Chaotic Butterfly Wings

Even when things are going okay in our house, they are always chaotic.  You walk into my house and I believe you are struck as I am...that this is a house of attempted organizational chaos.  As if a butterfly in China flapped its wings and the fluttering tidal wave accumulated over my house and left us in its wake.  Often it is the paperwork alone that buries me, no matter how quickly I do or do not attempt the filing, the clutter inherit in the paperwork alone is mind boggling.  The moment I get everything filed a new wave of papers come gushing in and always nicely coincide with some other traumatic event in our house so that they sit patiently, phoning friends to tell them now is the time to come to our house...the proverbial, 'coast is clear, come party!'  As if that Chinese butterfly hasn't caused enough trouble in our house the very essence of its chaos permeates our sense of well-being.   And it is frustrating, because I think in these terms...the idea of chaos theory and how it runs my life...and throughout my life I am constantly bombarded by butterflies:  their physical presence as well as their beautiful imagery.  Make no mistake, I believe them beautiful and I am now fully invested in their existence in my life...for good and for evil. 

The evil is easy...the uncontrolled chaos, though I am not much of a fan of even the controlled chaos, that too gets trying.  It's like trying to empty a lake with a measuring cup after the dam breaks.  I can control the fact that water is indeed leaving the lake, but cannot control how much water is coming back in.  Bradley's medical problems are so constant and such a point of survivability that his developmental goals are always mocking me.  What have you done for my brain lately mom?  I want to nurture his brain, but always feel like I am trying to nurture that brain so much I can't be certain that I am building it at the same time.  I move along smoothly and then see another four year old who is completely verbal and reading and it draws me up short.  I'm not doing enough and no matter what I do, it will never be enough.  I can't find enough hours in the day.  And like mighty wings, I feel that beat at me.  I know he is not going to discover the cure for Cancer, but there are scientists that are pretty close, so I don't know that they need him anyway.  I just want him to know all that he can know.   And for the record, those scientists are definitely not on the phone calling me for help either. 

And then there are these butterflies that keep coming up in my life, and right now they are the ones that have my attention the most.  You see at nine years old my daughters have each hit that moment in their lives when they realize that our time here on earth is not permanent, that there will be a moment when each of us will die.  I don't know why nine is so hard in our family, but there it is.  When my oldest was nine, her brother was having major surgeries that had mom and dad away for weeks at a time.  She would wake up at night and cry herself back to sleep alone in her bed.  My passionate, dramatic one, refused to climb out of bed and share her fear and grief with her grandmother, choosing to go it alone in her bed in the middle of the night.  And she fought these demons for months, even to a year before she broke down one night and shared them with me.  I felt horrible that she hadn't shared this with me, but I also felt dumbfounded...I mean she shares everything else with me, (everything!) how could I have known she was holding out on me? 

My middle girl? Her trouble started at age eight, but I didn't realize the catastrophic events had occurred to shape her fears.   And it all goes back to the butterflies!  We kept the class butterflies over Spring Break, watched them hatch and fly away...a truly wonderful experience.  But there was this one, some of you know about this, as I have written about this before.  We had the one that climbed out of its chrysalis at the bottom of the cage and had special wings.  Its wings didn't straighten out so it couldn't fly, not knowing what else to do we promised our frantic daughter that we would take care of this little guy for its lifespan....  Unfortunately, it died at 10 days and not the expected 14 days.  The coincidence of having a special winged butterfly with a special boy with an extra chromosome was noted by Eric and I, but it was also noted by my Sydney.  When her butterfly died, her world crumbled, and with it came all the worries and fears for her brother that we never knew she carried, I don't think she even knew.  Perhaps it was the loss, the realization that something that was different and not as strong as the others, had failed to thrive and then had died - but now our nine year old has fears of her brother dying.  Scenarios in her head of us going to the hospital, then calling her to tell her Bradley was not well, then our cousin coming to get her at school because Bradley was gone.  Dream, imagination or fear...not sure which but she is plagued by them. 

So I gave her a box and told her she could put her worries in it so that God would get them.  I explained how the worry goes from her heart to God's ear, but the physical box helps her to learn to let go of her worries and her prayers.  Let go, let God.  It seems to help, well...except she has this concept that God is like the Tooth Fairy.  Not that she expects money, she just thinks he should be taking her letters with him.  What can I say, she's really literal.  ;-)  After a little more explaining, so far so good.  And then the movie "Heaven is For Real" came out, and because I had read the book I was hoping that maybe it would be just what she needed.  What both my little warriors need to help them feel comforted by their Faith.  And of course, there were butterflies in the movie.  Their symbolism touching me more than being pivotal to the movie, but important to our family.  Important to my sudden understanding of how the life lessons of witnessing  the butterfly cycle of life a year ago has triggered a deeper understanding of what her brother is going through and how important he is to not only his whole family, but how important he is to her.  As if Sydney has graduated into the world of worry about someone she deeply loves and stands alongside her sister who has lived there for a few years already.  Now, the four of us are connected in yet another deeper, more emotional way than we had been before.    Really great movie, incredible book - we all enjoyed it very much.  What struck me was that both girls at different moments, have since asked me if I think that Bradley has seen Jesus.  If during one of these procedures he's had, do I think it's possible that he saw Jesus.  I doubt I will ever know because when Bradley is old enough to express himself I am not sure he would remember back that far, but as I told the girls..."Do I feel better thinking that Bradley might have been safe in the lap of Jesus, far away from the pain while he was in his surgeries?  You bet I do."   Do I feel better with my daughters believing the same thing, you bet I do. 

As I mentioned, there is the good too.   The good is the best part.  The good comes with the sound of Sydney's delight and certainty that every butterfly she sees is somehow related to the ones that she set free last year.  The good comes when Bradley and I rub noses and share butterfly kisses followed by the sweetest smile and sloppiest of kisses.   The better comes when he tries to initiate those kisses.  The best kind of chaos?  Watching when these three kids start playing together, when the giggles begin and the squeals signal sheer delight.  Sometimes you just have to learn to juge in chaos and hope for the best.  :-)

Her Lifetime

Twelve Years

 

It's interesting really when you consider lifetimes.  My daughter turned twelve years old...her lifetime is twelve years, her sister's, nine years.  Their brother, four years.  And when I think about what we've done it makes me sigh, twelve years ago we were in Japan and getting ready to come home.  At nine years, we were living in the desert.  And then at seven years ago we were living in our own house...but one that neither girl remembers as it was sold at the beginning of Bradley's lifetime.   And in the last three and a half years before Bradley's lifetime, we lived in Japan, again.  And there we had the fullest life, the busiest, the most outgoing years of my daughters' lives. 

When we lived in Japan the second time, Madison was 4 when we arrived.  She got her first job before I did, and I was just a little intimidated by this.  In hindsight, I could have given up my work all together and taken her to enough modeling and acting gigs to keep us both working full-time.  But I thought I needed to work and bring home some of the bacon, so her work was only a bit curtailed by mine.  She absolutely loved smiling for that camera, and she was like a push button kid.  It never bothered her if they didn't choose her and it never made her much of a brat when they did.  And she had SO much fun doing it all.  When we weren't there, we were at the Little Theater on base, and I was watching, sometimes typing on a laptop, while the girls took as many dance and tumbling classes as they could, and as many as their mom could handle sitting through... even I get bored with typing my own thoughts sometimes.  And that was the second half of her life. 

Now, here we are in what would be her third part...or the whole of Bradley's lifetime.   And we are asking so much of these kids.  It's not that the carefree days are gone, we've just learned that there are important moments and events that are going to impact the way we can live, what we can do, how we can get through each day.  It's a fact of life, and it's been a difficult adjustment.  Now, my twelve year old is moving into pre-teen years and she is carrying the burdens of understanding, and worry , with her.  This lanky, athletic kid is becoming a young lady, and she is trying to do so with grace.  My girl.  My mini-me.  She carries my eyes, my nose and my tendency for thin hair...but carries her Dad's build and coloring.   She has her Dad's penchant for perfection...definitely not from me. ;-)  I couldn't even pretend that with a straight face if I tried.  Madison is not one to take a mistake she makes lightly...and I am the one that is constantly trying to talk her down, talk her around to the fact that our mistakes are the lessons we learn that take us down the path we want to go. 

She's trying to find her way, and in one moment she wants complete independence from me, and then the next thing I know she's wrapped herself around me in a desperate attempt to recapture her hold on her childhood...but her Dad and I can see that childhood slipping out of her grasp.  She has discovered boys and not just in the I have a crush on that boy band super star way, but in the, Mom why doesn't a boy at school want to go out with me?  I try to diffuse this one the best I can, reminders that she can't date yet, she's too young.  And her earnest reply of "It would be nice if one would at least ask" feels like a direct quote from my own life.  I was not the sought after date potential in my school days, so I am the last person to be asking about stuff like this, but here she is, asking the only person she can.  I try to explain to her how my school days were filled with my attempt to be a good enough Volleyball player to deserve being on the team, all the while trying to keep up with those that were so much smarter than me in my classes.  I try to explain how I didn't even have any self awareness in Junior and Senior High to give myself credit for the brains I had.  I didn't start doing that until I was in College.  My daughter is already working through this.  She decided that she wanted Straight A's for the last report card...so I told her to keep doing what she was doing but she would have to put more effort in some specific areas.  She listened, she did and she brought home straight A's.  I showed her the report card and she started to cry as she threw her arms around me.  "I said I wanted to do it and I did!" she sobbed on me. 

I held her tight and smiled, "I knew you would because you said you would." 

"Thanks for believing in me Mom."  Her teary reply.

Mine: "I'm always going to believe in you.  If you say you are going to do something, I know you will do the work and walk the road to get it." 

Best thanks mom I've had in a while. 

So maybe I am too over protective and worry when I let her take her new bike and her sister to the park alone.  But I let them go.  And I try to find ways to let her and her sister test their wings in a safe way and I know that safe is not always best.  But here's the truth.  In our house, in their lives, we are walking a path lined with powder kegs.  There is nothing safe here.  There are only safe seeming moments of rest before the walk up the mountain begins again.  I don't know what the next step for us will be, and I don't know how it is going to impact my daughter's life and shape her next lifetime.  But this is what I do know.  After a week at her grandmother's house, Madison could hardly stand the wait to see her brother and couldn't wait to go get him when he woke from his nap.  She snuggled him, she changed him, she vented him, she sat him down to feed him, and while she did she talked to him with her voice and her hands.  She wanted to connect with him and recapture the time they had been separated.  I am proud of her heart and her love.  To me she is beautiful on the outside and deep inside in her heart.  Her love is pure, her love is strong, and her love does not waver.  She will find the good in you, and she will help you nourish what you have and make it grow.  My Madison makes the world a brighter and more beautiful place just by being in it and by caring about the rest of us here with her. 

She's perfect in her imperfections, and it makes my heart soar with how much I love her and love being her mom.  So Happy Birthday my beautiful girl, your lifetime has been the greatest gift of my life!