Uncategorized

The Mockingbird

A mockingbird has taken up residence in the crepe myrtle tree beside our bedroom window. On warm and moonlit summer nights, he sings me to sleep with his vast repertoire of melodies. He croons them over and over with a chorus of locusts and crickets as his choir, until my eyes start to feel heavy and I drift off to sleep. 

It amazes me that this Louisiana land can create something as beautiful as the mockingbird, while also growing evil mosquitos the size of my fist, killer fire ants, and red wasps that will send you to the hospital. I guess that’s the trade-off with living here – the beauty comes with the danger. You can’t get one without the other. 

My Audubon Field Guide to Birds book tells me the mockingbird can mimic up to 36 calls of his neighboring birds. I’ve counted up to 12 so far. The book also tells me that the mockingbird is a small bird, with not many distinctive features and no striking good looks. I’ve never actually seen the mockingbird outside my window, but that’s ok. He tells me he’s there every night with his songs. 

I’ve named him Atticus, for obvious reasons. I imagine Atticus flying around the neighborhood during the day, visiting with the cardinals and robins. Listening to the doves and sparrows. He flies from tree to tree, paying attention to the songs of his bird people. He might hang out with the white egret that fishes for minnows in the bayou nearby, or sit in a tree while the red headed woodpecker pecks for bugs. I like to think that no matter where he goes, he’s always listening the songs of those around him. 

Atticus probably has good days and bad days. Sometimes the summer sun is searing and water is hard to find. Other times the rains come and he enjoys a nice long soak in the puddles in the backyard. He might fly far from home one day and wonder if he will make it back to his tree. He might get tangled up with a snake or have to hide from territorial neighborhood dogs.

But whatever the circumstances, I can count on Atticus singing me his song at the end of the day, bidding the world good night the only way he knows how. He repeats the melodies of the birds he met that day, he lets me know all is well in the backyard by the calls of his friends. When I close my eyes and listen, I’m reminded that Atticus has no song of his own to sing. His lullaby is made up of all the beautiful sounds of those around him. 

And as I bow my head to sing my song, to breathe my prayer as the world goes to sleep, I try to remember that mine is not the only song there is to sing. I think of Atticus and wonder if he’s been trying to tell me something all along. 

Maybe instead of attempting to change the world with my song, I should simply be more like Atticus. Maybe I need to remember that everyone has a beautiful song and it may not always sound like my own. Maybe I need to pay attention to what the others are singing. Maybe, when I can repeat the melodies of those I meet, when I can listen to their song, when I can put all those hearts and souls together, it will make the most beautiful music of all. 

Share This:

The Faces

Dear Son, 

Tomorrow will be 8 years since you have been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It doesn’t seem possible, really, that it’s been almost a decade since that day. But time has an amazing way of moving on. I guess it’s God’s grace to us – that we keep having days and nights and seasons and years after a nightmare. 

I thought that by now the memories would fade a little, but they haven’t. I still remember every single detail. I remember the way you looked at me in the doctor’s office when you asked me what was wrong with you. I remember those blue eyes of yours opening up wide when I told you that we were going to have to take you to the hospital.

I remember driving in pounding rain and thinking that the sky’s tears were no match for my sobs. 

I remember the numbness I felt in the hospital room. I remember hoping that other people were praying for us because I had no words in my heart. I remember curling up around you in the hospital bed, my arms wrapped around you and my shoulders folded in over you, like I could somehow protect you from what was to come with my body.

I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.

I remember the shots. All the shots. I remember you asking how long you would have to have needles jabbed in your arms, belly, and legs and I didn’t know how to tell a 5 year old that it would be for the rest of his life. I remember you thinking you only would have diabetes for a short time, then you would be well and have no more needles poking you.

I remember the day you realized this would never end. 

I guess those memories will never shrink for me – they will always trigger fear and helplessness and anger. And maybe I’ve subconsciously made a choice, all these years later, to try to not let those memories take hold of me and control me. I can’t give them power anymore. 

So now before I think of the tears and the pain and the grief, I remember something else. When I think of your diagnosis day, I remember the faces. I see our doctor’s face, sad but kind as he told me we would be ok. I think of nurses’ faces in the emergency room, smiling at you and telling you how cute you were. I think of a doctor who we had never met before staying late and waiting for us at the hospital, her face stern but caring as she walked in the room. I remember the emergency room doctor’s face, assuring us that he would do everything possible for you to begin this journey in a positive way. That he would not scare you or hold you down or traumatize you with needles. 

Do you remember those faces too? I hope you do. Because those faces were the faces of God that day. And I don’t want you to ever forget that. I want you to remember that when the light was taken out of our lives, the faces gave it back to us. 

During that awful time, I thought God had abandoned us. I thought He was far away and that I would never see His face again. 

Son, I was so very wrong about that.

God was there, shining His face on me as He does to all of us. That day His face was brown and pale and old and young and dark-eyed and blue-eyed. Of course I didn’t know if was His face then, but now I can see it so clearly.

I’m sure you know by now, but there will probably be other bad days in your life as you grow. It won’t always be happiness and good times. But when those days come, I want you to do one thing – Look at the faces that are helping you and showing you kindness and surrounding you with love. Look hard at those faces to make sure you remember. And if you stare long enough, I bet you will see the face of God.

Love, 

Mama

Share This:

Not Too Short To Save

“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save nor his ear too dull to hear.” Isaiah 59:1

The year 2021 marks seven years that Hugh has lived with Type 1 Diabetes. 

As I sit here and type this, in the dark hours of the early morning, I have already stopped once to wake Hugh up and make him drink a juice box. I look at his sleeping face, his soft snores still like a child’s, but his long arms and limbs telling me he won’t be a child much longer –  and I feel myself falling. Falling back into the pit of fear that holds me hostage so often. How can I take care of him as he grows older? What’s going to happen when he becomes a teenager? How will he ever go to college and care for himself? What if something happens to him? 

The pit is deep and scary, but I know it well. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been living in that pit for seven years. 

Seven years of living with fear. 

Seven years of watching my son live a life he did not choose. 

Seven years of my asking, begging, pleading with God to give it to me – let me take the burden of Type 1 Diabetes and allow my child to go free. 

Seven years of reaching up, clawing my way out of a pit to a God who seems just beyond my fingertips – a God who can’t save me because my pit is too deep. 

“Save my son, Lord” I cry out in desperation – on nights when it’s dark and lonely. Nights when Hugh’s blood sugar drops dangerously low and my heart stops beating for a few minutes. 

“Save him,” I demand as I sit on the end of his bed, pricking his fingers over and over until I see the numbers on the meter slowly start to rise. 

“Save me,” I beg as I slip under the covers next to Hugh, his dreamy sigh letting me know his body has relaxed. He can return to a peaceful sleep while I stay awake and watch his numbers for a little longer. 

But it seems like God is just out of reach – I can see Him from the depth of my despair and I am stretching up to Him, but His hands can’t quite touch mine. I stand on my tiptoes, I jump, I climb. I clench my teeth and square my jaw – my sheer determination and despair for my son keep me reaching. I can’t stay in the pit. 

I call out to Him, over and over. “I’m here, God! Help me! Save me from my fear and my anger. Save me from the bitterness that creeps into my heart. Save me because I am so mad that my son, out of all the sons, has to have this forced upon him. He doesn’t deserve this. Save me, Lord!”

I can see God’s arms – he’s reaching down to me. But I am too far away. Too far in the fear and the anger. He can’t save me.

His arms can’t reach me. 

But then I catch a glimpse of something else –  I see other arms. They are attaching themselves to the arm of God and they are forming a chain of arms intertwining, tangling, stretching all the way down into the pit – all the way down to me.  

“I’ve been praying for you and Hugh,” she tells me as we stand in a fast food line both ordering Kids Meals for our little ones. I haven’t seen her in years, but she had heard about Hugh’s recent diagnosis. “How is he doing?” she asks. “I know it must be so hard. I’ll keep praying for you.” I look away quickly so she won’t see the tears stinging my eyes. How did she know that I could not pray? How did she know that I so desperately needed to hear those words that day? 

“Here’s my cell number,” she hands me a slip of paper. “You call me anytime. I remember when my daughter was first diagnosed. It was really hard – so I’m here to help.” And I call, over and over, simply to hear those words of hope that I cannot manage to find myself. 

“I want you to know I will do everything in my power to keep Hugh safe at school. He’s going to have a great year,” she writes in an email – her words a salve to my anxious soul. Her dedication and commitment lighting a tiny flame that Hugh will be able to go to school and be ok. 

The arms keep coming – an offer of a night off, a hug, a coffee date, a card in the mail, a friendship formed. And soon the arms are with me – in my pit of fear. And they are grabbing me and holding me tight, lifting me up to the sunlight. And finally, finally I feel myself being wrapped in the arms of God. The arms that are never too short to save. 

Not when they are intertwined with our arms and our hands and our feet. 

I leave the pit behind me, choosing to walk into the arms of the One who has been reaching for me all along. I know this morning won’t be the last time I fall into the pit. Sometimes it sneaks up on me, sometimes I choose to jump in – feet first and with all the anger and righteousness a mother can have. 

Sometimes the pit of fear is easier than reaching for the arms. 

If I have learned anything in these seven years, though, it’s this – The pit will always be there. The pit of fear or anger or selfishness or bitterness – the pit of unfairness or jealousy or rage. We all have one. And we may be in it quite often. But as long as the pit is there, so are the arms. 

Dear Friends, – if you are in your pit, all you have to do is look up. And, friends, if you are out of your pit, attach yourself to the arms of God and reach down.

Share This: