Of Bed-making and Legacy-leaving

I’m in California visiting my mom. She’s 82 years old and has lived in a convalescent home since 2005. It’s difficult to articulate the dynamics that have existed between us ever since I can remember, so I won’t try. I will say that, for us, it's always been hard.

Long ago, Mom began figuratively making the bed she now literally lies in. (An aside for the grammar nazis: proper usage of lay/lie has always eluded me. My English-professor father has tried and tried. Since I'm using the word(s) and their various (confusing) forms a lot in this entry, I even tried googling it which only added to my confusion. So, if I'm wrong and you know the difference, work with me and fagetaboutit. If you don’t, then at least you know you’re not alone.)

August 2011, when Mom was still
relatively interactive and coherent.

During my mom’s 70something years of contributing to society, she, like the rest of us, made choices; many of them. Growing up, I watched mostly dumbfounded as she lay wreckage to relationships, sabotaging herself and others with her choices.

The irony is that, all the while she was on a quest, desperately seeking love and acceptance. She had kids for just this reason. Four of us. And while I have no doubt my mom loved us dearly, she just didn’t have it in her to be the mom she desired to be, the mom we needed her to be. She was too empty inside. From the time she was a baby, she has justifiably felt unloved, unaccepted, unwanted. And there’s where the runaway train which has created the wreckage of her life began.

Now, Mom in a brief moment of
wakefulness, sipping coffee with pictures
and notes her grandkids made for her
 on the wall in the background.

So now, I sit next to her, as she lies in her bed. I pray, “Lord minister to her. Lord, don’t let her suffer any more. Please, take her home.” Yet, I don’t even know if she knows her Maker. As she teeters between this world and the next, the thought that she might not, is terrifying.

I stroke her hair and hold her hand as she stares blankly, drifting in and out of sleep.

Does she even know I’m here?

She wakes long enough to look at me, smile and say, "You have such a pretty smile.” My heart tucks away the treasure as she dozes off again.

Except for me, on the few times a year I can make it to California, my mom is utterly alone. No one visits her. Not one person. Ever. No one. It breaks my heart. The knowledge that she is reaping what she's sown, is no consolation. In her old age, her “golden” years, this is what it’s come to for her. 

Metaphorically, a part of me lies in her bed with her. How can it not? She’s my mom. The pain of her decisions have become a legacy of impossible-to-carry baggage for me, her youngest daughter. Just as the choices of my mom's parents' affected her, her choices have affected her children. In the same way, our choices will affect our kids, (now cue the "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific" commercials) and so on, and so on, and so on. 

Why? Because we don't live alone on an island. Our choices affect others and we can't be playing the game of life like they don't. 

As each new day chips away at my mom's dignity, as she lay there all alone, make no mistake, she is paying dearly for this bed she made. She lies there in its relentless grip day after day after interminable day, with no reprieve. No matter her choices, she is a human being and human beings were made for love of which she has precious little.

The tragedy of my mom's life has been a sobering teacher for me. Watching her life-choices play out over the years, I am tangibly struck with the reality that our choices matter. While ultimately they affect the choice-maker most directly, our choices also affect our loved ones. Deeply. There's no way around that. I want to use the gift of free-will wisely, with the Holy Spirit's guidance. It is far too powerful a gift to rely solely on myself to make right decisions for I know the flaws of my flesh far too well. I want to give my children a legacy and heritage that gives their hearts wings to fly, not burden them with impossible-to-carry baggage. 

The power to choose is ours. The legacy we leave is up to us. 

Lord, help me choose well. Let me live a life full of love 1 Corinthians 13 style. Let me leave an honorable legacy that gives my children wings to fly.

25 Things About Me

For those of you who don't know me, here's a little insider info. For those of you who do, there will be a quiz. Preferably while eating Leatherby's Raspberry Royales together (notice, I did not say sharing). :-)

1. I saw Steve Martin's The Jerk when I was a little kid. Ever since then, when someone starts to tell their life story, I silently add, "I was born a poor black child."
2. I'm a blue-eyed red-head. Hated the red hair as a kid. I quickly came to appreciate it as an adult. Plus, a perk I've discovered with age is that red hair hides grays really well. 
3. Earth, Wind & Fire, Heatwave, The Sugar Hill Gang, Switch, Cameo, Grandmaster Flash, Stacy Lattisaw & Parliament kept company with Genesis, Billy Joel, Kansas, Heart, Journey, Van Halen, General Public & the Police on my record shelf.
4. I like Tommy Jordan and agree with his decision to shoot his daughter's computer to teach her a lesson. I also think he writes well.
5. As a kid, I made it my mission to learn to smack my gum. I thought it was sooo cool. I still smack it and I still think it's cool.
6. Pretention wears me out fast.
7. I'm a Ginger girl not a Mary Ann girl. Ginger had big dreams and class (yes, I said class). I thought Mary Ann was just plain and boring.
8. I love music of all kinds and I love to dance.
9. I've loved deeply and lost. More over, I'd do it all over again, even if I'd known in advance how it would turn out. The joy of that love was worth every single second of the pain of losing it.
10. I'm passionate about justice, especially when it comes to my family.
11. When I became a Christian, I thought all Christians were stellar people. Since then, I've learned Christians sin just as much as non-Christians and the only difference is Jesus.
12. I love coffee with lots of heavy cream, no sugar.
13. My whole life, my relationship with my mom has been less than ideal (big understatement). However, God has restored that ten-fold with the blessings of three of the most amazing mothers-in-law ever. Ray's mom (God rest her soul), Dean's mom and Amy's mom (Amy is Dean's late wife) have been/are three of my closest friends. 
14. If it weren't for Beckie Shafer teaching me how to cook when I was a young wife, my family would have starved.
15. In high school, Gina McCulley taught me a beauty secret that I still use all these years later:  when applying mascara, an open safety pin is a very effective way to separate sticky eyelashes.
16. Best gift I could ever receive is a handwritten note.
17. This one I say often, but only because it is one of the truest truths in my life. By far, I have the best friends ever. They know the best & worst of me. They call me higher, belly laugh with me, sob buckets with me, walk through the hardest of the hard with me. They love me for me. 
18. Black and green are my favorite colors.
19. Spent my summers at the beach and never once got a tan (see #2).
20. I have a memory like Jumbo the elephant which is great for the good times, not so much for the tough spots in my life that I'd rather forget.
21. I used to think chiropractors were quacks, but since my life was literally changed by a chiropractor two years ago, I'm a sold-out believer.
22. I see the world in black & white: Right is right. Wrong is wrong. While this may mean I have clarity that gray-area folks might not have, I still struggle just as much with actually doing the right thing. (Rom 7:15)
23. The majority of my most embarrassing moments involve tripping.
24. I believe in second chances and  love at first sight. 
25. Someday I want to own a 1965 Mustang.

Decking the Halls... or Not

Christmastime... Family, friends, food, music, lights, decorations, nativity scenes, Christmasy, wintery scents -- I love Christmas. I love everything about the Christmas season (well, everything except the commercialization). 

As a child, there was little to no tradition in my home (though, I s'pose having no tradition could, in a sense, be considered its own sort of tradition). As a result, establishing our own family traditions with my husband and children has been important to me. 

We have a dozen or so family Christmas traditions. One of these is decorating our home for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. For the last three years, my first-born, Branden, has been away at college, so we've decked the halls without his effervescent personality bouncing around the house (and missed it greatly). This year, he was home for Thanksgiving and able to join in on the fun, which made me a very happy mama. It also made this mama acutely aware that all my kids being home for decorating will become rarer and rarer as my kids continue spreading their wings and leaving the nest. In fact, in all likelihood, next year my second-born (and only daughter) will be living her life-long dream of residing across the pond. And so, as each one of my kids fly away, the cherishedness of these traditions, as well as daily life in general with them, becomes even more cherished.

An ornament a year for each one of my kids
adorns our tree. When they move out and
have their own families, they'll have their
childhood ornaments to hang on their trees.

So, with the added joy of #1's presence, we began decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. We got as far as the tree, which is pretty far. A few days later, I hung the stockings (hey, it's harder than it sounds). Then I started thinkin', as much as I love the rest of the Christmas decorations that normally adorn our home, I may just be done with this whole decking-the-halls process for 2012.  

I assure you, I wasn't Scroogin'. I just wasn't sure I wanted to dedicate an entire day plus to the decorating process. (Not to mention its inevitable, not even remotely fun companion: entire day plus of UNdecorating.) I'd much rather spend that time playing games with my kids, reading Christmas-type books to them, watching Christmas-type movies with them and baking Christmas-type goodies with them. I thought.

It's not like I was thinking it has to be one or the other: enjoying time with your family OR decorating. I wasn't. It's just that, in that moment, somehow this year didn't feel like a both year to me. 

As I shared my all-but-made-decision to not decorate the house more with one of my sons, Chandler, he said in his tender, sweet voice, "Mom, it doesn't feel like Christmas until our house is decorated. It's so cozy when it's all Christmasy." And that was it. That was all it took. Hearing my son say tradition was important melted me, and I instantly became a decorating machine. Day plus, schmay plus. Bring it!

Now before you get all, "Lady, Christmas is far more than a decorated home. It's about JESUS!" on me. I know that and this post is not even remotely meant to minimize the main and plain of that fact. And yet, our family traditions have given our kids something that is also dear to their hearts: fond memories to carry with them as they grow; a sense of belonging and family identity; a sense of simple times in a sometimes hard, cold, complicated world; a sense of cozy, warm-by-the-fire togetherness and love. There's something to be said for cherished family traditions our kids can pass on to their kids as part of their legacies. 

So, it's ended up being a both year after all. We're all decorated, and now as I sit to play games, read stories, watch movies and bake with my family, I do it in our warmer, cozier, more Christmasy home. Gotta tip my hat, or in my case, flip my hair, to our Chan-man for speaking up and saving me from my sometimes overly-practical self. Way to go, Chandler!