Could It Be Magic…

August 28, 2013 / phillipamory / 1 Comment

I don’t watch the news anymore. It’s way too depressing. I do read various websites each morning, mostly scanning headlines, all of them an endless stream of calamity and man’s inhumanity to man. There has been a lot of heaviness in my life recently. My mom has been in NICU for a week. My daughter had a tragic death within her company yesterday. Syria is using chemical weapons on their own people… In a melancholy and reflectively masochistic moment last week I decided to re-read Tuesdays with Morrie.

Everyone has their “stuff” that they are dealing with, but today in a nostalgic moment I remembered back to a simpler time. In 1977 I was 14 years old. I was an impressionable teenager going to a Christian school, and attending a fundamentalist Baptist Church. Youth pastors were having bonfires with Rock ‘n’ Roll albums and if you played Stairway to Heaven backwards, there was a secret message from Satan. With that backdrop you will understand why my record collection included James Taylor, Seals and Crofts, and yes… Barry Manilow. I’m still ridiculed (and will be scorned here) for my Manilow fandom, but for you youngsters or for those short on memory, allow me to provide some music history.

AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS: Barry Manilow

FAVORITE MALE ARTIST-POP/ROCK OF 1977
FAVORITE MALE ARTIST-POP/ROCK OF 1978
FAVORITE MALE ARTIST-POP/ROCK OF 1979

BILLBOARD MAGAZINE: Barry Manilow

#1 VOCALIST/SINGLES – 1976
#1 POP MALE ARTIST/ALBUMS – 1978
#1 EASY LISTENING ARTIST – 1978

CASHBOX: Barry Manilow

TOP NEW MALE VOCALIST/SINGLES – 1975
TOP NEW MALE VOCALIST/ALBUMS – 1975
TOP VOCALIST/SINGLES – 1976

I referenced 1977 earlier because that was the year that the Live Album came out.

I’m pretty sure my oldest brother Steve, bought the double album for me and I played it on a Turntable / Tuner / 8 track stereo that he handed down. I clearly remember having specific songs that I would play over and over again – carefully lifting the needle and dropping it deftly to the exact groove in the LP. I would take a pants hanger and use the cardboard center as a microphone. The door would be shut and locked, and the lights would be off, and the music would start and in my mind the live audience was cheering for me. It was me at the piano and my voice resonating through the speakers. I sang each of the big ballads to the top of my lungs, and soaked in the applause at each conclusion.

When Jackie and I dated in high school, I would call her on the phone at night and we would talk for hours and I would sing her the songs off of that live album. When my oldest daughter was born it seemed only natural that her name would be… Mandy. When my daughters were both young they shared a bedroom and often ended up in the same bed at night (which they still do). Every night I would come in and say their bedtime prayers with them, then they would roll onto their stomachs and I would rub their backs and sing to them until they fell asleep. My playlist was always the same – Weekend in New England, Lay Me Down, It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve, and of course, Mandy. For a little diversity I would throw in James Taylor’s If I Keep my Heart Out of Sight.

Today I thought back to those times locked in my room with my pretend mic and my showbiz imagination and pined to feel that emotion again. I found my fix on youtube and with earbuds in place, I went there.

My iPad just lit up with a news notification that reads: “Israelis Rush for Gas Masks, Brace for Retaliation Ahead of Strike on Syria…” I’ll read the story later and I’m sure to wring my hands at the insanity of the world, but for now I’m going back to that place of innocence and maybe find some magic.

To have and to hold…

July 23, 2013February 10, 2015 / phillipamory / 2 Comments

On Saturday July 23rd, 1983 I anxiously repeated the following words:

I, Phillip, take you Jackie, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.

I didn’t understand the full weight of what I was committing to that day, but I said those words with surety and boldness. Thirty years later my mind plays back the movie of our life together and I recall the moments of “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health”…

A lot of very memorable things happened in 1983!

It is the renaissance of bad Pop Music.

The Chicken McNugget is introduced, and family dinner is forever changed.

Flashdance and torn sweatshirts are a hit.

And Ronald Reagan (Ronaldus Magnus) is our President.

A lifetime of 30 years ago – A beautiful and naive 18 year old girl marries a very fortunate 20 year old guy, who gladly accepts the premise that love is blind.

Jackie and I had attended the same school since we were toddlers, but we officially met and began to “talk” when Jackie was an 8th grader and I was in 10th. We were engaged the Christmas of Jackie’s Junior year. Call it serendipity, fate or providence… I don’t understand entirely how two kids like us from completely different circles found each other at a private school in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was lust at first sight for me, but God had something bigger in mind for us, something at the molecular level, that attracted and bonded. Jackie had just graduated high school, and I had just completed my Sophomore year of college, when we married. No doubt you hear the strumming of Dueling Banjos, as you conjure up images of a backwoods shotgun wedding in the hills of Virginia. But it wasn’t like that…seriously.

Jackie was an assistant manager at a trendy women’s retail store at the mall and worked crazy hours. I went to Lynchburg College during the day and worked a second-shift job at night. On evenings that she wasn’t working, I would go home for my “dinner break” to find an amazing home cooked meal. Her excellent cooking skills fattened me up quickly. While I was at work she would type my school papers for me on an old electric typewriter that shook the house when plugged in. I never asked her to do any of those things that made my life so much better, she just did them. Toughing out those first couple of years cemented our love for each other in ways that would serve us well over the course of time.

To say that I have been blessed is an understatement. I look back on these 30 years and shake my head in wonder. Our proudest accomplishments are our two amazing daughters who are such a crazy DNA cocktail of Jackie and I. Amanda and Lauren will still catch me in a kiss or a hug with their mom that is a bit too much public display of affection, and their eyes will roll and the mock disdain will pour forth… but in my heart I wish for them to experience from their husband this same feeling I have for their mom. And if my daughters can love their husband with the devotion, and loyalty and passion that has been modeled for them by their mom, then I don’t worry for these relationships.

To be blessed is not to be removed from the pain and suffering that comes with being in this physical world. We’ve had our share of struggles and adversity but my memories don’t linger there. Rather, I smile reflecting on those evenings now, when Jackie and I take a glass of wine out onto the patio after dinner and talk, and laugh, and reminisce and laugh some more.

I’d like to think that is what is meant by “to have and to hold” – Having and holding on tightly to each other, along with every moment and every memory that will define who we will be as a couple. It’s been said that the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. There is no greater example of this truth than my marriage to Jackie. My goal is to be coherent enough to report back 30 years from now on how things are at our 60th anniversary. Lord willing, I’ll still be making my kids roll their eyes.

Going Home

May 17, 2013June 22, 2013 / phillipamory / Leave a comment

In his novel You Can’t Go Home Again, Thomas Wolfe wrote:

“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

I left my hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, 20 years ago this July. My wife and I packed up our 6 and 4 year old daughters and all of our worldly possessions and moved to North Carolina, never looking back. Though less than a 3 hour drive, we rarely made it back to the Commonwealth, beyond the annual pilgrimage at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We were busy with homework, and soccer, and cheerleading; church on Sunday – no time for the commute north.

Today I found myself back in my hometown of Lynchburg. I made the journey alone, driving on stretches of road that I could close my eyes and navigate. My destination was Lynchburg General Hospital. The patient was my mom. She has been sick for sometime with a non-functioning gall bladder, exacerbated by Addison’s Disease. Thankfully the surgery went well.

I left the hospital with the plan to make an immediate return to North Carolina but reflective thoughts of the experience with mom made me detour. I drove streets that 20 years prior had been so familiar but now seemed vague. Unchanged landmarks intertwined with the “new and improved”.

I drove past the Baptist church I was raised in and recalled “walking the aisle” at the age of 5 and being baptized at age 6. Attached to the church was the pre-school that I attended, and where my mom taught 3 and 4 years olds as a labor of love for nearly 30 years.

I drove on to the first house that Jackie and I purchased together. Jackie’s mom worked tirelessly on it before we were married and made sure it was move-in-ready when we returned from our honeymoon. My oldest daughter’s nursery was in that small second bedroom, and my beloved dog Roscoe is buried at the tree line on the edge of the property.

I kept driving till I reached the second home we lived in as a young family. My younger daughter got the benefit of a nicer nursery, and somewhere there is an old video of her taking her first steps on wobbly legs while singing some indiscernible tune. The old shed that I kept my stuff in was still there, and the bushes I planted were mature. The patch of earth that I could never get grass to grow on was still bare, and that made me smile.

I had one last stop, to make the journey complete… I stood in front of the brick rancher where I lived from age 4 till I was married at age 20. Memories of climbing trees, shooting hoops in the driveway, camping out in the backyard, all flashed before my eyes. When it was finally time to downsize, Mom and Dad sold the home place to my big brother. It’s great that the house is still in the family, but like those vaguely familiar roads, the structure is the same, but the feeling is different.

I reflected back to a poignant moment earlier that morning in the hospital recovery room… mom had just been settled in, and her kids in turn greeted her with a relieved kiss. Dad waited patiently, but soon gravitated to her side and simply put his hand on her cheek and held it there. It was a moment etched in my mind and I was instantly gripped by this incredible image of love that I felt and knew so well. Dad’s heavy sigh seemed an attempt to exhale out all of the anxiety that he had been holding in. In that simple gesture there was a felt current of connection between them – a shared gaze, a lifetime of commitment. My throat clenched as I realized that this was my inheritance, I had been shown how to love deeply.

I backed out of the driveway and pointed my Jeep toward North Carolina. My incredible wife of nearly 30 years, and my two amazing daughters were there. Weddings will take place and my grandkids will be born there. There, is where I want to be… but remnants of me remain scattered in the place – I called home.

The Journey to Vulnerability

April 23, 2013November 15, 2016 / phillipamory / 1 Comment

I wish I could remember what it felt like in 2009, so I could connect the dots for you, but I can’t pull those memories from my cerebral archive. From the medical records, I know this:

June 8th 2009 – my wife Jackie, went to Carolina Breast Care Specialist in Raleigh. Diagnosis: “New palpable left subareolar nodule on self exam.”
October 7th 2009 – Diagnosis: Lump or mass in breast. Procedure: Needle Biopsy. Established: Patient Benign

I don’t remember ever being concerned back then… the Doctors weren’t alarmed, they said it’s nothing… so the negative needle biopsy was just a validation of what I already knew to be true.

Mammograms in 2010 and 2011 continued to confirm that all was well.

It’s a known fact that a woman’s intuition should be trusted. In November of 2012 Jackie went to her OB/GYN and noted that she couldn’t be sure but that the lump seemed to have grown. Reassurances were given but for the sake of “peace of mind”, the lump was removed for biopsy on November 12th.

Most people can remember exactly where they were, and what they were doing when a traumatic event like 9/11 occurs. Jackie was making a routine bank deposit when she received the call that the biopsy results were back and that she had breast cancer. I was in my office when she called me…

The very next morning we sat in a disheveled office as a surgeon matter-of-factly scribbled pictures and gave options as if we were selecting a paint color for walls. My wife and oldest daughter absorbed it all stoically as I unraveled before them. I tried to be strong and compose myself and ask prudent questions, but my words came out broken, matching the condition of my heart. Jackie was to come back later that day to provide DNA for a genetic test that would determine if she carried the mutation that would make both of my daughters at high risk for breast cancer. At that moment, I saw the three most important people in my life all at terrible risk.

We were all in a state of shock that weekend but I was the one who could not hold it together. I cried all weekend. Every time I looked at Jackie I would tell myself to be strong for her, to be an encourager, but my eyes would soon well up and she would squeeze my hand… It was our first experience at being truly vulnerable – dealing with total uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.

Cancer is a very scary word and everyone takes the journey in their own way. Some buy the t-shirts and the awareness bracelets and vow publicly to not be shaken in their resolve. Others take a very private and introspective course. My plan would have been to change my Facebook profile pic to a pink ribbon and hold a virtual prayer meeting… The fact that many of you are just hearing of this story, is indicative of Jackie’s choice to travel privately.

Doing battle with something that is trying to actively kill you, is also a race against time. We knew we had to make decisions quickly but they needed to be made with confidence and soulful peace. My eldest daughter Amanda led the effort in researching and finding a team of Oncology specialists at the Duke Cancer Center. It is no exaggeration to say that Jackie’s world class team came together in a miraculous way, and we are forever grateful to them.

Dr. Kimberly Blackwell, Oncologist – TIME’s Top 100 most influential people in the world
Dr. Erika Hamilton, Research Fellows – Oncology
Dr. Rachel Greenup, Surgical Oncology, Pioneer in Mastectomies
Dr. Michael Zenn, Plastic Surgery Vice Chief
And scores of nurses and support staff who remain nameless, but we know who you are and what you did for us!

Three surgeries behind us and one reconstruction surgery to go, but it feels beyond liberating to tell you that Jackie has now joined the ranks called “Survivor”. I like that… survivor… for it truly defines the physical, spiritual, and emotional fight, that is breast cancer.

I titled this blog post The Journey to Vulnerability because I have witnessed this amazing transformation in my wife, as she has been forced into this wonderful thing called vulnerability, that many see falsely as weakness. Dr. Brené Brown, in her book Daring Greatly, says that “to dare greatly is the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you’re feeling. To have the hard conversations.”

> Being vulnerable is having the courage to tell your physician that something is not right, even though the tests say everything is okay.

> Being vulnerable is admitting that you don’t want to read the inspirational books, or wear the t-shirts or run the races, until you are ready…

> Being vulnerable is sitting up all night with your daughters, laughing, and watching Magic Mike, the night before your mastectomy.

> Being vulnerable is allowing your husband to hold you, silently praying, during that sleepless pre-surgery night.

> Being vulnerable is coming out of anesthesia and asking through tears, “did I do good?”

> Being vulnerable is waiting for the surgical oncologist to come into the room with the lab results that reveal if she “got it all” – and watching the release of emotion when the answer is “yes!”.

> Being vulnerable is going out in public for the first time with a scarf around your neck, hoping that you don’t look weird.

> Being vulnerable is telling the nurse that you’re scared and have her hug you and give you a laminated card of inspirational words for you to hold onto for life.

> Being vulnerable is going to the gym for the first time, not knowing how the ladies and instructor will see you.

Being vulnerable is NOT weakness…it’s a statement of tremendous courage and strength.

As a husband and a father, I have had to share in this vulnerability. I’ve been allowed to cry, and I’ve been able to be the strong one. I’ve wondered how I would encourage my daughters and my wife, how I would hold up in waiting rooms, and if I could empty surgical drain tubes – and I’ve done them all.

I’ve watched my amazing daughters have vulnerable conversations with their mom about medical procedures, and diets and life balance. They have huddled with me as the surgeon took us to a back room to give us the status. They’ve waited nervously for DNA testing results which would possibly dictate their own fate. They’ve shopped with their mom for skinny jeans and have made sure she keeps her mojo.

The journey of a survivor is never over. Being a survivor means you are living to fight another day. That requires that we open ourselves up to the joy and power that vulnerability brings.

A final thought on vulnerability from Brené Brown

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

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