Tag: parenting

Parables of Sun Light

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But all the gardens

Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales   
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.   
            There could I marvel
                  My birthday
      Away but the weather turned around.

      It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky   
      Streamed again a wonder of summer
                  With apples
            Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother   
            Through the parables
                  Of sun light
      And the legends of the green chapels
…O may my heart’s truth

                  Still be sung
      On this high hill in a year’s turning.
~Dylan Thomas from “Poem in October”
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An Incomplete Answer

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ahmamaHe loved to ask his mother questions. It was the pleasantest thing for him to ask a question and then to hear what answer his mother would give. Bambi was never surprised that question after question should come into his mind continually and without effort. 

Sometimes he felt very sure that his mother was not giving him a complete answer, was intentionally not telling him all she knew.  For then there would remain in him such a lively curiosity, such suspicion, mysteriously and joyously flashing through him, such anticipation, that he would become anxious and happy at the same time, and grow silent.
~Felix Salten from Bambi

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To Be Carried Away — The One Thousandth

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photo by Hilary Mulhern

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.
~ Frederick Buechner

It is fitting that my one thousandth blog post pictures the four people who exist at the center of all my reflections here.  I began writing regularly 12 years ago to consider more deeply my time left on this earth and what my family meant to me, here and now, and for eternity.

Family is carried inside the words I write without my often writing about them directly.  They inspire and challenge me, they love and stretch me, and as our children have now gone out into the world,  I am assured they are sustained by what they have carried away from this home.

Life is not just about living in the world but what world you carry deep inside.   We can never really be lonely;  our hearts will never be empty.  We have each other forever, even miles and miles and lifetimes apart.

I sustain myself with the love of family.
― Maya Angelou

A Heart Bared

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421152_10150518298024422_958316185_nThrough the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did – that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that – a parent’s heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.
~ Debra Ginsberg

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.
~Dorothy Parker

I would expect to be used to this by now; saying goodbye to adult children who come home for a visit, and then return to do what they have been called upon to do, living far away from us.

I may be used to it, but it gets no easier.  Each parting serves as a reminder of how deep and wide is the love for family yet how necessary is the letting go.

My tear ducts are due for a good washing out any way.  I consider it necessary maintenance along with checking to make sure the tires are well inflated.

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Our three in the middle,  leading outdoor church worship last night, photo by Brian Vander Haak

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.
~John Fawcett, last verse, Blest Be The Tie That Binds

Stored in the Heart

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Whatever he needs, he has or doesn’t
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do… 

…Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on.  What he does not have
he can lack…

…Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now…

…Everything that’s been placed in him will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine light.
~Sharon Olds from “The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb”

This is the season for graduations, when children move into the adult world and don’t look back.

As a parent, as an educator, as a mentor, as a college health physician witnessing this transition, I can’t help but be wistful about what I left undone and unsaid.   In their moments of vulnerability, did I pack enough love into that bleeding heart so he or she can pull it out when it is most needed?

With our three children traveling all over the world over the last few weeks, stretching way beyond the fenced perimeter of our little farm, I have trusted they prepared themselves well.

I know what is stored in their hearts because I helped them pack.   It is where they can still find me if need be.

Rough Edges Smoothed

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

What does it feel like to be alive?
Living, you stand under a waterfall…
It is time pounding at you, time.
Knowing you are alive is watching on every side
your generation’s short time falling away
as fast as rivers drop through air,
and feeling it hit.
~Annie Dillard from An American Childhood

I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world’s surface, and exit through it.
~Annie Dillard from An American Childhood

Mothering is like standing under a waterfall, barely able to breathe, barraged by the firehose of birthing and raising children, so much so fast.  Nothing rough remains after child rearing — all becomes soft and cushiony, designed to gather in, hold tight, and then reluctantly and necessarily, let go.

I’m well aware, even after my children have grown and flown, my rough edges still surface, like Godzilla from the primordial swamp, unbidden and unwarranted.  I want the sharpness gone, sanded down by the waterfalls of life, and smoothed to a fine finish.

My children continue to polish me, now from afar.  Time pounds away at me.  I can feel it hitting, every drop a blessing.

Dwindled Dawn

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photo by Josh Scholten

“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”
Emily Dickinson

My adjustment to our children being grown and away from home has been slow: I instinctively grab too many plates and utensils when setting the table, the laundry and dishwasher loads seem skimpy but I wash anyway, the tidiness of their bedrooms is frankly disturbing as I pass by. I need a little mess and noise around to feel that living is actually happening under this roof and that all is well.

Now it has been three days since my husband went out of town for a work-related conference and I’m knocking around an empty unbearably oversized house, wondering what to do with myself.

I have a serious case of the dwindles. The cure will be arriving back home tonight, and another fix arrives on an airplane a week from tomorrow, followed by two other remedies arriving for shorter summer visits in a month or so. I realize, like the fading of the dwindled dawn, these are cycles to which I must adapt, appreciate for what they restore in me, and then be willing to let them go.

But now I know: time without you diminishes me.

Staying Connected

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There is nothing comparable to the smell of a newborn’s skin, still awash in amnion and vernix, still waxy with protective coating.  It is a timeless brine, pungent with salt and sweetness, instantly magnetizing infant to mother.

Each of you were still soaked as you moved from an inside world to the outside, placed dripping skin to skin on my bare chest.  Your eyes opened, blinking, lids scrunched, focusing on the light and shadow of our faces, trying to memorize our shape and color, learning our smells, knowing the rhythm of our voices.  We could only marvel at that first glimpse, that first touch, knowing only moments before you had been floating, anchored deep inside.

I fell headlong into the brimming pools of your eyes.  My heart raced with the anticipation of sharing everything with you who had been knit together by invisible fingers.

You thrived, grew, and now as you move on, you carry that anchor lightly, that connection born of salt and blood.   I still fall headlong into their eyes when I see you, remembering the first time our gazes met.

I cherish each of you, grateful for the connection that is beyond a pulsing cord–that I could carry you inside and outside, just for a little while.