SERENDIPITY, CLARITY, AND COURAGE

"When you are distressed by an external thing, it's not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it. And you can wipe this out at a moment's notice." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.47

Last year was difficult for me both personally and professionally. In April I was informed that I would be transferred to our civil division. It was an assignment I did not request, knew nothing about, and feared I would hate. I started this assignment in June and while I struggled mightily to maintain a confident aura, deep inside I felt insecurity like I had never felt before. As my Dad's health continued to deteriorate, I found myself struggling with bouts of depression and significant physical pain. I found solace in the wonders of nature in my small city back yard and on day trips out to the country.

In late September, after a completely random encounter with a guy I knew through dog training, my life completely changed. Turns out in addition to being a really good financial planner, he excels as a life coach.

He accelerated my life plan of moving to the country by suggesting that it was a good time to sell my Minneapolis house.

I resisted. I was adamant I couldn't do the commute.

The next thing I knew, I was putting hundreds of miles on my car in a span of about three weeks. I took my best traveling companions with me as I explored various land parcels. With each subsequent visit I felt an increasingly strong pull towards country living. I wanted lots of land with just a modest house.

It seemed, however, that there was a distinct possibility that what I envisioned might simply not exist.

By mid-December, I decided to suspend my search. I recognized that I had the benefit of time. I was still over two years away from retirement and I had been pushing myself unnecessarily. It is how I am. I had spent all my spare time obsessing over this - establishing a budget and putting miles on my car looking at places. It was now time for a break.

For some reason, the same evening that I decided to suspend my search, I started the process to be approved for financing. I also felt a push to do one more online query with a bit of modifying of my criteria. It was then that my dream property appeared.

Thirty days later I would close. Five months after that, I would hand over the keys to the bungalow to new owners and leave behind 28 years of city living. The speed with which my life completely changed was breathtaking. The stress, at times, was overwhelming. But somehow, thanks to my ongoing practice of stoicism, I learned to simply put one foot in front of the other - take one day at a time, and breathe deeply as needed.

It has recently occurred to me that that I could not live where I live now if I had not been involuntarily transferred to the position I thought I would hate. I marvel now at how awful I felt when the news was broken to me eighteen months ago.

I now feel deep gratitude for that event and each and every subsequent event, big and small, planned and unplanned, that has contributed to where I am today.

I am grateful for all of the setbacks and stumbles because they revealed the strength of my convictions. They also revealed the strength of friendships.

I am grateful for the ridiculous commute that I previously thought I could not endure. I am grateful for room to roam. I am grateful for the stars in the sky and the sparkles on the ground when I run the dogs in the dark at 5:15 a.m. I am grateful for my prairie garden and for my human and wildlife neighbors. I am grateful for every sunrise and sunset.

I'm grateful that 2018 taught me to take nothing for granted ever again.

I'm grateful that I could tell my Dad that all my dreams have come true. It meant so much to him. It was his wish for me almost thirty years ago.

Unconditional Love

Thirty years ago, I left the nest for good. I was 22 years old, recently graduated from college, and after several lackluster months living back home in Wisconsin with my parents, I made the decision that my opportunities for a real job and corresponding real life would be back in Washington DC, where I had just finished college at George Washington.

When I announced my intentions to my parents, my mom was, as per usual, dramatically devastated. There were many tears and fearful predictions. But I remained steadfast in my plan and, in the early spring of 1988, I moved back to DC.

I hadn’t been there a week when a package arrived from West Bend. Inside was a cassette tape, and a couple of other items. Dad had taken the opportunity to send me a verbal letter. We had done this years ago with his mother, my grandmother, and it was always fun to listen to what she had to say and then record a message back to her.

For whatever reason, I never recorded over that cassette. Last summer, I had it converted to a CD and listened to it for the first time in at least a decade. I was struck by several things. The first was my dad’s very generous nature in letting me (his first born) go, and building me up for the future.

Second, it was clear how he viewed his role with respect to my mom. Some might call it codependency, and maybe it was. But he had signed up for the long haul, and did whatever he could to keep her in some sort of balance. Years and several therapy sessions later, I have come to appreciate all that he did for her. And I have chosen to call it unconditional love.

“As far as Mom is concerned, why, you know, that's kind of status quo. We're just going to have to hang in there and keep her….stop thinking about how bad everything has been, and how awful things are going to be in the future, because the things were bad in the past, and they'll continue and all that. So, I have to keep working on her to keep forgetting about all that."

Lastly and most importantly, I could see his optimism shining through, whether it was for me, himself, my brother, or my mom. He always chose to believe that things would be okay.

“I'm looking forward to a real good year. And I think I'm going to have a good year; I think you're going to have a good year. Mom will have a good year if she decides to have a good year, or if I can talk her into it.

I think you have a very bright future ahead of you. I… every time I think about the resume and those letters of reference, and your positive attitude, I think you've inherited at least some of that from me. And I think you're so right to get back there and retain these connections that you have with these various people. And there's no question about it. The opportunities, I think, for what you want to do are at least started there in Washington.”

For me, this old recording illustrated the perfect balance Dad found as a parent. He didn’t cling to me for purely selfish reasons, as my mother did. Instead, he willingly let me go, encouraged me to blaze my own trail, and was my biggest cheerleader. I am able to see now that my courage, curiosity, and sense of humor have all come from him. His steadfast support for my mother was the most courageous thing he could do in his life. It was something I never could understand until listening to that recording almost 30 years later.

Over the last few years, as I realized he was beginning to wind down, my priority became trying to pay Dad back for all the subtle ways he supported me when I was too dense to appreciate it. In the recent months leading up to his death, he began to express ambivalence about his life and contributions. My mom had, over the course of five decades, taken a wrecking ball to his sense of self-worth, although he never let on until the end was near. I decided that I would use my remaining time with him to build him back up, just as he had built me up for my flight from the nest thirty years ago.

I carefully made sure that every time I spent with Dad was precious and of comfort to him. We talked about things he wanted to talk about, and I became the keeper of his memories. He was always interested in what I was doing, as it gave him a change of pace from a world that, by the end, had shrunk to almost nothing. And I made sure to always emphasize to him that I owed all of my professional and personal success to him and his support.

Late last year, when I was looking at land and contemplating a move, my mom wasted no time in expressing disappointment and actual anger at the timing of my plans. That notwithstanding, Dad expressed an interest in seeing the properties that I was looking at. When I closed on my new house, he again declared that he wanted to see it. Given that he had not left the house in over six months, and was extremely limited in mobility, I wondered if he had lost some of his senses.

As it turned out, it was optimism. It also was an inner strength that I only recently learned to appreciate. Dad literally willed his frail body to climb the seven steps to get out of my parents’ town home and into the car for the hour-long trip up to my new home. I will never forget helping him up those steps and listening to his labored breathing, realizing how very much he wanted this to happen. On our way back, he remarked on how he believed the value of the property would only go up and that I had made a very smart move.

Sadly, his body gave up at a rate far faster than his mind. As my mom meticulously took care of his physical requirements, my heart broke to see her inability to recognize his emotional needs. She refused to contemplate a life without him and used denial as a way to put off the inevitable. And thus, was unable to give him permission to die.

For me, however, just as Dad demonstrated strength in letting me go thirty years ago, I realized I owed it to him to let him know that I could let him go and that we would be okay. I knew he worried about my mom and I told him I would take the baton from him and that she would be okay. We would all be okay. He needed to know that so he, himself, could let go.

“I guess the theme of this tape today is optimism and bright future. These are just kind of some of my thoughts as I was sitting here and looking out, and I see the sunshine, and I think this time of year is one that is very conducive to optimism because you’ve just come through the winter months when the sun is at its lowest ebb, and the days are the shortest, and now we're gradually seeing the days getting a little bit longer, and the sun seems a little brighter and warmer because the angle is getting better, and that sort of stuff. I think I can see why people were sun worshipers in ancient times because, you know, with their lack of education, and knowledge, and everything, why, they…I guess they figured that every year, why, this might be the last time they'd ever see the sun. It starts disappearing there, you know, in the short days of December, and then along about this time of the year they can really see that the sun has… is becoming more and more prominent, and their days are getting longer, and the days are getting warmer, and it just gives you a lot of hope, I think. At least that's my…that's my impression. That's my idea.”

Dad passed away in his sleep, just as my mother had requested. It was his last gift to her.

My heart is full. Peace to you, Dad. You and your optimism will always be the very best part of me.

Indian Summer

Your breathing is rapid, shallow, and noisy. Yet you stare at me, silently demanding that I take out your little rubber bacon flavored bone. It is, quite possibly, your most favorite toy ever. It is the third such little bone as the previous two were destroyed by the youngster.

You play with this toy as a cat does – batting it about – chasing it into corners of the living room, and inevitably under a piece of furniture. You then bark at me, ordering me to dig it out for you.

For the last couple of months, I have played with you every evening, seated on the living room floor, my legs extended out for you to jump over as I toss it from one side to another. If I stop, you bark at me to resume the game. The others are forced to watch; this is our special time together.

Tonight, however, there is no jumping. There is a little chasing of the toy, but you are soon breathless and panting. I put it away. We will play again tomorrow.

Or maybe we won’t.

And that will be okay. I am learning to accept that this is how it is.

We’ve had a wonderful couple of months. I like to think of it as your Indian Summer. When your breathing first started sounding odd, it was autumn. The days were growing colder and shorter. I felt overcome by darkness as the vet found the new large mass in your lung. I wasn’t sure I could bear it. The tears flowed frequently and furiously.

Slowly but surely I came to accept how the only constant in our lives is that of change. When the youngster joined our family earlier in the year, he represented the beginning of a new chapter. And recently I came to realize it is a chapter that will not include you. This is how it is with dogs and for those of us who love them. You now have come to represent the past. You were the dog who bore all of my rookie training mistakes and excessive nerves. You were the dog who introduced me to so many new friends, competitions, and adventures. When I am training the youngster, I am reminded of your extraordinary drive, but also your sensitivity, thoughtfulness and the need to get it right. Training him is much like training you was, only now I’d like to think you helped me to do it better.

As autumn was nearing its glorious apex, I planned to take the youngster on a weekend road trip. My plan was to teach him how to be a decent traveling companion. There is an art to road tripping – how to relax in the car for hours, how to be mannerly in strange places and how to stay in motels without barking one's head off. The youngster is still in that formative time of his life and thoughts of the future with him are exhilarating. When your tumor was discovered a week prior to the trip, the plan was revamped. You came along as a chaperone of sorts, to help me keep the youngster on the right track.

It was a magical weekend. Bright, sunny skies provided a perfect background for the grand autumn colors. We mastered a difficult hike down to a waterfall and delightful meandering stream. You picked your way down the rocky incline gracefully, almost like a cat. You were confident, yet did not pull excessively. The youngster was more tentative, but respected the idea of staying close. The three of us worked as a team, navigating the slippery, uneven rocks. As we reached the bottom, the calm beauty of that woodland stream made the challenging descent so worth it.

We continued on, without a map, but I just knew we would make it out. And after that, you and the youngster did a little water retrieving. You had wonderful stamina that weekend.

We returned home to near normalcy, which lasted almost three more months. We took walks. We drove around visiting future land and home sites. And we played nightly with the little rubber bone. But as winter set in, time continued its relentless march, dragging unwanted change along with it.

These recent days have challenged me much like that hike first did. There is an uncertainty within which I must sit. I fight furiously not to feel overwhelmed by grief. I don’t know what’s around the bend, but I know the end is in sight. Each day my heart breaks a little more.

You have the advantage in that the future is not a concept you understand or contemplate. You are also fortunate in that you don’t attach emotion to your physical condition. It is what it is. You only know that it’s sometimes hard to breathe and sometimes hard to sleep. You don’t always like your food. I have come to believe that you are preparing me for an inevitable future without you. You spend more time laying in a spot out of the way where you can watch me and your overly energetic brothers as they compete for my attention. You don't jump into my lap as often as before, but when you do, I try hard to memorize the feeling of the weight of you in my lap as I read the Sunday paper.

Without you knowing it, you have also put your trust in me to do the right thing when things become too difficult for you. This is a burden that sometimes feels unbearable, but it is one I know I signed up for when I took you in my arms as a tiny puppy almost twelve years ago. We survived two significant medical crises in your short lifetime, and I feel incredibly fortunate that we got those extra years to enjoy together. In fact, they helped me to focus on living in the moment.

I know you couldn't stay with me forever. I remind myself that it is the epitome of selfishness to hold you hostage here for my benefit. The future will always be undefined. As such, I must focus on each precious moment you are still here with me and watch carefully for that moment when it would be unfair not to let you go.

And so we play with the toy. Or we just sit together. In each moment, I savor the very essence of you.

And I promise you that when the time arrives, I will let you go. By doing so, I can demonstrate my gratitude to you for all that you have given me during our time together.

It has now become my hope that in time, just like arriving at the beautiful woodland stream after we mastered the challenging decline, I will fill the hole in my heart with all the joy-filled memories of us.