Greetings on these last days of January,

May this find that the first month of our new year has been kind to you!

I anticipate for some of you, you didn’t have the privilege of dancing with polar bears.  (smile, grin). For others of you, who found themselves gliding across the dance floor of winter with significantly minus windchill temperatures like me, may this find that the cold offered you the gifts of coziness, warmth, and restoration.

Despite the challenge of having a German Shorthaired Pointer who found her love of being outdoors and the polar bear vortex incompatible, which translated to cabin fever and pent up “gotta goes” waiting to spontaneously combust (smile, laugh), among all the gifts of the extreme cold was Nature’s reminders sing, joyfully sing. 

As my boots crunched against the frozen snow, in that squeaky way a footstep sounds when it is too cold to see one’s breath and nostrils begin to feel like they are staying closed with each inhale, I was in awe of how I could hear the birds singing in the trees.   In gratitude for me refilling the feeder, sure. And there was more to their lyrics. They know that life includes moments of suffering, and they were choosing happiness in how they were responding.

As I hurried back to our entry door, I thought less about just how crisp the air felt in my nose and found myself bursting into a giggle thinking of polar bears dancing in the snow.

It’s pretty cool – no pun intended – how much our perspective can change when we choose to see a frigid polar vortex as playful dancing bears.  

Thanks to my singing friends with wings.  

Namaste’

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Mary

The delivery driver brought their usual – egg rolls, fried rice –including the pineapple version, Beef and Broccoli for Henry and Pad Thai for Mary. She feigned eating while she watched Henry consume his meal as if it was two weeks ago when they last ordered from Eathai. 

When it was BFC. Before F*&#’in’ Cancer.

Much like most things for Mary, for most of her life, she was about creating her own language, her own path, her own way. She wasn’t about referring to her diagnosis as The Big C or the C word, nor how she was now on a journey nor was she battling a serious health condition. 

Mary knew her share of battles. She knew how to confidently command a boardroom from the moment she entered until the second she victoriously exited. After deftly and usually mercifully defeating naysayers, opponents, and kings, as some sitting around the negotiation table believed they were.

Mary knew when she exited the room where her doctor had sat at one side of the table and she, along with Henry, on the other side, that she wasn’t in combat.  This wasn’t two executives from one corporation sitting across from the president of another convincing him why he should consider merging his kingdom with theirs.  There wasn’t room for negotiation.  She didn’t hold any chips.  No aces up her sleeve.

Mary wasn’t staring into the eyes of the opposition preparing for battle.  

Mary was certain her preparation needed to be to die.

Part of her wanted to shout at Henry for acting nonchalant, like her body was another nearly impossible deal she would ultimately seal in her favor. I’ve never been at the table with F*&#’in’ Cancer! she screamed internally as Henry took another bite of broccoli.  Part of Mary was comforted by Henry’s confidence in her. Thank you for saying I will make it 11%, she thought as she watched Henry add more rice to his beef broccoli mixture.

When Henry got up to rinse his plate, Mary yearned to ask him, hold me.

Mary remembered being eight years old. Patricia was five. Their dad was away on business and just after dinner, the doorbell rang. Their mom answered it to find a police officer standing at the doorway. Mary couldn’t hear what the officer was saying, but she could see her mom put her left hand to her mouth while her right arm wrapped itself across her stomach. 

The officer had removed his hat before speaking, so after what seemed like several minutes but was probably less than ninety seconds, the officer raised his downturned head, spoke something, and when her mom nodded, he slowly put his hat back on, turned, and quietly left.    Mary heard her mom say “thank you” as she watched her at the doorway for another eternity, and then she turned and called to Patricia and Mary.

“Girls, could you come here in the living room, please?” 

“There has been an accident. It is your Aunt Emma. And your cousins. Teddy and Susanna. And Uncle Theodore.”   Aunt Emma was their mom’s older sister. Teddy was two years year older than Mary. Susanna was six months younger than Patricia.

Mary could barely hear her mom’s voice by the time she spoke their uncle’s name. When Mary saw tears start to run down her mom’s cheeks, Mary felt conflicted between being mad and scared. She had never seen her mom cry before. But she had often witnessed what she would later describe as meekness, when she wasn’t vehemently exclaiming, she had grown up with a mom who cowered to kings. 

Patricia scooted closer, put her tiny hand on their mom’s leg, and offered her stuffed rabbit. “Mommy, do you want to hold Thumpy?” 

Taking Thumpy in her left hand, and scooping Patricia onto her lap with her right arm, their mom held Patricia tightly as she told them that Aunt Em, Teddy, Susanna, and Uncle Theodore had died.

Mary, frozen in place on the sofa cushion, watched her mom and her sister holding each other. Their mom was gently rocking Patrica, cooing softly “ssshhhhhhh, I know, sssssshhhhhhh, it’s going to be ok, honey.  Mommy’s here.”  

Now sitting in her and Herny’s high-rise, Mary sat on the sofa cushion, frozen in place, watching the waves roll across Lake Michigan. When her phone alerted her to a text message, she smiled. Of course it would be her sister. Patrica had that uncanny way of reaching out when Mary was especially thinking about her. Or needed her.

Patrica had known Mary was meeting with the doctor about her biopsy results. She was texting to hear how it went. She figured it was good news since Mary hadn’t messaged her. 

Patrica’s soft, loving voice sounded like their mom’s when she answered Mary’s call. Or maybe that is how Mary wanted her to sound.

Mary’s voice became less and less audible as she told Patricia the news. “Stage IV, lymph nodes, radical mastectomy, chemo.”   Mary’s voice barely audible by the time she said “10%.”

She heard Patricia softly coo “Oh, honey.”  Then “I love you.” 

When Mary began to cry, she heard Patricia say “ssssshhhhhhhhh. It’s going to be ok.  I’m here”.  

It would be a couple of weeks later when Patricia sat at the table across from the second king – Mary’s oncologist – demanding a second opinion while she also let him know his bedside manner sucked. Mary recalled another memory observing her mom sit across from a king, letting him know under no uncertain terms what he would and would not be doing.

Perhaps Mary had it wrong all these years, she thought her mom too subservient. Maybe what her mom had was grace under pressure until the most important battles warranted a fight.  And then her mom – and her sister – donned their armor, went headfirst into battle, and always came out the victor with what mattered most.

Hello dear readers.

May this find 2025 has started out peace-filled and generously kind to you, and for you!

And that life is visiting through daily experiences countless reasons to be thankful.

As these turkeys are offering on a particular wintery day.

As I talk with you from inside a warm home, I am thankful.

As I talk with you about to enjoy a delicious homemade soup, I am thankful.

As I glance over at three loves of my life, I am oh so very thankful.

As I think of how fortunate I am that you join me every other week, and that together we are in curious anticipation how The Creases Now Speak will continue to unfold, I am thankful.

Overflowing blessings wished to all of you as 2025 continues to unfold.

Namaste

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak – Mỹ

It was a couple of days after Mỹ wrote the letter for Edward when her mom Linh told her it was time for Mỹ to give it to him. For a brief moment Mỹ felt ashamed knowing she had not written the letter the way Linh had asked her to, but then Mỹ remembered her father’s words and she knew she had choosen well.    

She couldn’t ask Edward to take her with him to the United States, leaving her mom alone in a war-torn country.

Nor could Mỹ add any more pain to Edward’s family. Mỹ didn’t speak English, but she understood enough words and she could read faces.  She knew how eyes communicated grief. She had been looking into her mom’s – and into a mirror at her own – since her father was killed at the start of the war. Even before Edward showed her a picture of his brother who had also been killed in action, Mỹ knew Edward had experienced significant loss.

Mỹ also recognized the face of fear. She could feel it in Edward’s hesitancy around her. She could see how it wiped Edward’s smile away when he pointed to the picture of his father. She experienced it when Edward leaned towards her in what she thought would be his kiss only to have him quickly turn away as he muttered “I can’t.”    When she placed her right hand on top of his left hand, he looked at her, looked down at the picture of his father, looked back at Mỹ and with eyes full of both fear and sorrow, and through a choked-up voice said, “If only.”  She barely heard him as he looked down while she fought not to choose reaching for the tear rolling down his cheek, “you weren’t Vietnamese.”    

Mỹ pulled her hand away knowing what Edward was not telling her. His family would never approve of him helping her and her mom; his choice was pleasing his father. She would not be angry nor sad. She could not judge someone for choosing a parent over any other choice.

Mỹ’s mom had instructed her to ask Edward to take both of them with him to the states when he returned home and help them arrive safely to her Uncle Hien.  Linh said to mention she had a small savings, and though it wasn’t much, it would be his to help with the expenses.  

What her mom didn’t know is Mỹ had overheard her telling Aunt Cà she would find a way to let Edward know she wouldn’t be making the trip with Mỹ and Edward. For Mỹ, the only choice was to stay with her mom and not have shame or guilt also find residence in Edward’s eyes when he would be compelled to say “no” to the request. His soul was already carrying enough burden.

Though Mỹ knew her eyes would always try to conceal her own shame at having disobeyed her mom, especially each time she allowed herself to recall her mom’s face when Edward didn’t come to the coffee shop anymore after she gave him the letter, Mỹ knew she could not bare to carry a heart full of grief if she left Linh in Vietnam.  

Mỹ handed him the note four days after their near kiss. It was the first time she had seen him since then. He had struggled to look up at her when she brought him his coffee. When she brought him his bill, she also left her letter. She had gone into the kitchen to retrieve an order for another customer and when she returned, Edward was gone. In place of the letter was money for his coffee. That was the last trace of Edward Mỹ had.   That, and her memory of him. 

Even when Mỹ heard her mom crying herself to sleep for several nights after it was obvious Edward was no longer in-country. Even when her mom began moving through each day with despairing eyes, their nightly nine-minute ritual ceased because Linh no longer held a hopeful spirit. Even as Mỹ held her dying mother’s hand as Linh prepared to take her final breaths and leave this Earthly plane, saying to Mỹ Con xinh đẹp của Mẹ, đó luôn là con. My beautiful child, it has always been you.

“Every day since you were born, I have cried, not wanting the day to come when I would need to let you go.”

“I am sorry my beautiful child, please forgive me. For it is only now that I see when I lost half of my heart, I lived my greatest fear as my reality that I was destined to lose my whole heart. Fate wished to be kind to me instead, and I was not able to see.”  

My beautiful.   Until this last breath, you, I love.”

Even when Mỹ conceived a child who would make her a mother for the first time from the body of a man who did not have Mỹ ‘s permission to enter hers.

Through all of her grief, sorrow, and shame, Mỹ always knew she chose well staying in Vietnam.  

Here we are dear readers!   All of us standing at the door, about to close one door on 2024 and cross the threshold through the doorway leading into 2025.

How are you?!

Are you looking outward, ready for what will unfold in the vast unknown of the next 365 days? 

Are you looking inward, at the past 364 days, not sure you are ready to turn and set your wings in flight?

Let me say, which ever direction you are facing, it is okay.   

The most important thing as the hours move closer to 12:00:01 is that you are being kind to yourself with whatever you are feeling.  

May Grace also whisper to you dance, for in that dance between opposites, I anticipate all of us find ourselves throughout the days in any given year looking outward and looking inward.   Soaring our wings and other times gripping something to hold onto. 

It is the beautiful joy of being.   Of experiencing a sacred gift we’ve all been given.   The gift of life. 

Before I convey my wishes, let me first look to the past 364 days and say thank YOU!   For your readership and your encouragement.   If I had the ability to handwrite a thank you note to each of you I would.   (My students can affirm I am not just saying that! {smile})    May you read these words and feel the gratitude they hold for YOU. 

As you cross the threshold into 2025, my wishes are that you enter and that in the vast unknown ahead you will dance with Peace when Uncertainty enters onto the dance floor.  That Joy will stand up and take your hand when Sadness or Worry is holding you in an embrace.  That Gentleness will show you how to two-step with ease when Harsh is trying to introduce dance moves you don’t want to learn.  That Faith and Trust will fight for your attention when Doubt and Fear are striving to convince you they are better dancers.   That Forgiveness will show how to start your dance from your soul when Anger or Insecurity wish you to only dance from your mind and your past experiences.   And that with all the dance partners, you will know that it is all a choreography from Love.    

Namaste’

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Laura

Once Laura typed J, my favorite nephew, she stopped. Usually, too lengthy investigative articles were her challenge. Now, no words flowed.

Instead, memories flooded Laura’s mind faster than she could gather to perform her usual puzzle picture process. That was one of the things Abby was always declaring she loved about Laura; how Laura reflected on a question and then waited for recollections to provide the answer(s).  Laura wrote the recollections in a journal Abby made for her, then she retreated into their sitting room, where she pondered, utilized different colored pencils to sketch connectors between the memories, and journaled until the remembrances shaped into a clarifying picture.

Abby, filled with such childlike eagerness, had handed Laura a beautifully wrapped package on their first wedding anniversary twelve years ago. Abby had found a fabric design of puzzle pieces randomly scattered. She had then glued the fabric onto the outer front and back covers of a journal in decoupage style. Though Abby did so on their first anniversary because paper was the traditional gift, Laura has been able to count on a decoupage journal every year since.

Laura reached for her journal, grabbed a pen, and like the pending email response, no words flowed. She couldn’t transfer the memory from her mind to paper from when she was nine years old, standing quietly holding a glass of milk and a plate of homemade cookies she had brought to her father while he was working on one of his journalism pieces.  He had stopped typing, turned, and looked up at her silhouette, with one of the broadest grins she had ever seen him display only to witness that same smile quickly vanish as he turned back to his typing with a perfunctory hey Laura, what do you need?

Nor could she write about the time she was a sophomore in high school, anxiously awaiting to share with her father the feedback she had received from the journalism teacher about an article she had written. Outstanding work Laura! You have real potential! The Chicago Tribune will be lucky to have you on their staff one day!

After dinner, Laura handed her father a copy of what she had written, including the words in blue ink by her teacher. He took it to his desk, pulled out a red pen, and began marking up the paper with strikeouts and notations. A few minutes later, when he handed his edits back to Laura, he said pretty good Laura.   I don’t think I’d go so far as to say Chicago Tribune ready, but there is potential.

Laura didn’t have any recollections of her father saying I’m proud of you.

Laura continued staring at the blank pages as she recalled a memory of her mother sitting at their breakfast nook staring out the bay window. Her right index finger and thumb were turning her wedding ring around and around on her left finger. A few moments later, Laura watched as her mom placed her hands in her lap, looked down, slowly placed her right hand over her left hand, and then after what seemed like minutes, laced her fingers together, raised her interlocked hands to her chest, and bowed her head.  Laura tiptoed back out of the kitchen before her mom raised her head back up.

It was this same memory Laura thought of when Abby placed the wedding ring on her finger, then took Laura’s left hand with her own left hand, already wearing the ring Laura had placed on Abby’s petite velvet soft finger.  Abby intertwined her fingers with Laura’s and counted to eight as they stood in front of their intimate gathering of guests. Unity. Solidarity. Infinity.

That is what Abby’s fingers felt like threaded with Laura’s.

Laura pushed aside the memory of her father’s right-handed fingers laced together with her mom’s left hand as her mom lay dying. She also refused to remember the tears running down her father’s cheeks.

A recollection of Joshua sitting next to her father in the study suddenly entered Laura’s mind. She could vividly see her sixteen-year-old nephew holding a framed picture and her father’s hand touching Joshua’s left shoulder. Every one of them – Joshua, her father, mother, Laura – they were all trying to figure out how to say goodbye to Stephanie as Leukemia raged bolder and mightier than Stephanie’s immunity could defeat.

Joshua and her father didn’t hear Laura come to the doorway, and sensing she was about to interrupt something sacred, she quietly stepped from the doorway but felt compelled not to walk away.   She could hear Joshua say I don’t know how to say goodbye grandpa. 

Her father’s reply was usually we don’t get the chance to do so.  Life usually chooses for us.

If feels like life is choosing this time, too, Grandpa, Joshua’s cracking voice tried to speak. If mom didn’t have Leukemia, I wouldn’t have to tell her it’s ok to go. 

Laura almost peeked back into the study when it seemed quiet for too long. Then she heard her father say My brother, your great Uncle Donnie, was killed in action during the Vietnam War. His death was my first loss. He was my best friend.

Your Aunt Laura reminds me a lot of your Uncle Donnie. She has his smile and his passion for justice. My brother was the natural born writer of the two of us. Donnie was determined he was going to be a journalist for the Chicago Tribune someday. I chose journalism, I guess as a way to keep his dream alive.  Your Aunt Laura, she has Donnie’s natural writing gifts.

Laura quickly closed the journal and turned to the computer.

J, my favorite nephew

I will help find this missing woman.

Let me talk with Abby – my wife, about when we can fly to the U.S. I will also talk with my boss about working remote. In the meantime, send me whatever info you can find in your grandpa’s belongings.

Love you,

Aunt L  

Hello!

May this find that Hopefulness is sitting beside you as we near the end of 2024 and stand at the threshold of new beginnings.

As part of an end of semester project, some of my students taught all of us the power of a soul circle. They guided all of us to draw a circle in the center of a piece of paper and place our name in that center. Then, in whatever sizes we wanted to make, we were instructed to draw circles surrounding that circle and on each of those write the names of people – human and fur – who are important to us.  Then, inside each of those circles, we wrote why each of these people were important to us. Among the values in this exercise includes pausing and reflecting with gratitude on all the support that surrounds us.

You often hear me express “see and see again. Hear and hear again. There is always more than we initially hear and see.”     

Like this picture for example. What do you initially see? The opening in the rock? The tree branches? The sunlight streaming through the trees? What do you hear whispering within when you look at this picture?

For me, in this moment, I see each of the branches as something I could write on about the importance of each person as part of my soul circle. I look and look again and see the branches as intentions I wish to set for the year ahead. I listen further and see a threshold to the brightness beckoning ahead.

Like a blueprint showing the way to a hope-full life.

Namaste,

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Kaylen

Kaylen was nine years old when she witnessed what it means to experience irreparable heart break.

It was at the annual Mills Family Revival, as her grandmother liked to call their weekend long family reunion. A time to recharge and renew. Individually and in their collective bond. Mental recalibration and spirit restoration. A time to remember that love conquers, withstands, endures, and is stronger than anything that comes on their paths trying to invoke doubt, fear, shame, or inferiority.

Even death. For her grandmother made sure that the weekend included a lighting ceremony to honor their ancestors. Those who had passed from this earth from natural causes and those who had died in chains. The ceremony would always conclude with everyone gathering in a circle around all the children from the ages of newborn up to thirteen while her grandmother spoke of how special each of them were in this world, how each of them had a destiny to do great things, and how they needed to make sure life did not end with them.

“See these lit candles? These are the lives that walked in darkness for each of you to shine. If you dim your light in any way, it diminishes these flames. You must continue the future generations so that the stories of those who lit the way don’t fade.    My dear children, you are the ones to ensure they did not endure shackles and whips in vain.”  

As Kaylen stood internalizing her grandma’s words deeper than last year, and the year before that, and each year she has stood in this circle aware enough to listen to her grandmother’s words, she heard the sudden piercing, anguished, wail “Nnnnnnnooooooooo!”  

Kaylen’s Aunt Nia, five months pregnant, was bent over, falling to the floor, while her Uncle Aaron, aunt Nia’s husband, was wrapping his arms around her trying to soften her fall, hold the weight of her pain, keep her from falling off the edge into the abyss she was about to fall into.    

As the wail deafened the frantic commotion surrounding Kaylen, she could faintly hear frenzied movements of feet and shouts “call an ambulance,” “get a blanket,” “here, honey, squeeze my hand. It’s going to be ok”.    All the frenzy Kaylen was hearing sounded so far away as she kept hearing her Aunt Nia’s sobbing unlike any crying Kaylen had ever heard and hoped she would never hear again.

Kaylen’s aunt had been trying for a few years to have a baby, become a mom, fulfill Kaylen’s grandma’s words to carry life forward. Kaylen only knew this from overhearing her mom and Aunt Marissa talking when aunt Nia and Uncle Aaron shared they were pregnant.

Her mom had exclaimed to Aunt Marissa the next day, “Glory be! They have tried for six years. All that fertility work no longer in vain.” 

Aunt Marissa responded, “All those calls! So happy she was late. And so sad when Aunt Flo would come.” 

“When she called after her second miscarriage, I thought her and Aaron were going to stop trying. She talked about friends who didn’t have children and were happy.    She talked about places her and Aaron wanted to travel to.”

“When she called me, she was worried about disappointing momma that she couldn’t keep life going forward.”   

Kaylen didn’t fully understand what her mom and aunt were talking about, but it sounded bad.    Really bad. Disappointing grandma.

Letting the candle flames go out.

Not keeping life going as grandma insisted.

Kaylen stood watching her aunt in a fetal position on the floor, listening as her wails turned to low deep moans then to an eerie silence just before the paramedics hurriedly reached her side. As the paramedics checked her aunt’s vitals, she heard Aunt Nia say in a monotone robotic voice that didn’t sound like hers at all.  “There is nothing to check. It’s gone.”

Aunt Nia looked like Kaylen’s rag doll as Uncle Aaron and one of the paramedics helped her to the stretcher. Her arms and legs just hung from aunt Nia’s body, moveable only at the hands of Uncle Aaron and the paramedic. As they wheeled Aunt Nia away, Kaylen saw blood on the floor where her aunt had been.

Kaylen looked up and around. Everyone was so sad. Kaylen wondered if she should start crying, too, like her mom, her aunt Marissa, her cousin Tasha. Kaylen saw her grandma walk over to the lit candies, put her hand to her chest, and then saw her grandma’s shoulders begin to move up and down. Her grandma was sobbing. She had never seen her grandma cry like that.

She’d only seen her grandma cry from laughing really hard or when Kaylen or one of her cousins would give their grandma something homemade one of them had crafted.   Their grandma would put her hand to her heart and exclaim “what do we have here? For me!”  She’d then hold whatever it was in her hands staring at it for what felt like minutes, a tear would start rolling down her cheek, then she’d scoop them into a big hug, expressing how much she loved it and them.   

Kaylen watched as a candle flame went out near where her grandma stood. Last year when the candle flames started extinguishing, Kaylen asked “shouldn’t we light them again Grandma? “.   Her grandma knelt and put her arm around Kaylen. “It’s ok my precious child.    Each of them decides when it is time to rest. If we relight them, we are not letting them rest in peace.”  

Kaylen’s grandma looked at the extinguished candle flame, walked over to the matchstick on the table, then returned and relit the candle.

Kaylen didn’t know how to name the sudden pit in her stomach.  

Many years later, Kaylen understood that pit meant that once a wail like that takes place, peace is allusive for the rest of life.

And family ceremonial circles never take place again.