Tag Archives: love

HBE, D, and me

Dear D,

I don’t know you, but we share a son. I realize it is presumptuous of me to say this, since you never willingly shared him, and since he was never really mine — or for that matter, anyone’s. He came into this world belonging to himself, a little light from God shining through so much darkness. I was his mama for such a short time. But then again, so were you. Except you will be his mama for eternity. He is from you. Of you. There is that.

I don’t know you, but I know what it’s like to grow a person in your body. I know the depth of that connection. I know the crushing weight of that love.

I know what it’s like to be desperate. To be so empty inside that you are simply unable to do what needs doing. To feel your own pain so deeply that you don’t have room for other people’s needs.

D, I don’t know you, but I know what it’s like to lose a child. Your child, as a matter of fact. I won’t claim my loss is the same as yours, because it is impossible to know what all of this feels like for you. But I can tell you what it feels like for me. There is an emptiness, a small space inside that can’t be filled. It aches and it tugs and it searches every moment of every day.

I know what it’s like to face down dread, to do more than you thought you were capable of — for love. The day I met you, you had done just that: conquered fears and demons and risked your own freedom to show up for your — our — son.

That day, I noticed you are left-handed. Like me. Like him. It reminded me that all of his beautiful qualities — his dimples, his perfect skin, his gentleness — came from somewhere. Many of them came from you.

Your sister is our son’s mother now. She is the mama who planned the celebration of his fourth birthday, which, as you well know, was last Thursday. (Maybe you were there?) She is the mama who fixes breakfasts and bandages booboos and schedules appointments and snuggles in for stories. Unlike me, she is a blood relative. Unlike you, she is available.

Your sister doesn’t keep in touch (and maybe that’s for the best), so I don’t know how he’s doing. I also don’t know how you’re doing. Like I said, D, I don’t know you.

But we share a son.

Some truth

For me, the most important thing about writing is telling the truth. Ironically, this is precisely the area in which I fall short. It’s s not that my writing is untrue — I do my best to keep things factual; it’s that it is not as true as it could be. Curating facts to advance a particular point of view or present a certain image is one way to communicate, but it feels very surface. Only by exposing vulnerability and exploring ideas without an agenda can we truly connect with words. So today — and, hopefully, on many future days — I am going to share a bit of my truth.

The truth is, in this moment (as in most moments) I am overwhelmed by the suffering in this world. Suffering — of both large and small scale — surrounds us. Hurricanes, homelessness, famine, disease, and war. Child abuse, poisoned water, mass shootings, failing schools, and underfunded everything. Car crashes. Evictions. Convictions. Loss of parents and children. Loss of species and habitats. Exploitation. Violence.

I am beyond fortunate to have shelter, enough to eat, a loving spouse, healthy children, and access to medical care and transportation. Yet, even in my life, there has been plenty of suffering. And I do not doubt that there will be plenty more.

Right now, as I sit on my comfortable couch typing, there are millions of people who are living through their worst moments and millions – even billions – more who have never known comfort or safety. How can I sit here, so complacent, while children die of drone attacks and women are raped by soldiers and thousands of people in my own city live on the streets? It is because my own fear of suffering keeps me paralyzed.

Ten years ago, I watched my mother die of cancer. Now, all around me, friends and acquaintances are being diagnosed with the disease. I grieve for them, because I know what they are facing. I also wonder: Am I next? Every time a child dies, or a terrible accident happens, or an earthquake devastates, I am filled with the pain of the people who are affected. But also, I wonder: Am I — are we — next?

Dread and despair are my constant companions. I can push them away, count my blessings, look for the helpers, focus on my breath, connect with my Creator, but they lurk beneath the surface and follow me everywhere – even into my most joyful moments.

I know for sure that fear is the opposite of love. One need look no further than the disturbing election that is playing out under our noses to see that. But I cannot conquer my own fear, or even, most of the time, keep it under control.

Fear informs so many of my decisions. It keeps me from standing up and stepping out more than I do, because standing up might be uncomfortable: physically, socially, legally, and in countless other ways. It keeps me from fostering another child, because I know it will be hard, and also because, if something catastrophic happens to me (see above), there will be three children without a mama. Fear even informs what I post on this blog. I worry that it will sound trite, that it will unwittingly offend, that I will be exposed as a bad writer or even a bad person.

I try to choose love over fear, as often as I can, in as many contexts as I can, because love — not the sentimental variety, but love as King envisioned it — is the only constructive response to the violence and misery in our world. But I am not very good at it. Thank God I have so many examples of courage and love in action to draw on for inspiration. I will keep trying.

Ase.

A beautiful, brief ride

On October 22, 2014, a chubby, dimpled, charming 16-month old — known for a single post as HBE — joined our family. On July 20th, 2015, he returned to the one he was born to.

It was an unexpected, happy outcome. It was what I prayed for when I prayed for our little guy (which I did, and still do, every night). It was also a heartbreaking, wrenching loss.

I feel a bit at loose ends right now — experiencing emotions that do not have a name, grieving and celebrating and missing and aching and sighing a big sigh of relief. The last time I felt this overwhelmed was when my mother died eight years ago.

Back then, I found solace on the bus. I remember being comforted, as I boarded the 4 for what ended up being my last visit with her, by the man in front of me who didn’t have his fare. A week later, after countless hours staring out my apartment window, I was desperate for the distraction of a ride.

Today, it’s not distraction I am craving; it is communion. It is both the actual community I am part of on the bus and the metaphor of the shared ride that ease the pain of this transition for me.

My family shared a beautiful, brief ride with a remarkable human being. The experience blessed and forever changed us. And now he is off on the next leg his life journey.

Oh how we miss you, my dear, sweet HBE.