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Day Two: Time

· November 18, 2013

12 Days of Thanksgiving

I didn’t really intend for my 12-day writing experiment to be a chronicle of grief. As I think through the theme of “perspective” and the ways mine has changed over the last year, I know it’s inevitable that grief will be a part of the story. The process of moving through this change has been my life. In hyper realism. I that process has helped me recognize the shifts in view. The catalyst. The recognition of loss and coping with it seems on the surface to be opposed to gratitude. After all, gratitude is so often about recognizing bounty. Not loss. And yet, it is in the presence of loss that bounty can be revealed all the more clearly.

Part of the loss I’ve felt so acutely is time. The time Mike would have had on this earth. The time my children would have had with their father. The time to heal wounds and restore. The time to see hope realized. The time to laugh and rejoice in living, something that seemed to be so completely swallowed up by tragedy.

Time is a funny thing. Sometimes we dread it. Sometimes we look forward to it. Sometimes we’re happy to have it behind us. Sometimes we scramble to catch it as it whizzes by.

Sometimes it’s excruciating.

This Thanksgiving season, I find myself so thankful for time. And the distance that makes time feel normal again. Just the fact that time keeps moving helps us recognize normalcy. It helps us re-create normalcy. Time can, indeed, be a great healer, as the adages say.

Time has given me two simple gifts this year.

Clarity.
In the great loss death produces, time — as it incessantly and consistently moves forward — becomes more treasured. I can’t help but treasure it more. I can’t help but want to make it count more. To want to spend it doing more that is worthwhile and meaningful to me. Faced with those choices, time (and the new awareness of its scarcity) becomes the great clarifying factor. It helps to single out what is important in that hodgepodge of needs I mentioned yesterday. The understanding in the most basic way that time is fleeting has helped me make some tough choices this year about what matters and what doesn’t. And, it’s helped me make some more joyful and hopeful shifts in how I choose to spend my time — even when it seems a little outside of typical.

Memory.
Time does give us distance. And sometimes it’s the only thing that does. In the months leading up to Mike’s death, the frustration level of dealing with the symptoms of depression and the decisions it caused him to make became almost overwhelming. It eclipsed almost everything I knew and loved about Mike. Our whole history seemed to be tightly wound into that blinding ball of illogical thinking. In the months after Mike’s death, the whole of my thinking about him was wrapped up and lost in those few moments in which he chose to die. I couldn’t reach past it or beyond it. That was all there was.

And then — over time — that door cracked. It just began to crack. I found myself being able to bring up Mike’s name in conversation without feeling the steel ball of frustration rising in my throat. When the children asked a question about this or that, I noticed his name roll off my tongue more easily. Daddy would have done this or Daddy could have told us this. I watched their eyes light up as they were able to soak up a new memory of him — even in his absence. Then, as if by some miracle, I found myself laughing about something I remembered Mike doing. Just every now and then.

The gift of time was the gift of good memories. Of remembering good things. Of talking about good things. Even of crying out loud about those things that were lost — but seeing and knowing and remembering that those good things existed. The gift of sharing those things with my babies. Letting them soak up and confirm the good things in their own minds. Being able to remember that Mike loved us. In spite of his illness and his choices. And that we loved him. The gift of time was being able to treasure those memories again. To put them in their rightful place of joy — even a joy deepened by the sorrow that colors them.

I’m thankful for time.

Categories : twelve days

A thank you

Posted by haley montgomery

· November 22, 2012

12 Days of Thanksgiving: DAY TWELVE

Dear friends, two months ago I made a decision to use this forum to open up some of the areas of my life that had been closed to public view for a long time. I made a choice to expand to a new depth the honesty I determined would govern this space when I started EyeJunkie almost five years ago. I wanted to tell a story I’d always considered to be Mike’s, but I now recognize is mine too. It was scary, and born of deep sorrow and disappointment. But, it was also born of a desire to rise from ashes. To break the mask of mental illness and emotional struggles. To lay them bare before an audience to somehow obliterate their shame and secrecy. To say that healing is possible. To say that life is valuable. And worth it. To say that we LIVE at all costs.

In private, I’ve shared with friends that I didn’t want my children to grow up with the life and death of their father shrouded in secrecy. I didn’t want them to be afraid to ask the questions that will inevitably come. To be able to deal in honesty and compassion with the circumstances of Mike’s death. So, I wanted the community around them (near and far) to have an honest and open, albeit painful understanding, and even dialog about these realities. And I wanted to communicate some semblance of a life lived and ended too soon.

Through the process, the voice of my own fears and private sorrows has consistently and quietly spoken, “hush.” But, the voice of so many of you has consistently and persistently urged me to “speak.” In your comments, your posts on social media, your messages and phone calls, your gifts of love and money and tangible things, your prayers and truths shared. All I can say today is thank you.

I’m learning through this journey… To speak is to heal. And to bring healing. So many of you have shared your own stories of struggle after reading something here. And although the tales are all different, the commonalities adhere. And healing emerges. Encouragement emerges. Hope emerges.

All I can say is thank you.

Day twelve. Whew! I have to admit it hasn’t been the easiest effort, to discipline myself toward thanksgiving this year. I think I’ve written about the biblical story of Jacob who wrestled an angel for a night to gain his blessing, and walked away with lifelong scars to prove it. I kind of feel that way. I’ve definitely wrestled. But, I’ve gained the blessing too. Through these different essays and lists and commentaries and images, I think I’ve realized that in this process of thankfulness, hope indeed emerges. To see the good and blessing around us — to recognize it and embrace it — is to defeat despair. There are empty chairs this Thanksgiving, but the table is still full. It is my decision, my choice, to partake. Joy and sorrow. Memories and new experiences. New steps made stronger by the road we’ve traveled. Laughter and tears. All evidences of a table richly spread.

And so, we end where we began.
With God. And His great goodness.
In everything.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Categories : twelve days

The Easiest Day

Posted by haley montgomery

· November 21, 2012

12 Days of Thanksgiving: DAY ELEVEN

I felt my own eyes light up.

I was trying to follow some story Bug was telling this afternoon. A bear and a baby bear were the key players, and I believe he was differentiating these bears from panda bears in terms of how long they stay small or learn to climb or something. Obviously, I didn’t get the full gist of it. I was trying to get the photo above to commemorate this day. And then I was distracted by looking in his eyes. Watching him tell the tale (which I now believe was grounded in some books from his K5 classroom). His face was pure pride and joy over the facts and the opportunity to convey them to me. And I felt my own eyes light up. I love how just listening to Bug lets me take so much delight. Just putting aside the other tasks or the need to hurry the story along or the impulse to answer every other distraction looming. I’m always amazed by the quietness it brings to my spirit to listen carefully to all that chatter.

It’s one of the lessons I continue to learn from Bug. I learn it from the others too, but it always seems more powerful from Bug. I imagine it’s because the other two don’t speak with nearly the passion and excitement that Bug does — at least not every single time. Bug is rarely indifferent. No, he has strong opinions, strong likes and dislikes, a strong sense of injustice, strong emotions, and a strong laugh. And yet, as the middle child, Bug so often finds himself in the position of compromise. Compromise and great passion don’t always easily co-exist, but I see him navigate those waters with grace. And I’m afraid his greatest bargaining place is often MY attention.

Bug daily teaches me the simple joy of listening. Because he listens. To everything and thinks about so much of it. And presents it back to me in his own ways of understanding. He teaches me about power of undivided attention. Because he needs it. Like we all do. Being that middle child, even I recognize that he sometimes finds himself on the short end of undivided attention where mommy-time is concerned — stuck between the baby sister and the older, more knowledgeable brother. He lets me know he needs more through constant questions, a healthy decibel level and by quietly sitting as close as humanly possible by my side. When I’m tempted to give in to the frustration of being in constant demand from my three-ring circus, I just have to look at Bug to be set aright.

Whatever story he is waiting to tell is poised in a very tightly reined exuberance that I know is just about to burst forth into something extremely important. At least extremely important to Bug. His stories are long and winding. He often starts over when he forgets his word or train of thought. He usually stops to ask, “can you please listen to all of this?” And then he starts again. It’s not necessarily an easy process to follow from start to finish. At least not while in the perpetually losing battle of multi-tasking. So, on a day like today I give up.

I give up and give him everything. All the attention I have. Listening just as passionately as he is speaking. With the same urgency as his need to share the information. And I feel the power of that concentrated listening as my own eyes light up to match the sparkle in his.

I’m reminded that one of the greatest gifts I can give — and the greatest blessing I can receive — is to listen. For as long as it takes.

Today is by far the easiest day to be thankful. Six years ago, my Bug entered this world and has been leaving his mark on my life every day since. Happy birthday, love. You never cease to fill my heart with joy.

Categories : mother's heart, twelve days

The Hardest Day

Posted by haley montgomery

· November 20, 2012

12 Days of Thanksgiving: DAY TEN

Mike.

I’m thankful for Mike.

I never imagined how painful it would be to write that. How much it seems to tear my mind apart. He hurt me so deeply on the day he died. In taking his own life. Abandoning life.
The lives of the children God gave us. He hurt me so deeply for years before that when I began losing him little by little each day. In many ways I felt like I lost myself in trying to be what was needed to help us all survive this situation. In the end, Mike didn’t survive.

It’s hard to push my thinking past that fact. You would think being thankful for my husband would be an easy one. I am and I have been. I AM thankful for Mike. His life. His character. His presence. But, I’m robbed of the joy of appreciating that blessing. At least for now. I’m robbed in the way depression and emotional struggles seemed to rob us of so many things. It blinds me sometimes with disappointment. Still, Mike was a blessing. To me. To our children. To so many people.

I’ve wanted to show the world some picture of the man I knew. The man I loved for so many years. Beyond his choice on this day two months ago. The day in September that makes THIS day the hardest in my 12-day journey toward Thanksgiving. I’ve wanted to see the man I knew as more of what he was. Beyond that defining moment. Before all this. Before the deep emotional issues plaguing him robbed me. Before I lost so much of him. A picture of the man I think he wanted to be. It’s a view of him that has been so obscured at times through our darkest days of dealing with mental illness and it’s warping of personalities.

Today, this is so hard to write, but necessary. One of my greatest prayers is that, in time, I will be able to think of Mike and speak of him with greater joy. That the flood of sorrow and disappointment brought by his death will be eclipsed by the joy that he lived.

Mike WAS a survivor.
The path of his childhood was a difficult one. He faced more struggles than I can imagine. Through the early evidences of depression — even as a young child, I believe — he developed his own personal ways of coping that amazed me. The resolve of his character allowed him to persevere and to emerge a gentle man.

Mike was kind.
It’s the attribute I think most describes him. He rarely raised his voice. He often had the ability to put himself in another’s shoes, showing empathy and sharing a compassionate word. I recognized through the years the great struggle it was for him to reign in his own thoughts and lay them aside to consider someone else. And yet, he set his mind to do it.

Mike was a seeker.
He challenged the popular phrases of religion. Simply because he had never heard them. But, he wanted to know. He wasn’t ashamed to say “what does this mean?” He committed himself over the years to be willing to ask questions.

Mike was disciplined.
I don’t know that there was ever anything for Mike that really came free and easy. Rather, he was so deliberate. About everything. This brought about a tremendous consistency. When he set his mind to form habits, he did.

Mike loved to play.
It’s one reason I think children loved him. He just enjoyed playing, and his playground was usually outdoors. He was a fisherman. And he rarely required tall tales to adequately describe his fishing trips. But, for Mike, he really didn’t need activity to enjoy Creation. He could sit and see and derive the peace he needed from it.

Mike could make you laugh.
He wasn’t gregarious by any means, and most people considered him to be quite shy. That’s probably what made him funny. His humor would sneak up on you. Dead-pan sincerity. Most people were shocked to learn he had great Elvis and John Wayne impersonations. They were funnier because they came from someone so quiet.

Mike was a helper.
He had a desire to serve. To lend a helping hand. We developed great memories in the early years of our marriage as he helped renovate our farm house. His help was always humble and filled with a willingness to do whatever was necessary.

Mike believed in Jesus.
His desire was to be the man God wanted him to be. It eclipsed every other pursuit in his life. And although he didn’t always succeed (none of us do), Mike worked hard to apply whatever admonishment came across his thinking. Mike’s faith was a simple one. A sincere one. He devoted himself to trusting God. I’ve said that he put all the faith he could muster into all he could understand about God. His was a true childlike faith, as God’s word describes.

Mike was a Daddy.
This in itself is remarkable because Mike never really had a father. His heart belonged to our three children, and he showed it through games and hugs and instruction and prayers and giving his time and attention. For as long as he could.

There are some things that must be said about Mike’s choice on September 20, 2012. Important, but hard truths that I won’t allow to become glossy in this tragedy of a life ended so young leaving a wife with three small children. But, those things are better left for another post. For this one, it is enough to say that Mike lived. And this is some of who he was. In these things, I have been blessed to share some of that life. And to have loved him at his best.

Categories : twelve days, widow's tale

Pretty Things

Posted by haley montgomery

· November 19, 2012

12 Days of Thanksgiving: DAY NINE

We’ve taken walks on the gravel roads around our farm house each of the days we’ve been here so far. It’s one of the things we look forward to. Yesterday’s adventure was a trip to the hay yard where all the round bales of hay are stored. It has the added bonus of a pretty cool obstacle course on top of the bales. Today’s trip was a walk to the gate that closes off our road to public traffic.

It’s been my habit through the years we’ve made these treks to take my camera along — my iPhone with the Hipstamatic app and often my Canon too. The kids recognize it as my habit, and they sometimes comment on it. “You like to take pictures of pretty things.” Yes, that about covers it. After many trips, our walks now include them scouting out pretty things and helping me take photos. Or, suggesting photos, I should say. It’s neat to hear their mixture of wonder at the beauty of nature around them and their attempts to guess at what I might think is pretty.

Of course, the most exquisite sights for me on these walks are my companions. Their mixture of comments and delight and curiosity. Their questions. And answers. Their movement. THEIR view of God’s creation, particularly during the changing seasons. Many “pretty things” here on these walks are wonders they are seeing for the first time. Or, recognizing for the first time. Together, we are learning to notice the joy and beauty around us in simple things. I’m so thankful for these times with them. It is balm for all our souls.

For Day Nine, I decided to share a few of the Hipstamatic shots taken at the request of my kiddos. And some shots of them that crossed my lens as well. Enjoy.

Categories : my South, twelve days

Hello & welcome! I’m Haley Montgomery, and I’m the designer and owner of Small Pond Graphics. I sometimes fancy myself a frog kisser— a documentarian coaxing poignant moments from unexpected places. This blog has evolved from those moments.

The small Pond FIELD GUIDE is part diary, part sketchbook, and part wish list – an archive of ordinary wonders. For years, this space has housed my stories – creative ideas, vintage inspiration, our forays into curious places, and the simple artifacts of quiet of conscious living. Through watercolor, photography, and illustrated tales, these pages uncover the blessing of ordinary days and the wonder found in authentic places and pursuits.

I invite you to open the boxes.
Peek into the drawers.
Rustle through the pages.
I’m honored to have you here.