Grace

If you look the word "grace" up in the dictionary you would find these two definitions: 

    1. N Christian belief of the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.

       2. V To do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence.

Grace--a blessing bestowed by both God and humans is an awe-inspiring gift. Grace--Lately, I have been thinking about it in all of its splendor and experiencing it all around me. Has it always been here? Or am I simply more cognizant of the abundance of it? I am not sure to be honest. I am just not sure. 

What I am sure of is that Grace has been a constant companion these last six months and I hope beyond all measure that it is here to stay and that I am wise enough now to keep it close. It is an old cliche...out of bad comes good. Lord knows that I have often written about this phenomenon, but I often struggled with a tangible label for the pure and intoxicating good that comes smack in the middle of true trials. But not anymore. It is Grace. Grace comes in the worst moments and brushes hair from my face so that I can see clearly. It strokes the back of my hand to calm me and fills me with light--enough to blind any darkness. 

In September, when Son2 went to jail it was Grace that reminded me that he was now safe from the addictions that turned him into a stranger. And it was the Grace in that incarceration that brought us together braiding thick strands of healing-love during nightly phone calls and weekend visits. 

This past half-year, Grace has followed me and refused to let me wallow. She came in the form of laughter with a life-long friend in a coffee shop after a particularly hard visitation. Grace handed me a fierce and meaningful diversion in the form of a Boston show that shines light on the stigma that often accompanies mental illness. It is this diversion that I dove headfirst into when I felt powerless to help my own son's illness.

Grace bolstered and lifted me at my lowest by introducing me to a prayer mentor who connected me with my God who had been so completely out of reach for the longest time. Grace was there when that same prayer mentor gathered complete and utter blessed strangers who took to praying fervently on behalf of my son. 

When searching for a residential treatment program for Son2, Grace showed up in the form of my "won't-give-up" attitude. She stood firmly next to a probation officer's tenacity and compassion. Grace was there on the other end of a phone line in the form of a kind voice attached to a motherly woman who upon hearing my fear-cracked voice clucked and shushed and walked me through rehab's bureaucratic obstacle courses.

And just two days ago, Grace didn't abandon us on the momentous day of my son's release. She showed her face first thing in the morning when a friend sent a powerful "we are in this together" message. She was on full display in the long embrace between Son2 and his step-dad. Grace even showed herself in his biological dad's tears and quivering chin. Grace soothed me when she showed herself in the understanding smile of Ashley, the social services case worker, and her careful explanations that ensured that my son understood the process. 

Driving down the highway, as the exit for the treatment center loomed large and grew closer, I closed my eyes overcome with fear and sadness and nausea. I prayed for Grace to take my hand. I prayed that she'd help Son2 find a welcoming place in which he'd spend the next year. Exiting the car, I prayed that Grace would stop my legs from buckling and my teeth from chattering. I prayed that Grace would help me be what it was that my child needed me to be. It was sheer Grace that provided the strength that allowed me to walk up the treatment center's steps with resolve and to open that door and to look back at a crumbling Son2 with an encouraging smile. 

And as we entered the tiny office to say our last goodbyes to my weary and frantic child, I was sure that even Grace couldn't keep me from collapsing under the weight of distress and poignancy of the moment. But right then...right then...a blessing bestowed.

A woman, the center's director, walked purposely toward us. Her empathy was palpable. Her eyes were warm and understanding. She reached for me. She took my hand and she said. I am here for your son. I am here for you. 

My name is Grace. 


  

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To the Woman With The Raised Eyebrows: I did not abandon my son

To the Woman With The Raised Eyebrows,

“How’s your son doing?”  You posed this question to me in the middle of a Walmart aisle even though you are merely an acquaintance.   It didn’t surprise me though.  When you live in a small town, a town in which you grew up and now live and work, news travels fast whether it be true or false.  It was no secret to many that my son had been in lots of trouble for the last year; getting kicked out of school (from the district in which I teach), being put on probation, using drugs, as well as many other parental nightmarish things.  I was used to the questions and had gotten pretty good at being vague, or so I thought.  

“Pretty much the same,” was my canned answer.  This is the answer I give to those who don’t really deserve an answer.  These words help me to replace my anger at the audacity of the asking by those who have no business doing so.  And so, it was the answer I gave to you as well,  “Pretty much the same.”  

Usually that ends it.  That phrase is a signal that there really is nothing to talk about.  It’s a signal that I really don’t want to say much.  It’s usually a signal to change the subject which is what I tried on that day we ran into one another.  

“How’s your family?” I asked.  But you didn’t want to let it go.  For some reason, a reason that I may never know, you pressed forward saying,  

“Oh dear!  How do you handle that when you have a small child in the house?  How do you keep her from all of the things he’s doing?”   

And I don’t know why but I instantly felt defensive. I am ashamed of myself.  I shouldn’t have felt that way.  But I did.  So I answered your question when I should have been strong enough to tell you that those logistics were really my family’s business and not yours.  

Instead I blurted out, “She doesn’t see him. We don’t see him. He doesn’t come to our home.  So she doesn’t know about ‘all of the things he’s doing’.”  

And that’s when it happened.  Your eyebrows raised to the ceiling  and out of your mouth came what I am sure is the reaction that many parents would have about our decision to not see our son.  “What do you mean you don’t see him?  How could you abandon him? If his mom won’t help him, who will?”  

I felt my neck get hot and an iron fist begin to clench in the very center of me.  Angry words began to line up like soldiers in my brain.  But I took a deep breath and I reminded myself that you were ignorant.  Your questions proved that.  You had absolutely no information about my son and our relationship and so instead of letting those war words fly, I chose to forgive you.  Right there in the middle of Walmart...I forgave you, wheeled around you, managed a “Yes, I guess that is one way to look at it,” and pushed my cart heavily laden with groceries and guilt down the aisle away from you.

But I want you to know...I want parents who haven’t experienced the things that I have experienced with my son to know...that the decisions that parents with troubled teens make are personal and agonizing and made with unconditional love and aren’t to be judged by anyone.  You don’t get to do that until you have lived with each and every one of us, until you have seen the backroom deals, the pleading, the letter writing, the bargaining, the visits to the hospital, to the principal, to court, to the police stations, the days of crying and the nights full of terror.  

Our decision to use “tough love” on my son came after every other method had been exhausted.  At the end of our rope, we spoke to a therapist who suggested what we knew all along; that my son, whom I love with all I have, will only change, will only seek help when HE thinks there’s a problem, when HE is ready and not a minute before.  She also helped us to see how necessary it was to tell him that as long as he continued living the lifestyle he was living, we couldn’t allow him in our home, that we wouldn’t pretend that all was well because to us and FOR him, all wasn’t well.  

Make no mistake, my son knows we love him.  Part of “letting him go” was to also tell him that when he was ready to live a different lifestyle, when he was ready to get help we’d move mountains to assist him.  We’d be his biggest cheerleaders. We’d use every resource and walk every step of the difficult journey with him.  But until then...until then...we just can’t support the life that he was choosing.  Loving someone unconditionally doesn’t mean that we don’t set boundaries. Had we continued to accept his behaviors as if they were alright in our world, we would have been sending a message to him that he could keep on walking down that dangerous path.  

 

So, my dear  Woman With Your Eyebrows Raised,  don’t ever make the mistake that being tough means we’ve abandoned my son. Tough love is just that--love that is tough--on BOTH the family AND the individual.

  

Looking for a book to Read! You Can't Miss This One!

Good Cop, Bad Daughter-A Book By Karen Lynch!

Once in a while every mama in the world feels like she holds the title of “Worst Mom Ever.”  It’s part of our job description to feel guilty about our choices and second guess every decision.  Want to feel better about your parenting skills?  Have I got a book for you!  Karen Lynch’s highly acclaimed memoir, Good Cop, Bad Daughter, recounts her upbringing at the hands of a narcissistic mother and takes us all on her journey of survival where she finds that miraculously her suffering as a young child actually helps prepare her to become one of San Francisco’s first female cops.

When I picked up Karen’s book, I was prepared to read a “Glass Castle-esque” story that told the tale of a poor child who was swept up into the chaos of being raised by a mentally-ill parent.  And while Good Cop, Bad Daughter does read very much like a Jeannette Walls’ classic, what struck me about THIS particular memoir-of-a-mom-gone-wrong is the strength that Karen possessed to not only overcome the pain of her childhood but to use each and every horrible moment as tools which ultimately helped to propel her to become the woman she is today.

Karen writes, “Living with mom had given me insight into the subtlety of non verbal communication.  I’d learned to protect myself by reading mom’s moods and predicting her behavior.  Now I was finding I was good at predicting the behavior of people I encountered on the streets too.”

Good Cop, Bad Daughter is a funny, poignant and gut wrenching story of a child with an unmedicated mentally ill mother who thankfully is able to find acceptance and “family” in the most unlikely of places; the summer of love counter culture of Haight-Ashbury, from men in a men’s club who never wanted her in the first place, and among a few other brave women who dare to try and be the first of their kind in the San Francisco police department. The reader agonizes over the cruelty Karen experiences repeatedly as both a lonely beleaguered child and a female trying to make her way into the all-male world of the San Francisco Police Department.  We wring our hands with worry along side of Karen as she anticipates what disasters may come next from her unpredictable mother, and are tormented when her career and private life dramatically collide.  

Looking for a book about overcoming the odds?  Good Cop, Bad Daughter constantly reminds readers of the amazing resilience of the human spirit.  Karen’s determination to make a life for herself that was different than the one she experienced as a child, her grit, tenacity and her “never give up” attitude remind us all that nothing in life is impossible.