Jen Crow - Take What You Need: Life Lessons after Losing Everything

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

Life Lessons after Losing Everything

Jen Crow

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

Life Lessons after Losing Everything

Copyright 2022 Jen Crow. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email copyright@1517.media or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

This book is a work of nonfiction based in my memory. Memory is imperfect, and the stories told here are based on my perspective and colored by the events of my life. Events and dialogue are constructed from memory and should not be taken as verbatim accounts. While all of the stories are true, based on real people Ive known and loved, I imagine some of the people in these stories have a different perspective from what I share here. When other peoples' memories differ from what I've recounted here, I welcome those viewpoints, trusting that additional perspectives only enrich the story, adding layers of new meaning for us all.

Lastly, each of the people portrayed in this book are human, and being human is tricky business. I believe that everyone in these stories was doing the best that they could in incredibly difficult circumstances. I hope that no matter what other thoughts or feelings may come up as you read, you will also experience the humanity of each individual, and my love and care for them all.

Cover design: Laywan Kwan

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-6861-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-6862-4

With gratitude for everyone who nurtured and protected the light inside of me over the years, and especially for my family, Loretta, Henry, and Kate, who proved to me once and for all that we can get through anything if we do it together.

This book began with a fire, but it didnt take long for other life experiences of loss and disruption to come crowding in. The fires in my life have been both literal and metaphorical, and all of them left me asking and answering similar questions in moments of challenge and loss.

All of us know something about firesthose events that change everything in an instant. For me, whenever one hits, I find myself seeking a small, private place to meet the sudden news with my own version of grief. Usually, its a bathroom floor.

After our house fire, it wasnt my own bathroom floor, because in those early days nothing was our own. We were borrowing pants and places to sleep, accepting meals and money, wearing clothes that kind of fit and saying thank you for it all.

Sleeping didnt come easily to me in those first days, so after everyone was tucked into bed and snoring softly, Id sneak into the bathroom and settle myself down on the floor, back to the wall, head in my hands, crying as quietly as I could. With all of my beloveds on the other side of that sliding pocket door, I let out what I couldnt show them, tears running hot down my face. I couldnt let them know how hard this hit. Couldnt let them know that I was falling apart. They had already left our home in the middle of the night with only the clothes on their backs; they didnt need to see me cry. They needed to hear me say that everything was going to be alright. That Id get us back home. That we were okay.

And during the day, I did just that. I fought with the insurance company. I packed up boxes. I found our important papers and dried them in the sun. I showed up after school to greet the kids with smiles and a snack. I dug through the debris for their blankets. I bought them new shoes. And, of course, I didnt do any of this alone. My wife did it, too. Our friends showed up in droves. Our church lifted us up.

And still, alone and awake in the middle of the night, Id sneak out of bed, sick of restless rest, and make my way to the bathroom floor. In those moments, I couldnt bear to reach out. Couldnt stand the idea of waking someone up or sending a text even though I knew there were good people all around me who wished I would. Anyone who has experienced the tunnel of trauma knows that things can narrow down and make it hard to see the fullness of the world all around you. That was happening to me. I longed for connectionbut I couldnt access it.

I turned to god. After all, as a minister, thats the expected starting point, right? But praying was hard. Gratitude and rage, despair, fear, and disappointment swirled in me. I was glad that we were alive. I knew it could have been otherwise. And yet the stability Id spent my life striving to build felt suddenly lost. I had a hard time getting to god.

I turned to poetryto the words that had carried me through so many hard nights before. Nancy Shaffers A Theology Adequate for the Night kept me company each night on that bathroom floor.

A Theology Adequate for the Night

By Nancy Shaffer

Not God as unmoved mover:

One who set the earth in motion

and withdrew. Not

the one to thank

when those cherished

do not die

for providence includes equally

power to harm. Not a

God of exactings,

as if love could be

earned or subtracted.

But this may work in

the night:

something that

breathes with us, as

others

sleep, something that

breathes also those sleeping, so no

one is alone.

Something that is

the beginning of love,

and also each part of how love is completed.

Something so large,

wherever we are,

we are not separate;

which teaches again

the way to start over.

Night is the test:

when grief lies uncovered,

and longing shows

clear; when nothing

we do

can hasten earths

turning or delay it.

This may be adequate

for the night:

this holding: something

that steadfastly

breathes us, which we

also are learning to breathe.

When my breath went ragged, hitching and heaving with the fear, Id imagine some thing, some love, that could breathe with me as others slept, that breathed also with those sleeping, so that none of us were alone. Id breathe in and out, trying to trust that the world was breathing with me.

And when that wasnt enough or I got boredbecause come on, this is the twenty-first century and I still had my phoneI did what we all do: scour the internet for books or blogs or anything that might relate to our circumstances. There were a few small things here or there, but nothing substantive. Nothing that went beyond tips for working with your insurance company or getting through the first two days of shock. I desperately wanted a survival story to keep me company in the night, some reassurance that one day I, too, might have my own.

So, dear reader, this is that story for meand for you. My experience will be different from your own, and what helps you may be different from what helped me. Not everyone will come to this book having experienced a house fire, but most of you will know what its like to experience loss. To have the world as you knew it, with all of your hopes and expectations, crumble when the diagnosis or the death comes, when the lover leaves, when the changebe it welcome or unwantedarrives. Our journeys are unique. Our resources may not be the same, and the weight of systemic oppression may land differently on your shoulders. But whoever we are, it can help to have company as we travel.

Born on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, this book is one version of my story of survival. I hope it will keep you company as you write your own.