory of the man's face, as I pulled him up through the green water, lifeless.... and the desperate embrace of that suddenly bereaved wife and mom as I held her close in the faceless crowd.

For Lee, it was the trauma of being in the middle of such intense loss, and then the fear that he could not make it back across the river; the horror it would be to his own little family if he drowned in front of us. The possibility was all too real. It had just happened to this other family, and he was exhausted from all he'd done to help.

For the kids, the trauma lingered also. For Heather, it was the terrible responsibility of keeping a strong dog and a very young brother safely on the riverbank, while watching both her parents disappear into deep water, then struggle to make it back to shore. For Michael, the intense desire to do something was so strong that he actually thought he'd been out in there river with us, helping.

As I hugged that mama close, and thought of the immensity of her loss. I started to shake. Shock was setting in and I couldn't handle any more. I was only twenty-six. I did not know what else to do. I pulled away from that poor lady and we went quietly back to camp.

There was no question of staying. How could we possibly go back to having fun after such an experience?

A man we knew stopped by as we were loading up to leave. I think he worked for the Department of Fish and Game and had some law enforcement background. He was surprised to see us getting ready to go.

Here is where we reach the point of this story; the Things Not To Say part:

"You're going home? Why?"....

"Don't let it ruin your vacation."

We both just stared at him in disbelief.
I'm not even sure what Lee said in reply.

How do you even answer such a thing?

There we were, a young couple who had just pulled a dead father and son from the river bottom, whose two young children had just watched people die and seen us nearly drown trying to help, and.......don't let it ruin our vacation????

We did.
We let it ruin our vacation.

All we could think of was that sweet lady who had just lost her husband and her son within five minutes, and of her other boys, bereft of their dad and brother. We were in shock and deeply shaken. We headed home.

We left so quickly that we were long gone before the news reporters came looking for "heroes" to interview. The guy who swam over to help after Lee and I had pulled both of them from the river was credited as the big man who tried to save the day. Whatever. We shuddered at the thought of having to talk to anyone about it. It was horrifying.

But...don't let it ruin your vacation.

I think of that wife and mama every year when the middle of July rolls around, praying for her and her other boys, wondering how they're doing. I wish I could have held myself together a little longer; held her close for a few more minutes...helped her more.

I hope she's okay. I wish I could give her a hug.

Here's the thing: We should be impacted by tragedy and trauma and the sorrow of others.

Yes, it is terribly uncomfortable to be up close to suffering, but it is cowardly and selfish to sweep it away with dismissive words. Those kinds of words add damage on top of heartache on top of trauma. They leave scars.

It should ruin our vacation.

It should touch our deepest core and move us to reach out in love and mercy.

It should change us, and if we're wise, we'll learn from it and grow deep with compassion.

It should ruin our vacation, and it should change us for life.

~~~~~

*In memory of Gary and Linus Carter, who lost their lives that day, and of their family, who lost so much in one tragic afternoon.*