Return The Phone Call

Today as I write this, it is 9/11, and 23 years later I still remember exactly where I was when I learned the news. Driving to the high school, I noticed that every single driver I passed had the same stunned, shocked, and horrified look on their face. I called my husband and told him to turn on the TV because “something” was obviously happening somewhere. None of us will ever forget what that something was.

Today is a day to remember what occurred then, and perhaps to reflect on where we find ourselves now. As a nation. As individuals. As communities, neighbors, friends, and families.

Today as I write this, it is 9/11, and I am missing my oldest brother, Peter.

He loved hunting, bacon, and feeding the birds. So do I. He loved animals even more than people. There are days that I can see his point. He lost himself in books. So do I. He was a patriot. So am I. He leaned right of right. I don’t, and never did. When he needed to chill-out, he listened to Rush Limbaugh. I, well, I didn’t. As close as we had been over the years, later in his life our political differences kept the two of us apart. I seemed to be the place where he could take out his frustration and anger at what and who he believed were taking our country down the wrong path. I guess I was a safe place for him to do that because he knew we loved each other. And we really, really, really did. But I increasingly found myself feeling unsafe with him. Less willing to connect with him. Less willing to return his phone calls. I know that hurt him, and it was painful for me too, but I didn’t seem to be able to find my way back to him. Until he found his way back to me.

On January 6, 2021, another tragic day in our collective history, the phone rang. It was Peter. As deadly chaos reigned in and around the U.S. Capitol, we talked for the first time in a long time. What was playing out in front of our eyes wasn’t the America we both loved. What was happening grieved and terrified us both, and when you are sad and scared, you want to hear the voices of those you love. Which is why, he said, he was calling me. A half an hour later we hung up the phone, two Americans on vastly different sides of the political aisle, but re-connected through our love for one another, for family, and for our country.

I will never forget that conversation. It was the last one we had. He died suddenly, eight days later, and I’ll never get to hear that deep, gravelly voice again, except for the one voicemail I’ve managed to save since he’s been gone. It’s a message he left me on May 29, 2020 from a phone call that I didn’t answer, and probably didn’t return. Oh how I wish that I had.

Today as I write this, it is 9/11, and the political divide in our country is tearing people apart. Families are estranged. People are losing real friends and finding virtual ones instead. Colleagues no longer meet for a beer. Neighbors look the other way. The loss of relationships and lack of connection with our fellow citizens is nothing less than a national tragedy. One not necessarily of our own making. But kinda.

No one can save us but us. It’s not up to our elected officials, the media, the influencers, or the trolls, bots, and algorithms. Do they play a part? Sure, and we need to hold them accountable to knock off the nonsense and get back to work on our behalf. But they can’t fix what ails us. Only we can do that. One relationship at a time. One conversation at a time. One handshake, wave, hug, meal, cup of coffee, beer, apology, reconciliation, and yes, one returned phone call at a time.

If Peter and I could do that, anyone can.

Written with gratitude for my brother, Peter.

Peter Davis 1940-2021


Grace Y'all

We are going to need a lot of grace y’all.

One way or another, we are in for a wild ride after this election. And by all accounts, it could get pretty ugly out there. Much of what happens post election is out of our control. The one thing that is completely under our control, the only thing that ever really is, is our response.

Let’s not contribute to the ugliness. Let’s make a pact with ourselves to bring the best of who we are to each other, and to each and every day. Because that is what it’s going to take, no matter how things shake out.

Like I said, we’re going to need a lot of grace.

Let it be so.

Amen.

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The Guy In The Camo-Hat

We are all one family who have forgotten who we are.

~ Rhonda V. Magee - The Inner Work of Racial Justice

He walked into my favorite local farm store just as I was about to check out with my basket full of produce, birdseed, and farm-fresh eggs. Tall and imposing with a long beard fashioned into what is sometimes referred to a Viking beard, the expression on his face was anything but warm and friendly. He was dressed in khaki hunting pants and a short-sleeve t-shirt, a camo hat pulled low over his eyes. And, he was packing a semi-automatic pistol on his hip. Accompanied by a woman wearing a mask, he had a young German Shepard on a leash. The woman with him was small in stature and, to my eye, seemed timid and submissive, as if she had acquiesced any personal power and agency to him.

I was grateful that I was wearing the mask that I diligently use during these strange and scary COVID-19 times. Thankful that I can do even this simple small thing to protect my fellow citizens, yes, but also grateful that he was unable to see the look on my face—a look that would have let him know that I knew his story and was disgusted by it. Everything about this guy in the camo-hat smacked to me of white supremacy, white nationalism, an unflinching commitment to the least restrictive interpretation of Second Amendment rights, and the relegation of women to their place behind men. I could feel my anger rising up as I considered all the ways in which what this man surely stood for are undermining our country and threatening our democracy. How, with people like him on the rise, can we have a shred of hope for ever achieving “liberty and justice for all”?

Climbing back into our car my thoughts continued to unspool about why people feel the need to wear a gun in public, not to mention a semi-automatic one. What felt like low-level adrenaline coursed through my body as I continued to focus on all the things I imagined when encountering the guy in the camo-hat. This went on all afternoon as we went about our bi-weekly essential activities trip into town.

And then it dawned on me.

I knew nothing about the guy in the camo-hat.

Not his name, the cards life had dealt him, or how he has chosen to play them.

Nothing.

In the time it would have taken him to draw his weapon, I had made up a story about him based on my own stereotypes and biases, and then proceeded to believe every imaginary word. It was the kind of story that separates us from our fellow human beings. The fear-based story of Us vs Them. The weaponized story that is undermining our country and threatening our democracy.

What if his story wasn’t anything like the one I had been telling myself since I first laid eyes on him. What if he was an off-duty policeman whose family had been threatened due to an earlier arrest and conviction? What if he was veteran committed to training therapy dogs for military members who were living with trauma-induced PTSD? What if the woman he was with wore a mask because she had a compromised immune system from treatment for cancer? What if she stayed close to his side because he was the love of her life who had seen her through her illness?

What if?

I can remember the exact spot on the road when this new story made it’s way into my closed and biased heart. There was a perceptible change in my body. Everything softened and opened up. My heart made room for this man I didn’t know. Like me, is he afraid for our country, and if so, why? Like me, does he love his family and friends with a love that runs deep and wide? Like me, has he been battered and bruised by painful life experiences? Like me, does he have knee-jerk reactions to others as a way to protect himself from those he fears?

I may never learn his real story.

It is certainly possible that the story I made up has a loud ring of truth to it. Even if it does, I can only hope that my encounter with the guy in the camo-hat will help me remember what so many of us seem to have forgotten. We are family, and we belong to each other. Which is why, tomorrow when I head out on a nearby logging road for a hike, I will be sure and wear my favorite hat to help me remember.

We are family.

We belong to each other.

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