Third summer.

Micah, a third summer without you.

Tonight I just want to sit close to you on the couch, rest my head on your shoulder and talk. Talk to you--you who knows me and loves me and cares--about everything and anything. I want to talk about how your "little" brothers are now freshmen in high school and college. How your dog still barks at the top of your steps. How I visited the cemetery where our great-grandparents are buried recently and how amazing it is that they were friends. I want to talk to you about high school memories and the latest pop music and the messiness of my room and my ridiculous summer jobs.

I want to talk to you about me moving to China in a week to live there for 3 months. I want you to reassure me that it will be okay and you'll send me emails to make me laugh about my Mandarin mistakes. I want to say goodbye to you like the other long-distance relationships and count down the days to seeing you when I get back.

I want to talk about love and jobs and how growing up is the most difficult task in the world. I want to hear your thoughtful advice and then sit in the silence knowing I've been heard.

I want you by my side these days more than ever, Micah, for your love and support and laughter. I know that no longer can be a reality, but it stings again and again as I accept it. You are so deeply missed and remembered.

Circular staircase.

"Acceptance.
I finally reach it.
But something is wrong.
Grief is a circular staircase.
I have lost you."

Mandarin and May Term.

 I'm learning Mandarin right now as a requirement for my study-service term in China next fall. Usually language classes last a semester for Goshen, but since I travel in the fall, I'm learning it during "May Term," a month-long term that Goshen has where one class is offered all day.

Basically, in other words, I'm learning Chinese in a matter of THREE WEEKS. Don't worry, it sounds just as ridiculous to me. I don't think I've ever taken more of an intense class. 8am-3pm every day with at least 50 vocab words to memorize every night...wowza. Stress has been high but it's been an exciting challenge. Tomorrow our actual language teacher will be arriving from China to teach us. It's the real deal!

I'm getting more and more excited about traveling next year. As a guest speaker described to my class, China is not a "typical" SST in that there is mass poverty, no-running water, and small villages. However, it is still an entirely new, complex culture that will require mass adjustments. Already hearing a bit about the history and cultural implications of China makes my adventurous side just want to know any and every detail. It's just a matter of surviving this craaaazy language part.

That's my brief update! In a short few weeks I will be back in Lancaster for the summer, working (somewhere) and preparing for late August. It's hard to believe this school year is ending, it's been such a great one.

Zai jian! (Goodbye.)

Writing to grieve.

"The meaning of the the word memory for me is enriched when I see that its tangled Indo-European roots run through the Latin memor (mindful); the Greek martus (witness), which became martyr; as well as the Germanic and Old English murnam (to grive). We write to bring things in mind, to witness, and eventually, to grive."
                                   -Julia Kasdorf, Writing Like a Mennonite

I discovered Julia Kasdorf's Writing Like a Mennonite last semester in a Women's Studies class, but it resurfaced again recently because I'm taking a Mennonite Literature class this semester. Julia is a Goshen grad and has gone on to write incredible poetry and nationally-recognized books.

I grieve in writing, and I always have, even since elementary school when I would journal my little dramas of the day. When Micah and I started dating, I wrote about him and the many stories we formed. I even have little stories involving him and other friends from middle school.

The night of the accident I sat in my bed and journaled that I wanted an adventure in my life and that I wanted to feel 100% alive. Ironically, the next time I opened my journal was two days later in the hospital, scribbling that Micah had been in an accident, and begging God to keep him alive. The next day he died--an adventure? Yes. Did I feel 100% alive? Yes. But in a way I wanted, through death? No. My journal entry that day is only several words, but the pain they hold seeps from the pages.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to publicly write as much as I wished this year---it's been a crazy semester full of many involvements. But I am grateful for the writing I've been able to do these past two years. I am grateful for the many people that have felt benefited from my words, those who have experienced loss and the cases of other girlfriends who have lost their boyfriends and discovered these chronicled two years. What is the future of this blog? Maybe one day it will be more officially published, who knows. But as of now I still appreciate being able to write, grieve, and bear witness. Again, thank you deeply to my family, friends, and readers of this blog. Just by listening you have helped me greatly.

Two years ago tonight, my dad answered the phone and woke me up with the news. I remember sitting up and immediately clutching his arms. It was surreal and awful, but reflecting on it now I'm more able to see the beauty of that moment. Those first several minutes spent hugging while the rest of the house peacefully slept are something only my dad and I will ever know, but I find peace that we shared it together.

I am trying to not think too much about the details of what happened tonight two years ago, as they are painful to comprehend, even though I don't exactly know what happened during the accident. Yet still, memories of a hospital seep into my consciousness and will continue to tomorrow.

Several weeks after the accident my dad wrote this poem. I share it because it is beatifully written and speaks memories that are now on my mind.


I don’t want to tell you

I don’t need to tell you

Oh young daughter of mine,

Of the thrill of new found love,

Of the maturation of well grounded friendship,

And the pleasure of balanced partnership.

I don’t want to wake you,

Oh beautiful daughter of mine,

From the sleep of recently whispered love,

From the slumber of contented relationship,

And the dreams of life milestones yet to come.

I don’t want to tell you,

Oh innocent daughter of mine,

Of collisions and twisted metal,

Of broken flesh and shattered bones,

Of collapsed lungs and cerebral oxygen levels.

I want to protect you

Oh beloved daughter of mine,

From endless unknowing emergency room hours,

From clutching hugs and somber conversations,

And hesitant visits to critical care rooms.

I don’t want you to have to see,

Oh sweet daughter of mine,

The quiet form of your beloved,

Artificially maintained by IVs and tubes,

Gently marking time with rhythmic mechanical breaths.

How I long to spare you,

Oh wonderful daughter of mine,

From the premature grief of lost love

From the instant insertion into the adult world,

And the incapacitating emptiness of absent companionship.

My whole parental being cries out,

Oh dear daughter of mine,

Against your precocious introduction to death,

Against this gut wrenching soul depleting loss,

And the life long fallout of this moment.

But, at one o’clock AM on a Tuesday morning

Oh sleeping daughter of mine,

I can do none of these.

My parental bag of tricks is empty,

And I can only approach your bedside as a fellow mortal.

Becca, can you wake up?

-6/17/09

This week.

Next week marks 2 years since Micah's accident, with Wednesday being the night of the crash and Friday the evening Micah died.

Gratefully my mom has room and time in her schedule to drive to Goshen to be with me. It will be great to have her present and hopefully will alleviate some of the weirdness of not being home. Last year was so nice in that I was able to be in my own space and have my feelings link to the literal places they stem from. This year, however, I'm away from home and only have my memories to connect me to two years ago, not the places. All in all, it'll be very different, but hopefully still meaningful.

I don't know what to be more shocked at---that this year flew by so quickly, or that it's been an entire two years since the accident. Both feel unbelievable. I can so clearly remember sitting alone in my room several days after the accident, thinking to myself, "I can't do this. I can't possibly live a month or a year or a lifetime with Micah and with all of this."

Fast-forward two years, and somehow I've made it through...with meaning and learning along the way. For this there is celebration, my therapist reminded me this week. And so I anticipate leaving room for not just grief this year, but celebration...celebration where I've found growth in my own life these two years.

Yet still, I dread hate kick scream punch detest this week. My entire being mourns and misses and cries. Feelings already begin to swell, and I know all I can do is step into their stream, let them take me, and float.

Day of Love, year Two.

Valentine's Day, year two,
And I am not as lonely as the first.

I fill my day with women friends,
Homemade paper cards,
Pink striped socks.
And when other boyfriends give
their girlfriends cards and kisses,
I smile from afar and think of you.

What you've taught me is this:
Love is all around,
It should be shared,
It should be grand,
And it does not stop with death.

New Year

-At the end of senior year, a tree was planted for Micah at the high school. This plaque sits at the base.
This break my family decorated the tree with pine cones ornaments for the birds.-

2010, you started with a breakdown of tears because I didn't want a new year to begin without Micah. All I could think about was how a year earlier we welcomed in the year together in Germany.

But you ended up being unique and beautiful. You were precious in that you were the out-of-this-world year after Micah died, horrific and terrific all jumbled together. I knew you couldn't go to waste, so I held every second of you, even if it meant dropping everything else to be fully "in" it. I'm so glad I did and I will always cherish you.

2011, you are bittersweet, as always. A fresh slate is ahead, but I still remember sadness and tragedy and loved ones so far away, in my life and in others...
Still, I'm excited for you. Bring me some adventure, security, energy, change, love, guidance. I want to approach you with as much deliberateness of life as the last.