Chicken Soup for the Soul

by Amy Newmark

  We felt helpless as we looked at our son strapped into that specialized hospital bed. Jay’s wife Angela stood next to us, doing her best to keep her emotional pain in check. When Jay saw us, he looked up and smiled. I wondered how he could do that after the pain of such a life-changing event, but I had seen that smile before.

  Jay wore that same smile when he started playing the trumpet in elementary school. His horn became the center of his world, the fulcrum that got him through high school, college, and graduate school. It helped him ride out the ups and downs of life from adolescence to adulthood.

  Jay’s horn ultimately brought him to the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps with support and encouragement from Angela and his daughter, Madelynne, born after he entered military service. Jay also practiced yoga and added BMX bicycle racing to his list of activities, for the adventure and camaraderie.

  After we returned to California, we learned the full extent of our son’s injuries. On the positive side, his spinal cord was damaged but not severed. That gave us hope, even though some doctors believed he would never walk again. The paralysis had also affected his core strength, which trumpet players need to perform.

  Had he lost too much of himself to live a full life? He could no longer stand, walk, or perform his job as a trumpet player. His mother and I felt hope slipping away, but then we thought about that smile.

  While we waited on the West Coast, the Army was busy helping Jay rehabilitate his body and his spirit. They moved him to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, and from there to the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. Their caring specialists taught him how to get dressed, drive a car and live independently.

  The Army continued to help Jay normalize his life. They supplied funding to modify his home, making it wheelchair-accessible for his return. Then they partnered with a nonprofit organization, Help Our Military Heroes, to provide him with a new wheelchair-accessible van.

  We were encouraged by Jay’s progress, but like many parents, we prayed for a miracle, some magic or medical breakthrough that would restore his old life. We visualized him walking and playing his horn, even knowing that the prospect of a full recovery was slim.

  When we talked with Jay on the phone, nothing had changed, yet he sounded surprisingly upbeat. Our son had a lot more going for him than we had first understood. We saw a different kind of miracle in the making. Rather than dwelling on the past, Jay focused on what he had right in front of him.

  Jay had his family — a caring wife and a talented teenage daughter — who remained at his side and worked with him to redefine their relationships after that life-altering event. Injuries like Jay’s traumatize all family members, but Angela and Madelynne gave our son the support he needed to begin rebuilding his life.

  Jay also had friends. Margaret and I were amazed at the number of caring souls who visited and wrote to him through this troubled time. Friends from the Army, high school, college, graduate school, the Old Guard, and the BMX community were all there for him. A young cyclist, who Jay had coached, visited him in the hospital and gave Jay the first trophy he won. He wanted to honor his mentor.

  His cycling friends drove him to the local track where he coached other riders, young and old. The local track even sponsored a “Jay Day” that raised $10,000 to help their friend. A later “Jay Day” funded the construction of a new BMX track for the friends who supported him.

  Jay also had adventure. The Army selected him to participate in the 2019 Department of Defense Warrior Games as one of forty injured soldiers to compete for Team Army. This competition includes injured servicemen from other branches of the military, along with participants from Britain, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Australia. Jay competed in air rifle, wheelchair races, hand cycling, shot put, and discus. We received a picture of him sitting on a specially designed platform after a shot put tryout, and there was that smile, broader than Margaret and I had ever seen it. Jay went on to win two bronze medals at the games.

  We once believed that Jay’s family, his horn, and his bicycle were the things that held his life together, but we were wrong. He had resilience. Like the Serenity Prayer, Jay accepted the things he could not change and focused instead on the things that he could do here and now.

  Margaret and I have not given up on the dream of seeing Jay marching and playing his trumpet, but we are proud to see that he has found fulfillment right where he is. Perhaps Jay’s zeal to embrace his current life will move other miracles into the realm of possibility.

  We have enjoyed watching Jay grow from childhood into a remarkable and gifted man. I learned from Jay that our value depends less on the challenges we face than on the way those challenges are handled.

  I sincerely hope that Jay has benefited from my role as a parent, but someday I want to grow up to be just like him.

  — Jim Grayson —

  Four Little Words

  Never bend your head. Always hold it high.

  Look the world straight in the eye.

  ~Helen Keller

  With my arms trembling and sweat dripping from my face onto the mat, all I could think about was how I wanted to give up. Even on my knees I could barely complete a push-up.

  Just then, the coach came by and said, “Keep your head up!”

  While she was referring to my form, she had no idea that those four simple words meant so much more.

  At that moment, everything hit me at once, causing tears to mix with the sweat pouring off me. I could taste the salt running into my mouth, a taste I had become accustomed to over the past year.

  The prior twelve months had devastated me emotionally, mentally and physically, leaving me a shell of the person I was.

  In October 2016, my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child. Our joy was short-lived. The following month, we knew something was wrong with the pregnancy. After multiple doctors’ appointments, tests and misdiagnoses, we were told that the pregnancy was ectopic, meaning that the baby was growing outside of my uterus. In my case, it was in my right fallopian tube.

  We were informed that there was no way the baby would survive, and I was in physical danger the longer the pregnancy continued. The best option was a methotrexate shot, which works in 90 percent of cases. A week after the shot, I found out I was part of the 10 percent in which it does not work. My husband and I were asked to come into the doctor’s office on a Friday afternoon.

  It was the first and last time that we witnessed our baby’s heartbeat.

  The doctor stated we needed to head immediately to the emergency room to remove my fallopian tube along with our baby. I asked if I could have the weekend to process this information. She said, “No, there is a strong possibility you could die if you wait.”

  In that moment, I had the out-of-body experience one reads about in books or sees in movies. I was present in the room, but not truly there. I could hear words, but not process them. I was aware of what was happening, but not understanding that I was at the epicenter of the situation.

  After the surgery, I was a zombie just going through the motions of my life. Go to work. Come home. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

  I ate to soothe myself, spent the majority of my free time sitting on the couch, and cried more tears than I thought possible.

  During this time, we met with a fertility specialist and started intrauterine insemination (IUI) treatments. After a failed first attempt, we received a positive result with the second. It ended in an early miscarriage.

  I felt like a failure. I felt like I was failing my husband. And I felt as though my body was failing me.

  We made the decision to take a break from treatments.

  One day shortly after I stopped the constant doctor appointments, daily pills and endless shots, I truly looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize the person staring back. I had gained more than twenty-five pounds, the spark had been extinguished from my eyes, and the person staring back looked defeated.

  Something
needed to change.

  I had always enjoyed working out, but after the surgery and fertility treatments, I had cut back my daily gym sessions to walks around our neighborhood. Having stopped treatments, I decided to ramp up my workouts again.

  I kept hearing about a group fitness class near me and decided to sign up for an introductory class. Walking in, I was intimidated immediately. Everyone was in such great shape. At the conclusion of class, I could barely walk.

  I signed up anyway.

  A week later, my muscles were telling me to quit. It would be so easy to give up.

  During the second week, my coach uttered those four little words: “Keep your head up.”

  Something clicked.

  With wobbly arms and my vision blurred with sweat and tears, I picked up my head and finished that push-up.

  From that day forward, I made a conscious effort to keep my head up, both literally and figuratively.

  I never realized how often I looked down while going through my day.

  During my walks, I would shuffle along, looking at the gray concrete. I told myself to look up. In front of me was life — trees ablaze with the dazzling colors of fall, a clear blue sky with the sun offering warmth to my upturned face, and neighbors waving and offering friendly greetings.

  During dinner, I would stare down at my food as I quickly ate my meal. I told myself to look up. There was my husband sitting across from me — this man who had been by my side throughout the entire ordeal, who held me in his arms as I sobbed, who told me he loved me even when I didn’t love myself.

  During workouts I would stare at the floor or at my feet as I jogged. I told myself to look up and I saw myself in the mirror, someone who was not giving up and who was gaining strength.

  On the surface, it was evident that I was becoming stronger physically, but there was also a transformation on a deeper level.

  My view on the hand that life had dealt me was shifting. I had a choice to keep pursuing fertility treatments or to change course. While my husband and I had previously discussed adoption, it had been put on the back burner.

  Over the next few months, we explored adoption more seriously. We attended workshops, met with adoption agencies, and spoke with others who had gone through the process.

  Ultimately, adoption was the route we chose. Exactly one year from our first baby’s due date, our beautiful son was born.

  During this time, I have regained parts of me I thought were buried, found new strength I didn’t know I possessed, and found my fitness family.

  When we brought home our little boy, we received a thoughtful gift bag of baby gear from the same coach who had such an impact on my life. I realized I had never told her how her words were a turning point for me.

  In my thank-you note to her, I thanked her not only for the gift bag, but also for how those four little words had impacted my life.

  Even now, over a year later, she sometimes says, “Way to keep your head up,” and I smile.

  I don’t know what the future holds, but more likely than not, there will be curveballs thrown my way. As long as I keep my head up, I know I can handle them.

  — Laura Niebauer Palmer —

  Can’t Take My Smile

  Mothers and daughters together are a powerful force to be reckoned with.

  ~Melia Keeton-Digby

  Mom said the unforgettable words, “I have cancer,” and clasped me in a tight hug. I could feel her chest shaking as she tried not to cry but failed.

  If adulthood is bestowed in a moment, that was it. For all of my twenty-four years, my mom had been sturdy, supportive, and an unchanging presence. For a moment, I was the adult, and she the child. Strength and compassion had always flowed from her to me. Now I knew it would have to flow the other way. I felt a wave of protectiveness I had never felt before, and I promised her with a smile I would help her through anything.

  But Mom didn’t stay down for long. After the initial shock of the breast-cancer diagnosis, she armed herself with a purple spiral notebook and pen and a thousand questions for the doctors. She took notes on white blood cell counts and medications with eight-syllable names as though she were studying for entrance exams into medical school. “The not-knowing is the worst,” she said.

  Almost before we could blink, she was waking up from surgery that claimed her lymph nodes and dictated she would need both chemo and radiation. She couldn’t use a towel on her tender, bruised chest, so she took to air-drying the area with a blow dryer on the cool setting. Dad offered to get the job done more efficiently with the leaf blower. Mom laughed until it hurt.

  We knew chemo would take her hair, so before it fell out, Mom and I went wig shopping together at a tiny salon that catered to cancer patients. You would have thought we were picking out outfits for a costume party. We tried on everything from Betty Boop-style brunette bobs to electric-pink, rock-star locks like a pair of middle-school girls squealing at a makeover. Other customers stared. Was it sacrilegious to belly laugh at a cancer shop?

  Trying on new hairdos in the mirror was a chance to reinvent ourselves. As a new adult, I was in the habit of reinventing myself anyway: new clothes, new diets, new jobs. But Mom had been loyal to the same short perm for over two decades. I had never seen her with any other hairstyle. When she put on a shoulder-length wig, straight and banged, I paused the festivities and stared. Honestly, I had to double-check to be sure it was her before I spoke. I didn’t recognize my own mother. But then she grinned, and I saw the same sweet smile as in black-and-white pictures I had seen of her as a twelve-year-old with the same hairstyle.

  Mom was one of my closest friends, but I realized there were still parts of her I didn’t fully know. She held stories inside she hadn’t told me. Neither of us knew the end of her cancer story that day in the wig shop. It might turn out to be an inspirational story, or a tragedy, or even both. It was still being written. I had never considered that mothers, too, are still growing into their most adult selves.

  I went with Mom to every chemo treatment and watched as soft-shoed nurses hung bags of her chemo cocktail over her head. “Cocktail? Sounds like a party!” I said. So we called her bi-weekly treatments “chemo parties” and made an event out of them. During the two-hour IV drips, she joked about life, medical issues and even the pain. We celebrated with hot grinder sandwiches afterward. Mom hasn’t been able to stomach one since, but back then they tasted like a victory meal after a sports championship. We spoke on the phone almost daily. She rarely complained, though I heard far more about my mother’s toenails and fingernails than I ever wanted to as they fell out one by one. We joked that she could save money on nail polish and put it toward the doctor bills, even though she never wore nail polish. Fear became a guest at our party. It was the guest no one wanted to come, but we invited it in on our own terms.

  “Cancer can take my hair, my nails, my health, my very life. But it can’t take my smile,” Mom said.

  Mom learned to share her fears with me, and it formed an even deeper bond between us. Yet I am certain there were fears she didn’t share because she was still protecting me — worries she only shared with Dad, or maybe even refused to give voice to. My mom, who never played sports and demurred when she won a hand of rummy, was a warrior determined to defeat breast cancer. Defeat it, and even joke about it. When you look your greatest fear in the eye and laugh at it, you take away some of its power.

  I made Mom a survivor’s box from a purple and pink shoebox. Every time I visited, I left behind a small gift, like some kind of cancer tooth fairy. Lotion for skin chapped by treatment. (It was called Udder Butter, which we found hilarious for a breast-cancer patient.) A mirror labeled “The Most Courageous Woman in the World.” A lock of my hair left over from the eleven inches I had donated to a wig-making organization. A huge hat I had crocheted — somehow I had made a nine-sided octagon even though I had read the pattern. And a whole bunch of silly quotes and puns.

  Mom was the most sociable patient the cancer center e
ver had. She made homemade noodles for the medical staff. She chose to be grateful to the hands that tried to heal her, instead of resentful when fatigue kept her from the job and social life she loved. Each morning, she chose to thank God for the day He gave her, instead of being angry that He allowed her to have cancer.

  One day when I went to visit I found Mom sitting at the table doing her crossword puzzle without her wig. The morning light shone on her vulnerable, bald scalp. Her fingertips, raw and nail-less, grasped a pencil over the newspaper. She looked up and smiled, not self-conscious at all. I had never seen a stronger or more beautiful woman.

  Months later, after the final radiation treatment, we held a graduation ceremony for Mom. I made a mortarboard out of pink foam sheets and a curtain tassel. She placed it on her hairless head like a crown and paraded around the dining room as Dad played “Pomp and Circumstance” on his baritone horn. We presented her with a teacup to remind her that the finest porcelain only grows strong after it goes through the fire.

  Mom was one of the lucky ones. She did beat her cancer, though not without scars. To this day, she wears a compression sleeve to control the swelling from lymphedema, a result of the removal of her lymph nodes. But she lived, and whenever she can, she encourages others in those first scary weeks of diagnosis.

  Most of all, I saw a change in Mom. Nothing afterward seemed to worry her quite as much. She was more patient and resilient. Cancer was her fire, and it refined her. From her, I learned I may not get to choose what I face, but I do get to choose how I face it.

  — Sarah E. Morin —

  Make Every Day Count

  Choosing Joy

  Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.