On Love

My daughter, Tegan, and her beau Lucas, whom I've known since he was a first grader, are getting married in less than 2 weeks. Just that one sentence fills me with such memories of a little boy entranced by the aquariums, plants, and exhibits encircling their first grade classroom—and a lovely teacher who recognized his learning style to my daughter's birth when I was transfixed with awe at her beauty and that she came from my womb. Love.

I've been thinking about love a lot lately, its many permutations and asks. 

When Jim died, I thought that any capacity I had for life might have died. His cancer and dying took so much of my spirit and crushed it in ways that are unimaginable to anyone who has not lost a partner or a child. I passed through a liminal space into an unknown and frightening world. Like a wild animal who has lost a limb to a predator, for that Covid year, I retreated into a darkened den or cocoon of pain and uncertainty. Folks slowly drew me out and helped me heal. Among them my daughter, my grief counselor, three or four best friends, some of my siblings, my aunt who is also a widow, my dogs, complete strangers, Peace Village, meditation and an ongoing conversation with God, work with Champlain College and Population Media Center, skiing, kayaking, and nature. Slowly it all did soften as poet Verandah Porsche had promised me.

Eventually I found that I had even more capacity for love, inspired by the love that broke and rebuilt me, the love Jim and I had nurtured and grown. The question then remained "What do I do with all this love with nowhere left to go?".

I have on my dresser this quote by Thoreau within which I have been slowly finding my answer, 

“There is no remedy for love but to love more”.

It's why I decided to become a Guardian Ad Litem. I knew that with the strength that had been tested as Jim and I went through his diagnosis, from my personal past, from my work as a teacher, innovator, and through creating and guiding Breakaway globally, it was an area that I could make the world a little bit better for those most needing to be encircled by love's fortitude. From their website:

"Right now, thousands of Vermont's children and youth are part of proceedings in the family division. Many are victims of abuse or neglect, accused of delinquent acts, or simply lost. They may be in foster care while they face uncertainties about things most people take for granted: a safe home and a loving family.These children need someone to help them understand what's happening and to make sure their voices are heard. These children need a volunteer guardian ad litem (GAL) to advocate for their best interests in and out of court. They need you. You can volunteer to become a GAL in your community and make certain that at least one child is not alone."

My volunteer work as a Guardian Ad Litem for the Chittenden County family court system has been a case in how difficult parental love challenges folks, how society's inequitable systems crack these families, and how it does take the village—aka community—to hold these children tight. Each case reinforces these learnings for me. And for me it has taken a certain type of bravery that I knew I had but calls forward in ways I did not expect: paying attention and staying connected; approaching parents I've never met on my own who have brains and bodies addled by drugs, broken mental health, violent cultural conditioning, and generational poor parenting; digging in and standing up for children in court; listening to the children; and being curious and recognizing the humanity in each and every person in the situation no matter the crime. So many of us are broken as I have been. I had a wonderful moment a few weeks ago while grocery shopping when two of the "littles" who were with their dad, excitedly ran up to me in the checkout line to tell me all about the teeth they were missing. In that moment I knew the impact of unconditional love from strangers has in these children's lives. It is a powerful love of community and children.

Which circles me back to Tegan and Lucas as they prepare to make their vows surrounded by family and friends. I've been filled with joy but also a bit of fear. The fear is based on my story, not theirs which is beautifully unfolding. My ex will be there but not Jim. Memories of both marriages, the good, the bad, the horrendous, and the blissful.

What I'm grateful for is that deep love that Jim and I had. At the start I had no idea really what that would mean to who I am today. And even still it unwraps daily in my soul. How his love, our intimacy allowed us both to expand beyond what might have seemed individually impossible. Jim taught me so much. The man who biked solo across country while grieving, gave me a bike as a wedding present. We biked and skied and kayaked. I became expert at these even skiing Chamonix through his gentle tutelage. I gave him the forest and gifted him with the love of our dogs. Together we bred birds and puppies, made new friendships, traveled the world. Jim developed deep relationships with my students, and became a huge supporter of Breakaway traveling with me to El Salvador. He moved to Vermont. I wouldn't have created the EMC if we had not married and he hadn't decided to move here. I became a lover of piano AND accordion music. We danced. He loved my gardens and my parents—facing together their care, their deaths, and our grief. We combined multiple layers of families. We welcomed a granddaughter and her baby brother whom I'm so privileged to have in my life along with their dad (my step) and her mom (my daughter-in-love). And then in the last 3 years, we confronted the unconfrontable—cancer and his death. I found in myself this capacity to become a caretaker and unconditionally love: nursing him right through to the moment his spirit left the room. And he, he taught me the acceptance of death and the joy and wonder that came shining through as he faced his death. Jim died with such strength and grace that his example held forward a promise to me when I was in the darkest place in my life. I am so eternally grateful we were each others.

This past week was a memorial service for one of us Starksboro "mothers". Chris Runcie was the mom of Tegan's best friend in 6-8th grade. I so fondly remember our playground talks about raising our strong girls. But Chris was so much more than then that (obit here). I must admit that the day of the service, I felt anxious about attending. I knew how it would tear me apart. However raised by my mom, I knew I would regret not going.

Chris was a major force in Starksboro through her kindness, dedication, wisdom, and graciousness.  It seemed the entire town showed up. It was held in the elementary school and so many folks kept pouring in that it started a half hour late and they were bringing in more chairs from the classrooms. 

Her kids are all grown and the first person I hugged was her daughter Julia, Tegan’s friend. Julia's own towheaded, two year old had cancer at the same time as his grandma. Thankfully, he just got a clean bill of health. And when Julia told the story of how they would FaceTime everyday and how his grandma lovingly gave him courage with both of their chemo bald heads, the entire room must have started crying. I know I turned to my BFF Lisa, and just held on. 

Everyone rightfully gave really moving “loving memories”. Chris loved her town, her family, and all of this beautiful natural world and she shared that with all so they could feel the same.

Then Jim, her husband, told the story of how they first met and like a good love story, through a series of steps and mis-steps finally started seriously dating. At the close, he read from a letter Chris had saved from that time: one when they were briefly separated as she did her PhD research. In it he wrote to her that he was so shocked about how her being gone had been so hard on him and how much he missed her. Yes, he was in tears and so were all 300 hundred or so of us. Then he looks up at us all and in all his humility and humanity, shared that he didn’t imagine he’d feel that way again but now he does but "she isn’t coming back this time".

I wanted to fly out of there so overcome for them, for the loss of my Jim, for knowing how much pain this Jim would have to learn to hold and navigate. But on my way to the door, folks kept coming up to me. At the threshold, the last person, a woman my age who lost her husband 18 years ago. In talking with her, I realized that I had to go say something to Jim. I wasn’t sure he’d recognize me after all this time but he did and gave me a big, warm hug and he graciously remembered that my Jim had died. I shared with him there are really no words and I was so sorry. And how when I was in that early period another widow, state poet Verandah Porsche, had written to me that “it will soften” and that is what got me through. And then he just poured out his feelings looking directly in my eyes. There was so much pain. I know that pain. They were married 45 years.

Tegan and Lucas opening a gift from Jim—an Irish wedding goblet he made

Very shaken and yet grateful that I had spoken with Jim, I felt overpowered by the knowledge of where he is on hs personal grief journey. Afterwards I was a basket case most of that day until my friend Kathy and I went out to dinner. 

Cancer really sucks, death really sucks. But I know one thing for sure, deeply loving and being loved is worth that pain.

With this lovely wedding coming up, my dearest hope for Tegan and Lucas is that they experience all the richness of their union, that they become bigger, brighter persons because of it, that they touch and create a new world through their love, and that they may have the type of loving, tenacious love that Chris and Jim had and that Jim and I had which will carry them both through to their end. 

And I know this too, they have absolutely started out on the right foot.

I  ♥️ U ∞

Tegan and Lucas at their wedding shower