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Art, caregiving, character, Christopher Cudworth, community, the Right Kind of Pride

Ten years on: and then some

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I am chagrined to realize that the last post I wrote in this blog was a year ago. On that front, I can simply state that my energies went into completing a book now published. It is titled Honest-To-Goodness: Why Christianity Needs A Reality Check and How to Make It Happen. If you want to keep up with that project and how it relates to the world we live in today, you can find me on TikTok as @genesisfix.

Today, on this blog, I have a testimonial to write. It has been ten full years on March 26, 2013, since my late wife Linda Cudworth passed away after eight years of ovarian cancer survivorship. She’s the reason I wrote the book The Right Kind of Pride, A Chronicle of Character, Caregiving and Community. The book talks positively about vulnerability, the aspect of character enabling people to be honest about their circumstances and trusting that other people will understand.

The actual definition of vulnerability is somewhat harsher than my description above. Vulnerability: the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.

Perhaps that’s why people shy away from the idea of being vulnerable at all. Fearing attack for showing their true selves, they feel safer keeping their distance or even letting a sign of supposed weakness show at all.

We purchased her a bike to ride when neuropathy made it hard for her to do the daily walks she loved.

For us, I can testify that showing weakness turned out to be a sign of strength. We were blessed by the support of so many people that at times the help almost overflowed. That’s not bragging. That’s an expression of gratitude. Without the help of others through years of cancer treatments, chemotherapy, surgeries, medical challenges + emergencies, emotional breakdowns, loss of work, financial stress, and finally, a move into palliative care and hospice, those eight years would have been hard to endure. My brothers helped. Our friends helped. Even strangers helped. In some cases those people became friends. In others, they were practical angels when needed most. All were appreciated.

We made it through to enjoy periods of remission where things sort of felt normal. She got to attend school plays and concerts, see her kids graduate from high school and watch one of them graduate from college. She only missed seeing her daughter “walk” during college graduation by a few months.

So this isn’t a complaint or a “woe is us” moment. This tenth anniversary of her passing is a statement of respect and love. She lived as fully as anyone that I ever met. In fact, her example resonates to this day with all that knew her. I still get messages from people whose gardens still blossom with the plants she divided and gave them over the years. I also meet the parents of the former preschool students that she taught. They recall her kindness and loving nature with fond hearts and gratitude. Those were her two loves outside God and family. Her garden and her “kids” were always close to her heart.

The watering of her lilies and garden in late June.

She loved so many things that I used to kid her that I was glad to be ranked in her “Top Ten” any given week. She’d laugh a bit because we kidded each other often. But Linda was also known to have a biting sense of humor on many occasions. Despite her sweetness, there was a sharp intellect and cutting sense of humor inside her. She used it mostly with those she loved the most, creating inside jokes that made potentially dull moments more interesting. She’d also tease our kids sometimes, but mostly she found ways to praise them.

Our children Evan and Emily Cudworth posing for a Christmas photo with a Red Ryder BB gun famous from A Christmas Story.

She looked for ways to bring unity to many situations. During a family reunion up north in Minnesota, she wryly nicknamed the handsome young (often shirtless) dock attendant Mr. Boat. That was his job, fetching fishing boats moored away from shore, and whenever one of us wanted to go fishing she’d chirp, “Better call Mr. Boat!” Her powers of observation were that way about many things in life. She chose her favorite shows based on a high standard captured in the phrase, “This is interesting,” which was not given out to just any old show. Usually, that meant the show was either refined or educational. She also loved historical dramas such as Upstairs, Downstairs the series Downton Abbey, and nature shows narrated by Richard Attenborough.

And yet, she loved the silly stuff too, as with shows such as 30 Rock, where an episode could send her into fits of giggles if the absurdity caught up with her.

Nothing captured her imagination quite like gardening, however. She’d pore through catalogs seeking the best new plants, especially specimens few other gardens had. A walk through a typical garden center with her elicited winces and looks askance at the colorful yet commonplace pansies or petunias. Her garden pots as a result were works of genuine, living art. And once during my participation in an Artists In Action event in downtown Geneva, Illinois, her dried plant arrangements outsold my artwork by a far margin. I didn’t hear the end of that for quite sometime.

During one of our fall travels to the Morton Arboretum. A small portion of her ashes were discreetly placed in the Daffodil Garden.

I loved her for all these reasons. Yet I also knew that once the cancer diagnosis hit, it would be tough for her to live it out beyond a certain number of years. Had I not chased her to the gynecologist that spring of 2013, she might not have lived even a year beyond whenever it showed up at last. But getting checked out saved her life in many respects. It took aggressive surgery and chemo treatments to knock back cancer, but she/we did it time and again. She was tough as nails so many times. Even her doctor, a highly respected gynecological oncologist with many years of practice told her, “I don’t think I could do what you’re doing.”

A formal portrait from our church. We moved to a more open-minded congregation during the last year of her life.

That was her will to live at work. Obviously, I was her closest admirer, but there were many whose involvement in our lives proved vital to her survival. But by early March of 2013, when the medical oncologist saw that she could not rise from the examination table on her own, I was pulled aside to learn that it was time to prepare for the end. That’s when I really knew. It was time to say goodbye.

In truth, and I don’t say this with shame, I’d been preparing myself for many years before she passed. This is called anticipatory grief. It takes place when you see parts of someone you love being taken away. People dealing with situations in which loved ones or friends aresuffering from diseases such as dementia or Parkinson’s know the process too well. Bearing witness to the disappearance of that person you knew is painful. Indeed, my freshman-year roommate and running teammate Keith from Luther College was diagnosed with Parkinson’s not long after losing his wife Kristi to ovarian cancer. He dealt with its effects for more than a decade, including slowed speech and movement limitations. Yet he kept his wry sense of humor. Yet what a strange thing to have to happen in life. Those two 18-year-old kids that roomed together as cross-country teammates at Luther College could never know that both of our wives would battle the same disease.

My roommate Keith leading our team. I’m at left in the second group.

Keith and his wife Kristi had been together since they were high schoolers. She and my late wife had quiet conversations about their respective cancer journeys whenever we were all together at college reunions or other events. Recently, one of his daughters sent me a Luther College Bear made from some of his tee shirts. We keep each other company in spirit.

I wrote a poem about the anticipatory grief experienced in preparing for Linda’s passing. That’s the only way I could put all the thoughts together. I’ll place that poem here for your consideration. Perhaps you’re experiencing a change in your life that brings grief about in some way. I hope you know that you’re not alone. And if you feel moved to do so, you can share your experience at chris@christophercudworth.com. I’ve communicated with many people over these years. Sometimes it helps a bit to share.

Anticipatory Grief

At four o’clock a.m., she woke me from sleep

and shook a sheet of paper calling out, “I found the car!”

She’d been up for an hour researching new Subarus

on the Internet and that fact alone was shocking

because she despised almost everything

about technology and how it seemingly ruled our lives.

Our car is still rolling ten years later.

She dug into the website of Gerald Subaru to look through the selection of Outbacks and found the bronzy brown color she desired and printed out the sale sheet with all the stats so that we could go that day and buy the car.

Already we’d experienced the side effects of steroids

from the cancer that passed through the blood-brain

barrier even though it is never supposed to do that.

On December 26 we met with the neurologist

who explained the procedure he proposed

in fine detail, with the clamp on the head

for excision and radiation followed by

a prescription of steroids to stop the swelling.

Her personality grew my increments as the drugs

did their job, reducing inhibitions dramatically

as she spent money we did not have and looked up

cars that we probably should not buy

because I was taking time out of work

to care for her needs.

Like mother, like daughter.

Fortunately, my credit rating was so high up on the charts

that the car dealership didn’t ask too many questions

and we drove the new vehicle off the lot

with that strange sense of hope enhanced

by that new car smell.

She would get to ride in that car just three more times

as the steroids wore off and her body slowed down

unable to keep up with the rolling effects of ascites

and everything else that goes with ovarian cancer.

It had been years since her first diagnosis

in late spring when my mother also learned

that she was fighting a different kind of cancer

and my father was tied down with the effects

of a life-changing stroke.

Upon hearing these bits of news, a longtime coach

and friend called on the phone with encouragement

saying, “Your whole life has been a preparation for this.”

All that run training, patience, and perseverance learned in athletics

was called upon in caregiving for years to come.

There were late nights sitting in hospitals waiting

for surgeries to finish, and days spent perched

on partly comfortable chairs waiting for her body

to recover with some sign of digestive activity

usually indicated by a loud fart of some sort

at which the nurses often cheered.

We found humor where we could and between

repeated rounds of chemotherapy there were periods

of remission in which she could return to gardening

her primary love in life along with God and family.

Son Evan with Linda and Chuck, our dog.

My job was supporting these efforts no matter which direction

they tended to move, and without the help of so many

there were times when I might have frozen in place

lacking hope where there should be some despite all the worries.

The prayers piled up as high as they could go

and people even laid hands on her in a religious attempt

at ridding her body of disease, but she hated it,

the ceremony I mean, because it felt to her

like testing God, or what we knew of such things.

Her main goal was to be free of cancer somehow

and did not like being the center of so much attention

or the need to get so sick that life itself felt like a cruel prank

in the face of nausea, neuropathy, and skin peeling

from her hands as she was gardening.

Linda in her parent’s backyard on the 4th of July, one of her favorite holiday. But she loved them all.

Eventually, her hair was all gone and never came back

while the veins in her arms were so tired from injections

that the nurses had to warm and slap the skin

just to find an entry point for the medicine

or whatever one might try to call the poison

that cancer treatment so often requires.

The wigs she chose evolved from modest

to a bit wilder as she said “Fuck it!

I’m going to look like I want to look with the time that I have.”

Yet she was never negative, only resolute.

Visiting my Paoli apartment during our second year of dating in 1982.

For exercise, she wanted a bike because walking

numbed her feet so we picked up a matte green

Trek and she went pedaling on the Great Western Trail

while I rode along behind because I did not want

to pressure her to go too fast. That was how we proceeded

in many things, because I wanted her to last.

She let it all out that day with a burst of speed, clinging to the wig

on top of her head as the tires rolled on crushed limestone

taking her away from the feeling that life was limited.

I rode along behind feeling the breeze of anticipatory grief across my face.

In some way she knew what was coming as well,

and that Subaru was a last grasp at life itself.

A week later she could hardly get off the examination table

And by early March of 2013, when the medical oncologist

pulled me aside, there was true empathy in her recommendation

that we go to palliative care.

Sharing a kiss after I’d won a road race in 1984.

In many respects, I’d been there for years

because the woman I’d known, or the person she wanted to be

had been slowly stripped away by cancer’s rigors

and all that it represents. That means letting parts of yourself go

because there is no other choice.

She gave up calling me by the nickname “Lover”

and used the name Chris whenever we talked.

During those last weeks, I sat by her bed

asking forgiveness for whatever ways I might have failed her

if that was the case. In response, she turned to me and said,

“Oh, Chris, I’m sorry about all the stuff.”

She referred to all the keepsakes and everything kept in boxes

throughout the house from basement closets

to kitchen cabinets, and while she was no hoarder

I found more than thirty baskets in different styles

along with some money kept in quiet boxes

as a stash for new garden supplies.

Never did I begrudge her a dime spent on her love because

she’d sit outside facing her garden with a gin and tonic

admiring her work as the sprinklers graced the lilies

with moisture and the bergamot shared its wild bee scents

on summer evenings. Bats flew overhead and an occasional

nighthawk with its odd reaching up to a partial moon

as evening fell.

These things sustained her determination,

as she didn’t quit living even to the day she died.

We had to move her from the back bedroom

to a living room medical bed

and the EMTs rolled her through the house

on a computer chair in an act of inelegant

practicality. When she was settled back in bed

She looked up at me with a laugh and said

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to suffer.”

As the medical team went about its work that day

It was advice from her gynecological oncologist

that stayed with me. “This is coming to a close,”

he advised, “There’s nothing to be gained

in being negative. So be positive. Lie if you have to.”

Linda with my parents and Evan, our firstborn.

Those are the mercies of reality

because let us not fool ourselves with false positives

or true negatives. Instead, reckon with the truth

in each our own way. Years before, I’d ushered her

through an emotional breakdown brought on

by the fact that the cancer was back.

That truth was far too hard to condense

and much harder to swallow and I lost my wife

for a while to wherever the mind goes

when it can’t take it anymore.

A close friend and nurse then told me

“She’s going to need you now more than ever,

as her entire affect is off, and she’s afraid

of everything but you.” That was true,

so we held hands everywhere we went

until the shock finally wore off

and we invited short visits from trusted quiet friends,

those women she loved that could comfort her soul.

One of the many monarchs we “ranched” and released from her Batavia garden.

We never knew how cancer took hold, the disease

perhaps emanating from baby powder or talcum

as the legal advertisements later implied,

yet far too late for a cure, or recompense.

There is no room for second-guessing the past

when the future bears down on you from behind

and the difficult part about dealing with death

is how to handle it with children still facing most of their lives.

Surely, I did not handle that perfectly well

because anticipatory grief is an advance

salve for the soul before it all comes to pass.

That is also why on the week that she died,

I attended a Good Friday service and my brother told me,

“Dude, you’re walking straight into the pain.”

At the service, an interim pastor greeted me

with a tear in his eye and said, “It’s good that you’re here.”

Who knows the proper way to handle

the passing of a spouse of twenty-eight years

and four years of dating before that?

The immediacy of life’s endings all depend

on practical facts such as when

the afternoon nurse gives way to the night nurse,

and things seem to be winding down.

I recall her presence well, a slight woman with deep dark skin

and an even deeper appreciation of all that was about to transpire.

She stepped in the door and greeted me with something different

than a smile, but not sad, instead taking a long look across the room

at the woman in the home hospice bed breathing deeply.

Then she moved into the kitchen to prepare for the evening.

My son and daughter and I remained in the living room

with their mother and my wife for hours as her breathing grew heavy

and finally the night nurse came into the room and gestured to us

to gather at the bed, each family member holding a hand

or gracing her face with a kiss. Then it grew quiet

because there was nothing more to say.

I glanced at both my children, as each had come

from different places, one in New York and the other

from college to be back with their mother

who’d survived eight hard years to see them

grow into adults, or at least part of the way.

A trip to Chicago during one of her remission periods.

Then the arrangements began and we knew not what to do

but retreat from the finality of her last presence

as the funeral people took over for the transition to ashes

as were her wishes, but not her hopes.

That night the three of us could not bear to be apart

so we joined as children to watch the movie “Wreck It Ralph”

and its playfully destructive theme seemed just right

to distract us from the woes of loss and pain

and numbness, a heartfelt stain that does not always go away.

Our family was always able to talk

But never so amusingly as the day

that I dragged them all to therapy

when the news first hit

that Linda would be fighting cancer

and I wanted us all to be on the same page

in holding our bonds together.

They all participated patiently yet after the session

my son turned to us and said “I could have done all that.”

He proceeded to describe all of us in terms of personality

and how we got along and then he said some words

that I vowed to respect when he advised,

“Dad, just tell us the truth.”

That is what we all tried to abide during all those years,

allowing concessions for caution when the news

was not clear or the prognosis was still being determined

and only then could we be truthful enough

to offer direction, a parent’s prerogative.

The book I wrote about our journey.

These words are begging forgiveness for my own vain need

to tell all these stories as the means to process

what so many others go through in so many different ways.

I only hope they aid some others familiar

with these transitions in life.

I will also confess to needing affirmation on many fronts,

even going so far as self-aggrandizement on more than one occasion.

Also noted are mistakes made during all that caregiving

and one stands out in my mind, the day that she

needed to choke down the most awful liquids

in advance of a barium treatment test

and I grew impatient with her knowing

that her chemo regimen made even good food taste bad.

Yet I still stepped out on the back porch to chide her

with a call to just get it done. Her eyes flashed

and she raised two middle fingers with just two words

that to go along with that gesture,

and I deserved that.

The real object of her fury was the disease itself,

because it was the cause of all that trouble

and deserved to be told to go away

in the harshest of terms.

As they say, we “lost a good one” on March 26, 2013,

and yet there was one more moment of mysterious reckoning

when a friend of my daughter stayed over one night

as night as a gesture of support in the week following

her mother’s death.

The young woman lay on our couch with her feet facing

the spot where my wife’s head had been positioned

in the medical bed, when a set of three orbs of light,

one green, one white, one red, appeared glowing

in the darkness. Her scientific mind hesitated to tell us

that next morning, but we trusted that what she’d seen

was genuine and real.

A photo from our honeymoon taken at Waterton north of Glacier Park, 1985

These events form a helix of memories and realities

that we all seek to unravel with time, yet my perspective

on finality has forever been changed by the people lost

to life’s vagaries and its inevitable conclusion.

Call it anticipatory grief if you will, but I’ll not forget what

the night nurse told me after my wife had passed away.

“She was already gone before I arrived.”

A year after the world changed I sat next

to one of my wife’s closest friends who told me,

“You know, she told me that she knew you’d date

after she was gone.” I thanked her for that,

but related that I was glad she waited to share

that information because we all still need to make

our own decisions in this world. They are often

no easier to make than any other, and whether

we lose a wife or a father or mother,

there still remains a path to walk or run

and it takes resolve to not come undone.

appreciate what love means, character, Christopher Cudworth, community, God is love, love abounds, the Right Kind of Pride

Enneagram wisdom: “True strength comes from the courage to be vulnerable”

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Taking pride in vulnerability does not mean always being scared or sad. It’s quite the opposite. It’s about being authentic in whatever situation you find yourself in life.

One of my new work cohorts encouraged me to take an Enneagram test to see where my personality fits on the spectrum of such things. I signed up on Truity and paid $19.99 to get the full results. The outcomes were interesting, with all my best qualities and flaws laid out in black and white.

Somewhere late in the PDF, which is replete with graphs and charts about personality and life traits, I noticed a quote highlighted in the headline of this article. “True strength comes from the courage to be vulnerable.” I sat there a minute and thought: “That’s exactly what I meant by calling my book “The Right Kind of Pride.”

The Right Kind of Pride is precisely that: the consistent action of taking pride in the willingness and courage to be vulnerable.

As for that book, I’m pretty sure that some people are scared or uncomfortable about reading a book about cancer survivorship. But it’s not JUST about that. The eighty-plus blogs I compiled speak to the the value of authenticity in all situations.

Here’s the basic fact: All of us must be survivors of one kind or another. Plus, none of us gets out of this world alive. All I can say is that when it comes to getting through the tough things in life, vulnerability is truly powerful.

Caregiving

Before our marriage in 1984.

Over eight years of caregiving that was the principal way that I found hope and support.

Originally, I oversaw my mother’s journey through lymphoma and pancreatic cancer, followed by a stroke and finally hospice. Her passage left me in charge of caregiving for my father Stewart Cudworth, a stroke victim from 2002. I would remain his caregiver through his passing in 2015 at 89 years of age.

That all began in 2005, the same year that my wife was diagnosed with Stage IIC ovarian cancer. Immediately I was graced by an offer of support from the preschool director and her team of teachers at the school where my late wife Linda taught. For the next eight years, those people and many others (thank God) were willing to help us through the ups and downs of cancer treatments, including surgeries and recovery, chemotherapy, prodigious drugs and side effects, and emotional challenges deeper than we’d ever imagined possible. We’d make it through one segment of treatment to remission only to have the cancer return. That progressed with rapidity like the sound of a ping-pong ball as it taps out from its original dropped height.

During all that time I blogged to our caregiving support group about the blessings and challenges we experienced, and things we learned along the way. Those blogs formed the bulk of the book I wrote titled The Right Kind of Pride. Then I wrote a prologue and epilogue, including A Goofball’s Guide to Grief. Because I am. A goofball.

Making the most of my hair before it all went away in my late 20s.

Personal journal

But I also kept a personal journal for thoughts that were not ready for public consumption at the time. I’d actually forgotten about those words until recently when I opened up a thick journal given to me by my mother-in-law for my July birthday in 2012.

I’d been thrown out of work earlier that year by an employer who fired me the day after they learned my wife had cancer. So I was freelancing and trying to cover everything from COBRA insurance costs to the daily costs of living. Fortunately, I was able to find bits and pieces of work to tide us through, all while dealing with the difficult fact that Linda’s health was decreasing in quality. She started having seizures in the fall of 2012, and then we discovered a brain tumor that required surgery, radiation and steroids to treat, and after that, things got really tough.

Calm realizations

At that point in February of 2013, I landed a new job and was trying to do my best at it. But the daily challenges of helping her through were significant. By February 11, it was even tough for her to get around. “Linda sleeping on the couch upstairs,” I wrote in the journal. “Chuck is on the Ottoman, leaning on my leg until a few minutes ago. Following me around all day. Linda improved a bit, for a while anyway. Big day tomorrow. Meeting Dr. Ferris and Dr. Dolan.”

We made it to the appointment with the medical oncologist Dr. Ferris. But things didn’t go all that well. She could barely stand to lie on the table, and the doctor pulled me aside and made a calm recommendation of palliative care going forward. I knew what that meant. And besides, Linda was too exhausted from gut swelling and fatigue to make the trip from Warrenville to Advocate Lutheran General to see the physician that treated her so well from the outset. I could barely get her home.

Constructive thoughts

I wrote in the journal on February 14, Valentine’s Day 2013, “Well, my objective with this journal is to focus on constructive thoughts rather than destructive, which so many other journals in this house seem to have been. In a constructive fashion, therefore, it is still important, most important, to acknowledge that Linda Mues Cudworth––or Linda Ann––is in the process of dying. She has been a most wonderful wife all these 28 years, and wants to continue if only she could. But her cancer is catching up with our dreams of going places together and doing things. We had both promised to get to Glacier this year––together, if her health would allow it. Now it seems more likely she will be gone, the earthly part of her that I so love anyway. Our relationship has gotten richer these past 8 years. Richer than money and wealth combined. Our mutual failings and weaknesses have fallen away. She has told me that she loves me and I believe her now. I have told her that I love her and she knows it now. Our wedding vows have been fulfilled; for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.”

We made many trips to Decorah, Iowa over the years. One of the prettiest spots in the Midwest.

Reading those words again nine years after she passed away on March 26, 2013, gives me both sadness and satisfaction. We did the best we could all through those years. “Sunrises and sunsets still await,” I continued writing in the journal that February. “And spring as well. Hurts so much to know that she may not be with me. So soon. So sudden. Yet we have lived well together, the best we know how. I love you Linda. I always will. God Bless your kind and spirited heart. Forever.”

The promise of vulnerability

It would still be weeks before the end of her life came. But we opened our lives at that point, trying to bring our children and family, friends, and associates into the sphere of vulnerability. If you absorb nothing else from these words, please embrace the truth that “true strength comes from the courage to be vulnerable.” We lived that reality and I can promise you that while things don’t always happen or end how you’d like or expect, the courage to be vulnerable is one of the most valuable human traits of all. It expands all the good things that life has to give.

It’s fascinating to study yourself objectively through a test like Enneagram. It’s a valuable thing to learn what emotions and character traits drive you from within, and how that translates to life and relationships. And it’s the core of who we are that matters. Letting others see that in you can be a wonderfully empowering force in life.

Linda Cudworth passed away on March 26, 2013. While appreciating her life, I am grateful for the things life and love continues to bring.

appreciate what love means, caregiving, Christopher Cudworth, community, love abounds, the Right Kind of Pride

A December 26 one cannot forget

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The day after Christmas in 2012, my wife Linda and I were scheduled to meet with a neurologist at the Central Dupage Cancer Treatment Center. We managed to have Christmas together with her family that year even though her father passed away that winter. He’d had a heart attack while sawing up a giant oak in his own backyard, Following that incident, he developed dangerous swelling in his legs that ultimately led to kidney failure.

All that fall, we teetered back and forth between hope and reality for my father-n-law. He did kidney dialysis, and it seemed to work, but swelling kept coming back.

Meanwhile, Linda was experiencing an series of seizures. We thought they were a side effect from yet another set of chemotherapy treatments. In any case, it was scary stuff. We’d be out for a gentle walk and her body would start to tremor and shake, but she refused to give up her love of movement and being out in the sunshine.

A combined team of oncologists from Central-Dupage hospital and our longtime gynecological oncologist Dr. James Dolan conferred on her condition. Finally a test was ordered to check the condition of her brain. On December 26, we found out the disturbing news. The ovarian cancer that had afflicted her since 2005 had reached her brain.

“It’s not supposed to be able to breach the blood-brain border,” an oncologist told us. “But here we are.”

We sat together facing yet another shock on December 26, 2012.

It had been a long and difficult year. Back in March, I’d been fired from my job the day after the company learned that she had cancer. We’d kept her cancer a private matter when I started the job, but I finally had to tell them when it came roaring back late that winter. I knew that she’d require more attention with driving her to appointments, staying with her through chemotherapy and taking care of her in between treatments.

Granted, we had a wonderful caregiving team built up around us, but there are always some things that only the immediate family can handle, especially in a life-threatening situation. So I explained our situation in simple terms to the company where I worked, and they promised us support. That was on a Monday, but by Tuesday morning they came forward with an accusation that I’d breached company policy by posting an image of the work I’d done for a client on my personal website. When I walked into work that day, I came face to face the owner, an HR director and a lawyer equipped with all kinds of documents telling me that I’d somehow put the company’s reputation at risk.

No consideration was offered for the stress I might have been under, or how that situation might have affected my judgment. I was out the door and soon forced to pay $2000 a month in COBRA premiums to hang onto medical insurance. All because the owner was frightened that my wife’s condition might increase the company’s insurance premiums.

I appealed the case to the Unemployment system and was blown out of the water by the judge holding the teleconference. He introduced all the evidence the company presented and disallowed everything that I’d provided in relation to the case. I was railroaded, in other words, by a labor-sympathetic judge. Even my best friend, a labor law attorney, was disgusted by the outcome.

But rather than dwell in that space forever, I chose to reach out to that owner in subsequent years and we talked about all that had happened. Forgiveness took place.

But that didn’t help us in the near term.

Little miracles

That summer we struggled to make bills, and sat together praying one night that I’d find a freelance job to cover the $3500 we needed to make ends meet. That next morning an envelope arrived through our front door. It was stuffed with $3700. We hadn’t spoken to anyone about our situation. Other money from our church came our way as well. We hung on, kept her treatments going, but the cancer was relentless. By fall, a tumor was discovered next to her colon. If it could not be removed, the whole colon would need to come out. Then she’d need a colostomy operation. I admit that I was not looking forward to that outcome.

The gynecological oncologist did miracles in the surgery room and my selfish prayers were answered. And then, the day my wife got out of the hospital after surgery, we drove straight to the hospital where her father lay dying.

Crash course

My cycling jersey after the bike crash in September of 2012

As if that had not been enough challenges to face in 2012, I was still recovering from a bike accident that happened earlier that fall. In September I was cycling in a rare weekend getaway with friends while my wife staye back home to spendtime with her family. During the ride, I was cruising down a long hill at 40 mph when a case of bike wobble set in. I crashed in dramatic fashion, flying off the bike and tumbling down and embankment where I lay in shock with a broken collar bone. My friends didn’t know where I’d gone. One of them was ahead of me by fifty yards and the other had not yet crested the hill when I crashed. So I got help from a band of other cyclists who called for an ambulance. I wound up in a tiny Wisconsin hospital in Dodgeville. They pumped me full of Vicodin until someone finally reached the wife of one of my friends. She’s a nurse, and she came to gather me up for the trip back to our campsite.

All that time, my wife was at her parent’s house having yet another seizure. My daughter begged her to go to the hospital, but in typical fashion, wife refused. When the call came that I’d been in a bad bike crash my daughter was in the center of all sorts of trauma. A dying grandfather, a mother shaking to death from cancer, and a father now injured badly after a bike accident.

The effects of trauma

We tend to take these traumas too much for granted in our lives, but they do have long-term effects. We grieve, but perhaps we do not fully process what’s gone on. We move out of that emotional space, but probably not all the way. We deal with what we can in the moment, but life has its demands. So we trundle on. Not fully healed, yet not terminally damaged. If we’re lucky.

During the late stages of my wife’s life, my son was working in New York City. He had to deal with all this strange news from afar. “Do I need to come home?” he asked. It was hard to tell him everything that was going on. It was even harder to figure out what expect of him. My wife said, “Tell Evan I’m fine. I don’t want him to worry.”

My daughter was finally off at college after two+ years of coursework at a community college. She was doing amazing things in her communications studies, even doing live spots on public radio that summer. Her mother was so proud and amazed. We’d sit close to my Mac listening to the live stream and she’d turn to me and go, “That’s Emily!?” Hearing our daughter work professionally on the radio was a welcome joy.

Dealing with the options

But the events of that year kept overwhelming us. And that brings us back to that moment in the cancer treatment center when we found out that my wife’s cancer had moved into her brain. “Here’s what we can do,” the neurologist told us. “We can go in through the top of the head and excise it. Then we’ll apply radiation.”

We sat there thinking about those options. My wife did not have to think long. “Yes,” she said with resolve. And she smiled, “I mean, why not?”

Why not, indeed. We’d been through multiple surgeries, countless rounds of chemotherapy and many times, we got back to some form of ‘new normal.’ But this felt different to me. I looked over at her and smiled. She gave a thumbs up sign when she was ready to go.

Before the brain surgery and radiation. I’ve kept this photo for ten years.

So we came back for the treatment. They didn’t even have to shave her head. She’d lost her hair several times over through treatments, and this time her hair had not come back at all. She stripped off her wig and they began the process of affixing a stabilizing unit to her skull. It consisted of a circular metal band with screws that would be used to hold her head completely still. She posed for a couple quick selfies using the Photo Booth application in my little black Mac Laptop, and off she went.

The treatment worked. They captured and killed the cancer in her brain. The seizures stopped. They gave her a steroid prescription to deal with the swelling caused by the surgery and radiation. From there it was off to the races. Those steroids turned her into a Survival Machine. Her personality became magnified. She cleaned and cooked and sat up writing lesson plans for the preschool classes she taught. But as the steroids added up in her system, her sense of judgment disappeared. She spent money we didn’t have. One night she researched a new car, and that next day, we drove to the Subaru dealership and bought it. I wasn’t sure if she was getting money from her parents or what, but I sensed that something final was happening, and decided to go with the flow.

The steroid effect

Toward the end of February, she could no longer handle teaching at the preschool she loved. Her spaciness increased, and it frankly put the children at risk. I collaborated with her director to ease her out of the position. That was absolutely necessary. Yet despite our efforts to be kind, something in her broke the day that she learned she could no longer teach.

Once the steroid prescription was eased, her body and mind fell slowly back to a normal state. That was when I knew that she would not live much longer. The stress and fatigue of eight years of cancer survivorhood wore her out. During one of our last visits with the oncologist before bringing her home for palliative care, she was too damned tired to even get off the treatment room table. I spoke quietly with the oncologist that day. She was kind. And honest. And earnest. “Take care of her,” she told me.

Linda Mues Cudworth passed away peacefully in our home in March of 2013. My son and daughter were together with me that night. It is both a blessing and a strange truth to be present when someone you love that much passes into eternity.

Aftermath

We’ve all gone through gyrations in the wake of her passing. My son suffered through depression and a period of addiction. He’s emerged with a will not just to survive, but to help others process their mental health in constructive ways.

My daughter was just coming into her own as a young woman when my wife passed way. In many ways, that left a void in her that is hard, if not impossible, to completely heal. Every year, she recognizes more of her mother in herself, and the pain of losing her mom keeps turning over. Those are legitimate feelings. I know other women that have lost their mothers. I wish at times they could all talk with my daughter.

As for me, I’m not sure that I fully processed all that happened that year, or perhaps the many years before. During my wife’s eight years of cancer survivorship, I was also the primary caregiver for my father after my mother passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2005. That was the same year that my wife Linda was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

My father lived another four years after Linda died, and I did my best to take care of him. After my wife’s passing, I admit that what I wanted most was to be free of the constant pain and fear involved in caregiving. But there was still a job to do.

Coping

During the eight years of caring for her, I’d been on and off supportive medications such as Lorazepam to help me deal with the anxiety of caregiving. It did its trick as needed, but some of that stress sinks deep into your soul.

I recall trying to ride my bike with friends during that period. I’d be out on a fifty or sixty mile ride with them, but when it came time to ride hard or compete, as cyclists love to do, I often did not have the will to keep up. I’m pretty sure that what I experienced was an active sort of post-traumatic stress disorder. Not the kind that comes from being in a war, or witnessing a murder, but the kind that comes from not being able to deal with personal shocks over and over.

As a form of therapy, I started blogging to our caregiving group to communicate some of the feelings I had about the things we were going through. Much of that was quite positive, and I’m proud that we found ways to find blessings and hope in all that trauma. That’s the right kind of pride. This blog is an echo of all that.

Anniversary

But this year, when December 26 rolled around, I realized it’s been ten years since that strange day when we found out that the cancer had moved into her brain. Once we knew the cause of her seizures, it explained quite a bit about what was going on with her body

But it also brought on conflicted feelings in my mind. Should I hope for her to continue going through the stress and pain of cancer survivorship? At that point, I began to grieve in real time. I understood that I no longer wanted to see her go through the awful stuff. The sickness. The numb feet and hands. The fear. The trauma of surgeries. The loss of life quality. Giving up the things she loved to do. None of that is ever what I wanted for her. It certainly wasn’t what she wanted. Some part of me was relieved when the pain was over. Through faith and reason and love of life, I began to move on.

For these reasons, I got ahead of most of the people in my life by recognizing that she was not going to make it through the year in 2013. I didn’t know how long it would be before she died, but I knew for certain that it would happen. Even her doctors were astounded at the job she’d done for so long in staying alive.

That’s not the kind of news that people want to hear from the primary caregiver, so I kept it to myself. Perhaps that was a mistake of some sort. But my wife had plowed through so many obstacles during her years as a cancer survivor that none of us could imagine it coming to an end. She was so tough about staying alive it did not make sense to question her. She surely showed us all what it means to love life. She loved her children fiercely, almost to a fault at times.

Endings

So we didn’t make end-of-life elaborate plans. We were so occupied with keeping her alive that we never discussed what to do when she died. But earlier in life, we’d talked about cremation, so that’s what we did. Her ashes rest under a grave marker next to her father in the Lutheran cemetery in Addison where she grew up. That town was the place where she attended the church gradeschool, then moved on to Addision High School. She graduated Magna cum laude from Northern Illinois University.

We met in October of 1981 and she lived until March of 2013. In all, we had a great life together; full of family, friends and most of all, our children.

The lilies being watered in our garden, circa 2011.

She also loved her garden so much that it’s hard to describe the satisfaction she got from her green craft. She’d sit in our LL Bean Adirondack chairs staring at her garden with a glass of wine, or a margarita, or one of her strong gin and tonics in her hand, and just enjoy.

Perhaps that’s why I moved on quickly from the trauma of her last year of life. That’s not how I wanted to remember her.

I chose to remember her cherishing the work she loved. She also told a close friend, the preschool director who served as our close caregiver for all those eight years, that she knew I’d date if she ever passed on. But that friend waited a full year to share that quiet bit of insight with me. I thanked her for waiting. We all need to make decisions on our own terms. I’m grateful to have had a wonderful life with my late wife.

I’m also enormously grateful to have found love again.

Gaining traction

Life is often complicated, and even the people closest to you have a hard time understanding the reasoning or motives behind some of the decisions we make or the changes and impacts that come with them.

Ten years on from December 26, I hope that people gain from reading this and find ways to embrace life even in the face of trauma, and even if life turns out different from what they expected.

It’s indeed a strange thing to go from the traditional joys of a December 25th to facing moments when the world itself seems to shift underneath your feet. Sometimes the best thing to do is to keep those feet moving, to find traction in the things we do and love every day. And please, let’s forgive ourselves for wishing the world would just stand still now and then. Take some time. Look at your garden, whatever that means in your life. It is the work of your life.

character, Christopher Cudworth, community, the Right Kind of Pride

Glad for those who retire, and for those who don’t

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People nearing my age often retire. Some run their career course and it makes absolute sense to cash in and cease working in the conventional sense. Others plan wisely and have the financial resources to allow them to quit working and do what they want with the rest of their lives. I’m glad for all those who achieve those milestones. They’ve typically earned them.

Yet I’m also glad for people that choose not to retire at a given age. While the age of 55-65 is often the traditional age for retirement, there is nothing that says you have to quit working at that stage. Our current President of the United States, Joe Biden, is 78 years old. The masterful Bob Dylan just turned 80. Many great artists work even into their 90s. What’s the damn rush to quit working?

Still, the pressures to do so can be daunting. I know a sales executive, now retired, who could not find employment after his company consolidated departments and he wound up on the outside. He’s living now in Arizona, and enjoying it. But at first he was hurt by the sense that he was no longer valued in a working way.

Those are challenging emotions for people at any age, and losing your job or needing to step back from employment is often a solid blow to the ego. So much of our identity is tied to our working life.

There is also the sense of “earning a living.” During my peak earning years I found myself out of work several times during caregiving for my late wife. At several times during eight years of caregiving she needed me home to take care of her through surgeries, chemotherapy treatments and recovery periods of both physical and mental consequence. The timing was seldom convenient to long-term success or building the perception of a steady-growth career. Each time I peaked in income, rising from $80K to $100K, cancer whacked us with a recurrence, and it was hard for her to work as well.

It felt like starting at Square One during each of those comebacks. Sometimes the return to work involved taking lower-paying jobs that were closer to home during periods of cancer caregiving. I won’t claim that I was a perfect employee during those periods of change, either. During those eight years, I was also principal caregiver to a father who was a stroke victim. The dual demands were daunting.

Yet I still managed considerable successes that included winning large accounts, earning national awards in public relations and marketing, and building a literacy project that served more than 375,000 families. But my failures included forgetting meetings, allowing the occasional typo to slip through, and trying too hard to protect my job by posting a sample of client work to my personal website. I was under enormous stress in the moment and didn’t think that decision through. It led to my dismissal just a day after I’d revealed to the company that my wife was a cancer patient. They brought in a lawyer to protect their interests in that circumstance after they’d promised to support us no matter what. It was hard not to consider that a cheap shot.

Plus, that situation left me with no job and COBRA insurance premium payments of $2000 a month. To say that some of our premium earning years were compromised by cancer struggles is a massive understatement.

So I’ve forgiven myself for not retiring at age 55 when some of my peers managed to do so. But here’s the odd truth about my actual attitude. I’m not eager to retire. In many respects as a writer and content developer, I’ve never been more capable and productive. Quitting now would be a shame, from my perspective. I still enjoy the challenges work provides.

I’ve also been an athlete all my life, and I’ m swimming, riding and running every week. I enjoy the sensations of being fit and active. That aligns with my daily writing, painting or producing creative content across a spectrum of platforms. Perhaps it would be nice to retire, but I feel like I’d still be doing the same things I do now even if I weren’t traditionally “working.”

As for a retirement plan, there is still time to make up the difference and that’s what I plan to do. The other main goal I have in life is to MAKE A DIFFERENCE. That is why a series of books I plan to publish are so important to me.

The first is a book titled Honest-To-Goodness: Helping Christianity Find It’s True Place in the World. It is a treatise on the roots of Christian tradition and how legalism leads so many people astray. It is a collaborative project with a Professor or Religion named Dr. Richard Simon Hanson.

The second is a book titled Nature Is Our Country Club. It is a book about the way golf courses thirty years ago realized there was a better way to manage their properties than pouring chemicals all over the ground and mowing everything in sight. The narrative traces how natural landscaping relates to the world at large, and what the human race needs to do in order to protect the earth on which we all depend.

The third book is Competition’s Son, a biography about life that deals with the effects of competition in all aspects of life; learning, sports, family, relationships, business, religion, success and failure, and emotional conditions ranging from anxiety to joy, from depression to salvation.

The first two books are finished and being prepped for release. My goal is to begin speaking and producing content around those topics going forward. All the while I’ll continue working because I love what I do. I’m glad for those who retire, but I’m also glad for those who don’t.

To me, that’s the Right Kind of Pride. How about you?

Art, community

an invitation to share in the hobby of a lifetime

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I started actively studying nature through birding at the age of twelve. That’s when my eldest brother came home from college after taking an ornithology class. His interest passed to his three brothers and we initially drove the country roads outside Elburn, Illinois with a set of 10 X 50 Sears binoculars and a Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds.

Earlier in life, I’d been given one of those bird guides by my mother’s older sister. So the seeds for an interest in birds were planted well before I ever came of age. This 20-minute video explains that journey and how my interest in bird identification and art ultimately merged into one hobby of wildlife painting.

Video on bird ID and Bird Art by Christopher Cudworth

From the age of twelve on, I drew and painted birds all the time. Initially, my efforts weren’t that impressive. Back then, resources to copy weren’t that available and I didn’t own a camera. So I drew what I’d call “impressions” of birds from bird guides and the creatures I’d seen in the wild.

Over the years, as I learned more about birds and got a camera, my paintings somewhat improved. Yet one of the key learning tactics was copying the work of other artists such as Louis Agassiz Fuertes, as I did with this watercolor of a great horned owl.

Great horned owl by Christopher Cudworth, aged seventeen.

The progression of an artist from copying the work of others to producing definitive work of their own is in some ways a lifelong endeavor. Yet once I graduated from high school and entered college, I started that process in earnest. I took an internship trip to the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology and studied the works of dozens of famous wildlife painters. While there, I drew birds from life in the raptor center at Sapsucker Woods.

Gyrfalcon and peregrine studies from life.

Once the process of creating my own work as in full swing, I took on the project of creating a set of life-sized murals for the Lake Calmar Nature Center. That involved painting four 4′ X 8′ panels in a month-long January Term project. The photo in the newspaper shows the relative scale of these paintings.

Christopher Cudworth circa 1977 with wildlife murals.

An article appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette that winter. It stated my life’s hobby in pretty succinct fashion.

Article on teaching the balance of nature with a brush.

I’ve gone on to sell hundreds of paintings in my lifetime. All along, it’s been my goal to teach others to enjoy wildlife and appreciate the diversity around us. I do that by leading field trips, citizen science projects and sharing work in shows, exhibitions and classrooms.

Now, I’m going to launch a new venture called a Patreon site. It will be a combination of my two deep interests, nature and art. Here’s a quick sample of the content that will appear on that site, a demonstration of how I draw and paint a kestrel while explaining some facts about the bird.

Video sample of upcoming Patreon site for Christopher Cudworth

The site will be launching on the 15th of January but I’m giving readers of this blog a “sneak preview” of what is to come. I’ve always felt it’s important to share and give back, and this site will be a great way to interact with people who appreciate and support my work. I’ll send out an invitation on the 15th when the site is officially open. We’ll be doing live painting sessions through Zoom with Covid-safe, remote “painting parties” and more.

Thanks for reading The Right Kind of Pride. Now let’s create some things to be proud of together!

character, Christmas decorations, Christopher Cudworth, community

changing traditions and finding joy in change

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The family during a spring gather at the house of my sister-in-law.

Many years back, when I was still single and engaged in a long distance relationship with the woman I’d eventually marry, we ached to be together during the Thanksgiving holiday. She flew out to Philadelphia where I’d been sent on a job transfer and we made the best of it. I grabbed the literal last turkey in the grocery store and we baked it in the oven. Then we parted ways again until Christmas.

We’d only met the previous year in October. Any plan of being together long-term was just formulating. Early the next year, the company that moved me out East dumped the entire marketing department. I was left trying to decide what to do next. Stay out East, or move back to the Midwest?

I moved back to live with a friend in downtown Chicago and spent the next couple years living a dual life between the city and suburbs. That was a period of great change and experimentation. After a couple of years, I’d had enough of the Bohemian city life. We got engaged and married the following year.

During a summer vacation in Wisconsin.

From there, it felt like a blur of events as our first child came along, then another. We celebrated holidays with our respective families. Those days of celebration together rolled on. Mostly we got together at her family home where her parents were always wonderful hosts. Sometimes my parents would join those festivities. Over the years, we also invited friends to add to our joy.

Our Christmases were filled with family togetherness. The anticipation of opening presents with the kids was so high some years we had to let them open a small gift before the rest of the family got up so they wouldn’t burst from the pressure of expectation. Our kids were always respectful, but when they had a hint of the goodies to come, it was cruel to make them wait several hours to open the “big gift” that they’d requested.

Early on, one of those “big gifts” was the Red Ryder BB Gun from the movie A Christmas Story. It became a new tradition in the annual celebration along with watching the movie umpteen million times.

My son Evan Cudworth and my daughter Emily Cudworth/

My father-in-law loved those Christmas mornings more than anything on earth. He also made a big deal out of Easter joys and the annual Easter Egg hunts as well.

His birthday was on the Fourth of July, so that day was always filled grilling steaks and setting off backyard fireworks of the milder kind, except the year that his son and friends loaded up with a stash from across the border in Indiana and blew off so many fireworks the police showed up to confiscate many of them. When the cops arrived, my father salted away the major part of the fireworks stash in the garage. He was a conservative guy by trade, but he also loved a bit of fun. That’s how they did things out in the Nebraska hinterlands where he grew up. You had fun until you got caught. Most of the time, you still got away with it.

These days that father-in-law is gone. He passed away during leadup to Christmas 2012, the year before his daughter, my late wife, passed away after eight years of ovarian cancer treatments. These days, my mother-in-law is quite alive and doing well. But we’re cautious with our visits given the Covid-19 pandemic. My own mother and father passed away in 2005 and 2015, respectively.

So we’ll be apart this year on many fronts. My son lives in Venice, California and the state is rife with Coronavirus, so he’s sitting tight. I cancelled a planned visit with him earlier this year over concerns of infection myself. This will be his time in 34 years that he’s not in company with direct family during the Christmas holidays. It hurts to be apart. But there also comes a point in everyone’s life when circumstances or other interruptions place things out of our control. This is an inside joke with my children, but those changes really do “build character.”

My daughter and her boyfriend live nearby, and we’ll likely see each other. But they’re cautious about the Coronavirus too. Even more than I. So we’ll all Zoom with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and make the best of this holiday the way we have always done. That’s what most families typically do during the holiday season anyway. We go through the motions of opening presents, but to our group’s credit over the years, we dialed that down quite a bit, choosing one person to “gift” each year, and we’d buy or make small themed things for the rest of the family. That took the pressure off the shopping. We could all focus on the joy of appreciation instead. I’m always grateful we did that. It was the right kind of pride to turn our attention away from the presents and toward the relationships.

Our holiday get-togethers were always mixed in with long naps from food comas and other indulgences. For many people, that’s a big part of being together. Letting everyone have their time and space. Sometimes, it’s the unchanging nature of the holidays that makes them special.

We’ve added some critters to our celebrations over the years. This little dog Chuck is a rescue that is now almost fourteen years old. My son has a dog named Luke Skybarker that he’s brought home from the holidays. This will be the second Christmas with our dog Lucy for my wife Sue and I. We’ve all adopted these pups and some cats because they bring change (and joy) into our lives each day.

It’s also true that life’s changes come along whether we like it or not. That’s why finding joy amid the changes in the moment is important. The ache of times past comes from the happy remembrance of shared celebrations. That is the inseparable bond from which we can draw strength. When our hearts ache from being apart, we turn to that. But there is also the joy of creating new traditions, celebrating with newfound connections as well. Over the years, we brought people into our circle to share those bonds. That’s a tradition we should all embrace. Make the world our family.

If this year has proven anything, it is that increasing the breadth of that “circle” is the reason we’re all here. Reach out. Make it happen. The world needs you. Celebrate Christmas or whatever you do by connecting in new ways and old. That’s what this is all about. Peace. And joy to you.

caregiving, Christopher Cudworth, community, trusting science

I started the day teaching about storytelling

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This morning I taught a session for the INCubator program at a local high school. In the past I’ve served as mentor to groups working together to create a product, service or solution.

Today’s session was on storytelling, a major component of marketing. to explore the subject of what makes a good story, we discussed some of their favorite television show. One young man shared his interest in a show about corrupt superheroes owned by corporation. We talked about how the contradictory nature of the show’s subject was an immediate attraction.

We talked as well about the branding success of the Nike slogan “Just Do It.” We discussed the fact that the phrase has been used for a couple decades and somehow still feels fresh. “How does that work?” I challenged the students.

The Nike approach works––we decided––because it allows the company to show examples of Just Do It while also issuing a Call To Action. That way everyone gets to be part of the story.

Culling a brand message down to such a simple, useful form of marketing takes a bit of inspired thinking. It’s easy to get caught up in all the associated stories and lose sight of what you want customers to do: Identify with your brand.

That sense of ownership is vital. We talked about how customer stories actually become the product when they offer strong enough testimony to its value. I also shared a hint that could help them find that brand messaging the easiest way possible. Ask questions, then listen.

Listening to people is the most powerful tool to build ownership on the whole earth. It is true when you’re a brand marketer. But it’s also true when you’re a caregiver, a team leader or any number of other positions of responsibility in this world. Your brand is composed of the character it expresses. Its authenticity depends on how well people trust what is being said. That’s why influencers have such powerful voices in today’s marketplace. They are the storytellers that people trust for word of mouth advice.

With all this information swirling around, I shared one last image to help the students understand the process of revealing the main story of their product, service or solution. I showed them a fossil (at top) that I’d collected years ago. It has the back of some segmented creature protruding from a sedimentary rock. “Your job,” I told the students. “Is clearing away the material around the creature inside the rock. That’s what you want to show them.”

Every fossil is like a new product emerging from the rock of creativity. It is a revelation when the whole thing is revealed. The reward is sharing that discovery with other people in a way that invites them to participate in the story going forward. That’s what Steve Jobs did with Apple… from the personal computer through to the iPod to the iPhone. Those devices were locked in the rock of perception. It was his genius to see them lurking there and dig them out.

Jobs once stated: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

Having the will to persist in that exploration and discovery is the right kind of pride.

caregiving, character, Christopher Cudworth, community, the Right Kind of Pride

Take pride in that aging face

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Originally published on my blog WeRunandRide.com

Posted on November 18, 2020 by Christopher Cudworth

Let’s talk about aging faces. I have no real way of knowing the age of the people who read this blog. There are about 1500 subscribers, and there are some who don’t subscribe but read these words through social media and other portals. But no matter what age you are, we all deal with the aging on our faces.

When you’re in your tweens and teens, those facial changes have profound impact on your self image. Getting zits and growing facial hair is a part of growing up. Dealing with tweezed eyebrows and the right makeup mix, or watching a callow jaw shift to manhood are all part of the process. Hair length also affects how facial changes are seen.

So the process of dealing with our aging faces starts early in life. Add in the impact of getting braces on your teeth, or in my case having a baseball accident smash a front tooth, and the changes never cease.

Those of us that compete in athletics put our faces through an entirely different kind of strain. The grimace lines wrought by the pain of endurance sports begins the process of forced aging that continues throughout our lives.

The effort shows in our faces.

So perhaps it’s time for all of us to take a healthier form of pride in that aging face we see in the mirror each day. That face of yours has so much to tell about all what you’ve gone through. There is laughter, joy and excitement. There is sorrow, fear and depression. All in the same face. It’s a wonder we don’t wear them out with all these emotions.

In recent years, I’ve worried that the look of my face has begun to limit opportunities in life. The ugly specter or ageism creeps up on you secretly. People aren’t going to tell you to your face that they consider you “too old” to do a job or fit into a workplace culture, but it happens. By law, age discriminate is illegal. Yet we all know that it still happens.

Wattled and tired

I was sickened one day while reading an article that popped up in my social media feed. A younger writer crowed that he wants nothing to do with people whose faces are “wattled.” That’s a disqualifying factor in his mind. His thinking seemed to be centered around the idea that if someone looks old, they must be unable to think clearly or creatively.

That would be news to millions of people throughout history whose contributions to this world continued or even began in their later years. I think in particular about the life of R. Buckminster Fuller, one of the most creative yet practical individuals to ever live. One of my favorite quotes by Mr. Fuller evolved from an experience of great sorrow and near defeat in his life. He’d experienced a great personal tragedy and was depressed beyond imagination. He indulged in a period of intensive personal isolation to figure out what to do next and emerged with a vision of new purpose, “You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe.”

He used that perspective to face the world in a new way. Among his many inventions were the geodesic dome, a mathematical breakthrough in architecture. His influence and thinking continue to expand to this day. No one cared that he looked young or old. What matters is how he thought. We all need to grab that truth and never let it go.

We should also never forget that our faces are attached to our bodies. Today I read an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune about the fact that people who do something more than walking in their exercise routines wind up having better efficiency and posture as they age. While walking is beneficial, it doesn’t stress the body in the same way that cycling, running or swimming do. It’s the classic training principle that applies to life itself: you have to push past your boundaries to gain the most benefit.

That seems to be the principle at work when we consider the condition of our faces as we age. If you’re engaged and passionate and pushing yourself to continue learning and trying new things, it shows in your expression and even the condition of your face.

Facing life

Until a few years ago, I’d never heard the term ‘resting bitch face’ applied to the baseline expression of someone who looks dour or unhappy all the time. Is that term as bad as dissing someone through ageism? It certainly seems cruel. Yet there is a reality at work in how we project our emotions through our visage. I’m perpetually aware of the value of smiling during conversations with people.

That’s especially true in business situations. I once had a boss tell me, “I like you a lot more when you’re smiling.” He was right. I wasn’t a happy person during that period. My late wife had just experienced a recurrence of cancer and had a nervous breakdown as a result. I was scared, felt alone, and had little tolerance for the daily vicissitudes of business, which seemed so insignificant compared to what was going on at home.

Those internal conflicts showed in my face. There was little I could do about it at the time. Just put on the best face I could, and get through it.

Facial control

So we perhaps don’t always have control of what our faces say about us. There’s always the possibility that a person with a ‘resting bitch face’ has gone through so much in life their face reflects that path. But then again, some people develop attitudes of victimhood and duress that dominate their existence. There is such a thing as becoming so bitter about life that it shows in everything you do.

I’ve got enough life experience now to look back and understand the causes of the challenges I’ve faced in life, and the reasons for the mistakes I’ve made. I’ve come to realize that a native anxiety affected many of my decisions. So did a likely associative form of ADD, a lifelong challenge that often determined the manner in which I processed information, or did not. In summary, I’m proud of having dealt with these challenges and adapted to succeed in some ways along the way. It all comes with knowing yourself well enough to accept past mistakes and not let them rule the present.

I can look at my face in the mirror now and see all sorts of experiences etched there. I see miles of training and racing, and the self-belief emerges from all those tests. But they keep coming. A former coach once told me, upon hearing that my late wife was diagnosed with cancer back in 2005, “Your whole life has been a preparation for this.”

He was quite right. That coach later faced cancer himself. He passed away a few years ago. The thing I remember most of all about him is still his face. I don’t see him as young or old. There’s a spiritual aspect to that, I believe. Take pride in that aging face, no matter what age you are.

caregiving, character, community, love abounds, the Right Kind of Pride

Tests of character

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When I published a memoir titled The Right Kind of Pride in 2014, my goal was twofold: to write about the journey that my late wife and I shared through cancer survivorship, and to share some of the things we learned along the way.

Eight years of dealing with the physical and psychological effects of medical treatments, surgeries, chemotherapy and its side effects is enough to test the mettle of anyone. Toss in the emotional components of dealing with medical scheduling and recovery, insurance premiums and bills, financial changes and losses, and the whole thing gets overwhelming in a hurry.

During those years of dealing with cancer and remission, work and family challenges, I kept sensing that there was a message in it all.

That’s the other reason I wrote The Right Kind of Pride. I learned that taking care of business in the face of a crisis comes down to three critical components. These are:

Character: the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

Caregiving: the activity or profession of regularly looking after a child or a sick, elderly, or disabled person.

Community: a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

To address how understanding these three factors helps one through a crisis, we’ll begin with the subject of character, and what that means to each individual.

Character is not a fixed trait

We often view “character” as a fixed quality in a person. But people respond to crisis in different ways. Some grow resolute, facing whatever comes their way with what seems like determination and courage. Others appear frightened or worried at the onset of bad news. There is no real predicting how someone will react to a crisis. Sometimes a seemingly strong person reacts with fear. At other times a seemingly timid person responds with great strength.

Character can even shift with age. Many character traits are subject to change over the years, especially as stress or life changes affect the emotional bottom line. Character can even radically shift within minutes if shocking new arrives. The death of a parent, a spouse or a friend. The birth of a child. All sorts of events, good and bad, affect how character is held or expressed in a given person.

That’s why it is important to understand the nature of “character,” and how to support it in yourself or the people around you.

Character tests

We might like to assume that character is the foundation that carries us through all kinds of tests. We speak of a person with “solid character” almost like they’re a piece of granite able to withstand all sorts of conditions. Yet if you’re in a position of helping another person get through a test of some sort, it is vital not to assume how they’re feeling, or even trust what they’re telling you at times. Most people don’t like to show or share their fears.

That is why it is important to be patient when it comes to placing expectations on others during times of crisis. Some want to avoid attention or engage in denial, wishing it would all go away. Others want to tell the world what’s going on in their lives, as if that alone could cure the problem. Most of us fall somewhere in between or run from one end of the spectrum to another.

Out of character

If someone responds in a way that seems “out of character” for them, it is clear they are trying to process whatever news or stress they are experiencing. Even good news can be a source of stress to a cancer or heart patient used to hearing nothing but frightening words about their condition. It is hard to trust good news because we don’t like to let our guard down in case something bad is about to happen again.

That puts us into a state of mind where character, “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual,” needs to be considered a tool for monitoring the emotional health of anyone facing a crisis. There really is no such thing as behaving “out of character” when we think about it. No one on this earth possesses a permanently rigid nature. Nor should we.

It is what it is

Obviously it’s desirable to stand strong and deal with necessary actions as they arrive. My late wife and I treated medical regimens with a brand of objectivity. We compartmentalized the cancer and its treatments by saying, “It is what it is.” In other words, let’s not fool ourselves or try to avoid medical advice that might be hard to hear, much less endure. But if you put that practical activity in its place, it is much easier to support the character or the person or person’s involved.

Being able to say “It is what it is” provides a clear focus on the most difficult aspect of life in the moment. That’s at least a degree of control, and knowing the truth and having a plan to follow takes pressure off the character of a person. Then the mental and emotional aspects can be addressed on their own terms.

Character on the line

The same holds true for many circumstances in life. A business or other venture has a “character” of its own. Applying these same principles; identifying the central challenge, categorizing the necessary response, and setting aside conflicting emotional, competitive or selfish aims to address problems is vital in facing life or business challenges. That is how to manage character as a rule.

Despite all our best efforts, there are often selfish aims at work behind the scenes of everyone involved in a crisis. Our primal instincts are to protect our own instincts. Fatigue and stress, fear and self-doubt all work to undermine our character when facing our own crisis or helping someone else face get through difficulties.

The important thing in understanding character is that it is the cumulative experience in a person’s life their character is built upon, including weak moments and strong. The key to supporting the character of an individual, a team or an organization is to identify common traits of belief, hope, determination and goals, then relate those back to the character of those involved.

Asking questions to gain answers

That means asking questions in order to gain answers about how people feel about their own character. These don’t need to be probing psychological ventures. A simple question such as “How are you feeling about this?” defines the person’s character in the moment. That’s what you need to know first. In what mental or emotional state are the people involved?

When I first found out that my wife had cancer all those years ago, a longtime friend and coach called me on the phone with a message of encouragement. “Your whole life is a preparation for this,” he told me.

That was his way of saying that I’d faced adversity before. Dealing with stress. Managing emotions. Setting near-term objectives. Reaching goals, however fluid they may be.

Every person on this planet has a foundation of their own from which to build and maintain character. Helping others do the same in times of crisis is one of the highest levels of compassionate behavior in the human sphere.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF ABOUT CHARACTER.

  1. What are some of the most formative events in my life?
  2. When were some of the times I was required to respond to crisis?
  3. What do I consider some of my most important character traits?
  4. How do I measure ‘character’ in others?
  5. Why do I value character in myself and other people?

I’d be interested in hearing some of your responses to these questions and would like to post some (named anonymous, your choice) to this blog.

Send your answers to cudworthfix@gmail.com. Your answers if you choose will posted anonymously. We can all learn from each other if we share.

caregiving, character, community

“I’ve BEEN A WAITRESS SINCE THIRTEEN…”

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One afternoon while heading out of the college cafeteria during the last semester of college, a classmate clearing plates and cups from the tables in the Union lost control with her hands and it all came crashing to the floor. That moment inspired a poem that I wrote based on how she responded.

WAITRESS SINCE THIRTEEN

Although the saucer fit the dish, she turned too quickly, threw the cup,

and watched in vain as coffee stained her shoes and left her morning drained,

“You’d never know,” she said to me, “I’ve been a waitress since thirteen.”

Last night I was writing at a local eatery and overheard the head waitress talking about her previous places of employment. Both are well-known restaurants. They’re not cheap places to dine. She talked about the fact that some of the clientele was snooty, and that the establishments charged way too much for what they provided. Now she’s happier working in the open bar and restaurant atmosphere where customers are more down to earth. She works the room with candor and kindness. An expert waitress in her element is a sight to behold.

Hands-on, hands off

Two weeks ago in Florida, we celebrated a landmark birthday with a relative at their golf club. Our round was delayed by rain and there was a wedding going on upstairs where the main bar and grill are located. So we moved to the downstairs bar and ordered food and drinks. Things were getting merry among the members that had already played that morning. Several were showing the effects of drinking.

The waitress working the room is a veteran of such situations. I watched her deftly fend off the handsy attentions of a member well into his liquor. She kept a smile on her face the whole time while using her arms like fencing swords to redirect his advances. In those situations a waitress is something far more than a person who serves food and drinks. She was at once counselor and therapist well-aware that there would be a tomorrow even if her customer refused to recognize it in the moment.

Frontline dedication

During this pandemic mess, we’ve all learned who the real frontline workers are. They are people at the point of contact for all sorts of human interactions. This morning the Chicago Tribune reported that here in Illinois, customers will be required to keep their masks on while ordering food. That’s a small move to protect the health of those who wait tables. Surely some people will take offense to that requirement as they have toward the concept of wearing masks at all. But they would be selfish and wrong to do so. Sadly, some will refuse to comply.

That further places our wait staff in positions where they are forced to govern all sorts of human behavior. Here in America, waiting tables is typically viewed as some sort of servitude. Not so in other parts of the world, where being a waiter or waitress, or however you care to describe it, is considered noble work. It takes real character to be a good wait staffer, whatever the circumstance. It is a form of caregiving in real time. Our sense of community in this world comes from such dedication. Wait staff are the frontlines of civility.

In-flight service

The same goes for the people working these days as flight attendants. That profession has changed drastically over the years. Where full meals used to be served on many flights, these days it is more common to receive a bag of salty snacks and a glass of ice water.

The old standards about appearance that once applied to flight attendants are now gone. Travelers also don’t fly in formal wear they way they once did. Airplanes are now packed wall-to-wall with people to maximize profits for every flight. That strategy has backfired in the age of the pandemic, and the middle seats now sit empty.

The entire industry is a bit more low-brow and some regret that loss of glamour. Flying moved from an experience to be enjoyed to a gut-level mode of transportation. Airplanes are no longer a version of a flying restaurant for shorter flights. The in-flight movies can be nice, and Wi-Fi is appreciated. But these are more about sharing isolation than engaging in the communal experience of air travel with flight attendants as hosts.

Noble work

It is still noble work taking care of others, despite what the prideful and selfish among us care to think about it. In a world where so many people behave grotesquely in public while looking down on others for their manner of earning a living, it is the right kind of pride to look for the humanity in all those doing their jobs. Because unless we all do that, the world is doomed to its caste-like appetite for tribalism, wrought with greed, dismissiveness and abuse.

So to make the point about treating others right in public, we’ll leave with this video from the Monty Python movie The Meaning of Life. The first time we watched this in the theater my brothers and I almost heaved up our popcorn while nearly dying from laughter. Absurdity is often the best illustrator of graphic abuse. There’s a little too much Mr. Creosote in the world right now. That’s not the right kind of pride.