Is it really all black and white?

A friend of mine had a quote on her FB page and it really touched someplace deep inside me.

For work I do a lot of change management, people, equipment, procedures and cultures. Change is always tough, even when you want it to happen.

Here's the quote:

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."

 -Gilda Radner

Yes, this is life and though I've recognized this throughout my life, it's never been more true than now, at least for me.

I do not know what's going to happen next.

I am trying so hard to make the best of it and to live in the moment. And exactly how does one make the best of this type of a situation? Seriously.

But no matter what, I know without a doubt that Magpie remains in my heart, she's had a place there for a very long time, through all sorts of changes, all sorts of losses, and all sorts of highs.

She's been a true constant, an unwavering commitment, a sign of my faith in dreams coming true in spite of everything else that's happened. At least that's what I thought.

Letting go of Magpie is going to hurt for a long long time to come. And it would take a miracle to reverse the path I've been placed on.

A full rack of shoes

Did you ever have a pair of shoes that you just couldn't let go of?

The soles are worn, the laces are thread bare or replaced already, you may have had to put new insoles in, the stitching might be pulling away, the color is faded (at best) though you tell yourself it's not, they might smell (but who's foot level anyway right?), they cost you so much you swore you'd be buried in them one day, they have both gone out of style and come back into style, they remind you of days gone by or days to come, they 'feel' like a lazy sunny day, and you've broken them in 'just so'. Each and every time you place your feet in those comfy shoes, it's like you've arrived home.

Comfy Shoes. Sighhhhhhhh.

Which brings me to friends. Comfy shoes and friends, hmm, yeah, I get the similarity. Now just wait, hold on. Did you ever get the chance to cross paths with one of your dearest, oldest friends, someone special to you in a way that is almost intangible? Someone that may live hours, if not continents away, someone that you rarely see so you treasure it even more.

For me, those dear friends, are ones who really know you best and love you for being exactly you (warts and all) AND they've let you into their world and shared their inner soul too. They neither put you on a pedestal for having some freaking virtue that they don't have (you're so strong... blech, sick of that) or look down at you in the gutter for the virtues you don't possess (ahhh, behold the power of being a judger). Well I treasure the days I can spend with them. Ever the more sweet because of the distance.

Recently, a friend of mine came for a visit for a week, and it was like being reunited with a pair old shoes that someone hid while I wasn't looking! And all too soon someone hid them again.

I love me some comfy shoes.

Sighhhhhhh.

I wish for everyone that the shoe rack of your life overflows with comfy shoes. We should all be so lucky.

Get To.

I read earlier this year the 20 Greatest Lessons in Life. Read it. It's good, simple, quick read, and there is at least ONE chapter that will resonate with anyone and make a difference.

one of the chapters has stuck with me for a while now and I hope it sticks forever. For that matter another chapter has started to stick too and I really need to glue it to myself. More on that one later.

The chapter subject for this post?

Get to versus Have to.

?

See, the author teaches in college and spent every year teaching different subjects, one of them entailed that all of life is a choice. Nothing in life is forced. We all get up every day, make choices every day, and go about our life.

But what happens when we start to replace "have to" with "get to". It's enlightening. Seriously. I have been working "get to" into conversations with my closest friends, though most are unaware of this subtle difference. With one person in particular we often would correct each other with "get to" when we'd get off track and get pissy or unthankful for the choices we all Get To make in life.

It's VERY powerful. Seriously. Try it.

You don't have to go to college, you may get to.
You don't have to go to work, you GET To... seriously man, speaking from experience and from the standpoint of someone who loved loved loved what they did for a living, this is true.
You don't have to do your homework, you get to.
You don't have to clean the house, you get to... okay, that's one's hard to swallow.
You don't have to go to the store, you get to.
You don't have to spend time with your family, you get to.
You don't have to discuss some really freaking difficult and hard things in life, you get to.

I know, it's altruistic to think that it's really this easy. But in times of trouble, attitude is everything. And replacing the 'god I have to get up this morning' with 'thank god I get to get up this morning' can make all the difference.

NO, it is not that easy. Changing attitudes is never simple, it takes weeks of consistent practice. And it's hard. Very hard. I've learned this recently in ways I never expected to learn in this lifetime. I'm not happy I went through what I did these last few months, but I did get to, get through it, mostly.

For a while I had a great partner helping me to look at things this way as I also helped him too with the same thing. For now I'm on my own trying to do this and it's hard hard work.

But I get to do this work.

Think about it.

(more to come on another of the 20 Greatest Lessons, a few chapters have made a difference for me... the next one, attitude is everything... my additional spin on that... the attitude of those around you is also important and impactful)

Seeing the hardwoods under the rug

The old, and worn out, adage is:

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

Or it's more bitter partner:

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, pee in it, and serve it the bastards who gave you the damn lemons in the first place.

But the other day, after meeting with someone I used to work with many years ago, I began to look at it a little differently. We had a brief conversation about the chances that unexpected change can bring to you, if you let it. We also talked about how sometimes life is so screwed up, so far from where we started or were a few moments ago, that it's a chance to reinvent yourself.

As I drove home I began to think of the tired old lemon analogy and this is what came to mind instead:

When life pulls the rug out from under you, you may find more beautiful hardwoods underneath.

When you're done crying about it or taking a break from crying, look at what's uncovered under your feet. Because of the rug that used to be there, you may never have seen what was under it. You may never have bothered to really look. The rug was comfortable, it hid maybe some dented or unfinished hardwood floors. Perhaps it hid some unfinished potential? I began to look on the drive home at that floor in my mind. I began to wonder, will I replace the rug with one just like it, will I get a new rug and make it home, or will I take the hardwood floors and shine them up to stand all on their own?

I don't know yet how it will all work out. But I do realize I've reached the point where I can see the rug for all the merits it once was, and I miss it, but I also realize there's a world under that rug and free choice has a lot to do with how we all handle the tough changes of life.

In the coming months I'll figure it out, but in a strange way I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of the floor and how I decide, how I choose with my own free will, to make it my foundation again. Someone else may have pulled the rug out from under me and left me wondering WTF, but I"m the only one who has the power to choose the next step.

Screw the lemons, I think we've all got hardwood floors that if we want to, we can do something better with. Life altering change WILL alter your life, but maybe the rug was holding you back and it's only after you're ass end over tea kettle that you can see what was under the rug.

Maybe the hardwoods under the rug will glow warmer, deeper and richer, now that the rug hiding it is gone. I don't know what is on the other side of this change, I don't know where I'm going and it's all the more hard because this isn't like some of the other change this year, I didn't choose it.

But what I choose to do with it will make all the difference.

here's to the asses who pulled the rug out from under me and may have given me the gift of fresh breath into my stale life. Then again, I might have to buy some lemons and serve them 'flavored lemonade'...!

The Brass Ring

Did you notice that when children view the world they view it with hope, with wonder, excitement, they view it with all of the wonderful potential it holds, all waiting to unfold in front of them on any given day. They view it with the naivety of belief that life will always hold goodness, fairness, that it will always rise to the occasion and that life is limitless.

Life through the eyes of a child brings visions to my mind, one in particular has resonated with me greatly in recent weeks. Children live life on the edge of their seat, perhaps, you might say like a child perched precariously on a Merry Go Round, one foot dangling over the saddle, the other strung out on tip toes while trying with all their might to reach that brass ring, that elusive, wonderful, brass ring. This is what I envision when I remember what life as a child was like and how in particular I viewed the world back so many years ago. I remember vividly always reaching for The Brass Ring, and why not? As a child we lived for those moments, those dreams, we never doubted that everyone deserved a Brass Ring.

So fast forward a few decades as we've all aged and become adults on the Merry Go Round of life, where do we adults take a seat? I think it's one of three places for more than 95% of us:

-On a stationary horse but not on the outside ring. Just sitting there watching the world go by, perhaps not even aware that there are brass rings to be had, or worse, thinking we are no longer eligible for them.

-On a bench on the Merry Go Round, too limited by our circumstances or beliefs to even take a seat on the horse

-Watching from the sidelines... not even venturing on the ride at all.

I think that people can easily be looked at as fitting fairly well into most of the categories. Let's take them one by one.

The Onlooker
You know this person, you have at least one of them in your circle of family or friends, they are content to just watch others live life, for various reasons. Maybe some of them think riding the Merry Go Round is foolish, child's play. Or maybe they are afraid to get on for fear of either not getting a horse on the outer ring or getting a horse on the outer ring, both too arresting a thought to entertain. Fear can be a paralyzing power to this group and so, they look out onto the world from where they are perched on the sidelines.

The Bench Warmer
Ah, the Bench Warmer. Too afraid of too much to do anything but sit, they do though have slightly more willingness to live than The Onlooker, but they are barely more involved. It's a facade, a very thin facade indeed. With The Onlooker, you know where they stand, it's obvious, but the Bench Warmer? Alas, they want to give the illusion of playing the game of life, but prefer to do so under an illusion that affords no risk.

The so close and yet so far away
I think this one is the most devastating of all. This is a person who is willing as an adult to ride a child's ride, they mount the horse, they feel and hear the music as the organ plays it's tune and the ride swings into full speed. But yet, they hold back, they have more courage than any of the others and yet it's not enough, they are the closest of all to living life to the fullest, to going for The Brass Ring and yet with each circle around they don't stand, they don't reach, they don't hope, they watch... from the back of a horse meant for glory, like taking Secretariat out for a race and doing little more than having your picture taken, you and Secretariat are let down. My heart aches for this group, they have the most going for them, but in the end it's as if they are onlookers from the Inside, not the outside. I believe this group honestly feels with every fiber of their being that everyone else deserves the brass ring but them.

You may have noticed I left a little bit out of my equation... the last 5% left out of my equation?

They are The Dreamers, this is the group that never loses sight of remembering life as a child, they've woven the essence, beauty and wonder of being a child into the thrill, happiness and fulfillment that can be, of being an adult. They not only get on The Merry Go Round of Life, but they ride it, man, they ride it in style.

When the gate to the ride opens you can picture them in their mind racing to an outer horse, perhaps they've even scoped one or two out, that alluring, demure, tall, leggy one with a mane to die for and eyes that call you. They race for a spot on their horse, readily jumping up on the horse, waiting oh so anxiously for the ride to begin, practically willing it to start up, the sounds churning to life, the ride going into motion,... they take on the essence of what it was like to be a child and believe in The Brass Ring. They perch all the way over the horse to one side, balancing a leg across the saddle, their left hand hanging onto the pole and their right foot on tip toes as their right hand readies for the ring to come their way. With each trip past the rings, they don't recall the previous trip where they missed the ring or where the ring they pulled wasn't brass, No! Not.At.All, they strive again, each time, looking for, grasping for, Their Brass Ring.

And they will get on the ride time and time again, even if the last 5, 10, 20 rides proved too elusive for the brass ring. They get on again because they remember the hope of a child, combined with the dream of an adult who gets what life can be all about.

In my life I've circled around this image of The Merry Go Round of Life, from my fascination with the ride and more so The Brass Rings as a child, to collecting miniature music box Merry Go Round Horses on Brass Poles, to wanting sooooooo badly to pay an outrageous sum of money at a craft show I used to go to every year in Maryland where an artisan hand carved the most magnificent recreations, some 3-4 foot tall rocking horses in the merry go round style... I never did but I always said 'someday when I have a child'... as an adult now, I view the Merry Go Round of Life with both nostalgia and anticipation, there is always something wonderful waiting for each of us, just around the bend.

The picture... that's a brass ring that was given to me. I did not earn it on a ride, but I do believe the person who gave it to me believed I earned it for my views on life, that I sometimes forget in the midst of how difficult and sad life can be at times, and my need to remember the beliefs we all held as children, that hope, dreams and beyond your wildest expecations fulfillment is what life is all about.

Here's to all of us remembering that life can be about our very own Brass Ring if we so choose.

Let love be your compass.

Over the last few years I've come to learn a great deal about Asian cultures and especially the stories of the Gods. One particular thread has occupied a lot of my mind...

In Taiwan, there are literally tons of temples dedicated to Matsu, the Goddess of the Sea, one of which is also home to "the Old Man Under the Moon," a Taoist god who functions somewhat like Cupid. Single people who are looking for a spouse come here to pray to this god. After praying, the supplicant removes a single red thread from around the god's arm, wraps the thread up in a small piece of red paper, and carries it in his or her pocket every day. In a short time, Pi says, these people will get married.

In other Asian countries, the Red String of Fate, also referred to as the red thread of destiny, red thread of fate (and by other variants) is an East Asian belief originating from Chinese legend. According to this myth, the gods tie an invisible red string around the ankles of men and women who are destined to be soul mates and will one day marry each other. According to Chinese legend, the deity in charge of "the red thread" is believed to be Yuelao, the old lunar matchmaker god who is also in charge of marriages.

What is it about the moon, about love, such that Lunar Gods appear all throughout mythology, that old adage of looking for the man in the moon, could it be a spin on this Lunar God, looking for the man who rules Love's Fate? I contemplated this deeply last night as I flew from Charlotte to home, the moon breathtaking from my seat on the plane high above the night clouds, that moment was magical.

I was travelling on business and as is usually the case the time away gives a great deal of latitude and freedom to let my mind become fulfilled with deeper thoughts than are possible in the fray and madness that can be daily life, if we let it consume us that way, the routines, the structure, the expectations... I began to think more deeply about connections, about love, about life, thinking about my life and the lives of others. My friend Lisa in China today having met her daughter last night, their story to becoming a family is just as unique and blessed as the deepest of Red Thread soulmate connections. Had she opened one door instead of the others, what would her fate have been? Would it really have been different? I can't imagine she wouldn't have wound up exactly where she is today, a day that couldn't be any better, any fuller, any richer, the day she meets her daughter Emme. When I think of the greatness of another person's life events I sometimes drift back to my own, thinking about my own experiences, the people who share my hopes and dreams, the wonder that can simply be this journey of life.

I've been thinking about how time weaves a very interesting story, those threads, those connections, the intricate dance of life. I fully believe that there are people in your life you meet when you are ready, and no sooner. The reasons are clear, had you met sooner the impact of you on them, of them on you and of each other on the US of who you are together would be lessened, so much so that your connection may never have occurred at all. Though it can be all too easy to think of the hands of time as both your friend and your enemy when you feel like you've waited forever for that special connection. What I mean to say is that it's easy to wonder why you may not have met your special person sooner, why so much later in life they showed up on your doorstep with the key to you heart, perhaps you even narrowly viewed it as the wrong time or the wrong place and nearly passed it by.

Keep in mind though, that even if the time and place are not ideal, the key to your heart is really what matters most. In the end if you believe in the Red Thread of Fate, perhaps time is your closest ally, delaying bringing the person who holds the other end of your Red Thread (tied to the key to your heart) to you until you can see them, fully. They show just when the stars align and shine with a whole new strength and meaning and that had this happened sooner you may not have been ready to receive their key.

Could there be something to the stories passed down from generation to generation, dynasty to dynasty, tribe to tribe? For those who say it's ridiculous, I say why couldn't there be truth to some of these myths and legends? What's really wrong with believing in something so deep, so powerful, so fulfilling?

There will always be a deep part of me that believes no matter the doors you open in your life, there are some paths that will always lead you home, that will always lead you to the love you deserve and the love that deserves you, like the compass of Love's Fate.

And so I leave you with the saying and the thought that perhaps, beyond all sense of time and reason, there is more to this Red Thread, and maybe, just maybe there's a bit of the magic of the heavens at work out there for US. Lastly, this fabric of life that we all cling precariously to at times, sometimes taking for granted far too much, well, it's made up of lots of threads but if you are open to chance, if your heart is willing, and if you believe, your Red Thread will some day beam through the fabric to the surface.

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time, place, or circumstance.
The thread may stretch or tangle,
but it will never break."
- an ancient Chinese belief

Serendipity

Serendipity

A simply marvelous word, just by the sound of it alone. It lulls you into thoughts of wonder, excitement, fun, happiness, it's just a joyful sounding word. To say it, well, it rolls off the tongue forming a smile, maybe even makes your feet skip, ..., if you let them that is.

So about a month ago someone near and dear to me used this word in a conversation and honestly, beyond how I described it above, I couldn't place a definition to it, so I looked it up:

In general, serendipity is the act of finding something valuable or delightful when you are not looking for it. Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely.

The term was coined by English writer Horace Walpole on January 28, 1754, in a letter written to Horace Mann. He credited it to a "silly fairy tale" he once read called 'The Three Princes of Serendip'.

According to the fairy tale, three Persian princes sailed off to make their fortunes in the "land of silk", an island called Serendip . (Today, the island is known as Sri Lanka.) Along the way, the princes made all types of wondrous and delightful discoveries about the island, and learned things they never expected.

The term is also sometimes used to mean "the randomness of fate," or fortuitous happenstance.
In the science world, cause, well, this is me at my very essence, Serendipity is responsible for many discoveries, in fact many of mankinds best, the stuff while trying to do or find or be something else:

Low density polyethylene, Silly Putty, Teflon, Superglue, Polycarbonates, Penicillin, Bioelectricity, discover of Uranus, Infrared radiation, X rays, Electromagnetism, Vulcanization of rubber, Safety glass, Corn flakes/wheat flakes, the microwave oven, Pyroceramics and The Slinky, just to name a few of the inventions or discoveries made serendipitously.

I like to think of Serendipity as what happens on the road of life when you least expect it, it's perhaps what happens when your plans go astray, opening a window into a galaxy you never even knew existed but was right there before your eyes. Serendipity brings happiness and potentially a new found wealth of joy, maybe when you already have great happiness or when you never thought you could see beyond the darkness that life can be at times.

Serendipity is the kinder, gentler, Hand of Fate.

When I think of Serendipity I think of a photo I once took to honor my Nana long before she died. It was one of the last trips I was lucky enough to spend with her on Sanibel Island, God I loved that place and I haven't been back since our last trip together there. I was snapping sunset after sunset, looking for just the right one, with visions in my head of having it enlarged and framed for her for Christmas, this was decades before digital photos, you know, when you didn't know what you had till the moment was long gone. When the picture was developed it was the most beautiful picture I'd ever taken, the ocean and beach deep awash in a sunset of ambers, browns, yellows and oranges, but there it was, a bird, in full flight, centered right over the sunset. It was a beautiful surprise, it was as I realize now, Serendipity.

That photo now hangs in my living room, I see it every day and I think of happiness, of my Nana, of one of my favorite places on earth, the edge of the ocean awash in color and I think of how fate brought that bird my way at just the right moment.

And that brings me to the bird of fate, you could say.

At times like this in my mind, life, as complicated and dark as it can be, is never clearer, never brighter or warmer. I think that bird of fate called Serendipity is sitting on my shoulder just chirping away to those who will listen closely and not miss one note of it's tune about life, love and happiness, that can, in the right circumstances, happen to those who least expect it, but most deserve it.

The Bread and Butter of Life

As I sit here in a hotel room, many hours away from home, on a recruiting trip I am reminded of the irony that it is the simplest things, not the grandest things in life that in the end really matter.

huh?

Perhaps it's the post fever haze from Valentine's Day, which followed us literally like the plague all weekend, barely able to go pick up a rental car at the airport on Sunday for the drive. But perhaps it's not the side effects from too little sleep, too little food, too much coughing, too much snot (sorry, but what else can I say)... Perhaps, it's just reality.

We arrived at the hotel, one of my newest engineers and myself this afternoon after a 5 hour drive, not bad, easier than 2 commuter flights and the time in between, let alone the fact my ears would have exploded over Amish country. We grabbed some soup at a hotel, me thinking it would soothe my body still aching from a bout of bronchitis.

Wisconsin Cheese Soup (the mildest soup on the menu), good for the throat.

Wisconsin Cheese Soup, not so good for the body that hasn't seen more than a few morsels of food in 3-4 days. Nuff said.

So I passed on dinner with the other person joining us for the college recruiting fair tomorrow. But they brought me back what I asked for, bread.

That was my one request.

But the bread, OH MY GOD, it's awesome (I say that now but who knows). And a little bit of butter on the side like icing on the grandest cake. Who knew that one of the most basic elements of life would bring me some joy tonight as I hack my way into sleep.

Cheers to the Bread and Butter of Life, a testament that often the simplest pleasures hold the greatest potential, because you aren't expecting it.

The knock at the door

Many weeks ago I read this post on another bloggers site, it really struck a chord. So I'm doing what I rarely have done in the 2 years posting... I'm talking about someone else's post.

Writing this post is a way of sort of letting a bit of the subject matter "go". To get it out of me, to exhale so I have the room to take in a new, more peaceful, long breath.

The topic was (survivor) guilt. It could easily apply to so many things. So many ways to interpret the topic.

Surviving a spouse.
Surviving a parent.
Surviving your child.
Surviving your best friend.
Surviving your sibling.
Your child surviving the loss of their birth family.

And thus began the fresh, crisp clarity in my head, like bells ringing from a church tower on a clear day. Survivor guilt.

I actually get that concept. Just like the many interpretations, there are also many ways in which it can show itself. One type of survivor guilt that may not be easy to understand is the loss of a child, or likewise the loss of your children's birth parents.

And this made me really think as I read his post. And it dawned on me that perhaps a few people in our lives experienced survivor guilt when Sophia died. ... maybe their family came easy... maybe they wished they could have done more before we lost her... maybe words or deeds spoken or acted upon in less than gentle ways echoed in their heads. Perhaps they, like us, were drowning in a sea, for no clear reason, of Survivor Guilt.

yeah, I know, perhaps it's true... then again maybe this is all just a bunch of shitty meaningless theories and I give more credit than due.

I remember driving to the hospital that night, drowning in a sea of survivor guilt, I was alive and she was dead. I remember insisting something just wasn't right for many weeks... Survivor Guilt, I still to this day feel I didn't do enough. I wished everything in our life away, the house, the car, the dogs, everything we had that night, just to turn back the hands of time.

But over the last two years we continued to survive, sometimes finding joy and laughter and yet, there were times I cringed at my happiness.

How could I be happy when we lost her? How could life move on and be so callous? How selfish of us to laugh and learn to enjoy life again when she never took a single breath. I still struggle with that guilt today. It's lessened, but it will never leave, I am convinced. It's taught a valuable lesson about guilt and what it can do to a person.

And then I think of Magpie.

For what it's worth, losing Sophia will prepare us for bringing Magpie into our home. We will, over time, help her to face the loss of her birthparents. But there will be times we'll wonder "how can we be happy when another family had to suffer to allow ours to be created"? How can we be sincere in our joy without feeling sadness at the lack of joy for someone else.

How is it possible to fulfill your own life, your own family through someone elses vacuum? how will Magpie survive these thoughts? How might she feel if one day, when we return to China, she sees the life of the children who never found a home, who spent their life very differently from her? A guilt she might feel all her own.

There are all kinds of guilts in this world, some we create in our own lives, some life just creates for us. For Magpie, we will struggle along side her to come to terms with the reality of what we know of her early life. It will be those times that we will find it difficult to enjoy our own happiness as a family. We will never be able to fill the void of the parents who bring her life, but I hope with every fiber of our being that we give her every ounce of love and happiness a child deserves in this world.

I hope those things will help her through the dark voids she may at times feel and I hope that Survivor Guilt never comes knocking on her door.

OMD

A few people on the blog and privately expressed an interest in what the term "OMD" meant in reference to mentioning that Zane was our OMD.

Travel back with me in time, oh say, late late March 2004. After a mere 2 years(though silly me it seemed like a lifetime passed in those 2 years) we ended our first ride on the infertility roller coaster. We were on a forced break from the fertility center as the Hospital/practice we were patients of went 'on holiday' from mid November to the end of December each year. We did a few 'cycles' with them prior to that and then were on hold when we didn't get pregnant.

While on that break I got pregnant, but we didn't know for some time, we were nearly 3 years into 'trying' and well lots of help from science. I have always believed that what happened early on in that pregnancy sealed the fate over the next 18 weeks. Just a few weeks pregnant, (still unknown) I had some freak of nature back/neck debilitating injury (literally I could barely move without knife plunging style pain) over the holidays (we had loads of people at the house and it happened just before the Turkey dinner started, perfect, I managed yet again to get out of cooking). After dinner and much pain, we excused ourselves and went to the hospital.

They asked me the obligatory question "are you pregnant". Of course I replied with all the typical fertility treated wind knocked out of me, iced on top with sarcasm "not a chance in hell but we should check".

My advice to each of you out there facing some serious medicines and chest, abdomen and spine x-rays... get the blood test, don't pee in a cup. Our test turned up negative, they went ahead with all the xrays and loaded me up with some serious narcotics.

Just 2 weeks later I found out I was pregnant. To say I was raging with sorrow and joy was an understatement. The doctor's were filled with a lot of angst and worry, they of course tried to hide it, but you can see it in the interns and younger residents who were part of the teaching hospital. I got the "don't worry" lecture. I got the "no, it's not good news that you were on all those medicine's and had all the xrays, we need to wait and see" and finally the "well, if somethings going to go wrong it likely already would have". I tried to find comfort but it weighed on me and I had my concerns about it all.

At week 18 we lost the baby, a little boy..., let's just say there were some serious "problems". I won't go into the crappy details about what happened, but based on what we found out I have always believed that time in the emergency room sealed our fate. Please, no comments to the contrary, I'm not beating myself up over it, I no longer feel the huge weight I did for a long time on my shoulders, I didn't know the pee test could be so much less sensitive than the bloodwork in those early weeks.

So where does the OMD come in?

E and I had been talking about getting a second dog on and off in our earlier marriage years. While pregnant we really started talking about it and researching breeders. While waiting for the following week for the surgery to finalize what nature had already decided for us, we decided to get a dog. In fact, we met and brought home Zane just 2 days after I got the news while undergoing a routine screening. We poured ourselves into that decision as if our lives depended on it, perhaps to pull us through it all.

An attempt to mend our hearts, to give us life to love, to pull us together instead of allowing infertility to rip us apart which is all too easy for those that suffer through it.

Out of our lives went our first child, a boy, and in walked our OMD.

Zane filled a hole so deep in our lives that most people, even those closest to us didn't realize or understand it's depths then or now.

Fast forward a few years to when we returned from our midnight expedition when we found out Sophia had died that night... on the way home E turned to me and said "does this mean we're getting another dog?" If I had the ability to smile or laugh at that point, the irony would have allowed me to. He described in an instant all Zane had been for us and all we would be going through in days and months to come.

This time however, no dog could make a dent in the chasm in our hearts and souls.

It wasn't until this year, when I saw the term in another blog (perhaps Uterine Wars?) that I recognized Zane for what she marked in our life years earlier.

She was and is our Obligatory Miscarriage Dog. Once you hear the term you can spot these pets in other people's lives, I read certain blogs and know certain people's stories in our own lives and well... I see OMD's everywhere, sometimes they aren't dogs but cats, but they are very real reminders of the trauma that life is sometimes and our attempt to just stay afloat.

And pleeeeeaaaaase, for those reading who think I'm making light of miscarriage and our loss, you have no idea the depths to which we still mourn and still have holes in ourselves over those years of war on fertility. It's just that I finally recognize how Zane came to our life, why and quite frankly why she was so sheltered by us and likely crazed... those times were tough on all.

So the term OMD... I can't claim it as my own, but it rings true.

Somewhere in the middle

Over the last few months this phrase has taken a strong prominence in my mind, covering a lot of ground over many situations.

I first heard it when talking with a woman I know in my current company. She's a much higher level than I am, has huge responsibilities compared to me and has been a strong sounding board for me, sort of an advisor since I came to the new company. She's been in my shoes, we have some of the same personality traits, both strengths and weaknesses, consequently we've struck up a bond of sorts. I'm very fortunate for it, but then I've always been lucky throughout my career to have made these strong contacts and mentoring relationships.

I called her many weeks back looking for some guidance, a way to make a difficult/toxic situation better. She listened, she gave some advice, some ideas on steps I could take to make a difference, if I chose to. She volunteered to be a guinea pig and coach me through things. Approaching the person I was having difficulty with would not be easy, it would involve great risk for me in my career if it backfired, and potentially lead to damaging a difficult relationship even more so.

But quite honestly I needed to do something, I needed to take the highroad (meaning putting my opinion and anger to the side) and look for a way to improve things, I sure as hell knew the other person wouldn't and ignoring it was going to make it worse for both of us.

At the end of the conversation she said:

"remember, no matter what the situation, no matter how angry you are about being treated this way, and you have a right to be angry, no one person is ever all right or all wrong, their version and your version of the truth is never 100% accurate. Truth is always found somewhere in the middle"

She put in 8 words, what I've been learning throughout adulthood. It's enabled difficult relationships to get better and good relationships to get to a point of amazement.

It's a difficult feat indeed, it's not easy, I've not mastered it by any means, but I do work hard at it.

First, it involves putting aside your version of the truth, there's really only room for someone else's 'truth' if you make room for it. And let's face it, the world does NOT revolve around any one person.

Secondly, you have to look for understanding. And man, understanding does NOT mean you agree, it just means you broaden your perspective, it doesn't mean you have to let go of your point though, it helps, but you don't have to.

When you reach the point of understanding someones drive, 'world', and perspective, then you can work towards finding the middle ground where both of you achieve some level of satisfaction and fulfillment. This is not compromise for compromises sake, no, not at all, that's more so just going through the motions. Nope, this is about getting to the heart of why a person thinks one way vs. another and how to help fulfill what matters most to both of you.

In the end, you realize you were just as wrong as they were and neither one of you had it right. You learn you have the capacity to understand another person in a way you were closed off to before. You learn a different way of accomplishing the same goal, that is no less worthy. You learn the power of understanding can build a bridge between two very opposing views.

And in the end, realizing no one is ever entirely wrong and that truth lies somewhere in the middle gives you the power to build relationships with a strength that overcomes adversity, I speak from experience here. I remember when our daughter died, I remember the world as we knew it being shattered to ashes. But I also remember the way we grieved the first week was identical, after that we took different paths to meet our needs. This was very difficult to handle, but we learned that we needed to grieve different and we realized it doesn't mean one cares less or one more, it means we grieve different and in the end, we grieved in a way that allowed each of us separately and both of us together to stay unified. At the time it didn't always feel that way, but looking back a few months later I realized it was the best possible outcome of a truly tragic time for us. I know now, through that and so many more experiences in the last 5-10 years, that different doesn't mean better, nor does it mean worse.

There's a lot to be said for finding "somewhere in the middle". Sometimes, finding the sandbar in the ocean allows you to walk to an island you couldn't have otherwise reached... look for the sandbar.

(to my friend, and you know who you are, thanks for your inspiration tonight, really helped me create a post I've been meaning to do for a long time)

deep thoughts

I find the drive to and from work affords me the luxury of ‘downtime’, solitude, thinking time. With little to no cell phone coverage through the mountains I can be assured of this.

Sometimes, I’ll think about work, home, family, friends, other times I’ll click over to the radio for the latest in noise or even make a stop on one of the 5 stations that pick up NPR in the morning. I think there’s a whole other post in here though on the idea of 5 stations picking up the same recorded coverage/tapes each morning.

Last week there was a series on adoption, though I only caught the last day of the series. That day had a woman (let’s call her Jane), who was adopted as a child. One day her biological mom (let’s call her BM) just showed up in her life, with a phone call and they met. Jane talked about what it was like to meet BM, how different it was than Jane ever thought it would be, she learned about the circumstances of her adoption, her biological father and insights into her BM.

But the story digressed briefly into a conversation Jane had with her adoptive mom (let’s call her AM). As a young child Jane said she talked often with AM about having lots of kids and that they would be adopted. When Jane became an adult, one day she was talking with AM and Jane mentioned that she had developed a desire to have a biological child, not that she didn’t want to adopt, but that she ALSO wanted to experience giving birth.

AM responded by saying “what? Adoption isn’t good enough for you?”

Shocker eh? Yeah, I thought so too. And then I really got to thinking. How might I respond in that situation? I would hope with a bit more tact, grace and thoughtfulness for starters. However, we all know what happens to the best laid plans.

It really caused me to analyze and play the what if game. For us, the thought of giving birth is fraught with the reality of the hand that life dealt us. Giving birth isn't all it’s cracked up to be on the outside looking in. Those "statistics" of what can happen to a pregnant woman, well, they earned their spot in black in white as they really do reflect reality.

Our ability to support Magpie should she decide to have children might be marred by our experiences. It could be terribly hard to be supportive without our own fears infringing upon her desires. I think about a conversation I had with a woman I know through our similar waits for China. She was a few months pregnant at the time and we were talking about being pregnant, life, etc. She asked about our story, you know, the details, the background. I told her I was concerned about sharing all "that" with someone who was pregnant, I think it’s more than any hormone raging pregnant person should listen to. I told her I would tell her, if she still wanted to know, after her daughter was born, in the end, she agreed it was for the best not to know while pregnant.

I wonder our ability to let go of our experience and just turn over a new leaf of opportunity for Magpie. I don’t think it will be all that easy, especially if it relates to our grandchildren.

I don’t for one second believe that my reaction would be “isn’t adoption good enough?”, though some may in fact feel that way. However, adoption is not for the faint of heart, it’s not easy, it’s not natural (literally and figuratively) to the majority of the population. And so, for people adopting, there could be a bit of insecurity, of proud defiance, of feeling the need to justify the decision to begin with, just like Jane's AM did.

I can understand Jane’s AM’s saying this to her but I shudder at the thought of those words. I cannot imagine how it made Jane feel, I cannot imagine the depths to which AM’s experience brought her to adoption. There is likely a river of emotion and experience flowing under the surface of this story. Perhaps, there's even a history of a lack of support or of questioning the ‘rightness’ of adoption by people in AM’s life.

I'm thankful that we are creating a small village of positive influences in our life, both with regard to adoption, but also, more importantly, just positive influences period.

As to what happens when Magpie starts to question her future, what her family will look like, how she’ll form it, who she’ll choose to form it with? Time will tell. I hope we have the grace, love and dignity to get behind her decision, regardless of how different her vision may be from our own.

I hope that if it’s giving birth, I can finally separate our experience from hers.

Contribute or Contaminate

Life is seldom black and white, right or wrong, good or bad. Life is full of shades of grey, however, a recent conversation reminded me that part of life is easily 'separated' into shades of grey so contrasting that they might very well be black or white.

Contribute or Contaminate

What comes to mind when you read those words?

Well, recently I was catching up with a friend who's come into my life through adoption. A friend who's got some depth of character and soul to her, one who's given me pause enough to think through some things and gain perspective. A recent conversation was summed up nicely when she used the phrase above to categorize the people in life who we're closest to (or should be) whether they be family or friends.

We both shared some recent events, recent in the last few years at least, surrounding people in our lives who'd either let us down deeply, forging the bonds of silence and disappointment for years to come, or broke free from the patterns of the past and got down to the realization that life is fragile and all too fleeting. The latter group is a very lucky one indeed.

I think back easily on people who surround E and I. We clearly have people in both of those groups, we have some who've gone from 'contribute' to 'contaminate' and others who've made the switch from 'contaminate' to 'contribute', we are fortunate also to have people who've consistently sat in the contribute camp from day one and will likely always hold a place of honor there.

I wonder if the people in the 'contaminate' group realize the extent to which their attitudes, anger, resentment, perhaps even jealousy (HA! nothing like being jealous of a childless couple who lost their first daughter 2 years ago, yeah, perfect life) causes such a rift and void in our life and theirs. The pure venom (that is never well hidden) that clouds sight, the acts done out of obligation, the silence meant to cast us away and the words meant to cut with the skill of a butchers knife. It's a sad lot indeed, and I don't say that sarcastically, I sincerely wish it were different.

I think in particular of a person in our lives who early this year moved gracefully from the no mans land between the two groups to the Contribute side. E and I are very fortunate to have had this happen. It took on both parts some hard lines, tough discussions, listening, admittance of wrong doing and the fact that the past belongs in the past. But we've done it and I'm grateful, I know E is also, our village has grown. It took realizing that if things stay the same, we'd likely diverge further when Magpie comes home.

For us, we've already drawn our line of tolerance at Magpie. We will surround our family of 3 with those who clearly contribute and rarely choose to expose her to possible contaminants. Whether they are racist (overt or covert), unsupportive of her/us or just plain negative forces in our life, it really doesn't matter, we just want more out of life and her. Magpie deserves to be surrounded in incredible waves of love throughout her life, we will do everything we can to make that happen, it's our privilege and our priority, we'll sadly miss those we've lost in the process, but honestly, if someone doesn't respect, support, care for you, what else is there?

Contribute or Contaminate, we all have them don't we? And yet, where do each of us fall on that spectrum?

As sure as the sun rises

From time to time people ask me how we deal with the wait for Magpie... at other times, people say to me it must still be so hard to deal with Sophia's death...

How very deep these items are. For as sure as the sun rises every day, I think about Sophia and I think about Magpie.

In one case, I think of how much I miss the child we never got to know. Is that possible? to miss someone you never saw smile, someone you held but never felt warmth from their body, gave birth to but never saw breath... I think of when we unpacked one of the boxes from the move and out fell this small plastic object, the size of a plum, when I picked it up I accidentally hit a button on the side and realized too late, it was a small recording device we used to record Sophia's heartbeat from our regular nightly heartbeat monitoring session... it was too late, it started playing... so strong, so loud, so clear, times like that are nearly too much to bear, she was so close to making it into our lives, so close and she slipped away. Of course I miss her, she was afterall very very real. And yes, it is still raw, still hard to absorb... I imagine in a way it always will be exactly like that.

On the other hand, I think of how much I long to meet Magpie. How deeply I think of her every day, how it's very different than what we experience with Sophia but it's just as intense. There's a void in our life where she belongs. There's a longing in our heart for her to come home. There's the weekly conversations about something going on in our lives and how it will be when Magpie arrives. I long for her with the same depth to which I miss Sophia, I'm not sure most people can understand, but I believe it's possible to if you try hard enough. Perhaps the wait affords us the time to do more than just survive Sophia's loss, perhaps the wait allows us to better prepare. Perhaps. In the end the wait is cruel, but at least we have someone to wait for and I try hard to remember that.

For as sure as the sun rises every day, the daughter we lost and the daughter someone else lost are on my mind. Every. Day. I wonder why life has to be so hard at times, why us... and then I think of the moment I held Sophia, I think of the first moment I'm going to hold Magpie, and I think "man, life is hard and deeply intense all at once". I remind myself that life could always be harder. I remind myself that at least E and I have options. I remind myself how much I love Sophia and how deeply she taught us to love our children... and I remind myself that one day Magpie will finally be home. One. Day.

So let the sun continue to rise, each day it does we are one day closer.

(We briefly met the man who moved in next door but not his wife. However, based on the side view I caught this week of the woman next door, we think they are expecting a child around Christmas time, this revelation, well, I admit it, it's thrown me a bit, put me off balance and really got to me. A little too close to home, literally, figuratively... their holiday will be the one we thought we were having years ago. I just need time to process it, I need time and space to breathe. I don't think I can talk to her until after the birth, too many fearful thoughts for her run through my head... I know the outcome others never 'dream' about.)

Changing Seasons

A while back I wrote THIS post about a dear friend, someone who until he retired last month was a member of my team, who's wife faced a serious and quick onslaught of medical issues that were rapidly diagnosed as Glioblastoma, a grade IV brain cancer, the most deadly of all. At that time they faced many decisions together as a couple, as a family with their kids and even separately at times.

Glioblastoma offers little hope of a life after diagnosis, the overwhelming majority of people die quickly, many within months. The only hope for life extension is brain surgery followed by near continual radiation and chemo. For my friend and his wife, they faced the agony of trying to make life altering decisions while watching her fade to nothing, literally. Though my husband and I have suffered loss and though I can understand the stress and sadness of what they faced, I own up to the fact that I do not understand all that they went through, but being there and providing what little we could was our honor.

In the end, she was diagnosed in mid March and agonized for days about what to do. To die within weeks or to have the surgery and hold death at bay. Surgery that would offer no guarantees, no hope of recovery, might prolong her life, might not. In the end, many of us offered support, friendship and tons of information, we scoured the internet, contacting those in the know, and sending every tidbit, sometimes not so good news either, their way. In the back of my head I wondered if we were interfering, if we were influencing in ways we shouldn't, but I couldn't get over the need to reach out and offer all the information possible. When you grieve hard, not everyone has the capability to get into 'research' mode, for those of us who felt compelled, we realized in the end that the choice, no matter how much or how little information they had, was theirs, but they should be able to make it with as much information as possible, leaving no stone unturned.

By late March, the surgery was scheduled and completed, chemical wafers implanted and 6 weeks of combined daily chemo and radiation began. They recently completed the treatment and a follow up MRI, with news that luckily the tumor had not regrown. However, those closest know that with this type of brain cancer it is only through routine chemo and/or radiation follow up that it can be kept at bay, a way of life now for my friend, his wife and their family. Chemo and/or radiation for them will be as routine as your morning cup of coffee.

They've likely captured a few months of time that would have otherwise slipped through their hands and vanished into thin air, they've delayed the likely outcome. Thoughts of them routinely enter my mind, I think of those words "may the winter of their life bring renewed hope when spring appears, may their snow clear, may the ground thaw and may the budding flowers offer them life and hope". It's a timely coincidence that as the seasons have changed this year, things for them have also. Their spring is now fading into what I can only hope will be a glorious summer for them, filled with sunshine and long, full, loving days. Filled with family, cherished moments and memories that will carry my friend over the coming years. May their hope continue to spring eternal and may we all remember that life can be fleeting, life can change in an instant and that sometimes, unfortunately, we have little control over the universe.

I wish them all this and more but I understand that one day, one day winter will return and spring may not come fast enough again. That day many of us will mourn the loss of a beautiful person inside and out, and the part of my friend that will also be lost. We all miss his wisdom, his kindness at work, but it's nothing compared to how I'm sure he misses what once was... just one season ago.

Magpie, we wish for you that the winters you face in your life quickly transition into long and prosperous springs and summers. May any bitterness you face in life vanish into the realization that life is what you make of it, life is all about perspective, life is fleeting and fragile, and lastly, life is a gift.

Please enjoy the photos, they are originals by him.

The winter of your life?

Glioblastoma

Yeah, I guess your response the word is similar to mine. With that many vowels and the word “blastoma” buried in there it can’t be good. You are correct.

-2 weeks ago I ordered flowers for Daffodil Days along with a donation to have bouquets delivered to patients
-at the same time, my friend at work and his wife were facing some strange symptoms, easily confused with other not so grave thins
-they left for a vacation that they never took, returning the next day
-1 week ago was Brain Awareness Week
-At the same time, my friend and his wife received her diagnosis
-today I had a very long talk with him about his family, how he and his wife are doing also and the prognosis.
-right afterward, the daffodils arrived, in honor of the American Cancer Society annual fundraiser

Those flowers adorn my desk now and will until they die.

To anyone who thinks the world is not a ‘small place’, I disagree. I am constantly amazed in all the ways every year that lives intertwine, that strangers meet, that people separated by one to two degrees of freedom wind up overlapping again and again only to recognize one day their connection. How deep do I think into this? Normally not very deep, but every so often the ironies and coincidences of life really set in.

Those flowers on my desk will be constant reminder of the ‘degrees of freedom’ that entwine so many lives. They represent my friend, his wife, all of their family and friends now touched by Glioblastoma. They represent for me a reminder that life is fragile, that the little things, like blossoms in the spring really do matter.

Each spring marks a rebirth of life, longer days, warmer weather, buds on flowers and trees, this particular spring also represents a life changing experience for my friend and all of his family.

Their outcome is not likely to be positive, it never is when you add the term “grade IV” onto the end of a diagnosis, but I have hope for them, hope for a cure, hope for peace, hope for extra time, no matter how short or long. Lastly, I have hope that they find a way to work through the coming weeks and months as a family, intertwining as much life as possible between them.

As March passes and spring enters this year, I will think of them as I view the buds along the highway, breaking through the cold hard earth, representing life in the grayness at the end of winter, risking the frost to emerge into sunlight, bringing forth life. This is one of my favorite times of the year, as fragile as it can be, it brings hope and joy during the cold and dark days at the close of winter. There is a reason the phrase goes “hope springs eternal”, I’ve always thought of it as a play on words regarding the transition from winter to spring.

This diagnosis may have been the winter of her life, but the time she has left is her spring and theirs too. May they see the buds through the snow and be able to enjoy them.

Soul-Prints

Yesterday we received a letter in the mail (oh, I love hand written letters in the mail, it's a dying art for sure and vastly undervalued) from someone near and dear to E and I. It was 2 pages on life in general, catching us up, talking about the fabric she gave us for the quilt and the story behind each one so I could scrapbook about it and asking if we had any 'news'.

So we gave her a call. Chatted up a storm for a while and as we neared the end of the call we started talking about a Chinese New Years card we sent her. The call changed a bit from upbeat to something else, hard to describe. She asked if we had any news, if we knew when we'd get our referral. I mentioned that we probably wouldn't see a picture till this time next year or slightly later and travel just afterward, the best we could hope for was a referral picture at the end of this year. And that's pollyanna optimistic. There was silence from her on the other end of the line. Followed by "but I really want to meet her before I die", to which I replied quickly "oh don't be silly, of course you are going to meet her and get to know her!". In the back of my head though the wheels are turning.

She mentioned that when she got the card she thought is was a baby announcement and had gotten her hopes up, only to find out how long the wait has grown to and will continue to grow to, so we hear. We talked about the wait, about life and she mentioned again and again how excited she was about the baby. (that was where I swooned with joy, the sharing of unbridled happiness and shear joy, what a wonder)

we hung up and the call really made me think, I thought all night and all day today about it, I knew I needed to get my thoughts out and blog. Then I read a post on over at Desperately Seeking Funshine and Sunshine about a similar topic and so here I am, trying to put to paper my thoughts after last nights call.

Do you ever stop and think about the following 2 categories of people? :

1. those who've voluntarily disappeared from your life and the void that they may or may not leave in it?

2. those who are no longer with us in life and thus can never know who you are now, will never develop a relationship with your new family?

I figure the first group, well, in life, as I've blogged about before, you have control over yourself and are responsible for your actions, but your sphere of influence drops off sharply after that. Though there are people who are no longer in E's life or mine, many of whom we miss, you realize that life is all about learning your sphere of influence and learning to let go. I've learned a TON through our 'life lessons' the last few years, cemented by Sophia's death, to just let it go, to move on to a fulfilling life that makes you feel good.

But I do think about the latter group a lot. The people we lost, still cherishing them to the end. The people taken from us through death. The ones who've left a gaping hole, a longing. People who've molded who we are in a positive way, they've left 'soulprints', not footprints, in our life. I think about the people who will never have the choice to meet Magpie, to know her, to watch her grow, and it makes me sad. Makes me long for a time machine to just go back in time and say one last hello and goodbye.

I wish Mapgie could have gotten to know these people, I wish they could have seen E and I as we started our life together years ago and I wish I had the power to prevent the loss of anymore of those cherished souls from our life.

I hope Magpie gets years and years to get to know all those positive influences left in our life and that they leave their soulprints on her, just as they have on us. That's my wish for Magpie, that she finds a way in her lifetime to hold on somehow, to those people in her life who leave soulprints behind.

Tao of the week:

It's been a few days since I've posted, long long week at work and I was sick as a dog, except, I notice, the dogs are rarely sick! So with stress at work through the roof (for those of you wondering I STILL really really enjoy my new job, but 1/3 of my team is off to China for a 6 month assignment and we are sorting out the workload) and being under the weather since Saturday I've been a bit 'stressed'.

As I was sorting through quotes to do the Winter Postcard Exchange I came across this book from friends of ours "Tao Te Ching". Here's a quote from the book jacket:

The Tao offers a much needed alternative to our fragmented, modern ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. To live life in accordance with Tao is to be in harmony with others, with the environment and with oneself.

We could all use a little Tao in our lives eh? So here's the Tao of the week:

The Importance of What is Not

We join thirty spokes
to the hub of the wheel,
yet it's the center hole
that drives the chariot.

We shape clay
to birth a vessel,
yet it's the hollow within
that makes it useful.

We chisel doors and windows
to construct a room,
yet it's the inner space
that makes it livable.

Thus do we
create what is
to use what is not.

This verse makes me think of people, the outer 'shell' we create vs. the inner soul that is who we are no matter what we do to the outside. The book explains each verse and as I read the explanation here's what I found:

"... the main reason we tend to forget or denigrate the yin (inner) part ... is that the yang part in our lives has become dominant, excessive..."

And so I enter the weekend, reminding myself of how important it is to feed the inner soul, to balance your life and to recharge the parts of your life that become run down.

The noise of life...

I was reminded today of the big picture of life by a dear friend of ours and his family. It’s not often I need a reminder anymore, but this one was timely. Today’s post was going to be a humorous/boo hoo about referrals, if they came out today. After hearing from our friends and reading of some difficult news in their life, I think a line from their email said it best:

Once again the noise of daily life fades, I’m reminded of what’s really important.

I couldn’t agree more and couldn’t have said it better. So instead of the post I have in draft on wait times increasing… today is in honor of some wise words above. There are in life, things that can change you forever, things that can alter your core ethics and values, set nearly in stone very early on in our lives, sometimes well before adulthood. These ‘events’ tend to be the toughest to deal with, marriage, life, death, there’s a list of them, but I’ll stop there.

I know our core values have not only become clearer over time, but in some cases they've shifted. Our struggles over the last few years with infertility and the loss of our babies, the whole fertility saga, combined with moving, new jobs, marriage and all the things that come with marriage, really did impact us. Probably for the better, though I still wish last November was different. It’s made us take a clearer/fresher perspective on what really matters. A perspective we were balanced enough to have all along but somehow, still allowed the ‘noise of life’ to get in the way sometimes.

We’ve learned, through those challenges to shift our values, our reactions, our needs, our dreams. We’ve learned to take the things we and most others turn from molehills into mountains… and instead just leave them as the molehills they were all along. You know what I’m talking about, we’re all surrounded by those mountains that are just molehills, things that people stir into a frenzy about… the choice is entirely yours though, to move past them or make them bigger than they deserve to be.

Your perspective is one of the few things you have control over.

It’s through recognizing the molehills for what they are, for the noise of life as just ‘background interference’ to the big picture you’re trying to tune in, that we learn to let go of the crap, the unimportant, the trivial, the snide, the judgemental, the insignificant. It's how we learn to recognize the different between the value of family and the value of work. It’s how we learn to respect the struggles others face, how to appreciate and value the differences we all have and how to learn to just hope for the best regardless.

For me, this means: I react less, I say less, I care less… about the crap of life. I react more, I care more, I say more… about what both Eric and I value. It’s how I attempt, near daily, to let go of the pain of things around me, things that might have really let me down a few years ago and now, well, now, I realize, I am only one. I have a limited scope of influence over the world around me and an even more limited amount of control over it. I am, like everyone else in this world, simply along for the ride, of our lives. I’m happy to have learned and grown from our struggles, it helps me to help my dearest friends and family more, it makes me be a better person and gives me more balance than I already had.

So to my friends with their difficult news, thank you for sharing, thank you for reminding me that a lot of the noise of daily life is just that, it’s noise, and we need keep a good perspective on the important sounds ringing through.