I wanted every day to be that perfect. I did. Who wouldn't? The sky was impossibly blue, the cottony clouds perfectly plump. The sun was warm and sweet. The lilies in my mother's garden were in full bloom. The church pews were lined with beaming friends and family, just as the laughing dance floor would be packed later that night. The music was beautiful, the readings were perfect, the sacrament was shimmering. Most of all it was him. He was the best person I knew. He was beyond what I had hoped to find in a husband. He was my partner in everything that mattered most. He was the reason that day was perfect. When I looked around the reception later that evening, I remember thinking this looked like heaven. Everyone we loved, gathered in the same room, together for an instant. And the two of us, on the edge of everything that awaited us. It could not get better. . . . If you suspect this is going to take a sharp turn south, you're right. If you assume this is going to trudge out … [Read more...] about for better and for worse
suffering
I have a first-grader
Every morning my son goes off to school. He slings a giant shark backpack over his tiny shoulder, and he waves to me as I drive away from the carpool lane. And every morning as he turns into the school's open door, the same fear catches my heart. What if that is the last time I see him? This is not a normal response, I know. But it is not normal to live in a land where a man murders a classroom of first-graders. And then we do nothing to prevent this from happening again. It is not normal to live in a land where I need to sit through a safety training, as an employee of a university, to learn what to do in "an active shooter scenario" on campus. It is not normal to live in a land where my husband lays today's newspaper face down on the kitchen counter so the kids cannot read the headlines or see the photos. The latest version of the same school shooting horror we watch unfold every few months. I have a first-grader. Sandy Hook stares me in the face every single time … [Read more...] about I have a first-grader
to comfort and to challenge
Hanging next to our front door is this Irish woodcut print with the prayer below: God, keep my jewel this day from danger From tinker and pooka and black-hearted stranger From harm of the water and hurt of the fire From the horns of the cows going home to the byre From teasing the ass when he's tied to the manger From stone that would bruise and from thorns of the briar From evil red berries that waken desire From hunting the gander and vexing the goat From depths o' sea water by Danny's old boat From cut and from tumble - from sickness and weeping May God have my jewel this day in his keeping I have always loved this blessing (aside from the dated language) and the image that accompanies it, because I think it speaks to the heart of parenting: the competing desires to protect your child from the dangers of the world and to push him out to explore its beauty. The mother stands watching, waiting; you can almost feel her anxious restraint as she holds back from removing every obstacle … [Read more...] about to comfort and to challenge
this is my body. given up for you.
The bodiliness of parenting young children. A comment I received on this post set me to thinking about the subject early this morning, as trouble sleeping leads me to spend the pre-dawn hours writing in my head, trying to will my mind back to dreamland. Like Amy, I have been struck by how the meaning of the words from the Eucharistic prayer - "This is my body, given up for you" - have taken on a profoundly different meaning after the experiences of bearing, birthing, and nursing a child. I remember being overwhelmed with emotion (and post-partum hormones, no doubt) at the first few Masses I went to after S was born. I heard Christ's words of love and sacrifice, and I could barely breath through what they now stirred up in me: the recent, raw memory of my body broken and bled, given up for another. The well-worn phrase I'd heard thousands of times since childhood now seemed shocking in its earthiness, its bodiliness, its brute power. Pregnancy for me is not the glowing euphoria it … [Read more...] about this is my body. given up for you.
