THANKFUL FRIDAY

When I lived under my parents’ roof, we went to church. Both parents were devout Baptists and going to church meant twice on Sundays and once on Wednesdays. Even though I was developing my own views on faith and drifting away from the restrictions and hypocrisy I witnessed within the church, I continued to attend service out of respect for my parents. There was one time a year, though, where I truly enjoyed going to church and that was always for the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Everyone in the congregation would get their own little candle and then starting at one end of each pew, a candle would be light. That person would then light the candle of the person next to them and so on and so on until all the candles in the congregation were lit. As we lit the candle of our neighbor, we said “I pass to you the light of peace and understanding.” Once all of the candles were lit, we would sing hymns of joy and peace.

It was beautiful.

During our first Christmas together, as Michael and I were driving to pick up the Cabbage for Christmas, we heard a story on NPR about lighting the menorah. Michael said that we should celebrate Hanukkah. I heartily agreed and we went on wild hunt for a menorah. We’ve been celebrating Hanukkah ever since. This year, since the first night started on Sunday, we had time to really prepare a nice meal of latkes topped with caviar and roasted salmon. Every night this week, with out prompting or reminders, we’ve lit our menorah. Michael lights the candles while I say the prayers. My favorite section is always “Blessed are you, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, for giving us life, for sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this season.” My second favorite part is when we stand for a moment after the prayer is said and the candles are lit and just watch the flames flickering.

The words behind lighting the candles in both instances is the part that I want to honor and celebrate. On one hand, you are taking a moment to have gratitude for just being here to celebrate anything. On the other hand, you are sharing your light with others. Lucia comes from the latin word lux. Names adapted from Lucia include Lucy, Luciana and Lucinda. Elena comes from the Greek Helene, meaning torch or light. My name is Lucinda Elena. I am literally named for the thing I am always searching for, the thing I am always celebrating.

Light.

Thank you for traveling with my through this year. I pass to you my light of peace.

SPEAKING ILL OF THE DEAD

I’ve noticed the back and forth happening in the social media world over the death of Rush Limbaugh. People are celebrating and other people are pointing fingers at the celebrators because they think it’s bad manners. If you’re going to celebrate a death, it should be Hitler’s, Bin Laden’s or any other awful human being who made the world around them worse. Wait…that was Rush Limbaugh. He built a career from spreading hate, bigotry and misinformation. He had a recurring segment on his radio show called “AIDS Update” where he ridiculed gay men who had died from AIDS. For those of you who are all “He spoke my language!”, all I have to say to you is that I don’t know if I’m embarrassed to know a person whose language is one of hate and bigotry or if I just feel sorry for you. The bottom line is that Rush Limbaugh chose to spend his time on this planet monetizing hate. He made the world around him worse. People are bound to celebrate having one less asshole on the planet.

But why shouldn’t we celebrate a death?

I can think of two times where I didn’t necessarily celebrate death, but I did welcome it. At our final diagnosis, the doctor told us that Chris maybe had six months left. I would give anything to have him still here with me, but I am so relieved that he left us well before that predicted six months. He was in so so so much pain. It was not an easy death. Liver cancer is no joke. While I mourn having to lose him, I celebrate the speed at which he was taken. The same could be said for my Dad. I feel like Dad had two deaths. First came the death of his mind, leaving his body to linger and suffer before finally letting go. When I got the call of Dad’s passing, all that came to mind was “finally”. I felt that death didn’t come fast enough for Dad and in a sense, I celebrated the arrival of it.

The exception is that with both Chris and Dad, there was a celebration for the relief from pain, but also a celebration of lives lived. It is easy to live the kind of life where people are happy to see you go and Rush Limbaugh latched on to that easy path. He had an audience. He had people who fed on his words of hate, who celebrated along with him as he mocked those AIDS victims. He had people who believed in the lies and hatefulness that came out of his mouth. While some of us celebrate his removal from the planet, we cannot forget Rush Limbaugh was awful because others wanted his awfulness. He had people who listened to him. To have such a platform and to use it the way he did was a waste. I would rather celebrate the life he could have lived.

It definitely makes me think about how and why I want people to celebrate my own death.

HERE'S WHAT 44 LOOKS LIKE

My nurse

15 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "My nurse"

Last week ended with me wanting to high five everyone. My friend and yoga teacher, Kelly, is/has put together a summer camp for adults and she posted a need for workshops and people. Now I’ve been thinking about a photography workshop for some time, one centered around using your camera phone. I figure if I can take nice pictures with my phone, you can too. So I presented the idea to Kelly and she was so enthusiastic about it, that it made me want to jump up and down. Tickets are on sale now for Camp Wildling and I’ve had a sneak peek at the entire schedule. If you’ve ever had a dream to attend that camp from Parent Trap, this is your chance. Then, I put my name down on the volunteer list for this year’s AIDS Walk Open and I got asked to do a meditation workshop for wellness week at work. The very best part that ended the week was something I did at work that was a little outside of my wheelhouse. It involved basically writing a program to do a bunch of stuff on a microscope. And it worked! It worked really well!

High five!

Then Sunday morning around 4 AM, I woke up sweaty and nauseated. My body felt like it had been used as a punching bag. When Michael came in my room later that morning, I burst into tears and he cancelled our dinner reservations for my birthday dinner that night. I spent the next two days laying around, drinking water and occasionally eating a saltine cracker. I did eat a bagel with cream cheese and lox on the second day and had some regrets about that food choice. I laid around another day, ate a pb&j and a taco, both of which tasted like ash or mold but stayed in place. So I’m back to work today moving at half my usual speed, but living and breathing and keeping food down. Winner! So far, I am the only one in the house to be struck with this. Michael thinks it was food poisoning. I’m not sure that I have ever had food poisoning so I don’t know. I am very paranoid that Michael’s going to come down with it next, assuming it was not a poisoning situation.

So, forty four looks five pounds lighter than forty three. I have been hankering for a spa day and there is a plan in the works for this once we take care of other things first. I can just tag the last few days on as a spa treatment, the colon cleanse treatment. I don’t recommend it. The massage and facial are much better options, but if you’re feeling puffy and just want to reset everything, food poisoning…I mean a colon cleanse is the way to go. Really, I’d rather not celebrate my birthday on my actual birthday anyway. The Shitty Ghost of Birthdays’ Past tends to overshadow any attempts at a nice birthday. So when things settle down, I will spend an afternoon hanging out in a steam room, getting massaged and scrubbed. I will eat a dozen oysters on the half-shell with a Caesar salad and wash it all down with a Pimm’s cup. Michael keeps telling me how sorry he is that I was sick on my birthday and every time he says it, I just shrug.

It’s one day. One day out of every year. Sure, it’s meant to be celebrated with candles and cake, but honestly, there was serious doubt that I would even make it that first day. Birth was traumatic. Who wants to celebrate that? Celebration comes in the days that follow, when it looks like you’re actually going to survive. Well, it looks like I have survived. Now it’s time to celebrate and I might just spend the rest of the year celebrating. I am really excited about the things I have planned for this year.