Life times Four

     When I was a newly married, nineteen year old, looking at the prospect of having a family I am sure I had imagined what my life as a Mother would be.  I am sure that I considered that there would be hard days but I think the overarching theme was the shear excitement of possibility.  Thoughts like, "What would my daughter or son look like?" "What kinds of talents would they possess?" "Would he/she favor me or my husband?" I imagined soccer games and playing dress-up, braiding hair, and singing lullaby's.  It was all very dreamy.  I longed for it more than I had longed for anything in my life. 
     As I have fallen into the roll of a Mother ever so gracefully (hah!), I have thought a lot about the realities of parenthood that just cannot be conveyed.  I have thought many times, "Why didn't someone tell me ______" fill in the blank.  Parenthood is HARD. It is beautiful and raw and trying and unlike anything else in the world.  I have never been pushed so far passed my own capacity to do, to think, to feel, to understand.  Furthermore, I have seen those that I love handle the unimaginable; losing children, watching children suffer, bearing children with disabilities, and simply managing everyday illness and struggle.   I have seen friends battle with infertility, mental illness, depression, anxiety, and unforeseen trials. 
     What I have seen is life, raw and unfiltered, felt in the depths of one's soul, unedited, and unrelenting.  It has brought me to tears and knocked me to my knees.  But, what I have found is strength of spirit.  The human spirit is unmatched and its very height of strength is found in parenting.
I have never felt so much love, so much fear, or so much hope.  The unwritten potential being harnessed in these four little bodies I am to cultivate and protect is ever on my mind.  It is far more than peanut butter and jelly, sandboxes, and dance practice.

      I can identify with the following quote: 

     “I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someones garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”   -Marjorie Pay Hinckley

 

"Really living." It is in the good the bad and the truly painful. We cannot shelter ourselves from heartache and pain and "really live." There is beauty in it all.

 

Each and every person on this earth will experience defeat, suffering, struggle, loss, and the like, but a parent feels them times four! (Or however many children they have).

 

Making the decision to have a child is momentous.

It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” -Elizabeth Stone

 

 

     Therein lies the essence of for what I was not prepared.  But alas, there is opposition is all things and on the other side of pain is immense pleasure, on the other side of sadness is everlasting joy, on the other side of disappointment is immeasurable satisfaction, and on the other side of loss is incomprehensible gain. 

 

   Of the many things I may have said to that 19 year old girl, I'd say, do it. Do it again and again and again and don't look back. 

 



 

 

Shifting Paradigms

 A paradigm is like any window, it allows you to see whatever its frames will permit. Thus, just like a window, a paradigm is a limited and partial view of what's "outside." The bigger the frame, the more one can see. The more windows in a room, the more one can see of that "outside." Thus, paradigms, by analogy, are mental windows to reality. They "frame" our understanding of reality and limit that reality to what they show us. Different paradigms will "show" us a different reality.     - unknown


     I am currently caught up in the merciless throws of a shifting paradigm.  It takes courage to put up new windows within my carefully constructed house in my little corner of the universe.  Here is to hoping that I will find more light, more beauty, and truth without these walls.

The Chosen Mothers

A friend of mine shared this with me a long time ago and I really liked it.  I wanted to share it here. 


The Chosen Mothers




Most women become a mother by accident, some by choice

and a few by habit. Did you ever wonder how mother’s of children with life threatening illnesses are chosen?



Somehow, I visualize God hovering over earth

selecting His instruments for propagation with great care and

deliberation. As He observes, He instructs His angels

to make notes in a giant ledger…….



“Foppiano, Christine, son, patron saint Christopher”

Forrest, Marjorie, daughter, patron saint Cecilia”.”



Finally, He passes a name to an angel and says, “Give

her a child with cancer.” The angel is curious. “Why this

one, God? She’s so happy.”



“Exactly,” smiles God, “Could I give a child with cancer

a mother who does not know laughter? That would be cruel.”



“But, does she have patience?” asks the angel,



“I don’t want her to have too much patience or she will

drown in a sea of self-pity and despair. Once the shock and

resentment wears off, she will handle it.”



“I watched her today,” said God. “She has that feeling

of self-independence that is so rare and necessary in a mother.

You see, the child I’m going to give her has it’s own world.

She has to make it live in her world and that’s not going to be easy.”



“But Lord, I don’t think she believes in you,” said the angel.

“No matter, I can fix that. This one is perfect. She has just

enough selfishness.”



The angel gasps, “Selfishness? Is that a virtue?”



God nods. “If she can’t separate herself from the child

occasionally, she’ll never survive. Yes, here is the woman I will bless with a child less than perfect. She doesn’t realize it yet,

but she is to be envied. She will never take anything her child does for granted. She will never consider a single step

ordinary. I will permit her to see clearly the things I see….ignorance, cruelty, prejudice….and allow her to rise above them.”



“And what about her patron saint” asks the angel, his pen poised in mid-air.



God smiles and says…”A mirror will suffice.”

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Utter Chaos

 "Utter Chaos," she said as I apologized for the state of the morning. We loaded up the couch into the back of her friend's pick up truck and she was on her way. I breathed a sigh of relief as I ran back into the house and out of the cold.

I had spent the morning making small talk with a young single girl who had come to pick up my sister's couch that has taken up residence in my tiny garage for the last couple of months. Small talk was no small thing on this particular Saturday morning as I cleaned up the dishes from the night before; hand washing pans and cookie sheets and scraping ketchup off of plates and counter tops that the babysitter had left for me to clean. I shifted from one task to another while trying to maintain a cheerful conversation with the sweet stranger in my home. I tried to make it seem effortless while I managed the cleanup and the constant parade of demands from my children. There was crying, fighting, medicine, chocolate milk, cereal, candy, diaper changes, puppy poop, puppy prison break from the backyard, falling off of chairs and exercise balls . . . and the parade continued. All the while, she was receiving phone calls and texts from her friend, the owner of the pick up truck who had found herself with a flat tire a few short miles from the house.

Lemony Snicket's, "A Series of Unfortunate Events" comes to mind. The morning had played out like a scene from an old movie, streaming in slow motion. By the time the mended flat tire rolled its way into the driveway it had been about an hour and a half. "Utter Chaos" pretty much summed it up. It pricked a little as it rolled so casually off of her tongue. The comment was innocent enough but it somehow wrapped up my whole life so helplessly in two harmless little words.

After the truck drove out of sight with a 15 year old, slip covered, couch hanging off the tailgate, I took inventory of the rest of my day. Brittany had my van and I had four little inmates to entertain. I must admit that my two year old scared me more than the piles of laundry I had stashed in my master closet.

I had come home the night before feeling deflated. I had an unfortunate encounter with an overachieving Mother of four who graduated law school, taught at the University of Texas, home schools her children, maintains a clean home, runs marathons, and is skinny and beautiful to boot!!! The final straw landed on the proverbial hay stack when I discovered that she is MY. SAME. AGE. How do some people accomplish so much more in the same amount of time?
Fortunately for me, I came home to find my little sister, eight years my junior, with the wisdom of a woman four times her age. Among other things she said something so simple and yet so profound., she said, " Mom didn't graduate law school and she was and is the best Mom in the world!" This statement made me think about my Mother and all that she is and realize that it really doesn't matter that she didn't do those kinds of things. She is everything and more that we needed her to be. If I can become half of the woman that she is then I will feel accomplished indeed. Then Brittany read me this quote,

“Because of the conflicts and challenges we face in today’s world, I wish to suggest a single choice—a choice of peace and protection and a choice that is appropriate for all. That choice is faith. Be aware that faith is not a free gift given without thought, desire, or effort. It does not come as the dew falls from heaven. The Savior said, “Come unto me” (Matthew 11:28) and “Knock, and it shall be [given] you” (Matthew 7:7). These are action verbs—come, knock. They are choices. So I say, choose faith. Choose faith over doubt, choose faith over fear, choose faith over the unknown and the unseen, and choose faith over pessimism. "Elder Richard C. Edgley

Pessimism and I have been doing a little dance lately and unfortunately, I have been letting him lead. He is a good teacher, he talks you right through one step to the next, leading you across the floor until you are dancing effortlessly all over the sullen ballroom.

I have felt the suffocating effects of longing for things that are unattainable for me at this season of my life. I am confused by the dichotomy of desires within my heart to learn and grow and change as an individual and to serve my family selflessly.

I am constantly berated with the messages of today so I found it somewhat refreshing when I recently stumbled upon a passage from a book filled with the messages of yesterday.

It read, "What about giving the heart? Isn't giving your heart equally as important as giving your mind? Those women who are experts in giving love, kindness and patience to their families are giving as much, yes, more, than their I.Q. Isn't the product of the heart equal to the product of the mind? Doesn't it do as much or more for the betterment of society. The ladies who donate their I.Q. to society may render a service, no doubt, not if in so doing they rob the home of its mind and heart, what then can compensate for this loss? And those ladies who feel that they have a gigantic brain must realize that unless they match it with a gigantic heart, they are only half a woman, and it would be far more important for them to stay home and educate the heart than to leave the home and go into the world to share their intellect there. Their contributions of the heart will do more for the well being of society than their contributions of the mind." (from the highly controversial Book "Fascinating Womanhood" written in 1963 by: Helen B. Andelin)
So I guess this is what I am doing. I'm giving and educating my heart here at home. Somewhere in this "Utter Chaos" I am giving my heart and I am teaching my heart about love and patience and tenderness and kindness. Some days I would rather lead with my mind or let pessimism lead with his expertise in undermining goodness and happiness. The heart seems the better choice and in time, its grandparent Charity may lead and the ballroom will no longer be sullen but filled with brightness and promise of a whimsical night filled with music and dancing and laughter and hope.

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Dear 2012

Do you think you could give me a few more days to get my act together??  Thanks!



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