Of grace and beauty and mom

Last year on Mother’s Day, I wrote about my mom.

I wrote about how she has been an inspiration to me, and how I don’t always express just how much I appreciate her. I’m not sure I could say it any better than I already have. My mom is amazing, more amazing than you could ever know. She is lighthouse, beacon, bellwether to my storms.

But in the last year, my life has been touched by other moms, women who are out there in the dirt and the dust and the raging winds, raising their families and doing the best they can. Sharing their stories. Offering support. Every day. Yes, I’m talking about you. And you. And you and you and you. You are my neighborhood, my village, my country. I can’t imagine this journey without you.

Here’s to our joy, our sorrow, our collective worries.

And to the grace and beauty in each of you.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” ~Anne Lamott

 

Doing the right thing

I was in the library today, tucked into my favorite corner between the stacks of periodicals, when the librarian walked over with a young man and his mother. They must need guidance on a school project, I thought.

But then I looked at the clock. 11:30 a.m. It didn’t make sense that this boy wasn’t in school. And then the librarian started pulling piles of magazines off the shelves. Soon there was less than an inch of space between my laptop and her piles.

The boy sat down in a chair next to me and the librarian began to explain how he was to sort the stacks. I noticed that his body shook and his feet were tapping in an uncontrollable way. But his voice was steady when he spoke and that surprised me because I expected to hear the shudders in his voice the same way I saw them running through his body.

“Would you mind moving your things?” the librarian asked me.

“Not at all,” I said. “I can move to another table.” And I meant this kindly, and sincerely, despite the fact that I had been there first, that I liked the long table in the corner and that the only seats left were exposed, in the center of the room, out in the open where I hate to be.

Since becoming GP’s mom, I see the world a little differently. Things are not as black and white as they used to be. There was a time I would have taken a stand, refused to give up my seat, made a case for being there first—but none of that seemed important today.

There are many things mothering my son has taught me. But perhaps the most important thing I have learned is how the kindness we extend to others will come back to us in spades.

I can’t begin to know the story behind the boy and the stacks of magazines. But that isn’t what is important here. It isn’t about the boy. It is about me, what I’ve learned. And what I hope I can teach my son.

My son has a book—The Three Questions—based on a Leo Tolstoy short story. The young boy in the story wants to be the best person he can be, but he is often unsure if he is doing the right thing. So he poses three questions to his animal friends: What is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?

By the end of the story, the boy learns the most important time is now, the most important one is the one he is with, and the right thing to do is good for the one who is standing at his side.

Sounds right to me.

 

And so it begins

I love talking to my son on the phone. But the very nature of our days, the fact that when he’s not at school, he’s with me, doesn’t give me much opportunity.

Yesterday, however, he spent the afternoon at his grandmother’s while I ran some errands. Around 4 o’clock, I called to see if he was staying there for dinner or coming home. Using his best phone manners, he told me he would like to stay for dinner.

Later, when I called back to ask if he was ready to be picked up, he said, “Not yet. I will call you.”

And he did. An hour later, the phone rang. “Mom, can you come get me, now?”

You know how everyone sounds the same, but different, on the phone? As we made arrangements for the pick up (“clean up your toys and I will be there in a few minutes”), I heard the boy at 10, 12, 15 years old. And I had a flashback to the countless phone calls I made to my own mother asking for a ride home.

In that brief moment, I saw my future. And it looked like somewhere I had been before.

 

Every word spoken?

The plan was loosey goosey. Nothing definite. One of those, we’ll be here if you want to come over, kind of things.

Yesterday, the boys wound up playing over two hours in the snow after a smile and a wave across the street brought the neighbors over for a good long chat. As the afternoon grew unbearably cold—hands and toes frozen despite mittens and boots—we managed to get the boys back into the house with a few half-hearted promises for more of the same today.

Only, the plan was pretty loose. And it just didn’t happen. Tonight, as I was helping GP into his pajamas, I said, “Wasn’t this a great day? I had so much fun.” Because despite the fact that the playdate wasn’t, we still managed to see an exhibit by this amazing artist, plus have a lovely Sunday dinner with Grandma and Uncle D.

Weepy, he turned to me and said, “You know what the worst part of today was? The worst part was that little J never came over to play. It makes me feel forgotten.”

“Forgotten? Oh no no no, sweetheart. Never forgotten.”

No matter how hard I tried to turn it around, he was sad. He missed his friend. He wanted to play.

And while it broke my heart to hear how upset he was, I can’t say I didn’t see it coming.

One of these days I’m going to figure out how to explain that sometimes people say things to be nice, to be social, to fill the empty space between them. It’s like the ubiquitous, “I’ll call you.” But to a boy who takes it all literally, who believes in every word spoken, this social nuance is not an easy thing to explain.

No, not easy at all.

 

The early dawn

I am already half-awake when I hear my son open and close the door to his room. I turn to check the time as I hear him padding down the long hall. It is 3:40 a.m.

I steer him back to bed two more times before I give up and tuck him into my place, next to his father. Now I am the one padding down the hall, opening the door to his room and sliding between his red flannel sheets.

His wakefulness comes and goes. And though I have tried to assign reason to it, I have learned there is no reason—and every reason—so the sleeplessness must simply be allowed to run its course.

My mind is clouded by my own early morning musings. The magic of the class play tainted by a troubled afternoon. The excitement of the day understandably too much.

I watched him sleep yesterday after school. He drifted off, his head in my lap, homework undone, religion forgotten. It was an unexpected moment—a gift—from the boy who doesn’t nap on a day that took a bad turn.

As I lay awake this morning, I thought about how quickly things change. How one day doesn’t necessarily lead to the next. How good days—or even bad days—are not a given. And I thought about how I hold on to the notion that if we get everything right, the right combination of school, therapy and support, that all his challenges will just melt away, disappear forever.

Foolish. I know.

But these are the things that speak to me in the early dawn. My secret hopes. My dreams.

 

What we know

Our little dusting of snow was gone by the time I picked up my son in the school yard yesterday. He was disappointed. He’s been waiting all winter to build a snowman. I explained that winter is only just getting started, but I don’t know what the weeks to come will bring. Hopefully, he will get his snow. (Am I allowed to say I want it too? A big glorious blanket of white—a snow day, hot chocolate, faces pressed against the glass trying to guess how many inches will fall…)

There are so many things I want to tell him—about life, growing up, managing disappointment. In the quiet moments, when I am alone, the dialogue plays out in my head and it is poetic and eager and full of wisdom.

But the opening never comes. The segue. So I let it go. For now.

He is changing. Learning. Reaching. I like the new me better, he volunteers. I don’t cry as much anymore.

Yes, I like that too, I say.

And I wonder, not for the first time, how much I have to tell him and how much he already knows.