Said little Raleigh, when we were going out for a bike ride on his balance bike, just around the little Mr. Roger’s neighborhood I live in. Staying on the sidewalk. Wearing a helmet. Watching out for cars when we crossed the street together.

A strange request? Perhaps. Probably just a thing he said in passing, with maybe no deeper meaning or problem involved. I could and did answer “Yes, honey”; but of course, I meant only while he was in my care, but we didn’t talk about that. The simplest answer is the easiest with a three year old. As most all grandparents who have had both the blessing and the curse of remembering too much from their own child-rearing years, I know keeping a child safe is a huge duty and an overwhelming responsibility. There are so many possible ways for a child to be hurt; physically yes, but emotionally often even worse. Because you never saw it coming.

Years later we will learn from our children, their therapists or their spouses, where we had in fact not kept our children safe. Where they had been harmed, mostly unintentionally, in ways we never realized were even possible, because we had yet to sort out our own emotions concerning our upbringing and our family ties. There isn’t enough time to do it all and keep on track with everything that is happening at daily speeds while raising kids. As parents we do the best we can with what we know at the time. Unfortunately at first we only seem to know how to either repeat what we learned from our parents or to try the completely opposite approach, having found since what we absorbed as a child was not that helpful for us in the long run, so perhaps the opposite would be better? Unfortunately the opposite was usually no better, just a swing of the pendulum to the other wrong side, passing the balance we actually sought, but had no way of recognizing. From unnoticed to hovered over. From neglected to spoiled. From discounted feelings to always being allowed very big feelings, both seeming unacceptable but the norm unattainable. Balance seemed very distance when viewed now from the other side. Where do we turn for guidance, and how will we recognize the center if we have never experienced it?

The things we most need to learn to embrace our best life are not ever really taught to the young, except maybe in the school of hard knocks. We go into parenting with high hopes, but it is the most complicated mess of responsibilities and job titles we will ever encounter, especially if we are picking up the slack for another parent, either emotionally absent, physically or sometimes both. I used to think I am reparenting myself as fast as I can while trying to navigate the potholes that may show up in my children’s lives if I am not successful. It seemed like a wild race against time, and I often failed to be one step ahead of where they needed me to be.

We can only improve the gene pool little by little if we really pay attention and try harder and harder in the fog in which we often find ourselves. From disfunctional to misfunctional to what…normal? At the ripe age of 80, I can say I have yet to meet anyone coming from a ‘normal’ family, as everyone has ways they have had to make adjustments. Yet seeing those small gains made by my children as they parent are huge in our family legacy, if they seem to go in the right direction. I am always noticing those ever so slight increases and crediting them to the balance column in our generational inheritance. It isn’t easy. Yay team!!

My youngest son had just been relocated to the fifth new home of his six years on earth. He adjusted very well every time, but in this one he also started school. He was quite self assured and already dressed in a style that showed his flair for being comfortable in his own clothing choices, even if he stood out from his peers. I was raised to be very conscious of both fitting in and being properly appropriate in my choices of attire. In self esteem I drew a short stick; it was extremely important to me that I not somehow hand that on to my children, even though I had no idea how to project its opposite.

I used to buzz cut my boys hair, at least until they began to notice girls around age 12. Soon after he started school, it was time for a buzz cut for my youngest. We put a kitchen stool in their bathroom and he sat down facing the big mirror. The stool put him at just the right height for me to work around his whole head and stay even. I did something different this particular time. I buzzed the right side front to back but stopped an inch onto the top. Then I did the same for the left side, stopping at the same place. I wasn’t finished but I stopped to look in the mirror at his reflection. He had one solid strip of hair up the middle, perfectly done and because it was growing out a previous buzz, all the hair was neatly the same length. I saw his eyes looked amazingly large all of a sudden, too and I asked him, “You know that mohawk you been asking me for years, do you still want one?”

Those big eyes got even larger and he said “Yes Mom!” He had no reservations, but I of course had to follow up with “What if people laugh at you?” He spun around and looked me straight in my eyes and said “Mom, if they laugh at me, that’s their problem.” I guess I didn’t hand it on, in spite of myself.

I am reading a book in which this particular writer’s mission and gift is to encourage others to find their voice writing. I was reading this morning about how we may associate a particular smell with our deepest memories.
I was telling several friends recently about the smell of coffee and how I loved waking up early when I am visiting my son and his family, so that I can share a cup of coffee with my daughter-in-love in their kitchen as she gets ready for the day ahead and meals needed, starting with breakfast. It is perhaps my favorite part of my trip out west. I love catching up on their world through her eyes, as she recounts recent adventures large and small, in the months just passed or the ones ahead. The love she has for each of them even in struggle moments is always most evident, and because I share that with her, I feel as though I am on their journey as well. The memories of those early morning hours come drifting back as I sit here months later with my coffee.
The times I shared with my Mom over coffee when we lived with them after I moved my tribe of three to Florida in the late 80s were also some of my favorites. The coffee my Mom drank was never the best and later, as we had so many better options, I wondered why she still drank the plain black Folgers she faithfully brewed each morning.
I know now that it wasn’t the coffee. It was the peaceful time to write, think, feel and process that was so special about starting her day that mattered.
I had a beloved grandmother who also wrote letters to her family each morning about six am, probably with a warm cup of coffee beside her. My Mom often started her day with her famous tiny yellow legal pad and black flair pen notes to our family and her wide circle of friends. I come from a long line of morning writers it appears, as I recount these memories. Embracing the smell of my early morning coffee is even nicer now as I think about my heritage.

I remember when my youngest was about five and he suddenly became sick to his stomach. He ran to the bathroom and quickly put his head over the toilet bowl. I got a clean wash cloth and ran it under the cold water and held it against his forehead while he emptied his stomach into the bowl in fits and starts. When he was nearly finished he turned his little head toward me and said “Were you trained for this?”

I thought of all the ways a Mom even a brand new one, all of sudden seems to acquire an entirely new skill set, somewhat resembling a grandmother/nurse. The fact that it seemed odd to my son made me think about how amazing it is. All of a sudden a selfish teen turned irrational twenty something becomes a safe parent for a small child, without seemingly taking any courses or getting a degree. Things that our Mom or grandmother used to do come flying out of our memories at just the moment they are needed. Somehow the next generation manages to get enough healing solutions to their smallest problems to carry them forward into adolescence, where they can begin caring for themselves. This moment made me think how special all that generationally passed on healthcare truly is. Our glycerin on boo boos to make them stop hurting, mud on bee stings, calamine lotion on most everything that itches, hydrogen peroxide on anything you don’t know what to do….you name it, fortunately because we couldn’t google anything! You had to be confident, so you were!

Several years after my divorce from the father of my son, I had a brief reunion with someone I had dated prior to my marriage. He was also divorced many years by that time and we were reintroduced by mutual friends. I was busy running/owning a gift store in New Jersey and raising my five year old son as a single mom. I rarely dated, but I really loved the friends who put us back together. Neither of us were great relationship material at that time, but we did enjoy each other’s company a couple weekends, as we lived in different states.

Anyway, the result of those brief encounters was an unexpected pregnancy that threw me into a rapid decision making process. Having already had a child, I knew the fetal development and how quickly the baby was forming. One can’t think its a baby when they want it and a mass of cells when they don’t. I quickly realized, in the fifth year after Roe vs Wade became legal, that many of my friends were self avowed feminists at that time. Assume that as a divorced woman most of my friends were single, divorced, or unhappily married. It was the way one got sorted after divorce in those days. I didn’t have a definite position then and was willing to see the pros and cons of each side in any individual’s life: I was wary of head knowledge and always preferred experience over wishful thinking. This was no longer hypothetical for me, so given a very short timespan to decide and because I didn’t want my fetus to have any more body parts than it had at that moment if I was considering termination, I quickly devised a test to use when seeking advice from my very few close friends or relatives. I asked them “have you ever had an abortion, a child out of wedlock or given a child up for adoption?” as those were the three not so great options I was facing. There were also no Crisis Pregnancy Centers that I was aware of in 1977.

The result of my test was I lost one friend who had an abortion that I had actually driven her to, who refused to talk when I called her asking about her feelings after; she hung up on me in tears. Most others didn’t pass the test and just offered what they thought they would do in my place. Not helpful. My doctor had told me in a check up he didn’t know how I ever conceived my one child, as my female parts seemed upside down and sideways. This wasn’t a birth control method I should have relied on. When I was back in his office for the pregnancy test six months later he handed me the name of a doctor who would take care of my problem. I was never in his office again for care or advice. My own father wrote me I was never going to have enough time, money or love beyond what I needed to raise my one child and owed it to my son not to have another. Also that no man would ever want to take that on in a future marriage. Feeling somewhat at a loss to make the right decision, I scheduled an appointment to terminate the pregnancy. The night before I called a friend in California, someone I had dated but we were coasts away; both divorced, crazy busy and again, neither of us the most stable at that point in our lives for solid relationships. Oh, I should add that I had also driven to the other state to get input from the father of this child, who was supporting his ex and their three children already. A heavy drinker and again, not a great candidate for long term solidity, though he did think I should not terminate, yet offered little else.

My phone call to the friend in California cast the final vote. Though as a man he had not had an abortion personally, his only natural child was aborted without him even being consulted and it had made an indelible impact on him. When I told him I said I really wanted to know how I was going to feel twenty years from that moment and make my decision based on that. His wise response to was “What are you doing the next nine months you couldn’t do pregnant?” I found myself laughing and crying on my end of the phone, suddenly surrounded by light standing in my dark basement at nine pm. I had just found my true north on this matter. I cancelled my appointment the next morning and went forward with the two choices I then had left. My friend had bought me grey time in a mostly black and white scenario. I went to talk to adoption agencies and then later, about the fourth month, I decided I would not only carry but raise that unborn child. When I shared the news with my wonderful five year old he said “Oh Mom! Remember when I threw that penny in the fountain at Bloomingdales? I wished I could be a brother!” While I didn’t blame him for the outcome of his penny request, I did love that he said he wanted to be a brother, not to have a brother! Although he did get that wish too, if it was one. The two of us had the relationship, guts and grace to follow through with my decision and I have never had a moment of regret.

This is a story of a very well meaning Christian womens group that I was a part of many years ago. At the time I was myself a single mom raising two children and while the church was a big part of my life, I may have been extra sensitive in this case. You decide.

Our church group had taken on the responsibility of adopting, figuratively, a family of four who at the time lived in the same area where our sanctuary was located. When I joined the group they had been sponsoring this family for several years. The husband/father was in prison and we helped by remembering the children at Christmas and birthdays with cards and gifts. At other times we would regularly bring food items to our monthly meetings and someone would volunteer to drop them off and say hi to the family. While I was part of the group the family hit a snag and their rent was raised beyond their ability to cover it and they had several months to find another home. During this time, and it could also have been during a time we were on a summer break from meetings, but somehow they were unable to find a place nearby and had to move across town to a much less desirable neighborhood where working two jobs, Betty could afford the rent.

The next time we met and brought food to drop by there was a lack of enthusiasm about anyone driving to the area where they now lived. That hit me in a very visceral way, but I merely offered to drop off the food and later met Betty and her kids for an outing with my boys at the Zoo. During both those events I was able to see her new home and also spend time with her and her children. I took some pictures of them when we were at the zoo. On our way to the next monthly meeting, I stopped at Walmart and picked up the pictures from the roll of film I had dropped off earlier that week. I tucked the envelope in my purse and didn’t open it until later in the meeting. Someone brought up the idea that since the family had moved out of town, we should really break ties and find a new, closer family to support.

I had a lot to say about that. I proceeded to say that now more than ever the continuity of our care mattered to that family. She was now holding down two lousy part time jobs to make ends meet. Her kids came home to an empty house in a cramped, rundown area of town. While not necessarily unsafe, it had none of the trappings of the more affluent area from which they had moved. The schools were no longer A rated either. Those were ways in which they had been majorly affected. When speaking to the twenty-one women gathered that day for our church ladies group, I made the point that besides those things, it never occurred to me that Jesus was concerned with zip codes, when deciding who deserved his time or care. I finished with a slight admonishment that we had not offered to help them find a new place nearby so they could have stayed in the same schools, as well as continued to enjoy the safety of the area where we lived. It seemed to me we were placing our safety and comfort in doing good above the real need. I thought we should reconsider ‘getting a new family’, and at that time I opened my photo envelope from Walmart. I was going to pass them around for all to see, but I noticed instead of one of each that I had taken, there were 21 copies of the last one I took, the one of Betty and her children leaning against their car. I have no idea why there were as many copies as there were women present, but I offered that perhaps God wanted each of us to have a picture to put on our refrigerators as we prayed about what we should do concerning this family in the future. Needless to say, they did not vote to abandon this family, at least not while I was still a member of their group.

 Last week during lunch with a dear Christian friend of the past thirty years, as I was recounting yet another adventure from my past that she had never heard before, she remarked with a smile, ‘you tell all your stories with a sparkle in your eyes like you were on this adventure with a very present partner, as though God were your husband and always at your side’. 

My romantic nature has always found its true home in the presence of God. My ability to assimilate into the places I have landed, time after time, has been warmed by the company I keep and the knowledge that I am made for His purposes and those alone. And yes, I am a romantic.  I have observed in many other women over the years that the presence of an actual flesh-covered, air breathing male person is a necessity for them for even the possibility of a happy life and if they lose one, for any reason, they will very quickly acquire another to replace him. I seem made of either stronger or less lonely stuff, with perhaps higher requirements for my life companion.

Many of my memories it seems, are of times spent with someone who was sharing my delight or my anguish. I seem to have a running conversation with a partner that few notice is with me. I found this to be kind of funny at church last weekend where someone I do not know was talking to a friend of mine, and she kept sharing how one (implied older aged woman) could meet men talking about bananas at Whole Foods. While I found this somewhat entertaining, I was in no way tempted to turn in my very present, if not obvious, partner for one I might find in a search for the perfect banana. It made me smile for the rest of the day, as I had really only seen a glimpse of how that woman felt she had to find someone soon in order to feel less lonely. Increasingly as I age I am feeling the presence of a soul mate rather than their absence, which I have to admit feeling over the first half of my life. There is a contentment that has taken me a long time to recognize, and I won’t be searching for anyone else among the bananas.

I was on the receiving end of an angry outburst recently, realizing on some level that it didn’t have everything to do with current events, but rather was compiled of many small cuts caused by an accumulated misunderstanding of personal perspectives regarding previous events, now compounded into a huge snowball of repressed anger and pain.

I have always believed in the “put on the Armor of God” theory of protection, particularly to shield me from insults and name calling that God has not revealed as truths about myself I need to work on. However the armor always seems extremely heavy to me as I reviewed the items involved and so I am inclined to leave the house without it. There are, very fortunately for me, some rare times when anger of a close relative has exploded near me like a land mine I had unconsciously stepped on. Aware on some level that an outburst may well have less to do with me than with the current drama they are experiencing in their own life, I instinctively grab God’s ‘raincoat’ and throw it over my shoulders. Instead of the conversation becoming an unwanted playlist to be replayed ad nauseum in my head, I replace it with a much calmer visual of a bunch of words falling in puddles at my feet. When the torrent of accusations ends, I can step over them and get on with my day; perhaps returning later on in my rainboots to selectively process the damp ground to see if there are some words/thoughts I need to examine, possibly learning some valuable insight from the sudden storm. Wearing my invisible ‘raincoat’ allows me to hear without getting soaked in a negative, hurtful downpour that would contribute nothing positive to my future relationship with that person; or at least nothing I could clearly identify in the midst of the defensive tempest with which I might have responded. However, there are often nuggets of wisdom to be found in hearing, but not absorbing, another person’s pain, especially given a little time and distance afterwards. I may also find I need to ask forgiveness for some past behavior or make amends for current behavior that could be causing someone I love unintended emotional pain. God can heal those wounds once we can name them and claim them, and forgiveness can clear a slate that has been in an unknown fog for years. My experience has been this is the best way to put a valued relationship on a new and better course for the future, and my invisible raincoat has made a huge difference in my ability to process my own emotional responses.

This is my story of forgiveness when it is really, really hard. Many years ago, when our son was just one year old, I found out purely by accident that my husband, his father, was having an affair with my best friend. This was alarming news and was soon thereafter followed by our separation. Later on she also left her husband and in a year or so after that they married and I had no choice but to interact frequently, as the care of my now two year old involved every other weekend with his dad. This kind of stilted relationship continued for a couple years, until my I moved my family to upstate New York. His dad didn’t object to this as he was fighting his own inner battles with alcohol at that time. Our subsequent moves to Berlin, Germany and later to Florida also did not negatively affect the infrequent contact my son had with his father, nor did he object to them. So our contacts became less frequent as years went by.

It was only later, when that son was in college, that I began to notice how deeply affected he was by the triangular relationship his parents had formed, unintentionally. My son had become very close to his stepmother, as she was often his primary caregiver on visits over holidays or summer. They had established a connection that I could understand, as I was never present when he visited and he often came and went by himself on airplanes, so we never overlapped or had occasion to speak. What I realized during his college years was that way we communicated, usually with and transmitted and interpreted by my ex, had been severely triangulated and misinterpreted on many occasions; as the third party interpreter in the middle, my ex often played one side against the other without our knowledge of what had actually been said. This had the effect of him controlling the conversations and our reactions to it. This became confusing and hurtful to both moms and since there was already distrust involved, clarity on issues involving my son were complicated and left him the harmed party in the middle of the mess.

Finally becoming aware of that pain he was silently enduring, I approached God with my dilemma. They had never apologized for the betrayals they had subjected me to, especially when their affair was secret and I was totally in the dark and being lied to regularly. That left a very deep wound in my heart, as it appeared I had meant nothing to either of them. Yet the only one really hurting besides me was my now almost adult son. Holding on to my resentment was not helping him or me. I wrestled with the idea of forgiving them, regardless of the fact they never seemed to think they had wronged me. That was a stretch hard to embrace as wasn’t I the injured party? But what became clear at that moment was my son was really the most injured party; he loved his mom, but he also loved his dad and step mom, and he was always torn when expected to choose a side. I decided I would make a deal with the Lord, though not usually a great idea in my limited experience. I told him I wasn’t willing to outright forgive them, but I was willing to be willing to forgive them, should God change my heart. Those words had hardly escaped my heart when I felt a sudden unexpected change. I went to bed and woke up the next day with absolutely nothing in my heart but compassion and love for my estranged friend and ex husband. Soon thereafter we began to share holidays and family occasions, like our son’s graduation, all together without the hurt I had repressed for years. Even when she later went through an agonizing, early end of life battle with cancer, we were able to fully support one another and I was able to reassure her of both my ex-husband’s and my son’s love for her in the last days of her life. She already knew she had mine.

This story is one I have referred to often in Christian circles as proof of how much God want’s us to forgive even those whom we may have a very good reason to refuse. The lightning speed with which He changed my heart proved I only needed to be willing to be willing to let Him, not to actually come to that place of willingness on my own. The unexpected results were the joy of both my own and my son’s ability to enjoy the fruits of a wonderful relationship with her and make some more good memories together before we lost her. I will never regret that decision and of course only wish I could have come to that heart place sooner, for all our sakes. But better late than never is also true, and once done, it was done for good. Thanks be to God.

Again the wisdom and intrigue in my 3 yr old grandson’s responses to my queries. It is why I thoroughly believe young children are often best paired with an older person, hopefully a grandparent whenever possible if available. And their time can be best spent alone together for the most part, because their interactions can be so genuine and familiar to both of their fragile ages, when left to their natural state unobserved.

I was calling his name toward the back of his head and although he was only a few feet in front of me, he was totally engrossed with the truck he was running through a pile of dirt at that moment. I repeated his name, this time with more volume and adding somewhat softly “Can you hear me, or are you deaf?”

“I’m deaf” was his calm retort, not moving his head even an inch toward me, although I had clearly been asking for his full attention. Obviously he had heard me, though I am not sure he even knew what the word ‘deaf’ meant at that moment. He may well have been merely playing my words back to me, stalling for time. I had to laugh and almost admire his creativity in the moment. How often do we do the same thing, especially if we think God is trying to get our attention and we are otherwise happily occupied with our own great ideas? It’s another version of the fingers in the ears, ‘lalalala, I can’t hear you’ mantra, but this seemed somehow a bit more respectful. Neither diversions actually work, but nice try little guy.