Our Pets

I've got no great pictures of our pets, but here is Jon with Bella out cat and Toby our dog.

An Utilitarian Take on Owning A Pet

We are the only large family that I know to own pets. Most of the Catholic Mamas in my social circle have a loud "no pet" policy. It's sort of like "I'll take any new baby God sends my way, but the Creator of the Universe better NOT ask me to house a dog!"

I found that confusing.

I love my dog.

I love my cat.

Jon and I started out our marriage with dogs. Jon was a "dog" guy when we meet. In fact, the very first sentence he said to me was "My name is Jon and I have two dogs." He owned these large, gorgeous white fluffy Samoyeds. Can you imagine a handsome, tall guy walking two of these beauties down the street?

Jon was a "dog guy." He took his pet responsibilities seriously. Practically every day, he took his dogs to a dog park to run and play. He walked his dogs. He brushed their coats. Our first date happened while walking his dogs on snowy cross country trails deep in a Wisconsin State Park.  Having pets were a part and parcel of our relationships from the beginning.

Over thirteen years, Jon's dogs both lived to the rip old age of 11 and 13. I adopted two mutts from different pounds and different states, Madison and Mackinaw, but they both died within a year due to health problems. Heartbreaking.

Our latest dog, Toby, showed up within days of moving into a new house. For three years, ever since reading "Dick and Jane" books, my son prayed his heart out for a cockerspaniel. We were living in an small City Apartment, so Jon and I kept saying "No new dogs until we move into a real house. Just ask God to send us one then." When we moved into our first house, we decided prudently "Lets wait at least six months before getting a new pet."

72 hours after a hard move into a new house, I found an ad for a free English Cockerspaniel who needed a new home. I knew he was meant to be ours. Toby came into our lives on the 4th of July 2011. He's a giant teddy bear of a dog. It would be impossible to find a more calm dog or one better suited for a home with lots of young toddlers. Sometimes, God knows our "timing" better than us.

In December 2011, we adopted a one year old orange tabby cat named Bella. This is my daughter Hannah's cat. My town has an adoption center located inside of our local Pet Smart. We initially went in to adopt another cat. She was super shy and wouldn't come out of her cage. In that moment, I realized how outgoing a cat needs to be to thrive in our household. I told Hannah to start praying to St. Francis to find us the right cat. The next cat we looked at was Bella--beautiful and calm.

 I'm not a cat person, but our Bella is a gem of a cat. She's social and tough.  She's such a funny cat. When I go to walk the dog at night, Bella will slip out the door and walk around the block with us. She's very stealth--she hides behind bushes and jumps into shadows. I can't see her. I only here this little ring of her cat bell as she trails us all around the block and then back into the house again.

The kids are reading "Warrior Cats" with their Daddy at night. Bella will curl up on Jon's lap as he's reading (only that series, not other sci-fi books.) We joke that she gets inspired by the adventures in these books.

In our house, people rank high above pets. Our pets aren't equal to "our kids." I don't call them "my babies" because I've been blessed with real babies to hold.

However, pets are very useful to my family. We're a poor family--both in money and in time. But our pets are really a good return on our investment of time and resources. Here's my practical arguments for owning a dog or a cat.

• We walk my dog three times a day and it makes my neighborhood a better place. We bought a house that was cheap, which means that I don't live the in the safest area. Yet three times a day, early morning, afternoon, and night, either my husband or myself walk around our block. That means, I know my neighborhood. I've nicknamed walking the dog as "doing the neighborhood patrol."
• My dog keeps me and my children safe while my husband commutes to work. My husband leaves before dawn to go to work and comes home after dark. He leaves me a safe alarm system. My dog is gentle with my children, pleasant when guests come over, but he'll bark if someone he doesn't know walks into our front yard. I feel safe and protected as a woman who spends a lot time alone in her house with lots of small children.
• My dog forces me to exercise. He forces me to keep a schedule. He's an interesting conversation piece when meeting new people.
• My dog is a sign of unity, with people who have no kids. Often times my family seems a little weird to secular people. "You've got 5 children? You homeschool? You like going to church?" So it's cool when "our dogs" is a comfortable conversation place with people who have very different lives from mine.
• If my dog's utility is for protection from humans, my cat protects us from "critters." My cat kills bugs--like those annoying crickets that tortured us for an entire summer--and mice. 

There are costs to owning a pet. We buy Iams pet food for our pets. My husband taught me early that if you pay more for the good stuff, you have a lot less poop to clean up afterwards. There's cat litter, flea medicine, yearly vet bills. There's also a time commitment for the Mom. No matter how much your kids promises to takes care of her cat, it's going to be you who either a) argues with the daughter that now is the moment the cat litter box needs to be cleaned, or b) do it yourself. At the end of the day, what's the big deal?

Pets are beautiful. They give us unconditional love and add a funny splash to our days. They help our kids, who often don't have the latest video games or the $500 Barbie Jeeps, feel a kinship with their peers. My daughter's cat has inspired her creative writing, given her a 4-H project, and is one of the first things she mentions when meeting new friends. "I'm Hannah. I'm 10 and I have a cat named Bella." My Hannah is so much like her dad!

Lennon & Maisy - Ho Hey (The Lumineers) NASHVILLE

I'm in love with this song thanks to this cute clip from the TV show "Nashville." Sounds so much like the young song writers in my own house.

In Memory of Roger Ebert

Film Critic Robert Ebert died yesterday. He was "the guy" that got me into film criticism when I was 10. Robert was really honest and open. One of my favorite lines was when he said "I hated, hated, hated this movie!" In his memory, here the movie I hated the most! Jon and I saw this film a few hours after getting engaged. It was so awful. Fourteen years later, it is still talked about in our home. "That movie was bad. That movie was worse than "Autumn in New York!" Prayers for your soul Mr. E. Thanks for helping us all be more authentic!

Stop Reading!

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone at Carmel told me about this fabulous new spiritual book they were reading and how much it was going to change their life.  Excessive spiritual reading is a problem. It steals time. It steals silence. It's counter-productive.

Here is why:

• Throughout time, there have been millions of amazing Christians who couldn't read. Believing that God can only communicate to you through books, is incredibly arrogant.
• The Saints are real. If there is a Saint who has adopted you, then they will get their book into your hands. You will receive it as a gift. You'll find it for $1 at Walmart while you shop for wrapping paper and scotch tape. You'll find the perfect Saint's quote on Facebook when you check Reese's Rainbow. You'll hear a great quote in a homily while at church. The Saints take an active role in getting the right words into your head when you are ready to receive it. Remember, the right Saint at the right time, finds you. You don't need to waste time trying to find them.
• Saints are people too. One deep and meaningful friendship with one Saint will change your life more than a slight acquaintanceship with hundreds of Saints. 
• Reading is easier than writing. Reading is easier than praying. Yet our world needs more prayer, and more writers who actually sit quietly with Jesus each day. 
• The best spiritual book is the Bible. The word of God is alive, it strikes at the heart.
• The saints are helpful in highlighting certain aspects of Jesus--but remember they are always pointing us back to Christ. Christ is the main friendship of our hearts. We meet him in the Gospel.

I'm very firm about this because I'm a recovering "over-reader." The only thing that stopped me, was my poverty. My family became too poor to buy books. My relationships with reading and writing is so much more healthy and less "attached", or "disordered" now that I don't over read. My prayer life is better too.

On Making Things Needlessly Complicated

While I'm talking about the writing life, I'll press the issue forward into a deeper lunge.

I got a lot of bad advice about writing as a kid. Now, I wasn't well supported or well nourished or well prayed over as a kid, so I entered school weaker than most.

What I didn't understand as a kid, is that writers that I most respected, just went out and did it. They took a low-paying job to pay the bills--usually in something physical like laundry or house painting, and then they wrote at night. Often times they had a spouse and sometimes a kid. Guess what happened? They still wrote.

What happened to me in public school and later college, I didn't get taught writing by people who were actually writers. I got taught by elementary school teachers, English teachers, and later English professors.

Those people had an unseen "dog in the fight." Those people had a vested interest in telling me: "Writing is hard. Writing is complicated. Writing takes lots of time and lots of training."

The problem most of these people had is that "they weren't writing." They were blocked creatives. They were the type who chose a "stable career" in teaching writing, as a back up to actually going out and writing fascinating fiction of their own.

So the unseen message that they taught me (and were really just telling themselves) is that unless you can write as good as Virginia Woolf or Victor Hugo, don't bother writing at all.

But the world already has Victor Hugo.

It doesn't yet have an Abigail Benjamin.

Prayer is uncomplicated. It's not easy to have persistence in prayer. but it's not complicated. (Thank you St. Teresa of Avila for teaching me this). People have all kinds of vested interest in teaching you "Oh, prayer is hard. Leave contemplation to the experts. It's the job of the priests and the Religious to pray, not ours." That outlook is totally wrong. Every single one of us on this earth is going to have an easier time in life if we start listening more to God in prayer.

Exercise is uncomplicated. It's boring. It's hard. It's hard to practice persistence in a new fitness plan, but it's not complicated. Put on your tennis shoes and move your body--in any way,in any form, for slightly longer than yesterday.

Writing isn't complicated. Write a little more this week than last week. Write with a little more courage and a little less self-awareness each time. Once you get going in your writing, form a super trust-worthy group of writing friends. This is your "community." Writing, prayer, and exercise is something that you do manly by yourself, for yourself--but community is necessary to push you harder than you think you can go.

I thank God so much for the safe community of my marriage. My husband, Jon, encouraged me to grow as a risk taker and as an authentic human being. I started to write on this blog the same way I talked to him. Now, I have this real community of writer friends--almost all women--that is beautiful. The positive experiences I'm having online with female friends who live far away from me, has made me so much stronger and less co-dependent with "local" female friends. I'm saying no to more things I don't want to do, and saying yes to things that charge my soul. Things are all shifting around and its really neat.

 Love is uncomplicated.

Dear Virginia Woolf, You Suck!

Dear Virginia Woolf,

You suck! Your prose is luminous. Your story archs are vivid. Your character descriptions are delightful.

You suck because you wrote an essay called "A Room of One's Own" that theorized that there were so few female voices in English Literature because women are basically overburdened with housework, childcare, and social expectation, so they lack a "room of one's own in which to write."

As a naive college student, I took your words too closely to heart. I thought that there was a harsh division between being a gifted "writer" and being a happy "mother". I couldn't tell you that motherhood was firmly in my heart at age 19, but I could say with firmness "Well, who wants to live shut up in a private study all day with messy ink stains on her index finger? I think I'll go to Law School instead. I want to be engaged with the world outside my own head."

It was like you (and the feminist teachers that taught you to young readers like me) were saying "If you want to write seriously, you've got to organize your life in a way that lets you write." You have to "sacrifice for your art." You have to organize your life around your writing--so nothing messy like marriage, or kids, or life in a small house that lacks a study, a library, and space for a writer's retreat out back.

As a female writer who lives in an 800 square foot home with five small children, I want to say the requiring a "private room in which to write" as a prerequisite for starting a writing life is hogwash.

The hardest part about writing is taking up the fear of humiliation. Once something is written, it's substantial. It's firm. It has your name attached to it. Writing can be met with controversy or cheers. Writing means that you risk being "unliked" on Facebook or trolled in your blog comments, or rejected by an editor.

The biggest handicap we female writers face is that most girls "like to be liked."

So, I'm officially resigning from the popularity club. I'm officially resigning from the "my college English professors think my life needs to look like X in order to write the good stuff. I want to write. I want to live. I want to start finding my own "voice" in speech, in prayer, in mothering, in writing,and  in life. To reach my goals, I will no longer pretend life will get easier once I'm rich enough to afford a larger house with a private study.

Your friend,

Abigail B.

Why Do I Have a Blog?

Fasting is delicious! Silence is delicious! Fasting from something that you like to do, something that brings you joy, in order to better concentrate on prayer, work, and transforming a Grinch style heart into a "servant's heart" is beautiful.

I've still got a selfish heart post-Lent.

Yet it is slightly better today.

I'm asking myself today, "Why am I blogging?" The answer is different from what I would have said 40 days ago. I don't know what it is exactly--I can't articulate it easily--but it feels delicious to be asking these questions as "self-reference" questions rather than as "what should I be doing on my blog?" or "what do you think I should be doing?"

I think my walk with God is deeply personal. There are things that are so deep in my prayer life, that I have trouble finding words to talk about them with my husband--the one man who knows me best on this earth.

But there are other things that are "public"--things that you can talk about fairly easily with others. There are new ideas that I mine like gold in my daily interactions with God and the blog is a place to meet with other "rock collectors" and share our discoveries.

The beauty of the Christian life, is that while our relationship with Jesus is intimate and unique--there are these common themes. Everyone has similar struggles. The process of detachment from the world and cleansing from sin. The need for courage and hope. The exhaustion of a life spent serving those we love. The unexpected joy that takes root in your soul, just when you least expect it.

It doesn't matter if you are a priest, or a Sister, or a monk or a lay person.

It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman, an American, or an African.

There is a "community" among people who struggle to get to know who this guy Jesus really is. Not the guy they "think he is" or "think he should be."

St Paul says "Encourage each other daily, while it is still today!" (Hebrews)

I hope that my blog becomes more of a source of encouragement to others. I pray even more seriously that my whole life is a prayer of cheerfulness and encouragement. I'm learning that being "cheerful" in the spiritual life doesn't mean that I'm not often sad, or discouraged, or tired, or "dry in prayer"--true cheerfulness a supernatural thing. Joy is a gift.

The best gifts, like the surprised gifts of a Cadbury chocolate bars, taste sweeter when you share them with others that you love. So thank you, dear readers, for being a part of my "online community" and helping in my spiritual growth. Happy Easter! May we all grow in hope, faith, and love during this beautiful Easter Season.

Anniversary

On March 30, 1975, I was baptized at Fairlington United Methodist Church on Easter Day. (Thanks grandma!)

On March 29, 2002, I had my First Confession.

On March 30, 2002, I received my First Communion and the sacrament of Confirmation at Easter Vigil.

Thank you God, for adopting me as your daughter.

What Marriages Means to Me-- A Catholic

There's a Marriage March in Washington DC on March 26, the same day the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about an important marriage case. I found myself afraid to put that "like" on Facebook. It was uncomfortable to come out as "pro-life" when I switched my mindset after becoming a Catholic. Now there is another mental hurdle I face in becoming vocally "pro-marriage" because in our culture that often means you are seen as "anti-gay."

For full disclosure, I was in a long-term gay relationship while attending Law School in 1997. When I was a Law Student, I studied the Supreme Court case law and I wanted our marriage laws to change. At the time, I thought it was this cause was the civil rights issue of my generation.

Now I find myself on the total opposite side of the issue. I'm a Catholic. I am married. I am thankful for my marriage every day. I am humbled by my new Faith. It is right. It is true. I'm writing this rambling blog post because I'm trying to solidify where I am on this deep issue of my heart.

To be Catholic and to be married, means that there is a "formula" there is a test for what "marriage" means. It's a sacrament. It's a holy spot of union between two unique and flawed people. There are rules for how marriage goes--and when you follow them and you humbly ask for God's blessing, marriage is a delight. It becomes an ever blooming garden.

Here are the pre-conditions for a holy marriage in the Roman Catholic Church

--one man and one woman
--faithful for life
--open to life
--and if you are baptized in Christ, you need to get married in a Christian Church
--and you need to be "free to marry" (i.e. no previous marriages, or a valid Catholic annulment)

Right now there are a lot of heterosexual unions that people called "marriages" that don't count as sacramental marriages within the Roman Catholic Church. If you're in a "open relationship" where it's okay to have affairs as long as you tell your spouse, that's not marriage. If you get married and intend never to have kids together, that's not marriage. If you are two Catholics and you elope in Las Vegas. That's not marriage.

Divorce is bad in the Catholic church. We live in a culture of 'no-fault' divorce. While we're discussing my sinful past, I'll also say that for four years I worked as a Divorce Attorney. While waiting for a pre-Divorce hearing on a bench inside a courthouse, I once watched an angry wife jump on the back of her husband and rip out his his hair. She was someone else's client, but her behavior still rattled me. I sat there in my prim Anne Taylor suit and turned my fresh engagement ring around and around my finger. I said quietly "I hope that is never Jon and me."

When you live in a world where divorce is "okay", where divorce hits the 50% mark, and there are no social "rules" for marriages (either starting or ending) it becomes a frightening prospect to get engaged. People tell you bland things like "Oh we just grew apart! We need different things! He doesn't make me happy anymore!" Marriage feels like a risky decision full of potential future heartbreak.

I was not Catholic when I married a Catholic man and when I first got a detailed look inside the Roman Catholic church. I was blown away by the Roman Catholic stance on marriage. I was humbled. I was reassured and encouraged. Ultimately, it was probably my experiences in pre-cana that caused me to convert to Catholicism a short nine months after my marriage.

I got married at age 26 by my Protestant pastor who knew me since I was sixteen years old. He cared for me. He knew my family. He was very warm and supportive of me and my marriage. We met three times for "counseling" before the wedding. We talked about "marriage" for maybe 30 minutes. The rest of every session was about who stands where during the marriage ceremony.

My husband walked into a new Catholic Church in the city where he started attending Graduate School and he was treated like a prince. He hadn't been regularly to Mass in years. He did not know the Deacon or the priest. Yet, my husband was taken under the wing and given great spiritual advice about marriage. We met together and did the "scrutiny" questions with the Deacon. We went to a pre-cana retreat. We filed specific paperwork with the Bishop to get permission to wed in at a Methodist Church. Through out all the details, the Deacon kept reassuring me "I'm sorry this is so formal Abby, but Jon only gets one shot at this! We want to do everything possible to make sure your marriage works!"

I thought "Damn Straight!"

As a human being growing up in America, I watched marriages fall apart all the time. I was reassured that if Jon had an big affair with his secretary (like my uncle did to my favorite aunt), that there was one place where he faced a consequence for squelching on his marriage vow to me. His Church! The priest was not going to allow my husband to have Communion if he ran off with another woman after our marriage.  The Deacons words were reassuring. I stopped minding the strict rules that we're so foreign to my Protestant mind. It started to feel like other people really cared about my marriage and wanted it to succeed.

I guess what I would tell myself as a Law Student in 1997--when I don't know which would seem crazier that I was now a serious Catholic in 2013 or the Mother of 5 biological children--is that Heterosexual couples have really screwed up the Institution of Marriage.

Heterosexual couples divorce freely. We use contraception and have abortions. We suffer from domestic violence abuse and drug addictions. We've also got the clean addictions like "workaholism" that are just as destructive to family life, even though they are socially sanctioned.

So the sins against marriage are easy to see and are all over the place.

But hidden inside all of this mess of sin (which is created by people) is a master plan of grace designed by God.

Everyone of us has seen a marriage work for more than 50 years and become more beautiful with time. Maybe it was your grandparents. Maybe it was just a passing glance at an old lady and an old man holding hands in a park. A marriage that lasts happily until "death do us part" is a beautiful, reassuring thing.

When a man and a woman can get together-- and be naked. Not just naked in their bodies, but naked in emotional and spiritual intimacy--it is beyond beautiful. It is a holy sacrament of God. It is healing.

So that's where I am now in 2013. I'm with Him. Christ says marriage means "this" set of criteria. In my daily experiences I see all of types of spiritual and physical things coming together to make a beautiful life, one I never expected to have.

I thank God for my marriage.

I hope that in the next couple of weeks we are still in a culture that its okay to talk publicly about the beauty and dignity of a special heterosexual union called "the holy vocation of marriage."

Happy Palm Sunday!

"Let us run to accompany him as he hastens toward Jerusalem, and imitate those who met him then, not by covering his path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to prostrate ourselves before him by being humble and by trying to live as he would wish. Then we shall be able to receive the Word at his coming, and God, whom no limits can contain, will be within us."

-St Andrew of Crete

(in today's office of reading)

Notes for Myself

 "True joy, genuine festival, means the casting out of wickedness. To achieve this one must live a life of perfect goodness and, in the serenity of the fear of God, practice contemplation in one’s heart."

--Easter Letter From Saint Athanasius, bishop

Hmmm.... I want to experience more true joy. I haven't heard the link to receiving more joy by "casting out wickedness." That seems hard and "not fun" for me. But I trust this as a better path to joy than running around feeding my appetites. It makes sense on a gut level. Welcome to the last two weeks of Lent. Goodbye wickedness, selfishness, and pride. Time to clean my soul's home more before Easter.

Blogging Break For Lent

I'm taking a break from blogging for the rest of Lent. Comments are turned off. Thanks for your patience. Happy Lent!

St. John of the Cross, Lent, and Motherhood

"As for the first, it is plain that the appetites are wearisome and tiring. They resemble little children, restless and hard to please, always whining to their mother for this thing or that, and never satisfied."

(Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book One, Chapter 6).

My goal for Lent 2013---Ignore the whining of my appetites!

Monks setting up abbey in Charles Town

Monks setting up abbey in Charles Town

Man, I did not realize how counter-cultural my life really was until I was sitting next to three monks with tonsure haircuts in a crowded theater and we're the only ones laughing at all the poverty jokes inside a children's production of A Fiddler on the Roof. So funny! Tomorrow I'm attending my first Latin Mass with these guys in Charles Town, WV. Rebecca's great piece inspired me!

Proof Poverty Rocks (Hot Chelle Rae--Hung Up Video)

Proof my mainstream music taste is so cliche, but I just LOVE this song. It sings of the virtue of poverty to me. This song is about chastity and how awesome it is for a "player guy" to finally settle down on pursuing one girl. Everything beautiful in my life is tied to my vocation of marriage. How I shot loudly to the world this ONE GUY, Mr. Jon Benjamin, is so worth it. Worth me having five of his babies!

Poverty is my love song to Jesus. It's saying "I'm hung up on Him!" The glorious one. He is worth more than anything else in the world. There is not a trip that I could take. There is not a concert that I could attend. There's not a job that I could go to, a book that I could write, a spa that I could attend, a dinner that I could eat..... Nothing that costs money is more important that hanging out with Him. He's it for me!

Prayer Update--Little Emma

Breaking into my Lentan Fast, to say Thanks so much for your prayers for Little Emma.

On Christmas Eve on of my daughter's four year old friends from Sunday School was involved in a horrific car accident and sustained massive head trauma. At last update a few weeks ago, we were overjoyed Emma was starting to lick a lollipop.

I got to chat with her Dad tonight at a Boy Scout event. Emma is now doing amazing! She's talking up a storm. She got her g tube out. She got into the pool last week. Emma is a fish and met my daughter on Swim Team last year. When we were praying for her to make it back to Swim Team in May back over New Years Eve that seemed like a miracle long shot. At that point, Emma was a few hours away from facing a near death complication on Christmas Day. Now she's in a the pool for rehab!

She's got six to ten weeks before she can come home. I can't imagine how tired her Mom is right now. Emma's rehab hospital is 3 1/2 hours from home. So she's living full time with her in Morgantown while her other children go to school and her husband works during the week. She's only able to see her entire family on the weekend. So thank you so much for your continued prayers!

Michael Franti & Spearhead - Say Hey (I Love You)

Mimi and I made $530 worth of sale of Girl Scout cookies in 3 hours this weekend while jamming to this song on Saturday. It's that good. Have a beautiful Lent and let your love show!

The Problem With Comparing Our Crosses and Saying "You Don't Deserve to Feel Bad Because I Have It So Much Worse Than You"

(A True life example from my walk with Jesus.)

On September 6, 2010, I'm in the Mothers Nursing Room at Children's National Hospital NICU unit. The March of Dimes shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars for that room. (Breastmilk is nicknamed "liquid gold" among NICU doctors but not surprisingly, the shell shocked mothers of NICU patients find it hard to produce milk.) Remember that posh spa like atmosphere Tharen?There were expensive leather seats. A gigantic flat screen TV. There are little curtains for privacy. There are all kinds of free stuff connected to extra expensive high end breast pumps. 

I was at the sink, washing out my little tubing. It had been a rough 72 hours. My perfect, perfect newborn daughter, the girl who passed all of her doctor exams with flying colors ended up almost dying from a hidden birth defect in the middle of ER. We suddenly went from "oh, a little bit of jaundice don't worry about it". To "you're child didn't flinch during a spinal tap, I've never seen a baby so sick in all my years as a NICU nurse."

So, instead of going home after 3 days of not sleeping during the bright lights of a jaundice treatment--I ended up with my daughter in the middle of Children's National Hospital awaiting her to stabilize enough to have emergency surgery on her intestine. 

At one of the early pauses that I had during my hospital stay--I said "I'm going to go pump in that special Mother's Room." My previous attempts to elicit breastmilk in a NICU room from my stresssed body while staring at my non-moving green baby while the male doctors flitted in and out had been unsuccessful. (Remember that joy, Tharen? You work so hard for over an hour and you have exactly 4 drops of breastmilk in the bottle. Never-the-less you carefully label the bottle and proudly give to the nurse to freeze for your non-eating baby's future use?)

So today, I was going to do "self-care." I was willing to leave the comfort of my husband's side, and enter the "Mother's Room" down the hall. My little daughter was not eating anything--formula or breastmilk. She would most likely not be eating for days, even if her surgery worked. But I was going to keep pumping for her anyway. Pumping at that moment was an act of Hope.

I finished pumping. I think I got like 8 drops of milk that time. I carefully started washing out all my little private tubing parts at the sink. Another Mother came up next to me and we started a conversation. It turned out that her daughter already had the same surgery that my Tess needed. 

This was the first parent I talked to about my daughter's medical condition. Every other conversation had all been with doctors. They were very comforting and professional. But this was the first person who I felt got what it meant to be a parent who had to confront these issues. I felt myself starting to relax. I hadn't even realized how alone I felt, until I started to talk to someone else in the same situation.

So it was a great conversation.

So it was even more crazy how it ended.

Do you remember that scene in the Matrix when agents suddenly "pop" into people? That happened to me.

The fellow NICU Mom made some mention about how being the mother of a premie is so hard. I said "oh my daughter is full term." She suddenly started screaming at me. It was the most abusive, violent thing. I remember watching the plastic pump cup she was waving in her fist because I thought it was going to fly off into my face.

She just started screaming that I had not right to her pity. I had no right to be sad. I had no right to be there. This hospital was for sick babies. Full term babies are not "sick" so how dare I insult her by being worried about my daughter's surgery.

It was surreal.

I was in the middle of her firestorm and I thought "Lady, we are in a locked NICU unit on the 7th floor of Children's National Hospital. This is a feeder hospital. There are only 40 beds in this unit. Just by standing here, in this room, I have one of the 40 sickest newborns in the greater Washington D. C. Metro Area. I'm not arguing that your daughter medical prognosis might be worse than mine, but let me have the emotional space to process my own feelings about my own cross." 

So I don't know.

When someone says "a conversation about your own suffering insults me because I have it so much worse than you"-- I don't think "insult' is the right word. Insult implies 'intent" and "abusive language." 

This idea of "no one has a right to be sad unless they suffer X, Y, and Z" is dangerous because it's isolating. I see that happening with my daughter's friend, Emma. Her parents have the worse nightmare. A totally healthy, happy four year old got into a car accident on Christmas Eve. Now her brain damage is so severe that we're jumping for joy on her Facebook page when she starts to lick a lollipop. 

So instead of "rationing" care and compassion for when it quote is "truly needed". People, good people, get freaked out and say "I can't relate". Because who can relate? What other parent has that dramatic a cross to carry themselves? So when the bad situation really comes, good Christians can sort of go into paralysis. "What can I possible say, they have it so much worse than me?"

The opposite approach is what I call "the generosity of spirit." When you suffer from your child's sickness, your compassion for other's lighter crosses can actually increase (through the gift of the Holy Spirit) I've received that gift so often from others. Tharen is a good example. My friend, Carla is another.

In the NICU, a few days later after the verbal assault in the Mother's Pumping Room--I received a beautiful gift of charity.

There was also a Muslim Mother who's first language was not English. Her son had a really dramatic problem. One night I was worn out after Tess had a bad day and I fell asleep in the parent lounge instead of her NICU room. I woke up and the woman was tucking her shawl around me. I started to talk to her out of guilt. "Oh I'm fine, you have it so much worse than me and look at you, you're holding up just fine." She just firmly tucked me back into my chair with her pretty shawl. She couldn't really explain to me her thoughts in English, so she just showed me feelings with her hands.

She told me with her eyes and her firm hands and her gentle blanket "it's okay to fall apart. It's okay to be sad and scared. This NICU journey is hard on all of us. We don't have to feel guilt for crying about our children among each other."

Her only English words to me in that tender moment were "No!' And "Sleep!"

And I followed her command. I went back to sleep. When I woke up, I felt better. I folded her pretty shawl up neatly in my hands and I felt loved.