Is God Trying to Tell Me Something?

I could no longer keep my 21-year-old company going, my mother had blood cancer, and I mangled my arm two days into my Obamacare. Lord. Speak to me.

You know that song from the The Color Purple, “God is Trying to Tell You Something”? In the movie, boozy blues singer Shug Avery is disowned by her preacher father. One Sunday morning, she bursts into his country church with her entourage from Harpo’s juke joint, belting out the song.

“Speak, Lord. Won’t you speak to me,” she implores.

Shug Avery wasn’t interested in being born again, and I don’t think she was asking Him to speak to her. Just him, her father. Shug wanted his acknowledgement and she finally gets it as he embraces her at the pulpit.

A dear colleague of mine and fellow Color Purple fanatic texted this song to me a few weeks ago after I let him know I had closed my longtime business, my mother was undergoing a stem cell transplant, and I effed up my arm in a bicycle accident.

Indeed. I believe God has been trying to tell me something.

On June 23 of last year, after I got home from a conference in Detroit, I called my mom to see how her doctor’s appointment had gone. She told me, “It didn’t go how we expected.” Mother had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.

On September 4, the day after Labor Day, I assembled our staff of 15 to let them know our company was closing. Our core business had been dwindling for four years, and despite downsizing and revenue diversification we were unable to sustain the business.

On October 2, two days into my Obamacare coverage, I crashed my bicycle on a neighborhood ride. A serious arm injury required a trip to urgent care, then to the emergency room, and ultimately into surgery.

On November 2, Mother had her stem cell transplant at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio. My father, my wife Millie and I had rented a dog-friendly Airbnb house for a month, and my sister flew out from West Virginia for 10 days.

Mother and me her first day out of “quarantine”–on the way to Target for a Starbucks coffee and cheese danish.

By the time my bike crash happened in early October, Mother’s plans for a stem cell transplant were well under way. First there had been a battery of tests to ensure that at age 76 her body could withstand the treatment. Then there would be the harvesting of her stem cells (a week-long outpatient process), followed by a two- to three-week hospital stay that would include heavy-duty chemo that would make her violently ill for days and lose her hair. The chemo would eliminate her immune system. Her white blood cell counts would go to zero. She’d become dangerously fragile.

But then there’d be change. Positive change.

Her own stem cells, once transplanted, would generate a whole new bone marrow system–replacing the aggressive multiple myeloma cells that had taken over her body the past year. Ultimately, the risky procedure would hopefully put her into remission and give her lots more years than the five-year-average prognosis without.

It was the week before the stem cell collection that I experienced by bike crash. I wouldn’t be able to use my arm–my right arm–for weeks. Millie had to do practically everything for me–help me bathe, hook my bra, cut my meat, carry suitcases. Everything else I did left-handed. Millie also navigated my insurance coverage under a brand new marketplace policy that wasn’t yet fully “in the system.” Because my insurance was so new, it took trips to three different radiology clinics to find one that would go through with the prescribed MRI to detect if my bicep tendons were dislocated. Turns out, my bicep was still intact. I was relieved there would be no surgery required.

However, like the second half of my 2018, the twists and turns ensued. My arm turned black and blue from my shoulder to my wrist. I had a bicep so swollen I named it “Arnold” (as in Schwarzenegger). Four weeks after the accident, my orthopedist had to conduct surgery after all–to remove Arnold, hematoma extraordinaire. I had a Jackson-Pratt drain hanging out of my bicep for a week, and guess who removed the line from my arm in the San Antonio Airbnb kitchen one night over a shot of whiskey? Millie, because we couldn’t get back to Austin to have my doctor do it.

The week after my accident, and before her hospitalization, Mother collapsed in her bedroom early one morning as a complication of the daily stem cell harvesting shots. It was Millie who had to help my father lift her, deadweight, onto the bed. I wasn’t much help, lending one arm to the group hoist.

Meanwhile back at the ranch (literally; where we live in the Texas Hill Country), our clothes dryer pooped out, and other things besides my arm got mangled. We put an ugly scrape down the side of our only car, and even our dear dog Sancha got herself beat up one dark night by some unknown animal, bush or fence (we know not which), hobbling in the door with a deep gash on a front leg and a big limp on a hind leg. Did I mention we’re on a budget? And, seriously, at one point, I had a surgical line in my bicep, my mother had a PICC line in her bicep, and even the dog had an open sore on her front leg.

If God is trying to tell me something my guess is it’s something like “Count your blessings, girl.” I’d enjoyed years of success with the business and had a relatively healthy family with long-living grandparents. My time had come to experience some of life’s inevitable hardships and changes.

On a recent Saturday morning, I finished Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming. On the last page she reflects: “I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.”

Here’s how I chose to tell the story of my not-so-great 2018. As the year came to a close, I knew I have everything. A mother who had the courage–and the excellent health insurance–to safely endure a stem cell transplant. Is she in remission? Tomorrow, she has her checkup, including a bone marrow biopsy, and I continue to pray.

I have a wife of 23 years who has been my partner in all things personal and professional. I had a company that made a positive difference in more ways than I’ll ever be able to measure in tobacco prevention, conservation, pollution prevention, corporate client innovations like car sharing, renewable energy and electronics recycling, and, yes, even health insurance.

In The Color Purple, Shug isn’t “born again,” nor am I. But like Shug, I believe in love and compassion, and am deeply humbled. I know change can be painful, and whether you’re ready for it or not, it becomes necessary and usually leads to better things.

If I didn’t have to close the business, I don’t know how Millie and I could’ve found the time to help my father and working siblings help Mother through more than two months of stem cell treatment and a subsequent quarantine at home.

My bicep is scarred and disfigured. You might even say a small patch of it is still the color purple. The once-stretched skin is extremely sensitive, and my shoulder and elbow still hurt, making it difficult to carry some things and sleep in certain positions. Like me, Sancha has an ugly scar on an appendage, but she sidestepped what could have been a bad infection. We’re both jogging together through the neighborhood again, but I don’t have the cajones to ride a bike yet.

Career-wise, I’m still unsure what’s next for me, but I’m so happy for the change and even for the uncertainty. Creating positive change via communication has always been my thing, and that’s something the world will always need. I’ll find a way to plug back in soon.

2019 is here. My parents and siblings are here. Millie, Sancha and I are here. The unknown will never go away, and that’s OK. That’s life, and life is good.

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