Falling Through the Cracks

Many times the mystics and prophets allude to our species as spiritual beings in the belly of a human experience. These mystics and prophets squeeze the juices from these ideas into a believable matter when we consider so much of what goes on in life to be unexplainable. What is this divine connection between us that comes into play. On this island of thought I set most days and observe the comings and goings of the lives that cross mine. Most seem set on autopilot when it comes to their faith. There's a growing contradiction as they wander the streets of their spiritual homelessness all the while stumbling over their first world wealth.


In another lifetime, I was the wife of a Southern Baptist Deacon heavily involved in evangelism when our well established church decided to create a mission church. It would be housed in a trailer park conveniently located in the poorest part of town. The idea from its earliest inceptions was to bring a home of worship to those who wouldn’t show up to our rose colored stained glass cathedral. At least not with borrowed clothes and dirty shoed children hanging off their hips. Or, perhaps, the single mom doing magic tricks with the family budget on a minimum wage job couldn’t afford the extra gas for extravagances like hiking so far up to the other side of town. Either way our church had a heart for those less fortunate and we prayed to be able to establish a home of worship for them. Our prayers were answered with the gift of a trailer in the very heart of the neighborhood that we had set our sites on.

The first Sunday I was the choir director in our shabby singlewide trailer. It’s a laughable thought since my singing could clear the rodents out of a NY apartment complex in under a minute. Alas, I was on a mission for God so it didn’t matter at all. There were four of us called to this work and we prayerfully committed to do whatever it took to keep the doors open for God's work.


It was a rough start but eventually people began to come in small doses here and there. One day a drunken man stumbled into our shanty church in mid-hymn and reclined in a chair. The only other visiting parishioner was an older African American woman who looked at him compassionately and then turned her attention back to me on what I feel now was a mission of her own,  keeping me at least partly intime with the song. The drunk man balanced on the tin chairs and fell asleep snoring loudly with our young pastor speaking over him. This dear man came every Sunday and sometimes could remain alert enough to sing along, and, on rarer occasion, alert enough to hear part of the sermon adding an amen or two. It was my job to wake him up after the service and help him down crooked stairs. I remember a growing appreciative feeling for his commitment to show up each Sunday and imagined we were more than just a material shelter; we were a spiritual one. That thought kept my heart so open and warm with the feeling that we were feeding the needs of others.

Each Sunday I donned a ridiculous clown suite with a big red wig. It seemed like a great idea until the first time I climbed into it in the sweltering heat and felt my makeup rushing down my face like a mudslide. I'd walk the dusty streets handing out church pamphlets, candy and hugs to wide-eyed children. Their parent occasionally looked over the fan propped in the doorway long enough to see what the ruckus was. Most exchanges were mildly uncomfortable but I rationalized to myself that when you're doing things for God, it's supposed to be uncomfortable. The only exceptions where the ones who yelled extreme profanities about me staying out of their yard. Their ability to weave the "F" word in and out of each sentence astonished both me and the Jesus in my heart. Others smiled with lips half turned in conviction that although church was good enough for their children, they were above it. There was no point of engaging them when they weren't ready and maybe never would be to hear the gospel. I'd simply say in my goodbyes, "God loves you."

The young pastor and his wife who began the church moved away within that first year and a retired pastor took his place. He was greatly offended that the drunk was allowed to come every Sunday. The new pastor's first order of business was to ask the man to stop coming to church if he could conduct himself in a more righteous manner, we all knew he couldn’t. The new pastor was not interested in seeking help for the drunk man so we simply cut him free to drift away into the woods nearby. My clown suite was also retired as I would learn, "Saving souls was not the work of clowns!" I gained back my second class status as a woman when he dismissed my argument about how the clown suit was working with the proof of the number of children now attending Sunday School. That stance almost got me removed from the mission church that I had grown to love. With my Southern Baptist roots well grounded; I picked up my petticoat and sashayed to the back of the church where I belonged. It would not be long until a not so loving church leader picked off my Sunday School students one at a time.


Dissatisfied with  our meager surroundings the new pastor finagled the church to purchase a double wide newer model. Our sponsor church bought a more accommodating used double wide trailer that came with the same porch ailment that seemed contagious throughout the rundown park. I remember seeing the drunk man that first Sunday we opened the new church home. He came and stood outside the church for the whole service; I wondered if he had forgotten that he wasn’t allowed in. He came back many Sundays and never once tried to open the door. I watched him through the window as he sang along to the empty hymns about God loving us at our wretched worst. I’m remembering him singing outside the home that Jesus brought for him so clearly that it still kicks up the dust in my heart about how shameful that doublewide, crooked porched, trailer in shanty town became.

Billy Graham once said that the new spiritual awakening would not begin in the church but through corporate America. He's right! While others are content to watch their fellow church goers fall through the cracks in the church's foundation, others are on a quest to nail a new proclamation to walls of our brothers and sisters' hearts. One that is so anchored in truth that it clears away decades of the debris of apathy and empowers us to make phenomenal changes in our broken systems. Changes that include clown suits and love for those with addictions ----- an all inclusive love that does not require stain glass windows or uppity alters. I think Jesus would be onboard with the change.


Mona McPherson

 

Mona McPherson  

 

A Beautiful Resilience

Update on Zeke by my daughter Mikka:




Okay, here we are, nearly three months old. To describe our journey thus far as a roller coaster is an understatement. Zeke has made his point that he does things on his terms, and has fought a tremendous fight with beautiful resiliency, we are in awe of this incredible little human.


In this front row seat to both the most frightening and amazing journey of my sweet boy has forced me into a space of self growth. Having a child that suffers with any kind of illness or condition is an indescribable pain that forever changes the person you are. Spending all my time with Ezekiel is the greatest pleasure of my life. His infectious, joyful smiles bring a lump to my throat. I find joy in the fact that I have been able to create a life for this little boy that is safe and makes him happy. I feel that is my duty as he is living a life I will never understand or relate to. All I can do is stand idly by while he does all the heavy lifting.




I find myself in the monotony of our routine, then out of no where the severity and delicacy of his life smacks me in the face. I return back to that scared, helpless place of fear that I lived in for most of my pregnancy. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t live in the joy of getting to be his mommy, his safe place. I soak up the moments of normalcy as I missed out on so many the first 36 days of his life.




As we look to the next surgery, there is a sense of excitement as we have been informed that life is able to be a bit more normal. BUT, there is also fear, so much fear. We are familiar with what we are facing because we went through this once already. The difference is this time we know him. Like really know him. Knowing that I once again will have to carry Zeke back through those doors to the operating area of the hospital and physically hand him over to a nurse. Knowing that he will once again be sedated, intubated, his chest cut open, his heart altered, and all of that recovery, again. Breaks. Every. Single. Part of me.




So for now I will live in his smiles. Live in the conversations we are starting to have since he is now cooing. Take all of the kisses and snuggles he will allow. And enjoy him and his beautiful resilience.

About the Storm

It's an overcast morning, cold and due for storms later in the day. Perfect time for reflection in a quiet mostly Mormon neighborhood. The wind can be heard pushing against the window like an unwanted guest that I shall not let in. I’m alone for the first time in three weeks with nothing pressing to do except wait for my granddaughter’s return from school so that we can go to the hospital. It’s a daily occurrence with her new born brother confined to his room there until he begins to gain weight after heart surgery. To kill some time, I stumbled upon a show where a chaplain was visiting a man with stage 4 prostate cancer. The man’s stern stance of beating the disease leaned hard against my mind. It pulled the curtain back on my last attempt to get my brother to understand that his hope might be better placed in settling his affairs before he died rather than discussing being cured of stage 4 COPD. To no avail. His denial kept the boat rocking between us until I finally cut the anchor and let him sail away with what he needed to believe before he died. The chaplain on TV was met outside the room by an intern questioning why he gave the dying man false hope when he did not challenge his erroneous belief. The chaplain admitted to no such thing. “I met his hope where it was.” The chaplain looked at the camera pointing his finger like a parent correcting a child, “Hope is the last thing to die, let it die on its own!” If I were to call anything a sin now, it would be to rob someone of their hope.

Utah is cold in the mornings and the clouds add more pounds to the temperature making it seem heavier than it really is. Today the weather is on my mind. I think of the storms raging in the south as well as the catastrophic one hammering Australia and I find myself identifying with the landscape of our world; it gets torn into pieces and then must repair itself. We all know that feeling. It wasn’t my brother and mother’s deaths so much as watching them suffer, and, now, settling into the reality that loss will keep coming. The same with my grandson, although he is set to beat the odds; I’ve witnessed his storm with a scar running the length of his chest where his tiny frame was cut and chest opened to reach his little-big heart; a heart that would have cost him his life in only three days after birth had the ultrasound months prior not caught the defect. Thankful is not a big enough word to scale the Alps of my gratitude for today's technology.  It was only a little over two weeks after his surgery that I found myself holding his wiggly body mostly free of the wires and tubes assigned to him after surgery.

If it were left to me and my own definition, the tragedies in life would carry one singular purpose...to take those hard and sharp places in us and make them softer. The pain, loss and struggles I’ve seen in a very short span of time have loosened the rock of my resolve to be an unyielding force against my emotions. Like a landslide, everything I’ve been holding back has rushed down and over my barricades in a fast and furious attempt to teach me a deeper truth. And now I understand. The tragedies that I have walked through have softened me and with so much debris removed, have also made a generous path for the pain of others to walk. There is no need for anyone to suffer alone when ample provisions of empathy have collected in the canyons of time and experience. The rough places revealed a softer strength that has ended up being harder than any I've known before. It is from this strength that I'm being fueled to connect with those in need, if only to listen or supply them fresh waters of encouragement to drink. Nature like life, has its seasons and once you’ve been through enough of the poundings the best thing to do with some of your extra time and knowledge is to assist your brothers and your sisters. I’ve been helping others most of my life but something deeper occurred through this particular season. I can't name it but it feels much like a caterpillar hanging off a cocoon on my soul preparing to birth something new within me. Its still on the vine but quickening. 

The nimbostratus clouds are now blocking the view of the mountains much like my own clouds have been blocking my sight. It’s exhausting to deny time and again that you have a true need of others, especially when the opposite would be a healthier mental position to take. I’m reminded of the hypothetical lady on the roof in the flood when she drowns and meets God. She's furious that she prayed and was not saved from the flood. To her questioning God replies, “I sent several boats after you!” How many boats have you sent me, God?! How many did I turn away in the course of my life?! I remember them; I also remember that comfortable place where my thoughts convened to weigh out the price of appearing weak, or, better still, me deciding that someone you sent were not strong enough to assist me (perhaps I didn't want to need them). There is a point that we can reach where all of those statements of, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine…I’M FINE!” Can actually buckle loudly under the weight of un-fine-ness and crack open to reveal the mask of denial. Once that mask is yanked from your face, it doesn’t fit properly again, especially if there is an audience to your breakdown. It isn’t weakness that one is showing when he or she speaks from the cloth of their own fabric—it is truth dressed eloquently in a coat of many colors because unlike popular belief, truth, is not black and white. If we do not share our truth, there is no way to find the colors of warmth and communion waiting to be discovered in those around us.

It’s tapping on the windows and running down the glass in streaks, rain. Not even a rumble to announce that it has decided to come early; it simply unpacked itself over Syracuse without apology. The sound plays a nice tune and relaxes me deeper into the oversized couch. It also drags the dog from across the room placing his face on my lap with that familiar question on his brow. “No, Dodge, I did not cause the disruption of your 5^th nap this morning!” You can barely hear it but the grass has begun to dance from the other side of the wall. I suppose that’s how my heart feels when I finally give myself permission to truly feel and cry, happy. Truth running down ones face seems like something that would make the heart want to dance. It's the heart that seeks to strip us naked of our pretenses so that we are fully seen but that is not a place of comfort.  All I know this rainy morning in Utah is that I’m glad my circumstances didn't drive me into a mental cave and make me bitter or choose aloneness. There is no stopping the storms. My new found softness makes me realize that I really don’t mind the rain if it means that I will become a shelter, and, too, that I can become strong enough to seek the warm shelter of soft strength in others. The Law of Reciprocity requires that I only speak from the place of my truest feelings so that God can bring into my path the provisions needed for my growth, or, I am to not speak at all. What I have learned from not speaking at all is that a foul stagnation begins to emerge where living waters of spiritual progress once flowed. Therefore, I embrace life at my truest north and will begin from there.

Mona

No Regrets!

“You need to mind your own business!“ My brother’s words hit me as I entered our parent’s home. It was not a surprise attack; I knew it was coming as this was the first time we had been together since his last trip to the hospital. “How can I mind my own business when your doctor told me that the one lung you have left was tissue thin and once it tore you’d be dead before you hit the floor?!” The anger in him could be seen pacing back and forth behind his brown eyes. End stage COPD leaves little room for extreme emotions without a violent reaction, and, true to form, his coughing began. My brother, Paul, got up from the couch with his breathing machine in tow and headed out to patio to smoke and to calm down. He was angry that I had the nerve to discuss his ability to drive with his doctor. My position, if he could drop dead any moment was it safe for him to drive a vehicle. The doctor said no and then explained that they would be turning in the appropriate forms to notify the DMV. My brother never got over blaming me for taking his driving privileges away. He would tell me later that he needed time to himself and driving was the only respite he got from being around my parents 24/7. “Do you know what it’s like being a grown man living with your parents; you know I'll be looking for a place for me and Carol, how am I going to look for a place if I can't drive?!” The correction that I wanted to make, but wrestled to the ground before saying it, was, “You’re dying!!!!! It’s not like you had a bad run of things and are living here until you can rebuild your life; this is the END!!!!” But I sat on that statement until it cried Uncle and clenched my jaw shut as tight as I could. My brother's denial of his immanent condition, even though he was a hospice patient, was something no one could make him face.

Paul had been as steady a patient in the Florida Hospital ER as he was a patron at the Kangaroo Gas Station on the corner of Palm Coast Parkway and Belle Terre, his go to place for cheap cigars. With losing his driving privileges, my sister and I took turns taking him wherever he needed to go. In my case, we always ended up at the Kangaroo for him to score his filter-free brown coffin nails. It rattled me each time he prepared for the slow walk from my car into the store. Paul would always ask that I get as close to the door as possible but no matter my attempts, it was never close enough. At 6’6 and 130 pounds, he labored to go the distance from car door to counter. Each trip left me feeling guilty for being an accomplice in feeding his addiction. The angle of my car gave the perfect view of his frail frame barely able to stand holding his breathing machine in one hand and buying his death with the other; the stares he got bore through me like molten lava and I wanted to barge in with all my might and rip the judgment right off those nameless faces, but, that would require parking and possibly bond money--neither were appropriate under the circumstances. I've tried to wash that image of him at the Kangaroo off the walls of my mind and repaint something kinder and gentler, but I can’t so I avoid that intersection whenever possible.

He would tell the doctors that he quit smoking with each ER visit and just out of his vision I would shake my head, no he hasn’t. To his credit, Paul did try; his addiction just grew stronger the weaker his body became and he grew tired of dad having to call the ambulance every week. One morning Paul called wanting to know what time I would be over to mom and dads. When I asked him why he said he was having breathing issues and might need a ride to the hospital. Since he always had breathing issues, and he didn’t sound panicked; I felt no need to rush. Not even a second later I remembered that his last attack landed him on a ventilator for the first time. I called him right back, “Hey, do you mean I need to come right now?” Nonchalantly he said, “That would be a good idea.”



Pulling into the driveway I can still see him coming out of the front door with my dad behind him. “He needs an ambulance!” My dad insisted as Paul opened the door. The look on dad’s face should have been enough for me to turn off the car and call an ambulance but Paul waved him off and we drove away. Even before getting off my parent’s road, my brother’s breathing became erratic. He tried to say something but couldn’t. The sweat dripped off his forehead like a leaky faucet into a handkerchief he was thoughtful enough to bring. It was when he lost all color in his face that I started to lose it. Cars whizzed past us like bullets as my right foot pressed as hard as it could racing us to the ER. Fortunately, I remembered a friend’s presentation where she told the story about one of our Social Workers who witnessed something similar. The Social Worker slowed her own breathing down and calmly talked to the patient. It was all I could do to calm myself as the look on Paul’s face was so traumatic. My hands were white knuckling the steering wheel, I eased off the gas and began to slow my breathing as I spoke to Paul calmly. In that moment I thought my brother was going to die in my car before I could get him to the hospital.

Paul didn’t die that day but when he regained his color and the ability to breathe on his own, I marched into the ER room with my adrenalin still in full tilt about the horrifically selfish position he put me in. “NEVER call me again to take you to the ER!!!!” I said, daring him to challenge me. Instead, he admitted, softly (and with a greater awareness of his condition) that he didn’t think he was going to make it either. Sometimes when I’m driving alone, out of the blue, I’ll look over to my passenger seat and see him fighting for his life; my whole being reliving that tragic moment. That memory will be tucked into the glove compartment of my Kia when I trade it in; my hope is that it stays with the car as I've never had that memory come back anywhere else.

Paul came back into the living room from the patio and parked himself on the couch. He began texting his girlfriend when I decided to speak up. “I know you’re mad at me and think that your driving is none of my business but it IS my business! My family and friends are sharing the road with you. Your doctor said when that lung tears, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground. What if that lung tears and you drop dead behind the wheel and crash into another car killing innocent people? What if one of those innocent people where a family member or close friend? You’re being selfish! Stay mad at me as along as want; it will not change my mind. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE DRIVING!” Paul didn’t look up from his phone but I refused to leave the room until he said something. “YOU WIN!” He said sternly. “You get what you want!” Again, his words tense with emotion. “I’m sentenced to this &^%$# house with no escape or peace from our parents, are you HAPPY now?!” His selfishness twisted around the axils in my mind and I struggled to remain calm. Paul clearly saw himself as my victim and made no attempt to understand the logic of what could happen. “It’s not about me winning, it’s about doing the right thing and I’m confident that I DID, but I'm sorry it makes you feel this way!” With that I got up from the recliner and went into my mom’s room to visit with her. Although I no longer engaged with him about the driving issues, Paul reminded me often about how my "thoughtless" decision impacted the quality of his life. There’s a part of me that remains sorry for the restrictions I placed on him just weeks before he died, but, my responsibility outweighed his person privilege.

It was October 17^th 2016 in the early part of morning when I walked into the bedroom. Paul was curled up on the floor in a fetal position, eyes closed and mouth closed. Cindy was laying in the hallway on her stomach cupping his head; her tears free falling into the floor with a few landing in Paul’s hair. She was upset about trying to lift his head to put a pillow under it---he was too stiff to move. “He’s not going to know.” I said, without thinking. “I just want his head on the pillow and not on the floor, it shouldn’t be on the floor.” Her words still wet walked slowly through my heart until I noticed what they were really saying; she was his big sister and still trying to comfort him even in his death. I suggested we attempt it one more time but we still failed to get the pillow under his head. Paul had been dead for hours. From what I can piece together of his last moments he got up out of bed for some reason and passed out just like the doctor said he would. He hit his head against the doorframe; when I moved his face there was blood and an obvious impact to the right side of his head. Cindy and I sat on the floor with our brother as dad paced around the house not knowing what to do with himself. He kept wanting to explain that Paul was supposed to blow the horn he had given him to alert dad that he needed help. “Why didn’t he blow the horn, WHY?” No matter Cindy’s attempts to explain to dad that it happened too quickly for Paul to even know what happed, dad’s guilt could be seen crawling all over him like a million baby spiders he could not shake.

Why am I sharing this very private story about me and my brother? It's to ask you to consider the people that you know who need to surrender their driver's license. We were fortunate that Paul died at home. Looking back over the headache and heartache this cost me; I have no regrets. Had my brother been behind the wheel when he died it is highly probable, since he drove I95 often, that he would have taken innocent lives with him. It feels important to me to spread the word. No one likes to lose their independence, but, even fewer like to lose a loved one over someone's inability to face the truth.

Feel free to share my blog if you think this information would be beneficial to others.

Mona McPherson

 

With Sympathy ... Happy Birthday

Last night I was putting away sympathy cards and commented to a friend how direly odd it was as mixed with them were birthday cards to me; my mom died the day before my birthday. The cards all stacked several rows deep covered my entire table with an array of colorful happy – sad scribblings. The odd mixture of birthday wishes clashing with sympathy expressions disturbed my heart so much that I gathered them all up blindly and promised myself to properly segregate them in the future. Honestly, I’ve not been able to read any of them. I’ve barely been able to not see my mom laying in the hospital bed in my front room when I pass it. The furniture has been moved around to block the straight shot of this illusionary view, yet, draped across my heart last night was the tender cloth of realization; this was my first birthday without my mom. It was odd to say that out loud to my friend and even odder to watch how long it hung like smoke in my mind. Mom’s cards to me were always thoughtful except for the times my birthday fell during one of our disagreements, and, then, the word daughter was oddly omitted and replaced with a generic wish—it was funnier to me than she wished it were but that was just the nature of our relationship and I never took her slights serious, or, perhaps, decided not to.

It’s been just over a month since mom died and I’m not sure how thick this sheet of ice is that I’m trying to walk across most days. What I know is that it’s hard to adjust from going to those nights from work to her house for our nightly routine. All of that is put away along with the boxes of leftover supplies. It was a surprise to know that the humane society is appreciative of having the adult diapers and chucks (absorbent pads) for their babies and sick animals. Wayne was gracious enough to take what we had leftover to them leaving me with one less thing to do right now. I’ve still not changed the contact name in my phone to read –dad calling, instead, of mom. When my dad calls me there is a false moment that takes me back to those random calls of hers when I would roll my eyes knowing that I had to answer or call back later (we all know what I mean); I need to change the name in my phone but not just yet.  

I’m not as relieved as I thought I would be that mom made her transition; the, wise, Monday Night quarterback in me is still replying the end of the game. Twice within a week’s period I’ve met complete strangers who are going through the same nightmares that I have. This morphine thing?! If you know what I’m talking about, please, private message me with your story.

The cards are put away and mom now resides in a beautiful urn on a table next to dad’s bed. When I asked him if he were still okay to be in the house alone he said, “Yes, I talk to mom every day and find things to do outside.” I’ve left the invitation open for my dad to move in (Cindy has too) if he does not want to live alone but for now I think he is managing well. We’ve not reached a new normal---but coming from an abnormal family, well; I think dad, Cindy and I will continue to do the best we can.

Mona McPherson

Mikka-Mine

Do you remember, that night? I’ve thought of it often since learning of your pregnancy with Zeke. I sat across from you, the silence crawling into each empty space as the conversation began. Daddy was gone on one of his long excursions into whatever new thing needed to be learned with his job, yet, there we were. That small bedroom in that small town with you holding more information than a 15 year old should ever need to. You were crying in a way I’ve never been able to eras...e from my mind—it was as if you doubted our love for you could be unconditional. That Decmeber night was cold, yet, warmed by my need to comfort whatever you had to say. Of course, I was thinking it was one of those overrated teenager moments that get tossed in the closet under dirty clothes and forgotten homework. It wasn’t’! It was a life changing moment! I learned that night that you were pregnant.

Do you remember? All I saw was this giant empty place of not knowing what your news would mean for you. That being said, I KNEW YOU! I KNEW you would have all the people in place to support you no matter what, or, they would be removed from our lives. I actually had those conversations.


Can you imagine me now?! Looking back on your life and this place you have created with a man that we truly adore and raising a granddaughter that has, possibly, more spunk and determination than you and me combined?! LOL... The day you came home from the hospital with Layla, I took her outside on the back porch, she was crying and you needed to rest. I paced with her in my arms promising her that she would have a fortress of love and support her whole life from me and Poppy. I CANNOT wait to have the same conversation with my little Zeke.




I LOVE YOU Mikka-Mine. I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I’m a little afraid for all of the unkown things we face, but, as always: you will never walk through any door of your life alone. We will face it together as the family we’ve always been.




Mona McPherson

Ticket to Change

She settled into the chair across from my desk and we began our conversation. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about her except a brilliant smile that took up all the empty space in my office. One of the questions that I ask when interviewing potential volunteers is a simple one, yet, it’s the kind of question that opens the shades to some very deep windows, if you have them. “Can you tell me about a significant loss in your life?” The goal is to see if the individual is far enough away from a death in their own life to be emotionally ready to work with those in end of life care. My words barley cleared the air between us when she said that it was her father. “He was the loss of my life!” Her tears came out of hiding; they glistened like stained glass windows dripping colors across the memory that I now felt in the room with us.

Witnesses would tell her that 4 high school students that didn’t want to pay to get into a football game began to harass her father who was selling tickets. When things didn’t go their way, it got physical. The witnesses said that one of the teens pulled out an iron pipe and in a random act of violence landed a decisive blow to the back of her father’s head. This beautiful African American woman with buttery skin and a well-seasoned vocabulary went on to tell me about one of the most fascinating men that I will never know. She spoke with careful words about how wise her father was and that he took time to discuss what truly mattered most to him with each of his 5 children; she was his third child and first daughter which created an especially close bond with him. That night at the gate he was left brain damaged. Her pain seized me with a riveted attention. Instantly, the family went from a financially comfortable living to barely scraping by on one income. Her father was in the hospital for a year before being placed in a facility and would die three years later never to regain control of his mind or body again.

Although it had been decades ago, I found myself gently tracing the well-worn labyrinth of pain she had walked for years. Her tone softened as she went on to tell me that it was her last weeks of college when her father passed. Her mom fearing that the end of his life was near called all of the children home, all except her. She adjusted herself in the chair, took a deep breath and tightly clutched the purse laying across her lap. Looking passed me to the window she said, “They all got to say goodbye to my dad and have those last important words but I didn’t.” Her mom had decided that interrupting the last weeks of college might impede her graduating. Forgiving her mom had been a steep slow hill for her to climb the years following her father’s death, and judging from the anguish entangling her words of regret; I felt myself understanding the few years of estrangement she took from her mom. The relationship would be repaired with much work and time. Today they enjoy weekly visits and she fully expects to care for her mom when she reaches the point of decline but at 85 seems to be going strong.

She regained her composure after the unexpected question and I asked, “What was the greatest lesson you learned from losing your father?” She said that it was the blessing and gift of his sharing what mattered to him. At each moment in her life when she found herself backed into hardship’s corner, she would hear the wisdom of her father’s words from long ago applying, still, to her life circumstances. It renewed her hope and belief that she could make it through her problems. On occasion, she confessed, “I’ve felt his presence so close to me that it moved me to tears.” With that, her brilliant smile; in a wave of optimistic candor, rushed back into the room and pulled mine across my face as well as she said, “I’m never really alone!”

I wasn’t expecting this mild ordinary looking woman to shake me so thoroughly, but, propped up on thick sturdy legs in this woman is a story worn with a blue-collar understanding; at any given moment life can come off its axis. Her father left her a treasure chest of wisdom for those occasions.


She is going to make an amazing volunteer for our patients in end of life care.

Mona McPherson

 

 

Dear 2016:



In an undisclosed location, I untied you from the dock and pushed you into the open water; the waves caught you starboard and drug you from my shore with little effort. You disappeared on the horizon of my quiet reflections leaving only calm seas for my new journey aboard 2017. I’ve not even left the bay and already I feel an empowered renewed purpose commanding my attention. Although still bruised, I survived the “Perfect Storm” of losses last year (both expected and unexpected). There was a moment, albeit brief, that you almost broke me and I began to list in my own questions about how to navigate the end of life care of my brother and mother, remain a mast for my dad, and, explore the deep waters of childhood issues with my sister. This is not the place, however, to stack those heavy ballast boxes; my deck is clear, I have no regrets and it's time to steer clear of the past looking only ahead.

One thing before I step forward, thank you with all sincerity for the uncharted waters we crossed; I've gained practical experience that will allow me to stay the course. Our "Perfect Storm" revealed reservoirs of untapped strength at the ready no matter how many terrific blows land across the hull. I’m now capable of lifting all of myself above this past year's events with a smile on my face knowing that there are new lands to discover and more adventures to be had even among the dark skies ahead. No matter the seas; I am fully prepared to take on whatever storms may come thanks to you, 2016.

Mona McPherson