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The Party That Changed My Life

On January 31, 1993, The Dallas Cowboys played The Buffalo Bills at The Pasadena Rose Bowl for the NFL Championship. Or, as it’s commonly remembered; Michael Jackson’s Super Bowl.

Thankfully, I had gotten past the hairstyle of MJ’s guitarist by that phase in my life. Well into my second semester of Southwestern Seminary, with a Masters of Communication Degree in full swing, my days were occupied with class while nights I was a hostess at Uncle Julio’s Mexican Restaurant in Ft. Worth.

A Cowboys Super Bowl equaled no one eating out equaled me getting to leave early. I was all too happy to let the other girls spend their Sunday Night scraping salsa debris from menus. I was late to my party. I raced home, disposed of the tortilla fragrance, threw on a mini skirt and dashed to my Churches’ Super Bowl Party.

With an overwhelming crowd (perhaps the drawing for dollar-theater movie tickets brought the mob of singles) despite every chair in the house being in front of the TV, there was still nowhere to sit. So, precariously perched on the brick fireplace mantel, I tried to prevent  a wardrobe malfunction of my own.  Even with tights, I was embarrassed. So, now that my left calf was completely numb with little blood making its way foot-ward, I decided I better walk it out or risk losing all feeling entirely.  

Maneuvering past the Pangaea of Cowboys Fans actually into the game, clutching  tightly wadded skirt to my leg, I made it to the kitchen. As fate would have it, the winner of the budget-movie jackpot was there with his two-dollars-worth of good fortune. He was a guy named John. I congratulated him and he came up with a pretty smooth line. Something like, “Hey, do you like movies?” or another equally suave sentiment. (He vehemently denies ever being this awkward but this is my story.)

“Sure I do.” I said, envisioning the suicide-soda-sludge river studded with gummy bears and kernels I stepped in the first and only time I had ever been to the dollar theater.  As we chatted, I remembered seeing John around campus. He stood out because he looked like he actually owned an ironing board…and used it. He was a sharp-dressed guy,  with a determined look  in his kind eyes that he was headed somewhere.

After a while, our conversation wound down. I returned to the back of the living room, canvassing the pile of squatters for signs of movement. With no chair in the forseeable future and my sweat pants a-callin’, I thanked the host and bid adieu to dark-haired dollar movie guy.

“You’ve got to help me use these tickets.” John reminded me playfully as I walked out.

“Sure will. Just call me.” I said and left.

And, he did. Our first date was not the Dollar Movie but rather dinner in Dallas two weeks after the Super Bowl.  Five months later we were engaged and 17 months later we were married, over 16 years ago.

We are a classic example of opposites attracting. John is serious with a surprisingly killer wit and I am a comic with some flashes of depth, I suppose.  He is focused, detail-oriented and precise while I, wait…do I see something shiny over there? Because I was the crazy Communication Major and John was the driven Biblical Language student, people did not put us together. I guess someone else did.

With our divergent personalities, we don’t look at life the same way. This must’ve been thoroughly entertaining for God to watch in the early years back when being right meant something to each of us. We have always had the same goals  in life, just had different ideas on how to reach them.  While John is methodical, I use the force to guide me.  At times, my intuition has been indispensable and at times, John’s grace under pressure subjectivity has saved the day.

On August 2, 2009, at Batson Children’s Hospital in Jackson,  Maggie Lee lost her 3 week fight for life. Suddenly, we had decisions to make about organ donation. Having the chance to donate your child’s organs means that they no longer need them and this is an overwhelmingly sad thought.  Utterly disappointed, I frankly wondered if her little body had not been through enough already. I was in no frame of mind to make a judgement call of this magnitude.

The donation coordinator left John and me alone in the family room to discuss our options. We weighed pros and cons and John in his beautiful, level-headed way, reasoned, “Maggie Lee would give anyone anything they needed. What would she want? ” That clear, concise reminder of her generous spirit shot through my haze of exhaustion and grief and led us both to the right decision.

If I could turn back the hands of time, there are obviously things I would change. But, if I could return to that Super Bowl party in 1993, I’d tell myself to hold on to this guy with both hands.

I wrote a piece this time last year, “What I Know 6 Months Out.” (below)  That entry was a reflection of the first 6 months without my daughter, Maggie Lee.

Now that it’s been 18 months since her loss, a few more thoughts hit me today.

1. No devastation of mine will outstrip the grace of God.

I love Max Lucado’s quote, “Counting on Heaven to make sense of Earth.” The stretch to reach over and grasp faith when doubt is throwing itself at you is always a worthwhile endeavor.

2. Healing is The Spirit’s work.

The best advice I have gotten is this, “Staying busy helps, telling your story helps, but there are places in your heart which can only be healed by The Holy Spirit.” This is encouraging because I feel like I should be so much farther along than I am in this process.

3. Forward may be scary but stagnant is lethal.

Even though the temptation to close up shop in my soul exists, what it costs me to never dream again is profoundly greater than the risk of those dreams never coming true. This is just some of what I have learned in 18 months.

• WHAT I KNOW SIX MONTHS OUT
  Jinny Henson- 2/ 2/ 2010I have often reassured myself in the six months since Maggie Lee’s death that although I have no idea what I will do without her, I honestly didn’t know what to do with her when she first arrived, either. Somehow this gives me room to breathe and by the grace of God, I sense that I will adapt to my new life in some measure as I did before.Of course, birthing a child and burying a child are two radically different prospects. On the one hand you deliver a bundle of dreams wrapped in possibility oozing potential and conversely, in the other unnatural scenario, you lower those most treasured dreams into the ground…forever.It is a disorienting experience and frankly I am shocked to still wake up every morning. “A Broken Heart Still Beats,” is the title of a grief book for parents and, alas, mine still does. I remember reading a about a friend’s 4-year-old daughter who had cancer two years ago. As I clicked out of the email, I sighed with relief that God had not laid that burden on me because He knew full well that I could never take anything so awful.And then in a moment, despite the diligent love that you have and the protective eye you naturally cast, a freak accident comes calling and is unaware that your family is supposed to be exempt. As soon as you’re told that your child will die, you begin to ratchet down expectations. You see a child in a wheelchair and breathe a hasty,”I’ll take it,” or one with a contracted little body, but still able to communicate and think,”I would gladly spend my life taking care of her” But, alas, the ultimate bargain isn’t yours to make. I remember painting Maggie Lee’s toenails crazy colors while she was comatose and massaging her legs when the nurses would let me take the pressure cuffs off. I told everyone that she always wanted to be famous and wouldn’t she be irked that she slept right through it? I distinctly remember the kindness of a nurse preparing her body for burial as it were by bathing her when the end was near; detaching the monitor from her head to wash her blood-matted hair so that I could braid it one final time. I also remember most of all longing to explain to them just who was lying in that bed covered with tubes and monitors, but that proved to be impossible.
  It still is impossible, but the urge remains to remind the world that although she only had 12 years, she was truly a phenomenal little person.

  I have learned a few things in my first 6 months of new-born grief. Certainly, many more lessons are to follow as I will contend with this ever-present absence as long as I shall live. I have learned that it is impossible to shake a good friend. Most people are lucky to have one true friend when it is all said and done. I have an embarrassing wealth of amazing friends and family who have shouldered the burden of loss with me. Souls who have sincerely attempted to put themselves in our unenviable shoes, anticipate our needs and keep us supplied with books and Starbucks cards.

  I have learned to treasure every imperfect day and those who remain. Life is hard and will not for the vast majority of us ever turn out in the way we would choose. I guess that’s why we’re all so cranky. Since Maggie Lee’s death, I have tried to suck the marrow out of life even more than I did before; enjoying my family as they are, not as they should be. We often unwrap the presents of the people around us with a conditional bent of dissatisfaction; we love our children but try to exact better performances from them. We appreciate our parents but our dad dresses funny and mom has a goatee. We are committed to our spouse but he sets the thermostat too low and never remembers how we like our coffee. Losing someone I love has helped me to step back and be grateful for what and whom I have left.

  Even though I never was much of a control freak, I now know that even the appearance of control over my circumstances is nothing but a facade. It is with infinite wisdom that the writer of Ecclesiastes compares our earthly existence with a fleeting vapor. I have learned that even if life would’ve obediently followed my plans, that I would have at some juncture encountered a traumatic blow or two. Time wounds all heels, and many more graphically than mine, just consider Haiti. No purpose is served by pridefully thinking that no ones’ loss can ever rival mine. If I wear my disaster like an orchid on Mother’s Day, it will only serve to frighten people. Every human being will be confronted by unwanted circumstances to which they can accept, or wander down main street in a nightgown like Mary Todd Lincoln. As for myself, I never looked too hot in a nightie.

  I have learned that t-shirt fronts serve as great Kleenex if you suddenly get an unexpected gusher. Gut-wrenching grief is sneaky and will typically ambush you at the most inappropriate moments such as the carpool line, Sunday School or the deli counter over cold-cuts. Some times, emotions are brought on by well-intentioned small-talk such as, “How many children do you have?” or, “Is he an only child?” I have found it best to answer the question as my life is now rather than to thrust my emotional baggage on an unsuspecting Wal-Mart Employee. People by and large are unprepared for the flood of toxic emotions a grieving person is capable of producing.

  I have learned that people do indeed want good to have the last word. When our three-week ordeal ended, over 250,000 visits had been made to Maggie Lee’s Caring Bridge Site. On October 29th, what would’ve been her 13th birthday, over 18,000 people signed up to do a good deed.  On “Maggie Lee For Good,” Day, Lawyers took on cases pro-bono, an American passed out baguettes to the homeless French in the Eiffel Tower’s shadow and one man installed a hot water heater for a disabled man in Louisiana who previously showered on his back porch. Schools had canned-food drives, friends had lemonade stands benefiting Children’s Hospitals and a Pediatrician in Texas forgave the medical debt of a newly unemployed father, just to name a few. I have learned that when you are determined to wrist good out of tragedy, God and many other people will hustle to help you.

  I have learned that although I struggle with God and miss my daughter desperately that I am not prepared to go it alone. I know intrinsically that God is the only path to true healing of which I can conceive. Although there are days that the searing pain wins over me, I have learned that my Heavenly is indeed close to the brokenhearted, and that hope in Christ will sustain me until I see my precious child again.

  I have learned that of all the things I have failed to prioritize, that mothering is not one of them. Not that I was or will ever be perfect, but that I was dead-on in living with my family as my priority. I am devastated to have placed so much import on loving my children only to have had one of them die, but grateful that for a brief period of time that I did what mattered most. When Maggie Lee told me that I was the best mother in the world, I would tell her that I was sure she would grow up and need counseling for something I had done or failed to do but that she would know that I loved her with all of my heart. And, she did.