thankful for...

and thinking of jairus today.

1 john 4:18-19.

my nephew caleb. words don't exist to explain his existence. caleb has lived a little over seven short months but his little life is already so epic to us.

in april, my family gathered in LA to remember my dad's life. it's been five years since he passed away and in this fifth year, we've all found ourselves in new seasons of life where we recognize the void, the places we had always imagined he would be, to encourage us, to hold us, to correct us, to laugh with us and watch us proudly. my brother finds himself with a beautiful family of his own which has brought new questions that his seasons past didn't know existed. i imagine that my dad rejoices in heaven for my dear brother who's growing so much everyday but understimates his own capacity & potential. i think my dad's chanting his name and telling Jesus all the stories about my brother's triumphs....stories that Jesus already knows, but with a grin allows my dad the pleasure of reliving. i think that even in the moments where my brother sits in his office alone, scared that he'll let us all down, my dad is whispering promises of hope into our raging lives. my sister in law married into the mourning of a man she's never been able to look at and be affirmed by. i think her heart breaks for all of us, but it breaks for herself too, the sadness of what she feels she may have missed. my mom finds herself in a crazy place not only physically (she lives in Mississippi) but also in life. she used to find her whole purpose in lavishing her life on us, as a mother and as a wife to my dad. in the past year she's had to somewhat relinquish the comfort of finding her purpose in these roles. she's wandered away from el paso, which we all knew as home and finds herself in the quiet of frequent solitude in the southern forests. in that quiet, she misses him....the man that helped her build her life so. the man that was supposed to be there when life as she knew it escaped her. i was on the phone with my aunt yesterday and she told me that i resembled my mother in the way i hold one thing in my heart so recklessly. i asked her what she meant and she said that my mom had once told her, "i don't care that he left me early. he was beautiful when he came and beautiful when he left. if i was twenty five again, i'd marry him all over again, tragic loss and all." how beautiful...that reckless love. but how tragic the void. then there's me. i've only been graduated from college a year. i have a full-time job for the first time and i get to help people with it...something that my dad surrendered his whole life to, way more radically than i. i wake up every morning to find that my face has devoted itself even more to his legacy than it did the night before. i used to think i would miss him less and feel less of the loss as time passed. instead i've woken up in cold sweats so many nights in the past year...so fearful that a memory of this brilliantly sincere man might escape me if i let myself sleep too deep. for the first time in five years i've stayed up entire nights reliving conversations we had about big important things and little silly things. i'm desperate to remember it all, because it's the greatest comfort to me in this season of life where so much is unknown.

then on january 5 this year....this little boy arrived. my brother cried the first time he looked at his son because he looks eerily like my dad. he was born making the same facial expressions as this great man that all of us ache for. so we all sit around this beautiful blessing and watch his every move...comforted that my dad is so very alive today. he smiles like dad and laughs like dad and is the most easy going guy just like dad.

and he goes on smiling...not knowing how much he's pouring back hope into our fragile lives. he laughs from his little belly and unknowingly reminds us that dad's still wishing big for us.

the moment caleb was born i wrote this prayer in my journal:

"Lord, let today be a day that shakes heaven & brings us closer to Your Kingdom come. Let Caleb be a man who loves You radically, gives his whole life to Your glory & renown. Let his life burn as an offering to You and may he draw everyone in His life closer to Your fire with his radical abandon to Love.

Father, may Caleb be a passionate man, unrestricted by fear & bondage. May he never be afraid to fight fear and always eager to love. Jesus, give him strength to not let fear stop Love."

i felt so strongly that Caleb would be marked by his capacity to love both humbly & fiercely.

this is a picture of Caleb just a few weeks ago. look at his face....radical love already abides there, and though Caleb's life has only begun, he's already become the things i prayed for...for us.

love is a mix tape.

my favorite book. ever.

it's a story of love & loss...relayed through something i'm passionate about.
90's music.

love+loss+90's music=me weeping & laughing & oh so glad that someone else gets it.

"it's too late to sleep anyway. the coffee's gone cold, so i just heat up another pot. tonight, i feel like my whole body is made out of memories. i'm a mix tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape.

press play.

first song, side two: r.e.m.'s "man on the moon." did renee ever make a mix tape without r.e.m.? a whole generation of southern girls, raised on the promise of michael stipe.

i now get scared of forgetting anything about renee, even the tiniest detail, even the bands on this tape i can't stand-if she touched them, i want to hear her fingerprints. sometimes, i wake up in the middle of the night, my heart pounding, trying to remember: what was renee's shoe size? what color were her eyes? what was her birthday, her grandparents' first names, that willie nelson song we heard on the radio in atlanta? the memory comes back, hours or days later. it always comes back. but in the moment, i panic. i'm positive it's gone for good. i'm shaking from that sensation now, trying to remember some of this music. nothing connects to the moment like music. i count on the music to bring me back-or, more precisely, to bring her forward."

-rob sheffield.

today i miss him...

today i woke up and stumbled into my bathroom....when i opened my eyes and looked up, i saw him. i saw him in the downward stumble in the outside corners of my eyes and in the plumpness of my cheeks and in the shocked gaze at the mirror. i see myself becoming him & it both delights and scares me.

it delights me that i don't have to wake up in panic that i've forgotten him, because as soon as i get to the mirror, there he'll be.

it scares me because i don't get to hear what he says about this me...the me that weeps for the lost days and the me that rejoices when i recognize his spirit swelling up in me greater with each day.

some days i wish he'd just show up and laugh with me...or at me. they'd equally delight me. other days when all i can do is mourn...i wish he'd hold me and tell me that there's something better coming. when i catch myself whistling...i wish i'd find him joining in with a triumphant grin...glad that his little girl can finally produce more than hot breath with her rounded lips. i wish i could share him with my friends. i wish i could share him with the world. i wish they knew that he was the best person i ever knew...even when i didn't know it.