The Wisdom of Dying

                                                 

i carry your heart with me (I carry it in

my heart) i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

"I can't believe how much food she used to cook in this little oven..." I let the yellow even door close with a snap and stood there for a moment, lost.  Then a sob came from deep in my chest and my hands immediately covered face.  I stood in the kitchen feeling the weight of the last few months and the tears and thoughts kept coming... nursing homes, Ruth, my cousin and his mother walking away from the grave, my niece's face with tears streaming staring at me from the pews while I told the memory, the baptism sweater, my cat slowing getting up from the grass and his labored walk as he went around the garage and out of sight, and the swan.

My husband sighed and wrapped his arms around me.  I'm thankful to be short to his 6 feet when I'm upset because his chest makes an easy crying spot. We were standing my grandmother's kitchen, my favorite kitchen in the whole world.  It was cold without her and yet her smell was everywhere.  On the kitchen table the local newspaper had sent a subscription reminder.  In big print it said, "Where have you gone?". "Yes, where have you gone?" I wondered, walking around the small cape cod. I kept breathing deeply through my nose trying to hang on desperately to the memories that her smell brought... desperately to her.

***

I met Ruth on a Sunday afternoon.  The grey winter light filtered through the window blinds illuminating her profile.  She talked mostly facing forward in her wheel-chair, very rarely turning to look at me but I still felt her easy familiarity. Listening to her talk made holding the thin hand in my own easier. When she did turn to make eye contact, it was fleeting, almost with a shyness to it.

Ruth talked a lot about her deceased husband and granddaughter.  Maybe it's interesting who people don't talk about, I don't know, but you could tell Ruth was proud of her husband and adored her granddaughter who was probably about my age.
"She comes here and does my laundry and brings me things every week." Ruth shared. "We have a little arrangement my granddaughter and I." Ruth looked at me briefly to share her grin. You could see that she enjoyed a little bit of intrigue in her life.
"Oh yeah?" I encouraged her.
"Yes, I pay her a little bit of money every week but we can't let her father know." 
"That's a nice arrangement for you two..." a groan distracted me and I looked down and rubbed the hand I was holding.  When I looked back up at Ruth new tears were welled in my eyes. Ruth noticed and looked away again to continue the story.
"Once, she and I had lunch together, and she told me that my great-grandson wanted to play ball but she couldn't pay the fee, so I gave her the money.  When her father found out he was mad and made her give it back. So, now we have to be careful."

My two little ones stood half in the room, uncomfortable, unsure. My husband stood leaning against the wall in his easy way except that his face wore worry. Warren stood the closest to Ruth and his gaze shifted between the floor and groans from the bed.  He was solemn and I knew he would remember this day forever.  I was determined not to be afraid for him. I wanted him to learn not be afraid of holding a hand almost a century old, not to be afraid of someone's pain, not to be afraid of age or death, not to be afraid of being human and mortal.

So, I held her hand as Ruth talked. Ruth told me that her husband was a WWII war hero buried in Arlington Cemetery and she was allowed to be buried with him (an extra honor).  Every now and then as the groaning interrupted, or there was the erratic shifting and movements, Ruth would stop talking while my attention fell back to the bed and sometimes she would tell me about it.
"She does that a lot in her sleep."
"Does she sleep a lot?"
"Yes. Lately. But, just a few days ago she was angry and sat up on the side of her bed and threw that chair you're sitting in.  God, I didn't know she was that strong."
A small smile played on my lips.  Yes, she's that strong.

Suddenly, in the middle of her shifting, her eyes opened.
"Look at her." Ruth said. "Look in her eyes, try and talk to her now."
I looked in her face and softly spoke, "Grammy, It's me, Leah."
Her eyes locked into mine briefly and as intense as the look was, it was as if I was looking at her through a veil. In my memory of that moment, her eyes shine golden, though I know her eyes were green. I don't know why the golden... is it my memory playing tricks? Do eyes change in those moments?  I'm almost certain she truly saw me and knew my face, but the veil kept her from me, somehow still here and somehow not.

Her eyes closed again and she muttered some unintelligible things and then went quiet.  Her breathing was slow and labored. She was very thin and Ruth told me that she had stopped eating a few days ago. I had followed her through 3 nursing homes in the last 2 months since she fell in her kitchen, and she had never looked this way.  Soon, my brother and my parents came and I gave up my seat by her bed to them. 

We drove home feeling heavy. My two little boys chattered and teased each other like normal, too young to feel the impending finality. Warren quietly gazed out the window at the grey sky.

The next morning the phone rang.
"Leah?" My mother's pain came through the phone and stabbed me like knife.
 "Grammy's dead.  She died a few minutes ago."
I heard someone sob in the background.
"Mom? Mom?!?"
The phone went dead and so did I inside.

***

There were two other deaths this late winter season.  One a few weeks before and the other a few weeks after my Grandmother.  The other two deaths were solemn and lonely.  They were an Aunt on my Dad's side and an Uncle on my Mother's and both left behind single only children.  I went to visit my Aunt in the hospital a week before she died.  She didn't know then.  She was sitting up in bed and talked about going home and playing cards with her friend.  My cousin tended to her, knowing.
When I went to her funeral, and saw my cousin standing alone there beside the casket... alone,sentinel and poised, I cried.

My Uncle left behind my mother's sister, and her son. This death was a slow creep away from life.  My Uncle was brilliant and accomplished but his beautiful mind became crippled with early onset dementia. At first he would come to family gatherings and be himself but didn't know who most people were.  Then he didn't know where he was or why, but was still his smart and funny self.  Then he started to not make sense and his personality was changing. Finally, he couldn't do basic things, and then he fell.  He was in a nursing home for a week or two before my Aunt wanted to bring him home.

Every one was worried for her when she did that.  How would she manage? In fact she couldn't get him to come out of the car in her driveway and had to call my dad and another Uncle to come help. It was as if he had forgotten how to walk.  They physically carried him into the house and laid him in the bed.  He slept for a long time.  A few nights later, after over 45 years of marriage, my Aunt climbed into their bed beside him for the last time.

All through the funeral, My Aunt leaned heavily into my cousin. The weight of my Uncle's death was heavy on her.  He was buried just several yards away from my Grandmother.  My hand lingered on her tombstone as we passed and new tears joined the ones I had cried for my Uncle.  Monsignor Murphy recited the normal burial prayers over the casket as we all stood circled around it.  My Aunt and cousin sat closely together staring at my Uncle's casket.  I felt somewhat like an intruder into a private moment... the three of them together for the last time.

Monsignor closed his book and went right into a poem from his memory, his gentle voice carried in the quiet cemetery.  I imagined all the dead were listening;

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

I stood their dumbstruck at the beautiful simplicity of the words and wiped my tear stained face again.  But suddenly and abruptly, things were over and my Aunt and cousin were walking back to the car leaving us quickly.  My cousin looked back at his father; worried, unsure.  Helping his mother walk, yet needing his Father.  He looked like a small child looking back out of a car window. My heart jumped into my throat and I was off after them. Imogen bounced in her carrier as I weaved my through people and past tombstones to get to them.  "They just can't leave like that.", I thought. Something just didn't feel right. They were already at the limo and had closed the door but the dead encouraged me on... "Hurry!", they whispered wisely.

I made it to the door and knocked on the black tinted window. If I was an intruder now, I didn't care. My Aunt opened the door and I immediately fell on her in a hug. Finally, she cried hard and my cousin joined the hug.  "Oh Leah", she sobbed, "We all loved him so much."

***

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

***

  

The kids had been fighting about what to name the swan for months.  Everyone else's name was stupid and I was so fed up with it, I started to avoid driving past the pond where the swan was.  It was big pond in our town with a lone swan that had taken up residence among the geese. Today I had to drive past and the boys started up again.  I got angry and yelled at everyone.  Warren sat thoughtful for a moment gazing out the window at the grey sky just like he had that other day. 
Then I said, "I think we should name the swan Helen." 
"Helen?!? Noooooo!" I don't like that name!" said little David on cue with Brody backing him up.  Warren locked his eyes into mine in my rear view mirror; always tuned into me, always perceptive. He said, "Shush David. I like that name.  We'll name the swan Helen."
David continued to protest while Warren studied my face for any sign of pain.
"David," he said, "It's Grammy's name."
David quieted down, considering that fact and then said, "Ok, we'll name the swan Helen... but what if it's a boy?"
I smiled and Warren grinned back.

In the middle of everything, my cat died.  He had been getting sick and skinny and his 16 years of life was wearing very thin on him.  I remember the day I last saw him.  He was outside with us in the back yard laying down near the kids on the swing set.  I watched him slowly heave his body up to standing and moved in his labored walk to the garage and then disappear around the corner.  I never saw him again. 

I cried a lot about that cat.  I don't if it was just too much death in such a short period of time, or the guilt of not seeing him die or finding his body, or just that I was a silly human who loved a cat.  But I decided if there is ever a wise creature in death, it's a cat.  And if there is ever a stupid creature, it's a human witnessing it.

That same day my mom came and dropped off a box from my grandmother's house.  I knew what was in it.  It was a knitted Christening outfit that no one could figure out.  Who had she knitted it for? She hadn't mentioned it to anyone, but everyone decided that I could have it for Imogen.  She, at 6 months old, still hadn't been baptized and it was one more thing to beat myself up about because I had missed my chance to have my Grandmother there. I also wondered if the outfit would even fit.  We tend to Baptize pretty tiny babies and I couldn't imagine that my Grandmother had planned on a six month old wearing it.

I took the box upstairs and sat it on my bed.  I opened it and folded back the tissue paper and lifted up a perfect little knitted white coat/gown and cap.  I brought it to my face and inhaled deeply.  It was her... her smell again.  I put it back in the box quickly.  I wanted to keep her smell as long as possible.  When Imogen woke up from her nap, I got it out again and tried it on her.  It fit perfectly.

When Imogen was baptized and she was wrapped warmly in my Grandmother's smell, warmly in her memory.

***

here is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

***

The night before my Grandmother died, I googled what death looks like.  What I mean is, I wanted to know the signs of impending death in the elderly.  What does it look like when someone is at the end of a long life and a natural death is imminent?  I came across a hospice website out of Hawaii and the language used had a metaphysical tone.  I came to a part regarding food, and how hard it is for loved ones to see food not given in the final stages of life.  This is because we equate food with comfort.  I thought about how Ruth had told me that my Grandmother had stopped eating a few days ago. But the hospice said this, "It is important to remember that as the physical body is dying, the vital organs are shutting down, and nourishment is no longer required to keep them functioning. This is the wisdom of dying, and the body knows exactly what to do."

The wisdom of dying.  The wisdom of dying... those words hung in my brain. And also, "the body knows exactly what to do.". Funny to find that the same words that are used in birth, would be used in death.  Wisdom in the body.  That we are innately wise. 

My mother called to ask if I wanted to say anything at the funeral. I said, yes, though I didn't know why.  I felt close to my grandmother, but I knew we all we did.  She meant so much to me, but she meant so much to all of us.  I knew that I really wasn't any more special to my Grandmother than anyone else in the family, but yet... I felt special.  Maybe that was the point.  If the roles were reversed, and it had been Ruth dying in her bed with her Granddaughter by her side, there wouldn't have been a single person in my family that my Grandmother wouldn't have talked about.

I knew the memory I wanted to speak about.  It was one that so much of my family was in but when I twisted the memory around to their eyes, I knew they didn't see as much as I did from where they were sitting around the table in that favorite kitchen with that little yellow oven. I could see them all there looking at me.  My strong yet sensitive uncles with tears in their eyes.  My Grandmother's smell everywhere, blessedly taken for granted.  Her eyes green, not golden, and full of life and wisdom looking at me through the memory as I walked towards her with my heart beating a million beats per minute. 

But as easily as I could slip into that memory, it easily disappeared and instead I was walking towards her pearly-grey casket and up onto the Alter to follow my brother's eulogy.  There were quite a few priests there, waiting.  One was Monsignor Murphy, who in just two weeks would be reciting that beautiful poem over my Uncle's grave. And there were very many people in the Church including, all the way in the back, my cousin sitting alone with her golden hair against the black and without her mother.

And so I unfolded my paper and dipped myself back into the pensieve and continued with the memory...

I was pregnant with James that day and had just been called into the house by my mother from where I was waiting on the back porch.  I was anxious and full of impending doom waiting to be called in after my mom told my Aunts and Uncles and my Grandmother that I was pregnant.  You don't think about these things until you're in one of these tough situations, but your Grandmother always turns out to be the hardest person to tell. 

But the creaky storm door eventually opened and my mom's face appeared.  I could tell she had been crying and I wanted to throw up. But into the house I went and stood in my Grandmother's kitchen facing them all with their teary eyes and kind, worried smiles... except for one person.  My Grandmother stood by her little yellow oven, not a tear in her green eyes, and her head held high and facing me. "Come here" She said. I made that walk towards her and into her arms for a brief embrace.  She pulled me away and firmly took my face into her hands and looked deeply into my eyes, "It's okay. These things happen."

I could suddenly breath again. My grandmother had taken the weight off of my shoulders and given it up to the world.  No more tears because these things happen. No more gray days because these things happen.  Keep your head high because these things happen. Everything was going to work out because although I was a pregnant teenager, I was her granddaughter first and these things happen.

It's powerful to be loved so well; it's a perfect love. To my Grandmother, before anyone in my family was anything else, they were hers.  Before anything good or bad, or any hurdle or achievement, they were hers... deeply and ultimately hers.  Perhaps that last day, when her eyes opened golden, they were golden with beautiful memories from the deepest recesses of her brain. We lived deep in her heart and her mind, and she in ours.

***

When the memories are vivid and great, the death seems equally as vivid and great.  It's interesting that deep inside our brain, physically near the center, is where our memories are stored and also where our ability to make new memories lies.  On the outside of the brain, in the more vulnerable positions are our sight and speech, motor skills and spatial abilities and even higher cognitive orders.  How interesting that memory is chosen as one of our most valuable human assets to tuck away and protect.

Perhaps the wisdom of dying is in the memories.  That it evokes in us a sense of awareness of them. That they are valuable and worth protecting and yet... we need continue to make new ones, because our shared experiences as humans is our world's greatest asset big and small.  And when our loved ones are dying or losing their memories, we keep vigil for them through our own.  We carry them deep our hearts and deep in our memories through our shared experiences.  Deep in the most protected spot in in the human mind.

Cry, laugh, be angry, be in love, feel the feelings, make the memories, be timeless and yet embrace your transience... for this is the wisdom of dying and being human and mortal is a beautiful thing to be.

  





Chasing the Rainbow

There it was again, that sign about marriage outside my church.  I should have remembered.  Driving past my Church used to be comforting.  I had been baptized there, married there, raised kids there, prayed there, laughed there and cried there.  But now I didn't feel like I belonged there.  I had been sitting at Sunday mass for weeks staring at the stained glass pictures in the windows, watching a silent faceless Jesus do the Stations of the Cross, the Priests' voices always fading into the background as my thoughts took over and my tears would sting my eyes.

Sometimes the sunlight would catch in a prism and rainbows would dance happily across the church. 
"Why are you so happy?" I demanded of the rainbows.
"Where are you taking me? Everything about you is more painful then it should be. Is God's love there? There at the end of the rainbow? Is that where it's hiding?"
They never answered, just kept dancing.

I remember when I was kid, running bare foot through the grass chasing rainbows.  I remember running full speed, my arms pumping, my breath fast and excited.  I remember stopping every so often to gage if I had gained any distance and then eventually stopping all together in defeat. I didn't give up on rainbows until I was old enough to know better.  I should know better now.

How much is a mother's soul worth anyway?  Would you give up a heavenly paradise to love your child so completely and beautifully on earth?  Would a perfect human love be redeeming like in fairy tales where perfect love changes beasts into princes and saves mermaids from evil witches?  Would God open his gates to the soul of mother who was willing to give up everything to love her child perfectly, to value his life on earth so completely and to want everything that is good and human and fulfilling for him. Or in the end is that not enough...

Earlier this week I went with my oldest to his college freshman orientation day.  They split up the kids and parents and I'm sure this was relieving because who wants to do college orientation with their very pregnant mother.  So, I wondered alone through a fair of information tables set up for the parents. Everyone enjoys commenting on the woman with children born 18 years apart and I politely smiled and faked laughed my way through well-meant jokes and comments.  I went in order of the tables and eventually came to a table that didn't seem to be getting a lot of parent visitors.  I looked at the pins, pens, and brochures until a woman manning the table approached me. 

"Hi, this is the LGBTQ organization table." She said as if to make sure I knew where I was.
"I know.", I said matter-of-factly.
"Ok, well my name is Cathy. I help run our campus LGBTQ community. We have weekly meetings and..." She continued to tell me about all the events and community support the group did. We talked a bit.  I saw her eyes switch over from all business with a parent to appreciation of the mother standing in front of her and I left the table with a good amount of brochures and continued on to learn about residence halls.

Nothing ever means much until it's in your life.  You can be sympathetic, sure...an ally, why not.  But to truly feel the ins and outs of something a person is, let it be your own child.  Suddenly everything feels different.  You're not just a friend of a community, you are a parent of the community, you gave birth to the community, you can feel the community because the community is your child, your love, your pain and happiness. Imagine everything that's happening in a situation is happening to your child. That the things they are saying are about him, that he will hear and see these things on social media and feel pain.  Imagine your child in pain feeling like the world thinks these things of him.

I wonder if that's how Mary felt watching her son walk a long road, with a large cross, people jeering at him, insulting him, not understanding his full and complete goodness and worth.  But I can't even relate to religion right now, and that's painful on it's own because I love religion. But it's really not God's fault, it's His humans. I keep hearing about what God wants through them.  But it can't be this way.  God knows humanity, he created it, and he created my son.

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you."  God knew my son before he was in my womb because he created him.  He gave him a divine spark created in His very own image. And God's image is shown in James.  He has a soul to strive for heaven and humanity to love and experience all that is good and earthly. And in that "good and earthly" is love...

***

I started writing that 5 months ago, but those feelings consumed my summer and fall.  I talked often about my anger with my neuropsych.  He self disclosed that he was Catholic and had a gay child.  My husband asked if the neuro was allowed to tell me that.  I said, "Yes. As long as he thinks that it will help the therapeutic relationship."

Therapeutic relationship... I wish we had more of those that we didn't have to pay for.  Instead I felt like every turn of a corner or scroll down social media was filled with emotional terrorists. That's what they are after all.  It's bigger than emotional abuse because it's widespread causing pain and distress.   I'm just some mom, enjoying FB in her quiet moments and BAM some random person from hundreds or thousands of miles away just smacks me with pain so deep that I'm left reeling the rest of the day.  My heart would race and my head would pound from huge stress headaches amplified by my post concussive syndrome from a car accident.

A lot of it is a need to be right... to prove that they know what God wants. Because if they know that, then there is comfort about life.  But righteous comfort is in itself some sort of narcissistic sin.  To think that anyone could even come so close to understanding God that they could feel that sort of comfort doesn't sit well with me. Maybe that's why I'm so painfully uncomfortable, because human uncertainty is my constant companion.

I'm not a fundamentalist and either is my religion. Yes, the Bible is from God, but we were taught that it was written through "inspiration".  That the writers were inspired by God, especially the Old Testament. Writers from an ancient world so very foreign to us today and influenced by surroundings so vastly different.  What would that same inspiration look like today?

I'm not a theologian though, just a mother.  I used to buy into the "Being gay isn't a sin, but homosexual acts are."  That's like saying "Being gay isn't a sin, but having a fulfilling human life is."  See, when it's your child you are rarely thinking about "acts" whether it's same-sex or not.  When you envision a future for child, you imagine love... beautiful, romantic, life-long love.  You imagine them bringing home someone "special" one day.  That person that starts coming on holidays and holding your child's hand.  That person that you will see, in a quiet moment at dinner or sitting on your couch, catch your child's eyes in their own.  That person that you will see at their wedding and proudly hand them off to. That person that gives you comfort that your child will live a happy, fulfilling, love filled life well after you are gone. 

Now imagine people are telling you that your child can't have that.  That God doesn't want that.

No. God made my son in his image and God's image is too spectacular to limit the good possibilities of life... too fantastic to restrict what kind of love he can have... too blindingly brilliant for you to ever feel any kind of righteous comfort...

"Mommy!"

I look up from writing this.  It's my four year standing next to me, a freshly drawn picture in his hand.

"What did you draw, Davey?" I ask, trying to erase the pain from my face and adding an extra dose of fake happiness to my voice.
"I drew our family at the end of the rainbow.  There's James and you holding Imogen, and that's me and Daddy and Warren and Brody."

Oh, what a tricky, smart God we have.  There's my righteous comfort after all... my family, my children, my son... God's love at the end of the rainbow, it was there all along.

The Secret Life of Imogen Anastasia

Hernando: Well, what was it Walter? A Unicorn? Sasquatch?
Walter: the negative?
Hernando: Yeah!
Walter: I didn't look.

This past January, almost exactly 9 months ago I blew out the candles on my 35th birthday cake.  I wished for a daughter and the wish was so real I remember the candles blurring in my teary eyes and the emotions rolling up into my throat. I swallowed them back down quick enough and got on with my life.  Later that evening I sat down with my husband who, for my birthday, promised to watch Joy Luck Club with me. That movie is a great reminder that mother-daughter relationships are hardly sunshine and rainbows, but I love them anyway. Maybe great movies and novels would be the only way I would feel that beautiful pain?

About two weeks later I found out that I was pregnant with my fifth child. I made a decision after my 4th child was born out-of-hospital with midwives, to completely immerse any future pregnancy in midwifery and never look back.  So, for the first 8 weeks I enjoyed the quiet secret knowledge of a new pregnancy before I called my midwife to schedule my first appointment.  I was excited to call them again.  I actually missed them.  I never had that feeling about any of the characters in the parade of obstetricians I had seen. 

My first appointment was at twelve weeks.  I went to the appointment with several questions because this was the first time I would be seen by home birth midwives from start to finish. During my last pregnancy I switched to them at the beginning of the third trimester so I had no experience with first and second trimester care there.  I wanted to know about genetic testing and ultrasounds.  I was leaning heavily towards eschewing both.  The midwives were able to provide/outsource both but the decision was ultimately mine.  Because they worked with a heavily Amish population, my midwives were experienced and capable of working with a technologically "blind" pregnancy.

That was ultimately my decision. I decided that I wanted a completely "old-fashioned" and medically hands-off pregnancy. I mean, pregnancy only recently became highly medical. This decision isn't for everyone, but I had been developing some philosophical and somewhat political views of pregnancy and most importantly, it just felt right for me.

So, I talked to the midwives about what would happen later in pregnancy or at delivery if I had a tricky placenta or a child with genetic or birth defects.  The discussions we had were amazing.  The information they have collected over years of working blind is a treasure I fear no one but other midwives will seek. I really compare it to a blind person, who because of lack of sight, has developed heightened senses.  These midwives, because they are technologically blind, have paid attention and learned things about pregnancy and delivery that others don't have to because they rely on tests, ultrasounds, and monitors.

Personality-wise I'm not a planner and I have a strong internal locus of control.  So, I really have no need to try and control things around myself.  It's much more comfortable for my personality, to take on problems as they occur, and until then, not stress much. This is me. It might not be you, and that's okay.

The other angle of this decision was the gender card.  I have found out the sex of every baby at the 20 week ultrasound. This time, something was calling me to secrecy from myself. It was going to be my last pregnancy and wanted to experience it like pregnancy used to be.  I also wanted to have the daughter dream as long as possible.  At the 20 week ultra-sounds, I had experienced various degrees of gender disappointment.  Then, like mothers do, I beat myself up with guilt for being disappointed.  And finally, after that nonsense, at every delivery when a son was born, all was forgotten and I was as happy in-love as ever.  So, why do all that to myself if I was just going to fall in love at first sight anyway? I decided that this would be secret life... from me and from the world. 

Sean O'Connell: Number 25 is my best ever, the quintessence of life, I think. I trust you'll get it where it needs to go, you always do.

People in the birth world say, "trust birth" a lot.  I say, "trust women".  My midwife is a religious woman and would say, "trust God", but in a round about way she's also saying, "trust women" because she believes that God made womens' bodies strong and perfect and their wisdom over and about their own bodies is mandated by Him and absolute.  Don't interfere with that shit.

We shot ourselves in the foot with technology in pregnancy. For the thousands of years before ultrasounds, the woman was the primary and most important patient. She was the only one who had a relationship with the pregnancy, and everyone else had a relationship with her.  The woman, as the patient, was the one you could see. She was the one you knew. She was the one that would have ripple effects  She was valuable to her husband and children.  You didn't want to loose her, and as cold as this seems now in our highly fetal-sensitive culture, she could almost always have another child.

I also think our early pregnancy testing and ultrasounds have contributed to an increase in mental health issues surrounding reproduction and just a lot of straight-up situational anguish for women.  Ignorance is bliss as the saying goes, and when women and society knew less about early pregnancies, when it was a secret from everyone, those early losses weren't as hard to take and a lot probably went unknown. You may have been labeled "infertile" for a period or a lifetime, and as hard as that may have been to take personally and socially, you didn't have the anguish of thinking your body was constantly loosing "babies" and Google-ing to see eye lids and finger-buds.

My husband trusted me.  I told/asked him, "I'm not going to get any ultrasounds or testing because ______.  How do you feel about that?" "I'm fine with that." Now, I don't want to assume to know how he feels, so I texted him quick.

Me: When it comes to us personally and childbirth which is the most true/important for you. A) I trust my wife. B) I trust birth/the process C) I trust our midwives.
Him: A. Which then leads to the other two in no particular order.

Trust women.


Walter Mitty: When are you going to take it?
Sean O'Connell: Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.
Walter Mitty: Stay in it?
Sean O'Connell: Yeah. Right there. Right here.

So, I stayed right there. Right in resolute secrecy.  I didn't feel movement until about 19 or 20 weeks so the only evidence of this secret life was the VERY occasional prenatal where I would hear the mysterious heart beat and obviously my stomach was growing. This did worry me a little but I wasn't sure what would be done anyway. It was best, I decided, to just stay in this moment. Right there. Right here... to follow the secret to completion no matter what that was.  I believed in the secret life wholeheartedly and found a lot of comfort and peace in it.

After about five months the secret life started to move or I started to feel it move, I should say. We don't know what secrets are doing before they reveal themselves after all.  The outside couldn't feel the secret yet, only me, and a small bond formed.  I have to say something that may make people a little uncomfortable.  I really didn't feel a connection to the secret until then.  I hadn't seen that little peanut with arm and leg buds on an early ultrasound and I hadn't looked at chambers of the heart at 20 weeks.    I had had maybe 2 or 3 prenatals by that point so hearing the heart beat for that few seconds was far and few between.

I didn't connect until the secret revealed it's presence in a very physical way. I was well into the second trimester and almost to the point of viability. Is that the natural, healthy point for a woman to connect? Have we snooped and spied into the secret territory of God and/or mother nature? Are we forcing women to connect too early now? Maybe.

In a few weeks the secret made itself known to dad's hands as well and since I didn't have ultrasound pictures to frame or put on Facebook, the secret life was really only known to our family.

We entered the summer and one day I was sitting on bleachers at Warren's baseball game.  A mom friend of mine asked me if I felt any way about the gender.  I didn't. I honestly had no clue or innate "feeling" about it.  I don't really operate that way anyway, but if I based the pregnancy on the four boy pregnancies I had, I would say it felt like a boy because everything felt the same again.  I told her that, and she responded that she had been thinking about me randomly and really hoped that I had a girl because she felt that I would be a "really great mother to a daughter".  I teared up immediately.  One of my biggest fears/insecurities (and it has been played upon when people want to hurt me) was that I was given sons because I wasn't built to be a good mother to girls.

I felt an interesting connection to this mom for the rest of my pregnancy, like God was watching me through her eyes.  In fact, the very hour that I began active labor she woke up from sleep and wondered about me and said a prayer.

Another interesting thing is that my mom didn't dream about the gender.  For EVERY one of my previous pregnancies, my mom had a dream about the baby were the gender was revealed in the dream and she was always right.  This time she hadn't said anything so I asked, "Did you have a dream about the baby yet?" "Yep," she said. "Well, what is it? Did you learn the gender?" "Nope." Weird. Even a secret in dreams.

So, the summer plugged on.  People were interested left and right in the lady with four sons who had a secret fifth pregnancy.  Family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers where invested for me to have a girl. It felt great.  I don't mind the gender questions, "Are you hoping for a girl?" "Absolutely!" "Well, I be thinking about you! I really hope you have a girl!"  I am 100% secure in my love for my sons.  I love them as fully and completely and as painfully unconditionally as I can.  So, I have no insecurity or guilt about wanting a daughter. None.

Sean O'Connell: They call the snow leopard the ghost cat. Never lets itself be seen.
Walter Mitty: Ghost cat.
Sean O'Connell: Beautiful things don't ask for attention.

I even had the Amish rooting for me.  Often, I am the only English (non-Amish for youse outside of Amish country) woman in the waiting room at my midwife's office.  The Amish ladies almost always come in pairs and groups and always seem to know all the other Amish ladies there. So, they mostly talk amongst themselves in plat-deutsch.  One day in July I sat down next to an Amish woman who was very unusually curious about me.  She wanted to know where I was from, how many kids did I have, what did I have (boys or girls), etc.  When she found out that I had 4 sons and wanted a daughter, she smiled with understanding and I noticed that the chatter of the waiting room had died down and when I looked, the other Amish ladies where smiling too.

The Amish value a quality called, Gelassenheit. It's often translated as "submission" or "letting-be" and some English synonyms would be - calmness, composure, or letting go. Gelassenheit is at odds with our strong American value of "individualism". The Amish submit to the will of Jesus and community and a lot of their cultural norms and religious doctrine and values come from this.  It's also in their was of "being". I see it in these women I would encounter in the waiting room and I hear of it in their pregnancy styles.

That's what I wanted for the secret life, Gelassenheit.  So, when my two friends, both pregnant and due within a week of me, faced various issues, Gelassenheit kept me calm and steady. Gelassenheit let me hear of a new baby's death with sorrow yet without fear. Gelassenheit kept me joyful and stress-free about my pregnancy until the very end.  I kept steady with the secret life.

Walter: Todd, I have to go. I have to make oxygen choices here.

So, when I first felt some sporadic contractions early Sunday morning I kept calm and watchful. I calmly told my husband that things might be starting. The contractions didn't really seem to be coming together into an active labor pattern, so David and I did normal things, laundry, shopping, cooking with an air of "waiting" about us. We both knew that the secret was coming.

Then around 4 am on Tuesday morning, things came together.  My contractions were consistently 10 min apart.  At 6 am I woke David and told him that it was time. That we would have to start heading to the midwife after we took Warren to school.  He got right out of bed and into the shower. He packed the car and helped me get the kids ready.  After we took Warren to school, we took David Jr. and Brody to my parents house.  Then we headed out.

"How fast do you want me to drive?" David asked. "Just drive normally." I answered. The ride went smoothly.  I labored in the car well and went through male saints names on my phone with my husband because we hadn't completed a boys name.  We picked a middle name and then suddenly switched the name around because we liked the middle name so much we made it the first name.  We finished and fist-bumped on it 2 miles from the midwife.

We checked in with everyone and this time we were given a huge room in the B&B with a private bath and huge sunk-in tub. The midwives wanted to listen to the baby and get my vitals, then they asked if I wanted to be checked.  I actually did want to be checked.  With the prodromal labor I had I was curious.  So we found out that I was 4 cm, 100% effaced, bulging bag of waters, and baby was at 0 station. I felt great about that and wanted to go outside and walk around since it was such a warm fall day. 

David and I walked around the B&B gardens and then even wandered down the road to a farmers market.  I would stop and lean into him during contractions and he would rub my lower back.  When we got back to the B&B it was 2pm and we were both hungry.  David searched for somewhere that I could get a turkey sandwich and off we went in the car.  I labored smoothly again during the ride and enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful farms everywhere. We sat down at a table at the restaurant and I was glad the hostess sat us away from people.  I gripped the table during contractions and chatted and ate in between them like nothing was going on.  As we were finishing I noticed that they were harder and getting closer so I told him we should get back.  The ride back to the B&B was definitely harder.  I had to have the window down and when the car took turns it was pretty awful.

It was 4pm when we got back to the B&B and I sat on the birth ball while David snoozed on the bed.  I took a picture of him and sent it to friends saying, "My view while laboring".  I got sleepy and tried to lay down next time him when my water broke with a huge pop and it totally freaked me out for a second. I woke David up and he got the midwives.  They changed the sheets and helped me into dry clothes.  Then I sat on the ball and labored a little longer.  With each contraction, more amniotic fluid came spilling out and I decided that the tub would be better.

The midwives filled the tub and I got in.  The warm water felt great at first, but then I was hot and uncomfortable and my contraction were so intense and right on top of each other.  I felt myself pushing and told them I needed to get out of the tub. They had the birth stool there in a flash and I sat down on it with David behind me, just like when we had Brody and I started to push.  I was checked and I was 10 cm and baby was +2 station. My pushing felt out of control and I felt like mentally I wasn't handling it as well as before.  But after a couple of pushes the midwife told me to feel my baby's head.  I couldn't do it. I couldn't move my hands from where they were gripping the birth stool.

But as intense as it was, in just 4 minutes of pushing, at 7:17 pm, the secret life was born. After a simple, calm, free pregnancy and a relaxed, secure labor and delivery, I had a baby in my arms. But what was it? There was towel on the baby hiding the sex and I was already in love like I knew I'd be... but what was it? I didn't care right away.  I was looking into those alert little eyes and marveling at what a fantastic secret it had been.  I eventually wanted to look and with David looking over my shoulder, I pulled back the towel.

And Imogen Anastasia was a secret no more...

The Last of the Mohicans

I’m a yeller. While Teddy Roosevelt "speaks softly and carries a big stick", I, "Yell loudly and carry a passionate heart."  I recently got in a fight with my parents. I can’t tell you what it’s about.  It’s a heavy topic about myself that I keep locked in my heart with other people’s heavy secrets that have been confided in me.  But I will tell you this: Most of the time, I keep secrets to not hurt others but every once in awhile, when I'm seriously provoked, they explode out like a bullet. These secrets I keep are heavy on my heart.  They sit there like a heavy drum with a slow beat sometimes messing up the natural rhythm of my heart. I don’t think some people can handle it like I can, that's why keep it private.  Not everyone can handle a heavy drum beat.  Some hearts might completely stop with something messing with its rhythm.  Mine goes on, I know it will, and sometimes I am resentful of the hearts I protect.

A few years ago, when I was pregnant with my third child and I had a paying job, I went on a business trip to Salt Lake City.  I hadn’t told anyone at work I was pregnant yet.  In Salt Lake, I met Erica, a colleague that I had previously only had contact with via phone and email.  But we liked each other and had talked enough to already have a small friendship.  I knew Erica’s real passion was her “inner-eye”.  She was a self-proclaimed mystic and I thought she was neat. 

When we were alone in a conference room she said, “I will tell you your secret and then tell you mine.”

“Uh… ok?” I replied, confused. 

“You have two auras right now” Erica said, “Have you told anyone at work yet?”

I was floored.  She knew I was pregnant! I was only 8-10 weeks and not showing at all. “Holy shit! No, I haven’t!”

“I won’t say anything. Do you want to know? Do you want to know the sex?”

“You can see that?”

“Yes. Do you want me to tell you?”

 I couldn’t help it.  I had to know what she would say.

“It’s a boy." She continued, "The second aura is male.” 

About 7 months later I left work to take care of my third baby boy. Erica left to become a professional seer.

However, before we both left the boring world of intellectual property law, we met up one more time when she came to the home office. This time, Erica asked me if I wanted to do a past-life hypnosis with her. “A what?” I asked. Basically she would hypnotize me and take me back through my memories all the way to birth and “beyond” to see if there were any memories from before.  Let me stop you here to let you know what my teenage son said with a knowing twinkle in his eye when he heard this, “That doesn’t sound very Catholic, mom.” Nope. No it doesn’t.

Anyway, I said yes. She made it sound very non-threatening for me. I didn't have to believe in it. I didn't have to think it was real. I could just think it was dreams or made up stuff in my mind, but if I learned something interesting it was worth it for both of us.  That sounded fine to me.

I sat on the couch with my eyes closed at another coworkers house who was also game.  Erica starting speaking and telling me to picture a light a follow it.  She directed me to picture various stages of my life and continue to follow the light through time.  Her voice started to fade and memories came into and out of focus. It was peaceful and chaotic at the same time.  I was still following the light.  Erica's far away voice told me to picture my birth. All I saw was brightness and then darkness and then the light again.  I was still following the light and there were no more memories but I felt like I was moving fast. It was like driving at high speed through a dark tunnel that I had never driven through before. 

The tunnel ended, the light disappeared, and Erica's voice was gone. All there was was trees. Trees were everywhere.  It was warm and woodsy and I felt at home and comfortable.  I was walking through the forest, light- footed and happy.  My feet were calloused inside my leathery shoes, my skin tone was different and my hair long and dark. But it was all mine, the body felt comfortable.

I felt like I had spent most of the day alone in the woods and was walking home. I didn't know where that was but I knew we were going there.  I was weirdly both passenger and driver and I just went with it.  Suddenly there were people. Everyone vaguely looked the same. They were all busy working but I was still light-footed and happy.  No one talked to me.  Some people looked up and smiled at me as I passed, some looked at me and were stern. I didn't care either way. I had such a free heart, it was as light as my feet.  I saw a man in the distance eating and looking out towards me.  Even though he was older and sitting I could see his large stature and stately dress.  I knew him and I picked up my pace to get to him.

But before I got there, before I could even see his face clearly, the memories shifted and I was laying down on a bed.  It was dark with an orangey glow inside a round structure filled with faces looking at me.  They were the same kind of faces from before, all vaguely similar like a huge extended family; men, women, children, I knew them all.  I was aware that I was old... and dying.  Some of the faces were weeping, some looked anxious, some wore a stoic face, some were confused.  I felt fine, kind of content and at peace, a little sorry to go and a little looking forward to it.  I smiled at the people around me, and I could feel my weathered face crinkling and was aware of how tiring it was to even do that.

There was a drum beat.  It was strong and rhythmic and outside my heart.  I became aware that this woman had a heavy heart as well, filled with secrets she was taking to with her.  I listened to the drum and could feel her concentrating on it while she looked at the people gathered around her.  She could feel the beat in her body and as she let it take over, her heart got lighter until she felt like she was walking, carefree and light-footed again. The secrets stayed behind, lost in the beat.

The rhythmic drum ended and I could feel the couch beneath me again. I sat for a bit before I opened my eyes. When I did, there was Erica casually watching me.  She smiled at me knowingly and I felt a little exposed. "What did you see?" she asked. I told her about the Native American woman, the village, the stately man, and the death scene. I started out apprehensively, kind of like I was telling a crazy story.  But Erica listened like it was perfectly normal, "It sounds like you were someone important to that tribe, like a Chief's daughter."  "I know." I replied, "But there is no way I'm going home and telling my husband that I saw myself as an Indian Princess in a past life.  I will never hear the end of it. 'OH! (dripping with sarcasm) Your an Indian Princess now?!?! No wonder you think you don't have to do any housework!'" 

When I got to the death scene Erica leaned in a little closer.  She said people don't usually see deaths in past-life memories and she had a lot of questions for me. I told it her it wasn't a dramatic death. It was the death we all hope for... old and well-lived and surrounded by people who love us.  I had the impression that she had had many children, and thus many grandchildren and maybe great-children.  There were husbands of daughters and wives of sons, all present and all knew her well.   Her own husband was long gone and she had done everything expected of a well-born woman in the tribe.  She had lived long and strong and justly.  She had known all the greats... great pain and great love, great happiness and great sorrow, great decisions and great fate.  And I knew at that moment, watching this woman die, that these are the things that make a life "great".

I thought about this experience for a long time after and I still think about it today.  It's difficult for me because I don't really believe in this stuff and as my son pointed out, it's not very Catholic.  So, I've kind of married the two in my brain. That somehow God had taken my hand and led me on this journey and showed me a woman with whom I could see human strength in a pretty basic and uncomplicated life.  That pain and secrets and heavy hearts are part of the human condition and that when it's over you leave it behind.  And even though these people were not monotheistic, God was still there.  He was in that spiritual drum beat comforting this woman and welcoming her to walk happy and light-footed to Him.

I was thinking about this woman and my secrets as I stared out the window of the garage while my car was getting it's oil changed.  David and Brody were running around playing.  I was lost in thought and not paying attention as usual.  One of them knocked over a small tire display and I was brought back to my reality.  I quickly switched gears and gently reprimanded them while we put the tires back.  Then I sat and played with them.  We smiled and laughed. I let them get drinks from the water cooler a hundred time because they think the handle spout is fun.

Brody spilled water on the floor while I was doing something with David.  The garage manager, Ricci came over with paper towels and was already quietly cleaning up the water when finally saw him. "Oh, jeez. I'm sorry. I didn't even know. You don't have to clean it up, I can do it." "I know you can, Mami", replied Ricci, "But I wanted to do it for you. Come on over with me, your car is done and the bill is ready. Let's get you out of here."

I followed him over and he continued to talk. "You remind me of my mom back in Puerto Rico, and the other moms there when we were all kids.  They would laugh and smile and play but if you caught one in a quiet moment, when they thought no one was looking, you could see the seriousness of them.  They were always keeping something, protecting someone even if no one really needed protection. But they always knew how to live, how to enjoy life, how to show everyone it's ok to have joy and sadness, ya' know?"  "Yeah, Ricci, I know what you mean." I had brought my car to him for years, but this was the first time I had really seen him, yet I got the impression he had been seeing me for a while. 

"People aren't strong like that anymore." He continued. "They don't have good examples of how people are.  I try to remember my mom when I have heavy stuff to think about and I have a lot of that.  You do too, I know." "Yes." I said simply, still looking at him deeply. He continued, "People get consumed with hard stuff too quickly. You can't let that shit happen.  You have to keep living life.  People like you and me, Leah, we're like the last of the Mohicans."  I smiled at him and thought, "More than you know, Ricci, more than you know..."

 

Happiness is a Warm Gun

He was looking at me with his gray eyes while I was driving, his little head on the arm rest, eyes gazing as usual. I was trying not to look back at him too much. Instead I had one hand lingering on his furry body, playing with his ears, rumpling his head, or just resting it on his torso.  "He was such a good car dog.", I thought, but then caught myself, "He IS a good car dog. He will being enjoying car rides for long time."

Two months prior, I had picked up this little 5 week old puppy. He was skinny and covered in ringworm.  I remember how I placed him gingerly on a towel on the passenger seat and when I drove away from the vet's office, he did everything his tiny body could to get to me. He ended up in a ball on my lap with his head resting against my stomach, gazing up at me. For the short time of his life with me, in any quiet moment he would gaze at me. It was like he was always watching my face trying know what my meaning was to him.

He had been dumped with 2 litter-mates at a vet's office and I volunteered to foster him thru a local pit bull rescue group. As he gained weight and his fur grew back into the bald ring-worm patches, he became the shiny coated "blue-nose" pit bull puppy that would get a lot of attention.  He was all gray except for a white chest, white socks, and a little white stripe on his nose, and he was all puppy. 

Even though he had a formal adoption name, I defaulted to calling him "Poocher". It was a vague and kind of detached name, yet still cute for a puppy. Poocher was work.  I swear I went through a 12 pack of paper towels every week.  I was constantly cleaning up pee and poop and I kept a spray bottle of cleaner everywhere.  He seemed to have developed an amazing ability to pee under his crate from inside of it.  I wouldn't even know it was there until hours later when it would dry and stink to high hell.  The dog rescue hooked Poocher up with a dog food so fancy and nutritious it was probably healthier than most things my kids ate.  But god it made his crap smell. An entire city block would smell after this dog pooped one of his incredibly healthy and expensive poops.

We came to find out that Poocher loves shoes.  Shoes are everywhere in this house. It must have been heaven for Poocher. Shoes of every shape and size all are all over the place... and interesting ones too! Fireman rainboots, cowboy boots, moon boots, velcro sneakers that light-up, Nike's with neon shoelaces, Toms, sandals, flip-flops, heels, Robeez... everything. I was constantly on shoe patrol.

Our resident family dog, Petey, had a lot of fun with Poocher...except in the mornings. Petey isn't a morning dog. The whole house is moving in the morning except for Pete who snoozes the morning away.  Poocher, on the other hand, couldn't wait for the sun to peak over the horizon.  I would let him out of his crate and he would bee-line to Petey's bed, like an annoying little brother, and jump all over him.  Petey would lie still and let out a low growl. So, I added "keeping Poocher alive" to my morning routine.

Poocher also added some family stress.  My husband was tolerant but slightly annoyed with another of my "do-gooder" projects, and was almost completely hands off about helping with the Puppy.  The little kids started out extremely excited to have a puppy in the house, but over the weeks as Poocher grew, they went from fighting over who got to hold him to yelling, "Get this puppy away from me!!!!!" My teenager got so annoyed with dog pee, that at one point he got angry/serious and lectured me saying, "I don't think bringing home a foster puppy was good for our family right now."

In the middle of all this, I ran across this John Lennon quote on FB:

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. 

People seem to love this quote.  I don't.  I think they're the words of a self-indulgent person. (I love the Beatles. I can sing every Beatles song by heart, but let's call a spade a spade) Happiness is the key to life? Get the eff out of here. Is happiness really the meaning of our existence? Is that what we should all be striving for in life? Happiness is of course important in life, but the KEY? I can't think that that should be true.  What vapid meaningless creatures we must be.

Why the hell did I take this foster puppy? It sure didn't make me happy a lot of the time.  It was hard and frustrating and at the end of the day it wouldn't be my dog to show for it.  I would put in this time and energy and off he would go.  And this car ride that Poocher and I were doing right now, God it was hard.  I know I wasn't going to feel happy when we got our destination.  And it wouldn't end there, afterwards there was going to be some anxiety, some painful worrying. What a freaking mess.

Poocher shifted in his seat and sat up alert, like he could feel my anxiousness.  He took his eyes off of me and faced forward like a brave little soldier, just accepting that being around me was good, that whatever we were doing was okay, because I was doing it with him.  I had been his care-taker for almost all of his short life so far and being with me was all he knew.

It wasn't all I knew though.  I was human.  I was blessed and cursed with great intellect and deep oceans of feelings. I could see it all for this puppy and me and I refused to allow the key to my life be happiness.  The key to my life is and always will be, goodness.

Happiness can be a by-product of doing good but not always. It's an extra in human existence.  Just a sweet, sweet icing on the cake but certainly not the "key".  I can't imagine how terrible our world would be if everyone went around seeking happiness as the "key" to their lives.  It's already a problem.  I guarantee it's one of the reasons we have more anxiety, depression, and addiction.  Everyone thinks they need to be seeking happiness all of the time and when they do stuff and it doesn't bring happiness it drives them deeper into self despair.

Like parenting... how many people out there distress themselves about being happy with their kids?  Like - I'm not happy enough, my kids aren't happy enough, parenting isn't making me happy enough, I must be a bad parent since I'm not happy enough.  Let my tell you something, and this is the real key to life - You aren't meant to be happy all of the time, it's okay not to be happy all of the time, your meaning on this planet is not based on your happiness.  Now, go be free... go be free to find goodness. That's where you are going to find the "key" to life, happiness or not.

In those moments when you are not happy in life, it will okay if you have goodness because even without happiness there is substance there. And when your cake gets iced with happiness, it will exceed your wildest dreams when using the correct key to life.  Take the happiness key off your key chain. It's the wrong key.  Open the door with goodness and happiness will come.  Not every door you open will have happiness behind it, but if you open it with the right key, it will be okay.

Now, Don't get me wrong.  There's nothing wrong with doing things that make you happy just for happiness sake. Those times are like taking a breather.  They are good for us. My beef is with happiness being the KEY to life.

If you run around with your happiness key, you will only be opening the same door to constantly get to happiness.  At best life will be selfish, empty, indulgent and at worst it will be a tragedy. People using this key will say, "I really need to work on myself and my happiness."  "I can't worry about other people right now, I need worry about what makes me happy." John Lennon used the happiness key a lot and I'm sure his first son would have a lot to say about what it meant to have a parent fixated on being happy. And what if you suffer from depression or anxiety and you keep trying to use your happy key to open that same old door, and happiness doesn't come? What then? Tragedy.

I reached over and put my hand on Poocher's back.  We were nearing our destination.  He felt the comfort of my touch and turned toward me again, his little whip of a pit bull tail wagging. We came to a stop light and I finally looked at him.  Having my eye contact only made Poocher's tail wag faster and my heart feel heavier. God I wasn't happy.  Maybe I should concentrate on my own happiness more. Wouldn't life be easier without all this noise? Easier? Is that what I really want?

Maybe John Lennon had a teacher who didn't want an easy answer.  When they asked that question, maybe they wanted answer that showed depth and concern for the world around him. Maybe they wanted an answer that was some form of "I want to do good in this world!" Maybe that's why they pressed him for a better answer. Maybe someone wanted him to think, be challenged, be uncomfortable.  But instead he probably went home to a mother who said, "Oh Johnny! I want you to be happy! You deserve to be happy! That's all that's really important in life, my love, your happiness!"

I parked along a tree lined street in front of a big lovely house with a big green lawn.  I knew who was in there... a family of 3 and another dopey fun-loving pit bull. I sat in my car with Poocher. I dared to look at him again and fought tears.  I patted my lap, the signal he was waiting for, and he leaped across the center console onto me.  He was everywhere... in my hair, nipping my ears, licking my face and in return I wrapped my arms around him and covered him in the closest hug I could.  My little ward could never get enough affection and he ate it all up completely oblivious that this was our last real moment.

Two tears had managed to escape and I wiped them with the sleeve of my shirt.  This was the plan. I was never going to keep this dog.  I spent weeks telling him, "You don't belong to me, you know" while I half-grinned at his puppy affection for me. I have a 100 pictures of him on my phone that I knew I was going to run across from time to time and feel regret. At night he would sit with me on the couch while my husband worked late and when the kids played too rough he run to me and hide between my legs. And the quiet gazing, "Who are you?" "I'm nobody, little creature, I'm just a rest stop on your path to happiness."

I picked him up and got out of the car holding him.  I set him on the sidewalk and when I stood up, there was his family on the porch waiting for him. They waved at me, beaming. God they looked happy and I was envious of the feeling. Poocher noticed them and happily trotted all of the way up the path to say hello.  I followed reluctantly at the other end of his leash, two beings juxtaposed with each other.  I definitely was out of place in the middle of all this blatant happiness.

When it was over, I gave him one last hug and let him nip my ears a little.  Then I walked back to my car.  I didn't want to look back but I did, and there he was at the end of his leash pulled in my direction gazing again at me intently, "Where are you going?" I turned away and put my sunglasses on before anyone would see the tears that were blinding me. "Go little creature" I thought, "Go forget about me and be happy.  Make your life about being happy. That is a luxury you can afford and that's why for me, this will have been good."

***

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The Psychic

"Oh my God!" my husband yelled.  In the split second before my head continued at 45 miles an hour into the back of my husbands seat, I saw bright head-lights and then heard the seemingly deafening sound of metal and glass crashing.  Then it was quiet, a few moments of weird quietness before the kids starting crying and my husband started yelling to us, "Is everyone ok!?!?!" My eyes drifted to the rear-view mirror and I locked eyes with myself.  "No! I'm not ok! I need to go to the hospital!" My husband and James looked at me.  James immediately started dialing 911 and I looked one last time at the blood running down my face and the grotesque lump that was growing at a weird rate on my left temple. 

Neighbors around the accident came running out to help.  A women with a pretty and pleasant face (so pleasant, that concern didn't quite look right on it) appeared and opened my door urging me to get out of the car.  I couldn't.  I just couldn't move.  The pain was crazy.  And when I say crazy, it was the worst pain I have every felt.  This is coming from someone who has had med-free child birth, 2 C-section recoveries and fought gall-bladder attacks for 5 years. The pain paralyzed me with fear and I was shaking all over.   The pleasant women stayed with me until the EMT's arrived and had me in the truck.  While we waited, she talked to me like we were meeting for coffee... how many kids did I have? Ages? Schools? Etc.  I don't like small talk, and it seemed weird and foggy at the time.  I wasn't even sure she was real, like, who has small talk with someone with a busted, bleeding face? But now I figure that she was just trying to keep me coherent and calm.

In the Ambulance the 2 EMT's were like good-cop and bad-cop.  Good cop was a handsome black man, with kind eyes and long pretty dread-locks pulled back from his face, bad-cop was an angry white women with short blonde hair.  Good-cop hovered over me and asked me questions and then bad cop wanted to insert a heploc.   I told her "no", that I hated needles and IV's.  She was adamant that I get one.  I asked if we could just wait until we got to the hospital and see if I needed one or not. We went back and forth.  Good-cop followed her with his eyes while he gently wiped the blood out of my eye. She was getting annoyed, I was getting nauseous... she won.

When we got to the ER and they got me out of the truck and handed me off to the hospital staff, I quietly, through the pain and nausea said, "Thanks guys." Bad-cop smiled and said, "Your welcome." All was forgiven.

A month and a half later, I followed Warren out the kitchen side door into the brilliant summer sunshine and I immediately flinched.  I am currently doing concussion therapy 4 times a week and sunshine is like battery on my eyes.  The air was cool for mid-July and it felt good. Warren, with his closely cropped, platinum blonde summer hair and deep brown tan (I mean honestly, the kid couldn't be any blonder or any tanner), raced to the front of the house where our neighbor Ben was having a yard sale.  Warren loves yard sales.  He had a Ziploc sandwich bag full of change and he quickly buzzed from table to table like a little honey bee.  I paged through a thick book of herbs and asked how much it was when I noticed the big sign, "Psychic Readings $10"

Ben's girlfriend sat in front of the sign in a red sundress across from an empty chair. I don't know if it was the wad of bills stuck in her bra-strap, or the boldness of anyone with wild ginger curls and milky white skin to wear red, but I plopped myself down in the empty chair and asked, "So how does this work?" "Well" She began, "I am going to ask you to close you eyes and I will have you picture certain things in your mind and then ask questions about it."  "Ok, Let's do it.", I was game.

"Okay", she began, "Close your eyes.  Now imagine you're walking down a road..." Immediately into my dark mind, a road appeared.  It was a dirt "wagon-wheel" road surrounded by meadow.  "Are you with anyone or are you alone?" I'm alone. My hand reached out and I let the tall grass tickle my open palm.  Insects buzzed, and although it was sunny, I could look everywhere clearly.  The road was relatively straight but went up and down in little hills every now and then, but nothing so big that I couldn't see over it and into the distance beyond.

"Now imagine you are walking along this road and you come across a key. Where is the key? What does it look like? I find a key.  It's a boring brassy little house key just floating in midair, kind of Harry Potter-ish. "What do you do with it?"  I immediately reach out and take it my hand. I see it in my palm and put it in my pocket.

"Now keep walking.  Next you come across a cup.  What does it look like? What's inside of it? What do you do with it?"  I keep walking and come across a glass of water.  The glass is crystal clear, cleaner than any glass my family has ever owned.  The water sparkles in the sunshine. I am suddenly very thirsty and want to pick it up and drink it.

"Now you come across a tree. Describe the tree." My tree appears along the road.  It's alone and beautiful.  Like a pretty story book tree with hole in it.  The wood is rough and grayish and the leaves a brilliant green.  I stop and look at it. I like the contrast of the rough bark against the smooth leaves.  I let my hand touch the rough bark and I briefly let a leaf slide between my fingers, but I don't dare take it. I hate pulling leaves off of trees. Then I keep walking.

"Next you come across a wall.  The wall goes as a high as you can see and stretches across to the right and left completely. A giant stone wall appears. Even though it is looming and infinite, it doesn't feel foreboding.   I know the stone is cool without even touching it, but I do.  I feel the cool grey stones and let my fingers curl into the mortar between them. I look up into the nothingness. "What do you do?" I decide to walk alongside the wall, letting my left hand drift and drag along it.  "But what if you can't find an end? What then?" I stop.  I decide to turn around and find the path and head back the way I came.

So, what becomes of all of this?  Well, the road has been my view of life so far, the key is how I perceive the future, the cup is my definition of love and relationships (both romantic and friendly), the tree is how I view sex and attraction, and the wall... the wall is death. She explains all of this to me and goes over what my answers mean. I actually really enjoyed it.  It didn't seem as much psychic as psychological.  I asked her what she did as her day job. "I'm an insurance agent" Is that what you've always done? "No, I majored in psychology."

Two themes seemed to stick out the most, simplicity and transparency. She talked about how much I hate being lied to.  And yeah, everyone hates being lied to, but basically once I label someone as a liar they are as good as dead.  I told her that there was no big lie told in my life but I did hate liars, and I had literally just been lied to that week. Nothing big. I mean, A friend showed a picture I posted on FB to someone.  It was basically a picture of this other mom on the team being a finish judge in a skimpy bikini top and little cut-off jean shorts and drinking beer on the job.  I know, I know... classy! It was a distance shot, so you couldn't see her face.  She literally looked like a random wax figure of Barbie's older sister.

After the picture was shown, I was technically criminally assaulted by a 6ft tall Amazon women (I'm 5"3, I literally look like a hobbit next to her).  She was in my face, tripping over Brody in his stroller and I was flooded with the smell of Corona while she screamed, "I'm going to fuck you up!" and that I should, "watch my back." (it turned out that Barbie's sister was so drunk she had to leave her car there. Who get's wasted at a children's swim meet? I mean, I know they're boring and all, but just bring a book or something) And then I asked my friend straight-out if she showed the picture and she answered "no" when she really had. This was like a back-stabber friend type lie.  Those feel like you are just driving along in your car, and someone makes a random left hand turn into you and you plow right into them.  It's all so very unexpected and you sit there for a minute in a dizzy fog thinking, "Did that just happen?".

I didn't want to be driven anywhere after the accident.  I was scared to be a passenger.  Once or twice I got so scared and anxious I cried.  It was easier to be the driver, but even that was hard.  I forced myself to be a passenger though.  I couldn't let my anxiety grow and get out of control, so I immediately started "flooding" myself.  It worked pretty well.  My anxiety reached it's peak a few times and then came back down and It started to get easier. 

I have a pretty strong internal locus of control, and that was shaken up a bit by the fact that you can't control what other people do and therefor your destiny isn't completely within your control.  Like, for reals! There was nothing we could have done to prevent that accident.  And there's nothing you can do to prevent some people from turning on you.  If they are gonna turn they just will, whether they are making a left turn or making a lie.

So, I'll just continue to walk my simple path with the small hills, key in my pocket, and looking for a drink of crystal clear water in a clean glass cup.

Flags Flapping

Two monks were arguing about a flag.  "The flag is flapping," said one. "No," said the other, "the wind is flapping." The argument went back and forth.  The Master happened to be passing by.  He told them:  "Not the wind, not the flag; your minds are flapping."

"Let me hold the baby for you while you do your homework.". I looked up from reading this little metaphor in my textbook.  My mom was standing over me, hands outstretched. "Sure. Thanks!"
I said as she was already lifting a smiley Brody off my lap. It was more of a statement than a question anyway.  Gosh that question.  I had first heard it 16 years ago, when I was finishing high school with a new baby. "Let me hold the baby for you while you do your homework." My mom had said it many times. It made me smile to hear it again at 34.

I've been getting burn-out on motherhood lately. Not my own, just everyone else's.  Sometimes I just want to lock myself in my house, turn off all the social media, and relish in the crazy natural survival-ness that is my family. There is too much over-analyzing and second guessing and just pure agonizing out there.  A little bit of this is good and natural I think.  It keeps you on your toes in your vocation as Mother or Parent.  It's kind of Adlerian - Alfred Adler, one of the most important  psychodynamic theorists of our time believed that humans were motivated by inferiority.  He would have a field day with mothers today! But when it get's out of hand, it's just exhausting for you... and for me and I don't have time to be any extra exhausted.  I have survival exhaustion and I don't need any neurotic exhaustion.

There is also a lot of extremism out there and with it comes a lot of anger and depression.  A lot of words like this.... must, best, preferred. A lot of people standing around with different opinions of what makes the flag flap or what way to make it flap best. Or even just people wrestling with their own opinion and keeping up with it.  I actually had to take a break from some FB groups like this.

Now some of this comes from perspective that I have and I will share with you.  I have four flag poles in my front yard with 4 lovely, different and richly colored flags flapping at different speeds and with varying levels of ferocity.  The first pole was set up when I was 17 and James was born.  At that young age I hoisted his flag.  It was plainer than it is now and closer to the ground on the pole. I could only hoist it so far and as time went on the flag went higher and became more colorful.  Now there's only a little bit of line for me to hoist before it's all the way to the top.  But God is that flag colorful and flapping proudly and I often revel in it's beauty.

I can't believe how beautiful it is in fact! How could that be? I didn't spend a lot of time analyzing what was making the flag flap... I couldn't! My parent's had barely finished hoisting my own flag and yet there I was with a new flag of my own. I was very much in survival mode when James was born and I had a young, care-free mind.  I did the best I could at being a mother and a lot of that time was spent surviving and laughing.  Somehow this kid grew quite excellently in both body and mind.  I didn't stress much about what he ate, what he was learning, what he was watching, what his grades were.  I just didn't.  It wasn't because I didn't care.  I cared very much, but I was so young that I didn't know what little things to care about. I didn't know to stand there and wonder what was making the flag flap, it just was.  You know the old saying, "ignorance is bliss"? It's true.  I was offered the ability through my youth and ignorance to just experience how much flags color and flap on their own.  All I had to do was be there to hoist it and marvel at it.

Now that I'm a "normal" aged mother, I do pay more attention to more things because I know more.  But when I mess up, or life get's too busy to care about raw milk that week or washing cloth diapers, I just don't beat myself up about it.  Sometimes I may give the wrong explanation for something to a child or spend too much time on my phone that day, sometimes I let me kids eat birthday cake for breakfast and micro-waved chicken nuggets for lunch. Their rooms get messier than they should be and when I watch them play sports it's all taken with a grain of salt. But I care about everyone of these things.  I know it's not healthy to eat cake in the morning or pink sludge for lunch. I know it's good for kids to keep their space organized. 

It's just that, if I'm off on any of this and more, I know it will be ok. Theses flags are more amazing than we give them credit for.  I might be having a bad day, week, month, year.... I might stop caring about organic food in 2015 and care again 2016.  One kid might be in his crib at 4 months and then next might be co-sleeping to 4 years.  James was only breastfeed to 6 months, while Warren was allowed the opportunity to nurse until he was tugging on my shirt in the supermarket asking for "milky time".  A lot of the time I think about that first flag and tell myself, "It's ok.  You did it when you were 17 and knew nothing about what makes flags flap and at the end of the day, this one will be flapping too."

I was walking with a friend the other day.  She asked me, "How did you make the decision to go back to school with four kids?". I answered, "I don't know.  I just did it.  I've always been that way, ever since James.  When I was young and pregnant I said to myself, 'Ok. You are just going to do this.' and that's been my perspective for any major decisions.  I don't spend a lot of time analyzing and that probably drives my husband a little nuts, but if I stand there too long my mind will start flapping.".

Don't spend too much time wondering what's making your flags flap or your mind will start flapping. Don't wonder if your flag is flapping fast enough or if it seems too fast.  Make sure your worries and decisions are back dropped by a dose of wonder about the naturalness of flapping flags and let it BE a wonder.  You aren't supposed to be everything, know everything, decide everything, perfect everything, and try everything.  Marvel at the colors your flags become, let your heart beat to the natural rhythmic tempo of their flapping, and be waiting calmly, sometimes excitedly, sometimes with a drop reminiscent sadness, to hoist when needed.

When you pull up on that last little bit of line, and walk a little distance away you will want it to be a piece of living art, flapping organically, and you will want to say, "That is so cool.  I just love how it flaps."