Loving An Addict

An Impact Letter for Jacy Lundberg

Loving an addict is discovering your baby sister has grown up into a world you don’t want her to be in with people you don’t want her to be with.  It’s wanting to extract her from that world, to rewind...to erase.  It’s the pain of knowing you cannot do either.

Loving an addict is facilitating the first time she was taken to jail.  It’s watching her being read her rights in your parents humble living room.  It’s watching your Mother’s shoulders shake as she sobs quietly in her chair and watching your Dad peer out the window nervously, trying to make eye contact with her in the back of the squad car.  It’s sitting on their kitchen floor finally crying.

Loving an addict is like having an additional child following you around while your baby sister is in jail.  It’s constant demand for attention.  Knowing she’s withdrawing.  Wondering if she’s scared.  Worrying.  Always worrying.

Loving an addict is never knowing truth from fiction.  It’s the anger that comes from the idea the addict has that you are somehow buying her lies.  The addict doesn’t realize, no one is buying her lies but...herself.

Loving an addict is missing the person they are when they are sober.

Loving an addict is waiting.

Loving an addict is hoping.

Loving an addict is the brutal confrontation with the truth.  It’s feeling the pain of those altercations, but welcoming them all the same.  Why is the truth so hard?  For everyone?

Loving an addict is the empty spot at the table on Thanksgiving.  It’s the odd feeling upon re-introducing that person each time they get out of jail.  It’s not wanting her to be embarrassed.  It’s wanting her to be embarrassed.

Loving an addict is the longing when you’re telling a funny story to your friends about your baby sister and you think about her and it’s not the same.  It’s seeing something you know she would share with you, or wanting to call her and realizing you cannot.

Loving an addict is learning all about addiction.  It’s gaining knowledge you simply do not want to have, but have no choice.  It’s educating your 6 year old and 4 year old children in terms you hope they understand because, quite simply; you realize you could never do this again.  Ever.  It’s the sick feeling that you just might have to.

Loving an addict is that long sigh you let out when you’re trying to write an impact letter.

Loving an addict is angry.  White hot angry.

Loving an addict is realizing time is an amazing thing.  It passes without notice.  It heals a great many wounds, it allows a perspective only time can bring.

Loving an addict is realizing a scar can be beautiful.  It means you survived.  It’s there to remind you, you survived being injured.  Hearts break.  Hearts mend.  It may take time, but they mend.  Again, and again.

Loving an addict is just that.  It’s love.  Love doesn’t recognize the past, it’s purpose is in the future.   Love knows, we all make mistakes, some people just have to pay for them differently, wear them differently, right them differently.  Love doesn’t run away.  It doesn’t want anything but what it’s got.  Love is wishing with all your soul someone could see themselves as you see them...in the future...and the present.  Love is knowing the hardest things in life usually have the very best results.  Love is waiting.  Love is hoping.

The Hawk and the Hummingbird: A Fable

Once upon a time there was a fine young hawk. He was very handsome and sadly, very vain. The young fowl knew he was stronger, sleeker and more agile than most other birds. His skills as a predator could be matched by very few and he prided himself on being able to demonstrate his prowess to any bird he came into contact with.

One day the hawk ventured into a lush green land that he had never seen before. The trees were just unfurling their new leaves and the grass had lifted it's winter-worn stalks to the ever warming spring sky. With his keen vision the hawk saw a lovely canal with steep banks and thick trees on it's shores.

"I am the strongest, fastest and most handsome bird in this land, I deserve a tree as fine as that big one just above the water's surface," the hawk said to himself.

And so, after circling the old tree several times the Hawk lit upon a sturdy branch.

Shortly after touching down the hawk was inundated by several sparrows who had already claimed the tree as their home.

"You cannot stop here Hawk, you are too big and imposing and our children will never learn to leave our nests if your shadow obscures their sun lit paths. You must leave this tree," they all chirped bravely.

"This is the finest tree in the land, the only tree worthy of such a specimen as myself, I will not leave." And with that the hawk beat his wings several times stretching them to their full span and frightening the sparrows away.

The sparrows swiftly flew to a neighboring tree. They found their friend the robin who was quite clever and quite burly.

"Oh friend robin, we desperately need your help. A large hawk has landed in our tree and will not allow the sunlight to reach our eggs. Please, can't you help?" The sparrows chirped nervously.

The robin flew to the sparrow's beloved tree, puffed up his lovely red breast as best he could and entreated the hawk, "Hawk, you are handsome indeed, but see here, you cannot live in this tree, the worms will never show their pink heads with your sharp eyes peering over the land. We will all starve. You must find another tree in which to make your home."

The hawk was getting terribly annoyed at all the chirping, flitting and fussing. He lowered his brow over his stinging eyes, maliciously strummed his razor talons on the branch beneath his feet and firmly said, "I WILL NOT GO."

Just as the sparrows and the robin were dejectedly beginning to take to the sky, the tiniest of humming birds, who had been listening from a nearby branch flitted directly in front of the hawk.

The humming bird, with his fast little wings, barely stronger than a butterfly, moved very close to the hawk's imposing beak and stared deep into his piercing eyes. He did not flinch. He did not move. He did not blink.

The humming bird was determined to save his minute home. In a voice barely audible to anyone but the hawk's fine-tuned ears he said, "You shall not live here. If you stay, I will strike you down and all the birds throughout the land will know what a small but mighty warrior can do."

Suddenly, a strange sensation overtook the powerful hawk. His feathers felt too close to his skin and a prickly heat had sprung up around his neck. Without so much as a ruffle of his feathers, the hawk flew into the wind never to be seen near the magnificent tree again.

When he returned to his home on the side of a mountain near a stone with a stubby low bush an owl acquaintance of his noticed his arrival. The owl asked the young hawk why he hung his head just so and why he was not doing his usual preening.

The hawk replied, "I met a bird that was stronger, sleeker and more agile than myself and his skills as a predator are no match for my own."

Pefect In Pink?

Real or Fake

Big or Small

Today I raced to save them all!

It's a race I've done every year, for years and years, with the exception of my pregnant years, those were years where racing 3.2 miles was suspended.

The scene plays out the same each year.  Getting out of bed early to throw on the clothes that I most likely laid out the night before:

Pink shirt-check

Crazy accessory (this year is was giant star-shaped-pink-rimmed-sun glasses)-check

Stop watch-check

Ponytail-check

Kiss to the husband and children who will be showing up to cheer me on later-check

Each year as I approach the venue I am guilty (along with several hundred more people) of violating various traffic and parking laws.  I would just like to give a shout out to the Salt Lake City Police Department for looking the other way and never ticketing or towing my car, or anyone elses for that matter.

Once parking is secured (always an adventure) and my key creatively hidden, I begin the sometimes ridiculously long trek to the appointed meeting place.  It's the same spot every year, the planter box in front of the old Fort Union station.

The backdrop is always the same as I stand waiting for my "racing sisters".  Hundreds...no, thousands of people all wearing the same shirt.  Each crowd is punctuated with individuals exhibiting a bit more flare for the dramatic; for those it's tutus, crazy hats, wigs, and the occasional crazy socks or bra.   Children still in their pajamas as "Dad" was in charge of dressing them this morning, strollers that would stretch the length of the valley if lined up end to end and the pressed cell phone conversations as people try to "meet up" in a crowd bordering 20,000 people.

And then there's the laughter.

Friends squealing in pain as their running mate sticks them with the pin they are using to attach their racing bib.  Strangers laughing with other strangers at shirts that say things like, "Bippity, boppity, BOOBS", "Of course these things aren't real, my real ones tried to kill me", "Breast friends", "Save second base",  and "Racing to save Debbie's Double DD's".  The jokes about age and health and how any number of things may or may not contribute to the success or failure to complete today's race for the cure.  It's all so real, so familiar...a spectacle that plays out in cities across America.

And then there's the sadness.

It's rare to see actual tears, it's more of a soberness that strikes you when you least expect.  The young kids with pictures of a beautiful woman on their t-shirt that includes the phrase "In memory of..." printed across the top.  The quietness of the tulips that bloom every year.  Memorial Day is coming later this month.  Reality strikes as I consider that many of these same people will be decorating the graves of their "beloved" mothers, sisters, grandmothers with similar flowers.  The women with the scarves, hats, and other adornments covering their balding heads.  The husbands...widowers?

Somehow, in all the chaos, thousands of us manage to swarm the starting line, the music blares, there are some vague attempts at warming up, and the usual "excuse me's" as everyone tries to find a spot that will result in the least amount of jostling once the final "Go!" is shouted.  This year was no different.  A slow moving start finally gives way to a healthy trot which eventually evolves into my version of running.  All of us tend to zig zag around our contemporaries as we put all of our effort into staying upright and all together.

The sound of all those feet striking pavement is invigorating...it doesn't last.

We hit the 2-mile marker.  We've started up a slight incline and the water station seems like it was a long time ago.  I have asthma and by about 2 and a half miles my lungs are protesting my choice of activity this morning.  Just in front of me is a woman in a hot pink shirt.  The shirt is significant as only survivors wear that color; her badge of honor.  In a vain attempt to take my mind off of the small child standing on my chest I read the bib attached to the back of her shirt.  7 years!  7 years she's been cancer free, I bring it to the attention of my counter parts and pat her back in encouragement.  

The small child has now progressed to a 16-year-old and I am HATING this race.  

However, there is always hind sight.  It's hind sight that has me writing this now. The advantage that retrospection can afford someone like me is to look back and do a serious "race assessment".  Sure I was hurting, and that last mile was brutal, but it wasn't as brutal as breast cancer.  It wasn't as brutal as sitting in a sterile room with a practical stranger and getting a diagnoses that, no matter what, will change your life.  It wasn't as brutal as watching your husband fall apart when you share the news with him and then have to relive that pain as you explain it all to your family, your friends, and your co-workers.  It wasn't as brutal as the awkwardness that would follow this disclosure as people don't know what to say or how to treat you now.  It wasn't as brutal as trying not to think about your children growing up without a mother, and how you just won't think about that...you just can't.  It wasn't as brutal as the time you'll spend waiting for news, waiting for test results, waiting, waiting; cancer is waiting.  No, now that I think about it, it wasn't that bad at all.  I'll take my broken lungs, my healthy legs and my strong mind and yes...

I'll be back next year.  And we'll all continue the fight, what other choice do we have?

I Believe

(a poem about motherhood)

I believe that you don't get a mulligan when it comes to raising children,

therefore, I'm going to do the best I can the first time around.

I believe in licking the beaters, E-coli and salmonella be damned.

I believe hair standing on end at the end of a slippery slide is pretty much one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

I believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and fairy tales...especially fairy tales.

I believe a Mother can read her children better than any subject that has ever been studied in the history of intellectualism.

I believe we're all doing the best we can, even on our worst days.

I believe in living "happily ever after", of course I do, I live it everyday.

I believe sometimes you just need to be still and quiet.

I believe that no shirt is as important as finger painting or the juice of an incredibly delicious strawberry.

I believe as adults we underestimate the fun that can be found in bubbles, balloons, stickers, and lollipops.

I believe that a freshly opened box of crayolas is just about one of the most beautiful creations in the modern world.  God bless those people at Crayola, bless them everyone.

I believe in miracles.

I believe in medical science.

I believe the heart's ability to love unconditionally stretches far beyond my means to capture it in words.

I believe.