Category: Family

Christmas, Family, Intentionality

Listen to Your (Inner) Three Year Old

Carrie Sue Barnes

My three year old gets it. All that is necessary to fill him with excited anticipation is to tell him we are going to do something together. The activity matters little. Togetherness is the key.

During the brief forty-five minutes we had this morning between him waking up and me departing for work, he must have asked ten times for me to spend time with him. The asking comes in a variety of forms – will you sit with me; can we watch a movie together; are you going to eat with me – but the heart of the question is constant: Can we be together?

Connection; companionship; unity; family. It is my belief that we do not lose our early years’ desire for togetherness. We grow adept at minimizing its significance, quieting its voice. We learn to ignore it. We all have our own reasons for doing so.

With each instance in which I must reject my son’s request for time with me because I am required to be elsewhere, my heart hurts. Yet there are plenty of times where I also turn him down carelessly, preferring that he leave me alone to do the things I’m more interested in that day or the things I think have to get done. I am imperfect in it, without a doubt, but having children has reawakened my own desire for and value of togetherness.

This isn’t written with undue guilt. We cannot be there with them non-stop. Jobs, obligations, responsibilities, and even solitary endeavors are both necessary and valuable. Yes, my children have to learn the hard lesson that they are not at the center of the world they occupy nor can they count on always receiving what they want from others. My thoughts run less along the line of eliminating those lessons and more along the line of wondering what society, and specifically my own family, could look like if alongside those harder lessons everyone also learned that we do not need to guard our hearts against the natural desire for togetherness.

Final request of the day: “Will you rest with me?”

What if I said yes more often, both to my son and to my own timid longing for greater togetherness? What if I factored it more strongly into our Christmas season plans and my New Year’s resolutions? What if I replaced “not right now” with “yes, we can be together” as much as possible? It would be a difference maker for the good, I am sure of it.

Advent, Christmas, Faith, Family, Hope, Jesus, Scripture

The Paradox of Suffering and Hope at Christmas

Carrie Sue Barnes
Photo provided by Trisha Hummel

Today is my cousin Trudi’s 44th birthday. It is her 23rd birthday in eternal life. I was still stumbling my way toward my teen years when Trudi was murdered. Trudi and her older sisters were thick as thieves with my older sisters while I was just one of the little cousins in our extensive family circle. I remember her as cool; fun and beautiful; bold and humorous.

This weekend I spent hours addressing Christmas cards. As I scribbled the names, streets, and cities of my cousins, I couldn’t help wondering about Trudi. Would she live in the same area, like her sisters, or would she have established her life elsewhere? Would we have attended a wedding? Would our children have played together by now? Would we have that comfortable, enjoyable dynamic that develops between family members after the years have placed us on level ground?

Hypotheticals. They do an excellent job of muddling the mind and stinging the heart. There’s nothing like loss to leave you wading through a pool of hypotheticals. And there’s nothing like Christmas time to amplify the wound of loss.

This isn’t a direct quote, as I can’t remember where I heard it, but I once read that St. John Paul II said suffering is created by feeling cut off from good. We live and love and link ourselves to sources of good. When one of those links is severed, we are left trying to patch the tear.

What has severed a link to good in your life?
Death
Divorce
Job loss
Infertility
Disease
Rejection
Betrayal

Every cut in our connections to what is good is felt keenly in this season of celebration. For some, the suffering renders Christmas undesirable. Potential joy is swallowed up in misery. Sounds of peace are drowned out by the roar of hypotheticals that can never be.

Oh, the paradox of Christmas. For Christmas, my friends, is the arrival of the Divine Response to every wound and cut and tear you carry with you. It is Almighty God dwelling amongst us. He made Himself vulnerable to encounter our vulnerability. God entrusted Himself to the arms of a mother, to the home of an earthly father, and to a community of imperfect, suffering individuals.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst

Christmas is the issuance of God’s answer to our suffering, to our feeling of being cut off from good. It is a resounding song of hope: “You are not cut off. You are not abandoned. You are not lost. For I am with you. Here in the deepest cuts, I abide with you. I may have allowed pain and loss, but I fill the voids. I AM the source of all good and I AM here.”

Christmas, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) is the root of our conviction “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

Advent, Christmas, Family, Love

She Would Have Loved That

Carrie Sue Barnes

Two years ago my last grandparent, my maternal grandmother, passed away. Her death came in the week before Thanksgiving and so inevitably she enters my thoughts a lot in this holiday season. Similarly, it is summertime when my paternal grandmother comes to mind most often as my final memory of her was a family picnic at my parents’ house on a warm summer day. Sunshine warmed grass between my toes, family sitting in chairs in the yard, Grandma Theresa makes herself present with us. Now, in the bustle of family focused holidays and age old traditions, Grandma Evelyn is here with me.

Grandma Evelyn with my firstborn, a few months before she passed.

During Sunday Mass last weekend, I leaned over to my husband and whispered, “Grandma would have loved this men’s choir.” The rich, reverent harmonies could have been from any number of old albums of hymns she used to play on her cassette deck next to her favorite chair. I savored every song during that Mass, enjoying it on her behalf.

Then at the end of Mass, I approached the giving tree set up near the sanctuary. Typically I choose a request for a child’s gift from these trees. It gives me a special kind of joy to know a young child will be happier on Christmas day thanks to a small sacrifice on my family’s part. It was with this same intention that I went to find this year’s star on the giving tree. But what did I find on the first star I read? A little Christmas wish list for an elderly woman that could have been my grandmother’s list pretty much every single year. My eyes filled with tears and I swallowed a lump of emotion in my throat as I plucked the star from the tree. I get to shop for my Grandma.

When I read that Christmas list and kept thinking, “she would have loved that,” with each item, I realized something I hope I won’t forget. Remembering our loved ones gone from this world is a special thing but loving on others with the very love your heart has marked for the ones you lost is immeasurably greater.

Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Photography, Pictures & Words Challenge, Writing Prompt

Pictures & Words Day 15: Don’t Forget to Play

Carrie Sue Barnes

Photo/Writing Prompt: Play
(2 pictures because they are one moment together)

“Don’t forget to play.” Of all the things for my grandfather to say on his death bed, this was not what I expected.

I drove down from Detroit to see him one last time. The nurses said he would likely go in the next twenty-four hours. When I entered his room at the nursing home, pulled a chair up beside his bed, and waited for him to wake, I wondered what I could possibly say. Mom said he knew the end was around the corner. His clear mind was housed in a body exhausted to its limit. Grandpa was always full of advice and information. He could tell you something about everything while never claiming to know it all. My own mind was still blank when Grandpa’s eyes opened. They were watery and dim. Short, sparse gray hairs stood askew upon his head. Grandpa was a big man, tall, broad, and thick. Even in his diminished state, he filled the standard issue bed to its edges. He lifted a hand, gesturing for me to lean closer. I did and he planted a kiss with his dry lips on my cheek. That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to come up with anything worth saying. I didn’t have to though. Grandpa started right in.

“Patrick, I’m glad you’re here.”

I nodded. A lump was forming in my throat and I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“I was thinking about you and that little boy of yours. And the little boy you used to be.”

He reached for the plastic cup on his bedside table. I held it while he sipped water, the gurgle of air bubbles in the straw the only sound in the room.

“You were such a serious little one. Wanting to be older, wanting to be bigger, wanting to do important things.”

I chuckled quietly. “I was, wasn’t I?”

Grandpa had no smile though. He went on. “I know you’re frustrated at that job. Feels like less than what you should be doing.”

I ran a hand over my thinning hair. We’d had plenty of conversations on the topic.

“You are doing important things.” He narrowed his eyes when I began to shake my head. “That boy, he’s your important thing.”

He needed another drink. I could see the strain that it was for his neck to hold his head up from the pillow for those few seconds.

“When your Laurie died, I knew your son would be okay. I wasn’t so sure you would be okay, but I knew he would be. He’s your important thing and you’re doing it right. Can I give you just one bit of advice though?”

“Of course.”

He hand engulfed mine. “Don’t forget to play.”

I’m sure the puzzlement was written on my face. “What do you mean, Grandpa?”

“Just that!” His deep voice rose urgently. “Don’t forget to play! You have so much on your shoulders, so much worry. I see it in you from every angle, Patrick. Your son needs to see you play. He needs to see you laugh and smile and enjoy yourself. When he’s older, he’ll understand without a doubt how hard you worked to provide for him. He’ll realize all the sacrifices you made. But don’t let him wonder if you enjoyed your years with him. Don’t let him question that.”

I smiled then, aware that of all the advice he could give me in this moment, this was exactly what I needed to hear.

Grandpa’s face relaxed and his eyes lost their focus on me. “You remember how we used to play, Patrick?”

“I do. I remember you teaching us baseball in the backyard. I remember sitting on your shoulders for half a mile to reach the river and filling my jar up with tadpoles. You used to carry me around upside down and I’d tell you what I saw that was different than when I was right side up.”

Tears were trickling onto his leathery cheeks but he was smiling so I continued.

“I remember you pretending to be a bear and chasing us around the field behind your house. There was one night we had a board game marathon and you tried to play Twister with us. We all laughed so hard that Grandma almost peed in her pants. I remember the whole family going camping out at Carter Lake. It was the only time all year we could count on Dad taking a couple days off from work. You and Dad taught us boys how to handle a canoe but our first time out alone we tipped it. I remember surfacing next to Greg and the two of you were up on the shore laughing at us.”

Grandpa nodded. I squeezed his hand and added, “It made me want to tip it a second time so I could hear you laugh that hard again.”

His eyes refocused on me, brighter than before. “So, you’ll remember to play?”

“I will.”

Grandpa died several hours later. My brother Greg and I were there beside him. My mother, too, but she had dozed in her chair. His passing was so quiet, so calm, that it was over before we realized she was sleeping through it.

After the funeral, the whole family went to Grandpa’s favorite restaurant. We had reserved most of the tables in there and still had trouble finding seats for all of us. Everyone swapped stories and memories, laughing and crying together. As we walked out to our cars later, my little boy squeezed in between my brother and me. Without a word we both grabbed his hands and swung him as high as we could manage. Giggles poured out of him and he shouted, “Again, Daddy, again!” I could hear my grandfather’s laugh in my ears as we lifted him again.

Family, Intentionality, Motherhood, Personal Reflection

The Waiting

Carrie Sue Barnes

The scent of warm pear bread – cinnamon and sweetness – hangs in the air of my kitchen. There are dishes to wash and a floor to sweep but they can wait. There is a to-do list beside this computer, its uncrossed items lifting off the page to remind me there is still much to be done. However, much can wait. Even as I assess whether these are real contractions I’m experiencing or simply more Braxton Hicks after a long, tiring day, I am pulled toward quiet thoughts. There simply haven’t been enough of them lately. They are stolen, pushed aside, stepped over, or buried under heaps of mental activity. They wait. They wait for me.

Do yours do likewise? Are the edges of your mind lined with subtle, patient, quiet thoughts? Wallflowers in the spinning ballroom of your head. Do they wait for you to sit out a dance?

Mine wait. Patiently, perseveringly, but not permanently. Eventually, they do go. They slip regretfully out the door like the party guest who will not intrude upon others’ conversations but could’ve been the highlight of the evening if anyone had taken a moment to look them in the eye and invite them into their circle.

During weeks of tiredness, my body longing for sleep by seven p.m yet not finding it until much later and then only intermittently, my brain is aching for energy. I get caught up in despondent reflections of ‘I used to write,’ and ‘I used to teach,’ and so on. Not that they last long. They are overrun by the joy I have at what my life has become. Wife, stepmother, and now mother. I feel my child turn over inside me and I imagine holding him in my arms. How can such regrets withstand it? The negativity is polished away by my blessed reality and what remains is only the root of the regrets. That I do still long to be a writer, a teacher, a thinker! That those should be woven into marriage and motherhood for as many days as I’m given. It’s the figuring out how that is the challenge. Challenge does not equal impossibility though. In fact, a challenge must be possible to achieve or it is merely nonsense and nothing else.

Yes, this is a genuine challenge. One that I will take up each day – sometimes setting it back down after only a moment and a sigh, certainly, but other times engaging it with strength and wit and success. It’s my belief that the engagement must begin with quiet thoughts: the ones waiting on me, eager but calm, ready to pull me deeper into truth, beauty, and holiness. Anything good must begin there.

Family, Motherhood, Personal Reflection, Writing

On The Way

Carrie Sue Barnes

“What is on the way?” you may be wondering. A baby! Well on his way, actually! A few months into our marriage, Matt and I were thrilled to discover we were expecting a child. Timothy Michael is due October 4th and I’m having trouble believing how quickly that day is approaching. I can hardly wait to hold my son in my arms. To touch his skin, hear his voice, stroke his hair, kiss his nose. He is in constant motion lately, a thrilling sensation of flips and kicks and stretches.

I’ve had a healthy, ordinary-in-the-best-way pregnancy. Predictable symptoms, expected progressions, and no scares. About the biggest complaints as this third trimester gets underway are hatred for humidity and a longing to be able to sleep on my back once in a while. And a wistful pining for a chilled glass of moscato, I suppose.

In the 10 months since I became a wife, I have frequently thought about getting back to blogging. Of course, it was usually a passing thought in between “what should I make for dinner” and “maybe I can get these last boxes unpacked this week.” (They’re still not unpacked.) Then came pregnancy and instead of there being one or two things I could more sensibly do instead of blogging, there were three or four or more.

Oh, silly me. Falling into that age old trap of practically every writer who ever lived. There are always things to do instead of write! Always! My first book didn’t get written because I had nothing else to do. It was written because I chose to write it. All my prior blog posts weren’t written out of boredom. They were written because I needed to transfer the words from my brain to the world.

So, I hope you’ve missed me. I’m back. Giant belly blocking the keyboard and all.

Faith, Family

I Am All These Things

Carrie Sue Barnes

I am distracted and focused. I am scattered and gathered. I am prayerful and skeptical. I am angry and comforted. Last night my sister received confirmation from her doctor that the tumor she had removed last week is the same kind of lymphoma she had three years ago in an entirely different location in her body. Last night I felt only sadness – baffled, helpless sadness – over this news. Listlessness slipped me into sleep. This morning I awoke angry. On her behalf, on her husband’s behalf, on her children’s behalf, on our parents’ behalf, on our family’s behalf, I’m angry. Aware that it is far from hopeless, that it could all be okay, I can only consider how it shouldn’t be at all.

You know those times when you are aware of exactly what you ought to do, what is in your best interest to do, but you cannot do it? All logic, all experience directs you but you willfully veer left instead of right. In the back of your mind you retain awareness that eventually you will listen to that guiding voice… eventually you’ll reenter the road that leads to hopeful trust and peace of mind… but not yet. No, not yet. For now, you choose weakness, aggravation and distraction.

I should pray. I should visit my sister. Instead I am itching to go for a jog, to start those revisions I’ve been procrastinating on for weeks, to shop, to bake, to finish the book I’m reading. I am a woman of faith and hope and love, but I am also a woman of selfishness and fear. I am all these things. If not for the grace-granting knowledge of God’s love for me, I would only be the lesser of these things.