February 25, 2008
The Subtle Start
On October 1, 2006, my husband passed away. As I was approaching the first anniversary of Jeff’s death, I began to get more and more stressed. I felt like I was speeding toward a brick wall at 200 mph and knew darn well that nothing was going to keep me from slamming in to it.
Standing in the coffee hour line after church one Sunday, another widow friend of mine asked what I had planned to help myself cope during that anniversary. I told her I had planned to take that week off from work. I knew I was already having trouble keeping it together, and I pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near work.
Jan then asked me which week it was I was taking. “The 1st through the 6th of October," I answered. “Oh!" she exclaimed, “You have the wrong week off!" I was pretty sure I had those dates right. Jeff passed away on the 1st and his funeral was held on the 6th. October 6th would have also been our 5th wedding anniversary.
Jan went on to explain how she and her son were planning to travel to New Orleans on a recovery/rebuilding trip from October 6th through October 14th. She suggested I travel with them. I did not hesitate to quickly, and emphatically, decline. I couldn’t take two weeks off from work. I didn’t want to be away from home. It just wasn’t going to happen. I wiped it from my mind.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)
Monday "Alive"
Monday’s work day came and went normally.
I had been reading Stephen Baldwin’s “The Unusual Suspect‿ in my normal fashion; just a few pages at a time. So, when Monday evening came around, I grabbed my book and my tea, and prepared to pick up where I had left off the night before.
The sub-chapter title was “Alive". It recounted how Hurricane Katrina had coincided with his reading of Mark 13, and how the author knew he was exactly where he was supposed to be in his journey of reading the bible.
Interesting, I thought. Maybe I am supposed to be reading this chapter in his book right now.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
Tuesday "Guideposts"
Tuesday was just a frustrating day at work.
When lunch time came around, I grabbed my lunch bag and locked my office door. Over the weekend, I had finally gotten around to sorting out the many magazines that had piled up, and had thrown one into my bag, just in case I needed some inspiration. I definitely felt I was in need of some grounding, so I pulled out the August 2007 issue of Guideposts, and opened it to a random page.
Page 49 revealed a story about a couple who had particpated on a recovery/rebuilding trip to New Orleans, and the effect the trip had on their lives. The story was based on events that had occurred an entire year earlier; one year after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Interesting, I thought. It’s now been two years, and there is still work to do.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2008
Wednesday "Trucks"
Wednesday, I decided not to get on the treadmill.
I had ambitiously bumped up both the speed and the incline on Tuesday night, and had spent most of Wednesday waddling around like a penguin. So, I grabbed the TV remotes and decided it was a good time to go through the DVR programming my husband had created. I began deleting many recorded episodes of programs I would probably never watch. Jeff was a knowledge sponge. He recorded programs like Forensic Files, How It’s Made, and pretty much the entire History, Discovery and National Geographic channel line ups.
Towards the end of my deleting frenzy, I came across about 10 episodes of a show called Trick My Truck. As I scrolled through the information blurbs, I came across a show description about a pair of grandparents who wanted to include their grandchildren in their trucking life. That sounded rather harmless and happy, so I hit the play button.
After the intro and a few commercials, the theme of the show was revealed. I immediately hit the stop button, went back to the description and read again about the grandparents. However, when I hit play once more, the same story came up about a trucker from New Orleans who helped many Katrina victims in his neighborhood and city.
Ok, I thought, what is going on? I decided to send Jan an email asking her to send me the information for the mission trip
jak
Posted by jaselin at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
Thursday "Paperwork"
On Thursday, the information I received back was well planned, included insurance, and started making sense to me.
Uh, oh, I thought. How am I going to work this out? They’ll never let me take two weeks off from work. Am I even stable enough to consider doing this? What will Jeff’s family think if I’m not here to go through the one-year mark with them? What will my family think?
I printed the forms. I even filled them out, and then put them aside. During my 45 minutes on the treadmill, I managed to talk myself out of it again.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
Friday "Early Morning"
I woke up about 2:30 am Friday morning, wide-eyed, just sitting upright in bed.
I made a cup of tea, plodded to the den, flipped the tv on again, and this time I landed on Food Network. Just in time to catch the last part of a show called Road Tasted.
This show features brothers Jamie and Bobby Deen traveling throughout the US, visiting locally owned restaurants and shops. For this episode, they were in New Orleans.
Ok, I thought, now this is getting too weird. I grabbed my note pad, and jotted down all the events that had occurred since Jan told me about the trip.
I looked them over and thought, interesting. Why am I being bombarded with information about New Orleans?
jak
Posted by jaselin at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
Friday "Mid-Day"
Friday, I asked my coworker how it would affect her if I were to take two weeks off.
She seemed shocked, and came close to tears. She had made plans for that second week in October to visit with her sisters in Iowa. They hadn't been together in nearly eight years, since their father passed away.
I quickly said it was ok, and probably for the best that I didn’t go anyway. What had I been thinking? I felt horrible and had created an awkward tension between us.
Later on in the day, Linda approached me and said that I should go if I wanted to. I felt the wheels really starting to roll now, but for some reason, I wasn’t so worried about being in control. I copied the filled-out forms and put them in an envelope to mail on Saturday.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)
Saturday "Smacked"
Saturday, my older brother Greg arrived from Massachusetts to visit with me for the weekend.
We hadn’t been able to spend any time together since Jeff passed away, and we were both needing that one-on-one time. I thought I’d try to explain the trip and my experiences to him before I mailed out those forms. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be talked out of going or not.
Greg arrived with a National Geographic magazine that he finished on his trip over. He immediately began to explain to me the importance of restructuring the wetlands around the Gulf Coast and New Orleans to act as a natural buffer between water storms and inland areas.
It was at this point, I had to finally consider myself thoroughly God-smacked. I finally got the message. There was no doubt I was going to New Orleans in October.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
Change of Plans "Alone"
Then something bad happened.
My friend Jan’s son, a roofer, fell off a roof he was working on. He only damaged one ankle – which was a real blessing considering what could have been. However, that meant he and Jan were no longer going to New Orleans. If I were going to make this trip, I would be completely on my own. At that point, I figured why not? I’d already been doing everything alone for a year, anyway.
So, I actually went ahead and made that trip, along with 48 other volunteers from all over Michigan. I didn’t know anyone else, and I was looking forward to being with a group of people who knew nothing about me. I was running away from the past year, hoping to help heal New Orleans, and perhaps heal a little part of me, as well.
It wasn’t long before I started to share my story with these awesome caring people. For nine days, I was constantly surrounded by love and concern. Not pity. Not “it’s time to stop talking about the past, and get on with your life." Not “When are you going to stop wearing your wedding ring?" I cried when I had to, and they let me.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)
First Assignment "Demolition"
The first home I worked on was a demolition assignment.
The house had not been worked on much in two years. We went through personal belongings, met our home owner’s daughters, cried with them, and removed everything from the house.
In hot, humid, rainy weather, with no running water and no electricity at our site, we cleaned that place out entirely. There was nothing left of it except for the brick exterior and the framing. It took our mini-crew of 5 volunteers, only three days to accomplish the clean-out.
After that, we were reassigned to a drywall team at another home.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)
Second Assignment "Drywall"
At the second assignment, I got to “tour� a FEMA trailer.
Stand in one place, stretch out your arms, and pivot. Then, imagine living in a space like that for 2 years, in the front yard of what once was your home.
By the time our crew left that site, we had all the insulation and about ½ of the sheetrock walls and ceilings installed, mudded, and taped. It was painful to leave the job unfinished, but we were told that another volunteer crew was on their way. On Monday they would take up where we left off.
By the time we left the work site on Friday night at 5:30 pm, our home owner was able to walk through his home smiling. When it was time to leave Louisiana and head for home, one of my co-volunteers told me that many people had noticed that I was smiling more, too.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
Why Thank You Isn't Enough
You might have been skeptical;
you could have just humoured me.
But instead, you blessed me,
encouraged me, supported me.
You contributed to gas money,
or food money, or prayed
for me and for all the volunteers.
I took you with me in my heart.
I left a lot of "me" down there.
You've changed me.
I will never be the same.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)
Demolition Versus Drywall
My intent was to be supportive. Participate in kitchen duty, give smiles of encouragement.
So I was not prepared (gasp!) when Pastor Alice said she was glad to see me and that I would be expected to speak as part of the North Lake United Methodist Church of Chelsea Michigan mission team during the 10:45 am service.
I accepted the challenge, though I knew I really had no choice in the matter. I also had no idea what I would say. I thought about telling the congregation how, for this team, their mission work began before we even left the NLUMC parking lot. How arriving early and seeing no one, I had not been sure I was in the right place.
Finally, I did see someone. I rolled down my window and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be Pastor Alice, would you? She nodded “yes." We had connected via phone messages, but had not ever spoken to each other, so I was surprised when I introduced myself and she threw her arms around me in a welcoming hug. I knew then that I was in the right place.
Standing there on the podium at NLC with their mission team, Marilyn, Dave, Mary Jane and Pastor Alice, my knees were knocking, I was already feeling the tears starting to come.
When it was Mary Jane’s turn to speak, she told how she had been hesitant to make the trip because she had no construction skills to offer, but was assured that her presence would be a blessing. Mary Jane’s son had helped to secure a van from Palmer Ford in Chelsea. It was quite a donation of heart. The catch was that Mary Jane had been asked to remain with the van all the while it was in use. That is when she said something that would change my life, again. She told how, having no construction skills, she had been assigned to the demolition team. However, since she needed to stay with the van, she had been moved to a dry wall team.
My only semi-skill was in the limited experience I had with drywall through Habitat for Humanity. I had checked the box on the skills assessment that indicated I had some experience with drywall but still needed firm direction. I was a little disappointed when I found out that I had been assigned to the demolition team. Reason told me that there were probably volunteers with way more experience than I had, and that is why I had been given my demolition assignment. I learned a tremendous amount about myself at that site. I made some deep friendships, and found a “family" I belonged to.
So, standing up there on Sunday morning, in front of a congregation of unfamiliar faces, yet surrounded by four amazing friends, I realized that once again, my time in New Orleans had been directed by a higher power. God had put me where I needed to be, and not where I thought I was needed.
When it came my turn to speak, I had the anticipated trouble of keeping my voice steady. A Kleenex came down the line to me as I told the story of Pastor Alice and the parking lot hug. I shared with the congregation how this particular group, unbeknownst to them, was actually on two missions that week. One for the work that they did in New Orleans, and one for the work they did on me during the trip down and back.
I asked Mary Jane to also thank her son for me. For confirming what I know to be truths. There is nothing in this life that does not happen for a very specific reason, and nothing in this life is ever a coincidence.
jak
Posted by jaselin at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)