I Will Not Give Up

I will hang on to the small thread of hope that there may, someday, be a breakthrough. I will continue to press forward. I will keep showing love and acceptance even when all I get in return is anger, pain, and belligerence. I will not give up.

Such is my day today. Woke exhausted and the exhaustion isn’t waning. After my day yesterday, draining despite the positives, today has been yet another completely exhausting day. And it is nowhere near over yet.

The screaming. The talking back. The blatant refusal to do as asked. And then she kicked her shoes off so hard as soon as she walked in the house that she knocked a jar to the floor in the kitchen with one flying shoe. Off to her room, screaming and yelling, slamming the door. And I know I need to go up and try to talk with her, try and calm her, and try and soothe her. But how can I give what I don’t have? Patience and love and understanding escape me when I’m this drained.

The one thing that keeps me from falling completely apart today: nobody has been physically hurt. That is a giant blessing.

And so I will drag myself up the stairs, put on my happy face, go in and try to be understanding. See if she will talk to me. Maybe tell me what has her so upset. I suspect a large part of it is related to the 3 hour appointment yesterday and then today’s therapy intake appointment where she had to listen to me detailing to the doctor all her problems and all my concerns. Where she had to chime in and talk about her faults and things that are hard for her. She handled it very well in the moment, but that is my child. Holding it together for the public eye. Never able to be less than perfect in the eyes of the world.

I will not leave her to do this on her own. I will not abandon my child when she needs love and understanding the most, even though she pushes me away. I will not give up.

Posted in Kids, Life | 1 Comment

Brain Dump

Please be warned: This post is nowhere near as polished as I usually write. I just don’t have the brain power for it. Read on at your own risk.

I am exhausted. So ready to crawl in bed, yet here I am writing this post, because otherwise I think I may just go absolutely and completely insane with all these thoughts swirling around in my brain. Hopefully, writing it all down will clear my mind and then I’ll be ready for sleep.

Today has been quite a day. Up this morning and the first thing I’ve got to do is get kids up and fed, medicated, and off to school. Two headed to school (thanks to their Dad for taking them where they needed to be this morning), while Erica and I went to a 3 hour appointment at the Bowel and Bladder Clinic – we’re dealing with some issues there that need more help than I can give, and that are apparently a lovely genetic blessing I have passed on to all three of my lucky kids. I was expecting the appointment to last for 5 hours – that’s how long Isaac’s appointment took with the same clinic – so the shorter time was a wonderful blessing. Not least of the blessings of today was the clear and hopeful direction I have for helping Erica with this problem. There is a good chance we will have this one under control within a year or two (same outlook for Isaac). However, hearing this morning that this is likely genetic means I have one more child to go through this whole process with – the 3-5 hour initial appointment, then the follow-up appointments with the gastroenterologist, urologist, and physical therapist for the next 3-6 months. Thankfully it is mostly home treatment and the doctor appointments are only intense for about 6-8 weeks of that time, but it is very likely that we’ll be dealing with this for at least a year and possibly more for each child – copious amounts of medication and intense home maintenance on a daily basis.

After the B&B appointment, we picked Cambria up from Dad’s office (he was my hero again today and took her to school, went on her field trip to the fire station, and took her to the office afterwards where he fed her lunch and entertained her until I could come get her) and then it was a quick lunch and off to school with Erica. Distribute doctor’s notes to the school nurse and Erica’s teacher to make sure she is allowed and encouraged to: 1) drink a ton of water all day long and 2) use the bathroom every 2 hours.

I had planned to go home after dropping Erica off, but by the time we had finished at the school it didn’t make sense to drive for 30 minutes to be home for 25 and then turn around and drive another 30 to be in time to drive carpool. Instead, Cambria and I went to the mall where I picked up some facial cleanser (who knew acne could be adult onset???) and we rode every escalator and elevator we could find in the whole mall, trying to kill time. I think Cambria will remember this day forever, between the mall and the stop at Dairy Queen for ice cream on the way to pick kids up from school. I’m really not an ice cream fan, but today it hit the spot. There is so much to be said for emotional eating (don’t tell my therapist I said that… yikes!) and today has been a day of that for me between the ice cream, dinner, and the box of crackers I finished after the kids went to bed. Ugh – old habits die hard.

Rushed through the ice cream (well, really I rushed Cambria through it – she is the world’s slowest eater) so we were on time to pick the kids up from school. Today was a relatively good day for getting them out to the car – 2 of the 3 at the first school were in the car within 10 minutes of school letting out, and the third was out about 8 minutes after that. Off to the second school to pick up the last two who were waiting for me (YAY!) and then dropped everybody off.

Got home in time to grab the kids a snack before my hero came home to watch the younger ones so I could go to Activity Days with Erica (that’s my calling right now). We were cleaning the nursery toys today. The girls did pretty much all the work, and I got to talk to a wonderful friend (and my accomplice in Activity Days) for an hour – a blessing in and of itself!

Came home and supervised piano and violin practice, performed surgery on Bananas (the stuffed monkey Cambria brought home from school; he is the class pet and his head, tail, and one leg were hanging on by a thread so I gave him stitches), ate dinner that Kimball cooked (I’m telling you – this is one fantastic man!!!), got the kids ready for bed, and helped with Erica’s math some more (she is behind by about 30 pages in her math book so we did math at the doctor’s office and again this evening in an attempt to put a dent in that seemingly insurmountable number of pages – the kid has been lying to me about having done her math homework for the better part of the quarter, apparently). Put all the kids to bed after forcibly brushing Isaac’s teeth and administering his inhaler, then began the prep for tomorrow.

Smoothie made, paperwork filled out and test results found for Erica’s therapy intake appointment in the morning, kitchen table cleaned off (How terrible is it that I can’t remember the last time the kitchen floor was swept? Things are sticking to my feet and making me insane but I just don’t have the time to sweep it.), dishes done (once by Kimball and once by me), appointments added to the calendar for the urologist. Map printed for the appointment tomorrow morning. Turns out instead of the Meridian office, I’m headed 30 minutes away to the downtown office in the morning – good thing I decided to print a map tonight or I would have been in the wrong place!

There are a million more things I need to do. A million things running through my brain, fighting for a space and some attention. I need to buy birthday presents for my husband (who hasn’t given me a list yet… HINT, HINT), need to go through the paperwork the doctors gave me today and get Erica started on her medication, need a new water bottle for her (she destroys every single one I buy her and we are out AGAIN), have a blog post I’m trying to work on about schools for my kids, we’re out of flour so I need to grind some wheat, I missed a wedding reception and completely forgot to RSVP anyway and I need to purchase and deliver a gift, not to mention that I can’t recall the last time I read my scriptures. I’ve got to figure out what to do about school for Cambria – that means scheduling and doing testing and talking to principals and trying to worm my way in to places people don’t want me to be. I need to finish indexing the file I’m working on…

I’m sure there is more, but every time I think of something it pushes another thing right out the back of my brain. I think I am completely maxed out on brain power, especially for this late at night. I can so totally see how people might get hooked on energy pills or brain enhancing drugs. I feel like I need some of that just to keep up lately…

At any rate, this has been my day. Some really good, some overwhelming, and some not so fantastic. Not every day is misery here. Not every experience I have is completely and totally draining. Today I had a lot of good moments.

And yet I am still emotionally and physically spent – go figure.

Time to crawl in bed.

Posted in Kids, Life | 2 Comments

Eternity

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to be part of my sister and brother-in-law’s sealing to their recently adopted son, Cody. (For my readers who have no idea what I just said, read here for some info and please ask all the questions you have – I’m happy to answer them as best I can.) It was so exciting for them and I was honored to be asked to hold Cody during the ceremony. The little guy was asleep when they brought him to the sealing room and he woke up as he was passed to me. That was NOT ok with him, and he cried (screamed, really) through the whole ceremony. But to be a part of something so special was such a wonderful blessing to me, and I’m so thankful to them for allowing me that opportunity.

But it got me thinking: being together for eternity is a long time. Thinking about eternity seems really abstract, especially when a tough day feels like an eternity all on its own. And so do I really want eternity? Do I really have a desire to be with these children forever? Being together for eternity with my husband is a given – that one I picked and I don’t even question it. But the kids? An eternity of fighting, worrying, and crying? Is this really something I want?

And then something profound occurred to me. Eternity is forever, but my children will not be, in eternity, what they are in those moments (or hours, or days) of “eternity” here in this life. What seems like eternity to me now is really such a small part of the sum of our existence. And while it seems to me that things may never improve, and that I can’t get past this stage of life soon enough, I am reminded by thoughts like these that this, too, shall pass. My eternity is not destined to be full of the hours and days and weeks of misery that I endure right now.

I read an article recently that gave me a moment of pause to remember that there are special moments (fractions of a second, usually, but they are there just the same) when I get a small glimpse of what eternity can (and I hope will) be. Those moments are the times when God grants me the sweet blessing of knowing that all the effort and worry and stress I put into raising these children is not wasted. That He is mindful of my children, and of me, and of all the struggles and trials we are enduring. That we are special and important to Him as individuals, and that He is guiding our paths.

And so, while the day-to-day drain seems to me a never-ending sentence, in those small moments of peace and joy I am reminded that eternity is something I’m grateful to know will come. Eternity, with my family, will be worth all the heartache I go through to get there.

Click here to read about what I believe about families and eternity.
Posted in Kids, Life, Mormonism | 2 Comments

Survival

Some things I may never understand. In fact, there are a lot of things I’m sure I will never understand. For the most part, I’m ok with that. Most things I don’t understand don’t need to be understood by me. Most of them can be left to the experts and that doesn’t bother me a bit. But there are a few things that I just lay awake at night, trying to figure out, and failing miserably. One of them is the duplicity that is each of my daughters. Let me give you a perfect example of this.

One day last week, I opened the door to my bedroom and walked in to discover a piece of paper on the floor that had obviously been slid under the closed door. This is a Cambria technique for the delivery of pictures, bookmarks, notes, etc. when my door is closed. I reached down, picked it up, and started to read. My eyes began to fill with tears and my heart sang a little song of joy as I deciphered her note to her dad:

Well Dad i love u just remember that God made you speciall and he love’s you very much! i love you! Love Cambria!

I remembered that earlier that day, she had asked me how to spell “special” and that I had seen her with her paper and pencil at the table, working on something. This is apparently what she had been working on. It amazed me that something so true, profound, and meaningful could come from the mind and heart of such a small person, and that it could have such a large effect on me. It was one of the moments I will treasure forever.

Lovely, no? Enough to make up for oh so much pain and struggle with her. Even made Sunday’s debacle seem small and insignificant.

Fast forward no more than five minutes. Cue Isaac’s blood-curdling scream. Out I rush to find Isaac crying hysterically and Cambria with the meanest, dirtiest look on her face. It was obvious to me she had just taken an opportunity to express her displeasure with her brother in a much-less-than-acceptable way. I walked toward her and she, knowing what was coming, sat back on the couch and began kicking her feet wildly in an attempt to ward me off. I scooped her up and off to her room we went for the inevitable time-out.

Isaac is still crying loudly, so my next immediate concern is to see what damage has been done. I hugged him and asked him if he would be ok. “Ya, I’ll be all right,” was his half-choked response. On his upper right arm was the evidence of what had just passed: a perfect imprint of all Cambria’s teeth. My heart almost broke. I know what it feels like to have those teeth implanted in your flesh hard enough to leave a mark like that. I was so thankful the skin hadn’t been broken, but he would invariably have a large bruise on his right arm.

I simply could not and still can not understand how Cambria could fly to such an extreme. It seems that both my girls can be set off at the smallest, most insignificant thing. To be fair, Isaac does tease them both, and I can see that there are times when he deserves to be harassed a bit for the way he treats them, but I honestly cannot understand what it is that causes my sweet girls to become so completely horrid. Especially when I know they are capable of so much good.

Anxiety plays a big part in this violence for my girls. They are both on anxiety medication (as is their mother, so I’m certain that is something they have inherited), which caused a noticeable change in the frequency of Erica’s violence. I’ve begun to wonder if Cambria’s medication dose needs to be adjusted, as the incidence of her violence has become more and more frequent. I’ve expressed before that I am not sure how much I think is a learned behavior for her and how much is possibly biological/chemical/genetic. I’m hopeful that getting Erica’s behavior back under control will help, but there is a part of me that is pretty sure there’s more going on with Cambria than her simply reproducing behavior she has observed.

Next week Erica has an intake appointment with a clinic where I am hopeful we will find a good therapeutic connection for her. Maybe if we can find someone she will open up to and connect with, then things will settle back down. And maybe if Erica’s behavior settles down, Cambria’s will as well. But it is so hard to know. I don’t know how long to wait before I need to do something else. And when it comes to that point, what is the “something else” that I need to do?

I love my children. They have brought me so much joy. But this is so difficult. It breaks my heart to see my son putting up with so much. I’m so thankful he doesn’t get violent with them, but at the same time, I want him to stand up for himself. I don’t know how to teach him to protect himself without condoning violence to combat violence. I don’t even know how to deal with it myself when the girls start to take their anger out on me. The safest thing I’ve come up with is seclusion for the offender, but Isaac can’t very well take the girls to their rooms when they attack him.

It is so frustrating to me to not know what to do. I feel like I am floundering so much of the time – like no matter what I do, all I am managing is survival. Life should be so much more than simply surviving one day to the next. But when it takes every ounce of emotional and physical energy I have just to make it through the day, I just don’t see how there can be room for more than that. For now, survival is the best I’ve got.

Posted in Kids, Life | 2 Comments

Another Day

Today I wonder why I even tried.

I’ve been feeling like garbage lately – had some sort of virus that’s been knocking me down pretty hard – and I had decided yesterday that today I wasn’t going to church. Kimball is sick too, and I just didn’t think I was up to going to church with all three kids, by myself, for 2 hours of Stake Conference. Sacrament meeting is hard enough when he is there, and it’s only just over an hour long. But I woke up this morning feeling significantly better (the best I’ve felt in about 5 days) and feeling like it was important to try and go anyway, so I got the kids ready and off we went.

On the way to church, Isaac announced to anyone who cared to listen that he has been drawing on his walls with his UV pen. Perfect. Just lovely. (He was bringing the pen to church today because it has a light on the lid, and today is Stake Conference broadcast to our building, which means the lights would be off. He wanted to see what he was doing, and I told him that he could bring it if he would keep it down and not be obnoxious.) So of course the immediate consequence for his announcement was that Mom is now the proud owner of the end of the pen that draws, and he hid the end with the UV light somewhere in the car. Tomorrow, he gets to wash his walls. And maybe the TV room. And maybe Cambria’s room. Turns out there is a possibility he has been drawing on all those rooms (Cambria claims he has, Isaac swears he only draws on his own walls). I never would have known he was drawing on the walls since you have to shine the UV light at it to even see the marks, but he told on himself so of course I can’t just let it slide. Have to have some sort of accountability for this.

Lovely. The five minute drive to church is going oh so well.

We get to church, and in we go. Find a spot in the back by a door, because I know what’s in store for us today and I’m hoping to make as little spectacle as possible. Cambria has lately been the issue as far as church is concerned, and today was no exception. In fact, today was probably one of the worst days at church I’ve had with her in a very long time. She has such a temper, and she is violent about it (I wonder if it is a learned thing or if she would do it without the example of her sister?). Today was especially bad, since I’m still not feeling 100% and it took all the energy I had left to keep Cambria from hurting me too much. Several trips out to the hall, past the foyer (Two chairs? Really? That’s all there are out there? And of course they are filled with ADULTS. What the crap? What about those of us who actually have a good reason for being out here??? Sit on the floor?) and in to one of the (thankfully) empty classrooms. Continue the beating of mother from child. Commence Mom holding on to child’s wrists in an attempt to keep the beating to a minimum. TRYING to stay at church, because that’s what I’m supposed to do, and that’s where I’m supposed to be, and, gosh dang it, that’s the whole reason I dragged them here in the first place anyway! People walking by, looking in, listening to my child scream about how I’m hurting her and how I have to let go and of course now I’m feeling judged. Not exactly why I came to church today. A trip to the car, but really, how long can I leave the other two unsupervised in there? Only so much can be expected of 6- and 8-year-olds. So back in Cambria and I go, to make an attempt to sit and maybe Mom can listen. Maybe. Ya, that lasted all of 2 seconds, and Cambria’s mad about something else now and the hitting and kicking has started up again.

So we left early, to avoid making more of a scene than we already had. And because I’m now pretty much completely exhausted emotionally and physically. We did make it a whole hour into the meeting, which I guess I should be grateful for, but I didn’t get a thing out of it.

So tell me – why did I try? What was the point? Cambria is in her room until church would have ended. She makes me miss it, then she can spend that time in her room. That was a given. But that still leaves me the rest of the day, and I’m back to feeling crummy again, and then we’ve got a whole day of no school tomorrow. I dread those days.

I don’t know what possessed me to go today, but I suspect it has something to do with this messed-up need I have to do what I am “supposed” to do. That somehow I am not good enough if I don’t do absolutely everything that everyone says I should. That, my friends, is a load of crap, one that I haven’t figured out how to let go of yet. I’m trying – believe me – but it is hard and I still suck at it. I still find myself doing things because that is what I’ve been told, at one time or another, is right. That lands me in a bad place all too often, today being a perfect example.

So here I sit, feeling miserable, wondering what I will do to get through the rest of today and tomorrow, and wanting to just crawl back in bed and hide. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I’m not ready yet (don’t know if I ever will have the courage, actually) to blog about the rest of what’s bothering me today and the past week. Which gets back to being what I’m “supposed” to be and doing what I’m “supposed” to do. I don’t know how to question those things and not feel guilty.

And now I’m rambling. Guess I’m not feeling as well as I thought.

Posted in Kids, Life, Mormonism | 9 Comments

To My Family and Friends

A smoothie date. A giant smiley-face balloon. Anonymous flowers, with the sweetest message on the card. Countless emails, blog comments, and FB messages/comments. People willing to listen to me vent my frustrations and worries.

The card reads "You are amazing! From, Everyone who loves you"

My friends and family are fantastic. Thank you so much for all you have done and are doing for me. Some days it is hard to find a reason to keep going amid so much opposition and difficulty, but you have given me the strength and courage to hold on for a while longer. For that, I thank you. Please know that any gesture you make, large or small, makes a huge impact on me. You are absolutely amazing, and it is partly because of you and what you’ve done that I am here, trying to make it through another day.

Posted in Life | 1 Comment

Resolved.

The New Year has begun, and all around me I am hearing of goals and resolutions. At church on Sunday, one of the lessons was about goal setting. (Please – kick me when I’m down. That’s precisely why I went to church: hadn’t been told I was a failure quite enough yet that day.) Everywhere I turn, people are talking about their goals for this year, and what they have resolved to do.

I simply can’t make myself do this.

It’s not that I don’t have goals for myself – I do. It’s not that I think goal setting is worthless – it’s not. It is just that I feel adding more to my never-ending checklist is simply not in my best interest.

As I expressed before, I am feeling like a failure in so many areas of my life already. Making a list of goals, as I have traditionally done, will this year serve only to drive me deeper into the depression I’m struggling with and further cement the unpleasant feeling I have of being less than adequate in basically every aspect of my life. And so, despite the societal pressure to set goals to complete this year, I have decided to take a different approach (thanks, in part, to the lesson on Sunday – I did get something positive out of it).

I have intentions of setting one goal, with no completion date, that I will work on this year and likely through my entire life. Something that will benefit me now most especially when life has handed me more than I can bear, but also in the future when things may look brighter (that has to come at some point, right?). Something that will make me feel better about myself and worry less about what I am “supposed” to be doing. Something that will help me be ok with doing all I can, even though it is nowhere near all I “should” be doing.

So starting now, and going until forever, I am resolving to be more kind to myself. To be more understanding and patient with myself when I have days where I feel the only thing that I can do is cry about everything. To be more loving to myself when I get to the end of the day and realize not a single thing managed to get accomplished on my checklist for the day. To be more patient with myself when I see how I’ve failed in one way or another, and to be willing to let myself try again. To tell myself I matter and that I am not a terrible mom, wife, or woman, when all I’ve heard all day is the exact opposite.

Kind is something I’m not accustomed to being when it comes to the way I treat myself. I have high expectations for myself and I am very driven. I push myself until I have done what I believe has to be done, usually without regard for my feelings or health. No one is harder on me than the little voice in my head.

No more.

From this day forward, I will strive to be more loving and understanding – to treat myself the way I would treat someone going through what I am dealing with.

This goal has no completion date. There really is no way to measure my level of accomplishment; I can’t say I’ve completed 67% of being kind to myself. This will be a challenge. I measure myself in everything, against any standard I can manage to find (credible or not) that is higher than where I already stand. Never do I measure up. Never am I doing enough. And to that, I am saying “No more.” From here on out, I am giving myself permission to be less than perfect. Requiring myself to rely more on the Savior and the Atonement, and less on the limited ability I have to do and fix and be. Recognizing that God loves me, imperfections and all. That I am doing enough, trying enough, and that I am enough.

Resolved: This year, it’s ok to be me.

Posted in Life, Spirituality | 5 Comments

Laughter, about Medicine

There are some things in life about which you must choose either to laugh or cry. Either option is fitting, and the choice must depend on how the release will make you feel. There is merit to both responses, and certainly we have been given the ability to laugh and cry for very important reasons.

And so, when my girls we diagnosed with strep throat a week ago, and I added three more bottles of medicine to our (rather large) home pharmacy of daily medications, the decision confronted me: do I cry as I look at this huge pile of medications or do I laugh it off?

I chose to laugh. So I had to share. I honestly can’t believe my family of 5, aged 5, 6, 8, 30, and 34, seriously need THIS MUCH medicine. Two are mine, and two are Kimball’s. The rest belongs to the kids. It is what it is.

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Breaking Down

Last night, I had one of those nights when everything seems too overwhelming. Spent a good long while sobbing in my sweet husband’s arms. There is just too much expected of me, and too much I don’t know how to fix for my children, and too much for my continued bravery. And so I broke down, after watching the first episode of Parenthood (as recommended by a blog post), and the weight of what I’m dealing with all came crashing down around me. There is something going on, and I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know if I will find the answers I’m searching for in the avenues I am pursuing at the moment.

And just HOW, exactly, and I supposed to know what to do, or how to do it, or even the right place to look for answers? HOW?

And so I cried. And the little things seemed huge, and the big things seemed life-changing, and it all seemed more than I can possibly be capable of dealing with.

All the tears haven’t been released. I sit here typing this on the verge of tears again. I know I don’t know the answers. I know I don’t know where to turn.

But I also know I am trying. And I have to believe that is enough. If I was supposed to know what to do, this child would have come with an owner’s manual. She didn’t. None of them did.

Something big with each of my kids, and while one is beginning to work itself through, the other two seem still so overwhelming that it almost beats me down just thinking about it.

And then on top of that, there’s all the things I’m “supposed” to be doing. All the extras besides what I have decided are the necessities. And there is not enough time in my day to do them all. Or even most of them. Some days, not enough time to even do some or even just one of the extras. Those days, I’m lucky if I manage to do anything besides take care of myself, take care of my marriage, and take care of my children. Those are the necessities, and if that means that the list of extras (reading the Relief Society manual before church on Sunday, for instance, or getting those *#%@ Christmas decorations put away finally, or getting to the store to buy more milk since we are out AGAIN) doesn’t even make it on my radar, then so be it. I have decided not to let anyone (especially myself) guilt me into doing more than I can. It just isn’t going to work. I have to have some sanity, and the rest of these things, while good and worthwhile, just have to take a back seat. Like WAY back. And that has to be ok. It is hard to convince myself of that, but I know it has to be that way. Someday I may be able to read that church lesson before I get there. Someday I may actually have time to weed the yard or steam out the marker stains in the carpet. Someday I may even have the energy to do my visiting teaching again (*gasp*). But for now, I have to do what I absolutely need to, and if I have anything left over at the end of the day, then a few of the highest priority items might make it on my list of “done” as well.

Somehow, barely making it through has to be enough. So please, if you are on my list of extras (I’m sorry you have to be on the extra list and not the necessity list) then please understand that I do care, and I do want to do what I am supposed to be doing for you, but also please know that I am barely keeping my head above water. I haven’t forgotten you. I won’t ever forget you. But I may not be the best at doing what you expect me to. And a few of my tears are for you.

Posted in Kids, Life, Mormonism | 4 Comments

Don’t Quit

I spent several hours over that last few days cleaning my room. I am not a messy person, so you might be surprised to hear that I could really spend HOURS cleaning my own room, but it is true. Hours and hours of my life gone, because for some unknown reason I saved every single piece of paper that came across my field of view. I’m not one to hang on to stuff, but papers seem to pile up in all the places I can manage to hide them. I’d had enough of the piles; thus the hours of cleaning.

Among the piles of scribbles and school handbooks, I found a few gems:

  • Lots and lots of blank paper (at least on one side) for the kids to draw on. We are ALWAYS running low on scrap paper, so this was a wonderful find.
  • A whole host of “lost” pens. How they managed to get sucked into my piles and piles of papers is a mystery which may never be solved.
  • A lot of papers from my children, professing their love to me. Especially coming from Erica, these papers mean a lot. Many of those drawings were done by her in a time of her life when she seemed to detest me the most; no hugs or praise were welcome, no desire to be cuddled or helped in any way, no expression of love was acceptable to her, and the only interactions she and I had on a regular basis were negative and draining to us both. So to find papers from her saying she loved me, and pictures she drew of me and herself together, smiling, with hearts, brought my slowly healing heart so much joy.
  • A bookmark, which actually is the reason for this post. On the bookmark is a short poem that really spoke to me. I don’t recall ever reading it before (I have no idea where I got this bookmark from as it is not even remotely familiar to me) but it was so meaningful that I had to share. I hope you will take from it some hope and courage. Sometimes life seems so hard that I feel like giving up. A few very dark times in my life, I have come too near giving up to be able to comfortably share in such an impersonal setting as a blog post. But there is always an end to every seemingly endless trial. I have learned through some very difficult times that the moments when things seemed the most dark and dreary were when I really learned and grew emotionally and spiritually. So read on, and find hope when you feel there is none to be found.

Don’t Quit

 
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re treading seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must – but don’t you quit.
 
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow-
You might succeed with another blow.
 
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
 
Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt-
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-
It’s when things seems worst that you mustn’t quit.
 
— Author Unknown
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