FORGIVE ME –
IF YOU KNOW
WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU

Journal of Healing – May 2, 2002

By Mary Koch

Forgiveness is an everyday commodity around our house. A marriage – much less a care-giving relationship – could not endure without an endless river of forgiveness running through it.

We never would have survived these eight years since John's stroke if he couldn't forgive my occasional short temper, impatience and inadequacies. Nor would we have made it if I couldn't forgive his occasional short temper, impatience and inadequacies.

(John, who always reviews these columns before they're published, spelled, "That's right.")

So I perked up my ears when I heard a religious leader talking about forgiveness on the morning news. He was being interviewed about a sexual abuse case dating back to the mid-1980s. The admitted abuser is still an active clergyman.

No, the church leader was not a Catholic bishop. He's the national leader of a Protestant denomination — doesn't matter which one. The point of the news report was that Protestants are just as vulnerable to sexual abuse among a fraction of their clergy as Catholics — and just as vulnerable to leadership by some who don't understand the issue.

This church leader, who declined to acknowledge any responsibility on the part of his denomination, cannot understand why the victims continue to make an issue of it decades later.

"Let's get on with life," he said, urging the victims to forgive and forget.

"The truth is, we're supposed to forgive one another if forgiveness is asked for," he said.

* * *

SUPPOSED TO? I'm not aware of "Thou shalt forgive" among the Ten Commandments.

Yet we are well advised to forgive, just as we're well advised to eat healthy foods and exercise regularly. It's good for the heart — both the physical and spiritual heart.

The March Reader's Digest had an article in its "Health" section on "The Healing Power of Forgiveness." Scientists are just beginning to explore the physical effects of forgiving: they may include lower blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tension.

A University of Michigan study found that people who have a history of forgiving others tend to be in better health than those who don't.

Whitworth professor Gerald L. Sittser describes the "unforgiving" person in his book, "A Grace Disguised" (my favorite book to quote of late):

"Unforgiving people . . . are sensitive to wrongs done to them, however slight, as if they had exposed nerves over their entire body. They are obsessed with the bad things that have happened to them in the past, and they are convinced that their circumstances are worse than everyone else's. They even gain pleasure in being victims."

Laura Blumenfeld, author of the new book "Revenge: A Story of Hope," has an even more dire prognosis for the unforgiving person. She quotes a saying from the Middle East: "When you seek revenge, you should dig two graves: one for your target and one for yourself."

* * *

SITTSER CAUTIONS that the need to forgive does not include forgetting. Any psychologist will tell you that trying to forget or suppress the memory of bad events is bad for us. Forgiving allows us to remember from a different perspective, with a quiet heart.

Forgiveness is not exoneration. Forgiveness removes a burden from the person who forgives. The person who is forgiven still may have a burden to make good. Religious leaders should know about that. It's called penance.

"Forgiving isn't about condoning what happened. It's about breaking free of the person who wronged us," says Fred Luskin, Stanford University psychologist and author of "Forgive for Good."

WHEN IT COMES TO LOVE,
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Journal of Healing – May 15, 2002

By Mary Koch

A friend said to me recently, "I've been thinking about how restricted your life is, and I decided I really envy you."

Huh?

"I've never loved a man enough to do what you're doing," she explained.

My friend has been married to the same man long enough to raise a bunch of kids, and now they're helping to raise grandkids. She's devoted to her family, but whether she loves her husband "enough," well, there's no way she can know. No one knows. I certainly didn't.

Eight years ago this week, I became my husband's 24-7 caregiver. This is the eighth anniversary of John's return home after nearly six months of hospitalization and stroke rehabilitation.

He faced the daunting task of picking up his life without being able to move, speak or eat. The task facing me was not as daunting, but it was all the challenge I could handle.

* * *

I'D JUST turned 50. This is not how I expected to spend my fifties.

In fact, I had a pretty glamorous decade mapped out. A woman in her fifties is in prime time. Mature, but not old. Enough years in her past to benefit from experience. Enough years ahead to have a future.

As part of a time management course, I'd set out my five- and 10-year goals. They were everything a goal is supposed to be: identifiable, achievable, realistic, measurable.

I had defined goals for my career, but I had no goals for my soul. If someone had asked me — "Would you give up all this to take care of a totally paralyzed husband?" — I would have answered, "Naw, I couldn't handle that."

That's one reason we're shielded from knowing the future. It's too scary. But when life happens, when the future hits, we don't sit down and ask, "Gee, do I love him enough to . . . ?"

You don't have to worry about whether you love him or her or them enough. We don't say, "I love you enough to do this, but I don't love you enough to do that."

* * *

HOW WE TAKE care of each other is not a gauge of how much we love. There are plenty of people out there who love their spouses as much if not more than I love mine, but they can't meet the physical demands of care-giving. They have no choice.

We had some choices. John was ending his stay in a rehab hospital. He was supposed to return to a "sub-acute" care facility, but he let me know he wasn't going back there.

"Then I guess we'll go home," I said. Whether John could walk or talk again was never as important to me as whether he could live at home. Strange, when the thing you want the most is also the thing you fear the most. I couldn't imagine how I could take over for the platoon of nurses who cared for John in the hospital.

Obviously I don't take care of John all 24 hours, seven days a week by myself. We have paid caregivers who help. But when the paid caregiver is sick, or has a family emergency, or takes a vacation, or quits, the buck stops here.

In eight years, three days is the longest respite I've taken from care-giving. That seems to be sufficient. I've said it before: these have been the toughest eight years of my life. And the best.

WHAT'S GOOD
ABOUT A GOOD CRY

Journal of Healing – May 22, 2002

By Mary Koch

Real men cry.

I know because I'm married to a real man who is not afraid to cry. I also have a number of friends who are real men. They cry, unabashedly, without embarrassment.

This, it seems to me, is a symbol of some kind of progress. Just a few decades ago Edmund Muskie literally washed up as a presidential candidate when he shed tears in public. Now our nation is comfortable, even proud, to see its president wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.

Maybe a majority of parents have finally and wisely stopped admonishing their sons, "Big boys don't cry."

I knew we'd come a long way, baby, when a New York Times reviewer described a movie ("The Rookie") as a "macho weepie." Not long ago, putting those two words together would have been considered an oxymoron, like military intelligence or congressional ethics.

* * *

MY HUSBAND has never been ashamed to cry, but stroke changed the nature of John's crying. Stroke patients, especially initially, are referred to as "labile." They spontaneously laugh or cry, sometimes switching from one emotion to the other in the same breath.

The National Stroke Association handbook calls lability an "impairment of emotional control." I'm not so sure about that word "impairment." Could it be that the flood of tears and laughter after stroke are part of the body's own method of healing?

Plenty of psychologists are talking and writing about the importance of crying in the healing process. Some researchers have analyzed the content of tears. They suggest that weeping is one way our body rids itself of toxins.

Minnesota psychologist Paula Becker. writing eloquently in the magazine, "Stressfree Living," noted that in eastern systems of healing, the element of water is associated with the emotions.

"Our emotions are meant to be fluid, flowing like a river, freely over all kinds of terrain," she writes. "When feelings or emotions which are frozen or crystallized in our body, come in contact with the fire of life, they melt and overflow into streams of tears."

While there are many reasons for crying, Becker notes its singular importance: "Our tears can draw us together reminding us of our humanness and connecting us on a level deeper than words."

* * *

CRYING IS John's way of connecting. Before his stroke, he connected by talking or writing, by offering his hand to shake or hold, by hugging or caressing. Paralysis robbed him of those connections. Now he cries when he connects with someone's words, with a scene in a movie or a musical performance

He not only sheds tears. His emotions relax his stroke-frozen vocal chords, and his crying is audible.

Weekend matinee regulars at the Omak Cinema have become accustomed to occasional sounds of crying from the mid-left section, where there's a niche for John's wheelchair. He cried at that "macho weepie" movie, "The Rookie." We all did. We all connected with an aging hero who dared to chase his impossible dream.

There was a time in my life, I suppose, when I would have been embarrassed, seated next to someone whose cries echo through the theater. But recently, when we went to see the stage play "1776," I was sure John would cry. A history buff, he especially loves the American Revolution.

John cried during the dialogues between John and Abigail Adams, especially when John Adams referred to his wife as "dearest friend." I took that as a compliment.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE
WITH A SIMPLE WAVE
AND AN OPEN HEART
Journal of Healing – May 29, 2002

By Mary Koch

You can be around some people for years and they remain like closed books. Other folks, it takes only a brief encounter and you get a good look right into their hearts. Wayne Wilson was that kind of guy.

I learned Wayne had died while reading letters to the editor in the Grand Coulee Star. I'm not good at remembering names, and it had been two years since our brief encounter. But I immediately recognized him from the letter, which was only three sentences long:

"I will miss seeing Wayne in the mornings sitting on his porch, waving to the cars passing by. He was a wonderful person who contributed so much to the community. The people of Grand Coulee Dam area have lost a true friend."

I turned the page to the obituaries and there was Wayne Wilson's cheerful face. The obituary told me the facts of his life, things I didn't know. But I already knew the important fact about Wayne: he was a man with an open, joyful heart.

* * *

WHEN JOHN AND I met him for the first and only time on June 17, 2000, Wayne was not sitting on his front porch. A total stranger to us, he had decided to share a part of my husband's journey — quite literally.

It was the day John was determined to meet a long-term goal. Some six years earlier, after he was paralyzed by stroke, it seemed unlikely that John would ever have enough command of his hands or fingers to operate his wheelchair. He was expected to rely on awkward head devices.

Week after week, year after year, he worked with therapists until he was able to grasp a joystick and steer his power chair. We needed a giant event, something that would reflect the enormity of his efforts. That's when we dreamed up the idea of John steering his chair across one of the biggest things anywhere — Grand Coulee Dam.

We decided to publicize the event. We wanted to demonstrate what people can achieve with the help of extended rehabilitation therapy.

When we arrived at the dam that day, we were thrilled to see friends and family who had traveled hundreds of miles to go that one mile with John. Then we were flabbergasted to meet a grinning Wayne Wilson, missing both legs but ready to roll in his wheelchair.

He and John had the same therapist, David Boman. Wayne had read about John in the Star and told us with his big smile, "This just seemed like the place to be."

* * *

JOHN HAD A motor on his chair, but Wayne's was self-propelled. Together they symbolized that all of us have our individual challenges and unique ways of meeting them.

It took no small amount of energy for Wayne to work his chair the length of the dam. It was a blistering hot day, but Wayne's smile never disappeared. Even when he began to fall behind most of the crowd, he declined offers of help. Both he and John made it the distance.

We posed for a few triumphant photos and then parted ways. We sent him a thank you note, but we didn't stay in touch after that. We didn't need to, for Wayne's spirit remains a part of our lives.

The way he lived his life was proof that people can make a difference for each other in the simplest ways, by sharing a part of someone else's journey, or just by waving to the folks passing by.