Bellyaches, Headaches and Heartaches. (Those Faint Whispers - Part 2)

We probably all have times when we have disregarded wisdom calling out to us.

Jonah heard God asking him to go to Nineveh and he didn't want to go. He ended up in the belly of a whale. I wonder if he gave that whale a bellyache?

Bellyaches

I had a lot of bellyaches when I was growing up. Looking back, I must have internalized the stress our family experienced.

As I've reflected on this next season in my Mother's life, after the death of her son, Nathan, I am reminded that there is a cost when we don't follow our inner sense of direction. It can lead to a lot of bellyaches, headaches and heartaches.

She had started driving a school bus for extra income but she mentioned (in her own words) that when she started sensing that she was to give up driving the bus, she didn't want to and ignored the warning. Strangely, she got meningitis from a child on her bus not long after that warning.

Headaches

When she got the meningitis, they had to put a shunt in her head due to scar tissue build-up in her brain. My Mother struggled through many seasons of illness, caused by the malfunction of the shunt. We all struggled with her.

One time she was so sick we had a hospital bed brought in and placed in the living room of our farm house so she didn't have to climb steps. We could care for her more easily on the ground level. I'd wash the linens—sometimes several times a day because she would lose control of her bladder. Even worse, at times, she would seem to lose her mind.

One day she had hallucinations of my brother, Adriel, being dead and in heaven. This was scary, since it was her only living son that she was hallucinating about and not the two sons who really were dead.

There was one thing that always seemed constant through her illnesses; she craved a good old steak. Daddy would make her a steak no matter what time of day or night it was. We ran a beef farm so at least we had plenty of steaks on hand.

Once the Doctors discovered that the shunt in my Mother's head was clogged and needed replaced (or unclogged), she would recover rather quickly. However, the frequent episodes took a toll on her. Sometimes it seemed they would unclog the shunt and she'd still struggle, so then they would replace it. They had to shave her head every time they worked on the shunt. The head trauma also left her feeling depressed.

My Mother and her favorite dog, Angie. She often wore a handkerchief like this after they worked on her shunt.

Heartaches

We had a foster child living with us at the time and because of her illness, he was immediately removed from our home and she was never able to locate him after that. She was heart broken. Even in the last years of her life, she'd mention him and wonder what happened to him.

Green, Yellow or Red?

I had a teacher in Oklahoma who used to always say, "Feel for the green, yellow or red light when it comes to making decisions." If you are trying to get a sense of which way you should go, ask yourself if you feel a "green" light—a sense of yes, move ahead. Or do you sense a "yellow" light of caution—slow down and wait. There are times we will sense a strong "red" light—which means, STOP!

I remember a time when I ignored a whisper of warning. I was interested in a guy (long before I knew Tom) but I clearly felt the Spirit telling me to stay away—to STOP!

I didn't listen. I wish I would have.

It clouded how I viewed myself for years.

Grace, Forgiveness and Healing

Thank God for grace, forgiveness and healing, not just in that situation but in the life of our family too. We'll never know what we might have been spared if my Mother would have paid attention to the whispers of the Spirit. But it doesn't do any good to ponder the "what ifs" in life, at least, the ones we can't go back and change.

Years ago, after my first few trips to Nashville, I started asking God to move us to Nashville. I asked this for years and finally one morning, out of the blue, I heard Him say, "not yet." From then on, I had peace and I stopped asking. Then we entered the final phase of my Mother's life and I was so thankful that I was living close to her to help her as she prepared to finish up her time here on earth. I began to sense that part of the reason for "not yet" was so that I could be present with my Mother through those final years.

Those faint whispers are worth paying attention to!

No mother is perfect. No person is perfect.  I appreciate that my Mother was willing to share this part of her story with us. It's priceless. It lets me know that she was human. It reminds me to pay attention to those faint whispers. They come to us for a reason.

The Last Kiss.

"It was early in October

on our little farm in Gardners

when we lost our little brother

in the pond beside the barn"

Frances Drost

Beside the Barn

This old photo of our pond on the farm in Gardners was recently sent to me by a relative.
Perfect timing for this blog.

I asked my older sister, Aspen, if she'd be willing to share how she experienced the death of our brother, Nathan.

So in the words of Aspen....

"I remember walking up the lane with Mother and Adriel (our older brother) – where was Frances?!

It strikes me now, after all the study I have done around death, how exceptional and important an act it was that Mother carried Nathan in her arms from the pond to the end of the lane, and then up to the house. There is something about feeling the weight, having the body register experientially the sensation, the reality of the death of the loved one.

When I first wrote my talk about death (see below) I did not even clue in on this subtlety but I get it now. Here is my own story of how I (Aspen) encountered death as a 7 year old, and again at 21 – how these predicaments with actual dead bodies became my most poignant moments of encountering death."

Aspen's "talk" about her experience with Nathan's death:

"My first encounter with death was when I was about 7 and my little brother, Nathan, was 2, and he drowned in the pond on our farm. That was 1966, in Gardners, Pennsylvania. My older brother was 8 and our little sister was 6 months old. I was at my girlfriend’s house up the road. A call came that I needed to go home right away. The scene at the end of the lane stopped me from getting too close – there was my mother, and I guess the doctor, and perhaps a neighbor, all there, bent over and busily doing something….. it was CPR they were doing. An unsuccessful attempt, as it turned out. I was looking at my first dead body.

They took Nathan up the lane to the farmhouse, laid him on a blanket on the living room floor. It was a long evening. Thinking about it now, it was this time with Nathan that made all the difference…. To be in our own house, in the middle of our living room where we played and had birthday parties, where we had Christmas, where we made forts, where we practiced the piano.

To see that he wasn’t getting up.

To see that he wasn’t sleeping.

This was serious.

There was now a gap between us the living siblings and our dead one, a gap we couldn’t grasp but at least there was time – time to take in a kind of sweet rawness about just being there, being in our own living room; just having time to take it in. And when the undertaker came to take Nathan, and my mother cried desperately “– you can’t take him! you can’t have him!” (My father wasn’t back from his conference yet and she couldn’t fathom all of this happening without him there.)

They wrapped Nathan in a blanket and just before they took him away my mother said she gave us, my brother and I, “the privilege of kissing him.”

The last time I saw Nathan was at the funeral at Air Hill Church. I remember two details: That we sang this song – When He Cometh, When He Cometh, and I distinctly recall my mother leading us up to the casket before it was closed for the last time, her leaning, and kissing the face of Nathan. Then, she wanted my brother and I to do the same. I wanted to, but not really wanting to, and doing it anyway.

Orville, Bertha, Adriel and Aspen viewing Nathan, at the funeral home in Mt. Holly Springs, PA.

So began my spiritual and cultural immersion with death— how we love the dead.

What we do with the dead. How the community and larger family responds.

I watched as my parents moved through this territory.

They did not shield us.

They didn’t think about shielding us."

Beside the Barn

It was my first big trip to Nashville, Tennessee, as a songwriter, planning to record an album with a new producer I had met previously at a music conference. His name was Eric Copeland and he was president of Creative Soul Records. From the first time I met him and heard some of his artists perform their songs and share their heart, I knew it was a divine appointment. I made a mental note that the next time I needed a producer I would call him. That time had come.

Now, I was preparing to meet with Eric at a prestigious recording studio called Dark Horse Recording in Nashville. The plan was for him to listen through all the songs I had been writing and help me determine if I had any material that was worthy of recording.

Eric sat at a big recording console with his back to me as he listened through all my songs. As soon as the demo of the song "Beside the Barn" started playing, the tears began to trickle down my face. I hadn't expected any emotion that day, only nerves, so the tears took me by surprise. He turned around from the big studio console with all the fancy knobs and lights and was about to ask me if the song was a true story, but he stopped mid-sentence when he saw my glistening face. He simply nodded as if to say, "I see the answer to my question". He swung back around in his chair and nothing more was said until the song finished.

"Beside the Barn" was an immediate "yes" for the album. I still remember Eric saying, "Well THAT song will sell a CD for sure." But THAT seemed like a long way off.

At the end of the day, Eric made an observation that I wrote a lot of songs about death; something I had never noticed, ever. I went home pondering why. Though it certainly seems obvious to me now, at that point in my life I had no answer.

Working on songs at Dark Horse Recording with Eric Copeland.
Lots to think about!

The song went through many re-writes before we recorded it and some of those re-writes wrote the emotions right out of the song, so in the end, we went back to one of the original versions.

"Beside the Barn" is about this next story that has touched our family in a way that I'm not sure any other event in our lives ever did, from my point of view. At least, speaking for myself, it left an imprint so deep in my psyche that it showed up in many of my songs late into my 30's and 40's. It became apparent, from my writing, that I had an issue with death—and it's no wonder.

It's at this point we'll continue on with the story in my mother's own words.

"Nathan was born on October 7, 1964. He was a little clown and he made us all laugh, especially his baby sister, Frances. She would sit in her toddler chair, bouncing herself up and down with delight, as Nathan danced around in his 2-year old way, getting her to respond. Frances would put her head back and laugh and laugh! They were quite a pair.

Nathan C. Heisey October 7, 1964 - October 11, 1966

Just the weekend before the tragic day, we had gone to Ohio to visit Grandpa and Grandma Heisey (Henry P. and Lela Fern—Orville's folks). We had been planning to leave Nathan with friends and not take him along, but Brenda and Adriel put up such a fuss about it and said if Nathan wasn't going, they didn't want to go either. So Nathan went along. I was so glad we took him.

Brenda (Aspen), Orville (holding Nathan), Bertha (holding Frances) and Adriel.
(Doug was now in Africa, serving as a missionary.)

On the way driving home from Ohio, we had seen the results of a bad accident on the highway—there were people lying on the grassy banks, covered with sheets. That night, I had a dream or a vision, was I sleeping or awake? I saw plainly our two families—the Sollenberger and Heisey families in the basement of Air Hill church, waiting to be ushered upstairs for the seating at a funeral as was the custom...and I said in the dream—"That means there is someone in our family—Orville's and mine, that has died".

It was Tuesday, October 11, 1966, a few days after Nathan's 2nd birthday, later in the afternoon, and Nathan was tired (it had been a big weekend going to Ohio) and I should have put him to bed for a nap, but he wanted to go outside so badly. It was chilly, so I dressed him up in a couple of layers and he went out. He must have headed straight for the farm pond—he had recently discovered it, playing fetch-the-ball with his older siblings. It hadn't been very long at all but when I went to check on him, I couldn't find him. He was nowhere to be seen...

And then, I saw something in the water, floating.

My heart sank.

I could see his plaid flannel shirt—white and black and red.

I ran in and took him from the pond; carried him quickly down to the end of the lane. I thought maybe there was a chance we could revive him. I flagged down a car and asked them to hurry and get a doctor.

The doctor seemed to come fairly quickly.

We gave him artificial respiration.

But Nathan was gone.

They wanted to give me something to keep me calm but I wouldn't take anything.

They wanted me to get in the car and ride up the lane but I wouldn't get in.

I carried him in my arms, up the long lane to the house.

I wanted to carry him myself.

I needed to carry him.

We laid Nathan in the living room. When they asked me who we wanted for an undertaker, they were shocking words. I resisted allowing them to take my child saying, "you can't have him; his father is not even here!"

I wanted Orville to get home...didn't want to do anything else until he was there, but he was not reachable by phone as he had gone to Bucknell University for the day to a conference, and wouldn't be back until 8 or 9 o'clock.

Orville got there just in time before the undertaker took Nathan away."

Frances here:

I'm 52 years old and I still cry as I type this story.

I don't know if there was ever a time that mother told this story that we didn't all cry.

I guess that's how the story became so alive in my own heart and sank deep into the place from which I write songs. I can see now, as I look back in my songwriting, that every time I felt I needed a scenario in a song to express the dark side of life and how to deal with it, I went right to the topic of death to help me cope with my overwhelming sense of sadness that I seemed to live with, even as a believer in Jesus. The problem is, I wasn't really facing it head-on.

It wasn't until I went through some counseling that I realized how the story of not only Nathan's death, but all the deaths my mother would talk about (such as her first husband...and more deaths to come, as you'll see), would continually remind me that death is a part of life, but amplified in ways most children would never have to think about, because it happened so much in our family.

There's one line in the chorus of the song that is even more powerful now than I realized at the time I wrote it...

"Still my heart is where that home was."

Now I see, in part, the reason for my struggle. My heart could never quite leave that 'place' of mourning.

The pond beside the barn where Nathan drowned.

I have no video to point you to for this song. I've considered creating one with old photos of Nathan and the farm, but my producer (Eric) and I feel like the best way to capture this song is to go back to the farm and do a music video.  Plans are currently in motion for this to happen. For now, it is available on iTunes if you type in the title, "Beside The Barn".

Five Yellow Roses

These are the 5 roses we gave to our mother before we put her body in the ground.

This morning at 6:55 a.m., my mother, Bertha Mae Sollenberger Heisey went home to be with Jesus.

Tomorrow we will lay her body in the ground.

Tonight I sit on my bed, under my warm blanket with my kitty at my feet and a candle burning on my dresser.  I haven't wanted to write anything, anywhere for the past six days.  Until now.

I feel a huge sense of closure about to take place that I never saw coming until we came home from the funeral home this afternoon and realized a significant event is taking place tomorrow.  It's suddenly not just about burying my mother but it's also about saying goodbye to the woman tied to decades of memories about two brothers who have been gone for over 40 years but are very much present in our memories and family stories.  Nathan was only 2 when he drowned and Doug was 26 when he was killed in a tractor accident.

I was hit with a wall of tears tonight after returning from the funeral home this afternoon where we ordered five yellow roses for the private burial tomorrow.  She loved yellow flowers.

You see, tomorrow at her graveside at 1:00 p.m., we will arrive and receive the five yellow roses. One for each child she bore. No large spread of flowers on a fancy casket, just a very plain wooden one made of pine and five long-stemmed roses.  At first we ordered three. One for my brother, my sister and myself to place on this special box that holds my mother who once held us.  Almost simultaneously we all realized that we needed five.  Doug and Nathan are as much a part of us as they ever were, especially at this time.  As soon as we lost our mother, they gained one back.

I have detached myself from everything since arriving home from a motorcycle trip that we cut short when she had an emergency surgery a week ago so that I could sit by her side until she departed and I am so glad I did.  This morning when I got the text from my sister that she had passed, the tears ran freely but the peace I had deep inside far surpassed the tears.  We have prayed for this day for so long that I felt a refreshing sense of peace and relief that she finally got her wish.

Day after day I have arrived in the morning (my siblings taking the night watch) and just sat with her most of the day.  It was as if I was able to just 'be'.  The next few days are going to be very busy and I knew they would be.  Until she was actually gone, I wanted to spend these last few days just soaking in what it feels like to be present with her even when she seemed to lose consciousness.

I was not with her when she actually passed, but I was at peace with that, knowing it might happen that way.  My sister got that special privilege and I was so glad.

I didn't know how significant the decision to get 5 yellow roses would impact me until we got home from the funeral home and I burst into tears.  I was too young to remember any of the funerals and burials of my two brothers but their loss has had a huge impact on my soul over the years as I would listen to the stories of their deaths over and over and over....and over.  It's as if I wasn't able to experience something that has had such an impact on my mother's life and mine, but from a distance.

I suddenly realized as I spoke it all out loud to my siblings that somehow I feel like this is a very significant passing.  My mother, the one who told the stories is now gone.  With her go the details and potent feelings.  Though I have plenty of my own feelings about it all, they were always attached to her.  It feels like such a closing of a chapter.  A book. One that I now realize I have needed.

Tomorrow I will get to see five yellow roses offered to my mother who gave birth and life to five of us and had to let go of two of us much earlier than any mother ever should.  It's one of the reasons she has wanted to die.  She has walked through much pain here on earth and was ready to be released from it all.  I don't blame her.  She is now free.  Doug's wife and one of his daughters will be present to place the rose in his memory.  I don't know yet how we will release Nathan's rose but I'm so glad we decided on five, not three.

There are two boys that I know must be really glad to see you Mother and three children left who will really miss you.  Thus, the five yellow roses.