Tag Archives: The Tough Stuff

Relationships

“You’re not my daughter anymore.”

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“You’re not my daughter anymore.”

“Okay.”
“I am not your father.”
“Okay.”
“Do not try to contact me or your grandparents.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe someday we can have a relationship again, but not as father and daughter.”
“Okay.”

I had a wonderful childhood. My brother and I got good grades, played sports, never got in trouble. We were “good kids.” I don’t have many bad memories or scars that I’ve carried with me, that is, until my parents told us they were getting a divorce. We had no idea it was coming. It didn’t seem like my parents were fighting. The way it happened was so matter-of-fact. Two houses, two Christmases, two TVs; two of everything. It sounded fine: we would spend half our time with mom and half with dad, and we were all pretty okay with it. I wish I’d known then how not okay it really was.

After the divorce, my father got more involved at our Episcopalian church.  We had always been religious: my brother and I went to Sunday school; we were in the youth group led by my father. But, when the church allowed female priests and then accepted homosexuals, my father decided we were leaving. We went back to our previous non-denominational fundamentalist church and things at home got more religion focused.  We noticed my dad’s behavior changing but nothing too weird.

My brother and I were now teenagers and I was in high school. Teenagers are moody, teenagers have emotions, they like to ask questions, mostly hard questions. This was not okay with my father. He tried to deal with our “insolence” by having more household rules, more chores, and more “family meetings.”

He started bad-mouthing my mom, telling us that she was a terrible person and that she was evil.  He blamed her for leaving him and claimed she was having an affair with another man. He hated her and now we could see it. (My mom told us later that she had been dealing with this for a long time but had tried not to bring us into it.)

He was so angry; he called social services and claimed my mom was forcing us to get drunk because we were allowed to have wine with dinner despite being under-aged. (But “have wine with dinner” actually only meant special occasions where we could basically have one sip if we wanted.) We were called to the counselor’s office to talk to a Social Worker; which was mortifying. He was furious when nothing came of it, and called the cops. When they explained that responsible alcohol consumption supervised by a parent or guardian in the home is not something the police deal with, my dad tried to make us swear to God we would never drink again. I swore to not drink till I was 21.

Around the same time, my dad had started dating a woman from our church. I’m not going to deny that my brother and I were hostile and not as welcoming as we could have been—she said she wasn’t trying to replace our mother, but it was very hard to not feel guilty doing things with her and not our Mom.

Then, my father proposed. We were not okay with it. Things had already been so tense between all of us in the house, we felt like an addition to the family would only make it worse. When she broke off their engagement, my dad told us it was our fault, that we had not been nice to her. But we had never been mean to her. Looking back though, maybe we were cold and we hadn’t sought out any interaction with her specifically. My dad felt we weren’t trying hard enough. But we thought that their relationship was moving too fast and we were struggling to adjust.

They did eventually get married. And that’s when the rules really took off: my stepmother didn’t work and had sleeping problems so I was grounded for washing the dishes before I left for school because it was too loud. The next week I was grounded for leaving a dirty knife in the kitchen sink in the morning. Our bedroom doors had to remain open at all times, but their door was shut and locked and they rarely interacted with us except at family meetings or scheduled activities. My brother and I had to have our laundry done before we went to our mother’s house, but we couldn’t do laundry together because it was inappropriate for him to see my underclothes.

So my brother and I began leading double lives: trying to be Christian angels in one house and regular kids in another. I tried to be the “good” daughter my father wanted, but his rules kept changing. It seemed no matter how hard I tried to do everything right, I would always make a mistake. This led to curfews and check-in calls and extra Bible study at home as punishment.

Not long after they got married, my father and stepmother started watching an evangelical minister on TV instead of going to church. My brother and I were not comfortable with watching a TV minister, but my father informed us that the hierarchy was: “God, me, your stepmother, you”—since he was closest to God, we had to do what he said. I believed in God, I knew what Christianity was. It was forgiveness and love and sharing the gift of salvation. What my father was living was not Christianity to me.

We started getting depressed. My father was telling us we were sinners, not true Christians, because we kept making mistakes and never seemed to learn. My mom ran as much defense as she could. And she was amazingly supportive; really, we couldn’t wait to go to her house and escape from my dad’s. We could see that what my dad was doing was wrong, but we were “good kids,” and we certainly didn’t want to lose our dad. He loved us after all, and we loved him, so we went along. And, yet, he knew we didn’t really believe the things he believed and it was getting harder and harder to fake it. But I couldn’t find a way to articulate this to him.

My dad and I finally went to a Christian counselor that he had picked.  I let it all out. I told my dad how hurt I was, how he never thought of our side and never considered that maybe we had our own ideas or relationships with God that he wasn’t a part of. I asked him to be more understanding and not take out his anger at my mom on us. The counselor agreed with me. He told my dad to work on being more forgiving and patient with us. My dad was convinced it was a complete waste of time and that the counselor was obviously a quack. We never went to counseling again.

The dysfunction in our relationship finally came to a head at the end of my senior year. I had asked my mom to chaperone my last field trip but it was on a day my dad had custody. The day before the trip, I mentioned that my mom was chaperoning and my dad lost it. He said that this was the “last straw.” He called my mom and made her cancel. He made me ask my teacher if he could go instead. He didn’t care that he had never chaperoned anything before and that it was special to me that my mom chaperone this last one. He accused me of always choosing my mom over him.  He was probably right.

As High School drew to a close, I was accepted into a private college across the country. My dad disapproved of me going to an “expensive” school—really he disapproved of me going to college altogether. He believed I should get married immediately, start having kids and be the perfect Christian wife. I didn’t have everything figured out but I was pretty sure I wasn’t interested in that path. After the chaperoning incident, he told me that I had to move out the day after graduation. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t say anything really. What else was there to say?  I couldn’t handle the confrontation anymore.

My dad and stepmom didn’t come to my high school graduation. My stepmom felt I had betrayed them. The following day, I moved out. They made me leave anything they had ever given me as gifts.

I didn’t see them again until the end of that summer, my dad took my brother and me to the park to say goodbye. He hugged me and wished me well and I cried, unsure about the future. This was the last time I saw my father.

The night before I left for college, he called me. He told me he never should have hugged me when he said goodbye to me. He told me I was not the kind of person he could call his daughter. To this day, a lot of that conversation is fuzzy. I think I was in shock. All I could say was “Okay.” He hung up and I just sat there.

I was sad, I was angry, I felt betrayed, but more than anything, I couldn’t believe that a religion really meant more to him than family. After a few days, I was relieved. I had been living in fear and stress and anxiety for years. Now I was free.

Wouldn’t it be great if the story just ended there, with me feeling free? It doesn’t. The mental abuse stuck with me. I didn’t drink again till I was 21 because I was afraid my dad would find out and then we would never be able to reconcile. In hindsight, I was more damaged than I could admit.

A few years ago, my stepmother sent me an email. She said the hurt had gone on long enough and that she hoped we could put it all behind us. I assume this was due to some sermon that struck a chord. I replied that I agreed and was willing to start over but that since my dad had ended our relationship, I had to hear from him that that was what he wanted.  I never heard back from either of them.

But the wound had been reopened, so I decided that I would take the first step. I wrote my dad an email. I said I was sorry for the way things ended, that we both made mistakes and that I would be willing to start a new relationship.

His response was one sentence: “How have you changed your life so that what happened before will not happen again?”

I deleted the email.

I had—have—regrets. I lost my father. He didn’t see me graduate from college. He didn’t walk me down the aisle when I got married. He won’t meet his future grandchildren. They won’t have a grandfather. I lost half of my family. And I foolishly hoped for a long time that he would see that he had made a mistake.

Two years ago I found out that my grandmother had passed away. I should have found out about my grandmother’s death from my father, I should have had the opportunity to go to her funeral, to mourn her, but I didn’t. Because I didn’t even learn of her death until months after it happened, when, by chance, my now husband Googled her name.

That was what finally sealed it for me. There is no hope for a relationship with my dad. I don’t have delusions anymore. There is only regret left. And pity. I pity the person who does not forgive, the person who cannot love their family because of things they have cherry picked from their religion, the person who lives in fear of change and hates everything that challenges them. I don’t hate him or myself, or anyone involved in the situation. I value the family I have and the family I have gained marrying my husband. Last year, my mom walked me down the aisle and it was perfect.

I hope he is happy somewhere, wherever they live now. I hope my grandfather, if he is still alive, is well cared for. And even though I don’t have any desire to see him again, I hope that my dad forgives my brother and me someday. I have forgiven him.

Photo by Remi Coin

Photo by Remi Coin

Uncategorized

How one person experienced loss and death

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Photo by Rob Adams

I can’t recall the first time I realized that everyone was going to die. In a way, I still don’t believe it.  It’s not something I dwell on—but on the loneliest days or the slowest weeks, I come to the realization that there is a clock ticking somewhere just for us. But just as quickly, I push it out, burying it somewhere in the recesses of my mind. And yet, despite this, I do think there was one moment in my life that defined death, and for me that happened when I was 17, when my grandmother died.

This was the first time that someone very close to me had passed away. Death had been around me before; I grew up with a 24-hour news cycle, after all. People die all the time: it’s a natural and inevitable part of life. But, until that day in January, I had not personally experienced the finality of it. My grandmother was in my life at one moment and then in the next, she was gone. It is such a weird and relative concept that it’s hard to put into words. My mom, dad and I were all in church, when we found out. I was rehearsing with the choir, when suddenly my dad appeared behind me. He told me she was gone and I just kind of stared at him. Then I remembered my mom and what she must be going through and I leaped into action—I had to keep moving so I wasn’t overwhelmed with shock.

My experience with my grandmother’s death was, I think, pretty average. Not to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but my grandmother, at 88, was living in a nursing home and was getting ready to move to hospice care when she died. My family was “prepared” for it and we had been making arrangements for a while. But there was still a big part of me that couldn’t imagine a day when my grandmother wouldn’t be around. She had been a constant presence in my life since I was born. Her life was so interesting, and she was so interesting, and seeing that taken away from the world was heartbreaking. She lived through some of the more tumultuous decades of the past century and, growing up, she would alway s tell me stories about traveling through, and living in, Europe. We’d play cribbage and she would teach me how to throw classy dinner parties. She was my grandmother.

For me, the hardest part was seeing how difficult my grandmother’s death was for my mom. She was so sad. Even though I was still in shock, I focused on keeping myself together so I could make her mother’s death easier to bear. That day was a blur of documents and plans for the funeral, which was the easiest part of the whole experience, in my opinion. But then we went home, where there was nothing to distract us anymore. Nothing I had ever experienced could prepare me for the sheer emptiness I felt during that downtime. To cope with this, I did what I usually do whenever I feel sad: I retreated. The next day, I made a CD of depressing music, got in my car, and drove around for a while—stopping when I wanted to, but mostly just thinking. There were a lot of things that I wished I had asked my grandmother, wished I had told her. I wanted to know what she thought about growing old? Did time eventually slow down? What was her favorite memory? And I wanted to tell her I loved her. But mostly, I just wished I had spent so much more time with her.

Her death made me think about how I treat the people in my life and I’ve since realized that I approach my relationships selfishly. I seek out people who make me feel good, who make me want to be better, who inspire me to do good things. But I forget most of the time the effect I have on them and how our relationship is bigger than both of us. If you only pay attention to your friends when they are physically right beside you, you run the risk of missing important connections with them. By thinking and observing people outside of your relationship, you could potentially discover more about them and yourself as well. Taking time to listen and to cultivate my relationships has helped me connect on multiple levels. There are some people I would have never thought I could be friends with until I gave them the time to give them a chance and realize that everyone has something to give if you listen long enough. I truly believe we will have fewer regrets in life if we listen, interact, and forgive those we spend time with.

When someone you love has died, you miss everything—and I mean everything—about him or her. Playing, laughing, disagreeing, even fighting with them. It’s an ache that sits right on your heart. I do not say this to make it harder for those who are missing someone, but I do want you know that missing someone doesn’t go away. Missing that person who died will always hurt some part of you. But it doesn’t have to make you miserable, or make you retreat, or make life harder for you. By missing them, you can remember that the person you love, even in death, is making you a better person, simply by reminding you that life is short, and that we all want to leave this Earth, and our friends, a little better than how we found them.

Relationships

Appreciating a Life

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The summer of 2011, my brother and sister-in-law announced that I would be blessed with another nephew or niece. When you hear joyful news like this, excitement and happiness run through your entirE body, leaving no room for any negativity. After all, this is joyous news—why would hesitation and doubt even enter your mind?

A few months prior to his birth, my brother and sister-in-law visited the hospital to find out if their little bundle of joy was a boy or a girl. The doctor brought two pieces of news: they were having a boy, but there were complications. This tiny little boy, only a few months along, had something called spina bifida and was going to need prenatal surgery 20 weeks into the pregnancy. The rare surgery could only be performed in three hospitals in the entire country, so they picked up their things and temporarily moved from Buffalo, NY, to Cincinnati, OH.

The day of the surgery came along, and with many people praying and rooting for baby Sebastian, he got through the surgery like a champ! His delivery date was moved a couple weeks earlier to the end of January.

We celebrated, but in the snap of a finger, things changed, and the doctors realized they would have to deliver him immediately. Sebastian Rocky Galen Tedesco joined us on November 4th, 2011 (named after the great Rocky Balboa since they were both fighters and both champs).

With the happiness and joy came fear and concern. As much as we wanted Sebastian with us, we knew that this early appearance would only bring more complications.

But each day, Sebastian seemed to be getting better and better. He even started breathing on his own! There was still a long road ahead, but he was ready for the ride. Then, December 3rd complications arose and we were told he had a 50/50 chance. As the day went on, that chance decreased until the doctor took Sebastian off life support and allowed him to leave this world in his mother’s warm embrace.

Within the 29 days that Sebastian was alive, however, he lived a full life. He has impacted hundreds of people, young and old: family, friends, and even strangers would approach us, sharing how Sebastian had changed their lives. Through him, a foundation called the Sebastian Galen Westgate Foundation was created to raise money for children and families who need support. Though Sebastian is no longer physically here, he is still working in this world – through me, through his family, through his foundation, through the people he never met. Since the Sebastian Galen Westgate (SGW) Foundation was created, we have raised money for numerous causes.

For example, we recently supported a little girl with cancer and her family. Though we cannot understand what her family is going through, we can relate to the struggles that come along with sick family members and understand that with these hardships come financial difficulties.

Last year, we participated in an event called March for Babies, which raises money for premature babies every year. We formed teams in Sebastian’s name in California and New York. We raised thousands and thousands of dollars for children born prematurely. People we never even met donated to the cause and even signed up to take part in the 3 mile walk.

When the tragic school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place, the SGW Foundation raised funds from all over the country and sent a gift card to the elementary school for new school supplies for the children.

In just over a year since Sebastian has been gone, already so much good has come from his time here. We know the future holds many more opportunities to spread Sebastian’s story and to reach out and help others where help is needed.

This small boy, weighing less than two pounds, taught me so much. He taught me that there’s no use in dwelling on things out of our control because they will happen anyway. He taught me to appreciate even the smallest things in life. And perhaps the greatest thing he taught me is to never take anything for granted, because things big and small can enter and leave your life in a flash.

These may sound like clichés, but because of Sebastian think I finally understand what it all means. Sebastian accomplished so much in his short time here and, when it is my time to go, I want to be able to say the same about myself: that I lived my life like Sebastian did his, fighting till the end.

Emerson said, “It is not the length of life, but the depth of life.” Nothing could be truer: someone who is here for under a month can do more good in this world than many people can do in decades.

When someone close to us leaves this world, it’s okay to be negative. It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to be angry, to think it’s unfair. It’s okay to not understand. It’s okay to not get over it right away. It’s okay to dwell on it. It’s okay to question it. Not only is it okay – it’s normal. Many have experienced losing someone, but no one has had the same experience as you, no one can tell you how you are supposed to feel. But one thing that can help is to not let these feelings take over, and instead look at what you learned from the person you lost and keep it with you always. Losing Sebastian was the hardest thing I have ever experienced, but I get through by looking at his life and how much his has affected mine. It helps to not only think about the good memories, but think of what he meant to me and to others who knew him.

The hardest part is not to see what they have done in your life, but learn to appreciate it. To live life the way we know we should, to be able to release the negativity and to grasp what living truly means. Often we realize opportunities when we’ve already missed the opportunity, but it’s never too late to start appreciating life and living it to its fullest. To break through from those things that are holding us down, and to open our eyes and realize we only have one chance, so we should try to do it right. Do the things you know your loved one would look at you and smile for doing. And remember even though they are not here with us, they are still here within us. If we keep them alive, they can never truly die.

Appreciating Life square

Photo by Remi Coin

Health

Three little words: “You have cancer.”

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I’ve never really been bothered by going to the doctor. I know a lot of people hate the waiting rooms, the medical tests, and the wasted time, but I’ve always been rather ambivalent to the whole experience.

Then cancer happened.

Like life, cancer doesn’t have a how-to book. There is no magic formula, no quick and easy cure. There is no one that can tell you exactly how you will need to face the disease emotionally, physically, and mentally. But you can learn through others’ stories and experiences, strengthened by the hope and knowledge that there is another side to it all.

I hope my story is that to someone else.

When I was little, my pediatrician told my mom that I would never be a well child. It turned out that he was borderline prophetic, because over the more than fifteen years he treated me, I amassed a chart that could rival the thickest of the Harry Potter novels.When I was twelve I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition and put immediately on low doses of thyroid hormones. By the time I entered high school I already had several polyps on my thyroid gland that had to be closely monitored. My doctor was alarmed by the rate at which the polyps were growing. Surgery was imminent, cancer suspected. Then, suddenly, they shrank as quickly as they had grown.

The polyps came back to haunt me again this year. Just weeks before my 24th birthday, I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma, or thyroid cancer.

Papillary thyroid cancer is currently the fastest growing cancer in the U.S., accounting for around 80% of all thyroid cancers and when caught early, which is most of the time, chances of becoming cancer free are nearly 100%. But statistics don’t tell you everything.

From the beginning this knowledge gave me hope. When you’re young and diagnosed with something like this, you want to think beyond short term, beyond what is medically defined at one year, five years, or even ten. I have decades to go. I want to write, travel the world, and go to nerdy conferences. But my particular cancer doesn’t always agree with those plans. What I didn’t realize at the time was that even when my tests showed no sign of cancer I would still have to face the long term repercussions of my treatment.

Another thing statistics don’t tell you is how many difficult decisions cancer forces on you. It’s amazing the number of decisions that you must make when you are least prepared to make any. They all had to be immediate: whether to get a second opinion, how to handle my extended time off of work, whom to tell. I checked everything off diligently and mechanically, focused only on the next thing I had to tackle, refusing to let my mind linger.

Aside from the medical reality of my cancer, it became immediately clear that I had to adjust to a new “lifestyle.” I couldn’t afford to take too much time off from work so I had to find a way to balance professional responsibilities with the demands of my health. I had two or three medical appointments a week for doctors’ visits, blood work, and scans. I walked the route from the hospital to my job more often in the first month of my diagnosis alone than I had the entire two years I had been employed. Time and energy were no longer to be taken for granted. I was lucky that my job allowed me a flexible schedule so that I could work from home when necessary to save the precious energy usually expended during my commute. The same standard applied to my social life. My friends came to me more than I went to them and I relied on the Internet more than ever. It was a new normal, at least for the time being.

I also had to tell about my diagnosis, little by little. I eventually found myself dreading the conversation because I  often had to calm others more than I had to calm myself. By the time I had told close to a dozen family and friends I had my “speech” memorized: No it wasn’t deadly. Yes, I would need surgery. No, chemo wasn’t necessary. Yes, I was doing okay.

Thankfully, my mom was with me every step of the way. No matter what her schedule, or how last minute the appointment, she was there. She helped me tell my family, advised me on handling my insurance, and kept me calm. She took care of me during my recovery, even if she was not feeling well. It helped that she is also a cancer survivor and knows this road all too well and without her I would’ve had a much more difficult experience.

Finally came the treatment. This cancer frequently results in removing the thyroid because all thyroid cells must be destroyed in order to prevent a recurrence and to make sure the cancer doesn’t spread to other organs (metastases). In my case there were local metastases to the lymph nodes in my neck, which are not uncommon and did not lessen my chance of a cure by much, if at all. But it did mean a more radical surgery, leaving a scar on my neck that looks like a botched attempt to slit my throat from behind. The surgery gave way to weeks of neck pain and a nearly immobile shoulder that only just recently regained all of its strength.

I was also treated with radioactive iodine, a high-dose radiation pill that targets the thyroid cells specifically, killing whatever is left. Much more forgiving than chemotherapy or beam radiation, the treatment lasted just a week and had very few side-effects. Though it involved almost total isolation (thank goodness for the Internet) and a period of dealing with my body’s poor reaction, I was grateful that it was over quickly and relatively painlessly.

Lastly, the pills I started as a child are now invaluable, taking the place of my thyroid entirely. The dose skyrocketed and is still adjusted every few months as my doctor attempts to find exactly the right number, waiting to see if I react adversely to each increase. The goal is to keep the cancer at bay and my hormones functioning. I will never be able to stop taking the tiny pill, and it has become as much a part of my routine as eating and drinking.

Getting through these treatments, especially surgery, was hard. But it was the people I had with me through the entire journey, from those a short drive away to the ones across the country, that made the experience not only bearable, but livable. They texted me with random jokes and check-ins, took me out to lunch, and asked thoughtful questions about my surgery and treatment. They acknowledged my limitations in what I could do with them by helping me find alternatives so that I wouldn’t feel isolated because of illness. They sent me cards or small gifts just because. They were there for me when I needed them, and more importantly, when I didn’t.

When I reflect over the past year I still have trouble processing it. I was told over and over again how strong I was, but there were many times that I felt anything but. I was often a few moments away from crumbling inside, retreating into a shell until I found the cure for the pain I was facing. I had trouble explaining the struggle to others-–I didn’t know how to put it into words without sounding like a frightened, paranoid child. After all, my cancer had never been deadly. My doctors assured me from the moment of my diagnosis that I would not lose my life.

And yet, despite that comfort, nearly everything changed in a way I could not have foreseen. I unwittingly took on an illness that would never be entirely cured. I lost an organ. I became the constant recipient of concerned or curious stares. And most of all, I took on a new form of isolation, one that can only be bestowed by illness. Despite this internal struggle, I still felt guilt for feeling the way I did, for allowing myself to become so upset when I knew that I would soon be cured, while others would not. It took a long time to reconcile those feelings.

It’s been nearly eight months since my diagnosis and I am tentatively cancer free. I have to return regularly for tests, but for the first time in months, I am not worried. Everyday I feel a bit better, and some days I almost feel like I never had cancer at all. I am back to being me, to writing and travelling where I can. But I can’t deny that I’ve been definitively changed by three little words.

Cancer

Photo by Meaghan Morrison