End of an Era

March 2020

Two weeks ago, I had my last conversation with my Granny. She had been talking about having dinners in her memory care facility and talking with the men there. I asked her if she had a boyfriend. She replied "I don't remember...most likely!"

Sass until the end.

I didn't know that would be our last conversation. She was doing relatively well at the time. She remembered who I was, but wasn't sure at all who the little four year old with me was.

Me and my grandparents, 1979

Just a few days ago, it became clear that things were coming to a close. And in the midst of all that is going on in the world, we all knew that meant that she would be mostly alone when the time came. My mom, thankfully, lives close by and they lifted the Covid-19 visiting restrictions so she could move in with her for those final days.

Since there is no real place to be alone right now, I spent an hour in my car yesterday morning. I recorded my granny's favorite hymns (How Great Thou Art and Holy, Holy, Holy) on marco polo and my mom played them for her. What a miracle technology is! My mom is certain she heard me singing. Afterwards, I told her I loved her and that it was ok to say goodbye if she was ready.

But now.

Granny and her whole crew, late 80's

She's gone. 41 years of memories of an incredible woman are all that remain for me. Some of those memories are just captured in pictures but many others are clear to me...summers on the Cape with all the cousins and her digging for clams with our heels, the balcony view in her Florida condo. The hilarious interactions between her and her twin sister, Ann. She and my Gramps shouting back and forth when they both became hard of hearing. She was always up for a trip to the beach and she knew EVERYONE in her neighborhood. You could find her in the hot tub talking with anyone and everyone or on the golf course or taking classes just to enrich herself or at mass. Bringing my besties in high school down for spring break and then again my Hoohah friends down four short years late and Granny just fussing over all of us the whole time. My husband and I visited her the week after we got engaged and she insisted on taking us to the "club" for dinner and dancing. I will never forget she and my Gramps dancing to their song (Harbour Lights) and wishing us the best in our own upcoming nuptials.

She was a one-in-million kind of lady.

Their family: 60's

And now my family wrestles with how to say goodbye when we can't go travel. When there won't be a funeral anytime soon. When we have to grieve alone in our homes while the demands of everyday life continue around us.

I'm not sure where to go from here. I'm not sure exactly what grief looks like during a time like this.

I guess, just like real life right now, it's one day at a time.

Hank and Bea

I got the news of her passing just as I was getting my littles down to rest. They didn't really understand why I was crying and why I couldn't really read them books or do all the normal things. After I had them settled, I sat on my bed and looked through pictures and just remembered. Remembered a woman who always made me feel safe and loved. Who always made me laugh and stuffed me to the brim with food. Who insisted I take pre-frozen bottles of water from her freezer to the pool anytime I ever went. Who wasn't afraid to call out bullshit when she saw it but always did it in love. Who loved God and her family fiercely and faithfully.

Granny, words can't fully express how deeply you were loved and how much you will be missed. I can't wait for the day when all this current craziness passes and our family can give you the celebration you so truly deserve.

Rest well, good and faithful servant, beloved mother and grandmother. The world is changed forever.

Seeing Him

He walks slowly through the hallway. No one can see his beautiful smile or know the depths of his heart because his eyes are cast down, hoping, praying, that today, they will leave him alone. He just wants to go to school like everyone else. To learn, to make friends, to get through the whole day, ONE DAY, without being pushed or insulted or mocked. Without someone focusing on his differences and using them against him.

But he doesn't make it. Someone whispers "stupid" in his ear as he passes in the hall. Or "wouldn't it be better if you killed yourself?" They push him in gym class, to the point of injury. They interrupt his learning in class to the point where he has to ask to move chairs. Again. But the teacher warns him that the other side of the class may not actually be greener. Kids are mean. Seventh graders, in particular.

His mother cries herself to sleep. She has tried everything. Talking to the other parents. Getting the administration's help - but they barely return her calls. Speaking to the teachers about a safety plan. She builds him up as much as she can. He has friends outside of school who love him, who support him.

But none of this makes a difference. She can't protect him. He isn't like the other kids so they see him as expendable. To be forgotten or tortured or flat out ignored.

So, every day, he comes home heavy. Exhausted by another day of just trying to keep it together.

I was this boy. I remember. When you have no friends around you. When the people in your classes can only find terrible things to say. When people don't see you for who you truly are. And make you wish that morning alarm would never go off.

I was this boy. I have not yet been this mom.

Are you her? Do you know the terrified, exhausted pain of wondering if you are going to get a call that your child has been hurt by bullies? To take him to the doctor to get a concussion treated? Do you know what it feels like to watch him or her cry? To give up? To start to believe the things people are saying to them?

You may be neither this boy or his parent.

But are you human?

Because this is happening. Every single day. Kids are being cruel and horrible. And while some parents react well and make it clear that there are consequences if their children are the bully, too many either ignorantly believe it couldn't possibly be THEIR child or else they say that kids just need to toughen up and get over it.

I think we all know that our kids are capable of a lot we wouldn't necessarily be comfortable with. THAT'S why we teach them to be kind. THAT'S why we teach them to be anti-racist. THAT'S why we teach them about disabilities and inclusivity. They aren't going to be magically empathetic and loving. One look at a facebook thread on just about anything these days will show you just how cruel we humans can be.

So, parents.

This is happening. It's happening at the school down the street. Kids are killing themselves around the country because of relentless cruelty. We have a president who has normalized bullying and name-calling, so much so that I can't even let my children watch a presidential speech.

But we shouldn't be ok with it. We cannot tell our kids to just get over it. Can they be brave? Of course. Can they keep waking up and going to school? SURE. But I refuse to believe that this is who we are. Cruel adults telling kids to grow up and handle it on their own have no place in our society.

Discipline the heck out of your kids who do unkind things. Use those moments to teach them what it means to choose love and to speak up. Show them heroes who have done good, brave, kind things, who have fought for the rights of those who are in the margins. Teach them to see the kid sitting alone. To look around and notice those who are hurting. To sit with them, extend friendship, embrace awkwardness if it's a part of reaching out.

But whatever you do, do something. Don't wait for it to be your child who comes home in tears. Don't wait until you are the one crying yourself to sleep in helpless, terrified frustration.

Our kids lives depend on it.

How You Do It

Time wound down towards the end of my therapy session. I hadn't had to cancel this one for an emergency, which was rare and lovely. As I began to pack up my things, he looked at me, took a deep breath and said "I'm going to refund your money for this session. I just can't charge you for it. I don't know how you do it."

I don't know how you do it.

Those seven words.

How often have I heard them over the years? Daily? Weekly? Hourly? I guess it has depended upon the season, the level of relentless impossible parenting we are experiencing.

The past two months have been the hourly type of stretch. I have heard those words from doctors, therapists, friends, parents.

I have said them to myself, then taken a deep breath and kept going. Because here is the honest truth.

The quick answer is that you don't. You don't really. There's no choice to do it or not. You just wake up and, to be honest and raw, get the shit kicked out of you for about 12 hours straight, try to reset as best as possible in the evening while worrying about all the things you couldn't accomplish that day, sleep too briefly and start over again.

The only other options are committing a felony or leaving. I'm not exaggerating. That's what it's like.

Normally, when people say those seven words, I just shrug and say "you would do it if it were your life." Which is the trut- most people would. While there are things we can pick and choose, decisions we can make to steer our life in a certain direction, there is also plenty that is out of our control. Some people want to get married and never do. Some people want a child and can't conceive. Some people envision family life the way it's portrayed in the movies and end up with a chronically ill child. Some people have dreams for a career and life and get stuck in a cycle of poverty because of medical bills or job situations or natural disasters.

The illusion of our choices being completely our own - well, it's just that. An illusion. Our only real choice in life is how we react to what is happening and what choice we make in the aftermath. That is literally all I have control over. And, sometimes, I don't even have that. Sometimes I am just too tired, too done, too overwhelmed to choose a healthy reaction. We all have those moments.

I don't write this to ask for sympathy or pity. The thing is that we all have something, at some time or another, that someone else cannot imagine handling. Loss, grief, addiction, illness, divorce...we could all list a time when we knew it was too much for any one person to handle, but in that moment, we did. A friend of mine recently shared the story of the stillbirth of her son and I could not imagine having gone through what she went through and having come through the other side. She did, though. Unscathed? Of course not. But she did it.

I write this because we all "do it." We look at others and think they have it all and then find out they have "done it." The bible says that in this world we will have trouble but that we should "take heart" because Jesus has overcome the world. At its core foundation, the "doing it" is an act of audacious hope. That life might get better, that we are not alone in the hardest moments. That Jesus knows what it feels like and hasn't left us out to dry or told us we have to dry our tears or suck it up.

Do I know if anything will change?

Nope.

Do I go to bed dreading the morning a lot of the time? Wishing that I could sleep for 24 hours and see if I might feel better?

Of course.

But we wake up. We do it. We work. We play. We remind ourselves of the truth. We love, even in the most unbelievably exhausting circumstances.

And we choose how to react to it all, when we can. We can choose honesty and rawness and even find gratitude in the days that seem to hold nothing for which to be thankful. And in that choosing, in the doing it, in the perspective, even when we cannot see what's happening, God is at work. Molding our story to encourage someone else. Slowly healing the places in ourselves and our families that we cannot or will not see.

When I head back to my next therapy session in a week, I'm going to hand him this blog and tell him to keep his money. The refund only made me wonder how I possibly COULD keep doing it. And the reality is that I can't. Not alone, not really. That's why I am in therapy. That's why I have friends and family I ask for help. That's why I wake up in the morning before I have to parent, sip my coffee and find perspective for the day in prayer and writing and scripture and song.

That's how you do it, friends. One minute, one step, one choice at a time of how to respond to life, even in its most vicious and relentless moments.

We were never promised ease.

We were just promised we aren't alone in the doing.

It's My Party

It was almost a year ago that I found myself in the lowest place I have ever been. Fighting for hope, suffering from PTSD and PMDD. Angry, sad, tired, hopeless...all the time.

And since almost a year ago was the year I turned 40, I let it that milestone pass me by.

No big celebrations, no parties...I even told my husband the best gift anyone could give me last year was NOT to pick up the phone and call me because I didn't have the energy to talk to people and pretend I was happy it was my big day.

It felt pointless.

And now, with only a few weeks left until I turn 41, I don't look back and regret that decision. I wasn't in a good place to celebrate. It would have felt disingenuous. I didn't know how to celebrate myself because I wasn't sure I liked who I was at that point.

Since then, life hasn't necessarily gotten any easier. Currently, we are in the midst of a big health crisis with one of my kids that has him out of school and me unable to work much. It's been exhausting and hard and confusing and we still aren't close to answers.

I can't imagine if this had happened last November.

BUT, the fact that I have a job, the fact that I can look back on this year and see the huge risk I took in going back to school, in completely changing careers, makes me feel hopeful. And proud. And joyful. The new life I chose this past year is helping me tackle this newest challenge. Not perfectly, of course, but my foundation this year is so much sturdier.

Dang it, I accomplished something this year, against all odds. When I announced I was going to become an EMT, a number of people in my life were like "But how? When? And...why?"

They weren't wrong or unsupportive to ask it because they knew the complexities of our daily challenges.

And the thing is, I didn't know how we would possibly make it happen. What I did know is that it was exactly what I needed to do to choose new life, to boldly declare something would change, that something good and new would happen.

I had to dare to dream when it felt like there was nothing practical or possible about making the dream happen. Which meant that I had to risk failure. And for me, failure never seems like a reasonable option. In fact, it seems completely out of the question.

But I had to risk it to be able to get better.

And here's the thing. I didn't get perfect grades like I did so much in the past. I had to be satisfied with doing "fine". Not amazing, not poor, but fine.

I passed my class, I passed my registry and I nailed down a job. It wasn't easy, it wasn't quick and it took a tremendous amount of sacrifice by my family.

But when I am on that truck, I truly feel that I am exactly where I need to be. I feel like there is this moment of clarity...that the injustice and pain of the world that so consumes me enables me to focus in on this one person's crisis and I can be their person, just in that moment. I can offer grace. I can look in their eyes. I can treat them with dignity. I can hope for them when they are hopeless.

And that has been life-giving in ways I honestly couldn't have imagined a year ago. Helping deliver a baby in the back of an ambulance, standing quietly with someone who has just lost their someone, sweating as you work to think critically and bring someone back from the dead, maneuvering the streets with an emergency strapped down in the back...all these things are chaotic and beautiful and terrifying but they are life.

So as I stare at 41 coming so soon, I want to celebrate it. Not to replace turning 40. But to declare that turning 40 ended up being a really good thing. That as much as some things have been impossible this year, as much as we are in the thick of a really hard fight right now, God is with me. I have an amazing squad of humans who have cheered me on and made me laugh and loved my kids and brought us meals this last week of crisis. I have a husband who, quite honestly, could have done much better than me but sticks by me. I have an evolving faith that is growing deeper in its understanding of grace and love and sacrifice. I have so much to be grateful for.

I don't know exactly when or how, but if you are local and you want a chance to laugh and dream and, quite likely, dance, you are invited. To a 41st birthday celebration. No gifts necessary, just your presence, your hope, your humanity in whatever messy form it might be in right now.

I don't know what it will look like, but I'm confident that Jesus is ready to party with us.

The Treasuring

I have a little less than one year left before my youngest one heads off to kindergarten.

Which means the number of Friday mornings we have left for just the two of us are numbered.

I think he knows this, even though four year-olds aren't great at the concept of time. It's clear, though, that he wants to get every possible second of joy out of these mornings together.

This morning we decided to just lay low with a lazy day. We made smoothies, we played basketball, soccer, football and legos. We snuggled and read books. It didn't hurt that the weather finally decided to act like fall and we could enjoy the outdoors without sweating the whole time.

I was able to treasure it.

Which is pretty huge for me.

As a one on the enneagram, my brain tends to be going a mile a minute. I can simultaneously be writing an email in my head, lamenting the injustice of the world, planning the meals for the next week and reminding myself what I need to do to pack to be ready for my 4 am shift tomorrow and still be playing with my child. But when my mind is racing like that, I'm not fully there. I know that about myself. I have a tendency to feel urgently that I need to be accomplishing something. Checking things off lists. DOING. Making something better.

So to be able to play with him all morning, to see the huge dimple grin on his face, to laugh alongside him when we both fell down trying to dribble around each other and to do it all without worrying about what I wasn't accomplishing...that is a rare gift.

Just last week a friend of mine messaged me after a particularly impossible day with her daughter. Apparently it was some kind of national daughters day (and no, I cannot keep up with all the "holidays" these days) and she finished the drama of the day by turning on facebook and seeing post after post of people making loving and generous proclamations over their female offspring. And it was like salt in a wound, because she just couldn't do it right then. We lamented together. This parenting thing is the hardest role we've ever played.

And just a few days later, when national sons day(really? is this new this year?) came along, I was in the thick of it with parenting a child who was having adverse reactions to a drug, being sent home early from school for behavior issues, another one who ate something requiring a long call with poison control and a number of other significantly challenging issues and well, I was done. There was no treasuring of parenthood. No smiling pictures of us to post. I felt, like my son so eloquently put recently when he couldn't be nice to his brother, that "I only had mean words in my mouth." I knew that to post anything that night would be disingenuous. Not that I don't love my kids. But some days, oh man, some days...this road with SPD, ADHD and ODD is LONG and HARD and TOO MUCH.

The thing is, the longer and harder and "too much" things feel, the more I disengage. I let my brain race. I just get through the day accomplishing what I can to keep us all churning. The homework, the dinners, the job, the doctors appointments and therapies, the scheduling and sports. But I don't enjoy the parenting. When the hard moments vastly outweigh the good ones, sometimes I am so distracted by the recovering that needs to take place, I miss the actual sweet moments.

So, today I am grateful. Things aren't necessarily easy yet. But it was this moment of grace, where I was able to leave my lists to the side and just engage him. He loves quality time, he loves when his mom or dad just stops what we are doing and make him the center of the moment. Those moments are hard to come by when you are the youngest of three.

So, we played. We played and laughed and chased and tickled and cuddled and read. And as he sleeps upstairs and we wait for his older brothers to come home, I feel thankful for the gift of it. And hopeful that we can have more Fridays where I make the choice to see him and to be the kind of carefree mom he needs me to be sometimes.

Pressure

There's something I need to confess. Two things really.

First, this has been weighing heavily on me for awhile but it's time to publicly admit that I bought a running fanny pack and it's everything I thought it could be and more. I can only assume that at some point I will throw full caution to the wind and embrace it for all personal carrying needs. And that my 12 year-old will officially hide when he sees me in public.

Second, this kindergarten thing has got me feeling crazy, but not in the way I think many other mamas are feeling. I don't have any sappy or weepy needs to curl into a ball. I didn't stare out the window all morning or look at baby pictures or stalk the school playground to check in on him. 

I went on a long, exhausting, exhilarating run, the kind of run that clears your head and brings things into perfect clarity. 

About 10 minutes into it, I realized that I have been a perfect mess for the last week and I realized why: these past two years since my son started to have really significant trouble in school, since we had to pull him before he got expelled from preschool, the specialists, the therapists, the prayers, the tears, the rage, all this has led up to the moment of truth. 

Can he and will he be able to handle...scratch that, THRIVE, in Kindergarten? 

No parent wants his or her child to just get by. To be tolerated and then talked about behind closed doors of teacher meetings. No parent wants that child to be labeled or to have low expectations put on him. I have seen the people who expect the best from him and I have seen those who have diagnosed him on their own (without credentials to do so) and basically made us feel like failures as parents. I've met doctors who believe me and others who question my honesty. Those who want to medicate and those who want to heal- and yes, I've learned there is a HUGE difference. 

There is only so much that I can control about what happens to him. We had spent weeks leading up to this day: we had prepped him for goodbye, prepped him for getting on the bus, tried to get him to go to an event for rising kindergarteners to practice getting on the bus to no avail and he had finally, excitedly, woke up ready to do it. He was out waiting for it 20 minutes before it should have come wearing his adorable little kindergarten label and a huge smile.

It never came. 

When that bus didn't show up and my happy, excited, passionate child started to let disappointment and nerves creep in, I got angry. We had to change course. After ALL the prep and conversations, the bus wouldn't be taking him in after all. And for kids like my son, that one thing can literally be THE thing that undoes the day. That tanks the mood. That starts the tears or anxiety or defiance.  

My husband explained the change in situation to my sad boy and he willingly, miraculously got in the car. I watched them drive off to school with my heart in my throat. Not because "my little boy was heading off to kindergarten and wasn't he just a baby yesterday" but because of all the what-ifs. All the ways I still don't know if he is ready, if his teacher will be able to handle his challenges and get the best out of him. If he will rise to it the way I know he can. 

I watched the phone, waiting for it to ring. I paced. I snacked. I ran until I couldn't breathe. 

In truth, I put a ton of pressure on myself for his success today. 

Have I done everything I know to do? I think so. 
Is it probably everything that can be done? Nope.
Have I failed him along the way? Absolutely. 
Have I likely been unwittingly rude or snappy with a medical professional? You bet your patootie. 
Has the system been frustrating to navigate? Of course it has.
Do I have any control over how this day goes? Not at all.

And there's the rub. I have done my part. 

He made it to day one. We all did, with scars to show. 

And right now, as I know he is heading into his last hour and a half at school, I can't help but wonder how long this feeling will last. When will I be able to breathe? To rejoice in having at least made it to day one? Will there be a moment the scars start to fade a little? Or will there be a fresh battle to fight yet again? 

I can't answer these questions and I also can't spend all day asking them. Putting that much pressure on oneself is utterly exhausting, but I often don't know how to do life any differently. I really am trying, despite what it looks like. 

I am hoping he will walk off that bus this afternoon with his gorgeous grin and chatter away about all the good that happened today. 

And I'm hoping by the time he does, I'm ready to greet him with a smile of joy and hope and help him get ready for day two.  

Why not?

I've honestly never given anything less thought.

One minute, I was dropping my youngest off to play with his grandparents, the next moment I was sipping coffee and knowing that something absolutely had to change.

In December, I wrote about being at the edge of myself. That years of extremely challenging parenting paired with a diagnosis of PMDD had left me a shell of myself. Sad. Exhausted. Purposeless. Isolated.

This morning was during that period of feeling lost. And as I sipped my coffee, I stared at a wall. I didn't read, I didn't pray or write. I didn't scroll mindlessly on social media pretending it fulfills a deep ache. I just stared...and then asked God "what next?"

I wish I could put the next few minutes into words...but I don't really know what happened. One minute I was on the verge of tears, of giving up and the next minute, I had pressed "submit" on an application to a college course to become an EMT.

Before I had really thought about it. Before I had called my husband. Before I had looked carefully at our life to see if it was possible.

I pressed submit.

Because, friends, it was SO clear that I needed to press submit.

A lot of people have asked me what led to me becoming an EMT at the age of 40.

And to be honest? I don't really know.

Something made me search EMT programs in that moment after I asked God that question. Something made me keep reading.
Something sparked a deep interest, the tiniest flicker of a brand new dream.

I knew literally nothing about emergency medicine.

But, I pressed submit.

I didn't call anyone, ask if I should go for it.

I pressed submit.

I am not generally rash or impulsive.

I pressed submit.

And when I did, something lifted. Some horrible, heavy weight of sadness shifted just the slightest bit.

And because I have arguably the most genuine and generous husband on the earth, he greeted my impulsive decision with nothing less than clear delight and determined support. We would make it work no matter what.

Seriously, he is the best one out there. No contest.

Within a day, I had been accepted to the college. Within another few days, I had been accepted to the actual program. I was transferring transcripts and signing up for a medical physical and scouring amazon for textbook deals and ordering a stethoscope and cargo pants. (Which I have to admit, I truly love and wish were still fashionable like they were when I was in high school.)

I was diving into hope.

Friends, that was just six months ago. Six months that ended up being filled with hard work and new friendships and a new, budding dream of loving people well on what could be the scariest day of their lives.

I truly loved it. Loved using my brain again. Loved learning something totally new and different. Loved it. Something I literally didn't think through for more than a few minutes.

So here I am, certified in-state and nationally, a smile on my face, with two interviews lined up next week for local ambulance corps.

Why did I become an EMT?

Well, all I can honestly say is "why not?"