Today, I am watching Let’s Make a Deal with my Mom, a special October episode featuring breast cancer survivors. For some reason, I keep crying. I cried when the first contestant won a car.  She cried a little, too. Everyone in the crowd cheered, so happy for her.

This is the norm for game show audiences, both in the studio and at home, I think.  We rejoice over the contestants’ good fortune. We cheer for them even though we know nothing about them. Nobody cares about their past mistakes or political affiliations. We want them to win, even if they voted for Trump (or, some might say, even if they voted for Hillary). On the show, they are just people who have a chance at something special. Maybe we wouldn’t get along at all if we met in person.  But none of this matters on the game shows. Without exception, we want them to win.

I think this is a little taste of heaven: all that love heaped on us regardless of what we’ve done or how we’ve messed up, people who we don’t even know who are for us and with us, who want the best for us.

I confess I’ve been enjoying the morning game shows more than I expected. Wayne Brady, host of Let’s Make a Deal, is hilarious. Drew Carey, host of the Price is Right, is warm and funny.  On the Price is Right today, he made a point of speaking right to the camera and encouraged anyone in the TV audience who was fighting breast cancer. “You can do it!” he said.

Those kind words made me cry, too. In these days of crazy presidential Tweets that criticize the widows of fallen soldiers, it was nice to hear someone speak love.

This morning was rough. The news has been bleak. Floods and fires. Fires and floods. Mass shootings. Tax cuts for the wealthiest. White supremacists speaking on college campuses.  In the midst of this, in my personal reality, I realize that my Mom is less mobile than she was a week ago. She is struggling to stand now. The tumor is making her right side weaker and weaker. She has almost given up trying to speak.  Her days are spent in front of the television: news, game shows, Diagnosis Murder, 4 pm local news, national news, evening game shows, evening dramas, late night news. When I am with her, I watch those shows, too.

I am grateful, then, for the morning shows, and for Wayne Brady and Drew Carey. In a funny way, these shows remind me of that other kingdom, that upside down place, where everyone is applauded and loved and celebrated, where gifts and prizes are generously handed out, where all of us are together, celebrating all we have been given, all we have received.

Today, it is time to post another blog, ready or not.  It should be inspiring, worthy, and valuable.

Or not.

The truth is that these days I am mostly just sitting with my sadness.

I am sad about my Mom. I am sad that she is dying. I am sad about the conversations we never had. I am sad that time with her means time away from my family. I am sad about Trump and Kim Jong Un and the hurricanes. I am especially sad about Puerto Rico.  It has been a rough few weeks.

It would be nice to make a list I could share of “Ten things to do when you are sad that your mother is dying and hurricanes have wreaked havoc on thousands of innocent people plus you are afraid that two mad men might start a world war.” A list might make me feel better.

My list could include things like:

1. Plant flower seeds.
2. Plant bulbs for Spring.
3. Eat a salad.
4. Take a walk.
5. Pet a puppy.
6. Hold a baby.
7. Look at the stars.
8. Do 10 push ups.
9. Write a Poem.
10. Pull up some star thistle or breath of heaven trees, the kind that threaten to take over your yard when you are not paying attention.
11. Sit in silence.
12. Put down your phone.
13. Go outside.

This is actually not a bad list. I should do some of these things anyway.

The truth is, though, that I can’t do anything to outrun this sadness. Push ups, poems, and silence are life lines; they help me keep going. But they don’t take the sadness away.

All I can do is be with it. To breathe it in and out. Sometimes, I dive into it and put my arms around it.  I hold it. Then I come up for air, and go to the grocery store and do the laundry.

Out of the blue, I get a text from a friend

“Could I come and sit with you and your Mom the next time you are there with her?”

Yes, yes, yes. Come sit with us.  Be with us. It won’t make the sadness go away. But it makes the walk less lonely.