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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-09-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z65fSOl57Mo
it took me ten years to be able to take forty steps a forty steps from my bedroom to the room where my has I lay down the forty steps I never want to steps that I take on the way to get the mail dinner help a six year old daughter tie the laces of her shoes again you see I knew that there were forty steps in
those ten years I was a caregiver and that means that on more than one occasion I was asked don't the number of steps say from the front door to the bedroom from the living room to the the bed to the it was often a reckless in home physical therapy a condition of hot and sometimes in those years I took those steps in a matter of minutes
times longer but it was the culmination of those ten years they gave me the strength I needed to take each one of the forty steps I would have to take to do what came next and I will say I gave those ten years willingly and I never would have been able to take those steps had I not had the solace and the fortitude of that time
that we had to so this is my story of momentum or as my Italian chef husband would say one of them had it that band how I gather the earth beneath my feet to do what came next you see I knew first hand that life change on a dime when I was twenty I rounded a corner in Florence and I locked eyes with the man who
changed my life now at the time he was standing in front of one of the best shit like that he is in all of Florence and nearby there was this bakery that was emitting the most exquisite smell of fresh baked bread so really he seemed like an obstacle to my next meal beautiful one penthouse I was too young to know anything about fate or I certainly
wasn't looking I love momentum of meeting this sexy man well I was thinking about ice cream with that was just and it didn't take me long to realize that I the love so with this deliciously Italian chef in one hand and a marriage license in the other fact I mean the gods have smiled on me I am an actress in a loving supportive marriage I have
a lifetime of home cooked meal so look forward to I am living my version of la dolce vita I have everything I want and she Alagi everything that I could imagine and then in may of two thousand two we heard these words rare soft issue bone overnight I became a caregiver and where I thought that I was in for a life of receiving I would discover
that I was set for a life of giving and that it is in giving that we receive life's greatest get but I didn't know that yet for me at the time the diagnosis all I can say with but as it turns out in the decade to come in being a caregiver I would receive this one astounding gift I would experience and learn beyond a shadow of
a doubt the meaning of love he in allowing himself to be cared for with experience deep soul affirming love so you see in this ten years of deep living I learned to simple things unconditional love two things that are fundamental anatomy of this human experience two things that suited me with heart skills that I would need to take the forty steps I never wanted to take
the forty steps that marked a lifetime forty steps that would lead me to lie down and my lover so hold his share one last hunting see if the momentum lying to those forty steps one of the greatest my those forty steps made me who I am taught me how to show up and when I walked them in reverse everything and she I walked in in one
direction a white if co parent and when I walk them in reverse I was a widow solo parents carrying not only my own grief degree from a beautiful child this carried with me in those states depth of love began underneath that ice cream on it a love that has only deepened not because of what I expected but because of what I chose to embrace fully willingly
it was that same love they have the same love that led me to want to get I see love it has this way of gathering more of its we just allow it show up so just as I showed up in caregiving I had to show up in my grief and when I did in time I realize that I wanted to check for my loss into an
act a lot of service great as the love that we had received and so I asked myself what what I create I dared to dream big speak authentically about two things that we have a hard time talking about in this kind caregiving and death and out of that visioning came chin widow because my husband had been a chef I dreamed of a project that we use
the prism of food help us better understand how we support ourselves and each other for the moments when we all have forty states it's been three years two months and two days and I still take us every day I walked in with my daughter at my side I walk them out in the world in the form of new experiences I walked in holding the hand of
a friend I walked in today to be here on the stage before you and sometimes I walk uneasily but they have taught me they have prepared me the rest of my life there are no steps and they have even prepared me for the moment when I will have to face my own death taught me about life just deep so for and it is the momentum showing
up that allows us gather the earth beneath our feet one of them had it and take the forty steps toward the only two things that matter unconditional love and connection so I share my little story of momentum in the hopes then you will remember it when that moment comes when you too will take your forty
