That Which I Sowed in Tears, I Reap in Joy: A Love Letter to my Beautiful Readers

Something amazing has happened to me, my sweet little chickadees (I say that because you, dear readers, are my beautiful little chickadees, for reasons you will learn in this essay). For the first time in my life, I am happy beyond all imagining. I have experienced many joyous events that have given me a glimpse into what happiness feels like, but never have I experienced something as intensely life-changing as these past few months have been in my life. I never knew anything like this could happen to me, and I never knew such events were even possible -- for anyone.

First, as you know, I married an amazing man in August. I thought that building a life with him would be the greatest joy I would ever know, and I was happy beyond words to have such an intelligent and kind man in my life. But as I was preparing to join him Germany, I experienced a second (surprise) event: I was contacted by my beloved brother.

Yes, you read that correctly.

It turns out that my brother was coming to NYC to run in the marathon (amazing! I was always the serious long-distance runner in the family!), and he wanted to meet me and go out to dinner with me. You may not know this, but our childhoods were filled with astonishing abuse, with every sort of horror that you can name, and we have not spoken since I was 15 and my brother was 13 -- after I was thrown out of the house and made a ward of the courts.

Now, after all these years -- after I've lived all over the country (and even in some other parts of the world), after a legal name change, after adopting the pseudonym that I write under -- my brother found me and had the courage to contact me. The fact is, he found me through my blog, after I "decloaked" myself in anticipation of publishing in Nature and Science (I revealed myself because I wanted to share my writing with you, so you knew I was making some progress). My identity became more widely known soon afterwards because of the publicity surrounding the Antarctica competition, which I was a contender in. (well, I think that was how my brother found me, but perhaps not?)

Of course, I immediately wanted to speak to my brother, although after I'd calmed down a bit, I was truly terrified, of .. what? Thousands of horrible scenarios flitted through my mind, and I experienced lots of terrifying nightmares that unfortunately are recapitulations of my life and all the terrible and sad things I've experienced. I was almost ready to email my brother to tell him that I am not strong enough to meet him, but my beloved spouse encouraged me to ask my brother what he wanted to discuss, just so I could have some mental and emotional peace. Almost immediately, my brother texted this response: "I have wanted to talk to you for many years but wanted to give you your space and privacy. As life has gone along, I just need to speak with you - you are my big sister and I need you."

Wow! Regardless of how much of a failure that I think I am, there is no way that this ass-kicking sister would ever abandon her duty to protect and help her brother (that was my first job in life -- one that I felt I failed at miserably -- and I take all my responsibilities very seriously). So I spent hours reading restaurant reviews in search of a nice place in NYC that was near where my brother was staying or picking up his race materials, and finally, I found The Place: The Red Cat.

I won't go into all the details about our meeting and conversation because it is a very long and incredibly tragic story (I will tell you more later, after I sort through all my emotions, and because I know this is a story that must be told -- and because no writer truly has any secrets!). The Red Cat restaurant was magnificent: the food, excellent; the staff, amazing and kind and chatty in a sweet and disarming way (they even gave me a window table after I asked, even though they had no idea about our story!). The evening was far, far too short.

As you might expect, after this meeting, I was shocked. I experienced every emotion you can imagine, from joy to outrage, and I was so overwhelmed I could barely think. After a sleepless night, I found myself waiting anxiously at the NYC Marathon "12000-12999" sign for my beautiful and tragic brother. The police spoke with me for awhile, wondering if I was alright.

"I am so happy! I am so happy!" I wept aloud to them.

(Keep in mind that I never cry, even when I shattered my wrist so badly that my future spouse almost fainted at the sight of it and I had to undergo surgery to repair it.)

Slowly, I told bits and pieces of our story to the police officers. As I told them our story, it dawned on me that perhaps they needed to hear this as much as I needed to tell it, so they might be reminded that in the midst of all the sadness and tragedy that they face every day, that there are happy stories out there, too.

Again, to make another long story short, it seemed like a century before my beautiful brother was there, but then, like in a dream, he appeared. As soon as I saw him once again, I was overwhelmed with joy and sadness and a wide assortment of other huge emotions that I cannot give a name to. We were hugging and crying this time, we were 13 and 15 years old again; happy, overjoyed, grateful beyond words that despite all the sadness and terror we experienced as innocent children, we both had somehow managed to survive and had found each other again at long last.

We ate a lovely meal at the most excellent Mexican restaurant that I love and know of in NYC (The Great Burrito) and had a beer (at "my pub": The Dublin House) before he returned to his family. But before he left, my brother invited me to visit -- to meet his wife and children -- so that's where I was this weekend: visiting his beautiful family. This was the most amazing and the most healing experience I've ever had in my entire life.

Of course, this means I didn't have wireless, so I was out of touch with all of you. (This generated an avalanche of email from my concerned readers, so I am writing this just to let you all know that I am alright -- better than alright! -- and to let you know that I will do my best to not allow a lapse of communication to happen again).

So what does this story have to do with you, dear readers? Everything. You kept me alive when my days were so dark and awful and frightening that I wanted to die (and there were many of those) -- and a fair number of you were there for me before ScienceBlogs was born! There were many days when the only reason that I stayed alive was because of you, because I respected your investment into me of time and effort and emotion and because you genuinely wanted me to keep going -- how could I break your hearts? Most of you have never seen me, and have no idea about me and my life beyond what I write about on my blog and in email to you, yet you "stepped up to the plate" and made a huge difference for me -- unasked! You helped me stay housed, fed, clothed and intellectually challenged. You even set up paypal accounts for me (I've got roughly one dozen of those now, so please, no more!). I am surrounded by gifts small and large from you. These gifts, tokens of love, hope and kindness, are like small water droplets reshaping huge stones.

I will never forget the beautiful digital camera (thank you once again, Karen, I still have it and use it daily), the chocolate-covered coffee beans (thank you to one of my readers who wishes to remain anonymous -- I am fat because of you!), the iPod filled with beautiful music (thank you to my wonderful colleague, Orac), the home-made chocolate-chip cookies (made with love, thank you to my colleague, Janet Stemwedel and children, for also helping to make me fat), all the wonderful personal care items (thank you, Abel Pharmboy and thank you, SEED Media Group and all my fellow ScienceBlogs colleagues for helping me stay sweet-smelling!), those delightfully naughty magazines (thank you, Shelley), the underwear, socks and nightshirt (thanks to JY and MA, I didn't scare all those beautiful boyz), the clock radio/CD player that I listened to every morning (I gave that to my brother's family this past weekend, thank you, Wally), my trip to Kansas to experience the gorgeous Konza Prairie and the Platte River (thanks to Dave Rintoul and Elizabeth Dodd), my beloved, beautiful laptop computer (that I am using right now to write this to you -- thank you, Wally, again), the DVDs, computer games, books and other items that you all sent to keep me going.

(Really, almost every one of my ScienceBlogs colleagues and readers played an important role in my life, and I apologize for not giving you all the proper honor here that you deserve, and I will thank you all personally as soon as I can for what you've done for me.)

But most important, dear readers, throughout everything, you never abandoned me. You were like sweet little chickadees visiting my bird feeders every morning; like these delightful little birds, you popped into my life every day with your comments and jokes and funny stories, your arguments, your thoughts, advice and experiences and your observations. You made me feel special with your presence, your comments kept me involved with life when I wanted to retreat and die, you gave me a smile when I had none, and you gave me hope with your amazing, unshakable belief in me -- where did that come from? How did I come to deserve that? And now, I am alive to experience this amazing and wonderful life that I never imagined -- indeed, I had no idea that this life was possible.

I am already hoping (and planning) to become stronger so I can write a book about our experiences, so people can learn from living examples that a tragic life is not a death sentence, that good things do happen to good people, and so all of you who struggle with monstrous horrors of your own might be able to gather your courage, to trust those around you, and to stay alive long enough to experience joy like what I have now.

Despite the relocation chaos I am trying to deal with right now, I had to share this story with you now because I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life, and because I will tell other people the amazing story of the unemployed scientist and her flock of devoted blog readers because people need to know that their actions do have a result, even if it takes years before they bear fruit.

As I said on twitter when I first was coherent enough to say anything publicly about this; "That which I sowed in tears, I now reap in joy." This is because of all of you. The words "thank you" are so silly and tiny and insignificant when compared to this amazing and life-changing gift that you all have given me.

Today, I am walking around in a beautiful pair of running shoes that my brother bought for me as a going-away gift. My spouse (another marathon runner) and I had already been planning our own marathon training and now I will run in comfort in Germany because of my brother -- who knows; maybe all of us will run the NYC marathon together next year? Regardless of what happens with that, these shoes are amazing; my feet have not yet touched the sidewalks of NYC (nor indeed, have my shoes, because I am floating).