All Women Need a Garden

 There’s a woman that sits in the front of her home, nested in her spring garden, re-growing,

in a black wooden chair, faded just right from the eastern morning sun.  

It’s mostly an uncomfortable chair, but a throne for seeing. The rotating guests that come and go to sit next to her make it delightful, a royal meeting place, for all things essential for living. 

There’s a small girl with a bright pink scrunchie loosely attached to her long ponytail, with fierce kindness and conviction in her eyes. She’s magical, whimsical, a garden fairy.  Moments ago she was crying in despair about a hurt feeling. It was gentle conversation she needed, understanding and ice cream. 

Ingredients for carrying on. 

There’s a boy made of dirt and fire, in a green eagles shirt with eye black face paint adorning his perfect, rosy cheeks. He’s lucky and protective, a garden gnome. He sits down, shares his pleasantries and also enjoys a bowl of ice cream. 

Ingredients for carrying on.

There's a light breeze and a perfect temperature. It’s trash night and the things that we set aside are lining the curb. How little we need and how much we use, I contemplate. The ingredients we need are right here, in this tiny garden. 

Time to reflect. 

A space to be understood. 

A vast blue sky to send your dreams and prayers up to.

Ice cream. 

Birds surround us, squeaking with anxiety, as we disturb their work of making nests to prepare for new life. All creatures can share this garden, I want them to know.  All thoughts, needs and dreams for homemaking and regrowing are welcome here.

Perhaps a woman that sits in her garden long enough can see life with such simplicity that she understands all she needs to know in her world. 

All women need a garden,

For carrying on,

And re-growing.

Disney Simple Joys

For 17 years, one after another, a child of mine has fallen in love with Nemo, on repeat, and then sea life, the water, animals, preservation. Nemo and Friends, Turtle Talk with Crush, the manatees, with my girl today solo, round 4 of this simple love, at the age where it is all magic, has me all choked up. It’s the good stuff. God, thank you for giving me the gift of 4 rounds of this kind of simple joy.

Time Makes You Bolder

 Time makes you bolder. Even children get older. We’re getting older too ❤️🙏 #OneBeautifulLife

When Storms Roll In

 When storms roll in, I love it and always watch by the window. The kids all come home from their wandering. We stay close. I stay still and I love when they linger. Tonight the boys stayed close, together. I love their 3 different age stages and eclectic mix of fascinating 17, 14 and 8 year old perspectives. We watched the storm run out of rain, together. “They always do,” I comment, hoping they’ll remember the analogy when they need it. I’ll always remember them this way, and so many other beautiful ways. Motherhood is divine in the sun and in storms, and especially while sitting still and making space for their lingering love. #OneBeautifulLife 

(they’d kill me if I knew I was taking these photos 😉)

 

I Took My Time with This Moment

 I will remember this moment.  I savored it. I took my time with it.

I read yesterday a poem that drew an analogy between raising children and opening and closing doors. It’s stayed with me deeply, on my admittedly tired and weary heart, born from burning a candle at both ends these past months. And the guilt of sitting with that. 

Here in this moment tonight a door closed and one has opened. It was a space in the middle.  Jack and Vincent at their respective soccer practices, doors ahead of my two littles. Gaps in age between the kids revealing how fleeting it is, how soon they open wings, how busy their lives become. Gaps in time reminding me to take the deep breath with my babies before they walk through the doors ahead.  

I told Leo and Addy that sitting at the counter for casual conversation is my favorite. I begged them to stay awhile and they did. I told them I was taking a few photos so I’d bottle the memory forever. They loved that. 

The poem said , “sometimes raising our children feels like a long hallway of doors.

One and then another and another and on – stretching out farther than we can see.

A vast corridor of firsts and lasts and all the spaces in the middle. 

Between each door exists a season, a stage, sometimes simply a fleeting moment.

But then again and again, their hand reaches forward, clutches the knob, and opens the door welcoming in a new milestone, a new chapter… and in doing so, the door behind them gently falls closed.”

And so, I paused on this weary day. I enjoyed their beautiful joy, while my soul ached as the time thief stared on. 

I noticed. I paused. I was acutely aware this door would close. I took the decision to hold the moment on my heart and through this lense. Before they grab the knob to the next open door. 

I simply made the decision that I wanted to remember this space tonight between doors. And I will. #OneBeautifulLife

My Mom Mom

My grandfather was waiting for a dance, jokes at the ready. Her mother was waiting to sit with her on the big porch in rocking chairs. Her father had a huge hug upon arrival for his baby girl. Her brother had a tennis racket in hand and one by his side for her, a match long overdue. An army of friends, family and animals that had gone before her lined the music-filled, lavender entrenched gates, led by Muffy the German Shepherd and Taffy, her Golden Retriever. She walked so many souls home in her 99 years. It is now her turn for peace. Heaven will delight in her company and name a simple corner Quaker Acres now, and the breeze will flow through just right at dinner time. You can close your eyes and feel it, she will make sure. None of us here know quite what to do without her, as she’s carried us all through a lifetime. But, for her, as she would demand, we will carry on, in time. It is and has always been my honor to be the only granddaughter of Marge Michener. As she would tell me, “You know, we just clicked from the very beginning.”

My memories are so vast, they’ll surely work to repair a broken heart, in time. Love you, whole heart, my beautiful and extraordinary Mom Mom. 45 years, well, it simply wasn’t enough. As it goes with time, as you said it would be, there is simply never enough.

o

Mom Mom's Obituary

Happy 73rd Birthday, Dad

 God created the most spectacular, kind, patient, humble, responsible, humorous, bass singing, loving, nurturing man, of the tallest stature, with the most shining eyes and heart of gold. He gave him to Joe, Patrick and I with the noble gift of calling him Dad in this #OneBeautifulLife. If you know our Dad, big Jack, well, you know.

Happy Birthday, Dad. And so we were missing chunks of our weary hearts tonight, but always, we gather, eat cake and sing, with our littlest crew at the ready. We love you, as you love us, beyond measure.

Happy 74th Birthday, Mom

 There aren’t enough eloquent expressions in the vocabularies of the world to define a mother, to create in words the way I feel about my Mom. She is every piece of my childhood and my womanhood, in flickering lights across a lifetime that shine with unconditional love, fierce support and relentless nurturing. My brothers and I watched her care for every elderly member of her family, care for her own children, adore her mother who lived around the corner (our other keeper), her animals, love my Dad, and now delight in her grandchildren as Mimi, her artistic soul feeding our hearts, minds and ambitions with the fiery love of her selfless Irish/Italian genetic code of gold. She runs as Mrs. Walker, Johnny Walker that is, to those who love her best, at all parties, happy hours and casual conversations that call for finer things, which is, all times. She’s taught me how it feels to be loved and guarded as a daughter, a woman and a mother. She’s known every version of me and despite it, still shows me how to be truly, eloquently, whole heartedly loved. She’s my best friend since the day I saw her in our hospital room after I put her through hell to enter the world. God chose me to be yours, Mom, and then it all made sense. No one else could have tolerated or loved me like you. I love you, whole heart, my divine Mom.

Mom Mom - She Rises

It’s been the kind of night (s) where I say goodnight to her in my mind, then out loud, because I feel her in the air. It’s the kind of morning today where she is still here, profoundly here. I haven’t dismantled the poster photos from her service yet, so I can be with them, to avoid putting them in a place tucked away. I haven’t sent the eulogy to requested love ones (I will

, promise) only because I am putting off permanency, I think. This poem came published this week, after long delay, right on time. I wrote it after we were at Wyncote for dinner together watching the sunset. It’s about her now…That’s the story I’ll tell myself. She rises…everyday, simply from a new place, where I can feel her triumphant light.

Leo Rides a Bike

 “Mom, will you go on a bike ride with me around the block and then go look at the beautiful view?” Documenting so I have the memory stored forever and ever of what if feels like to be included in his 8 year old world. My Leo

. #OneBeautifulLife

 

The Pediatrician's Office

I met Jack at the doctors office today, the pediatricians office.  He drove himself there.  The first time he could drive himself to a physical, in his own car, and we do this now, meet each other places. 

I’m still getting used to it.

It was his last physical as a child, as he turns 18 in April. 

It was his last physical at the pediatrician's office. 

Like most things required, this moment was not in the ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ book I read cover to cover multiple times.  Why did no one warn me about this - the place where mothers are needed desperately - and the feeling of the rapid transition to when you are no longer required here?  When your child ages out of the place?

I walked in the door with my dashingly handsome 6’3” and 180lb son, into a sea of small children and smiling nurses in cartoon scrubs.  I wanted to tell them he was 9lbs 4oz when he was born, always tall and this beautiful, as they stared a little too long.  I didn’t.

I signed the electronic forms.  I approved the required vaccines. For the last time. They handed me a paper of doctors offices in the area to call, as the pediatrician's office will no longer be his primary care physician.  I was hoping they’d give me a paper next for support groups for mothers who are struggling with the emotion of simultaneously experiencing excruciating pain and joy in this stage of life.  They didn’t. 

I sat in the waiting room.  I watched the tiny babies being held as the Mom’s scurried them out of the office in tiny bundles.  I wanted to tell them to savor every second, but I couldn’t. I put my sunglasses on instead to hide the tears streaming down my face. 

You go with your child to every doctor's appointment for their entire childhood.  You track their metrics from the moment you know you’re carrying them.  You count inches, then feet,every pound and development milestone with the analytical prowess of a statistician in percentiles and line graphs. You smile as you place them on the tiny scale, then watch small feet stand on the big scale, and the measuring stick of growth reveals celebratory progress.  You ooh and ahh and marvel at their tiny, growing frames.  At every cough, rash, fever, you talk to the nurses, snag the first available appointment, and hold them in these rooms of the pediatricians office, a place I didn’t call sacred, a place that didn’t seem fleeting, until now. 

Because, suddenly, unbelievably abruptly, they’re grown.  They don’t require you there in the annual place of nurturing where they needed you most. Where you read to them, packed extra snacks, changed their diapers, held their hands, hugged them for immunizations and soothed them through sickness. Their childhood is, well, it’s past. 

Jack believes I’m ridiculous and he is right.  I tried explaining just a bit of my tears to him as we left today, and I stopped.  17 year old boys aren’t equipped for this kind of crazy. Nor should they be.  Jesus, is anyone?  I tried to grab a photo because… that would help?  It didn’t.  He hid on the floor of the elevator. 

He’s still in the 98th percentile for height. He grew beautifully this year and every year of his magical childhood that he gifted to me. His percentiles are perfect and heart, absolute gold.  He has grown into an extraordinary young man.  A gift that may just always leave me stunned. 

Thank you for your childhood, my first born son. Even every trip to the pediatrician I’ll hold in my heart as the highest honor.

He’s always my first born and walks me through each new door, whether I’m ready or not. He’s been so patient with my learning, my own becoming, as I learned motherhood through him.  Turns out, I wasn’t ready for the pediatrician’s door to close today.  But as it did, as he always will, he’ll be carrying my love with him. He will always know that. 

I’ll be ready next time, I tell myself.  But, I won’t.  

  

You can expect a “What to Expect When Your Kid is a Senior in High School” publication from me after this year is complete, if I survive it.  I’m looking for contributors, confidants and support beams.  Mom’s, how do you do this?