Can Do Attitude in a Can’t Do Body

One of the things my wife and I like to do together is attend performances at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre. We consider attending plays one of our better date activities because it provides us with an opportunity to break out of our normal routines and have engaging conversations together about the moments in the performances that stirred our emotions or stimulated our minds.

Recently we attended a two-man play called Best Summer Ever that was written and performed by Kevin Kling – an accomplished playwright, storyteller, and contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered. Kling is an ebullient personality and there is something childlike, mischievous, and endearing about him that works to win over his audiences from the start.

One of Kevin’s most admirable qualities is his attitude towards overcoming the physical disabilities that are a part of his life. He was born with a congenital birth defect that shriveled his left arm and left it without a wrist or thumb. Then, at the age of 44, Kevin was in a motorcycle accident that completely paralyzed his right arm and disfigured his face.

Kling is open about his disabilities and tries to explain, with humor, the blessings he has derived from his misfortunes and the benefits that can come from tackling life’s obstacles with faith and a positive attitude. His family and friends stood by him while he recovered from his motorcycle accident and years of rehab.

“It’s hard to deny the power of prayer when you’re on the receiving end of it. I know it helped me heal. At times it was like skiing behind a power boat — all I had to do was hang on… As terrible [as my injuries were] and as scared as I am sometimes, I still feel blessed. And when I get discouraged I just look at my two wiener dogs because they are the best example of a ‘can do’ attitude in a ‘can’t do’ body.

Kevin Kling

Kling separates the disabilities that we are born with from those disabilities we acquire later in life and he points out that being so-called “able-bodied” is always just a temporary condition – sooner or later we are all likely to suffer from life’s frailties. He feels that when you are born with a disability, you grow from it, but when you experience a loss later in life, you have to grow toward it; you need time to grow into the new person you haven’t yet become.

Kevin wrote “The Best Summer Ever” as a way of growing toward the new person he was becoming after his accident. He does this by going back and telling the heartwarming story of his 9 year childhood journey growing up as the son of Norwegian immigrants in rural Minnesota. Exploring his childhood from this perspective became a kind of therapy; helping him to find pieces from his past to fit, not the person he was, but the new person he was becoming.

There were two moments from the play that stood out in my mind as reflections of the kind of positive wisdom Kevin had to share about life with his audience:

We all have a deep desire to feel connected, no matter what age

There is a scene in the play where 9 year old Kevin tries his best to comfort his aging grandfather who is grieving the death of his brother. Kevin is trying to understand why his grandfather is so sad and comes to the realization that his grandfather must feel like an orphan now because his mother, father and all his siblings are now gone. He is the last one of his family left.

How must it feel when the people you had the strongest connection to throughout your life are no longer here? I wonder about my 93 year old mother. After living through the deaths of her mother, father and seven siblings, does she feel like an orphan in some way? Despite her many children and grandchildren, is she happily looking forward to re-establishing connections again with her family on the other side?

Kevin talks fondly about his grandparents and the role they played in his life, saying his relationship with them was one of his strongest connections and one that most shaped who he became:

“I connected with my grandparents. And I think we were in the same light. I mean, I was in the dawn, and they were in the twilight, but we were in the same light. And because of that, they were heading to the creator, and I was coming from the creator. And it seemed, because of that, we spoke a very similar language.“

Live so that your Light outlives you

At the conclusion of the play, Kevin is looking at a nighttime sky full of shining stars and marvels that since the stars are so far away it takes hundreds or thousands of years for their light to reach the earth. This means that those of us left on on earth will continue to receive light from the stars even after they are long dead.

Kevin believes that the light from people can live on after they die too. The good that we do, and the light we share will outlive us if we act to make a positive difference in the lives of the people we love and take meaningful action against the injustice we see in the world.

When Kevin looks up at those stars at night he is happy to feel the presence and memories of his grandparents and parents shining down on him. I hope when you look up at the stars, you too can take comfort and feel gratitude for the connections you had with your loved ones. But more important I hope you are living the kind of life that will continue to shine light long after you are gone. When you think about it, being a light for someone else is one way for us to become immortal.

Sorry is a Sacrament

One of the year’s pleasant surprises for New England baseball fans everywhere was the Boston Red Sox winning of the 2021 American League East Division Series. It was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the home team and none of the baseball experts predicted them to be in a position to compete for a playoff spot this season.

The 2021 Red Sox team was a scrappy and likable bunch of players, fighting until the last out and often coming from behind to win games. They were underdogs all year but managed to squeak into a wildcard playoff position; where they then proceeded to defeat their arch-rival New York Yankees, and odds-on favorites Tampa Bay Rays – before finally losing in the championship series to the Houston Astros.

A lot of the credit for the team’s successful season was given to their young manager, Alex Cora. Alex had previously coached the Red Sox and was praised for leading the team to the World Series Championship in 2018. He was suspended by Major League Baseball for the entire 2020 season, however, when it was discovered that he participated in a scheme to steal the opposing team’s pitching signals back in 2017 when he was working as a bench coach for the Houston Astros.

Trying to steal your opponents signs is a tradition as old as baseball because it can give batters a significant advantage when they know which type of pitch is coming (Fastball, Curveball, Sinker, Breaking Ball, Splitter, etc.). Stealing signs is not against the rules as long as the players manage to decipher the signals using personnel that are on the field.

The most common way teams try to steal signs is for a runner on base to peek in and study the hand signals the catcher sends to his pitcher prior to every pitch and then relay the sign to his teammate standing in the batting box. If a team does not disguise their signals effectively or change them up occasionally, then the opposing team is usually able to decode them.

What made the sign-stealing scheme devised by the Houston Astros and Alex Cora against the rules is that their efforts made use of on-field technology. They used a dedicated camera in the center field stands of their home stadium that was focused directly on the opposing team’s catcher. The video was sent to a monitor near the Houston dugout where Houston players could examine it and quickly decode the signs being sent to the pitcher. Various methods were then used to communicate the decoded pitch signs to the batter, including hand signals, whistling and banging on a trash can. Alex Cora even received the stolen sign information on the smartwatch he was wearing.

Condemnation was swift when the scheme was first revealed to the public in 2019 by a traded Houston pitcher. The whole Houston Astros team was immediately branded as cheaters and the World Series championship Houston won in 2017 came to be seen as illegitimate, tarnished forever by the cheating scandal. Major League Baseball conducted a retroactive investigation in 2019 and punished all the managers it found participated in the scheme with a one year suspension.

This included Alex Cora, who had moved on to manager of the Boston Red Sox and led them to the 2018 World Series Championship. Cora paid a high price for his decision to participate in the cheating scheme. The once proud man lost his job, his sterling reputation, his dignity, and the respect of his friends, family and colleagues. He spent a year exiled away from the game he loved while he watched the media attack his character and his young children suffer because of his sullied reputation.

Despite the harsh judgement, Cora never complained. He sincerely apologized for his actions, admitted his fault in the sign stealing scheme, acknowledged that what he did was unfair to the teams they played against and accepted his punishment as well deserved. It was clear he truly felt remorse for his role in the whole affair.

I found myself becoming emotional while watching Alex Cora lovingly embrace his young 14 year old daughter Camilla in the immediate aftermath of the Red Sox victory over the Rays in the Division Series. A postgame reporter asked Alex what that moment meant to him after serving a year of suspension. Here is the video clip of that special moment courtesy of the MLB Network (along with a transcript of his remarks about his family):

“I’m happy for my family. I put them in such a tough spot last year and for them to be able to enjoy it is very gratifying, I’m very very happy for them. She [Camilla] suffered a lot and it was my fault, and sometimes we make bad decisions, and I made a horrible decision in baseball and I paid the price. But what really hurt me was for them to suffer because of my mistakes. And for her to enjoy this is very gratifying.

Alex Cora, Postgame interview, 2021 ALDS

So many people today are afraid to say they are sorry or admit they have done something wrong. They view apologizing as a sign of weakness and surrender; therefore their egos prevent them from owning up to their mistakes or attempting to repair and heal the hurt they have caused.

Still other people never develop the moral compass or sense of compassion and empathy that is necessary to understand how their actions negatively affect others. They feel entitled, believing that the world revolves around them – and they are so used to thinking about themselves that they have no capacity to think about anyone else.

That is why it was so refreshing to watch how Alex Cora handled the fall out from the cheating scandal. Here was a rare example of an authentic apology, one where Alex confessed remorse for his mistake, admitted that it was wrong, fully cooperated with the investigators, accepted his punishment and attempted to make amends with those who were most hurt.

I can’t help but contrast Alex Cora’s apology with one recently made by the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, Aaron Rodgers. Aaron was widely criticized when it was discovered that he lied to reporters at a press conference when he told them he had been fully “immunized” against the COVID-19 virus. The truth that he had never received a vaccination was only revealed after he became infected with COVID and was forced to go into NFL quarantine protocols.

Rather than apologizing for lying to reporters and his failure to follow mandated COVID-19 safety protocols, Rodgers first tried to explain that when he said he was immunized he meant he had taken some (ineffective) home treatment and he didn’t actually say that he was vaccinated. He inferred that the reporters were to blame because they assumed immunized meant vaccinated.

When that explanation was roundly ridiculed, Rogers tried again by issuing a statement saying that some people might have felt misled by his comments and that he takes full responsibility for the misleading comments.

Notice in this example of a fake apology Rogers never says he is sorry for putting people at risk and he never says he regrets what he did. He apologizes only to those who “felt misled,” as if it was just their feeling, and not his own actions, that were to blame. The reality is that people felt misled because Rodgers misled them.

Rodgers elaborated further, explaining that he believed strongly in body autonomy and that he wasn’t up-front with people because he didn’t want to acquiesce to a “woke culture” or a “crazed group of individuals” who harass those who choose not to get vaccinated. With this explanation, Rodgers again shifts the blame for his wrongdoing. It is not his fault that he lied and exposed others to potential risk, – it is the fault of a group of crazy people and the toxic culture.

After this explanation was also criticized, Aaron Rodgers just refused to talk anymore about the subject. This was probably his wisest decision since bad apologies that blame the victims usually make things worse than saying nothing at all.

Looking in someone’s eyes and offering a sincere apology is not easy. Many people, like Aaron Rodgers, attempt to get by with with fake apologies which seek to avoid responsibility by making excuses, shifting blame, downplaying what was done, invalidating the hurt person, or trying to move on prematurely.

By contrast, Psychologists say that authentic apologies have most or all of the following elements:

• It is freely offered without conditions or minimizing of what was done
• It conveys that the person apologizing understands and cares about the hurt person’s experience and feelings
• It conveys remorse
• It offers a commitment to avoid repeating the hurtful behavior
• It offers to make amends or provide restitution if appropriate

During my lifetime I have given more than my share of ineffective apologies, but it is a life skill that I’m still working to improve because it is impossible for any of us to go through life without hurting someone. As Bob Dylan once sang: “I hurt easy, I just don’t show it; you can hurt someone and not even know it“. We are all human and in the daily course of our existence, no matter how hard we try, there are going to be moments ahead when we are guilty of hurting people. During those moments of our life, we should try, like Alex Cora, to put aside our egos and summon the humility and dignity that is required to repair the damaged relationship and make it stronger.

A good apology is like an offering or a gift that has a supernatural power to heal. The Catholic faith believes that admitting to our faults and seeking reconciliation with God and our neighbors is so important that they have established it as one of the Church’s seven sacred sacraments. The practice of Confession and forgiveness are referred to as a healing sacrament, one in which a spiritual power is believed to be transmitted through channels of divine grace.

During this season of thanks giving and gift giving, may you too come to experience the holy and redemptive power of the Sacrament of Sorry that is just waiting for all of us who seek it out sincerely.

I feel Alive when I’m Doing it

When the American poet and essayist Louise Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal“; I was intrigued to learn more about her.

I was not familiar with Glück or her work even though she had published 13 books of well-received poetry over a 52 year span, served as Poet Laureate of the United States in 2003 and was the recipient of numerous literary awards – including the the Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Bollingen Prize.

While looking into Glück’s background, I learned that she was born in New York City in 1943 and raised on Long Island. Glück’s mother was of Russian Jewish descent and her father’s parents were Hungarian Jews who emigrated to the United States and ran a grocery store in New York.

Glück’s father had an ambition to become a writer, but went into business with his brother-in-law and achieved success when they invented the X-Acto knife. Glück’s mother was a graduate of Wellesley College. In her childhood, her parents taught Louise Greek Mythology and classic stories such as the life of Joan of Arc – themes of which she would mine in many of her later poems.

She began to write poetry at an early age, but as a teenager and young adult Glück struggled with anorexia. She described the illness as the result of an effort to assert her independence from her mother and as a way for her to come to terms with the illness and death of an of an elder sister. 

During the fall of her senior year she was taken out of high school to focus on her rehabilitation. She spent the next seven years in psychoanalytic therapy which she credited with helping her learn how to think and overcome her anorexia. During this time period she attended classes at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University and worked part time as a secretary – which she said did not suit her temperamentally.

Glück has been married twice, both marriages ending in divorce, and has one son. She currently lives in Cambridge Massachusetts and is an adjunct professor at Yale University.

While the subjects of Glück’s poems are wide and varied, scholars have identified the most common themes in her work as trauma, death, loss, suffering, failed relationships, and attempts at healing and renewal.

The scholar Daniel Morris observed that even a Glück poem that uses traditionally happy imagery still “suggests the author’s awareness of mortality, of the loss of innocence“. The writer Linda Rodriguez noted that “Her poetry explores the intimate drama of family tragedies resonating through the generations and the relationship between human beings and their creator.”

Glück utilizes her focus on trauma as a gateway to a greater appreciation of life says Carol Malone, writing for the Best American Poetry 2020 book, and uses her acceptance of mortality as a way to become a more fully realized human being.

I listened to a 2012 Academy of Achievement interview with Louise Glück that I found very thoughtful. When asked why she still writes, Gluck responded:

“Because I feel alive when I’m doing it and much less alive when I’m not doing it. I write to discover meaning… It’s much less about who I am than the idea that nothing should be wasted. Also, writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too. Bad luck, loss, pain; if you make something out of it then you are no longer bested by the events.”

It’s that kind of thinking, I believe, that allows Glück to be brutally honest in her poetry. She is not writing for her audience per se, but for herself. To make herself feel more alive, to make sense of her experiences and to wrestle even the negative circumstances of her life into something positive.

Later in the interview, when she is asked how she feels about the accolades and awards she has received for her work, she responds:

“They are nice and make life more comfortable. But what I want is not capable of being had in my lifetime. I want to live after I die, in that ancient way, and there will be no knowing until that happens – no matter how many blue ribbons I have attached to my corpse.”

There is a maturity and wisdom in her recognition of the vanity of earthly awards, and of their ultimate meaningless in the face of eternity. It will remain a mystery what the afterlife has in store for Louise Glück, but, I like to think that it is certain she will continue to live on through the striking poems she leaves behind.

One such striking poem I came across while browsing through her Collected Works 1962-2012 is titled New World:

New World Poem by Elizabeth Gluck

This poem made me think about my general reluctance to wander far from home – and how my preference to focus more on the interior life than the exterior life may have contributed to “holding down” my more exuberant life companions.

Because my engineering and marketing career necessitated frequent travel, I came to realize early on that travel is overrated. It seemed to me the best part of most journeys is that moment when you finally return to the comforts of home.

I am not alone in this sentiment. It was Blaise Pascal’s opinion that all human evil comes from man’s inability to sit still in his room; and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his book Self-Reliance: “Travelling is a fool’s paradise, our first journey’s discover to us the indifference of places… Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home”.

Reading this poem reminded me that it is important for me to temper my preference for the quiet and contemplative life with a spirit of adventure as well – because I don’t want to be the lead strapped to the ankles of my beloved family or the wet blanket that prevents them from experiencing adventures that contribute to making life memorable and interesting.

Life is a balance and being a recluse can blind you to all that the world has to offer. Also, what good does it do to be floating free if there is no one to share it with?

Today, Louise Gluck lives in Cambridge MA but she has spoken in the past about falling in love with the state of Vermont when she first moved there in 1971 to begin teaching at Goddard College. She credits the move as being instrumental in helping her get past her writer’s block.

Tragically, a fire destroyed her Vermont house in 1980 resulting in the loss of all her possessions. After the fire, Louise reluctantly moved from the state where she felt so much at home.

When the reporters asked her what she intended to do with the $1.1 million dollar award money that came with winning the Nobel Prize, it made me smile when she said she was thinking of buying a house in Vermont.

Enjoy Vermont Ms Gluck – I hope you feel very alive there and maybe I will be lucky enough to bump into you someday during my New World travels to that magical Green Mountain state to visit with my beloved family connections.

To err is human; to forgive Divine

In keeping with the spirit of the Holiday Season, at this time of year I look to post uplifting topics about hope and redemption. This year I would like to write a few words in praise of Bill Buckner.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bill Buckner, he was an All-Star Major League Baseball player and one of the game’s great underrated hitters. He finished seven seasons of a 22 year career with better than a .300 average, compiled 2715 hits (more than either Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams) and won the 1980 American League batting title.

I happened to be at a Red Sox baseball game this summer with my wife when the Public Address announcer informed the crowd that Bill Buckner had passed away. The fans respectfully cheered while the team played a montage video of Bill on the center field scoreboard, but I was thinking how unfortunate it was that Bill would probably not be remembered for his career of excellent play, but instead for the one notable error he was unlucky enough to make on the world’s biggest stage.

The stage was Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, the Boston Red Sox against the New York Mets. The Red Sox were 1 out away from clinching the title when the Mets rallied from a two run deficit.

The 36 year old Buckner – hobbled by bum ankles and knees – was playing first base for Boston when Mookie Wilson hit a weak ground ball to him – a ball he would normally field successfully 99 times out of a 100. But in this instance the ball somehow eluded Buckner’s glove and bounced past him into the outfield. The Mets scored the winning run completing a stunning come from behind victory.

The Fateful Error

The deflated Red Sox went on to lose game 7 and frustrated Sox fans everywhere – who had been suffering from a championship drought since 1918 – made Buckner the scapegoat for the team’s failure. They focused on the error; forgetting all about Buckner’s key contributions to the team during Boston’s crucial September playoff run when he carried the team, batting a stellar .340 and hitting eight home runs.

Buckner’s error became one of the most infamous plays in baseball history. Replays of the error with announcer Vin Scully shouting “It gets through Buckner!” were played constantly on the television. The headlines in the Boston newspaper screamed “Buckner Boots Big Grounder“. He was the scourge of Boston sports for a lengthy period of time.

Buckner’s career and life changed in an instant. The fans and media piled on – branding him as the guy who missed the ground ball. Buckner received death threats and one reporter allegedly called Buckner’s wife to ask her if he was contemplating suicide. In the immediate aftermath of the heartbreaking error and painful loss, I too became part of the mob cursing the name of Bill Buckner.

The taunting reminders of that muffed grounder battered Buckner so relentlessly that he eventually chose to relocate away from the rage in New England to an isolated ranch in Idaho where he could find some peace. His family, he said, “didn’t like to see how people were treating me.“

The magazine editor William Falk met Buckner ten years after the 1986 series and he remembers Buckner stiffening when he introduced himself as a reporter from New York. He could still glimpse the old hurt in Buckner’s eyes which quickly became hard and challenging. He was glad to see the reporter go.

Why was Buckner alone assigned the blame when so many others contributed as much or more to the Red Sox defeat? Buckner’s miscue marked the unkindest bounce of fate, a most improbable error sustained by a good and admired man at the worst possible moment.

As a man of faith Bill must have wondered what God had wrought – to have to live out his life being defined by the worst five seconds he ever experienced. His wife said a lesser man would have crumbled under the things that he had to endure.

Gradually Buckner learned to live with his mistake and even come to laugh at it. He wondered if it was part of some mysterious plan that could somehow be used as a life lesson for others experiencing misfortune in their life. Buckner said, “I was a little bitter over it for a long time, because I didn’t think I deserved it, … but then I’ve had a lot of people call me and thank me for giving them directions to make it through — and that’s a good thing.”

I read recently that there are at least three things it is good to forget. First is past accomplishments because out of success too often comes complacency and contentment that lull the mind. Second, it is good to forget our hurts because if we just dwell on our bitterness we will accomplish little. Finally, it is good to forget our failures because all of us make mistakes and sometimes we do not succeed even when we’ve worked hard and given something our best shot.

With time comes wisdom, compassion and perspective. Many Red Sox fans eventually came to realize how unfairly they had treated Bill Buckner. In recent years sportswriters began publishing articles about how the Boston fans had finally come to forgive him – especially after the team finally broke the 86 year championship drought by capturing World Series titles in 2004 and 2007.

In my opinion Bill Buckner never needed to seek forgiveness. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t purposely miss the ball. He was trying his very best. Errors like that happen every day in baseball… and in life. It is those of us who treated Bill so uncharitably for so many years who should ask for forgiveness.

In 2008, 22 years after the fateful error, the Red Sox invited Bill Buckner back to Fenway Park for the celebration of the 2007 Championship. When he walked out to the mound to throw out the game’s ceremonial first pitch, the players and fans gave him a moving two minute standing ovation. Buckner’s eyes grew wet with tears. I remember watching the scene with tears in my eyes too – hoping that Bill had found it in his heart to forgive us.

Red Sox Fans Cheer Buckner’s Return, 2008

“Glad I came“, said Buckner after the game, “I really had to forgive, not the fans of Boston, per se, but I would have to say in my heart I had to forgive the media. For what they put me and my family through. So, you know, I’ve done that and I’m over that.”

Terry Francona, former Red Sox manager who was visiting the park that day said “I thought it was kind of a healing moment, it seemed, for a lot of people and for him, I hope”.

Bill Buckner died at the age of 69 after a long battle with Lewy body dementia – another cruel twist of fate that crippled the once great athlete with cognitive and movement problems. But he accepted it with grace.

On learning the news of Bill Buckner’s death Red Sox principal owner John Henry said: “We are proud that Bill Buckner wore a Red Sox jersey during the course of a terrific career that spanned more than two decades. His life was defined by perseverance, resilience, and an insatiable will to win. Those are the traits for which he will be most remembered.”

Mookie Wilson, the Mets baseball player who hit the fateful ground ball back in 1986, wrote: “I was saddened to hear about Bill’s death. He was a good teammate and a solid family man. We had developed a friendship that lasted well over 30 years. I felt badly for some of the things he went through. Bill was a great great baseball player whose legacy should not be defined by one play.”

Here’s wishing you all the generosity and goodwill of the Christmas season – may we all have the strength, resilience and perseverence of Bill Buckner when things in life don’t go our way and may we never forget that heavenly maxim “To err is human; to forgive, Divine“.

“And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths”

An essay written by Susanna Schrobsdorff  and published in the January 22, 2018 edition of Time Magazine tells the story of two widows who found solace with one another despite the grief and sadness they felt over the loss of their spouses.

The two widows were Lucy Kalanithi, wife of Paul Kalanithi, and John Duberstein, husband of Nina Riggs. Both Paul and Nina published memoirs in 2016 (titled When Breath Becomes Air and The Bright Hour) – about the emotions they were experiencing while struggling to cope with their terminal illnesses.

The essayist described how the ache of loss runs concurrently with gratitude in the two complementary memoirs. The author of each book expresses a thankfulness for the love they have accumulated but at the same time describe the acute pain they feel at the thought of leaving it all behind. One emotion enables the other.

Edel Rodriguez for TIME

Susanna wondered how the two widows, Lucy and John, who became acquaintances and close friends throughout the process of publishing and promoting their partner’s memoirs after they passed away – and who are now planning for a future together, must feel as they tour together reading the words written by the two people they loved so profoundly.

“Perhaps their old lives seem woven into their new life, one love spilling into the next, families merging, past and present overlapping. All of it can exist almost simultaneously. The laws of time are so easily warped.”

A lot of people attempt to make a clean start when beginning a new relationship, trying to leave old baggage behind. They worry that holding on to the past will prevent them from living fully in the present or that it will hinder them from strengthening the emotional bonds of a new relationship.

I have learned from experience that leaving your bags behind is not really an option nor should we want it to be. My perspective is informed by the parallels my life has had with the story of this surviving couple.

My first wife suffered from Breast Cancer and passed away at the age of 45 leaving me and my two young daughters to mourn her loss. By good fortune and divine grace another woman came into my life, kind and loving, with three young children who was recovering from a different and maybe more traumatic kind of loss, the painful divorce and breakup of her family.

We met at a time when we were both hurting and vulnerable but we began to heal our emotional wounds gradually by consoling one another, by being generous and understanding, and by concentrating on things our partner needed instead of focusing on our own sorrows.

Rather than trying to erase the baggage from our past – and the more than two decades of loving memories spent raising our families that went along with it – we embraced it, weaving the lessons of our past lives into our new love and using our past experiences to form a stronger bond together.

Walt Whitman recognized that we are the product of everything that came before us when he wrote “And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths“. I am the person I am because of the people that came before me. They struggled and they prospered and they transferred their life’s lessons and blessings to the next generations so that we could benefit.

They are no longer here but a part of them lives in me and in you. “Death” is merely another word for former life—or, more precisely, another word for forms of life that have now sprung into endlessly transforming other forms of life.

What a shame it would be if we failed to propagate the beauty and sadness we have experienced during our past lives into our daily life. Doing so would make us less alive. Life is richer when we share the joy that we experienced from the past and we become more grateful for our blessings when we think back to the aches of sorrow we experienced in our past life.

While talking about mourning for her mother, my daughter once said to me that “Learning how to accept endings is an essential part of living“. There is much wisdom in that sentiment I think. We must accept endings as they are inevitable – death and life are an endless process, inseparable from each other. By taking the essence of those we have lost and making it an essential component of our daily living we honor best the lives of those who have passed on.

So if you are wise, you will take the accumulated baggage from your past, weave it seamlessly into the fabric of your present life and share it with others – so that when it comes time for you to leave, you will know that you contributed to growing new life.

In the spirit of the upcoming Holiday Season, I will close with a passage written by Paul Kalanithi, the dying father, who knowing that his eight month daughter would not remember him, wrote her this touching note to read someday in the future:

“When you come to one of the many moments in your life where you must give account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that doesn’t hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied.”

May your presence too always bring joy to the world and may those you love carry it forward with them to fertilize new life.

 

“There is something in the forest to cure most anything that bothers you.”

My love affair with the woods and wild places began at a young age. My father was a recreational fur trapper and fisherman and when I was a boy I would look forward in eager anticipation to those days when he would let me accompany him on his woodland outings to teach me the ways of nature.

It was an interest we shared for almost 50 years – one that strengthened the father/son bond and accounted for many happy homecomings over the years when we would reminisce about our past outdoor expeditions and latest woodland experiences. Even today, after his passing, I go to the woods to commune with my father’s spirit and to feel his presence.

My recent retirement has allowed me to walk and kayak new places in nature that I have always wanted to explore but never had enough time. I have mapped out all the nearby state parks and wilderness trails and have been happily hiking the trails during this beautiful New England Fall season.

I find that upon my return from these forest jaunts, I always feel better than when I departed – the medicine of the forest seems to be the cure for whatever happens to be bothering me. That is why it was not surprising to me when I happened across an article in Time magazine on a Japanese study about the healing power of nature.

The goal of the study was to clinically prove the therapeutic benefits of spending time in nature and to encourage the practice of what they call shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing”. Their study confirmed these benefits of going back to nature :

• People who spent 40 minutes walking in a forest had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, compared with when they spent 40 minutes walking in a lab.
• Trees and plants emit aromatic compounds that when inhaled spur healthy biological changes in the body similar to the effects of aromatherapy.
• When people walked through or stayed overnight in forests, they exhibited changes in their blood associated with protection against cancer, better immunity and lower blood pressure.
• The quiet atmosphere, beautiful scenery, good smells and fresh, clean air in forests were linked to symptom relief for heart disease, depression, cancer, anxiety and attention disorders.
• Children with ADHD symptoms who regularly played in outdoor areas and parks had milder symptoms and were able to concentrate better than children who played indoors.
• Exposure to nature elicit feelings of awe which caused individuals to feel less entitled, less selfish, and to behave in more generous and helping behaviors.
• Even exposure to artificial nature images, sounds, and smells can have positive health benefits. Listening to nature sounds over headphones helps people recover faster from stress. One study found that people recovered faster from abdominal surgery, experienced fewer complications, and required less pain medication when their hospital room had a window with tree-lined views.

Little did I know when I was walking in the woods that I was receiving all those health benefits – I only know that I always feel better after returning from my day spent in nature. So, take time to get your forest bath today – it’s good for whatever ails you!