Families & other disasters

Today, I’m bringing a personal passion project over to my professional life here on LinkedIn. I think it’s relevant to the work I do every day, and I’d like to share it with this amazing network.

Many of you know that I’m both a second-career nurse and a first-and-always-career communications professional. People often find this skillset mix odd, but I argue that the best nurses are experts at drawing out and really listening to the stories of those they care for. I also believe that all of us humans – nurses included – find healing in the telling of our own stories. We also find healing in hearing others’ stories, because the simple act of listening allows us to find points of connection and shared emotions – and rejoice in the rich differences and diversity that exist across our unique lived experiences.

That’s why, in January 2021 – as the pandemic raged on and my mother began her final decline after years of catastrophic falls and a battle with myelodysplastic syndrome – I embarked on an MFA in creative writing and narrative medicine program at Dominican University of California. My plan was to hone my craft and deepen my understanding of how writing can offer healing to both the author and the reader. I did that – and came away with so much more. The writing I did in those two years not only gave me the space to produce 120-plus pages of polished work, but it allowed me to explore the ways my fractured family shaped me and come to terms (as much as one ever does) with the loss of my complicated mother.

Mom was beautiful – inside and out. As a young mother, she helped support my older siblings with modeling. Even three weeks before she died, she never left her assisted living room without her wig and her makeup. It took my younger sister and the hospice nurse half an hour to remove her jewelry after she died. She was generous of heart. She loved to cook meals for and spend hours listening to folks who were enduring tough times. She reveled in choosing and making gifts that were just right. When our family was struggling financially, she made me a nurse’s kit for Christmas the year I turned 10, complete with hand-sewn cape, a real nurse’s cap and working stethoscope.

She was also a disaster.

She was married seven times – the last time when she was 78. Her five children – with three different fathers – endured the consequences of her relationship choices in ways I don’t think any of us will ever fully understand, even with lots of therapy (which some, but not all, of us have had). My father died of lung cancer (with liver and brain mets) when I was 14 after a traumatic and hasty nine-month journey from diagnosis to death. Being Midwestern and all, Mom moved on quickly, meeting up with an old boyfriend just six weeks later, then marrying him and moving my sister and me from Wisconsin to Florida when we were in high school because the New Guy (aka husband number five) hated cold weather. I hated her for it, and I hated Florida. New Guy was gone 18 months later.?

I went to college and landed in Pennsylvania, where I made my own bad relationship choices, and – when my first husband divorced me after 12 years, when my kids were just 5 and 7 – discovered just how hard it can be to parent alone – and I had assets and privileges my mother never had. I had a master’s degree, a great network of professional women, and supportive ex-in-laws. When I remarried, had another child, and blended families, I came to understand that families are, well, messy.

In the last six years of her life, Mom lived alone. While I know she was sometimes lonely, I also saw the beautiful network of church friends she surrounded herself with. I saw that she was, first and foremost, a survivor who did the best she could with the limited tools she’d been given. She was also deeply optimistic, even when life offered her overwhelming reasons not to be. It’s a trait I share, even as I recognize it is grounded in deep privilege.

I miss her terribly.

I know my story is unique, but also it’s not. Most of us grapple with what it means to love our families and come to terms with their imperfections, the damage they inflicted. How do we hold it all?

That’s what I’ll be exploring onstage – yes, onstage – at the Harrisburg (PA) Fringe Festival in July. My 30-minute show Beautiful Disasters: A Survival Guide for Messy Families premieres there July 18, 19 and 20, and I’m both excited and terrified to share it with the world. Of course, it’s not completely written yet. As I prepare, I’ll periodically share what I’m learning. I hope you’ll join me on this journey (and, of course, if you’re within driving distance of Harrisburg, I’d love to see you there!). You can also get more regular updates by following me on Instagram at @disastergirl1014.

Messy family? Let’s hear your stories!