Mom's Day

Mother's Day is bittersweet for me. I love my mother, my best friend, with all my heart. But I didn't get to birth children of my own and that is one of my true regrets in life.

Yet, God opens doors. He gave me Jennifer and Tyler -- two of my greatest blessings. He gave me their mothers, two of my best friends. He gave me goddaughters (thank you Jan!) and a bounty of children to love. My "sister" has three children and thankfully, she has commanded that they love me.

You never stop being a mother. Today I was liturgist in my church and I flubbed a portion of the responsive reading. There's nothing like looking into the congregation and seeing your mother say, "You messed it up."

Yes, I did. And thanks Mom. One of your most amazing gifts is to let me know that I mess up and you love me anyway.

I truly believe it takes a village to raise a child. This child is looking at 50, a scant few years away, and realizing the women who shaped me, scolded me, loved me and soothed me.

Here's the prayer I shared with the congregation this morning:

Gracious God,

Today we honor mothers. We thank you for the mothers who gave birth to us and step mothers who stepped up. Thank you for adoptive mothers who grew children in their hears. Thank you for foster mothers who deal with situations most of us couldn't imagine. We thank you for grandmothers who get to love and laugh and send the children home.

Lord, let us also honor aunts and godmothers and all who touch our children. Thank you for neighborhood mothers who instinctively know it takes a village.

Let us also be grateful for Mary, a young mother in a challenging situation, who gave birth to our Lord.
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May your loving hand touch all mothers everywhere.

So, I hope you honor yourself today. If you birthed a child, participated in raising a child, smacked a child upside the head for doing something dangerous or stupid... you have added to the community of humanity for all the greater good.

And may you all have someone who can look at you with a wink and a smile and say, "You messed up." Yes Mom, we all do it once in a while.

Easter Prayers

I pray a lot. I think everyone does. Even people who have no faith seem to call upon a higher being in certain times. I, boastfully, like knowing who I am talking to. (Sin #1 right there -- being boastfful.)

I have never made the connection with the Easter Bunny, the egg hunt, etc. That doesn't mean I haven't participated. I just don't get it. Of course, we did the Santa thing with young children while also recognizing the meaning of the season.

It's frustrating when God answers your prayers and the answer is no. I prayed like crazy for a couple of friends with cancer and yet, God decided to bring them home. Sometimes you've go to accept that God's plan differs from your plan.

But Easter represents new life and new beginnings. So with that in mind, I give you some Easter prayers:

Peace in households, peace in neighborhoods, peace in countries
Harmless animals who find welcoming homes
Children in need who receive help
Jobless people who find jobs
Badly dressed people who get a clue

Ok, I threw that last one in there to make you smile. Happy Easter to all.

Suicide

Yesterday, I put my head in my hands and said a prayer for a lost friend. I received the information that someone I cared about committed suicide.

Very shortly after my ex-husband and I separated, we lost a friend to suicide. This is always heartbreaking and perplexing to me. Is it money? You can't handle that your life has taken a tragic turn? Is it love? Is it having no one in your corner?

Frankly, I believe that every single person has SOMEONE in their corner. Just look around a little harder.

My Aunt Grace committed suicide in my childhood. I was at Aunt Hazel's when we received the word and I'll never forget it.

Take your religious beliefs, your family history and a million other thoughts about suicide. Roll them around your brain. Ok, now you're in my world.

I believe the lyrics from the Kenny Chesney song, "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to go right now." I believe that Jack Kevorkian (Dr. Death) is onto something when he's helping terminally ill people make the transition.

To the best of my knowledge, my friend did not fit either of these situations. He was divorced -- sad but not terminal. He had two teenage daughters who worshipped him. He may have lost some money, a big title and a lot of the perks associated with being a Big Player.

Now he's dead. I will go to a funeral this week. I don't understand it at all.

Why We Celebrate

Illusions, Delusions ...

I'm thinking about holidays and traditions. You know how I love those and you know that I have spent the last year and a half redefining them. I'm thinking about how quickly things change.

One of the hardest things for me going through this divorce has been figuring out traditions and holidays. I still am a little perplexed that I'm not going to my friends' lake cottage over Memorial Day to help open it for the season. And come Labor Day, I'll be equally confused that I'm not breaking my back to carry the furniture to the boat house.

At Halloween, I'm supposed to be coordinating (or at least helping) with the costume golf outing and the dinner/entertainment to follow.

Thanksgiving was at my house for about 18 years or so. And, what do all those people who used to pop by my house on Christmas Eve do now? When our mutual friends get together for New Years, do they celebrate the anniversary that is no more?

Part of the reason we are adaptable is we all love illusions and shun the delusions. The illusion lets us play the role of keeping it all together, putting up a good front. And yes, we delude ourselves.

That teenage girl we know is pregnant but thank God my child isn't having sex.
My son seems a little depressed but suicide doesn't run in our family.
My child isn't a bully.
I don't know anyone who does drugs.

And when we're lucky, smart and all the gooey things in between, we celebrate:

My son just got into the accelerated master's program.
Someone's daughter gets to choose between three schools and great scholarships.
A godchild just got the internship of his dreams.
An anniversary of a marriage that has navigated disaster.
A best friend's child is headed for the Peace Corps.

And that's why we celebrate. Maybe it's a minuscule child hitting his first ball at T-ball, maybe it's taking your mom and grandma to lunch on Mother's Day and realizing a whole bunch of your friends don't have moms or grandmas to celebrate with.

Maybe it's just acknowledging that tomorrow is on the horizon with miracles, disasters and whatever else may come. We celebrate. We love. We delude ourselves and we illuminate our lives. As we should.

Bubble Wrap

Today I was waiting for a friend in Broad Ripple, a little village in the heart of our town. A parent left the stroller on the sidewalk and I noticed the label said, "Remove Child Before Folding."

Have we really come to that?

A couple of years ago, I was on a plane and they announced on the speaker that they would not be serving peanuts because a child on the flight had peanut allergies. They also asked that anyone not eat anything with peanuts during the flight.

Bad things happen.

A person who was scheduled to review photos with our parishioners was called away this week because his son was murdered for his pizza delivery money. Not too far from my neighborhood, a guy was walking his dog and ended up shot in the back, paralyzed from the waist down. This was for $20 and his cell phone which he gave up with no questions asked.

Fear is a fungus. Freaky accidents and violent crimes get the most attention because they are the most shocking and the most unusual. Yet, we all go crazy.

I know someone who wears a pistol strapped to her ankle at all times. In her daily errands and in her own home. It's terribly sad for me to think of her living in perpetual fear.

I know a couple of people from my childhood. They both have three children roughly the same age. For the record, I love all the people involved in this story. But to be honest, I am less nervous with the kids who are allowed to cross the street, crawl in my car, roll with my dog, etc. The other kids are delightful and I'm sure they have their own releases. From my limited view, I see the bubble-wrapped, "don't touch the dog" and "take your shoes off" kind of childhood. Even when my own parents tried to keep me safe, I flocked to my peers and their houses where children fell down, picked themselves up and moved on.

I worked downtown before our downtown was revitalized. For many years I walked 5 blocks to and from my parking spot. Gasp! I was unarmed. I used to beg to walk to school and occasionally my parents let me do it.

Here's what I believe and the statistics prove me out.

A child is more likely to be kidnapped by a non-custodial parent than a stranger.
A child is more likely to be molested by a family member than a stranger.
A woman is more likely to be raped by an acquaintance than a stranger.
Anyone is more likely to be killed by someone texting while driving than all of the above scenarios.

Most people are good. They will call 911 if something seems amiss. They will administer CPR or the Heimlich maneuver instead of stealing your wallet. They will risk their own lives to save yours.

In the 70s, a very young John Travolta starred in a movie, "The Boy in the Bubble."

I refuse to be the woman in the bubble.

Sisterhood

In the media blitz and subsequent judgement of Elizabeth Edwards' choice to write and speak of her husband's betrayal, an important point was lost in the criticism: women should not do that to other women.I've watched a couple of interviews and I've read an excerpt of the book, Resilience. We can all debate whether she should have left him -- probably not considering her health situation and their young children. We can argue about this possibly being a public flogging of him -- probably so; it is her story to tell.The puzzler (among many) is why would a woman intentionally do this to another woman? If she wanted a meaningless sexual encounter with a public figure, she could've targeted a single man. If she was longing for a husband, hearth and children, why seek that by destroying what another woman has spent decades building and nurturing?
A lot of the content is too sappy for me. The affair part is a stabbing reminder that a man she thought she knew took his clothes off for a woman with no respect for herself or the sisterhood of women.