Life According to Bob Ross

A couple of weekends ago, two of my housemates and I stumbled across a rerun of Bob Ross's show "The Joy of Painting." You know Bob Ross. That artist with an incredible afro and calming voice? Awesome, I know. We sat transfixed in our living room as Bob turned a blank canvas into a stunning landscape. The man was a terrific creator.

As I watched him, I was also struck by his wisdom. As he painted, Bob gently instructed his television audience on how to recreate what he was doing on the canvas. According to Bob Ross, we can all be master painters. I have my doubts about that, but I was flattered by his faith in my skills. Bob offered guidance on how to create vivid colors and realistic imagery, but I found myself realizing that maybe his advice on how to paint was actually advice on how to live life. At one point, as he lovingly created clouds out of nothing, Bob told the audience that a painting is your world. You get to make it however you want it to be. He calmly noted that, "if you are not happy with the world you have created, you have only yourself to blame."

Huh. What a thought. So often I try to find others to blame when something in my life goes wrong. It is society's fault for not properly caring for and therefore signing the death certificate of the Joseph's House residents who die even though I love them so much. A messy house is the fault of my housemates. Forgetting a Skype date with a friend who I was really excited to talk to is my church's fault for making the Ash Wednesday service too long after an already exhausting work day. As much as possible, I try to avoid blame. If I can find another person beside myself to assign fault with, I do.

But according to Bob Ross, who is nearly as wise as Mr. Miyagi, I am in charge of my happiness in this world I have created. There are some things that I can not control, like society determining who are and are not valuable in our culture. So much of the little things that frustrate me though, like messes and my own forgetfulness, just need a change of perspective in order to have a different outcome. I can alter the result by a few words or actions. With enough persistence and faith, I can even alter the big things.

This, of course, requires a certain level of humility, courage, and grace that I am not always willing to live out. It is much easier (and fun even) to be snarky and miserable about things I do not like about my life rather than doing something about them. I want a beautiful world, though. I want my life to be as awe-inspiring as a Bob Ross painting. So I might as well take both the credit and blame for what I am creating. I get to make it however I want it to be. It might as well make me happy.

Never Forget

There is a resident at Joseph's House who I find myself calling Mama. I always remember how long she has been with us because her first day at Joseph's House was my birthday. Mama is used to being the primary caretaker for others in her life. She was a single parent and worked multiple jobs to put her oldest grandchild through college. Her entire life revolved around providing for those that she loved. Cancer, however, is not impressed by hard work and devotion. It comes when it will and does not care that everything must stop to face it.

In spite of the cancer, Mama refuses to stop living. She has turned the attention that she gave to her jobs to everyone who comes through Joseph's House. On her first night with us, she pulled a stool into the kitchen and proceeded to peel potatoes and wash dishes while supervising what my coworkers were cooking on the stove for dinner. She spent the next few days diligently learning the name of every staff member and resident. She knows all about our families, our love lives, and our dreams for the future. She lectures everyone to wear jackets in the cold and kisses my cheek every night when I go into her room to say goodbye.

I love her. I cannot help it. I appreciate her thoughtfulness and how she tries to take care of everyone. She reminds me of my mother and my grandmother, and she in turn has introduced me to people as her grandchild. I love her and I cannot help it even though I know that she is dying. Even though every day brings us one breath closer to goodbye. Her presence feeds my spirit and I delight in her. I cannot stop loving her and that makes each day harder. Rounds of chemo have made her voice raspy and her body weak. She tells me that she is tired for no reason and I feel my heart drop because I know the fatigue is a sign of her worsening health. Her independent nature is now reduced by unsteady footsteps and frequent bouts of shortness of breath. She is dying and it is breaking my heart.

Yet in the midst of everything Mama is experiencing she still is thinking of others. One afternoon I sat side by side with her on her bed in our normal style. We were holding hands and laughing at our own jokes. She then patted my hands and said, "No matter what, honey, don't you ever forget that you help keep me alive. You save my life."

When I explain to people what I do, many ask how I can do such difficult work and not become depressed. They say that they could never do it. I wish I could tell them stories like this, how the weight of my sorrow is made bearable and even greatly diminished by the sweetness of being in relationship. I wish I could save Mama. I would carry the cancer in my own body if it would give her even one more year with her beloved grandsons. But, man, how awesome is it that for this brief time I get to revel in her love? How fortunate that I get to learn from her what it really means to love in a way that is selfless and unconditional. I will never forget.

Unexpected Lessons

I am learning how to measure life in breaths.
Early morning breaths on the way to work that have to ease into the shock of winter winds.
Joyous, deep, homecoming breaths as my feet carry me like a feather up the stairs of Joseph's House.
Breaths coming in the rippling, uncontrollable peals of laughter around the dinner table.
Easy breaths as pillow talk sinks into sleep.

These are my daily breaths.

I am learning how to measure life in breaths.
The short, anxious gasps before a resident collapses.
The round, full breaths as conversation increases with health.
Sweet, sweet breaths,
sweeter for the immense effort they take,
with my fingers intertwined with older fingers 
and a sweet, sweet head
falls asleep on my shoulder.

These are my daily breaths. 

I am learning how to measure life in breaths.
The breath that was carrying me out the door
until my exhale caught in my throat in a way that told me
to go back and say
goodbye.
A breath held and savored
as I feel the spirit of someone I still love 
touch me as I walk past his favorite chair,
even though his breaths ceased months ago.
The shifting of breaths as I hold vigil by the bedside
that tells me that time is running short.

These are my daily breaths.

I sit on the bus amongst strangers 
and by listening to their breaths,
just listening,
I know their lives.
I feel their sadness, excitement, pain, 
their hopes.
And I almost turn to apologize,
to say that I only know because my life is intricately tied 
to the breaths of five people 
who also were once strangers.
That I have slowly come to learn how to listen 
to the silences between the breaths.
How I never knew that I would be able to tell you,
by just listening,
when someone is going to die.
I never knew.

I am learning how to measure life in breaths.

A Lenten Offering

January was hard. My work schedule was busy, my intentional living community was in transition, and I had to face what sometimes feels like a looming future. Added to that was, of course, the very natural grief and joy of every day living at Joseph's House. There were many, many feelings that pulled and stretched my spirit. I felt vulnerable and ridiculously young. Homesick and yet realizing that this may be my true home. So I did what my inner shy child likes to do when I am unsure: I withdrew. I did not share my life on this blog. 

Though a blog is a really cool, hip form of expression, it can and has been for me a way of sharing intimacy with people I normally do not allow into my sacred space. Writing in such a public forum is scary. This year is vastly different from any other time in my life, though, and I wanted to grow in every aspect of my life. I know and understand why I did not write in January (either blogging, journaling, etc.), but I also know that it kept my spirit from deepening. By not allowing you into my experience, I crippled myself.

So in honor of Lent, as Christians around the world walk in somber humility alongside a Messiah who sacrificed everything for us, I have decided to do a vulnerability fast if you will. This is partially because I love food and would really prefer not to have to give it up, but also because blogging every day is going to be a sacrifice of time, honesty, and privacy that will be much more challenging and meaningful for me than giving up chocolate. You may get sick of it in a few days, but I ask for your grace in this. I am trying to live out a faith that does justice and I am young and growing. Maybe, though, this will bless the both of us. That would be great.

  

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

During this season of corny holiday tunes, I always listen for "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." I think that Emmanuel, God with us, is my favorite name of God. For me it captures both the sheer, infinite nature of the Divine and His loving closeness to us. How amazing that a being so majestic is with and for us, is with and for me. "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is incredibly fitting for the Advent season of waiting. It is a people's deep petition to be rescued from a world of loneliness, mourning, and darkness. "Rejoice! Rejoice!" the song tells us. For "Emmanuel shall come." Advent creates a space to remember what it feels like to hope for a salvation greater than anything we can imagine and to wait in great expectation once again for God to come to us. Emmanuel is coming.

As a student of Jesuit education, and now a volunteer in the same line, I have spent the past four and a half years learning to find God in all things. In my interactions with friends, in the beauty of nature, in my own personal growth. Though I usually do not remember to notice God in the moment, when I do look for the holiness in the midst of ordinary life I always seem to find it. I have always believed that Emmanuel is here. God is with us. 

One of the residents at Joseph's House passed away this week, a man whose presence had been a source of joy and laughter for everyone. He had been estranged from his wife for years, but their friendship was strong, and in the last two weeks of his life she came and fulfilled her marital vow to love and to hold in sickness and in health so beautifully that she earned the respect of everyone around her. Though my resident had hurt her in ways that prevented them from living with one another, her compassion and gentleness with her husband in his last days was a powerful example of forgiveness. In the days I spent beside her showing her how to care for her husband in his illness, she taught me how to love even when you carry scars. Emmanuel was with us.

It is easy to find God in all things when those things are good, but on Friday it was like trying to find Waldo. The funeral was on Friday and it brought with it the pain of family members and friends who lashed out at one another in response to their grief. I sat behind my resident's wife with my co-workers, grieving not for the husband, but for the woman he had loved and the undeserved hostility being directed at her. I resolved to live my life in such a way that no one will be able to throw such hateful words at my family while they try to celebrate my life at my funeral. Where is God amongst people who do not respect the dead enough to let old grievances go in order to recognize that everyone is hurting?

Later that day, as I and a co-worker drove another resident back to Joseph's House after a trip to the cemetery to visit the gravesite of her parents, we heard about the school shooting in Connecticut for the first time. My roommate, Marlena, is from Connecticut and has a brother in kindergarten. When news about the shooting first started coming out, Marlena spent hours in miserable waiting. Where was the shooting? Was Nino there? Was he okay? 

Nino's okay. The shooting was in a town far away from their home. Marlena and I both instinctively said, "Thank, God" as relief filled the room, but we almost as quickly were filled with guilt. Nino was happy and safe, completely unaware of the horror that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary. But 20 precious first-graders were not and neither were the seven adults who died alongside them or the hundreds of individuals, young and older, who will be affected for years to come. As I read more about the tragedy in the newspaper today, I could not stop the tears that accompanied my heartache. Forget the sudden call for legislation and gun control. Never mind if we should blame this on those crazy, liberal hippies or on those crazy, conservative evangelicals. All I could think was that these children were babies. They were in what should have been a safe place. How my heart breaks for the families who are now missing a significant member of their lives at a time that should be filled with joy. How saddened am I too that this young shooter slipped through the cracks until he reached a point where he felt this was the only way to make an impact.

At Joseph's House we walk alongside death every day. We know that every person who comes through the door is on the path to dying and we willingly step in to make the journey gentler. But the deaths of those in Connecticut were accompanied by a violence that makes me feel faint with sorrow. How can God be found in this? Emmanuel, why were you not with us when we needed you? Why were you not here to save these children and the adults committed to their growth?

Once again, just as in the time of the songwriter of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," the world finds itself weak from the burden of human brokenness that creates systems of loneliness, mourning, and darkness. Just as in those times, we are realizing that something has gone horribly wrong. Once again, society finds itself looking for salvation. I am still processing this nightmare and trying to form my opinion. There are so many questions as I try to find the truth in the midst of travesty. I am pretty certain of some things. I know that this is not the time for political bickering, and I am disgusted by those who are making this a divisive event. This is a tragedy for all. Stop trying to make some kind of profit. I know that mental health played a part in this tragedy and I feel even more motivated to pursue a career in psychology. But more importantly, I know that Emmanuel is here. I know that God is with us. God was with that young principal who wanted learning to be academic and fun. God was with the teacher who told her students how much she loved them, because she thought that would be the last thing they heard, and that was the most important thing she wanted to teach them. God was with the other teacher who hid her students and when there was no room left for her, stepped into the hallway and sacrificed herself. I see the Divine in those moments. I am looking for it elsewhere. In the meantime, I will mourn this great loss, work for a more just future, and wait for the moment when we can all finally rejoice without loneliness, mourning, or darkness to taint the celebration.

O come, O come Emmanuel. 

Somewhere Along the Way

I was walking home alone the other night and it suddenly dawned on me. Somewhere in the midst of the giant piles of my favorite Thanksgiving foods, some point in the middle of my joy of having my family here with me in D.C. for the holiday, some how even amidst the smiles and laughter that fill my life I had begun to mourn. I am in the process of grieving.

It started three weeks ago. Mr. J had been the first person I had met when I started working at Joseph's House. He sat on the front porch every day, smoking cigarettes, tapping his foot to a Ray Charles' tune, and greeting everyone who passed by on the street. At first, I was intimidated by him. J had been at the house for over a year, the longest of any other resident, and was clearly the patriarch of our community. He liked things a certain way and was not shy about telling it like it was. I learned quickly how to run and maintain the various forms of oxygen that kept him alive, not because I wanted to do my job well, but because I did not want him to be disappointed in me. In those first weeks, I never seemed to be good enough for him and he in turn never remembered my name.

Somewhere along the way though, I started to understand him. J reminded me of my grandfather. My Tama is constantly telling me to not eat this, to come inside, to not travel so far from home. The words can sound rough and limiting to an outsider, but I have grown up with them and I know what my grandfather is really saying. He says to not eat something because it gives him a stomach ache and he worries that my body will have the same reaction. Tama remembers all of the times that I fell and injured myself as a child playing outside so he asks me to stay in. And he remembers every day how when I first left home, I almost never made it back. With every reprimand, I hear him saying he loves me.

Mr. J was the same way. For days I could not understand why he would not let me give him an oxygen treatment if he was sitting out on the front porch. He would ask for someone to help, but then when I came, he would abruptly tell me to get someone else. When I finally demanded why he would not let me help him he grumbled, "Girl, you always come out here without a coat. I don't want you to freeze just to give me oxygen." He needed that oxygen to survive, but all he could think of was taking care of me.

Somewhere along the way, he became precious. Every moment with him, every task he asked me to do felt like an honor. J ate a hamburger every day for lunch and I don't think any vegetarian enjoyed cooking meat as much as I did making him that meal every day. Learning how to play Dominoes from him, watching crime shows with him in the living room, giving away bouquets of flowers to ladies on the street on his behalf. It is amazing how the smallest things become sacred in the presence of love.

One memory encapsulates my entire relationship with him. Near the end of a shift that had been busier than usual, J had one of his many anxiety attacks and became short of breath. I prepared his treatment and sensed that something was different. Normally during his spells, I would have to actively soothe J as he struggled to take in oxygen. But this time he seemed to calm himself just by seeing me. I administered his treatment feeling all of my presence merging with his. As I kneeled beside him, we held hands as we so often did and he turned to the men with us and said, "Here's my guardian angel. She's my angel. I don't need any of this medicine or machines. I just needed her." I went home that night and cried. In that moment, I had felt more loved, cherished, and seen than at any other time in my whole life and I knew deep in my spirit that my time with J was coming to an end.

The day before he died was the birthday of one of my co-workers and Mr. J was determined to make it a good one. "She does so many special things for us," he explained to me, "so we need to make this special for her." He oversaw the decorating process and sent people out to get the cake and gifts. He stood in the dining room playing air guitar and keeping watch so that she did not walk in on the surprise before it was ready (which she did anyway and then he lectured all of us for failing at our jobs). He sang and pulled pranks, laughed and gave everyone compliments. He knew that we all loved him and we knew that he loved all of us. The next morning, as I came to say goodbye to his body, I saw that even in death he was still smiling. Even in death, he was still caring for us.

Grief is an interesting thing. It does not always hit at once. Sometimes it numbs you into thinking you are completely fine, that maybe you are not really hurting after all. And then somewhere along the way it begins to remind you that you too are finite and human and very, very fragile. Mr. J had befriended another resident. Their's had been a bromance that blessed everyone around them. I can not ignore how J's death has impacted his friend and how we are now bracing ourselves for his death, too. I can not ignore how so many of my co-workers and myself pause at the door of J's now empty bedroom. I can not ignore the longing I feel in my chest when I look for him on the front porch and remember that he will never sit there again.

I am fortunate to work in a place that embraces all of the emotions that come with grief. Somewhere along the way that made Joseph's House how it is, someone knew that mourning is a process. I already knew before I came that grief is hard. We all know that. That is why as humans we avoid things and people that will hurt us. We pull away from attachments with meaningful others out of fear that we are not strong enough to handle the pain of the inevitable loss that comes with any relationship. But at Joseph's House I am being taught that grief is also beautiful. How blessed am I to have the opportunity to love someone deeply enough to mourn his or her physical death? That is a gift. Some people go through their entire lives without being vulnerable enough to feel the hurt that comes with real companionship. I get to feel it as my job. Wow. How cool is that?

The Meditation Room

There is a room in Joseph's House specifically set aside as a place of stillness and meditation. I like to tiptoe into it when the house gets quiet and sit with Gracie, one of the four cats that roam throughout the halls, amongst the pillows and candles. In the meditation room are things needed to help someone find peace: a Bible, a statue of the Buddha, incense, books of poetry, pens and paper. I find comfort in the traditional symbols of my faith and in the newer expressions of my spirituality, but I always find myself drawn to a framed prayer hanging by the altar. The words resonate with me and I share them with you in hopes that it may help you find a place of rest as well.

"Let it not be death but completeness.

Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.

Let the flight through the sky 

end in the folding of wings over the nest.

Let the last touch of your hands

be gentle like the flower of the night.

Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment,

and say your last words in silence.

I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way."

- Rabindranath Tagore