I am a part of all that I have met

*a story about a chance encounter

Dear Kula Diaries,

Sometimes you meet important people when you are least expecting it.

When I graduated college, I floundered a bit: I was a pre-med student who had somehow forgotten her dream of becoming a park ranger. I scored poorly on my MCAT testing for medical school as a senior in college, so I decided to take an MCAT prep class during the summer, and then reapply for medical school the following year.

There were, not surprisingly, unwritten feelings that were ‘hidden’ within this decision: I had spent my senior year in college working in a Level 1 Trauma Unit, and, I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to spend the next 10+ years of my life in and out of hospitals. I’d take my microwave dinner during my 12 hour shift and sit in the glass entry way to the hospital on a bench… just so I could see a tiny sliver of the outside world. I remember leaving the hospital after my exhausting shifts, and feeling a need to drink the fresh, non-sterilized air of life that existed outside those walls. In a secret way, I was glad I had flunked my first attempt at the MCAT – maybe this wasn’t the right decision for me anyway… but I was afraid to ‘come clean’ with how I felt — so many people had been ‘proud’ of me for deciding to become a doctor, and I didn’t want to let them down.

Aaron, me, my mom and dad in the Badlands, South Dakota.

I once told somebody that my greatest fear was, ‘disappointing my father’, and – at that point in my life – this was true. My dad, a Master Chief in the Navy, was not necessarily an easy person to please. His way of showing love was hosting a weekend bootcamp for me and my sisters when my mom was out of town — complete with waking up to a loud speaker playing ‘reveille’ on a bugle… military noises such as artillery fire and warships… followed by spam for breakfast and cleaning grout in our bathroom with a toothbrush. I’m genuinely not kidding. Don’t get me wrong: This is not a complaint and I love my dad very much, but searching for validation through him was a lost cause that I learned far too late in life. I was (and sometimes still am) a perpetual over-achiever, because I (incorrectly) believed that it was only through my success and achievements that I could receive the love and validation that I was looking for. When I had been accepted to Franklin and Marshall College, I wanted to make my dad proud, and so, I picked the ‘hardest’ thing that I could think of to do: study to attend medical school. Maybe that would make him proud, I thought.

And so, you can imagine how I felt about myself when, $120,000 liberal arts degree in hand, I found myself working as a cart girl at a hot dog stand to make ends meet after I graduated college. I lived, rent free, in my best friend’s bedroom with her parents as my housemates – graciously providing me lodging when my own family moved to Maryland for my dad’s promotion within the Federal Government. Every single day that I pulled that metal hot dog cart out of the garage at the golf course and rolled it to my ‘spot’ on the 9^th hole, I felt the weight of expectations on my shoulders… everything felt like a constant reminder that I had, indeed, not gone to medical school yet.

Eventually, I started applying for ‘other’ jobs, and I finally landed a job as a marketing assistant at a print shop. I knew nothing about printing, or marketing, but I really loved the creative aspect of what I got to do – and I had always wanted to start a business. My days were filled with interesting connections: different types of founders printing business cards and other materials for their work. I found myself completely enraptured in their excitement and passion, and I loved helping people with their projects.

In addition to being a marketing firm, we were also a simple ‘copy shop’, so anybody could stop in to make photo copies. One day, a woman walked in and asked if I could help her make some photo copies. She was a middle aged woman, and she delicately removed a small envelope from her purse, “I pulled this out of a safe deposit box this morning, and I want to make some copies so that I can go put it back.”

My curiosity was peaked, and she carefully removed a letter from the envelope, “It’s a letter from my dad,” she said, “He’s passed away now, but he wrote this for me when I graduated high school. My daughter is going to use it for a report at school.”

I smiled, and assured the woman that we could make copies without damaging the letter. We started talking, and I began to ask the woman about her dad – and she began to tell me that he was a man of few words, but that this letter was among her most cherished possessions. Deep within my heart, I knew exactly what this letter might mean to her.

Wanting to make conversation, I asked curiously, “What did your dad do for a living?”

She smiled back at me, “Oh, he was in the Navy!”

I laughed a little bit, “Oh, that’s funny… my dad was in the Navy too! Do you know what he did in the Navy?”

She nodded, “Yep, he was on a submarine!”

I shook my head, “No way… my dad was on a submarine too! What are the odds of that?”

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with a strange sense that this was not a normal conversation – that this was, indeed, something special. From within my heart, I felt a nudge, ask a little bit more.

“Do you know what submarine he was on?”, I asked. But, if I’m being honest, I already knew the answer.

She smiled back gently, “He was on the USS Billfish”.

There was a momentary pause, and I stammered back breathlessly, “My dad was too.”

A photo of the USS Billfish. You can learn more about the sub here.

Open-mouthed and in utter disbelief, we stared at each other… laughing and crying at the seeming impossibility of it all. Somehow – connected by our fathers and a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine – this woman and I had somehow found each other at a print shop in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

“His name was Frank Butterworth”, she said to me, “Have you heard the name?”

I hadn’t, I told her, but I promised that I’d ask my dad about it later.

The woman stayed for a short time, and we both exchanged stories about our respective lives as the daughters of submariners. With more laughter and tears, we hugged and said goodbye. I never saw her again.

Later that day, I called my dad. Awkwardly approaching the subject, I said, “Hey Dad, does the name Frank Butterworth mean anything to you?”

Silence. Rustling. More silence.

Finally, he spoke, “Where did you hear that name?”. His voice cracked slightly as he said it.

I explained to my dad that his daughter had been in the print shop that day to make a photocopy of a letter that he had written to her.

There was another long pause as my dad collected his thoughts.

“Stacy,” he said, calling me by my familial nickname, “Frank Butterworth was my commanding officer on the USS Billfish. His signature is the one on my official orders. He was the one who notified me that my brother had died. I’ve visited his grave at Arlington Cemetery.”

This was one of the rare times when I didn’t need more words to know how he was feeling. I could sense that the specialness of this encounter was deeply touching to him – and that this man meant a great deal to my dad.

A few weeks ago, I re-discovered a letter of my own: a letter that my dad had written to me, just after my first time home from college for Thanksgiving. As soon as I saw the speckled grey color of the envelope, I knew exactly what it was. In the note, he told me how much he enjoyed our visit at Thanksgiving and asked me, “So when do you plan to go on your trip to Everest Base Camp? I suppose that the accommodations are primitive to say the least. And then, what is next after that? Climb the mountain? Remember what [What About] Bob said… baby steps!”

Me and my dad in Yellowstone.

Included in the letter was a folded copy of Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses. My dad had written, “It has some wonderful passages, particularly so for someone my age -- see if you can pick out the memorable lines.”

I’ve never climbed Everest, but I have climbed a lot of mountains since my dad sent me that letter nearly 27 years ago – both literal and figurative mountains. My dad didn’t always understand what I was doing or why I was doing it, but he was always there to help me in some of the more difficult moments of my career and as a business owner. While my father was often hesitant to express his emotions freely, he always modeled and demonstrated a deep sense of purpose, duty and integrity. Faced with difficult decisions at work, I always knew that my dad’s moral compass would help me navigate my path. We definitely don’t agree on a lot of things, but I’ve learned to appreciate that I can’t need somebody to be like me in order to love them — I can only need them to be like who they are.

During college, I decided to become a pre-med Latin major, which meant that I translated the entire text of Vergil’s Aeneid from Latin into English. The first line of Vergil’s Aeneid in Latin is, arma virumque cano, which translates to: I sing of arms, and a man. Ultimately, it is a story of life: of failure and resurrection. While I never received my medical degree, I did develop a deep love of ancient poetry and ancient books. It opened my eyes to a profound appreciation of the past — and the centuries of events that helped to create the place where we exist now. As I reflect on my own past, I no longer see myself as a failure — in fact, I understand deeply that I had to do the things that I did in order to end up where I now am.

As I sat with this printed copy of Ulysses recently, I read it more closely: looking, as my dad had suggested, for the more memorable lines. As if prophetic of the chaotic nature of life, Tennyson writes,

I am a part of all that I have met; 
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

Tennyson ends Ulysses with the following words (you can find the full poem here)

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

This ‘chance’ encounter with Frank’s daughter happened in 2003 – over twenty years ago. I didn’t own a cell phone in 2003, and my only regret is that I never swapped information with the woman – never kept in contact with her. Today, it would have been so easy to stay in touch – but, more than two decades ago, this fleeting moment of connection simply vanished into the ether, and I hope that our meeting is preserved in her own heart, as it has been in mine for so many years. Against all odds, we had been brought together. I wish I could tell her today that I still think of her.

If, someday, the universe conspires to bring us together again, there’s one question that I won’t have to ask: Does she still have the letter?

My own such letter was not contained within a safe deposit box – I received it in my college mailbox in 1998 and for the past 28 years, it has survived four years of messy college dorm rooms… living in my best friend’s bedroom while I worked at a golf course… moving into my first small apartment after college and working at the print shop… moving across the country with everything I owned packed into an Acura Integra… a 7.5 year career as a park ranger… a divorce and a move into a studio apartment… a career as a railroad police officer… a new marriage, two more moves… and starting a business from scratch. The letter still sits in a small boxed of cherished possessions in the drawer of my bedroom.

I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she still has that letter.

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Friends, I’m sending you all so much love today, and all days. And, on the eve of Memorial Day, I’d also like to share a special moment of gratitude and appreciation for those folks on our planet who have perished while serving our country, and those families who have lost loved ones. I am a daughter and a descendent of many veterans, and I want to acknowledge that being a family member of a service person is an act of service as well, and your contribution also matters.

May we all hold in our hearts a wish for peace, connectedness, and ease for each other and for our world — a day where each human can learn to respect the beingness in another, and the need for conflict is replaced by a sharing and a remembrance of our deeply entwined love.

P.S. A few years ago, my dad asked me to speak about Kula Cloth to Antietam Fly Anglers, the small non-profit that he stewards in Maryland. With a bit of hesitation, I gave a presentation about Kula to a group of men, mostly over 60 years old. I’m pleased to say that every single one of them was excited about the idea that Kula could help more people get outside more comfortably on the river. Their mission is to teach more folks about fly-fishing, as well as contributing to stream habitat restoration in their local watershed. Together, we launched ‘On The Water’, a Kula Cloth that benefits his non-profit, and Kula has now donated over $1200 to Antietam Fly Anglers: