Capturing Water

Once again my daughter calls angry. This time it is about a tax refund she couldn’t get a couple of years ago because she was told someone else had claimed her. She believes I did this. A time before that, she was angry because I had said, in response to her saying she was going to buy a car from someone she just met that “she needed to make this decision.” A couple of other times it was something else I either did or did not do. Trying to love someone with mental illness is like trying to hold water in your hand. Even so, sometimes that love is a like wave that washes over you, and you are so stunned by the intensity, you forget to try and capture it. Sometimes that love is like the foamy sea after it breaks, its bubbles providing an illusion that you can hold it longer. Very rarely is it a faucet in which you can hold it if you cup your hands just right, for at least a few seconds before it drips away. Rarer still are the times when you feel as though you share a cup. As her mother, I still try. I can’t help but see the brilliant artist, remember the witty observations or just the quiet times when she fell asleep in my arms. I can only sit with my sadness. Just recently I read a quote that said that grief lives in the space between expectations and reality. True to pattern, after an angry text, I am cut off from her social media, my back door to seeing in on her life in another city. As my partner reminds me, she’ll reach out again at some point. We just don’t know when. So I inhabit this space between expectation and reality. Hoping the gap isn’t too big or lasts too long.

#MeToo and the Men Who Don’t Understand It

When I was teaching undergraduate architecture and planning students, I facilitated a classroom discussion one afternoon about the built environment and it’s enabling of places on campus that put women, primarily, at risk. Blue-lit boxes with phones in them had been placed strategically several years before, on this and other college campuses with the idea that if a woman was being pursued, she could use the phone. (prior to cell phones!) There were three women and myself in the classroom that day, offering our perspective on the issue of campus safety and architecture and 20 young men. We had just read an article on landscape architecture that made the case that trees and bushes and other accouterments that enrich a property were also “rape enhancers.” It was clear from our discussion that the young male students were primarily perplexed by this idea, but the young women were right there with the author. A discussion ensued about walls, shrubs and dark spaces in a landscape that were intentionally placed. The conversation shifted when a young woman said, “When I am walking at night, no matter where I am, if there are men behind me, I always cross the street, to be on the side that they are not.” This started a cacophony of responses. Most of the men were incredulous. “You cross the street no matter what they look like?” “You would cross the street, if you didn’t know me and I was behind you?” “I could be someone for whom you would cross the street?” “You would cross the street even if it is only one man?” It went on. The male students, to their credit, were not defensive, just hurt. They found it impossible to believe that women, any woman, would see them as a threat. They began to brainstorm what they could do to alleviate a woman’s fear. For some, the answer was to cross the street, so she wouldn’t have to. For others, they wondered aloud if they could call out to the woman in front of them, telling them that they are a safe person. To this the three female students giggled. “Do you think that you calling out that you are safe, would make me believe you?” This was a hard lesson to grasp for these young twenty somethings. Flash forward so many years later and the #MeToo movement has men wondering aloud about their own behavior again. “How do you share an interest in a woman without her thinking you are harassing her?” “What if I was interested in a woman, how do I communicate that to her in a safe way?” An older male pundit on cable news even lamented the age-old Freudian statement: “What do women want?” It was more than twenty-five years ago that I was a part of that classroom discussion and we have yet to really listen to the answers that women have given. But it seems like it continues to be an important discussion to have every 25 years or so. Who knows, maybe one day, we won’t have to ask the question; we will all already know the answer.

If God Had a Name, What Would It Be?

A Joan Osborne tune “One of Us” sung at church today had me thinking about all the ways that Wonder shows up in my life. Lately I have been feeling so challenged by my daughters’ adolescence and yesterday I rose before the sun to have some peace and quiet. Of course, that only led to tears and as I looked out my bathroom window, there was a beautiful red cardinal. It made me smile and took away the angst I had been feeling. These wonderful birds have shown up so many times in my life, just when I need them. The cardinal has been like an old friend calling out of the blue on a day when I have particularly needed someone outside of myself to make me smile.

If I were to name God, I would name her/him “synchronicity.” In those magical moments that come with friends or something in nature, or even a book or poem I open to or hear, I see and feel God’s presence in my life. My mother was an identical twin and as children we were constantly aware of the special communication she seemed to have with her sister. Picking up the phone to call her, her twin would be on the other line. Showing up at an extended family event, they would sometimes be wearing the same dress, or at least the same color. Even as a child these magical events seemed to bring the sense of Spirit to me more than most of what I felt at Mass. Although, I believe I felt the transubstantiation of the elements much more because I had experienced these moments of Spirit in my life.

In synchronicities, even those that come from the stories in sacred texts, that suspension of the ordinary is just enough to give me a moment’s pause from the mundane. It is in those moments that I find myself reveling in Spirit. As a child in Catholic school I had heard the story of Jesus walking on water many, many times. The emphasis in the story by the priest or pastor who was recounting it was always on Peter and his lack of faith that makes him fall as he is attempting to get to Jesus further away.

The first time I heard someone tell the story from the perspective of the disciples in the boat being the people who were unsure of their faith and not Peter, I began to smile. Peter got out of the boat. His faith was strong enough that he tried --- sure he faltered, but he got out of the boat!

This morning, again thinking about raising two girls by myself, I read a passage from Raphael Cushnir in a little book called “Surfing Your Inner Sea: Essential Lessons on Lasting Serenity.” The writing I opened to was titled, “you can’t do it wrong.” I laughed quietly to myself upon opening the reading and remembered the story about Jesus walking on water. A decade ago I wondered if I was doing the right thing, having fostered my daughters for a year, I was adopting them. I was getting out of the boat and my faith has wavered many times since then.

That lack of faith seems particularly acute just now, but here was this essay reminding me that I can’t do it wrong. With each “failure” I am learning, with each day, I am becoming more grounded in ways to take care of myself and them. So I say it inside to myself: “I can’t do it wrong.”

Letting go

When I grabbed the skillet of corn bread out of the oven, I realized that the oven mitt I was lifting the pan with was not insulated enough. I could feel my skin burn, but I had two choices, I could drop the pan, risking burning my legs and the floor, or continue to lift the pan and place it on the stove top. I chose the latter. Loving and raising children who came to me from foster care has been like that. I know my hand is burning, but I can't let go. As a foster parent of these two precious girls I went to all of the required family meetings in the hopes that their birth mother would be able to care for them. My hand burned as I comforted them when they came home from visits, their (doll) babies bruised and battered and in need of band-aids. My hand burned when in therapy they each shared information to the therapist that indicated that someone had sexually assaulted them. My hand burned when at the termination of parental rights hearing, their birth mother did not even testify as to her capability to care for the girls. My hand burned when it was clear that my youngest needed special schools and by 7th grade, a wise older teacher called, with worry in her voice, that there was something seriously wrong with my oldest daughter. There were neurologists and psychologists and psychiatrists who came in and out of our lives. I hung on while we searched for answers. More meetings, hospitalizations, residential care. As teens my hands blistered when they accused me of abuse and then took it back. It's been 15 years and some months and now, because the youngest turns 18 in a few days, I have to let go. The way that I have been advocating and speaking for and holding the system accountable for these two girls comes to an end, three days into January 2017. She has told me that she will make her own decisions, threatening to leave school before graduation even though she is just a few credits from a high school diploma in June from the special school I have written about before here. I can't blame her. Her older sister is 19. After a rocky four years, and a schizophrenia diagnosis, she signed herself out of her residential facility at 18 and began living with an Iraqi war vet with a drug problem. Then she found her birth mother and ran from that relationship, taking her pregnancy with her. She has now found her birth mother and is living in Kansas City with her mother, her mother's husband and her first baby since she lost one to murder and two to the foster care system. The troubled young woman who gave birth to these children is still challenged. According to my daughter, she sleeps a lot of the time and is heavily medicated. My heart aches for her as I see her in my mind's eye, clutching this new baby and welcoming the child she grieved for all these years. How can an 18 year old who will now have the power to choose her destiny, stay in school? My youngest is in touch with her sister and has talked with her birth mother and other family members on the phone. Only a few credits away but a lifetime of ache for her birth family is pulling her away. As a foster and adoptive parent, we get 9 or so weeks of training, and if we are lucky, a lifetime of opportunities to hold on no matter how bad it burns. My 19 year old calls me regularly and I hope that she finds some comfort from my presence in her life. But everything changes, even for those who are mentally ill, at 18. I can only let go, hoping we will have many opportunities in the future, to make bread together. When they first came to me, I was going to do two things: teach them little songs that would comfort them at times of trouble and let them know that God lived in nature -- and God's love is in every sunrise, every flower, every beautiful day. I am sad and relieved and fearful for them, as any parent is for their children. But I must let go. Their next step, is their own.

The Sounds of Graduation

When the four graduates came down the aisle of the gym in their caps and gowns (different colors representing the schools which represented their home district), to the traditional graduation march, a tiny knot caught in my throat and I felt the heat of tears well up in my eyes. They weren’t kids I knew, I was there for my daughter, who unbeknownst to her was getting an award for “Most Improved.” The room was full of the cacophony of special needs kids and their parents. care-givers, teachers and friends. I smiled to myself to hear all of the sounds, which my daughter would complain about later and call, “attention seeking behavior” or ASB. Her “ASB-ing” as she would call it, has been in check for awhile and so she has been less tolerant of it in others. While these particular graduates were unfamiliar to me, I knew something about the steps they may have taken prior to the short walk down the gymnasium floor. The nights of flying books and lamps, food splattered in rage on the walls and ceilings, late night tears and assurances that “even though you are different, you are still ok.” As the advocate for my special needs daughter, I recall the countless begging conversations to public school personal to let her go on the class trip, the museum outing, and the final school dance. I remember the countless meetings, the goal setting in her Individualized Education Plan and the trips to mental health personnel to seek answers. I regret the nights I lost my own temper with her frequent but inconsistent outbursts over something someone (often me) said or didn’t say. I remembered the nights I held her as she sobbed about being different. We are an army of un-unified advocates in this room. Adoptive parents, grandparents, birth parents, foster parents, reunited parents and relatives, sharing the room with teachers, behavioral support personnel, school administrators, youth support specialists and counselors. We haven't always seen eye-to-eye in how to help the children we love, but when it comes time to honor the little award winners in each class, we all clapped and many of us cried together. This special school is a hodgepodge of students with a variety of challenges; many have started out their lives, as their guest poet shared last night, “learning about life the hard way.” Neglect, abuse, and poor parenting are commonplace. Some of the youth in the gym with the graduates are still struggling with finding consistent care-givers. These are the kids still in the state’s foster care system. A girl in my daughter’s class won two awards, one for kindness and caring to others and another for leadership. Still in the foster system, no one and everyone clapped especially loud when she retrieved her awards. Some kids at this special school are not victims of poor parenting but were born with autistic spectrum disorders of some kind, challenges that public schools just can’t handle very well. Others developed some of those same challenges because of non-existent parenting or early child abuse and neglect. At the end of the night, the four graduates stood in front of the room and moved their tassels to the other side of their mortarboard and walked proudly out to the computer generated graduation march. Some of us cried, some of us cheered, and some of us let out our best Attention Seeking Behavior sounds.

Beyond Big Grief

What is the kind of grief that takes your breath away? Is it the suddenness and then the shock of it? It seems like that kind of grief is the most difficult to accept. I’ve known the kind of grief that seems to kick you in the chest and make it hard to breathe for a while. But I also have known the road back. Today, my life is filled with many people I might have lost track of if not for Facebook. Twin daughters of one of my best friends when I lived in Kansas City just lost their father. He wasn’t old, only 60, or sick. I don’t know the circumstances but he died suddenly. He was a gentle man. The first time I met him he was playing the guitar on the front porch of a battered women’s shelter. He had a big toothy smile. He sounded like a Kansan, not quite southern, but not quite northern either. My friend eventually married him and they had two really sweet twin girls. Since FB I have gotten to learn about their lives again after losing track of them first when they went to grade school and then again when they were in their later primary grades. The last time I had run into them was around their 10th or 11th year. They were decked out in their softball uniforms in a Panera with their grandfather, who I had met many times. They had those big smiles. They are out of college now, making lives for themselves. I was grateful I had the chance to know them when they were first born through those very early school years. Tonight I remember them as the busy little girls they were, playing on the couch, watching TV, and laughing. Tonight too, I am remembering my own experiences of that take your breath away kind of grief and the day-to-day effort it takes to breathe normally again. It does happen after awhile and there will always be that remembering of the big grief. But past that breathless place, is the joy and for them, the man with the big smile.

Just This -- Living in Gratitude

Her big brown eyes shown with loving softness as she grabbed her seat belt and looked at me. She didn’t say “Thanks, mom, for picking me up in the rain.” (She would normally have to walk home from school the four blocks to home.) But her eyes said it all. I see a board member at a cocktail party this past week and she says, “You know, you are really great at boardsmanship, I was telling a friend how well you handle our meetings…” Someone interrupts us and we move on to talking about other things. This morning I step out into the crisp Fall air after a good overnight rain. The air is damp with the smoky smell from my neighbor’s chimney. All my Autumn plantings have gotten a good soak so I won’t have to drag out the hoses. It is Thanksgiving week and I am reminded of all of the ways I feel gratitude. In a book by life coach, Martha Beck she talks about the importance in those moments to acknowledge those feelings with “Just This.”

I realize my life and probably everyone’s lives are filled with those “Just This” moments – a smile, a kind word, a sunset, a flower, a cloudless sky, the touch of a hand, an “I love you mom” hug. We probably miss as many of those moments as we get – maybe more, worrying about the future, worrying about the past, living in the fear we are not enough or sometimes, too much.

I have been there, clouded by what’s on my to-do list. Sometimes it’s because I am too focused on what I want to happen instead of being in the moment, absorbing and being grateful for what does happen. Holidays are like that. In my head as I make up the menu and shop for groceries I think about what I want our Thanksgiving day and dinner to be. It probably won’t be anything like what I imagine, but it might be better. If I can stay present to the day, acknowledging and being totally in the moment, there will probably be so many more “Just This” opportunities. So this Thanksgiving week, I give thanks for all the little things and some bigger ones: a great place to work, a community of people who believe the world can be a better place and work toward that end, a dedicated and fun staff, beautiful daughters, loving family and friends. I remind myself today and this week to find all of those “Just This” moments that are born of total presence.