memory

I washed my hands and noticed the ink that remained on my left palm. I scrubbed  until only a small blur of one of the babies' names was left visible.
Two tiny boys lay in the bassinet earlier in the day, one with "A" written on the paper-like sheet above his head, and the other with a "B". The nurse told me before I went in the hospital room that they were not named. I asked the mama if she had named her sons, and she nodded and answered while looking at her husband's tear stained face, giving me the names of "Baby A" and "Baby B".  I wanted to make sure, because at sixteen weeks gestation the babies might be confused one for the other, that I provided photographs of each baby to her mother and that years from now she would see the difference in each of her sons. I took a pen from my purse and wrote A and B on my palm with their corresponding names.
I asked Mama if I could touch her babies. I asked her if I could move their tiny hands and feet and tucking a blanket under each I posed them ever so slightly, being cautious to not move them too much. I captured the image of  "Baby A" with feet side by side and "Baby B" with his feet crossed.  I check my f.stop, and my shutter speed, and I adjust light, and I set to work as if I'm in some sort of studio and not in a cold sterile hospital room. Distracted by the pain and by the crying and the empty arms of the family in the room,  I hear my shutter click,  but my mind doesn't seem to be controlling much of it.
I know I didn't take enough photographs. I know that many of what I took aren't the quality due to any client whether they are paying me or not and I'll toss those out. Of course in this case I am not getting paid, yet I feel I owe these parents more than anyone who would hire me for a photo shoot. For these parents I'm capturing not only images, but the only memories they will have of their children. That is all they have of these babies: memories.
As soon as I get to my truck I think of the all the things I didn't do, and all the photographs I didn't take. I think of what I should have done differently, and what I could have done had I given myself more time and the craft more attention. Now that my vision is hindsight, I can focus and think of what I could have done with that shoot, but I won't get another chance to gather visual memories of those twins. I'm there as a photographer, sent by Now I Lay me Down to Sleep to capture images of babies who won't go home so the parents will have portraits of them, to have visual memories of them. But my heart wants to give more- to comfort broken hearts and hold trembling hands. I want to listen to these mamas talk about what they had planned and what they are feeling. I tell every mother of the babies I see that her baby is beautiful and perfect and fearfully and wonderfully made.
When I began volunteering for NILMDTS more than eight years ago, my reason was to provide portraits for families who would not otherwise have them. Now I feel as though my camera is my pass to be with and give comfort to parents who are grieving. My heart is in it one hundred percent, but my head isn't always in full gear as a photographer and this time I leave second guessing my ability.
As I leave the hospital, I misjudge the distance between another truck and my rear bumper. Fortunately, neither bumpers showed any evidence of my carelessness, and so I take another deep breath and back out flawlessly.  But I'm still kicking myself about the what I didn't do in that hospital room. I wonder when- if ever- my head will be fully engaged in a shoot again instead of allowing my heart to lead me, and I'll stay focused on the posing and the shutter speed and the aperture....

 And I wonder when- if ever- my mind will lead me in any part of my life again.
The past three years have been me trying to adjust to life as a single parent and taking care of a house without a partner. There was not time set aside for my heart to heal; life continues and demands that each of us keep moving forward because there are doctor appointments, and bills to pay, and repairmen to call, and relationships to work on. When I have time on my hands I think of what I've done or not done these past few years .... I think of what I should have done differently, and what I could have done had I given myself more time .... and it becomes so easy for me to focus in hindsight on the mistakes I made. My wounded heart was engaged one hundred percent, but my head hasn't been in full gear. I know there is no re-wind button and second chances don't come around. If there was, and if they did, I could make a list of incidents in my relationships in which, if given another chance, I know I'd make different choices, and respond differently to the people I love. I can see so clearly now the mistakes I made, and I've learned from them, but I'm not satisfied. I can't change the memories once they are made and I can't go back and change the images of me  already captured by others based on my past behavior.


It's been a few days since the shoot, and the ink is completely washed from my palm; the names are memories. I have a few beautiful images to send to the parents and I wish I had more, but even if I had ten times as many, it wouldn't be enough. Images- memories- can't replace holding a child and watching him grow.  I believe that the parents will cherish the photographs with the memories of their babies in their hearts though. I know that the love I put into capturing the images of these babies is almost tangible when I look at them. And all I can do is hope that it is enough.

instinct

"You have not lost your instincts. Somewhere deep inside you still have them."

I felt as though someone had sucker punched me when I heard those words from the woman sitting across from me, looking straight at me, as if- knowing I could not do it on my own- she was attempting to find my instincts for me and pull them out and lay them in front of me. I could see my own helplessness reflected in the empathy on her face.

The punch in my gut came from the sudden realization that I had not been drawing on the instinct put on my heart by the Creator- the part of a woman that makes her the receiver of unconditional love.  I had suppressed that natural instinct each woman is given to respond to the care of a man who guards, protects and cherishes. Instead, out of necessity to protect my own peace and the little people placed in my care, I had learned to react. I learned to ignore, cover up, forget, and accept things such as angry and violent  outbursts, name-calling, public manipulations, (the kind that trapped me in a corner leaving me to either give in quietly or invoke a loud argument and draw embarrassing attention to my family) and other forms of gas-lighting that suppressed who I could have been. I learned to balance and defuse each situation with counter manipulations in order to get out the door and make it to Mass or to the extended family gathering without children crying.  As these reactions became my nature,  instincts were not only buried deep, but forgotten.

And then she told me the instincts were still there. And I wept. Did I weep at the realization that I had suppressed the instincts? or the hope of finding them? or the fear of not being able to ....

I question the motives of others. With my separation, came a mistrust. I thought I couldn't trust another [man] but then I did find one I could trust.
I felt safe for the first time in my adult life. And yet I second guessed myself in everything. I was more comfortable within my skin than I knew was possible, yet because I feared another loss, I clung too tightly.  After pushing him away with my insecurities, with my need to be rescued, with my obsession with his feelings, with my need for total involvement,  I figured out that the person I couldn't trust was myself. 
As much as I had been controlled and manipulated over the past twenty seven years, I hadn't realized how I much I had become the emotional architect, as I tried to make every step and every turn perfect, as I tried to convince this person that I could be everything his heart desired, and everything he needed in a woman.
As I type, I weep and I feel my insides turning up from my core...

I have had the fear that I won't get another chance at happiness (or romantic love), not only because of my age and my station in life, but because I don't know how to receive unconditional love.
I KNOW how to live my part in a healthy relationship. I know what it takes. In my mind, I can orchestrate the lines, the steps, the entire part.
But the leading man with whom I danced for more than a quarter of a century never took dance lessons; he wasn't taught the right steps. So as I attempted to follow his lead- as the woman is created to do- I had to watch every step as to not step on his toes, and as I tip-toed around the dance floor, I lost the grace and flow that was planted as a seed deep inside. Then when the new leading man stepped out onto the dance floor and took my hand in his, I stumbled around tripping, trying to anticipate the next step and be ready on the right foot. He said over and over again, "Relax, just be you." So badly I wanted to just follow his lead; "I know this dance! I do!" but my feet wouldn't listen and in one moment I stood still not moving, and the next I tried to take the lead,  and I pushed him right off the dance floor.

Then the woman sitting across from me reminded me that I am the child of two people who were deeply in love. They were not perfect and their marriage was not perfect. But because of them, I do have instinct- somewhere inside of me is the ability to respond and receive love. I didn't learn all the right dance steps from them. Lord knows they stumbled on that dance floor more than once. But he loved her, and she responded with graceful steps.
Linda, listen. It's deep inside of you. You have this dance inside of you. The music was your lullaby when you were a little girl. The score is written on your heart. Listen, and you will dance again.

dancing with scapulars

I grew up in a mixed marriage home. That is, with a marriage between a Catholic woman  and an unbaptized man. My mother was devout, and made no compromises to her faith. My father was devoted to her. He treated her like a queen  and referred to her as a saint. She served him with respect, loved him dearly, and prayed for him daily (perhaps more often than that)
My father agreed that we children would all be baptized and reared in the Church. We were catechized, received the Sacraments at their appointed times, and my father was there to witness and support us. As grandchildren arrived, he made his way back to the church for the occasions of their baptisms as well. He remained a silent supporter for fifty years before he was baptized into the Christian faith less than a year before he died.

I made a promise to myself at a very young age that I would not marry a non Catholic. I didn't want to sit in the pew 'alone' with my children, going solo as I led them on their spiritual and religious flights. I sensed a loneliness in my mother when she prayed, and though she never nagged, never begged nor pushed, and never put my father down, I knew she wanted him with her on her own spiritual journey. I couldn't know that he was with her all along; they were just on very different steps. I made far too many assumptions.
With my resolution to marry only a Catholic, I made this demand on my boyfriend at the age of 19. He satisfied me by being confirmed in the Catholic Church a few weeks before the wedding. I thought I had what my mother had been lacking all those years. I should have been more focused on what she had. I would have noticed that long before my father became a Catholic Christian, he obeyed the one command Paul placed on the men of the church regarding their wives: "love her."

During my marriage to a man who attended Mass regularly, prayed the rosary, was on his knees morning and night and volunteered for the church, I never felt the love of Jesus through him. On more than one occasion, he told me I needed to earn his respect, and if he was not able to love me or make me feel special, I was determined to have his respect.
As time went on,  I dressed more and more modestly. I covered my shoulders. My skirts got longer and I never wore jeans in public. I was careful to behave as a lady at all times. I tucked my scapular in my high neck blouse and did everything I could to 'earn' his respect as his wife. If he didn't respect me, at least the world would see me as "respectable" and see the respect I had for my husband and my marriage.

Near the end of my marriage, he saw me dance. He was surprised at what he saw; we had been married twenty-four years at the time, and he didn't know I danced. I remember being self conscience. Maybe that's why I had not danced in his company in twenty-four years.

The seeds of the love that  Christ has for me were planted long ago by a man who had no [visible] relationship with Christ, by the way he loved his bride. Those seeds lay dormant for many years as I worked at pruning myself more and more until I was cutting off fresh growth. I now know how lucky and blessed I would be if I could capture the heart of a man who could love me like my father loved my mother. I will not be won over by religiosity [again] but by self-giving love.

I'm dancing again. I'm dancing more, and more. I dance to strengthen my body and my soul. I am not afraid to bare my shoulders as I was for so many years.  The body created for me and the soul that is growing within it are a package deal. I am fearfully and wonderfully made inside and out, and I believe that I am deserving of respect because of that and that alone.

And as a reminder to myself and to all who look at me, I continue to wear the scapular.
Even when I'm dancing.

and the tide rushes in

and it flooded over me and made me want to sprawl out on the floor of my therapist's office and cry like a baby..
Healing is not what happens after you grieve. It happens while you grieve.
It continues on after you think the grieving is over, then grieving happens again... and you feel like you're starting over, with the healing, and the grieving....

And she only sleeps when it's raining.
And she screams and her voice is straining. (3am, Matchbox Twenty)

We talked about grief, we talked about loss. We sit at the table and share, and grieve, and some of us heal.
The man across from me talked about the loss of time with his wife. He talked about the loss of happiness he [thought] he had with this wife. He talked about the loss of love.
She talked about the loss of the life she had dreamed of with her husband [who walked out on her.] She talked about the loss of pride when she sees her daughter run to the arms of her ex-husband [who cheated on her... but they can't tell a five-year-old]
He talked about the loss of plans had made with his wife. He wants her back. He would take her back in a second; he waits for her. He will not move-on.
I don't grieve the loss of the marriage I had. I am glad to no longer be in that marriage. But I do grieve.

I began grieving the loss of the marriage I dreamed of as a young girl as I stood in the back of the church on my wedding day. By the third day of the honeymoon, I was grieving  the loss of the marriage I still hoped for when I left the church. Then I put the grieving aside and I moved through day to day to make a life for my children. I dug a hole in the sand, and I buried the pain in that deep dark hole, and I created a life around the joy of my babies, and the pleasures that came [and went] during those twenty-five years. Now I mourn the loss of love, and the time I wasted-- and every moment I waste making mistakes in new relationships because there are pieces of me missing, buried in the sand.

I built up a hold on the sand, protecting the pain I had buried. I needed that fortress to be a strong mother and to be a good wife.  After the separation, I added to my fortress  in the guise of sharing my story, talking about what I had done, what he had done, what was said, who was hurt, how it affected me and made me who I am. This was all part of moving forward, I thought, building up the sand, making the walls thicker.

Then the waves of healing and grief came in and washed away the fortress.  My story of what I had endured wasn't protecting me anymore. And then I hear something; I have a bad dream, or a memory. Or maybe another relationship ends and it hurts....
Another wave comes and washes away a layer of sand. It washes the sand back out to sea, and the water calms, leaving the sand looking cleaner and smoother and I think I can rebuild. And so I attempt to start over, building my castle- my new life.

As the first two years of separation went by I felt weight lift off my shoulders. I actually grew a half an inch since my divorce, and my shoulders have become physically stronger.  My friends tell me I am emotionally strong, and they tell me I am beautiful, and they give me confidence. They want to see me build the most beautiful sand castle for myself and my family. And so I begin. I start over in a new house, begin a new job and read the right books, and I work-out, I dance, I exercise and I pray, I do all the right things... and I build a new relationship. I start building my new castle on the clean, smooth sand that has been washed and healed... with that pain buried deep below the surface..... If I just keep working and bringing in new sand, and I put in all of my energy and all of my love and everything that I have learned from my experience, I can build the most beautiful castle anyone has ever seen!

Another wave comes in, but it's bigger this time-- and it takes my half-built castle with it as it retreats back to the sea. And before I can catch my breath, another wave comes in and it's stronger, MUCH stronger, and it hits that same place on the sand that had been smoothed over, but it hits harder, and it cuts into the sand like a knife, taking out with it the sand, the shells...and it rushes down in to the hole and it digs out a bit of the pain I had buried.. and I feel the cold, salty, cutting water go deep, and I wish it would stop while at the same time I scream, "please, just get it all! Clean it all out this time!" but it doesn't, and it washes back out to sea.

I am taking a short break from building right now. I am leaving the sand bare, open to the waves that come, washing away the pain, digging deep into the sand built up over more than twenty-eight years. But as I take a closer look at what those terrible, beautiful waves are doing, I see that with each surge, they not only take with them what I built and what I buried, but they leave new shells, and little bits of treasure on the shore- all the stuffs that, if I give it enough time, I can mix with the sand making it a stronger and more beautiful material for building than I have had before.

perspective

hello. my name is Linda. I am a survivor of an abusive marriage.
this is my story of healing.

I thought I was through the tough part. I thought I was near the end of the process. I now know that my healing is just beginning.
I am writing to share, to purge, to be able to look at myself with new eyes and to maybe help another person.

In a span of five years, I endured the loss of my seventh and eighth babies to miscarriage, my son was diagnosed with leukemia and is now a veteran to 40 months of chemo-therapy, my husband was arrested for domestic assault, we sold our house- the one I designed and which I birthed four babies- leaving my children and me houseless but for the kindness of friends who allowed us to live in their homes over a four month period, we bought a broken-down 'fixer-upper', my daughter was diagnosed with moderate to severe OCD and placed in treatment, I was divorced, I totaled two Suburbans within six weeks of each other breaking a rib in two, was bitten by a venomous snake, and within a three month period various children had one broken bone, and twenty four stitches.

But this is not the story of where I have been or what I've been through.
This is the story of where I am going, how I get there, and who I become.