A Time for Reflection
My thirties were a time for reflection. Learning about oneself can be quite eye-opening. Follow my journey to understand all of me. Some parts are so ingrained it may take a complete remodel. Many good and bad things came to pass. It was the first time I experienced a close family member die (my husbands’ grandmother and I were very close). I also learned my mom and stepfather had cancer. It was also the first time I was not pregnant or nursing in 10 years. As well as the beginning of a new millennium, and I started to “find” myself. My thirties were the flowering of who I am. The child in me was finally growing up. Sort of! Evolving I stopped blaming my mother for my happiness and past; I was in the best shape ever, I ate the healthiest, had a large tribe of friends to share with and I was content in my style of parenting. Finding my way through my 20’s was busy and confusing at times, but my thirties were indeed a time of reflection. Seeing the world through adult eyes allowed me to practice alternative therapies, eat to live, homeschool my children, and attend births with many women. Everything in moderation, I assure you. We were just exploring outside the box. Finding our way in the world. The evolution of one’s soul is infinite, but this is a whole other story to tell! Grew Apart My business was busy; I was a core component to the birth and breastfeeding community, my kids were more self-sufficient, my eyes were wide open, and yet I was still lonely. My physical self was always full, but I was still missing a connection. With my husband. Mainly, I was a single mom in a married relationship. We loved each other, but as we “grew up,” we grew apart. He thought I was a “hippie,” and I felt he was married to a computer (in his defense, that’s what he does for a living). The wider my eyes became, the more crunch there was to me, and he and I weren’t seeing life on the same level anymore. Another time for reflection. My husband and I had been together a total of 13 years, married 11, when we decided to part ways. Our children were 5, 7, 10, 11 & my first was 14. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, and I had been through hell before. Hell number 2 lasted a long time. Parenting in a Time of Reflection It was clear to anyone who knew me that my calling to motherhood was profound. Conception, pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding were relatively easy, parenting came naturally, and I thrived at it. It’s hard to say “how” since I didn’t have any role models, but if you believe in a “destiny,” then this was surely it for me. I was certainly not perfect at it and had my ups and downs like any other mom, but my happy place was being a mother. Throw in a bitter divorce, and your core self is shaken. Protecting my children from the ugliness of a broken heart was indeed my new job 24/7. Guilt, blame, indiscretion, regret, remorse is all hideous to experience and witness. Even when you both agree to be amicable, there is bound to be unsightly baggage. Add another stressor on top, and you get a perfect storm. A Low Blow to Reflect on My mother got remarried after my 4th baby was born, and our relationship got stronger and stronger. We still had our differences, but we were in a much better place. Her husband didn’t have children, and he and my mom became an integral part of my children’s lives. So much so that shortly after baby number 5, they moved to Pennsylvania to be close to us. Unfortunately, it’s also the time that we found out both she and my stepdad had cancer. They were 51 and 54 at the time, had been married five years, and were enjoying a bit of traveling. It was a low blow for everyone since my stepdad only had six months to live. Incidentally, he lived for 18 months! Self Preservation This decade was rough but in a much more grown-up way. So many life-changing events were in extremes. Either very good and happy or horrible and sad. My stress level was at a new norm, and it just kept getting more intense. As you can imagine, I’m not a type-A personality, and I can roll with the punches of a life well. Still, the more I learned about myself, the harder the transition. It’s one thing to have self-preservation but an entirely different monster when you are helping your children and sick mother through rough times as well. New Relationship Around the same time, my stepfather died, I also formed another relationship. At first, we were friends who had a lot in common and reveled in a reciprocal relationship. It didn’t take long for us to bring our kinship to the romantic level and then kids and marriage. Finding out I was pregnant had brought about a mix of emotions. Don’t take that the wrong way, ALL my babies were always wanted, and a blessing. I couldn’t be happier on some level, but selfishly the timing was all wrong. I didn’t want to be the mother with three different baby daddies, nor was I entirely over my last marriage. Besides, I feared my older children would resent me, my new boyfriend, and or our children. Plus, I run a business and felt a sense of failing my community by setting a poor example. I was still trying to protect ALL my babies! We made it through, and I entered My 40’s exhausted!
When Life Gives You Lemons
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. What if the lemons are rotten or too sour to make tasty lemonade? Or if you don’t have the stamina to process the instructions to create said lemonade? I entered my 40’s feeling young and vibrant, only to have the wind knocked out of my sails due to devastating life events. Follow along with the previous blogs to understand the whole story. Starting off this decade, I have a 3rd husband, seven children, a dying mother, and my 13-year-old becomes very ill. What appears to be a persistent cold turned into a sinus infection, which seems like no big deal at the time. With the strongest of antibiotics, my son continues to be ill and wakes up one morning with a swollen eye. The short end of the story is he was suffering from an epidural abscess. We stayed for two weeks in a children’s hospital while they tried to figure out what germ infiltrated his body and what the best course of action would be. It was scary. Not Enough of Me The day we were shuttled to Philadelphia, I was bringing my mom home from a month-long hospital stay. She was still battling many cancers, and this time culminated in her having her spleen removed. It was a very long month of ups and downs in her health. I honestly didn’t know if she would ever come home again. Keep in mind, I am an only child, and she is a widow X2. It was challenging to find someone to care for a very sick mom at home when I abruptly had to leave her and be by my sons’ bedside in Philly. My other children were also in need of supervision and feeling the stress of my absence. Primarily, they were caring for each other. My youngest was 20 months and still breastfeeding, so this wasn’t very easy. The oldest had already moved out, so it left my 17- & 16-year old to care for the 11, 4- & 20-month baby. The teens were homeschooling, so it didn’t affect their missing presence in a classroom. It was easy enough to catch up on studies once the order returned to our home. My husband went back and forth and brought the kids occasionally to stay with us at the Ronald McDonald House when possible. Thank God for the mom tribe I had established over the years. Friends that would drop everything to help out whenever available. They pitched in, brought meals, and shuttled kids when necessary. Are You Kidding? More Lemons While at my mother’s bedside and days before the trip in an ambulance with my very sick son, my oldest daughter informed me that she was tying the knot AND converting her religion-to Mormonism. She wasn’t announcing the wedding for next week, month, or year, she was getting hitched in a few days. I was dumbfounded as they had been together for only a few months, so I assume she is pregnant but later discovers she is not. I explain that I cannot be there and wish she would wait for a better time as well as honestly reconsider her religious choice. As any adult-ish child would do, she cannot hear me and proceeds to do what she set out to do, without any of her family in attendance. I had a hard time processing who came first in the pecking order of chaotic necessity. It was hard to make lemonade out of this series of events. I decided to be there for my son and mother while wishing my daughter well, from a distance. Staying in the Ronald McDonald house and praying, my son and mom will be ok was all I could handle at this time. Facetime wasn’t a thing in 2008, so any communication with my children or mother was via phone. I kept up with the goings-on back home as much as humanly possible, but it seemed everyone was going off the deep end. I was learning things that could’ve broken me to the core, including that my oldest was newly pregnant (unbeknownst to her at the wedding time). No Freaking Way; Can’t Make Lemonade My son spent his 14th birthday in St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital and eventually came home with a PICC line and nurse visits throughout the summer. He continued to have sinus infections and later needed more surgery, but overall did recover well. In the fall that same year, that same son, the extreme sports kid, decided to jump off a trampoline with a snowboard on his feet into a pile of leaves, while my 5-year-old watched. I’m sure I don’t need to paint much of a picture of the outcome. Two broken elbows, a stay in the local hospital, and a chance for another surgery. I should’ve played the lottery that year! My gray hairs quadrupled, andI’m still in awe that I didn’t jump off a cliff. That same summer (3 months after their wedding), my newly pregnant oldest daughter and her new Mormon husband came on a camping trip with us, so we could get to know the new son in law. It was clear to me that the relationship was abusive, almost instantly. After a heart to heart with my pregnant offspring, she left him. While displacing a few kids to fit my oldest back home, her siblings create a room for their sister and nephew-to-be. Being a single mom wasn’t a terrible thing with a family like ours. None of us would let her and the baby suffer. Incidentally, the father of my first grandchild has never seen, cared for in any way, or inquired about his child. Maybe listening to your parents has some merit! Losing a Parent is Like Nothing Else Entering my 40’s caring for a very sick mother and many children under 20 was another hell to go through. We all know our parents are going to die someday, but it always seems so far off. There is little thought
