Older Mothers

Confessions of a Christmas Junkie

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I love gingerbread. And hot buttered rum. And the Elf on the Shelf. And the Nutcracker ballet. And Christmas lights. And Christmas ornaments. And A Christmas Story. And THE Christmas Story. And… did I mention gingerbread?

I am a holiday junkie. I mean, I absolutely crave all things Christmas. Alas, I married a man who does not. He does crave egg nog — so there’s that. But I think that’s it for his tolerance of the season. He tolerates me, too — although he does roll his eyes at all my holiday hoopla. In his defense, I may have been known to overdo it just a tad. Clark W. Griswold and Martha Stewart are my inspirations.

The Christmas jonesing kicks into full gear on Thanksgiving night. That’s when I throw off all pretense of self-control and set my Christmas carol playlist on shuffle, where I keep it running loud and proud straight through New Year’s Eve. Carrie Underwood’s “O Holy Night” gets me all teary-eyed. Josh Groban’s “Ave Maria” makes me weep outright. But then, I run the entire emotional gamut. I get downright giddy over Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and Julie Andrew’s “My Favorite Things,” too.

And speaking of MY favorite things, Christmas cards in the mailbox and my personalized, hand-knit stocking hanging on a peg on the fireplace are at the top of that list. As is gingerbread straight out of the oven. I know I’m repeating myself, but if I’m not mistaken, gingerbread was one of the precious gifts of the magi. There was gold, gingerbread and myrrh. Look it up 🙂 So it’s a seasonal necessity. (And this year, my sister introduced me to a Williams Sonoma mix that is the absolute definition of comfort and joy. We feed each other’s addictions.)

So yes, I love gingerbread and Christmas carols, but I think my favorite Christmas accoutrements are the ornaments. I’ve collected them for years and years and years. People who know me know I take my ornament selection VERY seriously. I will search half a year to track down the perfect one for each special person in my life. I’m an ornament snob, too, so that makes ornament purchasing even stickier. The medium doesn’t matter so much; the ornaments can be anything and from anywhere. I’ve found designer blown glass Betty Boops, Pottery Barn bottle brush squirrels, and Australian handcrafted felt angels. My criteria is ambiguous and esoteric. I just know when I know. And sometimes it takes months and months of Etsy surfing and brick and mortar navigating to find each family member’s certain special something. That’s where my Martha Stewart OCD kicks in. I admit I have a problem. That’s the first step, right? Only I don’t want to be cured.

I love the freakishly sentimental feelings that Christmas stirs in me. I know I can be over-the-top in a way that can be overwhelming to the uninitiated. Especially for someone who is used to quiet, single day, perfunctory family dinners and gift card exchanges. But me, I thrive on the chaos of the season – the gazillion get togethers, the flurry of family obligations, the weeks’ worth of baking and wassailing and all-around merry making. I become a paradoxically highly-charged, gooey lump of blubbering happiness.

Because my absolute favorite thing about the holidays as a mother is being with my babies. All four of them. And this year, as in the past few years since the girls have been full-grown and on their own, that can be tricky. And it can require some creative calendaring, and come-hell-or-highwater maneuvering, to make it happen.

This year my crew is scattered far-and-wide, so out of necessity, we’ve sprinkled our celebrations generously (like powdered sugar on gingerbread) until they’ve coated a two-week span. First up, we traveled over the river and through four states to Caitlin’s house for a grand total of seven hundred and eighty-four miles. One way. A road trip of epic proportions when you have toddler twin boys. In case you haven’t heard, boys don’t like to sit still. But, according to federal regulations, sit still they MUST. Strapped into seats with harnesses at their chests and crotches. For seven-hundred-and-eighty-four miles. So that was fun.

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We knew from past experience that the drive might not go well. The last time we navigated the expressways – which are ironically named since there is nothing express about them when you’re packing twin toddlers – the boys were fifteen months old. We had to stop every two hours to let them run around for an hour or so. We felt like Odysseus trying to make it home to Ithaca. I’m pretty sure we entered a Calypso time warp at some point because our twelve-hour journey evolved into a twenty-three hour return trip. I vaguely recall standing in a moving vehicle hanging a boob up and over a car seat headrest at 1:30 AM so I could nurse a boy while he was strapped in because we didn’t want to stop YET AGAIN.

So we entered into this week’s journey to visit Caitlin — eldest daughter, biggest sister, superstar surgeon and all-around awesome human — with tremendous anticipation, but also with tremendous trepidation. Thankfully, though, all our fears proved unfounded. This year, our road trip was SO much easier. This year, our round trip grand total (26 hours) was ALMOST equal to the return trip from last time… so I consider that a HUGE success.

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Plus, we had a fantastic time with our Cay Cay, who couldn’t come to us this year – or any year on residency thus far – because she was on 24-hour call. We filled our three days in Dallas with Vitruvian Christmas lights, winter landscaped model trains with super hero passengers, window shopping, real shopping, pasta and wine and gingerbread, and a dumpster dive by Mike, who went rummaging through an entire apartment complex’s rubbish in search of an inadvertently discarded paring knife. We love her super very much a lot, and wouldn’t have missed a second of it.

This weekend, we have a much quicker little jaunt up to Chattanooga planned in order to see Bethany and Baby Bentley and the crew and finish off our Christmas celebrations. It’s only a two-hour round trip trek, but it should prove monumental. We’ll be taking a ride on the Tennessee Railroad. Parker and Tate and Bentley and his big sis Braylen should love it. I can’t wait to see their faces and feel their excitement when that engine starts chugging. Modeled after The Polar Express, the kids will get some sort of chocolate drink and a sleigh bell. And rest assured, I’ll get some sort of misty eyed. Because that close up of that bell in the final scene of The Polar Express… just before Josh Groban begins to sing “Believe,” when the unseen narrator says his final lines… That scene gets me. It speaks to the driving force beneath my unbridled Christmas cravings and addictions…

“Seeing is believing… but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.”

Things like love.

Like the eye-rolling, eggnog-fueled love of a man who doesn’t get my holiday love affair, but still gets me. Who will drive to the ends of the earth – or at least the ends of the Southeast – to make my mama’s heart happy at Christmas time. Or at any time.

Like the fierce, full love of a mama for her babies. All of them. The ones full grown and on their own, and the ones still underfoot in footed pajamas. A love that will always find a way – come hell or high water or four-state odysseys – to get to her offspring at Christmas time. Or any time.

And like the passionate love of a God who sent his only begotten son as a gift to the entire world at Christmas time. And all the time.

Yep. I am a Christmas Junkie. And I’m not giving it up anytime soon.

December 28, 2016 0

Nice Guys and Misfits Still Win

I love Claymation Christmas specials. I grew up on The Little Drummer Boy, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Jack Frost… but I’ve always especially loved Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. Maybe, subconsciously (long before I was an English major) the alliteration appealed to me.

Then, in November of 2008, Rudolph went down in history as my all-time favorite when Mike made the romantic gesture to end all romantic gestures. He brought along a digital projector, a Rudolph dvd, and a portable player to Caitlin’s med school interview to take all our minds off an extraordinarily stressful and momentous situation. The motel room was moldy, the carpet was spongy, the drapes were dingy, but I knew right then and there that Mike Candela was a keeper. He had brought us Rudolph for the road.

Growing up, I wanted to live in Rudolph’s soft focus, pulled-felt world. I wanted to be Clarice, the fuzzy, long-lashed doe with the French name. She was spunky and kind-hearted, and she had the most amazing polka dot, red bow.

And then, to top it all off, she fell in love with the misfit – the social outcast with the blinking beacon. I’ve always been one to go for the oddball, too. (Sorry, Mike, but you’re one of the weird ones. It’s okay – I am, too).

But even though Clarice was my goal, I think Rudolph was my reality. I am, and always have been, the ultimate misfit. For one thing, as a kid, I was in that crazy cult – it doesn’t get any odder than that! And I was tall –5’10’—which was way taller than almost any girl my age. (Still am, for that matter). And, since I suffered from acne, I had that whole glaringly red facial imperfection thing kicking, too..

Even now, after having outlived my awkward early years (sort of) and bizarre cult activities, I still find myself a misfit. I’m a mother of four-year-olds at the age when most of my friends have children in their teens or beyond. (Oh, I have those kinds, too!)

But now, along with my grown girls, I have fifteen-to-thirty years on all the other moms. (Case in point — several of the young parents at our boys’ school were actually the friends of my daughters growing up!) So, yeah, I’m still a misfit.

I also sport those hesitant, herky-jerky movements of stop action film. Not because of bad joints (I may be fifty-something, but I’m not arthritic), but because so very often I stop action in the middle of my errand because I don’t remember what in the sam hill I was about to do. Because even though I’m a new mother again after nearly a quarter of a century, my brain isn’t new again! It has a whole nother quarter century stamped and imprinted deep within its gray matter since the last time I gave child-rearing a go.

But mainly, the one thing I love most about Rudolph is how everyone who is targeted as a misfit – those who don’t fit within society’s expectations or generalizations – is welcomed with open arms by the story’s end. One, great, big, felt-covered happily-ever-after. It fits so nicely with my oh-so-progressive bleeding heart.

But then, watching it again with the boys, I’ve realized it isn’t quite the idyllic, little anti-bullying, feel-good statement piece I remember. For one, Donner is a sexist son of a bovid. And two, Santa is an absolute donkey’s rear. (Now, neither of the nouns I just used to label these characters are as colorful as what I would like to use, but Clarice is the only French word I’ve vowed to use in this particular blog entry, so you may read between the italices, here.)

So how is Donner sexist? You may not realize it – because I’m fairly certain they’ve cut this line from the television broadcast — but on the dvd version, he rejects his wife and Clarice’s offer to help find Rudolph by proclaiming, “This is man’s work.” Yup. MAN’S work. WTF?!?! (btw, those are initials, my dear reader, and if you heard French, it’s because YOU – that’s right YOU — provided the fancy foreign phrase there, not I. So I’m still technically sticking to my G-Rated guidelines…) Yep. Donner’s a piece of work.

And the offensiveness doesn’t stop there. The narrator kicks in some misogynistic commentary as well. It is after Clarice and Mrs. Donner (the only name she is ever given…) successfully find Rudolph –despite Donner’s orders –only to find themselves in the clutches of the abominable snow monster.

At this point, Yukon Cornelius, keeper of sled dogs, an open-carry revolver, and elaborate facial hair (evidence, once again, of the potency and divine might of beards) sweeps in to save the day, sending himself and Bumbles tumbling into a giant abyss. The narrator then proclaims people are “very sad at the loss of their friend, but realize that the best thing to do is get the women back to Christmas town.” Ugh.

And then finally, there’s Santa. The mean-spirited, faultfinding, curmudgeonly Santa who pokes fun of tiny infant Rudolph, right out of his mama’s belly. I mean, it’s to be expected that the other reindeer will call him names — it’s in the lyrics, after all. But Santa?

Santa is Father Christmas! He’s a saint, for Christmas sake!! He’s supposed to be all jolly and twinkly and eat cookies and go Ho Ho Ho! and bring along a sack full of goodies everywhere he goes.

But not in Rudolph. In Rudolph, he’s mean to the elves when they give him a Christmas concert. He’s mean to Rudolph when his shiny nose is too bright for sore eyes. He’s mean enough to banish handicapped toys to an island for misfits. He’s even mean enough to almost cancel Christmas — all because of a little storm! That’s not the Santa I remember!

I swear, I think they’ve edited a lot of the unfortunate 1960’s political incorrectness out of the broadcast version because I don’t remember any of the patronizing gender roles and rude behavior when I was little.

Then again, I was programmed and conditioned to overlook male misconduct. Plus, I wasn’t allowed to believe in Santa – so I didn’t pay him much mind, anyway. Instead, I hung onto every word out of Clarice and Rudolph’s felted wool muzzles, along with those physically deformed and bullied misfit toys. Those parts are still as awesomely iconic and compellingly relevant as ever.

Yeah, the show isn’t quite what I remembered from my childhood. But will that keep me from curling up on my sofa with a soft, flannel throw and my boys at my side, watching it every single Christmas season? Of course not.

The way I look at it, I’m a mom and I’m a teacher. And the fallibility of the cautionary tale gives it that much more impact. It provides so many teachable moments. I have a responsibility “to train up a child in the way he should go” so that “when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

And the way I want my boys to go is that same generous-hearted, progressive route of their father – who appreciates women, who respects women, who listens to the insights of women, and who values the opinions of women.

He sees my strengths, even when I find myself blinded by the conditioning of my youth. He knows that my worth is so much more than my ability to flutter long lashes and dress in comely red finery.

He doesn’t believe in Woman’s Work or Man’s Work. He just believes in hard work. And he’s a man who truly appreciates that my fluency in French far outshines his own – a rare find, indeed. Yes, Rudolph will provide me some pretty, solid, serious teaching moments for me and our boys for years to come.

So things are never quite the same as you remember from your childhood, I guess… But despite all the flaws and imperfections (funny, I guess the show is ironically a bit of a misfit itself) Rudolph still has a happy ending. That hasn’t changed. The nice guys and the misfits still win in the end.

Yes, yes they do.

December 2, 2016 0

The Velveteen Woman: Aren’t I Real Enough Already?

I’m a Velveteen Woman on an authentic journey to become Real.( If you know the story — Oh, my gosh, it makes me cry!!! Like Ugly Cry, complete with quivering lip and all sorts of snot cry!!! — then you know what I mean. And if you don’t — go read it. Like yesterday.) Anyways… I’m a Velveteen Woman on a journey to become Real. And some days I just feel way too torn and tattered to keep going. No, let me clarify. Some WEEKS I just feel way too torn and tattered — and just plain broken– to keep going. And this past week has been that sort of week.

I feel like I’ve been steamrolled by the planet. My bones are weary and my mind is pressed flat. Why, you ask?

Well, maybe it’s because I’m fifty. And the mother of four children — two of whom are twins… boys… who are toddlers. Add to that two girls who are twenty something and on their own authentic journeys to become Real (and I feel every knock and nick that they get along the way — maybe even more-so. Because when your baby hurts, you hurt, no matter how old they get). Then there’s the fact that I’m an English teacher drowning in essays, and that I’m a football widow in the tenth week of football season –and we’re still gunning for another six (Good Lord willing…) Oh, and don’t forget the piece de resistance — my State Health Benefit Plan decided to drop kick our boys’ coverage this week.

So this week, my journey has rubbed off a lot of my edges and stolen some of my shine. Let’s start with the fact that I’m fifty. I am nowhere near as bright and shiny as I was thirty years ago. Back then I had glossy hair and firm skin and stuffing in most of the right places. I had muscles and stamina for days. There was lightning harnessed to my giddy-up. I could run 5Ks, host block parties, create four-course dinners and chop an acre of firewood and still snap, crackle and pop at the end of the day. Now, I’m lucky to have snap, crackle and pop at the breakfast table — unless it’s a chorus from my joints and a bowl of Rice Krispies.

And being the mother of four has done some work on my lovely lady lumps. I wouldn’t go so far as the Bob Segar song and claim my “points were way up firm and high” back then, but they definitely weren’t stretched and deflated to the point of flapping in a brisk wind if they aren’t strapped in properly. Four babies and four years of breastfeeding takes its toll on your breasteses.

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And so do three pregnancies – especially one with twins. My skin is puckered and striped and dimpled. I’ve been pulled and torn and redistributed. And stitched back together. My belly bears a nice, six-inch seam where the good doctors scooped out two darling little melon balls in my first and only C-section at age forty-seven. At that age, the elastin in the skin isn’t quite what it once was. Needless to say, my stuffing has fallen and nestled into soft, comfy pooches in inconvenient and unattractive places. Add to that, my saggy hindquarters, and I’m just a soft, comfy lap of lady lumps.

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Along with my belly seam, I also bear a dog-legged scar across my right paw, which I earned, of all things, by doing laundry. Two-and-a-half-year-old twins come with not just double the laundry –because, as my friend once said, “one is one and two is ten” – but with exponentially multiplying mountains of laundry. Every day brings ground-in clay and spattered curry, skid marks and grass stains, ripped seams and snotted sleeves… Last December, while putting away the endless backlog of socks and underwear I broke my distal radius. As I stepped to the side to pull open a drawer, Tate at my side, my ankle slid out of joint – yet another weakness from my years of service on this earth – and I had to make a quick choice: sacrifice my wrist or sacrifice my youngest. Since Tate is a relatively important component of our family unit and my right hand is my dominant and most-used portion of my body, it was quite the quandary. In the split second decision, Tate won and my wrist lost. Badly. Between fracture and surgery, it was a five-month loss. If I’d chosen Tate, I bet he would’ve bounced back in two, tops.

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So my body has often been sacrificed upon the alter of motherhood. But it’s not been simply limited to my body. My mind has paid a tremendous price, too. I’m not nearly as quick-witted as I once was. It’s a spongey mass of mire, sucking and slurping and slowing me down. I think the majority of decay occurred during the sixteen months of sleeplessness that Mike and I endured after the boys’ birth. Regardless, my electrodes just don’t fire as fast as they once did. Perhaps the biggest impact has been on my teaching load. I feel like I still do a decent job of instructing my students – of leading them through the mazes of symbolism and themes, interpretations and analyses. Where I’ve taken the hardest hits is the grading. Piles of essays grow even faster than my mountains of laundry. My desk looks like the Manhattan skyline. This week, alone, Hamlet and Ophelia have taken up residence in a couple of high-rise stacks already occupied by the Lady of Shallot and a serial killer named Arnold Friend. My gorged and glutted in-box creates strange bedfellows, indeed.

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But if my teacher’s inbox is a sprawling, metropolis of gangly skyscrapers, my personal email is an un-weeded garden, where things rank and gross in nature secretly sprout. It is here that the emails regarding our insurance travesty sat like poisonous mushrooms multiplying in the darkness. You see, like Hamlet, my wit’s diseased, and I don’t have good sense enough to regularly monitor my g-mail.

But then again, who would think an insurance company would just drop babies midyear for no clear reason? And send letters about their intentions to old addresses? And not email your work address, where you get all other correspondence, to let you know? And not telephone you at all to inform you you’re under the gun? Apparently, it happens. We were audited. Someone somewhere pointed a mean, nasty middle finger at our family, and BANG.

The State Health Benefit Plan gave us four months to comply with the audit’s demands (so incredibly generous, no?). Unfortunately, for the entire four months we remained blissfully ignorant, thinking we were following the rules of the universe and enjoying our life, liberties and pursuits of happiness. All the while, our insurance providers were tunneling under our best-laid precautions preparing to blow them to smithereens. Two-and-a-half year old twins with no health insurance at the very cusp of cold weather and The Creepy Crud? FML.

Now the boys seem to have taken the news of no insurance in stride, maintaining their status quo of textbook twin toddlers, boisterously brawling and loving in equal measure. They’ve wrangled over bar stools, bloodied their kneecaps, chanted nursery rhymes, fought for control of the cayenne pepper, had meltdowns over melting ice, locked themselves in our van along with my keys, chunked dried apricots at the cat, giggled contagiously in the tub, and hugged one another to the point of unquenchable rage. And that was just yesterday.

Upon the news, Mike continued on the way that he always does, leaping tall buildings and intercepting all the wicked slings and arrows that outrageous fortune has lobbed our way — including the discovery he unearthed yesterday while working his magic and getting our boys back on an insurance policy: Mike himself has had no insurance since October 1^st! Yep. Big, fat middle finger pointed our way. But the point is, my man mountain is way-beyond-textbook husband and father. He stands strong in the storm. Every time. I don’t know what I would do without him. He picks up my stuffing. He tucks it back in. He shoulders my shortcomings and he shelters my babes — all four of them. It’s fitting that he’s a Purple Hurricane coach. He knows the ins and outs of life’s storms and he weathers them with grace.

And he is the calm in the storm of my crazy because, Lord, have I been a textbook basket case this week. I’ve been falling apart at my already weakened seams – so much so that I’m shedding hair and tears and sleep and health and sanity until I’m as limp and floppy as the Velveteen Rabbit.

And according to the Skin Horse in the classic tale, “It takes a long time to become real… it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

So, I think this week finally did it. I think I’m finally Real. Maybe a long time is fifty years. I know I don’t break too easily – only one bone so far (knock on wood). Most of my hair has been loved off and my joints are definitely loose and my appearance is shabby – especially if you catch me on the weekends where I choose to never get out of my pjs unless I am absolutely forced to do so. Now my eyes haven’t dropped out yet, but they’re most definitely drooping… And I’m pretty certain this week knocked off any sharp edges I still managed to have left.

So, yeah, I feel like I should finally be Real… But I know it’s never that simple. Because I am on an authentic journey. And it’s never over until it’s over. But as I’ve said in past blogs, I can do this hard thing.

Because what keeps me going is that I KNOW I’m truly loved. By five of the most amazing humans this world has ever cradled: Caitlin, Bethany, Parker, Tate, and Mike. I don’t deserve their love, but I am so eternally grateful for it. And they make me FEEL Real — whether I’m actually there or not. (And I’m sure I’m not.) And I’m loved by the Creator of our Universe. I am snuggled and sheltered, and sometimes weathered and wizened — all in the name wisdom and growth. I have been blessed in so many ways and with so many wonderful experiences. And those experiences sometimes knock me about a bit. But they just add to the love.

So all of you struggling women out there doing the hard thing and getting your edges knocked off and your stuffing pulled out. Keep on keeping on. You’re exhausted. I know. I get it. But we’re all Velveteen Women on our authentic journey to become Real. And the closer we get to Real, the harder it gets and the more knocked-about we feel. But we can do this hard thing. And we are getting there. Every nick, chip, and bruise along the way, we are getting there. We can do this hard thing.

allofus

October 28, 2016 4

My Baby Girl: a Golden, Gleaming Mommy Goddess

This weekend, we celebrated my grandson Bentley’s first birthday. I can’t really believe it’s already been a year since I spent three days in labor and delivery helping Boop stay as calm and as comfortable as possible after eight, yes EIGHT, epidurals failed to give her an iota of relief. There is nothing that can knock a mother’s heart around her chest like a rickety roller coaster ride more than seeing her own child struggling through the frighteningly fragile, yet tenacious and powerful process of giving birth. Bethany is a true warrior, and so is her little lad, Bentley — otherwise known as Nana’s Little Acorn. They weathered an incredibly long and arduous journey.

I got the call on a Thursday night. I was just sitting down to dinner with the boys and Mike’s parents when Boop explained that she was going to be admitted for preeclampsia and that the docs would be inducing labor in the next day or so. As you can imagine, there were several incredible stressors within this single phone call.

#1: Boop had preeclampsia. I had just gone through it myself the year before. I knew how very dangerous the condition can be to both mother and baby. Bethany was having extreme headaches and swelling. Her blood pressure was up and her urine was throwing protein. Bentley would need to be delivered no later than the weekend.

#2: Nana’s little acorn was to arrive nearly six weeks early. Again, I had just been through that scenario a little over a year before. Luckily, Boop and Bentley had reached the 34-week gestation marker, so we knew he likely wouldn’t need any oxygen, but he would need practice eating (preemie boys are notoriously lazy feeders) and maintain his body temp. I knew there was a probable two week stay in the NICU in store for my Bentley and an unavoidable hornet’s nest of raw, stinging emotions ready to take up residence in Boop’s chest – a chest that would already be crowded with the honeycombed sweetness of milk from her mammary glands. There was an emotional perfect storm circulating just off the horizon.

And #3: The call was on Thursday night – in football season. That meant the next night was a Friday. Friday Night Lights Frenzy. And no mama. Shit. What would I do with the boys? Double shit. But as fortune would have it, my in-laws were here when I got the call so I had extra hands on deck. Friday night would’ve been a near-impossibility if not for his mom and for my ever-dedicated and most beauteous best friend. Of all the besties in the world, my Queenie is nonpareil. There’s a vocab word for ya. I would say look it up, but there’s no need because I’m telling you that the definition is: Tammy Bramblett Queen, the incomparable, generous-hearted best friend of Heather Peters Candela. Between my mother-in-law and my bestie my boys were fed and nurtured and entertained on a very busy and very stressful Friday night. So that was one less thing I had to worry about.

And finally #4: Weaning the boys. Not only has it been a year since my sweet little Acorn came into this world, it has also been a year since I last breastfed the boys. I pumped until February of this year, but it was a year ago in October that I physically nursed them for the very last time — in the English department storage closet on Friday afternoon before I headed up to Knoxville. Mike had brought them by for that express purpose. He knew how hard it was going to be on me. I wasn’t ready, but I knew that being gone for at least three days would as good as wean them, and it would be downright cruel to start them back up again, only to wean them all over again later. So there, surrounded by a bevy of beloved classic literature, I breastfed them one final time. One final time, I felt the tingly, pinching ants of letdown. One final time I felt the sweet pull of milk filling their bellies. One final time I felt the flush and bloom of sweat on their necks as they grew warm and content. It’s funny, but just before they emptied my breasts entirely, they began to play patty cake — something they’d never done before. They clapped and clapped, Parker’s right hand pressing Tate’s left, a nipple clenched in each of their smiles, as if applauding this passing of a milestone — this one step closer to being grown. I won’t say I didn’t cry.

Exit to Knoxville: The next three days were a wild and whirling pain-fest of Pitocin and pointless epidurals. Poor Bethany! She’s just one of those individuals whose body just doesn’t chemically interact an epidural. In eight attempts, the block was never more than patchy and poor, at best, so my poor baby girl felt a whole lot of agony (remind me to tell you a little story about Bethany and the “agony” in a bit) for a whole lot of hours. As in, thirty-two. Active labor hours. With no epidural. That’s super very much a lot, thank you very much.

Boop progressed super slowly, stalling out at 4 centimeters dilation and staying there for over 24 hours. The Pitocin pumped and pressured and prodded and her uterus clenched and cranked and contracted, but her cervix was noncompliant. The nurses and docs tried some tricks to help her along, from a foley bulb catheter to a birthing ball. Neither contraption worked. She lived in raw, primal, animal pain for well over a day. I used to boast that I was in labor with Caitlin for twenty-six hours with no epidural, but those bragging days are gone. Boop’s got me beat, let me tell ya. She is the grand champion of marathon labor. My baby girl is one tough mother.

But tough as she is, Sunday afternoon around 4:00 found Boop begging for a c section. Hell, we were all begging for a c section — her best friend Maggie, her cousin Lauren, her man Bradley, even her big sis the surgeon (who felt helpless and far-far away — 843 miles away, to be exact) — we were all begging for a c section. Boop was writhing in pain and wrung the F out. Her energy was gone. Her enthusiasm was gone. Her patience was gone. There’s only so much that ice chips, cheerleading, small talk and back rubs can do to keep you going when it’s day three and you haven’t eaten or slept and the waves of pain are smashing your body like a… like a… like a squirrel in agony.

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So now for that “agony” story I promised you… Bethany was around four and the cutest, wide-eyed, hat-wearing, little fart blossom (my Grandmother’s favorite term of endearment) on the planet. We were a block or so away from picking up Caitlin from school when we rounded a curve and came upon a squirrel that had just been hit by a car. It was thrashing around in the throes of anguish when Bethany saw it and gasped, “Oh, no!”

“Bless its little heart,” I said. “The poor thing is in agony.”

“What’s ‘n agony?” she asked.

So I explained to my precocious girl that it was in extreme pain and suffering. As we pulled up to the pickup line at the school, I finished with… “so that little squirrel was in agony.”

“Oh, it WAS a squirrel?” she squawked in confusion, “I thought you said it was an agony!”

Fast forward to twenty some odd years later, and I’m at Bethany’s bedside as she writhes around in an agony that I’m fairly certain was closely akin to that of the pitiful little squirrel back on Mission Road so many years ago. I wanted her out of her misery, and I was steeling myself to do battle with her obstetrician when the charge nurse offered to do one last check…

And… a 6! She’d progressed to a 6! Finally her cervix and her uterus started working together! An hour after that, she was an 8 — and within thirty minutes after that, it was time to push. Hallelujah and cut the cord! Well, we delivered the baby first, of course…

Somehow Boop mustered the energy to push and push hard. I took one of her shoulders and Bradley took the other. We counted off each push – cheering her on toward that bloody, brazen end zone. The little guy came out like all babies do, covered in birth juice and clotted cream and truly, truly scrumptious. He bore one battle wound from his epic birth journey: a tiny cut on his nose from the monitor leads.

Bentley carries that hairline scar across his nose to this day… along with all of our hearts (from mine, to his Aunt Cay Cay’s in the Big D, to his little uncles Parker and Tate, eighteen months his seniors), he carries all of our hearts wrapped tight around his little finger. Because he is the most beautifully perfect little Acorn you ever did see. He has green glass eyes and an open, hearty smile. He’s his mama’s perfect clone. Her spittin’ image; her carbon copy.

And Bethany is the most beautiful mama I ever did see. She was born for motherhood. She is breathlessly incandescent. She is luminous. She glows. She has always been a bright and beautiful light in this world, but now her light is softer, warmer, deeper, more soulful. She radiates maternal perfection. I’d like to say she’s the spittin’ image of me as a mother, but that would be a lie. She’s got me beat. She is a master of maternal prowess. My baby girl is one tough mother.

October 11, 2016 0

Slimes and Smells and Streptococcus

Never leave a hot dog on the stovetop to ferment in its own juices for three days. Never. The scum that accumulates on the surface of the water is nothing compared with the slime that surrounds its circumference upon extracting it. Not kidding, here. I made the mistake of taking it out of the pot with my bare hand and the slime slipped over it like a mucous-y, amorphous blob. It just kept sliding and slipping until it nearly covered my wrist. So much slime for such a small, seemingly innocuous hot dog. Mike almost threw up. It was like something out of Ghostbusters or Nickelodeon. But it was nothing — I say nothing — compared with the slime that has sluiced from the boys’ noses this week. I wish I’d thought of bottling it up and sending it to Universal Studios to lend some authenticity to the Kids’ Choice Awards this spring.

It all began on Monday — doesn’t it always? The boys had slept terribly, if you could even call it sleep. There’d been multiple coughing fits and periodic wailing virtually all night long. There’s this feeling I get deep in my mommy marrow when I hear my babies – any of them, whether it’s my girls in their twenties or the boys in their twos — cough that raw, rattily cough. It’s a maternal, visceral reflex – like someone has taken a potato peeler to my womb and is shaving off slender curls of it while I’m simultaneously plunging from a tremendous height. That’s what it feels like — except worse. Because I would rather have someone scrape my uterus with a peeler while simultaneously freefalling than to hear that cough coming from any one of my babies’ chests. Needless to say, Monday morning, even before my alarm went off at 5:30, I decided that I was taking the day off and taking them to the doctor. I figured it would be ear infections – our old, familiar foe.

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Now taking a day as a teacher – particularly a teacher in Bartow County – is no easy feat. The first order of business is finding a sub, and finding a sub in our district is akin to unearthing the Holy Grail in the kitchens of Hell. The task has not always been so daunting… Our county used to subscribe to a computerized system that allowed teacher to post their needs online and allow open and able substitute teachers to log in and select a job at will. That was long before systematic budget cuts and various and dubious central office expenditures. Now, we must call subs ourselves – from an alphabetical sub list that also includes interspersed but clearly-marked food nutrition subs in the mix… and let’s just say, woe to the unwitting teacher who accidently calls and wakes a food nutrition individual at 5:30 in the morning for a CLASSROOM position… Now procuring a sub wouldn’t nearly be as Sisyphean a task if the subs were allowed to work more than three days a week in our county. You see, if a sub works more than three days a week, our school system would then be required to provide benefits. (Heaven forbid! and Thanks, Obama.) So the subs naturally work for other systems when they can, and only take Bartow jobs when the pickin’ is slim. And apparently the pickin’s were bountiful this past Monday morning because I called close to forty phone numbers before I found a taker – almost an hour later. But at least I had a sub – and a work comrade, who just so happens to be my best friend and department chair, willing to leap tall buildings and run copies and keep an eye on my classes. So I had that going for me…

Now chalk it up to Monday morning and being sleep deprived, or to just plain old twinility (the disease I contracted immediately upon turning fifty with twin toddlers), but when Mike asked if he should call in late and give me some help getting the boys to the doc’s I said, “Honey, they’re two-and-a-half now. Surely they will walk themselves into the doctor’s office these days. It’s no big deal. We’ll be fine.”

I should’ve just said, “I can do this hard thing…”

Because hard it was. And do it, I did — extricating screaming twin toddlers, terrified of getting yet more shots from that pesky pediatrician, out of car seats and into the office building, all the while avoiding giant SUVs and juniper hedgerows. Each boy was saddled up on a love handle, and the diaper bag and my handbag were slung across my back. I looked like a pack mule from Nepal. Parker managed to stay in place as I trudged to the entrance, but Tate slid ever-so-slowly down my thigh until I barely had him off the ground, his arms straight above him, his legs kicking wildly as he shrieked like a child sacrifice. I’m sure the white-haired octogenarian who held the door for us thanked her lucky stars right then and there that she was past childbearing days as I bore my children past…

Once we were actually in the office, the clinginess ended (for a little while, anyway) once they spied the vast row of empty waiting room chairs lining the back wall. There must’ve been fifteen of the vinyl-clad things, just waiting for some lads like them. Like American Ninja Warrior wannabes, they promptly began inch-worming up and over one chair arm and under and through the next, giggling like the healthiest, happiest toddlers alive. Nary a cough could be heard. “Can’t you at least LOOK sick while you’re cavorting?” I pleaded.

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Now I’ve known our pediatrician since Caitlin was not even a year old. He treated both my girls until they were out of high school and well into college because they refused to see anyone else. He is a longtime friend and trusted advisor, and I prayed he would remember that I’m generally a smart and intuitive mother. That I’m not the mom who brings her utterly healthy and hyperactive tots to the doc for no good reason and who, therefore, in the most ultimate of ironies, exposes them to some serious seasonal scourge. Every mother’s maternal marrow is bound to be wrong every now and then, right? I just prayed he would remember that while examining my apparently healthy and histrionic twins.

We were only in the waiting room for a few minutes before we were called back. It’s amazing how quickly a toddler twosome can go from charged electrical currents to fixed static cling. They glued themselves to my calves tighter than the compression hose I’d worn while pregnant with them.

Dr. Payne smiled his hellos as he readied his stethoscope for the first squirming, screaming son in my arms. Between the two of us, we managed to pin him to the table so he could get a good listen and look. It was at that instant that not just one, but both boys decided to make the smelliest of deposits. The sound was raucous; the stench was hellacious. It was like I’d fed them both radioactive waste — radioactive waste simmered in cesspool broth. The whole room reeked of it. I swear, I could see the stench shimmering off their shorts. Dr. Payne just laughed it off and pressed on. I did notice he didn’t do any genitalia checks, this time around…

My fears and misgivings proved warranted. My maternal marrow rang true, once again. The boys’ strep tests (which I think they now hate more than the dreaded vaccination needle) came back positive. My diagnosis had been wrong, but my instincts were on point. Their diapers (which I was able to change between the actual swabbing for strep and the final results), came back to haunt me a few days later when I unearthed them from the diaper bag where they’d been festering and fermenting, forgotten, in the back of my van.

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As I pen this post, my hair is greasy, my shirt is caked in snot smears and curry stains, and I’m in dire need of a shower. It’s been a long and exhausting week of sleepless nights, antibiotic-filled syringes, nebulizer treatments and forgotten hot dogs. But I learned two things about myself this week. Ok, maybe three. One: trust my instincts, no matter how hard my children try to prove me crazy. (I should never have doubted myself… I’ve already raised two girls who are quite skilled in coercion and diversionary tactics, after all.) And Two (and Three): hot dogs and dirty diapers do not resurrect well after three days and three nights of sitting in their own juices.

October 3, 2016 0

You Can… I Can… We Can Do This Hard Thing

This week has been a doozy – and for no particular reason. It’s just been a hard one. Maybe it’s because football is nearing mid-season. The grind is wound up and wearing on me. Maybe it’s because we’ve now completed the first six weeks of school. The kids are wound up and wearing on me. Maybe it’s because I’m the mother of twin two-year-old boys. The guys are wound up and wearing on me. Or maybe it’s because sometimes some weeks are just hard.

And if a week has been hard, then generally, that means that our Friday Night under the Lights was doubly hard (well, I guess with twins everything is always doubly hard), so maybe that makes this one quadruply hard. If that’s even a word. My spellcheck doesn’t recognize it and my number skills are more like deficits. When I tried looking quadruply up, the always wise and munificent Google – eager to predict and please — tried to give me quadrupedally as an option – from the word quadruped. As in walking with four legs – which honestly doesn’t fit our night either because the boys are NEVER walking during football games. They’re either being towed in their wagon to the stadium (thank you, Jesus and Uncle Chan) or they’re being hauled by yours truly up and down the stands, straddling and sliding down my hips like I’m the banister and they are Mary Poppins. And that makes us a sextuped — which doesn’t even exist. My spellcheck tried to change that one to sextuplet – which is some sort of computer land kernel of encouragement reminding me that things could always be worse and that I need to quit wallowing in self-pity. Which I will do… right after I finish my rant.

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The doozy of a week all began with a carefully-placed, hard, little turd in my favorite bra. Neci, my old-lady dachshund with spiteful tendencies and great aim, was angry once again. This time it was personal, and it was directed at me. No doubt about it. The dung in the D-cup doesn’t lie. (No, that’s a lie. I’m scarcely a B-cup during PMS week, but I digress…) So, that was Sunday.

Next came Monday and my fellas fighting from the time we hit the threshold till the time I reached my threshold and broke out the iPad restrictions. They had thumped each other’s heads with backhoe blades and potty chair bowls (empty, hallelujah!) one time too many. No iPads always hurts me way more than it hurts them, though. Tablet time gives me time to myself. To do laundry or to do dishes or to do nothing (which is honestly what I really, truly need on any given Monday).

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Then came Tuesday and my own stupidity. I forgot the boys’ after school snacks. Or rather, I forgot PART of the boys’ after school snacks. I had their juice boxes (which is good because I don’t think I could’ve creatively acquired apple juice). However, I didn’t notice that we were out of goldfish snacks (I keep a case-full of them in the passenger seat of my van) until I’d picked up the boys, strapped them into their car seats, handed over their juices, reached into the goldfish case, and… THEN I noticed. No goldfish. Nada.

Denying toddlers an afternoon snack is just not something one does. Ever. Like, Never Ever.

I had two choices: listen to the shrieking of my angry, hungry howler monkeys for the eight miles and twenty minutes it takes to get home or forage on the floor of the van for the flotsam and jetsam of previous weeks’ worth of feedings. There were plenty of remnants to be found, and I figured — while assuredly stale– they were still relatively germ-free. So foraging I went. Crawling on all fours, I became a true quadruped for that five minutes of shameless maternal scrounging. I spelunked through the cavernous undercarriage of bucket seats and hidden compartments in my Chrysler Town & Country (which comes with LOADS of them) and managed to procure enough to quarter-fill a couple of recycled baggies from my lunch sack. Annnnndddd the boys were satisfied. Mommy for the Win!!!

Until Parker dropped his juice box straw.

Nothing says toddler apocalypse like a juice box with no straw. I had to pull off the road and locate the missing straw in order to stave off the four horsemen and the breaking of the seventh seal of my last nerve.

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If there’s one tiny tidbit of advice I can give to twin boy moms – well, any boy moms, really – never run out of snacks. Boys eat. A lot. From the very beginning. So you’d best become a walking pantry with wholesale-sized sets of snacks. But I’m also here to say that even when you’re well-supplied and they’ve been snacking the entire four quarters of a football game, they will still pick at the pulverized and granular remains of concession stand cotton candy straight off the bleacher steps — and I can guarantee you it’s not as germ-free as the aged, decaying goldfish in your minivan. But what is one to do? I’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff. I’m building their immune systems, one incipient bacterium at a time. fullsizerender

So during the game, I was dealing with a couple of lads strung out on Benadryl (for snot stoppage) and powered by lost-and-found crystallized sucrose — a combination with the mood-altering, stimulant qualities of bath salts. I had to keep them separated most of the night so they wouldn’t chew off each other’s faces. I was absolutely exhausted.

By the time I got home last night at around midnight, my brain and body felt like a hit-and-run victim. While soaking off the carnage of the night and perusing social media in the tub, I found an interview from one of my favorite authors of all time, Barbara Kingsolver. In it, she talks about her favorite phrase, “You can do this hard thing.” It became her mantra for her children as they grew and faced challenges. I really needed to see that because it reminded me that I’ve been given the challenge – let me rephrase – I’ve been gifted the challenge of raising a set of twins at fifty. And I can do this hard thing. I have already raised a set of girls (not twins, but still), and they turned out alright. Well, better than alright, if I may say so myself… so I can do this hard thing.

And speaking of my girls… Kingsolver’s article also shamed me into remembering the kind of week my girls have had. Bethany is a first-time mom with a teething almost one-year-old. He has had strange rashes, sleepless nights and mysterious projectile vomiting. Her week has been a tornado of trials and I live too far away to be of much help. And then there’s my oldest. Caitlin’s week has been a real and true hard week – a week of real and true struggles in a decade of real and true struggles. She is operating in Burns during this, the third month of her fourth year of five surgical residency years. It is one of the hardest rotations in one of the hardest residencies at one of the hardest residency programs in the nation. It is a physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually demanding rotation for her. Yet that is nothing compared to the struggles of her patients in the Burn ICU. They are so sick, so very critical. They themselves are undergoing arguably THE hardest physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain that exists on our planet. Four patients this week alone have died. Just yesterday, she lost one of her all-time favorite patients; one whom she had been gifted the challenge of working with, on and off, for four years. The death hit her so hard. It hit their whole team so hard. They wept and wept. But it was nothing compared to the patient’s family’s sense of loss — of their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain.

Yet another reminder – and this time not from Google , but from God — that there is relativity in all things, and that it’s time to pull up my mom jeans and quit my bellyaching and just plain do this damn hard thing.

So for all of you moms out there (twin or first-time or any-and-all-kinds), struggling with the juggling… for all of you teachers out there, chafing from the grading … for all of you football wives out there, going under from the upheaval of the season… for all of you surgical residents out there, defeated from doing daily battle with death and disease… for ALL of you women out there, doing your utmost every day to build a stronger, kinder, gentler, healthier, smarter, better world for all of mankind: we can do this hard thing.

We. Can. Do. This. Hard. Thing.

We can and we will.

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September 18, 2016 0

Black Eyes, Bow Ties, and Seersucker Smiles

This past week will get chalked up as one of the great ones. Some of its key features included seersucker suits, a gimpy crawl and gummy smile, a tremendous Canes’ victory, an enchanting wedding, and my girls cozied up on my couches. It was nothing short of perfection.

Trying to write about it, though, has been anything but perfection. I’ve had massive writer’s block. I think it’s because I want my words to reflect exactly what the week meant to me… a great big sensory overload of love. I don’t want to sound sappy or saccharine, but it’s hard to avoid, particularly since Lauren’s wedding was as poetically perfect as her new husband’s name: Crimson Cloud. (If that name doesn’t smack of the sublime, I don’t know what does.) The venue was dappled and drowsy, the lake was lavender and languid, the couple was breathlessly beautiful. Of course, that’s if I write it the way Monet would’ve painted it — brush strokes dabbed in pastel snapshots …

But look closer… get rid of the soft focus and purple prose and zoom right in to find real life: all of the crazy, chaotic crap that never fails to occur when kith and kin come together. Yes, I had my girls and my boys at home under the same roof – a rare gift, indeed. But along with all the impeccable Instagram images that I’d like to post, came the inevitable awkward and angry and downright difficult moments (tears, tantrums, spills, spankings, bruises, breakage, user errors, and free-the-nipple campaigns) that make real life paradoxically miserable and magical. Face it, without life’s hiccups and misadventures, it would be a pretty boring ride…

I’ll start with Friday night. The girls are at rehearsal dinner, the boys are in bed, Mike is in Calhoun tending to a lovely and lopsided football game… and I’m alone with my newly delivered rent-the-runway dress. It’s perhaps the most ridiculously perfect sheath dress you ever did see – all veined in copper overlay like the throat of an exotic orchid. I’ve never rented the runway. This is a gamble. If it doesn’t work out, I have nothing to wear to tomorrow’s wedding. I slip the Marchesa masterpiece over my head. It’s a tad tricky maneuvering the shoulders, but nothing I can’t handle. It fits like a glove — like an embroidered, incandescent, extraordinarily expensive glove. But I am renting it for way cheap, so I’m golden… until I get down to the business of taking it off.

Um… not happening.

I’m a wedged bear in a great tightness, to quote the illustrious Winnie-the-Pooh. So I try another approach. And another. And I jiggle and jostle. And shimmy and shake. Until I eventually get it up over my head… where I become trapped — very much like Pooh-bear in rabbit’s hole. Or an infant giraffe stuck in the birth canal. Take your pick.

“Oh, bother,” I say. (No, not really. That’s the Pooh-Bear euphemism for what I really said.)

So now what? Whatever I do, I can’t rip this sucker. If I do, I owe hundreds of dollars. But if I stay like this, I will surely suffocate. Or lose a limb. At the very least, I’ll be sporting a Pooh-style smiley face on my ass in another six hours when my family gets home if I don’t get this remedied…

What happens next, I’m not entirely sure. I may have blacked out, or I’m visited by the paranormal, or I drop weight… or some such. I do know that somehow I get out. As I hang my dress back on the hanger, thoroughly defeated and dress-less for the wedding, I discover that there, cleverly stitched into the back seam and mocking me, is an invisible zipper — perfectly visible if I hadn’t been so blinded by the sheer majesty of the Marchesa.

Cut to Saturday afternoon. I’m in my rented dress with the invisible zipper, looking every inch the rent-the-runway success story in the Marchesa and a pair of strappy heels that I will hate myself for in a few short hours. I manage to get my fellas to pose for a picture, begrudgingly – but it’s a good thing I have been persistent because it turns out to be the only photo with the boys that we take before Parker scores a raspberry to the forehead and a big, black shiner to the right eye.

It happens as we load the boys into Mike’s truck. We are out of breath and damp and drippy from running around gathering various and sundry supplies for two growing twin boys with appetites and attention spans that are never satisfied. One second Parker is standing in front of his car seat, fire truck in hand, while Mike adjusts the air conditioning. The next second, he’s plunging two-and-a-half feet onto the driveway, his right temple kissing the concrete and his right eye smacking the fire engine. By the time we reach him, he is bloody and bruised, his eye swollen shut.

“Oh, bother,” Mike says. 😉

“He looks remarkably good for being hit by a fire truck,” I say.

We throw together an ice pack and hit the road. Apparently this wedding is a black eye affair.

Pulling into the venue, we’re met with the most pristine setting for nuptials I ever did see: gently sloping lawns of clover and fescue, scattered snatches of cypress and willows, rough-hewn church pews, peeling cedar pergolas, and a spring-fed lake cradling a single, red canoe. Amidst all of this grandeur, our quirky crazy family cranking it up a notch with screwball snapshots and madcap memories: the quick neuro-check in the bride’s dressing room by big sissy the surgeon; the itsy bitsy spider serenade, mid-ceremony from the second pew by my baby boy; my baby girl in her maid-of-honor dress breastfeeding my grandson during dinner (which, I must say, filled this mama with pride and some other guests with anxiety); twirly dances in the twilight between biggest big sister and smallest baby brother; diaper changes by daddy on flatbed trucks sporting “Just Married” signs; sweet dandelion bouquets for mommy; and a right serious whip and nae nae by the bride and her attendants.

So this week was an exercise in imperfect perfection. My niece got married, my girls were in town, and my boys wore their first seersucker. There was a spring fed lake, a single red canoe, a flawless bride, and one black eye. It was as imperfectly perfect as a Griswold family Christmas tree: kinda full, lotta sap. And that’s as it should be.

May we all live sappily ever after.

September 8, 2016 0

Tell all the Truth, but Tell it Slant.

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Wise words from Miss Emily Dickinson, shy and sheltered spinster poet. Considering I’m shy and sheltered myself (minus the spinster part), I take her words to heart. All of my blog posts are personal truths about love and motherhood, family and teaching, and just plain life as I live and know it. But the one personal truth I have not yet shared has been my faith – nor had I any intention of doing so. But then last night, I prayed for some guidance about what to write for this week’s entry… and wondrously, at 2:00 am, Dickinson’s lines woke me. They were running through my head like a mantra –which is surprising since I hadn’t read her poem in decades. But I knew immediately what truth I was supposed to tell.

I’ve known a lot of truth in my fifty years. And I’ve known a lot of lies. I know the phrase, “the gospel truth,” and I believe in it. But I have seen a multitude of transgressions committed in the name of those selfsame gospels, and I must admit that the Good Book has been used in the past to crack me through to the very core. And it still can send me cowering to a corner if someone too dogmatic and zealous waves it at me. So how do I go about telling all of you my truth without sending you running headlong away from my sinful self and the harsh realities of my past? Or perhaps worse, running toward me with promises of salvation and sanctuary within the walls that house your own cloistered congregations…

The truth must dazzle gradually, says the divine Miss Em. So let me ease you into it. And the best way to explain it is that I’m sort of like the alcoholic’s daughter who won’t try a sip of beer or go into a bar because she’s afraid she’ll become a raging alcoholic. She’s afraid she’s inherited that dispensation toward weakness and rash behavior – or in this instance – weakness and rash beliefs and that she’ll — I’ll– end up a radical, out-of-control zealot ready to condemn any and all who don’t think and feel as I do. So I steer clear of sanctuaries and Sunday schools, and FCA meetings, and even organized prayer chains. My fears are real and they are debilitating. Because from a young and impressionable age I was thrust into a controlling and questionable church. By the way, I’m a believer. But I believe in the Love of Christ. Not the liturgy. Organized religion controlled me once. To the point of near-annihilation. That’s one time too many.

Until the age of ten, I grew up a free-spirited, southern tomboy. My little postage stamp of native soil was none other than Faulkner’s own Yoknapatawpha. My summers were a barefoot bohemian paradise. I played house in creek beds, chased snakes in kudzu, deadheaded marigolds in the garden and drank Kool-Aid in dixie cups. Just describing it, I realize that this idyllic place has all of the haunting, symbolic overtures of that original garden and the fall from innocence… And indeed, in the late summer of my eleventh year, thunderstorms stacked themselves tall and dark on the horizon and triggered that inevitable fall.

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My family decided to pack up and hit the road like twentieth-century tribes of Israel, along with about a dozen others from tiny towns in northern Mississippi, and head out to Dallas, Texas to forge a new, eternal life in the blazing-hot Promised Land. Once we reached the proverbial land of milk and honey, all childhood innocence banished. There were no creek beds or kudzu in the concrete jungle. Instead, there were rules. And orders. And boundaries. And curfews. Fraternizing with the neighbors was frowned upon. So was public television, unless it was church sanctioned. (The church allowed football, thank God, and it’s in Dallas, that my passion for football was formed.So there’s a silver lining.) But back to my coming of age… Over the next five years, I was dutifully schooled on the hazards of being a girl. The world was big; I was small. The world was bad; I was a good girl. The world was dangerous; I was weak. The world was out to get me; I needed looking after. I needed firm guidance. I needed to rely on the Lord’s wisdom and the church’s protection. I was weak and feeble-minded and incapable of forming opinions. As a female, I bore the stain of original sin and would always need a male figure (pastor, father, husband) to guide my wicked and wayward soul. Education was not for me. High school (a private and church controlled ) was as far as I would or could go. My voice was silenced and my opinions were hobbled.

But I didn’t go down without a fight, I will say that. There wasn’t much I could do because I had no true weapons or ammunition, but I did what I could. I quit eating. I quit communicating. I curled inward and shut down. At one point toward the end, the church thought they had me where they could break me. I remember a room filled with elders in beards and three-piece power suits. I remember prayers. And prophecies. And speaking in tongues. And condemnations. And demands. And laying-on of hands.

I have despised beards with a fear bordering on phobia ever since…

The irony of needing salvation from a faith that promises salvation does not escape me.

But escape, I did. And salvation, I found.

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My parents saved me and my grandmother rescued me. Somehow my mother and father managed to extricate me from the ravenous claws of theocracy and religious radicalism, while they themselves remained firmly entangled and entrenched within its dogma. I know it wasn’t easy on them after I left. I know they bore the stigma of failure– and probably a whole lot worse — because of it. I’m sure the inability to control a girl-child was an outrageous sin of grievous proportions. But they risked all and flung me as far and wide as they could: two states over, to a little town with a big reputation, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Again, the irony that my salvation was found in the belly of the apocalyptic Manhattan Project does not escape me.

But escape I did. Thanks to my sweet grandma.

She, above all others, showed me what it means to truly embody Christ and his teachings. She sacrificed so much to accept me, her mysterious firstborn grandchild with the broken sense of self and the paralyzed soul. She nursed me back and she showed me the light. She proved to me that I could make it in this world, that I was important, that I was smart, that I was worthy. She was a female phenom. She modeled what I knew I wanted to be. Strong and willful and courageous and true. Because of her, I eventually went back to school and got my degree. Because of her, I raised strong-willed, able-bodied, incredibly intelligent daughters. Because of her, I write.

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I was silenced for far too long. I shied away from hard subjects. I shied away from confrontation. I shied away from truths. But now I’m telling all the truth. And my truths aren’t told out of anger. Or shame. Or to cause harm. Or to seek pity. My truths are told to help others. Other women who don’t feel or know their value. Who’ve been denigrated and diminished until their spirits are dried up and their souls are sawdust. Other children who have been bullied and badgered into choices and changes that fly in the face of their sweet sensibilities and ultimate destinies. These stories should be told. These opinions should be heard. And so I will tell all my truth. And I will wait for them to tell theirs. The truth must dazzle gradually…

August 29, 2016 1

For my Four Babies. And my Thousands More…

Motherhood is a fearsome and wondrous thing. It is a paradox of ginormous proportions, full of sacrifice and salvation, hazards and hallelujahs. It requires strictness and softness, discipline and wild abandon. It is both bright and beautiful, and dark and draining. It is savagely, insanely strong, and it is fragile and insanely frightening.

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Right now in my life, I am two kinds of mother. I am the up close and personal and the long-distance devotional. Up close and personal motherhood demands wide arms and an even wider lap. There must be snuggles, and tickle monsters, and story time chairs, the occasional cupcake for breakfast, lots of crusty snot kisses and all manner of privacy lost. Long-distance devotional motherhood brings late night phone calls, biweekly FaceTimes, and random text marathons. There are Easter, birthday and Christmas goodies to be mailed, numerous road trips to be made and blessed reunions to be had. Both types of motherhood come with daily prayers, loads of laughter and plenty of tears. But the recipe for each is unconditional love for all of eternity.

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This week, after reading several heartbreaking and anger-rousing personal narratives by my students, I have been reminded – once again for perhaps the two hundredth time or more as a teacher – that my definition of motherhood is not everyone’s definition of motherhood. And this crushes my mother’s heart to its very core.

In my sixteen years as a secondary teacher, I’ve seen battered teens, homeless teens, molested teens and drug-addicted teens. I’ve seen young adults haunted by all manner of familial demons. They’ve ridden the storms of failed marriages, felt the trauma of ripped families. They’ve suffered the stigma and shame of home evictions. They’ve borne the weight of sibling deaths and parental suicide. Some are bitter; others blame themselves. Some are searching for love in proverbial dead ends. Others are hardened to love and are angry. If they are lucky, the anger is redirected into extra-curriculars that are sanctioned by society and school. But that’s not always the case. So many young men and women have taken up the cross of rejection and dejection, denial and guilt at a very young, very impressionable age.

As a mother, I am not blameless. Not by a long shot. I flung my own two beautiful daughters into the howling, painful abyss of a failed marriage. They know all too well the agony of a home ripped to ruin and the struggle to balance a broken family. I take my job as mother quite seriously, I always have, and yet I have done irreparable harm. Even the most careful and conscientious among us does. Add into the mix all of the hardened, the jaded, the marred, the scarred, the vicious and the cruel mothers out there, and I’m amazed the world still has any goodness and grace left in it. I honestly am.

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Motherhood is tough. I know it. I own it. At times it feels impossible. So much is out of my control. Then on top of motherhood, add the calling of teacher — with so many more lives entrusted to my care, along with so many more restrictions, so many more unknowns and so many uncontrollable origins and angles and — suddenly — I’m overwhelmed, I’m terrified, and I’m inept.

This week, two former students — now mothers themselves– suffered mightily at the hands of a callous universe. One was a vibrant young mother taken way too soon, leaving behind a precious, precocious toddler. I taught this young mother. I knew her. Her life was hard. Her path was littered with difficulties, with uncertainty, with confusion. She was torn asunder in the push and pull of it all. She left Woodland’s halls and my classroom walls several years back, and I immediately lost touch. Did I do enough? Could I have helped? I’m haunted by my inadequacies. She was bright. She was talented. She had such potential. I feel that I failed her.

The second is a beautiful, strong, spiritual mother who has had to face more in her young life than any mama sixty years her senior should ever have to face. In just over a year and a half, she has lost two of her three children to an incurable and mysterious illness. Twice she has held tiny hands and kissed tiny noses while praying mammoth prayers amidst tubes and wires and ports and invasive medical procedures. And twice the prayers and the tests have accomplished naught. This week she said goodbye to her beautiful baby girl. Her wide arms and wide lap have suffered two unspeakable losses. I can’t fathom her pain. I can scarcely breathe when I even imagine her loss, her agonizing, mother’s grief. Yet her faith has never waivered. Her strength and her confidence in God and His Will is always intact. Again, I am haunted by my own inadequacies. I am a mother, and I am a teacher, but I am nowhere near the mother and teacher that this young woman is. I never had the privilege of teaching her, but she has taught me so very much about the grace and love and strength of a good mother. I am in awe of her.

Motherhood is a fierce and fragile and frightening thing. I pray every day that I am doing my absolute all to nurture and mold these four precious gifts I have been given. It is a tall order. Two are out of my nest and far from my loving arms. I can’t wrap them up in hugs and kisses anymore. Not physical ones — at least not very often. But they make me proud on a daily basis. And I worry over them on a daily basis. And while my arms and lap aren’t THAT wide, my love IS – it is deep and wide enough to travel the distance so that my girls feel it when they need it. It is always with them. I hope they never forget that.

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And then there are these boys. Whew! I’m new to boys. They challenge my patience and my perseverance every day. They keep me hopping, that’s for certain. But my arms and lap are here for the here and now, always ready for a snuggle, and a story, and to wipe away snot.

And then, there are my students. For I find teaching to be a responsibility closely akin to motherhood. So I suppose I am THREE kinds of mothers right now in my life. And my students challenge me daily, as well. Can I ever be enough? Do enough? Care enough? to truly be a help in this, their hour of need?

To be given the opportunity to mother my babies, both born to me and gifted to me in the classroom, is a responsibility I take very seriously. I try every day to be worthy. Some days I fail. I would like to believe that on many days, I win. I pray that I have enough. Enough love to show them that they are beautiful and perfect and worth only the very best. Enough strength to offer stability in their tilting, whirling worlds in Dallas, in Knoxville, in Euharlee, and in Woodland High. Enough joy to help them find sunshine beyond their personal raging storms. Enough wisdom to teach life and not just lessons, so they might learn independence and discipline, autonomy and connectivity, outspokenness and humility. Lord, help me to have enough, to be enough, to love enough.

For all of my babies. For them all.

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August 15, 2016 0

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