Forgiving the past one moment at a time

I've cried countless tears about our story, how you're woven into mine and I into yours and the threads cannot be teased out from each other. In China they say that a red cord runs through us, those of us destined for each other's lives, a cord that we all hold part of inside. Mine has frayed edges where I've tried to pull it out. For once I truly believed you were all better off without me.

When your eyes have been trained for hate every time they look in the mirror, you forget that someone had to train you to see yourself this way. I remember when I look at the photos of my childhood. I vaguely remember seeing a lovely self with the same equanimity I saw the rest of the people I loved. I remember being proud of my thick head of hair, how everyone said it looked like my grandma's. I remember the swelling up of love like a drenched sponge in my chest when my grandpa held his ear to my tummy and said he could hear me growing like corn. Then he'd wrap me up in his pipe-smoke and down feathers smell, his enormous arms swallowing me whole just like his love for me, and for those moments I sighed into his arms, gangly and brown and warm and cherished.

That urge to disconnect from my story, to disconnect from my life, to disconnect from my loved ones - really it's fear baring its ugly teeth. I am afraid of being lost, forgotten, dismissed or left behind. I am afraid my story is too messy to fit in this Christian family of good people. I am afraid I am the ugly duckling for a lifetime swimming among swans.

I added one little phrase into my daily thoughts and words this year: "You're doing the best that you can." That one phrase has revolutionized our story: children who aren't being willful but still can't get a task done? They don't get punished, they receive help and grace and understanding for where they are at. They're doing the best they can. House messy at the end of the day and no supper plans yet? I did the best that I can. 

This is not a permission slip for halfway effort. It is not a get-out-of-jail free card for consequences. It is a way to forgive the past so you can live in the present. It is a way to recognize the good instead of the bad. Saying, "I'm doing the best that I can" dismisses the failures of the past hour and seeds hope for the next. 

Next time you send your child to wash his hands and he makes a mess of the sink and still has dirt on his face? Try saying it instead of "why did you..." with a furrowed brow. Even if it comes out with a sigh, this phrase allows us all to be where we are without the constant comparison with where we think we should be.

And if at the end of our story that is what they say of me? "She did the best she could." What a victory that would be.

"Story"

Wise little owls

They know things, these children, that I didn't know when I was a child. They know all about how the ocean moves, how to get out through the break and ride in on the surf and not get swallowed up in the salty undertow. They also know all about lumps and what they mean.

Last Friday, Rosy noticed the lump on Amelia's neck because it is visible to the naked eye. We hadn't talked to the children about our concerns because it seemed brutal to involve them until we had some answers. Amy was, of course, marginally aware that something was wrong, because we kept feeling her neck every morning. But we hadn't said the "C" word aloud to any of them.

Rosy came running to me with horror in her big brown eyes and told me about the lump, asked me if I knew about it. I reassured her that I did. The tears sprang sudden, and she stuttered out her heaviest question, "Will Amy die as fast as Tally did, Mama?" Our dog, Tally, died just 2 weeks after we learned of her cancer recurrence, and really 3 days after we knew for sure that it was cancer. To the children, it seemed like a very fast death. I held Rosy to my chest, felt her whole body ravaged by the sobs, shaking under the weight of the world no 7 year old should be carrying. I assured her that Amy would not die in 2 weeks. Her sobs ebbed slowly away.

She looked up, this time her face serious but no longer frightened. "Okay. Well, what do we have to do about Amy's cancer then?" A rational question following all that emotion. Alright. If we don't have to deal emotionally with her dying right away, what needs to be done? How many doctors appointments are we talking? Will she lose her hair?

We talked long about the many things that can cause lumps. In her 7 year old experience, lumps are always cancer - they were for Mama and they were for her favorite pet. It was news to her that you could have a lump that wasn't cancer. But she also wanted to know about cancer. What type it might be, what the treatment for it is, how hard the surgery would be for Amy. How often we'd be going to the doctor over the next few weeks, and would Amy lose her hair?

She knows these waves, and she isn't overcome by them. It's an amazing thing to watch, as a mother. I was traumatized when I was just about her age, deeply, in ways that stunted the way my brain grew up. My reaction was to shut off the emotional switch as often and as quickly as possible. I've never been much of a crier. I've been a brooder. It wasn't until I entered counseling at 31 that I started to learn why I acted that way. I lacked a skill known as "Wise Mind". It's the ability to react emotionally and rationally at the same time, using both sides of your brain to respond to a problem. My 7 year old daughter can do this. I still have to practice it.

If you experienced abuse or trauma at a young age, this might be something you need to work on, too. The trick is to allow yourself a modicum of emotional response, followed quickly by a rational list of options for responding to the problem. I actually consciously think, "I need to enter Wise Mind". Then the tears flow for a few moments, and then I get started on solving the problem. It's allowed me to cope better in the moment because I don't bottle up emotions anymore. They come out right away. And I can still view myself as a rational person, just like I always have.

If you'd like to read more about Wise Mind, visit this link to a video walking you through the technique.

Love > Fear

I sat still, my legs drawn up under me, against the purple wall in my mother's living room. I remember heaviness coiled tense in my chest, up through my neck and aching behind my eyes. In my limbs, a happy buzzy sensation, like I feel when I'm deeply thankful. My niece and son came running over and clambered up, my husband busy taking photos, with the white of the flash bouncing off the glittery ceiling. My lips pulled back tight over my teeth, my eyes slowly trying to take in the chaotic scene of family and gift opening frenzy, a heavy compote of Christmas scents from the buffet filling the air.

Perhaps it is the many years of training and practice that makes me think of emotions as a linear thing. After all, the FACES scale for pain, the one we use in children, runs a spectrum from joy to extreme sadness, as if the two never coexist in our chests, in our hearts, behind our eyes.

What if half of your face can say something, and the other half another? I scan through a list of emotion words, trying to capture those feelings of the cool, coiled snake in my chest and the sweet joy of those children on my lap. Happiness and satisfaction. Words that describe love. Nervousness and apprehension. Words that describe fear.

Does that explain the lineless half smile, pulled tight over my lips, the widened eyes, the stilled forehead?

I have a sticker on my van that says "Love > Fear". The two emotions I felt most intensely throughout the holiday celebrations with family this year. Perhaps what kept me going through the holidays is this very principle, which stands out so clearly from The Message:

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. (I John 4:17-18 The Message)