I enjoy moments when life places me with people of diverse cultures. I love it when individuals are sufficiently comfortable to discuss the power that culture has in shaping our lives and our perceptions.
Mary is amazed that Anvi met her husband for the first time at their wedding. Mary is further surprised that Anvi says she is happily married. Anvi tells Mary she could never have been brave enough to pursue a “love marriage.” Anvi says her parents, whom she does trust, know her better than she knows herself and therefore knew what kind of man she would want to marry.
John is amazed to hear that I’m willing to respect women leaders. John is even more surprised to hear I raised two babies without women to change their nappies (diapers). He tells me I insulted the men of his culture by doing “women’s work.”
Sunmi is confused at hearing June is unwilling to give up her career to take care of her aging mother-in-law. She expresses that such a choice in her culture would be considered unusual.
A child, to the annoyance of some of the adults, interrupte his mother while his mother is talking. The mother considers it perfectly “normal” for a child to exhibit such behavior and is unaware that a child interrupting an adult in many cultures is considered gross disrespect.
Gut wrenching for the Smiths from a dozen angles while also displaying a vast array of flowers, tropical, indoor-outdoor whites, greens, shades of purple, yellows, sturdy, strong and luscious, endless developing beauty — reaching for sunlight, proclaiming life and charisma — even within our motherless home.
It’s the early 2000s and Mother’s Day: the boys wake, wander into my room, at least one son is aware of the day given the many things he had to draw, cut, glue and color at school for me, his dad-mom. He’s also performed in “Mother’s Day Bunny” where I was the only dad in attendance. The school’s admirable efforts to include us, or rather efforts to never exclude us, get a little ridiculous but I play along lest some real mother get whiff that my children be faced with the truth that they don’t know their mothers, a reality from which we, in the privacy of our home, have always openly addressed. Blanket strewn over his shoulders and with an inspiring attempt at positivity, he says, “Happy Mama-Day, Dadda,” and I embrace him and then his brother trailing dutifully behind and I leave it at that.
We meander through the morning, sometimes sluggishly, but with momentary caffeine-stirred urges to “make it memorable for the boys.”
At lunch the restaurant tables are packed with girls-and-boys-with-mothers and flowers and gifts piled high with color and sweetness. Octogenarian mothers swoop in to hug multiple generations vying for hug-inclusion as raucous laughter buzzes through the air.
Friends see us and platitudes flow as they do when people don’t know how to talk about loss or abandonment or death while attempting kindness to quell their glaring uneasiness.
“You’re in a better place.”
“God knew your dad could be both.”
“You know it’s extra special to be ‘chosen,’” a mother says to my son as if she’s the first to offer adoption this spin.
I’m uncertain. Should I laugh, cry or lead the boys out the door and flee the overload display of all my boys don’t have?
Instead, we’re three-strand strong, and face it as if nothing can touch the Smith-bulwark.
It’s Mother’s Day and about 2015: my first-born off-handedly reports he’s going to make a gift for his mom and, his car loaded with equipment, he leaves. Mid-afternoon he returns, buries himself in his room to emerge hours later with a 4-or-so minute movie that still blows my mind every time I watch it. I don’t know if his mother ever saw her gift on YouTube but within 24 hours he was interviewed on a local news station and his “letter” had traveled the world. I have a hunch his mother did see it but I know she did not respond. A few years later he reached out very directly to her to be firmly and gently rebuffed.
“Adoption is a very powerful tool,” I whispered into his ear as I tried to comfort my distraught son as he sobbed and sobbed.
“Thank you for the choice you made. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he wrote, time-stamped seconds after his biological mother expressed her wish not to hear from him again. The boy was ashen, disoriented, for days.
Yes. Adoption is a powerful tool.
Rest assured, my boys’ mothers, despite their physical absence, have been more than present in our lives. They are not sitting proud at our all-male out-of-the-way Mother’s Day table, but they are ever-present guests as we steel ourselves for life together.
Nate did not learn his gentleness from me. He did not get his unflappable nature from me. I’ve spent much of my life in a hurry, and, apart from when on sports fields or a basketball court, he’s never rushed a moment in his life, not even when chasing the dog. I didn’t teach him to anticipate when I’m not feeling well and to silently — late in the night — enter my bedroom and place ice water next to my bed in the event I may want it.
I like to think we as a family are generally kind people, but, I tell you, Thulani’s natural kindness cannot be taught, tutored or trained.
He was born kind.
Kindness tumbled down through generations of his kin despite the traumas and brutality they knew. Kindness flowed into my boy from unknown generations like the mother’s milk he never tasted.
My sons’ mothers may not be at the table with us on Mother’s Day but I meet them every day in the beauty with which each of the generous women stamped their claim on the lives of our shared, fabulous sons.
Had I an opportunity to reunite with my sons’ mothers I’d say a deep and welled up “thank you” for the gifts of two magnificent humans with whom I’ve shared the last 25 years. I’d say “thank you” for the bravery it took each woman to make her generous choice.
I salute you, your bravery, your untold story, your capacity to engage in enduring, long-distance and painful, love.
Things to try for a few days in the hopes will soon see they are life-style habits worthy of developing:
Plan your day.
Plan who you will seek to empower and encourage.
Write (using a pencil and paper) a few ideas as to how you will empower others no matter what your station in life.
Oddly, the more you plan, the more you will allow for a serendipitous life.
Besides, getting yourself ready for a great day will sharpen your eyes to recognize when great days come your way.
Plan your day as if planning a great day is in your power to do so.
Write a few notes to yourself about how much money you will spend, how much you will try to save.
Plan what and whom you will avoid because some things suck the life out of you.
As you plan your day, remind yourself that you are not all-powerful and that things happen to derail the best made plans. This does not mean a plan is not worth making.
Plan your responses to tough or challenging circumstances and situations so that you are unlikely to spend the day in a reactive mode with fight or flight as your defaults. Write a few notes to yourself about what you will or will not say and whom you will and will not engage.
Recap on anything the group would like to look at again or to reconsider.
The Humble Samaritan – why it this such a radical parable?
Fables and other resources
Post-traumatic Growth
Helpers’ Lives
POWER Balloon
Every person has been given a Power Balloon that represents an allotment of power. This is the power to have a voice, to decide, to be, to have opinions, have fun, learn, experience, to be autonomous, to be intimate, to be fulfilled and to love.
Within every person’s capacity (power) is the ability to do research and to decide things for oneself, to worship, pray, accept, reject, remain free of abusive relationships and to create and enjoy safe relationships.
Every act of manipulation, of cruelty, of “over-functioning ” and of “under functioning ” is the denial of the power of another or of others.
People, for various reasons, will try to burst your balloon, boost your balloon, take your balloon, give you their balloon or render your balloon insignificant.
Resist such acts from others and resist doing such acts to others. Care for your balloon only; leave others to the divine task of caring for and nurturing their own balloons. This is not selfish.
Think of how selfish it is to say to someone, “Here, let me take away your power from you,” or, “Here, I do not want to take care of my own life but you have to do it.” Not even God will take your balloon from you. Your balloon is God-given to you for your care and nurture. (God has God’s own balloon to care for).
The power for you to be fully human is yours and that power should be offered to no one under any circumstances and the position of exercising power over our own lives should never be abdicated except in extreme situations of medical emergencies.
Every baby and child has his own balloon to be respected as much as the balloon of every adult. This, of course, does not mean that babies should be caring for themselves or that children must be given their every whim. Reaching such a conclusion is to misunderstand the concept of what it means to have personal power. The art of parenting a baby, of nurturing children involves respecting and nurturing their sense of personal power. Parenting is exercising the kinds of discipline and care that do not diminish a child’s self-worth or distort their capacity to discern and appreciate the power that is their birthright. Anything less is to “spoil and child.” It is to “spoil” their capacity to see and know themselves with accurate personal assessment.
Love is seeking another person’s highest good, every time, day in and day out. It’s holding nothing back if it’s in the highest interests of whomever you love.
Love is being willing to be unpopular because some truth is tough to hear and receive. It is being willing to be corrected by the people you love when they think you are wrong or need correction.
Love is finding legitimate ways to earn the extra money needed to protect and educate and serve the people whom you love.
Love is thousands of loads of laundry for the baby and then toddler and a young boy or girl and then it’s teaching young teenager to do his own.
Love is dealing with men and women who will tell you you are a bad parent for not giving rules and not checking phones or monitoring teenage behavior as if your teenage son or daughter cannot be trusted to exercise good judgment. Their unsolicited scoldings clearly mean they do not trust themselves or their own children.
Love is being committed to telling you the truth as lovingly and as efficiently as possibly.
Love is learning to love and embrace and fully accept the people whom your loved ones love.
“You are free to go,” the nurse said as she unswaddled the newborn Thulani, freed his arm, and with a snip of scissors removed the security bracelet off his wrist.
I took those words to heart, perhaps far beyond the meaning the nurse intended.
Now, 25 years later, in a few days I will attach a Uhaul to our car and T and I will head to South Harlem in New York City. We will unload all his possessions and move them into his apartment and I will head back to Nate and we will all three grow accustomed to the new constitution of our family.
The years have been fabulous and the years have been tough. The years have been dramatically beautiful and frequently brutal.
Thanks be to God.
Grace upon grace.
If you have known Thulani all of his life (perhaps you were at the house when he came home to “215”) or if you know him through Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, Saint Richard’s Episcopal School, Herron High School, or Butler, please send him a goodbye greeting in the comments beneath this posting – or via any other way you may already have to reach him.
Time does not permit the farewell party I really wanted for him but if you’d like to send him a gift it would be really appreciated.
I’d suggest you Venmo or CashApp me – the address is the same for both: “RodSmith9802” and in so doing buy him a meal or two or three to help him during his first few months in NYC.
I am deeply indebted to two men from Tab who went to NYC years ago and who have both provided Thulani with invaluable guidance as he makes this brave move – thank you, you know who you are.
I am further and deeply indebted to all who have helped and played parts in Thulani and Nate (Nate will be 21 in May) becoming the fine men they have become.
I hope I can hold onto myself when the I hug T on the South Harlem sidewalk and whisper, “You are free to go” into his ear and then set my GPS and head for Indy.”
I’m sure that you won’t have to look too far if you want to find people with courage. I run into men and women – and children – with remarkable courage for which they are apparently seldom lauded. I have noticed that the more I listen rather than talk, the more courage and love I encounter.
This week I met a woman who has two jobs and two high school children in her care. She is keeping track of it all with calm and good humor. I met a woman of courage.
I met a man who is facing a life-threatening illness while taking care to visit his wife daily. His wife is in a long-term care facility and has not known who he is for years. I met a man of courage and who knows about love.
A week ago I met a teenager who uses a ride service three times a week to spend time with her aged grandmother. She told me the visits also give her time to perfect her school work and time to apply for bursaries and scholarships to help her pay for the university she’d like to attend when she’s finished high school. I met a teenage girl who knows about courage and love and commitment.
At the start of a new work week may I offer you encouragement?
Stop hiding who you are behind a desire to be accepted or to fit in.
Let people know who you are and what you want.
This does not mean you have to be pushy or overbearing.
In both strong and subtle ways define yourself.
Leave little up to guesswork.
Do this, even if you start in very small and incremental ways, with the people you are close to and to the people whom you love. This may take some people by surprise and even catch them off guard, but the people who love you will be delighted to hear your voice.
You will immediately begin to feel less anxious when you begin to define yourself. As you advocate for yourself, even in the smallest of ways, you will begin to like what you see and what you feel and think, and you will grow even more beautiful than you already are. If you have been a “I just fit in with others” or “I hate conflict” kind of person you will begin to notice you will have lower levels of anxiety as you reverse your “fit in” and “avoid conflict” tendencies and allow your personality and your wishes to emerge and ultimately shine.
Today, and every day, try to be the adult you hope your children will become. How else will they learn what it means to be an adult? Who else will teach them?
Try to stop blaming the teachers, coaches, or the school for your child’s every challenge, difficulty, or hurdle. Blame restricts maturing, yours and theirs.
Try to stop blaming the government, the economy, or prejudice for every distress or dilemma you face, unless you think blame will be a good tool for your child to take into adulthood. If you want your children to be adults who take responsibility for their lives then show them how it’s done. Your children won’t forget your temper tantrums no matter how young they may be; and they will probably emulate them.
Demonstrate, by your own display of excellent manners, the manner in which you hope your child will navigate life and relationships. It is true, they are going to watch and learn from multiple sources, but you are their primary resource when it comes to how they will respect and treat others. Little eyes are watching.
Respect, visit, and be kind to the elderly so they know exactly how to do it when it’s your turn.
Dismiss no one; look down on no one. Young eyes and ears are absorbing how to be in the world, and we, we parents, are the primary teachers.
difficultrelationships.com 