Sharing Beauty...

There was our puppy Obi at the kitchen door, eagerly asking to come inside with a leafy treasure dangling from his mouth~ a lavender plant from our garden. The row of lavender beside the house was missing one plant, leaving a significant hole. 

It was a chaotic time. Obi was a new arrival and our old pup Lily was on her way to the other side. 

We told Obi, “No, don’t eat the lavender.” That was it.

A month later, I watched Dan, the gardener, inspect the ground were the plant had been extracted. 

To my eye, there was nothing there.

“I think it will grow back,” Dan said. “I’ve learned to trust roots.” 

I paused. 

Roots. What am I rooted to? Deep down. When cut down? 

I have learned some of my roots were not deep enough. I thought I could rely on them and I got knocked over. I had to keep searching. What root is in me that holds me through the hardest of times, the biggest winds?

Years ago, I began to learn about Grace on walks with Lily. No matter what was going on in my head, there was always a moment when I would stop and say, “Wow!” 

Even on the hardest days, something beautiful would break through.

I began to call these moments of beauty, Grace Moments. 

“Look at that yellow flower growing through that wooden fence in the morning sunlight.” 

The first flowers of spring breaking through a fence in morning light gave me hope. Hope to keep walking. To look for something else beautiful. 

Over time, I understood that I was praying when walking. It was a dance. I’d ask for help and help would arrive. A hummingbird over my head singing. A flower growing through a crack in a sidewalk.

The call (my prayer for help, for Grace) and the response (something incredibly lovely, like sunlight on water) would happen and surprise me, delight me. Again and again. 

This is how I learned to trust that my deepest root comes from the Creator, breath of life, the God spark. And, thank God, we’re still connected. 

Call. Response. 

Call. Response. 

The hardest part for me is sharing the depth of this relationship, this Love, telling you about it. In part because it feels sparkly, private, sacred and personal. Specific gifts of love sent to me in my deepest moments of despair and hopelessness. Specific gifts of love sent to me in my most profound moments of gratitude and joy. 

I am seen and loved in this relationship. I am cherished.

I also am reluctant to tell you about it because I worry you will think I’m crazy. And that accusation, definition, diagnosis…almost killed me. 

Years ago, the head of the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF picked up his phone and said he was going to have me admitted.

I sat in a chair, hands shaking, high heart rate, weighing less than 100 pounds, wracked with anxiety, crying. “I wasn’t suicidal until I started taking the medication. I was bad. But not like this. I keep seeing myself crashing into a wall, driving off the bridge. I didn’t trust myself to drive over the bridge today to come here. Dan drove me. He’s in the waiting room. I’m so much worse. I have to go off the meds.”

“I have been doing this for over forty years. Stay on the meds. Give them time. Trust me.”

Medications may work for some people. But I wasn’t one of them.

Eventually, I convinced the doctor that my husband and my children were saving me. My love for them. And being away from them would kill me. He set down his phone.

His tone was dismissive when he told me that without meds, it would take me years to get better. 

I thought that was the better option. I would be alive. I would journey over the mountain on foot. Step by step, day by day, with Lily. 

I reached out to my aunt who had struggled profoundly with anxiety and mental health issues and asked her how she made it. 

“On my knees,” she said.

Her bible was always in her purse, by her side. And it was worn, swollen from water exposure. She said she read every night in the tub. 

“It falls in sometimes,” she laughed. 

My aunt told me one time she was suffering profoundly and she pulled into a gas station and went into the bathroom to pray. She described it as the dirtiest bathroom you’ve ever seen. 

“Right there, I got down on my knees and prayed for help.” She smiled, “And help came. I don’t remember what it was that gave me a little break, maybe it was the prayer itself, but whatever it was, it was enough to get me through that moment.” 

My aunt’s sharing her struggles and her prayers helped me. 

I hope my sharing helps you. 

I know that in the end, I’m going to be asked ~ Did I share the gifts that were given to me? The most important gift was found in the years of walking over the mountain… and learning to root down deep enough to find the Eternal Love that is always there, that will always give us nourishment, belonging, help, Grace Moments.

The other day Dan smiled and pointed at the row of lavender plants beside our house.

Where there was a significant hole, fresh green lavender leaves grew.

“I’ve learned to trust roots,” he said.

Wishing you Grace Moments,

Kathleen

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