The importance of being where you are. The moment.

Being a social work student has taught me plenty.  What interventions to use with specific clients. How to evaluate them. How to research. How to be unconditionally present.  How to meet clients where they are, instead of where I (as a clinician) may want them to be.

But this semester? In a class around the topic of grief and loss? I learned how to sit with my own feelings.  To be ok (or begin to be ok) with them.

Because it is not just being able to be ok sitting with clients and their feelings, it's important to be able to as an individual, be able to sit with our own.

It is so often that I think that because I have been trained in specific skills that I should have all the answers.  That I should be able to handle every situation thrown in my direction with perfection and the "right" ways.  It's a lie.

Learning to be ok with where I am as an individual, social worker or not, has been a great new way to be able to look at my life, and look at the decisions that I am very quickly going to be needing to make.

It's ok to be sad.  It's ok to grieve the end of something that I thought I was ready for.  It's ok to be happy, to continue living.  To continue growing.  To continue to make choices and decisions because without them, you are stagnant. Unchanging. Because without making a decision, you are, in fact, choosing.

And what fun is a world in which you are unable to change?

It is the lesson I am most thankful for.  Learning to be OK with where I am.  To accept it.  And to keep plugging along, whether the days are smooth like a lake in the morning, or challenging and scary... a day in which your footing just isn't always sure.

It's life.  And if I can't accept and be OK with where I am, how can I expect others to be just as OK with where I am?  Being where you are. In the present. In the moment.  Living.

An Evening of Will Power

Sorry all, this post has been a long time coming.

On April 24, JM and I were able to attend the First Annual Evening of Will Power, hosted by the Brave Will Foundation. This foundation was started last year after a couple, Matt and Tammy, lost their 6 month old son, to cancer. AT/RT to be exact, which is an absolutely devastating form of cancer. One that has few treatment options, and one that has very little research. One that comes with a crushing feeling. I can't begin to tell their story, but I will say that their family has touched both mine and JM's life forever.

At the time of Will's diagnosis, JM was working on the pediatric floor of Albany Med at nights. He was one of the many people who fell in love with, and became attached to this baby, and his family, over night. They are a family that exudes love, humility, grace and strength, even through the worst of their cancer treatments. Through the worst of their fears and the worst of their struggles. When they were told that their son wasn't going to make it through the weekend. When he responded to treatment, and they were given hope. And when they were told that the cancer had spread and it was time to focus on the time they had left. They were courageous. They were pillars of strength. They are to be admired.

Will eventually responded enough to treatment to get discharged from the inpatient floor, and come into the clinic where my office is to receive outpatient chemo, which is where I fell in love with his family immediately. I had heard stories from JM about them, and he was right. They too, are adults with young children whom he and I look up to, just as So-Ro's family is.

These are some pictures from the event, which is raising money to help fund the palliative care program and to help fund the social workers who work with families, not just patients, while they are facing such times of uncertainty.

Their logo.

Their Mission Statement, which is truly impressive and inspiring. This is a foundation who has come from the depths of despair to try to help other families who are facing uncertain times just as they have.

The picture that is also the cover of their book, which is a compilation of all of the journal entries that Matt wrote while Will was going through treatment. (Suggestion: Please be sure to have a box of tissues readily available).

This is a "picture of a picture" that was taken of Matt and Tammy's two other sons, after Will's passing. They too, are absolutely phenomenal boys, who make you smile, and truly present themselves the way that every parent hopes and wishes that their child will turn out. (It also doesn't hurt that they are fabulously photogenic, and completely and fantastically cute).

The wall of pictures that were hung up during the gala, from times of hospital stays, last days, and the time after Will's passing.

So, to those people who are looking for a way to help, buy a copy of Matt's book here and also learn more about their foundation.

To Matt and Tammy, and the rest of the people who are making this foundation into something that is truly going to affect people's lives, you are amazing. You are parents who love to such an extent that it brings tears to peoples' eyes and truly changes their lives. You are parents who have such strength that even through the turns in the road that would break most people, you have risen. You have given each and every person who meets you, or hears of Will's story something to keep in mind during the toughest of days. You have changed people's lives for the better, making us better people, better friends, better families, and better couples.

Thank you.

Getting back in the Church Groove

Don't mind me, I have a lot to say today :)

Yesterday, JS took me to her church, called Terra Nova, in Troy. It was awesome. I loved it.

I should digress for a quick moment. My parents (Dad raised Catholic, Mom was raised First Congregational) raised my 3 sibs and I, Lutheran. Seeing as we have moved quite frequently until they plopped us all in Webster, we have gone to a multitude of churches. (This too allows me to think that I have location committment anxiety. Coming soon, to the DSM V. Just kidding.)

As in, was baptized in a church in Greece (no worries, still in Rochester), received 1st Communion in New Jersey, and was Confirmed twice (because I needed to get to know the members of our other new church in Webster, versus the one I had been Confirmed at 5 months previous in Penfield. Either way, 2nd Confirmation was cool, I just kind of disliked having to be in Confirmation classes for 3 years. But, I digress).

Anyways.

When I was in 9th grade, my 2nd Confirmation church (Immanuel Lutheran in Webster) went on this fabulous youth group retreat. I loved it. It was a huge group of people in Niagara Falls, singing and dancing and having a great time, and learning about God. It was refreshing. And it was totally non-traditional. And I loved it, because not only was I not getting preached AT, I felt like I was being spoken to. It was educational. And it was awesome.

This Terra Nova church feels the same to me.

It's refreshing.

It's a (very) young crowd.

It's people in their 20s who want to learn about God in order to strengthen their faith. And strengthening faith, whether you believe in God, or just in some other "thing" out in the universe, is something that everyone needs. Sometimes, you need to know that there's something out there that is just bigger than you. There's a plan, and it's not one that you know.

There was a ton of singing, and not the kind of singing that only the elder generations of the church know and understand. The sermon was based on "The Kingdom" because the congregation is doing a prayer study of the Lord's Prayer. And people just kept saying that knowing God was an on-going relationship. It's not something that you are ever going to get perfect. It's not something that you are ever going to fully understand. But it is something that is always there.

And that, to me, really woke me up.
(Digression: I haven't been to Church unless it's been for Easter or Christmas or a funeral in ages. I think college does that to people. Granted, it may also be the drinking and partying and working that I was doing at SUNY. But still, the comments woke me up.)

So, a BIG thank you JS for taking me to church with you. It was absolutely what I think I have been looking for. And while I may be re-discovering this faith and relationship with God, I certainly am going to try. Because everyone needs a little bit of Faith, and a plan that is bigger than you.

At least, I know I do.