I just don't get it. I did everything right. All I wanted to do was go to church and sing in the choir. So yesterday I spent the whole day focused on doing everything possible to make sure Sam got a good night's sleep. I changed the clocks forward first thing in the morning hoping to "psych" us all into the time change. I fed him regularly. I made sure to pay attention to him so he didn't feel ignored. I did his 45 minute treatments three times and I made sure his medications were correctly balanced. I even changed the furnace filter because it was looking a little gray on the theory that clean air helps him breathe better. (It's just a theory. The allergist says he's not allergic to anything. His breathing problems are because of the way his head is shaped and because of the way his brain works.)
I bragged to a friend that I had finally reached acceptance of the fact that my number one priority is managing Sam's lungs. If I do the treatments correctly and get him to the chiropractor twice a month, he is fine. Even the apnea is reduced. If I let the schedule get out of sync, he is miserable. And so am I. It's a very plain fact. My life is ruled by this routine.
How nice. How safe and predictable. I am secure and in control of my life. Keep it simple and keep it sane. That's my motto. Stress and failure occur when I rebel, peace and success are the result of faithfulness.
Wrong.
In spite of doing everything right, Sam and I were up until 3 am. He was groaning in sinus pain and trying to be brave. I was tender and sympathetic and trying not to hit him over the head or give him whiskey. I WANT TO SING IN THE CHOIR!!! Can't he get that?
How deeply spiritual I am not in the middle of the night. On Friday I did the Stations of the Cross and Taize and then Luis gave a very lovely bi-lingual talk. I sang. I read really good scripture verses. I got to see so many of the people I love. Rosie and I actually talked about how important it is for choir members to worship as they sing. It makes a big difference if we worship instead of perform. I don't do either. I just love to sing with other people. Well, maybe that's worship on a very primitive level. I only get to do this twice a month on a good month. I miss those two Sundays often because of Sam.
Two weeks ago I gave a talk at another church. One of the major themes of my talk was we are not in control. Why do bad things happen to good people? Because bad things happen to all of us. God does not cause them to happen. They are not part of God's divine plan. The Bible is full of stories about bad things happening for no reason or because of an enemy. Whether the enemy is a person or an event or Satan, bad things happen and people in the Bible turn to God and ask for help. Joseph says to his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." Paul says to the Romans, "All things work together for good." In other words, God answers prayer and comes to us in our distress and redeems the situation. Sometimes. God redeems us always. Eventually.
Last week I got to go to SPRED church. We all three made it and Charley played with that choir. It is a wonderful sound. I do worship when I go to SPRED church and especially when I hear Charley playing lovely music. The message from Fr. Jim was something like "Jesus says to you today where you are standing right now is holy ground. Let the fire of my divine presence grow within you. Nurture it." I'm home this morning. Where I stand is holy ground. I have a Bible and some really good tea and Sam's asleep. I can go upstairs and turn on some music and nurture the divine in me. That is always a possibility.
I spend soooo much time alone I'm becoming a Desert Mother and not by choice.
I have often said that I don't have any choice or control over the bad things that come to me. BUT I do have a choice about how I will respond to them. That's the part where God comes in. God is apparently not going to intervene and make Sam healthy. But God can help me appreciate my time with him and love my life and manage the difficulties, if I ask. Although I wouldn't say no to a healing...
But in spite of all my wisdom and 28 years of learning the same lesson over and over and over again, this morning I'm just grumpy. I didn't get enough sleep last night, I was scared and unsure what to do for most of it and this morning I don't get to sing with the choir. Life's not fair.
Do you know that the divorce rate among families who have a child with disabilities is somewhere around 98%? The fact that I make it to church at all is due to the fact that we remain a two parent household after all these years. There's a miracle. Charley is playing his saxophone this morning in our old church. I hope he gets a lot of love and gratitude. I hope he comes home feeling good and refreshed and ready for another week at work.
I hope I get to go to church next week. AND SING!
Musings From a Life Transformed by Unconditional Love
Showing posts with label Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Security. Show all posts
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Craft Fair Blues
My Position
I have been to grocery stores with little fences around them so you can’t take your cart out into the parking lot to your car. They always say, “Don’t worry about anything. There’s someone here watching your cart. Just go get your car and you can load your groceries from here.” But I worry. I have rarely seen anyone actually watching and, even if there were someone, what would they do if I started loading someone else’s groceries? Would they even know? When I get home with all my groceries I heave a sigh of relief and try to believe in the basic honesty of human beings.
At the last craft fair I attended, there was an elderly volunteer standing under a tree in the “loading zone.” She said, “You can’t drive up to your assigned space, but you can just unload everything here and I’ll watch it. After you park, you can come back and cart it to your space.” I thought, “How is that a good idea? Everyone is unloading here and how will this woman know which pile of stuff belongs to which crafter?” But everyone seemed to be going along with her instructions, and I did too. And nothing bad happened.
So today the woman in charge of the craft fair said, “There are numerous volunteers here who will help you get your things to your car.” And a young woman I’ll call “Heather” offered to help. I said, “I’ll go get my van, you help my friend bring the things out.” There was a little mix up about which door, but that’s not the main point. My friend said, “Stay here and watch these things, I will just go get the rest of our stuff.” So she stayed. Then some woman in a van drove up and said, “Oh this is mine,” and loaded my entire inventory into her van and drove off. It isn’t “Heather’s” fault. I don’t think this has anything to do with her age (13). I think it is exactly what the elderly volunteer would have done or the grocery store clerk. It is exactly what I would have done in her place.
But now my entire inventory is gone. This isn’t a hobby; this was a business. Six months of time and creative energy gone in a flash. My very expensive gamble on a start-up business devastated. I am wiped out. And all anyone can say is, “It’s not “Heather’s” fault.” I agree. So what? My livelihood is missing. I have already paid a $200 fee for another craft fair and I don’t have any inventory. I am worse than wiped out. This is not a small thing. I gambled my family savings on this venture. And it’s gone. I have nothing to show for the last six months of work. I have no way to pay back our savings account for all the money I drained out of it. This is my own personal hurricane. I was in shock. All I heard was, ““Heather” is crying.” I was very sorry that “Heather” was crying. I wanted to go somewhere and cry, myself. I don’t think she did anything wrong. I went to “Heather” to tell her I didn’t blame her. Oddly enough, she was the first person who seemed to truly understand this terrible situation. God bless “Heather”, at least she said, “I’m so sorry, I wish there was something I could do.”
If someone took my groceries by mistake or design, I think the store would feel some responsibility. I don’t think the store would try to tell me I had been irresponsible for following their suggested procedures. (“Heather’s” mother kept shouting, “Who leaves their inventory in charge of a 13 year old girl?” The answer is, “Every other crafter who came to the show today.”) I don’t think a grocery store would try to “calm me down” by making light of the situation. (“But you have to understand that these are volunteers.”) I understand that, what I don’t understand is why the adults in charge were reluctant to help rectify the situation.
I am willing to hope that this was all a big mistake and I will see my things again. I don’t in the least blame “Heather”. But I would still like to my inventory back. I don’t really blame anyone for this. But I wish people could have expressed some dismay and concern for my loss. I understand that this is a very unusual case and that people’s inventory is not usually stolen at this or any other craft fair. All I ask is that some attempt be made to recover it. I don’t have access to the list of crafters, I understand that it is not something that the organizers would hand over to me lightly.
Thanks to my friend’s insistence, the organizers did eventually decide to call all the other crafters to see if one of them had taken home my things by mistake. I appreciate this. It seems like the first logical step. I don’t appreciate how long it took them to agree to do this or how little shock, sorrow or empathy they showed toward me.
If no attempt is actually made to contact the other crafters, or if no one is willing to admit they drove off with my inventory, I will have to file a police report. This is not a threat or an attempt to force them to do what they have already agreed to do. This is just simply facing the reality that my entire inventory was taken away by someone who was not me or in any way connected to me.
If I were in charge of a craft show (or a grocery store with a little fence) I think I’d have some kind of coat check or baggage claim system. Although I can’t remember the last time some guy asked me if the luggage I was removing from the airport after a domestic flight was indeed mine. Maybe the world is mostly trustworthy. What would you say? 80%? Higher, lower?
Okay, I know. This has been a really bad day. Not as bad as finding out your father has been murdered by drug addicts on your son’s birthday, but still, pretty bad. I’ll grieve, I’ll recover, it’ll all be better eventually. It could have been worse. It’ll all blow over and I might even see my stuff again. But still…
I have been to grocery stores with little fences around them so you can’t take your cart out into the parking lot to your car. They always say, “Don’t worry about anything. There’s someone here watching your cart. Just go get your car and you can load your groceries from here.” But I worry. I have rarely seen anyone actually watching and, even if there were someone, what would they do if I started loading someone else’s groceries? Would they even know? When I get home with all my groceries I heave a sigh of relief and try to believe in the basic honesty of human beings.
At the last craft fair I attended, there was an elderly volunteer standing under a tree in the “loading zone.” She said, “You can’t drive up to your assigned space, but you can just unload everything here and I’ll watch it. After you park, you can come back and cart it to your space.” I thought, “How is that a good idea? Everyone is unloading here and how will this woman know which pile of stuff belongs to which crafter?” But everyone seemed to be going along with her instructions, and I did too. And nothing bad happened.
So today the woman in charge of the craft fair said, “There are numerous volunteers here who will help you get your things to your car.” And a young woman I’ll call “Heather” offered to help. I said, “I’ll go get my van, you help my friend bring the things out.” There was a little mix up about which door, but that’s not the main point. My friend said, “Stay here and watch these things, I will just go get the rest of our stuff.” So she stayed. Then some woman in a van drove up and said, “Oh this is mine,” and loaded my entire inventory into her van and drove off. It isn’t “Heather’s” fault. I don’t think this has anything to do with her age (13). I think it is exactly what the elderly volunteer would have done or the grocery store clerk. It is exactly what I would have done in her place.
But now my entire inventory is gone. This isn’t a hobby; this was a business. Six months of time and creative energy gone in a flash. My very expensive gamble on a start-up business devastated. I am wiped out. And all anyone can say is, “It’s not “Heather’s” fault.” I agree. So what? My livelihood is missing. I have already paid a $200 fee for another craft fair and I don’t have any inventory. I am worse than wiped out. This is not a small thing. I gambled my family savings on this venture. And it’s gone. I have nothing to show for the last six months of work. I have no way to pay back our savings account for all the money I drained out of it. This is my own personal hurricane. I was in shock. All I heard was, ““Heather” is crying.” I was very sorry that “Heather” was crying. I wanted to go somewhere and cry, myself. I don’t think she did anything wrong. I went to “Heather” to tell her I didn’t blame her. Oddly enough, she was the first person who seemed to truly understand this terrible situation. God bless “Heather”, at least she said, “I’m so sorry, I wish there was something I could do.”
If someone took my groceries by mistake or design, I think the store would feel some responsibility. I don’t think the store would try to tell me I had been irresponsible for following their suggested procedures. (“Heather’s” mother kept shouting, “Who leaves their inventory in charge of a 13 year old girl?” The answer is, “Every other crafter who came to the show today.”) I don’t think a grocery store would try to “calm me down” by making light of the situation. (“But you have to understand that these are volunteers.”) I understand that, what I don’t understand is why the adults in charge were reluctant to help rectify the situation.
I am willing to hope that this was all a big mistake and I will see my things again. I don’t in the least blame “Heather”. But I would still like to my inventory back. I don’t really blame anyone for this. But I wish people could have expressed some dismay and concern for my loss. I understand that this is a very unusual case and that people’s inventory is not usually stolen at this or any other craft fair. All I ask is that some attempt be made to recover it. I don’t have access to the list of crafters, I understand that it is not something that the organizers would hand over to me lightly.
Thanks to my friend’s insistence, the organizers did eventually decide to call all the other crafters to see if one of them had taken home my things by mistake. I appreciate this. It seems like the first logical step. I don’t appreciate how long it took them to agree to do this or how little shock, sorrow or empathy they showed toward me.
If no attempt is actually made to contact the other crafters, or if no one is willing to admit they drove off with my inventory, I will have to file a police report. This is not a threat or an attempt to force them to do what they have already agreed to do. This is just simply facing the reality that my entire inventory was taken away by someone who was not me or in any way connected to me.
If I were in charge of a craft show (or a grocery store with a little fence) I think I’d have some kind of coat check or baggage claim system. Although I can’t remember the last time some guy asked me if the luggage I was removing from the airport after a domestic flight was indeed mine. Maybe the world is mostly trustworthy. What would you say? 80%? Higher, lower?
Okay, I know. This has been a really bad day. Not as bad as finding out your father has been murdered by drug addicts on your son’s birthday, but still, pretty bad. I’ll grieve, I’ll recover, it’ll all be better eventually. It could have been worse. It’ll all blow over and I might even see my stuff again. But still…
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Security
Security is mostly superstition. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. – Helen Keller
I’ve always been the kind of person who jumps in the deep end to find out if I can swim. This is because I believe that the universe is pretty much on my side. But as I grow older and more vulnerable, fears have been creeping up on me.
On September 11, 2001, I was late taking Sam to school. We were listening to the news as the towers were hit. I thought at first that this was some kind of hoax, like Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast. But Sam’s school is not too far from O’Hare International Airport and the absolute absence of planes in the sky overhead was an eerie confirmation of what I was hearing on the radio. We sat in the car outside the school and listened. And sat. And listened. And sat. And listened. Until finally it dawned on me that I was apparently not going to get out of the car. I looked at the school across the street and thought about how treeless the street was, how vulnerable it looked and how far away from our home it was located. And we turned the car around and went home. If the world was about to end, I wanted to have my son beside me.
I didn’t think I was overly affected by the attacks. They were tragic and shocking and five years ago. Right? This September when all the news was about the 5-year anniversary of the attack, I realized that he hasn’t gone to school on September 11 since. This hasn’t been conscious on my part. Underneath my calm exterior lurks a terrified woman with a calendar who tells me my son’s got a cold every year on September 11.
Sam is so vulnerable and being his mom makes me vulnerable. He is never going to be independent and I don’t trust anyone else to really take good care of him. So I can never die. And yet, my body is beginning to show signs of wearing out. I have no plan for how to care for him after I die. This is not because I haven’t looked into options; it is because there ARE no good options. I can’t die or get sick. That’s all there is to it. And yet, of course, I will.
I thought my father would live forever. When he was in German POW camp in 1944, he prayed to God, “Please don’t let me die here. Please let me live to be 40 years old.” So in 1964, he went through a deep depression because he thought his time was up. And he didn’t die. He thought, “Maybe God misunderstood. Maybe God thought I meant I wanted to live another 40 years.” So he took another look at life and in 1968 my baby brother was born. Then as 1984 approached he went through another deep depression. He decided he didn’t have much time left to live, so he divorced my mom and decided to take one last stab at finding happiness. And didn’t die. By 2004 he told me, “I think God has lost my paperwork.” I thought so, too. He had at least two kinds of cancer, emphysema, and diabetes. He’d survived an aortal aneurysm and had a host of other issues and continued to not only live, but also research and publish. Although he could no longer go out into the desert to look for fossils, he continued to be held in high regard by a whole generation of younger paleontologists. He was unstoppable.
Then the morning of January 5, 2005 two drug addicts hired by a couple of drug dealers, broke into his house and brutally put an end to my superstition about my invincible father. The drug dealers knew my 82-year-old father because they were also roofers and he had invited them in for coffee and a discussion of possibly doing some work on his patio roof. One of them had returned several times to do odd jobs and help out around the house. My father gave them a tour of his large museum of a house, pointing out significant pieces in his collection. I can hear him do it. “This fossil is particularly valuable. It is a microtine rodent from Siberia.” “Valuable” is a relative term. The market value of a mouse tooth is pretty nil.
But drug dealers and addicts are not very clever and they murdered my dad for a house load of beat up Navajo rugs, mouse teeth and Nazi memorabilia. And my life shifted again.
A few months later, our roof started leaking and we had to have some roofers fix it. I spent the first day cowering in a corner of my living room certain that they were going to murder me. After the first day, I made a point of not being home, but it was months before I started sleeping again at night. I was sure they were coming back to murder us in our beds. My husband said, “They aren’t the SAME roofers.” But that wasn’t very helpful.
I stayed home for about a week after that stuff in the news about the guy who killed all the little Amish girls. If you aren’t safe in an Amish schoolhouse, where ARE you safe?
Good question.
Here’s another: What does “Trust in the Lord” really mean if you can’t trust God to keep you safe? And clearly you can’t trust God to keep you safe. My life is a bed of roses compared to most of the people in the world. What are they trusting God to do for them?
The universe is not necessarily on my side, God might not keep me safe. Do I still want to jump?
What are the alternatives?
well that pretty much lays out what I want to work through for the next four or five years.
I’ve always been the kind of person who jumps in the deep end to find out if I can swim. This is because I believe that the universe is pretty much on my side. But as I grow older and more vulnerable, fears have been creeping up on me.
On September 11, 2001, I was late taking Sam to school. We were listening to the news as the towers were hit. I thought at first that this was some kind of hoax, like Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast. But Sam’s school is not too far from O’Hare International Airport and the absolute absence of planes in the sky overhead was an eerie confirmation of what I was hearing on the radio. We sat in the car outside the school and listened. And sat. And listened. And sat. And listened. Until finally it dawned on me that I was apparently not going to get out of the car. I looked at the school across the street and thought about how treeless the street was, how vulnerable it looked and how far away from our home it was located. And we turned the car around and went home. If the world was about to end, I wanted to have my son beside me.
I didn’t think I was overly affected by the attacks. They were tragic and shocking and five years ago. Right? This September when all the news was about the 5-year anniversary of the attack, I realized that he hasn’t gone to school on September 11 since. This hasn’t been conscious on my part. Underneath my calm exterior lurks a terrified woman with a calendar who tells me my son’s got a cold every year on September 11.
Sam is so vulnerable and being his mom makes me vulnerable. He is never going to be independent and I don’t trust anyone else to really take good care of him. So I can never die. And yet, my body is beginning to show signs of wearing out. I have no plan for how to care for him after I die. This is not because I haven’t looked into options; it is because there ARE no good options. I can’t die or get sick. That’s all there is to it. And yet, of course, I will.
I thought my father would live forever. When he was in German POW camp in 1944, he prayed to God, “Please don’t let me die here. Please let me live to be 40 years old.” So in 1964, he went through a deep depression because he thought his time was up. And he didn’t die. He thought, “Maybe God misunderstood. Maybe God thought I meant I wanted to live another 40 years.” So he took another look at life and in 1968 my baby brother was born. Then as 1984 approached he went through another deep depression. He decided he didn’t have much time left to live, so he divorced my mom and decided to take one last stab at finding happiness. And didn’t die. By 2004 he told me, “I think God has lost my paperwork.” I thought so, too. He had at least two kinds of cancer, emphysema, and diabetes. He’d survived an aortal aneurysm and had a host of other issues and continued to not only live, but also research and publish. Although he could no longer go out into the desert to look for fossils, he continued to be held in high regard by a whole generation of younger paleontologists. He was unstoppable.
Then the morning of January 5, 2005 two drug addicts hired by a couple of drug dealers, broke into his house and brutally put an end to my superstition about my invincible father. The drug dealers knew my 82-year-old father because they were also roofers and he had invited them in for coffee and a discussion of possibly doing some work on his patio roof. One of them had returned several times to do odd jobs and help out around the house. My father gave them a tour of his large museum of a house, pointing out significant pieces in his collection. I can hear him do it. “This fossil is particularly valuable. It is a microtine rodent from Siberia.” “Valuable” is a relative term. The market value of a mouse tooth is pretty nil.
But drug dealers and addicts are not very clever and they murdered my dad for a house load of beat up Navajo rugs, mouse teeth and Nazi memorabilia. And my life shifted again.
A few months later, our roof started leaking and we had to have some roofers fix it. I spent the first day cowering in a corner of my living room certain that they were going to murder me. After the first day, I made a point of not being home, but it was months before I started sleeping again at night. I was sure they were coming back to murder us in our beds. My husband said, “They aren’t the SAME roofers.” But that wasn’t very helpful.
I stayed home for about a week after that stuff in the news about the guy who killed all the little Amish girls. If you aren’t safe in an Amish schoolhouse, where ARE you safe?
Good question.
Here’s another: What does “Trust in the Lord” really mean if you can’t trust God to keep you safe? And clearly you can’t trust God to keep you safe. My life is a bed of roses compared to most of the people in the world. What are they trusting God to do for them?
The universe is not necessarily on my side, God might not keep me safe. Do I still want to jump?
What are the alternatives?
well that pretty much lays out what I want to work through for the next four or five years.
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