The Water Lily

Wife, friend, daughter, sister…Identities are made up of so many experiences, relationships and histories. Our present-day selves informed by past incarnations. Each layer building on the last, like the ruins of a city unearthed in an archeological dig.

Yet, some changes to our identity are so dramatic that metaphors like this are no longer adequate.

Mom…Becoming one is such a cataclysmic shift that life is divided into a “before" me and an “after" me. A more apt metaphor for birth is an earthquake that changes the shape and look of the landscape.

Everything is still there, but different.

When I write about being a friend, a wife or a daughter now, I filter my thoughts through the lens of being a mom. Or I write about how these different identities inform who I am as a mother.

The daughter, the sister, the neighbor, the parts that exist outside of me as a mom have not gone away. Sometimes, it takes someone else to remind you of the “before” you.

Special Needs Teacher...My years in the classroom definitely have an impact on the kind of mother who I am, but in subtle ways that are less accessible from day to day. You probably don't even know about this identity. I haven’t written about this past on my blog.

But Kristi of Finding Ninee wrote a post called I Don't Know Who I'm Crying For that touched me so deeply that I had to respond.

She wrote about Kelly, a mom who tried to kill herself and her 14-year-old daughter, Issy, who has autism. Kristi’s reaction was filtered through her own experience as a mom to her son, Tucker, who has special needs. I venture to guess that such a brave and honest post could have only been written by a mom, and a mom as amazing as Kristi. I doubt that the "before" Kristi could have written it with such raw candor and vulnerability. Here are some of her words:

…I don’t know who I’m crying for. Am I crying for Kelli? For Issy? For Tucker? For me?

Yes, I guess. But I’m not sure.

I am sad. I am mad. I’m mad at Kelli. I’m mad at the situation. I’m mad and scared and hurt and worried that, in some cases, special needs people are SOMETIMES violent. I think that the fact that special needs can include violence is the hardest thing of all for me.

I keep erasing my words. I have to ask myself what bothers me so much about this.

What I’ve come up with is that I don’t want you to think that Tucker is like Issy.

I don’t want Tucker to be like Issy...

Kristi goes on to wonder how violence fits in our world. I am grateful that she has agreed to publish my response to her query. I'm grateful for Kristi's many identities -- my friend, mom to Tucker, writer, passionate crusader for children with special needs, compassionate carer of us all.

I'm honored to have my post on her blog. It's called The Water Lily, if you would care to take a look.

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Photo Source: Flickr, Donna Sutton

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Claire liked Thanksgiving at her grandfather's house in Florida. She would run up and down the sidewalk in front of the house in the sun. "Moon! Moon! Moon!" she called out to the big sky, even though it was the middle of the day.

Then, a popping sound brought her to a dead stop. The quality of her voice changed. "Loud," she said tentatively, while her legs carried her backwards. "Pop…Pop…Pop, Pop," rang out in rapid fire. She raced to my side and cried, "Loud!" This time with more conviction. I tried soothing her, but she couldn't get used to the sound. Eventually, we went inside.

Claire was hearing a firing range about a mile away from our gated community. It seemed counterintuitive to say to her that everything was alright. After all, gunfire should be feared. But it was unsettling to see her so upset. There really wasn't any danger anyway. And I was angry that she couldn't continue to play. I wished that I could explain to her that it was ok to ignore the popping sound, like the rest of us do.

Just like I've learned to ignore that people fear their children dying everyday. The sound of the firing range began to feel real to me too. I tried to imagine what I would tell my daughter then. I pictured what a fear-filled life would look like. I envisioned my daughter's world shrinking to fit into a small, sheltered place. I thought of the unimaginable happening.

Oh, but I think too much; I went too far with the last bit. So I reminded myself that it was only a firing range, that we were free from harm behind gates and privilege.

I felt safer again. I felt thankful for our life.

But I had gone back to ignoring. And I felt ashamed of myself.