Tag: love

A Story of Resilience, Love and Thriving

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“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide.” -Brene Brown

One of the things that Vicki Atkinson and I hear from podcast guests is that we are warm and welcoming. A lovely thing to hear. But I’d flip that around and say that what makes it work is that our guests are open and courageous.

We met author, public speaker, and parental advocate Vickie Rubin through our mutual blog friend, Ab. I love that because they both have such genuineness. We get to see in action how they show up for life. Whether at home or in their roles as advocates, they come alongside others to see them and share stories that make everything a little clearer and brighter.

So in the latest episode (and last episode of 2024) of the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast, Vickie gives us the elevator pitch for her book, Raising Jess. She jokes that it’s long enough to require an elevator in the tallest building in Manhattan. Fitting, because there is so much goodness in her book about raising her child with a chromosome deletion: mother’s intuition, decisions about whether to have more children, the grandparent’s point of view, and more.

Vickie’s openness and support of others are so inspiring. In her work supporting other families trying to navigate the systems to get resources for their children and in Facebook communities, Vickie is a powerful parental resource and advocate. By telling her story, she continues to help others navigate their own challenges.

Vicki and I ask about what’s next for Vickie. She’s recently published an article in Newsweek and she tells us about the writing classes she taking.

This is a great episode that not only focuses on the resilience, love, and thriving of one family but also inspires the same in everyone who listens. When we share our stories, we empower others and Vickie illustrates this so well.

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling – in our books, our podcasts, and our lives.

We know you’ll love it!

On a programming note – this is the last podcast for 2024. Our next episode featuring the amazing Beth (i didn’t have my glasses on… blog) will drop on Jan 10th, 2025.

Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts OR Listen to it from your computer on Anchor: Episode 97: Raising Jess with Vickie Rubin

Episode 97 transcript

AND subscribe to our YouTube channel to see a video clip of each story: @SharingtheHeartoftheMatter.

Links for this Episode:

Vickie Rubin | Author & Advocate | Special Needs Parenting
Thankful for Superhero Healthcare Folks: Bones, Scopes & Hopes
Newsweek Article: Mom’s Diagnosis Was Crushing Enough, Then She Gave Me an Ominous Warning

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

My book about my beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

(featured photo from Pexels, quote from Finding My Way to Forgiveness by Vicki Atkinson)

A Fond Farewell

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“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” – Mark Twain

I’ve become entranced with a word lately: inkling.

Inkling according to Merriam-Webster is a slight knowledge or vague notion. It comes from Middle English yngkiling meaning “whisper or mention.”

When I think of the inklings I’ve gotten, they relate to the niggling feeling that something is off. I’ve had inklings about big events like when my business partner told me of my ex-husband’s infidelities and right before I was laid off. Kinda like a surprise party when everyone stops talking to you in advance.

And I get inklings about little things like when one of my kids is about to catch a cold. Something isn’t quite right about how they react or eat food and it sets off the radar.

For me, inklings are closely related to the internal God whispers, those insistent notions that seem Divinely inspired. On a recent morning when I meditated, I had the urgent sense that I needed to reach out to our dear blogging friend, Julia Preston.

Later that day, I discovered that she’d passed away the night before at the age of 85. She hadn’t blogged much after her cancer diagnosis but she’s been present in emails and comments in the last few months.

After I published one of my favorite posts about the words I become entranced with, My Love Affair with Words, Julia jokingly asked what word I associated with her. I had no hesitation before responding “luminescent.” Julia glowed with love and light for all. She faced her diagnosis with that same delightful curiosity about what comes next.

Her last blog post hinted about the light and love we all can (and should) tap into. Julia left us with the question in When We Gonna: “When are we gonna turn the world around with the power of our thoughts? When are we gonna create light instead of dark and love instead of fear?“

Julia was laid to rest yesterday. For anyone who has an inkling to do something in her honor, her favorite causes were St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and the ASPCA.

RIP, dear Julia. Your light and love remains!

For more about Julia’s profound impact, please see Vicki Atkinson‘s beautiful reminiscence in Collective Gratitude: The Feast Before the Feast

And Julia’s most recent book is available on Amazon: Voices: Who’s In Charge of the Committee in My Head?

(featured photo from Pexels)

Showing Up and Telling Stories

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“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

One of the books I read in my morning meditation time is Listening to Your Life by author and pastor Frederick Buechner. My mom and I were talking about it a little while back. She mentioned that some find his writing to not be doctrinal enough. Funny because I read him and find at times that I think he’s too doctrinal.  

When I was trying to understand how my view of faith differed from that of my dad (and mom) as I was writing my book Finding My Father’s Faith, I read Dr. M. Scott Peck’s book Further Along the Road Less Traveled. In it he describes four stages of faith.

The first stage, chaotic/antisocial, he reserves for people with anti-social tendencies; his second stage is formal/institutional in which faith is governed by an outside body, typically the church.

Dr. Peck calls stage three people “skeptic/individual.” Often stage three people are children of stage two people who have been raised with the values of the church but fall away from the formality and governance of it.

He then describes these stage-three people as usually scientific, truth-seeking people who often begin to see patterns in the big picture that tie them back to the beliefs of their parents and when they do, they transition to stage four, mystical/communal, “people who have seen a kind of cohesion beneath the surface of things.”

Those stages rang true to me and I found comfort in the classification of it all. Regardless of the theory behind it, I suspect that whatever our ideologies are, it’s a narrow band trying to find others who are align exactly or even fairly closely.

But I think we transcend that when we tell our stories. For me, authentic storytelling skips the doctrinal distinctions in the head and goes right to the heart. Here’s one that recently struck me, Buechner tells the story of a friend showing up when Buechner’s daughter was sick. He’d come from 800 miles away without any advance notice and then spent a couple of nights hanging out.

Buechner said they didn’t do anything particularly religious – went for walks, smoked some pipes, took a drive. “I believe that for a little time we both of us touched the hem of Christ’s garment, were both of us, for a little time anyway, healed.”

For me, it hits me right in what I believe is sacred: showing up, being present, holding space for one another to tell our stories.

Life: Perfect and Precious

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“Our life experiences will have resonances within our innermost being, so that we will feel the rapture of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell

Two weeks ago, on the same day that my niece had a baby, I got laid off from my job. I know that seems like two disparate events. But hear me out because they are the both the birth of new things.

It’s not hard to see the first. My beautiful niece says that she’s having a hard time sleeping when the baby is sleeping because she can’t stop looking at him. “He’s just so perfect.” And she’s enthralled with interpreting his every expression and sound.

I’ve seen the pictures – he indeed is absolutely perfect and precious.

Losing my job was a shock. I’ve never been laid off before and so it was a completely new experience. But twinned with the surprise was a feeling of elation. I was free. I try not to act giddy when I talk to the others affected by this layoff. But honestly, and I promise that this isn’t toxic positivity or denial, for me I knew this was a really good thing, even when it signals hard work.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my career so I suspect that helps take an edge off the fear. And when I peal back that cover, I have a chance at seeing underneath to the opportunity. Similar to babies, I have to work hard to decipher the signs and signals of the bread crumbs where life leads me.

Life comes with pain – kinda like childbirth. And on the flip side, it too is perfect and precious to have the opportunity to keep growing.

P.S. Everyone that I’ve seen in real life has been able to take one look at me and sense the burden lifted from me. If you are worried about me, truly, I’m fine, the kids know and it’s all good. One of the things I’m so grateful for this week of American Thanksgiving is the gift of time with them.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Vulnerability at Any Age

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“I believe that you have to walk through vulnerability to get to courage.” – Brene Brown

Let me take your temperature on something. Do you think that middle-aged and older means that you don’t have to be vulnerable any longer? Emotionally vulnerable, that is.

After all, we don’t have to go door to door with our resumes looking for our first job. And many who have life partners have had them for quite some time. We know our hobbies and interests and don’t have to try a bunch of new things to see what fits. We’ve even developed our conversational patter so that anything that comes close to a sensitive spot can be deflected without much effort.

Here’s the discovery I’ve come to after many years of searching for the things that make me feel vital. Continued vulnerability is one of them.

When I believe that vulnerability is off the table, I’m unlikely to:

Move out of my established lane

Upset the status quo of “my success”

Market or promote my writing

Try to find love

Brainstorm wild ideas

Try new things

Make new friends

Learn new technologies/applications

Express my feelings in relationships that have gone on so long that it risks the status quo

State my opinion about politics or religion

Here’s what I’m afraid of. If we retire from life, we leave so much potential and wisdom gained from 50 years or more unsaid. The things we’ve learned through trial and error that we are passionate about? We fail to bring them up.

When I was in my mid forties and wanted to have children, I found it incredibly difficult to say out loud. In one respect, it makes sense because such a precious dream is fragile in its early stages. But when I managed to broach the subject with a few of my dear friends, the incredible support they offered helped to fuel the vision.

So for me, I think I want to keep pushing myself towards openness. But I’d love to know what you think about vulnerability at any age.

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Preciousness of Life

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“Our life experiences will have resonances within our innermost being, so that we will feel the rapture of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell

The morning after a really rough night’s sleep, I was sipping tea and realized I didn’t like the mug. It was scratchy to my lip and it made my tea taste different. We were staying at a friend’s house on the Washington Peninsula so all the mugs were new to me.

Because I hadn’t slept well, I was more attuned to it. After a dozen sips, I forced myself to go the kitchen and change mugs. The smoothness of the new one made me realize how many sensations go into feeling soothing.

I hadn’t slept well because I realized in the middle of the night that I hadn’t refilled the water reservoir for Rusty the gecko before we’d left home for three nights. I sat up with a pit of dread knowing that without the water misting twice a day to keep his enclosure humid, he’d likely die. The questions swirling of when I last did it and how long he could survive sent me shooting out of bed.

It was our last night of this mini-getaway. It was 3am I was two hours and a ferry ride away from home. There was nothing I could do to help poor Rusty in that moment.

Instead I sat until I unraveled the knot of feelings in my gut. I felt the weight of all the responsibility I carry for keeping things alive. I sensed the thread of how tenuous life can be. I even worked my way to compassion for myself for making mistakes.

I finally went back to sleep feeling how dang precarious this thing called life is.

So when I awoke, I needed that soothing cup of tea. I wonder how often we forget that our time here is limited. Speaking for myself, when I lean in to the knowledge that life ends, it spurs me on to pay attention and drink out of the right cup. To take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others.

There’s a happy end to this story. I emailed my mom and she checked on Rusty. He was out of water – but she refilled it and misted him. He made it. So one other thing – thank goodness for moms!

Photos of the Week: November 9

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“Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged (wo)men who kept on working.” – Oscar Wilde

This week has not been one of my favorites. But nonetheless, we’ve had fun…

Biking

Climbing

Reaching high

Road tripping

I went for a walk the day after the election. I was feeling heart-sore and tired. When I came upon these ducks, the scene hit me right in the heart. One duck was sleeping while the other paddled around and around. It spoke to me of reassurance, of faith, and of peace.

It helped reorient me to the bigger picture of what I believe that is more enduring than politics. It’s in that spirit that I choose this sign of the week.

Refining Our Wishes

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“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

I’m going the long way to solve a problem in my house. This is not an excuse for a long post – in fact the post is only 354 words. Just an admission at the outset that I understand there are more expedient ways to address the issue.

Here it is: Mr. D is in a phase where he wants a lot of things. He sees it on tv and then wants to own it. He’s quite tenacious at five-years-old for insisting on what he wants. Right now we have a “wishlist” for these things. It works to a degree but it’s too easy to just add and add and add to it.

So I came up with the idea to build a box that he could write every wish into (to practice his writing). And for every wish, he has to come up with an accompanying thing he’s grateful for to put in the box too.

I also wanted to show him how we can build things. So I started with the leftover wood I had after fixing my kitchen flooring and measured out and cut some pieces of wood to build a box. Two boxes really – one for nine-year-old Miss O as well so she doesn’t miss out.

I triumphantly carried these things upstairs so that the kids could do the work of assembling and decorating these boxes. But then, on the kitchen counter, I roughly fit the pieces together to show off and saw my mistake.

The base is 2.5” wide – the pieces are 1” thick. Assembled that way, the “box” is only a half an inch. It’s not that wishes won’t fit in there. It’s that they’ll never come out. 🙂

So, I set out to show that it’s okay to wish for things, but then we have to work for them. And I ended up demonstrating that sometimes when we put together the pieces of our dreams, it doesn’t work out the way we intended. But that’s okay too – because we get to refine and repeat.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Certainty for Today

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“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” – Nelson Mandela

My internet browser keeps trying to bait me to find out who I’m voting for 2024 election. It presents headlines from one side or another to see what I’ll click on.

From my point of view, I don’t want to click because I don’t want it to feed me what I want to hear. It’s not that I’m uninterested or uninformed. In these days before this hotly contested election, I’d love to have some certainty. But not at the price of wrong information and expectations that will lead to disappointment.

So instead I’ve made my list of the things I’m fairly certain will happen today:

The sun will rise and set.
That I’ll feel moments of awe, angst, and amusement.

Cooper the dog will put something in his mouth that he’s not supposed to.

And I’ll eat a little or a lot of Halloween candy.

Miss O and Mr. D will make me laugh
and some toys will be played with.

I will not make it through my to-do list.
But I will accomplish enough of my must-love list.

We’ll learn something, spill something, and read something.
One kid, or both, will anger the other and apologies will have to be made.

That amidst the rush and hustle of daily life with a nine-year-old and a five-year-old,
I’ll feel the overwhelming gratitude and love that I was able to choose to have this family
Using IVF.

And that’s why I never needed to open my browser to figure out which way to vote. I voted for Kamala Harris so that other families can choose, if they need to, to have days filled with the same types of certainties I’m likely to have today.

Do You Believe in Magic? Do You Write About it?

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“If we could see the world through the eyes of a child, we would see the magic in everything.” – Nancy Wait

I had to have the conversation with my eight-year-old daughter the other day. You know the one I mean? About Santa?

We were driving in the car and I broached the subject as “Do you want to talk about what your friend said the other day about Santa?”

Two days before I’d overheard her friend tell her that Santa wasn’t real. Then the friend took on the tooth fairy too when my daughter had asked, “Do you know your tooth fairy’s name?”

Her friend, a master of short, declarative sentences, replied with a snort, “Yeah, Mom and Dad.”

All of this led to my tentative query in the car. Quite honestly, I was feeling pretty shaky about it. It felt like blurting out something that we can never “unknow” even if we wish to. So, I’d come up with a spin that I got from a dubious parenting manual (and by that, I mean the Internet). I was going to talk about how we can all be part of the magic of the holiday season.

I find it difficult bordering on tortuous to write about and talk about magic. I think of some of my favorite South American authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Juan Luis Borges, and their easy touch with things that can’t be explained.

Then I wonder if some American pragmatism blocks my flow when it comes to breaking away from the observable. Or perhaps it’s my engineering brain. But either way when I start trying to put words to experiences that can’t be rationally explained, I get very wordy. It’s like I need to insist that I really am anchored to reality and a lot of words are my lifeline.

So, when my daughter said she did want to talk about Santa, I started to roll out a lengthy explanation.

“Well, you know that everyone has different beliefs and whether or not you believe in Santa, there’s a magic around Christmas time that comes from the spirit of generosity.”

She nodded and said, “Yes, no one really knows what Santa looks like, so we all see it differently.”

I pressed on, not realizing that she was still pretty attached to the Santa thing.

Before I could launch into more, she interjected, “Why don’t people want to believe in magic?”

Hmm, in my preparation for the talk, I hadn’t prepared a good answer to that one, so I asked about if she’d heard what her friend said about the tooth fairy.

“Yes,” she said, “he said his Mom and Dad were the tooth fairy.” As I started to respond, my daughter continued, explaining something the tooth fairy had just done…”but my mom wouldn’t give [my brother] a two-dollar bill for nothing.”

I stopped. I was magically saved from having a conversation that I wasn’t ready for anyway.

2024 Note: Miss O is now 9-years-old but still believes…

(featured photo from Pexels)