Grief...and Grace

Easter. Mother’s Day. Birthdays. Father’s Day. Spring. Summer. Fall. Holiday season. Anniversaries. School. Home. Public places. Too much noise. Too much quiet.

We talk about traumaversaries. We talk about triggers. We talk about grief.

What happens when all of life becomes a trigger and every month includes a traumaversary and every day is filled with grief? We have two children who have not been able to live here at home for awhile now, with much uncertainty surrounding when they may be able to return home. Those of us here grieve their absence. Those who are gone grieve ours. We all grieve the loss of others who are not present. My health is also gone for the time, leaving me bedridden for months, and I grieve as I see an entire season of life passing me by – yet again. And my family grieves the wife and mother who is often barely here.

This. This is where we live. Where we have been living for some time now, without reprieve. The entirety of my life right now consists of being sick in bed and managing grief – my kids’ and my own. There is some ebbing and flowing over the course of days, but each day contains the traces. I am beginning to understand certain common trauma behaviors; I am understanding more because I am experiencing more of it myself. Call it stress, call it grief, call it trauma. Call it a rock or a tree or a stick. Whatever it is called, it is like living life with a filter on the brain that muddles everything.

I am currently reading through a book, “It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok: Meeting grief and loss in a culture that doesn’t understand”. While I will add a caveat that this is book is written from a secular perspective, so it misses large pieces of the puzzle and I cannot wholeheartedly recommend everything in it, the author does a good job of putting into words what it is like to be living in a state of grief:

“Let’s say you have 100 units of brain power for each day. Right now, the enormity of grief, trauma, sadness, missing, loneliness, takes up 99 of those energy units. That remaining one unit is what you have for the mundane and ordinary skills of life. That one remaining circuit is responsible for organizing carpools and funeral details. It’s got to keep you breathing, keep your heart beating, and access your cognitive, social and relational skills. Remembering that cooking utensils belong in the drawer, not the freezer, that the keys are under the bathroom sink where you left them when you ran out of toilet paper – these things are just not high on the brain’s priority list. Of course you’re exhausted.”

“The world itself can become a bizarre and confounded place.”

When you have an entire family living in this state for an extended period of time, it gets quite wearisome.

What is grief? What is this thing which feels like it has invaded our home and lay claim to every surface?  Grief is not a being who has walked into our life and settled within our home. It is merely the name of what is. The layers of pain enfolded around each heart within this family. The name we can call the emotions swirling – around and over and under and within. The voices we do not hear. The hugs we do not feel. The safety we do not know. Grief is the empty seats around our table and the empty beds upstairs. Grief is the faded pictures of people who are no longer near, in albums worn with use. It is the van that feels too big. The clothes still hanging unused in the closet…and the clothes no longer there. The ache of longing when things are okay for just a little while and so much of you wants to believe it can really be that way, even while you know it is not. Not now anyway. It is the awareness that something is always missing; or the crushing realization if for a moment it was forgotten. It is the things we cannot do; the memories we cannot make. 

Grief is the screaming, the endless tears, the broken doors, the holes in the wall. It is the scars on bodies and scars on hearts. It is the sense that you can never be enough. 

Grief is rage and grief is weary and grief is lonely.

Grief is all these things. And none of them.

What is grief?

Grief is love. Grief is sorrow. Grief is fear.

Love in a broken world. Sorrow over what cannot be. Fear of both.

Yet there remains grace.

While my heart beats to the steady rhythm of brokenness, my lungs yet breathe in grace with each and every breath. Within this brokenness, the threads of His grace continue on. 

And therefore I have hope. 

“Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are

not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness..

I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.’”

Lamentations 3:21-24

Two Years

Two years ago I posted this song amidst emotional turmoil and anxiety. The day we met three of our children. A year ago I included it in a blog post, acknowledging the anniversary at the end of a long day of a many hours long escalation. Tonight I do not have the energy to even sort through the emotions of this two year anniversary, and still this song applies. Maybe even more today than it did before. We are not where I imagined we could be. We are not where I hoped we should be. We are not where we prayed we would be. Yet...here we are. There have been mountains moved, though not the ones I would have chosen. The waters have not parted, yet we have not drowned. We still wait on the answers, though they are continuously revealed. So here in that place of waiting, that trust which first pushed us out to walk into the impossible those two long years ago...here is where that trust still stands. I have a guess at what tomorrow holds and it makes me anxious. He already knows our tomorrow and that gives me peace. So we trust for another day.

“When you don’t move the mountains

I needed you to move

When you don’t part the water

I wish I could walk through

When you don’t give the answers

As I cry out to you

I will trust, I will trust

I will trust in you.

Truth is you know what tomorrow brings

There’s not a day ahead you have not seen

So in all things be my life and breath

I want what you want, Lord,

And nothing less

…I will trust, I will trust,

I will trust in you.”

https://youtu.be/n_aVFVveJNs

Sharing a Shoe (Life With RAD)

Imagine you are running a race. Let's say a marathon. Only it had rained the night before and the trail is now a muddy mess. You are running along still managing a steady pace when you see someone has fallen in the mud. As you slow to check if she is okay, you see her shoes were lost in the process (don't think about how realistic this is, just go with it okay?). She accepts your hand to help her up, but glares at you when she realizes your hand had some mud on it which added to her own. She is visibly upset and starts going on about how important this race was to her. It had always been a dream of hers to run a marathon and finishing this race is what she wants more than anything else in the world. Since you are already miles into the race yet still far from the finish line, you decide to offer her one of your shoes. You figure you can both make it a little better with one shoe each. Again, she accepts, but seems angry that you are only offering one shoe. "How much good is one shoe going to do me anyway?"

The two of you get back moving, a bit slower with one foot bare, noticing for the first time how many rocks are lying hidden in the mud along the trail. Apparently this stranger also managed to lose her water bottle. You see her eyeing yours as you reach for a drink, so you offer to share. She takes it, and with another several miles left to the race, she finishes off the water and hands you back an empty bottle, asking if you have anymore. That was all the water you were carrying and she rolls her eyes and huffs when you say as much.

Over the last few miles, the other girl moves further ahead and you lose sight of her for a little while. It is almost like the running with one shoe doesn't even phase her; if you didn't know better you'd think maybe she always runs barefoot. As you near the finish line, foot sore and bleeding from the rocks, you catch sight of her again. Your heart leaps as you realize she is SO close to meeting the goal she so desperately wanted to reach! The shoe and the water and coming in last place is all worth it in that moment. Then, suddenly, about 10 feet from the finish line she sprawls onto the ground. Only, she didn't trip on anything. She tripped herself. At that moment, she sees you coming up from behind and starts screaming that you tripped her! Everyone surrounding the finish line begins to look over, trying to figure out what the commotion is about. It now looks like you were so desperate to not be in total last place that you knocked another runner to the ground. Surely no one really thinks that, do they? You look around, aghast, and just when you think things could not get any more ridiculous, she starts shouting some more. This time she is shouting about how you have repeatedly knocked her down and even stole her shoe!

You try to shrug off the accusations, hoping she will calm down so the race can just be done already. After all, there is only another 10 feet between her and her greatest dream. She begins to cry. Sobbing that she can't finish and it is all your fault. No amount of coaxing gets her to move toward the finish line and she throws the shoe back at you wishing she had never met you because you have ruined everything for her. Eventually, as everyone else begins to scatter since the race is pretty much over, she finally pulls herself up and starts walking. In the wrong direction! She is walking BACK to the starting line! Over 26 miles away. Without shoes or water. When you try to get her turned around, she tells you to just go away and leave her alone already. Finally you decide you can't do anything further and leave to go find someone who might be able to better help her. As soon as you start walking in the opposite direction toward the crowds to find help, she shouts over her shoulder, "See?? I knew you never cared anyway! You wanted me to fail!"
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Now. Imagine repeating that scene. Not once. Not twice. Not a few times per year. But every single hour of every single day of every single week of every single month. If you can get that picture in your head and fit that analogy over every area of life, then you might be able to grasp just a small piece of what it is like to live as a parent of a child with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder). Sometimes (today, for instance) it is like this except repeated approximately 7,236 times in one day.
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If you know a family with a child who struggles with RAD, please be aware that this is the life they live (more or less). Not every now and then, but continuously. Even if there are good moments. Even if things look okay from the outside looking in. Your prayers and practical support are so vital. We are among the few who have been seriously blessed with both prayers and support on an ongoing basis. No one parent or set of parents can do this alone.

If you are a part of a family living with the reality of RAD, please know that your efforts are not in vain. Those baby steps count. Even if they are tiny, tiny, itty, bitty, and it is one step forward and three steps back. They count. Because love always counts. Whether you feel loving or not doesn't matter (let's face it, how many of us really *feel* loving towards someone who is consistently hurting us?), the fact that you are still there - still giving your shoe and sharing your water and seeking out help for the very person who is driven to harm you -  this is you loving your child in the middle of all their hard stuff. You are doing God's work and it is not in your own power or by your own strength that you will keep running this race; only by his grace and in his strength can you go on. Day after day after day after weary, long, maddening, exhausting day. Hold on and know that you are not alone in this race. There are many of us who have been there, are there, and we get it. Hang on with all you've got; hang on with all the strength God gives you; because for a child with RAD, hanging on is what love looks like.

[It was actually my husband who came up with a similar marathon analogy recently, however I could not remember the exact details so I elaborated with my own version here.]

Yet This I Call to Mind

Words cannot even begin to convey the depth of the weariness which comes from managing mountains of emotions and constant behaviors day in and day out. I think about posting a Facebook status about how things are going, but I don't even know what to say. I consider calling a friend, longing for connection, but I do not have the emotional energy to explain all that has been going on. So I go another day, each day more weary than the last. Blogging has always has been my way of coping as a verbal processor when my energy is spent, so here it is.

June was the 17 month mark since bringing our girls home. This is a major milestone for them based on history and, as of late June, they have now lived with us longer than any other family since coming into care four and a half years ago. In fact, I suspect this has likely been the longest they have *ever* lived in a single house/location. I expected one child to react to this milestone. I was kind of taken off guard when they all did. You don't have to remember a date or track a period of time or consciously bring to mind an incident. The brain knows. The body remembers. I believed this to be true before, based on research. I know this to be true now, based on the lives within the four walls of my home.

One might expect this milestone to be cause for celebration and security. Except not. Instead, we have had some major regressions in behavior from all sides. This happens to some degree every time there is a significant anniversary...or birthday...or holiday...or...you get the idea. We make progress and then, BAM, overnight it is like we are almost back to square one. June contained this milestone, plus Father's Day, plus two birthdays. Needless to say, June was not fun.

July 1st rolled around in the exact same way that April 1st showed up after a similar month surrounding a major traumaversary in March. After a solid month of being lied to, manipulated, pushed away, and yelled at, I hit my limit. Thankfully, one of my three tends to settle down immediately after the trigger passes. The other two, however, they're still going strong. And I am weary.

I cannot even count how many times I have been lied to in the past month - or in the past 12 hours for that matter. Lying is one of my parenting triggers. I have multiple children who lie to me almost daily. I have one child who lies literally almost every single time she speaks to me. Not even exaggerating. The constant need to read past the words, interpret expressions, identify manipulations, stay one step ahead of elaborate attempts to control the home...exhausting does not begin to cover it.

I also have one child who is going through a process of difficult growth as she faces the triggers head on and works to regain control of her own mind and body, by way of actively giving over control to her Lord. In between struggling with her poor choices and her premature battles for independence, I get to see her amazing heart as she seeks to grow and heal and mature. "The old has gone, the new has come." Even in the midst of her battles, I have never seen the truth of this verse more clearly than in this child. She is beginning to truly know the vastness of God's love for her. That love is visibly changing her and it is so beautiful to watch. It is incredibly hard to be parenting her through these difficult, overwhelming phases, and yet I am often brought to tears when I glimpse the beauty within her heart. Plain and simple, she is not the same person she was before she welcomed Christ into her life. I pray for this same thing to someday be able to be said for another child.

There is yet beauty in this life. The days can be heavy. So very heavy. There are tears and struggles on a daily basis. There is also growth. Sometimes it is harder to see than others. At times it may even be impossible. In between the screaming and the throwing things and the careless running over of others...in between the hours and hours (and hours and hours) of talking and coaching and doling out consequences, the fighting my own inclinations in order to connect with those who would push me away, the watching children self-destruct, the protecting them from each other and from themselves...in between all of that there are the moments. There are always the moments. The moments in which I catch a glimpse of God working. Sometimes in a child's heart; often in my own.

My body is struggling. I am in physical pain due to needing to physically restrain a child nearly my own size today. My store of emotional energy is completely run dry. Mentally, I have been living in survival mode for so long, only taking on bite sized pieces of the must do priorities. Rarely can I so much as wrap my mind around cooking a real meal. Grocery shopping is done in a haze. I am depleted in every way. As I have been every day for some time. Hope is running thin. I would think I should completely dread each day - and sometimes I do. Sometimes it is too much to look into another day of all this.
"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.'"

The moments of grace. The moments where I get to see his mercy at work within our home and in our family. On our worst days they are there. These are the moments, often mere glimmers of hope, which allow me to lie down with nothing left tonight and get up tomorrow to do it all over again. And again and again and again as we all learn together what love really means. Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his mercies never fail.

What We Need

This morning started out rough, immediately dealing with lies and behaviors. While grumpy and frustrated, God started nudging me to consider changing a consequence I had given this same child for significant behavior choices a different day; in my heart I knew the consequence, though not remotely overboard, would not be beneficial to her moving forward. Reading a heartfelt post from another adoptive parent this morning nudged me further.

So when she got home this afternoon, our conversation started with that. Me acknowledging my choice had not been the best thing this time and removing the consequence.  I reserve the right to be wrong sometimes and to tell my child when I am! We had some not so good stuff to address from earlier today as well. Because of how the conversation began, in the process of dealing with things it came out that something going on at school all week had been very (understandably) upsetting to her. Knowing this made all the difference in the world, as we were able to come up with solutions to help her. I was able to let her know it’s okay to not be okay with it. It’s okay to let us know. Tomorrow I will be picking her up early from the last day of summer school in order to protect her heart and mind, and today she knows that I am on her team. For real. 

None of this would have likely ever come out if I had not been willing to give her what she needs instead of what she deserves. We would have spent the rest of the week (maybe much longer) battling what looked like oppositional behaviors without having a clue what was driving it. God knew though. And, in his grace, he let us know as well by steering us to open a door we didn’t even know needed opening. Because that is what he does.

There generally are consequences for choices. Sometimes, however, bad behavior is the only voice a child knows to use when they need help. Sometimes letting a consequence go is worth it to give them a chance for another kind of voice. I am not good at this, but I am learning. After all, isn’t this what God does? He gives me what I need instead of what I deserve, in order to draw me to himself and to work for my good. That is the kind of parent I want to be.

First Christmas

A year ago yesterday I was up late getting ready for Christmas, to be celebrated on Christmas Eve. We were to have one hour with the kids who might become ours. Baking and wrapping and setting things out, a million emotions running through my heart and mind. Would this be our last quiet Christmas with two young children? Would we have several more children next year? What if we don’t? Was I hoping and wishing for what life might hold...or grieving for what might no longer be? Or both and all and everything in between. 

One hour, sandwiched between our traditional Christmas morning at home and celebrating with my family. An hour which ended with this sweet little girl who I knew in my heart to be mine having to be literally pried off of me, begging to stay with me. Walking away listening to the shrieks, leaving my children in a facility instead of being in our home, a part of our family - or any family - for Christmas. Everything out of my hands at that point, unable to even promise a next visit. It was easily one of the hardest days of my life. Filled with uncertainty and emotions and tears.

That was last year. Tonight I kissed my little girls goodnight. All of them. Tonight we set out seven place settings for breakfast and filled seven stockings. There are still plenty of emotions to go around, but the uncertainty is no more. Tomorrow we celebrate Christmas as a family of seven. And it feels just right. ❤️

What it takes

Right now I have a pulled muscle (again), a bruised hand, aching knee, I’m sore all over, and I am on day five of a headache. I am weary of being kicked at and screamed at and yelled at and hit at. Of things being thrown constantly, kicked, torn apart and damaged. Of being told how I care only about myself - by the one for whom I chose to spend my past 12 months wrecked. Having hatred and rage and anger spewed directly at me. Only at me. Only because I am mom.

My days are spent in a fog. Either I am spending hours managing an irrational and escalating child...or recovering from the adrenaline surges of it all. I can’t just walk away from it and continue my day where I left off either. My brain simply can’t think straight and my energy is sapped. Possibly sustaining an injury or two. Always scrambling to think through how to respond next. Or how to avoid the need for me to respond because my calm responses are all used up.

I love everything about Christmas. This year I am wondering if we will make it to Christmas Day with our family intact. Nine days left. Nine days of a child trying to cut her losses and get her Christmas taken away already so she can quit dreading losing it, in spite of anything we say. Indefinite more days of a child trying desperately to break me. To prove that we were going to give up on her at some point anyway. 

It feels impossible to see her as she is through what she does. We haven’t settled down in four months. I am weary, my other children need me, and I cannot continue functioning like this. Yet there is no other solution. In the end, no matter what we do, it will always come down to me and this child. Either she breaks me or she does not. I do not have it in me to love her through this. I do not have it in me to hold on through the hurricanes. I do not have the patience or the fortitude or even the love to get us through. Only God can do in me what needs to be done to get her through. If I can stick it out just long enough, she will stop trying so hard to push me away; I’ve seen it in her and I know this to be true. If I can be the safe mother she’s never had, she might one day believe that a mother can be safe. If I can love her right through the storm of hate, she may finally, eventually recognize love for what it is instead of all the things it has masqueraded as in her life. I do not have that kind of love. It isn’t there. It does not exist in me. Yet it does exist in Christ. It is the love that gave us Christmas. The love that drove him to the cross - while we were yet sinners. The love that whispers grace to our hearts in the very moments of our darkest sins. That which ignites hope in the midst of hopelessness. The love that gave himself for the very ones who rejected, abandoned, mocked and killed. This is the kind of love he calls each of us to walk in. Not just me with my child, but you in your own life. And he does not ask of us what he does not promise to supply. It is not in me. It is not in you. It is all from him. 

I can stand on that truth, even while everything else falls away. His love IS strong enough to hold us together. I know this because it is his strong love that has held me to himself right through the rages of my own life. If his love can keep my wayward heart in his, then it can certainly teach my heart to love like his.

This is the very essence of both Christmas and adoption, is it not? To take the love given to us by a Savior who took us at our very worst and loved us to himself - to take that love and offer it to another in the very same way. He offered his very life for us, to the point of death. No exceptions, no limits, his love and unending grace stands open to any who will accept it. May we, by his great power, learn to love as he does in order that those who we love will see the love greater than ourselves.