Ellen's Story

A New Story

People who have coherent life stories show us how in a pivotal moment of their lives they know where to turn for resources. It is in pivotal moments that we need a strong survival narrative and the stories in “Blowing on Embers” show us how others strengthen their stories during hard times and how we can strengthen our own stories.

I didn’t know how to respond when disaster entered my life. Below is a short excerpt from the book that gives a sense of the pivotal moment when I realized I had no story for catastrophe. At the time my husband Ron and I were living in the Netherlands with our two children. We were celebrating life, but only two months after we arrived Ron was diagnosed with ALS a progressive neurological disease. This is how we responded when the doctor told us of his diagnosis:

The day the doctor told my husband, Ron, and me about his diagnosis, we sat like children listening silently to what the doctor had to say. We didn’t ask any questions because we couldn’t believe what we were told. When we left the doctor’s office, we walked along a canal near the village in the Netherlands where we were living at the time. It was so peaceful—windmills, thatched cottages, and long open fields running along the water. But this bucolic scene didn’t match our terror as we talked and cried, not able to make sense of what we had just heard. It was inconceivable to us that Ron might die in a year, as the doctor had predicted. If we were to believe the doctor’s prognosis, then life had betrayed us. Everything that we had expected was gone, and what was coming was unknown and frightening.

Over time I became aware that many people faced tragedy and had a capacity to go on with life even during the hard times. In these life stories there was no great separation between good times and hard times, and I wanted to learn more about the stories of people who knew more about life than I did.

I began to think about what were my choices if I didn’t go on this search:
· to live in fear
· to obsessively watch for all dangers
Or
· to strengthen my capacity to know where to find help and encouragement and what we all can do when disaster strikes.

So I went on a journey to find stories ,which I wrote about in “Blowing on Embers” and continue to post on this blog. In describing my journey I invite readers to go on their own journey and strengthen their stories of resourcefulness.

Today is Ron’s birthday. He would 65 years old today. He died in 1993 at 51 after living on a ventilator at home for seven years. He was the one who decided when to have the ventilator turned off. During those years he did everything he could to hold onto a meaningful life and tried to teach me to be still with him so that we could enjoy more moments together. I wasn’t very good at sitting still, and I missed out on many peaceful moments. I was too afraid and worried every day to hold onto the best moments that we might have had. I am braver now and know more about a survival life story. One of the women I wrote about, “Janie” (See her story below on the blog) said about a moment in her life when she was too afraid to close the eyes of her dead son that you learn it for another time. I have learned it for another time.

Be Prepared

These are some of the ideas that led me to collect the stories of people who face adversity and do well:

We live in a world of personal and public tragedy about which we hear a great deal. Even when our lives run smooth we are affected by the disasters that we read about or hear about through the media from places faraway such as Darfur and Zambabwe -----

or news about the terrible war in Iraq

or the devastation of the tsunami in East Asia

or closer stories----- all of us were altered by the attacks on September 11th and the terrible effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

or personal stories of illness and loss in our families

or in families of those close to us

or from daily media coverage of catastrophe in people’s lives that we don’t know.

The expanse of our information and knowledge of hard times creates in all of us a sense of impending disaster.

What can make a difference?

Research that has been done with people who have experienced tragedy and disaster tells us that a coherent life narrative – a life story with a beginning middle and end in which we can integrate both the best and worst of times — helps organize people following a disaster. This kind of life story includes a sense of our past and how it has influenced us, a sense of how we make choices and live our lives in the present, and a sense of what we are looking forward to in the future. People who have such a story before a disaster seem to do better in integrating a terrible event into their life story after a disaster.

Since in moments of crisis we are disoriented preparing for catastrophe means strengthening one’s story of survival or weaving the resourceful threads of one’s life story into what I call a survival narrative. This is what it means to be prepared.

As a psychologist for more than twenty years I had worked with many families facing life’s difficult moments and lived and worked in difficult places. I thought I knew what was needed and what I would do if catastrophe struck me and my family. But I was wrong. When my first husband Ron diagnosed with ALS I had no strong survival story to fall back on. The reasons for this and how I was able to rewrite my life story is what the book is about.

I continue to search for the stories of others who can teach us how to be prepared. Send me one if you have one.