Your Lessons From Life-Lousy or Luscious

(Photo by Petr Kratochvil, Public Domain)

       Many of us believe we have come to a point when we want to be done with our schooling, even though I do have friends who have made careers out of being professional students.  We would love to be able to graduate from the school of painful lessons, and to reap the rewards of our long years of labor. In case you haven’t noticed,  life never stops teaching us.  The more we open up and use our learning in ways to benefit ourselves and those around us, the more depth and richness we find in our lives.

     In my own life, I have had many roles and studied many scripts, sometimes hoping for insights and sometimes wishing to hide from them.  Who I am now is a composite of all of my past experiences and the learning I have amassed.  Now that I have acquired some seasoning and maturity from life lessons, I understand that each of the happenings and even the pain that brought me to the place I am today has served me in some unexpected way. I am no different than the rest of you when, on certain mornings I awaken and discover a new ache, a stiff back, or find a new wrinkle I was certain did not exist when I retired to bed the night before.  For the most part, though, I am learning how to appreciate what life has been teaching me, even when the lessons are physical, and I am now intent on aging with as much grace and wisdom as I possibly can. (I just checked the calendar and since my birthday is rapidly approaching, do I have a choice?)

     Some of the roles in which I have immersed myself (and I still have some of these) are, writer, CEO, adoption social worker, life coach, adoptive and biological mother,  grandmother, wife, widow, wife again, lover, daughter, sister, friend, colleague, feminist, activist, champion of many causes, student, girlfriend, mentor, advice columnist, editor, reporter, nursery school teacher, intake worker, salesgirl, camp counselor, babysitter and probably many more I can’t remember at this moment. I am finally beginning to appreciate how each of these has given me something important, though I did not always see it at the time. Some roles I may have once assumed with reluctance, I now remember with fondness, nostalgia and greater understanding.  Others hold little or no interest for me nowadays, but once served a purpose and helped propel my life to where it is now.

     How many roles have you had in your life? Can you take some time to remember them and to think about ways in which they have added depth and flavor to the wonderful being you have finally become? Can you envision how the lessons you have learned, the skills, insights and experience acquired thus far may actually serve you incredibly throughout the remainder of your life?  How many more lessons are you open to? What kind of mastery over these lessons will you achieve?

     Are you yet living the purpose for which you feel you were designed? Did you just happen to fall into your current life or job? If you find yourself doing something that is not deeply satisfying and doesn’t feel quite right to you, or that used to feel positive, but no longer calls up the passion it once did, what are you willing to do about it and when?  What are the steps, choices and special experiences that led up to living the life you have at this time?  Can you retrace your steps and influences and use that knowledge to help you move in a new and exciting direction? Would you do things differently if you could do them all again? Are you willing to learn some new “dance steps” and to emerge from your comfort zone right now in order to find your purpose and to bring changes to how you make your way in the world

     How about telling us about the unique ingredients that blended to season the stew that you are now?  Can you share your life lessons and how they are all coming together in this moment to produce the changes you desire, and to help you find the purpose you were destined to find?  Think about sharing them here with us on this blog, either in a comment form, or as a guest post.  Write to me and let me know if you would like to do that. Or maybe you would like to share them on Facebook in response to this post?

      How will the wonderful old you merge with the incredible new you?  Can you replay the movie that was your past and truly appreciate every scene and every word in the screenplay? Did you miss key elements when you were moving through the experiences that are now memories? What are your takeaways when you think about these experiences?

     Andrew E. Kaufman whose piece appeared in the Chicken Soup For the Soul series, The Cancer Book, by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and David Tabatsky, says, “My world began shifting toward a more universal consciousness. In life, there are no bad experiences, only lessons. It’s easy to get caught up in a crisis, but if you’re only watching the ball, then you’re missing the game. Shifting your focus beyond the obvious is the real game and I was somehow learning how to play”.

     I can’t guarantee that the next script waiting for you won’t be the greatest challenge of your life, but it may be the one that showcases you and “brings down the house” in a good way. When I reach my final act I want to take some bows knowing that I may get wild applause, or none at all, but I don’t think I care. I may receive mixed reviews, but once the house has emptied and I am alone looking in the mirror, I hope I can smile and feel good and know that it was all very much worth it!

Portrait of older women by Manner Chuck JH News, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
This image: Portrait of older women is one of free public domain pictures / images, (copyright free – safe images / photographs)

Before you begin reading, please indulge me for a moment!  I like to make my poetry accessible.  There are many people who believe they don’t enjoy poetry, or it is “too difficult” for them to understand.  Poetry deals with the human condition. Even when we don’t get everything a poet might be saying, there are always things we can extract and take away if we immerse ourselves not only in the words, but if we allow ourselves to feel.  To some readers, this poem may seem depressing. To others, it will feel hopeful and real.  I hope it touches something in everyone who takes the time to read it.  I really love to have comments, so don’t be afraid to write what you feel.  Also, please do pass this on to others.

If you like what you read here, do go back and view some other posts dealing with my areas of interest and the areas in which my coaching practice specializes.  Better yet, subscribe (upper right side of the blog) and receive notification of new posts directly in your email, so you won’t miss any.    

    Lunch With the Chicken Women From the Dementia Floor 

-By Iris Arenson-Fuller

You might mistake her napkin for a painting,
propped up on the easel of her chest,
once ample, now sad, deflated udders
showcasing a jackson pollock drip painting,
spots and streaks of color, vegetable-beef brown,
carrot-colored splotches, tomato-bright shapes.
we take turns spooning soup into her mouth.
between swallows, she mutters how she wants to die.

Suddenly she brightens, blue eyes peering out
into the land where she lives, but always shocked
to hear she lives there, and has for nearly two years.
moments of clarity help focus enough to recognize
a brown leather chair across the room, a stout helper
with an unusually large rear (she shouts this observation
and seems to enjoy her own comment).
once again, we are introduced to the crew, shake hands,
decline half-eaten grape popsicles.

When we arrive we are treated to a symphony.
her piercing shrieks of delight make us
tighten muscles, a natural shield to protect our hearts.
today we hear the story of lunch with the chicken women
(her favorite is chicken) at a local eatery,
-the once a month trip in the van, often forgotten
within moments of arrival home.
the chicken women strut past us,
one with a blue sock and a brown one,
one wringing hands, despairing over
a lost car she does not own,
one propelling a wheelchair with her feet
like a fred flintstone cartoon car.

The elevator door stares while we visit.
when the privileged enter the secret code
its door opens, a wide, inviting mouth
ready to rescue and spirit us away to safety,
to familiar places where we are still in charge,
still know our own faces in the mirror,
still remember the lessons learned in youth,
still taste them now with the seasoning of maturity.
holding hands, we descend, recite the same words.
a joint whispered prayer, an oral last will and testament,
“please, just shoot us if we get that way”.
we walk to the car, eager to be home
in our safe, but fragile world.

We are Baby Boomers,  trailblazers, iconoclasts,
acid rock generation kids with disintegrating mini-skirts
and broken guitar strings we’re reluctant to discard,
all tissue papered quietly in an attic of memories.
now grandparents with arthritic knees,
we tell ourselves our fates will be different.
we joke about future demands for nursing home rooms
with piped in Hendrix music and daily deliveries
of underground newspapers.

We think we can stave it off by going to the gym,
reading self-help books, by chasing dreams
around fields of flowers, running to catch them
till we are short of breath,  pretending
not to notice as we float through our days
in bubbles of illusions, but that’s ok
because we know how it takes just one pop
and this moment is done, a puddle of nothing
a small, wet stain on the driveway,
so we force ourselves to stay in the bubble moment.

I don’t really fear the place I will drop into
when I fall off the edge of tomorrow.
I often travel to places that scare me.
I have no travel agent to keep me from
ending up in bad hotels with bedbugs
(like that one in Mumbai).
I just close my eyes and go where I need to
though sometimes my hands and legs shake,
my body feels too small for my heart.

Let the whiskers grow one day, if they must,
let my teeth decide to finally finish their chewing,
let my heart write more of its wild, erratic music
that may keep me dizzy and forever stuck on the couch.
I have stories still stored in my bones
that must be told while I can feel them,
so please let them not dribble sloppily
from the corners of my mouth like watery soup,
making no sense to anyone brave enough to listen.
I need to be me, however imperfect but please
not some chicken woman riding in a van
on the way home to the dementia floor.

tags: aging, dementia, Baby Boomers, fear of aging, living in the moment, facing life, facing death, aging hippies

by Iris Arenson-Fuller

Everything comes back
in one way or another.
It might boomerang, smacking us
in the ass when we stand outside
watching kamikaze birds
hit the kitchen window
with the blue tulip designs.
It might be taunting thoughts
that revisit in the night,
thick like caramel topping,
making our minds too sticky to sleep.

Yesterday was no different.
one red poppy showed a shy face
in front of the white house.
soon more will stretch themselves awake
to join their lone sunbathing friend.
they remind me of the poppy reserve in Lancaster
where we took my sister for a ride.
she sat in the car, almost shriveling up
before our unbelieving eyes
while the fields of endless poppies
waved to us in the feeble desert breeze.

Years ago our yard poppies disappeared.
the big maple cut off their lifeline,
banished the sun that made it worth growing.
but the maple was cut down, sick with age.
all living things complete their life cycle
departing to an unknown space,
suspended in our memories like a hammock
swinging back and forth between what lulls us
so softly into pleasurable sleep,
and what jolts us wide awake,
making dreams come to life, making limbs shake.

My poppies will flourish
when I am airborne like dandelion seeds,
when thoughts of me may make it hard
for you to open curtains and let in fresh air.
poppies have their own reasons,
their own dna, unstoppable by my tears.
they do not mark rows of graves.
only I mark them now, counting silently;
Those same larks that flew over war-dead
form sky patterns now, singing this time
to drown out sorrows, not guns,
to remind us to look up and wait
for a new dawn.

Passover has always been a meaningful and beloved holiday for me .Not only is it the Jewish Festival of Freedom, commemorating the escape of the enslaved Jews from bondage in Egypt, but it is a symbol of man’s search for freedom and an ongoing promise that freedom is possible.   Those of the Jewish faith are commanded to not only retell the Passover story of the Exodus, but to experience it as though they had personally been slaves in Egypt, escaped from bondage and experienced the miracles that led them out of slavery and into freedom.  The story fascinated me as a child, but really touched me as an adult and as a member of an interracial family.   I have always believed in the message that “until all men are free, no man is free” and that oppression is unacceptable, no matter of whom, or where it occurs.

In addition to the lessons taught and remembered, the holiday was precious to me because it was a special family holiday.  We had our seders on the first two nights of Passover, at my maternal grandparents’ apartment in Boro Park, Brooklyn.  The table and decor were not lavish or inspired by anyone like Martha Stuart. Sometimes the dishes were mismatched, depending on how many were attending.  There was a chipped enamel pitcher to hold the wine needed for the service. There was the Cup of Elijah, but it wasn’t a beautiful crystal goblet, or one of silver, as I later found at the homes of hosts whose seders I attended over the years. The side table in the living room that  normally held many old photographs, was fitted with its leaves and covered with a fancy tablecloth.  The arm chairs and couch were moved into the adjacent bedroom, but the folding doors were left open. My cousins and I would climb in and out of the chairs, lined up from the front of the bedroom to the back and would pretend we were on a train. Then we were called to the table to begin the reading of the Passover story, the saying of the prayers and singing of the songs.  My family dog, Laddie, was leashed to the leg of the old-fashioned kitchen sink, so as not to get underfoot during the serving of the meal after the first half of the service was done.

My grandmother, mother and older sister, Carol, bustled in and out of the kitchen, carrying bowls of steaming chicken soup with matzoh balls and other savory dishes.  My grandfather playfully made “matzoh (unleavened bread) cigars” for the children.  When he intoned the prayers and retold the Passover story in Hebrew, he would glance at the children to see if we were keeping up with his reading. If we were, he would smile at us, showing his pride.  Children were permitted a couple of sips of wine, only at this time of year.  The youngest child in attendance (often myself) would ask the Four Questions, beginning with our family’s customary introduction in Yiddish, but then breaking into Hebrew,singing it in the old Askenaszic melody.  Occasionally the children would be asked to read a passage in English to ensure that everyone understood what was being spoken of, but mostly everything was in Hebrew. There were (as in most families) periodic interruptions when someone told an anecdote or made a comment, but everyone was quickly brought back on track by my grandfather, who was a soft-spoken and gentle man, but to whom this was all very important and serious business.  I.loved to open the door for the Prophet Elijah and rushed back into the living room to see if the wine in the fifth cup at the table’s center, never consumed by the guests and reserved only for Elijah, had diminished.  Of course, it always seemed to and I was caught up in what felt like magic and miracles when I was very young,

Now most of those family members are gone. There are still cousins but they are spread out in location.  When my kids were young I tried to make a seder and did the best I could, cooking, preparing and conducting it, but it never felt the same to me.  I did my best but not all of them were interested, and it often made me sad because my seders were nothing like those I remembered from my youth.  Occasionally I would get an invitation to someone’s seder. Sometimes my family and I attended a community seder  put on by one group or another.  This year, though, I found myself with no place to go,  feeling sad and nostalgic.  My husband and kids had other commitments and Passover doesn’t seem to have the same meaning to them that it does to me.  They are adults and imposing it on them is not comfortable or appropriate to me.  I thought about attending a community seder on my own, but decided against it.  Instead, over the week,I  Iistened to the old Passover melodies  that I have on tapes and CD’s, and spent some time immersed in memories, some sad and some happy.

My cousins who are observant (I am not) told me of their hard work in readying for the holiday.  I remember my mother being exhausted from it all. I remember helping her unpack the special dishes and utensils and things we used only during the week of Passover.  I ate matzoh this week and some other traditional Passover snacks and foods and soon, the 8th and final day of the holiday (today) was here.

Next year I will be good to myself and will plan well in advance what to do and where to go.  I realized that I don’t do this because I am the only one now in my immediate family to whom this is a special and important holiday.  Religious folk would lay blame and say it is my fault for not having raised my kids in this way, but that’s just the way it is.

Yesterday, I read my friend Ruth Deming’s blog. Ruth is a therapist, director of New Directions Support Group of Greater Philadelphia, and an accomplished writer/poet. She wrote a poem about Passovers past in her own family.  I loved her poem and got her permission to post it here. Thanks much, Ruth!   http://ruthzdeming.blogspot.com/

I hope you like the poem too. You don’t have to be Jewish to have such family memories and to relate to it.  I would love to hear about holidays and family times that are strong in your memory and that you enjoyed.  How about some comments?

PASSOVER PHANTASY

                                 -By Ruth Z. Deming

she has stopped making seder.
mother eats alone, breaking the
matzoh in pieces. the table is bare.
the house silent but for the
often ferocious winds of
april that sound like
the children, and the white dog
who liked her sponge cake
and that black-haired husband
of hers who died, quite bald
from radiation, at fifty nine.

let’s bring them back.
back to this house, huge,
the lawn fertilized by juan
and his men, the kids in the
backyard playing duck duck goose
laughter spilling over to the
austins in the back who grew their
own tomatoes and whose cornstalks
reminded mom of the trip she took
to amish country as a girl.

with a whistle lynn brings us together
as we crowd around the long table
viewing ourselves in the mirror
daddy’s nose always looked crooked
my long black hair was parted on the wrong side
grape juice for the minors
manichewitz for the majors
aunt ethel arrives, her death will bring us
a fortune, my house, donna’s condo,
i sat in the largesse of her lap
and fondle her tiny red nailed fingers
her amber bracelet
her thin hair

little brother david reclines in his
chair, silent at age 10, he speaks with
his polaroid, the only way he can
view us while alive

my two mommies as i called them once
serve the feast after prayers and handwashing
and hiding of the afikomen
by now we are tired, the brisket and onions
only make me sleepier
i go up to my room for a little nap
and hear the sounds of my family downstairs

the unforgettable sounds amid the clatter of
dishes and putting into the dishwasher
the parade of the sparkling clean water
from the one-faucet sink
i hear them all, i hear the sounds,
i hear the laugher, even now, even now
alone in another room,
forty five years away
getting ready for bed.

Kim Abbot   (Frank Kimball, Jr)  -Oct 1, 1943 –March 12, 1982

Today is the 30th anniversary of my first husband’s death in a horrible fire. Some of you already know our story, but others don’t.   He was very disabled by Multiple Sclerosis  and I was unable to get him out of the house.  I did get our then-four-year-old out and safely to a neighbor’s home. We had three children at the time, but thankfully, the older two were in school (I adopted a fourth as a single parent years later).  Kim’s death followed the loss of my brother, my father and my twenty-four year old nephew, only four months before.  We also lost most of our belongings, and our home was badly damaged by the fire, necessitating our moving around until we found a longer-term rental. We were without our home for about a year.

Naturally, we were all terribly bereaved. We had a lot of help over the years and I suffered from PTSD connected to anything about fires.  Thankfully, it is now very mild, but still present.  It was a pretty awful time for me and for my kids, the eldest of whom was nearly fourteen.   It was many years before I was able to call to mind and enjoy the memories of happier times that Kim and I had shared.  We had met as college students and during our early marriage, lived in San Francisco, which we loved, and then moved to CT where Kim had mostly grown up.

Over time, we processed our grief and the knife-like sharpness diminished, returning occasionally and unexpectedly, with a vengeance, but less often as the years passed.  Still there were triggers.

Most years, March 12th was a very difficult day for me.  I followed the cues of my kids, encouraging them to talk about their father and their feelings as the anniversary approached, but tried not burden them with my own feelings.  That is not to say that I didn’t express them, but was careful not to make the kids feel they needed to take care of me.  Finally (and I can’t pinpoint the exact time)  there were more silent tears than visible ones, as normal workday duties called and distracted me a bit.  March 12 was naturally noted and felt, but not dwelt upon.

Yesterday on Facebook, I posted that this 30th anniversary was coming up today.  I got a variety of kind and helpful responses.  My colleague, Deah Curry, PhD, coach and therapist, http://thenohypementor.com/ and

www.facebook.com/CreativeAlternativesCoach

www.facebook.com/NoHypeMentor   commented that such anniversaries are both bittersweet and sacred.  As usual, Deah made me think.  I had always acknowledged that it was an emotionally hard day. The bittersweet aspect was apparent in that I was/am proud of all I have come through and of my strong survival skills.  I am able now to remember Kim with smiles and to evoke the positive feelings that come when I think about the old days with him, and about our family experiences.  There are still tears sometimes, but I no longer view the past and our life together only through a veil of tears. I had just not thought much about the sacred aspects of such a milestone as the 30th anniversary of his death.

There are various cultural beliefs and practices around how to honor dead loved ones and ancestors.  Many cultures believe that deceased family members have the ability to look after, and to influence the well-being and fortune of their relatives. The belief is that the family never dies or ends. Family is something that exists in perpetuity.  Such cultures create rituals to ensure that the dead view the living in a positive manner and they honor their dead in this way, both as their filial duty, and in order to ask for special assistance and intercession.

I like that idea.  I can hear the disdain and see the smirks of  some very rational and intellectual people I know, but I don’t much care.  My family is undergoing a period of stress for a variety of reasons, and there are several of us with health issues right now. I find it comforting and fitting to think about Kim’s spirit as somehow being able to watch over us.  I imagine a lot of folks feel that way.

I wasn’t able to find any really unique and special way to commemorate Kim’s  life and death, but I did get up extra early today to have some time alone to reflect. Each year on this anniversary and those of the others of my family of origin, I light a memorial candle and say a prayer that comes from the religion of my background.  Some of the observant people in my family would be upset, I am sure, since Kim wasn’t of the same religion and because I have personalized and modified this prayer.  This morning, I sat and listened to the silence that is unusual here.  My older daughter is staying with us temporarily and my younger one lives here with her pre-schooler. I am remarried and my husband, Art, had the day off.  I deliberately woke before anyone else.   I brewed a cup of tea and as it steeped, I permitted the luxury of steeping myself in memories of Kim.  I wondered, too, what he might be like as a senior citizen, no doubt with grey or white hair and beard.  I thought about some of our adventures together. I thought about what a joyful and exuberant person he was before his illness and how passionate he was about life.  I thought about his dreams and his enormous intellectual curiosity.  I remembered the music he loved and could visualize him, listening to it with his whole spirit, whether Vivaldi, Bach, the Beatles or rock.  My very special quiet time was brief, but I enjoyed it and felt that I had indeed created a sacred time and space in which to think about Kim, whose life ended when he was thirty-eight years old.

I think he would be pleased about how I grew up, since in some ways, I hadn’t truly done that before his death. I wish he could have been there to see the kids grow up, as well, and to meet his only granddaughter.

I don’t live in the past.  The past has contributed to who I am now in a way that can’t be denied.

There is an Islamic saying that you tell  someone you meet who has just lost a loved one, “”May you be alive and may God’s blessings be on him or her who is deceased.”  While I would never, in a million years, want to relive what we went through thirty years ago today, I am glad to be alive and glad I created a sacred time and space today to send these wishes for blessings to Kim’s spirit.

New Poem- By Iris Arenson-Fuller

Long ago, Mary Grace and I,
New England transplants from Brooklyn,
bought an ugly needlepoint picture for $1
at someone’s yard sale.
We dubbed her Sr. Mary Holycart,
ungentle blue nun’s eyes, under old-style habit.

 
Irish guilt won the wrestling match 
so Jewish guilt, the loser in that game,
got to take Sr. Mary home to live in a corner,
forgotten by all but dust and cobwebs.
Who knows what happened to her?
Maybe tossed with old toys,
chipped cups, jeans embroidered with flowers,
crumbled friendships that grew stale as we aged,
adult consciousness that crept in unannounced,
deciding she might offend a visitor who spotted her.

II

 I think Jews are a little like Marines,
or I am , anyway.
You know, “Semper Fi”
no matter how we have roamed
spiritual paths paved with unfamiliar stones,
exotic flowers poking out between the cracks.
We plucked wild blossoms
as we journeyed the decades,
far away from Brooklyn roots,
away from chicken soup with matzoh balls.

No matter that we embraced more than men
who never wore skullcaps and prayer shawls,
who ate bacon, licked their fingers
with joyful waspish abandon,
renounced their own churches,
who loved the tales of Shalom Aleichem,
spewed Yiddish phrases like tender love songs
that we remembered just long enough
to teach, then packed them all up
in pickle barrels of dusty, distant memories.

 We never imagined one day wanting
to unearth these, lovingly uncovering
each one, holding it to our hearts,
like the memories of Passover dishes
unwrapped once a year, the glass ones,
along with the dog and cat
plastic salt and pepper shakers,
the white enamel pail for storing
hard boiled eggs and potatoes, Passover snacks,
the pan we used for making fried matzohs
while our neighbors put on Easter bonnets.

 III

My brother-in-law, dying of brain cancer,
might smoke a turd in two hells but I don’t think there is a hell
in the books of my forefathers.
Baptized Catholic, later a Bar Mitzvah Boy,
(shhh, it’s a big secret)
now as passive as his sweet, insecure mother,
who swayed like bamboo in winds of conflict,
bowing to dictates of others, mostly men in her life.
He wants to speak to a rabbi, but settles
for the priest his wife corrals in the hospital hallway,
and he even wears a crucifix for weeks.

 We don’t know what he is thinking, fearing,
have no knowledge yet of how it feels
when threads of death wind tightly around you,
pulling you closer and away from living.
We don’t know what dreams swell up
next to the cancer and play back
murky pictures, whether he wants
to see them or not.
We don’t know if the visions are soft promises,
pastoral paintings, or more like wild highjacking
of the senses after ingesting peyote mushrooms,
dreams of colors, or of shadows and ogres.

We do know he has asked three times for a rabbi,
perhaps a messenger from his grandmother’s world,
papered with rules and singsong lessons learned as a boy.
He thought this world had been painted over,
but it slowly peels itself off the surface of his days
in brittle strips, landing on couch or wing chair
piled high with stacks of books and hats.
The grand piano we never heard played,
the cello, violin, the apartment crammed
with remnants of a life saved for someday,
all watch, asking questions and answering
with more questions, like ancient Jewish scholars.

Reblogged from Bernadette Steinmeyer:

       I admit that I haven't reblogged anything before.  I am not sure I understand how to do it correctly so decided to add this P.S.        Dr. Steinmeyer has a blog entitled, Constructive Conflict Resolutions and this post struck me, so I experimented with the Wordpress reblogging feature and here it is (see previous post).

What the heck is VDODS?  I can see you now, racing to get your Merck’s Manual so you can look up what you think is a mysterious ailment. Don’t run to the mirror to see if you are breaking out in a strange rash either. VDODS means Valentine’s Day Overdose and Dissatisfaction Syndrome.

Judging from things some friends and clients have shared in the past week, I think this syndrome may be spreading like the Noro Virus at a nursing home, or on a cruise ship.

How do you know if you have contracted VDODS?  Have you been spending a lot of time searching the Internet for Anti-Valentine cards?  Have you been secretly composing some not-so-nice messages you would love to give to your significant other, but don’t have the guts to express?  Do you visit the local card shop, spend an hour there reading every card they have, only to find your stomach turning at the soupy, sentimental ones, getting irritated at the so-called funny ones, or the cards trying hard to be sexy, but missing the mark? Do these cards only emphasize to you what you see as the deficiencies in your own life? Do you compare yourself or your relationship,  to something you have been sold, and somehow do you always find your own world not measuring up to your fantasies?

Even worse, do the sentimental ones or the would-be sexy ones make you start to cry because your communication with your significant other has reached an all-time low in recent times?

Perhaps a couple of weeks ago, as the first symptoms of this syndrome began to take hold, you told him or her to please just forget about Valentine’s Day this year because you’re just not in the mood. There are are too many stressful things happening in your lives right now, you’re trying to lose 10 lbs and don’t need the chocolates.   Was the unspoken message, though, that you have some anger and some hurtful thoughts and feelings you have repressed for a while, that are festering and making you upset?  You haven’t had the nerve to get them on the table, or maybe you have tried, and your partner either ignored you, minimized the problems, or invalidated you by telling you there’s nothing wrong and it’s all in your head.

As V Day approaches, you have gotten more and more agitated. What if he or she buys you a saccharine card, a box of chocolate truffles you don’t want, but will eat anyway, or a piece of jewelry? Should you have something prepared with which to gift your partner, just in case? If you do, though, will you feel dishonest and turn your hurt feelings and/or anger inward?

Maybe none of the above is relevant to you and your sweetie.  Maybe it’s simply that  you are disgusted with the cards you find at the store, and with the endless commercials on TV that tell you that your own marriage or love relationship falls short of the norm if you are not shoring it up with diamonds, or other costly trinkets!

What’s the treatment then? Do you take a good, old fashioned remedy to try quell the nausea and negative feelings that have been growing as V Day approaches? Do you sip ginger tea? Do you dose up on Pepto Bismol? Do you pretend you are just fine with everything? Do you sleep through February 14th and hope nobody notices you’re not at the dinner table? Do you make snide comments and cover things up  with a topping of cynicism?

When I was checking out natural remedies for nausea, not quite certain yet where I was heading with this post, I ran across http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/home-remedies-for-nausea.htm/  I found this quote…   ”Once you’ve identified the source of your discomfort, you’re on the path to a cure…”

My readers will not find it new for me to suggest spending some time (now, not later) looking inward and scheduling a truth conversation with yourself.  Don’t take a pill and wait for it to make you feel better. VDODS may only be a precursor to some more serious ailments lurking and waiting for the right time to attack you and/or your relationship.  If you have a lot of negative and unhappy thoughts and feelings that have been churning around within your head, they will find their way to other parts of your body, if they already haven’t and will make you sick.

Give yourself a  real Valentine gift this year. Identify the source of your discomfort .  If that means writing out what is bothering you about your relationship, this is a great time to do it.  Can you let it  pour out on paper?  Once it is out there, look it over and decide if you are ready to pass your writings on, or if doing this is to help you clarify your own thoughts and feelings.   Should you decide you want to bestow it on your significant other, make sure what you write doesn’t blame,   being very careful to use “I language”, instead of  ”You language”.    How about starting with, “I love you and want to share some things I am hoping we can work on together because we care so much about each other”? This Valentine’s Day gift to yourself and to your partner will create more lasting effects than even the extra couple of pounds resulting from a date with a box of your favorite gourmet chocolates. If you settle for the chocolates, once the bon-bons are gone, the repressed or difficult feelings will still be there.  If handled the right way,  you can start a flow of honest communication that just might make this one of your more memorable Valentine holidays.

This is unfortunately, a true story that I am telling as we approach in one month, the 30^th anniversary of a tragic, life-altering event for me and for my children.  If you are a regular reader, or are someone who knows me personally, you may wonder if I have “sold out” when you see the link for ”life insurance” here.  I can assure you that I have not, but want to relay to you something I learned the hard way.

When I was a kid, the life insurance salesman was a regular visitor to our house. I did not think of him as a salesman, but as a friend who was welcomed into our kitchen and served coffee and cake once a month on a Wednesday evening, when he came to collect the small premium due him. He joined the ranks of the Electrolux man, (who made periodic appearances though our Electrolux lasted half a lifetime without repair or replacement) the Egg Man, ( a neighbor down the street,  and also the uncle of my schoolmate) and the doctor, who made house calls when necessary and was served coffee and cake too.

My parents believed in being prepared for the worst. They unfortunately also believed that the worst was likely to happen, so this probably motivated them to buy life insurance even in the days when extra money was pretty scarce. They considered it a necessity when you were raising children.  By the time I came along unexpectedly, my parents had thought their child-rearing days were more done than beginning.  I am guessing that they had purchased their life insurance policies years earlier and made payments of a few dollars a month.

When I grew up and left home, the sixties were in full bloom.  I was often fiercely rebellious and iconoclastic. Though I loved my family, I tended to reject many things in which they believed, and by which they governed their lives.  I hated routines and my mother had many.  Monday was wash day, Tuesday, ironing day, Wednesday, for vacuuming and mopping floors, Thursday, for shopping, etc. They had lived their entire adult years in close proximity to both of my grandparents and saw once-a-week visits and frequent phone calls to their parents as an obligation that was unquestionable. I thought  many of their values were “middle-classed” values that they had little or nothing to do with my own life.

Well…fast forward quite a few years…I was a young married mother.  My husband and I were freshly relocated from San Francisco, to an uninspiring, cookie-cutter apartment in Connecticut where my husband had grown up. My long braids and “hippie” clothes, my handsome husband’s unruly Afro and our son’s longish Dutch Boy haircut,  cute little jeans and work boots, all really stood out, as we played on the Green of our New England town.   We had wanted to be back home, closer to family members in NY and CT. We were raising our young son and thinking about expanding our family by adoption. We had ambitious plans and suddenly found ourselves in a place where it seemed that the big event of the week was heading to the local discount chain store to buy kitchenware and beer right after the paycheck arrived. This just didn’t feel like us.

About a week after we moved in, a neighbor rang our doorbell and tried to sell us a life insurance policy. When we said we didn’t believe in life insurance, had no need for it and it was more for our parents’ generation, he admonished us and told us we were dead wrong. He said if we couldn’t afford a cash value policy we should purchase some inexpensive term insurance. He implied that by not doing so, we were somehow inferior as parents. We bade him goodbye and had a good laugh at that, since we thought of ourselves as very conscientious parents.  Still we perceived of buying life insurance as something for “real grownups”, which we obviously didn’t quite consider ourselves, or for people who were just not “cool” and who worried too much about things.

Eventually we settled in, found a more compatible crowd and started to explore the very rich creative and inspiring community surrounding us in the Litchfield Hills. Our family began to grow, as we had planned.. We felt we had already tested our reproductive equipment and had a commitment to children who might not otherwise easily find loving families. We moved to a different community, but shortly after our move, my husband’s suspected diagnosis of multiple sclerosis was confirmed. We had three kids at the time, with the youngest only an infant, and plans to continue adopting several more children. My husband and I had decided to re-focus on continuing our educations and money was tight.  We were stunned by the diagnosis, but determined not to allow it to control our whole world.  We could not possibly have imagined how things would unfold.

Within a about a year of his diagnosis, it became clear that Kim was on a rapid progressive course of his disease. Not too long after that, following some teases with exacerbating and remitting symptoms, he began to go downhill till he was nearly paralyzed (tripalegic).  By that time we had founded a licensed non-profit adoption agency (that I continued operating until the end of 2010).   Kim became its first executive director, though he needed significant help on a regular basis with his activities of daily living.  We still did our very best not to have his illness govern our entire lives, or detract us from our mission, but we were not always successful.

In March of 1982, on a day none of us will ever be able to forget, a fire in our dryer spread quickly and devastatingly through our home.  Our older kids were in school and our then-four-year-old was watching Sesame Street. My first task was to get our little one out to safety.. I called the fire department and then attempted to rescue Kim, but was unable to.  I was forced to leave without him.  He died a short while after being rushed to the hospital.  Our home did not burn down, but had severe damage and most of our personal belongings were gone. It was some time before we could really begin to pay attention to the “things” that were gone, of course.

Friends and the community rallied, and family members, as much as they were able. My own family had lost my brother, father and young nephew only a short while before this and my family wasn’t in close proximity.  Many people had many questions for us, but the most frequent was, “Do you have enough life insurance?”.  Naturally they were stunned to learn that other than the mortgage insurance the bank had (thankfully) required on our home, we had none.  Fortunately, with perseverance and planning, I was able to figure out how to survive, raise my kids and eventually adopted a fourth as a single parent.  I became a convert as far as my previously held beliefs about the purchase of life insurance.

What have I learned and what do I want to impart to you, the reader?  I know this isn’t the typical message of my writing, but I feel it is an important one.  No, we cannot prepare for every rainstorm or tsunami that comes our way. We can, however, take charge of the things we can control. When we experience tragedy and loss, it is hard enough to pick up the pieces and find the path to healing.  When, in addition to grief, we have to face very real and raw survival issues and worry about whether our family will continue to have a roof over its head, clothing or food on the table, it is beyond painful.   In coping with meeting just our basic needs, healing is often significantly delayed.  Do look into life insurance, particularly if you have a young family!

I will paraphrase and change just a bit, the prologue to Pierre, one of my favorite children’s tales by the wonderful, Maurice Sendak.

“ Read this story, my friend,

for you’ll find at the end

that a suitable moral lies there….

PREPARE!”

Iris Arenson-Fuller, CPC is a Life Stage, Family, Relationship Changes Coach who helps people fly through the winds of change.  She specializes in loss of all types, grief, sandwich generation and adoption issues of all kinds. http://www.coachirisblogs.com or http://www.coachiris.com