18 months old.

I knew the day was not likely to be a smooth one when in leaving the house, I get you dressed in your fabulous gray H&M cardigan and blue & white striped Adidas hightops ready to charm the world, and seconds later after opening the door I hear a loud scream. I opened the door and had turned to grab my purse and jacket and you had walked right out the door and attempted to get yourself down the big concrete steps -  For the first time. I drop everything and swoop you up realizing I am not even sure where to look, are you breathing, are you bleeding, oh gosh, i didn't even see the fall. we recover after hugs and a mini exam on the bench where I determine you have a little bump but seem rather unmarked from the concrete roll. I am thankful and ready to now safely load you in the car. 

I see new neighbors running around in the front yard after getting out of their car. I heard about these new neighbors who signed a longer lease and had three kids so i am eager to say hello. First, a very energetic 6 year old comes over and I greet her and tell her I am glad she is here. In her beautiful British accent, she says to me, "I am Mila, and I have heard about you guys. And I saw your baby fall down the stairs." S.U.P.E.R. And, as luck would have it, her mom comes over at exactly the moment Mila is talking about my child's crash, and i have no choice but to introduce myself at this point, "I'm Ashley, two doors down, the negligent mother." Smile, smile. 

We return a few hours later, and I am chopping vegetables and talking to myself. It's lunchtime and Mateo has been cranky and clingy. I confess I must have completely blocked 18 months out of my head since Hannah - this phase where they have a body full up of emotions and so few words to express them.  So instead they throw their head back, fall on the ground, and cry huge loud elephant tears. And my mommy response does not feel gentle and kind and self controlled either. I want you to get up and pull yourself together and let me know what you need. The exposure this age brings to me of myself is not pretty. The reflexes that don't seem as quick (see above for exhibit a) this go round are trying me. 

I spread out the raspberries, cheese, ham, avocado and cheddar bunnies on your tray, and you receive it eagerly. I tell myself not to drag your seat to the living room so we can have a CNN update lunch, and instead I finish my salad and sit right across from your tray. I never know exactly what to do at these little lunch dates of ours. The silence is screaming but when I talk it sorta feels like talking to myself. And i don't even have the happy upbeat mommy voice thing. But I keep looking up at you, and I see you are glad to meet eyes. So i decide to sing a bit to you because i love to sing and you don't know yet how bad my voice is. You begin your version of singing right along with me. It's perfect. I see in your eyes the longing to connect, the hope for facetime, so i fully turn towards you and for some reason stick my foot up right to touch your sock foot and see our feet to feet. You think this is hilarious. You crack up each time i tuck my toes, you are grinning all the way across your chubby cheeks. And I think, good work, Ashley, way to resist Wolf Blitzer and stare at this beauty instead. And my body lets go a bit as I see that even without words you want to know my delight in you - you want to play together and you want to see my face see yours.  

All the exposure and all the imperfection is weighty to sit with, and in the same breath, the simplicity of forgiveness, the ease to reach joy seems quite miraculous. You forgive me for not catching you down the stairs. You forgive me for the cool responses i offered in return to your clings and whines of the morning. You share your joy so freely from our connection.  I am not advocating that I forget and repeat all my bad habits tomorrow - Only remembering that the other thing I blocked out about this season is this deep goodness in the play and joy.  

Love and Grief

I am aware that for how much you love, it's almost like carving out the space to grieve at the same time but unknowingly. But our tolerance for the largeness of the grief space is fairly low. I do not want to hurt for too long, or with such depth. And as it is with love all the surprises that make your stomach flitter, with grief it is the lack of being tamed and orderly that is most surprising and take your breath away. 

I had a dream about mom the other day when I was resting and when i woke up, I was aware I was dreaming of my mom like 20 years ago, and I was so happy. So i tried to lay right back down and keep the dream going so i could keep seeing her again in that way. Five minutes later I heard the baby cry and I was so disoriented. I did not want to return to this world, my world, the current real world and remember again that she was gone. I did not want to switch gears one more time to a whole new set of needs. My season so glaring with worthy complication. 

I cannot sit and stare for the hours my body feels like doing so these days. And I'm glad of course that instead, I look straight into the eyes of new life. I see Mateo yesterday at the gas station.  I am peeking through the tinted windows at him while I pump the gas. His eyes are so eager to connect. i begin making a series of funny faces, and the laughter and smiles and delight you offer back to me changes me. its so pure and sweet and generous. 

So here I am, this wild season, with both love and grief abounding in my days. Both surprise me and even overwhelm me on days. Both are teaching me a great deal. The true courage for me will be allowing myself to attend to all that is brought up in these days in a way that I will actually learn and soak in that which is before me. 

how to be present in pain

I am on the farthest right corner of the sofa that I can be on, it's almost 9pm and the nightly routines of dinner, dishes, baths, games and reading have all occurred.  This is when I began to attempt unwinding. You sit to the left and instantly I see your busy mind and before I know it we are deep into a good but untimely question. "What keeps you from living present these days?" You ask with kindness, I can tell in your tone this is pursuit, but I am not having it. A. It's 9pm. This is the beginning of un-wind not dive deep. B. All the answers feel really obvious. C. I have no interest in answering because instantly I know my defensiveness is not because of the question or the timing persay, although i hate both, it is because I don't totally know and I don't want to think about it. So i give hearty effort to pushing you away, and letting you know the foolishness of asking when all my answers are so out in the open. 

First, as for why it is so difficult to be present to the children and therefore why 75% of the days when you walk through the door I do not have a smile on my face -  is because children are difficult and we've been in and out of crisis and loss for 3 years. And I am exhausted from the inside out. And, I add, by the way, on Saturdays - you are too - feeling as though if i point the finger right back at you, you will see, you are just like me - un-present, selfish, distracted, reactive. After lots of rather nonsensical commentary, mostly by me, about how we are too old to have a 1 year old and how we surely forgot how challenging this nonverbal high physical phase is... and i'm terrible at this.  And then how different our approach is to holding the fullness of watching a 7 year old understand ideas of respect for authority and parental trust - and navigate new emotions of inclusiveness and talent. I am prepared with an artillery of defensive of why of course my new day job is impossible. 

After you repeat that this question and hope for conversation had nothing to do with judgement and everything to do with pursuit - wanting to check-in - i'm even more upset. Why don't you check-in at 6am when I am processing the world, not 9pm when I am trying to begin forgetting all the world threw my way - droning all real life out of my head and filling it with the TV storyline.  After I finish that line of good reasoning, I see your face and the defeat all over it.  I began to feel the shame burning through my cheeks that I have knocked you out again for caring all because i dread thinking through this like i dread running hills. It hurts so badly. The compassion building in my heart begins to weaken the shame shower and I actually start feeling so so sad. 

I don't know all the answers of why i am struggling so much to be present in my days. But i hate all the answers I have not even laid out. And, I know, I am a mess. I know this capacity change is tiring. I know it must be exhausting to walk back in the door day after day to my grumpy unsatisfied face. Truth is the kids are actually amazing 80% of the day and then turn into miniature villains right around 5pm just to tip my already imbalanced scale and lead me to believe, i cannot do this. i cannot make it. and i need you all to move out.  

And then the tears fall heavy and warm down both cheeks and I am silent. And you turn towards me more. I wish you would leave me alone. Why does vulnerability always feel hard, even after all these years? But you stay in the silence and wait for me. It lasts what feels like 2 years and the tears get fuller and fuller and I begin talking again - It's only been two weeks with this new job. I haven't figured it out. It's only been two weeks since I quit having my days shaped around the drives to Edmonds and the visits to be with mom and dad. Since my grocery runs were connected to making food for them, since my exercise and house cleaning was connected to when I could fit it in before and after the visits. Since all of my energy was poured into the presence and time with my mom. It's only been two weeks. And I know I am not knocking things out of the park. i know I haven't made a meal plan or exercised regularly or slept well or eaten well, i know my body is in pain. and my kids are literally expressing pain in every form available to their tiny hearts and minds. I know. I see us all bleeding out and I cannot see the way to putting it all back together perfectly. My grief is a force in my days and I am afraid of feeling it all  - or to ignoring and having it ransack me again later. And it is so rude. It is untimely and unpredictable and it cannot be squished into a routine or schedule or complete by any certain date. And so i don't know how to be present, I'm lost. And I don't know for how long. 

But because you asked, I would like to try. Because my kids are hungry for my whole self, I will renew my intention and efforts with them in incremental ways that still feel kind and possible for me. And what you can do, because you are also asking, is please also do more to take care of you. Please work extra hard on your health. I am so heavy feeling that the whole system is tied to my 6pm face and energy, and in that case we are all going to sink.  In my lost state, i still feel the strength of the wave of these tears connected to the depth of my love for each of you. I do still really deeply love you. Can you love me longer in my disorientation? Is it too harsh to ask that you care best for yourself for just a little longer? I don't know all the answers to your questions, but I know I want to be present. I do. I'm just not quite there yet. Thanks for pursuing me anyway. 

Earth without a Mom

I live now in the world without a mother on Earth. In many ways it seems the ground has fallen out beneath me.  It's nearly impossible to get my head around, and my heart needs much much more time to comprehend. Even when I picture her now I can't decide which picture to hold in my mind - the many of the last six months when so much of her so little resembled the mother I knew, or the one from the 36 years before that had so much presence in her eyes alone. I don't know what to hold onto yet, but without the chance to have her walk through my door again and give me the fullness of her face, I grasp for an image of comfort. 

Her words come easily to me, decades of them -  her words were lioness in their fierce conviction but as comforting as the softest bunny in the land. And if ever they were delivered without enough thought, she'd come back to them, and find out how they landed to me. My filter in the last 10 years was something like, "Oh mom, mom, mom, don't worry, oh, that's genius, oh mom, oh good point, oh mom, can't we just sit here and not think, oh mom, thank you." That probably makes no sense but my point is, i got so used to the ways she would hear and respond that I began to not hear as well her words and let care just be discarded because it was something mom always said and oh of course mom thinks that, and then I'd be at home lying in bed before sleep and a part of her words would come back and I'd ponder the wisdom and sift through the overworry and usually land with some compassionate seeing words to reckon with for myself. I wish I had not discounted any of them now, i wish I had listened more closely now. And of course, i wish I had asked more now. 

I found myself oddly without too many words in our last weeks together. It was a constant internal wrestling match of how to sound optimistic and okay when really I often wanted to beg her to keep fighting and be the miracle case. I confess, unlike dad, who was tireless in his hope, I gave up quickly that we would get that miracle. I was so confused to even be the child who was spending as much of my days as I could to be with her  - because I was so very bad at dealing with medical stuff and discomfort and the disorienting life of tumor progression.

One day after a conversation with a friend with whom i relayed my defeat at the end of most days as I left my parent's condo and felt fairly helpless and mostly uncomfortable, and she mentioned the word privilege. And that word bounced in my head all night and I woke up and knew that was it - this indeed was an unmatchable privilege to have the chance to be beside you as often as I could in these days. To witness the loss and changes and process of dying for the person in the world who has done the most for me, who has been the most significant influence of my life - to be able to be by your side as messy and imperfect as it was - was indeed one of the most sacred privileges of my life. For that I am grateful. For now, navigating life on Earth motherless, well it feels awful. The gap is too wide. I miss you. 

a last birthday

i have never celebrated someone for their last birthday before.  buying gifts felt difficult and irrelevant. the door creaked as i entered their condo, it seemed dark inside, but that was mostly just the gray rainy Edmonds sky. I rounded the corner and saw her dressed in white sitting up in her wheelchair. Recently I find that every time I am writing about my days with mom I always talk about entering their place. I think it is because it is a crossing over into this sacred space. Everything up unto that moment - from the news on NPR to the mad morning dash at my house getting Hao ready for school and changing diapers and having morning snuggles by the tree - feels like a different planet compared to the moments that take place in their condo. The scene is not familiar, it is not one I had ever pictured in my mind before and yet each day I arrive, I breath in deeply and then try to face head on the images and needs in this holy space.  

On her birthday, as on many days, I am taken with the beauty of her face.  It's my mother, her familiar knowing eyes.  Her appearance has changed so much, with her skin wrinkling in new patches on her face and neck, and a mouth that used to utter such significant adoring and wise words is no longer moving, an arm dangling by her side no longer of any use, and gray spattering of hair that is short with a few bald spots covering her head. Still to me, sometimes I walk in and I think, oh mom, you are so beautiful. 

We spend a great deal of our time together staring with few words. How unfamiliar those times are and yet how special to know so fully our hearts for one another without words. Her beautiful hands, all that they have held and done, their labor has been significant, and I hold them to let her know that I am there. I always pictured that I would be reading to her from a book or telling her stories, but in the last week, I have learned the stories are too frustrating, she interrupts that she has no idea what i am saying, and that she isn't sure who i am talking about in my story.  I know she understands a great deal, but can only take in short stories right now and remembers most people by face only, not by name.  

I was trying to tell her, for example, that Hannah came home from school on Friday and had checked out a baking book from the library. It is a bit unusual for Hannah to want to bake, but she said, "mom, I was thinking that if we have SueSue's birthday party this weekend, we need to make her a cake, because I am thinking if it is just up to Ba, he will probably just serve chunks of ice cream or something!"  I told the story and laughed and looked up at her face and she said, "who is Hannah again?"

Yet, remarkably, when she laid eyes on Hannah tonight,  her first words were, "you are important." All of the above is true, if Ba was in charge of the birthday we would indeed be eating ice cream and for sure, to SuSu, Hannah is so very important, her first grandaughter, one we prayed to arrive for many years. 

I find myself wishing I had energy at the end of the day to come home and learn more about our brains. What is next to what in there? Where is this tumor going, how is it changing her so much in these ways, what must this all feel like to her, is there any predictability of what will go next?  I have no idea and keep telling myself maybe next year I'll be the researcher and find more peace in the anatomy of it all. For now, I cross the line and beg God for whatever I can muster for the day. I lie a bit when I look her in the eyes and tell her, everything is okay, you are safe, we are here, and I can move you from the bed to the chair to the potty, no problem, when inside my body, I can be quite unsure.

This birthday has nothing to do with cake or presents or really much of the normal celebratory affairs, I couldn't even bring my whole family with me because the noise would be too much. It was just my dad, my brother, my aunt and me taking turns holding her hand, brining her water, and doing anything helpful for her. At the end, we didn't blow out candles and make any wishes, we sobbed our way through a prayer of gratitude for how we recognize God's writing all over the story of her life. How magnificent and redeeming and cruel and glorious her days have been.  Happy 67th Birthday mom! 

new season, yes I am in

Over and over I heard groaning from the other room. It's midnight, I'm so tired and I'm determined to sleep and wake and run. I've already gone in the room multiple times, there isn't really a good solution to comfort enough that buddy doesn't feel the hand, foot and mouth pain. He has the nastiest virus. Stephen and I bicker and go our own ways, we are all worn down. 

I wake today and i see stars, its crisp and clear and i crave the fresh air and movement. I am afraid of the dark but I am more afraid of stillness right now, so I am grateful to meet a running buddy and see the glow of the lake from the moon. its big and bright and i am so comforted by its beauty and grandness. it keeps me appropriately small. when all of life is asking me to be so big. 

this is my new season, one I am staring in the face and choose to commit to, and yet while being assured of my place and timing, I am almost wholeheartedly afraid. How will I watch my mother die? Already I know that death in and of itself is not likely to be the hardest part, it is all this change, all the realignment, all the disappearance of what was. Staring at death is hardly going to be about the day I lose my mother, but about each of these days how I am battling out the confusion and change of my family. of me. death is already hollering my name in so far as life as i understood it to be, the full life, has been flipped on its head. the beautiful table setting has had the linen yanked from underneath and there are beautiful familiar pieces spread all around but the settings are no longer in place.  

My season is really saying yes to receive my son. i've been half participating in his welcome and I didn't totally know until the courts named aloud he was to be our son forever more. so like a pregnant woman who uses the time with the growing womb to accept and endear to her child, I am still only 5 months pregnant in some ways, accepting and learning along the way, but mostly just keeping the daily nurturing afloat.  this season is for us buddy, for me to know you more, and for you to find deep rest and assurance in our home. we are forever your family, and so very blessed to be so. 

so I step in. to this huge and feeling rather impossible season of daughtering and mothering.  of growing love and life with a one year old to watching life go with a strong and beautiful 66 year old mother. how oh how, and yes, oh yes, i do. 

i shouldn't have gone.

i miss my kids in a new way.  Here I am in a hotel in Texas and the highlights of my day are staring at a computer screen to facetime everyone at breakfast and then again in the evening. Only slight problem is that because it is as confusing as all get out for Mateo, he basically cries everytime he sees my face, and tonight, reached his arms up to the phone. At which point I started looking up flights to see how much it would cost to get home tomorrow. Because right now I feel i may physically combust with how badly I wanted to reach back through the phone and pick him up. Precious boy. Im an idiot. We were not ready for me to have a work trip and to be gone like that. And this is the beginning of forever of you and me learning together. I can't believe how often I will fail you as a parent. I'm sorry and I'm trying, but goodness gracious ask your sister, there are lots of days of I'm sorry. But I pray and beg your whole little body knows how much i love you and i want to do better tomorrow. 

Speaking of Hannah, she is as lovely and delightful as i have ever known. And I am realizing ever so quickly that she is also a very serious girl who loves to laugh. and it may be my life's mission to keep alive the part of her that loves to laugh for as long as humanly possible.  Because with all her sincerity and thoughtfulness, the way she comes alive in her eyes when she laughs is about the greatest thing. And even as many times as I tell myself, go with it, be silly, laugh too.... I find myself at the end of long days when its time to go to bed and she wants a few more zerberts or to be silly and floppy for a few more minutes that some switch in me says, I'm done. i'm tired, i have no nothing left and its time for me to put a bow on this day. Oh her eyes, and the piercing wisdom of her voice, mom why do you have to be so firm, whats so important now? in my head i think, only you, and the words that fly out instead are... the dishes still left downstairs, and the  tidying that needs to happen and the emails and forms to take care of for tomorrow.  and instantly i see her face change as i expose responsibility when all you want is play and rest. Oh goodness me, i pray for some wins. i pray for as many nights as I can be silly for a few more minutes. and i beg for self control not to tell you, my dear daughter the weight of responsibility I am carrying because it is not yours to carry in anyway. Forgive me love. 

So i lay here in this beautiful hotel room with peace and quiet and all I want is to be in my home knowing what PJ's you have on and kissing your heads goodnight. I want to sleep down the hall and wake up to you and make so many promises i'll be there for you and protect you. And I'll try, Lord knows I'll try, but its the beginning of forever too of me trusting God and letting go of the control that I can even do all the protecting I want. I pray one day after whatever amounts of therapy you may need, that we come back and see how broken and how beautiful the whole thing is - parenting - mothering - faith - careers - responsibility - ahh - i hope on that day that by some grace your memory is of some presence and laughter alongside the firm and responsible.   

Hope is not for the faint of heart

I listen to Adele entirely too much. I can't help it. I try to take a week off but there is so much to like. That's a side note to the background, but what I really want to write about is the forefront. 

My best efforts to not think of you 24/7 and to not get too far in my imagination are getting harder and harder. I have been truly reasonable. protective. guarded with hope. until i guess the last 24 hrs.  It may be because now I have looked at your face, held your small body, and had you lay your head on my shoulder. could be that. or it could be watching you climb on Hannah and heard her wake up at the crack of dawn and come ask me... "so mom, how many more days until we know? I can't stop thinking of M."  Her hope all out in the open. Not to be so well controlled or boundaried or hidden. Or it could be what it was like to watch Stephen pick you up. His tattoo strong arm and rather stoic face try to contain his longing while he picked you up in the air. I knew better. 

Oh goodness gracious, I can lay it all out so exquisitely and magically in my head. Your story of survival that you wont even understand for a few decades. your early abandonment that is gut-wrenching and such a loss for the selfish blind others. and the strength and courage of your mom. all the while you crawl with intention and smiles straight to each of us. And oh if we could only squeeze and hold you as long as we wish your paddle feet would rarely find ground. Today Hannah said she missed you. And my walled-up heart throttled.  I know.  Me too. And we don't even know you yet. 

You are changing us already. And we may never get to hold you again, but the supernatural experience of care and hope we have had with your mother has already changed us. It's so imperfect and at the same time just right. The longest longing stretches out it seems forever and it is worth the wait I can tell. We will try again to pace our hearts. But know, there are people all over the country saying your name and your mother's name to God.  I am so glad. All I can hope is Thy will be done. 

Trust Your Mother Heart. Or that of 100 others.

I am 100 mothers. When I think today about the mothers I celebrate, the mother I have and the mother I am, I realize that what I have the privilege to be is the result of about 100 mothers around me and before me.  Pieces of what I have seen in my lifetime shape so much of the mother than I hope to be.  

Early mother memories are most significantly of course of my own mother - the best comfort around - you almost wanted a sick day so that you could see the fullest expression of TLC on this planet.  (i still have a ways to go in this category btw). Then I have memories of Ginger and Sandra, Mallory and Romy's mom.  First of all, they were both very chic and cool. Secondly, at Mallory's we had the best snacks with the coolest utensils (like the cheese cutter) and I have so many memories of Ginger's laugh.  At Romy's, Ms. Simpson she was so "chill" with the long wavy clothes, cool haircuts, and we perfected Super Mario Brothers on the Ninetindo there.  These mothers made significant impressions on my childhood.  

Time goes on and there are a myriad of mother's faces and voices I can remember.  Some communicating joy and encouragement. Some wrapped tight in fear with articulate list of boundaries and rules.  I am so both. In high school, so many of the mom's I remember very clearly were boy's mothers, I loved a few of them, they were so nice to me and seemed SO laid back. And of course I remember the mother who told me that when we start our "flow" we may find ourselves craving beer more than usual and I have tried to stick by that rule too. I remember Aunts that were like mothers that displayed the art of asking "what's going on in your heart honey?" I have some amazing Aunts who I vividly remember giving me the feeling I could tell them the whole truth too and they wanted to know me. 

The last decade or so new mother's faces appeared, in fact in most cases it felt everyone was a mother before me, and I was watching my friends so closely.  OH, they are beautiful mothers. Now I see the advantage of my years to watch them.  I remember calling SO many of them to figure out sleep training, food, kid's dressing themselves, and on and on.  These years had me calling on my sister-in-law Anna, on Sandy, Randy, and Kim  - tearfully begging for the secret tricks.  "Clothes are one of the few ways they can express themselves", and "set the timer and if you feel sick and worried way before, find your limit of time", and "start real foods when you are ready to feed all day long don't let the book tell you when".  I will never forget one series of phone calls with these women and they literally gave me ALL different methods for the madness of sleep training. And I laughed at the end of it, that each answer was SO beautiful and so perfectly enlightened me on how they were going to approach this mothering gig. And again, my mother's voice rang SO loud during my own early season of finding motherhood - and she gave me the richest advice - Trust your mother heart - she said it to me over and over, even in situations where I knew I had a problem she could solve, she just looked at me so compassionately and reassuringly that I could do it, I could trust my own guts for my girl.  

Finally in this last season, my own sister and I got to find motherhood together.  Oh my how we weave our way so differently. And how much she shows me with her endless ability to give of herself. She delights and gives so gracefully. And I watch picking up any of the pieces my tightly knit mind can contain. I often then think of my twin cousins who also taught me a great deal about motherhood through their own actions even more than words as they preceded me in this grand adventure by a decade, I watched their differing approaches too. Both wonderful. And they kindly shared their words with me once it was my turn to give it whirl.  In these last few years in Seattle, I have watched a beautiful mother of such depth of love, such knowingness of this season in her life and such intention to live into it. I am inspired and I mimic whatever I can. 

All this to say, when I come to this day and try to accept any words from my family of the kind of mother I am, I realize, I am 100 mothers. I am a blend of all those before me and beside me that have so generously shared of their secrets or so gracefully led by example.  I have seen you, the flashbacks in my head guide me, and I celebrate today so wholeheartedly for all the beautiful mothers I know.  What a privilege it is to have that title.  Never, never do I grow tired hearing that call from my girl's voice, "Mom!"

How mania can pose as peace

I am an adrenaline junkie.  I come to this realization basically every weekend, but it hasn't been named until this morning. Many weekends can be a mess for us, unless they are chockfull of plans. On weekends, with free time, I am waiting for my next rush and have the time to feel all the restlessness in my body while I figure out what to do. I don't mean it harsh on myself. I am learning. 

It can play out something like this. Its Sunday, my day to sleep til 8am.  I see the sun peering through the windows early so I think, If I go ahead and get up early I can get my exercise in before church and that leaves more of the day to do more fun things. So I get up, drink a cup of coffee (first and favorite rush) and read a short devotional (because heaven forbid I just sit with my coffee and stare into space).  After working out the next 45 mins is perfectly blur of smoothie making, showering, getting ready for church and flying out the door. 

Post church is a perfect opportunity for family breakdowns. Especially if the lesson was worth hearing. Because your heart and mind are stirred, emotions realized and then poof you are back on the street trying to figure out what to do with the day. Oh and everyone in your family has a different idea for the perfect Sunday.  First is Stephen's hope to garden, which translates in my special brain to mean, "you tackle the train wreck indoors and i'll plant and beautify outdoors, which is like a hobby but mine is like a responsibility.  And by the way I think Hannah will be entertain-able outside but she may end up needing a few breaks with you to figure out some things to play.  I am selfish people.  This is not a Sunday plan where I can figure out what is EXCITING and SPECIAL and RESTFUL for me. Do we go to the Market first, can I at least get an americano with steamed milk and fresh flowers? At which point Stephen says, come garden with me, which i realize is honest pursuit and thoughtful only its kind of like inviting me to learn sewing. I don't totally love it. My thoughts of gardening is nothing itchy and no bugs, but a crisp glass of rose and a book in the garden. Or cutting bloomed flowers for a bouquet. I can do the grit part with worms, but again, this is not the Sunday plan of excitement for me. So I push and complain and even pick on Hannah's hair being in her face. Because I am restless and this isn't the next best thing and my people are letting me down. 

Except they aren't.  They invite me to their world and play but I turn it down for not being big enough. What I am really turning down is that it isn't big enough to cover all that I am covering up from feeling. And I am desperate for a save. an exciting save, and adventure, a good thing for us to do even, people for us to help maybe.  All because if I sit in this room with no agenda and let all of us do our own thing, I slowly but surely u n r a v e l.

I picture my mom and wonder what on earth she is thinking and feeling as she braces to go back to Duke, back for an MRI and for consideration in a trial.  I realize we don't have words yet for what we will feel or think if she isn't able to be in the trial, and our last save is exhausted. 

I realize that Stephen has a few days left at his job. The job that did save us in many ways, a job I am so proud of him for doing so well. A job that was steady and good provision.  And I have to release that he may have the capacity to start anew but I hardly have the energy to learn the new cast of characters. I am happy for him and proud of him for sure. But i see more transition in the future and I long for a year with all major categories working out, just 365 smooth days... (job, health, home), but maybe that's silly. 

and all in the very same week, we continue recognize the highs and lows of this uncontrollable process of adoption. we find the fear and the hope raging like a wild tide in our hearts.  we have important conversations ahead and we brace ourselves. 

So while i know i prefer the rush of the activity, I sit. I name. I confess. I hope to hear and know God is near. I try not to take my people down in my need for mania in order to solve my pounding heart. i let it pound.