For a woman who has forsworn complaining, I sure heard a lot of it in the last twenty-four hours.

A woman whom I greatly admire who practices law with enormous dedication and passion lamented the potential reversal of the Missouri Court plan which keeps partisan politics out of big city courtrooms.

A friend who works at a domestic violence shelter told of his staff breaking down at the thought of living in a country led by a president who believes that sexual assault is either acceptable or amusing.

Mothers worried about the lessons conveyed to their daughters about their safety.

Fathers paced around the room talking about their adult sons asking how this could happen in our great nation.

Middle-aged posters on social media blamed the younger generation which dropped out of the campaign when their candidate lost the primary. Twenty-somethings replied they told us this would happen if we picked a candidate with baggage, even a workhorse, even someone qualified..  Native Americans fearful for our climate and their sacred lands raged about a Washington with no social conscience.  African-American children asked their teachers if they would be safe.  Latinos shivered.  Muslim immigrants shrank away from their neighbors.  Everywhere I went, scores of Kansas Citians asked, How could anyone vote for this man, this socio-path, this narcissistic idiotic lecherous predator?

Yet nearly half of the voters filled in a circle by his name.  Despite losing the popular vote, because of our electoral college, he will be our next president.

In the entire day since I crept home from the polls, weary and worried, I only encountered two people who seemed happy that the Republican nominee prevailed.  I heard that a third attended my Rotary meeting this evening, but I did not speak to him.

I’ve listened to everything said by these folks whom I admire.  Their fears for their children, our environment, and anyone with anything different about them.  The disabled, like myself, who watched in horror as this individual mimicked a reporter with a disability.  Rape victims who have a hard enough time coming forward without the overbearing reality of a culture which considers them to be fodder for groping.  My gay neighbors who eagerly ratified their decade-long relationship with a legal marriage last year.

My sister, whose thirty-nine year old daughter sits terrified in her south St. Louis home, unable to understand why we now face a government which will send us reeling back to a time when women were considered second-class citizens and only acceptable if they were pretty or had cleavage the size of Mt St. Helens.

My brother, with five children and one granddaughter who are not “white”.

My stepdaughter, who messaged me at six o’clock this morning, five o’clock her time, to ask, What am I going to tell Gracie?  Her seven-year-old, who still believes in the world’s goodness.

A friend whose kindergartner asked her this morning, How could anyone want that bad man to be our President?

I listened to these complaints.  I reassured each of the speakers.  I told them it would not be that bad.  I told them that the Democrats could take the house in two years.  I told them to write letters, and volunteer, and contribute.  I urged them to see this as a call to arms.  A call to unity among those of us who believe in this social experiment called America.  Those of us who believe that it has always been great.

I smiled all day at the polls yesterday.  I gave out bottles of water.  I calmed down the election judge, made friends with the over-zealous security guard, handed out granola bars that I bought with my own funds, and listened to a librarian talk about her career in chemistry.  After the polls closed, I made a brief appearance at the Cleaver campaign’s gathering, already sure which way the wind blew, not wanting to voice my fear, striving only to see the goodness in the dedication of hundreds to the cause of many more.

But I have ears to hear, and eyes to see.  And I am afraid.

Nonetheless, I will continue to strive towards joy — to learn to face everything that comes to me and at me without complaining.  I feel hopeful that my communion of spirit will eventually become more than the feeble rippling of a single stone.

It’s nighttime on the ninth day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Friends:

As many of you know, I have two blogs.  This blog provides the journal of my quest to live complaint-free.  My weekly blog can be found at: themissourimugwump.blogspot.com.  There, I write my Saturday Musings, accounts of life as I have known it. 

I will soon be launching a third blog, one in which I strive to hold us all accountable for everything that happens in America in the next four years.  

Watch for an announcement of its inaugural entry.

I send my love to each of you.  Be well.

I did not start this blog to debate or lament political views or happenings.  In blogging here, I strive to hold myself accountable for a decision which I made in the fall of 2013 after the death of my mother-in-law.  I decided that I would spend 2014 attempting to matriculate through each day without voicing complaint.

I did not make it through that year, so I’ve continued.  November 2016 marks the thirty-fifth month since I began my journey.  Along the way, I’ve formed opinions about what constitutes complaint, including words both direct and oblique; facial expressions; and actions.  The bark, the eyebrow, and the shrug.  The litany of that which I endure.  Even the  long period of silence punctuated by nothing more than a barely audible sigh.

Last night, I met a man who described himself as a Libertarian.  I laughed.  I’ve heard that line from others.  He put his hand on my arm and said, “No, really.  Really.  Not just a Republican in disguise, but a true Libertarian.”   I listened as he described his views, while the music of the band played and the enlightened few stared at the television screen watching what we’d predicted come to pass.

After a few minutes, the man put down his wine glass and we parted company.  I went into the night and home to let my little dog outside.

But this is not a political blog, nor shall I fall into the trap of sideways complaint.  I sat down at my keyboard to share this: a glimpse at my America, the loveliness of human kind which never fails to give me hope.

I stood on line for two and a half hours to vote yesterday.  On  my arrival, I saw that no provision had been made for handicapped parking or ballot-casting.  I called the voter protection hotline.  Wihin a half hour, while I still waited, moving slowly towards the door, election judges came to begin the process of rectifying the Election Board’s oversight, though not before  I saw two cars pull away with disappointed voters.  Several hours later, I learned that more adjustments had been made, and that voting continued to be heavy at that polling place throughout the evening.

While I stood online, I snapped several photographs.  Scrolling through them in the darkness of my Central Standard bedroom this morning, I paused at a particular shot of the group of people who had navigated the steep hill to join the line after I had been waiting for close to an hour.  I could not help but smile.   I found my kinship in that photograph.  I stared at it for a long long time.  Then I struggled out of bed and went downstairs to start my day.

It’s the ninth day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Today after a brief court appearance, I will drive back to Brookside to exercise the right for which Susan B. Anthony suffered beatings and incarceration.  Then I will spend the day as a tiny part of a massive voter protection effort designed to insure the peaceful exercise of the right to vote around my city.

I have no complaints about this great, wonderful nation of ours.  We have freedom of speech and religion; freedom to marry whom we please and travel where we want.  Though at times events seem to threaten or curtail those rights, still, they stand bold and immutable. We rise as one and battle any threat to our individual or collective freedom.

At a Rotary luncheon this past Saturday, I sat with my friend and fellow Waldo Brookside Rotary Club member Baylee Delaurier.  Baylee works for Stop  Hunger Now.  She glanced at my vegetarian entree and asked how it tasted.  Not very good, I admitted, nibbling gummy pasta and over-cooked carrots.  Oh well, she shrugged.  We’ve got food, and warmth, and we’re sitting in a well-lit room at a conference.  I didn’t ask for the comparison.  I know how blessed we are, here in America.

Or at least — how blessed most of us are.  And the most of us, must look out for the rest of us.  Here in America.  Land of the free, home of the brave, where every one of us has a chance to live complaint-free if we all work together.

It’s the eighth day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

My outfit for today, as patriotic as I could assemble.

A few days ago, a person whom I barely know posted on this site that mentioning my aching back constituted complaining.  She then asked to be unsubscribed from this blog. I obliged, sending her good wishes to which she did not reply.

Her barb got me thinking about my friend Tami Cline, who died a few nights ago.  Tami and I became friends through my representation of her.  We had very little in common except our regard for one another and an appreciation for beautiful art. We had many differences, including that she could afford art while I cannot.  But it did not matter to her.  She received me and my son into her home here in Kansas City, and welcomed me as a house guest in Colorado.  When she needed a place to stay back here, she chose my home over a hotel.

I fretted over my frayed bath towels. I bought new sheets.  I cleaned for hours, including corners neglected for eons.  It did not matter to her.  I could have wiped the fixtures in the bathroom and been done. Her graciousness knew no bounds.

Tami Cline cared passionately for children’s nutrition, her professional calling.  She invented recipes for which she won a few awards. Tami never refused a request for a donation to a worthy cause, and single-handedly   started a blanket give-away program here in Kansas City.  She planned to formalize that program across the nation but did not get the chance due to her illness this summer.    Tami entertained with sublime dedication to her guests’ comfort.  She loved her family, both biological and collected, beyond compare.

I knew Tami for just over eighteen months.  In that time, I never once heard her complain.  Never once.   Tami encouraged me to consider myself worthy of goodness.    She gently pushed me towards that room in my shuttered heart in which I hide my ability to love myself.  I didn’t quite get to where she thought I should go, but I hold her gentle admonishments close.  I have not forgotten what she taught me.

Tami J. Cline PhD, RD, SNS, with her elegant manner and her down-home country girl disposition, changed the way I look at the world, for which I owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.  I will miss her.  Everyone who knew her will miss her.  For a while, too, I will shoulder a few of my personal laments with a little bit more strength because of her example.

Rest well, my friend.  You have earned your place in paradise.

It’s the seventh day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

I spent yesterday communing with people who dedicate an enormous amount of time and money to serving humanity.  With a hundred folks during the day and four times as many in the evening, I attended the District Conference for District 6040 of Rotary International. I mingled with people who have collected more than 10,000 shoes for Orphan Souls; contributed a portion of billions used to nearly eradicate polio; and  worked to build hospitals, clean water, and bring micro-loans to struggling villages.

I paid for the privilege of serving as their Sergeant-At-Arms.   Today my back aches and my shoulders haven’t yet uncoiled.  But I’m not complaining.

Neither am I here to brag.  Instead, I’m telling you about a moment when reality invaded that gathering of Good Samaritans.

The keynote speaker at the dinner honoring the 100th anniversary of the Rotary Foundation told of coming of age as a Rotary scholar from Brazil.  Suddenly hundreds of cell phones bleated into the room.  Amber alert.  The words rippled from table to table.    I slid my phone from a pocket of my purse, along with scores of women. Men tipped theirs from breast pockets.  The speaker paused.  A loud voice penetrated the silence:  It’s in St. Louis.  The speaker resumed his talk.

At the end of the dinner, we stood to sing Let There Be Peace On Earth.  Then four hundred Rotarians went into the night, reinvigorated for the cause of serving humanity.  This morning, scrolling through Facebook, my heart skipped a beat when I saw a post by my cousin Theresa Orso Smythe.  The Amber alert had ended with the death of two small boys at the hand of their father.

For the last twenty-four years, I’ve helped people navigate the trauma of divorce and separation.  Often the children become ragdolls pulled between two parents whose rage and resentment overshadow love and reason.

Many children come unscathed through the restructuring of their families.  But many others suffer.  Torn, battered, beaten, the little ones often collapse.  They move into adulthood with scars that fester.  The gross infection spreads to every limb.  And then there are the ones who do not survive — murdered children, others who cope with grief by self-harm or suicide.  They fall into the system’s wide cracks and end up beyond repair.

Sounds of Humankind drift into the dining room, a program about charitable giving and what drives the human spirit towards philanthropy.  I stare at the picture of two boys and their father.  I try to understand.  I know that I never will.

It’s the sixth day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Ethan and Owen Cadenbach, murdered in St. Louis by their father.

THE ANGEL CHOIR SINGING ‘LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH’.

True confession.

It’s 10:18 a.m. on Thursday, 03 November 2016, and I’m sitting in the baby-changing / nursing-mother room in the women’s restroom on the 3rd floor of the Jackson County Courthouse in downtown Kansas City.  I’m eating carrots, feeling fat, and worried about an afternoon trial that could go to hell or fizzle in the dust, depending on the mood of a judge and the whims of an unemployed father who wants more parenting time to escape his child support obligation.  Or at least, so say I, the mother’s attorney.

I have a 3-minute egg and an apple which I might not be able to eat due to my lousy teeth and the fact that you can’t take a paring knife into the courthouse.  It’s a sad state of affairs when the country is so afraid of terrorists that we aren’t allowed to tote kitchen utensils around with us when we pack our lunches.

If you’re wondering how I know that it’s a three-minute egg, I’ll tell you.  I timed it with my mother’s egg-timer, which I got in an up or down round, after my father died, when my siblings and I moved through our parents house room by room divvying up the stuff.  Oldest to youngest, youngest to oldest. Ann to Steve, Steve to Ann.  When we did the kitchen, we grouped the contents by lots.  I got the stove lot, including the egg timer.  It had sat on a shelf above the stove for years.  I wiped the grease away with the gentlest of motions, the softest of cloths.  My tears cleansed away the lingering touch of my mother’s hand.

My morning docket curdled the coffee in my stomach and made the judge raise his voice.  A warring family, playing tug-of-war with a ten-year old, flanked me.  As the only attorney, I represent what ought to be the sanity factor. My clients, the child’s grandparents, have had actual physical custody for six or seven of her ten years.  Their son resents them and argues for her placement with him.  Their former daughter-in-law considers the grandfather to be her own father.  She calls him “Daddy”.  They formed a faction on my right.  The angry movant seethed on my left.

By the time we finished the status conference, I felt like going home.  But duty calls.

Now I’m using a precious respite to collect my thoughts.  Somebody asked me last night why I work so hard, so many long hours.  I concede that my work distracts me.  It drives away the loneliness.  It keeps me on the marginal side of despair.  Work spreads like lava to fill the hours and stave off my natural tendency to complain.  It deflects my focus from everything about which I might complain, the events which derailed the life that I wanted to make for myself and those which call me to whatever this life might be.

As I came downstairs at 5:15 this morning, the glint of the abiding angel hanging in the stairwell caught my eye.  I lowered my body and leaned against the rail.  I let her gaze warm me, this serene hammered-copper celestial being which my son gave me, two Christmases ago.  When I had the attic finished and hung lights on the wall where coat hooks had been, I knew that I wanted her there too.  Someone to watch over me.  I touched one of her wings as I continued down the stairs.  I took some comfort there.

It’s the third day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Towards the end of my mother’s life, I experienced a particularly brutal day with the pain in my legs.  I had been driving to and from St. Louis  weekend after weekend.  Stress and fatigue trigger my neurological condition.

I sat at my mother’s side reading to her from the Book of Ruth.  Cancer riddled her body, weakening her bones, sapping her strength, and draining her energy.  Death would claim her in just a few months.

But for that night, one quiet summer night in Jennings, my mother focused on her baby girl.

You’re hurting, she remarked, in her raspy voice.  I shrugged.  It’s okay, I assured her.  I’m offering it up for you. My words referenced the old Roman Catholic practice of claiming “indulgences“, which more or less rewarded a sufferer for what they endured.

Oh Mary!  she cried.  You can’t offer your pain up for me!  I’m offering mine up for YOU.

I laughed.  Does that mean we cancel each other out, or trade places, I asked.  And then she joined me in merriment, chuckling long and low.  We embraced each other and held on tight.

So tonight, in the throes of a triple-whammy viral surge, with my back full of shingle pox and my sore throat, my itchy eyes, the burning in places that I rarely contemplate — tonight, I’m trading places with my friend and colleague DeAnna.  I’ll suffer this viral outbreak in her honor.  While I wait for the stepped-up dose of anti-viral to do its job, I’ll stifle any complaint, so that as she tries to recover from the illness which plagues her, DeAnna might benefit from a little indulgence.

It’s the first day of the thirty- month of My Year Without Complaining.  On this All Souls Eve (aka All Saints Day), I think of my mother, whose spirit peacefully dwells wherever our spirits go when our bodies expire. Here on earth, life continues.