Can you define safety?

Professors sure do like to make you think. I know, that statement seems an over-simplified one. We must work our minds like a muscle to gain knowledge. It would stand to reason then, that any good instructors’ goal would be to stretch our minds to bounds they haven’t exceeded before. Recently, my already stretched to the max mind was thrown into overdrive by a seemingly simple question posed to me in a class I am taking for my Mental Health Degree. (Class name withheld, confidentiality) It was less of a question really and more of a thinking point. Our professor wanted us to start thinking about when we, personally, felt “safe” in our personal lives.

After pondering this question in my mind for several days, I began to consider that I may be over-thinking the concept. I’ve been guilty of lacking focus a time or two in my life, so I’ve learned some tricks about reigning myself back in. Researching is a skill I first learned from my mother that I have trained myself to fall back on when I am craving understanding or perspective. In this case, a search on the definition of the word “safety” seemed like a logical first step in getting on-track:

Safety: Relative freedom from danger, risk, or threat of harm, injury, or loss to personnel and/or property, whether caused deliberately or by accident. (www.businessdictionary.com)

Wait, what? Does anyone else feel like we danced around this definition a bit? Prior to reading the “official definition” of the word, I had attempted to envision what safety meant for me. My mind traveled to things that make me joyful. My first thought was of the beautiful flower gardens I had last summer. The moments our family spent soaking in the sun, taking in the different garden smells throughout the summer with the varying array of vibrant colors were my new definition of what “peace” felt like. They were our first flower gardens. We built nine of them and we were one-hundred percent hooked on gardening.

I also knew that any moment spent in the gardens I loved so entirely were moments that potentially brought me closer than I ever wanted to be to one of my biggest fears. Snakes. In short, I do not like them. I respect their right to live and thrive, as is the case for me with all living beings. That said, I do not want to see snakes in my garden, on the television, on my Facebook feed or in a pet store. The fear a snake-sighting instills in me is one that presents itself as panic in my gut, tightness in my chest and a general terror that cannot be reasoned with.

I did have a couple of dreaded run-ins with a snake that took a liking to our gardens over the summer. It was nothing short of a miracle that the neighbors didn’t call law enforcement to report a violent attack the day Mr. Snake and I met up in the Lavender bush. Man did my foolish screaming terrify that poor thing. As it turns out, snakes move quickly AWAY from you when you scare the daylights out of them with screaming fit for a murder in progress. Last summer was the first time I was able to meet a snake on that level. They were at least as scared as I was, poor things. They can still be scared far, far away from me and my lavender. For fear of offending my english major friends, I’m going to do my best to be where the snakes ain’t.

I’ll likely scream loud enough for even the farthest neighbors to hear again this summer. (I really have tried to overcome this, guys,) What I know for sure is that we are looking forward to Spring time in the biggest way. We have already started to plan our gardens and I’m guessing Mr. Snake is looking forward to all that the warmer weather has to offer, too.

As I wrote about my fear of snakes, I felt my fear for them in my body. Even now, I can still feel a tightness in my chest and a slight lump in my throat. As I acknowledged my love for gardening and all the healing it brought to me in three short months, I felt a release in my heart and began to breathe easier.

Safety is not a place, or a person or even a thing. Safety is both a state of being and is meant to be experienced in the small moments we consciously choose to acknowledge. Do we choose, in this moment, to take in the smell, the feel and the radiant colors of the garden? Or do we choose to fear the snake that may or may not appear and then disappear at any moment? Maybe in the end, the answer to the question of safety is about perspective within moments.

Mama never mentioned days like this

“I like dogs better than people,” he was known for saying. People on the outside of our immediate family would laugh this common statement off. The deep affection my father held for his four-legged friends was legendary. My mother, my brother and I would laugh too: but through clenched teeth while in mixed company. We knew that in private, my father truly did prefer to make friends with even the worst dog over his favorite human.

Growing up, there was never a time we didn’t have at least one dog. Much to my mother’s dismay, it wasn’t uncommon for my father to return home from a road trip or a work site with a puppy or a stray dog. Looking back now, the approval of one of our most memorable rescue mutts, “Muttley” (that lacked hair on his tail-end and smelled awful even after a grooming from a life-long skin condition) meant at least as much to my dad, anyways.

After “the Muttley experience,” we learned not to question the many dogs that followed. Our family mourned when we lost Bandit, my parent’s black lab-cross of seventeen years. We celebrated when Dad returned home from a road trip up North with Dustin the Beagle. Dustin and I bonded over flea-picking sessions while I wondered silently when my father would look at me with the same sparkle in his eye he got when he looked at any of our dogs.

I may have secretly resented my father’s affection towards those dogs but it was during these grooming sessions in my back yard with them growing up that I started to understand. These dogs listened to me intently, with a complete absence of judgement. They understood me without words, they loved me without condition.

I’ve heard people say that everyone gets one special dog in their life that they never forget. For our family, we were lucky enough to have a pair of them. Rosie, who will never be remembered for her smarts and Charlie, the rock-diving black lab bring many fond memories for our family. One memory with this comical duo changed my life in a matter of minutes.

It was the dead of winter and my dad had packed up his two best friends Charlie and Rosie, some tennis balls and a racket for a trip to the ocean. For hours, he slammed those tennis balls our into the crashing waves, our family dogs tirelessly chasing them. I don’t recall being bothered by the cold Maine air that February day. Neither dog seemed concerned either, as they retrieved ball after ball. They paid no mind to the icicles forming on their chests.

Rosie, the younger of the two, was famous for fetching the ball and not returning it. She preferred to drop the sandy, slobber-covered ball on the beach, bark at it relentlessly and roll all over it. This caused me to laugh hysterically at her foolishness. When I looked over at my dad, he was laughing, too. On this day, for the first time, I started to understand how my dad could have the reservations he did about people.

On this day, my dad was as happy and free as I had ever seen him. Sometimes if I close my eyes, I can still picture it. His teeth were showing when he looked over and shared a smile with me. I can feel the vulnerability I saw in his eyes as I realized that after nineteen very long years, both our joy and our pain came from the same place. I did not express this truth to him with any more than a look that day. Thankfully, I was able to tell him before he passed away only a few short years later:

“You don’t need to worry about me or the baby, dad. You really did teach me everything I need to know to go forward.”

Words: our future, our legacy

Currently, I am listening to a pair of eleven year old boys enjoy each others company in the room next to me. They decided my suggestion of learning some new songs together on their guitars was a good one. They are being kind to one another. My son is taking his time to gently explain to his friend how to play the bass line of one of his favorite songs. The snow is falling lazily outside. It’s a snow day at home and the moment feels so pure.

Then I hear it. It’s a simple statement made by one of the boys that stole the innocence from the moment. “I’m not doing this to be popular, but learning music is going to make us so, so popular!”

The boys couldn’t have known it but we had moved both back and forward in time all in the same moment. That one statement, meant to be a positive one, made my heart sink. Instantly I was brought back to the earful I had received from both boys the night before about what they face in their social circles with the peers they meet at school.

It all started with a good old fashioned wrestling match between boys, you see. There was a bit of pushing back and forth between the boys and a lot of joyful laughter. I noticed they were getting a bit rougher with each other but had learned to expect this after having my share of boys my son’s age around on a regular basis. I warned them to go easy on each other but that is not what happened.

A few minutes later, the once-friendly wrestling match had turned ugly. Suddenly both boys were in tears and one of them was claiming to be injured. As it turned out, the wrestling between boys had escalated over a dropped phone and neither boy was happy with the other over the outcome.

I talked to both boys individually, then helped them through having conversation together about the aggression that had transpired between two kids who call each other friends. Ultimately, the boys agreed that they would rather let the incident go than to cancel their planned sleepover.

As the evening wore on, I continued to closely observe the interactions between the boys and any interactions they had with their school friends. Closer examination of the nature of the communication that goes on between children in the sixth grade truly opened my eyes. Or so I thought it did, at least. I was astonished at the way this group of “friends” talked to each other.

These kids weren’t talking about sleepovers or the most recent basketball game. (Which many of them have in common) They weren’t having easy-flowing conversations about the fun activities they were participating in this weekend or upcoming events they were looking forward to. This group of friends instead has instead learned to “relate” to each other by who can take the cruelest verbal “shot” at each other.

Now I’m not talking about kids joking around and maybe going a little overboard with it. What I saw were ten and eleven year olds caught up in a vicious cycle of one-upping each other in what they refer to as “burning” each other. For those who aren’t caught up in the lingo of today’s youth, “burning someone” thankfully has nothing to do with fire.

Burning someone refers to making a joke (no matter how deeply the content of that joke may cut) at the expense of someone else. That is, everyone is laughing about the joke except the person who is the victim of the joke. What I learned by observing this group of kids is that their version of “joking around” with each other was the only way they chose to interact publicly. Interested in how this worked, I did what I usually do when I don’t know the answer to a question. I ask someone with more experience in the field in question than I have. In this case, I asked not one, but two eleven year old kids.

When I say I asked them, it should be said that I was truly curious about the answer. As it turned out, genuine curiosity was just what the doctor ordered when it came to getting kids to invite you into their worlds for a while. Over dinner, I explained to them what I had observed both with their interactions with each other and how they spoke to their peers. I told them I was genuinely confused with the downright cruel language they used and wondered out loud if that’s what being a friend meant to them.

Of course that wasn’t what being a friend meant to them. I knew the answer to this because I am familiar with the love and support that surrounds these children every day within their families. Thankfully, they were able to explain the social system of sixth grade to me. Regrettably, I can now never un-learn what they told me.

My son’s friend explained to me right away (and my son chimed in often and agreed) that there is a hierarchy in place. Impressed with his use of such mature vocabulary, I wondered if he knew what the word actually meant. He did.

The sixth grade hierarchy essentially consists of who ever is at the very top of it this week, along with a few minions that serve as the top seat holders side kicks. The position of side kick is a coveted one, but it comes with a price that costs many. To be considered as a main side kick (and not a dreaded outsider) you have to “make the kid at the top of the hierarchy laugh a lot.” Apparently a good knock-knock joke is not acceptable comedy material. Instead, the goal on this comedy tour is to make the kids at the top laugh by using risky hate speech to hurt another kid. (Presumably, an outsider is the target)

Who is at the top of this hierarchy ebbs and flows from week to week. Sometimes they are at the top, but they spend a great deal of time and mental energy to get there. These kids days are consumed with either chasing the popularity dream or avoiding the doom of being labeled an outsider.

If you’re overwhelmed, in disbelief or just plain heartbroken by the often silent battles our kids face every day, so I was I. Still trying to process all they were so openly sharing with me, I began to freeze up in my responses to them. What could I say that would make this transition in their development any smoother for them?

Just then I realized that the conversation had moved to the living room. I was sitting on the couch and they had sat on the floor in front of me, as if joining me for story time. I looked down at these two boys, sitting indian-style in front of me. As if by time machine, I had two young boys, still full of wonder and innocence, staring back at me.

“Mommy, thanks so much for having this conversation with us. We are learning so much and this is a great conversation to be having,” my son said to me.

I looked at the two smiling boys in front of me and I realized that my words held more weight than I had given them credit for. Overwhelmed with the idea that hate speech is the way into the “in-crowd” at the place they go to learn, I had forgotten that words used in love can be just as powerful as those that mean harm.

I believe that at this age, kids instinctively know the difference between right and wrong. Children in the sixth grade know that words can and do, cause damage. The problem lies in what we as adults, (aka, the true top of the hierarchy) choose to allow to become “normal” in our children’s every day language. I chose to question hate speech I was hearing from the mouths of adolescents. In return, I gained insight and perspective on what our children face as they enter their teen years. Beyond that, I was able to plant the message that language matters in the minds of two kids that I believe were glad to be reminded.

Both the written and spoken word hold an incredible amount of weight in today’s society. At this age, the words our children hear and speak regularly will contribute to their social, emotional and intellectual development. As they advance in life, the power (or weakness) their words hold could be the difference between a successful life, or one riddled with struggle due to unnecessary communication problems.

Teaching our kids that their choice of vocabulary can have lasting effects for them and for whoever their words make it to is in my opinion, crucial to who they become later. We must always remember that in 2019, there are no words that are spoken or typed that do not leave a timeless impression. What messages are the words that you choose sending to your children? Is it a message you would want shared with the world?

From the Archives: What Inspired Up off the Mat?

The following is part one of a three-year old story from my old blog. Why is it my “old blog,” you ask? I have spent much of the past three years following a major health scare redefining who I am as a person, a mother and as a writer. Believe me when I tell you, I relate to none of these role’s in my life the same as I did prior to brain surgery.

Up off the Mat is about new beginnings, the bravery it takes to face them and acknowledging the pain we sometimes endure getting there.

Here is part one of the story that inspired Up off the Mat, taken from my old (and now inactive) blog, Glovesoffsportstalk.wordpress:

Still a Fighter

See the last white tree on the right? That was my goal just now, walk to there and back. A month ago, before diagnosis and surgery, I never could have imagined what a challenge this could be. I was active, grooming dogs (sometimes handling 15-plus dogs a day) and was always up for a good hike. I was pursuing my passion of writing, putting myself out there and having some success at it. The universe appeared to be conspiring in my favor and man, was I grateful. I was happy.
A headache, neck pain and a case of the spins lead me to an MRI, which lead to surgery (yup, on my brain) two weeks later. Diagnosis? A benign brain-tumor, about the size of a golf ball, pressing on my optic nerve. Well damn, that was a game changer.

Now, three weeks post-surgery, this walk was my biggest challenge today. Nearly desperate at this point to take control and get stronger, I trembled and wobbled my way through it. I felt frustration, I fought back tears, thinking of how very far the road ahead of me is. That effort will likely exhaust me for the remainder of the day. But I will do this, day after day, until it becomes easier for me. I will not let this set-back kill the fighter in me.

**Originally published November 19th, 2015

Part two, What grew back when they cut out a piece of my brain:

https://glovesoffsportstalk.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/what-grew-back-when-they-cut-out-a-piece-of-my-brain/

Part three (the conclusion)

How I found my way out of the darkness after brain surgery:

https://glovesoffsportstalk.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/how-i-found-my-way-out-of-the-darkness-after-brain-surgery/

Surrender of the Fiercest Kind

With every intention of accomplishing some meaningful tasks for the first time in more than a week, I shuffled into the kitchen. After all, every productive day starts with some nourishment for the body. That’s what I’m told people’s grandmother’s tell them, anyways. I never met either of my own grandmother’s but the advice of other people’s seems solid enough. For the record, I wash behind my ears, too.

Heading into day seven of what the doctor casually referred to as a virus (and I have begun dubbing the exorcism of viruses, though I don’t feel saved from anything yet) I was pretty sure someone’s grandma would recommend some soup. Surely this would help energize me for the day ahead. After all, it was Monday and I had a to-do list that had been forming itself in my head all weekend long.

I proceeded to fight harder than anyone should ever have to with my canned good cupboards. I was determined to locate the can of soup that was sure to save me from the last of this “virus” that I am increasingly convinced is the latest plague. By the time I found the can of soup, I was dizzy with exhaustion. As I crossed the kitchen to grab a pan to heat the soup in, I became short of breath and fell into a violent coughing spell.

The effort it had taken me to prepare someone’s grandma’s suggested can of soup had not only robbed me of my energy but had stolen my appetite as well. As I stumbled through the house in search of my inhaler (from the casual doctor who calls plagues a virus) I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Ouch.

The reflection staring back at me was humbling. My most recent coughing spell had drawn all of the color from my face. Near-constant coughing spells for the past week had been so intensely violent that they had actually split my face open in several places. Today’s coughing spell had re-opened them, causing pain I liken to being burned.

Had I, only moments before, seriously been considering completing a work shift? Suddenly I was more alarmed by how completely unaware I had become of my own state of being than I was of the clear evidence of my desperate need of some serious self-care. Neglect was written all over my face. Something had to give or it was going to be me.

It took me nearly an hour to work up the guts to let someone down. It took me that long to give up on the idea of perfection. I have adopted a persona of endless strength in the face of what are often some abnormally difficult circumstances. It wasn’t intentional, I’ve had to adapt. Unfortunately, sometimes we adapt to the detriment of our own well-being.

So I did the thing I never do. I emailed everyone but family that was expecting me this week and told them that I was out. That’s right, down on the mat. In the hour before I composed these emails, I made a list of the three things that were important priorities for me to tend to this week. The only rule while making this list was that I had to be on the list. My hope is that it is a long time, if ever, that I experience seeing a reflection in the mirror that I have neglected to the point where I am of no use to others again. If I do, I hope I am strong enough to surrender and drop the priorities from my plate that can wait for another day.

Are you guilty of self-neglect? If so, what does picking yourself Up off the Mat look like for you? Let us know in the comments section!

Reaching vs. Retreating

She messaged me to check in. I responded right away, telling her I had been sick with the flu. This was my way of apologizing for my lack of communication recently. At this point I still thought it was my lack of presence that was the problem. Admittedly, I had been absent from many of my regularly scheduled activities for several weeks. More than that, I hadn’t seen much of my friends or family, either.

I told myself and those who asked that my state of near-isolation could be boiled down to feeling under the weather. That response seemed to get me by until she didn’t respond how I had expected her to. For whatever reason, I had anticipated the generic “feel better soon” message back. Surely at that point, I could continue my isolation in peace. She had other ideas as she saw through my short responses.

My phone rang with another text. “Have you reached out to your fellow Pranic Healers for healing?”

I knew already she had known the answer to this question before asking. The short answer was no but I knew that wasn’t going to suffice. Instead I opted for a weak attempt at humor with, “I hadn’t thought of that…” I hadn’t thought of that. She proceeded to connect me with a fellow Pranic Healer who was glad to offer me relief.

It should be noted that I myself am a level four Pranic Healer. I could write numerous blogs about the rapid healing I have experienced through Pranic Healing and Twin Hearts Meditation but that is not what this is about. I knew that the Healer that this friend put me in touch with would likely connect me with much relief from healings I have experienced over the course of five years. The question was, why hadn’t I asked? I am glad to offer healing to others who are suffering and have done so on many occasions. It was not until my friend asked me why I had not reached out for healing for myself that I realized that I could count on one hand the times I had asked for help.

I went into the healing session with this question at the top of my mind. When my friend had asked me why I hadn’t reached out, the question had hit me in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t feel I had wronged her or the practice of Pranic Healing that I had grown to love so much; I felt I had been shorting myself. The healer she linked me with provided healing, then reached out to see how I was feeling. I thanked her for the session and explained that regrettably, I had not experienced much relief with my symptoms. Sleep still eluded me, my sinuses were still a mess but mostly, I still didn’t want to face the world.

It was then that the Healer hit me with it. She asked the question I did not know I had been waiting to hear. “What exactly is going on?” Such a direct question. Later I found myself trying to remember the last time someone had been so specific when asking about my well-being. I gave in a little, telling her that I had been sickly, had begun a new semester at college and that my mother was on hospice. She side-stepped the invisible wall I had just put up and probed further.

What followed was an unleashing of a cascade of emotions I had been carrying intractably on my own for months. Suddenly, for an oddly blissful moment in time, I was able to say the unsayable about the realities I am and have been, shouldering. The conversation started with me saying, “these are the things I cannot say,” and ended with me saying just those things. How liberating it was to tell her what it feels like to start a new semester without my only sibling, while caring for my mother who has been on hospice since December. I was overwhelmed by how much lighter these things felt with someone to bare witness to them. Acknowledging these truths had once felt like an indulgence, a betrayal to the strength I have become known for. In this moment, speaking them out loud liberated me.

The weight we carry in our lives threatens to become a part of us that we carry for longer and in more solitude than is necessary. No matter how heavy or awkward the load we bare is, life and the responsibilities that come with it continue to nag at us like a pack of toddlers that missed both snack and nap time. If you can picture that scene, you can begin to picture what those who are grieving, in the process of losing a loved one, or recovering from trauma endure as they face each day. Do not get caught up in the illusion that they must not need help if they appear to be managing all that they have on their plate. Lot’s of us have a great game face.

I was unable to locate my game face the day my friend reached out to me. Because of this, I had retreated to an isolated state, trying to decide which weight in my life was most important to pick up next. Fortunately for me, both my friend and the healer were willing to reach more than halfway to help me figure out how to rise again, carrying a bit less weight this time. Some days we are the healer. On such days, we should reach out to both the weak and to the strong. Other days, we require healing. On those days, may we be strong enough to reach out for healing.

**To learn more about Pranic Healing go to: http://www.pranichealing4me.com

Because Mom Said So

She asked me why I hadn’t been doing any blogging lately. Our tired, all-knowing gazes met each other’s. In that short pause following the firm but loving question she had presented to me and for every day since, I have been answering her in my head.

It is mid-January. The Maine winter has been so draining already that it feels as though it should be at least late February by now. Getting Up off the Mat, fighting the constant call inside of me to just lay down on it for a while to rest my soul-well, it doesn’t lend itself to creative inspiration. I hate to admit it but practically living in my pajamas for my entire winter break probably hasn’t, either.

“She” is my mother. It may go without saying that she knows me better than most. I could state the obvious even further by saying she, better than anyone, knows when I have been down on the mat for too long. She’s the reason I got myself together and made goals for myself, like starting college. Witnessing the perseverance and at times, downright tenacity she has practiced in her own life is how I have learned to get Up off the Mat repeatedly in my own. People who say I am the strongest person they know haven’t met my mother.

Keeping in mind the bravery in which my mother faces every day, the writer in me started penning a draft about the latest happenings in the way of getting Up off the Mat. Guilt set in about the current state of my life. The over-dependence on pajamas, the to-do list that I couldn’t face from under the covers, the messy house that made me want to hide my head even more. It was time to get up.

I started by planning my weekend. It seemed that if I made some plans with some other humans who are likely to be wearing clothes fit for social interaction, the likelihood of “graduating” to day-clothes myself increased substantially. With a plan for my clothing crisis in place, it was time to plan for being out of bed. Guessing that my weekend company might want to eat, I did the grocery shopping I had been putting of for, well, long enough.

When I returned with the groceries, I looked around my house and realized it wasn’t fit for company or a potential rest on the mat. In about ninety minutes, I was able to locate counter space, the bottom of three trash cans and enough pet hair to convince me that my child may have a litter of huskies in hiding.

As I cleared the clutter from my life, from my mind, the guilt I had experienced when I was assessing the state of my life began to lift. I began to feel more comfortable in my home, which allowed room for gratitude. Who doesn’t love clean sheets and floors? I laid down to sleep last night filled with that gratitude and a sense of accomplishment for the first time in weeks.

I had no plans of yesterday being the day that I decided to get Up off the Mat. Maybe it was the push from mom, maybe it was just time. For me, rising from my slump meant cleaning a filthy house, taking a shower and putting on clothes fit for the public. What I do know is that those efforts count. Every trial, every stumble, every rising, counts. I have been fortunate enough to have my mother to teach me everything I need to know about taking a hit from life and getting up to fight another day. Who in your life has taught you to get Up off the Mat?

Lessons in Gratitude From a Cardinal

How do I stay positive after repeated hits from life? Throughout the past several years; or should I say, through brain surgery, the loss of my best friend of twenty years and the recent loss of my brother, many close to me have asked a similar question. Others simply make statements regarding my strength and tenacity.

You have to know, these claims about who I am are part of why I write. We all have many versions of ourselves on rotation. Some versions get shared with the world, others get kept in the more private parts of our day. We often cope with the “darker self” in solitude. I suppose different people do this for their own reasons, but it started to weigh on me when people started to view me as “the strongest person they knew.” Was I only showing the world my successes and not the challenges that deserved just as much credit for my achievements? Viewing it that way made me feel like a fraud of sorts. I didn’t want to give others who were struggling to get Up Off the Mat the wrong idea about the grit it took to get myself up again after each fall.

Just this morning I was feeling low. Weekends, when things slow down, tend to be tougher on me in the way of memories and those I miss. Also, someone I love is very ill and that has been heavy on my heart. The weight of racing thoughts became heavy and anxiety set in. I craved a good cry but the tears would not release and sat heavy in my throat instead. I thought, as I often do, of calling a friend. After three years of tragedy, talking it out seems a futile effort at times.

Instead I put on some music, which has long been of comfort to me in times of anxiety. The tune wasn’t right, I couldn’t find a Pandora station that matched what was on my heart. Frustrated, I stepped outside into the morning air for a breather.

Right away I saw him. First I noticed his rusty-red feathers, then his fire red beak. The beautiful male cardinal jumped from one branch to another while looking right at me and chirped the most beautiful sound. I said a quiet hello to him and he chirped again. I felt the weight that had been on my heart lift. Instinctively, my hand went to my heart, my gaze still following the cardinal. Love filled my heart as I silently thanked him for coming back to visit after such a long absence. I took several more deep breaths of gratitude before he flew away and I went back inside, my energy successfully changed from anxiety, to hope.

As I fixed my next cup of coffee, I remembered something a friend told me once. She told me it was impossible to feel anxiety when you were experiencing gratitude. I took that message to heart at the time and have carried it with me ever since. It is not that I am incredibly strong or an exceptionally positive person. What I have learned is that life will knock you down to the mat repeatedly and without warning. It even attempt to pin you to that mat until you are sure you are done for. A lesson that has penetrated even deeper for me is that there are countless reasons to get Up Off the Mat, and a beautiful cardinal in the morning is as good a reason as any.

Thanks For the Refill

Image may contain: 2 people, people smiling, people sitting, child and shoes

Have you ever looked back, holiday celebrations behind you and gotten the feeling that the people in your life truly understand you? It could be a thoughtful gift, a sentiment shared, or quality time spent. You just know when you are with people that have taken the time to get to know you in an intricate way. They know what digs at your soul and they don’t touch it. These people also know what lights you up inside; they keep giving you more of it and you don’t even have to ask for the refill.

I, like many others, needed the above-mentioned refill often through this holiday season. The first holiday season since losing my brother had not been a void, I was looking forward to facing. I went through the motions of holiday preparations with a weight on my chest that threatened to crush me at any moment. Never one to stay down, I pressed forward. I did this in part for my son and partly because I feared the grief would “catch me” if I stopped for too long. Unsure of what the grief would do with me once it had me in its grips, I pushed forward and did my best to plan festivities sans the traditions my brother and I celebrated. Then Christmas Eve Day came.

I prepared the normal holiday treats with a heavy heart. Would anyone even show up? Maybe it was too soon yet to set myself up for possible disappointment. I carried on. I baked everything I knew how to make, my brother heavy on my heart. “He’s not coming, he’s not coming” echoed through my head. I looked up new recipes and made some of them twice, my grief-stricken brain still playing tricks on me. “He’s not coming. They may be too busy with their families to stop by.” I looked up cookie recipes I had not made before and made those, too.

One-thirty in the afternoon on Christmas Eve Day arrived and the all-day gathering was set to begin in thirty minutes. I was still preparing a cheese platter when my fiance alerted me that the first guests, long-time friends that I had not seen since the summer, had arrived. A short time later, my neighbors arrived, with a box full of food in-hand to contribute to the party.

Family and friends continued to arrive late into the evening. All brought warm smiles and hugs with them; every single one seemed to know what I needed in each moment. I caught myself looking around my home, observing all the love and celebration happening around me and I felt a deep sense of understanding and peace for the first time since I had started to dread Christmas.

Celebrating Christmas or any other day without my brother will never be okay. There will never be an event big or small that the heaviness of his loss is not felt or noticed in. What I learned about getting through my first Christmas without my only sibling is that there are things that were true when he was here that will forever remain true after losing him. My brother would never have left me or any of his loved one’s to fight this battle on earth alone. If he were here, he would stand by us all and celebrate our lives with us in the biggest way possible. Since his passing, I believe more and more that he has left us all in the best, most loving hands possible. If we are willing to get “Up Off the Mat” and reach out for these hands as we move forward in 2019, I believe we have no reason to be afraid of any challenges we may face.

pro (1) Jen Cousins

Infinite Busy Signal

I’ve never been a dates person. I forget important days, such as my mother’s birthday and the date of my father’s passing. I miss appointments more than a grown adult should and writing-related deadlines are the only ones that have ever spoken to me with any authority. More than that, I’ve long had a hard time understanding those who can remember important dates and those who attach emotions to days on the calendar. When it comes to loss, I had a hard time understanding what to me looked like scheduling a day to experience feelings of loss. I’ve lost people who were important to me and the pain didn’t seem to hit me on any day or any time of year. What I do understand is that with loss comes a wisdom and a development of empathy. This is what I found when my time on this earth was cut short with the passing of my brother. He was forty-two.

The days have gone by with a cold swiftness that hasn’t left a lot of time for grieving in the three months since his passing. It should be said that I haven’t wanted to set time aside to feel what it is to be without my only sibling, my favorite person, my biggest inspiration. Certainly, I have cried plenty of tears and even screamed at the universe in anger more than a few times; but that is not the same as looking ahead at a future without him. It’s not the same as letting go.

How do you let go of the person who has stood by your side for all thirty-nine years of your life? The one who has taught you about life, love and what a man should be? That was my brother. The thing about a Big Brother is, even when your parents are tired of your shenanigans and tell you to “get lost,” you’ve still got your big brother to find your way again with. He never let me down on that front or on any other. My brother was the rarest of big brothers, he wanted me around. I never knew that wasn’t the norm until I got older. I never knew just how fortunate I was.

As we enter our first holiday season without him, I have found that the 25th of December hollers at me from the calander; its tone more harsh each day it draws closer. Memories from nearly four decades of holidays spent together play in my head like a movie that I’ll never catch the ending of. For the first time since I said goodbye to him, I have no choice but to look forward and try to picture each Holiday without him here. Now I’m starting to get the significance of dates. I understand this so deeply, I’ve been writing him a letter in my head for weeks. A holiday letter, if you will:

Dear Big Brother,

The Holiday season is coming again. I know it can be a stressful time for you. I worry about how you worry, and you worry about how I worry, so we’ll call each other several times a day until we get through it, okay? I’m going Christmas shopping on Saturday. I know you’re busy but keep your phone on you okay? One of the things I love best about this time of year is that we can get away with calling each other so often, with holiday prep as our excuse. Really, I know we both miss dad and we need the extra laughs. Thanks for thinking of that, and thanks for taking my calls. By the way, who’s getting mom the gag-gift of ribbon candy this year? It’s become tradition at this point and you never forget it-though you always say it’s from both of us. Mom will unwrap it and we’ll laugh and laugh. She’ll insist that she loves it and the box of gifted ribbon candy will collect dust all year.

Hey, remember that year when we were kids and mom asked for a robe for Christmas? You made it our mission to find the ugliest robe we could, and we succeeded admirably. Remember how we laughed and laughed as we wrapped this huge terrycloth robe, covered in purple hearts? Poor mom wore that hideous thing for years. She claimed to love it as much as the ribbon candy, but the ugly robe never collected any dust.

Remember how I was always the first one awake on Christmas morning? I would wake before daylight, just after mom and dad had finally gone to bed. Mom and dad would always tell me to go back to sleep and wait for my brother to wake up. By the time you were a pre-teen, I had to get creative with waking you, as I was too excited to wait! Remember that year I put my porcelain piggy-bank near your pillow and dropped coins in it until it finally woke you? You weren’t impressed then, but we found the humor in that rude awakening for years to come.

I think we lost count of how many times the family dogs knocked down our Christmas tree but eventually we got smart and started hanging it from the ceiling. In later years we would offer this up as advice for other’s and they’d look at us like we were crazy. But that was Christmas in our house.

Hey Bro, do we have everything we need for our annual Christmas morning crepe breakfast? You have mom’s recipe, right? I’ll be there in the morning and we’ll start cooking. You flip em’ and I’ll fill em’, right? I already picked up the Rum for the rum-nogs, anytime after noon is cool to start on those, right?

Wow Bro, I bet you can’t wait to tell mom how great her “chicken” is for Thanksgiving dinner. I can see the scene now, all of us twenty years younger. She would slave over a Turkey dinner all day and present it to us. We would tell her how great the chicken was, and she would respond through gritted teeth, “It’s not chicken!!” We never could take her anger seriously and she never could stay mad at us. She also never seemed to catch onto the fact that we in fact knew what bird she had prepared. We just enjoyed the reaction. Secretly, I think she did too.

Remember that Christmas Eve we spent in Woolwich? You, Jen and I stayed up all night long while you assembled Lucas’s new toy kitchen. It had approximately one billion individual pieces as I recall, all fused together in plastic rings. It took hours beyond what you expected to complete it. Lots of dads would have gotten frustrated. Some may have even quit and completed it another day. Not you, Big Brother. You joked your way through it, keeping us laughing with you until your son had an assembled kitchen set to wake up to on Christmas morning.

I bought all the ingredients for your favorite pie today. You know, the ones you ask me if I’m making every year because they are your favorite? One blueberry pie and one apple-triple berry. I’d never forget your pie, Big Brother. I love all parts of Thanksgiving Day, but nothing beats seeing you come through the door full of Thanksgiving dinner but craving my homemade pie. I’d never forget to make you that pie, Big Brother.

I could write an almanac of holiday memories with my brother in them. A series on the ways he touched my life on days that didn’t seem significant at the time. Insignificant because he was my big brother and he had been there on days that were important and days that were ordinary for my entire life.

Maybe it’s because holidays themselves tend to stand out in our memories. Maybe it’s because to me, my brother was a real-life savior; a true holiday miracle during what were not always easy times growing up. Maybe it’s because I am convinced that his life here on this earth held true spiritual meaning. I know he played the role of a saint in my life. Maybe it’s just because he’s my brother and I miss him but with Thanksgiving passed and Christmas fast-approaching, I understand the weight that a date on a calendar can hold. It’s not about “scheduling a day to be sad.” Facing the holidays without your loved one is like revisiting every season you’ve ever celebrated while being slapped with the reality that you will never celebrate with them again. To those of you reading who can relate, may you find peace and much love this holiday season. To my Big Brother, here is your soundtrack: https://youtu.be/eciUuLE7ehc