This Thing Called Life

                                  
The past few weeks have been challenging. For a multitude of reasons. The children are back to school and we already have the beginning of the school year crud. Every year we seem to get a cold, strep or a stomach bug in the first few weeks of school. My oldest is napping on the couch just a few feet away from me as I type this.

The kids always want me when they are sick. I am wondering when, if ever, they will grow out of this. My oldest called me up to her room on Wednesday evening. She was propped up in bed, glassy eyed and flushed with her laptop on her lap. "Mom, I don't feel good," she said. She had a fever and a tummy ache. I got her some medicine, a heat pack and poured her a glass of ginger ale. She wept, "But I have to finish this geometry project." I set the computer on her desk. "To hell with geometry. You need to rest."
She asked me to lay with her and I obliged. I crawled into bed with her and she curled her body (that is now longer than me) next to mine. She was calm. I laid my arm across her and she fell asleep. Moms make everything better.

I have spent much of my career working with mother's and babies. I am always in awe. Some babies come into the world and it's like they already know what to do. They emerge from the womb and breathe and feed and do all the things right away. For other children, it's not that easy. Some struggle. Some are born and need help breathing. Others struggle to find the breast. For many reasons- because they had a long, rough journey into the world, because they are early or just because that is just the way it is sometimes. Occasionally, I get paged to see a mother and baby fresh from the womb.

Every time I feel strange about it, like I am some kind of intruder of this sacred moment. Usually it's a baby that is struggling - brand new to the earth, on his mother's chest, amniotic fluid still bubbling from the mouth, squawking like a tiny bird, searching. I smile to myself, Sweet child, your life is not even hard yet. As I general rule, I don't like to touch brand new babies if I don't have to. I ask their mother's to talk to them.

It's interesting because most of the time they will say the baby's name and "it's okay" in a soft almost-whisper. I watch as they reach up and graze their hands over the baby- gentle and intentional. Most of the time, their cries stop for a moment when they hear their mother's voice and they will open their eyes. In this world where everything is new, and their bodies are having to adjust to the world, it is their mother's voices that are familiar. Then they latch- after a short time or a long while- and the mothers exhale and gaze down at this life that they made. I speak quietly and sneak out of the room, giving them back this sacred moment that I have intruded on.

Every new mother thinks her baby is the best one, and she's right. They always remark about how strong their babies are- how they briefly hold their head up and how they clasp their fists around their parent's fingers. All babies do this but I just smile and agree. "Look how smart and strong she is." It's not a lie. Babies are much smarter than we give them credit for. They know what they like, and they like their mothers.

Sometimes I'll come across a baby who has been fed and changed and is still crying and the minute I hand them to their mothers they stop crying. It's like instant gratification. My children were this way too. My husband was always jealous of my ability to get the children to be calm simply by holding them close.

People often remark that I must love my job- because it's babies! There is so much joy with babies. Yes, my work has been joyful but it's not always. Sometimes babies are born sick, or drug addicted and sometimes babies die.

I'll never forget a young lady that I came across almost 10 years ago. It was 3 days before Christmas and she was my last appointment of the day. We were running behind and I was tired. There were some last minute holiday "things" to do and I felt terribly guilty about picking my kids up from aftercare after 5 pm. She sat down and I had some equipment to give her and had to ask her some questions. I asked her about her baby. She was younger than me but it was her third child, but first girl. The baby needed life saving surgery but she was too premature to survive the surgery. "She's going to die," she told me, with tears in her eyes. Those words seemed to echo off the walls and I will remember them as long as I live.

There was a mother who lost a baby, whose house I visited to pick up her equipment. She invited me in. She brought me to the nursery and showed me the empty crib. She had this book that had the baby's footprints and a wisp of hair and pictures. She sobbed and she hugged me. I was a stranger to her, but I let her. It didn't seem strange to me. Sometimes we just need another human to hold on to and in that moment she did. Over the years, I've worked with so many women who have lost babies. And I still pray for them.

Life and death- they are the universal things. The things we ALL must do. We must be born and we must die. While I have spent most of my time working with mothers and babies, I also worked for hospice for a time. I spent my days with the elderly and the dying.

I would visit nursing homes and doctor's offices. I loved those patients as much as mothers and babies. In different ways, of course. There was an old man at one of the nursing homes who would always ask me to marry him. "I have a pension, you know." I would tell him I was married and he would say, "You are?" like he was surprised. Every week he would think he was meeting me for the first time and every week he asked me to marry him. He provided comedy in my days.

I would always visit my patients in the nursing home and the hospitals. Their stories fascinated me. There was the blind woman in her 90s who could remember the details of her life perfectly, who wept when she spoke of her mother who'd passed many years before, I wiped the tears from her face. There was the old man who spoke of death fondly, so that he could be reunited with his wife- the love of his wife. The woman in her 50's who was dying of cancer and was tired of fighting but her husband wasn't ready.

I got a call once to see a lady who had declined very rapidly. When I arrived I spoke with the nurse and went in to see her. The room was dim and she was staring out into space- talking to someone who was not there, I couldn't understand what she was saying. I knew it wouldn't be long. Dying people often see "ghosts". Some will say that it's just a hallucination but I don't think it is. I think those that come before us, usher us back home. They've actually done studies about this phenomenon and do you know who people are most likely to see? Their deceased mothers. I kind of like that idea - that our mother's transition us into the world and out of it.

So I sat down next to this woman, she continued to talk to whoever it was in the corner and I told her that her children were on their way. Then I just sat there for a while and waited and was present with her. She was dead before the sun came up the next day.

My favorite was a little old lady who was sassy as could be. Whenever I came to the nursing home, I'd sit with her for a short time. She was grumpy (rightfully so). They'd have old country music playing from the radio and I'd bring a cup of water with a straw to her lips. Sometimes she's snap at me- especially if I asked too many questions. "Are you tired? Do you want me to leave?" I'd ask. No matter how she was feeling, she always said "no." I was so fond of her. As the weeks passed, I watched her get weaker and weaker. Towards the end, she would just sleep a lot but I would come sit with her anyway. I didn't often cry but I did cry when she died.

Families gathered, they cried together, they forgot past indiscretions, they shared memories. And sometimes when I was present with them, I felt like an intruder of a sacred moment.

When I worked at hospice, people often asked if it made me sad, or scared. Quite the contrary. The dying taught me so much about living. I am very intentional with my time, as much as possible I try to do things that bring me joy, to enjoy the little things in life, to celebrate good times and accept the things that I cannot change. I will not put up with people who are reckless with my feelings. I am ALIVE. It has made me a better mother, wife and human being in general.

In my career I have witnessed so much joy and so much suffering. I have interacted with people who live in abject poverty, who have experienced real loss. I have worked with people who live impossible lives. And I was supposed to be "helping" them but really it is the other way around.

I carry these lessons around with me, I remember their stories and their voices. I have learned so much from them.

And while past few weeks have certainly not be ideal, life is like that sometimes. The children are growing and thriving and we are in a good place. We are blessed.