Wyzga On Words

Nurses Hold the Space for Patients, Families to Tell Their Stories.

I am delighted to have been invited to join Kathy Hansen's blog, A Storied Career!

Just in case you missed us, over the next several days I'll be re-posting the interview she conducted with me and began publishing on April 9th.

Here's the second post

"Capital Punishment Is Little More Than Revenge."

Mikhail Khodorkovsky writing for the Sunday NYTimes, "Notes From a Russion Penal Colony," relates a story about how one prisoner "refused to cut a deal with his conscience" and thereby helped Khodorkovsky, himself a prisoner in Penal Colony No. 7, Segezha, Russia.

Why is this story important to me?  Because of something a mother told me yesterday.  Apparently, her son is caught between dating two women - but only one does he really care for.  The mother told the son that it was not fair to the other girl and he should break it off if there was no future.  The father told the son, "Everyone dates around with multiple partners - no reason you should be different." 

To whom does the son listen?  That's not for me to say.  I can tell that there might be an answer in Khodorkovsky's essay:

"To cut a deal with one’s conscience — to lie, keep quiet, “not notice,” hiding behind the claim that it’s “for my family.” To convince oneself that “such are the times,” or that “everyone does it.” Who are we really dealing with? How do we find out that the other party — the conscience — refuses to deal? When we find ourselves face to face with disaster? Or later, when we are tallying up our life and become painfully aware that there’s no more dodging the raindrops, that there remain only memories? But by then you can’t change anything."

Along a similar theme - one's conscience - is a movie I watched the other night, Pierrepoint, The Last Hang Man. 

The movie is disturbing in subject matter but made all the more so by the plodding, methodical unfolding of the story.  It mimicks the methodical technique of the executioner.  After watching a few executions the viewer could become almost inured to death by hanging.  I still blinked when the rope snapped.  What saves the story is the hangman's role: he believes what he does is sacred work.  To him, the criminals have "paid the price" with death - the slate is wiped clean.  And he has a hand in that.  This is the power of the story whether or not you agree with his posture, or believe he is hiding behind an artfully crafted excuse to murder.

Who was Albert Pierrpoint?  He was a grocery delivery man whose father was an executioner for England.  Pierrepoint feels a calling to not only follow in his father's footsteps but to become the most efficient executioner England has witnessed.  He realizes that aim only to be reversed in his convictions about the benefits of capital punishment by one of his last hangings.  After 608 executions in 20 years, Pierrepoint writes, "Capital punishment is little more than revenge."

"'If death were a deterrent,' he wrote, 'I might be expected to know. It is I who have faced them at the last, young lads and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed to see the courage with which they take that walk into the unknown.

'It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder.'"

"Suffering Is Not The Same As Unhappiness."

You are looking at a picture of people contemplating rocks in the Zen Garden at the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon (Ryon-ji) in Kyoto, Japan.

Storytellers look for stories in all the strange and familiar places.  For example, an update on traveling to Kyoto, Japan, might yield wisdom more inspiring than the travelogue.  That happened to me.

Pico Iyer writing for the NYTimes, "Now Is the Season for Japan," tells about Kyoto one year after the two-ton punch of an earthquake and tsunami.  I am humbled by the grief:

"The 9.0 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown that hit the country on March 11, 2011, claimed almost 20,000 lives, overturned an economy that had already been foundering through 20 years of recession, and demoralized a citizenry dealing with one suicide every 17 minutes, a loss of direction, and what is now seven prime ministers in fewer than six years."

Likewise, I am humbled by a country's resilience that arises like a flower growing from a crack in a boulder.  As storyteller and community activist Loren Niemi never tired of telling me: you know you have gained some sense of the world's story when you can hold two opposing notions in your mind at one time and not go crazy.  This story shows us the way we might do so:

"In Mitsuyo Kakuta’s “Pieces,” perhaps the subtlest and most beautiful story in “March Was Made of Yarn,” an anthology of short fiction just published in memory of last year’s disasters, a woman in middle age looks back on her life after she learns that her husband had been with a young mistress at the time of the Great Tokyo Blackout.

“To acquire was not to be happy,” she had learned during Japan’s boom years, and now she sees that “loss was not the root of unhappiness.” As lights come back to her city, she reflects that the happy moments in her life cannot erase the losses she’s known; nor can those losses ever keep her from knowing happiness.

To hold those two ideas in your head as many in Japan do — to see that life means a joyful participation in a world of sorrows, and that suffering is not the same as unhappiness — is one of the singular blessings this seasoned country still has to offer."  [Emphasis added.]

Indeed, "What you have is all you need."

Why Does It Take Death To Remind Us To Live?

My dad said there would be an obituary coming in the mail.  He did not want it to take me by surprise.

Even with the heads-up, the news took a few days to sink in.

We began dating as high school sophomores, time so far out of mind it really does feel like yesterday.

There were the college years of summer dating.

Followed by the military years (me in the Navy and he in the Army) of "shore leave" dating.  I was a pediatric nurse; he was an Army Ranger who flew helicopters.  He called them "laminated cinder blocks."

As we got older there was even an extended time we lived together until he was transferred to Bermuda.  He made the East Coast his home while I stayed on The Left Coast. 

Emails, Christmas greetings and birthday wishes kept us in touch.  The last one arrived mid-February. And then I learned he passed away quietly in his sleep on February 23rd.

The obituary recounts his many contributions, achievements and exploits.  It does not really tell for what he had affection.  I can tell you two things that remain with me:

1.    Live as if your life depended on it.

2.    "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." [Ayn Rand]

I have yet to come to terms with the reality that a chapter of my life closed with his death.  Sifting through the computer file for clues about my dear friend and once long ago love I came across this Power Point he sent several years back.

In one way it's an oxymoron.  He was not a church-going fellow or one who abided by established religions.  But on this we did see eye-to-eye: God is a steadfast support and romantic with a keen sense of humor as well as being one heck of a terrific storyteller.

It was when I played this Power Point I found the tears that went missing for the man I will miss.

 "Death plucks my ear and says, 'Live! I am coming.'” [Virgil, 70-19 BC]

Now THAT'S A Salty Gal.

I love reading obits.  The whole story is there from start to finish.  You don't have to slog through a memoir or biography to get the real scoop on who someone was when they walked this earth.  A well-written obituary is like salt on grapefruit: it brings out the flavor bite by juicy bite.

As reported by Paul Vitello writing for the NYTimes, Pilar Montero, Bar Owner and Link to Brooklyn's Seafaring Past, Dies at 90, Montero's life may have been lived in a bar on a waterfront but she had a crow's nest view of the world of searfaring.

Just look at her sitting there on her corner stool.   If those walls could talk they might say the same thing the NYTimes wrote of Montero in 2006: "She is a human time machine." 

The facts of a life must not and cannot be the whole story.  Human life is always more than what meets the eye.  Pay careful attention to the facts in the context of what mattered to the person.  Like an argument for wrongful death damages, an obit can be a time capsule of drama, intrigue, history, truth and lies, and all the muddy human nostalgia of who said what to whom and when and what happened next.  All of it matters.

When you are charged with telling the story of one who has passed on - whether by the fault of another or natural causes - it is easy to slide over the dark sides of that person and focus only on the happy facts. Yet, how that person handled ridicule, diversity, challenge, despair, hard times, the luck of the draw, pulling the short straw and the like is what made their story an epic.  Each human story is an epic - a hero's journey. It takes a hero just to get out of bed in the morning to face what the world will howl at you. 

Begin by paying attention to those things for which they had affection.  Then move to what they were drawn to and what mattered.  These steps will guide you to the beating heart of your story.  We listeners will attend to the story of a life that sounds vaguely familiar to our own.

Radio Silence Crackles Back To Life.

In a way I've been missing in action.  For some weeks now I have been working and traveling and traveling and working and trying to shake something that would not leave me in peace.  Today I believe I got a glimpse of what was going on.  Let me explain.

I subscribe to Dan Curtis' blog.  This morning I read this excerpt from In Africa, the Art of Listening:

“What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours. Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening. So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue.” [Thanks to April Bell of Tree of Life Legacies  for alerting me to this item.]

As you may know, I make my living listening out the stories others tell.  Why?  Because I'm good at it, I believe what Zora Neale Hurston wrote ("There is no greater burden than carrying an untold story."), and the more we hear and tell our stories I believe the better chance there is that we will understand each other, recognize ourselves in others, develop a greater measure of empathy for the human condition, laugh at the perplexities of our weird and wonderful lives, and end up being here for a good time if not a long time. You may think that's a lot to ask from a story.  But time has proved that when we listen "the eternal narrative will continue." 

Listening comes with a price.   When you agree to listen to another's story, you have also agreed to shoulder the burden of their story - the fears, sorrows and defeats - when there is one.   I've been listening closely and carefully to stories of hardship and heartbreak that need to be told so some form of justice or apology or accountability or forgiveness may take place.  Think of it like holding up the roof so someone may have a little shelter from the storm until they can resume the walk of life.

As some of you who also hold up the roof in your various professions may have experienced, those stories can eat their way into your marrow and take up residence.  When that happens to me I feel the presence of what I have come to call "The Nameless Dreads."  The Nameless Dreads are my clue to turn and face the depression I am feeling so we can sit staring at each other until one of us cracks a smile. And then it's over.

I say this so that we may share how our wacko, ordinary, glorious lives are pleasure and pain.  When we are in pain our wisdom tells us we need a time-out to sit on the sidelines and watch the parade of life go by.  Soon, the depression will lift and it will be time to get back in the march with renewed determination, resilience and especially kindness for our wacko, ordinary, glorious selves.

Q&A Tuesday: How Do I Get Down The Story?

Q:    "I have so many details, so many facts, so much information....How do I get down the story?"

A:    Sentence by sentence, using index cards.

When I work with lawyers and others who need to tell a story, I am fond of the compression exercise I learned from Jay O'Callahan.  The trick is to get your whole story down to 15 seconds.  It works.  And then you can put down the paper and no one gets hurt.

Here are two more techniques you can use.

This first one comes from a favorite author, Anne Lamott, who wrote "Bird By Bird - Some Instructions on Writing and Life."  I am charmed by the little story that gives us a clue to the treasures her book will hold, as follows:

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write.  [It] was due the next day.  We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, ans he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead.  Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.'"

That is the very same advice I give those with whom I am working. 

Imagine that you are walking in a great swirl of papers.  Each sheet of paper is an item of information for the story.  No wonder you feel lost.  Grab one paper and begin there.  Then take it piece by piece or, bird by bird.

This last tip came to me this morning.  A high school senior by the name of Ben Breedlove wrote his story early last month before he died from a longstanding heart condition. His technique is profoundly stirring.  Words written on index cards, no sound, only the expression in his eyes and the occasional grin.  He was gorgeous.  In his memory I would like to share the technique with you in the expectation that it will be another tool for you to get down the story.

Click here to access  This Is My Story (Part I) and Part II.

Imagine having your clients do the same work.

It's as simple as that.  And if you're still perplexed, call me and we will create the story together.

 

Has The World Gone Completely, Undeniably, Unspeakably Mad?

We begin Remembering Pearl Harbor.

December 7, 1941: "A date which will live in infamy." 

70 years later I walk to the end of my driveway.  I bend over to pick up the morning paper.  Standing in the light of this cold clear morning tears run down my cheeks: I hear myself saying, "For God's sake, they are children and babies."  Bombs kills scores of worshippers.

Has the world gone completely, undeniably, unspeakably mad?

Q&A Tuesday: Grief & Loss & Damages

Q:    How do I identify the grief and loss I need to prove damages in a wrongful death case?

A:    Go to what the deceased held in their affection.  Tell that story.  

In a materialist world such as ours, we tend first to list the achievements and accomplishments of those we have lost.  It's natural.  It's like asking someone at a cocktail party, "What do you do?"  The answer may open the door to a story we can recognize and respond to.  It's the great leveler.

However, what one did or accomplished in one's life is not the whole story; and, in fact, may be the least of what was lost in a wrongful death case.   Look to what the deceased held in their affection.  What uplifted her, charmed her, delighted her, perplexed her, and so on.  Tell that story.

How did those in her family and community benefit by what she held in her affection?  What was lost when the fabric of the family, the neighborhood, the community, the town was rent by her sudden passing?  Tell that story.

I recommend three books I have among many on my shelves: 

1. Grief and Loss by Robert T. Hall and Mila Ruiz Tecala
2. Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins (How our family stories shape us) by Elizabeth Stone
3. Why Do I Love These People? by Po Bronson

Tell me the story so I may know and by so knowing I may care enough to do what you need me to do.

What This Country Needs For Inspiration: A Movie Showing Brain Injured Survivors Going The Distance And Making A Comeback.

While at the BIACal conference I met David L. Brown, the producer and director of a spectacularly hopeful documentary entitled, "Going the Distance - Journeys of Recovery."  It is the perfect timely message for those with traumatic brain injuries (in particular) but any handicapped person, survivors, families, friends, caregivers, and so on to see that there is a way to be "A Comeback Kid."  You need faith, family, friends, assets and resources.  

To introduce you to the man behind the viewfinder, following are two sites that tell stories about what motivated David Brown to take on the personal journeys of four people, strangers really.

Bay Area Filmmaker Goes The Distance. 

Brown Follows Injuries.

This documentary has all the elements of great storytelling and movie-making: love, romance, danger, pathos, hope, despair, triumph, loss, gain, and the indomitable human spirit.

The four featured survivors are a young boy who gets back on a surf board with a "helper" dog; a young Marine injured in the war; a young woman thrown from a motorcycle; and a young man who was the victim of road rage. 

You can visit this website to see the trailer:
http://www.goingthedistance.info

There is a companion website to help raise the last $16 grand needed by Thanksgiving to get this movie out into the world:
http://www.indiegogo.com/Going-the-Distance.

Please check it out, reach into your pockets for a contribution, and pass this message along.

The lucky ones get to the finish line - this movie is also to raise awareness of the on-going need for assets and resources to enable those who are not so lucky.

What better Thanksgiving gift than to help David meet his $16,000.00 matching challenge to get this movie out in the world for all of us, especially we who are temporarily able-bodied.

If they can do it, we can.