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.

Fear Less

As a mother, there are two gifts you wish to bestow upon your children: to live fearlessly and to love with hearts wide open.  But saying this you know that life will crush them at times, many times possibly, as it already has.  But if you can teach them only two things, that the only way to truly live is to not let the fear of the crushing stop them from living.  And to not let the pain of loving and losing stop them from opening their hearts.

As their mother you instinctively want to protect.  But life has bluntly and repeatedly taught you that you can’t protect them from everything, or really from anything, and that trying to shield them from pain and heartache only keeps them from truly living in the end.  Rather you strive to teach them to push through the pain and suffering that comes, and that is sure to come again, and to show through the light of living what they can become in spite of the obstacles.

So, you plan big trips that scare you which include hikes that take you high places, even though you are yourself tremendously afraid of heights. You plan these adventures knowing full well that there will be parts that are scary for you, but you don’t want to hold your children back because of your own fears.  And at one point during a hike when your fear response takes over your body, you ask your daughter to take your small son’s hand and lead him to safety.  And your teenage son takes your hand until you find your steadiness again and your breath has returned to normal. And you feel proud that they were not afraid.

And you rejoice in their loving, even when it scares you, and you encourage them to open their hearts even knowing how hard those hearts can break. With Father’s Day approaching again, you wonder what you can do to distract them.  But instead of planning something to get them off the radar this year, you just let it come.  And your daughter spends her morning taking care of homeless kittens and delivering a note to a friend in need.  And your teenage son makes lunch with his girlfriend and you can’t help but notice how joyful they are, even today.  And you hear him ask her casually what her dad was doing to celebrate Father’s Day, as if it were no big deal, and because he genuinely cares.

And you suddenly realize that sometimes, a lot of the time, it is so much less of teaching them something and more of just letting things be.  You realize that they were born fearless.  And that simply allowing that to be so is all they need.  And you see that they are loving with abandon as children do so naturally and are so grateful that they still can. You realize that just because you are afraid of heights doesn’t mean that they need to be.  And that just because you are afraid of Father’s Day doesn’t mean that they are.

Holes

There is a lot of courage necessary to have your family pictures taken when someone is missing.  Making that step is such a scary thing it takes you years to find the courage.  It is not the lack of time or the effort it will take in finding the perfect outfits that is holding you back.  And it’s not the difficulty of choosing the place or finding a photographer.  And it’s definitely not lack of desire.  In fact, you really, really, really want family pictures.  You so very badly want to preserve the memories of what you have together.  You want to preserve your daughter’s uniqueness and beautiful transformation to becoming her true self.  And your middle son is quickly turning into a young man and you want to capture on film the bright sunshine he spreads everywhere he goes.  And then there’s the little guy who changes every day and in many ways looks so much like his father yet is still so much his own little self.  So, no, it’s not for lack of desire…

It is the big gaping hole that you are afraid of.  You know it will be there.  How could it not be?  It will be there staring right back at you.  How do you hide the hole? How can you cover what is so blatantly missing?  So years go by and your babies grow and change and it hurts to know you are not capturing every single moment.

But finally, after years and years, the desire to preserve time overcomes the fear of what is missing and you gather all of the courage you can muster and call the photographer.  You choose a barn, old and sturdy, that has withstood the winds of time.  It has a few holes of its own.  You gather your children around you, and it is unspoken, but they are afraid of the hole, too.  You take the big leap together and squeeze in close and smile for the camera.  And you are so pleasantly surprised to find that the hole has been filled with the bond of strength and love that comes from overcoming tragedy together.  In fact, the hole is barely noticeable at all because it is patched up with love that is pure and smiles that are hard-earned but genuine, and laughter that comes freely.  And you are supported by the quiet strength of winter’s beauty that surrounds you and the old weathered barn stands in graceful silence in the background.

The Softening

It has been two years since the start of The Year That Tried to Break You.  The year of loss and cruelty and heartbreak and grief and pain and change and more loss and more change.  And the irony is not lost on you that it was also The Year of Light.  The year of meeting sisters you never knew you had and of the two souls who connected unexpectedly, and the year of witnessing your children rise up and be beautiful and amazing against the odds.  And the year of the gifts of kindness and love from so many.  And the year of learning to stand up on your own.

It has been almost two years since that year began.  And even still you find it a daily struggle to be soft.  When it would be so much easier to just harden up.  It is a daily struggle to not just harden up and protect your fragile heart.  Many days, most days, it seems it would be much easier to stay shut and be cold and hard.  It has become a daily choice to remain soft.  

You make that choice daily because you have to.  You have to soften so you don’t crack.  You have to bend so you don’t break.  You have to be vulnerable and open your heart.  You have to live and in order to fully live you have to let love in and let the light out.  And letting the light out, that is the scariest thing of all.

So you resist the urge to close up and hide away and you soften and remain grateful for the Light that the Darkness has brought to you.

Don't Tell Me

Don’t tell me that I’m beautiful, not yet.

I may show you that I am, but I would like to take my time…

Don't call me baby, not yet.
I want to look into your eyes and see it there first...

Don’t tell me that you know me, not yet.

Not unless you have walked with me awhile…

Don’t tell me that you understand, not yet.

Not until you have sat with me a night and watched my dreams erupt…

Don’t tell me that you want me, not yet.

Not before our hearts have met…

Don’t tell me I’m the One, not yet

For I don’t believe there is an Only…

Tell me that you love me,

And with all my heart I’ll love you back…

But don’t tell me that I’m beautiful. 

Until you really know.