Chelle Summer

Patience

Michelle Rusk
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When I went to see Fr. Gene at the abbey a few weeks ago, he asked me what Our Lady of Guadalupe has been telling me lately. While I’m not sure I had thought about it beforehand, it didn’t take me long to answer.

Patience, it has been all about patience recently.

I remember when I was working with Fr. Josh in Naperville on my annulment and one day– I don’t remember the conversation around it– he said that he was talking more with Mary because she was a patience person and that he needed help with his patience.

As the pandemic has dragged out (I thought we would long be past it by now– silly me) and my work in many ways continues to hang in the balance (at this point I’m hoping that we can make it back to LA in March, no later than summer for the events that were canceled this year), what could be more harder than having to be patient?

I have plenty to do and each day I keep myself busy with a list of things to do so long that I never complete them. By Friday I wonder where the week went. And yet there is a part of me that has to constantly stay the course and keep myself from being distracted. My self talk is at an all-time high.

There are no other messages right now. It’s all about continuing to make the most of this quirky time. For me, I’m thinking of what I’d like to know I accomplished by the time it’s over. And in that same vein, I want to walk away knowing that this time was not wasted, that I’m a better person.

And being a better person also means I’ve become a more patient person. Guadalupe keeps telling me this and while sometimes I don’t understand what she’s talking about, I do know that somewhere along the line I do realize she was right.

Fall Color and Pumpkins

Michelle Rusk

Meet the Chelle Summer Videos!

We made a little video yesterday of me talking about some of the inspiration behind my items. And be sure to watch until the end so you can hear my flub– what's in my head isn't always what comes out of my mouth! But please don't give it away in the comments! Let everyone hear for themselves!

New Routines

Michelle Rusk
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As I write this, it’s not yet 7:00 am on Monday morning. I can see some light through the window as the sun is starting to rise over the Sandia Mountains. I have run, but not swum yet and, therefore, not showered. Normally, I run and then shower and start my day.

But Mondays have a new routine– for three weeks, Greg and I have been swimming at the gym four mornings a week at 6:30 am. However, on Mondays he teaches live remotely (or is that remotely live– or do we even know?!) so I go to the pool a bit later. It seems that 8:00 am is my new time although when it cools down, I’ll shift to more like 10:00 and swim in the warmth of the sun.

A sadness waves over me occasionally for my routines that have been disrupted and changed because of the pandemic. If Greg were at school teaching, I would swim later everyday. There’s a benefit that we get to go together four days a week, but I’m also still adjusting to running and swimming all in one shot rather than dividing them up into separate parts of the day.

The list is long of things that have changed: our favorite Vietnamese restaurant has closed, but she, thankfully, is waiting on her last inspections to open in a new location. I will miss the old location, not a great area of town, but as Greg said, “edgy.” Now she will be in something more like a strip mall of restaraurants, more central for people to find her and her wonderful food. I am happy for her. But I will miss the drive between church and her old location. Now it will be freeway to freeway.

In some ways our lives haven’t changed at Casa Solano mostly because I’ve worked at home the bulk of my career. However, what makes me unhappy are the changes that have been forced on me, like that I’m grounded for now from traveling. We can’t risk exposure for Greg as we await his return to the classroom. With so few hospital beds in the state, we also have to be cognizant of wondering “what if” one of us got sick. The flip side is that I don’t believe we will get sick, but I also don’t want to test that statement. So we aren’t traveling for now and instead focused on making home better and what projects travel sometimes puts a kink in.

There is a grief in all that we do when our routine changes, whether by choice or beyond our control. I have tried to embrace all these changes, but there have been many at once which makes it more challenging.

And somewhere deep inside of me, I do believe all will be great again. I hold onto that when the sadness blankets me as I watch things continue to change.

Grieving For What Never Was

Michelle Rusk
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My dad died on January 1, 2006, and my mom died in late March 2014. I’ve had plenty of time to not just incorporate their deaths into my life, but to turn around and examine what their lives meant to me.

Because of social media, we have more access to the events of each other’s lives and I it feels like more often than not, someone I know has had a parent die. I don’t often get to do more than tell someone I am sorry for what they’re going through and to let them know that I’m sending them healing energy.

That’s because I often have a different perspective on loss and I’m careful not to step on the toes of people’s pain. But there is something I see that others don’t because long ago someone told this:

When our parents die, we don’t necessarily grieve for what we have lost than we grieve for what we never had.

I believe that our parents have done the best they could. They made the decisions that they believed in that moment were the right ones to make (and, of course, we thought were totally wrong!). No one is perfect (sorry, to burst someone’s bubble today!) and when we look at the lives of others, sometimes we see what we didn’t get (usually emotionally) from our own parents, but someone else is. Maybe we were abused in some way. Or many our parents were simply emotionally distant. There are a list of things I could put here, but that’s not what this is about.

Instead, it’s about the acknowledge that we are grieving for what we never had, what they might not have ben capable of giving us. Just because people become parents doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what they really wanted, rather than what society said they should do. That might have left them resentful of having to raise these little people they didn’t want in the first place.

When people die, we often get caught on the train of how wonderful someone was. Sure, that’s great for the funeral and having something to discuss with all the people who contact us, but at someone point we need to round out that person to who they really were. Good, bad, and otherwise.

Just acknowledging that the challenges in the relationship open the door to making someone into the rounded character they really were in our lives. And it then that we can fully travel the grief journey that allows us to put that grief in its place so we can truly move forward.

Life as a Remote Teacher's Spous

Michelle Rusk
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As I write this, I hear Greg speaking fluently in Spanish around the corner. Lilly is laying under the table near him, Ash is lounging somewhere on a bed in the sun. Today is Greg’s live teaching day and later he’ll head up to the school and then the golf course to start (or re-start since the season only got one week into it when the pandemic hit) his role as an assistant coach for the fall season. Soccer, normally nearing the end of district play right now, is slated to start in February.

I hear many stories of what it’s like for kids to do remote teaching. I hear stories of what parents are going through. And I hear stories of what teachers are going through. But no one talks about what it’s like to be the spouse of a remote teacher.

Before I start in, let me say that I know that the district Greg teaches in has done as good of job as possible in this continually changing scenario. Right now, the elementary school kids are back in session and soon the middle school kids will go back. But the way it’s looking, it will be Thanksgiving when the high school kids, of which Greg teaches, will return, so we anticipate him not to return to the classroom to teach until January.

I have worked at home most of my career outside of my own days teaching back, well, we don’t need to discuss how far back that was. But at the time I was teaching, my sister Karen was working at home and I remember how between meetings she was walking her dogs and taking care of laundry. There was always something she could do when she had a few minutes away from her job. I saw the benefit of working from home through her.

My first husband worked in sales and he, too, worked at home when we were married. I quickly fell into a routine that after my run, shower, and breakfast, I would tackle work first thing. There were always phone calls to make and emails to answer. I have loved the flexibility to keep up with the house and other projects (historically for me, that was writing although about five years ago it turned to writing and sewing) and for seven years on a military grief study, I had a boss who left me alone. As long at the job was done, quite honestly, he didn’t care about the rest. That was fine by me.

Greg is a classroom and soccer field guy. He loves the energy of the kids and being in front of them, and possibly throwing their phone in the trash (yes, it has happened). As they are missing the energy of him, the rest of their teachers, and their friends, he, too, is missing their energy.

He’s not used to sitting most of the day, which he has to do for live teaching day and then for office hours and other assorted meetings. I hate zoom and the precursor I had to use to interview kids for the grief study and for meetings. I hated to sit there and stare at a screen when I could have been folding laundry at the same time. Sitting and staring at a screen all day goes against everything we have been telling people about getting up and moving around (something Greg also lets his students do in the classroom).

Because of this constant sitting and staring, and the fact that he’s had to learn how to do something new (which in itself is not a bad thing), he’s drifted away from me. I tell him things, he will say okay or act as if he heard me, but I find out later when I mention whatever it was, he claims I never told him. No no no, we’re not talking about “spouse selective hearing.” Believe me, I know the difference.

I don’t mind having him at home because we have separate spaces and I’m off in my own world (plus I have my Qatar Airlines ear plugs if I need them to drown out the Spanish). But I miss the separation we had during the day because it made me appreciate him more. I knew about what time he’d be home and I’d make every effort to be done working so that we could spend our short evenings together.

While I worry about the mental health of the students (he has some who “gather” during his office hours as they might in his classroom at lunch, but they are doing it virtually because they can’t be together otherwise), I also worry about the mental health of our teachers who love to teach, who are in the classroom not because it’s the only thing they thought they could do (as I have heard some people say about teachers), but because they truly want to help kids learn.

This has been a struggle for them so it also means it’s a challenge for those of us who care about them as we watch this play out. I hope that at least being outside on the golf course with a small group starting today will make a difference as this situation continues to drag itself out. We know how lucky we are in New Mexico that we can always escape into the sunshine that reminds us that no matter what’s happening around us, all is well.

As National Suicide Prevention Week Comes to a Close

Michelle Rusk
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I’m not sure where September went (or the past six months!), but I tried to make the most of National Suicide Prevention Month. I also meant to blog more and post more during the month– about suicide– but I have learned that, in the end, whatever happened is what was supposed to be. I also know that, for me, I’m always hoping to do more and it’s hard not to begrudge myself that maybe I didn’t work harder.

I did get a guest column in the Rio Rancho Observer and a letter to the editor in the Albuquerque Journal. I still believe in the “old fashioned” newspaper to reach people and the people I know I reached are those working in the suicide grief/prevention field locally and I was able to connect with and find out what’s going on here.

I was disappointed not to get any media around the Names of Suicide Tree in Old Town at Old Town Herbal, but I also know that we got the tree up which was a great step forward in itself. I also was disappointed that my social media posts didn’t reach as many people as I had hoped.

Yet when I went to “visit” the tree after the first week it was up, Liz told me that people had been coming in randomly, that it seemed like they had been guided to her store having no clue what was there, and yet having lost someone to suicide. It didn’t occur to me in this entire process that this might happen. I was too caught up in getting the word out in “this world” that I didn’t think about my sister and all the others who have died by suicide leading their loved ones to the tree.

On Saturday when I popped up Chelle Summer in front of Old Town Herbal a woman from about the furthest part of New Mexico from Albuquerque came by to put her son’s name on the tree. She had been told about the tree from the local suicide grief group (that had kindly sent out the information to their mailing list) and it happened that she was going to be up here for a healing conference this weekend.

The loss of her young son to suicide less than six months ago was visibly still painful for her and took me back to my own pain years ago. I say that in the sense that it reminded me to be there with her, to help her know she would find healing in the journey and wouldn’t always feel the way she does now.

She thanked me for the tree and leaving it up for the entire month, something I had suggested to Liz since we can’t gather this year. We’ll leave it up another week and my hope is that people will continue to put their loved ones’ names on it.

It was a reminder to me that it there is only so much I can do and the rest I have to believe will happen just because I put it out there.

Where Hope Lives

Michelle Rusk
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I try to only post positive messages, mostly because when I post something negative, I feel worse and what’s the point of that? It’s hard enough right now to be positive without reading other people’s negative comments or even my own. And quite often those negative comments make me angry which is even worse than feeling negative.

But I’ve found over the past six months in particular that as I’ve tried to be positive and helpful, it's seemingly falling on deaf ears. Fewer people are seeing my blogs than before the pandemic. I don’t know if it’s because Facebook (one of the main places where I get my readership) has changed its algorithms or because people simply don’t want to hear positive messages.

We’ve done such a terrible job teaching people how to cope that it’s easier to sit in that bucket of negativity rather than think about how to get out of it and move over to the positive one (which, I might add, looks a whole lot better- not so brown and ugly, but filled with colorful flowers and life).

I know there are people would counter what I just wrote with, “Well, the world is so negative.”

It is, ultimately though, hope lives inside of you. You might not always find hope around which is why you should be focused on where it is inside you and how you can make that grow rather than where it is outside of you. We all have a choice of how we see the world and the events that continue to unfold. And the sooner people can see that there is opportunity in all this loss and change, the sooner we can move forward to a much brighter bucket of hope and kick that brown negative one to the curb.

All is Well

Michelle Rusk
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As I’m finding I’m tired and cranky from the pandemic, from the inability to truly move forward (it feels like maybe one small step forward and then two back), I’m also finding that I’m reaching into my tool chest of sorts (although some might say my sewing basket or perhaps my Chelle Summer tote bag) for the tools I’ve used to help me cope with past challenges.

Somewhere during the end of my first marriage, I picked up the idea of using a mantra and rosary beads for the reciting of that mantra. Praying the rosary in a traditional way wasn’t something that ever worked for me and, suddenly, I realized that using the beads for my mantra gave me the peace I was looking for.

The mantra I chose is, “All is well.”

When I feel anxiety ridden, irritation, whatever negative emotion it might be– or just general worry that I can’t shake– I touch a beach and repeat to myself, “All is well.” I do this for each bead until I start to feel relief. I’ve never had to go very far, just a few beads and somehow peace rolls over me like a wave.

It’s easy to get caught up in negative emotions, especially as this uncertainty we’re all enduring drags on. But, somehow, somewhere, we can find peace. And sometimes that place might be easier than we realized.

Spiritual Endurance

Michelle Rusk
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I met with Fr. Gene Friday at the Norbertine Monastery in the South Valley my ongoing spiritual direction and one of the things he told me was that I have “spiritual endurance.”

Things have not be easy– I realize it’s like that for all of us although our situations vary because our lives vary– but recently it has become harder. After talking to several people, I believe it’s because we all thought by now things would be much more back to routine than they are. I don’t want to say normal because while a lot of things will return to what they were, we all have in some way been changed.

Personally, I’ve suffered loss after loss from just before the pandemic started (when my job ended) and then throughout it– my dog dying, plans getting canceled, events to sell Chelle Summer getting postponed and then canceled, the Jesuits leaving my church, a few deaths of people I know– I’ve been trying to hold on tight for the roller coaster ride, but at the same time let go of what I can’t have back.

But as things seem to be dragging out, it’s like my glass is half full, yet someone keeps coming along and knocking it over. Then I have to refill it again. Some days the trek to the faucet is longer and harder than others.

Still, I do believe that somewhere all will be well, even better than it is now. As I look at the situations that surround me in our bigger, larger world, I see growing pains as not just individuals seek their own answers and change, but as groups do, too. It’s hard, but we all know that growth is never easy.

Yesterday while I did a little housecleaning, I streamed the Sunday mass from Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles. The priest is newly ordained and celebrated his first mass. In his homily, he said, “Trust in God especially in the places we don’t see him.”

It’s very easy now when everything seems so dark and uncertain to not believe God is with us. I, however, have been through so much personal loss in my life that I do believe he is with us and all is well. Even on my bad days when my anger bubbles up, I find a way to let it go and my hope comes back.

As Fr. Gene and I sat outside, some distance from each other, in the shade of the mid-morning, this dove sat on the corner of the building almost the entire time we were chatting.

God was with us, listening, giving us hope. And spiritual endurance for the continued bumpy road ahead.

Emotional Pain

Michelle Rusk
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It’s sad and mind boggling at the same time how little we know and understand about emotional pain, not just our own, but that of those we encounter, too.

As September, the month we typically try to raise awareness (or, rather, more awareness than other months) about suicide prevention, is coming up quick, I’ll be writing the next few weeks more about suicide and the grief that surrounds it when people die by suicide.

A friend posted a cartoon about emotional pain last week. One character stood over the other– who was lying down and clearly in pain- saying, “I don’t know how to help you.”

The ridiculous thing about this is how true it is. And yet how it doesn’t make sense because we all have emotional pain in our lives. Is it because we can’t see it on others so we don’t believe it it? Is it because we’ve spent our entire lives being told to suck it up, to move forward, to ignore it, too remember that the glass is full?

Is it because the people most likely to tell us that we are idiotic for having it probably most likely are stuffing their own pain so far into their bodies that its manifesting physically and they don’t want to feel themselves so they won’t let others feel either?

While I’m not one that believes in airing every feeling we have on social media, I do believe there is a balance to it. We should in our lives have ways to cope, people with whom we can share, or ways of sharing (like keeping a journal) that give us a place to let go of our emotions.

As life continues to keep us all in a bucket of uncertainty, my hope is that people are teaching others (especially youth) how to cope with emotional pain. Life is about building blocks and now is the perfect opportunity to learn what will only help us cope in the future.

Letters to God

Michelle Rusk
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I started journaling after sixth grade. Well, really I started in sixth grade when we had to keep a daily journal in English class; I just kept going after school ended although I didn’t write song lyrics anymore to fill the pages when I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

I would fill leftover notebooks after semesters ended, especially enjoying filling college ruled ones because more lines meant I could write more. I wrote everything right down to what mail I received and who I talked to on the phone (things I can’t imagine writing now). At some point I stopped writing or wrote more sporadically, but in the past few years I’ve started to make a better effort toward it.

Somewhere in there, I read that journals are like letters to go. As someone who really hasn’t been prayerful for much of my life, I realized that maybe that’s why I didn’t feel like "prayer” as I had been taught didn’t work for me, because I got such a sense of it– without knowing it– in my journal writing. It also made me want to journal more, to know that by writing it down, maybe it was easier for God to read (he could read it on his own timeline rather than having to drop everything to listen to my prayer. I realize he’s a busy guy.

However, not long after the pandemic went into full swing, I realized I needed to make a change in my own prayer life. I thought that maybe instead of doing my five-minute prayer as I did in the traditional sense of how we are thought to pray, that maybe I should take that time to write in my journal each morning instead.

A friend gave me the cool journal in the photo which also works well because it lays flat. As a left hander, it’s probably the first bound book I’ve been able to write in easily.

Once I started journaling the way, I found that I liked it, that it was a good way for me to draw closer to God. And to feel more like he’s listening. Prayer often feels empty, as if I’m sitting in a big room alone, but there is something more comforting about seeing my words in my handwriting on paper.

And God doesn’t seem to mind I’ve been sending him so many letters.

Giving Up Something for Something Greater

Michelle Rusk
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I don’t know how many years it’s been since Fr. Anthony, a priest at our church who has since moved away, and I had the discussion about when God asks us to give up something for something greater. I remember he had talked about it in one of his homilies and it was something that resonated with me.

When I saw him next, I asked him about it and explained that I had walked away from my swimming pool when I divorced. I knew that I would one day have another swimming pool, but it was hard to be without something that I used daily when I moved back to the Chicago area and didn’t have one.

Obviously, I got the pool and house back when my ex-husband decided to move on. So I said to Fr. Anthony, “I already gave it up once. I don’t want to give it up again.”

He thought for a moment and then he said– knowing how much I was enjoying surfing at the time, “What if God asks you to give up your pool for say, the ocean?”

I have been sitting with that question since he asked it. I have no answers and I have also learned in these years that I don't always have the answers. I might get some answers at some point while others I am apparently supposed to ponder.

However, Friday we learned that the Jesuits are leaving our church because there aren’t enough of them now to staff it. While part of me is not entirely surprised and I knew the day would come when our pastor, who married Greg and I, would be moved, I am still feeling a sense of loss.

It was because of someone telling me to find a Jesuit church, explaining that they are different than the run-of-the-mill Archdiocesan-run churches that I started going to Immaculate Conception in the first place. The priests are different, more open to meeting people where they are at, inviting you in no matter who you are. But what was most important for me was their focus on Ignatian Spirituality that has taught me so much about prayer and listening for God in all that’s around me.

Not just did Greg and I marry at this church by Fr. Broussard, a Jesuit, our previous pastor let me start the divorced women’s group when I moved back here and joined the church. I learned so much from that group of women and I’m so grateful for that experience. Plus, it was during that time that I met Greg and church became our Saturday night date night– some time with God to think, dinner, and usually a little touring around Albuquerque.

The pandemic had already changed our routine and I’m still not quite show how that will shake out. But after feeling sad and angry that these priests who have taught me so much are going to be leaving and that going there won’t be the same, I thought of Fr. Anthony.

“What if God asked you to give up the pool for, say, the ocean?”

Sometimes you’re asked to give up something for something greater.

The change won’t occur until January 1 and Fr. Broussard will be with us until June. Greg and I will remain attending the church until Fr. Broussard leaves. After that, as Greg said, “The interviews will begin” of where we go next.

But there is a caveat to this that I have to remember and keep at the forefront of my mind when I get upset about it– I don’t know what’s ahead for my own life. Something greater. Maybe that means we won’t be able to attend mass there on weekends. I can speculate on some good things that I would like to happen, but I try to keep those to myself as I work toward them.

No matter what, there always will be sadness. But there also always will be something greater. As I grieve this loss, I need to keep that something greater with me. And hold on for yet another ride of change ahead.

Authenticity

Michelle Rusk
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I’ve always tried to be me and to show my life as it on social media. I believe that has been to my detriment in some way as I haven’t gathered up the followers like many people do. But I have always believed that it’s most important that you show who you truly are because an “act” as it is is hard to keep up. And I would much rather people meet me in person and say that I am how I present myself to be rather than talk behind my back that without a trove of filters, I don’t look the same.

For a long time I have tried to hide various aspects of my backyard. Yes, I have a pool, and, yes, I have great patio furniture. But I also have a huge pole that brings (or used to bring in the case of the telephone) cable and power to the homes at the end of my block. My house was built in the 1950s and there’s not much I can do it about. Still, I don’t often photograph sunsets because, well, there’s the pole front and center. I’m trying to embrace the pole in some way and I finally gave up on trying to hide my neighbors’ satellite dish (although we have gotten better about making sure my head hides it).

The pool deck is filled with cracks and no matter how many times you fill them and paint over them, they come back. I can’t change these things nor can I change various things about my own appearance that I don’t like.

Yet I also know that by presenting myself as I am and who I am, is more meaningful in the long run. My hope is that one thing that will come out of this pandemic is that people realize anyone of us can make things appear as something they aren’t. What’s harder is to let go of those imperfections in life that make us and our world around us truly stand out.

As our world becomes increasingly visual and– in the current moment, separate, but together– connecting with others is about showing who we really are.

Telling Stories

Michelle Rusk
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It’s hard not to get dragged down by the seemingly endless roller coaster ride we’ve been on.

Some days are better than others and I find that keeping my list of things to do long, that even though I don’t finish the list, at least I’m accomplishing something.

Somewhere yesterday the depression set in as it seems to do every few days. I had decided I needed to focus on doing things outside my office, those little things that pile up on the kitchen counter or in the laundry room, the ones that don’t take long to do, but we constantly walk by and say, “I’ll do that later.” And yet we don’t. Yes, those things.

I did them and then I settled into reading the multiple extra newspapers our very kind newspaper lady has been bringing me– while we subscribe two two newspapers, she brings me the day or two old returns for two other newspapers that are in the recycling bin. But I had gotten behind doing my sewing so I sat down to read them.

It was there that I found out that director Joel Schumacher had died (how did I not know this??) and the man who wrote the screenplay for “The Great Santini.” I also ready obituaries and stories about people I’d never heard of, many who rose above lives started with immigrant parents and somehow ended up in Los Angeles at least for a few years. There were threads in these stories– garment workers, the death of a parent.

I found myself drawn back to the one thing that probably makes me happiest inside, telling stories. It’s telling the stories in my head, of people whose lives are influenced by those I have read about. It was that feeling that brought me out of my passing depression as I was knocked on the head once again for my true calling in this life.

Sometimes in my frustration with the chaos in the world I start to veer a bit from my journey. But. thankfully, I am aware enough that it pulls me back quickly.

Our Stories

Michelle Rusk
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A day soon to come will mark nineteen years since my first book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling, was published. As I reflect on this journey, what I instantly see– my thoughts also prodded by watching Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” discussion with Dana Carvey about how a comedian can’t just get up and make people laugh anymore, it’s about who the comedian is now, too– I’m thinking about the nineteen years I’ve spent sharing much of my life story. And this has also changed with the addition of social media.

While it might see like I have shared all of my life, I haven’t. There are aspects that remain not under wraps, but perhaps their time to be shared isn’t yet. Some of that is because other people are involved and there is too much pain for them to share. But there also is a portion of my life that I don’t share because I don’t quite understand it. Instead, some of it I work out to some extent in my fiction writing that I work on five days a week. The rest I leave alone, trusting that one day I will share when I do understand it. Or maybe not.

Growing up with my need to be a writer, I never saw that I would be sharing my story in such a close personal way. However, Denise’s suicide changed everything for my family and it was Mom, whose words echo in my mind, said, “Tell everyone and anyone. Maybe we can help someone with her story.” I always joked that I’m sure she didn’t think I’d write a book about it, but it did give us all (I believe) some meaning to our loss as we did help others through it.

But as life has continued to forge forward, I continue to share what I believe is helpful for others, while leaving the rest of it until I understand it. I sometimes feel like I need to see it in the rearview mirror, when I have past it, to understand it in a way that I can share with others. For some people, I know they might think that I should share as I’m going through it as it might make me more relatable, but something tells me that I need to understand it before I share it. That’s the message I’ve continued to recieve particularly in recent years as it’s become less about sharing the story of my sisters suicide and more about what I have done with my life and how she remains in my life now.

I don’t believe that everyone has to tell their story. When it comes to grief, loss, and life, we must all travel our own journeys. While I’ve always been a person who wanted to know what motivated people, I understand that sometimes people are protective of their stories. After all, it’s all we really have. For that reason, we should respect those who choose not to share.

However, in my life, which I realize isn’t the same as everyone else’s, there is an intersection of my life journey and what happens to me and how I can share that to inspire others.

The Shadow of Sibling Loss

Michelle Rusk
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Over the years I have listened to many stories and read many stories of people who have lost siblings. These weren’t necessarily to suicide which means that sometimes they happened in early childhood. My sister Denise ended her life when I was 21 (she was just two weeks from her 18th birthday). At the time I thought I was very much an adult, however, now I understand how young 21 really is.

So when I think about sibling loss in childhood, It seems to me it can extend to about 25 because we’re still trying to find our place in the world (not that some of us every do as that seems to be a major mission some of us are on in this life) and we’re still separating ourselves physically from our families of origin.

There are many stories of sibling loss that weren’t discussed within families, as if the family just picked up the next day and moved on. For the surviving siblings, this was often painful. However, I don’t believe any parent did it out of malice. They had their own pain and were afraid of hurting their surviving child/children more. And there were other families where the death was openly discussed and the person always remembered.

I was lucky that Denise’s suicide and life were fairly openly discussed in our house (I don’t say completely as I was watched my parents struggle to talk about it with each other and like many families that have suffered a loss, in some ways it widened the gorge that already existed in their relationship. What helped, for me, was that we continued to let Denise exist in some way– as she should– even though her time with us on earth had ended.

Now that I’ve spent many years processing her death and while I don’t often talk much about it as I don’t feel the need to, what I mull over in my head is who I’m supposed to be in this life and how her death is part of that. But what I wonder is how much the path has been altered or made even more important to me to find since her death.

I don’t necessarily believe my path is about sharing Denise’s story although I understand that is part of it. Now that I’m continued to process and grow, I see it’s really connecting our childhood and what we shared in a different form through Chelle Summer. But there is also the writing aspect of it, the need inside my head to not just tell stories, but share them with the world. What I don’t know– and I don’t know that I ever will in this life- is if that need because stronger because of Denise’s death or if she hadn’t died, that I might never have pursued it so intensely as I continue to do (because I’m not where I want to be with it!).

I’ve heard the stories of many accomplished people who lost siblings young and how they were able to take their pain and sadness and turn it into something. What isn’t often obvious is how it ties into the loss. Maybe they were aware of it, maybe they won’t. Or maybe they are like me and were able to do something with it although maybe not what they thought it would look like. And then eventually the path wound us back to where we were before the loss.

Still after all these years, so many questions. The shadow is always there and always will be. I am not clouded by sadness in my life. My sister is with me and I know she and my mom in particular continue to keep me inspired. My biggest wonder comes from my drive and how those of us who have traveled this road find the strength to not just keep going, but truly make sure our lives are well lived because our siblings didn’t get that chance or ended their lives before they took off.

Signs to Move Forward

Michelle Rusk
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While we aren’t always aware of it, there is a rhythm to our lives and the events that transpire as we move through the day.

I was running Ash on Friday morning in the still-darkness of the morning when I saw my friend Art behind me call my name. My instinct was to continue running, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt if I turned back and walked with him and his dog Shirley. I wasn’t in a hurry as I had been the previous day when I had to be somewhere at 7:00 am.

What I didn’t realize was that taking the time to walk with them for a short way would put me in place to cross paths with my friend Jennifer a little later on my own run. Jennifer was feeling exasperated with life (as, I believe, we all have been to some degree recently) and I reminded her of several things, but notably that in life that doing what we’re supposed/doing the right thing often leaves us on a lonely road. That, however, is another topic for another day.

I hadn’t been to see Fr. Gene since November and it would have been easy to make excuses and put the appointment off for yet a few months as we walk through figuring out how to stay safe. But I also knew it would be good for me to take that drive to the South Valley and he told me we would sit outside (6 feet apart).

As we talked and laughed and caught up, I felt pretty positive and had a sense of freedom that I haven’t had much of in the past months. It’s a sense that I have on most days, but seemingly has been drown out in all the distractions.

I told him that I had my irritated moments but mostly I understood that what I’ve been through is a delay of what is to come, that I do believe positive things are ahead, and that when doors and windows close, somehow new ones open.

It was fairly breezy out (a good thing since we would reach 101 degrees at my house later that afternoon) and I looked down to see a feather had blown right up next to my foot. Native Americans believe that when a feather lands in your path, it’s a sign you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.

There isn’t always confirmation (or maybe we aren’t always aware of them), but on this morning it came again as I drove home and the song “Hot Hot Hot” by Buster Poindexter began to play on the radio.

It took me a moment, but I was reminded that this was one of Mom’s favorite songs and I could picture her doing her “hip shake” (as my sister Karen calls it) when it would play in the 1980s.

It’s easy to be distracted and get caught up in what feels in our faces, particularly with the onslaught or constant news and posting on social media, but if we take the time to take a few steps back, the signs are there.

Forward. And it came from Mom which means it has to be good.

Believe

Michelle Rusk
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I obviously haven’t written in a month, not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I felt like I was standing on a soapbox and I was talking to myself (or maybe at least my dogs, Lilly and Ash). It’s often hard in this digital world to know who sees/reads what I might have written. Without likes and comments, I didn’t know, nor did I know how many people who needed to hear my words were just scrolling by, not wanting to dig in deeper to find their hope and peace.

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say and I knew I needed to return to my blog. I just didn’t expect the pain to once again explode over the past few days which left me not wanting to write. Again.

Yet this morning I streamed the daily 8:00 am (Pacific Time) mass from the Cathedral of Los Angeles, a place where Greg and I once attended mass, and something I’ve been doing nearly daily since the start of the pandemic. The priests, especially the Archbishop, have what I think of as very “thoughtful” words. The way the Archbishop speaks, I sense that he really has contemplated the words that he will speak, the words he is seeking to help people find hope and peace in this time.

This morning in his homily he said two very relevant things– “Everything is unfolding in the providence of God” and then “No matter what happens in our lives, the cross is the answer.”

I immediately thought I should post one of these to my church’s social media pages (of which I handle), that they are words many people would appreciate especially today.

However, something stopped me. I wondered, “What do I say to the people who ask, ‘Where is God in all this?’”

I believe there is a reason, a path, an opportunity, in all this pain. I believe (especially having worked with many grieving people), that everything happens for a reason and if we embrace the new doors and windows to open in it, somehow we will find our way through it. I also know that life isn’t meant to be easy and good all the time. Many storms are thrown our way and it’s how we react to those storms that helps us learn and grow.

It’s not fair. None of its fair. I have my moments of frustration and irritation and find myself having to work harder not to let it overwhelm me.

I don’t have the answers, but I also know that often in the thick of things we won’t find the answers. Sometimes we have to walk, to keep walking, to keep believing (no matter how hard that is), and have faith that one day we will understand.

Life has taught me many times that if I do that, at some point I will understand. Keep the faith, everyone. As the song goes, don’t stop believing.

And May Arrives

Michelle Rusk
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And suddenly– it feels– May is here.

While there still remains uncertainty in front of us, for me, I can’t believe that it’s May. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two months since Hattie died and not much shorter than that that Greg has been teaching from home.

In many ways, my life didn’t change. When we were to “stay at home,” I was just about a month past the end of my job and I was getting ready for what was supposed to be a summer of events selling Chelle Summer items between here and LA. My brain was busy sorting how I what I needed to sew each week. And I was balancing that with my Lenten goal of completing a manuscript.

I ended up having to throw the manuscript idea out the window. I struggled to write much at all, took a week off, and even that didn’t help. I just felt guilty that I hadn’t been writing when it feels like my brain is stuffed with my characters’ lives. It took me a while to realize it was the grief, the loss of the world as I knew, that was messing me up (combined with the loss of Hattie who had been with me for over 14 years).

But somehow in this, my inspiration for sewing didn’t wane. Once I forced myself to push past any frustration I felt about the current situation (which included finally stopping watching the news and look at headlines– I only allow myself to read the two newspaper that arrive every morning here and check headlines no more than once a day), I tried to at least finish something small each day so I could say I completed something.

Some days were better than others, but I did manage also to complete some items I’d cut months ago and not finished. And in this process, I realized that so much of my life, of trying to work through challenging situations, of the many losses I’ve faced, helped me with the current pandemic situation.

I didn’t want to look back and wonder why I wasted so much time. I made sure I made the most of it of what I could do, not worry about what I couldn’t control.

Now while I wait to figure out where to go next with Chelle Summer as some of the events are canceled, I know that at least somehow I did forge forward in a time that I could have easily wasted and disappointed myself in the end. I learned a long time ago that no matter what happens to use there we still have a good life and we still have opportunities. It’s up to us, however, to choose the road ahead of us.