If March was a person, I’d have a lot to say to her.
Over the years she’s been a breezy friend arriving with the promise of travel abroad, a blooming backyard, and even once a new baby who would delight us all 9 months later. She’s also been a sneaky you-know-what heralding a deep grief that still stings fresh every year.
Who are you, March? No wonder Shakespeare told us to beware your ides.
The reality is March has always had much to teach me about how beauty and sorrow coexist. It’s the month where the traces of ash on my forehead get a glow up—both literally on Ash Wednesday and metaphorically in my inner life. If grief has taught me anything—if the last nine Marches since my sister died have taught me anything—it’s that as much I despise my ashes, I also can’t live without them.
I need them to remember what’s happening in my garden. I need them to make sense of what’s happening in our world. And I need them to explain how the ache in my heart can hold hands with the burning in my chest that says this will one day be made newer than I can dare to dream.
Last night we were reading in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with our kids and it came to the scene where Lucy asks Aslan if there is anything more that can be done to rescue her brother Edmund. Aslan’s response jolted me to attention: “All shall be done, but it may be harder than you think.”If there has ever been a sentence that captured the essence of March for me, this is it. Even with its emphasis on hard, this lion-breathed truth reminds me ALL shall be done—not some, but all. Good will fully prevail. Spring will come again. The earth will be renewed. Even death will die.
This is March and here are the things I don’t want to forget…
#1…Musicals and kids growing outside of our grip.
This month I joined the ranks of countless mothers before me who have successfully and unsuccessfully attempted to harness annoying mom energy when their child participates in an activity that they absolutely love. Our oldest daughter performed in her first musical and I subsequently earned a degree in playing it cool. Outwardly, I am a chill mom who knows a little about theater because of the plays I did in high school. Inwardly, I am Sutton Foster belting out Broadway tracks like I own the stage and wondering if I somehow missed my calling. I kid—the reality is I am a mediocre singer who loves singing and once in 2004 I had a lead role. What can I say? The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
The whole experience brought me joy, not just because I love musical theater or that I know a little bit about the world of tech week, dress rehearsals, stage makeup, and call times, but because our girl found something that delighted her and she walked confidently into it. All parents possess some natural curiosity about what our kids are like when we aren’t around. Are they conversing? Are they being kind? Are they putting themselves out there—and oh goodness, are they doing that with the right people? She spent more time away from us during this activity than any other thing in her little life and every time I dropped her off I fought the urge to linger just a few more minutes as she settled into the dressing room. I’m good, Mom—her eyes said so I would take the hint and leave.
On the evening of her first performance, I fought back tears watching her showcase all that she had been learning in the hours she wasn’t home. I marveled in the things she executed that we hadn’t taught her—choreography, cues, expressions—all of them metaphors for the ways she’s growing into a beautiful person who takes input from more than me and her dad. The truth is she was better for it. And while I know that may not always be the case, this time the loosening of our grip—and the vulnerability it cost me—paved the way for her to shine.
She walked away from her weeks of rehearsals with what can only be described (and affectionately so) as a “camp high.” These are my best friends forever and we’ll never lose touch and we’ll always have each other and even though we don’t have phones, we’ll write to each other every week and I can’t wait to do this again next year. IYKYK, right? Coincidentally, we walked away with an “our kid did something hard and good and they loved it” high…so I guess we’ll be signing up for next year.
Maybe I’ll come out of retirement for this one.
#2…the month of March 93 times with a good attitude.
I only have one living grandparent and this month he turned 93.
Because we had the privilege of growing up around my grandparents, I have lifelong friends who know my Poppa well enough that even now they’re reading this and smiling because they’re remembering something quirky or funny he said during my formative years. Historically-speaking if I could pick one word to describe him, it would be jolly.
One time in high school a friend was complaining to me about mall-walkers. She worked retail at the local mall and bemoaned the general grumpiness of the people who exercised around her as she unlocked the gate of her store ahead of long days on her feet. “They always act like I’m in their way,” she said—pausing only for a second to reconsider her statement. “Except for one guy, he’s my friend. He always says ‘hello young lady!’’ Her last three words hit some kind of rewind button in my brain as I replayed all the times my Poppa—who at the time was deeply entrenched in the business of mall-walking—had greeted me with the same affection.
“I think that might be my grandpa,” I said casually.
A few weeks later my friend and I were at my house when I remembered the mall-walking story and realized a picture of my grandpa was sitting on the shelf. I snagged it from behind her and placed it in her hand. “That’s him!” she squealed.
At his party this weekend we gathered in his house—the same one that hasn’t changed a single bit since my grandma died 13 years ago—and we celebrated with a simple cake and ice cream. I can’t say from experience, but it seems to me that aging into your nineties isn’t for the faint of heart. Perhaps that’s why only a few do it. My once boisterous, active grandpa now leads a quiet life mostly in his chair and mostly on his own terms. But what age can do to the body, it can’t always do to the heart and in this instance, it has not robbed him of tender affection toward me and toward my kids. Every time I’m with him, the through line of our conversation is about how he is the luckiest man in the world. “You’re not a kiddin’” he’ll say and then pat my husband on the back as if to make sure Dustin knows what has been bequeathed to him—to make sure he knows a good thing when he’s got it.
I suppose the last thing to say is that if Poppa can live through the month of March 93 times and still come out saying he’s the most blessed man in the world, then I think we’ll make it too. Attitude is everything so they say…and I think he proves that’s true.
#3…things we learn from kids at the beach
The kids were in their bathing suits within seconds of arriving at the little beach condo we rented for a few days last week. I had imagined we might do reasonable things like “get settled”before going down to the beach, but I was heartily overruled. Why wouldn’t we throw our suits on and start running—tripping on our sandals, buckets in hand, and stop only long enough to argue over who will push the elevator button?
So that’s what we did.
Thankfully our condo was right on the beach so the kids truly could run downstairs, blitz past the pool, dodge a few leisurely beach goers, and be right on the sand. I snagged a sweatshirt because this was mid-March on the gulf coast and followed my people like the obedient mother that I am—skip the sunscreen tonight because we’re playing beat the clock with the sun and I wasn’t about to do battle with any shovel-wielding angry raccoons.
On the beach we were all business—Dustin and I snuggled up in one of those camp chair love seats as the kids were darting and digging and hollering with a kind of ocean-muffled delight. It was one of those magical moments where the ferocity of my kids’ play shifted into slow motion for me. They were operating on instinct and I was their adoring spectator. We finished the day eating ice cream, skipping showers, and reading together before all going to bed at the same time—details worth noting because once upon a time we had 2 infants and 3 year old. What even is this stage of life and how do I keep it forever?
I wonder what kids at the ocean have to teach us about delight. That’s really the thought I’m settling into as I preserve this precious beach day in the annals of my heart and mind. They possessed such a sense of urgency, such instinct, to get busy unlocking the majesty that is playing by an ocean and remembering how very big God must be. And yet this big-ness didn’t instill fear, but rather seemed to buoy them with confidence and curiosity. It’s worth pondering if that same childlike sense of play, the fearless kind that says I’m totally safe here, is still somewhere in me? Have I let adulthood stifle it? Watching my kids relish freedom, safety, and provision with their whole bodies makes me want to grab a shovel too. With just a little digging, I might find that version of Emily is still in there, waiting to be nurtured to the surface.
Perhaps the work for us to do is to once again take a cue from children—the Kingdom belongs to them after all, so why not mimic how they enjoy it. If our God is this vast, this majestic, this beautiful, then we must be so safe with him after all.
If you enjoy these essays, I have two fun things to tell you!
The first is that next week I’ll be sending out our first ever remembering collaboration called So We Won’t Forget—see what I did there? I’m delighted to be sharing the work of 3 other writers who have put remembering God’s work in their lives into practice. Keep an eye out for that!
Secondly, you can join us too. If you’re a writer who’d like to be a part of this discipline of remembering, take the next step by sending me a mini-essay to be featured in the So We Won’t Forget collaboration later this year. More on how to do that right here.
