Dearest Judy

 One of the hardest things about life is when the opposite happens, and we are forced (ready or not) to say goodbye. I am no stranger to separation by death. Yet every time it happens to a beloved family member or a close friend, it feels just as awful, just as violent - whether the person died in their sleep or in a tragic accident, or whether there was time to prepare or not. 

One of those incidents happened not long ago. A dear friend, unbeknownst to me, had a stroke and dropped out of view. When Judy was not on social media for 3 weeks, I began to get concerned and I contacted her family, who told me about the stroke. She was in the hospital. 

Judy had always been so strong, so independent, that we did not think much of the fact that she was getting old and it was getting harder for her to move around. We enjoyed her company, her laugh, her stories, her enjoyment of the little things, and most of all her love. When she would call me, she would identify herself as "Judy too," as my name is Judy. We would invite her to our house for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. She and I would make "play dates" or as I called them, "aerie times", referencing our favourite metaphor, the eagle. She would invite our family to Dairy Queen and pay for our meals. She prayed every single day for each of us, as well as for her family and other friends. What a precious lady.

My husband and I went to see her on Christmas day 2023 when she was in the stroke unit; she was largely unresponsive, and her words slurred when she spoke, as if she was drunk. About a week later, we went in to see her again. This time she had been moved to a full-care unit where people go to recover. We were hopeful that she would get better. However, it struck me while we were there that they had put in a feeding tube through her abdominal wall into her stomach. She was totally dependent on them. I remember being grateful that the stroke seemed to affect her ability to compare the quality of her current life with the one she had been living prior to the stroke. We wanted to make our visits a regular thing.

The week after that, we got sick with some sort of flu and we didn't go to see her for fear that she would catch our sickness, which would not have been good. We were sick for about three weeks. 

During the time we were sick, Judy passed away. We didn't know. One day in early February, I went onto her wall on Facebook, and learned from a post someone left that she had passed, just about a month or so prior to her 80th birthday. 

I'd been keeping a Christmas card for her in my purse, which i wrote to her after our second visit. Yesterday I was looking for something else ... and I found it. Slowly, I un-tucked the back flap of the envelope, and slid the card out. The picture was of a cardinal. Inside I had written a short note to her from us, and I started it out with "Dearest Judy," as I often did on Christmas or her birthday. 

I froze. Floods of memories from before the stroke came to me, as if to comfort me. 

Try as I might, I could not (and cannot) be sad for her. In 2007, she lost her beloved husband Bob to a heart attack, and she often spoke of him with us, because we knew him from when they were married. We knew that they were reunited after all this time (this coming April 3rd it would have been 17 years). She is happy and pain-free for the first time in many years - head injuries from a previous relationship gave her Menière's Disease, affecting her hearing and her balance. She is finally free of it. 

No, I cannot be sad for her. However, I can be sad for me. I will miss this wonderful big sister of mine, who was technically old enough to be my mother. I will miss our long talks, our prayer sessions, our sing-songs, her vivid imagination, and so much more. I will miss how articulate and talented in writing she was, how spiritual and yet down-to-earth she was. 

And I can imagine her keeping watch over us all, in that "great cloud of witnesses" the Scriptures mention (Hebrews 11, I believe, but I could be wrong.) I can picture her joining our daughter Arielle's twerking class (Mother Theresa was her first graduate, haha)... and dancing with all her might. I can imagine her singing while Bob makes his heavenly electric guitar just wail ... and I know that while it seems like a long time here, it won't be long for her when she turns around and I'll be standing there, arms wide for a big hug.

Fully fledged

In the life of a young bird, there comes a stage when it gets its flying feathers. Over time, the baby fuzz is replaced by firm feathers - including wing feathers that will be rigid enough to ride on air currents and support the weight of the bird. 

Until that happens, the baby bird spends more and more of its time - still in its nest - flapping its wings, exercising those muscles. Yet it still can't sustain flight. During the stage in which the adult feathers grow in, the bird is said to "fledge," and when there is no more fuzz, it is called full-fledged, or fully fledged. 

Sometimes a bird, even though it's been practicing in the nest and has even managed to lift itself up into the air a bit, still seems to want to stay in the nest; perhaps it is afraid of falling. Eventually, the baby fuzz that's been falling out will blow away from the nest and the rough sticks get more and more uncomfortable. 

Thanks to Jeff Ratcliffe at
www.freedigitalphotos.net for his
photo, "Eagle In Flight"

Before long, the desire to leave the safety of the nest is stronger than the fear of falling - and the bird takes that leap of faith into the invisible, making short flights to the ground, up to branches (or in the case of an eagle, rock ledges), landing on neighboring trees or other suitable perches. At this point, it doesn't leave the protection of its parents but continues to learn to use its wings and to feed itself by watching its mother and father. It only takes a few weeks to learn these skills. Many birds do maintain that family relationship. The family group is a great source of security. And some - just fly away to establish their own territory.

I guess that lately, I've been going through that transition period where the young one has left the nest but is still somewhat dependent, learning all she can to be self-sufficient, strengthening her wing muscles. It's a thrilling but frightening time (for both of us!) and both my daughter and I have been learning a lot from the experience. So far, she's traveled across the country nearly to the other side, lived in someone's car (with them and later with their permission), found a job, faced transportation issues to and from work, shopped for a second-hand car, hunted for an apartment, ... and the list is ongoing. While she's been having all these experiences thousands of miles away, my heart has been traveling with her, praying for her, supporting her, talking her down when she's upset, suggesting options when she's been out of her depth. I even talked her through preparing a chicken dinner for a lady who let her stay with her the first of this week! (And I'm not sure who was more pleased with the results - her or me!)

As someone in recovery from control-freaking and from obsessive care-taking, there's a fine line between letting go and abandonment, just as there is between being there for my child and trying to make her choices for her. It truly is a process where I, like she was when she was in my nest, have been growing my own feathers. 

I can see the day quickly approaching where she will have learned enough to be able to be self-sufficient. I am so proud of all that she has accomplished so far, and I believe in her ability to make it on her own. It's a process for her and it's a process for me too. As I support her in this transition while slowly letting go and allowing her to make her own choices and reap her own consequences, I grow another feather myself. 

And yes, I've been doing a lot of flapping, even some short hovers, and - admittedly - a fair bit of squawking. ;) 

Before long though, I'll make that leap myself - out into the unknown - and find that the invisible is strong enough to carry me too.

Letting Go

I don't usually give a second thought to birds in flight - until I see one that can't fly but which is supposed to be able to fly.

I remember a song I wrote when I was a teenager. I'd been to a wildlife park and had seen an eagle there. It bothered me so much to see such a magnificent bird dragging its feathers in the dust, hopping from foot to foot, looking miserable.

Anyway, the song was about an eagle who had been captured, tethered to the ground amid the dust, and made to live a lower life to satisfy the curiosity of its captors. He looks up to the skies and sees a sparrow, flitting from bush to bush outside his enclosure.

Part of the lyrics went like this:

I know that I, an eagle, was more majestic than he
But now he owns more power, simply because he is free.

Was I sixteen when I wrote that?? Wow.... But I digress.

He was powerless to free himself. But someone who had enough money to buy him, could come in at any time and loose the bonds. (When that happens with a slave, they call it redemption). Then it would be the eagle's choice whether to stay, still considering himself to be tied to the ground, or move past those fears, let go of his previous mindset, and leap into the sky.

So with us. Jesus has freed us, but many of us are still hopping around on the ground, believing in the limitations to which we've become accustomed.

There is such liberty in letting go.

We let go of our old way of thinking, of thinking that we can fix people, control them, manipulate them, rescue them. We let God rescue them - that is His job, after all. He's the One who does it best. And we just concentrate on our own spiritual journey, our own relationship with Him.

We let go of the lies we were fed all our lives, and we embrace His truth: He loves us, He accepts us just as we are, He wants the best for us (that's HIM), and He will never give up on us. He considers us worth knowing. He gave everything to make sure we had that opportunity!!

With His empowerment,

• We let go of the self-doubt those lies led us to.
• We let go of the guilt for past deeds - He died to take that away if we would just give it to Him.
• We let go of the shame we feel for being ourselves, and we begin to see ourselves as He sees us.
• We let go of the resentments we have harbored against those who have kept us in bondage. Those resentments themselves have kept us bound even more than our oppressors did.

We look only to Him, and let Him look deeply into us with an unconditional love like we've never known or ever will know. In that love-relationship, as we let go of the things that tie us to our old selves, we find the very thing we have longed for all our lives.

Joy.