New Year's Eve Celebration ?? Is that all there is??

There is about a quarter of an hour left in 2013 here in Mid Kansas, and I'm trying to figure out why I don't yield to the temptation to go ahead and "turn into a pumpkin" earlier rather than later. Everyone else has posted their "Happy New Year's" greetings on facebook, but I haven't. It all seems rather anticlimactic.

So, what's new about that? I've always been apathetic about this celebration thing; especially after an experience when I was perhaps 11 or 12. I was visiting a farm that New Year's Eve with my mother. One of my brothers family lived there with his parents-in-law and his new family, and we had come to help after the birth of a baby (can't rightly recall which child that was).

Midnight was approaching, and I got Mom to allow me to step out the back door and fire off a shot gun -- "Only once." Any more was wasteful. At the stroke of 12:00 AM, I stepped out, pointed the shotgun up and away from anything that might be damaged, and I pulled the trigger.

I can tell you that I was not prepared for my reaction. It was more like, "MEH" than not. I thought, Why in the world would anyone get excited about one more midnight? Why would I celebrate any passing day more than any other? Why should I wait for some artificial time to wish others well in their future? Isn't every day; every moment; the start of a whole "new year?" Shouldn't each moment of my life be lived in that expectation? Shouldn't I wish everyone a happy future at every moment of every new beginning?

And so, I try to live in that attitude.

It isn't easy for me to do, since I am an Adult A.D.D. person. Not every moment of my life is serendipitous. There are depressing times (although I don't suffer from chronic depression), just because things don't always go well and as an A.D.D. I am prone in the moment to exaggerate the importance of a coffee spill or a trip over a kitchen rug. In those times it's not uncommon; rather it is quite common for me to blurt out some epithet at the rug or at myself or at whatever has interrupted my calm of the moment.

In those moments it is precisely because, like Moses, "I am a man of unclean lips" that I often feel unworthy to even pray to God for strength. Still, I suck it up and pray. Sometimes the prayer is an epithet. Sometimes it is a simple confession, "Lord, it hurts!" Sometimes, depending on other health concerns of the day(s), it takes several days before I can return to an "even keel" and regain control, but my experience has always been that during my darkest hours, that's when I feel God's presence the more; when I feel the assurance that things will be better in the new times coming.

In that spirit, I wish you all a happy new year; for every day of every year, and I invite you to join me in mine.

My Love Shall Live

        

Editorial Note: I wrote this poem after 

an all-day ministry experience as a hospital 

chaplain to a family who was losing a child 

to a farming accident. The mother and father 

were estranged and the older, adult siblings 

were totally siding with Mom. Thus, the father 

was having an especially dark day. He had 

pinned his hopes on that child to bring the 

family back together. The mother and some 

of the siblings were in total denial when the 

child died.

This event also brought to mind the time a 
few years previous when a special professor 
of mine lost his wife and a son in a firey car 
crash. I showed him a draft of this poem. 
His response was, "It's all there."

        My Love Shall Live!

           Jack L. Mace, © 1989

“He’s not dead!?  It cannot be!

                The doctor surely lies.

He’s asleep!  He’ll wake again

                At breaking of the dawn.

He will rise to laugh; to love.

                So truly all can see,

My faith robs death its dark rule.

                Yes, I shall take him home.

“Truly, it’s impossible,

                that death should lay him low.

He is keeper of my dreams ...

                My love  ...  my life  ... my soul.

Love is stronger e'en than death.

                True love shall conquer all.

Do not talk to me of death.

                I simply will not hear.

My faith is strong, sufficient.

                I know that he will rise.

There is no love strong as mine.

                My love, it will prevail.

God will answer all my prayers

                And make him whole again.

Death shall not take whom I love.

                To him, harm shall not come.

“Look my friend!  Look here and see!

                I hold his body, warm.

Gently kissing loving lips,

                His sweet, warm breath I feel.

Nothing’s changed, as you can see.

                How can you say he’s gone?

Out the door to work or play

                As he has always done?”

So, in ominous abyss

                She searches height and breadth

Height and breadth of darkness cold,

                to find her love, now gone.

Love, now gone, hath borne away

                the better part of her -

Nay, ‘twas not the better part -

                Indeed, most all of her.

Yet doth she dare to fancy

                that from dread darkness cold,

She’ll bear forth her love, now gone,

                Her anguish drive away.

“He’s not dead, but gone aside,

                And he’ll return once more.

When he does, my tears he’ll dry

                and make me whole once more.

“Some day sure, this yet shall pass.

                I’ll find my true love home.

He’ll return in loving bliss

                To hold me evermore.

Evermore, then shall we rise

                To dance away the dark.

Dancing  ...  dancing  ...  gone the clouds,

                Once more sweet love we’ll share.”

Daily searching  -  bright or cloud -

                And yet throughout her night,

In loneliness she searches

                Her bed for warmth and love.

Finding naught but emptiness

                She feels her breath withdrawn.

Searching ever  -  pain so deep,

                Increasing ten-fold more.

“Some day sure, this yet shall pass.

                I’ll find my true love home.”

Finding naught, her hope doth wane.

                ...  Her tears begin to know,

Never shall she find her love,

                but cold within the grave.

So in time, quoth she one day,

                “He’s  ...  gone  ...  for evermore.

“Lies cold my dear beloved,

                Dead cold within the grave.

Away, my heart is wrenched -

                My heart and yes, my breath.

My love  ...  life  ...  my heart and soul

                Lies cold within his grave.

I shall hold him nevermore,

                His heart  ...  in time  ...  with mine.

“Harshly am I punished!  Why,

                And what the wrong I’ve done!?

Forever gone is my love.

                I’ll hold him nevermore.

My God  ...  My God  ...  why, my God!?

                You’ve taken him from me.

We shared life  ...  love  ...  and breath.

                Could he deserve to die?

“A chasm, mighty  -  fearsome  -

                Presides where once he lived,

I perceive no distant shore  -

                Just broad and deep despair.

I’m bereft on stormy sea.

                Without my love and stay,

Dare I stretch forth to wander

                That wilderness so drear?

“That chasm, mighty  -  fearsome -

                Where once my true love dwelt,

Robs me now of hope and dream.

                His love I cannot feel.

Fill it up again with love?

                O God! It can’t be done!

Such a deep and dread abyss

                can nevermore be filled.

“Would you not be satisfied

                To take my life instead?

Take thou my life, Lord, today,

                And give it to my love.

I’ve lived my life to fullness.

                Of joy I’ve had my fill.

In eternal rest lay me.

                Rekindle life in him.”

Companions come, then they go.

                To comfort loss they try.

Shall they feel dread loss she knows,

                Most all of her now gone?

Scarcely yet shall they perceive

                Foreboding pain within  -

Foreboding pain   -   chasm broad  -

                Where once her true love dwelt?

Scarcely aught is left to her,

                And why she cannot know.

Thus quoth she, “’Tis vain, my friend,

                That you presume to grasp

My deep pains to lose my love,

                My better part of life  -

Life I spent with my love, true  -

                My dreams and all my plans.

“Can you grasp my cursings bold,

                To drive God ’way from me?

Shall you know forsaken-ness,

                And fear encounter sweet?

Shall you know forsaken-ness,

                No hope of being found?

Ever fear I loneliness

                Where fear I’ve never known.

“You shall not perceive my pain,

                Nor feel my empty arms.

And Damn you!  How dare you try

                To show me skies of blue!?

Can you perceive the darkness

                of bright and sunlit sky  -

Fathom emptiness within?

                Nor shall you want to try!

“Dare you not to say to me,

                ‘with time, you’ll better feel.’

Time I have  -  and emptiness.

                My love hath gone away.

Time  ...  and emptiness  ...  and pain,

                These three my days now rule.

Empty fall your platitudes.

                It’s not all right, you know!

“Scarce know you the pain I feel.

                You’ve never held true love

One last time for evermore,

                And not to hold again.

You’ve not known the still, cold form

                that tore your heart away;

Nor felt wrenched from your lungs

                Your life restoring breath.

“Yet, do I dare to fancy,

                To seek and yet to find,

In that ominous abyss

                My true love, gone away.

You shan’t know the pain I feel

                Come feel my empty arms.

Feel the chasm deep within.

                Walk in if you can bear.

“Burdened shame, and guilt, and doubt,

                And emptiness I feel.

Often in my deepest fear,

                Too long, too deep I’ve searched.

Reaching o’er abyss’s brink,

                I’ve nearly fallen in.

How I’ve kept my grip on life,

                I surely do not know.

“Do you know the reaching out,

                The primal scream for aid?

Have you felt that chasm deep

                Where once your true love dwelt?

Or perchance in tears you’ve drowned

                To wake as living dead.

Can you help me bear my pain?

                It’s not all right, you know.

                jlm

She was "Mom."

Nearly 20 years ago, I stood by her casket reveling in the joy of having had her as "Mom."

Her last months were especially significant for me. We spent many visits talking freely about her approaching death. Sadly, there were those in the family who believed that we shouldn't talk with her about that. They thought it would cause her to give up, but early after the last diagnosis from her doctor she made it abundantly clear to me one day that she wanted to talk. She wouldn't likely last more than 6 months longer with her congestive heart failure, and she wanted us all to know she wasn’t afraid.

When I asked how she viewed death she said, “I’ve come to think of death as an old friend waiting.”

That was the tone of many wonderful visits exploring faith and the future.

On the night she died, I had just been cleared by my doctor to leave off my neck brace from a broken neck three months earlier. Mom knew how much pain I was in constantly. She had come to understand just what I meant when she would ask how I was and I would respond, "My ME hurts."

She had been semi-conscious to unconscious all day, and my older brother Ron notified me in the late afternoon that she likely wouldn't last the night. The 50-some mile ride; albeit in a comfortable car; hurt like crazy. Walking into her room was physically painful. I wanted to say, "Good-bye, Mom," but there were some present who still denied how seriously she wanted her "rest." So, I felt compelled to speak cautiously.

I went to her bed; laid my hand on her forehead and simply said, "Mom, I'm here."

She opened her eyes. "Oh, it's you son. It must be bad."

"It's OK, Mom. You can rest now."

She closed her eyes; I believe for the last time. She died peacefully several hours later. Because of my extreme physical pain that night, I wasn't able to stay and be present at the time of death, but I didn't need to be. We both knew I had said “Good-bye.”

So, there I was at her casket, reveling in the joy of having had her as “Mom.” I didn’t cry during that funeral time – before, during or after – and my wife wondered later, “Why not?”  The truth? I didn’t need to cry. Mom wasn’t gone. She was – IS always a part of all of us. How could she be gone as long as we carry her in our hearts?

But, there may be one thing missing. I remember how she would kneel by her bed each night before retiring, and she would lovingly lift each of us to God in her prayer. There by her casket, I wondered, “Who will say a prayer each day for each of us now?”

Sadly, I haven’t picked up that challenge.