True North

Veering off the worn foot path, walking towards the north, I placed one foot in front of the other, thinking I was walking in a straight line.  But the wooded floor sloped gentle down and the rolled back up again, and a large fallen log blocked my path.  Stopping after 50 yards I was already disoriented.  The twins, trailing behind, eagerly hoping we’d quickly reach their destination, were anxious with uncertainty  and hollered “Mom, are you sure this is safe?”  Quickly looking down at the GPS coordinates, I realized I had gone entirely wrong, too far south and towards the east, not north-west like we needed.   How could that have happened I wondered?  And then I realized what I did wrong.  I was allowing all the wrong things  to guide me.  Instead of turning towards the sky, and looking at the sun, instead of using the GPS,  I simply found an arbitrary land mark on the ground as it lay before me and headed for it, presuming that just because it looked right, it was.

Once I allowed the sun and GPS to be my guide, we found the cache quickly.  The children happily exchanged their treasures for ones contained within the hidden box and then chatted excitedly, skipping, pointing out trees, woodpeckers, and milkweed plants, talking about the fairy houses they want to build, and the excitement they had throughout the day finding all the hidden treasures as we ended our Geocaching adventure.

As I reflect back on that moment in the woods, I realized how people get lost.  They choose the wrong source of guidance.  I am struck by the poignancy of that analogy  for my own life.  Rather than allowing faith, hope, and love to guide my me, steadying my stride, allowing me to firmly walk towards the path of righteousness, I instead, frantically ran away from fear, sadness, and pain, looking over my shoulder more than I looked ahead, as if trying to out run a beast, straying from every path I crossed, too scared to think.   Once I finally stopped running, it was as if I were standing in the middle of a wooded forest, unable to see the sun, with no way to know which direction was true north.  I stood, no longer running, but lost and disoriented, confused and unsure, tired, cold, and hungry.  No visible path in sight, what is a person to do?  No longer being chased by a monster the immediate threat of mortal danger had passed, but wandering lost and alone in the woods is surely another way to die.

It all seems so clear to me in hindsight, exactly how this happened, and how I’m finding my way.  I got on my knees and prayed.  I allowed my faith to be my compass, and now I’ve stopped looking for a treasure  and running from beasts.  Instead, I walk, one step at a time and allowing (or trying at least) my path to be the treasure itself.  The fact that I am alive, that I can soak in the sun and breath the crisp autumn air is a treasure indeed.  My pace has slowed down quite a bit since the days or running frantically away from my pain.  Some days it seems I’m getting no where fast, but yet I still notice all the things that I missed before while rushing about.  But most importantly, by slowing my pace and turning to a wise and safe navigational guide, I know where true north lies, and  I am finding my way.  I know there will be obstacles that block  my path, like a deep ravine  or  gushing river, but those will be challenges brought on by life and not ones that I’ve caused or made worse for myself.

Learned Optimism

I have a cousin William.   Although we’ve grown up separately only seeing each other a few times in our youth, we’ve lived mirror lives, unbeknownst to us.  Charismatic, intelligent and warm hearted, with the same  desire to leave the world a better place for having graced it, he’s burdened with the same anxiety, sense of inadequacy, and unguided driveness that fuels impulsivity and foolish mistakes.   While his physical features resemble that of his father and not my aunt, my features are strikingly more similar to our grandfather, but yet we share our grandmother’s mental DNA.

Like a scientific study of twins separated at birth, the similarities between us speaks to the power of genetics and the impact of family dynamics.  Our mothers, who were sisters, recreated the same environments and family dynamics with out ever really speaking.  To what degree things were different or worse for either of us really doesn’t matter, because we both hurt just the same.  Begrudgingly, we’ve become products of our environments.

In the the 1960-70’s famed psychologist, Martin Seligman coined the phrase “learned helplessness” to describe the phenomenon in which animals give up their attempts to avoid adverse experience because they believe there is no way to avoid it.  Locked in a room with no escape, they suffered electrical shocks again and again.  Believing they were utterly helpless to escape their pain, they eventually stopped trying to avoid pain or escape, even when a door was wide open before them.  Instead they just adapted and braced themselves for the painful stimulus, rolling over on their back and placing their feet up in the air because electrical shocks hurt their back less then it did on the tender pads of their paws.  They adapted to survive but failed to see the opportunity to escape.  This term applies to humans as well, but in humans our minds take things one step further and we tend to blame ourselves when the things go wrong.  We suffer pain and it is our own fault.  Learned helplessness.  It should be a diagnosis that exists in one of those big manuals used like a cookbook to label individual inflictions.

Voices in my mind rage at me right now: “What do you mean I could have made a different decision?”  “What?! I had other options?” “You mean I could have avoided all this pain and I didn’t have to be this way?”  So many times the doors to escaping my madness was open before, me but  I just lay on my back, hands in the air waiting for my electrical shock.  Separated by thousands of miles, growing up not knowing me, William’s done the same thing.

While our addictive behaviors and actions aren’t connected to illicit drugs or alcohol, we both developed unhealthy ways to cope with our distress.  Speaking to him yesterday made me understand why people in recovery from addiction need to find a sponsor, someone who has walked the path and can hold out their hand, supporting and encouraging, without judging when we fall.

Changing is uncomfortable and usually hurts, but so does getting shocked when you do nothing about it.  I remember how it felt when I started to understand this.   My world and reality swirled around me, feeling groundless with nothing solid beneath my feet.  I  began to understand that I had a choice and could change.  The world and  others in it were not the way I thought, and it turned out that my survival behaviors actually made the situation worse.  Slowly I’ve began to realize how and why I hurt and that allows me to learn how to stop and change.   The thing I never understood was that every time I gave up and allowed myself to endure the electric shock, it wasn’t just me who felt the pain, it hurt those around me.

Late in his career Seligman began to add to his theory and identified the flip side of helplessness and described what he called  learned optimism.  The notion that things are not always our fault, but yet we are still responsible for getting ourselves out of the situation that we are in.  So, I’ve learned that when a door is wide open, take a step outside.  Do not be frightened by the vastness of the world beyond your cage.  I know it hurts to stretch your arms and it takes time for your eyes to adjust to the bright light of the new world that you will see, but if you take advantage of the chance  you’ve been given, your hurt and anxiety can start to subside and that will bring comfort to those you love as well.

A Quiet Night

Tonight was a night reminiscent of a scene on television from the shows I watched in my childhood.  Always having chaos, anger, strife, and noise in my childhood home, I often imagined that normal families really were like the ones on “Leave it to Beaver” or “My Three Sons.”   Being the first Friday of the school year, we celebrated with Chinese take out.   The four of us sat around the kitchen table, each armed with chop sticks. My husband and I managed well, but the children preferred to impale their chunks of deep fried chicken with a single chop stick,  using it as if it were a skewer and then proceeded to dip the meat  into the starchy neon orange sweet and sour sauce while we talked about their experiences at school.

Then we baked chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  (Notice I said baked not made. I admit it, we used pre-made refrigerated dough.)

Then I folded laundry while the children took their showers.  As usual, my daughter maneuvered her way into the bathroom down stairs, which she prefers because the water pressure is better.  After folding the laundry my husband and I sat in the living room and had a conversation about our work days, with the only interruption being the sounds of a happy little girl singing sweetly in the shower:   “I will love you forever and ever, love you with all my heart; love you when we’re together; love you when we’re apart,” surprising me with the clarity in which she articulated her words and how strongly she sang the tune.  She sang in the manner in which a child sings with all the confidence in the world, unaware and unconcerned with the off key notes or missed beats.

I stopped  and took a mental snap shot of that moment.  There was no television on.  No radio on.  No computer on.  No telephones ringing.  No arguing.  No crying.  Just simple conversation interrupted only by the song of a child.  I was struck by the weightlessness and simplicity  of that moment.  The quietness of it softened and cushioned the air around me, brightening the light within me a bit.

This evening I’ve been granted a reprieve from the darkness and angst that stalks me.  I am thankful for it.  Thankful for the hard work that has gotten me to this point.  Thankful for the love and patience I’ve received that enables my growth.  But mostly thankful for the power inherent in the human capacity to forgive, or to at least try.

Trying to Channel Peace

“Make me a channel of your peace…”  These words, set to verse in a liturgical hymn,  flow rhythmically, undulating through my mind. This prayer, the one  of Saint Francis of Assisi has replaced the Serenity Prayer as the daily verse I cling to in effort to support my conscience as it continues to evolve.  I thought those words as I sat through the Grief Support group last week, feeling like a foal in a heard of stallions.   As the women take turns introducing themselves sharing the tragic sources of their grief, I meekly introduced myself “Hi, I’m Leigh, I’m a volunteer”  What can  I possibly say to these women who have suffered such formidable losses over the course of their lives? To be in your 50’s and be predeceased by your husband and daughter while watching a grandchild battle cancer is unfathomable to me.   I sit, humbled by their visible pain and am reminded how little I know about life.   As I listened to a women describe the way that she found her daughter’s body I thought “God, grant me wisdom to comfort her.”  And then later that day I thought it again, as I listened to Grandma talk about Aunt Bev’s growing cancer.  I watched as she grimaced and winced in pain as her  bruised and bloodied face and hands caused her aged body to ache.  Her wounds are the aftermath of falling from bed and I can’t imagine a life where danger confronts you even as you sleep.  I thought the words again “make me a channel of your peace….not to seek to be consoled but to console…”  I whispered the prayer a few days later when I had explain to the pretty, kind young girl who works at my office that the man who gave her a flower had just arrested and had been planning a violent assault.  And I thought it again when I saw the normal, innocent pain of disappointment on my son’s face as a single tear dripped down his cheek because after calling  five friends, and no one could come over to play.  Again and again I thought “Dear God, let me bring  comfort to them ”  yet it never feels as if I can offer enough.

I wonder often, does a person have to be at peace to be a channel of it?  Can I feel such weighted sorrow and sadness, yet contain it enough that I can  still bring comfort to others?  I pondered that question but recognize that in doing so, my thoughts  to drift towards the edge of self-pity.  Reflecting on all the ways I used to avoided feeling such heaviness, I accept that I have begun to “de-crap” and simplify my life.  But in doing I have more time on my hands than I have allowed before.  Some days pass painfully slow, feeling as long as a week.   I’ve been stripped of all my past coping mechanisms, I simply sit like a man in solitary confinement, paying his dues, the retributions for his past mistakes.   To pass idle time my mind began to comfort itself, playing a loved and favorite familiar word game, one that I’ve played since I was my children’s age.   I simply pick a letter and try to think of as many words that start with it as I can.   Since the tension at home is constantly vacillating from bad to well, not so bad at times, it doesn’t surprise me that words that I unconsciously chose was a “D,” yet the word that describes the irreparable damage of a marriage waste land remains no where on my list.  So, how many words did I think of that start with a “D” and describe how I feel at the moment?  Downtrodden, despondent, depressed and despair.  Dispirited, distraught, dissonant, dissociative, deluded, distorted.  Down in the dumps. Dejected, dangerous, deranged…disposable… and the one that’s my favorite…I feel like a contagious disease.

With all those “D” words rattling my brain I almost didn’t hear my daughter singing.  My beautiful angel of a daughter, her imperfections perfect for their existence, yet balanced with grace, love, and her intelligence.  Then I remembered the conversation we had in church today.

She asked me “Mama?  Why do we have to be quiet in church?”

I answered “God gave you two ears and one mouth so you can listen twice as much as you talk.”

“God talks to us?” she asked, wide eyed and curious?

“Yes” I replied.  “And church is the best place to hear him, but we can not hear what he is saying if we are too busy talking ourselves.”

Remembering my own words, I grew quiet and gave God the chance to come up with some “D” words of his own.  “Dig deep, dear daughter, do not doubt or despair.   Christ’s divinity has already paid your debts, so do not delay or dawdle in this darkness.  Day by day  your devotion and diligence pay dues, your duties are done.  God does delight in you…”

Bowing my head and closing my eyes, I whisper a word that starts with a “T” instead of a “D” … thank you.

Nothing is Enough

Summer is ending.   Usually I greet this occurrence with ambivalence.  While I feel a nostalgic longing to experience the turning of leaves and breathe in the scent of their earthiness as they crunch beneath my feet and litter the ground, or to sip fresh made cider during walks through old apple orchards, these sentimental desires are in stark contrast with the melancholy that accompanies the farewell to the summer.  The knowledge that the warm and gentle summer breezes that ripple across lakes will soon be replaced with the harsh cold northern winds, as the setting sun gives ways to the lengthening of nights brings a sensation that is reminiscent of the grief that accompanies the departure of an old and trusted friend.

This summer has contained such emotional upheaval, that at first I embraced the thought of the changing of the seasons, ready to put the past behind me.  But for the first time in my life, I recognize that Autumn will bring me no miraculous answers either.  Instead of pouring down upon me, I feel the sadness rising from within.  No longer looking for the solutions in some unknown near or distant future, I simply accept the current moment and embrace this “in between.”   I am in between the seasons of my life, no longer really summer, but not yet autumn either; a “nothingness” in time.  I find a freeing thought from this growing awareness, reaching for the knowledge that happiness now depends upon me, myself, and I,  and not the current season.

If I embrace this precarious moment, no longer looking forward or looking back, I strip away the pushing and the pulling of the “would have, should have, could have” and the sense of urgency that I must “getting things right”  Only then can I discover the  simple pleasure of sitting with quiet.  The chatter of my constant mind settles a bit and my thoughts are more serene as I sit in transition and accept that “nothing” is finally enough.

Say a Prayer From Heaven

I wonder if Mother Theresa looks down from Heaven and believes in the true goodness that came from her existence and the labors of her work?  Does she finally feel as if her life and spirit form a chord of harmony,  aligning in a way that was so painfully absent when she walked amongst us  in her human form?   I wonder if her soul is finally at peace?  The more I read about her spiritual darkness, the more fondly my heart grows for her.

From where I sit, I know her. I understand her plight.  Yet, I recognize the arrogance in making such a statement as one might conceive I am making a comparison between us. I  do not mean to insinuate such  an arrogant thing.  But simply, I embrace the comfort in knowing the degree of inner dissonance she suffered.  The more that she succeeded the more distraught she became.  I know her fear.  The fear that if the world knew of the true  torture  her soul endured, that knowledge would negate the good that she had done, that others would doubt her and in doing so doubt God.  But, oh! how this knowledge brings me hope and courage of my own, for she kept on trying to cling to her faith and to Christ’s love, even through the decades where she felt abandoned by him.  Stumbling and fallible she always carried on, a true testament to devotion that inspires faith.

“If I ever become a Saint — I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’ I will continually be absent from Heaven — to [light] the light of those in darkness on earth” she wrote.  Oh, Dear Theresa please come and visit me and know that those of us who share the dark night that you felt, need a saint to guide us, one who knows our plight, one who brings us comfort through compassion and understanding instead of a sense of inadequacy as their holy perfection only amplifies our guilt and sorrow, self-inflicted through our awful sins that have served to demoralize and leaden the pain within our souls.    Oh Dear Theresa, I think I’ve found a friend…Come, please be with me, be my guiding light and when you can not share your company with me,  please say a prayer from Heaven.

 

 

 

I am what I am.

I continue to sing “Amazing Grace” on a regular basis these days.   The words:  “I was blind but now I see” play over and over again in my mind, like the vibrations of a needle stuck on a broke record.   “God saved a wretch like me…”  feeling more like a question than a statement of fact.

Is it true I wonder? Have I been saved?  Is there a grace that has or will salvage what is left of my life? I am beginning to believe it is possible.  I think that it is true.  Like a shifting crevice deep within the earth, a quake of monumental proportions finally settles and secures the fragile fault line.  Something permanent is different  within me.  I feel it deep within my core.

Faith.  That is the word that defines this difference.   At first I thought perhaps that it was the growing absence of fear.  Fear consumed me.  Fear so pervasive, so dark, so large in magnitude that it swallowed me, dwarfing me in comparison.  In the belly of the beast each and every breath is shallow and painful.  Fear of death.  Fear of abandonment.  Fear of rejection.  Fear of pain.  Fear of failure.  Fear of physical injury.  Fear of isolation.  Fear that I would feel lonely  forever.   Fear that I wasn’t good enough.  Fear that I wasn’t strong enough.  Fear that I couldn’t survive on my own.  Fear. I wore a cloak of fear and it fueled my self hatred.  Fear was the filter through which I saw, felt, heard, tasted, and touched every aspect of life around me.

But faith has brought the light that melts away the black darkness, illuminating the shadows cast by fear.  I understand why the first step of any recovery as believing in a higher power.  I sing to myself…” T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear… And Grace, my fears relieved… How precious did that Grace appear…the hour I first believed…”

I fought so hard against believing.  Believing in myself.  Believing in God, a church, and love.  And it took the dangers, toils, and snares to get me to see.  Not because I didn’t want too.  I tried so hard before.  But I became a rodent on a wheel, running no where fast.  Fear was my fuel.  The more frightened I was, the  faster I ran and the faster life spun around me, but yet I  stayed in place.

Some how faith trickled in to my life, giving me the courage to rise above this fear.  That’s not to say I don’t still have moments where I feel afraid. But I see them for what they are, an inescapable part of life, a burden I must bear. Yet, they are intermingled with an underlying presence and peace of mind that I am going to be okay.  Despite my sorrow, despite my guilt, my greed, my selfishness, despite the current turmoil and tribulations that I face, underneath all the hardened exterior  is a warm and loving heart that shines more brightly every single day.  A heart that has the courage to endure and sit with sadness instead of seeking escape from it.  I have lived my life always seeking endless validation from others to escape the fear bequeathed to  me through childhood that I was not good enough, with the “golden parachute” thoughts of  suicide strapped firmly to my back.  “I was blind but now I see” what a selfish indulgence that it was. I am loved.  I know it and I feel it.  I’ve spent my life being unable to sit and tolerate pain, always running from it, but never escaping its grasp.  I  felt it constantly.  It was everywhere and I hated myself  for feeling this way it and never understood why.  So I tried every way imaginable to avoid and hide from  it.  My journey became an effort to find something or someone who could  rescue me.   Now I realize that those efforts drove me to act in ways that made me become a person worth hating.  The self-fulfilling prophesy at it’s best I suppose.  My fears now realized, I’ve hit rock bottom.  Escape is not an option.  Perhaps too late, but none the less, I accept this fact of my life.  Instead of thinking about how  this pain feels strong enough that I’ll simply die.  Instead of thinking of a way to escape and avoid the hurt in my life, I am challenged to accept my fate and find a way to live with myself.  I never thought that way before.  I never accepted “this is what it is” and tried to just cope.  I always sought to change my life but never change myself.  Even my wording has begun to change.  Instead of saying “I hate myself, I simply want to die”  I find myself thinking “living with myself is not easy sometimes.”  How cliche…should someone ever ask me: “how can you live with yourself” my replay would be “it is difficult.”

Like Alice in Wonderland who finally accepts her fate and faces the Jabberwoky.  I’ve grown tired and weary.  I can  run no more and backed myself into a corner any way.  But in facing my fears I finally have a chance to redeem myself.  To cast away the image of who I’ve thought I had to be to please the faceless world, because I’ve failed miserably at that, and simply be myself.  Trying to be someone or something that was pleasing to everyone else just made a mess of things.  Whether I am good enough or not is no longer the point.  I guess Popeye said it best “I am what I am and that’s all that I am” … so now I just want to make the best of that.

 

I could not see the stars

I sat out on our deck last night, gazing towards the heavens and was reminded of the countless times I have sat under a star filled sky, feeling distraught somehow, searching for answers.  I have always been disappointed by  the absence of some sort of existential validation that all of life has some divine purpose and meaning.  As I lost myself deep within my thoughts, the Milky Way shimmered above the place I sat, reminding me of my smallness in this cosmic universe.  A wave of guilt washed over me and I was dumbstruck by my awareness of the magnitude of hurt that can be caused through the selfish acts of such a small being.  This awareness makes the balance seem so out of proportion.  How can just one single person’s ripple effect create so many waves?  And why do the effects of poor choices cause so much more harm than the effects of something good?

I saw a shooting star and wondered whether it would collide into another one and then begin to form the basis of a planet.  It could be happening right before my eyes  and I’d never know.  Realizing that I was wearing my old glasses with outdated prescription lenses, it occurred to me that there were so many more stars than what  I was able to see.  I know there are more because  I have seen them before.  I was reminded of the first time I saw the Milky Way and realized what it was.  I was in a sand dune that mirrored a small and barren desert and thought the glow of the sky was  that of a distant town or city.  Surrounded by no trees and no other lights, the stars and the moon illuminated everything around me as brightly as the sun.  Had I never seen that sky, in this moment, I would never even known that more stars existed.  I reflected on the countless times there were things I should have seen or  known about life, love, and relationships, just like the absent stars that are really there, but I simple could not see.

“How blind I’ve been to life” I thought.  So I took my glasses completely off, allowing my poor vision to skew my experience in that moment.  Looking upward I could only see three or four globes of light.  The images before me were reminiscent of sight through tear filled eyes,  the way that light is softened by drops of water on eyelashes,  blurred and muted in stark contrast with crisp astuteness of 20/20 vision.  I could only see the few soft spots of  faded light.  “How blind I am” I thought, literal and figuratively.  Again I was reminded of insight  that had I never before seen a picturesque and starry night, based on the lens before me, I would never even know that I was missing a thing.  I couldn’t see the stars, but this time I knew it.

I placed my glasses back on my face, preferring  the ability of seeing thing clearly over that of blindness.  Yet, I recognized there are still more things I can not  see.   But, now, my eyes are open and I hold on to the faith that, because I at least conceive that more exists, I will be more likely to see the things I should and continue to grow and evolve,  just  like the forming planets that right in front of me, the ones I can not see but know they exist, maybe some day growing enough that they will sustain and nourish  precious life.

God Sightings: Through the Eyes of a Six Year Old

“Mom, we have home work to do.   Well, not real home work.  There is no writing or studying.”

Thinking that my daughter was referring to the thick packet of worksheets and reading lists sent home from school for summer vacation, the very same packet that I inadvertently threw away, I  asked her to explain her homework more to me.

“We need to be on the look out for God sightings” she answered.

Then it dawned on me that this was homework from her vacation bible school.  I felt a sense of relief and peacefulness come over me.  Statements like that were the exact reason I signed the twins up for it.  It was why I had to color code my calendar in order to figure out how to coordinate and keep track of all the  transportation, child care and work schedules, sometimes cursing myself for trying to juggle so many things at once, feeling slightly like a masochist who brings unnecessary discomfort on them-self.   There have been countless moments where I thought, “Forget it. Why bother. They’ll never notice if they don’t go.”  But that quiet part of me that listens to unspoken wisdom whispered softly “This is important. Make the sacrifice. Find a way to get them there. Things will work out.”

My daughter proceeded.

“Do you know what God sightings are?  We each have to share one tomorrow.”

I mindlessly rattled off a list of things I thought were indicative of God’s presence, from rainbows to the child birth, then rambling on about Noah and God flooding the earth.  She replied in such an adolescent tone, not uncharacteristically precocious for her 6 years,

“Mom!”  As in, Mom you need to be quiet now! “I ALREADY  have one.”

She said it with such assertiveness and confidence that I was instantly intrigued and completely dumbfounded by what she might say next.

“Oh sorry honey” I said. “Tell me what your God sighting is.”

She answered “It is getting to see my mom and dad.”

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me by my own ignorance and lack of insight.  She knew right a way that a God sighting means love.  Her response and insight was far simpler and more pure than I could have fathomed.

Then she asked “Mom, can a God sighting be when there is something bad?”

“Well, what do you mean honey?” I asked.

“I told them that Aunt Bev has cancer.  Can she have a God sighting too?”

Tears filled my eyes and both pride and sadness filled my heart.  I don’t know if I will ever stop being surprised by her insight or that of her brothers.  I explained that yes, Aunt Bev could have a God sighting and that sometimes God brings comfort and peace, acceptance, to people who are dying in pain if they are willing and trying to look for it.

Then she quickly changed the subject and began to describe the songs that they sang at vacation bible school.   She showed me the dancing and hand gestures that accompanied the words.   She broke out in song, singing sweetly, imperfect, and beautiful for her confidence.  She swayed her arms over her head, dancing in rhythm as she sang the words

Stand firm when life changes.

Stand firm through the ups and downs.

Stand firm, for you know that God is in control.

The storms of life will push and pull, but we are standing on the rock that never rolls.

Again, tears filled my eyes.  Is she six or is she an angel?

I gently asked “Do you know what that song means?”

She innocently replied, “No Mommy, will you explain it to me.”

I paused for a moment and said. “Well, honey, it means that some times it seems like life is so awful we are just going to die because of it.  It seems like everything bad is happening around us and it hurts us so badly that we think we  aren’t strong or brave enough to get through it.  But, we need to remember that God never gives us more than we can handle and if we put our faith and trust in him, then we will some how find the strength to survive even, when we think we can’t.”

“Oh” she said thoughtfully “I should sing this to Aunt Bev.”

Her astute clarity clouded my own as I fumbled for words, trying to choke back my cries for fear that she would think she said something wrong if she heard them.  I replied with a simple “Yes you should” but wish instead I had said “Oh my precious, sweet little girl, you should sing it for the entire world.”

Lives are Interwoven

Thoracentesis.  That is what it is called, the procedure they’ve repeated several times on Aunt Bev.  The last time they removed over a gallon of fluid from her lungs.  At this point they’ve just left the tube in so they can drain it daily.   With a fever occurring every afternoon, the doctors say she’s not strong enough to tolerate the surgery needed to remove the cancer that is consuming her body, eating away at her from the inside out.  The cancer has spread to three separate places and her blood counts are bad.  Chemotherapy has worsened her already poor hearing, making it difficult for her to have conversations with those that she loves.  There is no denying that she is dying.

“I hate to ask and have  you go out of the way, but could you bring 2 quarts of 2% milk please?”  Grandma asked.  She married a farmer over 60 years ago, bearing six children, one died before he reached the age of two.  At a time when divorce was unheard of, she abandoned her family when she realized she could handle it no more.  All the children, still young in age, remained with their father.  The rift that was created by that decision turned into a ravine, that today is a canyon of hurt, remorse and regret as she realizes what she has missed.  The Christmas’s.  The birthday’s.  The births of great grandchildren.  She was so reserved and withheld so much emotion that she never even used to give hugs or kisses.  That knowledge is always in the forefront of my mind as she embraces my children and kisses their cheeks.

Born into a family with an alcoholic father, she once told me how cruel and frightening he was, trying to hide her emotional scars.  Perhaps that is why I have compassion for her.  Running from demons that are similar to mine, she chose the road of trying to escape.  But in seeking escape she created more damage, as her children and grandchildren bear the scars of rejection with pain that still echos today.  She is alone.   Her children help her as much as they can.  Not out of joy or desire, but out of a mix of obligation, resentment, and bittersweet love.  There is no pleasure or enjoyment in each others company, an experience I can understand.  But I like her and always have.  I suppose that in comparison to an alcoholic grandmother with schizophrenia who I hardly ever saw and a grandmother who beat me with a baseball bat, my opinion is jaded.

She is dying of old age, separated by hours from her daughter who is dying as well.  She knows she is not likely to go first.  She has no way to reach her, unable to drive and easily confused by the many of phone numbers provided to her.  With a stack of hand scribbled notes a half inch thick, written in print she struggles to see and only succeeds with a the help of a magnifying glass,  she is unable to remember which one to call; cell phones, home phones, hospital rooms.  That confusion is understandable for her age and considering she spent so much of her childhood with no phone at all.    I watched as she sat in her chair gazing off to the left, with a vacant stare that I know so well.  Grandma where did you go? I wondered.   “I can’t get a hold of Bev” she said.  “I don’t know if she is still in the hospital or not.”   Uncharacteristic tears filled her eyes and her voice crackled in a way that wasn’t caused just by old age.   My heart and chest burned for her.  I pulled out my cell phone and called Bev’s daughter, who true to her nature, was by her mother’s side.  I watched as grandma’s face lit up, a genuine smile and even a subtle warm glow emanated from her as she got to hear her daughter’s voice.  I wished the rest of the family could have seen this transformation, her authentic display of love.

“We always love you” they wrote on the card.  The one I received from my parents yesterday.  I read it just before I brought grandma her milk.  I’ve not spoken with them in about 6 months.  The guilt of the estrangement weighing heavily upon me, exacerbated by witnessing grandma’s distress.  It’s not that I hate them or that I don’t forgive them.  I just want to be able to be around them without feeling such anger, hurt, and grief.  Even their kindness angers me.  Being around them reminds me of the hurt they have caused and the poor decisions they continue to make.  A torrent of emotions bubble up and spill forth in a way that I can’t contain.  It is impossible for me to not  feel like a hypocrite as I offer compassion to Grandma, or June, or the grieving mothers at the support group, all while I can’t offer it to my own parents.  I think about the way it would hurt them to know that I can offer such kindness to others but not to them.   But I do it for others because I can’t for them, secretly hoping  that in this great big world, someone will show them compassion in a way that we all deserve.  Seeing the common thread of these family dynamics interwoven through generations and spanning across unrelated families,  I wonder if either of my parents ever sit in their chair, gazing off to the left, with an absent stare, wondering whether they’ll  ever see me again.