Monday, May 14, 2012

A Mother's Day Reflection

Mother’s Day was on Sunday and it has been nearly 21 years since the baton passed from when I used to celebrate my own mother on this springtime holiday, to being the woman whose children celebrate her. My mother died on a summer day in mid-July, nearly a lifetime ago, three days before my birthday. I first saw her laid out in the casket on my birthday, her first born, wondering why the coincidence, why on this day of all days were we burying her, at the time of year when she brought me into the world? I never got an answer to that question, but I’ve long since settled the issue in my soul. It just is, and I count my passing years alongside the number of years she’s been in heaven.

Some of her grandchildren weren’t born when she died – my youngest sister was pregnant with her first child when mom passed away, her body ravaged by the disease of pancreatic cancer. And so in the lifetimes of my sister’s three children, none of them ever knew the woman who nurtured us and died entirely too young. They know “Grandma Margie” only from pictures and those long-ago family home movies.

After she died, I found myself looking closely at my face in the mirror each day, searching for signs of how I looked like her. It was part of the grieving process, wanting to hang onto any piece of her that I could. Most of my life, I seemed to resemble more my father, up until the past 10 years or so. As I’ve aged and near the age she was when she died, I see her in fleeting expressions, and it makes me gasp just a little. I see her in my joys and in my sadnesses, remembering what she looked like when I’d watch her live those times.

Because she died before I’d experienced much of what it was to be a parent and an “adult” handling life, I didn’t know what she thought or how she viewed the world. I was too busy being a young mother myself, raising children, working full-time, working out life with their father, while she lived in another state, a thousand miles away.

Now I look back, having gone through the stages she did, and see what she must have understood about the world. I feel what she must have felt about life back then. Her children growing up, no longer tiny underfoot, needing this, needing that from her allowed her to spread her wings and indulge her wants and pleasure. She had more alone time with my father, as well. Our lives weren’t always perfect, but the good times with family greatly outweighed the bad.

It’s an odd time, to become as old as one’s parents. My father has since passed away, too, just two years ago. He was lucky enough to find love a second time and remarried, to a woman who my mother knew and liked, and actually hinted about to him in her last days.

In reflecting on this Mother’s Day, I value the blessings my mother gave to me. Faith in God, love of music, appreciation for art and creativity, the importance of working hard, working well, being nice to people, staying strong in difficulties, doing for friends and being close to family – that was who my mother was at her core, and I celebrate her. Those are the lessons she taught me before she died.

I can only hope she’s looking down from heaven and thinks I learned her lessons well.

Happy Mother’s Day, Margaret Louise. With love from your daughter, now a Texan.


Monday, May 07, 2012

In Sickness and In Health, the Prince Reigns

A friend shared some news with me this week about the health of her young son that left me numb and silent, thinking of the difficult road ahead for her family. She is a woman of faith, with innate strength that will carry her through. First she and her husband must sort through the turmoil of the diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome.

They have had their 4-year-old son undergo numerous tests the past few months, trying to determine what was wrong. He’s been developmentally behind. He’s shown symptoms that may have been mere allergies. In the end, it was an unexpected diagnosis that has sent their world spinning and now will change their family in ways unknown at this stage.

My friend shared the news with me on the same day other friends posted photos on their Facebook pages in memory of their only son, who would have been 28 that day – he had died four years ago of an incurable brain tumor. A Christian family, as well, the tragedy was overwhelming to them and members of our church because he was a young man full of life, of faith, one who had served in other countries on mission trips as a teenager. Bright smile, bright eyes and a seemingly bright future.

As I processed their situations in my head, I was reminded of another life-altering occurrence in the life of a third friend, years ago. She and I were members of a writing group, she an editor at a major Christian publishing house. She had her first child at age 27. It was an exciting time, one shared with group members amid writing projects, her tummy larger each month, growing with life inside. But her world was turned upside-down when the beautiful baby girl born to her and her husband had Down Syndrome.

The fairy tales we hear as young girls talk of princes who rescue (we) damsels, and the loving couples head off into the sunset, happily ever after. Nothing in those tales prepares us for the tragedies and losses that are more often the reality than a glass slipper fitting or a pot of gold tangible at the end of a rainbow.

Yet, the life of a Christian can often be one of suffering. The loss of a child surely the hardest among earthly trials. I’ve been fortunate that, thus far, my offspring have not suffered from severe health issues. My own pain has been of another kind, unplanned endings of relationships – the princes in reality not those of fairy tales, not the happily ever after hoped and prayed for. And life goes on.

As Christians, we know that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, suffered greatly during His time on Earth, savagely beaten and tortured as a sacrifice to atone for our sins, past, present and future. He knew what it was like to lose someone he loved (Lazarus), and saw the tremendous suffering in the world as he healed the sick throughout his earthly ministry. He sees and understands our human pains.

Each of us has sad stories to tell, of loss, of suffering, of feeling ‘cheated’ out of what we thought was supposed to happen. We can’t always know the reasons why losses happen the way they do. We question. We rant and rail in anger at the unfairness of life, of course. And it’s damn hard at times! Yes, devastating. But God can handle our anger, the same way a loving parent comforts a toddler who might be crying and angry over something unfair in his or her little world. Life is not about ‘us,’ but about how we relate to God and to others, and what we make of what we’ve been given.

We are called to have faith, turn to Him in our pain, and trust Him in the plan He has laid out. God sees the big picture that we cannot. He knows why he put each and every one of us on this Earth, and what lies ahead. He does indeed make good out of bad – or mixes good in with the bad, providing little miracles if you watch for them.

I don’t know why there is Terrette Syndrome, Down Syndrome or brain tumors in this world. I don’t know why some babies are born perfectly healthy, and others’ lives end on the day they enter the world -- or why some lose their jobs, and others go on to make millions, why some marriages end, and others are lifelong commitments.

What I do know is that God is greater than any of our tragedies. And this life on Earth is only temporary. We have to approach what life throws at us with courage, strength and determination. We have to hold our heads up, live with integrity, honesty, doing just the very best we can. We were made in His image. We’ve got the strength of the Father in our veins. Let us not be so overwhelmed by our pain that we can’t see the love and blessings He provides through friends, family and even strangers as we navigate the emotional terrain of this (sometimes very ungodly) world.

In the end, the only real Prince there is resides in Heaven. And that’s the best, truest fairy tale of all.