Category Archives: love abounds

We live in a society more concerned with corporate wealth than public health

March 25, 2024 Christopher Cudworth Leave a comment

My late wife Linda during the first year we’d met in the early 1980s

Tomorrow, March 26 of 2024 will mark eleven years since my late wife Linda Cudworth passed away. She survived through eight years of ovarian cancer, a Stage IIc diagnosis that proved persistent and aggressive through multiple surgeries, chemotherapy treatments (literally dozens in cycles of 5-8 at a time) and the pursuant side effects ranging from destroyed taste buds to feet and hands numbed by neuropathy so bad she could hardly manage to do the thing she loved most, which was gardening.

Yet persist she did. Long enough to see her son Evan graduate from college and begin work. And nearly long enough to see her daughter Emily graduate as well. It wasn’t an easy period for either of them, working in New York as Evan did at the time, and Emily looking to finish up college at Augustana while her mother’s health declined. Those events and the aftermath affect us all to this day.

Corporate wealth versus public health

But I also want to talk about something I’ve never fully addressed. That is, how the world and its work and healthcare systems treated us from the minute we received that initial diagnosis back in 2005.

At the time, my mother was also already fighting lymphoma with oral chemotherapy because she wanted to stay healthy enough to care for my father Stewart, who had a stroke in 2003 and never really recovered. His apraxia and aphasia stole his speech, and paralysis on his right side took away many of his other activities.

That made me the primary caregiver for both of my parents. So when the cancer diagnosis came along for my wife we were already dealing with considerable issues related to insurance and caregiving. That November, my mother was additionally diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died after one chemo treatment that produced in her a life-ending stroke.

At the time, our family healthcare plan was administered through my employer the Daily Herald, a newspaper media company. We chose an HMO to save costs, but what that really meant was that our doctor options were limited by our plan. We were balancing our healthcare needs against all the other expenses we faced in life at the time with kids in high school and college.

We were just trying to get along. In the early 2000s we lived on my salary of $75,000-$80,000 a year. I also made an additional $15-20K per year freelancing, often working early mornings and late evenings as a remote freelance creative director and copywriter for an agency I’d later join as an employee. We used my wife’s preschool teaching income of $18K to save up and pay for my son’s college costs at the University of Chicago because our FAFSA was about $16K per year.

The Gold Standard

Linda had surgery in 2005 to remove the remainder of the ovarian tumor that the naive gynecologist had broken during exploratory surgery to check the cyst. That accident revealed the cancer, and it also unleashed millions of cancer cells throughout her abdomen. These implanted on the abdominal wall. We were grateful to find in our HMO a premiere gynecological oncologist named Dr. James Dolan who did investigative surgery to remove cancer. In a post-surgery meeting with me in a closed room, he quietly told me that her abdominal wall “felt like sandpaper” thanks to the cancer cells growing there. “I extracted as much as I could,” he told me.

After that, we proceeded with intravenous chemotherapy to kill as much cancer as we could without killing Linda. Then they recommended a “Gold Standard” tactic of dumping chemo directly into her abdominal cavity through a port in her belly. The nurses actually nudged the port loose with one treatment and the chemo spilled out making a white stain on her skin.

We probably could have sued over that, but our biggest concern was getting through the chemo so that she could return to something resembling a normal life after months and months of her being sick and tired and fed up with the entire debacle.

HMO ills

Our annual family vacations to Seven Mile Lake in Wisconsin were a tradition

All the while we wrestled with HMO bills and tried to keep up with our payments. Upon signing up for the HMO, we had to switch family doctors, leaving behind the physician that Linda trusted most. That practice, one that I’d been attending since I was twelve years old, no longer accepted the Blue Cross HMO we’d chosen. It’s a tragic thing when an insurance system takes medical decisions out of people’s hands.

To make matters weirder for me, during same time period my boss at the newspaper decided to conduct a 360-degree review on my performance at the company. Needless to say, I was a bit distracted that year. Thus the review held plenty of criticism. I’d been Administrative Associate of the Year in 2003, so I wasn’t a slouch of any kind. But thanks to the burdens of caregiving for my wife and parents, juggling bills and kids in college, and commuting all over five Chicago suburban counties to run the marketing efforts of six bureau offices, the year 2005 was not easy for me under the circumstances.

Yet despite these pressures, I still managed to grow a literacy project that represented $27M in market value to 375,000 families. My role also involved conducting 200 annual events as well as several dozen awards banquets, symposiums and sales programs for a newspaper with a circulation of 140,000 or so. Amid this flurry of activities, I had some problems, yes. But it also would have helped not to have been put under a 360 degree microscope while dealing with everything going on at the time.

Bigger money

I ultimately left the company in 2007, joining the agency where I’d been freelancing. Linda’s health was by then stabilizing. We felt like it was a good time to make the change given the failing nature of the newspaper industry. The Internet was stealing revenue and kicking the ass of nearly every newspaper in the country. Dozens were going out of business. I’d just won a $1M account for the agency by leading a pitch to a giant men’s clothier chain based out in Richmond, Virginia. My new salary would be $110,000 a year, almost $30,000 more than I’d been making at the newspaper.

But then tragedy struck again. Within a month of starting that new job in the summer of 2007, Linda’s CA-125 numbers began rising. The surgery and chemos she’d endured the previous years were not keeping the cancer at bay. It came back hard and fast that summer. The disappointment of having done the “Gold Standard” and having the cancer come back so fast was too much for Linda. She had a complete emotional breakdown, screaming in anger when we got the call that cancer was back. Her personal affect collapsed. Her parents spent time at our home during the day yet I spent every other hour at work checking on her as needed. My own performance suffered, and before long, the agency elected to fire me.

I get it. Company leadership wants positive, high-performing employees. The boss of that firm once looked at me and complained, “I like you better when you’re smiling.” I was just trying to survive at the time. I’d spent so much time on the phone during those months that I received a $500 cellular phone bill from our cellular provider. I took the bill to a local store and explained our situation. They told me that they’d credit back the entire bill. No charge. Obviously I thanked them profusely.

Back on the job hunt

But I was still out of work. At that point, cancer families have a choice to make, and it’s not pretty. Within a month or so, payments must be made to continue COBRA insurance coverage. That means the patient assumes the total costs of insurance. In our case those costs totaled $2000 a month. That’s a ton of money to pay before even considering monthly bills. So there I was, out of work with just a nest egg of cash available, suddenly thrown to the insurance wolves.

It took months for Linda to emerge from the depressive episode brought on by the emotional collapse. She could only bear to leave the house for short periods, usually with me, or sometimes, with her parents. Even that was tough. Meanwhile, she’d developed a condition called ascites, a swelling of the abdomen due to fluids caused by cancer. One night I walked in to find her lying on her side with the light in her eyes flat and nearly lifeless. I helped her into the car and we rushed to the hospital. The medical techs proceeded to drain several liters of fluid out of her gut. That can only be done a few times as the procedure has risks of causing infection and other problems. We needed to get her back into chemo to kill off the cancer that returned. The rest of 2007 was spent getting those treatments as occasionally her most trusted friends sat with her at the cancer treatment center if I had job interviews or freelance gigs to handle.

Making do

I got to work again by 2008, accepting a lower-paying job nearer to home at an audio-visual company. The salary was just $60,000, about half of what I’d been making at the agency. I took the position because there were some energetic young associates that just started at the company, which planned to launch a student response system for the education market. There was growth potential if that succeeded. Mostly I took the job so that I could be near enough to home to take care of Linda. She was going better again, having survived even more chemo and another surgery, but this time her hair fell out even faster and her hands went numb. She bought wigs and wore gloves to do her gardening.

The bills continued to escalate during that period. The costs of chemo and surgery shot up so high that we could not afford to pay for it all, a total of nearly $100,000 built up. I learned that the hospital where we having treatments done was a non-profit offering financial assistance. To my amazement, they reviewed our financial situation and agreed to pay 90% of all our bills. I sat at home that night crying in thanks. On that subject, I greatly admire wealthy people moved to support healthcare and hospitals. They rightly deserve to have their names on the facilities. Thank you. That’s indeed a beautiful thing that wealthy people do.

Ugly questions and healthcare roulette

That still leaves some ugly questions. Why does our insurance system work like this? It’s clear that no one really knows what’s going on with actual patients and their medical bills. I’ve long been a proponent of a national healthcare system for these reasons. The US should be like so many other countries around the world, investing in the health of its people rather than forcing them to play healthcare roulette.

In this country, real, everyday people feel the ugly brunt and abuses of the for-profit healthcare It’s an ugly process in which insurance companies, healthcare providers, the government, and employers small and large all battle over who should pay for what. All we know is that the costs of health insurance rises year after year. During the eight year reign of President Bush, the costs of health insurance rose by *96% and millions of people remained uninsured.

*Source: Crain’s Chicago Business

Money drains

That leaves people heading for the emergency room if they’re uninsured, driving costs higher and reducing effectiveness of care for everyone. It’s unexcusable that a developed nation such as the United States of America carries on like it does claiming that it offers the ‘best healthcare system in the world.’ Yes, we have many advanced and amazing healthcare opportunities in this country. But what does it mean that our doctors hate it because they’re in debt up to their ears from paying for their medical education, and the cost of insurance for their practices is skyrocketing too. Meanwhile, nurses suffer long hours and hospital systems try to nick every dime out of patients just to stay afloat. Money consistently drains down the sinkhole of the American healthcare system. It’s a national debacle. A shitshow.

To make it all worse, many companies fear having their insurance rates go up every year. This is true for companies small and large. Once the recession hit in 2008, there were many small companies struggling to survive month-to-month while banks refused to offer loans to cover payrolls or operating expenses, much less insurance costs.

By 2010 my job at that little audio-visual company came to an end when the rescue dollars offered by the Obama administration to fund educational technology ran out. “Sorry,” I was told. “We don’t see the same business coming through this year. We have to let you go.”

Well, that was also a lie. I’d researched and landed a former business line with a huge educational supplies company eager to sell our firm’s AV equipment through their national channels. But because that firm competed with the localized dealer network and the Good Old Boy system it relied upon, the company’s President and top salesperson fought the supposed incursion upon their territories.

I’d studied the previous sales reports showing that the education company had once done $600K in business with our firm. With another salesperson I visited the education company, re-opened those sales channels, helped train their people and provide them with marketing materials, and brought in a quick $1M in restored business that year for a firm doing $20M annually.

But our internal audience was not in favor of the change. “Our dealers don’t like their salespeople calling on their schools!” they protested.

“When was the last time any of those dealers actually called on those schools?” we responded.

“Well, they plan to…” was the weak response. We’d learned that the new sales channels threatened their anachronistic methods of doing business.

We might say the same thing about our healthcare insurance industry and its anachronistic corporatized structure. The “old ways” of doing business are clearly not efficient or effective for anyone. The possibility of competition from a national healthcare system to regulate and negotiate prices is too much of a threat to Big Pharma and the likes of United Healthcare and other monopolistic healthcare insurances hogs feeding at the trough of unrestricted data, access and profits from the American population.

No agency at another agency

I searched far and wide for a new job and got a position at an agency forty miles away. During the onboarding process, which was conducted by the wife of the company’s owner, I hesitated filling out the information on the health insurance forms because it would mean revealing my wife’s cancer. I considered not telling the truth, but reasoned that could lead to a lawsuit. So I filled out the paperwork honestly and turned it in, knowing that it might raise red flags in the minds of the couple running the company. From the get-go, I worried about that.

Sure enough, after month I was suddenly shifted to an inane sales position requiring me to drive all over the Chicago area handing out bottles of promotional pepper sauce as a device to land marketing work for the agency. It never worked, and of course, I didn’t land much business. I quietly asked, “Shouldn’t we be using the marketing techniques we teach our clients to market our own firm?” For some reason, that was ignored. Ultimately, they pulled me into a meeting one day and said, “You’re just not cutting it. We have to let you go.”

I resisted and specifically pointed to the fact that I was shifted away from the original responsibilities to engage in a crazy proposition that no one could fulfill. Later that day, I wrote them via email because I’d done my research before leaving and talked to the broker that sold them healthcare. “I can stay on their plan, right?” I asked. He assured me that the law required that I be offered that opportunity. But the company tried offering me a $1500 stipend toward whatever insurance I could find. At that point, I contacted a lawyer friend. I accepted their $1500 offer and also stayed on their insurance until I found a new job.

Bad scaffolding

As I understand it, the entire American healthcare system is built on a scaffolding of bad policy originally constructed as a sort of “incentive” or “benefit” to attract employees. The healthcare system we developed relies on this quasi-capitalistic notion that we should all get health insurance through our employers.

But if supporting and defending capitalism were truly the mission of the American healthcare system, businesses would have nothing to do with health insurance at all. That would eliminate the massive costs and time spent by HR resources negotiating and managing company-sponsored healthcare plans. Our corporately sponsored healthcare system is a fraud. To make matters worse, the politicians responsible for legislating healthcare are in many cases funded by the profit-based companies benefitting from the waste and corruption integral to our system.

The laws governing small companies are vague and frankly, rife with loose language and utter bullshit about what they can and cannot do to hire and fire employees, much less provide access to healthcare insurance. If a company has less than twenty employees, they get a ton of leeway in how they can screw people over. I know that it’s hard to run a company of any size. I’ve seen it firsthand. But I also know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to treat people. I’ve seen that firsthand too.

After I left, one of the employees at the first who knew my situation called to offer condolences. She told me, “Don’t fuck around with these small companies,” she warned. “You need to get a job with a big firm with good insurance.”

A CMO still hiding the Big C

I tried to abide that advice, but the job market was still tough in 2011. I applied and was hired for a position as Chief Marketing Officer at a PR firm. Things went well for a year. I earned a number of national public relations awards for clients large and small, even bringing 2000 people the grand opening of a ReStore.

The company’s owner knew and liked me, yet in the back of my mind I remained cautious because during the interview process she’d openly stated, “The only reason we can offer insurance here is because no one’s had cancer.”

I have a labor law attorney friend whose firm once faced rising insurance costs. His partners were angered by the fact that his wife had a couple surgeries to fix scar tissue related to horseriding injuries. “Your wife is driving up our insurance costs,” they complained. But when the broker from whom they purchased their insurance explained the rising costs, he told them. “It’s not her surgeries making the costs go up. Both of your wive’s are in their child-bearing years. That costs more money to insure.”

The fact of the matter is that virtually no one understands our insurance system in America.

Fortunately, in the case of that little PR agency, I was able to fill out and submit our health insurance forms without sharing them with the office manager or anyone else at the firm. I mailed them directly to the insurance provider. I believe that’s how it’s supposed to work. And don’t HIPPA laws require it in some fashion? Yet many small firms ignore such requirements.

Even with that precaution, I’d soon run afoul of that firm’s insurance fears and other policies related to employment.

A grudge and payback

After traveling to Colorado Springs on a client recruitment trip at an event where large firms met with PR firms like ours, I was accosted by a fellow employee who was angry that the owner had spent $35K to attend. “We won’t get a bonus this year, I bet,” he complained. In turn, I explained that we were trying to up our game and bring in new and larger clients so that we’d all make more money. Instead, he bitterly blamed me for supporting her venture. In fact, he made a practice of complaining about her every time we went to lunch. I didn’t know that his disenchantment would soon cost me directly.

In the spring of 2012, Linda’s cancer came back. This time it would require yet another surgery involving a complicated extraction of cancer from her liver and colon, where it had spread. With the surgery approaching and the need for some time off possible, I considered telling the company about her condition. Yet I feared getting fired if they found out my wife had cancer. I’d been enough nuttiness to know that anything could happen.

As an insurance against my own risks, I worked hard the last two weeks before the scheduled surgery trying to land a big client. I figured that might stand up against any potential costs we might incur if our company’s insurance coverage shot up.

On a Sunday night, a bit anxious to make something happen I’ll admit, I opened up my personal website and posted one of the successful creative campaigns I’d just produced with an in-house designer. I was trying to reach a network of people through my own website that might be able to provide a referral for new clients.

The pressures were getting to me, so I decided that Monday morning to tell the owner and the HR director about my wife’s condition. They expressed complete support for our family. After all, I’d attended every company event and brought some recognition to the firm, including a complete re-write and design of the company’s website. I thought I’d built some loyalty and value. They assured me that I had.

But that afternoon the post of content to my website generated a Google Alert about the client’s name. At that point the disenfranchised employee came to my office with a stern look on his face and said, “You need to take that down right away.” So I did. It had stayed on my website no longer than ten hours. It was highly unlikely anyone even saw that post. But the copy mentioned the client’s name. Technically, I’d committed an error in judgment.

Getting fired is no fun

I walked into work the next morning to be greeted by the owner, whose stern look told me something bad was happening. The entire office was silent as they led me to the company conference room and informed me that I was being fired for breaching the company’s policies on client confidentiality. “That’s weird,” I responded. “They’ve already published that work in a magazine.” They didn’t care, they told me. I’d put the company at risk.

The lawyer they hired sat in the room and read me some legalese. Then I was told to gather my personal effects and leave. If you’ve never been fired from a job, it really is no fun.

That afternoon I contacted my best friend who is a labor law attorney. He gave me some advice to follow for an upcoming hearing on unemployment insurance but he was busy with his full-time job the day I was to have the hearing. It was conducted by a Chicago employment judge. In advance, we were told to exchange relevant materials so I submitted proof that my post had done neither the company or the client any harm. However, I never received the information they were supposed to provide me.

Upon mentioning that to the judge at the start of the hearing, he told me not to speak until spoken to. From there the case was railroaded and I was also blocked from collecting unemployment insurance. In sum, that disgruntled employee had fucked me over in spiteful revenge over my support for the boss’s investment in client recruitment.

Lessons learned

I’ll end this story there, because not long after that debacle my wife’s condition got worse. Her own father died of heart complications in late 2012. Then on December 26 of that year we learned that her cancer had migrated to the brain.

The doctors told us, “That’s not supposed to happen.” But it did. We engaged in brain surgery using radiation. Then they put her on steroids for the swelling. That made her kind of energetically crazy in early 2013. We even had to counsel her to stop teaching preschoolers because her judgment just wasn’t right. That broke her heart. And mine.

When the steroid treatments ended her body mercifully gave out but her mind never did. We’d done our praying and told each other of our mutual love. She died peacefully the evening of March 26 after the hospice team visited her that afternoon.

I’ll admit I was grateful and relieved that she was freed from the misery of the cancer that caused her distress all those eight years. Despite it all she lived as fully as anyone could, planting amazing gardens, raising monarch butterflies from eggs on milkweed leaves, and loving her own children and those she taught with all her heart. She was 55 years old.

But my point in this essay is that I still cannot believe this is the way that human enterprise is supposed to treat those facing illnesses such as cancer. In its broadest sense, society is still primitive, tribal and brutal in its methods of care as far as I can see. Corporations can toss people around at will, it seems. Our healthcare system favors the rich and spits on minorities, women and anyone that fails to fall under “covered categories.” Is there any more inhumane system on earth? Probably so, but we’re supposed to be better than that. Instead, we’ve got greedy fake Christians and their hypocritical political partners claiming to be Pro-Life while constructing death panels based on who can afford to pay for insurance, and who cannot.

Fortunately, there are still many kind and wonderful people who break through the ugly facade of America’s healthcare system to offer great care and financial support. But they fight against a system more concerned with corporate wealth than public health. And that’s the real cancer in America.

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”

March 24, 2022 Christopher Cudworth Leave a comment

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

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

December 27, 2021 Christopher Cudworth Leave a comment

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.

caregiving, character, Christopher Cudworth, love abounds

That homesick feeling

June 16, 2021 Christopher Cudworth Leave a comment

The farm in Upstate New York that I loved to visit as a child.

At six years old, most of us don’t have a great grasp of the world around us. Life revolves around parents and family. The rest of life is a mystery until we experience it.

During the summer after my second grade year in school, my favorite aunt and uncle traveled from their farm in Upstate New York to visit our family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. When the time came for them to leave, I begged my parents to allow me to go with them back to the farm. To my surprise, my parents agreed.

A half hour later a bag was packed and I was plopped in the back seat of their car for the trip north to Bainbridge and the farm that I loved.

But the next morning, I woke up with a horrid feeling in my gut. I was homesick. If you’ve never experienced that feeling for yourself, it can be best described as a deep combination of longing and loss that penetrates your whole being. All you want to do is go home.

Confession: I was always an anxious kid. Already at that age, I chewed my nails. Looking back through a life of dealing with aspects of anxiety and depression, I realize that homesickness was a product of who I am. Learning to cope with anxiety is a lifelong job. I don’t blame myself for it, and these days I know myself well enough to function healthily. It wasn’t always that way.

The morning of my homesickness, I recall my aunt making a phone call to my parents, who drove up from Lancaster that day to fetch their anxious, homesick son. Apparently all involved had pity on me. Perhaps they knew those feelings well enough to realize there was no cure except to send me back home. Sometimes good caregiving is a matter of listening to the people involved.

Keeping me on the farm a couple days might have cured the homesickness, but I must have been a sorry sight with all those aching tears. I guess I can be grateful that adults had compassion for my condition.

The giant elm that once stood in front of the Nichols family farm where my mother grew up.

I looked up homesickness on the Psychology Today website. It had interesting things to say about homesick feelings. “A number of studies have suggested that homesickness can be associated with psychological difficulties such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, difficulty adjusting to new situations, and psychosomatic health problems. Given that being away from home can be accompanied by the sadness of missing it, one wonders why we form such powerful emotional bonds to our home. Surely, attachment is at least partly the product of all the wonderful experiences we enjoyed during our childhood.”

It goes on to say, “As poet Robert Frost famously explained, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Our bond extends beyond enjoyable experiences. It encompasses unconditional love, commitment, loyalty and enduring connectedness.”

Still, no specific mention of fear as a cause of homesickness. Perhaps there’s no reason. That emotion is woven into the DNA of anxiety and depression. It is both the cause and a symptom of those conditions.

The PT article continues,” Efforts to prevent homesickness must contend with a paradox. Although research findings have been inconsistent, homesickness seems to be more likely when children have had prior experiences with separation from home as well as when they had had little or no prior periods away. If homesickness is the price we pay for attachment to a strong loving home, would anyone want to diminish the quality of a child’s home to prevent the possibility of future homesickness?”

Like many children in that day and age, I lived in a home that was both loving and at times, a conflicted place. My father lost his mother to complications of cancer treatment when he was just seven years old. He went to live with an uncle and two aunts because his own father experienced profound depression at the loss of his wife and also brought on in some ways by The Depression.

So my father’s upbringing was at times gruff. His pain at losing his mother at such a young age was probably never adequately addressed. No doubt there were feelings of homesickness after being shuttled from his family home to a life with a tough old uncle and two unmarried aunts. The sense of loss must have been profound. Thus despite his largely caring character, he bore an anger within him that spilled out at times. His four sons tried to meet his approval but there was an exasperating and sometimes frightening tone to certain aspects of our upbringing.

So that feeling of separation from home as a place of safety and comfort is both a physical and emotional reality for all of us. Yet to this day, I still view our Lancaster house and yard as “home” in many ways. We moved away when I was twelve years old. A type of homesickness has traveled with me all these years. We’d have never left that place if I’d had my way.

A Google Maps photo of the family home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Yet that would have denied me all the experiences that were to come and those were good. So while homesickness is real, it is also not permanent and is no way to define or limit one’s time in this world. We have to rip off the bandage at certain times in life, and move on.

All of us have some sense of home that lives within our souls. Sometimes it’s just the smell of a room when the windows are open… or the curl of a pillow as you roll over to face that person whom you love. It can be heard in the song of a bird calling in the trees, or the sound of a car pulling into a driveway.

Take in those sensations and indeed, you’re home again. That’s the right kind of pride.

Note: I’ve shared impressions about homesickness before on this blog because they symbolize so many other aspects of life. May you find that sense of home wherever you are.

its a wonderful life, love abounds, the Right Kind of Pride

What it means to lose a longtime friend

May 19, 2021 Christopher Cudworth 5 Comments

Five Luther College teammates, from left to right: Dani Fjelstad, Steve Corson, Paul Mullen, Keith Ellingson and Christopher Cudworth.

I’m driving out to Iowa today to share in the visitation and funeral for a longtime friend, Keith Ellingson. He was a freshman year roommate at Luther College where we were also cross country teammates.

After that, we worked together in college admissions, then parted ways as we got married, raised children and engaged in our careers.

He built a legacy as an excellent coach in track and field and cross country. His worked earned him a place in the Simpson College (IA) Hall of Fame. Dozens of his athletes earned All-American status, and one of his decathletes made the United States Olympic trials, no small accomplishment for a Division III collegiate athlete.

His achievements were many, but he was perhaps proudest of his three daughters, Jessica, Bailey and Catie, all of whom I’ve followed in their careers and family life as well.

Back in 2010, Keith lost his wife Kristi to ovarian cancer. Then in 2013, I lost my wife Linda to the same disease. That was a strange convergence for two longtime friends. Our wives met several times at our college reunions where they quietly shared the challenges of chemotherapy, surgeries and survivorship.

As if that weren’t enough of a rough outcome for my friend Keith, he was later beset by Parkinson’s disease, a condition that muted his physical and social affect. Despite that challenge, he never lost his wry sense of humor or his love of storytelling. Sometimes I had to lean in to hear what he was saying, but it was always worth it. Every. Single. Word.

Then he was diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer’s disease as well. None of this was what I ever expected for him. Throughout his life he was an active athlete and vividly social being. Many times in his presence I was reduced to absolute laughter by his incredibly quick wit. He had a laugh that seemed to say so much as well. It was a welcoming and yet objective sort of laugh. As in, “Can you believe this?”

Over the last year Keith had become more animated, the result perhaps of some medications that worked well. A large group of his friends and former athletes conducted Zoom calls with him, swapping stories… and asking Keith to tell a few of his own. Those calls were akin to the Knights of the Roundtable, sharing old “war stories” of track and field triumphs and failures. We laughed at ourselves some, and Keith laughed along with us.

Along the way his daughters got to know some of us a bit better as well. We exchanged some direct messages, and I was in the process of gathering information to nominate him for Luther College Hall of Fame status when I learned of his passing. He deserves that HOF honor for his work as an athlete, as a coach, and as a longtime supporter of the institution. Even through his struggles with Parkinson’s, he led our class reunions several times, and I did as well. His classmates revered his perseverance, I can assure you.

The time that has passed does indeed make me think about what it means to lose a longtime friend. I think of all those college reunions and can count the years, but it would require more than a few hands these days. Yet I don’t feel old, because having lifelong friends keeps you young in many respects. Those shared experiences are sustaining in the long run. It means something to work together through thick and thin. To offer that call of commiseration when needed. To extend condolences when appropriate.

Then we get back to the business of living.

That’s not always easy. But that’s what it means to lose a longtime friend. It means you can have gratitude for the time shared and even the time apart. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Well, with longtime friends it is often the case that once you touch base again, it is like you never left.

The physical Keith is gone. That needs to be said. I’ve been with my mother when she passed away, and my father too. I was by the bedside when my wife died in the company of her two children, and not long before that, her father as well. A few years ago, I lost a longtime friend that had been my baseball coach when I was thirteen years old. He was my running coach in high school and a longtime friend thereafter.

These bonds are important to all of us. One of the interesting products of social media is that people who knew each other from “back then” reconnect and find out they’re friends in new ways. That has redefined how some of our social networks exist and flourish. I consider it a blessing to have met some of my longtime friend’s daughters through Facebook. Now we’ll meet in person today.

The loss of a longtime friend is hard. If I know anything about Keith Ellingson, he would like it if his passing led to emotional support for his daughters and their families. I think of my own daughter Emily and my son Evan, and how much they’ve missed their mom since she passed. In so many ways we are all family, and through that hope we might all find healing. That is the right kind of pride.

And that is what it means to lose a longtime friend.

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

Bathing in love and respect

May 3, 2021 Christopher Cudworth 1 Comment

She works hard and seldom takes time to slow down.

After our fifty-mile bike ride in the hills of Galena, Illinois, this past Saturday, we awoke Sunday morning to do a long run back home in Illinois.

It turned warm and the long run turned out to be, in my wife’s words, “A lot of ouch.” When we got home she proclaimed that she was going to take a relaxing bath.

She does not do that often. More typically she takes a shower “on the fly” after her morning and afternoon workouts. That’s why her plan for a late-morning bath seemed like a good idea.

Knowing that my wife wanted to slow down and indulge herself a bit inspired me to move into the background. She did request that I bring her favorite shampoo, conditioner, and deep conditioner to her in the tub. I delivered those and flopped back on our bed to rest my own tired body after an earlier shower.

From my reclined position in bed I could see her head as she ran the whirlpool. She called out: “I’m flexing my toes…They’re really tight.”

I flex my toes that whirlpool tub as well. It feels good to let the jets work out the stiffness in joints. Finally the jets turned off and she took to washing her hair. Her blonde mane darkened as it got wet. Watching her ply her hair with product made me smile. She was due for a stylist appointment before the weekend but it didn’t work out. “So, much, hair,” she observed.

Like many couples, we’ve shared the bath and shower a few times over the years. Those moments of intimacy are blessed connections when the time is right. There are also times when the best thing a husband can do is be the “support crew” for her relaxing bath.

I went downstairs to make breakfast. The vision of her bare body in the tub made me feel a tremendous intimacy that had less to do with sex and more to do with bathing her in my love and respect. A woman deserves that and more.

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

Tests of character

November 3, 2020 Christopher Cudworth Leave a comment

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.

What are some of the most formative events in my life?
When were some of the times I was required to respond to crisis?
What do I consider some of my most important character traits?
How do I measure ‘character’ in others?
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, Christopher Cudworth, community, love abounds, the Right Kind of Pride

people can generally get along great, if you let them

July 30, 2020 Christopher Cudworth Leave a comment

Our neighborhood is diverse in almost every manner of description. Race and ethnicity. Sexual orientation. Nationality. Occupation. The list goes on.

Everyone gets along great because we’ve all gotten to know each other. Even when turnover takes place, and people move on to other places, new residents are welcomed.

Humanity on the block

We’ve held block parties every other year or so. These are informal occasions. Yet one year, a woman on our block who is one of the leading Latina marketers in the country brought a Mexican Senator to visit with us in our ring of lawn chairs at the end of the street. The Senator was in town to speak at a Mexican Independence Day event, the first woman to ever do so. Yet she confided in us that it was nice to be able to relax in a less pressured-filled situation, and just talk.

Someone suggested that we go around the circle that day and share a personal insight about gratitude. It was fascinating to hear the diversity in scope of those telling their stories. Then one of the families in attendance shared that they were glad to be alive. Only a few months before they had been in a dangerous car accident resulting in profound personal and emotional injuries. None of us had heard about that.

We all have challenges

That testimony illustrates that while we can all know each other casually and as neighbors, many times there are events and issues that we don’t necessarily share on a day-to-day basis. Yet the challenges we don’t share are often the most compelling parts of our existence.

We all sat stunned upon hearing the seriousness of the accident. Then someone quietly said, “We’re so glad you’re okay.” Yet the physical therapy continued, and the emotional strain too.

These are the feelings that connect us as human beings. While some shared quiet joys or happy accomplishments, others mentioned gratitude for having a trusted companion, or children, or a job that supports their household.

I don’t recall what I actually said about gratitude. But one of the feelings I had during that session was gratefulness for being around such an interesting and obviously compassionate group of other human beings.

Ethnicities are only the beginning of humanity

That brings us to the socially fabricated aspect of our neighborhood. Our ethnicities. According to traditional categorizations, there are four black families, three Latino families, an Asian household, several white or Caucasian families, a home with two women in a relationship, some elderly retirees and, of course, several dogs and cats that live in our cul de sac.

One of those families embraces several generation within the household. The head of that household is a leading law enforcement officer and former police chief of a Chicago suburb. But there are many variegations within the family, and attending one of their family parties means being introduced to visiting sisters, cousins, matriarchs and more.

Nacho diplomacy

One of the pre-teens who lives up the block loves to stop and talk with me now and then on our sidewalk. He’s got a curious mind and loves to test me with questions and topics of many kinds. Likewise, I like to ask him what he thinks about while riding his bike around, which he does all the time. Then one day he asked me, “Do you like nachos?”

For some reason that caught me off guard. “Yes, I do.”

He looked off in the distance for a moment and replied, “I love nachos.” So that became a bit of a joke between us. I’d drive by when they were out playing basketball in the neighbor’s drive and yell out, “Do you like nachos?”

I conspired with one of the same-aged neighbor girls to organize a “Nacho Day” when all the kids on the block were hanging around. She counted up ten children from the age of five through thirteen, and I called a local fast-food Mexican takeout and pre-ordered enough nachos for the whole group, who were waiting in the yard when I returned. Within minutes the entire stash was gone. I teased my friend again. “Did you even get any nachos?” I asked.

“Ohhhh, yeaaahhh,” he laughed while smacking his hands together on a basketball. Then it was back to playing pickup for him and the other kids.

Just let it happen

The kids on our block are a living example that friendship and trust and conviviality are all possible when people just let it happen. The same goes for the adults of all these different backgrounds who live in our neighborhood. It’s only when people are pushed apart by selfish interests and traditional fears that people don’t naturally get along.

The desire for control that stems from fear is the source of all racism. Yet it also drives other forms of prejudice as well. These lead to bigotry and authoritarian discrimination. Nothing splits up a society––or a neighborhood––or a country––like allowing selfish fears to depict people as “the other.”

Because rather than forming relationships around gratitude, compassion and shared aspects of humanity, such bigotry invests only in the “I’ve got mine and you can’t have it” aspect of existence. When that happens for reasons of tribal priorities, and these range from religious beliefs to racial identity to political or economic platitudes––civil society is at risk. Those priorities only lead to hate and division while the “live and let live” philosophy of a neighborhood sharing in commonality and humanity succeeds far better. That’s the right kind of pride.

People can generally learn to get along great, if you let them

I believe that everyone gets along great, if you let them. That may seem naive to say, but it’s proven so often and in so many parts of the world that despite all the conflict it is still true that people can learn to get along together when they aren’t told that other people are a threat.

Those that refuse to get along on those terms need to be held accountable for their selfish ways, and made to understand why that isn’t acceptable. They will often resist and brand themselves the “victims” of reverse discrimination or claim to be “persecuted” for being exposed for their bigotry. Those habits go all the way to the top in this world.

The self-inflicted will even attempt to turn around and call the compassionate among us inhumane, as if caring for other people and standing up for the meek or disadvantaged in this world was an act of oppression.

That is the gaslighting defense of those possessed of anger and fear who are eager to avoid facing their own inhumanity and the flaws it so often reveals. They refuse to accept vulnerability as a legitimate condition of human existence. These are the people that love to claim higher ground and preach unity while playing people against each other to create opportunities for control.

We should not let this happen. Not in our neighborhoods. Nor in our nations. People can generally get along great, if we let them.

biblical literalism, caregiving, character, Christopher Cudworth, God is love, Grace appreciated, love abounds, Uncategorized

Fire and Rain all points in between

May 12, 2020 Christopher Cudworth Leave a comment

Maple leaf in rain I first purchased a James Taylor album as a freshman in high school along with works by Paul Simon, Neil Young, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and Elton John, to name a few. Among those, there were a few mentions of God in the lyrics, a subject of consequence since I’d recently chosen on my own to get confirmed along with friends at the church whose pastor lived right next door to me.

And while I’d gotten confirmed at the age of thirteen, already I was asking questions about traditional religion and its role in our lives. Something about the confessional language of orthodoxy never satisfied my vision of what it meant to believe in something larger (or as large) as what we see around us.

And later in life, when religious leaders that I met began picking on the subject of evolution and showing bigotry toward various kinds of people, I’d had enough, and parted ways for a while with conventional Christianity.

Sweet returns

Then I met a girl in college whose academic interest in the Jewish religion led me back to thinking about what the whole story of Jesus was about. And as a quasi-English major, I was interested as much in the story aspect of scripture as the supposed literal truth it conveyed. At the same time, I was aware of the need to write my own version of that story.

June 1979 — Journal entry from June of 1979, 21 years old.

The woman that I later married was raised in the Missouri Synod Lutheran tradition. So we joined that church and for twenty-plus years raised our children there. I sang in the choirs, taught Sunday School to middle school and high school kids, and served on the Church board. Meanwhile, our congregation enlisted a successive line of pastors who preached an increasingly harsh and conservative line of doctrine. The theory of evolution was just one of their favorite targets, as were gay people and even women who dared think they could ever be pastors.

Departures

Thus toward the end of my wife’s life after six years of cancer treatment, we bid a solemn goodbye to that church and moved upriver to a more welcoming Lutheran congregation that cared for us during the final years of her existence on earth. For that and all service before I am eternally grateful.

During that whole journey, I drew on a ton of faith to get through. The practical issues of her illness we addressed through medicine and following doctor’s orders. I kept working at the jobs I held between severe challenges on many fronts. Her treatments had profound emotional effects on us both. That’s when we looked to faith for support.

In my case, it had never really disappeared. All those mentions of God in my running journals during those self-focused years training almost full-time and racing twenty-four times a year were testimony to that desire to understand it all. Every day was a trial of sorts, I knew that much. And when my former track and cross country coach heard that my wife had cancer, he intoned: “Your whole life has been a preparation for this.”

Sustaining hope in the face of adversity

He was right. But you can’t be prepared for everything. And when hope drains away it is comforting to turn fear over to something other than a piece of paper on which you write down your problems, somewhat in order, in hope of tackling them the next day.

That’s when some of the lyrics from the James Taylor song “Fire and Rain” came back to me:

Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way

Frankly, I’ve never been a big Jesus worshipper. When asked long ago by a pastor what my faith is most based upon, I told him that knowing God was my first priority. Of course, that received the standard confessional response that Jesus is the portal to God, is one with God, and so on. But I persisted in seeking what I know of the spirit outside the lines. And nature is often the source of that insight.

Chance meeting

Recently while out doing bird photography I waved to two women out walking through the forest preserve where a pair of wood thrush was singing loudly in the brisk spring sunshine. We met back in the parking and I struck up a conversation with them by shared how long I’d been visiting that preserve both as a runner and a birder. That led to a discussion of our respective families. One of the women had been an Olympic Trials swimmer and her sons and daughter were both college athletes. So was her husband. I found that fascinating and offered to write a story about their clan. She seemed game to the idea but there was something else going on in the conversation, and I didn’t feel right to press it.

Transitions

But I shared some recent facts about learning to swim after meeting my present wife on a website called FitnessSingles.com. Then I explained to them both, “I lost my first wife to cancer seven years ago.”

The two women exchanged quick but earnest glances. Then two minutes later in the conversation one of them turned to me and said, “You were put here by God to talk with us, because she just lost her husband to cancer last Saturday.” It was a Tuesday morning.

We cried together, the three of us. But no one exchanged hugs in the age of the Coronavirus. Even her husband’s funeral the next morning would be a private affair, limited to ten people due to the pandemic.

A walk in the wilds

Prairie Hill

They both shared that their walks in the woods were a way of coping with problems and talking them through together. But now their walks had taken on the role of processing the immediate grief of having lost a loving spouse. As most of us know, grief has both mental and physical effects on us. In its most difficult stages, grief can make you want to cease living and at the same time put your body through aches and pains that you never see coming. That is fire. And that is rain.

There are also many points in between, where sudden bursts of recollection and joy mix together in a combination of fire and rain. How is that possible? How can two seemingly opposite substances mix together in our minds?

Our spiritual selves

To me, that is the mystery of our spiritual selves. If emotional pain is real––we can certainly feel it––then love must be just as real. And if love is real, then to me, some sort of spirit is a reality too. And as the saying goes, God is Love.

So in that sense, I truly believe in God. It is both within and apart from us to love in this world. If anything, that is the meaning of that passage in the Lord’s Prayer; “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

As I wrote in my first book The Genesis Fix, I call that call of gratitude and active love grace appreciated. When we are attentive to appreciating love a grateful sense, we are appreciating it. Yet when we extend love to others in an active sense, we are appreciating grace on behalf of God. Then our lives take on a different and richer meaning. We commence to live from a foundation of our spiritual selves. That is what I think scripture is all about, that perpetual discovery of purpose, principle, and life fully lived.

Connections to spirit and life

Butterfly weed

That is why I talk to people. I consider it a connection to the spirit and life of others. One might call it a ministry of sorts, to talk to people, find their mutual humanity, and learn interesting things about them along the way. Even during this Coronavirus pandemic, I find ways to speak with people even under the call of social distancing.

There are times when that is not welcome, and I respect that. Not everyone is coming through this crisis with an attitude of appreciation. Some engage on their own terms and hold to their spirit in the best way they know how. And I say God Bless them. And if they don’t believe in God, I say bless that too. Just as in nature, there is diversity in the human condition as well. We should honor that, and sadly too many supposed Christians take certain passages of scripture literally and dishonor the spirit and love they could otherwise find in others.

I know there are also passages in scripture that demand absolute fealty to Jesus in order to be saved, as in: “No one comes to the Father but through me.” Well, that passage is the product of a patriarchal society, isn’t it? We’ve discovered a bit more about the significance of the feminine in this universe, and science too. So I don’t place limits on the points between fire and rain. Instead, I choose to celebrate them.

And if we meet, I hope to celebrate you too. For that, if anything, is the Kingdom of God.

Christopher Cudworth is the author of The Right Kind of Pride: A Chronicle of Character, Caregiving and Community. It is available on Amazon.com.

All images by Christopher Cudworth. christophercudworth.com

appreciate what love means, love abounds, Uncategorized

10 important things you can learn about life and business by walking a dog

July 23, 2019 Christopher Cudworth 2 Comments

10 important things you can learn about life and business by walking a dog

Lucy and Me — Our dog Lucy nudging me to go out for a walk.

The lessons we can learn from the simplest acts in life are often the most valuable of all. I’ve been walking our family dogs since 2007 and along the way have learned quite a few lessons applicable to life and business that can be learned from walking a dog.

Shit almost always happens. Like all great lessons in life, we often set our minds on the processes that we most enjoy (like the beauty of a nice day outside.. or that pending great business deal) while conveniently forgetting that expected and unexpected shit always happens along the way. Being present and ready for these eventualities is far better than getting out there with no poop bag and being forced to flick a stick or hide that shit under a leaf or snow. There’s a lesson there for business and life, for sure. Be ready for that shit.
Motivation comes from affirmation. Dogs pay a ton of attention to their surroundings, but typically like to lead by their nose. That means it is important to maintain their attention and confirm who is in charge all during a dog walk. It’s great to affirm the character of the dog and understand them, but a good owner learns to lead by communication and connection. The dogs like it better because they’re actually wired that way. There’s an element of truth to that with people too, because everyone works better when they are affirmed in their efforts.
Set expectations and give directions. Typically this involves instruction given to a dog (or dogs) before one ever goes outside. A simple “sit” or “stay” inside the door is the same thing as stating “Alright let’s bring this meeting to order.” Walking a dog is a meeting of minds. Teaching a dog how to walk with you takes practice and consistency. That doesn’t mean you need to control their every action, at first focuse on those that contribute to the greater goal of having “a good walk.” A dog tugging and pulling and wandering off-trail every twenty feet is not necessarily a happy animal. Nor is a dog left to fend for themselves in the presence of strange or unfamiliar dogs. Some will work it out, but they can also wind up being dominated or intimidate, setting the stage for future fears. Set expectations in all these situations and life will be better for everyone. “Is your dog good with other dogs?” is a polite and simple question to ask. And be smart about time: keep human meetings and dog walks under an hour. Honor expectations and be rewarded with loyalty.
Vary the routine. Dogs do love a bit of routine. But they also get bored if there is nothing new along the way to see or sniff. So whether you’re walking your dog, making dinner for a spouse or managing a department of eager employees, it always helps to vary the routine. Change it up. Make it fun. That includes the bedroom. Woof woof.
It costs money to feed a dog right. The shelves at your local pet store are filled with row upon row of dog food bags and cans. All claim to be best for your dog’s health. But one must remember that much of what is available in both human food and dog chow is often manufactured from the lowest possible quality of available ingredients (such as sugar or carbs) while runing light on real food including genuine protein or vegetables. Ironically, it can be cheaper and better for you to shop the “perimeter” of a grocery store where food is loose and real rather than purchased prefabricated and sold in boxes, cans or other marketing tools that only raise the cost. A dog’s life can be better on a raw diet just like us. And when it comes to the rest of life, these principles hold true when buying products or creating services to sell to your customers. Authenticity is the name of the game, these days. And healthier for everyone. That’s as true for the information we consume as the food that we eat. Best to check it’s real before gobbling it up.
Have a plan and communicate it. When you buy a puppy (especially a stray or rescue dog, which you should) you can never quite tell what their prior experiences in life have been. Some arrive with fears and baggage from mistreatment, But just like people, these tendencies can often be healed through communication, kindness and loving direction to build trust. Knowing how to do this can require the help of a dog trainer. That dynamic is just ike a human resources department brining in objective, outside help in the form of specialists to talk about sexual harassment or other critical management policies. In every case it matters that we use consistent, clear language and develop a plan that everyone understands so that both the dogs in our life and our fellow associates know the importance of respecting the plan.
Know your limits. Sometimes it is tough to handle all the things that raising dogs or managing associates can throw at us in a day. Thus it is important to know when to “back off” and calibrate our own emotional stability before proceeding to the next steps. With a dog, it can be enormously helpful to crate train them because animals need time to regain a sense of control in their own space. On the human front, many companies now realize that granting associates the right to govern their time or engage in recreation actually brings them back with fresh attitudes. The byproduct of this approach is that it gives managers and executives a reasonable respite from constant demands, and they need time to recreate as well. That’s a wise way to go about the whole program. Productivity can actually increase by giving people license to expand their minds and relieve stress. it’s all about knowing your limits and respecting those of the people (and the dogs) with whom you work.
Embrace the cause. Walking your dog is an important tool for their health and wellness. It balances their body and minds because many breeds retain instincts to move and hunt and play. Embracing this as the “cause” for the walk really can put you in tune with the dog you love. It can open your eyes to their world. And while sniffing out dead frogs in the grass seems gross from a human perspective, to a dog that activity is like finding a cold, unclaimed Snickers bar in the back of the company fridge after moving the ice that’s been sitting there four months. We all love surprises. Embrace the cause of joy no matter how simple it can be. And nothing beats a truly cold Snickers.
Get out more. Taking your dog new places is an exercise in collaboration. Helping your dog meet new people or other dogs is a great way to socialize them and improve their ability to handle diverse circumstances. Bringing your dog to a local coffee shop will often produce many interesting encounters as people ask if they can pet your animal. If that’s in your dog’s nature, it can open up all-new human connections as well. Recently I encountered two obviously homeless men sitting on a bench outside a coffee shop. Both lit up with joy at the sight of our dog’s wagging tail and happy expression. She did not judge the men by their appearance, nor did they object to her over-exuberant and somewhat nippy greeting. So get out more. It’s a compassionate thing to do for you, your dog and for other people in this world. It’s also good for your soul at work or in life to go out for lunch with friends or even all alone and keep an open mind to talking with others.
Forgive your dog and forgive yourself. No animals acts perfectly all the time. While we try to raise “perfect pets” that mind our every command. But occasionally they’ll still pee on the neighbor’s lawn when you’re not looking or threaten to run after a rabbit of squirrel. Our pets can be a bit ADHD at times, drawn to distractions or possessed by their instincts. First and foremost, you need to learn to forgive them. And in the process, you’ll learn to forgive yourself for not raising a perfect pet. There’s especially no reason to be cruel to animals as a means to assuage any inner guilt or disturbance in your emotional matrix. It is clear from all the abandoned or abused pets in this world that too many people take out their aggressions on innocent animals because they have not found healthy ways to deal with their own inner torments. If you have these instincts and can’t find ways to be patient with you dog, then human relationships are not going to be any easier to manage. The same goes for projecting prejudice or fears on certain breeds of dog, or for that matter. That brand of prejudice parallels resistance to human cultures or races of people different from our own. Until people learn how to overcome these fears or prejudices, the world becomes a battle for control that never ends. Thus it is important to learn to forgive yourself, how to manage internal conflicts and how to change your ways and attitudes. Your pet and the people around you in this world will no doubt return the favor with kind appreciation.

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