tidbits for the road...and life

Today's thoughts from Hazelden are:

Formula for failure: trying to please everyone.

*****

The elevator is broken; use the steps.

*****

You are the problem, but you are also the solution.

*****

Reason to be grateful #863: you learn to wake up instead of coming to.

*****

Improve your memory -- tell the truth.

*****

Numb is dumb; feel to heal.

You are reading from the book:

Keep Coming Back Gift Book by Meiji Stewart

worth the risk?

“Explore and expand your capacity for love and forgiveness. Love people who are unlovable. As G.K. Chesterton said, “love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all.” Who in your life is unlovable? What would loving them look like? How would it change you?” --Patti Digh

I just finished reading David Sheff’s remarkable book, “beautiful boy.” I hesitated for many months before reading this book, because I did not know if I could stomach it. If I could survive it. If I could relive it. But alas it kept popping into my consciousness and finally someone handed me the book and said, “it’s o.k. to read.” (I was also inspired by Sunrise Sister’s thoughtful book review here.)

You see the book is my story. It is my son’s story although the names have been changed as well as the drugs…well some of them anyway. It is a remarkable book. At times I felt like I was inside the pages. In fact, I had been inside the pages. Again, the places had been changed but the memories and emotions were the same. And as I read the quote above from Patti Digh’s 37 Days, I thought of my son and how many people deemed him along the way “unlovable.” I think of the judgment that has come our way. Of the many people that said “I would have given up on him long before now. How do you do it?”

And, today I think of the amazing gift that my son has given me. Because, yes, he is my flesh and blood and that alone (at least for a mother, I think) makes him lovable, but for many years and many moments he presented himself to the world as unlovable. And so I return to Patti’s questions: “What would loving them (the unlovable) look like?” “How would it change you?” and I return to my response: It is an amazing gift. It is worth the risk to love.

I am in no way the same person I was that gave birth to my own beautiful boy just over 19 years ago. I am not even the same person who bought him a puppy on his first day of grade school or the one who home-schooled him when he was 12. I am not even the same person who woke up this morning. Because, you see, my son, “the unlovable”, shook me out of my complacency. He taught me about pain and anger, about hatred and forgiveness, about fear and love.

He sent me on a path (unknowingly) toward wholeness. Loving him looks like a miracle. It looks like new breath…new life. It has changed me profoundly and taught me how to love the unlovable, beginning with myself.

I returned to school at nearly 50 years of age to pursue a career totally opposed to my ‘prior life’. (This kind of change was something I never dreamed I would do while I was “sleeping.”) I latched onto a verse. “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” I learned that I had to start with myself and that God would be alongside me in ways I never could have conceived. Before I could love my neighbor or my son or the unlovable, I had to learn to love myself. And so for me, “loving the unlovable” began a circular journey back towards myself and toward the 'unlovable.' And, the circle grows larger and larger every day.

And so, today I thank my own beautiful boy. I honor him and love him and am so grateful that I never gave up on either one of us.

So, I pose to you Patti’s questions: "What would it look like to love the unlovable? How would it change you?" Would you be willing to find out?

Not today...

"It's very helpful to realize that the emotions we have, the negativity and the positivity, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive." Pema Chodron

Oh man, the river of emotions that has been running through me over the last few days! I had hoped today to write more generically about “the river” as it is something so universal and intriguing to me. I see this river everywhere in people I meet and pass on the streets. It is a great topic and one I will return to...But not today.

Arising in the morning I look out the door to see if Curry slept outside. I walk into the house at the end of the day expecting to be greeted. I look in the backyard over the fence and hope to see that slobbery smile. I miss my old yellow dog. It is too much AND it is not.

I know it was time, I tell myself. The house will stay cleaner now ☺. I have slowly started to put away his things: bowls and medicine moved downstairs, but not totally disposed. I will remove a rug today that we used to keep him from slipping on the hard wood floors. My husband cannot bring himself to scoop the last bits of poop in the yard. A bag sits stuffed in the Adirondack chair—waiting. “I don’t want to do it,” he says. It is not the complaining, “I don’t wanna,” but one filled with sadness that this will be the last time.

So, no more poop scooping, no more balls of fur throughout the house, no more slobber on the walls. When will I clean the kitchen door? The brown smudge where Curry used his nose to push it open and let himself in? Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe after I have looked for him on the rug or after I have noticed he is not on the back porch and my heart has stopped a little because I know he won’t be there. It all happens in less than a second, I think, maybe a couple of seconds, but the memory, the routine, the pattern of our life is still there.

Oh, it is too much AND of course, it is not. I will go on living. Maybe some day I will allow another furry creature to enter my heart, but not today. Today I will allow myself to feel all of the feelings. I will go about my routine. I will send my daughter off to her first day of 10th grade. I will enjoy the sunshine that is here. I will take my walk and go to my dance class. I will dance for Curry and for me.

I know he will slowly start to take up less space in my thoughts. Less space on this blog. But not today.

p.s. The “river of feelings” started flowing today as I read sweet Riley’s post and the subsequent comment by Geezer Dude. So, check it out if you so desire ☺.

a sad farewell

CURRY
July 6, 1995 - August 31, 2008

Curry. A big gentle soul. Has left this world as we know it. He is gone. Dead. Asleep. What do you even call it? I don't know what to do with myself. Wandering. Unable to settle down or think of anything except him. It has been a good day. A sad day. He went peacefully. I feel numb. Curry. Beautiful old dog. I already miss you so much my heart is breaking.

A gentle kind doctor gave him the injection a few minutes before 7:00 p.m. My best friend was gone in less than a minute--less than 30 seconds even. Quick & peaceful. Bill, Janey and I all petting him and holding him until the last breath. He was ready to go.

Time to go and now he is gone. No more to lie beside my bed. To greet me when I return home. To miss me when I am gone. It is my turn to miss him, but he will not return. We have said our final farewells. He is at peace. I believe that. I see him running & romping through fields of green. Sniffing & smelling. Whole & pure. His legs healthy & strong. Bounding across the open space. Snow. Water. Chasing geese and taking flight. The smile is on his face, tail fully wagging...not the meager thump thump of recent days.

Brave until the end. Making it up a full flight of stairs as little as a week ago. Coming to sleep beside me. Not knowing what to do with his aging body that responded in unfamiliar ways or responded not at all. His appetite was good until the end although I did not buy more dog food this week even though he was almost out. I knew. We all knew. He knew the time was here.

Dog is God spelled backwards. How do you say good-bye to someone who has shown you the face of God--been the face of God--on a daily basis for 13 years? Faithful. Non-judgmental. Always glad to see me. Protecting & guarding me. Loving me. Playing with me. Sharing hours of joy as we walked miles and miles together. Digging in the garden. Watching movies. Bounding through the snow. Taking road trips and raising kids. Putting up with costumes & baby strollers. Show 'n tell at school.

A puppy your whole life. Always the greeting committee. Always the well-mannered gentleman. Always the love. I will miss you, old man. Yellow dog. Best old boy. Curry dog. You have been beside me through thick and thin. Waiting through long dark nights. Laughing in the best of times. Faithful always. The most consistent presence in the last 13 years.

I love you, Curry. I will miss you forever.

crucible

Stepping into the crucible of relationship. The place where no one really wants to go. The place where the heat gets turned up so high that parts of you begin to melt away. Bill Bryson speaks of places in Australia that are so hot you begin to cook from the inside out. That is what it feels like sometimes to be in relationship--cooking from the inside out. I want to run. I want to hide. It hurts too much and yet I cannot turn away, because it is too important. It is not important in the sense that I must prove myself right or get a point across. It is important in the sense that it is the place God calls me to be. My role in life to step into the paradox. To be kind and to speak the truth. They don’t always appear to be the same.

Growing up as the "nice" girl, I was taught that being nice was the most important thing in the world—at least to someone’s face. Now as soon as they were gone you could speak the real truth. It was a pattern that left me reeling and off balance for most of my life. It reminds me of the discussions on mind reading and projection. How can we possibly know what someone else means or what they are thinking unless we ask them? But that is when the heat can turn up. Jumping into the crucible can mean you will get burned. It can also mean that something new and beautiful can emerge. The dross burned away. The gold allowed to shine through. It is a risk.

I made a commitment to myself many years ago that I would no longer live in the two-faced, hidden, “nice” world that keeps me and others off-balance from not really knowing the truth. And, yes, sometimes the truth hurts. But, don’t forget this one: The truth shall set you free.

Is freedom worth stepping into the heat? I believe it is.
photos by lucy 7.08