VCU Dad

 

Three years ago we took Chloe to college. After getting her settled in her dorm room, we went to the VCU bookstore to buy some gear to show support for our college girl. I picked out a hoodie with the VCU Arts logo. Gray got a t-shirt in black and gold. And Luke picked out a hat. Not just any hat, though. The hat he picked said, “VCU Dad”. We laughed whole-heartedly at his choice, but we also laughed with a reverence of solidarity. Reverence in knowing that someone important was missing on this momentous day. And in solidarity knowing that no matter what, we were in this together.

There will never be an important event where we don’t notice his absence. And wonder what it would be like if he was still here. The grieving doesn’t end, and it’s in these big moments that it screams in your face: SOMEONE IS MISSING. As a mother of fatherless children, the grief is deep. The pain at knowing and seeing and your children’s suffering is bottomless, wishing for them that their father was around to cheer them on, too. But there is always light to be found in the dark. There is light in seeing them rise up, in spite of, and because of their loss. The pride in seeing them turn a difficult situation into laughter. Not as a deflection, but as a statement: “We are okay.”

So, in a day and a half, we will be dropping Luke off at VCU. It is bittersweet for sure, as any parent knows, to send your child off into the big wide world after nurturing them and holding them close for so long. This boy of mine will be dearly missed. He is a beacon of light to anyone who knows him. I have truly been blessed to be his mother and to watch him shine. And now the hat and the title of “VCU Dad” will be passed on to Gray. We may be small, but we are mighty. We are in this together.

My Shades of Gray

I stopped coloring my hair one year ago. I didn’t stop covering my grays to make a statement of any kind, I just got tired of the effort. I was tired of the cost, and of the chemicals on my scalp, and of having to constantly worry about my roots. So, I stopped. I had many concerns about stopping, but my tiredness overrode the concerns. It has been a long process, a love-hate relationship of sorts. Well, maybe the word hate is a little strong, but I have definitely had my insecurities with it along the way. Society has programmed us to be so afraid of and against aging, encouraging us to thwart all signs of it at any cost. I will be honest, most of all I wondered if I would still feel attractive and lovable. I crave love and affection, after all. But I held on to that deep-seated belief that beauty comes from within and not from the color of our hair.

Well, one day, a month or so back, I was proven right. I got cat-called while walking to my car after a yoga class. I had left that class sweaty and glowing, feeling strong and powerful and beautiful and connected. I could feel it from the tips of my toes all the way up through the crown of my head. And as a car made its way to the stop sign and eased around the corner, the driver called out of the window, “Girl, you are looking good tonight!”, with an emphasis on “night”. It wasn’t the kind of cat call that makes my skin crawl; it wasn’t the kind that makes women wish we were invisible. It was more like a hearty and genuine, “Namaste!” out the window; a, “My beauty sees your beauty!” It was the outward affirmation for what I was feeling inside. And I thanked him for noticing. He didn’t care about my grey hair. Nor should I.

So, I guess what didn’t begin as me trying to make a statement has become me making a statement. Be who you are. Find it and be it well, and allow it to proudly shine out. You are beautiful. And you are looking good toNIGHT!

💕

The Gift

The perfect gift has a way of making you feel loved. But the best gift is the gift that keeps on giving. And sometimes, even unbeknownst to you, it has been giving all along. Without you even realizing it, this gift has been working its magic for years.

I discovered one of these gifts this week. It was given almost seven years ago during a very, very dark time. My memories of this period of time are hazy, to say the least. The mind has a way of softening up the edges of trauma for us. But I remember that my brother came. And I know that my husband was dead. He had only been gone two weeks or so when my brother came to help. And the fact that my brother had come was truly a gift in and of itself. It was a messy place to be with three grieving children, and it felt as though I could barely place one foot in front of the other, let alone walk my children through this tragedy. My brother came with his light and love despite his own trauma. He was a dying man, only 36 years old, with only a few months left on this earth, but still, he came to our rescue. And despite the hazy memories, the power of his love and the depth of his service were not lost on me. There were dishes to wash, and a wild three-year-old to tame, and bills to pay, and a house to clean out, and a dental practice to sell, and decisions to make, and overdue taxes to settle, and school to attend, and a job to go to. Life does not stop for death. It keeps moving, like a freight train, and I think back now and honestly have no idea how we survived. But then, through the hazy memories, I remember the gifts, like that of my brother’s visit, and I know how we survived.

It has been awhile since I have thought about that gift. But it is college essay time and I had the extreme pleasure of learning about my son’s journey from his own perspective. I assumed and expected him to write about his father’s death in his college essays. Not to give a sob story, but because he is who he is today because of, and in spite of that trauma. And wouldn’t you know it, but his father’s death was not the focus of his essay. That visit from my brother was. That
eleven-year-old boy has carried that gift with him for all this time. And that, my friends, is the mark of the perfect gift.

The Bottle

I see your bottle and I know you want to put me in it.

Don’t you know that bottle is too small and I will not fit inside?

And if you stuff me in, I will be so ugly and you will be sorry.

You cannot bottle this.

You did this to me.

You put me in the bottle.

You squished me in and wanted me to stay,

Because you were comfortable with that

And you didn’t want me to come out.

But I had to get out.

I suffered deeply inside that bottle; I almost forgot who I was.

And I got out and do you know how badly it hurt?

It hurt so bad 

and then I was all alone outside that bottle 

and I had to find my beauty again.

I remembered it from before

I had been pretty,

And I knew how to sing.

And my heart was so big and full of life.

And do you know how hard it is to come back 

after having been stuffed in a bottle?

Wonder

For when does the tree ever wonder,
Am I beautiful enough?
Did my leaves change brilliantly enough this year?
Am I being the best tree I can be?
Never.
The tree simply is.

And that is enough.

Rewriting the Story

(So, I am writing again. The end goal is a memoir. Here is a little teaser for you: the final chapter.)

This book was originally going to be just a talk. A talk about resilience and how to reframe your thinking. A talk about changing the way you tell your story to make it work for you, instead of against you. Do you want to be the victim, or do you want to be the hero?

For example, the day I decided that it was my right and privilege as a mother to let Jillian go was the first day I actively went against everything I was brought up to believe in. It was my first official step toward freedom.

The day I kicked my husband out was me finally listening to my gut before reason. Now I know that my body is my first responder. It knows when something is wrong even before my heart and mind do. Now I know to listen closely to her wisdom.

It is not about embellishing or diminishing or rewriting the truth; it is simply changing how you tell the story.

My new mantra is, “I create beauty.” When you look at my life, you might see all the ways I fucked up. What I see is all the beauty I created in between.

To Donald Trump, In Response to Ripping the Baby Out of the Womb

I am a mother who had a late term abortion. I thought you may want to know how it really goes, so that the next time you talk about abortion you at least sound like you know what you are talking about…

At 18 weeks gestation I learned that there was something terribly wrong with my sweet baby girl.  At 22 weeks, all alone in a city we had only lived in for two weeks, we learned that she would not live. And that even if she survived the trauma of birth, she would not live for more than a few hours. And not only would she not survive, but that she would die of suffocation and broken bones.

One of the great ironies in all of this is that I was raised as a hard-core pro-lifer. And I still was one at this point in my life. Everything that I had ever known told me it was wrong to take the life of an unborn child. But I learned quickly, almost in the blink of an eye, that a mother’s love is greater than everything. Greater than religious dogma, greater than intellect, greater than fear of judgement, greater than grief, greater than it all. And in a split second I knew that I could and would give her the gift of death. To end her suffering. Even though it completely broke me to do so.

I rocked her all night our last night together, in the chair I would rock all of my babies in. I rocked her and cried knowing that I would never be able to rock there with her in my arms. I went to the doctor’s office early the next morning. Grief had wreaked havoc on my body. I was no longer sick from morning sickness. That had long since passed. But I was so sick with grief and I vomited several times before I left my home. On the way to the hospital I gave her a name, because we hadn’t had time to do that yet. And again when we arrived at the doctor I vomited some more. I couldn’t control my sobbing as they led me to the room where they would stop my baby’s heart. I undressed through my tears and put the gown on, open to the front so they could access my belly. The doctor and the nurse came in and reviewed with us what would be. Then it was time and the kind and knowing doctor helped me onto the table and as the nurse held my hand she told me I would have to stop crying now so I could be still. The doctor would need me to be still so he could inject the needle through my abdomen and into my baby’s heart. So I stopped sobbing and tears flowed silently.  I was as brave as I could be while my belly contracted around the needle so foreign to it. We cried silent tears as the sound of her heartbeat slowed and then stopped completely. The needle was removed and then I could sob again.

Next we were guided to the maternity floor of the hospital where I was given Pitocin to induce labor. The sounds of a busy maternity ward, full of excitement for new life, continued on around us, and I labored like all mothers do. I gave birth to my tiny baby girl with the same love and grace and dignity that I birthed my living children.  I held my tiny still baby in my arms, dressed in the tiny smocked dress the nurse had lovingly put her in. I held her, and loved her, and I marveled at how much she looked like me. My mother came and held her and loved her too.

It was time for goodbyes and the nurse took her away as I sobbed into my empty arms. We went home broken-hearted, and my milk came in a few days later. Because a mother’s body makes milk for her baby even if the baby is not there to drink it. My body cried milk for weeks, and I grieved for the baby I would never know. She would be thirteen now. And still I grieve for her. She taught me about how big and deep and powerful love really is.

So no, my baby was not ripped from my womb. And I speak for all women out there, regardless of what circumstance led them to having to make one of the most difficult decisions a person could ever have to make. You have no right to speak for us or to make any decisions for our bodies or for our babies.

Let me offer you one piece of advice, Donald: do not speak of that which you do not know. Women are born to love their babies. It is our nature. We love them even before they are a tiny seed fertilized within us. We love them when they are a whisper in the wind. We love them so much that we will break our own hearts for their peace and comfort and well-being. We love them even if we are unable to keep them. Our power to love is greater than anything you have the potential to ever know or possess. So do not speak of that which you do not know.