Dancing in the Rain: One Family's Journey through Grief and Loss

By Lisa Elliott

We all know what it is to face storms in our lives. The question is, how do you deal with them when they come?

How do you keep your head above water when the undertow of crisis pulls you under?

How do you keep your faith afloat amid loss, disappointment, and betrayal?

How do you keep your faith from drowning in sorrows of unanswered prayer?

How do you weather the storms as they break into the safe shelter of your home?

How do you find an anchor during times of change?

How do you live the abundant life when the life is sucked out of you?

Lisa Elliott invites you into the living room of her heart in the aftermath of the biggest storm she ever faced. Let her take you by the hand as she and her family candidly share their journey of hope. You will find invaluable insights that will help you to dance in the rain!
Dancing in the Rain is much more than a story. It is a chronicle of a spiritual journey, a decisive choosing to find and experience God in brokenness and ultimately live again with new inner strength, renewed hope, and joyful purpose.
—Margaret Gibb
Founder and Director of Women Together
Lisa Elliott is a gifted speaker, pastor’s wife, mother of four (three on earth, one in heaven), and award-winning author of The Ben Ripple. She has appeared on Christian television and radio, and contributed to Hot Apple Cider with Cinnamon, Just Between Us, and Scripture Union’s theStory.
Visit Lisa at www.straightfromtheheart.webs.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Apr 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781486606894

Lisa Elliott

I've had these handsome Scottish rogues fighting for my attention for years. Each has his own story and his own wants they keep trying to share. Problem is I keep throwing up road blocks to make them more likeable. They fight me, I say go left and they're determined to go right but together the words form on the pages I write and in the end they end up happy. For the most part. Padruig is the first to share his story with other people but his brother Cailean is actively poking me to tell his story and have some women fall in love with him. All my rogues have traits of men I know. I've been writing for years, stories, poems, short essays and sometimes just a few lines that later becomes much more than I realized. I look forward to sharing Cailean, Ian, and Raven with readers in the near future.

Book preview

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My inspiration for Dancing in the Rain came as I not only processed my own grief in the aftermath of the biggest loss I’d ever faced, but more so as I stood back and watched the people I loved most (my husband and three remaining children) making their way forward step by step, learning to live again. I desperately needed to know how they were doing it. How were they going on? So I began to take note. I listened to the music their hearts were making. I marvelled at their performance as they made their way to the dance floor of life after death. Dancing in the Rain is the collaborative effort of each one of them.

Natalie, Jacob, and Erin, your contributions to this book have taken it to the next level. You have made your lives a symphony of praise to our King. I know Ben is applauding you from his place in the heavenly grandstand. Thank you for allowing me to share your innermost thoughts and sacred moments with a lost and grieving world. People yearn to know how to dance in the rain and you are showing them how.

David, you are the love of my life. Thank you for wooing and encouraging me to let what I love be what I do. Thank you for lovingly pulling me to my feet over and over again to do things I didn’t want to do, things I felt incapable of doing, much less things I had forgotten I loved to do. I couldn’t do any of it without you. And I wouldn’t want to.

Thank you to some timely and God-given friends (Jamie, Heather, Shelly, Dawn, and Diane) who have walked me through the storms these last few years. Thank you for listening, and listening, and listening some more as I worked through and processed my struggles, disappointments, heartaches, and fears. Thank you for speaking truth and life back into me.

An extra thanks to you, Shelly, for believing that what the Lord was doing in my heart was worth sharing with a hurting world. Thank you for hearing, and singing along with me, the song of my heart. And thank you for taking your valuable time to orchestrate my thoughts and help me write the score.

Thank you to my extended family and Facebook community for being such a wonderful choir of ongoing love, encouragement, and prayers. You’ve all played a part in prompting me to turn my lament into a hymn of praise.

To the team at Word Alive Press, you have been instrumental in my life over the past number of years. Thank you for your invested interest in me. I’d like to especially acknowledge Jen, Evan, and Amy. Jen, you are the voice of Word Alive Press to me. Your sensitivity, compassion, and desire to use your gifts for God’s glory have not gone unnoticed. Evan, it’s an absolute pleasure to work with you. Thank you for your expertise, finesse, and sense of humor in helping me effectively communicate my heart. And Amy, your guidance and patience through this process has been invaluable. Thank you.

Finally, and most importantly, thank you to my Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Thank You for holding my hand and guiding me through life. Thank You for singing over me with Your love. You are my storm shelter. You are my anchor. You are my rock. You are my unchanging and faithful friend. You are my defender. You are my hope. You make life worth living. You are the Lord of the dance!

From a heart overflowing with gratitude,

Lisa

FOREWORD

I first became acquainted with Lisa Elliott when she sent me an article to consider for our publication about the illness of her son, Ben. Because I, too, was going through a health crisis with a child at the time, her words resonated with me in a very deep way. At last someone understood my anguish, pain, and struggle like no one else. At last someone understood what it was like to stand helplessly by and watch a child suffer. I contacted her immediately, and as a result we became fast friends. That was six years ago.

As Ben’s illness progressed, she included me in her email and Facebook updates. The email entries really ministered to me. It’s as if Lisa was taking me by the hand and guiding me through my pain—straight to the heart of God. Unknowingly, she was fast becoming my dance partner, teaching me how to dance in the rain. Her dance steps, filled with faith and hope, shone throughout the darkest moments of Ben’s illness and death.

Her family’s dance through the rain will touch your emotions in unforgettable ways. As well as hearing from Lisa, you’ll hear from her husband and children about how they all have learned to dance in the rain after the death of their child and brother.

At one time or another, all of us will experience fierce and prolonged storms in our lives. How do we survive? How do we thrive? How do we work through the grief and depression in the aftermath of the storm? These are some of the questions Lisa answers in the pages to follow. Just like Lisa did with me, she will take you by the hand, page by page, and teach you how to dance your way through the storms of life. The candor and insight with which Lisa shares will move your heart and provide you with help and hope.

Dancing in the Rain: One Family’s Journey through Grief and Loss is a look behind the scenes of Lisa’s first book, The Ben Ripple: Choosing to Live through Loss with Purpose. In this book, through her own story, Lisa will take a look at how storms affect you personally, relationally, spiritually, and emotionally—and how you can find your way through incredible loss. When life’s most difficult circumstances rain down on us, God wants us to learn how to dance; He wants us to learn how to take steps of joy, peace, and hope. Lisa and her family have learned this dance well. Despite their incredible suffering, they have learned to dance in the rain, and now the pages of this book will help you learn how to as well.

We are all waiting for the sunshine to appear, especially as the storms rain down, shattering the lives we once knew. How often on a rainy day do we find ourselves eagerly looking at the latest weather report for some sign of a break in the weather? When we do, we miss out on all God has for us in the rain. What happens when our storms and rain continue indefinitely, as many of them do? What if the storm in my life doesn’t end overnight? What if the rainy forecast never changes? Without the heavenly forecast to keep us going, we’ll lose hope pretty quickly. Let Lisa take your hand, as your caring dance partner, to teach you the steps you need to learn so you, too, can dance in the rain!

—Shelly Esser

Editor of Just Between Us (Menomonee Falls, WI)

PREFACE

It’s raining outside. It used to be that I would moan and groan on a dreary day like this, wishing away the rain so the sun could shine. Today, however, I find the rain okay somehow. In a twisted kind of way, the rain resonates with me. We’ve become well-acquainted with one another in recent years. The rain reminds me of the fact that this week commemorates my son Ben’s diagnosis with leukemia. This week also commemorates his passing. The year Ben was ill was the rainiest year I can remember. Rain was a recurring theme as we faced the biggest storm of our lives.

It all began on August 12, 2008, at 12:40 p.m. when I received a phone call at work. It was from my husband, David, who was on his way to the emergency room with the second oldest of our four children. Our eighteen-year-old son Ben had collapsed while serving tables at a busy restaurant.

Within half an hour, I received another call to inform me that the bloodwork had come back showing an abnormally low hemoglobin level of 42 (normal 180 for his age and size), and they were going to perform a bone marrow biopsy. With this news, I told my husband to come and get me.

Standing in the chemotherapy treatment wing of the hospital, we were told that although nothing was confirmed, there was some erratic cell behavior, and they were checking into leukemia.

While my world came to a screaming halt, life around me accelerated. Blood transfusions were initiated, medications were administered, and plans were made to get Ben to a cancer care treatment center an hour away.

As I kicked into a coping gear, my life became a slow-motion, minute-by-minute existence. In those minutes, I tried to make sense of what we’d been told. Ben had only just graduated from high school six weeks earlier. He’d been about to enter a victory lap in two weeks and take some courses required to enter a nursing program in the fall of the coming year. He was supposed to have been the captain of the boys’ senior volleyball team. He had played eighteen holes of golf with his dad three days earlier. He had just ridden his bike to work that morning!

The next day began a month’s worth of in-hospital treatment to begin what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half-year treatment plan for ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia). Because this form of leukemia is typically found in children aged two to five, Ben was automatically put into a category all his own.

In the second week following his diagnosis, it was discovered that Ben had a rare translocation of cells, putting him into a high-risk category. This meant it was very unlikely that Ben would go into remission, and very likely that, if and when he was to go into remission, he would have a relapse.

As a family, we thanked God that Ben went into remission, but by the six-month marker he had spent half of his days in the hospital dealing with one complication after another, including three weeks over Christmas and New Year’s that he didn’t even remember.

On March 27, 2009, due to the aggressive nature of his disease, Ben was to undergo a bone marrow transplant after finally finding not one but four unrelated matches! As the date for the transplant drew near, it was evident that God was truly making a way where there seemed to be no way. Everything was perfectly lined up, including an apartment in prime real estate located just five minutes on foot from the hospital. It was newly renovated with brand-new furniture and free of charge for as long as we needed it!

Then the inconceivable happened. Just two weeks before the transplant was to take place, we got news that Ben had relapsed in his central nervous system. This not only made it necessary for all arrangements to be cancelled, but worse yet, it significantly lessened Ben’s chances of survival.

For the second time on our journey, my world stood still.

The next blow came when, after three more months of intensified treatment, Ben had a systemic relapse (relapse of his blood and bone marrow). This made it necessary that he endure one more month of in-hospital treatment. Unfortunately, not only was the treatment unsuccessful in achieving remission, but with this news came our biggest reality check yet… Ben had days, maybe weeks to live.

He was given a night to come home and decide between two options: forget about more treatment and spend the rest of his limited days in the hospital where he would receive palliative care, or go through with one final round of chemotherapy. This was an experimental treatment, unfamiliar even to our medical team, and it would give him a very small chance of achieving remission.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but concluding that a small percentage was still better than zero percent, Ben, in Ben-like fashion, opted to take the chemo route.

It was a valiant attempt, but one that once again was to no avail. So, after spending yet one more month in the hospital, now with the inevitability of his death, Ben did something not many ALL patients have the privilege of doing: he decided he wanted to spend his last days in the comforts of his own bed, surrounded by the sights and sounds of home.

Our last days with Ben allowed us to finish well the fight he had so bravely fought. Ben was promoted to his heavenly home on August 19, 2009, at 12:35 a.m., at the age of nineteen, only one year and one week after his diagnosis.

This is a tough week as I take time to reflect, but it’s one I will take in stride… one step at a time, one minute at a time, one breath at a time, just as I did the entire year Ben battled his deadly disease. That’s when I first began to learn what it is to dance in the rain.

INTRODUCTION:

RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD

As I begin to write a book