How has being Anna’s mother changed your
goals and perspectives?
Whew! I could
probably write an entire book about this one 😊
As I reflect on my adult life, I can clearly see four
relatively distinct seasons/periods.
First were my years of teaching during which my personal health and
well-being was overshadowed by my hours (and professional goals) in the
classroom. Then came baby Anna, baby
Kate, and sweet baby Ethan. These were
the years during which the goals of my personal life superseded those of my
professional life.
The next major transition came when Anna was diagnosed with
cancer which were followed by my years as “Anna’s mom”, with any other personal
or professional identity and goals fading to the background. With Anna’s death I feel like I have entered
an entirely new phase, which has yet to be defined distinctly, but which
appears to have the scales tipping outwards to the rest of the world again.
Part of the question, then, could probably be better
interpreted as how being a mother has changed my goals and perspectives.
It’s difficult for me to put myself back into those years prior
to children, but I can say with reasonable assurance that becoming a mother
made me less selfish and more selfless.
Being the sole source of food and comfort for a tiny living human made
me humble to a depth that few other experiences could. My goals were no longer large and/or lofty,
but began to focus more clearly on the people in my life and my relationships
with them.
I can also say that, for awhile at least after Anna was born,
I became more controlling and rigid. I
still remember the frustrations I felt when things didn’t go as I had
planned … she didn’t nap long enough, she woke up multiple times at night,
the milestones weren’t met in the order and ways in which I thought they were
supposed to happen. But, as I allow
myself some grace for these moments, I know I recognized this pattern of
behavior and gave myself the goal of consciously letting go of some of that
control. I think I can also say with
certainty that this awareness helped me to live in the present more fully and
to find joy in small things. It just
took time.
Anna’s experiences with cancer and her death have continued
to transform my life and how I prioritize my time, energies, and goals. The suddenness of her diagnosis and then her
death reminded me both times of the fragility of life, which is a remarkable
way to see what truly matters in this world.
Faith and people.
Relationship with God and relationships with others.
(With the understanding that for relationships with others
to be healthy, I need to be focusing on my own physical, emotional, and mental
health as well.)
During Anna’s early days in the hospital, I remember feeling
so reassured by Anna’s knowledge of and faith in God. No matter what happened then (or what
happened four and a half years later), I knew with absolute certainty that
Jesus loves her, that she loved Jesus, and that she would spend eternity with
Him.
I also I remember the gratitude I felt towards the time our
family spent developing and deepening our relationships with one another. Knowing that the energy we had spent
cultivating our connections to each other was well worth the effort, I made a
conscious effort to continue to make those relationships a priority in my life.
All the other “stuff” of life didn’t matter nearly as much
anymore … I can still picture the piles of clothes given to us that stayed in
our entry way for months at a time, the pile of empty boxes that stayed next to
our back door for weeks at a time, and the 9 months (!!!) in 2014 when people
brought us meals two or three times a week.
So, so much didn’t matter.
And yet, during those same months (years), I remember the
effort we put into sitting down to have at least one meal together each day,
the effort we put into getting our family to church whenever we could or doing
“church at home” if we couldn’t physically be present in a worship service, and
the determination I felt at continuing our family’s routine of devotions during
breakfast. I’m sure some of those moments
I remember through the lens of memory which brings the reliability of the
individual moments into question, but I’m fairly confident that 2014 was the
year in which I began to consciously prioritize my tasks. I developed clarity to recognize what was
most important and what could be let go.
But the uniqueness of Anna’s needs had a huge impact on how
I see the world as well, giving me a greater appreciation for the individuality
of people. Perhaps this started during
our days in the hospital when I developed a curiosity about the health care
professionals surrounding us. I began
asking questions about who they were outside of the moments in Anna’s room,
whether those moments were in other parts of the hospital or elsewhere.
From those early days, I continued to develop relationships
with anyone who helped care for Anna … nurses, doctors, therapists, teachers,
aides, etc. As I reflect back on those
times, I think I wanted desperately to be seen as an individual, not just as
“Anna’s mom”, and I thought (perhaps not consciously, though) the best way to
have others see me as my own person with my own identity was to see them
as individuals, not just as their title or defined by their role in my life.
In addition, living with and caring for someone who had such
profound physical needs removed some of my previous discomfort with people who
have physical and cognitive challenges. As
I’ve learned in my more recent experiences in schools, I don’t get scared away
from tricky situations very easily anymore.
I also became very adept at looking for any progress that
Anna made, which allows me to interact with those who have a variety of
differences with an empathy and understanding that I did not have prior to
Anna’s cancer diagnosis. I can find good
traits in just about any kid I meet, provided that I have enough time 😊
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