Harbor Pilots Among Us

Hello everybody. Come on in, come on in. I'm gonna let us gather. I like to say sail on in. My Cadre name is Speak Wonder and my favorite topic is harbor pilots. Those harbor pilots among us, those boats that sail in and help us find our way to safe portage to the dock, to shelter, to respite, to rest. And this is caregiver day. Send me some hearts if you're here. I like to know for sure that I'm live on the Cadre. And there's Rosie. Ros. 612 is joined. Thank you. Good to have you. Do you like my shirt?

Can you tell I'm a dog mom? And I even have matching earrings with the little paw prints. This week I have been sort of out of pocket because I was traveling. Now some of you know that I pop in on every Cadre broadcast that pops up onto my phone. I get the notification. I'm sure you do too. And then I like to be a part of that conversation. So it has pained me that I can't join or couldn't join earlier this week because I was traveling and I was going. I see your laughing emoji there. I was going to a funeral and I thought today we could talk about the sacred act of bearing witness, especially on caregiver day.

Caregiving for some of us is leading toward an end. For instance, my mom who I speak with on the phone every night and who I visit twice a week is 94 years of age. Well, when you think about it, all of us are walking toward our end date. We don't know when it is, but if we're walking with somebody on that journey, there's something sacred and solemn and joyful because we cherish every day, don't we? We cherish every day. So I looked up bear witness on Google and I found a few things. But in the end I have followed my heart into what I think it means.

Bearing witness for me this week meant going to the state of Ohio. I live in Pennsylvania on the shore of Lake Erie up in the northwest corner of the state of Pennsylvania and I went to the Columbus area in my car with my friend Susan to attend the funeral of a 42 year old man. Yeah, young. So we got in my car on Monday and it's a long trip. It is five and a half hour to six hour journey and you go through a lot of hamlets and towns that are 35 mile per hour and then you get back on the highway and get a little of time in.

You might hear my friend in the background that's okay. She's still my house guest. We're having a great time together. She lives in a different town, and so we're taking advantage of some friend time. After the funeral was over, we went so that we could bear witness. I kept thinking of that term, bearing witness. We were there for the parents who lost their son, for the widow who lost her husband, for the foster kids who lost their foster dad, and to bear witness among the children who he coached in soccer.

And the soccer parents were there, his workmates were there. Ryan had a chronic illness, I should say a condition that he was born with, which caused him all kinds of challenges. And during this last six months, it kind of took him over. But my goodness, friends, he powered through. He did rock climbing. Like I said, he was a soccer coach, a computer whiz. He did everybody's weddings and funerals. You know how people do the slideshow. Ryan was your guy. Whenever I had a technical glitch, I would call him and ask him to help me fix it.

Brilliant young man taken too soon. Bearing witness. So the dictionary definition is acknowledging that something is true, that something is exist, is existing. Something is true. When we bear witness, when we physically, geographically show up, when we put an arm around someone's shoulder or hand somebody a tissue or hug them hard and cry alongside them, that is the act of bearing witness, of acknowledging that something is true, that this person has died. And we are here together for the silent, sacred act of bearing witness.

Maya Angelou, one of my favorite poets, said it well when she said, there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. To bear witness to your own stories that you haven't told is agony of agonies. To have somebody come alongside you and share that moment or that observation or that pain is therapeutic. It's restorative. That's why we traveled over 300 miles to be with family, the family of the young man who died. It's restorative, and I call it soul medicine. It's a type of medicine that you can't find in the pharmacy.

You. You drum it up from your own heart and you dispense it to your friends who need you. It is emotional triage for the shattered heart. It is showing up and applying whatever is needed for the shattered heart. And it's a process in community. Probably the most powerful moment of that funeral service, which was Tuesday morning in Columbus, Ohio, was when the minister was finished speaking and people were going from the back of the auditorium to the front to greet the family, the grieving family.

And so we bore witness. My. My friend and I were sitting like three rows back, and we could see everybody reaching for hugs, saying kind words, laughing, crying, remembering. And there was something palpable about watching the father of this young man receiving hugs. And these guys would grab him in a bear hug and then, you know, slap him on the back as an act of affection. Bearing witness. An act of, I'm with you and I'll go forward with you, and this is awful, but you don't have to do this alone.

That's part of the caregiving picture. We can bear witness through art. Some of you here in the Cadre are artists. You're vocalists or you do painting or some kind of artwork. I found a mosaic the other day that. In a store that was just gorgeous. All these pieces put together into the shape of a heart. Maybe I'll post it on the chat stream. We can bear witness through writing and verbally. We can share our stories, and we can draw out untold stories in people. Well, we got back. You bear witness when you care for a child on the spectrum, you're letting him or her tell their story their way with their special needs.

And my final thought on bearing witness is that we can do it in silence. My friend who traveled with me to see this family, she said, I don't know what to say. And myself having been a widowed and having gotten to the age I am, I have gone to many funerals and born witness to people's losses. And I said, you know what, Susie? When it comes down to it, they won't remember what you said or didn't say or how you said it. They're gonna remember that you showed up. I said, I'm thinking about staying.

I'd like to conclude with an essay from TikTok Mima. She's one of my favorite people in the world. A new discovery, TikTok Mema. And she titled this little talk for those still showing up. And this is for you, Cadre family. This is for you. Whether it's caregiver day, any day of the week, where you find yourself in life, these are troubling times, but there's room for joy inside of them. And you're still showing up. This is for those who keep showing up. While the world feels unrecognizable, for the ones carrying private battles into public spaces, steadying themselves before meetings, before classrooms, before kitchens and hard conversations, the pace of crisis is faster than our nervous systems were designed to to hold.

Grief stacks up. Pressure lingers in the body long after the day ends. And still you show up. You lead while tired. You care while stretched thin. You offer steadiness while managing your own quiet unraveling. Some are navigating fractured relationships. Some of us are carrying loss, illness or uncertainty and untold stories no one ever sees. Some can feel an ending closing and something new gathering beneath the surface. If rest feels incomplete and capacity feels thinner than usual, you are not failing.

You are responding to reality. Showing up does not require perfection, only presence. Showing up does not require perfection, only presence. And if today presence looks quiet or messy or unfinished, that still counts. What you're saying A word for those still showing up. Thanks for the sunshine. Appreciate your being with me during this conversation. We need validation. We need to know we're not alone. Whether we're carrying the burden of having lost a child, lost a relationship, perhaps the grief of a lost expectation, the thought that might hover, that says, I didn't know I'd be in this state at this time of life.

I didn't know my life would look like this. Sometimes it's surprising and a bit perplexing where we find ourselves. But if we come together in community, which is the model of Cadre, then Cadre becomes our blanket fortune and our launching out space, our place of quiet and rest and retreat and our fortress of strength and putting one foot in front of the other and still showing up moment by moment. Plenty to come on the Cadre today. Caregiver Day Thursday. I know at three o' clock Eastern it will be Miss Shannon Paul Comedy in the chaos and truly I have not been interacting because of travel.

I'm home now, so I'm not sure if we're having extra supports at nighttime. We may be check that. It's so encouraging to have somebody pop in right around bedtime to help us kind of calibrate our day and get a reset from what whatever it is we've experienced on that given day. Thanks for being you. Go and be human. May you be blessed body, mind and soul. And sail on in next week to Harbor Pilots. I have known they sell wine in Ohio. Yeah.