On Grace...

I have never been very private when it comes to talking about giving my son up for adoption. In the two years since he was born I've been blessed with the opportunity to share his story many times with prospective adoptive parents, future birthmothers, and even strangers. I have talked about the grace that led Peanut and I to his family, the love that sustained me through the most heartbreaking moment of my life, and the beauty of my son's life and how it has shaped my own. 


It is, in short, my favorite part of the story to tell.


The part of the story that is not my favorite to tell is the part where I wasn't Enough. The part of me that has to admit that the reason I gave up my son was because I didn't have enough education or money to be the single-parent I would want to be; the part that still feels like all of me fell far short of who I should have been for my son. This is the part that is still so full of shame that it's easier for me to look away than acknowledge it. This recent realization came from watching a video of a talk given by Dr. Brene Brown, a researcher who has spent the last decade and then some exploring the cultural and personal effects of shame.


"Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change."


She said this and it resonated. In fact, it was like someone crashed the cymbals right next to my ear. Without realizing it, shame has become the lens through which I see myself. I have sat with it, befriended it, and encouraged it to have an opinion. Worse, I've encouraged myself to listen to that opinion. That opinion says that no matter what I do with my life, no matter how educated I am, or how many times I tell my story, that at heart I will always be the woman who wasn't Enough when it counted. Whether or not that opinion is true (though Lord knows I hope it isn't) isn't as important as the fact that I've believed it. Wholeheartedly. And this belief has worn down all the parts of me that used to be able to confidently say, "What WAS is not what IS."


The (fortunate) thing about hearing those cymbals crashing is that when they do, one is startled into looking up and paying attention. Coming to all these realizations about how much shame I have as a mother would probably have been completely unbearable if it had not come with the grace that it did. The grace that says that maybe my definition of being Enough has been wrong; maybe being Enough meant doing exactly what I was enabled (by grace itself, no less) to do: my very best to give my son the best life I could, at as little cost to him as possible. This grace reminds me how it lit a very painful path, giving me enough light to know I was headed in the right direction. I can see now that it has been here all along; I'm the one who has kept it out of the places I didn't think were worthy of it. But this is the glory of the grace: it miraculously made me Enough when I was incapable on my own, and it will happily invade any place I give up ownership of, including my shame.


This lovely grace says that I am not finished yet; that as long as I struggle to grow, growth is possible. That as long as I seek to be made more, I will be made more. It has revealed the depth of my shame and enabled me to face it, and has given me hope that it can transform the shame into something beautiful, the way it has transformed the rest of my story. 


More than ever I know that the work of grace will never be done in my life (a good thing, as I have no shortage of need for it). This fact used to be downright depressing to me, but I'm coming to terms with it; after all, life is much richer with the grace : )

Dear Peanut...

Dear Peanut,

Today is Mother's Day. I have been having a very difficult time thinking about it because I've been missing you an awful lot. But this morning my mom gave me a Mother's Day card in which she said that she hoped I could spend the day cherishing being a mother. And that, my little love, has changed everything for me.

I have spent today being thankful. You made me a mother and I can say with all certainty that there is no one else's mother I would rather be. You changed my whole life the minute I found out about you, and you continue to. You are my sweetest joy, my finest moment, my ladder to the stars. In other words, I cherish you. I love you more than I can say, but I hope that I can find the words to tell you when you're big enough to understand.

I love love love you, and will always be so grateful that you are the one who made me a mommy - it has been my favorite thing in life to be.

Always,
Julie : )

Mother's Day... (Year 2)

My second Mother's Day is rapidly approaching. I'd been congratulating myself on how well I'd been handling it until I realized that, as usual, I was actually NOT handling it at all. I, like many, have a propensity to push away things that are difficult to deal with. I am an "out-of-sight-out-of-mind" person and while Peanut is never far from my mind and heart, the struggle and pain of my particular brand of motherhood often are. It is not uncommon for grief to cause feelings of surrealism, and I'm often surprised by what a foreign idea it seems that I am a mother. A mother. Of a child. Like trying to convince myself that I'm a wagon wheel; it simply can't be true. Realizing that I'm stuck in the surrealism often (read: always) precedes a time of grief in which my sadness seems overwhelming. However painful this grief is, it's also usually a little bit of a relief to feel it - I hate the numbness that comes with the surreal stage; the knowing that I'm not fully entering into my role as a mother. Of course, the grief often makes me long to feel "better," and the cycle usually begins again.

As I discussed in my last blog, I've been working on learning how to live between these tensions, in the paradox, as Parker Palmer would call it. What I have been learning is this: being Peanut's mother is a daily decision as much as a biological reality. Shortly after coming home from the hospital, I started to feel (natural) feelings of separation from Peanut. He wasn't there and the hormones that would have strengthened our bond had he been present started to fade. To put it succinctly: I freaked out. I felt like I was uncontrollably falling out of love with my son. And then I was reminded, by One greater than myself, that love is always a choice, never a "feeling." I was reminded that every day that I chose to love my son, I loved him. If it didn't "feel" like I thought it would, then it simply didn't; it had no bearing on the reality of my love. And so it is with motherhood.

Being Peanut's mother may not feel like I thought it would, but every day that I choose to be his mother, I am his mother. To know that this truth has no basis in my feelings is more reassuring than I can say. And this is what I'm learning I must choose to believe in both the joy of the surreal and the pain of grief: I am a mother. Plain and simple. And exceedingly complicated.

So Happy Mother's Day to all mother's, traditional and non-traditional, of children present and accounted for, and lost and grieved over, of children born and not-yet born; your daily choice to be a mother makes you more of a mother every day, whether it feels like you thought it would or not. It has given you the power to choose to nurture and celebrate the lives you've been entrusted with. It has given you the grace to laugh and love and the courage to open doors to possibilities that terrify you. You have had the faith to raise the impossibly beautiful and unique people that you made. You do all of this even when you've been too tired or frustrated to think you want to, because you bravely and irrevocably choose to. You are, in short, superheroes : )

And so, those these words are far too few...

Happy Mother's Day!

Going Camping...

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things 

which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." 

- Epictetus

This is one of my favorite quotes when I'm missing Peanut.


I can't speak for any other birthmothers or people who have experienced a traumatic loss, but I feel like I spend my life in one of two places: feeling the pain of my loss very acutely, or feeling almost numb to it because it's fullness is too great to bear. Neither of these places make me feel like I'm living fully in myself; one makes me so devastated it's hard to function, and the other leaves me feeling like I'm not fully appreciating and loving my son. 


My challenge lately has been to camp right in between these places: to truly acknowledge my loss, and simultaneously rejoice for what I have. To understand that my son is not my own, but also that he never has been. To know that in my unhappiness over losing him, there is great joy in having given him life. To remember, once again, that the deal I made with myself and with God was that I would handle the heartache if it meant Peanut wouldn't have to. 


I hate to challenge Epictetus (because, really, who am I??), but I think, at least when it comes to loss, grief has an important role to play. The grief is my evidence of the depth of my love for Peanut, the reminder of the sacrifice, and the outlet for my sadness. To live in grief forever would be counter-productive, but to never visit? That seems equally unhelpful. And the rejoicing...the happiness is my evidence of the depth of my love for Peanut, the fruit of the sacrifice, and the outlet for my gratitude. While living here forever has sounded nice, I have found that it acknowledges only half of my experience. To never visit grief is to deny part of the truth of what Peanut and I went through, and life cannot be really lived unless it is lived in truth. 


I guess what I'm saying is that I think Epictetus has it mostly right. When I'm stuck in grief, this quote helps remind me that I have a lot to rejoice about. But I think he would agree that grief has its place, too, when it acts as an outlet for true pain and sorrow.


So wish me luck, I'm going camping : )