It’s depressing, but sometimes true.
Right now, for me, life is stinking.
I feel guilty even saying this because no one I love is enduring chemotherapy or in shackles.
But the fact remains.
I’m not a big believer in questioning the powers that be (ie: God), but at the moment, find myself doing just this. Why this struggle? Why now? Again???
You can’t be serious.
God, being somewhat of a silent sort, doesn’t answer me directly. I’ve spent the last week, my neck screaming at me while sleeping on the floor of my brother’s house, pondering His silence. I needed answers yesterday. I needed encouragement 20 months ago. I need communion…now.
Seven years ago, when we were in the middle of a complicated move, my dad told me this: Find something to hang onto.
Something.
Simple words, but somehow they helped.
I cling to them today. One thing, that’s all: Find something to hang onto.
As low as we sink, I find myself consistently one thread away from giving up. That thread may be a crystal clear cornflower-blue Colorado sky. It might be a day on Dillon Lake while my youngest three make moats and boats and eat sandwiches in the sun. It might be a six-mile hike up Table Mountain where my non-acclimated 40-year-old body is put to the test. It might be eating Willy’s Wings with my dad and brother at the base of the Red Rocks in Morrison, Colorado where there are no cliche answers, but eating at our old haunt and just being together offers a rare comfort.
One friend of mine lives on edge, waiting for her daughter’s cancer scans to come back clean every three months. One has a baby in a full-body cast–no one is sleeping well. One is weary with two decades of financial struggle.
To them–to all of us–I offer my father’s words: Find something to hang onto.
Suffer well.
Be of good courage.
Hold on.
This too (we hope and pray and cry in the middle of the night for) shall pass.
If I can quote John 3:16, the Westminster Catechism, the Apostle’s Creed, and never in all my 40 years utter a four-letter word, but silently judge that neighbor guy for his chronic frown and lack of friendliness, I might as well go tell him to his face that I think he’s a bitter workaholic and I’m glad his grown boys never visit.
And if I have the ability to write stunning prose and witty verse and I read G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and know the difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, and if I have enough faith to move mountains, but can’t reach across evangelical lines to embrace my Buddhist sister at Christmastime, I am about as effective as a Bible tract dropped over the Andes mountains on a windy day.
If I give away all my annoying clutter to needy ministries, but hold back that first edition copy of Treasure Island from my best friend’s son who just graduated from college with an English degree because it may be worth something some day and plus I really want it…
and if I offer to watch the babies in the church nursery, but begrudge them each and every graham cracker because I’m missing the sermon which looked pretty promising…
and if I have new people over for lunch after church on Sunday, gush all over them, but never again look them in the eye or give them a call…
and if I care more about what my friends will think about my teenage daughter’s skirt length than the condition of her heart…
I know nothing of love.
Love patiently shows a child how to knock a solid inch of dried mud off his shoes before walking into the kitchen. It is patient with a little girl who, at almost eight, is still sucking her thumb. It does not boast even when the book contract is signed, nor does it dwell on husband’s failure at–once again–pinching your skin while rubbing your back. Love eschews ‘me time’ when time away means missing out on listening to the 13 year old’s frustration over losing half of his school project because there isn’t enough memory on his computer. It winces when the beloved runt kitty doesn’t make it. It jumps up and down with her when the teenage daughter gets that long-coveted singing gig. It puts up with two-week periods when every member of the family is throwing up, believes her son when he says he isn’t texting that one girl, and endures a dining room full of shelves, none of which have room for HER favorite books.
This life will end. Hearts, lungs, or livers will one day, perhaps sooner than later, give out. Hair will be lost, (more) wrinkles appear. Singing voices and the ability to remember what the best move for a five and a three is in a game of backgammon will disappear. Joints will ache and digestive systems will grow sluggish.
But love will never end.
Right now it’s foggy at best. But one day we will see It face to face and understand just exactly why three appliances always had to break down at the same time and why hubby got fired from the perfect job and why those sweet kids were born to these rotten parents and why those polar opposite sinners got married to each other in the first place.
Until then, I (anxiously and foot-stampingly) wait.
Faith, hope, and love abide…but the greatest of these is–love.
Because I have been under a couple of weighty deadlines, not only have I neglected this blog, but I missed Mother’s Day.
I mean, it arrived and we celebrated and ate cake and all, but, mentally, I was thinking of better ways to hone the piece I was writing, of better hooks, better endings, better titles. Distraction–the mother’s most subtle temptress–had hold of me and, I’ll admit, clouded the occasion. I felt honored, but my joy was thin. The better part of the day, I secluded myself in my bedroom, ‘cleaning out my desk’ with my ‘Don’t talk to me because it’s my party and I’ll hide if I want to’ attitude prickling anyone who came near.
I woke up a couple of days ago and saw my children for the first time in weeks. Because my head had been wrapped around sentence structure and finding the right word, they had turned to Hulu as their substitute mother. I was loading the dishwasher and heard the three younger ones chanting away in perfect unbroken unison along with almost every commercial that came on during Gilligan’s Island. The refrigerator looked like a bunch of orphans had moved in: a shriveled apple with bites taken out of it on one shelf, milk with no lid on another, dried up hunks of cheese with crude chopping marks on the edges where they’d cut pieces for themselves on a third.
What else did I notice? How happy Elenia was when I actually listened to her latest story. How Cooper showed me his latest Lego creation, waiting for my enthusiastic response. How much they all gravitated toward me, each with his or her needs. This one needed website help. That one, boy advice. They were so happy for a plain spaghetti dinner eaten as a family at the table. I, too, was excited; to hear their questions, laugh at their jokes, fill another plate, wipe a tomato dribble off a chubby chin.
I’m not sure how to squeeze writing into the fissures of my life. I’ll admit I am jealous of those people who have all the live-long day to scribble away with nothing but the chirping of birds to distract them.
Agh.
Today, deadlines behind me, a cats-and-dogs rain falling on our little patch of property, I am freshly determined to put the precious six hearts that so depend on me ahead of the deadline. I know I won’t get as much written. A novel may have to wait a few years. I will probably watch my writer friends succeed ahead of me, leaving me behind.
But I’ll have to live with that.
What I can’t live with is knowing I short-changed my children or begrudged their needs or ‘uh-huh’ed my way through their soccer games and art projects and shared dreams and hair that smells of pillows and goodnight kisses and repeated Dexter The Restless Polar Bear stories and plain old spaghetti dinners.
I can’t and I won’t.
A few weeks ago when I wrote about boys and reading, someone asked me my recommendation for girls, specifically 8-year-old girls.
I asked Anna, age 11, and Elenia, age 7, what they would recommend and here’s what they said (several of these are series):
1. Nancy Drew
2. Betsy and Tacy
3. Little House on the Prairie
4. Twenty and Ten
5. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
6. The BFG
7. Boy
8. Midnight in the Dollhouse
9. Baby Island
10. The Little Pilgrim’s Progress
11. The Chronicles of Narnia
12. The Boxcar Children
13. Miss Piggle-Wiggle
14. Elsie Dinsmore
15. D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths
16. James Herriott’s Dog Stories and Cat Stories
Of course, whether or not these are good fits for every 8yo girl depends on their taste and reading level. But these are their favorites. For now.
I think my nagging days are over. Here’s why.
Mamas of the world, this one’s for you.
(if you want to read what other moms are saying, check out my Contact or The Mama pages, because some commenters are more on the ball than I am)
…the little boy wants to ‘pound’ your fist rather than kiss you goodnight.
…the little ones know all the words to the Shiny Toy Gun’s rendition of Major Tom
…the little ones know when to close their eyes during particularly riveting James Bond scenes
…the little boy can’t understand why he isn’t allowed to play Assassin’s Creed
…you regularly allow the little ones to stay up late, eat brownies right before bed, and rarely brush their teeth. Ever.
…the little ones ask to check their email
…the five-year-old can’t read, but knows how to spell ‘Hulu’ and ‘Gilligan’s Island’ perfectly
…the little ones can hardly fold a washcloth when at the same age the older ones did the dishes by themselves. And mowed the yard.
…the little ones refuse to stay with any babysitter who doesn’t live inside their four walls
…the little ones aren’t bothered at all by your two 100+ pound Bernese Mountain dogs, while the older boys used to cry when visiting families with hamsters
…the little ones feel jipped if they cannot have the privileges you gave your oldest when she turned 13
…the little ones share a Coke almost every night…a once-a-month treat when the older ones were their age
…you make Pillsbury orange cinnamon rolls and everyone cheers that Mommy baked something homemade
…the older ones reprimand you for allowing little boy to talk like that or little girl to throw that fit but you’re too tired to care. Plus, brattiness is funnier now
…your blood pressure, which used to rise when the kids said the word ‘stupid’ now barely bobbles when the littler ones say ‘freaking’
…you have completely given up on telling them to keep their feet off the furniture, to eat only at the table, to eat their veggies, or to bathe
…you barely break a sweat when little boy shoots big brother in the eye with an Airsoft gun, altho you never allowed the older boy to so much as point a water pistol at his stuffed animals
…when the big boys wrestle the little boy, your only words of warning are, “Don’t kill him. Not tonight. Lost is on.”
I don’t usually read thrillers, but this one’s a doozy.
Warning: While reading, you may forget to diaper the baby and the other children will certainly go hungry. Plan ahead.
Check out the trailer for this movie coming out on Mother’s Day in some locations. Sweet!
