Gracefully Skiing

Forty years ago Marty and I went skiing in Breckenridge Colorado for our honeymoon.  I had never skied before so you might think that wasn’t the best thing to do on a honeymoon….pish posh.   Marty was a good skier and did end up teaching me a thing or two.  Actually, she ended up having to dig me and my skies out of a four foot snow drift mid way down the beginner slope.  

Forty years later, last week, I went skiing in Deer Valley Utah with our two kids, their spouses and the oldest three grandkids.  I can still ski, I’m better than I was 40 years ago but I'm older, fatter and slower.  I still remember getting rescued from the snow drift so I try really hard to avoid big piles of soft snow because of that lesson.

I’m a bit of a sentimentalist (duh).   I carry a small blue canvas case Marty always had with her when we skied.  Marty always had it tucked into the inside pocket of her ski coat and it always carried gum, chap stick, a lighter and a pack of Doral Menthols.  It’s old, dirty and torn so much that it is no longer functional, but I carry it anyway.  I stick it in my inside jacket pocket, with nothing in it because of the holes, but it’s there and it reminds me of Marty when I am on the mountain.

 

When we ski, when I watch our kid’s ski, I think of Marty, I think of ski trips with friends, with family, but always with Marty.  She brought skiing into my life.  She brought that graceful feeling of gliding along soft snow into my life.  

More importantly, she brought a real feeling of grace into my life and I’m never more aware of that than when I am in the mountains.  I never feel more connected to my faith, my God’s grace than when I’m standing at the top of the world with a brilliant blue sky above and soft white snow below.

Every time I ski I find myself at the top of the mountain looking down remembering going down the slopes in front of Marty as she expertly glided behind me.  I can’t, I don’t want to get away from those very familiar feelings of her laughing at me as we skied and as I fell into piles of snow, over edges into mud or down a steep slope upside down.

As I watched our children ski I was struck, first by Erin, the daughter and then Matt, the son, how much they skied like their mother.  Matt skies fast, Erin skies slow, both ski with the same pace and control of their mother, both ski with their arms and poles out from their body, both ski from an upright position.  They ski like their mother and I absolutely love that.

On the last night at the resort as we sat eating a dinner cobbled together by my resourceful daughter in law Sarah we all got to talking about things we enjoyed on the trip and what we were grateful for, something my children often ask of their children.  We went around the table several times and we were grateful for skiing together, spending time together, our feet, our food, pizza and family.

I took one turn and looked at the three kids four, four and six. I told them I was grateful to their Grandmother’s mother and father who took their Grandmother skiing and taught her how to ski, to find grace on the mountain.  I told them I was grateful for their Grandmother who taught me to ski and find that same grace and how we taught Matt and Erin and how they were teaching them how to ski and enjoy God’s grace.

 

I don’t think, actually I know they didn’t get what I was talking about or how this act of recreation connected our current family to our families history.  They don’t really get it that their Grandma, the one in the chair, is the one who kept this whole thing going.  

They don’t get it yet.  

It’s a skiing lesson I will continue to try and teach until someday they get it, until some day they stand at the top of the mountain and watch their parents ski or watch their own children ski.  I will continue to ski and teach them about the grace of skiing and finding God’s grace in the beauty and magnificence of creation.

It’s what Marty taught me.

Surrender? Don't Think So

When we left St. Catherine’s to come home in June of 2006 it felt like surrender, it felt like we were leaving too soon with too much still to learn and to do.

We had been at St. Catherine’s, a sub acute care and rehab center, for a total of four months and we had spent a turbulent six weeks at Pate rehab in Dallas.   All in all Marty had not seen the inside of our house for six months.  

As I sat in the social worker’s office listening and thinking about our options, trying to come to grips with our new reality, I finally just gave in to what I saw as inevitable and I said, “It’s time to go home.”

I never would have thought it but going home felt like surrender, leaving rehab without accomplishing some or really any of our recovery goals felt like total failure.  We had spent months trying to find answers and see some real improvement in Marty’s physical and cognitive abilities.  I felt like we had made very little progress and as I said those words, “let’s go home”, it felt like acquiescence to the strokes, it felt like I was quitting on Marty.

Before the strokes Marty was a musician, a teacher, a therapist, a mentor to young women, a house painter, a detailed but painfully slow wall paperer and the financial manager for our house.  She presented seminal papers at conventions and helped revitalize a youth program at our church, she helped our oldest put together a remote powered, Paper Mache shark and guided our youngest through the travails of adolescence.  

Before the strokes Marty managed to get a couple of degrees, one a doctorate, while raising two very successful children and supporting a husband in a job that was somewhat nomadic.  She had done big stuff and seen big stuff, she was accomplished.

The strokes and the recovery from the assault of the strokes made everything she had done seem pretty small.   As we walked out of St. Catherine’s for the last time we were faced with giving up on rehab, we were being forced to take unacceptable losses, we were going home to learn to live and accept.

Over the years my accomplished wife has taught me a lot of stuff, over our years together she has helped me grow into something better.  How she has lived her new life, what she has taught me by her gracious acceptance of that new life, has been nothing short of inspiring and maybe her biggest achievement.  Marty has taught me that what I saw as surrender that June was really just the beginnings of acceptance without surrender.

Marty, my wounded wife, taught me.  She quietly led us both to acceptance, to accept the disability, to accept the new life, to accept the massive changes brought on by the strokes, to accept it all, but to never surrender to any of it. 

She has continued to fight for every little piece of improvement, every tiny memory, every number, every address, every name.  She has very simply and quietly fought for improvement.  Marty has embraced the rehab adage, “I’m better today than I was yesterday, I will be better tomorrow than I am today.” 

She has lived the credo, acceptance without surrender.

Marty has done all of this quietly, without complaining and with all of the dignity one can have when your body and parts of your mind are so broken by a disease.  She has accepted with dignity and grace a body that does not necessarily lend itself to either.  In her living she has taught everyone who knows her about grace and acceptance.

Marty was always stubborn, dogmatic, determined in everything she faced, in everything she wanted to do.  She wasn’t ever really compliant or graceful in her life.  The strokes forced us both to find a way to accept a new life.  

She was not forced to live her life without complaint, she just does.  She was not forced to continue to seek improvement, she just does.  She was not forced to live with grace and dignity, she was not forced to fight surrender she just does every day.   

She embodies acceptance without surrender.

They Know and Still Love Us

Mothers, Moms, Madres, Mamas’ or Maws’ are the life givers. They carry you inside their bodies, willingly accepting the abuse to their own bodies. They give birth to you, they wash your face, brush your teeth, teach you how to tie your shoes, sit through really bad band concerts, bake in the sun cheering you as you sit on the bench at games, cry when you graduate and rejoice when you finally leave. They are Mothers and Mothers keep the world alive.

The story goes that the day after I was born the nurses at the small hospital in far west Texas where I was born sent the wrong baby to my Mother and sent me to the wrong Mother. My Mom knew something was up and pointed out the mistake to the nurses. Fortunately, the mistake was immediately corrected. The telling part of the story is that my Mother “just knew”, she “just knew” she had the wrong child in her arms that day.

That’s part of the charm, the mystery, the power of Mothers. They “just know”. It’s why as children and even adults we behave ourselves. Forget the whole moral center thing, it has to do with Mom knowing, it has to do with Mom’s having this special intuitive power of knowing if you are doing well, if you are doing right, if you are doing in a way they would approve and be proud. It’s just one of the things my Mother taught me and I saw repeated with Marty, Mother’s know.

As I grew up, before I went out into the world and after, the one thing I knew for sure, the one thing I always carried with me was that my Mother loved me. It was never in doubt. In spite of what I did or didn’t do, I knew my Mother would take me back, I knew my Mother would love me. It’s just one of the things I took for granted with her and I have seen repeated with Marty, Mother’s love unconditionally.

I know I was fortunate. I know not everyone had my family experience. I know I never had to worry about my Mother’s love; there has never been any doubt in my mind that my Mother loves me and always will. Even in the worst of my adolescent angst I knew at my core, my Mother would always love me. Even as I grew and struggled for maturity and independence, I knew I could always step back and find my Mother’s love. Even as I had my own children, my own job, my own life and the constancy of our contact waned, in the back of my mind, I knew, I felt, I was confident in my Mother’s love.

It’s what I hope Matt and Erin, our children know, feel and experience. Even as their Mother struggles on a day-to-day basis to live her life, even though her cognition is diminished, even though her energy is all directed to simply getting through the day, her love for them is something that is palpable, constant and very real. The strokes have not diminished her love and her passion for her children.

Mothers made us who we are, they gave us life when we had none, they gave us understanding when we were not worth understanding, and they gave us love when we were unlovable. It’s been amazing to grow and understand all of this of my own Mother; it has been inspiring to watch Marty as she passed these lessons to our children. It has been intensely rewarding to watch as Matt’s wife Sarah passes on the same unconditional love and acceptance for Noah, and I know, because of her Mother’s love, at the right time Erin will do the same.

Our Mothers, good and bad, are why we are all here today. We are forever intrinsically linked to them. I’m really glad my Mother and I have both lived long enough for me to grow enough to understand and say this to her.