Category: Life

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Making room for Jaden

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect Jaden’s identity

The night started out like many other Saturday nights. I was at work, night shift on Labor and Delivery, when my cell phone began to buzz in my scrub pocket. It was almost 10pm and while I was only a few hours into my twelve-hour shift, it was late for the rest of the world. Peeking into my pocket, I could see that it was daughter calling. Every Mom knows the worry that comes with a late-night phone call and I anxiously stepped off the floor to take the call.

“Mom, I don’t know what to do…. I got a text from Jaden. He said he’s been out on the streets and hasn’t eaten or slept for 3 days. He feels like he’s gonna pass out… he needs a place to lay down.”

 

Jaden was an old friend of my daughter’s. He was a child that I had a compassionate eye on and one that I held a special place in my heart for, for many years prior. I knew that Jaden had a history of trauma and he was always the kid that you saw in the absence of his parents, no matter what event was happening. Whenever I could, I tried to include him.

I remember standing up to take his picture at an event one time and he later asked my daughter why I had done so.  “I don’t know,” was her childish response. But children don’t always see the world the way a mother does. Whilst the kids seemed unfettered, my inner Momma was screaming when I saw that little boy standing up in front of the crowd, holding his certificate and not a soul was standing to capture his moment. “Because every kid needs their picture taken today!” I wanted to say. “Because every kid needs someone to stand-up for them. Every kid needs someone to be proud.” That was the answer I wanted to give, but couldn’t. Instead I blinked back the tears and smiled, “Oh I just like taking pictures… I’ll give you a copy when I get them printed…do you want to sit here?”

As the years ticked by, his situation never improved. “I think my Mom wants to adopt you,” my daughter once told him. “Hmmph… I wish she would,” the quiet little boy mumbled. And as he got older and his traumas started to become evident even to my daughter, she told him, “You know Jaden… if you ever need anything, you can always come to us.”

He was a good kid. He got good grades. He was respectful, helpful and kind. He liked to joke and had the sweetest smile that warmed my soul. But behind that smile, there was pain in his eyes. A pain that he hid well from others. I wanted so badly to rescue him, to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay. I wanted to love him like a Momma and not just in passing moments.

And then life situations happened and we lost contact with Jaden. Before that late August night, three years had passed since we had seen him last. His name would come up from time to time within our family and we wondered where he was and how he was doing.

So when that text came in, it was both an answer to prayers and a nightmare coming to fruition.

“Let him in,” I said without hesitation.

 

“Ummm… who’s going to talk to Dad?” my intuitive daughter inquired. (The fact that my husband was even still awake at this hour was a small miracle. Not to mention, that I’m the risk-taker of the family. I am the “rescuer”. My husband lives with much more caution and direct dedication to the people he calls his “own”. And he hates drama. This could be interesting.)

“Put him on the phone,” I told her.

I explained the situation to my husband, reminding him who this child was. “Bring him inside, feed him and then call me back,” were my instructions. And so they did. From inside the hospital walls, I conducted a plan. When my husband called me back, I spoke with the young man myself to confirm his situation. I explained to him that I’d have to call the police and he understood. From inside an empty patient room, I filed a police report and sent them to my home where my family and Jaden waited.

It felt like forever before my husband called me back again. And when he did, he explained that the police could find no ‘missing persons report’. “We have no recourse,” they said, “He can stay here as long as you guys are okay with it.” At this point it was almost 2 am. “Set Jaden up on the couch, put our daughter in our bed tonight and I’ll deal with this when I get home in the morning,” I told my husband. “You guys need to get some sleep.”

For the rest of my shift, my head spun.

 

Fostering was always something I was interested in. For years my husband and I talked about it and for years, my enthusiasm was met by my husband’s reluctance and caution. My husband has the most amazing ability to love that I have ever seen; but his practical concerns for his family’s safety and security and his own future, as an already not-so-young father of four, impeded him from taking that step. And yet for me, regardless of all practicality, from somewhere outside of my own self, something much bigger than me, was prompting me to take on another child- one who didn’t know the love that we had built inside our home, one who needed to catch a break, one who needed somebody who was willing to stand-up for them.

In fact, just a few weeks prior to Jaden’s surprise arrival, my husband and I had another discussion on the topic. I remember telling him, ” I respect that this is not something you are willing to do right now, but I need you to hear me… There is a drive inside of me to do this. It is strong. And I have been pushing it away and trying to ignore it for a long time now. I can’t do this without you, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep denying this feeling. I think there is someone we are supposed to save.”

 

So here I was, on an unusually quiet night in the hospital, consumed by my present situation. While I watched the monitors of new babies heart beats, my own heart was beating faster than before. A million questions and possibilities flooded my mind all at once. Was it safe to have Jaden in the house? I mean he seemed like a nice kid, but it’s been years since we’ve seen him and we know he has a long history of trauma. He is a teenager now and I have a beautiful teenage girl and a young vulnerable little boy. In my efforts to help this neglected youth, have I put my own family’s safety in jeopardy?

But then again, what if Jaden is the child I’ve been called to save? Perhaps because I’ve been ignoring those inner-promptings, the universe has decided “Look, you’re not listening to me… so here you go! Here’s your child!” My non-believing self began to wonder, if maybe, divine hands placed this child on my doorstep for a reason.

And what about my husband? Sure, he sounded understanding and cooperative in these initial moments, but what about tomorrow? What is our end game? If this is the child we are called to save, and he puts him back out, it will break me. But if I coerce him to do something he is uncomfortable with and a member of my family ends up getting hurt, it will break our marriage. All night my mind was clouded with every direction this could go. And inside those cement walls, I felt helpless as my family slept and the quiet of the night echoed my uncertainties. I turned to coworkers and asked for wisdom and prayers and I turned inward, asking for answers.

On my drive home that morning, my eyes welled with tears as I ruminated all the possibilities. In the wee hours of the morning, I had already spoken with a friend who was a social worker. They instructed me that my next step was to call Child Protective Services and to prepare an answer in the event that they asked me if we were willing to keep Jaden. Given the situation, they were sure, the case would meet criteria for “Child Neglect” and finding placement for a teen, a minority boy at that, would be a challenge to say the least. The system where we live is already inundated with kids with no homes.

So … for the first time in 20 years, I prayed. And my prayer was that the universe speak to me through my husband; that through his words and his wisdom, I would know what to do.

When I got home, I found only my daughter in the bed and I tried to prepare myself for my husband’s reaction by first talking to her.

“How did Daddy do last night?” I cautiously inquired.

“Fine,” was her nonchalant, teenage response.

“I mean how was he with Jaden? Did he seem upset?”

“No, he gave him a big hug. And when the cops had Jaden outside, while they talked to him, Daddy said “Well, maybe we’ll just adopt him.”

I stopped the joyful tears before they came and the skeptic that forever lives inside of me, silenced my celebration. My daughter, much like her like mother, is forever trying to save something or someone. And so I concluded, I must take her response with a grain of salt.

And then my husband entered and we excused our daughter. I explained to him that I had spoken with a social worker and what the next steps that we needed to take would be. I also explained a need to prepare an answer for the possibility that they asked us if we were willing to keep Jaden. “What should I tell them, if they ask?”

“What are you going to do-put him out, like everybody else?”, he responded, “There’s nothing else to do. We let him stay.”

“And what about the long-term?” I asked. “What if this isn’t just a day or two…then what?”

“Let’s do your thing” he said.

“What thing?”, the skeptic continued.

“You’ve been saying that there is someone who we’re suppose to save, maybe this is it.”

And my heart sung! But the skeptic kicked in for one last punch…”You know this is ludicrous!?” I told him. “We have a teenage daughter and this is an older, teenage boy with a bad history.”

Without being the least bit shook, he said, “I’m really not worried about it. I feel totally peaceful with him staying here.”

And there it was, the answer that I prayed for, straight from my husband’s lips and not a waver of uncertainty.

Our daughter had gone back to her own bed, our son still hadn’t awaken and Jaden was still fast asleep, mouth open on the couch. I’d later learn that he was a 6 am riser and the fact that he stayed knocked out until noon that day, confirmed his story was true, he’d been on the streets for a long time. He was tired. I told my husband that we’d have a family meeting when I woke up and I turned in to bed. As I pulled the sheets up to my neck, a single tear ran down my cheek and I looked up, “Well…that was fast.” I had my answer, now for the next step.

 

When I awoke that afternoon, so had Jaden. With my cup of coffee, I took the teen outside and we talked. I needed to know what had happened to land him here and what had happened in the years leading up to this. I needed to know if he was an unreported runaway or if he’d truly been “put-out” like he claimed. I needed to understand what I might be up against and I wondered what brought him to us. As much as I wanted to help him, I also had to consider the abilities and safety of my family.

Some things he answered honestly and easily, and others, he’d avert his eyes and say “I don’t really like to talk about it.” He was a child of trauma and the evidence of such oozed from every orifice.

By the end of our conversation, I learned that his story of abuse started as early as he could remember. That despite his lack of detail, his life, as predicted, had been riddled with abuse, neglect and loss. That he’d been fighting to not become the dysfunction that he’d been surrounded by. And that now, that fight had brought him to living on the streets. For twenty days, he walked and used his change for bus fare to reach his old familiar neighborhood where he house-hopped until he ended-up at ours. I told him that I’d do whatever I could to help him and that he was welcome to stay with us.

“You’d have to share a room with our son and it’s a small room. We have rules. And we don’t have much to offer in the way of space and fancy things…” “That’s okay”, he replied.

“But we do have a happy home and we do have fun,” I added.

“I’ll take it,” he said. And right then, I accepted Jaden as one of the family, just as he was, as my son.

I also explained to him that in order to protect us all and to do things the right way, I’d have to call CPS. He agreed to cooperate.

 

The story behind my experience with CPS is not one that I will elaborate much on, but I will say that it was both maddening and disheartening. The recommendations from CPS varied from “take him back home” to “work out an agreement with his family on your own terms” to “drop him off at the CPS office”. Instead we loved him and made him part of our home, hoping that the state would investigate, intervene and give us the graces to continue to care for him. After four days with us, Jaden was removed from our custody when his parents signed him over as a ward of the state and we were deemed “unfit” for no other reason than we did not have a foster license.

Four days … that’s it. I thought I was prepared for this foster thing. And yet we sobbed when he left.

That weekend, we used our grief as motivation and we started to prepare his room…we started to make room for Jaden.

Removing the carpet from my son’s room, the kids helped to pull the staples out of the wood floors. And my angst gave energy to my arms for polishing the floors. Boxes of belongings were packed up and sent to Goodwill to create more space. And furniture was moved around.

It became clear then, that our journey with fostering was not over, it was just beginning.

 

The first step in obtaining a foster license was to attend a mandatory 3-hour information session. In that session, they explained what would be required to obtain a license, what challenges you might encounter and the basic “do’s” and “don’ts” of foster care. To say that the information was overwhelming would be an understatement.

A typically resilient and zealous person, I sat there in silence and thought…”We can’t do this. This is too much! I’ve got four jobs and two other children-both of whom require a lot of me.”

I felt defeated and I wanted to cry. Consumed by my feelings, I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and make eye contact with my husband. For over an hour, I avoided his glance; because I was so sure he’d give me the confirmation that I didn’t want-that it was just going to be “too much” and that we were going to have to walk away. And I just didn’t want to see that same defeat in his eyes. I didn’t want to walk away but I didn’t know how we were going to do this either.

Finally, I braved the glance. I turned around and our eyes met. In a dirty state room, amongst a sea of people, a silent conversation of a lifetime took place in a few seconds between our two sets of eyes. “Defeat” wasn’t what his eyes spoke and yet he must have read the hesitancy in mine.

“We have to do this!” he said after a few silent moments, ” We are perfect for this. We have everything we need to make this work!”

And there again came the wisdom from my husband that I had prayed for. “Ok,” I said. My confidence instantly restored by his, “Let’s do this.”

Two nights a week for six weeks, we’d race home from work and after-school pick-ups to go to class. Still in our work clothes, oftentimes with our dinners in Tupperware, sitting on hard chairs in a sketchy room, in a state building in a rough end of town 40 min away from home, we’d attend 3-hour sessions on the horrors, challenges and needs of foster care. And every time my husband was energized and excited. We made friends. We learned. And we became even more impassioned to love another child.

On the last class, the instructor went around the room and asked everyone for their “one takeaway”. “I had no idea there were so many children who needed homes,” my husband offered. “I’m just really excited to be able to help some of them.” Another affirmation.

Three-hundred and seventy to be exact. Three-hundred and seventy children, the resource worker told us, who currently have no placements, no “home.”

 

As for Jaden, he maintained communication with us for the seven months it took us to meet all of the requirements to obtain a foster license-30 hours of classes, background checks and fingerprinting, home inspections and home revisions, interviews, references and applications. It wasn’t easy, but it was a journey that we continued to feel compelled to take.

By the time we finished, he was settled where he was. He was settled at his school, with his new friends and with his current foster parents. And he elected to maintain his current placement instead of coming back to us. It was hard at first, to say another good-bye to the little boy I committed to loving like my own. But Jaden’s happiness and safety was always the goal. It was never about me.

“I can never thank you guys enough for what you’ve done for me,” he said. “And you’ll always be my family. I’m ok here, I’m going to stay here. But you guys made me smile during a time in my life when I had nothing else to smile about. And I will always remember that.”

So why then did Jaden come? Why on that late August night did he knock on our door? Why did we go through all of this just for him to choose to stay somewhere else in the end?

As it turned out, Jaden wasn’t our end game. Yes, we had a hand in his reaching safety and happiness, but he wasn’t the only child we were suppose to save. As I thought about the journey that my husband took and how his reluctance turned to commitment, literally overnight, I realized, he needed a face to fight for. The idea of sacrificing for an imaginary child wasn’t in his realm of possibility; but fighting for Jaden was. I realized too, that had we known from the beginning, that Jaden wouldn’t come back, we wouldn’t have ever taken on the arduous seven month journey of getting a license. My husband’s world never would have been opened up to the great need of the children of our city, without those seven weeks of classes, without the stories and the statistics and the many, many faces like Jaden’s. And in turn, I wouldn’t have continued to fight without my husband to push me along.

Jaden wasn’t our destination, he was our catalyst – a catalyst for a journey I’d been called to take for a long time. And he was is a very special little boy, who opened up our world and pushed us to greater things. “You’ll always be family to me,” Jaden says.

You’ll always be our life-changer, Jaden.

And now with our well-earned license in hand, we wait…we wait for a placement… we wait for the universe to speak to us again and to send us the next child who needs our love- be it for four days, four months or forever.

Oh, what an adventure it is going to be… an adventure that all started when we decided to make room for Jaden.

 

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10 Things That You Love: Love and Loss … and Foster Care

 

In Foster Parent classes, there’s an exercise that they sometimes do. The instructor leading the class, hands everyone 10 blank cards. Then, they ask everyone to write on those cards, “The 10 things that you love the most”, the 10 things that are the most important to you or that you would want to have in your life. Individual people or pets should not be listed separately but would be grouped on single cards labeled “Family”, “Friends” or “Pets,” for instance. And basic life necessities like food, water, clothing need not be included. I engaged in this activity during one of our final classes…

“Whelp, family, friends and pets, there’s my first 3 cards”… I thought. I’ve got 7 more to fill in.

My “Home” seemed an obvious choice. And oh how I love my “Vacations/Traveling”. I suppose I want my job…and I’d like to have my “Car” too…hmmm this is going to be hard to choose only 10.

The room buzzed as people filled-in the various things that they loved the most. And you overheard people talk about their favorite activities, hobbies, life-focuses and family heirlooms. People started off more concrete, many with the same first three cards as I did; but as we continued, people began to think outside the box. And they began to write things like “Hope” or  “Faith” on their remaining cards. Until finally, everyone had 10 cards filled out in front of them. Our 10 most important things.

The instructor asked us to spread those cards out in front of us and look at them, think about them, imagine them. And she asked us how we felt, looking and thinking about those 10 things. Whatever they might be – our loved ones, our community, our favorite pastime, a sport, our puppy dogs and kitty cats… maybe even something as simple as chocolate – All of these things that bring our life significance and comfort and joy.

A quick glance around the room revealed only smiles. Those 10 little cards signified the 10 things, that we as individuals, held dearest in our lives. Remembering the people and the things that we treasured the most, made everyone feel happy… kind of day-dreamy, almost.

And then the instructor asked us to take away a card. We were shocked.

I mean if you had to narrow down all of the many things that you love/want/need, to only 10… those 10 things are precious! How could we chose which one to eliminate. Not having a car meant I’d be taking the bus to work. No vacations??? I’d be a mess! My hobbies??? But those keep me sane and they bring me so much joy!

One card gone. And the mood of the room completely changed. The smiles were all gone and had been replaced with furrowed brows and looks of concern. They asked us to imagine our life now, without that thing. And it hurt.

And then they asked us to take away another.

“That’s preposterous!” we thought. Another one from the remaining 9 things we held closest to our hearts?! Shaking our heads, we removed another card. Once again, imagining our lives without it.

And then we had to take away another.

And another.

And another.

Each time, being asked to imagine our lives without that thing. And by that point, our initial feelings of concern, had turned to anger and feelings of unfairness and disbelief. In a few short minutes, the entire room’s mood had turned upside-down. How can you ask me, from the 10 things I love the most, to eliminate half?! We felt robbed!

Down to 5 now…and they asked us to take away another.

A room full of adults doing a simple exercise, and at this point, people were half-threatening to get up and leave. Others, said they were refusing to eliminate any more. Some laughed nervously and others sat in saddened silence; everyone finding it impossibly hard to eliminate any one of our top 5 things of importance. And while we continued along with the exercise, knowing full well, that it was just that; when asked to imagine, once again, “How that would feel?”, the fear of those losses began to induce feelings of panic within us. And we began to pray that the forced choices and the losses, while only imagined, would stop.

But the exercise continued until we were down to only one card.

The room was sullen. No more laughs. No more jokes or empty threats. We had been stripped of just about everything that we held dear.

“How do you feel now?” she asked. “Devastated” was the best word we could think of.

They then went around the room and asked everyone to share what their last remaining card was. For most, it was “Family”. And others sacrificed even that, for a virtue like “Hope” or “Faith”.

And after everyone had read their last card out loud, she said….

“Many of our foster children don’t even have that left.”

They’ve lost their homes, their schools, their friends, pets and family. Faith, Hope and Love are on their way out too. However dysfunctional their environment might have been, they have lost everything that was familiar and meaningful to them. And in the amount of time that it took you to complete this exercise, they were told to take whatever they could and throw it in a garbage bag. Then, they were dropped off at a stranger’s doorstep.

“The feelings that you had during this exercise,” she said, “the confusion, the anger, the panic and the sadness… remember those feelings when you get that knock on the door and you open your home to a foster child. And remember, that whatever you have left on that remaining card in front of you…you had a choice in and it’s STILL probably more than what they have left.”

 

Life is a series of circumstances, actions and reactions. We don’t get to choose to whom we are born and we don’t get a say in our genetic make-up. But we do have choices. What will you do with your choices? If you were born with a hand above others, will you choose to reach back and give someone else a lift? Or will you selfishly climb ahead and not look back? If you are at the bottom of the line, will you give-up and let your family’s history be your predetermined future? Or will you push harder to grasp whatever edge, whatever foothold can withstand the weight and pull yourself to the top? We can’t always control what obstacles, what loose rocks, come crumbling and spiraling towards us… but we can choose how we react and who we opt to continue our journey with. Life is a journey and an adventure! Take it! And make it a good one!

Interested in fostering? An internet search of the process in your state and county will yield a schedule of available classes-times and locations, as well as requirements. You’ll start with the info session and go from there. It’s not for the faint of heart but I do believe it is one of the greatest acts of love.

Keep loving. Keep growing. Keep striving to be the best damn person you can be. Life is short… May your blessings be bountiful and your regrets few.

 

 

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Ash and Red Satin….That February

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February is for lovers… Red Roses and “I love you”s.

It was today, February 1st, 22 years ago, when my father came running through the door with a panicked look I rarely saw on his typically unfettered face.

“Where’s your mother?” He was out of breath.

She had left to go pick up my little sister. It was just me … and Dad.

I don’t know if it was pain or shock, fear or a sickening confirmation of what we’d already thought (but not yet said out loud), that I saw in his eyes that day. But I can still see them, as I looked up at him in the dimly lit room, that February afternoon.

His face should have been flushed from the run but instead it was ashen.

“They found your brother. He’s … dead. He’s dead honey.”

My Dad held me and we cried for just a few short minutes and then I wiped my tears and said, “We have a lot to do.” I put my grief in my back pocket and started making the list for phone calls. It would be a long time before I really cried.

We had all thought it. He’d been missing for 10 days. We knew he was ill. We knew it was winter. We knew 10 days was a long time.

But he was a wanderer. He was untethered. And he blew where the wind took him, or the booze. Inside all of us was the hope that he’d wander back, with his sheepish grin and his black boots and chains and a quiet “I’m sorry”. And for both him and us, we wanted another chance… another hug… another “I love you.” Our hearts yearned for more time and our souls pleaded for another chance to help him.

But time and chances run out and so does luck. We buried my brother two weeks before his 18th birthday- his birth and death dates in the same month. Death by suicide, complicated by a high blood-alcohol level and a history of mental illness.

And I was forever changed.

Loss affects us all, no matter what age we are when we experience that loss. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something about experiencing a significant loss during that most vulnerable time in life, when you are old enough to understand it but before you’re mature enough to handle it, that makes a particularly profound impact on your sense of self. Like disturbing a cake when it’s no longer batter but before it’s cooked solid, do the shock waves of loss alter how you develop and who you become? The surface of my heart, lumpy now and tough in spots, tells the story of those waves and my journey in pain. Would it have been different if I had been older, or younger even? Or am I just searching for significance again?

When I learned more of my brother’s reports of psychiatric symptoms, I developed a passion and preoccupation with Mental Health. I wanted to understand and I wanted to help. Addiction too. The crazies and the addicts weren’t scary people to me…they were my brother. The geeks and the outcasts, the artists and the freaks, were endearing to me. I hated the straight-laced, popular kids and those who belittled others. I gained appreciation for oddities and a new life perspective.

But not all of my change was gain. I also lost. I lost my faith. I lost my way. And I lost friends. With his death and a crumbling structure at home, I came to learn that nothing in life was safe or predictable. Confirmed by my own fears coming to fruition and in avoidance of false hope and disappointment, I came to always expect the worst. I disdain regret. I am afraid of missed opportunities. And hope is a slippery ideal that I struggle to keep a gripe on. I learned at 14 years of age that the worst case scenario happens…and sometimes it happens to me. Prayers don’t always save people and not everyone will understand or accept your baggage.

Prior to my brother’s death, I had already come to acquire some pretty hefty emotional armor. And after it, I carried around a fucking axe and bayonet.

Some viewed me as “resilient” and others as “hardened.” It was just self-preservation. And until I found myself a safe relationship where I could finally be vulnerable and let my guard down, I rarely cried. And new losses got packed away in all the rest of my shitty-ass boxes.

But I did come out on the other side. I did survive. And now, I am conquering.

While I will forever live with the pain and regret of not being able to save my brother, I’ll be damned if I don’t go down fighting for others. I learned, through his death, that you can’t save them all, but you certainly can try. At the very least, I can try to understand others and meet them where they are- however “damaged”, however “hopeless”, however “unsalvageable” they might seem.

The ground was frozen the day we buried him. Red roses covered his casket-his favorite flower. Interspersed amongst the grandparents and cousins, coworkers and conservatives, were a gangly group of teens trying to grieve. Blue mohawks and shaved heads, chains and black boots, gathered around the casket after the family, but before it was lowered, to “have one last smoke.” And they tossed their cigarette butts into the red petals.

I think about that image sometimes, ash on red satin, and the symbolism that it holds. Beauty in death, endings and new beginnings, significance in loss, finding a way to grieve, burning pain and imperfections, scars. And my journey makes even more sense.

That February I learned how to stand in a funeral line. I learned how to smile and pretend that I was okay. I learned that everyone grieves differently. And I learned the fragility of life and the human spirit. The other lessons came later.

If February is for lovers than this February I challenge you, while you’re out picking up that bouquet and box of chocolates, to remember that love isn’t always romance and it isn’t always perfect. Love is accepting the human spirit and embracing it wherever it is. This month, reach out to someone who might be hurting. Smile at the outcasts. Stop and lend someone a hand. Check-in with that person that you know might be struggling. Make a call you’ve been avoiding.

As you live your busy life, someone around you is making a plan to end it. Someone is misunderstood. Someone is hurting behind the facade of their smile. And someone just said a very hard good-bye. You may very well never know who those people are, be kind anyways.

As I walked away from his grave, my feet crunched in the frozen grass. My head hung low and despite the crowd, I never felt so alone. Like the rose petals, on the satin surface of my heart, red-hot ash slowly burned a hole. A hole that could never be filled- like pulling a candle out of a birthday cake that would never be made. Burns always leave a scar.

Submersed now, in safety and love, the edges have healed and it no longer bleeds when you touch it. But every February, every holiday, every life event… it still throbs… to remind me to continue loving until the candles are all blown out and the petals are lowered into the ground.

 

 

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Déjà vu

Déjà vu : a feeling of recollection, a common intuitive experience, derived from the French meaning “already seen.”

Have you ever had a moment that you feel you’ve lived before?

I have…

And not just those weird random moments that pop up when you least expect them and you feel like “I’ve been here before” …

I’ve had that too, but I’m talking about a different kind of déjà vu, I’m talking about the return of a feeling brought on by the experience of someone else.

As a mother, I most often experience those feelings through the faces of my children.

Their pride, when they’ve made good grades or created something beautiful …

Their disappointment, when life doesn’t go as they expected …

Their simple excitement, when Mommy loses her mind and buys boxed Mac n cheese or sugary cereal …

Sadness with loss, Joy with positive gain, Frustration with difficulties not easily repaired.

Being a mother, is like walking down a familiar street, only the storefronts have changed and there’s lead in my boots – like I know where I need to go, but things are different and navigating is somehow harder. The price I pay for a wrong turn seems more costly now too.

Being a mother is like Déjà vu … only instead of living it, I’m watching it backwards, from inside a mirror.

But then again, you really don’t need to be a mother to recognize a felt experience through another human being. You just need to make the effort.

Holding on to memories is something that comes easily to me. Sometimes, it serves me well, filling my mind with pleasant thoughts and moments I like to revisit. And other times, my memories haunt me like a bad dream. Either way, when I take a moment, I can feel those memories as if I were there again. Whether they soothe and comfort or insight anger and anxiety, my past has left me with both good feelings and bad, beautiful tradition and reason to change. And when my children find those same feelings, watching them navigate them, brings me right back.

I remember the excitement and anticipation of cracking open a new board game and sitting down to play with my family. I remember how special it felt when an adult would play with us. My Dad was really good at playing games with us. We had a bunch of really cool board games that you can’t even find anymore. He even made a few himself. He taught us how to play cards too-poker and spades. I was so young when we started that my little fingers couldn’t even hold my whole hand. So he’d accommodate me by letting me sit at the bench that ran along the back of the table by myself so that I could lay my cards down there. We’d play for hours. And we continued to do so until we were grown.

I can feel that sense of specialness in the sly smiles of my children and that subtle little butt-wiggle that they do when they settle into their seats, about to do something fun. And it’s my own recollection of that excitement that energizes me when I really just want to sit and relax. Feeling their excitement reminds me of how good it feels to anticipate fun.

I remember the feeling of disappointment, holding that box and asking someone to play or getting an invite and asking for a ride and being told “No, I’m in the middle of something right now”, or, “I need time to myself right now.” I wasn’t a child who got invited out a whole lot, so those opportunities to play, those invitations to socialize felt like gold to me. And I remember that rejection made me feel not important. After lots of moments of not feeling important, that disappointment began to transform into burning resentment.

So when my children come to me and ask to play or ask for a ride, while it can’t always be “Yes” at that very moment, I do try to find a way; because I recognize that familiar eagerness in their eyes and the importance of participating in something that is meaningful to them. And when my ‘tired mom-self’ remembers her ‘wanting to belong child-self’, I usually find a way to make it happen. Between the sweetness of the play and the bitterness of the “No, Mom needs some time to herself,” I choose the sweetness, because as clear as I remember the joy, I also remember the pain.

I’ve experienced more loss in my life than I even care to tally. And those losses have been equally spread throughout my years. But it’s the losses I experienced as a youth, that still leave the deepest scars. Sometimes adults become very self-consumed when they are in grief and they forget that children too, grieve. Adults have it hard because they have to function and produce despite their hardships. But children have it hard too, because they don’t have mature counterparts to guide them through their grief. They don’t get flowers from co-workers or friends that call if they need to talk, and even if they did, they often don’t have the maturity to take advantage of that gift. Be it the death of a person or the death of a relationship, children often feel lost when there is a loss. I know I did- when we lost my uncle, my brother, our home, when my parents divorced, when my family was split and living in different houses…the list continues. Great-grandparents and extended family members were too far down the list to even make the cut for my childhood losses.

My children’s most significant loss was the death of their great-grandmother. I saw my daughter’s sadness the most in her drawings and her unpredictable outbursts. When I’d try to talk to her face-to-face, she could never open up. And that longing to be acknowledged, yet uncomfortable reluctance to be vulnerable, felt familiar to me. So I bought her walkie-talkies and strapped one to my pants. And I’ll be damned if in the middle of my household chores, a little voice hiding in her closet didn’t come through the speaker, “Mommy, I miss Mimi.” Like, déjà vu but backwards … cuz when I was hiding in my closet, I didn’t have a walkie-talkie or someone who I thought could listen.

I remember the angst in not having birthday parties, or even friends over, because it was “too expensive” and “too stressful”. That angst and my natural drive to create fellowship as well as creative expression, drives me to spend weeks creating the most intricate, thematic parties I could dream up. And has allowed my home to become the “hub” for children to hang-out at. Because I hated feeling alone.

Not déjà vu, but running from it maybe?

But while we didn’t have much in the way of birthday parties, my Mom did bake our birthday cake every year. We weren’t allowed in the kitchen while she was preparing it, to preserve the element of surprise. And when I close my eyes, I can still see the darkened room and the lighted candles and I can feel that satisfying and warm sense of pride and love that came with watching my Mom carry her creation from the kitchen- a cake that I knew she had spent hours making just for me.

On busy birthdays, my husband will often suggest, “Why don’t you just buy a cake this year?” … “I can’t”, I say. I can buy the decorations and the goody bags and the even the cookies, but not the cake. Because it’s the same pride and love blazing in my children’s eyes when they see me enter the room with their cake and lighted candles that drives me to create, year after year. And together we suck the icing off the candles like the sweet taste of déjà vu.

When my daughter comes running to me, crying about a boy… I feel that sharp, stabbing pain that comes with young love. And I try to say to her, what I wished someone had told me. Maybe it would have saved me?…Or maybe it’s just me, trying to soothe my own ache…rub away my own déjà vu.

And when she comes home with ridiculously long fake nails, that look like claws, or way too much make-up, it takes a minute longer for the surprise to wear off and the old remembered feelings to kick in, but eventually they do. And I feel what it’s like to try to bridge that gap between being a girl and a woman, when so much of your sense of worth is tied to your looks. Life as a teenager was all about selfish excess, I remember.

When my son is being bullied, ’cause he’s small or not tough enough, the hateful rejection from the rich, snobby-ass kids in my childhood school, comes searing back like a big ‘ol “You’re not good enough” smack in the face. And after I bang out the e-mail to the principle, I wipe away that single, not-good-enough tear from my own eye, along with his. That painful sting of déjà vu.

It’s the squirmy, uncomfortable feeling of sex education that I saw in my own babes that made me want to squirm too, but also drove me to run in a different direction. And instead of an awkward, one way, face to face instructional, we took a really long and animated walk in which my arms became fallopian tubes and ejaculation looked like a rocket ship and consent and pleasure carried just as much weight as procreation. Another episode of déjà vu, dodged.

I know that I’m a good Mom, these times I have done well. But there are many more times that I struggle to empathize with my children’s hardships, because their lives are so very different than mine was. The old “You kids don’t even know “hard!” tends to come out more than I’d like. Their stressors, their fears are on such a different scale than mine were at their ages. And it’s hard not to roll my eyes when they’re crying about a luxury that I wouldn’t have even dreamed of.

But if I take a moment and I try to remember, those old memories packed with old feelings, come rushing back all over again. And it’s those emotion-filled memories that have both fueled me to continue loved traditions and practices and to change the things that hurt me; using my history to learn and create caution instead of repetition and taking every opportunity I can to gain perspective.

But am I too accommodating? Am I making them too soft? Are household chores, rules with consequences and hard-knocks at school enough to prepare them for life, if Mommy is always there to wipe their tears and home is always secure. These are the thoughts that people who have grown up hard and fast have.

Despite my concerns, frustrations and episodes of apathy, I am reminded that this is exactly the life I wanted for them. This is what I worked for. My life experiences gave me the wisdom and the inertia to make this journey, right here, like this, so that they would have a different life. And life is hard enough, home doesn’t have to be.

According to Psychology today, déjà vu “involves having that feeling of knowing in a situation in which you are experiencing something totally new.” My children’s lives are something new. They are not mine. My recollections, my feelings, those may feel like something lived before, but what’s happening right now, is totally new. Déjà vu can’t claim that. Despite both the sweet similarities and the traumatic flash-backs, despite genetics and behavioral cycles, this life is new. And there’s something about that, that lessens the amounts of lead in my boots.

With a whole lot of hard work, and a little luck…I’m living a fucking fairytale…a slightly fractured, little bit bumpy, imperfectly perfect tale…but a fairytale nonetheless. And there’s nothing déjà vu about that…but then again, I never really liked that feeling of déjà vu anyway, it was always a little bit unsettling.

 

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The Power of Words: A Letter to the One I Love

In my life there are people that I can ignore, people that I can shrug off, people who’s opinions don’t matter. They can criticize me, make a snide or jealous remark, put me down or minimize my efforts. They can disapprove or disagree and frustrating as those people may be, their words matter very little. Because I know who I am and I won’t allow small-minded people with big egos and even bigger judgments to define me. They won’t make me cry or tear me down. They are bullies to be ignored.

As a matter of survival, the world has taught me that. You have taught me that. I’ve grown skin that’s thick like armor and learned to duck quick, so that the flying bullshit rolls off my back and doesn’t stick when it hits. Because if I cared what EVERYONE thought, ALL of the time, I’d be a useless ball of anxiety, curled up with a box of tissues and not a prayer to create my own identity.

For those people, I have built a wall to protect my heart and my spirit and by not allowing them to get close, I shield myself from their assaults. They are life’s distractions and in the big picture, they don’t matter.

And then there are people like you, people who know me from the inside, souls who reside with me in my inner-most chambers, my army who was half pre-existing and half built. Some of you have been with me from the very beginning, some were strangers that I opened my gates for and others were determined warriors who tore down my walls so that they could reach me. None of you are here by accident.

I love you. I love you tremendously.

And in order to continue loving you the way that I do, I must continue to open myself up to you, putting my heart on display so that I can love you and receive your love in return. Love requires that one take a step off the castle walls, with no harness, and trust that they will be caught. It requires persistent vulnerability. Walls and gates and chainmail, like emotional distance and mistrust, keep out love as much as they do pain. And so in removing those barriers to accept your love, I am opening myself up to the possibility of tremendous loss. And that is terrifying.

Please don’t hurt me.

I love you with no barriers. You reside behind my walls and under my armor, and because of that, you have the ability to destroy me with ease. Your actions have great consequence. And your words, unlike the people who don’t matter, carry the weight of a thousand cannon blasts. Every snide remark, every criticism, every unkind word, cuts me the way the sharp blade of a sword cuts the flesh.

Standing before you, my insides splayed open like a live dissection, your mouth is your instrument and I am begging you to chose your words and actions carefully. The fact that you hold the scalpel is an honor that I’ve willingly handed you. Please don’t abuse that honor.

“Why do you cry?”,  you say.

So tough, so resilient in so many ways- A warrior in the greatest fashion. And yet one harsh word or unwarranted bout of fury from you and I crumble like an ancient stone struck by a mace. My inner child, my inner soul, my most tender components bruise so easily when the assault is at your hands.

My tears are a sign of my surrender to you. You should pray that I never stop. Because the day that your harsh words no longer bring me to tears, is the day that I strapped on my armor and started building walls again. When you no longer carry the power to destroy me, my unconditional love too, will be reflected away from you. When your anger no longer yields a response, it’s because a part of me has already died.

Know that my tears and my sensitivity are evidence of my tremendous trust that you will serve and protect me always. And I too, will always have your back.

An army relies on one another to protect. No knight, can man a castle on his own, nor does he have purpose without someone to serve. We serve one another. We carry one another. And if you are ever so lucky to be invited behind someone’s walls, I hope that you hold that honor with the greatest of importance, lest you live a life of destruction instead of love.

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A Lesson on Pie

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All of my upbringing, every Thanksgiving, my mother always insisted on Mrs. Smith’s pies, while my father’s side of the family (with whom we celebrated the most – due to locale and numbers), had a kitchen counter that teemed with homemade baked goods. Six to eight pumpkin pies and another eight to ten of the others were standard for our rowdy brood. The task was usually split between two or more of my aunts and it was a multi-day affair- baking all those pies, along with everything else. My grandmother made the stuffing and the rolls…often times in a clean trash bag…that’s how big a brood we are.

We usually brought fruit salad. And every year I always commented on and admired my aunts’ baking skills. “Start with pumpkin,” they’d tell me, “That’s the easiest.” But pumpkin, my mother told me, was ‘impossible’. “I tried to make a pumpkin pie from scratch one year and it turned out terrible”, she’d say. Over and over, she’d retell that story about the pumpkin pie that didn’t turn out. And every year, I’d follow her lead and neglect to bake any pies. For fear of failure, for fear of “I told you so,” for fear of not measuring up to someone else’s talent, I avoided a task that I so admired in others.

And then I spent a Thanksgiving alone-just me and my then-boyfriend and our new baby. And without the watchful eyes of others, without the pressure of an owed contribution, I decided to bake my own, homemade pumpkin pie. And every step of the way, I anticipated failure. My boyfriend didn’t even like pumpkin pie. And regardless, he wasn’t a baker himself and he loved me. So I had nothing to lose- no one to let down, but myself.

It seemed too easy. I must’ve done something wrong. Surely, it wouldn’t turn out. Through my mother’s experience, I knew my lack of success was inevitable. Here, in our humble little apartment, no one would know when I failed and I would be able to tell myself that “I tried.”

Only it did turn out. It was perfect. There was nothing difficult or extraordinary about it…except for my own insecurities.

And I realized that day, that for 22 years, I had allowed one person’s singular experience to dissuade me from even trying something that I enjoyed. I had allowed someone, through their own fears and insecurities, to instill in me that same uncertainty and self-doubt.

Fast forward fourteen years….

Yesterday, my daughter (that same baby in the apartment, now an ambitious yet self-doubting young woman herself), said that she wanted to make a pecan pie. It was a Thanksgiving item I’d never even attempted. I make the corn pudding, cheesecakes and cranberry relish, never the pecan pies. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to dissuade her from her own desires to accomplish and contribute. Nor did I reveal my lack of experience or uncertainty. I added her ingredients to the shopping list and called her when the oven was free.

And then I left her to create. I needed her victory to be all her own. She’d come to me of course, to ask about doubling a measurement and rolling the dough out thin enough. And lord knows the kitchen told the story of a 14 year old who was baking that evening… But she did it! And even though, there will be other pecan pies on the counter tonight, that pie will be hers. She will carry the pride of accomplishment and contribution this Thanksgiving and in her life. And not just because of a pie, I hope; but because of many opportunities taken, not discouraged.

I’m 36 now. I’m accomplished in both life and profession. I am intelligent and creative, resilient and brave. But I am still struggling to overcome self-doubt and fear of failing, especially when that fear originates in the experiences of others who are close to me. I hope that my self- awareness leads to growth in this area.

So on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for learned experiences, a disruption in unhealthy life cycles, for the encouragement of others and the opportunity to try.

Whether this holiday finds you surrounded by large numbers of family, food and chaos or whether it’s a quiet day of reflection, with a few signature dishes on your grandmothers tablecloth, I hope that you take a chance today. Be it a recipe or a phone call you’ve been avoiding, an invite or an offer you’re tempted to decline. Success comes only to those willing to take a chance and failure is only failure when we neglect to try. May the experiences of others inspire not discourage you and may your own demons be silenced by your inner strength.

Happy Thanksgiving from Life Liberty and a Little Bit of Libations!

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This not so random day in October

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Her wrinkled hands hold back the curtains and she stands and stares as the colored leaves once again begin to fall…and she remembers his face, on this not so random day in October.

She takes her morning walk, like she does every morning. But today, in the crisp air, her gaze is distracted and her pace is a little slower. She still stops for coffee at Betty Lou’s, but today, she’s a little quieter. “You look tired, my dear,” her friend takes note. A nod and a small, forced smile is her only reply. She finishes her walk home and notices the middle-aged man helping his elderly parent out of the car. The old mother once again feels that dull ache, on this chilly, not so random day in October.

Clearing out her office, before the winter weather begins again, before she’s too old to enjoy living, before time robs her of what is left, she begins to fill her empty box. The pictures and the diplomas that once hung on busy walls, leave lonely nails in their place. In her perfectly manicured hands, she holds the frame of a photo that makes her pause. It wasn’t the employee of the year award or the doctorate degree, but a single photo with a silent sign that only she could see. She strokes her silver hair and is lost in thought as she stops to reflect. 30 years at the same office, and no one ever noticed that she always requested vacation, every year, on this not so random day in October.

What a beautiful wedding! Bright orange and yellow mums and sweet little acorns on the tables, the sign of new beginnings. The band plays and the people dance and young love fills the air. And as happy as she is for the perfect match…when the beaming groom takes his mother’s hand….the music seems to quiet and the twinkling lights stop. In her world, time stands still and a small tear sneaks past the tiny wrinkles around her eye. With a smile on her face, her heart still longs for him, on this festive, not so random day in October.

Raking the leaves, it’s best to keep busy.  There’s too much to do, to sit and wait. But her mind is full and she wonders when this day will stop being hard. A butterfly lands on the bush beside her, a rare sight this time of year. The orange and black wings beat ever so slowly and her efforts to be productive are paused. “You’d be a senior this year…” she says… and she stops to imagine how his dark hair would’ve come in. I wonder if he had my brown eyes or his Dad’s blues…Would he be a football star? Or a science geek? Homecoming, Prom and Graduation are daunting days ahead that she dreads. And once again, she feels robbed, on this chilly, not so random day in October.

Readying the decorations, she plops two new mums on the front porch and dusts off the old wreath. This is never her favorite time of year, but deception is easier than explaining. Despite her pain, she tries to make the house look welcoming. Halloween will be coming and the kids will be in costume. She wonders what he would’ve wanted to be… A super hero perhaps, or maybe a fire fighter? She can’t decide if the trick or treaters and the bowl of candy she reluctantly empties into their pillow cases is soothing reassurance or a stabbing betrayal. She turns off the phone and sits alone, hot cider in hand, wondering if it will ever get easier… this painful, not so random day in October.

Today she wants to be alone. The little energy she has, she reserves for self care and reflection-there is none left for small talk or busy work. The house is too quiet, so she goes to the trees to be one with her thoughts. Somewhere along the paved path, the painstaking sound of pittering feet come running towards her. Two little red shoes chase a round blue ball and she wants so badly to look and smile; but the reality of her loss averts her eyes. Quickly she runs to the car and back to the house. She buries her head in her pillow and then reaches for his box. Tonight, she’ll lay with his blanket and her heart’s exhaustion will lull her to sleep, on this sorrowful, not so random day in October.

The empty crib was the worst…or was it the look on the doctor’s face when she did the ultrasound? No…no those weren’t the worst…It was the quiet of the room. Yes! That awful, awful quiet when he was born, that, was the worst…the deafening silence when all of her hopes and dreams came crashing into a lifeless little lump wrapped in a blue blanket…and her wails filled the space that his cries should have. Breathing is hard right now. Living is hard right now. Mothering is hard right now. As night falls, her exhausted body collapses into a restless slumber and she is sure that she will never, ever recover, from this horrible, nightmare of a day in October.

It’s the lifetime achievements, the milestones and the memories that she’ll never get. It’s the love that she gave, the laughter that she missed and the heartache that is never ending. It’s the name that no one will say for fear of upsetting her and the name that she whispers every night in her dreams. It’s the face only she stroked and the feet only she kissed. The tears that she cries alone and the story that she hates that she knows.

And it’s the lessons that she’s learned and the hands that she’s held…the tears that she has wiped and the ways that she has understood…it’s the tiny gowns that she has sewn and the meals that she has made…it’s the presence that she is and the changes she has made, for every parent who shares her pain…All done in her son’s name.

Opening the box once more, her wrinkled hands carry the tattered blue blanket back to her chair. And she rubs the soft threads between her smooth finger tips as she nods off into a peaceful slumber. And another leaf falls.

“Momma,” she hears…

Dark brown hair and his father’s crystal blue eyes meet hers…and right away, she knows. She whispers his name and he smiles a smile that she has waited a lifetime to see. “I have so much to tell you….,” he says. And tears of joy stream down her face. Hand in hand they walk into the light, mother and son, together again, on this beautiful, not at all random, day in October.

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Another Lesson in Adaptability

Those who know me and/or follow this blog closely know that my family and I are avid road-trippers. Wanna know more about road tripping…check out this post!https://lifelibertyandlibations.com/2017/09/07/looking-for-adventure-10-reasons-to-take-a-road-trip/

Some years ago, my husband and I established the goal of taking our children to all 50 US states. With only about 6 years of working towards this goal and over half of the states checked-off, we are well on our way to reaching our goal before our oldest refuses to travel with us anymore. This year was a bucket list destination of Niagara Falls combined with 7 new states in the upper-Midwest. Taking on the open road and traveling to new places is always full of lessons and new experiences and every trip changes us in some way.

This year’s trip, which covered the US and Canadian regions around Niagara, and our new states- MI (both peninsulas), WI, MN, IA, IL, IN, and OH before returning home, was wonderful and full of great adventure and amazing sights! I wouldn’t take any part of it back. The areas surrounding the Great Lakes were breathtaking and the National Parks there (Pictured Rocks, Sleeping Bear Dunes and Apostle Islands) are true spectacles of mother nature’s power and beauty. That being said, temps were unseasonably cold for much of the area we covered, we tent-camped half of it and the mere feat of covering a total of 9 states in 15 days was exhausting.

I should note that my husband and I both come from coastal areas (different countries, different oceans … but coastal nonetheless). So for us, no summer is complete without a suntan and some quality, lazy beach time. While we loved our adventure in the cooler, northern regions, we missed the warm, sandy beaches that we associate with “our summer”. (Sorry Michigan, that icy water, whilst gorgeous, just didn’t quite quench our thirst for the “beach”).

So, when our timeshare company informed us of a “bonus week” that was close to expiring AND there was availability in our favorite Florida gulf coast town … it seemed serendipitously perfect! Despite the fact that it was an 18 hr drive from home and we only had 5 of the 7 days available, we knew we needed it! We have been working so hard and knew that this would be the perfect summer wrap-up.

And then the news came of the Red Tide, an absolutely tragic (and apparently recurrent) ecological disaster, that left our favorite beaches littered with dead marine life and toxic fumes in the air. We were so bummed! We had worn ourselves out with work (and adventures) and were so looking forward to just parking ourselves on the beach and doing nothing but swimming, sleeping and some lazy fishing. The daily reports of beaches that reeked of rotting fish, waters that caused skin irritations, air that led to respiratory irritations and increased hospitalizations, not to mention marine life that was not only unsafe to eat, but devastatingly being wiped-out by a human-induced algal bloom, hurt our hearts. We weren’t even sure we’d be able to step out of our beach-side resort without getting sick.

We stalked every website and laboratory report for two weeks. What my husband and I have dubbed our “most favorite place”, looked apocalyptic along its shores! The normally lively beaches were devoid of humans, except those who were part of the clean-up effort. And with so many cancelled reservations, local businesses were struggling to stay afloat.

But our last-minute reservation was un-exchangeable and non-refundable. Cancelling the trip meant taking a loss. And staying home, meant I’d just be working again. My soul needed a break … and I knew my family did too.

Watching the daily reports, conditions seemed to be mildly improving. So, we went-a decision that we made just the day before we left. And when people asked me “Why?” Why we were still driving 18 hours for a beach that we might not be able to sit on and a resort we might have to turn around and walk away from? … My response was: ” I have to try.” I knew our souls needed the break … so I had to try.

And when we arrived, it wasn’t the same beach we had come to love over the last 8 years. The pelicans weren’t diving. The conchs weren’t crawling. There were no dolphin fins dipping in the distance or manatees in the low grassy waters. There was enough dead fish on the beach that the flies were having a feast and a short stroll was about all that was enjoyable. And when the wind picked up in the right direction, you could smell the decay. No beach chairs this time. We didn’t bother bringing our fishing gear either-it didn’t seem fair to assault the marine population any further. We knew better than to get into the water too. Not to mention, the last hurricane had changed the landscape and the powdery white sand was full of shells that the storm had turned up.

But the air quality had improved and we could still enjoy the pool without any smell or effects. Despite the absence of ocean water, a bathing suit was still my uniform that week. The egrets still fished in the near-by lagoon. Sandals worked just fine to protect our feet when we took our morning beach walks.  And locals had built a shell-shrine of sorts where our favorite driftwood “Christmas tree” was reduced to a small stick in the sand. So instead of keeping our shells this year, we used our treasures to add to the shrine. The weather was still wonderfully warm and the humidity soothed our joints. The room, whilst modest, had an amazing view of the gulf with a big screened porch and it was a lovely escape from home. And the sunsets were the best on the planet, as always. And even though I traded my ocean-side beach chair for a pool-side lounge chair, there was still a cold drink in my hand and the absence of hard work or complicated thoughts.

I was glad we went.

We met new friends too; locals, who played games with us under the shelter of the bar when the afternoon storms rolled by and who will be a great asset when my husband and I start looking for retirement real-estate. And we decided to break up the drive home, by leaving the beach a day earlier and adding a stop to see my out-of-state sister. Kissing the faces of my nieces is therapy in and of itself. Oh, and the bald eagle that my husband was hell-bent on seeing in the Midwest, but disappointingly never spotted … soared, low and slow in the afternoons overhead, while we sat poolside.

I am a planner. Every day I have a check list. Every road trip has a daily typed itinerary and every restaurant and attraction has been researched and scoured for reviews. And I swear by my system because it never leaves us wondering what to do. We never leave an area disappointed that we missed-out and we rarely experience a bad eat. I love active and adventurous vacations. Until I need a break anyway. Until my body and my mind get so tired that it spills into my soul. And my family feels it too. Then, it’s time to go sit by the beach.

This time, with no itinerary and reviews, in the form of headline news, that I didn’t ask to read, the reports were horrible. But like I said in the beginning, every trip teaches a lesson and changes us in some way. This trip was a lesson in adaptability. As a mother and a nurse, I know how to adapt. But this was vacation … and a favorite spot to boot! In my mind’s eye, I had already written how it was going to be-and deviating from that plan was hard. It was kind of like going to your favorite restaurant and finding out they’re sold out of your favorite dish. Only this was a 5 day experience and a 36 hour round trip.

Nonetheless, I learned … again … that life is never stagnant. It requires that we always be willing to adapt, lest we miss-out for fear of change. And disappointment, whilst inevitable to some degree, is largely controlled by our own mindset and expectations. We can lessen our disappointments by searching for the goodness in something. I also learned to listen to my soul and to always, always try. A lack of trying due to fear of failure or disappointment becomes the death of the soul. Once again, I learned, once again, I was changed.

It was a surprise bonus week and a historically terrible algal bloom that wrote the lesson this time…wonder what life has waiting for me tomorrow.

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Guest blog: “I may be Asian, but I’m not your Christmas Chinaware” By Abbie Pfau

It is with great honor that I post my first guest blog. The writer is both talented and intelligent, witty and kind. She is gorgeous and current and she just so happens to be my little cousin. I give you Abbie Pfau:

My mom always said that when I was a girl, my joy was infectious, but as a woman my wit has become deadly. Through 9 surgeries, a month of paralysis, and 23 years as an adopted, differently-abled individual, I’ve learned that I don’t have to be so dichotomous. Instead, I’ve set out to try and use both the wit and the joy to share a point-of-view as someone who’s just trying to make it through every open door in life, without having to press the “handicap accessible” button. After all, who has the patience for that?

I never do.

Always be graceful, but don’t be afraid to be reckless…

Abbie

Photo credits: http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-09-23-1443029669-9258368-Dollarphotoclub_75515307.jpg

I May be Asian, but I’m Not Your Christmas Chinaware

            “Abbie Pfau, get over here right now and give me a hug. You’re not actually crippled.” The moment those words left my friend’s mouth and traveled across the high school piazza, a couple hundred confused faces turned to stare in horror. I picked up my crutches and traversed through a sea of people, hopping over bodies and laughing with her as we enjoyed the uproar she had just caused. All of those poor bystanders had thought they had just witnessed the biggest display of rudeness against a disabled woman, but what they don’t know is that it was actually a great compliment. On the contrary, it was their horrified faces that conveyed the unintentional insult. They all actually thought I was crippled.

I have crutches, so I must be broken. I am broken, so I must need help with everything.

It’s a very common misconception, so please, don’t feel bad if you’ve made this mistake. I understand the logic; everyone’s trying to make life easier, and truthfully, my condition does make certain things like carrying heavy objects and bending over to pick my clothes off the floor a bit of a struggle. If I’m being honest, I’m in some degree of pain every day, even when I go to sleep. But nothing hurts more than people’s (un)conscious discrimination against my ability. Most of the time, able-bodied people don’t realize they do it, because to them it feels like they’re being considerate and inclusive. However, there’s nothing that feels more exclusive than when someone tells my boyfriend he shouldn’t make me go on a hike with him. There’s nothing kind or helpful about scowling at my family for expecting me to wash my own dishes. Someone isn’t doing me any favors or any justice by sneering at my friends for laughing with me after I’ve gloriously “McFallen” in a McDonalds. There is this overpowering belief that my family, friends, and significant-other should never “make me” work. They should never “make me” get up to let the dog in. They should never “make me” go out and have adventures that would require any physical activity…because it might hurt. My fragile self might break, just like Humpty Dumpty.

There’s an important lesson to be learned from Humpty Dumpty though. He spent most of his story just sitting on a wall…and he still broke. I spent a month of my life paralyzed from the waist down, unable to do anything for myself. I couldn’t get up to go to the restroom by myself. I couldn’t take a shower by myself. I couldn’t even roll over in bed while I slept without someone’s help. Nevertheless, with determination and resilience, I worked through the pain and regained my physical independence. That would have been nearly impossible without the help of people I love; they always pushed me to work harder, to be better, and to live life fully – and living fully doesn’t mean needing someone to do everything for me.

After my back surgery and paralysis, I wasn’t allowed to bend my spine, which created a great deal of difficulty in my daily life. My parents have a very deep top-loading washer; nevertheless, they still expected me to do my own laundry, so I figured it out. My loved ones are all very active; they love to be adventurous and go hiking, skiing, boating, swimming, traveling, biking, etc. Never intending to watch them from the sidelines, I’ve learned to adapt. Sure, it might take me longer to bike the trails or climb the hills, but it certainly won’t stop me. My bones might ache when I stand up to answer the door or bring in the groceries, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be expected to do it. My body might be in pain, but that doesn’t mean my life has to suffer. I may be disabled, but that doesn’t mean I’m dead. I’ve been given a life to experience, live, and love. I refuse to spend my days sitting on a wall waiting to break and expecting all of the King’s men to put me back together again.

I know I look like an innocent, dainty piece of china that you have to protect and lock away in your cabinet. However, the truth is, I – and the multitude of other differently-abled individuals around the world – am stronger than you know. Our fragile, eggshell bodies have held the weight of an adversity that most cannot fathom, but they never break under the weight. So please, don’t be afraid for us. Don’t make excuses for us. Don’t expect less from us. Don’t lock us away and do everything for us. Help us be the best we can by pushing us to be more than we seem, because the only disability in life is being enabled to the point of not experiencing all it has to offer – even, and perhaps most importantly, the challenges it holds. If we didn’t want the challenge, we would’ve let you know.

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Finding fulfillment in the life you’ve been given, not the life you dreamed of…

I always thought I’d be a mother….

I figured I’d be married by now….

I thought he was the man of my dreams….

I never thought I’d end up a single parent….

I wish I had gone to medical school….

I should have followed my dreams, not the money….

My relationship with my parent(s) is toxic….

I’m the only one left in my family….

I’ve never owned my own home….

It was the house of our dreams, and then we lost it….

The diagnosis changed everything….

I don’t like my kid….

When I held my little baby, I never thought she would end up like this….

The stories of regret and broken hearts and a life that is very much not what you dreamed it would be, are as rampant as the perfectly projected ones that wallpaper social media. Scrolling down the endless pages of people’s lifetime posts, we allow ourselves to believe that everyone else’s life is just how they dreamed it would be. Chubby happy faces, world travels, solid marriages, beautiful homes, work and life accomplishments abound…and while we stand there and hold our bag of regrets and disappointments, we fool ourselves into thinking that everyone else has gotten everything that they ever dreamed of. And no matter how many gratitude lists we make, when someone else is living a reality that we wish we had, we carry some level of grief or jealousy or longing.

I know, because I carry quite a heavy bag myself.

I wrote a post two nurses’ weeks ago called the Blessing of Nursing:

The Blessing of Nursing

And in that post, I talked about taking the opportunity to hear people’s stories. I’ve made a habit of this. And I’ve also tried to develop a relationship of trust amongst other humans and to allow myself to be a safe place for people to come to, without fear of judgment or betrayal. Through them, I’ve heard even more stories. And what I have learned in all of these stories, is that despite what we all seem to believe, hardly anyone is living the life they dreamed of and no one is immune to struggle. There is always some sort of caveat, something that didn’t go the way they planned; and no matter how grateful you are for what you have, those losses are still a thorn in our side. And when we see them in others, we are reminded of what we don’t have.

You’re 40 and still single. You thought for sure you’d be married by now. And you don’t know where you went wrong or why you haven’t found your mate. She has a husband she adores and just the cutest kids. It’s the life you always dreamed of. But behind closed doors, finances are so tight, their debt is only rising. Your apartment if perfectly adorned with treasures you’ve collected from around the globe and she wishes she could just take a summer vacation. She’s never even been outside the country and the stress of their finances is a constant strain on their marriage. While she wouldn’t trade her family for the world, the pictures of everyone else’s travels make her itch for adventure and  wonder what would have happened if she had waited a little bit to settle down.

Your grays are coming in heavy and you’re not even sure you own a single piece of clothing that doesn’t have a stain or a hole. Sometimes taking a shower and getting dressed is your greatest accomplishment. Sticky hand prints and spilled drinks surround you and its a daily prayer for just 5 minutes of quiet from the chaos that constantly surrounds you. Being a Mom is sooo much harder than you thought it would be! Her hair is always perfectly colored and her nails are always done. Her house is always clean and the décor is impeccable. And when people ask her if she’s going to have kids, she gives a smile that fools them all into thinking that she’s perfectly content in her quiet and organized life. But silently, she’s been living a 5 year nightmare with infertility. And she’d give it all away … the highlights, the manicures and the cookie-cutter cottage just to hold a child of her own.

Your marriage is constant work and whether its because your husband is tired or works a lot or simply isn’t interested in taking walks, you see the movie-star couple who always do everything together and you wish that just one afternoon, he’d get off the couch or come home early and sit on the porch or take a stroll with you. But that confident and forever hand-holding couple have a secret. Despite her rockstar figure, she struggles with a poor self-image and he’s already strayed from the marriage. Their apparent closeness is really insecurity, fear and an attempt to control, all put under a public guise for perfection.

You’re 35 and wonder if you and your Mom will ever be close. Whether it was because of addiction, abuse, her controlling and difficult personality, or your own feeling that you could never measure up, when you hear other women say, “I don’t know what I’d do without my Mom”, you can’t relate. “There’s nothing like Momma’s cooking!” has never applied to your life and you have always had to hire a babysitter. But other women have come into your life to at least give you some motherly advice and support. And maybe, your girlfriend’s mother who is so wonderfully supportive and takes the kids and cooks, does so because her son or daughter-in-law is unreliable. And her apparent doting is compensation for fear of neglect of her grandchildren.

You were the basketball star growing up and the day your son/daughter was born, you dreamed of teaching him to shoot hoops. And then he stopped meeting his milestones and a lifelong disability presented itself that would inhibit him from ever walking much less running the court. And when your friend comes bitching about running the kids around to practice 3 days a week, your heart aches for the opportunity. But their kid has a paralyzing mental illness that they hide from the world because it doesn’t look good when a jockey has a therapist. And 20 years from now, when all of that comes crashing to an end, you’re wheelchair bound rockstar is gonna be changing the world with his inspirational speeches or formulas for NASA.

Maybe their perfect house, isn’t a happy home….

Maybe one’s world travels are a distraction from the pain….

Maybe that new car was bought with a loved one’s life insurance…

Maybe her perfect kid is fighting a battle even you’d run away from….

Maybe their money came with a price you’re not willing to pay….

Maybe she smiles so that she doesn’t cry.

Sitting on the beds of drug addicts and prisoners has allowed me a gained perspective and empathy and an ability to shed the judgment that I once carried. But learning the struggles of the everyday people I know, who seem to have the most perfectly put-together lives has allowed me to realize that I’m not the only one living with disappointment. And oftentimes, those who have what I am mourning the most, are themselves, lacking the thing I hold dearest. And watching the ebbs and flows of other people’s lives has reminded me that like the tides of the ocean, nothing is promised for forever, and I must hold tight to the things I cherish and be willing to let go of the dreams that were never mine to hold.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the inspirational quote: “Be kind, everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” But what if we took that a step further and in addition to being kind to others, we develop an introspective view and be kind to ourselves.

We all make choices. And with every choice, there are consequences. But sometimes in life, things happen that are completely out of our control. And when those things rip our dreams out of our arms, after we grieve their loss, we must pick our heads back up and regain control of our life, however that life is going to be. A life that is void of the things we once dreamed of, can still be fulfilling. But we must find a way to make it so. If we never take our blinders off, we’ll never see all the other paths around us and the wonders that they can lead us to. If we never let go of the loss, we can never learn to love again. And if we never accept alterations in our plans, we will never relish the new opportunities of our current life.

So the next time you get frustrated that things haven’t quite worked out of the way you would’ve liked, wipe your tears and tell yourself that there is a wonderful life ahead of you, full of surprises and hope and laughter. And after you’ve stroked your grief for a bit, take it out back, put it in the ground and plant it. Let it grow into what it will. And then lift your head and look out to what lies ahead and accept that while this may not exactly be the life you wrote, you were never the author to start out with. Turn the page, there’s another adventure waiting for you. And it will be wonderful, I’m sure of it!

If you like this you might also like:

Giving a voice to disappointment … “Would you do it again?”

The Warrior

“I didn’t want it to be me.”

Cold Soup

Remembering Tiny Feet