Dancing in the Mine Fields

Dancing in the Mine Fields

 

 

 

 

 

 

I sat on the porch step with the phone to my ear and stared out at the yard. I didn’t say anything for a moment, because I wasn’t sure how to respond.

For weeks, we’d hoped that stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) could remove my husband’s benign brain tumor, and we could be in and out of the hospital in a day with little need for recovery—with little need to upset our family’s life.

But this easier path was not the best.

The doctor gently said, “He’s going to be with you for a long time.”

“Thank you for that,” I murmured.

That afternoon, my five-year-old came down with swimmer’s ear and slept on the couch in her school uniform, a graham cracker with peanut butter untouched beside her. My three-year-old used a pen to draw all over her body and on one of the walls of her room. My four-month-old fussed most of the day after having woken every few hours the previous night.

I was so overwhelmed, I just wanted to go to bed. When my five-year-old refused to let me tend her ear, I said, “Fine,” and walked back the long hallway of our warehouse apartment while carrying the baby. I closed our bedroom door and opened the window, letting the breeze and fresh air inside.

And I thought, then, that life would be easier if I’d just gone to Africa after graduating from college like I’d planned before I fell in love. Life would be easier if I was by myself; if I was teaching English; if I was pouring myself into other children while never having children of my own; if I didn’t love so much I fear losing what I love.

But then I heard my middle daughter in the living room, and I imagined her facing an obstacle like this one day. Would her learned response be closing the door on her family? So, I opened it and put on some worship music. I poured calming oil in the diffuser. I washed the dishes and prayed. I did simple things to help soothe us all.

However, the next day, as I sat in front of the computer with the baby on my lap and the three-year-old sleeping in her room, I could not focus on my story. It is my first novel about marriage. About a widow, Ruth, coming to terms with her grief—with life after—while raising two young girls. It suddenly felt a little too close to home.

I told my husband I didn’t think I could finish it. That I might just give up. He let me talk; he told me we could do whatever we needed to. It made me feel better, but in my heart, I was questioning everything: why do I take hours—and energy—I don’t have to spare to create a world that never happened? It’s hard; often, it seems impossible.

I took a walk that night, around our land. I stood with the baby strapped to my chest and looked out over the touchstone of our creek. I believed I would stop writing. At least until life looked normal again.

And I thought or I prayed (there doesn’t seem to be much difference these days): God, something good’s gonna happen, right? Something good has to happen.

I checked my email after the kids were in bed. The Alliance was nominated for the Christy Award. The first time a story of mine’s been nominated in four years of publication. But the best thing happened the next day, when a friend of mine said, “Do you know Andrew Peterson? He’s going to be there. At the award ceremony.”

That night, I looked him up. I found Peterson’s song, “Dancing in the Mine Fields,” that I had listened to years ago, but—being a carefree newlywed—it hadn’t spoken to me then like it spoke to me now.

So, I played it. I played it in the darkened kitchen, and my husband and I sat at the table, we received for a wedding gift from my in-laws nine years ago, and listened to the words. The next morning, I listened to it while I made crepes and slipped the skin off peaches and set the table. I played it while we gave thanks for these gifts.

The day after I received news that standard surgery is still required, I walked away from my computer—from this challenging story—and went outside. My three-year-old was playing with the garden hose, holding it up in her attempt to make a rainbow.

“Higher!” I said. So, she held the hose higher, and I ran under the arc. Then she sprayed me with the hose, and I screamed and wiped the water from my face and hair.

But I did it over and over again—as the sun shone, and the water fell, and the afternoon sparkled with light. And I thought that life would, indeed, be easier if I were alone; if I did not love so deeply I sometimes fear losing what I love; if I didn’t have a pressing need to pour my thoughts into words and my words into story. If I walked away from these gifts, my life would be easier, and yet the easier path is not always best.

Therefore, I will continue to dance.

How are you going to “dance in the mine fields” this week?