gratitude

When Public Service Becomes Personal

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Black rubber swelled like the underside of a bowl where his toes would be. The boots reminded me of ones I’d wear traipsing through overgrown fields with my dad to frosty deer stands where we’d wait for hours upon frozen hours for some action.

As a fireman, he understands.

“We can go inside where it’s warm,” he said.
“Actually, it’s perfect out here. All that adrenaline.”

His only response was a cough. He pulled from the heavens, covered his mouth with a fist, and heaved with his entire being in a sort of rhythmic chant. Tippy-toes, cough. Tippy-toes, cough.
 I noticed blocky, yellow letters printed to the tail of his coat. Images of smoke thick as fog and helmets bouncing and yelling and duty overwhelmed my mind. It isn’t always waiting and casual calls of carbon monoxide to homes of worried moms in sweatshirts who want to wait on the porch. Sure they play PS4 and I don’t know, compare belly button lint? (Who really knows the goings on in fire departments?) Sometimes though, it’s stepping in engine spills to rescue a baby who isn’t breathing from an overturned car. It’s sleeping bags on dirt clods so they can keep the line of forest flames away from subdivisions. It’s testimonies of abuse and time of death.

It’s always nights away from family.

“What ages are your kids?” he asked.
“So, four, eight, and nine-almost ten.” (because for those few months they appear a year apart I seem to need to explain that I’m not insane, or part rabbit)

Tippy-toes, cough. Tippy-toes, cough.

“They go to school over there?”
“No, we’re the one section of our neighborhood that is fed across the highway.”

His partners updated me on the CO2 levels in various areas of our home. They joked about stealing Lucky Charms and I assured them I’d never notice the difference between their mess and my children’s.

Tippy-toes, cough. Tippy-toes cough. “Should be a nice weekend before the snow hits again.”
“Oh is another system moving in?”
“I think Monday,” he said. “But we’ll have the weekend. My kids will love that.”
“How many do you have?”
“A five-year old, ten-year old, and twelve-year old.”
“Do they go to school around here?”
He mentioned a town near us where pine trees abound and acreage is plenty and my heart resides.
“That is such a beautiful area. We’re looking to buy land and build a home there.”
“Yeah, I just needed more…space.”
Sir, we are speaking the same language.

Tippy-toes, cough.

He described how they evacuated because of a wildfire a couple years earlier. I told him how we’d been evacuated from another, one he’d apparently worked.
“Do you know my friend Derek?”
“Oh, yeah I know him.”
“He loves wildland season.”
“Well, it’s what we’re trained for.” Tippy-toes, cough.

The other two came back, giving me no definitive answers because carbon can be finicky, I’m told. They said to tell my friends hello and reminded me that even small amounts of toxicity still deserve a call. As in, I can tell my husband the freaking out was not completely unwarranted? I’ll be happy to let him know this.

Their heavy soles thumped down my driveway while I thanked my glorious neighbor for letting me wake her in groggy haste.

Thank you, new friends. Thank you for helping my home and community be a little safer. Thank you for your time. But most of all, thank you for caring deeply enough to get to know me.  

I Would Want to if I Didn’t

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Not a corner in our house is sacred when your name is Mom. Not the spaces that lack speakers, Wii controllers, and Disney titles. Not the bathrooms, the pantry, or closets. One would think certain subtle clues would keep the mongrels from disturbing me. Like when I’m in the middle of a sentence on my cell phone. When the doors are locked. Even when I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my car…in the garage. No, they are not deterred.

It’s in one of these situations that the ear-splitting screams of my youngest daughter come piercing into the bathroom. She’s so distraught her lips turn a sallow gray between breaths and wails.
“He jumped on me right here!” she chokes out, hand to her nose.
I’m instantly ready to do battle, which is a conflicting emotion when the enemy is also someone you protect. I take a second to avoid reaction, to keep myself from grabbing him by the hair. Experience has taught me to be wise to the other side of the story.
“What happened? Why did you do that?”
He’s already cracking, holding back his own tears. “She hit me.”
Ah, there we have it. “But you’re so much bigger,” I say. Within seconds I’m assessing the morning and I realize we all need a time-out before this escalates. “Everyone grab a book and get on their bed.” One of the greatest parenting skills I’ve ever learned and will never master: redirection.
“Whyyy?” they moan. Well, because I’m about to tear my eyeballs out, that’s why.
“Go.”

While I really want to escape into the numbing affects of social media, I don’t. We have zoo plans and we’re not going to ruin them. Hopefully all the lions and giraffes and penguins will pull this family back together.

On the drive there I go over what happened.
“Buddy, you’ve been given the gift of strength. You are powerful and jumping onto your sister’s face could hurt her. You might have broken her nose. It wasn’t okay for her to hit you but it’s also not okay for you to body-slam her.”
A giggle bursts out of his mouth.
“Let’s use that gift to protect your sisters, all right?”
“Ok.”

The small one falls asleep (hallelujah) and the older kids quietly listen to music…after elbowing each other and being separated. We bob to the likes of country music with the sunroof open, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I even start to believe this day will turn out.

Then she wakes up sassy and unwilling to do anything I tell her to do. Then the others argue with me about needing jackets and water bottles. Then the walking doesn’t end and the clouds turn no humidity into an arctic blast of frigidity. Then the whining ensues, and though the hippos are heavy with entertainment, the traffic home is not. It’s just heavy.

We enter the house bone-tired and grumpy. Everything is how we left it, all stacks, and strays of crayons and shoes and dishes. My margin for making dinner is thinned to a sliver.

While we eat I tell them how I didn’t hear a single “thank-you.” Of course then they say it as if they’re offering me fresh strawberries, but you know how those taste when they’re forced. Sour. I remind them that they need to respect me, be grateful for a mom who takes them places. Good grief the entry tickets were as much as a third of our grocery bill.

Now this morning I’m looking at a clutter of hair products near a mirror splattered with toothpaste. Demands return, nail polish is painted on the dresser, they fight over which cartoons to watch first, and I wonder why I’m so tired of it all.
When something in me shifts.

I HAVE CHILDREN.

If I didn’t, I would long for the mess atop the counter. I’d do anything to hear arguments about who sits where and who is breathing whose air. I’d ache for bad attitudes after miles of elephants and seals. I’d relish the picking up of flung jammies and washing melamine plates with superheroes.  

Guess who’s ungrateful.
Yeah.

Deeply Grateful

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For a husband who will sing loudly off-key along with the performers of the Macy’s parade, because he loves to make our kids laugh and engage them.

For scattered puzzle pieces that need a family of fingers to make sense of them.

For chives that add just a little something to potatoes.

For a spilled glass of water, because it means I have a little girl who will come tell me in her sweet, three-year-old voice what happened.

For the musical sounds of announcers and fans and helmets against helmets.

For laughter, the kind from the gut.

For hairy teeth, because it means I’ve eaten way too much sugar, and I’ve never really wanted for anything.

For exhaustion, because it means my day, my life is full.

For shoes on the floor and smears on the sliding glass door, because it means I have kids, and they’ll leave traces of themselves.

For lotion, because my hands get so dry this time of year.

For squiggly, fake spiders, because they challenge my son to be brave.

For a beard that makes me appreciate a smooth face.

For a pillow, every night, since the day I started using one.

For a group of people who stared persecution in the eye, who were ready to die for freedom, and who changed everything by seeking out this amazing country.

For a Savior that has given me what I do not deserve.

For all this and more, I am deeply grateful.

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” 

                                                                               -G. K. Chesterton                                                                                       

               

  

Ferris Wheel of Tantrums

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My jaw is locked again, her screams are ringing through my head like the pressure of a sinus infection. They settle into a moan, a forced noise so I don’t forget she’s there. I clutch the oak trim of our counter as I remind myself it’s her choice and I just have to follow through with what I said. Go ahead, be upset, not changing this mama’s mind. 
She calms enough for me to talk to her. But a hug, a kiss, another poor decision later and we are cresting the top of the Ferris Wheel of tantrums once more. Round and round, up and down we go. And I want off the ride.

As with all great battles, we make a peace treaty. I feel certain I am the declared winner, though the true victor is exhaustion. She finally succumbs to her pillow and I melt into every step leading me to the kitchen. I take a deep breath. I need something. Left of the fridge, bottom shelf. There it is, my salvation. Hershey’s dark chocolate Bliss. Oh, it is. I escape, I indulge, I take because I deserve. I’ve just spent the better part of the morning straining, at times unsuccessfully, to stay the adult. What I really should have is a hot fudge sundae so massive in girth that it would only fit in the bowl of our fire pit. But I’m not stocked for this kind of decadence so I do what I can with the candies.

Entitlement, how did I find you?

Really. I am such a political advocate against this kind of thing. I come from hard-work, do-it-right-with-all-you’ve-got parents who taught me never to cut corners. I admire in all three of them a loyalty rarely found anymore. My mom spent over 25 years in one position, my dad has been 35 years at one company, and my stepmom, wait for it…47 years in the same dental office. I believe there is a serious, personal flaw in people who are entitled to everything they want. People, like me.

Yes, I work hard. No I don’t expect everything done for me. But I also want to be thanked for cooking dinner. A standing ovation would be nice after taking care of all three of my kids for the summer. I don’t think a Grande Caramel Mocha is too much for running so many errands. Just a little color for the gray hair I don’t want to admit I have, every two or three months. I need, need a Dr. Pepper on a lonely day, to watch Parenthood every night so I can catch up to season 5, and QUIET. Can I just, get, some quiet?

Granted, none of these things are bad. Balance requires some checked out, veg out, “me” time. But what’s been happening to my heart is ugly. I have become discontent.

Ann Voskamp is teaching me different.

The truth is:

I GET to have three, healthy kids to drive me bonkers. I’ve spent most of my life wanting kids around me and I have not been asked to do without them. 
I GET to stay home to teach my little girl to be respectful even when she’s highly disappointed and angry with her circumstances.
I GET to have a yard that needs mowed.
I GET to have running water, hot or cold or anything in between, so I can wash dishes that served us meals others would call extravagant. Yes, even Ramen. 
I GET to learn the hard, uninspired, meaningful, poetic, regretful, bipolar process of writing that in fact, does touch some of you out there. 

When I know I’m blessed, I become the blessing for someone else. And that’s the place of contentment. 

Thank you. “I say the words slowly, hope they soak into his pores, broken man who yearns to bless, and I am him and he is me and behind the masks we are all the same. All, we only find joy in the blessings that are taken, broken, and given.”                                                             -Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts