Hot off the presses! Guess who has a story on page 353? Yours truly! It will be available in bookstores on June 4 – the day before National Running Day. How cool is that?!
And just so you know, the stories are for walkers, too
“How am I going to get through this?” my friend asked, as quiet tears slid down her weary-eyed face. There was no easy answer for her question, so I just reached across the table and held her hand.
The odd thing was that she was the fourth person lately who asked that same question. My guess is that each of us has asked it before, probably more than once. Between the grief of a husband’s sudden death, the loss of a miscarriage, a terrifying health diagnosis, and unexpected marital separations, it seems I know a lot of people who are struggling. I have been thinking about how I survived when Neil died. Here’s some thoughts.
Although we lived on a lake in my early childhood and I knew how to ice skate, I never learned then how to swim. I loved the water; I just didn’t feel any overwhelming desire to be under it.
Then came third grade swimming lessons at the community pool. I tried to love the lessons, really, I did, but there was nothing fun about being cold and wet. My tense paper-weight-like body refused to float and instead I reliably sank. While the other beginner students jumped in and out with joyful abandon, I gently lowered myself inch by chilly inch into the water. Instead of graceful arms and fluttering feet my strokes looked like a flapping chicken hit the water. So, when the day came for everyone to jump off the diving board, I was not enthusiastic.
My mom wisely stayed home that day, and my dad came instead. I had no intention of going off the board, but he gradually talked me into it. After watching everyone else have their turn, and noting no near-death experiences, I decided I could at least try. Here is a key detail though: I still couldn’t really swim. Everyone thought that as soon as I jumped into the deep end, weeks of lessons would suddenly click, and I would paddle proudly over to the edge and climb out. That most definitely did not happen.
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