Satruday Musings

Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Albert Einstein

It’s Saturday again, and for many of us, that means cleaning day. The work week is over, Sunday looms near with its promise of reading the newspaper in bed, a big, Sunday dinner, church, perhaps a family outing. But on Saturday, we clean.

I find myself reflecting on my life, past and present, as I work my way through my home, and as I mop and sweep, dust and scrub, my mind goes to other things besides the purely physical effort of making a home – a home.

I’ve chosen a quote from Einstein because its philosophy has been the fulcrum of my life. First, growing up, being told that I couldn’t do this, couldn’t do that, was not so smart, pretty, and later as I raised my son and told him that he is intelligent, handsome, kind, sweet and everything a young man should be. I’m actually thankful for my childhood. It taught me how not to treat my son.

Being told that you are unworthy, stupid, unqualified will cause you to inadvertently fulfill the expectations of those who tell you so, whether they be parents, friends, teachers, bosses or whomever. Self-fulfilling prophecy can be devastating, as it seemingly reinforces that which has been told to you – unless it’s positive. Then the sky is the limit.

Mirroring, a kissing cousin to self-fulfilling prophesy, works the same way. As an example: you’re walking down the street and you see someone you know. You call out their name, they turn around and they recognize you. What does that first look on their face tell you? Are you sorry that you called out their name, or are you pleased with their look of pleasure as recognition sets in? That is mirroring.

So I thought I’d just put this out there today as I take a short break from cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors. It’s something to ponder, to turn over in our minds as concerns our relationships with those we know and love.

***
I am your mirror. When you look into my eyes,
you see how beautiful you are.
When you enter a room, my heart lifts up to meet you;
a smile of greeting lights me up from within.

I am your mirror. When you look into my eyes,
you see love, as my soul embraces yours,
revealing to you just how wonderful you are:
my friend, my heart, my son.

©2014 Debra Shiveley Welch

Courage Smells Like a Hospital

 

We walk into Children's Hospital holding hands.  You are terrified.  You have already endured numerous operations, but at age eight, this is the first one you have faced with some idea of what is happening.

You are trembling.

Minutes seem like hours.  They test your oxygen level, take your blood pressure, ask a million questions.  I have kept as much of this as possible from you, but you sense my distress.  I have told you that you will have an operation.  I will not lie to you, but you guess that I haven't given you the entire story.

You cling to me.

The smell is all-pervasive.  It is an antiseptic smell, an indefinable "no smell”: cleaning fluids, anesthesia, rubbing alcohol, all mixed into one.  It almost hurts to breathe it in, like too clean air invading my lungs, leaving them empty.   I know you will remember it.  In the future, something will trigger the memory of it and you will relive the terror of today.
They take us to pre-op.  Here the smell is more definable: sharp, astringent – like sandpaper as it rakes past my nostrils.
You look at me, and your eyes well with unshed tears.  You know that this is one of the "biggies."  They will take a large portion of bone from your tiny hip and replace the missing bone in your upper gum line: the alveolar ridge.  You sense that it will hurt.

You are afraid.

The smell is starting to make me ill.  Or is it fear?  Once again, I will be turning you, my baby, my little love, over to strangers.

They will cut.

The anesthesiologist arrives and takes your hand.  You look at me with glistening, tear filled eyes, and smile.  Your back straightens.  Your chin lifts and just as those big double doors swing shut, you raise your hand and sign, "I love you."


Copyright 2010 Debra Shiveley Welch
Excerpt from Son of My Soul - The Adoption of Christopher
Library of Congress Copyright 2014 Debra Shiveley Welch 

My Love

You have given me the job I never weary of,
The name I will never change nor give to another.
You have made me the person I wish to be remembered as.
You have made me Mother.
For you have brought more joy then I knew existed.
You have filled my heart with song.
You have brought me to the one place
Where I know I belong.

From “My Love”

Copyright 20010 Debra Shiveley Welch

Library of Congress Copyright 2014 Debra Shiveley Welch

A Face Only a Mother Could Love?

Recently I read an email from a young mother of a one month old baby born with cleft lip and palate. Her tearful post recounted a scene in her local grocery store earlier that day. As I read her account of what had taken place, I remembered a similar incident which happened to me and my son, and the anger began to build.

First, let me say that we mothers of children born with craniofacial anomalies are as proud and in love with our babies as any other mother. With today's sonograms and diagnostics, a mother often knows quite early in the pregnancy that her child will be born cleft affected. She has time during the pregnancy to mourn the loss of the child she envisioned and to accept that the baby she will bear will not be "perfect." And so, as she labors to bring forth her child, like most mothers giving birth, she is mainly concerned with birthing a living, healthy baby.

To those of us who adopt, our image of our little one changes many times with each attempt and failure at adoption until, finally, our baby is placed in our arms. When we first look into the face of our child, we see just that - our child. So it was with me when I first beheld my Christopher. To me, he was so beautiful, and I couldn't wait to show him off.

I remember the day I took my son to the grocery store to introduce him to my friends there. I had been shopping at this particular store for many years and the employees and customers had gone through each adoption attempt and failure with me. I had received a call from the manager congratulating my husband and me on our good fortune and was told that everyone at the store was anxious to finally meet the "Kroger Baby." I placed my two-week old son in the protective seat attached to the grocery cart and wheeled Chris and cart through the doors. I did not push the cart down the isles; I strutted behind it. I was a mother! Look at what I have! We did it! Isn't he beautiful! Isn't he wonderful! Isn't he glorious! Look! Already you can see how smart he is! Isn't he the most gorgeous baby you've ever seen?

Soon we were surrounded by stock clerks, baggers, the managers and shoppers with whom I often talked to in the store. There were smiles, clapping of hands, tears. All exclaimed over their joy in our happiness and insisted on holding or kissing my new son. My triumph was complete.

Slowly the crowd began to disburse as people returned to their duties. One of the managers was just turning to leave when a voice broke the spell:

"What'd you bring that thing out of the house for! Haven't you got more sense then to make decent folks look at that thing?"

I was frozen to the spot where I had stopped to face the speaker. Mouth open, eyes wide in disbelief, I stared at what appeared to be a normal, middle-aged woman whose eyes glared with loathing upon my beautiful son. There was a gasp, a stirring and, still speechless, I watched the manager and two clerks escort the woman out of the store with the admonition to never return.

The faithfulness of my friends helped, but the pain of coming face to face with such ignorance and hate cut deep. Immediately I realized that my son, my sweet baby, would suffer because of people like this woman and my heart broke. Years later, I still felt the wound from that encounter and now, here before me, was the anguished account of a mother who had suffered from the same cruelty:

"He said, 'Why didn't you abort that monster! Get him out of here!' Why would someone say that about my baby? Why would he do that?"

The wound in my heart reopened and bled as the memory of the anger and hurt I had felt resurfaced. I could feel her pain, her misery, her grief. How could people be so blind to the beauty of a child? Couldn't they see the large, beautiful eyes, the tiny, starlike hands, the soft baby skin, the fine, delicate curls? What was wrong with them that they could not see the glory of a new life?

I sat back from my keyboard. The tears were now flowing as they had the day it happened to me and Chris. I searched for words of comfort. I desperately needed to ease her pain, to tell her it was all right. But how can you tell a mother that things will be fine when you know the world is full of such meanness, prejudice and hate? What words can change the hard fact that many people cannot see loveliness unless it conforms to society's definition of beauty?

I began to compose an answer to her post and felt my anger slowly dissolve into sadness and even pity: sadness for the people who allow fear and bigotry to rule their lives; pity for the man blind enough to be unable to see the beauty of a newborn life; pity for the woman who, years ago, displayed her own stupidity and a fear so consuming that she could attack an infant.

I wrote to the young mother and told her of these things. I knew that soon her pain and sorrow would be replaced with determination and courage: determination to teach her son that he is beautiful, that true beauty cannot be defined in clumsy, grammatical terms and that ignorance is a sickness. And courage - the courage to face that ignorance and say "You are wrong!" and try to educate the victims of that pernicious sickness.

Finally, I shared with her the quote that I wrote and placed on the adoption site I ran which encourages the adoption of children with craniofacial anomalies:

"The Perfect Child is the One in Your Arms."

She agreed.

©2006 Debra Shiveley Welch

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