At Least A Thousand Times More

Today is the fifth of the month, and, like the fifth of all the other months that have marked the time since I last spent time with my dad on this earth, it's not an easy day for me.

Every month I wonder if there will ever come the fifth of a month on which I won't feel this way.  I don't think so, at least not for at least a thousand times more or so.

I thought I could make it through the day this time around without writing about my dad or my grief, a new kind of milestone that I feel a weird kind of obligation to reach towards, even though it seems unnatural - and, truth be told, so sad and disrespectful I can't really allow myself to think about it much.  

It's been 30 months.  My god that's hard to believe.  But not as hard as it is not to be able to talk to him except in the format of a one-sided conversation.  

Today I've been thinking about the last time I saw him before we knew he was sick, which was on an extended family vacation in upstate New York.  My husband, my daughters, and I hugged my dad and my mom goodbye as we headed off towards our respective gates at the airport at the end of the trip; I don't specifically remember hugging my dad then, but I'm sure I did.  And I'm sure I thought I would see him at least a thousand times more, with both of us happy and healthy.

I can't help myself from thinking back to things that happened when he was sick, and sometimes the memories and the visions of those things haunt me - like how I used scissors to cut the hospital bracelet from his wrist both times when he came home from the hospital - and how the way I felt when doing so was so completely different on each of those occasions.  The first time, he was still recovering from brain surgery and we were still reeling from the news of the devastating diagnosis and preparing for him to go to Duke for the treatment that we thought would save him.  The second time, we had brought him home on hospice, to save him from the spiraling misery that was going on in the hospital, with hope of a different brand.  The second time, I saved the bracelet after I'd cut it from his wrist; I put it in my purse as if that made sense or a difference in anything that was going on. 

I think back to the packed-up box of stuff from his office, the contents of which would seem meaningless, perhaps junky even, to a stranger but were of exactly the opposite to us in value. I don't know where most of that stuff is now; I guess it doesn't matter, except for when it feels like it does.

I can clearly remember the moments during which the news of the diagnosis was delivered to us, and I remember so well the feeling of hope that the statistics wouldn't, and didn't, apply to him, or to us.  It was as if that Hope was our magic carpet, our oxygen, our blood; to live, we needed to believe that he would live.  I sometimes wish that I didn't remember some of those moments or the rapid decline and the series of let-downs and failures and disappointments from the second and final time that we spent with him in the hospital; that was like being caught in a fishing net, and it forced us to reconsider what we thought about almost everything.  I try to think back to the full weight of the feelings of helplessness, of guilt, of terror, and of powerlessness that crept in during that time, before they were overtaken by resignation and different shades of the previous emotions. But I'm not sure; I think they just gradually took hold of me over the course of the last three weeks of his life, and I have to say I haven't quite shaken most of them yet.

At the end of that trip to upstate New York, my immediate family ended up being stuck at the airport in Albany because of a delayed flight due to thunderstorms across the country; my parents made it out on their flight on time.  After they's gotten home, Dad texted me to check on us and commiserated with me about the inconvenience of the lateness of our adjusted schedule.  "I hope you make it home ok," he texted when I told him that our plane had finally been cleared for take off, the second-to-last time he would text me, ever.  And only five months later, I said goodbye to my dad for the very last time, and, in the early hours of the morning later that night, I laid my head down on the pillow to try to sleep and found myself crying so hard that tears threatened to fill my ears.  I tried to stop but couldn't, and then I squeezed my eyes shut and felt that same message flash from me to my dad:  "I hope you make it home ok," I thought between sobs, and then I added,  "I miss you, I can't believe this whole thing happened, and I don't think I can make it without you" - thoughts that would run through my head at least a thousand times more between then and now.

What I've Learned About Mothering

Sometimes people say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger; I have to say, though, that that's a sentiment with which I cannot agree.

I don't feel stronger as a result of the challenges I have encountered, but I do feel changed - and I recognize that I have learned some things from those experiences.  Much of what I've assimilated is on the pages of this blog, and I suspect there is even more to come, from grief and perspective and just life in general.  Many of those things, I am realizing, can be valuable, useful lessons, serving to make me more solicitous, more introspective, and more appreciative of what I have - all of which are easily applied to perhaps the most challenging thing in my life: mothering.

From the road I've traveled, I've learned that the life I have won't last forever; it will change in many ways, some over time and some quickly, some for the better and some tragically, and that because of that I need to work hard to appreciate and remember each day.  

I've learned that it's easy to take it all for granted - and sometimes to wish it away.  I've learned that at some point there is an end to the sleepless nights, the piles of laundry, the hectic mornings filled with things like looking for a missing shoe and packing lunches and kisses goodbye, the nerve-wrecking parent-teacher conferences, the disarray of toys and books scattered everywhere, the lazy summer mornings that stretch into afternoons, the shopping for what I hoped was the perfect birthday or Christmas gift - the Tickle Me Elmo or the Jessie Cowgirl doll or the Furby that I stood in long lines to buy, ready to elbow my way to the front of the aisle to get my child what I thought her childhood wouldn't be complete without.

What I have loved most of all was seeing the trust and happiness in my children's faces, hearing their infectious giggles, feeling their hand in mine, and recognizing things in them that they had learned from me.  Little by little, those days of not being able to shower or go into the bathroom by myself have transformed into closed bedroom doors and teenaged eye rolls of embarrassment that only a parent can still interpret as love, and somewhere along the way it hit me that it's impossible to go back and do one single minute over; I can't take back words said in anger or exhaustion, and I can't rewind the time from even one day to allow myself to better remember or to better react.  All I can do is hope that what I've made up on my own and what I've figured out with the help of those who have advised me or in some way mothered me has been right, or at least right enough, and then try to do my best with what comes as time marches forward, as we go through more proofreading, conflicts with friends and teachers and roommates, texting, phone conversations, choices of class schedules and fashion purchases and even more important things, being sure to celebrate the victories - both big and small, and just trying to keep up with everything.

These days I'm amazed when I think about how I used to think that mothering a baby was so easily definable as the hard part; it's really all the hard part, especially, as I now know, letting go as they make their own decisions, watching them stretch their wings, realizing that they are their own people, swiftly moving towards adulthood and independence, despite the feelings of joy and relief I get when they occasionally come to me for help.

When I look at the hundreds of family photos from over the years, I remember and I cherish the special moments captured on film - the birthday parties, the school programs, the first days of school, the Christmases and the Easters.  But the moments that I treasure the most when I think back are those that no one thought to capture on film, the everyday moments, those from days that I think were accurately and brilliantly labeled along the way as perfectly ordinary.

I wouldn't trade them for dollers or barbies either!

Bittersweet

Following is a guest post written by my sister Nancy:

Bittersweet...

I've often heard that word but have never felt that I had an appropriate time in my life to use it, until 6 weeks ago. 

Giving birth on March 24, 2013, to my firstborn was hands down both the most amazing and the scariest thing I have ever experienced.  I had envisioned the moment of his birth in my head many times over the previous 9 months and it always played out perfectly, except for one crucial part ... my dad wasn't present.

The day I found out I was pregnant, even with as much excitement as I felt, I remember thinking to myself, "This sucks - it's so unfair that my dad won't be here or ever know his 7th grandchild."  I tried not to let myself dwell too much on that fact over the months ahead, but always in the back of my thoughts I felt very bitter.

On the day of my son's birth, I tried to keep it together so as not to make the special day sad, even though Dad wasn't there, but to make sure it was memorable.  I grasped tightly to one of my dad's handkerchiefs (or "hankies," as he called them) during my entire labor process.  I kept hearing my oldest sister saying to me "Remember this, remember this!" and I wanted to focus on especially that.  My whole life I strived to make my dad proud of me and he always told me that he was, and I know without a doubt that he was with all of us in that delivery room that day at the exact moment of my child's birth and that he was so proud of me, my mom, and my sisters knowing that life really does go on - just not always the way we envisioned that it would.  There was complete joy and happiness, and there were big smiles again in our lives and yet another legacy to carry on the family name. 

The nurses allowed Nancy to wear her Brain Cancer Awareness bracelet during the entire labor and delivery process.

I look forward to having Crosby's aunts, uncles, cousins, and Gran-Gran telling detailed stories in honor of his Gramps so that my son will know my dad.  I've decided that I'm not going to waste precious time being mad or even bitter that Dad wasn't physically there for that big moment in my life; instead I will embrace the fact of all the people I love most on this earth were by my side. 

Bittersweet...

The Hitchhiker, Part 1: The Gift of the Story

As I have learned since my dad went on ahead, one of the greatest gifts that can be given to someone in grief is talking to him or her about their loved one: telling a story that involves the person who has died, sharing something you remember about that person, or talking about a quality that person had or a deed he did that you appreciated can be a priceless treasure.  It doesn't have to be a significant account; sometimes something funny or unique that person did is just what the person who is grieving needs to hear.

Not long after my dad died, my mom, my husband, and I went to the Mid-South Grain Association meeting in New Orleans, or simply "Mid-South," as my dad called it in general conversation.  Dad was in charge of organizing the convention there every February, and we went after he died to represent him in a way.  My mom kept up with the administrative duties that she had assisted Dad with for many years, but, as I came to find out, it was as helpful for us to be there amongst many people who had known Dad for years - some for decades - as it was for them to have Mom filling in at the registration desk.

The highlight of the trip for me was listening to one of my dad's long-time friends and previous coworker talk about some of Dad's antics from "back in the day."  Some of the tales I had heard before, mostly from Dad himself, but others I had never heard, and I felt comforted by all of them; it felt almost as if I was getting a piece of my dad back for just a little while.

Like a lot of people, Dad was a work hard/play hard kind of guy.   But the thing that I think made him unique in that area - at least from what I have gathered from seeing him interact with people professionally and from listening to what others have said about him in a business context over the years - is that he was often able to make the work environment fun for himself and for others.  For starters, he never hesitated to laugh at himself, and his interest in everyone around him was genuine.  Never did he miss an opportunity to say hello to or to compliment or express interest in someone else; the way he assumed that pretty much everybody had good intentions somehow seemed to result in that becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  He delighted in clowning around when time and the situation allowed; I don't know that he learned about the benefits of fostering a positive work environment in a formal setting, but he certainly applied the principles all the same and always seemed very popular with his employees because of it.

"Cotton Row" on Front Street in Memphis, Tennessee

Here's the story that my dad's friend told us from back in the early 70's, when my dad worked at a company with an office that was located in downtown Memphis:

One Friday, some of Dad's clients had come to Memphis from out of state, and he was in charge of entertaining them that night.  My mom had driven with my sisters and me to her parents' in Nashville for the weekend, and Dad was planning to drive to meet us there late that night after he had taken the customers out on the town.  He worked until closing time and then met them at a restaurant down the street from his office.  As the story goes, the dinner turned into more of a party than Dad had expected, and when it was over he returned to the office since he had parked nearby.  Evidently, he was trying to ward off the headache he thought he'd be getting the next morning and so he walked over to his desk to get to his bottle of aspirin.  Unfortunately, though, the floors were in the process of being redone, and Dad left footprints on the adhesive backing that had been laid down in preparation for the tile that was going to be installed the next day.  Apparently there was much laughter the next morning and later some friendly ribbing about the fact that everyone could tell who the culprit had been since the tracks lead straight to his desk, where several aspirin tablets were spilled on the desk, and then back to the exit door.  

As Dad himself later told the story to his friends and coworkers, after he'd gotten into his car and then started driving on the interstate headed towards Nashville, he realized that he'd had too much to drink to be driving.  As luck would have it, soon after that he saw a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Necessity being the mother of invention (and of innovation), Dad pulled over and rolled down the passenger-side window to ask the guy if he could drive and where he was trying to go.  "Sure, I can drive," the guy said, and then he added, "I'm hoping to get to Nashville tonight."

"Well, get in, then," Dad told him, probably smiling from ear to ear and thinking he had struck gold. "I'll be asleep in the back; wake me up when we get there!"

I doubt he told my mom about the details of that trip for quite some time after it happened, and it wasn't until after his death that my sisters and I heard the story.  I could picture it happening though, and hearing the tale was a much-appreciated gift, one that I will always treasure.  And it wasn't Dad's last interaction with a hitchhiker either, ...

To be continued ... 

Thoughts on The Boston Marathon

I grew up watching, reading, and listening to news about the Boston Marathon; as a runner and a fan of the competitive part of the sport for nearly 35 years, I've always loved following the stories from races for both the top contenders and the back-of-the-packers.  As a current back-of-the-packer myself, I know that every runner has a story, and, especially for big events like marathons, every finish impacts each participant in many different ways.  

The marathon is the apex of the sport for lots of runners, the quintessential goal, the quest of the most dedicated amongst us.  And the Boston Marathon, or "The Boston" or just "Boston," as it is typically called in the athletic world, is the pinnacle of all marathons.  It's the world's oldest ongoing marathon, with this being its 117th year, and it's probably the world's most well-known road-racing event.  Boston is always run on Patriots' Day, the third Monday in April, which, unlike the majority of other marathons in the U.S., means that it's always held on a Monday.  Because of the many hills along the course and the tendency for the temperatures to soar into the 80-degree range during the event, the race is considered to be one of the more challenging marathons in our country.  The Boston Marathon is the only marathon in the U.S. that has a qualifying time requirement for entry, based on the gender and age of each runner, with the general rules stating that a runner must have completed a "qualifying marathon" within an 18 month period prior to Boston.  As a result of the strict qualifying requirements and the difficulty factor, Boston Marathon runners are generally revered by all other runners, or at least by those of us who have been involved in the sport for awhile. 

A masterpiece about Dad's first Boston by my sister, Jennifer

Growing up, I remember hearing my dad talking about Boston as if it were the Holy Grail of running.  Even before he had run it the first time in 1979 at the age of 35, I remember him telling my sisters and me about the course, which runs through eight different towns and finishes on Copley Square in Boston.  In the months leading up to his Boston debut, I remember him worrying aloud about Heartbreak Hill, the most well-known challenge in the race, even after he'd run up and down the levee alongside the Mississippi River literally hundreds of times as part of the 100+ miles per week he ran for months before the race.  I remember my grandfather, my dad's dad, coming to stay with my sisters and me for a few days while my parents went to Boston that April, and I remember my mom calling us after the race to tell us how Dad had done (his finish time was 2:46:04).  I remember standing in the kitchen of our house with my sisters, cheering through the phone line for my dad and then chanting his finish place over and over, so many times that the number was forever lodged in my brain.  In fact, one day, during the time when my dad was sick, we were talking about the many races he had run over the years, and he was surprised when I told him that I still remembered what place he finished in at his first Boston:  1,196th, which put him in the top 15% of finishers that year.

There are around half a million spectators and usually between 20,000 and 25,000 runners at every Boston Marathon.  The Centennial Boston Marathon, held in 1996, which was my dad's second time to run it, set a record for the most entrants, at around 38,000 runners.  

I remember Dad talking excitedly after he'd gotten back from the race the first time about going to the Bill Rogers Running Store and meeting Bill Rodgers, who had won the marathon for the third time that year, setting a course record in the process.  Dad commented that he especially admired the guy, "Boston Billy" as he was called, because of his modesty and his friendliness, which, ironically, were also two of Dad's strongest qualities.  The women's division was won that year by Joan Benoit, then 21 years old, who, with a time of 2:35, bettered the previously set record for women's finish time by 8 minutes. 

Joan, or "Joanie" as she was called, won Boston again in 1983, this time finishing in 2:22, breaking the women's world record by two minutes, and then she followed up by taking the gold medal in the Olympic marathon in L.A. in 1984, the year the women's marathon was established as an Olympic event.  She, incidentally, still holds the record for the American woman with the fastest finish in both the Olympic marathon and in the Chicago Marathon.  Yesterday, Joan ran Boston again to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her most recent Boston win, as did the men's winner from '83, Greg Meyer, who was in fact the last American to have won the race.  Joan, now age 55, was quoted as saying before the race that she planned to "go out fast," aiming to finish within 30 minutes of her winning time from 30 years ago, a goal that my dad would have absolutely loved hearing about - and one that she achieved with a finish time of 2:50.

To Joanie, from my dad and me: you're still a total badass!

Countless people - even those who have never even cared at all about the Boston Marathon before yesterday - watched the replays and read the recounts of the tragedy that unfolded after the bombings, the vast majority of people whom, I would venture to guess, realized that they could not even imagine the chaos and the terror than ensued on the race course and around the city, nor could they really comprehend the emotions  about the losses suffered by the runners and spectators of so many things: life, safety, trust, faith, and even reward for such dedication and effort on the part of the thousands of runners who trained extensively for the race over the course of the last six months or more.  

"To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month, or even one year - but for a lifetime." ~Bill Rodgers, 1979

"To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month,

or even one year - but for a lifetime." ~Bill Rodgers, 1979

My brother Lee has qualified for Boston twice and has run it once; he shares in the family's fascination with the marathon's history and with each year's competitive field.  No one in my family was at the Boston Marathon this year; however, on some level, we can imagine the turmoil experienced by those who were there yesterday because of tragic events that have affected us at other races in years past, which is a different story in its own right.  Like everyone else, my family feels so sad for everyone affected by the bombing; there is no understanding the evil that drives such madness.  The term Heartbreak Hill has a whole new meaning for all of the runners there yesterday and for those of us whose hearts go out to those injured and otherwise affected by the malevolence of those responsible.

In memory of Martin Richard 

Happiness and Perspective

I heard a line from the AMC TV show "Mad Men" quoted the other day on the radio.  The commentators were discussing the topic of materialism and how they feel it has affected our children's generation as a whole.  On the TV show, which is about an advertising agency in NYC, the agency's Creative Director Don Draper is disturbed by his observations of the actions of people whom he feels were motivated by their greed for money and success.  Don starts to reconsider his own definition of happiness and in the process comes up with the line from the episode that was being quoted on the radio:  

"What is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness."

lippsisters.com

That quote got me started thinking about the way so many of us set up happiness to be something that isn't really obtainable - or at least that isn't sustainable.  Maybe that's what makes some people feel like rats running on a wheel, as if they are "caught up in the Rat Race," always chasing after one more thing instead of taking the time to appreciate what is already in their possession or what has already been achieved.  

Something I've learned over the last couple of years is that happiness is a feeling that is often easy to attain in the moment but difficult to maintain over time.  Happy moments can be both big and small; happiness can come when its arrival has been anticipated, or it can come by unexpectedly, as a welcome surprise.  For most people, happiness is transient; it ebbs and flows depending on so many other factors.  The way one feels going into a situation or even at the start of the day does not necessarily determine the way one feels at the end; in the same way that you can start off on a run feeling great and end up limping home, you can wake up happy and end the day feeling miserable.  Happiness is unpredictable and oftentimes completely out of our control, which is exactly what makes it a defective goal.  In many cases, it's nothing more than perspective.  

It also strikes me that happiness isn't something that translates into goodness; a bank robber or even a serial killer can feel happy with what they have done.  A life can be full of happy moments but be lacking in meaning and impact, yet another reason that in my opinion happiness isn't a suitable goal.

Another lesson that I have gotten from life over the past couple of years is that during those times when happiness is in my grasp, when I am fortunate enough to be in the midst of joy, pleasure, or contentment, I need to breathe it in, to savor it and to remember it, because life is nothing if not uncertain, and we need all the reserves we can get.  

Happiness

Sometimes happiness is really just as simple as making a choice to appreciate and be grateful for what one has, instead of thinking about would have/could have/should have been, instead of worrying, instead of comparing what one has to what someone else has, and instead of wishing for something more or something different.  To me, it seems that happiness comes much more from perspective than from reality.

"Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances." ~Anonymous

One of the things that has brought me the most meaning in my life has been motherhood.  It has also brought me considerable happiness, even though not every moment of every day is filled with sunshine and singing.  In the words of an extended family member of mine, "Mothering is the hardest and the best thing that you will ever do."  I'm sure this extends to fathering, too.  Parenting is difficult, but it's an investment, a legacy that will continue far longer than the days we have left on this earth.


When I think back on some of the biggest moments of my life - graduations, weddings, vacations, things like that - so much of what happened then is a blur, and I don't think that the only thing that plays a factor in that is my increasing age and decreasing capacity for remembering things.  I wonder if I was present enough in those moments; I wonder if I took the time during those events to breathe in the happiness and the joy that I was experiencing.  If I did, maybe I should have done even more of that, enough to make more of what I felt in those moments carry over to my memory. If I didn't, I am regretful that I might have been thinking more about things that I perceived as being not just right, or about things that were bothering me or stressing me out in the moment, or about what came before or what was to come afterwards.  In either case, one thing I have learned is that sometimes all I can do is try to learn from the past - and try to do better in the future.

I thought about happiness and memories and perspective a lot during my sister Nancy's labor and delivery a couple of weeks ago.  "Remember this," I said to her several times during those hours before and just after she became a mother: "Remember this; be sure to remember this."  I hope she remembers it all -  and I know I will, because it was nothing short of wondrous.   As the newest member of our family was born, everyone in the room knew what happiness was: it's being together with the people you love, it's the warmth that comes from working together for a common goal, it's the promise of good.

"Remember this."//

As Lao Tzu said, "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

The Hospital Bed

I had a dream last night about the hospital bed that my dad was in when he died.  Actually maybe it wasn't that bed; maybe it was just a generic hospital bed.  Oddly, nothing was going on in the dream; it was more like a still photograph than it was like a movie - there were no characters and there was no plot or script.

But that started me thinking about hospital beds and the one that ended up being the last bed my dad ever slept in before he went on ahead.  I think that most people, including me prior to the end of my dad's illness, consider a hospital bed to be a white flag of sorts, a surrender of lots of things, the most obvious of which is one's independence.  The day that the hospital bed was delivered and set up in my parents' house, though, in preparation for my dad's being able to come home from the hospital so that he could spend his last days in a more familiar, more comfortable setting, that bed represented so many other things for my family; it was obviously a consolation of sorts, but one that brought with it the power to give Dad what he so desperately wanted and to release him from the jaws of the downward spiral of pain and anxiety that just kept getting worse in the awful environment of the hospital.  

The bed itself seemed alarmingly flimsy, I thought, insubstantial but sadly adequate to hold my dad's then-frail body.  The frame seemed almost like it was made of wire that was wound together, fabricated without regard to aesthetics, as far as possible from a piece of furniture that would otherwise have been allowed in my parents' house and just sturdy enough to get the job done.  Its defining feature was a rickey little hand crank at the foot of the bed that could be used to adjust the head of the bed up or down.  It was a shitty little crank, really, and thinking back to the cheapness of it makes me both sad and mad - sad for our situation and for the way we had to handle every damn detail in the whole chaotic situation ourselves except for a little help from the hospice company at the very end, and mad for the shittiness of the crank itself: for god's sake, couldn't the insurance company drum up a few bucks more to send us a bed with an electric crank?  Wasn't the situation itself torturous enough without one of us having to use such a rudimentary apparatus, like it was the 1950's or something?  

But we were grateful for the bed with the old-timey crank; we were grateful that hospice had arranged to have it delivered, and we were as grateful as we could be that we were able to arrange for Dad to come home as he had been urgently requesting, actually begging, from his higher-tech bed in the hospital.  

I only vaguely remember the scene of when the guy from the medical supply company came to pick up the bed when Dad was done with it; in fact, I don't even remember if there was only one guy that came or if there were two.  I remember thinking, once they had taken it away, that my parents' bedroom suddenly seemed heartbreakingly empty, even though the hospital bed had only been in there for less than a week and even though my husband and my brother-in-law had moved my parents' king-sized bed back over to the center of that part of the room as it had been before we'd had the hospital bed set up beside it; things we set up like they had been before, but nothing was as it had been.  I remember standing in the space where the hospital bed had just been just minutes before, with tears running down my face, looking down and noticing that there weren't any indentions from the wheels of the bed left in the carpet and wondering how in the world a visible mark hadn't been left where something so big had happened.

At Least

I know a lot of people who are competitive, but I think in some way I am the most competitive of all of them (ha ha, did you catch that???).

Early-onset competitiveness: that's me on the left, totally out-doing my toddler sister and my granddad at pull-ups.

That's why I've never been much of a fan of "at-leasts."  

I think it all started when I was about five years old.  I remember standing in my driveway one day, eating one of those red, white, and blue Bomb Pop popsicles, and being so sad when the last part of it dropped off the stick and fell onto the driveway.  My mom, who'd seen the whole thing happen, said, "Oh, well, at least you got to eat most of it!"  

But I didn't just want most of it, of course; I wanted ALL of it (especially the blue part at the bottom, which I still consider to be the best part!).  And thus began my distaste for the term "at least." 

Growing up, I remember hearing that term used pretty often, way too often for my taste, by both adults and by my peers.   I cringed inside when I heard other people say things like, "At least you tried!" and "At least we got some of what we wanted."  Every time I heard that phrase, I knew I should probably buy into that type of thinking; I realized that it was an expression of optimism and gratitude, but I saw it as settling. 

That has changed, though, since my dad got sick.  I guess going through the experience of caring for him during those ten weeks and then trying to cope with his death over the past couple of years has changed my view on at-leasts; these days I'm actually a pretty big fan of the term.  I hear it from the lips of others who loved him too - and from those who have also who've suffered through a similar experience, and I know we are in a club of sorts whose members know the true meaning of that phrase.  I've never liked consolation prizes, but I guess that's just another example of how tragedy and hardship hammer out perspective.  

I came across an idea shared by a fellow griever yesterday that made me think about my changed feelings for at-least type of concepts.  She said she would rather have had the person she'd lost and had to have suffered through living without him than never to have had that person in her life at all.  How profound.  

Measuring the Course

As far back as I can remember, one of my dad's routines after he got home from a long run was to immediately jump into the car to drive the route he had run to measure the exact distance of the course.  (This was WAY before GPS systems existed.) Most people would probably choose to sit down to rest as soon as they could after a strenuous workout, but Dad was the kind of person who couldn't stand to let grass grow under his feet.  He taught us to have honor and priorities, to set goals, to set our mind to doing things and then to follow through. WAY before Nike said it, he used to say “Just Do It” whenever he heard someone make an excuse for not doing something they should have been doing; I remember so many tough runs when he would tell me to tuck in behind him so that he could block the wind for me after he'd said “Put your head down and let's just do it.”

If Dad could have “driven the course” at the end of his life, if he could have had the opportunity to examine what he had done and the choices that he had made along the way – I wonder to what he would’ve made adjustments.  Not much, I would venture to guess, and I think that’s pretty damn remarkable.  I'm not sure there are many people in this world who would be able to say the same.

Here's a question with some Food for Thought: What would your biggest regret be if today was your last day of life, and how can you attempt to right that regret?

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last few weeks or months of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, and later she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.  Ware writes of the clarity of vision that people often acquire towards the end of their lives and of how others can learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five end-of-life regrets, according to Ware:

"I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."  Looking back over the course of their lives (measuring the course), people often recognize that certain dreams they've had that have not been fulfilled, making this the most common regret of the dying.  And, as we learned when my dad got sick, by the time a person realizes that he needs to hurry to try to realize those remaining dreams, his health (and sometimes other obstacles) often restricts those goals from being attainable.

"I wish I didn't work so hard." Ware says that this was a regret shared by every male patient she cared for (and some of the women too).  What they wished they had done instead of staying late at the office so many times was to have gone to their children's ball games or school programs or to have spent more time with their spouse or other loved ones.  

"I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."  Ware says that many people reported that they had suppressed their emotions in order to keep peace with others.  They regretted not having told someone that they were angry with them - or that they loved them.  Sometimes this is a regret that can be addressed in the final stages of life, but many times the years that have passed since the issue began make it impossible to right on down the road.

"I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."  In the midst of our hectic daily lives, it's easy to lose track of people who have meant so much to you and whose impact you may not realize until it's too late.  Again, sometimes when the person who is dying expresses this regret, loved ones from the past can be contacted, but many times it isn't possible.  

"I wish that I had let myself be happier."   The realization that death is near can give a person new perspective on things, and one of the things that is commonly realized is that happiness is a choice.  The clarity that often comes at this stage of life helps people to see the good in their lives much more clearly than they did before.  Other things like material goods no longer seem important.  People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible, but it is not money or status that hold true value for them as they near the finish line - it's love, both given and received.  

200th Entry!

This blog entry marks the 200th note published since this site was started in May of 2011.

In that time, there have been over 15,000 visits to the blog, by people from all over the world.  I think it's fascinating to look at blog statistics and to realize the power of the Internet:

It is so heartwarming to see how Dad's story is carrying on and how his life and his perspective continue to impact people, rippling outward to individuals who didn't know him and to many who don't know me, and the support and the comments that I have received as a result of this blog have meant so much to me, more than I can adequately convey.  In the world of grief, one thing that helps to hold us up is camaraderie, and I will always remember that which has been bestowed onto me and my family.

I've learned a lot from the emotions and the thought processes that go into writing for this blog and from the comments that have come from others who seem to somehow "get it."  Because of the blog, I've gotten feedback from several people whom I knew only casually or whom I knew in a completely different context over the past couple of years, and I've gotten to know several people in a different way than I did before.  

Through this process, I've also realized the value of words.  Words are important, and they can be healing or hurtful, depending on how they are put together and on how they are spoken and how they are heard.  Since my dad's death, I have grown to detest some commonly used wording and to prefer some wording over others for certain things.  As I've mentioned, I hate the term "new normal;" it seems better to me to say "new routine" or "moving forward" instead because I don't think I'll ever see not having my dad here with me as "normal."  As is evident in the majority of the 199 other blog entries, I prefer the term "going on ahead" to "died" or "passed away;" the former just sounds so harsh and so final to me, and the latter sounds so passive, as if he didn't try with all his might to stay here in this world with us for as long as he possibly could.  I don't like to think about dying as a person's losing a battle; I think it's better to say he ended his battle instead of saying he lost his battle with cancer.  The latest perspective in wording that has come to my attention is a question that is often asked of people who are coping with serious illness or those who are grieving: "How are you?"  What I have come to see as more fitting phrasing is "How are you today?" That seems to open the door for a more honest conversation instead of just having the response be "I'm fine" when so often that just isn't true.  It's semantics, I know, but somehow it's become one of the things that I pay much more attention to these days, as part of my current perspective.

One thing that I used to say as a child that I wanted to "be" when I grew up is a writer; as a teenager, I told that to my dad a few times, and each time he said he didn't think it was likely that I would "make a good living" that way.  (It was very important to him that my sisters and I each found a career that would give us job stability and that would allow us to support ourselves.)  I guess it's kind of ironic then that through his illness and through the grief that followed after he went on ahead I have somehow found my way back to writing, and, if he were here today, I would tell him that I am using writing as a way to make a good living, maybe not for profit but for perspective and for therapeutic purposes.

In closing, I'd like to share a quote about grief that I came across in Dean Koontz's book Odd Hours:

Grief can destroy you -- or focus you.  You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone.  Or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it.  But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see it wasn't just a movie and dinner together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill.  It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it.  The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time; you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by the gratitude for what preceeded the loss.  And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.

The Tears That Followed

When I was growing up, my parents used to tell me that even if you have to have a good reason to cry, at some point you need to stop crying and move on - or you risk running out of tears.  I'm not sure if I totally believed them or not, but regardless I have never been much of a crier, until my dad got sick.  Since the time of his diagnosis and even more so since he went on ahead, I have officially become a crier.  And today, I'm here to say that evidently what my parents told me decades ago about running out of tears isn't really true - the tears do not ever dry up.  

On the night my dad went on ahead, when they took his body away, there was a sense of utter bizarreness, almost of an unearthly quality.  It felt like everything was happening in the midst of a fog.  Afterwards, somehow - probably from sheer exhaustion, both physical and emotional - my mom, my sisters, and I all slept for a few hours that night before we had to get up and start planning for the funeral.  Once we had made it through that, we knew we had to make ourselves eat, even though none of us felt like eating, and so we stopped by a pizza place on the way home from the funeral home.  "This is so surreal," I kept thinking, and it really was.  My brother arrived from out of state not long after we got back to my parents' house after lunch, and, after awhile, we resolved to do something instead of sitting around the house crying or in a daze.  

Someone suggested we go to get our nails done at the nail place near where my parents lived, the same place where my mom usually went and where we had taken my dad just after he'd gotten out of rehab, on the day before we'd left to take him to Duke.  

"Was it only six weeks ago that we were here with Dad?" I thought, with tears in my eyes, as we walked into the nail place.  When the woman who worked there and who knew my parents looked up and saw us, she asked, "Where's your dad?"  I couldn't bring myself to say the words "he died," and so I just stood there until my sister Jennifer said, "He didn't make it."  The woman and the other staff members there were very nice; I was grateful that they just expressed their condolences and then moved on to other more casual topics instead of asking for details.

I don't remember much from over the course of the next few days, just bits and pieces and feeling lots of sadness and confusion.  I was grateful that my family was there together and that many of our extended family members and friends had come to the memorial service, but the shroud of despair was so pervasive that it was impossible not to retreat into bouts of stunned silence and driving tears, both at regular intervals.  

It was really tough to leave my parents' house that Sunday; I wasn't sure how I was going to get through walking back into my house, when the last time I was there things were so very different.  I was operating on auto-pilot, I'm sure.  I remember one of my friends from work texting me that Sunday night to express her condolences and to suggest that I take some time off work; no, I told her, it's better if I keep busy.  I couldn't stand the thought of sitting in a quiet house with nothing but my thoughts and my tears.  

Looking back now, I think it's odd that I didn't think I should take any time off from work.  The ten weeks preceeding my dad's death while he was sick and certainly his death itself were the most traumatic experience of my life, and I was exhausted, hurt, and in shock.  So much so that I thought going right back to work was a rational decision.  But, as it turned out, I ended up with two extra days off, and I didn't have to spend them alone, because it snowed enough to warrant two snow days off from school that Monday and Tuesday.  I felt like Dad had sent me a gift, so that I didn't have to go back to work right away and so that I was able to grieve in the comfort of my own home with my kids there with me.  

I have this photo saved on my
computer under "Snow From Dad."

After that, though, I tried to hit the ground running.  I guess I somehow thought it would be back to business as usual, even though nothing felt "normal" at all to me.  In reality, though, I was in a daze much of the time.  The emotional pain, and the physical pain that came along with it, were almost more than I could bear.  The physical effects - the body aches, the back pain, the crazy appetite, the insomnia - were a complete shock to me; I had never heard that those things are part of the grief process, and they all compounded the difficulty of trying to cope with the sadness and the other emotions. 

A far as I can remember, I functioned well enough at work, but it was at a much slower than usual capacity.  Some days it was all I could do to get dressed and drive to work, often while crying, to fake being ok for the duration of the work day, and then to make it back home.  It was as if I was just going through the motions from the time I got out of bed in the morning until the time when I could get back in it in the evening.  At home, for the first time in my life, I let others take care of things like dinner and laundry and paying bills.  I often couldn't sleep at night; I spent a lot of time wishing with all my might that my dad would at least come back to me in a dream, and I was unbelievably tired.  Tired from not sleeping, tired from the grief, tired from crying, and tired from trying to keep it together.  It was beyond my capability to make plans or even very many decisions; I felt like I couldn't think straight or keep track of things, and in some cases I just couldn't make myself care about a lot of things that were going on around me.

If I had to choose one word to describe myself during those first weeks or maybe even months after Dad went on ahead, it would be "depleted." As I had done while my dad was sick, I read about brain cancer; sometimes it made me feel better, but mostly it just made me angry and sad and so I started to read about grief instead.  Eventually, I found my way to a grief counselor, and my sessions with her helped a little in that she told me each time I saw her that what I was feeling was "normal" and in that attending those sessions eventually led me to writing.  Sometimes I still wasn't so sure, though, that I was doing anything right or that I was going to make it through any of the pain, but I just kept plugging away, getting through the days and the nights, one at a time, because that's all I knew to do.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer said that he found there was “a fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain,” and that “sensitivity to human suffering does not stand alone and rootless.” We have all stood over different graves and have had different beliefs as to the fate of our loved ones, but our tears remain a universal constant and need no translation.

Sorrow makes us all children again – destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson