Cora

  The summer that I decided to seriously look into adopting a Greyhound, I was struggling. My last baby was quickly growing up and I was facing a crisis of identity. Who was I without a full uterus or a baby on my hip? I had not cultivated a career to return to after my youngest child entered school and the only other thing that had taken the majority of my time was ending-not unexpectedly, but abruptly. This whole, huge chapter of my life was winding down and I had no material with which to start a new one.

Along with the realization that this was happening much sooner than I had anticipated, I realized that I am not an easy person to love (or tolerate, really). I would expect that people would describe me as prickly at best, snarky and argumentative at worst. I don't deny I am any of those things-they are defense mechanisms built into me from very early childhood. I was a victim of bullying long before "bullying" became a thing. Early elementary school was an excruciating experience for me and unfortunately in adulthood that experience has manifested itself in ways that seem to only put off and offend. And I have ADD, which pretty much puts me on the crappy friend list almost immediately, even without the childhood emotional scars.
Oh, I had plenty of acquaintances who would check in with me every once in a while, but I wasn't the person they called to chat with on a regular basis or drop by to visit with or to invite out to dinner regularly. People tried and I was tolerated, but either my personality or my number of children eventually turned them away and I was abandoned as their project and they moved on to people who were easier to deal with. I was okay with that while I was distracted, busy tending to babies and toddlers, but the thought of being all alone, all day, every day was daunting.



Of course, at the time I didn't understand these things exactly. When I say "realization" I mean that  all I knew is that in the very center of me I felt empty and sad. And that sadness often manifested itself as anger and depression. My poor husband. He is such a good man, rarely rising to my level of argumentativeness and negativity, and for much of our marriage I have been nothing but a huge test of patience and self-control for him. That summer it got intensely worse, partly because he had immersed himself in work and Little League duties and I was angry that he wasn't seeing what was happening me. Also partly because I was keenly aware that something wasn't quite right with me, and it scared me.

So what do I do? I decide I need a dog. And not just any dog. A dog that was quite likely as emotionally broken as I was. A dog who was going to be as prickly and distant as I felt inside. I decided we could heal each other.

Either that or I was going to end up in a mental hospital.
That's not an exaggeration.
That's how bad I was struggling.

I announced to my husband that we were going to adopt a Greyhound. That's how I tend to do things. I am probably not the best (or any) example of a meek, deferent wife (or person in general). I decide to do something, I inform my husband and then I take action in a bull-in-a-china-shop way. I reached out to friends on Instagram who had experience with Greys. I read the recommended books. I joined the online forums. I Googled and read and researched until my mind was occupied with nothing but Greyhounds. He of course, wanted to plan it all out, carefully consider and analyze the situation. But to an ADDer who has decided to point her razor-sharp focus on a project, planning didn't interest me and neither did my husband's input.

This was going to be my dog. He didn't really get a say.
So, to say he was surprised when I moved his plan to wait until late fall to start considering candidates to summer, was an understatement. I pored over the Greys that came available in the adoption group I had submitted an application to. Much to my surprise, many of them were adopted quickly, which, of course, drove my intensity higher. I was desperate and I didn't want to wait. I went to Greyhound meet and greets at pet stores. In Maryland.

I bought things for the Grey we didn't yet have. A bed, blankets, toys, a custom made collar. As these things made their way prominently into our living room, I realized I was nesting. Preparing for another dependent. One that would never grow up and not need me. The thought of it was comforting, and I knew that what was making me so sad was the feeling of not being needed or even wanted.

One evening after he arrived home, I passed him on the front stoop as I announced that I was taking Salsa (our very small, agoraphobic mixed breed who was a very good dog, but she didn't need me. And I needed to be needed.) to meet a Grey that was a potential match for our family. He looked at me, alarmed and surprised that this process was moving along so swiftly. Not according to his plan. Not following his analysis. He told me so and half expected me to change my mind about seeing this dog.

I dropped the custom made collar into my pocket and started the car.

That dog ended up not being a match for us. He was a sweet dog, but unfortunately for me, he had a high prey drive, which didn't bode well for little Salsa. He was eventually adopted into a home with a Whippet for a sibling. I was undaunted. I kept searching the adoption website. Obsessively, really. I said I would take any gender, and color and truly I would have. But what I really wished for in my  heart was a brindle female.

And then one day, there she was. A small (for a Greyhound) brindle female being fostered in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania.
But this was her. I knew it.
This was my dog.
I needed her and she needed me.
So I announced that while the kids were in school, we were going to take a quick drive to Pennsylvania and look at this dog. My husband, resigned to my timeline now, agreed to go with me-probably mostly just in case I had accidentally gotten myself mixed up in some sort of serial killer situation. So we packed up the two younger kids into Big Blue and sped up to southern Pennsylvania.

She was a bit apprehensive when we met her, but she was a happy dog, wagging her tail at me and walking willingly and nicely on the leash as I took her for a quick walk around her foster family's neighborhood. She was so very soft to the touch, especially around her ears and on her throat. She had no problems with being touched and when she leaned on me, I knew for sure that I would not leave that house without that dog.

Papers signed, adoption fee check written, she jumped into the back of Big Blue and we raced the clock to get home in time for the kids to get out of school. Her first introduction to them was in front of their schoolmates, who clambered over each other to touch and love on this alien dog who, in hindsight, was probably scared to death, but she endured the attention with patience.

We got home and the process of getting to know one another began. I named her Cora- it means "maiden"- because I hated her track name. I accessorized her. I tried to get her to wear coats and sweaters when the days got frigid. She politely refused by feigning a limp so drastic that we thought that she'd actually hurt herself.

The children adored her, of course, and my husband warmed to her right away, despite the shortened timeline he had in his mind. But in the end, she was mine, and the process of healing had begun. When she arrived home, she had to learn to deal with stairs. A lot. If you've ever seen a Greyhound climbing stairs, imagine what it might look like for a pregnant giraffe to climb stairs. It's awkward and painful looking and unfortunately for her, it was the only way to get to the outside to pee. We didn't yet have a fenced yard, so those first few months were filled with walks together, which is the best way for dog and owner to get to know one another anyways.

When we weren't walking though, she really didn't care to be touched. She didn't object to being touched (most of the time) but she didn't seek me- or any one of us- out for affection. She rarely left the living room/dining room/kitchen. She didn't attempt to jump into our bed to sleep, or even seem to be the least bit lonely sleeping all by herself in her bed or on the sofa of the living room. I often looked at her and wondered if I had been wrong about her needing me. Nevertheless, I needed her, and when I wasn't caring for my children, I was doting on her. She tolerated me patiently as I carefully stroked the bunny-soft fur on her throat and behind her ears. She never once sighed in aggravation as I ran my hands up and down the 6 inch cowlick on her neck that looked like a mane.

I was her annoyance.
She was my therapy.

It took several months before I saw the day that she reached out to me on her own. The memory of it is seared into my mind-it was a bit redeeming to have been so patient to reach this stage- patience isn't a quality that many ADDers can claim. I was seated on the couch and she was laying head toward me on the other end. Slowly, without my even really realizing it, she scooted her way toward me, eventually touching the top of her head to my thigh. She sighed contentedly and continued her nap.
My waiting was her therapy.

After that, she rarely slept away from me when I was in her presence. If she was sleeping near me, some part of her touched me, whether it was a head or a paw. She knew she could trust me. She never did try to sleep in our bed, despite my encouragement and was quite content to sleep in the living room on her own. She would pad her way down the hall every early morning at around 1 a.m. to rouse my husband to let her outside. Then she'd go back to her own bed to finish the rest of the night in peace.

Eventually, she and I fell into a comfortable friendship, she was something that loved me unconditionally: she would never get angry or upset that I didn't call her, she didn't expect anything but food and affection from me, and if I didn't feel like responding to her, she was quite happy to still be my friend when I was in a better mood. She became my constant- as a mom, you spend a lot of your time adjusting to change as your children grow and slip from stage to stage and in different seasons of life. And over time many people come and go- they drift away naturally or decide they just don't want to be around your crazy anymore and leave.
Dogs are different, they change, but once they're adults they pretty much are who they are. She was who she was and I didn't have to be afraid that she would abandon me when I didn't act how she expected me to act. We were this pair for over four years.

~***~

The illness took her quickly. I guess in the end, that was good. It would have been more painful to have to live out a long, drawn out sickness.
Three weeks before she died, she started eating only one meal a day. I thought she was just tired of her food, so I added an egg to her bowl and she started eating more animatedly. After two weeks of eggs to tempt her appetite, she began refusing all food, even treats. Alarm bells went off. I wanted to rush her to the doctor, but since The Big Thing happened, we have very little discretionary money and we lost all of our food benefit at the end of January so that meant zero extra money. I did everything my training at my former job at an animal hospital taught me to do. I looked for signs, I made her food really appetizing. She ate in small spurts and I became hopeful.

A week after I was able to get her to eat small portions, she ate a large meal one evening feeding. "She's on the mend!" I whispered to myself. Then one of the children who had been playing outside the next morning came inside and announced they'd found "a huge pile of puke" outside. It hit me in the gut. She stopped eating altogether again after that, and I knew that helping her at this point was outside my personal expertise. We didn't have a lot of money, but since she had been eating small meals, I was hopeful that it was an intestinal issue that could be corrected with a little medication. So, I had my husband call to make an appointment for the next day.

When we arrived at the clinic I knew it was bad. She had lost seven pounds over the course of the past few weeks. Seven pounds doesn't sound like a lot, but on a Greyhound it might as well have been 70. She was now one pound over her racing weight, and racing weight is usually quite low. The doctor did a thorough external exam and she was relaxed enough for a dog being examined-until he got to her belly. He said there was something wrong in there, but without further (read: very expensive) tests, he couldn't be sure what it was. I cried and begged him to try something that wouldn't cost the $900 he was estimating a diagnosis to cost. We just didn't have that. And we wouldn't have it any time soon.

Our vet is a kind man, and he was sympathetic to our plight, but unable to waive almost a thousand dollars of tests and work, he sent us home with medication and we both hoped for the best.

The four years we spent with each other caused her to trust me implicitly. So she laid quietly and patiently as I tried to coax her into eating her meds and then later resorted to pilling her directly, hoping desperately that they would change whatever was causing her to not eat. The doctor said that if the medications he had prescribed were going to work, we would see results in three to four days.
By day four, she had lost so much weight we could see the tumor in her belly.

It had been hidden in her chest, protected for probably quite some time by her ribcage, until it grew so large that it made its way down into her belly and blocked her intestines. She wouldn't eat because she couldn't. I was insistent (because I am a selfish human being and could not let her go) that she finish the course of antibiotics and appetite stimulants that the vet had prescribed. The small bowls of Greek yogurt that she ate a couple times a day encouraged me.
I ignored the bulge in her side.

On day seven I went to stroke her familiar soft parts and ran my hand down her back. The bones of her spine bumped along under my hand and I got to her back legs and my fingers sunk into soft,  swollen flesh. Her kidneys had failed and she was rapidly drowning in the junk that they usually filtered out. I called my husband, hysterical. I knew what had to happen. My girl was a miserable wreck. Her body was failing her and she needed me to be brave for her and make this decision.

My husband called the vet's office and made his way home from work. While we waited for him, I stroked her and told her how good a girl she was and how much I appreciated what she had done for me. I explained to her how she saved me from myself and how she healed my heart from feeling abandoned. I told her that she was going to be free soon and that I loved her. She groaned and whimpered from pain and laid her head on my lap.

My husband arrived home and the children that were home at the time said their good-byes and he left with her. My good husband was the one who stayed with her on her way out of this world. I could not bear to watch her life drain from her body. To see her there one second and gone the next. My heart would have broken in two to witness it. I knew he was there for her and that was comfort for me.

She died on a Thursday afternoon.
That's all I remember about that day.

When the doctor saw her that day, a week exactly after he had seen her when he prescribed meds and we hoped for the best, he examined her again, and concluded from the location of the tumor that it was likely pancreatic cancer and we would have been able to do nothing for her, regardless of how much money we had. I know he was trying to comfort my husband, but it didn't make me feel any better. I felt like I had failed her.

We couldn't afford to have her ashes returned to us, so this spring I plan to plant a lilac bush in memory of her near our front door. A friend from Instagram, whom I've never met, sent me a lovely bracelet with her name stamped on the inside, and it reminds me that she existed-that she was here and she, though a dog, made a difference in my life.

She healed me in ways that I cannot explain. I'm still a little impulsive and tend to say things before I think, but I like to think that she mellowed me, left me more able to be open to others and not expect a lot from them in order to not be disappointed by them. She made me get out of bed to take care of her on days when not even the call of my children could do that because of depression. She, in her own magical way, showed me that patience is indeed a virtue, and if I would only exercise it a bit more often, I would see great rewards. She taught me that being weird and goofy and a little bit quirky is okay, and someone, somewhere out there would befriend me in spite of those deficits. I think in many ways, God used her to show me that, although I am broken, I can accept love and grace and mercy- that it is okay for me to receive those things and it is okay for me to give those things away- there's never a shortage.

And honestly, if that is all that she had done for me in those four short years, it would have been enough. I am leaving so, so much out of our story because, well, it was four years and I know that many people don't care that I am this emotional about my dog.

I just had to write it. To get it out. To tell people about her and the gift that she gave me.

She gave me myself.



~M~

In Which I Learn That He is the God Who Sees

I listened in the deep dark of the wee hours of the morning to the strong winds slamming themselves against my house. I envisioned shingles blowing off of our desperately-needs-to-be-replaced-roof in droves and I wondered if the now-unused satellite dish that languished right above our room on that same roof was going to come unbolted at any minute. 

I don't know what originally woke me, but it seems that any little sound rouses me these days, and I find it very hard to fall quickly back to sleep. I'd read in an article somewhere that sometimes people who suffer from hypothyroidism have trouble with their sleep cycle, often waking regularly at around 2 or 3 a.m. and finding it near impossible to fall right back to sleep. Since my hypothyroidism has run unchecked for almost two years, I am sure that has something to do with it. 

In the past, I would have just flicked the TV on and started playing one of the hundred or so Golden Girls episodes I had TiVo-ed for just such an occasion. Many moons ago, when I was young,  when it was babies to nurse and soothe that woke me (and not hormonal imbalances) I had gotten into the habit of flipping the TV to late night satellite channels to keep myself from falling asleep while tending to the baby at hand. In order to avoid the (often disgusting) early morning commercials, I gravitated towards the Hallmark Channel, which, at the time, was rerunning The Golden Girls episodes (probably for all those old women in their early forties with hormonal imbalances that kept them awake at 3 a.m. #irony). As far back as college I'd appreciated that show and the chemistry of the actresses made me want to retire to Miami and find awesome roommates when I was an old widow. Eventually, after late nights and early mornings with five babies, watching those reruns was the only way I could reliably fall asleep. 

Early last summer, I lost the ability to simply flick on the TV and play whatever I wanted. As we moved further and further into unemployment (by that time, it had been over a year), we were like a ship in a storm, unloading all the extra weight of our budget trying to stay afloat. So with much sadness, I said good-bye to The Golden Girls and falling asleep easily. 

Which takes us back to this particular night (sorry, sometimes I enjoy a good rabbit trail), listening to my house bracing itself against the wind. Like many of the previous nights of the same, I laid thinking about that old roof and how relieved I had been to learn that our tax return this year would be enough to cover the cost of actually replacing it and not just trying to patch the places where many years of spring winds had taken their toll. Of course that relief turned to disappointment once again after last Tuesday. 

I was feeling the beginning of renewal-the kind that comes from a long season of loss and drought. With the promise of a good tax return we were going to be able to not only replace our roof, but finally buy some larger-ticket items that we have needed for a while:

A new bed for us.

(the one we have is 15+ years old)

A new sliding glass door for our dining room.

(ours is currently broken)

A power washer rental, a tall ladder

and two new front porch posts

(so our HOA will stop fining us for home repairs we need to perform)

And maybe some new clothes for me.

(I haven't bought new-or used- clothes in two years)

It felt really good to hope again-to know that we would have the ability to take care of our household the way that we are supposed to and to not have to fret about where the money was going to come from. In anticipation of the tax return's arrival, I had even splurged on a pair of new flats (because some time last year I lost one of my only pair of black flats and I'd found this dark gray pair on clearance for $13-score!) 

Except those bargain flats ended up costing me a lot more than $13.

As I was reveling in my newfound hope on the way to the dentist with my middlest child, the flocked bottom of my shiny new shoes accidentally slipped off my brake pedal too fast and hit my gas pedal even faster and-boom!- into the rear end of the lady in front of me I smashed.

First, I checked in with my middlest to make sure he was ok. We weren't going very fast (the woman in front of me had just started advancing, and so had I), but you never know, so I wanted to make sure he was ok, of course. He was, thankfully, and so was I, and so was the irate woman getting out of her car in front of me. 

"What happened?!" she shouted at me.

All the rage and hurt and pain that I've stuffed down inside the past two years welled up in me. 

What had happened? 

What had happened?!

I wanted to yell back.

What had happened was that my husband was unjustly fired.

What had happened was that he was then unemployed for almost two years.

What had happened was that we lost a court case trying to regain his job.

Twice.

What had happened was that we lost so, so much during that time.

What happened was that my husband had to fight to win a job that was technically beneath both his education and his ability and suffer a paycheck that is far too small to support our large family because it was the only full time job he could find.

What happened was that I had the audacity to buy myself a new pair of shoes.

Because I felt happy.

But I didn't yell.

"I'm so sorry. My foot slipped." was my weak response.

And then I wept. I cried like I hadn't cried since I was a child. The floodgates opened and there I was on a median on Route 3 bawling my eyes out.

No longer happy.

No longer hopeful.

All I could think about was how much this was going to cost. The crumpled hood of my 12 year old minivan looked frighteningly expensive to repair. The front bumper had pushed violently into the engine compartment when I struck her car, so although it had done its job and popped back out, I could only imagine the damage it had done to the inside of the van as well.

But the cost was more than the car. It was everything that the amount of repairing or replacing the van represented: good-bye roof, home repairs, door, bed, and new clothes. It was the feeling of returning back to normal, no matter how ill the new normal fit us. It was the starting all over again.

Clearly my priorities were out of whack. 

Because my hope should not be -should never be- in money. Money is a vehicle to get things in life done. When you have more money, you do more. When you have less money, you do less. Which is all very logical, but not very human, unfortunately. Especially when you've gone from more to less so quickly. 

After my embarrassing ugly cry in front of not only the poor (angry. very angry and unsympathetic) woman that I hit, but also a firefighter and a police officer, my husband came to collect his verge-of-a nervous-breakdown wife and we drove home separately. 

This time I was more careful with my feet.

That morning, right as rain at 2 a.m., I was wide awake, and instead of turning on some Netflix rerun substitute for The Golden Girls that I'd taken to over the last 8 months or so, I got up and sat on the couch and opened my Bible. I figured God was waking me up every morning at 2 a.m. because I had this (now glaring) problem of not trusting Him. I mean, I say all the time that I trust Him, but actually putting that into practice was quite another thing. 

Hence the hopeful feeling when we were set to have money.

And the hopeless feeling when it was suddenly snatched away.

I let the tears fall down my face again (hey, I'd already ugly cried before 3 strangers that day. If I can't ugly cry in front of my Father, then who can I?) and the only prayer I could muster was 

"Help me."

Through my blurry glasses and weary, tired, cried-out eyes, I opened my Bible to the Psalms. David had not written a specific Psalm to those of us who bought new shoes and then crashed their cars, but I felt like if there was anyone in the Bible who might have felt my despair, it was David. He was definitely a guy of major highs and sudden lows. And he loved God, and he seemed to understand who God is much better than I ever have.

I skimmed a few verses, turned a few pages.

Now, if you've ever been awake at o-dark-thirty in the morning, crying like a baby and begging God to help you, you know that pretty much whatever verse the small voice inside of you says to read all the way through, you should probably do that, because chances are, that's the Holy Spirit pointing you to where you need to be at that moment.

That night He pointed me to Psalm 42. I'm going to write it all, because unlike some Psalms, where we read them and we can sort of pick out bits and pieces of the verses to apply to our situation, this entire Psalm was written for me in that moment. Not one line could I pick out and say it was more important or held more meaning for me. It was as if David had seen me-into me- and written Psalm 42:

"As the deer pants for the water brooks,

So my soul pants for You, O God.

 

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;

When shall I come and appear before God?

 

My tears have been my food day and night,

While they say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?'

 

These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.

For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God,

With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him

For the help of His presence.

 

O my God, my soul is in despair within me;

Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan

And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

 

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;

All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.

 

The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;

And His song will be with me in the night,

A prayer to the God of my life.

I will say to God my rock, 'Why have You forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?'

 

As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me,

While they say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?'

 

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God."

It wasn't David who had seen into me. It was God-my God-who knew that on that night, in the infancy of the morning, I would cry out to Him and He knew that this would be His resounding answer. 
He saw me. 
He sees me.

I used to think that my faith was strong. I had the knowledge of Him. I believe that Christ is my personal Savior, and though I mess up a.lot., I do my best to follow Him.  I used to praise Him, enjoy worshipping Him, enjoy being in His presence. Now I just feel forgotten. Rejected. Persecuted. Full of loss and no life. In despair. Exiled. Cursed.

And my hope? 

My hope was in a tax return. 

So for now, it is baby steps. It is me relearning how to love Him and allowing His love to change me. It is relearning that hope isn't in any one thing down here, but it is something gained through perseverance. It is drinking the spiritual milk I thought I'd so long ago weaned myself from, raising my eyes to Him and learning who he actually is versus who I think He is.

It will be hard and probably will involve more pain and maybe even some disappointment along the way. Not disappointment from Him, of course, but disappointment because I've come to realize that a lot of what I thought God was is not enough. 

He is more.

So, so much more.

~M~

The Before & The After

   It comes to me at the oddest moments. In those little bits of time that I have to myself, where, despite the noise around me, whatever task I'm performing has my undivided attention and I can be alone with my thoughts. Today it was while I was slicing oranges- a mundane task at best. And something that I've never really done before. I mean, of course I've sliced oranges before, but in the past it has been for an outside purpose: fruit salad for a potluck picnic, a kid's school party, after practice snacks. This time, all I was doing was simply slicing oranges for my children's breakfast.

And it came to me then. 

How different my life is now.

In the Before Time, I would desperately cling to sleep every morning, even as I heard my children waking for school. I would call out to my older children to stop bickering and to help their younger siblings get breakfast. It was only after 30 or so minutes of laying in bed, wishing that I had another hour to sleep, that I would exhale sharply and swing my feet over the side of the bed and fumble my way to the opening of my day.

In the Before Time, I would sit myself on the sofa while my children ate their breakfasts and listen to their chatter that would eventually devolve into an argument and between sips of coffee tell them to hurry up and get dressed and get their school things. At five minutes before we had to leave in order to get everyone to school on time, I would throw on a marginally acceptable outfit (just in case of a freak accident, otherwise it would have been my pajamas all the way) and rush everyone out the door like a stream of Army paratroopers jumping out of the back of a C-130.

In the Before Time, I would drop them off and I would go back home and I would have 3 hours to myself (the youngest was still in preschool and I hadn't yet started working as a substitute at the school) to do whatever I wanted. Of course that probably should've meant that I was cleaning or organizing or preparing for a healthy dinner. Instead, I usually plopped myself on the couch, coffee in hand, to watch TV and knit or journal. I gave myself a wide berth when it came to grace for myself, after all, I hadn't really been alone since 2002.

In the Before Time, I would laze my way through the afternoon, usually napping when the preschooler napped. It really was an embarrassment of riches to be able to do so. Then I would pick up the olders from school, we would fight our way through homework and dinner prep time, which more often than not would result in my exasperation and frustration and we would eat out. Like I said, an embarrassment of riches.

I squandered so much time.
And time is something you can never get back.
Once it's spent, it's gone.
[Insert all the other adages about wasting time here]

But now in the broken pieces of the Before Time that lay at my feet, broken pieces that I was always assumed we would use to build our life back to what it once was, I find that I enjoy the slowness of it. I treasure the moments when my still-sleepy girl pads into my room, lifts the covers that cocoon me  and tucks herself tight against my side and we lay in the warmth under the quilt just simply resting with one another. I take those moments and whisper to her how smart and funny I think she is and we quietly giggle together until one of the middle brothers shakes off his sleep and shuffles into my room to say "good morning" and then runs off to feed himself because he has ADHD and simply cannot wait now that his body is trying to make up for the years when it did not grow. She remains by my side and I breathe her in, this female gift that I had begged God for for so many years. Then another middle brother comes in and he is still young enough to want to tuckle himself up against my other side and he squeezes me and without fail says "I love you mom" and I stroke his still-soft forehead and I say it right back and I squeeze him tight. I don't dread getting out of bed (although a little more sleep wouldn't hurt) because our day starts quiet and slow and it starts in warm togetherness rather than in cold separateness.

They harangue me (gently and with laughter) until I'm willing to surrender the warmth of the bed (or until my bladder can't wait any longer. Hey, after five kids, I'm lucky it's still where it belongs in my rearranged-by-big-babies-insides) to throw on a sweater and make them breakfast.

Now we are in the After Time.
The life that I never wanted.
But the life that I needed.


And so here we are, full circle, back at slicing oranges. Because this simple act is one that I wouldn't have taken in the Before Time. I simply would have spent more money on the tiny, easy to peel Clementines and they could just do it themselves. The After Time is where my heart is learning to bend toward serving rather than making my own life easier. It is where I learn that these slow mornings are gifts, a reclaiming of time that I had squandered before. It is where I learn that taking time to do things completely (instead of taking shortcuts just to be done) is something to be delighted in. It is where we have time to sit and enjoy and read God's Word together (and wiggle and bicker and make funny faces at one another and bother each other) and pray together before our school day starts in earnest. The After Time has afforded us what the Before Time in all its Earthly riches never could: each other.

Life isn't perfect-far from it actually- but these moments and my realization of how important they are, make it quite beautiful.

~M~

The "H" Word

When The Big Thing happened to us, our life was going pretty smoothly. My husband had worked hard and had arrived at a point in his career where he was earning a good wage and had a great benefits package and a nice chunk of vacation time (not that we have ever taken a vacation). We had five kids in a small private school and I was finally approaching my dream of having entire school days to myself.

To organize my home.

To cook the elaborate meals that everyone else seemed to have time for.

To knit and journal and craft.

To run errands without the ball of noise that usually surrounded me.

To visit coffee shops and bakeries.

To meal plan and grocery shop in peace.

To have "me" time.

To be normal.

I grew up in a household where dad went off to work, the kids went off to school and mom stayed at home doing whatever moms did at home while the children were in school. If you've ever read a Ramona book, that was pretty much exactly my childhood (only I was Beezus, Ramona was a little brother and we lived in Central Illinois, not Oregon). My visions of motherhood, once I had come to terms with the fact that I wasn't destined to be single forever, were not much different that that which I had observed of my own household as I was growing up.

I would have exactly two children.

The first would be a girl.

Followed four years later with a boy.

My husband would have a stable, well paying job.

I would stay home and raise my darlings.

At five years old they would start Kindergarten.

I would stay at home and bake things.

The children would attend school until graduation.

They would leave the nest.

Stuff in between.

Retirement.

Of course, all of this would happen in my life without the mess my own parents made at the end of my time in high school. But yeah, this was the plan. Until I had a son first. And then three more. And then a daughter. So already my plans were being messed with-but aside from a couple of false starts, we eventually had them all in school and for one glorious semester, I was living the dream. I was even able to take a part time job in the preschool of the kids' school for fun money. And then The Big Thing happened and my world changed. For the first year after The Big Thing we were blessed to have a pastor that understood and cared enough about us to allow my kids to experience some normalcy in their lives. It was a pure gift and a huge blessing for them to all to stay at their private school so that The Big Thing wouldn't hurt them as quickly and as much as it could have. For that I will ever be grateful.

Knowing this grace would definitely not happen again, we had to make plans for the next school year. The public schools here aren't the best, and we had a terrible experience with the elementary school and its principal before we decided to send all of the children to the private school, so for us, public school was not an option. We had to start seriously considering the H-word.

Homeschool.

The thought of it made me sick to my stomach. We had dabbled before in homeschooling a couple times- once with my oldest for Kindergarten, and once again for my second oldest in second grade. It was a nightmare. I have ADD and I didn't consider myself disciplined enough to be responsible for my children's schooling. Feeding and general care? Got it. But school? Gah. No.way. With my oldest, it was difficult, even in Kindergarten, because he is a typical first born: he loves order and having a plan and knowing what is happening every half an hour.  Couple that with the fact that he loves everything about being in school, from the standing in line to the little desks to the seat work, having a mother who-if pressed into homeschooling-leans more toward the Charlotte Mason way of doing things which means no real schedule and definitely no seat work. 

Like I said: difficult.

When we attempted it again for my second oldest's second grade year, it was another disaster. I had two younger kids at home and underfoot and he was (and is) a stubborn student. In fact, he is the exact opposite of his older brother in that he hates school. Hates everything about it and would happily exist living under my roof, illiterate, for the rest of his life if not for the fact that we have made it clear that this is not an option and if he doesn't want to be homeless when he is an adult, he's got to do the learning thing. 

Like I said: difficult.

So when faced with this option, I cried. I don't mean that I silently cried inside. I actually bawled my eyes out. Maybe even more than once. This time, the prospect of being the one responsible for their education wasn't even the issue. I wasn't scared of homeschooling. Even in the short ten years since we had attempted it the first time, the resources for homeschoolers have expanded and people of all walks of life (not just nutty separatists) have started taking the education of their children back home. Loneliness was of mild concern, but really it was my own loneliness that worried me. No, what made me cry and throw a fit was something quite different this time.

I was mad. I was angry that I was losing my grip on my plans. I was upset that my expectations for my life weren't panning out. That I was going to miss out on my alone time. That this was happening to me. Me. Me. Me. What about me?! Did God not care that this was going to change my life? That it was going to push me far outside of my comfort zone and make me face things inside of myself that I didn't want to see? That it was going to challenge the way I had become a lazy parent?*

Oh He cared. He cared a great deal. He still cares.

And that is why He allowed it to happen. Because doing things in my own strength and with my own plans equaled success in my eyes. If I could do it (anything) on my own, it was work I could be proud of. The "I made this" is strong in me. It was (and from time to time still is) a stronghold that needed to be broken- a place in my heart and life where I had replaced God with hard work and a can-do attitude. A stubborn rebellion to His whispers of "Let me show you what I can do through you, flawed as you are, silly girl."

Over the last six or so months, He has shown me that there is no way I can do this on my own. That most days it is Him and only Him that pulls me out of my depression long enough to teach lessons to my younger kids and assign work to my older kids (we won't talk about the two weeks of "fun school" we did on my bed because I couldn't bring myself to even leave it).
It hasn't been without its problems: a few months into it, I realized that, while doing the work was not a problem for him, my oldest child was becoming a shell of himself-squirreling himself away in his room to do lessons, sleeping, and occasionally reading, then making an appearance long enough to whip the other four kids into a frenzy just to disappear back into his room, leaving me with the aftermath and hurt feelings he caused. My husband and I discussed and with much worry and anguish and copious amounts of prayer, we enrolled him into the second semester at the local public school. He is slowly returning to himself- the outgoing, happy kid that I know so well. He is less annoying to his siblings and while some of the schoolwork there isn't very challenging for him (two of his 10th grade level classes are covering topics that he learned in 6th grade), it is in the trusting God with his heart and mind that I have found strength in our decision. I have no Earthly idea if we've done the right thing, but I trust that God sees us and knows that in our hearts, we are trying to do the best in each kids' situation.

And that is what it is about, isn't it?

Doing what is best for them. 

Trusting in God. 

Knowing He has my heart in His hands.

In the end, homeschooling hasn't been that bad. Though my sarcastic, wry (and stunningly honest) answer to those who ask me how I like it is "It isn't my favorite" doesn't always belie that fact.  I now try to quickly add "But it's growing on me!" at an attempt to not sound completely like Debbie Downer. This year, I gave myself very specific parameters when it came to choosing curriculum with the hope that whatever job my husband eventually acquired would afford us to again be able to send them back to private school. Alas, that didn't happen, so homeschooling is our day to day for the foreseeable future. The problem with the curriculum is that after a while, it is humdrum and boring and difficult to teach if you aren't teaching a classroom full of children. Next year, I plan to stretch myself a bit more and really find things to engage myself my kids. 

And next year, I hope to have some of the angst and worry that's been driven by deep depression (and a few other physical issues) that has gone untreated for such a long time. My hope is that once I am out of the fog, I will be a better teacher.

A better mother.

A better everything.

~M~

*Please do not read this that I think that non-homeschooling parents are lazy. I am not passing judgment on anyone in any way that they choose to educate their kids. I am definitely not a homeschooling snob who thinks that if you aren't doing it yourself, you're doing it wrong. I know that folks like that exist, but I am not one of them. No, this line is purely about me. And it is a post for another day that I will explore what it has come to mean to me to be a "lazy parent".

The Unplanned Life

   When I was a senior in high school, as part of my graduation package (you know the one-it contained your cap and gown, tassel, and any other sentimental junk that Jostens cleverly sold to you and your parents as a way to remember "the best years of your life") I received a book that I could fill out with all of my memories of high school along with my hopes and plans for the future. High school wasn't a good time for me. Most of it I spent miserable and alone, so the prospect of planning a future life that was going to be amazing was of particular interest to me. I can clearly remember writing how I wanted to be a super cool (I will never be cool, let alone super cool), edgy graphic designer (I ended up hating graphic design in college) living in a Big City (New York, natch, but Seattle would have been just as good), living alone in my loft apartment that doubled as my studio (at 18 I had no idea that a graphic designer would barely make enough money to live in an 8th floor walk-up studio apartment), without a husband or children to tie me down (and now I'm married with 5 kids, so...). It never occurred to me that any of this wasn't possible. I believed it would happen, and so it would. 

Except it didn't. 

Things happened.

Things I didn't expect:

A divorce (not mine).

Quitting college.

Being fired.

A wedding (mine).

Moving far away from my little town.

Loneliness.

9/11.

A baby.

Postpartum depression.

 Three more babies.

More depression.

A surprise baby!

A crushing job loss (my husband's).

And while this isn't an exhaustive list of Things That Happened to me- these are the things that I consider my defining moments. Things that changed me in fundamental ways. Things that have happened to people since the beginning of time and will happen to people yet, but all things that my younger, high school self could never see happening to me. Things that made me scared. Loathe to trust. Wary. Argumentative so as to ward people off. Sullen. Weary. Shy. Introverted. 

And that is the Unplanned Life. 

The one that stretches us. Makes us. Molds us. Trains us. The life that we didn't tediously plot for ourselves. The life where we have to force ourselves to become less and God to become more. Because the unplanned life is the scary one.  It takes all of the rules that we have etched in stone for ourselves and erases them as if we'd written them in the sand.  It makes everything that we believed we could do for ourselves seem small and ridiculous. It removes any barrier of comfort that we hide behind and thrusts us into the unknown.

It's something that in just the past few months I've started to grasp-this idea of trying to find the joy in the unplanned. You see, I used to fear the unplanned. I have ADD and I like change, but it has to be change that *I* want to make. It has to be a carefully planned and plotted change that has a beginning and an end and a comfortable lead time so that I can get used to the idea of it. 

Yes God, change me. Change my life. 

But do it this way. 

Slap me on the wrist.

Don't touch that.

No, really, I need that.

But I know I'll use that someday.

Make it so it doesn't hurt.

Please don't take that away, I depend on it.

No, seriously, don't you see I need that?

I've always seen changing things in my life as one would see rearranging a room: you clear out some stuff (baggage) that you don't really need, measure and map the square footage (take stock of your life), visualize the way things will look once you move them around (focus on the future), make your same stuff fit into the space just in a new configuration (no heavy remodeling),  do the heavy lifting (work work work on yourself) buy new stuff to replace what you threw out (accessorize on the outside so no one knows you're still the same on the inside).

And sometimes, just sometimes, you go pick through that donation pile and bring some stuff back in.
Just in case you might need it. 

But the Unplanned Life is surprising and messy and God uses that mess to change us in remarkable ways. It's change that you don't necessarily think that you want or even need. It's change that comes when you least expect it, even after you've told yourself to always expect it. And deep down, in that quiet place where you never let anyone see, you know that there is something in the change that is good for you (or will be), but your flesh hates it and digs its heels in and fights like mad to stop it. It feels awful, this tearing away. 

But then, after a while:

 It heals.

And you see. 

You know.

You feel better.

The scar remains, but you are still whole and on the Earth and ready to stand up and fight the next fight. Because you don't get that what He wants is for you to stop fighting. He wants to do the fighting for you and at the same time He is rearranging you on the inside. And He can because He is God. And His remodeling skills rival that of the Gaines'.

So, I am learning. I am learning to never say never. To let the change of the Unplanned Life wash over me and trust that His plan is working itself out in my life. It is a struggle to not worry. To not reel and rebel when the changes come. I'm a really slow learner. But I'm better than I was when I started- progress not perfection, right? I'm learning to take time with Him when my worry wakes me at 3 a.m. and my flesh wants to turn Netflix on and lose my 3 a.m. mind in reruns of "Lost". To read His word for answers instead of always wondering what so-and-so would think or say or do.  I'm learning to temper my reactions with trust and not anger. Faith and not fear. Responding and not reacting.

Trying to live the Unplanned Life in joy- turning my little acorn of faith into an oak for His glory. So that when people see me, they see Him and what He has done for me, despite the Things That Happened to me.

~M~