I finally showed up.

March 27, 2012 in VerbTribe, Write / Now

VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. In response to a photograph I provided to the VerbTribe, writer Terry Lynn George offered us this moving look inside motherhood–and personhood–and showing up fully.

My tears are red as my heart cried while writing this.

The kid in the picture is my daughter, Becky, age 10. It is Parent Day at her school. She is saving the chair beside her for me. I am not there. I am late. Will I show up at all? My daughter, with her quarter inch length hair, shaved up around her ears and a V cut out in the back of her head. She won’t wear the pretty outfits I buy her but insists on wearing jeans and boyish clothes. She is a cute little girl but tries so hard to sabotage it. She is popular with all the kids. Everyone likes Becky. I try to protect her and avoid her at the same time. This is just a phase I tell myself and then remember she has been different since infancy. She did not like to be cuddled and as a toddler she did not play with baby dolls.

At this stage in my life I could not accept that she was born this way and nothing anyone said or did was going to change her, not that anyone said anything, kind of like the elephant in the room. Oh how I wish I had recognized what she is and embraced it with her. The suffering she has endured because I was too vain to admit even to myself that she is homosexual. Her alcoholism started around age 12 and her permissiveness with boys started soon after that. Then the car wrecks and the drunk driving and police knocking on the door. The fact that she is lesbian and how to deal with that got put on the back burner to try to save her life. I tried having her committed for drug abuse, tried counseling – she either didn’t cooperate or the system would fail.

But getting back to that empty chair, yes I was late — to my shame and regret, but I finally showed up and although we were both hurt during the time it sat empty, I like to think we are on the road to forgiving and accepting.

-Terry Lynn George

[photo by Terry Lynn George]

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

7 comments to " I finally showed up. "


mj

March 27, 2012 AT 4:43PM

This is so brave, might I have permission to share this with folks? it is powerful and could spare others suffering, even though I believe we can only get to acceptance by our own journey. Your heartfelt writing is a beautiful guidepost for all who parent. With gratitude.
- Reply
  
  Patti Digh
  
  March 31, 2012 AT 2:24PM
  
  mj – feel free to share with a link to this post – thanks!

Lisa

March 27, 2012 AT 5:01PM

oh wow! Beautifully written. I can identify with the “not fully showing up” , and just yesterday I found myself flicking through my iphone emails at my daughters school Easter performance -she wasn’t on stage at the time but someone elses child was. I was tapping my foot, impatient to get out of the hall instead of watching my sweet girls smiling face as she sang. I was shocked at my own disrespect. Thankyou for putting into words what I have just started to recognise in myself

Michelle Harris

March 28, 2012 AT 11:26AM

Thank you for this, Terry Lynn. Being a mom is so, unexpectedly, difficult. Not the day to day. That part I expected. It’s the part where we bring into the world a *person.* That part shocks me every day. It is so strange to not really know someone who grew inside of me and who lives with me everyday. I didn’t expect to not really like all the things about my kids. The getting-to know-you part continues to surprise me.
Acceptance is truly seeing and letting go of the need to change and fix. That continues to be the challenge…but I can do this for my kids and myself and everyone else I meet. Just SEE them and say, “ok.”

Gwyn Michael

March 29, 2012 AT 9:39AM

Thank You terry. That is indeed a brave and beautiful post. May the healing continue.

winsomebella

March 29, 2012 AT 4:34PM

This is powerful and beautiful. After the kids are grown, many of us look back at parenthood and wish we could have a do-over of at least part of the experience. Since time does not allow that, the fortunate ones recognize that it is never too late. Thank you for sharing with such honesty and bravery. Great writing always makes me feel and usually brings a tear to my eye and this piece did both.

Jylene

April 8, 2012 AT 4:47PM

thank you for this honest sharing. being a mom is the hardest job in life. at times it goes so quickly and at others it feels like it will never end. then there is the regret that we didn’t appreciate it all enough at the time. and in hindsight we wish we’d done some things differently, a lot of things. but we are all learning as we go.