Firefighters
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“I will never allow personal feelings, nor danger to self, deter me from my responsibilities as a firefighter”
-Firefighter Code of Ethics
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When your life takes a sudden turn and the unexpected lies before you, the simplest of questions appear overwhelming and relying on others for assistance becomes a temporary way of living. It’s foreign ground. Only trust in the guidance sustains you.
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To understand a firefighter completely and not be one yourself means you’re married to one or pretty darn close to one. Michael considers it an honor to be a firefighter, and I can do nothing but to honor him in discovering and living his passion. Firefighters are a complicated breed. Their common features extend beyond state lines and even national borders. But the thing is--the very thing that drives you nuts about them--is also that thing that makes you love them. Michael is great at what he does; yet he, himself, would never admit to anything more than being just one of the guys within this group.

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I started anticipating the events of September 11, 2001, about six months before it happened; about four years before cancer would hit our family. Everything came in the form of dreams up until August. Then a terrible sadness started hitting me in the middle of the day, with no apparent trigger. I would be driving and find myself needing to pull over because I couldn’t see through my tears. The wave of emotion would last a few minutes, and then I could carry on with the rest of my day.
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Benjamin was three and Abigail, one, when the towers fell. I had slept in that morning, something I never did. I woke up when Michael came home, still in uniform from all-night duty. “There has been a terrible accident.” He was almost stuttering. “They think a small plane has hit one of the twin towers in New York.” He was gesturing, his hands needing a task. He actually started signing “accident” and “plane.”
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Later, the facts became clearer, the horror documented in every media format on earth. I found myself clinging to specific stories. “I want to know how the buildings were built! Why did the chiefs send those firefighters up into those buildings? Planes have hit those buildings! They can’t put out those fires.” I was incensed--angry and sad.
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Although I know the code of firefighters, I was still infuriated that they followed it into such danger. I projected my own relationship with Michael onto their situation until I realized the true source of my fear. There was no separation between “us” and “them.” All firefighters believe in one thing: “To bring each other home safe to our families.”
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What happened in New York was felt across the world, but I witnessed it first-hand in my husband’s anxious pacing, footsteps. He was ready to go, waiting for the telephone call that would mobilize him. That call never came, although some Salt Lake County firefighters were sent to New York. His job was to stay out and cover home base.
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I finally received the answer to my demands for more information on the building’s structure, about the architect. It was aired on PBS about nine months later. We were in Chicago, visiting friends and family. The fear of tall buildings coming under attack was still very fresh in everyone’s heart. Chicago has the tallest building in the United States and we were hearing about precautionary procedures and structural integrity--very different information than what we were used to getting as tourists on our earlier visits. People here were not at ease.
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It was not until I heard the story of the “Six (firefighters) from Ladder Company 6” and their guardian angel, Josephine, that I could begin to release my anger toward the fire chiefs who orchestrated the rescue efforts on that fateful day.
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I had read about the story first, then saw a TV interview with the firefighters and Josephine. I remember snickering at their obvious discomfort with the interviewer’s efforts to make them admit they were heroes. Six men, each carrying over a hundred pounds of equipment, entered the building from which everyone else was escaping. They found Josephine, a sixty-year-old grandmother, inside the stairwell of the north tower. She had been on the seventy-third floor and had trudged down sixty stories before she sank down, exhausted. The six firefighters had reached the twenty-seventh floor, four levels past Josephine, when they heard the south tower fall. They turned to retreat and stopped where Josephine had slumped to the steps.
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One of the firefighters hooked Josephine’s arm over his shoulders while he put his arm around her waist to guide her down the stairs. He encouraged her: “Josephine, your kids and your grandkids want you home today. We’ve got to keep moving!” The progress was extremely slow, however. The threat of the building collapsing loomed large in their minds. On the fourth floor, Josephine stopped, gasping, “That’s it. I can’t go anymore.”
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That’s when the tower went down. Hearing the rumbling, like an approaching train running full force, the firefighter who had been guiding Josephine calmly told her, “Josephine, I’m going to place you in this doorway and shield you with my body.” He did, feeling the floors below them give way and the many floors above them crushing down. The only pocket that survived, walls intact, in the north tower of stairwell B was between the second and the fourth floor. After six hours, all six men from Ladder Company 6 and Josephine were rescued.
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Rescuing people is part of the job. Michael is a paramedic, too, and many of his calls are medical ones. When he rescued an unconscious six-year-old found hiding in a closet from a fire and was able to revive her, he considered that day to be a pretty good one, but he keeps it in perspective. This is what he does. This is his job.
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When a fellow firefighter is in danger, his peers exert the same amount of effort to rescue him, but there is a subtle shift in perspective. Michael has often referred to the fire department as a group of men and women who are bound together by an unspoken oath: “If a firefighter is down, everyone bands together to lift him or her up. It’s our job to bring everyone home safe to our families.”
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When Michael and I were going through our cancer marathon, this unspoken code went into effect immediately, much of it without our awareness. There are 380 firefighters in the department. All of them heard the news. Michael works closely with about fifty of them. Over a period of four months, twenty firefighters shaved their heads honoring their friend Michael, honoring him honoring me. “If one of us is bald, then we’re all bald.”
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A friend told us about a firefighter who had the most adorable set of curls atop of his head. “They’re magic,” his wife would say. When everyone around him started shaving, he thought he should, at the very least, talk to his wife about it. Her reply was simple: “I love your curls, but you can shave them off for your friend.”
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About a week after the bald party, Michael was filling out paperwork at the station when one of his buddies walked up and handed him a check for five hundred dollars. Civil servants typically don’t have large bank accounts. A lot of firefighters have the job as their passion but actually have to hold down a second job to pay the bills. Michael wasn’t sure how to respond, but he understood it. “A fellow firefighter is down, and we need to lift him up.”
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There are 300 million people in the United States and only 1 million firefighters (70% of them are volunteer), all of them rotating in shifts. When they’re in sync, they can silently move together, matching motion to assist strangers, bringing them out of burning buildings, stabilizing them, preventing them from dying, sending them off in the ambulance, and turning to the next one. It’s a dance, a movement, that occurs without speech because they know each other so very well. I‘ve heard Michael say, “We may never have the opportunity to share a beer together or to shoot a game of pool, but we’re all connected just the same, in this common space in time.”

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Last week we attended the annual firefighters’ banquet. Two of the three platoons were in attendance, everyone in formal blues. These guys and gals never see each other all in the same place unless there is a huge fire. “It’s like a reunion,” Michael says, happy to see everyone. What I didn’t expect was the attention that I received. From the administrative assistant to the chief and everyone ranked in between, I was receiving many inquiries about how I was doing. My hair got lots of attention. “Look at all that hair!” and “I haven’t see you two since you were both bald!” Time hadn’t passed for many of these people. Time had stopped for them and we were frozen in it. The evening was filled with hearty handshakes and belly laughs, but it was the connection--being able to close this particular chapter for this department--that was most memorable for me. I left feeling honored and blessed.
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In the end, Michael’s adventure was separate from mine. It included all of these people whom I will seldom meet, many others I will never meet. Hundreds of people hear the news, make inquiries, and continue to keep us in their prayers.
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Once, when Michael and I were feeling brave, I asked, “If we had to do it all again, could we?” It was a difficult question for both of us, triggering way too many emotions.
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“If you need to cross over difficult waters, I would build the bridge,” he finally said to me. “I don’t question it. I don’t. It is just the thing that needs to be done. I would do that for you.”
We sat close together, quiet for a long time. I finally said, “I don’t want to go through this experience again, but I know I could, with you by my side.”
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Like the firefighters in stairwell B of the World Trade Center, remaining together to save one, before the world came roaring down, “I’m going to lay my body over you to shield you, to protect
you...”
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Michael and I felt this protection, given by the department, his platoon, and each other.

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TerriLyn

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“Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell. There is excellence all around you. You need only to be aware to stop and savor it.”
-Gusteau, Ratatouille

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My friend, TerriLyn died a year ago today.
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“The way I am feeling is not sustainable” I tell Michael. I’m exhausted and sad and feel an overwhelming emotion of defeat. My brain and my heart are disconnected. Cerebrally, I knew her body was breaking down – “failing” (a word I don’t use often nor like) but regardless of my opinion, this is what it was doing; her body was shutting down.
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Emotionally, TerriLyn and I still had plans for the future. We were co-survivors and our plans included others, in bringing light to others; sharing the abundance of life even when faced with adversity. I suddenly found myself shutting down too. I had only enough in me to give to my own and to TerriLyn’s family. I spent the daylight hours with mine and evening hours with hers.
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The last time we spoke outside of the hospital, was in a restaurant. This is a fitting setting for our meeting. She was greeted warmly by our waitress as they discussed TerriLyn’s favorite items on the menu. They shared a communication encrypted with ‘foodisms’ I was unfamiliar with.
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“Would you like that sauce…” The waitress asked without completing her question.
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“I would. Is it sweet like the…” TerriLyn responded with a similar incompletion.
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“As always, we’ll serve it warm - just as you like it – with a side order of…”
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“Perfect!” TerriLyn did not need her to finish the food order.
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I was at a loss and eager to see just what was going to be delivered! I’ve always admired these connections TerriLyn had with people. If the rest of the world operated in a ‘Six Degrees of Separation’, then TerriLyn operated in a world separated by only four degrees.
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But now she is gone and the feeling I am experiencing is not sustainable.
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My ‘M.O.’ is typically to put my feelings into something tangible; a result in action, rather than stewing. So, I move my body. I practice yoga to literally move the energy of emotion around inside. I hike so that I can expel breath from my body. I laugh during funny movies so that I can feel ‘lightness’ again. Yet, I find myself returning back to my feelings that are not sustainable.
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“Ugh!” I express with frustration.
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I schedule myself for some body work with my friend, Carolyn. Carolyn had the opportunity to work on TerriLyn’s body while exchanging stories that bonded them to certain common life experiences. Once again, the heart strings of TerriLyn had hooked another soul. Carolyn, lovingly, made herself available for me.
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I turn to the lessons that I have learned.
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When I began writing this book, TerriLyn and I had plans to write it together. We would meet weekly at a coffee shop to swap stories and devise a Lesson Plan, so to speak. We would make notes about what helped us to face the challenges that coincide with surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and publicly venturing out into the world completely bald. We shared experiences that differed and those that were similar, but we always ended in the same place: The bottom line to this Cancer Adventure of ours, and perhaps for others too, relied on one very important quality – Humor.
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As food establishments consistently provided us with the perfect venue for creativity and the exchange of personal experiences, we shared what we knew to be true to our own sustainability: laughter. Somehow, instinctively, we each knew that we would drown in our own sorrow if we could not locate this place in our heart.
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TerriLyn’s sister, Julie, spoke at her funeral. Once again, a wave of laughter bathed the room of 500-plus of friends and family members as Julie revealed childhood events consistent with the person that I had come to know as my friend. She told a story about TL’s life in Boston where she worked as a barista at a coffee cart (TL is one of the names her family uses for her). She had traveled to Boston for a bicycle seeking adventure. She was indoctrinated to her new home and place of adventure when her bike was stolen shortly after her arrival. Her parents, wanting to support their daughter, bought her a car. A car in Boston can be a great thing, until you need to park it. TerriLyn had received so many parking tickets in one year that she donned all of them for a Halloween costume and arrived at her party as one big parking ticket! And then the car was stolen.
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Her Boston adventure was well on its way when she met two regular coffee customers who took TerriLyn under their wing, showing her some of the marvels of the east coast thereby muting some of the Boston drama. They opened up their Maine cabin to TL enabling her to work as a ski instructor for one winter; their friendship grew stronger and, once again, TerriLyn had hooked her heart strings into the hearts of this couple. As Julie relayed this Boston Adventure, this couple had not known the impact that they, themselves, had made upon TerriLyn’s life.
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Gary, TerriLyn’s older brother spoke about the family humor gene living large in his own childhood memory. Recalling big brother stroller rides with TL as the baby passenger, atypical to any OSHA standards and afternoon football practices with their eldest brother, both boys completely geared-up and TL only in her PJs. Sitting in the audience amongst my friends, my emotions waxing and waning, riding my roller coaster of feelings so abundantly, I actually became concerned that I would get to a place where I would be feeling too much.
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Gary closed his childhood tormenting stories of his younger sister with an endearing event that occurred to him only recently. Gary lives and works in his hometown of Seattle, Washington. He relayed to all of the moist eyes in the room his encounter with a man who lives with a disability so severe that it impedes his walking journey to work each morning; and yet, this man chooses to make that journey each day. Gary thought he was younger than himself, but it was difficult to fully tell as his physical stature was so badly bent and his eyes held years of living in a body that half-worked. Being rainy Seattle, Gary often stops when he sees this man to offer him a car ride to work. Occasionally he takes Gary up on his offer.
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On one of these rainy days when Gary and this man shared a fairly silent ride, TL’s brother initiated the conversation with morning small talk, commenting on the weather, asking questions about this man’s job, etc. When Gary had forgotten this man’s name, he offered his own name of Gary Folkman first before inquiring again. He said his name was Sam and then paused when he heard Gary’s last name. Sam asked, “Are you related to TerriLyn Folkman?” Gary, somewhat surprised, and then, perhaps later, not, responded, “Yes. She is my sister.” Sam readjusted in his seat and then looked at Gary who was driving his car, “She was the only one who treated me with any kindness and respect when we were in High School together.”
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* * * * * * *
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I turn to my teachings of yoga. In my attempt to make sense of this particular ending of my meetings with TerriLyn I cannot honestly say that my relationship with her has ended.

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The Yoga Nataraj is a statue that depicts Shiva, a Hindu deity, as a dancer with four arms. The dance refers to the constant cycle of birth and death, sustaining and evolving, which happens with all things. We set ourselves up for disappointment if we attach ourselves to any part of this cycle and lose sight that everything is in a constant flux of change. It's like trying to enjoy the scenic view while riding the Scrambler, that diabolic amusement park ride designed to spin you mercilessly in circles, eventually scrambling your brain, or making you puke, or both. The Nataraj suggests that everything is turning, changing as we speak. Just as things are dying, something else is being born. Opening up the heart to reveal something new –

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“Revealing Grace”

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While sitting in TerriLyn’s hospital room keeping this dear friend company, my job was to provide her comfort, so I rubbed her feet with essential oils and played soft music. It was in these final days of her life, while hooked up to tubes and wires and appearing jaundice that I witnessed an army of people, TerriLyn’s community, entering her room with the intent of comforting her. But in reality, it was TerriLyn who ended up comforting them; revealing HER grace.

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It was she who provided the strength that this community of people needed.

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I’m sitting at the computer and writing the words, but TerriLyn is here with me.

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She is within me.