Love our Healthcare Workers

My college roommate is a doctor in New York City. She runs a lab and is currently working from home and homeschooling her two boys, but she anticipates being called into the hospital soon to help patients sick with COVID-19. The thought of her - and all of the healthcare workers preparing to charge into the dragon's lair - ignites a fire in me to thank them and help them in any way available. Doctors are working without pay so that they can pay their staff, personnel are trying to prepare to help without adequate supplies - we need to do whatever we can for them.

I'm working with several friends to "start a movement" of showing gratitude to our healthcare workers by posting our #loveourhealthcareworkers thank you sign. You can see our graphic and text in the photo above. Here's a link to our artwork   We want all health care workers to see multiple thank yous as they drive to and from work.  Here's the invitation we've drafted to date:

Let's unite in showing our support for the brave doctors, nurses, and all healthcare workers who will be our front line to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Our Italian friends sang from their windows and we can do it without leaving our homes.  Create a sign or banner from materials you have on hand and then post it in your yard, on your door, or in a car or home window.  Do it today.  Keep it simple or be creative; let healthcare workers know we support them and are grateful. 

Let these signs be a visible daily reminder that even as we maintain physical distance from one another, we are connected and in this fight together. Let's take care of the most vulnerable and look out for one another. When we come out on the other side, we will build a better future for our children based on our common humanity.

Please share widely, and please consider posting a photo of your sign or poster.  Or if you prefer, please feel free to download and print out this sign (#link).

#loveourhealthcareworkers

The Kids are Nesting

Our daughter's move home prompted a long-delayed cleanout of one of the basement bedrooms. Rob accomplished more in one morning than we have managed in the last six years of saying "we really should get rid of that stuff." In a strange twist on the idea of decorating your dorm room so it looks like home, Aden has now taken the room at home and re-created her dorm. Though we cleaned the space to provide a working area for her online classes, Aden has spent almost all her time in this "dorm room away from the dorm." I understand that her sudden traumatic departure from campus and friends requires some adjustment but I am left feeling slightly bemused and rejected that our home and family presence offer small consolation.

Meanwhile, Daniel continues to work on puzzles at a mad rate, completing 850 pieces of a 1,000 piece puzzle in one day. With his headphones on and his chair pushed right up to the card table he spends hours puzzling and listening to his playlist. We are all grateful for his passion, and only interrupt it for meals and "outside time." Fortunately the Colorado weather has allowed for hours out of doors since the weekend, but snow arrives on Thursday.

William wastes time agonizing over the stock market, having bought a tiny amount of shares in various stock. He gasped when the market went below 20,000 this morning, having only paid attention in recent years as our S&P averages went crazy sky-high.  What sacrilege that we even talk about stocks and markets when hourly employees may be out of work indefinitely and so many people's livelihoods are faltering. Our family prayers and efforts will now shift from what's affecting us to what we can do to help others who are more affected.  Today we will donate to food pantries, which are running low when they help more than ever. We can order takeout, too, from restaurants who are already on the margins. More ideas to follow.

Stay safe and well.
xoxo
Laura

Returning to St Teresa

Additional time for writing turns out to be an unexpected benefit of self - isolating.  The sun is streaming in through the kitchen windows, highlighting little nuthatches and chickadees pecking away at their breakfast in feeders attached to the glass. I watch the birds and watch the cats watching the birds, forgetting for a moment that the world struggles against a tidal wave of infection. 

The cats have resigned themselves to merely watching the birds after several weeks of ineffectual clawing at the glass. Jack now sits unperturbed while they dine only feet from his head but Rex wanders around the kitchen muttering under his breath. Rex's annoyance burst through this morning when he unerringly attacked the most valuable object in the western world - the downstairs toilet paper roll. He sat on the back of the toilet and glared at me while depositing three-quarters of it onto the floor. We are attacked from without and within!

The Dravenstotts are being cautious and embracing the advice of medical professionals who recommend self-isolating for 14 days. Despite the parents' wariness, our children are still vectors of contagion, having gathered with friends as recently as two days ago. Daniel went out to play whiffle ball at the park - a seemingly harmless endeavor - but came back to show us videos of the boys clasping hands to form a human trampoline and taking turns throwing each other into the air. There was no six feet of distance between them, needless to say. I joked to Rob last night in macabre pillow-talk that Daniel hadn't succeeded in killing me yet but was still hell-bound to do so. A stern lecture on personal space was delivered at breakfast.

And yet...the times weigh a little heavy. Each night I turn to my favorite prayer, which St. Teresa of Avila wrote in the 16th century. You can find it written in many versions, but this is the one I say (if you don't believe in God you could substitute "love" or another unifying word):

Let nothing upset you,
Let nothing frighten you.
Everything is changing,
Only God is changeless.
Patience attains the goal.
Who has God lacks nothing,
God alone fills all our needs.

"Everything is changing" is both a promise and an acceptance. The world has always been thus and in this time of tumultuous change is no different. Let us hold fast to the things of most value, our love for one another and our hope.  Be well and be safe, and take some time to watch the birds. 
xoxo
Laura

Finest Hour - Repost from Gretchen Schmelzer

I did not write the following post but found it deeply moving when I read it yesterday on Facebook. For those of you who are not on social media, I wanted to share these positive and uplifting words.

This Can Be Our Finest Hour-But We Need All Of You


by Gretchen Schmelzer | March 11, 2020

For the vast majority of people nationwide and worldwide, this virus is not about you. This is one of those times in life, in history, when your actions are about something bigger. They are about someone else. They are about something greater, a greater good that you may not ever witness. A person you will save who you will never meet. 

You may be healthy, and your kids may be healthy. Your parents may be healthy. Everyone around you seems fine. And all the things you planned and the 2020 spring you thought you were going to have has been completely undone. You have to work from home. Your conference is cancelled. Your semester is over. Your work is cancelled. It all seems fast, and out-of-proportion and disorienting. You look at each action and think—but it would be okay if I did that. It’s not so big. We worked so hard. They would be so disappointed.

Your losses are real. Your disappointments are real. Your hardships are real. I don’t mean to make light or to minimize the difficulty ahead for you, your family or community.

But this isn’t like other illnesses and we don’t get to act like it is. It’s more contagious, it’s more fatal—and most importantly, even if it can be managed. It can’t be managed at a massive scale—anywhere. We need this thing to move slowly enough for our collective national and worldwide medical systems to hold the very ill so that all of the very ill can get taken care of.

Because at this time of severe virus there are also all of the other things that require care. There is still cancer, there are still heart attacks, there are still car accidents, there are still complicated births. And we need our medical systems to be able to hold us. And we need to be responsible because our medical systems are made up of people and these amazing healthcare workers are a precious and limited resource. They will rise to this occasion. They will work to help you heal. They will work to save your mother or father or sister or baby. But in order for that to happen we have very important work to do. ALL OF US.

So what is our work? Yes, you need to wash your hands and stay home if you are sick. But the biggest work you can do is expand your heart and your mind to see yourself and see your family as part of a much bigger community that can have a massive—hugely massive—impact on the lives of other people.

I remember the feeling of helplessness after 9/11 and after Hurricane Sandy. I remember how much people wanted to help. I remember how much generosity of spirit there was about wanting to give, wanting to be helpful, wanting to save lives. And many of you have had experiences since then—whether it was a mass shooting, or the wildfires, or floods. There have been times you have looked on and wondered how you could help. And now we ALL have that chance.

You can help by canceling anything that requires a group gathering. You can help by not using the medical system unless it is urgent. You can help by staying home if you are sick. You can help by cooking or shopping or doing errands for a friend who needs to stay home. You can help by watching someone’s kid if they need to cover for someone else at work. You can help by ordering take-out from your local restaurants. Eat the food yourself or find someone who needs it. You can help by offering to help bring someone’s college student home or house out-of-town students if you have extra rooms. You can help by asking yourself, “What can I and my family do to help?” “What can we offer?” You can help by seeing yourself as part of something bigger than yourself.

When the Apollo 13 oxygen tank failed and the lunar module was in danger of not returning to earth, Gene Kranz, the lead flight director overheard people saying that this could be the worst disaster NASA had ever experienced—to which he is rumored to have responded, “With all due respect, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.”

Imagine if we could make our response to this crisis our finest hour. Imagine if a year or two from now we looked back on this and told the stories of how we came together as a team in our community, in our state, in our nation and across the world.

Your contribution to the finest hour may seem small, invisible, inconsequential—but every small act of ‘not doing’ what you were going to do, and ‘doing’ an act of kindness or support will add up exponentially. These acts can and will save lives. The Apollo 13 crew made it their finest hour by letting go of the word “I” and embracing the word “we.” And that’s the task required of us. It can only be our finest hour if we work together. You are all on the team. And we need all of you to shine in whatever way you can.

This post originally appeared here.

Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and a trauma survivor who has worked for twenty-five years with the complex issues of trauma, integration, and behavior change across every level, from individuals to groups to large systems and countries. She has also been a senior consultant with Teleos Leadership Institute, an international consulting firm serving leaders of fortune 100 businesses and major not-for-profit organizations such as the United Nations. She is the founder and editor of The Trail Guide, a web-mag featured on www.gretchenschmelzer.com dedicated to healing repeated trauma and the author of Journey Through Trauma (Avery, 2018).

The Grown and Flown book is here – bestselling guidebook on how to raise teens to independent adults with sections on mental health and happiness, family life, health, and more.

Deepen the Argument

"Choose words that deepen the argument for being alive."
- Padraig O Tuama

My friend and former pastor posted O Tuama's words on his Instagram several days ago and they brought me up short in my scrolling. After many weeks off from this blog I finally received the motivation to come back with the goal of assembling words to uplift and inspire, challenge in healthy ways, or even  admit passing sorrow and loss with an outlook toward gratitude and hope for the future. Lofty goals, admittedly, but the only way I could bring my fingers back to the keyboard.

We are surrounded by dark, blaring headlines, dire warnings and partisan fury. Though I have many story ideas squirreled away from years of dabbling, the plot lines about eco-wars and epidemics no longer appeal. What seemed futuristic in previous decades has now come to pass and visions of hope and beautiful alternatives seem more necessary than scary predictions.

My writing project over the past months has been a gift that lays out such visions of hope. My mother and I have been reading and transcribing the letters my father wrote to her during the 11 months he served in Vietnam -- 50 years ago exactly. Though lonely, hot, far away from home and surrounded by war, Dad focused on his fiancee and castles in the air built on their hopes for the future.

He wrote passages that prod me to reform my sometimes gloomy outlook:
"I am optimistic over the prospects offered by the Paris peace talks. They met for 6 1/2 hours yesterday but nobody said much about what occurred. I take this as a good sign that a real discussion of business is going on and nothing will be said until the results are finalized. I have been an optimist all along and will continue to be one. I think if I weren’t I would lose my mind."

As true today as they were in 1969 - we must be somewhat optimistic or we will lose our collective mind. Dad's words from Vietnam motivate me to actively hope and put work behind my dreams for my future and my children' futures. The possibilities are before us if we can only guide one another through the minefield of negative news and make a light for ourselves - and others - to follow.