The Slow Goodbye

     The slow journey of grief is difficult to explain for all its nuances, but those who have experienced it know all the ways the heart cracks. I've been on this journey the last few years with two women who love me fiercely. There are fewer people these days who have loved me my whole life. Sometimes my phone will flash with an incoming call and I answer after a deep breath because I've been waiting for THAT call. I'm not ready to accept a world where these two women don't exist with their chats, their laughs, their knowledge, their listening ears, and all the things I desperately cling to-- for what is good and lovely in my life. In Rilke's Book of Hours he says "God gave us each our own death, the dying that proceeds from each of our lives: the way we loved, the meaning we made, our need."

    My Grandma has Lewy Body dementia. If you know anything about this, you know it's progressive, brutal even, affecting both the body and the mind. I wrote about her and my Papa a couple of years ago, and their Legacy. In that post I wrote about her singing and ideas about life. She doesn't sing any more. Her voice isn't there talking about books, she's not asking me for stories about my kids, and she's not telling me stories about my childhood. She's not laughing with me over the stories I wrote in this blog, and she loved these stories. She had them printed out and kept in a binder next to her chair. She has loved me the longest, that Grandma of mine. Every visit ended with her on her porch waving, tears running down her face. Most times Papa was standing there with her when he wasn't busy doing all the farming things. Then the goodbyes were made from her living room chair, and then her bed. She doesn't know hello or goodbye anymore, and I leave every time with tears running down my own face. Papa is always there for the goodbye in the living room and sometimes he stands on the front porch, alone. I'll never be ready for any final goodbye. 

    It has been easier to accept the decline of my Grandma because I was still a phone call away from my Aunt Cindy. But cancer is a thief, stealing time and stealing love. I've been on the receiving end of that dreaded flash of an incoming call several times in recent years with news about her health, but each time that woman would come back to us, living past each terminal year, month, and day than she ever should have. Today's phone call felt like the slowing of a clock, winding down... something infinitely more final than ever before. My last phone call with her was just a couple of weeks ago. She was chipper, and had grand plans for continuing her creative life. We spoke about her family, and my family, catching up on the details. I was preparing for a trip to Mayo Clinic and she wanted to know all about that. "You're in my prayers, darling girl." How do I do without that and from the one who has prayed for me since she met me when I was three?

    I have so few energies anymore for anything that's not kind, that's not lovely, peaceful, graceful, merciful, or gentle. I'm caught up in the slow grief-- intimately aware of how temporary life really is, and frequently thinking about what these two women mean to me and how that translates to how my life is lived. Rilke also said "... so many alive who don't seem to care. Casual, easy, they move in the world as though untouched. But you take pleasure in the faces of those who know they thirst. You cherish those who grip you for survival. You are not dead yet, it's not too late to open your depths by plunging into them and drink in the life that reveals itself quietly there." I don't want to do life without these two, but the inevitability is too close. I'm not prepared, but I feel the weight of responsibility to live up to what they saw in me, what they loved about me. Viktor Frankl wrote about love in Man's Search for Meaning, saying "Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize the potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true." 

    They loved the potential of me from my earliest days. They showed me all the ways they had lived, and encouraged me along my paths. I am me because of them. I can't visualize a life and its potentialities without them talking me through it. Their own foundations were sure even as they lived flawed lives. I'm just as aware of their struggles and regrets, as they have been of mine. "Well, my lands, it's just life," said Grandma over so many things that seemed so overwhelming. The acceptance that they were human and flawed is not something many people talk about. We immortalize the good and overlook the bad, but both women were very clear to me about their choices: the many wonderful ones and the ones they would "give their eye teeth" to go back in time to change. While they made some poor decisions that life couldn't undo, they do their best to live up to Proverbs 3:1-3: "... do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of live worth living and tranquility and prosperity-- the wholeness of life's blessings-- they will add to you. Do not let mercy and kindness and truth leave you, instead let the qualities define you; bind them securely around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."

     I'm forever loved by them and I can only hope to love the way they have loved. 

It is what it is... the 41st edition

Sometime around my September birthday, I get all introspective and think about my life, and those thoughts usually end up in this blog. October 10th of last year was my last post here and also the 40th birthday post. I just read through it and man, that girl was spot on and I'm fairly certain this one will pale in comparison. For all that changes, some things don't-- that blog post in particular. You wouldn't know it, judging by the barren blog, but I have written so many things-- some not good for public consumption, some that may be seen in the future, and many others a confused attempt to figure out this current life. There has been an underlying instability of emotions and mental faculties in relation to the weirdness of this world and my physical health. I'm just not always the same person day to day.

This year's 41st birthday was rushed as I was preparing for a trip to Mayo Clinic to nail down the causes of health problems that have subsumed my daily existence since January 2020. As many others have experienced, my life shrunk extensively after those events and in the spring of 2020. My fortieth year seemed to close in on itself. As symptoms persisted, depression and anxiety creeped in-- my own personal brand and the kind that comes from reading the news. The spring and summer of 2021 saw me hopefully getting somewhere with pulmonary rehab and appointments with the local cardiologist and pulmonologist. After many long months, the realization came that there was no interest in a diagnosis, but a series of bad medical advice from "specialists" who tossed harsh medicines at me before throwing their hands up in the air and blaming my problems on being a woman. It's 2021 and everyone has their hill they are willing to die on. Shuffling a woman to the side with "You're female" as a diagnosis is unacceptable and my personal hill. I'm too young for this and I want my life back.

Mayo Clinic was a revelation, a glimpse into how the medical world should be modeled. I asked them for two things: 1) a diagnosis 2) a way to treat the diagnosis without pill bottles being lobbed my way. A few weeks and two trips to Rochester, Minnesota, and I have both. For once, in a long time, the depression and anxiety has diminished knowing there is nothing physiologically wrong with my lungs or my heart. (The asthma was/is definitely a thing, but hopefully it has righted itself). The final diagnosis is Central Sensitization, Chronic Fatigue, and POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome-- that dizziness, seeing spots, racing heart business that comes from standing up too fast). In basic terms, my brain and nervous system are in fight or flight mode constantly and do what they can to tell my body to slow its roll, whether by making the heart race or make me feel fatigued to the point where I can't think straight, experience a heavy weariness, and pain.The correlations between my emotional/mental state and my symptoms were glaringly obvious when I began charting our my struggles for the doctors and nurses at Mayo, and then my education classes for treatment brought everything into perspective.

So what did my 40th year look like?

In the last year, I have started and finished one book. ONE. As many of you know, I devour words. I read everything. A good many books languish half read on my shelves no matter how much I loved them. I picked up some fantastic titles this year and no matter how beguiling they are, they simply aren't read to the end. It's depressing.

I keep four calendars/planners and still can't remember what's happening tomorrow. Today, as with every other Sunday in the last six months, I can't remember what time church began and had to look it up. For the color coded, five minutes early girl that I am, it makes me anxious.

I can't recall most conversations with anyone outside of my house. I forget to text back and return messages. I know I repeat myself and it makes me feel like an 85 year old woman whose mind is slipping. It's depressing.

I can't remember words. My brain is forever running a thesaurus and coming up a word short of the one I need to adequately express all the things inside of me. When I'm well past tired, I make new words-- the kids find it hilarious. I find it galling. And I use galling because I recently used it as "gauling"-- not the Celtic French, Miranda-- GALL: impudence, effrontery, bitterness of spirit. For the first time in my entire life, I struggle with spelling. I know when it's wrong, but have to look it up to get it right. It's depressing.

I have sticky notes on everything. I rely more on textbooks than my own knowledge when teaching. I've got it when it's right in front of me. I locked myself in my room and cried a few months ago when I couldn't remember the name of the 16th president, the tall and honest one, the one who was President during the Civil War, the one who was assassinated, , the one who was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and then Ulysses S. Grant. I knew all these things and not Abraham Lincoln. Makes that BA in History look brilliant, eh? It bites keenly. It's depressing.

I'm not currently the person who my husband married. I'm not the mom my kids have always known. I'm not the friend I once was. No is a frequent part of my vocabulary. It's depressing and carries insecurities.

Long before diagnosis, I knew intentional living was the only way to cope. My 40th birthday post is about living this way. Funny how it's a year later and I'm still surprised by that post. I didn't remember ever writing the post and only read it after writing this post in my notebook before bringing the draft over here. On bad days, it's overwhelming trying to intentionally push myself to get out of bed, to do the things, to be in that moment, to do what needs doing, to put away pride and find the textbook or video or google for that answer that needs to be given, that remembers for me, to cover everything in post notes. I might not remember something in a few days, but I can show myself what was done. It's a saving grace that there are good days to mitigate the bad ones.

My days are full of checklists that aren't typical of a 41 year old woman: take the meds, get out of bed slowly, stand up slowly, drink the water and remember to eat, walk, do the stretches, do the things to relax, don't watch or read thrillers (the heart rate hit 161 watching Black Widow), don't laugh too hard (passing out isn't a funny reaction), sit down the first moment it's needed, don't rub the chest and its phantom-not real pains, be gentle with myself because there will be days where a sneeze can tell my brain to shut it all down, let go of stress, let go of people and situations that cause stress, it's shutting off the news, it's a lot of reading words I won't remember because right here and right now my spirit needs it, it's better management of the stress of grief... my life is micromanagement of self, introspection at a hyper level.

These things aren't me looking for some kind of pity, just that I've learned so much this last year about myself and I know so many that struggle with so much more than I do and have issues well beyond mine. I had eight hours of zoom class education through Mayo, because surprisingly, my diagnosis isn't primarily treated with medicines (gabapentin is pretty magical) but with lifestyle management. I'm utterly fascinated with the whole diagnosis and treatment. I've decided that this world would be a much better place if we just did a few things that are listed on this diagram I was given. 

We all have the ability to retrain our brain and forge new neuropathways for a much healthier, positive life. It's overwhelming for me at times when I consider all the things needed to get back to pre-2020 me when I'm starting with goals as simple as walking five minutes a day, the stretches, and the breathing exercises. I've been told it could take six months to a couple of years to get it all back. The meaning of "baby steps" never felt so real.

This all seems a bit heavy and, well, depressing, but I've had some of the best days recently. I'm calmer in spirit with a game plan. I'm no longer caught in the bubble of "What if?" and back into the mindset of "it is what it is" as I take the small steps forward.

The 40th Year

 I had every intention of writing something up for my birthday-- I had several mental notes of what I wanted to put down and a smattering of post it notes that highlighted what my 39th year of life had become. Introspection has been at an all time high and what I set out to write down, is not what is flowing through the keys today. Because, yes, 2020 has been hard, and in many cases unprecedented... my personal story included. I could easily write out all the ways it hasn't been an ideal year, but if anything, I've realized there are too many people readily available to let me know just how bad it is or could be. The 40th birthday came and went, and yet I wasn't quite in the headspace I wanted to be to commemorate the fact I have made it to this fantastic milestone of life.

2020 has brought to my attention the need to seek the quiet and to slow everything down. I wrote a blog post back in June over on my other page, History and the Internet, highlighting the dangers of split second judgments based on headlines and misinformation. Exceptional damage has been done to humanity in the last ten months and the abuse of integrity is rampant. Quiet is good. Taking the time to seek resources for claims being made actually takes very little time. I've felt an enormous sense of responsibility in the realm of social media to "slow my roll" because it's all just too much. It's too loud. It's too ugly. There is a vast difference in keeping up with the times and being knowledgable on the issues and throwing out every meme or derogatory opinion of the "other side". Jane Austen used the phrase in Mansfield Park "I was quiet, but I was not blind." 2020 has been about self preservation. I see it, I hear it, I consider it, but I'm not joining in.

It's been a struggle of conscience in how to "not join in". I have my opinions, absolutely, but the struggle is in how to voice them. I've long studied history enough to know that silence is rarely a good thing. I've got Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eli Wiesel whispering in my mind most days, but the fact is, no one really wants to know... especially in social media. I will converse with anyone willing to sit across from me on my porch or at a table who truly wants to talk about it all, and I have. It's a grieving point for me to consider the number of people I have known for years, sometimes decades, that aren't interested in talking and listening... that are gung-ho in pointing out how my thoughts are wrong. This has never been positive discourse. Conversations can be had between two issues at odds, but listening is key. 2020 people only say what they want to say, hear only what they want to hear, and read only what they want to read... as long as it backs up their opinion.

Grief has been heavy on the 39th year of my soul, and the 40th birthday did not bring an end to it, just as waiting for 2021 to get here as if everything will be made "right" on the First of January. It's incredibly difficult to reconcile the dogma of hatred (pretty much every major headline since May) with people I have known to be exceptionally Godly, devout people... the kind of people that hold you close and love so generously. It's hard to want a decent world for my kids when what I see in people does not match what they preach. The dividing lines are intensely drawn, opinions fly faster than understanding and kindness. Snap judgments of the lowest kind are made over a person's decisions (are they fear induced or based in caution?), people deciding someone's ideas make them a "sheeple" simply because they aren't on the same page, and the continued invalidation of how one chooses to live in these times in comparison to another's.  I'm 40. I know who I am. I know why and how. Because I've had forty years figure those things out. But those younger? Those needing a solid foundation? If I were much younger and trying to figure out why living a godly life is worth it, if I tried to see the Biblical examples of loving kindness, it would be a rocky path. I've thought many times in the last eight months that there is a distinct difference in leading a Christian life and religion. I don't want what most evangelicals are selling these days. I don't want that religion. I never quite understood, and probably still don't, the "love" generation... "All you need is love..." I'm hardly an over emotional person, but people need some Jesus, some love, and some kindness. Because once 2021 (or even 2022) rolls around and we find ourselves collectively doing better (Lord willing and the creek don't rise), we will still need relationships. Relationship damage is at an all time high. At what point do we take a step back, slow our roll, and consider the long term ramifications of "being right"?

That being said (and unashamedly the subject most often in my mind), the 39th year was a series of moments spent mulling over the idea of what is "normal". Most people are comforted deeply with what "normal" is. Pretty sure that is why, as people age, anything set up against the idea of what is normal, is threatening. We've been threatened in deep ways this 2020. The angst against the "new normal" has proliferated in dozens of ways; a deep set discontentment, because for the first time, everything is vastly different. Reorganizing a life is difficult. Raising four kids in a pandemic world is hard. Raising teens and almost teens in this environment is often times traumatic. Finding meaning and purpose in a world that has slowed down so drastically has to be intentional. I like giving a new year an ideal. Nearly two years ago, I decided that 2019 needed to be intentional. The struggle was real, but rewarding. 2020 rolled around and on January 1st,  I knew that intentional needed another year. January 2nd, Paxton got strep. January 7th, I became ill (the kind of sick you feel coming on that has your mind forcefully telling you that THIS IS GOING TO BE BAD). January 12th I was hospitalized, and released seven days later. Keith, Evelynn, and McKenna were all sick while I was in the hospital, and two days after I got home, Evelynn went into the hospital for eight days. Caelan got sick February 1st. I wrote a post in July (Breathe) about that nightmare and being intentional. I chuckle now at my need for another year of being intentional. It's up there with praying to God for patience. 

An intentional "new normal" is about finding meaning in new ways. I know many people hate the connotations of "new normal" and all it entails, but we have to be less rigid in our expectations and what we must have to live a happy life. We can forego many things if our attitude is set to do so. If we are not open to change, this has and will continue to be a nightmare. I have found an obsession with plants. I have found an intense love of loose leaf tea in the afternoon. I have found a renewed love of words and the time to read things I previously disallowed myself for lack of time (if you're bookish, you know there's a difference between intentional reading and reading the back of the cereal box). I have found that small moments of quiet soothe me in ways social media screams at me to not be. Speaking of... social media is a wild place these days. I could give it up, but I'm in the very real position of not being close to family or family of the heart, and in a time of little travel, unless it's snail mail, it's what I've got. My use of Instagram and Facebook has never been about my political platform but about sharing life. I'm well aware of most peoples' opinions these days, but here's a picture of my newest plant... here's a picture of my kids (because goodness knows they haven't been seen in eight months)... here's my collection of words and quotes from people who lived in equally challenging times and found that kindness and listening smooth over the madness... here are the changes I've made around the house that offer me a slice of peace... here's the flora and fauna of stepping away from the angst to see that while the world rages, God made this fascinating set of mushrooms in my front yard... here are memes about history... here are history videos and podcasts... here's music... here are memes about 2020. My world is much more magical and lovely and full. That doesn't mean I'm not fully aware of the madness, I'm just intentional with how much it affects me. If you live in the negative and hate, you will give off the negative and hate. And the opposite, I have found, is quite true. 

I recently ran across a Danish word that settled deeply within my soul. It's the word hygge: 

Hygge is a whole thing, for some a life aesthetic, that once I read about its attributes made me think first of a Hobbit, and then wildly of myself. Typical habits of hygge are: casual decor, warm textures, candles, cozy blankets, tea and coffee, comfort foods, sharing meals with people, casual gatherings, no politics, no drama, cards and board games, shelter and safety, living in harmony, valuing relationships, journaling and writing, reading, outdoors and indoors, gratitude/thankfulness, meditation and prayer, savoring the moment, appreciating the silence, being present in the moment... things I already do, things I could be much better at doing, and so very entrenched in what I know is actively living like Jesus. This 40th year doesn't appear to be changing much, but as long as I'm all right in my soul, that's all that matters.

Legacy

I am profoundly moved by word usage. I collect words. Words are what remain of a person's legacy, those letters scripted out of how they viewed the world and how they lived it. I'm also frequently considering the legacy a person leaves behind and the legacy I hope continues through me. For most, the word legacy denotes some kind of brave act or heroism from the era before. My love for history is steeped in this idea of legacy. What has always appealed to me most is the tidbits that have trickled down of the most mundane things, the kindnesses. History is full of the terrible, the tragedies, the horrors, the overwhelming loss of control for so many people pushed and pulled along in a stream of events that make up TIME, but in those moments, there are the kindnesses. The base knowledge that one word, one small act, can forever change another person's life. There's a myriad of word collections that swirl through my mind: Fred Rogers saying "Look for the workers..." and Roald Dahl saying that he puts kindness "before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity... it covers everything." Grand gestures are not required to show someone you care, that you acknowledge their existence, their triumph, or their struggles. And for that extra dollop of magic, those kind actions do not require anyone to have walked the same paths, to have the same religious beliefs, or the same political platforms.

To say that 2020 has been disproportionately unkind is a universal agreement-- the one thing any one of us can whole heartedly get behind. It's been the worst... the events, the decisions, the lack of decisions, the people (oh, the people). It's an exceptionally difficult to pill to swallow to see humankind at each others' throats for any and every slight. The ever changing daily responses from the visceral to the unconcerned have been a roller coaster we were never prepared to ride. I have struggled and grieved over the lack of care for human beings. At its most base (and I hate to use that term because it seems flippant to attribute that word to our simple form) we were created in the image of God. That should be our starting point. That's all we need to know. That's all we need to recognize to be kind.

Today marks the 82nd birthday of my wonderful Grandma. In June a few of us descended upon our grandparents' house at my Papa's request to help clean things to help them be able to move around easier. After sixty four years of marriage, and most of those lived in the same house, the memories were piled up. Laughing is a hereditary condition, I come by it quite honestly, and we giggled and guffawed over our findings as we dug deep. We also wept as enthusiastically as we were humored as memories of us as young grandchildren came back. I always felt my Grandma was a young soul, and for all my love of history and legacy, I never quite realized until this year, that I made her a grandmother for a second time shortly after her 42nd birthday. From where I'm sitting just shy of forty, she was young. It's a rarity for many to have a set of grandparents still doing life. They are slowing down-- at least Grandma is, because at 84, I don't think my Papa has ever known what it means to be leisurely and not working. The family understanding of what it means to do all the things, to work with our hands, to figure things out, to work hard and do our duty definitely is straight from our Papa. Together they have a packaged legacy. 

The greatest tradition that I have longed for with such intensity the last few months has been their simple examples of love and kindness. Grandma is a firecracker. My Caelan is often compared to a young Nancy Payne and all her antics. Grandma will tell you how it is. Grandma will tell you what she thinks, no holds bar, and with a bluntness bordering on the brutal. But she will love you regardless of what you choose to do... the good decisions, the bad decisions, whether it's what she thinks you should or shouldn't do, and the consequences whether rewarding or heartbreaking. For her, at the end of the day, you need to be fed and clothed, and if you need a roof, they have one. More people call my grandparents Grandma and Papa than they are blood related to. In June, my sweet Grandma, ailing in ways that make her sometimes childlike and innocent, commented on the current times "Well, I just don't understand it. We are supposed to love everybody and we wouldn't have these problems." This echoes back to all the times I heard her throughout my life say "Well, that's just life." My favorite is hearing her say "It's a wonderful life and we have fun." Even when it's not. Sometimes she sings it. A lot of her sayings are sung. Just little bits of legacy. They don't seem to add up to much in the grand scheme of LEGACY, but those tiny bits are everything to my life.

My grandparents' lives have not been easy. Children of the Depression, growing up in North Texas, married before they were both twenty, and then four children right after another, while Papa kept pushing forward with his education before finally becoming a junior high science teacher and coach. They both worked in education, with side businesses of hauling water to country folk, farming, and butchering. Forty acres of land that held the family, the livestock, the wheat fields, the many different years of plantings from potatoes to pinto beans, the hay season, the hot summer harvests, the mesquite trees, the stories... oh, the stories. The grandkids, the aunts, the uncles, the cousins... all the strangers, near strangers, church people, the runaways, the airmen from the nearby AFB, and family they had gathered around their table at holidays or any days. Fulfilling simple needs, stretching out across any divide to care for those they knew needed love even if those people went on their way and never returned.  Even in recent years they were "just taking some old people to church" or "it's our day of the week to deliver Meals on Wheels" or "It's my day to sew at the hospital." To which I always thought "But you're the old people." But this is how life is supposed to be done and the realization of the last few months that people just don't do life like this any more has been a blow. If anything, we are nowhere near how my grandparents have loved and shown kindness. My heart can hardly think of the time in the near future where they are not in it, because we know it's coming. We need these people so desperately. We need this legacy. These people that have lived for eighty plus years doing hard work, doing the simple work, and taking care of people simply because people were made by God. 

Breathe

The moment we are born, the first epic thing we do is gasp that first breath of air. The importance of that few seconds of waiting between leaving the womb and getting that breath is precious. Once the doctor and nurse check us over and monitor the breathing, we are cleared to live life to the fullest of each breath. And so we go about life-- most times not really considering how the next breath will come-- but assuming it will come and just do its thing. All the cliche's (which I detest most of them on the basis of non-originality)... "You can breath easy now" or "It's as easy as breathing" or "a breath of fresh air" or "wasting one's breath" and the plethora of breathing clauses (look up a list, it's ginormous) really make breathing out to be blasé. It's what we do right along with eating and sleeping and the heart beating. Breathing just is.

Life has a way of reminding us that breathing really isn't "just is". My relationship with breathing obviously started the day I was born, but it's only been in the last five years that I've spent time thinking about the act of breathing. Bear with me, you know my brain doesn't rest often... because I have spent hours thinking about the inhale and the exhale of life. 2015, as most of my friends know, was a truly horrific year. The first six months of the year marked six months of absolute stress and trauma. January came in with us preparing to move from Pennsylvania to Arkansas and the loss of our family dog, Chaucer. February saw us in Arkansas with ten days to find a house and then the return home to PA to find the interior at 25 degrees and frozen solid-- toilet water included and shards of metal, from the blown up radiators, frozen to the surfaces of the floors and cabinetry. March saw us living in a hotel, prepping to move to Arkansas, insurance agents and claims, workers in and out of the still frozen house, and a move to Arkansas with only what we could fit in our vehicles. April brought me another trip back to PA to get ready to move and the actual move, which garnered a return trip. That's 1,200 miles one way. I did that five times in the first four months of the year. May brought that "breath of fresh air" but I was already geared to expect the worst of 2015. June came around, vandals broke into our PA house. 1,200 miles on way to repaint the walls and clean the mess. 1,200 miles, and one flat tire in Somewhere, Indiana. The work on the house for the frozen pipes wasn't complete until August. At this point, we were strapped for cash in a hardcore way. Insurance didn't cover all of the $25, 000 worth of damage and we now had two mortgages. We tried for five years to sell that house. It would take another two years before we were rid of it. 

It was now the end of 2015. I have seen a couple of pictures of myself from that fall and winter. I look aged in a way that only stress can do. It's not a good look. My eyes speak volumes, and then again just look hollow. I was struggling with what life chunked at me-- there was no handling of the matter, it was straight up dung bombs-- and trying to find where I fit in to my new life. Thus began my thoughts about breathing. I wasn't sleeping much anymore. My favorite thing to say at the time was "There's no waiting for the next shoe to drop-- it will." 2015 was a nightmare, literally. So I would lay in bed at night and listen to myself breath. The anxiety of it all sat on my chest. There was no getting out from under it. Wake up. It's there. Lay down to sleep. It's there. But at night, there is no one and no activity to put off the thinking. Breathe in. Breathe out. A simple process. And the weight is so heavy. Hold the breath. It doesn't hurt. The emotions of loss of our beloved pet, to the loss of my church family and friends in PA (a desperate homesickness for the support of those who KNEW me and my history with them), to the trauma of all the things thrown at us sat there on my chest. Breathe in. Breathe out. The simplicity of that blessing from our Creator, the act of breathing took effort. Those nights were me, God, and breathing. It took a good couple of years to breathe my way through what was 2015. 

The years have gone by with easier breathing. Things have slowed down. It took a long time to trust life again... that there wasn't something around the corner that was going to jump out at me. Talk about PTSD. Last September was my 39th birthday. Not gonna lie, that kind of bothered me a bit. I've been breathing for 39 years, but that 40th was staring at me from a year away. I pondered the type of year 2020 would be leading up to the Big Day. As with every other living human being on the planet, this is not the 2020 I envisioned. It's somewhat reminiscent at times of 2015. 2020 and I certainly didn't start out on the right foot. The youngest kid got strep the first week of January. By January 8th, I was hit with fever (the likes of which my body only experienced when I had chicken pox as a kid-- 103.5 in an adult ain't right), body aches, headache, sore throat, and chest pain. Now I don't know if what I had was coronavirus. The first weekend in January I was at singing event where people all over the country had come together. It was beautiful, but also within the realms of possibility of getting the sick from someone there. I was flu negative. I've had dozens of people message me "Hey, do you think..." I'll never have a definitive answer to that. My experience does mirror just as many stories as I've seen in recent months. I did an antibody test recently and it came back negative, with a bunch of disclaimers saying the test wasn't really a good one and I should try something else. Also in recent weeks, they say the antibodies don't stay around for very long. It's been six months. So there's that. 

What I can tell you is that I had a lung event. An overall inability to breathe due to build of liquids (of some viscosity) that made breathing exceptionally difficult. Pneumonia stemming from the flu. Breathe in-- well, that's difficult... keep it shallow. *crackle crackle* Breathe out-- well, that was painful. *crackle crackle* Hold the breath-- no pain. *crackle crackle* Apparently your lungs aren't supposed to sound like Rice Krispies. But I was not in my right mind. For three days my days looked like this: sleep for four hours, alarms goes off, take temperature (never found it under 102),pop meds, strip out of sweat soaked clothes, stand under luke warm shower, reset alarm, go back to sleep. I was texting some friends who were checking in on me and my niece. I have no recollection of sending her a video of my the sounds my chest was making. All of them said "Go to the doctor now and if not that, go to the ER."

I spent a week in the hospital. I have very few memories of that time (and look forward to next year's TimeHop to show me what I posted in the midst of my oxygen deprived moments). But that breathing relationship was a hardship. There is no understanding of not being able to breathe until you literally can't. It's very difficult to hold off the panic. I'm a chill person. The lack of oxygen and the depth to breathe stretched that chillness thin. There was no leaving the hospital until I could expand my lungs well enough to breath without stressing them out. I have a cute little souvenir from the hospital that I was sent home with to continue my breathing exercises. It's not just being able to suck some air in and then release, you have to exercise the capacity to do so.

Two days after I got home, my then thirteen year old, having the same symptoms and a negative flu test (all while I was still in the hospital) walked into the kitchen, her face completely gray. That's not right. To the doctor and then to the hospital she went. She just didn't get the same fancy ambulance ride I got. I'm at home, still puffing away on my little breath exerciser thingy, and she's in the hospital trying to breath. It's a devastating moment to be sitting at home with weak lungs where walking from the bedroom to the kitchen is a breathless feat, and have your girl in the hospital also struggling. Breathing is all you think about. Breathe in. Breathe out. And praying that she will continue to breathe in and breathe out. She spent longer in the hospital than I did. Breathing. Struggling to breathe.

There's no quick bounce back from something like this. By the end of February I was still struggling, but finally felt like this was going to be okay. Let's get back to this normal living business. The world laughed. Mightily. Now there are people around the world that are struggling to breathe. And many who took that last breath. One of those clauses "to the last breath." There is an ultimate finality to that last breath. That simple thing looks you right in the face. You want it desperately. I can't think of a worse way to leave this world, honestly. I'd prefer something swift and done. But when all you have is a hospital bed, all the tubes, there's nothing more pressing than that next breath. The breath in. The breath out. And the tears rolling down your face in the pause between the inhale and the exhale. Nothing is more precious in that moment. Just like the first breath you took upon entering the world. 

I've been dealing with some sinus congestion and a sore throat the last few days. It moved down a bit in my throat yesterday, and the urge to panic manifested. My psyche isn't on board with another lung event. So more thoughts on breathing. Slow breathing... it's going to be just fine. Breathe in. Breathe out. This isn't January or February. Breathing has taken up much of our first seven months of 2020. From the pandemic of gasping for the next (or last) breath to "I can't breathe."The unfortunate part of breathing these days is that our breaths have been politicized to the point where many have overlooked the essential need to breath. The breaths we have been given are being used in a variety of different ways, but mostly in ways that are detrimental to those facing their last breath. This is in no way a political post. But just what are the breaths that are taken easily doing for those whose breath is taken away? It's a simple thing to breath. We have good breaths, struggling breaths, painful breaths... if they are so precious, how are we using them? When you are out and about doing life, what are your breaths fueling? When you sit down in front of your computer, what breaths take over your body as you read things? Are they calm? Are they angry huffs? Slow, drawn out sighs? There is a pause between that inhale and that exhale, a choice in how to breath, how you allow yourself to breath. That breath is precious because you can choose how it will be used. For those who want that next breath so urgently, they aren't using it to fuel offense... they just want to breath, to live. We have a responsibility to those who just want to breath. "Take a breath" and be intentional with how that God-given breath serves those around us.

Caught in the Greenery

Caught. Somewhere between what is normal and abnormal, between what is meaningful and what is perfunctory, between compassion and indifference. Caught between what my head logically determines and what my heart bleeds. This virus has been a fascinating social experiment-- one we are all ready to move far beyond-- with this tug of war with politics, the economists, the health care community, and anyone who chooses to don the title "expert" and goes to bat for what is happening; how they are experiencing the happening, and the overwhelming inability to predict any kind of sure future. It's been a matter of weeks... scrambling, numbing, unifying, polarizing-- what to think about all this?

In my tiny slice of life, this all began as reaction to crisis. I'm good at that. You can't live the life I've lived and not somehow learned to thrive in chaos. Greater people came before me and made beautiful paths for me to bumble along. But this-- THIS-- feeling of interminable caught-ness is a roller coaster. Some days it's a "get things done" mentality, but more are the days of dragging myself out of bed

to do the basics while my heart flounders. My minds keeps seeing this quote from John Green from his book An Abundance of Katherines: What matters defines your mattering. For us all this event has brought what matters much closer to home... literally.

In recent weeks, I decided to plant things. It's something to do. I have filled every plant growing receptacle with dirt and planted all the things. I have tilled small swaths of earth, scattering and planting every seed or bulb that I could find around the house. I have curiously checked my pots daily (if not more) for any sign of life.  I thrilled over each tiny green shoot that peeped from the soil. I have reveled in those signs of life. All the while knowing I more than likely won't see their blooms this year. The blooms I do have dotting my yard came from plantings of previous years. My lilac bush grabbed my soul a few weeks ago when I saw the plethora of buds. I planted it several years ago and it didn't bloom for two years. Every spring I would appreciate its green leafiness, but, oh, how I longed for the flowers. Funny thing about blooms, though. They are so temporary. The soft, colorful petals last only a few days or a few weeks at most. My lilac bush, just a couple of weeks ago, was laden with buds that quickly bloomed into fragrant clusters, drawing in butterflies and bees. Today, most of the sweet pretties are gone, the ones still clinging on have lost their luster and have gone to brown.

I've tried for years to get poppies to grow; every year sowing seeds and bulbs. Last year I tried spreading a whole can of seeds. Then Keith unknowingly poisoned the entire area. Ah, well... it was worth the try. But some actually survived and I was brought to a standstill the first time I noticed the bright orange of the California poppy growing. Of course the ones that are growing are not exactly where they had been planted, one even defiantly growing on the other side of the brick wall from the garden it had been intended for.  A seed got caught in the garden wall and thrived. I have watched the daily changes to this lone poppy plant, from one bloom to many. It has become the most beautiful thing in my yard. It's not where it should be. It put down a promise of life over a year ago, living through the seasons and the unintentional poisoning.

12 March changed life for most of us and we have experienced truly strange times, unprecedented in modern collective memory. Today, I went to Walmart to pickup my groceries, pulled up to my parking spot, and waited for the worker to bring them out to my car. This new normal of seeing masks on peoples faces touches me deeply-- it's covering human emotion and our basic communicative features aside from words. The sectioned-off store entry and exits are bizarre to me, existing only in some kind of upside down world that you only read about and don't see. When I do go into the store, the  usual friendly greeting has been replaced by someone counting my person as data for who enters and who exits. For pickup, the sign in front of my car says "For your safety and ours, please open the area you want your groceries placed, wait inside your vehicle with windows up." Once I return home from my twenty minute excursion out of my house, it takes me longer to wipe down my groceries with disinfectant than it did to pick them up. How are we supposed to thrive in such an impersonal, sterilized world? It's hard to trudge along, difficult to stay out of my own head, when the world has seemingly gone mad. I'm growing an all out jungle of indoor plants, and my outdoor plants are peeking out so very slowly. My wild poppies are promising me that a year from now the mundanity of my current life will blossom into something I long for. I just need to take it one day at a time, as it comes, focusing on the mattering.

The Remembered Moments

    History. I don't remember a time when I wasn't completely enthralled by it. My love for it is woven into my foundation of what it means to be Miranda. History has long been an intense coping mechanism for the stresses of my life and how I view those around me. I'm not a fan of specific dates when something happened because for me the road to that moment is more important. The people and their choices alone are so far reaching that by saying "This person (usually singular) did this one thing, and history is forever changed." It's much too clinical, a simplicity that denies the hardship and the celebration of many more that came before that date.
    I am an optimist of the worst sort. The kind of optimist that flies in the face of the pessimist in the worst way... because the pessimist feels the overwhelming need to label my optimism as naive and to break my rose colored glasses, assuming that I have little knowledge of tragedy or grief or know how living an unexpected, unsettled life can be. I forget sometimes I'm the only one living in my head, which has been a lot since COVID-19 began sucking life away (which was about 12 March). This new state of life has brought out the best and worst in people in the few short weeks since our lives were turned upside down-- well, every day is something new on that front, and its difficult to face drastic change head on.
    Ever the optimist, I set out to encourage and support, fully armed with my own brand of humor. That's how I've always dealt with my tragedies, grief, and unsettled moments in life. But for once, I was resoundingly wrong-footed and the backlash was a deep hurt. It's a very rare thing for me to find disappointment in the humans I choose to interact with. The optimist in me says "You don't know what they are going through or what they've experienced in this life to react and use the words they have used." There is always something more going on when the reaction is over the top. My pool of brain matter has been busy; considering, analyzing, and above all reminding myself that people are flawed and that embitterment is the last thing I want to recall about this time twenty years from now.
    You see, history is at my core, and I recognize so much of history is people and their minute decisions. I am optimistic because history shows me there is always that moment of choice, that glimmer of hope, that small simple action that can affect humanity for more than a lifetime. The world has spent a few months rearranging itself to ward off COVID-19. Have you ever studied diseases in history? The Spanish Influenza of 100 years ago, raged for two years, taking more people than the four years of the first world war. Polio, the worst year being 1916 but showing up regularly until Salk's vaccine in 1954 was indiscriminate. Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 was short-lived but deadly with 5,000+ deaths. The Great Plague of London (1665-1666) swept through the population, killing 100,000+, and it would have continued longer if the Great Fire of London hadn't consumed the diseased areas. (Numbers could actually be higher because numbers were not kept well at the time. There is a toss up on who died from the plague and who died from the fire, because the fire burned so hot it was instant cremation for those caught up in it.) The Black Death (all of Europe) moved through the land quickly from 1346-1353. Yersinia pestis took out millions of people for decades. Further back in history, pandemic after pandemic reshaped the world one disease at a time.
    We've been social distancing for a matter of weeks. We've seen crazed shopping, panic, and upset in all areas. Given what history has told me, we are living in an extraordinary time. This time the story can be different. We are better equipped to handle COVID-19 than our predecessors. Are we inconvenienced? Sure. Will there be economic repercussions? Absolutely. But quite frankly, when we compare our current situation with the past, we have so much going for us. Isn't a little optimism warranted?
    This in no way denigrates each individual's story in this. Am I unsettled? In this situation, not really. They asked an introvert to stay home. I'm part Hobbit, you know, that periodically unleashes my inner Took (brownie points if you get the reference). However, this doesn't mean that I am not mindful of the plight of others. This is hard stuff. Our family spent the better part of six weeks this year already social distancing due to sickness and hospitalization. The emotions have run the gamut. And this is the moment for the history books.
    The people of history fascinate me. I know people that think we live in hard times *cough-- pessimists* but we really don't. We lead such sterile lives that real, large scale suffering is not easy to contemplate. I was reading up on the Victorian Era recently (as you do if you're me) and came across a video about Victorians and their relationship with death. They knew death, were not untouched by it. They expected it. They revered it. Want to be super grossed out (and understand why I say our society is so sterile)? Google memento mori or Victoria jewelry made from hair. Death was like any other facet of life to them. Read Poe. Read Charles Dickens. Death is central, a core part of the plots.
    Today, death-- the idea of it-- sends people into a panic. Disease that can limit your life so suddenly is terrifying. We don't accept that. This COVID-19 brings out this overwhelming negativity-- a competition on who has it worse. Is this seriously what we want in our history books? When I was young, I was let loose in my public library (original Kemp Public Library for those Wichita Falls folks) on a weekly basis, and long before I should have (more than likely), I was drawn in by the history of The Depression (I have Okie family), World War Two, and the Holocaust. I have read "Reminisce" magazine for the better part of thirty years. Do you know what those stories are about? They are the memories of people taking care of people. That's what people remember. They remember the hardship, the tragedy, and the death, but they remember the people who eased the load, who silently stepped in and walked beside them. You have no idea how badly I want this to happen for us, but it's been hard to see it when someone would rather criticize or compare.
    One of my most cherished Holocaust stories is about Francine Christophe. She was an eight year old French Jew that was thousands of miles away from home and family in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She had been allowed to bring something with her from France. Her mother had two pieces of chocolate, telling Francine "We save these until we need them." There was a pregnant woman interned with them. On the day the woman went into labor, Francine's mother asked her for her piece of chocolate saying, "Giving birth here will be hard. She may die. If I give her the chocolate, it may help her." The baby was born. The mother and baby survived, liberated six months later. Francine went back to France and the years and then decades slipped by. A few years ago, Francine was part of a group of lecturers that spoke about their Holocaust experiences and what they could have been had they had proper therapy in the aftermath. At one of these lectureships, a psychiatrist took to the podium, but before she began her talk, she spoke directly to Francine, while holding out a piece of chocolate: "I am that baby."
    It takes so very little to touch a life. Our current set of circumstances should make us want to impart a kind word, to offer support. One tiny slice of life, one tiny piece of chocolate, and decades later, the touched lives remember. That baby would have no recollection and her mother would have told her often about the simple act of sharing a piece of chocolate. Whether or not the chocolate actually saved the woman and her baby is immaterial. The thought, the act, the memory is still there long past the horrors of life. How will we remember these days? And can we really compare our realities? Our current reality pales in comparison to history, but it will be remembered.




If you would like to see the short video of Francine Christophe, click here.

If you would like to watch the video of Victorians and Their Obsession with Death, click here.