The Table

My mother’s shoulders drooped today.

They that had stood strong for 70 years, and now finally maybe had met their match;
Weighed down with the sadness she bore for her best friend who has lost everything in the fires we have had here.

Her eyes were puffy.
Her sighs bore weight.

After a long hug and shared tear-welling,
she told me that she was just having so much trouble with the moving forward.
With resuming normal life as so many she loved were in pain.

Her feet felt hesitant in the marching
when her heart lay there in the ash.
She said she felt so tired.
She said she just needed some rest.

After long discussion and sharing our common ache,
I reminded her that we all need to remember our own self-care, too.

That caring for ourselves was not selfish,
but was instead a time of recharging in order to get back out there to be helpful once again.
She battled with this thought.
I could see it in her eyes.
Her body begged for just sitting in a chair.
Her brain said, “But that feels like giving up!”

I finally convinced her to take just one hour.
Just to sit in silence.
Just to take her own deep breath.

After all: There is a reason that in the flight announcement they tell you to fasten your own mask first…

I reminded her that the care of those left standing matters, too.
That that is the only way we can be the ones with the strength to hold,
and sort,
and do the lifting.

She walked out the door, only her Bible and purse in her hand.
Her eyes pointed down at her shoes.

But four hours later, when she returned,
She told me this story -
And her spirit was visibly renewed:

She had driven from the house not knowing where to even go.

Her favorite place now sitting closed in a wasteland of ash.
The idea came to just drive East.
She thought she would head to Farmer’s Lane.
She would just sit and be still awhile.

But as she got to the corner of Steele Ln. and Mendocino,
she had felt a strong urge that she should turn left.
She did,
then she had seen the Starbucks there.

She shrugged and decided not to use more gas,
and chose to pull into that parking lot.
She grabbed her purse and her Bible, and walked in to stand in line.

As she stood there,
she felt someone come to stand behind her.
As she turned to look she noticed that the woman who was now inches from her was crying.

There was no need to ask her why here.
We are all crying the same tears.

But my mother, mother of all, took this as a cue to comfort.
She spoke to the woman,
sharing the pain of our now shared views.
Our world now turned to gray.

My mom said she hugged the woman in line as she cried.
She had opened, small, the door.
Then her name was called,
her cup slid out,
She took it and had walked away.

She carried that cup to her seat at an empty table that was made for two.
She faced the street, and every sad car that passed.

She said that she had just settled in as the woman, then,
pulled out the open seat.

For the next full hour, my mom explained, that woman spilled out from her heart.
The pains of her past.
The longing she felt.
All the good that she justified she had done.

Her mother had died in an explosion and then subsequent fire.
These fires had brought back that pain.
She had suffered accidents, heartbreaks, and devastation.
The trauma just would not end.
However,
out of the goodness of her heart,
she had adopted and was raising three siblings spared from a life they did not deserve.
She was pouring out.

Her tears dripped onto the table.
How could this be the life she presented them?
How could she offer any safety to them from here?

She explained that she just could not wrap her mind around the pain.
The past pain.
The present.
The pain that she saw coming.
She recounted all the times she had survived.
The trials she had stood tall through.

“I just don’t know why I’m still here….” she had said,
as still the tears spilled onto that table.
As cars passed, and the strangers filtered through.

“You’re here because there are still things to do,” my mom said as she looked into her eyes.

“You are here because God is simply not done with you.”

My mom explained all the things she had said as an encouragement to this stranger, now friend.
The one sitting across her table.

Tears spilled out from her own eyes.

She had invited the woman to our beautiful church.
She had offered the warm embrace.
She had passed on the same encouragement that I had given to HER about self care just shortly before,
as tears burned hot again.

Grace like a vapor.
Barely traceable,
but undeniably there.

My mom stood before me telling this story with her own tears falling.
She told how,
in feeling used for something bigger, she had been filled with the things that she had been seeking today.

In being open, she had been sealed.

Peace. Encouragement. Purpose.

Before the woman left,
after she had thanked my mom,
she casually said,

“You know, It’s the weirdest thing….
I was just driving to get away from it all.
I didn’t know where I was even going.
I thought maybe I’d walk around Safeway,
but then I looked across the parking lot and had the thought,
‘You should go to Starbucks,’
so I came.”

I don’t believe these things are by chance.

These two people,
both in need of comfort in their hearts.
Both searching for solace,
and a healing touch
brought together by the cupped hands of divine appointment.

One with something to give.

One with a need to fill.

I was reminded today of the scripture,

“A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”
- Proverbs 11:25

Out of my mom’s own need,
still, she poured out.

Out of her own pouring,
Then she was filled.


May we all be waiting at that small table.

May we all wait for the one who will sit across.

May we love each other without any boundaries.

May we never count generous loving a loss.

Out of the Ashes

The rain came today,
and I heard a collective sigh.

After the fires that have ravaged our city for the last 11 days, we have all watched the skies for any sign of it like hawks.
We’ve held our breath for the thing that would help wash it all away.
The smoke.
The ashes.

The fear.

We’ve spent our time walking around like zombies.
We’ve gone through the motions.
We’ve driven stretches we later don’t remember.
We’ve shifted priorities,
and used phrases we had never used before.
We’ve hugged complete strangers,
and reached deeper into ourselves to find which pathways best pour out.
Friends who’ve lost their own homes have raised funds for someone else.

This last week,

The broken became the glue.

The pain that has been felt in this beautiful community has been more immense than any burn.
We’ve run away far, and huddled in tight,
and stared at screens while we all cried.
The life that we knew now scattered in particle form onto whatever lawns and gardens remain.

Our lives and memories have blown mixed together all over this city like Pixie Dust.
But I see now...

We can fly.

Something has changed inside my own still-standing walls.
The attachment to my things has changed.
There’s something different now about being home.
It’s gone from what I am doing at the time
to what I actually HOPE TO BE.
Because, in all of this, I think those of us spared have to try to do just that.

We have to BE. HOME.

For the lost, and the displaced.
For the one who needs us most.

I pray that any still-standing walls and
un-damaged couches will be used for solace still.
That what is left will be given back out as a place that feels like home for someone missing theirs.
I pray that even one person’s heart recognizes their own home here
in mine.

Our view is different now.
WE are different now.

We’ve stood back up,
Dusted ourselves off,
And vowed to reclaim it all again.
We’ve become something deeper, fuller, and firmer than we were before;

and because of that,
I think,
no one is quite ready to just jump right back to where we once were.

To paying bills and watching TV shows and making appointments for pedicures.

Somehow it feels important to
linger a moment in the ash.

I went to the laundromat today and had a strange moment of feeling a little guilty for washing all of our clothes.
For the freshness.
Like by getting rid of the remnants I was betraying all of us a bit.
I avert my eyes from tabloids in check out lines now.
So unimportant “Who Wore it Best.”

I’ve seen more beauty this last week than I ever have before.
I’ve seen giving unmatched.
Unselfishness only dreamed of.
I’ve seen the the fire ignite something that I don’t want ever to be contained.

I pray my actions now are not born just from tragedy,
but from doing what one does when they have tasted what is real.

There is unspeakable beauty in these ashes.

When the rain rolled in today,
at first I thought the clouds were smoke.

When the smell of the rain drifted in through the open door of that laundromat,
however,
I was reminded that often what looks like the worst thing that ever happened to you,
Can sometimes become the best.

Like labor pains that result in LIFE.

It looked like smoke…….
but was actually the RAIN.

I breathed in the smell of it.

It turned into beauty.

It only started as pain.

Fire came and took our home.
Our treasures, ashen piles now hide.

Fire came and took what surrounded,
But it can’t take what’s inside.



#sonomastrong

The Look Back

For years I had wanted it.
As countless times I’d driven that stretch of road,
I had wanted time to just stop for a minute and take a picture of the way the view from that point looked.

But time was always ticking.
Racing against the clock to get the kids to school on time.

Run, run, run as fast as you can…

There just wasn’t time to pull the car over and run across the road and snap the photo
of the way that the look back across the laguna towards home appeared in the morning light.

The way the hills rolled dusty green.
The way the fog lingered still.
The sun now rising.
The hot air balloon floating.

Every day that view struck me, and made me inhale the scent of my home.
Every morning I got to the top of that hill, looked to the left, thought about how blessed I was to live in this place,
and told myself one day I would stop and take the picture.

But then I'd just kept driving.

However, two weeks ago, with emotions from the Las Vegas shooting still new,
I was hit with a resolve that this time
I’d actually DO it.

I would take the picture that meant that I, Kerri Green, was chasing beauty.
I had thoughts that I would write about just how “important it was to do the things we feel pressed to do.”
To find the beauty and then to follow it.
Instead of driving on and re-wishing my wish, this time I would leave extra early.
I would make room for my dream.

This time I would pull to the side.

That morning everyone in my house looked at me sideways like I was crazy as I pushed them out of the house,
telling them I had a picture to take.
We had never left so promptly.

Don’t tell Daddy we ate cereal in the car.

As we rounded that turn I felt excited to be finally DOING the thing.
My kids yelled for me to watch out for cars as I parked and ran across the two-lane road for the shot.
I was elated. The balloon was even there!

I returned to the car.
I drove on again; a sense of accomplishment inside.

That thing I’d always wanted to do was now done!

How was I even to know the real reason I’d stopped there that day?
My thoughts on the story it would make completely off from the one I would tell.

How was I to know that mere days later, I would look from the top of that very same spot as our car sped past fleeing the largest fire in California history that was now devouring my city, and possibly our home?

The view had gone from idyllic to terrifying in days.

That look back would never be the same.

What you see here is my HOME.

Just beyond that grazed laguna.
The city where I first moved out.
Where I met my love.
Where all of my children were born.

This post card view is my late night cricket song.
My pair of kicked off shoes.
My familiar Christmas lights.

This view holds friends and so much laughter.
Games played around a table.
Cheers on New Year’s Eve.

This city is my “Good morning.”
This city is “Good night.”
The background of my photos.
My peaceful night of sleep.

Here, my beloved church lifts up its praises.
My children swing on swing sets.
My friends, a constellation.

My weather app is automatic.
My pets know to return there.

And
MY HEART WILL EVER LOVE IT.

That day on that crest with my camera pointed towards those hills,
I did not yet know that I would be about to capture my very last picture of “before.”

Before the view I loved was marred.
Before 3000 homes were taken.
Before our lives forever changed.

I didn’t know that the view that morning would live on as a postcard in my mind
of all the beauty that lies
in The Looking Back.

In cherishing the moments when you have them just over your left shoulder.

In taking the time to pull to the side of the road.

My heart now longs for what was my city.

My heart now stands and waits for it at the top of that hill once more.

The Ripple

I waited in line behind a guy with plaid shorts.
I noticed them as I stared and thought about the day.
One full of emotion listening to the news unravel about the shootings that just happened in Las Vegas overnight.
Being in line at the vet was the last place I wanted to be.
The shorts guy needed pet medications.
He claimed his cat was “pooping all over the house.”
I exchanged a slight smile with Alena who sat holding our own cat.

And then I noticed her.

The woman by the counter clutching an ancient looking dog that was obviously weak and blind, wrapped in a baby blanket.
The dog had clearly had better days,
but I could tell by the way the lady kept pulling her gently up to her face for a kiss that
Some of that woman’s best days had been spent with that little dog.
I studied her awhile.
I wondered why she was there.
I could tell she was alone,
and then over the plaid shorts guy’s loud requests, as I watched her sloppily sign on a clipboard,
I heard her barely whisper out,
“And that will…….cover the cremation?”

She pulled the dog close again.

She finished her forms and turned to take her seat in the waiting area, and as she did, her eyes caught mine and it was as if I heard a voice that said,

“It’s not all for you today.”

So I did the thing I felt like I should do
and as she started to walk by I caught her attention and I mouthed,
“I just want to hug you.”
Her lip quivered.
Immediate tears.
“Thank you...” she said, like she couldn’t believe.
My arm went around her.
After my turn and my own forms,
I started to take a seat and noticed the seat beside hers was empty.
Not believing in coincidence, I gave Alena a look that I know she understood and instead of taking s seat by her,
I sat down next to the woman.

At first I didn’t say anything more.
I just cried with her.
I pet her soft little dog, and whispered,
“You look like you’re a good girl.”
“She’s the very BEST girl, “ the woman said, hushed.
I told her about my own dear Phoebe, and how I’m not far behind,
and I asked her how she had known it was time.
“You just know, “ she said, suddenly calmer.
“I didn’t know three weeks ago.
But then something changed, and I just did.”

I could tell just answering that question gave her a little bit of peace.
Reaffirming to herself that she was making the best decision.
I pushed past a lot of hesitation to do so,
but that is when I reached out and patted her on the hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Loving them and losing them is hard, but also one of the very best things.”

Right then the nurse came and called her name.

She looked at me pleadingly with tears dripping down her cheeks.
“You loved her well “ I told her. “I can tell you gave her the very best life.”
“Seventeen years…..” She said, tears dripping again.
Then she turned and walked into her room.

The nurse called our last name next.
We were led to the room right beside.
I tried to listen as we waited to see if I could hear the moment, but I couldn’t hear a thing.

By the time we were done, the room next to us was empty.
The woman, nowhere to be seen.

My heart was heavy as I went to pay and pick up Amelie’s medication, and as I walked to the payment counter I was suddenly face-to-face with a receptionist who
I frankly just do not like.
To be honest I actually completely dread.
In 20 years of being patients at that office, she has never once cracked a smile.
She has never once made eye contact.
Her answers are short. Her voice is gruff.
She makes me feel like helping me is nothing short of torture.
“Not HER,” I thought. “Not now.”

And then the voice spoke into my heart again.
“Even her. Yes. Even her, too.”

And I knew what I should do.
Even though it went against the grain of everything I was feeling as she sat there angrily typing and ignoring that I was
standing in that window,
I asked her softly,
“How are YOU doing today?”
And I held my breath.
And her eyes shot up to mine.
And then I watched them fill up with tears.
“I actually feel like I’m about to cry,” she confessed.
I felt stunned by the sight of her underbelly.

And the chain was broken.
Just like that.

Because let me tell you: That lady started to talk.
And talk a lot.
Her day had been hard. She had a really bad headache. She was reminding herself that she loved her job.
I told her I was sorry. That I understood.
That I had headaches, too, and that unless you have them you just don’t know.
I asked her if she would get to go home soon.
I genuinely told her that I hoped that she felt better soon and that her day got better, and you know what?
That receptionist started calling me “Honey.”

Her whole demeanor changed, and I was struck with how often it is that the things we don’t like in people can be changed with just an act of kindness on our part
Even when it seems hard at first.
That the power to change the climate is in our very own hands.

I walked to my car and cried behind my sunglasses.
In awe of how a simple unwanted trip to the vet had spoken into my heart in so many ways.

Reiterrating that it’s not all about us in our day-to-day.
It’s not all about our hard moment,
or our own upsetting situation.
Reminding that we are all supposed to be here for each other.

That sometimes the purpose of our own pain is to bind up someone else’s.
Because
Our kindness is the scaffold of life.

The simple words are what start the ripples of change when we find ourselves sitting sprawled in the dirt begging for answers on where we can even go from here.

It is the hand on a hand.
The dropping of our weapons.
The lowering of our shields.

A trip to the vet today kneaded at my heart in ways I was not at all expecting.
It caused me to deeply feel the God I love,
and listen for His heartbeat in the chests of people I would maybe normally overlook.

Who are we called to love?
Just the easy ones?
Just what looks like our own reflection?
Just the one who believes like we do?
Speaks like we do?
Lived in the places we know?
No.
All of them.
All meaning ALL.

I started this day feeling powerless.
But I ended it being raised back up;
reminded yet again that
sometimes the softest place we tread
is the firmest place
to stand.