Hold On

The Secret Garden was one of the first chapter books I ever read.  The entire story filled my young imagination with thoughts of far off places and rich manors and chamber maids and hidden beauty.  So, in 1991, when my 12 year old self discovered that there was a musical based on the story, and a little girl like me won a Tony award for singing songs on a stage, my heart nearly burst.  I spent many an afternoon in the 7^th grade in my friend Michelle’s basement, belting out songs until my voice went hoarse.  However, it was in 8^th grade, when my young life was full of the drama that was the epitome of suffering in my world view that one song took on more meaning.  Of course, I look at my naiveté back then and smile that I thought that I had any troubles at all. Although the clarity of age and experience tells me my troubles at the time were minor, the lessons of theatre and music penetrated my young mind and the lyrics and meaning of the song have helped me get through challenges far more than I understood I would face back when I was learning and singing this song with as much passion and emotion a young girl from the middle of nowhere Utah could muster. 

In the story, Martha, the chamber maid who in reality may not be much older than the young main character Mary, helps Mary understand the wisdom of needing to “Hold On.”  When I am faced with any difficult task, I hear in my head the beautiful voice of Broadway Actress Alison Fraser telling me “What you’ve got to do is finish what you have begun.”  This song has been with me through so many difficult times that in January of 2017, when I got the opportunity to get an autograph from Ms. Fraser, I imagine I looked like quite a fool telling her that her voice has inspired me through some of the worst times of my life.

“It’s this storm not me, that’s bound to go away.”  Dark and difficult times happen to all of us.  About four years ago, I felt my world crash under me.  I was far from home, far from friends, far from my children, and knew that the life I had dreamed and hoped was nothing more than fiction.  I was ready to give up.  I remember standing near Lake Michigan, wondering how I could possibly survive the situation in front of me, and those words came to my head, the storm will go away.  I will stay.

Challenges are interesting things.  They do have the ability to break us.  I have felt the crippling power of a challenge I did not believe I could face.  However, I also have learned a great deal about strength and resilience from the challenges that I have faced.  The more I have been willing to look at the challenge, accept the challenge, and allow myself to experience the challenge, the more I have learned to hold on.  The more I have learned to be willing to look beyond the current pain, the current danger, and see the growth, the strength, and the understanding that will come.

In addition, challenges have also revealed my strengths, and my ability to see and strengthen others.  Recently I was speaking with a woman who has been in several refugee camps before coming to the United States.  Now that she is here, she does extremely difficult jobs and works to study English, even though before she came to the US she did not even know how to write her name in her own language.  Whenever I see her, she is smiling.  She will greet me in the hallway with whatever words she learned in English that day.  Once, I asked her why she is so happy, and she said she is happy because she is learning, she is being challenged.  I have such admiration for that response.  She welcomes her challenge.  She reminds me to welcome mine.

In the song, Martha brings out this truth “and it doesn’t even matter, if the danger and the doom come from up above or down below or just come flying at you from across the room.”  I have never been in a refugee camp.  Maybe someone reading this has never been divorced, as I have.  Maybe your danger and doom looks different than mine.  The beauty that the musical The Secret Garden taught me is that the answer is still the same, no matter what the challenge is.  “What you do then is you tell yourself, to wait it out, you say, It’s this day not me that’s bound to go away!”

When I have gone through the dark and depressing periods of my life, I have found four things to be healing.  The first is human connection.  Finding others who are willing to admit their challenges, talk about their struggles, their successes, their joys, and their failures has helped me find love, compassion, and joy in the journey of life.  In the song, one piece of advice is to “hold on to someone standing by.”  I am always grateful for the opportunity to hold on to those who help me through the darkness.  The next is to find a reason to laugh, or at least smile.  There are days when it hurts so much that I did not want to get out of bed.  I learned to find a reason to laugh.  Even if it was small, laughter helps.  It does not take away the pain.  It does not heal the depression.  It does remind me that there is joy and fun in the world.   The third is music.  Listening to songs that uplift, inspire, or even elicit emotions of anger or sadness help me to connect to my soul in a way that nothing else has ever come close to doing.  Finally, tears are by their very nature healing.  I have found many people who tell me that they find crying to be a sign of weakness.  That sentiment used to leave me feeling bad, because I cry often and easily, therefore I interpreted this as weakness.  As I have chosen to accept and face challenges and the emotions that come along with them, I find tears to represent strength, human connection, and growth.  I would rather show my ability to empathize and care for another human being than to pretend I am void of emotion.  I have found different and more impressive beauty as I have viewed the world through tears. 

So it will be ok.  Finish what you have begun.  Hold On.  It’s this day, not you, that’s bound to go away.