by lisaduchene | May 6, 2020
There’s no better time to reach for someone we miss
When Candace’s name flashed on my phone a few Fridays ago, I scrambled to pick it up. I was stunned — I’d just been thinking of her, afraid for her, afraid to lose her.
My friend lives in New York City, where the news as the virus pounded the city was horrific and somehow getting even worse.
We had drifted out of touch. Our lives are more complex than they were in the early 90s when we lived and worked together as young news reporters on the Maine coast. We’d not spoken for at least a year, and not seen each other for even longer. Maybe 10 years. Maybe even more.
I’d checked the New York Times repeatedly each day, wondered and worried about Candace, anxious to know if she was OK. Sick? In the hospital? I’d dialed her numbers in my contacts and reached her husband, but that had been days before.
I picked up my phone to call again, then put it down, thinking my anxiety would be the last thing her husband needed.
Moments later, her name flashed on the tiny screen. Then her voice triggered my fresh tears of relief.
Ambulance sirens wail non-stop, she said, and I could hear them in the background.
She and her husband are OK. Buttoned up in their small apartment, and staying sane in part by walking early every morning in a nearby park before it’s crowded.
Work Hard, Play Hard
In the highlight reel from my 20s, Candace is always there. We worked long hours at that tiny newspaper, in a tight-knit family of young reporters and felt a strong sense of purpose to serve the community — even though we were both transplants. We lived in a rented, cedar-shingled cape house with blue shutters perched on a hill.
Our landlords were a local, married educators who lived with their five kids in a yellow colonial just down the wooded path from our house — which, of course, was really their house. They had built it themselves with her father. The husband was a moose of a man and science teacher at the local high school. His wife was the guidance counselor.
Good, solid, generous people.
Our landlord would tell us how much he loved to watch the weather move across the sky over the river valley behind the house. The view, indeed, was stunning. Nothing but trees stretched to the horizon. A change in shades of green marked the spot where the Kennebec River cut through the trees, but we could not see the water. Only tree tops.
During those years in that house, I caught Candace’s obsession with Halloween and we hosted big, elaborate Halloween parties. Once, for a “Shipwreck at the Bottom of the Sea” theme, we even made a huge octopus from old sheets tie-dyed purple then stuffed for a head and legs. Our landlord climbed up on the roof to anchor the octopus to the chimney so it draped over the front of the house, one of its pale purple tentacles wrapped around a diver suit borrowed from a lobsterman friend and stuffed with straw.
Thirsty Frogs and Long Hugs
At least 10 years have passed since we’ve seen each other. It was May, I think, when Candace and her husband pulled up in their little Honda in front of my petite folk Victorian house in central Pennsylvania. They are actors, and were driving cross-country from a winter in California to summer theater jobs in New England.
Candace emerged from the passenger seat of the jam-packed car with the small glass tank she’d been holding on her lap. “Hellloooooo!” she greeted, and asked if we had any water for her pet frog. These long driving days were tough on him. She worried he was drying out.
Yes! Of course we had water for the parched frog, limping into the home stretch of his 3,000-mile journey. Surely — once the frog was OK — we’d hugged hello for a long time.
Funny — we’ve kept tabs on Facebook and emailed and talked on the phone, yet when I think of Candace, I see her unfolding out of that front seat, taking care not to jostle her pet frog and quickly relaying his urgent need for water.
Life’s Shake-ups Lead Us Back
Each chapter of my life has brought a best friend. Then the page turns and life changes. We fall out of synche. I move away. Or she moves away. She gets married. Maybe she’s back in town, but I’m traveling a bunch then, or have moved away. We try to stay in touch, but it’s easy to drift.
Now in my “midlife,” I’ve collected many chapters with many best friends around the country. We no longer talk or see each other as much as we did when our daily lives overlapped.
That’s OK. We don’t need each other day-to-day anymore.
Then something happens. Life shakes us up with a divorce, an illness, the death of someone close to us.
Or, in this case, a global tragedy unlike anything we’ve ever experienced.
We reach out, knowing whenever we connect, we will slip right back into that familiar, comforting bubble of friendship. We pick right back up again. These folks remind us of the joys and heartaches we’ve already lived through.
As we all cope with this COVID-19 pandemic, I am longing for connection to people I love, both family and friends — also known as “family of choice.”
Big Lessons from One Little Dinner
This Thanksgiving in February blog project began with the story of how my broken family-of-origin moved beyond pain and bitterness to grow closer after my dad recovered from a grave illness. We celebrated his recovery with a delayed, but otherwise traditional Thanksgiving dinner — among a group including his ex-wives and daughters that had never really celebrated Thanksgiving all together.
But we were all connected through my dad — and had functioned beautifully to help him recover from his near-death experience. I’m drawn to relive and tell this story, I think, for its many lessons. Re-connecting can bring healing, and peace. Often — not always.
As we live through a pandemic, I hope we emerge better connected. Real-time voice calls over clicks and texts. Re-connections that help us cope. More peace and healing than the vast individual and collective pain.
Maybe the time has come to trust whatever triggers urge you to call someone you are missing. You know best. You’ll know what to say. Each of us has friends we are missing. I’ve yet to find a family without a painful estrangement.
Maybe it’s time?
Reaching for Roots
In these quarantine weeks, I’ve looked for ways to connect with family members and family roots. Baking my grandmother’s recipe for Slovakian, braided “pascha” bread with yellow raisins got me through Easter weekend. My mom and I traded pictures of our rising dough. My uncle and I traded pictures of our finished loaves. All from the same recipe — from a woman we called “Sweetie” who was an Army nurse in World War II. She explored Europe and fell in love with my grandfather there. Our family grew out of that horrific time. That brought me comfort.
So does re-connecting with good friends. In this last decade, I’ve prioritized my family-of-origin and my “new” family with my husband and stepsons. This was a conscious choice. Our boys — my stepsons — were already teenagers when I met them. I knew how much of their lives I’d already missed, and that they’d be all grown up in a blink.
And so — I’ve neglected some of those beloved friendships and “family of choice” folks from earlier chapters.
When I pick up the phone and explain, even my friends who don’t have kids understand. I’m working my way toward best friends from all my chapters.
On that Friday afternoon phone call, Candace and I spent a few minutes sharing hellos, our relief to hear each other’s voices, and our shock and grief at living through the same nightmare unfolding in slow-motion.
They were coping, she said, both working from home in a two-room city apartment. They had masks, plenty of food in the freezer and were doing OK.
So is our family. Everyone is healthy. We are adjusting to new realities. We’re coping. We’re disappointed over cancellation of my younger stepson’s college baseball season, which was off to a magical start. And my older stepson’s wedding plans have been thrown upside down.
Keeping everyone safe and healthy is most important, Candace and I agreed. Yet, each of us has twice been a bride, so we know how those weeks leading up to a wedding for a bride are supposed to be an extra-happy time to cherish, not full of cancellations and uncertainty. Candace understands how my heart aches for our kids.
Our conversation was tremendously comforting.
Dreaming Above the Treetops
The next week, I dreamed of the house where Candace and I once lived. In my dream, it had a new, three-season porch off the back that looked over the river valley, and we sat talking in front of a wall of pictures from everything that’s happened in our lives since we lived in that house — second marriages, new families, new homes and towns, new careers, new projects.
No one knows when we’ll be able to visit in person, hug and catch up over a bottle of wine. We’re holding onto our connection, texting every few days.
I send pictures of the scenery in our farm town, little video messages from our dogs. Pictures of spring blooms. One spring evening, I made a quick video of the singing peepers at our state park. A bat swooped through the purple sky behind me.
“Candace! Frogs & Halloween — just for you! In one message!”
At first, this was my way to help, to support someone — my friend, in the raging US epicenter of the pandemic. But I soon realized this connection is helping me get through, and cope with the anxiety and uncertainty of this time. One text message, one phone call, one uplifting reminder of love and connection at a time.
This wicked problem is too big for any one of us to fix. But we can each focus on taking care of ourselves, being kind and taking care of each other through connection. We can love each other through it, one moment at a time.
by lisaduchene | Feb 29, 2020
The framed picture of four guys dressed in purple caught my dad’s eye. So he bought it for me. Those quirky, mysterious guys lived in my attic for years. But now, I keep them in view to remind me of what’s been true all along.
“I forgot one of your Christmas gifts,” my dad said one February, handing me the big, glass-framed picture. Duct tape held one of its corners together.
Four identical, pastel-drawn men stand in a line like nesting spoons. Facing the frame’s left edge, they all wear plain expressions, fedora hats and long, patterned overcoats of beige and dusky violet.
Adult quadruplets? Police lineup?
Dad spotted my puzzled look and chuckled. “I saw it at a tag sale. You’ve been painting everything purple, so I just got it for you.”
“Oh, OK. Thanks.”
True. The walls of my home office were now a deep, luscious violet. So was the front door of my house and the window boxes on the porch. Immediately after separating from my ex-husband, I started painting. An earthy, wine color felt just right.
Maybe those four purple guys are riding the subway together.
They stand between two violet windows. Three men brace themselves by holding onto the man in front of him, and gripping an overhead cross bar. I bet they stay in precise sync just like the Temptations. No matter how their train sways and jolts around sweeping turns beneath some unknown city, they’ll move together.
Surprise Box
Now, their picture hangs against Oxford blue walls of my office, in a different house, above my dad’s empty chair. Nine years and much reflection later, it still is one of his strange gifts. But I’m closer to making sense of it.
A short history of our complicated relationship: My dad’s absence and abdication hurt me as child. He was volatile, but not violent. As a teen, I was collateral damage when his infidelity ended his second marriage. I raged over all he’d failed to provide as a father.
When I was 25, we reconciled and began to rebuild.
Once, when we were barely talking, he sent a big, old green watering can that had been my great-grandfather’s to Boston, where I lived in a studio apartment. I’d graduated from a college he didn’t approve of, in a ceremony he was not invited to and stuck around that summer in a city he’d never seen.
I didn’t have a single plant, so I set aside the watering can. The next year, as a transplant to the Maine coast, I planted my first garden and every year I water with that chipped green can — useful after all.
Perhaps my dad was prescient. He could also be forgetful. Later, when we were talking and he regularly visited me, he gave me a heavy-duty tool bag with lots of outside pockets for several Christmases in a row. He would remember I’d lost one just like it, but not that he’d replaced it the year before.
Surely, I’m over-thinking it. Dad, mostly, was impulsive. If he spotted something that sparked a thought of me, and had enough cash in his pocket, he bought it.
Often, he didn’t understand why he did things any more than the rest of us understood.
Riding with Dad
Even when I was a toddler and too young to know anything about leather or gasoline, cigarettes and coffee, whenever I climbed into the front seat of my Dad’s car their blended scent flooded my nose.
On special occasions, a dash of Old Spice, too.
That mix of scents would instantly trigger my adoration, longing, and a sense of adventure — or trouble — just around the corner. The memory of that smell is tangled with the sound of his voice and chuckle. Out of habit, I still roll my eyes and shake my head.
My dad, David Lee Duchene, relished driving. He loved cars and he loved to drive fast. Perhaps he felt the most at home on the road. He embraced any excuse to dramatically downshift, force the gas pedal to the floor and awaken an engine’s power.
If he was driving us on the freeway and approaching a slower car, which happened often, he’d drive even faster. His eyes grew intense and he’d set his jaw as he unleashed the engine. Once he reached the clear sailing of the fast lane, his whole body sighed.
For my dad, the road was a happy place, where he enjoyed the thrill ride on the edge of control. A fast drive to anywhere was temporary escape, perhaps from an argument at home. He was often, I suspect, frustrated, overwhelmed and bewildered about life and how to hold onto a marriage or long-term commitment.
Along with the cars and fast driving, he loved women.
He’d made a family with my mom, his first wife. After their divorce, he married and had a daughter with his second wife, my stepmom. After their divorce, Stephanie became his long-time girlfriend and partner of 25 years.
Over the decades, he’d cheated on all of us.
Fading In and Out
My longing and adoration for my dad — despite the pain he’d caused — defines our story. He was there. Kind of. Then gone again. Back. Then gone.
Every fade-out was a fresh gut-punch of grief, a new layer of loss.
My story is of a child longing for a parent, an unfortunately all-too-ordinary story. I got lucky. I grew up with an extraordinarily capable mom who fulfilled the caretaking and financial jobs of two parents.
I’ve poured a lot, perhaps too much, time and energy into making sense and meaning of my dad and our story.
Many people, possibly some reading now, have a parent who was absent or fell short, or whose family-of-origin has broken. You may already know what it feels like to be white-hot furious with and love your parent in the same moment — or for years.
Ultimately, my dad and I made peace, and my family-of-origin found some peace. I hope telling the story inspires others to do what they can to make peace. I found it worth the effort.
A Family Man
My dad, like most of us, was a mix of good and bad qualities. He truly wanted to be a family man, I believe, but could not control his weaknesses and impulses.
Yet, David never moved away, and when I moved away he kept calling. He insisted on a visit whenever I came home. Our conversations were forced and awkward. I couldn’t figure out where to begin or even why I should bother.
One summer morning, when I was 20, I woke from a dream about my dad and started to write. Two hours later, memories of him fixing my bikes and cars filled 20-some, tear-stained, hand-written pages.
My heart started to soften. That morning offered a small light through a keyhole.
If our soul’s mission is to heal from our core wounds and life’s losses by finding a way to turn grief into grace, then that sleeping and waking dream of watching my dad fix my bike was a big first step.
My dad never let go. He never missed a chance to say “I love you” — even if he didn’t or couldn’t show it in ways I understood at the time.
I chose to hang on and tell him the truth — gently and harshly — however painful. Even when we were arguing, at least it was honest and real.
For those who’ve questioned if I’m letting him off too easy, it’s not my job to judge, nor to punish. For me, forgiving and healing that estrangement was a big step toward my own peace, and a whole, loving heart.
It was simply easier to love, than to stay angry.
He chose an incredible mom for me, who taught me to “turn those lemons into lemonade.” True, he provided plenty of lemons. Together, my parents gave me resilience and determination to stay steady on that lurching subway train as it speeds through underground passageways.
Our parents who fall short teach us just as much as our parents who reliably give us what we need. Lessons given by accident are lessons nonetheless.
My dad was a charming, funny, crude, flawed character who gave his daughter some good stories to share. Stories that may even help people find peace with their own families.
Discernment
My dad died in January 2013, six months and three weeks after an ER doctor told him he had pancreatic cancer. Gone. That final gut-punch knocked me over for awhile.
The last time we visited, we said I love you, over and over. And we argued.
I begged him to let go and end his pain. His chin jutted out in determination, as if he was willing an engine toward the fast lane.
He wasn’t going anywhere, he told me, despite that death’s grip on his body was already visible. Tough and stubborn, he fought until his last breath. Whatever peace he found was in the afterlife.
Waiting …
“Your dad’s been visiting me,” Stephanie told me months later. She had loved him unconditionally and took care of him for 25 years. He was visiting their home and in her dreams. Household items they’d discussed were out of place.
I waited for him to visit me in my dreams, but he never came. This triggered a fresh round — Even now, Dad, you choose a woman instead of your daughter! — but then I forgave him that, too, and it passed.
Who knows how all that really works, anyway?
Once in a blue moon I dream of him as my mind sifts memories. They don’t feel like visits.
Instead, perhaps he “haunts” me with our stories. We still talk. I just have to guess on his answers.
The fall of 2018 seemed right to commit to telling these stories.
I’d have to tell the truth — dark details and all — and throw my beloved, endearing and maddening dead father under the bus.
As I journaled every morning, I pitched him: Maybe telling our story could help people. I asked him for his blessing.
Then I “listened” for an answer.
What the hell do I care?! I’m dead!
Then: Do it. If it can help someone, go for it.
So I did. (I asked Stephanie, too, as his proxy. She gave an emphatic, green light.)
Here we are. This is how he still loves me, now that he’s not out there roaming around tag sales and sorting through his collection of odds and ends.
This is how we keep talking. With these stories that bounce around inside my head, demanding to be shared.
Like those purple guys, he’s a quirky character.
He bought the purple guys for me because he loved me. That simple.
He loved me even when I was a child and it was hard for me to feel it over his absence, when I was a teen raging at him, and when we could honestly talk as adults.
Even now, he loves me. I can feel it.
He gave me what he had. I’m my father’s daughter, using what I have, giving as best I can.
by lisaduchene | Nov 21, 2019
How I Fell for my Super-Hero
“You can’t stay over,” I blurted, then kissed him again for … awhile. We relaxed on my sofa on Thanksgiving evening, alone together for the first time.
He’d appeared at the front door of my petite Victorian house with a bottle of wine from his valley, where he’d grown up and still lived. Earlier in the day, he’d hosted his family. Everything had been cleaned up hours ago.
Not so in my house.
A sprawling bouquet of yellow and burgundy flowers, and a white damask cloth still dressed my oak dining table. Flames of white taper candles flickered, and had burned halfway to their copper holders.
The whole house smelled of roasted turkey, butter, celery, onions, apple pie — the delicious aftermath of 24 hours of Thanksgiving cooking.
I’d pulled it off — as usual with a lot of help from friends and by the skin of my teeth.
Everything Changed on Week 51
In the past year I’d risen from the ashes of a failed marriage, giving myself a year to hunker down in central Pennsylvania before deciding whether to stay or return to a good life in Maine. I’d found my way, leaned on my friends, ripped out the stained carpet of these rooms to find original, dark hardwood floors and repainted the walls a rich, burnt orange with white millwork.
My bargain, fixer-upper oak table was delivered the day before. My dad had arrived for the holiday from Ohio with his longtime girlfriend and a pair of oak chairs from his stash of old furniture, odds and ends. As the turkey roasted, he’d helped me hang pictures.
The kitchen was now a disaster, but no matter. I was riding high from the thrill of hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner, and not yet feeling any twinge of exhaustion from the preparation.
Oak Trees, Toyota Pickups and Baseball — Oh my
Now, a handsome, strong, kind man was in my living room. With wine. And he was talking about lots of things I already loved: A familiar, beloved oak tree landmark in the woods (I’m a tree-hugger whose last name means “of the oak”), his Toyota truck (I still miss my red pickup) and baseball movies (um, that speaks for itself).
And he was talking about interesting stuff I was curious about: His sons, 13 and 15, his home valley with a long, Native American-sounding name, his work over two decades as a teacher. How he would dress up as Thomas Jefferson when he was teaching history. Now, he was assistant principal at the middle school in a nearby town.
His principal had worked behind the scenes to be sure we met at her Halloween party, where I’d seen joy and light flash across his handsome face when he mentioned his sons. Smitten, I left the party hoping to hear from him. We’d emailed for a couple of weeks.
We had dinner with a big group of people and when they finally left, sat talking until the restaurant folks vacuumed around us. We got the hint and left. Outside in the parking lot, he gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
A Walk in the Woods
A few days later, on our first real date the Sunday before Thanksgiving, he’d placed my hand in the crook of his elbow and held it with his other hand as we walked in the woods. We’d had a first kiss and long embrace beside the lake, and I could hear his heartbeat through his thick, wool sweater. At dinner, after I learned he’d stacked fire-wood for most of the day, I held his scratched and sore hands in mine.
I learned he’s a hunter. Hmmmmm… thinking about that. I asked him if he had or wanted a bunch of stuffed, dead animal heads on the walls of his house? Because, I said, that would really gross me out.
Nah, he said. I don’t have any and I don’t want any.
He was old-fashioned, a gentleman. He was courting me and I was falling fast.
Skiing in Control
And now, we were alone.
“You can’t stay over!” I blurted.
The abrupt reminder was for me: Take it slow.
I felt like I was standing in my skis atop a steep, snowy slope, feeling gravity’s powerful pull. Enchanted with sparkling snow against a deep blue sky, I was dreamy and anticipating a thrilling, freeing run down the mountain.
I so wanted to lean into his comfort and care. But I had to be careful.
A beginner skier learns to slow and stop by pointing the tips of her skis toward each other but never crossing them, for that’s guaranteed disaster. Like the edges of a snow plow, the blades of the skis push against the snow.
Staying safe means skiing in control, making sweeping turns into the mountain, working with gravity for a sweet ride. In time, a skier learns to work the sharp edges and shape of her skis to carve and ride the mountain like a surfer rides the giant waves.
Falling in love with him was easy, fast and delicious — as much fun as giving into the mountain’s pull, trusting my edges would grip and let me enjoy of the swift ride. Just like flying down the roller coaster’s first hill.
Still. I could be wrong (again). I could crash. Falls are painful. Falls are dangerous.
Should I lose control of my speed, soon my body would awkwardly smack hard against the sharp, bitter packed ice, tumbling down-mountain like a messy snowball of limbs, skis and poles in a painful wipe-out.
Take it slow. A snow-plow would be useless versus the pull of this vertical drop. I needed my A-game — to point my skis into the mountain to slow down.
Hunting Camp & other Mysteries
“I can’t stay,” he said. “We’re heading to camp tomorrow.”
“OK, good,” I said. “What’s camp? How long will you be away?”
The next day, he left for five days at hunting camp — a cornerstone of traditional Pennsylvania culture where the men gather for a few days to eat, nap and play cards, or so I’m told — until the deer hunting season begins, traditionally on the Monday following Thanksgiving.
But I didn’t know much about any of that then. I just knew he’d be away in a place without cell service, so I wouldn’t hear from him for several days.
Getting Real
On Saturday morning, I pulled a hand-addressed card from the mailbox. Three pears with a shimmer of gold graced the front with the words “Thinking of you…”
Inside, a note from Mike: “Just wanted to let you know that I was thinking of you.”
Printed on the inside cover: In some parts of the world, pears symbolize longevity and affection. This is true.
But I didn’t know any of that either.
Just that I liked him a lot, and that I liked the lovely shape, color and sweetness of pears. That he was so nice and it felt great to be with him. I felt crazy-lucky. I’d waited so long, wasn’t sure I was ready and needed nonetheless to leap.
I let myself believe he was real, and trusted the mountain would gently carry me.
by lisaduchene | Nov 14, 2019
November’s Reminder: Live Fully
When the pumpkins were plump and glorious a couple of weeks ago, and the trees ripened in crimson, flame orange and bright yellow, I soaked in all that fleeting beauty.
And I felt November coming.
Do you have a month that reminds you of seismic life events, both joyful and sad? Maybe the month when your first child was born, or you started a business — or even suffered the loss of a loved one.
To live is to pile up these milestone moments year-by-year. Sometimes they cluster in a single, loaded month. For me, that’s November.
Light & Darkness
November’s falling leaves and waning daylight reminds us of our losses. The light is wise and clarifying, revealing what should stay and what should go. It shines upon gratitude, gathering and family. This month reminds me I’m living a full, good life, worth appreciating — even the painful parts.
I spent much of November in 2009 at Akron General Hospital, in my dad’s intensive care room during visiting hours. When I could not visit, I did my work in the cafeteria. He was only 61, and we were only 10 years into a pretty healthy relationship.
As he slept deeply in a medical coma, I held his hand and clung to him with every ounce of my energy, telling him stories and talking to him about strength and the healing pinks and oranges of the sunrise.
In a tug-of-war with death, in my mind’s eye, I dug my heels into thick, splattering mud, my blistering hands and those of my sister and dad’s girlfriend pulling the rope. No. Not now. Not yet. Pulling. Pulling. Praying.
He recovered, and was out of the woods by Thanksgiving — one richer and sweeter than ever. We promised him a special turkey dinner when he was fully recovered. Three months later, our Thanksgiving in February tradition began.
I’m obsessed with telling that story, as some of you may know. Short version: Dad’s longtime girlfriend and daughters and ex-wives all pulled together into a functional family unit when he was sick. We all celebrated together in February with a big turkey dinner. The tradition stuck.
(You’re reading the latest post on the blog it inspired. And why not? Isn’t Thanksgiving just too wonderful for once a year? Don’t we the gratitude and peace it inspires year-round? Maybe it’s healing balm for ourselves, our families and our social fabric. Thanksgiving season starts now. There — it’s official.)
Family Gatherings
But — one kind of funny part of our Thanksgiving in February story is that no one ever mentioned that we did not typically all spend Thanksgiving together, anyway. It didn’t seem to matter.
Of course I spent a few childhood Thanksgivings with my dad. I just don’t seem to remember them.
What I most remember is my maternal grandmother’s hallmark pear salad, assembled on the small plate atop the stack at each place set for my family: My mom and grandfather, my uncles, aunts and cousins, as we crowd and take our seats around an oval dining table.
During the blessing, half a canned pear, with a dollop of cream cheese and a bright red maraschino cherry atop a single leaf of lettuce, sits perfectly untouched. Then, we sit and start to pick at the pears as the roll toss begins.
“Hey, pass me a roll!” one of my uncles asks his brother, who sails a dinner roll Hail Mary-style per tradition from one end of the table to another — or, as our Catholic family grew, into a second table in the next room. For decades, when I could no longer be there, I craved this family gathering.
Instead of making a long trip home, I celebrated “Friendsgiving” in Boston with my college friends. By Macy’s parade time, we were sipping mimosas and Jen had impaled a black olive with each one of her fingertips and waggled her hands in the air, per her family tradition. Kenny, the gourmet of our group, made Sabayon — a French cream topping freshly whipped and sweetened with sugar and sherry. Heaven on our pie.
In my 30s, Thanksgiving was a road trip and long weekend in Philadelphia, the home of the fun-loving family of my then-boyfriend and later ex-husband. In the afternoon, I’d duck out for a long, quiet walk through downtown Philly.
November’s New Growth
A year after dad’s illness, I let go of that dying marriage. Done. Before we drown, let’s free each other of this albatross, thanking it for taking us to the new places we needed to go. I was numb through that holiday, a deer in the headlights.
But it had not been the kind of love that carries you past old age.
That love arrived, almost exactly a year later. His kind, handsome face lit up when we talked at a Halloween party about his boys playing baseball. I was hooked. Twice that November we’d sat talking in restaurants until the staff was vacuuming around us.
My mind still goes swimmy and butterflies zip around my belly when I re-live falling in love with my husband. In-between the dishes and the taking out the trash last night, I remind him, as November reminds me: Eight years ago, by the way, you’d finally e-mailed me, and I answered. We were talking about your brother’s wedding, and the fall chores like raking leaves and stacking wood.
November is the joy of gaining a new family — as I was losing a huge part of my family. (A little more about our first Thanksgiving.)
November’s Losses
Thanksgiving the next year was my dad’s last. In a snapshot from that day, our tangled, grafted family stands around him on the front steps of his house. He’s a shadow of himself, skinny and ashen, wearing a stained green t-shirt and grey sweatpants — not at all his typical holiday attire of a crisply ironed shirt, sweater vest and leather jacket.
A bittersweet moment. An exquisitely beautiful and painful image. We are all together and smiling. Functional. We know the time is waning. Is it the chemo or the cancer giving him the most trouble? It’s hard to say. My dad and his longtime girlfriend, my mom (his first ex-wife) and stepdad, my stepmother (dad’s second ex-wife), and my sister (we share a dad and have different moms), plus my dad’s brother and his wife. Together for now.
Live Fully & Deliciously
I miss that time. Dad is gone. That family has scattered.
Early on, my husband and I decided we wanted to host the big family meals in our house. Gathering the family is important. Making a loving home, then opening it and sharing it is important — even if we’re working around a wrestling mat. My mom and stepdad join us in central Pennsylvania. This time last year.
During one of the first meals we hosted, I explained how my family does this traditional roll toss.
“Lisa,” my oldest stepson, then 17, said and corrected. “We’re your family.” My heart melted like butter. A signal of the kids’ acceptance that was so important to me.
Before I could cry — he sailed a dinner roll down the table to his younger brother. Now our family meals begin that way, too. In the course of a single year, I’d lost my dad — and gained a family of my own.
Our Purpose?
November’s days leading to Thanksgiving are constant, rich reminders of all these joyful, painful family moments. As I pull the linens and polish the silver, and find a special place for the crystal punch bowl that belonged to my husband’s grandmother, this film reel will play in my mind.
You may have one of your own, and maybe it’s full of people you miss, too. That’s OK. November reminds us to keep loving, no matter what comes our way.
A local, talented graphic artist, Sean McCauley, recently showed his brightly colored images of flowers and rainbows — that also included dark, sad parts like green clouds and tears below the rainbow and dark, hairy spiders under a smiling daisy. His artwork is his response, his antidote to the cultural pressure to show the world we’re happy all the time.
Rich Reminders of Light & Darkness
We’re not happy all the time — and that’s OK. Those spiders are lovely to me, too. We need them and lots of cool critters as part of healthy soil that grows beautiful food and flowers. Rainbows are all the more gorgeous after the dark storm.
I’m with Sean on this. We can feel the full spectrum of life’s colors and still move forward — actually, it’s HOW we move forward.
The purpose is to live fully — sadness, grief, joy, bliss, satisfaction — all of it. To be kind, and joyful, love and be loved, appreciate, and to figure out our purpose.
November reminds us of life in all its rich glory, light, falling darkness — and gratitude for the full experience of it all. I wish you a full life, and a delicious November. Happy Thanksgiving Season.
by lisaduchene | Oct 11, 2019
The sharp jolt of pain to the right of my breastbone lasted a few seconds, long enough to get my attention. Any ache or pain in my chest gives me pause. Heart problems run in my family. So does denial.
Three times those jabs froze me that hot July evening as I scraped and washed the dinner dishes and the messy pots — the remains of the jambalaya for a special family meal. Both of my stepsons and their girlfriends had joined us that night.
I didn’t want to ignore a warning sign and drop dead at 49 — just as I might be getting the hang of this life — nor did I want to race off to the ER, ruining precious family time over nothing.
Sitting at the table with the kids was nice, of course. Always. Yet, that had not offered much physical relief.
Mid-summer’s heat and humidity were oppressive, and the kitchen was steamy. I’d stood for hours chopping vegetables, peeling shrimp, stirring tomatoes and peppers into our biggest, heaviest cast iron skillet. The whole house had cooked all day in the scorching sun.
I told my husband. We watched for any other symptoms. I could breathe comfortably, so we finished cleaning up. The pains were short and stopped before bedtime.
Ignoring pain, I’d learned from my father and his family, is dangerous.
So what was the message of this pain?
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