I cried tonight. Shocker. I know. I have decided that crying
is DELICIOUS and CATHARTIC and NECESSARY. And I am capitalizing those words
because as I type them, my eyebrows go up and I press the letters on the
keyboard harder and I feel very EXPRESSIVE. Like a real writer. Or a real
feeler. Either of those works for me. But I can go from zero to
Lucy-Ricardo-wailing in 2.5 seconds. It’s a gift. 
I am frantically trying to figure out holiday schedules for
Faith, and as it turns out, divorce puts a giant wrench in the plans of Holiday
Celebrating. It also complicates things that B’s and my family live hundreds
and thousands of miles away (but not hundreds OF thousands, because I am not
sure the world is that big. Then again, I accidentally thought the Civil War
was in 1960, so I cannot be trusted with details or numbers in general). I
digress. But my heart can barely fathom the thought of ANOTHER Christmas awayfrom my tiny angel. Funny thing is, her dad wants to be with her on Christmas
too. And why wouldn’t he? Have you seeeeen our tiny angel? She’s like heaven
and sunshine and sass and charisma and macaroni and cheese all smushed into a
39-pound tiny frame. Her giggle is to die for and her smack talk is
unparalleled (albeit, the smack talk lands her booty in the corner for timeout,
but seriously, it’s legit. She gon’ have some street cred one day).
I begged her dad for some extra time with her and tried to
coordinate how to get her to California in October to meet B’s fam for the
first time, and how to get her to Texas in November to see my grandparents and
my sister’s fam (just typing that nearly punctured my soul since I have not yet
accepted the fact that my sissy lives so far away now), and how to get her to
South Dakota in December to spend Christmas with my fam….
AND OH MY GOSH, MY BRAIN CANNOT HANDLE THIS KIND OF STUFF. I
have been planning events for a living for several years and I worked in
clinical research for the oncology department at a super prestigious university
and I have a Master’s Degree, and despite my pathetic delusion that the
Braverman’s are my real family, I am actually fairly intelligent. But I cannot
make my heart and my brain work together on figuring out a plan for being okay
with my daughter not being with me every holiday and weekend and weeknight. GET
A GRIP, SHANNON.
Oh…but then. Then I got a giant Reality Check Face Slap.
Because I got an email from one of my volunteers who is a “mission mom” for
March of Dimes. And my “problems” didn’t seem so problematic anymore.
I work for March of Dimes. I’m a fundraiser, but I am crazy
lucky in the sense that I get to work with families who have been impacted by
March of Dimes’ mission. Truthfully, there is not ANYBODY who HASN’T been
impacted by March of Dimes’ mission. If you were ever a baby, you were impacted
by the mission. But the volunteers I work with have experienced it in a way
that I can’t even fathom. Families who had babies at 23 weeks gestation….I
mean, seriously. That is just barely over halfway through a full-term
pregnancy. And these women delivered tiny, 1-pound babies who spent days upon
weeks upon months in the NICU, praying and hoping desperately that that tiny
baby would live one more day. I can’t even imagine.
These moms tell me stories of how doctors told them their
babies did not have a chance of survival. But those little babies fought hard,
and some made those doctors eat crow. BOOM. But then there was the one mom who
broke down in Panera and said, “Today would have been my daughter’s 2nd
birthday. She only lived 4 days, though.” And then there was the mom who told
me, “I became friends with the women in the NICU with me. And then one day, as
I sat rocking my tiny baby in our room, I could hear the scream of that new
friend down the hall, as she found out that her own baby didn’t make it. How
can I ever forget those screams? How will she ever get over that?”
And then all of a sudden, I realize so many things.
1)
Every day is a gift. I mean, SERIOUSLY.
Christmas can be celebrated in October or February or whenever the heck we feel
like celebrating it. How dare I spend my time crying over shared custody when
holidays are nothing but a day on a calendar and my sweet girl is with me to
cuddle, kiss and tease so many days of the year. Not everyone has that chance.
2)
I am not the World’s Best Event Planner. (Don’t
tell my boss that). In fact, sometimes I despise event planning. And sometimes I am actually quite terrible at
it. But being in a position like this allows me to SHARE LIFE with people who
have been to hell and back and who are not taking a single day of life for
granted. IF nothing else, I can be their advocate and march my butt into corporations
and (very diplomatically and professionally) beg for money to help fund
research that will prevent other families from experiencing what they have. I
keep trying to run away from nonprofit because truthfully, I want to not be
nonprofit in my bank account. (#realtalk) But how do you run away from a need to march alongside those who have so much
courage to face the unbearable?
I guess I said I realize “so many” things but I am too tired
to think about the “many” part of it.
The bottom line is that I keep coming back to what my
favoritest blogger always says: WE BELONG TO EACH OTHER. At every step of the
journey. How can we not invest in others? We need each other. To be advocates,
to answer heartbreaking emails and texts at 2am, to fight for funding for
research that will save lives, to lift up the Mary Spiros’s and Keri Nelson’s
of the world, who suffered loss and dedicated their lives to fighting back
against cancer, and the Robyn Pfershy’s and Mandy Robinson’s and Julie Steffens’
of the world who believed in their tiny babies when doctors were skeptical, and
to high-five the Jennifer Jens’ of the world who kicked cancer’s ass, and to
the people who LOST EVERYTHING but still dedicate their lives to BELONGING TO
EACH OTHER. In all of my years in nonprofit, I can’t even tell you how many
people I have met who say, “I lost who I loved, and that is why I give…” I dare
you to tell me what is more selfless than that attitude.
Reality check, people. We’re all we’ve got. Extend a hand.
Or a dollar. Or your heart.
