Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

In the Deep

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For so many of us, our lives skim the surface.  We’re busy with the day to day, caught up in the rhythms of normalcy and (depressives, philosophers and poets excluded) we don’t ponder what lies beneath.


And then, without warning, the world cracks open and we or someone we know slips into the chasm of what cannot be, what should not be, but is.


Before June 27, 2010 I lived in a world where no one could burn my house down, where my house couldn’t burn, period.


In my world you could get cancer as a child, someone could embezzle all your family’s money and you might need to quit school to help out, a parent could take his own life, another could die far too young after a long, excruciating illness and, despite a million prayers for health and wholeness, you could have a child with a multiplicity of challenges and needs.  All of these things have happened to Paul and to me.


There is a tension in suffering.  There is a stress in its very existence, even if it’s not my own cup of sorrow.  When something terrible happens to someone I know, for a moment, this terrible thing becomes possible in my world too.  And that’s scary.  For a time the veil is rent and we see the fragility of life, we face our mortality and – worse yet – the vulnerability of our loved ones.


When something terrible happens, perhaps it’s more like part of a continent breaks away and those affected are bobbing on a little island of tragedy  In suffering it can be so easy to feel adrift in your circumstances.


The things we say and what we do for those in need should be a bridge to keep them connected, but too often we say things, to cover our own discomfort and to distance ourselves from the pain and then it’s only about us and not the person in need.







What We Say

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If you read yesterday’s post you might be thinking, “But Alison I know the parents of a child with special needs and they are amazing and, when the child was diagnosed, I did think ‘If anyone can handle this…’ and I told them and they thanked me.  So there!”

You know what?  Before Christopher, I said it to another couple whose first child has Down’s Syndrome, and it was so true: they are amazing and the mother taught children with Down’s syndrome, as had her mother before her, I mean seriously, this woman had training and experience.  If there was anyone who could handle a child with challenges…but when it was said to me, over and over again it wasn’t a comfort, it just felt like pressure.

This is what we need to ask ourselves before we speak to someone going through something: what are we  really trying to say?

“I have so much respect for you.”

“You’re a wonderful mother.”

“I admire you.”

Back up.  What we need to ask ourselves first: does anything need to be said at all?

I’m here to tell you, most cases, it doesn’t.

What do you think?

More Fire Etiquette

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On another occasion I divided  the people who gather to help after a tragedy: “those you are glad they have rushed to your aid and those you would rather remained home…the first group are all a variety of heroes and champs, but the second group can be further broken down into stupid people with good intentions and the gaggle of morons, dopes and jugheads.”


Oh Lord, spare us the stupid people with good intentions!  


I actually prayed this when my father was dying his long and terrible death.  If anyone told me he was in a better place I didn’t know how I could resist throwing a punch and I didn’t want to be brawling at my father’s funeral.


Having a child with special needs had laid me open to the SPWGI.  My tactic then was to just shake my head and with it try to shake off the ridiculous things that were said.  I was merciful because I was reminded of the stupid things I had said, with the BEST of intentions to others.


Tip #1: if someone you know has received a challenging diagnosis for a child don’t say “If any mother/father/parents can handle this, you (two) can!”  Just trust me, don’t.  It isn’t helpful.


A couple weeks ago I attended Paul’s work Christmas party and we had a great time.  Paul works with some really wonderful people.  We stayed almost until the end.  Most of our friends had left, but one couple, Rick and Jane remained.  Paul and Rick were talking with another co-worker and Jane and I were chatting on our own.  Their children are grown and I like to pick Jane’s brain.  A third woman sidled up to us and gestured at the men.  


“My husband has those guys cornered and I’ve been looking around, figuring there has to be a couple women stranded like I am.”  Jane and I stood politely listening.  You know when you are interrupted and caught off guard and don’t know exactly what another person is going to do?   There is that suspension of animation and the underlying tension as you don’t know what’s coming next.


“May I join you?”  This woman asked.


Of course, of course.  Jane and I both smiled and turned slightly to open ourselves.  The woman leaned forward and touched Jane’s arm, “I’m so sorry about your house…about the fire.”


It’s subtle, but something in Jane relaxed and I stood at attention.  This was mine.  Crap.


“That was my house.”  I said.


The woman shifted to face me.  “Oh my gosh!  My kids and I drive by your house all the time and the first time we saw it – oh my gosh – they were so upset!  It was unbelievable!  Terrible!”


I can’t tell you how many people have told me, in detail, the trauma of seeing our house.  This has been a long hard road and some time last Spring, for the sake of my children, I stopped suffering fools.  If my kids were with me, I cut people off.  


It was just me, so I listened, but I wasn’t leaning in.  I stayed open, but I wasn’t going to make it easy, I wasn’t going to play along, if that makes any sense.  I wasn’t going to accommodate, but I listened.


Apparently, our fire had been very traumatic for her four, young children.  All of them were very concerned for my kids and, at various times, our situation was discussed and they prayed for us.  


“I don’t think you can know how far reaching this was for so many other families.”  The woman said and I agreed.


She described how talking about my children losing all their belongings had enabled her family to talk about possessions and priorities and more than once she used our fire to shame her kids into gratitude.


“So it’s sort of a silver lining, I hope, to your tragedy, how far and deeply it touched others.”


Tip #2:  You get to define your own silver linings; don’t interpret them for others.


I told her that this can be redemptive and asked her to thank her children for praying and to please continue.


The truth is we are connected and we can be deeply affected by and learn profound things through the suffering of strangers, but here’s the thing:  if it’s not your gig, keep it under your lid…or at least wait until you’re sober to share.





The Logistics of Suffering

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Photo: Tanner Wolfe

The sense of an entailed disadvantage — the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender.

George Eliot




Each experience I have had of suffering has been an education.

This time around, escaping our burning home; watching the fire consume it; losing all our possessions; dealing with insurance; building a new home whilst raising three kids, all of us dealing with trauma, I have noticed how often people respond to our situation with, “I can’t imagine.”

It was usually said with great compassion. I didn’t offend me but it got my attention.

I say it myself. Since the fire I have caught myself saying it after all the devastation in Japan and following the tornadoes in the south, any time I have heard hards news of another’s suffering. I can’t imagine.

But what if I could?

Eight years ago when my dad was dying in a hospital on the other side of the state, the poverty of our imaginations became apparent to me and my sister. In the beginning both of us were pregnant, then I had Eden. Paul and I were driving to Ann Arbor at least once a week, some times with all three children, but always with newborn Eden, some times spending the night at hotels, other times making the drive back at night.

Torey was pregnant the entire time and driving up from the middle of Illinois, a seven hour trip. She came as often as she could until the very end when she was laid off and then she moved in with us for the final weeks of Dad’s life.

We both realized, if this had been happening to someone else, that we might not have tuned in to the details. You know how it is when you hear about some terrible experience that someone is enduring and your heart goes out to her, but you don’t really absorb what it all means in a practical way. If some little pregnant lady told me that her father was dying in another state, I would not have leapt to the realities of what that meant.

Of course I could grasp: dying Dad = sadness, but I would have probably missed the logistics, that Dying Dad + long drive + cost of hotel stays + pregnancy = heartbreaking sorrow, stress, and financial difficulties.

I couldn’t have put that all together. Or even if I could have, I wouldn’t have known what do, how to ameliorate the suffering. I have been one to get tangled up in my feelings about a situation and have held back out of fear of saying the wrong thing or getting in the way.

But I have learned, when a person is going through the unimaginable, she needs others to lean in and help in any way they can.