Category Archives: prayer

of mothers, wives, daughters and friends

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A few weeks ago I blogged about trading places with a loved one as I headed off for my annual, routine mammogram because as important as it is, I just don’t find having body parts smashed between two metal plates all that fun. Still I make that appointment and I keep that appointment every year since I was 35 years old because it is that important. But then I don’t give it too much more thought until it is that time of year again. But this time there was some concern and the need to get a better look which meant more smashing then ultrasounds then some poking and prodding and examining. I tried not to think about it too much. I don’t have the time for this I told myself. I am the sole income under the Big Top. Still I kept the follow-up appointment and then made like Scarlett O’Hara as long as I could get away with. The good news, for me, is that there was good news earlier this week. With the all clear I heaved a big sigh of relief and began to focus on the usual juggling plus preparing to send the kids back to school and planning for a little fun “me” time next week because, frankly, I deserve it.

Sigh!

Then today I read this from the lovely Susan of Toddler Planet. I met her last year at BlogHer10 and all I can say is her presence in the room you are in is as bright as the stars she has studied over the years. There are no words I can offer except to agree cancer sucks. It really does.

I’m certainly counting my blessing but even more I am hoping and praying for even more for Susan…more grace, more time. I can’t imagine such a bright star ever going out.

the home children come from

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Mother is the home we come from.
She is nature, soil, ocean.
- Erich Fromm, psychologist

Baby's First Carress - Mary Cassatt

I’m missing my Daniel this weekend. He is in good hands, the best while on a coastal adventure with his big sister Zoë and her boyfriend. I’m sure that he and Zoë are having so much fun still I miss his goodnight kiss and hug rituals, his morning cuddles and hugs, his laughter…him…as much as I miss Zoë and all that is her extraordinary self everyday now that she lives far from the Big Top. Our children crave our touch, our arms protectively surrounding them with our maternal love but it seems that we need that contact just as much as they do…perhaps even more than they do.

When Jodie and I were isolated in separate areas of a Bay Area hospital desperately ill with meningococcal meningitis I found that all I could think of was how desperately I wanted to see and hold my babies…all of them. Holly and Zoë were the only ones I was permitted contact with. Brief visits with them dressed up in gowns, gloves and special masks to protect them from the infection that nearly claimed their little sister and sidelined me. Weak and in pain all I wanted to do was be with my children and hold them…kiss away tears and fears…just breathe in their presence. The days I spent in the hospital alone in an isolation room I found myself crying less from any pain I was in but more out of the desperate, primal need to be with my children. When my doctor and Jodie’s doctor finally allowed me to visit Jodie I remember how my nurse tried to convince me to wait a little longer fearing that I was to weak to manage traveling from one end of Valley Medical Center to the other where the PICU was located. He couldn’t have possibly understood the strength of a mother…but then again I did collapse into bed and slept a solid nine hours after returning from my brief fifteen minute visit. Contact with three of my children was good medicine, the best medicine but it did not cover the pain and the ache I felt for Abby and Daniel back home in Manteca.

A friend, a talented co-worker, a mother of three gorgeous, young children, a beautiful woman I know is desperately ill. She has been hospitalized and critically ill since the beginning of this month. Those who know her have been filled with anxious worry for this beautiful young woman and her sweet family not knowing what else to do but offer many prayers, support and comfort to her and her family. She finally had the strength to post an update sharing how desperate she was just to hold her girls again. My face was wet with tears reading her update last night because I get it, I know too well that need.

Just as I received word that she was being transferred to higher level of care in a hospital in the Bay Area, I saw this picture on my Facebook news feed. One of her ICU nurses wheeled her out of the ICU so she could have that which her body and soul requires to be healed as much as intensive medical care, her beautiful children in her arms before she was transported to the Bay Area. While many tests, interventions, surgery and the unknown of what kind of recovery she might have continue to cloud the thoughts of those know this extraordinary woman, it is our hearts desire that she will be home again soon with her babies in her arms.

Praying for you Amy! Love you!

I say a little prayer for you

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My dear bloggy, shredding friend, Liz, whom I have met up with and hugged on twice in the last year is right now, as I write this, sitting in an OR waiting room waiting for her beautiful baby girl’s surgery to be complete. Sweet baby Ellie was a full term baby who for some unknown reason has been unable to eat nor even keep her feedings down. Not unlike Daniel nine years ago, she has a mixed bag of symptoms but no diagnosis that explains why this beautiful baby can’t eat the way a baby should. So since the end of February, when she was born, Ellie has been subjected to every test under the sun and then some while her Mommy, Daddy, big brother and sister and the rest of the family waited anxiously for her to come home. Today’s surgery opens the door that Ellie will hopefully exit the hospital and come home finally for the first time.

I can imagine quite clearly what my friend Liz is going through right now and my heart aches for her. But at the same time I am hopeful. This is not the ideal way to feed a baby. This is not what was planned. But it does bring Ellie home where she shall be surrounded with unlimitless love. And it will begin her journey to eventually eating by mouth. Thank goodness she is blessed with such an awesome mommy to be with her through it all.

Say a little prayer right now for Ellie, Liz and family. After that, head over to Liz’s blog to give her some love and encouragement.

three things I pray

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Not only did I forget until Friday of last week that this week is my kids’ Spring Break but it is also Easter Week or Holy Week. Just add that to the bad mommy column…I swear that column is MILES long. There has been no fun and frolicking and travel planned for this Spring break this year because (a) I forgot all about Spring break and (b) there is little money for extras like frolicking and travel when one is selling things like the hated motorcycle just to keep paying the mortgage. For the record, as much as I hated that motorcycle, I would never tell him to sell it. It was his idea because my darling husband remains unemployed, I remains grossly under-employed and yet we still have that damn mortgage to pay to the financial institution that got bailed out by Dubya…

Where was I?

Oh yeah, no frolicking and travel for our family circus this Spring break. But we still have managed to have some fun…hurray for the dollar theater movies, sleep-overs, hanging out with friends and rented dvd’s that have arrived this week in the mail. And with an ironic twist, the two dvd’s that came were Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. I swear that I did not plan it. It just happened that way. Pretty cool, I think.

This evening I curled up in the living room with my favorite little grand girl and watched Godspell. Actually, we sang along, clapped our hands and perhaps danced just a little. Yes, I am that patron of the arts who sings along. It seems to be an inherited trait since Hazel sang along with me with just as much joyful feeling even if it was in her own special toddler-ese native language. If only the real world was like that where we go about our day to day lives, skipping along and suddenly we break out into song…if only. Are you listening, dear Lord? That’s #1.

I could pray for this suck-ass economic situation to end now so that Bill and I both will be bringing home full paychecks but it seems just a little selfish at this very moment when I read this. Prayer #2 is for Califmom‘s family.

And prayer #3? Well dear Lord, now I will pray for a change, a change in how we pay the bills here under the Big Top because there isn’t anything left to sell to pay that mortgage. Oh, and I am scheduled to work this weekend. Hopefully I won’t get canceled and hopefully you’ll forgive me if I’m not in church because I am working.