A place where we'll be safe...
“I pray you’ll be our eyes and watch us where we go, and help us to be wise, in times when we don’t know. Let this be our prayer, when we lose our way: Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace, to a place where we’ll be safe.”
Andrea Bocelli, the amazing, Italian opera singer who happens to be blind, sings those lyrics in a beautiful song called, quite simply, “The Prayer.” As I try to emotionally sift through all of the news and current events, I realize that my mind, fairly constantly these days, feels so uneasy and out of sorts, I am often desperate to find a quiet space to just pray. So much of our world seems to be in turmoil right now. From any perspective, people are scared, hurting, afraid, and feeling so insecure and uncertain about the future. Yes, there is some comfort in knowing that generations past have felt all of these things; and now, here we are, their future generations, alive yet now worried for our future generations. It’s cyclical, to be certain, but gosh, it feels so oppressive and very “end of times” when you are actually in it.
What exactly is “it” we are living in? A world where things seem to be abjectly failing on incomprehensible levels. Crime, homelessness, pandemic, disastrous foreign and domestic affairs. There are wide cultural divides and grievous human rights issues, all seeming like they may turn into a civil or world war at any given moment. Not to mention an actual war going on in Eastern Europe. While it’s not completely unlike generations past, it is also nothing we have ever collectively experienced, either. As I have explained before, my mind — such as it is — tries to reconcile all of this and bring it all to a place of peace and calm. Try as I might, however, it just feels an impossible task at this moment in time. Add to that our ability to receive news and information (along with everyone’s opinion!) every second of every day from myriad media/social media sources, who all share in the blame of encouraging fear and division, and you have a society that is now constantly living on edge.
When I write, I often like to talk about my life from the perspective of when I was small. To recount the people who have had a great, or even profound, impact on my life and why I now approach things the way I do as an adult. Typically it is those who were closest to me, both in family and proximity. Naturally, my grandparents, parents and siblings are among the the first to be mentioned. But, I have also always had an embarrassment of riches when it comes to dear friends. In fact, lately, as I’ve been fretting and wringing my hands these past few months over some of these unbelievable situations for which I feel I have exactly zero control, off to the side I realize I have also been texting a lot more frequently with some of my dearest friends. Three groups and one, particular person, to be precise. Through all of them, I am able to see that life is, in fact, carrying on. That I can choose to live in a state of fear, of waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it may never actually happen. So, what I am instead coming to realize is that I have, among other things, been laughing, sometimes to the point of my sides splitting, over silly comments, conversations, memes, and funny events. I have been excitedly waiting for and viewing pictures of their children in various states of young adulthood: proms, sporting events, graduations, leaving for college... I have also continued to do things like cook dinners for friends in need, catch up with neighbors, go on long walks with my sister, and travel with high school besties who I hadn’t had the chance to do that with for way too long.
Who are these friends that keep me moving forward each day? One group is comprised of seven women, most of whom I have had the privilege and pleasure of knowing since I was about ten years old. Three of us met playing tennis together the summer before sixth grade and the others went to the same Catholic school I transferred to that year, or attended a neighboring Catholic school so we met when competing in sports together. They are a group of women who know everything about me, right down to what I look like buck naked with a terrible sunburn (thank you Senior Summer Hawaii Trip, 1986!). They have seen and known me at my best and worst, they were all with me on my wedding day, they have watched my children grow, and I theirs. While we may have all grown up in the same town and attended the same schools, we now all live very different lives. We have two who were military wives, a teacher, two nurses, two businesswomen, two stay-at-home-moms. We live all over the country, although three stayed in or moved back to our hometown. Divorce, death, moves, sick children — you name it, we’ve been through it. We’ve traveled together and we’ve burdened each other with our secrets, worries and fears, from teenagehood to motherhood and beyond. But through it all, we have stuck together like glue. When I text the group, I hear back from someone within minutes, usually to make our next set of impulsive travel plans. My “BFFLs.” Best Friends For Life, duh.
The next group is comprised of about a dozen women in my neighborhood and our text group name is the eponymous, “Framily.” You know, friends who become your family. Some of us met as new brides, some as new moms at preschool, some through our kids’ grammar school, or some through living in the same neighborhood. A few have moved away, but they are still tightly knit in the Framily, because you never really leave. I like to think of these women as my, “Cup of Sugar” group. Our text messages often read like an old-timey bulletin board: from the simple borrowing of sugar or flour (or that desperate bottle of wine) to, “Joe has a game today if anyone is free at 4pm to come watch.” (Magically, a few extra fans are in the stands!); “My washing machine just died, who can I call to get it fixed ASAP?” (a gently used washing machine might just happen to show up on your doorstep that evening); “I think _____ might need an extra hand with dinners the next couple weeks.” (Providing meals is what we do best!) Again, these women and I have known each other in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, and we really will be friends until death do us part. Over the years, we all, with great intention, created this very special, unique circle of “random people” (more on that in a moment), because each of us early on placed high value on the importance of our marriages, raising good, solid kids, and sharing our talents. I believe we’ve always innately known we were much stronger together as mothers than alone. In fact, our little framily is so important to all of us and our own families that when our older kids return from college, they say people hear about their friends from home and ask if they live in a fairy tale! A few years back, when one of our littlest of the group was turning six or seven years old, his mom asked what he would like to do to celebrate his birthday. He quickly said, “Oh, I’d like to have all of those random people over!” Confused, she asked a few, pointed questions, then quickly realized he meant all of the neighborhood families. So now, all of our celebrations, to this day, are filled with those same, random people: our framily!
The third group is known affectionately as my, “Prayer Sisters.” We are five women who met through our children's Catholic grammar school and, to this day, we are not entirely certain how we came together to arrive at the amazingly close place in which we currently find ourselves. God doesn’t always show his hand when putting people together, after all. We began the group when our eldest children were still quite small, each looking for support in both our prayer life and in raising our children in faith. Early on, we met often, sometimes twice a month. Now, it can be upwards of a few months before we can all figure out our calendars to be in the same room, but we always manage to find a date and our families know it is sacrosanct. No one dares to ask us to cancel or rearrange if it’s Prayer Group on the calendar! As with my other two groups, we have laughed, cried, shared our hopes, fears and frustrations, you name it. The years march on and we have gone from praying about raising babies to praying for our now mostly grown children as they launch into their adult lives with varying degrees of success and trepidation, all providing a constant source of worries and what if’s. Again, as with the other groups, there have been myriad Big Life Issues that we have faced; but in this group, we turn it all back to God. Seeking understanding of why some things come to pass, while others do not. And, perhaps most importantly, each of us knows that in both our brightest and darkest moments, there are four other women that are constantly praying for our intentions, women who we can implicitly trust to keep our most private thoughts and lift us up. This is no small gift.
The one, particular person is my sister. “My much older sister,” as I like to joke but, don't be fooled, she actually looks so much younger than me. Our relationship is one that developed slowly over the years and, with a five year age difference between us, it meant that we were often not on the same page in life. Even after we both were married and had children, that age gap meant there was a lag when my children were babies, hers were starting elementary school. When hers were in high school, mine were in elementary school, etc. What I didn’t realize at the time was how much, and how closely, I was watching her. Studying how she handled situations and what she did in terms of raising her children to be utterly amazing, kind, loving, and bright human beings. And, as we all know, oftentimes in life, you have to look for the silver lining in really difficult times. When our parents both became ill and subsequently passed away within four months of each other almost ten years ago, my sister and I clung to each other because the one woman that we had both always clung to for advice, for pep talks, for reality checks, was leaving us. I think it was then that my sister and I realized, while our beautiful Mom was no longer going to be with us, we could be that same source of comfort and love to each other, giving a renewed breath of life into our relationship. What I have learned in more recent years, especially after watching my sister face enormous challenges in her life, is that, unlike myself, she is very even-keeled. She is incredibly fair-minded, always willing to hear all sides, and she loves more deeply and fiercely than just about anyone I have ever known. You want her in your corner, always. She walks too fast and up hills that are too steep for me, so I am consistently several steps behind her, but that sort of defines us anyway. She will always take the lead as my big sister and clear the path in front of me. “Chance made us sisters, hearts made us best friends.”
As I write all of this, knowing how much I love and admire each of these truly amazing women and how much, in turn, they all love me, I must admit to thinking of the scene in the movie, “The Sound of Music,” where little Gretl, the youngest of the Von Trapp family, says wistfully and with great sadness to her oldest sister, Lisl, “Why don’t I feel better?” They are singing the song about their favorite things that was taught to them by their beloved governess, Fräulein Maria, who has left them to return to the convent. Poor little Gretl simply does not feel better until, in the distance, Maria’s voice can be heard coming closer and closer. They realize she has returned and so has their happiness! The noise in this world currently is such a cacophony of loud, angry tones that, like Gretl, I feel desperate to hear the sweet melodies again. In my talks with God, I struggle to even hear what He is telling me at all. How to take the next step, how to have the courage of my convictions, standing tall and firm in what I believe is good and right against a barrage of proverbial arrows and bullets. As I have said to several people lately, it feels as though the Devil is working a considerable amount of overtime right now.
In all transparency, I started writing this blog post weeks ago. That last line before this paragraph began sort of took me out, left me feeling very hopeless. When I pulled it up today to try to finish and publish the post, it dawned on me that the reason I didn’t, or couldn’t, on the first pass was because I simply don’t have an answer as to why we may not feel very good right now. As a mom, particularly, I like to be able to light the path for my children, to be able to shine that light for them to see the future is going to be ok and that it is the one thing that they, themselves, can take charge of. It occurred to me, then, to return to what I know, to those I know best: to lean in on my friendships. Then offer what I am able in the way of reassurances in return. Our world seems so big and scary right now, but the special bonds of close friends and siblings can shrink that size right down to the space around you that keeps you feeling safe and warm. If I can model that for my own children, and I really have tried, then the light that shines is, and always will be, right in front of them. But I will continue to pray: Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace, to a place where we’ll be safe.
05/20/22 slb
Andrea Bocelli, the amazing, Italian opera singer who happens to be blind, sings those lyrics in a beautiful song called, quite simply, “The Prayer.” As I try to emotionally sift through all of the news and current events, I realize that my mind, fairly constantly these days, feels so uneasy and out of sorts, I am often desperate to find a quiet space to just pray. So much of our world seems to be in turmoil right now. From any perspective, people are scared, hurting, afraid, and feeling so insecure and uncertain about the future. Yes, there is some comfort in knowing that generations past have felt all of these things; and now, here we are, their future generations, alive yet now worried for our future generations. It’s cyclical, to be certain, but gosh, it feels so oppressive and very “end of times” when you are actually in it.
What exactly is “it” we are living in? A world where things seem to be abjectly failing on incomprehensible levels. Crime, homelessness, pandemic, disastrous foreign and domestic affairs. There are wide cultural divides and grievous human rights issues, all seeming like they may turn into a civil or world war at any given moment. Not to mention an actual war going on in Eastern Europe. While it’s not completely unlike generations past, it is also nothing we have ever collectively experienced, either. As I have explained before, my mind — such as it is — tries to reconcile all of this and bring it all to a place of peace and calm. Try as I might, however, it just feels an impossible task at this moment in time. Add to that our ability to receive news and information (along with everyone’s opinion!) every second of every day from myriad media/social media sources, who all share in the blame of encouraging fear and division, and you have a society that is now constantly living on edge.
When I write, I often like to talk about my life from the perspective of when I was small. To recount the people who have had a great, or even profound, impact on my life and why I now approach things the way I do as an adult. Typically it is those who were closest to me, both in family and proximity. Naturally, my grandparents, parents and siblings are among the the first to be mentioned. But, I have also always had an embarrassment of riches when it comes to dear friends. In fact, lately, as I’ve been fretting and wringing my hands these past few months over some of these unbelievable situations for which I feel I have exactly zero control, off to the side I realize I have also been texting a lot more frequently with some of my dearest friends. Three groups and one, particular person, to be precise. Through all of them, I am able to see that life is, in fact, carrying on. That I can choose to live in a state of fear, of waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it may never actually happen. So, what I am instead coming to realize is that I have, among other things, been laughing, sometimes to the point of my sides splitting, over silly comments, conversations, memes, and funny events. I have been excitedly waiting for and viewing pictures of their children in various states of young adulthood: proms, sporting events, graduations, leaving for college... I have also continued to do things like cook dinners for friends in need, catch up with neighbors, go on long walks with my sister, and travel with high school besties who I hadn’t had the chance to do that with for way too long.
Who are these friends that keep me moving forward each day? One group is comprised of seven women, most of whom I have had the privilege and pleasure of knowing since I was about ten years old. Three of us met playing tennis together the summer before sixth grade and the others went to the same Catholic school I transferred to that year, or attended a neighboring Catholic school so we met when competing in sports together. They are a group of women who know everything about me, right down to what I look like buck naked with a terrible sunburn (thank you Senior Summer Hawaii Trip, 1986!). They have seen and known me at my best and worst, they were all with me on my wedding day, they have watched my children grow, and I theirs. While we may have all grown up in the same town and attended the same schools, we now all live very different lives. We have two who were military wives, a teacher, two nurses, two businesswomen, two stay-at-home-moms. We live all over the country, although three stayed in or moved back to our hometown. Divorce, death, moves, sick children — you name it, we’ve been through it. We’ve traveled together and we’ve burdened each other with our secrets, worries and fears, from teenagehood to motherhood and beyond. But through it all, we have stuck together like glue. When I text the group, I hear back from someone within minutes, usually to make our next set of impulsive travel plans. My “BFFLs.” Best Friends For Life, duh.
The next group is comprised of about a dozen women in my neighborhood and our text group name is the eponymous, “Framily.” You know, friends who become your family. Some of us met as new brides, some as new moms at preschool, some through our kids’ grammar school, or some through living in the same neighborhood. A few have moved away, but they are still tightly knit in the Framily, because you never really leave. I like to think of these women as my, “Cup of Sugar” group. Our text messages often read like an old-timey bulletin board: from the simple borrowing of sugar or flour (or that desperate bottle of wine) to, “Joe has a game today if anyone is free at 4pm to come watch.” (Magically, a few extra fans are in the stands!); “My washing machine just died, who can I call to get it fixed ASAP?” (a gently used washing machine might just happen to show up on your doorstep that evening); “I think _____ might need an extra hand with dinners the next couple weeks.” (Providing meals is what we do best!) Again, these women and I have known each other in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, and we really will be friends until death do us part. Over the years, we all, with great intention, created this very special, unique circle of “random people” (more on that in a moment), because each of us early on placed high value on the importance of our marriages, raising good, solid kids, and sharing our talents. I believe we’ve always innately known we were much stronger together as mothers than alone. In fact, our little framily is so important to all of us and our own families that when our older kids return from college, they say people hear about their friends from home and ask if they live in a fairy tale! A few years back, when one of our littlest of the group was turning six or seven years old, his mom asked what he would like to do to celebrate his birthday. He quickly said, “Oh, I’d like to have all of those random people over!” Confused, she asked a few, pointed questions, then quickly realized he meant all of the neighborhood families. So now, all of our celebrations, to this day, are filled with those same, random people: our framily!
The third group is known affectionately as my, “Prayer Sisters.” We are five women who met through our children's Catholic grammar school and, to this day, we are not entirely certain how we came together to arrive at the amazingly close place in which we currently find ourselves. God doesn’t always show his hand when putting people together, after all. We began the group when our eldest children were still quite small, each looking for support in both our prayer life and in raising our children in faith. Early on, we met often, sometimes twice a month. Now, it can be upwards of a few months before we can all figure out our calendars to be in the same room, but we always manage to find a date and our families know it is sacrosanct. No one dares to ask us to cancel or rearrange if it’s Prayer Group on the calendar! As with my other two groups, we have laughed, cried, shared our hopes, fears and frustrations, you name it. The years march on and we have gone from praying about raising babies to praying for our now mostly grown children as they launch into their adult lives with varying degrees of success and trepidation, all providing a constant source of worries and what if’s. Again, as with the other groups, there have been myriad Big Life Issues that we have faced; but in this group, we turn it all back to God. Seeking understanding of why some things come to pass, while others do not. And, perhaps most importantly, each of us knows that in both our brightest and darkest moments, there are four other women that are constantly praying for our intentions, women who we can implicitly trust to keep our most private thoughts and lift us up. This is no small gift.
The one, particular person is my sister. “My much older sister,” as I like to joke but, don't be fooled, she actually looks so much younger than me. Our relationship is one that developed slowly over the years and, with a five year age difference between us, it meant that we were often not on the same page in life. Even after we both were married and had children, that age gap meant there was a lag when my children were babies, hers were starting elementary school. When hers were in high school, mine were in elementary school, etc. What I didn’t realize at the time was how much, and how closely, I was watching her. Studying how she handled situations and what she did in terms of raising her children to be utterly amazing, kind, loving, and bright human beings. And, as we all know, oftentimes in life, you have to look for the silver lining in really difficult times. When our parents both became ill and subsequently passed away within four months of each other almost ten years ago, my sister and I clung to each other because the one woman that we had both always clung to for advice, for pep talks, for reality checks, was leaving us. I think it was then that my sister and I realized, while our beautiful Mom was no longer going to be with us, we could be that same source of comfort and love to each other, giving a renewed breath of life into our relationship. What I have learned in more recent years, especially after watching my sister face enormous challenges in her life, is that, unlike myself, she is very even-keeled. She is incredibly fair-minded, always willing to hear all sides, and she loves more deeply and fiercely than just about anyone I have ever known. You want her in your corner, always. She walks too fast and up hills that are too steep for me, so I am consistently several steps behind her, but that sort of defines us anyway. She will always take the lead as my big sister and clear the path in front of me. “Chance made us sisters, hearts made us best friends.”
As I write all of this, knowing how much I love and admire each of these truly amazing women and how much, in turn, they all love me, I must admit to thinking of the scene in the movie, “The Sound of Music,” where little Gretl, the youngest of the Von Trapp family, says wistfully and with great sadness to her oldest sister, Lisl, “Why don’t I feel better?” They are singing the song about their favorite things that was taught to them by their beloved governess, Fräulein Maria, who has left them to return to the convent. Poor little Gretl simply does not feel better until, in the distance, Maria’s voice can be heard coming closer and closer. They realize she has returned and so has their happiness! The noise in this world currently is such a cacophony of loud, angry tones that, like Gretl, I feel desperate to hear the sweet melodies again. In my talks with God, I struggle to even hear what He is telling me at all. How to take the next step, how to have the courage of my convictions, standing tall and firm in what I believe is good and right against a barrage of proverbial arrows and bullets. As I have said to several people lately, it feels as though the Devil is working a considerable amount of overtime right now.
In all transparency, I started writing this blog post weeks ago. That last line before this paragraph began sort of took me out, left me feeling very hopeless. When I pulled it up today to try to finish and publish the post, it dawned on me that the reason I didn’t, or couldn’t, on the first pass was because I simply don’t have an answer as to why we may not feel very good right now. As a mom, particularly, I like to be able to light the path for my children, to be able to shine that light for them to see the future is going to be ok and that it is the one thing that they, themselves, can take charge of. It occurred to me, then, to return to what I know, to those I know best: to lean in on my friendships. Then offer what I am able in the way of reassurances in return. Our world seems so big and scary right now, but the special bonds of close friends and siblings can shrink that size right down to the space around you that keeps you feeling safe and warm. If I can model that for my own children, and I really have tried, then the light that shines is, and always will be, right in front of them. But I will continue to pray: Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace, to a place where we’ll be safe.
05/20/22 slb
Peaks and valleys...
Oh, how I cherished reading to my children before bedtime when they were small! Part of it was to make sure we had the requisite amount of “reading minutes” to write down on their daily log for school, but most of it was simply to snuggle with them and instill a love of reading in them much like my own. As a child, I would find any day, any time, anywhere possible to read. I learned very early on that reading is truly the ultimate form of escapism and, from a young age, I liked to escape. Perhaps it was my position in the family as the youngest of six children. My brothers and sister might tell you I read books to get out of doing chores (which was absolutely true), but I think it was also because I was so easily able to sink my imagination into any character and subsequently fall into the rabbit hole of whatever place in time the book was taking me. One book in particular, still to this day, holds a very important and special spot in my heart. I read it throughout my childhood, and then read it to my own children many times over the years. It is called, “The Long Winter,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (Yes, the same Laura Ingalls Wilder represented in the television show of my youth, “Little House on the Prairie.”)
This book is a piece of Americana, a family history as told by a young woman through her diary - who eventually went on to become a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse - about her life on the desolate and unforgiving prairie in the late 1800’s. It’s a story about grit, determination, and celebrating life in the smallest of ways, especially when things around you are so bleak and so grim, it’s almost impossible to imagine finding any joy. My same precious Grandma, Helen Love, of whom I've written before, was also a one-room schoolhouse teacher on the plains in Iowa not long after the time of Laura Ingalls Wilder. My grandmother lived out much of what I read in that series of books about life on the prairie. She even had that very same grit, determination and gratitude, so it was not just the ability to read the story in the book, but to also eventually share that part of our family history with my own children about their great-grandmother. It is a timeless story of how the Ingalls family, who had just settled on the Kansas prairie, suffered through one of the worst recorded winters in the history of the Dakota plains. Their story of perseverance is almost breathtakingly simple, yet incredibly heroic. Their “long winter” began that year when the freeze came in September of 1880 and the snow lasted all the way through the following May of 1881. Nonstop. No letting up. There were no convenience stores available, no big box stores nor online ordering to be had. Even if there had been, there was no mail or other delivery because the trains were frozen solid on the tracks for much of that time. The Ingalls family ultimately resorted to rationing what little bits of wheat they had to make some type of “bread” to eat as their only sustenance for the last, few months of that winter, coming quite close to starvation in the process. They twisted the leftover wheat husks into “sticks” to keep the fire burning because the actual wood logs had long run out well before the storms did. They went to bed when it grew dark, and rose only when the sun did. Some days, because they were so weak and malnourished, they were only out of bed for a few hours. Yet through it all, Charles and Caroline Ingalls (aka "Pa" and "Ma") kept their family alive and, wait for it, grateful for what precious little they had, right up until that first day when the sun finally shone bright enough again to melt all of the snow.
These days, it seems we are all very much living in our own, metaphorical long winter. For many, many months now, we have been weathering a storm that appears to have no clear end in sight. The times when we have seen a little break in the darkness, it feels the heavy clouds very quickly return and leave us feeling evermore uncertain and afraid. Putting politics aside (which, admittedly, is almost impossible to do these days), I truly believe that we “average folks” all search our hearts and minds to find the best ways to keep ourselves, our families, our communities all healthy and moving forward. We are not looking to sow or promote discord, but sometimes our different ways of thinking lead to contrasting answers and outcomes, unwittingly creating yet more division and anger. The sheer volume and level of conflicting information from the government, the media, the stark contrast of myriad social media posts, combined with the constant bombardment of new, and sometimes seemingly unreasonable requirements, on an almost daily basis… this has all created a sense of desperate urgency to get “back to normal” that most people have never felt before. Typically, as human beings, when we feel stuck in life or lost in the grand scheme of things, we ask ourselves one, simple question: “Where do I go from here?” Oftentimes, that answer is pretty obvious. Get a new job, move to a new state, move forward in, or get out of, a relationship. Nowadays, we simply crave being able to go about our business-as-usual and the busy-ness of life as we see fit for our own, particular situation. “Peaks and valleys,” my mom used to say. It was a simple term for the fact that your life would not always be wonderful, nor would it always be miserable, but it also carried with it the notion that we are, in fact, in control of our own lives.
When Covid-19 hit our local community (back around Thanksgiving and well into March of this year), my family felt its effects in a very unique way. My husband runs the family business, which is a mortuary. During that horrific time, there was a lot of focus, and rightfully so, on those who cared for the living. “Essential” and “frontline” workers were given piles of accolades because they were being asked to do things that people shouldn’t normally be asked to do. They were working hours that left them exhausted, both mentally and physically. They were just beginning the process of recovering emotionally when this second round hit. As an aunt to a niece who is an ICU nurse in charge of a Covid unit, and a friend to several physicians, I know that this is all very real, very ugly, and the fallout from the emotional toll it has taken has not even remotely begun to fully emerge. But, I also experienced the side of what happened to those who died in this pandemic. Watching my husband work fourteen plus hours every, single day for months on end, each evening arriving home in despair over what to do when the next call inevitably came in and he had nothing to offer that family, was an overwhelming sadness neither of us will ever forget. When we quickly realized no outside help was available or forthcoming, we created our own, simple ways of saying thank you to his employees who worked tirelessly alongside him, serving every family that came to us with dignity and compassion. Looking back, I see that sending in homemade baked goods and ordering lunch from their favorite places were terrifically small gestures in the big picture, but we needed them to know we were so grateful that they continued to come into work each day. And, when other mortuaries in the area finally felt it necessary to say no to any new families that called, my husband and I together decided that we could not, would not, in good conscious acquiesce to that. So he and his staff persevered through it all. However, there were no car parades or flyovers for the morticians. No, “Everyone turn lights on at 7pm!” for the embalmers or crematory staff. There were no federal, state or local leaders calling to offer help or desperately needed storage solutions; in fact, they didn’t call at all. Because no one likes to think about what happens after “Covid-19” is written on the death certificate, or celebrate those who deal with that outcome. What my husband and his staff did, what all mortuaries across this country did, over the past eighteen months is truly unfathomable: they gathered up and buried the dead of a pandemic.
So lately, because of that pervasive feeling of loss of control of my own life that crept in over those months, that weariness from worry over my family’s well-being and life’s overall direction, I have been focusing on what I can, and that is, quite simply, gratitude. For the health of my family and our profound love for one another. For the true miracles I have witnessed recently, for unwavering faith, and for God’s never-ending love, not matter how deep the valley is in which I find myself. For all of those brave and generous people around us who say yes to the unthinkable tasks or continue to rise up to face incredibly daunting jobs. For all of the ways in which humanity continues to show us that good people abound and evil will never win. For, when we look at the big, scary, overall narrative, it’s so easy to feel frustrated and abandoned by those who promised us otherwise. But, in the end, it is up to us as individuals to find ways to create a positive and grateful attitude within ourselves. Does that mean things are going to immediately be easier and less complicated? That things will be more wonderful and less miserable? No, but it does mean that if we can shift the focus in our own hearts from fear to gratitude, then we can spread that light and love to others and encourage them to do the same. Because, I don't know about you, but I am definitely ready to climb out of this valley on up to the peak and enjoy the view!
08/10/21 slb