feel

Birthday

/ jomccoy / 4 Comments

45 years of a great life!

It will be my 45th birthday on Friday.  I am looking forward to this one.  I know many women stop counting their age at 28 or 30, but not me.  I relish the fact that I am getting older.  I am wiser than I was when I was 28.  At 28 I was still trying to figure out what it meant to be an adult, a wife and a mother.  At 45 I understand those things.  I appreciate them.  When I was a little girl my mother use to tell me my birth story.  But before she got to me, she would tell me the birth story of my 3 older siblings, then me, and then my youngest sister.

I don’t think she told these stories to my siblings.  The stories were told when I was suppose to be laying down for a nap, and she would climb into the bed with me.  I would ask for her to recount the stories to me.  Her voice created a blanket of warmth and love.  Every time she recounted our births, I knew we were wanted and loved, regardless of whatever else was going on in the house.  Our household was not always full of warm fuzzy memories.  There were fights, physical and verbal.  There was anger.  And while I remember those violent acts, I also remember the loving ones.  It is those memories I cling to and go to when I want to reassure myself of my place in this world.  I remember my birth story.

My mother went into labor, and the hospital was in the next town over in Geneseo.  My father, a very calm and collected man in every situation, flew down the road with my mother in the seat next to him.   Now between Cambridge and Geneseo, there are a lot of hills, and my mother would float out of the seat while my dad was praying for a police car to catch him speeding.  Once at the hospital, my mother went right into the delivery room, in her clothes, and there I was.  The doctor barely arrived in time for my birth.  My mother told me I wanted to be born into the world right NOW!!  I was a happy baby and my Grandma DeKezel swore I smiled at her when she saw me for the first time through the glass partition.  My mother would tell me how I always woke up happy, even in wet diapers. 

Most importantly, I was told I was wanted, and I was loved.  In fact I was told each of us was wanted and loved.  What a great gift my mother gave me.  It is probably those nap time stories that allowed me to forgive her.  I saw my mother’s rage.  I felt her abandonment when I became pregnant and wasn’t married.  But in the bottom of my heart remained the fact that I was her daughter.  I was wanted.  I was loved.

Those stories … those close times of intimacy, gave me the ability to see past her faults.  I was able to cling to my nap time as a child and make it out of the quagmire of anger and hate.  So I ask myself, what am I doing to create the same intimacy for my children?  Have I created a space in their heart to forgive me for my mistakes as a parent?  Have I learned from my mother and told those birth stories to my children?

I have, but I still need to remind them:

I want you.

I love you.

You are still my child.

Love ya,

Mom

I Remember

/ jomccoy / 1 Comment

I remember Grandma DeKezel,

            her colostomy bag full and oozing.

I remember smiling and chattering

            and easing her discomfort

            of being dependent upon my hands.

I remember her talk of sex

            and the loathing she had when Grandpa

            would touch her – until she was 30.

I remember the smile sliding across her face

            the twinkle in her eyes

            as she yearned for Grandpa then.

            Sex was not a sin.

I remember her finger pointing at the cabinet

            “Take the white China with the yellow flowers.

             Count it all and be sure it’s there.”

And I remember nodding no,

            “Keep it until next time I am here.”

I remember the silent, arguing stares

           over disappearing treasures

           before she was laid to rest.

I remember the harsh words zinging overhead

            because her children didn’t finish unfinished words

            in the space of her ensuing death.

I remember the chasm created

            in the wake of her death.

I remember thinking

            “They lost the chance to know their mother

             in the grace of ensuing death.”

            “They lost the chance for her to speak unspoken words

              that could not be said.”

 

My memory will never forget

            knowing my grandma

Being Prepared

/ jomccoy / Leave a comment

Okay, so God is leading me.  I am following Him.  I am doing all that He is asking me to do.  But there is this time lapse thing I just don’t understand.  Well, I do, but it is frustrating.  Let me back up a little bit and bring you up to speed on what God has been and is doing in my life.

In December of 2011, I did a lot of deep praying/listening to God.  He made it very clear that I needed to write.  I needed to put my weight, my health, under His control.  So, being the good daughter that I am, I started to do both of those things.  And being human, I find myself under stress, no time to write, no time to exercise the way I need to, no time to pray deeply.  But I keep plugging away.  I keep trying.  I keep reading and talking to Him when I can.  But most importantly I listen to Him.  And I hear Him very clearly.  He is preparing me.

In the midst of all of this, I am finishing a masters degree in special education.  I chose special education because I was to afraid to apply to a prestegious university’s writing program.  I was afraid they would reject me even though God was telling me to “go for it”.  The degree in special education was the easy way out for me.  It was safe, close and at my alma mater.  There have been times I have thought about stopping, but I want to finish this degree.  I am a year out from completing this program.  I sat down and had a heart to heart talk with God.  The answer I received was something like this,  “You can finish this program, but you have to write.  I have something more for you to do.”

I am to write.  I am to speak.  And …. well, that’s just it.  I don’t know what the And is.  I do know that He is moving me in a way I cannot explain clearly.  This is not the same as before in my life.  I feel the moving in my spirit.  I feel the moving in my life.  I see it in the people I am being surrounded by, but I don’t know for what purpose.  Every other time in my life I knew the calling God had for my life.  And while I believe I am being prepared to be a writer and a speaker, I believe He is preparing me for something more.

And this is the cool thing.  I am unafraid.  I am patient.  I know it will happen.  I do not doubt God’s ability to radically change my life.  For the first time in my 44 years of life, I am ready to start and finish something God has planned for me.  I am being prepared.