Interplanetary Thoughts

He arrived two weeks late, 10 lbs and 8 ounces, red-faced and bawling like a Tasmanian devil. I was young, inexperienced, and terrified, trying to figure out how to keep this gigantic being alive, especially with all the screaming. They whisked him off to the nursery and I felt like I had been split in two. Although I was nervous about my ability to be a Mother, it felt like they had just ripped my heart out. 

Later, when things calmed down and they brought him back, I held and nursed him. Sweet, soft, blue bunny eyes looked up to me as if I were the answer to all his prayers. I was smitten. My generation was encouraged, even pressured, to put off parenthood and to build our careers, but my secret wish was to have babies and stay at home, being creative and raising a pile of amazing people. The Navy kept calling (because of my high scores on the test) but I did not answer them. And here I was, married to my hunky sweetheart and holding the sugar baby. 

But what to do with him? Even though I babysat many children over the years and had treated my baby brother like he was my own (he was ten years younger), going home with a newborn was a whole 'nother responsibility. I was lucky to have Dr. Leila Denmark as my childrens' pediatrician, already very old (86 years, to be exact -- she lived to be 114) on the day when I brought Jonathan to see her for the first time. She did not take appointments -- you just waited in line when you got to her office, a converted carriage house next door to what looked like an antebellum mansion. She was world famous by then, so I was intimidated when I walked into her office. But there was this teeny, tiny woman with her hair woven tightly into a little bun. Plain-spoken, with wisdom and authority. She looked him over and told me that he was a fine, strong baby, and that if I fed him right he would grow to be 6'6 (after closely examining his feet). How tall do you think he is? Yes, Dr D was right. She sent us home with a small sheet of paper with all the instructions for how to manage him...simple but strict -- old-school scheduled feedings and time management. This, for a Mama who had a butterfly brain and was more hippie than drill instructor. But I loved this baby with everything I had and didn't want to mess it up. 

At around 2 weeks, he developed the worst colic I have ever seen, before or since. He seemed to scream most of the time. I was dutifully following the schedule, but felt terribly inept. The best thing for this boy was to get him outdoors. He loved the sky, the birds, the trees...every day, we took long walks and got to know all the animals and old people in our neighborhood. He also loved riding in our red Chevy truck. He and I would pile in, with his car seat right beside me and we'd hold hands while we drove around. Ken worked evening shift, so he missed those long walks and the adventures of terrific colic. Thankfully, this child was exhausted by the time I fed him his 10 p.m. feeding, and he would sleep til 6:00, then nap again until 10:00 a.m. 

He was an unusual child, loving everything to be exactly on schedule and never changing. As we had more children, I learned to be more flexible with Dr D's ideas, but Jon was born in a groove. He did not handle change well. God knew we needed that baby, but He also knew Jon needed a Mama like me. Back then, we knew nothing about a "spectrum," "autism" or special needs, really. I knew that he was different, exceptionally smart, and highly detailed. By the time he was three or four, he could name every car that whizzed by. We used to play games with him about what cars were coming towards us. He would obsess about one subject and want to know every possible thing about it. His first sentence was "What's that?!" and he tortured us with his demands for answers. He continued to protest (loudly) with tears every time he had to be away from Mama until he was 8 years old. But we made him face difficult things. God gave him a Mama that butterflied through the world, and a Daddy who was as tough as a drill sergeant. I knew that loving a child is not just making the world a pillow for them. It includes both grace and truth...toughness and tenderness. I am so very grateful that we didn't get any "counsel" about this boy's unusual temperament or proclivities, outside of normal child-rearing. He would have been labeled, possibly drugged, and in the end, suppressed. Because we pushed him beyond his comfort zones, he learned to navigate and had to learn to get along. Many children are done a disservice when their bad behaviors are excused because of a label. They become self-focused and sometimes useless. No one would wish these things on their children, but we've become slaves to professionally-placed boxes. These are not politically-correct things to discuss, but I am witness to a different way that indeed works. I'd write a book but I might get lynched. Caveat: there are indeed many children who have sincere, special needs. I am not discounting that, nor the need for help with these. I just believe that our society has been hurt, because many children have been categorized as incapable, or treated too carefully, rendering them ill-equipped for the real world. When in truth, they could be challenged to greater and harder things. 

Jon was examined by a reading specialist who explained some things to me, but thankfully she simply helped me with understanding both our natures, my teaching style and his learning style. It was because he was unique that we decided to homeschool our children, way back in the 80s. She told me if I put him in regular schools, that he would be labeled and drugged, given his unique brain.  We did the scary thing and faced all sorts of criticism from raising our children that way. Back then, it was rare. And I was flawed -- impatient, flighty, artistic and struggled with consistency. Somehow, we managed 19 years of it 'til I was crispy-toasty-done and put two of them in a small Christian high school (Jesse's senior year, Liz' freshman year), for their sake, despite my pride.  We took the road less traveled, and it has made all the difference...            

I Love My Kids, I Do....

There are times in your life, well, maybe just in mine, where you realize that you might have been on the verge of insanity. I was never a "wild" child...I didn't experiment in the 60s and 70s. Caveat: there were those rollicking nights that I pretended to be smoking pot with my girlfriends in the dorm at our very-conservative Christian college...we'd act real stupid, play loud music, roll tea leaves up in the rice paper I had for art class, and blow smoke while we walked around in our underwear. Scandalous.

My actual insane moments were more bizarre than that and certainly more hazardous. Here's one example...

It might have all started with the fact that we were living in a small camper with four kids, building our home with literally our own hands. I refer to this season of life often, because I'm still counting on the street cred and it might have left part of my brain slightly warped...so it has affected everything since.  

We had moved the camper onto our land (after living in a campground for a few months) when we got the call that Ken's beloved maternal grandparents, Pop and Babe, were in crisis, living in Lincolnton, Georgia. She had advanced Alzheimer's disease  and Pop was declining. He had been taken to the hospital with a stress-induced heart attack. Although we regularly made the drive to their home and helped with maintenance and checked on them, he always bluffed his way through how difficult things had actually become. Over the years, as she became increasingly difficult, we did not realize the day-to-day problems. She would greet us happily, with her hands thrown wide to hug everyone. Pop often told us how bad things were, but when we visited, she was so light and bright, we thought he was surely exaggerating. He would call, frustrated and helpless, but then when we arrived and things seemed fine, he would reverse his ideas about moving them into a better situation. Until his own body said "enough." 

Ken was saddled with his job, so I drove there with our four children to relieve Babe's sister who was with her. What met us was nothing I had ever imagined. Until you have experienced a real person, in real time and in real care with this terrible disease, it is impossible to know how horrible it can be. Not everyone who has dementia will be as difficult as Babe was, but she took the proverbial cake.

I experienced the hell that was Alzheimers for just two weeks in their tiny home (Pop had been taking care of her for years, without batting an eye. That is some kind of love). Babe never slept more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time, day or night, and became terribly scared and agitated as the evening encroached. It's called "Sundowners," if you want to look it up. In order for the children to sleep, I had them lock themselves into the extra bedroom at night. I tried every scenario imaginable to get her to settle down, but nothing worked. Her sister recommended I double the sleep medication, but it seemed to make it worse. Days were filled with her confusion and extreme anger, like a giant, frustrated toddler. Even the fussiest infant will at least sleep. Babe would punch and scold me, making me laugh (she almost spiked me with a fast-moving needle, were it not for my still-intact evasive skills). My Amazonian self looked like a giant next to her as her little fists bounced off my body. But it all broke my heart. I know that she, the one who was all things hospitable and good before the disease arrived, would have been mortified to see herself in this state.

There were many things that happened in those two weeks, but suffice it to say, I was operating on mini sleep breaks, maybe a total of 2-3 hours a day. She was so delusional, sometimes she thought my boys were Ken and Kirk (her grandsons) and she would cry at night to be taken to her Mama. I was getting so sleep-deprived, I also began to wonder if I was someone else -- maybe I was really an 89-year-old woman in a nursing home and these people were taking care of me. 

I and our children desperately needed to get back home. 

Our eldest, Jon, had already figured out how to make money while we were there... he was mowing grass for neighbors and padding his bank account, working very hard. He might have made a lawn contractor mad...bested by a middler-schooler. He was born smarter than the rest of us and persuasive, and therein lies the rest of the story...

Babe's sister had agreed to come back and take care of her while we went home and figured out some arrangements for our folks. Our living arrangements found the six of us squashed into that camper with no end in sight. It would take almost two years to finish our house, but there was no waiting around for their situation to fix itself. It was a dire mess. Meanwhile, with delusional thoughts looming and extreme sleep deprivation, I had to try to get us home...

We had a large Ford conversion van, fitted out with carpeted walls and swiveling Captain's chairs in the front. Ken liked to call it the "Pimpmobile." It was a dream come true for us, as our very large Viking children were beginning to grow into man-sized bodies even before adolescence. We left Babe with her sister, Rachael, and headed down I-20 East for the almost-3-hour trip ahead. 

Right out the gate, I struggled to stay awake. Back then, that section of I-20 was rural and very quiet, particularly on a weekday morning. Thirty minutes down the road, I pulled off to the side. I threatened bodily harm to any kid who unlocked or opened a door, or even made a peep while I took a little nap. Twenty minutes later, I woke refreshed and ready to drive. But another thirty minutes of driving found me weaving and drooling, not especially helpful. I managed a second nap and started over. Back then, we didn't have cellphones so we were on our own. 

Very shortly, I was again overcome with exhaustion. The highway was still barren. Quiet. Downright boring. Maybe that contributed to my inability to stay awake in my nearly-comatose state. Maybe it was the coolness of the day. Maybe it was my brain that had been irascibly tested and exhausted for two weeks by an insane asylum (apologies to all those who have managed to do this for weeks, months, years).  I announced to my children that I was going to stop again. That's when the Eldest of my progeny, the whip-smart Persuader of All Things Impossible, began to use his backwards logic on his poor mother's psyche...  

His brilliant idea was this: "Mom, I know what... how about you put the van on cruise control? Lean your chair back a little and go ahead and take your nap. I'll reach over and drive from my side. If cars start appearing or anything happens, I'll wake you up real quick." 

The only reasons that I am able to share this ridiculous story are: 

1) It's too insane not to.

2) My good friend, author-extraordinaire Grace, told me to.

3) All my children are grown and DFACS cannot take them away from me now.

Because, yes, it is true, Virginia. I let my 12-year-old son drive my van. From his side of the vehicle. While I napped in the driver's side of said jalopy. This actually worked very well, for a time and we somehow lived to tell the tale. I have no clue about how long I blissfully floated around in Sleepy Town, but what woke me up was my son's head falling, asleep, into my lap.  

You can't make these things up. Just please don't tell my in-laws, or DFACS, for that matter. They might, and rightfully so, dissolve me of my ability to ever keep our grandkids without adult supervision. Or maybe at all, forever and ever. Amen.

A Heart Like A Truck

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty of hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." Phil. 4:11-13 ESV version   

We have seen both hunger and plenty. After 9/11 (not sure if it has anything to do with this, but it seemed like a very volatile time and was certainly a crumbly economy in reaction)... Ken lost his job of 22 years. Up til then, we had been blessed with dependable income and amazing benefits. It's amazing how you take such things for granted when you're young. We were not rich, had no savings and lived from paycheck to paycheck. Our only debt was our modest home, our plain and simple vehicles were bought with cash and much wrangling. Four active, always-hungry kids and a mortgage.  

Ken needed a vehicle with good gas mileage and my uncle's tiny brown truck came available.  Ken was so grateful and the price was right. I sometimes wondered how his massive shoulders were able to squeeze into that thing, but they did. It had no air conditioning, manual transmission and was as humble a truck God ever let anyone make. He drove the wheels off of it and kept it spit-shined and oiled-up. I remember the day that it perished...we were living in a camper on our land and had begun framing our house (ourselves, mind you) when he came rolling down the long driveway. I heard a couple of ka-pows! as the baby truck gave up the ghost. Black smoke was pouring from the exhaust and Ken was barely able to pull it to the side of the gravel. I was dying inside because a new car or truck was the last thing we needed to have to buy, seeing as we were limping along with building our house while stuffing four large children and ourselves into a camper each night. But that scene of the smoke billowing and the sounds emanating from the expired truck made something snap in me. I began to laugh, then howl, as he stepped out. I said, "Just roll it on over to the house and we'll use it as backfill!" Somewhere in there, I knew it was going to be okay but on paper it made no sense.

We've had a succession of transportation types since that day...  ancient trucks, vans, a well-worn station wagon, and several things that were rescued from the landfill. One particular season, when the downturn of 2008 like-to-have killed us, Ken had a company truck that broke down after the company went defunct and we were left with the payment and the burgeoning insurance. We were flat-broke, but fellows at church and some kind deacons worked to get it running just long enough for us to sell it. Meanwhile, my trusty Ford Explorer (that had 220,000 miles on it and ticking nicely) was wrecked by an uninsured driver. We limped for seven months, borrowing Daddy's truck, until the insurance finally paid out. Eventually, our dear elder, Bubba, gave Ken his son's old beater car...a Ford Fiesta...not the sedan, the really, extremely tiny version. Again, my husband had the heart of a saint -- humble, excited, thankful. If I thought that original mini-truck was small, this one had him folding himself into a puzzle before he could get into it. He eventually gave that little thing to a friend, when we were able to get something else. But he has that date marked on our yearly calender -- the day that Bubba gave him that car. Makes me weep every time it comes around.

Many years have gone by now. We were able to sell our dream home and get out of debt. The economy relaxed, the kids got married and started their own stories. I sold a home and secretly bought him an older red truck for his birthday (one that he didn't have to fold himself into). We put a big bow on it and had it sitting in the driveway. That one eventually had to be sold and he was able to buy another (older) red truck. This one was bigger and uglier and had a funky smell. I didn't like it, but he was his typical self -- thankful, loyal, steady. 

Then we started camping with our old but new-to-us camper. On our first mountain trip, his truck strained on the hills and finally broke down along the way. When we finally got home, Jon (our eldest son) and I started conspiring. Ken used to despise the idea of camping but had really, finally bought into it. I'd send Jon different trucks and he'd send me trucks on FB Marketplace. We took a secret trip to Alabama, foraging for a larger truck that we could afford. Ken knew nothing of these goings-on, but I realllllly wanted to bless him, after all his years of putting on his boots and steadily being the humble, grateful heart of our home. 

I saw a used, pretty, white Ford F250 on FB while we were headed home from Alabama. I didn't look closely, just forwarded it on to Jon. By morning, he had made his way to the dealership and called me: "Mom!!! This is it! It's a cream-puff, beautiful and so well-taken-care of." Jon knows cars (trucks too) and I trusted him implicitly and wired the funds. Jon invited Ken to their house; we drove there together as Jon pulled in behind us with the thing. I thought we were buying a truck. This was some sort of Man-Beast, with all the bells and whistles. Ken didn't know what hit him. He was confused about what that massive thing was doing behind us.

As the realization hit and the little boy part of him saw an old dream coming true, he was speechless with tears and hands on his face. Everywhere we go now, he has to say (as he is smiling like a Cheshire cat): "I didn't buy this truck! I wouldn't have bought a truck this fancy. My son and wife did this behind my back!" It hauls that old camper like a champ, and he keeps it spit-shined and oiled-up, just like all the others he has taken care of all these years, even if they were ready for the landfill. I really like that about him...