published in Change, Grief, Health, Saying NO! by Maryanne | April 12, 2012 | 4 Comments
The Chick in the Road
In the fall of 2010, I gave a presentation entitled, Behind the Scenes; A Grief Deconstructed, at a police-based victim services conference in British Columbia. In this particular presentation, I go into detail about the psychological, emotional and spiritual components of my experience grieving the death of my husband, John, a police officer.
After my presentation in BC, an RCMP officer came up and shared his story with me. His teenage daughter had been struck and killed by a car as she was crossing the street at a pedestrian cross-walk. He was devastated. But he went on to explain how a police Chaplain had helped him in the days and weeks following his daughter’s death.
“I felt like a helpless little chick in the middle of Oak Street,” the officer told me. “I was terrified and didn’t know what to do. Then the Chaplain came along and through his kindness, it was almost as if he…gently picked me up and took me to safety at the side of the road.”
And it struck me: this is what people who work with victims do…they support strangers during the most horrific moments of their lives. And even though they can’t even begin to make anything okay again, they can be there for people during their greatest time of need. And this presence can be a tremendous gift.
During my time of greatest need, I didn’t meet any victim services volunteers. Instead, I had an amazing support network of family, friends, police officers and chaplains surrounding me. Heck, I wasn’t just moved off the road; I was picked up and put in a safe little nest with dozens of protective mother hens guarding it!
I was very blessed.
For the purpose of this blog, however, two of my “chick safe-keepers” in particular stand out.
The first was my brother, George. After spending seventeen hours with John in the ICU, the time came for me to say goodbye when an operating room became available for his organ removal surgery. The medical staff wheeled John’s hospital bed from the ICU into the operating room – and I’d followed him through the halls and right into the OR.
After saying my final goodbye, I left the OR and went back into the hallway, where dozens of people were waiting. I started to thank everyone for staying when George shook his head, took my arm and quietly said, “That’s enough for today, Maryanne.”
He was right.
But when we are in times of crisis, we often don’t KNOW when enough is enough. We’ve lost all perspective because suddenly there is no normal. And it is up to the people around us – be that family, friends, colleagues, professionals or strangers – to have the courage and compassion to remove us from a situation we no longer need to be in.
In the weeks that followed, my brother Doug became the chief safe-keeper of the chick. He was the mother hen of all the other mother hens. Doug fed me, watered me, put me to bed, dragged me out of bed, listened to me, answered my questions, fielded the dozens of phone calls, kept me on track meeting all the lousy new obligations my days held…funeral arrangements, choosing a headstone, meeting with lawyers and so on.
Fast forward a decade to my Behind the Scenes presentation at the victim services conference in BC. I knew then that the time would come when I would no longer be giving these presentations. By continually dredging up a painful past for the sole benefit of others, I was inadvertently keeping myself in baby-chick-mode: safe but stuck.
For although it may seem safer to stay in a situation we have outgrown – and is no longer healthy – versus finding the courage to change, the reality is that we are actually at risk of a fate worse than death, in my opinion: perceiving ourselves as a victim.
But the RCMP officer’s ‘chick in the road’ analogy gave me an idea. The next time I gave my Behind the Scenes presentation, I would incorporate his story to demonstrate the incredibly important role that people working in victim services play. I would also have my presentation professionally filmed and put on a DVD for educational use by victim services units.
My intended audience could still hear my presentation – it just wouldn’t be live.
Then I took it a step further and decided to create a Behind the Scenes “info kit” that will have the DVD, a copy of my book, A Widow’s Awakening, and one other item to complete the chick theme.
Back when John and I were in our early twenties and he was writing the different exams required to become a police officer, I gave him a “warm fuzzy” – a fluffy little yellow chick with cardboard feet and googly eyes. And with the chick was this little note I’d written for him:
This warm fuzzy will give you luck in your exam. Whenever you get nervous or worried, just remember he is in your pocket to remind you of our love.
Unbeknownst to me, John had kept that little fuzzy with him all those years. He had it in his duty bag the night he died. It was in the police car. So after his death, the police returned John’s duty bag to me and when I found the strength to go through it, there in the side pocket was the little chick and folded-up note I’d given him a decade earlier.
So the other item that will go in the Behind the Scenes info kit is a yellow chick/warm fuzzy and note of encouragement to victim services workers that the greatest gift they can give people is not their advice; it’s their presence – love at it finest.
As for the rest of us, thankfully muddling through life mostly in times of non-crisis, I think back to what George said to me that night in the hospital hallway. When the time for change has come in our own lives or those around us, perhaps the greatest gift we can offer is advice…as in: “That’s enough.”
I’m giving my Behind the Scenes presentation at another police-based victim services conference this spring. It will likely be my last. But you can bet your warm fuzzy it is being professionally filmed for the info kits 
Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening and the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions Inc. She is the Board Chair of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund and lives onVancouver Island, British Columbia.
published in Health, Saying NO!, Workplace Safety by Maryanne | February 17, 2012 | 7 Comments
When Our Body Says No
We’d Be Wise to Listen
I’ve heard it said our soul speaks to us in soft whispers. And my mind certainly has no problem communicating to me through that nagging little voice that says, “You probably shouldn’t do that…”
Now I’m learning to listen to what my body is trying to tell me.
Last October, I went back to Calgary for Thanksgiving – and to give a workplace safety presentation at a company.
The presentation itself went fine. I’ve done an awful lot of them now.
But I do remember thinking, “Hmmm…I wonder how healthy this is for me, telling people over and over again about the circumstances that led to John’s (my husband) death?”
The next day I had my answer, delivered to me through my body. I was sick as a dog with the flu.
The presentation itself didn’t make me sick. The actual flu bug came courtesy of the female passenger hacking up a lung next to me on the plane to Calgary. But I bet it was my body’s weakened immune system that let the bug go to town, once the stress of the presentation was over.
I did a lot of thinking that lousy Thanksgiving weekend, spent entirely on my mom’s couch. And what did I suspect my body was telling me?
ENOUGH! STOP GIVING PRESENTATIONS ABOUT JOHN’S DEATH – IT IS MAKING YOU SICK!
The soft whispers and nagging little voice hadn’t done the trick. But sickness sure did.
And so, I promised myself that weekend to ease up on giving presentations. I would commit to giving one or two a year. In fact, I’m presenting at a Victim Services Conference in April. But that presentation is a personal one about the emotional and psychological effects of grief, so it is best delivered by me.
The workplace safety presentation, on the other hand, does not have to be delivered by me.
But the presentations themselves do still need to be delivered…because they work. People in the audience are impacted by the story of Johns’ death – and get the message loud and clear: make your workplace safe for everyone, including emergency responders who may have to attend.
Other members of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund (JPMF) also give these workplace safety presentations – but they can only give so many, due to their work schedules.
So…we did some brainstorming and came up with the idea of hiring a professional speaker to deliver the safety presentations. Then we pitched the idea, of setting up a professional speaker program, to a potential funding source and voila! Within a week, we got our first round of funding to hire our main speaker.
And we found a perfect gal for the job…someone whose passion is, strangely enough, public speaking! She is chomping at the bit to do her first presentation on March 7th. She’s even married to a police officer.
So what I’ve learned is this: it’s almost as if the universe was just waiting for me to a) say the word (NO!) and then b) take the next step of asking for help.
For it was only when I got out of the way and stopped doing something I didn’t enjoy doing, wasn’t particularly good at, and took a tremendous amount of time and energy away from the things I do enjoy doing (and am better at, such as writing) that the right person – and the funds – could fall into place.
And here’s the best part: the professional speaker program means the JPMF will now be able to deliver hundreds of powerful workplace safety presentations in communities throughout Alberta – versus the handful we were doing before.
Woohoo!
Is there anything you are doing in your life that is no longer healthy for you? If so, what would happen if you stopped doing it…and let someone else give it a try?
We can’t do it all. We’re not supposed to.
And as I’ve learned, sometimes it is only when we finally admit we are not necessarily the best person for the task or job that the right person gets a chance to step up and get it done – with passion, purpose…and a profound appreciation for the opportunity
Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening and the Board Chair of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. The Fund is currently seeking corporate & industry sponsors for the professional speaker program. Please contact Ian Wilson at ian@jpmf.ca - and help us get the number of preventable workplace injuries and fatalities down.
published in Confrontation, Mothering Matters, Saying NO! by Maryanne | July 15, 2011 | 8 Comments
Throw (my) Momma from the Train Ship
(Blog revised May 15th, 2012)
Anchors Away…Letting Go of Anger
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
— Buddha
Mothers can say the meanest things.
About a year ago, my mom and I were chatting on the phone. We made it through the first five minutes of me telling her about my life and then fifty-five minutes of her telling me, in graphic detail, about hers — and everyone else’s she happened to cross paths with over the previous days.
Then we got on to current events, which I admit keeping up with is not always on the top of my priority list. She asked me a question about a recent event mentioned in the news.
I wracked my brain, trying to recall if I’d heard anything it. I drew a blank.
“No,” I said.
“Oh for God’s Sakes,” she snapped. “You’re an embarrassment to the family!”
Ouch.
Now, I know my mother didn’t literally mean this. Rather, she was just telling me, in her own odd way, that I should keep more up-to-date on world affairs.
As such, I could justify her comment by explaining that, despite the nasty remark, my mom is actually a loving, caring person who is very proud of me. But that’s not what this article is about.
This article is about the timing of receiving that nasty comment — and what happened next.
Although there’s never really a good time to receive a verbal jab like that, my mother’s timing was particularly potent. For I’d just spent the previous three days diligently preparing to give the keynote presentation at a workplace safety conference — about the circumstances that had led to my husband’s death, which was the result of a preventable fall at an unsafe workplace.
So being told I was an embarrassment to the family was the last thing I needed to hear at that point in time. Public speaking on any topic requires significant confidence and self-esteem. Speaking about a personal tragedy also requires courage and support.
And there was my mother, telling me I was an embarrassment to the family because I hadn’t listened to the news that week.
I was so astounded — and hurt — that I had no comeback. Instead, I quickly ended the call and then burst into tears in my kitchen. It was as if I was suddenly able to see, with painful clarity, how my mom still perceived me: as a little girl who could be controlled through cruel comments. For truth be told, that had been the status quo for much of my life up till then.
Call it an Irish temper, call it a nasty comment, call it a manipulative mother, call it what you will…verbal abuse is emotional abuse and it’s not acceptable.
So, there in my kitchen, I finally found the courage to say, “Thus far and no farther.”
But I didn’t say it to my mom — not on the phone that day nor in the weeks to follow. I said it to myself…and I meant it. I accepted that I cannot change who my mom is, what she thinks, what she says, or how she treats people.
All I can change is what I’ll put up with and how I will allow myself to be treated.
Still, I continued to cry on and off for the rest of that evening and then started again on Sunday morning. Then in an ironic twist to this story, I picked up the newspaper (better get up-to-date on current events!) and came across an article about an old anchor being found off the coast of South Carolina. Historians thought it was an anchor from the pirate, Blackbeard’s, ship.
Alongside the article, there was a photo of the anchor, moments after it was pulled from the water. You could see all sorts of sea creatures clinging to it. However, not surprisingly, it wasn’t the sea’s most beautiful specimens adhering to an anchor at the bottom of the ocean. Rather, it was the significantly less desirable-looking — but still important — creatures stuck to said anchor, apparently attracted to the decomposing iron.
Upon thinking further about this photo and article during a walk in the woods later that Sunday morning, the writer in me couldn’t help but see a parallel between the ugly anchor and my anger at my mother’s rude comment. It wasn’t just her remark that had hurt; it was the blatant disrespect to me as a person.
So right there in the woods, I metaphorically hauled a rusty old anchor of my own out of my psyche — and held it up to the light to have a look. It was really ugly and had all sorts of nasty-looking things dangling from it!
The image in my mind was so clear, I could practically see all my mother’s disrespectful jabs, mean comments, rude remarks, and unrealistic demands over the years, clinging to an anchor that had been weighing me down far too long.
A flood of memories came rushing to the surface: her ridiculous behaviour during the planning of my wedding, her wreaking havoc on my marriage and then, when I became a young widow, her manipulation of my time…until I finally found the courage to leave the familiar waters of my hometown and seek new shores.
But I had obviously dragged the anchor along with me to my new life. And boy, did it feel good to haul that horrid and heavy old thing out!
Sorry to the sea creatures getting a bad rap in this story but as a metaphor, they are perfect to explain our old hurts. For if we don’t deal with the uglier things — hurtful comments, toxic relationships, tragic events, etc. — that have caused us pain in the past, then we can’t get them out of our heart, mind, and soul.
Rather, the negative bits just stay there, stuck to a decomposing anchor that’s attracting even more hurts.
So once I’d yanked the anchor out of me, what became of all those wee creatures clinging to it? Out of the water, surely they’d die. And well they should. That’s the point of pulling them out! The deep-rooted anger, resentment, and old hurts I’d been harbouring were gone; what remained was forgiveness.
For she is my mom and I love her very much. I just don’t have to always like her. And I certainly don’t have to tolerate rude comments.
So then the question became: what to do with the anchor?
Well, as luck would have it, I happened to be going on a cruise with my family the following week — and my mother and I shared a room with a balcony. In other words, I had the perfect opportunity to return that old anchor from whence it came
But it wasn’t my mom I wanted to throw overboard. Rather, it was all the old anger that got the metaphorical toss.
More than a year has passed now, since my mom made that mean comment. And I am pleased to report there has been none since. Granted, she’s getting older and I’m getting wiser. But I also suspect that me letting go of old anger has lightened both of us up.
So here’s to anchors away…lighten the load and let the healing begin.
Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening and the upcoming book, Barrier Removed; A Tough Love Guide to Achieving Your Dreams. Maryanne is the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions Inc. Interested in reading more mothering-related blogs? Please click here to find out about the Mothering Matters blog series.