March 22, 2020 · 11:38 pm

The Way Home

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I went to church this morning—on my couch. A dutiful daughter, I spent the first half of my life in religious prostration, and then I left. But detachment from dogma meant disconnect from community and I wandered, people-less into my middle-age. In recent years, I sometimes sat, shyly, noncommittally, on the back row of a new church I discovered, an un-church. The Unitarian Universalists. 

The UU church, nurturing spirit and service, brings a solace of words and music and familiar faces to my living room via Zoom on this second Sunday of social distancing. Congregants come like moths to the chalice flame. Greetings scroll up from the chat box as joiners bask in the warmth of shared hearts and minds, if not bodies.

Sensitive to surrounding energy, I’m challenged at the best of times to recognize what is mine and what is not. I get that from my mother, I suppose, an empath who could not witness a child harshly disciplined in the grocery store without weeping. My body picks up stray vibrations like a musical instrument and amplifies emotions I cannot name. In this time of global crisis, the volume is deafening. 

Reverend Molly reads poetry. The words are gentle hands untying the knots that bind my chest, loosening the resolve I wear as armor. Awareness of my unawareness blooms; I’ve been holding my breath and I didn’t even know it. With room to expand, distress spirals up toward the open air and I am crying. Copious tears trace their way slowly over my cheekbones and drip off my jaw.

I cannot stop, but even if I could, I would not. This grief is my prayer. 

On day 8 our family has cut our losses, nursed our disappointments, regrouped, and hunkered down for the duration. Cancellations and interrupted routines require precarious adjustment. Intimately, we hover protectively over our own. Sydney, 20, with Down syndrome, who suffered a near fatal pneumonia when she was 2 is particularly at risk. Melissa, 35, is 3 years out from breast cancer, including the full-on assault of chemo. I worry that her immune system is not fully recovered. And Jeremy, 33, is a physician’s assistant, on the front lines, testing and treating by day, returning home to his wife and 3 babies at night. I wonder if his PPE will last and if it can protect him from harm. 

Our fears are mitigated by gratitude for good fortune and blessings abundant: the opportunity to work from home, continued income, food, and shelter, and togetherness. All shall be well for us. What I feel today is bigger than myself.

The overwhelming scope of collective human experience rises in my throat like a coyote’s mournful cry in the night.

I have become those who are ill and those whose very lives are forfeit. I am their loved ones who rail at the injustice of their loss. I am those whose businesses are failing, finances lost, futures uncertain. I am everyone who is alone and afraid. Boundaries and borders blur. I am more than the inhabitant of this one small life. I am everyone.

How can it be true that this intensity is not mine? I think perhaps it belongs to me more than ever.

For in it, I sense a seismic shift; the world will simply not be the same on the other side of this. And what hangs in the balance, could this be the answer we’ve been praying for? Might it be the transcendence we’ve searched for? The salvation of humankind? 

There’s meaning here, an invitation. As the centrifugal force pinning us to our lives suddenly stops, radical change isn’t only possible, it is inevitable. It feels like a reckoning, a nudge as we lurch and tilt toward a tipping point, hanging on by our fingernails, poised to cascade over the edge into a cavernous unknown. But in freefall, we grasp and clutch with fear only to find it is in the letting go that we are safe. And finally, fully alive.

Spirit of hope, help me.
I can’t seem to find my way back to your realm.
I’ve been wandering in labyrinths, running into dead ends,
facing down monsters, losing my way.
Ariadne’s thread only tangles my feet and leaves my fingers raw.

Spirit of hope, ground me.
I’ve lost my bearings on what’s real, who I am, how I got here, why it matters.
Unreality makes a poor compass.
I remember to look up lest I get caught off guard,
but such preparations mean little to a soul suffering vertigo.

Spirit of hope, steady me.
Maybe the only way forward is to stay still.
Perhaps if I rest my bones exactly where I am instead of
scrabbling for purchase, searching for loopholes, willing myself on,
perhaps the dust will settle enough for a path to reappear,
a path that needn’t be tended or beautiful, just barely discernible.

Spirit of hope, guide me.
You dwell in the turn around between inhale and exhale,
a moment of trust that pulls me into the future.
I’ve been looking for something more grand, more obvious,
more compelling.
Help me recognize the promise and the flickering signs of life,
of love, of hope.
Help me remember that my body already knows the way home.

Lindasusan Ulrich

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March 17, 2020 · 2:47 pm

Just Breathe

Re-posted from March 6, 2014

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.
I am, I am, I am.”

Sylvia Plath

There’s a stillness that descends on the hospital late at night, softening the harshness of bright lights and the sterility of hard floors. Sounds are muted and voices are hushed. Sydney is the only patient in the sleep lab tonight located at the end of a long, empty corridor. It’s dark in her room but for a night light and the glowing dots of the medical devices she’s hooked up to. I shift uncomfortably in the reclining chair next to her bed and wonder how I’ll make it until morning. It occurs to me that my father-in-law spent more nights this way than I can count during the fourteen months of my mother-in-law’s battle with cancer. It also occurs to me that the last time I sat in the dark next to a hospital bed was with him, the night before she died.

But here and now, Sydney is well. We’re only here one night, for a sleep study. Multi-colored wires trailing from the electrodes glued to her head are gathered in a rainbow ponytail and plugged into a large unit sitting on the bed next to her pillow. A smaller unit is strapped to her chest emitting various cords that coil and disappear under the blankets, connected to her legs and other body parts. The tubing for the cannula in her nose and a sensor that protrudes over her mouth like a tiny microphone tucks behind her ears and tightens under her chin. More sensors are taped to her face at her cheeks, temples and chin. It’s an alarming sight if you don’t know what you’re looking at.

My girl knows the drill, though, having undergone sleep studies in the past, the last when she was seven. She put up very little resistance then. Now, as a fourteen-year-old, she may have protested a little more, but overall, she succumbed to the awkward and uncomfortable preparation for the test without complaint, this ever-accommodating child. While I can’t imagine being able to drift off while rigged up like this, Sydney is sleeping the peaceful sleep of the innocent as cameras and monitors record her CO2 and oxygen levels, her heart rhythm and other vitals, as well as her gross motor movements. She’s my good sleeper, always going down easy and sleeping through the night.

Sydney at seven

Her first sleep study was when she was just a week old. Sydney came exactly on her due date and though we had no suspicions of Down syndrome, her birth wasn’t without incident. Labor came hard and fast, but since she was my third, I stubbornly paced at home awhile and insisted on taking a bath and shaving my legs before I let Steven convince me to make the 30 minute drive to the hospital. I guess I pushed it too far because once there, frenetic activity ensued and nothing much went according to the beautiful birth plan I’d created, including the epidural I requested. In between painful contractions I noticed a conversation between nurse and doctor and sensed some concern. When a neonatologist showed up, I knew something wasn’t right. In my delirium I heard talk of meconium. Before I could make sense of it, she was here and I caught a brief glimpse as the doctor handed her to a nurse who whisked her quickly away to a warmer. She seemed blue and for a few terrifying moments it was silent. There were no cries from my newborn, no talking from the medical personnel huddled around my daughter, and no words from my husband.

“Was she blue?  She looked blue to me. Didn’t she look blue to you?  Is she breathing?!” My questions came at him, one after the next.

Face hidden behind the surgical mask, Steven’s eyes conveyed thinly veiled panic as they widened and followed our baby across the room in response to my questions.

I later learned she was under fetal stress, meconium was present and they didn’t want her to breathe before her lungs were suctioned to be sure she wouldn’t aspirate. It seemed interminable, but after a few moments, she took her first breath and pinked up. Relief flooded my body as I reached for my baby with a primal instinct. A kind neonatal nurse, Leann (I’ll never forget her), brought Sydney to me, but gently told me she had to go to the neo-natal intensive care unit.

“We’re not what you expect,” she’d said as she patiently eased my baby from my reluctant grasp.

Sydney spent 14 days in the NICU. About halfway through Steven noticed her stop breathing intermittently. He watched her intently for hours as she lay in her isolette connected to a pulse ox, heart monitor, central line, oxygen, IVs and various tubes and wires. He saw her little chest rise and fall, then pause. Nothing. Stillness. Several seconds would pass before she took another breath.  Because of her daddy’s vigilance, Sydney was found to have sleep apnea and she went home on a monitor.

In newborns sleep apnea is an underdeveloped neurological issue in which the brain fails to signal the body to breathe. The monitor is a safeguard, set to alarm when no breathing is registered for an interval of 20 seconds. Adhesive electrodes stuck to the bare skin of Sydney’s chest were attached to lead wires that plugged into a bulky metal box. Not to be disconnected except during bathing, we lugged that thing everywhere for nine months.

Inconvenient?  Sure, but the reassurance was worth it. I had always checked my babies’ breathing when they slept, feeling for the whispers of air moving in and out of their tiny nostrils. Sometimes they were so still I’d wonder, “Are they alive?” and nudge them, relieved only when they moved grudgingly in response. With Sydney, the monitor was my 24/7 electronic sentry, always on duty.

Once off the monitor, we didn’t worry about her central nervous system regulating her breathing, but we did look for obstructive sleep apnea—not uncommon with Down syndrome—where a variety of factors contribute to air flow blockage. Like tonsils. Sydney’s are enormous and though not chronically infected, they nearly close off her throat when she sleeps. Recently, snoring, gagging, and even lapses in her breathing warranted another sleep study.

“Why do I have to stay at the hospital, Mom?” she asked me earlier today as we packed her pillow and blanket along with her iPad.

“The doctor wants to watch you sleep. So we can see you breathing.”

Now, I look at my slumbering little teenage daughter across the darkened room. When she fills her lungs, I can see her breathing. When she snores, I can hear her breathing.  But I can’t actually see her breath, the air that moves in and out of her body. How fragile this invisible, delicate stream, and yet, how powerful. The physical exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide is miraculous in and of itself. We are purified and nourished in every moment, taking in what we need, releasing what we do not. But more than the mere breath itself, there’s a universal energy that flows like a river through the landscape of the body and through all creation, connecting us with everything that breathes, the very force that animates the inanimate.

In all wisdom traditions of the world, the breath is sacred. In Sanskrit, prana, the original life source. In Native American culture, the Divine Breath, the divine spirit in all living things. In Christianity, God’s breath of life, breathed into man’s nostrils by the Divine. In Buddhism and Taoism, Mindful Breath, the path to enlightenment. In Hebrew, the Nephesh or soul, an animated, breathing, conscious and living being. In Sufism, breath is the source which keeps body and mind alive, body and mind connected.

Our constant companion from birth to death, breath is there . . .  until it is not.

I witnessed Sydney take her first breath and come fully into this world as a living being. I also witnessed my mother-in-law take her last breath and quietly ease out of the physical world. The thought fills me with a rush of profound awe and deep gratitude. Life is incredibly valuable. A gift in every moment. Every breath.

“Just breathe, Lisa,” I think, closing my eyes and turning my focus inward.

{Inhale}

{Exhale}

{Inhale}

{Exhale}

My mind quiets and I am bathed in stillness. It is here I come to commune with the sacred. Here, I connect to the source which unites all life. It is here, I find everything I need.

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March 31, 2020 · 4:28 pm

Resurgence of Hope

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
and the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

I read once that Canadian geese are monogamous, that most couples stay together all their lives. Considering the brutality of life in this wild world, I find that to be an inspiring example of devotion, applicable to the human condition, particularly in our postmodern reality.  

My husband and I have, on day 13 of the COVID-19 quarantine, brought our two goslings out to the country for a change of scenery. This is our fourth spring out at the farm. Well, that’s what we call it. Although we raise no livestock nor harvest any crops, my husband and I christened the 22 acres we bought in the rolling countryside of Steedman, Missouri “the farm.” 

It was Steven’s idea, owning property, a dream of his for years. I’m not sure what shifted from casually keeping an eye out for good deals to hunting in earnest for a prize parcel. Maybe the fact our youngest would be heading to high school or the approach of his 50th birthday, but his vision became a quest. 

Property moved quickly and several times choice lots were sold before he could make his move, so I wasn’t surprised when he called me one Sunday from an open house.

“I think this is it, but I have to make an offer now.”

“I trust you,” I said, and meant it.

Still, a purchase that large, sight unseen left me a bit unsettled. It was his dream, I reassured myself; it didn’t matter much what I thought. I knew my husband worried about pleasing me, so I was determined to reserve judgment. We wound around a rural two-lane highway for miles before turning off the asphalt onto a gravel county road. We passed the stares of grazing cattle and a herd of goats that ran for the fence. After a mile or so, Steven rounded a corner and drove up the hill to park the truck in front of a green metal house and carport which sat overlooking a grassy meadow. The view showcased an open field sloping down to a small pond flanked by walnuts and maples and oaks. Spreading out from the clearing, thickets of woods covered the swells and ravines of the terrain. In the heart of winter, the trees were bare and the forest floor, a bed of leaves. I’d adjusted my expectations, but I could not have possibly known it would feel like coming home.

That first spring, the place greened up like Jumanji as Missouri is wont to do when a sunny day follows drenching March rains. Weekends found us driving out to work on the cabin, making it livable with paint and flooring and furniture. We slept with the windows open, the cool breeze carrying in nocturnal sounds of the wildlife that seemed unperturbed by our presence. 

A pair of geese made their home near the pond, and judging by their protective behavior, closely guarded their future family. One night we were awoken by horrible, guttural shrieks. The primal quality of the squalor struck my heart before my mind was able to identify its origins. I heard ferocious terror, the sound of survival in the endlessly shrill honking. Come morning our fears turned prophetic. A predator had invaded the nest and our geese were gone. We were left wondering if the parents had been injured or even killed in the attack, but we knew for certain, there would be no babies. 

The second year Steven built a nesting box out in the pond, safe and elevated away from prowling raccoons and foxes and skunks and out of reach of foraging turtles and snakes and muskrats. But the geese missed our offer of a safe haven and rebuilt their nest in the same long grasses on the bank of the pond. That year, our anxious anticipation of babies was suspended by the sudden absence of the parents and abandoned, broken eggshells.  

Last year, we watched, hopeful the couple would discover the stilted rubber tub, but it remained empty. Neither did they return to the pond. No geese, no eggs, no tragedy. But my disappointment felt like loss. Sadness filled the void where their presence had been the two years before.

This year, busy travel schedules, illness, and weather have kept us away. Additionally, amidst global crisis, we’ve submitted to the confinement that saw our 25th wedding anniversary come and go, any plans postponed indefinitely. But in truth, the lack of overt gestures and social pronouncements pales compared to the surprising gift of this pandemic: time together.

We’ve come out to the farm with our brood to hunker down, but also to expand into our wide open spaces. We play games and solve puzzles and cook food and watch movies. We have conversations and we take walks.

As Steven and I set off this morning, he stops me short. 

“Shhhh, look!” he says, pointing down the hill to the lull of meadow between road and pond.

I squint, shielding my eyes as I make out the silhouettes of two geese. The male stands guard, stock still. In profile, his head is raised, his long neck extended. He is a sentry. The female bends over, feeding in the grass. I bring binoculars to my eyes, adjusting the dial until the image swims into focus. Two fluffy balls hop near the mother’s feet. Goslings. 

“We’ve got babies!” I say excitedly to Steven, handing him the binoculars. “They’ve got to be the same geese, right?”

Lest we doubt these geese are ‘ours’ and mistake the sight for a mere coincidence, the father, sensing our watch, suddenly ushers his little family toward the safety of home. Mama noses the little ones along, scooping them up from behind with her bill as they bob and trot fuzzily through the grass. Daddy brings up the rear and disappears into the marsh at precisely the same place as the years before, where previously the nest lay empty.  

Tears well in my eyes, a daily occurrence it seems lately. I experience a cocktail of emotions: the resurgence of hope after loss, a resilience borne of grief, holding steadfast in the face of uncertainty. The dignity of the natural world teaches me a simple lesson: Life will go on. My mate and I will follow our instinctual path. We will protect and provide for our family.

We’ll be all right, I think as I take my husband’s hand and walk down the road into the morning sun. 

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March 21, 2020 · 12:00 pm

Rockin’ The Socks for World Down Syndrome Day

Repost from March 21, 2016

The sun goes down
The stars come out
And all that counts
Is here and now
My universe
Will never be the same
I’m glad you came

Steve Mac, The Wanted

My sock drawer is stuffed to overflowing: Everyday athletic socks, fuzzy slipper socks, a few dressy pair of trouser socks. But my special collection consists of crazy, colorful knee socks and on March 21st I’ll have plenty to choose from in honor of World Down Syndrome Day.

Trisomy 21 is the technical term for Down Syndrome. Chromosomes made up of DNA exist in every human cell, typically 46 chromosomes or 23 sets of two. In the case of DS, an abnormality occurs, resulting in an extra chromosome, 47 in all. The extra, third chromosome is on 21st set. 3-21. Hence, March 21st was officially declared the day the world would recognize these extraordinary individuals.

From Australia to Zambia, the unique talents and abilities of people with Down Syndrome are celebrated. The invitation is extended all around the globe to rally behind the #lotsofsocks campaign. To get people talking and asking questions, the organizers of WDSD recommend wearing, “not just any socks, but brightly colored socks, mismatched socks, long socks, printed socks, one sock. Maybe even three socks, one for each chromosome.”

Wilson’s Fitness BODYCOMBAT class
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March 28, 2019 · 3:52 pm

To Be Loved: The Greatest Gift

When I was young, I married my best friend, a cliché dismissed as sentimental until it happens to you. In my husband, I found my home. Now, ensconced in midlife and traversing the terrain of family life, inherent with its joys and sorrows, I’m filled with deepening gratitude for his presence and a love that grows stronger — and simpler — with time.

A scene from the movie “Valentine’s Day” illustrates the enigma of mature love. Shirley McClaine says passionately to her husband of 50 years, Hector Elizondo, after a devastating rift: “I know I let you down. And maybe you don’t think I deserve your forgiveness, but you’re going to give it to me anyway. Because when you love someone, you love all of them — that’s the job. The things that you find lovable and the things that you don’t find lovable.” He quiets her pleading and whispers: “Shhhh. I understand. I’ll never leave you.”

This truth struck a chord. The springtime of love, while authentic, is not sustainable, and when the veneer wears off, we’re left naked and exposed. Love the compulsive idiosyncrasies, the annoying habits, the abrasive characteristics? The graying hair and sagging skin, the morning breath, bed head, and restless legs, the flatulence and cellulite and soft bellies? Love these things, too? Yes. Especially these.

Deserving or not, I know my husband loves me. And it’s not his abundant declarations that tell me so; it’s the gifts. From the start, Steven showered me with gourmet dinners, roses, lingerie, a gorgeous engagement ring, and a perfect proposal. He decorated the house with hundreds of hand-cut paper hearts. He wrote poetry. He saved me the Biscoff cookies from his flights. He also paid off my student loan, supported my mother financially, and raised my young children as his own. Consummately generous, it’s his nature to give. Of his time, his efforts, his resources.

For nearly 25 years, he’s lived his love with daily gifts, making coffee in the morning, brushing the small of my back as he walks past, letting me sleep in on Sundays, surprising me with my favorite wine. He replaces my brakes, manages the taxes, and does the laundry. He senses my moods and makes me laugh. He feeds me.

Yet, of all his gifts, the most profoundly affirming is his desire for my happiness; he acknowledges my dreams and helps me to realize them. No strings attached.

This year we spent Christmas at our little cabin in the woods. Out the front window is a pastoral view of the meadow sloping downhill to a pond. At the water’s edge sits a gazebo Steven constructed for me to write in. I unwrap a homemade gift certificate entitled “Writer’s Retreat” and glance from his eyes to the window then back to a photo of the gazebo. Beneath it is printed, “You seldom have the opportunity to enjoy time for you, for writing, for breathing, and I want to help facilitate that. Please take a weekend for yourself, at the farm. Leave on a Friday, come back on Sunday. I’ll take care of the kids. I’ll plan your food, buy your groceries, and pack your car to send you on your way. Merry Christmas, honey. I love you.”

Through tears I look to my beloved’s face where the map of our lives is written. With this gift, my best friend speaks a love language that says, “I know you.” And to be loved like that — it’s the greatest gift of all.

Published March 28, 2019 in COMO Living Magazine

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November 29, 2018 · 8:22 pm

Love in the Stitches

The older I get, the more I’m drawn homeward. When the weather turns cold, my craving for soup on the stove, a fire in the hearth, and time to knit begs to be slaked. Chilly temps find me cruising arts and crafts stores, feasting on colors and textures of yarn, imagining new projects. Winter sends me digging for my stash.

On hands and knees with the bedspread flipped up, driven by this seasonal hunger, I drag out baskets and totes of knitting supplies, including fifty years of my mother’s accumulation I inherited after she died. Unlike my messy stockpile, hers is meticulously organized: stitch holders, markers, and gauge rulers, and dozens of pairs of needles—aluminum, plastic, wooden, double point, circular—all collated by size and labeled. Dog-eared pattern books date back to the 1950s. Her handwriting marks their pages. Expensive skeins of alpaca wool, unused, leave me to wonder at her plans.

I was eight when she taught me to knit, my first undertaking, a self-portrait: painstaking and earnest. My stitches were tight, my fingertips sore from pushing and prying the work tenaciously hugging the needles. Though rife with mistakes, the baby booties provided my first taste of accomplishment. Booty, that is; I never finished the pair. My mother lost the pregnancy when her fourth child, a boy, was still born. We didn’t talk about it much and it wasn’t until I was a mother of four myself that I realized the magnitude of her loss. I wish I’d asked her about it when I had the chance.

The last thing she made me was a pair of fingerless angora gloves featuring intricate latticework. With skills far surpassing my own, she remained ever my teacher, sharing new techniques like a sweater pattern with knit-in pockets, a gorgeous moss-stitched cardigan she made for her mother (a knitter, as well), who was newly widowed and alone. When my Grammy died, the sweater passed to me. I gave it to my daughter who wrapped herself up during breast cancer in three generations of maternal safeguarding.

With my derriere in the air, I reach past balls of leftover yarn to find what I’ve been searching for: a not-quite-finished, nearly-forgotten afghan I started decades ago. Comprised of individual squares with unique patterns of cable twists, tweeds, and herringbone, it is, in effect, a knitted patchwork quilt.

Threading the yarn through my fingers, I deftly cast on, sliding the right needle behind, wrapping the yarn and pulling the stitch through. Reading the pattern, I begin to knit. K4, YO, SSK, (K1, K2 tog, YO, SSK) 6 times, K3. As natural as breathing, the rhythm is soothing. My hands know the way. Like my mother’s: lightly spotted with age, blue veins under thin skin, taut tendons like a puppeteer’s strings making the fingers dance. When I knit, my mother is close. More than that, when I knit, I become my mother. I’m comforted by her presence.

I lay out the completed blocks. Placing right sides together, (unconsciously holding the darning needle in my teeth as she did), I whip stitch piece after piece together until a flowing blanket is formed, a mosaic of complexity. Like a lifetime, the whole is comprised of many parts; seasons of joy and pain, of blessings and loss, merged into a single work of art.

I stand back and take it in, gratified by having fashioned something so lovely. Aware, too, that the doing of it fulfills me as much as the finished product itself. Yet, I’m most rewarded in the giving. Creating a beautiful object that brings joy to others is immensely satisfying. An intimate expression of love, the creation carries the giver’s very essence. This afghan will keep my family warm now and long after I’m gone. My mother knew this. And she taught me well.

Published November 29, 2018 in COMO Living Magazine

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July 26, 2018 · 7:05 pm

Depth of Field

It’s a gorgeous spring day on our 22 acres outside Fulton, a brocade of rolling green set against a periwinkle sky. It’s where I come to breathe. Today all four kids, their families, plus my dad and sister visiting from out of state are here to celebrate. Four generations together, a rare treat. I’m relishing every idyllic minute. The afternoon, spent fishing, exploring, hiking, and picnicking, is nearly over before I remember the photo.

“Hey, you guys!” I say, calling everyone in. “Let’s get a picture under the big tree.”

“Mom, I’ve got my good camera in the car,” my son says. I’ll go get it.”

Of the four kids, Jeremy is my only boy. He’s back in school at 31, Wichita State, in the grueling physician’s assistant program. I watch him stride away, six feet and 220 lbs., the KeltyKid carrier strapped to his back swaying as the blonde head of his two-year-old son gently bobs up and down. Behind me, his four-year-old son plays near the base of the sprawling old oak, chasing a tiny black Chihuahua (one of three granddogs) who runs circles around him.

Jeremy returns with the camera. Negotiating the cargo on his back, he bends to place it on a tree stump. I stoop to check the shot and as he adjusts the depth of field, the image sharpens into focus. In my mind’s eye the range of images from near to far begin to merge. Can it be? The blue-eyed boy before me with round cheeks and a broad smile is not my own toddler, but my grandson.

“Ready?” Jeremy shouts. I move quickly to my husband’s side and slip under his arm. My sister scoops up the dog, Dad hugs his teenage granddaughter, and my oldest coaxes her nephew into her lap. Jeremy bolts, his cowboy boots dancing across the ground and his baby boy bouncing along for the ride, grinning open-mouthed. We all laugh and Jeremy slides in next to his wife, just as the shutter clicks, capturing the moment forever.

Life isn’t perfect, but this moment is exquisite. An increasingly familiar emotion surfaces: the deep satisfaction of watching my children blossom into adults tinged with sadness that it’s happening so quickly. My father, white-haired for decades, must feel the same when he looks at me. Though my son towers over me, I clearly see the infant, born with hair forecasting an irrepressible personality. Jeremy chased life, careening off the walls and ricocheting into the next adventure, embellishing his exploits with contagious laughter. Underneath his boisterous joie de vivre breathed the most gentle soul and tender heart, full of compassion and as big and wide as his smile.

They say you’re not just raising your son; you’re raising someone else’s husband and father. My son was a good boy who grew into a good man. I blinked and he was a husband and father. Now he’s raising the next generation. My hair is graying, like my father’s. I’ll blink again and it will be white. But for today, I’m keeping my eyes wide open.

Published July 26, 2018: COMO Living Magazine, Seasons

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March 28, 2018 · 3:29 pm

Coming Home

Ethan and Sydney at the magic moment

The night is a pleasant 68 degrees, but heat emanates from the bright stadium lights, and I’m damp beneath my Rock Bridge High School T-shirt. My boots clink on the aluminum steps as I climb past the student section and up the bleachers. A few people in the stands wave and others call out “Good luck!” I slide into the seat my husband, Steven saved for me while I helped our daughter, Sydney, execute the night’s events. ​​

“She’s ready,” I say, glancing at the scoreboard. A minute thirty left in the half. Steven pats my leg.

“But are you?” he says with raised eyebrows and a smile.

From our perch, I see her on the sideline with the rest of the homecoming court. Stunning in a full-length navy dress and silver pumps — from the children’s department, she wears a white sash like the nine other lovely, accomplished candidates. Suddenly she punches an arm forward and stomps her foot.

“What is she doing?” I say. “Oh, no. Is that the whip? Or is it the nae nae?” I prepare to bolt down to the field, but Ethan, her escort is on it. He takes her hand and gently tucks it into his elbow.

This sweet young man, handsome in his brand-new suit, is a fellow cheerleader, but more, he’s her friend. Throughout the years there have been many — Katey and Raegan and Lindsey and Jordan, the kids who’ve seen Sydney first and her disability second.

“Thank God for Ethan,” I say to my husband as we both keep our eyes trained on our daughter below. “Come on Syd, keep it together,” I whisper nervously.

Jordan, Sydney, and Ethan

When Sydney was born with Down syndrome, we had no idea what to expect. She was a cherubic baby with coppery red hair, an adorable button nose and sparkling blue eyes. She loved people and music and food. Not much has changed in 18 years, except now, rather than suspect, we know what a gift she is. Sensitive and compassionate, Sydney regards herself and others without judgment. She accepts everyone just as they are, though the reciprocal has not always been the case.

We’ve made inclusion with her developing peers a priority, which has often meant that I go along to parties and field trips and dances, I sleep in a cabin of seventh grade girls at science camp, and learn the routine for cheer tryouts to teach to her. As I’ve observed the kids in their natural habitat, I’ve seen the bravado that masks their insecurities. The pretense actually reveals an awkward and touching innocence. They’re all searching for their place in the world by measuring themselves against one another. They all want to be accepted. Sydney is no different, she’s just more transparent.

I remember the day she said to me, “Mom, somehow I’m a little different,” with a look of resignation so full of knowing I wanted to wrap her in my arms and never let her go. But to champion her true potential, I’ve had to do just that: Let Go. Again and again and again, tempering my instinct to protect her. I’ve tried instead to empower her, to love herself, to ​​be herself, even if it risks rejection.

Last night, I fell asleep on the couch, exhausted by the activities of homecoming week. My phone buzzed, startling me awake. Sydney, alone in her room, texted me, as is her practice, with her deepest thoughts and feelings.

I feel very emotional 😭 and I’m literally FREAKING Out

I’m so proud of you, honey. It’s a big day tomorrow!

Thanks mom I am praying for you 🙏🏻 thanks for all your supports and needs you deserve to have an awesome award 🥇goes to you I mean it you did it you helped me through times and lots of supporting so thank you mom you are great I love you so much ❤️

Mothering a child with special needs brings the same unbearably exquisite moments coupled with the same painful heartaches, the same sleepless nights, and the same anxiety.

I love you, too. You are fabulous. 😘️

Thanks mom I love you more than cheese 🧀

And mothering this one always brings a smile to my face.

The time has arrived and the crowd quiets as the announcer begins introducing candidates alphabetically. Sydney’s last name puts her at the 50-yard line.

“And now, the 2017 Homecoming Queen is . . . ” The words echo across the football field in a pregnant pause.

“Sydney Kent!”

We’re on our feet as the crowd erupts. The students roar. Sydney’s big sister squeals. Her dad beams. Ethan picks up our girl and swings her around, a genuine princess moment. The crown placed on her head slips down over her eyes and she’s rushed by screaming cheerleaders, who claim her as their own.

RBHS Varsity Cheer Squad 2017-2018

Awestruck, a deep quiet holds me still. I find it profoundly symbolic; as she’s experiencing this ultimate gesture of acceptance, I’m far away, watching. Sydney is on her own. A surge of hope for our collective future swells within me and my heart fills with gratitude for this community and these students. With their vote, these beautiful kids said: “We see you. You belong with us.” And that message doesn’t just change her, it changes them. It changes all of us.

My friend in the row below turns around and jubilantly places both hands on my face, saying “Oh, my gosh, Lisa! You better get down there!” My reverie is broken; everything shifts into fast forward as I make my way down the stairs, laughing through my tears.

Published March, 28 2018 in COMO Living Magazine

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Filed under Adolescence, Aging, Down syndrome, Family, Gratitude, Growing Up, Letting Go, Motherhood, Parenting, Special Needs

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November 30, 2017 · 7:27 pm

A Good Enough Mother

The words are sharp, a staccato litany of frustrations ricocheting around the room. They’re mine, directed at my misbehaving teenager. Adrenaline shoots through my veins. Careful, I think, sucking in a breath, holding it. The silence echoes loudly. In my head, the diatribe continues.

Shhhh, a gentle voice says. Stop now.

My youngest stands in her pjs, ten feet away in the darkened kitchen. Backlit by the hall light, she’s small for fourteen, but contrition renders her smaller. The fire has gone out in her eyes.

“Go to bed,” I say in resignation. “Think about what I said.” I turn away, exhausted. Tirade over.

In the living room, my husband sits, a witness. Abruptly, I’m awash with self-loathing. I lower myself onto the couch and draw bare feet under me.

“She makes me so mad!”

He listens to my rumination of dance steps well rehearsed: I sacrifice, the kids exploit, I explode, they atone; forgiveness rounds out our choreography. Except for myself. I never quite forgive myself. Drained of my own fire, I see my daughter morph from provocateur to vulnerable teen; she’s done nothing her three siblings haven’t before.

“I need to go to her.” Unfolding my legs, I head across the house to her room. I find her sitting up in bed. She’s been crying, hard. Her nose is stopped up. She’s breathing through her mouth and discarded Kleenexes litter the blankets. Her suffering torments me, but recrimination keeps me rooted at the door. She’s earned her remorse, as I’ve earned mine.

“So,” I begin, but there are no words, just an unbreachable chasm. I hesitate and nearly retreat, when the same gentle voice says: She needs her mother. Unlocked, I take the few steps to her bed, draw the covers back, and climb in. She comes into my arms, lays her head on my chest, and erupts in fresh sobs.

I stroke her hair. My lips brush her temple. “I’m sorry, honey,” I whisper. “I love you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she says, shoulders shaking. Choking, she sits up. Tears and snot mingle on her face. She swipes her nose across the sleeve of her T-shirt. Suddenly, she’s my precocious toddler, difficult even then, when I was no less flawed myself. A pang of longing rips through me. Did I love her enough? Was I a good enough mother? My mind jumps forward; she’s a young woman and I’m remembering this moment, wondering of my angst-ridden fourteen-year-old: Did I love her enough? Was I a good enough mother?

Time, fleeting, malleable, shifts backward, forward, and lands in the present. I hug my girl tighter, but still, I feel her slipping from my grasp. Motherhood is a wild ride careening this way and that without much to hold on to. Instinctually, we clutch at passing moments, only to find fistfuls of air. We berate ourselves for imperfection, withhold compassion, and crave a forgiveness we alone can grant. When she is grown, will it have been enough? I can’t know, but here and now, sharpened by pain, soothed by absolution, and bathed in benevolence, I could not love her more. And that might be enough.

Published on November 30, 2017: COMO Living Magazine

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Filed under ADHD, Adolescence, Aging, Babies, Family, Growing Up, Letting Go, Motherhood, Parenting

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May 30, 2017 · 7:12 pm

Swallowed in Sorrow

In the hush of the hotel room I hear cars rushing by on the busy interstate. Above the hum of the fan, a far-off siren rises and recedes. It’s late. My teenage daughters make their cozy bed on the pullout in the other room. Their noisy whispers taper to silence then morph into the breathy sounds of sleep. Cocooned in the quiet, I listen to the rise and fall.

My husband and I detach for the moment, suspended between their sleep and ours. We recline on crisp white sheets, he with his phone, and me, my laptop. Time seems to stop, or perhaps I’m just willing it to. Shutting off his phone, my husband rolls over and reaches for the lamp. “Goodnight, honey,” he says. “Don’t stay up too late.”

In the dark, a glow emanates from my computer screen. I remove my reading glasses and rub my temples. I can’t give in. Not yet. Facing down the night, I try to stretch the hours until morning when my 31-year-old daughter will undergo a double mastectomy.

Her phone call after the biopsy replays frequently in my mind; my unsuspecting hello met with silence, then panic. “Mom! It’s CAN-cer!”, the strangled words followed by wails of anguish. Her crying was no different from the terror-filled cries at 2:00 am that sent me bolting to her crib, or the sharp, cascading screams recognizable from across a crowded playground, or the wracking sobs of a heartbroken teen, doubled over in my lap. This timeless trigger awakens my primal need to protect. But I can’t fight this.

After diagnosis, my crying jags came at 4:00 am when the world was motionless and moonlit. My fingers grasped for something to hold onto and came away with handfuls of air, like the strands of hair spooling from my daughter’s head after chemo, un-rooted. When genetic testing proved positive, sadness galvanized into anger. Cancer may take her hair, but it will grow back. Her breasts will not. The loss is palpable, maiming. “Take mine!” I screamed into the wind. “I’m old.”

As mothers, we champion our children’s cause. We’re strong, safe and rooted. If we can’t fix it, we walk with them, holding their pain. It’s never a question; we just show up. And tomorrow, I will. But tonight I am swallowed in sorrow. Tonight I long to lean on my own mother, but she died a year ago. At times like these I’d call Mom and she’d be up, her circadian rhythm peaking at midnight. She’d walk me through the long night, holding my pain. She’d show up now if she could.

I close my laptop, extinguishing its phosphorescence. Regardless of my angst, I need to rest. Burrowing under the covers, the soft light of the moon caresses my face. I close my eyes and ache, like a child, for my mom. Suddenly, quietly, she’s here. My jaw unclenches. I breathe out. An almost imperceptible weight lowers onto the bed. I feel her hand smooth my brow, fingering a curl and pushing it back. Swaddled in peace, I surrender, and drift into sleep.

Published May 30, 2017: COMO Living Magazine

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Filed under Aging, Babies, Breast Cancer, Cancer, Family, Grief, Letting Go, Motherhood

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