...even if it’s some encouraging words

     It was encouraging last week to get an outpouring of love as we remembered Naomi’s birthday. I am usually a little anxious when her birthday comes up. But I think I’ve discovered that if I can just be as honest as possible, the anxiety is cooled over and the day goes by with less angst than I anticipated. And while the saying may bounce around that “the truth hurts”, it’s still can be the best thing to say and to hear.

     Most people didn’t know how to react when they learned that we had a little girl with cancer. After Naomi was diagnosed, we got a lot of this: “I just can’t imagine…” followed by various things. People couldn’t imagine it happening to them, how they would react, what we were going through, all kinds of unimaginable things.

And while hearing these things became tiresome, at least people were being truthful. They were just saying what they felt, but I don’t know if it’s the best thing to say. It’s not the worst. Thankfully I don’t think we got “God’s will be done” or “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”. I think the worst thing someone told me was right after Naomi was diagnosed. I was at a church gathering and he sought me out and went into a long story about the time his daughter was very ill and had to go to the emergency room. I managed to ditch the guy only to have him find me later and continue the story where he’d left off. I don’t think he was trying to one-up me. He may have been trying to tell me he understood how I felt or he may have been trying to say how bad he’d had it and made it through okay, so I might too. It was a confusing time thought and I don’t remember the point he was trying to make. I just remember not wanting to hear any more about hospitals, doctors, or hurting little girls. 

But as I said, I think he was trying to help. And today I feel thankful. That’s all most people wanted to do, help somehow, even if it’s some encouraging words. Some were just more successful than others. I think one of the best things anyone ever said to Prajna was shortly after we learned how badly Naomi was doing, shortly before the end. Prajna was at church for a weekly event and just devastated.

One of the most Godly women I think I will ever know was with her. This woman had health issues of her own, though you would never know it from the joy she radiated. But despite the positive mood she always had, when Prajna told her how bad Naomi was doing, our friend didn’t offer any encouragement. She said two words: “Oh… crap.” Two words, not the politest to say at church, and they said to Prajna more than anyone might imagine two words could say. “Oh crap” meant that it hurt her and upset her truly. That was a statement of both indignation and camaraderie. And it was an honest expression of how much she loved us and our family.

That was from a dear friend. But even a stranger once touched my life. I’ve never forgotten this at the other end of Naomi’s illness. Her hair had first started coming out when she was in the hospital. She had been hospitalized in Honolulu for an infection. She and I were in the departure lounge of the airport waiting to go home. Naomi’s head was bald around the sides, like a little old monk with a fluffy blonde clump right on top. And typical of her, she was cavalier about it, refusing to wear the little white sailor hat. So she clutched her blanket and played around the window, pleased as punch to not be in her hospital room hooked up to anything.

I watched the airport tarmac and kept an eye on her and tried not to be self-conscious myself about her appearance. A woman came and stood next to me and watched Naomi play. I tried to imagine I was disappearing. Naomi and I, we are not in the crowd anymore. No-one can see the little girl who obviously has cancer now. There’s no hiding it. So how about nobody can see us, okay? I don’t want to answer questions. I don’t know how long she has to live, I don’t even know how she got the cancer. Please just leave us alone. Leave me alone. Don’t talk to me.

The lady turned from Naomi to me. “How old is she?” she asked.

“Three,” I said.

“She’s beautiful,” the woman said. And that was it. She didn’t say anything and soon after that, Naomi and I were able to pre-board for the short ride home.

She’s beautiful, the stranger said. And I can still hear her voice in my head saying that. I remember the warmth of the sun through the windows and feeling that warmth at her words. Suddenly the world turned nice. When the woman told me that, I was reminded of so much more than my little girl was beautiful. I learned to believe that people are beautiful too.

Like Naomi touching so many lives, this stranger at the airport did too.    

What I'm thinking about

     I don’t know how to feel sometimes. It’s one thing have a broken coffee pot and laugh at how much fuss I make over it, but there are other things. First world problems are everywhere. The end piece of bread never soaks up enough French Toast batter. It’s not cold enough for me to wear my awesome furry hat. There are too many songs on my iPod. Oh my, whatever will I do?

     Another bothersome problem for me is that I feel burned out of writing. I love it when I am writing. I have ideas, too many actually, (another problem). But a lot of the time I just sigh inwardly and think, what’s the use? I was considering taking the month of February off for my blog. I’m afraid however, that if I took the month off of all my writing I might have trouble starting up again. Writing is like exercise and it’s a bad idea to take too much of a break.

     So yes, I have ideas, but they’re for fiction. I don’t want to post incomplete story snippets here on my blog. I like each entry to have some kind of resolution. That means I need to write what I’m thinking about. So what am I thinking about? I’m thinking I’m tired of blogging lately, that’s what. I’ve felt presumptuous and self-absorbed blogging lately. I don’t want it to be about that.

     But if I think hard, what else am I thinking about? Well we lost two hens this week. They were two of my favorites. And like I said, I don’t know how to feel. Is this a first world problem too? With all the pain and suffering in the world, is it okay for me to grieve over a couple of chickens? The one we lost Friday was a Rhode Island Red, very friendly. She would let anyone pick her up. She was a good layer too. The other hen was a Plymouth Partridge Rock. She was part of the first flock we got. This one was blustery, louder than a rooster sometimes, squawking and scolding. She is featured in my blog a year back aboutbroody hens. That’s her being dunked in cold water.

     So they were two of my favorites. I feel terribly sad that they were killed. Is it okay for me to feel that way or should I just shrug it off and say that they were only a couple of birds with a limited lifespan. There’s too much real anguish in the world for me to justify feeling this way, right?

     When I told Sarah this, she reminded me that feeling sad for something, even something like this, is okay. It just proves that I’m a human being with feelings. She’s right. And I ought to know better than to deny pain. Sure maybe I shouldn’t be too broken up over something so trivial, but if it hurts, then it hurts. Pain is real and if I deny it, it won’t just go away.

     So I’m very sad for losing these hens. I will miss the one’s affection and the other’s attitude and noise. I’ll get over it soon, I’m sure. I know from experience that even the most devastating pain from crippling loss will ease over time.

     So I made it through the first blog in February. It took an unpleasant event to prompt me, but I got it out. I hope that this week I can work on Sidewinder at least a few mornings. I have put off my memoir a while longer. I liked my November novel so much that I wanted to re-write it and see how good it could actually get. And what’s good writing without pain and loss to fuel the writer? It takes more than coffee to give me ideas. And this time, it took more than just loss. It took a reminder from someone that feeling pain just means I’m human.       

Admit it, they hurt.

     If you watched Sesame Street in its early days, you might remember a mail carrier lady named Molly played by Charlotte Rae.

All I really remember about her is her generic response to any greeting to how she was doing. Molly always seemed to slump, roll her eyes, and moan: “my feet hurt”.

     I thought, of course her feet hurt. She was a mail lady in a big city. (I thought it was Phoenix because it’s where KHET channel 8 broadcast from.) Poor Molly had to schlep around the city with a big old mail bag all day. No wonder her feet hurt. I felt terrible for her.

     One day Bob or Gordon or maybe Susan told Molly to try pretending her feet didn’t hurt. Just keep saying “my feet do not hurt” and keep walking. So she tried that. She stepped forward repeating the words, “my feet do not hurt” over and over. I don’t remember what happened but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t optimistic about that helping. It seemed ridicules to think that the pain would go away just by saying it wasn’t there. At a young age I grasped that, even though I didn’t know the word denial.

     It seems I had good emotional and spiritual health back then. But the years passed and I began to develop coping mechanisms to deal with life. It wasn’t long before I discovered the sweetest friend, the most comfortable place that felt safer than anywhere in the universe. It was a little world I created for me to live in. Denial. I could tell you that living in denial is like hiding under a warm blanket in bed on a freezing winter morning. Everything feels right about staying and wrong about getting out.

     The problem is that denial is unhealthy. Just like staying under that blanket, I would starve if I never came out. And in real denial, I can’t do anything productive, maintain any relationship or grow in any way by living in denial. I won’t starve, but I will stagnate.

     And I have recently been reminded another side effect of denial. It’s laborious and will suck the life from life. I should have realized it when I was so entrenched in it for so long. This is kind of where the analogy of lying under a warm blanket gets lost, because a blanket requires no effort. But living in denial actually expends a lot of energy. It’s not just trying to hold up the sky over a false world, living in a lie is just wrong. And no matter how much I thought I was okay, deep down, I knew I wasn’t. The level of anxiety that caused was exhausting.   

And while I was living in denial, those around me were aware that something was seriously wrong. Denial takes a huge toll on relationships. 

I am so thankful that I was blessed with a healthy childhood. I just knew it was wrong for Molly the Mail Lady to try to medicate her pain by denying it. I’m afraid that some kids the age I was then have already learned denial. Don’t talk about things that hurt… Pretend that didn’t happen… Family secrets… I learned denial outside the home by not coping with how the world was. But I grew to it just the same and dove deeper in as the real world failed to meet my liking.

Looking back now I don’t know how I could have done things different. I didn’t know how to cope. Neither did Molly. The poor woman’s feet were killing her and the best someone could tell her was to deny it. What do I think should have happened? Maybe the Sesame Street gang could have given her a hand. I don’t know if it’s a federal offence, but what if Big Bird and friends had gone and carried her bag for her for awhile? Maybe that would have helped. But at the very least, someone could have said: “Molly I’m so sorry your feet hurt. Thanks for doing such a good job delivering the mail around the neighborhood. Let me know if there’s anything we can do, okay? Please feel free to stop here anytime and take a rest for a spell. There will always be a cold drink in the summer and a hot one in the winter. Hang in there Molly, we love you.”

There, the pain is real and we know you’re hurting. We want to help and here’s what we will do.

Sorry, I sound self-righteous like that’s what I always do. Knowing what’s right is nothing next to doing what’s right and preaching what’s right is not much use at all. I don’t always do the right thing. But other people have helped me to step out of denial by encouraging me to go ahead and admit that the pain is real. To me, stepping out of denial was the hardest thing to do, and the most freeing.

So if you’re hurting and you know it, clap your hands. Admitting it can be the first step to healing. If you clapped, tell someone. Is it time to shake off that warm blanket and take some nourishment?

Waiting in silence while voices Sing

     I just put gasoline in my truck and filled the tank for the first time in almost a year. The trip meter said just over three hundred miles. That wasn’t the plan. When I filled up the tank in Victorville, California in October 2012, I was going to top it off in Ridgecrest about two hours later. I was considering driving to Nevada on my way out of Death Valley for a tank of gas. But the plans went awry. I put 30 miles on the truck before it broke. Then the truck sat in my yard for almost a year before I finally fixed it. What took me so long?

     Last week I finally took my iPod to The Apple Store. When I bought the iPod secondhand just over a year ago, the headphones didn’t work right. If I plugged them in all the way I couldn’t get the sound. So I had to have the plug partway out of the jack. If I moved wrong the plug popped out. I had to watch my step at work and if I bent over it usually came unplugged. So several times a day, I had to stop what I was doing, back up whatever I was listening to, and carefully re-insert the plug and move on. If I needed to bend down to scrub a spot on the floor or wipe down a wall, I just expected it to pop out and worked in silence.

     But I finally made an appointment at “The Genius Bar” of The Apple Store. When I arrived for the appointment, store associates were moving around the crowds with iPads and I got helped right away. I explained to the man helping me what the problem was. I decided not to bother telling him about the few other problems with the iPod. If they could just fix the headphone jack I would be fine.

     He had heard of the problem. Apparently it was a chronic problem with my model. No, he wouldn’t fix it. But he would sell me a new one for a third of the cost. A new iPod cost 300 dollars and they let me have one for 99. It wasn’t what I was prepared to spend, but I also wasn’t prepared to have every problem with the device taken away and receive a brand new one, with a warrantee.

     I went back to work the next day and marveled at my ability to move freely about and keep listening to my sounds. I could bend down. I could drive the golf cart. It stayed plugged in. I was so delighted that I spent a long time on Friday in my knees wiping down all bases of all the toilets and the walls around them.

     Why did I wait so long? Is anyone else out there like this? My truck was one thing. I was afraid it wouldn’t get fixed. I thought that I didn’t actually need it. I was afraid it would cost too much. Maybe that was the same with the iPod. Does anyone else out there live their life with something missing, something broken, some unmet need?

     After I lost Naomi, I spent about 5 years living in my own miserable little world before finally getting help. And this is so much like my iPod I can’t believe it.

     Help was out there. I got rid of something that was slowing me down, hindering my life and actually causing me anxiety. I didn’t know it, but I was able to get something brand new, clean, with nothing wrong with it. I was amused and amazed at my reluctance to just go ahead and make things better.

     Things were better almost instantaneously when I got the new iPod. Not so much with Celebrate Recovery. But part of the healing was the time it took. The gradual change built my trust in God.

     But both times, I was depriving myself of something new. Both times, help was out there. Both times, there was joy in new things.

     But the big question is why did I wait? I’ve thought about it and I’m not all that sure. I just think that it might have been this: I didn’t know things could be better. I had convinced myself to just endure the situation and not expect things to get better. Don’t get my hopes up thinking of a better life. Just life in misery. Okay, the broken iPod wasn’t miserable. My analogies are crossing over each other. But the reasoning is pretty much the same. Both times, I didn’t want to experience the letdown if I tried to make things better and failed.

     And all along, help was out there.

     So here’s a message. I wish someone had told me. I wish I had come to my senses earlier. But what’s done is done. So I am passing on what I know now. If you’re suffering with some kind of hindrance, don’t be like me. Take steps to get help. Sometimes it means getting something new. One time, for me, it was a new life. 

Help when I'm Lost

     Well, you’ve really made a mess of things.

I wonder if anyone really ever needs to hear that. It may be one of those statements that is the same as: It’s a nice day, you’re very tall, or so this is it, we’re going to die now, aren’t we? Some statements do little more than state the very obvious. Well, you’ve really made a mess of things is probably addressed to a person who caused and is well aware of the situation. And it does more than state the obvious, and may even hinder the situation from improvement by placing even more stress and guilt on the person.

     I was driving last Wednesday morning on roads I had never been on before. It was about 7:00 in the morning and the hilly Orange county parkways were foggy. I had written down my directions the night before and looked at the map of how to get there. After traveling Katella Road in the City of Orange and crossing under the double nickel freeway I continued on as Katella changed names and eventually became Santiago Canyon Road. That ended and I had to turn right on Jamboree, then left again on Santiago Canyon Road. After that I would hop on the 241 Toll Road. I had copied the directions the night before and Prajna was reading them to me. I came to the end of the first leg of Santiago Canyon Road and turned onto Jamboree. I passed Chapman Road and kept on, and on… and on. I saw roads that I remembered from the map that I should have passed on the 241. I noticed we were in Irvine. Then Prajna said she thought we had gone too far.

     How could I have missed my turn? Maybe we didn’t pass it yet? Prajna urged me to pull over and ask someone. Oh, swell. Get out and go into a fast food place and announce to the world that I was some country bumpkin in a minivan who didn’t know how to drive? But I got off the road and into a parking lot. Then I called my sister. When she picked up the phone I told her that I seemed to be just a little bit lost and I was in Irvine. She agreed that I was not where I should be. She got from me exactly where I was and told me how to get to where I needed to be from right there. She knew the area well enough so that she didn’t need to direct me backwards. I could get onto the street next to the mall I was parked in, cross Jamboree and then head a little backwards to make it to the 241. From there I could get to Lake Forrest where the first day of the Celebrate Recovery West Coast Summit was. I followed her directions. We made it on time.

     The summit was three intense days of teaching and encouragement. There was a wide spectrum of emotions. I did learn a lot and was inspired. But the one thing that inspired me that I wanted to share was how I was able to ask for help. No, it’s not that remarkable that I actually asked. But sometimes in life we might find ourselves lost. We might be going the wrong way. We might have been going the wrong way for a while. We might notice, or someone might point it out to us. It is then that the crucial thing happens. We can try to fix things on our own, or we can ask for help. And here is another thing. We can choose someone to ask that has experience and get this: Knows where we have been. The right person doesn’t have to point out how we’ve made a mess of things. They can tell us how to get to where we need to go from where we are.

     At no time did my sister say, “Well here’s what you should have done.” I knew I had missed a turn. Instead it was this: Here is where you need to go now.

     Celebrate Recovery is all about admitting that we are powerless over our hurts, hang-ups and habits. We come to believe that the one and only Higher Power can save us. And one of the most difficult things I have to do is one of the key steps. We have to rely on others for help. We get together a support team. Some people in our team may have been where we’ve been. They know the territory and can help us navigate our way to a better place. They also know how it feels to have been lost. Perhaps at one time someone led them the right way too. 

     Driving back that night after a long day I saw the mistake I had made. Chapman Road terminated at Jamboree and became the second leg of Santiago Canyon Road. The signs were there, I had just missed them. If I had a map on me it never would have happened. If I had printed out something or even if I had just written down the distance I should have traveled on Jamboree, I wouldn’t have gotten lost. If only… if only. But it did happen and I was responsible. And it took stepping out and asking for help to get me where I needed to go. I didn’t know where I was. I needed to hear from someone who did know where I was. That’s what we all need when we’re lost sometimes.