Public Exposure

(*WARNING: Do not read this unless you have nothing else to do. It is self-indulgently long and contains little pertinent information about Katherine’s condition. If you choose to read it anyway, you will understand why I got those teacher’s comments in second grade.)

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Recently, I got my first somewhat negative comment about the blog from someone other than a family member. Victim of low self-esteem that I am, I instantly went into a spiral of self-doubt. WHY AM I DOING THIS???

I am from a background that doesn’t quite approve of public exposure. It is with pride that many of my compatriots quote, “Grandmother always said you should only appear in the paper twice... at birth and at death.” Weddings are a fairly recent (20th Century) concession. My sweet mother, who is a young 81, suggested soon after Kelly started it that we needed to “Get off that Caringbridge Thing so someone else can have a turn.” It simply is not considered genteel to put one’s self forward, demand attention, expose one’s private business.

So, WHY AM I DOING THIS???

First of all, I need to tell you that I’ve never really written anything before except for some bad poetry and inappropriate letters to people like my daughters’ ex-boyfriends. Although I’ve taught high school English, I was not an English major in college. I think most of us who love to read harbor secret fantasies about writing, however, and I am no exception. I just never got around to it. If someone asked me to write an Advent devotion for the Church newsletter, I’d be paralyzed by “writer’s block” and would agonize until well past the deadline over what to say. I’d write a sentence, change a word, change another word, and finally scratch out the whole sentence. I would read the entire thing over again each time I finally did manage to tack a new sentence on to it. It would be a lengthy, labored process.

Talking has never been a problem, however. My grandmother was one of five sisters named Converse, and that is what they did...wonderfully well. I grew up listening to their highly descriptive, endless, epic stories. My father, who was half Converse, was also a remarkable raconteur. As a child, I drifted off many nights to his amazingly realistic sound-effects of WWII missiles exploding over Germany as he scurried from foxhole to foxhole.

Evidently, the legacy of excessive verbiage has passed on to me as well. In elementary school, I would get straight A’s in everything except for “Citizenship.” (Okay, not always in Math, either.) The mean teachers would give me a “B” in that box and write, “Talks too much with other students” in the comment space. The nice ones understood and let it slide. And I told stories, too, weaving dramatic sagas in the ‘cloakrooms’ of my old elementary school whenever the class was left unattended. Some of my baby cousins claim that they are still receiving therapy for the ghost stories I told them in the dark closets of my other grandmother’s rambling century-old white house.

Words stream through my mind in a constant flow, usually so fast that I can’t catch them. I know I don’t catch the best ones...I’m not quick enough. I’ve always been fascinated by words, and I believe there is great power in them. THE Word spoke Creation into existence, and we enter into the creative process with our words as well. Human words are a pale substitute, however, for the intimate heart communion that one day will render them unnecessary and meaningless. In the meantime, we struggle to share our stories, our experiences, our hearts. It seems to me that communication is one of the main reasons we’re here: to commune with one another...to share communion. In the movie “Shadowlands,” a former student tells C. S. Lewis, “We read to know we’re not alone.” Words are tools we use to share the human experience.

I’ve found that the written word is sometimes easier than the spoken. The fear, self-consciousness, and possibility of misinterpretation that may be obstacles in spoken communication disappear in writing. For several years preceding Katherine’s AVM rupture, I felt as if I were speaking a foreign language that no one could understand. In a place of terrific physical (and emotional) pain, I retreated into isolation. Some of what I was experiencing was simply not articulable, so I gave up trying to answer truthfully when people asked me how I was. But this forced me into a new intimacy with God that made the suffering much more than worth it all. For the first time since my 8th grade diary, I began journaling. When I was physically able to write, I talked to myself and God on paper, sometimes pouring out words that I couldn’t speak to another living soul. Sometimes He answered back, and I wrote that down, too.

It was all preparation.

The second full day after my arrival in California in April, I lay in my bed at UCLA’s Tiverton House with my grandson asleep beside me and began typing a letter to my friends. Words just poured out onto the electronic page of my laptop...I was talking by typing. In my mind, I was addressing a specific audience of friends who like to know the details. (As do I.) When I got to the hospital that morning, I asked Katherine’s friend Lauren how to send out a group email. After helping me with that, she suggested setting up the blog so other friends, whose addresses were not yet in the new laptop, could also have access. Thus was the blog born.

I wasn’t completely sure what a blog was.

Sometimes it takes my breath away to realize how many people are reading my private thoughts now. I wonder who most of you are. A few have become friends I’ve never met. I am blown away that so many are interested. I can’t allow myself to think about it as I spill my guts (and my family’s) out onto virtual paper in the privacy of my little apartment in LA. But it really gives me something to consider when I’m in Athens and need to make a grocery store run. I might run into someone who’s known me for years, but not really known me at all. Until now.

Guess I’m out of the closet.

In some ways, it’s ironic that I’ve put myself in this position. No one’s kids have been lectured on the Evil Dangers of the Internet as much as mine have. I am sickened by the “Jerry Springer/nasty ‘reality’ TV show/Facebook” need (obsession) we have in this society to expose ourselves to public ridicule at any price. (And voyeuristically to enjoy the negative exposure of others.) I realize that, in some ways, I have entered the realm of that culture I abhor by the use of this vehicle of communication. I acknowledge the many intrinsic risks...and the terrible vulnerability to which they expose us.

For now, I’ve decided that it is worth it.

Early on, when the implications first began to dawn on me, I tacked that "About Me” caveat onto the page in about three minutes while sitting in the noisy lobby at UCLA. I am so glad that I did. It is vitally important to me that anyone reading this understands that I don’t consider myself a “SuperSaint” or an expert on matters spiritual. (Or anything else.) You’ll never catch me running for political office.

But I will tell you this: In the middle of the most paralyzing fear of my life, the words simply began flowing out, unlocked from the self-conscious paralysis of a lifetime. The effortless ease with which they came was supernatural, just another of the many peripheral miracles of that mystical time. In the deepest place in me, I knew that this was what I was being called to do “at such a time as this.”

Later, when a moment of self-doubt first crept in, I prayed about it. This is what I heard reverberating through my spirit: “Just keep it real. Keep it true.”

So, at least for now, I very belatedly welcome you all to this story...Katherine’s story, my story, our story...chapters in the big one. I believe that every single human life is a fascinating story...and each of us has a sacred story to tell, for we are all created in the image of the Creator of the Big Story. All of history is His Story. Our stories are rivulets that flow into the great River of Life itself that surges from the Throne. Every tiny drop is important...every little tear. As Jill Phillips sings, “Everything matters if anything matters at all.”

Because death exists, suffering is universal. In the words of our hometown boys (REM), “Everybody hurts.” Although I’ve heard several comments that writing the blog must be “cathartic” or “therapeutic” for me, I hope it is more than that. It is my prayer that the stories I share from this painful time in the life of my family may in some way help others in their own times of suffering. It is a blessing for Katherine and for those of us who love her to know that her pain is not wasted, but somehow used for good. In turn, we have been richly blessed by the stories others have been brave enough to share with us. For instance, I recently received a beautiful, particularly poignant letter from someone whose sister was killed by an AVM rupture just a few years ago. Strangely enough, the sister’s name was Catherine; she left behind a 2-year old child and a grieving family. In her letter, this precious young woman wrote, “...I would have loved to help her get better, the way you are helping Katherine. How joyous it is to see the pictures of Katherine as she fights to regain strength and mobility. I love seeing James in his mother’s arms. In a way, by seeing Katherine’s progress and seeing all that you all are doing to help her, I can imagine me doing that for my Catherine. Through reading your blogs, I am able to play out, in my mind, the scenario I had envisioned for my sister when she first fell ill, and I thank you for that opportunity, for the peace it gives my soul.” (No, thank you, dear girl. Your story reminds us to be truly thankful for every day, no matter how hard. We will keep you and your family in our prayers.) We bond together in sharing the grief and pain that are inevitable components of life on earth.

In attempting to ‘keep it real and true,’ I realize that what I’ve actually been doing in this sharing of stories is testifying. Webster’s tells me that the stem is the Latin “testis,” witness. Testimony is defined as “firsthand authentication of a fact: EVIDENCE.”

I can tell by a few of the comments I’ve gotten that some of you are in the same place I was in before this happened. Believing, but doubting. Wanting to believe that it’s all true. Thinking we have to try harder, be better, in order for all the promises to prove authentic for us. Subconsciously holding on to some of our core beliefs like hypotheses that need testing, rather than authenticated facts. Wondering, wondering...is my personal faith strong enough? Would it hold up under the biggest test? (I barely make it through the small ones.) Will these ‘spiritual theories’ be supported by evidence when tested by fire?

This is the gist of my personal story...this is ‘that which I have witnessed firsthand and can therefore authenticate’:

I am weak, wavering, inconsistent, complex, and conflicted. I cannot will myself to stay strong, be selfless, keep the faith, fight the fight. I identify with the Apostle Paul in Romans 7 when he confesses, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway...” My best is not good enough.

I cannot hold fast to what I know is true.

But...

the Truth holds.

He holds fast to me.


He holds us all.

...and in Him all things hold together.



That is my public testimony.