I adore Thanksgiving. Not the history of course, the real history surrounding Thanksgiving is rather bleak, not the warm and fuzzy tale we were told as kids. That is not unlike any other story or lullaby that we had been told as kids, so at least there is consistency. The last two Thanksgiving holidays we have seen our already small family culled by life and hurt feelings. Now there is just three and our holiday feasting has opened up to the vast friend circle that have become such a beacon of strength and support over the last handful of weeks. That is a wonderful thing.
My version of this gluttonous holiday includes a laundry list of being thankful for the benign, overlooked, taken for granted, abstract, and coping mechanisms.
I am thankful for being able to:
Tie my shoes
Accept responsibility for my actions
Trust people
Remain optimistic in very troubling times
Adore the invisible
Be gentle with not so gentle situations
Prioritize
Love unconditionally
Be forgiving
Be unforgiving
Have faith in the human condition
See the good outweigh the bad
Accept the bad
Brush my teeth
Make a mean cabbage roll
Eat healthy and not so healthy
Pay attention to my dreams
Think in a non linear pattern
Make peanut butter cups
Sleep in past 9am
Wake up before dawn
Have faith and confidence in my body
Take a deep breath and step forward
The list could go on and on, I'm sure you have a long list too. As the years trudge on, and the last vestiges of childhood and young adulthood fall off, the focus becomes less on the pinnacle and more on the valley. Open space yields more than the small area of a peak.
Yesterday we did max totals at Crossfit and my back squat total was 115lbs. Eight months ago I couldn't even do a full range squat, let alone with weight. My push press total was a bit disappointing, 65lbs, but again, in May of this year I could barely get the 45lb bar over my head. Progress may seem slow at first, but it is always complete.
I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
It's always too soon
There is so much to say that I find myself unable to say anything, and then almost too much. When I received that frantic call from my mother late that June night I heard in her tone something a child never wants to hear, and I hope to never hear it again. I flew out of bed, threw clothes on, jumped in my truck and sped off to Seton. I saw the Star Flight helicopter before I even reached the hospital. I was parking before he was even unloaded. After checking Tony in with the truncated information that I already knew, the nurses showed me his room. It was still buzzing with activity and I attempted to stay out of the way, but the nurses pushed me in to hold his hand. Tony saw me and through his slurred speech, he said "Erika you didn't have to come all the way up here for me." Ha! You were totally right, I could have just fallen right back to sleep without any trouble at all...... At that point people were still talking stroke, and I was comforting myself with how he could still speak and squeeze my fingers. The hopeful thinking seems all to naive looking back, but you do what you have to do in order to make it through to the next step.
The next two weeks or so played out like a weird dream. The news would get better and then it got so much worse, wash, rinse, repeat. I don't think I have ever wished for things like, brain abscess, stroke, lymphoma, please anything but the devil. But we got the devil and the devil ended up having us by the proverbial balls.
Hindsight is a fickle beast. The news unfolds and the connections are made always a step too slow. We trick ourselves into thinking for split seconds that there could have been something that we could have done, but there really wasn't anything that could have been done. Tony had a full body scan this past February and was all clean. The doctor's were unable to truly pinpoint a primary tumor. In the end, it was an educated guess and our hopes were fueled by the fact that he had no tumors in his lungs, or anywhere else for that matter, just cancer speckled in a few places.
When I texted Tony from NYC on Nov 4th wanting to know the latest from his PET scan, and he texted back that we needed to talk, I really didn't know what awaited me on that other side. Mom and I spoke later in the evening in my hotel room, and 6 to 8 weeks threw me into tears. The connections were made, two and two put together...Tony had been dealing with chemo and an invading army of zombie cells at the same time. Bone marrow absorption, spine, pelvis, everywhere. Then, true to the form of how this drawn out car crash began, the news got so much worse.
He spun out into hallucinations on Nov 11th. Too much too quick, my brother, mother and I braced him into the bed and into ourselves. We spent most of the night awake talking him back into reality, or avoiding a punch to the face, kick to the stomach, terrifying glance meeting our loving gaze. It was the last time he would really be able to talk to us or anyone. By Wed evening he was in a hospital bed. This was not a sinking ship but a flaming jet plane. All of us came to the horrific realization that it wasn't going to get better, it was going to get worse. This was not a Hollywood movie, and he was not going to magically come through and talk to us for an hour. We had to have faith that we have told him what we wanted to tell him, and that he knew how much we loved and appreciated his existence in our lives.
In one week he went from walking and talking and knowing who we were, to not alive. All caused by an aggressive cancer inferno that consumed his life faster than anyone could have ever imagined. So what are we left with now? We are left with a blossom of appreciation so large it cannot be contained in one person's lifetime. We are left with a zealous love of life and an incomplete sadness that will be part of us forever. We are left with evidence of one person's innate ability to transform people and the earth into amazing representations of beauty and peace. This gives us the momentum to place our feet on the ground everyday since and hereafter. I am thankful for so much at this point, that it's hard to gauge whether my tears come from humility or sadness, maybe a little of both. He will be missed by many.
The next two weeks or so played out like a weird dream. The news would get better and then it got so much worse, wash, rinse, repeat. I don't think I have ever wished for things like, brain abscess, stroke, lymphoma, please anything but the devil. But we got the devil and the devil ended up having us by the proverbial balls.
Hindsight is a fickle beast. The news unfolds and the connections are made always a step too slow. We trick ourselves into thinking for split seconds that there could have been something that we could have done, but there really wasn't anything that could have been done. Tony had a full body scan this past February and was all clean. The doctor's were unable to truly pinpoint a primary tumor. In the end, it was an educated guess and our hopes were fueled by the fact that he had no tumors in his lungs, or anywhere else for that matter, just cancer speckled in a few places.
When I texted Tony from NYC on Nov 4th wanting to know the latest from his PET scan, and he texted back that we needed to talk, I really didn't know what awaited me on that other side. Mom and I spoke later in the evening in my hotel room, and 6 to 8 weeks threw me into tears. The connections were made, two and two put together...Tony had been dealing with chemo and an invading army of zombie cells at the same time. Bone marrow absorption, spine, pelvis, everywhere. Then, true to the form of how this drawn out car crash began, the news got so much worse.
He spun out into hallucinations on Nov 11th. Too much too quick, my brother, mother and I braced him into the bed and into ourselves. We spent most of the night awake talking him back into reality, or avoiding a punch to the face, kick to the stomach, terrifying glance meeting our loving gaze. It was the last time he would really be able to talk to us or anyone. By Wed evening he was in a hospital bed. This was not a sinking ship but a flaming jet plane. All of us came to the horrific realization that it wasn't going to get better, it was going to get worse. This was not a Hollywood movie, and he was not going to magically come through and talk to us for an hour. We had to have faith that we have told him what we wanted to tell him, and that he knew how much we loved and appreciated his existence in our lives.
In one week he went from walking and talking and knowing who we were, to not alive. All caused by an aggressive cancer inferno that consumed his life faster than anyone could have ever imagined. So what are we left with now? We are left with a blossom of appreciation so large it cannot be contained in one person's lifetime. We are left with a zealous love of life and an incomplete sadness that will be part of us forever. We are left with evidence of one person's innate ability to transform people and the earth into amazing representations of beauty and peace. This gives us the momentum to place our feet on the ground everyday since and hereafter. I am thankful for so much at this point, that it's hard to gauge whether my tears come from humility or sadness, maybe a little of both. He will be missed by many.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
And just like that, it was over.....
My stepfather passed away on Sunday afternoon. More about that later. For now, a passage that reminds me of Tony....
Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
There is always an end to a rainbow
Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
There is always an end to a rainbow
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