Ronnie

     Dear family and friends; you may have seen the blue and pink filter across my husband's or my profile picture on Facebook. No, we are not having twins. The pink and blue represent the women and families who have lost a baby or infant. This isn't about people wearing pink to show support for those with breast cancer. This isn't about wearing blue to raise awareness about diabetes. In this day and age, there are colors that depict almost every condition there is. Except for pregnancy and infant death. Why is this issue less important than the others? Millions of women are keeping silent. I read a statistic analysis that said that from 1-2 weeks there is a 75% of miscarriage. From 3-6 weeks, that percentage is lowered to 10%. So, is my pink and blue ribbon going to change any of that? No, it isn't. But it does provide an opportunity to raise awareness when people ask us about it. Why is this so important to us? Because, we too have been lost in the labyrinth of darkness that pregnancy loss brings.

     Not that long ago, I called my husband at work to let him know what was happening. In retrospect, I probably should have waited until he was home to break the news to  him. But I needed to hear his voice and to listen while he prayed over us. When he got home, I remember him holding me in his arms while we both sobbed. What hurt me the most was the fact that I didn't even know I was carrying a baby. I'm largely house-bound and don't get much exercise, so I attributed the weight gain to not getting enough exercise. I also missed two periods, which I attributed to the stress of having chronic medical issues. For 18 years I've been told by various doctors that I can't even get pregnant. The daily nausea and vomiting should have been a clue, but I have chronic migraines. Nausea and vomiting is just par for the course. I didn't know. That's all. I just didn't know. 

     At first, I was incredibly sad and angry at God. Then I remembered that God is big enough to take my anger. I remembered that HE is the one who carries our transgressions, heals the sick, and let the captive go free. I was reminded that God is a God of miracles and life. If He made the life that is gone away from us, then in His perfect time, He can make life again. Does this make me less angry? Yes, it does. Does it mean mean the sadness and longing have gone away? No, I think that has become a part of me. But it gave me some much needed perspective. I want to share a very personal letter that I wrote to our unborn baby.

Dear Baby,

     I know that you will never get to read this letter. But I'm writing the things I would tell you if you were still with us. I'm writing so that I will never forget. I'm writing to remember. First and foremost, I want you to know that I've loved and waited for you for most of my life. When I was 5, someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. My answer was "the mother of my children." That was my biggest goal in life, to be your mother. 


     I will miss holding you in my arms and singing to you. I will miss watching your daddy read to you and put you to bed. Your daddy would read you fairy tales that are magical and exciting. I would have read you Tolstoy, Austen, and probably some Poe for good measure. I will miss dressing you in the cute clothes that your grandmothers and aunts would have sent you. I will miss watching you play with the army men and Legos that your uncles would have given you. I will miss seeing the pride on your grandfather's faces when you hit your first home run. I will miss the smell on your head that only babies have. I would trade diaper changes and 2 am feedings with joy if it meant I still had you. But I don't. I don't have any of that. 

     I like to think that you would have been like your daddy. He is loving, kind, gentle. In fact, he is not just the guy who holds me when I cry, makes me laugh, and brightens any room he walks into. He is my best friend. Just knowing about you made him realize that he was capable of loving deeper than he ever realized. You have an amazing daddy. I just wish you had known him. But you didn't. You didn't get that chance.

     We would have turned the guest room into your room. You could have gone to sleep watching the glow in the dark stars that are all over the ceiling. You would have had a wonderful childhood. We would have taken you to the symphony, the zoo, NASA, and exposed you to music and literature from the first days of your life. I wish so much that we could share these things with you. But we can't. Because you aren't here.
 
     There are so many thing I wish I could say to you. I wish I could tell you how much we loved and cherished you. Maybe someday there will be other babies and children that we love, but none will ever replace you. We will always remember you and talk about you. You hold a very special place in our hearts. I want to tell you about your name. We named you Ronnie. It is a Gaelic name that originated from Hebrew. It means "Mountain of Strength." Your last name, Morgan, means "Great Brightness." You are the legacy of many generations of Morgans and Tuckers. Had you lived to meet them, you would have been surrounded by an overwhelming abundance of love, honor, integrity, and faith in God. As much as I want you here with us, you are in a far better place. You are daily in the presence of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You are in the presence of the God of Clinton and Martha. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. But that doesn't make me miss you any less. 

     We love you baby Ronnie. You will always be in our hearts and never far from our minds. I don't understand  why we lost you and I probably never will. But here I stand with unshakable faith and I can say with Job "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."  (Job1:21)

The Forgotten Child

I wrote this about two years ago and just came across it again.  It serves as a reminder to me that every time I walk into a classroom and open my mouth, I have the opportunity to make a difference in the life of a child.  Oddly, I think those potential differences have little to do with the subject I teach.  I'm posting this as a reminder to myself that no matter how hard and tedious some days may be, I'm blessed beyond belief to do this work.

The Forgotten Child

We will call him Despair.  He has many names, among them, Fear, Hurt, Self-Loathing, and Loneliness.  He has a sister, or a brother, or thousands of them who share his name.  Despair is one of the Forgotten Ones.  A child whom no one cares about.  There are people who say they care, but when it really matters, Despair finds himself alone.  When you think about a forgotten child, you think of a child whose parents were taken away by war, sickness or death.  In most cases children become forgotten through the far more insidious ways of neglect and abuse. 

We all know this child.  He is the one who was born to parents who didn't want him.  He was the one who got left behind in a divorce.  He is the one whose parents are in jail and he is being raised by other family.  There are many stories of his beginnings, many excuses for why he was forgotten.  They matter, but what matters more is if he will continue to be forgotten. 

If Despair is “fortunate” he has the chance to attend school, where he is even more neglected.  Despair stays away from people, because people hurt him.  He sits alone because no one wants to sit near him.  For you see, Despair wears the same clothes all week because he has no others, unless he wears his mother's jeans and tennis shoes, hoping no one will notice.   No one taught Despair to wash and to take care of basic hygiene issues.  So some days he smells.   Despair doesn't eat at lunch, because he can't afford to and doesn't know that he can ask for help.  Despair walks the hallways in fear of being taunted for being different.  He will be mocked, hit, tripped or pushed everyday.  Physical wounds will heal, but the spiritual and emotional wounds will never go away. 

If Despair is “lucky” there will be one teacher, or one counselor who will take an interest in him.  But this interest is short-lived.  It centers around passing a class or going to the next grade.  This is all overshadowed and made unimportant by the fact that Despair will drop out of school in 9th grade to get a job.   

Despair believes that he has no worth or value in the world.  This will be constantly reinforced by teachers and family who consider him lazy because he doesn't work in class.  No one knows or cares that Despair stays up with his drunk mother at night to make sure she is ok.  No one cares that Despair takes care of younger siblings and doesn't have the time to do homework or study.  No one thinks about what pain they are causing this child when they raise their voices at him or verbally abuse him in front of other student. 

We all know this child.  We know that statistics show that he will start dealing drugs so he can buy food for his family.  We know that he is likely to join a local gang so he can belong to a group who will look out for him.  We know that  he will do anything to feel valued. 

You've heard that it takes a village to raise a child.  In the case of Despair and his friends, this is true.  It will take more than one person to make a difference in his life.  It will take many people and many acts of kindness to show this child that he has inestimable worth.  It will take time more than anything.  The real question is, will the people in this child's life take the time to make a difference?  Will they go the extra mile, spend the extra money, take the extra time and commit to the journey? 

If they will, they will find that the time spend investing in this child and loving him will be one of the most rewarding things they have ever done.  But most of them will never take the time.  Despair will become one more causality in the war of indifference that we choose every day not to fight.  

Please look around you and find the child in your life who fits the description of Despair.  Choose to make a difference no matter what.  You may be the only one who ever says a kind word to this child.  You may be the only face of Christ that he or she ever sees.  Please choose to love the unlovely, fight for the weak, and be a shield for the hurting.  There are more of these children around you than you think.  Look closely,  and then act.

Martha's note:  Sometimes something weighs so heavily upon me that I have to write about it.  As a teacher, I see these children every day.  Sadly, I also see them in the homes of people I know.  Neglect happens on a small scale everyday in normal, happy families.  These children need champions.  They need someone  who will show them unconditional love and acceptance.  As someone who has dreamed for years of starting my own family, I see these children as a God-given opportunity to be a mother for someone who may not have one.  It's a hard calling, but I believe we are all called to help these children.  I pray daily that God will allow me to see these children as He sees them and to guide me as I try to help them.  Please join me in the fight to save these children from the futures that are ahead of them.  This writing is dedicated to Edwin and Kris Bumpass who made sure that Alie Grace would not be a forgotten child.

Who Is Proud of You?

I told a kid I was proud of them the other day. I got the strangest reaction. The girl actually looked scared! It prompted me to ask some of my older students a question, "Who is Proud of You?" The answers I got were both insightful and heartbreaking. Almost every student told me that no one ever tells them that they are proud of them. No one. Not parents, not teachers, not grandparents, not older siblings. Then I asked them which parent they most needed to express pride. Almost unanimously, the aswer was "my dad."

Now, this is going to be a hard post to write, because most of my life I've struggled with living up to the perceived expectations of those around me. If you know me, you know I'm a people pleaser. Sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes that is a bad thing.

I grew up as a middle child. For those of you who are middle children, you know that in your mind, middle child=child who is supposed to be perfect. I don't know why we feel that way. I don't know if the pressure we feel from our parents is real or imagined. I just know that we feel that way.

In my house, my mother is the one who said she was proud of us. I don't ever recall an instance as a child or adolescent in which my dad told me he was proud of me. Maybe he did and I just don't remember. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't say it for the occasions that were important to me. Maybe he was like the woman who lived in a shoe, he had so many children he didn't know what to do.

Don't get me wrong, my dad is a great dad. I remember growing up the times that he would work two jobs just to feed his six offspring. He provided for us, modeled good morals, made sure we knew about God and many more things. He just wasn't a very touchy feely guy. He also rarely told us he loved us. But I knew. I knew he was proud of me. I knew that when I quit nursing school to go to music school that his disapproval was more about concern that I would grow up and be poor (he was right, I am) than about my choices in education. I knew that concern came out of love. But still, I wish there had been more times in my life that I had heard the words "I'm proud of you" coming from my dad. Somedays I think it is mildly irrational that I still have that desire. But I'm coming to the conclusion that this is simply the way God created women.

I think that we are built with an innate desire to please the men in our lives. I think that is why we look so hard for approval from our fathers and brothers. I think that is why we try to marry men who treat us as though we were the most import thing in the world. I also think that is why the majority of these girls are going to grow up and end up in unhealthy relationships. They just want someone to love them and tell them they are important. They won't see past to the man who is using them for something else all together. Not every girl has a mother like I did to remind me that my dad loved me and was proud of me, even if he forgot to say it.

I think this is a failing that inculdes the whole family. Mothers should teach their daughters to respect themselves enough to belief they deserve the "I'm proud of you" from people. They also need to learn to be proud of themselves. Fathers and brothers need to get over their manliness, break down, and use the human language that women understand. This is a two way street. Boys need to hear these words just as much as girls, but perhaps for different reasons. I think these are words all of us need to include in our vocabulary more often.

So fathers, love your daughters and be proud of them. Don't forget to say it often. Remember that you are shaping a large part of their futures.

As a personal note, I would like to address my dad. Dad, I'm proud of you for learning to be more open with your family and to say the words that need to be said before it is too late. I love you.

For me, I'm going to start looking for something to be proud of in all my students. Someone needs to be proud of them.