Heart Warming

I cry for all the things I think are terribly unfair.

I cry from the fear of bad things that might come to pass.

I cry from the hurts I feel right now… and sometimes even from things that have hurt before.

But I can also cry when beautiful things touch me and make me see the wonderful and good in this world.

Those tears are so much sweeter…

My Mother has always been my rock.  She taught me right from wrong, she built the foundation for my moral code, and she taught me what unconditional love is.  She showed me what it means to be a mother… and set an example for the kind of person I try to be.

She’s always been wonderful to me.

I speak as a daughter though… don’t we all love our mothers and think they’re the best?

But I know her also as a woman… I see her not only through the filtered glass of a parent/child relationship, but also through the veil of friendship.  She’s been my teacher, my mentor, my partner and my guide.

She’s a rare sort of woman… probably one of the few who’s walked through life always careful and aware of the hearts of those she brushes against, or with, or past.  She’s a natural leader (which she may or may not deny) but she’s often found herself in leadership roles… people gravitate towards her and give her their trust.  It’s because of her gift with people.  She makes friends… never enemies.

I’m sure she doesn’t realize how exceptional her way of being is; for her it’s just how one is or should be.  I guarantee she’s one of those women who have no concept of their true beauty and how it graces everyone around them.

She loves people.  She’s given of herself without reserve for as long as I’ve been aware of what that means.  To her family, to her friends… within her community and beyond it in what ways she can.  She’s the type of person that people go to… and without exception, she’s given more than she ever asks in return.

That’s why the situation she finds herself in now brings those sweet tears to my eyes.

My mother isn’t well.  She’s battling cancer and it’s left her weak enough that she needs to rely on help from others.

I can’t imagine that’s a comfortable position to be in for anyone, let alone a woman like her.

My Dad takes care of her.  He’s an exceptional man in his own right… and when they got the news, he simply told his employer that he wouldn’t be back.  Now they’re home together all the time… but not alone.

Every day, people from their community… friends, neighbours - even those they haven’t known that well are stopping by.  Not to presume upon them to visit or be hosted, but only to drop things off… some treats in a Tupperware dish, a meal they don’t have to cook.

All these people that they’ve touched are showing their support in a very real way.  It’s not just once in a while either:  Every single day someone brings food… it almost seems like it must be organized.  They never know what they’ll be having for supper on any given day, but without fail, someone brings something by. 

(My poor Dad has had to make a spreadsheet to keep track of who all the dishes belong to so he can see them returned to their homes!  Then again, my Dad has an affinity for spreadsheets so maybe this is a fun little exercise for him on the side, sans “official” work, lol)

The emails, the phone calls, the visits… the food deliveries and the show of support is over-whelming to them… because I don’t think they can see what they’ve done to deserve it.

Hearing about it makes me cry… the good tears this time though.  I wish I could say thank you to all the people… I want to thank them for showing her, in such a real and tangible way, just how amazing she is and how many people recognize it.

It touches ME to know that all of these people see what I see and know what an special kind of woman she is... even if she’ll never really understand it herself.

Stolen...

My thoughts often wander when I'm admiring or thinking about my youngest son. I have so many conflicting thoughts and feelings.

Sometimes I'm angry when I think about the things he struggles with that come so easy to most others. All the time I'm protective and want to shelter him from the ugliness in this world... that he most often doesn't see. And too many times to count, I'm so touched by his innocence and honestly that I start to cry. The love I feel for him is so fierce that catches me off guard... much like he does with his comments out of left field.

I rarely know how to put all of this into words though... which is why I was so moved by another mother's post that I decided to steal it and post it here to share with anyone who happens by... she had a wonderful way of capturing how I feel:

A Little Piece Of God
Posted by Anonymous.

I have an autistic son who is truly a bit of God broken off and fallen to this earth. I am fortunate in a million ways that he is oh... let's say autism-lite. He has none of the most challenging behavioral and cognitive elements of the disorder and his therapy is moving faster than anyone could have imagined.

I am in no way brave about this, and his diagnosis did very nearly turn me to dust, but recently someone asked that I write a letter to her friend, a stranger, who is struggling with her daughter's recent diagnosis. So I gave it my best shot.

This diagnosis is a pointing finger and nothing more. And now it’s my turn to whisper the important words - words that flicker just brightly enough to keep you from falling the whole hard way down: Your beautiful child remains your beautiful child, regardless of where a finger points. Mothers of auties pass those words down to new mothers of auties like some families pass down silver, and it may well be that this one act and these few words are the single speck of autism that we mothers hold in common. Autism is so many things, so many different ways of being.

People will ask you “what is autism?”. Believe me, they’ll ask you all sorts of things, but when they ask this particular question, they may as well ask, “what is skin?” How do you answer? How can you? But since no mother begins this trip with answers and since you cannot give what you don’t yet have, leave it, just leave it. . . Also, it’s very important right now that you pack lightly, so you must leave other people’s stuff behind. This is your trip and that pointing finger is where you start. Take this road through whatever terrain you must - anger, grief, frustration - and know that you will come out the other side a changed and stronger mother.

Go ahead and take the long road with all the hills and muddy spots. Stop where you feel the need, think a lot about turning around, and understand that you will always bitch about why you have to do all the damned driving. But you will drive and drive. And then drive some more. You will keep moving forward, I promise. Claim your place now among like-minded mothers and know that we are tough. We will stand with you shoulder-to-shoulder, stretch mark- to-stretch mark because we have all done the drive, in our own way, at our own speed with our own stretch of muddy spots.

My autie is a million kinds of magic to me. Just as he had no words for the first five-ish years of his life, nor do I have words to explain our bond. His everyday obstacles show up on time every day, but they loom only as large as we allow. So often, too often, we show off those obstacles —we set them apart and make absolutely certain that we can say, “That’s my kid there, and wow, will you just look at the size of his obstacles ? They are RIGHT THERE and THEY ARE HUGE.”

Let me be very clear now, that those same obstacles have no power over the magic, not the least little bit. Say that outloud to yourself right now. Good. This child sits closest to my heart and I can tell you that even in his worst moments, I can see tiny bits of my best self. He is unbridled joy. He has a lightness that comes in quite handy during the darks. And while my chaos is just boring mommy chaos, his chaos is—well, he’s often quite glorious in his chaos. My own road is occasionally strewn with his gifts of glory wrapped in sticky chaos.

Now, understand that these gifts are rare and precious, mostly unexpected and sometimes quite sticky. Some days you will have to look long and hard to find even the dullest one. Some days you’ll give up looking altogether. Again, please know that giving up on today can never, ever forfeit the gifts scheduled for tomorrow. Keep looking. You’ll see. My son’s diagnosis shattered me like a rock hitting glass - a big ugly hard thing hitting a not very sturdy at all thing. We sat in that tiny room with the tiny chairs and filled out those very not-tiny-at-all pages of parent questionnaires and I cried. The whole time. Long pages. Lots of crying. Not a good day, to be sure, but one that you’ve now survived.

You remember the tiny room with those tiny chairs, and you surely recall filling out the stack of parent questionnaires. You might also recall that your answers were often limited to three choices: Often, Sometimes and Not At All. So do you bend your beautiful child to fit those tight little circles? Oh, you know that answer already. And when you worry that your child's diagnosis might change how you see them, who they are, and who they might become, that answer fits quite nicely into one of those circles:

That answer is Not At All.

Embrace the Detours

Sometimes the paths we never would have willingly chosen for ourselves lead us to the most powerful gifts life has to offer.  It's too easy to give into the worry, too challenging to recognise that there really *can* be a bright side...

But still, for anyone who has been forced to tread a harder road than they envisioned themselves on, the rewards (perhaps only in hindsight?) can't be denied.

It's Autism Awareness month and I have a child on that "Spectrum" of disorders.  I've spent countless hours thinking about him, worrying about him, fighting for him... wondering what the future holds.  I was reading back over things I wrote in years past - instantly going back to what I was feeling at the time... and it was interesting to me how little has changed in the intervening years.

One post I particularly loved (that I shared and posted on a previous incarnation of my blog) is something I thought I should share again... for myself, but also for any other parents just starting their journey down the path fate has laid before them:

Welcome to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

"I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this.... When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. Michelangelo's David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland"

"Holland!?!" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland"

This, oh so perfect, analogy just speaks to me.  My youngest boy, while often making me feel like I’m stumbling around in the dark with this parenting thing, is the sweetest, loveliest child.  He’s beautiful and innocent and charms every person he touches.  I love having the honour of being his mom.

Embrace the detours.

Lightning Strikes

How can you defend against the unpredictable?  If fate decrees that your life be tossed before the path of an oncoming storm, a storm of such devastating power that it could tear the very foundation from beneath you, what can you do?

I feel very defenceless right now.  My mind is racing in so many directions that I find myself dumbfounded… unable to really focus or *do* anything.  Not that there IS anything I can do.

Except fear.

I’m doing that in spades right now.  I think it must be similar to how the people in the path of a tornado must feel.  You know that it’s coming – its presence has been confirmed, its path predicted.  There are things you can do, but storms are such erratic, unpredictable entities that you really have no way of knowing whether every step you take will prove to be futile or not.

A storm might deal one home a glancing blow while completely annihilating its neighbour – there’s no explanation for it, no divine reasoning behind… no sense to it all.

But people hope, right?  They batten down the hatches, take all the precautionary steps they know to try and minimize the impending damage – there’s hope even within the fear… to give that up is to admit defeat.

When it comes to life, or the lives of those we love, I don’t think the majority of humans are prepared to admit defeat easily… we’re pretty much hard-wired against it.

I wonder how much hope people would have in the face of an approaching storm though, if they were told that there was NO hope of coming through unscathed.  If destruction was not just a possibility, but a certainty?

I think it would not be fear consuming them, but despair.  Or perhaps anger?  Anger is a powerful emotion… one from which to draw strength.  Although likely just as futile as despair when one is standing in the path of something destructive you can’t control.

I’m feeling all of these emotions right now… fear, despair, anger… and helplessness.  I’m vacillating between those.  Futility can’t come in the door yet because I’m too stubborn to give up hope… no matter what they say a storm will do.

Lightning struck in my world yesterday… a direct hit on the one who’s the foundation in my world.  Its label is Adenocarcinoma, and they say it’s not curable.  “They” use ambiguous words like “manageable” to describe it…

I’m clinging to the vague hope to be found in that… choosing to look away from devastation of the first part.  I can’t NOT hope…

I just can’t…

A Word On Love….

I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s not a lot of original thought going on out there… it seems so much easier in this day and age to just come across the thoughts of another and choose to “like” them - identify and claim affiliation with said thoughts; repost them for the masses.

I don’t claim to be different.  I like reading the little things people choose to post… the favourite sayings, quotes, or deep thoughts (whether they belong to the person posting them or not)… and every once in a while there is a nugget of wisdom to be found in the ramblings of those we have connections to.  Something that speaks to us and makes us think.

My cousin posted one such not too long ago… I have no idea where she found it, but I really liked it and absolutely agreed:

On the “Hallmark Holiday” that proposes to make us think about who we love and who loves us, I can’t help but think about all the unhappy people out there… the ones who value themselves so little that they stay, long past the expiry dates, in relationships that should long have had the doors closed on them.

We all deserve to be happy in this life… we all deserve to be valued, treated with dignity and respect, and above all, loved.  If you don’t have what you want in your life, the impetus will always be on you to make a change.  If you continue doing what’s obviously not working, how can you ever expect things to improve?  It’s no one’s job to make you happy but yours… no one is going to step up and demand that you be treated better if you’re not willing to do so yourself.

We set the “price” on ourselves.  We decide our worth… and those around us adhere to it.  If you don’t deserve the treatment you’re getting, then don’t accept it… all you have to do is walk away.

This was an understanding that I was a little later in life accepting as fact than I wish I’d been.  Change can be scary – and while living in a rut is a cop-out, it’s such an easy one that too many people just give in and stay there.  So much easier that, then to make a break and start climbing out… not knowing what you might find once you reached the high ground above.

But you know what you need to know about the high ground?  The sun shines there.  It’s brilliant and warm and you can see clearly – no walls of the rut casting shadows… no more self-imposed “blinders” keeping you mindless of the good to be found outside of the interminable path in front of you.

There’s good people up there too… others who have climbed up out of their own ruts, or those who’ve always had the integrity of self to not allow themselves down there in the first place.

Over the past couple of years I’ve undergone a revolution in my own life.  I went further down a hopeless path than I ever should have allowed myself to go, came to some startling revelations, and made a decision to climb.  I’m standing with my face in the sun now… and that warmth is spilling over into all areas of my life.  I feel stronger and better than I ever have before and want to give voice to that.  I want to write again – I did once, years ago… I had a blog that I loved and shared – I never should have let it slide.  I felt like I had nothing positive to share for so long though, that I did… this blog would be the reincarnation of that one.

Kinda fitting, given the reincarnation of me ;)