Small, Treasured Gifts

in /by

My house is twinkling with Christmas lights a bit early. In truth—I needed light. Here is why. A few days ago, I awoke with tears in my eyes—I seem to cry in my sleep when I am profoundly sad. Of course, the world news has been flooded with images of war, children injured and torn from their homes.

On top of that, I had just finished reading a book gripped in the clutches of war. One that made me aware I was engulfed in war sadness.  After a few decades, I decided to reread the story of Anne Frank. To my surprise I found the definitive edition of The Diary of a Young Girl to be far more powerful than the original story I read in junior high. Many unexpected stories are woven into this version—Anne’s struggles with her mother, her discovery of sex. On these pages I found a girl at thirteen trapped by her circumstances, but a girl who remains caught up in her curiosity and finds great wonder in living. Despite hiding from the Nazis in an annex with her family, Anne manages to grow up anyway and works hard to unearth the insights and wisdom she can capture. I loved that about her.

When Anne faced a second Christmas hidden with her family in the annex, she realized they had no way of buying presents. Being determined to find gifts, she decided to do what she did best—create an individual poem for each person. Her father helped her pull off her surprise, and the poems, received with joy, were small but treasured gifts.

While I love to shower friends with books as presents, I rarely think to give them a poem—and I rarely write poems. For years I suffered from a fear of poetry, oddly called metrophobia. I was certain I didn’t get poems. But slowly poems wove a path into my life. Mark Nepo says “poems are an unexpected utterance of the soul.”  Indeed. Some poems knock you over with beauty or simply change you. How wonderful Anne understood this at her young age.

How wonderful that last week, I received a poem in my inbox.  In class, Karen Raskin-Young had told me, “My son called me a poet and storyteller as if that were a bad thing. I have come to realize that we are all made of stories–and maybe that can be a wonderful thing.” Karen is writing to find out. Here is her poem–

Wisdom Tree

We think it’s the peak,

The lofty top of the tree.

We think, when we get there,

We’ll have everything we need.

We think wisdom shouts from the rooftops,

But we’re wrong.

Wisdom grows

Quietly,

In the roots,

Soaking up

Nourishment,

Digging deeper,

Getting dark

And rich.

Whispering.

Shared with permission of the author. ©Karen Raskin-Young

Soon after receiving this poem, we shared it in my Storycatcher’s class. As Karen read it to us, awe floated across the room. Poems can work that kind of magic.  Like reading Anne Frank again, Karen’s words reminded me that we are always on the search for what life can teach us, and it is often a deep, dark search. It may even pull you down into the depths of sadness.  But eventually we see the glimmers—the hope, the insights, the beauty—and even the wisdom. I love that.

In hindsight I see Anne’s story is one of overcoming in the worst of circumstances. It’s true her family is betrayed and that she dies in a camp weeks before the liberation, but it is also true that she was strong and found her voice, an uplifting voice, and an undying resilience that she bequeathed to millions of us in a diary she steadfastly wrote for us.

Gifts can be small—a drawing, a book, or even a poem. But if they are given from the heart, and if they are wrapped with meaning, or hope, or love, they can be the most treasured gifts. Special thanks to Karen and Anne for their thoughtful words.

Overcoming

in /by

Sometimes you slip inside a story that is a huge part of your life, and you didn’t even know it. You might have heard a snippet of it, maybe a dozen times, and not realized how it matters. Here is one I just rediscovered—in a new light. It helped make me who I am.

When I first met Steve Marinella in graduate school, I learned that he had a passion for flying, a passion obvious in the way his eyes lit up and his hands moved excitedly any time he talked about planes. Now it seems funny that after four decades of marriage, I could learn a new and meaningful story about my husband. But I did.

About a month ago he asked me to attend his Air Force Academy reunion. We had never been to one before, but two weeks later we were headed to Colorado Springs. There we were greeted by blue skies, clear views of Pikes Peak, and hundreds of alumni returning to this pristine place of chrome, glass, and fountains. It is here many cadets discovered who they were—or who they cannot become.

For three days we tromped their old school grounds, talked with new cadets, and shared meals with Steve’s friends from his 26th Snoopy Squadron.

This was Steve’s life before I knew him and with the help of his former roommate Rich and his friend Doug, I was able to slip inside an experience that helped define this man I love.

Saturday afternoon we sat outside at the home of one of Steve’s classmates chatting. Rich was explaining how he took prep school to get admitted to the academy. “It was the only way in for me.”  Doug and Steve nodded knowingly.

“It was tough to get in,” Steve said. “I was no high school sports star, so I assumed I didn’t have a chance.”

The training was rigorous, and the cadets were told that half of them would wash out in the coming four years. “Turns out that prediction was accurate,” Doug explained. “When we started, there were 36 new cadets in our squadron and seventeen actually graduated.”

“Remember how afraid we were that we would wash out with all the physical training!” added Rick. They reminisced about the first summer when they were hauled up to Sailors Park and left to “live off the land” for a week. Survival Camp.

“I think each of us had one K-ration to make last a week,” Steve explained.  “We learned to pick berries and find and eat the smallest animals. I lost twenty pounds that summer. I often felt lightheaded when we returned.”

“We were all starving and exhausted,” added Rich. “Then they made us face the Confidence Course.”
“That was hell! Looks like an oversized Jungle Jim now,” Doug said. Then he turned to me. “But it nearly killed a few of us–including Steve.”

After a week of wilderness training, the cadets faced the dreaded Confidence Course. They ran around the track and then spent the day struggling to climb towers and crawl through several structures. The largest, most dreaded obstacle was the Tilton Hilton.  They had to scale all five stories using the ropes on the side. When they reached the top, they had to pull themselves up to walk across logs that formed the roof and then scale down.

Rich managed it. Then as Steve scaled it, he began to feel lightheaded. He reached the top and as he attempted to grab the log, a spotter screamed at him, “Hustle!” But instead, Steve fainted and plunged thirty feet down. His friend Doug would tell me, “There was a deafening thud when he hit the ground. I was certain the fall had killed him. It didn’t, but it broke his back.”

The ambulance carried Steve to the hospital where for a couple of days, he remembered nothing but the excruciating pain and being pricked and prodded by physicians, fearful of paralysis. “When I awoke,” Steve explained, “I kept asking if I could still fly, but they would not answer me. I felt determined to keep going. To be able to fly.”

On the third day the doctors announced Steve would walk again, but not for several months. He had suffered a severe compression back fracture. He needed to lie flat for three months so it would heal. After three months in bed, they thought they could place a body cast on him. Then he could return to the academy.

But Steve surprised them. On the fourth day, he sat up in bed. “The nurses cheered me on,” he explained. “But the physicians told me I was not capable of sitting up—but I did. I just couldn’t lie in a bed for months!”

“You have always been so determined to make things work,” I noted.

“Maybe too determined?” Steve laughed. “I think I drove the doctors crazy.” He explained by the seventh day they had suited him in a complete body cast. “That evening I went to the bathroom on my own and the next day I started helping the nurses—emptying the trash cans. They still wouldn’t tell me if I could fly, but that just made me fight harder.”

Much to everyone’s surprise, on the eleventh day of his hospital stay, Steve was discharged and returned to the academy. Classes started the next week and Steve, in a full body cast, never missed a day. “The cast came off before Thanksgiving and by March I had all the waivers signed for Army Airborne Parachute Training. I felt that this would show my ability to train to become a pilot.” It did. Four years later Steve graduated and headed to Purdue to study aerodynamics and astronautics where I met him. After graduate school, he headed to Arizona to fulfill his dream of becoming a pilot.

I think we had been married a couple of years before I saw a notice from the Air Force to Steve addressing him as “a disabled veteran.”  When I asked him about it, he acknowledged that he had fallen and broken his back as if it were a small footnote in his life. But all these years later I can see now that it was much more. I can see now that this display of grit and determination helped to define Steve as a man. He had a dream, and he was going to hold onto it and do whatever it took. He was going to overcome his “disability.”  And he did.

As for me, living with Steve has taught me how to be a stronger, more resilient person. How to juggle my active inner critic and how to move forward through hardships.  For all of this, I am grateful. Today he is a man wrapped in his curiosity, his passion to fly, and his drive to create new and better machines, many that save lives. He may be a bit too driven, but I continue to learn from and marvel at all he overcomes day by day.

Beautiful Scars

in /by

Our scars tell stories. Sometimes they’re stark tales of life-threatening catastrophes, but more often they’re just footnotes to the ordinary but bloody detours that befall us on the roadways of life. These beautiful words come from Dana Jennings, editor and prostate cancer survivor, from his column in the New York Times on July 21st, 2009. They have inspired this blog.

Think back. You have scars that tell stories. Some that are footnotes in life and others are profound. Can you tell one of those stories?

Since it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I want to share a story that changed me. It taught me how beautiful scars can be.

In 2012 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As any breast cancer patient knows this is a long and arduous journey.  I trekked from physician to physician. I experienced several scans, MRIs, and five biopsies. I was encouraged to get at the bare minimum a lumpectomy to save my left breast–but I was also told I would probably end up needing to lose both of my breasts. I was advised to think about a double mastectomy. There was a long line of cancer in my family—both aunts, my Grandma Rose, and my mom had lost one breast to cancer at age 60 and another to cancer at age 80.

My surgeon said my case was not clear, and she encouraged me to meet with a medical board who could advise me. I agreed. My breasts were analyzed intensely, but I left there more perplexed and uncertain about what to do.

The morning after I met with the medical board, I awoke early, meditated, wrote several pages in my journal, and closed it with resolve. I was done. Done with lists. Done with reading books by cancer experts. Done with talking to oncologists. Done with calling Billie, my dear friend with a good ear. Intellectually I had decided. I would opt for a lumpectomy and try to save my breasts. But my heart knew better. I felt a strange emptiness, like a balloon without air.

I called my mom. At ninety, she lived a few blocks from my home, and she was anxious to know my decision. This call started like all our conversations. The weather. The day. And then I said, “I have made my decision. I am going to try and save my breasts. I will have the lumpectomy . . .” Then I paused, for I was wavering over my choice. I intuited this was not going to work. I kept picturing the faces of friends who had made every effort to save their breasts with repeat lumpectomies, making every effort to get clear margins and keep their breasts. I wasn’t even sure about one lumpectomy. “If we miss margins — even once — I am going to have a double mastectomy,” I blurted.

Without pausing I began citing stats and sounding like the robot-like radiologist who had first informed me of my cancer, and suddenly, mid-sentence, in my mind’s eye I saw the image of my Grandma Rose. Then I choked on the word breasts and began to sob. Not cry—sob. This must have gone on for some time, for the next thing I remember, I was still blubbering when my mom appeared on the scene, took my cell phone from my hands, clicked it off, and did something she had not needed to do for a couple of decades. She held me in her arms. She rocked me gently. And for a few minutes, I felt safe.

As the tears receded, I pulled back and dried my eyes. Then I realized I had been sobbing into the soft pads that had served as Mom’s fake breasts for years. In that moment I understood that she had always been embarrassed by her fake breasts and the scars they hid. I doubted she had ever shown them to anyone. I reached out and touched the soft breast padding and asked, “May I see your scars?” She nodded and without speaking, she unbuttoned her cotton blouse and unhooked her bra. And there they were. Long, jagged, red scars. But to my surprise, my heart wrapped itself around them and allowed me to see their beauty. These scars were marks of transformation. Overcoming. These scars had allowed her to keep her life, and allowed me to keep my mom. I studied them. With my finger I traced the lines gently where her breasts had been. Slowly. Silently and with reverence. And then I hugged my mother with as much heart-gripping love as I had.

A week later I had a lumpectomy, and it failed to rid me of cancer, but I had already shed my tears and mourned the loss of my breasts. Immediately I scheduled my double mastectomy and moved forward with the next surgery, grateful I had a good surgeon who could skillfully remove cancer and knit my skin back together in the T-shaped scars I now have on both breasts.

Dana Jennings wrote, But for all the potential tales of woe that they suggest, scars are also signposts of optimism. I love that for it is true. My mom’s scars felt like heroic symbols of overcoming against difficult odds. Twice. Of surviving to live a long and beautiful life. My breast scars are my own talisman. My own tattoos that mark me with my story, a hard-won but life-affirming story of my own scars. Truly beautiful scars.