Who Would've Thunk It?

As I've written, Brendan had his birthday last week.  Because we live so far away from the rest of the family, when we invite people over, we get a trickle of family members for almost a week.  People just show up when it's most convenient for them; and our door is always open.

One of the people who showed up to celebrate my sonny-boy's life thus far was his aunt, my sister-in-law.  My sister-in-law, E., is fiercely protective of "her" family -- be it her parents, her brother, Big Bren's children and even my Brendan.  For some reason, though, she seems to think that I am someone to protect them from.  No matter how nice I am and have been, she's always asking questions about me.  How do I treat the kids?  Do I treat them well?  Am I too strict?  Am I nice to her parents when they come to visit?

Last week was no exception.  She took her grandson to Brendan's birthday party and then asked whether she could take my step-daughter with her to the store.  I thought nothing of it; that's her niece, so I figured she wanted to spend some alone time with her since she rarely sees her.

When she got back with my stepdaughter, N., a few hours later, she was in an exceptionally good mood.  She said that she'd had a frank discussion with N. about me and N. had only good things to say.  She told her how I always bought her nice things, because I said that women should always dress nicely and take care of their appearance.  How I had bought N. her first Coach bag and explained that a nice bag always makes a young lady's outfit.  As she was telling me this, I inwardly rolled my eyes, figuring that she would think I was trying buy the child's affection.  We all know how materialistic teenagers can be.  But she went on.  She said that N. also told her how I tried to teach her how to cook and how I made all types of cakes and pies from scratch.  And how I did everything I did with care and love, making home-cooked meals for the family on the weekends and even taking time to arrange my salads just right, so that everything looked pretty before we ate dinner.

I didn't know what to say.  I just stood there.  To be honest, I never realized that N. noticed the things I did.  This is the child who called me "her" and "she" for the first 10 years of my 11-year relationship with her father.  Her mother still refers to me as "the Slut" even though Big Bren and I have been married for 7 years.

I have a friend who always talks about her stepmother and how she (the stepmother) had a positive influence on her life.  I always told Big Bren how sad it made me feel that I did not have that sort of relationship with his children.  Imagine my surprise to find out that -- in fact -- I actually do.  :-)

Trust

"I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."  Mark 10:15

I went to Catholic school as a child, and this was a Bible passage that was often quoted and taught by the nuns in Religion class.  This passage has been used to make many arguments; among them that people should be baptized as children in order to "guarantee" their entry into the "kingdom of God"; that children should be revered, because Jesus loved them so; and that children should be allowed to preserve their innocence as long as possible in order to remain in that "God-like" state.

Truth be told, I have never understood this quotation.  I'm not a lover of children (other than my own); they are loud and annoying.  Their "innocence" often makes them rude and tactless.  Yet, this oft-written about passage in the New Testament spoke to me today for some reason.

Brendan's sixth birthday is tomorrow.  In anticipation of it, he has very specific demands:  he wants to bring cupcakes to school for snack time; instead of cake toppers, he wants a small toy to decorate each cupcake, as a "gift" to each of his classmates; he wants his birthday celebration to take place in the morning, before recess, not in the afternoon, as I have done it for the past few years; for his birthday party on Saturday, he wants it to be at Chuck E. Cheese's, but he wants to have a dinosaur or Power Ranger motiff, not the Chuck E. Cheese mouse; and he wants a pinata.

He related all of this calmly.  He said it once and has not repeated it again (except to remind me to buy the little dinosaurs to put on the cupcakes).  He had absolute trust that I would not only hear his request, but that I would grant it.

Today, at lunch time, I went out and bought all his stuff.  I zipped to the bakery and got the cupcakes.  I went to Party City and bought dinosaur stuff, including the toys to decorate the cupcakes.   

As I put all the stuff away, it came to me that it had never occurred to me to say "no, I won't do this for you" or "you don't deserve this."  Of course, his request had to be proper.  If he had asked me for a boa constrictor, I would have absolutely said no.  And it had to be timely; if he'd asked for a party "just because," that likely would have garned another no (Mama don't have it like that). 

As I pondered the matter, this Bible passage flitted across my mind.  After many years of not understanding, it suddenly dawned on me that it simply means that we should trust God.  We say our prayers, declare our wants and we should trust God enough to know that (1) S/He has heard us and (2) our requests will be granted at the right time.

Broken Wings

I finished my book.  Yup.  Completely finished.  After two years of sitting on the idea.  After a two-year long writing block, the plot finally came to me and it gushed out on paper over a span of 6 weeks.  It felt like labor; like giving birth to something beautiful, something beyond me.

I thought I was done.  But, like giving birth, it was just the beginning.  When you're done giving birth, you think you've completed the hard work.  "Wow, that's a relief," you think.  No more carrying this extra weight around.  No more swollen ankles and feet.  No more heartburn and nausea.  Chile, I'm done.  But, of course, you are not.  Because now begins the work of tending to your bundle of joy.  And as any new mother will tell you, there is nothing joyful about a bundle that cries and poops 24 hours a day.  Sure, you adore that child, but when you're sleep deprived and losing your sense of hearing from the screeching, you think, "I didn't know it would be so hard."

And so, here I am -- weeks after I completed my book -- and I haven't found a home for it.  The inquiries, the query letters, the "help a sista out" e-mails to all my friends are wearing down my optimism.  I can see the beauty in my book -- just like you feel that overwhelming love for your sleeping child -- but now I don't know where to go or what to do to get to the next step.  I know about John Grisham and his fifty rejections; and how JK Rowling's "Harry Potter" got turned down more times than she could recall.  I don't want that.  I don't want to be the woman talking about "it took me 75 tries before I sold my book."  I want to be the exception to the rule.  I want to be the heifer you love to hate who's like, "girl, please, I sent my book out and it got snatched up immediately."  :-)

I was speaking to one of the defense attorneys that my company employs a few days ago.  He's a frustrated rocker.  He is in a rock band and they play at attorney parties.  The thing is that he is really good; I would even say he's excellent.  But he cannot expand his view beyond the limits of what he currently has.  When I told him about my book, he offered to get me in touch with an attorney friend of his who has contacts in the Publishing industry.  As he imparted this wonderful bit of news, however, he warns me not to get my hopes up.  In fact, he tells me a story about how, 20 years ago, he wrote a song and played it in a singing contest.  A well-known actor/singer happened to be in the audience and asked him for permission to sing his song at an entertainment industry event.  He granted the permission, but -- for whatever reason -- the actor/singer never sang the song and the attorney's dreams crashed and burned.  The last thing he told me was, "there are no happy endings, so better not get your hopes up."

I got what he was telling me, but I felt compelled to ask, "did you ever try again?"  "Did you join other contests?"  "Did you approach other people?"  The answers were "no," "no" and "no."

It occurs to me that there are so many people out there with broken wings.  They dreamed a dream many years ago, nothing happened, so they are afraid to dream anymore. 

The thing is that there ARE happy endings.  John Grisham DID get published.  JK Rowling was able to sell "Harry Potter."  Even Jennifer Lopez is no longer Jenny from the Block; she is now Jenny from Beverly Hills and Star Island and Long Island.

I don't want to have a broken wing anymore.  And my crying, pooping baby?  He is going to be six in 10 days and is the calmest child I have yet to lay eyes on.  So, no matter how bad things seem at the outset, nothing lasts forever.