2020 brought me heartbreak over our divided country. May 2021 bring Americans together to defeat the virus and rebuild.
The USA hockey players are exhausted. Sweat-soaked and doubled over, the young men heave and suck big gulps of air. And still their coach orders them to sprint-skate the “suicide drill” over and over.
They start at one net, skate to the blue line a quarter of the way to the opposite net, return, skate to the red halfway line, return, skate to the far blue three-quarter line, return, skate the length of the ice to the far red line and return.
Surely, as they reach their starting net, they must be done.
But no.
“AGAIN,” the coach barks. The players dig the teeth of their steel blade toes into the ice and push off to skate the drill. “AGAIN.”
They’ve already played a game, and done so many of these drills. The whistle blows. “AGAIN.”
The crowd left long ago.
“AGAIN.”
The custodian turns off the rink lights. Now they skate in the dark.
“AGAIN.”
By this point, these college-aged players are getting sick. The assistant coach questions the head coach, who is about to repeat the order.
One Nation Under God, Indivisible
Far longer than one scene from this true story about the 1980 U.S. hockey team’s ultimate victory, our last year in America has been remarkably punishing and unrelenting. We’ve been pushed beyond what seemed possible.
I’m ready to skip ahead to the triumph and celebration scene. How about you? Movie magic delivers in about two hours. In real life, we don’t know how long it will take.
But — the same lesson that ended these drills in the movie version of this story would also deliver relief to America in 2021. We all play for the same team, Team USA. The sooner we move beyond bitter, dysfunctional partisan politics and demonstrate loyalty to “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” the better.
My stories and reflections here are about making peace — not politics — and that’s true for this story. This year especially, I have avoided divisive discussions over politics with friends and family in person and on Facebook. On the rare occasions when I’ve engaged, I’ve stressed my belief that we can disagree over most things and remain in family and community relationships. That our families and social fabric must prevail. So many families have struggled over differing views this year, on top of all the other hardships of the pandemic.
Sometimes making peace means saying your peace. What we’re watching in this country is beyond politics. Trump’s authoritarian reach for power is un-democratic and dangerous.
May our love of country and duty to America’s core values carry us through these times.
A Win that Lifted a Country
Watching these players skate in Disney’s movie “Miracle,” you expect one of them to snap under the strain. This is the movie version about the underdog 1980 U.S men’s hockey Olympic team that defeated the Soviet Union team in Lake Placid and went on to win gold.
I’m queasy watching it every time — even though I know what happens next and how it turns out.
I was 9 when the real-life team skated for gold, and I’ll never forget watching those games with my mom and the sheer, breath-taking joy when this team of college kids beats the “invincible” Soviet team, then the Finland team.
Electric elation. Crackling goosebumps and a sense of pride. A joy the whole country shared.
Their win lifted the country onto their shoulders and out of a dark time.
Whether you like hockey, or even sports, doesn’t matter. Watching this great American dream story even now, even after the beating America took in 2020, would leave you feeling good, proud, inspired and hopeful about who we are as Americans and what we can accomplish.
That’s how I wanted to feel heading into 2021.
Not discouraged, like I felt the morning of New Year’s Eve reading news reports of the slow, hampered business of vaccines actually reaching people’s arms.
Not the deep grief for our American family I’ve felt all year as bitter political and cultural divisions seemed to only deepen in response to the pandemic. At the beginning, I thought we could unite against the common enemy: the virus. Apparently, I was naïve.
Not the shock and disgust I feel as an outgoing U.S. president repeatedly, historically and shamelessly attacks democracy.
Come on America! We have smart people. We have resources. We are creative. We’re better than this.
What it Takes
What will it take to again work together to solve problems, to function? Twice in I’ve leaned as an American into the unity of our country: the horrific days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the 1980 Olympic win.
“I can’t believe you want to watch this again,” my husband said, settling into his chair New Year’s Eve after we finished our takeout steak sandwiches. (Delicious, by the way, from Otto’s, a local foods restaurant and brewery in State College, Pa.)
I am not an athlete. I grew up in a family of sports fans and married into a family of athletes.
Long before I met my husband and stepsons, “Miracle” was a favorite family movie.
We’ve watched Miracle so many times I tease them. Again?
But that morning, I thought about how we’ll survive these times. How a winning team is made, how people come together to work on a common goal. It takes a spark, leadership, alignment with a shared purpose. Time. Timing. Luck. Commitment. And I remembered this scene of young hockey players skating beyond exhaustion in the dark.
Watching the scene on YouTube and reading up on this Miracle story fired me up for the New Year, so I went with it.
Five minutes in, my husband and I enjoyed meeting each guy on the team all over again like they’re old friends. Rizzo! OC! The beloved Jim Craig. And you have to chuckle over the ‘70s-era haircut and plaid pants and blazers of Kurt Russell, who plays coach Herb Brooks.
Brooks’ Vision
Herb Brooks, the coach, played on U.S. Olympic teams then coached the University of Minnesota hockey team, taking it from last place to a national championship within two years then onto two more national championships.
Brooks had a dream. He had a vision for a style of U.S. hockey, and of how to build a team.
His brilliance included selecting players for team chemistry and then building them into a team. He wanted them to dislike him so they could bond over a common enemy. He challenged them, pissed them off and fired them up.
As the players start practicing, we see old grudges from old rivalries. We watch the guys introduce themselves as playing for their respective colleges. And when the players from Boston University take their turn, I can’t help a “GO BU!” bellow on behalf of my alma mater.
The Name on the Front
During an exhibition game against Norway, Brooks overhears his players checking out girls in the stands instead of focusing on the game. After the game, he kept them on the ice and delivered his punishing string of suicide drills.
“When you pull on that jersey, you represent yourself and your teammates,” he shouts as they skate. “And the name on the front [USA] is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back. Get that through your head!”
AGAIN, he sends them sprinting down the ice.
When they are just about at their breaking point, Mike Eruzione, played by Patrick O’Brien Dempsey, finds the breath to shout his name and hometown, just before the whistle blows, yet again.
“Who do you play for?” the coach asks.
“I play for the United States of America!” Eruzione gasps out.
That ends the hell-drills and the scene, because that’s the point.
“That’s all gentlemen,” says the coach, excusing the bedraggled team to the locker room.
Fact vs. Fiction
Most of that scene is true. The part about Eruzione saying “I play for the United States of America” to end their punishment that night, is not — according to the interview that real-life player Jack O’Callahan did with the publication Irish America in 2007. <https://irishamerica.com/2007/08/10662/>
Though it is true that Brooks was deliberate and strategic about unifying his team. Last year provided plenty of fresh interviews, the fortieth anniversary of the win.
I prefer the movie version of Eruzione saying he plays for the USA — in part since I have a soft spot for the team’s captain, Mike Eruzione “Rizzo.” Little did I know in 1980 how much college hockey I would watch as a Boston University student, including some from a perch at the old Boston Garden when BU kicked the snot out of Harvard in 1990 to win the Beanpot Tournament. In 1991, BU stomped Boston College and in 1992 trounced Harvard.
Once, I even got to briefly meet Mike Eruzione while I was working coat-check during an event at the BU student union. Nice guy. He tipped well, as memory serves.
I remind our family about this early on, every time we watch Miracle.
“We know, hon,” says my husband. “You say that every time.”
(See how long I waited to tell you that?)
Egos Must Yield
Ultimately, the college rivalries had to fade for Team USA to gel. The egos had to give way to what the team needed to win.
That’s what we need in this country right now: loyalty to American democracy above all else. We need common ground and bipartisan solutions. We need coalitions from both parties committed to solutions and compromise.
We don’t have to agree. We don’t have to like each other. We just have to keep talking and working until we solve the problems facing America, on behalf of America.
Go Team USA!
In 2020, as I’ve struggled with the reality of a divided America, my husband often quoted a fellow school administrator: “Hey, you don’t have to like everyone on your team, you just have to work with them. The baseball shortstop doesn’t have to like the first baseman — but he still has to throw the ball to first to get the runner out.”
Exactly.
Staying Hopeful
I insist on staying hopeful. Some days, that takes more work than others.
I remain hopeful that our country will unify against the invisible enemy of the virus, and this hell will end.
I am hopeful our commitment to America’s core values — Democracy, dreams, progress, government by and for the people, the pursuit of life and liberty for all — provide an unshakeable common ground.
This isn’t just a feel-good thing, it’s how we survive. It’s the difference between a bleak 2021 and a bright 2021, when we can once again safely hug each other and gather in each other’s homes and — restaurants!
Maybe all our leaders should watch Miracle. Maybe we all should, just to remember we truly are on the same team. It’s free on Netflix! We can’t go back — and let’s remember how many then and now are still left behind by the American promise of liberty and justice for all.
We must move forward. But we can look back and remember a critical lesson: The name on the front of the jersey is more important than the name on the back.
Our united America is out there. That spark is out there. Americans will rise. It’s who we are, and what we must still be.
I know it. I’m hopeful. I believe in the best of us.
Photo caption: The jersey worn by U.S. men’s hockey defenseman Bill Baker, a member of the 1980 “Miracle” Olympic team. Part of the collection of the National Museum of American History, in Washington, D.C.
Lisa Duchene is a writer and owner of Polished Oak Communications in central Pennsylvania. ThanksgivinginFebruary.com is Lisa’s blog of stories and reflections about making peace. Visit lisaduchene.com for more. Follow @lisaduchenewriter on Facebook and Instagram for more stories.
Many among us will have a very difficult holiday season. What to do?
He stood facing her on the sidewalk of our busy road, just beyond our neighbors’ giant sycamore tree. A skinny, young man with hands out-stretched toward the young woman. He appeared to be pleading, crouching and twisting his body for eye contact as she looked down and away.
She appeared to be explaining, then not as much. She would retreat, freeze and look away. She wore a dark, long-sleeve plaid flannel shirt and pants.He wore shorts on a cold morning.
What was he thinking?
I stood washing dishes at the kitchen window, glad I could not hear their argument. Still, I kept an eye on them.
For the first morning in a few, I felt good and energized after a peaceful night’s rest. I’d felt so tired at 4:30 the day before, declared it a “leftovers” night, crashed on the couch and talked to one of my longtime soul-sisters. I woke up fresh, walked the dogs, tackled a few work tasks and just wanted to make some order on this kitchen counter before I headed upstairs to the office.
Their not-so private argument continued on the sidewalk two doors down, as tractor trailers and pickup trucks zipped by on our busy, two-lane road. This traffic seems to slow only to make the big turn toward the mountain or maneuver around the slower, clattering, horse-drawn Amish buggies.
The couple started to cross the road. She stalled. He pushed and pulled her toward the other side. Two seconds later, I was on our front porch, standing and shouting over to them.
“HEY!” I barked. “What’s going on?”
She continued across. He turned and walked toward me, asking what I’d said.
With the road noise, neither one of us could hear each other, so I stood silent with my arms crossed, watching him walk closer. I’d just reacted, of course. No plan.
At the end of our front walk, he paused on the sidewalk and asked if it was OK that he step onto our property to talk to me.
By then, I felt no hostility or threat from him. As he walked toward the porch, he said he was just trying to get her across the street so they could go inside and talk.
He began to explain her side of the argument, then his side and the long litany of complicated crap they were dealing with.
I believed him.
I saw a slight, weary, overwhelmed human. He’s just a kid, 23, with a thorny story, standing in the cold in shorts and a sweatshirt, trying to figure out how he’s going to get his kids what they need and give them a Christmas with no job and no unemployment.
For the next 45 minutes, I listened — mostly. I nodded a bunch. Occasionally, I asked a question. Have you tried maybe taking a time-out from the argument? Just step away and take a few deep breaths? Maybe just focus on one problem at a time? And, by the way, where are your pants?
No pants.
Those Christmas Blues — 2020 style
I’m 50 now, you know, so right or wrong, think I’ve figured out a few things and part of my job is to share them.
This is what I’ve learned about the blues at Christmastime:
• They are real. This season of immense joy and hope and light also comes with great sadness and shadow, particularly for people who have suffered a fresh loss of a loved one, a marriage or job. Loss doesn’t take a holiday or vacation. The days are shorter and, for many of us, colder. The pressure to purchase the picture-perfect Christmas morning is great — regardless of whether we have the cash for it.
• This year is immensely difficult, the darkest period in American life I’ve ever seen. We have all lost something by now. The virus death toll has passed 292,000 in nine months — and surpassed the number of Americans that died in combat over four years of World War II. People are losing multiple family members and friends, jobs, the businesses that represent their life’s work, their identities, their life savings. And we’ve not come together as one America. My heart is broken for our country.
• Some of us don’t get the holiday blues. Those of us who do and are able to kick them have to be vigilant — because others can’t. And someone out there needs our help.
People are hungry. Children are hungry. Fifty million people, including 17 million children, are now estimated to be hungry.
Many people are hanging on by a thread — like that kid in my front yard the other morning.
Battling the 2020 Christmas Blues
Say a Prayer — or not
If you are hanging on by a thread, you can always message me through this page or my Facebook page (@lisaduchenewriter). I’m never too busy to connect. I have faith that you can fix it — one thing at a time.
I’m never too busy to say a prayer for you or with you.
And if you’re doing fine or better — which is good! — would you please do me a favor and say a prayer for this kid?
Oh — and if you don’t believe in prayer, that’s OK, too. If you don’t believe in an infinite source of love, whether you call that God or Spirit or the Universe — it’s OK. I respect that.
I believe enough for both of us.
Sometimes, that’s all we need to get through a dark patch: A little faith. A little hope. A little light. Just enough. A little chance to help someone else.
To know we’re not alone, and to know we’re loved.
You are not alone. You are loved.
The only way we get through this is together — by watching out for each other and taking care of each other.
Kicking my Christmas Blues
My Christmas blues arrive the second weekend after Thanksgiving, when I’ve realized there are a few short weeks to get it all done just as my energy drops with the colder, shorter days. The to-do list is long and all I really want to do is curl up in a ball.
Maybe this is why people put their tree up right after Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving should have more than its due time (and I love it), so I linger over the pumpkins and pressed leaves and all of a sudden, I’m behind on Christmas.
I start panicking and muttering about needing to get 12 things done in a day, and where to start?
My husband knows: The tree.
Last Sunday, he pried me out of the house for a drive to the tree farm. By Monday eve, we (actually he) had it in the silver bucket in the corner. By Tuesday, we had lights on it. They were so pretty, I decided we needed two more strings.
By Wednesday morning, when I came inside from that chilly talk on the front porch, the house felt like an 80-degree palace and that lit tree in the corner looked glorious. Who cares about the exposed bathroom pipes just above it? (That’s a fixer-upper story for later.)
This house is solid, safe harbor in this perfect storm of a terrible year.
One thing I told that kid was a bit of wisdom I’ve learned from my husband: Next most important thing.
As in: “Next most important thing, HON! That’s all you’ve got to do.”Thank goodness for this guy, who catches me. With a tree. Before I’m too overwhelmed.
When the world is spinning out of control, you’re in the heat of an argument or maybe overwhelmed at Christmas, or anything: Pause. Take the three longest, deepest breaths you can. Then do the next, most important thing.
Say a prayer — for yourself, and someone else.
That’s all. Just one thing. Then the next.
For me, it was the tree. Next, to find a pair of pants for this kid.
One winter Saturday afternoon, my husband arrived home from the state forest near our small, rural town. He climbed the steps up to my office, and stood at the doorway, smiling.
“There’s a squirrel for you on the cutting board, hon!” he proudly announced.
“A what!?”
“A squirrel. We’re going to roast him for dinner!”
“You can’t put that thing in the oven,” I said, stalling. “I’ve got potatoes in there.”
“He won’t eat any potatoes, hon! He’s already dead!”
Downstairs in our kitchen, my husband and my younger stepson, then 16, beamed with their anticipation of challenging me. Indeed, a hunk of cold, cleaned, raw meat wrapped in clear plastic lay on the cutting board. It looked like chicken.
My husband threw down the gauntlet. “Are you going to try it, hon?”
From Strangers to Family
He and my two stepsons are hunters. I am not. They grew up in central Pennsylvania’s hunting culture, part of a hunting family, part of a longtime hunting community and gun club. I respect hunting for many reasons and by then had cooked plenty of venison.
But I did not grow up within a hunting family, nor hunting culture.
I’m from the Cleveland suburbs, where people got their shrink-wrapped meat at the grocery store. We watched neighborhood squirrels spiral up and down tree trunks, hanging upside down on bird feeders. Never once did I think of shooting one for dinner.
Yet, here I was, becoming family with people who did.
I fell in love with my husband the night we met at a Halloween party, the moment light flashed across his face when he mentioned his sons, 15 and 13. Seriously — love at first sight is real and possible. He is kind, strong and sexy. A good man and good father.
I was 41 and did not have children, until I met the boys that first weekend of December. Instantly, I felt an avalanche of love and a fierce drive to nurture and protect them.
I am not their mom. She loves them very much. Yet, they are “my” kids. All this is true at the same time. My job is to respect her place and to partner with their dad to provide a warm, loving home for them.
Teenage boys are too big to rock to sleep or be tucked in with a bedtime story — all the ways in which I long ago pictured nurturing my children.
Sure, I said “I love you.” But as the daughter of a mostly absent father I also knew that what mattered most was showing it. I cheered them on at their sports events. (All that training in how to project from my diaphragm as an energized, loud fitness instructor paid off.)
And I fed them.
Banana-buttermilk pancakes soon became a favorite.
Cookbooks Included
Their Dad’s new girlfriend arrived in their lives with a huge pile of cookbooks, collected over many years as gifts from my mom and grandmother, and freebies from the publishing industry.
“You have a cookbook just for Thanksgiving?” my older stepson had said, eyeing the book with the classic roasted turkey on the front cover.
With fresh perspective — and new, VIPs to cook for — I thumbed through the dog-eared cookbooks and the ones barely opened, flagging the pages of recipes they might like with Post-Its, zipping by ones too far beyond their meat-and-potatoes comfort zone.
We started with family breakfasts on Sunday mornings, when I folded mashed bananas into Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for buttermilk pancakes.
The banana caramelized as the batter hit the foaming butter on the griddle. Tangy buttermilk lifted the cakes, filling the kitchen with warmth and sweetness. Teenage boys, I quickly learned, not only have ravenous appetites, but turn everything into a competition, including how many pancakes they can eat.
Soon, I was making two batches for the four of us.
They were always hungry. They wanted filling, familiar and fast.
I learned to cook differently, and quickly produce a tasty meal for a crowd. And, when I’d tackled too much, they learned to be patient.
Chili made the cut, along with paninis and tomato soup. I leaned on Sara Moulton, queen of the family-friendly weeknight meal, especially her recipe for chicken thighs with sausage and hot peppers. I kept the pickled okra in her Cheatin’ Jambalaya, added extra meat and used brown rice. We all swooned for Sara’s fish tacos.
Trying New Things
They would eat what I put in front of them, I learned. So I could still experiment — a little.
Peeking into the pots simmering on the stove, my husband and the boys had squirmed many times.
“What’s that?”
“Oh,” I’d say. “I thought you’d like it because I know you like [whatever ingredient had sparked my inspiration].”
“I’ll try it. I just want to know what it is.”
And so it went. Meal by meal, trying new things, listening to what they liked and didn’t, until we had a stable of family favorites.
Until, that is, we built a family that included me.
I transformed their family meals. They turned my life upside down in the best possible way.
The rule always: They would try anything I made for them.
Cracked, Sizzling — and Ready to Eat
As my husband placed the squirrel meat in a metal pan to roast, without one drop of oil or bit of seasoning, I knew I’d have to try it. There was no escape.
It was a rare treatment of meat from the woods. My husband makes incredible venison burgers, and I often make a venison stew in the slow cooker with portobello mushrooms and red wine. This food is honored, and not wasted.
But that night, I stepped back and thought it best to not intervene.
We sat down to dinner: chicken, potatoes, probably broccoli — and squirrel, cracked and still sizzling.
I took one bite. Stringy and dry.
Awful. I chewed it, swallowed and sipped some water.
Done.
My younger stepson soon relayed the news to his older brother at college. I earned a few points that day. A little cred.
Our boys are now men, 24 and 22. Our oldest is married now, with a kitchen of his own.
They are still passionate hunters, and the rule remains: I’ll try anything they have hunted. They will try anything I put in front of them.
This past February — when we had no inkling of what was coming — our family and friends gathered at hunting camp for our annual Thanksgiving in February celebration. It was our last big family dinner before the pandemic hit.
The boys offered to cook Friday night dinner for 12 people so I would be less stressed. They made venison meatballs, Greek spaghetti and salad. I stayed out of their kitchen, stood back and enjoyed a very proud stepmama moment.
~ Lisa Duchene
Lisa Duchene is a freelance writer, foodie, blogger, owner of Polished Oak Communications — and, most importantly, a proud stepmama in central Pennsylvania. Lisaduchene.com
In 20 years of making this quilt, I’ve learned a lot about its message to cultivate peace.
A newly finished quilt on the wall of my studio reminds me to stay calm and peaceful at my core, no matter what chaos surrounds me. This quilt is an old friend — more than 20 years in the making and the first quilt I made for myself.
Pieces of cobalt blue, orange, deep rose, butter yellow and pale green form diamond rings against a deep blue background. At the center of all that chaotic color is a cobalt blue cross in an orderly square.
Peace was on my mind when I laid out these quilt squares two decades ago in a little second-story bedroom with a lake view on the coast of Maine. Over these years, my life changed as I’ve completed a step of this quilt, then put it away for a few years, then pulled it out for the next step.
I’ve learned a lot about the constant process of making peace.
What gives us peace?
For me, it’s small things like a deep breath or finishing a quilt and giant things like truly loving and being loved unconditionally. The grace following our grief after loss. Purposeful, challenging work. Feeling appreciated.
Telling a story. Crossing something off a to-do list, especially a “bucket” list. All those moments of resolution throughout years.
The work of finding peace is never finished.
But finally, this quilt is — just in time for what we’ve been warned will be an exceptionally difficult winter.
Love at First Sight
I was in my late 20s, a single newspaper writer living in a small Maine town, when I first fell in love with the color, pattern and potential of fabric.
A drawing of colorful fabrics on a Maine wall calendar, illustrating January — or maybe February — drew me in. The caption said visiting this little fabric shop beats the winter blues. Maine winters are long, cold and isolating. So I went to see the fabrics.
Three came home with me: A gold batik, a deep blue with a pattern of hand-drawn arrows in a lighter blue and a rich print of teale, orange and rust elephants.
What to do with those fabrics? It didn’t matter. I just wanted them, and wanted to make something with them.
This was the late 90s, soon after I inherited my grandmother’s sewing machine and her supplies. I missed her and craved connection. My grandmother made clothes, bow ties for my grandfather that matched the new blouse she made herself.
I knew almost nothing. A friend and neighbor had helped me stitch a very simple quilt for a friend’s wedding gift, then gave me a book of quilt square designs. Using the book and sewing machine, I attempted to make small patchwork Christmas ornaments that year for my neighbors.
It was a disaster. The machine had sat for years and sorely needed a tune-up or perhaps just oil. It jammed repeatedly. The threads either broke or became tangled into nasty, debilitating knots. The ornaments were these pitiful, wonky misfit fiber globs. With my apologies, I gave them to my friend. They were lovely, she said, and put them on the tree. She was being exceptionally kind.
Quilters through the ages have turned piles of scraps or old shirts or flour sacks into something so beautiful that can warm and comfort a child — or anyone, really.
That’s a hell of a superpower, don’t you think?
One Tempting Sandwich
A quilt is a stitched fabric sandwich. Three layers — typically a top made of pieced fabrics, a layer of filling or batting, and a backing fabric that can be pieced or solid — all attached with quilted stitching through all three layers then finished all the way around with a stitched fabric edge called a binding.
I started going to shows to see dozens of displayed quilts that always moved me, and I’d tear up within minutes. So beautiful. So meaningful. So many different styles and designs.
In that connection, I swooned and wanted to be a part of all that creativity, joy and inspiration. When all is going right, and the machine is humming, the rhythmic process of sewing is soothing, even meditative. I even love how the word sounds.
Quilters through the ages have turned piles of scraps or old shirts or flour sacks into something so beautiful that can warm and comfort a child — or anyone, really.
That’s a hell of a superpower, don’t you think?
Quilting School
So early in the next Maine winter, I signed up for a beginner quilting class. On a January night, I packed up my grandmother’s sewing machine and went to a big fabric store for the first class.
Our teacher had silver and grey hair, chewed mint gum, had nice fingernails shining with clear polish and was crystal clear about what we would need: Guttermann thread in “puke green” to blend with any color, a steady supply of sharp machine needles, a sharp rotary cutter, sharp scissors, cutting mat and plastic ruler with a lip. The ruler’s lip lined up with the edge of the table to help make the cutting precise. Precision. Precision. Precision.
Our assignment was to dive into the store, gather our tools and select our fabrics. We’d need six.
But I was newly unemployed and had a small, tight budget. Maybe $20? $25? On the first Monday of 1999, the president and owner of our publishing company informed our small editorial staff that he’d sold the title of our magazine. He apologized, dismissed us and handed us a check for the rest of the month.
It was a good time to make the most of what was on hand. I used tools from my grandmother’s sewing box, borrowed a few and bought a few essentials.
In the store that night, my challenge was to find fabrics to go with what I already had. I found a calico print of roses in yellow, rusts and pinks against a pale green background that pulled the rest together: a butter yellow fabric printed with fern fronds, and a few tiny ladybugs, one printed with deep rose petals, a few more blues with a subtle, flowery print.
Together, they just worked.
We cut our fabric into strips, sewed the strips together and then cut triangles from those stitched strips. We sewed those strippy triangles to matching, solid-colored triangles to make squares.
Finding Order in Chaos
I soon had 48 squares to put in some kind of order.
That dark cobalt blue stood out and dominated. It appeared in all different lengths and spots — so there was no way to make a pattern repeat. It would be random. Chaotic.
That would not do.
I noticed that four of the squares matched — enough to make an orderly, symmetrical center square. The finished quilt, I decided, would be a reminder to stay calm and centered no matter what chaos surrounds you. A good reminder then, and now.
I stitched those 48 squares together. Now, I had a quilt top. But not a quilt.
Those Years and Fabrics Pile Up
So it sat. I’d figure out the next step, do a little, then set it aside, for a couple of years or so.
Over time, I finished a few gift quilts, hung out at quilt shops — and kept buying fabric. It fills an entire cabinet in my studio.
My blue diamond quilt has fabrics from a few shops in Maine — and a few shops in Pennsylvania for the borders, backing and binding. Many hands, by now, have worked on this quilt.
One Pennsylvania quilter machine-quilted the straight seams of the strips. She left the solid blue empty at my request, since I hoped to hand-quilt daisies in those sections, but then it hurt my hands and I abandoned hand-quilting. Nothing peaceful about it for me.
A woman here in Big Valley quilted a chain of daisies in those blue solids.
Then it was time to add the binding, but none of the shades of blue in my cabinet were quite right. So I bought a bright orange at the quilt shop down the road — then forgot the fabric in my mom’s car and it went home with her to Ohio.
That took awhile.
Real Life
Real life is … real.
And full of many really important things that take time and attention — like marrying the wrong guy and moving to Pennsylvania, so I could meet and fall in love with the right guy. He is the love of my life. My peace. A smooth, glassy lake who evens out my ups and downs, mellows out my anxieties and worries.
Then suddenly, the family I’d longed for was right here with busy schedules and hungry. Our kids were already teenagers when I met them, and I knew they’d soon be all grown up. I still never want to miss a minute of family time.
Now I’m a wife, stepmother, owner of a communications business and writer in a small town in central Pennsylvania.
There’s work to be done, gratefully, for clients. The chores. The dogs need to be walked. The groceries need to be bought and put away. What’s for dinner? When the weather is good, I’d rather be in the garden. I have a lot of passions. A lot of loves.
For a long time, finishing this quilt was not one of those most important things.
Then it was.
This newly finished blue-diamond quilt with calm at its center holds a powerful reminder. This dog, also Blue, is reminding me it’s time for a walk.
Home — with all this fabric
This year, we are home. I feel safest right here. I never run out of work or things to do, never get bored.
Out came the blue diamond quilt. I made the orange binding this summer and sewed it on. I would not put it away, nor would I let myself start any more quilts or buy any more fabric until it was finished.
On Election Night I hand-stitched the binding to the back of the quilt while watching the news, finding comfort in the symbolism of quilting as community, stitched together as one country.
Five nights later, the election winner was declared and the quilt was done. And our social fabric needs even more mending than I’d realized.
Once again, I’m preparing for a long, dark and difficult winter season. The experts warned us. And now it’s here, the darkest period of the COVID-19 pandemic before enough people are vaccinated so we can hopefully, safely resume our “normal” lives.
This year, our family is healthy and I am so fortunate and grateful. I’ve struggled with two big things: Guilt over how comfortable I am at home compared to the challenges so many people face — especially the many who have no safe place to call home.
And I’m struck by a collective grief over our losses as Americans, as humans. By now, we have all lost something, whether a normal school year or start or end to college. Or an event we planned. Or a job. Or some stability.
We’ve lost so many cherished loved ones. Families that have lost multiple people. We are in the grip of such an unbelievably cruel disease.
We’ve been shaken to our core.
When I walk the dogs around our neighborhood, I often see my wise Quaker neighbor. How is he doing? His reliable answer: Blessed & grateful. Always.
We talk a little about my fear and anxiety that someone in our family will get sick, that we’ll lose someone.
We talk about peace. Peace, he reminds me, starts within. First, we cultivate our own peace at our core, before we can influence or project peace into the world.
Truth.
One that the orderly blue cross at the center of those chaotic rings reminds me of. Every day.
The hospital corridors were quiet and empty that Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving in 2009.
I found my dad sitting up in his bed, his head turned away and staring out the window over asphalt rooftops in pale grey morning light.
His hands laid limp in the scrambled eggs on his tray, which was disturbing given how many times I’d watched his strong hands working to repair a bicycle chain, or car engine, or pound a nail or sweat pipes for a new hot water heater.
But he was awake and calm. This was a good, welcome change from the night before.
A euphoric relief after the last two weeks of sitting vigil beside his ICU bed, talking to him as he slept and doing whatever I could think of to yank him away from death. A beeping ventilator had breathed for him and strong drugs kept him unconscious while his body fought infection in his lungs and abdomen.
I’d pulled him with all my might. Prayed and hoped and pled with him. Now, I was exhausted.
I didn’t know how I would spend Thanksgiving the next day and, frankly, I didn’t care. Some things are more important than our Thanksgiving plans.
Next week, many millions of American families will spend Thanksgiving away from loved ones who they would normally see to help protect them. Staying home and understanding others’ decision to stay home, and helping those who will be alone — THIS is how we shall take care of each other this year, and it is beautiful.
THIS is how we show respect for the tremendous loss in our country of more than 252,000 mothers, uncles, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, fathers, brothers and children — and be thankful for who is healthy.
THIS is what we sacrifice now so we can hopefully see and hug everyone next year. Let’s prevent whatever loss and pain we can still prevent.
A Holiday Nightmare
When I quietly called my dad, he turned, recognized me and said, befuddled: “I’ve been damaged.”
Then it hit me: For these last two weeks, he’d slept through our nightmare. Our family — his long-time girlfriend, Stephanie, his brother and my sister and our moms, his ex-wives — could all exhale and celebrate. He survived. He was alive and awake. Everything was going to be OK.
But my dad’s conscious nightmare was just beginning. His body was full of medicine to knock him out and treat infection, and he had not had a normal sleep cycle in at least three weeks. On Monday, he came off the ventilator and surfaced from sedation and seemed OK.
Tuesday started just fine but by the afternoon, he believed the nurses were holding him hostage and kept trying to get out of bed and escape. My dad that Tuesday suffered from ICU psychosis — a temporary state of delirium, paranoia and anxiety caused by the sleep and stimuli disruption of the intensive care unit.
That Tuesday afternoon, he was physically restrained and moved to a regular hospital room. It had been awful.
So I was relieved to see him calm for breakfast Wednesday morning, and attempted to ease his confusion.
His brain had not caught up and could not make any sense of what was going on. He’d dreamed he’d crashed his car so much that that was real to him. For weeks, he was foggy and believed he’d suffered brain damage, no matter what anyone him.
I will never forget that Wednesday morning in Akron, Ohio, as gut instinct and adrenaline drove me to the hospital early. I knew I would soon hit the wall and had to drive myself back home to central Pennsylvania. But first I had to see him awake and calm, do what I could to re-assure him that he would be fine, his brain was not damaged, say goodbye for now and understand what would happen next.
A Clear Decision
This week, my mother-in-law said an amazing thing to me that took me right back to that Wednesday morning. (My mother-in-law, by the way, is an angel walking among us.)
She and I have talked about Thanksgiving plans many times this fall, and now the decision is clear — as it is for so many American families as the COVID pandemic surges, and breaks new records.
She and my father-in-law and sister-in-law will spend Thanksgiving at home about 20 minutes away instead of at our house, where they have been for the last seven years. This is disappointing — and for the best.
It’s OK to change Thanksgiving, she said. To move it. To re-schedule it until it’s safe to gather again. This is how we take care of our families and celebrate gratitude.
Look what you did that year your dad was in the hospital, she said. You moved Thanksgiving to February and this beautiful new tradition grew out of it. She knows my dad only through stories and our annual Thanksgiving in February dinner.
She’s exactly right.
And I was gobsmacked.
Sometimes, we’re so close to something we miss the obvious.
Finding Gratitude in the Dead of Winter
I often think about the life lessons from Thanksgiving in February, this true story of how my family-of-origin patched itself together first to take care of my dad and each other when he was hospitalized over Thanksgiving in 2009, then to celebrate together literally in the middle of February.
I love the symbolism of celebrating gratitude in the dead of winter, and I love exploring these themes of making peace, healing through family, gratitude, finding light in darkness, and holding each other up. I’m grateful for the readers who’ve joined me on this journey.
And yet — I’d missed the most obvious, most critical “Thanksgiving in February” lesson for right now: Health is more important than gathering for turkey and pie. (And trust me — I LOVE hosting Thanksgiving dinner.)
This week, I’ve watched public health experts on TV urging people to stay home for Thanksgiving. We can have Thanksgiving in March or Thanksgiving in April or June, they say.
Thanksgiving in February?! We’ll see. February may be too soon.
Nothing matters more than health and taking care of each other. Thanksgiving can be changed to work around that. It will be OK.
Never the Same
Because my dad’s illness in 2009 was horrible and awful and changed him. He recovered — yet never fully regained his strength.
And I rarely let myself wonder this — it doesn’t change anything and he and his loved ones suffered plenty — but nonetheless:
What if he’d prevented that illness? What if he’d sought a doctor before his appendix burst and left him with infection?
Would that have changed anything? Would he have been stronger to fight pancreatic cancer in 2012? Would he have lived and gotten to know my husband and stepsons? My beautiful family? Our life here?
Would he be here right now, sitting at my kitchen table, clinking his spoon against his coffee cup for a re-fill? And otherwise driving me crazy? Who knows.
What pain can we prevent?
The real, heart-breaking, peace-shattering tragedy of this year is the loss of more than 252,000 people. Some of those deaths were preventable.
Dr. Christopher Murray is the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Dr. Murray was the lead author on a study published in late October in the journal Nature Medicine — which means his work was reviewed and vetted by many other reputable, respected and credible scientists.
Research from Dr. Murray’s team showed that mask use can cut by half the risk of infection for individuals and the population.
Simply put: Mask-wearing can still save the lives of tens of thousands of people. The study (published here) estimates that if 95 percent of people wore masks in public, we could save more than 129,000 lives from the end of September to the end of February.
Now — this is an estimate, from a model that can vary depending on data used and what happens next week.
BUT let that sink in, because 129,000 is a big number of real people. If 95 percent of people wore masks in public, we could save tens of thousands of lives.
Why wouldn’t we do that?
Each of the people we have already lost had a story. Most died away from family. So much pain. Too much.
This will break some people. Some people will not recover.
(Oh – and for the people still saying more people die from the flu: Please stop the nonsense. The Center of Disease Control estimates 24,000 to 62,000 U.S. flu deaths in last year’s flu season.)
Fussing over Details? Guilty!
I know change is hard. I know it’s hard to let go of what we expect or envision from Thanksgiving. This is tradition. This is what we do.
Trust me, I get it. My dad’s serious illness changed me, too, and led to my obsession with two Thanksgiving dinners a year, a constant reflection on gratitude, family and peace — and a preoccupation with the details of hosting these gatherings.
Soon after his recovery, I started hosting. And now, my husband and I host Thanksgiving dinner for about 15 of our family in November and 25 or so in February. This year, it will be our immediate family, small and outside, if the weather cooperates.
I’m always fussing over details up until the last-minute. Getting the house ready. Finishing a painting project — or even knocking down a wall in our living/dining space the week before Thanksgiving. (Our contractor did that work.)
Envisioning how the table will look. One year, I had to anchor the centerpiece of fall squash and flowers in a rustic wooden toolbox. When it was done, I felt so much better.
Of course you did, my mom said, as she stirred brussels sprouts in the pan. No better symbol of your dad than an old wooden toolbox, she said.
Thank goodness my mom and my husband keep the dinner on track. This year, my mom and stepdad are also staying home to be safe. I’d better set the table early, so I can cook the Brussels sprouts.
Last year, I sort of body-blocked my mother-in-law just in time. She was about to set regular paper napkins on the table, instead of the proper, matching cloth ones. (Regular, paper napkins!) In the heat of the moment, I may have been a bit abrupt. When I apologized the next day, she said she had not even noticed.
(I’m telling you, she’s an angel walking among us.)
Odd crowd
A quirky twist of my family-of-origin’s Thanksgiving in February story is that we didn’t exactly re-schedule a dinner we normally had together. We just promised a big family Thanksgiving dinner to comfort my dad, who was still loopy on meds and stuck in the hospital over the holiday.
All those people never gathered for a Thanksgiving dinner until February 2010, when my dad had recovered. My dad’s longtime girlfriend hosted the first one at their home, and invited both my dad’s ex-wives (my mom and stepmother) and my mom’s husband. Not the typical November crowd.
In fact, I had not spent Thanksgiving with my dad in many years. We’d hardly spoken for 10 of those years.
When my dad was sick in the hospital that year, 2009, I’d been expected in Philadelphia to celebrate Thanksgiving with my then-husband and his family. We’d spent many fun Thanksgivings in Philly.
They went out to dinner, as I recall, but I didn’t make it to Philly until that evening.
Assured my dad was going to be OK and in good hands, that Wednesday I headed east for central Pennsylvania, got home, fed the cats and crashed on the couch.
Wilda, my good friend who lived in town, invited me to her house for Thanksgiving dinner, and her family fed me body and soul with their quiet and small gathering, passing delicious food and expressions of their gratitude. I’m pretty sure I arrived empty-handed, without even a bottle of wine.
When my turn came, I was teary and swimming in gratitude. My dad is going to be OK, I said. He woke up. He survived. And thank you so much for sharing your dinner with me.
It would take many months for me to fully recharge and recover my energy. That visit with my friend’s family around their Thanksgiving table was an unexpected, wonderful way to start.
However we all spend Thanksgiving this year, if we truly focus on gratitude and protecting the health of our families, it will be a perfect day.
I’d love to hear about your Thanksgiving! Share your plans or thoughts in the comments section below.Thank YOU for being here.
