Elizabeth LaFleur

I’m re-sharing a post from 2014 because its about my brother, a veteran of the war in Iraq, whom I absolutely adore. Remember our veterans every day, but especially this weekend. Thank you to all who serve.

Here’s a link to another story about him, if you’re interested. 

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I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know the Bruce Springsteen song ‘I’m on Fire’ existed until John Mayer covered it for his 2009 album. I was a senior in college and still in that swoon over John Mayer phase. Bruce Springsteen was just ‘born in the USA’ and nothing more. When my brother brought this song up on the phone I told him I knew it because of John Mayer. He said “no, you’re thinking of the Jimi Hendrix song.” ‘Bold as Love’ is another cover I didn’t realize was a cover until I loved John Mayer’s version first in the mid 2000s. The timing of my existence is mildly unfortunate, at least in the case of good music, but I digress.

My brother is not a Springsteen superfan, by any means. Of all the years I spent riding passenger side in whatever vehicle he hadn’t wrecked yet (sorry, bro), I never remember any Springsteen. He was my old school rap and Miles Davis loving brother. He is also the reason I had boyz II men cassette tapes before I was old enough to care if they were boys or men. But Springsteen had a song that struck a cord during what must’ve been the most pivotal period of his life so far.

It’s two minutes and 37 seconds long. 2:37. That’s about as short as a song on pop radio can get. People run half a mile in that time. Running is exactly what it makes my brother want to do. When he brought up the song he told me he’d been listening to it on repeat for at least an hour. The why was heartbreaking. The song held no meaning before one particular night after Iraq when he was home safe and realizing the finality of friends that never would be.

…Watch as I skip over tons of details here, because it’s simply not my story to tell…

It was a night when the reality hit so hard that all he could do was run from it. He got up from his seat, went out the door, grabbed his iPod from his truck and hit play.

The early 80s beat picks up…”Hey little girl is your daddy home…” He’s running as hard as he can. He’s thinking of kids he knew over there. Kids, because that’s what they were. He was 23.. Some were just 19. Some, as he put it over the phone the other night, hadn’t even had sex yet. Maybe you argue they knew what they were getting into, but there’s really no way anyone does. The guys who never come home live not even half lifetimes. The guys who do, end up racing down the dark street in the middle of the night months and years later because they don’t know how or why it wasn’t them. My brother told me his whole story and I had no words. After several seconds I said, “In a very small and insignificant way I know what you mean.” That’s when he cut me off, telling me I was wrong. No memory that evokes emotion is insignificant.

There’s a George Strait song that puts me in the passenger seat of my dad’s old Buick. I’m 10 years old and he’s driving me through the West Virginia mountains that old cowboy is describing. I cannot hear it without thinking of that trip. I fell
in love with two things on that vacation; the beauty of West Virginia’s New River Gorge, and Country music. I couldn’t have fallen more in love with my dad if I’d tried. My junior year of high school I was coming home from track practice in that same old Buick, this time I was driving. I heard The first few notes and picked up my phone. I called my dad and left him a message because he was out of town and at 16 you sometimes still need your dad to know you miss him when he travels for work. I told him I was calling because our song was on and I loved him. The phone call ended. The song ended. My dad kept the voicemail well into my college years.

The summer we moved to South Carolina my mom rented a convertible for a week while her car was being fixed. It was an 8th grader’s dream. I had a newly purchased copy of the ‘Moulin Rouge’ soundtrack (terrible movie, btw), the wind in my baby thin hair, and no clue how awkward my teenage years would soon become. All I knew was that my mom and my best friend were willing to belt out Ewan McGregor’s version of ‘your song’ with me no matter where we were in town. I can barely handle Elton’s version anymore without wanting to really give it to the “are they green or blue” line.

Music is memory. Songs put us where we want to be. My music tastes have changed dramatically since I loved John Mayer, or since I thought Dave Matthews was super talented (kinda steered me wrong on that one, bros). I’ve grown up to find what I like, instead of what I “like” because someone I love does. But some songs still take me back. ‘Hand in my Pocket’ has me on the living room floor of my first house listening to my cousin Erika play piano. ‘Sailor Suit’ puts me at my computer with my middle brother leaning over my shoulder telling me which songs are cool enough to download. ‘Rich Girl is me, and Ginny, singing at the top of our lungs in Charleston humidity after a long, perfect day on the beach.

Music makes us feel alive.

Music often makes me want to run. When I got off the phone with my brother that night he told me he was going to run. He was going to put Bruce on repeat and just go until he couldn’t feel. I told him to be safe and I love him. We always say ‘I love you’ now, but we didn’t always say it before he went to war.

I hung up the phone, spent 99 cents on iTunes and put Bruce on repeat in my own bedroom because, in some way, his story is now mine too.

 

I came home from the hospital on the day of the Raleigh Christmas parade in 1987.

The same parade was held on the weekend of or near my birthday every year of my childhood and still is.

I’m a maniac about my birthday. Anyone who knows me well knows this. But I’m also a maniac about Christmas and I barely can separate the two things in my mind.

The issue of when to begin celebrating Christmas is divisive. There are those in the wait until December camp, the wait until the day after Thanksgivings and the I can’t wait to start listening to Christmas music on November 1st crowd.

I bet you can guess which one I’m in. And I know it drives some people crazy. So I try to respect that. I keep my Christmas music in my headphones until after Thanksgiving.

But the truth is, the lines are blurred. November kicks off a full season of joyful time with family and friends. There are two major holidays between now and December 31st, but for me the feelings of those holidays lasts the entire season.

I, of course, know the meanings behind Christmas and Thanksgiving and understand why some people want to keep them separate, but I can’t help myself. I love the celebration of family and togetherness. I love Christmas decorations and the way I feel like I should go a little more out of my way to be kind to strangers (I know, I know.. I should do this all year round and I really do try).

I love the idea that most people around me have something to look forward to during this season, whether its visits from family not seen since last year or cooler weather or those darned red cups at Starbucks.

I love that my mom and mamaw are/were Christmas fanatics who started shopping months in advance and couldn’t wait to decorate multiple trees in their homes.

I’m grateful that we have a season that is undeniably meant for loving one another, no matter how or what we celebrate between now and the new year.

I don’t apologize for being excited about the holidays as soon as November hits.

In fact, I sort of blame the City of Raleigh. It’s not my fault I was born on the weekend they chose to hold their Christmas parade each year.

A sweet friend of mine carefully and thoughtfully this week told me she is pregnant. She wanted to tell me in person because she knows that’s something I also want in my own life.

A lot of my friends are pregnant or taking care of infants and toddlers. It’s that time in life for many of us. 

I am not pregnant. Not because I don’t want to be, but because it’s not as easy for some people as others.

I’ve had friends who got pregnant in what seemed like an instant. I have people I love who never planned to be pregnant at all.

And I’ve had people very close to me who were devastated to learn they never would conceive. And I’ve seen them climb out of that despair and build families in their own perfect and wonderful ways.

The journey is different for everyone and that’s okay.

This is not about the sadness, loneliness or absolute depression that can come from the struggle for so many women. 

And it’s not about giving up.

This is about joy.

Right here, right now there’s just one thing I want to address, not as your friend who may not have as easy of a road toward motherhood as you had, but simply as your friend.

Share the news.

Don’t hide it. Don’t worry that you may come across as insensitive. You won’t. 

There is no wrong way to tell that friend that you’re pregnant. 

She’s your friend. She loves you. As much as she wants the same thing to happen in her own life, she’s no less thrilled that it’s happening in yours. 

So share the news. 

Understand that her own hopes for a family don’t diminish her excitement for you in this beautiful and cool time. 

There’s too darn much going wrong in the world not to share such joy.

I was invited to be a guest on Stories of the Upstate, a Greenville-based podcast that interviews people from the community.

The host, Loyd Ford, is awesome. I’ve actually interviewed him before and found him to be fascinating. He believes everyone has an interesting story, a belief we have in common.

But this isn’t about his podcast or my appearance on it.

This is about what I didn’t say.

Ford asked me right off the bat to talk about my childhood. It wasn’t a surprise question. I knew it was coming, but I was nervous. I’ve only been on one other podcast and it was just last week – and it was hosted by a good friend of mine.

I was nervous, so I didn’t say everything I’d want to say if I were sitting down to write a succinct description of my childhood. In fact, I barely mentioned my family.

In my mind, that’s a huge misstep.

So here’s what I would say.

My childhood was almost exactly what I’d want it to be if I were to do it again. I was surrounded by love from a huge family.

I had two brothers who rarely made it known that they found me annoying and would include me when they picked teams for neighborhood football and street hockey games.

I had two sisters who were already nearing adulthood when I was born and, though I only got to see a few times a year as a kid, went out of their way to make those moments special. They taught me, by example, so much about being a young woman, what kind of man to find for a partner – someone who works hard for his family and will have your back – and they continue to show me what it means to be a great mother, even when it’s the most challenging job in the world.

My parents weren’t rich, but they made every opportunity I could’ve ever wanted possible. They supported me when I wanted to play sports I wasn’t good at and continued to pay for dance classes long after they knew I was just in it for the social aspect and wasn’t actually going to be a Rockette (shoutout to my fourth grade dream). They made sure I was well fed and they sat with me while I learned to read. When I was a young kid, they never let me act shy when an adult tried to talk to me. They taught me to look people in the eye and always try to be kind.

When a hurricane devastated many of our friends, neighbors and even strangers in Raleigh, they carted me all over town to help clean up yards and deliver hot meals.

I had all of the time in the world to play outside and run and laugh and make up games and just be a kid.

I did pretty well in school and had endless access to books, one of my favorite things. I even made friends with the librarians who would take extra time to talk to me about things I might like to read next.

I wrote books. I read. I ran. I swam. I played. I loved

I was allowed to be a kid in ways that so many people aren’t afforded.

If nerves hadn’t got the best of me, this is what I would’ve said.

 

In the spring of 2002, I was 14 years old and in my second year on a recreation league softball team that took the game about as seriously as Justin Verlander takes the ALCS.

It was slow pitch.

I’d ended up on the team a year earlier when I’d missed the rec. league tryouts for some reason and had my name drawn out of a hat by the head coach, a nice though intense man who held practices in his backyard.

The man owned horses and enough land to have two softball fields – one on either end of the property. There was a batting cage at the one behind his house. We practiced five days a week, while other teams did the standard once weekly practice at whichever rec. field they’d been assigned to that week.

Our parents met up with the coach at a grocery store and we’d ride in the back of his truck out to his land for a two hour practice before meeting back at a gas station where he’d buy everyone a snack and a drink and we’d get back in our parents’ cars and head home.

It all sounds very bizarre now, like something no 2017 parent of a 14 year old would be comfortable with.

But it didn’t feel strange then and it really wasn’t – aside from that fact that we all took the game way too seriously and basically guaranteed ourselves back-to-back-to-back championships with our rigorous practice schedule.

I am no softball player. I’d already played for a few years by the time I joined this team, but I’d never been good. I enjoyed running the bases, but I wasn’t very good at hitting and fielding was even worse. I stood in right field, the place they put the worst kids on any little league team, and prayed my friends would get three successful outs before I had to worry about a single pop fly coming my way.

It was slow-pitch softball. No one was hitting line drives to right field.

There was no good reason for me to be on that field, except the social aspect of the sport. Which is pretty much the case with most sports I played at that age.

My best friend had a similar story. Maybe she’d asked to play, maybe her parents signed her up. I don’t really know, but I don’t suspect it was because she was gunning for softball superstardom. Neither one of us was, though she was arguably better than I was. There’s really no reason we should’ve both been on this rigorous championship-seeking softball team that I can surmise.

Except to meet each other.

That’s the only real lasting thing I take from my time on that softball team, other than memories of free snacks, long practices and teenage girls yelling high-pitch cheers about good eyes and home runs from a dug out.

Honestly, I don’t really subscribe to the idea of universal signs or “everything happens for a reason”, but when she and I were trading innings out in right field and hitting only mildly impressive singles week after week, we were building something that’s lasted more than 15 years — across state lines, across the country and now, luckily, just down the road.

 

I get to write a Q and A column for the newspaper I work for. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can find it here: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/downtown/askelizabethlafleur/

Journalism is taking some major hits right now, both from people who don’t respect the ethics of the job enough to be doing it and from people who simply don’t want to hear anything that disagrees with what they already believe to be true.

Journalism has two major roles to fill. It’s a watchdog making sure elected and selected leaders are doing what they’re supposed to be doing without corruption. And it’s providing the general public with information they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Writing this column allows me to fill the most basic of these two roles. Twice a week in publication (and many hours of research in between), I get to work to provide people with something they’ve specifically asked to know.

It’s that simple.

The formula is a question sent + time spent researching and interviews + time spent writing the answer. And in two months of doing this, I’ve received only positive feedback. That’s not to toot my own horn and say I’m doing it anywhere close to perfectly, but I think it says something about journalism in general.

People want to know things that matter to them – big or small.

Journalism has gotten away from itself. It’s become this never-ending search for clicks or views and a constant search for the balance of sharing stories that matter or sharing stories that people will actually click.

In these two months, I’ve studied my own analytics – the mark by which most journalism is measured these days. What I’ve found is that people still want answers. They still want to know what is happening in their own community.

They want to know they can impact what they’re reading and be impacted by what they’re reading.

It’s that simple.

It’s journalism.

And I couldn’t be more proud to be able to be a part of this small piece of it.

It’s October 20th and you know what that means…

No you don’t (and that’s totally okay).

It means I have one more month in my twenties which is somehow both wildly insignificant and terribly important to me.

I have friends who are older than me who’ve told me for years now that your thirties are some of the best years of your life – that you’re more confident, more assured, and just generally more aware of who you are and what you value.

I have friends older than that who tell me the 40s are even better.

I’m thrilled.

I’m not scared or sad like I thought I might be. I’ve always enjoyed birthdays and never minded getting older too much, but for a long time I felt like I was really a 17 year old trying to pretend like an adult.

Right on time, as if this is how aging is supposed to work, I actually feel like a grown-up now. I feel ready. I’m excited for what’s to come.

I did a thing four years ago, after being encouraged by friends, where I made a promise to write and post something every single day in the month leading up to my birthday. It wasn’t about making myself write – I already do that every day. It was about being willing to put it out there.

I did it and it led to a lot of great things. Publishing daily on this website played a role in the job I have today, which is huge. It also caught the eye of the man I’m now married to, which is MUCH BIGGER.

Writing, for better or worse, has changed my life over the past four years (largely for better). In fact, it’s changed my life all the way through since I opened my first bright pink diary with Minnie Mouse in a ballet costume on the front and little purple bows printed on the corner of each page inside.

So, I’m doing it again. Bear with me. I write far more for work now than I used to, so I’m going to need to dig deep for creativity at the end of long workdays, but I’m going to do it.

To celebrate the non-accomplishment of just still being here, I’m going to do it.

These three decades have been pretty darn good to me and if my friends are to be trusted, there’s something even better ahead.

 

I just finished a beautiful book called ‘The Bright Hour’ by Nina Riggs, it’s the memoir of Riggs, a woman from Greensboro, NC who is battling breast cancer. From the beginning you know the book was published after her death.

There’s no way out – no surprises. This person, whose story you’re going to become deeply invested in, will die and it will be at far too young of an age. She’ll leave behind two young sons and a grieving husband.

Along the way she’ll guide you through radiation treatments, tough conversations about her disease with her young sons, watching her mom die of another form of cancer and all of the ways she travels from anger to sadness to pure joy in the moments that she has left.

There’s a chapter that made me put down my book and call my mom just to talk. She doesn’t even know it. It’s impossible to read about such loss and not wonder about your own loved ones – and it’s unbearable to ignore that sentiment.

On my way to work, I’ve been listening to a podcast called ‘Terrible, Thanks for asking’. It’s as dark as it sounds. Host Nora McInerny lost her husband to brain cancer when he was in his 30s. She weaves her own journey through his death in with interviews of others who’ve experienced similarly tragic loss – drug addictions, cancer, brain aneurysm and more.

Most days, I find myself weeping on my way to work as McInerny dives into deeply personal stories about figuring out how to continue to live in a world where someone so important no longer does.

McInerny explores life and death in a way that makes many of us uncomfortable.

She asks guests to share stories of the people they’ve lost – who they were, why they mattered and even how they died.  She speaks openly about deceased people whose names even some of the people who actually knew them are too afraid to mention in the aftermath of their loss.

Sometimes the gut reaction when someone we know loses a loved one is often to try to avoid bringing it up – to avoid interrupting whatever peace they might’ve found in the days since.

McInerny beautifully understands that peace doesn’t come from pretending those people never existed – or a fear of saying their name. Sometimes the best response is to ask how they’re doing and be comfortable with hearing “I’m terrible, thanks for asking.”

 

I can’t stop listening to McInerny’s podcast, because she’s dissecting something so final, and painful in a way that helps me understand that peace, or whatever semblance of it people in mourning can find, comes from being able to share the person they’ve lost and having people who are ready to hear about them.

I’ve surrounded myself with death in an, admittedly, superficial way. I’m not dealing with it as intimately as many people around me. I can’t compare teary car rides to the actual impact of tragedy.

But there’s something ethereal about listening. There’s grace and power in empathy.

You can find McInerny’s podcast at this link or download it in the podcasts app on your iPhone.

You can buy Riggs’ book at this link (or a Barnes & Noble store)

 

 

 

My goat Oprah died unexpectedly last night. I’m heartbroken over it, more than some people might think one should be over a goat. But here’s the thing, I waited almost 13 years for this goat and she was sweet, though timid, and a wonderful mother to some very cute babies. She was my first goat, someone I dreamed about from the time I was about 14 years old. I don’t really have much else to say, but I’m going to miss her, so I’m going to use this day to share a couple of photos and a post I wrote shortly after I got Oprah for Christmas in 2014. ​

 

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Welcome to the family, Oprah (Jan. 7, 2015)

I was squatting in a corner of the goat pen, hand outstretched with a carrot resting on the end of my fingertips, softly trying to negotiate with the goats. “It’s okay girls. You can trust me. I have carrots for you.” It turns out that’s not enough to convince adult goats that a complete stranger is safe.  Those that know me best would tell you patience is not my strong suit, but it’s going to take a lot of patience for me to get to know my new goat… and for some reason that feels okay.

Twelve years ago I started asking for a goat as a negotiation tactic. My parents told me we were moving from our perfect, happy, SERIOUSLY WHY WOULD WE EVER LEAVE HERE suburban life near Raleigh, North Carolina down to a farm in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina. My brothers weren’t going. They were both old enough to live on their own. I was the only one still in school. For reasons best explained by teenage angst and inability to see the big picture, I thought this whole thing was terrible. I decided moving by myself to South Carolina was, at the very least, a strong enough negotiator for getting a pet goat. So I started asking. I pushed hard for a while. I was a 14 year old girl with her dad wrapped around her finger (why deny it?). It didn’t take long to get a yes to the goat… but then she never actually arrived.

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I bit into one of the carrots to break it into smaller pieces. I can’t be certain, but I think one of the girls gave me the side-eye as I put my teeth around the end of the carrot.

I looked down at my dusty boots and laughed quietly at myself; I waited twelve years to squat near some goats, for what seemed like forever, while trying to patiently coax them into sharing a carrot or two.

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I named my goat Oprah — partly because I used to love watching Oprah after school with my mom… but mostly because I think it’s a hilarious name for a goat. Oprah can’t live with me right now. She lives at my mom and dad’s farm because I don’t think goats love apartment style living and my dog is going to murder me in my sleep if I bring another animal into her life.

Twelve years ago when I asked for a goat it was because I was a goofy 14 year old who appreciated the novelty of owning an animal none of my suburban friends had seen outside of the state fairgrounds. It’s probably best not to get a living, breathing pet for a reason that ridiculous. This year, when I renewed my request for a goat it was because this farm thing is real. I’m in this. I love the lifestyle. I love living off of and learning from the land. I don’t get to live it every day, but I benefit from it most days of the week. I cook meals made from vegetables grown in my parents’ backyard. I bake, scramble, and boil eggs from their chickens.

When I need a place to just get away and breathe fresh air, the camping spot down by the creek is the best spot I know.

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I know… as I corner Oprah and her sister and get just close enough to rub their backs, while they watch me with suspicion… that this is all going to take a while. I know, as I drive down the gravel driveway and turn out onto the road that carries the address I used to call home… that the farm is not my reality right now. I know that in 35 minutes I’ll be pulling up to my apartment two towns away from my family’s land, and that is where I live right now. That is where my bills arrive. That is where my dog sleeps. That is where I get ready for work each day. I know I still live in an apartment in another county, but the family farm’s influence is real and it’s shaping me.

Oprah is my best way to really take some ownership in the farm right now. She’s my ticket to spending more time enjoying what this land… our land… has to offer,  if I can ever get her to trust me enough to share these carrots I’ve already bitten.

 

 

We left North Carolina 15 years ago today in a U-Haul.

I was 14 years and 8 months old and should’ve been doing my 9^th grade summer reading on the way down, but I couldn’t stop thinking about everything I was leaving behind.

I hated moving.

I typically love disgusting southern summer heat, but it was unacceptable that day. The truck rattled on the highway and nothing on the radio sounded right. We got Chick-fil-A somewhere just before the state line and it didn’t even taste good.

Chick-fil-A always tastes good.

It’s the first time in my life I don’t remember being excited to see the Gaffney peach.

We used to come down to Liberty, SC fairly often. We’d visit my grandparents farm, swim in their pool, fish in their pond, spend time with my sisters and nephews.

It was a fine, no, great place to visit.

But it was no place to move a teenager who was used to the comfort of the suburbs in a progressive southern city, of that I was sure.

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My opinion of this place changed. I became comfortable over time. High school in rural South Carolina was far better than I expected it to be, and most likely a better experience than I would’ve had in a huge suburban Wake County high school. I made friends I will never lose.

I stuck around South Carolina for college. Though that decision was largely influenced by in-state scholarship money, I’m glad I made it.

I left right after school to try a new place, because I thought I needed to get away.  It only took me 19 months to hurry back from Mississippi.

I eventually fell from feeling stuck in South Carolina, to being in love with it. My sisters are here. My parents are here. A huge part of our family history is here. I fell in love with South Carolina.

And I fell in love in South Carolina.

I met a guy from New Hampshire who’d come down for a job and through the course of all of the things dating, falling in love and getting married can bring, I sort of accidentally roped him into sticking around the Palmetto State.

So we’re settling in this place I never wanted to move to, but it’s not settling in the sense that I’d rather be elsewhere.

I wouldn’t.

We love our city. This city is ours and that’s important to us. We’ve watched it grow and change in the past five years and will continue to do so long into the future.

But I still miss North Carolina.

I still think of North Carolina as my home.

Not in a sad, pathetic way, or at least that’s what I tell myself, but in the way that a person loves the place that shaped them.

North Carolina is where I was made. It’s where I learned to walk, run, swim and ride a bike. It’s where I made my first friends and some of my very best friends. It’s where most of my team allegiances lie and where my mom’s whole side of the family hails from. We didn’t travel a lot when I was young, instead we spent most of our time off and many weekends visiting my grandparents’ home near the NC Coast.

It’s also the only place I grew up with my brothers. They were both out of high school when we moved. A transition to being the only child left at home might feel natural for any other youngest child, for me, it coincided with a life change that amplified an altered family dynamic.

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15 years ago today my mom, dad and I moved into the first house I ever lived in that wasn’t ours from its beginning. It was a rental house, actually a former parsonage for my grandparents’ Methodist church which sat just behind the backyard. The living room had green carpet and the kitchen had the oldest appliances and cabinets I’d ever seen.

I’m sure someone loved the home at one point, but it wasn’t me.

We lived in that house for two years while my parents built a big white home on a hill outside of town. Someone bought the parsonage after we left and renovated every inch.

I don’t disconnect well. It took me years to figure it out, but it’s probably my biggest weakness. I don’t easily grasp the idea of losing friends to time, distance or even conflict. I’m still, even as we go through the process of buying our first home here in Greenville, appalled at the idea that people live in a structure for years, build memories there and then just leave, destined to only ever see it again from the outside as they slow roll down the street wondering how the new residents have redecorated.

That was the only home I’ve never cared about since we left.

On the rare occasions when I drive by that house, all I can think of is grumpy 14-year-old me on a hot, sticky July day, insisting on putting two unopened packets of Chick-fil-A’s Polynesian sauce in the ugly old fridge as soon I arrived – you know, in case I needed them in my uncertain future in South Carolina.