theunionofopposites

[theunionofopposites]

winter citrus 

photography by velvet my soul

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[theunionofopposites]

Heavy

That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying

I went closer, and I did not die. Surely God had his hand in this,

as well as friends. Still, I was bent, and my laughter, as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found. Then said my friend Daniel, (brave even among lions), “It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it – books, bricks, grief – it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” So I went practicing. Have you noticed?

Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again, out of my startled mouth?

How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe

also troubled – roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply?

— “Heavy” by Mary Oliver from Thirst.

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The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.

Isaiah 57:1-2

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Life-sketch

Throughout his life Michael wore many hats. Brother, son, physician, husband, friend, and “Grandpa.”

Born in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Ironton, Ohio, Michael grew up on a multigenerational farm- enjoying what are now the simple pleasures of life but were previously essential skills for survival. Years of stories from my father have engrained in me the resilience of our ancestors. They were humble, unpretentious people who worked hard and shared generously -and Michael embodied this spirit.

During his childhood Michael, or “Mike Crowe” as he was affectionately called during this time spent his days exploring his grandparents farm with his older brother and cousin Phyllis; riding the plow horses, swimming in the creek, and helping in the garden. Always with a dog by his side. Insatiably curious he would also hide away for hours with his nose in a book. His love of learning was intense and innate.  

Like all of us Michael was a product of generational traditions and culture but he also aspired to see more of the world. When he told stories of his childhood, I often thought of him as a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. So much of himself etched in the landscape of his home while other parts were stark juxtapositions.

The first in his family to graduate with a college degree Michael possessed a hunger for knowledge that led him outside the boundaries of Lawrence County and into the world of academics. First attending Ohio University and obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Zoology, Michael then continued on to obtain a master’s degree in Biological Science from Marshall University.

It was this degree that landed him in Ft. Lauderdale Florida, teaching anatomy to medical students at Southeastern College of Osteopathic medicine.  My father was an excellent teacher and I can only imagine that he thrived in this position. As a child I never felt shamed for asking him questions and it seemed as if he had endless patience. Having a toddler myself I now appreciate exactly how patient and tender he was. I imagine the reason why a mentor convinced Michael to enroll as a medical student himself was because they saw so much potential in him.

The same year Michael made the decision to enroll in medical school he was married, and throughout the four years required of medical students, he became a father of two. First to my older brother James, and then to me. It was during this time he also found truth and peace within the beliefs of the Adventist Church.

After completing a family medicine residency in Selma, Alabama Michael moved his family to Avon Park, Florida and began his career as an emergency medicine physician. As a doctor Michael was alarmingly calm and possessed a grounding presence. He was passionate about serving his patients- a quality that allowed him to make a smooth transition to family medicine when he opened up a practice ten years later. It was in this role that Michael was able to care for his patients in a more personal way, often making house calls and being known for remembering names and impressive details about their lives. He was incredibly intentional in not only the way he practiced medicine but in how he treated all those who were entrusted into his care.

A practical man, Michael was not one to get caught up in the injustices of this world. Growing up if something didn’t quite pan out the way it was supposed to, anything from a flat tire to a glitch in a family vacation my father would turn us and say, “It’s all part of the adventure!”

There was never a question as to whether the incident could be overcome or feeling that everything was ruined. As a child this confidence eased my anxiety and as an adult I see how it informed Michael’s ability to confront life and the hardships it inevitably brings.

Michael married Annette Pickett Crowe on August 15th, 2010. After closing his family practice in Florida, they moved to Collegedale, Tennessee. Michael felt immensely blessed to have found love again with Annette and they settled into life together, enjoying spending time together and traveling. Over time Annette’s children became his children and her grandchildren became his grandchildren. In Annette and her family, Michael found a home.

Throughout his career Michael made one last transition to work as a physician for Life Care Centers of America, eventually becoming medical director in both Collegedale and Ooltewah buildings. In this role his leadership was especially impactful and he thrived as a geriatric specialist and also as a mentor to those who worked under his direction. This was recognized by LifeCare when they awarded Michael Doctor of the Year in 2013.

“Grandpa,” as he was lovingly called by his six grandchildren, was perhaps his favorite role. Michael loved nothing more than spending time with his five granddaughters and one grandson (with one more on the way!). There was something magical about watching him come alive with each of them. Michael love nothing more than being outside with them talking to them about gardening and telling stories of growing up in the country. Being mostly a “girl” grandpa Michael also was endlessly longsuffering about getting his hair brushed, make-up done, and playing with dolls and horses.

On Monday, December 13th at 12:43 dad text me two photos of my daughter Luz. They were photos he had taken a week prior. We gushed over her like fathers and daughters do. I asked him if he was free to watch her Thursday morning so I could get some things done. He told me, “[he] would be happy to.” Several hours later he was gone.

My father was my first hero. Always prepared. Tender hearted. Generous. While this doesn’t feel like, “part of the adventure,” I rest in the confidence that Michael left a legacy through his family, relationships, the service to his patients, and the light of Christ he spread in each of these roles.

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Tribute for Michael Eugene Crowe

Michael Eugene Crowe went to sleep in Christ on the 13th of December, 2021 in Ooltewah, TN.

Michael was born on October 22, 1951 in Ironton, Ohio. The youngest of two sons Michael grew up on his family’s farm, sharing land with multiple generations and enjoying the simple pleasures of life like gardening and running through the foothills with his dog and brother James by his side. Michael graduated from Rock Hill High School in 1969, a star athlete in both football and basketball. He continued on to complete his college degree and then obtained a master’s degree in Anatomy from Marshall University. Michael was passionate about sharing knowledge with others and soon found himself teaching medical school classes at Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine in Miami, Florida. It was here he also found truth and peace within the beliefs of the Adventist Church.

While Michael was passionate about teaching and his job as a professor, a mentor who believed in his potential as a doctor pulled him aside and convinced him to enroll in the medical school. In 1985 Michael was married, and throughout his training and residency, became a father of two.

After completing a family medicine residency in Selma, Alabama Michael moved his family to Avon Park, Florida and began his career as an emergency medicine physician. As a doctor Michael was alarmingly calm and possessed a quiet confidence. He was passionate about serving his patients- a quality that allowed him to make a smooth transition to family medicine when he opened up a practice ten years later. Throughout his career he made one last transition to work as a physician and medical director for Life Care Centers of America in Collegedale and Ooltewah, Tennessee. In this role his leadership was especially impactful for the nurses and those working with him.

Michael married Annette Pickett Crowe on August 15th, 2010. Together they settled into life in Ooltewah, Tennessee and enjoyed traveling and spending time together. In his spare time, he enjoyed cultivating his property into a small farm where he planted orchards and grew mushrooms among typical southern crops. Additionally, Michael enjoyed nothing more than reading history books, following Kentucky basketball and Ohio State football, and staying up to date with the current political climate.

“Grandpa,” as he was lovingly called by his six grandchildren, was perhaps his favorite role. Michael loved nothing more than spending time walking side by side with each of them, teaching them about the land, gardening, and life. Insatiably curious himself he was incredibly patient and never tired of their endless questions.

Michael is remembered for his kindness, generosity, and gentle spirit. He loved spending time with family and ultimately, this was his favorite pastime. His legacy lives on through these relationships, the service to his patients, and the light of Christ he spread in each of these roles.

Michael is preceded in death by his mother, Thelma Lee Crowe, and father, James Crowe, and brother, James Allen Crowe. He is survived by his loving wife of 11 years, Annette Pickett Crowe; two children, James Crowe and Sarah (William) Otis and three step-children, Anthony (Morgan) Bussey, Jonathan (Kristi) Bussey, and Anna (Skyler) Williams; six cherished grandchildren, Andrew, Hope, Georgia, Charlotte, Norah, Margaret, and Luz; three nieces and numerous close friends.

A Celebration of Life will be held Friday, December 17, 2021, at 3:00 P.M., Collegedale Community Church, 9305 Four Corners Place Collegedale, TN 37363.

Gathering of Family & Friends will be held Friday from 2:30 P.M. until the 3:00 P.M. at Collegedale Community Church.

In lieu of flowers please make a donation in his honor to The Tri-Community Fire Department.

[theunionofopposites]

It seems impossible it’s been three years.

*******************

 A year after my sweet momma died I got this tattoo in her handwriting. At the time it was a reminder of the good: the light in this world. The familiar script was comforting. 

******************* When I found out I was pregnant last year I thought for sure I was having a boy. Looking back I was afraid to hope for a girl. You see, in the weeks before her death I told my Mamacita that Will and I decided if we ever had a little girl we would call her Luz. The moments that followed are so sacred to me; both of our hearts breaking over the life she would not bear witness to. An agonizing prayer for a granddaughter not yet born and a plea to God for her life. The memory is one of my most vivid and cherished but I would give anything to have never lived it. Still, at times it seems impossible that she’s not here to cherish our little Luz. Becoming a mother without a mother is a brand new loss I’m still trying to navigate and digest. It just feels so huge.

Yet I am comforted to know that my momma got to rejoice in her existence and celebrate what was to come. A beautiful legacy born out of a life taken too soon. And so now the tattoo reminds me of their two lives, not quite intersected, yet still connected. Two of the most profound relationships of my life just barely missed each other: my mother and the one who made me a mother. This life is so strange. It’s complicated and messy. But it’s also so very beautiful and I feel so lucky to have been gifted not one light, but two. 

Last night I rocked Luz a little longer after she fell asleep in my arms and wondered about the countless times my own mother held my body close to hers and what she felt. The most profound gift she ever gave me was the space to be exactly who I wanted to be while relentlessly loving me. I never realized the magnitude of this until I became a mother but now it’s my most intentional pursuit. Here’s to you mamacita! Your light shines on.

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Death; wow. So f-ing hard to bear, when the few people you cannot live without die. You will never get over these losses, and are not supposed to. We Christians like to think death is a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live fully again in your heart, at some point, and make you smile at the MOST inappropriate times. But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. All truth is a paradox. Grief, friends, time and tears will heal you. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate you and the ground on which you walk.

Anne Lamott

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#grief (emotion)

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Rather often I am asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is, No. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it… Every lament is a love-song.

Lament for a Son

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When the doctor suggested surgery and a brace for all my youngest years, my parents scrambled to take me to massage therapy, deep tissue work, osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine unspooled a bit, I could breathe again, and move more in a body unclouded by pain. My mom would tell me to sing songs to her the whole forty-five minute drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty- five minutes back from physical therapy. She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang, because I thought she liked it. I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore. Today, at her age, I was driving myself home from yet another spine appointment, singing along to some maudlin but solid song on the radio, and I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet.

The Raincoat by Ada Limón

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Anger and disbelief bubbled back up. Does it come as any surprise that he was more shocked than I to hear the news he would be dying soon? He was a child; he believed us with magical wonder when we told him he would get better. Just like he believed us when we promised the Tooth Fairy would exchange his lost tooth for a gift if he tucked it under his pillow. We had assured him he would get better. He had done everything asked of him — every difficult, painful, nauseating thing. And now, my sweet, darling, silly monkey and I were staring wide-eyed at each other, with 100 percent mortality in between.

[theunionofopposites]

By Claudio Bertoni

I’d like to be a nest if you were a little bird. I’d like to be a scarf if you were a neck and were cold. If you were music, I’d be an ear. If you were water, I’d be a glass. If you were light, I’d be an eye. If you were a foot, I’d be a sock. If you were the sea, I’d be a beach. And if you were still the sea, I’d be a fish, and I’d swim in you. And if you were the sea, I’d be salt. And if I were salt, you’d be lettuce, an avocado or at least a fried egg. And if you were a fried egg, I’d be a piece of bread. And if I were a piece of bread, you’d be butter or jam. If you were jam, I’d be the peach in the jam. If I were a peach, you’d be a tree. And if you were a tree, I’d be your sap… and I’d course through your arms like blood. And if I were blood, I’d live in your heart.

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The Knowing

Afterwards, when we have slept, paradise- comaed and woken, we lie a long time looking at each other.

I do not know what he sees, but I see eyes of surpassing tenderness and calm, a calm like the dignity of matter. I love the open ocean blue-grey-green of his iris, I love the curve of it against the white, that curve the sight of what has caused me to come, when he’s quite still, deep inside me. I have never seen a curve like that, except the earth from outer space. I don’t know where he got his kindness without self-regard, almost without self, and yet he chose one woman, instead of the others.

By knowing him, I get to know the purity of the animal which mates for life. Sometimes he is slightly smiling, but mostly he just gazes at me gazing, his entire face lit. I love to see it change if I cry–there is no worry, no pity, no graver radiance. If we are on our backs, side by side, with our faces turned fully to face each other, I can hear a tear from my lower eye hit the sheet, as if it is an early day on earth, and then the upper eye’s tears braid and sluice down through the lower eyebrow like the invention of farming, irrigation, a non-nomadic people.

I am so lucky that I can know him. This is the only way to know him. I am the only one who knows him.

When I wake again, he is still looking at me, as if he is eternal. For an hour we wake and doze, and slowly I know that though we are sated, though we are hardly touching, this is the coming the other coming brought us to the edge of–we are entering, deeper and deeper, gaze by gaze, this place beyond the other places, beyond the body itself, we are making love.

#Sharon Olds

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None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after-thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.

Keanu Reeves

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We're all just walking each other home.

Ram Dass

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#immunotherapy

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#philosophy