We don’t weed that Garden

He would have been on my ass about missing this writing deadline. I was famous for lagging on write-ups and my big brother? Well, the truth is, he likely would have been sitting here, the morning of, writing his first and final draft. The procrastination gene ran deeply in the both of us. Fortunately, the getting shit done gene did, too.

Another truth bomb on this, the one year anniversary of my brother’s passing, is one that only a writer or a soul disturbed by a traumatic loss could grasp. We know that describing our feelings about a moment in time is best done; in that moment of time.

I write this on a morning that aches of the morning one year ago that we were told our beloved Chris Cousins, had died of a heart attack. The sky is blue, scattered with dreamy-white clouds. Blues-rock music plays in the background. I stop what I’m doing periodically, alternating between admiring the music and the flower gardens I was fussing over when I got the call.

I would imagine that no one ever forgets the phone call that informs them that their only sibling is gone. I certainly didn’t. I remember that call each time I step near the part of my garden I was standing in when I answered my phone. I remembered the call when I avoided the entire garden for the remainder of the season after my brother’s passing. I recalled it again when our first spring after losing Chris came, and it was time to look at that garden space again.

I poured as many seeds into that garden space as I could. I planted trailing vines, marigolds, cosmos; the most hardy flowers I could think of. I was determined, for some unconscious reason, to not be able to see the floor of this garden. I threw on a few more wild flower seeds, then a few more, for good measure. Then I walked away. I haven’t weeded that garden all summer.

Call it procrastination, call it laziness, but the rest of my gardens are fussed over at a near-obsessive level. This garden is different. This garden has seen a river of my tears. I’m convinced the soil can still hear the pleading screams that erupted out of me on this morning one year ago. My arms tremble straight through to my fingers as I recall them. A lump in my throat threatens to bring me to my knees; again.

No, we don’t weed that garden. It does not bring me to my knees to do so, as I fear I won’t be able to rise up as steadily as I did the first time. For now, I’ll admire the blooms it produced. So many blooms in fact, that I can not see the ground, the rocks; I once landed on. One day, I’ll step closer and inspect the damage. All I know right now is that a year is not long enough. We don’t weed that garden.

We miss you, Chris. Here is your soundtrack: https://youtu.be/Q5vBzECT7mc

When your blessings seem to mock you

My brother moved himself and his beloved family back to our home town a year ago today. It was his youngest son’s eighth birthday. I remember he felt a tremendous amount of guilt that Lucas’s day became a day of separation from the home both of his boys had known for years. The rest of us who loved us, his wife and the boys maybe didn’t give that stressor on my brother’s shoulders enough attention; we were just completely overjoyed to have them home. In our eyes, all of our worlds would now be complete. My brother had a way of filling the empty spaces in people’s lives.

The activities that happened during those two weeks seemed rather mundane at the time. He and his family were busy getting settled in and he was tired from the move. Still, he was anxious to catch up with everyone and welcomed visitors. I was anxious to show him how I had grown as a person in the years he had been away.

We chatted over coffee, we worked together on the gardens at his new house. We shopped for perennial flowers together. He picked out flowers in his wife’s favorite shade of purple, I picked out a flower for their anniversary. A beautiful pink lily. Friends that had become family to both of us over the years gathered around his in laws pool and shared food, drinks and laughter. Both of our lives had turned full-circle. The circle was complete.

Two short weeks later, the perfect circle we had all managed to build together was abruptly cut into jagged pieces when my brother passed away suddenly from a heart attack in the early morning hours of August 15th. To say that life hasn’t been the same since would be an understatement that would do no justice to the role my brother played in each life he touched.

I had known that the anniversary of Chris’s passing was coming soon. Beyond the day nearing on the calendar, I could feel the familiar ache in my soul that last August had brought, returning. I had thought that I was as prepared as I could be for that day, until it was brought to my attention that today was my brother’s homecoming.

The moment I was reminded of this, I was overcome not first by the sensation of his absence, but by how I felt the day he was coming home. For a brief moment, I re-experienced the excitement of my brother sending me text messages, updating me on how the move was going. Finally, he alerted me that they were “on the road” home. Soon, they would arrive and we could help them unload the moving truck. Once that task was complete, they would truly be home.

He was excited. I recall my brother showing me around his new yard, telling me all about his plans for this season, and the next. On our walks, we saw butterfly cocoons, named the flowers in his new yard and he showed me where the fire pit would go. Later, we joined them all for a swim. I had missed my big brother. Never did it matter what we were doing together, it was the time spent that counted.

Today, I visited his beautiful wife and his beloved boys for his youngest son’s birthday. Admittedly, I’ve been a bit of a hermit in the past year. I don’t go out much, even on errands. I attend social engagements even less. I’ve grown into a bit of a homebody over the years, but today, as I walked through the old hopes of my brother, his family and my own, I realized their may be more to my tendency to keep to myself.

Not on all days, but today; each blessing of the day seemed to mock me and threaten to drown me in tears. The flowers my brother and I picked out together and planted last August are about to rebloom. There was no beautiful, shiny green cocoon to admire near the milkweed, but I certainly could picture my brother standing there that day, showing it to his son’s. Annual flowers I had gifted him and his wife last year had re-seeded themselves-as if to say that they too, are letting go of last summer hard.

I swam in the pool, something that felt foreign to me without my brother there, tossing our kids over his shoulders. Now they toss each other. It’s not as far, it’s not as high. He really was the strongest man in the world.

It’s not that we don’t laugh, or love or play as a family. If anything, we have all had to “step up” double to fill the many role’s that my brother played in everyone’s life. It’s that when we do “move forward,” it becomes immediately, glaringly obvious that my brother was a true genius at the craft of giving of himself. There is no handbook, no guide available that will help any of us love like Chris Cousins did.

I got home tonight and cried for the first time since the day mom passed. I cried for mom, I cried for my sweet brother, I cried for his beautiful friends and family that go on so bravely without him. I sobbed for how it hurts to go out into the world now-to be reminded at random turns in life how much it can rip at your core to miss someone, to need them. I cried even harder at what a relief it was to finally just let it…hurt for a while.

Tomorrow, I’ll do my best to live and love with a heart as big as his was. For today, I’ll let myself just miss him. God, I was so glad he was home.

Progress: the cure for all adversity?

I can’t remember a day in my life before mom’s passing that I wasn’t fighting with everything I had to bring pride back to my family. The race to reclaim my dignity started with my father when I was quite young. Wanting desperately to win his approval, I went to degrading lengths to hear the words, “I’m proud of you, kid.” It took an eighteen- month drug bender on my part and the recovery following that near-death chapter of my life, to finally hear those words before my father passed when I was twenty-eight years old.

After losing dad, my brother and I pressed forward. Even with broken hearts, we were determined to change the legacy of our family. For a decade, my brother thrived in his career and with his family. In that time, I continued to search for the path that was meant for me. (I’ve never been good with directions.) While I looked for a new goal to surpass that of maintaining sobriety, my brother and mother became my biggest source of validation. I wanted to emulate the best parts of who they were.

Nothing made what my brother had to offer this world more real and present than his sudden passing in August. In an instant, the future I had created in my mind of us raising healthy, happy families together, was erased. More than that, my guiding light for all major decisions in my life was gone. Who would I turn to for answers now?

For eight months following the devastating blow of losing my brother, it was just myself and mom. Not only was mom in end-stage liver failure, but she was rocked to the core from the loss of her son. Taking care of mom and pouring every ounce of my love into her for the time I had left with her became my new mission. My new sense of pride to hold onto, if you will.

There was nothing prideful about those final months with mom. Mom’s final weeks and the torturous pain she endured during her final days will stay with me for the rest of my life. Witnessing my mother choke for each breath, as she slowly drowned in her own fluids was the only thing that made it bearable to let her go home to God. I never would have told her this, but I was more terrified than I had ever been of anything to be left here alone without my family.

When mom took her last breath, finally released from her agony in this world, I sobbed over her until the coroner came to get her. It was not until I left that building, and a new day began, that I realized how profoundly my life had changed.

I haven’t cried a single tear since I walked out of mom’s facility that day. That fact allows for no accuracy on measurement of the depth of my loss. I lose count pretty early-on in the day of how many times I feel the urge to pick up the phone and dial the phone numbers of my late family members. Sometimes I want to tell them about something interesting that happened in my day. Other times, I just want to hear them laugh again. On Memorial Day weekend, I was near-tears, just wanting to have a simple burger with my brother.

When that inner-longing that never seems to let go subsides some, I try to see what the best version of me looks like today. She’s often exhausted, achy all over and a touch jittery. What I have learned about me is that this ache I experience inside can often be relieved by progress. Working towards my degree, gardening and caring for my animals are all examples of ways that I can make myself proud; even when I feel like there is no one watching like there was before.

My progress in the face of so much adversity may look like that of some kind of recovery warrior from the outside looking in. For me, it’s about leaving each situation, and eventually, this world, in a way I can live with myself for in the end. The way I see it, we only really answer to two people in our lives: ourselves and God. Who do you aim to inspire pride in?

Flowers don’t grow in blanket forts

Winter in Maine, 2019. I know I’m not supposed to mention the “W-word” this late in the season in these parts. The belief around here is that the W-word is a cuss-word after April the first of April. For us here in The Hills (and I assume, many others) winter came on aggressively and didn’t seem to want to let go once it had us in its grips. I am not a fan of the cold, but this year, I agreed with mother nature’s plan for me. I was ready to allow the harshness of the air around me to match what I felt inside.

I had spent all of last summer in my new gardens. My fiance and I had built seven flower beds by hand. Transforming our yard into a flower-filled heaven designed to attract birds to our newly hung feeders became our new passion. I would start my morning coffee and head outside to check on my gardens before it was even done brewing.

I adored those mornings outside. Very often the first to wake up in the morning, I began to look forward to the two hours before everyone else in the house woke up. Just my birds, my flowers, my dogs and a cup of coffee. Life was perfect.

It was on a morning much like I am describing, August the 15th to be exact, that I was standing in front of my main garden, waiting for my coffee to brew. Before I could decide what kind of day it was going to be, my phone rang. From that phone call, I learned that I had lost my brother from a heart attack. He was 42.

The last time I touched those gardens was a few days after his passing. I made a bouquet of the very best flowers left in my garden and I brought them to my brother when I saw him for the last time. After that, any vibrant colors that were left with the incoming fall season seemed to mock me. Secretly, it was almost a relief to watch the gardens grow weaker, then go under for their winters sleep.

Their leaves wilted, dried up and then began to fall. Foliage from the trees above began to drift from the trees and cover the garden beds, creating a somber glow over the back yard. I made halfhearted attempts at pulling out some of the old plants in preparation for the next gardening season. Soon I gave in and allowed snow to blanket them, too.

I welcomed the first snow and then the second. Soon I deemed it acceptable to make like a perennial plant and participate in my own long-winters sleep. Fortunately, my hibernation doesn’t take place under a four-foot pile of snow. Instead, I put my best effort into participating by making a blanket fort, a bag of gummy bears and comfy pajamas my norm.

I learned that when you’re resting up to become a beautiful flower in the spring time, you’re actually working pretty hard. As it turned out, four months in a blanket fort with gummy bears for company is a fine place for inspiration but it does very little for motivation. By February, I had about as much gumption AS a gummy bear. The green ones that no one likes. Hardly a recipe for a beautiful, strong flower.

I silently started to wonder if I had become a permanent hermit but Spring did finally come. Slowly, I started to come out of my blanket fort for short periods. The first sign of Spring in my yard besides the abundance of birds at the feeder was a patch of sweet Williams peeking out of the snow. I recall becoming quite emotional when I caught sight of the ragged looking plant, even hugging my fiance with joy. Spring had finally arrived. We had made it and man, had it been harder than I could ever express in pounds of gummy bears consumed. (A+ for effort on my part, though)

Then a day or two later, because we live in Maine and because it fit this winter’s Up off the Mat theme of repeated face plants; it snowed. The poor little vibrant, brave Sweet William plant was once again covered with snow. It would have to fight it’s way back from the disappointment and I would be returning to the isolation of my blanket fort.

Once the temperatures went up above the air outside pisses me off, I decided that I was finished with letting mother nature and her six inches of ice push me around. For the next two weeks, I took to the back yard with a metal shovel with the zest of people who get paid for it. I broke the ice away from the patio rocks, feeling farther away from “blanket fort girl,” with each block of ice that broke free. If my neighbors didn’t think I was completely crazy before, they must be well on their way now.

It was during one of these back-yard therapy sessions this morning that I saw it. Four of them actually. Four pathetic, slimy, nearly drowned Sweet Williams that had quadrupled in size since last year. I stood there with my best friend of two weeks, a metal shovel screaming for a break, and admired what it took for these sad little plants to recover the way they did from the brutal Maine winter.

Only then did it occur to me that maybe we should all consider lending ourselves the same pat on the back that we do to nature for coming back from what’s meant to break us. Maybe it’s the challenges of a long Maine winter that knock you down for longer than you think you should be. Maybe you struggle with mental health or a loss that plagues you in your day to day life. Whatever it is that knocks you down, consider giving yourself the same understanding and patience that we are able to give nature as it fights its way back in the spring time. After all, we are both just trying to survive. If we’re lucky, we get to grow from the learning experience.

Surrender to defeat (but rise up swinging)

man defeated by his shadow boxing

https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/defeat?sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=defeat

I hope you are all enjoying part three of The House with the Red Door. Getting to work on part three of this series was a challenge, to say the least. Even the author of Up off the Mat has to pick herself up from a hard knock out delivered by life from time to time.

Admittedly, I could have taken my defeat with a bit more grace. It was the end of August, when I lost my brother, that I was technically knocked out. Not ready to accept the loss or the much-needed recovery time, I pushed forward.

To the outside world, my initial steps forward may have looked to the like a vallant comeback of sorts. I returned to college the week after my only siblings funeral. People suggested that a break may be in order, an idea I quickly dismissed. Much like someone who had suffered a blow-to-the-head in the most literal sense, I was far from at my cognitive best.

The truth is, I barely remember my entire fall semester. Somehow between supressed grief, the daily stresses of life and my mother going onto hospice care in December; I managed to complete twelve credits of my batchelors degree on the Deans List. That miracle was lost on me as the combined coldness of the winter months and my recent loss began to work it’s way into my soul.

The shock of the hard knocks of my life had begun to dissolve and the emotions that crept in to replace them were unwelcome. I was in pain. My head ached as each wound exposed itself in the form of once-fond memories that now taunted me. My heart, which had felt hollow for months, now flooded with what-ifs and could-be’s that would never be.

It was all too much. Instead of surrendering to the grief-response that my soul was begging me for, I told myself to continue to fight. The pep-talk to myself worked for a while. I registered for the Spring semester and finally started writing again. I told myself that being “okay” looked like making progress. As long as I kept motoring forward, neither the numbness or the what-ifs that made me suffer, could knock me down.

December was also the start of three major winter illnesses for me. I first became sick with the flu. Just as I was struggling to my feet from the flu, a respiratory illness took residence in my lungs. For weeks, and then months, I struggled with my health, often bed-ridden.

I could not figure out why I could not get “Up off the Mat.” (It’s been said that I can be a bit hard-headed.) Eventually it occurred to me that I might be a bit on the depressed side. Knowing what our emotional state can do to our physical state, (whether we choose to acknowledge it or not) I began to consider that it was the feelings I had first experienced following shock and numbness that had scared me into rapid progress.

I didn’t want to experience what it felt to recall memories from my immediate family that I would soon be the only one here to tell about. Most of all, I did not want to look ahead to all of the memories yet to be created that my family will not share with me. (Yes, writing that truth was painful.)

At some point a few weeks back, I started to take longer looks at how things in my life were…progressing. An honest self-assessment brought me to the realization that the outward appearance of “okay” had become a full-time job. Furthermore, I wasn’t fooling anyone.

My tenancy to isolate had returned during a cold-winter night when I had my guard down. Soon, I stopped attending classes at the college and started delay-viewing all of them at home. I let my phone-calls go to voicemail, often keeping my ringer off completely. Day-naps became necessity and eating became a chore. Any trip out of the house (known as “people-ing’ around here) was a source of dread.

Man, was I angry at myself. I felt I was losing a battle that I should have been strong enough to conquer. Not even sure who the true enemy that dealing me these damaging blows to the soul was, I silently began to beat myself up for not having the stamina to defend myself. Why couldn’t I just be happy? Why couldn’t I continue to evolve into the true-me that I know I am capable of? Why couldn’t I GET UP?

I decided to nap on those questions. (Hey, I was sick and tired.) Even as I write, I remember clearly a statement my brother made to me as I struggled with the reality of surrendering to my brain surgery (and the long recovery) only three years ago:

“Kid, you have got to stop viewing your brain tumor as something you are DOING to those you love. Stop apologizing for it.”

My brother sure did have a way of pushing me into a place of perspective real-quick-like. As I remembered this Big Brother advice, I made the connection I needed in order to move forward in a more meaningful way.

I admit to being guilty of pride. Many of us are prone to the tendency to want to project a certain image of ourselves to the world. It’s natural to want to be viewed by others as strong, brave, or even unbreakable. In my life, I have been blessed with the tenacity to overcome multiple obstacles and even a few traumas.

Recently, it has come into my awareness that I have developed a sort of craving or addiction to what it feels like to come out on top when life knocks me down. When darkness finds me, I long for what I felt like on my first day back to work four weeks after a craniotomy. Just weeks before, I had been on a hospital gurney with parts of my skull on a tray beside me. Now I was grooming dogs. I felt like super woman that day. What a rush.

Life is not all fluffy puppies with cute haircuts though. It’s not all being honored as a Deans List Student, gardens full of happy flowers or long days by the pool with the best big-brother ever. Those moments are the true blessings but they are not where we do our best evolving as people.

If we do our best growing through struggling, I was in a great place to begin. Maybe my grief wasn’t something I was imposing on those I loved, either. Keeping my brothers wise words in mind, I tried his theory out on my combination of grief and winter-blues.

Not only did I stop apologizing for straying from my previous-self, I started to open up about who I was now. I had honest conversations with my college-family about where I was both physically and mentally. I shared my darkest thoughts with my parter and even a few close friends. I started to write what was on my heart again, sans apology to the world.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but people were prepared to accept the “messy-me,” too. (I have some seriously awesome souls in my life, for sure.) My college-family rallied around me, giving me slack where I needed it and a good push, too. My family and friends made their presence and support known to me by perfecting the art of giving space and offering comfort. With this, I allowed myself the fall that was needed following an impressive knock out.

I still do not know about the “what-ifs.” What I do know is that the hollow feeling the shock of grief created for me made way for emotions I was meant to feel. Once I allowed myself to be still enough, the pain washed over me in an uncomfortable, yet cleansing way. I did not drown, it did not last forever.

Pain, grief, anxiety and anger are emotions our bodies are meant to experience. We need not run from them, fight them or attempt to hide them. Let them wash over you, acknowledge the lessons that come from them and never apologize for your story on this earth. This is how genuine progress happens.

A Dance with Darkness

The invisible lines between the various parts of my life woke up blurry today. I am far from a master at it but I’ve done this tight-rope dance before. A few days back, after a vallant attempt to combat my tendancy for winter isolation, uncomfortable thoughts and emotions started to creep up on me. I could feel it, as I had counteless times before, first in the pit of my stomach.

Emotions that could be called “vulnerable” ones, such as sadness, anxiety or fear aren’t anyone’s favorite jam. Historically for me, they have been cause for the development of an emergency escape plan. Not only did everything in me scream “run,” when I felt pain, it was most important to get away before anyone saw me in a state of what I viewed as personal weakness. It felt much safer for me to retreat to the solitude of my own darkness, often not treating myself very kindly on said-“retreat.”

In the darkness of my own thoughts and emotions, no one can see me trembling from the inside. My stomach churns, my teeth grind and my head often aches as I take cover from the thoughts that take up space in my brain:

To do lists a mile long that have not been started, adolescent sons, missing brothers, ailing loved-ones, college credits, fear of failure, hope for the future-woah, I still have not begun that to-do list.

It is not long before I have crossed so many lines in my head that I am not sure where to begin with untangling them. When I try to picture the boundaries of these lines in my mind, they represent a ball of yarn that a kitten has had free access to until nap time. By that time, I drop down into “real-life” (the present) for a moment and realize I should probably be doing something productive (full-time college while parenting is no joke) but which priority in my web of worries do I attempt to tackle?

Damn, I feel like I’ve BEEN tackled at this point. My head aches from the teeth-grinding and my stomach doesn’t know if it is hungry or needs to purge. Alas, there is no time to worry about such trivial symptoms, I am STRONG and I have that to-do list bellowing at me to stop being so…vulnerable.

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?

Dear Big Brother: Words matter, I get it

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A little-known secret about me: my writing editor was a real hard-ass. He had a fancy job at the Bangor Daily News as a political reporter and he’s one of the only people I know who got paid to attend Harvard for a year. He knew the ins and outs of writing better than anyone I knew, so I stuck with him when it came to my own writing. But as much as he was known for his talent as a word-slinging reporter, he was known for not mincing his words.

I thought Chris Cousins cut-to-the-chase communication style may have had to do with the fact that he was my older brother, but I learned differently at his funeral in August. His boss Robert offered a hilarious account of Chris’s no-nonsense expectations for writing pieces with a fine example.

My brother was a humble guy, but he had no problem giving his boss hell when it came to what he considered to be lazy word choice in headlines. He was not shy about it, especially when it came to the word get. “Don’t ever, ever use the word get in one of my headlines,” Robert said he was known for saying repeatedly.

We all laughed, knowing how passionate my brother could be when he truly believed in something. I laughed, recalling editing sessions with him on Google Docs that may have stung my ego but served me well as a writer. For those who aren’t familiar, Google Docs has an editing program that allows more than one user to be in a document at the same time. I adored watching him in action. He would transform what I considered to be an “okay” piece into something worth publishing, in mere minutes.

These editing sessions with my brother were not for the faint of heart. My brother expected the best from me, as he knew I did from myself. In this situation, there was no time for leading questions such as, “is there a stronger word you can use here in this sentence?” He preferred the more direct approach, “change this, passive verbs piss me off!” I suppose you’d have to know him but that was the ultimate expression of love from Chris Cousins. Furthermore, the lessons resonated with me.

I would often send my brother writings with no title. I would tell him I just hadn’t thought of one yet but that wasn’t the case. I had long-since dubbed my brother “the headline king,” and nothing pleased me more than to get my writing piece back with a title suggestion from him. Never did the title he provided have the word “get” in it. Ever.

Yesterday I posted a blog. Clearly still delirious from narrowly surviving a two-week bout with the flu, I thought I had a snappy title with “Getting comfortable with the cringe-worthy.” (Hey, all of the teenagers are using the word “cringe” these days, right?)

Then it hit me. It hit me harder than any comment from my brother on Google docs had ever had. I had committed the Chris Cousins cardinal sin of headlines. Robert had the good grace to refrain from mentioning my lame, cringe-worthy title when he saw and re-posted my blog. Upon my horrifying realization that I had disappointed my brother and he was giving me the much-dreaded look of shame from above, I knew I had to act swiftly. (That disappointment is rough guys, even from the beyond)

This morning, I did something I have never done and changed the title of an already published blog. Now called Sounding off on the cringe-worthy, I can rest knowing I’ll never make that writing mistake again. Six months after his passing, we all have much to learn from Chris Cousins about life and writing. Most of us have a tendency to get lazy or impatient regarding the things we claim are important in our lives.

The truth my brother never seemed to forget is that every effort worth making at all, is worth taking your best shot at. This is true when it comes to pursuing our relationships, our passions and even those things we don’t want to do; but must. Every step we take, every word we choose to speak or write, matters more than we realize. Our every choice leaves an impression on those around us while we are living: and a legacy for those we leave behind. What choices are you making today that affect people’s lives and your legacy? Choose wisely, Big Brother is watching.