Several years ago, the Chaplain and I watched a documentary about parrots that was equal parts fascinating and disturbing.
What stuck with me was what the documentary had to say about the nature of parrots. In the wild, they mate for life. When they live solitary lives with humans, they attach themselves to their owners and rely on them not only for food and shelter, but also the attention and affection they would normally get from their mates in their natural habitat.
As it turns out, humans make crappy mates for parrots. We are fickle, have short attention spans, and I suppose, a low tolerance for squawking. And when parrots rely on humans for needs they should be having met by another parrot, they are disappointed. In the face of this, they can begin to turn to self-destructive behavior. They act out in the face of grief at their unmet needs. I’m not pretending parrots have the full range of emotions. But seeing parrots who had plucked half their feathers out in frustration and anger, covered with scabs from self-inflicted wounds, it was clear they were feeling something.
I was reminded of this misplaced need earlier this summer when I stopped at a rest stop on the long drive home from Pennsylvania after visiting family.
It’s hard to admit, but giving doesn’t come easily to me. It’s probably there somewhere in my genes, but I’m sure being the oldest of four growing up cemented it in pretty deep. If you didn’t take what you wanted, and take it first, you were going to get scraps. That is just Big Family Life.
In my own home now, with seven kids, I find myself using my large family as an excuse to continue Not Giving. I don’t want to feed the neighbor kids, because my own kids already eat continuously, and the neighbor kids already come over all the time. We would have to increase our food budget to feed a bunch of kids whose parents I’ve never even met. I’m not doing it.
With my friends and family, I want to be giving. But even that doesn’t often come naturally. I have to be intentional about it.
When it’s time to give spending money to the kids, I want them to earn it, even when there isn’t time or it’s not realistic. I have trouble sharing my special treats. When we first got married, I remember how I instinctively pulled my snack bowl away from the Chaplain when he reached over to grab a bite. I still have to fight that impulse. And I hate it when people Ruin My Stuff. Self Preservation Mode is hard to pull out of.
A few years ago, when my mom mentioned how much she loved my echinacea, I saw it as an opportunity to be generous.
Except, I only had one echinacea plant in my back yard that summer.
This morning got off to a rough start. It began with a contingent of kids who were up at the crack of dawn.
Based on the level of clamor, I was surprised and unhappy when I came downstairs to find it was barely seven. An all-out fight was in progress, the kitchen had been trashed, and a batch of pancakes was steaming on the stovetop.
How do you feel about death? Repulsed? Fascinated? A sense of longing? Fear?
I’ve always been fascinated by death, with a small side of fear and revulsion. My faith teaches me that death will be a relief from the longings and struggles of earth. The thought of leaving my earthly body behind while my spirit sails off to heaven to dwell in God’s presence makes me sigh just thinking about it. While life earthside has its pleasures, much of it is just hard.
Years ago in college, a friend who worked with the dying as part of her social work degree described her experience with those patients: “as the body becomes less, the spirit becomes more.”
I loved that description and it has rung true for me.
I haven’t encountered death in my family recently, but as a nurse, I come into contact with end of life with some regularity.
Recently, I was bra shopping with Two. As we walked up to the display, she exclaimed, “Mom, shopping for bras is so embarrassing!”
“Why?” I asked. “Half the world is made up of women and girls. They all have breasts or will grow breasts as they get bigger. How is that embarrassing?”
Her response was something along the lines of, “Well, when you put it like that…”
I remember being a preteen and teen and how Embarrassing so many things felt. It felt Embarrassing whenever I thought I said or did or wore the wrong thing. It felt Embarrassing just to exist in the same space as my parents, perhaps because I was more aware of my self-absorption when they were around.
