“What is too absurd to be believed is believed because it is too absurd to be a lie.”
― Robert Jordan, Lord of Chaos
My life is a study on contrasts- or maybe its just what existence is.
I woke early to read emails - what working Mom doesn't? And then quietly walked down the hall to crawl into my eight year old's bed to snuggle her awake. The day before, I had worked late and far away, and had gotten reports of naughtiness and then recieved insolent statements from her when I called home while stuck in gridlock.
In the early morning light, I rubbed her back and she smiled up at me upon waking to see me sharing her pillow.
We talked about the day before and what was to come. I held her and let her know how much I love her and then meted out the promised punishments of lost iPad privileges and suspended playdates. After some time with just the two of us watching the gray light of dawn warm to gold her 6-year old sister, Lala, joined us in the small bed on the sun porch and we laid piled next to each other talking about the day and the week to come.
Sour dough toast for breakfast; what to write a homework essay about; which socks to wear; and who got to the dog's leash on our walk to school that day.
Today was the one day where I was not traveling for work. It was the one day where I could, if I played my card right, get Lala's feces to the Children's hospital lab within the 60-minute window the latest test required. The only problem - Lala's refusal to "let people see my poop".
The negotiations were beginning to span weeks. It had been easier to change language in a World Health Organization resolution and get it approved by the reticent Executive Committee - than to get my six year old to poop in a specimen jar. I kid- not!
And so it goes - these days of mine.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Suspending Disbelief
Just for the record, other than a rather circus-like ability to lift heavy things, I am not a strong person.
Lately, life has been a litany of hearing "you are so strong" - "no, no, I am not!"
I walk the kids the mile to school, and I suspend my disbelief, to check for fairies under leaves and to talk about what color the door on our gypsy wagon should be - the world around us our kaleidoscope color swatch. The dog tugs at her leash to chase squirrels; we find 'treasures' street-side; today an Arabic dictionary and old toothbrush holder; and we talk about why the stars twinkle.
That is not strength. Seriously, what else is there to do?
My husband lost his mind (in an agonizing and costly labyrinth of mental illness) and then disappeared very suddenly leaving me a sole supporter and single parent to traumatized little girls; I was bed-ridden with a terrible spine injury; my one daughter left remission and has a currently untreatable (sans a liver transplant) form of Hepatitis, courtesy of her birth mom; and my other kid (already definitively special needs) has something that acts and looks like cancer, as yet to be diagnosed, due to said other special needs making testing close to impossible.
Its life lived like a trauma version of an add-a-pearl necklace.
These things don't make me strong. The fact that I am still here does not make me strong. Its a misnomer that tragedy engenders strength.
Tragedy- just is.
Last night I debated the nature of suffering. I don't believe there to be a hierarchy to pain. Suffering is suffering - the source does not actually matter other than what recourse or action is to be taken.
My suffering not greater than any other. Sick children are not a tragedy trump card and I refuse to play that hand. I am not stronger nor nobler than anyone else. I merely am.
Lately, life has been a litany of hearing "you are so strong" - "no, no, I am not!"
I walk the kids the mile to school, and I suspend my disbelief, to check for fairies under leaves and to talk about what color the door on our gypsy wagon should be - the world around us our kaleidoscope color swatch. The dog tugs at her leash to chase squirrels; we find 'treasures' street-side; today an Arabic dictionary and old toothbrush holder; and we talk about why the stars twinkle.
That is not strength. Seriously, what else is there to do?
My husband lost his mind (in an agonizing and costly labyrinth of mental illness) and then disappeared very suddenly leaving me a sole supporter and single parent to traumatized little girls; I was bed-ridden with a terrible spine injury; my one daughter left remission and has a currently untreatable (sans a liver transplant) form of Hepatitis, courtesy of her birth mom; and my other kid (already definitively special needs) has something that acts and looks like cancer, as yet to be diagnosed, due to said other special needs making testing close to impossible.
Its life lived like a trauma version of an add-a-pearl necklace.
These things don't make me strong. The fact that I am still here does not make me strong. Its a misnomer that tragedy engenders strength.
Tragedy- just is.
Last night I debated the nature of suffering. I don't believe there to be a hierarchy to pain. Suffering is suffering - the source does not actually matter other than what recourse or action is to be taken.
My suffering not greater than any other. Sick children are not a tragedy trump card and I refuse to play that hand. I am not stronger nor nobler than anyone else. I merely am.
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