Posts Tagged ‘ Overcoming Adversity ’

Here’s How Stories Work

By | February 21st, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, Poetry, Thursday 1 | 8 comments

(By D. Smith Kaich Jones)


the ever-wonderful michael was telling me about this thing that happened, and that’s because, well, remember? he said, that she is married to that guy? and this happened?, and then a while back when that was going on, there was this kid who . . . and his grandfather bought him this toy airplane, and he was friends with another kid, and did i ever mention that they moved across the street from these people who . . . ? and all those stories were separate from one another, but not really, they just looked that way on the surface, they were really all tied together, because that’s how stories work, at least stories in conversations, stories told by real people.

that’s what i think i do. at least that’s what i try to do. i start out telling you the story of painting the front room at work, and that reminds me of what i felt when i was buying the paint, the paint was yellow, honey colored, and that reminded me of autumn, and i remembered what i felt when i was standing in the paint store, waiting while the paint was mixed, lots of time for thinking and looking out the windows at the leaves falling away from trees, at the different blue of the sky, lots of time for remembering last autumn and where i would have been on a saturday morning, lots of time for wondering if my need to paint a few walls was a working out the grief i still feel for maggie-the-cat, remembering that’s what i did when my father died, not comparing the two deaths, just thinking about how people deal with grief and moving on, which is not the same thing as “getting over it”, it’s just moving to a different place in the grief. and i move from that thought back to autumn, which always gives me the blues, just not outside the window, and really it is late autumn that makes me feel this way; early autumn is just a phrase here in east texas, just a mellowing of summer, and i think about the leaves leaving, the turning away from the world that we all do; we go inside, even here where it doesn’t get all that cold ~ it gets cold enough ~ and i remember that that night is turn-back-the-clocks-night, an earlier darkness now, and i move from that thought back to maggie, back to my father, and i am filled with missing.


The Hardest Thing

By | January 13th, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, Friday 1, Mr Lady | 26 comments

{By Tanis from Attack of the Redneck Mommy}

My child recently had to write an essay about the hardest thing he ever had to do. For him, it seems to be trying to keep his damn room clean. It’s mission impossible for a twelve year old sloth I tell you.

But this essay inspired a conversation between us that I have long since been thinking about. He asked me what the hardest thing I ever had to do was.

I didn’t know how to answer him.

What does hard really mean? Gestating and giving birth to three rabid badgers who tore my insides out was hard.

Coming home with a disabled baby no one expected or prepared for was hard.

Trying to explain to people why my beautiful son never smiled was hard.

Spending endless nights, months on end, staring at a boy in a crib in a hospital and wondering if my family would ever be whole and under one roof together was hard. Dealing with one doctor after another in a never ending series of medical emergencies was hard.

Missing field trips and precious moments with my older two children because I had to be with their younger sibling was hard.

Driving alone, in the middle of the night, with a dying child in the back seat of my car was hard.

Looking into my husband’s eyes when he arrived at the hospital and having to find the words to tell him I failed him and our son, was hard. Phoning our family to tell them our boy had died, was hard.

Walking out of the emergency room with nothing but a plastic bag of a dead boy’s belongings was hard.

Mustering up the courage to walk into my childrens rooms, sit them down as their father stood behind me weeping, to tell them their brother died in the middle of the night and they would never have another opportunity to hug him was hard.

Seeing the mound of dirt heaped upon where my boy’s body lie and having to walk away from that boy for the last time, was hard.

Hard doesn’t seem adequate enough.


Learning to Accept My Autistic Son

By | April 19th, 2010 | Category: BN Channel Overcoming Adversity, Featured 2, Tuesday 1 | No Comments »

Overcoming Adversity Blog Nosh MagazineOriginally published on Mother of Confusion
first appeared on Blog Nosh Magazine on July 24, 2008

My son was born after midnight during the cooler days of May, before the Central Valley could blaze triple-digit temperatures.

The delivery room was packed full of people. The doctor, several nurses, my husband, my parents and my mother-in-law were in attendance. As my son emerged into the world, I expected him to gasp and then cry about the abrupt ejection.

He did not.

Instead he was quiet and blue. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his slender neck several times. Of course I didn’t know that yet, but the jubilant faces of the others gave way to peaked, pinched expressions.

When I asked what was wrong. The response was, “Nothing. Everything’s okay. It’s okay.”

The reassurances scared me. I was only 20-years-old, but already I knew people lied when things were really, really wrong.

Did I not push hard enough or fast enough? The doctor had yelled at me to stay focused, but I kept passing out. He had to assist the delivery with a vacuum device.

Before I could convince myself my baby wasn’t coming home, he cried.

Once assured my son would keep breathing, the doctor plopped him on my belly. When his skin touched mine, I panicked. My stomach felt as slippery as satin sheets on a waterbed. The baby was going to shoot right off and smack the floor. I grabbed on to him and asked for a blanket — something, anything — to give some traction.

Maternal fear knifed sharp and deep. The days of planning the nursery, rubbing my swollen belly and wishing my son would be born sooner, rather than later, felt whimsical. What the hell was I thinking?

I searched for my mom. She sat on the left side of me and appeared happy, but exhausted.

“Mom.” I felt shaky. “I can’t do this. I can’t.” I wanted her to hug me and to tell me it was going to be okay. I wanted to be reassured.

It took her a moment to process my proclamation. When she figured out what I’d meant, she chuckled. “Well, too late now kid. You already are.”


Bennett Ryan

By | October 13th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Pregnancy, Birth, Adoption, Featured 1, Tuesday 2 | 4 comments

Blog Nosh Magazine Pregnancy Birth Adoption{Originally published on Weddings by Heather}

It would be impossible for me to describe the emotion that I witnessed today with Jason, Kelly and their families. They entered the hospital with a terminal diagnosis for their son and the anxiety and emotion leading up to his delivery was difficult to process. But I can tell you this, in no uncertain terms, I witnessed a miracle when I heard Bennett cry as he was born. He was able to breath on his own. A MIRACLE. This is Kelly getting her first good look at her new baby.

Pittsburgh Newborn Photography

To capture these first, precious moments of Bennett’s life for Jason and Kelly is an absolute honor and I cannot thank them enough for allowing me to share in this very special, very private moment.


Hurricane Katrina Four Years Later

By | August 29th, 2009 | Category: Featured 1, Friday 1, Nosh Notes from the Editor | No Comments »
Hurricane Katrina Four Years Later

Nosh Notes from the EditorThe editors and writers behind Blog Nosh Magazine are a motley bunch. Our stories are hilarious, colorful, transcendent, painful, absurd, and strong. They are what define us, make us interesting, and sharpen our eye for stories that we know will resonate with you.

I am not an exception to this rule. I have my story, as well, and as much as I try to fight its attempts to define me, it colors my every day.

Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. When she left, she took my home with her. Down to the bare slab of concrete. I was far from alone in my loss.

Her reach was astonishing. Her strength was impressive. Her cruelty was deplorable. And yet, she left us with spirits far better defined than we thought possible in the days and hours before August 29, 2005.

Our feature today begs a little favoritism as I republish my own first writing of my family’s experience on the Mississippi Gulf Coast during and after Hurricane Katrina, playfully titled Victor Vito, after a Laurie Berkner song. Many of you have read it before, far more never even realized that I had a Katrina story. That’s one of my favorite things about the editors of Blog Nosh Magazine: we do not wear our tragedies on our sleeves. We are so much more than what we’ve witnessed. Plus, we much prefer to knock your socks off with them when you least expect it. It is then that we know you are listening.

While we have your delectably nibble-worthy ear, TideLoadsOfHopeShirtSupportwe would like to take a moment and thank one of this month’s sponsors of Blog Nosh Magazine, Tide Loads of Hope. A deliciously novel disaster-relief campaign, Tide Loads of Hope centers around a simple plan. After natural disasters, nationwide, a Loads of Hope truck equipped with 32 high-efficiency washers and dryers is sent out to meet one of the most basic human needs of families in crisis: clean clothes.

You can read much more about the Loads of Hope program at http://tideloadsofhope.com, as well as my personal response to their nationwide disaster relief efforts in my Hurricane Katrina 4th Anniversary post at Velveteen Mind. Only the end is about Tide…


It’s only life or death. It’s always only life or death.

By | August 24th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Overcoming Adversity, Featured 1, Jennifer (Playgroups are no place for children), Monday 2 | 2 comments

Overcoming Adversity Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally published on John T. Unger Studio}

The best thing that ever happened to me was the night an angry, messed up cab driver pulled me into the back room of a 24 hour diner and held a huge handgun to my head for over ten minutes, all the while describing in intricately fetishistic detail exactly what would happen when he pulled the trigger.

Why? Because it changes you, staring down a nutjob holding a gun. After that, the small stuff just doesn’t get sweated. You either break, or break through to a mandatory satori of keeping things in proportion that most people never get to walk away from. It’s an ice calm I wouldn’t trade for anything.

The second best thing that ever happened to me was when the dot com crash of 2000 wiped out most of the design industry at the peak of my career as a freelance print designer. I went from turning away work every week to working exactly 7 days of the next year. I lost my girl. I lost my loft. I lost part of my thumb in an accident moving out of the loft. I pretty much lost it all.

Of course, the only reason I was working in offices was to fund the art career I wanted… materials, space, tools, etc. I worked eight hours in the office and ten in the studio, sleeping when I passed out involuntarily. I decided that if my industry had tanked, I was damned if I was gonna retrain to do something else I didn’t want to do. I chose to make the art be my sole means of support. I built some monumentally scaled commissions working out of borrowed shop space, with borrowed gear, sleeping on borrowed couches.

It worked. I’ve been making my living as an artist ever since, and these days I earn triple the income I ever did from the best corporate gigs.

The third best thing that ever happened was the day my studio building collapsed under a load of snow while I was standing on the roof shoveling. I rode that roof to the ground like a gut-shot rodeo pony. The building and some pricey tools were completely destroyed, but I was unharmed… until I spent the next three months (December, January and February) without heat, running water or a stove because the natural gas line into the house had been severed in the collapse. The gas company refused to fix the line until they could bury it in the spring. I lost a few brain cells, I’m sure, by running an unvented kerosene heater inside the house to stay alive.


The Dying Season

By | July 27th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Overcoming Adversity, Featured 1, Monday 1 | 1 Comment »

Overcoming Adversity Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally published on Chicken and Cheese.}

Not too long ago, we bathed The Poo while chatting about all the people who love her.

We listed off all her grandparents, and then spent time explaining how we, her parents, were also children.

“Your grandma and grandpa are my mommy and daddy,” Mr. Chicken told her, as he sluiced shampoo from her hair using a small container of water. “And meema is Mommy’s mommy.”

Suddenly, without warning, The Poo realized a new truth about our extended family.

“Mommy!” she exclaimed, the gears in her head grinding away. “You don’t have a daddy!”

I winced, her words hitting me as hard as any blow. My father’s been on my mind of late.

This is, you see, my season of loss.

*****

Even as we welcome a new soul to our household, my mind wanders – dreadfully – to this date on the calendar. Four years ago today, at 3:30 in the afternoon, my father drew his last breath.

Each year I think the hours will come and go like any other, just a pair of numbers and nothing more. I believe I will keep house and tend children, spending my time as I would on an ordinary day.

But this day, this terrible day, will never be ordinary again.

The immediacy of my grief has faded; that much is true. No longer do I wake in the heart of the night, veins pounding with dreams the color of blood. No longer do I wake each Aug. 26 precisely at 4 a.m., the time my telephone rang with the news that an ambulance was ferrying my father to the emergency room.

But when August begins to wane, a bruise rises to the surface, tender and easily irritated. The warm weather and the slant of the sun prompt recollections I’d rather forget – walking my parents’ dog in the late afternoon the week before my dad died, while they were away at The Mayo Clinic; the hope I felt when the doctors reported that the cancer was dead; the terrible tremor in my dad’s voice the last time I spoke to him on the phone.

I called to tell my mother I wanted to come out to Minnesota. I was on vacation, and something inside urged me to get on a plane and be with them.


Dreams Can Come True; But They Sometimes Need Help

By | July 24th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Politics, Featured 2, Mr Lady, Thursday 2 | 2 comments

Politics Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally posted on Mid-Century Modern Moms}

Once upon a time, there was a little boy with a dream.

He dreamed of love. A romantic love, in fact. Of love that transcended the ages.

He knew that his dream was not really all that realistic. It was a dream, after all.

But he continued to hope that one day he would meet the one person in the world who was absolutely perfect for him.

The one person who would understand his dark moments.

The one person who would understand his sense of humor.

The one person who would be the yin to his yang.

The one person who would love him back with the same intensity.

The one person who was meant just for him.

There were many dark years as the little boy grew up. Many years when he thought that one person didn’t really exist.

Many false starts. Many times when he thought … maybe? This time? Is this the one?

And many times when his heart was broken. Not just broken, but smashed to little pieces by a person who turned out to be much less than he thought.

Until now.

The little boy is a week from his 25th birthday. Almost a year ago, that elusive “person” he was seeking appeared.

And he knows love.


Pitiless, The Mercy Of Time

By | April 9th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Overcoming Adversity, Friday 1 | No Comments »

Overcoming Adversity Blog Nosh Magazine

{Originally published at Her Bad Mother}

When a family loses a child, we feel it. Whether or not we knew that family, whether or not we knew that child, we feel it. We feel it because the shockwaves of that loss – that loss as felt by the mother, the father, the family, the friends, the community, that loss as felt by the world, because surely the earth itself shudders, a little bit, when one of its flowers is cut too soon – the shockwaves of that loss reach into our very souls, to the furthest corners of our souls where we keep, hidden in the dark, away out of sight, our worst fear. And the shockwaves of that loss – snapping, lashing, electric – light up those dark corners and awaken the beast of our fear and we tremble.

We tremble because we know. Every single one of us has imagined what it would be like to lose a child. Every single one of us has lived and relived this imaginary terror. Each and every one of us has held our children in our arms and felt the warmth of their breath on our neck and had a single, heart-stopping thought: what if? And then we’ve all squeezed our children more tightly and waited until our hearts resumed their beat before letting go, a little sadder, a little older, a lot more grateful for the time that we have.

So when someone runs out of time, when someone is forced to really let go, let go let go let go, we know. And our hearts stop for them, for knowing.

My heart stopped today. I am sadder, older, more grateful, now that it has resumed its beat.

Requiescat in pace, Madeline Alice Spohr. Your home, now, is timelessness.


Shock

By | April 8th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Overcoming Adversity, Jennifer (Playgroups are no place for children), Wednesday 1 | No Comments »

Overcoming Adversity Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally posted on Joy Unexpected}

I can’t sleep.

My friend’s baby died today.

Her baby died.

I had read that she has been taken to hospital by ambulance. I was worried, so this afternoon I sent her an email.

Just catching up on what’s going on with your baby girl. I’ve been so busy and wrapped up in my stupid little world.If you need ANYTHING, please don’t hesitate to call me. I’m only an hour-ish away.

Thinking of you all.

She wrote back and said she was worried. Maddie was breathing really hard and the doctors didn’t know why. She was scared, but glad she was being monitored so closely.

I remember feeling worried, but thinking they would figure out what was wrong and she would get better. She had to get better.

Then, tonight, I clicked over to her blog and read this.

My husband was sitting here on the couch with me when I read it. I threw my laptop down and just shouted “NO! NO!!”

I started to shake. I was in shock.

I then called a couple of friends who are also friends with Heather and we sobbed together in disbelieve.

It’s unreal. I still can’t believe it.

Every time I close my eyes to try to sleep, I think of Heather. I think of the last time I saw her– we were at the LA food bank, volunteering our time. She was so kind and wonderful to be around. Towards the end of the day, she got a phone call from her babysitter. Maddie had a fever. I saw the worry instantly sweep over her face. I told her it was okay if she needed to leave. I could just feel the love she had for her baby girl in that moment.