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.
I don’t usually take selfies at work, but the shift I got this news, I was feeling sad and thoughtful and was in the loneliest assignment on my floor, the back hallway, which I also refer to as Purgatory (not for the patients, just the nurse who cares for them). I wanted to connect with the Chaplain, so I sent him this pic. At the time it was taken, I was chowing down on a Swedish fish, which wouldn’t surprise anyone I work with.
Recently, the Chaplain shared an idea with me from C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves. At the time, it was interesting, but didn’t have any real application to me. Then, over the weekend I found out a former coworker had passed away unexpectedly.
The nurse who told me wanted to be able to tell someone who knew her, who would understand.
When I looked up Lewis’ concept, it goes like this:
I still remember the look of disappointment on my Textile professor’s face when I pulled out my final project to present to our class. That term we had learned how to work with our hands. We made our own paper, wove baskets, and made objects from wire and metal. My final project had taken hours. I’d hand-dyed and screen printed fabric in different colors and patterns and sewn it together to make a duvet cover.
I co-slept with One from the time he was the size of a football, curled up like a kitten on my chest. It was to maintain my sanity. As I got longer stretches of sleep, I transferred him into a bassinet, then a crib.
Because he was my first, as he got to be an older baby, then a toddler, he snuck his way into my bed some nights. Once he got there, he did what he had done since he was in my womb – he paced. He literally swam laps from the top of the bed to the bottom all night long. It was the pits.
But co-sleeping when he was a newborn was a total lifesaver. So was putting him to sleep on his belly.
I tried not to feel guilty about either of those things, but I didn’t tell a lot of people, either, because I knew I was breaking the rules.
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.
