I was able to get away after bedtime tonight to hear Eva Schloss speak. What an honor it was. I could have sat at her feet for days.

I was moved by her quiet humility. I was frustrated that she was robbed of her adolescence. I was horrified by the acts of inhumanity she suffered. I was angered by her post-liberation silencing.

More than that, though, I was touched by her belief in her parents. It was an unexpected takeaway.

Children expect their parents to be infallible—to have all the answers and to be indefinitely available to them. Her dad couldn’t possibly be dead—she believed he was too strong to die. How could her father--the picture of health and strength and wisdom--die?

The worst kind of hurt is to be let down by one’s own parents (or country, or religion, or friend, or...).

One’s own.

A Love Like No Other

My dear friend Lucy's blog is one of my favorites. I love the way she uses her writer's craft to express the sweetness of motherhood. I can't get this post about a momma's love out of my head. Don't miss it.

Generational Values

I appreciate this conversation between a "third wave" feminist, Sady, and her mother.  I love the idea that mothers teach their children their values and worldview, and then the children interpret it in a way that works for their lives; it manifests itself differently, but it's still there. This momma and daughter are talking about feminism, specifically, but the concept is bigger than that. I also love that Sady's mom is a Christian. "Christian" and "bigot" are sometimes used as synonyms in liberal circles, and it makes me want to scream. She addresses that.

Happy, belated, Mother's Day.

A mama or a child?

May I tell you her story?

She was born into Chaos and Instability. Her many siblings were "taken away" when she was only a baby.

Her story was a little different from theirs, though. Although she lived in that same filthy apartment where the children were severely neglected and where they cooked on a propane camp stove (because there was no electricity), her dad (different from each of their dads) came from a "good family." She had an escape called Grandma's House. When Child Protective Services came to do their thing with her siblings, she was visiting Grandma. It took a little longer for her to be removed from the home. Her story was to be different.

Her aunt had a family of her own.  This home was filled with Laughter, Activity, and Love. Drugs, roaches, and poverty were not welcomed in this home. The little girl's aunt knew that, because they were family, she had to take her into this very different home of hers. It was duty. It was required of her. 

So she took her in. She gave her all she needed, but she did it out of duty. She did what she must.

The girl grew into adolescence. Although she had the body of a woman, her soul was still that of the neglected, unloved little girl. She found "love" with her boyfriend and soon learned that a little life was growing in her womb. 

She can't figure out if this life is a catastrophe or a glimmer of hope.

It is a life that gave her a second chance. A life that she swore she wouldn't screw up. A life that she wouldn't allow to be like hers.

But she just doesn't know how. 

Lately, I've been thinking about mommas and babies and babies without mommas and mommas without babies. A lot. 

Inspired by:

New babies in my life

Friends who want desperately to have babies, but can't (so far)

Teenage girls who are pregnant and confused

A recent call for about a foster/adoption prospect that I had to turn down.

Toys, again.

NPR Report: Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

You're still my dad even if you hurt me.

I was just talking to some friends about the difficulty I have choosing a Father's Day card, and then I came home to read today's secrets, and I found this. I wish I could talk to this person. I think we could be friends.

I send him a card because I don't want to hurt him, but I also don't want to lie. Even if I was overcome by selflessness and decided to buy him one of those "I'll always be daddy's girl/you made me who I am/I could always look up to you" cards, he wouldn't believe it. He would know I was a phony, and it would probably make him sadder.

You would think the folks at Hallmark would catch on. Some of us don't like our dads, but we need to offer an olive branch, so they know we do care about them. We understand that they did their best even if it was really shitty.

Where are those cards?

Toys

I’ve been thinking about toys lately. I know that several of my (albeit grateful) friends are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of toys that their loved ones shower upon their children.
I plan to be intentional about the toys I bring in my home. Made-in-China plastic toys that require no imagination aren’t exactly the ideal toys I have in mind. I’m more interested in this, this, and this, and whole lot less of this.

The space in my home is definitely not unlimited, and I want each “thing” I bring into my home to matter. I don’t want to be one of those over-the-top parents who return everything and don’t let their kids near anything that’s not organic, but I also want my little ones to grow to value imagination and creativity from day one.

How do you/would you deal with this?

By the way, I highly recommend Amanda Soule’s The Creative Family; she is so freakin’ inspiring. Just looking at the pictures on her blog leaves my heart a flutter.

My mother taught me joy

I was looking through the pictures on my camera, and this one made me smile. Again. I love this picture of my mom. The Wendy's Frosty spoon in her hand was just on her nose. My mom taught me about laughter and acting on impulses to have fun.

One of my silliest childhood memories is of my mom driving my sister, me, and friends back from Santa Cruz on a summer weekday. We were in the throes of nasty commute traffic, but we were breezing by in the diamond lane. She had us roll down our windows and yell, "Get a friend!" to the folks stuck in traffic. We did it with much enthusiasm.

When we were little girls, we would "rock out" (frantically rock back and forth) in the car. She would turn up the radio, yell "rock out," and we knew what to do. The springs in our backseat were a bit uncomfortable after so much rocking out, but it was so worth it. I'll show you my fantastic rocking out moves some time, if you're interested.

I remember the devious look on her face as she asked, "Don't you just want something sweet?" We, in our jammies, would pile in the car and run down to the convenience store, each of us choosing a candy bar. We would hide the evidence from my dad before he got home because, inevitably, we forgot to get him one.

More recently, about a year ago, on the way home from my sister's house, on a country road detour at dusk, she asked, "Have you ever heard the windmills?" She pulled over the car, we rolled down the windows, and we laughed about the creepy noise they make. It was a moment. It spoke of spontaneity and summer.

My mother taught me beauty.

Kimmy poo is writing about her mom, too.

You never were very good at that.

You are the missing element in my scrapbooks. No, wait. There’s that one picture that mom took of you with Roxanne, Kirk, and me in San Francisco; I kept it in my planner in middle school. One Christmas, Grandma sent me pictures of our annual (well, it used to be annual) visit on Christmas morning; I scrapbooked that. Oh yeah, and there’s that page of you and Uncle Jay as kids on the ranches--the cowboy tribute page.

Other than those three pictures, drilled into my visual memory, you’re absent.

When you were around, we didn’t take many pictures of you. We were probably afraid to disturb you. Maybe you were drunk, so we were too ashamed to take the pictures. We were probably afraid that you would yell at us. Or, maybe, we just didn’t want to have to talk to you. Then again, it’s possible you were out in the garage filling your body with the flakes we found in the glove box of the boat. We knew all your hiding places.

After “the divorce,” our interactions were even more forced and awkward than they were before the bless-ed day you signed those papers. I never thought that was possible. I didn’t make eye contact with you, let alone take your picture. I was too busy crying because you brought Her to Grandma’s house. Why did you do that to me?

I actually have pictures of you on the side table. In my home. I put them there. I chose them. Pictures of you and your dad. Two of them. I wonder if you loved him and if he loved you.

Is that man in the cowboy hat the reason that you have failed at fatherhood? I never knew him. He died when you were a teenager. A car accident. Alcohol in his blood, of course. You were in high school. For me, that was about the time that you were making the most vivid, nasty imprint on my life. I used to wish you were dead. Now, now things are different. I just pretend that you’re not alive.

Just look at my scrapbooks.

Poetry reading elves

The creator of The Poet's Notebook says, "Imagine that your mother or father has found this notebook, and read all of its contents." It was an odd exercise for me to write a letter to my father, anticipating his reaction.

You're wondering about this girl, this woman.
You're shocked by her thoughts and her eloquence.
You morn her absence in your life.
You're nearly positive she's never called you "Daddy."
The title is sweet and inappropriate for your relationship.
You wonder if you can try again:
To know her
To love her
To protect her
To celebrate her
But you know:
You marred your relationship forever.
She will never feel safe with you. She hates you.

Mother Dearest

I forget what my mother means to me. Although she drives me bonkers, she is the rock in my life. When I reflect on my relationship with my mom, I remember that:

She’s the one I can count on to think I’m hilarious. She laughs and says, “You’re so funny, Sherry!” Or, she laughs at my brother and me, as we’re doing impersonations or being nuts and she says, “You guys are so weird.” That’s code for “How did I give birth to two such brilliant and comical children?”

She sucks at being a provider of information. I call her, sure that she knows how to get to a certain location or how to find a particular restaurant (she, after all, has been there at least 100 times) and I can count on her to say, “I don’t know, Sherry! I just do it. I have to be there to know.” As soon as I tell Jessica, “My mom would know. Let me call her,” she rolls her eyes because she knows how the conversation will end--in frustration because my mom “doesn’t know!"

She thinks I’m the best teacher, ever. I often overhear her bragging, “Sherry is such a good teacher. She works so hard and she expects so much from her students.” She told me once that I make her proud of her profession.

She has the greatest sense of duty (I don’t even think she knows it). She stayed married to my dad for 20 years (not for the faint of heart) because she felt it was the right thing to do. She puts up with my brother’s shit because she is his mother. She took care of my grandparents when the rest of us were out of patience with care-giving because they are her parents. She perseveres long after everybody else is done.

When I hang up abruptly, leave her house without much explanation, or cry on the phone, she always follows up. She calls a few minutes later to make sure I’m okay. I answer the phone in frustration, wanting to be left alone, but secretly glad that she cares enough to call.

She loves Jesus simply. In a way that frustrates me. In a way that is beautiful. In a way that requires little answers. In a way that I envy.

She is my mom.

Paint in thier noses...

I was walking through Target today and I overheard a mother saying to her children, “We need to discuss it with his Nanny, first; I’m not sure what they allow him to play with.” My body went tense and I couldn’t help but wonder about that boy and the people who take care of him. The worst part was that they were in the children’s craft section- they weren’t perusing the toy guns or video games. God forbid that the boy has an opportunity to do childhood things (even at the risk of a little bit of a mess). Some of my greatest joys come from watching my nephew create, get messy, and act goofy. I don’t understand why people such as that boy’s parents have children; they're robbing him of things a child should be entitled to- love, discovery, and fun. I know that, in some rare cases, nannies are necessary (and, I’m sure, some nannies are wonderful, loving people), but everyone around here has a nanny. If these people aren’t capable of caring for their children, why do they bring them into this world? I can't help but think of Mark's discussion of provision on his blog- these parents are able to provide their children with every material thing they can dream of, but aren't providing for them in the ways they need it most. Maybe they think, “Well, kids are the next step in our lives” much like the Christian community is often marriage-crazy. I hope I never make life-changing decisions based on the normal chain of events. I hope I never say, “Well, I guess this is next.”