What Divides Us, But Only If We Let it

*Thanks to the wonderful blog, How to Cope With Pain, for featuring another one of my blog posts on their Pain-Blog Carnival!  I cannot say enough about this very informative and well-written blog which deals with pain in all of its forms.  It is a fabulous resource for anyone who is living with chronic or temporary pain.  It is always listed on my side-bar if you ever need to access it.

Yesterday, I was going through some pictures from Angel Daughter Number Three's high school graduation which we celebrated last week.  It was a wonderful day and I am so very proud of her.  Congratulations, AD3!  I was preparing to write a blog post about the experience when I came across this photo of Angel Daughter Number One, my oldest Angel Niece, and Angel Daughter Number Four sitting on the fence line at graduation.  I was running around down on the huge football field taking pictures of the graduation(Being the only parent down on the field is another story) when I looked up and noticed my family.  I stood approximately one hundred feet away from them, so it was difficult for me to see their facial expressions as I struggled to focus against the sunlight.  I raised my hand to block the sun from my eyes but somehow instinctively, I raised my camera instead.

For the past two years, I have been engaged in a battle to keep my two young nieces in my family's life.  I have written bits and pieces about my fight for these two little girls.  My pain, my struggle, my innate need to stay connected to my deceased brother's children.  It is a feeling that I cannot fully describe, yet it draws me into the same realm as the "mothering instinct" does.  I am fiercely maternal.  This is not something that I say with undo pride or superiority.  It is a trait, such as having hazel eyes or being extraordinarily short in stature.  I just am.  And so, when I came across this photo, a rush of feelings began coursing through my body and my heart broke just a little bit more.  My own two Angel Daughters looking almost desperate to draw their cousin up to the surface.  And my niece. My niece.

I can and will only say enough here so that you will know, so that they will know.  I do this because nothing has been court-mandated.  An "agreement" has been reached.  Nothing binding or legal, but an agreement, none the less.  Meaning that if I am kept from my nieces, there is still the option of going before the family court judge.  And if there is one fear that I found out that my SIL has, it is having to stand before the judge.  Us, no problem.  Everything is on the table.  How much money we make per year, how much medication I take on a daily basis in order to control my chronic pain, and the fact that we own a dog; who was portrayed as a Pit-Bull; but who is nothing more than a lovable mutt.  There were depositions and accusations directed toward me.(Only me, never toward my SIL because that's not how we roll.)  There were demands to remove my husband from the case because he is not a "blood relative".(Um, yeah.  If he were a blood relative, that would mean that I married one of my family members and that would open up a whole new set of problems!)  And the cost for the attorneys was exorbitant.  On both sides.  But whose counting?  On the day that we were scheduled to go to trial, we sat in the courthouse cafeteria with our lawyers when my SIL's attorney began working on us.  And by the third hour and the final "offer", we reached an agreement.  Not everything that we wanted, but a beginning.  We have seen our nieces two times since the agreement was reached.  Once, at their dance recital(So cute!) and then again at AD3's graduation.  We will see them again at the end of this month, once in September, possibly in October and then beginning in November, we will be allowed to see them six times a year, for four hours each time, without their mother present.  This is part of what the battle was about, and this is what we were very reluctantly given.  The issue is that for the past two years, a lot has been said and done to damage the relationship that we had with the children.  And now, in order to repair the damage, we need to have access to the girls AND they need to feel comfortable spending time with us without worrying about the temperature of their mother's mood.  There is a bit more about Mark and I contributing financially to the girls college educations but that is something that we would have done before we were escorted out of our nieces lives for no sane reason.  The situation is still too tightly wound for my taste, but I am a very patient person.  I understand what my options are and I am not at all adverse to using the legal system in order to obtain justice for my nieces.  They deserve to have their daddy's family in their lives.  They deserve to be loved by extended family members.  They deserve our loyalty.

Not surprisingly, both girls were extremely apprehensive when they saw us for the first time, and started out the same way at the graduation.  But we are a difficult group to put off.  My girls especially exude the attitude of "love us, love us, love us", and Mark and I just proceeded lovingly but cautiously.  These two little girls have already had enough trauma in their lives and both Mark and I knew better than to just expect them to greet us the way that they had a year ago when we were last allowed to see them.  Time, pain, and unkind words burden the relationship that we once had with these two little angels.  We have no idea what they have been told.  Only that they were told too much and that they were obviously hurt and nervous and angry.

Looking at this photo of my oldest niece, I could feel everything that she must have gone through over the course of this past year.  I could see the missing in her eyes.  The missing of her daddy, the missing of us, the missing of her old life.  It pained me greatly to think about what she has been through.

But then, I thought about exactly how long it had taken her and my younger niece to begin smiling again once the initial trepidations began to subside.  I thought about the resiliency of children and their innate ability to somehow fight for their right to be happy.  I thought about all of the angles and ways in which what our family did to fight for these children could possibly be portrayed and I came to a fairly simple conclusion.  Somehow, some way, love wins.  And when you have love on your side as a motive, there is little that can argue with that.  Sanely, anyway...

Shortly after coming across the first photo, I came across the second one.  And there was the child who was trying her darnedest to ignore her cousins, her Uncle, and I only minutes before, staring down at me on the football field with something resembling a smile on her face.  A moment captured.  A feeling captured.  A heart mending back together bit by bit.  Hers, mine, ours.

The Other Side of Angels or Why the (most days)?

*a tiny bit PG

It usually begins like this.  Momma asks very, very, very nicely to take a picture of her four Angel Daughters together.  Then they moan and complain about having to stand still for more than ten seconds while Mom checks the viewfinder to make sure that everyone is behaving appropriately and that there's no funny business going on.

Then, the funny business begins.

And mysteriously travels from one Angel Daughter to the next, causing Momma to twitch involuntarily while trying to keep the camera still.

Next, the huddle.  This is when a language, which is only understood by sisters, is spoken and a plan is conceived.

Laughter ensues and even though I know that I have reached the point of no return, I plead with them to just pose for one more picture!

More sisterly giggling as they prepare to unleash their sinister plan.

I only had a younger brother so I am not necessarily privy to the devious minds of sisters.  The worst thing that my brother would do would be to make bunny ears behind my head, or refuse to stand within several feet of me because of the cootie possibility.  But sisters, they are definitely a different progeny.

They are willing to unite forces in order to witness Momma's hair turning grey right before their very eyes.

But this is when a moment of madness turns into a secret deepening of love in my heart disguised as exasperation.  Because I know that they love each other so much.  And I know that they speak a special language that only four united souls will ever truly understand.  And I also know, that they are sometimes willing to share that language with me in order to "let me in".

Four Angels Momma(most days).  This is my life and I would not have it any other way.

What Falls From the Tree of Life

I sometimes feel naked and transparent as I navigate my way from the darkness into the light, from darkness into light, from darkness into light...And at nearly forty-eight years old with four daughters of my own and a loving, supportive, fantastic husband to turn to, there is still someone else whom I feel the absolute need to turn to when something threatens to break my spirit, castigate my soul, reproach my heart.  There is still someone whose opinion, approval, encouragement I must have in order to feel more confident in my own decisions, someone I often feel pulled to turn towards after I cry into my husband's shoulder.  Someone who I am so much like, that he is often a mirror of my own soul.  A reflection of who I have been and who I might someday become....

Someone who helps to shield me from the darkness.  Someone who leads me back into the light.  Someone who I speak to on an almost daily basis and who occasionally leaves me strange and cryptic comments on my blog that only I would understand.  Someone who I will never stop needing for as long as I live.  My dad.

Thank God my four daughters have been blessed with the same kind of man.

June Gloom, Pain, Prisms and Perspective

I sit here surrounded by the soft sounds of restful slumber and the milky haze of what is known here in Southern California as "June Gloom".  On the floor beside me, our two dogs Becca and Micah, snore peacefully blanketed in blissful sleep.  To the left of me, my husband sits with his head against the headboard, mouth slightly open rhythmic breaths giving away his almost silent stolen bit of respite.  Our cat, Callie, is nestled snuggly beneath the covers on his lap.  Every now and again her little head pops up at the sound of a birdsong coming from our feeder outside the door.  The ocean recesses and retreats against the shoreline below our bluff and the words enter my mind in almost the same rhythmic pattern.  This is my Saturday.

I must confess that I am not usually a gloomy person. But the June Gloom rests heavier on my soul during days when I can do very little more than move my fingers steadily across the keyboard.  There is something about living in the constant throws of chronic pain that is both exhausting and encompassing.  My family understands this.  They know what I go through and how much I must battle the darkness that can sometimes eclipse the wonderful lightness of living.  They know that there are times when I must give into the overwhelming pull of living with Fibromyalgia.  And I know that they deserve a wife, mother, daughter, friend who lives in the light of life.  A very good life.  I try to live in the balance by focusing on the things that I can do.  By using the gloom as a time to reflect upon the subtle sights and sounds of living.  The things that often pass by unnoticed because we are often busy making too much noise to hear them.  Pain magnifies everything.  It emulsifies the negative.  This is why it can take patience and practice to live in the light when dealing with a chronic illness.  It is important to understand the gloom, but also to notice the glimmers which can sometimes take on the colors of a rainbow.

The details can become muddled when viewed through the prism of pain.  The colors muted, the shapes and textures clouded and sharp and the sounds downright abrasive.  But then, something finally helps to ease the distress.  A decent night of sleep, the benefit of laughter, the right pain pill at the right time, an enjoyable meal, an engrossing novel, or a break in the thick layer of gloom.  And suddenly, a brilliant prism of light appears before us.  Was it there all along?  Is it possible that we might have been so fixated on the pain(albeit, physical or mental) that we could not see past the obvious?  Did the benefit of viewing things from a different angle allow us to see something that could have been there all along?

These pictures, taken on a sunny day last week, exemplify the way in which a prism can alter our perceptions.  I was trying to take some interesting pictures of this lovely glass vessel filled with sea treasures which was given to me by my Angel Daughter Number Two for Mother's Day.  And then I noticed the rainbows.  It would have been enough just to view the reflection of a sunny day through the beauty of this terrarium, but I was given so much more.  I was given another perspective and rather than ignoring something that I was not originally looking for, I took the time to notice it.  Really, really notice it.  And today, as I was working through the pain that was pulsating throughout my entire body, I took time to notice the sounds and sights of what was going on around me and the gloom, both physically and mentally, began to lift.  The pain, my pain, reflected through the prism of the light of my own life, became more manageable and less daunting.  The gloom lifted and I soaked in the colors of my own environment.  The very same environment which I had been in all along, but which now seemed much more serene and comforting.

May the prism through which you view your own life, be one that is filled with many colors.  May you find a way to notice your way past the pain.  And may you always be reminded that there is color in everything, whether we are aware of it or not.