Katie Graduates

My dearest Katie, the first time I ever saw you, you were a bright eyed little girl in a photograph.  Your hair was full of baubles and twists, and you sat up very straight and looked directly into the camera.  You were posed with your sisters, and you were not yet nine years old.  I carried that picture with me for months, until I met you in person.  It was the fall of 2006, and you had just turned nine, a little girl with a mouth full of too big teeth and a sweet smile that reached up to your eyes.  I wonder sometimes about that little girl, who you were then, and who you are now.

Several months later you came to live with us, and it was then we discovered that Katie had superpowers.  It's true.  Katie was capable of moving so quickly, she actually became invisible to the naked eye.  One morning as she was doing her usual hygiene and grooming, Katie realized she had forgotten something in the living room.  A hairbrush I think, and she decided she could run fast enough to get it, even though she was only wearing bright orange underwear.  It was like that hairbrush just disappeared into thin air, and if you were watching closely, you might have seen a flash of brown and orange.

Um no.  Not really.  And of course these sorts of things become part of family legend...remember when Katie thought she could run fast enough to be invisible?

When Katie first came to us she hated to read.  She was a smart girl, who had always done well in school, but reading for fun was a new idea, and she did not like it.  Another family memory is of Katie sitting in a living room chair, holding a book, wailing.  I was making her sit and read, and it was torturous...for all of us.  And again, we often will say something like "Remember when Katie hated to read?  Remember when she used to cry if you gave her a book?"...because we all know that Katie loves to read, and can bury herself in a good book for hours on end. 

Katie was always a girl of few words, and yet for a girl of few words, she was always trying out new ones, and not always successfully.  Once, several years ago, Mrs. Frantz required Katie to write a research paper.  She went through steps like gathering notes on cards, and making an outline.  One night she came home and sighed as she dropped her piles of papers and books onto the table.  I asked what she needed to work on, and she fussed about needing to work on her paper, and not understanding exactly what she was supposed to be doing.  I told her to pull out her work and we would chat.

When she pulled out her paper, I stared at it for a long time, and then I began to laugh.  In spite of Katie's injured look and inquiries as to why I was holding my sides, I laughed and laughed.  On the top of her paper were two words.  Ruff.  R-U-F-F.  Giraffe.  G-I-R-A-F-F-E.  In my mind I pictured a giraffe with a ruffled collar, and I understood Katie's confusion.  Mrs. Frantz of course wanted her to write a rough draft, but Katie had no experience with the phrase.  And so Katie was our girl of few words that was brave enough to try on new words and get them wrong...brave enough to deal with the ribbing of a large family and many older sibling, who still remind her of run ins with words like metabolism and pork loin.

Katie, I will stop here, teasing and telling tales.  Instead I will tell you what came to mind as I sorted pictures for the yearbook, and sorted memories for this speech.  Recently we were talking about your plans for the future, and what different people thought of them.  You sighed and said to me, "I guess I'm just a late bloomer."  It was such an old fashioned thing to say, and it made me think.

You were nine years old when first we met, eleven when you were adopted.  In a short while you will turn eighteen, and so nearly half your life you have been running around with the Vietri clan.  I think about who you were then, and who you are now, and it makes me reflect on the fact that none of us are ever quite finished, not in this world.  When you were nine, you ran faster than the speed of light, but now that you are nearly eighteen, you tell me you are a late bloomer.  The girl who wanted to move fast finds that she has learned the value of going slow too.  You were a girl of few words, yet you mastered so many new ones, and now you might just find that you have something to say.  You were quiet little girl, but some of you may have discovered that Katie likes to make a little noise now and then.

We talked about how it's easy to feel pressured to take a certain course of action.  Now you are all grown up and graduated.  What are your plans?  What are you going to do?  It feels like you have to know, and nail it all down.  But you don't.  I was thinking about the old "choose your own adventure" books that Katie and all of my children read.  I read them too.  I always approached each choice with anxiety.  Do I search for hidden treasure or climb the mountain?  Do I run from the bear or stand and fight?  But the thing is this, it wasn't like a video game where if I chose wrong I would die and the game would be over.  You got to a choosing place, and you picked.  Then you turned to page 63 to find out what came next.  And so you wound your way through the story, having adventures and setbacks and victories.  The funniest thing of all was that sometimes even after making a whole series of different choices, you still ended up with the exact same ending.  I think life is like that.  We come to the end of one chapter and we get to choose.  It isn't the end of the story if you choose wrongly.  It's just a different page number to turn to.  And if you decided not to search for buried treasure this chapter, you could probably do it some other time.

None of us are who we are, The End.  The story twists and turns, and we get to be faster than the speed of light and late blooming too.  We get to be quiet people who are full of words and noise.  We get to be scared and brave all at the same time.  We get to say "no", and then "I changed my mind", and then "yes". 

One of my favorite hymns says "Great is thy faithfulness oh God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee.  Thou changest not, They compassions they fail not.  As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be."

God is faithful and compassionate without fail.  There isn't even a hint or shadow of change in that.  That's the only part of the story that stays constant really.  We are not God.  We are not eternally perfect, and so we change.  We are all light and shadow, and turning.  We move fast, and we sit very still.  Often we do both things at the same time.  It's a hard complicated thing to be happy and sad at the same time.  To want to strike out, but to also want to stay safe at home.  We are tempted to look here and there, for someone who will tell us what to do.  But you are the one that must answer for yourself, and live with the choices you make, and live inside your own skin.  So look here and there for the people who prove they love you, and listen to what they say.  Take the help they offer and be thankful for it.  But choose your own adventure.

 

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This speech was delivered this past June, at Katie's graduation from Faith Mountain Christian Academy.  We celebrated in typical fashion, with a big mess and a whole lot of noise, in September, after a busy season of camp concluded

Bella-bration

I delivered this speech nearly a year ago, at the celebration of marriage, home, and family given for our Bella and her new husband.  Baby bear was only about ten days away from making his entrance into the world.  It's hard to believe he will celebrate a birthday soon, and welcome a new sister or brother in the spring. (Photo credit to our dear friend Allyson Willson.)

 

In recent years, people would sometimes say to me, "I give you so much credit for adopting Shani."  I always laugh and assure them that Shani is my easiest child, and to make my case I point out that she's always just where I left her, she never gets into my stuff, she never gives me any back talk, and she is ALWAYS happy to see me, no matter what time of the day or night.  Somewhere deep inside my head, this thought always comes to me.  "If you want to give me any credit, give me credit for Bella."

Beautiful, beautiful Bella.  This girl is the whole package with a bow.  Smart, driven, and beautiful.  And impulsive, fiery, and sassy as the day is long.  And so you can see the contrast here, between my oldest and youngest brown girls.  Bella was never where I left her and rarely where she was supposed to be.  She was always into everybody's stuff and business.  She gave me back talk as often as she disagreed with me, and that was a LOT.  And she was often not very happy to see me anywhere in her line of vision.

But these days things have changed a bit, and so I will finally take a shot at throwing Bella a party of celebration, and sending her off into the big wide world with a word of blessing from her father and me...something she would not allowed us to do even one year ago.  Of course it helps that she's learned a lot from Shani regarding being a good child.  These days she is pretty much always where I left her...and that's beached in a comfortable chair, trying to coax baby Grey into making an appearance.  She doesn't move all that fast, so I can chase her down pretty easily.  And she almost never gives me any back talk, and seems happy to see me coming, though I wonder if there might be food involved in that equation.  Regardless, Bella and Shani have become fixtures in my days, always close at hand, sometimes a little fretful when they are uncomfortable, but usually cheerful and smiling.

A week or two ago, Bella asked me this question.  "Mom?  Do you think I can be a good mother?"  It was a sweet time of just talking openly about parenting children.  How the bitter is mixed with the sweet.  How very hard it is.  How perfection is an impossible goal.  I said some things then, and I hope they were an encouragement to Bella, both in our ongoing relationship, and in her relationship with her children in the future.  Given time to gather my thoughts, this is what I would say today:  The most valuable lessons about parenting and perhaps life, I have learned from Shani. 

Shani does not speak, so she cannot lie to me or back talk, it's true.  But she cannot say sweet words like "I love you mama."  Shani cannot use her feet, so she cannot go where I tell her not to, but she cannot run and fetch for me, or dance on a stage and delight my mother's heart.  Shani cannot use her hands, so she cannot get into my things or make messes for me to clean up, but she cannot write, or draw, or hug me.  If you measure worth and love by what a person can do for you, then Shani is pretty worthless.  She is messy and smelly, and a huge drain on our time and resources.

And yet we know this could not be further from the truth.  Shani teaches me every day, how to be a better mother and a better person.  Her needs are simple, and her complaints are few.  If she is awake, she is watching the world around her, always looking for something or someone she loves, and registering delight when she finds that.  Her life is fragile, and it reminds me that all life is fragile, and the time we have with all of our loved ones is fleeting.  And if I get it wrong...if I am snappish and impatient, or demanding and unkind, Shani always forgives and forgets.  Shani always gives me a do over.

Remember these things as you move into adulthood, marriage, motherhood.  Keep it simple.  Look for love, and be delighted whenever you find it.  Love fiercely, the time is short. And say you are sorry and keep showing up.  Ask for do overs.

And by the way, just so you know, today you are my favorite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Boy Graduates

Dearest Justice, today is your graduation day, and honestly, at times, I wondered if we were ever going to get here.  I wondered when you were nearly three years old, and you had not yet said one word.  I wondered when you were nearly eight years old, and you had not yet learned to read.  You came to me one day, and you said, "Mommy, don't worry about this learning to read stuff.  I'm pretty sure I will never use it anyhow."  I asked you what you were good at, and what you planned to do then.  You informed me cheerfully that you were really good at catching frogs and things.  Well, in spite of this solid career plan, eventually you learned, not only to talk and to read, but much more than that, to love the words in stories and songs.

 

*****

About ten years ago, during our early years at Rock Mountain Bible Camp, Justice could be seen prowling the wet places on camp, in search of all sorts of critters he would then beg to make his pets.  I remember one day, he was wearing his traditional uniform of brightly colored swim trunks, a grimy tee shirt, and oversized rubber boots.  I watched as he perched quietly on the edge of the frog pond, making the occasional lightning quick snatch toward the water.

Eventually I wandered over to see how frog hunting was going that day, and as I approached, I saw that Justice was holding something in both hands.  I asked him, "Whatcha got buddy?" and he answered, "Frogs."

In each hand he was holding several slippery frogs, of varying sizes.  And I realized, that in some mysterious way, Justice was not only catching the elusive little creatures, but that he was also managing to hold onto each one as he then caught another, all without damaging any of them.  To this day, it seems a nearly magical thing to me.

 

At about that same time, Justice decided he wanted to become a dancer.  Each week he would trade his rubber boots for tap shoes, and head out to the Windwood Hill Dance Studio.  When Justice was ten years old, Miss Bobbie placed him in an intermediate tap class.  Which was fantastic for a boy that had only been dancing for about a year and a half.  Except that his older brother had been placed in an advanced class, and so he was driven to escape that intermediate class, and become an advanced dancer. 

That year he worked so very hard, never losing sight of his goal, and the following fall he was promoted to the advanced class.  I will never forget preparing for the recital that year.  How hard he struggled to learn that advanced dance.  I would sit on the floor in the empty dining hall, resetting the music again and again.  He would be lost inside his own head, trying to hear the music, and transmit that message to his body.  But something was wrong, always it was wrong.  At one point I saw it.  His hands.  He was pushing off the air with his hands, and it was wrong.  I remember jumping up to stand next to him, counting out the notes, and pushing off with our arms in the right places.  I returned to the floor, and reset the music, and he danced perfectly.  It was like a door opened, and he stepped through it, and I could never help him again.  Because like the fists full of frogs, it was almost magical.

*****

When Justice was a teen, his older brother Aaron was working through the process of deciding what to pursue after graduation.  He knew he loved comic books and art, and he was researching the possibility of learning the craft of becoming a comic book artist.  He bought books and supplies, and began working at it in earnest.  Alongside of him, Justice would grab a piece of paper and pencil, and sketch, using the suggested guidelines and techniques.  Within a month or two Aaron came to us and told us he had made his choice.  He said, "Mom and Dad, I love comic book art, and I know I am an okay artist.  But I am not good enough.  I want to sell comics, not make them."  We asked him how he had arrived at this conclusion, and he went on to say, "I would sit down to draw, and Justice would sit down too, and in no time at all, I realized he was the artist, not me."  And again, it was the fist full of frogs, an almost magical thing quietly happening while no one was watching. 

 

*****

Most recently, Justice and I have been having a tussle.  We have had many a tussle throughout the years, about schoolwork and chores undone.  About dirty laundry on the floor, and dirty dishes under the bed.  We have tussled about friendships and girls, gently, and usually in the car as we drove back and forth to rehearsals at the dance studio.  As Justice learned to drive, he began driving himself to those rehearsals, and then we tussled about cars, and insurance, and gas.  These are the tussles you remember as one long struggle, but also as the normal blur of teenaged life.  One tussle stands out as different.

 

Before the boys were born, Joe bought me a beautiful guitar.  It's beautiful to look at, and beautiful to hear, and Justice wants that guitar.  I told him he could play it whenever he wanted to, but that it was still my guitar.  We would talk about music, and what sorts of things I would play on that guitar, back in the years before Justice was born.  One day, shortly after he took out my guitar for the first time, he came into my bedroom and told me he wanted to play something for me.  He began to haltingly strum out the chords and sing "Leavin' On a Jet Plane"...for his momma, because he remembered that was "my" music.  He didn't quite know it though, and he struggled with a few parts that are a little bit irregular.  I stopped him and sang through the sections, and then we started again, together.  We sang together, our music now, and it was a little bit magical.  And it always is, because if Justice ever wants anything at all, he knows that mom can be swayed with a little boy smile and a few bars of "Leavin' On a Jet Plane".

 

*****

 

This has been a year of hard things for Justice.  He has been forced into corners he did not much enjoy.  He has drawn up close to adulthood, with all its choices and responsibilities.  He has suffered great loss.  A few days ago, he danced in his final recital at Windwood Hill.  He entered the stage in stark black, and placed a rose in remembrance of a good friend lost.  As the music quietly began, he crossed the stage in a series of spins and leaps.  Although his body was massive in comparison to the little boy who had danced in his first recital ten years before, he propelled himself into the air with grace and landed silently on the ball of one bare foot.  And once again, it was magical.  The kind that was happy and sad, and filled with memories of little boys with frogs and rubber boots, and tap shoes and guitars.

 

*****

 

Justice, my dear baby boy, graduation speeches are often about going out and making your way in the world.  About working hard and reaching your full potential.  I could also choose to preach you a sermon on any number of worthy topics.  It is my hope that the other speakers today, have those things covered, because I am choosing to take a different route. All I really want to say to you, is that you are our son and we love you.  You are the brother of many.  The student of few.  A good and true friend. 

 

You may yet do many wonderful things.  You may work hard and achieve success.  You may learn and grow and improve yourself.  You may love someone deeply, and raise up a family of your own.  We will be proud of you for those things, as every parent would be.  But no matter what you do, or what you do not do, we will always love you for being yourself.  You didn't make magic because you were the fastest frog catcher, or the most skilled artist or dancer, or because you make music with your fingers and your voice.  You make life good because of who you are.  A lover of nature and of all creatures, even small slimy ones.  A boy, and now a man, filled with creative energy that is a gift from God to you, and through you, a gift to us all.  A strong man with a tender heart.  Justice, don't worry about impressing us, because we are already impressed.    

 

 

This is the speech I was privileged to deliver at Justice's graduation ceremony today.  I cried a little.

Not One Word

A couple of days ago, a friend wrote this post, and it made me tear up a little when I read it, because so much of what she was saying is so close to the surface for me these days.  Go.  Read it.  You won't be sorry you did, and this post won't make sense if you don't.

It seems like all  the cool kids who blog, have been picking words for themselves, for the new year.  Words like "brave" and "fearless" and "light".  I thought about that, and I realize that I would be more able to choose a word to describe my old year in review, than pick a word to describe what I hope my new year will be.

The thing is this.  I don't know what this year will bring, and I don't even want to pick one little word to try and steer it.  And that's not a criticism at all.  I understand being purposeful and intentional, and if having a word becomes a touchstone to spur a person on, I'm all for that.

It's just not for me, for this year.

I feel as though this blog is changing, because I am changing.  The things that used to be important to me, don't always take center stage anymore.  Things like being right, and having answers, and being able to fix things.

Where I come from, this is a spiritual issue.  Being right is the most important thing.  Having the right answers is a sacred responsibility.  Being the bearer of truth allows you to fix anything...anyone.

But what if I just said, "I don't know anymore. I used to think I had the answer to that question, but now I'm just not sure."  Does that mean I have abandoned my responsibility?

I used to think I could weaken or shake a person's faith with an answer like that.  Like their faith was dependent on something I could do or say.

I used to feel like the things I did and said were so important.  Like people were watching and taking their cues from me.  And if I missed an opportunity to speak up, and insert truth and wisdom into their lives, it would all fall back onto me.

But now I just think of how foolish that was.  How foolish is was to think that I was that important, and how foolish to feel that somehow I would be held responsible for the choices others made.

The thing is this.  All I have left now, is this sense of my heart being outside of myself, in the hands of a trusted few.  And so, when a person comes and places their heart in my hands, I am no longer struck with a sense of self-importance.  I don't want to answer their questions, or show them where they've been going at it all wrong, or fix their problems.  

I'm actually pretty certain, that a good deal of the time, I know absolutely nothing about those things.  But I do know how to listen, and love, and hope, and pray.  And I am terribly aware of what a sacred space I am standing in.

More Buzz

"Jews say grace at the end of the meal. I do not feel we are less thankful than those who say it at the beginning."

Blessings to the commenter  who pointed  this out.  I did not mean to make a statement of superiority, like saying grace before a meal gives me the moral high ground.  It was an analogy, and all of them break down at a point.  

Rituals of thankfulness are not locked in stone.  I may give thanks before the meal, or after.  I may say a blessing over the children as they leave the house, or as they return.  I may express my gratitude in the morning as I rise, or in the evening as I fall into my bed.

I was simply challenging myself to examine my own routines and understand where I am so abysmally lacking in gratitude.  Where I am so prone to attach requirements to a situation, in order to be thankful.  I am the child that says, "And if the food is yucky, we don't have to say grace!"  

....which doesn't sound anything like this beautiful Jewish blessing I found in my searching.

"Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who, in His goodness, provides sustenance for the entire world with grace, with kindness, and with mercy. He gives food to all flesh, for His kindness is everlasting. Through His great goodness to us continuously we do not lack food, and may we never lack food, for the sake of His great Name. For He, benevolent God, provides nourishment and sustenance for all, does good to all, and prepares food for all His creatures whom He has created, as it is said: You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Blessed are You, Lord, who provides food for all."

I could certainly benefit from a recitation of such a prayer at the end of all my meals.

Thankfulness...What's the Buzz?

Yesterday I was in a great deal of pain.  We drove to the doctor's office, hoping for some relief.  For distraction, in the car, on the way, beloved husband and I were discussing some things we had read and watched lately, concerning thankfulness.  Gratefulness, thanksgiving, is all the buzz right now.  People are trying to incorporate it into their daily lives, and so of course it is running all over my FB news feed....most especially this month, with Thanksgiving (the holiday) on its way, but also before that for quite some time.

When we arrived, we sat in the waiting room, and I thumbed through a magazine, that announced the benefit of thankfulness as one of its cover pieces.  I was anxious to read it, since it seemed to continue the discussion we had been having in the car.  I wondered it if would add anything to the buzz I had been hearing for some time now, and it did.

The thing about thankfulness, is that it seems so obvious.  I did a bible word search the other day, and almost every time you find the word thanks, thankful, thanksgiving....you find the words joy, goodness, mercy, grace.  And of course it makes perfect sense.  God gives us the good stuff, and our natural response is thanksgiving.

Or, not so much.  Because seriously, if that's the case, Americans should be the happiest, most joyful, most thankful people on the planet.  And even more than that, American children should be.  But we're not, and they're not.  We might acknowledge that we should be, but we are definitely not.

You say, Wait!  The new information coming in says we have it all backwards, oddly enough.  Being thankful isn't a byproduct, not by a long shot.  Being thankful is the fuel.  Happiness, and comfort, and blessing don't produce thankfulness....instead thankfulness produces those things.  Or perhaps it just removes the scales from our eyes, and lets us see what has been there all along.  And perhaps when we can see the beauty of our own lives, we are free to make more of it.

The piece that I read yesterday, spoke of how unnatural this process is.  How quickly we as human creatures move from gratefulness to apathy to complaint.  The author spoke of a device, to help safeguard against this natural progression.  She said that we must create rituals of thankfulness.  She freely acknowledged that this was not an original idea.  She pointed to the ritual of saying grace before a meal.

It made me think of how many times I have heard both children and adults alike, advocate for switching grace to the end of the meal.  Whenever some clever soul has brought this novel concept up for review, I have always heard the same points covered.  That we should give thanks when we are "really thankful", implying that when we have enjoyed our meal and filled ourselves, that is the point of true thankfulness.  And it has never gone unmentioned, that if the meal does not meet our expectations, or is in some way deemed unenjoyable, we can opt out of thankfulness.  This is always said as a joke, and followed by a round of laughter, but it is no joke.  It is the truest part of the discussion.

This is how we live our lives.  We pull up to the table and dig in to the meal spread before us.  When we are full, we push ourselves back, and think of what comes next.  We forget to give thanks for the meal that was placed before us, and the fullness of our bellies.  Even worse, we critique the meal.  And as we rise from the table, we wonder about the vague sense of dissatisfaction we carry with us.

The author of the piece wrote of how she had been intentionally creating rituals of thankfulness in her own life, and of course they were unique to her particular situation, but the concept was sound and easily applied elsewhere.  So today I went back to my bible word search, and I noticed something I had missed previously.  Before, I had skimmed over all of the references in the early books.  The ones that talked about making sacrifices and offerings.  In my mind, these verses didn't apply.  They were just some ancient code that I didn't follow or even know much about.  But this time, as I scrolled through dozens of references, I realized that I was looking at just what the buzz is all about.

Thanksgiving is a sacrifice.  It is laying the table like an altar.  We carefully lay the cloth, place the dishes, bring the food that we've prepared.  We call the household members to the table, and everyone finds their place.  And then we join together in the ritual of thankfulness.  Our eyes are closed to the beauty of the table.  We hope that the food will be nourishing and enjoyable.  We hope for enough.  But how can we know?  And yet we give thanks.

May we realize that we pull up to the table a hundred, nay, perhaps a thousand times a day.  May we stop mistaking the food on the table for the fuel of life.  Instead, may we learn to lay the table like an altar and pause to give thanks, every single time.