Timing and the Memory of Memorial

 My elementary school, ironically named Memorial Elementary, was torn down a few weeks ago. The timing of that is by no means an accident, as I come to understand, accept, and even grieve my lack of memory.

My father died when I was in the first grade, and I cannot tell you if ever he walked me up those steps pictured here.  I don't really remember my father. However, I do have a handful of my own memories that aren't influenced by photographs.

 For some reason, though, these are the years that are hanging over me.  I thought not remembering any of these years from earlier childhood to 5th grade and even later was due to my father's death. But it's these years -- these are years after his death -- I am finding that by talking with other people, I should remember them.  It absolutely boggles my mind that it's even possible someone can remember being six, seven, eight, nine, ten, even eleven and twelve.

That's right, I had this record...and the sweatshirt.

I had to laugh because even the fashions of 1986-1989 have returned.  Go figure. Having the opportunity to take my daughter to Justice, I nearly fainted when I walked in.  Hello! Ruffled skirts, neon anything, abstract patterns... shoot, talk about timing -- my family and I took a vacation across the country while Yellowstone was ablaze in 1988, and right now, everywhere you look?  What is everyone praying for on Facebook? Rain!  Why? Forest fires.  What is the purpose in the destruction of a forest fire?  To allow new growth.  It is a sweet irony that just reinforces to me the old adage, 'there is no time like the present.'  God has thrown it all together for such a time as this, so creatively, in fact, that if you have the eyes to see, little Godwinks like these are everywhere. 

 When I took this picture, so close originally to the front doors of the school, there  was air seeping between them, and I noticed the entry to my old school smells the same, and in that long whiff of sentimental debris, came a covering of something vaguely familiar. Smell is like that for me.  I can't explain it, but there is a smell in the air on the first day of school, every year, that I smell even in my own child's experience, that is distantly familiar.  Then, in an instant search for something familiar, I look to the grass. Because of a bright August sun, the grass glints in the morning dew and I remember the day Daddy died. He died January 6, 1986.  It's weird, but that is my thought process every first day of school.

And I am still that girl on the outside, looking in. Think about the dream I had. I saw that dream here, standing right there as I took that photo. That dream and this moment connected.  There is more to that dream I have not revealed, but those are details I feel can be left out for now.  But this, this too is a long hallway, and although different, it is in a state of destruction and chaos, just as my life has been the past year.  And then it hit me:     

 

The child that walked those halls still has walls built up around memories she doesn't have and are themselves being torn down.  As I stared into the belly of a school I don't really remember being in with the half of it already torn down — literally there was a light at the end of that tunnel. My own daughter is the same age, right now, as the girl I don't remember that walked those hallways.  

I've had to guard my heart while the walls that protect it begin to crumble. These are the images that can illustrate my life and everything in it thus far - even my relationship to my own child, because I cannot tell you how difficult it is to relate to a little girl that is the spitting image of you and you realize you do not know what you did, how you felt, where or what you played, the friends you had, your birthday parties, your friend's birthday parties, everyday goings on,  or even how you got to school or what you did when you went home.  

This class picture was either in front of or on the stage pictured below.  When someone on Facebook first tagged this, I thought someone had posted a picture of Amelie, that's how much we look alike.  In writing this, I saw the dates, 1985-1986 and teary eyed, I looked at myself and honestly cannot tell you if this picture is before of after daddy died.  Looking at this picture too, I do not remember being that girl at all.  She is a complete and total stranger to me.




 I can remember some names.  The little boy with the stripes I had a crush on, but I don't have an actual memory of him other than his name was Mitch.  The girl next to him is Carrie and she dressed like the Material Girl for Halloween one year, perhaps the fifth grade, complete with pearls and a black lace glove.  The girl with with the purple pants is Becky, although I do not remember playing with her until my 13th birthday party when she gave me earrings and someone else gave me a beautiful poster of Johnny Depp from 21 Jumpstreet (yes, be jealous!).  The girl on the very end stole one of my pencils in fifth grade.

Oh, but enter God's absolutely amazing grace!  He gave me a little girl for a reason.  She is also fatherless. We are both seeing how great the love of the Father is. If you have a crummy dad, no dad, or even the best dad on his best day -- is but a shadow of the Dad. The dream comes to mind again, illustrating that I must walk this hallway to remember so that I may be the mother He has called me to be... I can trust Him to hold me up when my knees are weak and when I'm overwrought with an invasive, terribly real, inexplicable and paralyzing fear when even a hint of a knowing, a connection  begins to show itself.

These are deep and dark waters, but Christ is in them, and He will show Himself and will be the only force driving me when and if a memory actually surfaces. You see, the only explanation I can give is that He took my memory for a reason.  God is that big.  He can do just that.  He can also restore them as He knows I can handle them. For the moment, that is all I know, and that is ok. I knew I was going to be shown what a Father's love is all about, but never in my life, did I think it would be this way.  How awesome is it that God let me know how much he loves me first, before ever making any connection to my lack of memory? What a display of Fatherly love and affection!  Whatever else I know two things: first, that He loves me. second, that I am safe. I am safe. I am safe.

 I went back the next day without Amelie.  Something told me to go inside what remained of the building.  There was even an open door that went into the cafeteria, and immediately I sank into something dimly familiar.

This is the cafeteria.  I sang on that stage.  I don't remember that, but I've seen pictures. The music teacher's name was Mrs. Schram. She had very curly hair. We played Oliver Twist. These pictures are what the few memories I have are like.  I took the second photo because I remembered that beneath that window is where the ice cream was sold. The last picture just had me, as I exited the cafeteria and entered the hallway.I was faced with the writing on the wall: Once a bobcat, always a bobcat. Confirmation to me memories are there, they are in my brain.  These memories have shaped me, because they left my heart damaged, and the heart drives all behavior, both the good and the bad.

I began to feel unsettled, but then I saw the paw print, that reminded me of a hand print.  A gal I met at the Village immediately came to mind when she said to me about six months ago, "I don't know you. I've only met you these handful of times, but I can see God's thumbprints all over you, every week."  That word picture has thankfully stayed with me and reminded me in this moment He has always been there.  When I was a toddler, a child of six who saw her father, dead on the floor, as a teen when I cut myself out of utter disgust of my very person, and the time in between. He was there in Italy, and even and most importantly, He is here, with me, in this thing called motherhood.

 As I continued through the hallways of what was left, I noted that though the interior of this building looked nothing like it did when I was there with the exception of that stage and the front steps. My sister, who is eight years my senior, described it to me.  She recalled the large pebbled floor that was so popular in the 70's, a floor she said many a  kid skinned their knees.  It had a high shine and there was lots of brown. There were also two trees, inside the main hallway, near second and fifth grade -- the middle and the end of the building.  All of the school save kindergarten thru second grade had been demolished.  As I walked one hallway, I remembered the school counselor, Mrs. Bennett.  I remembered her office.  After daddy died, I would go there.  She had a blonde baby doll with a pink brush, and how I would sit on her couch, brush that baby's hair and just cry.  As I went deeper into the hallways, keeping in mind there is destruction, debris, and dirt everywhere, a deep sense of 'you can't go here' came over me and I literally ran out of the school I was so overwhelmed. 

 I went outside and walked through the playground.  The modern day wood chip filler had been scooped up to reveal the rocks that were on the playground of my day.  As I held them in my hand, I remembered the white rocks. I used to draw on the sidewalk with them.  There was a swing set to the right, and I remembered someone told me the itty bitty curly brown  piles in the dirt were piles of worm poop.

Seeing that fresh slab of  concrete for what will surely be a space for basketball, I was also moved by how easily what is unwanted can be covered up.  What you see in that sidewalk is what was the parameter of our playground.   Funny how my greatest struggle as a parent is to simply be playful.       


   The thought of being playful has actually paralyzed me with fear.  The fear is a result of a wound that is buried, and so that fear has consumed my heart, and it is that fear that led me to choose the impish and childish boys I have historically dated. They were overly playful while I maintained both control and superiority of mind, you see. It  has also kept my child from having the mother God intended me to be.  I am coming to understand I was and have been for years self protecting, and the failure of that is slowly being exposed. He has been so sweet to me, to uplift me, to open and expose these wounds, and even to expose them to you, Reader, for whatever reason I cannot even pretend to know, because I would really like to keep these things to myself.  But then I realized, the progress made, and the fruit of that labor is not mine to keep.

 He has changed and loved me like no other, so how can I not lean into Him even further and rest in that I may not understand or even know what being a child is like, but He does urging me forward in childlike faith even in this.  He is, after all, the one who said, "Let the children come to me." The best part about that picture is the very fact that we are all His children. To those of you who deny that simple truth, you have no idea on what you are missing, and He will pursue you.  I'll bet He already is.  I mean, you are reading this blog, right?  

Although going here and allowing myself to sift through the wreckage of Memorial, just being obedient in that, I was able to leave that place, and I actually played with my daughter.  It looks like sidewalk chalk, but it was so much more.

 See, if God hadn't absolutely wrecked my life, I would have easily been too distracted to see any of  this, including Jesus.  See, the Lord took my relationship.  He took my business. What threadbare bits of my business I've lived on this past year are disappearing.  He  is closing the door entirely. Even my computer.  I have been thrown into a poverty I have never before experienced, but I will say I have never been more secure despite the fact I have absolutely nothing. I am in complete and total life transition. And it's exciting. He has a plan.



I have come to learn I have essentially struggled to survive my whole life, and now I am getting ready to really live, and the best part of that is I know like I know I'm going to have the opportunity to serve Jesus' church in a capacity I don't even yet understand, but will be revealed to me as I walk in accordance to his purpose and plan.  I walked on my own as an agnostic for thirty two years, and it all has led to knowing, loving, growing in and serving the one who put it all in it's place, and has loved me enough to work these details out even when I hated him most.  I am in a period of waiting.  How can I not trust him? He's got something up his sleeve, and I can't wait to find out what it is.


And then, six days after listening the the voice that told  me to go just sit and be still at Memorial, that the opportunity to prime the memory pump was about to be gone forever, the tug that told me I needed to go to my halfway demolished school, God orchestrated something absolutely amazing.  She came back, and it was as if she never left.