Blowing on Embers

Good Stories Pouring In

2008-11-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

Ellen’s reflection on a conversation with a friend

Not long ago I had lunch with a friend. We talked as women do about what is hard in our lives and then shifted to what was going well. She told me about a dinner she recently had with two of her three adult sons,. She had called them together to mark a change in her life and in the life of the family. All three sons were now married and she was now on her own. She asked them what they thought should happen next in their family. She has always been at the center of the family and the person everyone turns to for liveliness, support and help. She let her sons know that from time to time she now needs their support. Her boys took up the challenge without missing a beat. They let her know that they wanted family life to continue, and they would make sure that other obligations wouldn’t eclipse the wonderful family life they had to share with each other, their partners and their children.

I was moved by the shifting sands of this family. Done with purpose and grace their family life was reaffirmed. Alice Walker in the poem below encourages Barack Obama to hold out time and attention for his family. I felt hopeful with these two stories that the strength of family life was alive and well in a time when it is too often ignored in the public eye.

From Cynthia, San Diego

An Open Letter to Barack ObamaBy Alice Walker TheRoot.com

Alice Walker on expectations, responsibilities and a new reality that isalmost more than the heart can bear.Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States.
You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history.
But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of adifferent time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you,North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done.

We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas.
Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance.

A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life.
To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters.
And so on.

One gathers that your family is large.
We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white- haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed.
They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us ofscissors.
This is no way to lead.
Nor does your family deserve this fate.
One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax.
From your happy, relaxed state, you can model realsuccess, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job.
That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Mostdamage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Thosefeelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.
We must learn actually not to have enemies,but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely.
However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I oftenfought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children.

We see where this leads, where it has led.A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts theChinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader.
All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies.

And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjustcharacterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthyself-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening theworld.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,Alice Walker

From Mobalaji, Lagos

Ellen Dearest,
Obama's victory is the world's victory. Email messages are going round with offers of aso ebi for the inauguration! All I ask is that ours stand out, as Obama's cousins from Australasia threaten to make an impressive showing there as well. In fact, all the world's non-whites claim relationship with our cousin! Na wao! We pray that God guard and guide him.
Love,
Mobolaji A

More political outpourings to encourage us onward:

From Joan, Long Island
Check out Naked Women for Peace
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=OINStsPwgQ4&feature=email

From Jack, NYC
Check out Pray the Devil Back to Hell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uon9CcoHgwA

From Jane, Oakland, CA
One Nation, Indivisible: A Meditation on Proposition 8
It seems we are divisible after all.
We are two separate nations,
one with the freedom to be who we are,
one without that freedom.

But we are not done with the fight.
The battle is not over,
The banner still waves proudly above our heads.
If you think we will stop, think again:
The world has already changed,
and will continue to change.

We have joined the ranks of brave men and women
who have fought and died for their rights over the years.
Freedom is seldom a gift.
It is more often a hard-won prize after a long and bloody battle.

But why should it be such a struggle?
What we want is not really so much:
What we want is only liberty and justice for all.

Good Stories from Readers

2008-11-13T06:06:00.001-08:00

Have you checked out Obama’s new website: www.change.gov
He is also asking for stories, which I love. Cynthia

From Robert Carroll:
Poetry Vulgaris

Dateline, August, 1997—from the brochure:

The Eighth Annual National Poetry Slam
and Connecticut Poetry Festival—
For five days in August, 156 poets from 33 teams
from all over America and the world
will assemble in Middletown, Connecticut
to read and compete and host workshops,
open mikes and poetry slams.

If I told you how Jerry almost missed our plane
and we all about shit in our pants
or how at the Nuyorican Cafe in New York
hundreds paid to hear us slam
or how the audience rocked
as our voices lifted off into air
would you think,
Man, there's no poetry there.

If I told you in Cambridge
we went up against the best
and we all kicked butts
till there weren’t any butts left
and the words rang out over burgers and beer
and all the buzz going round was
Yeah, L.A.’s here.
Would you still think
that's not poetry you hear?

If I told you we invaded like insects from Cleveland,
Chicago, Worcester, San Francisco, and Sweden,
London, New York, and Providence too—
even Germany invaded—
so what else is new—
would you still turn your skeptical nose?
Would you?

And if I told you my colored skin crawled
all black-american-latino-asian-red-golden-brown
like sugar molasses running down
running down running down
would you still doubt me
or my sincerity?

So I took hold of the mic, and I tilted the stand
and my father—dead and gone—came alive in my hands
as poet after poet gave it up to be just another voice
in Whitman’s great collectivity
for this love and glory
this dignity and respect
this poet to poet
this head to head.

Day after day we slammed face to face
poetry to poetry, grace to all race.
Renegade, Patricia, Beau Sia, Da Boogie Man—
Deborah Edler Brown won the haiku slam—
Haiku, erotica, street songs, exotica
voices from Middletown rang out the land
and I could hear our forefathers and mothers all stand
and grab the mike with both of their hands.

I heard Whitman, Neruda, and Langston Hughes.
I even heard Miles blowin' out blues.
Santa Fe, San Jose, Kalamazoo—
One poet from Detroit sounded like Maya Angelou—
And we sprang up like new grass
and spread like wild fire
in this glorious August spring of our lives.

And I swear, even Willie Shakespeare was there
and The Bard be so bad he banged out a ten,
but Da Boogie Man was even more awesome
so some judge gave him an eleven.
And as the sweat poured down my head
and drenched my skin,
I was awash in it—
poetry—
stinking like life and common as shit.
Now if that’s not poetry,
I don’t know what is.

Amazing Change
By Robert Carroll

We can go through amazing changes
when we are faced with knowing
we have limited time.
After one woman got brain cancer,
she decided what she wanted
was to go to Africa
to see the gorillas.

She and her husband and the guides
began the long trek through the jungle
up the mountains, but the woman was
having trouble. The guides tried
to convince her to go back,
but she wouldn’t.
She struggled and struggled.
Eventually she won the guides over,
and everyone was rooting for her,
but there came a point.
She couldn’t go on, so

she laid down on the grass,
and when she did, the gorillas
came out of the jungle
to her.

Good Stories for Good Times

2008-11-09T07:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since my last blog, but I am going to get with it. Right now I am reading a book by Phyllis Rose--"The Year of Reading Proust". It inspires me to look at each moment of my life carefully describe it fully and see where my mind takes me. This freedom to be curious about myself is evidence that me and mine are in a period of good fortune even with the world's woes weighing in on us.

For those of you following this blog you can understand that there were many years when I lived through hard times. Writing about good times or happy families Tolstoy said was boring, but maybe boring isn't so bad when pain, want and chaos swirls around. Perhaps when those of us who are doing well share good stories we may encourage others to continue to practice hope and to notice moments of goodness. Certainly worldwide, Obama's election was a breath of fresh air for us all and a celebration of what is and can be good in the world fits this moment in history.

When I wake up now I am aware of the aches and pains of being sixty-five. Shocking as that is, I follow the pain in my mind and slowly, very slowly begin to stretch out my body. Recently I am taking care of myself for the first time in my life in a way that feels easy not demanding and the results are that I eat less and move more without demand. I am discovering that I am less hungry than I thought, want chocolate not nearly as often as I believed and enjoy stretching my body through the pain if I don't push or press on myself to do more or to do better. I remember a time in my life between eight and eleven when I was unselfconscious about my body and free to explore the world without fear.

I wrote in "Blowing in Embers" about how the protections of my childhood left me unprepared for catastrophe, but I am remembering now that those same protections and predictabilities taught me how to live easily in moments when life was livable. Getting old may be getting back to the freedom to make up each day as I did as a child. Please send me your good stories to post. We shouldn't miss this time of celebration. It will help us for what is ahead

Hope to hear from you.
Contact me at: Ellen@berkeleyfamilytherapy.com

New kinds of Stories- Renewal

2008-03-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

Feminist Grandparents

I've been running around so much that I find little time for blogging, but here I am again. I just wrote a piece about becoming a feminist grandparent that I hope will get published soon. It is interesting to me that after spending so many years focused on catastrophehe and disaster that my attention has shifted to birth and grandparenting. One of the things that the women in Blowing on Embers taught me was to always stay open to renewal and that one of the wonders of life is that in the midst of misery there are moments of hope and then sometimes there are many wonderful moments all in a row. Keeping in mind that a both/and notion of life--- not all good not all bad makes it possible to get through event the hardest of times. The delusion that somehow we will come to a time when all is good keeps us unfocused on what is working even in the worst of times. It can even bring worry to the best of times. Like to hear from any of you still out there.

Ellen's Story

2007-12-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

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.

The Ripple Effect- Stories Lead to New Stories

2007-11-29T20:21:00.000-08:00

Every day I receive emails and letters from people reading "Blowing on Embers". I heard from Mobalaji Adenubi from Lagos Nigeria and from Florence Ten Fingers (see Florence's story earlier on the blog) one of the Keepers in the book;

Florence wrote:
"I received the book and I sat down and read it through. My children took turns reading it and one son read it twice. They realized what us women (here on the Reservation) went through ---life with many hardships.
I've heard it said that a family that prays together stays together. For me it was me and the children who prayed together every day to get through.

"We've been having cold spells here with snow flurries, but it isn't as cold as it will be. For now, the snow melts as soon as it hits the ground. This year the Elderly Program didn't get any turkey for us so we had to buy some, but it turned out okay. The program receives money from the Casino every three months so it helps.

"I'll end now. Thank you for wrting the stories. May Watantanka bless you. Your friend(Muska)), Florence.

From Martha:
I read about Ellen in your book recognizing that protective bubble and Reflections on Teachers. It seems to me that all your sorrow and all your pain has pushed you to where you truly belong. I very much look forward to reading your whole book. Several years ago I had a weekly storytelling workshop with seniors. I'd never really worked with personal stories before and for several weeks I listened as they told their 'nice' stories. Finally, one week I dove in and told a difficult personal story about being disowned by my grandmother and suddenly the stories came pouring our about loss, separation, disillusionment. At the end of the session, Sam, an 84 year old, said, "You know, Martha, for weeks we've been telling the nice little stories, but today we told the hard ones, and it brought us all together." And it really did. We so need to listen deeply to one another's stories in this broken world of ours.

From Barbara:
Monday I met with a group of friends who have been meeting monthly for at least ten years. When someone was talking about the seeming end of a 40 year friendship with a girlfriend, I told them about meeting with you and your ideas about stories people have or don't have. It seemed to me then that the idea of stories we have about anything, in this case friendship, loyalty and what that friendship can expand to include has everything to do with the stories people are telling themselves and perhaps less to do with what someone has said or done.

From Gloria:
Based on hearing you speak before, I knew your talk for AFTNC would be very meaningful to me. Frankly, I was not prepared for it to be quite so powerful! I was particularly struck by your statement about surviving the crisis, but what sense did you make of it? I have had three major periods of crisis in my life to date- 3 major periods of illness and pain which seemed to combine with many losses, the first period of illness came together with my sister's suicide, my father's diagnosis of terminal cancer- and his death, my mother being in the hospital and in a serious auto accident, my husband's sister dying and 3 weeks later, his father. Then this was followed by two bouts of breast cancer, and years of constant pain from various sources.

I decided to read your book before I contacted you to see if it gave me any inspiration/direction in my quest to make sense of my experiences. For some reason, I can not figure out why, Joan's story set something off for me. I have had this great desire to tell someone the story of my illnesses- and that is always a "victim" story. But after reading Joan's story, I had this vivid memory from my first period of illness and pain. We had fenced in a small rectangle of our property so we could grow something free of deer, and had planted a vegetable garden. I remember being out there in the nude, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my body, tending the garden. It reminded me of how with all I've been through, I have always maintained my "zest". In between my surgery and my radiation for the last cancer, I went scuba diving over the objections of the Drs. I got deeply into my music and even gave a vocal recital though not in the best of health which affects singing. And after completing the first round of radiation, I did something I always wanted to do, I studied Taiko drumming, though it was quite strenuous for my physical condition.

Please send me your story so that other's can share in "the ripple effect".

Deep Listening

2007-11-19T16:20:00.000-08:00

From Ellen,

I've been going to readings for my book. At these events, I have the good fortune to hear the stories of how readers move through Hard Times. I also hear their questions. One question that keeps coming up is what do I mean when I talk about the notion of deep listening to the stories of others. For me this occurs when we listen to someone else' story and express the compassion that we feel. This experience not only touches the story teller, but it allows us to feel a connection to another person. In these moments we learn about life experiences that we would have no other way of knowing about. Lastly, deep listening gives us the chance to reflect on the parts of someone else's story that evoke memories and associations that we can then weave together to strengthen our own stories.

Someone else last night spoke about despair and how it pulls her down. Others in the group spoke about how in moments of despair they try to find connection to others who suffer so that their pain is not the only pain. This reminded me of the story of of Kaethe, a Teacher in the book who in a moment of despair decided to dedicate her radiation treatments to the people in South Africa who she knew who worked with AIDS patients. Her capacity to reach beyond her own suffering and give meaning to her treatment took her beyond herself and connected her back into the flow of life.

Last night a young therapist spoke about how hard it is for her to continue to listen to the story of a man whose wife is dying. She found herself wanting to help him look beyond his wife's death. He resisted her attempts to move him away from the story and finally she allowed herself to listen. After the sessioins she felt teribly sad and only after speaking to us of her experience did she feel some relief. What this tells me is that deep lilsteners also need to be heard in order to keep on listening.

Coherent Life Stories

2007-11-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

In the readings I have been doing I speak about research that tells us about the importance of a coherent life narrative when disaster strikes. People who have such stories before disaster do better after disaster.

So what is a coherent life narrative and how do we write one?

It is a story that combines our knowledge of family, culture, and community, with a sense of how we manage our lives in the present and what we look forward to in the future. The Keepers Seekers and Teachers in the book, "Blowing on Embers" and on this blog tell us their coherent narratives. Their stories offer us an opportunity to strengthen our own stories and weave them together so that we have a clear sense of our past, present, and future. This is one of the ways to be prepared for whatever is up ahead.

From readers about "Blowing on Embers":

Your reading could not have come at a better time. I had a horrible week atwork and really needed something to take me out of myself and that was thecure. I have read about half the book so far and have really enjoyed it. Byacknowledging up front that each of us has to face adversity, we need to finda way to get on with our lives and find the joy where ever we can. Byanticipating the adversity and creating a framework for survival, we guarda gainst depressing thoughts which hold us down. I think that was lesson of your talk and the book, and I really needed that inoculation at the time.
Labe

JUST RETURNED FROM OUR TRIP TO B.C. READ YOUR BOOK IN A FLASH ON THE TRAIN. I LOVED IT! I SAW MYSELF IN EACH WOMAN'S STORY AND ALSO SAW STRENGTHS DIFFERENT FROM MINE THAT I COULD REFLECT ON. I LOVED THE WAY YOU WOVE YOUR STORY AND REFLECTION THROUGHOUT THE BOOK. IT WAS A VERY INTIMATE EXPERIENCE. CHRIS

The book reads keeps pulling me along at a lively pace. I think the book would be so useful to therapy clients. After reading it they can write their own story. If I get to teach a writing course next semester I will make it one of our class texts!!

Joan

Earthquakes

2007-11-04T21:46:00.000-08:00

This is not a story, but it is part of being prepared.

EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON THE "TRIANGLE OF LIFE"TEN TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

1) Most everyone who simply "ducks and covers" when buildings collapse are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars,are crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position.You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survivalinstinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly butleave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of theearthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushingweight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out
the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different "moment of frequency" (they swing separately from the main part of the building).
The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into eachother until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads. Even if the building doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible -It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of theirvehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived bygetting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high nextto them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly a cross them.

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper officesand other offices with a lot of paper that paper does not compact. Largevoids are found surrounding stacks of paper. Spread the word to everyone YOU care about and save someone's life!

I'm Back!

2007-10-31T14:49:00.001-07:00

Thanks for checking in. After I get over what it means to be on a book tour I plan to return to the stories of Blowing on Embers and the stories that others tell me and send me.

I have been on a whirlwind tour of readings about "Blowing on Embers". The book has just been chosen as one of the top nonfiction books for this fall. Here's the review:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_7211972

Top fall book selections offer a wild mix of titles, local authors
By Kathleen Grant Geib, STAFF WRITER

LOCAL LITERATI shows off a particularly eclectic voice this edition. New poetry by Robert Hass shares space with children's books, Robert Reich offers an intelligent perspective on capitalism and democracy and television's "Creature Features" host John Stanley pens a vibrant book.

"Blowing on Embers: Stories for Hard Times" (Llumina Press, $15.95) by Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey of Berkeley. Surviving difficult life challenges from six women's perspectives.

Check out the site. Some of the other books listed look really interesting.

Another review of the book reads:

Blowing on Embers:Stories for Hard TimesEllen Pulleyblank Coffey
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for ReviewYourBook.com, 10/07 Posted on Amazon

Some people break when hard times come into their life; others grow stronger. Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey shares the stories of women that faced adversity and how they survived. Despite differences in culture all people face difficulties. It is through sharing these stories we learn to cope.
As a child Ellen’s family avoided discussing things that were unpleasant. Perhaps that thought they were sheltering and protecting her. Such experiences though painful, prepare us for the tragedies of life. Ellen’s husband died of ALS. He lived on a respirator for several years until he turned it off.

Zepa was in her early seventies, living in war torn Kosova. One day the soldiers came and murdered her husband and sons. Zepa assumed the role of a leader in a culture where only men lead. Her strength held her family together. Even in her grief, she showed the tenacity to take action and save her family. Her story inspired Ellen to listen to and record the many tales in Blowing On Embers. The stories are divided into categories: Keepers rely on history and traditions of their families for strength and a source of resources that assist them to survive adversity. Seekers “focus on the present and search across age groups and cultures to find alternatives that strengthen their sense of independence. “Teachers connect their personal suffering with the suffering of others.”

We need to be prepared for disaster, for every one of us will face it in some
form. There are three phases of a catastrophe: “Crisis the unexpected events in our lives that leave us “overwhelmed and unable to think straight.” Life as we know it changes forever. In our struggles we want to withdrawal from others into a world of isolation, but we discover that we need people. Renewal is a time to go forward with new possibilities.
Blowing on Embers: Stories for Hard Times by Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey is a book we can all learn from. Regardless of whether we are facing a catastrophe now or will face one in the future, "Blowing on Embers: Stories for Hard Times" is a book that will strengthen you and will warm your heart.

I found this book to be both touching and supportive. Ellen has a talent for describing the situations I found myself drawn into the midst of the story. I found myself wiping the tears out of my eyes. I enjoyed this book. It is with honor that I highly recommend it to all for we all face adversity in our lives.

From Ellen: Hope you get a chance to read the book and if you do please send me your comments and stories .

Starting next time I am going to return to the stories of Keepers, Seekers and Teachers looking for the pivotal moments in their lives when they show us how they work to rewrite and strengthen their life stories of resilience. I'll be back soon. Keep in touch

Book Tour and Blog Vacation

2007-09-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

From Ellen

For those of you who have been following my blog you may have noticed that I have been away from it. I apologize, but I am busy putting together a book tour for my new book: Blowing on Embers; Stories for Hard Times. I fyou wish to order the book you can go to:

http://llumina.com/store//blowingonembers.htm

And here are upcoming dates and places for readings:

October 16, 2007 Hillside Club Berkeley
October 21, 2007 Newton, Massachusetts
October 22,2007 Northampton, Massachusetts
October 26, 2007 New York City
November 3, 2007 Palo Alto, California
November 17,2007 Stockton, California
December, January Marin County and San Francisco

If you would like to attend a reading and want more details contact me at:

Ellen@Berkeleyfamilytherapy.com.

Here is what others are saying about the book:

Praise for Blowing on Embers: Stories for Hard Times

"This book deepens our understanding of the creative power of narrative for finding a way through problems and even catastrophes. Psychotherapists will strengthen their practice by reading it, but it is also a book to pass on to friends or clients going through difficult periods -- or simply to read and hold in memory as a resource for the unknown future." Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life and Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery.

“Bravo! A hard-to-put-down book about how to live with hard times. As if we were sitting around a campfire, listening to others tell their stories, we learn that indeed, happiness exists side-by-side with pain.”
Pauline Boss, author of Loss, Trauma and Resilience, and Ambiguous Loss.

“Pulleyblank Coffey reveals how wisdom is dispersed throughout a network of people. She shows through her stories how we can accrue the world’s knowledge if there is a listener nearby who asks good questions while blowing on the embers of our experience.”
James Griffith, M.D. author with Griffith ME: The Body Speaks: Therapeutic Dialogues for Mind/Body Problems and Engaging the Sacred in Psychotherapy: How to Talk with People about their Spiritual Lives.

“This is a wonderful and inspirational book. Affirming the resilience of the human spirit, Pulleyblank Coffey is masterful in describing and bringing forward the essence of the detailed stories of remarkable women coming through some of life’s greatest challenges. It is a terrific resource for all of us – women, men, lay persons, and professionals.”
John S. Rolland, M.D. author of Families, Illness, & Disability: An Integrative Treatment Model.

“The voices in Blowing on Embers are those of women who have faced enormous adversities and have found ways of living with them. Their voices are brought together so that we learn from them how to live with loss, and grief, and hope for the future.” Joan Berzoff, co-editor of Living with Dying: Handbook for End-of-Life Care Practitioners.

I'll be back on my blog on November 1st. Let me hear from you if there is something that you'd like to post and use my blog vacation to check out some of the earlier posts.
o

APA and Torture

2007-08-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

From Ellen

This blog seems to be expanding from survival stories to feminist grannies and now to psychologists and torture. I am sure there is a thread here and I hope those of you following along will bear with me as I allow myself to be moved by the events around me which I actually believe is the essence of blowing on embers. Here's the latest.

I am an infrequent attendee at The American Psychological Association (APA), but yesterday I went to the rally led by a group of active APA members protesting APA's current policy on psychologists' participation in interrogation and torture. Having known about this from a distance I had been concerned, but not involved. Listening to the details close up has made it imperative for me to take action. If you would like to know more about these details please go to: www.ethicalapa.com.

On Sunday morning at 10 A.M. the APA Council will vote on whether or not to support a moratorium on psychologists participating in torture and interrogations of prisoners held in illegal settings.

Many APA members, me included, are withdrawing our dues from APA as we protest its actions. I encourage other AFTA members who are also APA members to consider doing the same. I had thought that my liability insurance was dependent on my APA membership. This is in fact not the case. Also it will be very helpful for anyone concerned to contact APA Council members expressing your dismay. To find their names go to: www.apa.org/governance.

There are more than 150,000 psychologists who are members of APA. These psychologists and any other psychologists and mental health professionals who do not speak out against this policy are complicit in its effects.

From Jack Saul
Director International Trauma Studies Program Mailman School of Health, Columbia University

I want to thank Ellen for her note on the American Psychological Association's moratorium on participation of psychologists in torture and abusive interrogation. Below is an oped piece written by my colleague, Steve Reisner, who has been one of the key spokespersons opposing the APA's position.What I find most disturbing about this issue is that since the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association came out against participation of doctors in interrogations on ethical grounds,the US government turned to the APA to support psychologists to stand in as the "medical personnel" on site to insure that the practices are safe and effective. In essence, the APA in its stance has created the legal basis for the military to continue to carry out such practices, which according to international law would be defined as torture. There is also a piece in Vanity Affair on how psychologists developed some of the current practiceshttp://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707As a psychologist running a torture treatment program, I felt it was imperative to stop paying dues to the APA.

OPED SUBMISSION-RE: PSYCHOLOGISTS AND U.S. TORTURE.CONTACT:Steven Reisner
office: 212-633-8391Cell: 646-415-1413SReisner@psychoanalysis.netBrad OlsonCell: (773) 308-6461b-olson@northwestern.ed

Psychologists’ Tortured Ethics by Steven Reisner and Brad Olson
Steven Reisner, Ph.D. is Senior Faculty at the International Trauma Studies Program, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University and Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, New York University Medical School. Brad Olson, Ph.D. is Assistant Research Professor, Northwestern University, and President of the APA's Divisions for Social Justice. Both are founding members of the Coalition for an Ethical APA.

The American Psychological Association (APA) is in crisis. In 2005, the APA authored an ethics report that not only allowed but encouraged psychologists to participate in US interrogations of suspected terrorists. This week, Vanity Fair revealed what psychologists were doing at CIA Black Sites, at Guantánamo, and other national security facilities: they were committing torture.The APA and the nation were warned as early as 2004 that detainees were being tortured and that military and intelligence psychologists and other medical professionals were suspected of developing the techniques of abuse and overseeing their application. The APA leadership could have followed their colleagues in the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, who convened special sessions to decry abuses and prohibit their membership from any direct participation in, supervision of, or assessment of prisoners for, coercive or abusive interrogations. But instead, the APA took a decidedly different tack than its fellow healing professions. When the APA leadership formed a Task Force to investigate the charges of psychologist-assisted abusive interrogations, they turned to military and intelligence psychologists to assess the allegations and to write the ethical guidelines for participation in those interrogations.We now know that six of the nine voting members of the Task Force were involved directly or indirectly in military or CIA interrogation strategies and practices; four were in the chain of command of the very military and intelligence services responsible for instituting and supervising these abusive CIA and DoD interrogation strategies at Guantánamo, in Iraq, and at CIA ‘Black Sites.’

The result was that the APA Ethics Code was turned on its head. The Task Force positioned a secondary ethical principle, “responsibility to society,” above what has been the first principle of every healing profession for millennia: “Do no harm.” And in a move that should have been unthinkable after Nuremberg, the APA affirmed that psychologists “have an ethical responsibility to be informed of, familiar with, and follow the most recent applicable regulations and rules” and may do so, even when these conflict with ethical principles or basic human rights.This week, Vanity Fair provided evidence that in fact psychologists had turned torture techniques developed to train our soldiers to resist torture, into the “standard operating procedures” of abusive military and CIA interrogations. In other words, to be “familiar with, and follow the most recent applicable regulations and rules” at Guantánamo, or Iraq, was to practice legal, but abusive interrogation techniques. The APA Task Force rendered such abuse within bounds of APA ethics. As Vanity Fair reports, “Psychologists weren't merely complicit in America's aggressive new interrogation regime. Psychologists, working in secrecy, had actually designed the tactics and trained interrogators in them while on contract to the C.I.A.”

The APA must immediately revise its ethics code and restore to its proper preeminence the psychologist’s obligation to “do no harm.” The Association would do well to take a page directly from the United Nations’ Principles of Medical Ethics which, in response to reports of health personnel facilitating torture, declared that it is against “medical ethics for health personnel…to apply their knowledge and skills in order to assist in the interrogation of prisoners and detainees in a manner that may adversely affect the physical or mental health or condition of such prisoners or detainees…”The APA must now rescind the infamous ethical clause, cited in the PENS Report, which protects psychologists who follow law and military regulation even when these conflict with their ethical responsibilities. In its place we must add a new ethical standard guaranteeing that psychologists uphold basic human rights even when law, orders, regulations, or research protocols condone or encourage their violation.Further, the APA leadership must hold itself to account. It makes no difference if they consciously knew that they were putting the foxes in charge of the hen house, or if they did so in an act of brazen disregard of the facts. Either way, the APA leadership has clearly contributed to what has become the greatest scandal in the history of the American Psychological Association.The APA has an enormous task ahead if we are to repair the damage we have done to our profession and to the field of psychology. If we do not act swiftly and comprehensively to restore our good name, American psychology is in danger of joining the disgraced healers of South Africa, Chile, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, where law led health professionals astray and only their adherence to the ethics of the healing profession brought them back.

Feminist Grannies 3

2007-08-12T16:25:00.000-07:00

From Kaethe:

Some additions to a definition of a feminist grandmother.
A feminist grandmother encourages and promotes positive support for the family from a variety of people and places and helps create an atmosphere of inclusivity.
A feminist grandmother welcomes her children getting help, especially in situations where she cannot provide it but wishes she could.

and more.

From Chris:

I think of this time in my life and my relationships more philosophically than intellectually. I am grateful for the opportunity to be in the lives of these beings and for all of us to have a new opportunity to grow together and benefit from each others knowledge and wisdom. We can all learn from each other. The constellation of relationships are dynamic with unexpected lovely outcomes. At this point, 8 years into this new role as grandmother I am traveling in a trusting, unplanned way, valuing the advancing of time, reflecting some on the past and seeing the young ones move into the stages I have already passed through. I know they are the very best parents for their own children. I don't have the component of care giving for my grandchildren and therefore I don't resonate with the first statement of how I might support the work/life balance of my adult children.

My grandchildren are such a gift to me. I often imagine what it would have been like to have had a loving grandparent. (I did not). And feel so fortunate to have the luxury of time, resources, health to be able to make them a priority in my life.

So readers how would you define a feminist grandmother?

Feminist Granny Stories

2007-08-06T17:17:00.001-07:00

Susan wrote:
What a lovely description of a family working together. I, too, am a feminist grannie. My mom both criticized my working and didn't help. "No grandchild of mine should be in day-care". So, I decided to do things very differently. When my daughter and her husband had baby # 1, I offered one day a week. It has become "Tuesdays with Nonna" and now with baby # 2 I have added a second day. They need a Nanny for other days, and have been very thoughtful to find young women who truly enrich the children's lives. I admire their ability to also take time for each other, something ,as a couple’s therapist, I know is so important.

I love these days and when I arrive and hear Jane screech "Nonna", that is true joy. My son-in-law's mom died of ovarian cancer when the first grandchild was three months old. She and I were good friends and I always feel that I am doing this for both of us...she would have been another great feminist grannie. I especially like your description of the shift from elders having the knowledge.

Often my husband (me too but much less often), my daughter’s step-father, makes a dinner for my daughter's family and he even delivers it!...and he is always buying things at the market that he knows they like. The six of us (grandparents, parents and children) went to a CUBS game together yesterday...what a riot to hear my granddaughter belt out "Take me out to the ball game"

Marian wrote:

The idea of the feminist grandmother is interesting. I don't know that I was ever much of a feminist with respect to a sense of my own ability to be right about very many things. The word feminist has, for some reason, suggested to me persons of great self-esteem. . So, I did a little bit of reading about feminism and the word feminist. In the case of the grandmother negotiating with the parents for care of a grandchild to reach the goals of rich and healthy lives, the word feminist suggests an intertwining of maternal love and commitment with issues of social justice.I would say that my first recollection as a grandmother was of being completely in love with that small person and knowing in my heart that I would do everything in my power to never ever let him down. Here is something that I wrote in my journal just after Emerson was born.

02/99, a boy emerges just before the tulips under the mountain.
I hold your face over the poppy's face
Your face orange your eyes filled with poppy
I hold you lightly under the wide sky

My own pattern as care-giver to my grandchildren is such that I feel like I am able to support my daughter Suzanne's future by helping her schedule work and personal time. With Emerson, my other daughter’s son, since he is in school with many options for care away from home, I feel like my support is to be me, showing up one afternoon a week. I am not in the habit of telling my children that I think my ideas are better than theirs. That would be an unpleasant care-giver situation. If I am asked not to give the children, say chocolate, or let them watch television, I can manage that. I have even been able to correct my own behavior when I realize that I am not modeling well. For instance, I buckle-up, which I had hitherto enjoyed seeing as an evil government plot impinging on my personal freedom. If I have a doubt about how to manage behaviors of one kind or another, I always like to discuss it with the parents as soon as possible. Sometimes this can be a more difficult negotiation than the dates and times. I want to be sure that my concern is not heard as a complaint or criticism. I am convinced that by giving unsolicited advice or taking responsibility out of some personal feelings of guilt, I limit my children's freedom to develop their own strengths and self confidence. I enjoy the 'team-work' aspect of working out problems; relationship, scheduling, financial, with my own children.I am willing to give lots of advice to my grandchildren though, and that's part of the fun....you know the best way to keep from getting the sand in your eyes or how the tree trunk is rough and the grass is soft.It's somewhat sad to contemplate the situation of a grandmother who is forced to take care of a grandchild by misfortune at the cost of her own health and well-being.

Calling that scenario to mind gives rise to all manner of unhappy narratives. I'm not sure what the current view of grandmother as caregiver is. When I was growing up, I know that there was a caricature of the grandmother as a permissive spoiler, who kept secrets from your mom and fed you too much candy. My own grandmother took care of the children while my mother and her sister went to work. We all lived in my grandmother's house while the men were away at war. I'm not certain that any of these women thought they had a choice about their roles. My mother-in-law raised one grandchild because the father and mother were not capable, financially or emotionally. Her motives were complicated and probably not connected to feminism as I understand your use of that word.So, thanks for giving me the opportunity to contemplate the idea of being a feminist grandmother. As you describe her she seems a worthy standard and certainly worth researching our evolution.

Feminist Granny -Renewal

2007-08-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

Feminist Granny

Ellen's voice:

The Teachers I have been writing about on this blog have led me to think about what in my life fills me with a positive sense of future. Here's what is at the top of this list. When my first grandchild was born and my daughter Sarah had to return to work when Cole was three months old, my husband Patrick and I decided to take on two days a week of childcare. We live nearby and we have flexible work schedules. My daughter’s husband Todd who works full-time would take the baby one day a week. He would pick up his fifth day of work on the weekend. Sarah would work three days a week and then take major responsibility for the baby on three days. The seventh day we would all pitch in depending on what was happening.

As we began to develop our childcare system I was thrown back to the days when my own children were young. My parents made it clear to me that they thought I should stay at home when my children were young. They lived far away from us and although they enjoyed the children they placed a priority on the freedom they had during those years. For my first child I stayed at home for nine months and then shared childcare with another young mother in order to to go back to school. When my second child was born and we returned from Lagos, Nigeria where I had worked full-time and could afford childcare I had no idea what I would do, but this was in 1974 and the women’s movement was alive and well. With eight other women I founded the Stockton Women’s Center which began with a childcare center. I felt supported by the community of families which held a feminist vision that included shared responsibilities in our households, cooperatives for food and childcare and a larger sense that work and home life were equally important. As some of us from the Women’s Center moved out into the wider community to find employment we were able to find shared jobs or jobs with flexible schedules. Our partners did the same. We didn’t have a great deal of money, but we felt rich in support and encouragement to develop what we believed were feminist households that supported women and men in fair and equitable partnerships and supported the nonsexist development of children as well.

But things have changed. We read a lot these days about the work-life divide and how feminism is dead. At the same time media stories are appearing about grandmothers who join with their adult children to develop more flexible childcare systems. The reasons given so far are that these grandmothers have more money and more time so this is what they are choosing to do. I have another idea about some of these grandmothers. Like me they were active feminists in the 60' and 70's and now are bringing what was then called visionary feminism to the families of their adult children. Here’s my definition of a feminist granny. Let me know if you are one or know about one.

A feminist grandmother is:

A woman who chooses to be a caregiver for her grandchildren as a way of increasing her children's options for a more balanced work and home life.

This is in comparison with grandmothers who make this choice for only economic reasons or their own desire to have a relationship with their grandchildren.

A woman who believes that her job as caregiver is not to give advice, but to support the knowledge of her children who she believes know best about their own children.

This is a shift form the belief that the elder generation holds more knowledge then the young. The idea here instead is that elders know about how to encourage the young to be themselves and to know what they know.

A woman who feels comfortable in roles and responsibilities that are negotiated in conversations with her children that lead to clear and workable agreements.

This puts the emphasis on an evolving relationship which is expected to change over time and takes into account the needs, wishes and knowledge of all three generations.

Let me know if these ideas resonate with you.

Stories from Katrina

2007-07-31T20:08:00.000-07:00

Preparing for the Future by Listening to Stories

Still following the lessons of the Teachers (see earlier blogs to know who I am referring to here) I wanted to do something in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita so I volunteered at the Red Cross as part of their mental health team. Once or twice a week, I went to the drop-in center and listened to people who had lost their homes in the hurricanes, to volunteers working the phone lines, and later to the volunteers returning from the field. These stories told me what had happened there, what people needed, and what I might do to help. I also learned from the volunteers returning from New Orleans and Mississippi how the work that they did changed their lives after they returned home.

One morning I was assigned to meet with people from New Orleans who were waiting to be interviewed by caseworkers to assign them relief benefits. I noticed an African-American man in his eighties, and I sat down next to him. I asked him what had happened to him during the hurricane. Somewhat reluctantly and so quietly that I had to lean close to hear him, he told me about the people that he had been living with in an assisted-living community in New Orleans. He said that before the hurricane, they had looked out for one another. The hardest part of the hurricane was that during the worst moments they couldn’t help each other. After many hours, they had been rescued by boat and dispersed to shelters where they lost touch with one another.

Now he was far away in Oakland, California. He worried about how his friends had fared. He was living with his sister, whom he hadn’t seen for years, and he felt uncomfortable in her large house. He believed that if he was able to do handyman work for her, he might have something to offer, but he wasn’t up to doing these jobs. He believed that he was a burden to her and that she resented his being there. He said that he had never wondered before where he belonged and who he could count on.
This man cried when he said that he might never return to his community and see his friends again. When I asked him if he might find people in Oakland who shared his experience, he sadly smiled at me and said that he hadn’t told anyone before about the people back home, and that speaking about them helped some. We sat together for a bit longer until he was called to the social services desk. The caseworker who interviewed him told me later that he seemed friendly and hopeful.

When I came into the center another day, I saw a young man with long dreadlocks sitting in the hall. He had come in early before the waiting room was open. I sat down next to him and asked him where he was from and how he had found his way to Oakland. He said that he had been on his own since he was thirteen. He had been living hand to mouth in New Orleans. After the hurricane, he had been sent to a shelter in Texas, but he knew that he had to get out of there. He wasn’t sure why he had come to Oakland, and he knew no one here. He said that he felt terribly depressed and that he didn’t know what to do or where to go. I noticed that he was carrying a Bible, and I asked him about it. He said that he had found it somewhere and that reading the Bible soothed him.

I went and brought another volunteer over, a woman who was a deacon at a local church. The three of us sat together and talked about the hurricane and how frightening it had been. This deacon said that her church might be able to help this young man, and she invited him to meet the pastor of her church that evening.

Later that day, I saw him reading his Bible. As I passed him, he nodded. I stopped to speak with him, and he said that he felt more cared about that day then he had in a long time. It shocked me to realize how little we had done for him and how much it had meant to him.

One afternoon, I came into the center and saw a group of women sitting
stoically and separately in two rows, waiting for help. They were silent and looked exhausted. One of the women spontaneously turned around to a woman behind her and asked her where she was from. Another woman moved over a seat to join them. In a short time, this group of African-American and Caucasian women, who had never met before and in other circumstances might never have spoken to one another, began to tell each what had happened to them and to their families during the hurricane. They leaned closer as they listened to each other’s stories, and their voices got louder and more animated. When one of them was called to meet with a caseworker, the group reluctantly let her go. In a short time, their stories connected them to one another. They gave each other advice and encouragement and even watched each other’s children.

After the first phase of the disaster was over, I was asked by the Red Cross mental health coordinator to interview volunteers who were returning from Louisiana and Mississippi. These volunteers were from Oakland, and some of them had never been to the south before, and some had not been through any previous disasters. They had little training, and they just went and did what they could. Their stories, one step removed from the victims of the hurricanes, gave me added perspective on how stories of action transform the helper and the helped.

An African-American director of a social service agency told me that she had responded to the disaster because she wanted to push herself beyond her comfort zone, even though she felt terrified before she left. She spent six days in the field in Mississippi after Hurricane Rita. At first her group lived in the basement of a Presbyterian Church. The conditions were poor but manageable. The hardest part was the cold at night, which affected her bursitis. After three nights, ten mental health workers were moved to a beauty salon two blocks away, which she said was a palace by comparison in that they had air mattresses, warm showers, and heat at night.
She said that two to three hundred people formed a line every day outside the relief center where she worked with other volunteers. The people in line had to be let into the center one by one to receive benefits. Her job was to act as a traffic cop, keeping people in line and directing them at the right time to the right person. She said that some people had lost everything, and still these people waiting on line for hours were warm and friendly. She said that even when she had to set limits, she could do it with humor. She teasingly told two ladies who kept trying to sneak ahead in line that she would be glad when she would be rid of them. They laughed together about their situation as she sent them back in line. She had many conversations on the fly, checking in with people who came back day after day. The people she spoke with told her how much they appreciated her concern for them and her willingness to ask about their situation. Sometimes she sat with people who were having a hard time emotionally. She listened to their stories and gave them support and asked them what they had done to survive the hurricane. Telling her about their survival had a calming effect.

Now back home, after facing the losses of others, she appreciates what she has. She is taking the possibility of an earthquake in Oakland more seriously, and she has made disaster preparations that she had been meaning to do for years. When she returned to her clinic, she told everyone about her experience. When one of her coworkers said that he would like to volunteer but that he couldn’t imagine working in such a situation, she told him about her anxiety before she left. She told him that she had always seen herself as an introvert and had had to push herself in order to go. She said that in the past, she would have been reluctant to encourage someone else to volunteer, but her experience made her more willing to challenge him.

Recently, when her husband was facing unemployment, she again felt confident rather than afraid and believed that he too would push through. She said, “The more work I do in the field, the less afraid I feel, and the more willing I am to challenge others to join me in stepping out of our comfort zones.”

Phillip, a middle-aged Caucasian computer engineer, spent thirteen days in the field. He thought that he would be working in a shelter, but he was sent to Dallas to set up a call center that handled payment problems for victims of the hurricanes. When his team arrived, they were met with six thousand callers waiting for payments. There were many problems with the software and the payment system. Field caseworkers had not been well trained in filling out the intake forms. Some of the forms that came through to the payment center were incorrect and had to be sent back, and many others were fraudulent and had to be refused. Moving the money to clients was difficult and frustrating. When Philip arrived, the call center had less then ten people working one shift a day. By the time he left, there were thirty people working around the clock, and money was being transferred to the people who needed it.

Phillip felt good about the work that he had done and the people that he had met. He continues to stay in touch with them. He feels that he is more alert in his own life and that he was fortunate to have gone and fortunate to have returned. Now that he is back home, he finds himself telling friends and co-workers the stories of his time in the field. He plans to volunteer on weekends, and he is ready to go again when there is another disaster.

Robert, a sixty-year-old African-American man, is a long-time activist. He has volunteered many times and gone to places far from his home. What impressed him most this time was how people different from one another came together and worked at their best. There were no leaders in the field, almost no training, and the group organized itself by rising to challenges as they came up. His team worked in the parking lot of a Southern Baptist Church that set up a mobile kitchen. In the first days after the hurricane, everyone, rich and poor, came for food. No one had food, heat, or electricity. People who had never come in contact with one another before the hurricane stood in line together. They asked each other about what had happened and how they were doing. Rather than waiting to be told what to do, the volunteers responded to whatever needed to be done. They worked as a team, trusting that if something needed to be done, someone would do it. Robert said that it is too bad that we don’t live this way when there is no disaster.

The water has receded, but the aftermath continues. The victims and helpers are dispersed, but few of the problems have abated and planning for future disasters is still barely underway. We can only hope that the stories of the people closest to these hurricanes won’t be lost, but that instead their stories will be gathered and provide us with the knowledge we will need to meet future disasters.

Survival Story from India

2007-07-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ellen's Voice

The story above is a survival story from India. It is part of a women's project which encourages women to benefit from the work of stories. As my book, Blowing on Embers, nears publication I am beginning to speak to the media about what I mean when I talk about the work of stories. So here's my current take on it. Disasters, public and private, make us directly aware of the uncertainty of life. In a crisis or during years of struggle we are flooded with emotions while what is required of us is to think clearly and to choose possible actions. We are caught in the tension between what we can't control and what with the help of others we can effect. The work of stories is to help us prepare for what may lie ahead by strenthening our survival narratives. We do this not only by listening to the stories of others, but by choosing threads from those stories that we can weave into stories of our own.

Angur's story above is a great example of a survival story as the work of stories in progress. I hope you know ofothers which you will send to me to post.

Racism and Human Rights Abuses Still Reign

2007-07-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

*"The White Tree: Old Hatred in the Deep South"*

This was sent to me by a reader. It offers us another opportunity to take action and refuse to be silent in the face of injustice.

During the past two years a saga has been unfolding in the small town of Jena, Louisiana that takes us back to an era that the United States would like to think has long gone by. An era marked, in this small community, by violent and grotesque hate crimes and inequality, to a time when Black Louisianans were taught to stay in their place or pay the consequences. Sadly it seems that time has passed by unnoticed in this rural southern town, which still clings to the "old" Southern way of life. Blacks and Whites do not socialize, and racism is regarded casually as a natural part of life. The story that proceeds is one that seems out of place in an era when we have a Black Democratic contender for the Oval Office. It is a sobering reminder that old ways run deep, and hate and fear do not fade away easily, especially in the Deep South. Unfair trials, intimidation and notions of White Supremacy still deeply affect people of color living in this sleepy Louisiana town, which has recently been rocked by international news coverage.
"The White Tree" On August 31 of 2006 a small group of Black students at Jena High School asked permission from their school board to sit under the schoolyard tree, dubbed the "White Tree". The White Tree was so named because of an unspoken rule which, since the schools inception, barred Black students from enjoying its shade. The school board told the kids they could sit anywhere they want. However, the next day when the students arrived to school the tree was adorned with three nooses, two of the nooses were black and one was gold-the school colors. To White residents the noose was dismissed as nothing more than a tasteless prank, but to the Black community it was a threat and a harkening back to the times of public lynching and burnings. The racial tension ran high between White and Black students of Jena High in the days that followed. The school board's decision to lessen the punishment of the boys involved in putting up the nooses to simple slap on the wrist- three days suspension instead of the recommended permanent expulsion, only exacerbated the tensions. The school board dismissed the hanging of the nooses as a harmless "prank", and the superintendent told the Chicago Tribune that "adolescents play pranks…I don't think it was a threat against anybody." The harmless "prank" was not taken so lightly by the black community of Jena. Perhaps it is because of Jena's not so "harmless" past. Jena's dark past is no secret, the racism is not veiled. If you search for"Jena Louisiana" on Google images, the first two pages contain photos of lynching, burnings, and Klansmen.On September 6th, Black students staged an impromptu sit in under the "White Tree" to protest the light punishment given to the students who hung the nooses. A school assembly was quickly convened. Surrounded by white police officers, the White District Attorney General, Reed Walters, warned the Black protesters that if they did not stop making a fuss over this "innocent prank…I can make your lives disappear with the stroke of my pen", implying the filing of maximum or death sentences against the Black students involved.The events that followed blatantly show the extreme hatred, fear and institutionalized racism that dogs citizens of color in Jena. About three months after the noose incident a Black student was assaulted by a group of White students as he entered an all-White party held at a locale called the Fair Barn. The victim was struck unaware in the face and then beaten with beer bottles and punches until adults intervened. There is no documentary evidence that any of the White students were ever charged.On December 4, 2006, a few days after this event, during lunch hour at school, the same boy that was beaten at the Fair Barn party was verbally assaulted by one of his attackers. The White boy used the N-word, and taunted the boy for getting his "ass-whipped" at the party over the weekend.The White boy was also close friends with the boys who hung the nooses. An altercation ensued, with the White boy reportedly being knocked to the floor by a group of six boys, although only three of the six boys charged were actually involved, and rendered unconscious. The victim, Justin Barker, was in the hospital for three hours before being released and attending a school ring ceremony that evening.The boys involved in the attack were arrested in under an hour and charged with aggravated assault and premeditated aggravated assault. Then, in an astonishing move, District Attorney Reed Walters, the same man who threatened to "wipe [their] lives out", upgraded the charges against the alleged attackers to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, charges that carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

On June 28th of 2007 Mychal Bell, the first boy to go to stand trial, was found guilty by an all-White jury and a White judge of second degree battery and conspiracy to commit second degree battery. All witnesses called were White.

Clare Bakota www.justdemocracyblog.orgGet Involved:Excellent Timeline of Events:http://friendsofjustice.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/responding_to_the_crisis_in_jena1.doc Sign this Online Petitionhttp://www.petitiononline.com/aZ51CqmR/petition.html The Jena 6 Defense Committee PO Box 2798, Jena, LA 71342 jena6defense@gmail.com
Friends of Justice 507 North Donley Avenue Tulia, TX 79088www.fojtulia.org
ACLU of Louisiana PO Box 56157 New Orleans, LA 70156 www.laaclu.org 417.350.0536.
BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/6685441.stm

2007-07-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

Reader's Comment-Getting out the word

2007-07-11T06:16:00.000-07:00

Syvlia Paull said...

good fight Ellen. You should submit this story to the Sicko community/URL. All it takes is one person with the courage and grit you have to change the world for the better.
7/10/07 7:35 P.M.

Will do Sylvia.
Ellen

Teachers show us how to stand up in opposition to injustice

2007-07-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

Reflection on Teachers #3

As we continued to try to find a way to keep my husband Ron at home on a ventilator complex legal battles began. A friend introduced me to Bob Lubin an attorney who became our champion, pro bono, for four years. Working with our friends in the Pulleyblank Trust, we developed strategies for addressing the inequities in home care and raised money to keep Ron at home until our legal battles were won.

Ron wrote directly to Mr. Hewlettt and Mr. Packard, the founders of H-P. Neither responded. Through Ron’s human resources representative, Bob requested nursing care during working hours as a “work force accommodation for the handicapped,” a benefit written into the Disabilities Act. This was considered by H-P as an excessive accommodation, even though Ron was still an active member of his team at H-P Labs. H-P also briefly considered providing exceptional health benefits for Ron but decided against it. Ron had a final and unfriendly meeting with a corporate vice president. He was coldly rebuked for having gone over their heads and written directly to Hewlett and Packard. This was not the H-P way. H-P sided with Kaiser. Ron was told that in similar situations, it had been the spouse that provided care. They shut the door in his face. The image of H-P as a big family, loyal to their employees, headed by founders who cared, did not apply in this precedent-setting situation. It would cost the company too much money. Like most companies, H-P’s eye was on the bottom line.

We looked at the possibilities of Medi-Cal, Federal disability, or California state disability. None of them applied. Medi-Cal allowed recipients to keep their homes, but not have an income over $12,000 a year, a figure too low to pay the mortgage. Ron didn’t qualify for disability because he worked half time at home and therefore wasn’t considered disabled.

With Bob’s help, I took on the battle with Children’s Hospital at Stanford my employer who dropped my contract due to Ron's need for home care and Blue Cross my insurer which had been providing us with one shift of home care a day. After months of calls, letters, and meetings, Ron was awarded two hundred more days of care. It was worth every minute of anxiety it took to make the system provide what we deserved, but it was now clear that we would have to continue to fight for Ron’s care after those two hundred days were over.

We increased our fundraising efforts and sent letters asking for money to a wider circle of people. We raised money, but this also raised our anxiety. Ron and I were embarrassed about asking for money. My parents shared our discomfort and discouraged us from going ahead with a wider campaign. They gave us the money they could, but my mother was ill, and they had limited resources. They were unwilling to ask people they knew for money. They believed that such a request would be humiliating. Once again, we faced the question of our responsibility as a family. Ron had a catastrophic illness, and the medical establishment believed that putting him on a ventilator was a viable choice. We had chosen the ventilator, but we didn’t have the means to sustain him at home without the help of the wider community. We wondered what rules applied in this situation. Should we sell our house? Should I quit my job? Should the girls come home from college? Should we ask people of wealth to help us? Should Ron be institutionalized? Should he turn off the ventilator before he was ready? Everyone we knew, other than my parents, put out the word and asked friends and family to contribute to the Trust. People wanted to help and over the years we raised more than $100,000.

When there were only a few months left before we would lose the third shift of nursing and we were scrambling for money, Bob Lubin decided to sue Kaiser, Ron's health care provider who at the time were paying for two shifts of nursing a day. As an HMO, the Federal HMO Act regulated Kaiser. Unlike other laws, the HMO Act was clear. It stated that HMOs were required to provide medically necessary treatment without regard to time or cost. Kaiser doctors had prescribed twenty-four-hour skilled nursing care for Ron. How could they refuse to provide it? All the doctors involved agreed that home care was the treatment of choice. Due to Ron’s condition, he was at a high risk for pneumonia (the only two times he got pneumonia were when he was hospitalized). Hospitalization would put his life at risk. Kaiser argued that the benefit was twenty-four-hour hospitalization. Home care was only available as an alternative to hospitalization. If the family wanted the patient at home, it was up to the family to provide the additional eight hours of care.

In addition to the Federal HMO Act, there was a California law that stated that patients should be put in the least restrictive environments available. Clearly home care was less restrictive than hospitalization.
Bob filed a class action suit in federal court in California on March 20, 1990. On August 24, 1990, with Judge J. Vukasin Jr. presiding, the case was dismissed on the basis that Ron did not have a private right of action to enforce “the basic health services” provision of the federal HMO Act, and that only the federal government had that right. But the game was not over yet.

In Washington, a non-profit agency, the Center for Health Care Law, headed by Jim Murray and William Dombi, had been trying to get home care for other patients in other parts of the country. When they heard about our case, they offered to get involved. They recommended that Bob file a grievance with the federal government, and we ended up suing the government to force it to enforce its own regulations. The government finally agreed with us in March of 1992 and directed Kaiser and all other HMOs that they must provide twenty-four-hour skilled nursing care if that were medically necessary, regardless of cost. We had won the battle but not the war. The federal department that managed the HMOs now had to make Kaiser comply, but in Ron’s case they agreed with Kaiser’s claim that the original prescription was not for home care, but for twenty-four-hour skilled nursing care, and that Kaiser had been willing to offer that in an institutional setting.

As is often the case, each legal decision only makes a small change. It was gratifying to know that, due to our suit, federally funded HMOs were fully informed of their responsibility for home care under the law. Kaiser responded by setting up a home care assessment system that included the option of twenty-four-hour home care. It was devastating, however, to realize that this decision might not help Ron.

Now that we had the federal regulation to stand on, we filed a new suit against Kaiser in California state court on May 4, 1992. The doctor who had written the original prescription for twenty-four-hour care was no longer working for Kaiser. We tracked her down in Seattle. She wouldn’t testify for us, but she would write an affidavit stating that her prescription had been for twenty-four-hour home care. We were back in court with a much stronger case, but the legal process was not fast enough. The progression of Ron’s disease would not wait for the legal system to respond.

While we were fighting Kaiser in court, Ron began to think about turning off his ventilator. His health was deteriorating fast, and only I and one other nurse could understand him. In September of 1992, with me as translator, he began a series of conversations with family, friends, and doctors that led to turning off his ventilator on January 13, 1993.

Months after Ron’s death, Kaiser offered to settle with us out of court. Bob Lubin wanted me to continue the battle in court, but I was exhausted, and I decided to stop the fight and get on with my life. Kaiser paid us $30,000, which I split with Bob. The amount did not come close to our expenses, but it was an acknowledgement of their responsibility.

I have been told that the case has had lasting effects on Kaiser’s care of patients with catastrophic illness. It set a precedent in federal court on which other cases have been built. Over the years, I have worked with many families fighting for health care. I coach them in how to stand up for their rights. When I think about those hard years, it is our fight with Kaiser that I am most proud of. It is Bob Lubin and the members of the Pulleyblank Trust to whom I am most grateful. The disease won out, but our efforts kept Ron at home until the end and changed home health care for many others.

The Teachers I interviewed took me back to my ability to act even when I feel that all the odds are against me. Teachers come into our lives in many ways. Sometimes we read about a famous person who inspires us. Or perhaps a circumstance in our life pulls us out of ourselves toward others with a similar plight. Listening to these stories of resistance is only the first step however. We have to use those stories for building our own platforms for action.

Take to the Streets - Lessons from Teachers

2007-06-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

Reflection on Teachers 2

Michael Moore's new film "Sicko" will hopefully bring to a wide audience the inequities in our healthcare system, but it will take all of us to change this unfair system. The Teachers with whom I spoke and who I've been writing abouton this blog encourage us to take action. One of the purposes of listening to their stories and the stories of others is to jog our memories so that we remember our stories and revisit them with a new perspective that leads to hope and action.

The Teachers’ stories reminded me of the time when I “took to the streets” to get adequate care for Ron my first husband who had ALS and lived on a ventilator for seven years.. At the time I was not aware of my ability to stay focused and refuse to be set aside by a medical establishment and the insurance companies that were not interested in our dilemmas. As I come back to this story I realize that during that time I learned in my bones the connection between the personal and the political—not a theoretical understanding but a connection made because it was directly connected to Ron’s life and death and to the life and death of many others. Let me tell you the story.

As we attempted to keep up with the progression of Ron’s illness, manage his nursing care and the quality of his life while balancing Ron’s needs with the needs of the rest of the family, we had a serious financial problem. Ron was told by his employer, Hewlett-Packard (H-P), that after being at home on the ventilator for one year, he had used up his lifetime maximum medical coverage on their private medical insurance plan. As an employee, he had an option to enroll in another plan, but they were doubtful that anyone would provide him with home care.

We had to shift all our attention to the economic demands of Ron’s care. In a panic, I asked the group of friends with whom I had been meeting to help me figure out what medical insurance options were available for Ron. The group responded by sending a letter out to fifty people who knew us and were concerned for our well-being. The letter included a report about Ron’s health care options.

With this letter, the Pulleyblank Trust was born. Its purpose was to keep Ron at home by getting him medical insurance that covered his twenty-four-hour nursing care. If that effort was unsuccessful, the Trust was committed to raising money to keep him at home. The Trust started out with twenty friends and family members. By the time Ron died, more than five hundred people had participated in the Pulleyblank Trust.

We decided that Ron’s best insurance option was coverage by Kaiser, a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). As an H-P employee, Ron had the right to transfer to the Kaiser plan. Kaiser’s written policy was unclear about how many hours of home care they would provide, but it was the best coverage available to him. Under Home Health Services it read: For members without any Medicare benefits, skilled nursing services on a part-time or a part-time intermittent basis as prescribed by a Plan physician are provided without charge in the service area.

Soon after we signed up with Kaiser, I called the home care supervisor and asked her how we should we proceed. She called me back after a few days.
“Mrs. Pulleyblank,” she said, “your husband will have to come into the hospital so that we can assess his situation.”
“But that’s impossible,” I responded. “Do you realize that he has been living at home on a ventilator for a year? Putting him back in the hospital doesn’t make sense. Why can’t someone come out here and do the assessment?”
“Mrs. Pulleyblank, the rules state that home care is only available for patients who are currently hospitalized. If your husband is to be considered for home care, he must be in the hospital. If he stays at home, he will not be eligible.”

I was desperate. Using my most professional tone I explained, “Ron hasn’t had an infection this entire year. If you insist that he come into the hospital, you place him at a risk for pneumonia. You are suggesting that a man with a serious illness like ALS, who is doing well at home, should be put in the hospital to assess if home care is appropriate, and you may kill him in the process.”

I was sounding less professional by the minute. The home care coordinator didn’t notice one way or another.

“Mrs. Pulleyblank, those are our rules. Will Mr. Pulleyblank be coming into the hospital?

This was another one of those moments. A decision had to made, no
reasonable choices were available, and so I just proceeded.
“He will be there on January first.”

When Ron went into Kaiser Hospital, I went with him, determined not to leave his side. He caught pneumonia within twenty-four hours. As we had predicted, the change of environment and the many strains of bacteria in the hospital were too much for his fragile system. He went from living on life support at home to almost dying in the hospital because of an administrative rule. In addition to pneumonia, his life was at risk because the nurses on the ICU had difficulty monitoring him on the ventilator. He had no way to signal when he needed them. More than once, I entered his room to find the alarms on his ventilator ringing and no one responding. I tried to keep calm and explain to the staff what Ron needed. They only half-listened to me.

One night during the first week, when I had stepped out of the room for a few minutes, a nurse turned Ron’s ventilator off by mistake and left the room without turning it back on. He would have died if I hadn’t returned when I did. That night I lost control. I started screaming and crying.

Someone rushed in to see what was the matter and led me into the office of the head nurse. I couldn’t stop shouting. I was hysterical. I told her about all the things that had happened. I was shaking with exhaustion and fear. She sat with me until I calmed down, listened to my complaints, and said that she would look into the matter. From then on, Ron got excellent care. It took me almost losing my mind, but we were finally taken seriously. It was clear that in what we were facing, rational discourse would not do. I hated getting upset, but it gave me courage to speak out in a much louder voice as we continued to face insurance obstacles
Ron’s infection was cured, and the wheels of Kaiser’s home care committee turned.

After three weeks, Ron was allowed to return home with a prescription for twenty-four-hour nursing care. Kaiser said that they would provide twenty-four-hour care if Ron chose to stay in the hospital, but because we were choosing home care, they would provide only two shifts of nursing or sixteen hours per day. We were responsible for the third shift. Luckily, I had Blue Cross insurance through my employment at Children’s Hospital at Stanford. My policy would cover the third shift for 200 days a year. We turned to the Trust and our families to find the added money that we would need for the other 165 days. We again had a plan in place, but it wouldn’t last long.

Each time that we developed a working home health-care plan, I believed that this new system would last. I craved stability in this time of chaos, and I felt that if I did things “right” I could stabilize my life and the life of our family. Yet our plan kept unraveling.

Ron and I had believed that the doctors, insurance companies, and employers would help us in a medical crisis. The truth was that the representatives of these institutions looked to me to solve our problems. Each group had their set of priorities. None of them saw Ron’s need for home care as their responsibility. In order for Ron to live at home, we had to alter our perception of the problem, to see home care for a catastrophic illness as not our personal problem but a societal problem. Ron’s health needs raised the larger question of who was responsible for care if the medical choice to live on a ventilator was offered to someone with a terminal illness. If as a society we decided that this was the “right” choice to offer patients, didn’t that imply that adequate care had to go along with it?

But no one addressed this question. Instead, physicians, nurses, medical insurers, and employers made independent decisions that left people like Ron alive but without adequate care. This left me with few choices and a confused sense of responsibility.

Keep Posted. More about this to come. If any of you are currently fighting for health care let us know your stories.

Praise for Blowing on Embers

2007-06-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

Rising from the embers by Peter Davidson

Blowing on Embers: Stories for Hard Times

To be released September 2007 by Llumina Press

PreOrder now at:

http://www.llumina.com/store/preorderembers.htm

Advance praise for Blowing on Embers.

This book deepens our understanding of the creative power of narrative for finding a way through problems and even catastrophes. Psychotherapists will strengthen their practice by reading it, but because it is so rich in narrative and so deftly unencumbered with jargon, it is a book to pass on to friends or clients going through difficult periods -- or simply to read and hold in memory as a resource for the unknown future."

Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life and Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery.

Bravo! Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey has written a hard-to-put-down book about how to live with the hard times. She takes us along on her own journey to see beyond the dread of ambiguity and guilt surrounding illness and suffering, teaching us through mesmerizing narratives of profoundly interesting women about how to live well despite troubles. As if we were sitting around a campfire, listening to others tell their stories, we learn that indeed, happiness exists side-by-side with pain.

Pauline Boss, author of Loss, Trauma and Resilience, and Ambiguous Loss.

Through her stories, Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey reveals how wisdom is dispersed throughout a network of people— whether one receives,, learns from, or gives to the other. She shows convincingly how a person’s lifetime accrues all the world’s knowledge if there is a listener nearby who asks good questions while blowing on embers.

James Griffith, M.D. author with Griffith ME: The Body Speaks: Therapeutic Dialogues for Mind/Body Problems and Engaging the Sacred in Psychotherapy: How to Talk with People about their Spiritual Lives.

This is a wonderful and inspirational book. Affirming the resilience of the human spirit, Pulleyblank Coffey is masterful in describing and bringing forward the essence of the detailed stories of remarkable women coming through some of life’s greatest challenges. The narratives highlight a core principle that growth through the hardest of times is an ongoing process in connection with others. It is a terrific resource for all of us – women, men, lay persons, and professionals.

John S. Rolland, M.D. author of Families, Illness, & Disability: An Integrative Treatment Model.

The voices in Blowing on Embers are those of women who have faced enormous adversities and have found ways of living with them. Their voices are brought together here so that we can learn from them how to live with loss, and grief, and hope for the future.

Joan Berzoff, co-editor of Living with Dying: Handbook for End-of-Life Care Practitioners.

2007-06-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

Reflection on Teachers -Moving to Action

2007-06-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Ellen’s voice

From childhood, Kaethe and Suraya knew that they were part of a larger world filled with danger and injustice. As children, they learned that they had responsibility for others while they listened to their parents talk about less fortunate people in their midst. As adults, for different reasons, Kaethe and Suraya live under duress. Illness hangs over Kaethe’s life and makes it necessary for her to manage daily pain. Suraya’s continued advocacy for women in Afghanistan keeps her in danger. These obstacles deter neither woman. Instead, buoyed by their commitments to service, they entreat us to join them by writing, speaking, and teaching

I think now about Kaethe’s notion of how a small action matters. Don’t most of us feel that in difficult situations, whatever we do just isn’t enough? Whatever I did for Ron did not seem to soothe his pain or mine. If I had thought that each small act of kindness mattered, I might have felt some relief. If I had connected our suffering to the suffering of others, I might have felt less isolated. I hope that when I find myself spiraling into pain or grief in the future, I will remember Kaethe—on the radiation table but focusing on Johanna in South Africa—and I will connect with others beyond myself.

Suraya’s story reminded me of the young Kosovars that I interviewed after the war. Like Suraya, they held strong beliefs that had sustained them during their worst times. They told me that, in moments of crisis, they thought about those who had died for them, those who were still alive, and those who were still to come. They held to the conviction that no matter how many people died, as long as one Kosovar survived, they would endure as a people. In moments of terror, this belief fueled their courage to defy oppression.

The Teachers stay centered by not forgetting what they believe. They stretch beyond their personal circumstances to join with others. In moments of distress, they find threads of meaning and connection. They tell us to hold onto the values that we care about most, to place these values at the center of our concern for others, to resist our sense of vulnerability, and to speak out against injustice. They develop ways of thinking that lead them to action. They choose to work on behalf of others.

Teachers come into our lives in many ways. Sometimes we read about a famous person who inspires us. Or perhaps a circumstance in our life pulls us out of ourselves toward others with a similar plight. Kaethe’s and Suraya’s stories remind us to keep our eyes out for Teachers who are ahead of us, but who are willing to help us reach out beyond our own suffering. Kaethe and Suraya tell us not to allow our fears to deter us.

Take a moment. Think of someone you know or someone you’ve read about whose life or work influences you. Let us know what lessons move you toward action even when you are afraid or hampered in your own life. It is in these reflections that we move into new survival stories.

Keep Posted – My book “Blowing On Embers” will be released at the end of August.

Feminism could rise again if we remember

2007-06-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

Suraya #5

Suraya’s description of her work with women struck close to home. In the 1970s, I was part of a group of women who started the Women’s Center in Stockton, California. Those of us known as the “founding mothers” were struggling with how to make a difference in our community, how to develop our own professional lives, and how to care for our children. Our struggles paled, however, in the face of the struggles of other women in our community who had been raped and had no protection.

The Stockton Women’s Center began the first rape crisis center in the area. The common belief in the United States at that time was not much different from what people believed in Afghanistan. Rape was the fault of the victim—“she probably asked for it.” Women who were raped were interrogated and humiliated by the police. The legal system was ineffective in prosecuting rapists, many of whom were not charged, and most of those who were charged were acquitted or got off with light sentences.

The Stockton Rape Crisis Center managed to develop a relationship with the police, to train them in interviewing women respectfully and in collecting evidence that made it more likely that rapists would be prosecuted and convicted. The situation in Kabul that Suraya described was more brutal, but in that moment I felt my own vulnerability and felt connected to all women who live in jeopardy.

If women can band together and help each other under such difficult circumstances, turning to one another in more fortunate circumstances should be easier. I worry that in the United States we have lost sight of one another as women, that the women’s movement has been co-opted by a media that once reviled it and now portrays it as having no purpose because women’s rights are already guaranteed. Many women still live in poverty, and I fear that unless we continue to speak with one voice, we will again find ourselves without the rights that we take for granted. I worry that our individual concerns and ambitions have drowned out what we know about our need for shared action.

Even today, after Suraya has removed her burka with the fall of the Taliban, she struggles to keep the fight for women alive. Foreign journalists interview her and tell their stories in the west, but these interviews hardly reverberate in Afghanistan. Her group does not have the money to continue publishing their magazine. Suraya ran as a candidate for the Loja Jirga, the new parliament in Afghanistan. According to her sister-in-law, she received a majority of votes, and yet somehow these votes were lost, and she was not seated in the parliament. Suraya continues her work.

Matter-of-factly, Suraya said that her life is still in danger every day. I asked her, if she was afraid.
“No,” she said, laughing. “For a long time after being shot, I was very ill, and then when I recovered I just went back to work. I had no time to be afraid. If I were afraid, I couldn’t stay in Kabul and continue our work.

“Once I began this work, I knew that I would have to live with danger. I accept that and somehow I believe that even with these dangers I can make it. When a person chooses her way and goes this way, then she doesn’t have to be afraid. Someone can hurt you or cause you pain, but he cannot force you to think differently. I follow what my mind tells me to do.”

Suraya’s story reminds me that, even with loss, I live with good fortune. I am free to travel, to work, and to speak my mind without fear for my life. She helps me widen my frame so that I see more clearly how the day-to-day struggles of my life, even during the most difficult times, do not compare with those of others who live in starvation and political oppression. Her story calls me to reach beyond my comfortable life to work to help others. It reminds me that it is easy to look away from others’ pain when there seems to be nothing that I can do to relieve so much misery. Like Kaethe (see her story earlier on the blog) Suraya focuses on the work of each day. She never gives up, and she keeps moving in the direction of justice. Her story compels me and hopefully you to do the same.

Teaching Resistance in Kabul

2007-06-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

In her burka, Suraya takes to the streets

Suraya #4

Suraya continued her fight for women even as the political circumstances made it more difficult for her. When the Russians first took over in Afghanistan they released all the political prisoners and for a short time Suraya was free to continue her work, but in 1988, the Russians left Afghanistan. By 1992, the Mujarhadeen, warlords from the north of Afghanistan, were ruling the country. On the first day of the Mujarhadeen rule, they revoked the freedoms that were available to women under the Russians.

Although women were not yet required to wear burkas in the streets, Suraya decided to return to wearing her burka because she believed that it helped her to continue her work and allowed her to travel. Women mostly stayed at home. In the streets, where rape, kidnapping, and killing of women were commonplace, the burka sometimes protected them.
In the mid-1995s, the Taliban replaced the Mujarhadeen. The western powers and Afghanistan’s neighbors initially supported these strict Muslims. The Taliban forbade all women to be out on the street without their burkas.

In a moment of danger, Suraya decided that she would have to change her name and become someone else. She told no one about this, and her family thought that she had been killed. She chose a foreign name. When the Taliban heard about a woman by the name Parlika organizing other women and asked about this woman, they were told she was not an Afghani woman.

Suraya laughed as she remembered walking in the street, completely covered in her burka, when a man stopped and asked if she knew a woman with the name Parlika. He said that he had a letter and some amount of money for this woman from out of the country. Suraya told him that she didn’t know this woman, but she thought that she must be a foreigner because her name was not an Afghani name.

Suraya had to allow her family to believe that she had been killed in order to protect herself and them. Her choice of anonymity ran up against her strong family ties. Suraya said that at the time, she could think of no other way to continue her work. She stopped telling her story for a brief moment and then, as she had done for many years, she put her attention back on her underground work with women.

Before the Taliban, the women had gone to the cemetery daily to remember their relatives. The Taliban allowed the women to go to the cemetery only on Wednesdays. Suraya and her group of women decided to use this time to find ways to organize women to help each other.
At the cemetery, they created a ritual of hope. Suraya began by bringing eleven walnuts, giving one nut to each of eleven women she met there. She said that the nut would bring them good fortune, and if they accepted the nut, they were asked to agree to come to the cemetery for seven weeks. They were asked to bring eleven nuts each time to give to eleven other women. Every week more and more women came to the cemetery. The Taliban tried to get the women to go away, but they kept coming.

The women formed groups around each eleven nuts, bringing food to share with one another. They began to talk about their dreams for the future and to tell stories about what was happening in their families. Their conversations changed over time, and they spoke with each other about what to do if they were raped or forced into marriage.

Stories poured out—somebody had been raped, someone had been tortured. Under their burkas, no one’s face was seen and no one’s name was spoken, providing the women with the anonymity they needed in order to speak freely. Someone would start, ‘I know of a woman who…’ and a terrible story would follow, and then someone else would tell another story.

The women’s secret protest expanded to Thursdays, when some of the women got together at one woman’s house to make a special dessert. These women would carry the dessert and the stories house-to-house.
Some of the worst stories were the forced marriages of very young girls, fourteen years old. Before the Mujarhadeen, a woman could meet the man she was arranged to marry. Arranged marriages usually went well because similar people were brought together, such as educated women and men who were introduced at the request of their parents. Under the Taliban, arranged marriages became horrible. Women were forbidden education, and young girls were often taken far away from their families by old men who treated them like slaves.

Suraya said, “With all the stories, we raised the consciousness of the women and their expectations and their hopes, but the stories of rapes were almost unbearable. After rape, many of the women committed suicide. Sometimes there would be gang rapes. Men would just break into a house and rape all the women in the house. We were told about a girl aged fourteen, who was raped by seven men until she died. When women are raped, if they are not killed in the rape, they are sometimes shot by family members. When they aren’t killed, they are kicked out of the community. They become nothing in the eyes of others. These women need someone to treat their wounds and to help them to identify the people who are guilty. They are not the guilty ones.”

During this Taliban period, girls’ schools were closed. With four other women, Suraya created a core of teachers for an underground school. Despite the risks, these women had to do something to educate girls or there would be an entire generation of uneducated Afghani women. Each of the first group of women went to talk to three or four other women and encouraged them to form a group of teachers. Each small group supported one another in becoming teachers for five to seven students.

The underground groups organized all over Kabul. Sometimes these groups did more than educate girls, helping women leave the country or escape from forced marriages. The brothers and father of a woman would choose a husband for her and then there would be a month before the marriage. The group would prepare the woman to escape the night before the wedding using their own money to help her get away. If she were caught, her own family would kill her, so how she escaped was very important.

Suraya searched for money to pay for the teachers and other needs of the women’s project. Women got money from their husbands if they were sympathetic, and women who had money gave money. The women also developed a business weaving rugs that supported the effort. Some of the money they collected went to families whose houses had been burned when the Taliban suspected them of illegal political activities. For security reasons, most of the women did not know the others’ names.

The women’s burkas served as effective disguises as they moved from city to city. They started more underground schools and enlisted others in the movement. Although the Taliban tried to find and stop them, word spread and more and more people helped.

The Variable Tales of Life

2007-05-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

On May 22nd the NYTimes printed an article in the Science Section called "This is Your Life (And How You live It). You can go to www.NYTimes.Com and search the archives to read this piece or email me at Ellen@Berkeleyfamilytherapy.com and I will send a copy of it to you. The article describest how from an individual perspective life narratives are central to how we live our lives. This week they printed a letter (see below) that includes my reflection on these ideas. Good to think that ideas about stories and their central significance to us and our world are coming forth in the popular media. To my mind they missed the key notion of narratives that they are communal in nature and individuals have only a small part in constructing them. Please send me your comments.

Letter to the Editor
NY Times Science Section
Published: May 29, 2007
The Variable Tales of Life
To the Editor:
Re “This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It)” (May 22): This otherwise fine article leaves out an important piece of the narrative puzzle. Our stories are not always composed by us, but come to us in powerful ways from others. If, as children, family members describe us in a particular way, these family stories often remain the same no matter how we change. What others believe about us, what we learn in school, in the media and from the reactions of strangers, define our stories.
In searching for alternative narratives about ourselves, we are often drawn to stories about others. Listening to these stories may offer us new possibilities, but if our new life stories are to fully emerge, we must also challenge the underlying myths and prejudices that limit us.
Ellen Pulleyblank CoffeyBerkeley, Calif.

More Teachings From Kabul

2007-05-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Suraya #3

Living with danger

Suraya moved quickly from her personal story back to her political story. It is a story of chaos, terror, and instability. I had a difficult time following the timeline of political changes, let alone grasping the complexity and disorder of life for Suraya during these years.

From her perspective, in the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a tension in the Afghani government between the royalists and those trying to create a republic based on democratic principles. In one way or another, extremists took over and pushed the government toward chaos and repression. In-fighting among groups always led to instability and disruption of the lives of the people, with devastating effects on Suraya and her fledgling women’s movement.

From the time she began her struggle for Afghani women, Suraya knew that her life was in danger. In 1978, during one of the periods of warlord extremism, she was arrested. At first, government officials came to her house and said that she must not go out, but that they wouldn’t arrest her if she stayed in her house. Two days later, while the men in her family were sleeping downstairs, women police officers came upstairs and took her away to jail.

For ten days, her jailers tortured and beat her. They used electric shock to try to get her to tell them the names of people who were against the government. After she told me this, Suraya stopped talking for a moment. She had me feel the large growth on her scalp that still remains from the abuse she suffered in prison. Like Kaethe, she knew not to give any names. Instead, she became angry and thought that their treatment of her was an example of how horribly they would treat others. She believed that it would be better to let them kill her than for her to speak about her friends. She didn’t see her torturers as powerful but as pathetic in their need to hurt her.

After one of these torture sessions, Suraya was carried back to her cell with her entire body bruised. Soon after, she was unexpectedly sent home, only to be picked up again and brought to another jail two days later. The torture began again.

In this second jail, Suraya was kept with a small group of women. Every day they believed that this was the day that they would be killed. Still, they laughed and talked, because as Suraya said, “That is our way.” But there were moments when terror crept in.

Suraya said, “They put us in a room with nothing in it. Although we had one another, we were very sad and sometimes afraid. The six women with whom I was closest were young—one was just twenty, one had just been married, and one had just given birth and had been nursing her baby when she was taken to prison. Her milk was flowing, yet the authorities separated her from her infant. Another woman was a young doctor who had been taken away from her clinic.”

Suraya stopped her description of the jail for a moment and said, “I want to tell you the names of all the women in the cell. You must write them down. They must not be forgotten.”

As she listed the women, I carefully spelled the women’s names. They were: Sinega, the youngest; Solela with two children at home; Zahera with an infant at home; Alema three days after her wedding; Fazala, a young student; and Shala, a physician.

Suraya went on, “I tried to encourage them and to tell then that we were fighters for women, but they were so worried about their children. They kept asking me, ‘What will happen to our children?’ I could only tell them that what we were doing was for our children.”

Suraya’s belief that they were acting for others was so strong that the women listened to her. Her words made them feel calmer and more connected to one another, to the women in the streets, and to Afghani women not yet born. Suraya was able to keep clear about this commitment, even as she was tortured. She was taken away many times and brought back to the room bloody and unable to walk. The women would care for her, and she would encourage them. Her imprisonment lasted for eighteen months. She said that she never forgot that her suffering was for the suffering of others.

From Kabul: The making of a women's activist

2007-05-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

Suraya #2

Suraya wanted to continue telling me about her political work, but I asked her if she would tell me first about her life as a child. She told me her family story.

A traditional Muslim household with dreams of democracy

Suraya lives in Kabul with her father, who is eighty-six years old. He had lived with Suraya’s mother for many years, but her mother died fourteen years ago. Now, Suraya is her father’s main caretaker. When she travels she knows that neighbors and friends will be available if her father, who tends for himself, needs any help. While Suraya stayed in Kabul, her three brothers went to live and be educated abroad. Her youngest brother died of cancer and this brought much sadness to her family.

In telling me about her brothers, Suraya detailed their educational achievements, letting me know that each one had earned a Ph.D. She told me that she had a master’s degree in international economics. Her sister-in-law, our translator, added that she had master’s degree also and that her son is becoming a doctor. She said that he had called her earlier in the day to tell her that he had just received his white coat. Suraya wanted me to know that her family was committed to education not only for their sons, but also for their daughters. This attitude is far from universal in Afghanistan.

Suraya was born in 1944 in a small village, Kamari, outside of Kabul. Her upper-middle-class family was well respected in the community and lived in a multi-generational compound that had not been modernized. Her parents had four children—three boys and Suraya. Her mother was not educated and lived a traditional Muslim woman’s life of praying and caring for the family.

Traditional in some ways, her family was in opposition to the monarchy that ruled the country when Suraya was born, and they were active politically in pushing for democracy. As in Kaethe’s family (see earlier blogs about Kaethe), Suraya’s family had a political consciousness that influenced her view of her role in the world. Suraya’s parents believed that no one could be complete without an education and that without an educated population, no country could become a democracy. Although most Afghani girls and women didn’t go to school, Suraya’s parents placed a great value on education for her.

Suraya said, “My mother had a modern view of women. When I was a small girl, I watched her worry about the lives of the other women in our village. She always asked questions about why a girl could not go to school or why a woman should not be able to be out in the village. She wondered why in a poor family that needed a better life, the woman were forced to stay at home and were not allowed to work. She also was unhappy because our village had no school for girls.

“My father supported my mother in these ideas. He knew that she had
longed to be an educated woman, but there was no choice in her time. She wanted to be sure that I wasn’t hampered in the same way. My older brothers and other relatives shared this view of education for me and for my girl cousins. Even my mother’s mother supported the decision for me to leave home to go to Kabul for high school and then to university there, since there was no adequate schooling for girls in our village.”

I (Ellen) had grown up in a family where there was no doubt that I would go to university. I understood the power of these expectations shared by families all over the world. It was hard to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in a situation in which most girls did not expect to go to school. Suraya draws much of her determination from the educational legacy of her family.

Suraya’s family decided to move to Kabul so that their children could continue their education. Although Kabul was not far away from her village, life there was remarkably different. Suraya’s view of her childhood was that it was secure and supportive with few obstacles. She had always known that she would be able to continue her studies and go to university. It was only when she arrived in Kabul that she heard many stories of what happened to women in other families who were made to marry or had been forbidden to study.

Early in her university studies, Suraya began to think about women’s rights. She realized that her life had been an exception, and that many women in Afghanistan didn’t have any possibility of freedom. She saw that women as individuals couldn’t make changes in their lives, and that the only possibility for women was for them to work together for their rights.

When Suraya decided that she would fight for the rights of women, she had to consider whether she could both do this work and be a wife and mother. She came to the conclusion that in Afghanistan it would be impossible for her to do both. She feared that if she married, her husband might forbid her to work or that her concern for the well being of her children might block her ability to take risks and stay focused. She also worried that she would want to leave Kabul to go and live in the West, as many others had done. Not fully realizing just how dangerous her life would be, she decided that she had to be on her own. So as a young woman, she committed herself to her work over everything else in her life. This focus would be essential when she faced jail and torture.

Keep reading. More about Suraya to come. Send comments and I will post your stories here.

A Teacher From Afghanistan

2007-05-15T14:42:00.000-07:00

Suraya—a woman who foments revolution from underneath her burka

Suraya showed up in my life in the most unexpected way. I was at lunch with a colleague who told me about a woman she was hosting from Kabul, Afghanistan. The woman, Suraya, was the Director of the All Afghani Women’s Union (AAWU) and was on her way to speak at the UN on International Women’s Day about the plight of Afghani women. I felt my excitement rise, and I asked my colleague if there was any way that I could meet Suraya and interview her. My colleague said that with Suraya’s hectic schedule, it was unlikely that she could fit me in, but she would mention the possibility to her. When Suraya’s sister-in-law offered to be our translator, Suraya found a time when we could meet. She and her sister-in-law came to my house for the interview after she returned from New York.

In the midst of the excitement in New York, Suraya fell ill with a heart ailment and had to be rushed to the hospital. She made it to her speech at the UN, but she was still not well. The day I met her she looked pale; a middle-aged, heavy-set woman, dressed in a simple dark skirt and a white blouse wearing a head scarf, which she removed when she came into the house. Her dark hair was pulled up and back and she wore no makeup. We greeted each other, and I realized that Suraya understood English, but was too shy to speak it. She was interested to see my house, so I showed her around and then invited her and her sister-in-law to sit in the living room while I went into the kitchen to fix us some tea.

Suraya had been interviewed many times before, and she was at ease with the prospect of telling me about her life and her work. I was on edge. Would I be able to capture Suraya’s story through a translator? We had such a short time. Could I bridge our cultural divide and make meaning of her experience?

As the tea brewed, I again took myself back to Kosova as I had with Florence (see earlier blog). I remembered a visit I had made to a small village in Kosova. I went there with the Kosovar mental health team to speak with a poor rural family about their losses during the war. Before we were allowed to begin the interview through a translator, the man of the house interrogated me. Did I know that the women in his family were not allowed to go out on their own? Did I understand that it was he who made the decisions in this household? He said that he knew things were different in my country and that before he would allow me to speak with his family, he had to be certain that I respected his culture. I told him that I knew that things were different in Kosova and that I had come to the family to hear about their experiences during the war, their losses, and what had kept them strong. I told him I believed that I knew something about loss and that I could also learn more from listening to his story. By reaching out to him, I had made a bridge. He relaxed, and we went on with the family interview.

Carrying a tray of tea, I went back into the living room to join Suraya and her sister-in-law. I felt more ready for my interview with Suraya. I was determined to be open to our differences and to search for moments when we might meet in mutual understanding. I already knew that she was a Teacher and that I was there to learn.

Suraya began our interview by telling me about her work. She showed me the latest edition of the magazine put out by the All Afghani Women’s Union and told me something of their recent history. On March 8th 2002, the AAWU celebrated International Women’s Day. On that same day, the AAWU issued the first edition of their magazine, Women Shout. The last time they had been able to celebrate International Women’s Day was in 1991. The Taliban had silenced them for ten years.

On November 16, 2001, when the Taliban were routed from Afghanistan, the AAWU workers decided that they would gather a large group of women in front of the UN offices in Kabul. Suraya knew that many women wanted to meet in the main square to celebrate the downfall of the Taliban. The government said that she could only march with fifty women, but Suraya and the other women organized ten thousand women who met in smaller groups on street corners all over the city. Suraya marched with two thousand women. All the women who showed up for the demonstration did not wear their traditional burkas, a sign that they were taking back their freedom.

A Reader's View of Hope

2007-05-08T06:07:00.000-07:00

From Marian:

I love the words ripple effect of, not just hope but, practiced hope. At tea recently, a friend offered as her answer to "well what are you doing to solve the problems of the world" that she and her husband have decided that there will be peace in the Feinstein household. "If we can achieve peace at home then peace is possible for the rest of humanity," she said. It's true, no matter how tough the job is that we have to do, the story that we tell about its doing is the reality.

The word, the idea of, hope has come up in the public conversation lately. Interesting that analogous words for hope include 'expectation' and 'yearning' as well as 'trust,' and 'rely.' Hope in the form of trust allows a willingness to open up the categories that have demanded judgments and restrictions. That hope allows listening and hearing the part of the story that connects rather than separates. I'm all for hope and reminders to practice are greatly appreciated. I look forward to your posts. A poem that I wrote about hope:

By Virtue Of Picking Fruit

Hope is the weight of the ladder
the vigor of the timber
the angle of the ground
understanding the bold unequivocal thorns.

Bright orange orbs dangle behind these green leather leaves
and fall at first touch into the bold woven bag.
A flower touches my face,
firm adolescent purple, not at all ineffable.

Hope is this orange tree quenching a cold thirst, its bittersweetness nourishing, reminding to do no harm,
comfort in the necessary space
between the hard work of faith and charity.
(4/06)

The Ripple Effect of Practiced Hope

2007-05-06T03:07:00.000-07:00

Comment from Alan about Hiroshima:

"I'm sure it was quite a sight. I just wonder if the Japanese feel remorse for what they did in China during the 1930's, well before our entry in WWII."

I can understand Alan's wish for others, in this case Japan, to take responsibiity for what they have done. The exhibition at Hiroshima does not exclude their responsibility. In my mind, if we are to change ourselves and to effect public policy own work is not to blame others, but to hold ourselves and others accountable.

The idea of stories is that as we tell them and as we listen to them, they have the power to change public policy at the same time that they sooth and offer us alternatives for our personal struggles.

An example from Kaethe one of the Teachers I have been writing about with a response from her friend and colleague:

A letter from Kaethe:

Dear Friends and Family:

My days are filled with rehab stuff, some reading, and napping. I have enough stamina to do my regular outdoor workout at my original pace, but the breathing and lung volume measures lag far behind and are what require work. The napping bespeaks to having much sleep to catch up on. I must continue with my IV and inhalation treatment indefinitely, at this point, so that begins and ends my day. I am multiply tethered.

Days don't "open up before me" --as some of you have written -- because there is so little stamina and so much to be done. In truth, this is a kind of blah time. But I have always found that in times of disequilibration/discontent/ dis-ease/unease/uncertainty that the kaleidoscope eventually turns and a new pattern emerges. Sometimes if you listen carefully to the little glass pieces you can hear the momentum mounting and catch the instant that change occurs, but I prefer the surprise of watching the pieces topple into a new design.

So I am letting my life turn as it must. And we shall see.

Again, thank you for being such a wonderfully supportive community during this time.

Love,
Kaethe

In response a friend and colleague wrote back:

Dear K,
I went tonite to a meeting this evening with state legislators from our area who came to meet with people about mental health concerns and funding. I listened as person after person approached the podium with concerns. Some spoke quite personally, some not, most reading their speeches, none could exceed 3 minutes.

When I went up to speak, I began with saying that a colleague, Kaethe Weingarten, in her living and writing and teaching about dealing with illness and trauma, talked about hope, about it not residing as a static trait in a person, but about it being a practice, that we practice it together, that it is a community practice. I spoke about the ways that we were doing it here tonight, all of us differently positioned in the system, in the speaking of our various concerns and in the attentive listening, the note taking, in the endurance and the listening of the audience participants to one another.
Then more speakers spoke. Then we concluded. And the legislator (my favorite one from what I have read) started to respond. And guess what he led with. Practicing hope together.

Kaethe, You should be very proud. You should remember while you do those tedious exercises at home that your work is being used, that your words are being spoken in Charlottesville.

Love,
Melissa

Hiroshima--What we inflict on others

2007-04-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

just back from Japan where I celebrated the wedding of my step-son and spent a week enjoying the gifts of Japanese grace and culture. I spent one day in Hiroshima at the Peac Park. On April 6, 1945 at 8:15 AM the U.S. dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima which up until then had not been bombed. Everyone was out~~ opening their shops, going to work or school when the bomb fell. Anyone within 2 kilometers of the blast died almost immediately, about 100,000 people, 40,000 more died soon after. The U.S. refused to just demonstrate our power in a benign location. Instead we unleashed our power supposedly to stop war. Words fail me as I attempt to describe the destruction. The voices of surviviors and the pictures of the children must be heard and seen in order to grasp the impact of this horror.

Yet in Hiroshima I was a welcomed guest. The school children at the exhibit called out to me, smiled and even a few, reached out for my hand. Somehow I am not their enemy, and I am grateful. Their humanity has survived. I hope we as Americans can say the same.

Ellen from Japan

A Teacher's Wisdom-The Ripple Effect

2007-04-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a final post about Kaethe's story. Her wisdom here about the "ripple effect" for good and for evil is particularly relevant in the face of the recent horror at Virginia Tech.

I'm off to Japan and hope to post stories from there. If not, I'll be back on May 3rd.

Kaethe #4
Kaethe believes that if we are willing to make the connections, even seemingly unrelated events influence one another in a ripple effect. I was particularly moved by one such series of events, which Kaethe wrote about in her book, Common Shock.

After a week of working in Kosova, Kaethe and four other American colleagues were driving from its capital, Pristina, to the airport in Skopje, Macedonia. They passed a mass grave and decided to stop the car and walk up the hill to the site, where they met a man named Izet. He was a teacher, had been part of the Kosovar Liberation Army, and knew many of the people who were buried at the site. He was overseeing the gravediggers in order to witness the burying of the dead and the building of a memorial. After telling Kaethe and the rest of her team some of the facts about the deaths during the war, Izet spoke to them of his personal feelings about the war. In Kaethe’s words:

He [Izet] told us how much easier it was for him when people actually gave him an opportunity to talk about what he was doing and offered their condolences. And then in a low voice, he confided that at times he was so stirred up that he slept in the cemetery rather than go home. “Sometimes,” he said, “I cannot bear to be away from my people.”

Kaethe said to Izet.

“We will take your story back with us to America, and I suspect someday we will turn to your example and you will help and inspire us.” She then recalled that she had her Polaroid camera in the jeep, and ran back to get it. She took three photos; two for Izet and one for her. Izet looked at the photos and said, “I will put these pictures in our museum.”

On September 22, 2001, Kaethe placed Izet's picture below her computer monitor. That day she had been speaking to a woman whose husband had lost hundreds of employees in the World Trade Center attacks. Her husband’s life was concentrated into one activity: preparing for, going to, and recovering from funerals. She was beside herself with grief and worry about her husband. Kaethe told her about Izet.

Kaethe wrote:
"How could I have possibly known the year before that Izet would become my symbol of hope, and that I would tell his story to many people? When I look at his picture, I see a fighter who has decided to mourn, not fight. I see a man who has decided to care for the dead and create a memorial to them. I imagine that his work means that he wants the cycle of revenge to end.[1]

I (Ellen) have begun to understand the layered ways in which Kaethe acknowledges the violence and suffering that we may endure or witness, the pain it causes us, and how in connection with one another we can make choices that offer us a pathway to what she describes as “doing hope together.”

Kaethe teaches me that moving from fear to action isn’t a one-way street. As we walk along this path, it is necessary to stop and listen to the stories of those who have gone before us and who teach us how to keep going. When I think of Kaethe, I remember that small actions can make a difference, that interactions that seem ordinary may hold the seeds of something larger, that focusing on the details of what needs to be done makes it possible to act even in the midst of strong emotions, that refusing to be defined by a category such as illness frees us to choose our identities, and, most important of all, that only in connection with others can we navigate life’s most difficult moments.

[1] Kaethe Weingarten, Common Shock. New York: Dutton, 2003, 205.

My Story - Good wife Bad Wife

2007-04-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

Ellen's Story

Kaethe’s story reminds me of my challenge to what it meant to be a “good” wife. During my late husband Ron's illness ( he had ALS) I struggled with the idea of myself as a “good” or “bad” wife. At twenty, when I said my marriage vows, I hardly considered what it meant to promise to be with Ron “in sickness and in health.” Did this mean that I was supposed to become Ron’s caregiver? How could I do this and care for my children, bring in a salary and take care of myself? I brought these questions with me to the hospital at Stanford where Ron had just been put on the ventilator.

Before taking Ron home from the hospital after he was put on the ventilator, we had several planning meetings with the staff. At the last meeting before Ron was to leave the hospital, my sister Joan and I met with a team of doctors, nurses, physical therapists, rehabilitation engineers, and a social worker who were there to put the finishing touches on our home care system. No one questioned ry whether Ron should come home. Our job was to make it happen. Others on this team may have been aware of the complexities of this decision not only for Ron, but for the entire family, but only the social worker spoke to me directly about this.

After the final meeting, he took me aside. He was the first person to ask me how I was doing. I was carrying a clipboard. My papers were askew, and I had a long list of questions that I had to get answered. I hoped this conversation wouldn’t take long.

“I’m doing okay.” I answered, in a hurry to get going with the things on my list. “I don’t have time to think about me right now. There’s just too much to do. I’m scared sometimes that this is more than I can handle, but we’re doing it.”
“Have you thought at all how this will change your relationship with Ron?” he asked.
“Not really.” I lied. “I just want to get Ron out of here and get him home. I know it will be different and hard, but I can’t think about that now. I’m focused on how we’re going to get $10,000 to pay for the wheelchair that people say we need. It has to be specially equipped so Ron‘s ventilator can be attached and it has to have a movable back so he can stay in it for a long time and work.”

I hoped that the social worker would let me get on my way, but he just kept talking.

“I know there are a million things for you to think about, but I want you to spend a little time talking with me about your role as caregiver. I don’t like to give advice, but it is my opinion that you should never become Ron’s nurse.”

Suddenly he had my attention. I listened closely as he explained that if I took responsibility for any of Ron’s nursing care, the nursing agency would no longer be legally responsible to provide a nurse for the 24-hour care that everyone agreed Ron needed. If I took on any of the nursing care, and if the agency had a problem getting someone for a shift, it would become my job to cover the time until they found someone. On the other hand, if they took on a 24-hour case and if I were not willing or able to do nursing care, they were responsible by law to have someone there all the time. The social worker warned me that many families he knew who took on the care of their father, mother, husband, wife or child quickly found themselves exhausted, ill, and in some terrible cases, responsible for a loved one’s death.

He went on to talk with me about how my nursing Ron would also affect our relationship:
“Figuring out how to continue as Ron’s wife will be hard no matter what, but if you become his nurse, the very basis of your partnership will be threatened. And it will be almost impossible for you to continue to function in your job and with your children. I know of situations where this distinction isn’t made and everything, including the nursing system, falls apart in a short time”

I felt afraid as I listened to him. He knew something that I only had
glimpsed. I wondered what was my job as wife?

I never found the answer to my question about what kind of wife I should be. Ron and I struggled for seven years over our expectations of one another. We didn’t learn to listen to one another in the ways that Kaethe described. Ron was often angry with me and disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself. I felt overwhelmed and inadequate.

Our relationship struggles intensified the night Ron came home from the hospital. I went into our bedroom to sleep with him in his hospital bed. I had to ask the nurse, who was comfortably sitting in a large yellow chair, to leave us alone. I said I would call her if we needed her. She left reluctantly, and I climbed in next to Ron. The bed was narrow and there was not enough room for me. I nestled around Ron’s unmoving body. After he had entered the Stanford hospital, he had lost almost all movement. I pulled his arms gently around me. The cuff around his tracheotomy, where the ventilator tubes attached, needed to have the air removed so he could talk around it by using the air to force out his words. At night, the cuff was up and he couldn’t speak. I spoke to him while he listened and nodded from time to time to let me know that he was still awake. I stayed with him trying to find ways to fit on the bed. Once in my moving around I jostled his trach. His grimace let me know how much it hurt. I felt as if I was supposed to find a way to fit with him in this new bed and take care of him throughout the night. Instead, I took a mat and a blanket and slept by the French doors in the dining room. The girls were asleep upstairs in their rooms. I didn’t know where else to go.

Lying down on the mat looking out through the doors, I watched the moon. Unlike Kaethe, I did not feel connected to it as she always had, but felt afraid of the dark just as I always had. I ached with sadness for Ron. I couldn’t figure out how to care for him and how to care for myself. I slept fitfully, listening for the equipment alarms that might come from what was now Ron’s room.

During those years our different perspectives and priorities stood between us. To feel close to Ron, I needed to be able to talk to him about my sense of how we were changing. To stay alive, Ron needed to focus on what was the same, especially his internal thoughts and feelings, and he wanted me to pay attention to how we could still be the same with one another. The nurses lined up behind Ron, making it that much more difficult for us to remain close. They hadn’t known Ron before he was ill. They accepted him as he was. They thought I should be able to do the same.

On the day Ron died, we forgave one another for our disappointments and limitations. Holding hands, we cried, feeling love and grief for what we had lost. I think if I had understood more of what Kaethe understood about taking care of herself and mothering, I might have learned to be a “good wife,” but I missed the opportunity. In retelling the story now, I am more ready to forgive myself, and I realize that we were overwhelmed and did not have a Teacher like Kaethe to guide us toward change.

A Teacher Challenges Myths of Medicine and Motherhood

2007-04-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Kaethe #3

Kaethe has known illness since she was a child. During her senior year in high school, she was sick with a central nervous disease caused by a parasite that she picked up from feeding pigeons. This disease made it impossible for her to walk, and she had to be in the hospital and in a rehabilitation treatment center for a period of time. Kaethe learned many things from that experience. She said.

“I was very sick from November to May. That was an awful year for my parents, and yet I learned a lot. I was mostly on my own during the hospital part, even though my mother visited me every single day. I couldn’t read because my vision was impaired. I turned to my childhood abilities of being alone, using my imagination, and practicing patience.”

As an adult, Kaethe has had to repeatedly learn to navigate medical systems that do not know what is going on with her or with those she loves, and she has had to stand in opposition to the same medical establishment upon which she depends for her care. Kaethe’s trust in her own perceptions allows her to see illness from an alternative point of view, but it also allows her to challenge notions of family and the wisdom of other professionals, even under the extremely demanding situations surrounding her cancer. In her words:

“In 1989, when I was undergoing chemotherapy, I vomited every ten minutes for fourteen hours after each chemo treatment. I was beginning to have esophageal and stomach bleeding and I ended up with ulcers in every orifice. My doctors were not at all aggressive at looking for alternative protocols to manage the side effects of the chemo. Their idea was to shorten the protocol, but not to change it. Hilary was trying to find alternative medicine protocols that I could take in the hope that I would vomit less, but he hadn’t found anything. I became uncertain in June if I was going to finish the last four treatments. I felt an obligation not to die on my children, who were thirteen and ten at the time, but I wasn’t sure if I could live through the treatments. This was considered mild chemo, and yet I was ravaged by it. I got through the last four treatments, although other symptoms developed after the treatments were finished.

“I found myself with a set of symptoms that included intrusive thoughts and flashbacks that were incapacitating. I would think to myself, ‘I haven’t thought about the cancer for how long?’ and then I would look at my watch and think ‘for six seconds’ or ‘for one minute and a half.’ I did this for hours each day for weeks. My response was to exercise so hard that I would be so tired that I couldn’t have these thoughts and couldn’t tell the pain from the cancer from the aches in my body from the workout. I spoke with many psychiatrists to try to find out what was happening to me. Not one of them knew that I had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This was happening to me in 1989, and it wasn’t until 1994 that one of the criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD included symptoms similar to mine as a response to the threat of a terminal illness. Finally a psychiatrist who was a colleague gave me medicine to help me sleep, and I began to feel better until I had another round of symptoms.

“This time I went to the library and began to read about and think about mothering. I had been a mother who had not paid much attention to herself, and I began to think that I had to change this in some way, since much of my stress was related to the fear that I would die and leave my children prematurely. This played out in encounters with my children every day, when I would feel that I had to meet all their needs. I had always set limits on my children’s behavior, but not about their needs. In order to live I had to take better care of myself, and I had to rethink my ideas about good mothering. This meant to me that if a child came home and I was sick, I still was sick when they came home from school and were waiting to see me. If my chemo was at 7:00A.M., I couldn’t take them to school.”

Kaethe explored how to mother and be ill at the same time. This led her to write her book The Mother’s Voice,[1] in which she expanded the idea of “good” mothers to include mothers who included their own needs as part of the definition. Kaethe expanded this definition of mothering by including the right to tell her children more directly what she felt when discussing her illness with them. She talked about “radical listening:”—listening with openness to what has not been understood or said before in a relationship. Rather than seeing their relationships as made up of either/or choices – I am a good mother or I am a bad mother—her relationships now include dilemmas to be solved, not according to set expectations, but in different ways depending on each situation.

Even with her knowledge and strengths, Kaethe found herself dispirited during her recent bout with cancer. Although she had been able to carry on with her life when facing earlier bouts of cancer, she came up against her own limitations when she was in the midst of her latest treatments. From her point of view, the timing for this cancer couldn’t have been worse. She was diagnosed soon after Common Shock was published, and instead of going on a book tour, she had to face weeks of surgeries, uncertainty about treatment options, and a difficult course of radiation. Kaethe felt isolated and wondered how to keep going:

“The way I have thought about my illnesses before, even when I was furious about them was not, ‘Why me?’ but ‘Why not me?’ Why should I be singled out as someone so special that I wouldn’t suffer when there is so much suffering in the world? This time however, number three, I had an extremely difficult surgical course. I was not able to work for six weeks. I had never been unable to work for that long, but it was because I was changing dressings all the time. I also had to have three surgical repairs of the wound, which were very painful. I often couldn’t read. All I could do was lie down, the only position in which I was not completely in pain, and change the dressings. I had to just hang on and hang in and hope that I could learn from this pain.”

While having a hard time with these treatments, Kaethe attended a meeting on the AIDS pandemic, organized by her husband Hilary. This reminded her of how much she admired her colleagues in South Africa who work in communities devastated by HIV and AIDS. Kaethe decided to fall back on what she had learned many times: that when facing the hardest things in life, if she reached out to others the act of reaching out could sustain her. Kaethe emailed a colleague, Johanna, in South Africa and told her about her recent diagnosis and treatment. Johanna wrote back immediately sending a message of care that said that she and her colleagues were there with Kaethe. Along with this message, Johanna sent a picture of her adopted daughter who has HIV. For Kaethe, Johanna epitomizes a woman who can live a creative and dedicated life in the face of enormous hardship. With Johanna’s communication as a reminder of who she can be and what she can do, Kaethe began a new practice that took her through the radiation treatments and into a new project. It began with placing the picture of Johanna’s little girl on her stomach during one of her radiation treatments. As Kaethe received the radiation, she imagined these healing rays reaching out to this little girl. This helped Kaethe move beyond frustration and boredom to a practice of committing each of her subsequent treatments to those she wished to honor.

Johanna helped Kaethe face what was before her, not in isolation, but with a sense of concern and connection with others. With these connections, her individual suffering took on larger meaning that had what she calls a “ripple effect.” The practice of dedicating one’s difficulties to others in need expanded into the “Treatment Dedication Project.” Many people are following Kaethe’s lead and are dedicating their treatment in the names of others. The Project has led to the development of guides for cancer support staff helping patients through treatment.

[1] Kathy Weingarten, The Mother’s Voice. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.

Teachers: Early lessons

2007-04-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

Kaethe #2

Ethical dilemmas in child's play

I wondered how I might apply Kaethe’s teachings to my persistent fear that if I were faced with catastrophe again, I would get stuck in my own suffering and not feel connected to others. I also remembered how Ron and our family were defined by his illness. I hoped that in getting to know Kaethe better I would find ways to address my self- doubts and would broaden my capacity to see beyond illness or whatever other catastrophes might be in my future.

I began our interviews by asking Kaethe what it was like for her growing up.

Kaethe was born in 1947 into a lower-middle-class, secular Jewish family. As a young child she lived in Brooklyn with her parents, Violet and Victor, and her older sister, Jan, as part of a large extended family. Her family had emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900’s from Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary. Family members who had stayed behind had been caught up in the Holocaust. Like many other immigrants, Kaethe’s family resisted telling stories about their painful past, focusing on the present and on how they would make a life for themselves in the United States. Kaethe told me about her grandparents and her extended family:

“I often visited my father’s mother in her small apartment in the Bronx. During a typical visit, I would go to the butcher with my grandmother, who kept a kosher house. She did what she needed to do in her home, but without a lot of conversation about it or her earlier life in Lithuania. She worked hard for her family every day. This life was what was important to her and what she shared with me.

“Being a member of this extended family was part of the good fortune of my childhood. It created a secure childhood. When there were upheavals, I counted on the solid backbone of family. I remember one night when my parents, my sister, and I went to a play in New York City. At the end of the play, as we left the theatre, we found ourselves in the midst of an incredible snowstorm. We realized that we couldn’t get home because we lived an hour outside of the city. My grandmother and aunt still lived in the Bronx in a small apartment. I remember going to their apartment and knocking on the door. It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t be welcome. I assumed that they would be thrilled to see us, and I had no doubts that we could all sleep there. Even in an apartment with only one bedroom, there was always enough room for all of us.”

Not everything in Kaethe’s early life was as predictable as the welcome at her grandmother’s door:

“Growing up in my family, things were both as they seemed, and not as they seemed. No one really was any one way, and the family map had to be understood interaction by interaction. As a child, I navigated these inconsistencies by feeling more deeply and speaking more freely than other family members. I never fully said all that I was feeling, since what I did say pushed the family way beyond its tolerance of me, and they would get very angry with me.

“I was disturbed by what I saw as inconsistencies in ethical relations in our household. In response to this confusion, I lived inside an imagined world, which was an extremely moral and ethical place. This is what I mean by inconsistencies: Although we looked forward to getting together with my mother’s parents, and we got together with them at least twice a month, no one ever spoke about how they went at each other all the time. It was often horrible to be with them, and we were often with them. When my mother was young, my mother’s father had been verbally abusive to her and to her mother. My mother was afraid of him, and I knew it. At the same time, as a grandfather, he was wonderful to me. When I tried to ask my mother to explain how he could be so mean and wonderful at the same time she said, ‘Yes he is a good grandfather, but he was not like that as a father.’ with no other explanation.

“I was also required to spend many hours alone with a close family member on my father’s side of the family whom my father made it clear he didn’t trust. In spite of how he felt about her, she was included in all family events, and, he allowed her close to me. How could he let me spend so much time with someone he didn’t trust?”

When Kaethe commented on these inconsistencies, her mother, although loving, didn’t respond directly to Kaethe’s concerns. In the face of conflict, her mother became “aflutter” and didn’t speak up when, for example, Kaethe’s father, a man who was loving one minute and harshly critical the next, flew into in a fury. Kaethe’s father tried to shut down her questions about what was going on around her. When she would ask about inconsistencies, he would exclaim, “Oh my god, there she goes again.”

For comfort, Kaethe went into her room where she could express all parts of herself in imaginative play. Her best friend there was a stuffed teddy bear she named Teddy Theodore Koala Bear Roosevelt Weingarten. To Kaethe, he was not just an ordinary teddy bear but her source of comfort and her confidant for many years. She told him everything. She had a loving relationship with him that included all her thoughts, feelings, imaginings, based on her ideas about ethics and consistency. In play, Kaethe worked to make things turn out right:

Along with her sense of ethical responsibility, Kaethe developed fears connected to her parents’ active political involvement. During the years of the McCarthy era, the family lived under constant threat, although it was never spoken of in front of the children. Kaethe tried to figure out what was happening. Based on bits of overheard conversations, she imagined frightening scenarios of an unsafe world.

I was struck by the things from Kaethe’s childhood that have been reflected in her life and in her work. She grew up with a sense of danger for herself and for her family that she couldn’t speak about. Alone, she had to figure out ways to make herself feel safe. Since no one wanted to speak with her about her experience, she spoke to Teddy about it and with him found comfort. Speaking out about important things that have been left unsaid has become the cornerstone of her life and her work.

Teachers: Kaethe's perspective

2007-04-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Teachers are women who believe that their lives are connected to the lives of other people in the world who suffer from loss, or who live under oppression. Although the Teachers have pain in their own lives, they move through their personal struggles by acting with others in mind with a hope for a better future. Their stories articulate their principles of social action and political justice. They aren’t deterred by personal or political obstacles from working in difficult situations. They call out to us to join them in their work.

In my blog I will write about two teachers: Kaethe, a psychotherapist, writer, and political activist from Massachusetts who has lived with serious life-threatening illnesses for many years; and Suraya a women’s activist from Afghanistan who has been tortured in prison and lives in fear for her life due to her political beliefs and actions. These Teachers connect their personal suffering to the suffering of others and work against the negative effects of silencing peoples’ stories of illness and injustice.

Kaethe–a woman who looks at death and finds life
I have known Kaethe for many years as a colleague and friend. I hoped to learn from her how, in the face of unrelenting illness, she has transformed her own suffering into understanding the suffering of others. Kaethe found in reviewing the occurrence of illness in her family that in every six-month period from 1974 through 1993, either she or someone close to her had been seriously ill. Since that time the intervals between illnesses have increased to a year, but these include two bouts of cancer that followed Kaethe’s first cancer in 1988. At present, she struggles with a life-threatening lung infection that may be a result of her radiation treatments. Although these illnesses have constrained Kaethe’s choices, she has a rich family life and has worked as a teacher, writer, political activist, and family therapist in some of the most difficult places on earth.

Kaethe has written over forty articles, chapters, and books, including her most recent book, Common Shock: Witnessing Violence Every Day: How We Are harmed, How We Can Heal.[1] She teaches in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Kosova, South Africa, and New Zealand. Her long-time friend and colleague Corky Becker says that Kaethe, “spins silk from pain and suffering” by speaking when others are silent.

Kaethe wrote Common Shock from the perspective of many years’ work on connecting her own suffering with broader human suffering and global peace. In her book, Kaethe describes the violent world in which we live and the dangers of not naming and acknowledging daily violence. She describes what it takes to become what she calls a “compassionate witness.” Step-by-step, she teaches us to observe, to describe, and to take action against pain and suffering.

In both her life and work, she always remembers what she learned as a child about the significance of every action, no matter how small. Not long ago, at a conference on literature and war at Brandeis University, Kaethe saw a man speaking haltingly from the podium about his mother’s experience of the Holocaust. The moderator became impatient with him and cut him off before he had finished. The man quickly left the auditorium. Kaethe quietly got up and found the man standing outside smoking a cigarette. She went up to him and told him that she was sorry that the moderator had cut him off while he was telling such an important story. The man was surprised that she had noticed. He looked at her and thanked her.

In reflecting on this event, Kaethe explained to me how she acts as a witness by integrating her thinking with her emotional experiences:

“I bring an emotional and intellectual perspective to what is before me. I have come to understand that small interactions, ordinary things, can be the seeds of issues that are much larger. I work to make distinctions that are often omitted in difficult circumstances. I was sensitized to such omissions and how much information they contained as a child, but it has taken me a long time to make use of words to express what is going on that is being suppressed.”

I asked Kaethe how she learned to shift her attention from herself to others. She told me that she has felt connected to the world outside herself for as long as she can remember. As a young child, she believed that she and the moon were related. She remembers feeling compelled to push her bed around her room so that every night she could sleep in the light of the moon. Growing up, she expanded this feeling of connection to aspects of nature to a feeling of connection to other human beings.

Kaethe told me that she also stays in balance and attentive to the world around her by maintaining a sense of herself as a healthy person, rather than an ill person. Even as she struggles with the effects of illness, she refuses to allow illness to define who she is or will be.

She said,

“One of the distinctions I make is between having a disease and being an ill person. Without doubt, I have a disease and I often feel sick, but I never experience myself as an ill person. Disease is a fact. I have a number of diseases and that is my biological condition. Sick refers to negative physical sensations. I can divert myself from how intensely I feel sick, even though I feel sick much of the time. Whether I perceive myself as an ill person is a category of choice, and I don’t feel ill. ‘Ill’ is also a category of identity, and I don’t identify with this category.”

More about Kaethe in my next blog.
[1] Kaethe Weingarten, Common Shock Witnessing Violence Every Day: How We Are harmed, How We Can Heal. New York: Dutton, 2003.

Writing our own rules -A Reader's Comment

2007-03-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

keke said...
Hello Nana

Feminism gave us the chance to write our own rules about who we are and who we will be. It is fun to see that that extends to nanahood. I have no children yet and struggle to see how I will fit them into my current busy life. But what makes me think I must have children one day? The thought of growing old without them. So happy to see that it doesn't stop with having children and that you get a whole new chance to explore and enjoy when your children finally get around to having children. Much love to you and special nuzzle and kiss for Cole.

3/29/2007 5:39 PM

Cole and Me--Seeking in Celebration

2007-03-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

The Arrival

Cole presents himself, and I hear his cry. I watch Sarah gaze at him as she says: “You’ve done it.” and then after a brief pause “We’ve done it.” Cole my grandson is here, a miracle it seems. I watch him closely from this beginning, getting to know him moment-by-moment. He is complete at the start. Everything from here on in is just an extension of who he is on arrival.

I, on the other hand, am unsure about who I am as I hold him. I will be called Nana, a familiar name attached to my mother's mother, a woman whom I loved dearly as a child. She had a round face with wrinkled skin, soft to the touch. Her hair was frizzy grey, curled each week at the beauty parlor just up the street from her apartment in Astoria. Her body had little form and moved slowly, but she generously reached out her arms and gathered me up onto her ample lap. Sitting there, I played with the skin on her upper arms that drooped and felt like dough. We were comfortable just being together. She knew me right off, and I didn’t need to know more about her than her familiar smell, watchful eyes, and predictable dinners filled with favorite foods of my childhood. Only now do I wonder what she was thinking. At the time, she never said, and I never asked.

I knew from childhood that one day I would assume the titles "wife" and "mother", but I never imagined that I would become Nana. In my mind’s eye, I am still the young girl who lay on the dock by the river naming the clouds. Like her, I wake up each morning with energy and desire to get busy for the day. I rarely sit still and when I do, I often plan what is next. Yet, unlike with my own children who I strapped to my back taking them out into the world with me, this new being calls me to sit still. The few times I have had with him I feel quiet and not in a hurry. Yet, the unexpectedness of who we are to one another puzzles me.

This musing reminds me of the day in our garden when Ron, my first husband paralyzed by ALS, asked me to look with him at a tomato plant growing in our garden. Each day he sat out on our deck in his wheelchair and watched it grow. My runnings about often kept us apart, and he urged me to sit with him. Once or twice when he asked, I took a breath, held his hand and together we watched the little plant with its two small tomatoes. It was a moment of peace for us, a rare moment. I wonder if watching Cole is like watching the tomato plants.

In searching my memory for more stories about grand mothering I remember stories of my father’s mother who died not long before I was born. I was named for her, but I knew little about her, except that my father spoke of her kindness and her talent for baking pastries, which he claimed were unequaled. My Nana was lovable and cooked a mean brisket of beef that I still try to copy, but she was timid. She and my grandfather had been together since she was a young girl. They were very close, and growing up I felt their love for one another. Each morning Nana laid out my grandfather’s clothes, and every evening she waited by the window of their street-floor apartment to see him return. He was her life, and then he died. For seven long years she waited to join him. She was so frightened and unhappy that she couldn't sleep, but she was too afraid to turn on a light, so she kept the refrigerator door ajar in order to see her way around her apartment. Occasionally she brightened, especially as she held my daughter on her lap, but it was only for a moment.

Remembering how she had been before my grandfather’s death—her pleasure at our arrivals on Sundays, her waiting for us at the window with the table set and filled with our favorite foods—I had wondered how she had disappeared with my grandfather. I knew that my images of her fear and dependence could not help me become what I want to be -- a feminist grandmother. Sarah complains when I use this term. “Mom,” she asks with irritation, “why do you have to be a feminist grandmother? Why won’t just grandmother do?” But it doesn’t.

When I reach further back into my family history, I discover more about my great-grandmother Bertha on my mother’s side of the family. The stories I heard portrayed her as respected and feared, especially by her sons-in-law. A portrait of her, painted late in her life by my great-uncle, went from family home to family home, and it was always given a central place of honor from living room to living room. In the painting, great-grandma Bertha’s grey hair is swept up and back. She is elegant in a black silk dress with a string of pearls around her neck and a cameo pin at her neckline. Her face is quiet and impassive, expressing confidence about her capacity to manage life. At the time this portrait was painted, the family was doing well, and she was revered. My grandmother and great-aunt’s told stories about her strength and elegance. They left out details of the time in which she had had to learn to manage on her own.

I found a photograph of Bertha walking on the boardwalk in Atlantic City beside my mother who was pushing my sister in a baby carriage. Bertha is holding her strong arms tightly in front of her, a robust and formidable woman, looking sternly into the camera. Using this picture, I made a sculpture of her head, with her seal hat at a jaunty angle and her coat collar high around her neck, giving her a regal air. I tried to embody her vitality and sturdiness. This sculpture sits on my desk, watching over me and reminding me of my capability to face adversity and not to expect someone else to take care of me.

A powerful image of a matriarch who might inspire me, but still not the right model for me as Nana. So how does a 70’s feminist turn herself into a Nana? I don’t want to be relegated to predictable Sunday suppers, but what do I want? The other day when Cole was fussing, I walked with him up a hill to a park nearby. I liked the feeling of just me and him, out together heading off on a walk. I wasn’t sure exactly where we would end up. Along the way I told him about the things that were on my mind. For a while he cooed and made sounds, and then I realized he was fast asleep, and I just kept on walking. I found myself singing as I walked.

My arms grew tired, and I realized that the next time I would have to put him in a stroller or a baby carrier, but I knew that there would be a next time, many next times. Just Cole and I heading out, not certain where we would land, but relaxed and easy with one another and just a little bit excited about what we might find along our way.

A Reader's Story

2007-03-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

A Seeker's Story by Dan

Inspired by the Bob Dylan song "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's Easter time too," in January of 1970 my college roommates and I drove non-stop from Columbia, Missouri, to Juarez, Mexico, where we spent a week at the Hotel Diamante, drinking continuously. A beer was one peso, or about 12 cents at the California Club. The pesos were the size of silver dollars, and if you changed $20 into pesos your wallet wouldn't close and your pants would sag with all the coins. I've been back 18 times since that first trip.
Mexico was the first place I ever tasted free-range chicken. Having been brought up on processed food, I didn't recognize it, and thought maybe it was goose or turkey. It's the first place I ever saw or smoked a Cuban cigar.

In all my weeks of driving and wandering around, there were some scary incidents and some wonderful ones. I remember camping on the slopes of the Copper Canyon and hearing drumming coming from way down at the bottom. The drumming kept going for hours, getting gradually louder. I thought "the Indians are preparing their attack." Finally, a boy of about 14 showed up. He was hiking to the next town and keeping time with a drum. He had already walked a distance of about 20 miles and was going another 20. He seemed to think there was nothing extraordinary about this. At one point, I found myself sitting on a cliff, looking at sheep grazing thousands of feet below me. There were clouds floating between me and those sheep, and I could hear the tinkling of their bells, so faint they were almost inaudible.
Once I impulsively drove down a sandy road toward some palm trees, and suddenly arrived at a pristine beach. It seemed empty except for an old man in a khaki suit who waved hello. As I walked toward him, I gradually realized when I got closer that he was naked, and evenly tanned a nut brown all over. He said he used to be an alcoholic but had stopped drinking and was now living the natural life. Later, he offered me some un-refrigerated cheese. When I hesitated, he assured me that cheese was alive and needed to be out in the open air. So I ate it. When I awoke in the middle of the night, projectile vomiting, I vowed to add another rule to the book by which I lived my life. "Never accept un-refrigerated cheese from a naked alcoholic in Mexico." To this day, I've lived by that rule.

Finally, on our last night there, we decided to get dressed, go into town and eat a real meal. We sat at a little outdoor restaurant on the beach and found they only served one thing, fish. I actually saw the fisherman pull the fishing boat up onto the sand and hand the cook my meal. I think the bill came to $2, including beer.
Since the financial crises of the early '90s, the $2 meal has gone the way of the nearly extinct California Condor. On my travels in Mexico, I saw one of those condors. It was lying in the middle of the highway in a remote part of Northern Mexico, and it's wing tips stretched way off the pavement and into the mesquite. It was like coming upon the Japanese monster bird "Rodan", asleep on a narrow desert highway. As I approached, the giant bird flapped those enormous wings and, seemingly in slow motion, took flight.

That's one of the reasons I keep going back. Because unexpected things always seem to happen every time I go to Mexico.

Reflection on Seekers: My Story

2007-03-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

Ellen's Story – Conquering fear

The stories of the women I interviewed provided me with a mirror that reflected back on my story and led me to re-write it for survivial. I had always been afraid yet Eva and Joan -- the Seekers -- reminded me of the ways that I stood up against fear.

As a child when I was afraid of the dark, which happened often, my parents would stay with me through the night never gently letting me know that I did not need to be afraid. I took this fear with me as I grew up and it paralyzed when my husband Ron became ill and ultimately died. Unlike me , my daughters Caitlin and Sarah responded to their father’s illness by developing their physical and survival skills. Both of them backpacked and hiked. They became raft guides and learned to save boats and passengers when a river unexpectedly turned them over. The two times I went with them, I fell overboard, unable to keep my balance. One of those times I remember hearing Caitlin yell, “Sarah you get the boat, and I’ll get Mom.” I wondered what would have happened to me if I didn’t have two daughters to save me.

Caitlin hiked in Siberia as part of an exchange program with Russian and U.S. youths. She went to British Columbia to write a travel guide and explored Indonesia on her own. Sarah, alone in the house with a nurse who didn’t know what to do when Ron’s alarms went off, saved her father’s life by reconnecting his tubes to the ventilator. At sixteen, as a junior lifeguard, she saw a small boy fall into the pool. She jumped into the water, pulled him out, and gave him CPR while the other senior lifeguard stood by the side of the pool frozen in fear. My daughters went out into the world to learn how to respond to danger. At fifty, I had to learn what they learned as teenagers.

When I was too depressed to make any decisions, I made a rule that if anyone asked me to do something I had to say “yes.” It was because of this rule that I found myself on my way to Katmandu to hike in the Himalayas with a small group of trekkers. Ron had been an ardent hiker. Before he died he told me that his only regret was that he had not spent more time in the mountains. My fears had gotten in his way. When asked to go on the trek to Nepal I said “yes,” thinking how much Ron would have wanted to go. I took the trek in homage to him. I was still afraid, but now with everything lost my fear didn’t seem to matter.

We were a group of seven. I only knew one other hiker well. We had two leaders, a handsome American named Jock and a flamboyant Nepali named Gumbu. They were our leaders for a twenty-two day hike to see the great mountains Jannu and Katchenjanga on the eastern border between Nepal and Sikkim, a route recently opened to foreign visitors. I shared a tent with a young woman named Kathleen who had a gleeful smile and deep laugh. She and I became the naughty kids on the trek with our messy tent and slow pace, but we grew close and helped each other make it up and back.

On our first day in Katmandu, we went to Pashupati, the Hindu Temple of the dying. We looked at the Temple from across the river, watching family members pray over their dying loved ones. Although sad, it felt comforting as I realized that I was not the only one in the world who was grieving.

The next day we took two small planes to get to Sukatar where the trek began. On our second day of hiking, one of our group had heart problems and had to be rushed back to Katmandu, but the rest of us kept on. The path was narrow and rocky. We walked across thin swinging rope bridges and hung on the side of the path overlooking an abyss where yaks ran down the mountain with no concern for us. Each morning, we awoke to find a Sherpa at the door of our tent with a small bowl of hot water and tea. The hot water was for Kathleen and me to share for washing. We giggled as we decided which part of us we would wash that day. Days for hair washing were particularly hilarious.

We walked for seven hours a day. The beauty around us was indescribable, especially the red rhododendron forests and the jagged mountains covered with snow. One afternoon I looked across at a peak on the other side of a ridge. I saw our guide Gumbu running along the path with his long white scarf blowing in the breeze. I felt as if I was being transported away from my grief. I had the sense that, as hard as it was to keep climbing, if I made it up the mountain and back I would survive, but I wasn’t sure that I would make it.

In the middle of the night, at 13,000 feet I woke up gasping for air. Kathleen went and found Jock who gave me altitude medicine, which worked to ease my breathing but left me dragging my way up the path one slow step at a time. Finally, we made it to our last camp near the base of Katchenjanga. We were above 16,000 feet. Once we turned back I knew that I would make it back down. I rarely had felt Ron’s presence since his death, but the day we began our descent I knew that he was with me. I was infused with love for him, for myself, and for life. I was ready to face whatever was next. I learned that to be a seeker I had to take on challenges even when I was afraid and to accept events over which I had no control. I am no longer afraid of the dark.

Seekers Acknolwedge Regrets and Remain Open

2007-03-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

Eva #4
Eva brings to this period of change the openness and curiosity that she had as a young child, playing outside with Serbian children. Like then, she is now drawn beyond the boundaries of what she already knows. She moves forward and at the same time, she acknowledges regrets about decisions that she would have preferred not to have had to make. Eva spoke to me about how hard it was to leave her work with the immigrant Bosnian community. She said:

“I wish that I had not had to leave my job with the Bosnian community here in the Bay area. It has been painful giving up the work that I was doing with the people in that community. I have a friend who has helped me understand what happened there. She has helped me see that the most important part of my job was to support the Bosnian refugees so that they develop their strengths, and to provide only enough information that would enable them to establish themselves in their new community. I realized that when former clients call now, I help them best by encouraging them in taking action on their own. When people call, I explain to them that I am no longer authorized to help them directly. Instead, I encourage them to rely more on themselves.

“Recently, a woman called me and asked me to call Kaiser Hospital for her because she couldn’t understand the woman on the phone, who was speaking too fast. I told her that I understood how hard that must be for her, but I was sure that she would do better if she called the woman back and asked her to speak more slowly.”

Eva believes in her resourcefulness and in the resourcefulness of others. For her, this has often meant letting go of relationships before she wished to do so. She believes that the art of life is knowing when to stop old relationships and when to start new ones. During this time of lost connections, Eva reaches out to the women in a dream group that she has been part of for five years, and by email she reaches out to her world community of old friends and new acquaintances. Like Joan, another Seeker, she expands her capacity to spend time alone through meditation and her new practice of chi gong.

Eva again:
“ I have begun to practice chi gong. A friend told me that she had joined a chi gong group. Since it was nearby, I went to meet the teachers. There are two teachers from Korea. They teach us to meditate, to learn physical and breathing exercises, and to chant together. I reflect on my situation, and separate from my momentary reactions. It has elements similar to Christianity. It is about unconditional love of your neighbor and about detachment from ego.”

Eva thinks about what it means in this culture to be single, fifty-five and out of work. She knows that her age makes it harder to find a good, well-paying job. Everything costs more, so she needs a reasonable salary. Although she has been here for ten years and has a strong resume, she knows that looking for work at age fifty-five isn’t easy. She is willing to consider possibilities that she has never considered before.

“I think about trying to start a business on my own, but it may be too much. I look at all the different experiences that I have had, but it will take time to know if this is the right choice for me. I am working with a project called the Women’s Program. It is a nonprofit agency for low-income women who want to learn how to run their own small businesses. I am learning new skills, hearing the stories of other women, trying to find out what I might do next. I think in three to six months I will see a clearer path.”

Eva, thrown back on her own resources, remains open to what fate might bring to her door. Although sometimes she dreams of having a life partner, she does not have energy now to spare on anyone who isn’t honest and open in a new relationship. Except for occasionally answering a personal ad for fun, Eva puts herself out into the universe by sending resumes, working with the women at the Women’s Program, speaking with friends, and practicing meditation. She just passed her driving test and has her first driver’s license. She is looking to buy a car. She is heading out and letting the universe know that she is ready for whatever is next.

Seekers Trust in Themselves

2007-03-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

Eva #3 - A Seeker's Story (See below for more about Eva)

Eva stayed in Berlin for thirteen years until political events again thrust her out into unknown circumstances. In 1990, Eva divorced Pedrag, and in 1991 the situation in Yugoslavia deteriorated, when war began among different ethnic factions. Fifteen thousand Yugoslav refugees came to Berlin, and the situation at the refugee center where Eva worked changed. The needs of such a large number of refugees were overwhelming.

In 1989, just before these events, the Berlin wall came down. Eva was at home and watched what was happening on TV. For her and other immigrants, this wasn’t a moment of celebration. Instead these hordes of East Germans frightened the immigrants in Berlin who were already struggling to make ends meet. Eva, as an immigrant herself, didn’t know where things were headed as the streets filled with East Germans, all wanting a better life. She didn’t know who these people were, or if what they wanted would unbalance her fragile life. As the town overflowed with thousands of people, even getting to work became difficult and unpredictable as people shoved and pushed their way onto overcrowded buses and trains.

“At first I didn’t know what to do,” said Eva. “This situation in Berlin, for the next two years, was very unstable, especially for anyone who wasn’t German. It was almost impossible during those years to get a job if you were not German, so helping the new Yugoslav immigrants became more difficult. The first concern of the government was to get jobs for the East Germans. Radical anti-immigrant groups from East Germany started to come into Berlin and crowd the streets. I didn’t like to see this chaos. As the situation changed, I again felt vulnerable. When Yugoslavia disintegrated into civil war, things for me just got worse. I felt as if I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t go back, and I didn’t know how to go forward.

“A number of events led me to leave Berlin and to come to the United States. One of my co-workers at the Yugoslav center, a Macedonian Turk, who had been very helpful when I first began my job, told me that the war in Yugoslavia made it impossible for us to remain friends. For him, the ethnic clashes in Yugoslavia created a breach between us, and although I didn’t feel any differently toward him, he believed that our separate histories meant we could no longer be friends. He told me that I could never return to Yugoslavia because so many people had died, and the world I knew existed no longer. Now that Tito had died, he said, I had no country. As he said these things to me, it hit me. I had left Yugoslavia, but I had never closed that door. As I understood the narrow thinking of my friend, I realized that he was right—I could never go back.

“During this time, I met a Hungarian woman who lived in California. She described to me her life in San Francisco, and we struck up a friendship. She told me that if I ever came to the United States, I should look her up. After she left Berlin, I began to dream about finding a way to go to the U.S.

“I had another experience that pointed me in this direction. I went to a wedding of two young friends from South America. They had no money, so a group of us cooked them a wedding dinner. I made a goulash, and another woman made the wedding cake. With nothing, the young bride made decorations for the wedding feast. It was a warm and loving event, and it made me realize that I didn’t have this kind of simple joy in my life.

It was at this point that Eva took herself away from everything familiar and came to the U.S. She said:

“When I found myself alone in the U.S., I called the Hungarian woman I had met in Berlin. She helped me find an apartment, but then left me on my own since she really had no time for me. One of my first cultural shocks was to find out that some Americans appear friendly but don’t really mean what they say. The friendship we had started in Berlin had little substance in San Francisco. Once again I was alone, but as has often been the case, I soon met someone who helped me. The apartment I rented had belonged to a lesbian couple who had broken up and had left their furniture behind. One of these women returned to the apartment to find some of her things. I invited her in and asked her to stay for a cup of tea. This first conversation lead to many more and she became a friend, a real friend. Through her, I met an immigration attorney who helped me establish myself here. It is often this way for me. When I think I have reached a dead end, someone or something appears that leads me to whatever is next.

“It was a scary time. I had no job. I knew almost no one. I had to keep going no matter what, since there was no turning back. Deep down, I wasn’t sure that anyone would help me. I looked around for a community to join and found a Presbyterian church. When I went to meet the pastor, he asked me what I wanted from the church I told him that I wanted nothing, except to join, and to offer my skills to the community. I told him that I was making enough money from baby-sitting, and I had an attorney helping me with my visa, but what I wanted was to be in a community. I said to him. ‘I teach. I cook. What does the church need?’ He took me at my word, and found ways for me to use my skills in the church for the next five years. I taught Christian education. I organized social activities, just as I had done all my life.”

Eva’s generous spirit radiates from her and draws others to her, especially in moments of her greatest isolation. She believes that it can‘t be otherwise. Reaching out nourishes her spirit, provides for others and strengthens her ability to find ways to take care of herself. She does all this while carrying her grief and loss from giving up home, family, and country. She often finds herself alone.

When I asked her about this she said, “I sometimes feel grief, but mainly when I am alone.” She reached for a tissue. Just mentioning the grief connected her to her many losses, disappointments, and separations. Her tears flowed. She said that she feels pain, but does not assume that it is about her. It does not stick to her, or to her sense of worth.
Eva explained, “It is very simple. Through the years, I have come realize that if I am rejected, it really doesn’t involve me. It is more about other peoples’ perceptions, projections, expectations, or whatever. It is how the world is set up. I may be perceived by others as good or bad, but that isn’t up to me. The way to deal with the possibility of rejection or judgment is for me to keep my mind clear and to talk to other people about the dangers of an environment in which we judge and reject each other.

“You have to step out of a situation to realize that it is mostly not about you. It never was just about you. If someone who has been my friend or lover turns away, it is about things that are much more complex than whether I am good or bad. Most people have others who depend on them, as in a family, and then these people protect each other. I live alone, and instead of a family, I create a community that depends on me, and that I depend upon. I am free to change this community when the situation requires me to do so. We live in a world that is fragmented, where families are fragmented, where change is often necessary. I know that there is no guarantee that I can count on the protection of others. Security does not come from holding on, it comes from knowing that you can’t count on protection, and therefore you take care of yourself as best you can, mostly by reaching out to others. I generate a group of friends who give me some sense of security. Right now, I am in a period of insecurity. I have lost my job, and I am on my own. So I turn to friends and new experiences to help me through.”

Remember to make comments and send your stories. If you want to contact me directly email me at: Ellen@Berkleyfamilytherapy.com

Stories and Legislation: Refugees and Immigrants Speak out

2007-03-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Refugees and Immigrants Share Stories With Congress, Talk About Immigration Legislation
Press Release

Refugee and Immigrant Community Leaders from Over 30 States Share Horror Stories with Congress Call for an End to Immigration Raids and Reject Temporary and Guest Worker ProgramsWASHINGTON, D.C

On Tuesday March 13, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) will hold a press conference at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) at 245 Second St., NE, as part of the "National Days of Advocacy" (available by teleconference). Community leaders, youth, farm-workers, refugees, and domestic workers will share their personal stories and call for fair and just immigration reform. The speakers represent over 200 members of immigrant and refugee communities who will meet Congress this week."We are here to deliver a clear and powerful message to Congress: they must pass a fair and just legalization program that protects the rights of all undocumented immigrant and refugee workers, families and communities, and ends the heinous practice of immigration raids and deportations," declared Catherine Tactaquin, Executive Director of NNIRR. "We reject temporary or guest worker programs that do not reflect the hopes and many contributions of immigrants and their families in the U.S. These programs have only proven to benefit big companies while treating immigrant and refugee workers as cheap, disposable labor."Monami Maulik, a member of the NNIRR delegation added, "Guest worker programs could also trick undocumented immigrant families into being deported in a practice we refer to as Report-to-Deport. Raids and detentions that traumatize our families and shatter our communities must end."Alexis Mazon from Tucson also called for demilitarization of border and immigration control. "Since 1994, over 5,000 migrant dead have been found along the U.S-Mexico border. Militarization has not deterred unauthorized migration and instead caused migrant deaths.", she said."Congress must provide legal options and access to permanent residency and protect the labor rights of all workers, native and foreign-born," Ms. Tactaquin added. "They must expand legal immigration and the reunification of families.

"SPEAKERS ON THE TELECONFERENCE:
Ms. Catherine Tactaquin - Executive Director, National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights
Mr. Christian Ramirez - Base Building Coordinator, American Friends Service Committee
Mr. Sotero Cervantes, Former Bracero Worker, Stockton, CA
Ms. Alexis Mazón is a representative of the Derechos Humanos Coalition (DHC). Human Rights Abuses in Border Communities
Mr. Mohamed Traore: The Effects of Immigration Detention and Deportation. Mr. Traore is a resident of Jersey City, New Jersey. His spouse, Aissata Bah, was arrested and detained when the couple appeared for her status adjustment interview.
Monami Maulik is the founder of Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), a New York - based community organization that addresses the impact of immigration policies on the city's South Asian community.
Mr. Singh (alias) of Fairfax, Virginia received asylum in 1999 and worked with AFSC to sue various federal agencies for causing cuts to his Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.
Ms. Cristina Gutierrez is a Mexican mother from Tucson, Arizona who was fired by a child care center after she spoke with her boss about child abuse taking place there. Visuals: Colorful Banners. Panel of Speakers Representing Direct Experiences of Refugees and Immigrants.

***About National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (NNIRR)The National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights has been advocating for fair & just immigration reform since the early 1980s. NNIRR represents a diverse grouping of grassroots community organizations throughout the continental United States. NNIRR is a leader in the progressive voice of the immigration rights movement, on border justice, international migrant rights, and popular education for the immigrant rights movement, and is located in Oakland, CA.About the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)The AFSC is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. Its work is based on the belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice. AFSC supports the rights and dignity of all people regardless of their immigration status. AFSC works to uplift migrant voices and strengthen the migrant-led efforts to advocate for fair and humane national policy.

National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights 310 8th Street, Suite 303 Oakland CA 94607

Seekers Often have no place to land

2007-03-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

Eva #2

After finishing university, Eva became a journalist. Life continued to be stressful. Estranged from her family, Eva faced the developing chaotic political situation in Yugoslavia. She said to me in our interview:

“It was during 1975-1978, when I worked on the newspaper, that the Yugoslav government put pressure on Hungarians who lived there. As things became centralized, we all looked over our shoulders. At the paper, I was constantly asked what I was doing and what I was writing about. The newspaper was watched by the government, and the editors responded by questioning what they believed might be ethnic intentions on the part of reporters. More and more, they began to question my work. Paranoia was sweeping the country. Every day new accusations were made by one ethnic group against another. Rumors ran rampant. No one knew what to expect next.

“As a Hungarian, I had to be especially careful and correct about what I wrote. One day, I wrote an article about a local politician that made it to the front page. I was tired the night I wrote the article, and I misspelled the politician’s name. Others had checked the article and missed the error, but I was held responsible for the mistake. This was viewed as an act of political subversion. I was made to write a number of apologies that were published in the paper, sent to the politician and to others concerned about this mistake. It was a small thing, and looking back, I see it as stupid, but at the time it was considered serious by everyone at the paper. In this environment of paranoia, no one was on my side, and all I had done was misspell one name. This was terribly painful to me, because I had felt part of this community.

The editor-in-chief and the other reporters had been my friends, and suddenly I was an outsider. I was a respected reporter, but following this incident, the chief editor said that I could no longer write as a reporter for the newspaper. He said that I could go back to my town and send in articles about local events there, or go to the library and work in the Documentation Office on other peoples’ articles. This was my punishment for one misspelled word. It is hard to explain, but in that environment, I couldn’t speak up on my own behalf, because no one was willing to support me. I decided to stay on and work at the library on research, because I knew I had the right to stay, although living in this poisonous atmosphere was terrible. Colleagues who had placed me in this position felt guilty, and they dealt with their guilt by ignoring me and isolating me further. It was a horrible scene, but I needed to go through it. The only other choice was to return home to provide help in the care of my ill father, but that seemed like a hopeless choice, since my family, like my country, was slowly starting to fall apart.”

Eva told me that she had paid a high price for a small mistake when the editor stopped her writing for the newspaper. She said that it felt as if the editor had “broken the pencil” which held her capacity to write. Only recently has she considered taking up that pencil again. However, she is proud that she was strong enough to refuse to leave before she was ready. Her experience at the newspaper was an example of how circumstances outside her control could escalate quickly and lead to her being ostracized from a group with whom she believed that she had had close ties. She was left looking for a way out of her misery. She said:

“During this time, I met the man I married. He was studying medicine. When he finished his studies, he invited me to return with him to Berlin, where he had been offered a position. I looked at the situation and decided that, just as when I had left my small town there wasn’t anything for me where I was, and that I would have to go on with my life somewhere else.
“I left Yugoslavia in 1979. The day I left, I went by myself on a train after saying good-bye to my parents. They were miserable with my decision, but they knew that they couldn’t change my mind. Although I was proud of my strong will, and I acted as if the choices I made came to me easily, I was disturbed by going so far away, especially as my father’s physical condition had deteriorated.

“As I sat on the train going to Berlin I must admit I felt great relief, relief from pressure. I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt relief. When I got off the train, my husband-to-be Pedrag wasn’t there to meet me. He came an hour late, a bad sign from the beginning. I called his home number and he wasn’t there. I sat at the train station, wondering what to do, when he finally showed up.”

“Pedrag had been born in Belgrade and moved to Germany when he was seven. His family was very mixed. His father was half-Hungarian and half-Austrian. His mother was part Serbian and part Slovenian. Pedrag’s father had been married earlier to a Hungarian woman whom he had divorced when he had an affair with Pedrag’s mother, who was only fifteen years old at the time. Once they married they moved to Belgrade, and then to Stuttgart, where Pedrag grew up in middle-class family who focused their resources and attention on him.

“When Pedrag brought me, a Hungarian woman, to meet his family, his parents resented me from the start. From their point of view, my biggest sin was that I was Hungarian, just like Pedrag’s father’s first wife. Without knowing me, they assumed that I caused trouble. I thought they might be right in some way, perhaps because I had left my family; perhaps because I had lived with their son before marriage in violation of my rejected Catholic upbringing, or perhaps because I was still vulnerable as a result of what had happened to me in Yugoslavia. I believed their criticisms of me might not be wrong, and for a long time I didn’t speak up for myself.”

Alone, Eva lost her sense of herself. Without friends, a family, a social network of colleagues, or a country, she was vulnerable to the prejudices of her in-laws, who didn’t know her. The family never spoke of these criticisms directly to her. Instead, they spoke of them to Pedrag, who was under the influence of his family and didn’t stand up for Eva. He responded to their complaints by telling his parents that she was only in Germany for a six-month visit. When they married, he didn’t tell his parents of their marriage until after a year.
Eva continued, “Once they knew we were married, they started a more active campaign against me. They telephoned every Sunday and spoke to Pedrag for one hour. They refused to speak to me, and gave me the cold shoulder whenever they had the opportunity to see me in person. Every Sunday, they asked Pedrag when we would divorce.

“I tried very hard, but we just had no chance. We separated after only three years, but stayed married for eleven more. After we separated, we stayed together in the same house. It was a strange mixture of friendship and kinship. “I managed during that time by focusing on my work.

When struggling Eva puts her mind to what she can make work. Keep posted for the next episode of her story. Add a story of your own when you had no place to land.

Check out this event for more stories

2007-03-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

From Katy Butler

Dear Friends —
I’m inviting you to come hear how I took matters into my own hands at the age of 22, driving cross country to become a famous writer in San Francisco, carrying with me a Triple A map, $300 I’d earned selling mescaline, my 7 clippings from the Aspen Times, and a guy with a puppy and no sleeping bag...

More at D.I.Y. http://www.porchlightsf.com/thismonth.html

2007-03-07T14:58:00.001-08:00

Please click on this button if you are reading my blog. I am trying to let others know about it and this will help Thanks.

2007-03-07T14:57:00.001-08:00

A Seeker far away from home and family

2007-03-05T17:54:00.000-08:00

Eva–A Seeker who steadies herself in an unstable world

Seekers are women who live in a world of frequent change. They live away from their families-of-origin, feeling confined by family expectations. They focus on the present, and search across age groups and cultural communities to find alternatives that strengthen their sense of independence. In these ways, Eva is a Seeker.

Beyond middle-age, she stands slim and tall, and to look at her, she might still be in her thirties. Right now many things are uncertain in her life. Not long ago, she left her job as a community health manager with the small staff of a resource program with the Bosnian immigrant community in the San Francisco Bay area. Familiar with change, Eva finds herself on her own, out of work, uprooted from close ties, reconstructing her life from almost nothing once again.

Eva told me about where she grew up:
“My family was Hungarian. Originally, the city where we lived belonged to Hungary, but after World War I, the border was moved, and this part was given by treaty to Yugoslavia together with all the inhabitants, including about 400,000 Hungarians. Ethnically, we identified ourselves as Hungarians, but nationally, we had been made into Yugoslavs. I grew up with a mixed identity. We spoke Hungarian at home, although the language of Yugoslavia was Serbo-Croatian. I also went to Hungarian schools until my eighteenth year. At University I majored in Hungarian literature and language, but I took a mix of other subjects including Serbo-Croatian.

“The Hungarians and the Yugoslavs were acutely aware of their ethnic differences because of grievances from World War II. Many ethnic killings between the two groups had led to resentment and fear, especially in minority communities like the Hungarians. The first generation after the war, my parent’s generation, isolated themselves in grief. The second generation, my generation, had a different attitude. We wanted to mix with other groups, and to leave our villages and to go into the bigger cities. There we made new friends and dated Yugoslavs. My husband was a Serb.”

These days Eva lives on the second floor, in a one-room apartment. The ceilings are high and the windows are large, making the space light and airy. It is decorated simply with only a few reminders of other places where she has lived. In a book, kept in a drawer, are pictures of Eva as a young child, pictures that show her spirit and rebelliousness. At eighteen months, dressed up in a long dress with a bow in her hair and held in her mother arms, Eva is looking away with a determined stare. Her mother is holding her close, as if she is afraid that Eva will jump out of her arms. Eva said that their relationship was always strained. Even when she was a small child, Eva’s mother tried to clip her wings—or as Eva said, make her wear shoes smaller than her feet. As she grew older her mother tried to contain Eva’s developing body and spirit by dressing her in unattractive clothes that fitted poorly and were particularly unfashionable. As Eva matured into an attractive young woman, her mother’s discomfort with her grew.

Eva told me more about her family life:
“When I think of myself as a child, I was both alone and at the center of a community. Then it was a community of extended family members from my mother’s side of our family. When I was born three families from my mother’s side lived together in one house. Our building was in an industrial part of the city that was large enough for living space and for a mill. This building was the only building left from the family wealth; after the war, the family money and property were lost, and we became poor. There was much deprivation and few supplies. There was no money, and we bought everything with coupons. We had to stand in line to get oil and flour. We had to stand in line to get anything—much of our day was spent in line. The depression of war deeply affected my parents. They seemed to have no joy in life.
We shared everything, but since no other children lived in our household, I was often alone. The larger extended family was separated after World War I, when part of Hungary became part of Yugoslavia. Although we identified ourselves as Hungarians and spoke Hungarian at home, the town we lived in had become part of Yugoslavia. The other four families on my mother’s side of the family had moved to the part of the country that remained in Hungary. I had young cousins in those families, but they lived far away, and I never saw them.”
Eva learned early that political circumstances can disrupt family relationships. The separation within her mother’s family followed from the separation of Hungary from Yugoslavia. These ruptures within the family affected the family members who had remained together in Yugoslavia. Although they continued to live together in one building, they were unable to re-establish a sense of trust in one another, as if anyone might leave at any time. Eva said family members were polite, but never close. She also told me about their isolation from their neighbors.

“Most Hungarians were isolated from their Serbian neighbors, since, as part of an ethnic minority, they were fearful of people of different origins. I didn’t share this view and played outside with children from all ethnic groups whenever I could. Our neighbors next door, who had a little boy my age, were Serbs, and since he became my best friend, I learned Serbian at an early age. As a child I resisted prejudices, and I pushed against any attempts for others to impose barriers around me. All along I had a very difficult relationship with my mother.
Much of this was due to the fact that I was close to my grandmother and she wasn’t.”
Many things led to Eva’s decision to separate from her home and family. As an only child, held too tightly by her mother, she was greatly influenced by her grandmother, who took her traveling at a young age and set an example of independence. While growing up, she saw first-hand the despair of family members who chose to live close to home and who experienced little joy. She grew up at a time when many young people of her generation moved beyond their towns and families. Her choice, to move far away from home and go to university at eighteen, met with strong family opposition.

More to come of Eva’s story. Are you a Seeker? Have you lived far away from home and family? Tell us your story.

Stories can change us

2007-02-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry I’ve been away from the blog. I was traveling, but I’m back.

Many people are asking me what this blog is about anyway. Here’s how I understand the power of stories. Each of us navigates our lives with stories that we know. They provide us with rules, meanings, and choices for action. Sometimes the stories that we know however, just don’t fit our life experiences especially when things happen that we never expected. So where can we turn when we feel confused, lost, overwhelmed. I’ve found it enormously helpful to listen to the stories of others and then take what they tell me and weave the parts that fit for me into my life story, often remembering parts of my own story that I have forgotten or overlooked as important. The key to resilience is holding in your mind a coherent narrative of life with all its ups and downs.

I hope that as you read the stories on this blog you will think of stories to tell others and post them here.

Reflection on the Seekers -My Story
Finding independence in spite of myself

If someone had asked me as a young person if I were a seeker, I would have said “yes” without question. I longed to live away from my family and to explore unfamiliar people and places. When my father drew a line on a map at the border of Michigan and said that it was the furthest distance he would allow me to travel to college, I applied to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There I met Ron, to whom I was drawn because of our differences. I was the one who convinced Ron that we should go to Lagos, Nigeria for three years, against the wishes of our families.

But my seeking of the new and unknown was based on a false assumption that I would be safe no matter where I went or what I did. During Ron’s illness I craved the familiar. After he died, I was often fearful and unwilling to go very far from home. Only after facing the reality of life and death have I reconsidered what it means for me to be a seeker. The Seeker’s stories encouraged me to track how I redefined my seeker self during those terrible years.

While my husband Ron was ill, I struggled for many months with depression, dragging myself from responsibility to responsibility. I spent many sleepless nights after giving up sleeping with Ron in his narrow hospital bed. I wandered from room to room, carrying a comforter with me, trying to decide where I should lie down. I mentioned to a friend that I imagined how peaceful it might be if, for one or two nights a week, I could sleep somewhere other than at home.

A week later, this friend arrived at my door and said that we should go out and look for a place for me to rent. I protested, but admitted that I had seen an old apartment building in town that advertised a small studio for rent. She insisted we go over to the building and take a look. With her urging I found myself in the possession of a room of my own for the first time in years.

I furnished the room sparsely with a mattress on the floor, a lamp, and good books. I went there one or two nights a week and found that I slept well for the first time since Ron came home on the ventilator. I wasn’t always listening for the sound of the ventilator’s alarm.
After a few months, I became curious about what else I might do at my studio. In the neighborhood, I found an art center that offered a class in clay sculpting using live models. Although I had never made anything in clay except for a misshapen bowl as a child at camp, I signed up. I can’t explain what happened, but I became entranced with the clay and the possibilities of bringing figures and faces to life. My passion for what I was doing made me able to create figures that were technically crude but had surprising vitality. As a child, I had been told by many teachers that I had no artistic talent. I believe that attempting sculpting saved my sanity and gave me a way to live with daily pain and suffering.

After Ron died, I searched for my independence reluctantly. Joan’s story (See Joan's story below) about her husband Allen reminded me of one afternoon, when, not knowing what else to do, I had driven to Limantour Beach on the northern California coast. It was a beach I had visited many times with my family, before and during Ron’s illness. The evening was foggy, but the sky was still streaked with the fading sun. I hesitated when I saw that the parking lot had few cars, but I pushed myself forward.

I took the path above the beach, the path along which we had pushed Ron's wheelchair when we had been compelled to keep it all going, no matter what. As I walked along the path, I remembered placing large plastic sheets, one in front of the other, so that Ron’s wheelchair could roll along the sandy path and not get stuck. It was easier now just to walk up the path, but I felt terribly alone.

When I arrived at the tree where we would stop with the wheelchair, I climbed down from the bluff and struck out onto the beach in the fading sunlight. I got caught up in the beauty of the rolling dunes and the shadows they cast on the sand. I watched the birds flying and feeding in the waves. I kept checking the receding sun, counting on it to light my way. To my surprise I found myself humming as I walked along. Only when I turned back did I realize that the light was no longer visible. I could barely see two feet in front of me, and then I was afraid.

I saw shadows moving, and I imagined I was being followed. How stupid I was to be out alone in a deserted place. I felt panic rising in my throat. If Ron were there, I would have turned to him, leaned on him, and he would have led me back to safety, but he wasn't there. How could he leave me? We had agreed to go through life together, and he had left me, little bit by little bit. I knew he made the right decision to turn off the ventilator, but I still couldn’t believe that his illness took him from me.

I kept going, placing one foot in front of the other. I felt terrified all the way to the parking lot, but when I realized I was going to make it back to the car I had some sense that maybe, just maybe, I could make it in life, although I had no idea how. I was once again becoming a Seeker.

Reader's Comment

2007-02-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

Sylvia Paull said...
i was just thinking of how to write a response to your blog about dealing with grief, but i've never really experienced deep grief personally. I've always worried about something happening to my son (and still do), but that's anticipatory grief. Grief just seems like a process to me....i've seen people grieve and they go through stages. I like Cindy Sheehan's actions and see that as a positive way to deal with grief and support her son's life while preserving the lives of other young men. When people close to us die, part of us dies too, but then I feel that that person becomes part of us and we grow richer as a result of having known them. That's the way I've absorbed my sadness over my father's death...whenever I hear music he liked (he was a classical musician), I share my joy of the music with his spirit, which is part of what informs me.

Seekers Grieve and Embrace Life

2007-02-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

Joan # 5

One story ends and another begins

Much to Joan’s surprise she fell in love and married again. Her second marriage was fulfilling in many ways. Joan says:

“My second husband Allen and I shared a love of the wilderness and of travel. We sat down early in our marriage and made a list of all the places that we hoped to go together, and we did go to many of those places before he died. It was however a surprise to find that traveling as a couple didn’t always go smoothly. We started out by trying to do everything together, and we discovered that our interests and attention spans were different. In museums, for example, Allen wanted to see every painting, giving each one his complete attention. I tended to move through the galleries more quickly, choosing fewer paintings to focus on. We learned that we didn’t always have to do the same things. Sometimes we traveled separately to a place—this was enormously freeing. I began traveling solo, often meeting Allen later in a trip.

With Mike, her first husband, Joan had created a family, but within narrow confines that hadn’t allowed her to be herself. With Allen, the doors of the world opened for her, and Joan healed from her losses and learned what she was capable of doing. Since Allen’s death, she has been able to live her life with clear intention and self-confidence.

I asked Joan to tell me about Allen’s last year. He died only six months after my husband, Ron, died. She didn’t answer me right away, but looked out to the hills beyond her house. When she continued, I had to lean closer to her in order to hear what she was saying:

“Allen and I lived well together for 20 years. The last year of Allen’s life wasn’t easy, but we did it together. He had stomach cancer. He managed his treatment, and ultimately decided when he would die. He didn’t want to give up life, and tolerated enormous pain, until he decided it was too much, and he wanted to die on his own terms. We spoke together about every aspect of this experience for both of us.

“When Allen finally made the decision to die, he was too weak to push the morphine applicator, and I wouldn’t do it. A colleague, under Allen’s instructions, gave the order to Allen’s nurse to give him enough morphine to ease his pain and allow him to die. When the time came, she was reluctant to go through with it and called the doctor one more time. He told her that those were his orders. Everyone in the family had hoped that Allen would live until his seventy-fifth birthday, only a few months away; but he was in terrible pain, and he was ready. The nurse gave him the morphine as he lay in my arms. He went to sleep.

“My daughter Lyn was there with me as she had been when her father died. We stayed with him through the night. It took a number of hours, but I held him, and then he was gone. He didn’t want me to take care of him, to again go through what I had experienced with Mike. I wanted to care for him, but not if he didn’t want to be here. It isn’t as if he gave up easily. He went quite far, and it was just time. This was his philosophy, and I share this with him. We spoke about it many times. He wanted to enjoy life and live as long as he could live with some purpose, but no longer. He was so enthusiastic about life, and his death made sense.

I told Joan’s story to my second husband, Patrick. It gave me hope that perhaps in our relationship we could accomplish what my first husband Ron and I had failed to do—to stay in conversation with one another through the harshest times. Ron and I had married young and had been fortunate until his illness. The conversations that we hadn’t had before he became ill were impossible to have after his diagnosis. Joan’s story showed me that partners can hold onto one another even in terrible circumstances.

“After Allen died,” Joan said, “I knew that I would manage day-to-day and take care of what needed to be done, but I didn’t know if I could manage my emotions. I was afraid that I would miss Allen so much that I wouldn’t know how to go on with my life without him. The challenge was living alone, not finding another relationship, but to live alone and do it well. I knew that I needed to learn to feel fully alive by myself. The loneliness of my childhood often lurked in the background, but finally it fell away.

“I didn’t feel joy, but I forced myself to do things anyway, so as not to miss this part of my life. The year after Allen died, I went to Bhutan. I knew I was too sad to do it well, but I went anyway. Later that year a young friend, almost a third daughter, invited me to kayak in the Chilean fiords. I went and took my grief with me. For a week, we hiked in Patagonia and after kayaking rode horses into the Chilean wilderness. I kept pushing on, although I didn’t feel like it. I came home and stretched my finances as far as they would go to redo my kitchen and the bathroom. This was a huge project. I also worked in the garden, and walked as much as I could on familiar paths. My heart was heavy for eight years, but much to my surprise, it changed, slowly.

“Now I see that I can be here and enjoy myself without Allen. I have a sense of my own future. I look forward to my life alone. I appreciate my good fortune. I will always miss Allen, especially his touch, his companionship, and the spontaneity of what we might do. I will always miss him. Yet, I know that my life is good right now.”

Joan’s oldest brother, Paul, died recently. In a telephone conversation she told me that her dreams were filled with a sense of loss from Paul’s death and the deaths of Allen and her son Mark, and at the same time, she told me that she was thinking about going to a global peace conference in Bali and then traveling on her own to Borneo. Although she was sad right now, she was choosing life once again.

The notion of being sad and moving on impressed me. I had believed that I had to get over being sad before I could move on. The expectation that life would either be all good or all bad got in my way of experiencing conflicting realities. Joan's capacity to hold all her life's experiences and possibilities gave me a wider sense of what might be possible for me.

What about you? Do you have stories to tell of either getting caught in grief and struggling to find your way out or moments when you could see the wider geography of life. Please send me your stories. Either click on "comment" at the bottom of this post or send me an email at: Ellen@Berkeleyfamilytherapy.com. Hope to hear from you.

Seekers- One foot in front of the other through struggle

2007-02-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

Joan #4

Years of struggle

Joan continues:
“Although Mike and I both loved our home, we had a difficult marriage. In the beginning, he had been my hero, the older man who could teach me about life and love ,but the more I grew up, the more possessive he became. Mike and I even joked about whether women compared to men should have a 40/60 or 30/70 split in being the boss. During the first years of our marriage, although we fought about these things, I didn’t question the basic assumptions underlying our rules. We focused on what we shared -- our home and our three children.

“I thought I would go back to school while my children were young, but my son Mark had neurological impairments and visual perception problems. When I realized how serious his condition was, I switched gears, and Mark became the focus of my life. At four and a half, he was diagnosed with diabetes, and that only added to my sense of responsibility for him. From then until his fourteenth birthday, even after the birth of my two daughters, I was absorbed in keeping Mark safe, and helping him develop. His condition was difficult to handle. He was an active, curious child. A delight really, but I had to monitor everything he did and everything he ate.”

My daughters Kim and Lyn sometimes drew me out of my worry for Mark. With them I did the normal things a mother does. In those moments I delighted in them, but, my worry for Mark often took over. I had difficulty seeing the life around me. I felt responsible for Mark’s insulin, his calories, his exercise, and his every moment. I watched over him so carefully that as he reached adolescence my supervision upset him. Thinking about his need for independence, I explored boarding schools for children with diabetes and his set of learning disabilities. I found one in Texas, outside of Dallas. I hoped that he would finally get what he needed. I wanted more for him, and wanted to make sure that he would have the chance to make a living for himself, and that he would never be institutionalized.

“Mark left for school in the spring of his fourteenth year. He came home for the summer, older and more mature. He went back to school in September. He continued to do extremely well, and the plan was for him to come home at the end of the semester. This never happened because in February, when he was fifteen, he died from an overdose of insulin. By that time, he was giving himself his insulin, though still under supervision. Mark died on a Sunday after spending a weekend at the home of a classmate who lived out on a farm. He wanted desperately to be accepted by his peers. Before going to the school, the other kids never paid attention to him, but at school, he began to make friends for the first time. He was very excited about the weekend. He and his friend had done many things that weekend. He returned happy, but exhausted, to the house where he lived with five other boys. He tested his urine and found that he was spilling sugar. He gave himself insulin, but he must have given himself an overdose. He died during the night.

“I have lost many people I have loved, but Mark’s death is different for me. I carry the guilt of his death. I carry a terrible sadness. I should have done it differently. He loved his home and our family, and yet I encouraged him to go away to school. I know that it was because I wanted more for him, but I will always wonder if it was the wrong decision. I will carry this guilt to my grave. I know that I can go on, but the pain and guilt come with me.”

Joan’s guilt about Mark might have overwhelmed her, but after Mark’s death, taking her grief with her, Joan returned to school to finish her education. But once again illness struck. Within two years of Mark’s death, Joan’s husband’s kidneys failed. He elected to have a kidney transplant, but after ten days the treatment failed. Without their permission, the surgeon in the emergency room placed him on a dialysis machine, something Mike had said that he would never have wanted or allowed. Once he was on the machine, Joan became his full-time caregiver and tried to keep him going as his condition worsened. Joan said:

“I was clinging to Mike’s life. It was my duty to see that he stayed alive yet, over time it was harder and harder to run him on the dialysis machine, and he had more and more near-death emergencies. During one of these episodes, I called the hospital, and the nurse on duty told me to bring him into the clinic in the morning. At that point, he also needed his shunt replaced if he was going to go back on the dialysis machine. That night, I sat with my daughters around our kitchen table, telling them that I was thinking of letting their Dad go. They were nineteen and twenty-one. Both of them at different times had stayed at home to help me care for their father. It was hard on them, but they both showed up to help me. Kim was home the summer before Mike died and in addition to helping with Mike, she had held down two jobs. The night we spoke of letting Mike die she had come home from college to be with us. Lyn was living at home at the time. They both said that they thought not putting Mike back on dialysis was the right thing to do.

"At the hospital the next day Mike wasn’t put back on the machine. I stayed with him until he died the next day. During the years that Mike was ill, we resolved many of our differences, and we were quite close and had spoken directly about his choice to live or die. But, in those last months when I tried to bring up the subject, Mike refused to talk about it, saying that his care was up to me and that I knew how much he hated being on the machine. He was so miserable that I know it was the right thing to take him off the machine, but I desperately wanted to do it with him and not on my own.”

Joan’s losses have moved her toward living fully and not fearing death. Her response to life’s fragility has been to choose a path and to follow it to the end. Sometimes, when hiking with her up a difficult hill, l suggest that we turn back before we reach the top. Joan laughs at me and keeps on going. When it is time for her life to end, she plans to move toward death in this same way.

Seekers--Searching for Home

2007-02-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

Joan #3

Finding a home of her own

Joan goes on with her story:

“As a young child, I had expressed my frustrations with tantrums. As a teenager, I expressed feelings of frustration with rebelliousness. To make matters worse, I had to keep moving around because I lived with my brother Paul, and he was in the army. During those years I had little opportunity to be out in nature. I felt out of place everywhere and put all my attention on trying to figure out how to make friends—without much luck. When I was young, my brother Paul was the one who put on band-aids when I fell and scrapped my knees. He was often kind to me in other ways, but as a teenager when I lived with Paul and his young family, I gave him the impression that I was wild. He tried to control me and that only made everything worse.

“One day Paul came into my room and sat me down on my bed. He told me quite harshly that he hoped I would behave myself, because I had no other place to go adding that there was no one else who loved me. It was sobering to hear him say aloud what I already knew was true. After he scolded me, I tried hard to straighten up. I believed him when he said that I had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t scared, but I was sad. I wanted to be loved. I felt terribly alone.

Joan was buffeted about during her first eighteen years. Her life was made up of disjointed events with no place for her to land. She was confused about who she was and where she belonged. It isn’t surprising that she was searching for someone to love, and she married young. Joan told me about meeting her husband Mike:

“I began to put my early experiences together when I was eighteen, and met Mike, my first husband. We fell in love, and told each other our life’s’ stories. Up until then I had no sense that I had a story. At the time, I was up in the Santa Cruz Mountains as a camp counselor at a girls’ camp. My mind cleared and I found parts of myself that I remembered from all the times when I had been up in the Sierras, hiking and horseback riding. I thought about everything that had happened to me. At this camp, I began to work with horses again. These interactions with horses, loving them, understanding them, working with children, and feeling my body, brought me up against myself trying to figure out who I was. My life story was bursting out of me when Mike showed up.

“I saw him at the barn and was enormously attracted to him. He was training the horses. He was handsome and so capable around them. I was determined to meet him, and came up with what I thought was a great plan. I took the camp car on an errand. I knew there was hardly any gas in it, and instead of going to get gas, I ran out of gas near the barn, where I knew I would find him. We met of course. He rescued me; a knight in shining armor, and our romance began. We were married a few months later when I was just eighteen, much to the horror of my brothers, who thought I was too young. At the time, I was ecstatic. Mike was my hero. I counted on him, learned from him. This caused problems for us later on, as he was enormously possessive, but in the beginning I finally felt deeply loved and cared for.

“After we married we took off, not knowing where we would end up. I wanted to be away from my family and to live in a different place. We were romantic and idealistic. Our only requirements were that we land some place beautiful where we would work with horses and finish school. We packed up all our possessions in an old station wagon and drove east. We ended up in Charlottesville, Virginia. We chose Charlottesville because it was beautiful horse country, and we found work on a horse farm in exchange for our rent.

“On the horse farm where we worked, we were housed in what used to be a slave cabin with high ceilings and no insulation. That winter was the coldest winter in eighty-eight years. A coal stove that went out in the middle of the night provided our heat. We needed it for heat and hot water, and because we were young we thought this too was romantic. On my nineteenth birthday, in February, Mike devised a plan to keep the stove going all night so we’d have both heat and hot water. He made a contraption that dripped oil into the coal box of the stove from a shelf above it. That night, we were quite pleased with ourselves. The next morning when we woke up the walls of the cabin were black. The oil drip had caught fire and smoked through the night.

We didn’t last long at the farm. “I didn’t fit in Charlottesville, but I was more confident by then about what I thought and what I had to say. I didn’t understand the rules of the South. It was the late forties, and segregation was still firmly in place. I was deeply disturbed by the treatment of African-Americans there. I often found myself commenting or protesting what others around me took for granted. I even managed to get a police record in Charlottesville. One day, I parked illegally outside the post office. When I came out, a police officer was writing me a ticket. I confronted him, saying that the city didn’t provide adequate parking spaces, and I had only been there for a minute or two. He handed me the ticket. I tore it up, and threw it at his feet. He took me to the local courthouse for an immediate trial. In spite, of the added fine, I was pleased with myself. It was probably a good thing that we stayed there for only a short while.

“We left Charlottesville with all our things and our two dogs. Back on the road, we first visited San Diego where my grandmother Banna and my aunt lived. Then we headed for Phoenix. We had a plan to develop a commercial stable with another couple that Mike knew. They turned out not to be the best business partners, so Mike pursued his engineering career and I taught riding and worked in stables as we worked our way back west. Finally, we landed back in Northern California.

“Together with a group of people, we were able to buy 120 acres in the foothills of Portola Valley. We personally bought five of those acres and built the house that I live in now. It was during those years that we had three children; Mark, Lyn, and Kim. In 1957, we all moved into our new house, this house that I still live in today. We chose the property because it is surrounded by hills and open oak-studded grasslands, good for riding and schooling horses. It was tremendously important to me to move here. We imagined that we would live here for the rest of our lives.”

Joan had finally found a home, and that provided her with the foundation on which she created a life of her own choosing. Fate wasn’t to make life easy for Joan, but as she learned to speak her mind and to make choices, her home held her in ways that her family had not. Her sense of home gave her the support that she needed to get through the hard times still ahead.

Seekers-Listening to themselves

2007-02-05T16:17:00.000-08:00

Joan #2

Finding her voice and connecting to nature

Seekers learn to look within themselves and beyond their families to find resources that help them tolerate pain, advocate for themselves, and make decisions in moments of crisis. They often begin developing this capacity in childhood when the adults closest to them don’t listen to their stories.

I(Ellen) was fortunate as a child to have a strong voice. My family story is that I was born talking. My sister still tells the story about a ride to our grandmother’s house when at age two, I got the idea that I wanted an ice cream cone, and, no matter what I was told, I continued for over an hour asking for something that I was denied. My first memory of myself is standing up in my crib protesting that someone had dared to leave me there and not include me in whatever was going on.

This strong sense of voice was silenced the day I sat with my husband Ron in the doctor’s office in Rotterdam and heard his diagnosis of ALS. I sat there frightened by a reality beyond my understanding. Following Ron’s illness and death, I had to rediscover my voice with others’ help. When I compared myself with Joan, I saw how my childhood of good fortune and indulgence encouraged me to believe in and to speak about whatever I wished, but that my voice disappeared in difficult circumstances.

Joan, like other Seekers, had difficulties as a child finding adults who listened to her. As I interviewed her about her childhood stories she told me how hard it was for her to speak up as a child and how she discovered her voice:

“When my father lost his money, we moved to Burlingame where we had a small summer house. It was a house I had always liked, with brown shingles on a deep, narrow lot. There was a bridge across a creek that led to an orchard on the other side. I was allowed to wander by myself all over the property, and I climbed the trees, although that was forbidden. I loved it out there. I didn’t mind moving to this house. The problem wasn’t the house, but who lived in the house, and outside I thought that many things were possible.

“In the house, the only way I knew how to express my frustrations were with tantrums, which didn’t help matters, but I think these were my first attempts to speak about what was happening to me.”

The rest of Joan’s childhood was spent mostly away from home. She was sent to boarding schools because her father was ill and Rose Bell, her step-mother, wouldn’t or couldn’t take care of her. She went to seven schools before she reached adolescence. When she visited home between the ages of nine and twelve, her father was gravely ill both physically and mentally.

The best times Joan had were out of doors, where she still continues to feel most alive. As a child she went to a camp in the Sierra Mountains in the summers and went skiing in the winters. Since Joan did not have adults on whom she could depend, she developed a relationship with nature where she learned to be competent and lively. It was there that she felt connected beyond herself.

At Peninsula, her favorite boarding school, Joan expanded her sense of roaming and found the words that she had been seeking. She told me this part of her story this way:

“Life really picked up for me at Peninsula School. It was a wonderful place, surrounded by wide fields where my best friend Diane and I roamed and were partners in crime. We would skip school and spend the day exploring places where no one could find us. When we returned, the principal sternly called us into her office, reprimanded us, and then gave us a punishment of some kind, but nothing very bad. This principal was a wonderful woman, and she was fond of us and admired our spunk.

“I was there for two years during the time when my Dad died. The school staff got me through. It was such a loving place. I felt free and happy as I walked over those dirt roads and fields.”

Joan laughed deeply as she remembered herself rambling. These memories of freedom pulled her out of her memories of loss. As a youngster suffering from the losses of her parents and the ensuing chaotic family changes, Joan enjoyed the few good moments in her life. She made a life in which her personal freedom was crucial to her sense of well- being. It was at Peninsula School that she began to develop her capacity to say and do the things that she needed to do to take care of herself.

“While I was at Peninsula, I dreamed that I had a lot to say, although I was actually shy and quiet. One day, I woke up after a particularly strong dream and felt compelled to write everything I had to say with a thick black pen on the walls and ceiling of my room. Without much thought, I began to write on one wall, then another wall, until they were all filled. Then I climbed up on a ladder and wrote on the ceiling. I was certain that this was a great idea and that everyone would be impressed with what I had to say. I especially wanted to impress my older brother Bob, who was coming down to visit that day. Diane may have come in and written on a small part of the wall, but I covered it all with a black marker I was so sure everyone would be proud of me and see how clever I was. I can’t remember what I wrote, but I do remember that I wrote all over.”

Joan burst out laughing, still delighted with herself.

“When my brother Bob arrived, he wasn’t impressed. He was shocked and his only response was to say that I had to wash it all off. I couldn’t believe it. I did wash it all off, but I never felt bad about it. I thought that they just didn’t get it.”
Joan continued to laugh throughout her telling of this tale, appreciating the part of her that finally wouldn’t be silenced.

“I had so much to say. I had always been shy. Everyone else had been much older and bigger than I was. They had seemed so smart, and I listened, but said nothing. This was the first time that I remember having a lot to say, and I said it. I had been saving it up for a long time.”
This theme carries throughout Joan’s life as she has repeatedly lost and found her voice. Over the years, difficult circumstances and confusion about who she was and what she wanted silenced her. Then she would find herself again, as she did on the day she wrote on the walls. Today, she listens intently to what others say. Her manner is receptive and open. Yet when roused, she speaks fiercely of things that matter to her.

Introducing Seekers

2007-01-31T16:56:00.000-08:00

Seekers–Women who create new life stories day-by-day

Seekers are women who live in a world of frequent change. They live away from their families-of-origin, feeling confined by family expectations. They focus on the present, and search across age groups and cultural communities to find alternatives that strengthen their sense of independence.

Over the next few weeks I’ll tell the stories here of two Seekers: Joan, a long-time Californian, born into a family of wealth, who from the age two has faced the death of many family members, including her parents and Eva, a Yugoslavian immigrant who moved away from her family, friends, and country early in life and now living alone in California. Having known disruptions since childhood that have left them often on their own; these women tell stories that reveal their independence and curiosity about new possibilities. I will also tell how their survival stories have affected mine.

Joan–a woman who keeps walking on wobbly knees

I have known Joan for twenty years. A mutual friend, who thought that Joan’s experiences with loss would help me with my husband Ron’s illness, introduced us. Joan was a great comfort to me. She listened to me, witnessed my distress, and offered me respite in her home. I escaped from my misery by listening to her stories of adventures around the world. After Ron died, we traveled together, and I shared her excitement at discovering new places.
When Joan enters a room, it is hard to miss her strong features in a face tanned by the sun. Her intent, dark eyes are lined at the corners from laughter. She exudes simple elegance with well-cut grey hair and clothes made of light-colored cotton, usually accented with bold silver jewelry. When approached, her face opens into a broad smile. She listens and laughs easily, her short, wiry body vibrating with energy. At seventy-nine, she still moves quickly, if a bit more stiffly than before.

Since her early childhood, Joan has experienced deaths of close family members; in the wake of these deaths she has lost and found herself many times over. Like a plastic pop- up doll, when punched down, she bobs right back up again. As a horse trainer, public health administrator, mountain climber, traveler to remote places, psychotherapist and spiritual seeker, she has developed a life of intention. She is still planning the next trek, even as walking becomes more difficult.

Joan should have lived the comfortable life of a child born into a family of wealth, but her childhood was filled with loss and loneliness. When Joan was less than two years old, her parents, and brothers left her at home with a nurse and went on a luxury liner for what was supposed to be an extended tour of Europe. Joan looked young and sad as she remembered and told me this part of her story:

“I have few memories of that time, but I remember, or maybe I’ve just seen pictures of me, held up by my nurse. I see myself waving and crying at the station, as my parents leave for New York where they will board a ship for Europe. In my mind’s eye, I see their large trunks being loaded onto the train.

“I know my parents came back early from their trip because my mother was ill. She had stomach cancer, went right into the hospital, and died soon after they returned. Before she died, my mother was sent to a place called Dante’s Sanatorium, where people were supposed to go to rest. It was where I had been born. It’s odd that I was born in the same place where my mother went to die.

“In spite of all that happened, I think I was fine even after my mother died, as long as my nurse and my grandmother Banna lived with us. I was fine until Rose Bell moved in.”
When speaking to me about this Joan sat up straight in her chair shifting from reverie to agitation. I saw the anger on her face. She was far away from the present moment, back to a time when she had been young and alone.

“I remember the day my father told me that Rose Bell, his new wife, was coming to live with us. It was less than a year after my mother had died. We were sitting in the downstairs parlor. He told me that Rose Bell was moving in and Banna was leaving. I feel myself sitting there, saying nothing, knowing at three, that my world was changing. I don’t think I cried, or said anything. I just sat there.”

Joan’s voice trailed off. Almost as an aside, she added:

“I think I was a lost soul then. When hard things happened in my family, the rule was not to talk about them. Certainly, difficulties were not spoken of in front of me. If the grown-ups spoke of something important they spelled their words so that I wouldn’t understand. No one spoke about anything hard, and certainly not about my mother’s death. I just didn’t know what was going on.”

A photograph of Joan at three years old hangs on her bedroom wall today. The picture shows a beautiful child who looks terribly sad. Joan found this photograph in a box not long ago and decided to put it up so as not to forget about this little girl, a part of herself that she has neglected sometimes. As she becomes more vulnerable and dependent with age, this part of her needs care and attention. When she has failed to nurture herself in the past, Joan has become overwhelmed or depressed. She tries to remember to keep this little girl in mind.

Reflection on Keepers 2- Relying on Spiritual Connection

2007-01-24T17:01:00.000-08:00

Finding spirit in many places

Florence and Janie (the Keepers’ whose stories I have already told on this blog) place their religious beliefs at the center of how they navigate life. I wished that I had had a religious path to follow, but my experience as a secular Jew didn’t lead me to traditional religion. My parents held few religious beliefs. I went to Jewish Sunday school, but my memories of it are playing with other children and going to parties, rather than religious or spiritual teaching. My great-aunt Fan was a member of the temple, and on high holidays I went to temple with her. I enjoyed the music, but I found little meaning in the services. I had assumed that I had no spiritual life to speak of and didn’t consider the possibility of finding solace in any religious practice. I had to string together a series of childhood and adult experiences with dreams to which I had paid little attention in order to develop my sense of a spiritual presence in my life that I might turn to when in need.

As a child, I was aware of a world beyond what I could see. I believed that this world was filled with angels who held it together. I spoke to no one of this world and both feared and cherished it. One morning, I awoke early and went into the living room on my way to my parents’ bedroom. I saw a group of transparent figures made of gauze. I believed that they were the angels preparing the day. Irritated by my intrusion, they shushed me back to my room. These images are still strong in my mind; they are perhaps only the magical thinking of childhood, but they are strangely connected to adult experiences of a world that I sense, but cannot know.

I have dreamed several times of entering a house with seven rooms. In each room a teacher who looks like one of my childhood angels teaches me a lesson of life. I go from room to room until in the last room I am asked to dance a dance of life. I must dance from my left, dance from my right and then dance from my center. As I dance this dance, I dissolve, not in fear, but in celebration.

The most powerful spiritual experience I had occurred on the day that my husband Ron turned off his ventilator and died. On that day Ron and I sat side-by-side in our living room still wondering what had happened to our life. We were closer than we had been in years. We held hands and listened to the music that Ron had selected for the day. We were surrounded by the yellow tulips he had requested. When the time came to turn off the ventilator, we were joined by our daughters, a close family friend, Ron’s nurse, and his doctor. Ron wanted to die naturally without tubes or drugs. The doctor, who after months of conversations with Ron had agreed to his decision to turn off the ventilator, first removed Ron’s gastrostomy tube and then the tube attached to the ventilator. As soon as the tubes were gone, Ron’s face changed. His strained, frozen look was replaced with his handsome face that I knew so well. I suddenly found myself breathing more deeply as if my life depended on it, or as if I was birthing Ron’s death. My daughters, my friend, and I held onto each other as we watched Ron die. His body didn’t move when he died, and yet we felt him leap out of the wheelchair in which he had been imprisoned. My daughter Sarah later told me that she had held us all down because she was afraid that the energy in the room would lift us away. She said she held me tightest because she thought that I might want to leave with her father. She wasn’t wrong. I felt as if I were there and not there and that part of me was taken up in the energy and light that was released when Ron died. From that day on, I knew that death was nearby. It is not a frightening thought, and I imagine that if I could look a bit further over my shoulder, or turn around more quickly, I could see Ron next to me.

I don’t need to understand or to explain these phenomena. I allow myself not to know, and yet to trust in something beyond what I know. Mostly I try to be in relationship to this world that I only sense. Surprisingly, I now find myself more interested in celebrating Jewish holidays and practicing Jewish meditation. When sitting quietly late at night, childhood Hebrew songs come to me, and I sing out loud. I believe that prayer takes many forms.

Florence’s and Janie’s family stories and religious beliefs gave them a compass that showed them where to look for relief and what to do to prepare for what was to come. Each of us can choose what we will take from the Keepers in our lives. Perhaps mapping three generations of our family might lead us to family stories that we have forgotten. The Keepers may remind us of times at the dinner table when we heard stories of family pride. They might encourage us to tell our family stories and to use them as our guides. Or, as Janie did with her Stella Maris group, the Keepers might encourage us to look outside of family to find others to stand with us when we are afraid. They also challenge us to seek a world of spirit, even if we do not have a traditional religious path to follow. They encourage us to trust our instincts and to reach for a sense of connection beyond ourselves.

If my reflections remind you of a story about yourself or someone else send it to me so that I can post it here and share it with others.

Readers' Questions -Ellen's Responses

2007-01-16T14:47:00.000-08:00

Reader’s question
Anonymous said...
Will you please explain Keepers, Seekers and Teachers? I feel I am missing something important, capitalized, that others understand.
1/16/2007 2:12 AM
Ellen’s answer

Keepers, Seekers and Teachers
As I listened closely and recorded women’s stories, hoping not to freeze in fear the next time I was dealt an overwhelming blow by fate, I discovered that in order to learn from their stories, I discovered that the element of time—past, present, and future—was important to my understanding of where they found the resources that they relied upon when most distressed. I remembered being impressed by Margaret Mead’s book, Culture and Commitment,[1] in college. She described different cultural groups according to their reliance on past knowledge of elders, the experience of peer groups in the present, or the vision of youth looking toward the future. The women I interviewed also seemed to fit these categories. Influenced by Mead, I named the women that I interviewed as Keepers, Seekers, and Teachers, depending where in time they sought resources when most distressed.
Keepers reach back into family history when they need to reset their course. Family traditions guide them as they provide a nurturing presence for three or more family generations. These women find their center in family life. Through their stories, and memories, they deepen and maintain family connections. When recounting hard times they retell family stories and report on present day family life, even including family members from whom they are estranged.
Seekers are women who live in a world of frequent change. They live away from their families-of-origin, feeling confined by family expectations. They focus on the present, and search across age groups and cultural communities to find alternatives that strengthen their sense of independence.
So far on the blog I have told the stories of two Keepers, Florence, and Janie. Next come the stories of two Seekers and then two Teachers. I am hoping that others send me their stories of Keepers, Seekers, and Teachers.
[1] Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment. New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Joe from Japan asked:

Are there men who are Keepers, Seekers and Teachers?

Ellen's Response:

I am sure that there are. I have not yert collected their stories, but I am interested in any that you know.

Reflection on Keepers - Family Legacies

2007-01-14T13:20:00.000-08:00

Are you a Keeper?

Florence and Janie the Keepers on this blog placed themselves and their children in a coherent story of family and community history. In telling and retelling family stories, they remind themselves and everyone who listens of the past that they treasure. When they or someone they love falls away from the family, or from what they see as a good life, they weave these periods of distress into an ever widening family story. Their capacity to hold onto good and bad stories arises from their belief that life naturally is made up of the good and the bad. Their stories combine difficult experiences with hope for a better future.

Revisiting ideas of family
Florence and Janie told stories remarkably different from my own, and I wondered how I could build on their stories of the past, but they convinced me that writing a new survival story meant that I had to revisit my ideas of family, something that we all must do if we want to gather wisdom from the Keepers.

Some questions we might ask about our ideas of family could include: Have we chosen to live near to or far away from our family? Have we resolved family conflicts so that our relationships remain open and loving, or do we distance ourselves and close the door to our future closeness? Do we have the option to call upon family members when we need them? Which past stories of family can we call upon in strengthening connections to our family history? If we do not find useful family stories, what stories from other cultural histories give us stories for survival? If our families-of-origin are not available to us, do we have families of our own choosing to whom we can turn when we are in need?

I started out by reflecting on how my ideas about family were influenced by the Keepers who navigated the ups and downs of family life with family members nearby. I had always believed that success in a family should be measured by each person’s capacity to live independently. I now embrace an idea of family developed by Lee Combrinck Graham, a colleague of mine[1] who describes family development as a spiral that moves family members apart and together depending on their needs.

As young adults, my husband Ron and I thought nothing of moving far away from our families. We never questioned our ability to manage on our own. We left first to live in Lagos, Nigeria and then moved to California, many miles from where we had grown up and where our parents still lived. We visited them when we could, but we didn’t depend on them. We celebrated our independence and felt only a little guilty when one of our mother’s told us how much she missed us. I assumed that they would always be there if I needed them. We measured our success as adults in terms of our independence.

When Ron became ill, the physical distance from our families troubled us. We wished that our parents and siblings lived closer, and they wished the same. Our notion that we didn’t need our families turned out to be another delusion of good fortune. Part of our reason for living far from our parents had been our complex and troubling relationships with them. I needed distance because I was too dependent on my parents. Ron needed distance because he was too estranged from his.

The Keepers led me back to my relationships with our parents during Ron’s illness. Their reactions to our painful situation surprised us. My parents, especially my mother, were devastated. As soon as they heard about Ron’s diagnosis they came to the Netherlands to be with us. My mother’s grief at what we were facing left her in tears. She wanted reassurance from us or wanted to make our suffering disappear. I had to ask her to leave a few days early because her upset was too much for me to handle. I understood her distress, but I realized that I couldn’t depend on her. My parents visited only a few times once we returned to the U.S. before my mother had a stroke, perhaps brought on by her distress about us. I was wrong to have assumed that they would always be there when I needed them.

On the other hand we were able to repair our broken relationship with Ron’s parents. When Ron had told his Methodist mid-western parents that he was planning to marry Jewish me, his father had said that if he went through with the marriage he would disown Ron. We got through those early days, and Ron’s parents finally came to the wedding, but our relationship with them was always distant. They couldn’t understand why Ron had married a woman so different from anyone they knew. Ron’s illness brought them into the center of our lives. They immediately offered financial help when they realized the extent of home care that Ron needed. They also visited regularly. When they came they pitched in, doing simple household jobs and not asking much from us. Ron’s dependence allowed them to hug him again and feel close to him as they had when he was a boy. During those years, they returned to their relationship with him and developed a caring relationship with me.

The Keepers also remind us to look to our elders especially our grandmothers. But others besides grandmothers can become guides for when we are most pressed. I believe that each of us knows someone in our family or in our history upon whom we might call when we are afraid. I now ask beleaguered clients to choose a guide to travel with them. Each of us can find a guide to imagine when we need someone by our side. Who might you choose as your guide?

I am about to become a grandmother. My youngest daughter and her husband have chosen to live near us, so that we can be part of the life of their new son. Their willingness to invite us allows me to enter fully into being a grandmother, an opportunity that I denied my own mother. Like Janie and Florence, I imagine that I will tell stories of family history to my grandchild and that the growing stories will include him in our family tapestry. The Keepers will be my models for how to grandmother.

[1] Lee Combrinck Graham, Children in the Family Context. New York: Guilford press, 1989.

Reader's Comment from Japan

2007-01-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

Not the lunatic fringe.

Dear Dr. Ellen,

I went to your blog and the first thing I thought, -and I apologize in advance now!- "oh no! Another lunatic fringe self-help Berkeley Doctor."

But wait!

I began to read, just a touch here and snip there...and I went back to your title page;
"Learn with them to write your own survival story for hard times."

It makes perfect sense. It is brilliant. Don't I know the power of writing as a tool for self-healing! Self-growth, and for bringing dis-harmonious thoughts, people and situations into balance.

Writing brings focus, and Dr. Ellen, we all need a lot of that!

I write a lot. It is one thing I enjoy, next to exploring wilderness trails, finding deer-sleeping hallows or wild pig-wallows! It is what I look forward to on rainy days.
I never questioned the...what do I call it? Concept? Application? Seeing your blog, the concept, the question was asked and answered in a split second. I see the connection between therapy and writing, even though many years I have been writing, and I fully understand that it helped me focus and develop a stronger human philosophy. But un-noticed it is like Chinese medicine, a preventive philosophy of mental health!

Oh, I like it.
I book-marked and will return to read it all, if you don't mind? Not confidential?

"What I had to learn was that for life’s survival, we are all interdependent. When our resources are plentiful, we need to share with others, and when our resources are stretched, we need to ask others more fortunate to provide for us."

yes!.

Returning to what matters

2007-01-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

Janie #5

Janie connects her resourcefulness now with the one moment in her life when she faced what could have been a disaster, and made a choice that convinced her that she was capable of asserting herself when she was afraid. This choice led her down a pathway of prayer that gives her confidence in any situation. She told me the story this way:

“Before the terrible times around the deaths of my boys, I had been drinking like I had learned to drink in my family. But after the boys died, if I started drinking, I couldn’t stop. I’d use the occasion of drinking as a release from my grief, and in addition, my doctor gave me Librium, and I started mixing the two. From the family that I grew up in and from what I already knew, I knew that I was in trouble, but I couldn’t stop myself. Then there was an incident at school that made me realize just how bad things had become.

“The principal at my school had been after me for a while. Now you call it sexual harassment, but I didn’t know about sexual harassment back then. He must have been after a lot of young women because men like him are usually after everyone. It all came to a head with him one night after we had moved from one school to another, and I was at school after-hours getting the library ready.

“The principal was in his office. He called me in and I knew he wanted to have sex with me, but I went in anyway. He gave me a drink, and I took the drink, maybe two drinks. I had never done anything like that before. I thought, ‘Oh my God. I’ve got to get out of here,’ and at the same time, I thought, ‘I’ve gone as far as I can go.’ I can’t remember exactly what I did or said, but I got out of there. Before that moment I didn’t know that I had the strength to stand up for myself.

“The next day I called in sick and immediately went and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. From then until now many spiritual things have happened for me. When I joined AA, which is another way of looking at yourself with truthful eyes, I became a person of prayer. I slowly returned to the dedication my mother made of me to Mary. I guess that was when I went back to wearing only blue and white. I found the Cenacle Sisters and studied and worked with them in the community. The Cenacle refers to the upper room where Mary, the Apostles, and their families waited after the resurrection for the Holy Spirit to come down and give them wisdom, grace and inspiration.

“In 1990, I began to study more seriously with the Cenacle Sisters so that I could take vows as a lay nun. Ten years later in 2000, I took my definitive vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The vow of poverty meant that I wouldn’t be dependent on anyone for my upkeep. The vow of chastity didn’t change anything about my life, but freed me from all concerns in this regard. Now my name is on a list in Rome that says I am living this vow. I don’t really care about the list in Rome, but it just is what it is. It puts things to rest. The obedience just means that you hope that you are doing God’s will most of the time.

“If you are what you are and if it is recognized by the people you hold most dear in your community, not in a big way, but in a little way, it is comforting to be acknowledged for what you have chosen. Suffering gets you to the point where you can choose the one thing that matters which for me was my spiritual life. I could have just holed up or never seen anyone or drank myself to death, but this choice freed me. It gave me the power of a skyrocket if I wanted to be shot off, figuratively speaking.

“In 1999, the same year I moved here, I had a total hip replacement, and that grounded me for a while and helped me with my spiritual work. I was always running around, and this got me grounded and taught me to have an hour of prayer a day, which I learned keeps me ready for whatever happens next. Something I won’t do without now. To me, prayer means reading the scriptures for each day. I have a prayer book, which gives the Morning Prayer, the mass for the day, and the evening prayer. It gives information about the saint of the day and sometimes includes obscure saints of the day who bring something special. Really prayer is a quiet time, a period of meditation for an hour each morning. It prepares you for the day, and no matter what happens these readings from the scripture fit your life. I don’t go to daily mass, but I say all the prayers. I feel light, like; you know the lightness of being.”
I could almost see light around Janie as she said this. We sat quietly for a few minutes before she went on:

“I’m cutting back on the goings out. So I choose what I do carefully, but I hold onto all my important relationships, although I see everyone a little less often. I see my friends from the Stella Maris group every Sunday, and the Sisters of the Cenacle. Here in St. Louis there are only four of us from the Cenacle group left.

Janie stopped for a moment and then went on:
“Suffering can open a door. You have to know that you are going to encounter suffering, and it is not what it does to you, but what you do with it. Some people think that they are going to get by without it, but we know that none of us do. When others suffer I can empathize and sympathize like this year with my granddaughter Callie. She went away from home for the first time, her other grandmother died, and she was in an automobile accident. When she still got all A’s at the end of the year, I just told her how much I admired her.”

“When I think about the next ten years, I look forward to being a little more quiet, a little less going-out. I love to write letters to friends that live out of town. There are always the Christmas cards that I haven’t opened yet, and I don’t like to be in that spot, but that will of course whittle down in the next ten years.

“It’s the three “Fs” -- family, faith, and friends that matter to me most. If I can just stick with those it will be a good ten years. I want to spend more time with my family, and my daughter Mary is good about that, but I don’t bother them. When I was helping at the Cenacle learning about affirmations, I learned to say, ‘I am completely self- determined, and I allow others the same right’. That kind of keeps me out of everyone’s hair. I see them every other week or every three weeks, but I follow all their goings-on, and keep track of all of them. In the summertime, my granddaughters, Callie and Jessie, and I go to lunch. I will probably ask them next Wednesday to go for an Irish lunch to celebrate James Joyce’s Bloomsday. It’s an occasion we would hate to miss.”
.
The day I interviewed Janie was the first extended time that we had spent together. We laughed and cried, and by the end of the day neither one of us wanted to stop talking. I was deeply affected by Janie’s ability to acknowledge her grief and her limitations while still living by the values she treasures, and still laughing at herself and with others. The excruciating things that had happened didn’t paralyze her, or remove her from the people that she loved.
Before we parted Janie asked me questions about my life, my children, and the stories from before I met my second husband who is her nephew by marriage. She listened with interest, and I imagined that she now included my stories in her family tapestry. I was pleased to be part of the cloth.

Vulnerability and Shame

2007-01-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

From Ellen,

Before I go on with Janie's story I want to respond to another question from Joe. He asked me why I don't write more of my story and I said that I still find it hard to tell my story and yet I get so much from the stories of others. I thought again about why sometimes some of us find it hard to let others know when we are vulnerable. I remembered what this was like me expecially when my husband Ron was so ill.

When Ron became ill, I found it difficult to count on others, although it took an army of friends, family, nurses, social workers, lawyers, and psychotherapists to keep Ron at home and to keep our family functioning. Crises with the ventilator regularly left Ron gasping for breath. Insurance companies refused to pay for his care. Much of our energy was spent fighting for Ron’s physical and emotional needs. Each of us went in and out of depression, and our family splintered and reconfigured itself many times. In spite of our struggles I believed that we should not have to depend on others.

Before Ron’s illness, I had witnessed families whom I counseled feel shame when their difficulties overwhelmed them. Illness, which no one blamed them for, produced profound humiliation. They believed that illness was a private matter, not to be inflicted upon others. When working with these families, I challenged their desire for isolation and encouraged them to reach out and to create a wider circle of support. After Ron became ill, I was surprised at how much I shared their desire for isolation and shame for needing help. I had been influenced by a culture that over-valued independence.

I believed that we should be able to manage on our own -- not because others weren’t ready to help, but because of my desire not to need help. At first I resisted the efforts of others. When I eventually forced myself to accept spontaneous acts of kindness, I had to admit that these were not enough. We needed consistent help in making difficult decisions, managing our home care system, and raising money to pay for Ron’s nurses. We needed the help of a wider community to manage our emotions and the tasks at hand.

I was part of a generation of women who believed that we were equals with our partners, who believed that we could have careers and be good mothers too. What I didn’t understand was that my capacity to do these things was based on good fortune and that with Ron’s illness I would have to rethink what I could do and be as wife, mother, and psychologist.

As a helper to others, I had not appreciated how hard it would be to reach out to a wide circle of supporters. I even had to let my clients know that sometimes I would have to cancel psychotherapy sessions if there was an emergency at home. This went against my years of professional training, in which I was taught that the life of the therapist should be kept out of the therapy room. To my surprise, my vulnerability led to more open connections with my clients. They were able to feel concern for me and allow us to continue our work together. Reaching out beyond my comfort level with others led me to let go of a false sense of independence and to discover interdependence.

A year after Ron went on the ventilator, in desperation I called together a group of friends and asked them to meet with me regularly. We created a group mind for problem-solving. This group convinced me that nuclear families survive on their own in circumstances of privilege. When life is filled with difficulties community is not an option, but a necessity.

My friends rallied around me. One friend said that by offering help she felt relief about our situation. At last, she could do something. It reassured her to think that if she ever needed help, others would be there. At our monthly meetings, I spoke about what was happening in our family. I raised issues about the nurses, the children, Ron’s care, and my relationship with Ron. My friends gave me the gift of their time and made suggestions that I had overlooked.

Sometimes it was awkward shifting the balance of these friendships. As friends, we had exchanged the stories of our lives equally. During Ron’s illness, I asked them to give me extra time and attention when I had little time for them. They were more than generous, but we often had to sacrifice the easy flow of friendship to work as a problem-solving group. What I had to learn was that for life’s survival, we are all interdependent. When our resources are plentiful, we need to share with others, and when our resources are stretched, we need to ask others more fortunate to provide for us. In different ways, the women I am writing about on this blog live by this principle. I seem to have to learn it over and over again.

What about the rest of you? Is that why you are reluctant to send in your stories?

From Ellen

2006-12-24T07:01:00.000-08:00

Dear All,

Last week some of you wrote in comments. Please continue writing in. This week we go on with Janie's story posted below during a particularly hard time when her life got away from her as she tried to hold onto it. The question for me as I listened to Janie's story was when have I felt knocked over by life? How did I respond? What might I learn from Janie's story for the future when life knocks me over again?

Hope to hear from you.
Contact me at: Ellen@berkeleyfamilytherapy.com

Losing her way

2006-12-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

Janie #4

Janie’s belief in the social myths of her circle led her to fall in love at sixteen with a handsome and irresponsible young man from her set. No one around her thought that they made good match, but no one said anything either, when they married young and started a family. Janie’s husband Bob, although from a well-situated Irish family, lost sight of himself and like many others in their community turned to alcohol.

Bob and Janie shared a romantic notion of love that kept them married well past the time when he was available to love her and their children. Janie told me their sad love story:

“Bob and I met in eighth grade. We went to the same church, St. Peters, and they had a CYC (Catholic Youth Camp) where we both went during summers growing up. I also saw him at Sunset Hills Country Club at the swimming pool.

“Bob was my boyfriend, but I had a lot of boyfriends, but he was the most persistent. He was the one who said ‘Our marriage is inevitable.’ the kind of things that I believed. Just before Bob left for the army, we walked together around the Tidal Basin. We didn’t really say that we would marry, but then we wrote to each other for almost three years. He left early in 1942 and he didn’t come back until November of 1944.

“No one thought that Bob was the right one for me. He had a reputation when we were in high school. Some people thought that he was wonderful, while other people said, ‘watch out.’ One time in high school, I came down the steps at Visitation and saw my mother with the principal, Sister Ann Marie, in her office. I eavesdropped and heard them saying something about Bob and a girl that he was involved with who had left school. No one in our class knows what became of her. She sort of just disappeared. We all keep track of one another, but she is the one in our class who we think is still alive, but don’t know where she is and what happened to her. I’ve always wondered if it had something to do with her and Bob.

“When Bob came back from the war he called me immediately. I didn’t listen to anyone. I was terribly attracted to him. We were married the next November. I was one month from twenty-one. I think Bob won me over because he was so persuasive in writing, speaking, and touching. We didn’t have sex before we married or anything like that, but it got kind of scary with him. I thought, I guess I’ll have to marry him because he touched my breast.”

Janie started laughing. “Back in the 40’s you thought things like that. I might have imagined that I could get pregnant just by his touch. I really didn’t know much about anything.

“Our romance lasted until 1950. We had three children then -- first Michael, then Kevin and Stephen. It was the year that Stephen was born that we ended up kaput. Bob had insurance jobs and sometimes he worked for his father or sell tires out of a filling station in East St Louis, but he wasn’t steady.

“The last time we tried one more time was in 1952. I always tell my daughter Mary that she should be thankful for Maureen O’Hara in the movie, “The Quiet Man.” I’ve given Mary a picture of the little house from the movie called the “light of morn.”

“Bob came over one night and we watched “The Quiet Man” together. It was such a romantic story and then there was Mary. I am thankful for “The Quiet Man” because Mary is a delight in my life and without that movie she would never have been born. But Bob and I didn’t stay together.

“Finally, I got a divorce from him in 1957. At the time my children were eleven, nine, seven, and four. Bob went away and lived in California. We heard from him from time to time, but he never came and visited us.”

Janie struggled to feed and clothe her children, as well as provide them with the other things that they needed as they grappled with their father’s absence. Janie, the three boys, and her daughter lived in a small apartment over a store. She was gone from home, working much of the time, but she encouraged the boys to stay at home and to bring their friends there. She thought that they would be safer at home.

One night Janie came home and found not only beer cans, but also a condom under the couch. She announced that “This was it.” She rounded up the boys in the group and told them that they were going on a Catholic retreat at The Pius X Monastery by the Mississippi, near St. Louis. Janie thought it might save them from themselves and get them away from drinking and boredom. She piled them in her car and drove them down to the retreat center, turning them over to the monks. Her son Stephen and one of the other boys got up very early the next morning, snuck out, and floated down the Mississippi on a log. It was a magical moment for those boys, but it didn’t save them. They were both dead by their own hands within two years.

Stephen died in the summer of 1967. The following summer Janie and her teenage son Kevin, at his request, took an unhappy trip to San Francisco to visit Bob, Janie’s ex-husband and Kevin’s father. They had heard that he wasn’t doing well. Whatever Kevin had hoped for with that visit didn’t happen. Janie, Bob, and Kevin had little to say to one another. At the San Francisco airport, as Janie and Kevin were leaving to return to St. Louis, a sad Kevin asked Janie if he could fly to Woodstock to go to a concert instead of returning home with her. She said, “Yes,” thinking that at least he might get something out of the trip that he had wanted. However, she worried about him and hoped that he wouldn’t come to harm. He returned safely from that trip, but as with Stephen, Janie couldn’t keep Kevin safe forever. On October 3, 1969, Kevin was shot by the St. Louis police.

Janie told me about his death:
“Kevin was killed when he was twenty-one in 1969, two years after Stephen died. He and his special friend Claire were on their way to attend the anti-Veiled Prophet (VP) Ball. In St. Louis’ high society everyone attended the VP Ball and if you were anti-establishment you went to the anti-VP Ball. Kevin and Claire painted their shoes with day-glow and dressed up to go to the event. On their way to the dance, they went to a part of town that had lovely homes, but it was also a troubled area. Only a week before, a policeman had been shot by a druggy- type person, so the police were jittery. Claire told me that a young man came up to their car and told them first to get out of the car and then forced them back into the car. He had a gun and had just committed a robbery. The police came in to answer to the robbery, and this is where I blank out. I guess the police were suspicious when they saw Kevin, Claire, and the other man. They told them to get out of the car. The police assumed that the three of them had robbed the house together, and somehow in whatever followed they shot Kevin in the back -- five bullet holes in the back. They arrested the other young man.

“I never did anything about how the police shot Kevin. It wouldn’t have brought him back, and after Stephen and Kevin died, I didn’t know if I could go through this kind of trial. I had always told the children that the police were there to keep them safe and bring them home if they got lost. I had believed in them. You know it was 1969 and the 60’s were awful. I knew that Kevin was in trouble. I suspected that he was drinking and drugging too, although we didn’t find anything in his things.

“I first learned about Kevin’s death when two detectives arrived at my door. They wanted to take me downtown to identify his body. I got numb all over: it was so close to Stephen’s death. But I told the police that I could do this, and I went with them to the morgue. Kevin was on a big wide metal table and I touched him. I was in such shock. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. His eyes were open, and I wasn’t brave enough to close his eyes.

“Much later when I saw Midnight Cowboy, when Dustin Hoffman died on the bus and Jon Voight closed his eyes, I …” Janie started weeping. “I really wished I had done it, closed his eyes, but I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t do it then.” Through streaming tears, Janie said, “You learn it for another time or another person.”

Comment from N

2006-12-22T21:54:00.000-08:00

Hey Ellen,

I really like the blog! Its nice to hear you speak so openly. I didn't understand your project before but I think I do now. I was thinking about the stories of life that you speak of. Joe may be right that the 'lost stories' is a US phenomenom because of how we live--apart and obsessed with satisfying the self, material aggrandizement etc. And by extension, I wonder if this reluctance to one's pain with others is also a cultural thing that keeps people cut off from sharing and learning. It always struck me odd that under certain circumstances, people who endure hardship reflect upon it with almost a fondness when they had others to experience it with (ie. growing up in povery or being in a horrible accident.) It is a strange gift.

For me the interesting question is what do you do when it doesn't work out and there is no rainbow. (Ha this is probably why I am a lawyer!) Put differently, why does it work out sometimes and not other? This phenomena has plagued my family. A relative of mine was slated to become matriach of the family and she married a man who came into the family. But things didn't work out and as I understand there was betrayal and the usual drama rama of a failed marriage. But her children as far as I can tell did not bond and did not grow into strong people with robust souls. One of my cousins seems still frozen, angry at his mother or just in general and still in many ways is a child despite having two kids of his own. There has always been the silent accusation within the family that had my aunt shouldhave held down the fort, and her kids would have been fine. But something makes me feel this in it of itself would not have been the magic bullet. I know some people strongly would disagree with me, and insist that the virtue of sticking it out despite its costs trumps all.

In Toni Morrison's book Jazz (I think) there is a character Pilate who is weird, really weird but she> stays. That to me is her main characteristic. She is one of the few that do--everyone else seems to leave to escape, to grow or leave for the sake of leaving but Pilate stays. And what is so extraodinary is that she seems to be able to stay true to herself--perhaps by leading a very unconventional life. As to your other point, whether I am plagued or not by doubts in my own abilities to endure is something else. I feel on one hand having watched my family struggle I do feel that strength or skillset has been passed on to me. Yet when I abstractly think about hardship, I feel a doubt that I would not be able endure with the same smile and laugh that iH ave now.

Dear N,

Thank you for telling me these stories. Like you I don't believe in magic bullets, and sometimes those of us looking in on someone else's story see thinga that they have missed. My sense is that you may see more in your aunt's family than others see.I also think that family stories often get stuck in how they are told. We tend to see the same parts of our family members that we've always seen and even when they change we can miss the change. I wonder if there are things in your cousins' lives that they haven't shared with you and although they may be stuck in their family-of-origin story which you sense when you are with them that in other settings they have gone on and made new life stories for themselves. I know for myself that I both hold to my family stories as I know them and realize that my sister who was there at the same time tells her stoires very differently. Perhaps many stories coexist side-by-side. I agree with you that in any case speaking of particularly our hardships, but also our celebrations make life more livable. I know that your stoires will encourage others to reflect on their lives, the questions that they have and the possbilities.

Comment

2006-12-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

Hey Ellen,

I really like the blog! It’s nice to hear you speak so openly. I didn't understand your project before but I think I do now. I was thinking about the stories of life that you speak of. Joe may be right that the 'lost stories' is a US phenomenon because of how we live--apart and obsessed with satisfying the self, material aggrandizement etc. And by extension, I wonder if this reluctance to one's pain with others is also a cultural thing that keeps people cut off from sharing and learning.

It always struck me odd that under certain circumstances, people who endure hardship reflect uponit with almost a fondness when they had others to experience it with (i.e. growing up in poverty or being in a horrible accident.) It is a strange gift. For me the interesting question is what do you do when it doesn’t work out and there is no rainbow. (Ha this is probably why I am a lawyer!) Put differently, why does it work out sometimes and not other? This phenomenon has plagued my aunt's family. She was slated to become the family matriarch and married a man who came into the family. But things didn't work out and as I understand it there was betrayal and the usual drama- rama of a failed marriage. But her children as far as I can tell did not bond and did not grow into strong people with robust souls.

One of my cousins seems still frozen, angry at his mother or just in general and still in many ways is a child despite having two kids of his own.There has always been the silent accusation within the family that had my aunt held down the fort, her kids would have been fine. But something makes me feel this in it of itself would not have been the magic bullet. I know some people strongly would disagree with me, including my mom and insist on the virtue of sticking it out, despite its costs, trumps all.

In Toni Morrison's book Jazz (I think) there is a character Pilate who is weird, really weird but she stays. That to me is her main characteristic. She is one of the few that do--everyone else seems to leave to escape, to grow or leave for the sake of leaving but Pilate stays. And what is so extraordinary is that she seems to be able to stay true to herself--perhapsby leading a very unconventional life.

As to your other point, whether I am plagued or not by doubts in my own abilities to endure is something else. I feel on one hand having watched my mom struggle through isolation and adapting to a new life here, I do feel that a part of that strength or skill set has been passed on to me. Yet when I abstractly think about hardship, I feel a doubt that Iwould not be able endure with the same smile and laugh.

Ellen’s Response:

Dear Eri,

Thank you for telling me these stories. Like you I don't believe in magic bullets, and sometimes those of us looking in on someone else's story see things that they have missed. My sense is that you may see more in your aunt's family than others see.

I also think that family stories often get stuck in how they are told. We tend to see the same parts of our family members that we've always seen and even when they change we can miss the change. I wonder if there are things in your cousins' lives that they haven't shared with you and although they may be stuck in their family-of-origin story which you sense when you are with them that in other settings they have gone on and made new life stories for themselves.

I know for myself that I both hold to my family stories as I know them and realize that my sister who was there at the same time tells her stories very differently. Perhaps many life stories co-exist side-by-side. I agree with you that in any case speaking of our hardships, seems to make life more livable.

No time for stories

2006-12-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

Comment

Deborah wrote:

Sounds good. I agree, but I am too busy working to write about me. Is that about me?

Ellen responds:

I think in some ways Deborah answers Joe's question. We are running through our lives. We don't sit down together to tell our stories. It is only when we are slammed by life are we forced to search for ways to navigate ourselves through unknown territory. My aim is to give us all a heads up and collect helpful stories along the way. What do the rest of you think?

Comment

2006-12-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

Joseph Coffey said...
Thanks Ellen for sharing so generously with us. I don't have the time, courage, or perspective to write right now. But I was wondering: why do you think these stories aren't shared? It seems that you have a thesis that in order to confront hard times we need to have stories of those who have confronted them. Why don't we have them? Or, more properly, why don't we tell them?

Many of your story tellers have some sort of cultural backing whether it be American Indian, Catholic etc... This sort of backing is evaporating from the American conscience. Is this lack of stories a purely American affliction? Everyone's story is now isolated in small suburban homes?Do we not tell them because we just don't want to revisit the worst parts of our life? Because we don't really get over it, that there is always some left over which remains untransformed, and instead we just go on?
12/12/2006 1:48 PM

When Good Fortune Hampers Resilience

2006-12-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

Ellen # 1

The stories on this blog are meant to help us think about ourselves in moments when we feel lost. The women I am writing about are open about their dilemmas, and they encourage us to be the same. In keeping with their advice and in response to a number of people who have written to ask me about my story I will digress here and tell you more about me.

I grew up in a bubble. Economic hardships for my family were well in the past, and although I knew about the early death of my great-grandfather and the financial strain that caused his family and my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family, these stories had receded into history. From the vantage point of our fourth-floor apartment in Jersey City where I lived with my mother, father, and older sister, I was unaware of any dangers in the outside world.

We were a middle-class secular Jewish family with all the necessities of life and a few of the luxuries. I had no fear. I roamed from apartment to apartment, biked the city streets, and played on building rooftops with other neighborhood children without fear. For me, Jersey City was a place in which I had everything I wanted, and I was free to do whatever I imagined possible.

In spite of what I believed during the day, I had night terrors as a child. I dreamed that my father died and that we had nowhere to go. I woke up screaming, and one of my parents came into my room and sleep with me for comfort. They assumed that it was their responsibility to soothe me. No one spoke to me about my fears, where they came from, or how I might face them.

Since life’s disasters had been kept hidden, after I married and had two children, I believed that I could make choices that would keep me and my family safe. I studied a psychology that taught me to believe in personal responsibility and free will. I had faith in human beings’ capacity to take care of one another and make changes when they had to. I took this belief forward into my life and into my work.

My life of good fortune ended when my husband Ron was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), a progressive neurological disease with no known cause or treatment that paralyzes the muscles in the body and leads to death. Ron lived at home on a ventilator for seven years until he decided to turn the ventilator off and to die.
Ron was diagnosed with ALS in 1985 when he was forty-two years old. We had been married for twenty years, our daughters were twelve and sixteen, and, we had known a great deal of happiness. We both loved our work, I as a family therapist and Ron as an electrical engineer. We were blessed with close friends and family and spent much of our free time hiking in the mountains with our daughters.

Within a year of his diagnosis, Ron went into the emergency room of our local hospital in crisis, unable to breathe on his own. That night, he was put on a ventilator that kept him alive for seven years until he chose to have it turned off. He came home from the hospital to round-the-clock nurses, a stranger to me, to our daughters, and to himself.

For those years, I took charge, made do, ran the show, but I couldn’t keep up with Ron’s illness. As time went on, I saw the world filled with tragic forces beyond my understanding and my ability to adapt. I was humbled by how little I knew about myself and the universe. My belief in my capacity to manage and to choose well in any circumstance disappeared. I got through this period by what I now call my “white-knuckle approach.” I hold on, and then hold on some more, until either I die, or my life would go back to what it had been before; but of course it never did.

Although I continued to put one foot in front of the other and attend to the details of our life, I stumbled into despair. I railed against the fate that brought this terrible illness to us, and I didn’t know where to learn how to live under these new circumstances. I was filled with questions about how to keep going.

Years after Ron’s death when I had remarried and my life was once again stable, I still lacked confidence in my ability to face hardship. I remarried, but I tended to watch over my second husband as he slept, making sure that he was breathing, and to over-react when my adult children were out of contact for what seemed to me to be too long. I still lacked a story of resilience, and I was still bound by fear.

It wasn’t until I worked in Kosova, following the war there, that I became hopeful about our capacity to live through hard times. I was in Kosova as part of a U.S. team working with Kosovar mental health professionals developing their mental health system. Our team met many who had faced the horrors of the war, but one woman, Zepa Read Zepa's story on the blog -- October 12, 2006) stood out from all the rest. It was she who led me to want to know more about what it takes to stand up against fate.

I left Kosova impressed with Zepa’s resourcefulness. I had no opportunity to sit with her and find out more about what made it possible for her to move from grief to action on behalf of herself and her family in only three years. Language, distance, and time stood in our way. When I returned to the U.S, I wanted to learn how women like Zepa survived and thrived. I began my search by asking questions of a few women I already knew and admired who had endured suffering. I was curious about how they described their life situations, the resources that came to them from their family circumstances, and how they understood the dilemmas that they faced. Other women who had faced tragedy, whom I hadn’t known before, began to show up in my life. Perhaps it was coincidence, or perhaps I was just noticing because of my experience with Zepa.

I listened closely and recorded the women’s stories, hoping not to freeze in fear the next time I was dealt an overwhelming blow by fate. But I discovered that in order to learn from other’s stories, I had to re-examine my basic assumptions about life -- to challenge what I had always believed to be true. Only then would I able to see how their stories provided a guide for my new stories. My hope is these stories and the other stories that you post will be a guide for readers of this blog.

Keepers' Stories Continued

2006-12-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

Janie #3

Grandmothers provide what others leave out

Dear Readers,

Before I go on with Janie’s story I want those of you reading this blog to think with me. Who in your life is a Keeper? What experiences have you had when traditions and knowledge of history sustained you. Over two hundred fifty people have read the blog. They are waiting to hear from you. Please write a comment by clicking on the word “comment” at the bottom of this post or send a story to me at: Ellen@Berkeleyfamilytherapy.com
and I will post it.

Now back to Janie:

Janie said:

“Growing up I counted on my two grandmothers, Aunty, my step-grandmother, and Meme, my mother’s mother along with Sadie. Aunty taught me about service, and Meme brought color into my life. On my seventh birthday, she bought me an orange dress thinking that it was about time that I wore more than only blue and white. Meme always had time for me. She was the one who really took care of me. When I was born she told my mother that she was so lucky to have daughters because, ‘They will sustain you’. My mother wasn’t so sure.

While Meme was bringing color in Janie’s life, Aunty, Janie’s step-grandmother, took Janie off to church to care for the altar and other responsibilities at church. Aunty was known in her community for doing service, and she frequently took Janie on her rounds. It is easy to imagine Janie as a tiny girl dressed in blue and white carefully placing the holy water on the altar.

As a Keeper, Janie holds her grandmothers close by telling their stories. She was especially close to Meme, and she told me her history as if it had just happened. In these stories, Janie keeps Meme alive so that when she needs courage, she vividly remembers her. Here is only a small part of the long story that Janie told me about Meme:

“Meme was born in Knoxville Tennessee. Her father was a doctor, a Dr. John Hudgings, and he married Miss Harriet Clark, Meme’s mother, who we always called Miss Harriet. Dr. Hudgings left, probably with another woman, though no one spoke about what really happened. We just knew that Meme’s father ran off from her mother, and Miss Harriet had to bring up Meme and her other children alone. Now Miss Harriet was a Clark and that gets us back to the Clarks of the original colonies who went from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, back to Massachusetts and then ended up in Georgia, which is where the southern influence came in. Meme’s sister Elizabeth took this very seriously and she became a member of both the Daughters of the American Republic and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. You know my sister and I could have become members of those groups too, but Meme never went that way and of course neither did we.

“Meme wanted to be independent from all that. “Meme’s husband died young and left her to raise her children on her own. After he died, she mostly stayed alone. She focused her attention on us children and on taking care of her son Bill who like his father had that personality of being on top of the world and then being low down in the depths.

“Because of the drinking in our house, there were offs and ons with Meme. Sometimes she
came and stayed with us because of financial necessity for a couple of months, then things would get bad in our house, and she moved on. Meme knew what was going on at our house, but she never spoke of it directly. She was one of the people in my life who was constant. I think of her now when I need to calm myself.

“I heard Meme’s voice when I was learning to think for myself, and to take care of my children when I had to make it on my own. I got many things from Meme, not the least of which is my sense of humor. Standing by the coffin of her son Bill who had caused the family a lot of trouble before he died young, Meme said to my husband Bob who wasn’t much better: ‘At least you’ll never have to lend him another suit.’ Uncle Bill was often in need of sprucing up for the weddings and the funerals.

“I admired Meme. She was my soul mate. I now try to do for my grandchildren what she did for me. She is always right here by me”

Janie 2 - Deciphering public and private family storiess

2006-11-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

I visited Janie in a retirement community in St Louis. In her small living room, her overstuffed couch and chair were covered in blue and white cloth, as is the shower curtain and ironing board cover. Janie was dressed in blue and white. One of the first stories Janie told me was how she ended up wearing only blue and white.

“At the time of my birth, in 1924, there was a tradition in our church for some girls at birth to be dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. One of the requirements, if one was willing to pick up this challenge, was that the child was to be dressed only in blue and white until she was seven and took her first communion. My mother brought me to the church, dedicated me to Mary in this way, and dressed me in blue and white until my seventh birthday.”
Janie said that for many years she gave up wearing only blue and white, but she has returned to it. She says that everyone now gives her blue and white presents.

As I took in the rest of her living room, I saw books piled from floor to ceiling, photographs of family members from three generations on the tops of the tables and the dressers. A high wooden stand held a huge dictionary crammed with papers. Janie said that these are important papers, bills, cards still unopened from Christmas, and letters that she means to answer. She calls the dictionary her filing system for all the projects that she has to do. It is an important resource for her letter writing and book projects that include a history of The Sisters of the Cenacle the order in which she has taken vows as a lay nun.

Janie is a tiny woman who at eighty moves in a sprightly way. She showed me around her apartment and then she suggested that we sit on her overstuffed couch to speak with each other. Her face was open and warm, and it wasn’t unusual for her to reach over and touch me while we spoke. She exuded a sense of occasion, as if in our meeting she expected good things to happen. Her infectious laughter and merry eyes were irresistible. Her sense of herself is intertwined with many generations of family members on both sides of her family. Each story she told reminded her of another one. As she glanced around her room her eyes lit on a picture and a story followed.

Janie was born into a wealthy Irish Catholic family in St. Louis headed by her grandfather. a well-known and respected member of St. Louis society. Unlike in other parts of the country where Catholics were often among the working class immigrants, Catholics founded St. Louis. The French were the first Catholics to arrive there, and St. Louis was known as the Rome of the west. Lafayette went out to visit it, acknowledging its importance. German Catholics came next, followed by Irish Catholics. Class distinctions were strongly held Within the Catholic community everyone knew his or her place in the pecking order. Janie’s grandfather was well at the top of the heap. As his granddaughter, Janie was known socially as “a Vis girl” because she went to Visitation, a prestigious Catholic girl’s school. Unfortunately, life at home wasn’t anything like the family’s public image.

In Janie’s words:
“The life around me, our big house and all the people, didn’t mean that much to me. My grandfather, who we called Papa, was the important one, according to everyone else, but really by the time I knew him he was an alcoholic. Once when I was five years old he fell down the concrete steps and lay spread-eagled on the basement floor. I didn’t know if he was dead. I ran next door to our house and somehow called my father at work. He came home in about twenty-five minutes and got my grandfather up.

“Papa was a terrible alcoholic. I remember those glasses that had thumb marks all around the bottom. He didn’t drink by a shot glass; instead, he drank bourbon in those old tumblers. You heard about him as ‘the illustrious’ outside the family, but inside the family you were told to keep your distance, to walk softly, and not to disturb him.”

“When Papa, died in 1936, I must have been in the sixth grade. The funeral-- well you wouldn’t believe it. I was as much in awe of that funeral as I was of Reagan’s funeral although it really wasn’t anything like that. I mean it was greater than anything I had ever seen. My grandfather was laid out in the house, and the many people who came to visit him filled our big house.

“I remember that house. When you came in the front door you entered the foyer and there was a big room with stairs that went up around and up again. We called this main room the living room. Around the living room were other rooms with doors entering onto it, like the library and beyond that the dining room. So many people came to see Papa laid out in the main room. When we went to the cemetery after the mass policemen were there to line up the cars for about a mile long, or maybe I just think it was a mile long, but it was long.”

Listening to Janie’s story I imagined her as a small child in a huge house living in the old fashioned tradition of children who are seen, but not heard. Janie another Keeper like Florence defined herself in relationship to her elders. Next time she tells us about her grandmothers.

Janie: A keeper who moves through illusion to faith

2006-11-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

Introducing Janie 1

Janie came into my life soon after I joined my second husband’s Irish Catholic family. Everyone called her Aunt Janie, except for my mother-in-law who called her “Sainted Janie.” Along with stories of her goodness came stories of her special sense of humor. My husband’s favorite story about Janie was titled by everyone in the family who told it; “The Disability Sticker.” It went like this:

Janie is known at her church for going to great lengths to perform acts of kindness without thought for her own convenience, but she found herself with a problem when she took on the task of driving disabled church members to their doctors’ appointments.
At the doctors’ offices, there were few parking spaces except for cars with disability stickers. Since Janie didn’t have a sticker, she and her patients had great difficulty finding places to park, and they often arrived late to appointments,

Janie’s solution was to go to her doctor and request a disability sticker for her car. She carefully explained her mission with the disabled churchgoers. Her doctor listened, but refused Janie’s request. He knew that Janie didn’t like to exercise, and he said that he was concerned for her health. From his point of view, Janie needed to walk more.
Thinking that her doctor had totally missed the point and seeing injustice in this, Janie made her own disability sticker. She did this quite carefully, using the cardboard back of a pantyhose package and a blue magic marker to make it into a facsimile of a disability sticker. She attached this to her car mirror whenever she delivered her patients to their doctors’ offices. She successfully used the sticker for many months, until one day she came out to find a $250 ticket for using a counterfeit sticker stuck underneath her windshield wiper.

With summons and sticker in hand, Janie went to the police station to explain her situation. When she got to the head of the line, Janie’s short stature made it necessary for her to look up to see the policeman who sat behind a high counter. The policeman looked down and saw a small woman with a softly rounded form. Her wispy white hair fell softly on her neck and curled up at the ends. She had pale white skin, pink cheeks, and clear blue eyes. She was dressed in blue and white, with a large cross hanging from her neck. He probably knew right away that he was at a disadvantage.

Janie placed the summons and the sticker on the counter and told the police officer of her plight. He told her that what she had done was illegal and that she would have to pay the fine. Politely she told him that she couldn’t pay the fine. Sternly he told her,

“We don’t negotiate here. You’ll have to pay the fine, lady.”

Janie smiled at him sweetly and waited patiently for him to change his mind. They went back and forth, until the police officer realized that with a line of people forming behind Janie, and with her showing no signs of budging, he might as well give up, rather than look like he was taking advantage of a gentle old woman. Exasperated, he asked Janie what she could pay. She told him that she thought she could manage ten dollars. Not knowing what else to do he agreed to take what she offered. Janie paid him the ten dollars and, as he got busy with someone else, she picked up her forged sticker and returned to business as usual.

When I met Janie, I told her that I had heard this story. Smiling, she said that she now has her own disability sticker. Somehow, she can’t quite remember how, she ended up with two stickers. She gave one of them to a friend from her church group who isn’t quite ready for one yet, but drives disabled people who need her to have one. On Sunday mornings, Janie’s friend uses her sticker to get them a place near to the Church. Janie uses her sticker on Sundays to park near the restaurant where they have their breakfasts after church is over. For Janie, if disobedience is needed for service, she is clear about what to do.

I also had heard painful stories of Janie’s life, told not with sadness or judgment, but with warmth and understanding. These stories were about her prominent St. Louis family who denied their alcoholism and her life as a single mother struggling with alcoholism herself, especially after the violent deaths of two of her children.

From my distance, I couldn’t imagine how she had survived let alone found humor and warmth to share with others. My husband and his siblings told me that when they were young, she was the only grown up around who looked them straight in the eye and listened to what they had to say. When others described the chaos of her life they said that misery slid off her, and she radiated goodness no matter what came into her life.

Keep Posted for more about Janie.

Comment on Guides

2006-11-19T11:34:00.000-08:00

Connie Rubiano wrote:
Thank you for the story of your birth-giving in Lagos. When I am afraid I call on my higher power as I was taught as a child. And now I also talk to my friends, like Penny, who have died.

Reflection on Keepers and family Legacies

2006-11-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

Keepers and Family Legacies

Before introducing you to Janie, a second Keeper, I thought it might be interesting for us to consider how Florence’s notions of family fit with our own. She never moved far away from home Left by her husband she never divorced. She placed herself and her children in a coherent story of family and community history. In telling and retelling family stories, she reminds herself and everyone who listens of the past that she treasures. When someone she loves falls away from the family, or from what she sees as a good life, she weaves these periods of distress into an ever widening family story. Her capacity to hold onto good and bad stories arises from her belief that life is naturally made up of the good and the bad and her stories combine difficult experiences with hope for a better future.
Florence’s story is remarkably different from my own and may be different from yours. I wondered how I could build on her stories of the past. I started out by reflecting on my ideas about family, and I encourage you to do the same as you think about Florence’s stories and read Janie’s stories which are up ahead.
Part of writing a new survival story means revisiting ideas of family. Have we chosen to live far away or nearby our family members? Have we resolved family conflicts so that our relationships remain open and loving or do we distance ourselves? Do we have the option to call upon family members when we need them? Which past stories of family can we call upon in strengthening connections to our family history? If we do not find useful family stories, what stories from other cultural histories give us stories for survival?
Florence also relied on the wisdom of her grandmother to guide her, but what if our grandmothers were not good guides? Not long ago I was hiking and thinking about whom, other than my grandmothers, I could call upon as a guide. A picture flashed into my mind of a six-foot tall Nigerian nurse in a brown uniform with large strong arms. She had saved my life and the life of my second child, Sarah, when I was living in Lagos. My mother had warned me about the dangers of giving birth there, but with the ignorance of my youth, I scorned her advice. I made few plans for the delivery and went into the hospital without concern. My labor was induced by a well-known Nigerian doctor, who then left me at the hospital. When we were told that my husband wasn’t allowed to stay with me, neither of us protested. It was a busy time at the hospital, and there were not enough rooms for the many births happening at once. Since my labor was developing slowly, I was left on a gurney in a hallway for many hours. As my labor became more difficult, I panicked and tried to get off the gurney and leave the hospital. When I realized I couldn’t walk, I began yelling very unladylike epithets to get the attention of someone. No one came, and I yelled louder. Finally I heard someone coming down the hallway. Before I saw her, I heard her booming voice ask, “What is going on here?” When she reached my gurney, I tried to explain my situation, but I was too frantic and incoherent to make much sense. She said, “Calm down, woman, and let’s get this baby born.” She wheeled me into a room, told me to breathe and to push, and Sarah was born in minutes. I was told later that we were both in physical danger and that if she had not arrived when she did, we might have died. I can still hear the tones of her Yoruba-accented English as she told me that we were going to get this baby born. I quieted down immediately, and I followed her directions exactly, confident that finally, Sarah and I would be OK. I know that I can call upon her in my mind and feel her calming presence.
I believe that each of us knows someone in our family or in our history upon whom we might call when we are afraid. I now ask beleaguered clients to choose a guide to travel with them. Each of us can find a guide to imagine when we need someone by our side.
With these thoughts in mind we are more ready to write new survival stories.

Renewal: Preserving Traditions-Never Giving up Hope

2006-11-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

Florence # 6

Florence worries that the conditions or the reservation are interfering with their sacred knowledge. She preserves these traditions by carefully choosing when she tells Lakota stories. She holds the knowledge for the people in her tribe. When I asked her to tell me traditional Lakota stories that help the young learn what to do when in danger, she coyly said, “We only tell those stories at night.”

She ignored what I asked, but she told me the story of the day tornados struck the reservation in 1999. She said that some of the young ones in the tribe knew the tornadoes were coming before anyone else knew. They called as many people as they could, trying to warn them of what was about to happen.

“When the tornado came, we just didn’t know what was happening until the wind blew through the door of our house, and by then it was pure white, and we couldn’t see anything. I remembered that someone had told me that she was in a tornado and it sounded like a train coming, and I heard that train. I ran to the phone to call my daughter, but before I got there, the wind threw me over, and I was on the floor. Up to then, I still didn’t know really what was happening. I got myself up and looked outside. I saw that my son-in-law had been badly cut, and they couldn’t find my daughter who was hiding somewhere with her nine month-old trying to protect her. When we found her, she was holding the baby so tight we had to pry her arms loose to get her to let go. Sherri, my daughter had a broken pelvis from having been knocked down, but she protected the baby. Though I was hurt, I stayed here and my daughter went in the ambulance since there wasn’t enough room for both of us. Two days later, I couldn’t sit up. I was badly hurt with broken vertebrae and a toe so badly broken that they had to amputate it. Many people got hurt. One man broke his back. One man, an older man, got killed. One of the trailer houses just disappeared. No one could find it. This group of trailer houses was all destroyed. For a long time, we didn’t have houses. We all had to go and stay in the school. We were praying during that time. We didn’t know what had happened to everyone.”

“Out here you have to be strong for each other. I worried about Denise and some of the people out here after the tornado. For a while, they had no plumbing or nothing. It took a long time for us to get the help we were promised by the government and people had no place to live. We just have to hope that someone will remember us. No one came to help for a long time. Sometimes help happens though when we least expect it. Once a woman from New Jersey, someone Tony met, sent Christmas presents for all the children. Sometimes when you don’t even expect it something or someone helps.”

Florence in her way had told me a traditional story of how nature brings the unexpected and can wreak havoc or goodness. It is the children, closest to nature or to the spirit world who know this wisdom and see what is coming. The adults are often witnesses to a life over which they have little control. Kindness, respect, and spoken truth, values if lived by, offer the best chance that anyone has of having a good life.

Near the end of our conversation, I asked Florence how she kept herself going and raised her twelve children living under such hardship. Her answer was to tell me a story about her son Bill who teaches in special education:

“Bill loves to work with kids. He came to me one day about three little girls in his class who were having a hard time. ‘Mom,’ he said, ‘the eldest girl hides her feet when she comes into the class because her tennis shoes are ragged. Then one day the second one did not come to school, and Bill watched the older one have trouble as she walked. The middle one had lent her older sister her shoes, but they were too short. Bill with the little money that he had went out and got her new tennis shoes. The next day the middle sister returned to school.
“We had hard times too, and Bill knows how it is. My kids never had bikes. So when Bill was a kid he found parts of a bike and he fixed it, wired it up, and rode it as best he could.

“I just never give up hope. It has something to do with spirituality. My kids learned that with the misery out there, our job is to try to keep things going. We know something about how to keep things going.” Florence unexpectedly changed her focus. She told me that life on the reservation was changing. She said that the old take care of the young less often. For the most part, her children take care of their children, and she wants them to do so. This change sometimes makes her wonder about this time in her life.

“I know I have done my share, but I tell them that sometimes I am here to help even though mostly I want them to watch their own babies. Now that I don’t have so much to do, I have to figure out how to spend my time, especially now that I can’t go out. My plan is mostly to just live longer and watch all of them grow. They did offer me a job at the school to teach Lakota and maybe next year when my hip is healed I’ll do that again. I also plan to keep doing my work for the elderlies at this kitchen table. Sometimes I think I should get a Chihuahua to keep me company.”

For the first time in our interview, Florence laughed. Then she got up and surprised me by going into her bedroom and coming out with two gifts for me; one a woven wool bag with a black, red, and grey arrow design, and the other, a painted wooden horse with feathers. I tried to refuse these gifts since she had so little, but she insisted.

As the universe would have it, when I left her house, I forgot my woolen purple scarf, and grey wool vest, which I had been wearing to keep out the cold. I called Florence the next day to say good-bye, and she said that she wanted to return these things to me. I told her that she was supposed to have them, and I hoped that they would keep out some of the cold wind that blows through her kitchen. She thanked me and told me that our exchange of gifts and our sitting together had begun a friendship between us. She apologized for not being able to offer me food during my visit since she had no groceries in the house. She said that she hoped that I would come again when she could invite me to share a meal with her. Our conversation had bridged what had seemed like an impenetrable barrier between us.

Stay Posted for a Story of another Keeper.
Janie: a woman who moved through illusions to faith

Ongoing Struggles:Celebration of Prayer

2006-11-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

Florence # 5 Crying and Praying

Two days before I was to visit Florence, I called to confirm our meeting. One of her sons answered the phone and told me that Florence was away and would not be back for a week. She, who rarely left the reservation, had gone to be with her grandson in a hospital fifty miles away. No one called to cancel my visit because everyone was focused on the events of the moment. I called a few weeks later, and we rescheduled our time together at her home on the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota.

During our interview, I asked Florence about her grandson who had been in the hospital when I first planned to visit. She told me that she had had to manage intense emotions during this time of his illness. She said:

“I just never gave up hope. It has something to do with spirituality. My kids learned that with the misery out there, our job is to try to keep things going. We know something about how to keep things going.

“My parents were Christians,” Florence said, “and I learned to rely on the Bible along with the Lakota traditions. The Bible pulls me through the hard times, and gets me through the day and just recently, I needed those prayers. It was very strong. My grandson, he is only sixteen, and he was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer. The week you were supposed to come they had to amputate his arm. I was there with him in the hospital, and I broke down. I only could pull myself together because I had to be strong for my son. I told him that they had to take that arm to save his boy’s life. Now my grandson is healing, but we don’t know what is going to happen. The boy and my son have to go back and forth for chemo. I cry, and I pray, and it gets me through. Once in a while I go to the church, but mostly, I pray at home.

“My dad taught me about the Bible. As an old man, he had diabetes, and they had to amputate his leg. He had his Bible with him, but he finally gave up, and he died. When he passed away, I was going to put his Bible in his coffin because he had thought so much of it. My conscience kept saying however, ‘Keep it. Just keep it.’ A cousin of mine came down for the funeral, and I asked her what I should do. She said. ‘Maybe he wants you to keep it.’ I listened to her, and I kept the Bible. A while later I looked through it, and I found notes my father had hidden in different sections. One note said, ‘If you get lonesome read this chapter.’ I thought then that he had meant for me to keep his Bible. I was real glad to have the Bible with me when my grandson got sick.

“The Christian tradition and the Lakota tradition go together because we all pray to one god. The Bible says to spread the word in all directions and this is what we believe too. In our dances, we acknowledge the four directions and this is similar to the Christian way.”

Crying and praying go together for Florence. The unity between her Christian
God and Lakota spirits comes together as naturally as breathing. In addition to her family stories, Florence’s religious beliefs provide her with a compass that shows her where to look for relief and what to do to prepare for what comes.

For those of us who do not share with Florence a formal set of beliefs sometimes we wonder if there is a spiritual path for us. I have come to believe that prayer takes many forms and that with each prayer we offer up solace and hope for us and for others. I ask people these days if they pray and I am often surprised to hear that many people have a practice of prayer that is not tied to a particular religion. Florence reminds us to give voice to our prayers and to celebrate them.

Ongoing Sturggles: Grandmother as Guide

2006-11-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

Florence 4

(See earlier posts for more of Florence's story).

At our interview in her house on the Lakota Reservation, Florence told me about her grandmother:

“My mother died when I was thirteen, and I went and stayed with my grandmother, my dad’s mother. My grandmother was a woman who lived by traditional Lakota values that were connected to keeping the family together, no matter what. When relatives came unexpectedly, she would pitch up a tent for them even though we had little. She would find enough food for them even when they stayed for a week. She would go out into her garden and dig up the hole where she stored the fresh picked vegetables. She would go out into the forest and pick wild berries and plums and make berry juice.
“Following in her footsteps, I realized one day that my children were not safe on the reservation. I immediately moved with them down to the river to a small piece of land owned by my husband. We were twelve miles away from the main part of the reservation, but it was the place to raise our children in the traditional ways that I had learned from my grandmother, away from the violence around us.
“From 1952 until 1965 we lived down by the river. It was hard down there, but we had some of our best times there. We spent a lot of our time on the riverbank, washing the clothes and washing ourselves. We had fun doing the things that had to be done. We put in a big garden with corn, watermelon, cucumbers, and potatoes. The water from the river made it a rich, productive garden. My husband would get the children out there picking the potatoes, at a penny a piece.
“When we lived there, we could keep the children safe in the ways that my grandmother kept me safe. We were with the hawk, the deer, the fox, and the fish, which swam in the river with the children. Sometimes my nephews would show up. One week I had twenty-one boys down there, but I managed to feed them all. I had a lot of beans, and they loved beans, and we had bread. My grandmother believed that if she could feed the family we would all survive whatever else we had to face.”
“People helped us when we were down there by the river. One day, my father got us a washing machine and a heater to heat the water to use in the machine. After we got the washing machine, even Richard my husband went out to wash all the piles of clothes. One year my uncle lived down there, and he had cattle, and we milked the cows. One of my husband’s cousins brought a trailer down there to house the boys. Up until then the house was way too small for our family.
“Then one day a social service worker came down and asked me if I could take three little girls who had been abandoned. I told her, ‘I’ll take them.’ I didn’t know how I would care for them, but I couldn’t say no. Someone had told this social service lady to ask me to keep them for a year, but they stayed with me for eleven years. After the one year, the social service lady came down again, and she was going to take the girls, but she told me that no one was willing to take all three of them so they were going to have to separate them.
“The oldest one Michelle started crying. She called me Grandma.
‘Grandma,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be separated from my sisters.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep them.’
“When they came of age and married, then they went back to their village, but they still stay in touch and are part of our family.” As if as an afterthought, Florence added:
“All my kids understand how to look out for others. Being poor somehow makes us know how important it is to look out for others who have even less than we do.”
Florence spoke of hardship as a matter-of-fact. I, who had had good fortune found myself reeling in the face of her deprivation. It occurred to me that my expectations of life made me less able to manage life’s difficult demands. Since Florence expected life to be hard, she had a greater capacity to endure. In developing my story of survival, I had to re-form my expectations of life and begin a search for guides who I might rely on when life was hard. Perhaps you might wish to do the same.

Crisis: Turning to Intuitive Traditional Wisdom

2006-11-01T07:54:00.000-08:00

Florence 3 (See more of Florence’s story below)

When Florence fell and broke her hip, her daughters immediately called for a helicopter. They assumed that she would take the helicopter to a hospital where she would get proper treatment. Florence took one look at the helicopter and told her daughters that she would never get in that “thing” because it was not safe. Frustrated, her daughters urged her into the helicopter, but Florence kept telling them to put her in the truck. They argued back and forth until they saw black smoke coming from the helicopter’s engine. Florence’s daughters looked at her and said, “Mom, you’re a witch.” Florence smiled and said, “You just take me to the hospital in that truck.”
Florence says that Lakota children learn to sense danger. She fears that young people without traditional knowledge won’t have the ability to know what to do when they are in danger. Traditionally, the young in her tribe hold sacred knowledge and are able to warn even the elders of oncoming danger. She remembered how Tony was looked after by animal spirits when he had to walk twelve miles from the river to get to school. She said that he told her that two coyotes followed him all the way. She said that this meant that he would have a good life and that they were watching over him. One coyote might have meant that he was in danger of an early death.
Florence worries that the conditions or the reservation are interfering with their sacred knowledge. She preserves these traditions by carefully choosing when she tells Lakota stories. She holds the knowledge for the people in her tribe. When I asked her to tell me traditional Lakota stories that help the young learn what to do when in danger, she coyly said, “We only tell those stories at night.”
She ignored what I asked, but told me the story of the day tornados struck the reservation in 1999. She said that some of the young ones in the tribe knew the tornadoes were coming before anyone else knew. They called as many people as they could, trying to warn them of what was about to happen.
“When the tornado came, we just didn’t know what was happening until the wind blew through the door of our house, and by then it was pure white, and we couldn’t see anything. I remembered that someone had told me that she was in a tornado and it sounded like a train coming, and I heard that train. I ran to the phone to call my daughter, but before I got there, the wind threw me over, and I was on the floor. Up to then, I still didn’t know really what was happening. I got myself up and looked outside. I saw that my son-in-law had been badly cut, and they couldn’t find my daughter who was hiding somewhere with her nine month-old trying to protect her. When we found her, she was holding the baby so tight we had to pry her arms loose to get her to let go. Sherri, my daughter had a broken pelvis from having been knocked down, but she protected the baby. Though I was hurt, I stayed here and my daughter went in the ambulance since there wasn’t enough room for both of us. Two days later, I couldn’t sit up. I was badly hurt with broken vertebrae and a toe so badly broken that they had to amputate it. Many people got hurt. One man broke his back. One man, an older man, got killed. One of the trailer houses just disappeared. No one could find it. This group of trailer houses was all destroyed. For a long time, we didn’t have houses. We all had to go and stay in the school. We were praying during that time. We didn’t know what had happened to everyone.”
“Out here you have to be strong for each other. I worried about Denise and some of the people out here after the tornado. For a while, they had no plumbing or nothing. It took a long time for us to get the help we were promised by the government and people had no place to live. We just have to hope that someone will remember us. No one came to help for a long time. Sometimes help happens though when we least expect it. Once a woman from New Jersey, someone Tony met, sent Christmas presents for all the children. Sometimes when you don’t even expect it something or someone helps.”
Florence in her way had told me a traditional story of how nature brings the unexpected and can wreak havoc or goodness. It is the children, closest to nature or to the spirit world who know this wisdom and see what is coming. The adults are often witnesses to a life over which they have little control. Kindness, respect, and spoken truth, values if lived by, offer the best chance that anyone has of having a good life.

First Comment

2006-10-31T21:43:00.000-08:00

Nan Gefen said...
I really look forward to reading more about Florence. I remember driving through the Black Hills many decades ago, awed by the beauty but only vaguely aware of the plight of the Lakota tribe. Florence's story is a way to more deeply understand what happened to this people, mirrored in her own experience. Already I get the impression of her life being so shaped by the land and her tribe.
10/30/2006 6:22 PM