Danny and Annie

I heard about this animated video from a friend at Improv Boston.

It is the story of a couple, married in 1978 and separated by cancer in 2006.
In 2006 they recorded their story with StoryCorps, and their interviews were combined into the video below.

Listening to Danny and Annie talk about their love and respect for one another reminds me of my grandparents, Ben and Adele, talk about one another. It reminds me of the faith and infinite patience of my friend Veronica as she waits by the bedside of Rob, her fiancé who is recovering day by day from a motorcycle induced coma. It's a testimony to how amazing the phenomenon of love really is. Human beings have a (possibly) unique capacity for experiencing and expressing enduring affection for another person. When the mutual act of giving of self becomes the driving force in every aspect of a shared life, the miracle of that is really obvious to everyone else who comes in contact with it.

Watch the video first (it's a tear-jerker, you've been warned); then for more info check out their story on NPR's website.


Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

A Mother's Day Post

My mother is my inspiration, my personal super hero, my teacher, and my safety blanket.
She lets me cry when I need to cry and kicks my butt when my butt needs to be kicked.

The song "Baby of Mine" from Dumbo reminds me of my mother.
...so does anything by Billy Joel or Josh Groban
...so does Kill Bill 2.

 Mom has worked as an EMT, a radiology tech and a mammographer.
She is also a gifted writer, a poet and taught me everything I know about staged "gore" makeup.

Mom once helped a half-dead kitten drink water off her gloved fingertips until the Animal Rescue league showed up - even though she doesn't like cats very much.

 Mom has presided at several funerals for both hamsters and parakeets.

 Mom has made it clear on several occasions that she brought us into this world and she can take us out.

I have danced with my mother in the living room at the end of a long hard week.
I have never turned down her cookies.

I have watched Mom as she battles MS and wins every day.

I watched her pick up all our broken pieces and keep our family together when her husband, my father, passed away.

My Mom is the strongest woman I know.

In this photo, she is about to strap herself to a zip line and jump off the edge, out of her comfort zone. She thought we were going for a hike that morning. But she didn't get mad at me, even when they started handing the helmets out.

I love you, Mom. Here's to all our adventures.. and many more to come.

Marriage Equality

My friend Steve and his husband Peter are featured in this article today posted on GLAD's website entitled There is Nothing to Fear From Marriage Equality.

When Steve's husband Peter passed away a year ago in March the process of making all the necessary arrangements was smoothed (as much as it can be) by the fact that their marriage is recognized legally in Massachusetts.

Dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, but the pain and suffering of survivors is only compounded when legal kinship is denied.  It's exactly as Steve worded it in  his open letter to Ameriblog: "For all the wonderful things that marriage equality does for the living, it maintains our dignity in death. …"

Things like this make me proud to live in Massachusetts.  I'm also really proud to know Steve. He shares his story in the hopes that true equality will one day be offered to everyone, and I am sharing it with you for the same reason.

all you need is love, love is all you need

On the Thursday before Easter known to Catholics as "Holy" or "Maudry" Thursday, the gospel reading for the mass is about the Last Supper. When Luke, Matthew and Mark recount the story of the Last Supper, the focus is on the   covenant Jesus speaks of ( "This is My body...This is My blood.").
John, on the other hand, gives us the only account of the Passover meal where Jesus gets down on the ground and washes every body's feet.

Every parish does this next part differently, but in each church after the gospel and then the homily, there's  usually some literal foot washing. It's often the priest who washes the feet of some lay ministers. One year at the church I attended at college I was asked to be one in a handful of parishioners to have their feet washed. I sat rigid in my chair as my feet got washed. It felt weird. I hoped no one would ask me about it later.
This year, at St. Cecelia's in Boston, Fr. John closed his homily by introducing the foot washing saying, "For those of you who don't know us, here at St. Cecelia's we don't just wash the feet of the twelve men on the church board." The congregation chuckled knowingly and my mouth opened as I realized what was coming next.

Father John reminded everyone that they didn't have to participate, but he invited everyone who wanted in to ditch their shoes and socks in the pews. I shook my head in disbelief.

As the choir sang and bowls of water were set up, I reflected on the first half of Fr. John's homily. He had pointed out that in the midst of everything else going on with that Passover night Jesus told his disciples to wash one another's feet. "That's it," Fr. John said in his comforting Boston accent, "that's all it comes down to. Washing each other's feet."

He urged us to think about the feet we've washed, literally and figuratively. And to think about whose feet we should wash next. He asked us to think about those in our lives who need to be "scrubbed" by our forgiveness, or our compassion. He implored us to try to "rinse" those around us by being refreshingly positive in every day small talk rather than respond to those around us with sarcasm or negativity.

My thoughts tumbled as I stepped into the aisle and got in line with the other bare foot men, women and children. I thought about the people in my life who need compassion, patience and positive energy the most. I thought about the people in my life who provide me with the compassion and love I need to survive.

Then I couldn't help but start to think about the literal feet I've washed as a CNA and then as an RN.  For that reason alone I imagined this ritual was less scary for me  than for some of the other strangers in line. (Or the ones sitting with their shoes securely tied on in the pews).
That made me remember about the man who wouldn't let me wash his feet.

As I stepped up to the bowl to have my feet washed by the stranger in front of me, who had just had his feet washed by the stranger in front of him I thought about the people I met in Haiti. I remembered how most of the people doing the "foot washing" in those tents weren't blood relations of the injured or dying patients - they were just neighbors who were responding to the need they saw around them.

After the man at my knee was finished washing my feet he patted them dry with a clean towel. He put it down, and an altar server appeared to refill the bowl and replace the towel. As she did so, the man and I embraced and I thanked him. Then I took my place at the bowl and washed the feet of the next seated stranger. After I dried his feet he thanked me, and hugged me goodbye. I padded back to my seat, struck by a lack of discomfort in the whole thing. Mine and everyone else's too.

"We belong to a church with a ton of hierarchy, huh?" Fr. John had challenged at the top of the homily, "sometimes it seems like people are more interested in getting their feet washed than washing other feet."

He continued, "We have a lot of ways of describing the hierarchy and power and ritual, huh? High mass? Low mass? But no matter how you understand religion, or what parts (pahts) of it are attractive to you... in the end it is all about washing one another's feet."<

That, as it so happens, is actually exactly how I choose to understand religion.

i'm so glad that trouble don't last always

"There's a gospel choir from BC downstairs," I told the patient as I thumbed his dilaudid into a paper cup.

"You mean BU," he said, "Think about it. Gospel from Boston College?"

"Why not?" I asked, puzzled. He took the pills and swallowed them with a grimace.

"Catholic music isn't that happy," he pointed out. "I'd know - I'm Catholic."

I grinned as I headed downstairs, remembering how my mother would often roll her eyes and ask me why the adolescent choir at St. T's never sang anything she could clap her hands to.

Down in the Atrium a modest crowd had gathered to hear the (BU) Choir sing. Another RN waved me over to where she was standing, "They just did that James Taylor song I love."

The choir launched into a spirited number with the rhythmic hook "I love you more than I did the day before." I was suddenly reminded of a day I had spent not too long ago also listening to a gospel choir - a day I never wrote down, so I made a mental note to store as many details as I could when I got home.

We were in the tent. By 'we' I mean myself, the other RN, the two interpreters, the 36 patients, and 20+ family members I had grown accustomed to sharing space with. The air was buzzing, not just with talking but with the noise of music being played over amplifiers.

"You coming with me," said one of the patients I was closest to - a 21 year old with post quake bilateral above the knee amputations*, a wicked grin and a penchant for wheelies.

"Where?" I asked.

"To the program!" he answered and flashed that smile I had begun to count on to punctuate everything he said.

I declined, and away he rolled, all style and flair. I moved on the task of finding a thermometer.

"Hey, come on," said my translator noticing that I was standing still, "you have time and we'll go."

He took me by the arm and we exited the back of the tent. We walked along the barbed wire fence strewn with laundry, passing small children who stopped to openly stare at the blanc  as we went by.

We passed the row of tents and our feet beat on the rocks as the music got louder and louder and I began to make out voices. Up past the small building for less acute Tent City patients  and around a corner there was a small yard. A stage had been set up, and on stage were the same men in suits who had come into my tent to sing that morning. Off to the side there were several other groups of well dressed men warming up.
 It was a Gospel Festival.

Their audience sat in old fashioned wooden desks, the kind with the chair and the wrap-around arm. They had been taken out of the school rooms and set up here. The yard was stubbed with short fat grass, but was mostly rocks and dirt. Friends assisted their wounded loved ones to navigate crutches and wheelchairs over the ground to find preferable vantage points. I spotted Mr. Smiley and his sister, but they didn't notice me.
Like everyone else they were completely wrapped up in praising and singing.

"This is the Gospel Program," the interpreter said next to my ear. I moved out of the way as two men entered the yard flanking a woman with one leg using crutches. They guarded her as she found a place to stand in the shade. A cool breeze blew on our backs, and rustled the green leaves against the sky. The men sang of everlasting love into their microphones. Men and women clapped their hands or nodded along as children played tag, shrieking happily like children do when they are outside and no one is telling them to be quiet.

Not for the first or last time that week, I was amazed at how much joy a community can contain after enduring so much grief.

Back at work watching my patients dance in their seats, I thought it again.

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* "Look!" he exclaimed when we met, "we're the same height!"

Happy Valentine's Day

Mom: Did you read your card?
Brian: Yeah, I liked it.
Mom: Read it to your sister. I thought it was very appropriate.

Brian: (reading) "Your sister's a skank. I wish I never had her. She was the real mistake, not you. I was way too young. Happy Valentine's Day."    Wow. Quite a card, Hallmark really outdid itself this year.

Mom: (through hysterical fits of laughter) That's not ...what ....it said.

Having A Dream

When I went to college my first major was Social Thought and Political Economy. My hunger and thirst for justice were fueled by one of the best teachers I had in high school, Judi Freeman. But my first sense of why I should care about the rights or lives of others came from my faith based upbringing.

I believe that we are all called by God to serve one another. Serving others is a common theme in several major world religions, leading me to believe that no matter which one you practice, we're probably all on the right track when it comes to that particular point.

Christians are taught that we're all different parts of one Body. We're each called to a unique and different vocation, and we are meant to utilize our own gifts as well as we can so the body is complete. It follows, although this is not part of the verse I am thinking of, that different parts of the body should protect and care for one another. I use my hands to wash my face, my nose stops me from eating rotten foods in my fridge (or purse), and if my immune system starts to attack me instead of intruders, there's a serious problem.

It's an analogy that works well for most non Theists too, I think. The reason I should care about your lot in life is because ultimately your lot and mine are inextricably connected.

I left the Social Justice and Political Economy program because during my dad's illness (and after his death) it became increasingly necessary for me to do something immediate and tangible to save people. "I needed to get my hands dirty," was often how I'd answer the unavoidable questions from professors about my change of heart. When I made that (admittedly rash) decision to change my course of study I had no idea how hard the next four years would be. I also didn't know how much being a nurse would change and shape the way I view the world every single day. I don't regret that decision one bit.

Still, when I made that decision I also left behind a wonderful network of people who really do believe that they can make a difference and leave the world a better place than when they got here. I miss that zeal. I miss rising to meet the challenge of making change happen. I miss the implicit expectation within that community of rising above selfishness and apathy. Every day.

I am humbled by the perseverance of those who dedicate their lives to human rights.I am floored by the hope that they carry like a lamp for the rest of us.

Today we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Let's also celebrate the lives of all those who have given themselves in the constant struggle for justice and equality. While we're at it, let's celebrate each other for the fullness of life we bring to one another and to the world when we act out of love instead of hate. Let's celebrate how far we've come, and let's vow to go even further. Let's celebrate God. And Love. And let's vow to use our own unique gifts to fill the world with beauty, peace and compassion.

Rehashing Advent: the dark, the light and the Hallelujah

The story of the darkest parts of my Advent seems disheartening.
But the truth is that the moments of Light far outnumbered those two dark weekends.

The Light
"They're here!" The supervisor is smiling. I'm munching on chocolate covered pretzels and trying to finish my charts while planning report for the next shift. I'm mentally preparing a list for the next morning, "find G. a coat," "remind W. to fast for blood labs," "urine test results for S."

"Ah! Already?" I start munching and documenting faster. My shift is over but I'm staying late because of the guests who have just arrived in the second floor patient lobby. I need to get down there.

I step off the elevator and walk around the corner to the Atrium. The snow on the windows is glowing, reflecting the many lights from inside. The angel at the top of the Christmas tree oversees the scene, as a few patients mill about and some take seats in rockers and on couches. Denny, the street team NP is talking to a group of children, two of them her own, while her husband tunes his guitar.

When the music starts and the children begin to sing, everyone is silent at first, but then one by one they join in the singing. Slowly the room fills with more and more people. Nurses, aides, and patients leave what they're doing and gather around to listen to the carols. Although the music is mostly upbeat ("We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,") I see many of the men and women wiping at their eyes clandestinely. I wonder how many of them see themeselves or their own kids in the bright, innocent faces.
The nurse next to me wipes her eyes. The housekeeper wipes his eyes. I wipe mine.

The children do Silent Night, a request from a tired but happy looking woman sitting on a couch with her friends. Then they sing a few songs from The Sound of Music before launching into a rendition of Jingle Bells with a second verse they wrote themselves about getting injured while skiiing. Their lyrics elicit genuine laughs and delighted applause from their audience.

At that point my chest began to ache. I pressed my hands to my sternum as hard as I could. I felt so much love and so much hope that I could barely breathe. I looked around at everyone gathered. People from all walks of life, different faith backgrounds, varying degrees of hardship, tragedy and trauma. I was suddenly very, very sure of God's presence.
And I knew we were all going to be ok. In that moment I wasn't worried about whether I had gotten to church on time last week. I understood completely that God doesn't "love" as a verb alone. God is love.
When those kids started singing and we all joined in, our world stopped for a few minutes. The patients stopped smoking or watching tv or doing laundry. The nurses stopped charting and pouring and reading and fussing. Jim stopped sweeping. The security guard put down his newspaper. And like the Whos of Whoville we joined all our different voices in song. And in that song there was love. And where the love is, there is God. And in that moment, I became sure of it.

I continue to watch the patients in the crowd. In the corner a man in a hospital johnny appears to not be listening. His eyes are far away and trained on the ceiling. But he is tapping his foot. Beside me a small woman who has seen three friends pass away in the past two month, (all of them patients of ours) grabs at my arm with one hand and rubs her eyes with the other. "It's been a hard year," she whispers, not for the first time. "Every time I get my life on track someone else dies."
The nurse next to me whispers back, "it's time for a new beginning ... a fresh start."

Yes. Yes. Yes.