Month: September 2016

I remember as a kid thinking there had to be more than just black and white. The way that life happened wasn’t as clear as one or the other, it was more complicated than that. When adults tried to tell me that things happened for a reason I never really believed them.

Why would there be a reason my best friend at six would be killed in an accident while on a Sunday drive with her family?

Why did my “real” father not want to know who I was, or want to be a part of my life and why did the man I called daddy have a hard time loving us all the time?

How could so many see only black and white when I clearly see gray and even red at times?

These were real questions I had, and now I see in the eyes of my little ones the same confusion. I don’t think there is a black and white world but rather a cold gray one. This world is full of those that would tell you that it is either black or white, but how? How is a father leaving his children for a new start at a younger woman  black or white? How is a mother allowing her young to be used so she can have a refill of numbing juice black or white? How can a young man pull the trigger  and take a life so he can be welcomed into a group of other misguided souls be black and white? The answer is it isn’t. It is full of shades of gray. Not fifty shades, but rather a thousand shades of crazy gray. We all come into this broken world new and trusting, in the womb we can tell that this world will either be safe or scary. Once we come kicking and screaming we are either comforted or reassured we will need to kick for dear life forever. Some will be held with love and safety and others will be beaten and used, how is there a reason to this? Why is that the go to statement? I know I can’t look into the eyes of my hurt ones and tell them this happened for a reason.

Do I tell them that they where put into a family that hurt them and abused them because I would want more children and be unable to have my own? Do I tell myself that I was unable to have more children because there would be three little ones that needed my heart to be open to taking them in? Do I look into the eyes of those that doubt I can love the ones that I didn’t carry and tell them I can because it was written in the stars? I say no. I choose to live on the grayer side of things, on the sometimes redder side of life. I live here not because it is safer but rather because it is more colorful. If I only had a room of white to look at I would go crazy, if the room was always black I would go mad, but here in the gray and red I find peace and life. There is truth here to grasp onto, hope of growth and change. I can look into the eyes of my hurting child who asks why it has to hurt so much to live and give an honest “I don’t know, but I know after the hurt comes the healing and that is the honest truth of it.” I can look at them and be ok with being just as confused and angry over their pain, I can let them see that this world confuses me too but I chose to try every day to figure it out. I think it would be so much harder to live in a world black or white. The weight of that thought makes me gasp for air. Please don’t get me wrong, there is right and wrong, but I can’t add that for every wrong that is done to a person there is a reason. Unless that reason is that we live in a fallen world full of fallen people all trying to decide if they see black, white, or gray. In the moments that I sit and listen to my son pour out his heart over the loss of his little furry best friend, or try to come up with the way to navigate my daughter trying to hide a boyfriend at a way too young age, or tell myself to hold my frustration at yet another lie, I have to tell myself to try and see their shades in between my black and white. I have to look into the color that is their reality at the time and figure out why and that is a hard place to be if I only believe in black and white.

As I spoke on the phone with a dear one yesterday I heard myself giving advice on how to speak life into her little problem child. “Just encourage her, speak beauty and love into her without the disappointment and frustration, give her a safe place to turn when the world chews her up and spits her out.” As I heard the words come out of my mouth I thought to myself, “hey kettle, having a nice chat with pot?” There I was giving advice to someone that I haven’t even learned how to live myself. See, not so much black or white there as much as stormy gray. A beautiful stormy gray that tells me after the rain comes the sun. I am ok with the gray, with the unanswered whys and the uncomfortable be-causes. I can let go of my perfect white walls and my lonesome black rooms. I can embrace the gray of my youth and look into the wisdom it has taught me. I don’t wanna teach that there is only black or white, don’t show your uncomfortablity with the norm. I want to teach them to imbrace their shade and look for where it can inhance the shades around them. I don’t want my daughter to look at all the perfect shades of white around her and feel so imperfect and only feel like she has a life of black to turn to. I want her to be comfortable in her skin, in her flaws that will someday be her profection. I want that for all me children and so I write…….

I woke up this morning to a crisp fall morning.

I love fall.

It is a season that has always given me joy and hope. I think somehow I may be a little twisted in the reason why. Fall brings change to the air, a chill that says all things are about to change and be remade. The process of the leaves changing, the flowers going into their slumber before winter, the animals eating their fill before they go into their deep sleeps, it all tells me that though there is what seems like dark days ahead, it won’t last. Spring will come, all things will be made new and will once again grow and be strong and vibrant. In order for this all to happen there has to be a season that allows things to slowly let go of the previous seasons. It reminds me of all the seasons in my life that have seemed impossible to come back from and somehow by the grace of God I have not only come back from them but I have come back stronger and more determined. I look back at my youth and the life that I was given to live and see why now I was given children that have been hurt and are harder than other kids. In my life now I have little ones that I have to ask “are you going to remain the victim or will you rise up and become the victor?” The choice after all is theirs to make. I can do everything in my power to offer a place of healing and a safe place to grow strong and confident but at the end of the day it is up to them to make the choice to heal and grow. Just like it was my choice to let go and grow.

I grew up in a home that had a loving mother, her children were her life. She gave every ounce of energy to the five of us, and if that wasn’t enough, she gave any extra that she could muster up to the friends we would bring home that needed a little extra love. She worked two to three jobs at a time to give us what we needed. Her days started with the sun and ended with the moon. She loved even through her exhaustion and pained body. There wasn’t a night that she went to bed before all of us, and only after she listened to our days, our joys and hurts, and our needs. She did this with some help from my step father, but most of the time she was a single mom working her tail off. My step father was a Vietnam veteran. By the time he was 18 and dropping out of a plane he became one of the youngest soldiers in command, all those above him were killed on the way down. That and many other things he went through there caused him to come back a broken man. He was diagnosed with paranoia schizophrenia after nearly seven years of marriage to my mom. Before that she had no idea the extent of his trauma or why he would switch from a man who loved her children and wanted to give them all their needs to a man that put them in danger and made threats on their lives. It was years of back and forth, leaving him then going back.  Then he was finally sent into an institute and diagnosed. There are stories I could tell but I don’t have permission from the rest of my family, so I will leave it at I know trauma and I know that you have to make the choice to come out of that world with a continued victim mentality or with the mindset that you will overcome and stop the cycle for the next generation. I am thankful that I had a mom who taught me that I was loved and that I was worth loving. Without her being who she was we may all have turned out completely different. Because of her strength I have a sister that is a caring surgical nurse and a mother that loves her children just as fiercely as our mother.  A big brother that showed me how real men treat their families and became a principal, Chaplain, coach, worship minister, and father that loves unconditionally. A brother that waited as long as he needed to find the love of his life and has given her and her son a home that has no “step” about it, he loves as fiercely as our mother and is a childrens author. A brother that works his hardest as a single dad to provide for his three kids that he fought to have sole custody of two and shares the love of his son with his mom and has made the choice to lay his own life down to insure his kids know they are his world much like the mother that raised him. My mom has given her sweat, blood, prayers, and tears to unsure that her children would grow out of the seasons of cold dark days into the strong vibrant alive victors  we are today.

It is mornings like these that I think back to the love in my mothers eyes as she kept them open to hear my latest drama, the way she held me when I was sobbing over the latest hurt in my life, the way she would rub our feet after using her hands all day because we were sick and needed a mothers touch. In these mornings I look to the sky and ask my heavenly father to give me the strength my mother had when looking into the next season of dark days. I search my heart for the love she grew, the wisdom she offered, and the heart she had of a victor that came out of her own trauma filled life. I take deep breaths and think of each of my little ones and hurt just a little that they are not all ready to be loved as fiercely and deeply as I was and I long for the day that I can dance with my daughters in the rain as my own mother did. I look forward to the late night talks with my sons, and the joy of getting to watch them all become strong independent victors. Yes, my children now see themselves as victims, as does the world around them, but with the help of the lessons from my mother they will rise up and become victors and so I write………..

Every little boy thinks he needs a dog. At the earliest of ages they begin to ask for a furry best friend. My son was no different. When he was five I started to help some friends with their new pet shop. I took my little guy with me and he loved helping while playing with all the little puppies. It wasn’t long before he had connected to a sweet little brown-eyed Peke-A-Tese, it wasn’t long before I was in love with him as well. We brought MoJo home to live with us and loved him more everyday. From day one MoJo was attached to his boys hip. They slept together, he waited at the door for the big yellow collector of kids to spit him back out, and would go running around the house when you would ask him where his boy was. MoJo thought he was a human and acted as though he was the protector and comforter of his big brother. They had many grand adventures together and enjoyed each other every second of the day. Our son was happy with his puppy and our puppy was in love with his boy.

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There wasnt a day that went by that MoJo wasnt happily wagging his tail asking to go where ever we were going. He knew the second his boy put his shoes on that it was time to go on a new adventure and he would run to the door jumping in excitement. He went on family vacations, hiking trips, camping trips, trips to the store, every morning to drop his boy off at school, and walks to the park. He was a joy to have around. After five years of becoming the best of friends with his puppy our son began to ask when his sister was coming, so we added a little girl to our family and MoJo welcomed her joyfully. Our calm and loyal puppy became an indicator of when our new little precious was about to blow. Before we knew it we had a daughter that was a Reactive Attachment kiddo and we sat through meetings learning what we might be looking at, and suddenly we had a worry that our little pal might be in danger. We learned that with R.A.D. there were two ways she could be affected. One was violent and hurt animals before moving into hurting those around her, or the other would be she could just struggle with outburst of rage without hurting anyone but herself. Turned out she would have outbursts of rage and only hurt herself. MoJo became a calm for her, she became attached to him and enjoyed his playful and loyal nature. He welcomed her with love and joy, and she in turn was calm around him. We thought he was safe and would enjoy a long and  happy life. Turns out our second little angel that would join our family would be the one that hurt him.  Our littlest was welcomed in the same manner as Syd. MoJo was excited to have someone so close to his size to play with and we had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be treated with the same love from her. The truth came out pretty quickly, she could not be trusted alone with animals. After being stabbed in the back with sticks and kicked down the stairs full force our little guy was rushed to the Vet only to be told that he now had a ruptured disk that quickly turned into a spinal disease. MoJo hung in there for three years after his injuries and loved every person in our home. He was loyal to the end and continued to help heal our oldest daughter. It has been but a week since we had to say goodbye to our furry friend and even through his passing he has helped to heal my little girl.

The night we had to say good-bye my daughter wrapped her arms around my shoulders and hugged me. She held me as I mourned the loss of our beloved pet. She saw the hurt and recognized the need for comforting. She saw someone other than herself, in that moment she was able to genuinely feel loss and was able to react in a way that those with R.A.D. find it hard to do. There were real tears shed, real feelings shown, a real comfort given. No stiff body, no distant and empty stares, no fight for attention, and no battle for control. In the time she had been here she found a friend in MoJo and when she lost that friend she was able to show true emotion. She didn’t search for a chance to receive attention, she didn’t search for a way to rub in the hurt her brother felt, she didn’t try to steal the moment with a melt down. No, she showed healing. In that moment of feeling her little arm around my shoulder in real concern I felt bitter-sweet feelings. It took the loss of our family pet to break the final barrier down that my daughter had been hiding behind. On one hand I had to say goodbye to my sweet little pal, but on the other hand I was holding my daughter in a real embrace. In that moment of pain and loss came healing.

We have had a pretty hard week, I didn’t expect to be as broken up as I have been. I knew my son would be devastated and that the other three might be sad for a couple of days, but I had no real idea that the loss of our MoJo would send us all into a tailspin of hurt and healing. His little presence was one of calm and joy and without him here we are all at a loss, but we are all one step closer to being whole. We miss our little guy and we thank him for being such a loyal and joyful healer of the hurting. It isn’t often you come across a dog that is as feeling and smart as this guy was. These kinds of puppies come far and few between, but we found him or he found us and we are better because of the unconditional love he showed us all. Even the little one that hurt him the most. Our world is one of hurt and healing, ebbs and flows, ups and downs and for a time this little guy was able to turn or downs into ups, our hurts into healing, and our sadness into joy. He has proven that a hurt child with R.A.D. can heal, can feel, can love, can attach, and so I write……….