Tag Archives: children

The Struggle to Maintain Perspective

19 Friday Dec 2014

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It’s been a rough month.

Five years ago I had a double mastectomy. The girls turned against me so I had them taken off. My only concern was being here to raise my children, 6 and 7 at the time. There was no contest. I had the reconstructive surgery and moved on with my life and parenting my children. Till last month…..

Last month I went for routine blood tests and my cancer markers were high. Based on my history, my doctors are cautious and a roller coaster of medical tests began. X-rays, blood tests, sonograms, MRI’s, biopsies, Cat scans, PET scans….been there….done them…not happy to be doing them again.

The x-ray turned up a clear chest. I had an internal sonogram during which the doctor couldn’t find one of my ovaries. I joked that it was hiding – it knew what happened to my breasts when the girls turned against me so it was cowering in a corner. But ultimately, the sonogram proved to be normal.

What wasn’t normal was a breast MRI that showed a ‘suspicious mass’ in my mastectomy bed. I hate the term suspicious mass. I begin suspecting there’s bad news on the way. My mind goes directly to dark places.

In an effort to calm my nerves my oncologist assured me that if the biopsy ‘were something’ we’d just go in and get it. Although that was a bit reassuring, the thought of surgery and worse, the thought that cancer had reoccurred was far from settling.

It’s funny, not ha ha funny mind you, how you look at life differently when you think there may be less of it to experience. And it’s sad that the perspective gained when in that position is one that is difficult to maintain in the daily hustle and bustle of a ‘healthy’ existence.

For the second time in my life I began imagining my children without a mother. Wondering who would be there to care for them.  Who would rush in to cover Lara at 3am when she’d wake up calling out because she was cold.  Who would sit with JJ at night and talk about his day, what made him happy…what made him sad.

I began imagining missing their proms, graduations, weddings and the birth of their children.  It killed me to think there was a possibility I couldn’t be here for them.  To love them.  To mother them. I made myself have a little longer fuse when they acted out, let them stay up a little later at bedtime and looked at them….really looked at them – not just their faces, but their smiles, their eyes, the way their hair framed their faces.

I always hug my children and tell them how much I love them. But I hugged them a little tighter, conscious of their beating hearts. And when I told them I loved them I looked them straight in the eyes and followed it up with, “Don’t you ever forget that. Understand?” My heart was breaking.

With Christmas coming I began giving serious thought to buying the kids iPhones. I had planned to get them regular phones – no bells or whistles – just talk and limited text. But I was feeling extremely generous considering the uncertainty of my future.

“Don’t do it,” cautioned my friend Linda. “Don’t buy a guilt gift because you think you won’t be around next Christmas. Wait till you KNOW you’re going to die before you buy them iPhones. It’s a two year contract.” We both laughed at the absurdity.

My doctors scheduled me for a biopsy of the ‘mass’ and a PET scan. The biopsy was first. Not knowing what was lurking in my mastectomy bed just plain pissed me off. But needle biopsies are no fun and even though I was desperate to know what was there – I wasn’t looking forward to the procedure. I’m a big baby when it comes to physical pain so my doctor prescribed Xanax. I’d never taken it before. He suggested taking two before the procedure. I took four. They could have biopsied my brain.

Today was my PET scan. Although it’s not a difficult or painful procedure – fear of the results can be consuming. It’s quite the push and pull.  You want to know but you’re afraid of what you could find out. So all day I tossed myself into work and reassured myself that if something else were discovered “we’d just go in and get it.”

Tonight my children had their annual Christmas Concert at school. It was a jovial evening. I couldn’t help but smile while watching them sing Christmas carols with their classmates.  Then I felt my phone’s vibrating ring in my bag.  I checked quickly to see who was calling.  It was my doctor – it was 9pm. I hesitated, not wanting to ‘know’ anything that would ruin the night but my morbid curiosity had me rushing into the hall so I could hear his voice at the other end of the phone.

“The PET scan came back normal except for the area where you had your biopsy Monday,” he said. “But the actual biopsy isn’t showing any signs of cancer. They’re going to run more tests but you’re clear so far.”  Tears of relief rolled down my cheeks.

I have once again been humbled by fear, but I feel like I’ve been given another chance and I am grateful to God.  I have another opportunity to get this right.  I’m hoping I can be a better mother to my children, have more patience with them and myself.  Allow myself the time to experience their days with them – even when mine are hectic and I’m stressed.  I’m hoping I can stay in the moment and truly appreciate everything around me. I’m hoping that I can maintain perspective on what is and what is not important in life and for my children.  And I’m hoping that my children learn those lessons from me.

Oh, and I texted Linda immediately to let her know the outcome of the tests: “Lyn. Got my results. No iPhones for the kids this Christmas. : ) ”

(c) 2014 SeptemberMom.com

My Little Black Belt

06 Saturday Dec 2014

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While folding laundry today my mind wandered as I hung my children’s Tae Kwon Do uniforms.  Both JJ and Lara have been taking Tae Kwon Do lessons since they were four. I can still see them swimming in oversized uniforms, pant legs rolled up and cinched tightly at their waists by a thick white belt. They didn’t kick very high or punch very hard, but as the years passed they have grown into larger outfits while earning higher degree colored belts.

When I left my children’s father I wanted to ensure that I didn’t leave little JJ or Lara without a positive male influence in their lives. A healthy, productive influence. One they could emulate.  So Tae Kwon Do classes twice a week, I thought, would help. They’d get exercise, they’d learn an art form that – one day – they may have to use for protection, and they would have a strong male teaching them.

It has been eight years of hard work for them but they thoroughly enjoy the ride. Honestly, I can’t say that I always enjoy the ride. Getting homework done while cooking, shoving food in them so they can make class on time, running out to drop them off, rushing back to wash dishes and toss in a load of laundry, then hiking out again to pick them up. In rain, snow, sleet or hail…you get it. There are many nights I just want to stay home. Stop the running, the rushing.  But we go twice a week with some exceptions. And it’s not cheap. I’d be lying if I said I never fantasized about what I would do with the extra money if I didn’t have to pay for the lessons, continual tests, higher ranking belts, wood to break, larger uniforms, sparing equipment, accessories….etc.

There were times when JJ and/or Lara wanted to toss in their belt. I’d make a call to their Master for guidance. He has always been there for us. He has visited the house to speak with the kids and help work through whatever hurdle they were up against. And he has worked his magic more than once to encourage them to continue.  Through the years, their Master has helped to instill morals and good behavior in both my children. I especially like his ‘be good to your mom’ speeches.

I have a deep satisfaction when I see their hard work and my hard earned money in action. Recently I moved to head slap JJ but before my palm could make contact with the golden locks on the back of his head, he instinctively jerked around and blocked my arm with a huge grin on his face. First I laughed. Then I made it clear that he was not to block my head slaps. They are my given right as his mother and the payer of his classes.

Lara is currently a red belt and she has her sights set on achieving her black belt. I smile to myself when I hear her boxing the punching bag downstairs. My son took a grueling nine-hour black belt test two years ago. He was the youngest in the room. The morning of his test I packed his cooler with water, Gatorade, bananas, sandwiches, a candy bar, extra clothing and a note that read, “I don’t care whether or not you pass the test. You are my little black belt and I am so very proud that you have come this far. I love you, Mom.”  JJ left the test exhausted but invigorated by the fact that he made it through the day – and yes, he passed.

A framed photo of JJ taken during his black belt test sat on our table at the black belt award banquet. The photo caught JJ mid-kick while jumping in the air. Sweat was flying off his long blond hair. I remember holding the photo, then looking up at my then 10-year-old who was standing tall on stage with his Tae Kwon Do Master, the school’s Grand Master and the Great Grand Master. JJ was beaming with pride as he accepted his hard earned black belt certification.  Applause filled the air.

As I surveyed the room, I became aware of an unforeseen gift that my children were receiving from their martial arts education. They had carved a place for themselves – a safe, welcoming place – within a group of individuals who started out as strangers and are sharing their lives as a very diverse, caring community with a common interest.

At that moment I knew that the years of running, rushing and yes – payments, for classes, uniforms, tests and belts…weren’t half as important or meaningful as the priceless emotions of pride and confidence that my son was experiencing – qualities that will hopefully shadow him and Lara throughout their lives.

(c) 2014 SeptemberMom.com

No Longer Cherubs

21 Tuesday Oct 2014

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I’ve been taking my son to visit high schools. It’s been a disaster. I didn’t realize how hard it would hit that so much time has gone by. I remember swaddling and holding him in my arms when he was a baby. We all know how that goes. I haven’t even put all my children’s photos in albums yet. I kept putting it off thinking there was so much time. Now, when I try to arrange a few, I can’t even remember if they were three or four-years-old – seven or eight. Thankfully, they remember.

I confess – I’m a crier.   I cried when my children took their first steps. I cried the first time that nursery school door closed behind them. I cried when they first boarded a yellow school bus. And the tears rolled the first time I went on a two-day business trip away from them. As I was packing, my son, three at the time, held up his beaten brown teddy that he never parted with. “Take it so you remember me mamma,” he said. Of course, I cried.

There are the sad tears and the happy tears – a distinction my children are much better at making now that they’re older. But one thing is constant with me. There are tears.

So here we are, my son and I, on a tour of a high school he is considering. Although he fiercely wanted to be apart from me, he stuck close in the crowd. Defying his actions though, he baited me. “You know mamma, after high school I’m gonna go to college and then get an apartment and live on my own. Not much time left to be with your baaabbbbyyyy.”

“Not worried,” I replied smiling. “You’ll always be my baaabbbyyy.” But his words danced in my mind as the tour guide’s words fell upon deaf ears. He was right. My little boy was growing up. I watched him walking in the crowd and pictured him walking the halls on his own. Putting his books in a locker. Hi-fiving his friends on the staircase. Trying to sit next to the pretty girl in class. No, there wasn’t much time left to be with my baby.

As the group began to ascend the stairs I pulled over to the side. JJ followed. “What’s the matter?” he asked. But he knew with one look at my face. “Oh no Maaaaaaaa,” he whined. “Not now. Not here.”

I didn’t want to cry. I just couldn’t help myself. “You started it with this I’m all grown up crap,” I quipped. “It’s your fault.” He hugged me and we both laughed. I dried my eyes, put on my sun glasses and we fell back into the crowd. But I spent the rest of the day on the verge.

When the tour was over I was elated. Time to go home where I can be his mother again. We had parked the car across a boulevard, one very long block down. Not wanting to walk to the corner to cross at the light, I stepped out between two cars and looked to my left. That’s when I noticed lights on top of the car I stood in front of. Thankfully they weren’t on. But the cops were watching. I would think that they were amused, either at my stupidity – or my gall.   Immediately I backed up pushing my son to the sidewalk and said loudly pointing down the block, “We’re down that way.”

JJ knew exactly what was going on. “Smooth move mamma. About to lead your son across a four lane boulevard by jaywalking in front of a cop car. With the cops inside! Almost as good as the time you were parking and hit the traffic cop’s car.“ He ribbed me mercilessly. His laughter was contagious. I was in awe of my emerging adult child.

Yes, JJ and Lara are growing up and each stage of their lives has brought different aspects to enjoy about their evolving personalities. It’s just that sometimes it is a challenge for me to celebrate the changes while mourning their babydom. Although it won’t be tomorrow, time flies, and soon they will be spreading their own wings. I know that if I spend my time pining for their younger years, I’ll miss the stage they’re in now. But the mother in me wants to stop the clock. So I console myself with the knowledge that I am blessed to have them in my life with a front row seat, to watch them grow.

My daughter is a beautiful headstrong young lady with incredible musical talents. Although she doesn’t like to hear it, she’s looking more like me each day. She’s starting to claim my clothes – old and new – and they look much nicer on her than on me. She acts much like me too. She has a definite mischievous side. But her smile, that attracts and disarms, lights up her beautiful young face. My son is a sweet, smart, young man with a wonderful sense of humor and deep empathy. Each night he asks me to sit with him before he goes to sleep. The conversation starts with, “How was your day Mamma?” Then we talk about books he’s reading, how he feels about life, his friends and yes, girls.

Still, this not quite adult but no longer a child stage is quite the challenge for me. While I embrace the young adults my children have become – it’s hard for me to let go of their hands. So yes, I’ll allow myself one night to cry. Quite honestly I’m not sure if they’ll be happy tears or sad tears, because my cherubs are now full grown angels.

(c) SeptemberMom2014

Father’s Day Fallout

21 Saturday Jun 2014

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I think I’ve finally gotten over Father’s Day.  It took a week and a good amount of wine, but I’m glad it’s over.  At this age, and after the amount of therapy I’ve been through, you’d think I’d be past all this.  But I’m not.   

I’ve never been one for Father’s Day. I guess I feel like I’ve never had a ‘father.’ Sure there was the guy who lived with us, he put food on the table and a roof over our heads.  I wasn’t abused and I believe – or try to believe – that he did his best. But his best wasn’t anything near what the little girl in me needed. While other children’s dads doted over them, my father never hid the fact that he believe other children were better, smarter, more well-behaved. 

I’m well aware of how this affected my life. I spent early dating years with older men.  Then I realized what I was doing, began praying that I’d never marry a man like my father and to this day I question my judgement. No surprise, I never married.  Not even my children’s father. I like to tell myself that I just haven’t found ‘the one.’ But there are nights I lay awake wondering if maybe I’m just not good enough. Now, I’m old enough to know that I must take responsibility for my own life and move on. But it seems that no amount of therapy can change how I feel every Father’s Day. 

So my Father’s Day tradition is much different from that of many other people.  It starts in the card store while trying to find the perfect card.  One that’s not thankful for the support, love or example my dad set for me.  Tearfully I read card after card with Hallmark emotions I can’t relate to. If another customer catches my sniffle I casually brush it off by commenting how wonderful it is that writers can so beautifully describe  the love we feel for our fathers. Then I continue my search through the cards till I find the perfect one for me.  The one that just says, Happy Father’s Day. 

I wasn’t always this way. Way back in the day when I was still clamoring for his acceptance, I wrote an article for a magazine with quotes from celebrities about their fathers.  I closed it with a tribute to my own. I beautifully framed the piece and gave it to my father – sure it would be taken as the very special gift I intended it to be. It ended up in the garage before making its way to the garbage. 

Facebook made it markedly worse this year. I should have known better than to log on last Sunday. My heart broke with every post I read that gushed about who was daddy’s little girl, who was the best father in the world and how special dads made their children feel. Then there were the photos. The father daughter dances at weddings. Fathers walking their precious little bundles down the aisle. And the sad remembrances about dads who had passed – and were so missed. 

When my father passes, I’ll cry.  Not because he’s gone.  But because I’ll never have the chance to have the father I needed. The father I wanted. The one who made me feel special. The one who thought the sun rose and set on me. The one any little girl deserves.

A Child’s Pain

18 Saturday Jan 2014

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My son is home with me.  My daughter is at her father’s.  It’s not supposed to be this way, but it is.

Everyone told me not to say anything negative about my children’s father because soon enough, they’d see who he was on their own.  I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. I also thought I’d be happy when they saw him for the narcissist he is. I was wrong. I had no idea how much it would hurt them, and me.

Rewind to the Christmas holiday. JJ and Lara were with their father for five days. On the third night they called me from his basement. My daughter was crying. She missed me. My son wanted to come home because he was lonely. The conversation with my son went like this:

JJ:        I want to come home mamma.

Me:       Why?

JJ:        I’m bored.

Me:       Where’s daddy?

JJ:        Upstairs watching TV.  He does that every night.

Me:       Why don’t you just go upstairs and tell him you want to spend time with him?

JJ:        He’s with Kathy [his wife].

Me:       Why don’t you go watch TV with both of them?

JJ:        They’ll tell me I can’t watch what they’re watching and send me to my room. He says he’s here for me and I want to believe him but I don’t feel like he is. He’s here for Kathy and his TV.  Mamma, he doesn’t even know that Lara is down here crying.

Me:       Bring him the phone I’ll talk to him.

JJ:        No. You’ve done that before and he changes for a little while then goes back to normal and ignores us. It hurts too much. I don’t want to get hurt again.

Me:       But JJ Christmas is in two days!  Didn’t you ask Santa for an Xbox?  You may get it there.

JJ:        And if I do he’ll be like, “Hey kid, nice to see you.  Now go play with your Xbox.”

Me:       JJ, you play your games here all the time. What’s the difference?

JJ:        You ask if I’ve had breakfast.

His insight stopped me in my tracks. But hearing my 11-year-old struggle to strategically protect himself from emotional pain brought tears to my eyes. He shouldn’t have to think like that at his age.

So yesterday when their dad came to my house to pick them up JJ said he was staying with me for the weekend. I knew he was trying to engage his dad to extract any amount of encouragement to go – but he didn’t get any.  As his father left with Lara, I sat next to JJ on the stairs and my heart broke as he asked, “Do you think he left yet?  Can you see if the car pulled away?” And finally, “I knew he wouldn’t come back for me. I have no father.”

JJ and I sat together on the stairs for a few minutes in silence as I searched for words to ease his soul.

“JJ, your father loves you very much. It’s just that different people have different capacities for love and the way they show that love. Sometimes people we love don’t show us love or love us back in the way we want to be loved. That doesn’t mean that they don’t love us – it just means they don’t know how.”

JJ’s head dropped on my shoulder as tears rolled down his face.

“You have a great capacity for love and that’s a beautiful thing,” I continued. “But that also means others will disappoint you when they don’t have that same capacity. So you need to know two things; #1, that doesn’t mean that they don’t love you – it’s just not the love you are capable of giving and want in return.  And #2, never, never stifle the amount of love you can give because someone can’t give it back because when you find someone who can love you back the way you love them, it will be a beautiful thing.”

JJ buried his head in my chest and we both sat there and cried.

(c) 2014 SeptemberMom.com

Dirty Little Secret

04 Friday Feb 2011

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School mornings in my house are very much a zombie jamboree.  Who doesn’t want to get out of bed, who can’t find their clothes, who’s playing with the cat instead of eating, who doesn’t like the menu, who doesn’t want vitamins, who’s kicking who under the table, who’s looking at who above the table?  You get the picture. 

I guess I could streamline the process a bit.  I could get up earlier which would probably make me a little less irritable. But when that alarm rings, these old bones don’t seem to want to move.  And yea, I can make lunches the night before so I’m not serving up breakfast between laying slabs of salami on whole wheat bread.  But it takes every ounce of energy I can muster to drag my butt to bed after a long day.  So each morning I go through the paces while stealing glances at the clock and yelling departure updates like a flight attendant on speed.  

Well, last week Lara surprised me by getting up early, dressing herself and getting her own breakfast on the table.  Yes, I was impressed. Thankfully it has become a bit of a ritual now for her.  Something I can honestly say I really appreciate. 

This morning she asked me where the cereal dishes were because they weren’t in the cabinet.  “In the dishwasher,” I responded, adding ‘empty the dishwasher’ to my mental checklist of things to do.  Lara went ahead, pulled out two dishes, put them on the table and made breakfast for herself and her brother — cereal with rice milk.

While making their lunches the water for my coffee began hissing. I went to the dishwasher to grab a clean mug and to my surprise I realized that the dishes were not washed from last night.  I’d forgotten to turn the dishwasher on before I went to sleep.  Almost on cue I heard my children’s spoons hitting their cereal bowls. My stomach turned.

“Lara, you got the cereal dishes from the dishwasher, right?” I asked tentatively.

“Yep,” she responded. And as if she knew what I was thinking she continued with, “But don’t worry Mamma, I didn’t take the dirty ones.  The ones I took were clean.”

I forced a smile in her direction then glanced at the dishes in the dishwasher.  Most were still covered with remnants of last night’s dinner – spaghetti and clam sauce.  I wondered what ‘clean’ meant to her and kept my dirty little secret to myself. 

(c) SeptemberMom 2013