Letting Go Of Our First-Born

 

Our oldest child has flown the nest. 

It's only been a day, and I'm sure in the days and weeks to follow, I will have more thoughts and feelings, but for now, I just have a few.

It's a strange phenomenon when you spend 18-20 short years angsting about raising your child well, and then all of the sudden, the time has come to set her free. Did I do everything right? No. Did I give her enough attention? Probably not. Did I love her enough? How do I answer this one? I remember writing in a journal to her when I was pregnant, wondering how I would ever be able to love her as much as she deserves. I am selfish, and imperfect, and fall so short of even being worthy to. I did spend the last almost-20 years of her existence trying to love her, and I know that the Lord has graciously filled in the many gaps where I've failed. She has grown into a very beautiful young lady, with a heart for our Lord, and she has reached adulthood, ready to go out into the world, but determined not to be of it. 

At her new place, I asked if I could make her bed. She obliged her old sentimental mother this task, which seemed so trivial to her, I'm sure. But to me, it meant the world. Together, her dad and I made up her new bed, each of us lost in our thoughts of how we got here because she was 4 years old just yesterday. We glanced at each other a few times, knowingly. Our daughter, the one who changed our life and set it on a trajectory toward much greater things than we ever could have imagined, is now no longer under our wings. 

This is the part of life where you really learn the art of letting go in a much more painful way than you did when she went off to Preschool. Or when she got her driver's license. Or when she got her first job out in the world. The letting go must allow for an ocean's-worth of trust in God, the depths of which you should never discover. She is His, after all. He has a plan for her life that we know nothing about. We can only pray she will be who God meant her to be.

When we made it back home yesterday, we pulled sheets and blankets from the dryer and once again, together, we made up her bed. A sense of finality seemed to sneak upon us; the closing of a chapter. We surveyed her empty room. Hangers dangled, purposeless, in the closet, where many beautiful and feminine clothes used to hang. Her time-worn dresser sat empty, as did her nightstand where she used to keep holy cards and an occasional glass of water. Her painting of La Vierge aux anges (The Virgin with Angels, or Song of Angels) which used to adorn her wall, is now at her new place. Almost everything was bare.

But my heart was full. Yes, there's an ache. But this is the start of a new, exciting chapter. My sweet, anxious daughter whom I've worried and fretted over for many years, has now proven to me that once again, God is faithful. He is the Master of turning even the things which pain and prick, into good and beautiful things. He has her under His wings, as He always has, and I know she will be okay, no matter what. I'm excited to see what He's written for her.

And I realize that my responsibility as her parent has changed some, but has not completely diminished. I'm still immersed in this longest labor. I'm still here to worry over her, to pray for her, to guide her on a moral path. 

And she knows that no matter what happens, she can always come back home.

Overcoming Trauma: To Jesus Through Mary

I hoisted my tired body over the railing of the rickety pack-n-play which shifted and groaned beneath my weight.  Dropping down to lay my number seven on the thin mattress and curling around her, I settled into the familiar - albeit uncomfortable - routine we have had for nap-time since she started crawling: nursing to sleep in the safe confines of the tiny cage.  After a little bit of gymnurstics and other shenanigans, my sweet baby finally succumbed to her sleepy rhythm, grasping at my scapular as she slipped into dreamland. And I began my rosary.

This habit of saying a rosary at nap time has only recently become my routine.  I usually say one each time I lay her down.  It has been a means of drawing closer to our lady, and through her, our Lord, obtaining so many graces as well as consolation and encouragement for my vocation.  Additionally, lately it's been my lifeline as I approach my baby's first birthday, which has seemingly been a time-trigger for remembering the trauma surrounding her birth.  For the past month or so, I realized I was struggling a bit more and became convicted of the idea that I need to be extra purposeful in my efforts to make my way through the after-effects of that trauma. Over the last year, I've tried to use the word "trauma" loosely, careful not to put too much importance on the event or myself, pushing myself to move on and be grateful that I am alive, grateful for the beautiful new little life I was blessed to add to my keep.   But I guess I should just call it what it is.  One doesn't go unexpectedly to the hospital 3 1/2 weeks ahead of a planned homebirth because one is all of the sudden very sick, face the prospect of a c-section after 24 hours of induced labor, almost die from magnesium overdose, and then spend weeks recovering from a rare life-threatening syndrome and whatever damage sustained from the overdose, while her husband spends a week in the hospital being near-death himself, and not be given permission to call a spade a spade....right?

It was traumatic.  And that's ok.

Incidentally, I recently read a quote that said, "other people don't get to decide when you move on from your pain or trauma."  This is profoundly true.  No one should be forcing anyone to just get over something that they've experienced that has impacted their life in a negative way.   People need time to process. They need space to adjust.  They need to be allowed to feel steady on their feet again, be comfortable and certain in their own skin, most especially when something or someone has betrayed them, or they've had a loss, or have faced their own mortality.  They need encouragement, support, love.  I bet there is not one person on this planet who hasn't suffered something traumatic- big or small- in their lifetime, and yet I wonder how many people were afforded the opportunity to walk their path of grief and pain unencumbered by the people in their life, let alone supported by them?  More still, how many gave themselves the permission to do so?

Trauma and grief are topics people don't like to approach, at least not without apprehension.  They are messy, uncontrollable, nonlinear, and- let's be honest- they can be downright scary.   Unaddressed feelings fizzle below the surface of our ordinary lives as we motor about from one thing to the next, surrounded by the blaring message that finding our happiness is what life is all about.  The truth is, that is just one big lie.  It's dishonest.  It glosses over the fact that as broken human beings living in a fallen world, we are subject to much more than the passing phenomenon of "happiness," and are called to much more than its pursuit.  The reality is, we aren't guaranteed happiness.  Those of us who have a propensity toward melancholy or angst are supremely aware of this fact.  No matter how many pills the medical world wants to throw at us to give us the false impression that we are happy, the fact actually is, sometimes- maybe a lot of the time- we just aren't.  Sometimes, what's in our arsenal to battle the darkness cannot be given by prescription or found in a medical journal. (Why I stay away from pharmaceuticals.)

I once wrote about the feeling of standing on the brink of insanity.  A young mother of four small children, I was always at war with myself, battling the darkness that followed me since adolescence, unable to just figure out how to manage my family life, live out my vocation, love my children and husband, without constantly feeling like the darkness was going to swallow me whole.  I had a good grasp on my knowledge of God and His love, was on a decent path to deepening my faith, but was not aware of all the many tools at my disposal.  I look back on that person and hardly recognize her.  My Catholic faith has been such a beautiful gift to me in this walk because it encompasses the fullness of God's truth which offers so many graces rich with His mercy.  I no longer stand teetering on the brink of insanity, and when I find myself possibly inching closer to it, I know without a doubt that I can pick up my rosary and immerse myself in the love afforded to me by a most gracious and generous God, through Mary His mother, by meditating on Jesus' life, death and resurrection.  The promises contained in all the beautiful prayers are such a strong source of tethering myself to the Lord, so that I'm never very far from Him.

I only wish I had thought of adding in a few extra rosaries a day at nap times years ago. Because... I fail all the time in this vocation and often get sidetracked by the trappings of this fallen world, distracted away from my path to holiness, and I need all the extra graces I can get.

One last note....In this longest labor, I have come across a lot of women- mothers- who are struggling just as much as I am with the weight of the many souls we carry through this life.  All of us are at varying stages in our journey, but one thing remains constant at every turn, and that is our ardent desire to not mess up, to do everything we possibly can to have no child left behind as we make our way through this valley of tears.  If you relate to this, I encourage you to pick up your rosary as often as you can; call on Christ to strengthen you, ask His mother, whom He so lovingly and generously offered to us, to guide you on your path to Him.  And pray for your kiddos as well!  Our lady will not fail you.  Deo Gratias!



PS. If you are a non-Catholic, a new Catholic, or even a cradle Catholic struggling with the idea of the rosary, I want to clarify a couple things:

The rosary is a gift given to us as one of many ways in which we can appeal to Christ for His strength and guidance.  The words to the prayers can be found in the Bible.  Just as Christ on the cross told his disciple to take His mother as his own, so, too, do we.  Mary is not dead, so we are not talking to a dead person. She is much more alive than we are, and just like we would ask our sister or friend or own mother for prayers and guidance, we can ask Mary the same. For many, Mary is the only mother they can truly rely on. We can never love Mary more than we love Jesus, and what's more, we can never love her more than He does.  We do not place her above Him, we do not worship her and we do not 'pray' to her the same way we 'pray' to God. In her humility, Mary said herself that she is the handmaid of the Lord, so as such, she is in the position to serve Him by serving us in our daily needs.  Further info and explanations can be found here and here.  Devotion to Mary is NOT required of Catholics, but I believe from my own experience we are sorely missing out if we don't cultivate it. On a more personal note, I didn't used to have any sort of devotion to Mary and in fact felt sort of strange about the high place she held within the Church. However, as I've grown to understand the exact belief (which is widely misunderstood as people do not feel the need to look for the truth), and have developed a devotion, I have witnessed many miracles that God has allowed through her intercession, including the miracles which occurred almost one year ago, on the birthday of my youngest, which happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  To HIM be all glory.

A Big Family. Is It Worth It?

I divide my children into two categories: my first litter and my second.  My first litter is the older four and there is no more than a year and a half between each of them. Then, there are three years between the youngest of that litter and the oldest in my next, separated by a miscarriage and many months of serious mental health issues.

So I look at these two in their vastly different places and stations in my life.  The older four, while still young, are pretty independent.  The youngest of them will be 6 in a few short months.  The second litter is comprised of a 2 1/2 year old who is ON from sunup to sundown, and a very needy 10 month old who still is almost exclusively breastfed and doesn't know how to sleep through the night yet.  I wonder if  am convinced she and her older brother are in cahoots.

So is it hard? 

Definitely.

Is it worth it?

Eh...

Am I a terrible mother for not even knowing where to begin in answering that question? It's weighty and depending on what kind of mood I'm in, if I've had my coffee or- God forbid- a shower, the answer could vary moment to moment, day to day.

I look at those cherry-sweet faces and I ask myself all the time, what if I hadn't continued to be open to life after my miscarriage?  What if I let my fears overrun me, crowding out my deepest desire to please the Lord and serve Him in whatever way He asked? I can only think of another question: does it even matter?

They are here.  And I love them.

It's a long labor of love, this parenting gig.  Whether you have 2 or 4 or 6.  When you let God design your family, when you shirk all worldly thoughts and maybe even some acknowledgement of your own feelings and capabilities as you measure them, when you just BE for a moment without all the control and pretense, you can't ask yourself questions like this.  You just can't.

Because it really doesn't matter.

You have to just do the next thing. Change the next diaper.  Nurse that baby.  Push those chubby toes out of your face at night.  And just be.  Keep going.  Labor away.

Time goes by, regardless.  Sometimes it passes at a yawning, groaning, aching pace, and sometimes it flits by in a flash, chasing after a future always out of grasp.  Sometimes it is comprised of lost babies, empty arms, foggy mind, and sometimes it's full of little hands to hold, nurslings, round bellies, full breasts.

Time teaches you, heals you, grows you, regardless of its contents.  It isn't really a measure of contents anyway, so much as allowance.

Allowance for things you may not plan.  Allowance for life to crack you wide open, and for the mighty hand of God to piece you back together in the manner He sees fit.

And really, if I think about it, if I sit down in the quiet (which, incidentally, is a rare find around here), I can tell you that yes, definitely.  It is indeed worth it.