A little of everything update

Posted by Michael Van Deren on July 14, 2014 at 5:49pm

It’s been a very busy few months for me with great accomplishment and forward direction but wanted to touch on a few things. It is always difficult for me to start these things out and to be honest have tried typing this out several times in the past few weeks with the excuse that my head wasn’t in the right place to share or was too pressured to get it to come out right.  Well, its not going to come out exactly the way I want it to and truthfully speaking I have been pretty numb the past few days…..but guess what, thats OK.  Thinking back on many of the things we take from FOCUS is that if we go into things with expectations it is easy to walk away with disappointment. So for now, just live in the moment and air what has been on my mind for some time now and accept that the wording may not be as I want it or the thoughts my be organized, it is more important that I share these things rather than wait for the “perfect” time, place, or mindset to do so.

Having just returned from Arlington for a service for the first time lets just say that there was plenty of emotion and very overwhelming at times with thoughts that would appear from everyone of my triggers. The positive, I CHOSE to be there, during my 2 years living in Charlotte there were many challenges however I had the met two great friends and truly the only ones that I would say I felt comfortable with. An Army Vietnam veteran whom served as a Commanding Officer of a company and recipient of both the Silver Star and Bronze Star. Sandy Anderson and his wife (both in their late 70s) came into my life at not only as a friend but as mentors. Just as the green shirts at FOCUS they both were people that I could truly open up to and share what was really going on.  Sandy continued his career in the Army but becoming a speech writer at the Pentagon for many of the higher ups in addition to several speeches given by president Ford.

His den was lined from wall to wall with binders filled with his words of wisdom, speeches, poems, and insight to what life is all about.  I was typically at their home twice a week for dinner and enjoying long conversations at the table not about the weather, not about the most recent drama that filled the news but discussions with meaning, purpose and growth. They meant something to me, I valued their input and felt as if they were my family away from Colorado where most of my lived at the time.  I recall our military conversations and what leadership truly is, looking over each others I love me box of good. (pictures of the deployments, letters, and small physical reminders of being over seas). For both Sandy and myself life is about the little things. Pride in a patch or a piece of gear that you carried or saying that you spoke internally before each mission. To others those objects are just that, something small and hidden away in a box but to those that they belong to there is a story, emotion, and pride attached.

I remember Sandy showing me his knife that he carried each mission in Vietnam with the screw off cap and inside a fishing lure that frequently entered the rivers near a rice paddy or small village after a day of fighting.  It was last christmas that I borrowed his knife with out his knowledge to clean the leather, sharpen the blade, recondition the handle that was falling apart and restore it to a presentable condition only to wrap it and return it to him on Christmas last year. His eyes filled with a heavy tear, he stood up, walked over and gave me a hug. No words exchanged, nor did they need to be. I understood and was grateful to give him something back. We spent the next week or so designing a mount for it and its sheath to go above the fireplace where his fathers, grandfather, and great grandfathers officers swards were mounted. A small addition to the collection but the meaning, story and pride that went with them so great. It was shortly after that Sandy wrote me a note saying that when he passed I was to receive his knife after his passing, I didn’t know what to say.

Sandy passed two days after this most recent Christmas to stage three multiple melanoma. I had just spent thanksgiving with them and he was doing great. His quality of life was there in every way, still playing tennis every day the sun was out and writing up until he had to go into the hospital. He was only there for 10 days before he passed.

His knife now sits in my box of memories with both the note that he wrote me and one from his wife. Something I can pull out and reflect on our conversations together.

I’d never been to Arlington before and have not been to a full military honors ceremony since I was under orders to take my best friend home to his family in Aug of ’09 so I knew it would bring up a lot and it did. But it was more important that I be there for not only his wife but for myself. To let go of a mentor and pay respect to him in such a beautiful resting place.  Had my nurse Tammy there with me and couldn’t have made it through the ceremony without here.

Forgive me for the length and shift in thought here but just going with it.

So whats next? What else is going on my life, where am I at today?  Not good, bad, right or wrong I’m numb, scared about finding work, and anxious about continuing to serve my purpose but not knowing where that will be. Its ok to just see your feelings as just that, its not who nor defines what is going to happen. Just be with them for a moment, recognize that your feeling that way and identify what the feelings are….then choose to do something.  Can you be numb or scared about the future but still make phone calls to set up your next appointment for counseling? yes. Can you be proactive and update your resume? yes. You can still achieve things throughout your day and still feel the same as you did when you woke up. But I’m guessing that I’ll be a little less numb tomorrow because I decided to do something about it today. There are lots of difficult things still going on in life for me right now, my parents are separating for the time being and dad moved out last week, still struggling with the VA and only able to get an appointment every month and a half for PTS, trying to get an appointment for my dizzy spells/ balance, neighbors shooting off fireworks in the middle of the night and no longer have BAH as part of my income and only on my 60% as of last month. Yes there are lots of things that I can be distracted by however I’m proud of following through with my goals, I recently finished my associates degree and with that checked off my SMART goal that I set back in June of ’13, thought outside of the box to find a free counselor till I can work things out with the VA, calling other FOCUS Marines (Mike Street your awesome!) to talk ideas over, working with my nurse to open up and take bold steps but focusing on the things I can control and doing something about it.  Gents I said it a while back but “what are you DOING today to get outside your comfort zone?” The key to the whole thing is the DOING! Sometimes you have to fake it for a while, we all have, and I am now but you can do many things for yourself while still being angry, numb, in pain, ect. But doing something today may break that cycle for tomorrow, maybe it will take a few days, years even but you have to choose to either way.

Again, I hate hitting the “post” button because this didn’t come off the way I wanted or in order so to say but its ok. It doesn’t have to be perfect! I don’t have to be perfect all the time and neither do you, but doing something worthy of your time or productive with it is more important than trying to figure the whole world out from a place where you aren’t a part of it or living in it.  I want to know what you are doing for yourself this week, for others, and how I can help. Take some time to see where you are at today, what you are feeling truly and where do you want to go and how your going to help someone along the way. You don’t have to figure it all out in one night nor does it have to be a perfect plan but do something TODAY.