This past week, I’ve had acute pharyngitis, which is fancy urgent care speak for a bad sore throat. I don’t get sick often. Or maybe I do, but I don’t give myself the permission to really notice. As a mom, you wear your servitude like a badge of honor, a sash of martyrdom you don with the right to complain. 😂 It’s not a good look, but secretly, you like that you have to be strong for everyone else. Of course, it’s a badge you’d happily discard if it meant you didn’t have to clean kid puke off the floor, walls & bathtub ten minutes before you take your sick self to urgent care (but that’s a longer story).
I thought I was getting better, but in an unexpected turn, I completely lost my voice for 24 hours. People say that you never know what you have until it’s gone. They say that; I couldn’t, because my voice was what was actually gone. 😅 This had an interesting effect on my children. They suddenly became hyper aware of my weakness. Rather than exploit this for their own devious purposes, they softened like butter on a southern counter. My son offered sweet but impractical suggestions, that I should transcribe my every thought to save my voice. My oldest daughter heated hot water in the microwave for my throat. Then, in the evening, Pete told me that I needed to get in bed & read my Kindle. “Try not to talk. Just rest, mom.”
This, of course, had me feeling a whole kind of way. Are these the first glimmers of reciprocity? Is this a snapshot of the kind of people they’re becoming?
I’m not used to being on the receiving end of caregiving in this relationship. As moms with young kids, we give & give with very little return or evidence that our diligence is making a difference. We change diapers & clean up puke, we correct the same behaviors over & over with little change, & we grow accustomed to the often thankless nature of the work we do. When we’re breaking up the millionth fight of the day, the voice of doubt wonders quietly if they’ll ever be the kind of empathetic people who give without getting anything in return. But someday, these humans that we bathed, fed, & nursed back to health will be the ones taking care of us.
That 24 hour voiceless day reminded me that this season of endless pouring out isn’t actually as endless as it feels. At some point, the sand shifts & our kids are no longer toddling through drifts, shoving handfuls in their mouths, but charging up mountains of their own making. In the meantime, we show them how to dig; we help them carry the bucket even when we are weak; and when they tell us to lie down & rest, we bury our pride & try to listen. Their voices are getting louder and hopefully, kinder too.
A Good Crisis 