Spiritus parishioner Kirsten Reader shares her story of motherhood. Once Kirsten asked her mom, when does life settle down? Her mom said life never really settles down, it just keeps going up the hills and down the valleys. Even when times got really tough, Kirsten just tried to do the next right thing. Not only was she able to get through struggles for her children and herself, but blessings emerged everyday that were beyond her dreams.
Homily Transcript
Happy Mothers day to all of the moms. Happy Mothers’ Day to all of us. I am blessed with a long line of strong women, a deeply loving mother, a beautiful stepmother that embraces me and my children as her own, and a whole tribe of pretty incredibly, smart, and hilarious women I get to mother with. We all have a mother story. For many it’s joy, for some there’s some sadness there. But as Father Jim said recently at a baptism – he blessed the baby in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit – one god and mother to us all. So there you go – we all have at least one if not many comforting mother’s day stories. Here is mine.
Personally, I think birth is so awful to get us ready, right? Women love to tell their birth stories, and it’s understandable because its; kind of like we die and come back to life. And that is a pretty good story. And everybody likes a good resurrection story. Birthing babies is wild and crazy and mind blowing as Prince Harry recently and accurately called it. I still think it’s crazy and I did it. Voluntarily. Twice. So that I could be a mom.
Ever since I was a little I wanted to be a mother. I used to dream of having my own baby and a body that could hold it and carry it and feed it. My favorite Christmas present was the year I wrote to Santa to tell him I wanted a baby that looked like a real baby. Looking back on this, I don’t totally understand why that would be; it doesn’t make cognitive sense does it. Real live children are, after all, difficult, expensive, time consuming, worrisome, challenging, loud, and messy. And just when we figure out where they are, where they are coming from, why they are doing what they are doing, and what we did to make it that way, they enter a new stage in life and we are left, yet again, with no instructions and a crying human telling us that whatever it is we did or didn’t do is ruining their life and that of course, we just don’t understand. That was not in my cache of knowledge though at the time that I was 7. My adult self wonders why I didn’t just enjoy my childhood, throw caution to the wind, and play with mud and blocks and puzzles and Mr. Potato Head. For some whacky reason, domesticity was so appealing to my 7 year old self. I wanted to cook, sweep, bake, feed babies, wrap up children, and even calm down crying dolls. This was my idea of fun. Playing at adulting was my kind of play.
What was unbeknownst to me was the actual reality of motherhood. What I DID know, is that it would be absolutely magical. I am sure, I am positive, that every mother in here would say that the most incredible journey of their life is that of being a mother. First of all, it is just wild. Carrying around a human and then pushing it out of our bodies is mindblowing. When my first child was born, I was 30. I couldn’t wait. I mean 30 years right? I just had to keep her safe through the pregnancy. Eat well, take my vitamins, prepare the room, I even had a birth plan like a good liberal feminist. Then I had her at 2:33 on a Friday afternoon in May of 2002. After giving us a tiny scare by not actually breathing – she was perfect – all 6 # 15 oz of her. She fed and slept and made noises and smelled delicious.
About 9 o’clock that night, her life flashed before my eyes and I kind of could not believe what I had actually done. I now had to keep her alive and protect her and keep every bad thing in the world from happening to her.
It’s scary having a part of yourself not be a part of yourself, right.? It’s frightening to give birth to another heart and then trust the world that it won’t break it. There are nights I still can lie awake and feel terrified that my children are out of my eyesight every day. My own utter and complete powerlessness over the universe half the reason I sit in this building with you and pray. Cause I have to believe that they will be ok, and I have to believe that I am not the only one who has their back. Cause this is hard. Motherhood is absolutely the hardest and most joyful journey I will ever be on.
It’s like this is the biggest god story of my life. Being a mom.
First of all, by the grace of God these kids are all alive. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I am a deeply loving mother, I hug them and kiss them and I make them cocoa and cookies and I make a mean apple pie, but really. You have to be hardy to be my kid. I am no joke. You better learn to be self-sufficient, you better like leftovers, you better ask questions if you want to know what’s going on, you better like direct answers, you better put our own bag in the car or your going to end up with no clothes for Thanksgiving in Boston, you better eat your salad, learn to be part of the solution and not the problem, wash dishes and clean the bathroom, say please and thank you, show some gratitude for the unlimited blessings you have at your fingertips, you better love your sibling and your parents and never throw us under the bus, and you sure better have a sense of humor.
I have two children. Many of you know them Zoe – and Liam. Zoe was born in 2002, she was a little girl who liked things just so. Most importantly – she liked things to be fair. She needed to feel safe, she was and still is athletic, smart, and very kind. In first grade, when recognized with a special award that singled her out for her kindness and empathy, the first words out of her mouth were – what about my friends, they will feel sad that they weren’t chosen. So much goodness wrapped up in one adorable redhead.
Now, when I say she liked fairness and safety, she took it to an extreme. She hated any competition and pretty much never wanted to go anywhere without me or someone she knew. Trying new things – was not in her wheelhouse. Which was fine, except “totally unrealistic” as her father told me, and it started keeping her from what she wanted to do. When she was young my parents took her to Riverdance. She loved it and immediately wanted to try Irish dancing. So, I brought her by a few different schools. Every school we looked at, she cried on our way out ….don’t make me go there! They are mean! We finally found one in our neighborhood which was the most like her school – led by kind a sweet young women. This seemed like a fit. So we started in the non-competitive tract. She was good and every once in a while I would ask her, are you sure you don’t want to try the competition class. At the mention of competition, she would cry. And that’s how it went. Every few months, I’d say the word competition, she cried. A little nudging until one day she said she’d try it. After being in the class for a while, she actually went to a competition. We drove all the way to Syracuse. She was ready to go on, and she started to cry and didn’t want to do it. I told her she didn’t have to. We could turn around right then and go home, but I knew she could do it. And she did. She fought through her fear and survived. She was so proud of herself.
Now, it wasn’t about the competition for me – it was about getting out of her comfort zone. Had I listened to her, she never would have tried anything risky. She never would have trusted the universe, never would have attempted failure. I knew I had to equip her with the tools to do hard things. I, like many of us, had faced plenty of hard things in my childhood, but many of them were just hard – with little reward. There was something about the choice to practice it and survive over and over that I knew was important for her. She couldn’t be afraid of the world.
In 9th grade, I read William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. In it, there is a great line that Life was created in the valleys. It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That’s why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down.” I had to teach her how to ride the hills. Now I am not very sentimental – I am not a big cryer when it comes to my kids, but I am telling you the first time she danced without crying of fear of failure first, I cried through the whole thing. Zoe eventually became a preliminary champion Irish dancer. ANd the only reason she left Irish dancing was to become more serious about soccer and of all positions – goalkeeper. She’s learned to be brave and loud and aggressive. I am a nervous wreck during games – clearly this is payback for my “we can do hard things in this family” motto.
And my second is Liam. Liam is also a total love. 11 years old. He’s happy go lucky, has a fantastic group of friends with awesome moms. Some of you probably remember me pregnant with him, maybe his baptism. He also wasn’t one to challenge himself. He wants to do what his friends are doing, play what his friends are playing. Just this morning he mentioned that he’d like to leave his soccer ball in the car because then it won’t get kicked away and he won’t have to run after it. He is a percussionist and a piano player. Nothing super risky though. SO, it was no surprise when he was nine and didn’t know how to ride a bike. We had tried, but he had fallen, and he was done. One day, I declared that I had had it, this was ridiculous. I put the bike and the children in the minivan and drive to a vacant lot. We weren’t leaving until he was riding. Zoe was with us, mainly for moral support for Liam, which was good cause he was gonna need it. He was in for the first three minutes. Then he declared it wasn’t gonna work, this was stupid, and he was done. Then things got questionable – cause we weren’t leaving. I stood my ground, he straddled the bike crying, I was not going to be manipulated, he was not going to be hurt, zoe was looking around to make sure there were no witnesses to this hysterical scene. I gave him different techniques while yelling firm but encouraging words. It was a battle of the wills and I won! I mean, Liam rode the bike. He did it once and started to get off. Heck no! He needed to do it for 10 more minutes. By the end he was smiling and thanking me for helping him learn.
So, I got it right that time, but it was hard. I had no idea if I was being too mean. I was making this up. I was beyond thankful that he thanked me cause who know if what I am doing is the right thing, who knows what’s gonna come up in twenty years, right? Remember that time you forced me to ride my bike…
My own mother showed me strength. She also gave me a love for art, nature, travel, culture, water, swimming, the beach, and adventure. My mother studied art in Italy, worked at museums, she’d bring us home form the pool in the summer time all clean in our pajamas and ready for bed. She had blue and red dyed hands from the color baths for her batiks. She would take animals like bunnies and chickens and cats from Lollypop farm and bring them in for her art students to draw. Apparently one chicken got out and was almost completely lost in Fairport high school – to which my reaction now is that I can’t believe that happened only once! She has her own stories of struggle and strength. She did make me into a strong woman. I have no doubt about that. What so ever. She had me shoveling snow off of the roof of our 76 wood paneled station wagon after the blizzard of 77 and I was lifting up my shovel and screaming “WOmen’s Live!” There was no man around to help us shovel and that was ok because we were armed with the mere fact that we were women and we were living. Granted – I was a little annoyed years later when I found out the phrase was actually women’s lib and no one corrected me. But anyway, that was me. Womens live.
Fast forward about 35 years to me, a newly single mom, two kids in the house both of my fathers and I were fixing up to sell, one winter morning, a driveway full of snow, and me with a shovel and the lessons that I had learned from my mother. The two kids peering out at me shoveling a driveway full of snow and I was crying the entire time because I knew exactly what was happening. I saw the exact parallel, and I had done what I said I would never do. After years and years of trying, I acknowledged the brokenness of my marriage and had ended it cause I couldn’t stand to have them see me sad and cry every day. This was not the life that God intended me nor them to have. I had to do the worst thing possible to bring the best possible outcome. I had to birth another baby and that one was me. It was a long, dark night of the soul and the only way out was through, and I had to break my babies hearts so I could model strength and love and happiness and joy. My daughter screamed at me when we told her. A year later, after I sold their childhood home, walked through the embarrassment, and moved my children back in to my home with my parents where I shared a room with my son and more importantly, a kitchen with my mother, she had the courage to tell me it was better. Thank God. We can do hard things.
My other favorite motto I mom by is … all we have to do is the next right thing. That was what terrified me the day Zoe was born – despite being 6 hours old – the first 18 years of her life flashed before my eyes and I felt defeated. How was I going to keep her alive and safe? But really, all I had to do was feed her. One day I called up my mother in throws of my marriage and asked her when the settling down part happens. She laughed. It doesn’t – life just keeps going, Up the hills and down the valleys, right? By just doing the next right thing for me and my kids, I can not only get through this with less angst and more happiness for my children and myself, but blessings have emerge every day that are beyond my dreams. I never could have imagined my happiness today. I have the love of my family, the love of a good, kind man, a beautiful church community, a rockin gospel choir, a great job, and so many friends. I can call at the drop of a hat and they are picking up my kid or keeping one longer cause I am stuck in a meeting, or they are just an ear to laugh at what ridiculous thing I did or they did – no judgement – all love and encouragement. I thank God that my kids are happy and resilient and strong and kind. I thank God they know they can make mistakes. They stand up for each other and for themselves and they think nothing of sending me out for a run when it’s sounding like I need it. I am far from perfect, but boy do I love being their mom. We laugh a lot and we hug a lot. I can never hug Zoe long enough or Liam often enough, He called me in the other night for another hug. I popped in and teased him. Ya missed me didn’t ya? He looked at me kind of exasperated and truthfully told me – Mama – I always miss you.
And that’s all we need right. Just that love. I don’t need flowers or jewelry or presents – just a little love back.
The Lanyard by Billy Collins
The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room
bouncing from typewriter to piano
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the ‘L’ section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word, Lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past.
A past where I sat at a workbench
at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard.
A gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard.
Or wear one, if that’s what you did with them.
But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand
again and again until I had made a boxy, red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face cloths on my forehead
then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim and I in turn presented her with a lanyard.
‘Here are thousands of meals’ she said,
‘and here is clothing and a good education.’
‘And here is your lanyard,’ I replied,
‘which I made with a little help from a counselor.’
‘Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth and two clear eyes to read the world.’ she whispered.
‘And here,’ I said, ‘is the lanyard I made at camp.’
‘And here,’ I wish to say to her now,
‘is a smaller gift. Not the archaic truth,
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless worthless thing I wove out of boredom
would be enough to make us even.’
So make sure you get a mom hug today. No one should leave here without a mom hug.
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