Wandering Children…Wondering Parents

I am a woman of privilege.

And so when I woke early this morning at my son’s house, I went to the espresso machine and made myself an Americano. And when I decided that I needed decaf, I jumped in my car and went searching the Sunday morning streets until I found a Dutch Bros.

I got my coffee.

And I got a lesson in privilege and blessings.

This is a university town but I’m not sure that it would differ greatly from small cities all over the U.S. Perhaps there are more young people here. I just didn’t expect to see so many of them sitting on benches before the chill was gone from the night. I was surprised to see young men on street corners pacing; or sitting next to backpacks.

I wouldn’t have been surprised to see aging men and/or women huddled next to shopping carts. Sadly, they have become fixtures to downtown areas.

Perhaps it is because I spent a boisterously fun evening with my high school and college-age grandchildren that I was drawn to these wandering ones. Perhaps it is in juxtaposition to being in the warm atmosphere of home with pizza and ice cream and conviviality.

I cannot and not want to forget these children without a place. I imagine a hundred reasons for them to be where they are this morning…and none of those reasons are happy. None of those stories include comfort and communication.

And I have compassion for every parent who does or doesn’t know where it all went wrong; who is lying awake this morning wondering where their child is in this cold dawn.

I have compassion for all of the hurt and anger and emotional and physical damage that has fractured the framework of these families and sent the shattered pieces out into the world.

I pray for redemption for all of us who make mistakes that cannot be easily rectified. I pray for healing for every generation. And I’m going to be more aware of ways in which I can help.

Here is what’s going on in my area: Maslow Project. Click to read more or get ideas.

xxoo

Happy 21

Dear Granddaughter,

The Facebook posts and emails are flying. It is a celebration of you. Our son can’t believe he is the father of a 21-year-old. Your mother is remembering driving you home from the birthing center. It all reminds me of being there and helping you arrive.

Such joy!

I have the same joy each time I see you or hear your voice. Chatting with you makes me giddy with happiness. I cherish the tidbits about your love life, your work, your school, your adventures in living. Hearing it all gives me such faith in who you are.

It’s strange to hear you acknowledge your adulthood rather than to defend it. It’s rewarding to sense your growing confidence in making decisions for yourself. It used to be all bravado. It is morphing into a true sense of yourself.

Twenty-one years old. It is a milestone. It is a measuring mark. It is a time of reflection.

I laughed with you over your application of the theory of cell regeneration. Yes. Every seven years, and you are beginning anew right now. (Of course, I had to play the cautionary Grammy and remind you not to destroy all of your brain cells on the first day of your next seven years:)

I love you, my dear. I realize that my job is to love you. And I love my job.

I glory in your successes. I weep with your sorrows. I recognize and acknowledge your failures and know that you are ever learning. I love being your confidante, your cheerleader, your counselor, your listening ear…your Grandmother.

Happy Birthday to my grown-up girl.

xxoo

The Mother Line

Dear Kids,

Today is my Mom’s birthday.* She’s been on my mind a lot lately and so I’ve been thinking about mothering.

Parenting is a bit of a continuum although it may be a winding path. After all, we want to change things that our parents did. We want to do better. We want to do things differently. And as we look back, we can’t help but see things that we carried on through the generations.

I have some regrets as a mother. Mostly they have to do with who I was at the time. In the early days I was a child raising children. My self-absorption and emotional instability can’t have helped you.

And I regret some of the traits within myself that I passed on through example, but not all.  I think my high self-esteem was a great thing to pass on. I’m sorry about my struggles with self-worth. I’m happy that I am a problem solver. I’m sorry that I still occasionally want to jump into your lives and solve your problems for you.

Well, I’m sure you don’t need the list.

In the continuum of parenting, my biggest regret is the attitude that I had about my own mother and passed on to you. Before she died I could look at her through adult eyes and see why she was the way she was and be sorry that I couldn’t have understood more. She, too, was a child raising children; married at 15 and a mother at 17. And I could clearly see the mental and emotional issues that created a personal hell which she could not escape. I wish I had been able to give her more pleasure in her life.

I have a friend who is in great pain over her relationship with her daughter. Her greatest agony is in the lack of communication. Her daughter is just distant. She won’t or can’t say why.

And I remember a specific time in my life when I had such rage against my mother that I couldn’t be with her. I was polite. I was not unkind. But she could not reach me. And I would not reach out to her.

This was not the preoccupation with families and jobs that places our parents lower in priority for years of our lives; that is the normal cycle of living and parenting. This was an expectation that my mother did not meet. This was a hurt within myself that I felt she created. And I believed that her insistence that she had always done her best and that she loved me closed off all possibility of coming to agreement with her. I needed her to admit her failings as a mother and she was incapable of any thought that she wasn’t a perfect mother.

In those days I hadn’t read Byron Katie. I didn’t understand self-referral and I certainly didn’t have a great amount of compassion.

That is the trait that I hope you can develop more quickly than I. Compassion. The understanding of imperfections in ourselves and others. The comprehension that love and caring is not based on agreement or even shared ideas and idealogy. That it comes from a heart that is open. That it is an awareness of the humanity in all of us…including our greatest attributes and our failings.

Today, again,  my thoughts are on my mother and on the lineage of our parenting. I hope you think of your grandmother with some love and affection. Pull out some good memories. Have compassion for her, for me and for yourselves on this journey.

Can we all join in a cheer? Happy Birthday, dear Oletha.

xxoo

* I know I’ve told you that she truly considered herself Irish for having been born on St. Patrick’s Day.

Dodging and Darting

My granddaughter and I have talked about the difficulty of holding on to ourselves in relationships.  I don’t think this phenomenon is restricted to women, but I know much more about it from my own angle.

In my younger years I lost myself religiously and sometimes consciously. I believed that it was my job to please my man (and my friends, and my family, and my…).

And there is some merit in giving what one wants to receive. Too often, though,  I would look up and find that I no longer knew what it was that I wanted.

It is still easy to slip into this totally self-imposed condition that spreads like a head cold to the chest; pervasive and debilitating.  I call it “dodging and darting” when I make it my job to perceive and predict others’ desires and attempt to move in concert with them.

With my husband I may become hyper-aware of  every nuance of facial expression, gesture and posture.  Does he like the food I served?  Does he mind watching the movie I chose?  Does he want to sit by me on the couch or would he be more comfortable in the separate chair?

When I was my granddaughter’s age I took this poison every time I was with a boyfriend or even my girlfriends.  I easily worried about how I should sit, what I should wear, whether my laugh was too loud or my teeth too big.  Could I be interesting and fun? It’s an adolescent thing.

The worries are benign. It’s the mental state that both causes and exacerbates such behavior that is troublesome. It’s my lack of ability to be myself and still feel lovable. Sadly, I recognize my arrested development when I revisit this place.

In this mode my moods move with my perceptions.  Rarely, do I feel loved and cherished. According tot he responses I get to my machinations, I’m more likely to feel trapped and unappreciated.  My shoulders get tight and I am constantly irritated or even angry.  Then I look inward and know that I have left behind the person who added value to my relationships. I have become a needy whisper of my loving and happy self.

Perhaps I will never become immune.  I am afflicted less often only because I recognize the symptom much earlier. A slight discomfort usually brings me back to myself where I will abide in a place of joy and comfort until the next time I begin to slip-slide away.

And to my granddaughter? Look at yourself. Listen to yourself. Live comfortably in your own skin and know that you are worthy of love and friendship without changing. Never sacrifice your fine self. Hold on!

xxoo

xxoo

Shame on Me

I’m one of those “Self-Improvement Junkies” from way back. I’m constantly examining my behavior. Perhaps that’s an entirely different post, but I’ve been thinking about shame.

Shame gets a bad rap. Sure, for those of us who secretly hug it to our bosom, it damages us and eats away at our self-worth.  But c’mon, folks, look for the good in shame.

It stops me from trying to score illegal diet pills and from smoking dope because I wouldn’t like reading about myself in the “arrests” section in the paper

It keeps me from having an affair because I’d have to take my clothes off in front of a stranger.

It helps me readjust my attitude and not rip the sink off the wall in order to bash my husband in the head when he leaves the toilet seat up in the middle of the night.

It stops me from ordering a second and third hot fudge sundae when I finished my first one before all my friends finish theirs.

It forces me to make my bed on the mornings that friends are coming to coffee.  (I know that two of them will have to use the bathroom at the same time and someone is sure to go into my bedroom.)

It keeps me (sometimes) from yelling out my car window at the bareheaded cyclist who is riding with his helmeted child,  “Hey, are you teaching your kid to be stupid when he grows up?”

It usually keeps me from cutting in line.

It forces me to wash my hands after using the restroom because everyone will notice if I come out too fast or return with dry hands.  (At the very least I’ll get the bar of soap wet when I am at a friends just in case someone comes in right after I leave.

It reminds me to chew my food when I eat with other people.

If I am paying attention, it keeps me from passing gas, adjusting my underwear or scratching that little itch on the very end of the nipple of my right breast…when I’m in public.

It holds me back from forcibly detaining my children and grandchildren when they are leaving me…especially to get on airplanes.

I’ll keep working on my issues and learn to deal with the other “stuff” around it.   In the meantime I must come down on the side of good healthy shame. (Oh dear, is that an oxymoron? )

xxoo

Living with Suicide

My Dear Friends,

As parents we want to believe that there is always something  we can do to help our children. If we could do… or if we could have done…

This propensity for making ourselves responsible is a heavy burden on our best days. On this worst day I wish I could lift this burden from you. I cannot ease your grief but I want you know how much I admire you both.

I have been with you since the beginning of this untimely and disastrous end. You have shared your heart and your day-to-day suffering.

Please believe that you did everything that you could possibly do. You left no stone unturned. There was no love withheld, no money refused, no request denied; until finally there was nothing left for you to give except your assurance of love. You always gave that.

You did not cause her death. You did not contribute to her decision by any move that you made or any word that you said or left unsaid.

You prayed. You paid. You worried. You cried. You supported. You studied. You learned. You listened. You loved. You cherished. You did your best and beyond.

The decision was hers.

As heartbreaking and shattering as that decision was, it was hers to make and she made it without you.

I weep for you and for your daughter, knowing that there is nothing that I can do but be here when you need me. I hope that you will allow that as you are ready.

Thinking of you,

xxoo

More Thoughts on Death

Acceptance of death is a work in progress. It is a aggregate of little losses that don’t end with the last breath.

It is the involuntary onset of change that leaves us stumbling in confusion, even if we anticipated it. After lingering illness, although our conscious minds wouldn’t wish a return to the last days of pain and suffering; the finality of the end is disorienting. After sudden death we stagger with the impact. Our hearts search for solid ground which is no longer there.

In all cases we wake up in the morning and think for a moment that it is just another day. Until the realization washes over us that everything has changed forever.

We yearn for one last warm embrace, one more touch.

We pick up the phone and realize, again, that there will be no answer.

We have a question about our history that can only have been answered by this one person.

We want to share a secret laugh over life’s crazy moments.

We want…

It’s the hole that’s the bummer, isn’t it? A gaping hole has appeared in our daily lives that seems the all the more cavernous when we lose those who filled a large part of our thoughts and actions each day.

It can be the last of our perceived support. It may be the end of dreams that we didn’t realize we had. It may be a future that we forgot we had envisioned until our daydreams reach a blank wall.

Living in the moment isn’t so easy when the moments seem empty and void of possibility. This is when it takes acceptance. Again. And over again.

I loved hearing Thich Nhat Hanh’s thoughts on death when he appeared on Super Soul Sunday: “It’s like a cloud in the sky. When the cloud is no longer in the sky, it doesn’t mean that the cloud has died. The cloud is continued in other forms, like rain or snow or ice. … If you are fond of a beautiful cloud, and if your cloud is no longer there, you should not be sad. Your beloved cloud might have become the rain, calling on you, “Darling, Darling. Don’t you see me in my new form?“

These words give me the renewed understanding that death is not the end. It is a new beginning.

xxoo