here's the deal: being officially disabled sometimes feels like i have been sent to life's naughty chair. i can hear life happening around me...rush hour traffic...the high school track team running by the house...people shopping or gardening or walking to the busstop. i never took the bus around el paso but now it looks exciting and adventurous. i miss going through the day with a purpose. here's the deal: everybody needs a purpose.
a couple of weeks ago i decided to paint some small wooden crosses i had lying around. a few years ago, at my sister, dee's, in vermont, i painted up a storm. i painted little bird houses that dad had constructed and they now adorn dee's wooden fence. i painted portraits of animals from photographs for pet lovers. i painted wooden crosses as i sat in my bedroom at dee's and listened to the sounds of my family settling in for the night. good night, grandpa. good night, mary ellen. but as this disease has progressed, it has affected my balance, my speech and my fine motor skills. like the ability to wield a tiny paintbrush accurately. and i am my own worst critic. if i can't do something well, i don't want to do it. so i lost interest in painting.
but i finished a lighthouse painting for an ataxia cyber friend from michigan, jason, this spring. and then i painted another lighthouse for my friend, cerina. in new mexico. and i was happy with both paintings. i was thinking about cerina a couple of weeks ago as i dusted off those small wooden crosses and spread out my painting supplies...the brushes and the paints and the newspaper and the dish of water. i painted (5) crosses that evening. and then i photographed the crosses and posted the picture on facebook. somebody asked what i planned to do with them. hmnn. i replied that i would give them away but the recipient had to perform a random act of kindness. i dubbed them 'kindness crosses.' and i was immediately embarassed. where did the kindness cross idea come from? i don't know. but then it dawned on me: i had a purpose. no more naughty chair for me.
a cross went to arizona and to cape cod (to the cantwell sisters), and to laurie, a classmate i'd graduated with (in 1971) in vermont, and to fellow ataxians i met on facebook in missouri and texas and to cerina in new mexico. and then more requests began arriving. like christmas cards, which is my favorite christmas tradition. donna, who had graduated with my sister, dee. whose beautiful child, jenifer, had died of cancer. something happened when i painted that cross. i can't explain it. i ended up painting a very tiny letter 'j' in gold in the center of the heart in the center of the design. me, the artist with deteriorating motor skills. because, for some reason, i needed to remind donna that she carried jenifer in her heart.
i sent a cross to a fellow ataxian, therese, in norway. my paternal grandfather emigrated from norway in the early 1900's. therese lives in fredrickstad, norway. my grandfather emigrated from fredrickstad, norway. so a kindness cross is headed to the town my ancestors came from. that amazes me. and there are so many connections to saxtons river, vermont...where i grew up. we larsens lived in many places but our favorite house was the williams house. it sat across from the lumbermill, overlooking the saxtons river. we rented the house from charlie and millie williams. eventually the house was sold to charlie's son, john, and my family left the village. but our hearts stayed behind. we own a burial plot in the saxtons river cemetery. the plot is on the 'old' side where the graves are mostly from the early 19th century, but we chose it because it overlooks that house. my sister, cheryl, who died from ataxia, is buried there.
in the early 70's, i worked at headstart in windsor, vermont, and befriended another 'cheryl,' an early childhood teacher. cheryl had a sister, debbie, and we became friends, too. we shared the same debbie/cheryl sister connection and we shared a love of life. a love of laughter. i remember dancing at the savage beast, a club in ascutney. it was owned by max fraser who is now my sister, dee's, fiance. the savage beast is long gone, there is a campground there now, i think. i recently reconnected with 'headstart cheryl' on facebook and to her sister, debbie, after almost 40 years. debbie lives in saxtons river. she is married to john williams and lives in my old house. a kindness cross will soon be hanging in that house. the house that you can see from my sister, cheryl's, grave.
the summer of 1968, i was 15 years old and living in the williams house. fifteen was not my finest hour. fifteen was a painful period. but that summer, my friend, debby (debby spraque colgan...she lives in nh now and she, too, has a cross coming) and i met a young student studying with an organization that had leased vermont academy for the summer, mac toll. he was studying french and he was headed to france for an exchange program. mac was wonderful. he was handsome, he was smart, he was college-aged, he was kind...i adored him. the last night he was in saxtons river, debbby and i sat with him in the big white church on main street. we talked about god. we talked about life. mac, despite being an adult, listened. and then we hiked to the swimming area with another friend. i was supposed to be home at 9 pm. oops. at midnight, debby's parents pulled into the rec area, looking for us. my father was waiting for me at the house. i had a near death experience with my father's belt that night. mac left for france the next day but i was grounded so i didn't get to say good-bye. i was heartbroken.
but later that summer a letter arrived from france. from mac. it was written in french because, at 15, i loved french. i cherished that letter. i responded immmediately. but the next letter from mac was slow in coming. it arrived that fall, written on his way to vietnam. for the first time, somebody in my life was going to war. i felt sick. and i felt sicker when my reply came back 'unable to deliver.' mac had died in that awful place. it was something i never got over.
i remember visiting the traveling vietnam war memorial when it came to college station, texas. megan, my daughter, was a student at texas a&m. we searched but i couldn't find mac's name. maybe he hadn't died after all. when i moved to new mexico, i scoured the albuquerque phone books because i remembered mac was from albuquerque. no luck. about ten years ago i had a reunion with debby and her sister, chris, back at her family home in saxtons river. at some point in our conversation, mac's name came up. i relayed my futile albuquerque phone book search. 'not albuquerque,' deb corrected me, 'denver. i even found an address online that might be our mac.' i was living in san antonio by then. when i returned to texas, i sent a letter to that denver address deb had found online. a few weeks later, my phone rang. it was mac calling. from denver. it had taken 40 years but we reconnected immediately. a cross is on it's way to mac.
the white church on main street is my church now, whenever i am in vermont. susie is the pastor. susie (and her mom. and her friend, cyndi) have crosses. gary, my texas roommate, has family in springfield, vermont. i sent crosses to his 4 siblings. his two brothers have ataxia. i tease gary about being the ataxia carrier...he lived with his brothers and they have ataxia. he lives with me and i have ataxia. he doesn't have ataxia.
i sent a purple cross to mindi, another cyber friend. my other purple cross went to cyndy in anchorage, who gave me the best haircut ever. we are friends on facebook, as is mindi. cyndy jo and mindi jean have similiarities... they both have razor sharp wits and kind hearts. neither has children. cyndy was born in wisconsin but moved to alaska. mindi was born in vermont but moved to wisconsin. and they are both bladder cancer survivors.
so many connections. cyber friends i adore but have never met face to face, like meme and belle and chloe. ataxians from around the globe. people i went to school with but never got to know until lately. former co-workers. friends from childhood. my siblings' friends from childhood. the moms of friends from childhood. cherished old friends. i once listened to a eulogy for mary cantwell, my 'soul sister' margaret's mom, mother of those 6 amazing cantwell sisters. delivered by mary, margaret's eldest sister. about how we are all connected in life....circles that bind us together. it makes perfect sense to me now and i see it very clearly through these kindness crosses.
i continue to paint crosses and to send them out into the world and i continue to be amazed. at how tough life has been, how terrible the hardships people have endured....the death of children, of siblings, of parents, of spouses. catastrophic disease. divorce. heartbreak. floods and droughts and other natural disasters. and puberty, which was a terrible ordeal for me...but these people are still eagerly enthusiastic about committing a random act of kindness. so i climb down from my naughty chair....and smile...because i am so blessed. and because i am fortunate enough to appreciate just how blessed i am.
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