A Changed Form

It’s difficult to know what to do or say or even think on a day like today; how does one mark a milestone that they wish didn’t have to be?

Today marks three years since my dad went on ahead.  Three years – that seems so unbelievable.  There has been so much pain, and mourning, and missing him in that time.  There has been a lot of change, too, some for the better and some, well, probably not so much. 

Here's what I am working on at this point: living - and thinking - so as not to allow cancer or sadness or grief to rob me or my family of anything more.  Because what I have learned in this past year is that it's so important to see the good in the moments, even when the grief makes things look blurry. What I have been working on since I sat in this same place a year ago is finding ways to make sure I don't miss the good, the happy, the important moments, even as much as I miss my dad.

It would be so easy to fall into the habit of viewing things as a misfortune, an unfairness, or even a disaster; one thing I've learned for sure since my dad died is that getting a foothold on perspective doesn't always come naturally - it often takes work and effort.  For me, at this point, there are times when the grief is still really thick, but I can tell that it has changed form. I think so often that Dad would be shocked and probably even more disappointed than touched that there are those of us who are still so much in mourning; I know he would want those of us he loved and cared for to be happy. That thought pushes me to try to do better, to be better, to do my best, just as my dad pushed me to do so when he was physically on this earth.

And so, through effort and dedication, I continue to be transformed as time marches on, and so does my grief. Instead of leading me as it has, the grief mostly seems to accompany me these days, still present but in a changed form.  I find myself sometimes having to reach to feel him around me lately, which brings about a new type of fear and a new form of heartbreak.  I am able to say that I am happy and grateful in the midst of it all, though, even though when the tears and anger come as they still sometimes do, I miss Life for him - and I miss him more than I ever thought possible.

What Grief Can Look and Feel Like

A friend of mine recently lost her father, and she has asked me about what’s “normal” in grief.  Hmmmm.  First, I will say that I am perhaps not the right person to ask that question of, as I am not only unsure about the answer but also because I think that even my speculation about the answer may be more confusing that it is right.  And next I will say that one of the things I do know about grief is that there really isn’t a “normal” to it. 

Through the reaching out of others with whom I have connected through this blog, I have begun to see that, although grief may have some universal similarities to it, it is not experienced in the same way by any two people.  There’s not a right or a wrong way to do it.  Going through the grieving process often seems to make people feel like they are feeling abnormal – but that’s normal, I think.  Grief is just grief, and, in spite of the things it may cause people to do or say or think or feel, it doesn’t mean that the person who is grieving is flawed, or sick, or selfish, or crazy, or depressed. 

 Grief can look like thousand different things, mostly painful and confusing but some inspiring and strengthening, if one chooses to let them be. I think that the idea of death and dying, the difficulty of grasping such a HUGE concept, as well as the questions that come along with it like WHY and WHAT NEXT sometimes makes our brains think things we wouldn’t ordinarily think.  One thing I have learned by putting my story out there publicly is that whatever’s going on in one’s head in the midst of the grief is very likely to be something someone else has/is also thinking or feeling; maybe knowing that will help someone else not feel quite as alone as they walk the road of grief and mourning. 

Lots of times grief feels like walking in a fog, without any direction at all.  It looks like breaking down into tears in the middle of driving to work or making dinner or taking a shower.  It looks like reading the same passage over and over again and then saying “To hell with it” when the words on the page still don’t seem to make sense.  It looks like waking up in the middle of the night and forgetting what has happened just for a second or two, and then remembering and feeling the slam of the sadness all over again.  Sometimes it feels like a force making you want to stay in bed – even if that means missing a meal or a party or work or the entire holiday season.  Sometimes it feels like a force that won't let you sleep - or that fill the sleep that does come with nightmares and sadness.

Grief can make it feel as if the world is spinning, it can make things look fuzzy, and it can make your legs feel heavy like cement and your heart feel broken and raw.  It can make you feel overly bold or brave … or it can make you feel small and terrified, all the time.  It can sometimes make a simple task or decision feel like climbing a mountain.  It can look like staring into space; it can make you feel like you can’t function, and – here’s the brutal truth – it can make you not really care if you can’t.

Grief can look like laughter – or rage – or avoidance – or more tears that you ever thought your body could manufacture.  It can make the world look like a minefield, full of danger.  It can feel like walking into a room full of strangers who have no idea what you’re thinking or feeling or what you’ve been through – and it can also feel like being all alone in a completely empty room, full of only coldness and hard edges and with an echo.  It can feel like holding onto a secret that has been locked away or supporting a boulder so big that it’s incomprehensible to think about ever doing anything besides struggling under its weight.  It can feel like going on a hunt, looking for a glimpse of any good at all in the world, a desperate search and an endless list of questions and worries and fears.

It can look like an endless road, and, in a way, that’s what I think it is, and I think maybe the secret to getting through it is knowing that there is no secret to getting through it. 

My Take On "Standardized Dress" in Schools

I have a friend whose daughter has hot pink hair.  The daughter, a recent high school graduate, is a very talented artist and and will be attending an elite college of art on scholarship this fall.  This is just one of countless examples of the fact that success, in any form, does not correlate with conformity.

I think that everyone needs at least one way to express themselves; without an outlet, it's easy to have anger, sadness, and craziness build up inside us. 

The point of both of these things is this: I am completely opposed to what is now being termed as "standardized dress" in schools.  Uniforms.  Strict dress codes.  Not only do I think that mandating what students wear to school is a waste of time, but I also think there are aspects of a uniform dress policy that can be detrimental to the futures of our children.

I work in the field of special education, and I witness on a daily basis how individuals with special needs and/or differences have to cope with everyday skills and tasks.  Many individuals struggle with motor skills and other things that affect their ability to perform activities of daily living such as dressing; often they or their parents resort to using compensatory strategies such as having the children wear elastic-waist pants, velcro shoes, and shirts with no buttons.  It goes without saying that these children already have to contend with countless barriers and to work extra-hard to be included in many activities about which most of us don't give a second thought.  Advocates of standardized dress policies often say that they will include a loop-hole in their rules that allow students with special needs to be exempt from their directive, but to me it seems that this will only serve to set apart these individuals and to highlight their disabilities even more.  In fact, I'm not sure that such a dispensation doesn't violate the law and the civil rights of students with disabilities who attend a school with such a policy.

In the "con" column in the dress-code discussion, I can say that I have seen a good bit of instructional time lost due to the need for teaching staff to monitor and discipline students with regards to dress code violations.  It goes without saying that teachers need to be, well, teaching, instead of policing - and defending that police work to students, administrators, and parents - over an issue like clothing.

Another "con" that I can clearly see is the lack of opportunity for students to make choices about their apparel; in the majority of situations in which high school students enter after graduation, they will have options for dress and need practice with parental guidance of how to make those selections in a reasonable manner.

One common argument of the pro-dress code group is that the establishment of such levels the playing field between social cliques, but I am left to wonder how that works if students are still left to choose the brand of the clothing they wear (Ralph Lauren vs. Wal-Mart brand of khakis and polo shirts) and the shoes and accessories worn.  Do the pro-dress code people think kids won't notice who drives what car or lives in what house or goes on what vacations?  Do they really think "popular" can be rubbed out?  If so, I wonder if we should take things a step further and abolish extracurricular activities including sports and Student Council - and the giving of grades and class rankings.  In fact, maybe all children should have their hair cut and dyed to look just alike - and plastic surgery on their faces and bodies so that they are all just cookie-cutter versions of the same person.

Another commonly used argument in the "pro" column is that having students wear a uniform serves to keep them safe, as it allows school staff to easily identify an outsider or an intruder on the school grounds.  To that I simply say: as if our enemies are always from the outside - and as if an outsider can't obtain a uniform so that he or she blends right in amongst the student body, while those students are under the supervision of an incautious staff of school employees who have been lulled into a false sense of security.  

I have heard it said that a uniform policy helps students to focus by "cutting down on sexual tension" that may be present in settings without dress code practice.  But we all know girls who have modified a uniform in some way so as to express their individuality - and their sexuality, and honestly I have seen school girls in their school-approved plaid skirts with more skin showing than I would ever allow for a child walking out of my house.

Here's another bit of the battle cry of pro-uniform warriors: A standardized dress policy increases student test scores.  I have yet to see a valid study that shows any truth to this statement.  I would hypothesize that students who have their creativity (and their spirit, in my opinion) trampled impeded would tend to enjoy coming to school and learning less - and would therefore learn less and score lower on tests.  (I'm intentionally leaving out the whole discussion about whether or not the results on standardized tests show actual learning/knowledge/capacity for success here.)  I will go so far as to say that my take on the function of an educational system is to teach students the value of learning, to encourage in them the desire to become lifelong learners, and to give them the tools that will allow them to do so - and none of those things are tied to how they dress.

The weakest point of defense used by dress code advocates, in my opinion, is that having students wear a prescribed wardrobe every day saves time, energy, and/or money.  Again, I haven't seen any true evidence that speaks to this point.  I would think that the initial outlay of money in purchasing the required ensemble would be fairly significant, even if it is purchased at Wal-Mart or Target and even if a family only buys a couple of outfits and launders those frequently.  I have spoken to many parents of children whose schools have uniform mandates, and all of them say their kids have separate wardrobes for after-school/weekend wear; I am not great at math, but I don't see how having two wardrobes (one which may require dry cleaning or ironing, as an added consideration) saves time, energy, or money.

Added to the point above is my concern about the growing trend of what I call "deferred parenting;" by this I mean the increasing expectation of many parents that someone other than themselves will fulfill what was once a basic part of parenting, things like sex ed, driver's ed, religion, safety rules, city-wide curfews - and, yes, dress codes.  I think all of these issues are things that are to be handled within family units.  I am not under the expectation that school officials or anyone else set rules for how my children dress (nor am I willing to let someone else make that ruling) - nor how they believe, act, eat, or anything else, particularly in the case of issues like clothing that have nothing at all to do with the safety of my children or anyone else.

When I say that I oppose schools' having a dress code, I don't mean that I think kids should be allowed to wear (or, in some cases, not to wear) whatever they choose.  I don't think the wearing of vulgar, overly skin-baring, unsafe, or obviously distracting apparel works to anyone's benefit in an educational setting.  What I am against is a requirement that all students (oh, except those with disabilities ... ) dress alike, especially when such an edict is delivered without sufficient evidence that doing so is of benefit to the students and is necessary for productivity to occur.  The world of education is very focused on research and evidence in the principles and strategies we are using, and yet a mandate that is presented to our children on a daily basis is allowed to be put into place without basis.  From my perspective, at the very least there needs to be a two-sided discussion about the true pros and cons of such an adjudication, before the guidelines are made and handed down in a "take this medicine; it's for your own good" type of ruling.

How It Feels

I didn't go into politics - or even business, for that matter - for a reason; one that, if you know me, you probably already know: I do not have a poker face.  I am not at all good at, as they say on Saturday Night Live, strategery.  I don't like office gossip or sneakiness or favorite-playing.  The way I prefer things to be in my work place is when, as my dad used to say, it is what it is - because what else would it be??

Unfortunately for me and for a whole lot of other people who live and/or work in the same school district I do, though, we have been involuntarily drawn into a situation over the past couple of years that has come to involve a lot of the undesirable aforementioned things.

As a result of the citizens of the city voting to give up their school district and the resulting imposed adoption of that system by the county school system, people in my area are talking about budgets and politics and outsourcing and other things that have regrettably become a very large part of the equation in public education.  One thing I haven't heard much talk about in meetings or in the media, though, is how it feels to have been swept into this maelstrom.

This has been the most difficult, most stressful year of my nineteen-year long career with the county school district.  I am proud of the efforts of many of my coworkers as we've entered into what can only accurately be described as a battle.  At times, I've felt sure that I want to do everything in my power to stay with the district, to continue the work I've started, and to try to control what I can in hopes of protecting my coworkers and friends - and ultimately, the students.  But, at other times, increasingly as the actual date of the change approaches, I feel as if I am in danger of going down with the ship.  Like a lot of my coworkers, my health and my personal life - and my overall happiness - have suffered a lot during this past school year because of the impending "merger" - a term, by the way, that really gets to a lot of us on the receiving end of the punches.  To merge means to join forces, to unite, or to team up, and to me that implies that an action is taking place between two roughly equal bodies, a situation which, in my opinion, this is not.  Always a fan of running metaphors, I liken what's going on here to a runner that has dropped out of a race who later asks an accomplished runner if he can train with the better runner.  One of them needs improvement; one doesn't.  One needs help; the other was fine on his own - and, in fact, is likely to be slowed down if the less skilled runner joins him on training runs, even though the faster runner may still be willing to take on the job of coaching the slower one.  It isn't a merger; it's more of an adoption.

In the district of people who did not get a vote in this decision, our leaders and our administrators are scared for their own jobs, for their livelihood actually, and it feels like there's an "every-man-for-himself" mentality that I have never before felt in this job.  Watching the process unfold in slow motion over the course of this school year has felt a bit like Chinese water torture, and in many ways I am glad to see the year come to a close, although I feel a distinct sadness at the same time that my job and this school system - both things that I have loved and have put my heart into since I was 25 years old - will certainly never be the same after end of this school year.  

Everybody knows that educators in this country generally don't make a lot of money.  They don't win Oscars or Pulitzer Prizes or get big raises or promotions or even get much recognition by their bosses or their "customers," unless, of course, a scandal of some sort is featured in the media.  The rewards we get come quietly and often only if we are looking hard for them, but most of us are lucky (and diligent) enough to see them, and we are glad to have this as our chosen career.  We realize that there is no other profession that would allow us to have such a part in shaping the minds of children in this way and to impact their future on such a personal level.  Teaching is about so much more than teaching - and I don't mean politics and jerrymandering and elbow-rubbing; it's about the power of relationships.  It's about the connection that can be made between one person and another person or between a person and a lesson, a link that can only be developed when the learner knows that the teacher cares about him or her.  When a mutual respect has formed between the teacher and the student, that's when the best kind of learning occurs.

But in an environment when educators are scared for their jobs, when school staff members know that they and/or their coworkers and friends may end up on the chopping block at any moment, when program cuts aren't a "maybe" but a "when," it's hard to be positive every day.  It's hard to focus on the lessons that need to be taught - and on the children who are the most important part of the equation.  From either side of the argument about what's fair or who deserves what from the limited funding available in the district now, one thing is for sure: teaching and learning have been hindered, and that doesn't feel good to any of us.

This is mostly a blog about grief and perspective, but I guess it's also about enduring and overcoming life's challenges, and I guess that's what has to be done in this situation as well.

Grief and Ice Chewing

I recently met a woman - someone I'll call Tina* - though a mutual friend.  In the course of conversation, it came to light that Tina's mother had been my boss for many years before her retirement.  I was particularly happy to meet Tina because her mom, about whom I will always think very highly, passed away tragically very soon after she retired, and I had never before had the opportunity to tell anyone in her family how much I appreciated the impact she had had on my life.

I told her how her mom had guided me professionally over the years, and then I told her what I admired about her mom the most, which was her mom's effort and ability to keep track of the details of things going on in the personal lives of her many employees and coworkers.  In a word, it was her kindness that touched me the most over the many years that I knew her - and it was that quality that I remembered and admired about her the most.

Tina told me about the day five years ago when her mom died, the specifics of which I hadn't heard before.  She talked about how hard it was to lose her mom and how she, as an only child, and her dad had grieved the loss differently.  She asked about my parents, and after I told her about my dad's death, we talked more about grief and loss.  As someone who is twice as far ahead as I am on the road of grief, she told me a few things she had come to know, like how the sadness and the pain never go away - but that things do get more tolerable in some ways over time.  

It was comforting to hear what she had to say about the grief process from her perspective and based on her time frame; it reminded me of once many years ago when I went to have my teeth cleaned at the dentist's office and saw a dentist in the practice whom I hadn't met before.  They had gotten a gadget to use during exams that was essentially a tiny camera that allowed them to film what was going on in a patient's mouth and then project the image onto a TV screen for the patient to view.  (Stick with me; I'm getting to the part where this ties in to the conversation detailed above.) The dentist used the camera to show me that I have some tiny cracks in some of my teeth; likely, she told me, the result of crunching ice.  Although she presented that information to me more in the form of a scolding than anything else, for some reason I felt the need to explain to her why I had started the obviously bad habit of ice crunching: to combat the severe heartburn I experienced during my second pregnancy.  "How old is that child now?" she asked me.  I thought she was just making conversation, and I told her my daughter was five.  "Well, that excuse got used up a long time ago," she snarkily informed me.

Needless to say, I did not bond with that particular dentist, and I chose not to be seen by her again.  I felt there were several important pieces of information involved in patient care that she was missing, ranging from general courtesy and compassion to motivation and perspective.  She didn't ask me if I still had issues with heartburn or if I thought the ice-chewing had just become a habit over the years; actually she didn't ask me anything except for the age of my child, which she obviously asked only as a lead-in to the judgment she was all too eager to issue out.  

And that leads me to what I think is my point, and, you'll be glad to know, to how this story ties in to the first one: grief, like ice chewing and lots of other things in life, has its own time frame in every situation, and that's ok.  Each person has his or her own story; each of us has traveled a different road to get to where we are today.  Without having traveled that same exact road, or, at the very least, without having worked to try to understand that person's perspective, another person cannot possibly have the insight or the knowledge - and possibly the right - to stand in judgment of another person.

That's one thing that I've certainly learned over the past couple of years; that, and the lasting impact of kindness.

*Her real name isn't Tina - and her identity probably really isn't a secret if you know me and my work history, but I prefer to use that instead of her actual name to protect her privacy - and since knowing her identity isn't the point of this story.

Memories and Exit Ramps

Traveling along the highway of life with a luggage rack loaded with grief, it often seems there are endless reasons and opportunities for taking an exit ramp, as situations and conversations bring forth memories from previous experiences related to pain and loss.  I try to keep my eyes focused only on the space illuminated by the headlights directly in front of me, but sometimes things on the side of the road or off in the distance catch my eye, and looking at and even following those sightings cannot be avoided. There are lots of things along the way that I didn't think I was going to have to face - some of which I hadn't even be aware before I'd traveled this very road - and, once I was and once I did, that we didn't think I was nearly strong enough to traverse. The triggers that force me to exit for pit stops can come from varying sources - reading about or hearing about someone else with a similar story, being asked for advice related to my own struggle, or even just watching others about whom I care go through a trial like my family has since the time when my dad got sick.

Interestingly, I think, at some of those exits are emotions that are strangely unlike those I felt while I was beginning my own journey down this rough part of the road, in this construction zone of sorts.  I remember the feelings of powerlessness, sadness, confusion, and anger from during that time, but, looking at it at this point through my "things may appear smaller than actual size" rearview mirror, especially if I am able to offer anything at all to someone else from this vantage point, makes me feel strong and useful, ... a Silver Lining I suppose, one that I hope translates into a benefit for someone other than just myself. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been slowed in the right-hand lane as I've watched my friend and her family bring her father to hospice care on Friday two weeks ago and then say goodbye to him on the following Wednesday, the exact time frame that my family had with my dad.  I remember how in my family's situation there was so much to do, an overwhelming amount of things in fact, and then there was nothing.  I know all too well the pain and the helplessness and the feelings of such utter loss and despair that they were feeling as they prepared for the funeral, and I remember how I thought things couldn't get any harder but then how in many ways it seemed like they did after I went home after the memorial service and found my job and other responsibilities waiting for me.  After my dad's illness and his death, it felt like the emptiness, the loneliness, and all the other emotions were something with which I didn't think I could cope or even survive, but somehow I found a way, as I know my friend and others in her family will too.

In addition to having the perspective from inside the rawness of the grief, I now have somewhat of an idea of what it felt like for those around me in those early days of peregrination; it feels like running in place or maybe like being on a scavenger hunt of sorts.  There is so little that can be done to ease the pain of those who have been forced to enter onto this highway; the best I can try to do is just to ease off the gas pedal in my own vehicle to let them merge into my lane, to give them a nod of acknowledgement, to let them know that they are not alone.

"There is a sacredness in tears" ~ Washington Irving

Memories on April Fool's Day

Twenty years ago today, my then-fiance and I went to the County Courthouse during our lunch break and got our marriage license.  We had intentionally planned to get our license that day: I've always loved April Fool's Day - even if I don't have a good idea or an opportunity to pull a prank on someone, I love the idea that I COULD - and also it was the only day that we could coordinate our schedules to make it downtown during business hours before our wedding date less than three weeks later.  

It's a good thing we did it that day, because, as it turned out, on April 2, the next day, my grandmother died.  

My maternal grandmother was the grandparent to whom I was the closest at the time; I saw or tried to see some of myself in her - or I guess I should say I tried to see some of her in me.  Anyway, even though she had been sick for awhile as she struggled through a relapse of breast cancer, I was shocked by the news.  I was grateful that my grandmother had hung on long enough to meet my husband-to-be and to hear about my wedding plans - and most importantly to meet her youngest grandchild, whom she held in her arms not long before she went on ahead, but I was so saddened by the loss that I could hardly put one foot in front of the other.  It was the first death that I had experienced of someone to whom I was close, and I was at a loss of how to even try to cope.  

Needless to say, the next few days were a blur as we made our way to the city where she lived and gathered together as an extended family to pay our respects.  I remember that I didn't think I would be able to sit through the service in the church without bolting for the door because I was afraid my cries would be too loud.  I remember hardly being able to bear the pain of looking at my mom, at my two aunts - one of whom had a two year-old and a two-week-old baby - and most especially at my grandfather, whose sky-blue eyes held such endless sadness that there seemed to be no possibility of ever being able to comfort him.  I remember that I stood with one of my cousins and my fiance long after the rest of the people had gone back to their cars at the cemetery; the funeral director had dismissed us after they'd lowered the casket into the ground, but I just couldn't bring myself to walk away before I'd seen her body buried, one final thing I felt I could do, if not for her than in her honor.  We stood there by the headstones of the other graves around her plot, and I looked for four-leaf clovers while the dirt was placed over her beautiful silver casket, adorned with beautiful tiny daisies.  I remember that I was a little bit comforted by wearing one of my grandmother's sweaters to the funeral; it was the only thing I had of hers besides the opal ring she had given me - "October birthday girl to October birthday girl,"she'd said - when I celebrated my sixteenth birthday.  Years later, I pulled that sweater from the back of my closet and wore it to the funeral of a friend, and in the pocket I found the handkerchief that my dad had given to me at my grandmother's funeral, a reminder of both the tears I had shed and of the love my family shared as we tried to support each other through those rough days.  

I knew my grandmother well enough to know that she would absolutely have wanted "the show to go on," and so, just a couple of weeks after we laid her to rest, my dad walked me down the aisle and I said "I do" to my new husband in front of many of our family and friends, at sunset on the banks of the Mississippi River.  I wore the gerber daisy wrist corsage that was intended for my grandmother during the ceremony; I felt my her absence profoundly that day as I have many days since. 

Wearing the corsage meant for my grandmother

Today, when I think back on that April Fool's Day at the Courthouse, to the days afterwards leading up to the wedding, and to the wedding itself, so many emotions run through me.  I feel lucky, I feel loved, I feel happy for what I have learned and shared and survived.  Twenty years, wow.  Pretty incredible.

My grandfather, at my wedding, just two weeks after he'd lost his wife.
"I'm here for two," he said, and I knew just what he meant.

What I Have Come To Believe - Part 2: A Quest For Patterns and Control

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances. ~Martha Washington

Before my dad got sick, I felt lucky.  I felt happy.  And, like anyone else, I expected that my luck and my happiness would go on and on.  For the record, I still feel lucky, largely in part to the perspective imparted to me by my dad during the first 42 years of my life, and I feel happy overall, despite the bruise of grief and sadness and loss I have felt in my heart since my dad went on ahead.  I don't still think that happiness - or anything else, for that matter - is guaranteed, though, and I have to say that's been a really shitty realization.  Unlike most things about which I think that knowledge is power, this kind of knowledge sucks; it's weakness, doubt, and fear, all rolled up into one.    

I like control.  And on that note, to prove my point, I will even admit - and to all my old slumber party friends - you're welcome; you know it made things much more interesting all those years ago - I pushed the thing around on the Ouija board (I looked it up; it's called a planchette) so it would spell words to form a message. 

But now I know that there is no real control in life and that no one is immune to tragedy.  I guess that's part of growing up, to realize that, but I just feel like I wasn't grown up enough to have to deal with it yet - not that I ever would have been "ready."

Sometimes I try to make myself feel better by trying to make sense of things with the notion that everything happens for a reason, but in reality it's a product that I just can't buy anymore.  I think it's easy to say that things happen for a reason in retrospect, once we've had the time to find what often turns out to be a needle in a haystack; finding some good even in a very bad situation is our way of trying to survive emotionally, like putting a band-aid on a skinned knee with the intent of making some of the pain go away and hoping that the wound will heal with as little scarring as possible.  

When something bad happens to us, we want to know: who or what is to blame?  It seems like there should always be someone or something that caused it, as I've said before, some cause-and-effect relationship to everything that happens in life. But, what if, as often happens, there ends up being nobody and nothing to blame?  What if there is no explanation for what happened?  That's really something that seems impossible to reconcile in the aftermath of tragedy.

Personally, I don't believe my dad was "chosen" to have brain cancer - what kind of reward would that be??  I think that, like the majority of other tragedies and diseases out there that befall other innocent people, it just happened, and my family got through it the best we could figure out how to, based on our skill sets and our perspectives, both of which (especially the latter) we had in large part due to my dad.

I think it's human nature to try to organize things - not necessarily physical things, but intangibles and events in our minds, in an attempt to make sense of them and to find a pattern of some sort, which can be a source of comfort and give one a feeling of control, of being able to predict what's coming next.  One way that we attempt to do that is with the use of platitudes like "Live life to the fullest" or "Live each day as if it were your last."  

For the record, I hate the expression "Live life to the fullest." It angers me because I find it senseless: what does that even mean?  What are our other options - living to the quarter (quarterest?) or to the half (halfest?)??  If I sleep late every weekend or don't work my ass off to get that next promotion at work, am I not living life to the fullest?  And about living as if there were no tomorrow - does that mean I don't have to pay my electric bill or my taxes or watch my weight or weed my flower beds?

Another common way that we try to establish a pattern or even just attempt to ease our minds a little when something bad happens is by looking for things within a bad situation that we can label as Silver Linings.  Lately, I've been wondering if maybe the whole Silver Lining concept isn't just a crock, though.  I wonder if there is any research out there that shows that humans are genetically programmed to look for that in every situation.  I wonder if Silver Linings are just over-optimism or fluff, especially when I stop to consider the fact that in pretty much any given calamity, the people involved would be far better off not having had to endure the situation and not being left with whatever is being touted as a Silver Lining than they are with the tragic event and the Silver Lining.  Is using a "it could always be worse" type of Viewfinder to examine difficult situations just a way of using the tragedies of others as reflections of our own "luck" or as a way of ranking which rung we are on on the Ladder of Good Fortune? Is this obviously skewed logic necessary to survive?  Sometimes, for me at least, it's hard to get past the opposite of at least.

Here's a story about a man with brain cancer who says he feels lucky to have been not just able to finish but to win a marathon after having pushed his young daughter in a stroller the whole way:

BRAIN CANCER PATIENT WINS GUSHER MARATHON

To be honest, when I first read this article, I thought, "It's so unfair that this guy got to keep running after his diagnosis when my dad didn't; he's so lucky to have been able to keep doing what he obviously loves for at least long enough to accomplish this feat!"  But then I thought: Is he lucky?  Is it fortunate for him that at least he got to do one big thing on his bucket list?  I guess so - if he thinks it is.  But technically it would be luckier if he didn't have terminal cancer - and I'm sure that he would trade that marathon win for a clean bill of health in a split second.

Sometimes, what it comes down to is in the face of disaster is not how you got there or how you got through it but what you can pull out if the experience. What you choose to decipher and to take away from what you went through.  The perspective that you allow yourself to be given, so to speak. 

As I learned from Dad long before he got sick, it isn't what happens, it's what one's attitude about and one's reaction to what happens that  we can control.

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than the facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, the circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past ... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convince that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our attitudes."  ~Charles R. Swindoll