Make Your Bed

For the last several years every June 20th I've written a letter to my daughter and posted it on my blog.  I'm not sure I've got anything left to say to her really.  She either knows we love and miss her or she doesn't.  She knows the sins and shortcomings I committed as a parent and caregiver that I've confessed or she doesn't.  I don't know if she somehow hears the words or doesn't.  One more attempt won't change that.  So, rather, on this somber anniversary, I write instead to the parents of those whose children are battling ED or maybe have lost the fight.  And I'll share a couple of little snippets from a commencement speech I read recently from Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command that resonated with me - as a parent who both went to her own war and lost.

My boss sent several of us the transcript because it resonated with him and he wanted to share it with his team to think about how it might apply to us in our work.  It was very inspirational - he was right.  But, when I read it, I didn't translate a single word to my work environment, but all of it to my personal life.

It was a very structured speech as one would expect an Admiral and Navy SEAL to give.  He would tell a vignette from his SEAL training and then sum that particular story up with a one sentence tag line to make a particular point out of it and then move on to the next point and so on until he took all the lessons together to reach the larger goal of the speech (SPOILER ALERT:  that you can change the world).  Very concise and precise.  A soldier's way of doing things.

I'm much more chaotic, so let me see if I can take his wise words and scatter them around a bit to make the point I would like to.  And let me start by repeating the thing that almost gave me chills, "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."  Weird that I would be so impacted by that, right?  Well the reason is I made a big deal out of making the bed every day throughout the last five years.  There were some exceptions - this winter maybe most especially when the cats would snuggle in the warmth of the llama's wool blanket that was my mother's to stave off the vicious cold.  Then I would leave them to sleep in the tumble of sheets, blanket, pillows, book, remote control and scattered clothing.  Or if I'm really sick and really never made it out of the thing all day.  But, for the most part, no matter how horribly depressed or in despair I was, I would make the bed.  What he said about it was so spot on he could have watched me and drawn from my own life.  "If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter," he said.  "...And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better."

It's not the first time someone else has honed in on that.  I got caught up in The Bridge last year.  It was pretty much Game-of-Thrones-meets-Texas.  Lots of tragedy, lots of injustice, lots of personal and physical pain.  In short, everything you want to make you feel better about your own life.  So, one night not long after my husband left to move back to Texas himself,  I'm watching all alone as the main character tells her partner, who just lost his son, to be sure and make his bed.  When he looks at her as though she is mad, she explains that her mentor whom she lived with after her own personal tragedy always told her if she did nothing else in a day she had to make her bed.  So, if you are out there wondering how you're possibly going to take the next step in your life because you're just so overwhelmed, follow all of us in our "professional" opinions:  start with making the bed.

The Admiral also said much later in the speech, "If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment."  I don't know if any of us who have struggled to care for a family member - whether it be someone sick with an eating disorder, or Alzheimer's or cancer or anything else - really is thinking about changing the world at that moment.  And if they lose their loved one, they probably most certainly are not.  Yet, there's no doubt for most of us that's our darkest moment.  I think the thing Admiral McRaven might say, though, judging him by the content of his speech alone, is that if you persevere in that personal quest you might just end up changing the world somewhere down the line.  Maybe your son or daughter will recover to find the cure for some disease - maybe even ED.   If you think all is beyond hope because, like me, you lost your child to the disease, it's not.  There are other people's children out there who still need you, even though they may never even meet you.  There is still a monster out there stealing promising lives away from the world.

Take the time you need to recover yourself.  For me, it's been five years today.  These aren't the years I thought I would live.  But they are what I have been given.  So, what can I do with the next five?  Can I try and change the world?  I will never know if I don't try.  So today, I will get out of bed and then I will make it.  Then I will face the world.

You can as well.  I believe in you.