Death

Many of you are familiar with Dr. Randy Pauch’s Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. For those of you who have not seen this amazing lecture, informed by his journey with terminal pancreatic cancer, here is the YouTube video of the lecture:

In his book, he ends it with a request for information from those of us whose own parents died when we were young. My mother suggested I write to him; the letter follows. I do not expect him to read it, for I am sure he is deluged with mail of all kinds these days. I did, however, think the letter was a good summation of my own thinking about how to help children who face the death of a parent.

Dear Dr. Pausch,

I am writing to you because I understand you seek first-hand reflections from those of us who lost our father at a young age.  I was six when Daddy died from a MI following a year of being in the hospital off and on due to viral myocarditis.  I can remember my mother coming and taking me on Fridays to see him at lunchtime.  We would stand outside of the ICU in the grass, and the nurse would open the window so I could see Daddy and talk to him.  Thankfully, the ICU was on the first floor!  In 1977, children were not allowed into the ICU proper, but my mother wanted me to see Daddy with my own eyes.  She is a nurse, which I think helped inform her understanding differently than the prevailing wisdom of the time.  Now, unless there was an issue of infection, we would never keep a child out of the ICU.

You may wonder how it is that I know this fact.  I grew up to become an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and have worked as both a hospital and hospice chaplain.  I did my Residency in Clinical Pastoral Education at RUMC in conjunction with the JMSHCC.  My clinical rotation was as the first chaplain for their stand alone Trauma Unit.  Prior to that, I worked at the UNCH and with CDS, where I helped families facing the brain death of a loved one.  In January, I left Hospice and became the Support Services Director for the CCA.  I offer to you my credentials for two reasons: 1) I want you to know I understand grief and bereavement issues as both a mourner and as professional; and 2) I want to spark your imagination about the potential to use the deep shit of one’s life for good–even if that shit happens as a young child.

Daddy’s death taught me some very fragile, yet important lessons, at six.  Freud would call it my “primary narcissistic trauma.”  I call it the moment my DNA changed.  Whoever I might have been without his death at that moment, ceased to exist.  The only potential future before me included the loss of my father.  I would travel without his presence.  Period.  Every moment of the time of being told about his death is real to me still, but so is Daddy.  In today’s grief lingo we speak of “continuing bonds.”  Even death does not end our relationships with those most dear to us.  One need not believe in an afterlife  in order for these bonds to exist. (I dream of one, but I do not know one exists.) The way I put it to the families I care for is this: The love in our hearts keeps them alive within us.  Nothing can separate us from that love.  It never dies as long as we remember.

Remembering is the greatest gift.  I know your children are young, but I remember more of being 0-6 than any of my peers.  Why?  My mother was keen to ask me to continually retell my Daddy stories.  Even as it broke her heart, she listened and cajoled.  I am 37 now, but I still remember being on a National Airlines flight at 3 months of age.  I cannot, however, remember what I did last Friday night!  Why?  My theory is that my young memories became reinforced by the storytelling so much they became marked within my mind and saved as permanent not temporary.  When I was six, it was not a big deal to think back two years and remember playing with Daddy at the park.  Now, I would be hard pressed.  So, my first thought is your wife needs to be committed–even when she cannot breathe or hardly get out of bed–to ask your children to tell her stories about you.  The whole extended family would also need to be encouraged in this regard.

Secondly, leave for your children as many personalized letters and videos, etc. as you can and make them age appropriate through college and young adulthood.  I know this will be the most devastating thing, but I suspect you have already begun this process.  My father did not do this at all.  In fact, I have a rock in my living room with his penciled “Jack” on it as my only reminder of his handwriting.  (He sent the rock to my Grandmother as a joke because our dog kept bringing her rocks as tokens of love when she visited.)  I often ask Mother if he would be proud of me…what he would think of my work…if he loved me?  Although in my heart I believe these things to be true, how much the better to have them before me.  You come across to me as a man of good humor and realism–don’t forget that in these remembrances.  Your children will look to them to decipher who you are, and who they are that is you.  They will be both mirror and guide, so set reasonable expectations for their life coupled with a humor-filled dose of “Daddy was a human being, after all.”  Losing a parent at a young age immortalizes the parent–Daddy died and climbed onto a pedestal in short order.  Some of this is inevitable, but I also think you can show your tender underbelly.

So many parents I have worked with as they are dying want to protect their children from the inevitability of the pain of their loss.  They want to delay it as much as they can.  This is not helpful, because then the death appears as a trauma.  When someone is sick and dies–as in your case and in my own story–warning shots can go across the bow so as to make the death (loss) expected and not a surprise.  Children over the age of four can usually handle some form of warning shots, especially reinforcing that you are indeed sick.  Depending on emotional maturity, the ages of four to six may be able to handle the possibility of death.  Over six, in my opinion they need to know death is not only a possibility, but also a likelihood.  I often use the analogy of giving your child Motrin for fever: You never give the whole bottle, but a dose at a time helps them to heal.  In the same way, I suggest dosing out these warning shots.

Lastly, I urge you to write letters to your children for when they are 25.  In these letters you need to say one very important thing: Goodbye.  I wish I had been able to say that to Daddy.  My father was healing at the time of his death, and as a result, we went on a little vacation before he was to go back to work July 5th.  He died on that trip the morning of June 28, and so I went from seeing him leave with Mother for a few private days one morning (I stayed at my Grandmother’s.), to having Mother tell me of his death the next.  Most of the 400 deaths plus I have attended afforded some opportunity for the family to say goodbye, which our death rituals do as well.  But the opportunity for the one dying to say it rarely is taken, if even there is the time and space for it.  “Goodbye” is powerful and healing.

You know, there really is no “right” way to do things here.  This totally sucks!  At the same time, there are things I learned as a child that helped me become a tender and intelligent woman and chaplain.  Truth and kindness go a long way–for yourself and for others.  I do not know what will happen when you die, for you or for them.  What I do know is that healing, which is coming to that place where a loss is integrated into our lives, and a rich and full life is possible with great and terrible loss.  Your death will change their future, their DNA.  The loss is that profound.  And with that change great potential will open for them to use that loss to make their lives more, not less.  This will be their choice, just as it was mine.  May the teaching and loving you do now and the legacy you leave them help inform this choice.

In kindness and solidarity,
Jacqueline Hope Derby

I find myself on a precipice. The mountain climbed…the sorrow of a broken childhood, of a broken child behind me. The battle scars emblazon my side, my hands, my feet. I carried the first most horrid of crosses. I survived the plunge of the sword, for John tried to take my very life away by stealing my spirit, my youth, my hope. I did not die. I would not die.

I waited a terribly long time to open to the nakedness love and intimacy require. I ventured first with those safe, manageable, less. I thought I met my equal; I was wrong. In choosing to look away when he lied, I pretended he would not lie to me. He did. I almost died, and almost spent the wellspring of my hope on the despair I became enveloped in when he lied and left. I did not die. I would not die.

Hope; she is my constant friend. She stands with me on this ledge between the past and the future, so uncertain but always imagined. I see us standing against the wind, which whips through our hair. We laugh. We cry. We dream the most amazing of dreams for my life. The sun blazes and the sky dances with colour as we put to bed the despair of this last season of my life. How strange I find it that the setting sun seems to fall so much faster than the heat of the noonday sun. Why?

So my dear love, here I come. Are you ready?

Let us be clear about what I need from you, for I am completely clear about what I will offer you. I need fusion. I do not pine for fireworks shattering the sky with a million stars here for only a moment. I do not desire the rapid fast burn of a nuclear love. I survived one of those, and the apocalypse devastates everyone in its path. No. Give me fusion. Give me two whole people coming together creating a fire between them impossible alone. Leave the divided spirit, the divided desires, the divided will, the divided atom behind. Join. Merge. Intertwine with me. Let us be more than we could have ever imagined on our own. Leave the ashes of simple fireworks to fall back to the earth. Let us be a galaxy all our own.

I will give you creativity. Nothing will be boring. I will always find new ways to laugh and play. I will give you integrity. I will tell you the truth. I will be kind. I will be generous. (Shall we compete to see who can be more so?) I will embrace you as you are, and dream your dreams of all you can do and create for this world. I will give to others. I will not forget you. I will write my name on your heart. I will cheer you on towards your prize. I will pray for kindness and doors to open to you. I will place a soothing balm on your wounds when the doors crash into your broken body. I may not pick you up–for you will have to do that for yourself–but I will lay beside you and kiss you sweetly until you have the strength to rise. I will question. I will fold the laundry. I will be my own person. I will have my own life and friends. I will be good to your family and friends. I will forgive. I will believe in you no matter what they say. I will trust you. I will honor the man you are. I will value your gifts and never think you a pansy. I will fight for you, and at times with you. I will apologize. I will seek your forgiveness. I will deserve it. I will love you. I will fuck you. I will lay you down. I will tenderly caress you. I will make love to you and discover your body anew even as the years pass us by. Every wrinkle, every laugh line, every sag, every cell will be counted with affection. I will embrace your changes. You will be mine, and I will be yours.

Are you ready? Here I come.

Please let me into your secret places. Let me see you. Let me love only you. I know we have it in us to do this together and to create something more than we can possibly imagine.

I stand on the precipice with Hope beside me.

Acknowledgment: The inspiration for this piece comes from Sarah McLachlan’s song “Answer.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Brooker

Mother has a favourite Cynthia Clawson song that she is unable to find anywhere. She only remembers one line and sings it regularly, “I am on a journey Lord.” Over and over again I will hear her lilting and crackled voice sing this line to me. She longs to hear the song again. Where does the longing come from? Does she feel like she is perpetually on a journey? Is she clinging to God when the going is hard and tough? Is she asking for understanding as she continues to grow (and grow up), even at 70? Is she letting God know she loves the process more than the destination? Is she staking her claim?

I do not know what it means to mother–this song, this line–but I do understand what it means to stake a claim on the journey of life. I feel I am there too. Life is change, but it often comes with pain. In order to grow up or morph, we have to tear down the old and bring in the new. I find myself in the tearing down phase right now, which feels amazing and hard and painful and hopeful–all at once! I feel pulled in, introspective, jumbled, lost, searching. Not unlike the butterfly in its pupal stage, I find myself a pupil at the feet of those who are teaching me now. Some teach me through interaction; others through reading. I am also being taught by my memories. “I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me; to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes,” is how the group Sweet Honey in the Rock put it in one of their songs.

I seek transformation and transcendence. I seek love unlike I have ever known it before. This love flows to me, in me, around me, beyond me. I do not want to be the same Jacqueline–not because I do not see the beauty of my being and life to this point, but because I see it and its innate potential for so much more. I see how I step away from extraordinary for good enough. I do not seek perfection. However, I do want more from myself than to simply get the deep connections, I also want to put the plug in the wall and let the juice flow! I see all the time I invest into understanding, but not into the actual living out of my dreams due to the cesspool of fear left behind by those who broke my heart and my own frail ways of coping at times. I keep unwinding the spool of thread, but I feel I put it back on the shelf neat and tidy. I live to the fear of it all falling apart, coming undone, getting painful and messy too much of the time. I need to hurl the ball of string off the bow as a streamer of joy in my life!

I find myself in the stillness of my own quiet temple, yet with an ever present messy messy mind. I have such a messy mind! I unwind the spool, and cringe at how I need to let it go free. The only reprieve or solace I find is in the quiet. I do not watch television. I do not listen to music. I hate talking on the phone. I avoid friends and family. I play quietly with Emma. I delay at answering personal emails. Not completely–for when I need them, I draw them all close, but for the most part I find these days rather isolated. I find I need so much time to think and to heal, for this is my ultimate treasure now.

In the stillness I find healing. Not a panacea, where everything has been righted and the planets aligned again. No. Healing where the tilt exists, but I know how to lean into it now and not lose my balance healing. For some reason, when I received this photograph my friend sent me from his time in the woods of France I felt I was IN the photograph. No, not there physically, but in my heart. In the stillness of the stream. In the stories hidden beneath its loam. In the fold of the branches. In the seeking of the leaves for a bit of light. In whisper of woods. In the heartbeat of nature. In the strength of the root. In pride of the tree trunks. I am in the song, in the breath, in the scurry, in the ache of life right now. I am in that place of chaos and clarity. I am in love–with my own heart, with life, with others.

I am on a journey Lord…

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Brooker

As I have been pondering the strange working of my inner child, who at the moment seems to be more of an “outie” than an “innie,” I began to wonder what she looks like. In my mind’s eye, I do not have me at age seven fixed. If anything, I would tell you how I was so much taller than everyone else, awkward, not as pretty, frumpy, and that I had big feet. I set out all my picture boxes and began to look for this girl, only to find a sweet looking beautiful seven year-old with hair the same colour I pay to achieve these days. She looks no different than her friends, although her smile is often more genuine. She seems to laugh from the heart. She does not look frumpy, and by today’s standards rather cute. She does have big feet though–some things never change! Mostly, what I notice about her physically is her eyes. When I was little people would often comment about what big eyes I had–Red Riding Hood style. Here is my formal Seventh Birthday Photograph, where my big eyes really are noticeable:

This is also the same little girl who met a man who would molest her for the first time when he asked her if it was ok to marry her mother. Accepting the molestation went hand-in-hand with the proposal–”I will be your Daddy, and you will let me touch you.” The deep earth shattering need to be loved and accepted by a father after my own real Daddy’s death was met with this bittersweet promise from John. Here are Mother, me and John running through a deluge of birdseed on their wedding day:

Looking at these photographs brings the tears–they flow so easily right now–but these photos also evoke in me a sense of my own strength. I am just a little girl. A sweet lovely child who would write to her Grandmother letters about how her Grandmother was a “doll” and her “very best friend.” This is also the same little girl who stood before her whole congregation with her hands clenched around the microphone and prayed her friend would not die, who laid close to death in the Intensive Care Unit, because she just could not take one more person she loved dying. This little girl ingeniously went away to Summer Camp and made her mother a ceramic dog, given her Mother swore to ANYONE who would listen that her next dog would be ceramic. Jacquie Turner gave her present to her mother, accepted the bestowed gratitude, and then asked, “Now that you have your ceramic dog, can we please get a real one for me?” The Lhaso God would bring her–Mindy–would become her companion and confidant. They would hide together in the closet away from John and snuggle. Is it any wonder having a dog represents life to me still?

gratuitous photo of Emma

This little girl also survived. Can you imagine that? I think now of being harmed in some way, and I do not know how I would make it through except that I know I can because I already did! Somehow–luckily–the gifts of the happy accident of my birth, combined with my lifelong desire to listen to the Still Small Voice of Love inside me, have given me the courage to fight for my life again and again. The most vulnerable and youngest version of me was assaulted in the most vile and vicious ways. And that child–she lived! She fought her way out with the hope–the imagination–that things would change and not always be the same way. She found beautiful ways to express herself, mostly through art. The same love and imagination about God and God’s creativity and love for humanity still beats in my own heart today. She was full of gifts–so am I.

When I look at these photographs of little seven year-old Jacquie Turner I am in awe. This child survived so I might have this precious life I now live. This child survived so I might thrive. This child survived because love is stronger than death–or all of the other ways we seek to destroy ourselves and others. This child survived the best way she knew how, including eating ice cream to try and make John go away and to make the bad feelings go away too. I owe her my very life, so when she is running around on fire and screaming for cupcakes, I understand. I just owe it to her to comfort her with compassion and with honesty, and only every so often a yummy dessert. I owe our future better than just hiding in the closets of my life with Emma, hoping the bad men won’t come and hurt us.

She survived so I could have a real life. I owe her living mine to the fullest.

This little piece is what I presented to my congregation March 30, 2008 for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Please check out the American Cancer Society and the Colon Cancer Alliance’s websites for additional information on this “Preventable. Treatable. Beatable.” disease.

Good morning.

The purpose of my coming before you today is threefold:
1. To help engage your imaginations about the ministry I am a part of on your behalf working with those who suspect they have or who do have Colorectal Cancer. I began in January after leaving my work as a hospice chaplain.
2. To talk to you about the importance of routine screenings for colorectal cancer, given March has been Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
3. And thirdly, to keep my promise to Pastor Laurie to not talk about the poop too much! Of course numbers one and two are all about the poop!

You know, talking about the poop is what makes being in this church—and in our denomination—unique and special. We try to face our fears when it comes to the tough stuff. I grew up in churches where women were told to deny the call of God on their hears just because of their gender. Yet Congregationalist woman Antoinette Brown was ordained by her congregation in 1853. I stand before you today talking to you as a woman minister because of the witness of this congregation in my life these last 13 years of my membership. I am here because of our willingness to come and reason together about what the faithful life entails for our whole person, and because of our covenant together to support one another when the poop hits the fan!

And at some point, it always does.

My work puts me in contact with people from all over the country dealing with the messiness of life.  Some may call me with simple questions about screening, while others face terribly hard dilemmas about the efficacy of continuing treatment when the colorectal cancer is devouring their liver, their lungs, their body. I counsel people about where God is in their suffering. I hold their story as sacred, even as they struggle to understand how Cancer came to their door. I guide. I educate. I listen. And every single day I stand at the threshold of our failed medical system, and often out of compassion school people without insurance or means on ways to work the system to get screening or treatment. Even as I stand here today, I fear my message will strike a chord in someone who needs to be screened but cannot afford it. “Here, at Coral Gables Congregational Church?” you might ask. For at least six years of my membership here I was one of the millions of Americans living without health insurance. Did you know me then? “So, yes. Even here.”

When we are willing to talk about the poop, we are willing to acknowledge that it is not a problem someone else has “over there” that we might sweep in on our white horses and save them from, but instead we acknowledge that it is right here in our midst. Or as the bestselling children’s book by Taro Gomi points out, “Everyone poops.” And because of that, each one of us here is at risk of developing this terrible disease. That is the bad news, but the good news is that with routine screening—starting at the age of 45 if you are African American or age 50 for everyone else of normal risk—colon cancer can be found before it is—well, cancer. Getting your routine colonoscopy every ten years does not just tell you if you have cancer, but can actually be both preventative and curative if you have polyps or one of the early stages of this disease. Even though colorectal cancer grows slowly, getting it out early helps to ensure that it does not have any time to pierce the wall of the colon and spread, which is most often fatal.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among men and women combined—only lung cancer beats it. Yet the only way we see a decrease in deaths is due to screenings. Why don’t people want to get screened? Fear. Dave Barry summarized this fear in a recent essay as, “You don’t want a doctor to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your butt.” And for him, it was only when his younger brother—who did not put off getting screened at 50 like he did—announced that he had colon cancer that Dave finally went to be screened. As Dave pointed out: What if his brother had put it off like he did?  Sadly, he most likely would have had a terminal version of the disease.

The beauty of our faith and our faith community is that we come together to grow to be whole people of God. Whole people. God is still speaking to us, my brothers and sisters, in our day and age with our advances in being able to help prevent this disease. The number one commandment in the Bible—said over 60 times in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures—is, “Do not fear.” So I tell you today the same thing, “Do not fear the poop! God will be with you!”

And I will be in Fellowship Hall after the service with brochures and to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you.

Working as a hospital and hospice chaplain over the last eight years, I can trace certain themes I repeatedly hear from my patients and their families. These themes include: questioning of why bad things happen to “good” people; the meaning in suffering; the timeliness or “out-of-time” sense when someone dies; trust issues with the medical community; causality; God’s intervention (or lack there of) in our lives; and the meaning of hope/feelings of despair. You know…the light stuff! The most common spiritual intervention I provide directed at a single place of spiritual suffering centers on the popular myth: “God never gives us more than we can handle.”

I write the word “myth” intentionally because indeed this is just that–a myth. We human beings created this idea out of our own hope that it might be true, but not based on any ancient sacred text we might hold to within either the Jewish or Christian traditions. There is a text in the Christian Scriptures that does have somewhat similar language, so the popular consensus is that it has been misquoted just enough to get the other idea into our popular lexicon. The text comes from I Corinthians 10:13 where the Apostle Paul writes, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” The part that is interesting four our discussion is where he writes, “[God] will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” I guess we could call this “Biblical Telephone!” One person after another tweaks it just enough that over time we ended up “God never gives us more than we can handle.”

The problem comes from when we go around spouting off this myth as Biblical truth and live our lives by it!  Worse yet, we often tell this to people truly hurting as a way to try and assuage their pain.  Would you feel better to know that when the most horrible pain of your life is upon you–and you feel like you are going insane from not being able to bear it, yet having to anyways–to know that God had allocated this pain for you knowing you could handle it?

Just recently I spoke to a woman on the Helpline I answer who struggled with this notion. She had just been diagnosed as Stage IV, and she was shattered. She endured more grief and loss in the last twelve years than most, and now with hardly any emotional, physical, spiritual, or financial resources must wage war on this horrific disease–after being Stage Zero a couple of years ago and given the “all clear.” In our conversation, the issue of why would God be “giving” her the cancer came up. Why? Because she had been taught (most likely at church!), “God never gives us more than we can handle.” The implication is that God is giving the cancer for some higher purpose. She told me she believes in a loving God, which led me to ask, “Is a loving God then the creator of your heartache?” I reminded my caller–who is a Christian–of Jesus’ own words on the cross, in which he quoted the Psalmist saying, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” I believe those words are the cries of someone who intimately knows what it means to endure much much more than they can handle.

If the ancient Hebrew and/or Christian Scriptures are important to you, let me direct you a gem from Proverbs 18:14: “A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” I do believe that feeling supported, loved and cared for while we battle the diseases within (and the dis-ease without) help us to heal in body, mind and spirit. This is why it is so important to surround ourselves during our healing journeys with those who can listen and hold the most fragile of moments–those times of despair, anger, hurt and loss–and celebrate with us the moments of life, hope, love and laughter we will experience even with disease. No one can bear our pain or illness for us–in that we are totally alone–but they can carry us while we bear it by carrying our spirit close to their own. Without that, our spirits will be literally crushed, and that is too much to bear.

My encouragement to you today my dear friends is this: God is not the author of our heartache or our broken bodies. We are fragile and live in a fragile world where brokenness is par for the course. God (or Love, if that fits your spirit better) is, however, always wanting to be part of the circle of support cheering us on, believing in our power to create goodness and beauty in a place where there is pain, and encircling us with comfort in the living we are doing right now…even when it is truly more painful than we can bear.

In the recent past, everytime I went to lose the rest of the weight I gained as a kid, not to mention the 10 “Post Apocalyptic” (aka post-break-up) pounds, I gained a tiny bit of weight instead. The earth would feel like it was shifting beneath me when someone would mention how I looked thinner, and then the cupcake eating would commence. After dropping over 70 pounds, to find my weight creeping back up with repeated attempts to lose weight was more than discouraging–heartbreaking would be the right word. I knew I was not gaining weight because I longed for The Bean to come back or felt some sense of unresolved emotion towards him. No! I was doing this to myself when I would feel the earth tilt. But why the tilt?

Here is my mental loop: I lose more weight, I become more attractive and desirable to men. I become more desirable, I could even end up dating someone more than three times (my limit last year before booting someone to the curb), and fall in-love. I fall in-love, am vulnerable, and then I could get left. Again. I do not want to go through that again–even as a deep part in me acknowledges this is always the risk of love–so I put on the weight to be less desirable, less attractive, and more safe. Build the walls. Keep out the love. Stay safe.

I could see it, but I felt utterly powerless and without creativity to address the issue. Since December, I could articulate this, and since December I have had at least 5 cupcakes!!! (I could go for one right now while writing this…and let me tell you that if you are in the market for a cupcake the ones at Fresh Market are TO DIE FOR!)

Did I mention that I really am not a big cake or cupcake person? I think (under normal conditions) that they are too sweet. I prefer soft serve ice cream or yogurt to any other dessert. Sweet, but not too sweet. Cold, smooth, creamy. I do not really like cupcakes! Yet here I am CRAVING cupcakes every time I drop a bloody pound.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with their problems. Amongst my loved ones we have a smattering of potato chip munching, cigarette smoking, workaholic, motorcycle riding, Jesus loving, Diet Coke drinking, scrap booking, gambling alcoholics. And those are just the ones who live on the West Coast of Florida! I believe in having a multitude of tricks–mostly healthy–in my arsenal, so when one fails another is at the ready. I ride my bike like a feign; I ration the chocolate; I talk to friends and family; I go for a walk; I play with Emma; I write this blog–but those fucking cupcakes kept calling out to me. “Don’t lose weight! Stay where you are! You will feel so much better and more calm when you have one! Everything will be fine if you just get up and go have a cupcake! Drink it with skim milk–then it won’t be that fattening! You rode your bike twice already today–have another cupcake!”

Fucking cupcakes.

The cupcakes are not the real issue, so having run out of other RATIONAL coping skills I marched myself back to therapy. Now to appreciate my current therapeutic experience, you must first picture a Datsun 280 ZX driving aging Hippie with a “No Nukes” bumper sticker and a Grateful Dead “quilt” (don’t ask) on his wall with his diplomas. The ponytail, vintage Danish/early 80’s office furniture, and Converse canvas sneakers round out the “ambiance.” This is a guy who sits back, listens to every word, is so non-judgmental and smart you suspect he had you figured out when you made the appointment, and then talks to you in such a practical gentle manner that you wonder why the hell you are paying him to tell you what you already know. But then again, knowing is not my issue. Figuring out what to do next is.

Like any therapist worth their salt, Obi-Wan Kenobi (the therapist) poked around in my past in order to get to know me. I did mention to him on the phone that I needed help in the “here and now” and that I had “dealt with a lot of the shit of the past, and really was not looking to dredge up that stuff or start again looking at it.” Uh-huh.

Given how my past includes the issues of disease, death, abandonment, molestation, threats of suicide and homicide, stalking, rape, and trust–I tend to be wary of beginning any new venture in therapy despite how much good it has done me in the past. I always feel defensive and want to shout at the new therapist, “I am ok! I have worked really hard! I am not as fucked up as you will assume I am! Please give me some credit! Please validate my journey before I met you! I am strong! I will kick your ass if I need to!” And under my breath I whisper, “I am totally scared shitless that the past will haunt me again and the next time I won’t make it. I worry that I am a failure at this healing business because I still am working on the weight stuff and because despair still finds me. I cannot control being vulnerable. I hate being in a relationship because I know there are no guarantees. I want to be loved because I have a lot to give, but trust seems like to high a price to pay. I am lonely sometimes. I want someone else to validate my worthiness to be loved, although I know I must believe that for myself first…but sometimes I am so full of doubt I don’t know how to.”

I cannot help but wonder: Why do I feel so creative, capable and strong and also feel so stuck, inadequate and fragile sometimes?

Obi-Wan listened and listened well. He told me my life has been made up of the big issues–not the small ones. They will always be with me. They will always be tinder for some jerk to come along and set fire to…or just life will set them on fire. Life is hard after all. I was vigilant with The Bean, but next time I need to pay better attention to the signs that someone is not healthy. A healthy person and an unhealthy person equal an unhealthy relationship. The Bean left, and my old shit got set on fire.

“Your inner 7 year-old is running around on fire screaming her head off inside of you. You will need to help her heal from The Bean before you can find your way to transcendence and then losing the weight.”

I love this image because it fits. I got it instantly. The Bean is only the second person since Daddy died my inner 7 year-old ever loved and trusted. John, my molesting murderous stalking step-father was the first. After not loving or trusting any man, she loved The Bean. He was fun! He gave her bike, promised to teach her how to do a cartwheel, saw all the good in her–the capacity to trust, to love, to experience, to excel–encouraged her to play, liked how smart she was, and he let her know in a myriad of ways that he would not betray her trust in him. And then he did, which only happened because I–the grown up Jacqueline–let him get close enough to her for her to get hurt. He hurt her. I betrayed her.

Obi-Wan pointed out to me that with The Bean seven-year old Jacquie finally went to sleep and rested. She still would wake up and cry sometimes out of fear, but the fact that I allowed myself to get so close to The Bean that I would allow myself to imagine really being with someone demonstrated my just how far and healthy I am–with her as a part of me. I had earned her trust enough to work through her immature and naive fears, which are never placated with rationality. Nurture yes, but logic no. More than anyone, she trusted me to keep her safe and to tell her who she could trust. More than anyone, she feels I let her down.

Seven year-old Jacquie only knows one way to deal with her terror when she feels she is in a trap where she will lose BIG again. She builds walls…walls of fat. These walls keep the fear at bay, the bad men away, and her safely protected against anymore betrayal or abandonment. They work for her–she is seven after all–but they do not work for me. I am on a journey now to comfort her, build up the trust with her again, and help her to let go of cupcakes making the world tilt right again.

My Dear Faithful Reader,

We have come to the first anniversary of my blog. First of all, thank you so very much for the affirmation of reading my blog (some of you more than my own Mama!) and sharing with me the places my writing touched you and your story. I must say I am rather surprised by all of this! What started as a way to post photos of my then six week-old puppy Emma–who was still living with her Birth Mother at the time–transformed into something I never expected. I grieved the loss of a meaningful relationship. I worked through much of what it meant for me to work as a hospice chaplain. I highlighted the hilarities of my dating life. And, most importantly, I educated you on men in tank tops!

Given Top Ten Lists are so passe I say, “Nine is Fine!” Here are my favourite nine posts from this last year:

9. I Heart Atheists! This post is dedicated to my patient “Hank,” of whom I wrote. I am glad he is no longer struggling to breathe or to find love.

8. Posting My Big Secret This post received the most private email because people were worried about me. In many ways it was the hardest to write. I reveled an important secret, and in so doing found a way to tell my closest and dearest just how much despair (my definition of anti-hope) I felt following the break-up. This post continues to have meaning for me due to my continuing love of Post Secret, and because I hope by exposing my pain–even as a minister–others fearing the only way through is out might feel comforted.

7. I’m Coming Out: Jesus Know About My Vibrator The year’s most embarrassing and second funniest post. I still cringe when people ask me for my website address thinking about them reading this particular post. Of course this is exactly why it is on this list–I am a glutton for embarrassing myself on this blog with the bitter truth. For the record–and thankfully–I have had sex since I wrote this post! (Once.)

6. The Whispering God Where is God when bad things happen to good people? In part, this post contains my answer to this question and my own thinking about God’s intervention–and lack there of–in our lives.

5. 40 Reasons I Make A Great Girlfriend (and her evil twin 40 Reason I Will Drive You Crazy & Am Not Perfect) This was so much fun, and I met my friend in Austria through putting up the “Great Girlfriend” list on craigslist.

4. A Rose Garden Relationship I continue to think about what I wrote in this post. If there is such a thing as your own writing being a gift to you, it would be this post. I feel it helped me clarify what relationship values continue to remain important to me and also what I ultimately have to offer all of my relationships, including the one I have with myself.

3. You Play, You Pay This post about my prayer for my Aunt Charlyne to come to terms with her cancer and still remains at the forefront of my thinking about her. She finished her second round of chemo, and she will find out next week the results of her latest PET scan. She told us at Christmas she feels the cancer is spreading.  All my work with patients has taught me our bodies tell us the truth–even long before the tests and doctors do–so I cannot help but wonder if hers is telling her a truth now. I do not know what will happen with her body, but I know she will be surrounded by love regardless of the outcome. This is what matters most.

2. Tank Top Wearing Man Candy? The single funniest thing I have ever written! I cannot see a man in a tank top without thinking: “Baby, if you only knew how I felt about THAT!” If you love it too, please go out to Urban Dictionary and suggest “The Tribble Factor” for a word/definition.

1. The Mango Tree My homage to my father and the continuing bonds of love death cannot separate us from and how these bonds continue to inform our present and propel us into our future.

Here is to a wonderful Year Two!

I quit my job.

Back in November, just after Teri’s husband was murdered I gained focus about the abusive nature of the hospice I work for. Needing some time off–even just one day–to breathe, regroup, grieve and find my spiritual center, I asked for some comp time. In the past, the company has given comp time when staff suffered through a major crises and led their team through it. My Social Worker and I definitely qualified, but after I approached the subject with our covering Team Manager we received a text message (no conversation, mind you) stating, “Be strong for the patients.” I could not help but wonder, “With what?”

I reached a breaking point following a week unlike any I experienced in all of my time as a chaplain. I have blessed the parts of a baby girl in an emesin basin, held the hand of a man hacked by an ax, comforted a father about to bury all three of his boys, led a procession with a dead armless/legless baby out of the NICU in a satin box, watched a man die shackled to his bed, had the stench of burning flesh in my nose so bad I had to put toothpaste above my lip to breathe, and been hunted down by reporters following a colossal medical mishap–and that was just at work! My personal life losses also possesses quite the body count as well, and more than once I wondered if my own body would be added to the count at the hand of John or myself. Never, however, had I entered into the gruesome world of murder and known the victim and their loved ones. Never had I loved the one so closely affected and devastated.

After I received the text message, I looked for a new job and found one. I start on Monday.

The first of June last year I wrote “The Cost of Being A Chaplain.” The piece focused more on the financial stresses involved, but originally contained a whole litany of just what two days of working in hospice looked like for me. I pulled out the emotional cost side and began a different post (never completed or posted) called “What It Takes.” That piece began…

Paparazzo said to me on Sunday, “I really do not know what it takes to do your job.” I think it is hard to explain to anyone who does not work with crisis situations, but even sometimes our co-workers just do not get it either. Being a chaplain is unlike most jobs. On the surface, we may seem to have it easy. I go to people’s homes and listen to their stories about their lives. Beneath the surface, I map these stories, looking for places where the support is not present to help them navigate in a healthy way the pain before them and offer comfort, guidance and ways to pick up their own coping skills to shore up those tender places. In so doing, I see the terrible weaknesses hid from most, and must gently place a healing balm there without disturbing the person’s sense of self or fracture their hope/imagination regarding God or love. In order to be a chaplain, you must embrace the painful places, ever be on the lookout for shitty theology trapping someone in a prison of despair, and bear witness to the fragility of humanity. What others flee from, you must draw close to and absorb. We also do a lot of apologizing for the so-called “religious” and teach about what it means to be a spiritual person. And we do this without equanimity with those we care for, without much support of any kind, with a smile and sense of humor, and while being as less threatening as possible–unless we must kick some ass to help our care receivers. Trust me! I have kicked some ass when needed!

Pastoral Care is a wonderful profession, but as caregivers we need certain supports to continue to give of the sweet milk of our own lives to those we care for. My employer did not understand this, nor did they want to. I wrote a “Manifesto” for my exit interview. Here are the basic bullet points:

• Implied and explicit Corporate expectations change and do not always reconcile with one another.
• Unreasonable expectations regarding time allocation (leading to requiring a minimum of a 50-hour work week, on-calls added), especially on a Home Team with high turnover.
• Paperwork in triplicate but no computerization.
• Unequal compensation for company employees in the same job, based on age of program not cost-of-living. (For example, the counties above and below my own have chaplains being paid $5-10k more than in my county for the same work and the same cost of living. Chaplains in the GA program make more, but they have no on-call responsibilities unless a chaplain is specifically requested because unlike us, they do not have the legal right to declare someone dead.)
• Inadequate compensation creates stress and grift. (The starting Chaplain salary is almost $17k less than what the average Associate Minister in my county makes. Both Chaplains and Social Workers are shortchanging on their visits to “make-up” for the disparity…at least emotionally. I have a real problem with this from an integrity standpoint, not to mention it is illegal.)
• Company policy changes that decrease company loyalty and shortchange pay. (They decided to put out 9 of the Social Service staff on holiday–with pay if you still had PTO, without if you did not–two days before Thanksgiving because they “did not have enough money.” The company is publicly traded, so the information about their cash flow is readily available. The truth? Their net revenue was up 32.8% for the Third Quarter from where it was in 2006. The profit was to the tune of $13.8 million! Not enough money my ass!)
• Death attendance visits counting against productivity requirements. (It is a FUCKING HOSPICE!!! How can going to a death be counted against the Psycho-Social Staff? They consider the day a “loss” given the person died–although they did get paid for the day. Some weeks I would go to as many as three deaths on my team. Unproductive my ass!!! )
• The way in which on-calls are handled. (Too long to bore you with here, but needless to say…sometimes I felt it was a choice between my life or my job.)
• A corporate culture of fear and urgency.
• Patients and families come behind shareholder profits. (Hollowing out services to the dying to make a profit is immoral and will eventually bankrupt the company. I am going to send the CEO a copy of The Divine Right of Capital.)
• We are not prepared for RN staffed Continuous Care or Pediatric Continuous Care.
• Not enough emphasis or time for true staff support and emotional care.
• Questionable charting practices, which I believe to be illegal.

I am ready for a change and for renewal in my professional life. I want to work where I am valued, and where I can use my gifts. I want to help individuals, and I want to contribute to the way in which we think about how to care for those suffering at the macro level as well. I never want to be on-call again!!!! I want to write more for a living. I want work to be work and home to be home again. I want to be paid a living wage. I want my creativity to be blessed not questioned. I do not want to feel I need to dumb myself down because it is threatening to some of my colleagues.

The new chapter begins on Monday! YEAH!!!!

This is the Eulogy I wrote for my patient I called “My Love.” Maybe you will see a small part of yourself in times of great struggle when you read this:

As I began to think about what I wanted to say about my dear patient—whom I loved greatly and who I know loved me as well—I kept hearing the song from “The Sound of Music” in my head where the nuns sing: “How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” “Maria” was definitely a firecracker and a moonbeam! In all honesty, I did not meet the same Maria her family describes because in many ways that version of her never existed in the same way after she after her hospice admission in April of 2005. Maria never could fully accept the myriad of her life changes or heal into the person who rose from those ashes. And yet, her spirit—that “moonbeam”—could not be stopped by COPD or hospice…even if Maria struggled to see that for herself at times.

I once asked her to describe her life before she took that long last final terminal turn. She told me how much she “enjoyed her children” and how they had “always been [her] heart’s desire.” Children and animals…Maria drew close to her the tiniest and the most tender. She described herself as being handy, artistic, creative, fun, funny, and “a pleasure to be around.” She also felt like the disease not only was choking the life out of her body, but also that the process had stolen all the life out of living in the here and now. This was the Maria—“My Love” as I usually called her —whom I met in September of 2006. I met a woman ravaged by a disease and full of dis-ease as a result.

It was love at first sight. You may find this so odd given I am standing here breaking the cardinal rule of Memorial Services and talking about the tough stuff! Knowing My Love as I did, I think she would be proud of me for being willing to be honest about just how “shitty” this was for her these last few years. And no, she would not mind one bit that the Minister said “shitty”—it was a favourite word of hers after all! (She also had a way with the f-word, something I appreciated, but let’s have a tiny bit of decorum here.) I also know she would be proud of me for seeing into her—into her deepest most beautiful and hurting heart—she liked to say to me, “Intimacy means “into-me-see.” And I did see her intimately—broken, anxious, hurting, longing, suffering, grieving, wanting, hoping, searching, funny, smart, creative, insightful, wise, kind, loving, honest—brutally honest. I heard her laugh, rubbed her back as she cried, kissed her cheek, had her frail arms embrace me, and her hand cup my face—not to mention I have been the recipient of her pointed right finger on more than one occasion! I am so sad that I will not see her again…and I am so happy for her that she finally has the peace she sought and needed so desperately.

Part of why I love her so much relates to the tenacity she showed to stay her course no matter what. We all suffer in prisons of our own making, but even in those places where we are literally marking the days on the wall, life is possible. I read about how Nelson Mandela kept a garden on Robbins Island, where he was a prisoner for 27 years. He said it was his lifesaver. Maria kept a garden of her own in many ways. From little rituals that defined her life, to meaningful friendships where the introduction was based on her decline, not her beauty, wit or brains. She tried to sort out the story of her life, to try and find meaning with the terribly unfair thing that had happened to her. She tried to grieve all she lost on the way to losing her life. She sought peace. Maria showed unparalleled strength and courage in the face of devastation. She held on—tightly, mind you—for so much longer than most of us could even imagine doing if we were in her place.

Like all of us, she would often ask me why this had happened to her. She blamed herself for ever smoking, but I am here today to promise you that none of us “deserves” to have our breath taken away from us by a terrible disease. I know it is such a normal human desire to try and make sense of things by figuring out the cause-and-effect. Let me tell you the universal truth of why we suffer: We suffer because we do…it is part of what it means to be human. Human beings break—mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The Blame Game never leads to healing, and when we break, to have courage to try and heal in the face of that brokenness—well that is true bravery. Maria had a brave spirit because she tried, and she held on, and she continued to laugh for as long as she possibly could—even when it was through her panic and tears. Yes, even this last month of her life when she became too weary to talk most of the time, she would carefully spit out each and every word of a zinger and make her family laugh!

Maria was not a superhero; she was just a woman…a human being like all of us here. She never walked on the moon. She never received a miraculous healing and lived to tell about it on Oprah. She never won the adulation of the masses or had her words or artwork revered. But she was a ray of light—a moonbeam to those of us here—and that was something her disease never stole from her. As each of us carries some part of her humor, her love, her life, her mischief, her spirit, her story in our own hearts, she continues to live on and bless us. I don’t think she would want it any other way.

Closing Prayer for Maria’s Celebration of Life:

God, we possess great imagination about who you might be, and we cling to the ideas about you our brothers and sisters share. Our brother David said you know everything about us…that you examine our hearts. Do you know each moment we sit or stand? Do you really count the hairs on our heads? We need you to, for we suffer and need to know you are with us even in the darkest place or the deepest valley. Find us and comfort us with your tender embrace.

God, we wonder if you know our thoughts when we are far away from you? Come quickly and hear them now sweet Shepard. We are full of love, remembrance, humor, and longing for our dear beloved Maria. We are so grateful she can breathe deeply now because her lungs, spirit and mind are at peace, and we are so sad that we will only hear her laughter in our memories. Comfort each one here—especially her family—and may the promise be true that if we ride the wings of the morning or dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide us and your strength will support us. And help us to hold tightly to all of our stories, memories and love of Marsha, so we might speak of her and keep her spirit alive within us for as long as we live. Amen.

Sometimes I fall in-love very easily and shamelessly with my patients. I do not mean to speak of romantic love, but instead of how a special spark will exist and you just love instantly as a result. I recognize how common threads from my life and theirs act as catalysts, but sometimes I am at a total loss for why I feel so compelled by them and their stories, loved ones, life, illness, etc. I had two different “Jacquelines” this year, so I think we can easily trace why they were special to me right from the start! My nurse Wendy and I fell in-love instantly with “Yoda” and for no other reason than the man was a complete gentleman. I also think the way he would speak of his wife and how he longed to see her again touched me deeply–both in my understanding of how death does not end love and in my own longings to have a man feel that way about me. And then there is my patient I always referred to as “My Love.”

Whenever I would come into her home I would say, “Hello My Love, tell me about you today.” If I said, “How are you?” she would always reply, “How the hell do you think I am?” I always met that with a snappy, “Shitty for sure, but better now that I am here!?” (smirk included free of charge) She would snarl and laugh all at the same time! My Love suffered with COPD and with the horrible box of living with a terminal disease. Dis-ease all around her, I felt from the very beginning of our time together in September 2006 that she suffered from Complicated Mourning. The DSM IV (the psychological diagnostic Bible) basically says one suffers from Complicated Mourning when after a year from the initial time of the loss one still experiences the loss in the same way as when the loss first occurred. In other words, one never moves beyond the initial grief reaction. Imagine if you learned of the death of your closest friend…hold that thought, feeling, body trauma for just a moment. Now imagine never letting that feeling morph and heal, but instead staying exactly the same always. Complicated Mourning occurs most commonly after sudden traumatic losses, including but not limited to: homicides, death of a child, multiple losses or concurrent losses, and/or suicide. In the case of My Love, the person she saw herself to be died when she entered hospice in April of 2005, and she never could fully grieve the myriad of her life changes or heal into the person who rose from those ashes.

I can remember feeling intimidated walking up to her large home for the first time…what turned out to be a very pretty prison of her own making. I greeted the most beautiful woman. In her mid-sixties, she could have passed for being in her forties but for her hands, which belonged to a woman thirty years her senior. Her hands told the story of her weakened lungs, weakened resolve, weakened resilience. I always notice people’s hands–even as a child I would compare my own to my Mother’s and Grandmother’s all through the church services. Her hands continued to tell her story in that they were most often clenched. She would sit in her recliner, leaning back to her left with her left hand tight and her right arm locked out straight to her seat. She would wag her right index finger at you to make a point, but the rest of her hand stayed firm. Her hands never lied about how desperately she was holding on, and they never lied about how desperately she was living.

I think of my “Patient Zero” as a mother from when I served as a Youth Minister in North Carolina. She and her husband–both lawyers–engaged in one of the bloodiest divorces I ever witnessed, and I only saw the aftermath. She also had Breast Cancer with mets to her liver. I visited her at Duke after a surgery to help with the spread of the cancer in her liver. Her goal simple: Live until her 10 year-old turned 18. God forbid her former husband raise her or interact with her more than the bare minimum the court ordered! She too held on tightly. She told me as I stood by her bedside following the surgery how she prayed God would help her to let go of holding on with such vigor and desperation. She did not pray for her whole hand to unfurl, but instead she asked God to come and loosen just the tiny tip of her pinkie finger so she might breathe a bit easier. With this image in mind, I often find myself praying the very same thing–for myself and for my patients.

When I left My Love’s home after our first visit, I leaned in close to her and said, “My prayer for you is that you will have just one minute of peace each day. I am not naive. I do not think a feeling of peace will just overtake you out of nowhere. But I do believe one extra minute per day is possible. This is my prayer.” She gripped my hand with her right hand and said, “You understand. Thank you. Yes; pray for that for me.”

See My Love was so terribly stuck. She was near death when she came onto hospice in 2005, but after a drug allergy diagnosis and correction she rallied. When the old version of herself died, so did all her dreams of  this being something she could and would beat. Imagine a plane circling the airport–which in this case represented death–day-after-day but never flying anywhere either. She was terrified of getting sick, and subsequently her precious grandchildren represented the kiss of death. She also missed them terribly and longed to hold them, play with them, and witness the intricacies of their growing up. This is just one example of the ways she held onto her life but never really lived. My Love was so terribly stuck.

My Love never could consciously release herself from her ritualistic hovering over death. A fall a few months ago, and a series of events began to unravel her desperate hold onto a life she hated and hated to have any change to. At the beginning of December her husband moved her to an inpatient facility when her death became more imminent. I visited her there often, and would look painfully upon her still clenched hands. After her death this past Thursday, I sat in the same Family Room where she lived in isolation for these last two and a half years…a room without her chair, hospital bed, commode, mirror, eye brow pencil, pashmina, blush, and oxygen. A room without her. Her family looked at me excitedly and her daughter related something they just had to tell me: “Her hands were at peace the last two days. We noticed it and thought we had to tell you because you would be so glad to know she stopped holding them so tightly. She died with her hands open and at peace.”

Why her? Why did I fall in-love with her? She was a bright, enthusiastic, funny, creative, sarcastic, honest, lonely, hurting, broken woman. I do not know what to say beyond that I loved her deeply because I did. She never “earned” my love…in fact she tried it more than once. I just know I loved her right exactly where she was–clenched hands and all. Her husband asked me to officiate at her funeral. He knows the day of her funeral is also my last day with hospice, so he called it “poetic justice” that my last responsibility for hospice is her funeral. I fully agree, but even if I had already left I still would have done it for her…anything for My Love.

I wrote the following piece for my company’s bi-annual Memorial Gathering to honor those who have died with our hospice. The theme for this season’s services is “The Light of Love.” The first section focuses on “The Light of Remembrance,” which inspires the piece.

In the summer of 1977 my father died. I remember the day as being rainy and very cold, but in reality it was a hot and humid Florida summer day. I guess my little girl mind was so overcome with grief that the only way to describe a day when you lose someone you desperately love is to think of it as being cold and dreary with dark clouds crying. That is the funny thing about remembering the past—we are always looking back at it through a particular lens. I saw that day through the lens of pain and loss for so long that the day itself became transformed to match the feelings.

I also look back and remember holding Daddy’s hand, as he and Mother would lift me up over the curb, swinging me back and forth. I remember seeing his arms outstretched to me, as I would scoot down the high slide at the park by his office. I remember the look on his face when he opened my door to find Kelly Grey and I sitting on the red carpet with the pink ceramic pig smashed into a million pieces.

Kelly lived just six houses from mine, and we were born exactly three weeks apart. We would walk the grass of our neighbour’s front lawns to get to one another’s homes safely. Our parents had taught us to do this, so we were full of four-year old confidence. Somehow we decided this particular day that she would come to my house, but we neglected to ask my napping Mother—out of kindness, of course. As we sat in my room, she asked me how much money was in the pig. We decided to count the money, but alas the pig did not have an opening on the bottom, and the small slot on top did not send the money back to us when we shook it. I offered to go and fetch my tiny hammer from the garage. Daddy bought it for me, so I could “help” him with his household “Honey-Do-Lists.” I marched out to the garage where he was working at his tool bench, took down the hammer, and replied to his inquiry about needing any help with a simple “no thanks.”

Daddy had not had a four-year old in the house in over sixteen years, so it took an extra moment for him to comprehend that there was no need for me to have the hammer that would be qualified as “good”—which also proved to be just enough time for Kelly and I to smash the pig to smithereens. So there we sat on the floor of my bedroom with one dead ceramic pig, one hammer, countless change, and one Daddy staring down at us saying, “What in the world!? Kelly, where did you come from? Does your Mother know she is here?” He had that look I knew as meaning I was in T.R.O.U.B.L.E. He also had the mischievous smirk around his eyes of appreciating my ingenuity. He would know…I got my ingenious and mischievous nature from him!

You may wonder how it is that I remember all these little details of my ever too brief six years with Daddy. The answer comes from my Mother, who never shied away from talking about him and from keeping the light of remembrance stoked within me. She would ask me, “Do you remember when we met Daddy for lunch?” or “Do you remember going on the boat and catching your first fish at the marina?” She kept the memories alive—she kept Daddy alive—even when it must have cut her heart to a million pieces to have to do so. I know she wanted to go to bed and never get up because her heart was so full of agony and loss. My Grandmother had to take her in hand and tell her to get up because I needed her. Being a widow herself, she also promised my mother that she would stop crying all the time—“eventually.”

I am sure Mother wanted to forget sometimes—to forget all the love, laughter, happiness, touch and connection she had with him—because the forgetting might make the pain less. Instead, she held onto my Grandmother’s promise that “eventually” the pain would lessen, “eventually” she would not be crying all the time, and “eventually” she would invest in her own life again. In holding onto that promise, she kept Daddy’s love alive for me by reinforcing all of my memories of him.

Now when we talk of Daddy, we light up with the remembering. He is ever close, ever dear, ever loved. When I drive her nuts by announcing just exactly how we will be going about accomplishing a particular task—step-by-painful-step where she is merely an extra pair of hands—she shakes her head and says, “Just like your father…you are just like your father.” When I tease her or say something terribly funny she says, “Just like your father.” In fact, it has become quite the joke between us. Mother will compliment me on something and I will with deadpan delivery tell her, “Well you know, I get that from Daddy.“ She just shakes her head and laughs! When we are with other people and they comment on how bright I am, we look at each other, giggle and chime together, “She gets that from her father!” We both know how much her love and care for me has shaped me, but in those little moments we bring forward into our lives right now the love, humor and intelligence of a man who has been dead over thirty years. We keep him alive within us, which makes him a real person to even those who never had the honor of meeting him.

Remembering the one you love who has died is a precious flame within you, but you may at times be afraid that it will burn you. I want to encourage you today that the light of remembrance can only illuminate your life and warm your soul. I know because eventually that is what the light of remembering my own lost loves has become.

My friend Pixie broke up with the guy she was seeing. She is in her early thirties and has two teenage boys, whereas he has no children and is in his late twenties. She knows who she is; he is still defining himself. She is in-touch with her body, mind, emotions and spirit. He knows his mind, but the rest of him has a way of getting away from him or being completely stuffed down or ignored. She opens up under stress and blooms into being her best self. When the trial or tribulation passes–as they always do–she feels the pride and the exhaustion. She knows she has it in her to weather whatever storms come her way. She is a survivor. She knows when she must retreat into a haven of love, friendship and rest. She knows that if she does not nurture her soul, no one else will. He…well, he sees stress as something to be avoided at all costs. He runs into a den of silence and retreats from the difficult emotions–in others and in himself.

After Paul, our friend and co-worker’s husband, was murdered Pixie turned to the guy she was dating. She was upset. Her heart broke for Teri, and she worked hard to support those of us in the epicenter of this nuclear holocaust of violence, loss, unanswerable questions, and grief. She sat with me the night he was killed at dinner, and drove me home after I swilled down two cocktails. I rarely drink, but the day deserved a drink to Paul’s memory and one to dull mine. She called me faithfully and sat beside me at the funeral. She held my loss as she held her own. She got angry at the way our company put my Social Worker and I through the wringer and then slapped us in the face with a “stay strong for the patients” without considering that we had nothing left to give. Spent, she needed to talk. She reached out to the guy, and he responded, “I don’t understand why Jacqueline and you are so upset?”

The dividing line was drawn, and he is now gone from her inner life.

I understand completely. When something terrible happens those of us in the epicenter of pain-especially those of us who are caregivers–we need the ones we are closest to in life to provide a safe shelter from the storm and fallout. We need the voices of Love and Friendship to say to us, “I am here for you, so you can be there for them.” We will repay the favor ten-fold. We will love you with undying affection and gratitude. Knowing that your arms will entwine our battered bodies and spirits gives us the courage to face the deepest darkness humanity wrecks upon one another. Your help so we can alight upon a resting place makes all the difference in the world. A quick “let me come and take you to dinner” matters more than all the money in the world.

Unfortunately, sometimes we get only silence. I think what happened with Pixie and her beau is worse though. The accusation is that if we were not upset–because somehow being upset about someone you know being murdered and how that devastates one you love deeply is irrational–then there would not be a reason to be upset. It seems so neat and tidy, but painful feelings are never clean. They are always messy and leave us discombobulated in their wake. As well they should! I do not want to live my life prepared for the worse-case scenario. I would never get out of bed! So, I will stumble, tremble, and fall down when the shit hits the fan. The reproach and silence that can come from even those we trust the most adds insult to injury. No wonder Pixie drew the line.

The person I was seeing at the time was very busy with his life, so I tried to not burden him with it all. I let him call me. Unfortunately, when he would call to check on me he would also talk A LOT about his “irrational and crazy” ex-wife. A dividing line was drawn the night before the funeral, and when he asked me if I would ever be seeing him again I had to tell him the truth–I would not.

And then there are those who just get what we need. When Paul died I wrote a pain-filled email to The Scoundrel, who was living in Paris at the time. He wrote back saying: “This is very very horrible. I love you and kiss you on the head…….I’m sorry………It’s just so horrible….Do you have a friend who can hold you? xxxxx”

So I told The Scoundrel the truth…there was no one to hold me. The feeling that overcame me when he wrote those words to me was “emptiness.” Somehow emptiness seems better than longing. Emptiness implies being open and ready to receive, just the right fit has not come yet to sit in that space with me. Longing is when the one you count on to sit beside you when you are beside yourself cannot or will not come. This is what happened with Pixie–she longed for him to be with her, but he fell to the other side of the dividing line.

Since my father’s death in 1977 I rarely dream of him. One dream during college where I realized the old man telling me not to “throw my heart away” on the man with the Southern Drawl was Daddy just as I awakened ashamed to not have recognized him in time to talk to him. Another dream in High School where my friend and I hit a man on a bike during a terrible and blinding storm. I saw the man was Daddy, and became horrified since we killed him. In my dream, I ran home to tell Mother only for her to laugh as she put on lipstick saying, “He’s been dead for years.”

I am an avid dreamer. In fact, if I could make one film it would be of my dreams. In my dreams I see colours I never see in my life. In my dreams the feelings seem more vivid too. There is an urgency, even with the dreams full of pleasure and humor. Sometimes I wake up laughing…sometimes crying. Often the dreams seem more real than real. Do you ever feel that way? I fall deeply into them and often have to tell some poor soul what happened before the day is set right. This is a pattern from childhood. The funny thing about dreams is that their true significance to us remains only with the one who had the dream. Dreams are completely singular. No one else remembers them–at l