“Signs”
“All you have to do is to pay attention; lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step”―
The past few weeks have been difficult for me. I have struggled with the anniversary of
Liam’s birthday which always seems to knock me off-kilter. Then one of Dermot’s karate coaches died
suddenly and it hit our little karate community pretty hard. I also had a situation at work that had me
feeling under-appreciated and unheard, which had not been the case at this
place of employment up until now and I also became somewhat overwhelmed by the
scope of work required for the grant I am now involved with. Finally, I have had a few conversations that
have been difficult to navigate in my relationship. All of this has taken place over the past two
weeks or so. Basically, I am tired and a
little down.
We
cooked dinner for Liam’s birthday at the Ronald McDonald House in West
Philadelphia on his birthday the other week.
This is the first time in two years we have been allowed back in to do
so since the beginning of the pandemic.
We worked in an industrial kitchen and made enough food to feed and
serve the families staying there and packaged up fifty more meals for another
house that hasn’t opened up their kitchen yet.
We were there from 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM and it was the right combination
of hard-work and distraction. Frank, Dermot
and Wren and I were there early and we had Frank’s sister and her husband join
us as well as Aunt Gail and then Tony.
Pitching in and making food and feeding others on his birthday is always
a good way to keep busy and give back as well as honor him but it is also
exhausting. The next day, we found out
that Dermot’s coach had died and we went to watch the kids do a demo team
performance and met back at the karate studio so they could hear the news. Dermot asked me to be there and talk to the
kids about grief and see if anyone needed to talk, including the parents. I left from there with Tony to go to an AA
retreat for the weekend and, though that was a good experience, I felt I was
not as present as I would have liked simply because I was still in a state of
profound grief.
The
funeral for Dermot’s coach was later that next week. It was held at the same funeral home as the
one where we held Liam’s funeral nineteen years before and sitting with Dermot
in that room for the services was somewhat surreal. After the services, and before going to the
family’s house, the team was trying to figure out what to do for an hour and
talking about meeting up for a bite to eat.
Dermot declined the invitation and instead told the team he was taking
me to see his brother in the cemetery (he didn’t talk to me about this first)
and he would catch up. We went to see
Liam’s grave before he left to join the family at their house and I went back
to work. It was an emotional experience
to have one son take me to see the other.
Work,
well, all I will say about that is that I went from an independent contractor
to a full-time employee and the transition has been less than smooth. My immediate supervisors have done what they
can to make it work, but matters out of their control have made it uncomfortable
and some things have happened that should not.
I have come away not feeling safe and not knowing who I can trust and
that does not make for a healthy work environment. When I am working with clients I am
all-in. I don’t have a lot of time
during the day to worry about the admin side of things and so when that doesn’t
go smoothly or I can’t trust that side of my job I come away with a bad taste
in my mouth and it makes me unable to concentrate as much on the clients as I
would like. It is something I find
unfortunate and unsettling.
And
the relationship stuff is simply learning to communicate with someone in a way
that makes sense to us both. Tony and I
have never fought but we have had some uncomfortable conversations lately. He talks about how we can’t both be a 100%
all the time and that sometimes one will be giving 70% and the other 30% or
something similar. Well at the moment we
are both struggling so the percentages are somewhat off because we are both somewhat
off. The important part in that though
is that we have the uncomfortable conversations and keep on going.
So
the point of all of this is to tell you that the other morning, I went outside
to have my conversation with Joe. Instead
of starting it with gratitude like I always do, I began to just rail at
him. I complained and moaned and
bitched. I had a one-sided conversation
with someone from work as though she were standing right there in front of me
and my voice began to rise the angrier I got.
In mid-sentence as I was getting more and more heated I looked up and
saw a shooting star fall from the sky and I stopped speaking. I stood staring, slack-jawed at where the
star had disappeared. I have been going
outside and talking to Joe in the early morning hours for about 15 months now
and I haven’t ever seen one, but while railing at life and how unfairly I feel
I am being treated, I get a shooting star from Joe. I stood there in silence for a long time
before I started talking to Joe for real.
I returned to gratitude and started seeing life from the perspective
that helps me not hurts me.
This
happened to me again this morning. I
woke earlier than normal. I had another
busy week last week and yesterday was also stressful. I felt overwhelmed by work, the grant, a
speaking engagement, just life getting lifey again… I started down that same path, this time
about how stressed out I feel and forgetting to start with gratitude. Mid-bitch, I see a stag come out of the
bushes on the hill outside my house. It came
out slowly and looked me in the eye and stopped. He stared and waited. When I didn’t move or speak, he completely
emerged. He was a young stag with
smaller antlers. He was limping. He limped slowly into my yard and past me and
then down my stone steps and down the street and out of sight. A shooting star, full of the beauty and awe
of the universe and a limping stag showing me the fragility of nature… Ok Joe. I see, I’m listening.
I
returned to gratitude once again. I need
reminders at the moment and Joe knows this.
I get overwhelmed and stressed out and forget to look at my life from a
lens of gratitude and benevolence for myself and others. If I am honest, I am stressed out because I
perhaps have taken on too much and that is on me. I can also manage it if I stop looking at the
whole and eat the elephant one bite at a time and stop saying “yes” to
everything and everyone. Dermot is doing
alright and I just need to be there if he wants to talk. He is handling this loss better than
expected, probably because he was raised with the concept of death from an
early age and because difficult topics are talked about in both the houses he
lives in and by both his parents. Liam’s
birthday is hard every year and I have to be kinder to myself around that,
realizing that there is no time-frame or limit to grief and no right or wrong
way to “do” it. Work will sort itself
out and I know I do right by my clients and that is the most important part of
it in the end. And the relationship
conversations are going to be hard from time-to-time. If they weren’t we wouldn’t be real people
and it wouldn’t be a real relationship.
Mostly
I need to remember that my life is gloriously mine. It is full of beauty and grace and with
beauty and grace come bumps and shadows.
I just need to remain teachable and open to Joe’s signs.
