A WARRIOR MOM

 “When you become a parent, you might as well just open a vein.”  I’ve long forgotten who said that to me, but as a mother, I immediately understood.  Parenthood abruptly catapults one into the realization of how many ways you can fail at protecting your child from life’s randomness.  Before you, at all times, one hundred little heartbreaks lie in wait. 

This is why military families have my deepest respect.  When a son or daughter enlists, they pledge themselves to defend and serve this country.  And when that child is deployed to an area of conflict, a parent serves too, uttering a daily prayer, while braced for the possibility that a phone call could rip through their life like a bullet.

When the phone rang on May 11, 2005, Diana Mankin Phelps’s first thoughts were “No, Lord why?  I’ve got to get to my child!” 

A half a world away in Iraq, her son Cpl. Aaron P. Mankin, was serving as a combat correspondent in the United States Marine Corps.  He was filming from the top of a 26-ton Amphibious Assault Vehicle, carrying 17 other marines, when it rolled over an IED buried in the dirt road.   As the bomb exploded, they were thrown ten feet in the air, crashing down in a ball of fire.  All of the men were injured and six did not survive. Aaron was flown from the field hospital to Germany and 48 hours later, arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio in severe respiratory distress, with burns over 25% of his body.  The entire trajectory of Diana’s life and her family’s was forever changed with one phone call. 

As Diana’s third child, her baby, Aaron had a special place in his mother’s heart.  You can see it in the way they act around one another; the deference and respect with which Aaron treats her, the outright pride and devotion that plays over her face as she watches him speak from the audience, or accompanies him to warrior events, where he is often the honored guest.

Aaron can still recall his first day of school, when he began to cry at the thought of leaving home and his Mom. “She took my hand and kissed it,” he said.  “Her lipstick left a stamp and she told me this way she would be with me all day.”

Almost 20 years later, Diana would make the same promise to herself and to Aaron, only this time she truly would not leave his side.  At the military hospital, her new role was to witness, comfort, care and advocate for her son during the more than 60 surgeries that would follow in the ensuing years.  Battling back the fear and heartbreak that could so easily consume in the wee hours of the night, she remained by Aaron’s side for the next nine months.

One thing Diana shares with so many other military parents whom I have met along the way is moxie, a determination and an ability to soldier on, to call upon resilience and rely upon blind faith when the going gets tough.  

Born in Fresno, California, Diana moved to Oklahoma, where she graduated high school and then took a job in Arkansas working in the home office of Wal-mart and Sam’s Clubs, climbing the corporate ladder in a number of different professional capacities.

During those years, she began to develop health issues and was ultimately diagnosed with lupus and degenerative disc disease, precipitating a retirement in 1993.   While staying by Aaron’s side during his difficult and often painful recovery, she quietly battled her own health issues and pushed down the frequent pain that accompanied her illness.

Diana’s story is that of the caregiver.  She is the mother in the equation, the other side of war.  Parents like her don’t wear a uniform.   They don’t get a parade or a medal for their actions.  Diana is one of the hundreds of thousands of loved ones on the front lines here at home, a witness to the back end of war, both the obvious, visible wounds and the hidden traumatic injuries, that can be triggered by the littlest things.Diana is one of the legions of people pushing the wheelchair or dispensing the medications, lifting up a loved ones spirits with a cheerleader-like devotion, explaining away their son’s jitters in a crowded public place or requesting restaurant seating so their warrior can feel safe with his back to the wall.

And because life doesn’t take a vacation when a loved one is injured, Diana soldiered on with her own basket of troubles.  During the years she was helping Aaron to recover, she lost her own brother and sister, both of her parents and battled cancer.   Yes, I said cancer.  On top of her other medical issues, Diana was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009, undergoing a mastectomy and chemotherapy in 2010.

How, one wonders, did she find the fortitude to get up some mornings, to try to understand that maybe there was a grander plan?  Writing her book, “A Mother’s Side of War,” was part of her own catharsis and it fulfilled a need to try to educate about war from a parent’s perspective.

This past November 11th, as I stood at our town’s Veterans Day ceremony this year, I noticed the shocking absence of young people in the audience.  Heck, there wasn’t even much of an audience to begin with. 

Where were the children, I wondered? Where were the very people who would be called upon to care for those who have served and been injured, especially in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Where were the 99% who benefit from the freedoms that the less than 1% uphold and fight for?

As the divide grows between the civilian and military worlds, the lack of a draft means that only a small fraction of our population will understand the definition of serving.  We risk losing something as a culture that fosters that “good shiver” up the spine when the flag is unfurled, a patriotic song plays, or jets do a flyover.And can we please set aside here all of the things we’d like to fix about America?  Just for a moment? It’s too easy to pick apart what’s wrong. The trick is to put our collective shoulders into fixing it. 

There was something potent at work in the wake of September 11th, a palpable unification that rose up and fused us together as a land.  Where is that now, I wonder?   Much of that pride is still very alive and well amidst our military families. It’s a sense of mission and purpose and a belief that, despite our warts, America is still a country that stands for and tries to deliver great things, even as we sometimes stumble and fail.

Books like Diana Mankin’s memoir help us to keep the stories of our country alive.  It is the story of sacrifice, of bravery and of love of country.  Her story is all of our stories.  It’s the story of America.

“A Mother’s Side of War” by Diana Mankin Phelps is available at amotherssideofwar.com or at your preferred online retailer. 

                                                        

During this season of giving let us remember those like Diana and Aaron who have given so much 
For information on how you can give, visit the Bob Woodruff Foundation.

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Glassybaby

Lung cancer.  That will stop a conversation.  More than any of the frightening medical diagnoses, that one seems extra ominous.  Someone utters the words “lung cancer” and I think of devastating, almost insurmountable odds.

At the age of 32, that’s what Lee Rhodes was told when she learned that her worrisome symptoms were actually a rare form of lung cancer.  She was a young mother deep in the thick of raising three small children.  This was not supposed to happen, not how life spooled out. 

She went on to endure uncertainly, surgery and rounds of chemo, and there were clearly moments when she questioned whether or not she would live to watch her babies grow.  Stress and fear and sadness, those are all immeasurable barriers to the healing process and Lee Rhodes had many important reasons to live.

One day, searching for a simple way to still the “what ifs” that reverberated around her brain in a mental sound track, she spontaneously dropped a tea light in a glass cup that her husband had created in a glass blowing class.  Sometimes the birth of life’s great ideas begins as simply and as spontaneously as that.

 

 

That one isolated act was a fulcrum moment for Rhodes.  As she watched the color of the glass glow and reflect the warmth of the flame, she felt her world slow for a moment.  She was infused with a sudden sense of deep down calm.  The simple candle in the colored glass settled her soul in a way that none of the other centering therapies had been able to do up to that point in her journey.

“In my mind, that candle in the glass contributed to my healing.  It made me step back, relax and take a deep breath,” Rhodes remembers.

From that day forward, Lee Rhodes filled her home with a series of the colorful glass vessels and they continued to inspire her.  At first, Lee remembers that people lit them for her, as a way to instill hope.  In time, as she began to recover, she began to light them not just for herself, but also for others.

And when Rhodes went on not only to survive, but to kick cancer’s butt, the disease had given her a mission to try to help other people fighting in what she calls “the battlefields of chemotherapy rooms.”  Gradually, she began to share her talisman for calm, giving the colorful votive holders away to people who were suffering.  As she watched the popularity of the holders grow along with demand, she began selling them out of her garage.

 

In 2001 Rhodes started Glassybaby, with the goal of raising money to help cancer patients ease the journey of treatment by covering unreimbursed healthcare costs.  These unmet needs range from something as simple as transportation to chemo or babysitting money while a patient goes to the doctor, to the more weighty costs of medical treatment itself.

Today, Glassybaby produces beautiful, colorful hand blown glass vessels in more than 400 colors.  The craftsman are all located in the United States and part of the beauty of their creations is the subtle variation in shape, size and hue, a testament to the artisanal quality of the finished product.  Each vessel is comprised of three layers of glass and requires four glass blowers to produce, hence their ethereal glowing qualities.

Glassybabys come in names as varied as the products themselves like Wet Dog, Frog Hunting, Wingman and Crème Brule.  “They are,” says Rhodes, “individual pieces of art at each table.”

The business currently has stores in Seattle, her home base, and is opening in San Francisco and New York, with more cities to come.  Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was so enthralled with the Glassybaby product and mission that he persuaded Rhodes to sell him 20% of the company.

There are 70 plus glass blowers producing roughly 500 votives a day, which has translated into the company being able to donate more than $1.4 million to date to charities that help cancer patients with costs not covered by health insurance.   The company’s ultimate goal is to give away $1 million a year.

Like Rhodes, many of the people who work at Glassybaby have been touched by cancer in some way. And it’s that passion and commitment to the cause that remains one of the reasons the company has continued to grow at a steady rate.

“Everyone in a waiting room is fighting the same enemy.  But it’s very profound when you meet people who literally don’t have the money for the bus fare to get them to chemo,” she says.  And it’s that part of the journey she is determined to ease through the sale of her beautiful glass vessels.

I first learned about Glassybaby when a friend gave me a gorgeous purple candleholder as a gift.  For months it sat in my office, glowing.  And then another friend found a lump in her breast. 

In the spirit of Lee Rhodes, I brought my Glassybaby to her home one day and lit a votive.  Art is meant to be shared, not sequestered.  And my friend (who is thankfully now cancer free) told me that she would light it during low moments.  The glow reminded her that she was connected to a tribe of determined people who were fighters, each tending their own embers of hope.  And she was a fighter too.

This month, I choose Lee Rhodes as my person of inspiration.  She took her own experience and her story and created something that could light the way for others yet to come.  So it seems especially relevant, during breast cancer awareness month, to shine a light back on Lee and her beautiful, multi-colored mini beacons of hope.

You can learn more or purchase your own Glassybaby creation at  www.glassybaby.com.

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A Remarkable Persson

Things come in bunches.  And so this spring was a season of loss when first a friend passed away, then my mother-in-law, and finally another extraordinary woman, whom I actually only met three times in person, but who impacted the world in important and aspirational ways.

The remarkable Helen Persson was 95 years old when she died.  And although I recognize that none of us are going to ever cheat death, especially in their ninth decade, the news stayed with me for days.

People throw around the description that someone has a “sparkle in their eye,” but in her case it was a physical fact.  Her hazel eyes virtually twinkled and snapped with life, interest and a little bit of healthy mischief.

She used her influence wisely, and understood the power of giving back when the world has handed you good fortune.   And to that end, she gave generously during her lifetime in the areas of education, the arts and assisting our military families.

Helen is one of those American dream stories that continue to reinforce that a little luck, combined with elbow grease and chutzpah, can carry someone a long way down the road.  She grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Russian immigrants who imbued her with a strong faith and a love of music.  And she would go on to sing professionally, encouraged by an officer in the Navy who had heard her perform.  Music and opera singing became both her passion and vocation.  And after leaving the military, Helen would have many roles in operatic productions, often playing the lead.

She got her nursing degree at the University of Pennsylvania College of Nursing and shipped out after Pearl Harbor during WW2 with the Navy Nurse Corp.  Working her way up, she attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander.  When I met Helen for the first time, she emotionally recounted some of her experiences caring for the wounded in the war.  She spoke of the boys she could not save, the ones who asked for their mothers before they died.  She understood first hand that head injuries were among the most devastating and severe wounds of war.

It was this connection, her close association with caring for those who had sustained blast injuries that brought me into Helen’s orbit for the first time.  She had followed my husband Bob’s career as an anchor on television.  When the news was announced that he had been hit by a roadside bomb, Helen instantly understood that the prognosis was not good.


On my first visit to her home in Pam Beach, Helen told me that she would never forget the young men she had cared for.  The experience of tending to young soldiers, who were wounded in battle, would forever forge her appreciation for and dedication to our nation’s military families.  Helen considered herself connected to them.

I would hear the sentiments and sorrow articulated by Helen echoed by many of the nurses who served in Vietnam.  Their pain and trauma was, like so many of our medical personnel in wartime, never given an outlet or acknowledged by the military and the public.  No one, in pervious wars, recognized the post traumatic stress that comes with treating injured and dying soldiers.  Most of the incredible medics, nurses, doctors and other health professionals who served our troops lived silently with their internal scars of trauma and stress.

It was our mutual connection to Colgate University that brought me into contact with Helen.  Her husband, Ted Persson ’42, was a generous benefactor to Bob’s and my alma mater and a mutual friend from the University introduced us.  Although I was eager to speak with her, at that first meeting I was unsure of what condition she might be in at her age.

The woman who greeted me, with that signature twinkle and wonderful laugh, was not compromised one bit by any cognitive clouding.  She was sharp as a tack, asking brilliant questions and telling stories of her gutsy, accomplished life.

She had read our book, “In an Instant,” and she wanted to know more about the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps injured service members and their families cope with the wounds of war.  She asked thoughtful questions about our mission and drilled me on how our dollars were spent. 

It was a few weeks later, after that first visit, that our fledgling foundation got a phone call from Helen.  She wanted to make a donation, to help give us the wings we needed to tackle some of the long-term issues plaguing our service members.


I can picture exactly where I was standing when I got the call from the foundation’s Executive Director.  I was at a spa where two dear friends had kidnapped me to “caregive the caregiver” as they called it, following the grueling year of putting our family back together during Bob’s long recovery.  I stepped outside into the sunlight to take the call.

“Are you sitting down,” our executive director asked.   I wasn’t.

“I just got off the phone with Helen Persson.  She’s writing us a check for one million dollars.”  Silence.  I was speechless.  And then I burst into tears and sat down. 

For each of those remaining years of her life, Bob and I were honored to be invited to her annual birthday party in Palm Beach.  They were always intimate affairs, with the people surrounding her she loved most, her family, her fellow opera buffs, some of the folks from the hospital where she was a benefactress and many others who were the definition of devoted friends.

At the first party I attended, Helen belted out a song for her guests, accompanied by a pianist.  I remember being captivated by the look of pure joy on her face at the ability to entertain us all.

Over the years we stayed in touch through phone calls and notes.  We put a scrapbook together for her of some of the families that her generous donation had helped.  I was able to travel to one more of her birthday celebrations, but each time Bob was called away for a journalistic assignment.  Once he was actually holding plane tickets and then got called away the night before.

Both of us had Helen’s 95^th birthday written in pen on our calendars.  But this past year she pulled a fast one on us, holding the party on the weekend presumably so that it would be easier for out of town guests to travel there.  We were both very disappointed to realize that we had solidly booked commitments on the date of her soiree.  We would miss another year.  But Bob taped a video message to her and told her he would be there next year, regardless of whatever news was breaking and where.

Helen’s death shouldn’t have shocked us.  At some point the body simply gives out.  But the news filled me with remorse.  We would not get another chance to see Helen, to hear her stories about the past, to listen to the laugh that always made you smile when you heard it. 

Weeks later, once again, a call from our foundation.  Helen Persson had remembered the military families and the wounded in her will.  She had honored the work of the Bob Woodruff Foundation with another substantial donation.  More tears of joy. This time I made sure to sit down.

This year we will be establishing an award for Helen Persson as a way to honor her legacy of service.  It is fitting that the intention of the award is to recognize a “Persson” who has given admirably in the area of veteran’s causes and veteran’s service organizations.

I like to imagine that somewhere up there in the big old heavens, Helen is reuniting with many of her old friends, her husband and family, and I imagine a number of the young men whom she once cared for during World War II.   That’s the way I like to picture it, anyway.

Helen Persson left her mark in ways too numerous to detail here, and if I did it would sound like a lengthy obituary.  She lived fully and loved large, and she remains a shining example to me that there are big and little ways to positively impact this world.  She didn’t just twinkle, she shone.  May we all move through the world a little like Helen.

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