Storieshttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/en-US2012-02-14T04:20:30ZSquarespace Site Server v5.11.81 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Maybe It Is Enoughhttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/maybe-it-is-enough.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:15:23ZI asked a simple question on Facebook.

Does a little bit of care make a difference when the pain is so big?

Within a few minutes there was a string of responses, many with exclamation points, assuring me that it does. Some people told stories from their own lives and how care carried them. I wrote it out of the overwhelm all around me.... disease, joblessness, death, divorce. I was surprised at the strength of the answers.

I can recall small overtures in my own life that still warm me. One was in 1989. I lay in the hospital in Flagstaff, feeling incredibly adrift after an emergency appendectomy. My bishop called me. How on earth did he find the number? I myself did not know the number, or the name of the hospital for that matter, unless it was something obvious like Flagstaff General Hospital. He did not say anything particularly eloquent, just that he was thinking of me and hoped I recovered soon. Click. Let me hasten to mention that this man had fourteen children himself, and no doubt had other things to snag his attention. But he managed to figure out the number and the extension, and dialed it with a rotating dial, which those of you who are over twenty understand took more effort than speaking into Google Search.

How is it possible that two minutes of a person's life can nourish you for twenty two years without being depleted?

Then there was the card I got from the family I lived with when they had their fourth baby.

"To the Pied Piper of Bullfrog Lane." I can still see the hurried script of the young father of four children under eight. I had taken the job after a messy withdrawal from college, which was the fall out of my mother's forced entrance into a mental hospital. It was scary visiting her, walking through the perpetually locked doors, suddenly being outnumbered by people who had done enough damage to themselves or others to be sentenced to this. My mother was here. What did that mean about her, or about us? Playing with children was healing for me. Being appreciated for it was added balm.

Another was the nurse when Benjamin was a patient at Cedar Sinai. She watched my mounting anxiety for a week of tests, and noticed that I had forgotten how to shower. I felt strapped to Benjamin's tiny side, and it never crossed my mind to leave it long enough to get wet. She shepherded me to the bathroom, offering a white towel, and said she would stay with my baby. I do not recall her name, but her gesture of compassion will never lose its power.

You are present for some of the most poignant and vulnerable moments in the lives of people you love. You cannot retract the diagnosis, or rebuild the economy. But you can make an indelible difference.

As one man said to his wife, "Thanks for sticking with me through thin."

]]>Half Realhttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/half-real.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:12:22ZThere is an amazing book, A Stroke of Insight, by a woman who descibed her experience of having a stroke. Parts of Jill's brain were starved for blood because of a clot the size of a golf ball.

Unfortunately Jill had booked a lecture about neuroanatomy before she lost her abilities, and she wanted to go ahead with the presentation. In the months leading up to the conference, she gradually relearned how to walk, feed herself and speak. She found a way to cover the third of her head that had been shaved, and began to feel brave enough to go out in public. But as for the content of her talk.... it was gone.

Fortunately Jill had a video recording of the same speech, given in another state back when she actually knew stuff. She began a training regime of watching herself: her mannerisms, the fluctuation in her voice, and the words themselves which she did not understand. After hundreds of hours, she could recreate the entire performance, and the audience was unaware of the fact that Jill had suffered a stroke and this was an act. She was speaking from her past, hoping that it would again become her future.

Occasionally we forget the feelings that we used to know by heart. I read about a couple that went to counseling. The husband insisted that he never loved his wife. Ever. She dug up the boxes of love letters he had written her decades before, which dripped with affection. She showed these to him in the presence of the counselor, but he flatly refused to believe what they said, even though they were penned in his own handwriting.

Sometimes we cannot remember a feeling, or a body of information, and are duped by the illusion that it will never return. Most of us have photographs of ourselves at our own wedding, and other times of abundant love. We can watch those images, as a kind of script. We used to feel that way, and perhaps hold a flickering hope that the feelings can return, or be relearned. We can watch old movies of ourselves, and see how easily we laughed and smiled at each other. Perhaps those scripts can be a bridge from our own history, through the gorge of now, to tomorrow.

A friend of mine says we need to "fake it til you make it". Swedenborg coined the term simulations, to describe the pretense that can keep a marriage afloat until real affection wakes up.

Some days my actions are the genuine article. I make dinner from a love of my family. Other days it is only a shadow of the real thing. The food is still edible, but my heart is not in it. I am operating on auto pilot, remembering the repetition of hundreds of days when I wanted to stir the pasta.

Perhaps I am experiencing a kind of love clot. The feelings I used to have in abundance are not flowing easily, and parts of me begin to atrophy. But a story like Jill's tells me that not only can those parts of me return, my gratitude for them expands to fill the vacuum.

]]>Two Armshttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/two-arms.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:10:35ZI fell on a slippery slope at a church camp and whacked my poor old bod. The bruise on my thigh was as black as coffee, and in the words of Benjamin looked "scary." But the more pressing concern was the damage to my left forearm. I do not score highly in the intelligence Gardner describes as bodily-kinesthetic but I was certain I should not move it. The improvised sling helped insure that, and I spent the next few days learning to live with one arm.

What struck me first was the people around me who so casually maneuvered two hands. They lifted, grabbed, hugged, clapped, ate, played guitar and carried things easily. The cooperation of two limbs had never seemed so miraculous to me as it did now. The once simple task of holding a plate and filling it with food now took serious planning. Sweeping at chore time was sloppy. Playing for worship was impossible. I tugged out a foot of floss and soon realized I didn't have the strength to keep it taut.

Then I gradually started to figure out ways to still help in the kitchen, and dress. It took attention but I didn't want to simply give up. My right arm did double duty, and I learned how to hold gently with my left hand without actually putting pressure on the arm.

The cooperation of two limbs reminds me of marriage. Working in unison while getting dinner on the table, or paying the bills makes it all much easier. But I know that in our relationship things are often unevenly distributed. John's paycheck is three times what mine is. I spent more time holding babies. I can feel resentful of that inequity, or I can learn to work with it. There have been times when I was incapacitated with asthma, and John took up the slack. Other years he traveled overseas for weeks at a time and I carried the brunt of childcare. What I have finally remembered to remember is that if I begin to feel self righteous about my competence, I can expect to be leaning on him in about ten minutes.

The two eyes make one sight, the two ears one hearing, the two nostrils one smell, the two lips one speech, the two hands one labor, the two feet one walking, the two hemispheres of the brain one dwelling place of the mind, the two chambers of the heart one life of the body by means of the blood, the two lobes of the lungs one breath. But the masculine and feminine when united in love truly conjugial make one life completely human.

Emanuel Swedenborg, Conjugial Love 316

]]>Long for the Seahttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/long-for-the-sea.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:08:19ZOnce there was a man who wanted to find worthy sailors for an expedition. He recruited strong people and began to teach them skills like knot tying, and navigation. They learned the tasks adequately. Yet he wanted workers who were dedicated. He tightened the regime of training, using threats and increased promises of pay. They could all perform the motions, yet something was missing. He could not articulate it, much less remedy the problem.

Still the captain had to set sail, so he boarded the crew and they embarked on the frothy seas. In calm weather, things went well enough. The men on deck took their turns, arriving at the beginning of their watch, and leaving when it was over. But when the first storm came, they became disoriented. Some appeared late for their shifts, or begged to be released to the lower deck. Fear and anxiety made them forget their routines, and he found himself dragging them to their posts, only to have them prove near useless against the gyrating water.

It was a fierce night, raging on for hours. When the ocean finally calmed, the captain took stock. Half a dozen of the crew had been washed over board, several more begged him to turn around. He felt enraged, and hopeless.

When they landed again, he begrudgingly paid the crew, and vowed to find another way to fill his ship. As he walked along the shore, he noticed a young man, scarcely twenty, who sat gazing at the horizon. He sat down next to him.

"What are you looking at?" he asked.

"The sea. I have longed to sail across it since I was a little boy," said the young man.

"Know much about sailing?" the captain inquired.

"Oh yes! I have read Moby Dick, and The Old Man and the Sea until I know passages by heart."

The man had meant actual knowledge, but he began to wonder. Perhaps he had been looking in the wrong place all along. This young man ached to be out on the waves, feeling the salt in his face. He could learn to sail.

For the next few months the captain found men and women whose hearts already belonged on the ocean. In place of experience they dreamed of what it would be like. Each person eagerly learned the skills, making mistakes to be sure, but ever willing to try again.

When the crew set sail, everything felt different. Sailors arrived early for their shifts, staying long after they were over. They watched the captain closely, trying to mimic his deftness with ropes and sails. Instead of aching to be back on land, they savored the beauty of the open water, the birds and fish that danced around them.

The night of the first storm, everyone was perched to work. Men who had only read about the sea and sky trading places threw themselves into staying afloat. They rose to higher competence than the captain had ever witnessed in such novices. The water raged all night, and not a man aboard slept a wink.

But in the morning, the forgiving sun peeked over the shimmering blue sea to warm them. The crew was drenched and exhausted, yet strangely revived. They had weathered their first tempest. They were sailors.

Marriage skills can be learned. You can practice communication tools until they are as routine as jumping jacks. You can parrot back the differences between men and women like you do the multiplication tables.

But no one can teach you to love marriage. That comes from deep within, from years of longing for something God given, and imagining what waits across the threshold.

]]>Touch Mehttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/touch-me.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:05:46Z

I was very moved by a TED talk about human touch. The context was the doctor-patient relationship, and the potential for building trust through the laying of hands on another person's body.

The speaker, who received a standing ovation, described the ritual of examination and how it is being replaced by a vast array of technological wizardry. Doctors are more likely to order a CAT scan than to place their fingers on a patient's body. He came to this disturbing realization when he spoke with a patient who had changed doctors not based on the hospital atrium, or the cutting edge equipment, but because she wanted touch.

As chance would have it, I watched this minutes after I missed an opportunity to touch my husband. I was leaving our office just as he was returning, and by a turn of the corner, I came face to face with him when I had almost passed him unseen. We spoke about mundane things, who drives which kid where, and then I left. As I drove off I felt a lack on my lips. I could have kissed him. I should have kissed him.

Especially in the wake of my neighbor's abrupt death, I wish I had done something far more important than clarify the Odhner Shuttle Schedule. I wish I had hugged him.

I hear of couples for whom touch has fallen off the radar. This grieves me. And yet, I could throw my arms around my own husband a little more often. He would not mind.

I believe that babies need skin to skin contact in order to grow. Why would it be any different for marriage?

Ted Talk

]]>Sadhttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/sad.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:03:59ZI am sad.

There are many legitimate reasons why, to collect like a strategy for an upcoming debate: a recent death, a friend out of work, the last tantrum, another divorce, the inevitable decay in the yard. But that does not protect me from the ache. Sad is still sad, even if you know the reasons.

But I am also noticing pain that has no name.

The story of Jacob wrestling all night with an angel captures the exhaustion that weighs all around me like a London fog. All night is practically forever when your baby is sobbing or insomnia props your eyes open like a broken door in the wind. Then Jacob voices the question pounding to escape my lips.

"What is your name??"

Jacob wants to know. He begs to know. He believes he must know.

But the angel refuses his request.

There have been anonymous opponents that have thrown me off balance. My mother never came when I had a baby. Perhaps that is why I kept having them, holding out that she would arrive to mother me. She went when my sisters gave birth, and stayed for weeks. I cursed the reasons I could not hear, flailing to knock them down in the darkness. But my aim is shaky in the shadows.

I read about a couple whose daughter was abducted. Their life roiled with suffering and searching. They prayed their guts out, for an answer from God about what had become of their child. Then came the whispered reply.

"Do you trust that I am taking care of her, even if you never find out what happened?"

My son was diagnosed with autism when he was four. Finally the disconnect had a name. It gave us bearings, and company. No cure, mind you, but words to say when people's eyebrows jacked up.

There are people who sometimes wonder if their spouse is behind a wall. Words have trouble penetrating the glass, or is it ice? They speak, but do not feel heard. They reach but cannot find warmth. Perhaps they badly want a name to explain what they cannot fathom.

"I want to be close, and we are not. That means someone is wrong or bad."

Maybe there is no name that can be formed by syllables. Perhaps the reason, if you can call it that, is more of an invitation. If my mother had come when Lukas was born, I would have long ago stopped asking if she would. I would have dismissed the whole ordeal and moved on. But because she didn't or couldn't or wouldn't.... I still hover at wondering.

When your relationship is not comfortable, you keep moving, and shifting, trying to make it work.

Maybe, just maybe, there is something of value to be found in suspense.

]]>Behind the Curtainhttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/behind-the-curtain.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:02:40ZWhen you go to the theater, you do not see everything.

There is this handy velvet curtain to keep your eyes away from the scurrying actors and shoved sets, the flashing costume changes and blatant breaches of the illusion.

On occasion I go to a dress rehearsal, because the director wants a small audience for the actors to practice on before opening night. Then I can expect to see imperfect entrances, and dropped lines. The last time I did it a whole plate of brownies went flying, and a mike fell off its perch on the lady's collar. But this was not as much a travesty as good information about how to shine up the show.

Imagine if a student majoring in theater spent four years watching performances. Suppose he or she was never privy to the activity back stage. There is certainly value in seeing things go well, but if we are blind to how those actors and sets got there, we would be unprepared to go out and get a job on Broadway. Even if the plays you are one day hired to produce are not the exact ones you worked on as an undergrad, you learn how the process works. People can figure it out, given a chance to observe.

The other day I was visiting with a dear couple. Mid conversation their daughter came barreling in, begging for the keys to her father's car.

"My car doesn't work, dad! It won't start and I am late for work!!!" she pleaded.

I assumed he would hand them over, but he did not.

"What happens when you try to start it," he calmly asked. He did not seem as anxious as she wanted him to be. He knew that her job was one mile away and had a flexible start time.

"It's old, dad, I don't know," she seemed irritated.

"My car is full of gas, and I think you want my gas as much as my car," he suggested. The two of them went outside, and I saw him holding a red gas can. It turns out she was on empty, and had kind of forgotten that until now.

My friend mentioned that good boundaries are hard for this child, and they are learning how to love her without getting trampled. I am not sure if the daughter learned what they wanted her to, but I got a quick peek behind the curtain of family life. I will not forget that solving the immediate emergency may not always be the wisest course of action. Probably that exact scene will not show up in my house, but given a chance to observe good parenting, I might figure it out.

]]>Stroke of Insighthttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/stroke-of-insight.htmlCaring for Marriage2011-12-02T16:01:36Z

I am reading a book by a woman named Jill who had a stroke, and eventually reclaimed all her abilities. The interesting part is that she is a neuroscientist and knows more than everyone on my street about the brain. Maybe everyone in my time zone. She understood the loss of language and motor skills even as they were seeping away into the air. She chronicles the conflict of struggling to get help, yet being enticed by the supremely unscientific feeling that enveloped her as her brain succumbed to internal bleeding.

"I am one with everything," she realized.

Now that she can again communicate, she articulates what it felt like to have people be disrespectful or dismissive, simply because she could not volley back words at a speed that leaves the less learned in the ditch. She began thinking in pictures, which are harder to pronounce. Jill certainly had emotions, and opinions, and enough intelligence to impress the hiring staff at Harvard. But in that moment, the gap between what swirled inside of her and the waiting world outside her mouth was too vast to cross.

Some people are fluent at expressing feelings. It certainly happens in the movies. The leading man says just the right thing to make the girl feel completely understood. She swoons into his arms and they kiss. But off the set, regular people in actual relationships have been known to miss their cue. Sometimes it is because they are dividing their attention between the person in front of them and their phone, and the crescendoing voices coming from upstairs, and the issues at work. Other times it is because the words catch and snag on the way out of their chest. Perhaps they are thinking in pictures... like the two of you arm in arm, softly bathed in the waning light of the setting sun... but the ability to get there has leaked out the bottoms of your feet. We who have the perfect words stacked and ready to be launched may feel dismissive or impatient with people for whom words are a second language. But our verbosity can be our biggest flaw, if it blinds us to the unspoken world waiting on the other side of our partner's closed lips.

Jill's story

]]>My Very Ownhttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/my-very-own.htmlCaring for Marriage2010-10-12T10:21:20ZMy twins were given their own copies of the Bible yesterday at school. They reminded me of Zuzu and her flower petals in It's a Wonderful Life, in their rapture over these precious books. Someone had inscribed their names on the title page with calligraphy. The girls were intrigued by this symbol of ownership, and the expectant pages of genealogy waiting to be filled in. We talked about how things handwritten in a Bible are considered true and sacred.

I used my own rusty calligraphy skills to add their parents' and grandparents' names. We regarded the empty spaces, awaiting the identities of spouses and children they have not yet chanced upon. I felt their hearts yawning, trying to wait for the future, a hungry longing for what will someday be.

"I want to be a good wife and have a good husband," Hope said, more to the Author than to me.

"I hope I have identical twins, and no autistic kids," Aurelle prayed.

The books they now owned contain a remarkable promise.

"Whatever you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive."1

I notice no small print clauses of circuitous conditions and caveats into exemptions. "Ask, believe, receive." Kind of says it all.

There is however, no expiration date mentioned. In my experience some things take longer than I had pictured. But to these tender hearted girls, waiting was less of a time out in the penalty box than a ripening.

]]>The Turtlehttp://www.caringformarriage.org/stories/the-turtle.htmlCaring for Marriage2010-10-12T10:20:13ZSome men are like turtles.

There is a protective shell covering the more squishy parts of their anatomy and they have a tendency to hide when company arrives. But I notice that turtles live longer than the more capricious members of the animal kingdom. For example, mayflies flit about like there is no tomorrow, which for them, there isn't.

"Live with abandon," they say. "Leave the ice cream on the counter! Spend the credit cards to the max! Fly in rough neighborhoods!"

Turtles may lead a decidedly more solitary existence but they get more of it (64,000 times more).

I have never heard a clutch of females of any species haranguing tortoises for their reclusive ways, though I will confess I am not fluent in reptilian tongues. Turtles are ok with who they are and no one seems to belittle them or prod them into therapy.

So why are human women discontent with husbands who withdraw into their shells? I know I have wasted a lot of perfectly good adrenaline getting mad at John for sneaking past his adorable family to go play video games. Wordwarp vs. warm blooded children? No contest in my book.

But then some researcher found out that being with people can actually be a stresser for males. (I think he fudged the data to get his own wife to leave him alone with his X-box.) Even John Gray says it's true, and he told me his book has sold more copies than any non fiction title after the Bible. So he must know a thing or two, about marketing if not male tendencies.

John (that's Gray, not Odhner) says it has to do with hormone levels. Two things raise testosterone levels for men: fighting dragons and sitting on the couch. Testosterone reduces stress. If our particular household runs out of dragons, or blown fuses, or mysterious nocturnal noises, John (that's Odhner, not Gray) needs to replenish his supply by doing absolutely nothing, which is camouflaged by sitting in front of an LCD screen with glassy eyes at midnight.

At least I know where to find him, which is more than I can say for the mayfly.

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