The Graveyard

We’re walking to the graveyard for the first time since my grandparents passed away. My feet are sweating, my hands are sweating. The lump in my throat is making me feel vulnerable; one hug and I might collapse. I’m looking and looking and looking for the graves. I can’t remember where they are.

Avalon is skipping a long through the graves; her dress stands out from all the gray.

I tell her, “Don’t step on the gravestones”. A long conversation ensues about why. She runs to the trail. She stops. “Mom, look!!!”

Lying on the unforgiving pavement is a Monarch butterfly. Her intricately swirled fairy wings are perfectly still. Avalon’s blue eyes are wide with fascination and shock. “Mom, why did she die?”  

On the hill there are two beautiful and ancient ladies.  I name them Ethel and Alice. Ethel is supporting Alice. Alice has silvery long hair. They pause at a grave, holding each other, smiling, laughing. I imagine what they are saying. I bet it starts with “remember when”…. They slowly shuffle together to another grave. They pause again. I imagine their tears on a journey, falling down through the patterns of wrinkles.   

I still can’t find the gravestones.

I look up to see the outlines of my mom and dad. I try to decide if this is a miracle or a consequence of living in a very small city. They point and shout to me, “Grandma and Grandpa are over there!”

Finally, we’ve made it to the hardest part. Avalon is unimpressed, but imaginative of Grandma and Grandpa’s life in heaven. The gray stones can’t tell us anything.   

Ethel and Alice have traveled back and forth from their two grave spots several times. It’s time to go. 

The Earthquake

Everything I heard from friends, relatives, and society before you were born is still true… You will disrupt my life. I’m not mature enough to parent. I’m not ready. I don’t know how agonizingly difficult this is going to be. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have enough money. A child deserves two parents with good jobs, health insurance, and a plan. If I screw parenting up & go party, all contact will be cut off. An unplanned child could have a miserable existence!!! I will be a working single mom and you will be in daycare alllll the time. Daycare might damage you!!!

One person said to me, “There is a plan.” Everybody else said, “I’m fearful, and you should be too.”

Baby we’ve made it through some of the hardest days, and some of the hardest days are yet to come. My little book of parenting advice that people wrote in at my baby shower no longer applies. “Don’t sweat the potty-training” (I did) and “sleep when the baby sleeps” (I didn’t!) and “Treasure every moment” (I tried!).

You’re four now, and you have disrupted my life in every possible way. You are nothing less than an earthquake. You make me wiser and stronger and better. I have poured out myself into you. You were always my destiny.

I’m still not enough. And that is where my strength comes from. 

It comes from some of the ones who were formerly fearful. It comes from some of the ones who are stepping into their destiny too.

(And daycare. Daycare is the reason you wrote your best friend’s name yesterday without looking at anything, just right out of your head. At age four). 

I love you. 

Why Asking for Help is Strong

In our culture asking for mental, emotional, material, or physical help is considered weak.

I believe the opposite…

Asking for help is the strongest thing you can do for yourself and your family.

It demonstrates courage, resilience, strength, and most importantly, HOPE.

The act of asking for help whispers, “I’m weak, but I’m still willing to try”.

It cries, “I can’t make it right now, so I’m choosing to trust you with my burdens”.
If that's not strength, I don't know what strength is.

In the last 5 years of my life I have worked really hard only to find that I am never enough. I’ve pulled it together for weeks and months at a time, only to crash and burn. I’ve been a devoted mom, only to hear a voice in my ear telling me that I should be stronger...that I should be much more...that what I’m doing is not valuable.

That is not the voice of truth...

One year during Finals Week, my friend Amanda asked to do my laundry. She returned my laundry basket with another basket filled with a week’s worth of food. I cried. I didn't ask for her to do that much, but I let her know I was struggling, and then I accepted her help even though it was hard for me. I've lost count at how many times my friend Hilary has come over & done the dishes for no reason other than that she saw the defeated expression on my face. There’s a bunch of people who just randomly drop off food at my house or do other things because I try to be honest about what I am struggling with. They can't fight my battles for me, but they can do one act of kindness that makes a huge difference.

I've met so many people who are afraid to ask for help. Sometimes they just need one person to show kindness to them, which will lead to them to feel supported, which will lead to them to the BRAVE act of asking help, which will lead to relief for them and life-long changes.

The one piece of advice I feel the most confident giving? ASK FOR HELP from a safe person or organization.

You are not weak; you are strong.