You Are Rooted

The Practice of Going Inward

A lot of people are asking me how we plan to honor Oak’s second birthday. We love that others reach out. It means the world to us. Our response this year: we are celebrating Oak by going inward.

Photo by Sonja K Photography.

What does that mean, to go inward? The practice of going inward does not mean to hide or shut out the world. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. We are choosing to limit the noise of the everyday – technological or other distractions. We are quieting our own selves to open to the door for Oak to speak.

We are lighting candles for him. We are visiting his spot by the creek. We are praying and meditating to him so he can hear us… so we can tell him what proud parents we are. We are also listening for the things he’d like to express.

I recently heard a wonderful piece of advice about the journey of grief from another loss mama. She said that when you lose a baby, you must travel through grief similar to your child’s lost stages of development. This means in grief that you must crawl before you toddle, you toddle yet still fall down quite a bit, and eventually you walk, and run, while always growing and changing (and sometimes still falling down). Since Oak is going to be 2, he’d be toddling about quite a bit, and more and more, using his voice. As proud parents, we encourage him to use his voice. And much like with a living child, it is easier to listen and understand the melodic voice of a toddler with less everyday noise.

How do we hear Oak? Well, we are trying different approaches. I think it is important to recognize that we may be limited if we define sound as a one-way transaction: sound goes in and a response comes out. However, have you ever listened to a song you loved so much you could feel it in your heartbeat? Have you ever heard a bell chime and actually felt vibration? Have you ever seen a sunset so beautiful that you could hear it with your soul?

And we know from various historical figures like Helen Keller and Beethoven, for example, that we are not limited by our physical experience. We simply need to adjust the way we listen.

By the practice of going inward, we experience those guttural sounds first – our emotions – and allow ourselves to hear them. As we recognize these emotions and ride through them (and it’s often painful), we can open our heart and soul to our son’s beautiful voice. He has so much to say. Developmentally, he is at the age of repeating a lot of what is overheard in conversation. Certainly a lesson to be gentle with any self-judgement. Happy Birthday to our sweet baby boy Oak.

My New Resume Objective

Making and selling pretzels. That’s where I started. And not just any pretzel, one that intoxicatingly sets off your saliva glands like Pavlov’s dog. The place: Auntie Anne’s. The benefits: learning the ropes of steady work and bringing home buttery, delicious pretzels at the end of the shift.

Work as a Flight Attendant.

Since then I’ve collected W-2’s from some of the coolest workplaces, from restaurants to airlines to nonprofits and to science directorates.

I’ve attended prestigious universities and collected school debt with enough zeros to make someone crazy.

With National Wildlife Federation.

And through it all I’ve valued myself – as I was conditioned – to perceive my worth through measurable accomplishments. Things that I can “add to my resume.” Utilizing metrics that look good on paper, such as grades and pay scales. I’ve shook hands with people and forced myself to sit through meetings in order to advance my career.

None of it has been for naught. Each and every experience has led me to where I am now. And I’m super grateful for the aptitude, ability and privilege that helped open doors. The biggest and least controllable experience, of course, having nothing to do with my accomplishments: losing my son and almost my life. The vulnerability of not being able to recover by studying harder, or negotiating, or getting praise from my supervisor led me into uncharted territory.

Ok, I can’t truthfully add astronaut to the mix…yet?!

Some things cannot be achieved away. Vulnerability and pain are random. And untimely.

My point is not to say that the traditional idea of achievement is meaningless. In fact, I have friends and family doing amazing things in their jobs and education. And I plan to do more with mine.

However, it is time to reevaluate what achievement means to me. It is time to write a new objective.

My New Resume Objective

To listen with both mind and heart. To embody compassion, insight, creativity, honesty, openness, empathy and kindness. To allow, and the rest will fall into place.

I know for certain that I will have more jobs in this career called life. No matter what they are, I will strive to develop this objective. I will embrace every learning opportunity, regardless of whether they fit into my “expertise” or not. And I will strive to create a safe place for myself and others, so that everyone may write their own objectives.

In Memory of Christian Dudley 2016

I found you…I was broken, confused, unable to do little else than distract myself with social media. I felt alone. Groups of new mothers surrounding me with their giggling babies…it’s so easy for them, WHY me? Why did I lose my son?

By chance I discovered you through your mom, CarlyMarie in the summer of 2014. Just like me she lost you, her son.

Over time, and through her tremendous pain your mom began to create something beautiful. She still does. And this beauty resonates with all of our babies. I clung to that beauty as tightly as I could. It opened the doorway to meeting lots and lots of women who also lost babies. It provided me hands of healing from multiple women on the journey of loss. I was no longer alone.

Christian, your mom may be thousands of miles away but her heart is mere centimeters from mine.

Honored to hold the very crystal Carly held when she birthed Christian.

By your very name, Christian, you were meant to do something wonderful. Your name comes from the Egyptian word root kheru, meaning “voice.” You prove that whether or not your earthly feet touch the ground, that you have a voice. And this voice is a voice for others in very vulnerable times. You speak. And we listen with our broken spirits.

I had the unspeakable honor of meeting your mom Carly during a Return to Zero Healing Retreat in Seattle. She is everything you’d expect her to be and more – earnest, bright, caring, a wonderful listener…simply real. At this retreat, she introduced you to the base of a large evergreen tree. I felt your soft kisses as the wind caressed our cheeks. You were there. You are everywhere. And so is my son.

Meeting Carly in Seattle at the Return to Zero Healing Retreat 2015.

We never understand just WHY something happens. It’s not fair. It’s messy chance. Carly taught me, among many things, that we can take this W.H.Y. and use it to motivate What Heals You.

Christian, thank you for being you. And thank you for providing a path to your loving mom, and the rest of the Dudley family.

The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life: The Wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

As I take time today to examine the life and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I find that his spirit continues to reveal many gifts.

I recently came across his sermon on The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life, given April 9 of 1967. Though I think we are learning to have experiences in more than three dimensions, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings are a basis for a life and a community of peace. The number three has Biblical, linguistic, mathematical and metaphysical significance. For example, Jesus Christ was risen after three days and three nights. His age of death/resurrection is estimated to be 33 years old. In English language, phrases often come in threes such as heaven-human-earth, past-present-future, thought-word-action, mean-median-mode or chocolate, marshmallows and almonds. (Rocky Road ice cream! …mmmm). Three is also a number of luck. And maybe most important to this case, a number of unity.

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s teaching, he postulates that the three dimensions of a complete life are: length (consideration of our own welfare), breadth (consideration of other’s welfare) and height (God’s love).

Simple graphic to illustrate MLK’s Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.

This formula is simple, easy-to-remember and …powerful.

To balance length (our own welfare): love and accept yourself. (In the words of Dr. King, that means EVERYTHING).

A Ford car trying to be a Cadillac is absurd, but if a Ford will accept itself as a Ford, it can do many things that a Cadillac could never do: it can get in parking spaces that a Cadillac can never get in. And in life some of us are Fords and some of us are Cadillacs.

To balance breadth (other’s welfare): participate, reach out, listen and recognize our connections with each other.

To balance height (God’s love): be willing to feel and accept a love from God (or universe, or whatever your belief). Incorporate a faith that includes patience, because learning to live in a world of tremendous joy and unthinkable pain is ever ongoing… and trust – a trust that no matter the outcome, you’ll be okay.

And when you get all three of these together, you can walk and never get weary. You can look up and see the morning stars singing together, and the sons of God shouting for joy. When you get all of these working together in your very life, judgement will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Art in the Eye of the Grief Beholder

Many things change after profound loss. I now look at and experience art in both incredibly beautiful and reflectively heartbreaking ways. Sometimes I experience both at the same time.

This is a piece of photography by Cori Storb, a lovely soul I got to meet. I lost my breath when I first saw it. It spoke to both Ryan and I. I saw the peaceful solitude of the desert, the alluring radiance in the horizon and the eerie, yet comfortable glow in her abdomen area. I associate this glow with the unmistakable joy of carrying a baby coupled with the immense pain of losing the promise of his or her future.

You are a Brave Light, now entitled You are a Brave Mama, By Cori Storb Photography.

I saw that the title of the piece is “You are a Brave Light.” Indeed we are…all of us are. It takes bravery to carry a child through pregnancy or other means. It takes bravery to carry ourselves. It is so brave to love.

Before I lost Oak I would have warmly appreciated a piece like this, and moved on. Now, I can’t look away. It reflects a spiritual experience so powerful, it can only be felt. I explained to Cori that a common phrase in the baby loss community is “You are a Brave Mama,” and it reflects multiple meanings. It is a phrase so close to her title that it gave us both chills.

This is an excerpt from Cori Storb’s story of the image:

We’ve all been on fire, we’ve all been in the dirt, and we are all falling through space. For your whole life you have been falling, and you have been burning. A million things have died and transferred their lives into your body so you can keep breathing. So you can keep feeling and seeing and loving and dancing. Your body makes heat, you are an animal, you are a star scrap, a brand new radiant shape. You are so unfathomably beautiful.

Art truly is in the eye of the beholder. And as the grief beholder, your experiences mold and shape you to take another different, often achingly indescribable look.

After I left she changed the title to “You are a Brave Mama.”

When My Boss Was Shot in the Head: Reflections from January 8, 2011 in Tucson

Gabrielle Giffords and I during the November 2008 election.

In the fall of 2008, I worked for the Congressional campaign of Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona. Quite honestly, it was one of the hardest jobs I ever had. Long days, long nights of phone calls, door knocking, lost sleep, meetings and fundraising stretched us to the limit. After the election was over I slept for an entire week.

Needless to say, I believe the experience was for the greater good. And I met some amazing people, one of whom is Gabby.

Gabby loves people. There’s no doubt. Her speeches were effortless. To this day I channel her energy and skill when I speak in public. She made a wonderful Congressional representative and I am certain made an incredible difference for the people of southern Arizona, and continues to inspire people throughout the globe.

Some of my fellow campaign staff, including Ron Barber, who was shot on January 8 and thankfully survived.

At times the images from her in the hospital scared me…it wasn’t the Gabby that I remembered. I could not wrap my head around it all.

Yet she was in there. Watching her recovery was like watching a graceful dance. Sometimes you trip, or cannot learn the exact step right away, but you persevere and carry your head high with gratitude. That was her: shot, broken, yet still smiling. That’s Gabby.

Fast forward to March of 2014. I had rare pregnancy complication that caused me to lose my son and massive, ‘catastrophic’ they called it, amounts of blood. I had a long road to recovery, and there I was, channeling the very energy Gabby emanated from her own tragedy.

During a routine kidney dialysis.

Broken, unable to grasp what had happened, speak or walk right away, I could only exercise my gratitude with an in-bed dance, a thumbs up, or a smile. My Tucsonan family cried when they saw such similarity between us. It helped them gain the confidence that everything would be okay.

If you are ever in a position so broken that you cannot recognize yourself – and I hope you are not – remember that your spirit is stronger than your physical body. Channel it, and take it one tiny victory at a time.

I wrote the post below on January 11, 2011, shortly after the tragedy.

We are all contemplating the whys regarding the loss of lives in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday, including undeserving adults and a child who was simply examining the proverbial “when I grow up.”

I want to share some thoughts. I had the privilege to work as a staffer on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords campaign for congress in Tucson in 2008.

Gabby is a star.

I don’t mean just a political rising star or media star. I mean that she exudes a warmth, brightness and gravitational pull beyond words.

She is a very warm person who can change the energy of a room upon entrance, even if she has come for a political debate. I never have seen her down, and let me tell you, on a stressful campaign in a swing district from where she comes, this is a HUGE feat. You can disagree with her and she treats you just the same. Loving and fearless, she believes a job to serve her constituents is exactly that, grassroots (what she calls cactus roots) organizing and feedback from whom she represents. If you meet with her at a “Congress on Your Corner” or call her office you are guaranteed a response. It is these responses that let us know we matter in a world where doors are often shut in our faces.

Extraordinarily bright and gifted she knows the issues inside and out. And yes, she may use talking points, but if you are willing and have the time, she is willing to delve deeper and really flush out any topic for discussion. One of her favorite and passionate topics is the development of solar energy. According to Gabby, “We have it available so let’s use it!” She can intellectually discuss details of almost any part of solar energy – grids, batteries, arrays, transmission…it is difficult to stump her.

She also has a strong gravitational pull. You want to be around her. Learning from her, watching her speak, riding a horse in Willcox, receiving a hug, and enjoying local music like Calexico with her. Just being in her presence you hold your head up higher. And you don’t have the feeling that she would rather be somewhere else.

When I see other representatives say that she works for the greater good rather than partisanship I can without doubt attest that they are telling the truth.

Gabrielle really is a star. And I think it is no coincidence her husband is an astronaut.

If anyone is going to survive a bullet through her head it is Gabby. There is a long, long road to recovery yet and I hope that everyone can keep her in your thoughts. I also hope that we can continue to think about the families who’ve lost loved ones at this tragic time. People who were out doing their civic duty as Americans. People who were also inspired by Gabby.

In memory of all lives lost or shattered due to the events in Tucson, Arizona January 8, 2011. Christina-Taylor Green; Dorothy “Dot” Morris; U.S. District Judge John M. Roll; Phyllis Schneck; Dorwan Stoddard; and Gabe Zimmerman.

Introduction

DSCN0234 My name is Melinda, it’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for visiting You are Rooted!

I am starting the New Year by taking this step toward telling my story. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Over the next few days/weeks I will add more to the site and share more about the different pages.

Also, a big thank you to Franchesca Cox for the lovely template design.