My oldest son and I drove through the city under a ceiling of low-lying clouds. We hit all the lights red. I know everyone says the days will get nothing but longer from here on out, but it’s hard to believe when you haven’t seen the sun for a few weeks. These flat, gray clouds can work their way inside. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon, but a few streetlights had already winked on.
I stopped the truck at the curb just outside the movie theater.
“Why don’t you run in and see if your friends are there?” I asked him, and he nodded the way he always does. He’s such an agreeable kid. Honestly. I have to be careful that I don’t take advantage of his easy-going nature, his willingness to do whatever is asked of him. He pushed the car door closed behind him, but it didn’t latch quite right.
It’s the end of December, that week between Christmas and New Year’s when everything seems to pause, when the days blur together, when the impending year sits there, waiting patiently. Sometimes the New Year feels inviting, and sometimes it feels inevitable. Do you know what I mean?
He was back in a flash, wielding a wide grin.
“They’re here! See ya!” he said in a voice that’s changing. I had recently thought his voice was scratchy because he had a cold or something, but I have come to believe it’s actually a result of being twelve, almost thirteen. The years will do that to you. These ever-passing years will change your very words.
And that was it. I had never done that before. He slammed the door, and this time it closed the entire way.
* * * * *
I didn’t expect the simple act of dropping my son off at the movies to be an emotional experience, but as I drove away I realized in a very tangible way that this little boy of mine, the one I watched come sliding into the world, the first person whose eyes I looked into and saw myself…this boy is growing up. He will fly beyond me soon. He will soar through his own worlds.
Heading into this new year, I feel more aware than ever of the steady, unstoppable passing of time. I turn 40 in 2016. The second half of my life is beginning.
* * * * *
I picked him up a few hours later. He emerged from a gaggle of boys, grinning. Years can slip away in a grin like that. Do you know what I mean? Have you seen it? I saw him in that moment not only as the age he is, but also as all the ages he’s ever been: a newborn, eyes shut tight; two years old and tightrope-walking along the edge of the sofa; five and crying at school; on and on. A slight mist fell on the glass as we drove away.
The windshield wipers pushed aside the drops, just wiped them clean, as if they were all the years we’ve ever had.
Today we release Episode 02 of The Story of My Death, and it’s a poignant one. Listen in as we speak with Scott and Joy Bennett about their daughter Elli and her difficult entrance into the world. Their children, Sam and Anna, give us a unique, first person account of what it’s like for children who lose a sibling. In the words of Scott:
“You’ll want to listen to this interview when it releases tomorrow. Sam and Anna shared some deep things with Shawn and Caleb about their personal experience of losing Elli that they had never shared in as much detail with us. It’s pretty special.”
As usual when hearing these stories, there is sadness and heaviness, but there is also hope and peace.
A huge thanks to the Bennetts for sharing their story, as well as to our sponsor Wilde Funeral Home. The music in this episode was provided by Jake Lewis.
Let me start with the honest part, the part that’s difficult for me to admit: This has been a rough week for parenting in our house. I would use the word disastrous but you might think I am exaggerating. I went to bed the other night and couldn’t sleep because of a huge parenting fail. There may be a few angelic souls out there who ace this gig, but none of them live in this house, and they probably don’t live in yours either. We are, many of us, going to have children who end up in therapy. This is not to say that we are terrible people; this is just to say that this is the world. Besides, going to therapy is one of the best things anyone can do for themselves and the ones they love, so I guess a little nudge in that direction isn’t a terrible thing.
Anyway, after a particularly disastrous day, the elephant of worry sat down on my chest and kept me awake, watching the hours. Has that every happened to you? Have you ever stretched out in bed, so tired but unable to sleep because of that monstrous weight of anxiety? Breathe in, breathe out.
Then, a realization. While I had long thought the sleepless nights and blown-out diapers were the worst that parenting had to throw at me, I saw with clarity that the most difficult part of raising these five kids is now approaching. Puberty, emotional development, leading a still-small human being into their interests and calling. What have I gotten myself into? What have I gotten these poor, five little humans into?
Midnight.
I think the thing about realizing that I will fail my kids, and experiencing one of these major failures, is that I now have such a deep humility and empathy towards other parents. My judgy-ness has fallen away like an old skin. I confess to having harbored scathing opinions towards parents, perhaps even you, who did not do things the way that I thought things should be done. Now? In the wake of these shadows?
I am so sorry for judging your parenting. We are all in this thing together, every single one of us, and we are all doing the absolute best we can with the tools we’ve been given. Some of us have been given crappier tools than others. Some have been handed an entire tool chest with 37 different sized screw drivers and 17 socket wrenches, while others, perhaps because of their own parents or perhaps because of the way this world has weighed on them, having nothing to use but a chisel. Or a measuring tape. Or a hammer.
Use your tools well, my friends, and use them creatively. I once used the prying end of hammer to turn the tiniest screw. I once used the handle of a screw driver to (kind of) bang in a nail. If your tool set is limited, consider fresh uses. Maybe kinder ones?
1am.
At this point, following that failure, I became acutely aware of the fact that I have five children. Wait. I have five children. Five children. I was overwhelmed by the variety of ways that I might screw them up. The possibilities are endless!
I know this is 1am talking. I know I am overjoyed to have five children. I know in the morning, these voices will have evaporated with the slanted lines of light drifting through the blinds.
2am.
I fell asleep at some point during this non-hour and, bless the Lord, dreamed of nothing.
3am.
16-month-old Leo woke up during the cloudy hours, those hours from three to five when sleep and waking blend into one. I followed the sounds of his crying, went and stood beside his crib. He was standing against the rail, cheeks wet with tears, so I bent down and put my arm around his little body. He stuck his head up into the crook of my neck, and we passed the time like that in the silence of a whirring fan, clinging to each other, letting each other know it would be okay. The night would end. Sleep would come. We promised each other those things were true. I kept kissing the sweet smell of his hair.
In my mind, I apologized to him in advance for all the various and inevitable ways I will screw him up and let him down, and his little arm came up around my neck at that very moment as if to say,
It’s okay, Dad. We all screw up. I forgive you in advance. Everyone is doing the best with what they got.
And then, just like that, he laid back down in his crib. I covered him with a warm blanket and went back to bed.
Oh, friends.
I hope this post is like Leo’s little arm around your neck. I hope you will accept it for what it is: an invitation to generously dole out and receive forgiveness for misdeeds past, present, and future. Or maybe it’s a little warmth on a cold night, a little assurance that you are doing enough. That you are enough.
Sam and I walk the glistening sidewalks in this city, minutes after a warm autumn rain passed through. He runs ahead, scaling the undersides of fire escapes, pulling himself up into any climbable tree. There is still a mist, and he dashes through it. He is a little boy, yes, but he is also some kind of spirit, some kind of playful force of nature.
But this force of nature reaches for my hand when we cross the street and calls me “Dad,” grins over his shoulder when I tell him to wait up.
We turn to the left where James Street runs diagonally along the cemetery, and I wonder about the people sleeping there under the ground. All those lives, dust to dust. I wonder how any of us make it from one day to the next, our lungs still filling, our hearts still beating the seconds. I wonder how we can cling to life so fiercely, even through these latter days, when the world spins chaotic and violent, when powerful men seem intent on destroying everything around them. I stare at the cemetery and I think of the weak and the poor among us.
The rain begins to fall again, first in lonely drops, then in earnest. With at least eight blocks to go, it’s clear that we are about to get very, very wet. Golden leaves pave our way.
“Through the rain!” I shout a battle cry, my walk turning into a jog, and in that moment I wonder why I don’t take my kids for walks in the rain more often.
“Dodge the puddles!” Sam shouts back, dancing on his toes all the way, as if the world is his hopscotch grid. As if skipping along on his toes will stop the rain.
* * * * *
On Sunday we stand beside the baptismal font, surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses, living and otherwise. Abra goes first, climbing up on the stone ledge and leaning over the water, her blond hair falling in wisps. I wonder what she sees in that moment through her big blue eyes, what her six-year-old mind thinks about the water and the crowd and the words.
The three small scoops of water run down over her hair (in the Name of the Father), drip down on her cheeks (and of the Son), run like tears (and of the Holy Spirit). She looks up and comes back to us, hops like Tigger, always moving. She grins the gap-toothed grin of a young girl exhilarated by life, and water, and the idea of something unseen but crucial happening there under the somber gaze of the stained glass.
Sammy is next. He pulls his shoulders up around his ears, as if this baptism is one that makes him cringe a bit. He would rather be running through the streets, baptized by the rain, than stand in a church while wearing a tie, everyone looking at him.
I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
He raises his dripping head and smiles the sheepish grin of You were right, Dad, it wasn’t that bad as well as Can you believe I’m growing up this fast? I think of rain falling on golden leaves. I think of walking with him through the city.
Finally, Leo. Little Leo. He shakes his head vigorously when Reverend Lauren offers to take him, so he and I move in over the font together. I lean forward, and for a moment it is both of us getting baptized, both of us being made new.
I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The water runs off his head, but he doesn’t shrink back. He doesn’t even flinch. He simply stares down into the shimmering, as if down there in the clearness lies every answer to every question, if we would only give him enough time to soak them all up. And then Reverend Lauren says the words again, the words she said over all the children, words that sound like a promise oh too good, a solemn hope.
You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.
* * * * *
Sam and I keep walking, the drops hitting our faces. The leaves drift, too, stripped by the rain. Walking with him, through a day like that, a city like this, I feel marked by life, marked by a warm goodness that falls down through autumn leaves.
Maybe baptism starts in a church, guided by a pastor, observed by a gentle congregation. But I don’t think it ever stops there – I think baptism follows us down the street on a rainy autumn day, chases us through the leaves, catches us just across the street from the mechanic shop in that moment when your little boy looks up and asks you if he can jump in that puddle of glistening water, the one reflecting the golden leaves and the gray sky.
My 12-year-old son walks the delicate line between two worlds. He is all limbs and big smiles, growing into a frame that will easily exceed mine someday very soon. We recently bought the same style of shoes, the main difference being that his are a half-size bigger than mine. He is a golden retriever in personality and at his happiest when he is making other people smile.
The line he walks is the one between childhood and adulthood. His growing body is beginning to shout “young man!” while he plays in his room with Matchbox cars and reads Minecraft books.
I sometimes play monster with the kids, wrestle them all to the ground, but when I inadvertently grab his foot in the middle of that mass of arms and legs, I am shocked. Whose foot could this possibly be? How could I have a child who belongs to this appendage?
As a child, he plans on doing and becoming things that are nearly impossible. As a child, he sees no reason these things might not come to pass, as if the only thing he has to do is wish them in order to make them so. He announces these things in casual conversation, things like, “When I play in the NBA,” or, “You know, when I’m an astronaut…”
Biting my lip in these moments is perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a parent because I want to remind him of the astronomical odds, the one-in-a-million. I want to warn him about the fragile nature of hope, the heaviness of failure.
But, no. Truth be told, I don’t want to just warn him. I want to forbid him. I want to tell him to stop being so childish, those things will never work out. I want to ask him, What else do you want to do? Surely there is something more reasonable, more practical, more attainable.
But why? a voice asks me. Why do you feel so compelled?
I’m protecting him, I reason. I don’t want him to be disappointed.
But why? the voice insists again, and this time I have to pause and think.
Because those poignant moments of failure are too hard.
When they happened to me, those palpable failures, they shook the very foundation of who I thought I was. They threw me off kilter, and for some time afterwards I felt like I was floating through space, no way to tell the difference between up and down.
Don’t set your sights too high, I want to tell him. That way, you won’t be disappointed.
* * * * *
But is that really the kind of existence I’d want any of my children to experience, a life without trying? Without wanting? Without desiring?
I think of where I am now, as a writer. I may never write a best-seller. I may never be famous for my creative ability (as I discussed in the Letter to My Friends Who Are Not Famous). What if my dad, when I was 12, honed in on my love of stories and pulled me aside.
“Listen,” he might have said, “This whole writing thing? You need to just walk away from it. Find a nice hobby you can’t fail at. Find a dependable job you’ll never lose. Writing? The odds are too small, son. You’ll be terribly disappointed someday.”
* * * * *
Can I love my children enough to let them fail? Or, perhaps another way of asking the same question, Can I love my children enough to give them the space they need to succeed?
It’s hard to think of each of my children reaching a stage where the world tells them they’re not good enough. Maybe the best thing I can do isn’t to short-circuit that failure, but to help them realize where their true value lies: in who they are, and not in what they do.
Leo was born fifteen months ago, but there’s something I didn’t tell you about his birth. Right after he made his grand entrance, a stranger came into the room. Okay, not exactly a stranger, but someone you might not consider inviting into that personal space of partial nudity, first feedings, and bodily functions.
She was a photographer.
Our friend Kim said she would be honored to come and take some photos of Leo right after he was born, so we called her when he was close, and she arrived. She eased her way into the room, and to be honest I basically forgot she was there. And the images she captured when we all first came face to face with this little guy?
Wow. Unbelievable.
This weekend Kim and another friend Joyous officially launched their new business, Imprint Birth Photography. They are so talented, and passionate about capturing those first moments, and fun.
To celebrate their business’s birth, I’m reposting the story of Leo’s birth and in the mean time would you go like their Facebook page or check out their amazing website? Because even if you’re not expecting, these photos are worth taking in.
Now, here’s the story of Leo’s birth, with photos by Imprint Photography’s Kim Sanderson:
On Goddesses, Midwives, and the Baby Without a Name
Maile kneels in the large tub, sitting back on her ankles, her knees spread apart. The water is still. She leans forward against the side of the tub, facing the corner of the room. She doesn’t make a sound, at least not until the next contraction comes. Then her voice starts in a quiet hum, growing louder and only slightly higher as the contraction peaks.
“ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHH…”
She takes a deep breath and exhales, and the world has come back. For a moment there was nothing but the contraction, nothing but finding a path to the other side of that growing pain. But she is through. For now.
I kneel beside the tub and wait, my knees on a foam mat, my head in my hands. Waiting is like prayer. Kneeling there in the dim light, a summer thunderstorm gathering outside, my wife in the tub humming through each contraction, I have this revelation: it’s no wonder older traditions worshiped the female form, this vessel of beauty and power that brought forth life, seemingly on its own.
It’s no wonder older traditions worshiped the goddess. But perhaps those ancient goddesses needed priests in order to hide their humanity. Because we are, all of us, human.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Maile says quietly, urgently, and I help this goddess from the (holy?) water and into the adjoining bathroom. At some point her determination turns to uncertainty.
“I remember this,” she says. “I remember this point where you suddenly think, ‘I have decided I don’t actually want to do this anymore.’” She looks up at me with her big blue eyes. “I’m at that point.”
“You can do it,” I say, because what else is a husband supposed to say at that point?
She nods and bites her lip in pain, then the breathing.
“ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
* * * * *
Earlier that same day, about ten hours earlier, Maile woke me up. She stood at the foot of the bed, a visiting angel.
Do not be afraid.
“I’m having contractions,” she said, smiling. “They’re about ten minutes apart.”
I was suddenly awake.
“And I think we have to change the baby’s name,” she blurted out, cringing. “It just doesn’t feel right. I don’t think I can do it.”
What’s a husband supposed to say at that point? She’s having my baby, she’s having contractions, and she wants to change the name. Of course. You can do whatever you want. You can buy whatever you want. You can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
So we had to come up with another name. And he was on the way.
* * * * *
“You’re doing great,” the midwife says to Maile after four and a half hours.
“But I’m not,” Maile whimpers. “I want to push but I don’t think it’s time yet.”
“Would you like me to check you?” the midwife asks.
Maile nods, and the midwife pushes her fingers up inside, up into the source of life, the center of the pain. How often that is the case, that the center of our pain will also become the source of life. Maile grimaces, then groans, then cries out.
“Okay,” the midwife says, adjusting her reach, feeling around. “You still have two small pieces of your uterus covering baby’s head. If you push, that might start to get inflamed and then you won’t dilate fully. Can you breathe through the contractions for just a little while, give that uterus a chance to fully dilate?”
Maile nods, then closes her eyes.
“Here comes another one,” she whispers.
“ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
* * * * *
There is life in all of us, things that need to be birthed. Dreams. Desires. There is something that has been forming over time, something crucial to us, and it wants to come into being. It cannot stay hidden forever.
But let me tell you – I’ve seen babies being born, and I’ve tried to live out a dream, and none of them come into being without labor. There are contractions, and there is what seems an impossibility, and there is blood. Just when the birth is closest, the fear is greatest. Just when you think it will never happen, the midwife says those words.
“Okay, you can go ahead and push.”
* * * * *
But we hadn’t reached that point yet.
“Ask her to check me again,” Maile whispered, now on all fours, now on her side, now clinging to the headboard of the bed. Now back on her side again.
The midwife checked.
“The uterus is still in the way. If you want me to, and only if you want me to, I can reach in during your next contraction and try to slip it out of the way.”
Maile nods. Anything. She grits her teeth.
“Here’s another one.”
The midwife reaches in while Maile contracts. Maile makes a sound that’s somewhere between a shriek and a shout. The contraction seems to last forever, and the midwife works her hand around. The contraction ends. Maile gasps for breath, while the midwife examines her.
“There’s just one more small part of your uterus on baby’s head,” she says. Her voice is so calm, like still water. “After that, you’ll be good to push. Just breathe through this next contraction. One more. You can do it.”
Maile’s eyes are closed and it looks like she’s fallen asleep. Completely still. Then her eyes press tight and she bites her lip. It’s coming. She cries out again as the midwife works, more urgently this time. The contraction fades and Maile closes her eyes. The midwife smiles.
“You’re all clear. You can push. Go ahead and give us a push.”
Maile’s tank is empty, but there is a goddess in her still, and she bears down. I stand beside the bed and hold her leg up so that she can push on her side. This is it. This is the moment. She pushes and I can see the baby’s crown coming into the light. Then the baby’s hair, lots of it, and the head is nearly clear. The midwife reaches down and without a word gently pulls out the cord and unwraps it from around the baby’s neck. We have five children, and that is always the strangest moment of all, the time before the last push, when baby’s head is there, eyes open, waiting.
“Give us another good push,” she says, and I wonder where that calm voice is coming from – another world, perhaps. Another universe. Maile responds, and out slips a bundle of bones and displaced joints and skin and then it’s coming together into the form of a child. The cord is purple and red and the consistency of rubber. They are attached, the mother and the baby. They always will be.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
He lay there for a moment, the boy without a name, and he didn’t even cry. He just stared up at me, his dark eyes wide open. It was as if he was saying, Go ahead, have a good look. I’m here. It was surreal, that moment, when he should have been crying but he wasn’t, when he looked at me as if he knew me, as if he was a new part of me being born into existence for the first time.
I wondered what I saw when I was first born, what my eyes took in, what my skin felt, so fresh to the world.
The goddess lay on the bed, bleeding, smiling as if nothing had happened. The naked baby boy was on her naked body, already rooting around for food, and all was right with the world.
* * * * *
We asked everyone to leave the room and we talked about the name in hushed tones. All of our children have been named after characters in books, but this boy would be named after two authors.
Leo. As in Tolstoy.
Henri. As in Nouwen.
No pressure, buddy.
I’ve always seen Henri Nouwen as a fellow pilgrim. More than almost any other person, his words have shaped my view of a God who loves. I always remember his words about birthdays:
(Birthdays) remind us that what is important is not what we do or accomplish, not what we have or who we know, but that we are, here and now. On birthdays let us be grateful for the gift of life.
* * * * *
The boy lay there and Maile was smiling and I was overwhelmed. I had my phone out and was texting family and friends and then I was on Facebook and oh the ache I felt when I remembered my dear friend Alise and how she recently lost a baby at birth, her little Elliott. I opened up the picture she had sent me of her little boy just after he was born. He was so beautiful, even though he was already gone. I showed the picture to Maile as she sat there holding Leo.
Maile asked me a question with tears in her eyes, a question that I don’t have an answer for.
“Why do some mommies get to go home with their babies while others do not?”
There is life, and there is death, and the two are so entangled here, so interwoven and twisted together that sometimes you can’t see the end for the beginning. I sent Alise a message, telling her that Leo and Elliott will always be connected in my mind. She wrote me a kind, honest message in return.
I thought also of another friend, whose rejection post I am going to share later this week about getting married, wanting to have children, but not yet being able to conceive. Her words are beautiful and deep and wise. She was among the first to congratulate me on the arrival of Leo, and she is always among the first to “like” photos we share of him.
This is life. What can we do but laugh with one another? What can we do but weep each other’s tears? Sometimes both at once?
The day after Leo was born, Elliott’s mother Alise wrote this beautiful letter to Leo, and she quoted Frederick Buechner:
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”
* * * * *
I woke up this morning with this boy on my chest. This little lion. His arms reach down each side of me, as if he is trying to hug the world. His breath is so gentle it is barely visible, the way a falling leaf stirs the air around it. I try to count the hairs on his head. I note the tiny formations that make up his lips, his earlobes, and they are a swirl of cells that will grow and change for as long as he is alive.
