What Really Matters {Ellen Stumbo Writing Prompt}

What really matters is love.

Love underpins life. Especially life together, because that is where life leads us—together. Love is about relationship: with ourselves, our children, our family, our lovers and life partners, and, underneath it all, if you are so inclined, God.

Love is my challenge. It’s what gets me up in the morning and then beckons me into tasks and relationships I am not sure I know how to do. But it matters deeply. And it’s what really matters in my life with Jessie, as I try to mother through this transition—hers and mine. Sometimes I stumble upon love in her laughter or her singing scales in the bathroom and it pierces me with its sheer delight and depth. Sometimes I pursue it relentlessly, asking, endlessly asking, what would love do? How would love respond? Because I am at a loss and my rational logical mind is not coming up with solutions that work.

Love is underneath all the therapy, advocacy, learning strategies, rules, and problem solving. But sometimes love gets lost there, under all the layers of care that go into raising a daughter with a disability (or any daughter, so I am told). Because without a gentle touch, a hands-on or spiritual caress that honours and frames her being, these layers of care become intrusion. And I lose sight of what I want and who she is. And I have to parse the pieces and hold them up to the light to find each brilliant colour.

And to lose something too. The sense of molding, shaping, forming. God does that. And I am here to learn to love. That is the only way to mold, shape, or form that matters. And it has taken me this long to even name it. And it will take me even longer to learn it. But I get to practice. Every day.

Go see What Really Matters to others over at {Ellen Stumbo Writing Prompt}

Thankful Tuesday: Second Chances

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk. This week I am thankful for second chances, however you define them. This is what second chances looked like in our house this week.

The second 192. The 192 is the third (and last) in a sequence of buses that Jessie takes to get to the Food Bank where she volunteers two mornings a week. The 192 is a very important bus, as it allows her to actually get to the Food Bank warehouse without getting killed, because that last little loop in the industrial park has no sidewalks and is an artery for transport trucks that ignore stop signs. Having tried to pedestrian train her with at least three or more hour-long sessions crossing the major 6-lane intersection with minimal success (she lacks a certain finesse needed in judging traffic, a finesse that is critical to life-altering/ending outcomes), we decided that there are only really two options if she misses that last and final morning 192. Option 1 involves me dropping my work and jumping in the car to cross town and either escort her across the intersection or drive her from the bus stop to the Food Bank. Option 2 involves getting back on the bus and coming home. Yes. It’s THAT dangerous. So this morning, when she was late and I was up early working to a 9am deadline and the phone rang I almost didn’t answer it. I just didn’t want to deal with either option. It was Jessie. And she was distraught because she missed the 192. And then . . . and then her voice shot up an octave and became filled with excitement. “Mom! I see another 192!” Somehow she had lucked out and there was a second 192 just behind the one she missed. Rarely do we get second bus chances. So this morning I am thankful for yesterday’s second 192. And so is my client.

The Plan Gifts of Hope catalogue. This year, as we try and try and try to move away from so much STUFF at Christmas (for the best rule yet, go over to for the 4-rule: something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read), I was trying to convince Jessie that we punt the gifts for the Grays and the Harts (our alternate and chosen families) and instead clear time to spend together and pool our resources to pick some community/world service gift, like all volunteering together at the Food Bank or doing a Christmas hamper. While Jessie liked the idea of it, she wasn’t absolutely convinced. “But Mom! I really want to get Rachel earrings!” She had her heart set on it. Then, the Plan Gifts of Hope catalogue  came in the mail I put it on the table with the others (some more local, others more specific)  I had stashed away and had her look through the descriptions. Three hens and a rooster for a family. A rainwater harvesting tank for $500; literacy training for two women for $120 … the list continued and Jessie sat enthralled with what we could do if we pooled our money and how we could decide together, en famille. So I am grateful to my daughter for reconsidering my idea, for giving it (and maybe some other girl or community) a second chance.

While there are other second chances I am thankful for this week, I’m out of space and time and I’m giving my nascent cold a second chance to recede. What are you thankful for?  

Sugar Shack Sunday

Yesterday was Grey Cup Sunday, for those of you south of the border, that's kind of like the Super Bowl, and Dan and Jessie had a special football meal planned that included lots of meatballs and grape jelly. I was busy working to a deadline, but I did (again, MoM . . . maker of miracles) volunteer to 1) get Drummer Boy over here to watch the game with us, and 2) make chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing (and you wonder why I might have to Tell the Truth About Food?!).

It turns out that number #1 (DB) completely obliviated (I know its not a word, but it makes sense to me) the need for #2 (cupcakes), as their terms of endearment for each other kept coming fast and furious and out-sweetened just about anything I could have come up with for dessert.

I asked them if they minded sharing the variations with me (I try to leave the room when they are talking to each other on the phone or in person, as I am sure I would go into insulin shock) or with any possible readers out there. They got gigglier and gigglier as the list rolled out, laughing as they recalled when they used each endearment. It was almost a travel log of their romantic encounters ... from the boot room where they met to the board room where they advocated together for employment opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities just last week.

Here they are: I dare you not to gag. They include (in no particular order, and I have thrown a few non-food related items in there, but there were very few)

raspberry danish

cupcake

strawberry tart

sweet cheeks

strawberry shortcake

hot stuff

sweetie

honey

sugar muffin

sugar lips

honey bunny

hot tamale 

hot pepper

sweetie pie

punkin pie

coco lips

my sweet apricot

short stuff


Most of those came from DB. When I was driving home he admitted, with a grin and a very endearing giggle, that he loves to call her those sweet names to make her giggle.

I have to remember to take my antacid and give thanks for weight-lifting boyfriends with a penchant for advocacy and endearments.