The simpleness of purpose.

It’s been awhile since my last blog post, and in a way I’ve been suffering from a bit of a writer’s block. I think it’s been because SO much has happened since and over the holiday season, that lately its felt like living in chaos, pain, struggle, loss is my norm.. and it’s taken me a moment to catch my breathe. 

But all I needed was a few 3 year olds to knock the wind back into me.

Black Wednesday. The day before Thanksgiving I was shuffling out the door on my way to work when a strange text message stopped me in my tracks. A mom of one of my mini clients who I’ve worked with for almost two years, sent me a text asking if I was “around”, and because this mom is typically straightforward it felt cryptic and my gut was uneasy. Yet in the moment I still wasn’t prepared to then find out that he was on life support and it would be pulled tomorrow, on Thanksgiving. She had reached out because she knew I would want to come say goodbye.

As a therapist, you prepare yourself for death. I mean, death is part of the gig. You talk about death, you help others grieve, you allow space for death to live inside your office, and you even prepare yourself for inevitable client suicides. People die. It’s part of my job. 

BUT healthy, beautiful, joyful, tiny magnificent little 4 year olds don’t just die. That is not suppose to happen, and it’s definitely not something you can ever prepare yourself for. 

I will never forget that Wednesday. Going to the hospital, seeing his lifeless body drowning in the giant bed, covered in tubes and wires, his amazing blonde curls softened and spiritless, his brilliant eyes closed so damn shut I ached for them to open. His mother’s therapist at the time and I went together for support and the 3 of us spent most of the afternoon curled up together at his bedside, on a tiny one person hospital couch-chair. We laughed, we cried, we shook and shivered and sweat… and we said goodbye. 

This little nugget of beauty was one of my favorite people in the whole world. He was 3 when I first met him and he and his mother needed some support to get through a difficult time in their lives. It is impossible to describe him without describing the way sunlight warms your body and the way humor makes you giggle. He was my giggling sunlight. Perfect blonde surfer hair, sweet rosy cheeks, bright eyes that twinkled. He was one of the cutest kids I’d ever met. And his laughter and light was so contagious that I could always sense him coming from a hundred feet away. And as I walked out of my office and turned down the hall towards the waiting room, my heart would skip a beat when he peeked his head around the corner to see me coming, jump into the hallway, flap his arms and bounce up and down in excitement, while ever so kindly and peacefully exclaim, “Sammy!” as if he was sighing in contentment. It used to make my week. 

His death rocked my world. I loved him. And I wasn’t ready for this. Mourning a child feels insane. Mourning a child who you knew the most intricate details about his life and his family’s life feels wrong and unresolved. Mourning a child who you served to protect, one you saw every week to support and love and create safety for, it simply destroys you inside. And yet, you have to go on because, its not like he’s your family, and there’s 30 other people who still need you every week, and it’s just a professional relationship. No one really understands or gives you the time you need to grieve, and quite frankly it’s not possible to even explain to them so that they do. 

*In any case of grief, I believe that to be true. It feels as though the world expects you to move on, and fast. There’s check-ins and consistent acknowledgement following the death, then there’s the occasional hello and thinking of you’s, but then as the weeks go by there’s silence. Partly because unless you are the bereaved, you don’t truly understand the pain, and partly because people are uncomfortable in discussing and reliving and sharing, which ironically, are the only things that the bereaved actually really need. So for my side note here: if someone you know has lost someone in the last few days, or weeks, or year, talk about it with them, share memories, remind them that you don’t expect them to be okay… because they aren’t, they may seem okay because they simply have to keep living.*

After his death, his mom decided she wanted to come see me for therapy. This relationship has proved to be one of the most amazing, growing, beautifully difficult relationships in my life and I am so incredibly thankful for her trust in me and for the time I share with her each week. She is a true badass and one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. Lately she has been finding bigger purpose in her life, following a path of signs and inner drive, and we often talk about signs we receive from our adored munchkin. Our discussion yesterday was quite insightful and moving, and his mom was finding strength in taking a direction toward putting herself first and listening to her purpose, when the large lamp in my office went out. This lamp fills my space with a great deal of light, and thus its abrupt absence made us both notice. In my head, I quickly thought it was strange because I had just recently changed the bulb after it burned out about a week ago. The light remained off as we continued talking, and then maybe a minute later, it flicked back on and remained on for the rest of my day. As I formulated the same response in my mind, as if she was reading my mind, his mom exclaimed, “Hey buddy!”, and we relished in the moment and felt his presence fill my room. 

As the high from his “hello” dissipated when my day neared an end, I began to process. I thought about his short life, his big impact, and the hour he gave me each week and how much it filled my heart. I thought about the shortness of all of our lives, of the losses I’ve experienced in the last few years- my dad, my baby niece, Mr. Chen- my mentor and soulmate, my uncle, one of my best friend’s brother who I didn’t personally know but whose tragic death impacts me as I love her and support her through this time, my client’s baby brother who was run over, my client’s dad who’s cancer prognosis killed him in less than a year, the handful of other clients who see me for grief counseling, other friend’s who’ve lost fathers and mothers, and the other losses of clients I work to heal- loss of their safety, their dignity, their innocence, their voices. Loss is all around me, and life can end at any moment. So how I can be more present in life’s majesty, its beauty, its purpose. One day I’m complaining about how tired I am, and parent emails, and when someone throws plastic into the garbage side instead of the recycle side, and the next day my giggling sunlight has a cold, chokes, stops breathing and dies on Thanksgiving day. Why do I complain? 

Each day brings us the opportunity for purpose. Everyday you have the ability to spread kindness, to give light, to enjoy a walk, to be thankful for your loved ones, to really feel the warmth of the sun. And to me that’s what his short life taught me, to live by purpose because every moment is a gift, so treat it like one. Not every day you get to climb a mountain, write a novel, get married, win a million dollars, travel the world, get a promotion, receive an award… but everyday you can be thankful, be present, make marginal steps towards big dreams and big goals, everyday you can find simple purpose, because that is what life offers you, the opportunity. Somedays it’s eating gummy bears or hugging your spouse for a little bit longer, and other days, skydiving and surfing in the ocean. What is stopping us from practicing purpose in each day? Every life is different, everyone has different chances and abilities and experiences, some are very privileged and some are struggling to survive. But everyone has a purpose, and every day it can be exercised, even in the smallest way.

Somehow in my last 2 years working in Colorado, I’ve become a consistent go-to therapist in our practice for 3 year old trauma victims, particularly girl survivors of sexual abuse by their fathers. I’ve worked with about ten of them in the last year. They are some of the hardest cases I have because of the sheer horror in their stories, the legal system that lets them down continuously, and because at times our silly dancing and playing feels purposeless. 

But, sometimes a child walks into your life, and you know right away that this child is extra special to you, and that your relationship together will move far past their initial safety and stability, and that you will come to know them and their heart as they leave therapy and move forward in their lives. Their moms will keep you posted, they will grow and you will always remember how special they were to you, and they will remember that at one time in their lives, you were their hero. They change you, forever. They remind you of your purpose. I just met one of those a few weeks ago. 

A 3 year old going on 18, she’s the most adorable sassiest sweetheart I’ve ever come across. A perfect combination of sweet and spicy, she’s exceptionally smart and carries on full conversations and insides jokes with me as if she’s a 30-year-old friend and as if she’s known me for years. It is her that has reminded me that our silly play is moving mountains in her heart. And the moments of my safety talk, validating her feelings, reminding her of her strength and bravery, in between sticking marker caps on our fingertips and calling each other, “Madam Gazelle” (Mademoiselle), and calling the color purple, Pouwarple because she said it wrong by accident and we couldn’t stop laughing… she DOES hear me, and I am reminding her of her worth. 

A child who’s personal story is not appropriate to share in this context, and for the safety of you as readers, I will keep it simple. She has endured things that no child ever should and yet her light, just as my giggling sunlight’s light was, shines brightly for all those around her. She is contagious, and my life is changed because of her. 

The other day her mom sent me a video of her opening up a late Christmas present from her aunt. She was told that the present was for her to use to comfort her. As she opens the box to find a doll inside, she hugs it and says, “I’m gonna call it Sammy!”. She brought Sammy in to see me at our next session, and as this miniature 3 year old introduced me to her doll, she told me that she wanted to be like me when she grows up so that she can help other kids who need it, just like I do.

It is MY purpose to hug her every week, to scream as we pound our fists in our sandtray box and bury her “monster” underneath, to shake our worries out and dance around my office, to use marker caps as nail polish and say things like “farting around” and then giggle real hard… and although I may not be changing the system or putting away criminals, I am in her world and I love her with no ultimatum, no attachment to her past, no questions asked. Our silliness is purposeful.

So my big thought that I wanted to share, in these tiny, simple stories of some humble 3 year olds… let’s start living like them. Laugh. Be thankful for the little things. Love. Hug. Think simply. Be present. Be honest. Be clear. Be silly. Put stickers on your forehead and make fishy faces. Stop just living in the big ideas and mentality that you are only one person and therefore can’t make a difference. Stop complaining, or catch yourself and then reframe it. Believe in the moments, in the goodness that comes from the struggle. 3 year olds know this and they keep on living despite the darkness. The darkness may never change, but the way we live in it can. Believe in people, because WE are all we have. 

Purpose is everywhere, don’t go a day without acting in it, because our days, our moments, our connections, our simple actions, they are ALL precious. 

Listen to: US by James Bay.