When Did They Become People?
There were five around my table. Five heads up from sleep, sometimes way too early for a tired, messy-haired mommy. Everything from Cheerios in chubby little hands to coffee clutching teens hardly visible deep under Hoodies and barely capable of speech. Five around the breakfast table...chewing on bagels, chewing on the Bible, and sometimes chewing on each other.
Me trying to put together coherent thoughts, interesting questions, biblical insights. Me trying to hand out wisdom like cups of milk and juice. Them trying to listen, share crayons, read loudly; them testing Truth, testing patience, testing me.
Yes we fought, debated, and sometimes cried...well sometimes I cried; but we also laughed a lot and cleaned up our messes together. Clear the table, sweep the floor, load up that dishwasher. Never perfect...but perfectly mine. Mine. After all this was my life, and they were along for the ride I chose. Peering up over those mornings, I never rubbed my eyes hard enough to see the time up ahead. The time when the heads around my table would slowly diminish in number.
We were a team; they were my extended hands, arms, and heart. All in a safe little package
that was attached to me. Me.
I stood up proud; this time prettier, with combed hair and no pajamas, and a soft, frilly baby girl on my hip; ready to dedicate her in a special ceremony. Maybe you know the one...where a smiling person says...“and if your child should ever skip off to the mission field, the military, or the four corners of the universe, you would fully support God’s plan for her...,” followed by smiling moms and dads mouthing “We do!”. Well here’s the truth: I didn’t. I smiled ‘yes’, while inwardly howling ‘No!!!!!’. No, I don’t ever want to think about it; and thankfully I won’t have to, because she is, well...mine.
She, and all of them, felt like perfect extensions of me. It seemed they even breathed in quiet rhythm with my own heartbeat, late in the night when we rocked together in the glider. I held their hands when they toddled and knew instinctively when they would fall. I read them books and told them stories. Their storehouse of experience and knowledge came from me. I knew they belonged to God, and to me...but I never thought of them as belonging to themselves. Sounds so ridiculous; but no one wants to face a heart amputation. And they were my very own heart. They weren’t really people. They were my children. Those were not easy or perfect days; but they seemed impervious to the cold winter thought that those five could somehow become separate from me. Individual. Their own.
Exactly when did they become people? Maybe if I was more attentive or self aware; maybe if I was less distracted by messy rooms and messy ponytails; maybe if I stole more moments between ballet shoes and baseball bats...I could have seen it coming. That frozen place in time when my world seemed to get smaller, and theirs, much bigger. But no, it sucker-punched and snowballed me. Came right up and socked me in the face. Someone stole my children and replaced them with people.
Now slow processor that I am, it has taken me a while...well, years...to get back on my feet.
But as I lay on the ground in a wide-eyed heap, something occurred to me. A glowing ember thought that just maybe they didn’t turn on me. Just maybe they never budged. They didn’t turn into people. They always were those people. Sure, they were disguised as sword-fighting superheroes and Barbie-clutching braided cherubs; but the stuff of beautiful dreamers and deep thinkers was there all along...put into their packages from the very beginning.
So I brushed off the dust and climbed back up, and that ember got a little brighter. What if I could unwrap them all over again? What if I could discover more of who they are now than I ever could then? What if they can discover more of me than they ever knew then? Sure, I do cry sometimes over the spilled milk (literally) that daily covered my table. I will always choke hard on memories of days of bedtime books and talks in the car. They are the ghosts that haunt mothers. But without them there can be no awakening to the bright morning of now.
Now. There are more than five around my table. Now, there’s a bride-daughter adding in her grace, and a sweet little curly-headed son of theirs, adding in his sunshine. Now, we’re all chewing on Sunday dinner, chewing on politics and movies, and choking on laughter. I no longer have to work to inspire interesting questions; their conversations inspire me. We don’t always agree with each other but oh the riches I mine from their thoughtful perspectives. Sometimes I hand out wisdom along with glasses of water and wine; but mostly they serve it right up to me. They are perfectly imperfect and interesting, artfully opinionated and aware...brave heroes and heroines charting courses much more daring and purposeful than mine ever was. And they are their own.
So glad now to find out I wasn’t the one who came up with their design. Even mother-love couldn’t create something so brilliant. So glad someone else thought it through...on the day
they became . . . people.
Comments