2019 Has GOT to be Better

I’m an optimist. As such, I expect each year to be better than the last. Lately, though, time and life have been finding new and creative ways to kick me in the teeth.

It started in 2016 when the election friction tore a rift in our nation and in my family. People I considered to be logical, intelligent people became FOX News zombies spewing vitriol. So I began 2017 by attending the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. I carried a sign that said, “Because Love” and stood in solidarity with others who confessed the dark mood of the nation was what brought them out.

That Spring I turned 40. I didn’t think there was much to it but as my friend Heather said, “40 is a motherfucker.”

All the things I thought I was building began crumbling around me. The business lost its biggest clients. My income went to zero. Despite applying for a thousand jobs, no one would hire me. Multiple professional setbacks including an interview for a job I just knew was mine only to see they reposted the position.

Not that they found a better candidate. They’d rather not hire anyone at all than hire me.

Ouch.

At New Year’s I declared that 2017 could just fuck right off. Then the Tigers lost in the playoffs and I felt like everyone I knew felt the same way as me.

2018 had to be better.

Photo by JESHOOTS.com on Pexels.com

This past year I worked harder than I ever have. Some 60- and 70-hour weeks. The results were incredible. Not everything I hoped and wished for, that would be too much to ask, but some real traction in a lot of areas.

We opened the Women’s Business Center of South Carolina complete with $100k from Google and a Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting. I secured an adjunct faculty contract at the Darla Moore School and we finally had minimum viable income in the household. I was invited to speak at the Pat Conroy Literary Center and asked to serve on the board of directors for the South Carolina Writers Association. I led workshops and panels and networking events and launched two radio shows on the local talk radio station.

Then, on the biggest day of the WBC of SC’s early life, I sat in a church pew some 90 miles from the Women’s Business Summit. All the work and focus and energy put into that 1-day event and I wasn’t there to see any of it.

I had to make a choice about the kind of person I want to be.

The Monday before the event, my Uncle Howard succumbed to an infection he contracted after surgery and died. He left behind two children, three grandchildren, the love of his life to whom he’d been married for 40 years, and my mom, his twin sister.

During the service, the minister of the church he’d attended faithfully for decades called him a blessed man. Humble and kind, caring and compassionate, willing to give of himself to any who were in need. He was not a famous man, he never held public office or published works of literature. He quietly served on small committees, organizing events and raising money for good causes.

What I had done in 2018 was put myself in service. By doing so, by helping others succeed, by building solutions to fill gaps, I thought to elevate my own position. Service was a marketing plan.

But on November 16^th, when we buried my Uncle Howard with his Clemson Tigers ball cap, surrounded by two hundred people who loved and admired him, I realized his service was more gratifying than mine. He’d served because he was called to do so.

As we all are.

He’d said, “Yes, God,” when asked to give of himself in love and compassion, in kindness and trust. He’d said, “Yes.”

I’ve been saying, “Yes, and” as I added my own part to the story being written. I’ve been following Amy Pohler and Tina Fey’s advice for improv comedy: accept the circumstances you’re given (“yes”) and make them better (“and”). Only the “and” I’d pursued had been me asking. It was more like, “Yes, and?”

I was where I was meant to be on November 16^th, a fact that was made even more clear to me on December 28^thwhen we sat in similar circumstances for my Papa. The same minister said of him that he’d been a man who lived the way Jesus wanted us to: humble and kind, in service to those around him.

In service.

As 2018 ends with the double-upper-cut of Uncle Howard’s death and Papa’s, I feel another declaration oncoming: “2018 can fuck all the way off.”

My friends, for whom this year has also been a trial with loss and uncertainty and hysterics and defeats, echo the sentiment to a one.

And yet, I am not embittered by the circumstances of the year. I’m filled instead with a profound gratitude for these two men and what they taught me. I’m encouraged to go forward into 2019 and continue to serve others in whatever capacity I am able. To meet obligations with enthusiasm and optimism. To help, promote, encourage, and sponsor as I am able the people around me who are poised to achieve.

In doing so, I will not necessarily amplify my own talents, but instead be putting them to their intended use.

You Are Loved

I know two little girls who are burying their mother today.

Well, I don’t really know them and I didn’t really know their mother, either. She was in the same group of friends as me when we lived in the Upstate. We enjoyed one another’s company and chatted in that friendly, “how ya been?” kind of way.

She’d had cancer for some time. She’d been in and out of treatment and tests always waiting for it to reoccur. Then it did and this time there was no treatment.

Our friends have rallied around that family for a long time. They’ve cooked meals and cared for the girls and given spa days and date nights and dinner parties to show that family just how loved they are. Charlie and I have been absent for five years but I keep up with that crowd through Facebook. It’s been over a year since I last saw Joyce.

This morning I’m wondering about her girls. I know people will say, “thank God she isn’t sick anymore,” and I wonder if those girls will agree. I know people will say, “she loved you both,” and I wonder if they’ll believe it.

I wonder what I’d want people to say to Hollie at my funeral. Especially if I left her now, before she’s become a woman, before high school has tested her and some boy has broken her heart. I wonder what people should tell her when they know she won’t have her mom to help her get dressed for her wedding or get ready for a new baby.

I think I’d like for her to hear this:

I loved you before I even knew you were coming. I loved you because I loved your daddy and being his wife made me proud. Sharing you with him has been the greatest joy of my life. I loved you when you were helpless and needy and waking me up in the middle of the night. When you didn’t have the words to explain what you wanted and you tantrummed and screamed and misbehaved. There were moments when I got so angry with you that I had to walk away. It’s called justifiable rage and you’ve felt it, too. I walked away because I loved you. I loved you when you made silly jokes and when your laughter hit that spontaneous note, the one I imagined bursting into bubbles and fairies and dandelion seeds on the breeze. I loved you when you sang and danced along with whatever you were watching on TV. I loved you in costumes and pajamas and dressed up for the daddy-daughter dance. I loved you when you said you wanted to be a writer and an entrepreneur and when you asked if that would leave time for also being a rock star. I loved you playing cards and eating chicken nuggets at Beef O’Brady’s and riding in the front seat of Brandi on the way to school. For every minute of my life I’ve loved you and that love has changed me. It’s made me a better person. It’s made me want to be a better person. It’s made me want so many things. And I want to be here with you. Forever. But I can’t be. And that’s got to be okay. You’ve got to be okay. No amount of time with you would ever be enough. So the time I was granted, that has to be okay.

The most important things my Hollie needs to know I wouldn’t be around to teach her. I’d depend on the people in her life to remind her of them. Here they are so you’ll all know what I want her to hear every single day:

1. You are loved.
2. You are exactly who you’re supposed to be and you are wonderful.
3. Be yourself. Always.
4. Have ambition. Let it lead you, let it motivate you, but don’t let it consume you.
5. Love wastefully. You’ll never run out and the hurt is always worth it.

When I think of those girls knowing these were the last few months they would have with Joyce, I imagine them snuggling with her and breathing her in. The way all of us moms hold our babies tight and breathe them in.

No amount of time is ever enough. But it’s what we get. I have resolved to be grateful for it and to make the most of it. That’s the only thing I can do for Joyce now and the lesson I’m so glad she taught me. 

Thank you, Joyce. Rest in peace, sweet lady. You will be missed.

The Worst Day of Someone Else's Life

The first thought I had when I woke was “Today is going to be the worst day of someone’s life. But it’s not mine.”

We buried a man that day. I knew from the minute I woke that the depth of suffering I would witness would astonish me. I’d truthfully never seen anything like that.

The only funeral I had attended before that was the one for Charlie’s grandmother. It was a modest affair, she was an old woman with few friends and a very small family.

I missed my own grandmother’s funeral. I was in Hawaii.

But here I was, at the service of a man I’d known only by association, a good friend to my father-in-law. Through the service I thought mostly about his daughter who is not much older than me. I thought about losing your father. About losing my own father.

This is the worst day of her life so far, I kept thinking.

I have a friend whose kid has neuroblastoma and my friend writes frequently of the worst days as he experiences them. When they go in for treatments, he knows they’ll be tough and the poor boy will suffer and watching your kid suffer is the worst kind of Hell.