Month: December 2016

It was a quiet and unassuming Tuesday night around the dinner table. I happily had both of our girls that night for supper. As we tucked into our pasta, peas and roast chicken, I asked my usual series of questions for the girls when they’re together around a table.

How were you proud of yourselves today?

What new thing did you try today?

Have either of you so far failed this week?

And so on…

These are questions I’ve gathered from books or blogs and the girls excitedly raise their hands to answer them. Anna, almost 7, is a bit more practiced with telling her stories and shares poignant insights into her day or the week thus far. Landon tries to keep up, usually adding something about trying a cucumber, the playground with her buddies and dancing with Ms. Robbins. One or both of them will then make up a joke that’s something about a cow crossing a road, and the moooovies. It’s adorable, light fare for a weekday. It’s also my favorite thing in the world, to have them here, opening themselves up to me.

There we sit, as the glittered trees on the table reflect light in our eyes, laughing at age-appropriate and bizarrely themed knock-knock jokes. When… suddenly… Landon jolts forward, coughing with her whole body, struggling with food in her throat. I lunge toward her, but quickly she is able on her own to clear her throat. Phew.

We take three deep breaths, sip our milk slowly. And I kneel before her.

“Landon, was that bite too big for you?” I say hiding the slight panic in my voice.

She nods “I’m okay momma” she says, going back to bopping her head from side to side.

“Landon, mommy will cut these up smaller, but even when I can’t, you need to take smaller bites sweetheart. Your airway is really small, baby. Right here (as I point toward my throat), it’s little. Promise mommy you’ll practice taking smaller bites, okay?”

“Okaaaaaay,” she smiles.

Anna, inquisitive about the world as ever, asks me “why is her throat really small?”

Without thinking or skipping a beat I say “Landon has a rare syndrome which means she’s built a little bit differently- smaller ears, smaller airway.”

She thinks about this, cocking her head to the side. “What’s a… syndrome?” Anna asks.

Right. Syndrome. A big word for small girls. One I use so often that it comfortably now sits on my most used words list and one I rattle on about with pride.

I freeze for what felt like 10 minutes but in reality was mere seconds. Showtime, mom. I felt instant pressure for a life changing conversation, one where you must use your most perfect words. Words that express a definitive, science-related answer while also conveying love, compassion, acceptance, and yet I should not make a big deal out of it. Super easy and no pressure. Go!

“Great question, honey. You know how we all have things that make us different or unique? Well, a syndrome is when there’s a collection of unique things…or differences that commonly occur together. We know that they occur often together because there’s a group of people who all share these same things. And Landon has one, it’s pretty rare actually, and I am constantly connecting with people from all over the world who have it.  Cool, huh?”

I took a long, audible, deep breath and I study each girl. Anna is nodding, and says “that’s cool.” Landon is not paying attention to me, which is normal when there’s pasta in front of her.  When she looks up at me she says “knock knock” and I know the lesson is over.

A first. Explaining this stuff to the children, to which I belong. These words: differences, syndrome, Treacher Collins, bahas, cochlea, surgery, microtia. I have thought and written often about discussing them with the public, with specialists, with other people’s children, even with bullies.  And yet, I had not given sincere thought as to how to define them or discuss them properly with our own children. Probably because of Landon’s age, and the fact that she has no clue she’s any different than her peers. And well, frankly, I had not been asked anything yet.

I am still thinking about that dinner. About my answer. Still hoping and wondering about what resonated, if anything, with either of them. Still second guessing my chose of words and if I should have expanded. What else can I say that empowers them to answer questions they may get? Was my answer too “Merriam Webster- esque?”

All of us “different” parents will face these kinds of questions, and some will be infinitely harder. We can only answer honestly, with love and acceptance, all the while cutting ourselves some slack. We will get better at all of this, the longer we’re in this game.

A lesson I’ll do my best to remember myself.

XOXO

Eloise

“It was the day the world went wrong
I screamed till my voice was gone
And watched through the tears
As everything came crashing down

Slowly panic turns to pain
As we awake to what remains
And sift through the ashes
That are left behind

But buried deep beneath all our broken dreams
We have this…hope.”

Staring at these lyrics this weekend, I wondered if I wrote them two years ago or did someone else hear my story and put music to it. The initial part of the song, and my story, isn’t a new one- more of a cliché in fact. The message of hope, however, is one I feel we need to talk more about.

Hope was something I was luckily able to grasp from the beginning. Although the start of the separation was infinitely painful, there was an air of hope. The most critical element of this hope was that it was in relation to myself. I had hope that I would feel like myself again, love myself again, and be that example of love and strength for my daughter. My life before and my life now do not resemble one another in the slightest. In shedding that pain, self doubt and shirking the stranglehold of expected deceit I felt free. There was immediate hope that tears would be replaced by laughter. I would return to the girl I loved from my teenage to early twenty-something years. That was certainly a time of sadness, like a death of a family member, but in my hope I found my breath. I found the ability to get out of bed in the morning – even in a starkly quiet, solitary apartment with poor lighting. Hope was a unique feeling – one exemplified by a private smile I would share with the music playing on the radio while driving. In meditating on feelings of newness and restorative self-love, I began to return to a life of poetry, books and music, of deeper mediation and healthier forms of exercise. Truly, the word hope meant self.

I stopped hating my body and comparing it to others. What was the point? I’d bared a child for goodness sake- damn that is impressive work. Be gone with the thoughts that if I was younger, prettier, more fit, than the marriage would have worked. I started to read every book Thich Nhat Hanh ever wrote. I watched Brené and Glennon on TED Talk’s website. I decided that I’d pour only goodness into my soul – I was in charge of the contents after all!  It wasn’t all rosy, as you very well know, and I’ll come back to that later. But self was the mission and dammit I had hope for what I might still become.

Messages or conversations of hope are all around me these days. Whether it is a reminder of our SC motto, “while I breathe, I hope,” or several conversations recently with other mothers going through separation and divorce, hope is something we all need even while living our best lives. A common thing has continued to emerge, however, around my own hope or hope I’ve seemingly given others. Comments are made or sentiments shared that because I’ve now found my great love, hope is now alive in me or now a part of my story. The pervasive thought is that hope is only tied to another person coming into your life.

My loves, this cannot be the way. Hope needs to solely be about your own journey. Emerging from the ashes – of pain, failure, separation from your child(ren), hatred from the lips of someone you once loved, and the feeling that you disappointed your little world- is freaking hard. Knock you down, drag you out to the curb hard. Finding hope can feel impossible some days. Yes, this is true. But the hope you seek is in your own heart, in your own mind.

If you are dealing with anything like this, my wish is that you find enough patience within you to enjoy this journey. That you will see a beacon of hope swell as you grow, and change, and turn love inward. I know wholeheartedly that my relationship has blossomed and quickly evolved into a blended family and impending marriage only because of that work within. Without the hope I held for myself, and the efforts I made to heal, I could not love another let alone another’s child.  We all deserve another chance at true happiness, what I want you to understand is that begins with you. Just you. And you can’t rush it, no matter how much you want to.

As we take these steps toward our second marriage, as we continue to develop deeper bonds with our step-children, my future husband and I both will continue to work on ourselves. Having both come out of divorces, we recognize this unique and life-lasting relationship with ourselves. Each person will need to find time to continue the healing, continue the growth and development necessary to teach our girls.

To all of you who have reached out with love, thank you. For those of you in pain, who are struggling or separating or divorcing, keep the hope for yourself alive. Remember that you do matter, your voice and your feelings are important. Breathe life and love into your heart and from there everything will blossom.

May you gain more and more trust in what is challenging, and confidence in the solitude you may bear.

XOXO

Eloise