Tag: moms

News…

So as we wait in the quiet winters of our lives—not only this season of Advent, but also this time of COVID, or whatever winters we are currently experiencing—we have to keep the light of hope burning in our hearts. God will keep his promises to us.

Just as he said.

Over the summer, my parents spent 78 days on the road with their dog and their RV. When they returned, my mom had soreness in her ribs that she thought was the result of slamming the bed lid on my dad’s truck one too many times.

But it didn’t get better and an xray finally showed that she had 3 broken ribs. It seemed odd that slamming the bed lid could break ribs, so she had a bone scan. She was diagnosed with osteopenia a few years back, which is the precursor to osteoporosis, so we worried that she may have finally crossed that line. But the scan came back ok.

The morning after Thanksgiving, she got up to use the restroom and threw out her back. When the pain, exacerbated by her ribs,  didn’t subside, my dad called an ambulance. New xrays showed that she hadn’t thrown out her back—she had cracked a vertebra.

I never bought the story that the cracked ribs came from shutting the bed lid. I suspected the dog—Maggie is 18 months old and full of life, and my mom walked her 4 times a day. I was sure that Mom tripped over Maggie on a walk and fell—but didn’t want to tell anyone. Maggie is the light of their retired lives, the newest baby in the family. Mom would want to protect her.

The orthopod said that he could do a simple procedure to glue the cracked vertebra together. That happened the first Friday in December. He didn’t like what he saw and took a biopsy. The following week she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. This is how I explained it to my kids: MM is a cancer of the bone marrow that affects the parts of our bones that scrub old bone away and grow new bone. The part that scrubs old bone away becomes over-active and the part that builds new bone is suppressed by the cancer cells, making it possible to crack ribs from shutting the bed lid on the truck. Apologies to Maggie.

She is in the midst of diagnostic testing, while recovering from her back surgery and waiting for her ribs to heal—something that may not happen until treatment brings the bone scrubbers and bone growers back into balance. That’s a hard thought for everyone, because her pain is significant, and hard to watch. I have to be careful around her, because as a survivor, I want to tell her All The Things I Learned, but I know that’s not right. It’s her path. She has to walk it her way. She witnessed for me. Now I witness for her.

I didn’t get around to weeks 2, 3 and 4 of Advent, obviously. I took my girls south last week and we helped care for Grandma once she got home. When I came back here today to tell you where I went, Hope, Justified was the first thing I saw. I laughed. God does not always move in mysterious ways. Sometimes he moves in giant highway signs that say “For hope, please refer back to your own damn words”. All right, then. Winter has come, but my hope and faith are secure. I know there is a tightly woven blanket of love around our family, and good doctors, and my mom’s own strong body and mind. And I know I can ask you to pray for her, for relief from her pain and for healing.

Merry Christmas, friends. Here comes the Light.

Violet and the Bangs

It has been a few months now, but a while back, I noticed one day that Violet, my 6-year-old, had bangs.  Suddenly. They appeared out of nowhere. The girls had just come back from a weekend at their dad’s and I asked her if she had gotten a haircut…. Nope.

Well, did your dad cut your bangs?  No.

Did your grandma?  No.

Violet, did you cut your bangs?  No.

And the Mystery of the Cut Bangs began.  

Periodically I would ask Violet about the bangs.  She always replied that she didn’t know what happened.  She couldn’t remember. She didn’t know if someone cut her bangs, or who.  It was all very strange.

Then about three months later, my older daughter, Mazie, who is 8, and I were cleaning out one of the toy bins.  I picked up a red plastic cup and Mazie said to me, “That’s the cup that Violet put her hair in.” What? “Yeah, after she cut her bangs.”

Mystery solved.  

I really didn’t care if Violet cut her bangs or not, and I told that to her.  She wouldn’t have gotten in trouble. But now, now she had been lying to me for months.  Lying to my face. And that hurt.  I do not want to raise a liar. 

Lies are slippery little suckers, aren’t they?  They’re a practiced behavior that sometimes start out so small and insignificant.  I’ve often told students that the first lie you tell someone is the hardest one to tell.  The first time you break that trust tears your guts out.  The next time you lie though, it’s easier. And the easier it gets, the bigger the lies become.  

I dated a guy once that would lie about anything.  If he had eggs for breakfast, he could swear on the Bible that he’d eaten cereal.  And he would lie about little things like that. At the time, it just didn’t make any sense to me, but when I found his emails with 4 other women, all of the lies began to unravel.  

Truth is big around these parts.  Jen and I had lots of conversations when we created this blog about Truth being the cornerstone of our writing.  I challenge you today to live in truth.  If you’re doing something you feel you need to lie about, I have an idea:  don’t do that thing! Don’t practice lying. Stop being good at it.  Walk in integrity. It’s so worth it.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what happened with little Violet, this is how it went down:  She walked back in the room while we were cleaning, and I said, “Hey Violet, is this the cup you put your hair in when you cut your bangs?”  The poor little girl never had a chance. Without missing a beat she said, “Yep!”  And then her eyes got real big.  

Mama always knows. Game. Set. Match.