Grateful for what I most wish didn't Happen
Or, Welcome to My Village
I caught the title of a Substack the other day—"Where the Fuck’s the Village?"—and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
A few things up front:
I haven’t read the newsletter.
I don’t know the author’s name.
It was a quick catch during a scroll.
The only thing I caught was the title.
I haven’t done any research on it.
Now that we’re on the same page, here’s my answer:
The village is my life.
Or at least, my village is mine.
My village is my kiddo. And all the kiddos his age, I get to keep seeing grow up because we run into each other at daycare, school, baseball, trivia club, flag football, dog walks, and pool parties.
My village is my ex-husband.
His family.
My forever boyfriend and his family.
The family I was born into and the one I’ve chosen over the last 22 of my 44 years.
My village is everyone who’s ever hired me.
And the very, very few who’ve wanted to fire me.
It’s every classmate I’ve shared something with—a class, a note, a secret, a lie, an answer. Every teacher, professor, and mentor who made me believe I could write.
My village is made up of every friend I did and did not make.
And the adults who helped shape them, too.
It’s every parent who trusted me to care for their child, and every child who let me do the caring.
My village is full of producers, engineers, journalists, musicians, hosts, writers, and fundraisers who showed me how to spot and share a real story.
It’s a bunch of optimists who aren’t really driven by selling t-shirts.
It includes about forty early childhood care centers that may not have always understood what I was doing. Still, no one could say I wasn’t fully committed to making careers in care more sustainable, desirable, and profitable.
My village is the entire famtech space.
The Massachusetts AI ecosystem.
The public broadcasting world.
It’s former coaches and trainers who believed I was strong when I couldn’t do a single push-up. Even when the blisters on my heels nearly landed me in the ER.
It’s every member of my medical team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Every researcher, donor, doctor, nurse, and elected official working to stop this disease from taking one more person.
It’s every patient I’ve met along the way. And those that I know, I will.
It’s every neighbor I’ve had—from the Roys across the street in Fitchburg, to the McCulloughs down Birch Drive, to that one hateful kid at the mills.
It’s Tom and Gracey on Pines Road.
Carol (Leo and Heidi’s mom—Leo and Heidi are dogs).
Anthony (Lexi’s dad—also a dog).
Lincoln’s family (yep, dog).
Every two and four-legged creature who’s made Dufton Road in Andover feel like home.
And in Andover, two families stand out. Families I know (all) by name.
The Ruisis—Steve, Mary, Jonah, Olivia, Bennett, and Maple (dog).
Before the cancer, during the worst of it, even last night—and again tomorrow—they’ve gone out of their way to remind me, in words and actions, that I’m not alone.
The Reeds, two doors up—Michelle, Tommy, Gavin, and Mac (Zara’s first boyfriend).
They’ve helped with food, laundry, and getting the dog safely out when I couldn’t stay steady on my feet.
My village is every writer who has helped me become a better one.
Every reader who’s given me even just a few sentences.
Yesterday, I also saw a clip from an Anderson Cooper interview with Stephen Colbert.
Colbert said:
“Love the thing you most wish had never happened.”
He went on to explain that being alive is a gift. That presence is a gift. That you don’t get to pick and choose the parts you’re grateful for. It’s more of an all-or-nothing deal.
And like when I saw the newsletter headline, my first reaction was to push back.
I don’t have to be grateful for cancer.
I can be grateful for the people around me.
I can be grateful for the care.
But not the disease. Not the pain.
And then, I thought more. I paused.
How else would I have felt this depth?
This tenderness?
This fierce and uncompromising strength of the people who keep showing up?
How would I have known I was so profoundly held, without something so profoundly hard?
Maybe I wouldn’t have.
And so tonight, and maybe every night moving forward, I am grateful.
Grateful that I get to feel this.
Grateful that I am knit tightly, at the very center of an everlasting, stubbornly strong, beautiful village.
So again, I don’t know who was asking.
But if you’re genuinely wondering: where the fuck is the village?
Mine is everywhere I go.
And truly, thank you for asking.
Oh, and Colbert?
You’re in it too. ( And, you’re welcome.)
Sometimes, I think I could sustain my whole life in my canine village.