Skip to main content

The Windows to His Soul

All I asked the tall boy was, "So... How are  you?" 
Who knew it was that easy?



My sister-in-law had spoken of a book telling of the impact on broken children of the simple act of eye contact. I thought of it as the son invaded my culinary corner, helping himself brazenly to bites of the dinner, not yet finished.




He laughed at some joke of his own making and I sought his eyes - chiseled face like his father's but eyes like mine. Just a moment of connection before he turned back to taste another tidbit, so I made a quick attempt at small talk, "So...How are you?" He held my gaze just a second longer than before, but apparently it was enough to build a trust-bridge, for the next moment, he began gushing all the details of some conflict fought and then resolved, of new understanding between the brothers, of a change of heart. All this heart-talk from the teen mouth that usually flows with untimely humor or cutting sarcasm!



Why have I waited so long to reach out? To "tie strings" that keep the mom and child hearts connected? I suppose because I didn't know it was that easy. I thought it had to be the special, one-on-one, in-each-others-good-graces moments. But I found it here, surprisingly simple and in the midst the mundane. Parenting is a hard life's work; but, maybe, it's not as hard as I have made it.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

This Season, this Manna, this Father

The first day of summer - the first full day of a week without my six oldest. The seasons are changing... I want this to be a time of relaxation and reset and rebirth, but something in me fears it won't happen - that it isn't possible; that they will come home and it will all be still as it was. As I look at what life would be without the six in it, I know I love them; I know I want them back; but... I don't want back the life we have had lately, fraught with tension, cross looks, hormone release, and lots of tears. I miss them. But perhaps I miss them because I miss the opportunities to do more, love more, engage more. Opportunities I didn't take often enough. That I missed. I miss the six because I have missed the opportunities. And then, I read two witnesses on the bread in the wilderness and I am convicted. Manna - no one, the wise fathers nor the up-and-coming children, knew what it was. But they ate it. They trusted God, and ate it. And ...

A Time to Plant

  It's time to cut down a tree - or two -  both literally and figuratively, it would seem. We finally escaped our too-spendy rental in the new state so far from the old stomping grounds. And after much dragging around of the realtor, found a spot to call our own and plant the brood and all our accoutrements. There is land here - enough for chickens and gardens and even for all the vehicles that accompany our menagerie - but it is virtually bare land. There are only half a dozen trees on the whole property. With the exception of one overshadowed apple tree, all the trees are a variety of willow, more leggy than sturdy. There is one just outside the bedroom window. I want it to be wide and spreading, solid and reliable. But it is not. It seems that it is dead. Yes, there are leaves and shrubbery, but the lady at the nursery down the lane - the Jolly Lane - informs that the leggy growths and barren trunks are indicative of trees that have ceased to be healthy - whose hearts ...

Healing Rain

The day is cold and dark and dreary, It rains and the wind is never weary, The vine still clings to the moldering wall, But at every gust, the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary... The winter rains have begun. The cold wet blew steadily last night, pouring down the panes and collecting in puddles, sounding incessantly on the roof. There is a thought dripping in my mind this morning as well, chilling my mood. It repeats, over and over, with deliberate monotony, the name I call myself after the conversation before sleep, "Failure. Failure. Failure." And I reach for the blanket of shame and retreat behind the barrier of guilt, habitually donning an icy demeanor to keep him at arm's length - The Man who misfortuned to speak the concern that resounded like disappointment in my ears. We have been here before. These cold, wintery days have come in seasons past as well. My prevalent insecurities have made me prone to hear opportunities f...