Bethany and the Buddah

Bethany and the Buddha

One day while walking through the wilderness a young girl stumbled

upon a vicious tiger.  She ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff.

Desperate to save herself, she climbed down a vine that dangled over a

fatal precipice.  As she hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the

cliff and began gnawing on the vine.  Suddenly, she noticed on the vine a

plump wild strawberry.  She plucked it and popped it in her mouth.

It was incredibly delicious!

“I’m a Coke girl,” Bethany said completely out of the blue, her hands in the air, hips dancing and palms facing up. The six-year-old filled up the room.  It was Christmas and her extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents crowded into a circle in the living room watching her and anticipating the fun Bethany would generate. Her parents, Cliff and Brenda, took on the role of feigned exasperation at their precocious daughter.  Bethany was always over the top, but never was she too much.

There could not have been a better mom and dad for Bethany.  Brenda was also full of laughter and wit, style and sass. Brenda made sure her daughter toed a line just short of chaos. She dearly loved her amazing little girl.  Cliff participated in everything with his girls and had an uncanny ability to connect with Bethany.  They blithely and unashamedly manipulated each other drawing their power from the deep well of love they shared.  Bethany crawled up in Cliff’s lap and snuggled into his heart where she felt safe from the world and herself. Cliff gladly gave all he could to her. The family holidays during Bethany’s early youth crackled with joy!  Nobody enjoyed it more than me.

   “Hey Bethany,” I would tease the little second grader. “I think your hair is longer in the front than it is in back.”  Bethany’s eyes would go wide with a startled disbelief. 

   “What?” she would say and flip her hair around to face me eye to eye in a hilarious overreaction.

Bethany’s hair was longer in the front, but I only drew attention to it because I knew Bethany would make it into a game.

   “Yeah,” I said.  “It is definitely longer in the front.”

   “Uncle Jimmy, you take that back,” Bethany replied. 

Then she flipped her hair around some more pretending to be angry and acting like I had insulted some essential portion of her being.  She was the greatest actress in those days.  Bethany could nuance any feeling and generate meaning from the slightest gesture or movement of her eyes.

   “Just saying,” I offer back pretending to be a clueless adult.

   “Oh, you make me so upset,” Bethany said with just the perfect mixture of resignation, anger, and exasperation.

By now everybody was watching and laughing, caught up in the glee that permeated every moment with Bethany.  She made anything/everything fun.  Her presence created a platform on which we all could stand, elevated, able at last to see we were surrounded by delight and breathing the thin cool air of simple bliss.

My most special time to get to be with Bethany was Thanksgiving.  It was then we participated in two honored traditions. Poppa David, the family patriarch and originator of the gene pool that may have created a lot Bethany’s mirth, started one unique family tradition.  He would spend months researching and then creating a new mystery soup for each Thanksgiving celebration.  The soup’s recipe was a closely guarded secret. On the day the family gathered, his soup was presented to the family in a great white tureen and then a tasting portion, served in a small bowl, was presented to each family member.  Here is when the game began.  We had to guess the soup’s ingredients.  The person who correctly guessed the most ingredients, won.  You can’t imagine the shouting and hollering that went on.  Poppa David did not hear too well, so the loudest voice sometimes won.  It was rollicking good fun, and the soup was always a complex mixture of herbs and spices with a secret, mystery base element like minced rutabagas or pureed cabbage. Bethany was sometimes like that soup. She kept us guessing and there were unknown ingredients in the base notes of her being.

Well, Bethany and I decided to begin our own tradition.  We picked oyster scallops! In honor of my mother, I had made oyster scallops for our Thanksgiving feast the previous year, and it had caused a sharp division in the family.  We were pretty evenly divided between those who liked oysters and those who passionately hated them.  Like many things surrounding our family gatherings, the oyster controversy quickly got out of hand. Some uniformed and unenlightened family members even went so far as to say oysters “ruined” Thanksgiving. They wanted oysters banned from the feast. Beth and I could not abide by that.  She loved oysters and thus led the pro-oyster faction of the family.  As a result, and to ensure there would always be oysters at our family Thanksgiving dinner, we banded together and personally prepared, cooked and then served oyster scallops for the next Thanksgiving.  Controversy ruled the evening as everyone took sides.  Bethany and I sat back and smiled.

  

That is how oyster scallops became our tradition.  The lone problem with our plan was that Bethany, at first, could not actually stand to touch the oysters (a problem easily solved with tongs). We were a team. Together, we crunched up the crackers, melted the butter, and measured out the cream.  Cliff, another oyster lover, each year brought fresh, and very expensive oysters, for Bethany to meticulously layer over the crackers she had buttered and crushed with her bare hands. Carefully we poured the cream and oyster juice mixture seasoned with salt and pepper (and whatever else Bethany wanted) over the buttery crackers layered with oysters and then popped it in the oven –a tasty tradition and a historic feud! 

When we first started cooking oyster scallops for Thanksgiving, I did a lot of the work.  But over the years my job duties narrowed to getting the ingredients together, and then Bethany started doing all the work.  I learned to stay out of her way and try to keep up with her jokes. Of course we both still made an excellent show of it.  Bethany was always a bit too enthusiastic with crushing up the crackers, and her legendary disgust with oysters deserved an academy award.  From time to time the oyster haters still dropped by during prep work and insisted we are ruining the holiday, but Bethany capably laughed them off.  At the table, Bethany continued the tradition with her hilarious “taste tests” in which she declare these oyster scallops the “best ever.”  Of course we all continued to fight over the goodness of oysters!  But in our hearts we all know Bethany won the debate.

We have now moved Thanksgiving to an alternative day in November to ensure everyone in the family can attend.  We call it Thanksmas. Poppa David is gone, but we still make the soup and guess the ingredients. Oyster scallops are on the menu, but the haters aren’t as vocal. Bethany plies us with her magical performances and then regales us with her oyster wisdom. I try to keep up with Bethany, but it no use.  She is a Coke Girl after all.

“There is no path to happiness: Happiness is the path.”

“Don’t rush anything. When the time is right, it’ll happen.”

“As you walk, eat, and travel, be where you are.

Otherwise, you will miss most of your life”.

The first time Bethany came to stay at our home, she brought three of her friends.  They were attending some sort of high school student council conference and needed a safe place to stay. I fixed pancakes and watched in awe as my niece and her friends regaled each with stories and jokes.  They were clever and spirited young ladies at the very top of their game.  They laughed about everything and ate every pancake on their plate. We were having a great moment, and that could only mean one thing. It was time for Bethany and me to do our shtick.

   “Hey Bethany,” I said, “how do you make pancakes smile?”

   “You butter ’em up,” she shot back. Then it was Bethany’s turn. 

   “Hey, Uncle J-Dog, what kind of pancakes do elves order?”

   “That would be, Short Stacks,” I said.  Now everyone was groaning.

   “So what do pancakes do when they get mad?” I asked.

   “They flip out,” Bethany replied flipping up her hands.  Then I pointed my spatula at Bethany and got all serious. 

   “Ok smarty pants, what did the pancake say to the syrup?

   “I don’t know,” Bethany said, changing her voice to sound like a first grader who had just been asked the most important question in the world.  “What?”

   “We’re in a sticky situation here,” I said.

Bethany made even the worst jokes funny. She and her friends were spectacular.   After breakfast they rushed around getting ready in a swirl of make-up, clothing changes, hair fixing, and laughter.  That night when they got home, it was late, but they stayed up talking and carrying on.  It was special.  I didn’t remember our home being so alive and happy since those halcyon days when our two boys were young.

We talked about their visit for years.  That was the Bethany we knew back then.  The beautiful girl with the beautiful friends that everyone loved. She was the crazy niece who would include her old uncle is silly pancake jokes we had rehearsed since she was a toddler.  She was a silver shooting star.

To this day Bethany and I can do our shtick and entertain each other for hours. It was only in the worst of times that we lost that connection.  She got herself in some sticky situations. Ahead of her were the sad days when she sat in a stupor at our kitchen table unable to talk.  Bethany, dulled with drugs to hold back the demons, could not participate in her own life.  But those early days, the days when the family got together for holidays, or she came to visit. -- oh my, they were great!

There is a wonderful little story about two girls

Who lived together in a nunnery.                

For many years; they were great friends;

and then, suddenly, they died within a few months of one another,

 One of them was reborn in the heavenly realms; the other girl was reborn as a worm in a dung pile. The one up in the heavenly realms was having a wonderful time, enjoying all the heavenly pleasures. But she started thinking about her friend,

She scanned all of the heavenly realms, but could not find a trace of her friend.

Then she scanned the realm of human beings, but she could not see any trace of her friend there,

so she looked in the realm of animals and then of insects.

Finally she found her friend, reborn as a worm in a dung pile.

“Praise be!”  She thought:

 “I am going to help my friend.

 I am going to go down there to that dung pile and take her up to the heavenly realm so she too can enjoy the heavenly pleasures and bliss of living in these wonderful realms.” 

She went down to the dung pile and called her friend.

  The little worm wriggled out and said: “Who are you?”

“I am your friend. We used to live together in a past life, and I have come up to take you to the heaven realms where life is wonderful and blissful.”         

 But the worm said: “Go away, get lost!”

“But I am your friend, and I live in the heavenly realms,”

 and she described the heavenly realms to her.

But the worm said:

 “No thank you, I am quite happy here in my dung pile. Please go away.”

 Then the heavenly being thought:

 “Well if I could only just grab hold of her

 and take her up to heaven, she could see for herself.”

So she grabbed hold of the worm and started tugging at her.

And the harder she tugged, the harder that worm clung to her pile of dung.

As Bethany got older, we started to hear rumblings.  Bethany had been sneaking out at night. She was known to drink a beer now and then.  She got caught in a lie. The beautiful and charismatic girl was cruising through high school as the “it” girl, with the world always coming to her on Bethany’s terms.  Looking back, we see the signs were always there, but Bethany could mask her insecurities, feelings of emptiness, and impulsive thoughts behind her buoyant personality.  Nobody knew, not Cliff and Brenda, not her friends, teachers or extended family. Nobody would have guessed anything. But deep in Bethany’s core, her fear of abandonment was beginning to grow.  Self harm and unstable relationships would follow that fear.  Addiction, with all its horrors, was waiting patiently for its entry cue. And addiction was ready the day Bethany’s life blew up.

Herman may have been the first person to know Bethany was fighting demons.  Somehow, in ways we may never understand, Herman touched Bethany’s deepest feelings and gave them comfort.  He validated her rebellion, honored her exploration, orchestrated her outrage, and gave rise to those first combustible ways of thinking that led to risky behaviors. He could call up in her that deeply seated death wish all humans sometimes share. More than anything else Herman brought a sense of love and acceptance into Bethany’s life.  He was like her, and for the first time Bethany began to sense an alternate self with all the pleasures and ramifications that accompany puberty and sexual awakening.  He was a splendid and liberating boyfriend for Bethany.  Regrettably, her relationship with Herman would end in horrible tragedy.

 

We will never get to know if Bethany was just another teenager rebelling against authority and finding her way on the rocky road of adolescence, or if there actually were disorders in her psyche that would demand to be named and then treated. We will never know that if given the chance to grow up without the tragic incident, Bethany might have found a different path. Maybe she could have taken the culturally acceptable path planned for her.  She might have followed the path that led through the high country of order, restraint, mindfulness and healthy behaviors.  No, that was not to be. Fate was about to offer a cruel blow to our Coke Girl.  After a night of drinking and carousing, Bethany and Herman had a fight.  They said horrible things to each other; and, in a huff, Herman drove his car headfirst into a tree. The impact eventually killed Herman and irreparably ended any chance Bethany ever could have had to live the life we all had dreamed for her.

The Bethany we knew was destroyed, her life traumatized and abandoned.  Of course she blamed herself. She drank to ease her pain and then found other drugs. She attempted suicides, dropped out of relationships, and lost connection with everyone. By sheer will and what seemed to be a bottomless well of love, Cliff kept in tact a tenuous, thread-like relationship with his daughter.  Bethany bounced in and out of clinics as her life rolled steadily downward, running out of energy and purpose.  Dehabilitating anxiety and fear sent her to doctors who prescribed antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotic, and anti-anxiety medications.  Fully loaded, Bethany became a Zombie on these drugs, a member of the walking dead.  Our family holiday gatherings changed.

Two Thanksgivings come to mind.  One, in the year after Herman died, we moved the feast to an elderly care facility where Poppa and Nana lived.  The best Bethany could do at that Thanksgiving gathering was to make an appearance.  There would be no soup, no oyster scallops, and no shtick with her Uncle Jimmy.  Bethany lasted about 20 minutes and had to leave.  The second Thanksgiving that comes to mind was after the dinner was moved to our house.  I remember Bethany stirring her hands in the buttered crackers unable to talk.  I did all the preparation and then put the scallops in the oven while Bethany just sat there.  She saw me softly crying as I realized the enormous effort she was expending just to sit there with me.

Eventually Bethany came to live with us as she got well enough to attempt attending William Jewell College.  She even took the evening class in communications I taught.  It was no use.  I so clearly remember as she sat with me in her drug induced stupor at our dining room table.

   “Beth, are you even in there someplace?”  I asked.

   “You just don’t understand Uncle Jimmy,” she said.

   “Try me,” I replied.

   “It is all I can do to hold up my head.  It is all I can do to sit at this table.”

   “Bethy, I am so sorry.  What can we do?”

   “Nothing, there is nothing” she said.

She laid her head down, and that was the beginning of the end of her stay with us.  She left Jewell about a month later.

There were countless moments like this  --moments when we all felt it just could not get any worse.  Moments when any future for Bethany seemed so hopeless, and I bitterly railed at the injustice that permeates the human condition.  Life is messy. I know that. We must never give up on the people we care about. But it had been a very a long time since we could see a way forward for our beloved Bethany.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”

“To understand everything is to forgive everything.”

The mystery ingredient in Pop’s Thanksgiving soup is a haunting metaphor for me.  In my mind’s eye I see and hear people around the Thanksgiving table shouting out ingredients.  In desperation and sometimes in just plain silliness, we called out things like grapefruit peels, hotdogs bites or cactus fruit.  We had no idea what the mystery ingredient in Pop’s soup could be.  We didn’t listen to each other, and so we kept yelling out the same ingredients hoping to win a point.  Poppa was no help.  He liked the commotion and would offer a long drawn out, Nooooo! to all our stupid suggestions.  That is how I think the medical world treated Bethany.  They didn’t actually know what was going on with her so they just called any diagnosis or syndromes that came to mind. 

This will be hard to comprehend, but I think if we really wanted to understand Bethany’s story, we should have focused more on the mystery and not the meaning.  Answers are way overrated. Poppa’s soup was never just one mystery ingredient.  It was a combination of many flavors as well as the cooking, the preparation and serving.  The fact that it was our Poppa who had made the soup, and it was a now our Thanksgiving tradition, was all part of the soup’s taste.

Bethany’s mental illness was part an imbalance in her organic brain, and part trauma from Herman’s death.  All this was bundled in the present feelings and circumstance of the eternal now. Bethany’s life path was through the darkness, by the rocky cliff, and over the troubled waters.  Her psyche was conflagrated, trampled and displaced. In Bethany’s case, truth is contradiction, judgment is meaningless, and analysis is always incomplete.  Bethany survived day to day for many years.  Her long trip to stability continues step by step to this day. She embraced her moments now, and tries to be mindful of each one. Bethany is a survivor. Here is the third part of her story.

Once upon a time, the Enlightenment Being was born as a tiny quail.

 Although she had little feet and wings, she could not yet walk or fly.

Her parents worked hard bringing food to the nest, feeding her from their beaks.

 In that part of the world, there were forest fires every year.

So it happened that a fire began and all the birds that were able flew away at the first sign of smoke.  As the fire spread, and got closer and closer to the nest of the baby quail,

her parents remained with her.  Finally the fire got so close,

that they too had to fly away to save their lives.

All the trees, big and small, were burning and crackling with a loud noise.

The little one saw that the fire that raged out of control was destroying everything.    She could do nothing to save herself.  At that moment, a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed her mind.

Then it occurred to her, “My parents loved me very much. Unselfishly they built a nest for me, and then fed me without greed. When the fire came, they remained with me until the last moment.  All the other birds that could have flown away had done so a long time before.

 “So great was the loving-kindness of my parents, that they stayed and risked their lives,

 but still they were helpless to save me. Since they could not carry me,

 they were forced to fly away alone. I thank them, wherever they are, for loving me so.

I hope with all my heart they will be safe and well and happy.”            

Now I am all alone. There is no one I can go to for help. I have wings, but I cannot fly away.

I have feet, but I cannot run away. But I can still think. All I have left to use is my mind - a mind that remains pure. The only beings I have known in my short life were my parents, and my mind has been filled with loving-kindness towards them. I have done nothing unwholesome to anyone. I am filled with new-born innocent truthfulness. ”Then an amazing miracle took place.

This innocent truthfulness grew and grew until it became larger than the little baby bird.

The knowledge of truth spread beyond that one lifetime, and many previous births became known. One such previous birth had led to knowing a Buddha, a fully enlightened knower of Truth - one who had the power of Truth, the purity of wholesomeness, and the purpose of compassion. Then the Great Being within the tiny baby quail thought, “May this very young innocent truthfulness be united with that ancient purity of wholesomeness and power of Truth.

May all birds and other beings, who are still trapped by the fire, be saved.

And may this spot be safe from fire for a million years!” 

And so it was.

Most mental health care is not a joke because it is a joke.

A man was walking in the street one day when he was brutally beaten and robbed. As he laid unconscious and bleeding, a psychologist, who happened to be passing by, rushed up to him and exclaimed, "My God! Whoever did this really needs help!"

You have to laugh about mental health.  We have no clue what good mental health is all about.  Abraham Maslow spent years studying the most mentally healthy and happy people he could find. Turns out there are not a lot of mentally healthy and happy people out there.  Those that are, are rarely younger than 50, and in all honesty might be considered a little eccentric. Maslow called them self-actualized, and here is what he found out about them.

• They are not threatened or afraid of the unknown and ambiguous, and they do not cling to the familiar.
• They enjoy life’s journey and can make the most routine activity enjoyable.
• They are motivated by growth and not by the satisfaction of needs.
• They have a purpose centered on the good of mankind in general.
• They feel identification and affection towards the entire human race.
• They are not molded by culture or tribal connection.
• They don’t need money or care who gets the credit.

So, those humanity-loving, blithely unafraid, simple minded souls, our culture has been known to make fun of, just might be the happiest people among us. Those who don’t seem to care about money or material things, and really do believe in things like the common good and brotherly love, are probably the most mentally healthy and happy people around.  That’s not what every magazine, TV show, movie, and old wives tale would lead us to believe.  We are supposedly driven by needs developed by evolutionary chance and survival of the fittest. It is in our genes to survive and procreate. That’s about it, they say.  They tell us love and fear are about all there is when it comes to emotions.  One has to be self-actualized and perhaps a little crazy to think well of our species or to believe in basic goodness.  That’s the basis of modern psychology.  Psychiatrists can earn a good living by coming up with definitions and conditions in which they can squeeze complex human behavior.   They have given us the following:

“Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD),”

“Personality Disorder,”

“Addiction,”

“Narcissistic personality disorder” 

“Clinical depression”

“Anxiety disorder”

“Eating disorder”

You name it, and somebody thought Bethany had it. 

If you name it, you can control it, the thinking goes. That’s what they did to/for Bethany. Fortunately, Bethany’s parents were able to throw money and patience at the problem.  The money never cured her, but I think it did keep her alive long enough for her first chance at enlightment.  The money paid for the mindfulness treatments that gave Bethany a first lesson in how to handle her life and just not react to it.  It was at a clinic outside Chicago where Bethany lived for five months that she got her first glimmer of what a life without disabling fear might be like.  Bethany was taught to be mindful.  She did not know then, and maybe does not know now, but it was there she found a different truth.  For lack of a better term, I think she found the Buddha.

Siddhartha Gotama, known as the Buddha, was born into a royal family in Lumbini, now located in Nepal, in 563 BC. At 29, he realized that wealth and luxury did not guarantee happiness, so he explored the different teachings, religions, and philosophies of the day. The Buddha searched to find the key to human happiness. After six years of study and meditation, he finally found 'the middle path' and was enlightened. After enlightenment, the Buddha spent the rest of his life teaching the principles of Buddhism — called the Dhamma, or Truth — until his death at the age of 80.  To many, Buddhism is more of a philosophy or 'way of life', and the they believe Buddhist path leads to:

•  a moral life
•  being mindful and aware of thoughts and actions
•  developing wisdom and understanding

Buddhism has become popular in western cultures for a number of reasons. First, Buddhism has answers to many of the problems people face in modern materialistic societies. For those who are interested, it also includes a deep understanding of the human mind and natural therapies.  More and more psychologists around the world are now discovering Buddhism to be both very advanced and effective in treating a wide range of mental health issues.  A basic tenant of Buddhism, “mindfulness,” became part of Bethany’s approach to getting well.  Like the Buddha, she went through a time of trial in search of enlightenment.  She suffered, a basic element of Buddhism, but gradually she became more aware of her own thoughts and actions.  It was after her stay in the Chicago clinic when she came to live with us once again.

There was once a pair of acrobats.

The teacher was a poor widower and the student was a young girl named Bethany. These acrobats performed each day on the streets in order to earn enough to eat. Their act consisted of the teacher balancing a tall bamboo pole on his head while the little girl climbed slowly to the top. Once to the top, she remained there while the teacher walked along the ground.  Both performers had to maintain complete focus and balance in order to prevent any injury from occurring

 and to complete the performance.

 One day, the teacher said to the pupil: ‘Listen Bethany, I will watch you and you watch me, so that we can help each other maintain concentration and balance and prevent an accident. Then we’ll surely earn enough to eat.  But the little girl was wise, she answered, ‘Dear master, I think it would be better for each of us to watch ourselves. To look after oneself means to look after both of us.

That way I am sure we will avoid any accidents and earn enough to eat.

Bethany, Kathy and I gathered at the kitchen table. Our evening meal became a ritual.  We all sat quietly, eating slowly. We were learning to pay attention. Instead of eating mindlessly, just putting food into our mouths without really tasting what we were eating, we tried to notice our thoughts and feelings as we ate. We became aware of the myriad of sensations that went along with mealtime.  Bethany taught us to put our fork down between every bite and think about chewing our food.  We were not to hurry our meal.  We were supposed to get involved with the food we were eating by actually looking at it and experiencing the taste and smells.  She asked us to think about how the food nourished our bodies and kept us healthy.  We were to trace its progress though our body.

   “What?” I asked.  “You want me to picture this passing along in my colon,” I said looking at the corn on my fork. I could not help making a joke.

   “Now Uncle Jimmy,” Bethany said, “stay in the moment and be mindful.”

Mindfulness also meant noticing when you were full by really connecting with the signals your stomach and intestines were sending to the brain (it takes about 30 minutes to realize when you are full).  As we got better at thinking about our eating, we began to contemplate where the food came from, who might have grown it, how much it might have suffered before it was killed.  We considered whether it was grown organically, and how much it was processed. We noticed its preparation, how much it was fried or if it was overcooked.  After we finished eating, we each took turns talking about the emotions we had before during and after eating.

   “I felt joy knowing that Aunt Kathy loves me.  I could taste that love in the food she prepared for me.  I tried to sense the food nourishing me without making me feel fat or ugly.” Bethany said.

   “I enjoyed actually tasting my asparagus.  I liked the crunchy sensation of chewing asparagus that is not overcooked, and I like knowing it is good for me,” Aunt Kathy offered.

   “I just liked being together and I like treating our evening meal as an important time in our lives.  I like being with the two of you,” I said.

This is how Bethany taught us mindfulness.  We learned to eat when hungry, and stop when sated. We learned to really taste food, and to enjoy the taste of healthy food.  We began to realize that unhealthy food isn’t as tasty as we (or at least I) thought, nor does sugar and fat make us feel very good.

Night after night this was our eating ritual. I know it does not sound like much, but we were fighting monumental battles during those days. We explored the idea that we start becoming “crazy” by thinking everything has to be a certain way.  Those crazy thoughts about how things are supposed to be then turn into our reality. Change is hard, and re-learning something ingrained in your psyche for most of you life is almost impossible.   I can still picture tiny, bone-thin Bethany sitting next to me picking up her fork and taking one bite.  Then she put her fork down, chewed her food until it became liquid in her mouth. Then by a power I do not understand, but hope some day to know, she picked up her fork and did it all again.  Bethany battled anorexia.  She forced herself to eat bite-by-bite, all the while offering thanks for her brittle and broken life.  She willed herself to be thankful for food she did not want to eat, and above all, to be grateful for a present tense that offered little comfort or hope. Something deep in her being held out hope for a better life, and against all odds, it won. Bethany prevailed against the forces of fear and loathing that would have killed her if it could.

After staying with us, Bethany eventually went home to live her parents.  Cliff and Brenda helped save Bethany’s life, or to put it more correctly, Bethany allowed her life to be saved by her mom and dad.  Cliff was the leading salesman for a major trucking company.  After fifteen year of perfect weather, he learned that his daughter could become a nightmare storm capable of tearing out the family’s most secure moorings and leaving them all marooned on the inky seas of despair and distress. Cliff would not, or maybe could not, let go of his daughter’s hand.  He took her to psychiatrists and mental health clinics, stood at her bedside after the suicide attempts, gave her one chance and then another.  He learned he often could not trust a word his daughter said. He spent money his family did not have and denied both his wife and his other daughter their due amount of his time, energy and care. Night after stormy night he went looking for his daughter, the Biblical shepherd who risked all to find one lost lamb.  He became a Zen Master of suffering.

Brenda kept the home fires burning.  Milton, who was not a Buddhist, says they also serve who sit and wait.  This was the price of Brenda’s faith.  She served by keeping track of everything.  For Brenda, Bethany’s story was no fable or morality play where good overcomes evil; or, with sudden clarity a life lesson is learned. Her story was to sit watching as life’s river flowed slowly by and remind everyone not to dwell in the past or dream of the future.  Brenda concentrated on, and lived in, the present moment, however bleak it seemed to others. Her work was to discover the world they had been given, find the good, and then with all her heart give herself to it.

Life’s river is going to flow by.  We sit on the bank and watch.  Darkness, death and loss surround all of us, as do peace and joy. Our lives do not have to swing back and forth from depression to joy and back again.  We can live on an even keel, our boat stable in the water no matter the weather or the waves.  The tyranny of expectation can be softened as we have learn to live in the present moment.  Bethany taught us all this and so much more.

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

“Everything that has a beginning has an ending.
Make your peace with that and all will be well.”

How many psychotherapists does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one, so long as the light bulb “wants” to change.

The only person who, in the end, could save Bethany was, of course, herself. She will laugh at the Buddha comparison, but she will be the first to admit she was crazy at times.  She holds a job now, lives with a young man, and it looks like she will actually graduate from college.  She regularly goes to see her psychologist, only takes prescription drugs, and probably always will.  Her success came from herself, but it is maintained by attending weekly and sometimes daily meetings of people who have addiction issues.  A group of friends, most of whom she met at her weekly meetings, keep her grounded and provide stability.  When she drifts from her path of enlightenment, they lead her back from the darkness. 

She loves her dog. There are text messages every day with her dad and mom, and often the entire family gathers for a Sunday dinner.  Her sister has two children and Bethany is a devoted aunt. Life is working out for Bethany. Her mom and dad have walked their lives back from the early expectations of what their lives “should” be like and have mostly come to terms with their suffering and loss. They have traveled their path with amazing grace.  The extended family celebrates Bethany, her resilience and determination.  None of us has a clue what all she has faced and then overcome in her life.  We just know our Coke Girl kept putting one foot in front of the other, her eyes open, and heart beating.