Where Is The Angel?

   By Mary Jane Hurley Brant

Where is the Angel?
I’ve searched
everywhere
for her.

She has gone.

For how long
will she be gone?

Forever.

Forever?

Yes, forever.
And, also, that best part of
her and him.

Who is he?

The angel’s father, who was her hero.

Oh.  And what of the mother?

She’s a different woman now.
She seeks change;
wants to explore.

Will they both soldier on?
Serve heaven’s commands?
Life’s spiritual demands?

Yes.  They march forward
with precious tenderness
patience, pain and remembrance;
Grief’s their companion now.

Do you believe they’ll manage together
this monumental,
overwhelming
grief forever?

Yes, forever and ever and ever.

The Hero's Journey

by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

Some say we don’t have anymore heroes but I say we do.  Let’s take a look at what a hero is and decide if you are one.

A hero travels the hero’s journey.  That’s when regular people such as you or me are asked to leave our routine life because something serious has occurred and we are asked to do something about it.  We are “called to help.” We are called to save our king, our country, our friend, or ourself.  And because the task is arduous, we really don’t want to accept it.

Medieval stories call the journey a “quest” because the hero faces not only a serious challenge but sometimes a life or death circumstance to boot.  Examples of a modern day hero’s journey are leaving for war, battling a cancer, caring for a parent stricken with Alzheimer’s, burying a beloved child or mate, or going through a painful divorce.  The challenge we meet on the hero’s journey might mean facing an enemy within such as a dependence on alcohol, drugs or a compulsive behavior.

Once we fully face the seriousness of our challenge, we realize that nothing in our life will ever be the same. And while we may feel very much alone with this realization, rest assured, fellow traveler, that you are not alone if you are on the hero’s journey because a spiritual guide always emerges with the sole purpose of reminding us of our strengths, offering us encouragement, and providing us with much appreciated hope. Think now about your own life.  Did an angel of mercy in the form of a rabbi, a pastor, a counselor, a teacher, or a sagacious friend appear just when you needed the help?  Did your spouse, or sibling, or parents’ faith and prayers pull you through and keep you believing?  Did God or

Spirit fortify your resolve and strengthen your courage?

More problems confront us on the hero’s journey.  And even while feeling battle weary, the hero not only stays riveted on the original goal but he or she manages additional strength to confront the fear which really holds power over him or her.  Nothing stops the hero who pushes through to complete the mission and return home victorious where friends, neighbors and family shout, “Welcome home!” This is biblical, archetypal and transcendent.

So, what do you think?  Are you a hero?  If you have walked the hero’s journey then maybe you are.  And if you are a hero you probably had a helping hand from someone when you lost your way.  We all need support in our descents, quests, and pilgrimages whether a hero’s journey or not.  I love the idea of reflecting on life, particularly our trials, because it affords an opportunity to give thanks to the people whose grace kept our souls believing when we thought we could bear no more.

My friends, whether we have fought the unbeatable foe, whether we have walked the hero’s journey or not, remember it’s never too late to be grateful for another chance to make our life, our dreams and Every Day Matter.

Passive-Aggressive Behavior

by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

Have you ever felt confused when speaking with someone?  He or she might be smiling but you were uncomfortable by how they were acting?  Well, it might be a passive-aggressive behavior you are experiencing. Passive-aggressive behavior is a manner of interacting with others in passive ways as, for example, “by stubbornness, sullenness, procrastination, or intentional inefficiency.” (Medicine.net) I would add another element: you act out the other person’s anger and they enjoy seeing it.

According to The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, passive-aggressive people find it difficult to follow their own goals; they also define themselves in relation to other people but they do it in a negative manner.  And because passive-aggressive people behave in indirect ways, they actually expect others to treat them poorly but they won’t fight back directly.  Instead, they will do so in a back-door or back-stabbing manner.  It’s unpleasant but, when you recognize it, you can manage your response more easily.

For example, passive-aggressive people are often late with commitments and remark, to your understandable statement of annoyance, “Chill out, what’s the rush?” Or they might promise to do something but you end up doing it. “Sure, I’ll vacuum the living room” or “Great, I’ll have that on your desk this afternoon.”  Of course none of it happens or by the time it does you wish you had never asked them to help in the first place.  It’s a form of control. Procrastination and manipulation are names for this game.  And it is a game, a game of aggression.

These unhealthy behaviors typically originate in the person’s childhood where it was unsafe to be direct or, worse, the child was punished or shamed if they were direct and outspoken so they learned to manipulate others to survive.  Sometimes this behavioral style was simply modeled by a parent and adopted as the family dynamic. For that reason alone passive-aggressive people have few, if any, real intimate relationships.

As adults, each of us is called to learn good communication skills for the sake of our own self-esteem and the sanity of our mates, friends, families and co-workers.  When an individual behaves in a passive-aggressive way with you, take a deep breath and remind the other person that this behavior is disrespectful.  When they are sarcastic, don’t ignore it.  Simply respond, “Are you being sarcastic?”  When they respond yes simply say, “I don’t compute sarcasm. Please be direct.” If the person is a co-worker make certain, when possible, that dealings with them are on paper or with someone else present to witnesses the interaction.

Remember, my Friends, life is precious so spend your time with people who want to connect!  People who want to celebrate the beauty of life!  People who want to make Every Day Matter.

The  Seasons of a Marriage

by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

  I just celebrated a milestone in Italy – 45 years of being married to the same man. Not bad for a woman who still thinks of herself as being only 43 years old. This “looking back time” has left me sentimental and reflective about the state of marriage and how those years spent together can be comparable to the four “seasons” in a calendar year. Maybe my musings will capture some of your own experiences of the seasons of a marriage, too.

The Spring of Marriage – We were young and intoxicated with desire and optimism that every expectation we ever dreamed of was possible. In hindsight, I also realize how we were overflowing with projections and blinded by the light of the mythological god and goddess. I actually thought of us as Eros and Aphrodite, the god and goddess of love! Yes, we were in love and playing house in the suburbs of Newark as my husband finished his MBA and I worked to support us.  He told everyone he married me for my money.

The Summer of Marriage – We brought our two children into the world. The kids filled our lives with love, fun and adult responsibility. Later, in this second season of the marriage cycle, our children flew away from their carefully constructed family nest and into their young college lives. And, just as I cried when I dropped them off at nursery school, I wept again after dropping them off at college. When we arrived home we went in and looked around. The silence, the stillness was deafening. No children opening the refrigerator door every 10 minutes. No children sleeping in until noon or at least until their father revved up the lawn mower under their bedroom windows to get their sorry butts out of bed!  “Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days” – now my husband and I morphed into Tevye and Golde from “Fiddler on the Roof.” No wonder that song makes so many parents sigh or cry.

During this summer season I wanted my husband to “fix” things (like my lonely heart) and announced, authoritatively, “Something needs to change!” I thought the something was him. He understood that our children being gone was a hard adjustment for me but gently stressed that they needed to live their own lives and we needed to begin our next season. Yes, the flowers of summer had gone and we, like other middle-aged parents, learned to surrender to our “empty nest.”

The Autumn of Marriage – We learned about the golden leaves of transition. We also watched our son, Richard, fall in love and marry the woman of his dreams.  Little did we know that a college investment would turn into a family blessing. We learned, however, that our daughter Katie’s fate wouldn’t be as fortuitous when after her first year at college she was handed a cancer diagnosis. Our family clung together as the storm around us reached hurricane proportions and Katie’s surgeries and treatments continued on and off for 10 years.

Despite her courageous efforts, our sweet daughter never did return to complete wellness because her brain tumor outsmarted all of us, including her doctors. We mournfully had to learn another painful lesson: life isn’t fair. That was when Katie, at 28 years old, left this world and ours. The autumn of our marriage presented us with a monumental challenge: We had to figure out how we would survive this ultimate loss.

Eight months after Katie’s death our first grandchild entered the world quickly followed by number two and three. We pitched in wherever we could, tried to act like we knew nothing about raising kids, and pretended to keep up with the little ones physically. The grandchildren’s joy and presence helped us accept what no parent wants to even think about, never mind accept. We credit our grandchildren for giving us back our lives.

During the latter part of this autumn season we shared what we wanted to do with our life now. I still wanted the focus of work as a counselor and writer; my husband was nearing retirement but would keep up his volunteer work, and we both wanted the pleasure of play.  We’re doing well and live our lives to the fullest, as Katie would have wanted us to.

Standing on the hills of Assisi for our 45th wedding anniversary, I felt the rewards and peace St. Francis spoke about and the personal rewards of going the distance. Not every couple is as lucky.

The Winter of Marriage – While we are not there yet, we realize old age will be the final season of marriage. My husband will be Odysseus, the Greek hero who fought the good fight, despite the perils and challenges he encountered during the previous three seasons. His wife will remain a combination of Aphrodite, Golde and the Artemis she really always was, the independent woman he fell in love with over four decades ago.

If I project into the last season, I imagine we’ll live a bit more in our souls because our bodies, like the trees of winter, will have lost most of their leaves. We’ll also stay grateful and open to any final gifts of grace this winter season of marriage might provide. We’ll read Yeats. We’ll watch Netflix. We’ll laugh. We’ll smile. We’ll say thank you. We’ll pray.

This article was published in The SandPaper, October 15, 2014

and Aronimink & Greene Countrie Living Magazine, March, 2016