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“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” – Susan David – TED Talk “The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage” This pandemic caught …

Saving Myself Through Discomfort

Emily Gould reconsiders the likelihood of women’s first-person writing bringing about change.

Sharing Our Stories Was Supposed to Dispel Our Shame

Last night I dreamed that I was at my brother’s house.  There were pieces of fabric everywhere and unfinished projects.  I tried to clean up, but the boys were playing and making messes.  It seemed like I could never get anywhere.  There was a complicated game that involved the T.V. and a game console, and a doll that could blow up balloons.  I was trying to help the kids to make it work, but then the balloon started falling apart.  I was trying to tell my mom about how you could buy regular balloons to replace the broken one.  It was clear she was uninterested in fixing the toy.  I became discouraged.  It seemed that all my efforts were unappreciated and worthless.  I told all my boys that it was time to leave.  I was going to pack up my things and go.  J.R. started coming too and I told him he didn’t need to come.  I had summoned him by mistake.

I want to write on my blog again, but what would I say?  I’m hurting so much and I can’t share that burden with anyone.  I want to write again, but it seems that all my words are worthless.  Everything I have written, everything I have shared, all my thoughts……I thought I was being inspired.  I thought I was doing something great and brave and good.  Now I just feel alone and sad.

I read my Book of Mormon last night.  I think I’ve been subconsciously avoiding my scriptures because I’m afraid of my own connection with God.  It is easier to stay away than to feel things and get inspiration I don’t have faith in anymore.  I wish I were certain, like my parents, of my course and my rightness.  They are always right.  I am always uncertain.  Except I know they aren’t right.

That’s the thing about being where I’m at right now.  I know they aren’t right.  I don’t know if I’m right or not, but I know that they aren’t.  It’s like doing a problem in calculus that takes pages of computations to figure it out.  The person next to you has written a few numbers at the top and tells you they got it right.  You know they didn’t.  They didn’t do any of the work.  They didn’t spend the time to do the calculations.  But you don’t know if the pages and pages of computations have gotten you the right answer anyway.  And with their criticism blaring my ears, it just confuses me and makes me more uncertain.  And then I feel stupid for trying so hard.  Is it worse to fail after pages and pages of computations, or fail with one line of numbers at the top of the page?  Doesn’t it come to the same thing?  The wrong answer?

And that’s what I see in myself.  I screw up with my children at every turn.  Nothing is working the way it should.  I parentify, I neglect, I shame, I do all the things I know I shouldn’t do, but I don’t know how to do it differently.  I want to have my parents back in my life again, but I don’t want their doubts and their fears back in my life.  I wish they knew how poisonous their criticism is to me.

But they won’t change.  They’ve been criticising me for so long.  It is the only parenting they know how to do.  They don’t know how to have faith in the basic goodness and rightness of their children.  They don’t believe they are good and right.  They think children have to be forced and controlled and  stuffed into the “good box” in order to be good.  They don’t want them to do what the Savior wants, they want them to do what they want.  And it isn’t the same thing.

And yet I’m in the same place.  Fear.  Will my children make the right decisions?  Will they do the right things for themselves?  Will they fall into addictions and bad habits and sins that will cause them problems?  I don’t know.  I want to take comfort in the power of the Savior to heal them if and when they stumble and fall, but that fear is too powerful when it is magnified by my parents’ fear.  The fear has to go.

God has given us the spirit of faith, hope, and a sound mind.  I don’t feel those things right now.  I feel doubt and hopelessness and despair.  And yet as I write, I see that the fear is not so rational.  I start to see the good in myself and my parents.  I see the Savior waiting patiently next to me, waiting for me to push the fear to the side, partner with him, and move forward in making a better home for my children today.  I can’t change the past.  He’s got that.  I can’t predict the future, that’s in His design.  All I can do is live in this moment and do the best I can to follow the light I have within me.

And I’m sad because I can’t fix my parent’s fear.  I can’t open their eyes to the things that I’ve learned.  Some things you have to learn yourself and no one can give you a shortcut.  I think parenting is one of those things.  My Savior says that he has power for them too.  He has a plan for them too.  I can’t control it.  I can’t smooth the path for them.  That’s not what he needs me to do.  He needs me to listen to Him again and focus on being the best mom I can be for the special boys he has given to me to nurture.

There is a portion of His spirit in me.  I’ll keep plowing on in my calculus problem.  I may not get it right, but when I get to the judgment bar of God, at least I will be able to show my work.  To any good judge, the work counts for something.

I’ll find my faith again.  Through the clouds and shadows and dark nights, He is there.  He waits for me to find Him again.  He stands at the rock hard walls around my broken heart and waits for me to let Him in.  It’s time to cast fear aside and embrace certainty; not in myself and my infallibility, but in Him and the path He has for me and the people I love.  I can give all the broken pieces to Him.  He fixes broken things.

And as I put my trust in him, as I break down those walls again, I feel His love again.  I feel His hope again and I know that I can face another week of sickness and quarantine and needy kids.  It’s all in His hands and He knows the design I can’t discern.  My efforts will never be enough, but with Him, I can do everything that is needful.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.

The hum of the motor, the shift of the grain.  It shrinks until its gone and in it’s place, the powdery staff of life.  A little water, a little flour, some salt, and some leven and you have Bread.  The smell of yeasty, buttery, homemade goodness defines comfort food.  There is nothing like it.  Maybe that’s why so many of us have taken up the hobby of bread baking during the quarantine.

I’ve been experimenting with different kinds of breads and sourdough starters. There have been some successes and some learning experiences. Sometimes the ingredients don’t go together right.  Sometimes the harder you try, the more you realize that things aren’t working.  You’re not sure what happened or what went wrong, but you can’t fix it.  It’s time to let go.

Let go of the past and what didn’t work.  Clean off your hands and get ready to start new.  New ingredients, new methods, new recipe; a clean start. If you keep trying to fix it, keep trying to control it, keep thinking that if you just add a little more of something, it will come together, you waste your time and resources.

When you figure out that you’ve been gaslighted and that you’ve been gaslighted for your whole life by someone who was supposed to love and nurture you, that hurts a lot.  And going back to that relationship is just going to give you more of the same.  And you know it, but you can’t stop yourself from going back.  I think, “This time, she’ll see that I’m not to blame.  She’ll see that I’m trying so hard.  She’ll see that I deserve to be loved and praised not blamed again.”

But I am blamed again.  And I will be blamed again.  Because that’s how it has to work.  It works for them.  And that’s the problem.  Because the same people are blamed and the same people are given a pass.  And they like it that way.  You can call it abuse, you can call it sexism, you can call it codependency,  but one thing I know– I don’t want it.

I have Him, and its enough.  Letting go feels so alien.  It feels like coming out of a cave into blinding sunlight.  Like a chick leaving an egg, once you take that step, once you leave that comforting place, you can never go back.  

But I’m ready to make that step.  I’m ready to let go of the past and embrace the future.  I don’t owe them anything.  I’m not going to be their scapegoat anymore.  I have a right to live with respect for myself and the path I’ve taken, the things I’ve learned, and the person I’ve become.  I’m not the person they wish I was, but I’m who I want to be.  I’m who He wants me to be.  

Why did they think they could control me forever?  Why did they think their manipulations would work?  Didn’t they see that it would end someday?  Either with my death or with me walking away at last?  It was inevitable.  Some relationships were meant to die and keeping them alive in a torturous zombie existence doesn’t fix anything.

So I’m letting go.  I’m letting go of the need to change them.  I don’t need to please them.  I don’t need their approval or their love.  It hurts to grow up and leave them behind, but it has to be.  There is no other path forward.

I’ve had something of a writers block for a while.  Being sick has had some interesting psychological effects on me.  About a week or so ago, an old acquaintance of mine posted on Facebook about soothing her child who was anxious about getting the coronavirus.  Her response seemed so inappropriate and callous to me. I’m still not sure if what I read was really what she was saying, or if my mind created something different, my deep fear.  Regardless, my reading of the post was that she was telling her child that she had nothing to fear from the virus because the vast majority of people don’t know how to take care of their bodies and because she and her family ate healthy and took care of their bodies, that they had nothing to fear from the virus.  She said that people who don’t understand healthy living sometimes get sick and sometimes die, but that they wouldn’t because they weren’t like that.

At first I was shocked and angry that someone would blame the victims of the virus in this way.  Also, I can’t imagine the psychological consequences that the child would experience if she or someone she loved became very ill at some point.  I thought about responding to the post, but I saw that there were already many comments on the post and I figured I would leave the contentious conversation to others to sort out.

Still, the post and the insinuation has stayed with me.  Blaming myself for bad things happening is a habit that I developed a long time ago.  It is soothing to think that I have some control over the random happenings of a fallen world.  If I am righteous, smart, and in tune with God, nothing bad will happen to me. I can have peace in my heart because bad stuff only happens to those who are stupid or sinful.  If I am neither, I am safe.

If you are vulnerable to a lie, it is hard to fight it.  You throw reason and logic and contradictory examples at it, and still it worms its way into your mind creating dissonance and conflict within the soul.

What did I do?  Why have I struggled with illness for over a month now?  I haven’t prepared healthy enough meals. I haven’t taken care of my body.  I haven’t rested enough. Maybe I went to the wrong store, didn’t disinfect the cart enough, or touched my face when I shouldn’t have.  I did something stupid or sinful and now I’m sick and I’ve put my family at risk. I’m not smart enough to know what’s wrong with me and fix it.  My repetitive yoga routines to soothe my aching joints help, but the pain keeps coming back. Why? Why am I not smart enough to know what’s wrong?  Why do I keep pestering my doctor during a pandemic for something I should be able to fix?

And yet I can’t fix it.  Blessings and medicines and prayer seem powerless against the relentless illness that never goes away.  And I battle the shame and fear that come with having a possibly deadly virus growing inside me endangering everyone I might come in contact with.  I guess the longer I am sick the more probable my Covid-19 test was a false negative, which sometimes happens. My doctor suggested that I get an antigen test, but I’ve read that those have a high percentage of false positives and negatives as well.  I wonder if it is worth it to spend $65 dollars on a test that is not likely to tell me anything reliable.  

Still, doing nothing is difficult too.  I’ve never been sick this long with a fever.  And it doesn’t get any better. Usually I have a fever for a day or two and then it starts going down.  I start out the morning feeling okay. I start doing my activities and I start feeling the heat and fatigue within an hour after I get out of bed.  By the afternoon, my temp is at or over a hundred. I rest and it comes down.

I dreamed last night that I was visiting my brother.  For some odd reason I had the idea that human feces was the greatest medium for painting.  I collected a bunch of my poop in a towel and mixed it with pigments and painted some pictures.  I wanted to teach my niece to paint with the filthy paint as well. Later in the dream I was ashamed of my art and the filthy paint I had used.  I remembered that I possibly had the coronavirus and that it can be spread through human feces. I desperately worked to clean and disinfect the bathroom before I put my brother and his family at risk.

I think this dream captured the shame and worthlessness I feel right now, and how intimately connected I feel to the illness I have because I used it to create art.  My desire to destroy the art and disinfect the bathroom reflects my desperation to cleanse myself and the filth of contagion that came from my body. I’m afraid that the illnesses in me both mental and physical could hurt the people I love and that even something like art, which is something my niece and I connect over, could be harmful to her because it came from me.

I’ve struggled the last week or so with my feelings towards my parents.  Our relationship is going through rocky times again. It is so painful for me to think that my parents are ashamed of my expression and that my writing causes them pain.  It makes me feel broken beyond repair and that nothing I write could possibly benefit anyone; that my creations are poop paintings to be ashamed of and discarded. I feel broken beyond repair and worse than useless; dangerous and harmful; someone to be hidden away.

Usually I come to my Savior at times like these and he brings me comfort and peace. For some reason, that peace and comfort has been beyond my grasp. Ben tells me that the sun exists even when it is hidden by clouds. Right now my Savior exists, but he is hidden from me. His love is there, but I can’t feel it. What is faith if it isn’t tested sometimes? So I am taking one day at a time with the faith that eventually the sun will come out again and that he will sanctify me and my efforts and my suffering for his glory. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The world is in chaos.  The streets of every major city in the world are empty.  It is like we are Icarus and we flew too close to the sun and now we are careening helplessly to our doom.

And yet we sit in our homes and stream movies.  We bake and we play with our pets and our children, and we try not to think too much about next month or next year because the truth is, the world is forever changed.  And that is scary as hell.

All we really know is that the world we knew of bustling cities and personal freedoms and regular paychecks and business as usual.  The novel coronavirus has recreated the world. Whatever we become after all this is over, and it may be many years before its all over, we will be very different.  

We had a nice evening tonight. My thirteen year old made dinner. We all cleaned up and played a card game together. Then we stayed up late and watched some science You-Tube videos about the immune system. I thought of how complicated it all is. There are proteins and orgenelles and membranes and cytoplasm and all of them are labeled different things depending on their function and their function can change when a catalyst comes to play. And then everything changes. The catalyst turns on the proteins and changes their function. Like so many things, the more you learn the more you realize you don’t know. And the more time passes after you learn it, the more you realize that real understanding is brief and then passes to become almost like a shadow.

My son took a trigonometry test today and I read a few of the questions.  There were sins and cosins and tangents and calculators and I vaguely remembered something about it.  Mostly I just wished him good luck. He aced the test. 100%. I was so proud. Maybe the knowledge will do him more good than it has done me.  Maybe the knowledge has done more more good than I realize. It’s hard to determine what’s really important when important things are so small and easy to miss.

As I watched the science videos tonight, I had a revelatory flash.  “God knows this.” And he does. He knows us and our immune systems and our bodies.  He created them, and the viruses that attack us. I almost reflexively felt angry at him.  “What is he doing up there making viruses and watching us die and suffer and struggle in ignorance about what is happening?  What kind of monster would do that?”  

When you start seeing God from that paradigm, your brain can go to a dark place.  But God isn’t deriving sadistic pleasure from our suffering. He isn’t an arrogant apathetic snob either.  He simply understands that some things are worth the cost we have to pay. Hard things. Bad things. They have to come because without them, we don’t get the good stuff.  I don’t know what the future is going to bring, but i know that he is in charge. 

I did my yoga routine tonight and during Savasanna I opened my eyes and saw the scripture I have in vinyl on my wall.  It says, “Be Still and Know that I am God.” It is surrounded by mandalas which are pictural representations of the eternal complexity of God.  I thought of the human immune system and how complex it is. Life is complex and this virus has been the catalyst of change. What those changes look like are largely up to us.

If I were to venture a guess, I would say that God allowed this to happen because he hoped we would stop being so prideful and independent; so convinced on our own immortality and control. If we could just admit to ourselves and others that we are all pretty much idiots stumbling around trying to get a few things right, we might be able to get somewhere collectively. When everyone thinks they know everything, there isn’t much to do about it. Can we be still and know that he is God? Can we breath out our own thoughts in savasanah and make way for His thoughts? I wasn’t able to tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.

“Maybe I’m looking for the miracle in the wrong place.”  That’s what I felt as I lay on my bed, the screams of my children in my ears along with the memory of my angry retorts.  Miracles can be hard to spot sometimes. Sometimes you expect them to come in one way, and then they come in a different way.

About a hundred and seventy-five years ago, my ancestor John Lowe Butler was serving a mission to the Sioux Indians. The mission wasn’t going well. It turned out that the native tribe preferred to kill the missionaries rather than hear their message. The Elders were fleeing for their lives across the wilderness. With no food for days, my ancestor began hallucinating. He would see a big fat deer running nearby only to have the mirage disappear as he got his rifle to kill it. Each time this would happen, he felt more frustrated. He was doing what the Prophet Joseph Smith had asked him to do! He was trying to serve the Savior. Why was he going to starve to death in the wilderness? Why didn’t the Lord answer his desperate prayers?

The Lord told him to go to the river.  He had been looking in the wrong place for food.  God had generously provided for John Lowe Butler and his companion.  The miracle was not in the field where the mirages were. The miracle was in the river.

When John Lowe Butler approached the river, he was stunned to see it teaming with fish. There were so many his autobiography said there were thousands. The two men caught the fish and ate their fill. To my knowledge, he never was able to teach any Sioux, but his mission tested his faith and helped make him a better man.

This week has been so taxing for me and my family.  I have been sick. I was tested for coronavirus and the test was negative.  I am grateful that I am not on oxygen and next to death, but I still don’t know what’s wrong with me or when it will go away.  The extra burdens on me and my husband have created tension in our marriage. The typical teenage struggles have been magnified by the quarantine creating tension and problems in our relationships.  There seems to be no relief in sight as school will likely not resume this spring. Hopefully we can keep our teenagers from failing their classes, but the stress of the situation seems unrelenting.  

I am fasting as of this afternoon on Friday.  We are planning to order takeout this evening to break our fast, in part because I will be too exhausted to cook a meal.  Like my dear ancestor, I feel frustrated and confused. Why is this happening? When will it end? The fear and chaos are palpable and the spirit seems so far away.

I’m not good enough.  The members of the church aren’t good enough.  We don’t have enough faith. We aren’t righteous enough.  And yet……He is good enough. And he loves us. For whatever reason, he sees the good in us.  He sees value in us and has compassion on us in our suffering.

The miracle is happening, I’m just not looking in the right place.  Maybe the miracle is in the river and I am looking in the field. The Lord knew that John Lowe Butler would not starve.  He had provided the way. He had a plan. It was John that was afraid. John was confused. John was angry. God knows the path.  He knows the cure. He has the plan.  

I pray for the medical professionals who have to watch people die in their care and can do nothing to save them.  I pray for their families who often can’t even be with them to help them carry their burdens. I pray for those who die alone surrounded by nothing but screens and strangers to say their last goodbyes.  I pray for those who can’t get care and die alone in their homes. I pray for those who mourn for their loved ones, unable to have proper funerals and loving social support of a warm embrace.

I pray for the suffering that is unseen, unreported by news outlets.  I pray for the suffering in refugee camps and migrant communities. I pray for victims of domestic violence and the innocent children who are now trapped inside of homes with violent caretakers with no school to escape to.  The world groans with the suffering of humanity.

There is only one cure. There is only one path. There is only one who is Mighty to Save. May we find Him in our hearts. May we cultivate Him in our walk on this planet. May we more perfectly imitate the Master who can and will deliver us. This is my prayer.

Yesterday was tough. For some reason I forgot to take my medicine; my carefully constructed cocktail of sanity. The results were not good. Last night after a day of meltdowns and mood swings, I was trying to figure out why I was dizzy and couldn’t remember anything, and felt murderously angry for no rational reason. I kept thinking, “This is exactly the way I feel when I forget to take my medication!”

But I HAD taken it. I was certain. Until I looked in the pill case and saw that the pills for Thursday were sitting in the case. I didn’t take it. Sure, that wasn’t the only factor in the spectacularly bad day I had. There were defiant and off-task children, constant pestering of siblings, and marital conflicts. There were potty accidents, pesky requests for random toys and food, and the overall stress of being sick while parenting/schooling four children. But forgetting my medication made everything so much worse. This morning I made a beeline for my pill case and took my medication first thing. I already feel so much better. This was an eerie reminder of how dependent I am on substances.

It isn’t like I’m addicted to cocaine or alcohol, but in a way I feel just as trapped and helpless. What if there was a run on my medication like there was on toilet paper? What if I went to fill my meds and there wasn’t any? What would I do? What if our society deteriorates to the point that my medication is no longer manufactured? Strikes, prison riots, mass sickness and death of medical workers, makeshift morgues stack bodies in the streets of New York City. What fresh hell will tomorrow bring? And will I have the tools to emotionally face the future?

I know I’m not alone in my dependence on medication for mental health. I’m grateful that I also have a wonderful therapist who provided me an emergency session yesterday afternoon. She has been a fantastic support during a chaotic and unpredictable time. The self-awareness, the cognitive reframing, the assertive communication patterns, the self-care regimens that I have learned through my experiences in the last couple of years in counseling has made a huge difference in my ability to take control of my mental health to an extent that I have never been able to before.

Life will always bring challenges and uncertainty. I have faith that my Lord and Savior will supply my needs as they come. I pray that the same grace is available to all of you. One of the hardest things about this quarantine has been the feeling of isolation, but we are never really alone. Our Savior waits in the quiet places of our souls to soothe the anxious mind. I hope you find Him. I hope I find Him.

Be Still my soul,

The Lord is on thy side.

With patience bare thy cross of grief or pain,

Leave to thy God to order and provide.

In every change, he faithful will remain.

Be still my soul,

The waves and winds still know,

The voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

The School of Life is a YouTube channel I wish I had been able to watch as a teenager, when my views of the world and myself were first beginning to harden.  Last night I watched this one.

https://youtu.be/p5zLY3Wi8Uk

Journaling has been a big part of my life since I was eight years old. I remember writing about my crushes in my journal. I think I had a crush on half the boys in my graduating class before I graduated high school. As I got older, I would re-read my journal entries and make commentary in the margins disparaging myself for silly and immature things. Eventually I would re-read my commentary and make commentary on that. I was so embarrassed of my former immature self that I was compelled to shame her in order to show that I was no longer so foolish. In doing this, I only served to make myself seem more insecure and silly.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I stopped making commentary in my former journals. As I look back on my former self, I try to withhold judgment and allow myself to be who I was. Doing that has helped me to accept myself in the present as well, knowing that I am in a process of becoming. No stage in that process is bad or ugly; it simply is. That attitude makes self-reflection much less painful.

In college I learned about meta-cognition. I finally had a term for what I was doing as I read through my old journals. Metacognition means “thinking about thinking.” The concept of metacognition was fascinating to me and still is. I remember thinking, “What is it called when you think about yourself thinking about thinking? Meta-metacognition?” I supposed you could keep adding metas as you think about the levels of thinking until you finally reach true consciousness.

Jung wrote a lot about consciousness.  We all come upon consciousness slowly. As a baby we are conscious of very little about ourselves and the world around us.  Even the most intellegent baby has a fuzzy look in their eyes. Animals have the same look. It is that blissful unawareness, that trust, that dependence, that innocence that is the hallmark of the unconscious.  

I think of Adam and Eve in the garden.  They existed in innocence. They were not conscious.  Each of us is born innocent, unconscious, and incapable of sin.  It is only as we partake of that forbidden fruit the knowledge of good and evil that we become conscious.  That knowledge enables us to become as God.  Able to see beyond our own actions and thoughts to look outside of ourselves.  We see how our actions impact others. We can plan and calculate, make and break rules, use and abuse others to get what we want.  Then we can see the hurt in another person’s eyes. We feel the consequences of broken trust and the disappointment in others. We can think and rethink our choices.

My four year old has been trying on the bossy hat these days.  He will order me around. He uses a very stern voice, “Momma, you make me a sandwich NOW!” And then he proceeds to count in imitation of me.  I’ve been guiding him to better behavior. I put on my sad disappointed face and say, “I don’t like that. It makes me sad when you talk to me like that.”  Then I put on my new idea face. “Let’s have a do-over! This time use your kind words.” He sighs in irritation, but then says, “Momma, you please make me a sandwich.  Thank you.” Then I gush and flow over how happy I feel when he uses his kind words. He gets his sandwich and the lesson is taught.  

As he becomes conscious of his behavior and how it impacts those around him he has been experimenting.  He says, “Mom, I like you.” Then I tell him I love him too. Then he says, “Mom, I don’t like you.” I tell him that makes me so sad.  Then he repeats, “Mom, I like you.” He loves to see that he can manipulate my emotions. He learns that what he says impacts me. His behavior has consequences.  He is becoming conscious. He is also learning the most important lesson of all, that I will always love him no matter what choices he makes. His choices will impact me, but not the love that I have for him which will remain constant.

Mother’s love is like that.  Constant, dependable, and unconditional.  And vital. So vital. That is why last night when my temp was 100.1, I was afraid.  They are cremating 10,000 bodies per day in China right now, dealing with the tragic fallout from this global disaster.  They are carting bodies away in tractor trailers from New York City. Mothers are dying every day and leaving their children without a mother’s love.

Sixty six years ago in 1954 a woman lay dying.  Her seven children, her husband, her ward and stake family, and all her friends prayed and fasted that she would make a full recovery, but day by day she didn’t recover.  She died on April 8th, a little more than a month before her 41st birthday. Her son, my father, was six years old.

I have her name.  Eva. I was born on her birthday, and this May 24th, I will be 41 years old.  If I live past April 8th, I will have lived to be older than my namesake. If I have the coronavirus, and I die, I would leave my four boys, just as Eva left her little children, with no mother.

This morning I lay in bed late into the morning snuggling with my four year old. I know that if I do have the coronavirus that those snuggles should not happen, but they did and I’m not sorry. As we looked out the window, we saw two cardinals flying in the backyard trees. Two squirrels chased one another up the trunk of one tree, startling the birds, but still they stayed, poking around for worms and insects maybe to take back to their nest of babies.

Tears ran down my cheeks as I thought of how fragile life is and that perfect and precious moments need to be treasured and remembered and written down. They are God’s sweet tender mercies, his gifts to us as we face the tragedy and heartache of a fallen world.

If I die young, as Eva did, I want my children to know that every day for the rest of their lives, I will be there watching over them.  I will pray to the Lord for them day and night. I hope that there will be family and friends who will love and nurture them when I can’t.  I have faith in the plan of a merciful God who sees what I don’t understand and who will turn our trials and suffering to our blessing.

I pray today for all the children whose mother’s died too early, leaving gaping psychological wounds that last a lifetime. If I live to see the end of this epidemic, I hope that I can be more mindful of those who have lost their mothers. Especially boys. Boys need their mothers.