by Heather Plett | May 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Around this time last year, I finished what I thought was my final edit on my book before starting to figure out how to get it published.
Not only did I finish it, but my friend Segun shared the first 5 chapters of it with his advanced graphic design class and gave them the assignment of developing a book design. I visited the class and was shown more than a dozen versions of what the book could look like if I brought it into print. It was a thrilling moment. I even reserved the url for the book title, confident that I would get it into print one way or another.
I was close… so close… and then life got in the way.
It’s tricky, this business of writing a memoir. Life is messy and unfinished, and it’s difficult to tie it up with a pretty bow at the end.
Last year at this time, the book was called “Butterfly at the Grave”. Now I wonder if I should call it “The Unfinished Business of Living, While People around You are Dying”.
The book has been growing in me for more than a dozen years. It’s the story of my stillborn son Matthew and the huge impact his short life had on my life. It started growing even before he was born, when I was sitting in the hospital waiting for him, on an unexpected sabbatical from my life. During those three weeks, I wrote in my journal “some day I will write a book and it will be called ‘The Journey of a Woman’.”
The problem is that while the book was gestating in me, other deaths happened that changed my life just as much. When I started writing it two years ago, I was pretty certain it would focus solely on Matthew, but then one day I realized that I couldn’t ignore the impact that my Dad’s sudden death had on my life.
And then… while I was trying to wrap it up… well, Mom got cancer. I wrote this in the last chapter, just before finishing the first draft a year and a half ago…
“On Mother’s Day this past year, I was having an especially horrible day. After spending the afternoon with my mother who was experiencing the ravishing after-effects of her first chemo treatment, I came home completely spent and emotional. It finally hit home just how devastated I would be if I lost my Mom. Our relationship hasn’t always been an easy one, especially in recent years when I and my siblings had to get used to the idea that she married again after Dad died and things shifted fairly significantly. And yet, despite the challenges, I love her deeply and I don’t want to lose her.”
You know the rest of the story. I lost her. So… how can I now end the book on that note when I know just how much her loss means to me?
I’m not sure. This book still wants to be born, and at some point I just have to say “finished”, but I suspect it’s not finished yet. I think a few more chapters are going to emerge before I finally see it in print.
Life is unfinished, imperfect, and messy. I suppose that, even when it’s in print, this book will always be unfinished.
Grief is a class we never get a final grade in.
by Heather Plett | Feb 20, 2013 | Beauty, grief, hope, Uncategorized
I wanted to find hope again. I really, REALLY longed for it.
I wanted to have some hint of what it will be like when I no longer feel buried under the grief of Mom’s death and the added trauma of Marcel’s heart attack and the accompanying financial stress, extra workload on my shoulders, etc., etc.
I know that “this too shall pass”. It’s what I cling to every time I find myself spiralling down into the hard places in life. “I’ve been through this before. I know that I can survive. It will get better.”
When I found the necklace in Ten Thousand Villages, I knew that I’d found my symbol of hope. It’s a tree of life, crafted by artisans in Cambodia out of the shell casings of bombs that litter the countryside. Perfect. Creating something beautiful out of destruction, loss, and grief. Making the land safe again by cleaning up the unexploded land mines and making them into jewellery. Hope out of hardship. Sounds pretty close to what I specialize in.
“…and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4)
I texted Marcel a photo of the necklace. “Don’t you want to buy me something for Valentine’s Day?” I asked. Sure enough, he did. He was in the store later that day and the necklace was mine. I was delighted.
Not only was it a little bit of hope to wrap around my weary neck, it felt like a new trademark for the work I do with clients. “You too can find beauty in the grief and destruction of your lives. You can rise out of the brokenness and be courageous, resilient, and authentic. You can find deeper connection and more honest stories when you clean up the land mines and turn them into necklaces.”
And then, two days later, the necklace was gone. I stood in the bookstore bathroom, looking down at the chain on the floor. There was no tree of hope attached anymore. Somehow, somewhere, it had slipped off my neck.
I searched everywhere, but it was nowhere to be found.
Instead of holding my head up high and telling myself it was “just a necklace,” I took a nosedive into self-pity and hopelessness. “What the hell, universe? Do you hate me? Do you really want to take away the one thing that was giving me a bit of hope in all of this hardship?”
It was on my dad’s birthday that I lost my necklace. He would have been 79. Right there in that bookstore washroom (where I returned after retracing my steps throughout the store and into the parking lot), I sat and wept for all of the losses and grief stories in my life. The necklace was just the symbol (and the proverbial straw that broke this camel’s back) of everything else that has been lost in the last dozen years – my dad, my mom, my son, nearly my husband (twice)… and so many more, smaller losses. I wept and wept and let myself feel the weight of all of that grief.
And then the next morning, on my way to work, I had a car accident. Yes, really.
It was a minor car accident and nobody was hurt and there is only very minor damage to my car, but it felt like my whole world had fallen apart.
I sat in my office and cried some more. And raged at God. And cried some more. And raged. And cried. And then I got up, and moved my body a little, said a little prayer of gratitude that I hadn’t been hurt… And then… somehow… I carried on. I finished preparing for the workshop I had to deliver yesterday and then went out to the rural town where I was delivering it. I sat in circle with the women in the leadership program I’m co-hosting, and I let the conversation and the compassion in the room offer me a little bit of healing.
When I got home late last night, Marcel met me at the door holding a tiny silk package. Inside was another tree of hope necklace. He’d gone back the the store, told them about the clasp that had come undone, and they replaced it.
And now I’m wearing hope around my weary neck again – a neck made newly stiff from a slight case of whiplash, but a neck that is resilient and strong and will continue to hold my head up high when it needs to, and let it fall to my hands in tears when that’s what needs to happen.
I don’t have a neat little bow to tie this post up with. Life hasn’t become magically easy, and I still feel a little shaky and weepy, but this morning I am reminded that the real hope comes not from anything I can buy or wear. The real hope comes from the relationships that support me – my husband who cares enough to replace the necklace (and so much more), strangers at the store who were compassionate enough to believe him, the women in the circle who let me be authentic in their presence, my co-worker who let me be a little more broken apart than usual yesterday, the woman in the accident who thanked me for my courage in standing up to the man who caused the accident but refused to take personal responsibility, my friends who sent kind messages… and God, the source of my strength, who doesn’t promise ease, but promises courage if I dare to trust.
If another tragedy happens tomorrow, I might fall apart again, I might rage and scream and wallow in self-pity, but then I will get up off the floor and continue to make swords into plowshares. Because hope is still worth striving for. And love is still better than war. And light is still better than darkness.
And the tree of life grows best in the compost of the fallen trees of years past.
by Heather Plett | Jan 28, 2013 | grief, growth, Uncategorized
Last Thursday morning, our life was thrown into turmoil again. Marcel woke me up at 3:33 a.m., complaining of chest pains. I rushed him to the hospital, and within a few hours they’d confirmed that he’d had a heart attack and would need a procedure of some kind (either surgery or angioplasty) to open the blockage in his arteries.
Fortunately, they were able to treat it with angioplasty – an amazing procedure in which they push a tube through a hole in the artery in his wrist all the way to the heart, inflate a balloon at just the right spot and install a stent that’s the size of a pen spring. His arteries are flowing the way they’re supposed to again and he just has to take it easy for a month or so to let the damage to his heart heal (plus work on some diet changes that will hopefully help prevent it from happening again).
After bringing him home from the hospital yesterday, I had to dive back into work mode, marking exams and then teaching all day today. Life goes on.
Today, after a full day in the classroom, I came home feeling weak, shaky, and kind of weepy. I think the trauma of this past week is settling into my body. The first thing I did was take a hot bath.
My emotions have run the gamut this past week. Anger that this had to come so soon after losing Mom; frustration that it came just when my business has picked up and I don’t have a lot of time to pause; fear that this could happen again and next time we won’t be as lucky, wonder that modern medicine can do such amazing things; resentment that other people seem to have ease in their lives while mine is full of struggle, gratitude that I have wonderful friends who bring me food, chai, wine, and love; and so on and so on.
This crisis felt doubly hard because I found myself intensely missing my mom all week. Normally, she would have been the first person I would have called, and she would have rushed to the hospital to nurture both me and Marcel. It’s what she did best. I long for her nurturing, and I suppose I always will.
I long for a day when life doesn’t feel this hard. I long for the day when I can write happy posts instead of these heavy ones again and again. I long for ease and abundance – two things that feel illusive right now.
Some day, I might look back and know what this all means, but I’m not at the point yet where I can tell you what lessons I’ve learned from this, or why it feels like I’m being asked to bear so much at once.
Right now, I’m still in the thick of the emotions and the learning will come later. Right now, I’m letting what needs to be felt simply show up without trying to judge it or give it a name.
Tomorrow will be time for learning. Today is time for just being present in what this is.
by Heather Plett | Jan 17, 2013 | Beauty, grace, grief, growth, journey, Uncategorized
This much I can tell you – hard times are going to come your way. Grief, pain, anger, disappointment, hurt, tears – you’ll face them all in this lifetime.
I wish I could promise you otherwise, but my life story bears the truth of what I’ve just said. You will face the death of people you love, you will find yourself lost in the abyss, you will be betrayed by those closest to you, and you will go through periods of devastating self-doubt.
Last night I had a powerful dream that the whole world was falling apart. It was probably a reflection of the many conversations I’ve had with people recently who’ve felt like their worlds were falling apart. In the dream, there was a major catastrophe (something like an earthquake) and there was calamity all over the world. I spent most of the dream trying to find and rescue people who were lost in the damaged world. It wasn’t a stressful act – it was just something that needed to be done.
I know what the dream means. This is my work in the world – helping people navigate their way through broken places in their lives; helping them see the light when they’re lost in the dark. Quite significantly, in the dream I was doing it with the help of my Mom and Dad. Both Mom and Dad have been my torchbearers, and even after their deaths, they continue to help me in this work.
I’ve gotten mad at God sometimes, for not giving me a calling in which I could invite people onto an easy path. Instead, I got the calling to help people navigate in the dark. It’s hard to market the dark path – it just doesn’t sell the same way “ten easy steps” does. Once I finally surrendered to it, though, I realized that my calling is much deeper and more beautiful than the easy one I longed for. This is a good life, despite the pain – and maybe even because of the pain. Light is so much more stunning when you know what darkness looks like.
Here’s what I’ve learned about navigating in the dark:
- You can survive more than you think you can. You’ll hit what you’re sure is rock bottom, and you’ll think “I can’t possibly live through one more hardship”, and then rock bottom will be taken away from you and you’ll be falling again, to a new bottom. You can survive it. Trust the Source of your strength, the God of your understanding, and the strength you need will show up.
- You can fall apart, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be permanently broken. In the cycle of life, deconstruction has to happen before construction can begin. The falling apart is necessary – let it happen. Don’t try too hard to hold yourself together. Old patterns need to die (painful but true) before new patterns can emerge. Think of the seed that needs to crack open for a tree to grow. Yes, it’s painful for that seed, but if it doesn’t crack open, it withholds life.
- Your greatest enemy is the shame of what you’re trying to hide from the world. Shame will cause you to do unhealthy things just to maintain your reputation as a “pulled-together” person. Let go of your image of a pulled-together person and practice letting go of the shame. I say “practice”, because it takes time, effort, and some pretty deep personal work to recognize the shame and gradually let it go. (See Brene Brown’s work or Cath Duncan’s work for more on shame resilience.)
- Let go of any illusion you have that you are in control of what happens. There are many in the self-help world who will tell you that your thoughts attract what comes to you in your life, but if you believe that when hard times come your way, you will be side-swiped by self-hatred in the middle of your grief. You didn’t bring this on. The best you can do is live through it with some measure of grace. And if you don’t always feel full of grace, forgive yourself for that. Let the grace come from some other Source than you.
- As any white-water rafter will tell you, your safest bet is to surrender to the waves and stay vigilant for the rocks and whirlpools. Let the grief happen. Ride it out and do what you can to guide your boat between the rocks, but don’t try to resist it. You can’t stop the river, so you might as well ride with it and trust that it will eventually take you to a place of calm. Embrace the word “surrender”.
- Search for the points of light. Pay attention to those moments when the sunset is particularly stunning, your friend shows up at just the right moment, a breeze kisses your cheek, you’re drawn to a blog post that was just what you needed to read right now, or someone offers to take over a task that’s become too difficult for you. Each point of light is God shining through the darkness. Those tiny points of light will guide you through the darkness until you see the dawn again.
- Trust that this hardship is a deepening of your spiritual journey. Everyone wants an easy path to enlightenment, but nobody gets it. As Caroline Myss reminds us in Sacred Contracts, all of the leaders of the world’s major religions – Jesus, Muhammed, and the Buddha – had to go through times of testing before they could be commissioned into their roles as teachers. Your hardships will deepen your work and take you further into your calling. This I know from personal experience. I would not be doing the work I’m doing today if I hadn’t gone through the loss of my son.
- Reach for other people in the dark. There are people who want to walk with you through this dark place. There are people who can help you see the light. It’s okay to reach for them. You don’t need to do this alone. Darkness is easier to navigate if you find someone holding a flashlight.
- Life won’t always be this hard. When you’re down there at rock bottom and you haven’t seen a pinpoint of light for weeks, you’re going to become convinced that this is all there is to life and you’ll never be free of the pain. I’m not going to tell you that it’s easy or that you have to have faith. (Read Ronna Detrick’s excellent post about faith in the darkness.) I’m simply going to tell you that there will be light again. And the light will have a deeper, richer shine to it than anything you’ve ever seen before.
by Heather Plett | Dec 31, 2012 | Uncategorized
I haven’t been able to write much these past few weeks. My heart has been aching. Christmas has always been about family and at the centre of the family has always been Mom. Without her, I feel like I’ve lost my anchor.
This became especially clear to me just before Christmas when I managed to get away for a 2 day personal soul-care retreat. The first evening was much like every other personal retreat I’ve gone on. I always feel a little restless at the beginning, wandering around, trying to settle in, not very focused on anything. I read a little, I try to write, I get up and walk down the hall to the art room, I head outside to walk to the river… nothing really grabs my attention for long and nothing feels very monumental from a “spiritual retreat, time for some profound a-ha moments to show up” perspective.
After years of doing this, I know that it takes time to shift from chronos time to kairos time. In Greek there are two ways of referring to time. Chronos (the root word of chronology) is the kind of time that we measure with clocks and calendars. It’s a linear form of time that keeps moving at a steady dependable pace, much like the metronome. Our day-to-day lives are all based in chronos time.
Kairos, on the other hand, is the kind of time that’s harder to define. It’s time that exists outside the realm of clocks or calendars – the kind of time I seek when I go on retreat. It’s spiritual time, fluent and random. It cannot be boxed or measured. A kairos moment is an opportune moment – one that slips away if we’re not paying attention.
Kairos time is the space where God meets us. It defies logic and clocks and calendars. Kairos goes against the grain of a production-oriented world.
On the second day, when I had given my chronos-oriented mind sufficient time to slow down, a kairos moment showed up in the art room at the retreat centre.
I’d grabbed a large sheet of poster paper and was flipping through magazines. I thought I’d make a collage. I hesitate to call it a “vision board”, because the place of grief I’m in is more about surrender than it is about trying to find a vision. It was more like the lack-of-vision board I made in the summer when I was learning to cope with the idea that cancer would probably take Mom away from me.
The first thing that grabbed my attention was a calendar picture of a lovely home. Something about it stirred me deep at the core.
“My heart longs for home,” were the words that came to me as I sat staring at the picture. And then I began to weep. And I kept on weeping. My body shook with the bottomless sobs that erupted.
My heart longs for home. Yes. There are a hundred kinds of truths in that simple statement.
I feel homeless without my mom – anchorless, at drift in the world. After my dad died and then my last grandparent, Mom was all that was left of my history. Now I have nothing that holds me to my lineage. I don’t feel ready to be my own anchor yet.
The loss is emotional, but it’s also physical. In the weeks before Christmas, my siblings and I helped Mom’s husband pack up her things so that he can move to a smaller apartment. There is now no longer a physical place that holds the essence of my Mom. There is no place that gives me roots.
This physical loss of space has been a gradual one. First, when I was pregnant with my first child, Mom and Dad moved off the farm that held all my childhood memories. Then, when Dad died, Mom moved away from their second farm and the small town that had always been home. Now, with Mom gone and her belongings either given away or distributed among her children, there is nothing left but the memories. I am realizing more and more how much a sense of place is important in giving me a sense of belonging. I’d always thought that being a wanderer meant that I didn’t need to be rooted to place. I was wrong.
Sadly, my own home doesn’t feel much like home these days either. I hadn’t made the connection before that moment, but for about the same amount of time as my Mom’s had cancer, I have let my home fall into chaos and disrepair. I’ve blamed the lack of money for the chaos. The linoleum floor is peeling, the carpet needs replacing, the chairs are all breaking, and because of all of that brokenness I haven’t bothered investing the time or energy to keep it clean. But it’s much more than the lack of money. I see that now. It’s my own state of mind. As much as I’ve been losing a home with Mom dying, I’ve been giving up my own home by letting it fall into disrepair.
There’s a sense of homelessness in my marriage too, and I know that I need to take responsibility for the lack of investment there as well. I try to point the finger of blame in the other direction, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but I need to take ownership for what I have allowed to fall apart.
In a sense, I’ve been running away from home – in more ways than one. While I was losing Mom, I ran to the woods to find a home with Mother Nature. When I stopped caring about and nurturing my own home and witnessed my marriage coming apart at the seams, I ran to coffee shops, other cities, parks, books – anywhere to avoid looking at what I was letting go of. Instead of finding a sense of home inside myself, I was looking for something external that would give me roots and nurturing.
All of these piled on top of me as I sat staring at that picture of home. “My heart longs for home.” My heart longs to find a place where it belongs. My heart longs for comfort, for safety, for peace, for love, for a place to nestle and be nurtured.
I cut out the picture and glued it to the centre of the page. Other pictures soon joined that one. Almost every one of them had something to do with home, family, safety and nurturing. Every other vision board I’ve ever made has been full of pictures of adventure, travel, and living large. A very different theme emerged on this one.
By the end of my collage-making, I knew what my word for 2013 will be.
Home.
My heart longs for home. I have to find a new way to define home that is still tied to the spirit of my mom and dad and all of my lineage, but that no longer includes their physical presence. I have to find a new way of loving my own physical space even if I can’t afford to replace the floors and chairs and build that new kitchen I’ve been longing for. I have to invest in my marriage and my nuclear family so that we call all find a sense of home in each other. I have to find a sense of home within myself rather than looking for something external to fill the void. I have to treat my own body like the home where Spirit can reside.
There are so many things going on here – respect for my physical home, investment in my marriage, trust in myself, and, ultimately, a deeper faith in God. When I have a greater sense of home, when I stop looking for it outside myself, I am in a place of deeper trust in the God who resides within me.
I have already found small ways to begin. The day after my retreat, I cleaned my family room and washed walls. The next day, I rented a rug doctor and gave some TLC to our much-neglected carpet. Already it’s beginning to feel more like a space that I want to spend time in. I’ve also begun to invest more intentionally in my marriage and my spiritual path as well. I am, once again, learning new lessons in surrender and trust.
Home doesn’t feel like a very exciting word to focus on. I’d much rather pick one that’s full of adventure and excitement. But I know that it’s the word that I most need right now. Once I have a greater sense of home and a greater sense of spiritual rootedness, I’ll be ready for more adventure and excitement.
