Journal Entry #4 from the Dominican Republic

Journal Entry #4

You spit in people’s eyes???!!

Bonelli. I cannot possibly begin to tell the story of Bonelli, the man whose vision was stolen by diabetes, until I first speak of Biemba, his wife.  She was our “cook” for the week while we were in the Dominican Republic.  By the world’s standards she is unspectacular; one wouldn’t look twice if passing her on the street.  However, to a more spiritually attuned soul, it takes only moments to realize that with Biemba, you are in the presence of greatness.  She has become a dear friend to the women who have lived and traveled down to La Victoria and a spiritual leader to the women out in La Canita who depend on her to lead their Bible study each week.  A no-nonsense woman in her late thirties, if she spoke, I wanted to hear what she had to say, if she corrected, I worked to do it right.  I watched the people as they filled up the bags with rice and garlic follow her meticulous instructions.  As she examined the onion, they waited…they wanted her approval as well.  There is a…regal quality to Biemba. As if royalty has been displaced and was dropped into a dusty Caribbean town to cook in a tiny kitchen in front of a hot stove. 

I had the privilege of accompanying Biemba back to her home one morning.  We had been out purchasing food for the day and she needed help carrying the dripping bags of beans that the toothless man with the overturned milk crate had ladled out for us from his tin pot.  She gently scolded me as I took the flimsy baggie from the bottom and part of the contents spilled out dripping black liquid down my arms.  A woman watched from her doorway and feeling sorry for the very inexperienced American, she rushed out with an extra bag for me to catch the rest of the overflowing contents.  Though I was all thumbs, Biemba acted grateful for the “help”, as uncoordinated as it was.  It struck me as strange that this woman would be cooking and serving us all week. It felt backward, like we should be serving her.  Several times over the course of the week, I had the strange sense that I knew what the disciples must have felt like as Jesus, their King, knelt down to wash their feet.

As I followed her down a little pathway to her home, I noticed a small child bathing in a basin outside the door and a few chickens scattered out of our way.   Her tiny home was dark, with a few motes of dust dancing in the sun beams that shone through the slats in the roof.  Several “rooms” were partitioned off by clean unmatched sheets and I could see that the kitchen was at the back of the room.  This is when I first met Bonelli.  To say “met” feels like an inaccurate account.  As if you can meet a corpse, or have a conversation with a dead person.  More accurately, I saw a man sitting lifelessly in a chair.  He sits all day long, unmoving.  Sort of staring off into nothing. He doesn’t speak or show emotion.  Yet, as I shook his hand, there was softness to him, vulnerability.  Bonelli had a gentle soul.  Or maybe just a broken spirit.  In sharp contrast to Biemba’s rich commanding demeanor, Bonelli’s is small and poor.   However, his presence is very penetrating…like a vacuum sucking the air out of the room.  Even, during our mealtimes when he was on the other side of the curtain, staying out of our way, his presence was felt. We knew Bonelli was there.  He was always there.  He never left.

Though I never had a conversation with her about this, the women who knew her better had shared that Biemba has grown very weary of Bonelli’s state of being.  I quickly understood how taxing it was to have his lifeless presence around constantly.  But even deeper for Biemba, she knew this man before he had lost his vision.  He used to work and engage in life.  This was the father of her children, her provider, and her companion. I had learned that on a previous trip, the women from our group had prayed over him to have his sight restored and she had asked that we do this again.  Since then, one of those praying women had a dream that we prayed for him again and his vision was restored.  So the intention had been set before the trip that one of our tasks while in the DR was to pray for Bonelli to receive his sight.

So here is the part of the story where I begin to squirm.  I say I serve the Almighty God who is who capable of doing ALL things, yet I am acutely aware that most of the time, I don’t see this kind of healing happening.  My scars have just begun to heal from watching my mom’s life get ripped away by ovarian cancer.  I prayed constantly for God to heal Mom’s cancer and restore her health and I didn’t it see it happen.  This kind of faith, this kind of praying rips the scabs off of my fresh wounds. 

Additionally, I really don’t want to make God look bad.  I mean, if we come in here and start praying for the blind to see, what are we going to look like to the rest of the world?  To Bonelli and Biemba?  Maybe they will see that I really don‘t have great faith. Maybe they will see that I often question if God is really interested in our physical comfort or health.  I see so much suffering around me…everywhere…so much death, so many tragedies, miscarriages, cancer, and unexplained death of children.  I see overwhelming evidence that seems to point out the terrifying proposition that God doesn’t heal the sick. Those are great stories in the Bible.  Good Sunday school lessons.  But to move out in faith and ask for that kind of thing to happen today?  People might find out that He doesn’t answer my prayers.  I might find out again.

 It is much easier for me to go down to the DR to help women start businesses and meet practical life needs.  I imagine myself telling my friends and family, “I am going on a mission trip to help women become more self-sustaining and to be able to buy food to feed their families.” This is all true.  Not a stretch, not misleading…I could stick with that.  It is acceptable even to non-Christians to do that kind of humanitarian work.  But to tell people we are praying for blind people to see?  This is a whole other level.  People aren’t prepared for this.  I am not prepared for this.  

I know how this looks to the world.  For that matter, I know what it looks like to me!  I recently saw a bumper sticker that read, “Don’t pray in my school and I won’t think in your church”.  Crap.  We are those women.  We are the ones who believe in the Bible…that God spoke into existence all of creation in a word.  We are the ones who hold our hands up and dance and sing praises to God.  We bow down to God, not to science.  We have faith.  We look so…foolish.  Exactly. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. The wisdom of God looks absolutely foolish to this world.     

            So it was a risk as we sat down to Bonelli’s table the last morning of our trip and laid our hands on him and began to cry out to God for a miracle.  Our hearts removed from our chests and laid out on the table, bare, vulnerable and open.  And we asked the question.  We made our request known to God.  We didn’t come in the “back door” with a “If it is your will, would you consider healing him, but if not, we totally understand and know you have a better plan” prayer.  We marched in the front door as God’s kids and jumped straight into His lap begging Him for a miracle in that moment.  Complete restoration of sight.  And then one of the ladies did something weird.  Cuz this wasn’t weird enough. She said meekly, “Uh, guys?  I feel like maybe I am supposed to rub spit in his eyes.”

            And so she did. And so we waited.  As I grabbed my heart back off the table and shoved it into my chest, I pleaded in the silence to God, “This could be your chance!  You could heal him in this moment and really make a name for yourself here! I mean, wouldn’t everyone then know you care?  You are loving?  You are the one true God?”   Much weeping in the room.  Tears being spilled over.  Something was happening.  We waited.  More waiting.  Silence.  Nothing.  “C’mon God, do a miracle!  We are really putting ourselves out there, ya know?”

Silence.

            Bonelli didn’t receive his sight that day.  The part of me that wants to defend God here will go to the explanation, “Something shifted in the heavens that day and we will one day see it.”  But I am not sure of that either.  It’s Good Friday and I am reminded that many watching Jesus hanging on a cross that day were probably pleading in their hearts, “C’mon Jesus.  Now is your chance!  Make a name for yourself. Get down off the cross! Kick those Roman soldiers’ asses!”  Much weeping. Waiting.  Tears spilling over.  Silence.  And then what appeared to be defeat. I wish I could tie all of this up with a nice conclusion for those of you reading and waiting.  But I am still waiting.

              “Those who wait patiently on the Lord will not be put to shame.”

Journal Entry #6 from La Victoria

Journal Entry 6  (from the trip in February 2011 to catch us up to date.)

               

The night our little group arrived at the house that was to be our home for the next week the electricity was already out.  We had come prepared with flashlights and headlamps, knowing that electricity is inconsistently available in La Victoria.  With the help of a little team of Dominican men who were to be our guides and translators we moved our bags and boxes of supplies into the dark compound.  We began to light candles, blow up our air mattresses and build mosquito net contraptions with duct tape and whatever else we could cobble together.  After a couple of hours of what felt like setting up a campsite inside this home, we were ready for some food and water.  It was clear that the toilets were not flushing and when we went to turn on the faucets, they were dry.  One of the young men helping us brought a five gallon jug of drinking water to disperse among the thirteen of us. 

                This seemed sufficient for the first night and all of us seemed content enough to wash off the day of travel with wet wipes.  However, the next morning, after breakfast, it was becoming apparent that we were all feeling a bit grimy.  We had fruit and power bars for breakfast and there was a definite “stickiness” to the whole group.  Not wanting to seem like prototypical high maintenance Americans, no one was complaining, but the topic arose, “How can we wash our hands?”  Another immediate concern included, “Do you think the toilets might flush today?”  They never did.  We were there for a week and had all of the issues one might presume in a third world country.  And we had no water.  Other than what our little car could carry in trash cans, we had no water.  Enough for a bucket over the head and a wash cloth over the body…I never knew one wash cloth could clean so much!

     No one seemed to complain much, however, after the fifth day, it was clear we were living in a fairly “unsanitary environment”.  We pushed through and decided that it was evident what our next trip would entail:  attention to the water issue.  We lived this way for one week.  Our dear friends have been living with this for a lifetime.  We were all feeling a stirring within us to address this issue of water that affects so many of the people of the Dominican Republic.  This will be our focus.  We will move in this direction.  May God show us what He wants to do through us in the DR. 

Live Wires

Live Wires

In La Victoria the electrical wires dangle from above, tangled, like a bird’s nest that got whipped and shredded by years of hurricane force winds.  Everywhere in this town I look, bundles of them are attached to nothing I can decipher but wound so tightly and randomly that to untangle them would be a daunting, if impossible task.  Where are they supposed to go? Where did they begin?   If I touch a low hanging one, will I get shocked?   It seems as if no plan has been made here, but as a whim arises or a need presents itself, another is added.   From my very American sensibilities where order and process reign, I cannot tell, I can only see that somehow these wires have power and supply electricity, be it ever so sporadically to this town.  

Out in the campo, just 10 minutes further, there are not as many wires, maybe one or two running into a tin roof, the occasional light shines out in the dark barrio. Electricity has not made it this far it seems. Here is where the women are, the ones we have come to love as sisters.  So many of them.  A mess actually of personalities and opinions and needs and baggage.  White, toothy smiles in a sea of dark black espresso faces.  Round mounds of mother flesh.  Chairs in tight circles with opinions and voices.  Arguments that go so far back, they have etched grooves and lines into faces.  Alliances and agreements.  Live wires.  Bound tightly.  

Occasionally, we will ask about a woman who lives a little further out, with the brood of children, in the cinder block house without the roof, why doesn’t she come around?  Or the lady without the teeth who walks with the mule out in the back roads on the way into town?  Maybe she could come to one of our meetings with plastic chairs in the circle, dust getting kicked up by a naked baby running around.  A look or a scowl will tell us that she is not welcome, maybe she’s done something unpopular or offensive.  This we understand, it doesn’t need to be explained to us, this crosses our cultural barriers. 

But we come for everyone, the young Haitian refugee, pregnant again, who can’t speak the same language and has been beaten so badly by her old man caretaker that she has lost her hearing.  We come for the proud matriarch who sits and judges the others in the circle and her neighbor who is promiscuous with a bad reputation.  We come for the hardworking mom, babies on each hip, who wants to bring order to this little band of women, knowing they need each other for survival.  We come for the drunken old man who clicks his tongue at us as we walk by and brings us bottles of coca cola while his own children go hungry. We come for his children, to see them and tell them they matter.

We keep coming back, we, this bundle of American women who have fallen in love with the people of the Dominican Republic.  Bound tightly together, needing each other for support.  We bring our own poverty, our messes, even if we have tried to leave them at home.  We, who know what it is like to be the one who is not welcome in the circle and we who have been the women not welcoming others into the circle. We wind around each others hearts and stories and brokenness and beauty.  We bring our extravagance to this impoverished country.  We leave richer than when we came.    We’ve become tangled into the web of the beautiful story that is being written over years with these people.

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Grief like Fear

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear”.   CS Lewis

     I sit in my overstuffed chair bundled up with my dog, steaming coffee in my mug, old blanket from my mom wrapped tightly around me.  I started using half n half several years ago because coffee felt more like a treat with it… a small thing to round off sharp edges that poke and tear at me as I walk through this life.   I am grieving in this season losses that have and have not yet happened.  It seems the deep ones that have stolen something from my life edge in to the now to steal things I still have.  To add to my sorrow, my naivete has slipped from me and I realize with a deep understanding that at any moment what I hold dear can be swept away. 

     This realization can make me cynical, valuing everything a little less in order to dilute the intensity of my feelings and hopefully alleviate future pain.  Or on the contrary, I become inclined to cling to how precious these moments are, to not miss the minutia that makes up life.  This is the path I am I walking today.  My oldest and dearest friend is in the hospital with her baby who is battling for his life against a sudden and horrible disease.  I am helpless, it seems, to do anything to help her.  I sit by the phone waiting for updates, send out countless e-mails to ask people to pray, and have nearly worn a figure eight in my kitchen floor from pacing.  I made oatmeal for my kids today and sent them off on the bus to picture day at school, with their shirts freshly pressed and hair combed more nicely than usual.  After they left, I wondered, did I kiss them each good-bye? Did I cherish this moment?  What if something would happen and I wouldn’t have that chance again to tell them how proud I am of them or how much I love them?

     It occurs to me that in deep suffering, I am able to love with a place in my heart that is not activated during the day to day practice of living.  When I am brought to this threshold of grief, I am moving in a capacity unlike any other experience.  I am freer to love wholly.  This concept was punctuated for me when I sat with one of my clients this week.  Her husband is coming home next week after being deployed for a year in Iraq.  She said, “In one moment I am praying so hard that he would get home safely and in the next moment I am hoping he isn’t going to leave his underwear on the floor when he does get home”.   We do not stay in the tender places too long.  They are reserved for those sacred times where we are more aware of the thin veneer between this world and the next .

     Since I sat down to write the sun has peaked through the clouds, my dog has jumped off the couch, and my blanket has become too warm.  I will get up and move, aware of the space in my heart that carries my losses, holding the young soldiers who are flying home on a plane next week, carrying my friend whose world is suspended in a hospital hundreds of miles away and saying prayers for my kids on picture day at school.  Thankful for the minutia.  Thankful for the gift of today.

Petal Dust

We seem to swirl around each other in a furious dance of busyness. Time is a precious commodity of which none of us seem to have enough.  Every moment filled with thoughts, plans, and productivity.  Many mornings I awake with a “to do” list scrolling through my mind and continue at a steady pace of it until it is time for bed.  There are often days I look back on when I realize I have simply responded to all of the demands that were thrown at me, not actually being purposeful to choose how I wanted to live in that given day.  This harried way of existence not only seems to suck the Life out of life, it fails to make room for others. 

I often walk my dog on a path near my office. Many others walk this same little strip as it is near the new hospital, the new light rail and a few shops and restaurants.  It strikes me that I am often quite content to move past another without looking into their eyes or even offering a greeting. Yet, when a rare moment is taken to acknowledge the other, the stranger who is passing by, some small pleasantry, an exchange that says, “I see you”, something shifts internally for me.  Something changes.  It’s as if I have been let into the experience of another, a small interruption in their day. And that other person has been let into my day in some way. 

My husband has a favorite story that he likes to tell.   When he was attending CU Boulder as a college student he would often ride his bike to and from campus.  One day he happened to ride up behind this burly black man who was‘clipping right along’ on the bike path that runs throughout the Boulder landscape.  Something in Aaron's natural competitive spirit took hold and he decided he was going to pass this guy and beat him to the non-existent finish line.  So as he was pulling around him, out of the corner of his eye, the guy looked over with a friendly but fierce gleam in his eye and said, “Oh, no you don’t!” And thus began the sprint.  And so for the next however far, the two of them pushed their bikes and their bodies to the limit, all the while, catching glances of amusement and unspoken comradry with the other, until they both lost their breath in peals of laughter and the stranger on the bike turned off onto what Aaron supposed was his own street.  As my husband often shares the story, I have a touch of nostalgia for this man I have never met, wondering if he tells this same story to his wife and kids around the dinner table.  Secretly I even hope that someday we will all share a meal and a laugh telling of the day of the "great race".

It compels me to wonder what would happen if I could stop the running list of “to dos” for a moment and notice the life that is in front of me.  Maybe it my child who needs a little attention.  Maybe it is a homeless man panhandling for some spare change. Perhaps it is a business executive who looks important and busy. Maybe it is the one staring back at me in the mirror who says,  “ I need to be seen. Not what I can do for you or how I check off the list of what it means to matter in this life.  I need to be seen. All the cracks, breaks, and messes that I seem to make.”  I wonder what I am missing in the eyes, the handshake, the laugh of another when I fail to look, to see, to notice or touch.  Because of those five spontaneous minutes over twenty years ago, the guy on the bike and my husband's stories have somehow become linked, rubbed off on each other in some way.  Like when you bump into the petal of a lily and the powdery stuff gets knocked off leaving an orange dust on whatever it touches. Is it annoying and now I must rinse it off...or is it beauty...rubbed off onto me?

The Perpetrators

The perpetrators were apprehended and after quite an ordeal, finally secured into my back seat. I had been careful of their heads, like I had seen on Cops, to not ram them into the door as I strapped them in.  Now barreling down the road, I could see the two of them in my rear view mirror, downcast stares, the acknowledgment that they were busted. The swirl of red and blue lights lit up the contours of their soiled faces as I drove them to the drop spot.  Guilt has an odd presence. It seems to seep from pores and stream from exhaled breath.  The heaviness of it can engulf you and threaten to extinguish any light it touches.  This guilt was no different and as I felt it’s cold familiar strangling sensation, one of the guilty spoke breaking the silence.

 “Mommy? Can we unbuckle yet?  I dropped my ambulance on the floor!” It was my four year old who spoke first, the seven year old didn’t dare. He was quicker to grasp when I had had enough and that nothing good could come from any further interaction with Mom at this point.  And before I could open my mouth to answer, the four year old had wriggled out of his car seat to fetch his plastic ambulance.  These toys usually come from the grandparents or other well-meaning relatives who haven’t had kids in their backseats for at least a couple of decades.  Who don’t remember that a constant clattering of noise and flashing lights could, one day, in fact, be the catalyst that finally pushes a mother over the brink she has been teetering on into full-fledged insanity.  The ambulance’s lights were still on, the siren had a minor tone to it as the batteries were wearing out. As I turned around to shut the toy off, my older son and I briefly made eye contact.  I could discern his thoughts as if they were actually written across his face; “Just get me to the front of the carpool lane so I can get out of this car”. 

Just then, as if on cue, the door opened and the teachers scooped the children out of the backseat with a gracious smile that relayed they had had a wonderful child-free weekend of adult activity and mornings to sleep in and were thereby energized and delighted to care for my little beasts for the next 6 and a half hours. I gratefully smiled at this strange breed of human who seemed to actually enjoy the constant swirl of chaos that accompanies caring for little children. The door shut and I drove off into my freedom, briefly glancing back to see their gigantic backpacks walking up the sidewalk.  One purple, one gray. The only other body parts to be seen behind the enormous school bags were four, little legs popping out beneath, and two uncombed heads bobbing up and down, as if the backpacks, themselves had sprouted little appendages. I made a mental note to myself: when kids start riding school bus next year, get appropriate sized school bags.

Driving away, I now have the space in my mind to replay the insanity that had transpired over the first three waking hours of my Monday morning.  It had begun the moment before my eyes pried themselves open.  It was a knocking at my bedroom door by my four year-old. We’ll call him Lucifer for the purposes of this article.  Little Luci was distraught because he couldn’t seem to find a silver mixing bowl which had accompanied his kitchen set we had donated to charity over a year ago. Apparently, he desperately needed this very bowl for his Zhu Zhu pet to use as a swimming pool, this very instant, at 6:30 am. The facts: Said bowl was last spotted in the hot tub a week ago and Lucifer had been outside on the patio for the last 20 minutes working the childproof clips to open the hot tub death trap and perform the rescue of the bowl. The rescue operation had failed and now he was making it very clear that this bowl fiasco was now my problem.

This information came to me in streams of broken 4 year old commands, demands and complaints, while I was beginning the first signs of the awakening process.  I pulled the blanket up around my head and listened as the volume outside increased. The intensity of the bowl situation at my bedroom door was only to be usurped by his older brother’s louder knocks and poundings to gleefully announce that he had finally decided that he wants to have an “Extreme Challenge” birthday party in 5 and a half months when his birthday will finally arrive!  Scuffling, punches and wrestling ensued because of seven year old’s infringement on door space and general lack of concern that Momo the Zhu Zhu pet won’t have a morning swim today.  At this point, some may be wondering why the children are still outside the bedroom door…I sleep with it locked. Wouldn’t you?

My husband was nowhere in sight, probably downstairs hiding in the office.  (They can’t ask you for things if they can’t find you.) Who could blame him? As I tried to formulate a thought that would hopefully transpire into a word, above named son became irate that I was “id-knowing him” (Just sound it out phonetically…ignoring him for those less familiar with the 4 year old speech) So the pitch and tone of his whining began to rise to high f note, I think.  I only remember that this could be an F note on the musical scale as I have distinct memories of the lady at church every Christmas Eve shooting for this exact note at the end of Oh Holy Night. Afterward, my sister would comment, “She almost hit that F note this year!”

But the children are gone now, in a happy place with blocks and easels, paints and markers, kind faces and gentle reminders to use “indoor voices”.  They are truly in a better place now. Someone else is meeting their needs and caring for their little minds.  So I will drink coffee and clean up the breakfast mess.  I will fold laundry and catch up on e-mails. My heart rate has slowed, brain patterns will soon return to normal, my own thoughts can re-enter, not crowded out by irrational demands like, “Mommy, can you make it Easter today please?”  By lunchtime I will most likely change their names back to the originals and yes, by 3:00 maybe even be excited to see their little smiling faces when I pick them up at school.  But for now, I will cherish the mind space that has been freed up to put toward other things like write about, talk about and think about them!

Here’s to Do-Overs

We were all in a puddle of tears this morning by the time the carpool

van showed up in our driveway at 8:30.  How can so much damage be done in such a short amount of time?  It is the sixth full day of school and since the last 5 mornings have been rocky, to say the least, I figured I would try a new tactic this morning.  Instead of having the kids get up and come out to an empty living room full of potential mischief to be had until Mom is finally dragged from her slumber,  I decided to get up BEFORE them, ready to meet their sweet little groggy faces when they came out of their rooms.  I wrapped myself in my fluffy robe, grabbed my cup of coffee and sat down to hear all about Tate’s dreams from last night.  Zach enters, bed head, tired voice, “Morning Mom”.  The beginnings of a wonderful morning. 

I sighed.  Thankful for my children today.  Last night had been Back to School night so they were up later than usual and incredibly cantankerous as I threatened them with spankings into their beds. So as the sun came up, this was a welcomed change.  Steam from my coffee cup twirled into the air. Fleece lined slippers whispered to my toes that we were celebrating the first signs of fall.  Maybe I will make homemade cinnamon apple oatmeal I thought.  The puppy climbed up sleepily into my welcoming lap.

And then, as if on cue, sensing that I might be too contentedly comfortable, the room shifted.  The crazy look crossed Tate’s face and he began traumatizing the puppy. It starts with a few shrieks, giggles and other unidentifiable yelp-like sounds and explodes quickly into a raucous symphony of swirling hurricane deafening chaos.  Legos are spilled in one sweeping toss onto the ground, objects begin flying through the air, and somehow the living room furniture becomes playground equipment.

I take a deep breath and calmly remind them to “use their indoor voices”, which, to date, has NEVER worked.  It sounds like something that should work.  It logically makes so much sense to give them a contrast to understand the appropriateness or lack thereof for a given scenario.  But it is as if I haven’t even spoken.  My voice is drowned out in a cacophony of school boy energy and sound.  In fact, I cannot actually hear my own voice as I remind them again to not use the coffee table as a springboard onto the couch.  My physical cues come first, shortness of breath, quickening pulse, a heavy un-nameable sensation around my neck, like fingers tightening their grip to begin a slow strangling process.  There is a dull ache in the forefront of my cerebrum, as if it is fighting to control my emotional response to this imminent threat I am feeling.
I fight to tap into my yoga breathing, pep talking myself into staying calm, being in the eye of the hurricane and modeling for my children a beacon of tranquility and centeredness.  “Namaste”.  I repeat it over and over again.  What does that mean again?  I am searching for the definition, clawing at my memory to bring it up for me, I can’t remember, I can’t hear, no thoughts can enter in save for the myriad of ways I could silence the thunderous commotion swirling around me.  Heart pounds.  I get a brief disjointed vision of machine gun shells raining down on me.  A squeal escapes from one of their mouths that actually assaults my auditory processing.  I hear the familiar loud ring in my ear that my husband has informed me is actually a cilium, a tiny microscopic organism in my ear, dying.  The realization that the clamor of my children is actually destroying parts of my body now leaves me feeling truly violated.  Reflexively, my mouth opens in fight or flight response and I scream the first thing that comes.

“TATE!” (my four-year-old’s name) The vicious cry of a warrior heading out for the fight.  The room is suddenly silent.  Void of motion, breath, or thought.  The fear crosses his face like a time lapse picture of clouds covering a previously sun-lit sky. All eyes are on me, a Lego falls, breaking the deafening silence.  Still watching.  Awaiting what I have to say.  It is clear by their faces they were completely caught off guard, no warning signal that Mom was about to erupt.  Like a lightning strike on a clear day.  They stare at me stunned.  Even my husband peaks his head out of the kitchen as if to see what the trouble may be. Equally as stunned as they are, though not by the eruption, but rather the silence, I stare back at them. Rational thought begins to re-enter. I have control of the room.  I have to say something.  I must maintain this new ground I have just acquired.  Quickly.  Before it is taken back.  “Go to your room!” I scream, with powerful, if not equal intensity as the previous screech .  Shock and confusion crosses over his little face as tears well up and he picks up his little yellow Lego and walks, head down into his room. Tear streaming down his cheek. Door closes.  Room still silent.

The look of fear and disappointment crosses my seven year old’s face as his playmate was just dismissed to solitary confinement.  Why do I all of a sudden feel like the irrational one?  Doubt enters in, as the storm has momentarily subsided, I wonder, did all of that just happen?  As if coming out of shock, the blood re-enters and begins to re-circulate. Re-gathering myself I glance around, the room verifies my memory; overturned chair, strewn Legos, misplaced pillows and cowering dog under the table.  Yes, all the evidence points to the storm being real.  I did what I had to, didn’t I?  The situation had gotten out of control, hadn’t it?  Then why do I feel so bad?  Why am I near tears for yelling at my kid? Wasn’t I the rational one? Hadn’t I responded appropriately? Logic cries a resounding “yes”. Emotion sends me to the bathroom sobbing.

Now that was my husband’s cue to mobilize troops and minimize fall-out. Stop the leak before it floods the house.  He, in deft allegiance to the bawling woman in the bathroom briskly executes his paternal strength while displaying the solidarity between us.  He storms into my son’s room at worst communicating, “Now look what you have done to your mother”, and at best, completing the disciplinary task I had left unfinished in my sudden onset of acute post traumatic stress disorder. In the kitchen my seven year old is left to the role of “scape-goat”, a term they refer to in psychology, to the one acting out the family dysfunction. Which in layman’s terms means, “This whole scene is so screwed up I don’t what to do.  It has to be someone’s fault.  I’ll do something bad to take the heat and blow this whole thing up.”

Foregoing painstaking details of the scene that ensued, it will suffice to say that a half hour later, after more reckless disciplinary disaster, a pile of crumpled Kleenexes, with half eaten breakfast, and red swollen eyes the two boys and I ended piled on the couch with my husband, still a bit shell shocked sitting across from us with a look, mirroring mine, that said, “What just happened?”

            “I’m sorry this was a bad morning mom”, says my seven-year-old.

            “I’m sorry I was a jerk”, I say.

            “I’m so-wee too Mama.” the four-year-old buries his head in my bathrobe.

We were all jerks this morning in one way or another and I truly wish I could rest knowing we learned a valuable lesson on how to not repeat this scene again.  But I have attended the parenting classes and groups.  I have read the books on parenting with love and logic.  I have all the theories in the world on how to remain calm and centered and give natural consequences while not letting your anger punish your children.  I can honestly say I never ever want to lose my temper with my children as long as I live.  But, in the words of one of my favorite children’s book authors, “Sometimes it happens, just like that.”  And as the van pulled away, my boys and I promised each other something that will never wear out… “There is always a do-over”.