Tagged: family
Rising Again
Meet MJ. She was born three days ago. Here she is smiling at her Pap’s deep voice telling her how beautiful she is. I like to think she is in agreement as the world has yet to tell her otherwise.
Her grandmother, J, had to leave just before her granddaughter’s arrival to take chemo. J is in a lifetime battle with cancer. A few months ago, it didn’t look as though she would ever meet MJ. She was the first to hold MJ other than Mommy and Daddy and the first to hold her every chance she gets.
This is Ron, her only Uncle. He brought her a balloon to the hospital because it’s what Nana would have done. She can’t, so he did. A few years ago, it didn’t look as though MJ would have any uncles. The one she does have can’t stop smiling and talking about his ‘peanut’.
This is Caden and Ian, her only cousins…so far. MJ’s Aunt T is freezing her eggs so she can bring another cousin to MJ. Aunt T is tough and has kicked breast cancer…twice. An award-winning baker, Aunt T told MJ all about the cakes they will make together, when she can eat them, of course.
This is me telling MJ her first story. It was about her crazy Auntie who will tell too many stories and feed her too much sugar. I told her she has a future and a hope and that we are so thankful God lent her to us.
Her birth has filled us all with a sense of wonder (and not simply because her mother delivered in less than 12 hours like a rock star). We keep hugging and crying as if the Steelers have won another SuperBowl (the only other time I have seen her daddy cry).
MJ is inspiring me to write new stories as part of LessMoreAbundantly. Less heartache, more joy and abundant hope.
Circumstances of the past few years have broken us all. In our brokenness, cracks visible and invisible alike, we have learned we can still smile, still love and ultimately be still and know that our lives are not our own.
Our family is rising again. Not like a phoenix from the ashes, that is too complete a metaphor. Rather we are taking the ashes, mixing them with tears and time, and using it to fill the cracks. Discovering, as we put ourselves back together, that we cannot be broken in the same place, in the same way, ever again.
Some pieces we are leaving on the side of the road as we dare to take a step. We walk, alongside little feet, into a future only dreamed about and whispered into God’s ear.
I love you, little peanut. I pray you would have less heartache than we have seen, more love than you could ever imagine and an abundance of adventures. I pray you would know that together we can walk through anything.
My Kryptonite List
{CONTENT WARNING: Strong language and raw subject.}
In my little world, I had a list. It was a list of things I was convinced I could not do without. My Kryptonite List contained what would destroy me if it was taken away or was harmed. The list included people and situations.
Once I was defined by my work. I sacrificed everything for years before realizing work is a means to an end. It’s not the means or the meaning for life. Scratch that from the list.
Church was my end all and be all. Who I was in the pews or on the platform mattered more than anything. That is until it didn’t matter as much as marriage, sanity and safety. Check that one off.
My children were everything. Identity, self-esteem, self-worth all wrapped up in little wiggly bodies gnoshing on mac-n-cheese. Until mental illness, insidiously connected to mothering through postpartum depression, taught me I was still a distinct human being from these creatures. They needed me whole and my job was to help them remain whole. Check.
My dad was my safety net, my rock, the mirror in which I could peer and see good things every time. As he took his last shuddering breath, he left my list.
One of the only pieces of kryptonite remaining for me was my husband. Big, goofy, funny, smarter than anyone, and a good guy, that’s my husband. He stayed on the list because he chose me. When we were dating and I went through a dark time, he stuck around and married me anyway. Postpartum, situational poverty, job loss, death, he was there. Until now.
A few days ago the kids called me at work and said dad wasn’t moving and was on the stairs. They were trapped upstairs. I raced out of the building to find him there, the kid’s terrified eyes staring at me.
I called 911 when he couldn’t make eye contact with me or respond. I called a friend who is familiar with medical emergencies to get the kids.
His blood sugar was 28. Normal is 70. He was minutes from a coma. The doctor said I saved his life by calling the ambulance.
Three days later, he is still in the hospital. They have theories on what is wrong, but they can’t confirm anything. We simply don’t know why his body produces so much insulin that he needs to be on two IVs with glucose to be close to normal.
I’m alone with the kids and I don’t know from day-to-day what will happen. People keep asking, “How are you?” I can’t say what I really want to.
I’m pissed off. Seriously? After EVERYTHING we have been through?
I’m scared. What will I do to get through the days alone?
I’m sad. I recently was praying for a breakthrough in our lives. I got an ambulance.
I literally can’t walk. How can I heal my ankle when I have to navigate a two-story house and two active little fellas?
My husband is now off my list. There is nothing left on it. I need to figure out how to get rid of my Kryptonite list. I’m thinking I need to replace it with something a little more positive.
Tonight here is where I am starting.
James 1:2-4 (AMP)
2 Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.
3 Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.
4 But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.”
I want to lack in nothing. I don’t want to stand in the way as these times do their thorough work for my full development. Though I am angry, sad, scared and most definitely alone and hurting, I refuse for this to be for nothing.
Tonight as I ache at this life which has chosen me, I make a choice. I’ll take God up on his offer from James 1. I’ll let this situation do it’s work. I’ll pray more than I ever have. I’ll love God more even though I am mad at Him.
Maybe soon I’ll have a different list, one with miracles on it. Earlier I saw my first entry. Tonight I stood in the corner and watched my husband with our sons. Though tired and uncomfortable, he was giggling with them at goofy YouTube videos. Love and laughter might be the antidote to my kryptonite.
Question
Why did I stop writing for so long?
Did this project eat less, pray more, love abundantly suddenly disappear?
Would you be wrong to think it?
I don’t think you would be wrong, do you?
What kept me out?
Was it a worthy cause so big it sucked the oxygen from my lungs and the strength from my imagination?
Was it a challenge which some days cost me dearly in time and tears?
Was it a commitment which brought more miracles in the midst of the messy than I ever could have anticipated?
Is it now something I am suddenly thankful for and wax eloquently on how I became a super human as a result?
Don’t you think life is a little more complicated than that?
Would you believe it is my 6 year old funshine who gave me the strength to write again?
Do you think there was ever a better teacher than his?
What is the one question my dearest, funny, tenderhearted boy would ask God?
Photo Credit KRobertson
How did my Pappy get cancer?
How did my father, the one solid rock for so many, get cancer?
Why him and why now?
Wouldn’t you think 50 days is enough to put the breath back in my body, strength in my bones?
Are the connections to children and spouse too thin to rebuild?
Is the armor I’ve encased myself in too thick to ever be removed?
Why did I ever stop writing?
I’m glad I’m starting again, are you?
The Fault Line
“Mom,” my funny-faced five-year old began, his voice low, so I knew it was serious, “why did you not work at Hallmark anymore?”
“I do not work at Hallmark anymore,” I replied, “because I got a better job at Goodwill.”
“You could work there four days,” he says, voice still low and looking me directly in the eye.
“No, dear one, I cannot,” I answer, curious where this is going, “I work enough during the day.”
“You should not have lefted, because then Pappy wouldn’t be sick.”
I recognize in his mind, he is sorting out the reasons why. He is fully concrete in his thinking. If I hit brother, then I will get in trouble. If I smile at Mommy she might give me some candy. It’s healthy, I tell myself, for him to sort out this new normal of terminal illness in his best pal, Pappy. Why then is it I who feel sick?
The fault could lie in any of a hundred places. With his family for giving him bum genes and a predisposition for lung disease. With him for smoking for 30 years. With his doctor for never giving him a chest x-ray as part of a physical. With my Mom for smoking with him. With me for not keeping an immaculate house where no dust would settle in lung tissues.
The truth is-there is no fault line. It is what it is.
How many times have we assigned fault to a situation and therefore exonerate ourselves from responsibility? The kid running around the restaurant, the dropout, the obnoxious child of your friend–all the fault of the parents. We don’t need to then smile at the child and encourage them to sit, to stay in school or give them a shoulder to cry on.
It is what it is, and I can choose to engage or detach. I can choose to smile at my sons, encourage my dad to eat and give my friends a shoulder to cry on. It is what it is, and I can choose to step over the fault line.
Less. More. Abundantly. 