Reflections on a Mother's Love: Milk, Cookies and a Carelessly Tossed Gym Bag

I snapped this photo this afternoon, shortly before leaving my parents' house after a brief overnight visit. The scene is a vivid reminder to me of what being a mother is all about.

I arrived at my parents' house close to midnight last night after driving from my graduate school class in Jersey City. My octogenarian parents were in their pajamas in the family room, waiting up for me, even though I told them they could leave the back door open and I could slip in. They turned off the television and my mom served us all milk and cookies.

We talked for nearly an hour, me sharing my tales from this fall's teaching, and they shared a story about one of their nine grandchildren, who recently found an excellent solution to a struggle.

Death Is Not "The Worst Thing About Life"

On this most difficult day I am thinking about death.

Last night, on my way out of my graduate class in Jersey City, a friend texted me to let me know our next door neighbor's infant son had died suddenly. I spent the long drive home talking to Ruth. When I got home at 11 p.m., I sat in my car in the driveway, crying and still talking with her and noting that all the lights were on in the family's home and all the shades drawn. My friend and I were grieving, trying to make sense of the unimaginable.

Summer Moments: Toddlers and Cats

I was heading out of the car from a dinner date with my husband just now and a family with toddler twins was on the sidewalk in front of our house, intrigued by our cats.

My Life is Beautiful, Even When I'm Bone Tired

I decided to post this picture first to remind myself that my life is beautiful. This was the front of our house yesterday. New Jersey has been hammered with snow and the boys and I had yet another snow day from school. I am tired, bone tired, between working full time, taking two graduate classes in Special Education, advocating for our own son and helping to organize resistance to our local Board of Education, which hired a technocrat to run our local public schools and who seems intent on destabilizing our tiny school district. And so it is I find myself sitting in the family van at the end of another long day, unable to find the energy to open the door and walk into our home.

At the End of A Difficult Day, Love Endures

 

I had a tumultuous traveling day, flying from Newark to Birmingham, Alabama, with a layover in Detroit. I forgot some important items at home, which will make my travels difficult. Tonight I find myself visiting with old parish friends before I tour civil-rights sites in Alabama and attend a teachers' conference in author Harper Lee's hometown. How ironic to find myself here, in a state that has endured so much violence and racial strife, on the day a Florida jury found an unarmed black teen's killer guilty of absolutely nothing. It can be so discouraging, this search for justice.

A Catholic School Closing Hits Close to Home: "May Our Tears Be Turned Into Dancing"

My brother and his wife are raising three children just outside Washington, D.C.  This year, their children's parochial school is closing after 60 years. The school was founded by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and became run by lay administrators and teachers about 10 years ago. Nationwide, hundreds of these Catholic elementary schools have closed due to declining enrollment,  secularization and rising costs.

On Mother's Day and Doubting Children: What Would You Do?

This morning, Mother's Day, I received a tearful phone call from a friend of mine who lives in another part of the country. I will keep the details vague so as not to identify or embarrass her. But really, her struggle is one most mothers of faith face: what to do when our children begin to question the truths with which we have raised them?

My girlfriend's son is 14 and he isn't "scheduled" for Confirmation for another two years. The age of confirmation, I have learned, varies diocese by diocese. Our eighth grader, still 13, will be confirmed next Sunday for example. My girlfriend is distraught. Her son told her he isn't an atheist, but is wondering whether the truth of the faith is really the truth. He told her he's agnostic. What's a mother to do?

Celebrating a Perfect Gift!

Today I got to help my friend K., who teaches at the same high school I do, celebrate her daughter's first birthday! It has been a long time since I have been to a child's birthday party, given that our own sons are 13 and 16 years old. So I didn't mind driving an hour each way to help her large extended family and circle of friends celebrate Joy's first year on the planet.

Amid Lock-Downs, Christ is Coming

As a public school teacher in the United States, I am accustomed to lock-down drills. In fact, as it happened, we had one Friday. We have one once a month, as the state of New Jersey requires. We have "non fire evacuations" and "lockdowns" and "active shooter" drills. The teens in my care know what to do; we turn off the lights, we lower the shades, we huddle in a corner and we stay quiet and we wait until the all clear. I can see from the news coverage that those kindergartners and their teachers were trained too, on how to deal with a shooter in the building.

At Sandy Hook Elementary School, teacher Victoria Soto knew to hide her children in closets and lockers and the children knew to keep quiet. In this way, she saved her first graders, but lost her own life to the shooter. How is it this is the world we inhabit?

Yesterday, I felt like our Church's liturgical calendar was off kilter. Today is Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent and we are called to rejoice. This made no sense to me. Today, after Mass, I understand. "Rejoice the Lord is nigh," the readings tell us. My heart is heavy. How can we rejoice? At Mass, I cried. So, too, did an older woman in the pew behind me. Parents who normally let their young children walk beside them in the Communion line were carrying them, holding them tightly. Rejoice?

AP photo of a mourner at St. Rose of Lima Church in Newton, Connecticut

After Hurricane Sandy, My Children Help Me Keep Going

 Yesterday while driving out of the Home Depot parking lot,  I began to tear up. Our 16 year old son's words kept me going.

See, I had checked my facebook before heading into the store. I discovered two CL friends are homeless. The boiler in their apartment building in Manhattan's financial district blew up as Hurricane Sandy plowed through. They are scrambling for a warm place to sleep. (They have temporary lodging in New Jersey).

Then, as we walked into the store, I was puzzled by rows of people sitting in cloth folding chairs by the customer service counter. Some were reading books; one woman was asleep. Why were they sitting there? And then it struck me: they have no heat in their homes thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

It's easy to lull myself into thinking life is back to normal. Our home now has heat, electricity, cable TV, phone and internet service. But life is anything but normal for millions in our region. Our children are old enough that their sense of optimism has kept me going in moments when I am tempted to sink into despair.

Our Graffit-Covered Garage Teaches Me a Lesson

Our garage is not attached to our house, which is more than 100 years old. Our garage is built of concrete and our house is so small that it has been years since we actually put a car in the garage. Instead, our garage became the dumping ground for all kinds of stuff - broken bikes, empty paint cans, rakes, rusted garden tools and lots of leaves. It really was one of the grossest places on our property. I think it had been months since I had stepped foot in it. Still, I didn't expect to discover in the early fall that a certain preteen, because he was "bored" this summer, had chosen to spray paint the walls and floors of this most unlovely garage.

To say my husband and I were not pleased is an understatement.

I am not even showing you the worst of it, because his graffiti included a vulgarity. 

Miracles at the Minor League Park

The parking attendent at the Mercer County Waterfront Park promised me the skies would clear by 7 p.m., just before the start of tonight's game between the Trenton Thunder, a Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees and the Reading Phillies, a Double-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. And the skies did undarken, just in time for my family to participate in a remarkable National Anthem. 

"Everything Becomes Sign:" Even at the Swim Club

The Presence of Christ is everywhere: even at our suburban swim club. Tuesday afternoon, my husband and I laid in lounge chairs in the shade beside the pool. Several yards away, a mother spoke quietly with her son, while her three other children waited beside us. I have come to know these children a bit during my daily visits to the pool this summer. "He has a time out," the six year old explained to us. "C. woke us up from our naps when he was told not to. The five year old piped in: "I couldn't get back to sleep."

This Moment: Not Quite Two and Cheering On Dad's Bike Race with a Cowbell

. . . . . . . .

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' at www.soulemama.com.

A Felt Icon for a First Communion

You know what I love about the internet? You can discover all kinds of information with your fingertips AND you can buy all kinds of obscure stuff from all over the world. Quirky things that can actually help build a child's faith and prayer life. Alec, a family friends' middle child, celebrated his First Communion today. That's him at his home next to his dad after the Mass after he changed into a plaid shirt and striped shorts. His patron saint is Alexander of Comana, the charcoal burner. Seriously? I had never heard of the guy.

The Gift of Maurice Sendak

I listened to all four of Terry Gross's radio interviews of Maurice Sendak, the fabled children's book writer and illustrator who died yesterday at age 83. I listened to them as I drove home from work and I kept listening as I drove our 15 year old to the dentist. The interviews moved me deeply. Sendak never shied from facing death, or from living life, or from creating the truth as he saw it. Although he was a man without faith, he was a gift straight from the Divine. I believe right now he is startled to discover himself in the embrace of the loving father of us all.

I was going to write a tribute to him, but I found a much better one than I would have written by Nancy Piccione, book page editor for the Catholic Post. Here it is:

The Flowers Will Have to Wait: On Marriage, Kids and "Love Language"

This afternoon at the end of my workday, I read a post by my friend Dwija over at Catholic Exchange about a couple's "love language." It's goofy terminology but the concept is simple: we all have different ways that we like to be loved. And we should try to love one another they way the other wants to be loved.

I thought about my marriage of nearly 20 years. My husband feels loved with Acts of Service: when I do things for him or the family, mundane but important things like shine the kitchen sink or fold laundry. (As for me, I am all about Words of Affirmation: I feel loved when he says he loves me.)

I checked my email one last time before heading home. My husband had emailed: "call me asap." 

Spring Break: When Desperation Breeds Creativity

Our sons have been out of school since Good Friday and won't be back until next Monday. That gives them 10 days in which to figure out what to do with their time. I am off work too and I get to watch what they come up with. I do let them watch lots of television and play on their Game Cube. To a point.

There are also lots of moments I say to turn off the electronics and figure out what to do.  It is pure privilege to live in a circumstance where my children are able to get "bored." In my first job out of journalism school, I covered a tiny town in Massachusetts and had to file a story a day, It wasn't easy but my editor would tell me: "Desperation breeds creativity." And so it does.

Bigger Picture Moment: So That Our Children Do Not Become Lost....

Every once in a while I am drained by my work with adolescents. One teen's struggle has left me tearing up ever since the school day ended. 

If you are a parent, spend time being truly present to your child today. 

No social worker, no school psychologist, no special education teacher, no behavior modification program or action plan can ever substitute for the incredible beauty of a mother or a father who understands her or his child was summoned into existence and is precious and irreplaceable. 

Without that presence, without that ever-so-basic relationship, it's easy to become lost.

 

Thanks to Undercover Mother for hosting this Bigger Picture Moment. 

 

It's New Year's Eve! Here's a Little Hilarity, Courtesy of our 12-year-old

Here is our youngest, our family extrovert, as he entertains his grandparents and cousins at a recent family gathering.

The boy is nearly always blurry in photos as he is always on the move.

This clip is about two minutes of what must have been about 90 minutes of nonstop dancing. You can hear one of my sister's voices throughout this clip and see his cousins taping him on their ipads.

Have safe and happy New Year's celebrations.