Editors note: I couldn’t write this blog for a long time because I knew it would be too heavy and I hadn’t yet processed my feelings about it. You’ll read about how I took a memoir class. And in that memoir class we talked about how your story doesn’t have to include every single thing you think it should, only what the reader needs. So this is the story I wanted to tell. Though it’s much bigger and filled with many more difficult emotions, I had to take that out, for now. And though I don’t want this blog to be only positivity and inspiration, sometimes it is too painful to broadcast the hard stuff, because I know that the only way I can survive is to see and share the bright side. So know that though this isn’t everything I felt, the tough stuff isn’t censored to portray a false view of my reality, it’s censored because I haven’t come to terms with that reality yet.
A couple of weeks ago, I got an email saying that a spot had opened up in an all day memoir writing class that I had joined the waiting list for. It was a little over $100 and though I’ve been trying to save up my money, I felt it was a sign that it’s time to splurge and do this for my future book. I excitedly texted Kyle about it and he said “Do it!” and so I clicked SIGN UP. The class was in just a few short days and I went into it knowing nothing about what it would be like.
The night before, I stayed with friends. That morning, I woke up after a dream that someone with CF was in my writing class. But really, 1 in 2000 people has CF… what would be the chances of that?
I packed up my backpack with a notebook and my laptop, nervously navigated through Boston on a cold, raw, windy day, and finally sat down in the classroom surrounded by middle aged women. The teacher started out by telling a little bit about her memoir, not hesitating to get personal. It’s not often you meet someone and immediately learn their most life-changing story. It’s also not often you go around a room and tell everyone yours. “So let’s go around the room and say your name, what you’re writing your memoir about, and a book you’d recommend.”
I swallowed, inhaled, and probably turned a little red. I listened to the first 3 women tell a quick synopsis of their stories, filled with pain, heartache, and triumph. People nodded politely as each told their story. Okay, this shouldn’t be so bad. I tried to be cool and sure of myself. “My name is Lauren and I’m writing my story about my life with cystic fibrosis… which is a chronic, life-threatening lung disease…” I tried not to make eye contact with anyone, but two women’s reaction caught my eye out of each peripheral. At first, I wondered why they were reacting so strongly. Were they pitying me? Were they surprised that I had this horrible disease? Then it was each of their turns.
The first, “My name is ____ and I lost a brother and a sister to cystic fibrosis” and she looked at me. Oh, okay. Wow. We shared a look of recognition. That connected look you get when someone’s lived your situation. Where you know their pain. And the next, “My name is _______” and she had another story that I won’t share out of respect for her privacy “And… I also have cystic fibrosis.” Everyone in the room sort of gasped, the 3 of us especially wondering the chances of three women, all affected by cystic fibrosis, ending up in the same room, writing our very different stories.
The class went on, I was filled with ideas and hope and excitement to finally get started. And around 1 o’clock, when it was time to break for lunch, the first woman stood up and asked if I wanted to get lunch. Of course! We chatted a bit, told each other about ourselves. And once we got our food and sat down we finally started talking about how CF had touched our lives.
This community of those affected with CF has always been a strong one, bonded by the mutual understanding of the way this illness affects our lives, but also filled with so much hope and so much pain. Through all of this, though, I love to see that even when people have lost someone to CF, they still commit their lives to the community, in their own ways, at their own time.
When I meet someone who has lost their loved ones to CF, I usually leave things unsaid, because I’m never sure what to say. I’m always mindful that, though I have CF myself, I cannot understand the pain of such a loss.
But this meeting wasn’t about that. It was about sharing our respective stories and who those stories have made us become. Sitting in that cafe, just talking about the beautiful lives her siblings had, and the life I was living, I felt connected in a way that I’m not sure I’ve felt before. It wasn’t about making each other feel any better or comparing scars. It was about compassion, and empathy, and sitting together as part of this community. We talked about our writing and our stories, and the painful things within them. But in the end, we talked about hope. In the end, we talked about life. In the end, we understood that we only get one life and it could be short, or it could be long, but what matters is how you live it.
I’m a big believer in fate. It wasn’t a coincidence that a spot opened up in the very class that would include three people whose lives were affected by CF. It also wasn’t a coincidence that the woman picked to sit down at the very same spot in that very Panera that I had sat a year and a half prior, infusing meds into my PICC as I fought a lung infection, scared about the future. I learned a lot from that day, and it caused me to examine a lot of things about my life that I wasn’t prepared to face. But fate brought me there, and I will grow because of it.
