“I just felt like
I couldn’t get it right”. These were the words my son said to me this morning
when we were rehashing something we were discussing last night. Ok, we weren’t “discussing”
anything; I was giving him a hard time about something. In a way, we were
joking around, but I was serious to some degree. It was stupid. Isn’t it
always? It was handwriting. I was giving him a hard time about his signature
and how I couldn’t read it.
Liam,
Mary, and I were all trying to “forge” each other’s names last night when I
began talking about how kids really aren’t taught to write well anymore because
they mainly type. I asked, “What are you going to do when you leave someone a
note and they can’t read who wrote it?” Anyway, we were mainly joking, but I
realized I had stepped over the line. It wasn’t one thing I had done or said it
was just a feeling, a look, an atmosphere. I felt horrible. Not because of what
I said, but because my son felt like he “couldn’t get it right” and because it
was because of me. Nothing is worse.
The
words Liam said this morning were not to cut me or even to be
passive-aggressive. We are fine, he hugged me good-bye like he does every
morning. All shall be well. But those words have echoed in my head over and
over, “I just felt like I couldn’t get it right”. How many times have I felt
like that in my life? How many times do I go to bed at night feeling like the
whole day was a day of “Just not getting it right”? How many relationships,
friendships, words said, words unsaid; how many times have I walked away from
something with that empty, lonely, beaten-down feeling of “I just couldn’t get
it right.”? Countless. Countless.
Of
course I did what I always do when my heart wants to crack open and I have to
keep from crying, I called my mom. She assured me that we would probably all
live through this great penmanship debacle. I imagined the times she felt like
I do today. Parenthood isn’t easy. Nothing is really easy. I cried a little,
but I was thankful that I cared enough to cry. I was thankful that my
relationship with my children means enough to me that words matter; to them and
to me. I am thankful that sometimes it takes us feeling like we just can’t do
anything right, to take stock in all the things we really do work at doing
well; what matters, what doesn’t.
Every
day we get to start over. Nearly everyday something knocks us down or God
forbid we knock someone down. But thank God everyday… no, many times every day we are given chance after chance to do the
next best thing, to do the next right thing. We are given chance after chance
to lift, encourage, and breathe hope
into others. So when we sit and take
stock in our day we don’t have to say, “I just felt like I couldn’t get it
right” and heaven forbid no one has to say that because of us, we can say, “I
didn’t do it all right, but I did some things well today. I would sign my name
to today”.
I
just chuckled to myself when I typed that (and Liam will laugh at this, too)…
just make sure when you sign your name to your day, your parents can read it ;)
I
have to end with the text I got last night from my daughter. She always texts
me goodnight whether it’s from her dad’s house or upstairs at my home. The text
read, “Mommy, you are the glue to my stick, the peace to my sign, the alarm to
my clock, the jelly to my beans, the best to my mommy. I love you, goodnight”.
Liam and Mary, you are the life in
my blood,
I love you,
Mommy
Becky Wilkenson
March 7, 2013
