National Legacy Day™ is May 21. Inheritance of Hope family member Ann Camden shares who’s impacted her.
How do you measure the impact of a friend?
Our yards are lush. More than 20+ years of friendship, many spent on our knees with soil crammed under our fingernails and brown moist patches on our knees. We’ve compared soil types and earthworms, spelling tests and class pictures. Children? Two boys for the Jeffries. Two girls for us. All less than two years apart. The kids taste-tested many of the various natural garden beds we’ve built and we slowly trained them to where they can weed gardens and help establish new habitats for moss, ferns, and azaleas. While the “kids” still complain about being pulled into service, they never blanch when it’s snack time or a stretch to burn sticks in our fire pits.
I see lasting impact where all four emerging young adults have some collection of houseplants that they nurture in their dorms and carry home for various levels of support care over their holiday breaks. And, the tradition of splitting and sharing plants is moving to this generation. They share among each other, with neighbors and their own roommates. It’s a living legacy impact all its own.
Looking back, it’s not always been easy. In spring of 2002, as I was crossing the 30-year-old barrier, my fertility doctor was clear. I needed a precise hormone shot between 6pm and 10pm one specific Sat evening – but the timing didn’t work for me and my friend Steph. We were on an adventure to the Williamsburg Quilt Show, riding on a Greyhound bus crowded with grandmothers. Ever the overcomer, Steph helped me package the needles on ice, hide them in a small cooler and when the time came, she shoved the needle (albeit crooked) in my stomach by the din of the bus lighting somewhere around the state line of VA and NC. We were quiet and discreet although it stung like a thousand bee stings since the bus hit a giant pothole and the needle went deep and crooked. By all counts, that treatment was doomed but to everyone’s surprise, the hormones overcame the stress, dehydration from the day, overactive hormones, exhaustion from walking too much that weekend, etc. At her encouragement during the show, I boldly bought patterns and fabric for baby quilts that allowed me to dream about motherhood again and by that fall, my quilting girlfriends completed two baby quilts as we welcomed twin girls into the fray. I wonder how many women have gotten pregnant on a bus to a quilting show? Needless to say, Steph was our first phone call the morning the girls arrived. She made an impact. I don’t remember all the details, but I am confident she showed up with baked goods – likely pumpkin chocolate chip muffins with flavor that destroyed anything the hospital cafeteria offered.
Steph (left) and Ann (right)
While the fertility help was critical and parenting discussions formative, her impact has grown even deeper, especially over the last five years as Steph has rearranged her teaching load at NCSU many times to chauffer and support me at chemo, radiation, and scans. She’s had a front row seat to my rare NEAD prognosis and held my hand many times as the storm clouds of progression choked out all hope. Like me she can be quite stoic, but we inhale/exhale, dig out our journals, and scribble though our first-line thoughts, fears, surprises, and angers. Some days, we buy a new plant at the Farmers Market on the way home or new fabric to start a bold quilt. We don’t need to speak; much is conveyed in the sighs and a few dramatic neck rolls. She typically plants my new additions as I’ve grown weaker and less steady in the yard. As a dendrology professor, often on the road or a trail, she has perfected the art of soaking every minute from a day. The impact of her commitment to hard work and perfection is not lost on her students either. She sets a high bar as a role model through participatory science and personal responsibility with the goal of building lifelong environmental literacy and citizenship for her students on campus and at local botanical gardens and arboretums.
Over the years, as we navigated our roles as working parents, things got harder, but we shared ideas, wins and losses, and focused on maintaining healthy bodies – inside and out. We ran our first team marathon relay when her oldest son was nearly two years old. He was a mass of red curls and hands stuffed with Cheerios bouncing along in the stroller surrounded by magnolia trees. We ran numerous marathon relays before our posse of children grew bored and I started growing weaker. We trained for and ran numerous trail and road races together, which was the highlight of my late 30s. Steph and I ran our final race as part of a large fun-loving charity team for the American Cancer Society in Chicago in 2017, a year after I was diagnosed metastatic with cancer in my bones. Our team of five women raised just shy of $20,000 for cancer research. It was a herculean effort to keep my body steady for it, fun to train for and celebrate with girlfriends, and have confidence that it was my final endurance race. I was slow and my body was fighting progressing cancer again. I’d given my all and I am at peace that I was able to cover so many miles flanked by friends.
Our support team was filled with family and friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Running that race gave me a reason to get out of bed and the conversations helped me process what cancer was doing to every facet of my life from parenting to work to my marriage to goal setting. Training runs were something to look forward to with friends and family who still support me regularly. Without the impact of their friendships (and the ability to randomly grab their arms for balance), I never would have crossed the finish line in Grant Park. Sidenote: my daughter Grace is planning to make Chicago her first full marathon this fall. It was my last. I love the connection. I know if I’m not here to cheer Grace on in October 2024, Steph will fill that role throughout the gruel of training and on into race day.
I can’t forget to mention the long-lasting impacts of hand-written cards for thank-yous, encouragement, recognition, etc. For more than 23 years, Steph has filled my mailbox with handwritten, heartfelt cards. She doesn’t hesitate to hold me in a hug and tell me she loves me. She normalized love across all types of relationships (me and my family, college students, the running group, the plant community, her neighbors, her family, the list goes on) – it’s an agape, holistic love I haven’t experienced in many other relationships, but each card impacts me deeply and sets a new gold standard. Normalizing love is her ultimate impact. I wish the rest of the world would take note. Her expression of love is what Jesus meant by “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).
Yes, the Jeffries have made an enormous impact on the legacy and impact of our family – from normalizing love across blood barriers, encouraging physical healthcare that aligns with the entire family, nurturing plants in all types of growing conditions, delivering hundreds of muffins, quiche, breads, jams, etc. Steph and I have also prioritized time to write and capture both funny stories of parenthood and the intimate connection between words and nature. Her with beautiful poetry and me with essays and blog posts. Each adult has also plunged deep to showcase commitment to career and parenthood.
These many roots where impacts of legacy intertwine have brought me great peace over the last 7 years as I’ve wrestled with metastatic breast cancer with the Jeffries family at our side, led by Steph. I anticipate the last steps of this journey may be scary and lonely, but I am comforted knowing the impact of this deep friendship built on strong roots to carry me forward and more importantly, walk alongside the ones that I Iove during a time when I probably can’t.
Jeffries, thanks for normalizing love. It’s the best gift ever and the impact knows no bounds. God bless you all.
Who has impacted you? Share & tag them on National Legacy Day™, May 21! Learn more >>
Ann Camden and her family were served on an Inheritance of Hope Legacy Retreat® in 2018.
