Mother's Day Pearls

Mother’s Day has come and gone, yes I am aware, yet this past Mother’s Day my eyes were opened to something so uniquely feminine, it deserved a moment of pause.  At times Mother’s Day is so focused on us Moms, which is well deserved and rightly so.  Our social culture will sell us on the perfect gift for her, flowers, mani/pedis or string of pearls.   Yet, I was overcome with a profound understanding this year about our role as mothers, as caretakers having that ‘feminine genus’ that I’ve heard of so often, yet I rarely understood.

We attended Mass that morning, and as God designed, my daughter and 1^st Communicant was invited to not only wear her 1^st Communion finery yet again, but to be the selected little girl to climb the high ladder in our parish and crown Our Lady for the May Crowning.  As I took the extra time to dress her again, curl her hair and use the many bobby pins to secure her crown and veil, I remembered something I shared with a friend, when she asked me about doing my girls’ hair every day.  I told her, “I see it as my privilege to help them do their hair, to be fun and creative for a few minutes every day.  I hope we look back at all these mornings in the bathroom with great fondness, as I felt it was my honor to assist them every chance I had.”   And so as we rushed through the Sunday morning routine, and put more pins in my little Entertainer’s hair, I smiled to myself, thinking, ‘She will never forget  these times I played with their hair, talked about big and small things, or got ready for big, special days together.   Thank you God.’

My Knight served Mass this day, as again God designed it, and during Mass he rarely made eye contact with us or me to be exact.  This day, Mother’s Day, as the sign of peace came, I searched him out.  I saw him, but he didn’t know if I was looking or not.  He simply looked my way, and made the two finger peace sign in my direction.  It was so quick and emotionless, that he thought I had missed it.  Then I smiled at him.  And his face lit up, he smiled so big in return, and I flashed the same peace sign to him, and I couldn’t stop giggling in my seat.  As I turned to my husband to see if he had seen the scene, his face told me his attention was elsewhere.  It was a moment just for me.   And tears brimmed in my eyes immediately.  This eleven year old still needs his Mom – Thank you God.

As Father called my little Entertainer forward, he motioned for me to assist, he handed me the pillow which held Our Lady’s flower crown, which I was meant to deliver with my daughter.  Such a detail…to give the flowers to my girl to give to the Mother of us both.  It was perfect.  She climbed the high ladder in her bright white dress, veil and crown.  And as my role dictated, I stood beneath her, to catch her should she trip on her flowing gown.  I heard the parish behind us singing a Marian hymn and for a moment, it was all crystal clear, this is a taste of heaven.  Thank you, God.

Upon leaving the church, I ran into someone who clearly knew me, but I had never met.  She was an older woman, who clearly wanted to tell me something, and she stopped me short of leaving that morning.  She said, “What a beautiful family you have!   I see your son serving up there, and he’s so young, and small, yet doing his best, serving our Lord.  It’s wonderful to see.”

I mumbled a thank you or something to that affect, I suppose.  I seem to get speechless when I hear such things,…as I want to tell her all the things I know for certain I am doing wrong with these children, these five little souls that I feel so unworthy to mother.  I want to shake her, and say, “Well, if only you spent a day in my home, you might recant!”  I want to tell her I spend too much time on their hair in the bathroom they will probably end up so vain! …and I suppose a hundred other things that I feel like I am failing at.  And then it hit me, to just hug her….and tell her clearly, “Thank you.  Thank you, they are great kids, and we are richly blessed.”  For the words to speak, Thank you God.

When I finally got into our van, I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.  Mother’s Day is giving to our Moms, yes, I get that.  Yet what makes us special is that feminine detail in us to tend to others….Even those we have no relation to.  We, as women, give to others, and other women give to us.  We tend to the details.  We say what needs to be said.  We do what needs to be done.  We can be warriors and the nurturers when the time calls for each.  We see the slightest change in the emotion of one of our young.  We sense other’s feelings or needs in so many moments of ordinary days.  It’s incredible.  As much as I give to others, they give back to me, tending to me, knowing I give to every detail; every detail has been tended to, for me, as well.   It’s in our heart, soul and overall make up of our very being.  Thank you, God.

Thank you for the many ways you have created us, sensitive and attentive, compassionate yet determined, seeing the needs, filling the needs and sacrificing and serving. 

I will never be perfect at this job, but I can see a snippet of God’s design in how he created woman and mother.

Mother. 

It is who I am.  It is who I was made to be.  On this Mother’s Day 2013, my vision for my own vocation, my own motherhood, gained a new clarity and vision.  I tend to the details, I was made for it.  And knowing that I may not be perfect, but going in the right direction was the greatest Mother’s Day present a gal could ask for.  It’s the string of pearls for my heart and soul.  Thank you, God.

Finding Each Other

We had a serious discussion prior to getting married, my Hero Husband and I.  I was determined to not marry someone who even believed divorce was an option.  So I put my beloved to the test.  I flat out asked him, “Do you believe in divorce?  Because I don’t.  I won’t marry someone if there is the slightest chance, you think this won’t last a lifetime.”   Obviously, he passed, and the rest is history.  However, I wonder how many couples have had this frank of a discussion prior to their wedding day.

Over the years, we've heard friends of friends who have had marriage trouble.  We've heard stories of others, we've seen people separate and divorce and because they were more like acquaintances, it never really hit home.   We could feel sorry for them, but in the end, we really weren't empathizing.  We never let it in.

This past year, a friend of my husband separated and divorced, and a close family member of mine is currently involved in a bitter divorce.  Being no stranger to hearing gory details of the demise of relationships, I guess we had assumed that we’d weather these two tragedies in similar fashion.

Even without us knowing, it did impact us, it did have us looking at each other in different ways.  Almost like eye-balling each other, examining each interaction for those hidden signs that something must be wrong here.  If it can happen to ‘them’ it can happen to us.  And you guessed it, bickering and unrealistic expectations of each other resulted.  Finally, in a heated argument, I remember shouting, “What has changed here?!”

My beloved shook his head without word, and the first thing that came to my mind was how close these two divorces had come to our hearts.  “The only thing is your friend and my family, living through divorce!”

Again, I had silenced him, and we sat and reflected on this possible reality.

Had these two ending marriages made us suspicious of each other?  Did it impact our marriage on some level?  How do we step back and look objectively at ourselves and our own relationship, in order to avoid reliving someone else’s reality?  Their marriage was / is not ours.  Their dynamics don’t belong to us.  How can we not let someone close to us, change us?  It takes such work to put emotions aside and look objectively at a relationship and be willing to accept the other’s change and be willing to make changes ourselves.

Shortly after our heated argument, we made a decision which deep down I want to believe is both our attempts to work together on a project, compromise, and create a space only for us two.  Our master bedroom has been, like many others I've heard, a kind of catch all.  It housed toys, random items we don’t know what to do with, unfolded laundry, and a host of nick-knacks.  It had mix matched dressers, unpainted walls, dreary room-darkening curtains, and a carpet in badly need of a good cleaning.  We never owned a headboard or baseboard to our bed, no side tables.

Used to putting the children first and their needs, we tended to overlook ourselves, our own space where we would ‘crash’ at the end of the day.  It was never a room I wanted to stay in for long…..for HH too, as he never liked my room-darkening curtains, and never told me so.  I sold him on it, “Honey, it matches our bedspread!”  …which years later, he confesses, he never really liked either.

What an experiment our bedroom project has been.  No decision has been made by one or the other, we came together on every single purchase, down to the lamps, the ceiling fan, the dressers, the sheer curtains, where to rent the carpet cleaner, the color of paint for the walls, the shoe organizer in the closets and so on and so forth.  I hardly recognize our room.  It looks like a room we've vacationed in, in some far off place, a place to seek peace, relaxation and solace. 

**Funny side note, on a Spring Break vacation, our bedroom had a King size bed.  Neither of us slept well, as we could never reach out and find the other! The biggest bed was the loneliest.

As each piece was decided on and purchased, it turned out that we really do have similar ideas, and goals that we wanted to achieve in the room, first and foremost, “This is not a room for children.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. I really love my kids.  And I will never forget a great priest tell me once, “God first, girl.  Then your spouse.  Then your kids.  Then you.  In that order, girl.  In that order.”  I sat for a minute on that, to which he stated clearly, “Listen.  The best gift you can ever give to your children, that you love so much, is a great marriage and a stable home.” 

I have carried that advice with me for years and years, and it hasn't failed me. 

So yes, my children may enter our new “Vacation Room” which we have lovingly termed it, but only briefly.  It is not a place to play, bring toys or wrestle in.  Now, I have breakable things in there!  Which I love and here’s the kicker, HH loves them too.

Now, to be totally honest, we aren't completely finished with the room.  It’s a process to live in a space, and realize what needs to be here or there.  There are no pictures on the walls, still need the new bedspread and my 15 year old wedding dress still needs to find a home, but as the light shines gently to wake us every morning, and I turn to see my beloved in our ‘vacation room’ I have never loved him so much.  Not only does he still not believe in divorce, but he’s willing to invest his time, his energy, his money in something just for us.  For finding peace in hectic days.  For finding quiet from our five noisy children. 

Well, really, for finding each other.  

Living in the Now

The past is dead.  The future:  we don't know.  All we have is the Now.

Lent came and went, and just as quickly we saw Easter fly by.  We enjoyed our spring break and while things get back to normal around here, so has my time for reflection and prayer.  And yes, as you can guess, something has hit me quite extraordinarily.

A few years back, we attended a funeral.  Friends of ours who live in Wisconsin had lost their dear newborn baby boy to SIDS.  It was a difficult funeral to attend, you can imagine.  The casket was open, and his tiny face seemed to peer just above so all could witness the value and dignity of this tiny baby's life.  The cathedral was packed, standing room only, and as our friends stood up front, walked down the aisle or turned to show their own faces - it was clear, they were struck in grief.

Their whole church community grieved with them.  Looking about the pews, I'll never forget the scene.  People here and there, crying while singing, hugging while mourning, or prayerfully taking their own time in digesting such a tragedy.  Making peace with such devastation, isn't something I pretended to understand, and I still don't act as if I know it now.  I hope to never feel the depths of pain that this mother, my friend has had to endure these past years, and will always hold so close.

These family friends showed us something quite miraculous in our time up north.  They were clearly struck with grief, but their witness to that entire congregation wasn't missed on one person there.  They proclaimed a kind of gratitude you'd never find in such a tragedy in secular society.  Again and again, they stated their gladness in the Lord for the time He gave this baby on earth, with them, in their arms, in their home, in their hearts.  They saw their little boy, as having fulfilled his mission, his purpose, and God had called him home.  We never know the time or the hour.

These were people of faith.  And when I finally fought through the crowd to hug my dear friend, this baby's mother, I simply cried with her, not knowing what to say.  I searched her eyes, hoping something spontaneous would blurt out, and then she nodded, and with a quiet simplicity said, "Wasn't that the most beautiful mass you've ever seen?"

No matter what she would have said to me, I would have agreed.  I would have said 'yes' to anything, to her anger, to her grief, to her frustration or her sadness.  It would have all been justified.  She could have taken a baseball bat to the nearest target, and it would have been allowed.  Anything she did, we'd see as a mother's grief.

But she didn't.  On this day, on her newborn son's funeral, she took up a role so admirable, so poised with nobility, I scarcely recognized her.  This was her opportunity to demonstrate through her son's life and death, a living witness of God's love.  And she took it.  And she lived it.  It was, I am sure, such a sacrifice to keep herself together, to keep her wits about her.  For her son, I can imagine, she'd do anything to present the depth and value this little boy's 4 week life had.

He had an impact on hundreds of people gathered in that cathedral that afternoon.  And in his life, he never spoke a word, he never sat up and declared anything.  He never got that Harvard degree, not a doctor or a lawyer, not wealthy or wise.  He made impact, because he was alive.  That's it. His family made an impact on these hundreds because of the witness of thanksgiving they showed again and again.  In their grief, they proclaimed God's greatness, as the weekend of the funeral was the Feast of Christ the King, and several times, these parents stated, "Christ is still our King".

A month later or so, I received a Christmas card from my dear friend with a picture of her family, at their newborn's baptism.  They radiated life in this photo - all their six children gathered together all thrilled to be apart of God's family, and thrilled to have added a new member to their home.  And in this card, the family stated the joy they felt to have had their son, even for these few weeks, that his life had purpose, and still does, if it is to bring one person closer to God.

It's the only Christmas card in my house, that has never made it to the trash.   I re-read it every so often, and relive the whole experience.  However tragic, it's something I never want to forget.  It made an impression on my heart.  You never know the hour or day, that one has fulfilled their mission and is thus called home.

We don't know.

We do know the past is dead, the future is uncertain, but the now is what we have.   The now, is what we can cherish, value and make change.  So kiss your kids an extra good night kiss.  So hug your spouse a little longer than usual.  Tell someone you love them, or bite your tongue when you know you should.

Let go of the past.  Be like the birds:  fear not the future.  Be in the now.  Live in the now.  Keep your mind and heart present in every moment, aware that God was the one who gave it to you.

And as my dear friend, who still grieves for her son, would probably insist,

Give thanks for that very moment, for it is far too fleeting.

Spring Break 2013

Bringing the peace this spring break....  I'll let the photo do the talking.

Wisconsin River