Tag Archives: children

But still it falls

30 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by in parenting, PTSD

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I haven’t written an entry in a while. I was reading a lot on PTSD–very specifically, testimonies of people who recovered from PTSD– and realized I’m not who I used to be seven years ago. And when I write, it is not really me writing so much as it is my disease. This disease which has infected my body and mind and heart and soul. This disease which has taken away the best of me and hidden it deep beneath its darkness and claws. And why would I want to give this awful disease a blog.

A lot happens in seven years, in any seven years of any given person. And my seven years are no exception. And I have told myself it is these things, these hundreds other things that come into our lives in any seven year period, that have changed me. Not the one thing that has. But it is not these things; it is *the* thing. That one thing. The ordeal, I call it. My trauma.

My husband is getting his house ready to sell, the house he’s had since his son was a baby. And he tells me about the boxes of old cards and letters and pictures he goes through as he packs up a decade and a half of memories. I don’t save those things, I tell him. That’s odd, he comments. I don’t save the boys drawings either, I remind him. (He’s the one who does) You’re right, he says.

They could be gone. Gone at any moment. You shouldn’t get so attached. But I’m not talking about the drawings and letters. I’m talking about my boys. My boys that perp said he’d kill. My boys I thought he’d kill. My boys I placed in God’s hands that day I called the FBI to turn him in.

They were so small. Soldier boy had just turned four. The Ax was two and a half. They still took bottles to bed at night and wore diapers.

I gave them over to God and turned him in because they deserved a mother who does the right thing. Because I had a choice: body or soul. But that’s really not much of a choice, now is it.

Princess is two and change and so was The Ax when the ordeal started. I remember taking them sled riding when it snowed early that winter. It was a snowy winter. It was a snowy lake town we lived in then. I remember riding down the little hill in front of our house and giggling.

I remember the possibility. Life held so much possibility.

Right after the ordeal, right after he went to jail, I spent my weekends going door-to-door campaigning for Obama in rural western Pennsylvania (Pennsyltucky). I walked up and down the streets of Saltsburg getting out the vote. The audacity of hope and all that.

When Soldier boy was born sick, I formed the Pittsburgh chapter of MOB ( mothers opposing Bush) and spent the fall going door to door with him strapped on my back. Little old ladies saying I should be ashamed to have a baby out in the cold and the rain. I thought they didn’t get that what I was doing, what I was giving him, was so much more important than keeping warm and dry at any cost.

But the election of 2012 came and went and I barely noticed. For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t care about the election. Not even a little.

My therapist asks me how I did when my husband went out of town this week and I tell her it was like it usually is. She asks what I did to try to raise my spirits and I tell her I was up late making buckeye balls for the cookie exchange at work and put on old Obama speeches from 2008 on YouTube to listen to to try to perk myself up. She tells me this is not a normal thing, not a typical way a person tries to cheer themselves up. And I remember going door to door after the trauma and I tell her. And I remember going door to door after Soldier boy and I tell her.

There was hope then, right after the ordeal. But somehow it has drained out of me since then. These seven years. I do what must be done. Because it must. I go through all the appropriate motions. Day in and day out. But… The world is infinitely smaller now. Duller too. Flatter. It’s kind of like a book you don’t bother finishing because you can guess the ending.

But therein lies the rub. One of the things I must do is give my kids the life they deserve. I cannot teach them the world is small and flat and dull. Because it’s not and part of me knows that in some small way.

When I was in the midst of my ordeal I found myself in an impossible situation. I told myself, for our children we make the impossible possible. And somehow I got through it and put the bad guy in jail. Now I’m in an impossible situation of another kind.

I am not the same person I was seven years ago and neither are my boys. The snow’s not the same either. But still it falls.

Of Santa Claus and Mama Lions

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in empathy, Evil, kids, love, outrage, parenting, Rape, Sin

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

My husband recently informed me my nine year old son no longer believes in Santa. My ten year old with autism still believes. He told me he wants an English policeman costume for Christmas. When I told him that might hard for me to find, he said, don’t worry because Santa can make anything. He said Santa would make it because he doesn’t really believe in elves anymore. I said, so just Santa? He said, well Mrs. Clause too. Obviously. It would be lonely at that cold North Pole without someone to come home to.

My husband and my ex-husband as well don’t really agree with the Santa thing. You shouldn’t lie to your kids, they say. How could they ever trust you once they find out the truth. You lied, you lied! All those years, all those lies! I’ve gotta admit, when they say that my first thought is just, WTF? Are you serious? Then I calm down and formulate a more helpful defense. It’s a little moment of magic we give them for a few years. It’s what childhood is supposed to be. They have the rest of their lives to come to terms with reality. Give them a little piece of magic before the, lets be honest, rather brutal process of growing up begins. They will come across so many lies in their lives told for unkind ends. If we can tell a few to make the brief flash of true childhood a little more magical, I say, do it. I say, it’s not fair for us to impose the world as we see it on them.

There is a truth to Santa. He may not be a man, but he’s the personification of all we feel and hope for them. He is what childhood is. And I hope that’s what we want for them.

I’ve come to realize that protecting childhood is more important to me than almost anything in this world. I don’t mean spoiling kids, I don’t mean coddling them. I mean keeping them safe, giving them room to be themselves, fostering their confidence. When they are young, giving them a time of sweet oblivion from the way of the world. As they get older, leading them into the world as gently and meaningfully as we can. Cradling the fragility of what is true about that childhood innocence intact into the fallen world so they can thrive despite it all and hopefully do some good along the way.

As important as all of this is to me, there is an accompanying … frustration. Yes, we’ll say frustration. We’ll be diplomatic. A frustration with adults who derail this in the less obvious ways. Obviously, there are those who deny kids safety, whether it be sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual. There are those who are not strong enough to let them be themselves. Those who allow their own wounds to keep them from letting them know how wonderfully made they truly are. And frustration is not the word I use for these adults. They are what’s wrong with this world. They are original sin.

The ones I am frustrated with are not the wounded, the evil, the weak. They’re the ones who never really became adults themselves. The ones who do not know the evil this world holds, the suffering, the injustice, the unfairness. Does that sound mean? Bitter? Pessimistic? If so, you may be one of these adults yourself. Before you get all defensive, let’s look at the facts:

1 in 4 girls will be sexually molested in some way
1 in 3 women will be sexually victimized in some way in her life
1 in 4 women will be raped in her lifetime (rape being specifically vaginal or anal penetration)
1 in 6 boys will be sexually molested in some way
That’s in the U.S.

22,000 children die from poverty a day worldwide
28% of children in developing countries are underweight or growth stunted

So, yes, the obliviously priveleged adults of this world frustrate me. They’re safe and warm in their cocoons and the children of the world are outside left on their own. They ignore the safety so many children are denied. They cannot prepare any of the children to make that transition from the innocence of early childhood to the world of trouble and sin we live in. They need to get their asses out here and get to work.

There is a lot of work to do.

I am, above all, a mama lion. For my children and for all the others. Children need milk and play, to learn to fend. They also need a mama willing to rip out the intestines of those who threaten.

Man up, people. Be the mamas they need.