Seeing God in a child's smile
i once heard a homily by a priest who was a good friend of mine.
he talked about how in the 'olden days' the days of Moses and Elijah, we could hear God directly
and how we missed hearing Him answer directlly.
the priest smiled.
'i hear God often, he said. you can too, you just have to know how to listen, where to watch and what to look for.'
i wondered about that as i was driving down the interstate.
a problem had been on my mind.
and, i had prayed about it pretty deeply
but got no answers
then, as i was driving, my eyes happened to connect with a billboard
one of those trashy blights on the environment
and the answer was hidden in that billboard
for me
and i found that when i have a big issue that i am praying about
if i look for God's reply, it is there.
i just have to open myself to finding it.
PHILOSPHY AND FRUSTRATION
GAK !!
I absolutely HATE days like this. It's Monday. With a vengence.
There is a lot of frustration in my life right now. I haven't been to Mass in like FOREVER. I don't know why. I think I am a bit tweaked at God right now. That happens occasionally. I get mad, HE doesn't, I sulk, HE doesn't; I turn my back on HIM; fortunately HE DOESN'T. Thank you God.
the junkie kid is working. i think she is clean, not really sure and finally came to the realization that it doesn't really matter whether she is clean or not. actually, she came home from an NA meeting the other night, and i am resonably sure she snorted heroin or oxycontin's. she was somewhat different, its the way she holds her mouth when she talks.
she also got a big attitude about how dirty my house was. it's not really. i am not a pig although i will admit to being lazy of a sunday. i am fifty, and have two little kids, run two businesses for my best friend for which i am GROSSLY underpaid. no really. like just over minimum wage. do not EVER work for your best friend. it tells you things about people you would really rather not know. trust me.
i have two dogs. one of them actually belongs to my son, who graduates from college friday next. i call the dog "sir piss alot". cause he does. now i do have brand new (when we bought this house two years ago) leather, imported leather furniture. and guess where the little *&^%% raises his leg. yepppers. my f'ing leather sofa. which i clean. ALOT.
i hate that dog. i am a dog person. i hate that dog. with a passion. he poops too. i changed their dog food to a super premium brand. it cuts down on the stench, and the mess. its now nice and dry and doesn't smell.
i don't live in a sewer. don't get me wrong. he is a small dog. small dogs, fortunately, leave small piles. its just the principal of the thing.
anyway, back to the junkie. i was pissed all weekend. she went to her boyfriends, about 45 minutes away. after she got off work saturday. of course, DH took her. he didn't see any problem with it.
now, i do see a problem with it. lots of problems with it. and i finally had the wherewithal to explain to him why i have a problem with it.
he is a softy. big softy. think 5' 17" and about 330#. large comes to mind. walking mountain comes to mind. very big comes to mind. all are true. for those of you confused by alternate realities, 5' 17" translates to six foot 5 inches tall. so the weight can be carried off successfully.
he is very intimidating to everyone in the world EXCEPT his daughters and his wife. (the boy, sometimes, although he is a chip off the old block, he is currently just short of his 21st birthday, weighs about 240 and goes six foot 4 ish or so) still, every boy is born with the certain knowledge that SOMEDAY he will MEET THE HAMMER. and that day has yet to happen, so he is a BIT apprehensive about THAT day.
the girls on the other hand, know that they have daddy quietly and firmly wrapped right around their thumbs. the grandgirls as well.
me, i get to be the hard ass.
so i told him.
look. she has (we are back on the junkie kid, did you forget?) NO CONSEQUENCES to her actions. EVER. other than we took her kids away from her and you'd THINK that would be a BIG CONSEQUENCE, right? WRONG. that doesn't seem to bother her alot.
no. she still gets to LIVE with us. so she still emotionally has her children. nevermind that they don't COME to her for anything, and don't seem to miss her when she goes missing.
they know. i told them. yes, you CAN tell a 3 and a 6 year old about mom being a junkie and using heroin. the words exist. i am a word person, and i found the right ones. so they know without being afraid of the situation. they understand that mommy is sick cause she mistakenly (ha ha but it WAS two little kids i told) took medicine that the DR did NOT give her and got addicted to it.
most mommy's do NOT fall asleep in the dishwasher. theirs did.
anyway, i digress. i do that alot don't i?
so other than the fact that we legally have custody of her kids,
she has a home and a roof over her head. food to eat. a bed to sleep in. hot water to wash with regularly. a/c to cool off with. a ride to work and na meetings and to see her boyfriend. cigarettes to smoke.
where is the consequence for her actions? no where.
so i told my DH (dear husband). look. she will NOT grow unless she suffers. she MUST have the consequences of her actions.
yes, i am capable of putting her out on the street, but he won't let me. so.
no more rides to ANYWHERE BUT WORK. NONE. NADA.
na meetings as well. call your friends.
you don't have a car cause the FIVE cars we bought you, you either wrecked, lost through stupidity or sold.
you don't have a license cause you didn't pay your fines.
you don't have friends or family cause you stole from everyone who loved you and wasn't also a junkie.
you don't have any fun? neither do we. we are busy raising YOUR children.
don't like my brand new two year old house? move.
don't like my rules? see above.
don't like me? think i am a hard assed mother (bitch)? i was never your friend. i am always your mother and it is not a popularity contest. you screwed up BAD. now grow the heck up.
DH thinks i harp about it. he's right. i do.
cause no one is listening to the voice of experience. they all want to cut her a break. oh...look how hard she is trying.
vomit.
i grew up in the sixties y'all. i had friends who were junkies. they FUNCTIONED. she doesn't. end of story.
function or get out. its that simple. yes. really.
she says to me, well i don't even have custody of my children, why should i get up with them and take care of them?
cause if you don't, you NEVER will have custody back. thats why. cause to BE a mom, you have to BE a mom. is that difficult to get? mom's put their children before everything in the world. God, not being of the world, isn't in there. so there.
you don't put your children before ANYTHING. i do. its as simple as that.
but, she says, you don't put ME before anything.
well, there IS that isn't there. you see, when you HAD children, you came SECOND to them. sorry, but that's the way it goes.
yes, it is possible to love something MORE than your own child. but you don't believe it until the first grandbaby is born. and you DO love that baby more than it's parent at the second of birth. that's why
God gave babies grandparents. to cover their parents sad sorry butts when they screw up. to insure that strangers do not raise the grandbabies.
yes, we have put up with ALOT Of crap because of those grandbabies. believe me.
and, i would do every single step over and over again. maybe i would have taken over a bit quicker in retrospect. but i did love my daughter. and wanted to help her.
now, i know, in my post menopausal wisdom.
i cannot help her.
she must help herself. but i can insure the safety, comfort and love surrounding her babies. and i do.
i am at work, so must go.
until the next glass of merlot and the odd 20 minutes when there is NO chaos surrounding me, the dishes are done, the house clean, the babies asleep, no one arguing, and i can GET ON MY OWN COMPUTER !!
fractally yours, dawn
p.s. a fractal reproduces randomly in nature according to no KNOWN laws of the universe. once you have met my children, you understand my name. fractalmom.
who is this God person anyway??
A friend of mine today mentioned not being very religious. Religion is a funny thing. You either are, or you are seventeen thousand things in-between. Very few AREN’T. Or at least aren’t willing to admit they aren’t. Then you have the loonies who are so ACLU oriented that they seem to forget where reality is and live constantly in a world of litigation. I can make fun of them, I have a law degree from a fairly upper class law school. I don’t USE it, but I have it. Actually, I hate lawyers. Of course, the caveat to that is that if I did USE my degree, I probably would be a good bit more ‘well off’ than I am currently.
But alas, I was one of those 60’s hippies that was more interested in helping the disadvantaged and downtrodden than I was in pursing the mighty dollar. I did practice for a bit, in Oregon a thousand years ago. I was with the public defender’s office in Portland, Multnomah county. I couldn’t represent the baby raper’s, wife beater’s etc. I was supposed to be studying to take the bar, instead I transferred to legal services, and started investigating slumlords. Believe me when I tell you that Portland Oregon had some BODACIOUS slumlords too.
They had these thingys, legally they were called SRO’s which stood for single room occupancy hotel rooms. We called them chicken coops. They were absolutely horrid. The conditions that the ‘derelicts’ lived in were abhorrent. Imagine if you can, living in a room smaller than a cell. And the filth. Ughh. Then, there were the projects. Substandard electricity, lighting, filthy conditions, garbage everywhere.
I remember in particular, one day I heard a baby crying. It didn’t stop. Finally I located the apt that the baby crying sound was emanating from. There was also loud music. Why I could hear the baby over the music is totally beyond me. I knocked. Again. Again. And yet again. No answer. Finally, me and my bad assed self, I kicked the door in.
Now that sounds respectable, but in truth, those doors could be opened by a savvy six year old with a weak wrist. But it sounds cool to say I kicked the door in.
And yes, the baby was still crying. And the six guys sitting on the couch and chairs getting stoned were totally oblivious to the baby crying. After I yelled at them, got the baby out and called the baby’s mom to come home from work, and then cussed out the baby’s worthless father and called him everything in the world except a good father…..I inspected the apartment and turned it in to be remodeled.
I wasn’t afraid though. My sister was TWEAKING. Now, it doesn’t matter to me a whole lot, but I am white. And the apartment was full of men of color. Since I was raised civilized, I don’t exactly see color? But most people do.
My sister is one of them. To me, that is just wrong. The baby’s father deserved to be yelled at, but only because he was a jerk.
But my sister was upset because I typically worked with people who were not upper middle class caucasian’s. I however, was known throughout the lower strata of Portland as “the legal aid lady” and as such, along with my scintillating (she said sarcastically) personality, enjoyed a "bye" as it were from harassment on any quarter.
The thing is, people knew I was a people too. I wasn’t some high mucky muck f’d up lawyer who looked down my aquiline roman nose at them. In the second instance, I am not roman, I am a redheaded irish/gaelic girl; and as for my nose, it is slightly snubbed, upturned and not long and aquiline at all.
I am almost, but not quite, the furthest thing from normal that you can get.
But, I do love. And I believe, that is the essence of Godism. I don’t care if you like MY God or not. And, I don’t have to like your God either. As long as I like my God, and you like YOUR God, I’m good with that. Unless, YOUR God doesn’t like ANYONE, then you are fucked up and I don’t’ want to know you anyway.
I don’t like people who hate. I have a problem with hate. Hate of any sort, any time, anywhere. I will call bullshit on hate every single time it rears its ugly head. I despise hate. Moreover, I despise people who hate and hide it behind something else.
Now, there is a real dichotomy.
See I am Catholic. Now that is not exactly a religion that has popular press lately. But my basic feeling is that God is probably pretty pissed at the Catholics too. I certainly am. That doesn’t stop me from going to church though. Why should it. See, well then, there is the Pope, now he and supposedly God are against Gays.
Well, I am NOT against gays. I am happily married and straight. But I have no issues or problems with gay people. AND i don't particularly feel that God is against ANYONE at all, except assholes.
The (my) church is against birth control. I am in favor of birth control. As a personal thing, I am anti-abortion, only in that I don’t believe in killing. I think abortion is a bad choice and that responsible birth control is a much better choice. But I won’t hate you if you have an abortion. If you are my friend, I will go to the clinic with you and not preach at you. Oh, to stop the killing, I will tell you , if asked, that I think there are better ways to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. But I don’t and won’t hate you for having one. I have no problem with the morning after pill. I think it’s a GREAT idea. Okay, semantics here. Is a fertilized ovum a life? I just don’t go there, that’s all. It’s a bit of a cop out. Yes. I am aware of that.
So we get back to the whole God issue. Here is where it gets a bit sticky. As some of you know, the whole four people who actually READ my blog, i have three granddaughters. Two of them live with us and are being raised by us.
The oldest, who lives with us was born normally. She was of an appropriate birth weight. She looked great. We all cooed and cried and all of those family things you do when a baby is born. We had 27 people there for the birth. Not all of them were in the room, but we have a huge extended family and in it, births are considered a family event, not a private event.
We went home, about an hours drive.
We had JUST gotten home when the phone rang and it was my daughter, hysterical. Now when i say hysterical, dry typing, white paper, it does not convey what i mean.
I mean ****H Y S T E R I C A L****. As in sobbing so hard you cannot breathe hysterical.
“mommy, they took my baby to NICU”.
Okay. Get up, grab Dave, try to talk, put clothes back on. Get in car. Sit and finger a necklace that i have worn for years that my best friend gave me. Dave drives, i am a WRECK. He isn’t all that great either, but he’s a guy and they have to be guys sometimes.
On the necklace is a religious medal.
Now, when i was in undergraduate college, i needed a minor. You don’t now, but you did then. So, figuring it was a cake walk, i picked religious studies. And promptly turned agnostic. (a common occurrence actually).
And stayed that way until that night.
Meanwhile, back in the car. I am crying so hard that i cannot see. I take my glasses off (which by the way is the ONLY way i can read little type). And low and behold, on that religious medal is printed a petition.
(see, that’s how you really do know i am Catholic. Anyone else would mistake it for a prayer, but since we are only supposed to PRAY to God or Jesus, it has to be a petition for another supernatural entity to PRAY for us.)
And so, being desperate, being a mom, being a new grandmother, and having NO SCRUPLES WHATSOEVER about my previous beliefs ( or lack thereof), and ready to make any deal necessary, i say the petition over and over for the ENTIRE DRIVE.
We get to Tod Children’s hospital. My daughter and her husband are outside on the steps having a cigarette. Dave stays out there with them.
I go immediately in.
Takes an act of Congress to get into the NICU. Who are you, what are you doing here, scrub up at this sink, etc. etc.
Finally, i go through the doors.
The nurse grabs me and says, “you are the mother’s mother?” i am like YES. She says to me, you had best prepare your daughter, this baby will not make it through the night.
I didn’t faint. But i did ask what was wrong. They said they had no clue, but the baby’s temp was 108% farenheit.
That is a fatal temperature for a baby, or for an anything at all.
She takes me to see the baby. She is lying in an isolette, full of tubes and things now. She is restless. Hot to the touch. Burning hot. She does NOT look well at all.
I fall to my knees and pray. The nurse turns away to give me privacy. It has been almost 7 years now, and i still cry when i try to tell this, or even type it. I am still fingering the necklace with the medal on it. I am still saying the petition over and over, i am too upset to even focus my mind enough to say anything that requires thought in any form from me. The medal FALLS OFF THE NECKLACE INTO MY HAND.
I stand up, and ask the nurse if i can put the medal in the isolette with the baby.
She says NO and hands me a piece of tape and turns her back again. I touch the medal to the baby’s little forehead.
I kiss the baby, and say, Blessed Mary, if this baby has to die, take care of her for us, but if she doesn’t, please go find your Son and make him save her.
I tape the medal over the baby’s head. I go outside for a minute to have a cigarette.
I come back in about 10 minutes later. The nurse grabs me and says, WHAT DID YOU DO TO THAT BABY. I am freaking out now, WHY, is she OKAY, what happened. The nurse bursts into tears and I think OMG, the baby died, i was outside having a cigarette and my first grandchild died, what a piece of shit i am.
The nurse says to me. Her temperature is normal.
NOW, that is a hard one to not pay attention to ya know?
It actually gets better. They eventually find out what was the matter. And 90 % of the babies that get it die. Of the 10% who do NOT die, 99% of them are profoundly retarded.
She lived (she was still in NICU for three weeks).
She is in first grade and reads on an eighth grade level.
She does math on a third/fourth grade level.
She is beautiful. (that is NOT just me, she actually won the most beautiful baby in the tri state area contest at age 1 - well her picture did. I would NEVER put a baby in a contest..gross)
She is delightful and wonderful and precious, as are all children.
So, profoundly affected by this was i, that the baby has Mary as her saint’s name. we are irish. The irish give the baby the saint’s name at baptism, not confirmation.
And, since then, i am no longer an agnostic. I am a believer. I don’t have one iota of faith. I have a sure and present KNOWLEDGE. So, even though I still have ISSUES with my church, i have NO issues with God. And i will keep those two firmly and completely separate for my entire life.
God will be with me forever. The church and i may part, who knows.
Way to deep, but felt like this blog needed done. Now i will go back to my old flaky self.
the greening
i call it the greening. it happens every year. its over now here. here is ohio, the tri state part of ohio that intersects with pa and wv. i used to live in wv, the last flood two years ago did me in on that one. i had a wonderful old victorian home. it was three stories and full of memories. unfortunately, after the flood, it was also full of crossbred snakes. eeeek.
i am not afraid of snakes, per se. but i also am not totally crazy about them. i could live the entire rest of my life never seeing a snake and i wouldn't miss it more than, oh, the bubonic plague for instance. so the old homestead had to go. now i live in a brand new modular home. i love modular homes. they are so tacky, yet so convenient. if they could make them out of plastic, i am sure they would. all the windows work and none of them are broken. in my old house of 27 windows, six were broken. the a/c works. the dishwasher works. everything works. well, the family still thinks the dishwasher is a funny looking cabinet, and never loads their dishes without being told, but you'll have that.
i live in the middle of a converted cow pasture, with a view of a lake from my front porch. i am not ON the lake. probably a good thing as my last threat was to go and FIND a lake that thought it was a gin and tonic, then i was going to explore the possibility that I was a LIME and spend a week or so throwing myself in and out of the gin and tonic. an author i love once wrote about that. he is dead now. and missed. sorely.
the greening. well the greening is when everything is brown. thats when it starts. and if you are not very careful, you will miss it. it is that ineffable moment when the dry, cracked, brown, dead things of winter push out their little green heads and taste the warm sunshine. they taste it and say to themselves, hey!! its not too cold out there ! and a bud appears on an apple tree. or a stalk of soybeans pushes up through the damp, dark earth, reaching up towards the sun.
there was a LOT of years when i didn't even realize that there WAS a greening. oh. i noticed that all of a sudden, we went from brown to green. everyone notices that. you are driving down the interstate one day and your brain finally registers. green. there are things around me that are green. very green. weren't those things just brown a day ago?
thats just normal notice. no, the GREENING is when you catch the first little bud coming out, the first leaves poking up. and it's slick. and tricky. and hard to catch. it never comes when you think it should either. its also difficult to see if you drive alot. it is not conducive to try to spot a bud on a tree limb from the interstate at 65 mph. you can well, get in wrecks and have other horrible things happen.
i do stupid things like that alot. not get in wrecks and have horrible things happen. well, sometimes horrible things happen, but that is just the perverse nature of life. nothing personal. at least i don't THINK it is personal. maybe it is?? wow. what a thought. let's NOT go there right now.
no, the stupid things i do are called (by me) quests. i have really bonker quests. things that absolutely no one else has ever (to my knowledge) done. like wonder what the letters ASPLUNDH on the side of the bright orange trucks that you see on the highway cutting down trees, well, what do the letters stand for. i started questing way before the internet. (gak, that makes me OLD doesn't it?) so it wasn't something that i could just grab a cuppa when i got home, head to the puter and look up. no. a quest had to be solved. why did i make up stupid rules for my quests? don't have a clue there. but there are rules nonetheless. and they must be followed. it took me exactly three years and two months, seventeen days to solve the ASPLUNDH quest. the answer? bet you'd like to know <grin>.
it does give me things to think about on my commute. i live in the country, i shouldn't even have a commute. but i do. its about 25 minutes. that's a funny thing too. when i drive the POS mini van i paid a whopping $300 for last winter, i tend to listen to country. i don't even LIKE country, but i listen to it in the mini van.
now with gas as high as it is, i pulled the grand am out of retirement. the grand am is a stick. and a 4 cylinder. i happen to love driving a standard. i made all three girls learn to drive a stick. they hated learning, love driving one. i have been driving it two whole days. i put a whopping $20 in the tank. 7.16 gallons. wheeooo. now in the minivan i spent $10 a day on gas. ouch. and i drove about 70 miles a day. i have driven 160 miles on the grand am and still have HALF the gas left that i put in. fuzzy math, but i know that my mileage is better.
i like driving the grand am alot better. i listen to classic rock in the grand am. couldn't PAY me to listen to country in the grand am. today, crusing down the interstate, i had War Pigs by Black Sabbath cranked up. how funny is that. a 51 year old woman rocking out to war pigs.
you know, i walked by a mirror the other day and saw my aunt in it. i don't know how she got there, she has been dead for years. it wasn't supposed to be like that. inside i am still somewhere in my twenties. i don't know WHO this old hag is that took over my body.
i've aged. i know it. time does that. and kids. kids will age you. trust me. i know. i have four of them. the oldest is 29ish or so. yep. and the baby is 17 ½. and we are now raising two of our granddaughters, ages 3 and 6. that's a long story. it involves dropping out of college, marriage way to early, and king heroin. sad, but true.
funny part is, there are lots like me out there. with regards to that situation. there are some really good bits about it though. laughter of a three year old and toothpaste on cats. watching them grow and develop. it's not exactly what i envisoned at 50, but it will do just fine. just perfectly fine. i'm good with that.
