Single parenthood

This IS My Family Now

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Recently there was a post on one of the Widow/Widower Facebook groups I belong to about Christmas cards. The person was asking if anyone else despised receiving “happy family” cards this time of year when his/her family wasn’t happy due to the loss of a parent. I read and reread the post and I’ve thought a lot about that topic lately. Here is what I know for sure.

This IS my family now, the three of us, a mom and 2 crazy kids. It is not the family situation I thought I was signing up for- not even a little bit-but it is the one God has blessed me with and I’m proud of us.

Last fall (2016) at the urging of my teenager, the three of us took family pictures. We were 2.5 months out from the loss of Patrick and to say it was hard would be a MASSIVE understatement. However, we took those pictures and they were beautiful (thank you Sarah). The beauty in the photos had zero to do with how we looked and everything to do with what the pictures represented. They represented the reset of our family. The beginning of us as a unit of 3. The initiation of single parenthood and all it brings to the table. (You single or former single parents are giving an Amen right now…I hear you).

I have my favorite picture from that photo session blown up in black and white above our mantel and I look at it daily. In it, I see a little boy who is 3 and has his fingers laced through mine. He is still too little to truly understand the depth and breadth of what happened to him. However, he knows his Mommy and sister love him fiercely and would do anything possible to love him through his pain. This boy will become so funny and learn so many new things in his upcoming year. He will lighten and brighten the days of his mother and sister. He will remind them to not get too bogged down in life’s messes.

I see my amazing daughter in that photograph. She will take the loss of her Daddy and model grace and strength that will amaze me. This girl will use dance to channel her grief and will test her mother while at the same time sharing the responsibility that will come her way due to the enormous shift in her life. A girl who will push through a tough schedule with amazing grades and a wicked sense of humor. A girl who is moving through the difficult stages of becoming a woman yet will lead her mother to more than a few late night belly laughs.

I look into the eyes of that broken 39 year old woman. Her face is smiling but her eyes are still so sad. She is wearing a bracelet- “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” She has done all those things (many of them not well but they happened) and a few things she never dreamed she’d do. This broken woman in that picture will fall apart and put herself back together so many times in the upcoming year that some people won’t recognize the person she will become. She will change and grow and evolve.

Those three people in the photograph hanging over my mantle are my family now. I sent them out on Christmas cards last year and this Christmas I sent cards with pictures of the three of us from our summer Disney Cruise. You know why? Because I’m proud of us- proud of of our messes, melodramas, mayhem and missteps. I’m proud of the laughter, love and lessons. I’m proud of the miles driven, meals eaten, events planned and new traditions we’ve made.

I responded to that post on my Facebook group very simply. “I choose to smile at all the cards I receive because someone cared enough to send them. I too sent cards both years post loss because this IS my family and I’m darn proud of us. We are pretty amazing.”

~I dedicate this post to my blessings- Morgan and Parker. May God continue to bless our family and wrap his loving arms around you as you grow. ~

Grace, Gratitude and Being Overwhelmed

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Ahhh November- a time for giving thanks and counting your blessings. In addition (at least for me) it’s a time for being overwhelmed, over tired, over stressed and overly worn. The past couple of weeks I’ve looked up a couple of times to see if there was a camera crew filming me. You know, to see if and when I would finally crack. (I did, it wasn’t pretty and I think I’ve apologized to everyone who got a piece of that mess…again…so sorry.)

I’m definitely a work in progress. Someone I love dearly told me recently that I’ve “come so far” in the way I handle my solo parent/working Mom life without “falling apart” like I used to. I’ve thought about that a lot and I truly struggle to see this progress. I know I’m my own worst critic and as I’ve written before, giving myself grace and understanding is a mighty struggle.

There is a pressure that comes with this life that is hard for some to understand. It’s not just the sheer exhaustion that comes from being 100% responsible for the care, food, clothing, shelter and transportation for two other lives. It’s the overwhelming pressure of being responsible for raising both of my children to be kind, loving, independent, socially responsible, free thinking humans who show God’s love in how they live their lives. It’s ALL ON ME and many days it’s a mighty weight on my small frame.

I don’t suppose that heaviness will ever truly go away. This is my life and I accept that it was and is part of a plan I can’t truly understand this side of heaven. My only option is to continue to do the work to manage the pressure. To pray and read and be still (so very hard for me). To take care of myself. To ask God to give me enough light to see the path ahead of me and to make the next decision the best I can.

I am striving to be overwhelmed with gratitude rather than stress when things go haywire and life takes an ugly turn. To be thankful for the journey I’ve been on and the one still ahead of me. I’m thankful for the past, for the battles, for the slivers of hope and for the rebirth of me. I’m thankful I get to breathe in and out and raise my kids. I’m thankful for a multitude of family and friends who build me up and encourage me. I’m thankful for second chances and my Chapter 2. Finally, I’m overwhelmingly thankful for the peace, grace, provision and unconditional love of my Heavenly Father.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~Melody Beattie

You Just Get Better

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I love marquee signs. You know the one outside of a church that says “Live so fully that Westboro Baptist Church will picket your funeral.” Or outside a DQ that says “Scream until your dad stops the car.” Signs add laughter to my day or sometimes, a little inspriration like yesterday outside of of a school.  

“It doesn’t get easier you just get better.”

Well isn’t that the truth!  When it comes to life’s blistering, brutal changes and curveballs it doesn’t really ever get easier. 

I’ve been doing this full time, single mother shuffle for nearly 15 months now.  Nothing about my life is any easier than it was a year ago.  This life, like that of many parents, can be hard, exhausting and overwhelming at times.  It’s still painful to read articles about the importance of fathers in their children’s lives and know that your kids don’t have that anymore.  It sucks to be so proud of your kids you could burst but instead you get teary because their Daddy can’t see what amazing little people they are.   

It isn’t any easier to work full time, parent full time, take care of a household full time and still have something left at the end of the day.  To not be so tired and worn that you are useless to everyone. 

It’s still a beast to figure out schedules, homework, errands and how to cook a meal when you’re only home for 27 minutes on Tuesday night in between carpools.   It isn’t any easier to keep the grass mowed, the laundry “done”, the field mice at bay and the oil changed in the car when said car always needs to be in motion.  None of this is easier.  Not one single thing.  But that sign was 100% spot on- I’ve gotten better.  

I’ve gotten better at absolving myself of guilt.  I didn’t chose this, Patrick didn’t chose this.  My kids are thriving, happy and strong.  I’ve gotten better at praying to my Heavenly Father and asking him to be a continued, glorious presence in their lives and to help me be a little better every day.  

I’ve gotten better at the day to day of our crazy, hectic life.  The management of work and home, of parenting and a personal life, of fear and faith.  I’m better at finding moments for quiet, moments to run, moments to be a little nutty and moments just for me.  

There are still stumbles, rough patches, hard days and nights when my chest gets so tight I don’t think I can breathe.  There are moments I still blink in disbelief that this is where my life is at age 40.  There are times when I am so physically exhausted that I hurt.  There are times I just go in the laundry room, close the door and cry.  (OF COURSE  I start a load of clothes when I’m in there-we widows have to multitask.) 

I know that I will continue to get better at managing it all- my job, our house, the schedules and the pain. I only have to look at how far I’ve come from this time last year to know that I WILL continue to get better.  That better will include a lifetime of prayer, work, an open heart and acceptance.  To quote Tim McGraw “I ain’t as good as I’m gonna get but I’m better than I used to be.”  

So CHEERS to all you barely broken, slightly struggling YET still smiling works in progress out there…may we all strive for better!  

The Days I Hate Lilly Pulitzer 

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Like any 40 year old woman worth her salt- I have a planner.  Like any over scheduled, crazy busy mother of 2- I have a big planner.  It’s a Lilly Pulitzer planner- the JUMBO size….and its full.  Every box for the foreseeable future is full (actually more like overflowing). 

Like any full time single mother of multiple children who also has a full time job to “bring home to bacon”, I often feel like I should work for UPS.  My life is logistics.  Seriously, there are days I don’t drive outside of a 20 mile radius and manage to burn out a 1/2 a tank of gas, feed a meal and 2 snacks in the car while one child is changing clothes and another is taking a quick power nap.  I haul my dancer, other dancers, band gear, soccer stuff, our latest Kroger Clicklist and enough old Cherrios to fill the Super Dome. I trade off carpools and even hire college students to help me drive my teenager or sit with a sleeping child because no matter how good I am- I can’t be two places at once.  I return work emails and texts while in car rider lines or in between halves of a soccer game.  It. Never. Stops.

My planner is my brain, the center of our school year universe.  It holds all the dates, times, events, lists, appointments and snack schedules.  I haul my Lilly planner everywhere and wouldn’t dare schedule anything without her.  Lilly is basically an appendage to my body and necessary to the mechanics of our family.  But some days, I hate that planner. 

There are days I look at Lilly with her cheery little pink and blue island pattern and cry.  I cry for how overwhelmed I am with my big, overscheduled life.  I cry because that stupid pink planner full of plans and dates is solely on MY shoulders.  I have no one else to shoulder that load or carry that burden.  EVER.  Every activity, appointment, check to be written, form to be filled out, waiver to sign and outfit to buy- it’s all on me.  I get mad at Lilly, at God for doing this to me and then at myself for being a baby.   I pray for peace, patience, humility, grace, calm, rest and for the stress that seems to have permanent residence in my neck and shoulders to leave- just for a bit.  I ask God to help me quit being a whiny, soggy, broken ball of stress and just trust him more.  (I spend a lot of time on my knees.)

I’ve now had this life for almost 14 months.  It’s not new,  I’m in my second season, but I’ve noticed it’s different right now.  The fog of immediate grief has lifted.  That fog- the body’s way of allowing us to go on after tragedy-is gone.  The grief fog last year was like grease to the gears of my life.  What is left this year is the reality of aloneness.  Of being the sole captain of a ship I don’t ever feel 100% qualified to drive.  It’s sometimes so raw and scary and heavy that I struggle to make it through a Wednesday or a Thursday without completely falling apart by 8pm.  

I don’t have a happy, hopeful ending to this blog because the gears of my life are still grinding together, squeaking in pain on more days than I’d like. It is Saturday.  My kitchen floor is crummy, the laundry is half done and the remains from last night’s slumber party are still scattered through my house.  Cheery old Lilly is laying open in my kitchen awaiting me to study her.  To plot out the next 7 days of transportation, appointments, practices, meetings, games, field trip lunches, dance classes and giving another birthday party.  However, today I’ve enjoyed a Jeep ride, a grown up lunch and am now sitting on my porch swing.  The sun is shining on my face and I’m letting it ALL go (at least for now).  Someone who is very wise reminded me this week to take care of myself because if I fall apart at the seams then so does this whole operation.  My kids need more than a whiny, soggy, stress ball Mommy.  So I’m going to sit, swing and read my junky magazine from February.  Somebody tell stupid Lilly I’ll be with her later on.  

The Darn Yard

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How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  I’ll go ahead and admit I had to look that one up.  You see I’ve never been good at one bite at a time.  I want to take the entire elephant, shove it down my throat first and then figure out the bites.  I’m a doer and usually on a big scale.  That strategy was not an option after loss.  

Our yard is 1.2 acres but might as well have been 1000.2 acres late last summer.  I have to immediately stop now and commend my neighbors.  They mowed my yard EVERY WEEK last year from August through early November.  It was like a sound from heaven!  About the time I would look out the window and sigh that the yard was getting tall, I would hear the sound of a motor and boom- there was a saint on a John Deere cutting my grass.  It was truly one of the most wonderful things that could be done for a broken woman who could barely pour her children a bowl of cereal.  

The beginning of cold weather marked the end of mowing and the beginning of rebuilding.  Slowly, over those late fall and winter months, I begin to figure some crap out.  I learned to build a fire in my wood burning fireplace (shout out again to my neighbor who taught me how to open the damper.  I know…it’s embarrassing.)  I learned to orchestrate our lives so that everyone had clean clothes, relatively healthy meals, transportation and (most of the time) a happy, somewhat sane mother.  I figured out all the parts of the household as a single parent.  

EXCEPT THE DARN YARD! 

Spring had arrived.  The birds were singing, the bunnies were hopping, work and activities were humming…oh and my grass was growing.  Again.  Grass does that in the spring but for the life of me I couldn’t manage to get the yard mowed and the trimming done.  Insert my saintly father who hauled his mower over every week this past spring and mowed my yard.  He also taught his 40 year old daughter how to use a trimmer so the fence line and the swingset didn’t look like Heather’s World of Random Weeds. 

Then, one day, it finally happened- I mowed AND trimmed the darn yard.  I’m not certain I’ve been more proud of myself as a single mom. It was that final item, the albatross around my neck that had separated me from achieving total independence.  I was now able to do ALL of the “stuff” that I needed to accomplish as a single mother.  I could really run my household, all by myself and it worked!  

There are still plenty of things I have to ask for help with like changing the light bulbs in my double tray ceiling or all things related to plumbing (a few of you are laughing right now) but the day to day, week to week things- I can do those.  Many times I may do them with one eye open, two children simultaneously yelling “MOMMY” and something boiling over on the stove- but I do them! 

I guess my lesson through all of this is to give yourself time and heaping piles of grace.  Time to be sad, overwhelmed and angry about what could have been. Time to learn, to make missteps and to trust that things will get better.  Time to let people help you, to carry your “I can’t do this (and that and some more of this).”  Then, time for accomplishment and triumph when you finally embrace your imperfections and figure some stuff out.  

I am writing this on a Saturday morning. We are back in “school mode” at our house. My family’s laundry is towering in the laundry room, the Clicklist is awaiting pick up, there are bills to be paid and guess what?  My grass is tall again.  One bite at a time Heather, one bite at a time. 

I Was a Messed Up Martyr Mommy

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“I just FEEL SO GUILTY.”  This was me sometime last fall sitting on the soft couch in counseling.  Why did I feel guilty?  Well my kids didn’t have their Daddy and it made me feel guilt unlike any other I’d ever experienced.  I had reached a place where I was stumbling along as a human but couldn’t begin to process the fact that I was a single mother.  That this life with only one parent was the hand of cards that had been dealt to my children.  As one of my favorite bloggers One Fit Widow puts it, our family had changed from “a strong square of 4 to an awkward triangle of 3.”

Single parenthood may be exceedingly common but it is also exceedingly hard.  Add the layers of loss, shock and grief as well as the fact that I didn’t want ANY of this and you wind up with one messed up Mommy.  In those early months I can only describe myself as a martyr.  It was as though I felt that by taking all of the burden squarely on my physically small shoulders, I could somehow make up for my kids being fatherless.  Fun? Rest? Self care? Joy?  Not for this girl.  Part of me truly thought if I gave every bit of what little I had then MAYBE my kids wouldn’t hurt so much.  As though a depleted, physically wrecked, emotionally unstable mother was what they so desperately needed.  I was a mess.

Over time (I’m talking months) I began to see how incredibly stupid that entire thought process was.  I began reading books about single parenting.  I confided in friends who lifted me up with love, prayers and scripture.  I began to schedule time for myself, not because I was selfish, but because I was human.  I realized that because I spend my weekdays with 20+ of other people’s children (and the rest of my waking hours with my own children) that perhaps adult conversation WAS important to my well being. 

My soul sister Sheryl Sandberg says in her book Option B that “Allowing ourselves to be happy- accepting that it is ok to push through the guilt and seek joy- is a triumph over permanence.  Having fun is a form of self compassion.”  There was no prize for being miserable.  However, through seeking joy, having fun and kicking that stinking guilt to the curb, I was giving my children and myself a gift that could transcend the pain of loss. 

I CANNOT change what happened to my family.  I CANNOT change the ripples of grief that come after loss.  I CAN change and shape my attitude, reactions and life choices.   I CAN release all the guilt and allow joy into my life and into the lives of my children.  

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  Psalms 34:18.