Epilogue

I am doing something I never did before. I don’t mean these walks. I mean celebrating the completion of a challenging goal. I am not running past the finish line – panting for what’s next. I am sitting in the glory of setting a goal that only became harder as the weeks wore on and rising to that challenge for no one else than myself… and being willing to do it all with an audience. Three things made it possible. 

1. Luke Hladek as my force multiplier/producer/friend. Hands down – best partner I could ask for.
2. Grace and Ella as my north star. You are your own sentient beings – already more than I could have ever dreamed of being…brave, curious, creative and imperfect…but you still need your mom. These walks became a way of leaving some bread crumbs of wisdom for you. Maybe someday you will listen to them all.
3. Mom and Dad as my quiet muse. I did not set out for you to be part of the walks. How naive. You are part of every breath I take, yet somehow I just kept moving forward when you died. That was wrong. I am glad I finally stopped, so to speak. These walks allowed for the pause to grieve.

I thought one last walk with them might be necessary to complete this transition.

Liz: I remember wondering if I could really take a head of school job with a one-year-old and a kindergartener. And she wasn’t one. She was six months when I was making that decision. And you said to me, “Family dinners can be at the Alpha.” And it just took so much pressure off. Whoever or whatever had instilled in me what good mom, good parenting, good leadership looked like. It didn’t have to look that way. 

The pauses I take … you can almost hear me thinking… and hear so much of what remains unsaid as I come to terms with the fact that my path could be mine. It didn’t have to look like anyone else’s. My mom lived that. I never got the chance to tell her how crazy proud I am that she marched to the beat of her own drummer.

I’m glad you wore a thong on the beach, even though it embarrassed the hell out of me. I’m glad your retirement party was a dunk tank. I’m glad you traveled the world. Literally. I’m glad you went without us. I don’t have to ask, did I make you proud? I know I did. But I don’t think you know how proud you made me.

Virginia Ann Dulany was a breath of unexpected joy and unbridled empathy. Her sage wisdom guided more lives than she will ever know.

I remember telling you that I really wanted to have another baby. And you told me I had to do whatever it takes. And if that meant nine months of bed rest and somebody else taking care of Grace during that time, then that’s what it meant. I couldn’t wrap my head around that. But it was, again, that thing that opened the door and allowed me to fight through some crazy adoption process to get where I was supposed to be… the mother of Grace and Ella. I asked you once to retire  and come take care of Grace so I could go back to work, and you told me you made more money than I did. So I should take care of my baby. I’m really glad you did. 

We shared that – motherhood. I understood her so much better once I had children of my own.

And I think now, as Grace is about to graduate from college, what it must have felt like to see me choose to go back to Wheeling when you had chosen to leave. And you needed to for you. And I’m not sorry. I like the way my life twisted and turned. I like where I am…maybe there’s another reality…there’s a Midnight Library somewhere where I open a book and I make a different choice. And I go to Scarsborough, New York, right out of Princeton, instead of coming back to Wheeling, where I go to the Olympic development training camp one summer instead of coming back to hang out with my high school friends. But I didn’t make those choices. And every choice I made led me to where I am, and where I am is pretty incredible. But there had to be all these silent moments of disappointment that you never opened up to me. You just let me live my life, right up until the end. 

Mom used to say, “There are worse things than being alone.” She said it so often, I didn’t hear it and unpack it until she was gone and I learned to love being alone. And then I heard it differently when I heard Kaci Bolls sing Somebody’s Somethin’ – she sang.

… She’s always been somebody’s something.
She’s been everything but alone.
A daughter, a lover, a wife, and a mother–
She’s lived every life but her own.

I think that is what my mom was teaching me all along – go live my life. I’m doing that now more than ever. It’s awkward. I was used to living every life but my own… putting myself last. After a lifetime of doing that, I can see why my mom would nudge me  “when is it your turn?” 

I carry the very best of you. I know I do. Some of it I’m just learning now. At 58, I listen. I try to get people to center on what’s important. I’m trying to get better at writing handwritten notes… but I know there was pain, and I know you passed some of that down, too. And I know you tried not to. And I know I try not to. And for a little while, I thought my job was just to make sure my kids didn’t have the pain, but that’s not a mother’s job. 

Nor is it a father’s responsibility.

And dad,  It’s taking me 58 years to know that there’s no night in shining armor coming over that hill because you made me feel like you could fix anything. And I think you believed it. And I think all of our frustrations and battles were really about your very deep love and desire to make sure things turned out okay. Control. But you were never in control. But the truth is, you lived your life more fully than the generation before you. It’s okay that living mine more fully than you did. I know how hard you worked to be 10% better, to give me a life 10% better. And I didn’t recognize it. And we laughed at you when you made us look at where the fire exits were or when you worried that the snowstorm was going to come in April. But I do that. I walk into a room and I see all the things that could hurt my kids. But then they’re not toddlers anymore, and the room gets too big and you can’t do it. 

I just need to be there. I understand why dad took every one of my calls no matter what – just like I do now – because the moments when it is palpable that you still matter in the lives of your children are priceless. 

To know we matter. Isn’t that the gift?

Grace said to me the other day, heading out to breakfast. I’m paraphrasing. I wish everybody wasn’t going to know you. She just wanted to have breakfast with her mom. Oh, I get that. You would come home from work, and I would want you to see me, not the people who are coming to run with you or the football players from Linsly that were going to come over and watch the game with you. I just wanted you to see me. But that’s just the selfishness of the moment. It’s just the innocence of questioning for ourselves how much we matter. I knew I mattered to you dad. 

And honestly, you taught me some life lessons in so many ways, but never as well as you taught me on the golf course. Find a little tuft of grass. Put the ball on it. Make the shot just a little easier on yourself. Get your balance. Focus. Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your head down. But just before that, look out at where you want to hit the ball. See your vision. Know where you’re going. Take a breath. Calm. As you pull the club into your backswing …right at the top…pause ever so slightly in a nod to the gods… 

If I could just do that in all my decisions, I think I’d make good ones. Sure, I’m going to hook it. I’m going to hit a worm burner. But I’m going to hit some good shots, too. And I will learn from the ones that don’t go where I want them to. It’s why we chase the little white ball around the course.

I actually play golf with my dad every time I tee off. I don’t know who said golf is a good walk spoiled, but from where I stand today, no walk can be spoiled… not even when playing a shitty round of golf.

Arthur Brooks says, When you’re in transition, you should walk. Best walk I could have imagined. 

And as I walk, I become again the child who never left me… a towhead girl with blonde curls reaching skyward, pumping my legs harder, higher, while a paternal hand guides the swing and a voice sings, Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon… That song lives in my bones. My father wrote it into my origin story, a melody that shaped the architecture of who I would become.

Hearing it again makes me want to dance. And isn’t that exactly what my mother is doing? 

The night she was dying, I saw her in an ephemeral dress. The skirt flowing in circles as she twirled toward a waiting partner. The image was hazy at first, dreamlike—but it sharpened into clarity. There was a line. A receiving line of those who had gone before… Troy, Howard, Darryl, Bill, Jean, Dick, Churchie, Uncle Dave, Uncle John, Uncle Charley … Pop- pop… my dad. They weren’t impatient. Time had no home in this dimension. They were throwing her a welcoming. I walked her as far as I could go …  and that peaceful image is where I go every time I hear…

I’ve been dreaming of friendly faces
I’ve got so much time to kill
Just imagine people laughing
I know some day we will
And even if it’s far away
Get me through another day

Cover me in sunshine

These walks have been my sunshine. They have taught me a few lessons I wish I had learned while my parents were alive: 

• Listen. 
• Be present. 
• Show up … especially when it’s inconvenient. 
• At some point you might be broken open … that discomfort is where growth begins. 

So this is a celebration of the series I set out to do, but it’s not really an ending. It’s a thank you……to everyone who listened…. to Luke… to my girls … to my mom and my dad… and mostly to everyone who walked with me. Thank you for your trust… your openness… your unconditional love…for holding up a mirror for me while I thought I was holding up a mirror for you… for matching my steps and keeping the cadence until I could more clearly see my path. I love you all.

It is also an invitation. An urging. Walk with someone. Ask them about their life. Listen like you’ve never heard anything more important. Tell them what they mean to you… while you still can. Let them see you—really see you—in all your imperfect, glorious humanity. 

Liz: I don’t know what comes of all this. But if I look back at all the times in my life when I didn’t know what comes of all this, it all worked out pretty damn well.

As Jon Hume sings, “Don’t forget where you came from…Don’t forget what you′re made of…” Don’t forget to sing when you win

Thanks for walking with me.

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