unlikely passport stamps

My city is on fire.

While many of the flames have been extinguished (thank you, Lord), there has been mass destruction. Seven hundred structures have burned to the ground. Homes, schools, and churches are piles of rubble and ash. My son has begged to go outside this week and play and I have had to limit his access to the outdoors. Wildfire smoke is noxious, but smoke from the burning of homes is much, much worse. Harmful levels of carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and formaldehyde are our new inhalants as we go to check the mail, and soot particles of lead and arsenic float through what should have been a gentle summer breeze, now made dangerous and toxic.

Somehow our house was spared in this insanity, but favorable winds for us were disastrous for others. Yesterday, a friend of mine whose house is in a stage three evacuation zone, dropped two of her boys by for a playdate. She relayed that their current respite situation was more than decent and she was thankful to have a place where she could come and go easily. Her house had been spared, but there was no way to access it in order to gather more of their valuables since the fire chief has closed down all main roads in evacuation zones.

Some of us in the neighborhood have taken hiking routes to get valuables out of our homes, she said. We’re under a red flag warning starting tomorrow, so while everything is calm now, it could go sideways again in no time.

Never have we been so afraid of wind.

I can’t imagine the anxiety she and so many other residents of Spokane are living in, but the fact is that had we bought a house five miles North of where we are now, my family would be living under the same threat. Instead, we have only dealt with the inconvenience of a few grocery store and road closures. I am thankful, and it doesn’t seem fair.

Tomorrow we leave for a family vacation in Nelson, British Columbia. We’ve had this trip planned for five months and every time my son Sam is reminded that we leave in one more sleep, his eyes widen and he punches his fists in the air—We’re going to CANADA! YAAAAY! Sam received his first passport in the mail a few months back and has been pumped to receive his first stamp.

Being able to get out of town once a year is about all our family can afford, so Sam’s enthusiasm is easy to catch. I have been busily cleaning the house, readying it for our house sitter, thankful that we will have time as a family for a week of hiking, kayaking, napping, and exploring. My husband, David, already has a short list of bakeries we should try out in downtown Nelson and Sam is very invested in going to the lake daily. Today is our last day to pack and clean, but every time I glance outside, I’m reminded of the tragedy that is happening all around me. I feel guilty to leave for a vacation when so many are without homes. And then my spirit checks me.

Tragedy is happening all around you all the time even when your city is not actively burning.

Years ago I sat in therapy processing the loss of my mother. It seemed as if I would never be unshackled from this newfound ball and chain of pain and that the chasm in my chest left by my mother’s absence would make me a shell of a person for the rest of my life. My therapist looked at me and said, You need to remember this—when grief is in your bed, joy is only in the next room. They switch places with each other, and sometimes even lay side by side, but they always live in the same house with you.

The nuance of holding two (or more) emotions at the same time is something I did clumsily, especially when one was currently eating me alive. I still do, but now I have the reminder that I can hold them both. The chasm that grief left has turned into an expanse that allows a ballroom of emotions to dance together. I mourn with those who mourn and help where I can. I can also pack my bags and thank God that my family gets some much needed downtime in fresh air. Here they are again, grief and joy, spinning in circles inside my chest wall like old friends.

If my heart was a passport, it would show stamps from countries of loss, of love, and of joy. All of these stamps would be side by side. Nothing in a passport has to fit perfectly. You don’t have to have a stamp from China next to one from India just because those countries are near one another geographically. We leapfrog across the pond of human experience like we do taking vacations abroad. One stamp in Scotland, one in Indonesia. What different places! One stamp in pain, one in joy. They feel so different from one another—and are. And yet here they are, side by side in one book.

I can mourn with those who mourn and feel the tangible joy of a six year old boy who cannot wait to get his first passport stamp at the border tomorrow. I have visited so many countries of the heart, and there is more yet to see.