An Open Letter to My Adult Children

Today, I mailed our family member's ballots. All of them. I am so very proud of your commitment to the process of determining the future of this great country. I must be difficult to imagine what the world will be like when we finally hand it over to you. I'm sorry for the idiocy, the waste and the debt the previous generations are leaving for you to sort out. And to try to live a fulfilling quality life while doing so.

One time, when you three were small, a friend asked what I wished for you when you grew up. I said the usual: fulfilled, happy, healthy, and then: I hope they become responsible taxpayers who add to our country and our way of life.

And, you have. You are intelligent, involved, and responsible. You are givers, not takers. You are inventors and innovators and do-ers. In a country of takers and stoppers and complainers.

As I placed the ballots in the mailbox, I realized that I didn't care how you voted, because I knew that you voted with your hearts and your minds and as if your very life depended on it. I trust you to do what's right, as I always have.

I am proud to be... 

Your humble mom

A Repost For My Mom, who would be 91 today...

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2009

Happy birthday, Jennie May

Happy birthday, Mom. This is the day I will celebrate your birth, eighty seven years ago today. You got to see your sixty-third birthday, and three days more. You got to see your children grown, and some of their children grown. You got to see what a big beautiful family you had created. You expressed pride and contentment at the family reunion in your honor that last birthday weekend.

In the chaos that was our family life, you taught me love. To love a child or a handicapped person or an old person or an animal. To love a man who is flawed. To 'have a little talk with God' when things crashed in around me.

I miss you, Mom. You are always in my heart, and often on my mind. Your voice is the voice I hear when I need strength and guidance at a patient's bedside. Your hands guide mine as I soothe the sick and vulnerable. Your dedication and uncompromising standards of patient care helped set my own standards. You are never forgotten and always with me.

I only wish you could have been here to see my kids. They are awesome. I know you are with us, I know you can see and feel them from where you are now. I have tried to bring you to life for them through stories and favorite objects of yours. But, I just wish you were here, for them, for us, for me.

Thank you for being my mom, my friend, my example. 

Happy birthday, Mama.

The Language of My Soul

I was given a writing assignment in nursing school; to write something that reflects 'the language of my soul'.  Hmmm... could be open to many interpretations.  But, there are fundamental truths about me, the woman I am, the nurse I was becoming, and the people who made me whole.  Irrevocable truths.  Relationships come and go, but three things remain...


First, I am an outdoors woman.  Before husband, before children, before escaping the birth home, I found solace and meaning in the out of doors.  It is the breath of the wind, the hush of the forest and the scent of pine and moss and water that soothed the soul of a hurt child.  I think the Earth saved my sanity, and thus, my life.


Second, I am a mother.  I have wanted to be a mother for as long as I could remember.  Except for a few short terms in college when, deeply involved in the women's movement, I questioned my desire and probed its source and motivation.  Was I merely acquiescing to a paternal structure designed to exploit women?  Was I giving in to hormones before I was mature enough to analyze their trickery?  Nope, I decided.  I wanted to be a mother, a good one, at the right time, with the right person.


Motherhood is irreversible, thus becoming a fundamental part of a woman's life.  Once a mother, always and forever, a mother.


A third important component to my soul is the long term relationship I have had with my husband; a ten year courtship full of passion and pain and resistance to change and eagerness to change and laughter and anger that commenced at age eighteen for me, twenty eight for him.  Then, a marriage that has lasted thirty years.  I have been married to him as long as I was not.  I have borne his name longer than I did my father's.  I cannot imagine life without him.  


These three things, then, comprise the language of my soul:  the out of doors and my place in it, motherhood and my children, and my love for my husband.


So, this is what I turned in to the instructor, 'The language of my soul...'


'The language of my soul is spoken in babies' sighs and nuzzles against my breast; in a thousand inaudible words of love seen in the eyes of my graying husband.  It sings in the wind on my face as I stand on a rimrock filling my lungs.  It whispers quietly by on the bow of my boat and between my trailing wet fingers.  It hollers its robust pride as I watch my son orchestrate daring complexities on the field with his wondrous young body.  It swirls and twirls gracefully around the long strong limbs of my dancing daughter.  It whispers in awed hushed wonder at my eldest navigating a vast technological world, a world I can neither comprehend or visit.  It soothes me as I soothe others; my children, my husband, my friends, my patients.  As I help them, I help myself.  And I feel whole.'

A Lovely Career...

                                                                               the above is from an Internet Nursing site...

And, an absent gag reflex, the ability to stand up for a patient in the face of a doctor who wants to pass the problem on, families who are confused and looking to vent on the nearest person, the ability to ignore unnecessary alarms and tune into the critical ones, willingness to accept all levels of nut-so-ness, psychosis, religious extremism, and superstition, disapproval and judgement by coworkers and doctors, and resistance to medical advice. Just to name a few...

Trucks Aren't Welcome...

I swear its getting harder and harder to park anywhere close to the store entrance. Handicapped spots, absolutely, compacts (hmm, big families and small farmers/entrepreneurs suffer), low emission (now, I'm getting cranky; we all can't afford a new rig), but now: electrical outlet spaces? Where're the free gas spaces? Someone is paying for that electricity. Someday, I am gonna pull up in my 3/4 ton Chev (USA made) 4x4, run an orange electrical cord under the hood up to one of those plug in pumps and go shop...

Don't Tell Me It's 'Normal'...

Empty Nest Syndrome refers to feelings of depression, sadness, and/or grief experienced by parents and caregivers after children come of age and leave their childhood homes. This may occur when children go to college or get married. Women are more likely than men to be affected; often, when the nest is emptying, mothers are going through other significant life events as well, such as menopause or caring for elderly parents.


Feelings of sadness are normal at this time. It is also normal to spend time in the absent child's bedroom to feel closer to him or her.

Recent research suggests that the quality of the parent-child relationship may have important consequences for both at this time. Parents gain the greatest psychological benefit from the transition to an empty nest when they have developed and maintain good relations with their children. Extreme hostility, conflict, or detachment in parent-child relations may reduce intergenerational support when it is most needed by youth during early adulthood and by parents facing the disabilities of old age. (APA)


The experts thus describe the Empty Nest (EN).  Worse for women than men.  Other life events worsen it. It's okay; it's 'normal'.  Normal to sit crying in an empty room.  


Well, it may be normal, but it sucks.  I am a mom who did everything possible to prepare for the EN, including returning to school to launch an exciting new career as a critical care nurse.  And, yet, I still sat holding baby clothes to to my face as they soaked up my tears.  To know what's normal and to be comforted by those words are two different things.   

Empty Nest, Part One: The Birth of a Mother

Motherhood is many things, partly interpreted through the media, partly through the expectations and history of one's family, partly through the stimulus/response randomness of daily life.  It is an amalgam of all of these, and more.  It is also comprised of the dreams of the mother, the past longings, the long ago decisions of 'when I'm a mother, I will/won't...', and the great responsibilities and fears that the actual experience engenders.


Many of us try very hard to be good mothers, to be the best we can be.  We are never quite as good as we might want to be, or have dreamed of being, but still we aspire to do better, be better, make our child's upbringing as valuable and special as possible.  


We are given the gift of, and responsibility for, precious, helpless beings that possess our hearts from the moment we are aware of them sharing our body.  Our body changes as does our sense of self, our view of the future, our dreams and goals.  We are forever changed, forever a mother. And if we are fortunate enough to bring the child safely into the world, a permanent shift in paradigm occurs in the heart and mind of the mother, and the world is never, ever the same again.  One mother, Elizabeth Stone, says:

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

Yes, it is.   For the first time, the mother is no longer able to be self contained and to know all is well as long as she takes care of herself.  Her happiness, her future, her 'heart' is off on it's own, making independent decisions and drawing the attention of Fate.  She is out of control. Children change quickly and wholeheartedly.  Once content with a Happy Meal and cartoons for a big adventure, once able to fill an afternoon with a shovel and pile of sand, a child suddenly needs money and i.d. and transportation and time away.  Mom lags behind, shuffling forward into an unknown future while looking back at the sweet memories.  And, is often vilified for the delay.  'C'mon, Mom, get with it!', 'Mom, I don't like that anymore', 'No body does that anymore, Mom' replaces 'Play with me, Mommy', 'Read me a story', and 'Up, Mama'. And, then, all too soon, they are gone.  Off to college, off to their own apartment, off to travel the world.  At each subsequent milestone, a hero party celebrates the child's accomplishments, a loving tribute to hard work and growing up.  Congratulations, cards, gifts, money, flowers, balloons, all for the growing child. And, there, back there in the shadows, is the mom of the past, smiling through her tears.  Hating the passage of time.  Wishing to scoop up a muddy little one and, laughing, head to the bathtub.  She has become obsolete. She has been forceably retired from the greatest, most important and all consuming job she has ever known.  A career that has defined and redefined and meant the world to her. No party, no cake, no cards, no gold watch.  She is expected to simply deal with the loss, the emptiness of heart and home and driveway and washer.  It is seen as a natural part of life.  Then, why does it feel so unnatural and painful?