Coping with what is

 Five kids is actually hard. I love them all, and I wouldn't not have them, but this period of taking care of a baby with four bigger kids is hard. Maybe some are better suited than me at this. Maybe they can take it all in stride, but some days are a struggle. And mostly I am coping and making it through, but it is tiring. And perhaps this is redemptive suffering, and perhaps this is how I am to see God right now, in the inability to just be free, but to have limited abilities. I know I feel this each baby, and perhaps this is my last baby, and it feels like it is,  it feels like its harder and harder each time to take another on. The thing is, is that I absolutely love this baby, despite his colic and need for constant motion. Actually that makes me love him more as I have to get outside of my head of what I know and think should be happening be present to what is. So we carry on as hard as it is trying to learn and to love. 

Baby memories

Trying to remember bits of a 5th baby's life: 

Early Oscar memories: 

 You started mimic smiling at 4 weeks old and now you like to greet if each morning with a few. 

At 5 weeks old you rolled from back to belly trying to get to me to nurse. Your mama was amazed. 

You really seem to like to listen to music, especially Jack's Mannequin and The Rocket Summer

You like to be in motion: walks outside, running stair laps, dancing, rocking in the rocking chair, and bouncing in the exercise ball. 

You love to wiggle, punch and kick

You like to snuggle close cheek to cheek. 

You enjoy the sound of the fan and that is running water. 

Sleeping on mama and daddy is the best. 

You seem to be an early riser and get up for some quiet mama or daddy time before your big siblings get up. Sometimes your biggest sister will get up too and you enjoy her quiet presence too. 

You like the car when it's in motion. 

You are well loved by all your adoring fans, each in their own ways. 

Statistics aren't helping me

It's been a strange week, as I am now overdue. There was a death from covid and a wedding announcement and tons of snow all in one week. Statistically my head says this should already be over, and yet I am not. I am still miserable and huge and waiting. Part of me thinks that I am not allowed to have these nice things, that perhaps because I have taken steps towards healing myself, that somehow I won't be allowed to get what I want. It comes from a long line of many of my big supposed to be good exciting life events being attempted in sabotage. It becomes a head game to the nth degree because I absolutely want to delight in these moments of non repeat and yet sometimes, I just feel on guard that someone is going to take this from me. So what to do, go through it? Yep. 

Here are a few things that I am trying to delight in: 

1. Some beautiful friends took all 4 of my external children sledding this morning without me, I got to have 2 hours to myself to run errands and do some solo walking in a nearby neighborhood.

2. I have enjoyed watching Gilmore Girls with Helena, just cuddled up beside each other. 

3. So many people have asked how they can help and I am doing my best to try and let them. 

4. A neighbor snow blowered our driveway earlier in the week just in case the midwife needed to get here in the foot of snow that fell. 

5. Most people are kindly checking in on me to make sure I am feeling okay instead of just in a way of producing something. 

6. My midwife will kindly chat with me and listen to me in a way that is kind and respectful. 

7. I am enjoying watching the big kids take care of Stella, its not always perfect but they truly care and its wonderful to see. 

8. My next door neighbor, whom works at the local coffee shop, just kindly listen to me while I shed a few tears in the drive thru.

9. My Target order was correct today. 

10. All the librarians know me and kindly wish me well and safe deliveries and will feed my kids with their lunches because its sometimes just really hard to do all the things.

11. Our local recycling initiative is being well received. 

12. A husband who is able to understand and also willing to do way more than his share in these last few weeks. 

13. Middle of the night chats with God and sometimes my husband if he happens to be awake too. 

14. My almost four year old's antics of being a mermaid and her constant imagination. 

15. How big H is getting in her understanding of things. 

16. Just the feeling of love from so many neighbors that are picking up groceries and making meals and helping with replacing overused baby things. 

Maybe I can do this. 

Delight

 I did the word generator of the year mini program from Jennifer Fulweiler and got the word delight. I mostly passed it off when I got it. I didn't think much about it except that it was a good sentiment. That sure I could be a bit better at delighting in things. And then I had a nightmare and woke up sobbing in grief. 

That grief had me realizing how much I've conditioned myself not to happy or delight in big life events. Every birthday, every holiday is a struggle. I'm 4 weeks till my due date of my 5th baby that I'll hopefully get to see grow up. Even writing that was a struggle. I am at the end where everything hurts and I'm not sure what will actually hurt to do or not. But the thing is that I am so close to the end of gestation and while my body aches from 5 full term pregnancies and 2 others that didn't make it there, there is a tiny person that I get to meet soon. One that seems to be active and curious about the world be already.

I want to delight in these moments where perhaps it normally is a struggle due to past conditioning and circumstance. I don't want to hide, even though it's very easy for me to shell up and just be. So I'm going to try my best to find some peace and joy and delight in these last moments of not knowing. Thanking God for these days with my four bigs before my responsibility changes and my abilities change once again. 

Some more contemplation

 I have been awake for over an hour, earlier than I usually awake. But that happens sometimes in this state in my life. Because I am awake, I have been trying to understand a differing opinion than my own that I heard the other day. It may have just been yesterday, I honestly don't have the greatest concept of time in pandemic life. So here it goes anyway.

A person stated that their spiritual health is more important than their physical health because they will eventually die anyway. I am trying to comprehend this. I know as a Catholic, outward signs of inner graces are very important to one's faith. You have the Eucharist, Confession, baptism and just all the smells and bells that go along with Catholicism. Having Jesus present in these outward signs is amazing and not to be taken for granted or shoved out completely. I think where I am struggling with this type of statement about spiritual health is that it disregards other in these times of pandemic. That the second commandment that Jesus taught us somehow gets thrown out the window. 

Yes spiritual health is important. I am definitely not saying that it's not. But I think in these times its misconstrued. That sense of entitlement that one must have an all access pass at all times to all the sacraments. Perhaps we as a society don't even understand how our sense of individuality has colored how we think of spiritual health. That as long as I am good, then the rest doesn't matter. 

God is not a safe God, Yes, we know this. He challenges us to do dangerous things when its for the good of another, and perhaps at times for our own life. Perhaps though, there is somehow something skewed in our American pandemic spiritual health thinking. Is it instead possible to experience God in ways that are unknown to one? That prior to pandemic we became comfortable to having God one way, almost on our terms. Is it possible that we are being called to experience him in different ways right now? To maybe identify with those that don't get to have access to the sacraments daily or weekly or even monthly. Recently, I read a book on the life of Saint Damien of Mokolai. He was unable to participate in the sacrament of confession for long stretches of his life as he served the people of Mokolai. And at one point when he finally saw his superior bring out supplies to the island on which he was serving, he had to scream out his confession to God in another language than those around him knew. He so badly wanted to receive this grace. The one thing though was that he was patient with his circumstances. He knew he was doing hard things, things that were really tough, that his health would deteriorate, but he was doing it for another. 

Honestly, its a complicated thing this pandemic. Yes we should be keeping others well being a priority, Jesus said to love one another. There are many facets to what that includes. However, what is our motivation. Is it to make us feel better? Or is it because we really truly want to put another ahead of ourselves? There wasn't as much known about disease spread in earlier centuries. In times like the plague, when Kristin Lavransdatter fictionally existed, she went head first into caring for the sick and burying the dead without any precautions. They just didn't have them. When Saint Damien lived on Mokolai, they didn't have fresh running water so he had to make access, so disease was rampant. Saint Damien didn't risk others lives though, he risked his own. I honestly think that's a big distinction in these pandemic times. 

Doctors and dentists and clerks and teachers are risking their own lives for the greater good. But is the person that refuses to change up what they are doing and shouts "I will only live free", are they motivated by Jesus's love? Or are the motivated by there want for a sense of normalcy? Are they just trying to run away from suffering? Suffering is unavoidable, and ultimately it brings us closer to Jesus. When we hear the cries of those downtrodden do we ignore them and say this isn't what it used to be or we are past this, or do we listen and ask what do they need to feel loved? 

God is always there, perhaps remembering that can bring you through uncertainty. That in this week of joy in Advent, that maybe our joy is in that we are never alone even if people have abandoned us. That God is there, and perhaps calling us to make sacrifices for him and another, well that again is joy and perhaps we can rise to the occasion, not abandoning our spiritual health, but increasing it. 

How do you reconcile?

 I am not sure why Americans are so set on individualism and being right. Perhaps its our founding fathers, or the pioneers that were imperialists that saw those there before them as uncivilized instead of different. That somehow its still so highly prevalent in society to have non-collectivist thoughts. That we say we want to protect the most vulnerable and the supposed truly religious will fight every election for the rights of the unborn, but then absolutely turn their back on every other hurting most vulnerable group because it doesn't line up with their ideals. That somehow because they have lost their innocence in the world, somehow that makes them less vulnerable. Perhaps its that they are harder to deal with, scars and bumps and bruises and all. But how did they get those scars, from our own want to be right, to be in power, to be comfortable in what we know. It's absolutely difficult to truly want to get outside of one's comfort zone. We instead a lot of times will do the bare minimum to feel better about ourselves. And if someone does go above and beyond we think we could never do that or that they are crazy or just a Saint for doing so. Are we then actually trying to be Saints for Jesus, or are we just trying to get by in our comfy homes without distress?

I read the book Kristin Lavaransdatter about two years ago, and it still sticks with me. She was someone that struggled internally and externally with her choices and still felt it her duty to help the helpless and in the end she actually died from giving dignity to another. It's difficult for some of us to see our own sacrifices as something that is saint making, but instead we see them as maddening, and perhaps its because we are absolutely terrible at boundary setting. Yes, people are suffering other than with the actual disease of Covid-19 but is there some way we could actually see our discomfort as something that is life giving to another. That in some ways its an absolutely visible bit of redemptive suffering. I remember contemplating redemptive suffering for a while and trying to figure out why us as humans struggle with it so very much. I concluded that within it being doctrine, only Buddhists and Catholics attack the subject at all. Unfortunately, in America, we are absolutely very Protestant in our understanding of life, that even Buddhism and Catholicism take a cultural aspect Protestant of throwing out redemptive suffering. So we bicker and we argue that we are suffering too, and yes, yes we are so very are, but can we do something with that suffering, or does it just sit there?

I don't know what is going to reconcile us as a nation to heal all the wounds we have uncovered or highlighted this year. So much has been spewed at us that our brains are barely keeping up and for many, there is no longer the ability to discern what is truth. Perhaps we can start by setting those healthy boundaries of saying no to what is necessary to understand who God wants us to be and then to offer our own suffering for those more vulnerable than us. 

There is another part of this reconciliation that is way more vulnerable to me, but perhaps its for another day. This is what I can offer today. 

It's November

 I don't normally like November. It makes me sad with less daylight and cold rainy weather. And then there was a due date of a baby that was never born alive and a death of a grandmother in the mix. It is usually just a hard month. 

Is this November different? I think through all of what 2020 entails one thing is that I feel more aware of things this year. Like how when each tree changes color and how for a while it was all the oranges and the browns from the oaks with the purples mixed in there and then it was the yellows and then the reds. And there are still a few trees hanging on to their leaves, but most are done. We have enjoyed the leaf piles as most are more attentive to what's happening in their own yard. I think at one point an entire car was buried in leaves because there were so many collected in one spot. 

This November came with an election, and its been fascinatingly scary to see how the current administration refuses to acknowledge a loss. But then how many people are mobilizing for a coop. I think yesterday, there was super spreading coronavirus event with thousands of people marching together sans a mask and this was all to support the current president and deny the election results. 

It's fascinating to go back and look at how this amount of insanity has come about, perhaps in a crazy sad way. Many people back in 2008 thought that Obama was just a terrible person and they would spread these falsities about him. Then, when it came time to speak with their candidate they voiced them, Sen McCain debunked them every time. Somehow with Trump this hasn't happened and he has spread more nonsense, so the rumors have catalyzed into not understanding what is reality anymore. I've read many pieces trying to understand how this actually all happened. Why it's possible that someone who is of terrible character can still be the best person ever, and its just very sad. Somehow, we have forgotten what truth is and then we have forgotten about the dignity of the other. That black lives do matter and that immigrants at the border and in our communities do have value. And it is also so very hard to see the dignity of the other when they are spewing vitriol words at you or justifying killing someone because they weren't an honor student of life. 

It feels like for some reason because our country was founded on non-compliance, its just become a shouting match as we move further away from ties with other societies. We refuse to acknowledge that even if our intention wasn't to hurt another that we truly have hurt them. And even if we did intend to hurt them that we don't want to lose power or the sense of what we know to be because that's unraveling.  But as hard as it is to see the mistake in the sweater and know that it's not fixable without undoing all those stitches, those stitches need to be unraveled. The mistake needs to be acknowledged and corrected to move forward with a functioning sweater without holes. If the hole is there or the forgotten wrong, there is always chance for unraveling when you least expect it. At the very least, you need to go and sew in that loose stitch, secure it and make it feel acknowledged and cared about even if you cannot make up for the trauma it is experienced. 

No one wants to suffer willingly usually unless they are a willing martyr. We all try to run as far from it as possible, and we would rather be cushy in our homes and lives than acknowledge that the person two towns away can't feed her family because her job just doesn't pay enough to do it and to get government assistance, well that doesn't work either because she can't find the time among her responsibilities to be able to take the days off to fill out the paper work and sit in the lines for it. I was thinking the other day how the local hospital that is more accessible to those of less wealth and people of color on our side of town runs its psych department, that you have to show up for hours just to be evaluated to be paired with a counselor and it might not even happen that day, so you have to come back the next day. A struggling person doesn't have all that time, and yet that's the person that could use that person to gain perspective. 

I am sure I don't have the answers on how to solve all the things, but I will keep praying, trying to learn and see a person as a person and not a statistic. So, maybe this November is simply a take stock November for me and maybe for you too. It's certainly got a different feeling to it than the last one did.