This Saturday, January 22nd will be the first anniversary of my sister Pat’s birth since her death last fall at 78 in a memory care facility. As part of my own Art of Grieving practices I try to remember and honor a deceased loved one in some special way on their birthday. I ask myself, “How about making a donation in her name to an organization that serves people suffering from the disease she died from, in her case -Alzheimer’s?” “How about visiting and toasting her with a mutual friend?” “How about an act of service to some children since she loved kids of all ages?” “How about gathering our InterPlay playmates and dancing, singing, and trading Pat stories?”
All of these possibilities sound inviting to me but, given what’s happening in our family right now, I wish I could ask her a question. “Is there any way you could help us from where you are, on the other side? Here’s a bit of background on why that question has occurred to me.
Pat was a lawyer. She graduated law school, but she was never able to pass the bar. This was despite having earned one of the highest scores possible on the LSAT, the test that potential students must pass to get into law school. After graduation, Pat used her skills as a lawyer in her work for the Volkswagen of America corporation. She negotiated on behalf of the company with customers whose automobiles were being repossessed. I know for a fact that she was an excellent negotiator for both sides, creative in the way she came up with solutions, and she saved many people’s cars and the jobs and livelihoods that were necessary for them to have a mode of transportation to keep them.
Her pay was less for not having passed the state bar, so she studied and attempted to pass it two or three times. But each time, just before she was to take the test, her ex-husband, the father of her son, would initiate actions through the courts to amend or modify the child support or visitation schedule. My sister did not do conflict well, in spite of my coaching her on standing up for herself. It pained her to have to keep fighting in court over family matters. As a social worker I was taught to keep family issues out of the court because for families, in that win/lose adversarial system, the outcome can only be a lose/lose. It certainly was for my sister, and I suspect for her son as well, as children often are caught in the middle.
Quite far along in Pat’s career, when she had become quite dissatisfied with being a lawyer, she found another way to use her skills as a negotiator, becoming a mediator. The definition of mediation is “an intervention in a dispute in order to resolve it. Sometimes this is called “Dispute Resolution.” As an improv artist, I like to think of mediation as a “Yes, And” system. One person has an opinion, goal, or intention and, the other person has a different one. The mediator listens respectfully to both sides and tries to find and convince both sides to accept an agreement that will be a win/win solution. If you look closely at the fine print contracts that corporations require us to sign in order to use their services, they state that, should there be a disagreement, we agree ahead of time to submit it to arbitration, often adding the word “binding.” In that case, a neutral party, after listening to both sides, decides the matter, rather like a judge does in court, and like it or not, that settles it.
I’m not sure exactly what cases Pat took on, but I know she was much happier working as a mediator. And I know that the best job she ever had, one that used her kid magnet super- powers, and filled her with joy every day that she did it, was a grant-funded project to teach mediation skills to 4th graders.
I’m not sure that I should be bothering my sister with the family troubles and issues we are currently dealing with, “her having gone on to larger life,” as my friend and teacher Glenda refers to it. But I am more than a little bit amazed at the synchronicity involved here in that this weekend is Pat’s birthday and at this very time, leading up to this weekend, some members of our family are going through a process of mediation, a process being mediated by her lawyer son. Maybe she’s already helping us out, and in that case, I have to say to Pat–
“For all you have been to me, and all you have already done, as they used to say as a signoff in vaudeville–‘My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, and I thank you!’” Know that I am and always will be, eternally grateful to you.”
Sheila
