Tipping Points

"It was one of those moments in which history splits, and we define the world as "before" and "after."

Unknown

 -Editorial, September 12, 2001

 

 

Most days in my life plug along without much notice on my part. They are filled with the kinds of activities that I can do on autopilot. There isn't anything about them that causes me to take notice. Though they probably should, these days never make it into the journal of my life. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It feels like the mantra of my life.

 

But there are some days when there is a different feeling in the air. It almost TASTES different. Sometimes these days are obvious, and sometimes, if I don't pay attention, I may totally miss that this is one of those days that will change my life forever. These days are my Tipping Points. They alter or set in motion the major events in my life.  Some of my tipping points are beautiful, awe inspiring. Some of them are painful, even excruciating. But they are all sacred. I  learned a long time ago that the root meaning of the word sacred was "to make holy". These days are holy to me because, whether beautiful or painful, they are woven together to make the tapestry of my life.  I may be biased, but I feel like this tapestry, with all its bright colors and intricate designs, is breathtaking. At the very least it is one of a kind. It is a gift from God, The One Being who knows me more intimately than I know myself. He is helping me to design the tapestry of my life. Because of that, I wouldn't trade it for any other in the world.

 

September 11, 2001

September 8, 2003

January 22, 2009

August 25, 2009

November 11, 2011

 

These are not the only important dates in my life, or even the most important. These are simply the dates that have controlled the major course of my life.  I find that these points are all interconnected. They are a few of my tipping points that have brought me to where I stand today, a place that I love.



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September 11, 2001

 

It started out normal. I was driving to my 7:00 am math class at Mesa Community College in my grosser than gross white 1989 Ford Crown Victoria. It had no air conditioning (feel sorry for me) so I had the windows down to catch the breeze. On the radio was one of the radio channels with the mindless prattle that I always listened to, but today was different. I could feel my brain switch from subconscious listening to very alert.  New York. World Trade Center. Airplane. Horrifying accident. These were all words that sunk into my mind, but I fought to make sense of them. They were so foreign to me.  As I parked my car and walked from the parking lot to class, I passed strangers who I knew were sharing the same feelings. We were all in the same boat together. Instead of learning math that day (would math ever be important again?), we all gathered around the one kid in class who had a portable radio with headphones. He relayed the information to us as he heard it. With each new bit of information, I became less and less sure of what I had felt was a very secure world only an hour before.  I felt fear. Real, true, paralyzing fear.

 

That night, in an effort to steady my rocking world with a little bit of the familiar, I got together with my best friend. We talked about the events of the day and how we were feeling. I don't remember much from that conversation 14 years ago, but there is one thing that remains burned in my memory forever. We seemed to sense that that day was a tipping point. We each had 2 brothers, and we both felt fear for them. I was fiercely protective of these boys, only 11 and 15 years old. We feared that our brothers would be asked to fight in a war that was a response to the events of the day. I feared that they would be required to make the ultimate sacrifice. I felt like there wasn't any way possible I could handle that. I KNEW down into my bones that this would affect me in some way, I just didn't know exactly how on that night.

 

September 8, 2003

 

2 years later, I was 21 years old. I was fighting to recover, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much, from the emotional and mental battle of my life.  I had a boyfriend, but I already knew that it wasn't going anywhere. I went to the church that night for a ward activity, looking for a distraction. As I walked into the gym, I saw him. He was seated on the floor with his back against the wall. He had dark hair, green eyes (my weakness), and ears that stuck out just enough to keep things interesting. Even though he was seated, I could tell his lean frame was tall. Luckily, I had an excuse to talk to him. He was the little brother of a friend of mine, just home from finishing college. I can't say that I was overwhelmingly physically attracted to him, because I wasn't. Talking to him just felt like....home. And I KNEW. At some point, our paths would merge and would never be separated.

 

January 24, 2009

 

That boy. That goofy, kind hearted, adventure-seeking boy. We had been married for a little over a year. I was 4 months pregnant with our daughter, and he had been away from home for a couple of weeks trying to earn his "Expert Field Medical Badge". We had been stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington for a little over a year into his three years as an Army Physician Assistant. It was a Saturday, so I was home from work. I was finally starting to feel some relief from the constant nausea of the last few months. Things were looking up. The phone rang and I felt the twinge of excitement that comes when that's the only form of communication you have with your spouse for awhile. He was really excited. He had some news for me that he felt was a bright spot in his day. Newly inaugurated President Obama had announced that he would shift the focus of the War on Terror back to where he felt the original problem sprang from back in September of 2001. Afghanistan. He needed thousands upon thousands of troops to help fulfill his initiatives. Chess pieces in a strategic battle. Chess pieces with heartbeats. And personalities. And families. "Our brigade has been selected to help make the initial surge. Isn't that exciting?!" I knew it was a tipping point. The feeling in the air changed. Time slowed down. But he was just so damn excited. And so I said the words he wanted me to say. "Wow! Honey, that's really exciting". When our short conversation was over, I hauled my pregnant body into the shower, cranked up the heat all the way and then lay there curled up in a ball and sobbing until it ran to ice cold. It would be easy to blame this moment on pregnant hormones. But I KNEW.

 

 

August 25, 2009

 

Fast forward to 7 months later. Cory had been deployed for 5 weeks, and I was trying to settle into my new normal, a normal that consisted of mothering a 2 month old baby by myself in a state without a single relative. It was work, but I had found comfort in routine, and I was happy. One of our routines was to go on an afternoon walk. The Pacific Northwest air was already starting to chill, and I could feel the moisture coming off the Puget Sound a quarter mile from our house. We walked around the neighborhood, made a brief stop at the little library, and then headed home.  We settled into the rocker in her nursery so I could feed her. Then a knock came at the door. I quickly put myself back together, rushed to the front door, and peeked through the side window. There were two men in green army dress uniforms. I should have known, but I was an ignorant, uninformed, brand new army wife.  I must have known on some level, because as I let them in and chattered nervously with small talk, I felt an uneasiness and anxiety down into my soul that I just could not explain. I sat on the brown microfiber couch in our front room, painted red because I had a brain lapse one Saturday.  I invited them to sit down as well, but only one of them did. The other stayed standing, not 3 feet from me. Poor boy. Captain Harmon. I had never met him before this day, but I will remember his name until the day I die. He couldn't have been more than 25 and he looked as scared as anyone I have ever seen in my life. Then in a broken voice, his face lined with tears, he said "The Secretary of the Army regrets to inform you that your husband, Captain Cory Jenkins, was killed in action........". I didn't hear the rest. All I could here was the sound of my own voice thundering in my ears "Oh My God! Oh My God! Oh My God"! Over and over and over again. I felt as helpless as the baby I clung to. There was something deep down inside of me that split in two during that moment and I KNEW that I would never be the same.

 

November 11, 2011

 

It's an amazing, and beautiful, and complicated thing to understand how someone can become whole again after they have been broken. Somehow, mercifully, if we let it, it happens. There usually isn't a defined moment. It heals slowly, like a cut that is growing layers upon layers of new, pink skin in place of the old. There may always be a scar to remind us of the trauma, but we really can be whole again. That "whole" looks different for each person.  I had grown many layers of new skin before I ever met Ryan Walters. He was the opposite in almost every way of Cory. Yet somehow, this opposite felt like HOME, too. Funny how that works. We held hands across a beautiful white alter in a temple designed to be a House of God, surrounded by loved ones, both seen and unseen. I don't remember many of the words of the ceremony, but I do remember the feeling that I had. It was peace, and contentment, and gratitude, and awe, and love, ..... and pain. Pain because healing always, always hurts. If we aren't feeling brave enough to face it head on, we end up running the opposite direction. It was a beautiful hurt, because I KNEW that things would never be the same.