Dr. Lisa's Bountiful Life

Remembering Dr. Nye

My high school principal died of Parkinson's in 2012.

Dr. Kenneth Nye was just seventy, and had struggled for fifteen years with this disease.

Dr. Nye was a fine educator. Many a young Belisle graduated from Yarmouth High School having benefitted from his leadership. He was named Maine's Principal of the Year in 1993.

Despite his diagnosis, Dr. Nye lived his life fully and completely.

At age sixty, he became a poet. He published four books of poetry, one of which included the piece Going Home at Twilight:

Coming down the trail at twilight,
I am perilously close to
being stranded in darkness.
Earlier I had figured
I could ski the loop
before it got dark.
I was wrong.
But I know where I am,
and in the dwindling light
I see the trail, and the trail
will bring me home.

 According to his obituary, Dr. Nye enjoyed, "crafting pewter soldiers, his favorite toys from childhood. His love of gardening, bird-watching, travel, literature, tractors, riddle/joke/storytelling, swimming, sailing, ice cream, musicals, etc., kept him engaged in life to the last."

Dr. Nye was a vibrant, intelligent man. It seemed particularly ironic that a disease of the brain and nervous system would prove his undoing.

People like Ken Nye remind us that Parkinson's Disease, though yet incurable, can be managed better, longer, by staying active.

Here in Maine, we are fortunate to have researchers such as Dr. James Cavanaugh from the University of New England examining the relationship between Parkinson's and physical activity.

We are equally fortunate to have places such as the Medically Oriented Gym in South Portland, offering settings where Parkinson's patients can exercise in a supervised setting.

Sometimes the simplest approaches to healing yield the best, and least expensive, results.

Sometimes, although we may feel that we are stranded in the darkness, we need only go back to basics, to find that we know where we are.

Dr. Kenneth Nye always knew where he was. He knew that he was meant to engage fully during each of the seven decades he was given to live.

He also knew that in his twilight years, he was on the trail that would finally lead him home.

 

twilight

March 2013

Hear our interview with Dr. James Cavanaugh and Jacalyn Morrill of the Medically Oriented Gym this Sunday on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast. Download the podcast through iTunes.

Loyalty, Trust & Friendship

Last year I was at a charity event when a friend's name came up.

This friend has supported me both personally and professionally for several years.

I know him to be a loyal and trustworthy individual.

Thus I was surprised when his name, in the course of conversation, was linked to less than favorable comments.

The accusations that were made, simply by virtue of having been made at all, could have impacted my friend's career and livelihood.

The accuser, someone I had never met (who happened to be in the same industry as my friend), made his claims boldly and in the presence of an entire table full of charity event-goers.

Fortunately, there were two other people at the table who (like me) knew my friend to be an upstanding and honorable man. We defended this individual, who had impacted each of us positively.

Later, I had a conversation with our friend and let him know about these rumors. Without being angry or upset, he told me that his accuser was a competitor in his field, and that there was no truth to the charges being made. 

It was a distinctly difficult conversation to have.

Yet I was willing to have it. I value my friend and all the ways in which he has supported me.

This can be the hardest thing of all: to let someone know that they have been accused of something damaging.

We want to protect our friends, and we want to protect ourselves.

We don't want to get into a distasteful situation where our own motives might be called into question.

We don't want to get into a situation where ugly rumors might actually turn out to be true.

But that is what friends are for.

Friends are those who show up, and have the hard conversations.

They let us know what the world is saying about us, whether or not they believe it to be true.

Friends don't simply wash their hands of us, so that they might create a more comfortable distance for themselves.

A year later, my own friend and I still support one another personally and professionally.

It is good to know who our friends are, and to keep them close.

Loyalty, trust and friendship are precious gems indeed.

 

Flowers and a Guitar

January 2013

The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast airs each Sunday at 7 am & noon. Download the podcast through iTunes. 

 

Embracing

Have you had your heart broken?

Me, too.

I doubt there is a human alive who can claim differently.

We who chose to love are choosing to make ourselves vulnerable to heartbreak. 

Even as we are opening ourselves to joy.

The joy that comes from loving is due in part to knowing that we are connected to all others who have chosen to love. 

As philosopher Martin Buber wrote, "“The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable through the embracing of one of its beings.” 

Buber described the difference between "I-Thou" and "I-It" relationships.

When we see another person as an "It" object, we are unable to recognize that person's humanity. We keep him at a distance.

When we embrace that person as a "Thou," we are better able to understand our commonality.

As a doctor, and a human, I am highly aware of my vulnerability.

I hear my patients stories, and from them I hear my story.

I feel my heart break, even as I feel their hearts break.

I also feel their joy.

Each week, I share some of this joy--and this heartbreak--with listeners of our radio show.

One of this week's guests, a mother whose college-aged son committed suicide eight years ago, caused me to feel intensely vulnerable.

My own son is currently a college student. I love him as fiercely as any mother might.

I know that by loving him--by loving anyone--I put myself at risk for loss.

Yet I chose to embrace him.

I chose to embrace the mother who shared her story, and know her as "I-Thou," rather than believe that her story is unique to her, and could never become my story.

I invite you to join me in this embracing.

 

Embracing

August 2012

Listen to Dr. Lisa's conversation with Michael Chase, best-selling author and founder of The Kindness Center, and Sandra Fisher, suicide prevention advocate and mother, this Sunday on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast.

Rebirth & Return

On our birthdays, it is considered auspicious if we return to the place where we were born.

Three years ago, I visited the Vermont hospital in which I took my first breath. It was to become the hospital where I donned a white coat and was "born into" the medical profession. It was also to become the place where my son drew his own first breath.

Two years ago, I braved the January snow to forge a path around Walden Pond. 

Following in Thoreau's formidable footsteps, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

It was at Walden that I was metaphorically "born again" into a new life. I had, only weeks prior, made the painful (if inevitable) decision to end a two decade relationship with the father of my children.

It was at Walden that I began deliberately living my own life, rather than allowing my life to live me.

Last year, I travelled to New York City, to see the bigger world that deliberate living had revealed.

This year--last week--I returned to the place of my childhood. I celebrated my birthday in the Sunshine State, where four of my nine siblings were born. 

When we left Florida in 1977, our family moved to Maine.

My parents, at that time, made a deliberate choice to return to their home state. They wanted their children to be surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

I have remained in Maine because I want the same for my children--two of whom were born here. 

Simultaneously, I want each of my children to find rebirth in many places.

I want them to know the heat of a Florida sun, and the grandeur of a New York City skyline.

I want them to have the opportunity to wander, and to meet people of all different persuasions.

On our birthdays, it is considered auspicious if we return to the place where we were born.

Should we choose to live deliberately, we may find ourselves re-born a thousand times.

 

South Beach Birthday

January 2012

Are you living deliberately? Learn more on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast. Sundays at 7am & noon, or available for free download.