You are Always Where You are Necessary

I remember sitting at my desk in my office on Roberts Street. With my back to the door, I stared out the window overlooking the parking lot for a long time that day. I was waiting. I knew it was coming, so I had no alternative other than to just wait.

As I sat staring at the overcast sky, my mind wandered back to the first day I stepped foot into the suite of offices. I had been so excited to start a new chapter in my life. After years of chasing the almighty dollar, I had entered the world of nonprofit. It had been a good chapter. I rifled through the pages of my mind, stopping now and again to re-read various scenes. Some were filled with joy and achievement, and others well...not so much. Yet overall, it really had been a good chapter.

She was coming in at some point during that day to meet with me. The hours seemed to drag on and on as I waited. I knew why she was coming. I had seen the budget, the same as her. There wasn't enough money left to justify my position.

I heard footsteps making their way down the hall toward my office. I wiped the tears from eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling all the stress and worry that had occupied my mind. I had taken vacation, knowing this day would come soon after. I spent my entire vacation preparing for it. I was ready. I turned in my seat to face the moment head on - fully present and aware. To my surprise, the footsteps in the hall hadn't been hers, but a long and trusted friend's, whom I had met in the years of my service to the nonprofit.

He was a tall man, with a commanding presence. His eyes were always bright and joyful, even in the darkest of times, accenting the broad smile that stretched from ear to ear. He had come from half-way around the world ~ sometimes I fancy just to make sure I was going to be okay. He lowered his large frame into the chair across from me, leaned on the desktop with his chin resting on his hands. "What's happening?" he asked, knowing by the look on my face that something was amiss.

His simple, yet compassionate, words unlocked the flood gates of months of worry and fear. The tears flowed like a river rushing to the ocean of despair. My heart gushed out all of the hurt and disappointment, as he gently took my hand and squeezed it. "No worries," he said, handing me a tissue from the box on the corner of my desk.

I dabbed away the moisture from my eyes and cheeks, and feigned a half-sincere smile. I told him it was over and I wouldn't be there anymore to help him or his community. I wouldn't be there to help anyone at all. I told him that I had given all I had to give and there just wasn't anymore.

"I know," he said softly, patting my hand in reassurance. "Times and people change. One day you are here, and one day you are somewhere else, but you are always where you are necessary." He was an Episcopalian pastor from South Sudan.

We talked for a while, and he prayed for me just before he had to leave. I watched as my long and trusted friend paused in the doorway. Before turning down the hall he smiled at me, that old and familiar smile of knowing that somehow always brought a sense of relief to my old and tired soul.

Not long after he had gone, I heard the true footsteps that carried the words of truth. My position would be eliminated by the end of the year. My heart sunk into the abyss of betrayal, but my friend's words stayed with me. I was going to be okay. I would always be where I was necessary.

Sooner than expected, I found a new position in another city [somewhere else]. I typed out my email of resignation to my boss. For as much as I had felt betrayed by her, somehow clicking send on that email was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I felt like the betrayer of the thousands of people that had come to our city to live and work. I felt like I should have fought harder, or conceded on things that did not agree with my soul, but I clicked send anyway.

******

Sometimes we are where we are necessary, not to teach others, but to become the student. In my new position, I found myself in the depths of the meaning of the word betrayal. It had been a horrifying experience that I would not wish on my worst enemy. The steely knives that were thrust into my back and the backs of others burned deep into my soul, coming out on the other side in my spirit. The hurt was so deep, the will to live and keep trying bled out of me more and more each day.

One afternoon in the depths of winter, I sat alone, and a car pulled up in front of my house. I brushed the curtain aside to see who was there, and out stepped my long and trusted friend from half-way around the world. I bid him to come in and warm himself, and asked what he was doing in a city so far away from home.

He had heard rumors and stories, the kind that did not sit well in his soul. He had come to see if they were true. He found truth in what he had heard. I had become an empty shell, my spirit holding hands with death. He hugged me tight, so tight I could barely breathe. It was almost as though he was trying to share the abundance of love in his spirit, to rekindle the smoldering ember that sputtered and sparked at the bottom of my soul.

We talked late into the afternoon, until the sun began it's northern descent toward the horizon. He reiterated that we are always where we are necessary. Sometimes it is to teach and other times to learn. The irony of his words is I was working in higher education. I had definitely come there to learn. I learned when to say when. I learned to recognize when my own strength was no longer enough to hold me together. I learned to ask for help, and accept the help that was offered. I learned to face my own demons, and to conquer fear. It took five long years to learn all of these, and as I look back, I learned to accept that we are always where we are necessary; no matter the circumstances.

My friend has since returned to Africa as a Lutheran pastor, where he is necessary.  I wonder if one day his shadow won't once again come over the hill, and his commanding presence find itself in the midst of my life. Perhaps it will. Perhaps here he will be necessary once again.

What Next?

When we are born, we know everything that we need to know in the moment. The first thing that we know is that we have completed our first great transition, from the womb to the world. That in and of itself is no small matter, but regardless, here we are.

We grow into toddlers and on to teenagers and then into the years of adulthood.  Each being a transitional period in our lives. Yet, when we reach our middle years, or as Carl Jung described as The Afternoon of Our Lives. This is the time when we start to turn our thoughts inward.

• Is there a greater purpose for my life?
• Where has my passion gone?
• Did I miss out on something extraordinary in my life?
• How much time do I really have left, and will it be enough?
• Where does faith fit in my life, and what is it that I truly believe?

 

I was about forty years old when these questions started to raise themselves in my life. I didn't just wake up on the day of my fortieth birthday and decide to question the un-knowables of life. The process just seemed to sneak up on me, and I honestly thought that I was losing my mind. Everything I knew seemed to be turning upside down.

When my youngest child graduated high school, and I was faced with an empty-nest, I recognized that something had shifted in my world. There were no more hordes of teenage girls giggling and talking about boys and all the things their hearts longed for in the world. There were no more tears to be dried over skinned knees and broken hearts. There was nothing but the silence of the apartment and me.

 

My job had brought so much joy and satisfaction into my life. However, I found myself wondering if there was something more out there. Had I missed out on my big chance? I had always wanted to be an author, since the time I was a teenager. I loved to write, but as life happened the dream had been cast aside for diapers and bottles, school recitals and work. Eventually, my job became nothing more than a paycheck, and the spark of passion dwindled to a smoldering ember. I retired from nonprofit at 45 years old. I couldn't do it anymore. I felt as though I had nothing left to give.

Which led me to the age old question, of how much time do I have, and will it be enough? My heart has turned to my family and friends, and still I wonder - will I and have I been enough? Have I given them everything they will need to survive without me? Do they know how much I love them? The logical answer to all of these questions is "yes", but the questions are there. They might always be there. I think that it would be more concerning if they weren't.  I wonder if I will have enough time to do and see all the things I have put off until tomorrow. Are there enough years left in me to achieve the purpose for which I was born?

In the silence of the night, I wondered about faith. I found myself in a spiritual crisis that led to the realization that I was spiritually bankrupt, with nothing left to deposit. I found myself in the wilderness - lost and alone. It was a journey that has led me to a place of inner-peace and being centered that I cherish, and will cherish for all my days.

I invite you to walk this afternoon path with me. It is a journey of self-discovery, where in the end, we will arrive in the very place in which we all began, that moment when we completed our first great transition - focused solely on the moment. Being fully present and fulfilled.

Finding Myself as Grandma

I never anticipated being a grandmother at 38 years old. It’s been nine years since my grandson was born, followed by his sister and my newest granddaughter, who’s one.

I don’t feel like a grandma. I’m footloose and fancy free these days. I can come and go as I please, without having to concern myself with finding a babysitter. I can be gone for days at a time if the whim hits me.

Although I am only 48 years old, all my children are adults, making their way in life - the same as children of other older grandparents. However, many of the people who are my age are still raising their kids, some of them with toddlers. I think to myself they have a long haul ahead of them, which brings me to the conundrum of being a young grandparent.

To put this into perspective, it’s like being in your twenties again, when people are falling in love and getting married, and suddenly you find yourself to be the last one to get married, and /or to have children. Your friends’ lives become filled with all the things that involve their little family – and not you.

With divorce rates hovering at 50% for the last decade, there are a lot of single-grandparents out there, both men and women. But, most of them are in their late 50s or early 60s. This societal shift is due to married couple’s staying together for the sake of the children, and divorcing when the last kid moves out. I suspect this trend will continue far into the future with a decline in the age of single-grandparents, because of the belief staying together only hurts the kids, and not helps them.

Instead of resolving myself to sensible shoes and dresses, I choose to redefine myself. I am the author of my life, and this but a new chapter in it. I delight in the moments when people seem shocked that indeed I am a grandma. “But, you don’t look old enough to be a grandma.” I concede that I don’t look the part.

I dress for my age, or what I feel comfortable in for my age. I never tried to be my daughters’ best friend. I never shopped in the same stores where they shopped, trying to fit a body that has birthed three children into clothes that are designed for, well, bodies that haven’t. I have middle-age wrinkles for which I refuse to indulge in Botox for the sake of clinging to youth, a ship that sailed twenty years ago.

It didn’t really occur to me until a couple of years ago that I am free to do whatever pleases me. Now, that in itself was a bombshell. I have never lived to please me. I was flustered by the very idea of it. I was asked, “What do you need,” and “What do you like?” I had no clue what the answers were to those questions.

My entire adult life has been about living for everyone else. I lived for my boyfriend and what he needed and liked. I lived for my daughters and what they needed and liked. I lived for my bosses and my friends, for what they needed and liked, and found that in the end, I had somehow become lost in the mix. In fact, I no longer existed at all. I was a shell of a person that only existed before the age of eighteen. I was a ghost haunting my own life.

I like canary yellow, burnt orange, sea foam green, coral and violet, because they are not black, gray or sad.

I like the smell of the ocean on a spring morning, and the sound of the waves as they tumble with playfulness on the shore, laughing their way back out to sea. I prefer the Atlantic in the morning as the sun casts a river of orange in the midst of the waters, creating new hope for a journey less troubled; and the Pacific at the close of day as the sun sinks into the water at twilight, beaming accomplishment at the river’s end.

I like the sound of thunder on a summer’s afternoon as it rumbles across the prairie. It shakes the very core of me, letting me know that I am alive. When the rain ceases to drench the earth all around, the sun never fails to break the clouds. Its rays wrap a blanket of warmth around me and I know all is well in the world.

I like the feel of the horse beneath me, while it bolts across the grasslands, carrying me far and away. The hooves collide with the earth beneath them, the dust exploding into the air. At the canyons edge there is all the world that lies below and all the heavens cast above.

I like the taste of Turkish coffee intermingled with the laughter of friends on a cold winter’s afternoon. It is rich, warm and robust; full of life.

I like the sound of the violin as it mourns the notes it casts into the world, the vibrations of all that was, is and ever will be; or, when it sings joyously the songs of the universe as they race to the stars and moon from the amphitheater that once was.

Today, I still enjoy these things. Sometimes, in spite of ourselves, we must reach back to the person we were, to find the person that we are. I enjoy the laughter of my grandchildren as they cling to me with arms wrapping me in love. I like to rock my infant granddaughter in the still of the evening, when she drifts off to sleep into a world of peace.

Today, I like who I am, recognizing that the only thing that I need is love.