A Dangerous Mother

Yes. That was me. 

But I didn't know it until I had my first grandchild -- a beautiful baby girl. I tried to do my motherly duty and give my daughter the sage advice I had learned the hard way over the years of raising my own two children.Twelve years ago, I let Audrie fall asleep on my chest and then gently placed her on her stomach in her crib.

"Mother! They don't lay babies on their stomachs anymore!" My daughter corrected me. "They might suffocate!"

Dear Lord, forgive me for almost suffocating my children hundreds of times when they were babies.

I prided myself on the fact that my two children started sleeping through the night at a fairly early age, and it pained me to see Vanessa so exhausted night after night after night of little sleep because her three babies (when they each were babies & the third one still is) kept waking up wanting to nurse. I told her to give them a little rice cereal so they'll feel satisfied and sleep longer so she could rest.

"Mother! They don't feed babies any food other than breast milk or formula until they're at least six months old or they could develop allergies!" 

Dear Lord, forgive me for developing allergies in my children for feeding them baby cereal at too young of an age.

Car seats for babies and small children were just coming into existence when my kids were little, and it wasn't a law back then, so my kids were exposed to countless hours of riding unrestrained in vehicles. Van sometimes stood tucked behind his Daddy's shoulder while his daddy drove 70 mph down the highway. My toddler son even opened the pickup door while riding with his PaPa Van Cleve on I-35 on the way to Laredo. I still shiver when I think about that. I've lost count the times my children rode in the back of the pickup around town and in the pasture. And I learned well after the fact that Uncle Jimmy let Van drive his pickup and trailer to Pearsall, thirty miles away, and the boy was only 10 or 11 years old! 

Dear Lord, forgive me for letting my children go ANYWHERE with their father and uncle and grandfather in a pickup.

It's a wonder my children weren't traumatized by what I made them wear.

I never realized life was so dangerous for my children. 

• I didn't walk out into the street and watch them walk to their grandparents' house 50 yards from our house. It's a wonder they weren't kidnapped! 
• Until they got their driver's license, I made them walk to junior high [it's now called middle school] and high school three blocks away. They could've been run over!
• I let them play out in the 40 acres behind the house. I don't know why they weren't bit by a rattlesnake!
• Van fell off the roof several times putting up Christmas lights and was electrocuted once as he stapled into the wire about the time Vanessa plugged the lights in. They didn't tell me this until after they went to college. 
• They rode horses and worked with big 4-H show calves, and stepped in manure in the pens and were scratched by feral cats in the barn, and also swung like Tarzan off the tall stacks of feed with ropes attached to the rafters. They could've broken bones [oh yeah, Van did break his arm three times falling off a horse] or contracted some deadly disease out there!

Dear Lord, forgive me for raising my children in such a dangerous environment. Thank you for keeping them safe in spite of my ignorance. 

Little August

And now our precious little surprise, August, showed up last July, and I have the inexpressible joy of getting to hold and kiss on a baby again. I'm scared out of my mind that I'm going to do something wrong, so when I keep him, I follow him around like a shadow when he's crawling, or I just hold him on my chest the whole time he's sleeping. 

Dear Lord, please don't let this errant underwire sticking out of my bra stab him. 

I'm so glad my own children survived their dangerous childhood. I'm surprised how healthy and strong and happy they look! They're hiding their suffering well.

 Vanessa & Van

And here are my grandkids, whom I'm trying to be safer with.

Audrie, Finn & August

I think I just butchered that last sentence grammatically. Is it 'with whom I'm trying to be safer' or is it okay to write it like we speak it: 'who I'm trying to be safer with' or what?! I can't even trust myself to be safe with grammar! That even sounds like a nickname for grandma!  Ol' Grammar Van Cleve. 

Okay,  I'll stop now.

A Time of Transition

My Sunday School co-teacher, Penni, referred in a prayer to this time with my mother's ALS as a transition. That stuck with me because we often think of death in terms of an ending, a finality, a loss. But those are terms that more accurately describe the survivors' earthly status to the deceased, but the deceased has actually transitioned to the next stage of life, an eternity with one's Creator, or an eternity without. The first choice is heavenly, the second is heart-rending.

Because of our relationship with our Creator through Christ, I know my mother and I will see each other again after her transition. I've already asked my mother to meet me by the gate-- no matter who goes first. And none of us are guaranteed a long life.

I realize those folks who have grown up outside of a knowledge of God and the Bible, and even for agnostics who are familiar with Christianity, that probably sounds like wishful thinking from a simple-minded anomaly at the top of the food chain. That's okay. I'd rather live a life of trust in my Creator and his Word, which He has proved to me time and time again, than the empty, hopeless worldview without God. There is no transition for unbelievers. Life has no meaning, only a brief speck of existence during a moment in time, and then it's back to the dirt. Lights off. The end. Finis. Terminated. And if folks want to live with that belief, I can respect that. But I choose otherwise.

And it's God's grace that will sustain us as we're getting into the hard days of Mom's disease now. She's lost the use of her legs and most of her muscles, and cannot move without two of us helping her in or out of bed and in and out of her power chair, which right now is the only thing that allows her to defy her paralysis. We are so thankful she can still do things with her hands, including writing to communicate with us. I pray that we will not lose that connection. I pray for courage and peace for Mom, and she's demonstrated that; I can't imagine what it's like for a perfectly healthy mind to be trapped in a body unwilling to do its bidding.

Even as old as I am, the little girl in me still wants to crawl in bed with my momma and hang onto her for dear life. I'm already missing her-- not being able to converse. I'm tired of my one-sided conversations, and silent house. The writer in me wants her to spend this time recording all of her memories and thoughts and messages to her kids so we can have those words to keep us company until we're re-united again. But Mom doesn't think the way I think, and only records thoughts when I prompt her to. I've stepped back from that, telling myself to be content with what she's given me and letting her live out the rest of her life as she chooses.

She loves to watch the Spurs. She faithfully watches Jeopardy, Family Feud, and Wheel of Fortune. She still has one favorite soap opera she watches, and I try to bite my tongue when I want to spout something sarcastic about another predictable, worn-out story line when I'm walking through the living room. And I've stopped fussing about her feeding the dog scraps from her chair. That gives her joy. She deserves it.

And that gives me joy.

Mother's Day in DC

My daughter & her family & I made a flying trip to DC to visit my son/ her brother for five short days, which happened to fall on Mother's Day weekend. Bonus!

We became very familiar with the Metro, DC's subway system. 

My grandkids felt like they were on a carnival ride every time we boarded it.

We slipped into the back door of the Capitol for a tour

And spent a lot of time looking up at some amazing things

like the Rotunda ceiling

and a very tall statue of Abraham Lincoln, 

sculpted by an 18 year old girl!

We walked around the side of the Capitol after a visit to the Library of Congress, which they evacuated while we were there due to an unattended package left in front, probably left by a tourist. But they were playing it safe for everyone's sake.

We made it to the front of the Capitol (I assume it's the front), which faces the Mall.

Little August did great on the trip, and spent lots of time smiling.

This beautiful cascading water structure was in Meridian Park 

across the street from my son's apartment building. 

We got plenty of exercise walking, but the weather was nice and cool.

It was the nicest Mother's Day weekend I've had in years. 

Rigor Mortis or Life?

Too easily I find myself gravitating toward 
                           the path of comfort, 
                                             the place of no conflict, 
                                                             the sound of quiet.  

I look around, and I am alone. 

When I am alone, I can create my own perfect world.

When I am alone, I don't have to worry about offending anyone.

When I am alone, I don't have to worry about disagreement.

When I am alone, I don't have to defend my beliefs.

When I am alone, no one suffers from my mistakes.

When I am alone, no one sees my flaws.

When I am alone, I close my heart to avoid pain.

When I am alone, I forget to live.

I find it all too easy to reside in my world of one.

In my world of one, I feel my strength wane.

In my world of one, rough edges remain when no grit of change polishes me.

In my world of one, I am blind to my faults.

In my world of one, I get lazy when nothing challenges me.

In my world of one, I forget to pray.

In my world of one, I stop growing.

In my world of one, regret haunts me.

In my world of one, I must fight to leave it before rigor mortis sets in.

To live is to come out of hiding, stretch my limbs, open my eyes.

To live, I must stop escaping and live in the now.

To live, I must seek God through his Son, thank Him, talk to Him, & intercede for others.

To live, I must continue to learn, express, think, & act.

To live, I must defend, occasionally offend, sometimes bend, & lend a hand.

To live involves sometimes tripping & falling, but always getting up.

To live is to engage, listen, speak, & listen some more.

To live is to experience loss to attain gain and growth.

To live is to open my heart, at the risk of pain.

To live is to love above all else, and through it all, to love.