Turbulent Waters

-->Sometimes, you've just got to write it down.  When we are followed by the joyful, the precious and the sorrowful shadows of our past, we must remember it is the sun shining on our face that casts the shadow back. Therese Steinhoff shares her story of witnessing the suffering of loved ones. -BTH

I don’t know how to explain it but the happy memories of my childhood are bringing me to tears of sadness this week. I haven’t cried myself to sleep in a long time, but I did last night.  I actually woke my husband up and asked him to hold me as the tears and words flowed. Between sobs I said “I feel such a heaviness pressing on my heart right now.” A happy picture from my childhood of a 12 year old version of me dancing with a sweet kid I used to baby-sit was the catalyst for the tears and the words.

I was so fortunate to grow up in a small town with wonderful adults to look up to and their beautiful kids to look after. My parents really knew how to pick good friends.

When you grow up in a town far away from your extended family, your friends become your extended family. When my parents first moved to our town they didn’t really know anybody. My mom made a friend named Cindy, who she worked with. Cindy was from Beaufort, South Carolina and had a thick southern accent to prove it. Within years they were good friends and my mom and dad drove down to South Carolina to watch her marry Gary.

 By the time I came around they were great friends. I am pretty sure one of my first words was “CindyandGary.” They were like an aunt and uncle to me. They didn’t have any kids of their own, so they doted on me. They ended up moving on to Lancaster, Pennsylvania where they would have three kids and send us Christmas pictures set on the swing on their front porch for the next 30 years.

We visited them a few times and they visited us almost every Thanksgiving or Christmas when they went to see Gary’s family. They always brought laughter and joy with them on their visits.

A few weeks ago I learned that Cindy was dying. Her first grandchild is due in May. Last night her daughter wrote on her Caring Bridge site that Cindy was losing her battle with cancer. She was suffering. She was buoyed by her strong faith accepting that God had a plan for her. Her children and husband are following suit.

**************

Tom and Lori were the couple across the street that I babysat for. I loved their two children like they were my own cousins. Lori became a mentor to me and was the reason why I majored in Journalism . She freelanced from home when you had to fax your stories to news institutions. Her passion for her job and her family appealed to me. She was a great mother who had found a good balance between a career and motherhood during a time when women were forced to choose one or the other. This was what I craved for my own life. I wanted to write, but I also wanted to be home with my kids.

 Lori had married her high school sweetheart Tom and they always came back from their date nights refreshed and laughing. Lori once told me that it was nice that she and Tom had known each other for so long, because they could talk about people from their past with each other. They had grown up together.

A couple of years ago Tom was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). They told them that it was a slow moving form of the disease which made us all take a deep breath, but soon Tom exhibited signs of dementia in which he would act out erratically. He would embarrass Lori in a grocery store parking lot, and then would tell her she was the most beautiful girl in the universe. Last week Lori told me that Tom now has home health care full time and they just received his lifeline clicker in the mail. You know the one you click when you have fallen and can’t get up? Tom is in his late fifties.

************** 

If my parents close friends were like aunts and uncles to me, their children were like cousins to me. I have known Claire before I can remember. She and her sister Erin were so musical and cool. They acted in many plays and were always singing. Erin was two years older than me, and Claire was a year younger than me.

My dad and their mom became ill at the same time. They died within months of each other.

Claire ended up going to Stanford Law, met her husband, settled in San Francisco and then became pregnant. Her pregnancy was rocky from the start. She delivered Nora at 25 weeks and Nora weighed less than two pounds. We all held are breaths for months as Nora tried to breathe on her own. She never has breathed on her own and she is now three years old. A few weeks ago I learned that Nora is on the list for a full lung transplant. She is a happy, spunky, little girl who runs around trailing her oxygen tube behind her. She has her mom’s smile and curly hair. She has her grandmother’s strength. She is like any normal three year old—she just can’t breathe.

************** 

Life is a lot like the lake I grew up on. Some days you can just float on water that is smooth as glass. And then a storm comes and the lake gets choppy and tosses you around. Sometimes you feel as though the heaviness of the dark water is pulling you under. Then the sun comes out and you are floating on the calm water again. Right now I feel like this turbulent time in our friends’ lives are pulling me under. The happy memories are the only thing keeping me above water. I remember hearing all of their diagnosis’s and thinking “well they are OK for now” and that kept me floating on the calm water. These past few weeks the waters have turned dark and choppy. I feel the heaviness of what’s next for them and their families weighing me down. I feel guilty for being so far out from shore. I want to swim up to land and help them out.

I know that the sun will come out and that the water will be calm again. I am grateful that my own family is safe on land. My heart is physically aching. Right now I wish I could go back in time and be that 12 year old girl who is watching the calm water from the dock and laughing. The girl who hasn’t even seen the dark choppy water of life. The girl who has never had to swim against the waves. But if she never had to struggle she wouldn’t have gotten strong. Right now the woman she has become must gather that strength to swim against the current swelling around her today. She knows she will be back on shore soon. Her family is waiting for her.  

Pontificating

I was raised Catholic. Today, I'm an actual, practicing, Catholic. In some circles, I'm not near Catholic enough. I'm not sure where the grading scale is or who is the "decider" of our quantity or quality of Catholicism. I don't worry about it too much.  The Arch Mother, who raised money to build their parish church, worked for Catholic Charities, and hosted half the Archdiocese in their home, never had time for people who wanted to "judge" your level of faith.

I know who I am and what I believe. But I do understand that the Catholic church is dealing with an identity crisis - too many people associate it with scandal and decadence and not enough with social service and faith. 

Yesterday when it was announced that white smoke was drifting above the Vatican in Rome, I had an emotional response.  Honestly, a startling response. I stopped my car and sat quietly in a parking lot listening to the media reports. For me, it was a stark reminder of how deeply I care about my faith and my church family.

When the kids got home from school, we concluded it would be fun to make Argentinian food in honor of Pope Francis for dinner. Great!  Except while I love to cook - Latin influenced food has not been a big part of my repertoire (ANY part of my repertoire).

I Googled some recipes, decided that I didn't have time to reinvent the wheel and it was a bright, sunny, March afternoon (to my Minnesotan mind it looked warm).  So the four kids and I grabbed our coats, scooters and walked to the grocery story.  My thought was that while last minute Argentinian food was probably unreasonable at the end of my busy day, we could at least find some good Latin options.

No dice.  Actually, no Chimichurri. Our local grocery store, considers tacos and salsa to be the extent of their Latin foods. Maybe it's silly, but I was shocked.  Scratch that. Decided we'd go home and watch the news coverage of the new Pope while we ate our decidedly NOT Latin dinner.

Hmmm. By 6:15 pm, the bright, March afternoon was significantly chillier. The return mile from the grocery store was a lot quieter and significantly quicker.  If we could have cut through people's yards, we would have.

Arrive home! Turn on TV! American Idol? Survivor? No pope. Damn our cable free household! So I grab my laptop determined to make the kids see how fascinating the election of a new pope can be (and hoping to distract them from the slow turn towards exhausted meltdown that mom is taking - might I mention that I washed all the sheets in the house and had yet to return them to their rightful beds).   I find the clips of the new Pope's first waves and comments, finally relieved that some part of this memory making plan is working out. 

We watch for about an minute, listening to the calming translation of his Italian, when my middle son says:

"Who is that guy?"

"It's the new Pope, Jorge Maria Bergoglio, Pope Francis," I say.

"Umm, no it's not," says he.

"Yes, honey. It is. See - that's why he's standing in the balcony waving to the people in Rome."

"You're wrong. The principal told us that the new Pope was father Mark."

Father Mark is our parish priest who is very involved in our parochial school.  He's well known to the kids and we've had him a few times to the house for dinner. Clearly there had been some confusion at school and so my son was absolutely, positively certain that the principal, whom he views with reverence, had told him that Father Mark was the new Pope.

"Nope, Buddy.  Father Mark isn't the new Pope, he's not a Cardinal and he's not in Rome."

"Right, but you said the new Pope didn't have to be a Cardinal."

He was right.  I did tell him that. What I didn't say was that of course the new Pope would be a Cardinal. While the church could break with tradition, no one expected it to do so.

My son was terribly disappointed by Pope Francis.  He did not look near as young or as cool as father Mark. I made a note to call the priest and let him know that at least one person thought he deserved a promotion.

I have been critical of the Catholic Church, my most popular entry on this blog, deals with some of my struggles, and yet I found myself defensive yesterday. Listening to the critical chatter on Facebook and Twitter about "another scandalous, conservative Pope." The lines and lines of judgement without any real sense of information or experience. I was surprise by how strongly I reacted.

One poor friend got a real diatribe from me because she said she was hopeful but concerned about this new Pope and the direction of the church.

Pope Francis will have neither a perfect history nor perfect future. He is human. But because we are human, we can be honest and still be hopeful; we can be forgiving and still forthright. And so I agree with my friend. We are called to face every day and every situation with hope and concern, if we can promise to always live to this standard, everything would probably turn out better, both for our church and in our world.

We must view the church with our intellectual talents, our honest hearts and our open minds. For the first time in a long time, I feel how true this really is, and I feel we have a renewed opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit. 

Discrimination, abuse and the role of women in the church are not issues that will be solved tomorrow - but with faith and our own energy - we have a better chance today of leaving our children and grandchildren a church that is a beautiful instrument of love, light, joy and peace.

So, while Pope Francis is not Father Mark, he is a fresh step in a new faith future. We, Catholics, must take that step, that first hopeful and concerned new beginning, together. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Losers Weepers, Finders Keepers

We got take-out Chinese for dinner last night and watched Wreck It Ralph. As it ended, my husband sighed and said to me:

"I miss my brother."

 

We're having a little bit of a hard time.  My husband and I can't quite put our fingers on it. Winter doldrums? Stress at work? Just the effects of keeping so many balls in the air? Who knows. But we had the realization a few days ago that tomorrow will be the sixth anniversary of his brother's, The Chef, abrupt death.

The kids piled into the car this morning and my daughter got accidentally kicked in the head, one son threw a pencil at another and everyone was just being sour.  I turned the car off and looked at them.

Deep breath.

"I'm going to tell you something.  Look me in the eyes. Dad is having a hard time right now because he would give just about anything in the world to have another night with his brother." 

Everyone perked up, wide eyed and nervous. Maybe not my best parenting, but like I said, we're both having a hard time.

"You have many gifts. But the people in this car are the best things that have ever happened to you. Some day, I will break a hip. And one of you is going to need to get in a car and come help me. And I will be crabby about it. I will not like feeling old and fragile. And you know what you're going to do?  You're going to call each other.  You're going to NEED each other."

No one said anything.

"Someday I am going to drive you nuts. I promise you. And the only people who will empathize with your frustration are the people in this car. You're going to help us with our finances, fix whatever kind of new fangled technology that dad and I can't figure out, and deal with the fact we don't hear so good anymore."

They start to laugh.

"Mom, it sounds suspiciously like a full time job," said my oldest.

I told him, it would be.  I promised to cause him a lot of trouble.

"But it will be happy trouble.  We're going to have a lot of fun.  We're going to take care of each other. Right now I do a lot of the care giving, but soon you'll be taking more and more care of each other, and eventually of your dad and I too. That's what family does."

Everyone softened a bit. We went to the gym. It's not easy to be good to your siblings all the time. We can be competitive. We can be frustrating. Sometimes we have nothing in common except an initial address. But it is a relationship that helps us learn how to be a good friend. I'm guessing that if you were never nice to you siblings, you aren't a great friend either.  Maybe I'm wrong. But it's an interesting thought.

Today is also my friend's, The Hummingbird, birthday. The name is apt because I've never met anyone who talks or works faster. At one point or another she has cleaned my refrigerator, bathed my kids, planted tulips in my yard (in freezing rain), fed my family, cut my grass, challenged me to run faster, rewired my 2nd floor, cheered for me, read to my children, made rhubarb cake at 5 am before my first triathlon, decorated my house for Christmas, shoveled my walk, flown 1,500 miles to hold my kids and help us bury my father-in-law; but mostly we've laughed and laughed and laughed. She is beauty in motion.

We were celebrating her birthday the night The Chef died. His heart just stopped at 32 years old in front of his wife and newborn son. We were devastated.  He lived far away and we were weeks away from the birth of our third child. My siblings showed up one by one and were incredible helpful with packing and planning, with offering support and sympathy. But the next day, The Hummingbird came quietly buzzing into the house and did laundry, took our two toddlers up to her house to play, made lunches, did dishes. She was just a calming breeze that blew through that day. At the very end of the day, when we were alone in the kitchen, she asked

"What happened?"

No one had told her any details, she just showed up and filled in.  She knew he had died but had no idea how or even when exactly. The whole time she just acted with kindness, without question, without judgement or self involvement. I've always remembered. She helped without needing to know why.

This friendship changed my life. 

I love my siblings. We are all very close. But she has helped me become a better sibling by showing me how rewarding unconditional love is. She's not perfect - but she's done a lot of perfect things for me, for my kids.

I want my kids to have this kind of capacity.

About a year ago, her out of town sister learned she has cancer and is really sick. She's angry sick. And it is heartbreaking. Loving and supporting siblings from a distance is challenging work.

It doesn't matter if you lose someone slowly or suddenly, the result is the same. Today, we feel the absence of my brother-in-law in different ways than when he first died. The anger, the shock, the confusion has mostly passed. It's the inability for my husband to call him and complain about me or talk about fatherhood to the only other man who was parented by the same father, or to think through family finances and career planning. These are the phone calls and boys get-a-way trips that The Athlete still grieves.

 

We can't go back. So how to do we go forward?

• By making it count.
• By saying I love you. 
• By putting the petty stuff aside. 
• By reaching out and not holding back. 
• By offering big, generous acts that are unexpected and unnecessary.
• By encouraging relationships, fostering friendships.

This weekend, we were going to the cabin, but instead we offered it to my adult nephews who wanted to have a boys weekend. Some are married, some have kids. We can give them that - a chance to make more memories, deepen their friendships, strengthen their brotherhood. That we can do.

We've moved on in so many ways from six years ago. The physical relationship is part of the past. My brother-in-law is a part of the horizon now. We see him in the distance, simultaneously real and ethereal, yet he is still there resting between our past and our future. When we feel the loss, we grieve, but when we embrace all that we've found in the process, we feel the blessing upon our hearts.

We will see you again, brother.

Because I Said So

During the work week a lot needs to happen between 7:10 am and 7:50 am. The three older kids need to be up and out the door for school; the youngest child needs a diaper change (which is usually a life event) and continual supervision because he likes to stand in the highchair.

The Athlete and I watch the coffee drip into the pot with the anticipation of addicts. After a quick breakfast, he carries his bike up the basement stairs and heads out at about the same time as the kids. Some days those 40 minutes feel like the last six miles of a marathon.

I was grumpy this morning.  I wanted a snow day and we didn’t get one. I got everyone started on the wrong foot by being the child in the house instead of the mom. The Athlete woke everyone up – but we weren’t moving very fast. And now after a few cups of coffee, I’m seeing the morning for what it was.

My coffee did not look this good. If it did, I wouldn't have been so crabby.

For the most part, the first words my kids hear every day is either from my husband or I. 

This is a huge responsibility - those first few words sets a whole day in motion, which in turn is the basis for a week, a month and beyond.

Suddenly, "Hey guys, we're late. Hustle, hustle, hustle!" Feels pretty useless.  Sigh.

How often does the morning start with something like: 

Rise and shine. Time to get up. Hurry. We're running late. We've got to shovel. Do you have that done?

 Let's try this. What if the first thing we say each day is something like:  

Good Morning. I love you. How are you? What did you dream about? I'm so glad that you're mine. Good to see you.

Words are powerful muscles. We flex them unconsciously all the time. 

Let’s even take a step farther back.  To before we’ve gotten out of bed. What is the first thing we say to ourselves in the morning? 

I’m exhausted. I’ve got too much to do. I wish I didn’t have to get up. I wish it was Saturday. I wish I hadn’t overslept. I feel old. I feel anxious.  I feel fat.

Let’s try this.  What if we say something like:   

Thank you for today. For my beating heart.  For the people I love. For the chance to do something special. For the opportunity to right a wrong. For the ability to start something brand new or to finish something important.

Whatever you say, choose your words carefully. Maybe we can start our days by elevating our lives with the choice of these words. If you want to be better, happier, and more peaceful; say so, even if only in the quiet of your heart.

Our words work in conjunction with the words and language of the people around us. We create a verbal tonality in our families and in our communities. Think about how yours sounds? Is it Melodic? Loud? Discordant? Funky? Sharp? Harmonious? Inspiring?  Provoking?

Is it beautiful? If it isn’t, could it be? 

We set a tone. The words we use in our hearts eventually come out of our mouths and our language is contagious. It infects all aspects of our lives and it can make us stronger or weaken us - but it changes everything it touches.

So especially with my children, I remind myself over and over again to choose my words carefully. 

I'm so happy to see you. How was your day? I love you. I missed you.  I'm sorry. What are you thinking about?

In the end, what we do is more important than what we say, but that doesn't mean that what we say isn't important. We have to start with how we talk to ourselves in the silence of our hearts.

Maybe if we use loving words, gentle words, patient words, courageous words, those words will shore us up, give us strength, inspire us so that we have the energy to DO the loving, gentle, patient and courageous acts.

Our words are the foundation for what comes next. So what do you say?

Find that happy place in your heart - this is a view from mine.

Into Thin Air

Another sweet post from Elizabeth Eilers Sullivan. We are all planting, nurturing something in our lives - enjoy the invitation to recapture yours.  - BTH

Sometimes I worry about not sucking the marrow out of my todays. About how fleeting the young years of my kids truly are even if some days seem long. Sometimes my anxiety creeps up on me that time is moving fast. Way too fast. That when I am at home and busy doing other things that need tending, I am missing the present. The now. And, when my boys call me on it by doubling their efforts to get my attention, when I am there but preoccupied, it is a reminder to me that I have gone too far. The scales are tipped. I am no longer the fulcrum, the grounded center, because I am no longer present. 

The other day I unloaded my younger two boys from the car and watched as they gleefully ran up the walkway, and thought Wow I will miss this. Them. Followed immediately by a second thought that softened that grip on my heart, "But man will I enjoy them still as adults!" Like salve for my soul, I exhaled. 

Parenting is not for the weak of heart. Strength is a necessary ingredient, and not just physical the lifting the carrying, the schlepping, but mental. Mental strength is paramount. How we fill our minds, our perceptions, the words we chose internally and externally shape our days. We have choice and control over what we think. But to have this choice we need to hone an awareness of our own minds and their patterns. This morning I read something about being aware of what we fill our minds with for it lives in our subconscious creating a garden for things to thrive. If our perception, judgement, or thoughts are off, instead of our minds flowering they can easily be filled with weeds. This image captivated me.I might add that it is not just a garden but one with a labyrinth where the more aware we become of our patterning the deeper we can go to the center to increase the healthy thoughts and weed out the unhealthy. 

That is why later this morning when my husband told me that the front tire on my car was low and needed air, I drove to the neighborhood Sinclair Gas Station. As I pulled in I noted the opaque grey of the sky, the clouds covered it like a quilt, a protection keeping me from seeing too far down the horizon line. 

Joe, who owns the station and a distant relative of mine, ambled out. "How are ya?" he proclaimed. 

"I'm good." 

"What's new?"

"Nothing much," I started to reply, then I paused, "It's Kiki's birthday!" I said. 

Kiki was sitting with his broad grin in the back, we were on our way to get his birthday treat he'd bring to school with him. 

"Well, how old are you fella?"

"4!" he chimed in.

Joe was reaching for the air pump and bending to fill the tire and laughed. "Enjoy them, my baby is 50."

"Do you remember when he was four?" I asked. 

"Oh yea, we had loads of fun! I have three boys," he added still laughing. 

He filled my tire with air and smiled. For a moment we coexisted in that thin space of his yesterdays leaking into our todays, his history mingling with my present, a view beyond the cloud coverage. A glimpse into what is planted in his garden, a sacred view into his own mental strength. As my tire was filled up to it's rightful level, I realized how much more even my perspective of the road was now, like I had been driving around lopsided, or not inhaling and exhaling enough air for my own strength. That like the tire I can stand to breathe a little deeper, relax a little more with the awareness of my breath, my thoughts, my words. That this air that creates sounds, words, stories fills my todays. Breath is the one thing that when it comes down to it keeps us in this beautiful physical plane called life. I exhaled at Joe's invitation to enjoy my four year old, knowing that I will still enjoy my four year old when he is 50 and still my child. 

The Sound of Memory

 

I've spent a few years volunteering with people who have complicated symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease. We use childhood photos along with favorite music to create movies, digital frames and photo albums as non-pharmaceutical, palliative care tools. I've witnessed the transformation that Therese Steinhoff illustrates in this essay about her grandmother's Dementia.  Sometimes the answers are complicated, but sometimes the solutions are simple, beautifully simple. -BTH

Last summer my 97 year old grandmother who we call Nana was agitated with the progression of her Dementia. She always said “as long as I have my mind I will be OK.” I think in a way she saw that her mind was slipping into a world of confusion and mashed up memories. She kept talking about the past and the need to get home to her mother, father, husband, and son who had all passed on years ago. She was losing sleep over it. She couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes. It was hard for us to witness emotionally and physically as we needed to follow her around in her walker to make sure she didn’t fall.

One afternoon I was alone with Nana and my two year old son.  It was early evening and his fussy time. I was sitting with him on the couch and Nana shuffled over to us in her walker. It had been a long day and regrettably I was frustrated with her. She was constantly repeating “Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Oh Lord help me.”  She was going to the bathroom every five minutes because she had forgotten she had already gone. She was angry with us for telling her to sit down and rest awhile. I had pretty much decided that the most recent mini stroke she had experienced had taken her farther away from us. It felt like she was a boat a drift that we could see from the shoreline but couldn’t call back. So when she said “Can I sit by you” my heart just melted. I had felt bad for having thought that the Nana I knew and loved had left us until I saw a piece of her sweetness emerge with those words.

As she sat next to us on the couch my youngest started to get cranky. As a mother I knew that singing to a crabby toddler usually soothed them. So instinctively I started singing songs to him. He became quiet and listened and to my great surprise Nana also relaxed her body and sat with us without the need to cry out or get up and walk around.

Before I knew it Nana and I were singing Christmas carols in July. I knew that we both loved “O Holy Night” so the two of us were singing it in tandem. Nana even remembered more of the verses than I could remember. She sang loud and clear. She sang with gusto. We sang together for about an hour. I filed that hour away in my mind as one of my favorite memories of my Nana. It went right next to the memories of sleeping over at her house, secretly drinking coffee with milk and sugar, playing bunco together, watching “All My Children,” walking the streets of Rome together, and one of my earliest memories—playing “airplane” together with pictures of food in ads as our meals.

Music was the common thread that held Nana’s life together so it’s no wonder that it now soothes her. She married a Vatican Choir singer who sang every day of their life together—even when he was suffering with Alzheimer’s. She attended Church nearly every day of her life and sang all of the songs. Her son played piano for her. Her house was always filled with music. Even when my grandparents and father would be in the middle of a conversation they would often break into song. I feel like the music of her life was like the yarn that she used to crochet blankets—many different songs came together to wrap around her and comfort her.

So by the end of that hour both my two year old son and 97 year old grandmother were relaxed and ready for dinner. I felt like I had found the key to giving her comfort.

The next day one of her caregivers came to the house and I had Nana sing “O Holy Night” to her. By the end of the song we were both in tears. Her memory was briefly clear and she was present with us.

Music is a powerful thing. No matter what age we are we are soothed by it. It can make us cry, make us laugh, and make us remember. It brought my Nana back to me when I thought she was lost.

Eureka! Things A Dead Mathmatician Taught Me

My oldest son had a big biography project due today.  Last week The Athlete and I were on our first real child-free vacation in several years (we went with The Arch Mother and The Brick - this will be a post for another day - See next week's two part post titled "WHY IS THE TV SO LOUD/The damn TV isn't working again"). When we got back, my oldest hadn't made much progress besides reading and some very basic note taking about the subject of his report.

Now, most of the boys pick people like George Washington, Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther King Jr.. On the note taking worksheet the teacher handed out, she asked, "Why is your subject famous?"

My son's response:  "He's not. No parents really even know who he is."

He picked Archimedes. Of course he did. I'm sure YOU know all about Archimedes.  But in our life, so far only a 22 year old, robotics aficionado knew anything about him.  He was a Greek mathematician and inventor from the pre-Christ era.   There are not as many children's biography's about non-saint, pre-Christ scientists as you might imagine. Thank God that he loves to read and is willing to delve into the non-picture book biographies.

The early childhood homework project should be a college course in psychology - actually it should be a master's program. I am a pretty hands off parent.  I give the older kids a pretty long leash. BUT I found myself fighting back some pretty strong, strange parental urges this weekend while he was working on the project.  It involved a note taking packet, a poster board, a costume and a two page paper. He is an independent kid; he's creative and likes to be inventive. He also has a clear vision of how he likes to do things. He had also read everything he could find about the guy so he felt pretty comfortable with the topic.

He hand wrote the paper on non-lined paper in pencil.

"When you're turning in a big project like this, I think being neat and organized is important. You should get lined paper and a pen."

A pen?  Really?  I told my 9 year old, who is just learning cursive, that he should write his report in PEN? It was at this point that I realized I was offering useless advice and that instead of helping it was disheartening. I'm picturing PowerPoint slideshows when that's not the appropriate picture at all.

He told me that it could be typed. "That would be very professional if you did that!"

"Mom, will you just type it for me?" 

Pause. He'd been working on it for two hours while listening to his sibling play unencumbered by dead mathematicians in the other room.

"Honey, I want to help, but I can't, that's part of the experience of working on a big project.  If you want it to be typed, you need to do it yourself." 

Did I want to type it? Yes.  It would have taken me three minutes (I'm a writer, you know).

But did I type it? No.

The poster board was mostly done but there were a few misspellings and in general, if I'm honest with you, it just didn't really do much for me. I'm thinking about all the other parents who are probably helping cut and paste, who are stenciling and buying glitter.

So what? 

Who's project is it? 

Ummm. Well, I faltered. I used the misspellings to step in and show him the errors and then suggested maybe he slow down and look at the board. I knew he wanted to be done with it and go find a book and curl up in front of the fireplace.

"What is your plan?" I ask.

"Do you want it to tell a story or do you want it to be illustrations from your report?"  He looks down on his project.

 "It's important that the words are big enough to read from a distance.  Pencil is hard to read - its not dark enough." 

After the last question, I could see the breath sort of sink out of his chest. I stopped talking and thought to myself What is MY plan here? Do I want him to be proud of his own work?  Can I help without making it about me ?

"Why don't you take a break.  You've got time to finish it. And you really are almost done."

So yesterday when he got home from school he went right to work on it. He typed the whole thing himself.  I helped him with the formatting. He redid the poster board and set out to work on his costume.

My neighbor, who is also one of my best friends and a more hands on parent than I am, called when she got home from work.  I had asked her earlier if she had a beard that he could borrow and I told her about the project. She knows me well. She knows that he's going to be on his own for getting the costume together.  This idea proceeds to slowly kill her all day.  She has come home to Google Archimedes and see what he's up against. She calls me:

"He can't just wear a robe."

At that very moment I was holding a child size robe in my hand. In all fairness, I was putting it away because he found something else, but still, I was holding a robe.

"I swear, he's got this.  It's going to be good.  We found a black cape and some fur kind of thing. He's all set. Very excited. I'm going to grab the Santa wig from my folks house and he's going to use that."

So finally at about 7:30 last night, he emerged from my office in full, hysterical costume, poster board and two page typed report. The report is less reporty and more narrative.  It beings "I want to tell you a story..." His chest inflated with the pride of a job well done and the smile wide because he had a chance to have fun learning. I could have VERY easily ruined that chance.

Archimedes reminded me to reflect on one of the eternal questions of parenting:

Does a project for third graders need to have an animated PowerPoint? 

Of course not.

We all have lessons to be learned - parent and child.

• Honor your child's intelligence and their style.
• Help them to be their age appropriate best.
• And then just get out of their freaking way.

Ride the Grace of Gratitude

Another elegant post by Elizabeth Eilers Sullivan. Her lovely words reminded me of a group email I sent two weeks ago in preparation for our first 'kid-less" vacation in years.  I had a three page attachment of phone numbers, house details, schedules of events, daily routines and extracurriculars. After reading it, my husband remarked that it takes an army to care for our kids. Sometimes it does feel like we live on the front lines, but then I read essays like this and I remember that it isn't a battle; we're the peacekeepers, if only we take the time to see the beauty and power of our brotherhood in arms. - BTH

The snow has a hint of spring to its edges. The rough crust is giving way to streams in the street. The top layer of snow is soft enough for sticky snowballs, the hills pliable enough to become slick sledding highways that my children toboggan down with glee as my husband shovels ice from walk ways. The sun is higher than it has been in the skies lately and stays out longer. Today it felt like spring was nearer than it seemed earlier this week when the cold kept my shoulders braced to my ears and I shuddered at winter's briskness each time I stepped outside to bring my kids from one place to another. As I entered the swim meet today after it began, I watched runners cruise down Summit Avenue and felt that overall gladness to be alive, spirit unified with body, feet kissing earth, breath coursing through veins.

It is this spirit, this joie de vire that has me feeling doubly grateful for the small things of today. For my children who rose and dressed and ate and readied themselves for play and swim and birthday parties. For my husband who so gracefully cooks breakfast, shops for food, and holds down the home front with me. For the families that came to yoga today and took time to meditate and move and breathe. But paramount in my string of noticeable graces and gratitude is the friends I am blessed with who rise to help, rise to love my children up, and embrace them.

Simply put my friend gave one of my kids a ride form a birthday party to the swim meet. Yes a simple act, but I know it caused her to spend her time driving one of mine to and fro when she has plenty of her own. I know it was done with grace and giving and I hope she notices how much I am grateful for it. We are both the youngest of many, and with that comes a flexibility and willingness to pitch in, and at times to pitch in too much. But while this ride seems simple it underlines something crucial to parenting, that we do not do it alone, nor do we do it with just our partners, nor do we do it with just our extended family, or the babysitters we hire, but with our friends we hold. And, if we are lucky enough, blessed, graced with friends that parent in similar ways and hold their kids to similar standards and will shine their love on our own as they do their own, then it is good to take note. To say thank you. To multiple the grace in more ways than one by sharing it back with them, with others. For in doing so, we melt our rough edges, we relax our shoulders and we breathe into the present moment of today and lean toward the hope of tomorrows--that we do not parent alone, nor assist our parents alone as they age, nor walk this earth in all the promise of the springtime streams alone. For this I give the deepest and most heartfelt thanks for swim meet rides, and heartfelt conversation of dreams and doings and movement toward becoming the grandest version of ourselves; knowing this takes a community willing to see the best in one another, their children, and their wisdom figures as they age.

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." -Meister Eckhart, German theologian, philosopher, and mystic

What's on your litany of thanks?

Surefire Cure for the Flu

So The Brick came down with the Flu a little more than a week ago (Murphy's Law said that because we stayed away when we were sick, he was bound to get it from someone else). He felt crappy. Achy. Coughy. Drippy. Never fun.

Over the course of the week I stopped by and brought movies and puzzles, hoping to offer a little distraction from the discomforts of having the flu.  The Arch Mother, not known for her compassion when loved ones are sick, didn't get much of the giggles this time. They hunkered down and weathered the storm with an increasing amount of agitation and boredom. Neither of them likes to sit still.

After a few days of not feeling better and a long night of coughing and coughing and coughing, The Doctor made a house call to make sure Dad wasn't getting pneumonia.  He pronounced Dad, sick, but not sick enough to be too worried. He told him to drink more water and suggested he get a massage to help deal with his achy back. Sounded like a great idea to Dad (never mind that everyone else had suggested it as well - some suggestions just sound better coming out of the mouth of a doctor).

So The Arch Mother made an appointment for 5:15. At 5:30 she calls me laughing.

"You're never going to believe what I just did."

Of course, I ask what she's done.

"I accidentally made that appointment for Dad's massage at a place in town center but I sent him to a place in the strip mall near by. He's going to kill me."

The massage center had called her to ask if Dad was on his way and she looked more closely at the address in the phone book and realized her mistake. If The Brick was a little irritable before, we figured he wasn't going to be delighted about being sent out on a frigid night to a strip mall where he didn't have an appointment. I hang up the phone shaking my head.

About 10 minutes later, my imagination has gotten the best of me and I'm thinking about Dad not feeling well, driving on a snowy, cold night and trying to find a massage center that may or may not be there.

I call The Arch Mother back. "What's the name of the place in the strip mall? I'll Google it and see if they can take dad later."

"I can't find the name of it.  But I'm sure there is one there," she said.

I Google and Google and I can't find a record of a massage therapist in this strip mall.  So I call a few of the businesses that I know are there and get questionable answers. "There was one but it closed. No, there is one, but no one knows the name. Maybe it's on the other side of the mall. Etc."

Now he's been gone about an hour and he's still not answering his phone.  I have to admit I'm starting to feel a little nervous. So I try one last time and I find a chiropractor with an address in the mall.  I call him and he is very helpful and tells me that he didn't take a walk in at that location because he's not there on Friday nights. I ask him if there is a massage therapist in the mall that my dad might have found.  He says:

"Well, yes there is one.  It's right next store to my office, but I am not at all affiliated with them."

He tells me the name.  I say thanks and hang up already Googling to find the phone.  I call my mom, still no word from dad and now it's been well over an hour.

I STILL CANNOT find a phone or a website for this place.  I resolve to call the chiropractor back and see if he can just give me the number, since as neighbors, I'm assuming he must have it.

"Well, if you Google it.  You should be able to find it," he said to me.

"Nope, I've looked everywhere and I can't find it, " I tell him.

"Hmmm, maybe I can look it up for you. Ummmm. Just to be clear, I have no business relationship with them. They keep kind of odd hours."

"Um, OK," I said. Now it seems like this guy is being a little strange.

"Would they be open on a Friday night?" I asked.

He's trying to find the phone number on a website that he's mentioned. I've never heard of this site, but it sounds little sketchy.

"Yes, I'm sure they'd be open on a Friday night. They are...um...sort of an nontraditional business..."

My heart sinks a little bit. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Well, we're right.

"Wait a second, are you saying that this is a cover for prostitution?"

"Um.  Yes.  I think so."

"You've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" I thank him and hang up.

The place is about a mile from my parents house and half my family lives within walking distance from my parents. I am speed dialing my brothers.  All I can think of is that my dad resisted massages for years because he's ticklish and terribly modest. He's feeling crappy, he HATES the cold, and THE ARCH MOTHER HAS JUST SENT HIM TO A BROTHEL.

I'm not sure if I should be laughing or crying yet.

I finally get a hold of a nephew who is living near by.

"I am about to ask you to do something really weird.  But I need you to get into your car," I tell him.

I'm beginning to explain the situation when The Arch Mother calls back. I answer her call and she's laughing saying that he just walked in the door. I tell the nephew he's off the hook and I'll call him later.

"You're never going to believe it.  But he found a place that took walk-ins!" 

 "Mom, you have NO IDEA. It is a brothel."

"A what? A hotel?"

"No, mom, it's a cover for prostitution. The chiropractor told me." 

At this point, we both get the giggles.  Again, terribly inappropriate. And pretty soon I can't stop laughing.

Also, I have no idea why I am using the word brothel?  Suddenly I am from the old west?

I can hear my dad in the background.

"What did she say it was? A brothel? Well, if that's the case than I didn't get my moneys worth."

Meanwhile at my house, my nine year old proceeded to whack his face and finger on our kitchen table. So as The Brick is getting on the phone to tell me the story, I have to hang up to deal with a very bloody nose and bruised finger. Just like my mother,  I am clearly not being sympathetic enough to my poor son, but I still can't get over the fact that my mother just sent my dad to "a happy ending" kind of massage.

I finally got to talk to him later and he said the masseuse was recently emigrated from Laos (3 months), that she wasn't forward or inappropriate, but that looking back it didn't seem like a very fancy place.  He thought there was someone in the next room, but he wasn't sure.  We laughed again.  He had a great night sleep and started feeling better pretty much right away.  So in the end, the massage was just the trick.  Just not the kind of trick she might have been expecting.

You just can't make this stuff up.

What Do You Say?

I got this submission yesterday from a good friend. It makes me ache.  She asks the complicated question: how can we best love and support someone at the end stage of cancer treatment? It is a question without one clean, clear answer; a question of individual experience, of stage of life, of personality and faith. She's suspended somewhere in between reality and grief, between respect and support.  It's during these hardest time, these inexplicable experiences, where we have to see the illusion of shared experience. Somethings we cannot fully share or understand, somethings we must just witness. How we witness, how we honor and support is what makes all the difference.  - BTH

She didn't think I'd understand - she was apprehensive to stop chemo, but she was apprehensive to continue. Trust me, I understood. In this situation, there is no answer.  There are decisions to be made, but no answer to be had.  If only there was the slightest possibility of peering through that crystal ball to see if one path or the other might lead to a slightly better outcome - a few more weeks, a better quality of life. But there is no crystal ball, and in the absence of the ability to see into the future, she has to make a decision.  Today, to me, that is the definition of courage - of making a decision when there is no answer, and no information at hand to help guide you. I suppose this is where in my life, I would turn to God and my faith, and pray for guidance to follow the right path; that there is, in fact, a path meant to be.  I've never heard her speak of her faith, and I am not one to proselytize, and so the best thing I could do was offer to listen as I drove her to her chemo appointment, and to hope to offer the right words of encouragement to her, because honestly what the heck do you say in these situations? 

I don't know what those right words are, but I think I would want to someone to tell me that I've done an amazing job, that I've fought a heroic battle, that I had found strength to carry on when others couldn't have, that I wasn't letting anyone down, and in fact, that I was inspiring. I think that's what I would want to hear...but I hope to never have to find out. So that's what I told her today, because every word of it is true, and because I could tell that the burden of letting her parents down, that she was appearing to 'give up', was weighing heavily on her shoulders.  She needs to know she is loved, loved dearly, and that she is capable of making the right decision for her and her family.  She asked me if I knew what I would do in her shoes. I told her I did know, or that I think I know what I would do. She didn't ask for my answer, and I didn't offer it - because I think she hears plenty of opinions, and because I think she knew what she wanted to do.  I know that if I had given the battle everything I could, that I would choose quality of life over quantity of life.  The clinical trial she is on right now causes vision loss, and causes her to generally feel as bad as one can imagine.  I would want to see my kids.  I would want my kids to know that I gave my absolute best, but in the end, I would choose to spend my days with as much strength as I could, to enjoy them for every quality moment I had left.

I heard from my friend tonight, a few hours after I left her with her husband at the doctor's office, and she told me she had found peace.  I think it was a kind of peace that she hasn't experienced yet.  I will tell you that as hard as I have been praying for a miracle for her, I have equally been praying for her to be at peace, and to have a good quality of life for however long God will grant her on this earth.  I am so heart broken tonight, so deeply sad for her daughter that will grow up without her mother, for her parents who will lose their only child, for her husband who has had to endure an unjust burden in his early years of marriage, for her friends, and for her students.

My friend was my son's 1st grade teacher last year.  I remember overhearing whispers as we went to meet the teacher night in August.  We didn't know anyone, and finally I learned she had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer just weeks before school started, weeks before her daughter turned 1, weeks before she turned 29. Twenty. Nine.  I hate that the first thought that passed  through my head was that of selfishness.  We had just moved to Seattle, and my son (who takes a good 8 months of the year to adjust to a new situation) would have a first grade situation that would mean his teacher was gone 2 days every other week for chemo. We had just left a preschool situation where his amazing (also young) teacher was fighting cancer.  Was it selfish of me to want a normal classroom experience? In about the same amount of time that the thought flashed in my head, it was gone. I wasn't sure why, but I immediately felt at peace that we were put in this class for a reason. There were 4 first grade classes, and God had placed us in this one. I knew that wasn't just by chance. As it so happens, we met one of (if not THE) best elementary teachers our kids will ever have. My son was challenged to go beyond meeting expectations to create new ones, and push past them. She knew every kid's strengths and abilities, and she taught to them each successfully. I have no idea how she did it. In the process, we became friends outside of school, and I saw my son develop a compassion that I have never seen in him before.  He is not an emotional kid, and does not wear his feelings on his sleeve, but I know that the situation with our friend weighs heavily on him.  I know that I must now also pray for the courage to help him through what lies ahead, and to pray for peace for him as well.