This post from Missey‘s blog, written in December, cut straight to my heart, and I wanted to share it with those of you who did not know her either in real life or from homeschooling discussion lists.
“Life has been so laid-back and relaxed that I don’t know how we’ll ever get back on track come January, but I’m not going to think about that right now. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I’m enjoying making memories with my family and letting all the worries and stresses roll right off my back. They’ll be there for another day. But for today I’m going to get my Love Bank filled back up with kisses and hugs and quiet conversations (while making those same kinds of deposits into each of my loved one’s Love Banks) and regain the strength to face all those worries and stresses that will still be waiting for me come January. I think that by then they won’t seem so big anymore anyway.”
I need to go hug my children now.
Tributes to Missey: here and here.
March 3, 2006 @ 11:17 am | Filed under:
Clippings Recent abrupt and bizarrely executed changes at the Sonlight forum have left a great many longtime forum users stranded and cut off from communicating with one another. An open-access alternative temporarily named “Sonlight Refugees” has been created by the kindhearted Bryce. Just doing my bit to pass the word along.
Of course, the Real Learning message boards are another warm and wonderful place to find homeschooling encouragement, ideas, and advice!
A Lion to Guard Us
by Clyde Robert Bulla. This short middle-grade nove has scored high on the “Please, Mommy, just one more chapter” meter for Rose (7 1/2) and Beanie (5). (Jane read it herself a couple of years ago.) It’s the story of three very young English children whose father is far away in Jamestown, making a home for the family in the New World. Their mother dies, leaving them penniless, stranded, and desperately anxious to make their way across the sea to join their father. The suspenseful account of their adventures, told in Bulla’s typically spare and straightforward prose, has kept my younguns trembling on the edge of their seats. (Okay, “on the arm of the couch” or “the precarious edge of the windowsill” would be more accurate, especially for Beanie.) Excellent living book for early American history studies, or (as is the case with us) just for fun.
March 2, 2006 @ 8:52 am | Filed under:
Clippings This morning I learned the terrible news of the death of a homeschooling mom after an emergency c-section yesterday. Missey was a member of the Ambleside Online list, where I have been a lurker for years. She also maintained a lovely blog called Heartschooling. Her last post was just yesterday, a cheery account of taking her son to the doctor.
Please keep Missey’s family in your prayers. She leaves behind a devastated husband and five children ages 11 to newborn.
UPDATE: The following was posted by Loa on Missey’s “BasicallyBeechik” list yesterday:
I have spoken to Missey’s family and they are touched by the outpouring of love and support from everyone. They are devastated by the loss but dealing with it as best they can.
For those who want to make financial donations, it would be greatly appreciated by the family. We have set up a memorial fund at Paypal. (Click here to contribute.) They did not have life insurance for Missey and I know this would be a blessing to help cover the funeral and other expenses. Krystal is a long time friend of Missey’s and mine and I can assure you that each and every penny will reach the Gray family.
By that I mean, of course, that we have passed out of Ordinary Time for a while. I am also relieved to say that those of us who spent the last two days feeling miserably ill are now feeling much better. Jane is eating breakfast as I type. I am thinking I might make so bold as to attempt a small meal myself. Ash Wednesday is a fast day, but I spent the past two days involuntarily fasting, and methinks this is a time when duty (to my own health and that of the baby I am carrying) must trump sacrifice. (Children and pregnant women are exempt from full-fledged fasting anyway.)
Fat Tuesday was not terribly fat around here, unless you count the obese pile of laundry in my bathroom…Did I mention our washing machine broke on Sunday, the day before I got sick? The Sears guy comes tomorrow. In the meantime, good pal Lisa has offered to do a load or two if necessary.
While I was under quarantine, Wonderboy learned to say “elbow” and “foot.” Jane memorized the various types of identifiable fingerprint markings such as loops, arches, tents, and whorls (which she demonstrated for me by tracing them in the dust on my nightstand lamp—shh, don’t tell Flylady). Rose read Daddy’s new book to Beanie. Scott poured endless glasses of Gatorade, gave numerous backrubs, fed those members of the family who retained their appetites, and kept things humming along so that I was hardly missed. Well, he might have missed me a little. He certainly missed a great deal of sleep. And two days of work.
We are now bracing for the inevitable second wave of the plague: there are still four members of this family who have not yet been struck. With luck, the Sears guy will have nursed our washer back to health before the next onslaught.
Every noon and every night I lie down with Wonderboy to cuddle him while he falls asleep. I read him a story, turn out the light, and pretend to go to sleep myself. (Okay, most of the time I’m pretending…) My two-year-old son, naturally, is not immediately inclined to start snoring. He’d much rather play.
Because he cannot get up by himself, there’s no problem keeping him in bed. He simply wants to talk. He babbles away in both verbal speech and sign language, sometimes singing (with vigorous hand motions accompanied by rhythmic grunts), sometimes reliving the book we just read by running through all his favorite animal sounds, and finally, in a last-ditch effort to entice mommy into conversation, by applying heart-melting tactics: “Love Mommy! Love Mommy!” he’ll sign, over and over, throwing in a couple of his best spoken words—Hi! Hi! Hi!—for good measure.
I tell you what, this is mighty hard to resist. His head is snuggled against my arm; he doesn’t know I’m watching through slitted eyes, just dying to smother him with kisses. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life seen anything sweeter than a toddler signing “love.”
Finally he’ll drift off to sleep. I lie there, listening to his breathing, watching his hands twitch occasionally as he talks in his sleep. By this time, his unborn sister is usually wide awake, and I often wonder how he can sleep through the pummeling she gives his back. I suppose my belly diminishes the force of impact somewhat.
I think about him, and I think about this baby who will be joining us in the outside world before long. Eleven years ago, when I was pregnant with Jane and people would ask, “Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?” I’d reply with the standard, “I don’t care, as long as the baby is healthy.” This wasn’t exactly true: secretly I was hoping for a girl.
Both hopes came true. I delivered a healthy baby girl, and I was so happy, so grateful. This little girl didn’t remain healthy, though. By the time she was Wonderboy’s age, she was fighting for her life. The battle against leukemia was grueling and scary. When, nine months after her diagnosis, Scott and I learned we were expecting another child, I uttered that “I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s healthy” line with even greater fervency.
And then, two babies later (first our Rose, then bouncing Beanie), I gave birth to a little boy, and he wasn’t healthy. He was, to put it bluntly, rather a mess. Thus began the next chapter of the lesson that started during the long months of Jane’s illness. Being entrusted with the care of a child who is not physically perfect can be yes, painful and scary, but also one of the sweetest, most rewarding experiences a person can have. Do you know how much they teach us, these small, brave, persevering persons? I hadn’t begun to grasp the meaning of that whole “Count it all joy” business in the book of James until I met these children. Now I get it, or at least I get a glimpse of it. There is immeasurable joy not just in the overcoming of trial, but even—I know it sounds implausible, but it’s true—in the trial itself.
Patience, cheerfulness, courage, determination, persistence—these virtues which require such effort from me are a matter of course for this boy of mine. And so it was for his oldest sister, when she was in the thick of her ordeal. If we learn by example, then I have surely learned a great deal from my children.
What riches Wonderboy’s “imperfections” have brought to our lives! A new language, yes; I’ve written about that so often before. But more than that. Watch him work to achieve the magical “all fall down” at the end of Ring-around-the-rosy—see how intently he studies his sisters and with what careful perseverance he attempts to imitate them. He looks at his legs: hey, I can bend them now! Used to be they wouldn’t cooperate with his desires. Grinning, he crouches, he squats, he teeters—he plops onto his bottom! He’s done it! The cheers ring out; the girls’ delight is genuine and very loud. His face, oh his face—now I know what real joy is.
I have heard this truth beautifully articulated by others; this mother knows it, and this one. The book Expecting Adam is one giant love poem on the subject. These are not women who sugarcoat or downplay the challenges; but their writing overflows with quiet joy.
Yesterday at naptime, Wonderboy hung in a little longer before sleep overtook him. After running through all the usual mommy-wooing tactics, he apparently decided he’d have better luck petitioning God. Over his head I watched his hands flash through a litany of prayers: the Sign of the Cross, then the names of all the people we God-bless every night, starting with his daddy and running right on through every member of the family to “the poor, the sick, the needy,” and finally: the Pope. He just about got me then; the temptation to just eat him up (and therefore demolish any possibility of a nap) was overpowering.
Instead I lay there doing some praying of my own. The baby inside me kicked and kicked; I felt her foot against her brother’s back and realized how much my answer to that old question has changed over the years. Of course I hope, for her sake, that she will be a healthy child. No mother hopes for her children to have to walk a difficult road; it is our nature to want their paths to be as pleasant as possible. But no longer could I say and mean (even if I didn’t know the gender of the child): “I don’t care what it is as long as it’s healthy,” with its tacit suggestion that an unhealthy baby means only tragedy and sorrow. If that wish had come true last time, I wouldn’t have my Wonderboy. If this child—or any of my others, for that matter, for Jane is proof that being “born healthy” is no guarantee of perpetual good health—should encounter serious medical difficulties, I know now that no matter how hard the road may be, even if it leads through the depths of Moria, it will carry us through Lothlorien, too. And even in Moria there can be humor and camaraderie and courage and hope among the band of travelers—especially the smallest ones.
Tags: family, parenting, children, special needs children, American Sign Language, baby sign language, pregnancy
