Mother's Day Eve

I described last Saturday to a friend, and she said it sounded like a bad country song. Challenge accepted!

Note: Although it's not country, I sang it to "Piano Man". I'm not familiar enough with most country songs.

It wasn't the best day in history,
my last Mother's Day Eve.
It was only the tip of the iceberg
when our new puppy decided to leave.

Then my son soiled his pajama pants
--that's all the details you get--
Threw 'im in the tub to clean him all off.
The knob blasted off; all got wet.

Hurry! Shut off the well water
though we're stinky from shearing our sheep.
Grab your shoes and get in the car--
Got to get a part a'fore we can sleep.

Heading to town, our car broke down--
steam's bursting up through the hood.
To be fair I must mention friends happened by
To help us get back on the road.

Life gives you plenty of ups and downs.
The lesson I learned this time
was that when you look at your troubles
they always sound better in rhyme.

Unglued

My desert garden needs a touch of personality.

I'll make dinosaurs, fun for my kids to look at,

and superglue them to the rocks

or they will shatter in clumsy hands.

I take my birthday clay and shape

my first,

a megasaurus:

long tail, head sideways, claws curled.

Each time I set him to dry I must reattach

a limb.

An arm fell off, a leg, his head.

Then for shaping, peeling off the extra,

smooth with gentlest sponge.

Claws fall off.

Well, I can paint over that.

Right?

Set him to dry, two weeks this time.

Hue lightens as he ages, terra cotta to vague gray.

All in one piece,

he looks as good as my imagination.

Take him down to paint.

I'll make this a fun activity,

earn good Mommy points,

so I pull out a lesser statue for the boys.

Leave the room to retrieve the paint.

Crash.

Tattling: "My brother broke it."

Dinosaur is in pieces.

Broken.

I put him on the shelf,

say I'm sad but do not yell,

earn good Mommy points.

Later, send them outside.

Superglue his arms, a leg, his head.

Cracks remain, and pieces too small for the glue.

I can paint over that, right?

Begin to paint.

Nudge his head.

Head falls off.

Scream at the universe:

"I am having a bad day!"

Wonder, is there some Meaning,

a parable in this tale?

I am the statue trying to fit the ideal,

sometimes coming unglued
or losing my head.

I retreat, let the frustration dry.

Later I'll get the glue

and try again.

Under cover

The baby is sleeping.
The morning is aging.
I should be out of bed, but
warmth and comfort live under the covers.
My body curls around her,
my protecting arm replacement for womb and flesh.
Baby faces are angelic in sleep.
Memories awaken,
another morning just like this,
and I cannot seem to discern
which baby I hold.

My Mother Loves People

My mother loves people

the way people love chocolate

or kittens or movie theaters.

She smiles, meets their eyes, learns their names,

and speaks with sunshine in her voice.

Her easy words would be wrong on my tongue.

I love people differently.

I see a stranger. I prepare to speak

But...

What if they are offended?

What if they feel obligated to listen

when they are bored, uninterested, don't care?

Perhaps I should not risk

their happiness for my desire to connect.

Any words may give awkwardness, offense, even pain

but if I offer love

people can choose which to receive.

So I smile, meet their eyes, learn their names,

try to put Mother's sunshine in my voice.

The words are not easy but I practice, I try

because we love people,

my mother and I.

Labor diligently

In our family scriptures, we are reading Moroni chapter 9, easily the most disturbing chapter in the Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, this lesson jumped out at me. This is the prophet Mormon writing a letter to his son Moroni.

"I am laboring with them continually; and when I speak...with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it." (Moroni 9:4)

Does this sound familiar, moms? Wives? Anyone else with a stewardship over other people? I suspect we all find ourselves in that 'neither option works' situation from time to time. If I tell the kids to stop doing something in a nice way, they ignore me. If I put consequences behind it, they get mad and collapse in tears and still don't do it. If I try to hustle the family somewhere, I get grumpy and we're late. If I don't, I'm not as grumpy but we're still late.

What can we do about it?
The answer is in verse six. Labor diligently. Keep trying, because the responsibility is ours whether or not it has any effect. As Mother Theresa said, "It was never about them anyway". Mormon and Moroni had a tough job, called to be the last warning between the people and utter destruction, a warning that few people were likely to accept. As we keep reading I'm going to be looking for ways that they coped with it, but for now I know that it's important to keep laboring.

And the end result? Also in verse six, to conquer the enemy of righteousness and to rest our souls in the Kingdom of God. I don't know about you, but that last part sounds really good about now.

Grief

I don't know how you feel.

I have no words that will fix everything

but I can tell you how I feel.

Grief is a hole ripped out of your heart

and if you place your eye to the hole

you see yourself

staked to the center of an empty universe.

When life becomes normal it is still a minefield

of innocent words,

innocent moments

that trigger an ambush from your emotions.

They pull off scabs and leave wounds

raw, open, bleeding like brand new.

Which emotions? Good or bad?

I can't tell. I'm too busy

trying to wipe my nose unnoticed.

I used to think of Hope as a bright flame

that warms your soul and drives away the shadows.

Sometimes that is true,

but even when not, hope is a bulldog's teeth

that cling to Truth and do not let go.

In each ambush I feel storms rage

and I know I could be crushed,

torn apart by their fury,

but my teeth are still set

and I cannot be blown away.

Unexpected Gifts

On Sunday I listened to a talk on being grateful in the midst of trials. President Uchdorf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explained that we should have an overall spirit of gratitude even when we have little to be thankful for. I have heard sisters express this before, that they were grateful for the experience gained from a trials, but that it would be too much to be grateful for a trial itself.

Well, perhaps sometimes, but the talk brought to mind one trial that I am sincerely grateful for. One of my greatest blessings was a day of illness. Perhaps I had ordered something off at the restaurant we visited, because I spent the night exploding out both ends. The next day I had a fever and spent the day in bed. Why was that one of my greatest blessings? Because I spent the whole day cuddling with my baby boy, who would unexpectedly pass away just a few weeks later. I have plenty of regrets from the night he passed away, but one pain I have not had to face was the regret that I didn't spend enough time with him. There is nothing in his little life that I would change, and that has been a huge comfort. I treasure that day, never mind the fever, never mind the unpleasant night before. I don't know how many of our trials are like that. Probably more than we realize. For most of our trials, it takes longer than a few weeks to realize how great a blessing they were, but I'm sure that day is coming. Perhaps it's the author in me that looks forward to that day so eagerly, for the time when the stories are made whole and we can look back and realize the meaning and order and wholeness that were there all along.