family

A Year of Challenge

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 3 Comments

Back in January, I wrote about the 52-week gratitude challenge my mom, sister and I had embarked on three months earlier. Last week, we arrived at our final topic: Lessons Learned/Did this challenge change you? Though we should’ve finished back in October, we had to hit pause on a few occasions, namely:

  • My sister’s hospitalization, cancer diagnosis, and beginning of treatment (March-April)
  • Dad’s sudden death (September)
  • My sister’s stem cell transplant and recovery process (October-November)

Quite a year. I think there might’ve been a plague, as well. And a bunch of other gruesome shit.

🤬

As it turns out, choosing that particular challenge was eerily timely. Given all the trauma and tragedy of the past year, it was a true blessing to have a designated time each week to focus exclusively on gratitude.

Here are the final emails we sent each other:

My Response:

To be perfectly honest, when I look at this week’s subject, part of me is like: Barf! Screw you, Gratitude Challenge, my lesson learned is that everything sucks! 

😭
👿

Ahem.

Okay, so really what I learned over the course of this challenge is that it is always an option to be grateful, rather than focusing on struggles and suffering. Concentrating on points of gratitude is best for my mental health, physical health, and general state of well being.  

The past year has certainly provided its share of challenges, and having this weekly exercise has provided a consistent reminder to shine the light on gratitude. Choosing to prioritize gratitude is the wisest choice. It feels better and is more beneficial, so why not do it?

I am grateful to both of you for hanging on over the last year+ to complete the challenge. It hurts my heart to think back on the breaks we’ve had to take over the past year, but I am grateful we’ve come through it together, and I am grateful for the honor of having you both in my life.

Love, Kelly

Mom’s Reply:

So beautifully stated, Kel…. particularly the disclaimer at the beginning!  

😄

But I think that that is what we’ve all learned in a nutshell: Even though everything sucks, there’s always something to be grateful for, and looking for those things helps to keep us calm(er), happier and sane. It’s quite remarkable that we chose to do a gratitude challenge during what turned out to be the worst year of our lives; and it certainly turned out to be a timely and beneficial choice.

Katy’s little sign in her kitchen says it so well: “Every day is not good, but there’s something good in every day.”  Another expression I love is: “Keep your head where your feet are”. Focus on where  you are, not where you’ve been or where you might go. My tendency has always been to spend a lot of time ruminating ….regretting things that did or didn’t happen in the past; worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future. But this challenge has helped me to stay focused on today and what is good about today. And there’s always so much to be grateful for.

I’m grateful for having made this journey with you, and for all I learned about you. Something I didn’t learn because I already knew: There’s nothing in this world I’m more grateful for than both of you.

Love,
Mom

My Sister’s Conclusion:

I’ve taken so long to respond because I don’t really have much to add to all the beautiful things you both wrote! 

☺

It really has helped me get through this godforsaken year having these weekly emails to look forward to and to keep my focus on what is good and positive in our worlds. I learned that gratitude really is a mindset that can be cultivated.

I’m grateful to the children’s book club meeting I went to where I learned about this challenge, and I’m grateful that you both were willing to take on the challenge with me!

I’m grateful that we didn’t let misfortune and long breaks derail us and that we persevered together.

Now, what’s next?

Love you both so much!

💕

And…scene. Challenge completed. As my sister said, it’s time to pick the next one. I’ve done a little online digging and haven’t been inspired thus far, having found mostly kill-joy self-improvement projects focused on crap like budgeting strategies and home organization. Snore. I did see one about sending a personal piece of mail each week and may try that. I mean, who doesn’t love getting mail?

I know we’re all anxiously awaiting the end of 2020 while faced with the reality that nothing will be different as of 1/1/2021. That being said, I encourage everyone to try the gratitude challenge. I truly believe it saved Mom, my sister and me over the past year. Despite everything that happened, we were still inspired to send each other Bitmojis like this:

And who knows, maybe when you reach the final topic 52 weeks from now, life will be a little more normal. Maybe we’ll even get to see the bottom half of people’s faces again! Can you imagine?

Just Like That

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 1 Comment

During a recent conversation with a 10-year-old, he let me know he’d spent the weekend at his cousin’s. When I asked if the two got along, the boy replied, “Well, no. He’s a butthole.”

That turn of phrase is the perfect descriptor for my current feelings about mortality. Mortality, you are a total butthole. In January, you took my Gaga. In May, you took my Libby. And in November, you (literally) messed with my mother’s head.

Two days before Thanksgiving, while mortality busily maneuvered a blood clot towards my mom’s brain, I asked my husband to take this photo:

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We were vacationing on the Georgia coast, and I knew Mom would love the image, as she always says I’m not really on vacation until she sees a picture of me in a tree. Before I had the chance to show it to her, however, I got a call from my sister.

“Hello, Sister!” I answered cheerily. “How are you?”

“Um, I’m okay,” she said, but her tone was strained. I held my breath in anticipation of what would come next. “I need to tell you that Mom had a stroke.”

While awaiting post-surgery news with phone in hand, tears streaming down my face, I scrolled through saved texts, emails, voicemails, and photos from Mom. Just like that, the emotions associated with her contacts had shifted entirely. The same images that would have brought a smile to my face before my sister’s call now filled me with bitterness and heartache.

Twenty minutes later, I received word from Dad that Mom was out of surgery, wiggling her toes, talking, and laughing. The next day, I sent her this photo of my husband, taken that morning:

She sent back a series of happy faces and hearts.

Due to an amazing set of circumstances that some would call blessings and others would call luck, only two hours passed between my sister’s 911 call and the blood clot’s evacuation. Four days later, sitting with both of my parents in their car on our way to their home in Florida, I snapped this photo to share with Mom’s many admirers:

All crises leave lessons in their wake. From this one, I’ve been reminded that Mortality the Butthole does not mess around. It tears loved ones away without warning or apology. Even if no words are left unsaid, hugs withheld, or moments unsavored, the loss will hurt like hell. I suppose all we can do is recognize and cherish the precious, finite time we have with each other and let that be enough. Attachment inevitably leads to suffering, and I choose to attach. Grief is just part of the deal.

And my final, lingering lesson from the recent crisis is this: referring to mortality as a butthole kind of helps. I recommend it.

Dad Talks

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 3 Comments

Butterfly1.JPG

My parents celebrate their 50th anniversary today. When they got married in the summer of ’68, Dad was 25, and Mom was 3 days shy of her 20th birthday, which means this year brings other milestones as well: Dad’s 75th and Mom’s 70th. To honor their awesomeness, I’m going to write something about each of them. Dad was born first, so he gets Post of Honor #1.

Because I’ve been in the counseling field for almost 20 years, I tend to avoid things like talk radio, podcasts, and Ted Talks. The last thing I want to do outside of work is spend more time listening to people talking. But Dad’s talks are different. Like precious gems, they are both rare and valuable. The ones that stick out most in my memory are those that came during times of transition, usually right before a big move.

Dad Talk #1: On the night before I headed to college, Dad told me we needed to talk. He took me aside and said this: “At the place you’re going, there will be a lot of kids who are smarter than you and a lot who have more money than you. And I don’t want you to forget who you are.” His warning stuck with me, and each time my identity got derailed throughout the college years, his words helped me find the way back to myself.

Dad Talk #2: Six years later, when I made the decision to move from the East Coast to California, Dad sat me down for another talk. “All right, there’s something important I need you to know,” he began. Tears sprang to my eyes as I prepared for a heart-wrenching farewell speech, but what came next was this: “If you’re attacked by a mountain lion, you need to fight. You can’t play dead. It’s the same with black bears. Playing dead only works with grizzlies. Black bears and mountain lions will kill you, so you’ve got to fight.” I said, “Okay, Dad,” but what I thought was, If it comes down to hand-to-paw combat between me and a mountain lion, I will not win. I will be cat food. He did get a little more emotional after that. Once I’d agreed to fight off mountain lion attacks, he added, “I hope you don’t like it out there. But I know you’re going to love it.”

Dad Talk #3: Fast-forward fourteen years. When Dad caught wind of the fact that I was planning to move from Oregon to San Diego, I received a voicemail: “It’s your father. Call me.” Since his usual message was: “Kelly, call your mother,” I figured it was serious and called back right away. “Your sister tells me you’re thinking of moving back to California,” he said. Before I had a chance to respond, he continued, “Your nephew is moving to North Carolina, and he’ll need his aunt and uncle. It’s time for you to move back east. Your mother misses you.” The way I figure, if someone I love and respect gives me one stern directive every couple decades or so, I should probably follow it, so my husband and I packed up and moved across the country. That was five years ago. Now we have two little nephews, and it’s awesome to be a part of their lives.

Of course, Dad has taught me way more than what I gleaned from those three talks. He taught me to fish, shoot, play sports, face fears, be true to my word, appreciate the outdoors, keep an open mind, hold myself to a high standard, treat people with respect, and be an honest and genuine friend. He also taught me that vanity is stupid, which is an invaluable lesson. He once dreamt that he had a bald spot on the back of his head. Upon waking, he decided it was true, then retained the belief for an indeterminate period of time (weeks? months?) until he happened to mention his bald spot to Mom, who informed him that it didn’t exist. I just love the fact that he never checked.

DSC_0021.jpgSpeaking of hair, that hairy beast is ’90s me, fishing off the seawall with Dad

Many years ago, back in my mountain-lion-battling California days, I gave a training to a group of child advocates. At the end of the session, one of the trainees stayed behind to ask me some follow-up questions. He let me know he was a single dad raising two teenagers, and we chatted for a while about kids, families, and child rearing practices. Before he left, he asked if I was raised by both of my parents, and I told him I was. “Were you close to your dad?” he asked. I said I was and still am. “It shows,” he said with a smile. That was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.

Love you, Dad. Happy anniversary. ❤️