Category: Wholeness - trish hermanson

Our Grandson Fought for His Breath

3/9/2020

Our two-month-old grandson Benjamin fought a battle for breath and won.
     This past week he was carried by ambulance to the intensive care unit at a Denver hospital for children, where he struggled after a life-threatening virus attacked his lungs, leaving him fevered, congested, and panting.
     All he could do was cough and cry, his big blue eyes asking “why?” as he peered at us through an oxygen mask that covered half his face.
     We were on alien terrain. Tubes, probes, whirring machines, and monitors with blinking lights that create constantly changing graphs with indecipherable peaks and valleys.
     I remembered what Mr. Rogers told children - when they were scared, they should look for the helpers. We adults needed helpers here, too. And we found them. Specialists, nurses, and food service workers who answered questions, helped us get pillows and find a bathroom with a shower and hot water for tea as we settled in for the vigil. None of them postured for position; everyone worked as a team.They turned this strange place into a “human” space.
     I’m thankful for those who care for all the kids I saw with burns, bandages, and bald heads from chemo. Kids with diseases with names as long as your arm. Kids whose moms and dads are frayed and fearful. All these helpers affirm that life is valuable.
     Benjamin’s, too. After five days, he returned home, breathing on his own.
     I thank God and wonder how I can be like those helpers on my little turf in life.

How to Avoid the Dump

12/4/2019

You’d think I’d learn not to stand directly under a tree when I shake heavy snow off limbs. But no, I position myself under the branches and end up getting dumped upon. Something similar happens to me if I’m not careful when others unload their burdens on me. All their misery dumps like heavy snow. So when I’m helping others shake loose their woes, I try to remind myself to come alongside and not stand directly under their angst. Otherwise, they walk away relieved, while I’m burdened and look like Frosty the Snowgirl.

Learning to Put Down the Ducky

11/14/2019

My grandson Joel showed me his collection of rubber duckies, and I confess: as an adult I once bought a rubber ducky when life was overwhelming and I needed a squeaky little friend for security.
     Which is why I smiled when I heard that “Sesame Street” is celebrating its fiftieth birthday. This PBS gem gave my girls and me songs for all occasions when they were little. Like singing “C Is for Cookie” while pulling steaming morsels out of the oven. Or belting out Oscar the Grouch’s “I Love Trash” as we collected ours.
     Recently I’ve been thinking about Ernie, who realized he had to “Put Down the Ducky” in order to learn to play the saxophone. I wonder if I have any duckies I’m clinging to that keep me from taking on new opportunities. Am I holding onto old securities? Or activities I might need to drop to make room for fresh possibilities?
     Clinical psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud calls this making “necessary endings.” When I’m willing to put down those duckies, I’m free to move into sunny days sweeping the clouds away - that's how we get to “Sesame Street.”
How about you? Holding onto any rubber duckies?

Chalking Up My Circles of Life

9/26/2019

I know there is a God and I’m not Him, so why do I fret so much? Does my huffing and puffing solve the world’s problems and save the environment and keep the grass from dying from my neighbor’s dog pooping on it? I don’t think so.
     So, with the “help” of my grandson Oak, I’m corralling my ever-expanding concerns through Stephen Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”
     Covey says we each live in a large Circle of Concerns, things we care about or that affect us even though we have little or no control over them. Instead of being distracted by them, he encourages us to focus our energy in a smaller sphere within that, our Circle of Influence, where we can, perhaps, make a difference.
     Good advice, but I’ve discovered two other spheres within my area of influence that I must ask hard questions about or I get into trouble:
     * My Circle of Responsibility - am I fulfilling what I’m actually responsible for?
     * My Circle of Capacity - am I exceeding the limits of my emotional and physical strength?
     If I ignore these questions, I develop another set of circles - under my eyes - from my distracted striving. I tackle what’s not my own, and forget to show up for my own life.
  And that is a colossal waste.

Getting Swept Away?

9/19/2019

I did it again - I allowed myself to get swept away in busyness. Why do I do that?
     I don’t have the excuse of obligations of someone like Eugene H. Peterson, a world-renowned author and lecturer. Yet even with his full schedule, Peterson admitted he sometimes got caught up in busyness simply “because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant.”
     Ouch. Do I bloat my schedule to try to look important?
     Vanity isn’t the only thing that tricked Peterson into busyness. He said that sometimes it was laziness. “I indolently let others decide what I will do instead of resolutely deciding myself.”
     I’ve done that, too, trying to please others by doing what THEY think I should do instead of setting boundaries.
     So instead of getting swept up with busyness, I want to make some sweeping reforms in my thinking and my schedule. Otherwise, my life may be as futile as Shakespeare described: “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
     What a tragedy that would be.