Not a Word from Your Sponsors

Saturday night, you could see the following type of exchanges happening on facebook for those of us in Santa Rosa:

Does anyone know why [highway] 12 is closed?

I heard there was a big accident.

Yeah, a bad crash with 2 fatalities. (links to local paper's website)

Oh, man. That sucks.  end scene, go on with your night

Sunday morning, those of us at church arrived to find out that those "fatalities" were our friend, Sue Hufford, and her mother-in-law, Sharon. I'm not going to recap the whole thing here, but they were killed (hopefully) instantly when their stopped car was crushed by a truck going 60mph driven by a young man who was high and looking at his phone at the time. Her husband and father-in-law were taken to the hospital with injuries, but they lived.

I cannot claim to have been close to Sue, so my pain is only a fraction of the pain of her many students, mentees, closest friends, and family. But we liked each other a lot. We were co-leaders (called "sherpas" in our church youth group) of a group of 12-21 (depending on the week) high school girls about 4 years ago.

Our silly group, with Sue being the non-redheaded adult there on the left. We made our shirts, which say "HOLLA" big with (lujah) underneath. We thought they were REAL funny. Some of the girls are also making the Michael Nunan stinkface.

 

Sue was quiet, especially when you first met her. Her closest friends may have seen her differently, but I always thought she was quiet. It surprised me that she wanted to work with high school girls, and also that she was an elementary school teacher. I felt like she was such a real adult compared to me. She wasn't very silly that year, and I often thought she didn't like me. (We won't discuss the game involving plastic wrap and a furniture dolly which sent her to the hospital that first night of youth group.)

Over the years, Sue and I chatted from time to time about how she and her kids were doing, but it was really after I became a foster parent that I think we connected more. She was always happy to hear about what was going on in our new lives as parents. In this past year, I had a number of really nice but short times with her. I saw her smile more than I'd had call to in the past. At our women's Open Mic night last year, I would have been thrilled if she really had been the one who could cackle like the Wicked Witch of the West in the game of To Tell the Truth that she participated in, and she awed us all with her talent when she played a few songs on the violin. Why were we surprised that a music teacher was so talented?

We sat and talked at her youngest's graduation party, and ran into each other at The Human Race, where she was raising funds for her salary like a sort of missionary of elementary music. Just the week before she was killed, I got to sit with her twice at different events. I sat with her and Jay at the Eagle ceremony for a young man from church. Even though she was wearing an Eagle Scout shirt from when one of her sons had achieved it, we knew each other well enough that I could lean over and mutter, "This is SO not my thing!" and she just laughed and said, "Yeah, it's a bit over the top." When I showed up for the first practice for Easter choir, I was so happy to see that she was there. She sat by me and, again, I was impressed by her talent and was glad to know that I could sit by her each week and be sure I had the right notes since I'm not a good music reader. We weren't close, but she was my friend and I'm just so sad.

There has been a tremendous outpouring of support and love and even outrage expressed over how they were killed. So many people have shared the news stories, even people who never met her, because it was a tragedy that didn't need to happen. This is good. I suppose that's a way that her death won't have been completely pointless: if people will stop texting and driving and be more aware; if other lives can be saved. A lesson can be learned. I know. I know this is important, but it also hurts a little bit. Amid all the "sorry for your loss"es and "can't we put away our phones?" I just want to yell "DON'T YOU GET IT! THIS IS HORRIBLE. MORE HORRIBLE THAN THAT! SHE WAS OUR FRIEND AND NOW SHE'S DEAD! SHE'S MORE THAN YOUR PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!" I'm afraid that her kids will heal hardened instead of tender. I'm afraid that I'll never see Jay smile and cracking a joke like he was every single time I ever saw him before this.


I know. I know. I'm being unreasonable. Maybe all humans are kinesthetic learners: we have to touch something and feel it before we can learn it. Our behavior isn't going to change until something is personal, and I hope that the degrees of separation between these deaths and you are few enough to do that for you. Personally, I have changed my phone behavior in the car, so I'm receiving the message, too. I can't make you cry for my friend, but I will accept that you have been affected by her story and will honor these deaths by changing your behavior and encouraging those around you to do the same. Let's do a better job of taking care of each other, okay?

Wednesday if often Blergday

Today has not/did not go as planned.  I wanted to and needed to get some things done before my volunteer job, so I set my alarm for a reasonable hour.  Unfortunately, I had my earplugs in entirely too well, and I woke up at 12:09pm.  Ugh.

So, my fabulous day of doing dishes, working out, then lazily reading while volunteering turned into hurry-hurry-chaos-hurry.  I only read a little bit, because it was just a busy day.  There was a National Geographic camera crew at ADI, so people were constantly in and out of my area of the building, and people were actually coming in and wanting, gosh, help!

Then I got to feel like a complete noob trying to wrangle a design program on a Mac since my lovely student helpers were MIA at Big Time.  I was stupidly printing multiple pages when I only needed one (of color! my little tree-hugging heart was bleeding), and couldn't figure out how to fix that until the last name tag (yep, it's 2 words today) was printed.  Then I fumbled my way through a database, having to go back and find almost every person I put in to add something that I forgot.  When one of the students finally showed up, I made her enter the last two people as a punishment, though she knows what she's doing and it took her about 2 minutes. It's not like I'm 85 and know nothing about computers!  I'm intuitive, dammit!

So, I'm at home again instead of being at the gym.  I was feeling harried, and I am going to sit and start anew tomorrow.  Dishes are clean, laundry is washing, I'm sitting with my husband.  I shan't have guilt.

Reading:  I'm working on Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder, which is not really a sequel to her "Study" series, but kind of is.  There are some overlapping characters and it is set in the same world, a few years after the last book of that series.  I'm really liking it so far.  She doesn't write in any sort of sensational way, but I get sucked into her stories.  They're earthy, but not slow.  I wish I could describe it better. *

*edited because I used the wrong they're/their/there.  I told you it was a blerg kind of day. 

Apparently, I'm Stressed

Gah.  I don't know.  Seth first pointed it out because last Sunday, when I was supposed to teach at the young adult group at church, I got painful back spasms. 

"Maybe it's stress."
"But I'm not stressed!  I don't feel stressed!"

The spasms went away that evening, and they haven't come back.  Tonight, though, I'm very aware of a knot in the same spot.  I'm teaching this Sunday.  Now, I do have a messed up back.  But I'm starting to be suspicious. 

There's other evidence:  I had a tension headache on Thursday.  Right across my forehead; made me all frowny. 

For a few days, I've been aware of the wire-taut tension in my body. 

Now, it's not just the teaching, which I swear to you, I'm nervous about, but not stressed.  I also have my class, and we're going through the process of getting our money in order.  So my mind is constantly going going going going going.  My mom was in the hospital for a few days, I've done some additional volunteering where I was needed, two, if not all three, of my sisters are dealing with some heavy crap right now, and I miss my goddaughters.

I need to do this. I need to do that. Clean, study, work out, run, read your Bible, call that person back, hang out with that person, put away laundry, make dinner, write a paper, do research, teach, lead, budget, go go go go go go go.

I go through this every year, now that I think about it.  Not really sure how I get past it every time, but I know that I do.  The thing is, all of the pressure and stress I'm feeling is self-created. 

Ahhhh...I realize now.  I've regressed to that old way of doing things:  God put this all in my path, these are all good things, so I need to just suck it up, put my head down, and barrel through this. 

No. Nope. No. 

I am not designed to handle everything on my own.  As a human being made in God's image, I am designed for community and inter-dependency.  I am part of the dance of perichoresis, with I in him and he in me and them in us, etc.  When I learned about perichoresis, (see John 17), I pictured it as a triple-helix, like Trinity DNA.  And we enter into that.  We are one as he is one.   It can feel sort of trippy & new agey, if you let it, but it's all there. 

I suppose my application step now is to embrace the cliché:  Let go & let God. 

I'm not betraying God by feeling busy or overwhelmed.  I'm right on target.  I need to ask for help from him and from others.  I need to not try to keep everything in line and prove that I can handle it.  I can't.  That's good.  I don't want to.


Can I just say that I love it when a post starts out totally whiny and pointless but then gets all deep? 

I never claimed to be quick on the uptake.

I finally noticed that my car's antenna wasn't extended, so I pulled it out yesterday.
Voila! Radio stations! It's only been 11 months that I've had the car.


I will write more soon. I've had passing thoughts, but not the time nor energy to expand upon them.