Eulogy for a Friend

 

We said goodbye to a friend today via a Livestream of his funeral. (That is one positive thing that this pandemic has given us - the ability to "be there" when we can't be there.) He died unexpectedly, in his sleep, leaving a daughter, a son, and three grandchildren to figure out how to live without him.

We had known Jason for over 30 years; he worked with Rick for a while and then after he changed jobs, he would stay with us when he was in town - both in Baltimore and here in Atlanta. Our visits were filled with good food, good wine, and gut-busting laughter. There is not one memory I have of our time together that doesn't make me smile. Things like him telling me "a lesser driver would have missed that one" when I ran over a pothole on the highway. Things like watching South Park and laughing so loudly that Rick had to remind us, more than once, that our very young kids were asleep. I will never again hear the phrase "Katie, bar the door!" without thinking of him with a chuckle. There were so many great conversations about every possible subject and it seemed like we would never run out of things to say.

But time happens, doesn't it? His territory changed with a new job, and there was no reason for him to travel to the Southeast anymore. Rick would sometimes run into him at trade shows and they would always call me so I could say hello. Jason was never a social media guy - no Facebook or Instagram - so communication trickled down to emails on birthdays, or congratulations on career news shared on LinkedIn. He did email me to tell me he was going to be a grandfather - something he was very excited about.

Jason was a man who loved deeply, without holding anything back. He loved his children so fiercely that he fought the Texas Family Court system - a bureaucracy that seemed to believe that children are always better off with their mother, regardless of circumstances - to win custody of his son and then his daughter as well. I imagine that when death came, had he had the option, he would have fought against it in order to stay with his children, for whom he had fought so fiercely when they were young. And his grandchildren. But for whatever reason, it was Jason's time to go. I hope that it was peaceful and that if there is a heaven, he is there.

Reading the guest book entries on the funeral home website and hearing the stories from the people who spoke at his funeral, I am happy to know that Jason seems to have been loved by everyone who knew him. He was warm, funny, quick with a hug, easy to talk to, and ever so kind. He will be missed by so many people whose lives were made better by their time with him.

If you get nothing else from this post, please take the time to reach out to the people who matter. Trust me, you will regret not having jumped at the chance for one more conversation while you could. I certainly do.

RIP, Jason. I will miss you, my friend. 

"I've been one poor correspondent

And I've been too, too hard to find.

But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind."

"Sister Golden Hair" - Gerry Beckley, songwriter

Loss in the 2020s

I lost an old friend today. No, she didn’t die. But she’s definitely gone and I’m really sad about it. We had been friends for about 30 years.

 

I lost her in that quintessential 2020’s way—she unfriended me on Facebook.

 

I’ll take some of the blame— I posted something last night after watching the only three minutes of Trump’s speech that I could stomach and knew that would be the end of our friendship. Full disclosure: I used the word “vermin.” And I added an #unfriendmeifyouwant hashtag. And she took me up on it.

 

I have strong political beliefs that have gotten stronger during the past four years. I make no secret of my dislike of the current administration. My grown children and my husband also have strong political beliefs (fortunately for our family we are on the same side of the spectrum). My daughters might choose different words than I would, but I unequivocally support their sentiments and am incredibly proud of the outspoken, caring women they have become.

 

My friend made a dismissive, nasty remark about “culling the herd” and “we’ll just look at each other’s pretty pictures on Instagram.” I knew she was talking about my daughter (her Goddaughter, who happens to be an excellent professional photographer), and I confirmed that she had indeed unfriended Hannah. And sure—go ahead and unfriend someone if you can’t stand their posts or politics. That’s your right. I’ve done it. Rarely, but I’ve done it.

 

But why be so blatantly mean when she had to have known I would see the post? I guess thirty years of close friendship doesn’t mean much. Or maybe it wasn’t that close after all. Maybe the last four years created a bigger divide than I thought.

 

But why? Just because we disagree? I didn’t attack her. I didn’t attack her politics. I’ve never attacked her or her politics. We’ve had many opportunities to disagree about the current administration and we’ve always been respectful of each other’s opinions—or I thought we had.

 

In the end, her being crappy to/about my kid in a forum she knew I’d see told me pretty much all I need to know about how much she cares about me or our past.

 

But it’s a past that was important to me. Shared inside jokes. Long, important conversations. Crying together at the end of movies. Supporting one another through difficult times. Laughing until we cried. I wish that had mattered to her.

 

I goaded her; I know. But the problem is so much deeper than snarky hashtags. And it’s a problem that so many of us are dealing with right now. We have no capacity to have discourse on things about which we disagree. I’m as guilty as the next person as far as that is concerned. I know what I believe but am mostly incapable of explaining why I believe it. And as much as I can’t understand how people can believe a thing, they can’t understand how I don’t believe that same thing. And around and around we go.

I know some of my tens of readers (lol) are going through the same thing. I have no solution, of course. I just needed to write it out because that’s how I process.

 

I do know that it’s a hard world out there right now.

 

Be nice. Be patient. Maybe don’t use the word “vermin” to describe the political side you disagree with.

 

And post lots and lots of pictures of puppies and kittens. Those are generally pretty safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unconscious Bias

Man. Just what we need, right? I mean, we already have this stupid virus cramping our style – and now we have to deal with riots and looting? Why can't people understand that violence and destruction won't change anything?

Real talk. It has been too easy for me to ask questions like this. I’m not saying that the question isn’t valid, but it’s not the right question for me - a white, privileged, employed, healthy, woman who lives in a safe neighborhood, has health insurance, and can walk in the park without being accused of threatening another person because of the color of my skin – to ask.

As I watched the events unfold in Atlanta on Friday, my emotions, like so many other people’s, went from pride to dismay as the sun dropped below the horizon. Early Facebook posts, Instagram posts, and news stories all celebrated the peaceful rally. “This is how Atlanta does it,” they said. “We have a history of peaceful protest,” they said. We were all so proud.

Then things changed. There are all sorts of theories about why: police who were too aggressive, rioters who were only intent on destruction, outside extremists working to further destabilize our country. I have no idea what happened. But I watched the destruction unfold through my white eyes and asked the question, “why can’t people understand that the violence and destruction won’t change anything?”

That evening, my daughter, Hannah, sent me a blog post titled Why Do They Riot? Rioting and the Overflow of Racial Trauma. I don’t know anything more about the author, Kyle J. Howard, than what is on his website, but his post hit me right in the center of my white privilege and white guilt.

“Generally speaking, white people tend to care more about the rioting itself than the overflow of trauma/pain that leads to such destruction… When black people have rioted, historically speaking, it has always been due to the overflow of trauma & the reactionary rage that occurs when a community has been squeezed too hard for too long.”

Howard goes on to say that “White America does not listen to the laments of Black people unless it’s forced to,” and that “power is rarely ever willfully relinquished.”

I was brought up in a household that was actively, vehemently, anti-racism. If I'm honest, I've always been kind of proud of myself in that regard. And yet…I know I am plagued with unconscious bias. Friday night, as I read Howard’s post, some of my biases were brought to the forefront – unconscious no more and insisting that I own them and face them head-on. 

Let’s take a look back. “We were all so proud.”

What was I proud of, really? What did I even have a right to be proud of? Should the sentence have read, “We were all so proud of how peaceful our black people can be?” Ouch. Maybe. Maybe at least a teeny, teeny bit. And only for a nanosecond. But crap, even that is shameful. Unconscious bias brought to the forefront.

"Why can't people understand that violence and destruction won't change anything?"

Easy question for me to ask because I've never been suppressed, pulled out of a car and tazed for no reason, or followed in a store to make sure I’m not going to steal anything because of the color of my skin or the hoodie I’m wearing.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "…a riot is the language of the unheard." Well, I've never been unheard. I haven't lived in a pressure cooker my entire life—I have nothing to boil over. I don’t have any “overflow of pain/trauma” that would cause me to explode.

The question I should have asked is, "What can I do to help keep this from happening again." Or maybe, "Why didn't I do it sooner?" 

I need to shut up and listen. I need to support and learn. I need to act.

I still have a lot of work to do. I didn't know it, but I do. Honestly, I am ashamed of myself. I have many black and brown friends who I love dearly. I'm asking them to call me out when my unconscious bias is showing. Tell me how I can help and tell me when I am not helping. Be my cultural informant.

I realize that this post is all about me. But maybe some reader will recognize themselves in my struggle and start the hard process of admitting weakness and working to change.

American Pickers/Fun with Mom

We moved Mom into a new Assisted Living community last August. We liked the old one, but the company that owns it decided to change the way they determine the cost for care, and Mom's fees more than doubled*, so we had to find somewhere new. I used a service that helps families find facilities, visited several around town, took Mom to visit two, and she chose where she wanted to move.

The process was easier this time because she was a willing participant (until the day of the move when she had second thoughts, but we got through that). Unfortunately, the new place was at the end of a renovation process, and the elevator was to be out of service for a few weeks. Instead of moving directly into her 3^rd floor 2-room apartment with a balcony, she ended up in a 1-room efficiency for 3 weeks.

Her biggest complaint was that she could only watch one channel on the television (The History Channel). This was my fault – I didn’t want to have to mess with Comcast more than once, so I figured I’d get it hooked up once she moved into her real apartment. When we plugged the cable that was in the wall into her old cable box, THC was magically on her television but, without a proper remote (that she wouldn’t know how to use anyway), she had no way to change the channel. So, for three weeks, I heard daily complaints that all she could watch was The History Channel, and why did I think she wanted to watch American Pickers and shows about alien landings all of the time.

We finally got her moved upstairs, and basic cable installed. But guess what? The basic package from Comcast does NOT include The History Channel. Then all I heard was daily complaints that she couldn't watch American Pickers, and that was the only show worth watching in all of tv-dom. We upgraded her, and now she has access to pretty much whatever she wants to watch, which consists solely of American Pickers, Ancient Aliens, and a Soundscapes music channel that plays wallpaper for your mind music and shows pretty pictures.

Now—if only she could figure out the remote.

*Interestingly, Mom has far less care at the new place and is much healthier than she was at the old one. She’s more independent, happier, physically stronger, and less likely to fight with her caregivers. I know that with dementia things tend to slide along on a plane until a decline happens—and when it does, it’s usually not a steady drop but a precipitous one. For now, I’m going to enjoy this time of relative calm.

Finding Joy

Today is Mother’s Day – my 27th Mother’s Day if I’m counting. I am at the beach with my sweet husband and my wonderful girls, so today should be a good one, right?

We drove down yesterday. Sara and Rick were in one car. Hannah, Spike (beloved diabetic cat), Bella (beloved dog with heart issues) and me in the other. Bella was very excited to be going with us. She is always sad when we leave her, and when she saw me putting her doggie car seat in the car, she jumped in and wouldn’t get out. She stayed in there a good hour before we left.

By the time we got to the beach house, Bella was obviously not breathing well. About twenty minutes after we got here, my sweet puppy died.

And now, today, my mom fell out of her bed and is being taken to the ER for x-rays. It would be a drag for Mother’s Day anyway, but with me being seven hours away, it’s worse. She’s probably okay – she really didn’t want to go to the hospital, but agreed to go, “just in case.” My brother, who lives in Knoxville, will be down there if there are any major issues, and my amazing neighbor is going to go over to St. Joe’s to check on Mom. But still…

So, I have lots of reasons to be sad and anxious today, which makes it the perfect day to find reasons to be joyful.

I’m not saying I shouldn’t feel the feelings. Every hour or so I’m washed over with sadness about Bella, and that’s a good thing. Feeling sad means I loved her, and I want to honor that. And it’s okay to be anxious about my mother. But I can’t let these feelings overwhelm me to the point that I can’t find joy.

So, here’s a list of things that I’m joyful about:

That I’m in a beautiful place with my family
That the sun is shining
That Anthony will be here in a couple of days, completing the family unit
That we all get along so well
That there are love bugs all over the deck…well – making love, apparently
That Spike is asleep on the ottoman
That I have a job that I absolutely love
That I have really wonderful friends
That I got to eat a croissant today
That I have a church that feeds my soul
Dishwashers
Photographs
Books

There are more. But this is a good start.

RIP sweet girl

The Right Next Thing

This morning I attended a meeting of The Order of the Daughters of the King. There’s a lot to say about The Daughters that I’m not going to say here, but for now, I’ll tell you that we are dedicated to prayer and service, and we meet once a month, September – May. 

The guest speaker today was from the Atlanta Mission (https://atlantamission.org/). There’s a WHOLE lot more to say about the Atlanta Mission, and I highly recommend you check out their website and help where you can, but that’s not really the point of my story today.

Before our guest speaker, Michelle, was introduced, Sue Burtenshaw, the wife of the late Fr. Noel Burtenshaw, spoke for a few minutes. Fr. Burtenshaw, who passed away a couple of months ago, was a beloved priest at St. Martins. Sue had come to thank The Daughters for the amazing reception that the ladies of our Order arranged for Fr. Noel’s funeral, and she also gifted us with some “Noelisms” that she had captured over the years.

Here’s the “Noelism” that caught my complete attention this morning:

Choose the right next thing.

Our group and the Endowment Fund from St. Martins donated all sorts of home goods to the Atlanta Mission to help women who are moving from their shelter program into their own apartments. There was more than Michelle could take in her car, so I offered to load whatever I could into my SUV and take it to the Atlanta Mission offices after the meeting.

When I got to the offices, Michelle wasn’t there yet, but there was a woman sitting on a bench in the shade. She wanted to know if they were open today, and I told her I had no idea but asked her if she wanted to sit in my air-conditioned car while we waited for Michelle. She declined because she was charging her phone and waiting for a call from her son.

When Michelle got there, we unloaded all of the stuff with the help of this lovely, soft-spoken lady, Leah, who was waiting for her son’s call. Leah has two children. Her 12-year-old daughter, who has some mental health issues, lives with Leah's mother. Her 8-year-old son lives with his father in Atlanta. Leah needed help.

The Mission offices are not open on the weekends. Michelle and I had discussed taking all of the donations to her house so she could take them to the office on Monday, but in the end, we decided to go ahead and take them to the office today. Had we not, I don’t know where Leah would have gone.

When we left, Michelle took Leah to the Mission’s emergency shelter so that she could get the services she needed.

As I was leaving, I gave Leah my best wishes and told her she and her children would be in my prayers. She told us that things were hard. And she told us how startlingly easy it was for a family to fall apart. I told her that she had taken a step today towards asking for help and getting the help that she needed.

Let me be clear. The only thing I did for Leah was that I treated her with respect and caring—something I try to do for anyone I meet. But what was really remarkable was what Leah did for herself and her family. It takes a lot of courage to ask for help. It will take more courage to accept help and to develop enough self-awareness and self-love to make lasting changes.

But the only way to start is to CHOOSE THE RIGHT NEXT THING.

I’m like every other human on earth. I screw up all the time. I make terrible choices. I deliberately avoid what is good because it’s hard.

It doesn’t help to beat ourselves up about our past. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t learn. That’s not to say that we don’t need to make amends and ask for forgiveness.

But the only thing we can control is what we do next.

So, take power in your ability to CHOOSE THE RIGHT NEXT THING. And then choose the next right next thing.

The Writing Life

There  is a quote from Henry James’ book, The Art of Fiction, that says to be a good writer, one needs to “try to be one on whom nothing is lost.”  I try. I really do try. It’s a struggle for me because I’m always somewhere else. I’m either listening to the song in my head, trying to figure out how to solve whatever challenge has presented itself or daydreaming about what I’d do if I won the lottery.

In an effort to make the documenting of all of the things that haven’t been lost on me easier, I’ve taken to carrying around blank index cards a la Anne Lamott. Unfortunately, I still have just as many blank cards in my various bags as I had when I placed them there. The one tool that I do use, however intermittently, is the notes function on my phone.

I recently perused these notes, to see what it was that I thought needed to be documented. I share them with you now, and you can decide for yourself if anything has been lost.

The first few notes are a shopping list for the ingredients for Pancho Villa Stew; a line of text that reads “Lg itns16122v 15.7 cubic feet,” which must be something other than the measurement of a human large intestine, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what, exactly; the pin to unfreeze my credit reports; and the name of a movie, Leningrad Cowboys go America.

Based on the dates, these notes were taken prior to my determination to not lose anything. The next one, though, is a real gem: Crab piles of beige and hold sand flecked with sparkling bits of broke. Shells. Dog pees. Insult to injury, die one she killed last night. This is prize-winning stuff here.

Next are more shopping lists, a quote from Jack London, a shopping list, and then the details of a dream, written as a list: Dream. Final Exam. Hospital. Not dying. Go to bathroom. Come back person waiting for me. Crack head on floor. Find me under bed. Exam over – crying. Back to Dolly’s house. Keep dog cause she’s being a pain.  At least I didn’t die, I guess, and I got to go to my grandmother Dolly's house, which makes it the best dream ever.

More shopping lists follow (I shop a lot I guess), and then the inexplicable, “While you were sleeping. My crazy Uncle Irwin who fell asleep in the Mac and Cheese.” While You Were Sleeping is one of my favorite movies, but I don’t have an Uncle Irwin, that I know of. And certainly not one who fell asleep in the Mac and Cheese (although I do know someone who did).

Another list: fun, charcoal, beer, being corn. Seriously? I get the charcoal and beer, and maybe I could purchase fun somewhere, but being corn? Something was definitely lost here.

The most recent note actually makes sense to me, maybe because I wrote it just recently about an elderly woman at the rehab center where my mother was recovering from a fractured pelvis. She was tooling around in her wheelchair and rooting through the uneaten trays from the kitchen looking for dessert. She found a piece of cake, and my mother and I watched her enjoy it. She was clearly in heaven. I just hope she isn't diabetic.