A Safe Place

I am 31; she is 11.  Today I picked a ripe strawberry from my garden and gave it to her.  We stood in the yard and talked about her boyfriend of one month, who she doesn't see now that school is out.  The rain clouds rolled in and she headed for home, but not before Mikey ran to her for a hug, and Winston wrapped his arms around her waist.  This is her safe place, where she doesn't get yelled at, doesn't have to clean or get out of the way, where the expectations are to be kind and share. 

Because I remember.  I was once small and weak and therefore vulnerable to a world that eats its young.  I was around enough unsafe adults to appreciate the ones who were considerate and protective.  So this is what I can give to her and the others who are like her.  I am not your parent.  There is just a world of complication in that one word.  I know the expectations and the disappointments that you will cause each other, and you won't get that here.  I'm not a peer, because I can drive and have my own home and don't have to raise my hand to ask questions, but I will be your friend.  I can model for you what it is like to be a good friend, something I was blessed to have from the age of 12 til now.  When I see you smacking that other girl out of frustration, when you argue over what game you are playing and don't talk for a week, you can come to me and talk about it.  I'll be direct and won't tolerate abuse that is verbal or physical, because you're getting older and that becomes less and less okay.  I have these little kids and a million responsibilities, but I'll make time for you and I to do something fun.  We can ride bikes and you can call me slow.  We can play board games and play at the park.  We can hang out while I wash dishes or fold laundry or sit out on warm summer grass.

Because its a hard decade you're entering.  Middle school is just beginning, and friendships become tricky and fickle.  Boys will come and go (I know you think this one is forever, I saw it written on your arm).  There will be days when it seems like no one likes you, and you may even hate yourself a little.  That's why I'm here.  To remind you that you have worth and value, even if no one else seems to see it.  To give you a place to complain or escape.  To look out for you, even if your parents think you can fend for yourself.  Because someone did this for me.  Because someday I hope you'll be happy and independent and successful, and a lonely girl may come across your path, and I hope you'll do it for her.  Because we need each other, we need this protection.

Adoption: Two Mommies

I'll never forget the day Michael called me "mama" for the first time.  We were driving home, he was 8 months old and had been calling Chris "dada" for a few weeks.  Suddenly he cried out, "Mama!", and my heart was his.  It was validation for the months of care I'd been giving him, the absence of the woman who gave birth to him, the title I hoped to legally be given.  He verbalized the bond that had been forming ever since I held his tiny body in that hospital room.  There was so much joy and newfound purpose every time he called out "Mama" and reached for me, that I allowed myself to forget about Her.  Then one day we were looking through his pictures, and he pointed to Her and exclaimed "Mama!"  My heart broke.  "Yes," I told him, "that's your mama."  I felt demoted, and it stung.  Yes, you can call her that, I wanted to say.  But she doesn't wipe your tears, change your diapers, rock you to sleep.  She doesn't feed you or read to you.  I do that.  I'm the Mama. 

They told us to put our feelings aside.  They said you don't matter; the child's safety is what matters.  It was easier said than done.  Because in my mind, there can only be one Mama.  And I want to be it.  I don't want him to call Her mama too.  But I've come to realize lately that he's not thinking in such rigidly defined terms.  He sees two Mamas and two Daddys.  He knows brothers and sisters.  He knows that the people he lives with are the ones to go to with skinned knees and pinched fingers.  But he also realizes that his family extends out our front door and includes a larger group of people who are related in some way, who love him to the best of their abilities.

I keep thinking that I'll have so much to explain to him someday, that this situation is complicated and he'll need to figure it out.  Yet I seem to be the one who is learning, making new realizations about what it means to be a family.  Like understanding that when he calls Her Mama...I don't lose anything.  It doesn't diminish me.  Its a title that can be shared.  I get to be Mom everyday, doing the amazing and the mundane, the gross and the exhilarating.  What I do isn't any greater or less than what She did.  I just picked up where She left off.  And that's why we are both Mama.

Teaching

Its the end of another school year, which means it is time to evaluate, gather information, make important decisions that will affect the years to come.  This year has been so wonderful, my son has made so much progress, but will a different classroom make next year just as wonderful?  Will a new teacher, a new school, completely throw him off and send him into a tailspin of behavior?  Will he lose out on that last available spot?

I went to school like most kids...when I turned 5, my parents signed me up for kindergarten.  The next year I went to first grade, then second, and so on until I graduated high school.  When I became a mother, I figured I would do the same as my own parents had done, and didn't give the school question much thought in the hazy days of breast-feeding and diaper changes.  And then the bottom fell out and my son was diagnosed.  I didn't even know what options there were.  I searched my mind, trying to remember where those special kids were during my own education.  What did they learn?  What were their test scores?  I was always so concerned about who was ahead of me, whose grades were better, who was going to be class valedictorian.  I never thought about who was behind me.

Now I think about it every day.  I'm raising one of those kids who is "behind".  And I am endlessly grateful for the teachers who take the extra time and care that is needed to educate him, and those like him.  The ones who take pride in a student who started the year non-verbal, and is now participating.  The ones who know when to push, and how far to push.  The ones who see the accomplishment in just standing through an entire kindergarten concert.  The ones who are constantly learning and adapting, trying to find the best way to reach every single kid.

Psalms 126 says, "Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy."  I think it means that anything worth doing will be difficult.  There have certainly been many tears throughout the past few years, mothering these small children, figuring out who they are and being astounded at what they are capable of.  Things got pretty biblical during potty training, as I gnashed my teeth and tore my clothes and lay on the bathroom floor in misery.  But my sons use the toilet now, they flush and (sometimes) wipe and wash their hands.  I have faced off with James about writing his letters (and I'm sure his OT has similar battle scars), but now he can do it.  And the craziest thing is, I have no indication of when to push.  When the time is right to start something new.  Just a Mommy-sense that he's ready, and then we go for it.  I used to be afraid of that, scared that I was imposing my own timeline on him.  And that's definitely part of the struggle, not to compare him to others.  But he doesn't belong shoved in a corner, playing with blocks.  He's ready to go forward, ready to read and add and before we know it, conquer quantum physics.(I'm going to have to find someone else to push him there, though, this Mom doesn't understand anything past 8th grade science class)

I didn't expect to have to work so hard so that my son could learn.  I expected to just jump on the parent auto-ramp and cruise through high school.  But I'm holding on to the promise of harvesting with a shout of joy, knowing that all the tears will be worth it someday.

Women of Valor {Eshet Chayil}

Last night I met with a group of ladies at the park.  They were young and beautiful and energetic, and they were there to talk about Women of Valor.  About all the amazing ways that women can be and accomplish and provide, and how the most important thing that makes a woman bold and valorous is in service to God.  I thought about the woman I am...where I have been, where I am going.  Then I thought of all the women I know, mothers and wives and doctors and students and leaders and servers.  I wanted to take a few minutes here to highlight what they mean to me.

Liz...my sister, the lady doctor.  A woman who went through college and med school and now performs surgery with a robot and delivers babies.  Who gives healing and brings new life into the world, who delivers bad news and guides women through some of the most difficult times of their lives.  She shows me how to persevere, to fix on a goal and do whatever it takes to get there.

Mandy...my leader, she's a little like Sauron in Lord of the Rings.  She brings us all together, and, rather than telling us to be just like her because her life is pretty amazing, she encourages us to be the best version of ourselves.  To find our place in the Kingdom and then let our light shine.

Liga...my friend, who has the most tender heart.  She sees people, again and again she impresses me as she looks past the outside and the labels and LOVES.  She makes me want to be a better person, to try to look past what creeps me out or smells bad.  And she's straight up gorgeous.

Melissa...I've loved her for 20 years, because she is the most amazing person I've ever met.  She is gentle and loving and she hurts so easily for others.  All you have to do is look in her beautiful blue eyes, and you can see that she FEELS so much, that she has been through so much already, and yet she keeps going, keeps fighting.

Nicole...the mother who buried her child.  I don't know her very well, but everything that I see, every word I read on her blog leaves me in awe.  She is facing the most difficult process a person could experience, and she is doing it little by little, sharing her grief, facing each day. 

Jackie...the super mom.  She came into my life just as I was having my first baby, and she showed me how to be at home.  She did it so well, having kid after kid, caring for everyone, decorating beautiful cakes for each birthday.  She is one of the strongest women I've known.

Laura...the pastor.  She showed me how a woman can be a leader, a teacher, a person who is looked to and respected.  Jason and Benny and John all saw a leader in me, but Laura was the one who came alongside me and invested in me.  She shared her heart for students with me.  She encouraged me to be bold.

Barb...the mom I never had.  She was the most caring, gentle woman, and I wanted to be her daughter.  I loved sitting with her, listening and talking.  Now that I am like her, a stay-at-home mom of boys, I think about how she managed to be calm and graceful, feminine and strong, and I hope I can be like that someday.

 Jess...the ultimate blogger.  The mom who shows me how to write in a way that comforts, encourages, and most of all, respects people.  She advocates and promotes, she confides and discloses, and it gives me courage and strength to do the same in my own family, my own little community.

These are women of valor...strong, courageous, beautiful.  Different from each other, and yet the same in their example, the life they show the world.  These women make me proud of my gender, help me to hold my head up high.  This is what we are capable of, the many facets of femininity, the nurturers and givers that we were created to be.

On Hazing

I keep coming back to this memory, this moment of my life that had been pushed back to the far recesses.  Its a big storage space, the part of my brain holding onto past knowledge on the chance that I might need it again.  This one, its about 17 years old, but it resonates with me now like never before.

I am a high school freshman...well, I'm about to be.  In August, the band members load up instruments and a duffel bag of necessities and travel south to Camp Wakonda.  We sleep in cabins in the woods...My friends and I claim Cabin 5 as ours, and we return to it for the next two years.  It is our haven, a place where we are silly and weird and have teenage girl fights.  It is where we entertain with "Inspirational Romances" (wherein I read the "dirty" parts of a Harlequin romance novel in a silly voice and we giggle about things that we don't really understand), we tease and gossip.  Outside, there is a sort of bathroom.  There is a large "trough" on a cement slab where girls brush their teeth, wash their faces, shave their legs.  At any given time there are at least 15 of us engaged in one of these activities or another.  There are stalls with toilets and showers, and Tracy and I share Herbal Essence shampoo over the divider so that our hair smells pretty when we go up to the practice field.  The field, where we spend so much time in the sun that my knee pits gets sunburned.  We play "Across the Field" and "You Can Call Me Al" and "The Star-Spangled Banner".  We come back to this field when its dark, we lay on the grass with the boys who stay in the cabins on the other side of the woods, we look at the stars and imagine that we are quite grown-up out here, so far away from our parents.

And three times a day, we line up outside the Lodge, waiting to grab a seat in the dining hall.  Each table seats eight (and no more, we learned the hard way when we were seniors and there were nine at our table, and our band director made us clean every other table after the other kids were dismissed.  We blamed it on CJ at the time, because he was goofy and an easy target, but really, I wish I had just sat somewhere else instead of feeling like I had to be at a table with Melissa, Tracy, and Mike.  It was kind of miserable).  And when you are a freshman, you are assigned a day that you have to "hop" a table.  We eat family style, so the hopper is the person who brings the food to the table, gets refills, and then cleans at the end.  Its a rite of passage, we all had to do it, and fortunately, when you are a sophomore, if the class behind you is big enough, you don't have to do it again.  At each meal, a group of senior boys gather at a different table, and their goal is to not let the hopper sit down long enough to eat.  I remember this so well, the senior boys at my table, we were eating grilled cheese and tomato soup.  I don't think I got much to eat, although I think I was able to grab a few bites.  I will never forget placing the large bowl of soup on the table, it had to have at least a gallon in it, and Tad, the big sousaphone player, lifted the bowl to his lips and sucked it down.  The WHOLE thing.  In one long, unending gulp.  All in the name of hazing, or so I thought at the time.

It wasn't horrible, not like the boys who got duct-taped to their bunk beds a few years later.  It was understood that this made you part of the group, and they did move to a different table for the next meal, so it was only one missed meal for the week, and we were privileged kids whose parents sent candy and chips and jugs of water that we were supposed to leave with the directors so we didn't get raccoons in our cabins, but no one ever did.  As far as hazing goes, it was tolerable.  But now I am a mom of three growing boys, and every meal feels like this one day at Band Camp.  I am up making another sandwich, opening another cup of yogurt, slicing another apple.  I am refilling drinks that are spilled or gulped, either way empty in seconds.  It makes me wonder how much those boys were trying to harass freshmen or if they were really that hungry.  I guess when the yelled "HOP HOP HOP" as you walked up to the counter to get more food, and only stopped when you actually jumped, and how they took it a little easier on you if you were a good sport...that part wasn't necessary.  But after marching around the field all day, then swimming in the lake during our free period, maybe they were just that hungry.  Hungry enough to drink a tureen of soup.