If you've been following Thirteen Ways over the past few years, you'll notice that I write about once every two weeks, typically. Every so often, my frequency increases, but believe it or not, it takes me about 1 - 2 hours to write a blog post, so that is a rather cumbersome time commitment when you have work and family life and activities and then you throw in writing on the side.
You also may have noticed that I haven't posted for almost a month now. What a guilt producer for me! I love writing and I love to share my thoughts and connect with other people through writing.
Yet, different times of our life call for different actions. The action that I have decided to take is to put Thirteen Ways on 'recess' - I thought about calling it a hiatus, but when I did a thesaurus search, I saw that recess could work and who doesn't like recess?
Please stay tuned - who knows when I'll be back. Thanks for your support, comments, and connections.
I am in a time of focusing on the tasks at hand, rather than transmitting words of wisdom about lessons learned. Maybe you also are in a time period where you need to just do tasks. We can do tasks (diapering babies, doing dishes, make our long commute to work) in a way that can bring us meaning. That's where I am right now. Words of wisdom? Maybe later! Below I am including a reading I liked from the Spirituality and Practice website I like http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/excerpts.php?id=14018
An Excerpt from The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation by Thomas Merton
In his last published work, Thomas Merton sings the praises of the contemplative life. Here is an excerpt on attention.
"The life of contemplation in action and purity of heart is, then, a
life of great simplicity and inner liberty. One is not seeking anything
special or demanding any particular satisfaction. One is content with
what is. One does what is to be done, and the more concrete it is, the
better. One is not worried about the results of what is done. One is
content to have good motives and not too anxious about making mistakes.
In this way one can swim with the living stream of life and remain at
every moment in contact with God, in the hiddenness and ordinariness of
the present moment with its obvious task.
"At such times, walking down a street, sweeping a floor, washing
dishes, hoeing beans, reading a book, taking a stroll in the woods — all
can be enriched with contemplation and with the obscure sense of the
presence of God. This contemplation is all the more pure in that one
does not 'look' to see if it is there. Such 'walking with God' is one of
the simplest and most secure ways of living a life of prayer, and one
of the safest. It never attracts anybody's attention, least of all the
attention of him who lives it. And he soon learns not to want to see anything special in himself. This is the price of his liberty.
"It has been said above that such people enjoy 'graces akin to
contemplation' because they are never fully conscious of their
'contemplative state.' But it must not be thought that they cannot be
real mystics. Indeed, a genuine mystical life may be lived in these
conditions. The mystical graces given to such souls may be of an active
character, but there is a strong undercurrent of contemplative
intuition. This will remain pure and vital as long as one is careful not
to lose himself in activity, not to become preoccupied with results,
and not to lose his purity of intention. Whether in active or passive
contemplation, purity of heart is always the guardian of contemplative
truth.”
Monday, May 6, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
our vets and suicide - where the personal is political
On Thursday, April 4, 2013, I had the privilege of interviewing one of my clients for Storycorps http://storycorps.org/ (weekly broadcasts can be heard on NPR's Morning Edition). She is the surviving mother of an Iraq war vet and has given me permission to write a bit about this in my blog. Her son committed suicide last year. Because of his mother, at least part of this young man's story will now be archived at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. I know she wishes he were here to tell his own story. He was a loving, generous, sensitive, handsome young man who struggled with addiction, depression, and PTSD.
Because of my work with his mom, I tend to think of their story as personal, rather than political. But in the course of my experience as her 'interviewer', I heard their story in a new way. I heard another thread in the fabric of the story - the ongoing failure of the military, the government, and in some ways the governed, to adequately support our service men and women both while they are active duty and when they come home after deployment.
If you have not read this editorial in Sunday's editorial section of the New York Times, you must.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/opinion/sunday/wars-on-drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
As many of us know already, last year, more active duty soldiers died as a result of suicide than have died in combat.
According to Richard Friedman, who wrote the piece, "Worse, according to data not reported on until now, the military evidently responded to stress that afflicts soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan primarily by drugging soldiers on the front lines. Data that I have obtained directly from Tricare Management Activity, the division of the Department of Defense that manages health care services for the military, shows that there has been a giant, 682 percent increase in the number of psychoactive drugs — antipsychotics, sedatives, stimulants and mood stabilizers — prescribed to our troops between 2005 and 2011. That’s right. A nearly 700 percent increase — despite a steady reduction in combat troop levels since 2008"
Friedman posits that they are being used as sedatives and to treat PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). And, he raises concerns about the efficacy of the drugs used - are they being used for their FDA approved purpose? Do we know what effect these drugs such as, Topamax, Neurontin and Lyrica, Valium, and Klonopin, will have on our soldiers in the long run?
We've heard it said that the mark of a civilized society is the way it treats its most vulnerable members. It's strange to think about soldiers as vulnerable members of our society, but I believe they are. They are often young. They are asked to give up their own autonomy in the stated purpose of defending our freedom and democracy. This is vulnerability to me and I am deeply dismayed at the gaps in our system.
A lot of people have a hard time believing in God, because they can't explain it. What can I tell my kids about God, they think, because I don't know what I'd say. Well, I have a hard time believing in war. I have a hard time explaining war to my kids.
I would like to say, in all sincerity, no matter how naive, that I hope one day war and violence will not be used as a solution to conflict. Until then, I hope to do my part to help close the gaps in a system that emotionally and psychologically wounds the human beings who are tasked with the unexplainable.
Because of my work with his mom, I tend to think of their story as personal, rather than political. But in the course of my experience as her 'interviewer', I heard their story in a new way. I heard another thread in the fabric of the story - the ongoing failure of the military, the government, and in some ways the governed, to adequately support our service men and women both while they are active duty and when they come home after deployment.
If you have not read this editorial in Sunday's editorial section of the New York Times, you must.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/opinion/sunday/wars-on-drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
As many of us know already, last year, more active duty soldiers died as a result of suicide than have died in combat.
According to Richard Friedman, who wrote the piece, "Worse, according to data not reported on until now, the military evidently responded to stress that afflicts soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan primarily by drugging soldiers on the front lines. Data that I have obtained directly from Tricare Management Activity, the division of the Department of Defense that manages health care services for the military, shows that there has been a giant, 682 percent increase in the number of psychoactive drugs — antipsychotics, sedatives, stimulants and mood stabilizers — prescribed to our troops between 2005 and 2011. That’s right. A nearly 700 percent increase — despite a steady reduction in combat troop levels since 2008"
Friedman posits that they are being used as sedatives and to treat PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). And, he raises concerns about the efficacy of the drugs used - are they being used for their FDA approved purpose? Do we know what effect these drugs such as, Topamax, Neurontin and Lyrica, Valium, and Klonopin, will have on our soldiers in the long run?
We've heard it said that the mark of a civilized society is the way it treats its most vulnerable members. It's strange to think about soldiers as vulnerable members of our society, but I believe they are. They are often young. They are asked to give up their own autonomy in the stated purpose of defending our freedom and democracy. This is vulnerability to me and I am deeply dismayed at the gaps in our system.
A lot of people have a hard time believing in God, because they can't explain it. What can I tell my kids about God, they think, because I don't know what I'd say. Well, I have a hard time believing in war. I have a hard time explaining war to my kids.
I would like to say, in all sincerity, no matter how naive, that I hope one day war and violence will not be used as a solution to conflict. Until then, I hope to do my part to help close the gaps in a system that emotionally and psychologically wounds the human beings who are tasked with the unexplainable.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Angels with A**holes and God in a Google Search
I’ve written before about my professor, Reverend Beverly Asbury, Chaplain from Vanderbilt University, circa 1990s. He was my Religious Studies professor in undergraduate school and I adore him. I probably can’t measure the influence he’s had on me since I met him when I was 19 or 20 years old. One of his bits of wisdom, probably an offhand comment on his part, but something that made a profound impact on me was when he said, ‘You know, we humans are ALL just angels with assholes.’
I’ve found that to be one of the truest statements I’ve ever
heard. Each of us has potential to be an
angel of mercy and compassion, a symbol of hope, an act of love and
giving. Yet, each of us is bound by our
humanity. We are bodies. Sometimes we are full of shit. We are transcendent and just pretty regular
at the same time.
I am learning something about myself and in the end, maybe I
just want to put it in words, because that’s what I like to do. In my life, I have witnessed selfless
kindness, unimaginable courage, creative compassion, love overcoming fear (not
to mention overcoming rules), and humanity enduring with humor and love even in
the face of such horror as the Holocaust.
And I believe that when you see other people, you have the
opportunity to see the ‘angel’ in them.
The holy in them. If there’s holy
in us, I feel that there is holy out there, too. That’s just what I believe. Somewhat along the lines of Albert Einstein,
who said, “There are only two ways to
live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though
everything is a miracle.”
So, for me, as I get older, one of the intrinsic pieces of
my own ‘mental and emotional health,’ as I summarize in my ‘ google bio’, is my
spiritual life. When we talk about
spirituality, nothing is more frustrating that the limitation of words, but let
me give it a try. Even as a little kid,
I had lots of questions about God – “How could God always have been there? What came before God?” My mom even invited the minister over for
dinner to talk with me about it (a terrible explanation – ‘take it on faith’,
was what I was told.) Other questions – “why
should I want to be a good person, just to go to heaven? Is that really being a good person, if I just
want some reward?” And I took religious
studies classes in college. Death and
Dying classes when they were offered.
So, maybe it’s no surprise that this is where I am today.
Maybe you have an inkling that you’d like to pay more attention
to your spiritual life? If you do, found or been recommended a number of online resources that
create access to information, ideas, and community and I thought you might like
to take a look too. I hope you find this helpful:
Spirituality and Practice - www.spiritualityandpractice.com - can range from pop to academic, but pretty
straight up and diverse theology. I look
at it every day and am amazed as the breadth and depth of information,
inspiration and continuing education opportunities.
Patheos – www.patheos.com If you want to get an unfiltered universe of
every type of belief/opinion/pop culture blog community this is where to go. Every group from Pagan to Evangelical
Christian from Muslim to Unitarian Universalist is well represented here and
there is no editorial filter or preference.
You may not like or agree with everything you read, but everyone is
welcome here.
Belief - www.globalpost.com/globalpost-blogs/belief - This
is part of Global Post – an American online newsource that focuses on global
news. This page is where religion and
news intersect, primarily through current news events.
On Being with Krista Tippett - www.onbeing.org Her public radio show is available on podcast
here. Diverse and thoughtful, a
broad-ranging understanding of spirituality that encompasses science as well as
belief.
Daily om - www.dailyom.com: kind of new-agey/Buddhist writing. Something to think about in small
nuggets.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Thirteen Ways on facebook
Hi my dear friends and readers - you can now 'like' Thirteen Ways on facebook. Thanks for all your support! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thirteen-Ways/521388194590439
thinking for yourself: thrift shop wisdom
"This is what I call getting swindled and pimped...this is what I call getting tricked by business." - Macklemore, Thrift Shop
Maybe because my husband is a salesman and his territory has been the Midwest, we are naturally a road trip family. One of the great accomplishments of my life was driving as the lone adult from St. Louis to Southern Florida with my four and six year old children. Happily, they each threw up only once.
This past week, we enjoyed a vomit-free road trip to Northern Minnesota. Being a bit older, the kids like listening to pop music while we drive and you can't listen to a pop station right now without hearing Macklemore's Thrift Shop (Clean version!). The poet in me is predisposed to like rap and hip hop and I actually think this is a great, fun song. The thing I like best about it, is that it's really pretty subversive...the 'speaker' is basically saying that if you're buying a Gucci T-shirt for $50, when instead you could go to a thrift shop and purchase something totally unique for half the price, then you're getting tricked by business.
Why is this subversive? Because it asks us to question who gives us our version of reality. It expects that even little kids who are listening to pop songs can question why and how we want what we think we want.
We can and should do this in many areas of our life, because there is always someone else's idea of truth or reality that can influence us for better, for worse, or for neutral - but if we are not aware of it, we lose our power of choice.
A small example, maybe a silly one, from my own life, is the influence of my grandmother - my mother's mother. She lived to be 95 years old and was a lady who enjoyed people, enjoyed life in general, played and won bridge games well into her nineties, and read the newspaper up until the last months of her life. She said the key to longevity is a sense of humor and faith in God. She also was a lady who 'put her face on.' I remember visiting her in the hospital when I was in my mid to late twenties. (As many older people, she had somewhat frequent hospitalizations in the last few years of her life). I walked in, smile on my face, bringing youth and cheer with me and she looked at me and said, "Kate, you look terrible." Huh? I noticed she had just put on her lipstick. I myself was not wearing any lipstick. This is why she thought I looked terrible. In my grandmother's version of reality, it was a truth that all women look better with a little makeup. It brightens their cheeks and shows they have pride in themselves.
It was like the air I breathed growing up: "women should wear makeup." I can't say this is as malevolent as 'getting tricked by business', but as an adult, I see that there is no objective law of nature stating the above. While, I am still a makeup-wearer, I have the responsibility to look at who and what has influenced me and then decide what I want to keep and what I want to get rid of, or where I want to fall in-between. (Lipstick: only on dress up occasions. Mascara: everyday.)
Another example - there was just a editorial in the New York Times this week http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/unhappy-clean-house.html?_r=0 about how and why we've come to see the perfection of our homes as a means to happiness. How did this get prescribed to us?
Here's the upshot: we've got parents, friends, schools, business, religion competing with one another and sometimes overlapping in their efforts to influence the way we live or what we think about the way we live. I find that some people I meet are not happy with their lives in part because they are so frazzled trying to live up to someone else's standard.
It seems to me that Macklemore is doing and saying something right. Let's use a little common sense. Let's adopt a little of his swagger. When you're wearing flannel zebra jammies, you just have to think for yourself.
Maybe because my husband is a salesman and his territory has been the Midwest, we are naturally a road trip family. One of the great accomplishments of my life was driving as the lone adult from St. Louis to Southern Florida with my four and six year old children. Happily, they each threw up only once.
This past week, we enjoyed a vomit-free road trip to Northern Minnesota. Being a bit older, the kids like listening to pop music while we drive and you can't listen to a pop station right now without hearing Macklemore's Thrift Shop (Clean version!). The poet in me is predisposed to like rap and hip hop and I actually think this is a great, fun song. The thing I like best about it, is that it's really pretty subversive...the 'speaker' is basically saying that if you're buying a Gucci T-shirt for $50, when instead you could go to a thrift shop and purchase something totally unique for half the price, then you're getting tricked by business.
Why is this subversive? Because it asks us to question who gives us our version of reality. It expects that even little kids who are listening to pop songs can question why and how we want what we think we want.
We can and should do this in many areas of our life, because there is always someone else's idea of truth or reality that can influence us for better, for worse, or for neutral - but if we are not aware of it, we lose our power of choice.
A small example, maybe a silly one, from my own life, is the influence of my grandmother - my mother's mother. She lived to be 95 years old and was a lady who enjoyed people, enjoyed life in general, played and won bridge games well into her nineties, and read the newspaper up until the last months of her life. She said the key to longevity is a sense of humor and faith in God. She also was a lady who 'put her face on.' I remember visiting her in the hospital when I was in my mid to late twenties. (As many older people, she had somewhat frequent hospitalizations in the last few years of her life). I walked in, smile on my face, bringing youth and cheer with me and she looked at me and said, "Kate, you look terrible." Huh? I noticed she had just put on her lipstick. I myself was not wearing any lipstick. This is why she thought I looked terrible. In my grandmother's version of reality, it was a truth that all women look better with a little makeup. It brightens their cheeks and shows they have pride in themselves.
It was like the air I breathed growing up: "women should wear makeup." I can't say this is as malevolent as 'getting tricked by business', but as an adult, I see that there is no objective law of nature stating the above. While, I am still a makeup-wearer, I have the responsibility to look at who and what has influenced me and then decide what I want to keep and what I want to get rid of, or where I want to fall in-between. (Lipstick: only on dress up occasions. Mascara: everyday.)
Another example - there was just a editorial in the New York Times this week http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/unhappy-clean-house.html?_r=0 about how and why we've come to see the perfection of our homes as a means to happiness. How did this get prescribed to us?
Here's the upshot: we've got parents, friends, schools, business, religion competing with one another and sometimes overlapping in their efforts to influence the way we live or what we think about the way we live. I find that some people I meet are not happy with their lives in part because they are so frazzled trying to live up to someone else's standard.
It seems to me that Macklemore is doing and saying something right. Let's use a little common sense. Let's adopt a little of his swagger. When you're wearing flannel zebra jammies, you just have to think for yourself.
Friday, March 15, 2013
The Kindred Spirit Principle
Miss Barry was a kindred spirit after all," Anne confided to Marilla,
"You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. . . Kindred spirits
are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there
are so many of them in the world.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Working in home hospice, I met new people all the time. In fact, every morning I worked, I called a voicemail system that instructed me, not only about who of my patients had died overnight, but also what new patients had been assigned to me since my previous work day. In the medical system, there is not too much time to linger over loss, but always the next patient.
I tried to care for all my patients and families equally - to provide the same listening, the same compassion, the same resources, the same attention, regardless of whether the patient and family seemed kind or cold, loving or angry, flighty or attentive.
Over the six years I worked in hospice, however, I found that there were certain patients or family members I met, and sometime pretty soon after meeting, I'd feel as if we just 'clicked.' As time passed I noticed that the 'work' I did with these families and patients wasn't the same or equal. There was a qualitative, intangible difference. And I realized it wasn't what I did that was different, what was different was the way what I did was received.
One of these kindred spirits, for me, was John. When I met him, he was reclined in his Lazy Boy, dying of colon cancer. Or would die of colon cancer in about 5 months time. He had a big dog that greeted me at the door and when I walked in and sat on his couch, this big mutt gave me a lick on the face. "He licks his balls, too," my patient said, deadpan.
So here demonstrates, what I'll call the the Kindred Spirit Principle. When we meet a Kindred Spirit - we know it and they know it. We relax into being our Selves and they relax into being wholly them Selves. With Kindred Spirits, we can give and receive friendship and truth (and humor) freely. What we do with these wonderful friends is not any different, but it feels different.
Kindred Spirits can be the other mom at church, who looks just as tired out from taking care of her tantrum-ing toddler as you've felt when taking care of yours. It could be the guy sitting next to you on the airplane who you have an unexpectedly interesting conversation with. It could be the best friend you've had for 25 years. I might even think that the L.M. Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables is a kindred spirit of mine - I feel more connected on this Earth knowing that this lady wrote with such humor, imagination and awe and expressed so many things that I feel, but a hundred years before me!
And thankfully, Kindred Spirits appear at many moments in life, not just in times of crisis. Be on the lookout for them, be open to them. Be grateful for them. And know that they are grateful for you. Like Anne of Green Gables says, they are not so scarce as I used to think.
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Working in home hospice, I met new people all the time. In fact, every morning I worked, I called a voicemail system that instructed me, not only about who of my patients had died overnight, but also what new patients had been assigned to me since my previous work day. In the medical system, there is not too much time to linger over loss, but always the next patient.
I tried to care for all my patients and families equally - to provide the same listening, the same compassion, the same resources, the same attention, regardless of whether the patient and family seemed kind or cold, loving or angry, flighty or attentive.
Over the six years I worked in hospice, however, I found that there were certain patients or family members I met, and sometime pretty soon after meeting, I'd feel as if we just 'clicked.' As time passed I noticed that the 'work' I did with these families and patients wasn't the same or equal. There was a qualitative, intangible difference. And I realized it wasn't what I did that was different, what was different was the way what I did was received.
One of these kindred spirits, for me, was John. When I met him, he was reclined in his Lazy Boy, dying of colon cancer. Or would die of colon cancer in about 5 months time. He had a big dog that greeted me at the door and when I walked in and sat on his couch, this big mutt gave me a lick on the face. "He licks his balls, too," my patient said, deadpan.
So here demonstrates, what I'll call the the Kindred Spirit Principle. When we meet a Kindred Spirit - we know it and they know it. We relax into being our Selves and they relax into being wholly them Selves. With Kindred Spirits, we can give and receive friendship and truth (and humor) freely. What we do with these wonderful friends is not any different, but it feels different.
Kindred Spirits can be the other mom at church, who looks just as tired out from taking care of her tantrum-ing toddler as you've felt when taking care of yours. It could be the guy sitting next to you on the airplane who you have an unexpectedly interesting conversation with. It could be the best friend you've had for 25 years. I might even think that the L.M. Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables is a kindred spirit of mine - I feel more connected on this Earth knowing that this lady wrote with such humor, imagination and awe and expressed so many things that I feel, but a hundred years before me!
And thankfully, Kindred Spirits appear at many moments in life, not just in times of crisis. Be on the lookout for them, be open to them. Be grateful for them. And know that they are grateful for you. Like Anne of Green Gables says, they are not so scarce as I used to think.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
love that book - how love (and books) help us heal after loss
My son and I got to church early on Sunday because his sister was practicing with the choir. He and I went to our usual hang out spot - the children's library. He pointed to a book on the shelf, Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech http://www.sharoncreech.com/books/love-that-dog.
"I heard that's good," he said. I sat down and started to read. Here's the first page:
Sept. 13
I don't want to
because boys
don't write poetry.
Girls do.
The short novel is a series of journal/poems written to the boy's teacher. All the entries are free verse poems. The boy, Jack, is fighting two battles at the beginning of the book - he doesn't want to write poetry and he definitely doesn't want to write poetry about his dog who died.
I know, there are people reading this who stopped reading the blog right now because they can't even bear to think about a book about a boy whose dog died. But I'm here to tell you, it isn't maudlin, depressing or sappy. It is bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter. I fell in love with this book. And in fact, it was so enchanting that I brought Love That Dog straight into the church service with me and finished it all right there, tears streaming down my face and snot coming out of my nose (as I tried to discreetly wipe it with my sleeve).
Here's what I love about the book and why I think anyone who has ever lost someone - a person or an animal - would find it meaningful and healing:
It's okay to not want to think about what we've lost. Thinking about what we've lost is heartbreaking and overwhelming for a while, so our brains protect us by not letting us understand it all at one time. It can be especially hard to think about the last days of someone's life if you were taking care of them when they were sick, if you felt responsible for their comfort, if you witnessed suffering. We really want to protect ourselves from thinking about these terrible times.
Eventually, we will think about those times. Our bodies will get tense and sick and we'll feel like we're reexperiencing those terrible times again. If we can try to calm our bodies down while we think about it, that can help. If we maybe go and talk with someone else - a support group or counselor - this can help too.
We will always be sad about this loss, some thing will change Life will call us to love again. Usually it will be a surprise. For Jack, it was a love of poetry. And most amazing is how poetry helped Jack talk about not just the loss of his dog, but the love of his dog.
Here's an excerpt from the poem by real life poet Walter Dean Myers that inspires Jack:
Love that boy,
like a rabbit loves to run
I said I love that boy
like a rabbit loves to run
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
"Hey there, son!"
Sometimes, you find yourself crying and crying right in the middle of church after reading a book about a boy and his dog, and you realize you're crying in grief, but also crying in wonder of love - how one boys love for his dog can feel as true and big and mysterious as all the love in the whole, wide world.
"I heard that's good," he said. I sat down and started to read. Here's the first page:
Sept. 13
I don't want to
because boys
don't write poetry.
Girls do.
The short novel is a series of journal/poems written to the boy's teacher. All the entries are free verse poems. The boy, Jack, is fighting two battles at the beginning of the book - he doesn't want to write poetry and he definitely doesn't want to write poetry about his dog who died.
I know, there are people reading this who stopped reading the blog right now because they can't even bear to think about a book about a boy whose dog died. But I'm here to tell you, it isn't maudlin, depressing or sappy. It is bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter. I fell in love with this book. And in fact, it was so enchanting that I brought Love That Dog straight into the church service with me and finished it all right there, tears streaming down my face and snot coming out of my nose (as I tried to discreetly wipe it with my sleeve).
Here's what I love about the book and why I think anyone who has ever lost someone - a person or an animal - would find it meaningful and healing:
It's okay to not want to think about what we've lost. Thinking about what we've lost is heartbreaking and overwhelming for a while, so our brains protect us by not letting us understand it all at one time. It can be especially hard to think about the last days of someone's life if you were taking care of them when they were sick, if you felt responsible for their comfort, if you witnessed suffering. We really want to protect ourselves from thinking about these terrible times.
Eventually, we will think about those times. Our bodies will get tense and sick and we'll feel like we're reexperiencing those terrible times again. If we can try to calm our bodies down while we think about it, that can help. If we maybe go and talk with someone else - a support group or counselor - this can help too.
We will always be sad about this loss, some thing will change Life will call us to love again. Usually it will be a surprise. For Jack, it was a love of poetry. And most amazing is how poetry helped Jack talk about not just the loss of his dog, but the love of his dog.
Here's an excerpt from the poem by real life poet Walter Dean Myers that inspires Jack:
Love that boy,
like a rabbit loves to run
I said I love that boy
like a rabbit loves to run
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
"Hey there, son!"
Sometimes, you find yourself crying and crying right in the middle of church after reading a book about a boy and his dog, and you realize you're crying in grief, but also crying in wonder of love - how one boys love for his dog can feel as true and big and mysterious as all the love in the whole, wide world.
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