It’s OK Not To Be OK

So I don’t know about you but I’m not okay, not by a long stretch. 

We are living in a scary world. We see a world with 2 serious conflicts going on that we as a country have become deeply invested in on many levels. We are witness to disrespect and profanity and insults from people on not only a daily but sometimes an hourly basis. This week we saw a Senator stand up and threaten to fight a witness and one basketball player put another in a chokehold during a nationally televised game. We see too many people being killed in mass shootings and nothing ever changes because we protect guns more than we protect the rights of women to make their own medical decisions. 

We are bombarded with social media so toxic and so harmful that it’s neither good for our psyche, our soul, our physical health, or our mental health. We are seeing a rise in hate speech and violence targeted against people’s religions, sexual orientation, or belief systems. We wake up thinking today might be better than yesterday and then go to bed disheartened because today was a toxic rerun of yesterday. We have accepted as normal the way people act, speak, or write no matter how awful or offensive or dishonest it is. There are days when I think about giving up because what can one person accomplish.

What if we decided that not being okay is not good enough. That accepting the state of our world – whether it be within your extended family or your town or your state or most importantly our country – is not acceptable. That we can and we should push back and not default to thinking that more of the same is inevitable. Because up until recently it wasn’t inevitable.

In the best of times, life can be hard. But we’re not in the best of times any more and life has definitely gotten harder. We became numb to the rhetoric used by people because it happened so often that it didn’t seem to shock anymore. We became so isolated and disassociated from others during the pandemic that it seems – at least for me – that it’s baby steps to try and get back to normal socialization. 

But still . . . I have hope because I have seen examples of it in ways that make me believe that the power of ordinary people can overcome the bullies, the autocrats, the liars, the cheaters, the overall bad people in the world.

This week my great kid was very upset by a position taken by a local politician, someone on whose campaign he had worked last year. Upset enough that he called that person’s office to lodge a complaint. The person who answered the phone listened, took his name and number, and thanked him. He thought that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. A few days later he got a callback from someone higher up the chain on the politician’s staff, a person who engaged with him, listened, respected his opinion, and said they’d pass it on. Whether or not it will make a difference, neither he nor I know but what matters is that he did something to try and right a perceived wrong.

I was witness to a group of women rallying full force around someone we all love and care about who was going through a tough time through no fault of her own. Suggestions were offered, comfort was shared, support was loud and long, and it made me proud to know and optimistic to believe that when one of us struggles, our fellow humans lift us up and nudge us forward. It made me grateful to remember that no one is alone on this journey of life.

One of the great – maybe the greatest – life lesson my darling Mom taught me is that kindness costs nothing and people appreciate it. Your compliment to someone today may mean more to them than you’ll ever know and may be just the life preserver that they needed to push on. I still remember kindnesses paid to me when I was a child, a teenager, an adult, a single parent, a person recovering from a life-threatening illness. Your one act of kindness can be the bookmark in the before and after chapter of someone’s life.

Yes, the world is awful right now but all change begins with good and kind and responsible people saying that something is not acceptable and needs to be changed. We can chip away at this mountain of hatred, distrust, bigotry, and entitlement that is out there on our horizon. Don’t give up, please. Push and push and then push back where it’s needed. There are far more good people around than we see but, unfortunately, it is the loudmouths, the bullies, the liars, and the cheats that tend to suck up all the oxygen in the room. We can, we should, we must be the stronger voice so that we can leave this world we so temporarily call home to our children and grandchildren with the knowledge that it is a safer, kinder, better place than we found it. And if we do that, maybe tomorrow things will be okay again.

Someone That I Used To Know

So I may be way behind the digital times but I just recently learned about the practice of “ghosting” someone. According to the Oxford Dictionary, ghosting is the practice of ending any type of personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication. If it sounds harsh, it is. If it sounds cowardly, I think it is. If it sounds like something that’s happened to you, it probably did.

I may not always stand up for myself and I may not always defend myself and those are not traits I’m particularly fond of. But – based on a lot of past experiences, both with friends, family, and co-workers – I have become over the years a person who avoids confrontation at all costs. When someone starts raising their volume with me, I just shut down because you can’t reason with someone whose volume is set to 11 (and I owe that reference to This Is Spinal Tap where the great Christopher Guest explains to someone that their amplifiers go to 11 – instead of the standard 10 – because 11 is “one louder, isn’t it”?). I’m a “less is more” kind of girl when it comes to arguing with someone because arguing has almost never gotten me anywhere. Besides how can you argue with someone who doesn’t tell you why they’ve changed how they feel about you.

Within the past year 2 separate people have stopped communicating with me for reasons never verbalized but which I can guess at. One of those relationships is quite a long one and when I challenged something this person did, a decision that affected me and which I felt should have been discussed with me first, I was frozen out by this person. It cut me to the quick and although I didn’t believe I was unreasonable or needed to apologize, I did privately to no avail. This person – who I still am very fond of despite all that has happened – has very strong opinions on almost everything and doesn’t seem to see that there are multiple shades of gray that fall between black and white. It still hurts and it probably always will but I did what I did for a reason, I apologized when the person took offense, and I will live with – but never truly accept – the schism that has fractured our relationship.

The second person just drifted away from me silently and over a period of time. This was a person who although I had not known them as long as my first friend, I had become in my mind particularly close to and had shared secrets, dreams, thoughts, fears with over the course of our conversations. This one hurt as much as the first ghosting did because I had put my vulnerabilities out there and there they remain, with a person who can’t or won’t invest any more time in our friendship.

When I was a girl in grammar school, I became a member of the Girl Scouts. That wonderful organization empowered so many of my friends and me to learn new skills, help our communities and embrace our friendships with other girls. The motto of the Girl Scouts is “I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others.” I like to think I have – for the most part – lived up to that code my entire life, not only because I was taught it in the Girl Scouts but because my parents instilled those values in my sisters and me as we grew up. I’ve tried to do my best to be honest, to be considerate and caring, to be courageous and strong (although I still need to work on that every day) and to respect myself.

When you’ve done all you can to fix a broken relationship, eventually you come to the realization that all you can do may never be enough. You can’t read someone else’s mind and know why they did what they did and that’s OK. I know what’s in my mind and my heart and my soul and that I’ve done the best I can to honor, love, cherish and respect all my many friendships over the years. Sometimes friends drift away because of life changes, sometimes friends leave you because your paths have diverged, sometimes friends are there only when they’re meant to be there. You have to accept that. But it’s harder to accept when someone leaves you without an explanation. Like Stephen Sondheim wrote in his great song “No One Is Alone”:

Sometimes people leave you
Halfway through the wood
Others may deceive you
You decide what’s good
You decide alone
But no one is alone

I may never know why what happened did happen but to all of you who have been and remain my friends, my confidants, my cherished persons, please know that because of you I know that no one is alone.

You Can Leave Your Hat On

So I was laid low a few weekends ago by some crazy illness and needed to just empty my mind and watch something good. I didn’t want to be lectured, I didn’t want to be talked down to, I didn’t want a laugh track, I didn’t want politics. I just wanted to be entertained and my staple fallback show – Dateline – was not doing it for me.

I started scrolling through the myriad of the streaming channels we have and found that – 25 years after the movie was released to wide acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture – The Full Monty had been turned into an 8-part miniseries. (If you haven’t seen the movie or forgotten the ending, the cast strips at a club while dancing to Tom Jones’ version of “You Can Leave Your Hat On”). All of the original 6 steelworker/strippers are back and each is very much the same but also very different. They’ve all had setbacks, they all have dreams unrealized, they all have opinions on how the government in England is doing them and those they love wrong.

But as I got into the series (and I binge watched all 8 episodes in a two-day period) I was struck by the humanity and the honesty in their language and sentiments. They believed in what they believed in, wholeheartedly, and didn’t take no for an answer. They spoke plainly and openly, realizing that as we age we have less and less time for being politically correct or too discreet in our conversations with those we love, our friends, our colleagues, and even our employers.

At this point in my life – and the life of many of my friends and family – we are at an age where our mortality faces us every morning we are blessed to wake up to. There is more of our life behind than ahead and I like to think that spurs us on to be honest, maybe more honest than we have ever been.

For me I have had a challenge in sharing my honesty with others because of how it has been met in the past. I have friends who’ll say anything, whether it’s in person or online, and who are quite certain that their truth should be everyone’s truth. It’s a black and white world for them. I admire their belief in themselves although you and I know that our world is much more various shades of gray. There are very few “I’m right and you’re wrong” issues in our world (although when it comes to knowing that candy corn is the worst candy in the world, I’m 100% right).

And I know lots of people (myself included many times) who don’t engage with others or who don’t express their truth or opinions because we don’t want to get into a debate or an argument. It’s exhausting and does anyone really believe you can change someone else’s mind on any issue by pushing them with your beliefs? Our minds – for the most part – have been made up for a long time by being influenced by our parents, our classmates, our community, our friends, our religion, the media we consume.

I often think how very lucky I am to have been born in the greatest city in the world and to have been exposed to so many different cultures and beliefs, all of which have molded me into the person I am today. But if I had been born somewhere else, another country, another state, another city, my life and my belief system would likely have been very different. We’re all hardwired, I believe, about certain beliefs and values we embrace but we also evolve into the person we ultimately become because of what types of dialogues and media and schooling and product advertising and religious education and rules and culture we were exposed to during our formative years.

There is very little about my life now that I would like to change but I would like to continue to grow and learn and embrace new things as long as I am blessed to be on this earth. A few years ago – within a matter of weeks – 2 separate people told me that they had seen how much I had changed in a positive way after going through a truly tough and long period of not-the-best of times. It was very life affirming to hear that because we all are always changing or at least always trying to change but it is so incremental that we almost cannot see it in ourselves as it happens. But when someone else notices? That’s just golden.

So my heartfelt thanks to the steelworker/strippers in The Full Monty series who reminded me again that nothing is forever, life is not static, the sun will come up tomorrow no matter how bad today was, and believing in oneself is not only unselfish, it’s totally necessary. Because – as RuPaul has reminded us more than once – “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love someone else?” The Full Monty guys loved themselves and embraced the lyrics of their signature song: “Heaven is the reason to live and you can leave your hat on”.

Stop Hugging The Cactus

So I recently saw a video where Robert Downey, Jr. was on stage accepting some award presented to him by Mel Gibson. He told the story of how when he was truly down on his luck – before he became Iron Man and the center of the Marvel Multiverse – after having been arrested multiple times for drugs. He didn’t have a home, he didn’t have anyone to turn to, he was in the grips of alcoholism, and he said some days he didn’t even have enough to eat. And Mel Gibson reached out to him, gave him a place to stay, cast him in a movie as the lead (Air America), and gave him suggestions on how to move forward with his life.

Some of the best pieces of advice Gibson gave him were that he needed to find a higher power, be honest with himself and those he had hurt, embrace his humility and stop hugging the cactus.

I had never heard that phrase before so I tried to find out what it meant. So many of eventually become brave enough and strong enough to confront our problems or issues for the purpose of moving on from them. Far too often we cannot forgive ourselves during this journey and we cling to our guilt and our shame because that is what we have conditioned ourselves to do. But by doing that we are actually hurting ourselves just as hugging a cactus would hurt us.

Letting go of the past, realizing it will not define us if we don’t let it do that, moving forward towards new choices, new options, new opportunities lets us stop hugging the cactus.

When I had a life-threatening illness last year and – by the grace of God and the skill and talents of so many medical personnel and the love and support of my great kid and my sister – I came out of it really sad and confused and angry. My life as I knew it had changed forever and for a while I clung to that and raged at the fact that I had no control over what had happened to me, nor did I know how it had happened. I would always be dependent on others for things in my new future and this was truly tough for me to accept. I had lived so long on my own and had done pretty well navigating life’s ups and downs by myself. But now I needed help with some of the very basic things in my life. It made me feel helpless and angry and discouraged. I kept asking God why He had saved me if this was how my life would now be.

It took time, of course, for me to stop hugging that cactus and realize that while I might need some help, I was not helpless. I became motivated to talk through my fears with a professional. I embraced my sometimes painful and always challenging physical and occupational therapy and slowly, ever so slowly I started to get a little better. Things I had not been able to do a few months before were now getting easier to do on my own.

I started being more honest with myself about what I wanted from my future – more time, more peace of heart, less drama, more gratitude – and how I could accomplish those things. I now had a focus, a goal to work towards. I became more positive in my outlook and instead of bemoaning my fate I began to appreciate the second chance I had been granted and the love and caring that had been shown to me. I embraced being optimistic. I said “thank you” more for things great and small. I talked to strangers that I met. I started re-reading my favorite books (The Wind In The Willows will never get old for me) and re-watching my favorite movies (To Kill a Mockingbird still gets me with its goodness every time and Before Sunset leaves me with optimism that there is still love out there waiting to find me). I forgave those who had wronged me (although forgetting is still something I’m working on) and I asked forgiveness for those I may have wronged.

I’m not the person I was before I became sick and I’m not even the person I was a month ago, a week ago, yesterday. Yes, I have setbacks and times when I see that cactus in my rear view mirror trying to get me to hug it again. But I won’t. Life is precious and not worth focusing on the past and the things you cannot change. My life is pretty darn good now since I stopped hugging the cactus and started remembering that the lyrics of one of my favorite songs are a good reminder of how to live each day joyfully, prayerfully and as if it were your last.

“I see a new horizon . . . my life has only begun . . . beyond the blue horizon lies a rising sun”.

Moments

So I was watching a very old interview today done with Jimmy Stewart and he was talking about how his favorite film he made was “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The movie was not successful at all when it was released and he felt that after that movie, in which he played a romantic family man, his career choices became pigeonholed into the same types of characters. He didn’t think the studios believed he could ever be anything more than that.

He was wrong, of course, and continued to speak about how very important that movie was to him. When he received a draft of the original script, he read the scene where he prays at the bridge where he had once considered ending his life. The dialogue read “Clarence! Clarence! Help me, Clarence. Get me back. Get me back. I don’t care what happens to me. Get me back to my wife and kids. Help me Clarence, please! Please! I want to live again. I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again.”

And as he was describing the scene he said it was a true moment of recognition, of longing for what you thought you had lost, of wanting to fix what had been broken. He got choked up just talking about that moment and then said he felt the same emotions when he filmed the scene and was feeling them again as he was describing it to the reporter. Those moments were life-changing for him.

And it got me to thinking that as we age and our memories start to fade, as we sit down to dinner and can’t remember what we had for breakfast, as we start to tell a story and then lose the thread of it, it really doesn’t matter. What matters and what we always remember are the moments. Those sometimes glorious, sometimes terrible moments that have been been sprinkled through our lives.

Aren’t we lucky that our bodies, our brains and (in my humble opinion) our God let us store those moments in our hearts and minds to be cherished and remembered whenever we need to. We all have our own moments if we truly think about it. I remember the day my great kid showed me his first tattoo. It was on his left forearm and said “E + V = E” which meant Eileen and Vinnie, my wonderful parents, had created me. He said he got that tattoo so he would always carry all 3 of us with him every moment of every day.

I remember a moment a few months after my darling Dad passed away. I was angry that I hadn’t gotten a sign from him when everyone else in my family had. I went away for a week or so to try and heal and I was enormously blessed when my beautiful friend, Josh, came to visit me and sat with me on a bench in a garden for almost 2 hours, holding my hand and listening to me talk and hugging me when I cried. That moment he manifested for me resulted in me finally having a sign from my Dad in my dreams that very night. That happened a dozen years ago and there’s not a day I don’t think about it and the gift Josh gave me.

I don’t remember much at all about my dreadful sickness this year but the moment that changed everything was when my great kid’s voice called out to me – as he had been calling out to me for nearly a week – and I finally heard it in my heart of hearts and opened my eyes. He kept saying “Mommy, come back to me” and his words from the person I love more than anyone on this earth saved me.

When my Mom would somehow imagine I was upset with her or that I had run an errand because I needed to get away from her – none of which was ever true – she would write me a note and leave it on my pillow, thanking me for everything I did for her. And when she saw me reading it, she’d come in and take my hand and kiss it and tell me she loved me. What I wouldn’t give for one more moment with her like that.

I have so many other moments, as I’m sure you all do, that are the snapshots of your life. What I know now is that I’m meant to embrace those many moments I have been blessed with and if I forget the rest, if the hours blur into days and the days into weeks, it doesn’t matter. I have lived a great life surrounded by so many good and kind people who I hope know how much they have lifted me up on angel wings and kept me going when I didn’t think I could take another step.

Make more moments and celebrate the ones you already have. As Clarence the Angel told Jimmy Stewart, “You see, George. You really have had a wonderful life”. And I have.

Are We the Pebble or the Ripple?

So as it gets closer to the end of the year I’ve been trying to take stock and look back and look forward at the same time. And one of the things that I’ve really been thinking of is that what we say, what we do and what we share – both in-person or through social media – can be either the pebble or the ripple. I’ve been both this year, sometimes successfully as the pebble and sometimes not as successfully by being the ripple.

If we’re the pebble, we need to think very, very carefully about our actions and what they’ll mean and maybe even what the fallout will be when we throw our pebble into the lake. And if by chance we’re the ripple and are affected by someone tossing their pebble into the lake, the effect of that on our feelings and our lives might be great but might even be painstaking and heartbreaking.

Sometimes we can be so single-minded that we fail to remember that nothing we do ever exists in a vacuum. You either can make someone’s day by your simple gesture or you can break someone’s heart by your actions. We’re all at the mercy of things and actions we didn’t cause and cannot control.

A few years back I decided that at this point in my life with far more years behind me than ahead of me, I was going to try and compliment or say something really nice to 3 people every day. I was inspired by my Mom, who I’m missing desperately this time of year. She was the most positive person I have ever been blessed to know.

During the last 2 years of her life when she became ill, every night when she went to bed she’d tell me she loved me and say “thank you for everything you do for me”. And I would invariably tear up because how would I possibly not do everything I could for the woman who sacrificed so much for me, who made something magical every day out of nothing, who did without so my sisters and I could have what we needed. She was my pebble and to this day I still am the ripple who marvels at how she continues to be my role model and example of a decent, kind, loving woman.

She taught me to think about what you say and do before you say or do anything. She reminded me that everything we put out into the world, whether it’s words or actions, will affect and maybe even change another person. She said that using our words and actions carries a great responsibility with it and to think before you say or do anything. She would point out that we needed to think how it would feel if we were on the receiving end and factor that in to what we said and did.

I may not always succeed when I choose to be the pebble and do or say things that have the potential to affect others but I’m really trying. I’ve slipped up a few times this year and said or written things that – if I had a do over – I wouldn’t do again. But overall I think – and I hope – that my pebble has provided positive and uplifting ripples to those it affected.

I almost lost my life this year and I’ve spoken of how I had an out-of-body experience where my parents and my sister and my great kid told me it wasn’t my time to leave this world. Since that time and since I’ve been on my continuing road to recovery I’ve tried extra hard to say thank you for even the smallest word or gesture, to write someone a note or e-mail or to call them to let them know I’m thinking of them, to be ever so grateful for all of my many blessings, to remember to be someone’s solution and not the problem.

For the most part when someone’s actions – their pebble – have affected me, it has been a very positive experience. But when it hasn’t, when what has been said or done has hurt me or made me upset, I have chosen to try and not hold on to it. I try to send positive energy back to that person in the hopes that it will help them because – like Alexander – we all have had terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days and sometimes we do things in haste instead of taking a minute to think how will this affect others.

How the positive energy is received is not up to me but I hold no grudges and only wish people well. Life is too short as I have learned the hard way this year and I want people to remember me as someone who threw a pebble with the hopes that its ripple will be a positive experience for those it affects. What we all do affects each other in ways great and small. And, at least for me, that’s a pretty good takeaway for 2022.

Silence Isn’t Empty. Silence Is Full.

So last week we learned about the death of Stephen tWitch Boss. At first it was just reported as a sudden death but as the day went on it became clear that he had taken his own life, a life that appeared full from the outside. A wife, 3 children, a smile that could light up a room, a talented dancer and choreographer. A person who seemed to have it all. But something was wrong, something so terrible and unbearable that he chose to leave this world.

I didn’t really know much about him before his passing but from what I’ve read he was a joyous person who brought so much happiness to the world. He posted videos of he and his wife dancing. He shared a video the day before he died of himself laughing. You would look at that video and never even think that he was anything but a happy and content man.

I was reading comments about his passing and how much sadness it brought to people. And how we all were reminded that someone can appear happy but are carrying around such a burden that they feel they cannot share. Someone on Instagram posted the comment “Silence isn’t empty. Silence is full”. And that short summary really resonated with me.

How often do we ask our friends, our family, our co-workers, our neighbors “how are you”? I do it all the time and I usually get the response “I’m fine”. But how do I know, how do any of us know that the people we love and respect and see all the time are in pain, are struggling, are desperate, are lonely, are just feeling alone in this world.

From what I’ve continued to read and hear on social media, the death of tWitch seems to really have gotten people to recognize that we need to be checking in on each other, particularly at this time of year. Christmas and the holidays are not happy times for many of us. We miss loved ones, we don’t feel like celebrating, we’re put off by the commercialization of Christmas. But we still act like everything is OK.

We have to stop that. We have to be brave enough to reach out to people and tell them that you need a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on or just have them check in on you. It doesn’t take much to reach out to people by text or phone or in person if you can and share what we keep hidden.

A few years ago I wrote a blog after Robin Williams took his own life and the words I wrote then were about pretending to be OK when what we really need is to know we’re not alone, that there is help out there if we are brave enough to ask for it. And that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. Quite the contrary. It shows how strong you are to know that you need someone or something to help carry your burden.

I hope that this awful tragedy of tWitch’s death can serve as a wake-up call to all of us. This world can be a terrible place and no one needs to go through it alone. There is a great deal we can learn from someone’s silence. A person who doesn’t feel that they can break their silence and share their truth should not be alone. No one is an island. We can lift each other up. We have to lift each other up.

The Bible tells us from the very beginning story of Cain and Abel that we are our brothers’ keepers. I pray that we can remember that. I thank everyone who has ever lifted me up in prayer, who sat with me when I needed to talk, who hugged me when I needed that human connection. And I’m here for anyone who wants to talk. When I ask you “how are you?”, please please tell me your truth and let me be a person who walks beside you on your journey and hopefully helps you (as I have been helped) have peace in your heart.

Out Here On My Own

“Sometimes I wonder where I’ve been. Who I am? Do I fit in?”

So when I heard a few days ago that the great Irene Cara had passed away far too young, the first song I thought of was Out Here On My Own. If you’ve never seen her sing it in Fame, please find it and watch it. You can feel her pain and longing and frustration all throughout her singing this song.

I’ve always been a person who has never really fit in where I’m supposed to or where others think I’m supposed to. I’m more comfortable being alone than I am being in large groups of people. I haven’t – until fairly recently – stood up for myself when others were unkind or disrespectful to me or challenged my ability to do what I knew was best for me. I have always communicated better in writing than I have in conversations. I internalize too much. I don’t like to ask for help. I cry alone because I don’t like to let others know I am feeling pain or sadness or just loneliness. I was never the popular girl in school, never part of the “in crowd”. I didn’t value myself enough, didn’t listen to that little voice that was telling me not to do something, didn’t think what I felt mattered.

I was very lucky growing up to have my parents recognize this in me and not try to push me past my boundaries. My parents and my sisters had bigger and sometimes flashier personalities than me and it was easier to live in the background than to try and be the one who got noticed. And I was okay with that because their joy and exuberance at being out there and ever present was wonderful and I felt – and still feel – blessed to be part of that family.

I’ve made choices, some good, many bad, particularly when it comes to men (and sometimes friends). I’ve learned that some people are intimidated or surprised when you suddenly stand up for yourself and that can and sometimes does redefine that relationship in a way that may not work for you or them any longer. But I’ve also learned that that’s okay. I’ve found that my instincts are not always great but instead of dismissing them as I’ve done too often in the past I now listen to that little voice in my head, the angel on my shoulder. It it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it and don’t let anyone talk you into doing it. I think it’s called growing up and as Lizzo would say, it’s about damn time.

Recently I’ve been watching far too many Hallmark Christmas movies and there’s a recurring series of ones called Godwinks. According to lore, a Godwink is a sign from God, a series of too many coincidences placed in your path for you to ignore. A moment in time when you need to listen to your heart instead of your logic.

Originally I thought it was just a lot of nonsense but I realize that a few chosen people have been there for me just when I needed them the most, or even when I didn’t know I needed them at all. The randomness of it is maybe not so random after all. Maybe there is something to being on a path that crosses with someone else’s path at the right time. Maybe, just maybe I have been on someone’s path when they needed me; I’d like to think so.

So to the people who have made me believe in myself, who have loved me when I didn’t love myself, who have challenged me to kick butt and take no prisoners, who have encouraged me to speak up, who have taught me that self-care is not being selfish, who through their actions both great and small have made me better, stronger, kinder, braver – thank you. Some of you are still here, some have left this world but all of you have been my best teachers.

And as Irene Cara sang in Out Here On My Own, “when I’m down and feeling blue, I close my eyes so I can be with you”.

Thank you for letting me close my eyes and be with you. It mattered, it matters, it always will matter.

The Blame Game

So when did we become a society, a country, a random group of people roaming the earth where fewer of us are willing to take or accept or embrace blame? When I grew up, my parents instilled in me the lesson that it is your responsibility to own up to what you did even if you knew that the consequences could be less than pleasant. We were told that it is neither right nor ethical to point the finger of blame at someone else just because that may be easier to do. Lying about your actions was a sin (the 9th commandment as I recall) and even worse of a sin if your parents or teachers found out about it.

But I think – and this is not a justification in any way – that we lived in a simpler time back then, a time when almost everything was black or white. You knew what was right and what wasn’t. You followed rules because they were set in place to keep you safe, out of trouble and on the right path. Before you went to Mass on Sunday, you went to confession on Saturday afternoon and told the priest what you’d done wrong the previous week and – unless you had done something extraordinarily heinous – you were forgiven and told to say 5 Hail Mary prayers. You left the confessional with a clean slate and a promise made to the priest that you’d do better the upcoming week. And we all probably gave that a pretty good shot.

But now our world is colored with various shades of grey and nothing seems to be as obviously right or wrong as it once was. And too many people – many of them politicians and talking heads – will never admit or accept blame. Maybe it’s because they think it will make them appear weak. Maybe it’s because their advisors or friends or lackeys convince them that saying nothing is far less dangerous than telling the truth. Maybe it’s because they just can’t see that being right is never going to be important as being honest or admitting you’re only human and may not know the answer to everything. And maybe it’s because they’re just not good people. I don’t have an answer to it; I wish I did.

One year when I was in grammar school our teacher tried a little experiment. One of our grades was going to be in conduct and – rather than marking us based on her perceptions of our behavior – she told us that if we’d talked in class when we were not supposed to or copied someone’s homework or looked over someone’s shoulder for an answer during a test, she wanted us to self-monitor and self-report. At the end of each school day, she asked if anyone had any reason to stand up because they hadn’t followed all the rules. And I stood up (a lot apparently) because most days I probably had whispered to someone when I was supposed to be paying attention. I was proud of myself for doing the right thing. Until I got that quarter’s report card.

I’d been given a “U” for unsatisfactory in conduct, the first time that had ever happened in my storied (in my eyes) time at my Catholic grammar school. And to add insult to injury, my mom was a teacher at the same school so when I was given my report card it came with a little note saying something like “go show this to your mother”. (As a side note, it turned out I was the only one in the entire class who got a “U” even though I am quite certain that there were plenty of other students who talked far more often and misbehaved far more frequently than I did. They just didn’t own up to it as much as I did.)

So off I went, like a woman heading to the gallows, to my mother’s classroom and after taking a deep breath knocked on her door and gave her a little wave to come out. She did and I handed her the report card and burst into tears. She looked at it and gave me a hug and said “Did you deserve this grade?” I told her I did but that I was upset that being honest had ruined my perfect conduct record. And my mother, God bless her, said that she was proud of me for doing the right thing, that she was not mad at me, and that I should learn my lesson, behave myself, and not let it happen again. I was relieved and grateful that she placed the emphasis on me accepting responsibility for my actions and not on my shortcomings in the oh-so-important area of conduct.

I had almost forgotten that this happened when I found the report card with the “U” on it amongst my mother’s things after she passed away. She only kept 2 of my report cards – my kindergarten one and this one with the scarlet letter. And I took that as a sign that all those many years later she was still proud of me for being honest and accepting responsibility instead of trying to blame the teacher for her experiment or the other students for not owning up to their misbehavior.

To this day I still try to accept blame if I’ve wronged someone or hurt someone’s feelings with an ill-chosen comment or made a mistake at work. Sorry is not a four-letter word and saying it doesn’t make you weaker. I really and truly believe it makes you stronger and gives you compassion when someone else makes a mistake and has to come clean about it. There’s not a single one amongst us who doesn’t make an error in judgment, screw something up, hurt someone’s feelings or says something that isn’t true. Most of these things are relatively minor and don’t and won’t change the world. But most of us aren’t politicians or leaders or church members who have a far greater audience than we do and who have, I believe, a far greater responsibility to “man up” for lack of a better phrase and set an example.

I’m more spiritual than religious but a passage from Matthew in the Bible has always resonated with me based on what my parents told me about being responsible with the truth. To paraphrase, Matthew wrote that the greatest among us shall be the least, and the least among us shall be the greatest. In this messed up world we find ourselves in these days, that’s a lesson that all of us could remember and embrace. Those with the most power should be those who are the most transparent and the most responsible with the truth and the blame. Maybe they need to look back at the lessons their parents taught them because you’re never too old to learn from those who came before us and who did the right thing. Am I optimistic this will happen? Not really but I can hope the pendulum will swing back because I want my great kid to live in a world where being responsible is more important than being right.

That Time I Lost 2 Weeks of My Life & Lived To Tell The Tale

So I almost died.

I realize that’s a tough way to start this story but it is what it is and the fact that I’m writing (and maybe you’re reading) this blog means I survived. Very few people know what has happened because we (my great kid, my sister and myself) have kept it very quiet. I’m sharing it now because what has happened, what I’ve lost, what I’ve gained, what I’ve learned has changed me forever. But what a long, strange trip it’s been.

I hadn’t been feeling well for a few days at the beginning of May. Very fatigued, very weak, feverish and having trouble breathing properly. Took a Covid test and it was negative. My sister, God bless her, called our mutual primary care physician and begged her office to let us come in right away. And she did and off we went. I could barely walk into the office but I do recall that the waiting room was filled with people and they whisked me past everyone right into an examining room. The doctor came in and put me on oxygen, took my vitals and told my sister to drive immediately – and she stressed immediately – across the street to the emergency room. And off we went, me still hooked up to oxygen. We arrived and my sister got someone from the emergency room to help me into a wheelchair, along with my new best friend, the oxygen tank, and off we went.

I know it was about 4:00 in the afternoon on May 5 when we arrived and that it was my darling Mom’s birthday. I remember getting into the wheelchair. I remember being pushed through the doors of the emergency room. I remember being wheeled down the hall. And then my memory stops, like a screen going black at a movie theater.

The next time I woke up was either May 16 or 17. I didn’t know where I was or what had happened. There were tubes attached to me everywhere. I couldn’t speak, I could barely see, I couldn’t move. What woke me up was the sound of my great kid speaking to me, as I’m sure he had been doing for the past 10 or 11 days, trying to get me wake up. I heard “Mommy, wake up. Mommy, squeeze my hand. Mommy, come back to me”. And I opened my eyes and there he was, his beautiful tear-streaked face inches from mine. I don’t think I stayed awake long but I had woken up and they and my amazing medical team were cheered by that.

The next day I woke up and saw my sister sitting next to me. I knew that I recognized her but I wasn’t sure it was her and I couldn’t speak to ask her who she was. She held my hand and told me I’d be ok. The following day my son, who had literally walked off his job in Las Vegas when he got the call from my sister on May 5, had to go back to Vegas for a few days. And again I woke up to the sound of his voice telling me had to leave for a while but he’d be back soon.

When they finally started pulling some of the tubes out of me, one of them was a breathing tube and I couldn’t really talk or express myself. But I was confused because I didn’t understand why my Mom wasn’t there at the hospital. I tried to ask my sister but couldn’t speak and I tried to write a note just saying “Mom?” but all I could do was draw squiggles. It wasn’t until a day or so later when I could talk a little that I asked her why my Mom wasn’t there and she had to remind me that my Mom had died the previous June. My heart was broken all over again.

So what I ultimately learned was that I was transferred from the original emergency room to the great St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, the hospital that had saved my mother’s life several years before. I was told I got there via ambulance transfer. I have to believe them because I don’t know how I arrived. I was placed in the ICU where I was diagnosed with a severe infection that was extremely resistant to antibiotics. I also had a significant fluid buildup in my body and required a breathing tube and dialysis and all sorts of other treatments that I don’t recall.

I ultimately got well enough after the ICU stay to transfer to the PCU floor of the hospital for about 10 additional days which were spent mostly sleeping and being checked by all kinds of doctors, specialists, counselors and clergy what seemed constantly. And after those 10 days, I transitioned to the Rehab Center in the hospital. At that point I could not sit up in bed, get out of bed, turn over in bed. But the rehab specialists and my 2 great doctors assured me that they would get me out of bed, walking again (albeit slowly), learning how to take a shower on my own, learning how to lift myself up out of a chair. That they would push me as much as I could tolerate it and told me to believe in them and myself and that progress, while slow and incremental, would still happen and to just be patient. I cried a lot, I didn’t make much progress in the beginning but they were right. I wasn’t 100% when I was discharged 18 days later but I was able to go home and continue my rehab journey through in-home occupational and physical therapy and now I may not be at 100% but I’m hovering around 80% of a full recovery. I don’t know whether I’ll ever get to 100% but, considering the alternative, I’m OK with 80%.

It seems each day I learned things I didn’t know. The nights my son got calls in the middle of the night that he dreaded answering because he was afraid he’d got the ultimate bad news. That my son called a priest and had him administer the Sacrament of the Sick to me – even though I was not conscious – because he knew that I would want that. The agony he and my sister suffered seeing me hooked up to so many machines, unable to communicate and being told on more than one occasion that I might not make it. I don’t know how it all happened; I don’t know how I survived. But I do have a theory.

Before I “officially” woke up, I had what I know was a real experience although it couldn’t possibly have been. I opened my eyes one night and I was sitting in some kind of hospital reclining chair and I was facing a looking glass. A light green mist surrounded me and made me feel very calm and although I could not see anyone I knew my parents and my sister and my great kid were there with me. And they were all telling me without words that it was not my time to leave this world and that I needed to fight to stay there. I only recently shared this with my sister and my son and they assure me it could not and did not happen but maybe it was a transitional moment, a bridge between life and death, a door that could have opened either way. I am enormously blessed that the door I chose led me back to those I love and who put their lives on hold to be there with me and support me and be my advocate with the doctors. They saved my life as much as Dr. Prater (my PCP who sent me to the emergency room) and the doctors in the ICU and the PCU and the Rehab Center did.

So what have I learned from this? First, pay attention to what your body tells you and act upon it. If I hadn’t gone to the doctor that day, she tells me I had probably less than 48 hours to live. I’ve learned to let go of petty grievances, trying to reason with people on social media, and embracing the circle of people who have surrounded me with so many prayers and so much love. I have a box filled with the cards my high school classmates sent me. I have Mass cards from friends saying that they’d had a Mass said for me to get better. I have a beautiful orchid plant from a friend who worried about me and wanted to see me at the hospital and who ultimately did and cheered me enormously. I have a birthday card signed by everyone in the Rehab Center (because that’s where I gratefully celebrated being granted another birthday) and the memory of the Baskin Robbins ice cream cake my great kid brought me to celebrate.

Life is truly short and it’s not until you face your mortality head on that you realize that however long any of us have in this world, we can use that time to make it a better place and to make people smile. I try to compliment every person I see or thank them for what they’ve done. I’ve doubled down on my prayers of gratitude. I talk to my Mom and Dad as if they’re still here and thank them for telling me it wasn’t my time. My relationships with my sister and my great kid have become so much more powerful and I am blessed that my great kid wants to take care of me. He is following the path that our family has always taken – my Mom and Dad took care of her father and her brother after her mother died; when my paternal grandmother was not well, we all moved in with her to keep her safe; when my Mom’s brother, my beloved Uncle Buddy, was dying, my Dad moved in with my Uncle and his son and daughter-in-law to take on the care and comfort of Uncle Buddy and when my Uncle died it was one of the few times I saw my Dad truly weep with deep grief. When my Mom couldn’t live on her own any more, we moved here to Salt Lake City together so I could watch out for her. And now my sister is taking care of me in her home until I can be with my great kid in the new home he’s planning for us.

I’m a lucky woman and I don’t know how I got so lucky but I do believe that not only medicine and great doctors saved me but the prayers I received, the calls, the notes, the visits and being blessed with the 2 best caregiver advocates I could possibly have – Brendan and Barbara – saved my life. And I’ve vowed to be a light in the world and try to be there for others as others were there for me. I want to pay forward my blessings and I promise you I will. If I can help you, if I can be a shoulder for you to cry on, if I can offer you a hand when you need one to hold or a hug when you feel broken, please reach out to me. We can all be each other’s support systems and advocates and it’s never too late to start. I’m living proof of that.