With Reckless Compassion

Oldest Daughter has been a joy and a challenge to mother.  She lives life outside the box, and even then, she pushes against boundaries.

She is a thoroughbred, who thrills at taking the turns at full speed, a hair’s breadth away from careening over the edge.  It is exciting and it is scary and I am rarely sure which emotion is more appropriate.

Today, I know. 

Today, Oldest Daughter was out to lunch with a friend when a young teen at a nearby table started choking.  Oldest Daughter didn’t hesitate.  She didn’t concern herself with the fact that her First Aid card has been expired for four years.   She didn’t think about the fact that she has only ever practiced the Heimlich maneuver on a lifeguard’s practice dummy.   She didn't freeze.   She didn’t avert her eyes and wait for someone else to step forward.

Today, my reckless, daring, out of control daughter stepped up and stepped in.

Today, my phenomenal daughter saved a life.

She literally saved a life.

Today, I know that I am not the only one who is grateful beyond measure for the blessing that is Oldest Daughter.

From the Top of the Mountain

This fall, a little bit before Halloween, I received a bill from Oldest Son’s college listing a balance due on a previously paid in full account.  The federal student aid had been withdrawn.  I was on the phone to Student Accounts in a heartbeat.

“I thought that the fact that my son moved off campus this year wouldn’t have any affect on his financial aid,” I accused indignantly.

The gentleman on the other end did not take offense.  His name is Cory.  He remained calm as he explained to me that the grant was not withdrawn because my son moved off campus, rather, it had been withdrawn because my son had withdrawn from school. 

“No he didn’t.” I argued.  “He was just home over the weekend.  We talked about his classes.  He is still enrolled.”  I realize that my voice is starting to become shrill. 

“Well, if he is, he had better come in to Student Accounts and talk with me because we think that he has withdrawn.”

“I will do that!”  I almost choke on the indignation rising in my throat.  I am ready to drive the five plus hours to the college and do battle with the incompetence of the staff in Student Accounts.

I frantically begin calling Oldest Son.  He doesn’t answer.  He must be in class.  I text him, “Please call me ASAP!!!!”

I call again.

I text again.

He f-i-n-a-l-l-y calls.

My heart is racing.  I can barely breathe.  I can’t believe the school has messed up my son’s financial aid! I tumble over my words in a rush to get them out.  “Student Accounts doesn’t have you listed as being enrolled!”

Oldest Son is silent.

 

I babble on.  I am in overdrive and I don’t even know what I say.  I just know that it is NOT okay for the school to screw up like this.    All my mama bear instincts kick in and I am ready to go into battle for my son.

He says n-o-t-h-i-n-g. 

I use the quiet to take a breath.  I attempt to center myself.  I look around the room and start silently naming the things that I see.  Computer.  Pen.  File folders.  Bulletin board. Desk lamp. 

And then, he speaks. 

“I am not in school anymore.”

That’s all he says.  No excuses.  No explanation.  No details. 

“I’m not in school anymore.”  It echoes in my head, bouncing off my visions and hopes for him.

“I’m not in school anymore.”  The heaviness of his words sinks deep into my heart, and I ache for him.

The ache washes away shrill and angry.  The ache transforms hurt and confusion.  The ache breaks open my soul and I become my son’s pain.

“Oh sweetie, that must have been a hard decision.  I am SO sorry you felt like you had to make it by yourself.  Can you tell me about it?”  

With short, halting words, he explains his reasoning.  I gather his pebbles of truth and their combined weight drags me thirty years back in time.

I too am a college sophomore and I am having almost the same conversation with my mother.  I am talking to her from a small, cramped and sticky phone booth outside my dorm room.  Stale maltiness of spilled beer wafts up from the carpet. There is rubbish in the corner, a used kleenex and crumpled Hershey bar wrapper.  I kick it with my toe as I explain to my mother.  I am so worried about disappointing her.  I know I have fallen woefully short of her expectations.  More than anything in the world, I want my mother to be proud of me…just as I am.  And in this moment, I know I have just sucked her dry of every ounce of pride.

And I ache.

I ache for nineteen year old me.

I ache for my nineteen year old son.

I ache for my mother who has always, always, always wanted the best for me.

I pile the pain, one on top of the other.  There is a mountain of pain.  The mountain reaches into the sky, stretching towards the sun.  Towards warmth.  Towards Light.

Forty nine year old me climbs to the top of that mountain.  From the pinnacle, I can see so clearly.   I throw open my arms and welcome the Light.

“I am so proud of you!” I whisper into the phone.

Beloved, Blessed and Broken

Some days I feel so broken.

I am Humpty Dumpty and I just don’t fit together quite right.

I am jagged edges and missing pieces.

I am a sieve, grasping at my emotions;

I cannot hold them.

I am a bottomless ocean of salt water sorrow.

I am sucked dry.

Some days I am blessed in my brokenness.

I lie shattered into broken shards of glass;

Each piece becoming wholly beautiful as it captures the Light.

I am in the company of forgiveness.

I know the constancy of the Divine.

I am filled to overflowing.

I am Beloved.

Who Da Man?!

I am out for a walk with the dogs and Young Son when my cell phone jingles in my pocket. 

 

“Mummy!” a concerned voice squeaks, “the car won’t start.”  It’s Young Daughter.  She is not a child who loves surprises.  She is a planner, and being stranded at rugby practice is definitely not in her plans.

I move swiftly into soothing, fix-it mama mode.  “Has everybody else already left practice or can you get a ride home?”

“No, I think I could ask someone for a ride.”

“Okay.  Lock the car and see if you can get a ride home.  We’ll go back later and fetch the car.”

I say this with calm and authority, as though I know exactly how we are going to get the car fixed and home.  I don’t.  What I know about cars could fit in my pinky…could fit in the nail of my pinky…with room to spare.  Nonetheless, I act the part and deftly steer Young Daughter away from panic and back to a place of reason and comfort.

I hang up the phone and begin my journey around the clock.

At six o’clock, I am angry. I am so tired of this car!  Even though it’s been a couple of months since the last “difficulty”, all of my frustrations with this car come crashing over me, in this moment,  with the force of Multnomah Falls.  I am saturated by anger.  Why can’t I just have a car that goes from Point A to Point B reliably, with no drama?!

At nine o’clock, I am ready to blame the man who recommended that we buy this car.  What good does his confidence in this vehicle do for me now?!  If he wants to guarantee the car, he needs to make sure he is available when it turns out he is WRONG!! 

Mercifully, I quickly speed towards twelve o’clock.  Twelve o’clock gets me all the way home.  At twelve o’clock, Young Daughter calls me and tells me she is at her father’s house.  Safe.   I smile.  Young Daughter HATES to ask her teammates for rides.  Asking anyone for anything makes her extremely uncomfortable.  The fear that the answer will be “no” has her tangled in a steel mesh net that makes any movement impossible.  And yet, clearly, she asked someone for a ride and clearly, someone gave her one.  How wonderful is that?!  Young Daughter found the courage to risk a “no”.  And she received a “yes”!  I love that she stepped outside her comfort zone and found a warm, receptive environment.

Young Daughter and I drive back to the park to see if we can get her car back home.  When we arrive, Young Daughter groans when she sees a men’s rugby team getting ready to practice.  “I thought the park would be empty,” she grizzles.  “Now everyone is going to see us looking like idiots!”

Young Daughter is painfully aware of my lack of mechanical dexterity and I am reminded of the painful reality of being 17. 

“Not to worry,” I chirp, clearly slipping into deranged mama mode.  We park and walk towards her car.  She slips quietly into the driver’s seat and hunches down, her six foot frame folding into itself so that her head barely clears the top of the steering wheel.  She turns the key in the ignition.  Click.  Clickclickclick.

“See,” she wails in a whisper, “it won’t start!”

“Pop the hood,” I say.  I mean my words to convey confidence and authority.  I fall short, and instead land dangerously close to pitiful plea.

Young Daughter complies and I prop the hood open.  My novice knowledge tells me that the empty click sound is related to a battery problem.  I look at the engine and my heartbeat begins to accelerate as panic sets in. 

“Where the heck is the battery?!!”  My eyes dance frantically over the engine, in a Riverdance of rapid fire movement.  Finally, in the back left corner, I spy the elusive box and I allow myself to breathe.

The red wire looks frayed and it seems to be untwisting itself from the terminal.  I loosen the wing nut and take it all the way off.  I try to weave the splayed ends back together and squish it back around the knob thing.  I hold the wire in place with my thumb and forefinger and screw the wing nut back down, pinching my finger in the process.

“Okay, try starting it again,” I say, stepping away from the car. 

Rrrrr. Rrrrr. Rrummm.  The engine catches and the car starts!

I dance around the car holding my hands in the air demanding a congratulatory high five from my daughter. 

“Yeah, who da man?” I strut.

Reluctantly, she joins the celebration.  “You da man!!!” she replies, and her pride in us explodes with a flip of her hair and a dimpled smile.  Suddenly, she is sitting straight up in the car and looking around to make sure the people in the park who she had hoped wouldn’t notice us, did, in fact, notice us. 

“We are amazing competent women, aren’t we?!” she grins.

“Yes, we are,” I reply.  And in this moment, I am so very grateful for the blessing of the car and I am loving the view from three o’clock.

Standing By

Being a bystander, in my mind, has always meant watching from the sidelines.   A bystander assumes a certain degree of passivity, standing outside of and separated from the action.

But when I flip that notion on its head, a bystander becomes one who is standing by.

Suddenly, I am central to the action and I am required to make a conscious choice about how and whom I want to be.

My perception first began to shift after attending a training on violence prevention.  The training was based on the work of Dorothy Edwards, and educator and counselor who realized that, in spite of the 30 plus years of attention that have been given to the prevention of violence against women, the numbers have not gone down.  Statistics like 1 in 3 and 1 in 6 give testimony to the fact that power based personal violence is still occurring at an alarmingly high rate.  It is Dorothy’s hypothesis that, bystander intervention can drastically reduce those numbers.

When I talk about power based personal violence, I am talking about any action, attitude or behavior that uses power and control to justify violence against another.  Domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, elder abuse and bullying are all forms of power based personal violence.

Most people would agree that none of those things is acceptable.  And, in the past, most people have decided that that agreement is enough.  Most men are not perpetrators and most women need to believe that they will never be the victims. 

And yet, here I am, getting ready to send my youngest daughter off to college and I hear statistics like, 1 in 3 women on college campuses will be raped!  That is not okay.  It is not okay for me to hand this problem off to my daughter and explain to her that this is what it means to be a woman in our society.  It is not okay for me to put all the responsibility on her to keep herself safe.  It is not okay, because it won’t work.  If it did, the statistics would be different.  If it did, self defense classes would be enough to protect us from violence. 

They aren’t and they don’t.

They don’t, in part, because we think of rape and abuse as the explosive event.  Intervening at that point is too scary for most of us, and rightfully so.  But what if we viewed abuse on a continuum?  What if we learn to recognize the moment we first become uncomfortable?  What if we become sensitive to the danger before it becomes dangerous, like an animal that raises her hackles when she first smells danger?  If we could do that, we could be amazingly effective standing by-ers. 

And the good news is, we can! Actively standing by can happen in the lives we are currently living.  No one needs to become a feminist or start working for a domestic violence organization or begin attending awareness events.  The only thing that needs to change is that we need to become conscious. 

You can’t ever un-hear numbers like 1 in 3 or 1 in 6.  It is up to each of us to intentionally decide whether or not we are going to choose to ignore those numbers. 

If you choose to ignore those numbers, I am going to ask you for a list of all of the people in your life.  Then I am going to ask you to circle the 1 in 3 or 1 in 6 whom you are willing sacrificing to violence. 

If you choose to say “no” to violence in your world, I am going to ask you to become an active bystander.

Actively standing by can mean that you stop laughing at oppressive jokes.  It can mean that you offer assistance to the harried mother who is yelling at her two toddlers because they have stretched her to her breaking point and are gleefully bouncing on her one last nerve.  It can be posting information about domestic violence services in your community on the bulletin board at work/school/church.  It can be making an agreement with your friends about how each of you plans to get home safely from a party.

Actively standing by means that each of us takes personal responsibility for making our community a safer place.  It means that we consciously move from six o’clock, where we are shaking our heads and ranting about the GD SOB’s who pollute our world with violence, towards three o’clock, where we join hands and stand together for peace and say “I see you.  I am here for you.  I am here with you. You matter.”