Today was Mississinewa 1812 reenactment. It’s a staple of our family, we go every year (except 2020 when Covid ruined all our plans).
It started off rough to say the least. The kids whined about waiting in lines, whined about walking so far, and whined about no mac and cheese and how yucky pioneer food is.
Then my 2 year old, Atlas, reached up to grab the apple cider out of my hand with the strength of a bear and almost dumped it on his lap. I lunged to prevent said spill and dunked my hair in caramel apple dumpling sauce.
My 4 year old, Jonah, was really wanting to throw rocks in the river and when I said we couldn’t get too close to the water he punched the baby stroller.
We watched the battle reenactment and a bee was buzzing around us (caramel hair) and it landed on Leland’s arm. I said “Leland be careful, don’t move!“ but he flailed and smashed it onto his face and it stung his poor little cheek. He cried and cried and cried. Leland has echolalia in times of distress and he shouted “The letter O!!!!!!!” over and over.
Curious people always ask “what does he mean by that?” when he says something strange. He always shouts out something that has given him comfort in the past. At one time a music video about the letter O was his favorite video to watch. He used to shout “Baby chick!” Or “Chickens!!!”, because he had a stuffed chick he would take everywhere. Sometimes it’s just like how we use swear words, we shout complete nonsense for the sake of getting our emotions out.
But it made me feel self-conscious that people were starring. I felt embarrassed. And I was embarrassed for him.
And then to top it all off it started raining. We were about to make a break for it and run to the car to go home, but Leland transformed. He giggled and jumped into it with arms open and all of his despair melted off.
I realized there are a lot of silly things I can let ruin an absolutely perfect moment. We almost let the rain wipe out our plans but today we practiced being a little more like Leland.
I hope my boys never lose their amusement in exploring a hole in the ground, splashing in puddles or finding leaves that look like feathers.
So I embraced the feel of the rain and the splash of the puddles and smell of the earth. I pressed play on Dave Matthew’s Band “The Best of What’s Around” in my head.
… Hey, my friend, it seems your eyes are troubled Care to share your time with me? Would you say you’re feeling low and so A good idea would be to get it off your mind?See you and me have a better time than most can dream of Have it better than the best, so can we pull on through Whatever tears at us, whatever holds us down And if nothing can be done We’ll make the best of what’s around … Turns out not where but who you’re with that really matters That really matters And hurts not much when you’re around, when you’re around … we’ll make the best of what’s around (Huh-huh, hey-la, hey-la) (Huh-huh, hey-la-la-la) the best of what’s around
I don’t write much anymore, a lot less than I foresaw 10 years ago in the throes of writing a novel. Partly because there is no time, partly because of lack of inspiration, partly for fear of opening the gate for suppressed emotion to come pouring out. It takes a lot to move me to write anymore.
One such experience moved me today. My son asked me “What’s your favorite?”
My son has this book series he is in love with at the moment. Cute little animals teach you about traits and feelings such as being scared, cautious, steady, and grumpy. They are great for building an emotional vocabulary and normalizing these feelings. He likes to put the books together and compare them and admire the set.
I asked him “Which is your favorite? Grumpy Tortoise, Scaredy Cat, Steady Sloth, or Cautious Chameleon?” “Steady Sloth!” He shouted with a smile.
“What’s your favorite?” His small voice is still echoing in my head. I can’t believe this meek but paramount reply.
Because I remember how I asked him every day at pick up, “Hey buddy, how was school?” “What did you do today?” And I would ask “What did you like about Sunday school? What was your Bible story?” “What animal do you want to see at the zoo? What song do you want to listen to?” “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Never ending attempts to build a relationship with my son. And the silence was always crushing. He’s asked me questions before such as “Why?” Or “Where’s Daddy?” when he’s working. But today was the first time my son vocalized a want to know who I am. And I am so incredibly touched.
Everything might go wrong today. But who cares? I matter to my son.
I haven’t slept through the night in over a week. I had an anxiety attack when I realized two kids are going to school in a few weeks. HOW?! Also I was sick at the beginning of last week, missed hours at work (I don’t get paid time off) only to come back to work and realize oh hey I can’t taste my breakfast. Or anything else for the next several days. Rapid covid test. Don’t worry it’s negative. Or maybe worry? Who knows.
Yesterday I realized my son is having an impromptu ABA graduation on one of the days I work late into the evening and I have to either cancel with my clients or miss out (you know I’d never) so time to dust off that ole fear of disappointing others.
So here’s to an hour today where I bought a new book, got some Starby’s and took time out of my day to just let go.
When I was pregnant for my first child, I spent a lot of time pondering who he would be. I had visions of a child with blonde hair and green eyes like my husband and I both had as children. At some point around 8 or 9 months in pregnancy, my husband asked “what if he has red hair?”
We had just started getting into Outlander and my husband grinned at the thought. “A little Jamie Fraser running around!”
I laughed because it sounded ridiculous. Sure my mom and my husband’s dad had red hair but neither of us do. It would be incredibly rare.
Imagine my shock when after 22 hours of labor and an emergency c-section a very alert, screeching newborn came into the world with blazing red hair. My firstborn son, Leland Samuel. And not just this child, but all three boys with red hair.
Newborn Leland Samuel
With every pregnancy, it was quite the topic of debate from everyone whether the next would have red hair. And though there were doubters, the answer was emphatically yes. They are a matching set.
Leland, Jonah and Atlas… the ginger army.
It was if we had spoke something into being. And I believe it was not the only thing we manifested.
I noticed my oldest son Leland was different at around age 2. He knew his alphabet, could count to 20 and knew various animals. He could speak in sentences before age 2. He could solve problems and remove any obstacle getting in the way of what he wanted. And then one day he stopped talking.
He developed repetitive behaviors such as hand flapping and climbing on and jumping off of any and every surface in his path. Over and over.
He also developed the habit of eloping when I took him to the park, something would catch his eye and he would dart full speed without acknowledging any potential for danger. And it was this final display of behavior that caused me to recognize he wasn’t a typical boy. He was autistic.
A passion for running since learning to walk…Leland age 18 months
At some point in a pregnancy we started telling people we were having a dragon when they asked if I was carrying a boy or a girl. It was in the height of our Game of Thrones obsession. And the other thing we may have manifested.
Just like those fantasy tropes of men looking to slay the “primitive” beast or tame it to serve some frivolous purpose, when it’s lightyears beyond man’s intelligence, others we encountered over the years tried to do the same for Leland in how they conceptualized him. We heard “he’s not all there” and “he’ll never learn to share” and “he just won’t talk” and “he won’t sit still for story time”, a long list of things he “won’t ever do”.
One example of humanity at its drabbest said “the lights are on and nobody is home”. That person never saw me sneak into my son’s room at night while he was sleeping and rock him while crying softly “yes you are, baby, yes you are.”
I started to hate myself because of things people said to me. That getting him vaccinated caused his autism. That what I ate while pregnant caused his autism. That having a c-section and failing to push him out naturally caused his autism.
I was desperate to hear him say “mommy watch” or “I love you mommy” as I watched my friends’ children (roughly his age) play with others and say such things. I felt like I was a failure. Because somehow even though I gave it my best efforts to do things just as you “should”, I ended up with a much different result.
Until one day one of my son’s therapists at his ABA center said “you know he’s far too smart for us. He outsmarts us every day.” She then went on to describe how he turned the lights off in his classroom to create a diversion long enough to sneak into his lunch bag and grab his snacks.
Leland always taught himself things. Always a problem solver. He would move his chair or stack a box on top of it to reach items he wanted to explore even at 12 months, much to my horror and dismay. So I was not surprised to hear that he had done this, surprised to learn others agreed with me and thought he was most clever.
I remembered how my husband’s parents got him a harmonica for Christmas when he was two and he instantly figured out how to play it. He has been a lover of “good” music since day one. He would cover his ears when Daddy played country and shriek but when mommy played Beastie Boys he’d nod his head energetically to the beat and laugh.
Some of our biggest breakthroughs came through music. He never responded when I would tell him I love him but one day he sang “I love you!” with precision pitch from “Skinamarinky Dinky Dink”. And I knew what it meant.
And the nay sayers were right. He didn’t sit still through story time. Not at Sunday school, and not for bedtime stories at home. He would often take the book and run away with it to his room and he’d fall asleep looking at it in bed, his hands clutching it when we would turn out his light. But why would a dragon ever want to walk, tied to the earth and our burdensome gravity when he can fly?
One day when he was 3, I had the TV guide on the screen and he pointed to a little gray square and said “I want Paw Patrol”. The square did in fact say Paw Patrol and there was no picture. I thought to myself there’s no way he can read that.
But months later his ABA therapist confirmed they thought he could read. They started him with sight words and he got 100% accuracy. Then they moved him to readers. He started writing his name and other words with crayons.
On a Mommy-and-Leland day out, we went to the store and his little heart melted for an alphabet puzzle. It was the exact one we already had but since it was tradition to get the boys something special on our dates, I let him choose. And he wasn’t leaving without it. I was surprised he would choose something he already had, but when we got it home I learned why. He wanted to spell bigger words that required double letters. He began spelling out what he wanted such as ABC News (his favorite show), legos and juice. I have no idea what his actual reading level is at this point, but I know he can spell expedition and excavator and if you ask him any number of a letter in the alphabet, he can tell you. I just asked him “what’s the 10th letter of the alphabet?” And he said “J!”
Please can I have the alphabet puzzle?
Sight reading became boring to Leland. And his therapists informed us one day at child pick up that he was picking up another child’s curriculum and teaching himself Spanish. He shared proudly that “verde is green” and “rojo is red”.
Through learning about his abilities, I learned that it’s less about taming him and assimilating him to our way of life but realizing the majestic beauty that he is. He taught me to believe in my instinct that tells me he’s amazing, to recognize he’s not below us or behind us struggling to keep up, but rather some of us “neuro-typs” are grotesquely unaware that we are upside down and he is soaring above. He’s up there gliding to happiness and zooming over those of us chasing inconsequential details that prove to be meaningless in the end.
And shame on us for assuming that different means broken or that different means wrong. Shame on us for asking this little flame to dim itself because the rest of us are in the dark.
To my son,
You taught me to be braver, smarter, and stronger. From people who didn’t understand you and insulted you. From doctors who didn’t help you or believe in you. From me fighting everyone and everything that has stood in the way of allowing me to create a better world for you. I don’t care what letters I have to get after my name to be listened to, I’ll do it to protect you. I’ll carry you on my back up a mountain side to find the perfect sunny perch where you can be happy. You don’t need to change my free and wise little dragon, humanity does.
A thought that has plagued me for years is “How can God let bad things happen to good people?” How can a loving God allow suffering? Wouldn’t a loving God intervene?
And I know I’m not alone. During my time as an intern counselor I have heard these questions from others many times. I wish I had wisdom to pass on when these questions are asked, but I don’t. I’m another human being who has felt pain and continued to look for a reason why.
Until recently, I was bitter. I would become angry when mean people seemed to have less problems. In these times I’ve asked “Where are you God?” Or “Why don’t you see me?”
I couldn’t sit in church and feel peace. I couldn’t feel love from God or others. Somehow, despite these feelings, the events of the past year, both personal and global, have changed me and affected me deeply. And I learned how to find God in my life and in suffering.
This is my truth: Find love, find God.
I was pregnant. I just had our first ultrasound for a 4th child. I saw the “swimming pool” where the baby was supposed to be, sign of a fetal pole and a yolk sack. All signs of a normal pregnancy. I was nervous about the possibility of a 4th child but was elated with the news.
Flash to Valentine’s Day, a few days later, I was doubled over in excruciating pain, and coming to the conclusion I must be having a miscarriage. Which is inevitably what ended up my reality.
I felt anger, distrust. abandonment. I felt bitterness. But at some moment in time it hit me, that it would be important to find evidence of love in this pain.
Love was my doctor calling me back on the phone and not simply asking his nurse to take care of it. Love was my doctor meeting me in the hospital lobby at 8 am for an ultrasound on his day off and not charging me for said ultrasound.
Love was my doctor showing me how difficult it was for him to tell me at 8 weeks pregnant there’s no heartbeat, reflecting mercy and compassion for another human’s suffering.
Love was the nurse who walked me from the doctor’s office to the radiology waiting room and offered me water, a box of Kleenex and told me she was so sorry and would be checking in to see if I needed anything while I waited for the confirmation ultrasound that showed there was nothing viable.
Love was the ultrasound tech who stopped in the middle of her almost finished job to let my husband come back and comfort me when he got the news.
Love was my husband spending more time than usual making things nice around the house so that I could merely exist and process what was happening to me.
Love is my son trying to make me smile with silly faces when he saw me crying.
Love was grieving the loss while embracing my children who need their Mommy.
And for me, my truth is that in that love, I see God.
There’s a reason I was never very good at sports. Strength was never my forte. To expand on that notion, there was a class required of all athletes in high school, weight training, which I never took. Quite frankly, the idea of watching a bunch of jocks laugh at me as I labored to maneuver twenty pounds seemed about as appealing as peeing my pants in front of the whole student body.
I find myself now wishing I had given that class a chance. First of all, nobody said to me (or maybe they did and I never took it seriously) that weight gets harder to lose in your 30s. For me, eating healthier and going on long walks always seemed to do the trick before my boys were born. Not so, not so says my scale. And I’ll be honest with you, any exercise routine sounds like a better alternative than running. I hate running. Always have. My pitiful mile run times from gym class would confirm that. I have always worked hard for good grades and academic success, it’s something I stressed about with anxiety… but when it came to an assessment tied to running, I talked myself into taking the B. I just simply did not have the endurance factor that you can maximize with some basic weight training.
Additionally, I find myself right now needing mental weight training. My anxiety is an overwhelming burden I cannot carry. I will cry or argue or shut down and withdraw believing that I simply CAN’T handle the stressors in my life before I pray and wait for clarity of mind.
I found some interesting scriptures that have changed my perspective on how I should be tackling overwhelming situations. The Bible addresses the concept of “burdens” in a few ways, first we are commanded in scripture to carry each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). I felt indignant at first when I read this, how can I carry someone else’s burdens when my own are too heavy? But when I searched for more references to carrying burdens, I found this passage better explained in the book of 1 John,
“This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith (1 John 5: 2-4).”
So in essence, by stepping outside of our problems for a moment and focusing on God’s command to love others, we are gaining clarity, renewed strength, and the ability to shoulder more weight. Not only can we carry our burdens by upholding this command, but 1 John states that loving others itself is not burdensome. It’s not any extra labor to love other people, it is the opposite, it is freeing. Love others and build endurance. When you’re overwhelmed by sorrows and stress, put whatever remaining mental capabilities you have into finding ways to love others better and that is the path to peace.
And finally, Galatians also reminds us not to let ourselves be burdened again once we have found that peace (Galatians 5:1). I believe this means that even though you will have low moments in your life, you can’t let them consume you. Despair is a weight, the Bible calls it a yoke, around our necks and when we think about our own struggles over and over again it hinders us from discovering and fulfilling our purpose, to seek out others in need of love and love them well. My challenge is to try every day to find someone to love better. Through this I hope to build spiritual, mental and emotional endurance one day at a time.
Did you know the word mountain(s) is mentioned 304 times in the Bible? Most of these scriptures express mountains as a rigid and permanent force to highlight God’s influence and power such as, Matthew 17:20, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Similarly, Psalm 144:5 expresses, “Part your heavens, Lord, and come down; touch the mountains, so that they smoke.” Other examples found in Psalms include Psalm 95:4,” In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.” And Psalm 98: 7-9, “Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy; let them sing before the Lord,” Mountains are a perfect platform to express the power of God. Only a truly awesome force could bring forth qualities from mountains that one could never fathom possible.
I believe much the same way, the challenges we face seem as unchanging and intimidating sometimes. How could we ever get around them? Sometimes doubt of our capabilities can press us into the ground.
I relate to anyone who has faced a challenge so heavy it has crushed your spirit. I’ve been so trampled by various struggles that I’ve curled up on my bathroom floor and sobbed myself into a migraine. I know the pain of not wanting to die but knowing you cannot survive if things continue as they are. I know the desperation of just wanting the hurting to be over.
I recognize that there are some people in my life who might be baffled to know that I’ve felt that way. I have so many blessings and common sense would tell anyone that I should be thankful for my blessings and gloss over the strife. Yet we never truly know what anyone is living through, even if they are your closest friend. Sometimes that message is cold and revoked of any loving sentiment. I know that if my husband had not collected me off the floor or reinforced my worth, I would most likely still be there instead of writing this message. Yet I am here. Proof that for even a split second I can believe and hope for something greater.
My mountain is my anxiety. I never knew that I had anxiety until after my first son was born. It was gently suggested to me by my doctor that I might be suffering from postpartum depression and anxiety. By the time I had lived through his phase of “PURPLE crying”, the absence of my husband for a month during this time as he was training in another state for a new job, the inquisition by any person about my fairly-unsuccessful breastfeeding attempt, C-section shaming, and the barrage of comments about how little he was (he weighed 6 lbs 7 oz at birth), I noticed my having-it-all-togetherness had all but eroded away. By the time my second son was born and I was definitely identified on the postpartum depression and anxiety scale, I expected it but was very bothered by the label.
The questions swirled in my head and I threw them out to my husband non-stop. For the last eight hours of our hospital stay, I spewed out any rational or irrational fear, without even waiting for a reply before throwing out something else. “Every mother cries a lot after just having a baby, right?” “Every mother feels like she isn’t doing a good enough job, right?” “Every new mother worries what other people think, right?” “Every mother is sleep deprived, right?” “I can’t have postpartum depression and anxiety, what will other people think?” “Postpartum depression has horrible stigma, everyone is going to think I’m crazy.” “People think those diagnosed with postpartum depression are baby killers! That’s what you hear about in the news…some woman drowns her children and has postpartum depression.” And as I sobbed my heart out I accepted what I was doing without any colored lens. I had it. I had postpartum depression and anxiety. How did I know? Because I was having anxiety about having anxiety.
My anxiety also kept me from seeking out help right away because I never wanted anyone to see me as undependable, unprofessional, or uneducated, it would cause me to “spiral” into a series of never-ending panic-inducing thoughts. Instead, I remained silent and tried to cope as best as I could. It has cost me job opportunities, opportunities to be a better parent, set me back a bit in my academic pursuits and it almost cost me my marriage.
My outlook sometimes seems somber. Anxiety stands before me like a craggy giant that I will never take down. Sometimes I believe that when I’m knocked down I shouldn’t dare to get back up. Yet, God can make mountains smoke, sing, crumble, and move. He can take an object we’ve counted on for thousands of years and reduce it to dust. Why couldn’t He make something out of my mess? Why couldn’t he do something fantastic with the rest of my life? And am I going to count myself out? Or am I setting out to conquer mountains with faith?
I believe that in the end these struggles are a test of character. I want to use this space to be a testament to the work I believe He is doing in my life. And my hope is that along the way, I not only become a more loving and peaceful person, but I also impart love and peace in the world. I know that my beliefs may not be your beliefs, and I respect that. It is my hope that people of all walks of life find something uplifting and hopeful in these words. I know that I’m not the only one who has felt hopeless or has let fear behind the wheel. And I need to let you know that if you have, you’re not alone. You’re not defeated. You’re not counted out. You have a mountain in your way, maybe several, but He can make miracles out of mountains.
Miracles out of Mountains 