Walk a mile

Every day, it seems that the empathy deficit grows. 

So many seem to have lost the ability to imagine ourselves in someone else's shoes...to think "What would be helpful if I was in their place?" rather than "They made their bed, so they should lie in it." 

We blame people for illness, dismissing their disease with explanations rather than looking for root causes. 

We speculate about how someone "with everything" could be in despair so deep that death comes as a relief. 

We turn away from the pleas of families who want their children to be safe wherever they are.

It is so easy find ways to separate ourselves from "the other" that we don't recognize "the other" in ourselves. 

Not one of us is immune to being rocked by the human experience.  Not one of us will get through this life without being scathed and scarred by something. 

Who would you be if, instead of being born where you were,  you were born somewhere else?

Who would you be if, instead of being born with the complexion you have, you were born lighter or darker?

Who would you be if, suddenly, you weren't who you thought you were? Suddenly disabled? Suddenly unprotected? Suddenly vulnerable? 

Who would you be if the bottom fell out through your action, or inaction, or no fault of your own?

Imagine that. Then think about what you would expect from your fellow travelers. 

Minimally, you'd probably expect compassion, if not understanding.  You'd probably want human connection and response rather than bureaucracy and generalizations about people like you.  You would want someone to hear what you say.  You would want someone to see you. 

Can't we muster up just a little bit of our humanity for our fellow travelers?  Just a bit?  In service of a kinder world; a world we would like to shelter US in our despair?

9/11

On September 11, 2002, Paul and I instituted an all day media blackout.  It was too overwhelming to see the endless replays of the horrors of the prior year, to remember the sights and sounds, and those whose lives were lost that day.  

We had just come off the first year of living with colon cancer--Paul had been diagnosed in March, 2002, and was on the road to recovery following chemo, radiation, surgery and more chemo--and we both felt too fragile to immerse ourselves in reliving the pain of September 11th. 

Instead, we spent the evening in Long Beach, walking the boardwalk and seeing the memorials that had sprung up along the way.  As sad as they were, they spoke of lives well lived, of people loved and lost, and there, on the edge of the ocean, a sense that they had become part of everything and everyone.

Tomorrow, I will continue the tradition.  Quiet reflection.  No Facebook.  No TV.  And a walk down the boardwalk to remember what we all lost that day.

Ten Years

Ten years. 

How could it be ten years since you died? 

How could it be 3653 days since I thought I couldn’t live one more day without you?

How could it be 87,672 hours since you took your last breath, next to me in bed while I was singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to Teddy?

Just yesterday.  And forever ago.

A lifetime. Teddy's lifetime. Ten years.

A decade has passed and I still remember the feeling of never being able to breathe again; of drowning in sorrow. 

I remember the last breath you took and the quiet that followed. I remember the moment I kissed you for the last time and left the bed we shared to tell our family gathered downstairs that you had heard our pleas and prayers and that you had let go.

I remember the dizziness that overtook me when I was asked to put the first bit of earth into the grave where I'd just laid the other half of my heart to rest.  Ten years out, my throat still tightens when I hear the sound of dirt on wood.

I remember holding our infant son in the days and nights that followed, wishing beyond reason that I could keep him from ever feeling the pain of this. 

At 11, Teddy is so much like you.  He has your hands, your gait, the shape of your body, the angles of your face.  We talk about you a lot. He doesn't have real memories of you--he was so young when you died--but his pain at your absence is real and deep.  I have taught him to look for signs of you, and that he will always find you when he needs you. 

At your funeral, Rabbi Corngold (z"l) said: 

"Here’s a man who adjectives were made for; the really good ones.  Living with him, working with him, being friends with him had to have been a wonderful adventure.   

Who knew where he’d turn his brilliant attention and beautiful mind to next?  But the choices were never purely cerebral, were they?  We commented on this yesterday; they always seemed to emerge from friendships and relationships.  If there was an English teacher he liked, he’d devour Victorian poetry.  If there was a riding instructor he liked from Hungary, then he’d not just travel to Hungary but learn Hungarian.  If the woman he had always been waiting for is Jewish, then he’d learn and embrace Judaism with wisdom, sincerity, and all the right questions.  When he had a child, he’d be the best dad for all the time he had, and give all the love and attention his strength would allow.

If we want to see that proof the science of genetics works, let’s just all watch what a remarkable man TEDDY will become because he has PAUL in him.  Like Paul, he is already a little man on the move; has you all so delightfully trying to keep up.  That’s the son of Paul..."

We stand at the edge of the ocean and write messages to you in the sand.  I tell Teddy as much as I can remember to fill the gaps for him.  

I tell Teddy how wholehearted and passionate you were; generous—often to a fault—making sure your friends and family were well cared for, and indulging others in their pursuits.  I tell him you were smart, hard working, funny, kind, and genuine, and that you believed that certain experiences were once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and that those should be sought out and shared. I tell him stories about your legendary appetite(in spite of your slight build); the story of you ordering a dozen eggs—and a side of bacon—at the Evergreen coffee shop near the office is a favorite.

I tell him that you were my best friend, my “bashert” and the other part of my heart.  I tell him how much loving you changed me.  It made me a better person, more capable of loving others, more understanding of myself, and stronger in the places that I once believed irreparably broken.  

I tell those who did not know you—or us—that it is you they should thank for the best of who I am now.  I wish that you could know the exceptional people who are part of our lives now.

I’ve struggled over the past ten years to honor your memory. I have let so many days slip by, trying to hold on to the hands of the clock.  There are still challenges—they are the stuff of living—but there are also great joys, laughter, friendship, love and health to celebrate.  I miss you in every moment, but it doesn't break my heart the way it once did. 

As Teddy and I look up at the stars tonight and gaze out to the horizon at the edge of the Atlantic tomorrow, we will give thanks for all you were.  We will look at photos, and I will tell Teddy about your great heart, your gentle nature, your passion for life and your infinite spirit.

"There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark."                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                          - Hannah Senesh 

Today, as I am every day, I am grateful for the light that still shines because of Paul Charles Matthes, 5/27/56-11/26/06.

A Blind and Toothless World

The Fathers told us that justice demands an eye for an eye.

But willful blindness has brought us here.

A place where we can only see what separates us from one another.

Any life taken is a world destroyed.
A family shattered.
A community shaken and fearful.
United and divided by fear.

The Fathers told us that justice demands an eye for an eye.

Look how we have been taught to fear one another.
Look how we have amplified our differences, even as we teach our children that we are all human.

What are they learning from our fear and anger?
What are they learning from our silence?

The body count grows in proportion to our loss of vision.

The Fathers also told us that we are each responsible for saving our own part of the world. 

Not all of it, they said. Just your part.

Expand your part of the world to where the edges touch my part of the world.

Open your blind eyes and light your lamp from mine.

Don't wring your hands.
Don't send thoughts and prayers to another victim whose name and face will join the list of those lost to fear.

Live as if you are unafraid.
Embrace this time and make a choice to love above your fear.

We are unified at the beginning of our lives and again at the end. Our work between those days is to guide the world toward justice.

Toward fully open eyes.

The Grief Box

There is a box on a high shelf in a mostly-unused closet in our apartment.

It's a pretty box--one of those decorative ones with the magnetic closure--and it contains the remnants of the worst days of my life.

In it are the papers from the funeral home. The sympathy cards. The sign in book from the funeral. The proof for the footstone that marks Paul's grave.

There is also a bag of his clothing. The shirt he wore the last time he dressed himself--Thanksgiving 2006--three days before he died.  His jacket from the stable where he kept his horse. Nothing smells like him anymore, but I can't seem to let go of these bits.

I have moved the contents of the grief box and the bag from house to house. From our home, where he died, to storage, to my apartment where they were somehow spared from Superstorm Sandy, and to my mother's basement until the recent storm threatened to flood the area.

Now the grief box and the bag live with me again, in the apartment I share with my father.

Recently, I went through the box. I threw out all the envelopes and put a good pile into the shredder. The remaining contents smell like mildew, but I haven't been able to let them go.

There are cards in there from people who knew Paul as a child, or as a young man. There are cards from his former colleagues and mine; from the board members of the organization I worked for; from friends of friends. There are cards from now-divorced couples and from people who have died since.  There is a lovely card from a childhood friend of my sisters; another from the Carleton University radio station Paul listened to online. Still another from the parents of the man who bought our house.  From the chemo nurses and the hospice team.

These are patches that might fill in the gaps for my son.  They paint a picture of Paul's influence on other people's lives. They might help T miss more than the idea of his father.

What am I waiting for? These things make me sad. They only have meaning for me, and I don't know if they will become meaningful for my son who was not quite two when his father died.

Paul would be turning 60 this May. November will be 10 years since Paul died.  Nice round numbers.  Maybe it's time?

Maybe.

I'm ready to move beyond this, beyond carrying these things, the loss, the wondering what might have been if we'd had more time.

I will always love Paul. I will still miss him. But I know that the only way forward is to confront the residue of my grief and to weigh this anchor.

Wet

I am a Pisces.  I am a dreamer, an intuitive and sensitive being, who is drawn to the water.

Let me be clear: I don't subscribe to all of the pseudo scientific bits that swirl within spirituality.  I don't read my horoscope to see what kind of day I'm having, or what I'm supposed to feel when the planets are going about their business, orbiting and atrophying.

But there is absolutely something about the water that feeds all that's best in me.  I'm particularly drawn to the ocean when I am sad or need perspective.  Standing on one of the beautiful beaches near where we live, I give myself back to the sea.  When I am exhausted from grief, and have no tears left, the salty breeze that brushes my cheeks gives me comfort.  

My son is also a Pisces.  I have told him that his comfort will always be found in the water: diving into it; moving his growing body through it; mastering it atop a surfboard; jumping through the ocean's waves; stroking across the smooth surface of a lake.  In a pinch, standing in the rain or even taking a shower will help stave off whatever is unsettling him.  "I just need to get to the water" has become a sort of code in our house for "I'm out of sorts and I can't figure out why."  

Three years ago Superstorm Sandy brought the ocean to our door, through our windows, and six feet up our walls, leaving us bruised, empty and angry.  It has taken time to forgive the ocean for what it took from us and allow it to comfort me again.  

I take my share back shell by shell on each visit.  I carry sand from one beach to another in the pockets of my winter coat.  My son makes angels in the sand and writes "I love you Daddy" with hearts just beyond the reach of the waves.  

We stand together at the edge of the water and are renewed.

#‎IStandWithPP‬

Today's shootings at the Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs--an act of terrorism by an American citizen--have already brought the ugliest out of the minds of people who oppose abortion.

I posted this a few months back, when Congress--led by the forces that brought down Speaker Boehner--debated defunding Planned Parenthood.

I still have questions for those who think today's actions were some sort of victory for their side.
===============================================
As many of you may know, I was on staff at a local PP affiliate a little over a decade ago. As a staff member I witnessed a number of things that might make you feel angry or upset:

I witnessed the harassment of women who were coming in for routine healthcare--things like well visits, prenatal care (YES, caring for actual pregnant women who make a decision to carry their pregnancies to term; PP does that), breast exams, STD screenings, and counseling--even on days when our center was not providing abortion services.

I had doors slammed in my face in the halls of our state house and Congress because I wanted to talk about things like emergency contraception for surivors of rape. (YES, working for better healthcare even outside our facilities; PP does that.)

I had a local legislator tell me that a large Catholic hospital would have to close down if we "made them" provide compassionate care for rape survivors.

I learned special protocols for opening our mail, especially after 9/11, as PP affiliates were targeted by people attempting to harm our staff and patients. There was never a day where security was something we could take for granted; there was never a day when I thought it wasn't worth going to work because of that.

I saw first hand how wide the gap between the haves and have-nots could be, and how PP's staff was dedicated to getting every person--women AND men--who came through the door (YES, actual men who come to PP for their well care, STD screenings and contraception; PP does that) the best care they could have regardless of their ability to pay. Every member of the team--from the administration to the maintenance staff--was part of helping every patient. The commitment of these professionals is unparalleled.

A REQUEST:

Please ask yourself if your doctor--or you--would be willing to endure threats every day that their office would be closed down, or worse: that they might be stalked, injured or killed by someone who disagreed with the smallest percentage of what they do in their practice. Ask yourself what you would do if you had no other choice but to continue to go there or avoid getting medical care at all. Would you be willing to forego medical care during a pregnancy, or after a cancer diagnosis?

For those of you jumping for joy that Congress voted to defund Planned Parenthood--a vote based on doctored videos that have been proven to be false by multiple sources, and a vote that will surely be vetoed, causing a government shutdown that will affect MILLIONS--please explain your joy to me.

I AM NOT GOING TO DEBATE YOU. I am going to listen to your reasons. I really want to know and understand why keeping affordable healthcare from men and women is so important to you that you are willing to take the government down to do it. I AM SERIOUS. I will listen, and although I can't promise I will understand, I certainly want to. I want to know why something that doesn't affect you directly is so important to you.

You can post here, or PM me. I ask that you keep your comments respectful and factual; I am here to learn, not to fight.

If my unwavering support of Planned Parenthood is upsetting to you, please feel free to block or unfriend me. Sometimes personal convictions cause us to limit those we can converse with; I hope this is not the case.

Likeminded friends, and those who still serve the public by going to work at ‪#‎PP‬ every day--this is not a question for you. I know why you do what you do, and I stand with you. Get off the computer and go continue to do the work that must be done. ‪