The Unstoppable Spring and What It Reminds Us About Resilience

We live stitch by stitch, when we’re lucky. If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching. And maybe the stitching is crude, or it is unraveling, but if it were precise, we’d pretend that life was just fine and running like a Swiss watch. This is not helpful if on the inside our understanding is that life is more often a cuckoo clock with rusty gears.

In the aftermath of loss, we do what we’ve always done, although we are changed, maybe more afraid. We do what we can, as well as we can.

~Anne Lamott, Stiches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair

Two weeks before we were told to "self-isolate", my 21-year-old daughter, young, healthy, active, woke up unable to walk and in excruciating pain. A few hours later, from our local emergency room, an on-call surgeon was summoned. She had sepsis in her hip and the surgeon needed to remove the infection. Immediately. 21 was hospitalized for five days, during which physiotherapists helped her walk and she had the steady drip, drip, drip of antibiotics delivered to her system. 

It was a frightening time, though her prognosis was good. The infection seemed to come out of nowhere and reminded all of us that life is fragile, that our lives can be upended at any moment.

As if those of us who've survived infidelity can ever forget that.

And now, here we all are, confined to our homes, urged to avoid others. Heading out for groceries feels worthy of a war medal. Our heroes, more than ever, are those who show up to work at hospitals and clinics and, yes, grocery stores and pharmacies. 

All this uncertainty can dislodge old fears, long thought put to rest. It can conjure up old ghosts, around grief and loss, around chaos and foreboding, about scarcity. 

More than ever, we must interrogate our fears: Is this real? Is this old stuff? How can I respond?

The "big picture", as Lamott puts it, feels threatening. And yet, the stitches – the tiny actions taken by each of us, paints a different picture. So many stories of coming together, of helping each other, of reaching out.

Life is not fine right now and it's certainly less fine for some than others. While many of us fear getting sick, the virus will take a bigger toll on those who are older, immuno-compromised or otherwise vulnerable. While lots of us have to make room for 24/7 family togetherness, others are more isolated than usual, lacking any opportunity to venture out.

And I know we've all been reminded that in times of crisis, we can become our best selves, that can be hard when we are feeling more frightened than usual, more vulnerable than usual. Our best selves can get lost when we panic. When we forget that we're all in this together. 

Factor in a fractured relationship in the form of betrayal and it feels as though we can't trust a thing, not even our formerly functioning society.

But though it might feel that way, the truth is that the sun came up this morning, didn't it? Just like it did yesterday.

I look outside my window and spring refuses to self-isolate, refuses to pause. I have sprouts pushing their way through recently thawed dirt. The birds are singing their hearts out, in defiance of a quarantine. In defiance of despair.

And in that unstoppable spring, I find hope. I find comfort. 

Life isn't fine, right now. Not for all of us.

We are changed. We will be changed further. What that change looks like, whether it contributes to our integrity or strips it from us, is a choice that remains our own. 

We must do what Lamott says: ..." what we can, as well as we can."