Flowing with my UN-alienated daughter and 2 of my 4 grandkids…?!

Sometimes you just have to let things flow. Or get the hell out of the way of the Tsunami. After a mini emotional Tsunami in the Spring and with no apparent storm on the horizon, in a clear place and from high ground, I swear I see into eternity.

This summer began on Memorial Day in a surge of peacefulness and clarity and probably a bunch of my dumbfounding luck. My daughter brought 2 of my grand babies to see me, us, my life and family. As I often dream and as I know, it was so natural, so right, so void of the trappings of judgement or the noticing thereof. Like when something is just too good to stop and point out, for fear of jinxing it or popping it like a balloon. It feels natural like breathing, or even gasping for air. The heart(h) room I finally turned into my dream kitchen is pulsing like a heartbeat and full of living specks of the continuation of us all. My baby came home. My first daughter, my first true love, bearing her maternal gifts and with a whopping dose of hope for the future.

From left, Russell, my 15 year old, Shea my 13 year old, me and Juniper on my lap, with Magnolia on the right. In the Hearth Room turned into the kitchen I dreamed it should be, a kitchen full of family.

She came, my daughter Devan, she swung, she stared up at the trees with a profound look of contentment as I looked on in utter awe.

The sweetness of it all! Could, would the bitter taste of the past be laid to rest? My husband of 20 years talks nervously on, my teenagers’ eyes wide and questioning. Mama cry no more…?, Shea thinks. For the mostly hidden sadness is no longer feeling like a secret threat to her stable loving home. Russell stares proudly on, ready for anything but relieved to feel the authenticity and normality of it all. “It” affected us all differently and living without your half siblings almost all of your childhood seems alien. The old suitcase in the basement full of beautiful remnants of my brief time as teenage mother of Devan and her brother Cody seems no longer a deep, beckoning well of grief.

I feel hopeful and flowing and strong, praying to be blessed with more time and just plain sick of my sensitive, PTSD, prone to triggers old self. There is no deeper sadness than losing a child, yet eternity is looking like the most beautiful sunset after the most heart wrenching storm. And so I flow, so I go…

Biblical Rachel: She is the patron saint of mothers who have lost a child.

Now, I am far from a saint. But, motherhood has been a driving theme my entire life. My name means “Lamb” as in sacrificial lamb. As a child I felt like I needed protect my family at all costs. The cost of which you can’t even imagine. But that is a closed vault, past trauma long let go of, no place for in this happy life.

It was as if I was born a mother. It was the nickname my family gave me as a toddler. I took care of everyone. I cooked for the entire clan, all 8 plus of us through grade school. I cared for my half brothers when they were born and I was in grade school. My room was between my half brothers Eben and baby Elijah and my mother’s. So when Elijah cried in the wee hours, I consoled him, changed his diaper, bounced him, laid him back down. At the lake in the summer I always had a baby on my hip. When Eben cried and cried with his ear infections I rocked him until my mother and stepfather came home. No cell phones, no way to contact them, 3 miles out on a dirt road in the middle of New England’s God’s Country.  Our cat even had babies in my bed! This is one of the highest compliments, in my opinion.

Before you continue, it helps to read my prior post~

The Great Underdog Story of The Mavericks, Bing Russell and an Alienated, Non-custodial Mother.

GOOD LORD I have made mistakes. I am the one responsible. No one else is. There, I said it.

Now let’s get on with it-I want each and every one of you who has lost a child to know that you CAN rise above, live through it. I only want to inspire YOU, The Underdog-to let you know that you are not alone as a mother or father, that is, for whatever reason, without your child. The great tides of life pull us out to many riptides, and the only option, for the time being, is to swim parallel to the shore, never losing sight of it. That is exactly what I did.