Tag: fear

Friends

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She said it without tears.

“I’ve just been diagnosed with dementia. It’s been an awful week.”

We are five women friends who have met for over three years in this friendship circle. We have trusted each other with our life stories, have spoken traumas into a our shared space knowing they will not be carried beyond the circle, and we have treasured and affirmed the small graces we have learned to look for in our own and each others’ lives.

“It is early stage dementia,” she said.

I felt her words like a 25-pound weight in my belly. “I’m so sorry,” I said. The silence that encompassed the circle of friends was not awkward but felt like hands holding her with love.

She eventually told us what had led her to seek an opinion, the tests that were part of the diagnosis, and what she wanted to do over the next weeks to be ready — as ready as one can be — for what was to come.

I have not been able to let go of the image of her on C’s back patio last Friday. Clear eyed, her voice strong, but a slight tremor of fear as she talked about paperwork and downsizing possessions. I am praying for her to find strength and hope in each day as she journeys on this path. And I am praying for me to be brave enough to seek testing also — whether it is for a baseline level of functioning or a full-blown diagnosis of that which I most deeply dread.

Dementia runs in both sides of my family tree. I am terrified of losing my cognitive ability and feel dread every time I struggle to find a name or when I get distracted and miss a meeting or date I’ve scheduled with someone. I have come to accept that I can no longer multi task and that everything I do seems to take more time than before. But the thought of not being able to plan, follow a thought, or remember myself or others brings a panicky fear that is hard to dismiss.

I am grateful that my friendship circle can offer care and comfort to each of us. Each of us have busy lives and limited time. But the investment of time and trust and love is worth it. I am reminded of that each time I risk to share my vulnerability in this group. At times like my friend’s diagnosis it is friends who know you most deeply who are likely not to run away but to offer their presence, a pot of soup, or sit with you while you cry.

I am fortunate to have three friendship circles formed over various years of my life. I’ve known one circle for forty years and each of us have lived and changed and grown through what seem like many different lifetimes. A second circle meets virtually now because we are scattered throughout the States — but our bond is treasured and our monthly check-ins are prioritized on our calendars.

As a young woman I did not prize friendships and when I would move from one place to another friendships often fizzled due to distance. I cherish friendships now and have renewed several from long ago through the “magic” of the internet and Zoom and Facetime. Knowing someone deeply, trusting each other, remembering things said, laughing together, remembering shared experiences and seeing them with different eyes are too precious in this world to forego.

We need each other — especially in this divisive time when some around us choose to magnify and demonize differences. I believe it is our nature as human beings to long for connection. Friendships have taught me to value connections and to set aside expectations of agreement in favor of being patient and curious about another’s life experience. And when I need help to ask for it and to offer it when a friend is in need.

What will our friend need as the future unfolds for us all? We cannot be certain. But we will journey with her and she with us. God willing and inshallah.

Windblown . . .

The wind last night, I am told, was sustained at 30 mph with gusts to over 50 mph. It seemed much stronger. It frightened me and I could not fall asleep until there were long pauses of calm. Then I would awaken again at the sound as the wind arose again like a locomotive bearing down on our small house.

The house is sturdy and it held firmly against the night’s fury — unlike a car in the wind. My sister and I sat in her car earlier during daylight, eating lunch together as we shared time and space . . . a luxury after the year of isolation with Covid restrictions and her immunocompromised status. But as we sat in the car we watched the sky become inky black and knew rain was to come. What surprised us, though, was the wind. It seemed to explode on us with a strength I had never seen. It blew the rain horizontal — I’ve seen that before — but blew so strongly that an older couple we saw crossing the parking lot in front of us could not take a step toward their car. Against the oncoming wind they could barely keep their footing except by grasping each other and leaning full weight into the blast.

The sound of such wind is what scares me. It is unearthly. Not quite a yell. Definitely not a moan. It is a steady fierce pushing energy that seems like it will never let up until it flattens whatever is in its way. As I listen to it in our bed in the darkeness, I am aware that I am holding my breath — or is the wind making it hard to breathe by literally stealing my breath away? The steady sound growls and grows. . .then changes to a slight whistle, then stillness until the next gust.

Wind is cleansing, blowing away the detritis of dead blossoms and winter’s dried, curled leaves covering the base of shrubs as protection from the cold. It is friend and housekeeper — but also an energy that will grow and blow and refuse to bend to the command to stop. When will it be still again?

I finally fall asleep. And when I awake to sun and light breeze, I breathe deeply of the earthy smell of spring . . . wondering why I fear a sound in the night . . .

Reflections on Corona’s Lessons

[This was written to a beloved friend after watching the National Cathedral Sunday service and the Episcopal Presiding Bishop’s sermon.]

“What struck me in the service were the words that I’ve sung a million times but that suddenly resonated:  “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come . .  .”   Yes! So many challenges in my life — and yours and all of us.  We have survived many challenges that seemed overwhelming.  But we survived and even grew and lived life well.  The words continue, “. . . it’s grace that has brought me safe this far and grace will lead me home.”  Grace — simple love and trust that there is a life force in this world and in all of us that is activated by love — love received, love given, love shared, love gifted not earned. 

The Bishop quoted Mahalia Jackson singing “If I can help somebody/as I travel along/with a word or a song/. . . then my living shall not be in vain.”  I remember my grandmother singing that.   

Somehow after hearing those passages I feel more in touch with what I truly believe instead of the fear and anxiety that has been so present.  I truly believe that there is the potential for love and goodness in this world and that even when T… and others who are similarly unconscious and malicious seem to cover all that is good, they cannot kill goodness and love. 

And perhaps this virus is something that (while horrible and a killer) will make us realize that the only way through this is to recognize our interconnection with each other and how if one of us is infected we are all in danger and to have a chance at life we have to think of others as well as ourselves and isolate until this virus cannot glom onto anyone else.

You probably think I’ve lost my mind (well, maybe I have?).  I’m not trying to preach to you — not my nature.  What I’m doing is thinking on paper — I can write my thoughts better than I can verbalize or think them.  

Please know that we send our love.  You are precious to us and we hope that soon we can forego this isolation and see you.  And your garden.  And my irises are growing — hoping for blooms!”

Mr. B’s Safe Spaces

It is starting to rain heavily outside. The day is dreary and grey as it has been around the Lehigh Valley for far too many days this year. My cat, Mr. B., has just started cowering in the corner of the living room near the door — his “safe spot”.

He is fearful when it rains. I think he senses a drop in barometric pressure when a storm comes through. Yes, I know that cats’ hearing is better than humans so you may think he hears thunder before we do. It doesn’t even have to be a thunderstorm for him to respond this way.

I know rain is coming when he jumps down from his favorite chair and blanket and begins to s-l-o-w-l-y slink low to the ground towards the wall near the door . . . or sometimes under the table. He looks around warily, moving in slow motion. I calmly and quietly call his name and slowly move to pet him. But this gentle, affectionate lap cat will not look my way and focuses instead on moving to the safe space near the door or under the breakfast table. I pick him up in hopes of sitting him on my lap and giving him a calming pet or massage, but he squirms and wiggles free of my arms and settles himself into his chosen safe spot.

We came to be Mr. B’s “staff” (cats don’t have owners) a year ago in January 2019. He had been abandoned in November 2018 when his owners moved away. He spent 2 1/2 months outdoors in the deep winter of the Poconos. One evening when it was freezing rain, friends of ours heard scratching at the door to their deck. They found Mr. B. caked with ice and snow. Scruffy and hungry and scared, he reluctantly stepped inside the door. Our friends knew they could not keep him (they have 5 cats already) and tried all evening and the next day to find his owners. They gradually learned the story of his owners who had lived a mile away and of neighbors who left food outside but could not provide shelter.

My husband, Bill, and I had always had cats, but had just had our last elderly cat die. Bill could not face having another pet and loving and losing again . . . but when we found that Mr. B. would have to go to a shelter with unknown consequences, he agreed we would take Mr. B in. And so we have Mr. B. . . and we are definitely his staff.

It took only days to “tame” him back to being an indoor cat. He has never tried to get outside and seems to call to any neighborhood cat that comes in the yard — never hissing or spitting but giving a quiet call that, if I were to put words to it, would say, “Hey come on in. Let’s play!”

Mr. B would spend hours on my lap if I let him. He knows when it is feeding time but never begs for people food. He waits and calls to us at the bottom of the stairs to our bedroom when it gets to be 9 pm — a sign he wants to cuddle while we read in bed.

But his fear of storms is hard to see. I suppose I should be grateful that he has identified safe spaces to contain his fear. After all, as the rain moves out, he quickly resumes his usual demeanor.

It makes me wonder where are my safe spaces? I am usually gutsy and not easily intimidated, but these days I am feeling more anxiety and fear than I think I have felt in my life. I’m sure some of it is personally generated from my own recent and ongoing health challenges, and those of my family. But I think more of it is from the changes in our surrounding culture and the changing relationships with fellow citizens. Three years of this administration and I feel like nothing is predictable, and much is being unraveled that in the past was honored as foundational. Even the physical world — ferocity of storms and drought — is changing. And it is happening at such an unnerving pace .

I wonder where are my safe spaces? I want to be intentional and aware of where and with what and with whom I can feel safe in times when I need to retreat from this chaotic world and reclaim my roots. Aha . . . it is time to get out my meditation cushion and my journal and put away the computer for now and enter my safe space. And I’ll take Mr. B. with me . . .

Have I been here before?

Have I been here before? The Advent scripture readings on Sundays are familiar. . . I know the cycle of preparation for the birth, the dressing down by John the Baptist, the scary predictions of the end times in the OT . . . I’ve been here before. Or have I?

I come to this 2019 Advent season carrying different burdens and celebrating different joys from the year past. Every year at this time I feel a mix of familiarity and newness. Always, wonder fills me with amazement at the ancient story of the shepherds and Jesus birth and the angels singing “Do not fear”. Do these angels know that in a few nights Joseph, new to parenthood, will have a nightmare that feels all too true and that he will awaken his wife and child and lead them into another country where they will settle in until the crisis in their home territory has passed. Do the angels know this?

Wonder fills me, too, as I look at my tree full of memories. Lit with warm LEDs, nearly every branch holds an angel or a star. There is the angel we brought back from a college visit to Boulder CO. There’s an angel with a violin that a family at my father’s second parish gave me as a child because I had just started lessons on the violin. There are capiz shell stars from my first husband’s ornament collection. There are Moravian star ornaments that Jessie and I made years go. Homespun angels, handmade paper angels, embroidered fabric angels, stars of rusty tin, stars of fancy gold-embossed glass, a Haitian angel with broad hips and colorful wings made from a recycled metal can.

Wonder. Surprised by angels of light in a dark sky, the shepherds’ wonder triggers in them both awe and fear. “What does this mean? What is this for? Why to us? What should we do?” Curiosity wins out over fear and the shepherds go to look for a child in the middle of that strange night. Down the road in a quiet, private space used for sheltering animals, they find a young family and a newborn baby suckling his mother’s breast. I wonder what sense did they make of the angels’ message then? And what about me? What sense have I made of this? Haven’t I been here before?

Yes . . . and no. Yes, I have followed the path of Advent to Christmas Eve many times before. Yes, I have heard (and read) the birth story countless times and imagined myself at the baby’s birth. But the story of the shepherds and angels and baby and his life on earth continues with challenges and dangers that the young parents could not have imagined. We who have traveled their story know very well what is to come in their lives . . . . but not in our own. Although I may know their story, I have no idea of my own to come in 2020.

So yes I’ve been here before. And yet no I haven’t been here before. I am about to step over a threshold into a new year that holds as yet unknown joys and challenges. And I am filled with wonder . . . both awe and a bit of fear.

I am listening for angels who will sing “Fear not” to me. I bid them to come close and sing loudly so I cannot miss the message. “Fear not, Jane. You are loved. You are not alone this year or any year. The one who is born in Bethlehem is with you always.”

Thanks be to God!

P.S. Oh, and angels . . . please sing your “Fear not” message with a catchy tune so (like an earworm) I can never forget it :^)