Pilot Training, Part 3 of 3

This is the article that was on the August 25 edition of the local paper. I supplied the content and the photo, and they did it up proud for a hometown boy.

Mulligan Completes Pilot Training

After successfully completing Undergraduate Pilot Training with Training Squadron 31 at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, 1^st Lieutenant Brett Mulligan, USAF, was awarded his Aviator’s Wings on May 20, 2011. Following the address at the Aviation Designation Ceremony by the base commodore, Captain Scott P. Cooledge, among family, friends, dignitaries, commanding officers, and fellow pilots, Lt. Mulligan had his wings ceremoniously pinned on his uniform by his father, Kevin Mulligan.

Two weeks later, Lt. Mulligan wed Miss Lydia Weatherly of Wichita Falls, Texas. The honeymoon was shortened by his assignment on June 16 to Fairchild AFB for survival training. He is currently in C-130 training at Little Rock AFB in Arkansas. Following completion of this training, he will be stationed at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs.

Brett Mulligan is a 2005 graduate of Jenkins High School. He is the son of Kevin and Cyndi Mulligan.

Seven Months

It's been seven months since I lost my mom. Sometimes it feels like seven years. Other times it feels like seven minutes. Always, I miss her. I can't look at her picture for long because it makes me cry. Even writing this causes me to press back at what wants to rise up.

My goal is to nurture a heart of gratitude for an end to the constant pain she was in, like my dad does. Like I told him though, he's a bigger man than I. It's at least my goal anyway. Sometimes there are sparks of it. I was looking at a picture of Brett with a humongous pack on, and the look on his face is painful to witness. I was glad she never saw it; it would've broken her heart. When Dad pulled his hamstring, she would've hurt for him for days.

It pulls at me to know that my dad is lonely. He seems WAY too dependent on Raymie for company. Yes, Mom talked to him a lot, and he has a big vocabulary for a dog, but he's something like 8 or 9 years old, and the day will come..... He has an enlarged heart that Dad gives him medication for, but it's just so scary that he puts SO much stock in an animal he will indeed lose.

Some mornings I wake up and remember that she died and think, Oh, yeah, it's true....... I know it'll take time. I know it won't always be like this, just like it won't ever be like it was. In the meantime, I hope to honor her life and give God the glory just like Dad does.

So, Bye and Stuff...

Ryan left for Helena today to visit Amy for a couple of days before he has to show up as the Chi Alpha House director. Last year's director also experienced being an RA, so he was able to tell Ryan that this job is less work. He has to provide his own eats so it'll cost a little more, but he can't afford to let his grades suffer, so this was a good option.

When I try to think of what we did these past three months, how the summer went and how we took advantage of him being home, I can only conjure snatches of memories and generalizations of how it all went. The 48 hours after he leaves has me thinking of all these good ideas, should'ves and could'ves I wish we had done and things we planned on doing and never got around to actually executing.

I hate regrets. Ryan said not to go there, that we had a GREAT summer with really solid time together, both as a family and one-on-one. He's right, of course. It's that deep satisfaction of knowing they're home that trips me up when the time comes for them to leave. It just always feels so right when they're here, even though I know and truly do want him to continue this track of life he's on--it's a good thing he's doing, normal and challenging and good. I can take those regrets and comprise a list of things we can do another time, a time that'll be that much more precious because it won't be hosted inside three months but only a few days.

We said goodbye about four times in our typical family style, and it was just like him to hug me and then hug me even closer and just stand there like that for a bit, finally saying, "I'm sure gonna miss you when you die...!" I said, "Hopefully, that won't be for a long while, right?!" It was a great final sendoff.

A gracious blanket of gratitude lighted on me as he took off down the driveway. Three months. Three really, really good months. Jylle reminded me that he wasn't even supposed to be able to come home this summer. Three bonus months!
I'd been pushing back at the cry that kept rising up in me all morning. Honestly, every time one of the boys leaves for long periods of time, I die a little inside. (Love--the greatest curse and blessing of motherhood!) I've often gone downstairs to the room of whichever boy just left, curled up on the bed, and let out all the sadness. Instead, this time, I was delivered into a thankfulness so sure and solid that the demon pain of missing him was booted clean off the premises, and I was left with a heart full of worship.

Would that they would all go this way............ Relationship. Gratitude. Worship. That's a really great summer harvest for anyone.

Aunt Ila's Victoria

Kev's Aunt Ila lives in one of the prettiest cities I've ever seen. She's going to be 90 in February, we haven't been to Victoria in over 25 years, and--double bonus--Ryan and Jyllea were available--so we made a plan: Pick up Kev's mom and float up to Vancouver Island.

Not as direct a route when you drive and ferry, but you get the picture.

Edmonds to Kingston

On the way from Kingston to Port Angeles, we went through Sequim, hometown of my precious friend, Mae. We're writing buddies, and I've heard stories of her childhood and the memories she holds so dear, so it was a treat to pass through. I even mailed a letter to her from there, so I hope she notices the postmark!

Leaving the U.S.

These beautiful hanging baskets are literally everywhere.

The Empress Hotel is a vital destination, even if you don't stay there.

They love their UK roots.

Loving our time in the photo albums. Aunt Ila is a treasure trove of stories, lineage, and the heritage we hold dear.

Trekking around the University of Victoria

Dinner at The University Club

Fresh steelhead salmon with a parsley butter pat, potato pavè, and Julienne veggies--fabulous!

The beautiful pond off the lounge at The Club.

Breakfast from Tim Horton's our last morning there... Aunt Ila said the coffee is so good you just want to bite it. Boston creams, Canadian maples, and maple glazeds--eeeyum!!

Our goodbye photo

Busker, street entertainer--parkoured up the wall, and this was his dismount!

Harbor sights

Liked the name of this ferry home...

Sweet USA

Aftermath

I never ever knew how important it would be to send a sympathy card or make that phone call to inquire or deliver a roasted chicken if not for what I've experienced these last couple of months. Actually, the impact was impressed within the first week after losing my mama, but as the cards and phone calls continued to come in weeks after, the lesson was embossed in my heart, and I will forever acknowledge the importance of reaching out, even if words seem empty and useless to you at the time in your attempt to comfort the grieving.

Sometimes I think I'm over the immediacy of tears, of how ready they've been. I think Okay, I can do this. This is how it is afterward... Then I'll hear a song or read a fresh card or glimpse her precious face in a picture, and I'm completely undone. I am almost desperate for my next dream with her in it. I wake as if from some purchased time with her, analyzing the scenarios and attributing whatever meaning or symbolism they might contain.

I need her life to mean something lasting in mine. Such a loss requires the justice of a profound legacy. It is my co-honor and co-responsibility with the One Who loves her perfectly and eternally to see that that happens. I don't mean to imply that I intend to act as one equally yoked. I only mean that I want to cooperate as He prompts and gives direction. T-H-E-N it will be done with the honor and meaning that He bestows on every one of His ends.

offense, defense, and the truth

Before

Do you know how much damage can be done when you expect to be the Center of someone's universe? Do you realize how complicated you make it when your level of expectation exceeds Reason? Where is this Grace you preach...? Where is this Love you speak of...?

You are so young. But you have experienced a great deal:  Depth. Life. Miracles. Grief. Sorrow. Confusion. Complication. Tenderness. Courage. I don't consider that lightly. But this is a wounding thing you've done.

This seems to be three steps forward, three steps back. This no longer seems worth it to me. Maybe it's a good thing I'm not much in the scheme of things because I would no doubt make this situation worse than it already is. I thought I knew your heart. Obviously I don't. I got caught presuming.

When Mary's heart was pierced through, did anyone remember the prophecy? Did she even, until the midst of it? To see your child suffer is a grief no parent can bear in a lovely way. It stinks. It's a mountain of misery, and more often than not, this mother's knee jerk reaction is to slap at the hornet rather than to be still and know that He is God, at work, alive, revealing...


After

Psalm 103:11-12 was written on a note left for me in the kitchen. “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great are His mercy and loving-kindness toward those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

I needed a fresh reminder of my own sin and level of unreasonable expectation.  If I find that I am unwilling to forgive, if I have uttered the words, “How could you…” then I need the tender revelation once again of which world I belong to. The rules and tools of that other world have no function or place , like using a tennis ball to build a house, or a sock to magnify. The rules of the Kingdom, of the Overcoming Life, are the tools of the Redeemed—humbled at being saved, forgiven, and given the scandalous privilege of walking as Daughter or Son, that to walk in any other manner than that of Abiding is not an option.

Where is this Grace I preach if it does not begin with me? Where is this Love I speak of if it isn't seen immediately in my own life? I have been forgiven of far worse, and so I drop the stones I would hurl in a red hot hurry as I acknowledge that my board is greater than your sliver. I sincerely
wish you sweetness and roses as you bear with your self in this walk as we all must. xo

Psalm 32:6-8  For this forgiveness let everyone who is godly pray—pray to You in a time when You may be found; surely when the great waters of trial overflow, they shall not reach the spirit in him. You are a hiding place for me; You, Lord, preserve me from trouble, You surround me with songs and shouts of deliverance.  Selah.  I, the Lord, will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.

[I wrote this after someone shattered the heart of one of my children.]

Batdog

We came back from boating, and this is what our bedroom looked like.

Clues: Doolie greeting us in the driveway when we know we left him in the house, the open window sans screen, a toppled chival mirror, my jewelry and lotions totaled all over the dresser and the floor, and finally, the many tall and deep vertical grooves decorating the inside of the door and the door frame.

Conclusion: Doolie got locked in our room. Sherlock has nothin' on us. Have no idea what the whole dresser thing was about or why he was even in our room, but he so ninjaed out the window. I went outside to see how far it really is, and it's a really decent jump. Fall, actually.

Did he hear a noise that piqued his curiosity? Did he follow the cat in there? Was he thirsty? Or nosey? Or just thorough in his watch of the whole house?

We'll never know. We do know that the wind often shuts our door, and the noise can be frightening because it seems to happen so suddenly.

Messes are no fun to clean up, but nothing was broken, and it tidied up pretty quickly. I found myself feeling so sorry for Doolie. No one around for comfort or reassurance, Guido in the garage, and his fine desire to please now hacked. Poor guy... It'll probably be the only time a dog ever caused trouble, only to receive hugs and a jerky treat. Love that Dools.

So THAT'S What You're Really Like

Jylle has had a pen pal named Emily for six years. They connected through what was then Brio magazine and proceeded to get to know each other the old-fashioned way through letters for the first couple of years. When they got Facebook pages, things sped way up.

They'd done everything but meet in person until last week. Emily's folks bought her a nonstop ticket from Minneapolis (her first time flying), and she stayed with us for a full week. A small town girl from the flat lands of South Dakota, only 15 minutes from the Minnesota border, she loved it here. From the get-go, she expressed such appreciation for our mountains and trees, and we heard about "nothing but corn fields and cattle" as she answered people's questions about her region.

The first evening she was here Jylle invited a few friends over, some of whom knew Emily from Facebook and took advantage of the opportunity to meet in person. Killer Bunnies is always their game of choice. I made a Filipino dish of noodles and pork and went to bed way earlier than they did.They spent the next day at Riverfront Park, and I didn't take my camera with me. Jylle was excited to show her the garbage goat (did you know it has its own Facebook page?!), and they used their day passes until it rained. They made their way to the Flour Mill at my suggestion (did you know it's mostly just law offices now?!) and ran out of things to do way more quickly than we thought.

These photos are a quick glance of what they did during the week. There are vignettes and tableaus that drift in and out of my thoughts all day of which I have no actual pictures. It's bittersweet how much someone can come to mean to you after such a short time. Seeing them gel as well in person as they do online and on the phone, watching them as comfortable in silence as in nonstop chatter, knowing this visit is something they'll talk about to their own daughters someday, brought on a sense of something deeply satisfying as a mom--and as a friend. This time is precious, I kept thinking.










Time is precious. What a gift. I have my Jylle here, my Jamara 45 minutes away, my Lydia in Little Rock, and now my Emily in South Dakota. And those are just my girls. I am one rich motha (I sound so gangsta.)

Multi-Lingual

For the longest time I've thought my love language is gifts. I like to get them,and I like to give them. I also like to give words of affirmation. Spending time with Ryan this summer has given me cause to reassess.

He said a number of things to me that really blessed me. One was really simple. He walked into the kitchen and just said, "I sure do love you!" He thanked me for making lunch and for doing his laundry, and again, it was just simple but so sincere.

Kev was telling him one afternoon when I wasn't around some of the things he loves about me. Ryan asked, "Have you ever told her this stuff?" Kev replied, "Mom doesn't really care about words." Immediately, Ryan sensed his BS meter spike! He stayed calm and quiet though and reassured him that I would probably enjoy hearing those things from him.

I don't know if I have, and that's okay. I haven't heard any compliment or statement lately that I haven't heard before. That makes me sound snotty and bitchy, but I'm just saying that Kev gives me lots of compliments--they're just the same ones, which is fine because he's generous that way, praising and thanking me for doing and being...

All the love languages have their place in my life. I love when someone cleans the kitchen (acts of service). I'm blessed when someone wants to spend time with me (quality time). I appreciate hearing that I've encouraged someone (words of affirmation). Hugs embrace my insides (physical touch). It's immensely sweet to receive a gift that showed some thought was put into it (gifts). Every time someone puts effort into letting me know I'm thought of fondly, it's a gift, and I feel loved.

All this talk of love has made me want to go out and bless someone now. Too bad y'all can't line up so I can bless some socks off! I shall ask Him for some divine appointments in the meantime. He speaks every love language thoroughly, does He not, as He is their creator and inhabitor... xo

not right meow

          Goober is emaciated.  I googled his symptoms this last winter and deduced that he has either a thyroid problem or diabetes.  He’s hyper, drinks a lot, is very vocal, and has only gotten skinnier, no matter how much he eats. I tried feeding him raw ground beef (one of the suggestions online), but he lost interest. I tried feeding him canned food, but that wasn’t very much, and he started leaving even some of that in the dish. Now I’m taking some dry food, adding hot water and 1/3 of a can of canned food, and letting it soak to soften it and flavor the dry stuff with the canned. I’ve been doing that for a couple of weeks, and he finishes it by the end of the day.

Seems like he’s always pulled out patches of his hair, mostly mid-back, but lately he’s taken to pulling it out in his front left armpit and back left hip at the thigh joint.  It freaked Jylle out to see it.  I saw him walking around the backyard just now, and he looks terrible. When I pet him, I can only bear to pet his head. The rest of him is just fur-covered bone. He looks like a feline skeleton example from an animal teaching hospital.

I pray for mercy everyday, that one day we’ll just never see him again. I pray for him too, that it’ll be instant and painless, like maybe just dying in his sleep—but way out in the wilderness somewhere so we don’t have to bury him. Yes, I pray for a very thorough mercy.

Just watching him out back, he ventured into the tall grass, and suddenly I thought Maybe this is it. Maybe he’s going out to some mystical burial ground like the elephants do. Maybe this is the last time I’ll see him. G’bye, Goober…

          When I went to the garage a minute later though, there he was, all high-pitched meowing and head popped out from the top of the garden bench so it’s the first thing I saw when I opened the door. I fluffed up his breakfast with the knife I keep out there and set it in front of him, then closed the door. The day will come when he won’t be there to feed anymore, and a legend will have passed on. He really has been a great cat for us.

           (A tip of the hat here to Doug Demmert who gave him to us, even though he tricked me by saying this kitten was a tabby when clearly he was a solid gray. Dropped him off at our house in a box when we were gone. He was from a barn litter, so he was absolutely terrified and tore around the house like Taz until he finally fell into an uncovered heating duct. We let him stay there all night because it was super late, and we were exhausted. In the morning, Kev unscrewed the ducting mount, and we slid him down into the box. He never did stay in the barn though, always the garage. Goober, Garage Cat and Mouser Extraordinaire.)

I walk around ants so I won’t squish them. I relocate tree frogs to keep them safe from the too warm temperature of the hot tub. I cried when I hit a rabbit and when I saw a deer get hit. I’m not an animal rights activist—I just have compassion toward them. It's a decent thing to respect life.

Death is so not where it’s at. Sounds inane to say, but I hate death. It’s just not the way it’s supposed to be. Everything about it is wrong. Every dealing with it is depressing, and I mentally turn away from memories of past business with it.

It’ll be six months on July 21 since I lost my mom. I used to take a big inhale everyday of her pajama top that’s precariously sealed in a grocery bag in the washroom. I don’t do that very often anymore. I also used to say Hi, my Mom, at the picture on her Costco card that’s on my dresser. I had to stop doing that because it made me tear up. Both those things I thought would bring me some small measure of comfort, tiny as they are. They don’t though. Even seeing her picture pains me.  She died, and I am suffering her death.

This is not new—death’s been around since Genesis.  It’s new to me though. Death sucks, and that’s all there is to it.

Okay, maybe there’s one good thing about it. It’s the doorway to Life. Here, we live and strive and balance and walk and sweat and work and cry.  There, we truly live. We know life as He’s provided in a world where there is no death. Maybe there’s one more good thing about it. It’s knowing we’ll pass through that doorway too, and in the meantime, we know we have people there who’ll jump into our arms when we get there. It’s the faintest measure of hope and peace to me personally right now, because honestly, I just want my mom back. Since it’s idiotic to go there though, I discipline my thoughts to be reminded of the hope we have in heaven.  And that is only ours through death.

Having read Heaven Is For Real, I feel safe in believing there will be animals there, something I’ve thought my whole life. I have loved every animal I have ever had, and I have given thanks to their Creator for the marvel of their innocence, beauty, and affection.  If they bring glory to Jesus, then why shouldn’t they be a part of that eternal plan…

Finish strong, Goober.  We’ll see you there some fine day.  Give my love to Gulliver, Muttnik, Midget, Sham, Scooter, Bear, Fallon, Parker, Gadget, and Jake.  *paw bump*