Showing posts with label learning from my kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learning from my kids. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Continually Make Anew
It didn't really dawn on me this morning as I drove down Hope street, D riding shotgun, talking about the election, basketball, his high marks at his last camp in "intangibles (hustle, coachability, attitude). Nor did it occur to me as I sat having coffee with a new colleague, touching on the rituals of our wedding day, what it meant to us, where the ideas came from, far and wide.
But now it's hit me, 14 years ago today I got married to someone I loved very much, still do in ways that I never thought imaginable at the tail end of a sad and hearbreaking divorce, so many years of trying under our belts. In those years, we faced so many obstacles: moving, changing careers, birth of children, sickness, death -- so many of life's challenges (and joys) hitting us pretty much year over year, some level of chaos or disruption being a constant. Looking back at the end of our divorce, it felt like our relationship may never have had a chance to even settle in, much less thrive in the way that it was intended to.
But now, another move, another sickness, more career changes, a little more chaos down the road, it occurs to me that in the chaos might live some of the thriving. I am not always quite sure how we are doing it, but we are good. We have beautiful children and a life that we have chosen to live amicably. We are thoughtful of each other and, in some ways, more thoughtful of the ways that remarks or arguments land than we were when we were married. These days, it seems we can breathe and step back and apologize, because it's good ground we are on and neither of us wants to ruin it. Our children are thriving in the space we are able to hold, for this time and in this moment.
I would be lying if I said it was always this easy, or there weren't days that I look at families walking together with a twinge of envy, or if I wasn't worried that the permanent addition of new people to the mix will disrupt this good balance or if I didn't acknowledge how it's weird and hard to understand how to be in this space with a former partner when my normal course of action in breakups is to exit and not return.
But it's the remaking and continually making anew that is the path here, no other choice if we want our children to be at their best, no other choice if we want the one we said yes to so many years ago to live their life happy in our world as it exists now. Because, if we are lucky, we are always each other's, in an altogether different way and in a different space, sitting at weddings and births, shouldering emergencies or loss, opposite one another on the journey of parenthood for as long as life lets us be.
Monday, October 6, 2014
That's it, every day.
I sit here at my computer and 10 feet away he sits with his guitar across his knees, seated on a zigzagged ottoman that accentuates how much he's grown in the past few years. He's knees and elbows and huge brown eyes and a gorgeous smile. As we were leaving the orthodontist's office today, I kept telling him how weird it was when he turned 6, when he went into first grade, that first grade was the first shred of proof for me that he was going to grow into a young man. "And, today here we are, amore," I said over my shoulder with a smile. "Today and you are a middle schooler and we are on to braces." He smiled his gorgeous sweet smile and leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder, which would have been his head if the distance of the seats had not been such.
This boy is a favorite teddy bear wrapped in an enigma. He's honest and disclosive in one minute, difficult to gauge the next. He prefers, almost any day, to recline right on top of you in the cold Fall wind. He hasn't figured out that that's uncool. He's just starting to sense what is uncool. I don't know when he's going to grow into that uncool thing and I alternately feel like I haven't done enough to middle school him up and thankful for the buying of time that his sweet nature has given us.
He converses easily with adults. He's building his own style of humor that he tries on with his sister, dad and me at every turn. He loves a turn of phrase or a double entendre. There is no bad fart joke. He cracks up when he talks about butts. To match that, I showed him Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and he spent most of the next day commenting on the fruit, and less on the back, or being a little "uhhhhhh, that was weird" regarding the ardent appreciation of the female form through Sir Mix-A-Lot's voluptious stylings. I think the giant buttcrack was perhaps the biggest hit. So it goes at this age, I've kept reminding myself. So it goes.
This is the kid that still likes me to tuck him in at bedtime, who is happiest when he can reach across and touch your hand. He is tactile and yummy and stinky and kind. When I found out I was having a boy, I thought "Good, I know nothing about what it's like to be a boy. I can see him for himself, in all of his dimensions, without clouding my
[Ok, so he just walked over as I was typing this, gave me an enormous, lingering hug]
without clouding my view with all of my own stuff." And that's it, every day. He's still a mystery to me in so many ways, such a beautiful thing to unwrap, like sitting waiting quietly for the birds to come out. They come and you get to see beautiful things, but sometimes it's just the stillness that brings them, the moment of breathing with whatever is there. Or, the time that those same creatures catch you unawares, explode into view, fill you with delight and catch your heart with laughter. That's what D is like. He's deep and sweet and hilarious. He is golden. I love him so.
This boy is a favorite teddy bear wrapped in an enigma. He's honest and disclosive in one minute, difficult to gauge the next. He prefers, almost any day, to recline right on top of you in the cold Fall wind. He hasn't figured out that that's uncool. He's just starting to sense what is uncool. I don't know when he's going to grow into that uncool thing and I alternately feel like I haven't done enough to middle school him up and thankful for the buying of time that his sweet nature has given us.
He converses easily with adults. He's building his own style of humor that he tries on with his sister, dad and me at every turn. He loves a turn of phrase or a double entendre. There is no bad fart joke. He cracks up when he talks about butts. To match that, I showed him Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and he spent most of the next day commenting on the fruit, and less on the back, or being a little "uhhhhhh, that was weird" regarding the ardent appreciation of the female form through Sir Mix-A-Lot's voluptious stylings. I think the giant buttcrack was perhaps the biggest hit. So it goes at this age, I've kept reminding myself. So it goes.
This is the kid that still likes me to tuck him in at bedtime, who is happiest when he can reach across and touch your hand. He is tactile and yummy and stinky and kind. When I found out I was having a boy, I thought "Good, I know nothing about what it's like to be a boy. I can see him for himself, in all of his dimensions, without clouding my
[Ok, so he just walked over as I was typing this, gave me an enormous, lingering hug]
without clouding my view with all of my own stuff." And that's it, every day. He's still a mystery to me in so many ways, such a beautiful thing to unwrap, like sitting waiting quietly for the birds to come out. They come and you get to see beautiful things, but sometimes it's just the stillness that brings them, the moment of breathing with whatever is there. Or, the time that those same creatures catch you unawares, explode into view, fill you with delight and catch your heart with laughter. That's what D is like. He's deep and sweet and hilarious. He is golden. I love him so.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Beginning Again
This is dedicated to my girl, Chapman, because she kicks ass even in the middle of the storm.
*******************
It takes about 20 sessions of practice before your body falls naturally into the pattern of the asanas, or so my yoga teacher tells me gently as I stumble through poses, remembering four moves down the road that I'd forgotten a critical counter-pose or grounding stance.
What this reminds me is that it takes time for the muscles and neurons to remember work that you did long ago, that starting again simultaneously means reaching back and stepping forward. This metaphor is not lost on me every practice that I wobble through some poses and feel strong on others. But each day I notice new strength, each day I have to push myself to dig a little deeper, each day I wonder when it's going to be easy to do this work with the grace and agility I see all around me.
There have been a number of images stewing in my mind for awhile now. One is of a plastic ball made of interwoven black loops. The ball is a mass of contradicting tensions, you try to pull one loop and the others all resist. Work, children, relationships, love, finances, health, creativity, place, home...all so tightly interwoven that one cannot meaningfully shift without affecting all the rest. A few weeks ago I withdrew from a position I had applied for a few months earlier and the ball relaxed a bit. This week I moved truckloads of stuff out of our house and the ball relaxed a bit more. The kids are getting up 15 minutes earlier to have breakfast with me before work and I feel the ball shifting more. The chain reaction caused by letting one thing go has been tremendous.
Another image is of closing loops, finishing things that started long ago and need to come to a close. Next month I make my last and final journey to New Orleans for my final phase of reconstruction surgery. I've come to realize that this is it, that after this surgery I need to be done, that the space my body will occupy at that time is what it is, that it is time to just let it freaking be. I am thankful that this is coming to a close, thankful to turn the page on that particularly shitty chapter of my life and healing. Another loop to close will be making peace with what my body has been through in the past two years. That one will take longer, no doubt. This idea of closing loops comes from my dear friend Jenn who talks about eating the elephant one bite at a time. Yes, indeed, one bite at a time.
Finally, I have the image of D as a baby flash in front of my eyes from time to time. When we would travel with D as a baby, we would marvel at the most amazing leaps in growth he would make when we were away. It was as though leaving his regular environment and engaging with new surroundings would allow his mind and body to open up in remarkable ways.
My (fantastic, oncology-focused) therapist talks a lot about post-traumatic growth and how living through major life crises like losing your mother and having cancer can trigger positive shifts, perceptions, opportunities, connections and growth. It's a time where I feel like I need to recut the puzzle of my life, to bring in new ways of looking at things, to create the life that is compelling to live, to grow and shift perspectives, to answer the question "what are you going to do with your one precious life?" And like those periods of growth for my tiny boy, this time is counterbalanced with deep emotions and the need to sort and sift and figure while others have to be patient with you as you fuss and stretch and try to consolidate in this new space. It's learning to wobble on those shaky baby legs that, in time, become strong.
*******************
It takes about 20 sessions of practice before your body falls naturally into the pattern of the asanas, or so my yoga teacher tells me gently as I stumble through poses, remembering four moves down the road that I'd forgotten a critical counter-pose or grounding stance.
What this reminds me is that it takes time for the muscles and neurons to remember work that you did long ago, that starting again simultaneously means reaching back and stepping forward. This metaphor is not lost on me every practice that I wobble through some poses and feel strong on others. But each day I notice new strength, each day I have to push myself to dig a little deeper, each day I wonder when it's going to be easy to do this work with the grace and agility I see all around me.
There have been a number of images stewing in my mind for awhile now. One is of a plastic ball made of interwoven black loops. The ball is a mass of contradicting tensions, you try to pull one loop and the others all resist. Work, children, relationships, love, finances, health, creativity, place, home...all so tightly interwoven that one cannot meaningfully shift without affecting all the rest. A few weeks ago I withdrew from a position I had applied for a few months earlier and the ball relaxed a bit. This week I moved truckloads of stuff out of our house and the ball relaxed a bit more. The kids are getting up 15 minutes earlier to have breakfast with me before work and I feel the ball shifting more. The chain reaction caused by letting one thing go has been tremendous.
Another image is of closing loops, finishing things that started long ago and need to come to a close. Next month I make my last and final journey to New Orleans for my final phase of reconstruction surgery. I've come to realize that this is it, that after this surgery I need to be done, that the space my body will occupy at that time is what it is, that it is time to just let it freaking be. I am thankful that this is coming to a close, thankful to turn the page on that particularly shitty chapter of my life and healing. Another loop to close will be making peace with what my body has been through in the past two years. That one will take longer, no doubt. This idea of closing loops comes from my dear friend Jenn who talks about eating the elephant one bite at a time. Yes, indeed, one bite at a time.
Finally, I have the image of D as a baby flash in front of my eyes from time to time. When we would travel with D as a baby, we would marvel at the most amazing leaps in growth he would make when we were away. It was as though leaving his regular environment and engaging with new surroundings would allow his mind and body to open up in remarkable ways.
My (fantastic, oncology-focused) therapist talks a lot about post-traumatic growth and how living through major life crises like losing your mother and having cancer can trigger positive shifts, perceptions, opportunities, connections and growth. It's a time where I feel like I need to recut the puzzle of my life, to bring in new ways of looking at things, to create the life that is compelling to live, to grow and shift perspectives, to answer the question "what are you going to do with your one precious life?" And like those periods of growth for my tiny boy, this time is counterbalanced with deep emotions and the need to sort and sift and figure while others have to be patient with you as you fuss and stretch and try to consolidate in this new space. It's learning to wobble on those shaky baby legs that, in time, become strong.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Restarting
"Did it feel short, Mama, or did it feel long?" David looked up at me with his big brown eyes and I had to think for a minute about what he was asking.
"This chemo, D, or just in chemo in general?"
"The whole thing, Mama. Did it feel like it went on for a long time, or did it feel short?"
I had to think about it for a minute, because at that exact moment one of the longest, most grueling experiences of my lifetime actually felt short. I was over the line. It was over. I was done. What was there left of that experience but to leave it behind?
Even though I am only two days out from the last session, I'm already dealing with a myriad of complex thoughts about what it means to be out of treatment. I feel like I am seeing glimmers of my old self coming around, touching into the old me and seeing the possibilities of a life restored. Last night I stood washing dishes and listening to Nick play various tracks from Jimi Hendrix on the stereo while he and the kids discussed Hendrix's style. We had just spoken of going to Seattle to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in August and to show the kids the town. Suddenly I was awash in tears, feeling in my body the real me coming back to take that journey with my family and all the wonderful things it will entail.
I can feel what it will be like to be normal again and it's just so completely overwhelming.
But on the other side, I don't want to lose the significance of what I have been through, what people have helped me through, what women and men go through every day who live with cancer. Part of me wants to hold on, to remember how shitty it felt, to remind myself of what it took from me so that I make good choices about the way to live going forward. I don't think I can shut the door on this, nor do I want to, but I'm not sure what kind of space to give it in my life.
I wrote a post awhile back about this year being a pause in my life, the fermata, the time that the music stops for as long as needed. My wonderful friend Deb, herself a musician, shared this thought with me:
Maybe you start with humility. Maybe you let yourself reflect. Maybe you don't push yourself back into the busy-ness of what life is about too quickly. Maybe you take time to heal and appreciate and rest. Maybe the starting back in comes slow, the rhythm restoring as if feels right, first violin be damned.
"This chemo, D, or just in chemo in general?"
"The whole thing, Mama. Did it feel like it went on for a long time, or did it feel short?"
I had to think about it for a minute, because at that exact moment one of the longest, most grueling experiences of my lifetime actually felt short. I was over the line. It was over. I was done. What was there left of that experience but to leave it behind?
Even though I am only two days out from the last session, I'm already dealing with a myriad of complex thoughts about what it means to be out of treatment. I feel like I am seeing glimmers of my old self coming around, touching into the old me and seeing the possibilities of a life restored. Last night I stood washing dishes and listening to Nick play various tracks from Jimi Hendrix on the stereo while he and the kids discussed Hendrix's style. We had just spoken of going to Seattle to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in August and to show the kids the town. Suddenly I was awash in tears, feeling in my body the real me coming back to take that journey with my family and all the wonderful things it will entail.
I can feel what it will be like to be normal again and it's just so completely overwhelming.
But on the other side, I don't want to lose the significance of what I have been through, what people have helped me through, what women and men go through every day who live with cancer. Part of me wants to hold on, to remember how shitty it felt, to remind myself of what it took from me so that I make good choices about the way to live going forward. I don't think I can shut the door on this, nor do I want to, but I'm not sure what kind of space to give it in my life.
I wrote a post awhile back about this year being a pause in my life, the fermata, the time that the music stops for as long as needed. My wonderful friend Deb, herself a musician, shared this thought with me:
I like the idea of a fermata. There's a real beauty in that time when the note is held, or even better, when the rest is held. Everything is suspended, time stretches, you stop looking back at the last note, and start looking forward. You know that the tricky part about a fermata - at least in ensemble playing - is starting up again, since the group has temporarily abandoned meter. That is why first violinists get so good at the quick rhythmic inhalation that warns "we're going to start now!"How do you start up again after something like chemo? I've been sitting with this idea for weeks now. I'm feeling around in it now. I'm letting myself build into it, tears and all. As they unplugged me from the chemo line for the last time, I wept. Not so much for joy, but just for the end of it all. My tears freaked the nurse out, but my friend Jenn was there crying along with me. I passed over the finish line neither on my knees, nor with arms raised in bold triumph, but rather with an appreciation that was humbling to the greatest degree.
Maybe you start with humility. Maybe you let yourself reflect. Maybe you don't push yourself back into the busy-ness of what life is about too quickly. Maybe you take time to heal and appreciate and rest. Maybe the starting back in comes slow, the rhythm restoring as if feels right, first violin be damned.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Having it all
"C'mon, Mama!" he yells, "our song is on!" Sure enough, the thump-thump-thump beat meets me as I head up the stairs. I find him in his bedroom, his sweet dark eyes shining as he pauses to belt out the lyrics
I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying AYO!
Gotta let go!
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying AYO!
Baby, let's go!
with such earnestness that I want to grab him and smother him in a huge hug. He works his wiry, muscly frame around nearly (but not exactly) to the beat of the music. He's learned a few new moves from his friends, I suspect, which include a bit of a football player's blocking jam and a frat boy fist pumping "rock on" kind of expression. It's adorable.
God, I love this kid.
We shout the lyrics to each other, smiling that this is our favorite song together (of the moment), the enjoyment of serious, hard dancing taking us both out of whatever else exists for the moment.
The first time I heard him sing these lyrics I thought "You're 8. What in the world do you have to throw your hands up in the air about? And what is this about celebrating and living your life? You are 8. What's that about?" It was in the space the before my diagnosis, before the reality of having a parent in cancer treatment would invade our family, before his daily "how was your day, Mama?" became code for "did you feel ok today?" or "how did the chemo go?"
This cancer experience sits deep with this little guy. Patient through my bad moods, thoughtful and helpful when I haven't felt well, David is 100% a trooper. He's a kid that keeps things inside, handles things at his own pace, asks questions after you create the space for more questions. It takes some prompting.
I will never forget the day that we told the kids that I had breast cancer. We were heading back to Rhode Island to see family and knew that we needed to tell the kids for fear that they might overhear something and be confused. Driving that 45 minute stretch to the airport seemed like the best option. We turned onto the highway, I turned to Nick and said "let's go" and he began.
He said "Guys, we need to talk about something. Mom got some news about her health that we need to talk about. She just found out that she's sick. It's nothing that you can catch and she's going to be ok, she's going to have to take some medicine and have some surgery."
I had been scared to bring this up, so incredibly close after my mother's own death from lung cancer. David and Ava had seen my mom just days before she died, when she was in no way herself, thin and incoherent so close to death.
Standing at my mother's bedside, they clung to us; David's face buried in my belly, Ava crying into Nick's shoulder saying "That's not my grandma". They knew too well how cancer could ravage a person. I knew that the connection was just too close.
"What kind of sickness does she have, Dada?" David said.
"She's got cancer, David," Nick said.
You could have heard a pin drop. I turned around to look at them both and said "It's not like Grandma Suz's cancer, David. I am going to be fine, it's not the same thing. Don't worry."
And then my sweet, sweet boy let out a long, slow and soft whistle of relief and my heart broke completely open. No child should have to hear this, I thought. No child should have to hear that his mom has cancer. His momentary fear and subsequent feeling of relief was palpable.
I tried to get him to talk over the weekend, to ask some questions and let some things out. He refused. He really didn't want to talk about it. You could see in his eyes that he was really scared and playing off that he wasn't. Ava, on the other hand, was a non-stop question machine. "What happens with cancer? What will happen to you? Will it hurt? What do they do? How will you feel?..." Endless questions.
On the flight home, I used his little sister's inquisitive and fearless orientation as bait. As we sat on the plane together, I said "You know, D, Ava's had some great questions about my being sick." "She has?" he responded, "what kind of questions did she ask?" So we went through Ava's list of questions and what I told her. We talked for the full hour and a half about what was going to happen, what he was worried about, what I was worried about, how treatment worked. He finally said "Well, at least you won't lose your hair." That part, and the reality of it, I think made him saddest of all.
The guy sitting behind us had a bird's eye view of our conversation and as we all stood up at the end, he said "I don't think I've ever heard a better conversation between a mother and son about such a difficult subject. You have an amazing kid on your hands there." Damn straight.
Ava runs into the group to catch the last few verses of the song and we all three sing the lines of the song that mean the most to me:
I'm gonna take it all like
I'm gonna be the last one standing
...
Cause I, I, Believe it
And I, I, I
I just want it all, I just want it all
And it really strikes me. I do want it all.
"All" now has come down to a pretty narrow set of things.
I want to be here for these children for as long as I can, to get to know them deeply as people and be amazed at how they grow. I want to be healthy and happy and curious about life.
I want time. That is all.
I want to believe that I can be the last one standing, against the odds, dancing with my children years from now at their weddings. It's not so much to ask, and it's not so much to expect when you look into the eyes of these little people who need a mom.
So the next leg of this journey is fulfilling that promise, that expectation. The next leg is setting myself up to have it all--even in this modified space of what all might mean.
Check this kid out. Wouldn't you?
I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying AYO!
Gotta let go!
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying AYO!
Baby, let's go!
with such earnestness that I want to grab him and smother him in a huge hug. He works his wiry, muscly frame around nearly (but not exactly) to the beat of the music. He's learned a few new moves from his friends, I suspect, which include a bit of a football player's blocking jam and a frat boy fist pumping "rock on" kind of expression. It's adorable.
God, I love this kid.
We shout the lyrics to each other, smiling that this is our favorite song together (of the moment), the enjoyment of serious, hard dancing taking us both out of whatever else exists for the moment.
The first time I heard him sing these lyrics I thought "You're 8. What in the world do you have to throw your hands up in the air about? And what is this about celebrating and living your life? You are 8. What's that about?" It was in the space the before my diagnosis, before the reality of having a parent in cancer treatment would invade our family, before his daily "how was your day, Mama?" became code for "did you feel ok today?" or "how did the chemo go?"
This cancer experience sits deep with this little guy. Patient through my bad moods, thoughtful and helpful when I haven't felt well, David is 100% a trooper. He's a kid that keeps things inside, handles things at his own pace, asks questions after you create the space for more questions. It takes some prompting.
I will never forget the day that we told the kids that I had breast cancer. We were heading back to Rhode Island to see family and knew that we needed to tell the kids for fear that they might overhear something and be confused. Driving that 45 minute stretch to the airport seemed like the best option. We turned onto the highway, I turned to Nick and said "let's go" and he began.
He said "Guys, we need to talk about something. Mom got some news about her health that we need to talk about. She just found out that she's sick. It's nothing that you can catch and she's going to be ok, she's going to have to take some medicine and have some surgery."
I had been scared to bring this up, so incredibly close after my mother's own death from lung cancer. David and Ava had seen my mom just days before she died, when she was in no way herself, thin and incoherent so close to death.
Standing at my mother's bedside, they clung to us; David's face buried in my belly, Ava crying into Nick's shoulder saying "That's not my grandma". They knew too well how cancer could ravage a person. I knew that the connection was just too close.
"What kind of sickness does she have, Dada?" David said.
"She's got cancer, David," Nick said.
You could have heard a pin drop. I turned around to look at them both and said "It's not like Grandma Suz's cancer, David. I am going to be fine, it's not the same thing. Don't worry."
And then my sweet, sweet boy let out a long, slow and soft whistle of relief and my heart broke completely open. No child should have to hear this, I thought. No child should have to hear that his mom has cancer. His momentary fear and subsequent feeling of relief was palpable.
I tried to get him to talk over the weekend, to ask some questions and let some things out. He refused. He really didn't want to talk about it. You could see in his eyes that he was really scared and playing off that he wasn't. Ava, on the other hand, was a non-stop question machine. "What happens with cancer? What will happen to you? Will it hurt? What do they do? How will you feel?..." Endless questions.
On the flight home, I used his little sister's inquisitive and fearless orientation as bait. As we sat on the plane together, I said "You know, D, Ava's had some great questions about my being sick." "She has?" he responded, "what kind of questions did she ask?" So we went through Ava's list of questions and what I told her. We talked for the full hour and a half about what was going to happen, what he was worried about, what I was worried about, how treatment worked. He finally said "Well, at least you won't lose your hair." That part, and the reality of it, I think made him saddest of all.
The guy sitting behind us had a bird's eye view of our conversation and as we all stood up at the end, he said "I don't think I've ever heard a better conversation between a mother and son about such a difficult subject. You have an amazing kid on your hands there." Damn straight.
Ava runs into the group to catch the last few verses of the song and we all three sing the lines of the song that mean the most to me:
I'm gonna take it all like
I'm gonna be the last one standing
...
Cause I, I, Believe it
And I, I, I
I just want it all, I just want it all
And it really strikes me. I do want it all.
"All" now has come down to a pretty narrow set of things.
I want to be here for these children for as long as I can, to get to know them deeply as people and be amazed at how they grow. I want to be healthy and happy and curious about life.
I want time. That is all.
I want to believe that I can be the last one standing, against the odds, dancing with my children years from now at their weddings. It's not so much to ask, and it's not so much to expect when you look into the eyes of these little people who need a mom.
So the next leg of this journey is fulfilling that promise, that expectation. The next leg is setting myself up to have it all--even in this modified space of what all might mean.
Check this kid out. Wouldn't you?
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Facing what comes
Health update: Round two chemo is done, port installed and we're checking how that's working. The hair is *gone*...beyond the buzz you saw earlier. Things are ok here health wise. Chemo sucks, but you knew that already. More to come on that front, just had a story in my head I wanted to tell today :)
Saturday afternoon I sat in my bathroom and looked at Nick and said "Well, let's do it." It was the first blood-thinner shot I was going to need to take at home and the assumption on both of our parts that my needle-phobic tendencies would keep me from being the administrator of the shot. I'd been really working myself up to this moment and decided "what the hell, I am going to try to do it myself"...and did. It actually didn't hurt at all and I am really just a big baby, but it was a leap for me to just own the thing that needed to be done, even though as I poised that needle above my belly I was scared as hell to do it.
It reminded me of an experience that I had with David a couple of years ago in Tang Soo Do class, one that I have seen a number of times since. The back story has grown a little foggy, but we were at a belt demo at our dojang and the various belts were going up to perform. David was the only student in his particular color class at that point and the instructor had overlooked putting him in the show, completely by accident.
He sat there, huge tears in his eyes, looking at me like "what do I do?" So I kept giving him the signal to hang out, be calm, not worry. The demo segment event ended, he got up and came over and asked me to take him outside where he proceeded to freak out. Master Fancher came out to see what was up and said "well, David, you'll just do a demo now" which for some reason took him into the atmosphere of "NOOOOOO!" sobbing, crying, freaking out. I left him with Master Fancher leaning over him giving him a really solid pep talk and telling him he needed to go do it, even if he was scared. So David came into the room, still sobbing, people were wondering what in the hell was going on and Master Fancher proceeded to tell the group what a great student David is, how he's really a Jedi in disguise and David heard none of it because he was still crying. Master Fancher looked over at him like "ok, dude, let's go" and David refused.
It was horrible.
Then, in a moment of total clarity, Master Fancher walked over, picked David up under his arms like a little kitten, and took him to the center of the floor.
He barked the command of "attention!" and David snapped to into ready stance.
And as Master Fancher called each of the moves, David executed like a total champion with precision, skill and technique unlike anything he'd ever done before. He came into himself in that moment in a way I had never seen...confident, driven, focused and brave. The crowd was on its feet cheering, moms in the crowd were tearing up. I was completely blown away.
Driving to work today I replayed that scenario in my brain a hundred times, gathering strength from what that experience taught me about facing what comes, about pulling it together, about overcoming fear, about working through something that scares you and not only survive, but to thrive and excel. We are not our fears. We are not our insecurities. We have inner strength beyond our wildest dreams if we give ourselves to test it in the ring.
Just last night, that same special little boy and I wrapped up Harry Potter The Goblet of Fire which left us with a good final thought: “As Hagrid had said, what would come, would come … and he would have to meet it when it did."
P.S. I wrote a little piece on my experience of taking Tang Soo Do with David for his school's parent blog: http://s-kparentblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/walking-step-behind.html
Saturday afternoon I sat in my bathroom and looked at Nick and said "Well, let's do it." It was the first blood-thinner shot I was going to need to take at home and the assumption on both of our parts that my needle-phobic tendencies would keep me from being the administrator of the shot. I'd been really working myself up to this moment and decided "what the hell, I am going to try to do it myself"...and did. It actually didn't hurt at all and I am really just a big baby, but it was a leap for me to just own the thing that needed to be done, even though as I poised that needle above my belly I was scared as hell to do it.
It reminded me of an experience that I had with David a couple of years ago in Tang Soo Do class, one that I have seen a number of times since. The back story has grown a little foggy, but we were at a belt demo at our dojang and the various belts were going up to perform. David was the only student in his particular color class at that point and the instructor had overlooked putting him in the show, completely by accident.
He sat there, huge tears in his eyes, looking at me like "what do I do?" So I kept giving him the signal to hang out, be calm, not worry. The demo segment event ended, he got up and came over and asked me to take him outside where he proceeded to freak out. Master Fancher came out to see what was up and said "well, David, you'll just do a demo now" which for some reason took him into the atmosphere of "NOOOOOO!" sobbing, crying, freaking out. I left him with Master Fancher leaning over him giving him a really solid pep talk and telling him he needed to go do it, even if he was scared. So David came into the room, still sobbing, people were wondering what in the hell was going on and Master Fancher proceeded to tell the group what a great student David is, how he's really a Jedi in disguise and David heard none of it because he was still crying. Master Fancher looked over at him like "ok, dude, let's go" and David refused.
It was horrible.
Then, in a moment of total clarity, Master Fancher walked over, picked David up under his arms like a little kitten, and took him to the center of the floor.
He barked the command of "attention!" and David snapped to into ready stance.
And as Master Fancher called each of the moves, David executed like a total champion with precision, skill and technique unlike anything he'd ever done before. He came into himself in that moment in a way I had never seen...confident, driven, focused and brave. The crowd was on its feet cheering, moms in the crowd were tearing up. I was completely blown away.
Driving to work today I replayed that scenario in my brain a hundred times, gathering strength from what that experience taught me about facing what comes, about pulling it together, about overcoming fear, about working through something that scares you and not only survive, but to thrive and excel. We are not our fears. We are not our insecurities. We have inner strength beyond our wildest dreams if we give ourselves to test it in the ring.
Just last night, that same special little boy and I wrapped up Harry Potter The Goblet of Fire which left us with a good final thought: “As Hagrid had said, what would come, would come … and he would have to meet it when it did."
P.S. I wrote a little piece on my experience of taking Tang Soo Do with David for his school's parent blog: http://s-kparentblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/walking-step-behind.html
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