by lisaduchene | Mar 6, 2019
I bet you’ve been brave — in small and big ways.
Me too. Let’s keep going. Another step, then the next — even when it’s scary and messy. Let’s be brave.
The day I turned 35 was my last day working at a secure job with a regular paycheck, benefits and a cubicle. That evening I flew from Portland, Maine, and landed in the dark, late spring night at an itty-bitty airport smack dab among the fields and forests in the middle of Pennsylvania.
The next morning, I signed all the papers to buy a second house — kind of a big risk when you’ve just quit your day-job.
I was in the midst of three huge life changes: Getting married, moving five states away from where I had built a good life and career, and making a major professional move to a freelance (aka self-employed) writer.
All that within a few weeks. Crazy.
I’d been strategically marching toward my dream of being an independent writer. It was time to leap. I longed for family, probably more than I realized. I wanted to build community. I knew how out-of-whack we as a species are with our natural world, and wanted my work to be help us find some kind of sustainable balance.
My fiancé and I talked a lot about a life supporting each other as we each pursued our life’s work.
The next step for him was graduate school at Penn State. We’d need a place to live, so I signed all those papers to buy an adorable, folk Victorian house. Petite. Narrow and tall. Dark grey with sharp white trim and a tall peak. A second-floor porch off the back, looking into the tree tops and over the back yard.
I pictured writing every day in that house.
Signing Up
Ten days later, back on the coast of Maine, a dear friend zipped up the back of my ivory dress with its lovely, flowing white lace train and pinned a veil and magenta sweet pea blossoms into my hair. A few days later, instead of honeymooning, we were packing a U-Haul.
There’s a reason we’re not supposed to sign-up for multiple life changes at once. It’s a crazy-wicked-hellish-brutal amount of stress. No single word describes it. Ridiculous? Insane? Even … foolish?
Maybe so.
But every day when I must be brave, I remember taking these steps — both exhilarating and scary. And I remember how I recovered when some things didn’t work out.
What I most remember is my faith: I knew I’d be OK, just knew and trusted.
Now, I’ve committed to telling my story of making peace with my dad and within our family. I believe I’m supposed to.
Last month, that meant standing up on stage before hundreds of people and telling a story about some of the most painful stuff in my life. That was hard and scary — and now it’s done. Phew.
This month, that work turns to researching a book pitch — and that means facing those gnarly fears of rejection. Ugh.
Leaping is hard. Idealism and faith propelled me through those big moves at 35.
Now, my faith remains solid. Idealism is gone. Hope? Yes, still. Perhaps wisdom from my resilience, recovery and re-inventions was the greatest gift.
Again, I feel the call to leap. I’m committed to seeing this father-daughter story through, because I think it can help people. Lots of women don’t get what we need from our fathers. So then what happens? What do we do?
To fully reach our potential as women, to make healthier families for ourselves and our children, I think we need to better understand and find ways to heal these relationships — whatever that means exactly and whatever those details may be.
When Life Goes Off the Rails
After those big steps at 35 — the wedding, the move, the career change — lots went off the rails, because there are your plans, and then there is life. Life is not linear, but more like a beautiful, messy ink blot.
Turns out I married the wrong guy. We were sincere — and yet the wrong people for each other.
Turns out freelancing, especially through the Great Recession, is way harder than I thought.
I misplaced my mojo for awhile, but I found it.
It took a lot of grit and spit, and support from friends and family, to hang onto that sweet little house. Yet, I did.
Sure, I had anxiety before that wedding in Maine and the move — but I thought it was because I was a child of divorce just scared of getting married. (Because, you see, I knew one way to never-ever get divorced is to never get married! Yet living out of fear is not really living.)
In those weeks leading up to those big steps, I discussed all this with the wise woman and ordained minister who would officiate our wedding ceremony.
“What is there to be afraid of?” she said. “You’re a child of God. You can’t fall off the earth.”
OK, I thought, somewhat comforted. That’s tough to argue.
If I had that moment back, I’d say:
“Well, yeah, but clinging to life on this rock as it circles the sun can be pretty damn painful.”
We were both right.
I’ve been through the fire — and I know you have, too. Every one of us has a story.
And I’ve been really lucky, too.
The Right Mistake
I would take that ivory dress with the hand-sewn beads and the beautiful, flowing lace overlay, down to the thrift store in my small Pennsylvania town, and hand it to the nice lady at the counter. Perhaps it became someone else’s treasure.
That first marriage was both a mistake — and yet, the right move.
Family was the greatest gift from those difficult, scary and painful moves. Funny, it had not been top-of-mind at the time.
Because as beautiful and nourishing to me as the coast of Maine still is — I still write about it and visit whenever I can — something was missing for me there. Not much else would have pried me out of Maine, and staying would not have fulfilled my soul’s deepest cravings for family.
Those moves and mistakes brought me right here, to peace with my family-of-origin in Ohio and to the happy, healthy family my husband and stepsons and I have made together.
When my dad was fighting for his life, I could be at the hospital within hours, holding his hand. That brought us both immense, priceless peace.
A few weeks after my separation, I limped home to my mom and stepdad’s house. I crumpled in tears, into my mom’s embrace. She’s still my super-hero. My rock. Someday she might need me. I’m only a few hours away now.
And 51 weeks into my post-separation year of hunkering down, I had the good fortune to meet the love of my life. No anxiety when we got married. Not a bit.
So — yes — I’m grateful to my ex-husband, our mistake marriage and the big, bold crazy plans we made and started together.
Not at first, mind you. First, there was sadness and rage, and the gratitude was for the safety and sanctuary of my house, that adorable house, my dearest friends, my parents.
Gratitude for the mistake marriage came later.
I got the writing life I dreamed of, amazing support from my friends, family and husband — and have not had to go back to the cubicle.
I didn’t fall off the earth.
I still feel aligned with my life purpose. Quite.
I feel brave. I feel bold. To give more and to be more. To tell stories.
And I know, since I’m in alignment, I am not only a child of God who can’t possibly fall off the earth, I am untouchable. Unstoppable. Unbreakable.
by lisaduchene | Feb 13, 2019
During our first winter together, my husband and I commiserated about February. We both slogged through each cold day. He calls February the longest month of the year.
But now February feels too short to me.
Thanksgiving in February, the name of this blog, is an actual, annual celebration of family, healing, peace and gratitude that has reversed my experience of February. In four short days, we’ll serve a full traditional Thanksgiving dinner to about 30 people.
I’m excited about this little echo of the holidays, and all it represents. Here’s the “deep-dive” story about that.
I’m ready to put the tunes on and start baking pies, and shop for red foil hearts — because at Thanksgiving in February, y’all, we MUST have lots of red foil hearts. And chocolate. Yesssssss.
At Thanksgiving in February, y’all, we MUST have lots of red foil hearts. And chocolate. Yesssssss.
For lots of us, especially in the north, February is a month we endure. Snow, ice, cold, slush and shoveling. And more shoveling. The cold and flu viruses that suck your energy for weeks.
The relentless cough that steals the sleep you so desperately need.
And what about Valentine’s Day for people who are alone and don’t want to be? Or those suffering a breakup or broken heart? Dreadful.
The singer-songwriter Dar Williams nails the dangerous depth of these frozen, dark days in her song February — with a story about how this month erases her memory of plants, of anything green and growing, and becoming the final straw that broke a strained relationship.
It’s a rough month. Some of us are hanging on by our fingernails. X-ing the days off the calendar, one by one.
Counting down until spring.
Some of us rejoice in the day pitchers and catchers on our favorite baseball teams report to spring training. We made it this far. Spring can’t be that far away.
Some of us poke tomato seeds into soil medium under the grow lights, salivating at the thought of biting into that sweet, home-grown tomato. (Yes, dear friends, it’s time to start the tomatoes.)
Me too. Been there. Done that.
~~~~
Then, bit by bit, my life changed and now February is a completely different, joyful experience for me.
I still get grumpy, especially in January. But when Feb. 1 arrives, I’m relieved. Lighter.
For many years, I’ve mulled over so many meanings of Thanksgiving in February that I started a blog about gratitude. Here’s the whole story.
Hosting this annual meal, telling the story of the first one and prepping the stories for this blog on gratitude have all brought me tremendous joy. Remembering my Dad’s love — even though I still feel those sharp stabs of missing him — also brings me great joy, as does my effort to spread that love and joy.
I’m telling you — plunking a big turkey dinner with all of the fixings into the middle of February completely turned this month around for me.
Healing leads to more healing. Love leads to more love. Gratitude to more gratitude, to deeper love and brighter light.
In 2012, when February came around, I had the good fortune to be in love with the man who is now my husband — enjoying his warmth — quite literally as he keeps the woodstove cranking and keeps us toasty.
Great love elevates everything. Even the February slog.
That February, my husband met my Dad and his long-time girlfriend, Stephanie, for the first time at our family’s third annual Thanksgiving in February dinner at Dad and Stephanie’s house. He met my stepmom that night, too.
And once again, I was a nervous wreck. If memory serves, on the way there I took the wrong ramp for I-80 out of central Pennsylvania and headed toward New Jersey instead of Ohio. Anxiety!
Like the first one, all went smoothly during that dinner in 2012.
By the next February, my Dad was gone — almost exactly six months after his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer the Monday after Father’s Day. I was exhausted, in the depths of raw grief and once again willing myself through each day. No energy to cook a big turkey.
The next year, my kind, wise, follow-through husband and I planned our own Thanksgiving in February dinner. We wondered if anyone would come.
They did. Few even know the whole story.
That’s OK.
There’s something about that reprieve from the throes of February. Whatever piece our guests celebrate, people seem to enjoy this dinner — whether for them it’s about gratitude, family, love, healing, forgiveness, defying death, hot turkey and gravy, chocolate, simple fellowship, or just feels good.
The first year, we jammed 20-some into our dining room and the next year, moved the dinner to “camp” — the hunting lodge owned and maintained by the hunting club where four generations of my husband’s family are members.
Now, we have to be careful about numbers, as we max out at 35 people.
Maybe we’ll outgrow camp.
Or host a community version in the church hall. Or spark other people to host their own Thanksgiving in February. I dream about people running with this idea and making it their own family tradition. Wouldn’t that be cool?
But my point is NOT that YOU have to host a full turkey dinner to enjoy February. It’s not for everyone. It’s a lot of work.
My point: Try gratitude. Not just when everything is sunny, or abundant. Give it a shot in the bleak times, too, when everything around us seems dead. (It’s not).
We forget green is even there under all that snow. (It is.)
Do what’s joyful for you — whatever that may be. This is absolutely the month to celebrate music. (Hello Grammys! Wasn’t Diana Ross absolutely fabulous?!)
And celebrate chocolate and love in all of its beautiful forms. And by all means start those tomatoes. It’s time.
Just to remind us all: So much green and new growth, all the colors, are all still there, very much alive and awaiting the warmth and daylight to burst forth.
One way or another, the spring always comes. Promise.
I’m glad you’re here. I wish you love, peace — and gratitude. Celebrate it some how, some way. Be well and take good care.
I’m off to make pies and round up some red foil hearts!
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by lisaduchene | Feb 7, 2019
When I was 9, my dad broke a promise. He’d truly wanted to be a family man, but just couldn’t follow-through. I thought about all this as I obsessively re-finished an oak table — a piece “normal” people would have tossed to the curb — to be our family’s dining table.
Just as I started fourth grade, my dad gave me an upright fixer-upper piano with an old, cracked dark cherry finish and in dire need of tuning. He promised to re-make it into a beautiful instrument, so I could start piano lessons.
He’d work on it Saturday mornings at the half-duplex where I lived with my mom. By then, my parents had been divorced six years, and I visited my dad and stepmother’s house every other weekend.
I missed him. A lot. Being with he and my mom under one roof felt precious and rare.
On the first Saturday morning, sunlight streamed through the kitchen window into the dining room, where the piano awaited. I cooked dad’s favorite French toast for breakfast.
He worked hard, stripping the dark finish away with harsh chemicals. Almost four decades later, I can still see him lying on the old pine dining room floor, with his tongue hooked around the corner of his mouth, just like his father would lie on the grass alongside his tomato plants on a hot summer afternoon to pull weeds and check the fruit.
Dad was charming, funny, smart — and strong, in his early 30s then. With his elbow grease, the finish melted off, leaving behind streaks of dark burgundy and dusky rose with bare, pinkish wood.
He returned once, maybe twice.
Then he stopped coming over—who-knows-why.
The abandoned piano sat idle, out of tune, an ugly reminder of a broken promise. That Christmas my mom found a way, as she always did, and bought a beautiful new chestnut piano so I could start lessons. She had the old, half-stripped rose-streaked piano hauled away.
My mind rooted through this memory last summer as I obsessively worked the old dark finish off an oak pedestal dining table most people would have abandoned long ago.
But it reminds me of my dad in so many ways that I simply could not let it go. As I wandered through past moments, I only dug deeper into the task at hand.
~~~
I am my father’s daughter. We have the gift of vision, and can work hard on something. We get excited about revealing hidden beauty.
But my dad had a lot of trouble finishing things. Something or someone else — often a woman — would tug on his attention. He’d break his focus, his rhythm, and abandon a project, a commitment, a family.
He’d cheated on both his wives, who became his ex-wives — first my mom, then my stepmother — and had left them both with the heavy lifting of raising his daughters. I was angry at him for a long time.
But my dad never gave up, and in my mid-20s we began to rebuild. We had the good fortune to enjoy more than a decade of a pretty rich, real and beautiful relationship before he died.
~~~
Like him, I collect projects and fixer-uppers. When they pile up, unfinished, I worry I am too much like my dad.
I had something to prove to myself with that table.
On my hands and knees on a muggy August afternoon, I scraped rubbery, dark slime from its round top. I rubbed coarse sandpaper over the stubborn, sticky layer until decades of varnish and dirt finally yielded.
I caught enough glimpses of the bare beauty of the striped tiger oak and the swirled grain upon luscious curves of its pedestal base and carved paws to keep going.
That old finish took its revenge and re-settled itself upon my skin, mixing with my salty sweat, coating the lenses of my glasses and working its way into my nostrils.
In my mind’s eye, I could see its lovely oval shape and solid base in the kitchen of our 1860s home, short end nestled below a wall of family pictures and long end along the picture window. I looked ahead to our family dinners around it. My husband, my two stepsons, their girlfriends.
And I looked back.
To the Thanksgiving when dad and Stephanie, his longtime girlfriend, came to my 1900 folk Victorian house for the first Thanksgiving dinner I hosted. They had all helped me through several sad months. I could not follow-through on my marriage and had to let go.
As I grieved that marriage, I worked on the house to make it my own. To host that dinner, I bought that cheap, fixer-upper oak pedestal table, and draped it in a borrowed cream damask cloth.
Then a surprise: I’d met a wonderful man out of the blue. We’d shared two dinners and talked until people at the restaurant started closing up around us, and planned to get together Thanksgiving evening.
Maybe.
As the turkey cooked for a late afternoon dinner, dad and I hung pictures on the walls. I caught him looking at me, charmed and curious. He had seen me so sad for so long, comforted me with visits and pep talks — even wisely said nothing and simply hugged me as I sobbed.
“You look really happy,” he said.
“I am, dad. I’m good.” I smiled. I had a secret.
That evening, when dishes were cleared and all my guests including dad had departed, the kind and handsome man who is now my husband first visited my home, a beautiful scene of white linen, candles, flowers against rich burnt-orange walls. Mike and I relaxed on the couch, sipping wine, talking and enjoying getting to know each other.
~~~
The next year, 2012, brought the deepest sorrow and richest bliss of my life as I lost my dad, and gained the love of my life and his sons — now our family. That Thanksgiving was dad’s last happy one. By the next November, hopeless chemo treatments had left him weak and ashen.
So that rustic, sturdy oak table to me is a bridge between my family-of-origin, and our family that is a dream come true. It connects people most dear to me who only barely, briefly met.
~~~
Finally, the bare beauty of that grain came through in soft reds and golds, honey, and gentle browns. A wash with wood bleach lightened the wood and removed old stains.
Now, that swirly, striped oak oval atop its curving, carved base sits in front of our kitchen window. I left some rough patches, and sealed it with beeswax and citrus oil. It still wobbles, but we can fix that. Nothing is ever perfect.
~~~
In so many ways, my dad’s life was unfinished. We always want more time.
He never got to know my husband or stepsons or to watch them play baseball or football. Sometimes I imagine him whistling at their games.
He never got to visit our family and help us re-make this old house of ours. He has no seat at the table of our big family dinners.
But every day, I take some comfort in that table in the heart of our family home, and pride in finishing that labor.
I know he’d love it, and know a piece of him is here with us.
I am my father’s daughter, and have much still to finish.
~ Lisa Duchene is a writer, essayist, blogger and communications pro in central Pennsylvania. Lisaduchene.com
Copyright 2019 by Lisa Duchene
by lisaduchene | Mar 23, 2018
One chilly Saturday morning in early April, I ran into my brother-in-law at our small-town post office. He and his family live in town, just a short walk out beyond our backyard, and down the hill toward the mountain.
He asked if one of our teenage boys had been messing around in the night, with his friends, perhaps?
My mind quickly flashed to the memory of the police car that had pulled into our driveway the night before. But the officer had actually been looking for the duplex two doors down. He was checking into a complaint about noise, but I knew it couldn’t be our house.
A few kids had just arrived for a sleepover, and they weren’t loud. I was still hovering to see what they needed.
But then I’d gone to bed.
The House Rule on Peanut Butter
Why? I asked my brother-in-law.
In the morning, he had found his truck handles covered in peanut butter.
Back at home, I reported to my husband. We hatched a plan.
Later, we asked our 14-year-old if he knew why we had both organic peanut butter and less-expensive, regular peanut butter. The organic for eating and the other for — well…?
His face instantly cracked into a smile.
Busted.
It was our way to send a few important messages: People are keeping an eye on you, a little peanut butter on your uncle’s truck isn’t a big deal, and we can share a laugh about it.
So we added to our rules list: If you’re going to prank your uncle, use the cheap peanut butter.
House Rule: Don’t Burn the House Down
For the record: I am not their mom. They have a mom and she loves them very much.
And these are my kids. All these things are true.
Their dad and I had fallen head-over-heels in love in our early 40s, so I loved these kids before I met them.
When I arrived in this family, the boys were already teenagers, 15 and 13, already well-behaved young men and they knew what their dad expected of them. They lived with their dad half the time and I moved into their house.
There was no rules list, no guide-book. I tiptoed for a long time. We all had to figure it out.
One day their dad and I left to take a walk and just naturally said something like: We’ll be back in an hour. Don’t burn the house down.
And I chimed in: And don’t hurt yourself — or your brother.
Later, we added the bit about which peanut butter to use when you want to prank your uncle. Then, after ribbing about the big pocketbook I carry and the number of lost items that had turned up in it, we added to the list: If you lose anything, look in Lisa’s pocketbook.
Looking back, that rules list was kind of my way to establish my role as someone new in their lives and home. As a second adult and parental figure I could make rules.
And they could be funny ones because these kids already had a great base and, if anything, they just needed an occasional friendly, funny reminder of what was expected of them.
Your Heart Walking Around Outside Your Body
Somewhere in there, I became a parent.
They were growing up so fast and the world is so big and dangerous.
I remember telling a friend how scary it was when they went out the door, especially as they started driving.
That friend was not yet a parent. She said she’d heard it described that it’s like your heart is walking around all day outside your body.
Exactly.
I mean, driving.
I overheard a dad at a baseball game say to his son: Don’t do anything stupid, and you’re old enough by now to know what that means.
That went on the list with the not hurting anyone, or our home, the pocketbook and the peanut butter.
House Rule: Watch out for Stupid
The morning my older stepson went to college, I had about 25 different things I wanted to say to him.
I picked the most important one. I told him he had a good head on his shoulders and made good decisions. All true. And sometimes it’s really easy to get caught up in the bad decisions of other people. Also true.
So — Watch out for the stupid things other people do.Onto the rules list.
As my younger stepson began to drive, and his senior year of high school was upon him with college soon to come, we retired the rules list into one simple, number one rule.
Come home safe.
Because kids are going to take risks. Most of us can remember times when we were the ones doing stupid things, or taking so many risks at once that we somehow survived by the grace of God.
Sometimes you find yourself well beyond your limits. There was the night I accidentally drank too much and could barely walk, supporting myself against a brick building as I made my way toward Boston’s Kenmore Square. And that night in Maine when four-wheeling on the beach in the pickup truck I’d just bought seemed like a great idea. So did the idea of a friend trying to stand up in the bed of the pickup as we zipped down the road.
All, gratefully, turned out OK.
We all know those things don’t always turn out OK, that terrible, life-ending things that happen. I do not know why some people survive those dangerous moments and others do not.
I don’t know why sometimes you can do everything “right,” the best you can, everything you can think of and it’s not enough and they can’t get home.
Come Home Safe
If you find yourself in a bad situation, just focus on survival. Just get home.
If you ever get to a point where it all seems impossibly broken and you don’t know where to start.
Come home safe. Everything else can be worked out.
If ever you are worried about being shamed or judged or yelled at, don’t. Just get home. We will listen with love. No matter what, we will fall to our knees and be grateful you are alive.
Come home safe.
There is always time to make things right.
Keep Them Safe, Please
As I write in the early morning, I am far from home, in a hotel room. I’ve spent the last couple of days with a very sick family member. I’m worn out and weary.
My husband and older stepson are on their way, driving a long distance. We are here to see my younger stepson play baseball as a college freshman.
I try not to worry about all that could happen on the highway, as I try not to worry every time they drive away.
The boys are all grown up now. Fine men.
Our oldest graduates college this year and has a great job lined up.
Sure, there were probably more peanut butter incidents and other things I don’t know about. We’re not naïve.
Just because we live in a sweet little antique town, full of beauty, family and love, we know there are plenty of dangers, and lots of pain.
Life has already thrown them curve balls and there will surely be more.
They are good and solid, well-prepared. They are absolutely the most amazing men you could ever meet.
I know, I gush.
And they never really needed my rules. All along those rules were probably just for me.
Occasionally, I will remind each one of Rule #1. I know, he’ll say.
As I stand at the window and watch them drive away, it’s my prayer. Please bring them home safe.
Then I can let go and move on with my day.
by lisaduchene | Mar 9, 2018
As we flew through the darkness, a stranger delivered a powerful, hopeful message I needed to hear about finding love after divorce.
The man buckling his seatbelt beside me looked comfortable in worn jeans, a plaid shirt, glasses, and a grey wool cap. He was an artist flying home to Minneapolis. Self-employed like me. He seemed nice. His name was Rodney.
On this April evening, our three-hour flight from Phoenix would take us back to the cold Midwest. Soon it would be dark outside. We would land around midnight after a long, but really good day.
My interview near Sacramento for a magazine profile had gone well. The California warmth and sunshine had felt so good. All my logistics and first flight were smooth. My Minneapolis interview wasn’t until the next afternoon, so I could rest in the morning. It was good to be out traveling again.
For awhile, Rodney and I chatted about the ups and downs of a freelance life. We agreed it was a kind of crazy way to make a living and yet, we couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Then the conversation turned personal.
A risky turn
That was risky. I was getting divorced, and prone to long bouts of sobbing best done in private.
Even though I knew this split was for the best, I was learning that my only way out of divorce’s jagged grief and deep sense of failure was to just cry my way through it.
Every day that winter there were tears and more tears. I’d been numb and teary through Thanksgiving, then sailed so smoothly through the holidays and the New Year with all its promise of new beginnings that I thought I was past it.
Wrong.
In mid-February, I crashed, paralyzed by anxiety and tears and felt no choice but to back out of important commitments and hunker down at home for awhile. Thankfully, I had good, caring friends, parents only four hours away, and my petite folk Victorian house that felt like a fortress.
I would rally to meet a deadline or handle a piece of divorce business, then retreat back to my house. Simple things were taxing. I’d be out and about, get a headache, head home, step into a hot bath in the middle of the afternoon and put myself to bed in the early evening.
I’d learned to confide in only a few trusted souls who had been through divorce and understood and to steer clear of some married people who apparently got it right the first time and seemed kind of mystified by the whole notion.
Painful questions
They were curious? Perhaps concerned divorce was contagious?
Surely, they had not meant any harm. And yet, they’d said stupid, hurtful things.
“What happened to the love?” asked the accountant’s wife and secretary, handing over the finished tax return that February as tears streamed down my cheeks. I never went back.
One curious acquaintance stopped me on the sidewalk, in front of the post office of our small town. “What happened?” she said. “Did he cheat, or … ?”She trailed off, hoping I’d fill in the details but I refused. Not today, I told her. I retreated to my house.
See, what those folks didn’t get is that for me What went wrong?????was the most haunting, painful question. And my answer at that moment from the eye of my personal storm would have been no clearer than theirs.
So I kept my guard up.
A little leap of faith
And now some guy on an airplane was asking about my life.
I found a little faith, probably took a deep breath and told him. Gratefully, he immediately shared that he’d been through a divorce, too.
He knew that deep sense of failure, and had shed his own tears. He had remarried — something I could not imagine then.
Hang in there, he said, being married to the right person is really good. He talked about his second wife, his right person, and how she had an awful illness. It was hard, he said, but yet wonderful and manageable because they faced it as a team.
Being with the wrong person was maddening, he said. Total insanity. I agreed. For the next hour we covered everything our ex-spouses did that drove us crazy.
I don’t recall precisely which of those painful things I shared, but I probably tried to make it something funny—or at least that sounded funny until you really thought about it. My ex was fond of critiquing my hair, my clothes, my body. He once told me: I’d like to see you with long, black straight hair.
To which I replied: I have short, reddish-brown curly hair. Did you happen to notice that before you married me?
To be fair, I had said unkind things to him, too. That we could say so many unkind things to each other was one of those big red flags that whatever we had was not the true, forever, lasting love.
I asked Rodney how he and his new wife knew they were right for each other.
Before they had met, at her therapist’s suggestion she listed all the traits she wanted in a partner. She told me I was everything on her list, he said.
The wish list
Holy crap!
I rarely go into a grocery store or start my day without a list. How is it that I neglected to thoughtfully and carefully consider all the qualities I wanted and needed in a husband and lifelong commitment? Inking such qualities onto paper seemed so basic and obvious — and yet I’d totally missed it.
For awhile, we joked about that. I was hardly the first person to overlook that I could choose, that there were better options worth the wait.
We spoke softly inside our tiny, private world as the jet propelled us through the darkness. For those few hours we were the best of friends. Soon, we landed and each focused on what we had to do next. We wrapped up the conversation, wished each other well and pledged to keep in touch, then disappeared separately into the cold, dark city.
Before I turned the key in the ignition of my rental car, I knew our encounter had been special.
Only later did I see what an incredible, powerful gift Rodney gave me that night.
Powerful gifts
He helped me realize what I’d known in my bones all along: I’d grown impatient and settled for the wrong person. My intuition had tried to get my attention with those nagging feelings, but I’d misread it as anxiety.
I would have to face that. Yet, our talk had lifted me. I wasn’t hopeless at marriage, or men or love. All was not lost. I had not wrecked my life beyond repair after all.
The talk released me from the whole question of whether my ex was a good guy or a bad guy. It wasn’t for me to say. And it didn’t matter anyway. He just wasn’t the right guy for me.
My mother will read this and mumble to herself: ‘I tried to tell her.But she can’t believe me until she hears it from some guy on an airplane … ’
I know mom. You did. Close friends saw it, too, and you all stood and clapped at the wedding because I asked you to and I appreciate it.
I remember. And I remember telling you, mom, that if it was a mistake you couldn’t spare me from it. I’d have to make it and figure it out on my own.
So I did. And now I would have to forgive myself.
Time to rise and shine
That dark spring night, Rodney said the right thing at the right time in the right way so that I got it — and could move forward.
To finish my mourning, get on with my healing and the rest of my life in earnest. To not get stuck. To rise.
And appreciate that there are little pearls of wisdom and insight surrounding us, often found in odd places when our guard is down.
The warmth of spring came, as it always does. Most days were better than the one before. I tore out the old carpet, brushed a gorgeous rusted orange onto my living room walls and took lots of long walks and hot bubble baths.
Awhile back, I searched for Rodney’s business card and our initial e-mail messages, and could not find them.
He was right about everything
If I could, I’d thank him for his stellar pep talk, his encouraging wisdom and the generosity of his spirit he gave to a stranger.
I’d tell him how it all turned out, how six months later I made my wish list and somehow, some way got so freaking lucky and received every bit of goodness I asked for and more than I imagined.
I’d tell him I know exactly what he meant about the sweetness of being married to the right person.
And I’d tell him how very much I still cherish our conversation.
I’d apologize for losing touch when life got so big and full, for not becoming a good friend available with a pep talk on his toughest days.
I trust God put someone just as wonderful in his path for those times, the way he had appeared in mine to say what I most needed to hear: I know it hurts. We all make mistakes. You got this. You’re going to be OK.
