Why is "death with dignity" so disturbing?

I opened the computer this morning to find that Brittany Maynard ended her life Saturday and I was awash with varying emotions.  I was sad.  Twenty-nine years old.  Dang.  Really sad.  I was proud of her and for her, and her family, for the end of the struggle not only with her illness but with the decision and the media.  And honestly, get this...
 
I was jealous.  Yeah.  Jealous.
 
And as I let myself sit with that feeling for awhile, I couldn't help pondering the possibility that some of the heavy backlash from certain groups may also be rooted in this weird emotion of envy.  No one, no one, wants to die a slow and agonizing death.  You hear people speak of it, "She went quietly in her sleep," with a hushed tone of thankfulness.  We all, ALL OF US, every last one of us, if given the choice for how to pass from this life into death would choose exactly what Brittany chose.
 
But here's the reality.  We don't all get to choose.  And I think, feel, believe that most of the naysayers, regardless of how they've packaged it to look more pious than it is, are really just two year-olds standing with red cheeks and stomping their feet because they got the short half of the cookie.
 
It's just not fair!!  Stomp. Stomp.
 
Some of us will die in tragic accidents, some in violent criminal acts, some in the throes of painful diseases, some of us will die from natural disasters with own houses crumbling atop us.  There are as many unpleasant ways to die as there are people on the planet and most of us will never get to make the choice that Brittany made because we won't even see it coming.  And I just have this sneaking suspicion that this is why it bugs us so much.  We are so. stinking. jealous.  Even though we all know and have probably quoted it to our children until we're blue in the face, that life isn't fair.  It's just not.  It is painfully, uncomfortably unfair.  In its living and in its dying.  Unfair.
 
We have to find a way to come to terms with this and I don't think the best method is by creating a religious system in which the deeper our suffering the more righteous and significant we become.  But this idea is strongly at play.  The fact that John Piper suggests that Brittany's family will have missed an opportunity for really nothing more than self-betterment by not enduring greater levels of suffering is ludicrous.

"And the grieving spouses and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters are not merely watching. They are serving, caring, loving. Yes, suicide spares them the pain of watching. But it also denies them the privilege of serving. There are moments in the tireless care of the dying beloved that are so intense with self-giving love that they would not be traded for any death."  (blog - www.desiringgod.org)
 
Serving the sick and dying is of tremendous value.  But there is a big difference between yielding selflessly to serve another during unavoidable suffering and choosing your own piety as a servant over the potential end to suffering.  "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  God forbid!" (NLT -New Living Translation).  Shall my loved one suffer longer and more deeply that my own good reputation abound?  Hell no! (NAT -New Amie Translation)
 
And so, what if more people could be given the choice to die peacefully in their home with those they love?  Does it mean the world will be deprived of all suffering and us poor living souls will have no opportunities to serve, to extend ourselves for those in need?  Of course not!

It means that some of us, perhaps only a lucky few, will have the chance to avoid what all of us would if we could: the pain of seeing those we love suffer on our behalf.  As well as a chance to watch in awe as another actively embraces the last step of life with great composure and the dignity of choice.

Growing Pains

I wonder if the butterfly, after stretching her wings and taking to the air that first time only to be caught in the swirling vortex of a passing freight train, ever considers crawling back into her cocoon?

That's sort of the feeling I've had recently.  Not that I want to go all the back to the caterpillar days but maybe just a reprieve somewhere between transitions; somewhere in that anonymous space between who I was and who I am becoming.

When we were in the middle of Christianity, I had a lot of views.  One of those views was frustration because the church seemed to always be against things: anti-abortion, anti-homosexuals, anti-liberalism, anti-feminism, and so on.  Even when it tried hard to spin things toward the positive (pro-life, support marriage, family values) I always found myself thinking, "No one is buying this. Hell, I'm not even buying it."  And so, like many others have noted and proposed from within the church, I wanted my life to be defined by what I was truly "for" and what I truly supported, not backhanded compliments and slick semantics.

Now, I find myself on the opposite side of the coin but still struggling with the same issue.  I don't want to spend my days fighting religion.  I really don't.  And yet, I strongly believe there are tenants of fundamentalism which need to be shut down.  Permanently.  I believe that there are good people living in unnecessary fear and guilt, and children being dangled over the flames of hell for no other reason than that they were born, and people being condemned for their sexuality, and women being confined to antiquated roles, and, and, and...  And these things make me sad and angry and I find the late Christopher Hitchens and the current Richard Dawkins and those in their "aggressive atheists" camp to be of great value and justified in their logic that religion is a poison for humanity.  There are days when "live and let live" feels like a giant cop-out.

But I don't want to be the angry atheist either --in part because I'm an agnostic (I realize that this distinction means little to nothing in our particular geographic/Baptist inundated sphere) and also because religion consumed the first 38 years of my life.  I'd rather not hand over the next however many years I have left, even as its antagonist.  I worried my entire life about those who didn't know the "good news" and who were living miserable lives apart from God and would some day suffer eternal consequences.  I weighed every conversation in light of this belief and every relationship in light of this belief.  It was exhausting.

And I could easily exhaust myself again trying to dig out and expose every landmine that fundamentalist religion has left poised for destruction against humanity or, OR,

OR...

I can follow the lead of those who've tiptoed through before me and I can grab the hand of those behind me and we can weave our way through together taking steps FORWARD.  I may still stop and scream, "Hey dumbass!  You're blowing people's legs off over here!" in the general direction of the religious world now and then.  But I'm ready to stop spinning my wheels on spent arguments and to gain some traction on the things that matter to me now by supporting them, talking about them, linking them, celebrating them.  And if someone wants to throw religion out there as an argument, I may or may not engage with it, but I sure as hell won't let it suck the life out of me.

Life that is so. very. good. without it!

Freight trains be damned -this girl will fly!

Is Them Your Kids?

Is them your kids?

Standing in the checkout line at the grocery store.  Ordering burgers at a fast-food restaurant.  At the park.  At the museum.  The gas station.  My own front yard.  You name the place and I can probably think of a time that I was asked this question.  Of course, it’s not always this exact question.  There are plenty of variations.  Are you babysitting?  Do you run a children’s home?  Are they (shifting eyes and whispering)… adopted?

The whisperers.  Yes, the whisperers.  They entertain me.  While some would say that I should be grateful for their attempts at sensitivity and discretion, I prefer to have fun at their expense.

Thank you so much for mouthing the word ‘adoption’ because despite the fact that you are a total stranger and it only took you a nanosecond to see the difference, our kids are complete morons and have yet to realize that we are not all the same color.  Thanks for helping us keep it our little secret. Wink.  

Okay, I haven’t actually said this to anyone (because I am much nicer on the outside of my mouth than I am on the inside of my brain) but I have thought it.  Oh, how many times I have thought it!

Our culture puts a lot of emphasis on personal space and privacy.  “Never ask a lady her age” and “Don’t ask when a woman is due unless you are positive she’s pregnant” are bits of wisdom that have been around for decades.  Maybe centuries.  And though social networking has certainly challenged the notion of personal space and what does or doesn't qualify as "TMI" there are still some lines that aren't crossed and some boundaries which are respected, especially face to face.

We would never approach an all white, all black, all Asian, etc. family and say, er, whisper:

“It looks to me like your oldest child was born out of wed-lock, the next two are from a failed marriage, and the baby your holding is your current husband’s but the marriage is struggling because nobody likes their new step-father.  Am I right?”

We would not do this because A) it's completely inappropriate and B) aside from the clairvoyant, the prophetic, and the just plain freakish no one could tell all of that at a single glance. 

Ah, but this interracial adoption thing is a whole different story.

The very visible nature of our family’s design means those boundary lines are drawn with invisible ink.  I don't mean to complain.  Rant, vent, grumble?  Maybe a little.  But outright complain?  Nope.  We had a choice.  We made it.  We accept it for what it is but...we still shake our heads in wonder. 

Ultimately, people’s perception will be what it will be and I don’t always have the time (or energy) to correct misconceptions.  There will always be the young black woman who looks at me with scorn because I’m clearly just another white chic with “jungle fever”.  There will always be the proper southern white woman who looks at me with shameful glares because she assumes that I’ve been intimate with (in her archaic vernacular) a “culluhed” man.  There will always be those who think we have ruined these kids because in our whiteness, we can't possibly keep them connected to black culture, as well as those who think we have saved these kids who, without the presence of our whiteness, would surely grow up to be gangsters and drug dealers.

And that's just what we deal with as parents.  Can you imagine what my kids have to put up with?  It can be brutal but we try to instill in our kids a strong sense of self and a strong sense of humor.  It's really the only way to navigate this beautiful mess we call a family.  Maybe even life in general.

One of my all time favorite misconceptions came after our crew joined one of my dear friends for her family's annual reunion.  We’d spent the day getting to know people and enjoying some amazing food.  Everyone welcomed us and made us feel right at home.  It wasn’t until we left that one of the elderly aunts finally unloaded what was on her mind to my friend.

“Why do you think that poor man stays with her if she keeps having all those black babies?”

 Ha!  Yep.  It seems that in the world of interracial adoption a girl can fluctuate between sainthood and whoredom in the blink of an eye.  Poor, poor Tim. =)

Throw in a generous helping of people who ask about our kids with sincere curiosity and who appreciate adoption for what it is (no more and no less) and maybe you can see how this adoption life requires an extra helping of patience.

Are you babysitting?  Nope.  Parenting.

Do you run a daycare?  Yep.  24/7 without pay.

Is this a home for troubled kids?  Well, that depends on the day.

Is them your kids?  Why, yes.  Yes they are!

 

 

I Might Not Be Snow White

...but I am often surrounded by small, bossy people and I do occasionally talk to animals.

Last week, for example. 

It was Saturday morning and I was at the grocery store.  Not where I wanted to be but life, budget, blah.  So, there I was.  Our usual Saturday morning is having a big family breakfast with bacon, eggs, grits, pancakes...the works!  I was snatching up the last few items when Tim texted to let me know everything was ready and they would be starting without me. 

At the moment, it was no big deal.  I let him know I'd be there soon enough but whatev -it's all good.  Weird thing is, somewhere between that text and getting the groceries loaded into the van, it was not all good.  It was very bad.  I can blame it on some crazy hormone shift or too little sleep but regardless of the source, I was suddenly a flood of "big feelings" and a puddle of tears.

As I was driving home, it occurred to me that the children, who were enjoying their timely breakfast, would be disgruntled at having said breakfast interrupted in order to unload the van full of groceries and thusly the supply of their next breakfast, which made me less tearful and more ticked.  And though I admit that visualizing cartons of milk exploding against the backs of their selfish heads and butter grenades being launched with absolute precision made me feel better, I figured it was best to give Tim fair warning.

I pulled over into a nearby church parking lot to text Tim (because I do NOT text and drive -PSA at no charge).  The message read something to the effect of "if anyone complains, it will not go well for them."  Just as I hit send, I had the strangest feeling someone was watching me.  Like, at close range.  I lifted my head slowly and looked over my right shoulder.

Perched on the side view mirror of my van was a blue bird.  His head was cocked to one side and he made direct eye contact (as direct as any bird has ever made with me) and wore a quizzical expression.  I heard him in my head say, "Really?  That bad?"  I chuckled out loud which of course, startled him to a nearby branch.  I sat there for an extra minute, exchanging glances with my new friend and thought, "Nope.  It's really not that bad."

It all reminded me of the scene from "Ever After" in which Leonardo Da Vinci unrolls the painting of the Mona Lisa and Prince Henry says, "She laughs at me, sir, as if she knows something I do not." 

The blue bird was laughing at me as if he knew something I did not. 

I know it's much more likely he was thinking "hey, can I snag some cheese off that pizza in the front seat?" but I'll take a friendly and mildly delusional reminder that things aren't so bad after all over a yard full of grocery carnage. 

And lest you think this encounter was just a fluke and doubt my fairytale princess-like gift of animal interaction, there was another encounter just a few days later.  This one involved two red finches perched on the electrical wire over the sidewalk I was traversing.  I said to them, "Please don't shit on me." and they didn't. 

Gift.  There's no other explanation.  ;-) 

A Hard Pruning

I've been struck the past week at the similarity between my journey in gardening and my journey in life.  There seem to be lots of parallel lessons and that's probably a good thing since it often takes me two, or a hundred, practice rounds to get things into this hard head of mine.

I never considered myself a good gardener.  I could get plants to grow and for a short time they might even look healthy and beautiful but sooner or later, the blooms would give out and the edges would brown and shrivel up.  I watered appropriately.  I planted according to the directions on the labels: full sun, spacing, etc. but even if the plant lived, it just never seemed to reach it's full potential.  So, I chalked it up to having a "brown thumb" and continued adding varieties of things to my garden, enjoying them for the week or so that they were vibrant and ignoring them the rest of the time.

I wanted this year to be different.  A lot has changed for me -personally, spiritually, even physically so, I figured why not make some changes in the old garden, too.

One thing that has not changed is my love for learning new things.  I love learning new things!  I love learning!  It's why I read ridiculous numbers of books and watch ridiculous numbers of documentaries.  I love (and need) those little reminders of things that are important to me and values that I want my life to reflect.  Inputting new information keeps me constantly weighing my actions against my core and my convictions against my methodologies.  Learning is like a layer of fertile soil in my life.

But good soil alone doesn't make a garden grow and so I put my inquisitive brain (and the most important man-made tools in all of history -Google and Youtube ;-)) to work and got busy educating myself.  I quickly found out there was an area of gardening I had long since been neglecting: pruning.

I mean, I was familiar with the act of pruning.  Tim had spent hours upon hours researching the correct pruning techniques for our fruit trees but I had never transferred that information to my plants.  I would "dead-head" flowers here and there but for the most part I steered clear of the pruning shears out of sheer fear (chuckle) of killing my plants.  You know, the ones that were dying a slow and agonizing death anyway.


But pruning, my dears, is key.  And while there are better and worse times of year and such as that, what I've discovered is that you almost cannot screw it up.  Now, the pruning shears are my best friend in the garden.  After the blooms on my rose bushes began to lose their petals, I trimmed the stalks back, sometimes way back.

And do you know what has happened? 

They have bloomed again and again and again.  The more dead stuff I cut back, the more new life explodes from the branches.  Brown and dried out Carnations that could have easily been tossed in the rot pile got a serious trimming and are filling back in with beautiful green leaves.  I'm a pruning, thinning, trimming, plucking, pulling maniac and I am seeing the results.

Not just in my garden.

The past year or so was a time of heavy pruning.  And it was scary.  There were branches of relationships that I didn't think I could live without.  There were spent blooms that had at one time been fragrant and bright but were no longer drawing nourishment.  There were even sections riddled with the "disease" of old thought patterns like self-doubt, fear, anxiety, and judgment.  Lots that needed to go.  Some that will have to be cut back repeatedly because of their propensity to regrow.  Some are tough and hard to break off and leave knotty little wounds in their place. 

Scary stuff.  Because whatever comes next has to come from what's left, from this stripped down version of me, from the roots and fibers that are deep inside. 

And do you know what has happened?

I am blooming!  Again and again and again and again and...



How about you?  Done some hard pruning lately?  Need to do some?  I'd love to hear your life gardening story!  Feel free to share in the comment section.

In a Perfect World

If I had my druthers, this website would have been populated with lots of wonderful posts full of wit and wonder, life and love, dreams and drama, (ok, I'll stop now) before I released a book advertising the blog address right there on the back of it.  Timing.  Blah.  Unfortunately, I was sideswiped by so much life and drama that I was at my wit's end.  Things didn't go as I planned.

I love blogs.  I don't actually "follow" many of them because I'm way too busy hoping people will be following mine (and parenting and what have you ;-)) but I do in fact, love them.  And I want mine to be good.  It doesn't have to be great.  It doesn't have to generate income and have four thousand ads flashing and scrolling in the margins.  I like a clean page.  Minimalistic.  But I want the content to be good and the overall feel to be encouraging, inspiring even, in the midst of the huge doses of reality because inspiration that doesn't work in real life quickly becomes condemnation, guilt, depression.  I don't know about you but I can spiral myself into those nasty places just fine without the help of "perfect world" blogs, thank you very much.  They are my least favorite blogs.

And you have to wonder, too, are those perfect people in their perfect families writing perfect blogs with perfect pictures of perfect life really...perfect?  Of course not.  I know that.  You know that.  We all know it somewhere inside but... don't you find yourself believing they are?  Just a little bit?  Or maybe even a lot?  Like enough that if you unexpectedly met them in the grocery store you would find yourself saying, "Oh my god, I love your blog!" right before PUNCHING THEM DIRECTLY IN THE FACE?  Is that just me?

Even their voices are perfect. 

What's that?  Yeah, I know I'm talking about blogs -communication in written form but when we read, we give people/characters a "voice" in our heads.  And I know when I am buying the whole perfect blog thing because I tend to give those people the most glorious voices.  They are ethereal, soft but not timid, neutral in accent, and full of the wisdom of ages.  Perfect.

When they post a picture of a perfect meal they've prepared, I somehow think that every meal in their home must be this perfect.  If they say some profound thing about parenting, I unwittingly assume that they must do this thing perfectly every. single. time.  It's stupid.  I know it's stupid.  You know it's stupid.  But I (and by that I mean "we") do it anyway.

I saw a facebook meme once that essentially said stop comparing your everyday life to other people's highlights reel.  It's the beauty and curse of social media.  We can create the image we want to present and just omit the things that are less than appealing.  I remember watching my "best moments" video thingy that FB did last year and thinking, "Wow!  I had a fantastic year!  Why does it seem so different in my head?"

I don't want you to make any of those mistake where this blog is concerned.  So, let's get some things straight.  I do not live in a perfect world.  Some days, for one split second the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and all my kids are safely occupied with some joyful activity that requires nothing but my adoring smile of affirmation.  BLINK!  The moment is gone.  Done.  Dead.  Obliterated! 

Some days barely register above tolerable but most are kind of like a bunch of white people at a wedding reception trying to do the electric slide.  One step forward, two steps back, and everyone is moving in opposite directions.  I've heard it called organized chaos.  Close.  A constant attempt to manage insanity?  Yeah, that's more like it.  

Some day I might post a photo of a delicious dinner that I've made from scratch using our homegrown farm fresh ingredients.  Something like this yummy butternut squash soup:

I love cooking and feeding my family good, real food BUT don't you think for a second there aren't nights (at least once a week) that look like this:

And I mean EXACTLY like this.  Shoot, my kids know how to use a can opener and a microwave.

Real life.  Not just the highlights.

Hopefully, the blog will fill up at a steady rate but if there's a lull -assume chaos is ruling the roost and spaghettio's are being served up a-plenty.  Oh, and if you must give me a voice, go for a lusty, southern, chain-smoker in drag.  It'll help keep your expectations in check and I won't have to fear being punched in the face at the grocery store.
 

TaTa's and Turning 40!

This was the year.  The big one.  Forty.

Honestly, it was no big deal.  Certainly not the tragedy of days which I imagined back when I was young and stupid and thought that forty was equivalent to having one foot in the grave.  Forty is not dead.  And it's way less old the closer you get to it. 

It's not that I don't feel old sometimes.  I do.  My body goes to great efforts to remind me that I'm not exactly young anymore.  A lot of days I gird my loins (read: suck in my stomach) and scoff with my fist in the air, determined to be "among the very young at heart" and undeterred in my conquest of life and happiness.  That's usually followed by noticing that I've pulled a muscle in my back with all that fist pumping and then I decide I'll just nap for today.  Tomorrow: the world!

As I said, my fortieth birthday was really no big deal.  Except in the way that it was a HUGE deal.  You see, as logic would have it, at this same time I was turning forty, my tatas were also turning forty.  I should start by telling you that I haven't always been a fan of my tatas.  They showed up to the party way late in my opinion and they simply refused to reach their full potential in what I believed were the most significant years of my tatas lives.  Too little, too late.  My boobs in a nutshell.

But over the years, the girls have taken full advantage of the extra pounds life has added to my person and have in the past five years or so become quite dear to me.  They are not in any way knock out bosoms the likes of such famed cleavage as Dolly Parton or Pamela Anderson.  I'm super okay with that.  They did manage, though, to nicely fill out to what seems more proportionately balanced to my body type.  I appreciate them for this while acknowledging that their slow awakening afforded me the time I needed to know that boobs aren't everything.  And whether you love 'em or hate 'em, wish they were bigger or smaller, I think we can all agree that they hold in their being the capacity to scare the absolute hell out of us.

Two days before the big 4-0 would hit, my 39 and 7/8 year old breasts were put on center stage.  The lump was not very big.  But it was there.

Our family doctor confirmed its presence and put in the necessary referrals for a mammogram.  She'd been giving me a head's up for several years that I would need to start considering a mammogram when I hit forty.  I laughed through my tears and said, "Well, you can't say I'm not a compliant patient."  Humor is my safety net.

If I can laugh, I can breathe.

Painful?  Yes it was.  Terrifying?  Yes it was.  The doctor in the radiology office read the mammogram and requested a follow up ultrasound.  I didn't know if this was good or bad but scary?  Yes it was.  A physical exam by the doctor and the longest hour of my life later, I was relieved to find out that it was just a cyst.  It has since disappeared and I'm good to go until next year's check up.

For those of you who have been down this path with less than good news -nothing but love and support for you and your tatas!  I don't pretend to have walked in your shoes but my perspective was certainly broadened.

Oh, and FYI, if you happen to see me out in public, let's keep the forty thing on the DL.  Boobies are one thing but I really don't want my vagina to know how old she is.  ;-)