This Year I Shall Live

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This year left me breathless, panting for air. But my kids became my oxygen–the very reason I kept gasping, and eventually, I learned how to swim underwater.

This year kicked me around, beat me up, and left me bruised. But I got up again and feel stronger (this is what I tell myself and I’m starting to believe it) because of the fight it gave me.

This year caused me to wander down old country roads and back to old houses, into familiar forests but also into some very choppy and uncharted waters. I kept going back to the familiar as I learned to get my sea legs.

This year was filled with some of my very worst times but then again, there were the blue eyes looking at me like I was everything and the small still-a- boy hand holding my own. There was the chest of the man with the beard who pulled me close like he has for 23 straight years and the support of parents I needed. There were the kittens born in the woods we rescued and the chicks we raised. There were poems and pictures and good books. There were apples and bees and berries and birds. There were old friends and new friends and kindred spirits, too. There was so much love and joy and holy, holy.

This year was a year of loss and gain, pain and joy, disappointments and triumphs. It was filled with life and life isn’t always easy, but oh, how I’m glad to live it. How very blessed am I.

Thanks for Mothering the Divide with me with this, my hardest year to date.   I have no real resolutions other than to live and live well and to answer the call no matter how very hard that can be.  This year, I shall live.

 

Still on Team Santa

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Yesterday, on Christmas morning, my son and I were the only two awake in the quiet hush of a snowy morning. We crawled under blankets in his bed and just talked while we waited for his sister and daddy to wake up. He told me, in the excited way only a child who still believes in Santa can, that he thought he heard reindeer on the roof–a weird scratching, slightly muffled. He thought he heard the banging of a glass against the plate of cookies and the crinkling of presents. He wanted to creep downstairs to see if Santa had arrived but he was too worried what might happen if he caught him in the house.

He rattled on and on, his growing bigger by the day hand in my own. I stared at him, in awe, really, of the gift of him–the gift of a lifetime. And while his face is absolutely taking the shape of the man I’ll once know, I couldn’t help but to notice his waning baby cheeks as he spoke to me in the excited hushed tones of an eight-year-old. I took it all in and it became my prayer, right in the glow of the blue lights his bed is adorned with: “Dear Lord, don’t let me forget.” This might be the last Christmas he believed. This might be the last year his baby cheeks still show. But I will remember. I memorized it; I really did. And in the hustle and bustle of an over scheduled and overwhelming holiday season, I paused and took that moment all in.

It’s what I’ll remember when I’m old and gray and he’s a man. It’s what I’ll remember when his small hands overtake my own. I’ll remember our quiet start to the Christmas morning when he was eight-years-old, holding my hand, when he was still on Team Santa.

Thanks for Mothering the Divide with me as we pause this holiday season to see what really matters. 

The Magic is Already Here

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In the hubbub of the holiday season, let us not forget that life doesn’t have to be lived in grand gestures for our kids to be happy. The magic is already here.

It’s not in the expensive vacations we think they want.

It’s not in the hours spent shopping to create some sort of magic we think piles of presents under the tree could ever possibly create.

It’s not in the rushing and running and over scheduling because we think we must do it all.

It’s not in the questioning we do of ourselves, wondering if we are possibly doing enough to make Christmas special.

Instead, it’s in the smile of the little girl in the freshly fallen snow.

It’s in the way your son leaves his friends to come hold your hand while Christmas caroling.

It’s in a friend texting you because she had a bad day and you text back and say “I understand this. I’m here for you.”

It’s in the giggle of the children as their mom gets on a sled and rides in the snow with them. It’s them seeing her as a kid, for just a minute.

It’s in the homemade fudge made from your husband’s family recipe and it’s in the cookies made all day with a good group of friends.

It’s in the smiles as kids laugh and play and are content with what they have. They see the magic after all.

It’s in the glow of the candles as we look at the baby in the manger.

The magic is here. We don’t need to chase it.

Thanks for Mothering the Divide with me as Christmas approaches. Let us remember that the magic is here. This reminder is as much for me as for you. The magic is here and all we need to do is to open our eyes to it.

Hold him close

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My son, now over seven, fell off of a stool this afternoon when we were building a gingerbread house.  While he was fine and giggling, I bent down to pick him up.  And I couldn’t lift him.  Try as I might, I couldn’t hoist him up into my arms I once deemed strong.  Instead, I kissed his cheek and pulled him close.
For over seven years, I’ve picked him up and while I knew it was coming to an end (and I have written about that before), here we are:  I cannot pick him up easily or really, at all.  After over seven years of carrying him until my arms hurt, bouncing him and shushing him, holding him cheek to cheek, carrying him in a sling and on my back, carrying him up the stairs and from his bed to mine, this phase has passed.  And with this realization come others, as the Christmas season is upon us.
He and his sister sat for the annual photo with Santa this past weekend and when the photo was printed and given to us, I was struck by the length of his legs.  Did they simply look so long because he had red pants on–pants I did pick for once and he gladly wore?  Eight years ago, his legs were curled as he was tucked in my womb making me so sick I had to miss all Christmas festivities.  How are they so long now?
Tonight, my children sat out their shoes for St. Nicholas and his boots are so big.  I remember when his feet were small and I rubbed them as I held him and he drifted to sleep. Now, his boots are on the hearth and I can imagine them, year by year, getting bigger as I trip over the ones left at the door.  How are his boots so very big? Where are his baby feet?

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