Turbulent Waters

-->Sometimes, you've just got to write it down.  When we are followed by the joyful, the precious and the sorrowful shadows of our past, we must remember it is the sun shining on our face that casts the shadow back. Therese Steinhoff shares her story of witnessing the suffering of loved ones. -BTH

I don’t know how to explain it but the happy memories of my childhood are bringing me to tears of sadness this week. I haven’t cried myself to sleep in a long time, but I did last night.  I actually woke my husband up and asked him to hold me as the tears and words flowed. Between sobs I said “I feel such a heaviness pressing on my heart right now.” A happy picture from my childhood of a 12 year old version of me dancing with a sweet kid I used to baby-sit was the catalyst for the tears and the words.

I was so fortunate to grow up in a small town with wonderful adults to look up to and their beautiful kids to look after. My parents really knew how to pick good friends.

When you grow up in a town far away from your extended family, your friends become your extended family. When my parents first moved to our town they didn’t really know anybody. My mom made a friend named Cindy, who she worked with. Cindy was from Beaufort, South Carolina and had a thick southern accent to prove it. Within years they were good friends and my mom and dad drove down to South Carolina to watch her marry Gary.

 By the time I came around they were great friends. I am pretty sure one of my first words was “CindyandGary.” They were like an aunt and uncle to me. They didn’t have any kids of their own, so they doted on me. They ended up moving on to Lancaster, Pennsylvania where they would have three kids and send us Christmas pictures set on the swing on their front porch for the next 30 years.

We visited them a few times and they visited us almost every Thanksgiving or Christmas when they went to see Gary’s family. They always brought laughter and joy with them on their visits.

A few weeks ago I learned that Cindy was dying. Her first grandchild is due in May. Last night her daughter wrote on her Caring Bridge site that Cindy was losing her battle with cancer. She was suffering. She was buoyed by her strong faith accepting that God had a plan for her. Her children and husband are following suit.

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Tom and Lori were the couple across the street that I babysat for. I loved their two children like they were my own cousins. Lori became a mentor to me and was the reason why I majored in Journalism . She freelanced from home when you had to fax your stories to news institutions. Her passion for her job and her family appealed to me. She was a great mother who had found a good balance between a career and motherhood during a time when women were forced to choose one or the other. This was what I craved for my own life. I wanted to write, but I also wanted to be home with my kids.

 Lori had married her high school sweetheart Tom and they always came back from their date nights refreshed and laughing. Lori once told me that it was nice that she and Tom had known each other for so long, because they could talk about people from their past with each other. They had grown up together.

A couple of years ago Tom was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). They told them that it was a slow moving form of the disease which made us all take a deep breath, but soon Tom exhibited signs of dementia in which he would act out erratically. He would embarrass Lori in a grocery store parking lot, and then would tell her she was the most beautiful girl in the universe. Last week Lori told me that Tom now has home health care full time and they just received his lifeline clicker in the mail. You know the one you click when you have fallen and can’t get up? Tom is in his late fifties.

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If my parents close friends were like aunts and uncles to me, their children were like cousins to me. I have known Claire before I can remember. She and her sister Erin were so musical and cool. They acted in many plays and were always singing. Erin was two years older than me, and Claire was a year younger than me.

My dad and their mom became ill at the same time. They died within months of each other.

Claire ended up going to Stanford Law, met her husband, settled in San Francisco and then became pregnant. Her pregnancy was rocky from the start. She delivered Nora at 25 weeks and Nora weighed less than two pounds. We all held are breaths for months as Nora tried to breathe on her own. She never has breathed on her own and she is now three years old. A few weeks ago I learned that Nora is on the list for a full lung transplant. She is a happy, spunky, little girl who runs around trailing her oxygen tube behind her. She has her mom’s smile and curly hair. She has her grandmother’s strength. She is like any normal three year old—she just can’t breathe.

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Life is a lot like the lake I grew up on. Some days you can just float on water that is smooth as glass. And then a storm comes and the lake gets choppy and tosses you around. Sometimes you feel as though the heaviness of the dark water is pulling you under. Then the sun comes out and you are floating on the calm water again. Right now I feel like this turbulent time in our friends’ lives are pulling me under. The happy memories are the only thing keeping me above water. I remember hearing all of their diagnosis’s and thinking “well they are OK for now” and that kept me floating on the calm water. These past few weeks the waters have turned dark and choppy. I feel the heaviness of what’s next for them and their families weighing me down. I feel guilty for being so far out from shore. I want to swim up to land and help them out.

I know that the sun will come out and that the water will be calm again. I am grateful that my own family is safe on land. My heart is physically aching. Right now I wish I could go back in time and be that 12 year old girl who is watching the calm water from the dock and laughing. The girl who hasn’t even seen the dark choppy water of life. The girl who has never had to swim against the waves. But if she never had to struggle she wouldn’t have gotten strong. Right now the woman she has become must gather that strength to swim against the current swelling around her today. She knows she will be back on shore soon. Her family is waiting for her.