Perspective

“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” 
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried 
  

Liam and I moved to Kuwait during one of the hottest months of the year. Like 130 degrees hot. Heat so oppressive it almost takes your breath away. 

Each time I'd leave our apartment during those first few months, I'd think Ugh! I just spent 30 minutes straightening my hair and it's frizzing already. AND my make-up is melting off my face. Now, mind you, this was all in the course of the few feet it took to get from our front door to the air-conditioned car. And then, inevitably, a little voice would pop into my head and say, "shut up, you idiot." (Ummm, yeah, we'll talk about my negative internal dialogue some other time). And I'd immediately get an image of my brother, a marine who served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, in this heat. In this heat wearing heavy boots and fatigues and a flak jacket, with no air conditioning, just trying to stay alive. Talk about getting a little perspective.

It's hard to live in this part of the world and not think about the men and women serving our country. I find myself thinking about them often, actually. I thought about them while I was at the embassy recently getting my passport renewed. Just the thought of going to a U.S. Embassy makes me nervous. I was shaking so badly I could barely manage to hold onto my paperwork. I thought about them the time I was absolutely sure someone had put a bomb on the back of our SUV, after a truck pulled behind us for a minute and then went speeding off. Or the time we were driving and there was a McDonald's bag placed perfectly in the middle of the road and my husband and I looked at each other and he said, "better drive around it...just in case." Or the time I thought a firecracker was a bomb. Or the time I thought the thunder shaking our apartment was a bomb. Hmmm...I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. Truth be told, this anxiety of mine worsens when I read novels set in Afghanistan or watch movies like ZERO DARK THIRTY, so I've realized I can no longer do that while I'm in this part of the world -- unless I want to continue thinking the buzzer on our dryer is a bomb getting ready to explode. Of course, the reality of this happening in Kuwait is not likely, but that doesn't stop me from thinking these irrational thoughts. Our armed forces go through extensive training, of course, and I'm sure learn how to best channel the adrenaline and anxiety that combat brings, in order to use it to their advantage, but that doesn't mean their minds and hearts aren't forever changed by it. It does not mean that it doesn't take its toll. Saying thank you doesn't even seem close to sufficient, but because I don't have any other words, thank you.

If you're interested in one marine's perspective on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, check out my brother's new blog: WarTorn 0331. A machine gunner who has served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sean writes about his experiences with a rawness and authenticity that haunts you long after you've left the page. As a writer, he is to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars what Tim O'Brien was to Vietnam. He first sent me his writing, scribbled on ten small pieces of paper, during the Summer of 2011, while he was deployed in Afghanistan. I was on my way out when the mailman arrived; I opened his letter with the intention of taking a quick peek at it, but found myself standing in the doorway reading every single word. And then reading every single word again. I was completely taken in with the first sentence. You will be too.

Step by Step...with video of Liam walking!

9.27.12

You did it. You finally did it! We have been waiting for this day for over three years. Three years! Three and a half years since those gut-wrenching words were uttered, words that changed everything: we’ve found some deformities. Today, what seemed like just an ordinary Thursday, you did something we once thought was impossible: you took your first steps.

Step by step we’ve made our way on this journey together – this journey that began almost four years ago, with a very anxious soon-to-be Mama staring in disbelief at a screaming YES glaring back at her. Almost four years ago since making that very long-distance phone call to Daddy saying, I have to tell you something, but I’m not going to be able to say the words out loud. Just one month shy of your third birthday, and you did it.

My heart was so full tonight that my body simply couldn’t take it. As I lay in bed, I heaved and heaved thinking about the gravity of what you had accomplished. I sobbed reflecting back on those first few months after receiving the diagnosis, when I couldn’t even look at a little boy on a bicycle, or a baby standing on his wobbly, little legs without feeling a tightening in my chest. Without feeling like I was suffocating. Guilt at that time was a tangible thing. Anger was palpable. My body had betrayed me.

It wasn’t until first stepping foot in the spina bifida clinic, when you were three weeks old, that I truly realized the severity of what spina bifida and hydrocephalus meant: wheelchairs and braces and catheters and shunts and surgeries. All of the books and articles I had read during the second part of my pregnancy couldn’t have prepared me for what met me that day: spina bifida at every age. It was like your entire life flashed right before my very eyes. I felt the wind knocked out of me walking into the clinic that day. Your Auntie Maura somehow sensed what I was feeling, and simply sat quietly next to me, while I tried to catch my breath before making my way to the front desk. But I didn’t know then what I know now.

And now, here you are, standing on your own two wobbly legs. And here I am, knowing what I didn’t know then: that you are absolutely, positively who you were meant to be. You are perfect and bright and magical. You are an old soul in a young body. You have taught me and Daddy and our family more than we could have ever learned without you in our lives. Do you know that when your cousins play house one of them pretends to be a kid with spina bifida? Yep. It’s true. You have made clubbed feet and braces and shunts normal, which in turn has taught them to accept other kids who are different from themselves. You have changed the definition of disabled for us. Spina bifida doesn’t define you, it’s a part of you. Just another facet of the remarkable human being that you are. It has been a long three years, filled with therapy and doctor appointments and surgeries, but you did it, my angel baby. You did it.



***Update: I was finally able to get a video of Liam walking. He typically moves a bit faster and takes larger strides, but tends to get a little camera shy the second I hit Record. He has made even more progress, since taking his first steps back in September. When he first started walking, I had to hang on to the back of his RGO*, in order to help support him, and now he is able to rely completely on his walker to balance himself. He has also been standing between couches and taking small steps, without wearing his RGO. We are so proud of our Liam!
*Reciprocating Gait Orthosis -- the leg brace he wears that helps support him as he walks.

Click here for video of Liam walking!

And a few pictures for our friends not on Facebook:

Working on standing & taking steps without his RGO

Standin' around...because I can!

Someone likes to wear underwear on his head...

 

Bittersweet

Where does one begin when they've neglected their blog for almost three months?

I guess I start here: I'm alive.

We've been back from our trip to the states for almost three months now, and I only just finished unpacking our suitcases a couple weeks ago. That should give you some indication of what my mood (and life) has been like since returning to Kuwait.

I'm only just now beginning to feel like my normal self again. I'd been feeling the way I used to feel after my husband would come home for a two-week vacation, and then leave for six months of work again. As time goes on, one gets used to being away from family and friends, but get a taste of what life is like having them around again -- drinks with girlfriends, dinner with family, movie dates with the husband -- and it's like starting the whole process all over. I had to keep reminding myself that I would eventually feel better. I'd eventually feel normal again. But things kept happening. Newtown happened. I could barely function after what happened there. And to make matters worse, I was feeling a ridiculous amount of guilt, because, unlike what every other Mom I knew/read about was saying -- I'm gonna hug my kids a little tighter -- I was so full of anxiety that my nerves were on edge, making me horribly crabby, so that every little thing Liam did made me want to scream. 

And, then, the day after Christmas, our housekeeper came to work in hysterics because her husband (who was back home in the Phillipines) was shot 12 times by a masked gunman on a motorcycle. They believe that the hit was meant for someone else, because her husband lived a quiet life, and didn't have any known enemies. Her pain was so raw, so visceral, that I could almost feel it. I did the only thing I knew how, in this particular situation, and gave her some money to send back home, to help pay for the burial. We had helped her a few months earlier with her adult son's burial, who had recently died in a car accident. It makes me sick to think about a woman losing her son and husband within six months of each other. I can't wrap my head around it. When things like this happen, I have a really difficult time dealing with the reason why life has to be so hard for some people. I have a hard time accepting why some people have to endure so much suffering. The only thing that seems to help is reminding myself (over and over again) that all I can do is try to live my life a little fuller. Because what is death for anyway, if it isn't to remind those of us here to live?

On a lighter note: my husband was reminded of the reason why my friends/co-workers nick-named me "frigid brigid" ("fridge" for short). I don't do emotions very well. My husband said to me a few days after: "I thought you were going to offer our condolences? Did you even give her a hug?" My response: "Yes, I gave her a hug. Okay, maybe I didn't give her a hug so much as I let her hug me, but still. I gave her money. Money is better than hugs anyway." I have issues.

Couple these events with my worsening anxiety, and I've been a ball of nerves. I've always had what I would consider "situational anxiety" -- anxiety thinking about a particular event (like my thesis, before I finished it, although I did just have a nightmare about it the other night) or going to a place I'd never been before or making phone calls or leaving the house -- ummm, ya know, normal people stuff. Lately, I can be sitting on the couch minding my own business and my heart suddenly starts racing and I have a hard time catching my breath. Or some days, like today, I wake up so full of anxiety that my hands actually feel weak (probably from clenching/tensing in my sleep), and my legs feel as if they'll buckle beneath me when I get out of bed. The other day my husband looked at my trembling hands and said, "Oh my god. You look like a junkie coming off of heroin." This sort of anxiety is totally new to me. I wonder at what point I take my doctor's advice and begin taking the anti-depressant he prescribed for me. I had a bad experience with them during college -- weight gain, sleepiness, etc. -- but he has assured me those were "old school" pills. For now, my anti-anxiety pill seems to do the trick, and I only have to take it when I need it. But the way my doctor explained it makes total sense: taking an anti-anxiety med without (or instead of) an anti-depressant, would be like continually putting out a fire, instead of dealing with what was causing that fire in the first place. I've been willing myself into feeling better, but no matter how positive I am, or how many freakin' self-help books I read, I can't seem to make my way completely out of the fog. 

So, for now, I do what I do best: I organize the heck out of everything. I'm naturally an organized person; or, maybe, I've simply become an organized person over the years, since it appears to be the only way to control the chaos that always seems to accompany my anxiety. Feel like your life is spinning wildly out of control? Begin obsessively organizing anything with labels -- canned goods work exceptionally well:

I can't tell you how much this soothes my soul. I begin organizing as if my life depended on it. My poor husband, though, has a hard time finding anything when I get like this, which I don't quite understand since I've explained my organizational system to him over and over again.

One more thing: because I feel particularly vulnerable when I write about this topic, I feel the need to express WHY I choose to write about it. Often, writing about one's own struggle with depression and anxiety can come off as highly self-indulgent (at least, I worry it may come off that way), especially when I feel guilty even dealing with these struggles, because I have so much to be thankful for, and everyday so many other families deal with heartache and loss and trauma. (If you want to understand the guilt, read this. I swear this woman lives inside my head. She writes about her struggles with an absurd hilarity that I can't compete with. And, if someone can say it better than you, let them). So, here is the reason I share this part of my life: I am a Monkee, friends. A disciple of Momastery. We believe in shameless truth-telling. We believe in basking in the light, instead of hiding in the darkness. We believe in living more authenticly, so that others (women, especially) will feel free enough to do so, as well. Okay, so I'm a little obsessed with the whole movement, but I've never before seen women come together like this. A group of women who lift each other up, instead of breaking each other down.

As I was finishing up this post earlier, Glennon (from Momastery) posted this quote:

And there you have it.

Okay, friends, I promise happier stuff tomorrow. I needed to get this out of my system.

Liam's Golden Birthday

Check out what we bought Liam for his third birthday! Can you believe it!? I think I’m still in shock.

If you would’ve told me that this baby boy would be sitting on a bicycle one day, I never would’ve believed you. Side note: before you spend too much time staring at this next picture, I’ll just go ahead and let you know that, yes, those are sixth fingers on each hand. He had them removed when he was a few months old. I show this picture often, because I think it really captures just how far he’s come, and people always look at it for a long time. A little too long. I used to think they were marveling at his progress, but now I’m pretty certain they were trying to make out what was going on with his fingers, since they all inevitably asked the same question: “is that a sixth finger!?” 

Our little boy, who was born paralyzed from the ankles down, with clubbed feet, one dislocated knee, and two dislocated hips, is learning how to ride a bike! In typical Liam fashion, he is exceeding all of our expectations. 

We still have work to do, of course. The good news is we’re one step ahead of where I thought we’d be. When I ordered the bike, I bought two packs of Velcro thinking I would have to strap his feet to the pedals somehow, and he hasn’t needed it. He does need to learn how to get on and off the bike by himself, and we’re working on teaching him how to pedal using his feet and legs. Currently, he gets his feet on the pedals and uses his hands to roll the back wheels, like a wheelchair, which is totally genius, but not how we want him to do it.

During the month leading up to his birthday, we worked on learning how to pedal a bicycle by getting on our backs and pretending like we were riding a bike. He got that down quickly, so I am convinced it won’t be long before he is zooming around the apartment.

When we first received the diagnosis, not being able to ride a bike wasn’t even on my radar. Because we found out about the spina bifida only a few weeks after the magical 20 week ultrasound – you know the one where you get to find out the sex of the baby – we already knew we were having a boy. So for almost three weeks, DeMarko and I had conversations about our little guy being a wrestler, and doing all sorts of other “boy” things. But riding a bike never came up. It wasn’t until weeks later, when I was on my way to work one day, that I saw a little boy riding a bike. It hit me like a ton of bricks: my little boy would never ride a bike.  It seemed like everywhere I turned, I was taunted by things he would never be able to do. And now look at him. Just look at him. So, you know what, I’m not going to count out wrestling either. If Liam has taught me anything, it’s not to count him out. Not to underestimate him. Come to think of it, he does have some amazing upper-body strength. And he is really flexible (see picture below). Sounds like the makings of a perfect wrestler to me.

 

Psycho

Confession: I was a little nervous about moving in with my husband. Okay, so maybe I was more than just a little nervous. 

My husband and I spent the first two and a half years of our marriage living separately: Liam and I stayed in Charleston in order to get all of his surgeries and doctor appointments taken care of, and my husband stayed in Kuwait for work. If you want to know what the perfect marriage looks like, that was it. Or, at least, it was the perfect marriage for a woman who likes her space, a woman who needs her space. I’ve always been a person who enjoys living alone. I like to be in complete control of my space. Of course, one tends to give up some of that control living with a toddler, but it was still my house. And, the truth is, I was very content with my life in Charleston.

Surprisingly, the transition has been relatively easy. That’s the word we both use to describe our relationship: easy. It just somehow works. Well, except for the three weeks we spent actually packing up and moving to the Middle East. That was almost disastrous. Had it not been for some wise advice from a family member – telling me that moving ranks third behind death and divorce for most traumatic experiences – I don’t know where we’d be. I think it was his use of the word “traumatic” that really drove the message home.

So, except for those three weeks, life has been easy, peaceful in fact. I’m learning how to balance my time between my son and my husband, which has been difficult given the fact that Liam has had my undivided attention since the moment he was born, and he is not giving it up easily. Sometimes I think living apart was actually beneficial to his progress, and my sanity. I had the luxury of devoting every ounce of myself to Liam’s surgeries, therapy, doctor appointments, etc., without having to stress about finding time for my husband. I barely had time for myself, so making time for my spouse would have proven difficult. Phone calls and daily emails kept us connected, though, without feeling like a burden. Thankfully, these days, Liam is slowly but surely becoming more independent.

There is one other problem, however. This:

This piece of “art” is hanging in our Master bathroom. Need I say more? Every time I take a shower now, I have visions of being attacked, which forces me to peek out from the shower curtain every couple of minutes. Even Liam points to her and says “Oooohhhhh!” each time he crawls into the bathroom. Because I’ve essentially taken over the whole rest of the apartment, I haven’t had the heart to take it down. But, when I first moved in, my husband and I did have a conversation about his interesting choice of bathroom art:

       Me: Um, buddy, did you buy this or did the previous tenant leave it?

       Husband: Oh yeah, I bought it!

       Me: So. You thought it was a good idea to buy a poster of the scariest shower scene

       in all of movie history, and hang it in our bathroom!?

       Husband: What? It matches the shower curtain.

Sometimes men just don’t get it.