ian had just gotten to the table, and i was standing at the counter working on dinner. he started a conversation,
“what are you doing”
“working on dinner”
“no, on your phone”
“oh, just emailing somebody”
then i had to walk over and give him an excited hug. “you can see me. and you can tell that i’m on my phone. and you’re asking me what i’m doing.”
in a non-brain injury relationship, that exchange wouldn’t happen. it probably wouldn’t be that exciting that your husband asked what you were doing. but for us – it’s huge. sometimes i’m not sure that ian can even see me. he has one crazy eye from the accident that isn’t normally in line with his left, and we’ve always been puzzled now by his eyesight. my typical test when he says he’s looking at me – “is my hair up or down?” or “what color is my shirt?” He sometimes gets it right, but he also sometimes gets it wrong.
so as i was standing on the other side of the kitchen from him, his question took me back to the hospital rooms, back to the therapists comments, that he needed to initiate more, needed to be aware of his environment. and he is. he doesn’t always ask those questions – but when he does, it is so sweet.
and these are the types of moments that are beauty in our marriage. we don’t have moments of ian surprising me with cleaning the house, or making dinner, or planning a special date night. he can’t serve me by setting the mouse traps in the attic or setting up the christmas tree. so our joy is added to in these little glimpses of mercy and little glimpses of ian’s care for me – which really aren’t that little for someone like ian.
Below is a small first glimpse of hopefully many from David, Ian’s best friend, who has been a more faithful friend than we could have imagined.
I’m at the Vinegar Hill studio and I’m tap dancing. Ian is watching me, silently, a face that says “I’m completely unamused…”
I finish my routine and look to Ian. “What do you think?” I ask. Ian’s response, completely deadpan: “Stop dancing.”
We both laugh.
Ian and I hatched the idea for Vinegar Hill in 2006, less than 2 months before his accident. We had both returned from summer internships (Ian had crewed on an independent film and I had worked for a TV production company) and were dying to make a film together. I wanted to dive in, start writing, start prepping, and figure out the money thing later. But Ian was smart. He said that we needed to start company, to learn business, to get a good reputation (it’s not that we had a bad reputation, we just had no reputation). I reluctantly agreed.
But then Ian had his accident and everything changed. I was faced with a decision. Go get a job at a production company out of town (there wasn’t much film happening in Indiana, PA at the time)…or stay in town and start to build Vinegar Hill while Ian began working towards recovery. I stayed, compelled by this thought: if it was me who was in the accident, Ian wouldn’t leave…
That was five years ago and by God’s incredible kindness, Vinegar Hill is continuing to grow. There are four of us now: Ian, Mike Hartnett, Shep Ahlers, and myself. Ian comes in to the studio every afternoon. We drink coffee, listen to music, and hang out while I work. I’ve stopped asking Ian who he wants to listen to because he always says the same thing — “Switchfoot” (sorry Ian…I’m Switchfooted out right now…I need a break…)
God has done so much more than I thought possible that day of the accident, the doctor’s said my best friend was going to die and now we get to spend time together every day. But there’s still much sadness. Ian isn’t able to play as active a role in the company as we would like. I think this is probably the hardest on Ian. Here I am, doing what both of us spent our childhood dreaming about, and in many ways Ian can only watch…
It would be so easy for him to be bitter and jealous. I probably would be. But here’s the thing — Ian comes to the studio every day full of joy. He comes ready to laugh and joke and drink coffee and encourage the guys and me. How is that possible? It’s possible because Ian has been transformed by Jesus. It’s possible because he’s not living for the things of this world, but for heaven. It’s possible because he considers others more significant than himself.
I am so grateful to have Ian as a business partner. Every day, he is a picture of Jesus to me. I’m so grateful to have him as a best friend.
I finish my dance, Ian gives it the thumbs down, we laugh, and I get ready to dive back into work. I ask Ian who he wants to listen to. Without giving it a second thought he answers: “Switchfoot…”
how does a house feel empty when it’s filled with my husband and all that is our marriage? i sometimes, not always, struggle with that feeling of empty, when it’s just the two of us here, no tv making sounds (because we are too cheap to pay for channels!), just the hum of the dryer and the smell of cooking dinner. i know that i just married ian – not his family, or mine, or members of our church. our marriage is, in the most literal form, just me and him. and so it tugs at me when i feel emptiness in our aloneness.
and the more that i search my heart, the more i wonder if this can be true of a “normal” marriage, but also how much more so it may be for us living in disability. ian can’t come bursting into the house telling me about his day, or fill the emptiness with piano music, or even wander around the house talking on his cell phone. all the things that seem to give fullness to a home, he can’t do.
but i know that this emptiness in our house, while it is truly happening and is a feeling, it’s just that – a feeling. it is not reality and it’s not where my heart can or will stay. in god, there is fullness of joy. fullness. ian and i are not empty in this house, just as much as we are not full when we are in a crowd. and while it may take years for my heart to default to “feeling” full in the quietness of a brain injury, i think i will get there. i believe in my heart that there is a fullness to be had and experienced in this brain injury. and sweet ian already is there:) like in most things, he’s better off than me.
has anyone else experienced this emptiness and how has the lord filled it?
thank you, always, for praying.
larissa
p.s. this picture is not actually our house, but wouldn’t that be fun????
vinegar hill, who just recently moved their offices from our home to space nearby. (you’ll be hearing more of VH in upcoming posts, but it is a company that ian and his best friend david started their last semester of college, the year of ian’s accident).
after time in the office, caleb comes back at 4:00 for the overlap again between when our caregiver leaves and when i come home. and once i’m home, i try to make life as “normal” as possible. we have dinner together, have a quiet time, watch “family ties,” etc typical life stuff. caleb and ian usually go swimming one or two nights a week, and we try to walk each night (the photo above is ian walking tonight). a few nights each week we end up being with friends or the murphy’s, with tuesday our official “date night.”
we hope to be giving more glimpses into a typical day, but for now hopefully this is just a good idea of our run at normality.
thanks for reading and always praying for us. and for not being bored of us yet:)
our marriage could not exist outside of the gospel. i know what my heart goes through in a day. ‘The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5 ESV). we could not recover from our worst days without the gospel, and our good days would be empty.
thankful today for the gift of jesus’ death and the hope of heaven that it incurred.
“There are seas of suffering that the sufferer must navigate alone. You need not even appeal to friends for consolation. What do they know about your inner sorrow? No other sail is in sight. Scan the horizon and nothing is seen but wave after wave. Now is your hour for faith in the great Lord, who holds even lonely seas in the hollow of His hand. He knows your poor body, and he permits it to be frail. He permits your heart to tremble because He will glorify Himself in His tenderness to your weakness. He will make you strong. “
-Spurgeon
there is much comfort in hearing a saint who has gone on before us speak of the loneliness of suffering. and to speak of it as something that is real- for what do even our closest friends and spouses know of our inner sorrow? no one knows but the lord. and the emptiness of suffering that makes you feel alone in a room of 1,000 will continue until we meet the lord. it doesn’t mean there aren’t times of fellowship that help to lift the darkness for awhile, but when i lie down at night, it is only my heart that is with me, not my friend’s and not my husband’s.
for us who face what seems to be constant waves, the sweet reminder to “fear not for i am with you; be not dismayed, for i am your god. i will strengthen you, yes, i will help you, i will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Thank you so much for your prayers, for the ways you all have blessed Ian & Larissa and the rest of my family.
As most of you know, I have been writing music for a few years now. From now until the end of 2011, for anyone who downloads any of my music or buys a T-shirt from my website, I will donate all* of the money I receive from every purchase to National Brain Tumor Society and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure in my dad’s memory. Here are the different ways people can give:
i’m not sure that we have given an update really on therapy, since we were switching to new therapists. we did go to new therapists for a few weeks but are taking a break until after christmas. the therapists will evaluate ian again in january in the hopes of identifying new goals for him.
having a spouse with a disability offers constant temptation to feel guilty for all that i’m not doing for ian, either because of laziness or because i simply can’t fit it into a day. please pray for ian and i that we would receive wisdom in how much we should be pursuing and also that ian would continue to make great progress.
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