Life is Good

I love that expression—even if it is now plastered on tee shirts, dog collars, soccer balls and some of the cutest socks you’ve ever seen. Perhaps I love it so much because it so describes the way I want to view life. Every day it feels a bit like being bombarded with all that is happening in the world—Egypt, Afghanistan, the homeless folks living under the Zakim Bridge in one of our worst winters on record. And there are friends dealing with illness—their own or loved ones.

Still, I do believe that life is good.  Maybe that phrase so resonates in my heart right now because of having faced into some dark times of my own in the past few years and now I look around and see how the landscape has changed. There is a breath of newness in the air.  Strange that in retirement—a word I am only beginning to utter—there could seem to be so much to feed my soul.

As a priest in the Episcopal Church who focused on interim ministry in the Northeast I moved from church to church usually staying for eighteen months to two years while the congregation took on the challenges of reconsidering their life together in a time of transition. It was work I loved. Used to changing communities of faith frequently, I was not sure that I would find a place to hang my hat in retirement, until I stumbled on a retreat center and convent not to far from my home. It is a place of laughter and poetry and deep silences—a place to pay attention and to listen for God. And then there is a recently discovered passion for  the rhythms of African drums. Weekly ten, or twelve, or twenty of us gather to learn to make joyous sounds in community.  Becoming a grandmother, brought out a desire to make something by hand to pass on, which lead to another group that meets together to take needlework classes with a gifted teacher and artist.  And in the spring, summer, and fall there are our boating friends to laugh and share adventures with.  Gradually over the past few years, the mosaic of my daily life seems to have taken shape.

Of course, at the heart of it all, there is my family. Married thirty-eight years to a man who still makes me laugh and shares a love of exploring the world. We are blessed with two children. Our firstborn, Justin, the creative and incredibly intuitive soul who is a video game designer living in southern California with his fabulous wife, Farracy and their two children, Jackson and Cooper, reminding me daily of the goodness of new life. Our second born, Melanie-- the adventurer with a huge heart and who’s smile lights up the world, lives with her fiancé, Ben in the Pacific Northwest where they share a life filled with the wilderness, deep friendships, and backpacks ready to go at any time. They met as Outward Bound Instructors two years ago will be married this spring. You’ll see our family in this picture Dec. 26 in California where we spent Christmas together.

All said, my life is good—very good---and rich with blessings, and on most days, I remember to be filled with gratitude for the life we have been given as a family even as I wish my kids were a bit closer.   But, as idyllic as this all may sound, we too have faced challenges as a family and that is where this blog comes in.

In 2004, Melanie was diagnosed with metastatic thyroid cancer.  One minute she was packing up to work on an organic farm, and the next she was moving back into her old bedroom where she would live for eighteen months. Hearing the words, “Your daughter has cancer, ” life changed—hers and mine.  Instantly, I was thrown into a chaotic state-- stunned, shocked, afraid, deeply sad, confused, lost, vulnerable---with no clue where to turn. Together, as a family, we began a journey of faith, hope and cancer. This blog will be my story, but of course, it is not mine alone. More than anything Melanie’s owns her story, because no matter how I might have wished it, and prayed for it, cancer was not something I could protect her from. And because she is my daughter, our daughter, I have a story too. Always a parent—always a mom. This blog will tell a bit of our journey and how we navigated.