When Life Gives You Pears: The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People

by Jeannie Gaffigan

Jim and I looked at each other. We knew that luck had nothing to do with it, unless luck parted the Red Sea for Moses.

None of it was an accident—God was with me. Not some scary guy with a long white beard who punished bad people and helped only good people, but a real force that guided me to this point of peace because I asked him for help. If you just decided to stop reading because I got too Jesus-y, check out this photo I took of Jim in the waiting room when I was finished with all my scans: When I saw Jim in this state I had my first good laugh in three days.

Kids from smaller families had a different disposition. In other words, they behaved.

This year, however, I was looking forward to watching the good clothes get wrecked. It was as if I’d just remembered that people are more important than things.

We tried to get a waiter to come over and take his order. He looked around at the piles of uneaten pancakes and eggs and bacon on all the plates and decided to scrape together a brunch from the leftovers. Total big-family move. Father Jonathan is one of six kids and felt as at home with us as we did with him. After we had a few laughs, he looked at me and said, “So, Jeannie, what is going on with this brain surgery?” There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as I realized that other than the initial toast, we hadn’t really been mentioning it, in true lace curtain Irish fashion.

Turns out adrenaline is way more of a pick-me-up than coffee and a bagel. They should put it in the lattes at Starbucks.

I took it as a compliment: “You have the tumor of a much younger person.” “Why, thank you!”

There’s no place for OCD in the ICU. As I lay there practically paralyzed, I had to come face-to-face with my demons. I was addicted to control, and I was in withdrawal.

Time is the longest distance between two places. —Tennessee Williams

There are no doors or windows in the intensive care unit. When you are in the ICU, you have no sense of time. It’...

You know how you feel when you have to make a really important call and you get put on hold for an exorbitant amount of time? That’s what the ICU was like for me, but without the groovy hold music.

I’m sure God spoke to me in the ICU. This is not “I had the best chocolate cake and God spoke to me” language. Rather, it’s “I’m so positive God spoke to me that I’m putting it in my book even though you might think me insane” language. God said, What are you worried about? Of course you are getting out, silly ye of little faith! Team Gaffigan will be restored. You will be completely healed in body, but you must work to heal your own spirit. Let go of your ego. You are not, nor will you ever be, perfect. Meanwhile, I have some personal commandments, tailored just for you: I. Tell Jim and your children you love them every day. II. Admit when you are wrong. III. Take time to give each your undivided attention. IV. Praise their strengths and be patient with their weaknesses as you guide them. V. Explore their worlds and let them into your world. VI. Teach them to serve others. VII. Remember that people are more valuable than accomplishments. In this way thou shalt not let thy children grow up to be jerks, nor lead thy husband to be hopping mad at thee. Those weren’t the exact words, but you get the idea. Pare down the BS on the to-do list and make room for the meaningful. A “must-do” list. On it. Now I needed another chance. I needed to get out of there. I needed to get up! I had some life-changing to do! But at the time of this epiphany I was really sick, so I put off the commandments for a while. Sorry, God.

The arbitrary decision to “give up bread” because it is supposedly bad for you used to seem to me to be not only logical, but smart. Now it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. Like cutting down on air to make your lungs more active. I wondered if you offered a starving man a loaf of bread, would he ask, “Is that gluten-free?”

It was interesting to hear the perspective of another midwestern transplant who had such a similar experience of ending up in this neighborhood and then realizing they were the hillbilly that settled on top of an undiscovered oil well.

And that’s how Jim steamrolled my life. And I let him. The oldest of nine children, the ultimate caregiver, marries the youngest of six, the ultimate care-getter. A match made in codependent heaven.

I was taking so much time to make sure my garden looked perfect that I was missing my chance to smell the flowers. This was what God was trying to tell me in the ICU. That, and how I made myself so busy I almost missed a diagnosis that saved my life and was almost killed by a giant pear. That would have really sucked.

Many times I am asked, “How has this experience changed you?” I wish I could say that when I got some of my strength back I was a changed woman. I recall being asked this question during a radio show interview shortly after I knew I was out of the woods. My answer at the time was, “Above all, I learned, don’t sweat the small stuff and always take time to smell the flowers!” Several months later the same radio host, Jen Fulwiler (also a crazy busy mom but with six kids), was doing a recap of the year’s stories, and I was invited back via call-in to be on the 2017 wrap-up show. It was in the middle of the holiday rush, and though I was participating in life fully, I was still feeling like a shadow of my former self. I was absolutely buried in to-do madness. On the air, Jen asked me how I was doing and I admitted, “I’m sweating the small stuff and forgetting to smell the flowers.” As Weezie always says, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and I realize that I will have to learn and relearn my new perspective on life for a long, long time. I felt my recovery from brain surgery dragged on endlessly, but recovery from needing to be busy all the time was going to last a lifetime. My ability to let go was going to require assistance from a higher power.

Another gift this sickness gave me was the opportunity to look at my life from the outside and realize that my concept of caregiving for my kids was actually preventing me from fully experiencing them. When I was recovering at home, I saw that my having been the alpha controller of the whole operation was actually stealing the power from my family and preventing them from blossoming into masters of their own lives. I’d been overwatering the garden.