Tag Archives: children

CHD, CHD Awareness, Heart Mom, life lessons, loss, Open Heart Surgery, parenting, trauma, Uncategorized

my heart.

Two years ago today, I sat in a small windowless room at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as a pediatric cardiologist, a stranger, sat down and began drawing a picture of a heart. It was my daughter’s heart. It was imperfect. It was broken. I listened as she explained that at some point at the beginning of my pregnancy, my daughter’s heart never finished forming the way it was supposed to. She told me about the surgery needed to fix her little broken heart. She gave me statistics and survival rates and asked if any children in my family had suddenly and unexpectedly died. She probably talked for five minutes, but it felt like an hour. I sat there with my thighs stuck to the plastic seat, trying to take it all in. I tried to pay attention but only heard half of her words. Grace sat beside me the whole time. So there I sat, trying not to cry or scare her. Finally, the doctor explained the logistics of the surgery. She told me that the surgeon would have to saw through her sternum to get to her heart. Then, she said they would have to stop her heart to perform her surgery. This was my breaking point. Fat tears started running down my cheeks and filling up my mask. 

Grace, who had been playing a computer game while we talked, looked up at me and said, “Mommy, am I going to die?” At that point, I didn’t even know how to begin to answer her. I didn’t know what questions to ask, and I didn’t know how to explain this in a way that she would understand. A week before, we celebrated her 7th birthday. She was healthy then. She was whole. Her heart was fine. Now, she was weeks away from surgery and recovery that most adults don’t have to endure. A summer already altered because of a global pandemic would now be filled with medical tests, surgeons, doctors, and lots of time in bed, inside, away from friends. 

Somehow, despite ER visits that included chest x-rays, three bouts of pneumonia, and dozens of visits to the doctor, no one had ever noticed her murmuring heartbeat. Somehow, despite all of the extra ultrasounds due to my “geriatric pregnancy,” no one noticed the large hole in her heart. Somehow, her body, though struggling, had continued to survive. Three weeks after the appointment with the cardiologist, I was sitting in the hospital hallway waiting for the call to tell me that her heart was beating again. Then they called to tell me her sternum was pinned back together. Then, we began the healing process. 

I went through all of the motions of this like a numb machine. Worst-case scenarios swirled through my brain on a daily basis, even when she was “in the clear.” Eight or nine months after her surgery, I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed sobbing, seemingly out of nowhere. I tend to stay on the positive side of things and focus on all the good, but in reality, even though people constantly remind me that she is ok, I have spent the last two years fearing something else will go terribly wrong. The trauma of that day is still with me, and I am allowing myself to feel that trauma and sit with it.

Someone once said that having a child is like having your heart walk around outside your body. When you are told that heart may cease to exist, and she has become your whole world, it feels like a vice squeezing your chest and stealing your breath. Unfortunately, that feeling remains long after the threat is gone and your child is well again. I have learned from fellow heart moms that this is common. We worry about every rash, splinter, or blue lips when our child comes in from the cold. The slightest fever in our child can send us back to that small windowless hospital room where we learned how fragile life truly is. So, be patient with us and know that two or five years still may not be enough time for us to feel okay about what happened. Like grief, trauma is an unpredictable beast with its own timeline. 

“After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.”
~Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

The repaired sternum
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belonging, CHD, CHD Awareness, faith, Heart Mom, homeschool, imagination, kintsugi, life lessons, loss, Open Heart Surgery, shame, Uncategorized

Kintsugi

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and filling the cracks with gold, silver, or platinum. This repair shows that the brokenness is part of the history of the piece instead of some reason to throw it away or hide it. It celebrates each crack by filling it with precious metal. The piece often looks more beautiful as a result of this process.

Shortly after her seventh birthday, we found out that a part of my daughter, her most precious part, was broken. To repair it, the surgeons would have to further damage her tiny body by breaking through her sternum and stopping her heart, cutting out a part of her pericardium, and using it to repair a large hole. Much like a broken piece of pottery, she would forever have a crack down the center of her chest.

Shortly after her diagnosis, a friend sent us a Kintsugi kit. We opened it and looked at it, but my daughter wasn’t ready to do anything with it. Today, as part of our homeschooling, we watched a video about the art of Kintsugi and talked about how we are like that broken pottery. We opened the kit and pulled out the two beautiful whole bowls. Using a piece of cloth, we smashed the pottery with a hammer. We took time to look at each piece and see how each one fit into the other to create a new bowl. We glued the bowls back together and sealed them with gold.

Through this process, we talked about times when we felt broken. We talked about how sometimes we feel like all those broken pieces just lying there on a cloth. We talked about things in our life that make us feel new or better. We talked about how music, art, family, our dog, cuddling, and our hammock are our gold paint.  These things help us feel whole again. I told my daughter that we could look at these broken times as part of our history and recognize that they are not weaknesses, but the things that make us stronger. She said her surgeon made her stronger with stitches. She said she’s lucky because she only has one crack and the bowls have cracks all over.

This discussion led to us eventually painting her scar gold like the cracks in the pottery. She looked at it and smiled. She loves her scar. She asked if it could always be gold and I replied, “It is even if you don’t see it.”

My daughter is seven. Deep discussions don’t happen much. Even today, we only touched on the significance of the art we did. My wish for her is to remember it. I want her to see gold beaming through her skin like sun rays bursting out of her chest every time she looks down at her scar.  When she gets hurt or fails or life just knocks her down, I hope she finds her gold paint, puts herself back together with it, and realizes she is stronger and more brilliant every time. I hope she never feels shame when things go wrong, but instead sees the lesson that comes from breaking.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” 
~ Rumi

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Bad Ass, CHD, faith, Going Solo: Single Parenthood, Heart Mom, Open Heart Surgery, parenting, Uncategorized

the surgery.

“I wish God would let me be born again so I could be born with a whole heart and be a normal kid. I wouldn’t have to get this surgery and I could just play tomorrow.”

 

This is what my 7-year old daughter said to me the night before her open-heart surgery. It was, as my dad would’ve put it, a preachable moment. As instructed, we had just washed all of my bedding in hot water and dried it extra long to remove any germs so she could sleep in my bed that night. We then scrubbed her down with prescription pink foam soap, cleaned her nose out with a prescription gel, and swished a strong yucky mouthwash in her mouth. It felt like I was preparing her for the slaughter. 

Isabella asked me if she could sleep in my bed that night. I usually encourage her to sleep in her bed, but all I could think that night was whether it would be the last night I would have with her or not. The “what ifs” were screaming in my brain and the complications and survival rates the doctor had discussed with us were on a continuous loop. You hear about people having successful open-heart surgery all the time. When it is your seven-year-old child, however, it is hard to remain optimistic. 

That night we both laid in my bed looking at the moonlight coming in our window. Neither one of us got much sleep. The 5 am alarm came fast. We packed our car and drove to the hospital. Bella was silent on the drive in except to say how beautiful the city looked during the sunrise. When we arrived in the parking garage of the hospital, Bella asked if we could just sit in the car for a little longer. She told me that she was scared she might wake up during the surgery. She was scared that it would hurt. I held her tight knowing I may not be able to do that for a while. 

We went up to the cardiology floor of CHOP and went into the reception area. There was a huge fish tank there and Bella went running over to it. She laughed at the fish and described each one to me. After I registered and told her it was time to go in, Bella said, “I just want a little more time looking at the fish. I’m not ready.” The nurse told her it was time and she cried, “I’m not ready. I need more time.” I assured her that we would still have time before the surgery and convinced her to go back with us to the pre-op room. I wasn’t ready either. 

In the pre-op area, I was instructed to cover Bella once again in pink foam, wipe her down, and dress her in a hospital gown. My hands shook as I coated her body with the stuff and I worked hard to hold back tears. We found a movie for Bella to watch as we waited. My mom joined us here and arrived before the surgeon came in to speak to us. 45 minutes before the surgery, they gave Bella a medicine to calm her down. It quickly took effect and she began laughing and yelled out, “I think I can do this! I’ll be asleep the whole time. Hahaha!” She then quickly fell fast asleep. This was before anesthesia was ever administered. 

Isabella’s surgeon came in and introduced herself. She was kind and gentle. She talked about loving animals and hearing that Bella loved animals too. She described what she would be doing and about how long everything would take. She assured us that a nurse would check in with us every hour to give us updates. Meeting her put me at ease. She was the right one to do this. I sent up a little “thank you.” 

When it was time, the anesthesiologist came to introduce herself(another woman, hoorah!) and let us go with her as she wheeled Bella to the OR. Though Bella was already asleep, my mom and I gave her kisses through our masks and watched as they wheeled her off. My heart pounded and my chest hurt as I watched her go. 

Due to COVID, the regular surgical waiting rooms were closed. My mom and I sat on a bridge that connected two parts of the hospital and looked out on the street from the sixth floor. It connected the CICU where Bella would be after her surgery and the CCU where she would be after her time in the ICU. As promised, the nurse called every hour with updates. The first call came to tell us that the surgery had begun. The second call was the hardest. They stopped her heart and put her on the bypass machine. While I appreciate and marvel at modern medicine, nothing is reassuring about the fact that the heartbeat you’ve heard since it was in the womb, that heartbeat that sounded like a symphony, was stopped. 

I thought about that first time when I was only a couple months pregnant and my OBGYN turned the monitor on my belly; that moment I heard Isabella’s heartbeat and realized my new purpose in life was to protect it against all odds. The cardiologist told me that this defect happens in the 4th or 5th week of pregnancy. As the surgeon was repairing the defect, I tried to remember what I was doing during those early weeks of my pregnancy. Did I even know I was pregnant yet? Did I do something that caused this? My entire pregnancy and for the last 7 years of Bella’s life, they’ve told me her heart was good. How did everyone miss this? It just didn’t make sense to me. And when you’re child’s heart is stopped, these are the thoughts going through your head. There is a desperate plea for answers. 

Isabella’s heart was stopped for just over an hour. It seemed like forever. I eventually turned my headphones on and began listening to Kirk Franklin’s “My Life is in His Hands.” The lyrics start, “You don’t have to worry, and don’t you be afraid. Joy comes in the morning, troubles they don’t last always.” Admittedly, my faith has taken a beating since my dad died. It is nearly numb and nonexistent if I am being completely honest. However, when your child is having open heart surgery, that faith returns fast. It is quite possibly the only thing that held me together that afternoon. And for some reason on this day, it was old Kirk Franklin and Fred Hammond albums that got me through. 

The next call I got was to tell me she was off bypass and they were finishing up. Her heart was beating again. She was breathing on her own. I took a huge breath. It felt like the first breath I took in days. After another two hours and two phone calls from the nurse, we got a call saying Bella was in her room and asking for me. I took another huge breath. She was done. I looked at my mom who broke into tears of relief. 

As we entered Bella’s ICU room, I saw her tiny 42-pound body in the huge bed with what looked like dozens of tubes and wires coming out of her. It was like I was seeing my baby for the first time. She looked so helpless and frail. She kept trying to open her eyes but she couldn’t open them. She let out little moans and asked for me. I took her hand, crouched beside her bed, and, through tears, sang her favorite, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” We had a long way to go, but she was still with us and she was more beautiful than I ever remembered. It was at that moment that she became my hero and a true heart warrior. IMG_4874

Stay tuned for her recovery story……

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death, gardening, Going Solo: Single Parenthood, life lessons, Losing Dad, loss, parenting, Run Momma Run, Uncategorized, writing

A decade.

Last night I scrolled through my Instagram feed reading so many stories of the great decade people had for their 2010’s. I loved looking at the pictures of great successes, life milestones, vacations, etc. I tried to think of what I would reflect on and all I could think IMG_0404about as a theme for the last ten years of my life was loss. Since 2009, I lost my dad, my uncle, both of my grandmothers, five close friends, my dog, and three relationships that really meant something to me with men who I cared for truly and deeply. I struggled with medical issues that required specialists, tests, scans, medications, physical therapy, more tests, surgery, and finally a diagnosis of an incurable chronic disease. I battled depression, isolation, profound loneliness, and addiction. All of this in just 10 years of my life. How could I create a happy post from that? 

Then, today I spent a few hours with Bella helping her make the slime from a slime kit she got for Christmas. I felt the gooey slime in my fingers and started playing with it. Bella looked at me and said, “This slime is changing you.” I smirked and said, “Oh really? How is it changing me?” And her whole face smiled as she said, “It’s making you giggle and smile.” Surprised I responded, “What do you mean? I laugh and smile.” “No you don’t, mommy. You really don’t ever laugh or smile.” Now I was fighting back tears. This is how my 6 year old sees me? I thought about it and said, “I used to laugh and smile all the time. I guess I’ll have to work on that.” 

I tried to think about what happened to that giggly smiling girl I used to be. I’ve let my grief take over so much that my own child, the only person who lives with me and sees me everyday, doesn’t think of me as someone who giggles or smiles. I’ve been so focused on all the bad things that have happened that I forgot to really appreciate the good. That includes the good of the last 10 years. 

Between 2009 and 2019, I ran 2 full marathons, 2 Broad Street Runs, 5 half marathons, and dozens of shorter races. Sometimes I cried or walked to get there, but I still crossed. Every. Finishline. I got my Master’s Degree and a job in the field I always dreamed of working in. I bought a house. I bought my first car without a cosigner.  I travelled to Alaska four times, Montana twice, New Orleans, Nashville, Little Rock, Asheville, 100_6564Memphis, Chicago, Atlanta, Mississippi, Florida, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Kenya. I saw the Lion King, Wicked, and Hamilton on Broadway. I saw John Butler Trio twice, once up close and personal in the VIP section. I saw the Lumineers twice, Dave Matthews twice, Billy Joel and Ed Sheeran. I saw The Philadelphia Symphony, dozens of Shakespeare plays, went to my first Opera and my first Eagles game. I saw the Phillies win and lose several times over while I drank cold beer and baked in the sun at The Bank. I reconnected with old friends. I met new friends who became family. I adopted a new puppy. I gardened. I cooked. I wrote. I practiced yoga. I painted. I sang. I performed publicly. I successfully put IKEA furniture together by myself. 

And last, but most important, I created, carried, and gave birth to my first and only child. She came into the darkness of my life like a ray of sunshine covered in glitter. I sang her to sleep every night. I went treasure hunting on the beach with her. I danced in the living room with her. I celebrated her every accomplishment. I saw her first steps, heard her

P1020408 first words, and fed her her first food. I walked her to school each day and blew a kiss to her before watching her go off on her own. I listened to her say, “I love you” everyday.  She taught me how to be a solo parent. For the last seven years of this decade, she has been my first thought every morning and my last thought every night. 

I’ve had my head so far up my grief’s butt that I haven’t fully allowed myself to enjoy all of the life-giving moments in the last decade. I’m so stressed about all the little unimportant things that I haven’t relaxed and let my daughter see me truly giggle and 102_4561smile. When I really think about it, even those losses all taught me something. I carry pieces of those loved ones with me everyday. They became part of who I am. Even the broken relationships taught me so many new and wonderful things and helped me see myself more clearly. I have wonderful memories of each of those men and have learned to forgive and wish each of them happiness and success in life. They each added goodness to my life. I harbor no ill will or grudges against them and that is a lightness I never understood or felt before this decade. 

My medical problems have taught me to be empathetic towards people with chronic pain and illness. They have taught me that it’s ok to ask for help. They’ve taught me to speak up when something doesn’t feel right.  They’ve taught me to be gentle with myself and to rest. And, though my diagnosis was not what I was hoping for, it was finally an answer for years of questions and doctors literally shrugging their shoulders. It brought me new hope and a clear path for moving forward. 

So, as I sit here on the first day of the new decade, my plan is clear. I will spend it laughing with my daughter. I will smile and soak in all the goodness around me and celebrate my successes and my travels and my experiences. I will smile even if my bank account is empty or I have a bad day because there is life in everything and every day we can find joy in something. When I think of my dad, I picture him smiling. Always smiling. Even when he was battling an incurable cancer, the picture I took of him in the hospital shows him smiling ear to ear while being pumped full of chemo. He found joy in everyday. He found a reason to be thankful in everything. It is a challenge for me to do this. When I am gone and my daughter only sees me in her mind, I don’t want her memory of me to be the me with the cloud over my head all the time. I want her to see the me who is laughing and smiling without the use of a slime kit.

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Going Solo: Single Parenthood, imagination, life lessons, parenting, Uncategorized

snow day.

My morning began with my daughter dancing on top of me at 7am to Jazmine Sullivan while wearing a princess dress. I looked out the window and honestly couldn’t understand why the school district decided to cancel today. There were some flurries, but the roads were just wet. One of the downsides to working from home is that a “snow day” just means you have to spend the day trying to get your work done while your 4-year old runs around the house like a crazy person and uses you as her personal jungle gym. Every time this happens, I end up getting irritated with my daughter and the two of us end up in a screaming battle.

From about 8-11, I tried my hardest to get as much work done as possible while the television entertained my daughter. I had her help me assemble gift bags for teachers to occupy her, but by lunch time, she was getting pretty restless. We ate lunch and I continued to try to get work done. She was literally climbing the walls by 2pm and I was wondering if day drinking was kosher in this situation. By this time, the storm was dumping snow on us at a rapid rate and it was clear that this was a justified snow day and I would have to shovel at some point. I closed my laptop, dressed us both in multiple layers, and said, “let’s go play in the snow!” Bella’s eyes glowed with excitement and we headed outside with toys, salt, and a shovel.

She  immediately started running up and down the sidewalk in the snow, eating snow off our neighbor’s motorcycle, and catching snow on her tongue. I began shoveling the heavy wet snow and commiserating with my neighbor. She looked over at Bella who was laughing and chasing snowflakes with her mouth. She looked at me and said, “You know, I can’t remember the last time I caught a snowflake on my tongue.” She put down her FullSizeRender (7)shovel, looked up at the sky, and opened her mouth. A snowflake landed on her tongue and she closed her eyes, smiled, and savored it like it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. I stopped shoveling. I looked at my beautiful daughter running down our beautiful snow covered street. All I could hear was her laughter. I looked up to the sky and opened my mouth to catch a snowflake. A big fat wet snowflake hit my tongue and another went right in my eye, temporarily blinding me. I let out a teenage giggle and stood there, in the moment, and took in the taste, sound, and chilly air.

While my mind told me to go back inside and do more work, my heart decided that there was more fun to be had in the backyard. Bella and I finished up the shoveling, salted the sidewalk, and ran through the house to our little backyard oasis. We ate more snowflakes, built a very sad looking snowman, and laughed about the possibility that there might be yellow snow on our new snow friend’s back. Our dog barked in agreement(guilty little canine). Once the snow got so heavy that we could barely see each other, we decided to go back inside.

Inside, we assembled four puzzles, danced around the living room, played with our cat, and ate pizza and oranges. At dinner, Bella looked up at me and said, “I just love you so much.” And that was it. That is when I knew for sure that I made the right decisions today. Snow days have almost always been stressful. I always choose work over Bella and end up only getting annoyed with her. Today a switch went off in me that changed that. I put us first. I decided to live in the moment and to take in the blessing that a day together can be.

At bedtime I read her a couple books and sang the three songs we sing every night. She sat up and said, “Mommy, you left your phone downstairs!” I smiled and replied, “You know what? I don’t even care.”

Happy Snow Day! May we all have many more days like this to come.

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Going Solo: Single Parenthood, imagination, life lessons, Uncategorized

Slaughter Beach

This morning was a normal lazy Sunday. My daughter and I woke up, went downstairs, and made breakfast. As we ate it, we stared at the disaster that is our house. Toys on every square foot of the floor, a pile of dirty clothes and about four piles of clean ones that were folded but not put away. The dust in the house spread across the light coming in the window and my daughter pointed at it and said, “Look, Mommy! Those sparkles are dancing around in the sun rays.”

A responsible mom would have taken one look at all of this and dedicated the rest of the day to fixing it. Instead, I looked at my daughter and said, “What do you want to do today?” Her eyes grew wide and she looked up at me as if she had been waiting months for me to ask that. “I want to go play at the beach with all the pretty stones and I want to take Dane with us. He needs to go to the beach.” I looked at our poor old dog whose ears had perked up at the mention of his name. He is nearing 12, has terrible arthritis that has destroyed his hips, he is recovering from lyme disease, and he is blind. She’s right. He does need to go to the beach. Despite the fact that it is early November, it was actually a pretty warm day and kind of perfect for the beach. So, we packed up a lunch, a bucket, a towel, and puppy supplies and headed out on the road.

When we got to the beach, we walked pretty far from our car and set up a little private space on the sand. After laying everything out and getting comfy, my daughter told me that she urgently needed to pee. So, we packed everything back up, hiked back to the car by the bathhouse and regrouped. 30 minutes later, we headed back to our space and set everything up again. Bella started to play with her horses making them castles and corrals out of sand and I went right for my phone. After about 5 minutes on my phone, I put it down and looked out at my old dog and tiny daughter playing at the edge of the water. He was barking at the waves and she was laughing at him and telling him what the ocean was. The sun peaked out from the clouds and the only other sound we could hear was the lapping of the waves on the sand. The closest person to us was so far away they were only a speck and the only boats were all the way out on the horizon. I took a deep breath and just took it all in. I decided to be present for a moment and it took effort for me to do it.

I looked at my old dog and remembered the day I brought him home as a puppy and about all of the different houses and people we have lived in and with together. I remembered him putting his head on my belly as I had my first contractions. I felt that feeling of safety he gives me. He has protected me for almost 12 years and I will lose him soon. He barely gets out of the house or plays anymore, but today, he was like a pup again. He played with Bella and slept on the beach.

I looked at Bella and smiled as I thought about the fact that this amazing little person came from inside me. It’s so crazy!! I still don’t totally understand it. This little funny stubborn girl who thinks she is a horse, talks about horses, plays with horses, and wants to read horse books, started as a tiny little bean inside me. That smile that lights up a whole room is part of me. And that feeling I get when I get her something she wants, like a day at the beach, is like nothing I have ever felt before.

I looked at Slaughter Beach. This hidden place we found one day by chance. It is covered in multicolored rocks in every size that have been smoothed out by the ocean. Pieces of sea glass hide in the sand acting as great treasures to be found by little hands. Coral juts above the surface of the water collecting tiny creatures that are eaten up by the bouncing sandpipers in search for a snack. The beach is far enough in the bay that the waves are small and friendly to children and old dogs. The people are few and far between. Most are scavenging the beach for sea glass and stones or simply looking for a quiet place to relax. Everyone takes the time to stop and talk to each other as they pass. It’s as if we all share a secret because we know about this beach, so we are already old friends.  Dogs are welcome and often seen. What an incredible place. 

 

Once I forced myself to take this moment and focus on the present, I realized just how lucky I am and I was filled with gratefulness. It was a connection to the universe, a grounding, a sense of worth. I decided that except for taking photos, my phone would stay in my pocket. I chased and was chased by Bella down the beach, I went on a treasure hunt with her and helped her fill our bucket with sea glass, shells, crab parts, and various colored rocks. I splashed in the waves with her, shared a picnic lunch, and soaked up what may be the last warm sunny day of the season.

Like any day, we had our troubles throughout the day, but it was otherwise a perfect day

FullSizeRender (6)together. We came home to our filthy house and I realized that a responsible mom might clean the house on a day like today, but going to the beach, letting go a little, and just appreciating time with my daughter is just as responsible. My guess is that my daughter will remember our days at Slaughter Beach, but our messy, dirty house will probably soon be forgotten.

 

 

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faith, life lessons, Losing Dad, politics, religion, Uncategorized

The Pastor’s Kid

When I was growing up, I thought the worst thing a person could be was a pastor’s kid. For me, being a pastor’s kid meant going to church every Sunday and being there most of the day. It meant going there on other days too. Lots of other days. It meant moving to different towns and schools and always having just enough, but having to go without some things like annual trips to Disney or having huge birthday parties or an exorbitant amount of gifts at Christmas. It meant teachers would remind me that I should be better, do better, act better, because of who my dad was. It meant always feeling like an outsider among friends. It meant denying my faith over and over in an attempt to fit in. Trying to be someone I wasn’t never won me any friends, but when I was young I thought that all of my problems stemmed from my father’s occupation. So, distancing myself from that seemed like the only way to survive. But we are all adults now and if there is anything we should know by now, it is that being who we really are is the easiest way to live and thrive.

Tonight my daughter was restless and asked me to sing to her to help her sleep. I laid beside her in the bed and sang eleven songs. ELEVEN! It was an entire concert in the dark for my only fan. It was a concert of hymns. Each time I looked over and saw she was still wide-eyed, I thought about how lucky I am that I grew up in a pastor’s home. I probably know a hundred hymns and camp songs and I can sing them nonstop for my daughter until her spirited brain finally rests.

As an adult, these moments happen often. I now realize just how lucky I am to be a pastor’s kid. I can still smell the dozens of burning candles on Christmas Eve and the wood pews that filled the sanctuary. I remember rainy days when we sang All Things Bright and Beautiful with all of the doors to the small country church wide open while the rain poured down outside adding its own harmony to the song. That smell and that song remind me that there is something greater than all of us. I can still taste the varied, and sometimes odd, flavors of the church potluck dinner. That rainbow colored plate of food made with a dash of competition and pound of love was more a part of who I am than any foodie dish I eat now.

Being a pastor’s kid means that I have seen the top of the bell tower and the back of the organ pipes. I’ve rung the church bells at improper times and I’ve paid the price for doing so. I’ve laid down under the back pew and rolled down under all the pews until I slammed into the altar rail. I’ve had the church giggles hundreds of times. You know the ones when you or your friend says something wildly inappropriate during church and in trying to hide your laughter, you actually break into an uncontrollable laughter that has to squirt out of your eyes because you can’t stop? It probably happened that time you peed your pants in church. It’s a common side effect of church giggles.

Being a pastor’s kid meant driving across the country, through Canada, and up to Alaska when I was five and making the return trip when I was nine. Our parents told us how magnificent creation was and then they showed it to us. When you see the Badlands, The Grand Tetons, Wild Horse, Glacier National Park, the Yukon, and the miraculous Denali before you even hit 4th grade, it is hard not to believe in God or some higher power. Religion or not, there is a spiritual element to seeing these places.311149_10150294264747005_289428017_n

Being my dad’s kid meant living in a small house in the woods of Alaska that ran out of water. It meant a family of five practically living on top of each other and riding to the mountain spring together to fill jugs of water so we could eat and bathe in the dead of winter. It meant our parents waking us up in the middle of the night so we could stand out in our wooded  driveway in moon boots and nightgowns to hear the crackling of the rainbow colored aurora borealis that seemed so close we could almost touch it. It meant running across snow and ice in our swimsuits to jump into the hot springs when it was 20 below zero outside.

As a young child, I remember visiting hospitals with my dad; waiting in the hallway and listening to him pray with people who were sick and lonely. I remember praying for the mean kids in school because my parents said they were the ones who needed it the most even if I didn’t like them. I remember saying thanks and saying thanks again and always being taught to be grateful for what I had. I remember visiting shut-ins with my mom when she worked with meals-on-wheels. I remember welcoming people from every race, ethnicity, and economic status into our home. I remember my parents treating everyone the same. From the suicidal teenager to the prestigious Bishop from Nigeria, our doors were open and there was always a place to stay and food on the table.

I was raised by a pastor who put love first and didn’t focus on hell-fire or political issues. He (and my mother) taught us that our faith meant giving, caring for, loving, and thanking. It meant welcoming others and being empathetic and learning about those who were different from us. Our faith meant seeing injustice and fighting against it. Our faith meant removing hatred from our vernacular. Following Jesus wasn’t about getting into heaven or avoiding hell, it was about loving everyone. 
I will be 40 soon and I honestly have been struggling with whatever my faith is now. Religion in general has angered me and the people who claim to be doing things in God’s name seem to be missing the whole point.  I belong to a church family, but I find it hard to participate or show up because of the pain I see coming from “the church” as a whole. The complete lack of empathy and love seems to come from a dark place that I am not familiar with. Still, when I am coming to the end of my day and trying to settle my daughter, nothing works better than singing Be Thou My Vision, or His Eye is on the Sparrow, and I still cry when I sing Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing because I can hear my dad’s voice in the words. Those old hymns slow my breath and my blood pressure and remind me of the faith I once knew and help me believe it is still possible.

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Going Solo: Single Parenthood, life lessons, Uncategorized

timehopping.

After pulling an all-nighter to eradicate the fleas from my house(the downside to having a neighbor with a huge heart who likes to feed all the neighborhood strays),  I sleepily walked downstairs to load up on coffee. I walked into the kitchen, looked down in the sink where my coffee cup was soaking in water, only to find our hermit crab, Bernie, looking right back at me. There he was, just hanging out in a coffee cup full of water, completely out of his locked cage and looking at me like it was any other day. I gently removed him from my favorite cup and returned him to his habitat. I decided to use a different coffee cup this morning as I was pretty sure no amount of cleaning would get me in a mindset of being ok with drinking out of this one.

I took my coffee upstairs and began my one child and pet-free ritual of the day: a shower. That glorious 5 minutes where I am covered in steam and suds and happiness. This moment of bliss ended when I pulled the curtain back to find my cat sitting there waiting for me. The cat who has a weird fetish of trying to lick my legs immediately following my shower. I have never understood it and it is one of the many behaviors he possesses that make it constantly awkward to have him as a roommate.

IMG_4592Since I refuse to let him take advantage of me once again, I did the only rational thing and jumped over him landing on my slate floor with my wet feet and slipped catching myself by grabbing my daughter’s dragon towel hanging on the door. I quickly recovered and ran down the hallway to my room. The cat followed in quick pursuit and before I could close my door, he swooped in and rubbed his entire body against me leaving a huge clump of hair on my freshly shaven legs. I rolled my eyes, grunted, and proceeded to get dressed.

My daughter, who instantly begins talking the moment she opens her eyes in the morning and doesn’t stop until she passes out in the evening, miraculously slept through all of this despite my screams. I decided to take advantage of the few minutes of quiet I still had and sat down with my coffee and looked through my Timehop app. Such a lovely invention; an app that shows you every picture you took for the last decade or more. I usually love this app because it shows me the chunky squishy photos of my daughter when she was an infant,  photos of my past life as a marathon runner, and photos of my rounded pregnant belly. Today it reminded me that not so many years ago, I was out to brunch, sipping mimosas, and eating a salmon benny with friends; single friends without kids. And there it was: the old me. I was going to be the forever-single girl travelling the world in my 20’s, 30 and flirty, and never, ever, settling down or having kids. The biggest care I had was whether I was going to order another mimosa or switch to bloody marys.

Now, I am two months away from my 40th birthday, and I am raising a strong, independent, opinionated, smart little human being, a cat who is my nemesis, an aging blind dog with lyme disease, and a hermit crab who is an escape artist. This morning’s shenanigans have basically been my life for the last four years. I am comfortable here now. I live in a sitcom and I like it. Still, I am fully aware that five years ago I would have scoffed at the me I am today. I am still in awe of just how different I am now and am forever grateful for the curve ball life threw at me 5 years ago.

While there are some days like this morning when all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry(and sometimes I do just that), I try to just laugh about it. I have a kid who loves animals, so sometimes that means dealing with fleas or hermit crabs in my coffee cup, or dog poo on my bare foot. It’s all part of my new mom life and I’ve grown to love it.  I’ll be the first to admit that I have moments when I long for those carefree mimosa mornings, but all in all I like the excitement and unpredictability of this mom life and look forward to the continued craziness yet to come.

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Going Solo: Single Parenthood, life lessons, Uncategorized

No matter what.

YesIMG_5163terday, I arrived at pick-up for my daughter’s school and her teacher told me that she needed to speak to me. She informed me that Bella got a warning for spitting on one of her classmates. The teacher asked her why she would do such a thing and Bella told her that the student sat in her friend’s spot. As a result of her actions, Bella got a warning card. The first and only one of the year in her class. As someone who was bullied, I refuse to raise a bully. I was so embarrassed.

Once we were alone, I told her how embarrassed I was and disappointed in her behavior. I asked her for an explanation and she told me she didn’t want the other student sitting beside her because she wanted her friend there. The student wouldn’t move, so she spit on them. I explained that spitting was always unacceptable. Also, if someone she didn’t know sat beside her, a good alternative to spitting would be to say, “Hi! What is your name?” I also informed her that she would lose TV privileges every time the teacher needed to speak to me about her behavior, but she would get a sticker for all the days she did the right thing.

This morning on the way to school, I asked Bella what she would do if someone sat beside her who she didn’t know. She said, “I will say, ‘Hello. What is your name.” I screamed “Yes!!” and threw my arm over the seat to give her a high five. There were a few seconds of silence and then Bella asked, “Mommy, if I forget and mess up again, will you still love me?”  My heart dropped and I immediately looked back at her and said, “Absolutely! I will always, always love you, no matter what! You could make mistakes all day everyday and i will STILL love you. Do not forget that. Ever!”

“Ok, mommy. I’ll always love you too.”

“And you know what, Belles?”

“What?”

“We are both going to make a lot of mistakes. We will both hurt each other’s feelings and make each other mad. But, you know what?”

“What, mommy?”

“As long as we keep loving each other no matter what, we will be OK.”

Then I looked back again and she looked out the window and her whole face smiled. And that is when I realized that my primary job as a mother is to always remind my daughter that I love her exactly as she is and regardless of her behavior. I heard once that children need to hear the words “I love you” at least 4 times a day to be emotionally stable. I think I’ll up that to 6 or 10 just in case. This kid. This kid is my entire heart and I want this in writing so I never forget to live my life in a way that she will always know that. I think you start losing your child the moment they doubt that you still love them. So, love them constantly.

 

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“There are things in this life I,

Would rather not sacrifice 

You girl I cannot live without

And you know there’s no doubt that

All I mind’s losing you”

~John Butler Trio

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Bad Ass, Going Solo: Single Parenthood, life lessons, Run Momma Run, Uncategorized

back to life. back to reality

Five years ago, I would have been ashamed to post this photo. While 4 miles is no easy task, the time it took me to complete them tonight was about twice what it used to take me to run four miles. Tonight I had to run, jog, and walk to get there. Also, due  to toddler difficulties, I had to do it on a treadmill. Again. After 10pm. Five years ago, I ran at least 5 miles 4 times a week and 10 or more on weekend days and biked the 22 mile greenbelt around Harrisburg at least once a week. But this isn’t a story about a runner who is trying to win a race or be the fastest or show people how good I am at running. This is a story about someone coming back to life. It took me three years to slowly fade away and it will take time to come back.

After I had my daughter, I got back to running, lost more than all the baby weight, and felt absolutely amazing about life. Then, for reasons that made sense at the time, I decided to move to Philadelphia. In many ways, things have gone well for me here. I bought my first house, I found a job I love and fall in love with more as it grows and changes, I connected to a church community and a parenting community, and I began building a village for my daughter. But some of the reasons for moving here turned out to be empty promises and were emotionally difficult to deal with. In the last two years, I have almost completely stopped running, my diet has been completely out of whack, and I have let depression win on more days than I’d like to admit. I turned down social invitations choosing to stay home and secluded instead. My body and my overall health has suffered as a result. Some friendships have suffered as well. I focused so much on who I used to be that I forgot to become her again-in a new improved state. And worse, I forgot to enjoy who I was at the present, double chins and all.

About a week ago, I realized that my daughter would be four in a month. Four. She is starting to recognize my behaviors and even imitates them sometimes. She recognizes when I am sad and she asks me about it. I want her to see the best me that I can be(hokey I know, but it’s true). I don’t want her to start imitating the me who sits in front of another episode of Scandal while eating a block of cheese and drinking a bottle of wine. She deserves to know the me I was 5 years ago when I found out I was pregnant the day after I ran a half-marathon in Nashville. The excited, giggly me who did not give a fuck what anyone thought of me. The me who did my thing, painted horrible paintings, but loved them, the me who laughed obnoxiously out loud multiple times a day, and the me who ran everyday because it was the one thing that made me feel my dad’s presence. I want her to see the me who at 35 found out I was pregnant and was going to become a solo parent and just said to myself, “OK Bek, let’s do this!”

On Mother’s Day I was still up at 11pm taking care of a messy kitchen and a sink full of dishes. I caught myself smiling. I realized just how wonderful things really were. I was standing there in MY kitchen, in MY house, washing dishes from my incredible daughter. I was overwhelmed with gratefulness for everything in my life. When I was running that half-marathon 5 years ago, I never would have imagined that I would be standing in a kitchen I owned washing dishes from a kid I had. The excuses I have used to avoid life have only clouded my view of the wonderful life I have been gifted.

That’s all it took to make me decide to get back to it. I promised myself that I would run, jog, or walk at least 2 miles a day for two weeks. At the end of that two weeks, I will make a new promise. On Sunday morning, I will be running my first race since that one in Nashville in September 2012. It is a 5K and I am already a little scared. The thing is, I am also excited. Bella will be with me in the jogging stroller the whole time. And soon, she will be running beside me. And even if I am the last one across the finish line, I will still celebrate and be grateful that I am able to complete 3 miles and do so with my daughter right in front of me cheering me on.

I leave you with an excerpt from Jen Sincero(an incredible author who I highly recommend) that I have been focusing on this week.

“You can’t see the silver lining through victim goggles.”

“Have faith that you and the Universe have created everything for your growth and be grateful for it. No matter what. Get practiced at making gratitude your go-to. Notice the 8 trillion things around you at all times that you can be grateful for, and feel into the grateful expectation for all the things coming your way. The good, the bad, the ugly, The salsa stain you just got on your new white shirt, become a gratitude machine for all of it.”

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