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What we learn when things fall apart

2024/12/31
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Consider This from NPR

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Allie Feller
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Mary Louise Kelly
经验丰富的广播记者和新闻主播,目前担任NPR《所有事情都被考虑》的共同主播。
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Mike Ingram
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Mary Louise Kelly: 新年伊始,我们邀请听众分享他们人生中最具挑战性的一年,以及他们从中获得的经验和力量。这其中包括克服生活中的巨大困难,例如失去亲人、患病和离婚等,并从中汲取力量,变得更加坚强。 Mike Ingram: 2010年,一场车祸夺走了他23岁儿子的生命。巨大的悲痛让他一度难以承受,但他最终选择帮助其他失去孩子的父母,在帮助他人的过程中找到了慰藉和力量,并从中走出了人生的低谷。 Allie Feller: 2023年,她被诊断出患有乳腺癌,同时婚姻也走向了尽头。面对双重打击,她选择通过运动和专注于与女儿的关系来应对困境。她坦言,虽然过程中充满了悲伤和痛苦,但她始终坚持,并最终在困境中找到了平静和快乐,并对未来充满希望。 Mike Ingram: 2010年,一场突如其来的车祸夺走了我23岁儿子的生命,这无疑是我人生中最黑暗的时刻。我的儿子Michael是一位运动员,拥有无限的潜力和美好的未来,他的离去让我心碎欲绝。我一度无法想象自己该如何继续生活下去,感觉世界都崩塌了。 然而,在经历了无尽的悲伤和痛苦之后,我逐渐意识到,帮助其他失去孩子的父母能够让我自己也得到一些慰藉。我开始主动联系他们,倾听他们的故事,分享我的经历,让他们知道他们并不孤单。在与他们的交流中,我发现,倾诉和宣泄愤怒能够帮助我们释放内心的压力和痛苦,这对于走出悲伤至关重要。 帮助他人,也帮助了我自己。在这个过程中,我逐渐找到了继续生活下去的力量,并开始重新审视人生的意义。虽然伤痛永远不会消失,但我学会了与之共存,并从中汲取力量,继续前行。 Allie Feller: 2023年,我被诊断出患有乳腺癌,同时我的婚姻也走到了尽头。这对我来说是人生中最艰难的时期,我感觉自己仿佛生活在双重地狱之中。癌症的诊断让我感到恐惧和无助,离婚的打击则让我更加心力交瘁。 在最初的震惊和悲伤之后,我开始努力寻找应对的方法。我意识到,我不能让这些负面情绪吞噬我,我还有工作、还有女儿,我必须坚强起来。我开始每天去散步,虽然我是一个跑步爱好者,但当时我却无法提起跑步的动力,跑步对我来说似乎又增加了一份负担。 我开始放慢节奏,用散步来代替跑步,这让我感觉更加轻松自在。我记得在做乳房X光检查和超声波检查的那天,我走了8英里的路,尽管天气炎热,我汗流浃背,但我坚持走完了全程。这让我意识到,即使在最艰难的时刻,我们仍然可以找到释放压力和保持身心健康的方式。 在接下来的日子里,我努力保持积极乐观的心态,并专注于与女儿的关系。我明白,对于我的女儿来说,她最需要的是一个能够陪伴在她身边,关心她、爱护她的妈妈。即使在最糟糕的日子里,我也从未停止扮演好母亲的角色。我会为她准备午餐,为她梳理头发,和她一起玩耍,和她一起分享快乐的时光。 虽然我经历了巨大的痛苦和悲伤,但我仍然在生活中找到了许多美好的瞬间。例如,去年12月,我的女儿在同一个我小时候跳舞的舞蹈工作室参加了她的第一次大型舞台表演。看着她自信地表演,我感到无比的骄傲和欣慰。尽管当时我正在经历离婚的痛苦,但我仍然能够感受到这份喜悦,并从中汲取力量。 在经历了这一切之后,我更加珍惜生活中的每一个美好瞬间,也更加懂得感恩。我知道,即使在最黑暗的时刻,我们仍然能够找到希望和光明。我期待着在2025年,能够拥有更多平静、轻松和快乐的日子。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

How did Mike Ingram cope with the loss of his son?

Mike Ingram coped with the loss of his son by helping other parents who had also lost children. He reached out to them to provide support and a space to vent their anger and grief, which in turn helped him process his own pain.

What challenges did Allie Feller face in 2023?

In 2023, Allie Feller was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, a type of breast cancer, and simultaneously went through a divorce. She navigated these challenges while caring for her young daughter and managing her career as a runner and podcast host.

How did Allie Feller manage her overwhelming emotions during her cancer treatment?

Allie Feller managed her overwhelming emotions by going for long walks instead of running, which she found too physically demanding during her treatment. She also allowed herself to cry when possible but focused on maintaining her responsibilities as a mother and professional.

What does Allie Feller hope for in 2025?

Allie Feller hopes for peace, ease, happiness, joy, and fun in 2025. She reflects on the progress she has made since her cancer diagnosis and divorce, feeling more at peace and optimistic about the future.

What was a significant moment of duality for Allie Feller during her challenging year?

A significant moment of duality for Allie Feller was her daughter’s holiday dance performance in December 2023. Despite having just finished chemotherapy and going through a divorce, she experienced tremendous joy watching her daughter perform on the same stage she once danced on, even though she couldn’t bring her daughter home afterward.

Chapters
This chapter contains NPR's year-end fundraising appeal, highlighting their commitment to independent journalism and encouraging listeners to support the organization through NPR+ or donations. It also includes promotional messages for various NPR podcasts.
  • NPR's year-end fundraising appeal
  • Promotion of NPR+
  • Advertisements for various NPR podcasts including Planet Money, Fresh Air, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, State of the World, and NPR Politics Podcast

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
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Hi, this is Mary Louise Kelly. I cannot believe it is the last day of 2024. And this is the moment, right now, when NPR needs your support. We are a non-profit news organization. We are dedicated to creating a more informed public through independent, honest, accurate,

transparent, and fair journalism. You can read all about our code of ethics at NPR.org. Those are the standards to which we hold ourselves when we bring you Consider This and everything you hear from NPR. You listen because you care about staying informed about the community and world.

Well, today you can help us keep this free public service available to everyone and unlock sponsor-free listening to consider this if you sign up for NPR+. It's a new way to support NPR and get perks for more than 25 podcasts, podcasts like Planet Money, Fresh Air, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and many more. You can join NPR Plus today at plus.npr.org. That is plus.npr.org. And if you're new to the podcast,

And if you want to make a gift today and help us out before the end of the year, you can do that at donate.npr.org. Thank you if you are already an NPR Plus supporter or if you support your local station. We're grateful to have your backing as we move into the new year. ♪

I don't know about you, but this was a tough year for me. I won't get into the details, but reflecting on it, I realized that as hard as it was, I'm also coming out of this year feeling stronger. And I know I'm not alone. So to kick off 2025, we asked you, our listeners, to tell us about some of your most challenging years, what you experienced, how you made it through, and what you can take from it into a new year. ♪

One of those listeners was Mike Ingram. We were laying in bed and we got a phone call at 5:15 in the morning to say that our son was at the hospital.

And they wouldn't tell us anything other than he was at the hospital. In 2010, Mike and his wife Celia received the news that every parent fears most. A drunk driver speeding up I-95 northbound in Philadelphia crossed into the southbound lanes and crashed into their son Michael's car. My son was 23 years old, an athlete, and had a whole lot of life ahead of him. So that's been the heartbreak of my life right there.

If you had told me before my son's passing that I could live, I would say it's not possible. But we're finding ways of doing that. But Ingram did survive, and he found a way to help other parents with the loss of a child. I found, for me, that helping other people has been a help to me. So I called up many of those parents so they could just

Have someone to talk to and to scream at because it is difficult. And sometimes you have to be able to vent the anger. It hurts. Consider this. There's a lot to learn from life's hardest moments. There were really dark days in there and days that I was like, nope, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this. And I did. Coming up, runner and podcaster Allie Feller talks about how she navigated a challenging year.

From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. Ho, ho, ho! Santa here, coming to you from the North Pole, where the elves in our podcast division have just completed work on this season's best gift for public radio lovers, NPR+. Give the gift of sponsored free listening and even bonus episodes from your favorite NPR podcasts, all while supporting public media. Learn more at plus.npr.org. Ha, ha, hoo, hoo, hoo!

You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day.

Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened. We tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes.

It's Consider This from NPR. At times it felt like I was kind of living a double life where I was using the word cancer to mask the really hard stuff, which was kind of nice is that I sort of had an out where I

I could just say, oh, yeah, life's really hard right now because of the cancer. And no one questioned it. No one was like, well, is there anything else that's hard? Allie Feller is a runner and host of the podcast Allie on the Run, where she talks with runners about all things running. In 2023, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma. At the same time, her marriage ended.

I asked her what it's been like to navigate her cancer diagnosis. Right now, it's nice to be on the cancer-free side of things, which is wonderful. But certainly looking back to a year and a half ago, I

I think it went from overwhelming to scary to, okay, let's deal with this thing. And then lots of sneaky emotions along the way, some sneaky trauma and grief. How do you manage that overwhelm? I know for me, when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed, it can feel like the thing that's overwhelming me is the only thing in the room, the only thing that I can focus on, the only thing that I can think about. And yet you have a job, you have a family, you have all these other things you have to navigate. So you can't let it consume you.

Yeah, as much as I would have, you know, my immediate response to that is, oh, I cry. I love crying. I sit and cry. I cry all the time when I'm feeling overwhelmed. But you don't have that luxury if you have a job and relationships and a child, which my daughter was four when I was diagnosed. And so I didn't get to just sit around and cry. What I did do is I went for a lot of walks. And I'm a runner. Running has been a huge part of my life for a long time now. But for some reason, when I got this diagnosis, I just couldn't seem to find...

not the will to run, but I was already going through this hard thing and running is inherently hard. And I think it was just one more hard thing. And so I just slowed it down and I started walking. I remember the day of my mammogram and ultrasound, I didn't have a diagnosis yet, but we kind of had a sense that nothing good was going to come from that. And

I went for an eight mile walk. I remember it being really hot out. I remember sweating like crazy in May, 2023 and just walking until I felt like I couldn't walk anymore. And so that was actually a practice that really stuck with me. And about those days where, you know, you don't feel like being strong, do you think there's merit in allowing yourself to just be out there and exist without putting on that brave face? Yeah. And, you know, that's something that

I've thought about a decent amount. I don't care if people look at me and say, she's brave. I never got cancer to inspire anyone. I have a really fraught relationship with the word inspiring because all I've done, frankly, in the past year is survive. I've been in survival mode for a long time. So yeah, I don't know how I feel about the bravery side of things.

I think for me, the only person that I cared about seeing me a certain way is my daughter. You know, her opinion is the one that matters and all she needs is for me to show up for her and be her mom. And on the absolute worst days, I never stopped doing that thing. If I could do nothing else on any given day, I could get my daughter's

lunch packed and I could do her hair and we could smile and enjoy the simplest moments together, even if then I dropped her off at school and just crawled right back into bed, which I did plenty of times. There is something that you wrote a while back that has really stuck with me. You were writing about duality and how you've had these days in the last year and a half wondering how low your rock bottom could actually go. But also you talked about these moments of tremendous joy that you've also had. And I wonder if

Is there one memory or one day that really encapsulates all that for you? Ooh, gosh, great question. And there have been so many. One that comes to mind is

because it's this time of year. It was last December. And so at this point, I had just finished chemotherapy like three days prior. My daughter dances at the same dance studio now that I grew up dancing at, which is just a super special thing to watch. And it was her holiday show.

And at the time, we were going through a divorce but still living together, which was very challenging for me. And so the arrangement for that day was that I would bring our daughter to her show. I would get her ready and do her hair and was so excited about that. And this was her first big dance performance on a stage. And so I was really looking forward to it and so was she.

And so I brought her to the performance. She did amazing. And then it was her father's birthday that day. And so after the show, the plan was that she would go with him and they were going to go out to dinner and celebrate his birthday, which is great. And I was like, oh, you know, to go from this wonderful high of you just finished chemotherapy, your daughter's dancing on the same stage that you used to dance on and she loves it and she's smiling and she's having the time of her life.

And you don't get to bring her home. But at the same time, I remember driving home that night and blasting music in my car and actually singing. And I was like, oh, I'm going to be okay. And it was the first time throughout all of this that I actually felt, not because someone else told me and not because anything magic happened, just...

hey, there was a lot of beauty in this day today and there's so much to celebrate. And that I think is also important to have those days in the thick of it that remind us that we're going to be okay. Even if we're faking it until we make it, which I did a lot of that too. Allie, given everything that you've experienced lately, when the clock strikes midnight and we set into a new year, what are you going to be thinking about? Whew.

This one's going to be my year. Really all I can ask for and, you know, try to manifest in 2025 is I am looking for a

Peace, ease, and joy. And I will also say, there's easy and hard parts of every day. There's, like you said, there's the duality in every single day. But coming to a close on this year looks so different than a year ago. A year ago, I was in that dark and scary place of

really being in the thick of cancer, really being in the thick of divorce, feeling scared and sad and angry every single day at something. And now 2024 is ending and there's still some of that, but my house is peaceful. And even on the hard days, I do feel happy every day, at least at some point.

So, you know, I know I'm getting there. There's a reason my daughter is named Annie. I am a very firm believer that the son will in fact come out tomorrow. And so...

Yeah, I'm always hanging on to that, but I also can feel it. I feel the peace in my house. I can feel it in my body. My shoulders are dropped. Still a lot going on. Still a lot that's hard. Still a lot that's stressful. But in 2025, I am looking for peace, ease, happiness, joy, and fun. I kind of think I'm in a fun era right now. And so I am enjoying that and chasing that.

We've been talking with Allie Feller. She's the host of the podcast, Allie on the Run. Allie, thank you and Happy New Year. Thank you so much. Same to you. This episode was produced by Brianna Scott, Connor Donovan, and Catherine Fink with audio engineering by Becky Brown. It was edited by Jeanette Woods and Courtney Dorney. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. You care about what's happening in the world.

Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day.

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