Growing Up & Away

Well, she’s 26 ½ and OD is finally moving out. It’s not the way I dreamed it would be, her finding a little place, me helping her shop for appliances, dishes, towels, etc. She’s going out with a bang – or maybe not. You see, she hasn’t spoken to me, except in response to direct questions, since October. She comes and goes silently and when she’s here, she hides out in her room. She’s angry – at me, at the world, at life. But since she can’t take her anger out on “the world” she aims all of it at me and her sister. We are the lense through which she focuses her perceptions about what is wrong with her life.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I just can’t summon up the emotions that seem to be warranted here. I’m not angry or sad. I love her and will miss having her around, but I’m coveting the master bedroom she’s had since we moved into this house 2 ½ years ago. In all the years of being a parent, I’ve never had the master bedroom, wanting my daughters to have the bigger rooms. I’ll finally be able to set up my craft tables and have a space to work on my sewing projects. When she takes her three cats and one 75-pound dog, my house will stay cleaner. And my pet food bill will drop to whatever it costs to feed my 10-pound Chihuahua.

I pray that some time apart will help her to refocus her life and give her the maturity to see that her problems aren’t my fault or YD’s. I’m certainly not a perfect parent, and there are many things I wish I’d done differently. But if love counts for anything, then I’ve loved my daughters with all my heart since the day I first knew they were growing inside me.

OD, I wish you the best that life has to offer and will be praying for you. If you need anything, you just have to ask. Love, Mom

Circle of Life

My special needs daughter is now almost twenty years old. By this time in my life, I had been driving for four years, I had a full-time job, I was living in my own apartment and just generally getting on with a pretty good life. My daughter, being a little behind the curve, still struggles with more basic details. I have learned to celebrate the small victories, like when she dyed her hair jet black in the women’s restroom at the mall, I rejoiced it wasn’t purple. Last summer, she went to the fair with some friends. I strongly recommended she give her debit card to me, in exchange for some cash. This was my attempt to limit the potential damage to her bank account. To my surprise, she agreed. Another small victory.

Later in the day, we exchanged some philosophical text messages about the dilemmas and difficult choices presented by such limited funds. At one point, I texted, “welcome to adulthood.” My daughter texted back the equivalent of a raspberry.

I flashed back to a moment in my teenaged years when I realized I was growing up, against my will. I had been a tomboy. My favorite toys were Hot Wheels and a pitch-back. I hung out with my dad, going fishing with him and his buddies, and yes, I baited my own hook and cast my own line. I puttered around the garage with him. When he decided to build a HeathKit television, I read ahead in the instructions and lined up the little circuits and transistors. (This was exquisite fun!) My favorite photo from childhood shows my dad holding a little horny toad he found in the backyard, and my three-year-old self is right in there checking this guy out while my (older) sister is cowering in the background.

We went fishing a lot. The moment I’m remembering must have been after I hit sixteen, because prior to that age I didn’t need a license. (I know I had one because I remember the bait and tackle shop clerk asking me my weight and I didn’t want to tell him.) This awful moment came one day when my dad asked me if I wanted to go fishing with him, and I said, “no.” I didn’t know why I didn’t want to go, but after he left I cried. I’m not sure I ever went fishing again. Looking back at that moment, I was afraid, knowing I was supposed to start letting go, but not understanding how that was going to be a good thing. It was soon to be “my turn,” and I wanted to pass, thank you very much.

There have been some bumps in the road as I’ve moved on, times I’ve reached for my folks, needing support of one kind or other. They had equipped me with a great toolkit, and sometimes their support was simply to remind me of that. I pray, but frequently doubt, that I am similarly preparing my daughter.

Raising a special needs child has been challenging. Occasionally I need a mini mental vacation, and I dream of spinning reels and pencil clams, dirty hands and horny toads. I wonder what memories will comfort my daughter as her life’s journey continues…

Blond Moments...

Welcome to another installment of “Blond Moments with Debbie”

When the care label on a garment says “wash with like colors” and the garment is pretty much equally black and white, what are you supposed to do?

Sign of the Times

Out of love and respect for Ed Burger, a giant of a man in many ways, the people of Gethsemane Lutheran dedicate this refurbished sign in his memory, welcoming the community to join us in the sometimes ambiguous journey of faith. Our thanks go out to Jeff Luther, a man who lives the gospel, without whose invaluable physical contributions this project would not have been possible.

Father’s Day 2009

Twenty years ago, I divorced my former husband, the father of YD and OD. In hindsight, I know that we should never have been married in the first place. He was my polar opposite. I was naïve, with a need to fix broken things, and I married an alcoholic. After twelve years, two kids, several breakups and beatups, I finally got wise. It was an epiphany. One day I was holding my newborn YD in my arms, and looking at my drunk husband who had passed out in his underwear on the floor in front of the TV. He had just told me what a fat, useless piece of crap I was for the hundredth (or thousandth) time. In that instant, a switch went off and I went from loving and wanting to “save” him, to hating the air that he breathed. Someone with a darker heart would have murdered him where he layed. Instead, I packed our belongings and took my babies to my mother’s house, where we lived for 18 months until I could afford my own apartment.

We tried to reconcile once, just as my babies and I were moving into our apartment, but the only thing that kept us together for another two years was the fact that he was in the U.S. Navy and was gone for 18 of those 24 months. When he finally came back for good, I knew that it was better to be alone than to be married to someone who made me feel so bad about myself. So I set about creating a life for my daughters and me, and it’s always been just the three of us. Their father moved away immediately after the divorce.

I wish I could tell you stories about what a great mom I was, but the truth is that motherhood was a mantle I wore reluctantly. I love my daughters, with the fierce and protective love of a mama bear. So I made a conscious decision to raise my daughters alone rather than bring a series of “father candidates” into their lives. But sometimes I wondered what it would be like to just walk away from my responsibilities, leave my kids with someone and be “free.” Then one of them would do something silly or funny or girly, and life would go on – seemingly slow motion – but looking back I realize that time was moving way too fast for me to cherish every moment.

Fast forward twenty plus years. Their father lives in Illinois with his wife and “new” daughter who is 18 years old. She’s the apple of her father’s eye. The wife, who is from the Philippines where they met when he was still in the military, is a loyal and loving wife. He’s been sober for ten years. And he doesn’t understand why our daughters have no respect or love for him.

I know he believes that I’ve had a hand in alienating him from his older daughters, but I’ve never spoken badly about him to the girls. I’ve always felt that they’d make up their own minds about him, and even told him that once. I had called him to beg for money because he hadn’t sent child support in several years and we literally had no food. His response was that I should find someone new who could help support the girls – or I should send them to live with him. He finally agreed to send a couple hundred dollars a month, which is all he said he could afford. After all, he had bought a new home and had a new family to support, so I shouldn’t expect any more. My girls were nine and eleven at the time, and he faithfully sent that $200 a month until YD turned 18. Then it shut off like a faucet and he considered his responsibilities fulfilled.

OD put herself through college with scholarships and loans, and the little bit that I could help her with. Her father was busy remodeling his home and couldn’t afford to help. Then a week before her college graduation, he informed her that he was attending her graduation. He hadn’t been invited, but as her “father” it was his “right” to be there. He stayed a week with us, sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. I was very welcoming and played the role of a good hostess for the sake of my children. They hadn’t seen their father in over 15 years, and for what it was worth, I was going to give them this time with dad. They went to the zoo and an amusement park and to dinner. Then he got on the plane and went back to his “family.”

In the four years since then, his relationship with our daughters has consisted of occasional phone calls from them requesting money. He always makes a big deal about the fact that they never call him except when they need money. He will frequently ask to speak with me, and I listen patiently while he goes through the litany of his latest illnesses and woes. There is no anger or hatred in my heart for him anymore. Only a kind of amused acceptance and awe at what a blind fool I was to have thought this man was the center of my world.

This week, knowing that neither of my girls had given a thought to Father’s Day, I sent him a card and signed their names. He called to acknowledge it and tell me that he knew the card was really from me. He resents their lack of gratitude and respect. I never confront him with the truth – it’s a lesson he’ll need to learn on his own – if he ever does. He made himself believe that someday they’d want to know their father and there would be some kind of happy, made-for-TV reunion.

The truth is, he burned that bridge years ago with the choices he made. In their minds, he left them behind like an old pair of shoes. To rebuild the bridge would require him to have a contrite heart, to acknowledge his mistakes and ask for forgiveness. He was never the kind of man who apologized, but I'm praying on this Father's Day that the past 20 years has given him the experience and maturity to understand that "owning" your mistakes is the first step to forgiveness.

Fountain of Love

Wednesday night at choir rehearsal, as we practiced “There Is A Redeemer” one last time before Sunday, I finally lost my composure on one particular verse. I’ve been hanging on for a few weeks now, focused as I was on learning the alto line. But now I know the notes, and I could no longer escape the power of the words. “When I stand in Glory, I shall see His face, and there I’ll serve my king for ever in that holy place. Thank you, oh my Father for giving us your Son…”

About three months after my mom died, my sister found a grief website that offered a free subscription to a year of devotionals, designed to counsel the reader through the first year of grief. So I signed up. Every day that email would show up, and I’d either read it right away or move it to a separate folder. Some were okay, a few were helpful, some seemed silly and trite. The cynic in me thought they were mostly interested in peddling their books. I fell behind in reading them; at one point I had two months of these emails sitting unread in their folder. (You know, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.) I have only just finished them in the last few weeks. Those final devotionals dealt a lot with heaven, and our conception of it. I guess I haven’t spent much time as an adult contemplating the reality of heaven. Intentionally thinking about this has been disturbing, from both directions. It’s really hard thinking about my mom being in a state where she doesn’t think about me. But she’s in God’s arms, so she has no more cares or worries, and I definitely qualify as a care or a worry. By the same token, at this point in my life, I can’t imagine ever not worrying about my daughter. If heaven means I’m not thinking/loving/caring about her, maybe I don’t want to go.

Just when I think life may have evened out to its new normal without my mom, in comes another kick in the gut. Sometimes it’s music that delivers it. I held my composure Sunday morning; I feel an obligation to my fellow choir members and the assembly to maintain my part. But I’m really glad there’s a box of tissues in the choir room. Sometimes the fountain of love flows from our hearts through our eyes.

We presented a more “classical” rendition of “There Is A Redeemer.” Here is a YouTube link to an awesome dance troupe’s interpretation, with a kinda techno feel. There are some loud credits at the beginning of the video, but trust me, stick with it. You will be richly rewarded by this kick in the gut.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5lhdXeZqtk

Remembering Her

From the Jerusalem Bible, Mark 14:3-9…

Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper; he was at dinner when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the ointment on his head. Some who were there said to one another indignantly, “Why this waste of ointment? Ointment like this could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor”; and they were angry with her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you upsetting her? What she has done for me is one of the good works. You have the poor with you always, and you can be kind to them whenever you wish, but you will not always have me. She has done what was in her power to do; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. I tell you solemnly, wherever throughout all the world the Good News is proclaimed, what she has done will be told also, in remembrance of her.”

Some years ago, at the Tuesday night liturgy of Holy Week, our pastor invited us to enter this story and take on one of the characters, to experience it from the inside out. What follows is what flowed from my imagination later that evening…

Sometimes…I…just want…to…shout! But, honestly, I’m not sure what I would shout. I have never in my life met any one person who stirs up such myriad emotions in me, some of which I haven’t experienced since I was a child.

We were eating, and occasionally someone would enter the room, bringing a tray of food, or a jug of water. But at one point a woman came in, and she startled me. I hadn’t seen her before, either when we arrived at Simon’s home or serving the meal. The first thing I thought of was that she was an agent of the chief priests, sent to trap us somehow. They didn’t need much provocation to arrest Jesus, or us for that matter. I was suddenly scared that this was it. I wanted to shout a warning that we should get out and away from her!

Then she did the most astonishing thing. I saw clearly the jar she was carrying. I had thought it was a water jug, but I now saw it was made of alabaster, truly a lovely thing to behold, and it was sealed, the way nard is stored, to preserve its fragrance. She broke the jar! Without any hesitation, just cracked it right open. What could she be thinking! What was she doing! She poured the nard over Rabbi’s head. I’m not sure which surprised me more, that she seemed to know exactly what she was doing, or that he seemed to know exactly what she was doing. I watched in horror, thinking she must have been sent by the priests, she was obviously trying to incite him into behaviors we’d always heard the Romans engaged in, at their pagan festivals. I wanted to shout at her to leave him alone, didn’t she know her place! But as I watched, I realized she was attending to him as I’d seen my mother and the other village women tend the body of a recently deceased neighbor. She was preparing him for burial. I wanted to shout at her to stop, couldn’t she see he was alive, and didn’t need her ministrations. He’s not dead! Yet! My soul shriveled at the word that shouted back at me in my head. Rabbi had talked before about his death. His sacrifice. I never understood. Perhaps I never tried to understand. I didn’t want to know about that. There was too much joy in listening to him discuss the scriptures, too much beauty in the healing he performed. It can’t come to an end, it just can’t.

I was drawn back to the present by the voices raised around the room. I couldn’t make out all the strands of discussion, but it was clear most everyone viewed that use of the nard to be a waste! “Valuable asset” and “sold for a goodly sum” and “benefit the poor” were recurring expressions of the discontent in the room. Some began berating the woman. She was clutching the broken pieces of the jar and there was a streak of blood on her hand where a shard had scraped her skin. I could see tears welling up in her eyes, though from the words or the wound I did not know, when Rabbi’s voice cut the air and silenced everyone. “Leave her alone,” he said, so very calmly. I felt my insides go cold, not for the first time at one of Rabbi’s quiet rebukes. Instantly I was a child again, having just done something to bring disappointment to my father’s heart. I will never forget the weight of that burden. So many times I react to something, and Rabbi is disappointed in me, and I want to shout at him, teach me, Master, command me to understand! “You will always have poor among you. You can care for them any time. You will not always have me.” There he goes again, talking about his death. “She has done what was in her power to do. She has prepared my body for its burial.” I couldn’t see any good in this woman’s actions. I’d agreed with the voices I’d heard condemning her. And here was Rabbi, disappointed in us again, showing us something that should have been obvious, I guess. How could she have known? Why did she understand, when all of us still struggled?

I looked around the room for the woman, as Rabbi told us she would be remembered for her ministrations, but she was gone. One of Simon’s servants must have urged her out as the arguing started. I was sorry she hadn’t heard all of Rabbi’s kind words for her.

I wished I’d asked her her name…