For My Children

Dear Jessica, Brendan, Ashton and Christian,

Two years after I first had this wild notion, I finally did it. I took the plunge and registered for my first marathon. Yikes!!!

My goal since I finished the Couch to 5k program has been to do a full by the time I'm 55.  In  running Disney this January, I'll eke under that by just two days.

I want you to be there with me. Dad, all four of you, with your spouses, kids -- the whole happy, tumbling, chaotic mob of you. I want to share this milestone in my life with the people I love most. I want you to see me cross that finish line.

After all, you've been with me through so many events and occurrences in my life -- the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly. The most amazing  and happiest: the days you were born, although of course none of you remember that. You've been there through the years that I was learning to be a mom...how to hold you, bathe you, feed you, protect you, teach you, love you. 

You were my world. 

You have seen me at my lowest -- the times I was tired, short with you, yelled at you, tuned you out when I should have been listening. The times we argued. Wounded each other. But through that, loved. Now I would like for you to be there to witness something powerful.

All the good that I have tried to do in my life, I have done for you. I've tried to show you what love, faith, honesty, responsibility, empathy and dedication mean. Now I'd like to show you one more thing.

By the time I run this marathon, I will have put in well over 4 months of training. I will have run hundreds of miles. I'll have sweated buckets, thrown up, cried, fallen, gotten back up and run some more. It's going to be grueling, I already know that. I am not fast, athletic or confident.

But here is what I want you to know. 

I want you to know it's never too late to chase your dreams. No matter what life hands you, you always have a choice. You can follow any path you want, write your own chapter, make your own movie, sing your own song. Age doesn't crush your dreams and desires. Age doesn't mean you have to surrender, let go of what you want to do in life. It's all there for the taking. Reach out and work hard for your dreams.

You can do whatever you set your mind to do. Fear is a liar and whispers relentlessly in your head. Refuse to listen to it, and boot it right out of there. Yes, I am terrified about undertaking this race. But I am going to spit in fear's face, look deep into its eyes, and see for myself that it is a fraud. Do I know I can run a marathon? No. Most days I am petrified I will fail. But I know I am going to give it everything I've got to finish, no matter what. Even if I have to crawl.

I want you to know what you're made of. You come from a long line of strong men and women, and I don't mean physical prowess. We have guts. We do what has to be done. We endure; we prevail. And that's in your very marrow.

I want you to see the value of commitment. That by working hard, sticking to something even when you don't feel like it, doing the same tough things day in and day out, you will succeed. Whether it's in a race, a job, your marriage, or life, perseverance and passion will see you through. 

I want you to understand the significance of faith. Having faith in something bigger than yourself gives life meaning. It forces you to think outside your own self, nurtures compassion, expands love. Have faith in yourself, your family, and God. Not necessarily in that order.

I want you, most of all,  to know and remember my love for you. You are all grown now, with your own lives, and the busyness that all our separateness entails. We don't get to talk to each other every day. Some of us don't see each other as often as we'd like. I want you to know that I carry each of you in my heart, every single day, and I will be taking you along with me during every step of this race.

While I run, I'll be praying for the special people in my life. I will be dedicating a mile to each of you. You all have meant everything to me, and your lives have made me who I am. I will thank God for the gift of your life, for the privilege of being your mother, and for the joy of seeing who you have become.

You are my world.

I wish I could give it to you. But instead, I'll try to give you the best of me. I love you.

Always,  Mom

Cleaning House

All the craziness I've been dealing with over the past couple of months has a purpose   -- Christian, our second son, the baby of our 4 children, is graduating from high school in a scant few weeks, and we will have family and friends coming to witness this momentous milestone in his life. Hence our flurry of activity. For goodness' sake, we can't let people see how we really live on a daily basis!!

Housekeeping is not my strong point. Never has been; never will be.  There are mysterious, hygienic-related rituals that other people seem to know innately, about which I have absolutely NO clue. 

Like cleaning above your interior doors. Do other people do this? REALLY?? Apparently so.

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Now, to me, my house looks clean. I mean, I worked on it QUITE a while recently and it looked the best it has looked in a long, long time. That was before I had a housekeeper come out to give me a quote for cleaning. She was trying to be nonjudgmental, I could tell. She went through the house and pointed out things that I swear I would never have noticed in several decades, saying that when she took on the job, she would be deep cleaning these areas. Huh?? I thought it was clean. Apparently not.


The quote was staggering, but when she was finished inspecting, I felt we were living in a home that had been a main target of germ warfare, had someone die in it from bubonic plague, and was a petri dish for e. coli. And it was all my fault!! She said she would bring in a team of "her girls" and they would be in my home -- here she looked me directly in the eyes, and seriously and firmly, to underscore her point, pronounced -- all day. All day.

She wasn't kidding. They have been here for 4 hours as I write this and they have only cleaned my bedroom and bathroom so far. 

I truly have no idea what they have been doing. I have been moving from room to room, trying to keep out of their way, too ashamed to look them in the eye. I mean, for the love of all that is holy, I can't even think of anything that could possibly take me 4 hours to do in there!!

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This is, without question, an embarrassing and humbling experience for me. I am good at so many other things. I want to follow them around and say, "I make a mean tuna casserole!!"  "You should hear me crack people up with my one-liners!"  "I taught Bible Study for 15 years!" "I am really great at accessorizing!"  "I won the class spelling bee in the 4th grade!" But no, I think, I must acknowledge that this is not my shining moment and swallow my pride. Apparently... I suck.

Well, as in other things in my life, I will defer to the experts. I am paying them, despite my extreme discomfort, to clean up our crud and make our lives better. It sort of reminds me of a conversation we had in Bible Study once, about how Jehovah's Witnesses go door to door to evangelize. "Well," I said, " we are doing our part. Somebody has to be home to answer the door." See, I can feel good because I'm helping somebody have a job; I'm helping to boost the economy.

I'm also having to come to grips with the fact that, no matter how hard I try, there actually is one area of my life that I will never be successful at. I just do not have the cleaning gene. I respect people who do. I'm amazed at their knowledge and aptitude.  I'm not good at organization either. I remember once my oldest daughter came back home after she'd moved away, and she was helping me clean our computer room. Scattered around  the desk were a lot of pens and pencils; she picked them up and put them in an empty cup that was sitting there. "That's genius!!" I exclaimed. Yes. That's just how seriously deficient I am in these things. I do not lie -- I would never have thought of something that simple, that basic. My brain just does not work that way.

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BUT....I remember once telling my mother-in-law, who has always been an immaculate housekeeper (God knows how she has endured visits to our home all these years but she does it with grace), that at the end of my life, I know I will never say, "I wish I'd cleaned more."  I have played with my children, I have read books that have opened my mind, I have explored forests, I have painted pictures as gifts, I have visited dear friends, I have written poems, I have cooked meals for my husband (that's sort of waning also, but that might be another blog post), and I have run like the wind. Ok, a slow breeze. But I have been busy living, putting my time and talents into what I have been created for. And I have tried, in my own pathetically inept way, to keep up with our home.

The point is, we all have something that we're not good at. That's not a crime; it's a simple fact of life. And we can let it make us feel bad, and inadequate, and a lesser human being, or we can laugh at ourselves, count our blessings and turn to others for help. Our faults do not  define us.
                                                                                 

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Cleaning house has made me think about the life that I have left to me, too. It's time to take a look at the things I carry within me, and toss out what doesn't work, what I no longer need, what no longer fits. Time, too, to dust off what I cherish, shine what's gotten dull, and pull out what's gotten pushed to the back of the closet.  My gut feeling is, I am in the midst of upheaval or renewal.

Christian's high school graduation will end a chapter of my life which has lasted 29 years. For more than a quarter of a century, I have had children at home with me. 29 YEARS, people!!! We have been through many journeys, my children and I, together and separately. We've shared both laughter and tears, we've seen joy, and we've gone through some tough times, too. When I started out as a mom, I was young and incredibly unaware of what was about to shape my life. I end this part of motherhood much older, I hope a little wiser, but as always,  deeply, fiercely in love with my children. As this chapter closes with my own bittersweet graduation of sorts, I am excited at the possibilities ahead  -- what shall I do, what shall I do? I have, oh, about a million ideas.

                                                                                 


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The Dreams That You Dare To Dream

I dare to dream that 

SOMEDAY:

Human beings who are

gay

straight

labeled

heavy

thin

cursed

black

white

harassed

red

yellow

excluded

rich

poor

persecuted

impaired

enabled

mocked

liberal 

conservative

bullied

depressed

happy

ostracized

homeless

fortunate

hated

will all recognize  

WE   ARE   ONE.

We are all lovable.

We are all valuable.

We are all important.

WE    ALL   MATTER.

Each and every one of us is 

LOVED

by the same God who created us.

He makes no distinctions.

He loves you just as much as He loves me;

He loves "them" as much as He loves "us."

And we all have the same 

hopes 

sorrows 

pain

  wishes 

prayers 

dreams.

We all live on this one tiny planet, 

hurtling along in the immeasurable darkness of the universe,

sharing our journey together.

We all want love and peace and happiness and respect,

 a little spare change to jingle in our pockets.

We all hurt, cry, bleed, suffer.

We all want our lives to have meaning.

We all cry out to our God to save us.

But...we all could  bear one  another's burdens 

with

ARMS  WIDE  OPEN

and make each other's lives easier.

I'm not better than you; 

You're not better than me.

We are each unique, dancing flames of light

and 

Together we could set this world on fire.

Why, oh why, can't I?

Why can't we?

That's my dream.

I know that

somewhere over the rainbow, 

far above the prejudice, hate, and discrimination,

skies are blue,

and the dreams that we dare to dream 

really can come true.

Let's start today

to make that a reality.

Let's do something small     --

Can we just smile at each other?

If everyone in the world 

smiled

at the same time,

who could dare to

hate

again?

Simplistic, I know. But it could just work.

A smile could  melt a hardened heart.

It's a start.

One small thing...

Like a frail paper boat, 

setting sail onto the vast and endless ocean,

almost invisible to spy, 

yet the ripples it causes are 

unimaginable.

Then think 

of what we could do

TOGETHER.

A tsunami of change.

ALL ONE.

Spread the love.