Christmas Morning Prayers 2012

I am brought to my knees, once again on this Christmas morning. My heart and mind expanded beyond my home as I opened my front door this morning to the frigid air and snow covered streets. As I had my traditional Christmas morning chat with my father outside by his memorial tree, I was reminded of Christmas past when in 2001, 3 months after September 11, it seemed impossible to have Christmas Day. We had a similar feeling on Christmas 2004 when my father was lying in a bed in Sloan Kettering Hospital and refused to let any of us come see him far even 5 minutes. "The thought of all of you home with your children, opening presents, will get me through my day." He said. I learned later that the pain was so intense that day, Christmas Day was the last thing on his mind. Then a year later, after he was gone, Christmas morning again, seemed impossible. Last year, my godson Charlie opened his presents with chemotherapy drugs sitting on the kitchen counter. Sometimes it just seems impossible to have Christmas. This year my father-in-law will not e with us. We will include him in the day in other ways. And so as I pray this morning I realize there is not more to pray for that other days, it is perhaps maybe about praying more throughout the day than usual because today, for so many families, seems like an impossible day to get through.

I pray for every family waking up today in Newtown, CT
For every soldier waking up over seas 
For their families waking up here without them
I pray for every family waking up in a new place, displaced from Hurricane Sandy
For every person waking up on a cold street this morning
For every person living through this day filled with grief
For all the people in hospitals and dying at home
For all families living with mental illness at their dinner tables tonight
For every person living with addiction
For every family living with cancer
For every family living with chronic illness
I pray for all families that are disconnected from each other
I pray for all the quiet, unknown sufferings of families while they open their gifts this morning 
I pray for our human brokenness, that we turn to God over and over again for light in the darkness.

And in honor of my brilliant little Mary, I am not putting an Amen on this prayer

Merry Christmas
May God bless us with gratitude, awareness and clarity

The Treads of Suffering and Kindness

On Friday as the events were unfolding in Newtown, CT I was sitting alone at the Heartworks House. I did not know about Sandy Hook Elementary School yet, but had a moment of complete overwhelm with the suffering taking place in the world. Looking around the office space at the mixture of inspiring quotes, pictures of bald mothers, thank you notes, deceased children, our "to do" lists for families, articles describing people's illnesses, posters of families in hospitals, war torn countries and military bases, Then there is the "Thank you" art and plaques hanging on the walls from Veterans and families we have reached out to, it all seemed a bit too much. The picture of Charlie looking back at me almost knocked me off my chair. Perhaps Heartworks was  doing a lot for people. Perhaps we were not doing enough. Perhaps we are doing what I am constantly preaching about: doing what you can, when you can, for another human being. I didn't know. But what I do know is that the amount of suffering we witness on a daily basis through Heartworks can be overwhelming to say the least. 

I sent an email to Maggie Doyne, someone I feel privileged to call a friend. Maggie runs an orphanage in Nepal that she built from the ground up. Her organization "Blink Now" is mind blowing and beautiful. I needed to reach out to someone else who allows herself to be present with suffering. I was having that all too familiar feeling of "What the fuck am I doing??? Why can't I be someone who is at the mall right now? I should be home doing laundry! Why am I constantly surrounding myself with suffering? Why can't I be more light hearted? Why am I so intense?" I was feeling alone. A loser like Katie Myler in grammar school. A weirdo.At the very same time, I was feeling a bit paralyzed by Christmas shopping, holiday meal planning and finding clothes to fit me for a fundraiser we had that night. How can I be thinking that I need a new mascara while sitting in Heartworks House? How do I exist in Bernardsville with so many comforts and yet so much suffering going on in beautiful homes  and hot pink J Crew sweaters. 

I think I wrote to Maggie because I needed to connect with someone who wakes up everyday and feels the suffering without the comforts (and illusions) I have everyday. She literally sleeps, eats and lives each day with some of the "poorest" children on the face of the Earth. I missed her. I wished that her sweet face was sitting at the table with me having a Diet Coke. As I looked through my contact list for her email I needed to scroll through a lot of names. ALOT of names. I felt ashamed. How could I feel lonely with all these names in my phone? Names of women who run brilliant foundations, others who come to Heartworks House on a daily basis to heal their own lives as well as give to other people. Names of people who love me and tolerate me and have allowed me to have this comfortable, uncomfortable, blessed and full life. I started to feel connected to the world again seeing all these names in my phone. I wrote to Maggie about how much I missed her and that I was blown away by her ability to stay present with the suffering without the comforts of New Jersey. I felt like I must have done something "right" with my life if 2 people I call friends live among the poorest of the world. Without fully realizing it, I was reaching out to her for inspiration. For some clarity on how to live in both the daily, comfortable life of Bernardsville and be present with the suffering of the world at the same time.

When you are present in the suffering of the world. It can be a sense of feeling connected and isolated at the exact same time.

A few minutes after I wrote to Maggie, the texts, calls and emails began to come in about Newtown, CT. At that point the reports were about 18 children being shot at a school. I went into the meditation room and cried and prayed and begged for the presence of God to work through the illusions of the human experience and make itself known at Sandy Elementary School. I prayed for the parents gathering at the school- that they somehow succeed in the almost impossible task of seeing Christ right there before them, in the worst of horror. This is nearly impossible to do in the moments of trauma because the physical and mental cellular reaction is so intense and altering. But I prayed for it anyway. At the same time I pray that the shock they were experiencing, numb their bodies and minds enough to allow things to register at a manageable rate. Even though I know this is all but impossible as well, I prayed for it anyway. All of a sudden all the suffering that I was feeling so "alone" about - felt like the it was being experienced by the world. I knew that if I was crying, so were others. If I was praying, so were others. If I was feeling like the world had flown of its axis, others were feeling the same way. I no longer felt alone at the Heartworks House. I was no longer alone in my questions and contradictions and awe inspiring awareness of the human experience. The world was once again connected by tragedy. The treads of suffering had simply become more public, more apparent and the story on the television was more potent than the Christmas advertisements for a new Lexus with a bow on top of it that seems to be so alluring to people. 

The thread of suffering that I was feeling for all of these private families, my own included, as we move into our first Christmas without my father-in-law, as my long time friend Patti starts chemotherapy, as my sister sits bedside as her father-in-law's breath slows down and last rights are read to him. In that moment on Friday, when word of Sandy Hook Elementary school got out, all suffering was the same, just showing up in different forms. Later that night, Eddie and I sat at tables with families living with Autism. The next day I followed a friend down the stairs carrying her 14 year old son on her back because the building is not handicapped accessible and she can't get him downstairs in his wheelchair. I got news that sweet Allie's mother put up a Christmas tree and took it down the next day because she could not handle seeing the ornaments that Allie had made throughout her short life. I began to remember the importance of me staying present with the suffering, and Its not that creative of a reason. It is simply that suffering is a part of the human experience and greatly brought on by our own free will. And if I choose to be distracted from the suffering of the human condition, I will not be affective in any sort of change, or comfort or ease for another human being. As a culture it seems we tend to believe or buy into the idea that the Lexus in the commercial can help us heal something, help us feel less alone, that it can snap us out of our sleep walking, to center and ground us. But it doesn't....Columbine did. September 11th did. Hurricane Katrina did. Hurricane Sandy did. Cancer does. Images of soldiers at war does. Hanging out with Veterans does. Orphans in Nepal and Liberia do too. I wish a new Lexus did. It would be more comfortable. Leather heated seats and that new car smell. But thats not the way it works. 

On Friday after the shooting in Newtown I got a call from Darlene. Darlene is a story of bravery for another day. I met Darlene in the Convention Center after Hurricane Katrina. I was volunteering and she had been picked up from her home in a row boat and was at the Convention Center in Houston, TX with nothing but the clothes on her back. She called me during Hurricane Sandy to check on my family. She called me Friday to talk about the suffering she knew the parents in Newtown were experiencing. She talked about her own suffering all those years ago and how we sat there together in Houston, two strangers on a cot, holding hands and praying. Brought together by forces way bigger than ourselves. Darlene understands her own loss and suffering which is why she is dedicating the life she has rebuilt, to serving other people in similar situations. 

Thank you for listening to me. It is cathartic to write in the middle of the night.  Below is my favorite poem. We read it all the time at Heartworks meetings. We will read it Wednesday night at a candle light vigil for Newtown. I feel like it describes all the things I am trying to say about how being present with our own suffering is an avenue to God and each other and the healing of the world.

KINDNESS

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
 like a shadow or a friend.

by Naomi Shihab Nye from “Words Under the Words”

                        

Prayer for Sandy Hook Elementary School

In this moment we pray for everyone in Newtown, CT

We pray that every person at Sandy Hook Elementary feels the hand of God on them

That every family experience a sense of the intangible, ever present love

We pray that within the shock, people's hearts, minds and bodies are able to absorb God's presence

We pray for a miracle of faith to be activated in their hearts, on this, the darkest of days. 

We pray, we pray we pray

Happy Birthday Amy 12-12-12

I am leaving in a few minutes to go see Amy in Rhode Island for her 44th birthday...how can this be? Yesterday we were 12 years old walking the hallways in "the Dungeon" of BHS, in love with Jamie Boyd (and Dave Lanzetti and Brett Kiersted and Joey Russo and Bill McCollough and David Caffery and a few others). Now we are grown adults with children the same age as we were when we met. On this day last year me, Mo and Coleen got in the car and drove to surprise her for her 43rd. We walked in the door , Amy fell to the floor and we did what good friends do when they are visiting the home of a friend on her birthday while her son is in chemotherapy treatments. You drink wine. It didn't matter that it was 3:00 on a Sunday. Time, days and social protocols don't factor in during such a winter. We laughed, we drank, we cried. We met up with Amy's friends and made fools of ourselves. I fell asleep on the couch listening the the voices and laughter of 3 of my life long friends. It was a powerful birthday fueled by love, anguish, fear, trust and vulnerability.

A year later I am driving up to Rhode Island again. Charlie continues to have clear brain scans. He turned 11 years old on Monday and I get to see him tear through the door after school today. I get to see Amy and have a 12-12-12 birthday party with her and all of her friends. I am leaving the ridiculous, fabricated "stresses" of Christmas in New Jersey. I will drive in gratitude for 4 hours to see my friend and her boys. And I will miss my girls and Eddie. The Heartworks Advisory Board will meet this morning to continue our work. Katie and More Than Me won a million dollars. Poppy visited Madison in her dream last night. A dear friend had a much needed walk to a lighthouse yesterday, and I knew about it. Thank you God for your light through the darkness life brings. As I am writing this blog, the two songs that have played "randomly" on my iPod are "Here Comes the Sun"  and "After the Storm" My two theme songs of 2012. (Way before Hurricane) Thank you God for the sun after the storms. Thank you that I have such solid family and friends. Thank you for the chance to go to Rhode Island and laugh my ass off all day and night. It has been a long year, a long last few months, filled with love.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMER! You are one of my great loves XOXO
As I sign off, "All I Need" by Mat Kearny is playing...another good one. Powerful.

Katie Meyler, Standing in the Egg Aisle and 1 Million Dollars

A few years ago I was in the grocery store standing in front of the eggs. A beautiful light, a girl with wavy long hair was walking towards me. I could feel her energy before her hug almost knocked me over. We had met once....a few weeks before at an Indian restaurant where Heartworks was doing a fundraiser for two brothers, Zach and Kyle Ostrander who would die within 2 weeks of each other before 3 months of age of a rare skin disease called EB. (A story for another day) We had only spoken for a few minutes at the restaurant where she told me about the children in Liberia that she was helping, and yet when I stood listening to her in Shop Rite tell me about the child soldier she had waiting for her in the car, I felt I had known her all my life. Maybe this connection came from the fact that we had walked the same halls in grammar school, though many years a part. Maybe it was the restlessness that I saw in her...that something MORE has to be done...what the bleep was everyone in our well off  town doing??? We have roofs over our head...we have more than enough food on our tables....there was so much work to be done...what was everyone doing with themselves? But what I really think it was, and I found this out after numerous conversations in the years to come- is that we have both always felt like misfits until we found our causes and were given the chance to focus on something more than ourselves. I invited Katie to a Heartworks meeting..."come be with like minded women" I heard myself saying. She walked away, or should I say danced away, as she often does, past the containers of chocolate milk and I knew my life was expanding. I knew I was on the right track, that if my path would cross with someone so ambitious and so real, I must be doing something right. I was grateful that I was in a place that I could relate to her. That I understood her passion. I felt less alone in the world that night, standing there in front of the eggs with the young and beautiful Katie Meyler.

Katie came to the next Heartworks meeting...Where Katie met Katie Borghese and Kelly Kettersen...Both of which encouraged her to start an official non-profit. Both of which became members of her Advisory Board and both of which stood on stage with her last night when her organization More Than Me WON A MILLION DOLLARS from Chase Bank on the American Giving Awards.

Those of us who know her, and Im sure those who don't,  feel healed just by watching her tonight. I have a friend who wiped out on her deck the other night and smashed up her face. I know tonight healed her. A woman called me 2 minutes after the announcement was read, she knew a teenager who attempted suicide last week. I could hear in her shouting that she saw good in the world again. My girls watched Katie and understood that they sit in the same classrooms where Katie sat- where she struggled as a "looser" as she would put it- with her bowl haircut and hand me down clothes...I said - "Look at her girls, thats what a loser looks like"
I pray to have the courage to be a loser- to just be who I am without ego or concern for fitting in with the mainstream. If Katie Meyler sees herself as a looser...I want to be a looser too.

Things have been feeling very whacked out lately. Lately It feels like most everyone has lost their minds.  My friend Holly stated with great clarity that purhaps the reason for this is a combination of Hurricane Sandy, the recent election, the unemployment situation and people just feeling off balance in general. The energy was starting to whack me out a bit in the beginning of the week. Heartworks knows of  sooooo many families we could be reaching out to and it seems like there is crisis and suffering all around us. And the truth is that there is a tremendous amount of suffering going on in the world. But what we seem to miss at times is that it is the suffering that connects us.  Its what we all have in common, the collective struggle to find God, be at peace with our own brokeness and to love each other even though we are all going to have to say goodbye one day. And that day may be tomorrow. The uncertainty of things can paralyze us if we think to much about it. This is where the choice comes to allow the suffering to give us life or cause us to walk around in a fog of disconnection. Katie Meyler chooses LIFE. She chooses to be real and alive and authentic. I love her and love that she is at home on stage on national television and at home sleeping on the side of the road in Liberia. She is at home because she knows who she is. Thank you Katie for letting us know you too.
MORE THAN ME ROCKS! And so do the other 24 organizations Chase Bank honored tonight!

The Day after a meeting

Last night we had our December meeting. Our November meeting was canceled due to the hurricane so it had been awhile since the meeting room was filled with women. 38 women showed up with the collective intention to stay out of the insanity of the season and seek balance by coming together for something bigger than ourselves. Our meetings are never about escaping our own lives, or "using" horrific experiences to find gratitude. Our meetings are about allowing our own We signed cards, prayed, wrapped gifts and signed up to help in small ways and larger ones. We are asking 20 women to commit to raising $500 within their own circles for Chrissy, a mom in a neighboring town who is getting a double mastectomy in a few weeks. We are going to raise at least $10,000 for her so that she can have live in help for her 10 month old twin boys after her surgery. WOW this seems like quite a lofty goal right? At first we had one brave soul take the challenge. Then all I had to do is speak about her and the say to a room full on mother's these words: "She will not be able to hold her babies for 2 months" and before I knew it we had 7 more women signed up.

 I would like to be able to say that Chrissy was the only story that broke all of us open last night. She was not. A house fire in Ridgefield, New Jersey that took a mother and son away from the rest of their family (sending financial support) 6 families who lost everything in Hurricane Family (sending gift cards and selling teachers gifts to fundraise)  My beloved teacher and friend of 21 years, Patti has breast cancer (sending a 5lb Hershey bar) A woman in Basking Ridge in severe pain after a car accident (Heartworkers taking her to appointments) Another Basking Ridge mom in treatment for cancer (Heartworkers making dinners every night) 3 families grieving a son, a grandson and a mother this Christmas...(3 Wreaths with these words hanging on a tag "Everyday my love for you grows higher, deeper, wider, stronger...It grows and grows until it touches the tip of where you are and comes back to me in the loving memory of you, and my heart melts with that love and grows even more."- Maureen Hunter and we filled each wreath with prayers for a gentle December) Then there is Sweet Drew, a young helicopter pilot injured in Afganistan (sending cookies and a card) and Christmas cards  to 7 children who are sick in hope that receiving a letter in the mail will make them smile even for a moment. We prayed for ourselves and for others. We cried and we laughed at our own self absorption and ignorance. We signed up for what we could and in honor of so much suffering, committed to practicing gratitude in our daily lives.
 
Last night in a small New Jersey town, 38 women drove home with a commitment to stay out of the chaos and excess of this holiday season as much as possible. We will do this in honor of mothers who are to sick to stress about a J Crew fleece arriving in the wrong size and parents to grief stricken to think about what they are wearing to a party and soldiers sleeping in a ditch away from their families.
We commit to being present and grateful and to pay attention to the wounds in our own lives, knowing that at the end of the day we are all in this together, in all different phases of the journey on any given day.

Thank You Bubba, For Everything

It feels like a lifetime has gone by since the last time I have written. I have thought about writing many times but have not been able to either because I just don’t want to put on paper that my father-in-law died on the morning Wednesday October 24^th or because I have been with Eddie and my girls non stop for 11 days without power or because the loss I have been witnessing between Bubba and the storm simply seems too much for words. But now I am up in the middle of the night (I cant post this yet because we still don’t have internet) and maybe its time to write about some of it…

            My father-in-law (Doug, or “Bubba” as we all call him) went to God very peacefully at 10:30 in the morning with his family around him in a room filled with deep love. Pictures of family members who were waiting for him on the other side were close by and it was the first time I had witnessed someone take their last breath. I was honored to be there. The last prayer he heard was the “Hail Mary” which is no coincidence that it is the prayer his second youngest grand daughter (Mary) has had me say to her every night before bed for the past 2 months. I had been feeling so sad about Mary…that she is only 5 and will not have as many memories with her grandfather as my older two do. I realize now that all on her own she has created a connection with him through this prayer that she will have for the rest of her life. Although I am Catholic, I am not always drawn to the traditional prayers. It was my Mary with her hand made prayer book that brought me back to the Hail Mary and it was these two Mary’s who helped Bubba let go of this world and move through to the next. His letting go was a long and challenging process. He loved his life, he loved his kids and his friends. He loved his town and his walks and meeting his friends for dinner. He loved being in Mexico and sitting with a drink at his prayer wall. He loved traveling to new places and having fun everywhere he went. He loved this life and did not want to let it go.

Many times, sitting next to his bed that last week,  I thought about the dream I had about my brother-in-law John about 8 months after 9/11. In the dream he looked incredible as he walked up my back parch steps. He was vibrant and peaceful and gorgeous. As we spoke, I kept asking him where he was, what it was like there…he kept shaking his head and waving his hand saying “Meg, you won’t understand, I can’t even explain to you…there are no words” But the look on his face solidified the existence of a place beyond my comprehension. He was experiencing a level of love and an experience of peace that my limited human mind could never calculate. I thought about what my mother said after my father passed away 4 years later- that the look on my dad’s face right after he stopped breathing was the most peaceful thing she had ever witnessed. I kept thinking to myself that even though Bubba was laying there suffering, he had this incredible place waiting for him. The love he was leaving here? He had more waiting. The adventures he wasn’t ready to have end? He had more coming. The contentment he had watching his granddaughters swim at 7 Patriot Road? He had more contentment than he could ever imagine was just around the bend.

His body was restless. His will was strong. He did not want to leave his life here. We did not want him to leave either. So now…he is there with his parents and his sister Joanne and his brother Johnny and his niece Dana.We are here to carry on the adventures, the dinners, the sunsets at the beach and to continue living fully in honor of his life. A week before he died when Eddie went home for an hour and I was alone with Bubba. He told me he wanted us to always laugh, he wanted lots of laughing when we remembered him, especially with his grandchildren. He wanted the girls to remember all the laughter they had together.  We said “Thank you” to each other. He added “For everything” and I said it back. I thanked him for my Eddie- for raising the best friend I have ever had, for giving me an extraordinary father for my girls. Thank you for your family, the fun, the support, the memories, the love, the parties, the walks, the lessons, the trips, the music.

Thank you Bubba…for everything.

"Don't Say Amen" Says Mary

Every night before my 5 year old goes to bed she asks me to read a prayer book she made last summer. It has traditional Catholic prayers in it and then we add our own at the end. It is not an easy task because she likes me to keep one hand on her forehead (keeps the bad dreams out) and one hand one the book. So turning the pages is tricky and as she is trying to “belax” (not a typo, this is how Mary says “relax”) into the prayers, she often has one eye open in anticipation of a page turn when my hand has to leave her head for a moment.

Last night, before we got started, she said to me

“Don’t say “Amen” at the end of each prayer anymore, Mom!”

“Why not?”

“ Because then it means they’re over.”

As I read her the Hail Mary I instinctively said “Amen” at the end...her eyes filled up…She yelled “Moooooooommmmmm, I told you not to say Amen!”

“I’m sorry Mary! But I’ve been saying this prayer for 35 years and so I’m in the habit of saying Amen at the end! We have 3 prayers to go,  so it’s not over yet”

I don’t think she thought my laughter was appropriate.

She settled back into position and brought my hand back to her head.

No more “Amens” were said last night.

This morning as she was getting ready for school, I reminded her to go upstairs and brush her teeth. She ran upstairs but I didn’t hear any water running. As I snuck up behind her in her room I saw that she had ripped up a sticky note into strips and was placing them strategically in her prayer book.

“What are you doing Mare?”

“Covering up the “Amens” so my prayers keep going”

So my beautiful girl left for school today with dirty teeth and unending prayers in her mind.

I have not yet explained to her yet that  “Amen” has been described as

 “And so it is” and “So be it”.

“Amen” is a statement of affirmation, that all we believe and have prayed for is true and valid for us. It has gotten me thinking that this is such an interesting word to use at the “end” of a prayer and that most people probably see it as an “ending” phrase…certainly my little Mary does.

What I did tell her was that I understand what it feels like to not want things to end….how when you discover and connect with something bigger than yourself…when something feels good and safe and loving, your human response is to do whatever is within your imagined control to stop it from ending.

I understand Mary Francis, I really, truly understand.

What I will tell her when she gets home today is that “Amen” doesn’t end our prayers. “Amen” simply solidifies them in the unending love of God. My greatest prayer for Mary and her two sisters is that they come to understand that there is no ending to love and that ultimately, God is love. There is no ending or beginning, though our human mind is so trained to think this way. The word I would more focus on is transition. That all appearances of beginnings and endings are actually transitions into something else, something that we are ready to experience, whether we understand what is happening or not.

There are so many things I don’t want to ever end. I do my best to stay open to “endings” (AKA transitions) and give them the same attention I give beginnings, knowing that they are actually the very same energy. Every beginning is an ending  and every ending is a beginning of something. This is waaaaay easier said than done. The mind is a stubborn, manipulative thing and I am so attached to my physical surroundings (ie...raising my girls in the house I grew up in but that’s a story for another day)

These days as I witness my father-in-law sleep, as his body slows down and his voice gets softer, I want to yell and whine and stick hot pick sticky notes over all that we are being asked to let go of. All the things we are not ready to have end. All the things that feel good and safe and loving.

All things my father-in-law.

So maybe by not hearing “Amen” my little Mary is attempting to go to sleep in prayer, wake up in prayer, get dressed in prayer, eat breakfast in prayer, go to school in prayer….maybe she effortlessly remembers something that I, at times,  forget…that birth is a living prayer, life is a living prayer and death is a living prayer. God is always paying attention, always loving us, always awake. I pray for the grace to spend my days  as Mary does, in living prayer without end.

My mother asked me if I was stressed today...

Later on today my very best friends from childhood will start showing up for our 25 High school reunion weekend. We will sit in the same rooms we did when we were 10 years old since I live in the house I grew up in. Last week I was putting clothes in the washing machine and I started to think of all  them being here, getting ready to go to the football game, picking out our outfits the same way we did in 1987, our beers do not have to be hidden this time. I started thinking of us in our PJs eating breakfast together recapping the night before. I started to laugh....then I started to really, really laugh. All I need to throw me into a fit of crazy laughter was just the thought of the fun we are going to have. I was bent over laughing and crying just anticipating the fun...I thought how blessed I am to have this...a good laugh a week before I even see them in anticipation of our time together.

So here I am cleaning my house and getting ready for the 50 BHS graduates from the class of 1987 that will be drinking keg beer at eating pizza at my house tonight. My mother asked me if I was feeling stressed with my party planning chaos...my answer is a strong "no". Heartworks has woven its thread of perspective and gratitude through me that saves me from the stress I used to live in on a daily bases. Today I am thinking of another family, just a few miles from my house. Annemarie, mother of 4 kids, passed away the day before yesterday from Breast Cancer that spread throughout her body. She has been to a few Heartworks meetings and I met her when she came to help at our annual garage sale in May. We talked about how she loved our mission and how she was going to be such a part of the group when she felt better.  Her family is getting ready to go to her wake today. Her high school friends are picking out an outfit to wear to say goodbye to her. Food is bring prepared to feed the people she loved most in the world. The fact that I can't find the perfect bowl to put my crab dip in is not on my radar the way it would have been years ago.

I sat with my dear father-in-law this week, having a tough conversation about the future...about how we will live and remember him "after he is gone"....my love for this man runs deep and this talk was not easy, but necessary. I told him  that my girls will be raised remembering him, loving him and every time we are together as a family we will celebrate his life.
He paused for a few minutes. Cleared his throat and said "And laugh...have lots of laughs."

It is difficult to focus on other things, knowing that our time with him is limited. I want to just sit with him, hold his hand, tell him I lobe him over and over again. It feels challenging to care about what I am wearing tonight with Annemarie's little 12 year old daughter sitting with her brothers and dad today without Annemarie. But the truth is, life is filled with contradictions and everyday is someone's best day and someone's worse day. So if today is one of my best, I am going to live it to the fullest and not take it for granted or loose sight of it over a bowl or a dirty kitchen or 10 extra pounds as I pull on my jeans later today. In honor of Annemarie I will enjoy every bit of my time with my friends and in honor of Bubba I will laugh until I pee my pants (and if you know me, you know this is quiet possible. )

Live life to the fullest today regardless of what it may bring you.

My Day

I am sitting here at the Heartworks House (what we call our office space)....It has been a full day of speaking to people who love someone with cancer. Including talking to Eddie about his dad, my father-in-law who I love dearly. Then a close friend about her father-in-law, then a woman I have known for years, trying to suggest to her in a gentle way to allow herself to be open to what Heartworks can offer her family while she's in treatment for breast cancer. She's not biting... Holly is in the next room talking to Lauren about how to improve our sign up sheets for our meeting next week. A friend of mine is crying, dealing with depression. Cars are driving by on Rt 202...I am overwhelmed with the amount of suffering going on for people close to me as well as people I have never met before. I thank God that I am not in the mall right now spending money on clothes I don't need. I thank God I spend my time here at the Heartworks House while my girls are in school. Here I can be immersed in the suffering, and I am grateful. Not because I am a downer (though some would disagree) but because it is at least authentic energy and keeps me grounded in the reality of our choices- of how we spend our time. I can't cure my father-in-laws cancer today...but I can get organized for our next meeting and make calls to families who are living parallel experiences. I can do what I can with what is within my control. I feel like if I died tomorrow I could say that I did not waste my time on unimportant things. I take care of my girls, I love my husband, I drink wine with my friends, I never say "no" at a chance to sit with my mom for 5 minutes or 5 hours. People have judged my choices....that they are different from what they may do with their days....but I am living in alignment for what I have been asked to do on this Earth. And I can't cure cancer...I can't fix my friend's marriage....but I can raise money and deliver dinner and reach out and this means my day was well spent. And now I get to go home to my 3 healthy girls...the house may be a mess but they will be there and Eddie will come downstairs and I get to hang out with him tonight and I know I am blessed by these seemingly ordinary occurrences, but I know, after a day like today these are the exact things not to take for granted.