3 Lessons I've Learned Running

What Has Running Taught Me?

Running has taught me about healing. When I first started running after my father died in 2012, I didn't imagine I would be training to run my first marathon on Mother's Day, 2018. He died when I was away. I travelled frequently to visit him and care for him while he was in his last year of life, and when I left for Bali he knew and I knew that we would not see each other again.

It was tough coming back for the funeral. Our family didn't know how to do anything. It was very small, and he appeared to have made no friends during his retirement to a small provincial town. It was sad. Me and my sisters and mother had a tough time. There were arguments. Birthdays came right after his death and cremation. One of the days we were hanging around wondering what to do, my sister invited me for a run. I put on an old pair of her leggings and a pair of old sneakers, and we ran for about a half an hour. I was pooped by the end, especially as it ended with a hill and stairs. 

I was hooked!

Even though I didn't know it yet. By 2013, I was running on an old indoor track. Not outside, not during the winter (Yes, actually, there are some days that it's just plain stupid to run outside). That year was full of changes. My mother got sick. She travelled the world saying goodbye to friends and family.

She followed my father in March of 2014... my sister and I ran a couple of times while we were ushering her out of this life into the next. We did an awful job. Death isn't pretty in our family. She had the highest pain tolerance of anyone I've ever met, and I have seen a lot of people in pain (I figure I've assisted around 600 people give birth, and generally that's a pretty painful process). She broke her leg years ago playing pirates with the kids, in the vineyard. She jumped off a rock and "Ahoy!" a compound fracture. She breathed through it. Just like she breathed her way out of this life and into who-knows-where.

I decided I wanted to race. Racing doesn't have to mean that you're out there to actually race like a greyhound, unless you're an elite runner. For me, I'm racing against myself, and I want to get a decent time for my age and gender. I trained, kind of. I ran a few times a week, mostly on the flat suburban streets around my house. The longest I ran before the race was 13 k. That year, I also opened a cafe, where my mother's spirit might come and have tea or coffee and where she would have loved to hang out, if she'd been able.
I kept running.

Running has taught me about honesty.  I've been in labor for a ridiculous number of hours, all told, with five children and insanely long labors. I think I may have ischial spines that are shaped like Mobius strips, or something. Babies can't navigate through them. I've breastfed for years and years. I've hoed fields and picked tobacco, and raised boys. I've stayed with birthing women for hours and hours and days and days, while they navigated their own special journey through childbirth.

All that to say, I know about strength, endurance, and stamina.
But I also know, now, that our bodies are full of surprises. There are real flaws, like weirdly shaped bones or weak joints, or bodies with diseases or genetic conditions. There are the secret flaws that we don't know about until, suddenly, we do. I was sure for very many years that my difficult labors were caused by mistreatment. I built a whole career on that belief. Now I'm not so sure: running has provided me with information about my body that I didn't know before, and it has also taught me that it's ok. Our weaknesses, our flaws, our crooked limbs and joints: these are all part of ourselves that we have to cherish and love if we want to keep them running smoothly.

Running has taught me about persistence.

I started my Marathon project with a 26 week training plan. I picked such a long one because I wanted to give myself lots of time to train, and I wanted to have extra leeway if something came up, like the little glitch I had way back in December. Since then, I've been doing a long run every Sunday. On Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I run at least 5 k. I try to run fast for my short runs.

In the past month, everything has changed. December and early January were cold; record-breaking cold. I continued to run outside.

I was very fortunate - we went to Lisbon for a week and I ran there. People, this is runner's paradise! Hills, temperate climate, long running tracks next to the water, courteous pedestrians, other runners, and drivers. Heaven! The hills slowed me down a little, but the flat long runs were amazing.

Then back home. There's a common saying amongst runners "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear." There are so many bullshit macho sayings out there. There is absolutely such a thing as bad weather, and Montreal has it all. There's no way it is safe to run on two inches of ice covered by two inches of snow. I can and have run in very cold conditions, and snow, rain, ultra hot and dry. I trail run at 875 meters, with a dog who cannonballs into me or completely on my own in the hills. But I won't risk falling and breaking a bone due to hubris. So, I've done my fair share of treadmill running this winter.

Treadmill running is tough because it can get boring. Not only for your mind, but also for your feet. What can I say? If you have to run on a treadmill, try to challenge yourself with intervals, good music, checking your form, watching your breathing. There's fine tuning you can do on the treadmill that you can't do so well when you're running outdoors, so be content with those benefits and don't feel too bad you're not outside.

I do run outside whenever I can though. Last week for my long run, I was super grumpy because the weather was looking really bad. There was an indoor track but I didn't feel like going. I packed up and headed for the gym - and discovered the weather was great and the icy sidewalks had become slush. Yay! I ran a good 13.4 k!

Now? I'm back on track, but grumpy as hell and feeling very anxious. Can I run a marathon? I look like Mrs. Tiggywinkle, small and slightly pudgy around the waist (5 kids). My hair is grey and my face goes red like a beetroot when I run. I sweat.

Running has taught me not to care about these little things. It has taught me to look at the bigger picture. It has taught me to be positive, to stick to a schedule, to never complain, to laugh at myself, to love life. 

W is for Why

As we move through this world on our way to who knows where, many of us try to do good. But we can never know whether what we do makes a difference or not, so what to do?

I just spent time at a conference about all things birth and beyond. I presented on several different topics, and met some lovely people there. I stayed in a room with the powerful Beth Murch, BirthKeeper and poet extraordinaire. We compared poems and had a laugh.

I met someone who was raised by her father, another one who has been drawn to herbs her whole life. One person who almost died giving birth to her child who stayed on the other side, dead in birth.

I met someone who is scared to tell people about her joyous and deeply satisfying birth because she has heard that people with unpleasant birth experiences will feel badly.

I spoke to someone I have admired for fifty years who has suffered loss and difficulties and still provides encouragement and belly laughs for others.

I met someone who I thought was a bitch and then she told me her story. She isn't a bitch. 

Someone else told me about her concussion and how she is moving forward with her life.

I met old friends and sat in their Sukkah and we told stories and made fun.

The tapestry is being woven, our lives continue or not, there's really only one way forward and that is through.

Through love, no fear.

M is for Mother

My mother died almost exactly two years ago. I miss her pretty much every day. We didn't have a peaceful relationship, far from it. But I knew I could call her anytime, if only to chat about plants.

My friend wrote a beautiful piece when I let her know that my midwifery certification had arrived just hours before my mother died:

I sit here now, in Bali, at dawn, in the quiet as birds awaken... and cry for your Mother's passing. This is HUGE... as the Human StarGate that opened to bring You Earth~side, has been destroyed. One door closes and another opens, and you become a CPM. My head is shaking in wonder. I believe that when a woman's own mother passes, she becomes the new Wise One, a role you are very prepared for. And... how perfect that your CPM popped through as that door was slowly opening to allow your mother to slip through to the other side.  

The doorway between our world and the next, is one and the same, it swings both ways, opening for Birth and opening for Death... 

And this is what I wrote: Tribute to my Mother.

I hope that people can have a last peek at the smallish whirlwind that was my mother.

Home Birth and Home Death

Babies sometimes just pop earthside but mostly birthing women want to have some company when they are going through this earth-shaking, phenomenally life-changing event.

I was born with a natural talent to accompany women through their birth journeys. I don't even know what I do most of the time but women tell me they feel better when I am present and quietly witnessing their changes. I tell them that everything is fine. I comfort. I nourish. It's just part of me, hey? I am not writing this because I am clapping my own hand.

When a person sees the woman they love looking like she's probably going to die, because her eyes have gone all weird and she's kind of fainting, they feel better when I tell them that this is normal, she is tripping in a special, life-giving way.

And it is truly magical if this event can take place at home. At home, a woman can run through her whole labor process in her own space. She can barf in her own garbage can. She can make love with her partner in her own living room. She can crawl backwards to the fridge to get apple juice.

She can give birth herself, surrounded by people who love her. She can cuddle with her new child in her own room, and she doesn't need a car seat.

I had a friend back in my hippie organic farming days: she had a c-section for her first child because she was breech, so she had her second on her own. She sent her husband and daughter off for a long walk (!), made sure she had enough methergine from the goat's birth kit, and birthed alone. She told me it was frightening. She would have wanted to have a midwife present, and so the third time around, she invited a midwife along for the ride.

Some women freebirth. These are women who birth on their own or with their partner and children. They trust the birth process implicitly and do not believe they need a midwife. Many women who wish to give birth at home do want a midwife, and midwives are generally respectful of the birth process and knowledgeable about serious challenges, even life-threatening ones, that very rarely unfold during birth.

Right now, in Canada, there is an ongoing discussion about end-of-life care. Many people are suggesting that death moves back home. This sounds all warm and fuzzy but let's look at the reality of this phenomenon.

First of all, I wonder why we are not talking more about bringing birth home? Is the dollar playing a part in this discussion? Possibly. It takes a couple of days, max, to have a baby. Midwifery is an economically viable option if you look at the bigger picture of health care in our country. The women giving birth in our country are, in the huge majority of cases, healthy and well-nourished. Group prenatal classes are popular and prenatal visits are easy to schedule.
Even when birthing women give birth in the hospital, where physicians can make their salaries and the women's hospital stay is almost always less than four days, birth costs less than death.

Dying takes a lot longer. Palliative care can be offloaded to families, private nurses, volunteer organizations and the occasional medical professional for the weeks or months before the final days.

Birth at home is a joy, a beginning, it is a moment that is too short to comprehend, passing in the blink of an eye.

Death at home can take weeks, even months. The family can implode, or explode. Money becomes scarce, life can enter a fog. When the final days come, they can be full of body fluids that no one wanted to deal with, disturbing images that no one can forget, emotional moments better left unspoken. I wonder why people think that birth is "too messy", and they romantically envision themselves dying peacefully surrounded by their loved ones? Have we so lost touch with reality that we think that dying in bed is like in a TV show, where the patient just slips away in the arms of her loyal husband? And the nurses stand around the bed with tears in their eyes?

Death can be just as messy as birth, and often is. I have attended many "clean" births, where the baby is born to a minimum of amniotic fluid, blood, poop, and vernix. But some births are bloody. Some births are full of waters. Some are so astoundingly shit-filled you wonder if it was intended divine humor. Some births have a little bit of everything: vomit, stool, meconium, urine, amniotic fluid, blood ...

People I have spoken to who felt that their relative's home death was a good experience were people who could afford to have a private care giver who was discreetly present for the family, or they were well acquainted with the body and its many processes. Others felt that the family was ill-equipped to deal with the physical death of their relative, as they were going through difficult emotional issues, perhaps complicated ones, and the physical realities were hard-hitting.

I thought I was well equipped to accompany my mother through her dying hours. I had nursed my father for the months he was bed-ridden, and I feel confident in my relationship with bodies.

I was wrong. The constant pain was so difficult for me to bear. I was voted as the family member best equipped to administer morphine. I didn't know if it was the right thing to do, even though I did it every two hours for a couple of days. I was the one who changed the pads. So much liquid! Who knew that the body basically dissolves at death. It wasn't urine. It wasn't amniotic fluid. It was vital fluid, leaking and leaking. Every time I changed the pad it was like torture, for me and for her. I was the one who tried everything to counter the pain of oral thrush. Did you know that this is a sign of the end of life? I have assisted many mothers through the intensity of vaginal, breast, and newborn thrush but this was above, beyond and off the charts pain for the woman who gave birth to me. She couldn't eat. She couldn't drink. All she wanted was a big tall glass of water. She was listening to the poetry in her head. She said that there were raucous voices shouting out her poetry. We put on her favourite music. She breathed very loudly. Even now I awake with a start, hearing that noise. Her body was in pain, the morphine didn't quite cut it.

In the end, the last words she said were: "Is it my birthday today?"

It was a good death, as death goes.

But, please, don't sugarcoat dying at home. Don't be led by the nose to doing something alone that should be an event where there are people present who know what is supposed to happen: Yes, this is normal. Yes, take a break for a little while. Yes, let's let her go. No, the morphine isn't killing her.

A sane culture is one where babies are born at home, where midwives are discreetly present for the woman, her newborn, and her family. A sane culture is one where people can die at home, where death midwives are present for the dying, for the living, and for the continuity of the family and the community.

Scrambled

What is happening? Birth is as always, good. Death is coming up in strange corners. Yesterday we started Levels One and Two (places still available, by the way) of the Birth Companions doula course, and not just one but two students burst into tears, at different points in the class. I'm not that mean to my students!

Life is turning faster and faster.

I have been through a car accident, a death in the family, a dear friend's death, disturbing news about another colleague, and all in the past month?

I am okay though, sending gratitude and thanks - thanks for my family, my husband and all the goodness that is continually bestowed upon me.

But every so often, I break down, and yesterday when my innocent husband decided to tear down the ivy that was plugging the gutters, I couldn't take it. Those poor vines! I couldn't stand the noise of them coming off the walls. Now they sit, in sad piles on the driveway.

We do not know how connected we are, either to each other or to the world around us. Let's carry our baskets gently, and be kind to each other.

Bridges

Even if you're a doula, stuff happens unexpectedly and you cannot be available for your clients. When my father went into hospital six weeks ago I had to leave town to go and see him and help my mother. One of my clients gave birth while I was away, and of course she was well taken care of by my backup, but I was sorry I missed her birth.

Then last week I had to go again. I was definitely worried because I have three ladies due in the next couple of weeks. But luckily the babies were kind and no one missed my attendance at their birth. I did miss meeting up with a lady who is looking for a doula, but she found someone else and I know she will be in good hands.

When I went to visit my father a month ago, as soon as I walked into the hospital I felt like I was slipping on a comfy old sweater. I knew what to do. I helped my father with the little things, like rinsing out his mouth, putting an extra pillow under his head, making sure he could reach his iPod. I spoke with the medical staff about his care and helped translate some of the information for my mother so she wouldn't feel so frightened and anxious.

There was a lady in his ward who was having hallucinations because of a bad reaction to one of her medications. I spoke with her about the bug she saw in my father's ear, and the mice that were climbing up the wheelchair. I made everyone laugh when I threw one of my father's special drinks in the garbage can. He wasn't allowed liquids so he had been given a bright red "solid water", which I thought was like Jello. It wasn't. As it hit the bottom of the garbage can, it splashed up all over everything. That took everyone's mind off their pain, for a little while.

Another gentleman was having trouble getting his slipper back on. I went over and asked him if he wanted a hand. Only after I explained that I am often seen putting people's socks on, being thrown up on, and generally helping out, was he happy for me to lift his foot and put it into his slipper. He asked me if the women ever got mad when they were giving birth. I had noticed that he had been pretty frustrated with himself, his immobility and in turn with the nurses. I told him that I had seen several women get angry during labor, and often just breathing it out could help.

During the next few weeks, after I came back home, I found I was often back at the ward with my father. I spoke to his nurses and doctor on the phone, and I found myself getting frustrated. I knew that my frustration was because life is so unpredictable, but I felt myself being upset with the vagueness of their answers. I realized that I sounded like the first time mother when she is thinking that she will be pregnant forever.

My father was very sick during that time. The doctor told me later that she was surprised that he made it through. Finally last week they said he would be going home, so I went back out to help get everything ready. gain, when I went into the hospital I put my doula cap on. Of course, I was more emotionally connected than a regular doula would be, but I found myself tidying up around his bed, organizing the things on his table, making sure what he wanted was in reach, covering him with the fleecy from home.

My questions to the doctor were also familiar to the doula: what is going to happen? Will he survive? Can he stay home? What if...? What if...?
These are the questions a doula deals with all the time, not only from her clients, but from partners, and their mothers and fathers. We feel so vulnerable in the face of life's events. Each chapter comes as such a surprise. I didn't think I would live past 31 (when John Keats died). How could I now be taking care of my aging parents? How could my father have gotten sold so suddenly?
New parents feel the same way: "I can't believe I'm actually going to have a baby! How can I take the responsibility for someone else's life? Will everything be okay? Will I survive?"

The doula is there to answer questions, and to let the woman (or her partner) know that some questions are unanswerable, and that that's okay too. She may just be there to provide a shoulder and a box of Kleenex. She is the companion that we take with us when we have to cross a bridge, whether its a bridge into life or away from it. She accompanies those who are here, waiting for someone to come in or someone to leave. She is probably the most important person on the care-giving team. She accepts and assists, and she knows that some questions cannot be answered.

Passing of a Wonderful Lady

My aunt was a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, and she loved to have fun, to entertain, to laugh.
She liked to have happy people around her so, to that end, she was happy and always had a smile waiting.

She didn't have it easy. She was widowed suddenly and too early. She had health problems from when she was in her forties. But she always had a positive attitude, and wasn't kept down for long.

A few weeks ago, she spent the day with her lifelong best friend. They did what old friends do, talking and traversing their time together. In the afternoon they came home and got themselves ready for dinner. They got dressed up, and gave each other pedicures.

They went out for dinner with a group of friends. After drinks and the first course, my aunt put her head down on the table and left us.

She is gone but remembered with joy. All of us should hope to go out like she did, not with a bang, not with a moan, but with a gentle sigh.

Death and Housework

Last night I heard that one of my oldest friends - we're talking Junior High school, back in the early seventies - lost her husband the other day. A husband of many, many years: children, grandchildren, and a long and full life together. I am so sad for her. And, of course, as I have a husband too, know that it can happen to anyone at any time ... God forbid ...

So what do I do? I think about her all day, and I clean my house - dusting, sweeping, lighting the stove (that doesn't want to light today, and I keep thinking of his cremation and that final fire). I will cook a nice meal for tonight: baked salmon, roast chicken drumsticks and potatoes, challah, humous, various veggies, maybe a cake. Keep everyone on this side satisfied with their lot.

Light candles, be happy.