I'm not the worst mother

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,

The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,

The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.
(Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 1892)

Every day, I know I've failed. I can feel it in my bones. The dangerous, no warnings world I grew up in taught my brain to tune to the negative frequencies. My mind as an adult is bathed in adrenaline and a very motivating sense of shame. It's taken years of therapy to understand that the picture I paint at the end of the day is not realism. It is dark, devious, like one of the Black Paintings by Francisco Goya: an incomplete representation that captures the darkness of the mind, not just the negative facts in the everyday.

Then something happens: I come across a painting like the one above, left for me on the kitchen counter by my whimsical 9 year-old, who thinks, dreams, breaths music and laughter and sunlight. It seems miraculous that anyone sharing genes with me could be so fancy-free. I read the words slowly: Beauty. Freedom. Love. Peace. Everything. Even through the sudden stars of tears in my eyes, the black letters are shouting to my soul. You taught her this!, my brain screams. All that blackness, fear, pain, suffering in your life? You've transmuted the sorrow into thankfulness for joy. You've taken the fear and transformed it into an immutable longing for peace and love. And these translated whisperings of the soul? The faintly glimmering flame of hope that life can be different and perhaps even beautiful? They have whispered their way into the depths of her heart and this is the song she sings, hope and wide-spread arms flung far toward both horizons, unafraid of sunrise or sunset, sunlight or storms.

I've spoken of this through gritted teeth: those who know the full depths of the pain proffered in this universe have unique ability to comprehend the beauty, to take each nugget of pleasure and value it, celebrate it. Locked in the inhumane routine of the psych ward in June, trying to piece together a spring season fraught with failure and old threats, I stared out the hazy safety glass at a world bathed in the summer sun. I knew I would feel the sun afresh when I walked out those doors. I didn't want it to take misery to make me appreciate life yet again. I want to remember on my own, that every day is a gift, and suffering always passes, and new seasons bring new challenges and new joys. 

I will my body to remember. Remember the significance of every small smile and momentary joy. Remember not to take it for granted. Remember that failure is often the prerequisite for success. What is it about our frail 3 pound human brains that allows us to forget this? To forget the hardest lessons of all?

And so I write. Think. Breathe. I refuse to forget that bittersweet still has sweetness and failure still has possibility and fear can be conquered. Remembering that gives me the bravery to open my eyes to each new day and believe that my scars are equalled by my sacredness and my pain is assuaged by the gifts from the universe that surround me each and every day.

Let it go

I've been sleeping hippie style on a short platform bed - just 2x4s and plywood, no headboard. It's comforting somehow - closer to how I slept as a kid on the futons on the floor, against the wall, my hand tucked above my head, up in the corner. The house is pretty quiet this Saturday, the kids sprawled across different areas of the house catching up on their books, texting friends about their first week of school. They started at an area public elementary school just a week ago, and they've made it through 5 consecutive days of 6 a.m. wakings, grumpy breakfasts, walking home…so much change in so little time! We are all feeling generally positive about the decision, but the emotions are still running high because of the chaos of change, the upheaval and uncertainty that comes with it.

We spend hundreds on complicated school supply lists; backpacks; lunch bags; Thermos' for drinks for lactose sensitive kids. I pin fancy bento box lunches: pandas with faces; PB and J sushi rolls; love notes written onto food canvases with raisins or chocolate chips.

All four kids go to the eye doctor to get a check-up before starting school. Three of the four need glasses this time around. They pick dark, hipster frames (like Papa's) and I shed a few tears at how grown up they look.

Giving up control has never been easy for me. I haven't understood why until recently. Why? Giving up control forces us to stand face-to-face with our insecurities and inabilities.  Handing the reins to someone else means I am not always the best driver in all situations. It's admitting, in public, that I am not perfect, not even close. I cannot meet 100% of my children's needs. With that thought used to come guilt, shame and disgust. Slowly, I am learning it is what it is. We are raised by a village.

Dust to dust

Babies born, children tended like spring flowers in the field in front of our house, wild and free and unaware of their breathtaking beauty and freedom.

Upstairs a cancer sister lies dying in her yellow skin, lips in a peaceful smile over teeth still much too young and pearly white for whispering goodbyes. Two weeks ago she was teaching classes. Now she is teaching her children what dying well looks like.

Downstairs is the pre-operative holding area. They don't try to rename it anything to hide it's function. It's the cattle yard. It's where they keep you behind the stanchions until the men with knives are ready for you. I wait with my friend and I hold her hand tight and my lips tighter, a well of knowing like a dam held between two thin lips because she doesn't need to know. She asks me why I was afraid when I had surgery and I just answer, "For the same reasons you are." She smiles. We are new sisters on the cancer journey, her just starting out, "pitching her tent in the land of hope" (Acts 2:26). Perhaps, for her, surgery will be her cure.

Life is so beautiful. So mixed up. So incongruous.

That is what you see in my brown eyes when you look deep, my nine-year-old inquisitive soul-connector daughter. How can I tell you any of this?

Another nail in another coffin

Arms that held you return to dust

Yet in our grief we know death must be a liar

For no goodbye is ever good enough

How could it be everything sad is coming untrue?

Every father helpless and angry

Every mother with her heart on the shelf

Every daughter whose innocence was stolen

By every son who couldn't help himself

The winter can make us wonder

If spring was ever true

But every winter breaks upon

The Easter lily's bloom

Could it be everything sad is coming untrue?

Could you believe everything sad is coming untrue?

Broken hearts are being unbroken

Bitter words are being unspoken

The curse undone, the veil is parted

The garden gate will be left unguarded

Could it be everything sad is coming untrue?

Oh I believe everything sad is coming untrue

In the hands of the One 

Who is making all things new

When the storm leaves there's a silence

That says you don't have to fear anymore

The trees look greener, the sky's an ocean

The world is washed and starting over

~Everything Sad is Coming Untrue Part 2, Jason Gray~

The Bad Parent/Horrendous Child Ritual

My youngest daughter, she of the years given back to us, she who speaks in musical throaty sounds as much as she speaks in words, she has a way with animals. I sing a song to her, "There is a love hidden inside your borders just waiting to be free, so keep hoping, St. Francis, you'll be a free man yet, you'll see the sun shine again, over your city streets. Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they will not be put to shame." (Kristene DiMarco)

Sometimes I think she is a better mother than I. She is a born nurturer. She speaks the language of each creature she tames. The kittens of each litter. The birds she sings to and bewitches into landing on the stakes of their fort while she dances with her hands like wings behind her, the little bird cocking it's head and twittering back as if it is having a conversation with this four foot tall girl. She speaks to babies in grunts and moans and pre-verbal sounds and cocks of the head just so until they are laughing or sleeping, entranced by someone so old who still speaks baby.

She can put anything to sleep. Even the crabbiest kitten. Give her a rag to swaddle it in, and a song to sing, and a few minutes later, that kitten will be sleeping her arms, her swaying around the living room in the afternoon light proud as a peacock and happy as a clam.

Bedtimes at our house lately have devolved into 2 hours of battle to get the kids to lay in their beds. Let's face it: we parents take turns chiding, disciplining, punishing, yelling, cajoling, threatening, pleading, and sometimes swearing. The children (mostly the youngest two) take turns crying, whining, charming, stalling, and being mischievous or outright naughty.

After reading up on the issue, looking back at old journals to figure out what worked in the past, and brainstorming and praying a bit to try and figure out what we've changed lately that's made bedtime such an inconsistent and riotous affair in our household, it really turned out to be quite simple. Exhausted since I started my new job, and often working at the computer into the wee hours on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, bedtime rituals went flying out the window. Aaron, unaccustomed to putting the kids to bed, had to think on his feet, and just came up with, a) it's bedtime, b) children should get into their pajamas and get in bed, and c) they should stay there, by themselves, no matter what, for as long as it takes them to go to sleep. This came as quite a shock to the children, no doubt, who've been storied or sung to sleep nearly every night since they were little.

Last night, we put our bedtime ritual back in place. Although it did take over an hour and I nearly fell asleep with the kids in the process, it worked! Only problem: my husband, just as exhausted as I have been, was also asleep when I came downstairs, so we didn't get any evening bonding time. Hopefully we'll get that back over the next days or weeks. But at least we didn't do the Bad Parent/Horrendous Child routine for 2 hours at the end of the day as we have been for weeks! We both woke up more cheerful than we have in months - and feeling ready to start our work day with a more peaceful heart.

Do you ever drop the ball suddenly on routines or family rituals and only realize after the fact that you've screwed up? Ever done the Bad Parent/Horrendous Child bit at your house?

Sharing with Joy this week, getting real!

It's the little things that make or break us - Life:UNMASKED

There are times when you carry on. And times when you don't. All through my doctoral studies, it was a mixture of this...a push/pull of carrying on and giving in, as I struggled through cancer, adjusted to life with a child with significant special needs, and attempted to keep up with my studies all the while. Then there was that moment, May 18, 2012, in the humid South Carolina air, when two esteemed professors lifted the velvet and satin hood up and over my shoulders and pronounced me "doctor". It took longer than expected, but I still got to that crowning moment, despite the many times when I couldn't carry on at all.

One would think my trials were over. After all, I hit cancer remission in February, and I, foolishly, thought this would mean smooth sailing in the health department. Ummm, not so much! Radiation and the damage of cancer itself still lingers in the body past that arbitrary date when the doctor tells you there is no longer evidence of the tumor itself, and I found myself battling bouts of pneumonia throughout the spring and summer.

The lowest of low came on my eldest daughter's ninth birthday. I felt as though I earned the "Worst Mom of the Year Award" as I told her, with tears streaming down my cheeks, that she would either have to celebrate her birthday party without me present, or we would have to cancel and reschedule the whole thing. We had planned a big bash at the local minor league baseball game, and she was to throw out the hallowed first pitch of the game. But there wasn't a moment of hesitation between my tearful explanation and her emphatic answer: if it couldn't be celebrated with me present, she wanted to postpone it. So, instead of celebrating at the ballpark on the sunny August afternoon, she snuggled in bed with me all day, me wheezing and coughing from pneumonia, taking inhalers and praying for rest between bouts of coughing fits, and she perfectly content to spend the day just how she spent her very first birthday - cuddling close to Mama, no matter how "unlovable" I felt at the moment.

Now the day approaches for her "make-up" birthday party, and once again, I am under the weather. I had an unexpected root canal yesterday, and for reasons unknown to my dentist, they are never able to successfully anesthetize my lower jaw, so I underwent the procedure without Novacaine. Who would think that a procedure on a TOOTH would nearly incapacitate me with pain, even the next day? I am skeptical about tomorrow as well - the day of the much lauded party!

As I rub the sore jaw and take pain meds, mulling this over and planning how to go about baking cupcakes and preparing party favors in between my work hours today and tomorrow, I am comforted by a much-loved passage of Scripture that reminds me that even my tiny TEETH have a function and are part of a smoothly functioning whole. I am reminded that they are numbered and counted precious by my Maker, and that He cares that I am in pain today. And here, on the precipice where life feels utterly unmanageable, He is ready to shoulder the load of my cares, and to walk with me under this Cross, however silly a Cross it may seem.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (I Corinthians 12:21-27)

Hosting Life: UNMASKED for Joy in This Journey today. Joy is in Sri Lanka with World Vision; be sure to visit her blog to see all the posts from the blogging team and keep up with their amazing trip!

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