Team Buna

True Confession: My husband married not just one “Elise“, but a whole bunch of my “fun” little personalities all wrapped up in one little package. Our kids have the delight of waking up to what may be a new version of Mommy every single day. I’m just so spontaneous that way! (Sarcastic snicker)

On my best of days, and in my heart of hearts…. well, let’s face it, I do this most perfectly in my dreams really… I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. I don’t have a care in the world. I laugh all day, don’t own a watch or a cell phone (sigh, dreamy, right?). I could chase butterflies in a field with my kids for hours and come home when its dark. We paint with our hands and spin in circles outside in the yard until we get dizzy, or swim like mermaids and sharks in the pool until our fingers look like little raisins and have built up a hunger to eat an entire pizza while wrapped in a towel poolside! Oh yeah, that’s the Fun-Hippy-Mama in me. That’s the mom that wore bumblee wings and a tiara last week to the door when the UPS man delivered a package. And, I wore it with a smile! That’s the “me” that my kids really, really like! I agree, with my munchkins, that cRaZy chica should never loser her madness. Her madness is the good kind, the kind kids like.

But… there’s another woman that lives here.

Ever seen Sally Fields in the movie, Sybil? I could do the remake.

By the end of this summer, Fun-Hippy-Mama was about to get the boot. Because O.C.D.-Mom had her bags packed and was ready to move in with cleaning supplies, ready to put this house back in order. She had her work cut out for her after a lovely summer of barely any computers/ipads/kindles/etc., and carefree summer days at the pool with my kiddos. Fun and happy, right? Right. But… my house was trashed! Clearly, I’m not the true “hippy” at heart and my mini-van full-o-kids will never be as cool as a VW bus, because quotes like this make me cringe… even though I try, try, TRY to embrace them….

It’s so touching and lovely. I mean that. I truly do envy every woman that embraces it, totally doesn’t care, or has even just plain given in. I am tortured by my NEED to clean and put my life in order. I have diagnosed chronic sensory migraines (maybe that’s just my excuse for my dislike for chaos?), so when my house gets so cluttered, dirty, and loud, I can’t think. I can’t function. I literally shut down. I’m not being dramatic. (Eye roll if you must, but I’m serious. Try not to laugh) I’m completely and totally impressed by all of the other mothers that still are able to function (ie: get children to and from places, fed and not naked, aaand without forgetting someone) when their house is in shambles. My brain is like “oatmeal”. With each child, I’m sure that I delivered a piece of my brain as well. Now, I have 5 living children, and have miscarried 3. That’s 8 missing pieces!!! I’m not so sure I had the best thinker to begin with, so we’re not dealing with a full deck here! I’m sure that if we took a “Being John Malcovich” tour through my brain, you’d be less than impressed, and lost. My brain is a house in shambles. It’s disorganized chaos. I have that fun-loving, free thinking hippy brain. It’s the delightful brain of an artist! No offense to all of you artists out there. Honest. It should be a compliment, I just don’t know how to apply my delightfully artistic brain to real life things like …say… motherhood! I am afraid that if my physical world matched my inner world, the cops would knock on my door and take my children. Or better yet, call me up to notify me that I forgot one at the grocery store! That’s my real fear. Oy vey!

So, being that the same week that O.C.D.-Mom was scheduled for her arrival (the first week of school), just so happened to be the week of my diagnosis of breast cancer, that cleaning crazed personality within me kind of, well, shut down. She was very sad. Very, very sad. She felt overwhelmed and oh, so defeated. This was all just too much. She had plans, big plans. But not anymore.

But there’s more…

Elise loves the Marley music. Like the Fun-Hippy-Mama, The Rasta-Mama wants to just chill, sit back and relax, why?? If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you know…

…and it is. And letting go, and letting God, is definitely the way to go. I love knowing that the buck stops with Him and He is ultimately in control. But, I’m still human, and that’s not always easy. I don’t always want to sit back and wait. My family is involved in this whole cancer thing, so sometimes the Mama-Bear comes out in me that wants to treat the day more like this…

…which could sound terrible. But, if I channel that and use it on the right day, it could be really great. On the days that I feel like I’m at my lowest, my weakest, and I just can’t get up off the bathroom floor, I need ol’ Mama Bear. She then helps me to get up, for the sake of my kids, for my husband, for myself, and for everyone else that wants to kick cancer’s butt and I basically “punch the day in the face” proudly! And it’s with the fuel of your prayers and by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

So… now that my secret’s out, I’m not just Fun-Hippy-Mama, or O.C.D.-Mom, or Rasta Mama, or Mama Bear. I’m also Entertainer/Razzle Dazzle Mom, Crazy Crying in front of her Children for No Apparent Reason Mom, Have a Glass of Wine with Homework From Time to Time Mom (Hey, no judging, just a little. Anyway,Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine, right? And His mom told him to do it. I stand by that!), Hot-Glue Halloween Costume Mom, Get Back in Your Bed- So Help Me Mom, … and so sooooo many more. Truly, I could really give Sybil a run for her money! But if anything, I pray that my children know I love them so much it hurts, so much it makes me literally this kinda crazy. I mean, aren’t we all this many varieties and shades of motherhood? (Cricket Cricket…. Hello?? Please say, “Yes”) At the core, I think we all just want to be Love You With Everything I Got Mom. Even if everything I got ain’t screwed on just right. That’s why I need my kids. That’s why I need my hubbie. That’s why I need God.

I try to be all these “Mommy Roles”, thinking that it’s all on my shoulders. But if anything, having this battle with breast cancer, I’ve had to share the load. I’ve had to rely on my family. I’ve had to let my children show me what they can really do. I have gotten to see how amazing my husband really is to me and to my children. I have let them serve me instead of splitting myself into just giving them one crazy woman, or two, or ….five… to live with. And it has been a gift. They are teaching me. The Big Guy is teaching me through them. Apparently, I really have a lot to learn. True confession.

blessthemchangeme

It’s Cycle 3, Day 4…. and the storm is a brewing.

My stomach’s flipping, food doesn’t want to stay down so much, and staying awake for prayers is getting trickier and trickier. However, when I look over at the patients next to me in the chairs that go on and on down the infusion suite, I can stay awake, and I can pray. Funny how that works?

That’s when it came to me. I’ve been hemming and hawing over this ever since my diagnosis, so here it goes.

I need your help.

I don’t refer to myself when I post this quote from the Blessed Mother Theresa. I’m thinking outside the box here. The world is so big, so vast, and the need for prayer is so far beyond what we see in our little world right here. I’m touched beyond words by all the prayers people have offered up for us, the selfless acts, the meals, the notes, the hugs, and the love. It is awe-inspiring. And for someone like me to go speechless, that’s a once in a life time chance, baby! (Enjoy the silence of me not talking for a moment……. aaaaand… here I go again! Haha!) So, it got me thinking. I need a way to focus my prayers, and focus all the little side effects of the chemo and sufferings of the day to day issues that go along with having breast cancer and fighting for my life, really.

People have timidly started emailing me, texting me, sending messages on Facebook, unsure if it was ok to give me their intentions to offer up. “Is that ok?” , they ask.

“Is that ok? Is that ok? THAT’S FANTASTIC!!!!!”, I reply enthusiastically!

Giving me your intentions, gives me a way to focus my day, and channel everything toward a greater cause. I’m a mama. I want to take care of people, I like to nurture. If any of you have ever been on bed rest (which I was for nearly 20 weeks with my son), it was far more of an emotional torture than anything! I felt it was taking away my ability to be a mom. So, to be able to have a “job” to take care of all of you people and pray for you, and help YOU through the grace of suffering would be AWESOME!!!

Oh, It’s on like DONKEY KONG!

However, I want us to stick with what I’ve been learning and what I’ve been trying mercilessly to teach my children to do. Let’s focus on the desire for GOD’s WILL in our lives. It’s a hard one. We all want to pray to be healed. Our knee jerk reaction is to tell God just what to do. But, I’ve regularly been laughed at when I tell the Big Guy my plans. So I suggest we don’t do that so much. Deal? You can even just pray for a “special intention”, God knows the details. We don’t need to go into the nitty gritties for the world to see if you don’t want them to! God is omnipotent, He knows way more than us. Thank God, right??

However, I can take some details, too. But let’s have some rules, why don’t we? Let’s use the ol’ K.I.S.S. Rule here (Keep It Simple ~~Stupid~~ Sweetie): In other words let’s not get too lengthy. If you feel called to elaborate, feel free to email me by clicking on the link on my blog page. I’ll take a look at it and pray for your in depth intention privately. I figure it would look, overall like this.

WHEN YOU MAKE A COMMENT ON MY BLOG POST:

1. Your name, the person, or situation your praying for (only if you feel comfortable doing so

2) The general need for prayer (simple sentence)

3)Try to follow up with a little thanksgiving of something good that God is doing in your life (simple sentence)

In all things, no matter how ugly, how messy, how scary, how unclear, we must have faith that God has got our backs and is also still doing good in our lives, even during all the bad that seems to surround us. If we can’t have hope, and we can’t find gratitude in something…. ANYTHING… than what’s the point? I see more smiling faces over there in that Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center every day. They are thankful for a second chance. We are thankful for a chance to fight. So let us fight for you, too, while you do the same with your prayers for us. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Deal?

My mother’s dear friend, Jane Vorbeck, passed away a few years back after struggling with a debilitating textbook case of rheumatoid arthritis. Her body seemed crippled and in a type of pain that no one could understand. However, her mind, her wit, and her spirit was like no hero I had ever known. She is definitely, definitely one of my inspirations as a writer. She had a deliciously twisted sense of humor that we shared and loved one another for! A beautiful writer, mother, and a tough-cookie fighter! She’d call my mom whenever she knew I had a test coming up and say, “Alright, she has a chemistry exam, right? What does she want? A rib or an ankle bone? Both are crunchin’ on me, but I’m offerin’ ’em up for her. Good for nothing for me!” And then she’d just laugh. Now, that was a lesson learned on offering up one’s suffering. Mrs.Jane, I do this in memory of you. Thank you for your gracious example.