#12: Upside Down and Inside Out

Life Threw Me a Curveball, Followed By Another, and Another ...

I thought this spring was going to be a season of transition, followed by a season of renewal. I was mostly right. But I grossly underestimated what the transition would entail and how long it would take for new shoots to appear.

Dominoes

I’ve been very transparent about the personal and professional challenges, or more aptly - crises, I met during the COVID season.

The first domino fell when my mother-in-law (who lived with us for 7 years) moved into a local nursing home in February 2020, just one month before the COVID lockdowns began. The Pennsylvania nursing home protocols for COVID were among the strictest in the U.S. Simply put, they were draconian.

Dr. Rachel (formerly Richard) Levine was PA’s Secretary of Health at the time. Dr. Levine is now Admiral Levine (Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.) and serves as Assistant Secretary for Health for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration.

I am not of fan of Dr. Levine, not because he identifies as a transgender woman and prefers she/her pronouns, but because it was impossible to reach ANYONE at the Department of Health during the entire lockdown period.

We tried and tried, our local state representative tried, but to no avail. We desperately needed some relief, but there was no one to help. Physicians were as frustrated as we were.

In our state, edicts on nursing homes were issued by Dr. Levine, with the approval of then Governor Tom Wolf, and then enforced without care or consideration for the residents in the locked down facilities.

The results of these arbitrary rules and inconsistent enforcement were AWFUL, like really AWFUL.

A Widow and Her Son

My husband is an only child and his mom and my mother-in-law aka MIL, Pat, has been widowed since November 1995. At age 58, her husband of 30 years, John, died from renal cell carcinoma that metastasized to his brain.

He was sick for just 9 months. Pat was 57 and Chris, her only child and, of course, my husband, was just 23. I never met my father-in-law.

Pat (MIL), Chris (My Love), and John (FIL)

Two months after John died, in January 1996, Pat lost her mom and Chris lost his only living grandmother. The following month, the family cat passed away. The remainder of the year brought more news of death as half a dozen of Chris’ extended family members met their Maker. While Chris is an only child, his father was one of 5 and the extended family was quite large.

Among the extended family members who passed was Pat’s sister’s mother-in-law, Nell. Nell was Pat’s best friend and a surrogate grandmother to Chris. As a result, Chris delayed his plans for graduate school so he could be home with his mom as they witnessed family members pass away in seriatim.

After a while, the pile of heartbreak becomes so heavy that even the broadest of shoulders give way and the bottom falls out. Life spins into a chaotic orbit that consumes every ounce of one’s being.

Pat’s shoulders gave way all of those years ago. And, she never really found her way back to stasis.

Damage Control

We tried to keep Pat in our home where she’d been since 2013, but one too many falls, coupled with progressing macular degeneration, proved too much for her to manage with the physical setup in our home.

One of the downsides of an old house (ours is a 1830’s German farmhouse) is the lack of adjustable door jams, which hinders easy passage with a wheelchair. Another downer - among many others - is the unevenness of the hard wood floors and inconsistent heights of thresholds throughout the house, each seeming like a ticking time bomb for those using canes and walkers.

Living in an old house and its quirks adds a bit of spice to life - just enough unpredictability to keep things from getting boring - but it’s no bueno when one needs to take advantage of more modern accommodations.

The decision to move Pat out of our home was AWFUL, like really AWFUL.

If you’ve been in this situation, you know exactly what I mean.

COVID-Schmovid

One month into Pat’s tenure at the nursing home, she tested positive for COVID. She no longer has a spleen (she was in cancer treatment the same year the family thinned out), so it was “hit or miss” for a while. Will she or won’t she pull through?

Chris was able to bundle up, head to the home, and wave at his mom through her room window while standing in the flower beds that wouldn’t see new life for several months. Obviously, “window visits” have limited utility both practically and emotionally.

We immediately thought - Pat isn’t going to die of COVID, she is going to die of state-imposed isolation and the resulting loneliness. Is allowing human touch - just a simple hug - so dangerous that we must bring the full weight of the state government against it?

The stakes were so high - literally life and death high - but there was NOTHING we could do about it.

The stress and anxiety levels in our home sky-rocketed as we worked to manage this new reality. There were many “If only …” conversations taking place between Chris and me, but we finally found a way to nip the fatalistic chatter in the bud.

It was, in a word, AWFUL.

—

Three years later, restrictions have eased, but things still aren’t back to normal in our home or the home. Pat is now legally blind and has extremely limited mobility, but Chris can hug her and that’s made a world of difference.

Just because the pandemic is “over,” the traumatic fallout emotionally, psychologically, and financially is still in full swing. The world has moved on, but it left many behind in its wake.

And we, among many others, are knee deep into a long and slow healing process that will simply take the time it takes. Others aren’t patient, but we are. We have to be.

Fast Forward to the Next Domino

My longtime paralegal, Lyza, passed away in June 2020, three months into the lockdowns. This was the second domino to fall (or shall I say, the second row of dominoes to fall). She had thyroid cancer and was managing, but once she contracted COVID it was over in a flash. We weren’t prepared.

Knowing Lyza was slowing down given her treatments, I interviewed with other paralegal placement agencies and made a new hire a few weeks after her passing summer. I was hopeful because my docket was pretty large for a solo practitioner and I knew I couldn’t handle it without competent help.

My hope lasted for all of 48 hours when I learned that my replacement paralegal had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would be out for radiation treatments every day for the next couple of months.

Really? And no one thought to tell me?

She and I tried to make the relationship work, and I was naturally very understanding, but the writing was on the wall. Not only could she not physically perform the job, but should couldn’t perform ANY job. Her body needed to rest.

It was, as you can imagine, AWFUL … for her and for me. She’s a single mom and it was a terrible blow.

To add insult to injury, the agency who placed her with me was defensive and uncooperative about terminating the contract - which was not helpful.

Things were starting to fall through the cracks.

It was pretty AWFUL.

Fast Forward Some More

Many more dominoes continued to fall in the summer of 2020 and thereafter. The social unrest post-George Floyd brought some additional and unexpected challenges, including a notice of termination from a long-term client. Cause of termination was being white. Her husband, with whom she started a new project to support minority-owned businesses, required all counsel going forward to be black.

We’d worked together successfully for 10 years.

I was blindsided.

It was ugly.

It was my first cancellation. But I didn’t know it at the time. I had to join LinkedIn to learn how bad I really am! lol …

—

I was also in a few online business support communities and was watching them devolve into digital race riots. When the administrator of one Facebook community - with approximately 30,000 members - asked to keep discussions about race out of the group, she was viciously cancelled by its black members for failing to her understand her white privilege, which rendered her an active participant in systemic racism.

Although she’d been building the community for 15 years, the community leader walked away, abandoned the group, and sought top cover to ride out the storm. The group was taken over by the “inmates” who ran it into the ground. Rather than supporting entrepreneurship, it became a whipping posts for post-modern struggle sessions.

It wasn’t just the group leader who fell into the line of fire. In fact, many white women in the community were told to get their white privilege in check and make way for people of color. After all, since white women have had their moment in the sun, it was time to step aside and make way for POC (people of color). The message was clear - white people … out.

Regrettably, many of those white women were also my clients.

Upon cancellation, they had to close up shop. Not surprisingly, they cancelled their contracts with me, even though we were mid-project.

It was messy for them, for me, for everyone.

Lest anyone be confused, the new racism - systemic racism - aka racism without racists, was here to stay.

By the summer of 2022, my business (law firm) had broken.

• The disruption of COVID on me, my staff, and my clients (and our families) …

• The exhaustion of trying to make remote work (with a young staff) actually work …

• The dissolution of too many clients’ businesses, or such severe reduction in their revenue streams that they terminated all outside services, and

• The collective push for DEI initiatives on all companies, regardless of size, industry, or applicability …

… were collectively too much to sustain.

After a while, the pile becomes so heavy that even the broadest of shoulders give way and the bottom falls out. Life spins into a chaotic orbit that consumes every ounce of one’s being.

My shoulders finally gave way … and the bottom fell out.

I’m finding my way back to stasis … rather, clawing by way back to stasis.

Down But Not Out

Given the events of the last couple of years (there’s a larger story I will tell in time) and my mom’s recent cancer diagnosis (as in a few days ago), I’m in need of some repair. So, I’m taking a year off. A year off to clean up the mess, assess, and rebuild.

I don’t know what comes next, but I’ll keep sharing my thoughts as I think them - even though they’ll probably be half-baked and just me working it all out in my head.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 4 : 8-18 (KJV)), he writes …

⁸ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

⁹ Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

^…

¹⁷ For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

¹⁸ While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

I take great comfort in these words and I hope you do too if/when you ever need them.

—

If I’d had my choice, I would have skipped the last few years, but I am finding a way to be grateful for them.

I don’t know which of the following has taught me more, and consequently changed me more:

• the challenges themselves,

• my imperfect response to them, or

• the unpredictable responses of others.

They say there’s a beautiful side of evil, but I’m not sure I agree with that. I’ve seen some dark days, experienced deep betrayals, and walked some dangerous paths … and there was nothing beautiful in any of them.

The beauty comes with redemption and healing, which are wholly separate from evil.

School’s Never Out for the Pro

Given these massive changes in my life, I’ve decided to go back to school.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned last year (June 24, 2022 to be exact), I knew that something was very wrong in America. Of this I’ve written frequently.

I knew there had to be a better way to process what had become unbridled rage and undisciplined anger, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

But I did know that most of what we were screaming at each other made no sense.

And I needed to figure it out.

So, I hit the books. I started by refamiliarizing myself with all of the -isms, including …

• Humanism, (man is the measure of all things);

• Existentialism (being and will)

• Marxism (economic explanations for man);

• Secularism (nothing beyond the hear and now)

Then I dug deeper into the subcategories of the -isms, such as …

• Feminism

• Racism, and

• Social Justice (note the capital S and J - this is different from lowercase social justice) …

As I studied, I finally hit a place where I knew I needed to up my game.

We’re not just have a political squabble, we’re in an all out war over which reality will win the day …

And I had no idea how to fight it.

I was out of my league.

Enter grad school.

As I’m in the middle of a dramatic professional and personal transition (one I did not want but am embracing), I’m returning to one of my great loves - learning.

I’ve been accepted into a doctoral program where I’ll be studying philosophy and theology, both of which address fundamental issues regarding existence, knowledge, values, reason, logic, and the mind.

I will also be focusing much of my studies on apologetics.

Apologetics is the systematic process for making a rational defense of doctrine, usually religious doctrine.

A Christian apologist, for example, defends the truth claims of historic Christianity through reason and evidence. The same goes for Jewish Apologetics, Muslim Apologetics, and even Atheism Apologetics (seeks to defend the lack of religious doctrine aka secularism).

I always say, you can’t change what you don’t know.

Others may not be able to defend their beliefs or explain their worldview, but I will never again be in a position where I cannot both explain and defend mine - thoughtfully, methodically, and winsomely.

I’m just getting started with my first class … wish me luck!

Spin Cycle

I feel like I’ve been in a spin cycle for years, with it cranked up a bit in the last 6 months.

I won’t lie, it has been AWFUL, like really AWFUL.

But I’ve been given a lot of lemons to squeeze and I love lemonade.

Back in minute where I left off before I unintentionally went dark and found myself in survival mode the last couple of months!

xoxo,

Kelley

June 28, 2023