Fear or discernment

I got an email today from the principal of my kids' elementary school. Actually, the email went out to all the parents. It was a "stranger danger" email--advising (aka warning) parents about an "incident" after school today that involved a man who looked "like Santa Claus" giving a coin to a child and then getting in the passenger seat of a car and driving away. The parents and child were alarmed, and the administration felt we should all be aware of what had happened.

My reaction wasn't alarm. It was sadness that this is where we are: suspecting every kindness that comes our way, suspecting every kindness that comes our children's way, and having to base our every action on the assumption that people have ulterior motives for every good deed they do.

My mom has a picture of me eating ice cream while sitting on our kitchen counter. I'm two, and I'm looking straight at the camera, my face covered in chocolate. Standing next to me is a large man, and he's looking down at me, smiling, proud, as if I were his own child. His name was John, and he was a good friend of my father's. And my mother tells me John adored me and would spoil me with candy and ice cream and whatever else it took to keep my attention for a moment or two. I don't have any memories at all of this man, but judging by his expression in that photo, I'm sure he did adore me.


When I wasn't much older than I was in that photo, my mother headed out to do laundry with my grandmother, leaving me in my father's care. When she got home, I was gone. Panicked, she and my father began running around the house and yard to look for me, when there I appeared, walking hand in hand with a young man as we headed toward them. A pick-up truck followed close behind, crawling along slowly as I led the way home. I'd apparently wandered off and had ended up on a rickety old bridge, much like the bridge in the well-known painting of two children with an angel watching over them.




The young man explained to my parents that he and his father had tried to get me to climb into the cab of the truck so they could take me back to wherever I'd come from, but I'd refused. So the young man had no choice but to get out, take my hand, and help me find my way back.

When I was about seven, my family lived next to an elderly couple, the Harveys. I'd often go over to their house, and they'd give me ribbon candy and let me play with their yellow lab, Ginger. Mrs. Harvey died before Mr. Harvey did, and still I'd go visit, and still he'd have that bowl of ribbon candy ready for me.

I do my best to teach my kids about "stranger danger." But I don't want to teach them to be afraid. I want to teach them to be discerning, to follow their gut instinct, their heart, the Spirit--whatever you want to label that little voice telling you, "This is a bad one" or "This is a good one." I want them to be discerning in all things and in all relationships. My nine-year-old daughter trusts everyone. She loves all of her teachers. She loves all of the kids in her class. She doesn't see the bad in anyone, and sometimes she really, really should. But this is how she's always been; it's how she was born. I've had a lot of talks with her lately about the importance of understanding that just because someone likes you doesn't mean they're likable. I certainly don't want to teach her to hate or to go through life with a wall up around her, but I do want her to learn to make good choices in her friendships and to gain better judgment . . . and then use it well.

A customer used to come into my parents' bookstore years ago who took a liking to me that made my mother very uncomfortable. He was a minister--an older man though by no means elderly--and he'd wait to talk to me until my parents weren't around. He offered "private counseling sessions" if I ever felt I needed them, and he brought me lunch on occasion. I was quite happy at the time, doing just fine, and every time we spoke, he tried to make me believe I wasn't as happy as I thought I was. This wasn't about religion. He never brought up God or faith once. I was polite. I turned down all of those offers for private counseling sessions. And then he abruptly stopped coming in. I found out much later that my mother had told him to stay away from me and to stay out of their store. She told him she didn't trust him, and that if he ever came near me again, she'd sic my father after him.

I was 22.

As a mother of four and as a daughter of a very protective mother, I get wanting to protect your kids from all the baddies out there. And there are a lot of them. But we should no sooner be teaching our children to fear every stranger than we should be teaching them to trust every man with a gentle voice who offers private counseling.

Discernment. Everything else is just fear. A gift in its own right, but not what should guide us or them.

I got a follow-up email not too long after the initial one, by the way. The matter was resolved after the police department determined this wasn't a "stranger danger" situation after all. There are bad people out there, and I ache for every parent whose child has ever been a victim of one. But there are good people out there too, and maybe our kids need to be aware of them as well.

More Than . . .

One morning last year, I sat my youngest child on the counter so he could watch me make his egg. He said, "Mommy, I wish you weren't already married to Daddy, because I want to marry you." I said, "Oh, trust me. As much as you love me, you'll love your wife someday even more."

I hated admitting that to him.

He gave me a hug and said, "I'm in love with you."

Of course, five minutes later he was in love with his shirt, his shoes, Curious George, his scooter . . . whatever could hold his attention. But if I rank up there with a monkey and his favorite mode of transportation, I'd say I'm doing okay.

He just headed outside with his helmet so he can ride his bike around our driveway for a few minutes before I call him in for bed. He's singing and making up the lyrics as he goes along, standing up on the pedals to show off to his sister, and then swinging his bike around in the other direction for a new set of lyrics. And I have to say I'm in love with him, too--in love with all of my kids--even more than monkeys, scooters, applesauce, and diet wild cherry pepsi.

That's always been a common game my children and I have played when they're still young enough to gush over me: "I love you more than . . ." And "anything" is always the shortest and most honest answer, but it's cheating as far as the kids are concerned. According to their rule book, you have to really think about what you'd be willing to do without if you had to choose between them and the next best thing.

I don't feel I gave up anything when I chose to be here at home with them. It was the right choice for my husband and me, and I'm grateful it was a choice I actually got to make--that circumstances haven't dictated my decisions in this regard.

Yet recently I've been thinking a lot about the role of a SAHM in 2011. We have it easy in so many ways. Come on. Admit it. Don't give me, "Yeah, but mothers 50 years ago didn't have to worry about the X, Y, or Z." At the very least, we have it easy as far as the actual work required of us is concerned. I don't know about you, but I don't have to wash my clothes by hand. I don't have to beat my rugs outside. I don't have to scrub my dishes in a dry sink with water I hauled up from the creek and then have to take outside to empty when I'm done. I don't have to grind the wheat for my bread, bake the bread, pick the beans, dry the beans, cook the beans, slaughter the pig, and hang it to cure in the smokehouse. I don't have to sheer the sheep, dye the wool, spin the wool, and make my own clothing. And all of that before breakfast.

What I do have to do is figure out how to let my kids head out their own without circling above and over and around them. I have to figure out what "stay at home" means when I've had the luxury of defining "home" as the place I get to be with my children. I have to figure out how to give them--my kids--up to the big scary world because I love them. I have to figure out how to make my life as meaningful from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. as it is from 3:31 p.m. to 7:59 a.m. I have to decide how much of what I do is about making our home into a home and how much is about making myself into someone they can call "home" just as I call them "home."

I'm in love with them all. I love them more than anything, even myself. That's the easy part. The challenge is making the "even myself" mean something.

Fearless

When Ivan, my youngest, was four, he took swimming lessons not so he could swim in case he fell in the pool (which yeah, that's important, of course) but so he could swim when he dove in, did flips in, cannonballs in, belly flops in (intentionally), all of which he'd been trying even without knowing how to swim. And he was four. Four! Sure, I was proud of that tenaciousness. But I was also a little scared of the fearlessness this kid showed--and still does. He jumps into the pool, into trouble, into a crowd of kids, into life without worrying about how he's going to swim back to the side after he gets there. Daily life with him is unpredictable and erratic and frustrating and exhausting and insanity-producing . . . and exciting and wonderful and gratitude-inducing as well.

Not too long after starting those swim lessons, however, he showed a moment of fear. Ron took him to the deep end of the pool and, with the lifeguard's approval, let him onto the diving board. Now, Ivan had dived into a pool before, but the diving board was much lower than this one and fewer people were watching. Ivan got to the end and froze. He looked around, saw all of the eyes on him, and started to cry. He turned around and headed back for Ron, who assured him changing his mind was fine, and the two of them sat down for a few minutes before Ivan looked at the board and then back at Ron and said, "Daddy, I want to try again." So Ron took him back, Ivan headed to the end, and jumped in without hesitation.

More than his fearlessness without thinking of what will happen next, I admire this kid's willingness to do something he is afraid of. That was not me at four or six. That was not me in elementary school or middle school or high school or college. I still don't think that's me. Part of my refusal to try is my unwillingness to fail. Failure scares me to death. And I know that confession shows off my immaturity, my self-consciousness, and in turn my vanity. Because that's what fear of failure is, really, isn't it? The fear that someone else is going to see me as less than I want to be and the admission I'll have to make to myself that I have yet one other weakness, flaw, or area of complete ineptitude.

One of my favorite books is Moby Dick. Yes, really. I read it once in high school, once in college, and then again after graduation. I didn't like it at all the first time, tolerated it the second, and loved it the third. I was determined to like this book, and it became an obsession for me. One of my favorite lines is delivered by Starbuck, the first mate: "I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of the whale."

We so often think of fear as paralyzing, which it can be and which it has been for me in many respects throughout my life. Lack of it, however, is recklessness. So how do we acknowledge our fears and learn to overcome them, use them to our advantage, without ignoring them completely and putting ourselves and others--whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually--at risk?

Ahab wasn't afraid of Moby Dick. Ahab hated Moby Dick. He wanted his revenge on Moby Dick. We all have a great white whale in our past that has beaten us, even ripped our leg off. Do we go after it again and again until it destroys us and those we love, claiming courage rather than stupidity and megalomania? Ahab said, "Ignorance is the parent of fear." He claimed to KNOW the whale, and therefore had no fear of it. So does knowledge shield us from ignorance? Yes. But stupidity? No.

This is where I am in my parenting lately. I want my kids to be courageous. I want them to tackle what I never would have dreamed of tackling at their age. I want them to ignore what people say they can't do, even ignore what their fear is telling them they can't do. I want them to have huge dreams and I want them to do what it takes to make them come true. And I'll help as much as they let me. But I don't want the whale--that uncontrollable aspect of nature and human nature--to beat them. I don't want them to get out on that dinghy and think, "Crap. Mom should have told me I didn't have the right life vest on for this one. And she should have told me that freaking whale is a lot bigger up close."

School starts here in another week. My oldest starts high school. My second oldest starts junior high. My daughter starts fourth grade--the first year she'll get actual grades and not "shows improvement" or "needs improvement." And my fearless six-year-old starts elementary school where he'll mix with the big kids instead of being king of his own little castle at the kindergarten. It's a scary year ahead.

So the most I can do right now is agree with them that the diving board is more frightening than the kiddie pool. Then I'll cheer them on to get back up there anyway, and keep my fingers crossed that nothing in the water is going to surprise any of us.

Feeling It

I've kept a journal on and off (mostly off since getting married) for the last . . . let's just say since I was in sixth grade. Only it wasn't a "journal" then. It was a "diary." Journals are for record-keeping and for passing on to your children's children. Diaries are for burning before anyone else can find them and decipher the bubbly letters and the various initials of the boys you were madly in love with from week to week.

Oh, yes . . . I had a diary. And I wrote in it faithfully. Important stuff like, "He didn't even look at me today," and "I got a new haircut. I wonder if he'll notice." Or there's my very favorite: "All hope is forever lost." That last one was an entry in and of itself--no clues as to why I felt hope was lost, why ALL of it had to be lost, and why ALL of it was lost . . . FOREVER. But I'm pretty sure the hope was concerning the boy who didn't look at me and probably didn't notice my haircut.(You know who you are, SW!)

Last summer, I looked up from my driveway and caught my youngest (five at the time) tearing a hole in his screen window with some piece of hardware that had ended up on the ledge. Ready to lay into him for destroying our house, I took the stairs two at a time up to his room. And there he stood sobbing, looking out at the other kids playing in our backyard. He was completely oblivious to my impending rage--too caught up in his own sorrow.

So I took a deep breath and knelt next to him on the floor. He glanced down at me and then crumpled, heartbroken, into my lap.

He'd been betrayed by his sister and her friend. Of course, he didn't put it quite like that. It was more like, "They dared me to pee in the pool and then I did and then they laughed at me and said they were going to tell on me." And it wasn't the "telling on me" part that upset him. It was the realization that the three of them weren't in on the fun together: it was them against him. They weren't laughing with him: they were laughing at him.

I didn't have the heart to punish him for the hole. I realized while he cried and cried, and it had "only" taken me thirteen years as a mother to get there, that my feelings are no more valid than my child's. Perhaps they're even less valid at times, because they're complicated by logic and a facade of maturity and the need to be the adult.

I've worked a lot over the last year to slow down my "reaction time" a little. I've tried to be six and nine and (heaven help me!) twelve and fourteen when I'm dealing with my kids' emotions. I've tried to take the steps one at a time instead of two. I've tried to take more deep breaths and to imagine what my children would write in their journals about who didn't understand them or notice them or simply listen to them.

When I was in high school, I went on a huge Richard Bach kick. Jonathan Livingston Seagull wasn't enough for my sixteen-year-old self. I had to read everything he ever wrote. (Weaker teenagers would've collapsed under the weight of my microcosm.) And one of my favorite quotes of his was "Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true."

Okay, so that one doesn't really have a lot to do with the point I'm trying to make here, but, like I said, it was one of my favorites. However, he also wrote, "The simplest things are often the truest." And what's simpler than a child's emotions? Kneeling down on the floor next to a child in the midst of a tantrum--his or yours--is the best and fastest way to figure out how to calm the heck down.

The hole is still in the screen. Unlike the little boy who made it, it's small enough to be inconsequential.

What Happened

This is a hard post for me to write. My heart is pounding a little faster than usual, and I'm thinking about stopping and just never writing this at all. Because I've done a really good job for the last 12 days of not thinking too much about what happened. That's what I call it: "what happened." Or "the accident."

But things are slowing down a bit: fewer doctors' appointments, fewer hospital visits, fewer headaches, fewer vomiting episodes. But also fewer hours of sleep each night because no matter how tired I might be, depression and anxiety have been known to keep me relatively sleepless for months at a time.

First, she's better. That doesn't mean she's fine. She's nearly back to her normal self, and if you didn't know "what happened," you wouldn't know anything had at all.

Second, my nine-year-old daughter was hit by a car on July 3 while crossing an intersection with my 14-year-old son.

She'd walked with my son, husband, and in-laws to go watch fireworks at a nearby park. Originally, I'd said no, it's too late, the kids need their sleep, fireworks aren't even a novelty anymore, so why bother. But they were all in such a good mood and I thought, fine, it's summer, even if they don't sleep in we can survive a day of them being a little tired. Then my 12-year-old wanted me to drive because his ankle had been hurting him. I said okay, and then my six-year-old wanted to ride in the car as well.

I dropped my older son off at the park then headed to look for parking. I found a spot on a street not quite a block away. I took my youngest's hand and walked a few yards before remembering I didn't have the chairs. So we went back to the van, unlocked the back, and I grabbed them. Then off we went again.

Then as we neared the intersection, I saw a little girl get hit by a car and fall to the ground. I got out my cell phone and started dialing 9-1-1. As I watched the street, I saw someone try to pick the girl up, and I yelled for them to leave her where she was, to wait for the paramedics. Then I heard a man shout and run to the girl. The street was dim, but I could see it was my husband. I thought, good, he'll take care of the little girl. Kneeling next to her, he was holding his arm out and shouting for cars to stop.

And that's when I finally realized that little girl was my little girl.

My husband moved her to the yard at the other side of the intersection. Because there were no police on the scene yet--and hundreds of people milling about waiting for the fireworks to start and cars still looking for parking more than they were looking for pedestrians, let alone children lying in the street--keeping her where she was would have been more dangerous than picking her up.

By the time I got to her, I was calm enough to try to calm her. She was crying and scared and had no idea what had happened that day, why she was lying on the ground, why her head hurt so much, or what the boom of fireworks in the background was all about. The paramedics eventually assured us there were no external injuries aside from the abrasions on her arms and legs, but, of course, they were worried about her head b/c the driver's side-view mirror had hit the back of it hard enough to spin her around and throw her to the ground.

Once she and I were in the ambulance, she began screaming at me to wake her up. And then she began screaming for her dad to wake her up, even though he wasn't there with us. She was convinced she was dreaming. And I realized at that moment how completely helpless I was. Holding her hand and shushing her gently and talking to her and singing to her--none of that helped. She just wanted to be woken up.

She had a concussion and was kept overnight in another hospital for observation. Her memory came back over the next 24 hours. She now remembers it all, unfortunately, and has nightmares. But at least I can wake her from those.

She also has/had a small subdural hematoma--too small for surgery. For the first five days, she couldn't keep anything down except enough liquids to keep her hydrated. She was given a blessing that fifth day, and by that night, she was finally able to really eat something. She's only improved since then, although she has double vision, which the pediatric ophthalmologist says should go away within the next six months. We're waiting for word from our doctor's office about a referral for a pediatric neurologist. We hope to get her in either today or early next week.

It could have been worse. I'm no polyanna when I say that. I'm not sitting here at my laptop shrugging my shoulders and saying, "Phew." I'm saying: it could have been worse. And how worse is what keeps me from sleeping. It also could have been better. I could have said no, we're not going. I could have insisted she ride with me. I could have left the stupid chairs in the van and gotten to the corner in time to hold my daughter's hand myself and crossed her myself. She could have been my responsibility that night instead of someone else's. Which is why I don't blame my son for walking her across at the wrong moment. And I don't blame my husband for not having hold of her himself. I'm the safety freak in this family. It's my role and it's one I've generally been pretty good at.

But it's not guilt that digs into me or makes my heart race or my hands shake. It's the tenuous hold we all have on life. It's the alternative realities any one of us might be living if even one event had played itself out the tiniest bit differently.

I was telling one of my sister-in-laws that sometimes you have to believe in miracles because otherwise you have to believe in good luck. And if you can believe in good luck, you can believe in bad luck. And good luck has to run out eventually.

The first few nights after the accident, I waited until she was asleep next to me in bed (she won't sleep anywhere that isn't beside me) to cry--from relief, fear, visiting those alternative realities for too long. And to bring myself back to the sound of her breathing, I had to chant to myself, "I have her. I have her. I have her."

I still do keep that mantra running through my mind. I have her. I have my other three children. I have them all. They're mine. They're here. And for all of this, I am incredibly blessed/lucky/grateful. I do know how much worse it could have been. And when I'm not aching over the thought of not having all that I have, I'm aching over the thought of all those who don't have what they once did.

We're not all the way to fine. But we will be.