Cowboy Santa is the first ornament out of the box this year, the first gift ever given me by a patient, many Christmases ago. There was a different one for each of us in the clinic, Santas in various occupations. Given to me by a young patient who holds the unlucky honor of having the worst veins I ever had to contend with, and the patience of a Saint as we stuck him over and over, making him miserable as we tried in vain to make him well.

Cowboy Santa is always a reminder of him and all the patients, and the things they have given me.

A baby outfit smocked with trains for my first child.

A Christmas Cactus that in an act of yearly rebellion, blooms at Thanksgiving.

An enamel box in the shape of a Christmas Stocking. It came with a note of thanks and appreciation, one for each by name, from a man who could measure his time left on earth in days.

A recipe for Salsa from Big Dave, in his own handwriting, and another for Miss Edna’s tea cakes, in shaky cursive like they used to teach.

And food, oh the food. They press cakes and cookies and homemade candy into our hands as though love and gratitude could only be properly conveyed through butter and sugar.

A tray at Christmas from the Mother of a patient who thankfully was healed years ago, and has gone on to live a wonderful life. She turned up with one faithfully every year until she died. I eventually became a Mother that understood that impulse.

The look over the head of a woman from her husband as we admitted her for what would be the last time. His lips saying “Thank you” with his eyes saying all the things those two words could not.

The knowledge that there may be less time than you think and not to squander it.

The understanding that in the end, no matter who you are, it all goes back in the box.

That peace can come and be overwhelming when there is no reason for it. That the veil is very thin around the dying, and they are not alone when they leave us.

That in the end, all you leave and all you take away is who you loved and how you loved them, and who loved you.

That is the best gift they have given me.

Long ago I formed the habit of giving the first hour of the day to God. My Dining Room becomes a Holy Place in those moments. I read, pray, meditate, try to make contact with the Source before I go out into my day. Sometimes I feel more connected than others, but I am faithful to be present, and God is faithful to be present too.

Through the window I see green, the trees, the birds at the feeders or in the birdbath, beginning their day too. The feeder, a gift a gift from my stepfather, sturdy and impervious to squirrels, faded by time but as good as ever. The birdbath, a Mother’s day gift from my husband.

In the window, a stained glass panel given to me by my Mother, the first light peeking through it.

In the corner the Monsterra plant, a gift from my son, once an uncertain chute, now in glorious fullness.

In the Hutch, my wedding dishes, reminders of well wishes from family and friends long gone now. A soup tureen that is all that is left of my Grandmother’s China. I never use it, but I like to know that it’s there.

On the wall, the prints we splurged on when bought our first house, when we had nothing and yet everything.

And on the table where I fed my family for years, dented and scratched by many little hands, sit my Bible, my notebook, my pen, my coffee cup. An unlikely altar. A Holy place.

Here is where I start again. Here is where I decide anew how this day will be, whose this day will be. It is peaceful and quiet, my favorite hour of the day. I sit expectantly in the stillness, surrounded by gifts, surrounded by reminders that I am loved.

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.”-Emily Dickinson

We went to Yad Vashem at the end of long day of Pilgrimage. We were running late and missed part of our slot. We rushed to our place in line trailing dust from Megiddo in our wake, where we had stood and surveyed that ancient site, where the last great battle will purportedly one day be. But on that day, just a lovely green valley, viewed from the top of the world, or so it seemed. We were left with just an hour to tour Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum. It was more than enough.

I drifted from room to room of the worst of mankind, the terror and dread and the poor people caught in it. Each room more terrible than the next. A testament to cruelty and hate. Until my heart felt as heavy as a stone.

I came out into the great Hall of Names, a large, round gallery room with an enormous atrium ceiling, completely covered in photographs. Baby pictures, school pictures, birthday parties, picnics, graduations, wedding pictures, pictures in the thousands of people, just people. I stood surrounded by the images of them, their smiling, hopeful faces with no idea the horrors that lay ahead, no way to warn them, nothing to be done, except remember.

I stumbled out into a gray afternoon, stunned and battered by the enormity of man’s inhumanity to man. And then I heard it. Somewhere to my left, a bird was singing, a beautiful song. It went on and on and I finally saw him up in the top of a small tree. A Eurasian Blackbird, singing his little heart out. He paused for a second to consider me, with an obsidian eye, and then resumed his full throated song. A song of life going on and hope in that very dark place.

And something so lovely and pure seen after such horror, began to restore my equilibrium. I turned to go and entered the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations, a lovely garden where trees are planted and memorials placed for all the people that didn’t turn away and risked their lives to help. A testament to courage. I made my way out surrounded by the memory of those who were lost, those who were saved and those who helped.

Resilience(n.)-the ability to be happy or successful again after something difficult or bad has happened.

Spring came with all the shock and awe of the yearly resurrection. And into the corner of our carport came an Eastern Phoebe pair. They carefully made a snug little nest and filled it with eggs that became chicks. The chicks progressed, wearing out their exhausted parents, greedy little mouths always wide open. Over the days, they grew bigger until you could just make out the four little heads above the edge of the nest. And then disaster. We walked out one day and the whole nest and all the chicks were gone, most likely having fallen victim to a hawk or an owl or a snake. Only a forlorn bit of moss remained. One of the parents sat nearby on the power line nearby, silent.

We were crushed. In the days that followed, every time I walked out and saw the empty space I felt bereft. I know it’s the circle of life and all that, but they never had a chance, never got to fly even one time, never got to do what they were made to do. And their poor little parents that worked so hard. Well, it was just sad.

So, imagine my surprise as after a time they began to rebuild that nest, carefully re-layering twigs and lining with moss until they again had a beautiful little nest that they promptly filled with four more eggs. Eggs that hatched into pink, fuzzy, alien creatures with faces only a mother could love. These grew and became feathered and began to look like their parents and we were again treated to four little heads above the rim of the nest looking out at us. We held our breath.

Then it came to pass that they left the nest and sat out on the ledge, getting their courage up I suppose. One by one they fledged, hanging around in our azaleas until they left for parts unknown. Until there was only one. He sat there on the ledge for a full 24 hours, and as I had heard Barred Owls in the trees, I encouraged him to hurry up and fly away. I came around the corner the next morning just in time to watch him leave the ledge and take to the sky. He did not look back.

I still see them, or their parents, in our yard from time to time, and it makes me smile, and remember that there is a lesson for me too. It’s a tough world, and life can be brutal and without mercy sometimes, but beautiful and miraculous. And there is also beauty in finding the courage and resilience to start again.

“It’s an old song, but we’re going to sing it again.”-Hadestown

Photo Credit: Jackie Hudgins

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to see the Northern Lights, a rarity in these here parts. My husband and I, loaded up and went into the deep dark woods to escape the light pollution, in anticipation. From his work he knows every road in our county and drove us deep into the country, down a road named for a man long gone, a farmer, a powerful mover and shaker in the county, who was perhaps most well known for his propensity for wearing dresses. I can’t emphasize enough how unusual that would’ve been at that time in this part of the world. This was long before Billy Porter or Harry Styles were even thought of, and the mind boggles. But he was known to be a major political player, a king maker and breaker, so no one said a word when they saw him out on his tractor with his skirts billowing out behind him. I’d like to have seen that.

(But, I digress. Seriously. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

So we drove miles down this deserted, pitch black road. After a while we saw another car pulled over. I said “Maybe they’re looking for the Northern Lights too…or dumping a body.”

But even though it was clear and dark, what we did not see was one tiny sign of an Aurora Borealis. We stood beside the car, in the spring night for a long time. It was perfectly still and perfectly dark. Slowly, I began to notice the stars, like a handful of diamonds thrown on the black velvet sky, the fireflies, the frogs, the crickets. And then another sound rose in the dark:

“Chuck-Will’s Widow, Chuck-Will’s Widow.”

Joined by another, and then by another and another until all around us a chorus of song from a most elusive bird, the aptly named Chuck Will’s Widow, cousin to the Whippoorwill. Seldom heard in the city and almost never seen anywhere at all, they rule the night in the country, the darkened meadows their kingdom. I’d never seen or even heard one, and here we were surrounded by them. We stood transfixed, not by the miracle of the Northern Lights, but by the miracle of everyday world at night. And so it was that I came in search of one thing and found something else entirely. Something I had not even known I’d wanted, a transcendent moment in a lovely place with my favorite person under the night sky. A different kind of light illuminating the dark with wonder and love.

Chuck Will’s Widow

Absent (adj.)-not present, missing.

At 8:00 on Wednesday morning I was doing all of the following:

1. Listening to a podcast.

2. Running an errand.

3. Being late for work.

4. Mentally managing future events that may, or may not, actually happen.

5. Operating a moving vehicle.

What I was not doing, giving my full attention to anything, being present in the moment, being present in my life.

I pulled up at the Post Office, grabbed my package and lurched toward the door. And then as I reached for the door I saw it. A tiny little moth nestled between the frame and the glass, bright pink and yellow, its body velvety looking, covered in tiny feathers, bright pink antennae on its head. It was perfectly still. I stopped in my tracks and beheld this creature so marvelous that it could only have sprung from a Divine mind, both creative and playful. I came in hot on two wheels right into the moment just in time for a brush with the “completely other” in the words of Karl Barth. For a moment I was exactly where my feet were and beheld a tiny wonder. I walked away smiling.

And I almost missed it. And I wonder about all the other moments my life I have missed, the “God winks” I have missed because I am “forever elsewhere”. In the past, in the future, but in the present moment, absent.

This isn’t the part where I share the great revelation I had so that this will never happen again. This is the part where I realize that I don’t even remember what I was listening to, or what future event I was worried about, much less whether it actually happened. That the errand got run, that I made it to work eventually, and that I should really try to pay attention when I’m driving a car. And that I will only get so many days, so many moments, so many marvels. I don’t want to ever miss another chance to be blown away by wonder, or even just the sweetness of the everyday. I just want to remember to be present, so if God shows up I’m paying attention.

“Remember me as you pass by. As you are now so once was I; As I am now, so you must be. Therefore, prepare to follow me.”-Unknown

My husband and I wandered through one of our city’s oldest graveyards on a cold and gray afternoon. It was once outside of town, but is now surrounded on all sides by a University, in the shadow of a looming Football Stadium. A neon sign glows red through the 100 year old oaks and leaves its reflection in a puddle on the path. The buzz of life, laughter, music, chatter sounds faintly. But within, all is hushed and quiet.

We pass by stones bearing names that are now found on street signs and buildings in our town, Jemison, Hargrove, Van de Graf.

We walk by a family plot with a father, mother and 3 tiny graves before the grave of a child that lived to be an adult. Beneath the lamb on one of the little graves:

“How much of light, how much of joy, now buried with our darling boy.”

We pass graves of soldiers from every war and in one plot combatants on both sides of a long ago fight, now come to rest together, no longer enemies. The old conflict settled now, or perhaps as settled as it will ever be.

I see the graves of what must have been enslaved persons, buried with the families that enslaved them, not even allowed freedom in death.

I run my fingers over stones so old that the wind and the rain have rubbed away the names, and there is no one is left to remember who they were.

Yet, it is still and oddly peaceful. This vast sea of people stretched out before me, all their joys and accomplishments, their grief and sorrows, all over now. Brought to heel by time, the great leveler, with no more power to lift or crush. They have laid them down to sleep in the earth side by side.

Beyond the wall I hear a young woman shriek with laughter and the sound of feet running by. It is a Saturday night in a college town. These lay sleeping surrounded by those whose joys and sorrows lay before them. They too will one day lay them down and sleep, but not yet.

When I came into recovery, many years ago now, my home group had old wooden school desks for chairs. They had been painted and repainted through the years. You could see the timeline from the odd discounted paint colors, the battleship gray era, the pea green years, the ill conceived off-white phase, all peeking through in places.

As you can imagine, they had been defaced with all kinds of graffiti, most of which I will not relate here. My favorite was a desk that had a single word scratched onto its surface…STAY. When the desks were finally replaced, the old ones were sold as an anniversary fundraiser. They went in no time, and I have my very own cherished desk of many colors. (I don’t know who ended up with “STAY”, but I have a low key resentment towards them.)

Fast forward, to the other night, and my younger self wandered into a meeting and sat down beside me. She was so very young, so very skinny, eyes darting around everywhere, trembling so bad that the court paper in her hand rattled. I introduced myself and got from her in a whisper that her name was Cameron. I could almost see the spines come out as she turned away and made herself as small as possible.

After the meeting I helped her get her paper signed and said

“It was nice to meet you Cameron.”

She turned and left without a backwards glance.

And suddenly I thought of that old desk, and I wanted to say to her STAY.

I know you think it’s bad now, but it could get worse in ways you can’t even imagine. But it could also get better in ways you can’t even imagine. You could do this one day at a time and stay sober for the rest of your life. You could mend your relationships, maybe have some new ones, maybe bring some new people into the world. You could do good work, help others, watch miracles happen, and sometimes play a part in them. You could know what it feels like to be so so full of gratitude your heart can hardly hold it, to be in the Presence of such power that every hair stands on end.

You could lead a life of quiet purpose and leave this world with love and service rippling out in your wake for generations.

You don’t have to ride the train to the last stop. You don’t have to do more damage, get more damage, try to crawl back.

You could just stay. STAY.

In loving memory of C.M., who did in fact STAY, and who left for “the Big Meeting” this week, leaving beautiful ripples in her wake.

That’s a wrap for my Team in Training LLS fundraiser. Thank you to all who supported ME in supporting THEM for the great work they do.

https://pages.lls.org/tnt/al/yourway24/MLeach

Warning: Shameless Plug to Follow

This September will be 15 years since cancer came to our house. I am so thankful for all the joyful life we have experienced in those years. So, in honor of my favorite patient ever, I am going to celebrate by paying it forward to the ones who are still fighting! Join me if you feel lead. Thanks!

https://pages.lls.org/tnt/al/yourway24/MLeach