Children & the Cycle of Life
They wake me most mornings with their hungry cries. Their whole world is about three feet from my head when I go to bed at night and they're still there when the sun shows her head over the tops of these old mountains.The way they tip their heads back and open their wee mouths for food always brings laughter as we stare at them through the window. When I pull the curtains back each morning, I hold my breath until I see that the three baby Cardinals have indeed survived another night. New life is so fragile, so delicate and so susceptible to it ending. But so very beautiful.
Spring here in the mid south means rain storms. Not the "Run to the safest place in the house!" kind of storms like we're used to in Texas, but the kind of storm that rumbles in, soaks the earth all night and rumbles out with blue skies and sun to dry up the puddles, our garden and the leaves on the 70 foot magnolia bush. Rain brings life and the old saying that "April showers brings May flowers." must have come from Appalachia. Most every day since spring kissed winter goodbye, one of us will comment on how much it feels like England here. The topography, the precipitation, the vibrant green, the fog, the sheer amount of vegetation...so beautiful.
We've lived in this old house for close to a year now and I've spent hours on our back porch enjoying each season and how it changes our yard. Settled into a chair with hot tea in one hand and a good book in the other, as the rain dances it's way down the old stone wall in our yard and the wind lifts up and then pushes down branches on these century old trees that tower over us like protective elders, is my personal favorite thing about living here.
Sometimes I think about how the precipitation and temperate climate in this region was a major factor for us in our decision to call this land ours. No more begging things to live, wondering if a flash flood or a tornado will destroy our garden or our home...much of life is more peaceful. Even relationships. We've spent decades striving in every area of our faith and friendships and we didn't even know we were striving until now. Like pioneers, willing things to live and grow, we were determined to not give up. Maybe we did give up and literally moved back east, but being here feels like Hope and we're deeply grateful.
We've lived in this old house for close to a year now and I've spent hours on our back porch enjoying each season and how it changes our yard. Settled into a chair with hot tea in one hand and a good book in the other, as the rain dances it's way down the old stone wall in our yard and the wind lifts up and then pushes down branches on these century old trees that tower over us like protective elders, is my personal favorite thing about living here.
Sometimes I think about how the precipitation and temperate climate in this region was a major factor for us in our decision to call this land ours. No more begging things to live, wondering if a flash flood or a tornado will destroy our garden or our home...much of life is more peaceful. Even relationships. We've spent decades striving in every area of our faith and friendships and we didn't even know we were striving until now. Like pioneers, willing things to live and grow, we were determined to not give up. Maybe we did give up and literally moved back east, but being here feels like Hope and we're deeply grateful.
We knew we wanted to live in the mountains and Colorado was a clear front runner. But because we did not want to ranch; but rather farm without having to get another job to pay for irrigation or deal with shorter growing seasons, we decided that Appalachia would be home. Growing things here has been a completely different experience for me - if I forget to water my plants or my garden it's okay, Mother Nature's got my back. Waking to fog hanging in the lower parts of the yard helps me remember that even if there is no rain in the forecast, moisture will find it's way to my tomatoes, yellow peppers, carrots, cucumbers...in fact, even the rose bush growing baby birds. They all work together to bring life.
After one recent overnight storm my youngest daughter ran inside yelling, "I was just doing my everyday walk I take around the yard and saw the nest fell out of the rose bush last night!!" And sure enough my yellow rose bush had pulled away from the trellis during the wind and rain from last night's storm and was laying there with the nest we'd just discovered the day before on the ground. I could hear the concerned momma bird as she watched me take some kitchen twine and reattach the heavy branches to the trellis. My daughter found the eggs and placed them back into the nest and commented in that whisper she uses when she's trying not to cry, "They're cold, momma. What if they don't live?" I've learned that not telling my kids the truth about the cycle of life in pets or friendships or any part of life only brings more pain when the dying is what happens. Promising them life when I am not the one who determines that fact only offers them a false promise.
More often than not mothering leaves me without any idea of how to comfort my children. My personality lends to fixing and you just cannot fix death. Learning to grieve myself has taught me that a warm embrace and sharing tears is the only thing to be done when children begin to recognize death as an absolute rather than a hypothesis. My little one had just lost her baby bunny and I didn't know if her little heart had been conditioned yet enough to see more dying. Making sure the nest was secure and eggs back in place, we walked silently back into the house and I prayed for life. "We need a break from loss, Father. Just a little bit of a break."
We've lost pets before in the more than two decades of parenting. Holding my eight year old boy close while he cried after discovering that Timothy the mouse was dead was my first real experience with helping my children grieve loss of life. That sad morning, characteristically, his little sister cried with him while his younger brother tried to bring some hope to the situation by suggesting "We can just get a new one, Jon." Complex grieving brings out personalities if nothing else. :) There never would be another mouse like Timothy and remembering him was the best balm to little hearts.
More recently my youngest daughters' tiny shoulders shook, head buried in her hands, when she heard that her little bunny died while she was at the playground. Her siblings communicated sympathy, but quickly ran to check and see how their bunnies were fairing. Relieved, they came back and reported that "Our's are fine, momma...I'm so glad mines not dead." said my ten year old. Holding their sister as she cried, I raised my eyebrows at them and whispered, "Let's talk about your bunnies LATER." The littlest raised his eyebrows at me and then looked at his sister and said, "I don't want my bunny to die like hers." Lord, love. Sometimes we say the most unhelpful things during other's grief. But I understand the feeling...when we hear of loss we run and check to make sure what we hold dear is still breathing.
Letting my children walk through the hard parts of the circle of life is not new to me nor does the pain of seeing them hurting ever lessen. They've lost a lot these past three years, because of choices they didn't make. In the past trilogy of trips around the sun they've lived in three houses, lost a church community, lost friends, moved across the country and will leave one school for another this fall. In the big picture they're fine, they're happy and resilient and the younger ones are so excited to experience farm life. But through tears I told a friend last week, "We're all just really emotionally weary from this helluva journey and we're all ready to put down some roots and find some stability."
In the honesty (right relating as we call it) we try to raise these people in it can often lend itself to some direct conversations that would sometimes leave me walking quickly from one room to another to hide tears forming in my eyes. My middle daughter sat down on my bed and said, "Why can't I just go and see her while we're there?! I know they don't want to be yall's friends, but I'm still friends with her! Have you even tried to call them?? They would still want to be yall's friend if you tried!!" The Lawman stood there and intervened while I tried to find my voice. He knew all of the trying we had done, the weekly reaching out, the gifts, the invitations, the everything. While there had still been friendliness when the unexpected running into folks was present, relationship had died a long time ago. I told my daughter that we had tried and tried and tried and that we were so sorry, but a play date with an old friend wouldn't be able to happen while we stayed one night in our old home town. Once again, I could not "fix" the death of something in my child's life and I am still never used to it or know exactly how to navigate it just right. Surrendering to the reality of it has lessened the strain though. Realizing that pain, death and loss are a part of life - goodness, like watching the first frost kill the remaining bounty of summer in my garden, I know life will come again.
We've told our children very little of the details of relational loss resulting from this journey. It can make it hard for them to understand, but we want them to respect and value people they've always seen as aunts and uncles like they always had and so we've kept the m majority details to ourselves. Lies said about us in leaders' meetings, negative opinions shared between friends regarding us and simple text sent out to others as a warning that "something's really wrong with [us]"...they've not been shared with our kids. Nor has the public awareness that maybe we weren't "the only ones" who felt that mistrust was not a jealous retaliation, but rather an accurate discernment.
Our journey has cost us more than our kids will ever know, but we hope that one day when they find themselves in a similar situation that they'll agree that sitting quietly by to protect what you have or turning a def ear to reality because it might make what you've chosen harder...that is not love. Self preservation is not what He showed us when it comes to the hurting and the wounded and the oppressed.
"There comes a time when trying to maintain connection only hurts the relationship more." was the wisdom my counselor offered. She went on to say that it was okay to walk away from friendships that were no longer relationships. This didn't sound like love at the time, but it does today. It takes intentionality on both sides to maintain relationship and love looked like pulling away the consistent pressure we were putting on old friends from our trying, freeing them to move on while other relationships seemed to grow. Unlike the cycle of life, there will always been some level of interaction with friends and a sustained grief will always be present and that can be so very hard. But the spring, the healing, cannot begin until there is complete death.
Their feathers are coming in and their chirps are stronger. Momma bird sits on her nest through rain and shine and her little heirs are growing into beautiful carbon copies of her and her mate. Each day we watch and wait for them to open their eyes, but for now we just enjoy the process of new life.
Our children, well they're growing everyday too. The two older ones are in beautiful relationships with people we absolutely love while their brother learns to craft wood into actual pieces of art. The smaller ones are growing too and making friends and loving the life offered here.
Much like the Cardinal's home laying on the ground, our nest had fallen for sure and eggs certainly scattered. Not unlike my daughter and her rescue mission for the baby Cardinals, God came and scooped us all up - righted the nest and tied us back to the trellis of our faith and friends who drew closer. There was no promise that our children's (or our) faith would survive and live to grow into something strong that would one day take flight from the safety of our nests. But they have. Like one of my smaller fry said, "Momma, I never knew the church was the people and not the building until we left it. I'm just really glad we did that because I see her everywhere now and she just can't be kept in a building."
We've lost pets before in the more than two decades of parenting. Holding my eight year old boy close while he cried after discovering that Timothy the mouse was dead was my first real experience with helping my children grieve loss of life. That sad morning, characteristically, his little sister cried with him while his younger brother tried to bring some hope to the situation by suggesting "We can just get a new one, Jon." Complex grieving brings out personalities if nothing else. :) There never would be another mouse like Timothy and remembering him was the best balm to little hearts.
More recently my youngest daughters' tiny shoulders shook, head buried in her hands, when she heard that her little bunny died while she was at the playground. Her siblings communicated sympathy, but quickly ran to check and see how their bunnies were fairing. Relieved, they came back and reported that "Our's are fine, momma...I'm so glad mines not dead." said my ten year old. Holding their sister as she cried, I raised my eyebrows at them and whispered, "Let's talk about your bunnies LATER." The littlest raised his eyebrows at me and then looked at his sister and said, "I don't want my bunny to die like hers." Lord, love. Sometimes we say the most unhelpful things during other's grief. But I understand the feeling...when we hear of loss we run and check to make sure what we hold dear is still breathing.
Letting my children walk through the hard parts of the circle of life is not new to me nor does the pain of seeing them hurting ever lessen. They've lost a lot these past three years, because of choices they didn't make. In the past trilogy of trips around the sun they've lived in three houses, lost a church community, lost friends, moved across the country and will leave one school for another this fall. In the big picture they're fine, they're happy and resilient and the younger ones are so excited to experience farm life. But through tears I told a friend last week, "We're all just really emotionally weary from this helluva journey and we're all ready to put down some roots and find some stability."
In the honesty (right relating as we call it) we try to raise these people in it can often lend itself to some direct conversations that would sometimes leave me walking quickly from one room to another to hide tears forming in my eyes. My middle daughter sat down on my bed and said, "Why can't I just go and see her while we're there?! I know they don't want to be yall's friends, but I'm still friends with her! Have you even tried to call them?? They would still want to be yall's friend if you tried!!" The Lawman stood there and intervened while I tried to find my voice. He knew all of the trying we had done, the weekly reaching out, the gifts, the invitations, the everything. While there had still been friendliness when the unexpected running into folks was present, relationship had died a long time ago. I told my daughter that we had tried and tried and tried and that we were so sorry, but a play date with an old friend wouldn't be able to happen while we stayed one night in our old home town. Once again, I could not "fix" the death of something in my child's life and I am still never used to it or know exactly how to navigate it just right. Surrendering to the reality of it has lessened the strain though. Realizing that pain, death and loss are a part of life - goodness, like watching the first frost kill the remaining bounty of summer in my garden, I know life will come again.
We've told our children very little of the details of relational loss resulting from this journey. It can make it hard for them to understand, but we want them to respect and value people they've always seen as aunts and uncles like they always had and so we've kept the m majority details to ourselves. Lies said about us in leaders' meetings, negative opinions shared between friends regarding us and simple text sent out to others as a warning that "something's really wrong with [us]"...they've not been shared with our kids. Nor has the public awareness that maybe we weren't "the only ones" who felt that mistrust was not a jealous retaliation, but rather an accurate discernment.
Our journey has cost us more than our kids will ever know, but we hope that one day when they find themselves in a similar situation that they'll agree that sitting quietly by to protect what you have or turning a def ear to reality because it might make what you've chosen harder...that is not love. Self preservation is not what He showed us when it comes to the hurting and the wounded and the oppressed.
"There comes a time when trying to maintain connection only hurts the relationship more." was the wisdom my counselor offered. She went on to say that it was okay to walk away from friendships that were no longer relationships. This didn't sound like love at the time, but it does today. It takes intentionality on both sides to maintain relationship and love looked like pulling away the consistent pressure we were putting on old friends from our trying, freeing them to move on while other relationships seemed to grow. Unlike the cycle of life, there will always been some level of interaction with friends and a sustained grief will always be present and that can be so very hard. But the spring, the healing, cannot begin until there is complete death.
Their feathers are coming in and their chirps are stronger. Momma bird sits on her nest through rain and shine and her little heirs are growing into beautiful carbon copies of her and her mate. Each day we watch and wait for them to open their eyes, but for now we just enjoy the process of new life.Our children, well they're growing everyday too. The two older ones are in beautiful relationships with people we absolutely love while their brother learns to craft wood into actual pieces of art. The smaller ones are growing too and making friends and loving the life offered here.
Much like the Cardinal's home laying on the ground, our nest had fallen for sure and eggs certainly scattered. Not unlike my daughter and her rescue mission for the baby Cardinals, God came and scooped us all up - righted the nest and tied us back to the trellis of our faith and friends who drew closer. There was no promise that our children's (or our) faith would survive and live to grow into something strong that would one day take flight from the safety of our nests. But they have. Like one of my smaller fry said, "Momma, I never knew the church was the people and not the building until we left it. I'm just really glad we did that because I see her everywhere now and she just can't be kept in a building."
Life keeps growing...and even as the dying will always be remembered, life keeps reminding us that Hope springs new and He really does bring beauty from ashes.
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