“Fear can make us hide, love can call us back, and sometimes the person who saves us is the one who has known and loved us all along.” — Jamie Gienapp’s review of Frozen at www.theatrecenter.com
I remember the moment as if it were yesterday. November 2013, sitting in a darkened movie theater with my husband, my brother and his family, my mom and my two little girls — sisters who loved each other and fought like cats and dogs almost nonstop. They weren’t so little anymore; one was 16 and the other was 14, so teenage hormones were swirling all around all the time. Drama, thy name is Sister.
My family has a tradition of seeing a movie on Thanksgiving Day after our big meal. That year, the winner was Frozen. I was enchanted by the music, the animation and the storytelling. And somewhere near the end, I was plowed down by emotions when I realized (spoiler) the great love — love that would save Anna’s life — was not from a prince or a reindeer herder or any romantic partner. It was from her sister.
True love, magical love, was between two sisters. I sat in the dark staring not at the screen but at my girls, tears pouring down my face. I realized in that moment a truth I had known all along: The best gift we could ever give them was each other.
This Saturday, I have tickets for the Chattanooga Theatre Centre’s production of Frozen. My remarkable friend John Echols brings to life the role of Sven, the reindeer. He wears a costume he created with his family over the course of the past several months.
The review written by Jamie Gienapp has an excellent description of John’s costume and his performance. Jamie’s glowing review includes this statement:
John Echols
“Children will be captivated by the magic. Adults may find themselves affected by something deeper: The reminder that fear can make us hide, love can call us back, and sometimes the person who saves us is the one who has known and loved us all along.”
That sentence resonates with me on a deep, deep level right now. My life has changed by an order of magnitude since that evening in November 2013. Both Mom and Bruce are gone. My girls are grown, married and living on their own. While they still fight occasionally (sisters — what are you going to do?), they love and support each other deeply. When Gracie’s labor and delivery were difficult, even life-threatening, it was Abby she wanted with her. And Abby was there every step of the way.
Still, Jamie’s sentence didn’t just remind me of the magical love between sisters. It touched something deeper in my own heart. Fear can make us hide. Love can call us back.
I am living this truth in this season. My life contains myriad opportunities to choose fear — fear of a future without my partner, fear of uncertainty about money or career or retirement or a leaky roof or a world constantly on the brink of disaster or the possibility that something bad will happen to my kids or my grandson.
And my life contains just as many opportunities for love to call me back. My village is filled with people who love me faithfully and well. I have amazing friends. Friends who have stood by me, cried with me, laughed with me and occasionally given me a good swift kick in the backside when that was what I needed.
I have two amazing daughters, two sons-in-law who love them and love me, and the world’s most adorable grandson. I have coworkers who respect me and what I do, who laugh with me, who trust me to care for their patients. I have a church family filled with people who know me and care what happens in my life and hug me every chance they get. I have extended family — my brother and his family — aunts, uncles, cousins who, with no exception, will answer the phone when I call, listen to me, encourage me, pray for me.
“Gratitude has become the core spiritual practice in my life.”
Gratitude has become the core spiritual practice in my life. To say I am grateful for all the love I have been given across the six decades of my life is an enormous understatement. I have learned gratitude is a lifeline for me no matter what is happening. So when the wise ones at www.grateful.org suggested I watch Brene Brown and Oprah talk about the connection between joy and gratitude, I jumped right on it.
Brene said: “I will never talk about joy for the rest of my career without talking about gratitude. Because for 12 years of research I have never interviewed a single person who talks about the capacity to really experience and soften into joy who does not actively practice gratitude.”
Just before Bruce got sick, this same website introduced me to my favorite quote from therapist Francis Weller: “The work of a mature human is to hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and be stretched large by them.”
The concept of balancing my grief with gratitude — not displacing the grief, but adding gratitude to it — literally saved my sanity during that horrible season of my life. Thus a practice that had been a good idea prior to that season became as necessary as oxygen during and after that season.
“Fear can make us hide. Love can call us back.” I choose every day to notice the love, practice gratitude and turn my back on the fear.
I hope you’ll join me. Notice the love, practice gratitude. It just might change your life.
Cathy Anderson serves as a clinical chaplain in Kennesaw, Ga.