Open Letter to a Student

Dear Kristen,

I was thinking about how to respond to your personal journal entry when I received the e-mail that you were hospitalized. I am very, very sorry that you are unwell and struggling with so many issues in your life. In reading what you wrote again, I have decided to respond to you not as your professor, but as another woman.

I can hear the hurt and the stress in what you write. It is no secret that we women tend to feel our emotions very deeply and take most things to heart. It is what makes us such wonderful nurturers and friends, but also what sometimes does us in. We take so much on our shoulders! We feel we are responsible for so many! Often, we take on worries that are not ours and never were.

You asked me what "normal" is. There is no real definition. Normal becomes what is comfortable and familiar to you, no matter what those circumstances might be.The many times my husband has been hospitalized recovering from one surgery or another and my children and I went on without him became normal to us. If not pleasant, at least we knew what to expect and how to cope. It is only when our circumstances change and we find ourselves pulled out of our comfort zones that our problems begin.

I DO understand where you are at right now. I was there myself not many years ago, so stressed out by the weight of so much responsibility that I thought I would break in two. I almost did. Writing about it helped and still does. But even more important than the writing in the personal journal you now keep is the conscious act of letting go, one small thing at a time, and deciding what burdens are really yours to carry.

You may be concerned about your uncle's health, but that is not really your burden. He himself acknowledged to you that he made his own choices in his life, just as you need to make yours. Your own health is a major concern, of course, and you should do everything you can to rid yourself of illness and keep yourself well. But in many ways that, too, needs to be placed in the hands of a Higher Power. You say the break-up with your boyfriend is no big deal, that it happens all the time. Nevertheless, it is a loss of companionship and the familiar. I have been through several of those with my daughter! Allow yourself time to grieve the loss.

Kristen, these next words are much easier said than heeded: let go of the stress and give it to God. I do not know what your faith is, but I can assume that since you attend a Catholic college there is within your some belief. You may only be able to let go of one small iota at a time. I remember a time in my life when I needed to write down each tiny thing I was able to give over to God instead of carrying it myself, and pulling my busy and interfering hands away one finger at a time. The point is to begin the process.

Be well and take care. I will be praying for you as the semester comes quickly to a close, and happily help you with any missed work so that you can finish this class. Thank you for the confidence you placed in me by sending your personal journal entry. And thank you for reminding me that God is always in control.

Dr Cobourn

WRITE YOUR SCARS

Originally published in Word Girls Newsletter, January, 2016

My son has a scar above his lip, the result of a fall into his brother in law’s windshield when he was sixteen. While the doctor said plastic surgery could cover it, Allen opted to keep the scar. It made, he said, a good story. According to Stephen King, the ability to remember every scar is the only requirement for being a writer. But it’s not remembering the scar that often stops us from putting pen to paper; it’s the fear of reliving the trauma that led to those scars. My son was too dazed by the sunshine and a day spent fishing to recall the moment his face hit the glass, but most of us remember clearly how our scars occurred. We want to avoid more pain.

James Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin has spent his career as a psychologist encouraging people to not only relive the pain of their scars, but to write about them. Pennebaker’s research indicates the catharsis to be gained from writing outweighs the risk of opening ourselves up to hurt. The American Psychological Association (2002) acknowledges that writing can lower blood pressure and boost immune functioning. Joshua Smythe of Syracuse University agrees that writing, when used to process the emotions resulting from our scars, can be physically beneficial.

Still, it’s not easy to open up a Pandora’s Box of evils upon the world. I should know. As a college professor of English and Rhetoric, I’ve encouraged my students to write about their own scars. I begin each semester with a lecture about the research of Pennbaker and handouts extolling the benefits of writing. I pass out spiral journals and invite them to write. And they do.

When my husband had the car accident that altered our lives back in 2000, my journal became a constant resident of my “go bag.” Each hospitalization, emergency surgery, and mysterious infection found me writing my woes in my own journal. It was what, I told my friends and pastor, kept me from falling apart. I wrote, and then I shelved each journal and tried to forget.

It never occurred to me that the healing power found in my journals had more work to do. I never once thought about letting anyone else read about my pain.

It took God and a day in July to change my mind.

FOREWORD

By

Linda Waltersdorf Cobourn, Ed.D.

            Serenity. It is an elusive ideal, highly prized, difficult to identify, and seldom obtained. John Keaton’s latest collection of 55 mixed media work, Serenity, asks the reader to define just how and where serenity can be found. It is not a question easily answered. John’s interpretations take us from peaceful gardens of pastels to vibrant colors of snakes and pumas, through the surreal world of Salvador Dali, and into the dreams of Picasso. We look into the eyes of proud Native Americans and grinning gorillas, movie stars, famous statesmen, and dementia. It is within the diversity of John’s work that somehow, with John’s narratives and thoughtfully selected quotes, we move ever closer not only to the definition of but the attainment of our own serenity.

            For the cover of Serenity, John has chosen a harmonious garden, painted in a style similar to Monet’s , which reflects the very image of tranquility and peace. Among the flowers—one of John’s favorite painting subjects—we are given a glimpse into a Utopian life with gently muted tones and images, glints of golden sunshine, and softly rustling wind, reminding us that Nature can be soothing. Yet few of us can forever live in the peacefulness of such a perfect place. We must, instead, take comfort from Lao Tazo—the quote below the painting—that reminds us to “do your work. Then step back.”

            It is in this act of stepping back, of taking time to stop and savor, that leads us to find serenity in all that John reveals. Some of the images are the very ideal of serenity. Along with the cover painting, John brings us into a Day in Tuscany, where we experience the peace of white clouds and rolling hills, and across the bronze tones of September Bridge. We hear the roar of Thunder Bay and float into the far reaches of Galaxy 3. While Walt Whitman reminds us that “peace is always beautiful”, we realize, as we continue our journey through John’s work, that much of life is not serene. Or peaceful. Or tranquil.

            Instead, there are moments of confusion as a man struggles with his wife’s clouded mind, moments of terror as the stalking cougar snarls from the pages, moments of sorrow in the eyes of a holy man and Indian chief, and moments of beauty in the blooming White Orchid. We see the love of the Madonna and Child, even knowing the pain of the Crown of Thorns will follow.

            We are forced to admit the truth: serenity is not to be found in place or circumstance. Serenity, as The Lord is My Shepherd reminds us, is about the spiritual, not the physical. Despite grief and loss, we can teach our souls to be joyful. We can find beauty in the most simplistic of objects, or the most sublime of subjects. Despite pain and misfortune, we can teach our hearts to be glad. We can even, as John’s illustration of my own book demonstrates, Tap Dance in Church.

            Our journey through John’s paintings and drawings is not meant to provide us with an answer to the question, “How can we attain serenity?” The works present to us possibilities and an invitation to look—really look—at the world around us, to embrace that which brings us joy, and to find a way to reconcile our souls to that which does not. In this latest collection of John’s thought-provoking work we see--as he reminds us in the last painting, Infinity-- a vast array of possibilities. We must each find our own path to what is serene, listening to the mysterious calls of that which is greater than ourselves.

            As John’s colleague and friend, I invite you to journey through Serenity, seeking for yourself the tranquility we all desire and finding it in the most unlikely of places.
John's book is now available from Amazon!
http://www.amazon.com/Serenity-Art-John-Keaton-4/dp/1522987614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453060061&sr=8-1&keywords=serenity+john+keaton

DECEMBER 2, 2002. 8:00 AM.

I have just returned from school where I told the principal about my mother.  He has sent me home.  The light on the answering machine is blinking.

“Linda?  This is Dad. Mom passed away at 6:45 this morning.”

DECEMBER  14, 2002.10:00 AM.

There is something comforting about the rituals learned in my childhood; genuflecting at the altar, bowing on the padded kneelers, reciting words learned in long-ago catechism classes.  Though my beliefs have grown and changed and I have left much of this ritual behind me, I am still able to take consolation in the smell of the incense rising to Heaven.  So many images of Mom assail my senses!  Sitting next to her during Sunday morning mass, the hats she kept carefully in hat boxes on the top shelf of her closet perched on our heads.  Mom fingering her white rosary beads, kneeling in the pew while I--years away from my first communion--play with the doll that is attached to my white winter muff.  Mom taking me around the Stations of the Cross at Easter, the sunshine streaming in through the stained glass windows.  And now I kneel, remembering her, letting the familiar words of Father Ray’s recitations wash over me and comfort me.  I have no words of my own now; the tears are too close to the surface to risk speaking just yet, but the ancient words of the Catholic Mass for the Dead seem to say it all for me.  I am comforted.

Mom is gone from our physical presence. We formally bid her farewell today.  But here in the front pew of Saint Edmund’s on summer Sundays to come, I will feel her spirit.  She will continue to touch me in a thousand ways.

Godspeed, Mom.  We did all we could for you in our finite human ways.  When we knew we could not save your life, we tried to give you a dignified death.  In the days to come, I will continue to do things for Dad, things you would have done if you were still here.

And your love will guide me.

DECEMBER 21, 2002.  10:00 AM.

I am a motherless child.  The words of the song echo in my head today as I go about household chores: laundry, shopping, cleaning.  I rearrange the Christmas Village, organize the gifts, to hang the Christmas stockings although I am not really in a Christmas mood.  I made a dark joke at breakfast this morning, commenting on how the excitement of the holidays frequently made Mom sick.

“She topped that this year”, I said.  “This year, for the holidays she is dead”.  But I apologized at once to Heaven, and to Mom who was certainly listening.  Maybe I am coming into the anger stage of grief, mad at her for leaving me too soon, before I was ready to face the world without a mother.

I almost welcome the pain, the pinpricks of it that stab at me in the odd moments of the day.  I test it now and then, like one tests a sensitive tooth to see if it still hurts.  It is proof that I am still alive, that I can love, that my mother really did exist and was not just a beautiful dream I have awakened from.

There are reminders of her everywhere.  A song, a word, a color will remind me of her and bring the smart sting of tears to my eyes.  Sometimes--in school, for instance--I can fight them back, but sometimes I am so choked up with my grief but I have no choice but to let its spill out of me, over the lids of my eyes and down my cheeks, damn the make-up.  Some days are harder than others for no explicable reason.  Wednesday was one of them, a day in which I met Mom at every turn.  We were hosting three groups of preschool students for the annual Holiday House and on the second group I broke into tears when Monique walked into my room with a cup of tea.  She hugged me and told me to go take a break, she would take over.  I found some solace in my own cup of tea in the faculty room, sat in the office and talked with Pat for a few moments, rejoiced that I had caring colleagues who understood what I was going through in some way. 

Sometimes, I just need to cry.  I tried to explain this to Ron, who feels the need to hold me when the tears start.  But there are moments when my grief is too personal to share, when I need to curl up in my own little hole and just weep from my childhood and the memories of it that died with Mom.  Only she held the moments of my birth in her mind and in her body, only she knew what it felt like to hold me in her arms for the first time.  As much as he might try to understand, I tell Ron, he cannot, he has not lost his mother.

Dennis called today, wanting Christmas ideas and knowledge of our plans.  I have no plans, not really.  It seems too ludicrous to be concerned with gifts and parties when I’ve just recently watched my mother breathe her last.  It will be a low-key Christmas, I tell him.  Don’t go overboard.  And he concurs that he, too, does not much feel like celebrating.  There is an awkward moment at the end of a conversation.  I say,” I love you,” quickly and he says, “Me you, too”.  Am I dying myself?  Dennis has not admitted to a loving me since he was 10.  Bonnie tells me he has been calling her cell phone every couple of days, just to talk.  We are all trying to stay connected. 

DECEMBER 31, 2002.  4:00 PM.

Life boiled down to the essence.  It was a message preached by Pastor Watt not long before Thanksgiving.  It is what we are living now.  Life boiled down to the essence.  Do and say the important things and hang the rest.  Live in the moment, pray for the future, let go of the past.  Even as others offer their sympathies at Mom’s passing, I never fail to say this:  I have peace with her.  Every conversation we had since our relationship with boiled down to once a week phone calls ended with “I love you”.  These were the last words I said to my mother on Thanksgiving night, at least the last words I spoke to her while she was conscious.  That was at 9:00 PM on Thursday; less than 12 hours later, she’d slipped into a coma from a massive brain bleed.  I hoped that my last words were still in her ears.

I am, I’ve told everyone who cares to listen, running on my last cell.  For years, my life has been in upheaval.  Mom’s death has been the final straw.  I’m not quite broken, but bending. I sleep soundly and deeply when time allows, but awaken still craving more sleep.  It is not avoidance but true exhaustion.  It is both physical and emotional.

Sometimes I think of Mom has my own guardian angel now, although I know that the angels are created beings.  Still, it is comforting to think that she can still hear me and understand me.  I ask her questions, knowing what her answer would be.  And I ask her to watch over me and my children.

It is a comfort just to be able to write.  My thoughts are sometimes disjointed.  My memories come in spurts and out of order.  Writing them down helps me to heal and helps me to hang on all at once.

In time the pain of Mom’s untimely death will dim.  I am most afraid of that, of her passing becoming just another commonplace event in my life.  But as long as I can write down the feelings, as long as I can capture in words the emotions of the last few weeks and the coming days without her in my life, her importance in my world will continue.