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Gardened Thoughts

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A few days ago, I took my friends on a very brief and embarrassing tour of my garden. The garden for which I so carefully and arduously prepared with seedlings growing so meticulously under grow lights and hand built raised beds, carefully arched cow panels for optimal vertical growth, was a hideous display of neglect. Weeds contemptuous in their height and overgrowth choked out every single raised bed. My cucumber and melon vines were brown and dying, crisped by the hot sun and lack of water. The kale and swiss chard were overgrown and riddled with holes from feasting ants and beetles. The sparse tomatoes hung heavy on shriveled vines that appeared as if they would turn to dust if I so much as breathed their way. The beet leaves were small and pale and sickly and underneath were meager servings of fruit. Rudely bitten and ravaged branches vacant of their fruit were what was left of the berry bushes. The only thing that seemed to survive were the melons themselves, patty pan and butternut squash, and the carrots safely hidden underground. All the hearty and thick skinned vegetables and fruit. I tormented myself for days in humiliation for presenting such a subpar harvest to my friends, but that day in that garden, they saw a perfect representation of my spiritual life.

In the late Spring when the cool New Jersey ground was warming and my plants were hardening off on the patio I was ready to give the garden my all. I planted each seedling so tenderly. The garden was deeply watered and fertilized and weeded to perfection. But shortly after, trouble came on four limbs. A ground hog, squirrels, chipmunks, and a rabbit all seized their rations from my garden. The self entitled critters ravaged as many plants as possible. I was forced to replace many of the seedlings I had grown from seed with store bought seedlings. A blow to my ego and perfectionism. I bought chicken wire and stakes and with my diseased body put up a fence around the perimeter of the garden, sealing it carefully, or so I thought, from the animals. The garden was ravaged again. As a matter of fact, no matter what I did, it kept getting ravaged. It would go untouched for weeks after repellents and then get hit unexpectedly. I imagined the worst scenarios for the animals if I could get my hands on them. Then the bugs launched their attack. The neem oil that promised to protect the plant, burned up many of the leaves in the hot sun. Oil and direct sun do not seem to be an agreeable match. So in despair, I got tired and I gave up.

January was the pinnacle of my mysterious illness. For many months prior I was battling an unknown disease that left me unable to eat and swallow properly. I shriveled down to 93 pounds before I was given a diagnoses: eosinophilic esophagitis. Eosinophilic what?! In February, my brother in law died unexpectedly leaving our entire family devastated and my pregnant sister grief stricken and alone to raise her other three kids. March hit and COVID 19 took over the world. The kids that I had just placed in the school system after three years of homeschooling were right back home with me again. June came and brought with it a whole other level of strife and pain to my bi-racial police family. Then July came and my husband lost his job. One hit after the other, the way my life has always been. I have not had the chance to even come up for air before the next four legged plague or feasting devil attacks and I find myself feeling the same way my garden looks. In the midst of teaching three children and serving and comforting friends and family, and struggling with a relentless disease that has rendered me unable to eat normal food and rely on a liquid elemental diet, and trying to support my grieving husband, and keeping everyone safe from Corona Virus, and doing all the normal mom things, and figuring out our homeschooling curriculum for the fall and planning for the unknown and uncertain future, I just gave up. Depression placed a vise grip on my joy and hope and they hang sadly on the shriveled vines of my broken soul. I hear my own negative thoughts much easier than I can believe the voice of God. I open up my phone to scroll through social media before I even consider reading my Bible. I can hardly pray because I don’t know what to say anymore.

But the melons and the carrots and the squash. The garden is NOT dead and I am not dead. There is yet fruit. There is yet hope. I know what I must do and I will do it. I will water that garden soil, fertilize it again, rip up all the weeds, every last one, removing all life and soul sucking distractions. I will trim off the dead leaves, the things not bringing forth life. I will protect the tender parts from persistent eating things. I will guard my heart and my mind. I will tend that garden again and expect a yield. Whatever may come, because it will, I can prepare for it better because I know what to expect and I have a better plan with which to work. There is yet hope.

Father, forgive me for my unbelief. Help me to cling to your word and to your truth. Water my heart and soul with your peace and joy and love. Pluck from my mind the weeds of discontentment and unbelief. Cleanse my heart of all anger and sinful intentions. Keep my mouth from complaining and negativity. Heal my despair and give me the strength I need to fight the good fight. In Jesus name. Amen.

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Broken Girl: Part 1

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If you would have asked five year old me what I thought of men I probably would have delivered the following description: “They are scary. They do bad things all the time. They don’t care about their family. They have drug problems. They like to touch me.” I hadn’t the faintest healthy experience with a male figure in my life at that point and not for many years after that.  My mother and father had been divorced since I was two, and by then I had already been sexually abused by my father’s favorite cousin who my mother would allow to babysit me. She never felt comfortable doing so as she would confess to me many years later but as a teen mom under the control of a man 12 years her senior, she complied.  Apparently, after one particular day he was on babysitting duty, I kept touching myself and saying his name, “Choo, toto”.  Toto was what I innocently named my vagina.  Choo, was his nick-name. My very first sexual experience and probably earlier than I can ever remember.  But I do recall the very first session with him when I was old enough to retain that memory.

I had spent random days with my father, a Saturday here or there. It was sparing and it was always short.  This particular day, it was sunny and the sky was clear. I spent most of the day in the kitchen and dining area of a facility for mentally disabled individuals. My father was a cook there and we were allowed to hang around and mingle with the residents. After his work day, we went up to his dorm which was located right on campus. It was an old hotel, so there were many rooms, and my brother and I would run up and down the halls catching quick glimpses of each one. I remember one particular room where the men played cards and drank. It’s smokey dirty walls were covered in pornography. My dad corralled us like little sheep into his room where we would be safe from the cursing men, smoke, and nude women.  His room was attached to another room which was joined by a short hallway with a bathroom.  The other room was occupied by his cousin Choo. There he was. He waited for my dad to leave. He entertained my brother with a snapping turtle he had placed in the bathtub. He closed my brother in the bathroom and began to just talk to me and hug me, pay attention to me. All the things I was always so hungry for without having a dad around.  Then we played an adult game.  He stood me on the bed facing him. He said he was going to kiss me like grown-ups kiss. And he did. He kissed me passionately on my mouth.  I remember thinking it was strange but enjoying the feeling it gave me.  My brother would interrupt here or there but Choo was quick to pretend normalcy, ushering my brother off to the filthy turtle scratching at the porcelain tub.  At this point he was aching for much more and began fondling and touching me. He was breathing heavy and began to dry hump my little body asking me if I liked what he was doing. I said, “yes”. There was a raucous in the other room as the men finished their game and he quickly composed himself. I remember just feeling so confused and feeling that I had done something horrible.  It was time for us to leave and the last thing I can remember is the awful brown rug I was staring at as we left the building. It was as if my very innocence and worth were being absorbed into its dirty fibers.  I was utterly destroyed. It wouldn’t be the last time and he wouldn’t be the only person.

A Harrison Bergeron Face Lift

Equal in looks? You don’t have a plump booty, or a flat stomach, or perfectly, perky, overflowing c-cup dirty pillows that practically poke you in the eyeballs? No full juicy lips, a symmetrical face, high cheeks bones, or a nose just right? Or any proportions of which Thomas Aquinas would approve? Not a problem.

There’s a fix for every cursed mistake and physical anomaly thrust upon you by your DNA, child birth, gravity, drugs, alcohol, poor eating habits, the Laws of Thermodynamics and bad luck. Did you know that people can take the fat out of your fupa and put it where it belongs: in your flat chest, saggy tits, or that barely there derrière? And if you don’t want that, they fill these synthetic bags with even more synthetic materials and can stuff them inside and behind your nipple? They can do the same thing with your ass! If you want fuller lips they can stab a needle in that fills them right up to where you want them. As a matter of fact, they can do it to any part of your face so you can look like a chipmunk younger version of yourself.

You literally do not have to worry any longer about being different than anyone else because now you can look just like everyone else. Isn’t that something? The ground has been leveled. That wench with perfect genes has nothing on you now because you can look just like her or kinda, sorta like her. A stranger version of her but like not natural. A version of her but you! And instead of the butchery that it is, you can believe it is art and also just as beautiful as something God given. And no one has the right to say you are delusional because those people are just jealous and are mad they can’t afford to also be perfect.

But who really knows what will happen? Maybe one day everyone will get to look exactly how they want to look because all physical changes will be subsidized by the government and then everyone will be happy because everyone will be beautiful. And when beauty trends change, you can keep on changing right along with them.

Imagine if we all looked perfect? Less problems. Less jealousy. Everyone will get the partner of their dreams and keep them because they look just right. You will always be the pretty mom at drop off and pick up. And so will everyone else. So much less worry about small vanities and more focus on all the big things.

But as you know, there will always be those people comfortable with being ugly and growing old. Let those Harrison Bergerons’ enjoy their oxidation and death.

The drink and the sick

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I suppose if I can talk about all of the anger poisoning my soul, I can somehow move on emotionally and spiritually. I can stop wallowing in the past. I can stop being the victim and take ownership of my past and my own sins.
I sat on my father’s lap with my hand on his chest. I remember touching a post surgical bandage of some sort. He hadn’t been around in while and some medical emergency cast upon his selfish mind a momentary revival of his conscious and he wanted to come be with his children. I remember hearing of his drinking, the words cocaine, which as a child meant nothing. I was just happy for the moments I’d have with him. Not too long after that, when he would come pick us up on sporadic weekends, I would go to AA meetings with him. I remember just thinking it was boring. The on and off presence of my father would continue this way. He would always say to let him know if any of my mom’s boyfriend’s would hurt me. I said I would, but I never did. What I wanted to tell him was that his cousin had done some shameful things to me since I could remember, many times, but I wouldn’t do that for a long time, and when I did, my father stood by my abuser.
I was around 16 in the backseat of the car on our way to Monticello, when I spotted my dad walking on the side of the road. We pulled over, stopping short and reversed. I ran out of the car and embraced my dad and cried. I had not seen or spoke to him in over a year and at one point thought he might be dead. His alcoholism was something I was aware of and I imagined it finally consumed him, so to see him healthy and handsome before me was a miracle. He told me he had devoted his life to God and was free of his addiction. It felt like a divine appointment, like the beginning of healing in this particular relationship. I was wrong. I had no idea the psychological condition of an addict, and that much of what I needed from him, was never coming.

I remember the first time I saw Brett have a drink. We were 19 and it was the first time visiting his parent’s home. I was an innocent and sober minded young woman and I wasn’t comfortable with the situation. He poured himself a tall cup of his mother’s wine. I remember hating the smell and trying a sip and recoiling. But I wanted to have fun with him. We played video games and snacked, listened to cool music, and he fiddled around on his guitar. He guzzled the wine in between activities and before the night was over, he was projectile vomiting in a small garbage can. The rest of his wine spilt onto the carpet and the room was filled with the acrid stench of alcohol laced vomit. A smell that would become a consistent staple in our lives during the end of our relationship. I didn’t know then that it was a warning. That I was headed down a path marked by incredible highs and lows. An adventure and a story one could only read about in books. The twin towers. War in Iraq. The death of our son. A career in policing that would consume him both mentally and physically and end tragically. River’s drowning. My affair with Ryan in my early twenties. And ultimately me leaving him at his worst for my high school love. The sadness I feel writing this is all consuming.

Alcohol does not make a bad man, what it does is bring out the worst parts of a man that he cannot face. I watched a healthy and beautiful man shrivel into the most primitive and dark parts of himself. I do not think my aggressive nature helped. I yelled. I set ultimatums. I slapped. I pushed. I did anything I could to get back what I thought was mine. I had my own selfishness. I remember the point that started this rise of me. I got sick. Really sick. I had always been sick but I was living with an alcoholic and when you live with one, they are the only person who matters. Their energy sucks up life. Their spirit is possessed by the darkest drug that exists and they will swallow you into their misery if you let them. I was swallowed. I ignored my symptoms for years, running to the emergency room when the flairs were the worst. No diagnosis but that I was stressed and perhaps needed to stop breast feeding. I talked about his addiction with friends here and there but there was this nagging feeling deep inside that those women just didn’t really believe me. I always had problems with women. I was beautiful and strong and a force with which not to be reckoned. I wasn’t a meek wall flower but a raging fire that said things as they were. I think it left a bad taste in people’s mouths and that maybe people were looking for other bad things in me that didn’t exist. I may be tough, I may have a mouth on me, but I was never a fucking liar or a threat to anyone. What I was, was angry and hungry for love and rescue. Desperate to be heard and helped. Whatever the fuck it was, I was alone in my despair. And of course, because I had a beautiful home and a nice pool and a great big yard and Brett had that winning toothy smile, I had no business complaining, especially when other people in my family “had it worse”. The cruelty that exists in those in survival mode, the lack of empathy, is bone chilling. So I stayed and I suffered quietly as every ounce of my being was folded into taking care of my home, managing Brett’s life, and homeschooling and leading my kids. And whatever I had left of my energy, was convincing him to help my family when they needed help. Pleading with him to allow me to give money here and there or to take them in when they needed help. All while trying to cover up a sinking ship. I had, so I gave. And I really didn’t want anything in return. But he did. I taught him to sacrifice and give, it was never willingly. His focus was his job and nothing else. And when he was home, it was the drink that powered him into the scary sleeps that forced me to move myself into the living room where I slept for years. I don’t know how no one smelled him at work. The booze. How no one could see him falling apart but me. Could not smell the toxic fumes sweating through his skin on Sunday morning as he worshipped God on guitar. I suppose that everyone was in survival mode. But when someone tells you their spouse is a fucking alcoholic, believe them.

The night I pushed him and he fell through the glass door of the basement bathroom and sliced up his arm was really the beginning of the end of us. I had enough at that point. I was barely a hundred pounds and couldn’t eat anything and there he was, in front of the basement utility sink, puking his brains out, standing beside the vomit on the floor he never cleaned up the week before. I was tired of it all. I hated everything and everyone but my kids. I pushed him angrily but gently, and he was so drunk, he lost his footing and crashed into the door. Because of his violent nature, I believed he would kill me for it so I ran outside into the dark cold and hid and wept. I thought that perhaps he would direct his rage to the kids so I ran back inside and faced him. He called me horrible things and I understood why. He told me he was calling the police and I told him that if he did I would reveal that he had shot his rifle through the house one night while he was drunk. It was settled and he walked himself to the emergency room and got stitches and came back home and went to sleep.

2020 hit and the downhill spiral continued. I was sicker and sicker and 90lbs. I was dying and was writing up a will, asking my family members to take my kids when I died. Brett was horrible. He drank to an oblivion and would sleep all day while I barely was able to walk a few steps. Everything inside me hurt. I know it was the same for him. He was so sick. I was so sick. But I couldn’t be sick. So I fought hard for my health. I fought hard for my diagnosis’s. He was immensely cruel. I began to deeply hate him. But I tried to do the right thing. One thing I can say is that I tried. Until I couldn’t. The nemesis of denial is one you cannot fight against.
Alcoholism has a denial like no other substance. An alcoholic, even when they are on a bed nearly dying from their alcoholism, never believes it’s the alcohol. The alcohol is designed to take over the brain and it profoundly damages the brain and body of it user. It swept him far away from himself, it destroyed our family, everything we had worked hard to achieve, and I had to pick up all the pieces myself. And the point I decided to walk away was far before I met Tom. I had an exit plan already but he became a light leading me out of darkness.

To be continued…

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Sharper than a Double Edged Sword

That charming covered porch where I sat and watched the sun rise, the kids play in the pool, the dog running herself in circles. The garden that I built with my skinny but strong arms, the one the ground hog would decimate in the early morning before I could muster the energy to get up and start the day. Sitting by the pool early in the morning, the sun gently warming my skin as I meditated. It was mine. It was not perfect but it was perfect. My dream home. The light and life flooding the piano room, the perfect place for plants and music. There were so many places to hide away. So much room to stretch. So much inspiration in the details of its 1920s colonial charm. I miss it. Every single inch. Every space. The hedges. The poison ivy. The stubborn weeds. The loudness. The excitement and life despite the chaos. It was mine. The creaky oak floors. The thick wooden baseboards, the whistling and clanging steam radiators. I nearly died making artwork of it all. I nearly lost my son making magic of it all. We all nearly lost ourselves as something deep and dark within that home twisted itself inside of us, refusing to let us go. The memories are so torturous. The sadness so all consuming. It was a dream, and it was all mine. And I lost it to someone who couldn’t love it the way I did. I miss you Beverly Hills House on Sharp, my tiny mansion.

Smote

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Icicles hang translucent and glassy, temporary stalactites waiting for their moment to melt. The trees are weighed down by snow and the irony of something that at its microscopic level, is so small and light, could bring down a solid and deeply rooted tree, makes me smile. There is undeniable beauty in winter if it were not only the eyes experiencing it. Unfortunately the winter lodges itself deep inside my bones, the cold manifesting debilitating affliction. Everything is harder. One must work harder to stay warm, struggle to maintain an amiable disposition when the body is starved of sunlight, struggle to not allow winter have its way with everything. For me, it is an all-consuming fight. I smile again when I think of that tiny flake of frozen water and the trouble it makes. Troublesome beauty. I laugh! Oh the lessons God always teaches through the winters that fall silently on a mind that is so dark with negativity and loathsome self-pity. How a tiny cell, that was beautifully made to keep me healthy, wreaks havoc when accumulated. How one tiny missing protein can manifest such misery. I close my eyes and hold back the tears. Where is the beauty? As the winter allows nature to rest and recuperate and emerge better and stronger, are these loathsome afflictions preparing me for a new season where a more spiritually beautified version of me emerges? I try to embrace the suffering and imagine that inside of my soul lies a stunningly beautiful landscape that will reflect such light despite the undeniable suffering. I wait with you winter.

The Empty Plate

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The plates full, the mouths drool. Colorful plates, painted with pretty lettuces, wheat products decked in various forms of dairy. The mouth rejoices. The souls rejoice because full stomachs, fill hearts. The laughter crescendos as tasty morsels are masticated to mush releasing pleasure to the brain. Standing from afar, imagining the flavors and textures. Wishing that I didn’t have to be such a freak standing from afar, lost in my thoughts because it is the only part of me that works, my mind. It’s in the remembrance that the discomfort blooms. It’s in the desire to forget what it is to be satiated. It’s in the loneliness and isolation that the sorrow permeates every hole bored by loss. The sounds of cozy conversation interrupted by the rumble of hunger and tumultuous and inflamed intestines. And I try to remember how lucky I am to be right here. I stand before a glass window watching the living live, knocking at the window, hands pressing against glass, mouth pressing against the glass, panting, clawing, pounding, breaking the glass. The bleeding reminding me that I too am alive still. That I have not yet died. That I can yet live but with a redefined existence that can somehow find joy without all the creature comforts that have made me human thus far. By dying to old ways of thinking and behaving. By transcending this reality and reaching into the next. Maybe the living aren’t living at all, but in a trance, and I have been rudely awakened through the pain and suffering. My plate is empty. There is no meal for which to rejoice. There are only tears, and each one is an awakening. Each one is a revelation. Each one a portal to God, to full understanding. Because the person who finds contentment in bitter suffering, is the person who has grasped eternity.

River

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Years ago in a small group study I attended, we were discussing “monuments”– those things in our lives that served as a sign that God exists and is actively engaged with humanity. For some it was an object that reminded them of something they overcame, survived, or perhaps something that symbolized a moment of enlightenment. For me it was a person. My monument runs around on two legs, his arms flailing around wildly, his espresso curls bouncing, his eyes bright and mischievous, his smile wide and unsure, his voice loud and demanding, and his laughter coating the air. My son River was born 8 years ago and then reborn again on October 27th 2014 when he drowned in our in ground pool and survived the impossible. See, my baby is a true miracle. He was given a 30 percent chance of surviving, and that was a generous number. The experts said that River would unlikely survive and that if he did he would be severely disabled. I remember exactly when they told us that.

An air doctor and helicopter pilot from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia stood in front of us and in his strong Australian accent crushed our hopes with the statistics of a near drowning, especially with River’s presentation. He arrived in Morristown sometime that day, I can’t remember quite when, to fly River to CHOP. This would be River’s second helicopter ride that day. The first was from Hackettstown Hospital to Morristown. Morristown could not properly sustain the oxygen levels in River’s blood. The only machine that could was something called an “oscillator” which was a special ventilator that pumped oxygen at high levels. But the very action of pumping could and probably would have stopped River’s heart and Morristown was not equipped to properly save his life if that should happen. CHOP had oscillators specific to children. The doctors and nurses prepared River for the dangerous flight, we kissed him goodbye, and quickly rushed to Philadelphia by car.

The ride felt like a lifetime. At times I cried, but mostly I sat in silence praying and thinking. I was afraid to hope. And the scene was sadly familiar, for ten years before, we made our way to Egleston’s Children’s Hospital in Atlanta to say goodbye to our son Blade who died September 1st of 2004. I dared not hope. I had hoped for Blade and was crushed when he was declared brain dead. A fear and grief I can only describe as a heavy black weight sat heavy over me as I remembered the past and as I grieved the present. We arrived at CHOP in the wee hours of the morning. The sky was still black. As we parked, River’s chopper was landing. It was strangely comforting that we arrived at the same time, like my baby was in-sync with his mom and dad. After much stabilizing, the doctors and staff came out to meet with us.

River had not even been placed on an oscillator yet and had begun holding oxygen appropriately during the helicopter ride. There was no need to place him on one and risk his heart. They said it seemed like a hopeful sign. He was on full life support in an induced coma. They lowered his body temperature by placing him on an ice bed. Tubes were coming out of everywhere. J-tubes, catheters, drains, breathing tube. Wires danced out of his head monitoring brain activity. It was surreal. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, the helicopter mom constantly hovering over her children.

How could I have allowed my two year old drown? I played it over and over again in my head as I watched him struggle to live. As the nurses came in and sucked the fluids out of his lungs as he writhed and choked. As they pressed the button for his sedation and fentanyl as he fell back into his coma. I painted a chair as he fell silently into the water. A blasted, fucking chair. He was floating quietly as his brother and cousin watched him, while I cheerfully gave my antique chair a new color. My God, they could have drowned too. It was that quick. There was no splash or struggle. There was just eerie silence. I wanted to tear the flesh off my arms. I wanted to gouge out my eyes. That was the enormity of the pain I felt. Why didn’t I check on them sooner? I replayed the moments. My sister screaming that River was in the pool. Throwing the paint brush and leaping down the stairs. Jumping into the murky and freezing cold water. Lifting River’s lifeless body up to my sister who immediately performed CPR. Crawling out of the water and running to the phone. Dialing 911 and screaming incoherently. The police arriving. Calling Brett and telling him his son was dead because I really thought he was gone.

And as I mourned what I thought was the impending diagnoses of brain death, River began to improve. He had no seizure activity. He was fighting his sedation. His brain MRI scan revealed swelling but not brain death. River moved his legs in response to my voice. Impossible things for a boy that sick. Five days after River arrived at CHOP, they removed his breathing tube and it was like a baby freshly born. The first cry he let out filled the room with emotions. Nurses, doctors, Brett, me. There was so much emotion but the prominent one was joy. The same joy you feel when they hand you your freshly born baby. I will never forget that moment. He struggled but he breathed and he cried and we cried as we comforted him. River recovered for 5 weeks in Children’s Specialized in New Brunswick regaining his ability to move, walk, and eat. It took longer for his speech to recover.

Today the only residual effects of his anoxic brain injury are slightly delayed learning and some speech issues that are more an effect of intubation than injury to the brain. Everything else is completely normal. A boy given a 30 percent chance defied all the odds. He surprised the most experienced doctors at CHOP and Morristown and Hackettstown. Even the EMTs and police officers that intervened that day were all astounded at River’s recovery. He was even a case study. A true medical miracle, he had the best care possible. The best outcome possible. My monument on two feet flailing about the house as mischievous and energetic and happy and full of life-and might I add now-a fantastic swimmer.

Luna

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I always tell you–little girl–how they put you on my belly when you were freshly born, naked and brown-skinned, you quieted as soon as our bodies touched. Then you played your first trick on mommy. You peed all over me. I didn’t care though my little pickle, I pulled you right up to my breast and let you suckle. That was the first time we met outside of my belly, in love with each other right off the bat. I remember just the way you smelled, so sweet and fresh, pee pee and all. You’ve been my best friend since Lulu bean.

You should know how I feel about you girl, if you don’t already know. I marvel at your every feature. Your eyes suck in the whole world. They are wild and bright, full of intelligence and emotion. They hide nothing. Everything you feel spills out of them like the water gushing down a cataract. I feel their every cut when you are mad at me, every tear when you are sad, but mostly they bathe me in love, admiration, and joy. Your smile is like a quasar beaming out of a super massive black hole–pure life giving energy filling my universe. You overwhelm girl but in the best way. That same cosmic energy fuels you, Energizer bunny. You never stop, Brownie. Always moving around, limbs swinging, hips swaying, your chocolatey hair always wild and dancing freely in the air. You dance to the music in your head and the whole room follows you. You are one of those, Luna. You walk into a room and the atoms bow to your presence.

But like a magician with careful control, you shut down all the magic and slip into my embrace. You melt into me and you recharge with my love and warmth. You’re always there–in my bath, in my bed, while I wash the dishes–always aware of where I am, lest your charging station slip away. You have intuition, child, that will serve you well. Wit that will charm the charmer; Smarts that will take you far; Passion that will set the world aflame. Beauty with depth, talent with soul. Fearfully and wonderfully made. You have all of my admiration.

I always tell you little girl, how I always wanted you and what a surprise you were to me after four boys. My life was good before you came but now it is perfect. You are the gilding to an art frame. You are the diamond set in precious metal. You are the caviar on the cracker. You are the ornaments and lights on the Christmas tree. My daughter, you are gold.

Morning Bread

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A mushy and yet slightly textured bowl of mashed cauliflower and a box of elemental nutrition sit right next to my Bible. Let’s be frank, the average person isn’t reaching for these items on any given moment of the day and much less the early morning. Truthfully, me neither. I haven’t the choice though for the nutritional aspect. I am almost entirely dependent on elemental formula for my daily nutrition because of my disease, eosinophilic esophagitis. Say it with me EE-O-SIN-O-FIL-ICK-EH-SOF-UH-JY-TIS. I love making my kids say that. Anyway, my body attacks my esophagus when I eat most foods in response to their proteins and I have to eat simple foods with no seasoning, which has been quite the experience for an ex-epicurean and self proclaimed amazing cook. The damage in my throat and sphincters and such make it hard for me to swallow textured foods and I have to eat in very small amounts. This prevents me from getting the nutrition my body needs so I have to back up any eating with a formula made up of amino acids (broken down proteins) in order to thrive. Fun times. I went through a time before I was diagnosed where I was literally starving to death. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep from hunger and–as anyone can imagine–I was miserable and suffering immensely in a way that I had never experienced in my life before. Genuine physical suffering. So to be able to eat something and feel satiated, for me, is a gift. I welcome the mushy bowls of food and the tangy drinks. It gives me energy to do the things I need to do as a mom and wife and friend and church member. I haven’t too much energy but enough to be present and do the best that I can.

But there is a third element to this powerful triad resting on my table that took me longer to appreciate. My bible. I have always known the importance of that daily bread, reading my bible every day and getting close to the Father’s heart, feeding my spirit before the day begins. Girding up you know? I knew it but I did not live it. Where I would get up every day and make myself an egg and bacon sandwiches and a bowl of oatmeal loaded with cream and turbinado sugar and drink an overly sweet cup of tea, I surely forsook opening up my bible and feeding on and drinking up manna from the word. Some days I would, and then some days I didn’t, and the fruit of that inconsistency and negligence was ever-present. It manifested itself in a constant struggle with the same sins and the same thought patterns that kept me depressed, angry, and from consistent spiritual growth. But like that DC Talk song from my teens says, some people got to learn the hard way.

The intensity in this season is revealing so much to me. I have to think about my nutrition constantly. Eating is not easy for me anymore. I do not have the luxury of putting it out of my mind and quickly grabbing a wrap at Quick Check or ordering fries at McDonald’s. There are no quick fixes with this disease as there are no easy routes to grow spiritually. This wretched disease has taught me something about my spiritual life that I could have learned a long time ago if I had learned to submit my strong willed spiritual laziness to God. Just as I have been forced to focus on working hard to survive each and every day physically, I have to work that way to feed my soul. I cannot push it to the side and tend to it when I feel like it. I have to engage in the practice every single day of opening up my Bible and reading it–not in a religious sort of way where I think I am pleasing God and earning my way to heaven–but in a relational and longing way where I read like I drink my nutrition drink, to survive and to thrive and to get to know the heart of the father who loves me more than I have ever loved myself. In contrary, I have abused my body and my spirit terribly. And this humble triad sitting on the left hand side of my laptop has become my manna in the desert, my daily nutrition, my morning bread. What is your morning bread?

Eric

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The writers of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos could not conjure as evil a man. Seven years a choke hold on my teen years. I went to school every day with my backpack full of books and my mind heavy with fear and secrets. The dread of the day ending, and having to go back home, hung heavy on my petite frame. I stepped off that school bus and into my nightmare every week day. The trailer park, Lincoln Place, the small farm. We moved more times than any family should and it was all because of him. His addictions consumed our lives, emotions, and especially our finances. The countless times I would run to check on my hard earned money, only for it to be gone up into his busted veins. Didn’t matter where I hid it, he would find it. Could not care less if we ate. If he could cut the corneas out of my eye and sell them for a fix he would. But that wasn’t the worst of him. No. The drugs only eased him into the most egregious aspect of his nature. It was the night that scared me the most. It was hearing him crawling around in the dark, finding his way into my bedroom, his heavy breathing, pulling my blankets off and pulling at my pajama bottoms. I would rustle around pretending to wake so that he would leave and make enough noise so that he would quietly crawl away. It was the most terrifying thing. I always wondered about what happened when I didn’t wake up. I only remember feeling like something had been in “there”. There was the drilled holes in the bathroom wall so he could watch me undress. There was hearing him breath outside of my room door when I was changing. But because I was so tough and strong he moved on to my sisters. Seven years of oppression. And mixed in all of that terror and abuse were the guns and drugs and my mom’s broken teeth, and the blood, and my brother laying on the floor taking the blows for all of us. And as suddenly as he came into our lives, just like that, he was gone leaving behind so much pain and destruction. The only good coming from him, my two beautiful sisters. He taught me to distrust. He taught me to manipulate. He taught me how to read liars. He taught me to guard my heart. He taught me to break a man’s heart before he broke mine. He taught me to be ruthless. And I think I am just now, twenty something years later, learning to be tender. Learning to let my guard down. Learning to trust. Learning to allow myself to be vulnerable.