Tag: sharing

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A Gentle Light

When I told a friend Roger Whittaker had died, her reaction was not entirely unexpected.

“Who?”

The smooth-voiced baritone occupied one of those interesting musical niches. Depending on where and when you grew up, he was either full-screen or off the radar entirely. He had a fan base of millions that followed him in concert and on TV, but no real celebrity profile. His signature song, “The Last Farewell,” sat virtually unnoticed for four years before abruptly going viral; another piece, “I Am But a Small Voice,” was briefly unavoidable if you were within earshot of a children’s choir.

In short, he had fame without being Famous.

And really, that’s not a bad place to be.

We don’t glamorize that sort of thing, almost by definition. The big dream, after all, is supposed to be what the Muppets once called “The Standard Rich and Famous Contract.” Celebrity with a Capital C, the sort of thing that comes with mansions, awards, screaming fans, gossip writers, obsessed stalkers, nuisance lawsuits, no hint of privacy …

Er, remind me why we want this again?

It’s not wrong, of course. Not entirely. When you look at it closely, the “rich and famous” dream is just an exaggeration of two things we all want very much.

First, we want freedom from worry. The ability to handle crises, needs, even some fun, without it being a stress or a strain.

Second, we want someone to remember us. To think about us kindly. Maybe even to know that something we did had an impact on someone else.

That first part, the freedom from worry, is pretty elusive, to be fair. We’ve all got different lives and situations and they can change with amazing speed. If the pandemic taught us nothing else, it showed us how something as fundamental as health is not a given and how thoroughly its absence can transform a once “normal” life.

But the second part – memory. That’s a little more achievable.

I don’t mean that we’ll all have continents light up at the mention of our name. For some of my more introverted friends, that might even be a nightmare more than a dream. But we all have something we can share, some way to touch a life beyond our own.

For some, it’s music or storytelling. For some, it might be the ability to build or repair or restore. It might even be a simple gift of time, lifting up a neighbor or a stranger, showing them they’re not alone and that someone else cares.

That doesn’t require a limo or a record deal (although I suppose it never hurts). Just the willingness to see beyond your own skin and reach out.

Our lives touch each other all the time, like marbles packed in a jar. We can’t help it.  But what we can do is make that touch matter.

Maybe we won’t set the world ablaze. But frankly, there’s enough burning as it is. If enough of us add a soft light, just where we are, maybe that’s enough.

After all, enough small lights can make a world shine. And the ones who see your light won’t forget it.

So here’s to the Rogers, big and small. Here’s to the ones you labored for, the ones who’ll remember your presence and be better for it.

And when you reach your “Last Farewell,” may the chords you struck linger on.

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We Interrupt This Column …

Today’s column was almost called on account of “Yeah!” 

The shouts of triumph – yes, plural – came from Missy. The source? A book full of Star Wars illustrations, every single one of which required her to wave me over so I could share the latest discovery. 

“Look!” 

A tough-looking Wookiee. Han Solo with a blaster. An alien with a baby face. (“Baby!”) Every few seconds brought a new image, a new cheer, a new requirement to get away from that keyboard and come SEE. 

“Yeah!!” 

If you know Missy, this won’t surprise you. Her physical and developmental disabilities can make many things challenging for her, but enthusiasm has never been one of them. When she’s in the mood, just about anything can get her supercharged: a classic car, a cool-looking pair of shoes, even an opportunity to wash the dishes.

“Yeah!!!” 

Now, this could be a column about how great that kind of joy over simple things is. It’s a good thing to remember and I’ve written that piece before. But this time, I want to flip the direction. 

You see, those moments don’t follow a schedule. Not one that fits neatly on a calendar alongside “take notes for half thought-out column” and other such things. It means interruptions. Backtracking. Maybe even frustration as you try to recover a lost bit of focus. 

But that doesn’t matter. 

When you’re a parent – or at least in the position of one – and you get summoned into the latest enthusiasm … you share it. Right then. Right there. Period.

To them, this is the most important thing in the world right now. And being invited to join that is a privilege.

OK, yes, obviously there are limits. Sometimes it’s good to learn to wait. Some dangerous enthusiasms need to be headed off. And yes, sometimes you legitimately can’t interrupt a task . (“I have to keep my eyes on the road right now, sweetie, but I’ll look when we get to this stop sign, ok?”) But by and large, the rule holds.

Don’t squash the joy. Don’t diminish the moment. Never teach the person you love that something else is more important than they are. 

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad rule of thumb in general. 

Missy’s in a quieter mode now, perusing a magazine as she watches the world through the bay window. But the next moment will come. And when it does, we’ll be there. 

After all, it’s a moment to share love. 

And that’s always something to shout about. 

“Yeah!!!!” 

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Down to Human

A halfpipe skier had fallen on the Olympic course. And Missy made sure we knew all about it.

“No!” she shouted at the TV screen as the action shifted to other skiers competing and celebrating.

“Right here!” she informed me and Heather firmly, rubbing her shoulder hard to be absolutely clear about where the impact happened.

“Missy, we get it. But she’s OK now, she got up …”

“NO!!!”

Injuries and stress make a big impression on Missy, the developmentally disabled relative that we’ve been caring for since (has it really been?) 2011. When people cry, she gets upset. When people fall, she remembers. Heck, when fictional characters get hurt, she takes it seriously – a mention of Frodo Baggins getting his finger bitten by Gollum had Missy pointing at and checking out my ring finger for weeks afterward.

It’s a reaction without filters. Raw and undeniable.

And there’s a lot of opportunity for that when Olympic season comes.

Most of us don’t think of that much, outside the moment. After all, the Olympics celebrate the best, right? These are the ones who move faster, go farther and reach higher. It’s about triumph and success, passion and achievement.

Until, abruptly, it isn’t.

We’ve seen it for years. No, for decades, in summer and winter alike. The speed skater with too much on his heart who tumbles to the ice. The ski racer who sprains both knees at a crucial moment. The young athletes – some still young teens – who find themselves at a storm center and no longer have what brought them there.

Even leaving injuries and accidents aside, there are only so many medals. Someone has to fall short. Sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot, always with the world watching.

And in those moments, something reaches out to us. Maybe in a way that no other Olympic moment can.

I’m no Olympian. You probably aren’t either. Most of us, however skilled and accomplished we may be, don’t have the sort of talent that tears up ice rinks and grassy fields on a global scale. It’s been joked online that every Olympic event should have an ordinary person competing as well, to bring home just how good these teens and men and women really are.

But in the moments where everything falls short, where the awesome becomes merely human … we know that one. We’ve been there. We can feel it.

Missy’s right. It hurts.

And when our hearts break with it, we reaffirm our humanity.

Most of the time, in most of our lives, it’s easy to not see the pain. To assume that normal is … well, normal. We’re doing OK, so things must not be too bad, right?

When we see the vulnerable, the hurting, the chronically ill, it’s often uncomfortable. It’s a reminder of how quickly life can change without our permission. How easily we could be there.

And if we let that open us up instead of close us off, it means something better for all of us.

I’m not saying each of us has to jump to every alarm and bandage every wound. That way lies exhaustion. But we can’t shut it out either. When we make our decisions – as individuals or as a society – with an eye to those who need us and a determination to share the pain of others, something happens.

We start seeing people. Not strangers. Not others.

And in reaching for them, we reach to ourselves as well.

Don’t turn away from the falls. Let your heart be broken. See the hurt and respond to it.

That’s the real medal moment.

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In the Still of the Light

Heather’s had a lot of brilliant ideas in our marriage. This one happened to be literal.

Which is why, after 22+ years of talking about it, we’ve finally put up window lights.

Sure, Christmas was two and a half months ago. So what? These happen to be springtime lights, in pastel-pink and green. After all, March and April still have their share of cold dark nights in Colorado, and a string of lights shines just as brightly against near-certain springtime snow as it does against a semi-mythical “White Christmas.”

Besides, it’s not like we don’t have company. Drive around Longmont for half an hour or so, and you’ll still find enough dazzling domiciles to make a pretty good light run. Maybe not the outright Walt Disney Apocalypse extravaganzas (“Mad Max 13: It’s A Small World After All”), but at this time of year, even the simplest display stands out.

But it’s not about showing off. Not really. Speaking for ourselves – and possibly for many others – these winter-ish lights are born of a very spring-like impulse.

Impatience.

It’s not the sort of thing that goes on a greeting card. But it’s true nonetheless.

Why else would we rob ourselves of an hour of sleep for eight months every year?

If you’re a longtime reader of this column, you know I’m not a daylight saving fan. Part of it is because I genuinely love the nighttime – early sunlight gets me going when I need to, but a delayed sunset steals something special. Part of it is because, like many people these days, I see the time-jumping as outright ridiculous and would just as soon “lock the clock.”

It’s been argued on grounds of ecology, economy, Founding Father wisdom and more, and none of it holds up. (Ben Franklin’s famous piece on it, for the record, was a satire.) It’s not even all that necessary – left to itself, light extends into the evening as spring and summer roll on, anyway, without disrupting the suppertime of confused pets.

But a lot of us get impatient. We want the light now. Even if it means wearing ourselves out a little to get it.

I think that’s a sentiment that a lot of us can empathize with now, as we complete our first pandemic year.

We’ve been walking in the dark for a lot longer than four months. We’ve had stress and strain on every side as we try to last just a little longer, to adapt and constrain our lives until we’re sure we’re in the clear.

It’s hard. Absolutely. And every so often, there’s a temptation to jump the gun and declare “We’re ready NOW.” We know better – we’ve seen the results – but it still happens.

But it’s also a time when we share light.

In a hundred different ways, a thousand, we’ve pushed back against the darkness. From the smallest acts of consideration to the greatest acts of generosity, so many of us have kindled a light for others to see.

To the choir teacher who finds ways to share a collective joy of music online rather than let voices go silent … we see you.

To the neighbor making a necessary trip for someone who can’t safely do it themselves … we see you.

To everyone who’s been holding a family together in a time of stress beyond belief … we see you.

To you and many more besides … you are the ones who inspire joy. Who light hope. Spirits like yours are what will help us reach the other side, and will make it a place worth reaching.

We’re all impatient for the light. Let’s find the best ways to share it, the ones that make a brighter world for all of us.

And if it’s lit in pastel colors – so much the better.  

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Watching the Mirror

As the song goes, just one look was all it took.

Mind you, February has always been a magical time for Missy. Not, I might add, because of the weather. Our developmentally disabled ward has been known to declare “I’m cold” when the weather dips below a sunny 70 degrees. When Colorado becomes a realm of ice, snow, and penetrating wind – suffice to say it gets remarked on. Many times.

Which makes it ironic that many of Missy’s favorite experiences are wintertime ones. Like Christmas light tours. Or bowling with old friends. Or especially the February “prom” for the disabled. Dress up in fancy clothes and dance the night away? It would take the White Witch herself to keep Missy away from that.

The night was in full swing – as was Missy, dancing with me and any volunteer within a 20-foot radius – when I noticed something. As Missy was having a blast near the edge of the stage, the lead singer of the band had spotted her and begun mirroring her movements, keeping up with each step, sway, and raising of hands.

Missy then spotted him. Her smile and her eyes widened. For the next couple of minutes, she and the front man danced together without coming near each other, their eyes and their moves perfectly aligned. When the song ended, Missy’s excited face could have outshone any stage light – especially when the singer acknowledged her from the stage with a gesture.

Dance like no one’s watching, they say. But someone had been. And it made the night that much more special.

Someone was watching.

Someone usually is.

As I write that, I realize how ominous that may sound. After all, we live in an age where privacy may seem to be a nostalgic memory. Numerous stories of data hacks have made it clear how often we’re being profiled without our knowledge, never mind the volume of data we willingly share with friends, family, and barely-met acquaintances across the world.

But that’s not where I’m going with this. This is something older than the internet. Maybe even older than recorded information in any form.

Someone is watching.

Someone is learning from you.

Stephen Sondheim put it well in “Into The Woods”:

Careful the things you say, children will listen.

Careful the things you do, children will see and learn.

We all teach by example. And it’s not just to kids. Every day, whether we know it or not, we make ourselves a model for someone else. What we say, what we do, what we embrace or avoid gets noticed and learned from.

That can sound a little intimidating – “Oh, my gosh, I’d better be on my best behavior!” But if you think about it, it’s kind of endearing. Somewhere, someone has decided – consciously or not – that they want to be like you. That you’re cool. That something you do is worth their attention.

It may be subtle. We may not notice right away. But each of us quietly shapes the world.

Admittedly, that does put a little responsibility on us. It means we don’t exist in isolation, that we can’t disclaim any effect on others. Even if we don’t have to turn into Clark Kent, The Super Boy Scout, we still have to think, at least a little, about what we put into the world, because it will come back to us. We know this, even if we don’t think about it all the time – “Do unto others,” after all, is one of the oldest rules there is in almost any culture.

What we would see, we must be.

But it’s an exciting thought. It means we can put beauty in the world as easily as anger. It means that our joy, our wonder, our kindness, can create ripples that may someday lead to a wave. It means we have hope – that we can build hope.

We’re not alone. And that’s a wonderful thing. Even on the coldest night, a friend you’ve never met may just be waiting for your cue to start the dance.

Just ask Missy.

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In Just a Moment

“I don’t care what you’re working on, get home now,” Heather said on the phone. Then came the words that shattered everything.

Melanie was gone.

Melanie was my wife’s 21-year-old cousin, kind and sassy, stubborn and compassionate, a night owl full of conversation on any topic or none at all. For the last 14 months, she had been staying with us as she put her life back together from a number of challenges and became a full and vivacious member of the household. She swapped stories, played games, helped around the house, even began to crochet a blanket in Hogwarts colors for Missy, our disabled ward.

All that ended on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018.

We thought Mel was sleeping late. She often did.

She was still in bed. But this time she wasn’t waking up.

 

There are moments that the words don’t reach,

There is suffering too terrible to name …

— “It’s Quiet Uptown” from Hamilton

There are a lot of questions that chase through your head when someone dies so young. “Why? How?” are the obvious ones and sometimes the easiest – those are the ones that at least have a chance of being answered with patient work. (Eventually, that is; we’re still learning those answers ourselves.)

But the most pernicious ones, the most painful and useless questions of all, are the ones that begin “What if?” You know the litany, I’m sure:

“What if we’d taken her to the hospital when she came home feeling sick?”

“What if I’d checked on her sooner?”

“What if I’d said something different … done something different … been more concerned about this … paid more attention to that … ?”

It’s self-torture, running in place on a treadmill made of knives. You get nowhere except to hurt yourself worse than before. But we all keep getting on.

If we’re not careful, we can drown out the question that really matters. “What next?”

It’s a question that Mel was an expert at.

 

Every day, you fight like you’re running out of time …

— “Non-Stop,” from Hamilton

Melanie seemed to fill every moment she had. Sometimes drawing or writing. Sometimes making a friendship bracelet or a brightly-colored rice bag for someone she cared about. Sometimes chatting in the kitchen or over Skype until well past midnight.

None of it was easy. Mel had severe Crohn’s disease and the autoimmune complications that often come from that. Mel had many other struggles and the repercussions that often come from those. But she faced it all with a quirky sense of humor and a heart that could never be anything but genuine.

This is the woman who kept photos of her latest colonoscopy in her wallet, where baby pictures would normally go.

This is the little girl who, when told by her granddad to stop opening and closing the back door as she and her friends raced in and out, simply left it open. “Well, you said …”

This is the friend who had plans to work in a veterinary clinic, and was genuinely excited to receive an animal anatomy coloring book for Christmas.

This is the relative who would trade silly Snapchat photos with her mom and little brother, seeing who could turn each other into the most ridiculous image.

All of which means this is the friend whose absence leaves a hole. A silence. A gap in the story that aches to be filled.

And, perhaps, a reminder.

 

And when my time is up, have I done enough?

Will they tell my story?

— “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?” from Hamilton

All of us work to a limited clock. None of us are promised tomorrow. Most of the time, we’re good about not thinking about that.

But when a loved one leaves too soon, it hits you right in the face.

You look at the choices that you made and that you didn’t make. The things you’ve tried and the things you were too scared to do. A different sort of “what if,” perhaps, but one that looks forward instead of backward.

“What have I not done that I should have done? That I still could do?”

I use the word “choice” and it starts that way. But the funny thing is, the mind and the soul have a muscle memory, too. The more you choose an action, the more reflexive it becomes. That can be the start of a lot of bad habits – but it’s also where things like bravery, diligence, kindness and generosity come from. You do the right thing often enough, and eventually it leaves conscious thought. It just becomes what you do.

When time is short, those reflexes matter. And time is always short. Train them. Sharpen them. Reach out. Welcome in.

Melanie did.

And in her absence, I hope we all can, too.

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Lens of Love

In the heat of summer, he was there. The game ebbed and flowed around him as players steadily wheeled their chairs from base to base, or reached down for a lightly hit grounder, or waited for the next pitch with an aluminum bat and a coach’s help.

He never intruded, rarely drew attention. But through his lens, the Monday night softball game became magic. No – through his lens, the game revealed the magic it already held, as the joy and eagerness of each player made them shine like stars.

This was the Ed Navarro that Heather and I knew.

And this was the Ed that Missy loved.

By now, you’ve probably heard or read about Ed’s passing. He was one of those guys who makes a community work, the sort where you read the obituary and say “Wait – he did that, too?” The piece in the Times-Call hit all the beats – co-founder of El Comité, passionate local lawyer and advocate for the Hispanic community, and always ready to capture a local activity or a youth sporting event with his perfectly placed camera.

Most of it, I’m a little embarrassed to say, was new to me. That’s how it often is with the people in our lives; we see the small piece that intersects our own, unaware that we’re dealing with a leading actor in the show.

But then, I’m not sure how many knew the piece we saw, either. The part that greeted the Monday night crowd at Clark Centennial Park.

The part that was a fixture at the summertime “Softball for All.”

Some of you have seen me write about the summer softball program here for the disabled; the one that runs for three innings with plenty of cheers, no outs and no score. Every year, our ward Missy lives for the next season to arrive, when she can don her Niwot Nightmares T-shirt and grab a bat, a glove, and a coach’s arm for support as she travels the bases.

I teasingly call her “Hollywood” during the season because she strides the field like a celebrity, often stopping to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd with a wave or even a bow. And like any good celebrity, her room is full of the photos of her accomplishments, on the walls and filling well-thumbed albums.

Every one of those photos came from Ed Navarro.

Each year, at the end of the season, the teams hold an ice-cream social at the Longmont Senior Center. And each year, they and their families arrive to find the walls covered with dozens, if not hundreds, of photographs from Ed that he had taken at the games. Each player could bring home their own, the shots that revealed their own inner Mantle and Galarraga and A-Rod. And each got to keep an album with shots of everyone. The later years even included a CD in the album that held every shot.

We always cheered him and gave him a card and a gift. It could never have been enough. Not compared to what he gave us.

Not compared to the love that shone from every wall.

The funny thing is, we hold up folks like Ed as special. And they are. They’re priceless. But their greatest power, I think, is to remind us that anyone can be an Ed.

We all have something to offer. We all have something to share. It might be a moment’s kindness. It might be a talent that creates a memory. It might be something, anything, that says “You’re human. You matter. You are loved and seen.”

It’s easy to forget that sometimes, to feel alone. When we reach out, we rebuild the family. And that lifts all of us up.

We can all be important in someone’s eyes.

Ed’s eyes captured memories and shared them freely. And in those memories, a whole league was revealed as All-Stars.

Thank you, sir.

Our caps are off to you.

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A Day in Emergency

Missy lay back in the emergency room bed, exhausted. After the day she’d had, neither Heather nor I could blame her.

Too much crying. Too much pain. Missy had been done with this long before her medical team had, and that meant she turned into 97 pounds of pint-sized stubborn. The vomiting hadn’t helped, nor had the “I gotta go potty-o” trips that repeatedly produced nothing.

We’d had to come, though. Abdominal pain can’t be ignored. Especially the sort that transforms a face into a living mask of hurt, a tragedy mask wrapped in wordless agony.

So here we were, and here we stayed for the longest five hours on Earth. Heather and I had been this route before – in fact, with my wife’s many chronic illnesses, Heather was something of an emergency room veteran.

But not with Missy. Never for Missy.

In more than six years of caring for our developmentally disabled ward, we had never once had to bring her to the ER. Colds, yes. Bugs, sure. But never anything that needed more than bed rest, patience, and a quiet reminder of “Don’t pull your hair, Missy.”

We could feel the difference now.

At the best of times, Missy is a quiet person. She isn’t non-verbal – in fact, she’s “chattier” than she used to be – but even so, her use of words tends to be pretty sparing. In those moments, translation tends to rely on facial expression, body language, and a glossary of common phrases, filtered through the context of the moment. (For example, “book” can mean an actual book or it can mean her ever-present, filled-past-the-brim purse.)

The three of us communicate well. But when the moment of pain hit, Missy didn’t have the words to explain it. And that’s scary, on both sides of the conversation.

No one likes being helpless. And few things are more helpless than to see someone you love in pain, without being able to do anything about it.

We all know that one, don’t we? Whether it’s a night in the hospital with a relative in pain, or a headline that screams of disaster visiting friends and family across the country, it opens the same doors. That desperate need to help that can’t find resolution, however hard we try.

And when the person involved can do so little to help themselves – the very old, the very young, the disabled – it only gets magnified.

Yes, this is part of how we know we’re human. This is the heart showing that it can feel need, empathize with pain, and spur us beyond ourselves. It’s how we know the depth of our bonds, as a family and a species.

But when all that potential has nowhere to go, it hurts. You find ways to help, but they never seem enough. Maybe they are. Maybe even our smallest gestures mean something on the other side of the divide. I hope so.

It finally seemed to for Missy.

Blood tests. An X-ray. A CT scan.  And in the end, some good news – no appendicitis, no bowel obstruction, none of the worst possibilities that Heather and I had been fearing. The meds were helping her through, the pain was receding. Everyone could go home.

We didn’t have final answers today. For now, those could wait. For now, it was enough to be together, to have been together. To have “normal” back, however fragile it might be.

No, you can never do enough.

But sometimes you can do enough for now.