(this was written yesterday, but i had computer issues and couldn't publish, so forgive the tenses. -M)
The boys and I spent an idyllic Saturday morning running a couple of errands and visiting yet another playground. J teaches on Saturdays, so it’s just the three of us, but I have so enjoyed these morning this summer. We’ve made it a mission to explore all the playgrounds within a couple of miles of us, and we still aren’t done—this city is simply full of great playgrounds.
Today’s stop was at one of the nicer city parks, just beyond the highway, right between the hospital where the boys were born and the apartment Joel and I lived in after we were first married. It was also right next to the dog park where I sat in the sun with a large cup of decaf after being liberated from 13 weeks of bed rest. Sitting on that bench watching Joel play fetch with Ivy was one of the happiest days of my life. We’d just come back from the doctor, who remarked that the boys would come any time now, but that they’d be fine. We knew then that the worst of the fear and difficulty was probably over, and after an entire winter inside, our Spring was here.
As the boys played on the equipment this morning, I kept looking one direction toward where my life with J began and the other where our life with the boys began. After we shared a snack on a shaded bench, we took a hike in the direction of the hospital. It was a bit too late in the morning to walk all the way up to the hospital, but the boys were pretty interested to hear that they were born in the tall building we pointed to. We made it as far as a bench facing the river, and I sat down while the boys played with sticks and acorns. Three and a half years ago, Joel, my mother, and I brought O to that same bench for his very first time outdoors. He’d been officially discharged, even though we all stayed in the NICU “family room” we’d been given to stay in until N was discharged too. It was an early Spring, and on our walk, I was amazed to see the late March greenery already emerging. I was still on a walker due to weakness from bed rest, too unsteady to carry O that far, so J had O in a sling, the proud daddy going down the elevator with his newborn baby son in a sling. O was still tiny in that blue cotton sling, yet so round and robust compared to even a week earlier. The three of us were almost giddy to have him there, to be doing something so normal, without machines, wires, or nurses. I remember sitting on that bench, looking at him, taking him from J and holding him against my shoulder and my mom and J stood overlooking the river, thinking, “Look what we pulled off, what we have been given.”
The things we do for our children before they are born are an act of faith. Sure, we bond with them in some way during pregnancy, but we also go into wanting or not wanting to have children based on an idea, a preconception that seeks to justify one direction or another taken. Some of us even have lists of pros and cons—we can’t really help but do it. But parenthood just doesn’t look all that good on paper, and if we were really honest, the pros wouldn’t add up to enough for a lot of us. In reality, the love we have for a child, the reason we might be willing to sacrifice a lot to become parents is nothing like that, nothing so rational or easy to explain. Nonetheless, some tiny part of many of us seems to know and take the risk that we’ll really want this thing we somehow want more than the world, on some level we can't quite understand in advance. And then, to have this child (or children!) born, and know that that drive indeed led to this—this miracle! I always wonder if a parent’s love for a child is perhaps like a tiny taste of what God’s love for us must be like – extravagant, complete, there no matter what we do, not based in any way on reason or merit, but on something divine that transcends all of that. Parenting can have incredible highs and lows, but I never doubt that my love for my children is unconditional.
Today, N and O spied a chipmunk, and following my advice to stay still and quiet if they want to see wildlife, they lay on their tummies and watched excitedly. They chattered back and forth, laying there in front of me, and I started to cry, first a little, and then a lot, grateful for their immersion in something other than me so I could just deal with my messy self and get it together. I did, eventually, but only after realizing that one of the greatest gifts of that difficult time (and there are many, and sometimes I’m still learning about both the gifts and losses) was realizing from the beginning that these kids are resilient and strong. After they finally came home with us three and a half years ago, I didn’t worry that they’d perish in the night like so many new parents understandably do. I didn’t once stand over their cribs and wonder if they were still breathing. I followed the rules, lay them on their backs in approved bedding, but after everything we’d already gone through, I just felt like they’d be OK, that we’d be OK, that we can handle what comes our way. And we are, and we do.
Today, three and a half years later, I had the same feeling I did before: "Look what we pulled off, what we have been given.” These big, healthy boys full of stories and questions and laughter, such good company to each other, so easy to love even when they’re maddening. And now, the four of us aren’t just surviving anymore, trading off care and sleep; we are also a family that enjoys each other’s company. What could ever have been asked of me that I wouldn’t do for this, right here, right now, or for the laughter this morning as the four of us ate breakfast, for the chance to sing to them before a night’s sleep? An overwhelming thought, but full of gratitude all the same.
Eventually, I wiped my unexpected tears, and initiated our going home game. “What are you going to have on your sandwich when we get home, boys? I think I’ll have a gravel sandwich.” In turn, they responded with the same creative silliness, linking their hands around each of my thumbs. “A toilet paper sandwich!” “A screw and nail and bolt sandwich!” “Snails on toast!”
The boys start preschool next week, and I’ve been a bit more emotional about all of it than I expected to be (can you tell?) The boys are on the cusp of a new kind of independence, one that involves a whole world that we will only see a part of. We have chosen a good school with good people who will given them a particular experience that we cannot. It’s been easier to feel like they’ll be fine when they’ve been in the care of dear friends and family, but this type of separation is new for all of us. Our boys are resilient and strong, even kind and curious and ready for new experiences. They are ready, and even if it takes a little reminding in the way of a park bench under an oak tree, J and I are too.
No comments:
Post a Comment