Whispering to Remember - Christmas 2017

Hope - Peace - Joy - Love - The Four Candles of Advent

It's Christmas 2017.
One entire year of the Trump Administration.

Usually reflecting on the year, no matter how hard, is a joy...
we have each other...
we will get through.

During the four weeks of Advent, one of my favorite traditions is the Advent Wreath.
We have four candles, three purple and one pink, set in a circle.
We get to light one each week...so that by the time Christmas comes around,
there is serious light in the darkness...
four bright candles...shining triumphantly.
Holding open the spot...creating space for a baby...and a miracle...and family.

I was pregnant at Christmas time twenty five years ago.
All these years later, I cherish that extra special time of singing and preparing for two babies during that Advent in 1992,
not just one.

But this year is different.

I feel the weight of a year's worth of lies.
A year's worth of looking the other way.
A year's worth of pretending everything is ok.

I feel the crushing crashing of dreams of so many Americans withering on the vine...
this week it is grad students due to the tax bill that gives massive deductions to corporations over its citizens...
months ago, it was those with disabilities...
those with medical conditions...
...people of color...
...women...
...the LGBTQ community...
...or immigrants...
...or refugees...
...or children.

A year ago, I could feel an entire nation of children's eyes watching the adults in the room
make excuses...
it doesn't matter that she's never been in a public school classroom...
or that he derides the Environmental Protection Agency...
or that he flies private planes all over the United States at our expense...
lower your eyes...
pretend you don't see.

Are our children any better twelve months later?
Sadly, no.

They've seen open racism and half-hearted excuses.

They've witnessed their President UNwelcome entire nations of people.

The've had to accept a new normal and the sickening taunts of a president...
corruption and people so achingly out-in-the-open greedy that it insults those that work to teach integrity and honesty.
They've witnessed the open disregard for suffering people in Puerto Rico...
the pointed, barbed insults to people hidden in the shadows working for our safety...
the FBI, the CIA...
and our press...
daily derided...
with blatant untruths...
and intentional misinformation.

*****

This Christmas I want to whisper who we are.I want to remind each of us what it means to be American.

Like the Advent candles, first I offer HOPE.We are better than this.
Integrity.
Character.
Honesty.
Humility.
THESE THINGS STILL MATTER.
Millions resist openly.
Millions more resist in the smallest of ways.
Two-thirds of us...the majority of us say NO.

Light the candle of hope...and see how it breaks the darkness.
The second offering is LOVE.
Love is opening the circle wider...building a longer table...
love is recognizing fear and still pushing up your sleeves to do the work.
Love is the answer...the only response to racism and sexism.
Love is knowing that all humans are equal and working against injustice...
it's seeing yourself in the stranger.
It is living in the present moment.
What can I do right now?
and then taking the first step to begin.

Choose love and you change the trajectory.

Ours is not a small God...the endless, timeless beauty of the universe whispers the grandeur of Higher Love.
Seize it.
Breathe it in.
It is yours everyday for the taking...
grace in the ordinary.

Can you hear the murmurings??

The third offering is JOY.
With so much hatred, corruption and villainy...joy can be hard to find...but it is there.
There, in the ironic plot twist of a transgender women winning the seat away from someone who bragged that he was "Chief Homophobe" in Virginia.
In the way the sun still sets...the clouds still swirl across the sky...
the perfect simplicity of a cup of tea...or an act of kindness...a baby's laugh...a toddler's wonder...
rain on a rooftop...clothes fresh from a dryer...firefighters who work to save houses...and teachers who read out loud to students stories that bind us together.
Pick up a rock.
Try to watch the dance of a snowflake.
Gather friends together and cherish their company.
Walk your dog.
Hug your kid.
Dance.

Laugh.

The last offering is PEACE.This seems like a wish.
A fantasy.
Something out of reach.
But tonight I listened to a mother who had to bury her first grader after he was murdered at his elementary school in Newtown live her life with forgiveness at its core.
Five years after every mother's worst heartbreak, a woman named Scarlett showed me the way.
Forgiveness carries peace on its wings.
Scarlett mentioned:
Nurturing, Healing Love.
She wants every human to have that and recognizes that her child's killer was unable to
either receive or give love.

One year of Trump's despicable behavior...his devastating cruelty...his duplicitous companions that tolerate the tarnishing of all that is sacred about our country...
one entire year.

Advent offers light in the darkness.
My whisper blows it forward...
to you...
to another you...and another you...
as Pope Francis said in his TED Talk:
"Hope begins with you and then another you and another you
until it becomes US.
When there is an us, there is a Revolution of Tenderness."

I'm ready for the Revolution.

I know you are too...
let us begin.
Light the candle.
Notice the warmth.
Offer it to others.
Remember the way home.
Be honest.
Work hard.
Resist.

We are better than this.
Demand it.

Why Poets Should Negotiate Peace Treaties or The Power of a Clump of Words

In the fall after Patrick was diagnosed with leukemia - Fall 2002 - 

I was making lunch for Patrick and listening to CNN.

I heard a lively anchor share a news story in an upbeat voice...

she had something great to share...

and I needed great...

so I listened.

I paused my lunch making and listened:

"The latest research shows that if your child is in day care, 

they have less chance of developing leukemia."

Shit, really?

You mean, if Patrick had been in day care we could have avoided all this?

Really?

I rewound the past few years of Patrick's baby life.

His birth.

His instant diagnosis of Down Syndrome...

not even a single day of life free from that label...

another diagnosis that took only a few days of life: a heart defect.

In need of open heart surgery at nine weeks old...

coming home from the hospital and just wanting to love my baby...

and somehow, some way, tend to my other kids...

day care was last on my list.

Now, just a mere two years later, the leukemia diagnosis and the Three Year Protocol - always sated with capital letters - and the big unknowns...

Life...what does it look like three years from now?

Health? Is that possible three years from now?

Family? What does that feel like three years after this?

Just hours after that CNN report, in the dark of night as I am not sleeping, 

I watch Bill Moyers interview a poet, a Palestinian-American poet,

Naomi Shihab Nye,

and I hear her voice read a poem...

this poem...

and it changes my life.

On.The.Spot.

I'm instantly different because of the words.

I gift them to you, right here:

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

*****

Those words made everything in my world make sense.

I clung to them.

Sorrow became a tattoo that I could locate on others...

which allowed me to locate the kindness.

I wish I could convey the depth of those words in the engraving on my heart...

...but as life likes to do,

I moved on.

Patrick survived - truthfully, thrived - through the Three Year Protocol.

I stumbled and bumbled through it...with plenty of bad attitude and crushing worry.

2005 happened and our family cheered.

We snuck away from blood counts and chemo...

we hid from conversations about blood cancer...

and we got away with it.

No one came looking.

2006 arrived and brought its amazing grace, sweet baby Caroline, and life got busy...

with the regular things...

school lunches, soccer practice, homework...

Naomi's poem hibernated within my heart.

2016 arrived with election insanity...

meanness as an accepted way to live in our world...

shutting our collective eyes to refugees...

so, so, so, so many of them...

plugging our ears to the din of the poor, the overlooked, the desperately lonely...

and along comes Naomi Shihab Nye - chosen as the UC Davis School of Education's 

Author in Residence and Words Take Wing Author.

Something within me, sleepy from slumber, awakened.

What?

She will be here...in my orbit...how?

I couldn't fathom the good fortune.

Couldn't take it.

Kept shoving it down...

and then it happened.

December 13th, 2016 Naomi Shihab Nye was hanging out in Davis and our worlds collided.

I first got to hear her speak to student teachers...a room full of worn out beginning teachers...so vulnerable and shy...about 40 of them.

Do you know what she tells them?

First thing.

I know because I took copious notes the entire time she was around...

like a stenographer on steroids...

she said:

"I congratulate you on your life choice to go into teaching and knowing that teaching is the center of where it happens."

*****

You may not hang out with beginning teachers...or any teachers...but I want to stop here and point out how incredibly UNcommon this gift was that she gave the student teachers...why? 

Well, virtually NO ONE congratulates someone on going into teaching.

They get the constant refrain of one of these reactions:

A) Well, you get your summers off, that's awesome!

B) Yeah, I thought of teaching too... (as if it is the best second place option around)

C) Are you sure? You make so little money. 

It's hard work to become a teacher - really hard - and to be met with those three reactions wears even the most optimistic, badass beginning teacher down.

So, to have a world-renown, award-winning poet come in an begin with a congratulations...well, it was a gift. 
A genuine gift. And we could all feel it.

*****

She reads an excerpt from a book called, News of the World:

"Maybe life is just carrying the news...surviving to carry the news...maybe we just have one message, it is delivered to us the day we are born..."

And then she asks us to think about our message.

What is it?

She asks us to write it down.

And she says:

I'm not going to ask you to read this, it's just for you to hold.

She reminds the teachers that

"Creative writing needs to be an ongoing practice - not saved for the last weeks of May."

[Beth, are you listening??]

She makes writing accessible to each of us...

shows the teachers how to help their students write with their hearts...

makes it seem effortless...

like, of course, I could write a poem...

she shares the poems of 6 year olds and Palestinians...

she reminds us that we are Living in a Poem...

and touches us with the beauty of a lemon, a walk with a friend, a note of hope.

Her gift is helping all of us see poetry.

Like hieroglyphics, we all think it's cool. 

We feel a kinship.

We want to know what it means.

Naomi, shows us what poetry is...

and helps us to feel that it is essential.

Like oxygen.

*****

After school, Naomi does another session for the Resident Teachers that host our student teachers.

Her energy is palpable.

Her reverence for the teachers is a gift she bestows on them...

like one of the Three Kings.

She's a bright light.

Sunshine

Starlight.

Spoiler alert: we shared starlight...big time.

She shows us our humanity and the thread that binds us.

Holds it up and then weaves it...

reminds us of our connection...

our beauty...

our messages and stories that we each MUST share.

She reads us poem after poem - of other poets -

friends of hers, mentors.

She shares the story of Juan Felipe Herrera - our nation's current Poet Laureate - how when he was in school, he said no words out loud, tried to disappear -

embarrassed by his inability to speak English - he hid behind a bush and sang a song that his mother and grandmother sang to him during lunch...passing on the other side of the bush, Juan Felipe's 3rd grade teacher...she stopped to listen.

Juan Felipe tells the story that after lunch, his teacher asked him to come to the front of the classroom and sing. He was shocked! Afraid! Disoriented...but his teacher had asked and so he did.

The classmates applauded and the teacher said the words that changed his life.

Five words.

"You have a beautiful voice."

With that little bit of encouragement, Juan Felipe began raising his hand, began seeing himself as a student, began to believe in himself and share his voice.

Sprinkling that story on the teachers, Naomi reminded them that they too,

have a beautiful voice...and beautiful profession...

a noble duty.

A sacred calling. 

She gifted them a chance to see the beauty in their work.

The importance of their influence.

Pausing and reminding them that they change lives.

She had us write "clumps of words" and used those clumps to help us write poems.

We shared them in this small group at 5 o'clock at night...

watching the twilight...

feeling connected.

This Palestinian American poet brought with her a cloud of grace...

peace...

community...

and it was then that I wanted to be in charge of the world.

I wanted to be able to appoint peace negotiators...

what if we had a Palestinian poet, an Israeli poet and a Palestinian-American poet all gather and forge out some peace with a few "clumps of words".

It might only take five words, like it did for Juan Felipe.

It might take twenty five...but we know poets are known for their choosy, careful way with words...we can be sure that unnecessary phrases would be absent. 

No posturing.

No facades.

No misleading text...

everything cut away to just a few words:

Thank you, Naomi Shihab Nye for your heroic ability to 

step out of your line and draw a larger circle.

Thank you for reminding me of the power of a clump of words...

the beauty in Kindness...

the love of the ordinary...

and the gift of a few clumps of words.

My circle is larger thanks to you.

Joy

Want to tell a graduate some words of wisdom? Share this:

We go around and spend our days with people at work or school and never really know what it is they are in love with.

Unless they randomly share a story about a family member or a special treat they've made or talk about some tickets they are buying...providing the tiniest window into what moves them.

If we're lucky, they share their love.

They reveal a love for ballet, or theater or travel, or knitting, or singing, or butterfly collecting...

or whatever.

It really doesn't matter.

Whatever they love, 

that is the secret passageway to their joy.

Like a chemical reaction, joy just bubbles up.

Caroline has had a coach for two years that loves soccer.

LOVES it.

He thinks about it at all hours of the day, researches the game, seeks out ideas for making practices engaging and learns methods of teaching very specific techniques.

He writes lengthy emails.

Offers up videos to watch.

Let's us know when the next big professional game is on so we can find a way to watch it.

I happen to have a kid who loves soccer so it's a win/win...no pun intended.

But, that's the big question...

which came first?

The chicken or the egg...did Jeremy love soccer enough to catch Caroline on fire...or was Caroline already simmering with a love that caught fire once she met a coach with the right flame.

Who cares.

What matters is that for two years Caroline has been swimming in the pool of soccer love.

And well, she's soaked.

It makes her smile...pumps her up...fills her up.

It takes a very special coach to aim for the decades after his players are done with the sport.

Decades from now, the goal is that the players will still love the sport.

Still perk up when they hear about a game or an exceptional player.

They will still smile at fancy footwork or a tremendous save all those years later.

Caroline's coach did not focus on winning.

He focused on joy.

His joy in the endeavor couldn't help but seep into the kids' idea of the sport.

His zen energy during a game radiated that joy.

Yes, yes, winning sure is fun...

but there is joy in a hard fought game that was razor close...even if you lose.

There is joy in leaving it all on the field, regardless of the score.

There's joy in a beautiful pass, a strategic kick or an incredible save...

even if the game ends with a loss.

What Jeremy knows is what all coaches who see decades down the road know:

winning or losing are just words, what matters is what you feel.

Do you feel that essential connection with your teammates?

Do you feel that what you are bringing to your team matters?

Do you feel important? Wanted? Needed?

Do you feel excited?

Empowered?

Kids sports today are often drudgery...

practices that go too long or meet too often.

Parents on the sidelines yelling useless tips...caring way way too much about the win.

All sorts of people are taking it way too seriously.

Tonight I'm grateful that Caroline has stood in Coach Jeremy's sunshine for two seasons.

Two seasons of JOY.

Joy in learning.

Joy in striving.

Joy in just playing the game.

There is no way to thank someone for sharing their joy...

except for maybe letting them see the joy that has been passed on. 

Is it the joy of a well placed kick?

The joy of friendship?

Or the joy of climbing trees with friends?

Too many joyful moments to count. 

Thank you, Jeremy, for your kindness, your gentle strength, your willingness to have fun and most importantly for your joy.

It's been contagious.

Coach Stacy...you're amazingly wonderful too...a true partner in sharing the joy.

Your support and dedication and sense of fun made this past season extra wonderful. 

Coffee, Shakespeare and Girls -- What Would You Do With 10 Years?

August 2, 2005 Patrick had just turned six...

was ready to enter kindergarten and was given sweet relief.

All treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia was complete.

No more chemo every day.

No more spinal taps to check to see if the spinal fluid was clear...

and to add a little chemo just to make sure.

No more constant blood counts.

No more agonizing over numbers of neutrophils, lymphocytes, hemoglobin.

Done.

It was a strange thing to be given such a date...and trust me, when we were given that date in 

June of 2002, it felt like a weird form of torture.

We got good at finding parks where no else played and a little boy without many white blood cells could enjoy the outdoors without being near anybody else.

We visited the beach a lot.

We went to preschool when we could...and slowly, irrevocably, the time passed.

That little boy got his chance at a cancer-free life.

*****

August 2, 2002 became known as Chillin' With Chalk.

We were uneasy about celebrating too big.

Didn't want to jinx anything.

Couldn't dare to dream too big.

So we invited friends and family to Central Park in the middle of our town and we asked them to draw any chalk picture that celebrated this great day.

We collected money for the chalk -- 50 cents a piece - and donated the money to a dinner out for the doctors and nurses and many others who were on our three year journey with us.

Watching these colorful messages of love and hope decorate our park was one of my favorite moments of that terrible journey.

It was love out loud.

Tangible.

Vibrant.

Messy.

And then August 3rd rolled by...and school supplies needed to be purchased...and laundry folded...and dinners and lunches and breakfasts made...and the days ticked by.

*****

Every August 2nd, I would hold my breath and wait for the yearly blood counts and pray.

2006 - First grade and a new baby sister

2007 - Second grade - Holy Communion

2008 - Third grade -- the beginning of trying to ride a bike and being in Miss Mindy's Musicals

2009 - Fourth grade - First Reconciliation

2010 - Fifth grade and the love of New York City begins along with Broadway - Steve, the paraeducator who is all-pro, joins your bro squad

2011 - Sixth grade and a sleep away camp and we get serious about learning to swim - 

Jack leaves for college

2012 - Seventh grade and bike riding gets real - Sarah becomes part of your dream team at school and  well, maybe our life too

2013 - Eighth grade and the love of Shakespeare takes flight -

Mary Kate leaves for college - Confirmation and official cell phone use begins

2014 - Ninth grade: new school, old friends become new again 

2015 -- bing, bing, bing

An entire decade of August 2nds...clear and free of leukemia...10 years of good health.

What has Patrick done with those precious ten years?

1) Read a lot of books.

2) Tried all sorts of new foods.

3) Visited some amazing new places and revisited old favorites.

4) Sunk deep into Shakespeare and musicals and created a stunning assortment of cast lists

5) Got involved in Special Olympics basketball and soccer - swimming on a typical team as well

6) Danced

7) Sang

8) Dreamt about proms and dates and girls and plotted way too many times on who could be his girl

9) Belly laughed at way too many fart jokes courtesy of his dad

10) Grew and grew and grew

He enjoyed the simplest of pleasures and relished them as gifts.

Cheering whenever someone in our family came home...or had a birthday...or did something of note.

He hugged you tight.

He asked how you were doing.

He looked forward to the releases of movies or shows with a calendar and a pen, 

marking the days so carefully.

In short, he got the chance to be a kid...growing into a teen.

There are moments when it hits me...that we've made it through...and although they sneak up on me, 

I still know why those tears come so easily.

It happened a few nights ago watching the play Matilda, standing up clapping in an ovation, a giant theater filled with the excitement of great music wrapping up thoughts and emotions from a great story that unified us all...and I tried to somehow send out a universal thank you note within each clap...to all of these healthy people in this theater beside me, able to stand and clap and enjoy a show...to all of the actors, all of the musicians, all of the light guys...everyone...how lucky we are.

Right here.

Right now.

Tonight, Patrick had his first cup of coffee.

He hung out with his favorite people.

He tried new things and went on an adventure.

He found time for music and dreaming.

It's been a beautiful 10 years.

10 years of mundane, trivial, annoying,

messy, vibrant, 

life.

Thank you doctors and nurses and researchers.

Thank you, universe.

Thank you.

Chillin' With Chalk 2 is set for August 22, 2015.

Meet us in Central Park...or your central park...

10 years later we have Instagram, and Facebook and Twitter and not to mention 

real life...

meet us anywhere, in any way, and share a chalk drawing to celebrate life and love and color.

Can't wait to get messy...
and fill the world with color.
For one day.

The Best Part of my Day

** This is my first official guest blog post.  I am writing for my friend, Rita Wirtz's blog, Reading Champs and I am both honored and a bit intimidated.  Rita and I both share a passion for reading but Rita shares her passion on her blog, with her books and in teacher education conferences...I just read...and occasionally write. :)  
But I thought I could share the best part of my day...reading with my kids right before bed. 

Thank you Rita for this opportunity! **

Snuggled in on a Saturday morning with Caroline. :)

"You may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be --

I had a Mother who read to me."

--Strickland Gillilan

I grew up with a mom who read to me.

She would read magazines out loud to us on long car rides...and we would all groan...and complain and pretend we didn't want to listen...

but the view outside was boring and it was a welcome change, so we listened and learned something.

I remember my mom craning her neck and turning herself sideways so that we could see the pictures in the magazines and understand the subtleties in her voice.

She was a preschool teacher so she knew how to read out loud...

how to be suspenseful, tricky, magical and funny.

Her birthday is this week-end and I'll try to think of a present that is good enough.

A present that can come close to the gift she gave me...my love of books.

You and I both know I don't stand a chance.

All I can do is send her these words and have her know, 

really know, 

how much I valued her joy in literature, 

her big hearted tears that would come with every Erma Bombeck essay, 

her love of Snoopy's wisdom 

and Judith Viorst's tender witness to parenthood.

Her book-love so infected me that when it came time to choose places to live...I angled and finagled my world so that I could be within walking distance to our city library...my dream as a child.

It came true in adulthood.

I can walk to the library, bike to a bookstore, wander to a city bench to read and read.

It's one of my greatest joys and I have my mom to thank.

*****

Today I have four kids of my own...

and reading is a big part of our world too.

There are plenty of things I would re-do but sneaking to bed late because we're caught up in a book isn't one.

Without fail, the best part of my day is reading with my children right before bed.

It can be hard juggling bedtimes and kids' needs but it is worth every effort for those moments of connection and calm joy.

If your child is a strong independent reader...who cares?!

Don't lost those moments to read the even deeper, more suspenseful, more emotional, more messy and poignant, beautiful books of young adult literature together.

I know my kids don't probably remember any of these moments but I am going to share them here anyway...

if only as a time capsule to seal away and forever hold close.

*****

Thank you to Jack...for letting me hear you giggle over Captain Underpants in second grade.

As a teacher, I looked down on that series of books...

watching you read that book on your own and laugh out loud, my heart was turned.  

I became the best evangelist for inappropriate potty humor around.

Thank you for sharing with me Harry Potter.

I know you could have read that on your own...

but it was like the very best kept secret to share with you.

I will never forget riding bikes to get Harry Potter 3 on that summer day -- the day it was finally released -- and eagerly stopping even before we got home (!) to begin reading because we just couldn't wait one more minute.

Thank you to Mary Kate...my reluctant reader...who holds as a prize the title 

"no interest in reading anything ever" with pride...

for my tender, miraculous moment of tears over Charlotte's death in Charlotte's Web.
Smiles over Judy Moody and Molly Moon also snuck up on us. 

Later, we guiltily devoured the Twilight series (ssshhhh, never reveal to anyone our impassioned love of vampires and werewolves) and I cherish that silly series for it connected me to you.

Thank you to Patrick for the beauty in watching you learn to read.

Thank you for always being willing to sit on a lap or later lay in a bed and read.

My favorite book we have shared so far was Winn-Dixie.

Listening to that little lonely girl make friends with so many different types of people in her wonderful guileless way was just what my heart needed.

Your eagerness to find out what happened next, 

your willingness to keep reading even when your eyes ached to close

were tiny nighttime joys.

And thank you to Caroline...

who loved Dr. Seuss, Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Fancy Nancy...
but most of all, Junie B. Jones,
sassy kindergartener extraordinaire.

Making our way through that entire series 

through a whole summer will be one of my fondest memories.

Thank you for letting my heart sink into Little House in the Big Woods.

Thank you for helping me to circle my way back to the jewels of childhood:

laps, stories and time.

If you have a reluctant reader...never fear.

They really just haven't found the right story.

Try non-fiction.

Or poetry.

Or inappropriate potty humor. :)

Or just try.

Keep trying over and over.

Bring out the snacks.

The drinks.

The cozy jammies.

For when your child stumbles onto what touches his heart, 

you have given him a key.

A secret passage to handle adversity.

A staircase to find inspiration.

A path to escape the rigors of a weary world.

A way directly to the heart.

You have unfolded a map that will traverse an entire lifetime.

I should know.

My mom read to me.

*****

And if you love to read, please join the Twitter chat called #Read4Fun 

every Sunday at 4pm Pacific Time.

You will be amazed at how many people share your joy.

You'll get book ideas.

Life ideas.

Fun ideas

...and meet the sweetest people.

Look for me: @inclusionchick and Rita @RitaWirtz

God's Greatest Gifts

I don't know what you hope for, long for or dream about.

I can just share with you the dreams in my heart.

Ever since I was a young, young child I dreamt of being a mom.

I know this is TMI and I know Mary Kate will be cringing as I share this...but, I got my period super late in life -- 15 years old -- sophomore in high school -- in other words, ancient.

Before that time, I knew that if you didn't have a period, you couldn't have a child.

Trust me, my reproductive knowledge was greatly limited but that I knew way down deep.

So my prayer for years was, I kid you not:

Please, please please God, let me get my period.

Let me have kids.

They were always called kids in my adolescent mind.

Always plural.

Not snuggly babies.

Or baby dolls.

Kids...and I wanted plenty.

I guess God knew my heart because he helped me find the right guy and gave me the joy of four great kids.

Four.

That still seems a bit greedy on my part.

I never thought it would be four...but I learned with my very first pregnancy -- which ended with a miscarriage -- that I was most definitely not in any sort of control.

These four are by far my greatest gifts.

My biggest joy.

My purpose.

They are the thread that helps everything else make sense.

I see my children in every child I encounter.

I see every mother in me.

I see every family in mine.

That separation that existed between me and the rest of the world felt a little less with Jack and Mary Kate but it fully disappeared with Patrick's presence.

Suddenly, the marginalized were part of me.

The "broken".

The disabled.

The slow.

The people that others look away from...the people that others don't discuss...that are okay to terminate...those people were now part of me.

There was no way to love Patrick and not see them too.

I look at the way Patrick has changed me and I think of God's gifts.

My dream as a teen...so limited and finite...busted wide open with the realness of His gifts.

It was way better than any dream of mine.

How could I know what to wish for?
Little, sweet Caroline?
How could I know to ask for such wonder?

I never could have imagined it.

Four busy, funny, quirky, messy kids.
Old and young.
Fast and slow.

All I can say is thank you.
Thank you for my kids.
Thank you for the joy that comes with
loving,
 guiding,
 watching,
 hoping,
fighting with and for...

and for the heartbreak.

For in feeling so deeply we get close to what really matters.
This, right here, this moment, this meal, this day is what counts.

Thank you, God, for your greatest gifts.
Put my tiny dreams to shame, no doubt.