Perseverance

This is going to sound like a really mean "I hate Rochester" post for about one paragraph. But hang in there, because SPOILER ALERT, it doesn't end that way.

When we moved to Rochester four years ago, I was really sad to leave behind my life in Philadelphia. I missed my job, I missed my friends, and I missed my city. I missed being able to go home for a weekend visit. I distinctly remember driving back to the Roc from the Cities after dropping my Mom off at the airport, taking in the view of seemingly endless cornfields and soybean fields and thinking "I hate it here" and surprising myself with that thought and the depth of that emotion. Because I truly didn't want to hate it and I didn't want to be sad. I had a brand new (to me) house and a baby on the way, and life was good...so why couldn't I get with the program and just be happy? Darn it, was it so hard to just LIKE where I was living?

Well yes, it was, a bit. And after a few years of reflection, I think I know why.

If you have been through a book club with me before, you know that I love Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. And no, I don't like the movie, that sucked. And I know that some people loathe that book, including my own sister, but for me, that book, at that time in my life, was profoundly important. Anyway, this is not one of the profound parts, but Gilbert at some point mentions the idea that each place and each person have a word, something that encapsulates what/who they are in their very essence. And if your words don't mesh, you can't really get along with a person or be at peace with a place.

So recently I've been pondering Rochester and its word. And this was a hard job. Some places are easy to define. Rochester is tough. It's home to one of the best medical facilities in the world...and also to a lot of farmers, thus making it sort of a cosmopolitan and yet country kind of place. It's a city that takes its personality from a hospital, which quite frankly, is never a good thing. It's a city where eating in a restaurant beside a person swathed in bandages or making room for an oxygen tank along is totally normal.  The walking wounded are everywhere and some of the sights you see in a local Target tug at your heartstrings and turn your stomach all at once. It can be rough, but it's also a place of hope and answered prayers. It's a place where big problems are fixed and survivors celebrate their victory over disease and disability. And yet it's also a city plagued by murders of crows. You see what I'm saying here? That's Rochester. A place of last chances and answered prayers that also happens to have a problem  with omens of doom taking over the downtown.

So it wasn't easy to nail down a word, but after much thought, I suggest that Rochester's word might be "Perseverance".

Dictionary.com defines perseverance as:

1. steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

2.Theology. continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation. 

I love that there is a theological definition to this word too, which I confess, I wasn't thinking about at all, but frankly if residency doesn't turn your eyes to God, you will be turning to "crazy" with a quickness.

Yes, I think Rochester's word is "perseverance". And that explains why it took me so long to get along with Rochester. I am not yet sure what my personal word is, but I KNOW it's not that. I am not one who perseveres. I'm one who says "Well, to hell with this, let's get a bottle of wine". Nobody WANTS to learn how to persevere because that necessarily means doing something hard. No ones talks about enduring this chocolate cake or staying the course of their bubble bath.

I wasn't a perseverer (real word? no, but roll with it). But maybe, just maybe, I am now. And I do love it here, not so much because of the weird contrary contrastiness (also not a real word) of the Roc, but because I needed to be here and to learn how to endure, how to persist in spite of "difficulties, obstacles, or disappointment".  And I needed the people here, the women who help me continue "in a state of grace to the end". 

I'm not going to write about resident life because that's been done more effectively elsewhere, by people who have been through it themselves. But perseverance? Yes. They learn that. My goodness, they have to learn that or they don't make it.

Life as a patient or a patient's loved one? I've been there, sweating bullets and choking on tears in the PICU. Perseverance? Yes. It requires strength you don't know that you have and don't particularly want to have, but you MUST have it for your loved one. It's the strength to stay and the strength to face the possibility of letting them leave. And there is no difficulty like that, no thing that is harder to see to the end.

And life as a resident's spouse? I could write a novel, though don't worry, I won't do that here. But yes, you had better learn how to do it all, by yourself, and find happiness in it. Perseverance.

So now? I know that I can do this thing. This medical spouse thing, this motherhood thing, this LIFE thing. And I said "do it by yourself" but really, you don't do it alone. There are times that it feels that way, because your primary partner is gone so much, enduring their own tests, but you find people that help you, that quietly step into the gaps, and help you persevere.

One of those people left last week. My friend Melissa went back to California. She is the first of the fifth years to leave. I knew it was coming, of course. And I expected to be sad, and I am sad. I'm sad because I miss Mel and Cora. And I'm so grateful for the time we got to spend in Florida together and for Mel's sweet heart and generous nature which allowed her to like me even though I'm nothing like her and could easily drive a put-together person crazy.

And Melissa is always perfectly put together ...to the point that she and Cora are always dressed in complementary outfits. I consider myself well groomed if there are no immediately visible food stains on my outfit. When we were in Florida, she made a spread sheet comparing the prices of food and supplies at area grocery stores. I bought a balloon pump and 55 balloons for Graydon's 12 month photos, which then drifted all over our apartment for the remainder of our time in Florida. I think you get the picture. 

 I'm also sad because this is just the beginning of the end. The rest of the fifth years are packing up and moving out, and it's surreal to me. They're all great people and good friends. The last to leave will be Danielle, and when I think about Danielle and Sydney leaving, and not having sweet little Miss S every day, I immediately start crying.

Great, now I'm crying.

But yes, that will be a hard goodbye. There is no bigger compliment than handing your child over to someone. And Danielle is awesome, the kind of friend that lets you cry about a bad day and then brings you a bottle of wine the next day, just in case the bad mood is lingering. And she raised a luminous and lovely daughter that I will miss terribly, and Addie will miss terribly. She really believes Sydney is her sister. Sometimes on the weekend she freaks out and says "Mom, we forgot to get Sydney!" when we're leaving an activity. I'm not sure how to explain that she isn't going to get to play with her "sister" for a long while.

Soon my year will be the fifth year. And then it will be our turn to pack up and move too. All my friends already know where they are going...Utah, Canada, Alabama, North Carolina, Nevada....they are spreading out all over the States.  Realtors are being engaged, houses are being prepped for sale, and "we really need to do this before we leave" lists are being prepared. So yes, it's the beginning of the end.

The end of the end is still a year away. But I've already had my first little taste of how hard it will be to say goodbye. These are my people. My family away from my family, the girls that make it possible for me to have dentist appointments and hair cuts and bring me chai lattes on bad days and take long walks and short runs with me. I spent Mother's Day with Jen and Anne because Tim was on call (as were their guys). I spent Father's Day with Laura and Nicole because Tim was on call. They're my people. My other family.

So, Rochester, I actually value you now. I don't hate you. I kinda sorta like you, maybe even love you, because you've changed me for the better. You, and the people here, you're all about perseverance. And I hope we can spend our last year here appreciating all the bizarrely oddball things about you and our crazy lives.

And the fifth years? Ladies, you did it. You did. And I bet most of you were a little out of sync with Rochester too, when you first arrived. And I bet leaving now breaks your hearts. Because your personal words, whatever they may be, they now include Rochester's word. And while I'm sad that this chapter is ending, I know you will all be OK because this place left its mark on you.  I know you will all persevere.

Not least because you survived five Minnesota winters. Everything after this? It's cake, baby. Eat your hearts out.

The Fear of Dying

I am a pretty fearful person. I don't necessarily like that about myself, but it's an indisputable fact. 

For instance, I'm terrified of heights and anything that involves heights. I can't explain it but my knees get weak and I have to fight the urge to curl into a fetal position.You might think that I'm talking about things like the Empire State Building (which I flatly refuse to enter, by the way), but I'm also prone to freak out in things like parking decks. For my fellow Roccers, here is a relevant example. I parked in the top level of the Damon deck the other day and almost had a heart attack waiting for the elevator. Why is it so OPEN up there? I made Addie stand against the wall the whole time. She thought I was nuts. And I definitely probably am, but fear is NOT rational.

Fear of heights also leads to fear of flying. And elevators. And roller coasters. I used to force myself to go on roller coasters until one day I realized that it was supposed to be fun and I just wasn't having all that much fun (I think it was the tears rolling down my face that clued me in).

And I pretty much don't swim in the ocean anymore because I'm so afraid of sharks. I know the statistics and I know they don't want to eat people (thank you, God!) but still, if you are in the ocean then you are swimming near sharks. And I don't care to enter into the food chain anywhere but on the top, thanks very much.

Other things that I'm afraid of include, but are not limited to: alligators, snakes, spiders, killer virus epidemics, aliens, crazy serial killers, and dentists.

So this is already a pretty extensive list and I haven't even gotten to my point yet.

Lately, I've been terrified of dying. I'm not sick, I'm not engaging in any risky behaviors (no skydiving...heights again!), but I am flat panicked about dying.

Part of that is because I live with a man that is literally dealing with death and grief every day on the orthopedic oncology unit. And some of those deaths and impending deaths seem very untimely and very unfair and it is hard to hear about and witness, even secondhand. The doctors that do this every day are heroes, honestly. To say nothing of the patients and their families. Heavens. Even thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

It's difficult to hear these stories about doctors and patients grappling with mortality and not consider your loved ones and yourself in the same situation. Four years ago I think this would have been easier for me. But now, I am a mother. And the thought of leaving Addie and Graydon behind is frankly terrifying to me.  My mind quickly runs amok thinking of how they'd have a hole in their lives forever, how they'd never really get over that loss, how unfair it would be to lose a mother so young.

As if "fair" is a concept that has anything to do with life. As if I am promised, guaranteed, owed a certain number of years and days with my family. As if there isn't a single day that goes by without some family somewhere hurting over an untimely, "unfair" death. Just since I started working on this post I've had three loved ones lose other loved ones at ages 19, 54, and 32 respectively. All of the deaths were shockingly sudden and all are deeply grieved.

It scares me. I am afraid that I too have a blood clot forming all unknowing, ready to race to my lungs or heart and end my time here. Or that there is an aneurysm waiting to bloom and burst with deadly consequences somewhere in my brain. Or that while I am laughing and playing, my cells are quietly multiplying and forming into malignant masses.

In these moments of anxiety, I run to God. I pray with barely contained hysteria, a jet engine shriek aimed towards heaven "Please God, don't let me die yet. Please please please keep my family and myself safe."

The answer I'm looking for goes something like this "My dear child, of course you are not dying! You will be the first human since Methuselah to live almost a thousand years, along with everyone you know!" 

That doesn't happen.

Instead God asks me why I'm so scared of death. And I tell Him that I fear dying before I'm finished with my work here. That I fear that I am indispensable. That my family couldn't take another blow like that. That my children wouldn't be OK. That my husband wouldn't ever forgive Him. I remind Him that I love so many people and so many people love me that He really should consider making sure I live a super long time. You know, just in case He has other ideas.

And I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking maybe God feels in these moments what I like to call "Sigh-Cot-Ic". This is how I feel when Addie asks me for the 500th time what I'm doing, or eating, or drinking, or can she please watch Dora again? And I sigh and remind her again of what I just said 10 seconds earlier (and 30 seconds before that, and 60 seconds before that, and so on..)"Cooking. Cheese. Tea. No." while trying not to lose my ever lovin' mind.

But He is patient and He reminds me of what I already know: which is that perfect love casts out all fear. And then He reminds me of why that is so. Because of course no one loves my loved ones like God does. And anything that happens to them will eventually be used by the Great Father for good in this world. As impossible as it seems, if I leave my family before I am ready, there will somehow be a blessing that will come from that trial. I won't see it, but I know this to be true.

There have been moments of crippling pain in my own life where I questioned God's plan, His love, and His promises. But I am seeing some of those bitter seasons in my life begin to bear fruit, and I promise to blog about that later . And it reminds me again that I just don't have the wisdom or perspective to appreciate the entire story when I'm in the throes of one chapter.

And frankly, when would I ever be ready to leave my family and friends (and chocolate)? For that matter, if my own mother was taken from me now, it would be just as profound and painful at 31 as it would have been at 21 or 11. Because you are never ready to surrender your loved ones. We are made to cherish life and we cling to it. That is our job while we're here.

And that is really what it comes down to isn't it? Cherishing life while we're here, I mean. God willing, I will leave this Earth old, loved, and content. But if not, I remember that when I leave, that my death is actually my gain. That while it would be a sore loss for my family, it would be a joy for me to see clearly what we can only perceive dimly through mortal eyes. I would not be angry, or bitter, or afraid. I would be running straight into the arms of love. I would be going home. And that is a thought that instantly banishes my fear and reminds that me that is good to be here now, living fully, loving deeply, and trusting fearlessly. And I am able to put aside anxiety and breathe easy again, feeling nothing but joy in the life I have and the lives I am privileged to share.

It is true. Perfect love does cast out all fear.

And I am pretty sure that Heaven is going to have some chocolate in it. I'm just sayin...

Slacker

There is a lovely blogger named Gayla Trail who says that her biggest piece of advice to someone who is struggling with his relationship to gardening is this:  he needs to cut himself some slack.  He should allow for disappointments, and pay close attention to what works and what doesn't.

Girl never met a hairband she liked more in her hair than on her wrist...

Now, listen, I don't do gardening. Have you SEEN my front yard? (We can't even talk about my back yard. No really, we can't. But if I disappear someday it is probably because our "back" neighbors have taken out a hit on me.) We are doing well if we keep the grass cut and the bushes trimmed (ish) Somewhere deep in the DNA of every Southern woman rests an older woman that will eventually wear a funny hat and grow tomatoes...but that person is dormant in me. Very dormant. So dormant that said person might actually be dead. Time will tell.

Anyway, someday I will remember this advice and apply it growing veggies, but for today, I'm applying it to growing my family. When it comes to my children, I am truly terrible at cutting myself...and anyone else...some slack.

This is as close to gardening as we get. Tending the grass now and again. Maybe eating it, depending on your age.

Now this is mostly a good thing. Every family needs that person that is the "engine", the person that pushes everyone else to grow and achieve. But sometimes it sucks to be that person and sometimes it sucks even more to live with that person... or so I presume.

"I just woke up. I just need a minute here, Mom"

 Usually I only figure out that I'm pushing myself and my husband too hard AFTER it's already happened. We don't really fight much, Tim and I. Sure, we disagree and fairly often we will verbally spar in a humorous-but-competitive way. But about twice a year, someone will politely request that the other person stow the lawnmower after using it, and it somehow degenerates into two primates shrieking at arguing with each other and angrily flinging playfully tossing a Boppy at each other while declaring that the fact that SOMEONE shoved the wedding cake into the other's face after a SOLEMN VOW not to do so should have been an indicator that THIS WAS NEVER GOING TO WORK BECAUSE WHO THE H DOES THAT?!?!?! (This happens to everyone right? No? Just us?) You see where I'm going here. Something small inexplicably boils up into something big ...or several something bigs...and it leaves everyone feeling hurt and pissed off and generally ill-done-by.

G feels ill-done-by also; the food is too slow

After some reflection we usually conclude that said argument happened because we're low on sleep and low on patience and low on quality time and just generally... low. And that the wedding cake shove-age/failure to stow lawnmower is not truly a deal breaker and that it's time to get back to the advice that I started with, namely cutting oneself and one's partner some slack. Allow for disappointments and figure out what works. Let things...and people...be imperfect and figure out how to love through flaws and despite flaws and maybe even because of flaws.

I sort of love the way she never really smiles for pictures. It's so Addie to do her own thing instead.

 Now, I know it is not really the " done thing" to blog about things like marital spats or how you are NOT achieving or succeeding. But if I had a motto for my life it would be "Tell the truth, it's the only thing worth taking the time to type." (That would be kind of a weird life motto because I don't actually type all that much. And some of what I type is fiction. So that would not be my motto. But I'm going to leave it because my brain is now too tired to think up a better one, and the blog title already tells you I'm a slacker.) And the truth is, sometimes we argue. Though not very often, thank God. But it is OK. We survive and we get better and stronger, and then we thrive.

Thriving!

After the weekend's Official Semi-Annual Dust-Up, I decided to spend the day just hanging out with the kids. Not rushing to cook, or clean, or meet friends for a playdate, or work out, or do errands, or really do much of anything. I was a slacker. We ate leftovers, I didn't clean my house, or do laundry, or check my email, or do a single errand.  I accomplished nothing. Except for...and this is the all important exception...loving my family.

What's not to love? I ask you!

Frankly, it was fantastic. And somehow doing nothing felt a lot like something I needed to do, at least for today. (Though I'm pretty sure if you followed this kind of regimen on a daily basis you'd soon be featured on a Hoarders episode). The truth is that my life...our life....is so completely and gloriously imperfect, and messy, and a total work-in-progress. But I love it. It suits me. Even when, and maybe especially when, I'm being a slacker.

The Art of Losing

One of my favorite poems is Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art". (Read it here).

It is about the nature of losses great and small, and how it isn't hard to master the art of losing things...except, of course, that is terribly difficult to lose something that is worth having.

It isn't a happy piece of poetry, but it's real and so beautiful, and my memory of hearing it for the first time is a good one. It was a beautiful spring day in Chapel Hill and I was a sophomore sitting at a much-scribbled upon desk in Greenlaw Hall. I still remember my throat closing up and suddenly viewing the room through a watery veil of unshed tears and thinking that life didn't get much better than being able to spend an hour talking about poetry and the universality of loss with a collection of bright minds. I could practically feel the fibers of my mind stretching and encompassing more knowledge and it was a marvelous thing.

(This isn't a sad post, by the way. There is no new and profound loss knocking at the Ewalds' door tonight.)

I find myself feeling wistful because I missed a call from my friend Mary Katherine, and I was suddenly struck to the soul with a longing for her crazy wild curls and emphatic gestures and spilled drinks. And that made me miss long nights draped over couches and sprawled on rugs and drinking in...and with... the APA/B girls...Lauren's contagious laugh and Statesville T shirts, Chloe's wit and beautiful smile, Cameron's enunciation and perceptiveness, Ashley's gentleness and ever-present bowl of vegetables, Kristin's light-up-the-room shiny spirit and constantly-in-motion earrings, and Leslie's whole-hearted,huge-eyed, single minded focus on whoever would be talking.

You see, an enormous part of what made college amazing was found in that collection of girls. I loved my classes and darn near everything else about my university, but the really wonderful part was having a new family of the heart to share the whole process with me.

We live all over the place now, in different states and countries, and we keep in touch the way that old friends do...sporadically, but deeply. And I love that I know the big things...Kristin buying a house (!), Chloe being smitten (!), Mary Katherine moving again (!) the incredible angelic beauty of Ashley's little boy, the antics of Leslie's houseful of gorgeous children, and so on for several different lives of "big things". I love those things. And they know all of my "big" things too.

But I sometimes miss sharing the small and daily with these women.

Like the many faces of my son and how easy it is to coax a beautifully be-dimpled smile from him these days.








































And the reckless abandon of our "how can she be this big already" daughter. Sister savors life. And runs pretty much constantly.














What Bishop doesn't tell us in her poem is that the real art of losing is learning to accept loss gracefully. Without loss, there is no room for a season of new growth in our lives. And while I yearn for the girls in the chairs, I also can't imagine raising my children without the community of women here in Rochester. And I know that soon enough I'll have to miss them too...but in the meantime, I just love being with them and raising our kids together. It's a time as profound and precious as those college years...even if the only poetry we discuss is more along the lines of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and it's strangely mesmerizing power over crying babies.















And each of the women I've mentioned has the happy gift of making friends easily. And I love those women for carrying on the good work of loving my girls. The Jenn Dukes and Karla Gonzalezes of the world make me smile. I could add many more names but it would take a really long time. And it'd be kind of like reading Numbers in the Bible...long lists of names are really mind numbing. So I won't do that.

But I will say that I've dealt with my momentary sadness in the best way possible...by turning instead to a celebration of the kind of love that lives with open hands. And while I may not be able to tumble into my bed after giving out seven big hugs to my friends, I can go and look at my sleeping babies and marvel at their long eyelashes and dimpled fists and sweet cheeks. It's small, it's ordinary, and it's totally and completely precious to me. And I know that my friends would feel the exact same way. Because that's why we're friends...our hearts match in all the important ways.

Someone should write a poem about that...