Thankful Tuesday: Yes, There's That

It’s a Tuesday full of thanks, even when thanks are taking a holiday over at Mama Monk's. 

Thanks keep me grounded, bring me out of the under-the-covers-leave-me-alone kind of days that I have been having as I wrestle with what it means to a) be a parent and b) let go. That dance has moved from a waltz or a salsa into some kind of street/break dancing that my body (and psyche) are not properly trained for. So in the midst of this, I am thankful for:
·         A friend’s lack of cancer in sentinel lymph nodes
·         A mother’s day in Montreal, just me and my mom, and a books and breakfast celebration at a downtown hotel
·         A half-carton of chocolate-raspberry gelato from Stella Luna hidden in the freezer by my loving husband who knew that my daughter would probably forget mother’s day and was forbidden (by moi, oh tortured soul and glutton for punishment that I am) to remind her or buy a present for her to give me
·         A daughter who starts each new day new, once past her morning grumpiness, and holds no grudges and cannot imagine that anyone would
·         A sun-filled day, even with frost, that beckons me away from work that can wait--to play in the garden 

Thankful Tuesday: For the Spaces Between

As Jessie gets older and matures and creates her own life, she doesn’t quite need us as much (or, some days, THINKS she doesn’t quite need us as much) as she used to. She gets to classes and appointments and events on her own; she wakes up on her own; she makes decisions about the courses she will take or the movies she will see on her own.

She still, however, sometimes needs me to drive her to performance or workshop commitments with Propeller Dance or the Down Syndrome Association. And while I sometimes grumble about the time it takes away from my work or the way she often just expects me to drive her, I am learning to be graceful about the interruptions and to enjoy the forced space they create in my life. Space for God and friendship and beauty to break through, if I let them.

Yesterday, for example, Jessie had a gig in Richmond, about half an hour outside Ottawa. As we turned down the back road that crossed over the Jock River and ended at the school where she was giving a workshop, I noticed a maroon and gold sign with an arrow. It read “St. John’s Quiet Garden.”

An invitation. Which I accepted.

l left Jessie at the school, zipped up my coat and stomped through the mud to the garden that was, indeed quiet in its blanket of white—with not yet budding shrubs poking through the deep snow. There was a sign indicating that there were two labyrinths buried somewhere underneath. And while I fear I have become a bit of a loose woman around labyrinths, I did not mind just wandering over the promise of a mindful way in to the centre. And I did not mind walking slowly around imagined perimeters or stepping gently on the untrammeled snow—there is not much call for outdoor labyrinth walking in a Canadian winter.

And I remembered that I had a camera:

So I am thankful for what I saw, and thankful too for these spaces between mothering that Jessie’s growing independence is gifting me.      

Thankful Tuesday: Energy Abounds

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk (if its not thankful over there, rest assured, Micha will share something with you that will make you feel thankful for going there!).

This week I am thankful for all the energy that abounds in the people that Jessie surrounds herself with:

Natalie, who took the dance support specialist course (a unique program developed by Propeller Dance to train dancers to support/accompany people with a range of abilities in Propeller community classes) with Jessie and has joined the children's class where Jessie is a teaching assistant. Natalie also knows about Hannukah, so she put together a one-pager for Jessie on some basic words, practices, and, of course, food! Now Jessie wants me to find a dreidle! All, of course, in preparation for the upcoming Hannukah meal in Montreal this Saturday with DB's paternal grandparents. While Natalie has many other wondeful and endearing qualities, I am truly thankful for the effort she put into creating this one-page Hannukah guide for Jessie.

Caitlin and all the other staff, connectors, volunteers, organizers, and family members belonging to LiveWorkPlay who are there as role models and friends and people who listen to and honour Jessie's dreams and goals. And who are also there to help create a supportive resource and celebratory community that knows how to laugh and party.

Janet and Josh, sitting at our table at our first ever LiveWorkPlay family feast, who know a lot about living on their own and finding work and dating and were glad to share their excitment and knowledge with Jessie and DB.

Ximena, Liz, Moni, Robert, Bella, Phil, Shara, Renata, Jason, the incomparable Amelia, and a host of other dancers, mentors, and musicians with whom Jessie dances and teaches, and without whom Jessie would lead a very staid, routine, and boring life filled with chores and mom-defined goals, which might include cleaning her room. But, thanks to these wonderful, energetic, creative, and eclectic people, Jessie lives an unpredictable and always exciting, if often challenging (in the good/growth way) life filled with music and movement and joy and what the buddhists might call "right" action, speech, livelihood, and other bits of the eighth-fold (as I understand it, which isn't saying much!) path. 

My friend CG,and her daughter {RG} and her friends, who always include Jessie and can never ever think of a reason for her not to participate in whatever adventure they have up their sleeves. CG in particular, for her energy in what I can only call extreme cooking, a sport that she has invented to fully welcome every single one of her children (yes, all two) and their friends (all ga-zillion) who make that house their home. Jessie, of course, would eat Just About Anything, so CG's running usually has to do with some mess that Jessie has concocted, in (and sometime outside, like the time she threw her knapsack into the canal and CG had to go get a fishing rod to rescue it) that house.

I am thankful for all these people and their infinite energy. 

   

Thankful Tuesday: A Daughter Like Jessie

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk. 

While I kept a list this week of things I was thankful for, it got recycled with the grocery and house to do lists as I was trying to clean the piles of papers vying with the contents of the kitchen cupboards (don’t ask) for space on the dining room table. So last night, as I put aside the editing I was working on and asked Jessie what I should be thankful for, she said “Your friends!” And when I told her, yes, for sure, but I was also trying to keep the focus on these transition years and it would take a full-length book to thank my friends, she said, “You can be thankful that you have a daughter like me!”

And I am! Because even in this mess of growing up, in this mess of driving, problem solving, present buying, sex educating (her me), and money managing, Jessie reminds me that it is all about people. About friends, and lovers, and husbands, and mothers, and spirit cousins who gather in darkened candle-lit rooms to be still and quiet together for half an hour every week. It’s about connectors, and fitness instructors, and old neighbours with new dogs, and strangers who use the “r” word and are then corrected and accept the correction with suitable contrition. It’s about church friends who invite Jessie to sit for a while, and church friends who invite her to work for a while, and church friends who offer to teach cooking and sewing and public speaking when I have lost all patience for any of that.

It’s about mama friends who hug her and love her when I am almost at the end of my patient and thoughtful loving and am running on gut and instinct. It’s about long-time from forever friends who bicycle in sub-zero weather wrapped in layers of wool and Polish-knit sweaters to teach my daughter to sing and want to come back for more. It’s about husbands who vacate basement offices to let mothers work in peace and quiet and without incessant Say-Yes-to-the-Dress whining and drama in the background.

And finally, at the end of a long day, it’s about Jessie who lets me sit beside her as she nestles into her bed, and read her the daily gospel and reflection from my favorite gifted Advent book (God With Us, if you are wondering). And then remembering/telling the beginning of the Godly Play Advent story . . . Advent is the time when we are all (and this is where Jessie gifts me with a long graceful arc of her hand, sweeping, pointing to an imaginary spot in the distance), all on our way to . . .  Bethlehem, we singsong together.

Peace on your journey.         

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?  

Thankful Tuesday: Ten Things

Thankful Tuesday: This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk. I also get to join in the Ten thingsI am thankful for {a writing prompt} over at Ellen Stumbo’s Finding Beauty in Brokenness blog. Thankful, thankful.

So. Ten things I am thankful for that Jessie has brought into my life.

1.      Community. Because Jessie thrives in community and in advocating for her right to participate fully we had to immerse ourselves in our community and oh the people and the laughter and the rallying challenges make every day a delight as we greet and care for and share with our neighbours and community friends (and their cats and dogs falling tree limbs).

2.      Gelato. All flavours, but particularly chocolate raspberry, dulce con leche, and ferraro roche from our local Stella Luna.

3.      Disney movies. Really. While I thought I would gag if I ever saw another sappy Disney movie, the good ones are, well, really really good and bordering on a chocoholic’s version of deep myth. Like last night when we were all tired and Dan suggested that we watch Brave. And we did, and Jessie and I kept looking at each other as if this was OUR movie. OUR discontent, OUR love. It was a great family evening.

4.      Patience. As we believed that she could learn to do many things—including walking, reading, zipping zippers, and the mandatory provincial high school literacy requirement—which she achieved on her third try. So patience for believing, for always believing, that in her own time and her own way she would continue to grow and achieve the things that are important to her.

5.      The Grays. Jessie’s best friend Rachel, who introduced me to my best friend (her mother) Cathy, who introduced us to years of homeschooling part time together (and old lady canoe trips) and to Rebecca, the other sister and both being Jessie’s kindred sisters. The Grays, in their graciousness and creativity and total acceptance of Jessie and our family, have enriched our lives immeasurably and I know I have to write a whole blog about them, because of their central role in our sanity and delight. But mostly, I have had the absolute joy of watching the girls grow into amazing young women, who were (and continue to be) the best adapters of crafts and games and introduced Jessie to both Say Yes to the Dress and Stephen Fry on Language. They continue to invite her to impromptu caroling or canoe rides on the canal, as well as four-course candlelight dinners and lectures on philosophy (which Jessie declines, the lectures that is, not the dinners!). At the Grays and with the Grays, there is no debate or uncertainty about Jessie’s belonging. And that is the greatest gift imaginable, ever ever.

   

6.      The Harts. Who are our other family, our other home, our other place to be when something important happens or needs a celebration. Their daughters bracket Jessie, and their home is always a place that welcomes strays and loved ones alike. It is a warm house, just around the corner, filled with light and the smell of something good cooking. We would not know the Harts if I had not sat on the special education committee with Ken and we had not realized that we had Down syndrome in common, in addition to being neighbours! 

7.      Shakespeare. Who’s plays Jessie fell in love with in grade 4 (the Scottish play to be exact) when her brilliant and amazing teacher Patty Murphy introduced her to the enthralling story involving witches, forests that walk, and slightly (or very) mad men and women. This was the beginning of Jessie’s long love affair, which has been parlayed into going on six years of volunteering during the summer with Company of Fools and in-depth knowledge of play synopses and soliloquies  which served her well in her Trinity Guildhall drama certificates.

  

8.      Patience. For the growing process and for connections and planted seeds to bloom and create the web of opportunity and safety and respect and commitment that is Jessie’s life.

  

9.      A wedding. Mine. Or, more specifically, mine and Dan’s. While Dan is the romantic one and I am sure he would have made me marry him at some point, it was Jessie having planned and schemed and worked with Dan to make me actually commit to spending money on getting married and going to … PARIS! that made it all happen. Jessie and all her delight in frothy romantic fairy tale weddings. Our wedding was her dream, and I helped make it come true! How many parents can say that?

10.  Patience. For my own growing and changing and letting go. As I try to figure my way through Jessie’s growing up, she is particularly patient with my misplaced insistence on doing things my way. But she never gives up. Ever. Ever. And so I am thankful for her patience with me.  

Thankful Tuesday: A List

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:

• Mentors for Jessie who handle her chronic lateness and disorganization with just the right balance of lovingkindness (Jess, you are a very important part of this organization and we all love your contribution and creativity and hard work, so we would never fire you or ask you not to come back) with realistic and accommodating consequences (we won’t pay you for the class you were late for, especially since you were leading it). I am learning so much from them about gentle teaching.

• Mail for delivering prizes won from a 31 for 21 blog contest, especially when they come from Colorado and include a wonderfully inspiring book by Margaret Bender (of The Ordinary Life of an Extraordinary Girl blog) called From Grief toCelebration: How One Family Learned to Embrace the Gift of Down Syndrome. And, the bonus, it’s signed by Alex. I am so looking forward to reading this!

• Boyfriends who take girlfriends (who happen to be daughters) to Remembrance Day ceremonies and hold them when they cry in remembering all those who died during war. This was Jessie and Drummer Boy’s first date totally devised, arranged, planned, and executed by themselves, independently. What a thoughtful and heartfelt date. Jessie returned at the end of day still swooning from sharing a meaningful time with DB.

• A lover and life-partner I can call a husband (because we arenow married, after 25 or so odd, really odd years) who is willing to put all to do lists and agendas aside to walk the Westboro strip with me in balmy weather, wandering in and out of bookstores and shoe stores and coffee shops and little local boutiquey design stores, holding hands and kissing every now and then. Ah, for those late warm fall days and someone to share them with.

• Friends who read your blog and take the time to email you (because you have both been in and out of town and in and out of work, and have not actually talked or seen each other for more than a week) and say they like it and say that what you write resonates with them in a way that is not limited by disability or even circumstance. Friend who like your writing and encourage you to keep doing it, even when what you write about is streaked with desperation or frustration.

• Opportunities that emerge that coincide with Jessie’s passions and gifts—for performing, for advocating, for infiltrating the mainstream—and that make the world seem like her oyster. She is (we are!) so graced to be living at this particular time, when barriers have been broken down and she is part of a new generation forging new roads into the heart of the community. As an early traveller and pathfinder, she is making connections and dealing with people who crave her generation’s input and are willing to see her and her peers’ gifts and contributions. So even though there is still prejudice, mostly there is opportunity and openness. She is well loved and respected. That is a good life.

And for Mama: Monk’s Thankful Tuesdays, so I can pause at the beginning of my week, in the midst of deadlines and rescue missions, and breath in blessings.

What are you thankful for? Write is and post over at Mama: Monk. 

31/21: Thankful Tuesday: 'Tis People, 'Tis People

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk . These thankful Tuesdays are the just the kind of weekly discipline I sometimes need to shake me out of the cave I occasionally hole myself up in. Like the discipline of meditation, the discipline of being thoughtfully thankful has its own sweet blooming, no matter what you plant or subsequently feed it. So , having emerged from under the dark duvet and having secured the flyable items that are potential storm projectiles, I am sitting down here to focus on the graces and blessings that I think I missed being thankful for this last week. Mea culpa. Alleluia. We are indeed an Easter people!

And I am grateful especially for:

• Our local Down syndrome association, which hosts the most amazing annual general meeting and dinner dance where everyone is full fed (for free, both cash and gluten) and loudly served the hottest dance music that keeps everyone—from the tinnies to the grandparents—dancing. 

• The fulsome tribe of DS mamas and their wry edgy humour and bear-like love of their babies, even when they are babies no more and are exploring where their raging hormones are leading them. These mamas who laugh and share and snark and gently correct the clan of adolescents at the table, while nodding vigorously in recognition at some tale of poor or sketchy mothering. Who, in nodding, give new breath and energy to the going forward, to trying new strategies, and most importantly to laughing at our own foibles.

• Parents of the young dancers taking Kids Propeller dance who come to Jessie’s defense when she arrives late and we complain, a bit, just a bit, about her lack of responsibility. They all, each and every one of them, share small stories, bits of her teaching that we never get to see or hear about, that demonstrate her care and growth in that role. The ways their children relate to and love Jessie. The ways that she encourages this care. May all adolescents have such defenders and fans as they separate from their parents. 

• My friend CG, who drags me out to small town Ontario to eat pulled pork in Irish pubs and sit in old leather-backed movie theatre chairs in a small theatre with an even smaller audience to listen to the compelling and richly plaintive voice of Lyn Miles singing sad coal mining and forlorn love songs. My friend who drives through rain with me and listens to me rant and whine and is still game for a conversation about God and churches and Greek philosophers and vegetarian cuisine. Who will read my blog and email me offering home and hearth and a place to work while the workers work on our house, complete with delicious dinner, including dessert and maybe even candlelight if the power goes out. Who also throws in reassurance that my daughter will in fact be fine, will live a good life, and we will get to see that sooner than we think . . . and so she offers me comfort in all the broken bits and places that need a bit of tenderness. So I am immensely grateful for my tenderizing friend, CG.

That, I realize, is a lot to be grateful for, and more than reason enough to crawl out from under the duvet. So. What are you thankful for?  

Thankful Tuesday: Hitting Empty

www.michaboyett.com

It was a long weekend. A weekend that ended in me “quitting” my job as organizer, driver, reminder, finder, money lender, food maker to my lovely daughter with something extra, which, during these transition years, seems to be mostly attitude. By Sunday night, I am afraid, I had let her reduce me to tears. There is not much that can reduce me to tears, but my daughter has always been able to find the right combination of obstinacy (on better days, persistence) and mess (on better days, creativity) that will do so. 

I am never proud when I quit (as you can see, I’ve done this before), because I know it won’t last very long. It’s just a last-ditch effort to get a measure of compliance (about doing chores, cleaning up, following through, completing tasks, honouring commitments) or even just a smidgeon of respect. I would never go as far as to expect thanks. Because I am, after all, a mother of a twenty-something year old daughter and we mothers of children of that age have to forgo gratitude (except from fathers/husbands/other mothers/family members) for a number of years as a kind of Buddhist test of detachment. Or maybe it’s our tempting time in the desert. Whatever the metaphor or path, I pretty much suck at the transcendental part of it, and always seem to emerge bruised and dazed instead of transformed. I fear that I will be given the opportunity to do it over and over again until I get is right, and I’m not sure that will be in this lifetime.

And so this is what I began to write Monday morning as I thoughtfully tried to prepare for the Thankful Tuesday blog.    

“I am determined to pull thankfulness from me. Bit by bit, thread by thread, and hope that it is not my unraveling. 

I am determined to find thankfulness within me, underneath the dark place of tears and frustration that is my daily dwelling, and hope that this thankfulness is more than a trite platitude that will wither in the light of day and reason.  

I am determined to let go of this determination, and let all that is wash over me, let the psalms arise from my heart, psalms of joy, of pain, and be grateful that I know that there are psalms that I can let pray for me.”

And then the phone rang.

And I answered it.

It was Alison. Alison whom I didn’t know.  From LiveWorkPlay, an organization that supports people with intellectual disabilities to have a good life with a very person-centred and inclusive approach—saying that there was a spot for Jessie in their Foundations program.

And I laughed out loud and said, “Okay, who is this?”

And it was still Alison, from LiveWorkPlay, only now she sounded a bit confused.

And then I gushed, I think, and said “Really? Are you really sure?”

And when she reassured me that she was really sure, I almost hung up the phone in my excitement to share the good news with all those who love me and are worried about my sanity.

Now the back story of supports for people with intellectual disabilities in our region is rather long, but can be summed up quite nicely as: pretty meagre pickings (unless you have a lot of money and can pay for and create what you want). While Jessie has a good life, it is fraught with certain planning and funding challenges, particularly as much of what she wants to do (and is good at) doesn’t completely exist and needs to be patched together in increments by her parents, whom she resents because she has this burning (and, I keep reminding myself, natural) desire to do what she wants, her own way, without them telling her what to do.    

So, just to make sure you understand completely the miracle that occurred, Alison was offering Jessie a spot in their Foundations program—a program where ANOTHER PERSON would help to plan and support her transition from a school-based to a community-based life. It’s the OTHER PERSON here who is key (just in case you didn’t get the meaning of the caps). There will be a NOT MOM person helping plan, set goals, and connect with community (where she is very connected already, but needs some help managing all her commitments). Some NOT MOM helping her fulfill her dreams and goals, and maybe convincing her that following the actual steps in a recipe is a good idea, that adding events to your calendar is a good idea, that getting up on time so you can eat breakfast before you go to work is a good idea. Some OTHER PERSON drawing supports and community connections together to help support Jessie in her dream of moving away from home. Some OTHER PERSON (did I say that?) doing some of the things that I now do, and doing them with much more cooperation from Jessie, because that other person is not ME!    

As soon as I got off the phone, I called Dan at work and shared the exciting news.

“Look Nan, I know I make fun of it sometimes,” he said, “but do me a favour. Keep going to church.”

We meet with Alison on Wednesday.

In the meantime, I am continuing with the burnt offerings. 

31/21: Thankful Tuesday

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk . Last night, as I was trying hard to wrestle specific thankfulness from this week on my walk up the street to my Monday night meditation group, I picked up some colourful fall leaves to lay on the table with the candle. I could, I thought, be thankful about these leaves, that we live in a region where seasons change and leaves fall. But I don’t feel particularly thankful (or not thankful for that matter) about these particular leaves. And, besides, this being 31 for 21, I wanted to write about Down syndrome, about the little things in this week, in this week in Jessie’s life that I am grateful for. But it was hard to feel thanks having left the house in what my mother would call a “snit.” Because anger and frustration taint thankfulness and turn it into a snarky kind of adolescent “oh-yea-like-as-if” attitude that transforms any feelings of natural gratitude into practiced disdain.

The cause of my snit was having to leave the house without having eaten. The root cause was Jessie not having prepared dinner on time. She was on dinner duty and got the rice on and the oven heating up for the salmon, but then got distracted on her computer watching TV shows on YouTube and didn’t end up either turning the rice off or putting the salmon in before I left. I was, well, mightily pissed off. And I let her know it. That here she was wanting to up her independence skills in preparation for moving out, but she repeatedly forgets to finish what she is doing. That she thinks that I will do it for her and pick up the pieces, that she can just leave things cooking and think nothing will happen, that her desire to watch TV trumps anything else going on in the house, that  . . . etc.  I do that sometimes. I rant and come at describing the problem from every conceivable angle, bombarding her in my attempt to find one way that will hit home with her. Make her see the error of her ways! (oh yes, I am very good at being right and annoyingly self-righteous, I am THAT mother!)

So for today, through the misadventure into adulthood, I am thankful for all the opportunities that hold me up and help me discern my way through the minefield:

• For my meditation group, that allows me to traipse through fall leaves to sit in candlelight with an odd collection of people who hold me up in silence, and crack me open to God, even when I am feeling my most small, miserable, and unworthy
• For random (okay, not so) words of healing, just the right words at the right time from a randomly picked track off a CD that proclaims “it is good” and dares us, encourages us to find our own Genesis story of goodness in our hearts and our lives
• For Jessie’s willingness to forgive—over and over and over again; and to try—over and over and over again. She never gives up, and I am (most often) grateful for that.
• For the chance to work at this—at growing up and leading Jessie to herself and helping her reach her dreams—until we get some measure of it right, or until I learn what it is I am supposed to be learning but doing such a strange job of it. Is it letting go? And how much? And how? And, oh please give me another chance to learn this, maybe better, tomorrow.
• For tomorrows. For as blessed as today is, we have been gifted with new days, new hours, sometimes new minutes that encourage us to let go of old angers and fears, or at least start fresh with a promise of forgiveness.
• For friends, who laugh when you share a day by email and promise that they will not call children’s aid on you, and promise (and you believe them) that tomorrow will be a different day, and assure you that this is what parents do, what all parents do, as their kids become adults. They groan and brag and worry and wonder and get to go out for coffee and maybe even canoe trips with friends.
• For spouses who back you up, or call you out, or just don’t say anything because they are very perceptive (what does this situation need now?) and honest (yup, not the best approach hon) and the best partners ever (we’ll figure it out together).

So. What are you thankful for?  

31/21: Thankful Tuesday

This weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving, a wonderful sun-filled, blue-skied, red maple-leaved weekend. So a good time to start joining in the Thankful Tuesday parties over at Micha Boyett’s blog Mama: Monk. While Micha has no connection that I know of to Down syndrome, I love her blog, her writing, her honesty and poetry, and her blogging practices that bring us closer to the daily divine.

And since Jessie has herself brought me closer to the daily divine (if only through my need to meditate daily to first, advocate for inclusion during her school years, and now, negotiate through her transition into adulthood, which is like a dehydrated version of the terrible twos—less pliable and more intensely flavoured) and since this is part of the 31 for 21 blog celebration,  I thought I would start with the ways in which I am thankful for all that this extra chromosome has brought into my life.

I am thankful for the way knowing and loving someone with Down syndrome has transformed my life and led me closer to God by cracking open the fragile shell of completeness, perfection, and independence to let in the light of wholeness, healing, and community. For the way in which this cracking is never finished, never done, but always process, always now, and always always love.

I am thankful for the way that being the parent of a child with a disability has sometimes pushed me to the margins, to the outside, where I have met and been changed by those who live there—either for a time or forever. And how Jessie’s valued presence—at school, at the Foodbank, at the college, on the bus, at church, at the library—makes all these places more welcoming and open to all.   

I am thankful for myriad wise and brave people, young and old, who have accompanied us on this journey. Those who shout justice, make muffins, laugh with abandon, love recklessly, sing eloquently, paddle through whitecaps, quilt with castoffs, know their own brokenness, build community, and are willing to catch us when we fall. All have become part of the tapestry of our life because of Jessie, and I do not know what warmth there would be in our world without them.

I am thankful for Jessie showing me how we are all God’s hands in the world—but we are conduits, not controllers. And how acting out of love and doing what seems right might not have the immediate or intended pay-off, but it will, like a pebble, send out ripples that can change a life, a community, and perhaps even the world.  

At its most basic, on this crazy mixed up thanksgiving weekend where nothing went as planned—road trips and family dinners canceled due to severe bronchitis, root canals, and kidney stones (modern day versions, perhaps, of the more biblical serpents, pestilence, plagues?) made me thankful for:

• Church, where Jessie and I fought for the first 10 minutes of the walk over, then tolerated each other silently the rest of the way, but put our arms around each other, swayed and sang loudly and gloriously off key to Now Thank We All Our God. Church, where we are given the gift of a new beginning again, and again, and again, if needs be.
• Maple bacon donuts from Suzie Qs at the Brewer Farmers market that are the perfect complement to a what-the-hell-lets-just-have-fun kind of spontaneous day.
• Daughters with no sense of time or circumstance who can blithely, at midnight, just after depositing fathers at the emergency room to deal with kidney stones, head up to bed with a ukulele, intending to serenade tired mothers  to sleep.
• And finally, the Harts, always the Harts, who invited our forlorn trio (Jessie, and Dan, and I) over for Thanksgiving dinner and fed us turkey and loved us and laughed with us and made us family all over again.