OMG Digital Magazine OMG Issue 284 23rd November 2017 | 页面 6

OMG Digital Magazine | 284 | Thursday 23, November, 2017 • PAGE 6
SoulFood
Why You Should
Never Underestimate
the Importance of
Just Showing Up
By Glennon Doyle
Life's biggest moments sometimes ask only that we be
still and bear witness.
One morning I answered my phone and heard my sister
say, "Sissy, it's time. The baby's coming. Can you get here
today?"
I suddenly felt afraid. What if something went wrong? My
sister is my person, the one I can't live without. And her
children are her life. I don't pray often, not in words at least.
But that morning I did. I whispered, "Dear God, please let
my sister be okay. Please let her baby be healthy. And also,
if possible, can you be sure she has a girl?"
As I packed, the phone rang again. This time it was my
mother. "Honey," she said, "Grandma's not doing well. I
think you need to come as soon as you can."
I froze. My grandmother Alice was so fiery that when
my grandfather first approached her at a bar and asked,
"Excuse me, are you a nurse?" she looked down at her
crisp white uniform, then up at him, and answered, "No,
Sherlock. I'm a firefighter." It was love at first fight. They
had seven children and 15 grandchildren and had been
married for 42 years when he died. She was so full of faith
that for the decade and a half I was lost to addiction, she
said a rosary for me every single night. She told me she
didn't miss one. My only explanation for how I got better
is that Grandma prayed my troubles gone.
My sister was having a baby. My grandmother was dying.
These were quite literally life and death situations, which
I've never been very good with. I felt myself slipping into
quicksand mode, which is what tends to happen when
I look around at the people I love and contemplate the
inevitable: I panic. Oh my God! We are all going to die! But
this time, as I stood paralyzed over my suitcase, I made a
decision. I wouldn't let fear swallow me whole. I wouldn't
let myself free fall. If I could talk myself into freaking out,
then surely I could talk my way out of it. I breathed. I
coached myself: "This is life. You don't have to handle it.
Life and death aren't meant to be managed. They are to
be witnessed. You will be brave, Glennon. You will show
up for your people and be their witness."
Immediately I felt calmer. I made a plan and set it in
motion. First I flew to Ohio to say goodbye to my grandma.
My mom and her sisters had been living there for months,
nursing their mother around the clock, bathing her and
sleeping beside her, just as she'd done for them when
they were small. When I arrived, I walked into her room
and saw her—fiery, faithful Alice Flaherty—lying there,
so weak. I stood by her bed and clasped her hands. Mine
were sweaty and cold, but hers were soft and powdery.
My mother stayed back behind us. I tried to imagine what
she was feeling, watching her mama and her daughter,
and I felt the quicksand pulling me under. Stay present,
I prodded myself. Be here, Glennon. Be strong enough to
witness this. For them. For you.
I sat there in the quiet and continued holding her hands,
keeping her close. Eventually, I simply said, "Goodbye,
Grandma." We pretended, with our smiles, that we meant
goodbye for now.
I looked at my mother. I'd expected her to be stoic for
me, but her face was crumpled in agony. I took her in my
arms. I did not tell her it was okay—I knew it wasn't. As
devastating as it was for me to let my grandmother go,
I knew it was finally time for me to be stoic, to be there
for my mother, just as she'd always been there for me.
"Mama," I soothed, "I'm here."
In a while we drove back to the airport, and I boarded a
plane for Virginia to greet a baby.
Several hours later, there I was at the hospital where my
beautiful sister held her first and only daughter up to me.
She said, "Sister, meet Alice Flaherty."
She put my niece in my arms. I stroked her little hand, soft
and powdery.
And I said, "Hello, baby Alice. Hello, angel."
As I held her, I let the quicksand take me. I was too tired to
fight it. I let it take me under, and I cried and cried until I
couldn't shed another tear. And then I stopped. Which is
when I realized: There is no quicksand.
I was still standing. Because love is solid ground. Saying
goodbye to my grandmother was brutal, as if the pain
might kill me. But it hadn't. And now here I was welcoming
another Alice. I felt like I was getting the inside scoop from
life itself, and it was saying, "Yes, Glennon, it's as hard as
you fear. That won't change. You will lose people. It will
hurt badly, and yet...we go on. Tomorrow will be beautiful
again—more beautiful than you can imagine."
The secret of life is not about knowing what to say or do. It's
not about doing love or loss right. Life cannot be handled.
The secret is simply to show up. It's about witnessing it all,
even the pain, and letting it touch you and make you not
harder, but more tender. Showing up, feeling it all—this is
my new kind of prayer. I call it praying attention, and it's
how, for me, everything turns holy.