Road maps or landmarks?

 

Mark and I are helping to organize the first annual Central MA Buddy Walk and Harvest Fair. We're excited to help give back to an organization that has been such a meaningful landmark in our journey as a family, and we're equally passionate about bringing a deeper awareness to our community of the beauty difference makes. I wrote this with that in mind. A little about our journey so far, a little about where we see ourselves going from here. We'd be honored if you'd join us with your support! Visit: The Central MA Buddy Walk and Harvest Fair


I’m a girl who finds her way by landmarks, not road maps, unlike my husband, who appreciates a well-labeled guide. I grew up in New England where north-south-east-west means very little, since even paved roads take their directional cues from rambling rivers, jagged coastlines, and old carriage paths. Often their trajectory is determined by the course of least resistance—around a mountain, not through it, along the lake, not in it. When you live in an area where you and your vehicle might be flanked by both at any given time, the dips and dives and curves of something like Rollercoaster Road make perfect sense. If you can excuse the terrible quality of the roads, which are riddled with the damage of tree roots, falling rock, frost heaves, and heavy winter plows, there’s a magical quality about winding through a dim wood only to  find yourself (quite suddenly) on the crest of a hill with a 180 degree vista of mountains and island-pocked lakes.

A moment like this always evoked one of my dad’s famous lines: “How can anyone look at this and say there’s no God?” or “This is why we don’t need to go anywhere for vacation, girls! It’s all right here!” Nods of approval or eye rolling followed respectively. As my mom always liked to quip when we asked her if she knew where she was going: “I like to feel my way there!” Her intuition typically got us where we needed to go—that and the half dozen Dunkin’ Donuts along the way that marked whatever intersection or downtown we were in search of. “Oh, I remember that D and D; that’s the one we stopped at on our way home from the beach last time. Remember? We must be close!” In any case, the diligent landmark, intuition follower will most often be rewarded with the moment of clairvoyance where the twisting road you’ve been traveling for the last twenty miles (you know, the one that changes names every time you cross a town line, the one that nearly cost you your right front tire, and most definitely lost you your vehicle’s alignment,) finally brings you and your now-queasy passengers to your final destination.

Don’t get me wrong, a map is useful in certain circumstances. When I moved to Michigan and began asking for directions, I was utterly lost. Go west on 28^th street for 5.1 miles, then…Huh? You lost me at west. Never mind miles. My husband, then boyfriend, used to draw me maps that looked like a toddler’s version of graph paper. Big squares with road names and arrows directed me to our meeting points. Restaurants, a friend’s cottage, a college track, even the grocery store in his hometown! While I drove, I kept the handy map on my lap, rotating it appropriately every time I changed directions, so I wouldn’t get lost. I still got lost. “It all looks the same! I was halfway to Kalamazoo before I realized I wasn’t heading for the lake!” I’d wail, frustrated and late as usual. He’d smile his patient smile and scratch his head. Until he moved here. And now, he’s the directionally challenged half of our unit. Ha!

We used to live our lives by map. We planned plans, and timed timing. We did things in the proper order. But when our little gust of wind Kaleb came along, the maps directing our journey got sucked out of our hands and whipped out the windows; they were well beyond our grasp before we even had time to articulate what had happened. Turn around? Impossible. Now what?

Put both hands on the wheel, look up, look out, and look for the landmarks. Use maps, but only when necessary.

True to our personalities, in the hospital, Mark poured over the books our friend Lisa brought to our room. Holding Kaleb in one arm, and a book in another, he read statistics and studies, protocols and procedures. Maps. I couldn’t absorb those books just then. I held my landmark. My baby. Memorized everything about his milky skin, his lake-blue eyes, his pouty mouth, his wide foot print, his flat brow and upturned nose. If I could learn to love him just as we was, look and not see a diagnosis, look and know a son, then I could find my way home again. To the place where I recognized my own reflection in the mirror, to the place where this family was meant to dwell, to live out its days in whatever pattern the Lord had planned.

When we came home with Kaleb, we switched roles. I became the researcher, looking for ways to improve feeding, looking for answers about Early Intervention, looking for signs of typical diseases and complications.  Mark spent hours holding Kaleb, feeding him, while I was hooked to a breast pump and a computer screen. For months and months, we operated in this fashion. Mark, though a reasonably concerned father,wasn’t interested in the facts so much as he wanted to resume a normal life--whatever normal meant now.  I, a hormone-crazed mother, spent long nights awake in my bed, awake at the pump, awake—worrying about the future, about our son’s health and development, about how we would find our way through all this crazy joy-pain. I found my way by landmarks—the people who showed up at my door to offer a hug and a word of encouragement and perhaps a meal, the elderly mothers in the grocery store who stopped to tell me that their son, their daughter had made such a difference in their lives, how they wouldn’t change anything even if they could. The cards in the mail, the flowers delivered, the phone calls from friends near and far, the visits, the music on my Ipod, the sermons I streamed through my laptop, my Bible, my books, most especially the memoirs other mothers like me had already written. I devoured those like bags of chips. I couldn’t eat just one. The more I ate, the better life tasted.

These were the landmarks that helped me to my final destination: something that, to my surprise, is not a physical stopping point more than it is a soul’s resting place.  My home place. The place of letting go and enjoying the journey. The place of expectation and hope for a future that is uniquely ours. The place of opening my grasp one finger at a time—to let grief, self-pity, and most of all fear out so that joy, hope, love, and most of all gratitude can enter in. Gratitude for all that was given, and yes, even all that (some days) seems to have been taken away.

Our journey, far from over, continues. We don’t have a destination anymore. We’re trying to enjoy the ride, learning as much as we can from the maps, but trusting our intuition more. And looking for the landmarks: the ones that tell us we’re on the right track. First smiles, first hugs and kisses, first steps, first words. We’re reaching them. And they’re reminding us. Hold on tight. This ride’s a good one.

The first words I can’t wait to hear, get so excited for when I think about them? “I love you, Mommy.” Though he says it with his eyes and touch, the view from that mountaintop will be breathtaking. In the meantime, we enjoy the view from right here, right now—dips, dives, curves, and all.