Mother, May I? (Part 2 of 3)

“With my mother’s death all settled happiness disappeared from my life. There was much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.” – C.S. Lewis

In the midst of mourning the loss of her husband, my mother immediately turned to her children. In her mind it was time, at last, to address many issues. But it’s never that easy. Sometimes the past is a very tall wall. Frustrated and confused she found sanctuary in her faith and the church. Now I had a problem. As a Christian, I had to deal with Jesus getting all up in my face. Not only about harboring unforgiveness in my heart or failing to honor my mother, but also about shutting out a fellow believer who was in need.

For me, this was beyond the pale. Thirty-five years of hurts were supposed to just be set aside? Really?  “Do you not understand my splinters?!” I cried out to Jesus. He looked down at me from the cross with tired eyes that said, “Really? Your splinters? Try coming up here for a while.” Jesus understood that the splinters had to be removed. Not discussed. Not understood. Not rationalized. Not theorized over. Just. Removed.

My mother and I began to work on this process. We talked openly of the hurts we’d caused one another over the years and I was stunned to find that I had caused splinters in her as well…imagine that. I know what you’re expecting…a happy ending. But no. Neither of us had what it took to get the job completely done. We were able to end the war, but unable to comprehend what to do next with the peace that followed. Two hearts reached a detente, of sorts, but the borders, sadly, remained.

Then she died.

But after she was gone I realized that though the splinters were still there? Our efforts to love one another had at least brought them closer to the surface. I could see them again, and get at them, and begin removing them. I’m still at it. And can I tell you something? It hurts. Really bad. A splinter quickly removed is not painless, but a splinter from a festering wound? Yikes. But it was time.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK.

Mother, May I? (Part 1 of 3)

Somebody's Mother

Somebody's mother today

Will linger by her phone

Hoping one child will call

Before the day has flown.

Somebody's mother will weep,

Heartbroken and stunned tonight,

Because her children gone

Forgot to call or write.

Somebody's mother somewhere

Will kiss with lips of grief,

Portraits of children grown

And cry herself to sleep.

Often in my life, I tend to dwell on the hurts. I like to tell myself that it’s the intellectual thing to do: engage those mental and emotional wounds to better understand the pains they cause. But lately, I’m not sure that one is meant to understand pain. The body evidently doesn’t think so; it feels it and reacts to heal it as quickly as possible. And that works, as long as the splinter is in our flesh. 

But the splinters in our mind are a different matter, entirely. For some reason we feel that we can only get these “out” by contemplating them, ruminating over them and analyzing them. Many of us will find a way to blame ourselves for some of the splinters, and then begin a series of construction projects in and around each of them, inevitably making more out of them than they originally were.

The thing is…splinters are only meant to be removed. 

My mother and I separated when I was five. She left. My father and I. And just like those two, very short and no doubt grammatically incorrect sentences, that was life for a long time: my father and I, against the world, and my mother leaving, only the one time in reality, but in my heart? It felt like she left over and over. It was a sharp splinter and in my youth I only pushed it down, further and further. Until I couldn’t see it.

Forty years later the man my mother left us for died. I was as indifferent to his death as I was to her grief. My dad once told me that my mom had a saying she’d use with us kids (me and my half brother and sister) that used to drive him crazy. It was “You made your bed, now go lie in it.” Well. As my mother mourned and found herself suddenly all alone in world, I didn’t say that to her, but God help me, I thought it. Yeah, I know. Harsh. And we're just getting started.
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK…

Word Up

- Emily Dickenson

There was a time when words spoken and words written had meaning. They still do, of course. But, sadly, they are spoken less frequently, and when written, come now to us in muted strings of 140 characters, or in Facebook posts that only highlight the victories of our lives. But there is no real wisdom in the garbled haikus of Twitter. No defeat in the glamorous posts on Facebook.

I think the world would be a better place if people were just willing to bleed a little in public. Not in a self-pitying way, not to play the martyr, but rather to more genuinely proclaim their humanity. Because there is a strength to be found in sharing our weaknesses, to help each other. As Hemingway says, “"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." It’s our job to seek those with wounds that match, to advise, and wounds that don’t match, to consult.

A word is a living thing. Spoken. Written. Conveyed. So often, we don’t take time for them anymore, and as a result, it is a crime each day how many moments of love, connection and encouragement are lost forever, sacrificed on the altar of our newsfeeds and work deadlines. Until, one day, you wake up and say, “Waitaminutenow. Hold on. I…have something…I want…to say.” If your heart is right, this moment is not followed by an egotistical “Listen to me!” but rather in a humble, contrite, nauseatingly vulnerable “Will you hear me?”

I write stories because of words. It is in their architecture that I can find a way…to you, to others...and invite you in. A story is a building, the opening the foyer and each chapter a room. Once the tour is over, all I can hope for is that I will find you in the study, warming yourself by the fire, a little richer for the experience before you head back out into the world that is your life.

And if that world is sometimes cold and lonely? If I have been blessed enough in the telling of the thing, you will have been given a story that sparks a fire in you that will never go out.