Easter

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I went to Seattle last week with two octogenarians (surprisingly nimble travelers if a tad slow), my sister and her daughter, and my daughter Audrey. It was a whirlwind of a trip to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and their three kids. We did all the things people who don’t live near an airport do–we drove to St. Louis the day before our flight because we had a 7AM departure time, woke before the crack of dawn, arrived in Seattle around 9:30AM gaining two hours for the day and hit the ground running.

I’d never been to Seattle. Man, it’s hilly–cars parked all willy nilly on both sides of the road hilly. We looked up into the eyes of massive wooden trolls, went up into the Space Needle, gasped at the fragility and beauty of the Chihulys, sipped some dark coffee, rode the trolley to Bainbridge, and with about 500 million other people carrying cameras and herding children and animals took in the beauty of University of Washington’s Cherry Blossom Trees.

Five fast-paced days and we were back home Wednesday evening, just in time to do a bunch of laundry, get a few extra hours of sleep, and prepare for Easter.

All of this to say–I was pretty tired and had low expectations for the Easter church service.

Sunday’s 8AM mass came pretty early for me (I’m not an early riser by nature). But I made it to the church on time and found myself in the front row next to my travel buddies (my slow but good-natured and nimble parents). Not a huge fan of the front row, but the lilies were pretty and as everyone else in the church was behind me, I wasn’t distracted by all the beautiful new babies snuggled in their parents’ arms and the small bouncing children waiting for church bells to ring, so they could go home and pull the plastic, jelly-bean filled eggs from the tall grass in their overgrown spring yards.

That’s why I heard the sermon. I’m a semi-regular church-goer (that’s likely a wee-bit generous), but most of the time I’m lucky if I hear enough of the sermon to be moved. More often, I love seeing folks I don’t necessarily agree with and enjoy the spectacle of young families trying to keep their brood in line while being put off and preoccupied by the patriarchal language and culture of the Catholic church.

So I was listening instead of looking around when our priest started his sermon. He’s not a loud talker but he is quite expressive. He smiles and moves his hands around a lot and gives the general impression of genuine excitement.

He told a couple of stories and then towards the end of the sermon, he said something like this:

(It’s impolite to get your phone out in church to record the sermon, although I wouldn’t have been recording anyway because I never expected him to say something I’d want to remember days later. That is why his words below are an approximation of what I heard him say and not a direct quote.)

If you’re here this morning because it’s Easter and you haven’t been joining us often, I want to welcome you, to tell you how glad we are you’re here. And I want to invite you to come back. Yes, the church and the people of the church are a mess. It’s true. That’s why we need you. But the truth is, you’re a mess too.

I love that so much. There I am in the front row and the priest is telling me I’m a mess. I am a mess. The church is a mess. The people of the church are a mess. We are all a mess, and we can be a mess together. That is the best thing I’ve heard in church–maybe ever.

The one thing I hate about what passes as Christianity these days is certainty. It takes all the mystery out of faith. But uncertainty by way of messiness. Well, that properly mucks things up a bit. When the priest asks me to come back because we are all a mess.

That kind of makes me want to go back.

Here we go again . . . A moment in time: an abecedarian.

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A

An ABECEDARIAN is a beginner. That’s me, to my good fortune and dismay. It seems that there is little certainty in the world and that calls for a beginner’s mind. An ABECEDARIAN is also an acrostic where each letter of a word (or in this case section) begins with a letter in alphabetical order.

B

I can see the BIRDS through my office window. They are eating and spreading the sunflower seeds in the feeders in my back yard. Right now, there are two Gold Finches hanging upside down on a thistle feeder, one Gold Finch on the ground having a meal with a House Sparrow. A Tufted Titmouse watches from a fallen White Pine Branch only a foot away. Five House Sparrows and two House Finches perch in the Crepe Myrtle which isn’t starting to bud yet like the Lilacs. I do not see a Junco, but I saw them yesterday. They are my favorites, and I hope they have not gone for the season already.

C

They (some utility company) are laying CABLE all over town. Blue, orange, and yellow flags dot yards along sidewalks and curbing. Orange cones and “Utility Work Ahead” signs find me around every corner I turn on my daily walk.

D

The DAFFODILS have been blooming for a few days now. But they don’t thrill me like the return of the DANDELIONS. Their bright yellow fluff spread out like small plates in the grass. In my opinion, they are beautiful.

E

I made Momofuku Soy Sauce EGGS two days ago. They are salty and creamy and go with everything–soup, rice, slices of avocado. This morning I ate one on a slice of sour dough bread along with some microgreens I purchased this weekend from New Leaf Microgreens. Stellar breakfast. (If you live in Charleston or Olney, I highly recommend you checking New Leaf Microgreens out)

F

The FORSYTHIA is blooming. A friend whose mother recently died posted on FB recently that when she was little she thought her mother called the yellow beauty For Cynthia. When I read that I cried.

G

Suddenly the world is GREEN again.

H

I emptied the HAMPER again this morning. Does that thing reproduce clothes on its own?

I

For the last couple of years, I have been plagued by INDECISION. What to write about? Should I begin a new blog or use the one you are reading now? Do I have anything interesting to say? Should I write by hand or type my thoughts up? Opinion or story? I don’t mind admitting that I’ve been consumed with (at times completely paralyzed by) the state of politics in our country. Living in a very small town where many of my neighbors live on the other side of the political divide is silencing in a variety of ways. After all, I love some of these people. To confront our differences is daunting.

J

I prefer JAM to JELLY. But mostly I like my toast savory with butter or mashed avocado and sea salt.

K

When I am confused (and that’s not unusual) I like to copy Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Kindness into my journal. I have copied this poem hundreds of times. I highly recommend the exercise.

L

If you google LONELINESS, you will find that it is an epidemic in the United States. Especially in middle-aged people. When I read that “loneliness is the new social frontier” I remember my favorite poem, Song, by Adrienne Rich. A friend of mine gave me Adrienne Rich’s book, The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New when I graduated high school, and that is where I first encountered this poem. I don’t know where he found this remarkable book or how he knew I would love it, but my copy is worn. The pages are falling out and the cover is falling off. The whole world opened up when I opened that book. Here is the first stanza from that poem about LONELINESS:

You’re wondering if I’m lonely:
OK then, yes, I’m lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.

M

My MOM, Mary Jo, makes a family lunch on Tuesdays. This week, she baked potatoes and had steamed broccoli, shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, butter, and a little bit of leftover pulled pork for toppings. Along with the baked potatoes, we had hot bread, salad with her homemade dressing, and green grapes. There was a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Nugget next to each plate, and strawberry pie with Cool Whip for dessert. Rumi, my three-year-old granddaughter was the only one who ate her nugget (and she took the uneaten nuggets home).

N

I am rereading Oliver Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Burkeman suggests that instead of learning to say “NO” to the things we don’t want to do, the more important task at hand is learning to say “NO” to some of the things we want to do. If our time on this earth is limited (and it is) we can’t do everything we want to do.

O

My pug, ORANGES, is fairly needy in her old age. When I sit at my desk, she stands at my feet and sniffs my legs.

P

I keep forgetting to get PRINTER PAPER. When my son, Carter, printed out brackets for the NCAA tournament, he had to use parchment paper. These brackets will withstand the test of time.

Q

We are not QUIET people. Well, I am not a quiet person. I have always talked rather loudly, and people are not afraid to point it out. I can’t tell you how many times someone has asked me to hush. I often wonder if it’s offensive merely because I am a woman.

R

I can’t really remember what it was like when the phone RANG and I didn’t know who was calling. To find out, I had to answer the phone.

S

My yard is lit up with SPRING beauties. They bloomed before the first day of SPRING–they usually do. This week, it feels like SPRING is “on the fence,” as if she’s not quite sure she is ready to unfold.

T

I mentioned earlier that I am rereading Oliver Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Burkeman suggests that knowing I have a finite amount of time (approximately 4000 weeks if I live to be 80) could change my relationship with time. He writes that “the real problem isn’t our limited time. The real problem . . . is that we’ve unwittingly inherited, and feel pressured to live by, a troublesome set of ideas about how to use our limited time, all of which are pretty much guaranteed to make things worse.” Chew on that for a minute. We spend so much of our “time” trying to fit more in, we may be neglecting what is really important.

U

One of my favorite prayers is simply, “Help me to be USEFUL.”

V

Wild VIOLETS have many names. Common Blue Violet. Dooryard Violet. Hooded Blue Violet. Woolly Blue Violet. Wood Violet. They are pansies, aren’t they. Impervious to the cold nights, to spring “on the fence.”

W

I WONDER when I look out the window, who ate the sunflower seeds? the birds or the squirrels?

X

A mammogram is an X-RAY. For the past two years, I have had a mammogram every six months along with an ultrasound to check an “abnormal” place in my left breast.

Y

The separation between YOU and me is negligible.

Z

My granddaughter, Grace, is six-years-old. She told me the other day that for her birthday (in July), she wants a trip to the ZOO. I am on it.

11 Years and Counting

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11 years is a long time. It’s nearly half Audrey’s life, but she hasn’t realized that milestone yet. Milestone is a funny word–or concept perhaps in this discussion of Type 1 Diabetes. Today marks 11 years since her diagnosis. Is it a milestone? An anniversary?

I’m not sure what to call it.

But when I look at my daughter who is now 25 years old and who has managed a chronic illness for 11 years, I’m proud. I want to mark the day in some way. It’s a testament to her strength, to her grace, to her spirit.

.***.

Each year, I post some version of the story. Here it is:

I smelled it.

Every time I got close to Audrey I smelled fingernail polish remover.

I smelled it for a week, on her breath and on her skin. I sniffed her for a week while she slept—and she was sleeping a lot—while she ate, while she watched TV. Every time she turned around, there I was with my nose in her hair, or trying to get a whiff of her breath.
Something was wrong.

 
There were other symptoms, sure. She was dropping baby fat which could be explained away by her age—14. Maybe she was hormonal. Maybe her body was changing. Maybe things were shifting as she grew taller. She ate strange things like Frosted Flakes and Snickers bars, and she started gluting soda and lots and lots and lots of water. She peed all the time.

Of course, I attributed the peeing to the water drinking and I attributed the water drinking to the weight loss—I thought it was a strategy, one I had used my entire life; drink more water in order to fill up, in order to eat less food.

It wasn’t a strategy.

The night before the diagnosis, the fingernail polish remover smell rippled around Audrey like a gas leak, and so I asked a others to smell Audrey’s breath and still no one smelled it. Normally the lack of accord would have consoled; however, it did not console because I COULD smell it; at this point, I could see it.

That night, I didn’t sleep because I was busy shuffling into Audrey’s room to smell her. Did I really smell it? Each time I leaned in for another sniff, I answered the question. Yes, I still smell it. In the morning before I woke her, I smelled her again, and knew I would have to do something. I woke her, took her to school, and then googled this: “Breath that smells like fingernail polish remover.”

 
And there it was–ketones. The smell of diabetes.

I called the pediatrician, related to the receptionist my Google sleuthing and that I suspected, but wasn’t sure, of course, that Audrey’s blood sugar might be high. “Could she have a glucose test,” I asked. She’d get back to me, she answered.

And then I took a walk. You see, there was a part of me that knew Audrey had diabetes and there was a part of me that refused to believe it. Disbelieving Bridgett went out for a nice walk and saw some things that seemed like omens–a couple of big crows, a sky smudged gray, and a tree full of starlings.

I walked for a bit, and soon my phone jangled and the receptionist encouraged me to retrieve Audrey from her 8th grade classroom and bring her in for a blood test.

At the clinic, a lab tech drew blood, and then Audrey and I went out for lunch before I dropped her off at school. Within ten minutes the doctor called.

 
“Audrey has diabetes,” he said.
“Her blood sugar is over 300,” he said.
“We will need to transfer her to Children’s hospital in St. Louis,” he said.

“Okay,” I answered.

That’s when he paused, “Bridgett,” he said, “go get Audrey right now, take her to the ER, so they can stabilize her for the ambulance ride to St. Louis.”

“Stabilize her.” he said.

I remained calm, but I repeated his words.

I said to my husband who was home for lunch. “Go get finished up at work while I pick Audrey up and take her to the hospital, so they can stabilize her.”

I called my parents, “I’m taking Audrey to the hospital. She has diabetes, and they need to stabilize her.”

I called the principal and told her, “Get Audrey out of class, I’m on my way to get her. We have to go to the hospital, so they can stabilize her.”

Stabilize her scared the shit out of me. Stabilize her is not something you want others to have to do to your daughter.

It took four hours to stabilize Audrey, and when they did, they rolled her into the back of an ambulance, and my husband and I got into our van and drove to St. Louis.

The nice people at children’s hospital told us we were lucky Audrey was diagnosed on a Friday because diabetes education was unavailable on Sundays. We’d have one extra day to learn about taking blood sugars and giving injections and dangerous lows and Diabetic Ketoacidosis. And when we left on Monday afternoon after finishing our education, we didn’t think we were lucky, we didn’t think we knew enough, and we were very worried all the time.

You know, most folks like a good illness narrative where the main characters learn big lessons about life, love, and living. I can’t say it doesn’t happen. In fact, I’m sure it does, but mostly diabetes stole Audrey’s childhood and robbed me of the handy delusion that I could keep her safe.

As delusions go—it was a hard one to lose.

The Letter Incident

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a long and detailed letter to my daughter, A. She’s 22, living at home, and working instead of schooling. It’s all good stuff, but the day of the letter I was a little incensed by the state of her room; in particular, the number of water bottles accumulating beneath her bed.

Listen, the pandemic has done a number on our kids. I get it. I understand that it upended her college life–no more sleeping through classes, no more stumbling home from the bars, just boring, day after day, school from bed. A tends to be a little inward to begin with, so the forced exile from normal life has been a trial.

But seriously, why were there so many empty plastic water bottles under her bed? Had she forgotten where the trash can was? Was she sick in some obscure way that would cause her to defy the customary placement of used water bottles? I mean, wtf was I missing? I had to be missing something, and if not, it was simply rude.

Spinning. That’s where I was when I wrote the letter.

I like writing letters when I need to confront someone about their bad behaviors and offer a plan on how to fix them. It’s much easier than sitting down for a talk. I tend to get flustered during the conversation part. I guess I prefer dispensing wisdom to debating differing opinions.

So the letter. After a loving introduction to some of the problems (water bottles under the bed among them) I wanted to address, I offered up a five-point plan. Five detailed bullets I believed if implemented into A’s life would find her healthy, happy, and on her way to fulfilling spring and summer. I was rather proud of my work. A 54-year veteran of this confusing old world, I had so much good advice to to offer.

I immediately attached the letter to a text message and got back to work. I figured we’d have a lovely discussion when I got home–that we’d dive further into some practical tips to help A cultivate better habits. She’d be grateful and I’d be graceful. We’d sip cherry blossom tea and later we’d take a walk in the late afternoon sun.

She wasn’t happy at all. She didn’t want to drink tea and congratulate me on my well-thought out and easy-to-apply advice. Not one bit. In fact, she said, “You’re my mom. Not my doctor or my counselor.”

She went on to explain that the water bottles were not a sign of some unknown illness, but a symptom of laziness. “When I finish drinking one, I just sort of toss it over my shoulder and it falls behind my bed,” she explained while flipping her hand back to physically show me what that looked like.

“We’re all fucked up, Mom,” she said. “I mean, you drink too much. Dad’s got the pot thing. C only eats fast food. You’re right. I shouldn’t throw my water bottles under my bed. I’ll stop that, but don’t write me letters telling me all the things you think I should do. It makes me feel bad. It makes me feel like I’m NOT okay.”

I got hung up on the “you drink too much thing” for a minute (is a bottle of low-cal wine a day too much?). But then I thought about it for a minute.

Anne Lamott does this thing she calls WAIT. WAIT stands for Why am I talking? She says she uses it with her grown son. I think it’s a good one. I’m going to start using it too. A doesn’t want or need a bunch of unsolicited advice. And when I ask her a million times a day if she is okay, what else would she derive from that than I don’t think she’s okay.

She doesn’t need fixing. She’s not broken.

And there’s a silver lining to this story. I was talking to a dear friend about the letter incident, and she laughed and said, “The next time you feel the need to write A a letter filled with your precious advice, go ahead and write it, and then please, please, please, send it to me. I’m 54 years old, and I can appreciate a letter full of wisdom about how to live a better more fulfilling life. In fact, I want it.”

We laughed and laughed and laughed.

She didn’t know she’d be getting a letter the next day.

The Easter Vigil

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“Every day we have the chance to resurrect [compassion].” ~Juli Stewart

Easter morning, I am sitting in my bed wondering, is resurrection possible? Merriam Webster’s online defines resurrection as 1) the rising of Christ from the dead, the rising again to life of all the human dead before the final judgement, the state of one risen from the dead; 2) resurgence, revival; and 3) Christian Science: a spiritualization of thought: material belief that yields to spiritual understanding.

What does it really mean to bring someone/something back to life?

***

The night before, Eric and I went to the Easter Vigil service at the Catholic church we sometimes attend. Sometimes because I have not been a good or regular attendee for a while now. You probably know the drill–I have trouble overriding what has become a dominant narrative in my head about the Catholic church–it’s a patriarchal institution dying a slow and painful death due to it’s refusal to accept responsibility for its sins and to fully love all people. And I’m embarrassed too, to claim such a corrupted faith as my own.

Nevertheless, we did Easter. The Easter Vigil service is long for those of you have never attended one. Saturday’s mass was no different. The cantor, a lovely young man with an even lovelier voice, drew out each note he uttered. The exsultet, a hymn sung at the beginning of the service last 13 minutes. That’s a long time when mass begins at 7:30 on a Saturday evening. It was, in fact, so long that Fr. M who has bad knees nearly went down. You see, the pastor stands at the front of the church holding the immense lit Easter candle during the entirety of the song. When Fr. M’s hold on the candle began to slip, C (the lector for the evening) leapt up from her seat in the front row and in what would perhaps be the moment that resurrected my heart, gently took the candle so Fr. M could unlock his knee.

C’s relationship with Fr. M is complicated as are most relationships between men and women in a church committed to inequality. Those complications did not, however, unwind the web of humanity connecting them.

Resurrection.

The service was long. But instead of bearing it, as I expected to, I was cracked open. The vulnerability and kindness played out in the opening moments of the service, a reminder of compassion’s potency. A reminder of love’s capacity for resurrection.

8 years

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March 15, 2021

This day marks eight years since my daughter Audrey was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Each year, I remember that day with a blog post. It’s a bittersweet day. Bitter because Audrey has been living with a chronic illness for eight years. Sweet because Audrey has been living (with a chronic illness) for eight years.

In those first few weeks and months after her diagnosis, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. That she could be taken from me pulsed through me like a racing heartbeat, galloping, galloping, galloping. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t eat because my throat was dry. I couldn’t cry because my eyes were dry. I was a desert, dry as bleached bone.

It took me a long time to cry. (It took Audrey longer.)

Eight years later, I still miss before.

Anne Lamott and many other smart and spiritual people have written and spoken some variation of the following:

Forgiveness is letting go of the wish that things had been different.

I believe it, but Type 1 Diabetes is tricky. There’s no one, no thing to forgive. You know how when something goes wrong, you ponder each step to figure out where you fucked up? Say you pull a bunch of light clothes from the washer and they are tie-dyed in blue ink because you didn’t check the pockets of your husband’s shorts? How first you’re so mad at him, and you mutter about how it’s not your job to check all the pockets. How you hold up your favorite pink shirt and realize there’s nothing you can do to save it. How you smear it with stain stick and berate yourself. How you go back in time and check the pocket. If only I’d checked the pocket. If only.

Well, you try to do this with a diagnosis of a chronic illness too. Except there’s no juncture where a different action on your part would have put a kink in this thing. You are reminded again and again and again there is nothing you could have done–and while it seems like this would be a relief, it only confirms your ineptitude. When there’s no one and no thing to blame, who the hell do you forgive?

And yet. Crocuses and snow drops and daffodils have pushed their way through the cold winter earth to magnanimously burst open and litter color upon the dull gray landscape. The natural world. If I train my eyes out there. If I spend a minute or two every watching the red shouldered hawks rebuild their nest, watching it grow from a storm-ravaged shell into a wide shelter. If I put my windbreaker on and take a walk, I remember what I know.

We don’t get to go back. There isn’t a portal through which I can crawl into before. And I wouldn’t if I could. Because what’s at stake is NOW.

And right now it’s been eight years. 2920 days. 70,080 hours. 4,204,800 minutes.

When you start measuring time in minutes, you put yourself in a position to be gobsmacked by the numbers. So today, I want to honor all the minutes, grief and wonder, despair and grace alike. Each one of those minutes a gift–even the ones we wasted (we waste so many). The abundance–4,204,800 of them–a shock and a reminder.

Now is the time to celebrate.

.***.

Each year, I post some version of the story. Here it is:

I smelled it.

Every time I got close to Audrey I smelled fingernail polish remover.

I smelled it for a week, on her breath and on her skin. I sniffed her for a week while she slept—and she was sleeping a lot—while she ate, while she watched TV. Every time she turned around, there I was with my nose in her hair, or trying to get a whiff of her breath.
Something was wrong.

 
There were other symptoms, sure. She was dropping baby fat which could be explained away by her age—14. Maybe she was hormonal. Maybe her body was changing. Maybe things were shifting as she grew taller. She ate strange things like Frosted Flakes and Snickers bars, and she started gluting soda and lots and lots and lots of water. She peed all the time.

Of course, I attributed the peeing to the water drinking and I attributed the water drinking to the weight loss—I thought it was a strategy, one I had used my entire life; drink more water in order to fill up, in order to eat less food.

It wasn’t a strategy.

The night before the diagnosis, the fingernail polish remover smell rippled around Audrey like a gas leak, and so I asked a others to smell Audrey’s breath and still no one smelled it. Normally the lack of accord would have consoled; however, it did not console because I COULD smell it; at this point, I could see it.

That night, I didn’t sleep because I was busy shuffling into Audrey’s room to smell her. Did I really smell it? Each time I leaned in for another sniff, I answered the question. Yes, I still smell it. In the morning before I woke her, I smelled her again, and knew I would have to do something. I woke her, took her to school, and then googled this: “Breath that smells like fingernail polish remover.”

 
And there it was–ketones. The smell of diabetes.

I called the pediatrician, related to the receptionist my Google sleuthing and that I suspected, but wasn’t sure, of course, that Audrey’s blood sugar might be high. “Could she have a glucose test,” I asked. She’d get back to me, she answered.

And then I took a walk. You see, there was a part of me that knew Audrey had diabetes and there was a part of me that refused to believe it. Disbelieving Bridgett went out for a nice walk and saw some things that seemed like omens–a couple of big crows, a sky smudged gray, and a tree full of starlings.

I walked for a bit, and soon my phone jangled and the receptionist encouraged me to retrieve Audrey from her 8th grade classroom and bring her in for a blood test.

At the clinic, a lab tech drew blood, and then Audrey and I went out for lunch before I dropped her off at school. Within ten minutes the doctor called.

 
“Audrey has diabetes,” he said.
“Her blood sugar is over 300,” he said.
“We will need to transfer her to Children’s hospital in St. Louis,” he said.

“Okay,” I answered.

That’s when he paused, “Bridgett,” he said, “go get Audrey right now, take her to the ER, so they can stabilize her for the ambulance ride to St. Louis.”

“Stabilize her.” he said.

I remained calm, but I repeated his words.

I said to my husband who was home for lunch. “Go get finished up at work while I pick Audrey up and take her to the hospital, so they can stabilize her.”

I called my parents, “I’m taking Audrey to the hospital. She has diabetes, and they need to stabilize her.”

I called the principal and told her, “Get Audrey out of class, I’m on my way to get her. We have to go to the hospital, so they can stabilize her.”

Stabilize her scared the shit out of me. Stabilize her is not something you want others to have to do to your daughter.

It took four hours to stabilize Audrey, and when they did, they rolled her into the back of an ambulance, and my husband and I got into our van and drove to St. Louis.

The nice people at children’s hospital told us we were lucky Audrey was diagnosed on a Friday because diabetes education was unavailable on Sundays. We’d have one extra day to learn about taking blood sugars and giving injections and dangerous lows and Diabetic Ketoacidosis. And when we left on Monday afternoon after finishing our education, we didn’t think we were lucky, we didn’t think we knew enough, and we were very worried all the time.

You know, most folks like a good illness narrative where the main characters learn big lessons about life, love, and living. I can’t say it doesn’t happen. In fact, I’m sure it does, but mostly diabetes stole Audrey’s childhood and robbed me of the handy delusion that I could keep her safe.

As delusions go—it was a hard one to lose.

Today it’s been eight years. We’ll mark it the way we always do—with story-telling. I tell Audrey’s story because stories connect us. We tell them to make sense of what we do not understand—and even when understanding remains elusive, we keep trying.

Fixing Things

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I haven’t written here in months. The last time I wrote, the pandemic was beginning, and soon those of us living in Illinois were supposed to be sheltering in place. It seems both so long ago, and like yesterday at the same time.

I’ve been thinking about my long silence, about the pandemic, the end of the trump presidency, new beginnings, new babies, and the reality of near-constant change. Sometimes all this thought is a thunderstorm, rain and hail and skies full of thunder followed by flashes of light and it’s impossible to put any of it into words. I am both gobsmacked and terrified silent.

There’s so much beauty in a storm. The clouds hanging low, heavy, and gray; the heartbeat of rain lashing against the windows.

Last year, we got a new roof. No shingles for us. Sheets of metal. And the crew that installed the roof also fixed our leaky skylight. For the past 20 years, we have lived in a house with water stained and peeling ceilings. No room was excluded from water’s assault on our roof and old sky light.

Over the years, we did patch work. The plumber (we live in a small town where the plumber will do odd jobs) would come and throw tar around the chimney and sky light when we noticed new streaks of water damage. Each time, I’d believe we had it fixed, and I’d paint the ceilings. Sometimes I painted the ceilings without really fixing them, just scraping the peeling paint away and painting over it so the ceiling itself was interesting in a 3D way.

But the roof continued to leak. The ceiling continued to peel. I learned to ignore it mostly. Oh sure, it was difficult when during the middle of a hard rain I’d slip in a puddle of water investigating the tap, tap, tap of rainwater hitting the vinyl floor. Or when I saw a guest’s eyes linger on the giant spot on the living room ceiling where I’d slapped a bunch of plaster on a fault and let it dry like reverse icing all swirly up there.

Then trump won the presidency. And I wanted to fix things–this is something because I have a high tolerance for domestic imperfections. While I’m clean, I’m no maven of home decor or maintenance.

First we remodeled the kitchen. Then we pulled the trigger on the roof, and about a year later, I called a painter and had all the ceilings painted and the walls too. And just last week, we installed a new gas log in our fireplace.

Is it weird that we’ve lived in this house for 22 years, and we’ve never used the fireplace which is by anyone’s account the architectural triumph of our small home.

The fireplace sits in the center of the home. It is open to both the kitchen and the living room. It is a massive Bedford stone edifice. The flue is huge. In fact, when the gas log came to investigate and give us an estimate, he said he’d never seen such a giant fireplace. He didn’t even know if he’d be able to fit it with a log.

He managed.

Now, it’s as if we’re living in a new home. And it’s hot. That fireplace churns out a lot of heat. But still, when it rains or snows (it snowed for the first time this week), I still pad out into the kitchen, stepping gingerly on the dry floor, expecting to slip by the light of the fire.

March 15. Lessons in letting go.

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Well, she’s 21. My beautiful, strong, wise daughter Audrey. And stuck at home for at least another week, and quite possibly for the rest of the semester due to the coronavirus. She waited to go away to a university. Did her two years at the local community college, and it was a good decision. To say that she’s a tiny bit sad by this hiccup would be to understate the depths of her disappointment.

She’s pretty cute, isn’t she!

That said, she’s had to deal with more than a little disappointment in her 21 years. She is, in fact, pretty good at the whole disappointment gig as she got a crash course in 2013 when, at 14, she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on a cold March Friday. In the hospital, hooked up to an insulin drip, she didn’t cry. In the back of an ambulance as her dad and I waved goodbye before hopping into our van to meet her in St. Louis, she didn’t cry. In the e-room at Children’s Hospital, when I finally made my way back to her, she didn’t cry.

It took her months to cry.

It took me a while too. People wondered why I wasn’t crying or railing at the unfairness of it all. I got lots of advice from well-meaning folks, “Go ahead, feel your feelings. You’ve got to deal with this.” But I couldn’t. I was lucky to have one friend who told me, “You guys are in crisis. You can’t break down now. It’s okay to be on auto-pilot as you get everything figured out. You’ll deal with it when you do.” Indeed.

Sometimes it takes a while.

So today, March 15, is the anniversary of that day when our worlds were turned upside down. And I say “our” but the truth is that Audrey is the one who deals with diabetes (and a worried mother) every day. Yes, I admit to being a teeny tiny pain in her ass during her first few months away from home–texting, emailing, hell, I’ve even resorted to snap chatting when I don’t hear from her.

I’ve never been much good at letting go, so this isn’t a surprise to anyone.

And when I can’t get ahold of one of my kids (equal opportunity for all of them). Well, let’s just say the apple (me) doesn’t fall far from the tree (my own parents). Case in point: many years ago, my sister who was an accomplished teacher with an advanced degree and a good job, had a bad cold. After a long day at work, she snuggled up in her bed after taking some cold medicine. My parents tried to call her. She didn’t answer. They tried to call her again. Again, she didn’t answer. When she kept not answering the phone (these were the dark ages when phones were hooked up to the wall with cords and not everyone had one in their bedroom), my parents called my sister’s co-teacher and asked her to make the trip cross town to check on her. Needless to say my sister was a little peeved. (but loved, right!)

So I might be worse. I blame it on cell phones.

Seriously, the point of this somewhat meandering blog post is that every year I remember the day Audrey was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. But this year instead of reposting the story (as I have done here, and here, and here in case you’re interested) I want to say that from here on out, I’m going to trust that she’s got this. And even if the coronavirus and the president’s poor and inadequate response to the crisis has given me a few more days with her this semester, I’m not gonna forget that my job continues to be letting go.

I promise.

Generosity and Gratitude

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Every time I consider writing a blog post or an essay, I feel a little sick. As if I’ve eaten something slightly tainted or took a too-big swallow of soured milk. It’s a hint, just a hint of what could happen if I fail. 

Intellectually, I know that if, as Brené Brown so wonderfully asserts, I am in the arena, I will most definitely fail or get my ass kicked once in a while. I even believe that experiencing failure (hopefully on a somewhat limited basis) is healthy, promotes humility, and teaches us how to do better. Still—it feels like shit especially if you are a teensy bit paralyzed by your longing for perfection.

***

Lately I’ve been reading Patti Digh’s wonderful Life is a Verb in the mornings before I go to work. About a week ago, I drew a square around this quote:

“Generosity, it turns out, is a way of being in the world, not a way of giving in the world. It has little to do with giving gifts, and everything to do with giving space to others to be who they are.”

I think Patti Digh is right. And I think I’m capable of being generous in the world. But am I capable of giving myself this sort of space? 

That’s what I find out when I write. When I read what I’ve written and cross out the dishonest parts, when I go back in with an open mind and a tender heart I’m offering myself the sort of generosity I wouldn’t think twice of offering to others.

I’ve got to admit, the committee has been a real pain in the ass lately. Every time I sit down to write, they ask, “Why are you writing that?” or “Who cares?” But as a good friend reminded me just today, I can fire the committee and have security escort them from the building. Interesting idea.

***

Do you get Kelly Corrigan’s newsletter? If you don’t, I highly recommend it. This week, she wrote about gratitude and a pretty cool gratitude practice she has begun. It got me to thinking about my own gratitude practice (I don’t have one). 

Oh sure, I give it a try now and then, usually around Thanksgiving. I make the decision to deliberately incorporate more gratitude into my daily life. I’ve gone the gratitude jar route with an elaborately decorated jar and brightly colored paper strips upon which I write what I’m grateful for. I’ve kept a gratitude journal with colored pencils and pens, and one year I even forced my children to keep their own gratitude journals. You can imagine how that turned out. The entries were less than inspiring. 

Here’s what I think happens when I get started. I get hung up on the big stuff. I write about my long marriage and my six kinda-brilliant, kinda-smart alecky kids and my three tiny-to mid-size grandchildren. I list my toasty warm house which in these post-menopausal days is a tad bit too toasty, plenty of sweatshirts, and a few too many pairs of sneakers. I acknowledge clean water and an abundance of food (popcorn, asparagus, and garlic roasted chicken, not to mention cheesy mashed potatoes), trash pickup and health insurance. Then I sort of fizzle out. 

It’s not that the big stuff isn’t important or that I don’t need to remember those things all the time because I do. I think it’s more that I am reminded of the masses of folks who cannot be grateful for the things I take for granted because they don’t have them. And it shuts me up. Just like the committee who reminds me of how privileged and self-involved I am.

But today, I fired the committee (and security personnel is on the way) because I’m beginning a new gratitude practice.

Gratitude for small and ordinary miracles.

For example—Dark-eyed Juncos flying startled from Redwood in the front yard. The woman in the Buick, who leaned over her front seat and waved maniacally to make sure I saw her as she drove past. Getting my 10,000 Fitbit steps before 1:00 in the afternoon. Iced coffee and a ripe but firm Chiquita banana. Oprah’s Super Soul Conversation with Pema Chodron (yes, I listen to Oprah’s Super Soul Podcast regularly). Sharpie pens, sharp pencils, Blackwing pencil sharpeners, and lined paper that doesn’t bleed through. A friend’s post on FB about a beautiful tree that “let go” all her beechnuts at once. Sticky little hand and mouth prints on the front window and most other surfaces in my house. 

When I start, it’s hard to stop. I’m grateful for wind and headbands and red wine and Ibuprofen. I’m grateful for potato soup and fizzy water, books and reading glasses, slippers and pajama pants and old t-shirts. I’m grateful for memory and words, blankets and lil pillow (a Casper nap pillow that, at 52, I’ve become wildly attached to).  

I could go on and on, and that’s the point. There’s enough to be grateful for right here, right now. 

A blog, or for that matter a life, is no place to worry about perfection.

Beginning Again. Again.

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We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are. ~Anais Nin

It’s a little embarrassing really, but here I am, beginning again.

You see, I’ve been angry.

The awful president who won’t go away. The exhaustive amount of energy I expend wondering if someone I know voted for the man still supports him.

Guns. The exhaustive amount of energy I expend wondering if the gun owners I know still think everyone should have the right to own an assault rifle (because they’re fun, you know).

Healthcare. Do our leaders really believe that people with pre-existing conditions should be unable to afford healthcare?

And I broke my hand this summer. That’s not why I haven’t been writing although it did make it quite difficult to type for about 6 weeks. Walking along the waterfront in Savannah, Georgia on our second night of vacation, I slipped on a slick patch and went down fast on my right hand. No alcohol involved, only excitement, gawking. So much noise, so many restaurants, all the people–I was delighted in that vulnerable, childlike way. Completely open to the sights and sounds and smells and then wham.

“I broke my hand,” I said to Audrey who was next to me, the look in her soft eyes wanting so badly for me to be okay.

After that, and for the next two days, I didn’t want to consider it was broken. We were on vacation. We had trolley tickets and a haunted tour planned for the evening. I’d never been to Savannah, and after Savannah we were on our way to Hilton Head for a week.

But when I finally made it to an urgent care, the x-ray showed a break.

I’m not good at being broken. Well, hell. Who is?

A month ago, I still couldn’t comfortably hold my Elizabeth Warren coffee mug in my right hand. But this morning I can. That’s how healing goes, isn’t it. A little at a time.

A couple of days ago, I reread my last blog post. Each year I post about Audrey’s diagnosis with diabetes, and I read that post, and the waterworks began. Eesh. But here’s something interesting. It wasn’t the story that made me cry. I mean, Audrey is doing great. She’s away at college, studying, working, and rarely available by telephone due to her full, exciting new life (does that sound bitter?). No, I cried because I found myself there.

It was my voice. My cultivated voice. The Bridgett of this blog. The Bridgett who is a little bit more me than I am on a regular day. The Bridgett whose quirks I can tweak for effect. The Bridgett whose mistakes I can magnify. The Bridgett who allows me to publicly figure out who I am and why I’m here and what I want to do with this one “wild and precious life.”

I have been missing her. So I’m giving her a little space here. Because writing is how I process the world. And that Bridgett is the voice that opens my heart just a little bit bigger.

I’ve been meditating with Sam Harris, (it’s an app called Waking up with Sam Harris) and one morning he said beginning is always available to us. Of course, I know this, have known this, have been a practitioner of beginning again for years now. But it bears repeating.

Beginning is available to all of us. Even when we haven’t written on our blogs for 7 months. Even when we miss our own voices so badly that we cry after reading something we wrote months ago.Even when we can’t tear our eyes away from the horror that is our federal government. Even when people we love disagree with us in so many ways and on so many different issues that we can’t begin to comprehend how we live in the same world let alone in the same small town in southeastern Illinois.

I told a friend of mine that I’m tired of being afraid. Afraid of climate change and guns and that we’re just too different. Afraid that I might say or do something that offends my neighbor or worries my friends. But being afraid is part of it. Always has been.

My friend is pretty smart. She didn’t go into all the reasons I shouldn’t be afraid, she just said, “But what’s good is that you aren’t waiting anymore until you aren’t afraid.”

She’s right, of course, because if I waited until I wasn’t afraid, I’d never say another word again. And poor blog Bridgett would be silenced forever.

So here I am, beginning again. Again.