Tag Archives: heart

Kindness plus one…

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I don’t know Ryan Garcia.  But, Ryan Garcia is my hero.  He’s not my hero because of his work.  He’s not my hero because he lives in Chicago, even though I love the windy city.  He is my hero because of what he chooses to do every day.  Ryan Garcia is a bright light in a world of anger, cruelty, and disregard.  In a world where the daily news is filled with caustic campaign rhetoric, sports figures getting a bonus for purposefully injuring an opponent, and soldiers are slitting the throats of 12 year olds, Ryan Garcia is a quiet, steady force of goodness moving through each day.

Ryan and his wife gave birth to a daughter in 2011.  As the new year approached, Ryan observed, “My daughter is 3 months old.  She is starting to become more and more aware of her surroundings.”  He thought about who he wanted to be as he lived out 2012,  in front of his little girl.  That’s when the idea came to him,…366 Random Acts of Kindness.  One act of kindness for every day of the upcoming leap year.  He began a blog to record his journey, writing, “I just hope that she can see this in the future and try and emulate it.”

For the last 75 days, Ryan Garcia hasn’t missed a day of choosing to do an act of kindness.  He has handed out free hugs on a Chicago street, written a letter to a soldier in Afghanistan, complimented 25 strangers, and cleared the snow off all the cars on his block after a snow storm.

He thought about suspending his plan on Day 61, when his father-in-law died unexpectedly.  Then he remembered the caring and compassionate man his father-in-law was, and knew that one of the best ways to honor him was to continue.  So he extended acts of kindness as he comforted his family, helped with household chores for his mother-in-law, and wrote his father-in-law’s obituary.

I hope it is now no mystery why I think Ryan Garcia is a hero.  He is giving the best gift a father can give to a daughter,…a sure and steady path to follow, and a clear picture of what a good man looks like.  And who knows how many of us will be changed by his giving.  Thank you, Ryan Garcia.

Parting the water…

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“I fish better with a lit cigar; some people fish better with talent.” ~ Nick Lyons, Bright Rivers, 1977

My dad loved to fish.  I can close my eyes and see him sitting in his boat with a big “stogie” in his mouth and his fishing line in the water, waiting for a bite.  I can smell the pungent cigar smoke and the fishy lake water.  I can hear the water lapping against the side of the boat.  I can feel the hard seat of the boat, and see my dad’s hands letting line out, reeling in, rhythmic whether the action was fast or slow.

At least one of those memories includes a trot line.  We were sitting in the boat, waiting.  I became aware of another fishing boat moving slowly toward us.  They were checking their trot line.  One of the men would reach into the water, pulling the line up out of the water, into the air, to check that hook for fish. Even though he was only checking that hook, I could see other hooks rising out of the water.  At descending heights, all connected by the wire that spanned a section of the lake.

It was a simple and beautiful sight, that line of hooks.  Each rising in its turn out of the water as the fisherman held the one hook he was checking high in the air.  There was the light reflecting off each hook.  The water parting like a small miracle as each hook emerged.  Droplets stretching from each hook until they let go, falling back into the lake.

At some point in the loss experiences of adulthood, I remembered that trot line, and realized how much it was like the presence of grief in our lives.  All those losses put to rest below the surface, pulled up through the waters of our heart by today’s grief.  Grief upon grief, as though this day’s sorrow alone is not enough. And so it goes with grief and loss.  A line connecting past and present.  Pulling other hooks into the air to be held again, felt again, lost again.

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between this side of death and the other, is that death is an event. Living is a process.  A process that changes us through an unpredictable mixture of joy and sorrow.  The process of becoming in this life can be complicated and messy.  Sometimes losses happen too close together and joys seem few and far between.  Isn’t it ironic that part of how we learn to live through loss is that we lost, and did not die.  That our ability to feel the depth of our joy is its contrast to the loss that preceded it.

“If you ain’t got no pain in your life, how would you even know when you was happy.” ~ Black in Cormac McCarthy’s  Sunset Unlimited

End of the day, end of the year…

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Describe the last year in one word.  I was sitting with a friend at breakfast this morning, the last day of 2011.  “Life,” I quipped.  She continued, reading the fairly lengthy list of responses.  They ranged all along the continuum from awful to fabulous.  When she finished, I thought, “This year described in a single word?”  “Yes, life.” Life lived in a year.  Filled with good and bad, difficult and pleasant, achievement and defeat, and on and on.  How do we resolve the extremes of our lives?  How do we stay engaged in life beyond the moments of satisfaction?  To be fully present in the unbearable moments that may last past the moment, for days, months, maybe even a year. During the past year I have watched people filled with joy and swallowed up in grief, sometimes the same person, sometimes the same moment.  One of those friends wrote about the death of her 95 year old grandad.  She added this quote to her note.

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.–Kahil Gibran

My hope for the coming year?  That you will find comfort in your moments of weeping by remembering your delight.  That you can find in the pain of separation, the assurance that you knew and were known.

May your new year be spoken in a single word, life.

I wish it was not yours to do…

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A child’s death at any age leaves a gaping hole.  Before birth or after.  When your child is young or old. Their death separates you from all that is living.  A painful gap between the world that was taken from you, and the flat, grey world in which you find yourself. We see your pain, but we don’t know what to do with it.  It is palpable.  We want to acknowledge your loss, and maybe even apologize for the relief we feel every time we look at our own child, knowing that our heart is still whole, while yours is not.  So we walk with you, not because we know exactly how you feel, but because we don’t want you to be alone.  We find a way, however awkward, to say we’re sorry that this is now your job…

How You Rise Each Day

I wish
It were not
Yours to do.

But it is
Your pain,
And you have wrestled it
To the ground,
Rising again
And again
Until you found its heart
And forced it to join you
In celebration of him,
Your son,
John Michael.

It is a mystery to me
How you rise each day
To be reminded
That you are,
And he is not.

Perhaps because you were
His beginning,
And witness to his brief present,
Now you must become his future.
Walking where he cannot,
Breathing life into each
Precious dream
Until his footprints surround us
With all he would have been
Had he not gone so soon.

I wish
It was not
Yours to do.

But it is your grief,
And you have donned its
Black cloak of mourning
With courage,
Determined to dance again
In celebration of him,
Your son,
John Michael.

 

 

 

And dance you will.
Slowly,
At times halting,
Then with confidence
And joy,
Filling the world again
With color,
Vibrant,
Youthful
As you dance not your dance,
But his,
Your son,
John Michael.

© Paulann Condray Canty, 2011 

 

“Death comes to our dances, and if we dance at all, it must be in her forbidding presence.  But the wondrous conclusion is that we who must die, must dance, and that both are our destiny, and neither dying nor dancing is missing from the whole of life.”                                                                                                                 —-Calvin Miller

Thank you, Skip and Marsha, for living your journey of turning mourning into dancing before us.  You give us hope that having come through the dark night, we too can return to the dance.  Thank you for not hiding your pain from us.  Thank you for letting us join you in celebrating your son’s life.

In Memory of

John Michael Gore
July 27, 1984 – October 11, 2009