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Forgotten Friday: Sister, Single

March 27, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

A week from tomorrow, my sister will be married.

She’s incredible, as far as sisters go. Sure, she used to beat me mercilessly until I was old enough to fight back, and then continued to psychologically torment my teenage years in that special way only an older sibling can. But our spats, never truly serious, built a foundation for mutual respect as adults, taught us each other’s strengths and weaknesses, gave us insight into each other very few can ever match. Becca is my sister, and yet, on another level, she is me, and I am her.

Excitement buzzes around the nuptials like worker bees returning to the hive, spindly legs covered in potential future sweetness. The stress of months of planning fades, leaving behind a warm, heavy blanket of exhausted joy. My own wedding felt like a drop of water on a hot skillet; beautiful to watch dance and sizzle with frenetic exuberance, but gone much too fast. A few hours on a single day doesn’t seem to do justice to the proverbial ascension into a combined tomorrow, but it’s all we’ve got, so it’s what we do.

A sibling wields a unique kind of love; one born from a nearly identical shared experience. A companion to all those stories lost behind closed suburban doors, a peer like no friend or fiance can be, if only by virtue of the length of the relationship. Not even a very close parent can understand the generational, cultural, and emotional ties that tether brother and sister. Your sibling knows you at your very best and very worst; the haven of your home where you hid your fears and hollered you successes was theirs too, after all.

The wedding will be wonderful. I have no doubts. But a part of me selfishly mourns. A week from tomorrow, the last bastion of the life I knew as a child will be gone.

The house we grew up in was sold years ago, and I can’t bring myself to pull it up on Google Maps, never mind actually drive by it. My cleats have long been hung up as soccer made way for computers and paychecks. My father’s strong hands and voice no longer fill my days with mentoring and humor. All the pieces of youthful vim I cobbled together into the collective tale of my upbringing have melded into the flat pages of the family’s history book, save for my sister, and those tangible, living memories that still swirl around her.

Becca is finally happy, after a long stint of what one could argue was decided unhappiness. Ian’s a good dude, and their future is more than bright. Marriage is what we expect anyway, right? That step that solidifies romantic success, forever friendship, societal acceptance as a lovingly legitimate couple? It’s a major milestone into adulthood, one undertaken by serious adults seriously planning the rest of their lives. Children don’t get married; they shoo it away with cootie-laden ews. To be married is to be mature, or at the very least, brave enough to peek tentatively into the future while holding someone’s hand.

When I walk her down that aisle playing impromptu patriarch, I’m walking us both down an inevitable, unchangeable path. When she says “I, do” the echo will resonate through all our lives, signaling the beginning of an era when we’re all finally free from the fetters of nostalgia, free to appreciate and acknowledge the source while actively moving towards the destination. My dad’s motto was, “never look back,” and now, on the verge of having the freedom to relish in all the possibility wrapped and bundled in each tomorrow, I realize that his words didn’t mean “never remember” but instead “never dwell.”

I mourn, because that’s what you do when you lose something. But the death of one thing often means the birth of another, so my mourning is tempered by the celebration that my sister, the female embodiment of Gray, flowers anew, in a garden of her own tender creation.

A week from tomorrow, my sister will be married.

A week from tomorrow, I can finally let the ghosts of the last thirty years rest, while the spirits of the next sixty come out to play.

Thank, Thanked, Thanking, Thankful

November 26, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

I wanted to write Thanksgiving beer post, but everyone already beat me to the “10 Beers to Pair with Turkey” idea and Stan had the satire down pat, so I figured I’d skip adding to the pile of festively uninspired listicles.

Besides, Thanksgiving never quite felt like my holiday. It felt like a day we cooked a huge bird as a meal because we were supposed to, because we didn’t have school or work, because everyone else was doing it, and it was weird to say, “oh no, we don’t do Thanksgiving” like some kind of horrible emotionless alien. As an expat you learn to adapt and blend in where you can, which means adopting the traditions and customs of your new land, even if they include bizarre things like pumpkin flavored beers and coffees. As we’d inevitably celebrate – sometimes with American friends, sometimes with our English-playing-American family unit – I came to realize that the food was just a catalyst, cranberry- and gravy-based lubrication for a mental moment of acknowledging and appreciating who you are, who you love, and who loves you, too. To give thanks is universal, a human default. Thanksgiving is just an end of November conduit for channeling the human spirit.

I leap-frogged off of Bryan (with a pass through Spin Sucks) and decided to mash my calloused writing nubs against the keyboard to express my own thanks. Much like I don’t need Valentine’s day to show my love, I don’t need Thanksgiving to give my thanks, because I actively try to do it everyday, in little ways. That said, a special spiritual power resides deep in the booming caverns of directly and purposefully saying “thank you.”

The original assignment was to write down all the things you were thankful for in 10-minutes, but since I have a mortal fear of counting down clocks from years of playing Nintendo, I’m just going to keep writing until my brain says, “OK, that looks pretty good.” I was never very good with rules, anyway.

So, in no particular order of favoritism, nor intentional slight from accidentally leaving someone out, I am thankful for:

My wife and best friend, Tiffany, who despite not even liking beer, tolerates and then encourages my hobby-turned-second-job because she knows how happy it makes me.
My dad, who somehow, in ways I still don’t understand, inspires even more now that he’s gone.
My mom, Denise, for having the generous foresight to give birth to me, and being an unwavering, enthusiastic cheerleader no matter what I do.
My sister, Becca (who completes the trifecta of “super important women in my life”) for always putting me in my place, and understanding me the way only a sibling can.
My cats, Pandora and Prometheus, for their dog-like loyalty, dogged commitment to laziness, and amazing ability to always make me smile.
Stan Hieronymous, who, through a single retweet about 2 years ago, gave me the courage to write about beer the way I want to write about beer.
Kristi Switzer, for taking me seriously and giving me a chance to work on projects I only would have dreamed of as a post-grad writing whelp.
Cathy Alter, for hard but important reviews of my work, and giving me enough emotional strength to finish a masters thesis I was tempted to give up on.
Candace Johnson, who always gives me advice no matter how clumsily I ask for it, and makes me a better editor, even if she doesn’t know it.
Justin, for being friendship immortal, the unrelenting encourager, the one I always look up to and look forward to seeing again.
Randy, for the memes and sanity checks.
Bryan, for being equal parts muse and comedian, wise and wise-cracking (plus I guess all that data is pretty good).
Melody, for being my writing opposite, my Hopkins-bestie, and for generally using her powers for good.
My boss, Becky, who will probably never read this, for her flexibility, understanding, and uncanny propensity to never stress me out.
Alan, for the Twitter chats, and reminding me that my voice actually matters sometimes.
Phil, for being my first, and longest-lasting, never-met-in-real life blogging friend.
Beth and Betsy, for being some of my most loyal readers, and for commenting on this blog more than anyone else.
Jeff Alworth, for being the kind of blogger I aspire to be, for his excellent writing, and peerless industry insight.
Mike, for showing me that my near future is going to be way more rewarding than I could have imagined.
Chuck Wendig, for countless literary kicks in the pants, hours of entertainment, and proof that dedication to your own way is a worthy and glorious pursuit.
The Mid-Atlantic Beer Bloggers – Scott, Ed, G-LO, Liz, Doug, Josh, Andrew, Jake, Carlin, Sean, and Matt – who have created and fostered a community that becomes more and more important to me every day.
My keyboard, for its daily masochism and thankless devotion to our cause.
My camera for fluttery shuttering and elegant aperturing.
My left arm, for not giving up, even thought it totally could have (maybe should have) by now.
Heavy Seas Beer (namely Hugh, Caroline, and Tristan), for always having an open door, full kegs, and enough pirate in their beer to please my inner child and outer adult.
Jailbreak Brewing, for opening dangerously close to my home, and being delightfully helpful anytime I have a silly question.
Hopkins Scribes, for their artistry, talent, and writerly reciprocation.
The dirt in my yard, for growing things when I really needed some life in my life.
My neighbors, for being the family we chose.
My hands, for being my single most important tool.
My brain, for thinking my hands get too much credit.
My eyes, for being my doorman to the beauty of this world.
This blog, for giving me an outlet where all other outlets would have said no.
Tolkien, for giving me a light for when all other lights go out.
My running shoes (in whatever incarnation they’re in now) for pounding pavement to uphold the veneer of vanity.
My shower, for being the brainstorming supercenter of my entire existence.
Notes A through G, majors and minors, melodies and harmonies, and the decadent vibrations of life.
England, for my cultural grounding, for my family, for all that real cask ale.
America, for opportunity even at the worst of times, for order even in chaos, for dry-hopped and barrel-aged freedom.
Beer, for being a near inexhaustible font of ideas, topics, and creativity, whether in kettle or on page.

Some other friends have played along too! If you decide to join in, shoot me a link, and I’ll add you below:

Bryan – This is Why I’m Drunk
Doug – Baltimore Bistros and Beer
Jake – Hipster Brewfus

I am thankful she’ll pose for me in the waft of yeast, in front of stainless, and still have that beautiful smile.

A Year Without

August 12, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

At this point in my life, given my hobbies and my heritage, I shouldn’t be surprised that a few barstools, beer taps, and feet of lacquered wood can stir my emotions to boil. But as I sipped on a pint of Boddingtons on the same stool that my dad might have sat on decades earlier, all the sediment on the bottom of my soul roiled into a turbid mess of love and sadness. That pint was like any of the other hundred pints I’ve had – twenty ounces of cask-pumped bitter – but it was somehow different, too, like a golden, cascading, liquid echo of every pint my dad had ever had; all the laughter he’d sent into the rafters; all the life he’d lived in Cheshire, in England; all of him that is now in me.

Today marks one year that I’ve been without my dad.

Fifteen odd miles south of Manchester, after a brief jaunt on the M56 and a serene wind through the arbor tunnels of Castle Mill and Mobberly roads, I found myself outside a cottage, all white and black, a pub-turned-piano playing its history across the countryside. The inn, like many others in small English towns, juts perilously into the edge of a sharp turn, like a hitchhiker sticking his thumb out a little too far to attract the attention of passing cars. A faux-gazebo has been tacked onto the front of the building and the main sign has been updated with more contemporary font and filigree, but it looks almost exactly as it did thirty years ago, when my dad used to come here for a pint of bitter, a game of darts, a bit of nightly spoil to counter the daily toil.

We’d arrived midday on a Tuesday, as the pub was changing staff due to a pending sale. The kitchen was closed and it seemed all the locals knew no lunch was to be had at the Chapel House that day, leaving the entire building to us and a flustered barkeep who didn’t know where the previous owners had stored the pint glasses. What would have normally been a bustling bar stood empty, a graven memorial instead of a monument to conviviality.

We have a societal obsession with anniversaries, as if the tangible measurement of one full orbit gives us power, validation, reassurance that we’re alive. A birthday isn’t just a time to remember your origins, but a time to celebrate your victory over another cycle. Many people said to me, and I even said to myself at times, “it hasn’t even been a year” like a roll-over of the calendar would somehow temper my feelings, reset the pain, wipe everything clean by cosmic, solar virtue.

So here’s a year – fully, finally – and nothing feels any different.

I’d never been inside until now, but I felt I knew this place from stories and family legends. Rarely named directly, the Chapel House Inn was the cradle of my dad’s rambunctious zeal, the place he came to life with his companions, became the overflowing fount of energy and fearlessness that I’d known him for my entire life. My dad’s essence had merged with the building, with the bar, with local lore. Stepping through that door, into the tiny front room of the pub, into a past that was mine in name only, felt like ghost-wrapped nostalgia, a physical body possessing a lingering spirit, not the usual other way around.

We rendezvoused with Rhona, the widow of my dad’s best friend and fellow Chapel House haunter. She still lived in Knutsford and knew the history well; seemed to know more about my dad and his adventures as a thirty-something than even me or my sister or my mom. She’d lost her husband, Ken, three years prior, and I wondered why my dad never mentioned the loss of so dear a friend, even one separated by years and careers and continents. She even brought a pile of 3×6 pictures of the six of us – toddler versions of me and my sister with four grinning young adults – little reminders that when Rhona knew my dad, he was almost exactly the same age I am now.

A year, when mourning, is an arbitrary designation that’s supposed to make people feel better after a loss, a token that proves you made it, didn’t collapse, didn’t give in to all the suffering and stress. One year, in theory, marks the last “hard” milestone, claims that nothing from here out is new and if you made it this far, you can make it indefinitely.

I longed for some meaning that I hadn’t found in the rest of his memory, hoped that being there, where I’d never been but my dad had, would stir in me some epiphany, some extra understanding of who he was, and why, beyond the obvious, his loss took so much from me. I wanted his favorite pub to bring equal parts resurrection and closure. I wanted to walk in and see him there, smirking and joking, here, not gone, alive, not dead, my father, not a ghost.

And in some ways, I did. Time, when forced into years, seems linear, unbreakable, unrelentingly progressive. The way we approach life makes it seem like what has been taken away can never be given back, if only because so many years separate then from now. But if you take a moment to let your memories swirl and blend with the memories long-stored in a special place, let all the prosaic blandness of an empty bar whir to life with all you know, and remember, and love about a person, you can, if only briefly, meld the present with the past, be here and there simultaneously, see the one you love raise a glass from across the bar, and wink.

It’s been a year without, but only in a physical sense. This year has been filled with more of my dad than any year in recent history. His memory permeates my every day; his influence guides my every decision. We say “without” after a loss because that’s what makes rational sense. Emotionally, the first year after you lose someone, when you’re forced to face and digest the echo of their life, would be more aptly named a year “within.”

We didn’t stay long, just a few minutes to breathe in the family history and relatively unchanged charm. The soul-sore part of me wanted to relish that pint for hours, sit and try to commune with my father using the built-in Ouija board of musty chair cushions and sagging wood, but it didn’t feel right. My dad was a creature of habit, but never one to dwell. A pint of bitter, a pinch of time, and a punch of emotion was all he would have wanted. And all I could have needed.

Today marks one year that I’ve been without my dad, if I really believe he ever left me.

To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die

Forgotten Friday: Surname

December 13, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Our names hover around us, a jumbled aura made of letters, arbitrary labels that give buckets of context about who we are before anyone even sees our face. Those few syllables can betray our sex, our nationality, our spirituality, even somtimes our rough socioeconomic standing. They’re the vanguards of identity, the first thing you ever give to a new friend, the last thing that marks your time on this planet.

Those omnastically inclined few may have done their research, know the countries of origin or the historical minutiae that led to their naming, but I’d be willing to bet a large majority don’t know much about their own last names. A few have it easy: the Coopers and Smiths and Millers can thank the strong and capable hands of their ancestors for their vocationally inspired names. The Johnsons and Jacksons and Thompsons can thank contemporary mankind’s obsession with paternal lineage. Those nouns turned names have it arguably the easiest, so pipe down there, Pope, King, and Woods.

I should note, too, that those examples only skate across the surface of Anglicized monikers. A mere handful that don’t touch the beauty and mystery enveloping the hundreds of thousands of names that paint a nominative rainbow of multiculturalism across the canvas of our planet. There are so many names, so many variations, so many interpretations, that it’s amazing we don’t all have to wear name tags at all times to get anything done when working together.

Some names aren’t as easy to source. Black, Brown, and White may seem obviously self descriptive, but what about Green, or Moody, or that one so close to me, Gray? Basic history says my name traces back to Gaelic (making it Scottish or Irish, and in turn explaining my red facial hair) but beyond that it’s only moderately educated guesses. The trail meanders back to the pronouncial mouthful – Ó Riabhaigh – meaning son or grandson of “the gray,” which may echo the foggy moors of our ancestral lands. One scholar even suggests it had to do with a “countenance of character,” in that my ancestors were sullen, quiet folk.

Doesn’t sound much like the Grays I know.

But it might, if I knew more Grays. I like to pretend I’m the last male in my line now that my dad is gone, the last one able to carry the proverbial torch and pass the four familiar letters onto my son. But I’m not. My dad had a brother. My uncle had four sons. Out there, somewhere, in the land of severed blood ties and family feuds, I have four cousins. Four more Grays, who, for all I know, could be just like me.

I knew their names once. I think as a kid, I even met them. But my dad and my uncle had it out after my grandmother passed; money was hoarded, childhood resentment flared from ember to inferno, and just like that, the idea and memory of my cousins disappeared across the salty waves of estrangement and Atlantic.

I’ve started looking for my uncle, but apprehension always stays my mouse hand before I delve too deep. From what I’ve heard, he wasn’t a very good person. He’d caused a lot of turmoil in their childhood home, ever taking, rarely giving, monopolizing the love and resources of my grandparents while my father was left to solve the Rubix cube of the world on his own.

I don’t know if he’s still alive, and part of me, out of loyalty to the memory of my dad, wants to see an end date after the hyphen in his records. Somehow, it would make me mad to know my uncle survived where my father didn’t. It sounds terrible, and I feel terrible, but honesty never pretended to be kind. I only have the feelings my father left me, and no matter how hard I try, that resentment never heels to hereditary curiosity.

I instead like to look forward. Think of my name as it is now, and as it will be. I could spend hours digging at the graves of memories long interred in family lore, only to find nothing but more riddles in the bones and dust of the past. Or I could spend my time turning this name into something my father would be proud of, shouting it out into the world on the back of my words so that everyone knows that this Gray has no issues with countenance of character.

Pride, not regret. Future, not past. Our names define where we came from, and against our will, a good portion of who we are. But that doesn’t mean they seal us into any one fate. They are, after all, just humanity’s way of categorizing mind boggling diversity, like a massive genetic library’s Dewey decimal system.

You may not be able to control which section of the library you’re in, but you can control who checks out your book. Make sure your surname stands proud on that spine.

My great grandfather (apron) and other dude possibly related to me. Manchester, England – c. 1910

Session #81: (The) Women In (My) Beer

November 1, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I started writing this post as an essay on the gender of inanimate, gender-less things, but then realized it was a little too close to the essay I wrote a few weeks ago titled: “Brews Don’t Wear Bras, Bro.”

Instead of rehashing the same concepts, grammatically puking up those same ideas with different phrasing, I decided to detour slightly from the ethical quandaries of gender equality and bring this session entry a little closer to my everyday.

This month’s session topic (hosted by Nichole “Nitch” Richard) is supposed to be about women, beer, women in beer, beer in women, beer on women, women on beer, and whatever else we can do with those words and their related prepositions. Women “of” beer seemed pretty tempting, but my approach is to add an article and a prounoun: The women in my beer.

There are a number of women in my beer, women who have informed my pint-glass view on our ever-bubbling beer culture. The few who spring instantly to mind are those I’ve never actually met outside of a tweet or an essay, but have imprinted on my brain none the less. Jill Redding, editor-in-chief of Zymurgy magazine, whose curated glossy content I eagerly await every three months. Carla Companion (The Beer Babe) whose New England-centric beerview inspired my own local focus on Maryland beer. And a woman I’ve never met, but whose name is hard to ignore as it appears on the bottom of the copyright page in a lot of my favorite books: Kristi Switzer, Publisher for Brewers Publications.

And while these women are doing fabulous things for beer in general, even more important to me are the women who act as the nutritious wort to my creative S. cerevisiae: my wife, my sister, my mother. These three have never doubted me, always encouraged me, and without them I’m not sure I’d be where I am today. They are my beta-readers and taste-testers, my confidants and clever-name-comer-upper-withs. Two of them don’t even drink beer, which makes their support of my chosen path even more impressive, to the point where I think they believe in the power of me, not just the power of the beer.

Tiffany –

My wife is just Tiffany – no clever nicknames or aliases or blog-based disguises. She’s a brilliant, ever-grounded yang to my yin, the Benson to my Stabler, the one who lets me know when an idea is great, and another idea is just not so great. She’s more of a partner in creative design than anything else – a coworker, a shotgun-rider, a member of the Fellowship set out from Rivendell to brew the One Beer. She’s the one who puts up with my daily Oliverisms, only scoffing at my field research when the pile of glass recyclables starts to threaten the safety of the cats.

She doesn’t drink beer. Doesn’t even like the taste of beer. Once, after I gave her a sip of Victory Golden Monkey Tripel, she accused me of trying to poison her. Tiffany often wanders bottleshops with me when trying to find that elusive brew, grinning delightedly when she finds something new. Instead of laughing that I’m on the crawling on the ground, trying to get a good angle, she’ll stop, observe, and ponder; then suggest props and positions for photos of beer.

She more than encourages, she inspires. She more than tolerates, she promotes. She reminds me that love is tangible, is beautiful and rare, and that sometimes in life, your homebrew comes out perfect.

Becca –

My sister is the closest thing to a clone I’ll ever have, and I’m cool with that. She’s got this genetic problem where she actively likes and drinks Coors Light, but we’ve been working through it, one lager at a time, as a family. I joke with her and claim she’s not supportive of my habits when she doesn’t read a blog post within 8 minutes of it being posted, but in reality, she’s been in my corner since before I even knew I had a corner.

She knows me in a way not many do, in that way only a person who shared a near identical copy of your childhood really can. We have a shared history that spans the most formative years; decades of inside jokes, disturbingly similar mannerisms, predispositions and aversions to a lot of the same things and people. She’s the one I go to for the blunt honesty that comes from sisterly love, and I owe her more than she knows for equally feeding my ego or stepping on its head, whenever, and whichever appropriate.

Now if we can just get her to drink good beer, we can end the years of exile, and reassimilate her into the family.

Mummy –

Yea, I still call my mom “mummy.” I was born in England. Big whoop. Wanna fight about it?

Properly named Denise, my mom is my constant champion. I’ve written about her before, but she’s the unfailing bastion of optimism and compassion in our family, the lady who keeps us all afloat, regardless of the struggle or the emotional tax she levies on herself. She lives her life like an fully realized archetype, embodying all of that Jungian psychology of motherly duty. She seriously puts herself second to her children, even when her children chase frivolity in the form of beer and writing.

My mom formed me both literally and figuratively, and I am a product of both her womb and her mind. If I can even hold half of the love of life and family that she does in my heart, I’ll consider that a success.

These are the women in my beer, but to me, they’re just as important as the most famousests women in all beer.

Who are the women in your beer?

Dialysate

August 6, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Stress crashes through the body like waves pounding the beach after a violent storm. Undulating periods of calm and terror. Regular and rhythmic then fluttering and panicked. Eventualities become possibilities while your stomach still lurches at the realities. Systolic and diastolic ratchet an invisible band tighter and tighter around your chest. At certain desperate moments, a family’s vitals may be less stable than the patient’s.

As you hold hands and make promises and pray to everything that will listen, you become a filter: a semipermeable membrane for emotions and ideas. In the flurry of emergency you are bombarded with quick decisions, choiceless consents, more medical jargon than a marathon of House, M.D. Many words are small enough to pass through – liver, kidneys, bleeding – but many more – critical, cardiac, infection – stick to you, wet and heavy, too grave and massive to slip through the holes of your spirit. As days pass into weeks, your filter gets clogged with the fear of the unknown and frustration of no control.

The dialysis machine does the same work. Pulling and pushing the thick red life through tiny tubes like an organ suspended in the air, a medical miracle in a whirring beige box. A cylinder stained burgundy, platelets and thick toxins forming a layer on the top, doing its best to continuously clean the blood that the kidneys cannot.

The dialysate hangs on a thin metal pole behind the machine. Dozens of bags filled with transparent liquid sag in a crude circle like a morbid bouquet of balloons. It looks as innocuous as water, like the boring stuff of sinks and showers, but it is in those heavy sacks that the secret hides.

It balances blood pH, adds vital nutrients, keeps renal failure at bay, artificially.

But it does more.

It lifts sinking souls, supports spirits, keeps hope alive, organically.

The dialysate is made of natural elements like potassium and calcium and magnesium, all the things you’d get from a bunch of bananas. Nothing fancy, no synthetic man-made magic. It creates a safe, supportive environment where the the blood can purge and purify. It gives the body a chance to find its way home. Without the dialysate the filter would fail.

So when the ultrafiltration of your body and mind sticks and binds, and the weight of a loved one’s pain overwhelms you, turn to your mother. Your sister. Your wife. Whoever it is that can hold you, cradle you, keep you strong where you alone would crash. Turn to your people to help you get all that negative gunk and gripping pain out of your filter. Wash your soul in the support and love of emotional-dialysate.

And when their filters struggle, too, when the darkness of all that unfairness blocks out the light of even the strongest optimism, remember that many are more stable than one.

The man in the bed, that brilliant, stubborn, wonderful man, the one fighting the silent battle of heart rates and blood pressures and medications, needs all of his filters – emotional and physical – to be clean.

Take every little victory and wear it like positively-charged armor. Pull out the best stuff. Throw the worst away.

You’ll be left with a net-positive.

Some freshly scrubbed optimism when all other news seems dire.

A golden glint of hope.

“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
Hippocrates

Calling all Nurses

January 16, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

It’s easy being a patient.

The patient’s only job is to fight and recover, put all of their energy towards healing. Sure, it’s a miserable, pain-filled, nauseating experience, but they are allowed normally unreasonable exceptions when sick. The short tempers and illness related lethargy are tolerated, forgiven.

A lot of people affected by the same illness aren’t given the same allowances.

I often think about the nurses. Not just the ones who gently reassure me as I come out of anesthesia. Not just those who’ve helped my dad in this years-long battle. Not only the compassionate few who patrol hospitals halls in an effort to help people they don’t know.

I think about the nurses with no formal training, who don’t work in a hospital and can’t walk away from their jobs when the shift is over.

The nurses like my mother, my wife, my sister.

The people hurt by the horrible realities of cancer without experiencing any of the physical pain. The ones who selflessly exchange their own wants and desires for someone else’s; not because they have to, but because they want to. The ones who fight to make everything better using love, the best medicine they know.

I know that the fight is just as hard for them. Sometimes, maybe oftentimes, worse. I know that they are forced to see their love ones brought low, and are expected to stay strong when all they want to do is cry. I know that they don’t get breaks that they completely deserve.

To all those helping their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and husbands and wives: thank you.

Thank you for being a stalwart champion of optimism when things look bleak. Thank you for never questioning that long drive to the hospital or the even longer nights by someone’s bedside. Thank you for being an emotional surrogate and partner in struggle.

We couldn’t do it without you.

But mainly, I want to thank my nurses. Even when my mom told me “everything was crap” I could hear the determination in her voice. Even when I felt like life had hit me with a big metaphysical garbage truck, my wife was there with a perfect hug. Even when I thought the world had run out of good, my sister reminded me that there are still some great people out there doing great things.

I dedicate this post to Denise, Becca, and Tiffany. I think I can speak for my father when I say that we would have never made it this far with our bodies and minds and sanity intact without all of your support.

And to all the other nurses out there, who are as beautiful and kind and amazing as these three, thank you too. Your patients appreciate you, even if it’s not always apparent.

Three of the best nurses I know, and two really good looking patients. Go team!

Christmas with Cacti

December 22, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

To me, Christmas is cold. It is evening snowfall and visible breath in frozen air. It is hiding indoors with your family, staying warm by staying merry. To take the cold and snow away is to defy all of my memories of the holiday; a day I have always found a perfect microcosm of everything I know and love about Winter.

But here I am in Arizona, the chance of snow pretty much zero. It’s cold-ish, but hardly the frozen sub-32 that reminds me of the season. I hear the music, I see the lights, I’m with family, but without the air nipping at my ears, it’s all sort of surreal. It’s hard to think of Christmas when you see sand and cacti all around.

But I look around, and it’s not weird to anyone but me. The local residents celebrate the holiday with the same, if not more, enthusiasm. Some of the Christmas displays I’ve seen are incredible. Perhaps the warmer weather encourages more elaborate light displays, as they aren’t hurrying to finish hanging that last strand so they can escape the freezing weather as quickly as possible.

And as weird as it is to see Santa and Reindeer in the desert, it’s got all the things I love about Christmas. Tiffany’s family is incredibly warm and welcoming, sharing stories of people whose journeys are done, and showing off pictures of those whose journeys are just starting. The food is kingly and excessive; I certainly haven’t gone hungry. The spirit is alive, even if it is in an environment, that was until now, completely alien to me.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found it’s less about the day, and more about the people you spend it with. It’s less about where you are, but who is with you. I’m glad to be in the desert with these great people, snow be damned.

Hell, even the cacti look kind of good with lights on them:

Not too shabby.

So wherever you are – be it desert, tundra, jungle, or savannah – enjoy the time with the people you love. And if you’re not with the ones you love, do your best to get there, wherever “there” may be.

Happy Xmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Ramadan, or whatever you decide to celebrate this time of year.

See you all in 2012!