Tag: Healing

“Float Plan”

“That’s a great book,” said the male voice a few feet behind me. He had apparently noticed me taking the book off the top shelf, which was at eye level for me.

I turned around and saw the title “Manager” on the Barnes & Noble ID tag pinned to his polo shirt.

It was an overcast Friday afternoon, October 5, 2018, and my husband, Rick, and I had decided to take a day trip to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. Whenever we can, we try to include a visit to the large Barnes & Noble store, located near the National Aquarium. We hadn’t been there but five minutes when the book in my hands, Float Plan, was praised so highly.

“Do you know who that is?” the manager asked, referring to the author, Rob Hiaasen.

“Yes, I do,” I said, “What a horrible tragedy that was.”

I knew that Rob Hiaasen and four of his co-workers at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, had been the victims of a mass shooting in the paper’s newsroom, on June 28, 2018. Hiassen had been the assistant editor.

The Barnes & Noble store manager, a friendly and gentle-voiced man in his fifties, was, by then, standing alongside me. He nodded as I acknowledged Rob Hiaasen and what had happened.

“Everyone here was very affected by it,” he said, “especially since Rob Hiaasen’s daughter works here at the store.”

It took a second for his statement to register   

“HERE?” I said. My voice rose a couple of pitches and my eyes widened to the size of walnuts as I spoke. The reply that followed stunned me even more.

“Yes,” he said. “In fact, here she comes now.”

I looked to my left and saw a tall, lovely young woman, I guessed in her twenties, walking toward us. I imagine it was the sight of her manager that brought her our way. Did she have a question for him?

She was quickly standing in front of us, next to her boss. The mother in me wanted to give her a tight hug, but I held back. I was a complete stranger, holding a copy of her deceased father’s book in my hands. I didn’t want my hug to be perceived as pity. We expressed our sympathies, and I said that I was so happy to have come across her dad’s book.

Samantha Hiaasen (she goes by “Sam,” I later learned) didn’t owe us even one moment of courtesy—not after what she and her family had been through, not with grief they were still enduring. But she was gracious, sweet, and cheerful.

There we were, just over three months since the horrific mass shooting of her dad and his coworkers, days and days of coverage and publicity afterwards, and here was this young woman, with the strength and the courage to be at work, and the heart to be nice to strangers. I couldn’t help thinking—again it was the parent in me and some familiarity with the feeling: Rob Hiaasen would be very proud of the daughter he’d helped raise.

Rick and I excused ourselves and headed off on our individual strolls through the bookstore (he’s magazines, airplanes, and the Civil War; I’m creative nonfiction and the Starbucks café). Sam continued speaking with her boss, and I was soon riding the escalator to the second floor.

I had to force myself to pay attention to where I was going so that I wouldn’t trip at the top of the escalator. My mind was still on what had just happened on the first floor.

But … what had just happened?

Some would call it a coincidental meeting. And they might be right. My husband’s reaction was, “That was pretty wild,” and he moved on. There was no wrestling with it, no trying to find the deeper meaning. I’m sometimes jealous of his and others’ ability to move past such things quickly—not in a cold or insensitive way—but with an attitude of “that happened and now it’s over.”

Being the “there are no coincidences” type of person that I am, however, I’m always looking for the meaning behind these “chance” encounters (see https://tessenterline.com/its-a-mystery/). There’s a transcendent quality to what I feel on occasions such as meeting Sam … occasions that feel more “sacred mystery” than coincidence to me.

Afterwards, I want to linger in what fills me—feelings I can’t quite describe but are too powerful and meaningful to me to, such as on that day, simply slide into the next row of books. Such encounters aren’t upsetting. I guess I’d describe what I feel as a kind of bewildered joy

I’m not trying to sound woo-woo about all this or make too much of that afternoon in Barnes & Noble. It just feels right to me to rest in and acknowledge the times in our lives that intertwine with others in a special way.

But here’s where it goes beyond that.

Another reason why meeting someone like Sam is special is because she has suffered through what has increasingly become, for many of us, one of our worst fears … something we want to believe won’t ever happen to us.

Sam reminds me of my vulnerability, of my humanness, of the ties that bind us all. That in a split second I could be up against the same grief that Sam and so many others have had to face as a result of the violence and hate that are now so common. Seems a rare day when we don’t read or hear about a tragedy somewhere in the world.

However … it provides an opportunity.

And a place from which to grow.

And a reason for which to reach out.

And ways to show our love.

There are so many people out there (in our families, neighborhoods, churches, offices, book clubs, etc.) who are hurting. So many of us are hurting.

We can’t be there for everyone. But maybe we can each pick one extra person to call, visit, write to, or pray for in the coming week, and in the weeks thereafter. Maybe someone (reading this newsletter right now or not) will get in touch with youand say, “Hey, I know it’s a hard time for you right now. Just wanted to check-in and see how you’re doing.” Or, “Wanted to let you know that I’m praying for you.”

Personally, I’m not always eager to get on the phone. Just a quirk of mine. But I love sitting across from a friend in a café and listening. And I love writing notes to people. (see https://tessenterline.com/the-love-note-project/)

So here’s my plan: In this next week I’m going to write a note to Samantha Hiaasen. Get it to her somehow. Not that she’ll remember me … doesn’t matter. I just want to let her know that I’ve been thinking about her … that I’ve been praying for her and her family. That I’ve read her dad’s book … and it’s great!

(Note:  Rob Hiaasen’s book Float Plan was published posthumously by Apprentice House Press, which is associated with the Communication Department at Loyola University Maryland. At the request of Maria Hiaasen, Rob’s wife, a contribution was made by AHP to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. To learn more, go to www.everytown.org.)

 (Photo by Paulo Resende on Unsplash)

God Never Calls U-Haul

God bless my poor neighbor Linda. She had picked the wrong time to do yard work.

It was earlier this year, about four in the afternoon on May 14th. I had just locked up our old house for the final time, taking with me the last couple of boxes of odds and ends accumulated during our thirty-two years of living there. Rick and I had already moved into our new house. 

I walked just outside the garage and pressed the four-digit code into the keypad to lower the door. The creaking sound of the garage door panels sliding over the rails and slowly inching down toward the foundation only served to rub my heart in it … “it” being the fact that this house—our home for thirty-two years—was no longer ours.

The door hit the concrete with a thud. So much noisy rattling for ten seconds and in the very next instant, silence. 

It was like the sting that comes after a after a slap.

I tried to hold back the tears, which was totally in keeping with my habit of wearing the face that says, “I’m fine.”  But the garage door closing and the sudden quiet released the catch on my emotions. My tears broke free. My breaths shortened, and I started sucking air in shorter bursts, muscles contracting from deep within my diaphragm.

My car was parked along the curb and I aimed myself in its direction. As I walked, I forced myself to keep looking straight ahead and not turn around for another look. The last thing I needed was to give my mind another opportunity to remember. Thirty-two years gives you lots to remember. I just kept moving forward down the driveway. 

That’s when I spotted Linda across the street in her front yard. 

She was wearing gardening gloves, and a baseball cap to help protect her from an unusually hot mid-May day. She saw me, too, and we waved to one another.

It crossed my mind to keep walking to my car, accompanied by my tears and heaving breaths. I could have slipped into the driver’s seat and slinked away. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t just allow myself to wave and make that my goodbye to such a good woman. So, I crossed the street, went up to Linda, and gave her the biggest, longest, and teariest—maybe even the only—hug I had given her in the thirty-plus years we had been neighbors. I couldn’t even talk, I was crying so much. 

We had watched as each other’s kids grow up. As some families moved elsewhere, Linda and her husband and family, and Rick, me, and our family—along with other original homeowners on our street—remained. We were the Deer Path Woods old timers. Except now, we were leaving as well, to become the “new neighbors” somewhere else. And a new, young family would be moving in the next day and raising their family there just like we did. 

And I was okay with that. Really, I was. Still, I couldn’t help but feel sad and wistful about bringing those chapters of our lives to a close.

Three months have passed …

… and although the move brought some changes to our lives—some big (a new church, a new bank, some new doctors) and some small (a new dry cleaner and ice cream stand)—I can honestly say that I’ve been very much at peace with it. So much so, in fact, that I’ve asked myself, “How is that? How could I live in one place for thirty-two years, move, and almost immediately feel comfortable in my new surroundings?”

I soon understood—no, felt—the reason why. 

The reason goes beyond the fact that Rick and I feel very comfortable in our new home. There’s more to it than, once again, being blessed with wonderful neighbors. And, even though I’m thrilled for our dogs that there are many furry friends for them here in our new community, that doesn’t explain my contentment either. 

As with most things that speak to our inner selves, the explanation goes deeper than anything I can lay my eyes or hands on. And yet, I feel it as strongly as having arms wrapped around me in a tight, loving embrace. Once the following thought came to me, I felt the sweet peace of surrendering to it: 

We had moved, but God was where He’s always been, which is … right by my side.

The thought of these words, even now as I type and repeat them to myself, are such a comfort. 

In no way do I want to dismiss the sadness that moving away from family, friends, and familiar surroundings can bring. Those feelings are powerful and only ease with time. In God, though, we have someone who will navigate it all with us; we need only to keep our hearts open to Him.

This same way of thinking can be applied to so many aspects of our lives where there is change: 

  • Has a family member or friend recently been admitted to the hospital … or passed away … thereby changing who is present in your life?
  • Has a relationship in your life become strained or recently ended?
  • Have you changed jobs?
  • Are you sending a child off to college for the first time, thereby changing life as you’ve known it for the past eighteen years? (Been there, done that!)

Or something as seemingly innocuous as:

  • Has your normal route to work been closed due to construction, thereby changing and lengthening your commute?

Through any change—large or small—remember: God never calls U-Haul. God does not move or change. He is, rather, the steadiest, most loving presence in our lives. God is wherever you are.

 (Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash)