The person I want to be listens to NPR. “Make love not war” and “Send nudes, not nukes” buttons adorn her green Smithsonian tote bag as she attends peace rallies, fighting for an idealistic stance on peace.
But in reality, I cry.
Exiting toward Southcenter Blvd after a 35-minute drive north on I-5, I’m maxed out with the stories photojournalists in Gaza have captured in images. Stopped momentarily, I Google the currently discussed Samar Abu Elouf’s work and found the image being discussed. It’s of an 8-year-old boy, the journalist later explains he’s crying out, “Where’s my mother?” With an outstretched and bruised arm, his hand rests on a young girl, younger than walking age, her pudgy and fisted hand is close to her face. Her face looks messy, like smeared chocolate from a failed pudding attempt. There’s a paleness to her skin tone, much lighter than her brothers, and the other five arms of people, out of frame, are resting on her.
The marks on her face are, in fact, blood. She’s his younger 8-month-old sister, one of four other family members, including his parents, who have died in an airstrike.
With a knotted stomach, I lower the volume and pull into Arco. In a vehicle with less than a quarter tank of gas, I’m not about to pick up my parents at the airport and give it back to them this way. And yet as I squeegee the windshield free of dusty areas and half take in the hive-like action of construction workers, the current state of the world and my helplessness in it sits heavy with me.
Then later as I take a virtual counseling session on my back deck, mid-day, and frogs in full croak, I’m careful with my words. More careful than usual. I’m careful because my clients’ vulnerabilities seem trivial, and they’re not.
It’s week three of my friend’s father at home in the midst of the dying process. On a 45-minute drive to pick up her son, we spoke, the car noise audible on her Bluetooth, as I pushed Evelyn on the swing in our backyard. At one point, she replayed a nightmare moment from earlier with her Dad choking and vomiting blood, and the hospice nurse asking if she knew how to use the choke rescue device. While I listened, at that same moment, the neighbor, new to me, is saying hi from across the fence. I told my friend to hang on and rested my phone on my hip.
One minute, and I cut the conversation short, returning to my friend. It goes like this. Me deep in conversation with interruptions. Evelyn and I are jumping on the trampoline while I talk, playing crack the egg. My brother-in-law texted too, about the builder needing a check for $13,000.
The takeaway from my conversation with Lindsay and in her words “the roller coaster of a ride” she’s been on since getting the two-week expectancy on her Dad’s life (and it now going on three) is she’s learned to surrender. And it’s a good thing, she thinks. Before this, she had a positive, we can solve anything attitude. And in going through this, she knows, “I can’t control it. I can’t control when or how. So I’m surrendering to it.”
When it’s all said and done Dave and I are in the kitchen, assembling the salads and we check in our days. I’m grateful for him, and the soft place he is for me to return to. He’s ready to feel better and is looking forward to a successful hernia surgery, and a speedy recovery. I am too.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 