The Squooshy

Growing up in my family, my sister was the sassy one. Bridget was fierce and independent. She carried herself with an ‘I’ll-show-you’ attitude. She was not afraid of getting into trouble.  I should clarify: she did not get into trouble…often. Of course, that part might also be due to the times her younger sister covered for her.

I’m just saying...

Bridget wasn’t naughty; she was just…‘piss and vinegar’ in the ways that make our dad’s eyes twinkle when he tells a sassy-Bridget story. She was beautiful and spirited.  If someone (or something) hurt her, she refused to cry—she was not going to provide the satisfaction.  Her feelings were kept inside—out of view from others so as not to expose her vulnerability. She made it known that she was independent and that your assistance was not required. 

And…then there was Rhonda.

Rhonda (🙋🏻‍♀️) was soft and quiet. I was reserved and slow to act.  I preferred to stand on the sidelines, watchful and contemplative.  I pondered deeply, I felt big feelings, and eventually I learned how to give the feelings names.

I had no idea how to hide any of those feelings–everything I felt on the inside was immediately apparent on the outside.  But, while I ‘watched and contemplated’ I also studied people, patterns, and body language.   I became skilled at understanding other people’s emotions–even those they did not expressly communicate.

If Bridget was ‘piss and vinegar,’ I suppose Rhonda would have been a giant pair of eyes and a big tender heart.

My brother, eventually, added the third leg to our stool (and drum noises to all the surfaces in our home). He found his own Keith-shaped* groove in our family. At the time, we kind of thought that groove was the role of ‘the blond-haired golden child’–he who gets to have and do all the things he wants. But, as an adult, I now know that isn’t the case; or at least that it is a more nuanced case.

*except we all called him Junior. I still do. The man is (now) 44 and I can’t make myself call him “Keith”.

I appreciate him far more as an adult than I did when he was drumming over my Saturday morning cartoons. He was the baby boy that helped to deepen the bond between our father and our grandfather. Growing up this way, is how we each were formed.  You can see the same blueprints in the adult versions of us.  

Sassy vs the C-Word

As an adult, Ms. piss-n-vinegar faced a cancer diagnosis in much the same way we all had come to expect her to face life: She ‘did not need help’ and She would ‘do by myself’. Of course she had a family that supported her, but Bridget’s fierce independence had linked arms with its cousin, ‘fierce mama bear’, and that would demand that “her kids needs not only are met but come first“. This meant seeking treatment and staying in Ohio, to allow her kids to finish high school, while her husband began working in Virginia.

Grief, for me, through her journey was a gradual state. It snuck up on me in micro-doses.  I heard her say the c-word.  I thought her treatment plan was solid.  I heard ‘benign’ and ‘calcified’ describing the tumor and I was comforted with the prognosis.  “It’s Bridget,” I thought. “She will wrestle it to the ground and not give it the satisfaction that it even hurts.”

I grieved the hypothetical anyway, because that was unthinkable and that is what my brain does. It looks for the worst that can happen—loss—and it asks, “Can we survive this?”  Then it tries it on for size.  I started trying on the grief of her loss long before I ever knew I would lose her.

Then, one day, the hypothetical became actual.  Benign was actually malignant and stage 3 was stage 4.  Hospice was called in, and we all found ourselves standing at a celebration of life ceremony for a 44 year old sister/mother/daughter,  dazed and grieving, this time for the actual vs the hypothetical.

The inception of ‘Squooshy’

There was a day, before we knew that this cancer was a thing that would not be beaten into submission, when the ‘squooshy,’ as a word, was born. I was in Ohio for a visit with Bridget and Junior and their families. Bridget, though still in fairly good health otherwise, could not get her tumor pain under control. She called, in tears and in pain, asking for help.

She never asked for help.

“Bridget needs a ‘squooshy’ right now.” 

We took her to the Cleveland Clinic to see what they could do to help her better manage her pain.  Having originally planned to drive the 9 hours back to Virginia that morning, I decided, instead, to delay my return and be there for support.  “I am staying for a bit,” I texted my husband and kids.  “Bridget needs a ‘squooshy’ right now.”  And that’ is where the word was born—“Squooshy” is what she called me until she died.  

So what is this ‘Squooshy?’

‘Squooshy’ is a tender heart that cannot look away; it recognizes and understands another’s feelings. It is a core that gravitates toward vulnerability.  To be someone’s ‘squooshy’, is to be present with her so that she is not alone in her suffering; to create a space where her feelings can be named and her journey can be witnessed even when the problem cannot be solved.  The ‘squooshy’ knows how to comfort; knows how to look for what isn’t said. It compels me to love big and feel deeply—even when the pain is not mine.

The ‘squooshy’ comes from how I was formed.  And, as I grow in my faith, I have begun to think of it as a beacon—a way to detect pain in others and reach out in connection. Just as Jesus sought out Zaccheus, and the woman at the well, I believe that those that practice his teachings also walk, intentionally, toward the pain and suffering of others. God is there with us in this pain:  

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

Ephesians 5:1-2 (MSG)

So let us be tender with each other and learn to love extravagantly, not cautiously. Let us be the ‘squooshy’ for another in need to the best of our abilities. Let us not turn away from hurt and the hurting—but let us move toward it. And if we reach out to someone who is hurting and we don’t know what to do next, let us remember to simply be present and bear witness to the journey. If nothing else, we can help bear the weight of a burden that is hard to bear by oneself. Maybe God will do the rest.