Month: September 2021

The Friends That Stay

/ A. Ward, LPC / Leave a comment

 At a recent conference I honed my craft and spent precious time with friends both old and new. Some I hadn’t seen in twenty years, but in the breath of “Hello,” time collapsed. It is one of life’s great blessings to have friends like that. You know the ones? The ones where it doesn’t matter that twenty years have come and gone, and picking up right where we left off is as natural as the laugh lines that now crease our faces.

We spoke of everything and nothing. Children born, life lived, friends we missed, victories won, and lessons learned. 

We laughed til we cried, talking into the wee hours of the morning as we rushed to fill the gap of years in the span of days, yet lingered over conversations poured out like wine that time might move more slowly. 

There is a sacredness here. In the celebrated and mundane. In sharing a meal and breaking bread- whether at the trendy hotel bistro between sessions or around a campfire in the Canadian Wilds when all we had was time. It shows up when we commit ourselves to community, to living up close and in the real. Somewhere in the sweating and the swearing and the striving and the praying and working towards a common goal, a gift emerges. 

Come as you are, let down your hair, pull up a chair, and stay awhile, only friendship is being served. Through reminiscence, new adventures, clinical and philosophical discussions, loud card games, and late night talks, we unfold our lives in turn. There is no hiding here. And no need for it either. They earned the right to speak truth into my life long ago, and that doesn’t fade with time. 

“We collect people,” one of them said, speaking of her own life, and where it’s taken her. This humble statement whispered, both simple and profound, catches me off guard. Collecting people, I can’t help but think, what’s more beautiful than that? As we go through this life don’t we all, if we’re wise, find a few souls to pull close and pour into? And in so emptying ourselves, are filled in return, a blessing pressed down, running over.

September 11th and the Moral Wound of a Generation

/ A. Ward, LPC / Leave a comment

Where were you on that September morning? I remember it in sharp relief.

We were working at a boarding school in Indiana when my still-new husband called me at home to tell me that America was under attack. I still remember the feel of the floor beneath my shifting feet as I listened uncomprehending and told him that he must be mistaken. I tuned into the one station we had on our TV, adjusting the rabbit ears as the second plane hit, and proceeded to watch in horror for the next six hours. Fear became a palpable thing, seeping into my pores. Somewhere between home and work, I cried for my mother in the hallway when I thought no one was looking. All grown up but suddenly feeling so very small.

Our students had limited access to the news and outside lines, but through our whispers and grim expressions, they knew something was very wrong. How in the world do we tell these teens of the tragic magnitude we’ve yet to understand ourselves?

After some debate, it was decided that we would show them news clips that afternoon, and fill them in on what little we know. But first, a delicate piece of business. For one of our students this wasn’t some far away corner of America, seen in films but rarely visited. For her, it was home.

She hailed from Staten Island, NY, and her big heart and no-nonsense ways made her a fast favorite with all who knew her. As her mentor, the awfulness and sacredness fell to me to tell her of the gaping hole ripped into the heart of her hometown. I’d only just begun to learn what it is to sit with the broken, and the sound of her anguished cries stays with me still. Her aunt worked in the building she explained, and what do you mean calls can’t get through? If the raw pain and pure rage in that small body could’ve transported her, it would’ve carried her all the way home.

Sept. 11, 2001 was a Tuesday, and Eric and I had a road trip planned for Wednesday, our sights set on Niagara Falls. Those plans seemed small now, and an international tourist site no longer sounded like a good idea. So we went where we always went for comfort in those days, where we knew best: we went to the woods and disappeared into the trees. Letting the sunrises and sunsets, the wind in the treetops and gentle thunder of the waterfalls tend to the places in our broken hearts the trappings of civilization couldn’t quite reach. God met us there in those Ohio woods. By the cave and under the stars. By the river in our sandled feet, we poured out our grief, our fears, the innocence lost and the moral wound of a generation. What terror have we witnessed here, oh God Who Sees, and how will we carry on? For us, mere witnesses, but even more, those still searching for loved ones and choking out goodbyes?

Twenty years and we are here, facing fresh atrocities and uncertainties, the innocence of another generation lost. My children read about this day in their history books, not understanding that this particular page of history still echos in our bones. And for some, it still screams.
We Remember. We Remember.