One, I am getting over our miscarriage we had in January. Mourning that little life. Closing a chapter on newborn dreams and tiny clothes. I'm in a good place now, but still get depressed occasionally. I thought this one would stay. I had morning sickness--I never had that with any of my other miscarriages. Today, I am sad that Becky won't get to meet her baby brother; she won't get to be a big sister. Reuben won't get the little brother he always wanted. Next time, if there is a next time, will be a different baby.
My emotions were swirling for a different reason, as well. I was thinking of my father. My biological father. I have only a handful of memories of him---phone conversations where he would just try to undermine my mother's authority, a few cards and letters, all written by his new wife who I guess was trying to send me things "from him" because either he asked or she knew he should be doing it. Everything in her handwriting, never his. I have memories of him as an adult, when he started acting weird because he chose drugs and...that is it. Nothing after my wedding. We don't talk.
But there was that one time---the one time we flew kites together. One day at a park that still exists next to the apartments we used to live in. I was around 5 or 6, I guess. And as I flew kites with Reuben, I wondered--is it a painful memory because I don't know how to feel about it, or because of the lack of other happy memories with him? That day, I was happy, there with the wind and the kites and the sky. It was fun. I remember my dad laughing and playing with me, I remember feeling loved and accepted and alive.
Now I was flying a kite with my own children. I hope they have more than just one or two happy memories with me.
A lot has been changing lately. In good, and hard ways. The loss of our baby. The milestone of two that Becky reaches soon. Things at home are becoming easier and I am enjoying being a mother again. Kids play together, they demand less of me and are stretching their wings. I am loving, loving homeschooling preschool, and we start our kindergarten program this April! I am growing as a person. I feel like as a mother I am an ever constant butterfly, always undergoing some type of transformational birth and death, sometimes simultaneously.
This is the season of birth in creative endeavors, a birth of new books to read and fun patterns to design and knit when I have time. The death of pushing myself to go to hot yoga, because I just can't anymore and it got to be too expensive. The birth of having more independent kids, of homeschooling and habit instruction. Of becoming my children's teacher as well as mother and friend. But the death of having my own close friends, because of the looming task that awaits me of raising R&R. It crowds out the space I used to have for mommy dates and coffee meet-ups and bible studies. I can still do a few of those things, but not in the same capacity this extrovert would like.
By the way, I think it is utter bull that you can't be your kid's friend. Friends know when to tell you when you err and how to lift you up when you are down. It's a friends job to point you to Christ. Thus I endeavor to be a good friend to my brood of snapdragons, my hatchlings, my Reuben and my Rebekah. I won't hold myself above them, but rather work with them to teach them and be taught by them.
Life is good.
Life is good.
