Family Gathering

Family Gathering
Originally uploaded by anniemcq

Heading out of town this weekend to say goodbye to my Aunt Ruth. It will be a quick trip, and I'm sure there will be tears. But the legacy of a life well lived is seen in the smiles of family, happy to be together, even for the saddest occasions.

Courageous

This week has been an emotional rollercoaster. On Tuesday I took the boy to the doctor because he was having a lot of pain in his left leg. I had taken him in the week before due to a sinus condition and cough, but now I'm worried that somehow it's all tied together.

Mind you, I'm operating on less sleep than I'm used to having - I have been waking with JH in the middle of the night, helping him through bouts of coughing, administering medicine, reading poetry aloud to help ease him back to sleep, and then laying there wide awake trying to untie the worry knot in my brain.

Monday afternoon I got a note from his teacher saying that he was getting a leadership award, and that's when he also mentioned that his left leg was hurting. So Tuesday, after I managed to get out of work for an hour for the awards assembly, I brought him home, went back to work, and took him to the doctor when I got off work. They did an ultrasound on his leg, did blood tests, which he was very, very brave about. He was SO scared to have the blood test. His eyes welled up when they told him, and he was embarrassed. When the ultrasound tech had finished (after an hour and half, due to the fact that he has more than the normal amount of veins in his leg (something he thought was pretty cool!), she left the room to find the radiologist. The whole building was quiet - it was after hours by then - Joe-Henry told me he was ashamed that he cried and wasn't brave.

I told him that courage had nothing to do with tears. The bravest, strongest people cry. Tears are cleansing, healing things, and that there is nothing shameful about them. Putting on a brave face doesn't mean not feeling things. It means facing things through tears sometimes.

I had to leave work early today to pick him up at school again. His leg is hurting, a bit higher today, which scares me. We see the doctor at 1:30 and the ultrasound tech at 3:00.

I am doing my best to keep MY brave face on. To be his support and to keep my emotions in check. But if the tears flow, I'll try to remember the words I spoke to the bravest kid I know.

Verklempt

Who would have guessed, ten years ago when I had a bebeh in mah belleh, that I would be a proud, benchsittin' loudyellin' baseball mom?! So much of this parenting journey has been a surprise. The dreams you have for your children before they are born are YOUR dreams. But when THEIR dreams come into sight, and they can work toward what THEIR passion is, there is not one thing in life like it.

Oh sure, you can guide them toward things, model behavior you want to see from them, expose them to things you think will make them the kind of people the world needs. But when they hit a certain age, and you need to start loosening your grip, finger by finger, if you're lucky you get to see who THEY are. It's a nailbiter at times, you watch them interact on the playground when they're little and wonder just how the hell they are going to get through this unscathed.

Watching Joe-Henry run when he was little, watching him chase his friends from far afield, trying with all his might to catch up, hearing him recount the gym classes when he came in "last, again", those are moments I have been bracing myself for since his birth. Knowing they were coming did nothing to stop the lump in my throat. It just helped me to hide it from him a little bit.

We've been pretty honest with him about his kt. There is so much we DON'T know. We've been good about not making false promises, or giving false hope, but we haven't ever said "you can't do this".

And he hasn't either.

Yesterday after the last game of spring baseball, when all the parents had packed up the kids and the trophies and JH and his Dad were headed to the car, his coach took me aside. I had thanked him for all his dedication to the kids, to helping them really learn, really try their best. He didn't sugarcoat anything for the kids, he got on them, with humor, when they messed up, and the kids all responded with their best efforts. The last game was a hoot, and the kids all made some pretty impressive plays. Anyway, he wanted to know about Joe-Henry's leg. He had heard me ask if it was tired earlier. I told him a bit about Joe-Henry's kt, that it was vascular, and his leg tired easily, and he had a hard time running and standing sometimes, and he just looked at me and took it all in. He said "Joe-Henry is one of the best players I had on this team. He has so much heart and desire, he always gets in front of the ball, he always know where it's supposed to go. I wish I had ten of him. Heart, desire and intelligence can go a long way towards making dreams come true.

I'll never forget those words.

The Parent Trap

Joe-Henry is playing with a friend. They are playing baseball, like they do every time. This friend, who is three years older, is goading Joe-Henry, quietly, like he always does, because he loves it when Joe-Henry screams and yells and I tell him to stop.

It's going to get ugly, because my boy is tired, and has had some candy at the movies. He's bored. And this kid knows EXACTLY which buttons to push.

I am mowing the lawn. The mower stops and I hear Joe-Henry yelling to me from inside the house, "Mom, V just tried to hurt me!". I had seen the boy heading next door moments before, so I head in to check on Joe-Henry. He's crying and yelling at me to go next door and take care of things.

Calm down, I say, tell me what happened. He's yelling, I DID tell you, he tried to hurt me, he said "Oh, you want to get me? I'm not afraid of you!", and he pushed me down and hit me on the head with the ball.

Why, I ask, did he say "you want to get me?", because, he says I accidently threw the batting helmet and it almost hit him. But it was AN ACCIDENT, he screams, knowing he just told me the important part of the story that I need to know.

I know full well the scope and range of my son's anger, and this, I say is where the tantrums stop. He is nine and a half years old. It's time to find a new, better way to deal with being really, really mad.

I told him that I wasn't going next door, that tomorrow HE could talk to his friend. If he wanted, I could talk to him if he comes over again and tell him they can play something other than baseball, and be nice or go home. But this issue was his to resolve, and he'd better wait a day to do it, so that he's calm. He cried and yelled and told me I wasn't doing my job as his mom.

But I am, see? And that's the part that sucks.

What I don't tell him is this: As much as I want to go next door and tell the little shit to stop baiting Joe-Henry until he explodes because he thinks it's funny, and stop coming over here just because you're bored and want to play with my son's stuff, and just because you're big brother picks on you, you don't get to come over here and pass that crap down the line, stay away, you little weasel and quit picking on my son, I don't do that.

I took the Wii away for a day, because he was screaming at me. Someday he'll know that I'm not betraying him, or taking someone else's side, I'm just being HIS mom. Because that IS my job.

Simple Gifts

Sunday morning. Music, NY Times, good coffee.

My camera, the garden the rain.

But mostly this. I'm just so grateful for this.

The Song In My Head

This song, which has never been a huge favorite of mine before, has been rambling around in my head the last few days. Maybe it's my new passion for Walt Whitman. Or my past in the performing arts. or that I heart Glee. Or my brain is melting and I can only remember the seventies and eighties, because I keep misplacing my glasses and can't remember where I put that one thing.... whatever it is, now I just can't get enough of this song. I find myself humming it, and going back and digging those great a cappella moment where there are seemingly a hundred harmonies.

I hope you enjoy it. No matter why.

Walt Whitman - Laws for Creations

I have never read Walt Whitman, but I'm going to change that. I have read bits and pieces. But sometimes I think we find what we need when we need it.

Found this today:

LAWS for Creations,
For strong artists and leaders—for fresh broods of teachers, and perfect literats for America,
For noble savans, and coming musicians.

All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the compact truth of the world;
And no coward or copyist shall be allowed;
There shall be no subject too pronounced—All works shall illustrate the divine law of indirections;
There they stand—I see them already, each poised and in its place,
Statements, models, censuses, poems, dictionaries, biographies, essays, theories—How complete! How relative and interfused! No one supersedes another;
They do not seem to me like the old specimens,
They seem to me like Nature at last, (America has given birth to them, and I have also;)
They seem to me at last as perfect as the animals, and as the rocks and weeds—fitted to them,
Fitted to the sky, to float with floating clouds—to rustle among the trees with rustling leaves,
To stretch with stretched and level waters, where ships silently sail in the distance.”

What do you suppose Creation is?
What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul, except to walk free, and own no superior?
What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God?
And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?
And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean?
And that you or any one must approach Creations through such laws?