I used to make tea for my mother . . .

 . . . . I used to make tea for my mother. I remember the routine so clearly. I was able to do it by age 8, if not before. Fill the kettle, get the green cup with the white daisies on it, put the teabag in, get the Half & Half; the tea kettle whistles and I pour the water (making sure not to lose hold of the teabag), and let it steep for a few minutes. Wrap the string around the bag to squeeze it out. Next, put in a couple of spoons of sugar and enough of the Half & Half to make it just the right khaki color, stir, and very carefully deliver it to Mom. I loved making tea for Mom because I knew how much she loved her tea and it made her happy. Sometimes when I knew she was having a particularly bad day, or was upset about something I would surprise her with that little simple gift. Such an English thing to do, just pour a "cuppa" and everything will be better. Sometimes, when it was raining outside and she was coming home after a long day and would have to walk from the garage to the house, I'd meet her with an umbrella so she wouldn't have to get wet. I liked making things for her. Some of our cherished Christmas ornaments are little wooden characters I sanded and painted and gave everyone as Christmas gifts. I wanted to please my mom. I wanted to give her a little break when I felt she needed one. As the quiet daughter, I liked making these quiet sort of efforts. 

Mom didn't always have it easy raising us. She was a divorced mother by 1971 when there were very few of those around. I don't think I knew anybody else who had divorced parents. She had to work to provide for us because my dad wasn't reliable with child support. It was a struggle on the salary of an Exxon secretary. For about 5 of our younger years, we were fortunate to have our grandparents living five blocks away. I can't imagine what we would have done without them. I felt so safe just knowing they were there. My sister and I would go to their house after school until Mom got home. We'd drink Dr. Pepper and I'd eat marshmallows. Life wasn't too bad for a kid in these circumstances, but I could always feel the struggle for Mom. I didn't fully understand it at the time, but when I was a single mother myself, I recognized what she went through. When I was 11, she married my step-father, Walter, and he continued to raise us well and loved us, considering me and Katharine his own daughters all along until the day he died. My growing up years had other issues which were difficult, but they're not important here. My focus here is Mom and all that she has given me through the years, a life I've often tried to thank her for, although inadequately, and a love I always wanted to feel worthy of. 

My mother gave me many gifts. The gift of life is an obvious cliche, but in my case, that wasn't an easy gift. I was premature, had to be delivered by c-section, and was completely enclosed inside the placenta --- not the amniotic sac, but the actual placenta. I weighed just a little over 5 pounds, and clearly, I was a little weird from the get go. My older sister Katharine was the show-stopper in the family and I was quite content to be the quiet, smiling one. I was a happy child, and I liked peace. I didn't always have peace, but Mom taught us ways of distraction I have carried since. She gave us music and books, maps and culture. Katharine and I spent endless hours listening to records of Camelot, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Romeo & Juliet. When she was able to, she took us to a symphony or opera. It was so much fun to get dressed up (as people used to do) and go to the symphony. She read to us always and in the usual parental fashion of tolerating multiple readings of my favorites books such as I Wish I Had Duck Feet. We had a set of  Time-Life books on history with beautiful pictures which we studied laboriously and dreamed of stories about the castles, Charlemagne, and knights. We had a giant world atlas and were fascinated by the maps, wondering what it was like in all those places. Mom taught us a certain level of sophistication and culture which I treasure. The desire to see and learn was reinforced by her. We had opportunities to travel and go on little adventures. We went on vacations to the beach, which I know were a struggle for her. After she and my step-father married, the four of us took a road trip to Portland, Oregon, to see Walter's parents. We crowded into a little Toyota Corona, a suitcase between me and my sister in the backseat, and drove from Houston to Portland and back. Adventures! 

Sometimes I was a little afraid of her sternness when we were in trouble. We knew we were sunk as soon as she paused and licked her lips. It's still the tell-tale sign. Mom and Katharine used to fight a lot when we were young and I remember one time when Katharine declared she was going to run away. Watching from my bedroom door, I remember Mom licking her lips and saying, "Then let me get your suitcase for you." Katharine defiantly packed something in it and walked out the front door. To be honest, it scared the hell out of me because I thought she was really leaving! I was probably 6 and Katharine 8 at the time. Of course, Mom knew what she was doing. When she walked out the door, Katharine marched promptly over to the driveway and sat there until she finally decided to come back in. It seemed like hours to me, but it was probably about 20 minutes. Every time they fought though, I was a little afraid that Katharine would leave, like my dad had left. I tried to keep everybody happy. Perfect time to make a cup of tea for Mom. Mind you, I wasn't a perfect angel myself. There was a time when I was in elementary school and a member of the Girl Scouts. I loved being in Brownies, but Girl Scouts wasn't the same, so I started skipping those meetings and going over to my friend Kendall's house to listen to Carly Simon and John Denver records instead. I was always home on time and figured it shouldn't really matter, but deep down knew I wasn't where I was supposed to be. So one night at dinner, Katharine says, "Where were you at Girl Scouts today? I didn't see you there." She had gone with a friend to help, but I wasn't there. I immediately got the "look" from Mom and then gave the most stupid answer possible, "I guess I was just on the other side of the room" That did it. I was ordered to my room, got a spanking, and then she told me about how frightening it was for me not to be where I was supposed to be, and then she told me that Girl Scouts was something she had to pay for and it wasn't easy. I earned that spanking. Then there was the time when I was a senior in high school and on one of our college tour days, a bunch of us went to the French Quarter instead of going to LSU for the day. When I got home, she was sitting on the living room sofa drinking a cup of tea, and looking down, she calmly asked how LSU was; I said it was fine. She licked her lips and told me to go get in the car. She drove me back up to school and turned me in for skipping out. I got 3 days of detention. I earned that detention.

I understand that true parental love is unconditional, as I know my mother's has been for me. However, it is my nature to doubt myself. In so many ways, Mom taught me to be a strong, independent woman. I have to laugh when I think about my ex-husband saying to me that one of the worst things my mother did was to raise me to be so "independent!", like that was a bad thing. Thank you, Mom! I'll be completely honest here though and confess that for much of my life I felt that I fell short of pleasing her. We have many differences of personality and I have a fair bit of my father in me too. As I grew older, I made fewer cups of tea for Mom. In that natural way of the teenager and young adult, I was focused on my own world, my own problems, and trying to muddle through my declining marriage while raising two boys of my own. I worried about disappointing Mom by not keeping my house "clean enough," by not going into a profession where I could be more successful and self-reliant, by not handling money well, but failing at marriage, by not disciplining my kids as she would have done, by having a child who became a drug addict and went to prison, and by raising another child who didn't get in trouble, but enormously NOT independent as she had raised me to be. Through all of that though, even though I so often felt like a disappointment, she was there, loving me all the way through and telling me she was proud of me. Eventually, I started letting go of my insecurities and believed her. Unconditional love is a grace and a blessing and I wouldn't have survived without it. 

Now here we are in a different stage of life. Mom went on hospice care a couple of months ago and I've tried to make more frequent visits to spend time with her. On one visit, she asked me to make a cup of tea for her. In the years since I was a child, her tea routine has become considerably more elaborate. As I headed toward the kitchen, Mom asked if I knew the routine. I asked her to remind me. Now it involves more steps and greater precision. As I fixed her tea that day, I felt sad thinking of the old days when I could make her happy with the simple gesture. Now I felt inadequate and worried terribly that I didn't have it just right. She deserved to have it just right. I don't think I was fully successful, but she thanked me and drank it anyway, smiling. Since then, tea doesn't taste very good to her anymore. It's a clear sign of the changes coming. I wish I liked tea. I wish I liked it and someone would bring me a cup to make me feel better. I'm sad, terribly sad. I'm not ready to lose my mother. I want more time. I want more time to tell her how much I love her, how much I appreciate her, and how thankful I am that she is my mother. I've long since figured out the great secret of life, that our parents aren't perfect and don't really have all the answers, that they are flawed humans just like the rest of us. It allows us to see beyond the role of parent and into what else they're made of. My mom has devoted her life to Christ and spreading that love to all she encounters. I've watched her be the "strong friend" to countless people when needed. I've seen her open her home and her heart to others. I've watched her teach about spiritual direction and even begin a school for others to spread the calling. I'm so proud of her, all that she's done, and all that she's been to others. I'm proud of her for being an excellent writer and even writing a couple of novels, even if they haven't (yet) been published. I love my mom. I don't have much time left. I can't possibly say everything I want to say, express everything I feel. My step-father passed away nine years ago, my dad two years ago, and now I'm losing my constant magnetic north. My sister and I will be left with the gifts of life she gave us, and with each other. I'm so glad to have my sister in this last part of the journey of Mom's life. We have been so fortunate. Maybe I'll make Katharine a cup of tea to make her feel better. We'll make our new lives without parents, but Mom will always be with us. She has been a good mother. She has been a loving grandmother. She has lived a good life. I know she has unfulfilled dreams which are now put aside, but she treasures the life she's had. She is weary, but feels joy about her life. I suppose ultimately, you can't really ask for more. There's not much to do to make her happy anymore besides just being there. It's frustrating not to be able to do more, not to be able to do something. I have to just let it happen. All I can do is tell her how much I love her . . . . and, if she decides one would taste good, I'll make her a cup of tea. I love you, Mom.  

When you're a failure at parenting . . . .

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here."

--- Inferno, Dante

Today is one of those days when I feel like a complete failure at parenting. To be honest, I am always uncomfortable when people say I'm a "strong" mom or other complimentary words. I kind of feel like a fake because deep down I think I should have done better. While struggles with Ethan and his addiction are pretty big to feel the parent guilt on, there are so many more which plague me, and while Asa isn't typically the focus of problems, I know so much guilt with him too. Parent guilt sucks! I wonder, does anyone NOT have it? I have many good days when I can rationally tell myself, "Leigh, you did the best you knew how with what you had." But, I also have many days where I say, "Bullshit! That's just a cop out! You should have done this or you should have done that . . . . "

"…But I would
not have you, reader, be deflected from
your good resolve by hearing from me now
how God would have us pay the debt we owe.
Don’t dwell upon the form of punishment:
consider what comes after that; at worst
it cannot last beyond the final Judgment." (Purgatorio. X, 105-111)

---Dante

Look, I'm just giving some truth here. Haven't we ALL felt that way probably many times during our tenure as parents of the little darlings we so looked forward to having? I know I'm not alone. I know that parents who parent together (married or not) also feel this way at times, but I can't really speak to that because it's not something I've ever known much of. Not really as a child or as a parent. So here, I mainly speak to those of us who have been in the single-parent realm of Purgatory. It's not a permanent state of Hell or Heaven. It's somewhere in between, hence, Purgatory. Referring to Dante's words above, don't dwell upon the debts we're paying now, just know it won't be this way forever. Or so they always say.

Remember how we thought it would be so wonderful to have children? The babies were precious! My own two boys were absolutely beautiful and I couldn't have enjoyed them as babies any more than I did. I nearly died giving birth to the first one and had it not been for living in the modern world of surgery I wouldn't have survived the second one either. That was the price for these amazing beings and I happily paid it. Do you also remember when they were young, toddler through 5 perhaps, and we thought it would get easier as they became more independent? No more diapers, diaper bags, blah-de-blah. Looking back, those were the easiest of times. It all started turning downhill not long after that. For me, I think I was managing pretty well until Ethan was in 4th grade. That year his father and I got divorced. It was also the year Ethan had a really horrible, mean teacher. The combination of everything was tough. Asa seemed to be weathering that storm a little easier at age 5 or so. Then, I actually thought I was doing pretty well, until it was clear that I wasn't.

Yes, I actually thought I was kind of rockin' it as a single parent. In many ways, our lives were much more relaxed at that point and we seemed to be on the upswing. I thought it would probably get easier from there. LOLOLOL!! Boy, was I wrong. What followed was moving across the country with the boys and starting all over again. Then, again, just when I thought I had it down . . . . BOOM!! Addiction! If anything will make you question your parenting skills, it's discovering your child is a drug addict, your child is in juvenile detention, your child is in the state hospital, your child is in jail, your child is in rehab, your child has overdosed multiple times and only alive by multiple miracles, and then your child is in prison. Yep, that'll make you think twice! How did I not know? Why was I not able to fix it? What the hell am I doing??? This must be a result of something I did terribly wrong! As if addiction doesn't have enough of its own stigma, parents of addicts get a big dose too! "MY kids would never do that!" "How did the parents not know?" "That's bad parenting right there." You get the picture, and many of you have probably said these things. It doesn't matter how many times anyone, including Ethan, tells me it's not my fault and NOT a result of something I did or didn't do, I will never completely believe there wasn't something I should have done differently. I just can't let go of that little bit of paper firmly super glued in my brain that says I should have been able to do something.

Ethan isn't the only issue though. Asa has his moments! Although he has never ventured down the dangerous path his brother went, he is on his own frustrating one. It was such a struggle to get that child to school, get him to do his work, and get him through graduation. He was bored at school and just didn't want to be bothered by any of it. His room looks like a disaster area, but I let it go, rationalizing that the battle wasn't worth it and at least he wasn't doing drugs or anything. He's one of those kids who does everything in his own time and although I stress obsessively, he typically accomplishes whatever it is by the deadline, barely. I have to nag at him about everything and I feel like a total bitch doing it! I had to practically force him to get a driver's license. We've had knock down drag outs about him getting a job! Bad enough that for a split second, he even thought about going to his dad's (he got over that after 2 hours with his dad the other day.) I don't know if it's a generational thing or what, but kids these days (yes, I'm officially an old person for saying that) just don't seem at all interested in independence. When I was a teenager, we couldn't wait to drive, to go off to college, and to get out of the house! We craved all that adulting stuff, of course, we also regretted some of it when we got it. These kids are in no hurry at all. Asa has absolutely no idea what to do with himself for the future or even a starting point from which to launch.

I am an intelligent woman with two college degrees. Their father is a PhD in English. Both sides of our families were educated. How did I end up with kids who weren't interested in college? Ethan kind of has an excuse. Had things gone differently, I think he would have been happy to go and now that he is older and clean, he would like to give it a try when he's released. But Asa? How did I raise two kids who really don't know how to do basic things even though I made great efforts to teach them? Where did these children come from?

I do believe that an overriding factor in my failed parenting is the fact that I didn't provide them with a good male role model. Should I feel guilty because my ex-husband was rather a disappointment in this department, or is it on him? Well, I feel guilty. I feel like I should have done more to provide them with someone to fill that "dad" role after our divorce when it was clear that their father wasn't going to do it. Instead, I tried to fill both the mom and dad roles as much as possible. In some ways, it was kind of fun, but I was enormously inadequate at being a dad. I had the sex talks with them, I primarily did the Scouts stuff with them, I tried to do some sports with them. But, I wasn't a dad. I know many women who remarry for lots of good reasons, one of them to fill that role. I wouldn't have really wanted to go about it that way, but I should have done something. We tried Big Brothers with Ethan and that was a disaster. Essentially, either through death or divorce, every male role model in their lives has left them. I do realize this isn't necessarily my failure, but sometimes it sure feels like it.

Should I have been harder on them about some things? Easier on them about other things? How badly have I damaged their future relationships by my actions? Parent guilt . . . .

So, while you all are often so quick to offer positive words about how I've been as a mom, I fight all this other stuff in my head. Believe it or not though, I am much better. Now that things with Ethan have settled some (hopefully for a very long time) and Asa made it out of high school, it really is pretty much on them, so there's not a whole lot more I can do or fix. I wish I had provided them with the same parents/steady home nuclear family, but I didn't. I wish I had provided them with male role models, but I didn't. I wish I had known what was going on with Ethan, but I didn't. I wish I knew how to motivate Asa, but I don't. And now, it's down to to them, so I pray . . . . a lot. I pray that some things I did were good. I pray that I gave them enough skills to do better than I did. I pray that they won't one day feel the amount of failure I feel. I pray that I did well enough. I love those men I've tried so hard to raise on my own for the last 14 years. When I step back and look at it all, we did accomplish something really important . . . we're here, we've made it this far, and most importantly, they have NEVER doubted my love for them. Even though some days feel terrible, I guess I haven't been a complete failure after all. I love them and they know it.

"If you give people light, they will find their own way."

---  Dante

Post-Travel Depression: It's a real thing . . . .

Just returned from a wonderful vacation! Happy to be in my own bed, my own shower, air conditioning, and the regular use of such novelties as ice. All good, right? Not so fast for some of us.

I love to travel. I'll travel just about anywhere but I really love traveling in Europe. Last week I returned from 10 days in Eastern Europe with two friends and ten of the best high school students I could have ever traveled with. We went to Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Budapest, and even to Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was a pretty much perfect trip. We walked so much my 54 year old feet thoroughly hated me by the time they were given a reprieve, but I could have done more. I could have happily remained traveling for much longer. At 10 days, you're really just hitting your stride, right?  But alas, the day comes and it's time to go home. Traveling home is always unpleasant because it doesn't have the anticipation of beginning a trip but instead the realization that it is back to reality. Yes, I miss my bed, but do I really have to go home? Yes, I miss my A/C and ceiling fans, but I'm adjusting; can't I just stay a little longer?

For me, the depression (and I don't use the word lightly here) begins on the journey back but then really hits about a day later. It's not that I don't want to come back at all, it's the lack of new stimulation, of seeing beautiful and exotic things, of learning about other parts of the world, and no longer being a part of the traveling tribe. When you're traveling in groups, the dissolution of the tribe is much more obvious, but it even happens if you've been traveling alone. In that case, the tribe is the people you've met along the way, the friends you've seen, or even the nice person in the train station who helped navigate you in the right direction when you were lost. The camaraderie of traveling with others is unique. Anyway, I miss all of that.

Although the melancholy is different between group and solo travel, the solo travel is almost harder to recover from for me. In the course of daily life, I often lose sight of my confidence in various things. When I travel alone, I have to navigate everything myself. It can be frustrating, but once done, I always feel confident that I've done so. Most of my individual travel overseas has been in the British Isles, so there hasn't been much of a language barrier. However, one year I decided to go to Italy for a week by myself. Everyone kept asking if I could speak Italian. No. How are you going to get around? I'll figure it out, and I did. I went to Perugia, Florence, and Rome. One slight error along the way though . . . . if you ever go to the amazing little town of Perugia, be sure NOT to get off the train at the first Perugia stop. Wait until you get into the city! I had fallen asleep on the train from Rome and woke up when I heard "Perugia." Naturally, I got off, only to find myself at a small, one building stop in the middle of nowhere with nobody able to speak English and the next train not coming for hours. Well, let's just say that I made it to the city, but it was really stupid of me all the way around. Didn't make that mistake again. Lol. In 1987, the summer after my first year of teaching, I went to England for a month, bought a BritRail pass and just hopped on and off the train wherever I felt like going. It was wonderful! But, I'm getting lost in the adventure again . . . .

My point is, for those of us who really love traveling, whether it's a big trip or a small one, you'll probably experience some post-trip depression, and it's perfectly normal. It means you had a good time. It means you are reliving experiences and people. It means you want to do more. It also means you're now back in reality. It will subside . . . . . as you start planning the next adventure.