If I were to carry a tape recorder with me all day long, you would at least know the myriad of thoughts that run through my head. There are so many: all connected in theme, but disjointed in time, in emotion. Often, bad memories make me relive some of the panic I felt then. I am like a person who’s been miraculously transported from one country to another, one culture to another. It is really that foreign, that new. Over and over, the words “what a difference a year makes” play in my head.

People say “everything happens for a reason.” When your life is gaining speed on its downward spiral, their words make you want to scream. They sound far too simple and condescending, and though meant to comfort, they don’t help. But the odd thing is that when you get to the other side, and realize you’ve survived whatever mess you were in, you also recognize that something inside you has changed. And it’s what you do with that change that sometimes gives meaning or purpose to the suffering you endured. You find your “reason.”

That’s where I’m at right now. I feel altered, made stronger by what we’ve been through, yet more vulnerable to the suffering of others. I’ve been on the same playing field and it’s not something I can forget.

I can think of no better way to explain it than to share something that happened just before Christmas. First, allow me give you some of the background details. It involves a man who lives in a nearby low rental apartment. I often see him walking his two dogs. His blonde, straggly hair reaches his waist. He appears to be in his early forties. He has a speech impediment and is very nervous, which can make him seem simple-minded, yet I have seen him riding a bike to MacDonald’s to use their WiFi, an old laptop under his arm. His poverty is obvious. What isn’t obvious is what’s caused it. A neighbour has said that he has had some very “hard luck.”

On a very cold pre-Christmas afternoon, I saw this same man crossing a “big box” store centre’s parking lot on foot, a shopping bag in each hand, and my reaction surprised even me. There are some people who would see such a man and immediately think “he’s a bum, he’s on welfare and spending taxpayers’ money on Christmas gifts.” In the past, I might not have been so harsh, but at the very least, I would have pitied him. It would have saddened me.

But at a time in my life when I’ve just “come through the other side,” I found myself celebrating his strength. How wonderful that despite hardship, this man’s spirit soared and connected him to the most joyous of seasons. It brought tears to my eyes, but they were happy tears. It reminded me that when all is said and done, maintaining your dignity despite life’s trials is probably the biggest achievement of all.

Perhaps it is all transference. Maybe my pride in persevering and my gratitude and euphoria over our fresh start lends a gossamer brilliance to the simplest of situations and circumstances around me. But I will tell you this: there, in that moment, there was no person I respected more than that solitary Christmas shopper trudging through the parking lot.

The only explanation I can think of is that after feeling detached for so long, I’m transitioned into a phase that is very much the opposite. And it’s overwhelming. It sounds hokey, but everything seems intensified. Colours are brighter, the wind in the trees more soothing. I am mesmerized by the simplest of things, lifted up almost. And somehow, through it all, I find myself tongue-tied, unable to sift through the thousands of thoughts in my head and come up with one cohesive piece of writing.

Hamilton itself is a new experience in every way, more complex than anyhere I’ve ever lived. I never anticipated seeing squalor and hardship juxtaposed by beauty and prosperity. How could I know that a short walk to a wonderful park, the pride of the city, would take me past men and women so obviously sick and in need of help – not homeless, but desperately poor nonetheless? And what of the people who’ve lived here for decades? Have they grown accustomed to the pockets of poverty around them? Is that even possible?

Yes, it is a city of extremes. But the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” seems more due to circumstance than choice. My husband and I have just come through a huge financial upheaval ourselves, but we have renewed hope: a wonderful home, a new job, a true fresh start. It could have been very different. That middle-aged woman I see with the grey unkempt hair, the ratty sweater, the worn pink sweat pants? That could have been me.

Those are the thoughts that spin through my head. It makes me even more aware of our good fortune, but also makes me wonder about the stories of the people I pass each day. They were once precious babies. What could have happened to take them to where they are today? And why them, and not me?

And now I see I have finally written.

Two months later, shockingly gaunt and weak, he announced that a new form of cancer had taken hold of him, and that he was taking a leave from his position in order to fight it.

On August 22, just four weeks later, he passed away, surrounded by his loved ones and closest colleagues. Shortly after his death, a letter was released, written by him just two days earlier (http://bit.ly/netnCX). Moved by his message, the entire country united in an unprecedented show of grief.

Social media gathered hundreds of thousands of supporters, all asking that Layton be honoured in special ways. Across the country, people “Left their Porchlight on for Jack,” “Left a Burning Candle in the Window for Jack,” participated in “Chalk for Jack,” covering the concrete at Mel Lastman Square with messages to the man they admired so much. Orange lights, the colour of the NDP party, lit up Niagara Falls and the CN Tower at night.

He received a state funeral.

Since then, many journalists have asked “What is it about Jack Layton’s death that creates such passion and collective grieving?” After all, not everyone agreed with his politics or his passionate rhetoric during his three decades in politics. I believe there are several reasons for this surprising display of emotion.

The first that come to mind are his patriotism and his “generousity of self,” his willingness to get involved in areas that other politicians chose to ignore. He was approachable and emotionally engaged in every issue he tackled, and was a ray of hope for those struggling with poverty and homelessness. Unlike so many of our politicians, who seem emotionally detached from anything other than heated cabinet debates, he truly seemed to care.

Jack Layton had our back.

For years, there’s been talk of the apathy of today’s youth. Few have faith in politicians and the political process. They’ve “opted out.” They listen with wistfulness to stories recalling the activism and idealism of the sixties, but are often too jaded to believe that can happen again. Jack Layton challenged that belief and inspired so many of our Canadian youth. Years from now, that may be recognized as his greatest legacy.

On a personal level, Jack Layton did even more for me, and I suspect for many others growing up in the sixties and early seventies. He reminded me of who I was forty years ago. His principles, his passion, his belief in a better way, his concern for the disenfranchised and respect for humanity itself – those were the ideals I worked hard to emulate back then. I was young and hopeful and believed I could make a difference.

Somehow, as it does with many people, that idealism and energy faded over the years. Raising a family and working to make ends meet took most of my attention away, but not enough to miss the gradual changes taking place in our country – the focus on finances over people, the hostile and kneejerk response to anyone needing our help. Others set the changes in motion, but some, like Mike Harris, set them in stone. Like many of our youth, I’m afraid I chose to “opt out” rather than remain a teacher under Mike Harris, and with the subsequent election of federal, provincial and municipal politicians, my despair grew.

For a while, Jack Layton changed that. I saw more than a politician. I saw a human being – one who hid his private pain behind a moustached smile so he could lead his party to official opposition status, and who in the days before he died, still reached out and showed concern for others in a letter. As the NDP leader, he reminded his party to forge ahead, saying that the true power was always within them, and that his death wouldn’t change that. As a fellow Canadian, he urged people, young and old, to have hope in Canada’s future, to work to make it happen. As a cancer patient, he protected his fellow sufferers by keeping the details of his illness private, and encouraged them to have hope. His final words will always resonate with me:

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

How many other politicians have ever spoken to Canadians before dying, and in such a manner? Jack Layton was a remarkable man – a tireless, principled political leader, and patriotic Canadian. And for those of us who felt a familiar fire awaken in ourselves because of his shining example, his loss feels very personal.

In many ways, it symbolized a turning point for us. For over two years, we’ve been weighed down by sadness and a sense of doom, but on this day, we were ourselves again. Able to laugh. Able to feel joy. And everyone with us felt it too. They’ve worried about us for so long, but finally, they too felt hope.

The day was warm and sunny, ideal weather for entertaining. Our guests spilled over from inside the house to the backyard and front porch. Conversations were loud and peppered with belly laughs. I reminisced with friends from high school – women I hadn’t seen since the last alumni luncheon, nearly ten years ago. Being with them reminded me of who I was at eighteen, and who I still am inside.

My husband felt the same spark. At one point, my youngest son observed “I haven’t seen Dad this happy in a long while.” Later, someone made the same comment about me.

Towards the end of the evening, when most people had already left, we realized that we’d yet to make a toast to our anniversary. It seemed fitting that the ones remaining to share the tradition with us were these same high school friends – women who were there forty-five years ago, when my husband and I first met, who were there on our wedding day. With a finesse that only a veteran bartender can manage, my son cracked open a bottle of champagne and carried eight flutes back into the room. We toasted to love, to friendship, to new beginnings.

Later, when it was just the four of us, we drifted to the front porch of the house. Between the rush of preparation and the excitement of having so many wonderful people in our home, we were all too wired to sleep. For nearly an hour, we shared our feelings about the day.

We realized then that here, on our fortieth aniversary, not one picture had been taken of my husband and me together. Our porch “papparazzi” decided that had to be rectified. It didn’t matter that my make-up had melted hours ago, that my hair was askew, and my husband slightly tipsy. We were happy.

You can tell just by looking at us.

The first five days here were a real challenge. It didn’t take us long to realize that we should have delayed the move by a week or so. First of all, my sister’s wedding was just four days later. There was a bachelorette party on Wednesday, the second day of our move, and a hair appointment for me on Thursday. Both meant a long drive back into the city. Each time, we made the rounds of friends’ homes where my husband still had things stored. Seriously, he could have easily filled a house all on his own, and my son had nearly as much to move. To give you an idea of just how disproportionate my husband’s and son’s possessions were compared to mine, someone said to me on the day of the move, “Are you sure you live here?”

The running around before the wedding wasn’t the only complication of the week. The biggest advantage of relocating later is that we could have cleaned first. I have never seen a house in such need of a good scouring. It had been sadly neglected for a long while – vacant for six months and before then owned by a widower who was in deep mourning over the loss of his wife. The house badly needed to be loved again, and that began with vacuuming and scrubbing things down.

Our furniture is now in place, and except for unopened boxes for the office, we are unpacked. We got a great deal on a used refrigerator that could pass for new. We’ve bought a few curtain rods, but no drapes yet. My husband has started to repair our double hung sash windows – original to the house. They must have ten layers of paint on them. They’re very hard to open and because the sashes are broken, they’re being held open by books. He’s removing all the paint and sanding them down to the original wood before repainting them. We’ve replaced locks on both windows and doors – almost all were faulty. We’ve fixed a leaky sink and replaced faucets, only to see that now, our water pressure in the kitchen is down to a trickle. Somewhere, there’s an obstruction.

The second-to-last owner was a big fan of big pot lights. Our bathroom alone has six of them, in addition to two wall lights. My kitchen has twelve of them, but only half of them work. None have covers, and many have wires hanging out. The wiring in this place is insane. We’re still trying to figure out why the lights on the staircase landing and second floor hallway don’t work. I have to use a flashlight to go up and down the stairs in the evening.

We’ve demolished most of the basement in preparation for new wiring. There is a walled off room that has us curious. Time capsule? Stash of money? Body hidden amidst the brick?

The most exciting work has been the complete transformation of our front and backyards. Okay, I’ll be honest. My job was just to supply food and beverages. My husband and sons did the serious labour. And what a wonderful job they did! Just looking at it makes me smile, and our neighbours are thrilled to see the changes.

The neighbourhood itself is a pleasant surprise. The area we’re in, which is just outside the downtown core, is built on a grid system. Daily walks with the dog are filled with new discoveries: heritage homes, gardens loaded with flowering plants that I’ve never seen before, stately homes that once belonged to the original “movers and shakers” of the city, and still show such pride of ownership. I take a different route almost every day. Cadeau, who’s never really experienced city life, is in paradise. Everywhere you look, people are walking their dogs; Cadeau stops every ten feet to pick up a new scent. Most nights, we head to Gage Park, a huge part just a few minutes’ walk room here. It’s huge. There are trees with trunks ten feet in diameter. There are gardens and a greenhouse, water features and playground equipment, a pink bandshell where summer performances take place and huge fountain that’s now being restored to its former glory.

This city has never had the best reputation. It’s quite solidly blue collar, home to Canada’s steel plants, once employing thousands. The view of the city from the highway is bleak. I used to watch the smoke and flames shooting from the chimney stacks of the refineries, and imagine that the air here must be awful.

The steel industry has had its share of troubles, and many have lost their jobs. The downturn has rippled throughout the city, particularly the downtown core. You can’t miss the businesses that have closed, or the higher than average percentage of poor people who appear malnourished, sometimes with signs of substance abuse problems. But this city seems to have a heart. The downtown core is peppered with services for the poor, the handicapped, the sort of person so easily forgotten and left to live on the streets in bigger cities.

We’ve seen that “heart” in the faces of strangers serving us in stores, and we’ve heard it in the voices of our neighbours. We’ve never felt more welcomed by a community. This is home, and after the difficulties of the past couple of years, this newfound contentment is almost euphoric.

Immediately we started to search in a city where house prices are still affordable, and the commute to Toronto and the outlying areas reasonable. Because we were considering homes at the low end of the price scale, we saw some real disasters. Some were so bad that it would be cheaper to tear them down and start over, rather than try to renovate what was already there. We saw homes that looked wonderful online, but those pictures were carefully cropped to miss the dilapidated homes on the rest of the street, or the fifteen story apartment that loomed behind and put the entire house in its shade. There were a lot of estate homes – easily recognizable by the dated decor and overall neglect of an elderly person who doesn’t have the money or energy to redecorate or renovate. We saw one place we loved, only to be told that the corner three hundred metres away served as home base for most of the city’s prostitutes.

One particular older home charmed us, and we considered making an offer. A closer look showed dangerous undermining of the foundation, and other structural time bombs. Another old place was lovely inside, but the floor was so uneven you’d swear you were hung over as you moved from one room to the next. My husband, ever the optimist, believed he could raise the floor himself. He did the research, then we went back for a second look. That’s when he discovered that the supports at one end of the house were rotten, and that without a mega transfusion of cash, the house would eventually crumble.

Across the street and down a bit, we found another home – sturdy, stately, with tons of character and original features. It took just one short visit for us to fall in love with it.

The purchase has moved quickly because the house is vacant. I can’t tell you how excited I am. Over the years, we’ve owned three brand new homes, and another that was only six years old when we bought it. Between homes, we’ve been lucky enough to live with a close friend. Now, after two tumultuous years, we are embarking on an entirely new adventure, something we’ve never considered before: a home that’s over one hundred years old, in the middle of a city we are only beginning to know.

It’s a fresh start for us, and it begins tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Unlike my teenage years, or young womanhood, or my years as a wife and mother, this is an age I never took time to imagine. It snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking; perhaps while I was asleep, or stuck in traffic, or playing my zillionth game of Spider Solitaire. Somewhere between forty and sixty, I lost time.

Despite feeling a little shell-shocked, reaching my sixth decade doesn’t bother me as much as I expected it might. I’ve watched so many of my friends die much too soon. How can I not appreciate each day that I am given? I’ve been so lucky. Healthwise, I don’t feel any worse than I did at forty. It may be one advantage of having the aches and pains of fibromyalgia for so long. My age has simply caught up with the way I’ve always felt. The asthma that plagued me at a younger age is under control now, thanks to medical advances. To think I once believed that it would probably kill me someday. I never could have predicted that I’d feel this good at sixty.

Surprisingly, I have developed a fascination with the aging process, as if it’s happening to someone else, as if the person in the mirror is not really me. I study the gradual appearance of lines in my face as if noticing them for the first time. I am spellbound by the skin on my hands, how much thinner and drier it seems. My nails have changed. I wonder when all of it began and why I didn’t notice.

And then there’s my neck.

A few years ago, I watched author Nora Ephron being interviewed on a women’s talk show. She discussed her new book on middle-age, and the procedures some women endure to appear younger. She ended by saying “but there’s nothing you can do about one part of your body.” The title of her book was “I Feel Bad About My Neck.” She was right. And the irony is in knowing that at a time in my life when I prefer to cover my neck, I can no longer stand the heat!

Yes, I am now sixty. I may have to say it again and again until it sinks in. I’d like to think I’m a bit wiser than I was at thirty, but the reality is that inside, I am very much unchanged, with the same values, the same passions, the same sentiments. The greatest difference comes from acknowledging that time has passed more quickly than I ever anticipated, too much of it forgotten.

From this point on, I have to try harder to savour each moment, to make the days count for something. Life is much too fleeting, and there are still memories to be made.

My father-in-law used similar tactics. The older he got, the more he repeated a phrase that irked me no end. It was “I don’t want to know.” He used it whenever the mood hit him. He’d ask a question of you and if he realized he wouldn’t like the answer, he’d stop you halfway and say ‘I don’t want to know.” If a news story disturbed him, he’d begin to comment on it, and midway through his own sentence stop and say “I don’t want to know.” There were variations on the theme. If he felt someone wasn’t giving his opinions the respect they deserved, he’d say “he doesn’t want to know.”

It’s only as I’ve aged myself, and lived through my own trials, that I’ve come to understand his thinking. Many of us “don’t want to know.” It goes beyond ignoring warnings of impending doom if we don’t work harder to save our planet. It also happens much closer to home. We choose not to see what is right under our noses – job problems; issues with our children, substance abuse, adultery, rising debt, health issues – all because of fear. We fear the panic we will feel, the loss of control, if we face the demon head on. We surround ourselves with people who will support our denial, perhaps even share a similar altered reality, because they don’t challenge us on it. And all the time, we fool ourselves into thinking that problems that developed while we weren’t looking, will disappear quietly, the same way.

It’s dangerous thinking. It allows us to be manipulated, because we are deperate to believe these orchestrated “best case” scenarios. It’s rampant: among soccer moms, in company boardrooms, in political office. The more control a person is expected to have, the more perfect he/she is expected to be, the greater the chance of living in denial. As a former teacher, I can tell you that it’s everywhere in the education profession, particularly among teachers who worry more about everyone’s perception of them than admitting they need help. Image become more important to them than the welfare of their students.

We’ve seen a perfect example of willful blindness in the current media fiasco around Charlie Sheen. Somehow, over years and years, he’s been in denial of his condition, and surrounded by people who are too cowardly and/or self-serving to confront him on it. Do the people around him truly not recognize the illness that goes beyond his addiction? Can’t they see it in his eyes and hear it in his words? Do they care so little, or do they care too much to face it?

Margaret Heffernan, a former BBC producer and CEO of several multi-media companies, writes about this very human tendency in her book “Willful Blindness.” Yesterday, the Toronto Star carried an article on her book, and on the pitfalls of denial. I read it, and I thought “Wow! She’s dead on. That’s the perfect name for the self-sabotage of “survival by denial.”

To be honest, the subject fascinates me, so much so that the idea figures prominently in some of my writing. Years ago, I wrote a small piece on a woman whose life was built around “willful blindness.” It’s short and a little rough – never published – but I’m including it here.

SMALL MERCIES

Lorraine has learned to be grateful for lies.

She isn’t sure when it happened, for it was without her knowing; perhaps while she slept years of half-sleep laced with worry. It wasn’t always that way. Once, she demanded truth and would accept nothing less. She faced reality without flinching; watched the brutality of war and the viciousness of violence objectively, an emotionless observer; then went on with her day, her veneer unscathed.

Her entire world gleamed then. Her floors reflected satin images and her appliances gleamed. She clipped recipes from homemaker magazines and devised clever filing systems to catalogue them. Bills were paid the day they arrived, not days late. She ironed clothes straight from the dryer, before they were needed. In afternoons, while her babies slept, she sat outside, next to a vibrant climbing rose bush, and wrote long, gossipy letters to distant friends, or read sweeping historical romances with predictable happy endings. She nibbled fresh-baked scones and drank tea from a favourite china cup. Her world was free from blemish, her sleep peaceful, her vision nothing but blue skies.

Now, Lorraine mourns the loss of those times. Optimism has blurred to delusion, fairness to blindness, and she treads on ground that threatens to collapse beneath her feet. Nerves jolt at the first midnight ring of the phone. She flinches at the start of a harsh word and avoids the eyes of those she fears to understand. If the enemy is not seen, it is not there. Evidence stays buried, her gaze averted from that which she cannot bear to know.

Instead, Lorraine nods in agreement to half-truths, the small mercies meant to reassure her. She realizes, but does not acknowledge their feeble attempts at deception, necessary to protect the fragile illusion of her perfect world.

Lorraine has learned to be grateful for their lies.

A Day In July
My mind races to
the mantra of moving.
Sort, purge, pack tight, tape.
Mark books or china,
heavy or fragile
our life boxed away.

A fat black marker,
obliterates the item from my list,
one less thing to do,
one step closer.
The rhythm carries me,
keeps me numb.

Pretend with me.
Let the catch in my voice
go unnoticed,
my emotions contained.
Just one word of kindness
will shatter my resolve.

Externally, nothing has changed. We remain unsettled, searching for employment so that we can have our own home again. But internally, where it counts, there’s been growth and healing. The battle isn’t over, but we feel like survivors. More than ever before, we recognize the strength of our union. Not all marriages could have withstood all that we have. We make a damned good team.

It’s easy to gloss over the difficulties we’ve experienced. Grief, worry, regret – every negative thought that had plagued us for over two years continued to lurk in the background these past months, waiting for those times when we seemed most vulnerable. Late night drives into our current subdivision brought flashbacks of the night of our move, and caused me to have panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep. Food suddenly caught in my throat as I ate. I was drowning in guilt over what I should have done differently. My husband was obsessed with feelings of failure. Gradually, though, we collected an arsenal of “weapons” to combat the pain we’ve felt. Such is survival. It’s instinctive.

The day-to-day needs of our new household became our lifeline. Mindless chores kept us from dwelling on our situation. We took our sweet little dog on long walks through the subdivision, the nearby park, the trails winding their way through the protected forests of the Oak Ridges Moraine. We compared one home’s choice of landscaping to the next, and laughed as our dog compulsively left his mark on every pole and tree he could find. It’s hard to stay depressed as you watch a tiny shih tzu attempt world domination in a half-hour walk.

There were times when we allowed ourselves to hope: the possibility of a contract being extended; companies that expressed interest in consulting contracts; success on the first day of a new sales job; a third interview for a new position that was a perfect fit. But inevitably, there were disappointments. A contract ended; a company decided against consulting when they checked their books and saw another month “in the red”; the realization that customers simply weren’t buying Toyotas, and that seeing just one customer a day left him earning less than minimum wage; a sudden silence after a third interview, and the suspicion that the only edge another candidate likely had on him was being younger.

Each time, we searched online for homes near these positions, so that if things worked out, we’d be ready to move. We collected a running list of “favourites,” keeping track of those that sold, and the new listings that came up. And when our hopes crashed, we learned to pull back for a while, stop looking, and give ourselves time to regroup. We read. We walked. We watched television and played mindless computer games. Did you know that Spider Solitaire can practically put you into a trance, if you play it long enough? I dreamed about playing it. It was better than not sleeping at all.

In many ways, those days in between the times of “hope” have felt timeless, a sort of limbo. Forced to live just in the moment, unable to predict the future and not wanting to revisit our past, our sense of time feels altered. One day melts into the next. We’ve been neither here nor there, our lives somewhat on hold, and subconsciously, I guess we’ve sometimes fooled ourselves into thinking the rest of the world has stopped as well. For example, summer was over before we knew it, and with that came a wardrobe dilemma I’d never anticipated. I never expected that we’d live with our friend so long, so I’d only brought summer clothing with me. When temperatures dropped in October, we drove to the storage facility to collect my warmer clothes, only to learn that the bins they were in were virtually inaccessible, lodged under and behind large pieces of furniture and boxes that couldn’t be moved. It was one more reminder of just how “out of sorts” our life felt.

Certain dates have also jolted us into reality and reminded us of the awkwardness of our situation. The first day of school, and no longer connected to that day as a teacher or parent; Thanksgiving, and the effort needed to show thankfulness; no longer preparing for Hallowe’en; and then, more than any other day, Christmas.

The first reminder saying “Just forty days left to shop for Christmas” was like a sucker punch. I felt sick and even more than that, I wondered how I’d possibly get through the day without becoming weepy and maudlin, ruining Christmas for everyone around me. I thought of our Christmas decorations stored away, how I loved to make our house look festive, the many friends who used to visit us, and Christmas morning, when my younger son and his girlfriend would arrive to join my husband, my oldest son, and myself to exchange presents. Where would we meet this year, with no family home to call our own? Whenever I allowed myself to dwell on the situation, my sadness grew, so I pushed it out of my mind, compartmentalizing it into the part of my brain reserved for regrets and losses.

Then I went shopping.

And in the end, Christmas was as it should be. Free of the massive debt we’d accumulated, Christmas didn’t carry the usual worry for us. We exchanged gifts in the morning with our friend and his family, and then we shared a hearty Christmas brunch casserole I’d made the night before, along with hot cinnamon buns, orange juice, egg nog, and coffee. In the afternoon, I prepared dishes to take to my sister’s for Christmas dinner, then arrived to find her house sparkling with decorations and filled with family and the laughter of children. My son and his girlfriend were able to join us, and though we missed exchanging gifts under our own tree, as we always had, nothing could touch the happiness we felt at having them there with us. Joy bubbled inside me until I worried it might spill over in blubbering sentiment and embarass the men in my family. I held it tight inside, something precious and wondrous that no one could take away.

Philsophers say that all growth comes from pain, that clarity of thought is the gift you are left with when the trappings of material wealth are no longer clouding your vision. For so long, I’ve worried and agonized and despaired and grieved over the changes in my life. I’ve felt detached and disenfranchised. I’ve used the solitude of the shower to shed my tears. I don’t ever want to feel that way again.

I know that our difficulties are not over, that our situation is far from settled, but I also recognize the gifts I have gained. I’ve had seen the good in people in unexpected gestures of kindness and generousity’ and that has strengthened my spirit and resolve. I’ve arrived at a place where I can look at the worst that might happen in our lives, and still say with all conviction “I am blessed.”