documentaries – Woman In Travel

Unconditional Love

I fall back suddenly into the sand. I grab my mouth, checking to see if my weak tooth is still in my mouth. I taste a little blood, but mostly I am stunned. Stunned my little student’s head could pop up so fast. Stunned that it could hurt so bad. I can feel the tears start to form. I don’t want my students to see me cry, so when my co-worker sees that I am not sitting in the sand for the kid’s amusement, I grab my mouth again and run into the hallway.

Once alone, I let the hot tears fall. I first cry for the pain, and then I cry for the possibility of being toothless. But after those fears subside, I find myself crying because this is hard. Three years ago I would have never thought I would be instructing children with special needs. Now, here I am, spending my days (primarily) with three first and second graders who have Down Syndrome. I cry because I often feel like I fail them. I cry because I want to be better for them.

It takes me awhile to push the tears back down. I have opened up a fountain of feelings and I can’t seem to put the lid back on them. After splashing my red, puffy face with water, I look into the bathroom mirror and I am relieved I’ve worn my glasses today. They partly hide the emotions that have streaked down my cheeks.

Upon entering the classroom, I can see the students watch me to see how I am. Their little faces register great concern. My second grader grabs my hand and says, “Mrs. M, it’s your birthday and we’ve made you a party.” (Now, after two years instructing him, I can understand his speech perfectly and I hear his words so clearly, whereas others still look at me to translate him.)

He instructs me to sit down. The other two come closer and they are bearing gifts. They have wrapped up “presents” in baby blankets and doll diapers, ranging from old flip phones to plastic dishes. Little N presents me with a plastic cake and has assembled a pointer with a plastic hand to act as a candle. The children sing to me in loud voices and I start to cry again. This time the tears are not from the pain. This time they are from the unabashed love they are pouring upon me. When the song ends, they throw their arms around me and dog pile me to express their love even more.

I am blessed. I am loved. These children of God don’t know my insecurities, but they know how to love me…in all my imperfections. In all the ways I fail them. They have thrown me a party to remind me that in their eyes, I’m doing okay.

Look For The Good

It’s been one month since the tragedy that hit closest to me occurred and this is the first time I’ve been able to write about it. You see, until I write about something, I can’t fully process it. I’ve avoided processing this one because I don’t want to believe my little sleepy town could be the front page of the news and I am in denial that this is my children’s “new normal.”

On December 2^nd, 2015, two terrorists walked into a meeting in San Bernardino, CA, and killed 14 people and injured 21 more. This happened a few short miles from the school I work at, the school my children attend, the school that has the word CHRISTIAN written brazenly on the exterior. I sat with my students, each with their own special need, listening to the sirens roar by, in search for this young couple, parents even, who chose to spread their hate. I felt like a sitting duck, fiercely protective of my students, and at the same time, wanting desperately to have my own two children within arms reach.

When my family was finally home, together, my husband and I listened on the scanner to see where the manhunt was. A street two blocks from our house was called out by the dispatcher. Terror crept in closer and closer to our supposed “safe haven.” Later, we were to find out that walking distance from our home, an apartment I drove by several times a day, housed items of destruction with deadly intent. Our idea of safety was overthrown, our quaint little town, desecrated.

Helicopters loomed low over our home for the next week; their constant noise was deafening and a continual reminder of what just happened. News vans filled our streets and our town which none of my Nor Cal friends could remember, was now seared in the country’s brain.

All along, no one would call it what it was: terrorism. It evoked terror in all of us. My eight-year-old boy who even at such a young age was concerned about and questioned the prior Paris attacks and Syrian Refugee crisis, asked the returning day to school whether “Bad guys would come again today.” My sixth grader came home questioning how a MOTHER could do such a thing. “What will happen to their baby Mama?” My children’s world was rocked and yet, my empathetic daughter was concerned for the child.

I wanted to be like that. I didn’t want fear and anger to consume me. But I knew I was changed. A car exhaust back firing made me duck. A lingering helicopter brought me right back. Like a mantra, I repeated “I was not given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of POWER, LOVE, and self-discipline.” (Taken from 2 Timothy 1:7)

I was reminded of the often-quoted saying of the wise Mr. Rogers “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

So I looked for the good.

As I was tucking my son into bed one night, I asked him how he was handling all of this and if he had any questions. He asked, “How did they do it?” I said, “Is that really the question you’re asking?” “No,” he replied. “WHY did they do it?” I told him there has always been evil in this world and there always will be. But there is so much good son, so much good. Look for the good.

And with that, I told him about how one man covered a fellow co-worker with his body and told her, “I’VE GOT YOU.” And he did. He died so she could live. And then I told him about the police officer who began to clear the room at the scene. The people who could walk out on their own trembled in fear that more could happen. The officer calmed them down by saying, “Try to relax everyone. I’ll take a bullet before you do, that’s for damn sure.” That is the good. Humans being human: loving, compassionate, life giving, and life preserving.

I hope you don’t have to have these discussions with your 8-year-old. I hope their childhood innocence is preserved longer than my child’s was. But even in a less dramatic situation, I hope you remember to “Look for the good.”

It’s out there. I will not let those 14 people’s lives be taken for nothing. I will not let our lives be shrouded in fear and contempt. I will look for the good and even take it one step further and I will try to be the good.

Here We Go: Wild and Free

I live a nomadic life. In my head. In my head I live a nomadic life. Truth be told, I’ve actually lived in the same city for my entire 30’s. My 20’s was a different story: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Costa Rica, back to LA, Las Vegas. But with children came sedimentary and as I look at entering a new decade, my wanderlust has emerged once again.

All Good Things Are Wild and Free. Thoreau

I believed (believe) this quote, but I’m just not sure what that looks like now. Last night I watched the documentary “Surfwise” (I watch A LOT of documentaries), about a family who’s patriarch was a Stanford educated doctor, but he bucked society, collected his nine plus kids in a camper, and lived to surf and travel. Love the premise, but in all actuality, none of the grown children seemed very happy. My mother always says “Everything in moderation, even moderation.” I don’t think I’m ready to live with my family in a camper. In fact, we are heading out on a road trip up the coast soon and I’m nervous just being in the car all together for a few days. But I digress. We are looking to retire from the military after TWENTY years of service (the hubs, not me), and we could go ANYWHERE! But we’re scared. There’s a whole lot of anywhere. And our kids like it here. And I finally have a good hairdresser. But we don’t feel very wild and free.

OverSeas

In high school, one of my girlfriends went with her family to live in Costa Rica for her sophomore year. How cool is that? When everyone is so shallow and crazy hormonal, grab the kids and take them to another country to see it’s not all about them. I don’t think I got it at the time, I was actually miffed that they took our point guard away from the girl’s basketball team, but now I think they’re great parents. My husband and I LOVE Hawaii and my daughter has a connection to sea turtles after swimming behind one there and she says Hawaii like a local. We have a connection. But the reality is that’s a major move. You would think a military wife wouldn’t be afraid of a little move, but this military wife hasn’t had to relocate much. So here we are with the question “If all the world is your oyster, where do you want to spit shine your pearl at?”

And that is what we will be figuring out ladies and gents…