In the Night

It’s late at night. The kids are finally all in bed. Even my husband has gone to bed. So it’s just me and the animals (4 cats, 1 dog) I’ve been sipping a lovely cup of hot chocolate with a generous splash of Bailey’s (yum!) and listening to some amazing piano music (http://soundcloud.com/grantwilsonpiano) Peace settles over me, over the house. It’s so wonderful, this all too brief moment when I can just sit and be. No demands, nothing I have to do right this minute. Bed awaits, and I will go there soon, but for now I just want to take some time to revel in this quiet. The day’s stress falls away – mere background noise. It will all be there, waiting for me when I wake up. But for now, I can ignore it. It brings tears to my eyes, this sense of peace, of relief from the usual day to day hassles. Everything falls into place, somehow, and the world feels right. And I can remember, not the petty annoyances each child has caused me today, but how wonderful they all are. How much I really love them. Of course I always love them, but in the middle of an argument it can be hard to remember. Right now, in the peace, it’s easy.
This feeling reminds me of a line from one of my favorite Dorothy L. Sayers novels. It goes something like “Here in the still center of the world” That is where I am tonight – the still center of my world. And it is a beautiful place. One I need to visit a lot more often. May you find your own still center.

“Inspirational” Videos

If you are on Facebook, I’m sure at some point you’ve had a friend post a link to a video. Usually silly, sometimes they post videos that are supposed to be inspirational or moving. I don’t always find the video as funny or inspirational as the person who posted it, but the worst that happens is that I waste a few minutes and go on with my life. Not this time.
A friend posted a video with the title “How One Family’s Horrific Tragedy turned into an Unbelievable Miracle – a Must See” Sounds very inspirational, right? How wrong I was. The horrific tragedy? Mom driving 3 small children in mini-van when they get in an accident. With a huge truck. The picture was chilling – the back part of the mini-van was barely recognizable. And I’m thinking that the miracle must have been that the kids survived somehow, right? Please? Wrong. They slowly go through the sequence of events, as this family loses all 3 of their young children. And I’m sitting there, stunned and crying. I have 3 kids and I drive a mini-van – I can only too easily imagine myself in their shoes. My heart is breaking for these people I will never know. Where the heck is the miracle in all of this?  You are then subjected to what seemed like HOURS of photos of the adorable children, while really sad music plays in the background.  I wanted to yell at the screen “Okay already, we get it!  They were adorable!  They’re all dead now.  WHERE IS THE MIRACLE??”  Finally, in the last minute or so of the video, we get the miracle.  The parents had triplets 2 years after losing their other children.  And the triplets are the same genders as the children they lost.

Of course I’m happy that this family has more children to love.  And, yes, I believe it’s outside the realm of coincidence that they had triplets who are the same genders as the children they lost.  But did I find this video inspirational?  Hell no!!!  Well over 5 minutes of horror and heartbreak, 2 minutes or less of miracle.

What’s my point here?  I’m not sure I know, exactly.  I guess it’s a cautionary tale – be careful what videos you watch, hug your children and tell them you love them because life has no guarantees.  But I’m still left wondering – where is the miracle in all this?  Because in the end, these parents went through horror and heartache beyond imagining.  And nothing can make up for that.

The Perfect Parent

Do you believe in the myth of The Perfect Parent?  I used to. I spent many years, blaming my parents for all the things they did or didn’t do. The mistakes, the unkind words, the ridiculous rules. I could cite every instance where they hadn’t done the right thing, the thing that I most needed them to do. Poor me – what awful parents they were! They didn’t understand me, they didn’t give me the love and compassion I needed, they just didn’t do anything right. Ever.
So there I was, stuck.  Angry with them for all the things they weren’t, and all the things they were. Why were they so awful? How could they have done this to me? Then there came a day where my therapist (yes, I was in therapy, though not just because of my awful parents) suggested that, just maybe, my parents had done the best they could. And that, really, what more could I ask of them? Treason! Heresy! They should have…. But, wait. I started to think about that. What a radical idea – my parents did their best. But what about the time…. Yes, even then. And gradually, it dawned on me. My parents? They’re HUMAN! And like any human, they are NOT perfect! So, no, of course they weren’t the perfect parents. And they had a lot working against them. A couple of young, rebellious kids from a tiny town in the Midwest. They got married as soon as Mom graduated from high school, then became parents 2 days short of exactly 9 months after their wedding. Mom was just 19, Dad was 20. What kind of parent would I have been at that age? (I shudder to think) They struggled for years with little income as Dad went to college, added another child a few years later. We lived in married student housing with mice and cockroaches, and those years are some of the happiest memories I have. But I digress. The point is – they had things hard. And they were so young. They barely had time to get used to being married and adults, and then they had to be parents as well. And I’m certain I was not exactly an easy child to raise. So, yes, they made mistakes. They did not give me everything I needed emotionally. They were never perfect – and they still aren’t. But they did the best they could. And I came to realize that their best was enough.
Now I am a parent, too, and this whole thing comes into clearer perspective. God only knows I wish I could be the perfect parent. Never yell and lose my temper, never say or do the wrong thing, always be exactly what each of my three children needs me to be. Yet, no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I love them, I can never be perfect. All I can do, just like my own parents, is my best. Some days that might not be saying much. But what more is there?

My parents love me.  And they did their best.  And now I understand just how much that means.

In Support of CCI

As some of you reading this know, I am a volunteer for Canine Companions for Independence. I am a Breeder Caretaker, which means I have custody of one of their breeder dogs. My job is to take care of her, help her whelp her litters, then care for the puppies until they are 8 weeks old. Now that my breeder is retired, meaning she is done having her litters and has been spayed, my only job is to take care of her.
Lately there has been much negative publicity about CCI, including some really hateful comments on the CCI Facebook page. The basic story, as I know it, is this – A doctor had a CCI Service Dog. He was doing something with the dog that CCI thought endangered the dog. I don’t know exactly what he was doing, but it sounds like part of it was allowing the dog off-leash in unenclosed areas. CCI worked with the man for a year to try to resolve the problem, and apparently the man did not change whatever it was that he was doing. So CCI took the Service Dog away from him.
Let me say first – I feel sorry for the man’s loss of his dog. I’ve seen firsthand how much these dogs mean to their people and it must be heartbreaking to lose one. I also feel sorry for the dog, who must be missing his person and his job helping that person. But I also know that CCI would not make this decision lightly or arbitrarily. They worked with this man for a YEAR, and yet he refused to change his behavior. The man knew if he did not change that the dog would be taken away, and yet he refused to change. Now he’s been quoted as saying that if all it takes is making sure his dog is on leash all the time then he’s happy to do that. But, if that was all it took, then why didn’t he do that before?
I do not believe that CCI is staffed by saints, but I also do not believe that it is staffed by cruel, heartless people. As far as I can tell, both from my own perspective and from talking and listening to other volunteers, the reason we’re all involved in CCI is because we want to help people. And because we love dogs. And CCI has been helping people, thousands of people, for 35 years now. And they do it for free. These dogs, specially bred and highly trained, are given to the people who need them completely free of charge. Yes, CCI does retain legal ownership of the dog, but only so they are able to protect the dog if the need arises, as it seems to have in this case. And I have to say that, as a breeder caretaker, the thought that CCI continues to watch over “my” puppies when I no longer can helps me sleep at night. I love every one of the 39 pups that were born here, and letting them go was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Knowing that they would always be safe and loved helped.
Everyone involved in CCI, from the Breeder Caretakers and Puppy Raisers to the trainers, vet clinic, and kennel staff to the people who staff the regional and national offices pours their heart and soul into each and every one of these dogs. I think that’s part of what makes them so special. CCI makes it clear from day one just what they expect from those of us they trust to care for one of their dogs. I love my dog and would do whatever it takes to keep her – why would this man not do the same?

Changes

Lately I’ve been whinging on Facebook and Twitter over the closing of my favorite grocery store. Every time I go there, it just makes me sad, though it wasn’t officially closing until recently. But their shelves have been pretty bare for months now, and I’ve been worried about them. And now, my fears have been realized – they are closing. I shopped there today, probably for the last time. I had to fight back tears most of the time I was in the store. Thank heavens they’ve switched the in-store music to something much more upbeat and modern – one good sad song would have had me sobbing! I even took a picture of the front of the store when I left – something I did with the last favorite grocery store that closed.
Now you may be thinking that all of this anguish over a simple grocery store is a bit much. I was thinking that myself as I drove home, still feeling sad and teary eyed. Am I crazy? Am I wasting time and mental energy freaking out over this? Why should it matter so much – it’s just a damn grocery store!

But on the way home, I figured it out.  It’s NOT just a grocery store – it’s change.  And change and I have never been friends.  Ever.  Any kind of change, I resist it.  New clothes, new shampoo, different grocery store – it’s all the same.  And I have always been like this, as long as I can remember.  When I like something, anything, I want to keep it forever.  And losing my favorite grocery store is hitting me especially hard because there have been a lot of even bigger changes in my life lately.  Over the last year there have been a number of life-altering, distressing changes.  Last August, I lost my maternal grandmother.  She was the grandmother I was closest to, so it was very hard to lose her.  When I was back east for her funeral, I visited my paternal grandparents.  As I’ve written here before, that grandmother had Alzheimer’s, so seeing her, and seeing that she had no idea who I was, was like losing her, too.  Five months later, we lost her for good, and I was back east for another funeral.  Then this month, my best friend since high school lost her mother.  I loved her mother – both her parents, really.  They have always been so kind, warm and welcoming.  True, I hadn’t seen them for a long time, but knowing that I can never see her again makes me miss her.  And watching my friend go through the pain of losing her mother, that was hard, too.

Then there are other, not so traumatic, changes.  The new school year is about to start and my oldest son, now a tall 15 year old who towers over me, is starting high school.  High School??  When did that happen?  And my daughter will be in 7th grade – yikes.  Even the “baby”, now 11, will be in 5th grade.  It makes me feel old!

I’m sure there have been other changes I’m not thinking of right now, but you get the idea.  So I think the grocery store closing is just the last straw – the grain of sand that tips the scales and so seems more important than it really is.  I don’t like change, but life is change.  We move forward, and some things and people fall behind us, are lost to us in the here and now.  But we can keep the memories with us as we move forward.

So I will allow myself to feel sad about my grocery store.  Then I will find another store and get used to it and come to like it just as much.  And I will miss my grandmothers and my friend’s mother, and keep their memories alive in my heart.  And I will watch my children grow up and learn to stand on their own, and remember when they couldn’t stand at all.  And I will remember that it’s all life, and it’s all good.  I will never be a friend to change, but maybe I can learn to not mind it so much.

Letting Go: Home Again

A final update on my original Letting Go post.

E and his class got back home safe and sound. They had a wonderful, amazing, once-in-a-lifetime trip. E spent an hour, talking non-stop, telling us all about it. This from a kid who isn’t usually very chatty.
The highlights for him seemed to be Austin, TX; and Bourbon Street in New Orleans. He seemed a little reluctant to tell us much about Bourbon Street, partly because he seemed to want to protect us from knowing about that kind of thing. Thanks, son, but, umm, it’s probably nothing we don’t already know! I suspect that there are things he still hasn’t told us about it, but we did hear about his teacher being propositioned, and how when they looked into one club they saw a male stripper. That seemed to freak him out a little. All in all, he had a great time.
Now I can sit back and reflect on how I felt before he left. I was so worried about him, so stressed out about letting him go for so long. Seriously, I cried writing my original post! But I trusted E and I trusted the adults that were with him and it worked. And I didn’t feel this gaping hole in my life while he was gone, or spend every moment worrying about him. Life went on here, as it must. I did think about him and wonder how he was doing, but I didn’t obsess over it. I almost feel like I didn’t really miss him all that much, which seems wrong. But is it? In 4 years he’ll be graduating from high school and then, who knows? There will be a lot more letting go in my future – with E and with T and G, too. Maybe this time will help make those future times a little bit easier. For now, I’m glad to have this time behind us.

Letting Go: Update

If you visited during Momalom’s Five for Ten Challenge, you might have read my post on Courage titled Letting Go. This is a follow up to that post to let you know how it’s going.
We sent them off on Sunday night. The class was all excited and eager to be on their way. We parents had varying degrees of difficulty letting them go. I made poor E give me a hug before he left. “Do I HAVE to?” he asked. “Humor me” I answered. He didn’t seem to mind too terribly much. One of his classmates came bounding back out of the bus just before they left to give his dad a hug – all the parents said “Aw”. Then they drove off. I did not cry, though it wasn’t easy.
Now they’ve been away a week, and so far I’m surviving. It’s funny, but we’re so busy with the other 2 kids and all the usual stuff around here that I don’t have much time to sit around and miss E. Oh, I do miss him, but I’m not inconsolable or worrying about him every waking moment. Which is a good thing. We’ve had one brief message from one of the teachers, just a general message that everything was going well. And one photo. No word, otherwise. Which falls under the old “no news is good news” cliche.
I have been looking up maps online to see where, exactly, they are each day. And I’ve been checking the weather in those places, too. And feeling jealous – the night time low in New Orleans the other day was higher than our daytime high! The class is on their return leg now, and will be home on Wednesday. Can NOT wait to see E again.
Meantime, his 12yo sister, T, is heading off on a week long field trip tomorrow. G will be an only child for about 3 days. He’ll love it, I’m sure. It will be kind of fun to have just one for a bit – haven’t had just one since E was 4! But it will also be awfully quiet around here.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at. Missing E, but doing okay. And I’m sure he’s doing ok, too.