Smelly Socks

After graduating high school I was accepted into the Rotary Club International’s exchange program to spend a year in France. Part of the Rotary’s program is to share the hosting among the members, so approximately every 3 months I moved in with a new host family and consequently a new experience. As Spring Break of that year approached it was clear that the Rotary Club was unsure what to do with me. All of my host families had made plans and the Rotarians wanted me to have a good week. The head of the local chapter approached me with an idea. “Would you like to go skiing?” I’d go alone, all expenses paid. A long train ride to the small village of L'Argentière-la-Bessée, where my ski guide would pick me up and take me to the mountain hostel where I would join his other clients for a week of guided back country skiing (ski de randonée).

I think he barely finished the words “skiing” before I said YES!!! Spring break came and as I boarded the train my host mother asked me if I had enough money? Oh yeah, I said. I had a whopping 450 Francs in my pocket – at that time about the equivalent of $50. I spent a few dollars during the train ride to get a snack. When I arrived in the Alps it was dumping snow. Too much snow to be safe with a guided group in the back country, so the alternative was to spend a few days in bounds at one of the three local ski areas. Skiing in hip deep powder every day was amazing! Could it be any more perfect?

We stopped to have drinks after lunch each day, and my fellow skiers suggested that we each take turns buying a round of coffee for the group. Of course, I wanted to participate and quickly calculated that would take about $30 of what remained of my $50. I started to get nervous that something would happen and I would be stuck without money. I knew I would forego eating on the train ride home. 

Stopping for coffee with my group. That's me on the Right in the gray and pink Euro ski jacket, our guide on the left. French ski fashion in 1990

The week was amazing, we got in some back country trips, skinning up and cruising down through untracked powder. I had managed all week on a bare minimum, skiing during the day and reading in the sitting room in the evenings. Happily falling exhausted into my spartan bunk every evening. The final night of this trip, I was reading my book (Albert Camus, La Peste) when a women’s college soccer team entered the lounge area and sat down around me. I chatted briefly with the few who were seated closest to me. They were just passing through and were staying in the hostel on their way to a tournament somewhere.

I had only brought one pair of wool ski socks with me on this trip, and had worn them daily. I also had not thought to bring soap or shampoo with me. So each night I took a hot shower and tried to rinse the stink off from skiing. But by this time I was starting to smell bad, and my socks were the worst of it. I would hang them every evening to dry out and be ready to go the next day. This last night of the trip, I hung them in my cubby where I was keeping my stuff and crawled into my upper bunk in the co-ed dormitory of the hostel. Everyone was in bed and the lights were out when I heard a few of the women on the soccer team start to chatter. “What is that smell!?” “Oh pew – something stinks!” There were some other guests at the hostel that night. One of the women accused a guy in a voice loud enough to hear “It’s that guy from Paris”. Then he said back “No, it’s the American”… I was caught. I lay as still as I could in my bed, mortified, feeling like there was no escape. Maybe if I just pretended to be asleep.

The next morning I “slept in” staying under the sheet of my bunk until I was sure everyone had left the hostel. As I gathered my things to leave, I noticed that the man I had been skiing with left his body wash on top of my cubby (so I couldn’t miss it). I grabbed the bottle and hit the shower, my first with soap in over a week. It felt good to be genuinely clean and not just rinsed off. I got lucky that someone noticed and decided to help.

Why did I tell you about my ski vacation in the French Alps? Because I’ve realized in the last year, my life is a lot like that story. It didn’t start there, and it’s still happening. The truth is I wake up every morning like I’m in the middle of a Talking Heads song:

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself
Well...How did I get here? 

Letting the days go by
Let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by
Water flowing underground
Into the blue again
After the money's gone
Once in a lifetime
Water flowing underground”

I am incredibly lucky – my children are healthy, I love my house, I love my work, I have everything I need to survive and I have people who love me. I still love to ski, and now I get to share that with my son! 

Jake and me in the gondola at Breckenridge

In general, every day for me is like skiing in the Alps. “how can this really be happening, I’m so lucky!” But also every day I live with very little margin, often not enough to buy some soap AND a round of drinks for my new friends. So most of the time I choose to buy a round of drinks for my new friends and skip the soap. It’s OK, how can I possibly complain? I’m skiing in the Alps having drinks with my new friends! ALSO, most of my life I’ve chosen to suffer where I don’t need to. Why didn’t I tell my host mom that I only had $50? Why didn’t I ask my skiing companions if I could borrow some soap? Why didn’t I let anybody know that I didn’t have any money left to buy something to eat on the train ride home?

I’m trying not to live that way anymore. I’m trying to be more vulnerable and hopefully more interconnected. I plan to let people know when I need some soap. And even if no one responds, it’s OK because I’m still skiing in the Alps! But at least I won’t be suffering any longer because of my own silence and self abuse. I’m so humbled and grateful when people do respond. And I’m always surprised. I hope to always be humble and grateful, but not always surprised.

Update on Stacey: I’m thankful to everyone who has reached out with some word of encouragement or gesture of support. Stacey was enduring flu like symptoms at the beginning of the week. It’s been a rough one. She is mostly over the flu like symptoms, but still has wide fluctuations in her energy levels. Round 2 is coming up in a week. Stacey started to notice some clumps of hair coming out of her scalp a few days ago and decided to take a pro-active approach. The kids and I took turns with the scissors to help create her new look.

My beautiful Stacey rockin' her new look!

Please continue to send your prayers, good energy, good thoughts and encouragement our way. We are preparing to continue our year at the Allender Center and continue to accumulate the expenses of participating in their certificate programs as well as our medical expenses. If you’d like to contribute in any way click here: Contribute or email me: eric@freedomthroughhealing.com

My Wife Has Breast Cancer...Again

We are 4 days out from the first infusion of chemotherapy drugs. Stacey is running a low-grade fever. Her body is at war. She’s on the couch sleeping. Right now, it feels like our whole existence is a big mess.

August 1st was a cruel day. That day Stacey received a call from her breast surgeon with the diagnosis, the cancer has returned – Stage 1. Aren’t we lucky to have caught it so early? Yes… So lucky. Just a few hours earlier we had received the news that our friend, Craig McConnell, had passed away after his 7-year battle with cancer. I was at home with our children and sat them down to tell them what had happened to Craig. To pray with them and for all of our friends who were grieving in that moment. To pray for Stacey who was also grieving. Stacey didn’t tell me of her diagnosis until she got home and my first thought was for our kids. Great – we just had a conversation about cancer and death, how am I going to handle this news?

I waited a few days. Stacey and I met with her breast surgeon to get our initial briefing on what lay ahead for Stacey and our family. Lumpectomy? no question. Chemo, radiation, and endocrine treatments all likely. We’re going to beat this thing. I sat the kids down and told them with calm, measured confidence they needed to know that mom’s breast cancer had come back and that it is nothing like Craig’s cancer, she isn’t going to die. My strategy seemed to work. The kids didn’t have time to think about the ramifications of a cancer diagnosis in light of our earlier discussion. Their response was a nonchalant “OK.” And then we had a good discussion about what it all meant. That mom would be seeing the doctor a lot. That she would be sick for a while and might lose all of her hair.

A little over a month ago I was sitting in the hospital waiting room separated by a few chairs with other men who were in that surreal purgatory… just waiting for our loved ones to transition into the recovery room. Stacey was having a lumpectomy, which would take her out for the next 10 days. We missed Craig’s memorial service.

This story started a little more than 6 years ago when Stacey was first diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a scary time, we had no idea what to expect. Stacey was in her mid 30’s. Our two children were just starting in elementary school. Stacey elected to have a double mastectomy and reconstruction. The doctors said the chances of reoccurrence were extremely small. Probability statistics are not very meaningful when it turns out YOU are the 1 in 200.

Now, I’m dealing with all of this again, but differently. I’m older, and feels like we’ve covered a lot of ground in the last 6 years. There’s a continuum of people with loving concern and support on one end and fear and required assurance on the other. Our network of friends and family scattered all along that continuum. What does Stacey need?

For two normally private people who have a hard time receiving from others – this is a difficult time. I know I need friends in my life, and I want to have stronger relationships and more intimate friends. But how do I balance setting good boundaries now and being open to receiving good care? The truth is we have a lot of needs (hard for me to even type out those words let alone publish them for the world to read or say them out loud). I’ve set up a site where people can contribute. If you’d like to learn more about ways you can support our family at this time, please click here: Contribute

Check in next week for an update on how we’re doing and my next blog installment “Smelly Socks”

First Day of Chemo

C’est un beau rêve

I just returned from a weekend at a Wild at Heart ‘Boot Camp’ in the mountains of Colorado. If you are not familiar with these events - they are run by Ransomed Heart, a ministry started by John Eldredge based on the ideas in his New York Times best selling book Wild at Heart. This is NOT a men’s retreat. As Eldredge himself says – let’s dispense with the “religious bullshit” and start living with a whole heart. It’s a thought provoking book, and a disruptive weekend event.

This weekend there were 430 men in attendance from all over the world. Saturday night I met Philipe, a minister from Avignon, France. He pastors a small evangelical community there. Philipe told me about his life in France and his desire to help men and women live whole heartedly. He described a lush mountain valley in the French Alps where he hoped to one day hold his own combination Boot Camp/Captivating (women’s event) - with the men on one side of the valley and the women on the other side of the valley. When he finished describing his vision, he looked wistfully toward the ground with a beatific smile and said “C’est une belle idée, un beau rêve.”  It’s a good idea, a beautiful dream

Philipe glows with passion and hope, the beautiful pursuit of a meaning filled life. Philipe did not entertain the “pragmatic.” He didn’t seem to be worried about the logistics - how he might secure a venue, provide lodging, arrange the sessions, or even whether anyone would bother to show up for his Boot Camp in the Alps. He only sees men and women filled with hope and freedom.

I imagine that John Eldredge was once filled with a vision of men living whole heartedly. And then he took that first step and put one foot in front of the other as God invited him into an ever bigger and more compelling story. Like Philipe and like me, it started with a beautiful dream. This is my first step…