The door opens easily. Sunlight scatters shimmering prisms of color through the room. Can you see them? Millions of sparkling diamonds suspended in time.
I hear the ticking of a clock. With each ticktock, a diamond disappears. I watch, powerless to interfere. Helplessness, anger, and regret battle in my mind. “Stop!” I cry. But nothing stops. The diamonds, seconds in time, melt silently away, fading swift and sure into memories.
Turn Around and She’s Grown
I think of my children and how quickly they’ve grown. I remember an incident soon after my youngest left home. It was dark outside. The dim lamp cast quiet shadows across the floor. I was sitting on my nineteen-year-old daughter’s empty bed. Caryl had telephoned a few minutes before from California.
“Mom!” Her voice bubbled with excitement. “Guess what?”
“What?” I asked hesitantly. Excitement wasn’t unusual for her. She delighted over so many things, but this time I had a … feeling. My intuition told me she was about to announce something I didn’t want to hear.
“Mom, we’re getting married. Isn’t that great?”
“M-m-arried?” A lump the size of a baseball lodged itself in my throat, blocking my words. Her boyfriend seemed like a nice boy, but …
“Mom?” The excitement had turned to disappointment. “I wanted you to be happy for me.”
Shame on you, I scolded myself. Even if you don’t like the idea, you could at least fake it. Be happy for her. She needs that. Isn’t that what a mother is for? No, I decided. I couldn’t lie about how I felt. I never had before. “I-I’m sorry, honey.” I managed to squeeze the words through my throat. “It’s just such a surprise. I … you’re so young.”
“But we love each other, Mom. And you were my age when you met Dad.”
That was different, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. “When are you getting … married?” I was finding it more and more difficult to talk. Where had I put the Kleenex?
“We haven’t set a date. Mom, you’re not crying, are you? I want you to be happy.”
“I can’t (sniff) right now. Maybe in a day or two, when I’ve had a chance to think about it. I really want what’s best for you. I love you so much … oh, honey, wait a little while. Marriage is a lifetime thing. Please don’t rush. It takes a long time to plan a wedding.”
“I know, Mom. I love you too. And I am sure. We’ve talked about commitment and we both feel very strongly that marriage should last forever. But I’ll think about what you said.”
“That’s good, honey.”
“You know what? We’ve already decided, we want two boys—”
“What? Don’t you think you should get married before you plan a family?”
“Oh, don’t worry, we’re not … besides, we want to finish school first.”
“Good idea. I haven’t quite gotten used to the idea of marriage yet. I’m not sure you’re ready for that, let alone mothering. I’ll love being a grandma, but I can wait.”
“I know, Mom. Well, I’d better go. I don’t want to run the phone bill up too high.”
“Right. Well, thanks for calling. I love you.”
“Love you too … Mom? Please be happy for me.”
“I’ll work on it.”
Be happy, she’d said. Well, I found it very hard to be happy about losing my baby. Oh, I know, she’s all grown up. And I knew this day would come. It’s just that there were so many things I hadn’t taught her yet. I didn’t really want her to get married. If I’d called her back and said, “I absolutely forbid it,” I wonder what she’d have done? I know what I’d have done at nineteen. I’d have gotten married anyway. She’s a lot like me—strong-willed and persistent, in a quiet sort of way.
No, that wasn’t the answer. She’d only resent me. I’d worked so hard to keep the lines of communication open—why close them now? I simply had to let her know how I felt, and pray she made the right decision. She’d been making decisions for a long time.
Time … I wish there’d been more.
Only Yesterday
I reached for the photo album on the nightstand and opened it, remembering …
Caryl always did have a mind of her own—even before she was born. It took her two weeks past the due date before she finally decided to be born. I had labor pains for two hours every day. They just kept getting closer and closer together until the last day, then boom—five minutes apart. And do you think she could come into the world like everyone else? No way. My Caryl came out backwards—bottom first.
“What a scrawny little kid,” I chuckled as I gazed at the first picture we ever took of her. Her long, skinny legs pointed straight into the air like a ballerina. We used to tease her when she got older.
“Caryl,” I would say, “you came folded in half and for days you refused to straighten out. In fact, you were so insistent that when I pulled your legs down, your head would pop up.” She grew straight and tall, but she can still fold herself in half.
Then there was the day she came home from the hospital, when she gave her brother his first lesson in sex education.
I had brought the dressing table into the kitchen so I could give Caryl a bath near the sink. David, then nearly two, naturally curious and already in love with his little sister, climbed up on a chair to watch.
As I removed her diaper, I heard a gasp. I looked down. David’s mouth hung open and his huge sky blue eyes looked, unbelievingly, at his sister and then at me.
“Mom!” He pointed at his sister’s bottom. “Oh, Mom. Poor Caryl. It’s gone.”
His look of genuine concern kept me from doubling over in laughter. I held myself in check and explained. “It’s okay, honey. Girls aren’t supposed to have one. Mommy doesn’t either.”
He cocked his head and looked again at his sister and at me and said, “Oh.” With that he scrambled down from the chair and ran off to the living room to play.
As I said before, the kid did things her own way. At two, she came up beside me and tugged at my slacks. “Mommy, I don’t want to go potty in my pants anymore.” With that announcement, she was completely potty trained.
“It seems like only yesterday,” I said aloud. “Now she’s all grown up, and just like that she announces she’s getting married. Sometimes this business of mothering hurts.” I reached for the nearly empty box of Kleenex and blew my nose again.
Time. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. But there are some things we can do as mothers to make certain we get full value out of what we have left.
Is Quality Time Enough?
There’s no doubt about it—mothering takes time. I wrote in an earlier chapter, a mother doesn’t have to be with her children every moment, yet there is a fact we must face—if we don’t spend time with our children, how are they going to learn from us?
Every mother, from the moment of her child’s entry into the world, must face the question, “How much time will I give to mothering my child?” Or “How much time can I give … ?”
Or perhaps a better question might be, “When and how much do they need me?” We will want to devote as much as possible to them, especially in their earlier years … and, during their school years … and, of course, during their teen years.
Over half of the mothers in this country work outside the home. With the surge of mothers leaving the home there came a controversy between quality time versus quantity time. Some say that you can spend very small amounts of time with your child as long as it is quality time.
For a while I believed that, but I came to see quality time as a rationalization. What better way to talk myself out of feeling guilty when I should have been spending more time with the kids? For me, quality time wasn’t enough.
Quality time is important, as most working mothers will agree, but it can hardly be planned. Do you have any idea what happens to a mother who decides that today she and her child will have four quality hours together?
That’s the time it rains on your parade. You’ve planned the perfect outing and your kids tell you of their plans (made months ago) to go roller-skating with friends. Or perhaps it’s the time your mother calls to tell you Uncle Clancy is having open heart surgery and would you be a dear and take her to the hospital and wait with her.
Quality Time versus Super Pickle
Say you do manage to gather up your child. One day my friend Kate decided to take her three-year-old, Charlie, shopping with her. It would be a perfect opportunity to spend quality time in meaningful communication.
Kate and Charlie were doing fine. Charlie was laughing and the two were really enjoying each other’s company. Suddenly, Charlie let loose with a bloodcurdling scream. Someone had forgotten to tell Kate that it was National Pickle Week and some pickle company had sent out pickle people to market their wares.
A six-foot green pickle, complete with warts, approached Kate and her son, who became hysterical and tried to make a quick exit over Kate’s head. “There, now, I won’t hurt you,” Super Pickle crooned in an attempt to comfort the kid. Charlie, however, refused to be consoled by a talking pickle and screamed louder.
“I’m just going to give your mommy a sample of our crisp, delicious dills.” The pickle dismissed their obvious rejection.
“Look, Mr.—I really don’t think you should talk to him,” Kate managed a muffled reply as Charlie grabbed her face. “He’s not used to six-foot pickles.”
“Oh, but they’re fantastic—”
“I’m sorry, I really have to go.”
“Here, just try one.” As the green arm shot toward Charlie and Kate, the screams grew in intensity.
Nerves jangled, ears ringing, Kate finally stomped her foot and turned to face the green invader. “I don’t want your crummy pickles!” she yelled.
“But they really are quite delicious.”
“Shove them in your ear, buster!” Kate’s assertiveness finally convinced Super Pickle to back off, but the damage had been done. Charlie was into a full-blown tantrum and couldn’t stop. Kate hurried through the aisles, red-faced, sweaty, nerves demolished. So much for quality time.
While your attempts at spending quality time may not turn out quite so disastrous as Kate’s, more often than not it doesn’t pay to plan for those times. Besides, this kind of premeditated plot tends to keep a parent’s eyes focused on the time, not on the child. Special moments with a child come at the oddest moments, and the best way to capture them is to relax and let them happen.
Sometimes quality time comes when your mind is focused in an entirely different direction.
For example, one day when the children were small, I was lying on the grass in the park, reading a novel. They were busily playing on the slides and swings. My youngest came over and plopped down beside me. She was only four then. In her hand she held a dandelion bouquet picked just for me. “Oh, how pretty,” I said as I laid my book aside.
“Mommy.” She sprawled on her tummy and snuggled beside me. “What makes flowers grow?”
Quality time can seldom be planned. Special moments are like seeds. They must be planted and watered before you can expect them to grow. Then be ready to stop and enjoy the flowers—when they come.
A Poison in Time
There is a phenomenon in our society that seems to be moving at a faster and faster pace. It leaves us with fewer hours every day. At times I wonder if it is part of a conspiracy to destroy us. It is a lethal poison, designed to keep us too busy to enjoy our portion of time.
As a young mother, I drank the sweet potion. I found it gift wrapped in the pocket of my Super Mom costume. It came in a small white bottle labeled Success. With one sip, my world began to turn faster and faster, and I was powerless to stop it. Like the March Hare in Alice in Wonderland I was caught up in the dizzying merry-go-round of busyness.
Like the hare, my days were an endless flutter of scurrying in and out of meetings, singing, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. No time to say hello, good-bye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”
Many well-meaning moms have swallowed this poison. They whirl about their tasks like mini-tornadoes while the poison erodes the time they might have had with their children or husbands, or with God.
My friend Jean Lush tells about a time when she had taken a near-lethal dose:
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Does your hectic life make you rush through moments made for children? Has busyness poisoned your time? Do you look back and realize that vast spaces of time have disappeared before your eyes?
The next time you are tempted to hurry through a bedtime or other special moments reserved for the kids, take a deep breath and “lie down in your soul.”
Try the Antidote
I’m certain there are many mothers who would love to lie down in their souls but can’t. Perhaps the poison has become too strong. But there is an antidote. The cure is called patience, and while results may not be fast, they are sure.
Patience is something all mothers are potentially equipped with. As a young child, I had more patience than was ordinarily allotted to humans. At the age of six I could patiently move dust around on one piece of furniture for hours. Mother would find my patient streak rather annoying—and all because I could take a whole morning with a task that she could have done in half an hour.
As I grew older, my patience stayed with me. At the age of twelve, I could patiently slip out of the house, find my favorite reading tree, and devour a Trixie Belden or Nancy Drew novel in two or three hours. Then I would patiently wander back to the house and get to the chores my mother had asked me to do before I left the house. (On my lucky days Mom would have gotten impatient and done the chores herself.)
Most of the time I was not so lucky. Usually I meandered in, she’d stand, hands on her hips, and yell, “Where have you been all day? I told you to get the vacuuming done before you went out to play.” Honestly, sometimes my mother had no patience at all.
When I began to rear children of my own, my patience waned. It wasn’t just the children, it was the way we lived. I had already tasted the poison mislabeled Success. In our society, if you don’t hop on the treadmill and start running, you lose—or so I was led to believe. Before long, my patience bottomed out. In fact, if it had been listed as a commodity in the stock market, my drop in patience would have caused another major depression.
When patience deserted me, it was replaced by stress and anxiety. A sense of urgency overtook the calm spirit I once had. Too often I found myself balling my hands into fists and wanting immediate solutions to all my problems. The only thing that would have made matters better was a thirty-six-hour day. What a mess. I was planting seeds of impatience and seeing them take root in my kids.
For example, I could see impatience growing in my son when he
wanted to sleep on top of his bedspread, in his clothes, so he wouldn’t have to make the bed or get dressed before school the next day.
risked falling down the stairs carrying three sacks of groceries so he wouldn’t have to make two trips.
ran away from home at sixteen because we weren’t treating him like a man and letting him stay out as late as he wanted.
I needed to get my patience back. Patience is listed in the Bible as a fruit of the Spirit. I knew it was one of the things God would give me if I asked. So I did. I took a bite of the patience fruit and have been improving ever since.
If you’re a mother who, like me, cries out to God, “Lord, give me patience … and I want it right now,” here are a few suggestions to help you find it:
Pray. Ask God to instill the fruit of patience in you.
Affirm. Habits can be hard to break, and chances are, your conversion from busy bee to patient saint will not occur overnight. In fact, there may always be a temptation to let anxiety and stress take over. Even if patience evades you, be patient. God promises to give us the desires of our hearts. Keep affirming the change with phrases such as: “I am slowing down,” or “I am becoming a patient person.” Affirm yourself every day.
Teamwork. Tell your family about the plan to develop more patience. Chances are, they’ll all agree. Oh, not that you’re the only one who needs more, but that they could use more too. If you check it out, you may find your children have taken a few nips of the busyness poison as well. Pray for each other. Remind each other in a gentle or laughing way.
Imitate the Master of Patience, Jesus. Learn all you can about Him and from Him.
Exercise your faith. Visualize Jesus cleansing you of the toxins against time: busyness and impatience. See Him transfusing you with tranquillity as He feeds you with the fruit of the Spirit.
Nurture the seed of patience growing inside you. Water it with your desire to rest in the Lord. Feed it with God’s Word and faith and watch it grow. Don’t slow the process by trying to hurry it along. Just relax and let it happen.
Trust that God will build in you the patience you seek.
There are other ways to neutralize the poisons against time. As you pass through other doors you’ll find them. There are love, making memories, listening, and forgiveness. There are many ways to heal but there is no way to bring back the past.
Children grow so fast. Spend time with them. Perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve learned about time is that before I spend it, I’d better count the cost. I’ve expressed my feelings in this poem.
If time were diamonds …
would I gather each precious moment to my breast?
And when they fade would I mourn and wish them back?
Or would I simply sigh—thankful for memories,
And move on to the next,
Knowing I had done my best.