Let's Make Ourselves Uncomfortable

When Deanna asked me to speak, I was of course honored. People don’t usually ask me to speak. They generally want me to just shut up. I also felt a bit anxious. Deanna wanted me to tell my story. I don’t like talking about myself. I’d rather talk about issues or ideas, but I will do my best.


I guess if I had to give this speech a title it would be Make yourself uncomfortable. First, let me tell you a little about myself and what makes me comfortable. I grew up with a lot of chaos. My mom was ill during my entire childhood so our home was very disorganized and chaotic. I like order and peace and quiet. I like organization and lists and plans. Until not too long ago, my life was pretty orderly and organized.

Not that I have always had my life go as planned. All I really wanted was to get married and have lots of babies. I got married 23 years ago, but the babies didn’t come. So I kind of fell into a career. I ended up starting my own business 18 years ago. In 1999, I finally got my hearts desire when we adopted our son, Jack. My life was pretty perfect by my standards. I had my family and my business. I was active in my local church and homeschooling Jack. Life was pretty good.

Before I go on, you need to understand some things. My husband and I both grew up in Geauga County. When we got married, we bought our house in Farmington almost on the Geauga line. We both worked in Geauga and we also went to church there. Our orbit and our circle of friends were in Geauga County. We knew there were problems in Trumbull, but we sort of pretended we didn’t live there. In the last few years, though, some things happened that began to wake me up to some of what was happening here in Trumbull.

One thing was that we left a church we’d been members of for 20 years. This church was a small church maybe 30-40 people attending on a Sunday. I had been very active-played piano, taught Sunday School, planned the music each Sunday. I was a big fish in a very small pond. The church we ended up at is Grace Fellowship. Some of you might be familiar with Grace. It seats around 1000 people and is close to full most weeks. This was quite a big change and significant for a couple of reasons. First, my circle of friends enlarged to include folks who were far more Trumbull County than I am. Our orbit changed so that we were spending more time in Trumbull County. Also, the change from a small church where I was always busy to a large church where I had some difficulty figuring out where I could serve gave me some time to get involved in other things.

Another thing that happened to me and probably to lots of you was Facebook. The interesting thing that happened with me and facebook is how it led me to meet people in my own backyard. I met Deanna and Berry on Facebook. One other big thing that came from Facebook and had an impact on me is that I got involved with volunteering for Jim Graham’s campaign for Congress. Now understand I’ve been interested in politics since I was 15 years old, but I’d been busy with my perfect little life so I’d never gotten very involved. I did volunteer in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, but this was the first local campaign I had ever been involved with. Through the campaign, I met more Trumbull County people who knew way more than I did about the issues we have here in Trumbull County. I was starting to realize that maybe I needed to get more involved.

One thing that happened during that campaign is that I became a precinct committee person and executive committee person for the Trumbull County GOP. At the beginning of this year, I was asked to be a part of their communications group. Now the purpose of this group is to try to communicate conservative ideas through letters to the editor, social media,etc. We study the issues, not just national and international, but also local. One of the local issues that we became involved was the court consolidation. I ended up not only writing about this issue but getting involved in pressuring our Commissioners to move forward on it.

Also, out of the communications group came the opportunity to write for the Trib as a Community Columnist for a year. My goal in writing this column is to try to speak to people who are like I was-kind of out there busy with their own little lives not really involved in what is happening. I knew about some of what was going on, and I thought that somebody should do something. Over the last few years, I realized that I needed to be one of those somebodies. In the last 7 or 8 months, I guess I’ve done just that. However, it has come at a cost to me. I’ve always been a busy person, but as I have gotten more involved not just with writing the column, but also with campaigns, and going to meetings, etc.,-all the while running my business and homeschooling my son- I have become busy to a point where my life is very chaotic-exactly the opposite of my comfort zone. I don’t have any peace and quiet and calm. I’ve become less organized than I like, and often my plans and lists get thrown out the window.

I need to tell one other thing that has happened over the last few years. It is a little bit personal but I need to share because of the truth that it revealed to me. In the last several years, my husband began to change physically and mentally. I made excuses for these changes but realized in May of this year that something was truly wrong with him. I took him to the doctor and after ruling out a few other things, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

All of my organization and lists and plans for our future were gone with the wind. What was left of my comfort zone had been carried away like a house in a twister. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Unlike Dorothy, I would never return. I would never have my perfect little life back. I would forever be uncomfortable. In the last couple of months though, I’ve realized some things about being uncomfortable. First, it is not the end of the world. I can survive this. Also, and this is the big one: Nothing important gets accomplished when you’re comfortable. Think about it. A pearl is formed when sand irritates the oyster. A diamond is just a lump of coal under pressure.

Tonight I want to challenge you to make yourself uncomfortable. Now I know that everyone in here knows that we have big problems here in Trumbull County-not just septic problems not just health department or CSB problems. We have a pervasive culture among our public officials that makes them think they aren’t really public servants-that they are above the rules. They are little kings in their castles, and we are just allowed to live here. We need to change this, but we can’t change this until we change ourselves-make ourselves uncomfortable. Now not everyone has to be as uncomfortable as Berry and Deanna have been or even I have been. I do think though that there are some things that everyone needs to be doing. These are things that might be out of your comfort zone, but are really things that all good citizens should be doing.

First we need to inform ourselves. Thomas Jefferson said “ An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.” If we the people want to truly be in charge we must inform ourselves. If we don’t there are consequences.

Jefferson also said, "If once (the people) become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions."

Wolves, that’s just so Trumbull County.

But we have to do more than just inform ourselves and this is where it can get uncomfortable. We need to also inform others. It can be writing letters to the editor or just talking to our friends. This may mean bringing up touchy topics with our friends. Nudging them to find out for themselves what is really going on. It may be uncomfortable, but it is necessary that we inform others. I don’t think that we need to beat people over the head with stuff, but we need to work at making sure people know what is going on.

Finally, we need to get involved. Go to meetings. Find out who your trustees are and what they are doing. Go to commissioners meetings. Go to health department meetings. Support Deanna and Berry in their effort as this thing goes on. They are sacrificing a lot to do this and will need our support to help them.

I want to say something about this fight. I’ve heard people refer to it as a David and Goliath fight. It is, but not just because the little guy is fighting back. When David fought Goliath, he wasn’t just fighting for himself, he was fighting for the whole nation of Israel. We need to remember that Berry and Deanna are fighting for all of us-for every citizen of Trumbull County.

I love this county. It is beautiful, has a wonderful history and has great people, but it is dying in front of my eyes because of the corruption and ineptitude of its leaders. My son often tells me he wants to buy my house and live here forever. I would like that, but I fear that it won’t be possible if we don’t make some changes. This county is not going to change if we do nothing. Washington and Columbus aren’t going to save us. We must do it ourselves. If we want change, we must change. This is my challenge to you:
Let’s change Trumbull County.
Let’s change ourselves.
Let’s all make ourselves uncomfortable.

Pick Up Life Where it is Broken

I confess. I am a genealogy nerd. I have been researching my family tree for about twenty years. The thing that I love the most about doing this is the little stories I discover and sometimes the little artifacts I find. One of my most treasured finds is a letter written by my great-grandmother.


My grandparents were killed in a traffic accident in 1961. They left behind my mother and her sister who were both adults and married, as well as my Uncle Mitch who was a young teenager. My great-grandmother wrote them a letter to try to comfort them in their grief. I have a copy of that letter, and I treasure it for its simplicity and power.

She opened the letter with this sentence, “My heart is breaking with sorrow, and I don’t know what to say except to pick up life where it is broken, and try to live a life worthy of the parents who have gone before.”

My great-grandmother’s advice to “pick up life where it is broken” was not a simple platitude. She had experienced many times of picking up her own life. When she was a eight years old, her mother died in childbirth, and she was left to help take care of the household and mother her siblings. This was the 1880’s, and her life was not easy. Her family moved around from Kentucky to Missouri and finally to Oklahoma to homestead.

She met her future husband in Oklahoma, and together they homesteaded. They were original Sooners, having participated in the land run in 1890’s. She lost a four year old son to an infection. She watched another son, my grandfather, go off to fight in World War I. She lived through the Great Depression.

When she wrote this letter, she was suffering the greatest grief a mother could know-the death of her child. Yet, she reached out to comfort her grandchildren with her own simple words born of experience-“Pick up life where it is broken.”

I’ve heard a story of my great-grandmother her that shows what she was made of. She had been told by a doctor that she was dying. The family took a final family trip to Pike’s Peak. When they returned, she announced, “I’m not going to die.” She ended up living into her nineties.

Recently, I’ve been undergoing my own trials. In May, my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The day he was diagnosed, I re-read that letter. I had always treasured that letter for its history and beauty, but that day I felt like my great grandmother reached out from the past to comfort me and advise me. I knew that I needed to “pick up life where it is broken.” I had to keep moving forward.

In the months since the diagnosis, life has at times been difficult. I have often felt like giving up, but I know that I can’t do that. I have to, as a good friend likes to say, “keep plugging away.” I’m so grateful for the legacy I have from my great-grandmother, and for the advice that she left for me. I hope that I’ve inherited a bit of the resilience that she had, and that I can keep picking up life where it is broken, and leave that legacy for my own child.