A Toast

25 years ago today I was in the Richmond General Hospital recovering from the trauma that was my firstborn's birth.  A quarter of a Century between then and now, she has been with me for more than half my life.  Although with 11 younger siblings I had plenty of hands on experience with babies but she was the one who initiated me into motherhood.  I can see her still as she was then - already asserting her personality and working her hands and feet out of any wrap that I or the nurses put her in; her intense murky blue eyes taking everything in.

So many changes we have lived through together - some happy, some not.  Many great ideas that weren't really that great - all those mercurial things you do in your 20's  (that I did in my 20's...)she was there for.  And she was always one of the best things about my life.

Last night we had a party to celebrate her 25 years on the planet.  I put everything into it.  We had vegetarian chili and artesian bread that I made myself and home made french bread and artichoke dip and hummus - all made by me.  The floors were washed and the rooms tidied.  And I roasted squash and cooked beets and made 2 rebar chocolate cakes (amazing!  Turned out the best I have ever done!)I worked all day starting at 4am.  And as I worked, I thought about her and what I would like to say at this 1/4 of a Century celebration.  People started arriving.  It was loud.  We visited and ate and worked together.  And by the time we were singing and eating cake, I was far too exhausted to say any of the things I had thought of.  So here it is:

A Toast

To my beautiful, talented daughter who has graced my life with love and laughter and friendship - more than I ever hoped for and more than I deserve.  To you, Eryn.  Who can find the words to describe all that a daughter is - all that you have been to me.  Who can find the words to describe the amazing unfoldment I have been honoured to witness as your mother?  A beautiful, creative, musical soul, a young woman who knows her own mind.  Someone who is not afraid to speak up.  A determined, courageous, brave person who I am so inexpressibly grateful to know.  Here's to you, Eryn.  I love you!

In my dreams...

In my dreams, the day is sunny, the flower beds are perfect and radiantly full of blooming flowers. My vegetable garden is artful and beautiful and completely free of weeds and crab grass. The food is perfect and we don't run out of anything. Katie and Brent make sure I get everything done. My sewing aunties (Mina and Elaine) swoop in and finish all the sewing with typical aplomb.

In my nightmares, my garden is overrun with crab grass. I run out of money for the food. The dresses are pinned together at the back and the sheep get out and eat all the flowers just hours before it starts.... and we have a torrential downpour.... all day....

A Day Among Days

So, Eryn says that I always make this day about me. But hey, this my blog and I get to write in here about what I want to write about and about my life, my perspective. And 23 years ago, this was the biggest day of my life. The day I became a mother. I suspect that one day, when she holds a little tatooed baby in her arms, she will understand. It is a day I always mark in my own way. This is the day my life changed forever in ways I could have never predicted.

I adore her. I adored her from the first moment I looked into her muddy blue eyes - so intensely looking back at me. She was definitely not born into the best circumstances. I was only 21 and I had a whole lot to learn about myself, about life although at the time, I thought I had it all figured out.

She saved me and I saved her. I have no doubt that our Souls already knew and loved each other and that we made promises to each other. I know she has a very strong spirit. She would have to have gone through all the things that we went through together and all the things she suffered because of my immature parenting and my own self-centred-ness to be the person she is today. It is a credit to her own perseverance; to her own strength of character; to her own soul.

Sometimes she looks at me with those deep brown eyes in such a way and it pierces me to the depths of my soul and I know her - more than just as her mother in the way that mothers and daughters know each other. I KNOW her from more than this lifetime. And I love her so much - bigger than my heart can hold. In that moment I am as overwhelmed with love for her as I was when I first met her.

I thinks she is amazing - beautiful, smart, funny, intelligent and determined. And on this day 23 years ago, I was blessed with being her mother. And for that, I will always be grateful.

I have an exceptional mother...

This is an excerpt from an e-mail that my mother sent to my sister-in-law, Esther.

Hi Esther,

Thanks for appreciating what I shared. I'm a little embarrassed by your reaction---I am not extraordinarily intelligent. Although I learned to read easily and I did do well in school---I am no genius. From my experience I want others to know that you do not need to be a genius or have special training to be inspired how to teach your own child. Schools and Psychologists try to make you feel that way some times. I remember when Jordan's teacher said she didn't think I was qualified to teach him sex education. Another one of my thoughts is that psychologists, who are usually men, have done mankind a disservice when they intimidate mothers from following their own intuitions and follow the latest worldly psychology instead. Heavenly Father does not send his pure and vulnerable babies to psychologists and only the educated. He sends them emotional, intuitive mothers who have powerful instincts built right into their very beings---I truly believe in the divine right of mothers for inspiration for any particular child who is given to her. I found myself to be a very fierce mother---couldn't help it---you have probably heard the story that I was so protective of my first newborn that I wouldn't even let my visiting mother-in-law hold her (how embarassing is that) Fortunately she was kind , patient and forgiving--and I did get over that. But I had very powerful feelings and had to go with them. Fortunately for me, my domineering husband soon realized there would be no rest or peace in our home if he ignored or crossed any of these strong feelings I had about the care of my children, so he honoured my feelings even if he didn't agree and thought I was being silly. He realized my feelings were much more deeply rooted than his thoughts and whims. For the most part that is. I'm a hard woman to live with when my maternal instincts are crossed. I once read a magazine article that said that a mother holding her newborn infant could intuitively tell you more about it than a team of psychologists studying it for months. After reading that, I injoyed trying to verbalize feelings I had about my new baby about their personality and character.

Some examples of how psychologists can be some times because they are not Moms is: There was a member of the church in Prince George for awhile who was church psychologist. At a parenting class he was teaching us, he tried to make the point that we should only pick up our infants when they are not crying, otherwise you are reinforcing them to be whiners and cry babies. How does that sit with you? Some men will say, ya , that is logical. But that goes totally against the grain of a mother who knows by instinct that she is teaching something far more important and basic by responding to the cry of her child---such as, I love you, I will respond to your needs, you are important to me, you are safe with me and because I am respecting your cry for help like this you will grow to be a loving, caring , empathetic person---I am teaching you that---and furthermore, you will grow up feeling secure and will not feel such a need to be a clilnging, whining, cry baby.

Another example; Don't talk baby talk to your baby or they will grow up talking baby talk. On the other hand, it is a natural instinct to talk baby talk to an infant, and I feel very strongly that it helps their intellect to develop faster than if you don't---because they "get it" faster and they can say it faster, therefore they are having the excitement of successful communication sooner and it is very rewarding to them. ie----if you hand a baby an item and say ta ta and then reach for it and say ta ta---they get it and can soon proudly say it---whereas it would take them much longer to figure out and repeat, "will you please give me that"----great baby language is Mama, Dadda or Papa---Num num because that is such a basic need---oh oh---how many babies love to say oh oh and know it means they have dropped or spilled something? Their ears seem to pick up the double sound to start with. And of course there is Byebye, ca ca and one of my favourites---I show them their toe toes when I change their diapers---and bum bum. To talk in sentences and use more correct words will flow natuarally and more quickly than if you don't use baby talk, in my oppinnion. You see I am very oppinnionated....

After Shocks

I have always found it hard to follow up on big intense posts like that. Sometimes I just don't write anything or sometimes I write something silly to break the tension. Either way, I usually feel a bit foolish - like somehow I should keep up that intensity (who would want to?) or that I shouldn't be that intense in the first place.

But here are my thoughts another day later. After talking to that guy, I am left with the bizarre impression that although at his age (retired) he operated from fear and was very aggressive, he expected my 14 year old son to a) not be afraid and calmly explain himself and b) have more presence of mind than he did. And of course, the next day, in the daylight, faced with the mother, he is minimizing his behaviour and insisting that he has the right to assault anyone who is on his property (so be warned - although I wished I had pointed out the fact, that I was right then on his property). And I am still a bit outraged about that. Andrew read my blog and we talked about it more last night. His comments are that he still thinks the guy is a jerk. Fair enough. He said it would have been much more satisfying for me to freak at the guy (and, yes, I know his name but I won't put it here as he is well known in our community). So we talked about that and I told him some of the things I thought of saying and we laughed a little and he said it would still have been more satisfying for me to have really said them to the guy.

And my other much larger thoughts reflect on how this little altercation is just a microcosm of the bigger world picture. Fear and aggression, fear and aggression. Tell me this isn't what is happening in the middle East? Tell me this isn't what happens in parliamentary debates? Tell me this isn't how politics basically works on every level. And we are incapable of changing those structures or how the work when this is still how we operate on an individual level. And this is how it is all related to me - the personal is political. And sure that is true when it comes to the personal choices we make - vote with our wallet and all that. And it is also true in how we feel about ourselves, how we raise our children, how we love ourselves and each other, the Earth. In this way the personal is political, too. Just as each cell of our bodies has the complete genetic information of our entire body, so do each of us for the world. We are at once a small pare of the earth and the entire world. Like the Prince of legend that when he opened his mouth, you could see the whole world.

Profiling

Warning: Mother Bear Alert

At birth when I held my baby daughters in my arms, I looked at them in amazement and thought of all the women who had fought for their rights. I knew that they could really be anything they wanted to. The world was open to them. When I held my baby son in my arms and looked at him in amazement, I didn't feel the same sense of freedom. There are still so many things it is not okay for men to be. Some radical feminist friends and colleagues have got rather bristled when I have commented on this. But to have a rigid, patriarchal society isn't good for men, either, even if they do seem to have the power. But I digress and this is not really a philosophical post. I encountered these uneasy feelings again when Andrew was in grade 3. When he went to kindergarten, he and his friends used to greet each other with hugs and loving enthusiasm. But by the time he was 8 things were changing. I could see the 'boy culture' that he was a part of and this was my motivation to begin homeschooling him. It was a culture that alienated boys from their parents, that said that to be a boy is to be getting in trouble and to be careless with the feelings of others - to be 'tough' and mean. (I am not, of course, saying all schooled boys are like this. I'm just saying it is a cultural norm that is out there.) I could see him drifting away from me at the tender age of 8 and I knew that he still needed me. Joyfully, homeschooling restored our bond and gave my son's naturally compassionate nature space to flourish.

However, he is 14 now and he spends a lot of time away from me as seems developmentally appropriate. He spends hours and hours riding his bike at the skate park, working on different tricks ( it is better for me not to watch him practise... just him telling me about his wipe outs is enough to turn my hair grey...) He has retained that childlike quality - the ability to play and I love and admire that about him. I love that he has had the experience of growing up in the same town (we moved here when he was only 7 months old) and having that continuity that I never had - feeling like he is well regarded by adults who really know him and that his community is a safe place for him where he is well known.

Yesterday he spent the day at one of his friend's grandparent's place building dirt jumps with a couple of his friends. They came home for dinner and headed back out. On his way to be home by 9:30, he and his friends were racing down a long hill. One friend in front, ducked into a driveway so he could pop out and scare his friends after they went by. But they saw him and followed him into the small driveway. Just then, the owners of the house roared up in their car. Suspecting foul play, the man, leapt from the car and started yelling at them. Drew's friends took off but Andrew stopped. The man demanded to see ID before he left his property so he could know who he was. Of course Drew didn't have any. The man grabbed him and hauled him off his bike and pushed him to the ground. Andrew was terrified and confused. The man wouldn't listen to him and when Andrew swore at him as he was leaving, he chased after him. The man called the police who came and talked to Andrew and his friends on their way to our house and seeing that they didn't do anything, left them alone. Andrew got home and burst into my bedroom and poured this story out to me on the edge of tears. I called the police myself to see about this man assaulting my son but they never called me back.

I was very distraught that Andrew had experienced this and kept waking up all night with it on my mind. I knew I had to do something. Here is the thing. I know the man is a Mormon and a retired Fire Chief. I ranted in my head all morning - all the nasty things I would LIKE to say to this guy but would not actually be a good thing to say. My mother bear was roaring - someone had messed with my cub. I told Andrew that he and I were going to talk to this guy.

So we went. I started off by introducing myself as Andrea Clarke and I said, "I think you know my dad, Doug Clarke". So the guy knew that I knew he was a Mormon and that I knew what being a Mormon was supposed to mean. And I think that helped it go better. Andrew just wanted me to kick his butt. And I didn't exactly but I told him I was very disturbed to hear what had happened and we listened to that guy's side of the story and I told Andrew's. I wanted my son to hear me tell this guy that I knew he was a good kid. And I said it several times. At first the guy was very defensive. Finally he asked me what I wanted. I told him I wanted him to know that every teen age boy who happened to be out at night was not up to 'no good' and that in fact, most of them weren't. And I wanted my son to know that I would stand up for him. I repeatedly pointed out to him that Andrew (and the other boys) hadn't done anything wrong other than be on his driveway. He actually eventually apologized to Andrew (after saying there was no way he would in the beginning) for hurting him. He wanted Drew to apologize to him for swearing which Andrew didn't do. He said Andrew could come any time - with me, with is dad or alone if he wanted to apologize at a later time.

I don't really think that Andrew needs to apologize. I think he experienced being powerless and that he retaliated with the only powerful thing he had - language. In those moments he was caught in the horrible, terrible way that male culture works. If that man had come home to find 3 fourteen year old girls in his driveway on bikes, he may have still been concerned but I don't think he would have acted so aggressively.

Why are we as a culture so afraid of young males? (okay, now I am getting philosophical) I think it is because we sense deep down that how we are treating them is not okay. We mentor and encourage young girls to come into their own power but we are afraid of the boys. We want them to adopt our culture's false power illusion - the illusion of 'power over' rather than power from within. We want them to grow up, get a job and aggressively advance in their job; their job must have priority over everything else in their lives - their relationships, their health, their peace of mind. Those men are winners. The others are losers. We (as a culture) harshly ridicule those men who have chosen another path - who have chosen happiness and inner peace over being a 'winner'. A man who doesn't buy into all of that is very threatening.

Back to young teen age boys... People assume they are criminals. And really, are most crimes like vandalism and break-ins really committed by young teenage boys? I don't really think so and crime reports don't say they are, either. Sure, maybe more often by men, than women but most of them are not actually teen agers. Yet we have a sense that it is young teen age men. Why? Is it because we have neutered them - taken their legitimate male power and confined them to classrooms and deny them the satisfaction of contributing meaningfully to society? And deep down we know it isn't right; we know they aren't happy and we are afraid of their revenge. Happy, well adjusted young men don't go out destroying the property of others. Disenfranchised young men who feel powerless do. I know this isn't true for all young men but it is of too many. I saw it again and again when I worked with the unemployed. Men who the school system had completely failed - talented men who had never had their real value reflected to them because they didn't fit into the very narrow role we have for boys and men. And smart men for whom school had seemed irrelevant because it wasn't meaningful to them. Truly I don't know why more people don't homeschool their sons. I think the school system is especially toxic for boys.

And I want to roar by biggest, loudest, homeschooling-mama-bear-roar because I HAVE A SON! And I don't want him to be experiencing the world like this. He is good and he is kind and he knows what is right and has the courage to stand up for what he believes. And he is a young man and he is sweet and very physical and it is OKAY TO BE LIKE THAT!!! I adore my son. I love him so hugely and I would protect him from all that. But of course I can't. I live in the world of women. All I can do is wrap my heart around him and let him find his way in the world and pray that world will change. And I know it is changing - I just want it to change fast enough for my son... He knows his mama sees his soul and knows him. I pray for a world where more men can do that for each other - can look at each other's souls and not see threats to their place in the male hierarchy but see the wonder of each other.

Funny. A long time ago, a mother would love her daughter, would raise her but knew that she had very little power and that her daughter must survive in the unfair world. I don't feel that way about any of my daughters. The world has changed since then for us in the Western World. But I feel that way about my son. My heart breaks. I wish he could be a little boy for longer. But I know he is a strong boy and I know I have done my best to fill him up and prepare him for his life. I believe in him.

For Half My Life

21 years ago at this time I was in a drugged sleep because of the demerol I didn't want or need but got anyways. 21 years ago I had just given birth an hour and a half before. 21 years ago my journey into motherhood began. And now I have been a mother for half of my life. My beautiful, talented, creative, interesting daughter. I am so grateful to our journey together. She hates it when I write these mushy things. Or so she says. I don't know. Somewhere, deep down, I think she loves it. She loves to hear how much her mother loves her. How could I not? Isn't she adorable?

To Warm a Mother's Heart

Last night after returning on a high from our dance recital and winding down at home with my 2 girls (Dean on the road and Drew at a friend's house), I was on the computer blogging and Rhiannon wanted a cuddle. Kaetlyn went to give her a cuddle and when I went upstairs shortly after, here is what I found.

I wish I could have captured the golden light from my bedside lamp that seemed to surround them with grace, or the murmured conversations about Rhiannon's amazing performance and gentle teasing and joking that I overheard on my way up the stairs.

Truly a sight that warms a mother's heart - two sisters in each other's arms - my two loves, loving each other.

It could lead to a dissertation on the true cause of adolescent malaise and for me to expound on how when we feel loved and supported and needed and valued, that it is so much easier to be loving to those around us and how teenagerhood is too often a time of estrangement, marginalization, judgement and impotency.

And I could go on about the shift I have seen in Kaetlyn since we first started this whole pump fundraising thing and she got to feel so loved and supported and seen and valued by those around her.

But I'll just leave you with this photo and the tale of my full heart!

ITS HERE!!!!

Purolator just left... Kaetlyn's pump is here....... Kaetlyn's pump is here! Oh my God! Kaetlyn's pump is here.... we really did it!

Oh thank you! Thank you everyone! Thank you Mary Sue and Monique for urging me on, for your support for all your time and efforts. Most of all, thank you for your love and care of my daughter. And thank you Marty for getting us started with $1000 on the very first day of our fund raising. Thank you Lynn and Jill and Julie. And thank you Century 21 - Carla and everyone there. And the Alliance Church who finished off our donations with $1,200.

Oh my God! It is here. We really did it!
Look here is the pump. (I'll let Kaetlyn open the box when she gets home... I just opened the parcel)











And here is the sensor.

And you know what the package of instructions says? "Enclosed in this package you will find materials to help you change your life with your MiniMed insulin pump."

You all did that. You changed my daughter's life with your belief in her and with your time and efforts. And with your love. Do you know what a relief that is to my mother's heart? It has been a burden I have carried mostly alone since Feb 23, 1999. When you have a child with an incurable disease, you never forget it and you worry about what they need about what their life will be like. I can tell you that burden is so much lighter today - to see how much other people love her and care about her and give her real tangible support that she needs. Thank you for sharing my burden.

Are there words for that?

Oh my God! The pump is here!

13 years ago

13 years ago in the wee hours of the morning, this is what I was doing... I was labouring to bring my son into the world. It started in February of 1993 when I was reading an inspirational magazine about a couple who had served in a third world country and had done some amazing work with the people there. I thought to myself how I wished I had not had children so young and had done some of those things before I became a parent.

A voice came into my head and said, "That is not your mission. This is your mission - to be a mother and it is time to have another baby. It will be a boy and his name will be Andrew Philip." At the time I had undiagnosed thyroid disease and I hadn't had my period since getting pregnant with Kaetlyn. Yet within the week (Feb 7 to be exact) I became pregnant. I trusted that moment that I had and I knew that it was him. People would pat me on the head and say of course I wanted a son after 2 daughters - that really bugged me - what would be wrong with having 3 daughters? All the baby stuff I had was pink anyways... but I knew it was him. During my pregnancy I went through tremendous evolutions. I call 1993 my anti-institution year. In researching birthing possibilities in Winnipeg, I discovered that birthing rooms were rare (they were the norm in Victoria where Kaetlyn was born) and that they still routinely gave women episiotomies and demorol during labour. I was detirmined to not have a repeat of the experience I had with Erin... So I went to some information meetings on midwifery and knew that this was what I wanted - to have him at home with a midwife.

And an angel came into my life. Marla Gross refused to take my power in the birthing experience. She continually returned it to me. I devoured books on birthing (Immaculate Misconceptions comes to mind). Her kindness, her love, her gentle soul was exactly what I needed. I healed from wounds I didn't even know I had. I took my power back from the medical community. Here she is with Andrew just minutes after he was born. Thank you, Marla. I won't ever forget you. She was also the first homeschooler that I got to know really well. She pointed me in the direction of great books about homeschooling and I began homeschooling Erin just 7 days before Andrew was born. I took my power back from the school system, too and even though Erin and Kaetlyn eventually returned to school, I have never given them (schools) the power that I once did.

After Andrew was born, I went to church only twice. His blessing in church was the last time I went. I loved his blessing. A motley crew of men who were on the fringes of the church because they were judged. A great man who had wore an earring and so was shunned. A simple man who never learned to read and grew up in the northern bush of Manitoba. A gay man who stuggled to reconcile his sexual orientation and being a Mormon. Great men, all - men who had never been asked to participate in a blessing. They stood around my son on the day he was blessed. They cradled him in their large hands as his father gave him a name and a blessing. I love this image still and surely it was prophetic of his life - my non-mainstream boy.

Then just as surely as I knew it was he that was coming, I knew that I did not want to raise him in this church. I knew I did not want to have these ideas of patriarchy - I did not want him to grow up with these ideas of being a man - in a church where women are often (routinely) silenced and marginalized. With the idea that having power is having 'power over'. His blessing was the last day I attended church. My dad sometimes brings up how Andrew should be advancing through the ranks of the priesthood, etc. I always laugh and I know this upsets him and I don't mean to be disrespectful of his beliefs but he doesn't realize that this is exactly why I left - I didn't want my son to be involved in any of that.

Andrew's conception/pregnancy/birth was a huge turning point in my life. My heart is full of emotion as I write these things. I am so grateful to those experiences, to Marla and to others who have supported me in my journey. I know this will be hard for some of my sisters to read. But I wanted you to know that I did not 'fall away'. I left on my own terms because it was right for me. When I was a mormon, I was a mormon fully. And then I left.

But back to my boy Drew... His birth was a family affair. Erin and Kaetlyn were both there. My friend Gudrun Owens came as well to look after them. I laboured and birthed in my bedroom - which was the largest master bedroom I have ever had in a house. I had my old futon on the floor covered in a shower curtain (that is on the bottom of my linen closet and I won't let Dean throw it away) and a sheet. I walked and paced and hung on the door - that felt the best and then I pushed him in 3 pushes without doing any of those breathing exercises and without counting to 10 while I pushed (which popped all the blood vessles in my face with Kaetlyn...) Just 3 easy pushes while on my hands and knees and out he slid onto the futon. I wanted to be the first to touch him but I couldn't move my arms from the strain of pushing and so he landed on the futon before I could 'catch him'. He weighed 8lbs 14 oz. And he was beautiful. The most wonderful thing about having him at home was getting into bed after the midwife cleaned us both up and nursing him in my own bed and I fell right to sleep (I could never sleep in the hospital...)

Erin and Kaetlyn adored him. Here he is with Kaetlyn the next day. I couldn't find her anywhere and then I found here here, in bed with him, singing him songs while he slept. Her baby brother.





And here he is with Erin and Jasmin a couple of days later. Jasmin, although only a kitten herself (Erin's 7th birthday present two weeks earlier) bonded with Andrew. Kaetlyn brought her into the room when I was birthing the placenta and I think those primal smells triggered something in her. Most of the pictures of Drew as a baby have her somewhere in it. She used to sit and lick his head. I could see her confusion as his hair got longer... (how can my baby have long hair? I'm a short hair cat...) After his birth, she attacked strangers who came to our house (I had to shut her up in a room). She settled down after she got spayed...

Here is my photo essay on my boy growing up...

Early signs of his musicianship?












making us all laugh...

















His first steps (and that is his dad, Phil)





























An accidentally over-exposed photo but I love it - him sleeping with images of his naked bike ride earlier that afternoon.





















My playful boy... throwing leaves at his mother taking the picture...








With a friend at a homeschooling activity - learning to build a shelter.






Sitting on the ice sculpture he designed and helped carve (its a dragon)








With last year's birthday present - his first guitar.












this summer








I love having a son. I am so proud of the young man he is growing up to be - compassionate, kind with the strength of his convictions. It is impossible to put Andrew in a box. He insists on being true to himself no matter what. It is an honour to be his mother. Thank you, Drew.