Catching my Balance

I've written a couple posts lately about preparing for my nest to empty: sadness about losing my children to their own lives and my nostalgia as I think back on my children's young lives.

And here it is, Christmas. I always have a tough time getting into the Christmas spirit. I rarely even feel like putting up a tree, and I almost never buy gifts until just a few days before Christmas. And the real meaning of Christmas always seems to elude me, too.

This year, the prospect of Christmas was rather bittersweet. My husband has been working second shift, six days a week, for the past month; we rarely see him. My kids have been busy with their own work schedules as well. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be the first time in months when we could all be together. I longed for this, yet I knew it would be the last one with all my kids living at home. From next year on, at least one of my kids would be visiting, not living here and being part of my everyday life.

Several years ago, I spent Christmas Eve waiting for biopsy results, wondering if it was the last Christmas Eve my family would have me with them. Last night, I cried all through the beautiful candlelight "Silent Night" as I wondered if it was the last Christmas Eve my family would be intact. I thought how grateful I would be for even a few hours of having my entire family together on Christmas.

Yeah, well, so much for that.

Son #2 has a girlfriend. They've been together over a year, and I really like her--but (you knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you?) they aren't married, he is still 17, and I needed him for one more Christmas. So guess where he decided to spend his Christmas Day? You got it--not with us.

Although all of us wanted him here with us today, in an effort to be kind and respectful of the relationship he has with his girlfriend, I agreed that he could go with her family to visit relatives in Illinois today. Every time I said, "We'd like you here with us, too," he would respond with, "I'll be home by 5. You'll still have me half of the day." (No, coming home at 5 does not leave us with half the day.). I held off Christmas dinner so he could be with us--and when I texted him to ask him to let me know what time he would be home so I could start getting dinner things together, he replied that he would be late tonight and that we should just eat without him.

After a rather lengthy exchange that included me telling me how sad I was and him announcing that he was just as much part of A's family as ours (what? seriously, dude? I birthed you! grrr), I simply broke down. I am not ready for my babies to be gone. I so needed to have all my family together for a few hours, with my husband and the children we made and raised together. Instead of having even so much as a dinner to gather my family to my bosom and soak in their presence, I was already letting them go before I'd even started to say goodbye.

Is that what parenting is? When they were little, the kids would start to walk, and there I would be, chasing behind them, trying to protect them and catch them and watch them. The child takes a step. Mommy is right behind, ready to reach out to steady him as he tries to catch his balance. I think I'm still doing that. My arms are reaching out to steady my child, only it seems that I'm really trying to steady myself as I try to catch my balance. Knowing that kids are supposed to grow up and leave their parents' home doesn't make it any easier when I'm the parent who's having a hard time letting go. I find myself wanting to say, "Wait, I'm not ready for you to go just yet!" Again and again and again.

What Is Wrong with Us?

When there is a mass shooting, I normally (yes, I realize how horrifying it is that this happens so much that I can actually use the word "normally" here) immerse myself in the news. If I'm home, I park myself in front of CNN, and I constantly check news sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc. for new information. This was especially the case in the two Milwaukee-area shootings this year. I want to understand how and why, I want to know who the victims are, I want to know about the acts of heroism.

Not this time.

This is just too much. I was out the way to the pet store with a friend at lunch time when we heard the news about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We were caught up in the silliness of our fish-shopping adventure and the grand pet store we found, and I just figured I would get caught up on this when I got back to work.

I got back to my office, loaded CNN on my computer, and froze. There was a video of a child--A CHILD!!!--being interviewed. I logged off and couldn't bear to look at the news again until this morning.

I hate that children have to be interviewed by the police to help their investigation, but I certainly understand the need to do so. They are dealing with enough trauma that will undoubtedly shape their tender brains, and a police interview that asks them to relive something so horrific surely can't help. But it is necessary.

A media interview, though? What kind of media do we have that this is seen as appropriate? I don't care if the parents do give permission. The parents aren't thinking too clearly right now. They probably had some moments of wondering if their children were even alive. I would not assume they are of sound mind at the moment. I find it insensitive enough when Olympic athletes who miss the gold medal by just a hair are interviewed while they still haven't gotten off the field about how they feel. (Really? We can't guess how they feel? We can't wait 15 minutes for them to figure out how they feel and how they want to talk about it?) But this is just too much. The act of asking and interviewing is adding more to the set of experiences these children now have to process.

I just can't bring myself to visit a website or look at an article that might give a news organization the impression that this kind of information is what I want to see.

Thinking about this, though, has hammered even further home to me just who the victims were. And I am still trying to figure out how to process this. My kids are quite a bit older and I am past the stage of needing to protect my babies every moment of the day. I can't imagine the fear and heartache felt by the parent of every young child today.

I've seen images that will haunt me--Jesus holding a child on his lap, the child's arms thrown around him and tears on his cheeks. Santa sitting in his sleigh, now-unneeded gifts spilling out of his sleigh while Santa sobs into his hands. Countless candles and broken hearts. Facebook posts from my friends who have lost children themselves. We are all trying to understand how it happened and how we will go on. We all want to ensure that this will never happen again.

We see renewed attention to gun control. For the record, I want gun control. However, I don't think it will make a bit of difference. There is something wrong with a society that produces individuals who contain the urge to do something so horrific to so many people--especially to children. If not a gun, it could have been a bomb. Or gas in a ventilation system. Or poison in the food. If it isn't a gun, it will be something else. Fighting for gun control is something that helps us feel more in control, like there's something we can actually do to prevent this from happening in the future. But I don't think it is the answer, because there will always be other weapons.

What is wrong with our society that produces people who want to use weapons against other people? And what is wrong with a society that thinks it is okay to traumatize children by interviewing them on the national news? Seriously, what is wrong with us?

Final stress

For years, I've experienced the stress of final exams. From my life as a student (writing, studying, reviewing, testing) to my life as a faculty member (grading, grading, grading, grading, dealing with emails from panicked and desperate students, grading, grading,...), I simply felt like I was immersed in different sections of the same morass. Now I experience it in a whole new way. Although I don't have the stress of those doing the academic work of finals, I do have the stress of supporting those who do. My mantra is this: No one is at their best right now.

One part of my job is primary this week: managing the testing services for students with accessibility accommodations. Many of those students work with us due to physical disabilities, learning challenges, or mental health struggles. In some students, final exam stress becomes particularly acute. I confess to moments of frustration with some of the situations I face: students who forget to schedule a testing appointment, students who keep rescheduling testing appointments, students who forget testing appointments, faculty who forget to drop off exams and have to be chased down, staff in non-academic offices on campus who somehow manage to forget that we a) are in final exam week, and b) are not available for brief tours or casually chatting in the way we might be at another time of the semester.

In my role, I often hear how complicated our students' lives are. My campus serves a quite diverse population, and my heart aches for someone just about every day. Even when things are going well, the juggling required by a single mom who is working and going to school boggles my mind. And it's important not to dismiss the challenges faced by a fairly typical young adult who is living away from home for the first time and trying to navigate early adulthood.

I am surrounded by the stress of others and feel drained every single day this week. I know it's normal, and I know it will pass. Perspective helps, but sometimes it is hard to see past the immediacy of caring for those who walk into my office each day.

Recently, I've been spending some time reading a marriage website with discussion forums. People anonymously share intimate details of their lives. I've been reading about couples in marriage counseling with issues that go beyond what many would tolerate. Two women are in the process of leaving abusive husbands. And then on the news I saw there was yet another mass shooting in the country.

With all that is going on in so many people's lives, I am awestruck at the courage it takes just to show up at school or work some days. So many of us carry invisible baggage with us everywhere we go. When I have a student raising her voice because she can't figure out how to get caught up on work she's behind on, or a student crying because a relative is experiencing a serious illness, or a faculty member who is worn down by all the time and energy that goes into support just one or two high-maintenance students, I need to stay mindful of the accomplishment of their simply being present, to struggle another day and try to keep moving forward in some way.

Some days, for some folks, just showing up really does deserve a gold star.

St. Who?

When I was young, I heard about St. Nick and the practice of getting little gifts on the night of December 5. I just always thought this was something done in German and Scandinavian countries.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my family moved to Wisconsin. My children were 9, 6, and 6. The younger two still believed in Santa at the time. I went to work the morning of December 6, oblivious to the fact that my children were going to school and facing friends who'd had a visit from Santa the night before.

I heard several of my students talking about St. Nick, and one of them came to show me the necklace she'd gotten. "St. Nick?" I said. "Do your families celebrate that? How interesting." And then more students gathered around. "Well, yeah, everyone does. Why, don't you?" I began to wonder what my kids were experiencing at school.

After they got home, the twins went running around the house, looking for stockings. "Everyone else got something from Santa last night! Where did he leave our stuff?" And there I sat, their stunned mother, wondering how I was going to explain this one. I don't like to the kids, but when they were little, I would bend the truth as much as I could without lying.

I asked them to tell me what the other children had said. Then I said, "Well, you didn't get anything from St. Nick yet, and I think I can guess why. I wonder if Santa knew that this would be a new tradition for us and didn't want us to feel confused when we woke up this morning. So perhaps he let you learn about St. Nick's from the other kids and school, and maybe he figured he could bring something for you tonight, when you would understand." They seemed a bit anxious, but it settled them down.

As soon as my husband got home from work, I headed to Walgreens--where I saw huge "Get your St. Nick's gifts" signs. Seriously, how had I missed those? I got little candy and some Christmas items for the kids, and that night, St. Nick came to our house.

He left a note: "Dear M---, B----, and B--, I usually stop by Wisconsin homes on December 5, but I didn't want to confuse you since I knew you were new to this tradition. So I came by tonight. Merry Christmas!"

The next morning, the kids woke up, relieved that Santa hadn't forgotten them. I don't think they were quite as relieved as I was, though.

And even after eleven years, I still have no idea what makes an appropriate St. Nick's gift. Sigh.

Semi Christmas

When I was a little girl, I thought semi trucks decorated themselves for Christmas.

I rarely saw semis, especially at night, because they stuck to the highways and we never went anywhere on the highway at night. Except for once a year. Christmas Eve.

Every Christmas Eve, we traveled to my grandparents' farm a little over an hour away from where we lived. Tables were loaded with food, the aunts and uncles played pinochle while the cousins all ran around in the upstairs bedrooms, and we sang Stille Nacht in German around the aluminum Christmas tree.

After our gifts (each cousin got a $5 bill, which really adds up when there are 25 of you), my family would pile back into the car and head home. In the dark, I pressed my face to the window to look for Rudolph. Even though my mom said they were planes, I was frequently convinced that I was really seeing Rudolph's nose blinking in the sky. I was sure that was the year I would finally see Santa.

And that was the only time I saw semis at night. At no other time of the year did I see them with all their lights around the perimeter of the back. So every Christmas Eve, I saw the decorated trucks and wished we could decorate our car with lights around the back. I don't remember how old I was when I finally saw a night-time semi at a time other than Christmas Eve, but I do remember asking my mom why the truck driver hadn't taken the lights down yet.

Now that I'm an adult, I see semis at night, all year round. And every time, I think of Christmas. And today, on the way home from work, on the interstate and surrounded by semis all lit up with red lights, I was pretty sure I saw Rudolph up in the sky, too.

Nostalgia

As anyone who’s looked at my blog lately knows, I've been feeling a bit melancholy and nostalgic. Much in my life is in flux. The most transformative experience in my life—becoming a mother—is heading into a new phase as my babies all prepare to fly away from the nest I built for them.

Part of my nostalgia is because I am grieving. I’m taking hold of my most treasured mama moments and grabbing onto them to help me further etch them into my heart.

• I have many memories of my oldest son, because every experience with him was brand new. I remember nursing him, and I remember rocking him and singing to him one night when he just wouldn't sleep. But my most treasured memory with him was when he was ten years old and fell asleep on my lap while we were watching TV. I remember thinking, “Oh, this is nice. I don’t remember the last time he fell asleep on me.” And then I realized that this would most likely be the last time he ever fell asleep on me. A few years later, when my son was in high school, he fell asleep with his head on my lap when he was sick. I was so grateful to experience that moment. Is it wrong when  a mom is glad when her kids are just a little bit sick because they want her around to take care of them? He is working on a certificate that will prepare him to pursue an engineering degree. At 20, he still lives at home—but as his friends move out on their own and his siblings are getting ready to leave, he is talking about moving out as well and I don't expect him to be here much longer.
• With my younger son, I most remember when we lived in the St. Louis area. We had a split-level house, with a deck facing east, toward a farm field. Every morning, I would get up at 5, brew coffee, and then go sit on the deck to watch the sunrise, with me wrapped in a blanket and drinking my coffee. At some point, my early-rising son started to join me. Every morning, he and I would be bundled up together, cuddling and watching the birth of the day. This child nearly died at birth, and then again when he was ten days old. Both times, I felt God’s hand holding him through the crisis. Every morning as the sun rose, I thought about how my son almost didn't live, and I was so grateful to have him there on my lap. He is wrapping up his senior year in high school and preparing to enter the Air Force. Once again, I will wear the burden of worrying about him, wondering if he will still be alive when I wake up in the morning.
• I don’t have as many specific moments with my daughter—probably because there are so very many of them. We are very close, and we are better friends than I ever hoped we could be. Mostly, I think about our monthly chocolate shopping outings on the first day of her period. That has become such a treasured outing. She isn't sure where she will go to college, but she is working hard and getting ready to move out and forward. She is a strong young woman with an incredible sense of social justice, but I’m not quite ready for her to go. Her departure will probably be the hardest for me to bear.

Part of my nostalgia has also been about reminding myself of who I was before I had children. I need to latch on to those pillars of my life if I am to keep from falling apart when my babies leave. I've been thinking more about the things that shaped me in high school and college, and I've been spending more time and effort tending to my marriage. I need all those things to be stronger as I head into this new phase. It’s sort of like pregnancy and labor pains, in that I’m preparing for the birthing of my children into adulthood.

I’m remembering my pregnancies, filled with excitement about the future and wonder about the new lives I was carrying. I’m drawing on that now, as I think about the wonderful young adults my children have become and the journey of life that is still ahead of them. I treasure the fact that I get to witness this new phase of my children’s lives. But that isn't going to keep me from wanting to hold onto my babies for just a little bit longer.

Heartscape

I have no artistic talent. When I was a child, everything I attempted to draw had the same backdrop: gently rolling hills, a round yellow ball of sun with yellow lines spoking out from it, and one cloud. The central image would vary. It was usually a tree with some flowers at the base, although sometimes it would be a princess. When I was feeling especially creative, I would draw a castle with a flag flying from each of the four turrets. But always, the rolling hills were the backdrop against which all else was drawn. Always.

Yesterday, I headed home to northwestern Illinois for what will probably be the last Thanksgiving at the home of my youth. My parents have bought a house in the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) so they can be closer to their cabin, and although they may buy a small home in town so they can stay closer to friends and family, their plan is to sell the house they built and have lived in for thirty-five years. With the exception of four Thanksgivings (one while I was finishing up my master’s thesis, one when I was on pregnancy bedrest and could barely even travel to my own living room , one a couple years later when we went to Chicago to try the holiday with my husband’s family, and one when my sister-in-law was pregnant and two of my children had a virus that can be dangerous for pregnant women to encounter), I have spent Thanksgiving Day with my family of origin. We always do Easter with my in-laws, and we always do Thanksgiving with my family.

I really needed this Thanksgiving. My children will no longer live with me by this time next year. My older son is looking to move into an apartment with some friends, my daughter will be away at college and will come to us for the holiday as a visitor, and my other son will be doing whatever the government requires of its military personnel. Not only would yesterday be the last Thanksgiving in the home I grew up, it would be the last Thanksgiving with the family I've raised while they are still part of my household. My heart was aching, even while it was full.

The foods at my mom's Thanksgiving table are familiar, of course, and even though my siblings and their families bring contributions to the banquet, we always have scalloped corn, green bean casserole, turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, Mom’s stuffing, and apple and pumpkin pies. Always. And there is always a walk in the afternoon to help grown-ups walk off the meal-induced lethargy and to help children and dogs work off some of the energy that has accumulated while being inside and attempting to behave. Always.

And that “always” is what I've valued most about Thanksgiving. Every year, whether I've traveled from far enough away that I needed to pack and stay for several days or from a short enough distance that it is just a day trip, I've gone home for the day. Although I always think of the home I've made with my husband and children as my home, my parents’ home has deeper roots in my heart , and, with a small handful of exceptions, the fourth Thursday in November always pulls me back home. Home is stability. It is comfort. It is constancy. It is the backdrop of my heart and life.

As we got off the fast-paced highways and traveled along Illinois Route 75, I glanced at the landscape around me as I always do. I saw the rolling hills—the same ones that were the backdrop of my childhood drawings—and I knew I was home. And my heart was glad.