I LOVE BEING A MOM. I especially love days when JUST being a Mom gets to be my main focus. Today was one of those days. It was great!
Though 17 and 15, my daughter and son still need their Momma for support, advice, caring, guidance and help shaping their world views. (They need Dad, too, for all the same things. We do it differently, of course!). It is late May and they are weary from a long school year. My daughter is a little teary as the pressure of her impending Senior year mounts: ACT prep; Drill Team camps, practice, leadership; saying goodbye to friends who will be leaving for college; making plans for her departure from the nest; bonding with her friends through each of the “lasts” of 12th grade. Yesterday, I left a pair of socks with the word “relaxed” in her room for her – an “I love you” just from me for her sweet dancer’s feet.
My son, who is very much a free spirit and his own person, drudged through his 9th grade year – it has been a long year for him and he his looking forward to summer and a possible career as a life guard! A week ago, he referred to each remaining day of the school year as “7 hours of soul-crushing disappointment.” This morning, as it poured rain in Kansas City, and I had the entire day off to myself, I received this text from my son: “If you get me I’ll give you a foot rub and 3 quarters.” So I did! We went to lunch and had a wonderful time.
I may not always get things “right” as a Mom. But I try and I definitely enjoy the experience. My children know I love them and they will always be FIRST in my world. I have been fortunate to be able to spend alot of time at home with them. And, like many other Mothers have said before, I can honestly say that I have found things to LOVE and enjoy about every stage of their young lives. Somehow, it always works out that the stage we happen to be in together feels like my “favorite” stage until it changes again and the new stage becomes my favorite.
I made peanut butter cup pancakes for dinner – it sounded good to my son and will be comforting to my daughter when she comes home a little melancholy after attending her boyfriend’s graduation. I love being a Mom. I love living in the moment. What a beautiful blessing it is to have the privilege of bring another human being into the world and preparing them for their journey.
Today, I am home with my teenagers who have been throwing up. This causes me to fondly reflect upon previous such “special family times,” one which especially stands out in my memory from Spring 2007, the day my kids had to stay home and take care of their parents because they were both throwing up! My Isa, 7 years old at the time, divided her time that day between devotedly bringing her Dad and me our favorite popsicles then dancing outside in front of the house. This beautiful memory has led me to reflect upon the entire history of our family and my approach to parenting. I love being a Mom. In fact, it is all I have ever wanted to be. I used to ride my bicycle up and down my driveway as a little girl playing “carpool.” What I wouldn’t give to have a recording of those imaginary conversations!
Since my daughter is just a year away from graduating from High School, her Senior year of “lasts” looms largely in my mind. Anticipating each last. Hoping I will savor and enjoy them to their maximum. One of the images that I have discovered in my meditation practice this past year (as a recovering alcoholic with 10 months of sobriety) is a moving stream: if I feel emotionally depleted, I imagine myself dipping a beautiful vessel into a cool, clear stream and nourishing myself with Nature’s goodness. This type of imagery not only helps me sustain myself without relying on numbing substances, it is also a great way for me to re-frame the present moment. Instead of dreading new beginnings or fearing endings, I think of life and love as a continuous stream, a continuum that has no beginning or end. There for me to enjoy, participate in and freely use to sustain those around me (especially my teenagers). I am going to try to continue thinking about my daughter’s Senior year as a beautiful transition that is part of the stream.
Yet, my thoughts did manage to navigate toward a gnawing, very human question: if I had it to do over, would I change anything about the way I parented my young children? I have only five “regrets,” (a word I try to use sparingly, since it is dangerously close to resentment, which a recovering alcoholic cannot afford). Surprisingly, nothing on my “List of Five” has anything to do with taking away bad things – rather, it is more about wishing I had done MORE of the good things:
I wish I had not been so anxious to put my children into all-day kindergarten. After working with 6-year-olds these past four months, I know for sure how tired they are after a full day of school. I was a stay-at-home Mom and could have easily managed having a busy 6-year-old at home with me all day. But I decided to convince myself it would be “good for their social skills” to put the kids in all-day kindergarten. Ten years later, with so many working families, there are probably few choices other than full-day kindergarten. I wish I had savored my 6-year-olds a bit more. But what’s done is done.
I wish I had insisted on learning a musical instrument. We did our best as parents to expose our kids to live music of all sorts whenever possible. Our kids love music. But mastering a musical instrument is one of those life skills that is best undertaken in childhood, like learning another language. It was hard enough for me to get my kids to sports practices and school, so learning a musical instrument did not make it into our “MUST accomplish” top tier of parenting goals. I do regret this.
Spirituality practice – we went to church here and there and my children were “dedicated” into a church family before we moved 200 miles away – but I wish I had done more to teach them that celebrating and worshiping God with others is a beautiful part of a healthy inner life. My kids know that within them dwells a Source of love and goodness, and I believe they know how to tap into that and also live a life devoted to making the world better, not worse. It was so important to me not to force an “ideology” upon them, I may neglected to help guide and nourish the part of spirituality that includes others. My children are natural Seekers and very resourceful individuals, so I feel good about their ability to move in that direction later in life, if they choose.
More family meals. We average 1 sit-down family meal together per week. Better than nothing! I would get the job done more often now if my teenagers would participate – as I hear, many do! (I know it is part of many families’ teenagers regular responsibilities to help prepare and serve meals, which is so nice – I haven’t tried that). Like many moms in recovery, asking for help (or any kind of delegating), is not a natural part of my personality. I am thankful to still have time with both children at home to approach family meals more like something the entire family should help create.
MOST importantly, in the earlier days, I wish I had cared less about other Moms’ opinions! I remember hearing the phrase, “She’s got your number!” way too often and feeling hurt or irritated (or rejected by the “elite moms” who were doing it all perfectly). To this, I can only go back to a very lovely memory I have when, as a new Mom, I was holding my baby girl on one of her first airplane rides and the older woman sitting next to me very gently and kindly remarked, “Ah! What a beautiful, content baby! She has EVERYTHING she needs, Mom!”. We need to do more to encourage and support one another as parents. For me, that starts with being open and honest with one another. Being willing to admit that we aren’t perfect parents and we aren’t raising perfect children. As a Mom of teenagers, I do get more of this from my social interactions with other parents – much more so than in the early, competitive “toddler war” days.
So far, this journey of parenting two individuals with different temperaments, needs, likes, dislikes and aptitudes has been so beautiful. Looking back, I would like to have been able to relax more and enjoy the small moments. Looking forward, I am grateful to be living a healthy, clean and sober life, so the future with these incredible people God shared with me will be as vibrant as I feel.
It was summertime 1973 and the house had a different rhythm – a teenaged rhythm. 3 teenaged sisters and a brother were home from boarding school and there was no rest for the curious. I woke up early to the sound of Malin and Laurie’s swim lesson in the backyard pool. Mom was making French Toast and the seductive aroma jolted me out of bed.
Down the hall, I heard James Taylor’s “Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon.” Jeff was awake and getting ready for another hot day in the fields with Mr. E.P. Dad was on the ranch in Texas. Running downstairs for breakfast in my favorite Speedo racerback swimsuit, I slid my fingers across the red velvet stripes on the wallpaper the whole way. “I will feast on a rolled up slice of French Toast with powdered sugar,” I planned, “then to the pool for a quick swim until I hear the motor of the the ice cream maker churning fresh peach ice cream.”
There was nothing better than drying my pruney, water-drenched self atop the air conditioning unit near the ice cream maker in the summer. My body pressed against the coils with hot air spewing – and leaving a checkerboard imprint on my legs.
Occasionally, the lure of wild honeysuckle draping across the backyard fence would lure me from my drying time atop the air conditioner and I would quickly hop off long enough to snap a blossom and gently pull the stem just enough to make the natural honey ooze. Then immediately back to my post beside the ice cream maker: nothing would deter me from my mission of pulling the paddle with freshly churned peach ice cream out of the magical drum surrounded by ice and salt.
“How DO you do this,” I asked Mom each time. She was certainly busy but managed to make each day perfect. I think summer was her favorite time, too.
Mom and Dad honeymooning in Tennessee 1952
That summer, I rode my bike after supper with Laurie, my 15-year-old-sister. She was my favorite playmate – she did my hair and makeup, taught me exercise moves, played The Beatles’ red album for me while I fell asleep at night, made homemade pretzels with me and told me where babies came from that summer!
Summer was a time of electric energy, days filled with warmth and nonstop activity until I collapsed, water-logged and brain spinning with images mysterious teenage music (there was an earlier summer my brother had a cool garage band), posters, phrases, friends, clothes, hair and skincare products and LOVE. At night, I would maneuver a way to climb in the back of the station wagon to “Circle Town,” listening to “Honky Tonk Women” on the local radio and sipping on a Cherry Coke from Big John’s.
When August came and my teenaged playmates packed up to return to school, I was so sad and “Alone Again, Naturally.” Then the letter writing began – daily trips to our hometown Post Office to check out Post Office Box 156 and look for teenaged news and treasures became my occupation. What a life I had as the youngest of 7 – each season’s memory dotted with loving memories of what “they” were up to and how much I had to look forward to.
My Mother was born prematurely during a record blizzard on December 1, 1932, in Memphis, Tennessee (a night, we learned later, on which her Grandmother was babysitting her future husband, one-year-old Dickie Killion!). She lived in an incubator the first few weeks of her life before her parents, Opal and Ronnie, were allowed to take her home to Hayti, Missouri, a rural farming town in the Southeastern part of the state. As a young child, she contracted rheumatic fever and the doctor said there was nothing he could do – he advised her parents to buy a coffin for Rhetta. So they did. Fortunately, they did not need it. And even more fortunately, this impish child who cheated death early in life continued to thrive and grow into a beautiful young woman who would marry and bear 7 children, the youngest of whom is me.
Growing up in the post-Depression South, there were certain expectations of young ladies that Rhetta continuously defied.
For instance, one of her very best friends, Carliss, was African American. They enjoyed playing outdoors together for hours. To Rhetta, the color of her friend’s skin was of no particular consideration at all.
Rhetta was strong-willed and did not want to go to school. She recently confessed that she was, in fact, expelled from kindergarten for refusing to stop pulling the little girl’s pigtails who sat in the desk in front of her! Rhetta did not mind the unconventional. To her Mother’s horror, while performing in a piano recital, Rhetta suddenly forgot the music so she stood and sang the words instead! When she was instructed to trim the rosebush – a chore she despised – Rhetta simply cut off all the lovely heads to hasten her task. When cautioned that young ladies did not get muddy, she rode her bike through every single mud puddle she could find.
Spanking never worked because Rhetta refused to cry! She liked visiting an Uncle who purportedly had taken up the company of a “woman of ill repute” because the woman was so friendly! She had a daily habit of stopping along the way from school to home at the courthouse to enjoy a cigarette in the ladies’ restroom. Rhetta was, indeed, incorrigible!
Mom recalls there was an internment camp for German Prisoners of War (for some reason in Hayti, Missouri!) when she was a child. Fearful of what unknown harm could become of the adorable blue-eyed blonde little girl, Rhetta was absolutely forbidden from ever riding her bike to “that part of town.” Well she did. And Mom remembers talking through the fence to the Germans, they speaking German and she speaking in her inimitable Southern drawl – and relishing the smiles on their faces and laughter on the other side of the fence. “I’m sure they thought my accent was as strange as I found theirs’ – but we were fascinated with one another,” Mom remembers.
Her Dad, Ronnie Greenwell, was a proud member of the Missouri Cotton Producers Association and Lions Club. He somehow gained access to President Harry Truman and took his precocious daughter along with him to meet the Great Democrat from Missouri. Mom only recalls President Truman asking her how she liked school – and that she was fairly bored throughout the encounter!
In spite of all her youthful spiritedness, Mom managed to easily slip into the “ladylike patterns” of the day and married my Dad, whom she adored, at the tender age of 20 in 1953. They began a life together in Southeast Missouri in a small farming community where Mom bore 7 children and participated fully in the spiritual life of the Catholic parish to which our family belonged.
But there was always a restlessness about Mom – she loved life and learning and wanted to participate in the world as more than a caregiver. She convinced Dad to move to St. Louis, where she began a wallpaper business and eventually became a tax preparer for H & R Block. She brought energy and life into our family with her diverse group of interests and friends. Mom volunteered for hospice and a program for teenage runaway girls. She helped the local United Way with its annual “100 Neediest Cases” Christmas program. She became enthralled by the study of Jungian Psychology which led her to the work of Elisabeth Kubler Ross, whom Mom personally escorted from the airport to a workshop she attended! And she handmade beautiful quilts that are treasured by many.
Now in her eighties, Mom is confined to her bed. She still enjoys a lively imagination and interest in many people and things, especially the St. Louis Cardinals! Here she is meeting one of her great-grandchildren, a beautiful gift she treasures.
She never fails at giving me the perfect advice. Ever. When I was in my twenties, Mom often sent me “Affirmations,” her own compositions in her own handwriting, to help me navigate the difficult adult world. She once wrote to me, “I love you. Don’t give your personal power or your $ away.”
For these reasons and so many more, my beautiful Mom is and always will be MY FAVORITE BADASS! I thank God every day for the blessing of a life with Mary Henrietta Greenwell Killion as my Mother.
I am ashamed to admit it, but I am outrageously jealous of my friends who are enjoying the companionship of vibrant and involved octogenarian parents. This is such a selfish and unfair statement, I know. I had great parents (Mom is still living) and they were there for me when I needed them. So many people can’t even say the same.
So many of my friends did not have the joy of being given away by their Fathers. I did.
So why am I feeling sorry for myself that my parents weren’t the “take the family on a trip to celebrate our 50th Anniversary” type? For many years, whenever we were together, Mom and Dad took the family to their favorite Italian restaurant in South St. Louis, Missouri, Giuseppe’s.
My parents cooing with my nephew and one of the family’s closest friends over amazing Italian cuisine in South St. Louis. GREAT memories.
I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy, though, when I hear a friend tell me she spent the afternoon shopping with her Mom and then out to dinner with both parents – and they are in their eighties and enjoying active lives. Like the famous Carole King song, I know I need to do a better job at taking the bitter with the sweet:
“A friend of mine once told me
and I know he knows all about feelin’
down
He said, “Everything good in life you’ve
got to pay for
But feeling’ good is what you’re paving the way for”
But you can’t enjoy the sweet without “paying for it” with the bitter, right? That’s the deal. Sometimes it stinks!
The morning my Dad passed away and I called my husband to share the expected but dreadful news, a feeling washed over me I had really never felt before and I told him through my tears, “I wasn’t done with him yet.” That must be why sometimes in my dreams I watch him ride away, alone in a limo with darkly tinted windows – no room for me. The separation of death is bitter. Memories are sweet. I guess I will always taste both.
In my heart, this is where my parents remain – in their late 60’s, active, involved, enjoying life. Laughing with me. Together.
Nobody prepared me (or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention) for this constant ache you get from watching your parents age and then losing them. Maybe it’s because loss from death is the first thing I have ever encountered in my human existence that simply cannot be prepared for.
And the really strange truth about losing a parent is this: the permanent pain is because of the sweetness of their love. Like C.S. Lewis writes in “A Grief Observed,” -“For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?”
At the end of the day, I don’t begrudge any of my fortunate friends who are still enjoying happy times with both parents. It’s a gift and, after all, not something to be overly examined. I had what I had and that’s it. Boy, was I lucky.
After 49 Thanksgivings, I finally “get” why it did not matter to my Mom, in her later years, whether our family ate dinner together on paper plates (themed, of course) or not. The mere fact that we were together was enough for her – and it should have been enough for me – but, alas, I needed more “road miles” in life to fully understand.
This Thanksgiving I am wildly and enthusiastically thankful for 4 Things:
CURIOSITY
Mario’s preschool class visited our 34-acre wilderness every year for their Spring field trip – here he is greeting the bus! It was a truly wondrous time.
To be curious is a state of willingness to allow life, ideas, people, nature and the world to enthrall and intoxicate you. In spite of my struggle this 49th year of my life on earth to discover and maintain a healthy sobriety, I am thankful to discover that I still experience the wonder of a child every single day. AMEN to that and keep the curiosity coming!
After all, it has been said, “interesting people are interested people.”
SETBACKS
It has taken me 49 years to learn the slow and steady “tortoise” way – I used to prefer to hurry and get my reward or pain “over with.”
We all experience setbacks and many of them are stunning, paralyzing and utterly terrifying. Looking back, I really am thankful for each and every setback I have experienced. Not only am I learning humility, I am experiencing the ebb and flow of the journey and learning to take my EGO OUT OF IT. I mean, a mortal can only do so much – the Universe is so much larger and powerful, and there is no escaping the lessons we’re each meant to learn. To me, setbacks are just another way of experiencing mortality and human limitations. And like Garth Brooks famously crooned, “I thank God for unanswered prayers” every single day.
ACCEPTANCE
You’d never know it but this picture of my darling children was snapped during one of the darkest times of my life. Complete shock and uncertainty colored my days, but they, being the curious and resilient little teachers our children are meant to be, marched onward!
My husband and I were “curious” about life in a tiny town more than 200 miles away from our home so we packed up and moved away from friends, family, professional connections, and all the lovely comforts of city life. We stayed there 8 years. I joke that 2 of them were happy, but I seriously mean it! Looking back, that really is not true: my mental state was not happy because I was fighting the flow of our new lives. But something super cool I have discovered in mid-life: you can actually reflect back and accept what was once unimaginable and unendurable and it has the same effect – now my memories of what I thought was a “really dark time” are mostly funny and happy! I am so thankful for this gift.
MY TRIBE
Becoming a Mother is just one way of earning the responsibility for tending to a tribe. This is my first little tribe member, Isabella Bernadette.
A wise woman once told me, “Your kids aren’t always going to be this little.” Obvious statement of fact but, at the time, I could hardly imagine a time when my life was not dictated by play dates, diaper changes, snack times, story times, intrusive “Mom friends” and never-ending messes, usually involving bodily fluids. This is my beautiful daughter, now 16 years old, at 16 months old. I hardly remember the passing of time. Another wise woman, my own Mother, told me, “Honey, life will pass you by so quickly it will leave your head spinning.” And it has. She was right, as usual. I am thankful for my tribe of family, starting with my husband and children and colored with many interesting friends and co-workers. At the tender age of 49, I have learned how to assess quickly what “works” for my tribe and what needs to just go away! THANKS be to GOD!!
Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are, and whether you enjoy it on the finest china or paper plates. Life is a gift.
Lately I have been on an inner journey. I won’t say I have “neglected” housework, but let’s just state for the record that I am blissfully tuned out of my immediate visual surroundings. Nobody in my family seems to mind. Clothes get washed, dinners get served and eaten, pets are not neglected, Fall decorations are properly appointed. Outwardly, everything seems “normal.”
What started out feeling like a mid-life boycott of mundane chores has now become – well, more of a daily meditation on the essential. Gratitude for all that we have been given tops my list of essentials. When my eyelids pop open in the morning and the awareness of feeling whole and not broken by alcohol, ugly words spewed to a loved one the night before – I breathe deeply and thank God for the blessing of one more day. Whatever I choose to do with that day, my underlying goal is LOVE.
Is a clean house essential to love? No. Right now, at 49 and managing a life with 2 teenagers, a husband intent on planning the sunset of his career, and a boatload of aging siblings and Mother whom I love – I give myself permission to LOVE FIRST, clean second. I used to think I was getting lazy because I did notice the slowing down. This coincided with my sobriety, which began almost 5 months ago.
The whole point of sobriety is to NOTICE, EXPERIENCE and CHERISH the good. This requires slowing down (at least for me) and focusing on NOW. As much as I love and enjoy these new feelings, it is true my standards of tidiness which were low to begin with – have gotten a little lower.
Nobody is complaining. So I must not be lazy.
When I am an old woman I will remember the sunsets I watched, not the floors I mopped.
Before parents and institutions made summer about either catching up or advancing skills, summer was once a glorious time of slowing down and enjoying life. Children were not only free to follow their imaginations wherever they could take them while spending time with family – they were expected to. There were no “summer nannies” that were temporarily in charge of a rigorous weekly schedule of commitments. Only grandparents and siblings with the means to help keep younger children happily occupied.
Harvesting sweet honey from a flower on the honeysuckle bush took great skill and patience.
I keep hearing and reading about “Tips for Having a 70s Summer” as if there were a magical, secret formula – when it is really the simplest thing in the world to do!
A tire swing in a yard is a beautiful thing, giving you a bird’s eye view of the sky and, even better if it leads to a lake or river.
Growing up, summer at my house was about 5 things, not in any particular order – and it required no training or money. Just the desire to float along carefree……
1. Family Since my 6 older brothers and sisters went to boarding school for High School, summer was the epitome of action at my house. Suddenly, our house was flooded with teenagers each summer, and I relished spending time with each one as much as they may have resented it (and some did!!!). After awhile, if I had been a very good girl, Mim, my Grandmother, would invite me to her house for an overnight stay!
Mim’s refrigerator stocked with Orange Crush was by her back door, which played an enchanting little tune when she opened it to greet you warmly.
I got to drink Orange Crush (one only, so I would not wet the bed) at Mim’s house and then raid the “secret drawer” (which, of course, she knew was not a secret) in my Dad’s old bedroom for sticks of Doublemint gum. Mim had a sweet laugh and everything about her seemed so ladylike to me – the smell of her skin, the touch of her perfectly manicured hands on mine – I was always on my best behavior on those special summer overnight
2. Music
Your Uncle JD had a garage band. They played cool Rolling Stones songs like “Jumping Jack Flash” and the band members, Louie and Bobby, let me stand on a chair and pretend to be playing tambourine. No wonder I married your Dad,”Mike Tamburini”!!!
There were 2 teenaged albums I was especially curious about – the one with the 2 white guys and their wives – but one of them had an African American wife (Seals & Crofts).
An average of 2,400 hours per summer was spent playing albums in my sisters’ room – “Teenage Albums”!Aunt Kit’s Senior Song was by these guys, “We May Never Pass This Way Again” – you should look it up on your “device”!
The other album was in Uncle Jeff and Uncle JD’s room, and I was forbidden from ever playing it. Oh, yeah?
“Look like dog shit? Yah! Smell like dog shit? Sniff….Yah!”
3. The Outdoors
It was not a punishment to play in the yard growing up – in fact, I actually had to be called inside for supper.
The smell of line-dried linens still makes me homesick.
Always a huge fan of Grandma Rhetta, I tried to be right by her side when she was taking the freshly dried sheets off the laundry line. Here’s some great advice, too, kids: It is fun to put a clothespin on your nose and talk!
Homemade ice cream was often churning outside, especially on Sundays. Pulling the ladle out and swiping fresh ice cream from the metal churner was divine!
4. Food Of course, Mom was a great cook and produced “3 squares” for all of us plus our friends every single day. But on many occasions, our family would drive to the river and take the barge across to the great state of Tennessee for fried catfish and hushpuppies.
We’d park our station wagon on the barge and all get out of the car and watch the Mighty Mississippi move us toward the other side. It smelled earthy and dank and felt like home.
5. Reading I never had to be told to go to my room and read. I rode my bicycle to town several times a week and checked out great books on my own. My friend, Julie, and I would compete to see who could read the most. These were my 2 favorites:
She was the most clever girl I had ever known.She was kind and hard-working and was rewarded with fresh berries from her very own patch.
When summer was coming to an end, the farmers would drive by my house with trailers full of freshly picked cotton on their way to the Killion-Rone-Wilson Cotton Gin – you know, the stuff your clothes are made of? Oh, and do you recognize your Grandpa’s last name somewhere in that lineup?
One time I got to ride in the back of one of those cloud-filled trailers with my friends Annie, Jimmy and Michael – I paid for it the next day with my sneezing, but it was one of the most memorable rides to town I ever experienced.
This doesn’t happen anymore – the new technology makes cotton into bales right there in the field as soon as it is picked.
So, my darling children, I have tried to give you summers that are less about “achievement” and more about “experience,” but it is not so easy as it once was. I have enjoyed every minute of our summers together, it will always be a magical time for me as your Mom. Just thought you should know some of the reasons why our family isn’t as busy as other families – and happily so!!!!
I came into this world the youngest of 7 children and have been loved more than the average bear. To say that I feel fortunate and blessed would not be adequate. And as my “days increase,” I am evermore keenly aware of the Gift living is. My family gave me lots of freedom to play long hours out in the fresh air of Southern Missouri and to be myself. The early years shaped me – I felt secure, happy, loved and cherished. For those in this world born with less who have nonetheless managed to live full, happy lives, I feel empathy and awe.
I did nothing to deserve all the goodness in my life – it was just gently placed before me and continues to unfold like a beautiful tapestry.
At 49, here is a short list of the things I have learned and the wondrous joys that captivate me:
Don’t ever refuse help of any kindwhen it is offered – you will find an open heart can swell with love, joy and abundance that affects everyone around you in a positive way – say “Yes!” and “Thanks!” often and mean it;
Bring all of yourself wherever you go – holding back will only limit the joy you feel and overshadow the illumination of the experience;
Admit when you feel frightened – it won’t diminish anything, only brighten the path before you;
Listen to children because they know what’s best – God gives us about 9 years of complete innocence in this life for a reason – it is to show others how to live courageously;
Accept change and move forward as soon as you can – so many wonderful experiences and people await for you in your future, don’t put them off by feeling regrets, guilt or sadness over what is in the past.
I am grateful for friends and laughter; Homemade cinnamon rolls or anything freshly picked from one’s garden and friends that will bake them and drop them off at my doorstep; The infinite possibility of sunrises and sunsets, especially over the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas – though I never thought the day would come I would admit this; The tiny hands of children placed with complete trust in my own hands – proof that we are all worthy of love and affection. Today is my 49th birthday – I thank God for all the goodness in my life and look forward to continuing the journey.
Like many people, I am deeply saddened by the death of Robin Williams. In retrospect, his unimaginable act of courage that led to his death says more about our culture of blindness than it does anything else. We prefer to remember “the funny man” who gave so much to others than the human being suffering from depression and addiction. We will talk about it for awhile at parties but nothing will change in the end – people who are hiding in places of extreme darkness will continue to end their lives and we will say later what a shame it is.
You see, Robin Williams’ death has struck a personal chord with me. I, too, suffer from major depressive disorder and addiction. I will take antidepressants the rest of my life but there is no guarantee I won’t experience lapses into frightening voids where nobody can reach me. Mental illness does trick our minds into believing ridiculous lies about ourselves and reality. I watched my own Dad suffer and struggle with depression and addiction my whole life. He was so brave to have weathered what must have felt like insurmountable pain and conflict to protect his wife and 7 children. Of course, there were happy times. Like Robin Williams, my Dad was extremely intelligent and most often the funniest person in the room when he chose to socialize, which was not often.
I dream of this image over and over…..
Like Robin Williams, people sought my reclusive Dad out – they were uplifted by his company when, all the while, he believed himself to be a weak and unworthy person. It was the trap of depression and addiction. He did not talk about it, we just knew, as kids, when Dad was not feeling well. We hugged him and he hugged us back even harder. But it was only a temporary fix for his pain. Ultimately, he felt alone.
“I apologize for superfluous!”
My Dad was the first person to admit he had made a mistake. Among other traits, this was one of his most endearing. He was humble and honest and kind even though, most of the time, he just plain wanted out – out of pain, out of suffering, out of this life. He visited me once when I was single and dating a hot-shot young lawyer and I was embarrassed during a conversation in which my “super lawyer” boyfriend corrected my use of language at the breakfast table in front of my Dad, the DICTIONARY NAZI!!!! I was shocked when my Dad took “super lawyer’s” side but, as expected, the minute he got back home Dad pulled out his dictionary to see if he had been correct – and discovered he was wrong. I received a beautiful note of apology from the MAN WITH THE DICTIONARY himself. And he even took a moment away from his own pain to comment on the pain of a colleague whose daughter was dying from cancer – wishing her well.
Instead of burying his greatness, somehow the struggle with depression and addiction made my Dad even more brilliant and beautiful to me. He felt broken, for sure, but that is what we all saw and loved and admired about him. On the morning he passed away, our Mother had a look of absolute serenity and relief on her face. She said, “I’m glad – your Dad is free and happy for the first time in his life.” And so is Robin Williams.
I don’t know why some of us are dealt the shitty hand of depression and addiction in this life. But I do know we are all capable of comforting one another and touching each other’s wounded souls even from the unreachable depths of darkness. I am proud of my Dad and Robin Williams and everyone else who admits, in this culture of shame, silence and blindness, that things are NOT okay with us most of the time. Maybe, little by little, the world will come to recognize that people who have been marginalized by the pain of depression and addiction aren’t weak or pitiful at all – but really “special angels” sent to us so we can practice compassion and empathy. That’s how I choose to view it, anyway.
Cheeky Street 