Tag: perseverance

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Taking Her Best Shot

In the life of my beloved Heather Rochat, nothing medical is ever simple.

She’s the one juggling such wonderful conditions as multiple sclerosis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn’s disease and a couple of others that would drive spell check absolutely insane.

She’s the one with the list of allergies and sensitivities that looks more like the Terms and Conditions for a software purchase.

If this were a comic book, she’d be all set for her superhero origin story. In this world, she’s mostly set for a lot of doctor’s appointments and unexpected Urgent Care trips.

So I don’t know why I was surprised when even her vaccination turned into high drama.

Like most Americans, we’ve been mentally singing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” since an early stage in the pandemic. Heather has been especially eager –  her immune system has more compromises than a last-minute budget deal, so the sooner that all of Chez Rochat got inoculated, the better.

Finally, the calls and emails started to arrive. One by one, each of us got the first poke. Heather’s appointment came last, on a fine Saturday morning that seemed to project blue skies ahead.

Jab. Wait. Return. Simple, right?

One more time. When we’re talking about Heather, nothing medical is ever simple.

“I don’t feel too good,” she said after pulling up in the driveway.

Alarm bell. Yup. Heather had a lovely rash across her shoulders and along her neck. And a little confusion into the bargain.

Allergic reaction. Again.

Aargh.

At moments like this, it’s easy to feel stuck. We’ve all had a taste of that, right? The light at the end of the tunnel that turns out to be an oncoming semi. The “few more weeks” that keeps stretching on and on. The crisis that keeps popping up its head like a Whac-a-Mole game.

When it’s all dragged on so long, it’s oh-so-tempting to give up. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem to matter if the news is good or bad. Some folks throw off precautions too soon, believing the worst is clearly over. Some simply quit out of fatigue and despair.

But it’s still about all of us. And we’re still in the fight.

And when you stay the course, hope has a chance to pay off.

In Heather’s case, she won on the long odds.

We talked to an allergist a couple of days later. Yes, he said, it had been an allergic response. But based on 4,000 similar cases he’d seen, it wasn’t severe enough to prevent dose no. 2 from going ahead. Just keep the appointment and stay a full hour afterward in case of trouble.

But that was it. No having to seek out Johnson & Johnson single-shot clinics. No need to encase Heather in a protective bubble for the rest of her days. Just a brief setback that didn’t have to be permanent or severe.

For now, we could exhale.

For today, we’d won after all.

Sure, we’re still crossing our fingers a little bit. The unexpected could still happen on the second poke. But that’s the way of it for all of us, right? The unexpected can always arrive. All you can do is do the right thing, give yourself the best odds possible, and then pray that you’re ready for whatever happens next.

I think we are. As a family. As a nation. So long as we hold together.

We know what we need to do. We just need to keep doing it until we’re in the clear.

And in a complicated world, maybe that’s pretty simple after all.

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Space to Dream

In the midst of a cold and frozen week, a text from Heather sent me out of this world: “perseverance touched down on Mars ok.”

Over the next several minutes, I couldn’t have missed it if I wanted to. Images. News stories. Cartoons. And of course, posts up and down social media, all celebrating the same thing: The Perseverance rover had made a perfect landing on Mars and was already sharing its surroundings with one and all.

A big geeky smile spread across my face. For a moment, the impossibilities of the world didn’t seem to matter.

For just a moment, we were on higher ground.

My friends know that I’ve been a space geek for a long time. In grade school, I devoured books about the solar system and spacecraft, and then watched the moon eagerly with Dad through a Christmas-gift telescope. As I grew up, my heart was broken by Challenger, amazed by comet Hale-Bopp, and utterly overwhelmed by the images from Hubble. Even now, the Great Beyond has never lost its magic and wonder for me, from midday eclipses to fiery black holes.

And every now and then, I’m brought up short when someone says “So what?”

Mind you, it’s a seductive thing to say. After all, here we are, fenced in our homes, waiting for a vaccine to set us free – maybe. Here we are, in the depths of a bitter winter, watching much of Texas go dark in the world. It’s easy to be pulled “down to Earth,” easy to say “Don’t we have more important things to worry about?”

And yet.

For me, there’s always an “And yet.” It goes beyond the obvious, like the spin-off technologies from the space program that make life better on Earth. (Like say, those weather satellites that enable us to prepare for freezes like this.) It even goes beyond the notion that space and Earth are not an either-or, that attending to one does not automatically mean neglecting the other.

For me, it goes down to something deeper. More aspirational.

Moments like this prove that we’re capable of better.

They show that we can look beyond ourselves and our immediate needs to something grander.

They show that our perspective doesn’t have to be limited to our own doorstep.

They show that we can still ignite imagination, reach out with learning, and achieve wonders that once would have seemed impossible.

Most of all, moments like this show that we can hope. That we can dream. That we don’t have to be locked into a perpetual cycle of despair.

Looked at from that angle, the question isn’t “If we can land a vehicle on Mars, why can’t we keep Texas warm?” It instead becomes “If we can land a vehicle on Mars, what else could we possibly do?”

There are real and serious needs here on Earth. Despair won’t beat any of them. But if we face them with diligence, wonder, creativity and hope, we just may find a way forward.

We’re in a time now where even much of our science fiction – a language of dreams – is tied down in dystopic visions of grim survival. If we look out rather than burrow in, if we dare to give our dreams a chance, who knows what we might prove capable of?

Let’s set our hopes high. As high as the stars. And then labor to make them real.

After all, we’ve seen how that can put a world of possibilities in reach.

All it takes is a little Perseverance.

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Moment of Truth

Every actor can tell you about the nightmares.

I don’t mean the ones that confine themselves to the world of sleep, like showing up for an audition and discovering it’s opening night, or picking up a script and discovering that all the words have turned into Esperanto.  Dreams like that are part of any high-stress situation – after all, how many of us have had the Final Exam Dream™ years after graduation?

No, these are the nightmares that turn into reality. A set that falls on you from behind. A prop that disintegrates in your hand. A costume that goes missing mid-way through the show. The best ones turn into “war stories” years later, proof that the show must go on. But there’s always the fear of the worst. The one that breaks you.

Long ago, the worst happened to Sir Ian Holm.

That’s when the freeze hit.

It sounds unthinkable now. To be honest, it sounded unthinkable then. When Sir Ian – who passed away Friday at the age of 88– took the stage in 1976 for “The Iceman Cometh,” he was already a respected actor, even a Tony winner. But all at once, the gears locked midway through the show… and one of the worst cases of stage fright on record set in.

“Here I am, supposed to be talking to you … there are you, expecting me to talk,” he remembered telling the audience in his memoirs. He fumbled his way past the actors, off stage, and all the way to the dressing room, where he was found curled in a fetal position unable to return.

That could have been the end.

Actors go to a strange place – an intersection where illusion meets reality, where the personal ties to the universal. It’s a beautiful bridge, but it can be a fragile one. And when it breaks, there’s suddenly nowhere to go but down.

Most of us know the feeling, I think. Even if we’ve never set foot on a stage.

And that’s because most of us have been at a moment where life completely fell apart.

The loved one that was lost.

The perfect health that suddenly wasn’t.

The job that went away.

The world that changed into something unrecognizable.

It may have come without warning or with a “check engine” light that went ignored for years. Either way, it’s devastating, and not just because of the crisis itself. As I’ve said before, we like to believe that we’re in control of life – that we can make plans, anticipate problems, set ourselves up for a good present and a better future.

When we’re reminded of how little control we really have, it hits hard. It’s terrifying.

And the scariest part is facing the question “What next?”

Are we just the circumstances that came before us, breaking when they’re shattered, melting when they’re dissolved? Or is there something more that can emerge and grow?

I’ve had to take that look at myself. Maybe you have, too. It’s not comfortable. But in that place of truth, when we stand stripped of what came before, possibility can be born.

It doesn’t have to be the end. Just an end. And therefore, a beginning as well.

Sir Ian certainly found it so.

It was years before he ever stepped on a stage again. But he rebuilt his bridge on the screen. From “Chariots of Fire” to “The Fifth Element,” from “Alien” to “The Lord of the Rings,” he won over entire generations who had never known him through anything but the movies. And whether he was a determined track coach or the legendary Bilbo Baggins, the truth of who he was and what he had to say shone through.

The freeze didn’t have to be fatal. For him. Or for us.

That’s a dream worth holding on to.