Don’t settle for less than beautiful and delicious

Dear Cam and Scott

Bits of your childhood break off like candy floss. They float – sweet colour sticky – around the house and in the air and cling wispy gluey yum to my heart.

Cam, you say you want to be a beekeeper and a poet. You could also be a Maker-Upper of New Words. Like ‘ka-momma-late’. Which you made up. You use it facetiously and it kind of means nominate commandingly. As in, ‘Mom, I kamommalate you to go and bath now.’ Don’t ever ever stop making up words and stories and sticky fluffy imaginings that melt on the tongue. Don’t ever stop talking out your thoughts – oh, your wife will be grateful, as I am. You express your joys and frustrations like succinct slices of sweet and sour life. The other day you dawdled beneath my feet busy in the kitchen. Quietly, chuffed you said: ‘One day I’m going to be a wonderful dad to my children.’ My feet stopped rushing and stood happy still. Like father like son.

Scott, you are the wunderkind of soft affection and dizzying energy. Don’t ever ever stop being amazed by clouds and breakfast muffins and your teacher and baby cows and chickens and ants and collecting stones from pathways. I love how you offer to help carry heavy things and how you relinquish a book when Cam asks you nicely. Our far-too-early morning puzzle-building and crepuscular don’t-wake-Dad coffee-making are pre-breakfast sugar to my soul.

I know candy floss is ethereal. You’ll grow out of it and into the meatier stuff of life. But you don’t have to lose your sense of wonder, not ever. Don’t settle. Not now and not when you’re older. Don’t settle for safe or beige or bland (even if safe, beige and bland are also lucrative). Reach for the kaleidoscope and the tang that explodes from your gifts.  

I’m trusting you’ll read this at a time in the future when you need it most. Because life will try to drench your candy floss – leave you soggy and dreamless and disappointed. Remember then that there’s more for you and that God ‘is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more that we might ask or think.’ (Eph. 3:20)

All my love

Mom

xx

 Scott and Kyle... up to no good at Irene Dairy...

Ctrl-Alt-Del: A letter about change, doubt, failure and faith

Dear Scott

Your first swimming lesson was an unadulterated disaster. You screamed and sobbed until I wrenched you from the terrors of the pool. In my head I was frantically going Ctrl-Z Ctrl-Z Ctrl-Z! And when that didn’t work Ctrl-Alt-Del. So you could shut down the fear and reboot your unbridled love for water (which was why we took you to swimming lessons in the first place).

I’m also praying Ctrl-Alt-Del over your first two strangely unsettling weeks back at preschool. I’m keeping you home some days – trying to get the proverbial roots-and-wings balance just right for you, my little man, but I doubt my decisions all the time. The irony is that the start of this year has been harder for you than it has been for Cam, despite the enormity and significance of his Grade 00 debut.

And then of course my system is still reconfiguring after the Ctrl-Alt-Del of my career. I’ve been intrigued by the reactions to my shut down and restart. Some people are excited for me – for Cam and you – for Dad – for this new season – and they watch expectantly for God in the newness. Some presume me into a mould I don’t easily own because I suck at the stereotype, artsy-craftsy-mom stuff. Some are worried – like, when will I start teaching again? Because I’m wasting my time and my talent and they don’t get what I’m doing. Then there are the naysayers – who say, ‘Nay! You’ll be bored. You’ll be back. You won’t have the stamina to finish with you've started.’ And then there are the dark bits in me that ooze doubt and steal my fight. The bits that say I won’t be taken seriously – won’t get to the goals – won’t pay any bills. And worst of all: the bit that says if I fail you both as a mom I won’t have the convenient excuse of a career.

But here’s where this is all landing for me.

The other night you were thundering away on Uncle Gav’s drums. Then you ran into the lounge – ‘Hello!’ – all grinning and flirty and looking, well, pleased as punch. So I said, ‘Hello! Are you pleased as punch?’ And you said, pointing to your gorgeous chubby tum-tum, ‘No Mom. Scott.’ And that’s just it. You’re you – with your custom-made hardware. Impossible-to-pirate software. I don’t ever want to damage your courage or program you into something or someone God doesn’t intend you to be. (We’ll try swimming lessons again in September.) Beneath the doubt that comes with change, and the failure that comes from trying new things, there’s always faith. Faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross – that ultimate reformatting of the human hard drive. Faith that he has programs for each of us to write. Faith that he will strengthen and restore and establish us even when things crash or freeze or the anti-virus stuff expires. Faith that he is powerful to push Ctrl-Alt-Del on preconceived ideas and hurt and imperfection. I trust this for your journey, as much as I hope that I, and others, might believe it for mine.

And don’t you ever forget, Scott Gideon, in the swimming pool and the classroom and everywhere: ‘Mighty hero, the Lord is with you! … Go with the strength you have.’ (Judges 6)

All my love to you, amazing boy,

Mom

xx

Stones from the Jordan: A day of triumph

Dear Cam

This is the altar I’m setting up to remember yesterday. Like what Joshua did when the Israelites crossed the Jordan to the plains of Jericho. Because yesterday you crossed a Jordan River that some told us you never would and I saw God’s hand on you – the same hand that stopped the water and dried the ground and is bigger than blindness.

I was meant to stay at school with you this week, to get you properly comfortable. Yesterday morning in your new stripy green t-shirt from PEP, you said, ‘Mom, I think you just need to come for one day. Just for today. And you can just stay ‘til mid-morning. Then you must go.’

I stayed for an hour. By which time it was abundantly clear that I, profoundly relieved, was utterly redundant. You played-raced-built-chattered-climbed-lined-up – brimming and smiling and quietly independent. (Super keen, you asked, ‘When can we start working?’)

You were still painting when I fetched you. The others had finished – water-colour stick-men with definite limbs and heads and stuff. You were painting the playground. One completely-green painted-wet sheet of your imaginings. You go, boy! The limbs and heads will come. I’m thrilled that you made a playground. You didn’t see me so I watched you for a bit in your big plastic apron. Intent on the green and the brush and the just-so of your enormous piece of grass – you looked so, so happy. You were glad to see me and said what a great day you’d had. ‘I did everything Teacher Karen asked me to do!’

Then last-minute we joined some other moms and kids at Zita Park. I was busy with Scott’s sun cream and you were gone. Up the hill. Down the water slide – splash – back up – down – splash – back up. Over and over. On your own. With only two tantrums: once when you couldn’t find me and needed a t-shirt. And once for a thorn you thought was a bee. I try and imagine what it’s really like for you. Your contact lenses are useless through those little misty goggles. You’re in a strange rowdy blurry splashing place. Tons of shrieking kids. Dozens of moms who could be me with dark hair or ponytails or bouncing blonde toddlers. My instinctive habitual I’m-here-Cam mantra isn’t always loud enough or close enough. Yet you were all calm courage and fun while Ben played shark-shark with me and Scott blinking ecstatic through the chlorine.

This morning while you negotiated Pronutro for the first time (because you’re building up your big-school strength and it’s Probably The Most Nutritious Cereal in the World) I asked if you were excited for Day 2. You said yes you were, then added, ‘On Day 1 I didn’t really get a chance to help anyone.’ Well, I said, maybe today’s your day. Talk about the blind leading the… Well, it’s just that you’re a miracle-paradox of the God-life. Your weakness shows his strength in you.

Fifteen years ago Aunty Coral and I crossed the (real) Jordan River on bicycles. There’s a picture of one of us – can’t remember, me or her – cycling over the bridge with arms outstretched in a kind of cheeky-euphoric ‘Look Ma no hands!’ pose. I thought of that yesterday, and you. You’re doing it, my love. You’re doing it.

All my love

Mom

So the men did as Joshua had commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River, one for each tribe, just as the LORD had told Joshua. They carried them to the place where they camped for the night and constructed the memorial there… Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over. He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the LORD’s hand is powerful, and so you might fear the LORD your God forever.” – Joshua 4:8, 21-24

 Cam and Ben

 Teacher Karen

 Cam, Ben and Tyla

 And the three again today, building volcanoes

 Scott and the 'eep (= sheep) at the Hewitts

Of vampire frogs and fists in dough

Me, Scott and a rubber frog

Realisation dawns slowly with the half-light. There’s a presence by the bed. I convince an eye to open. He’s staring three centimetres from my face. 5h50. He’s been up for an hour already – quiet in just a nappy – playing, paging, prattling… He’s soft, polite: ‘Pees mom come me pay room?’ (= Please Mom come with me to the playroom?) I drag myself vertical. He trots ahead brisk and chuffed. I flop on the playroom couch. Sleep.

Alas.

I am brutally assaulted by a reptile.

Scott – with 911-terror – holding the frog to my neck: ‘Mom! Frog biting you!’

Me, feigning half-asleep shock and horror: ‘Oh no. Naughty frog. Don’t bite me.’

Scott removes imaginary frog fangs from their perilous position. Admonishes the guilty amphibian in severe tones: ‘No frog! Smacky frog! Don’t bite Mom!’ (Aggressive tapping on the frog’s rear parts.)

Frog crisis successively created and averted, I snooze relieved and he snuggles me and his (mini) Mini Cooper.

Me, Cam and a bowl of dough

Early evening sun comes still-hot through the kitchen door and we’re baking rusks, me and Cam. He’s on the counter with greased loaf tins and egg shells and spilt buttermilk. We’re hunched elbow-deep in dough, four fists loving the sugary-buttery raw deliciousness ‘til it all comes away from the sides the way my Mom showed me when I was little.

Me: ‘What was your favourite part of today?’

Cam: ‘Now.’

‘For in him we live and move and exist.’ – Acts 17:28

 Cam's new magnifier - a whole new world :)

Teacher Karen visiting before school starts next week - and Cam in his brand new Jacob's Ladder t-shirt!

Of shoes and holy moments: 365 words about the first day of the year

New Year’s Day. Before the braai at my folks we drive east to the veld where we run Lola some weekends. It’s our city respite – our taste of dust and peace and sanity where we breathe deep and fresh. Murray wears his 5-finger Vibrams hoping for a bit of a trail run. Cam is cool in slops, his shorts hanging low showing his jocks like a teenager except that he’s also carrying his new green umbrella with frog ears which detracts from the coolness. It’s not raining but he insists that green umbrellas are for rainy days and sunny days. He lifts his feet high and careful until he’s read the stones and the dongas and then he runs helter-skelter, blind trust hoping for depth perception. My brave big child. He calls for me until he’s caught up close, pretends to see me way before he does. Scott stamps proud in new sandals – stops – bends – ants sticks rocks sky – wonderful and wonder-filled – he clutches adventure by the chubby fistful – runs and shrieks excited grinning strong little happy man with the eyes that miss nothing. My little loved child. It’s been a white Christmas – snowy butterflies drifting delicate and surreal. Lola romps slobbery in the lush long grass catching sun and butterflies but she’s more golden than retriever and how we love her. We clamber high on rocks flat and jagged and steady and loose and find a place to sit and be on this first day of a new book of blank pages. Kings of the castle we look down over Silver Lakes for the rich and Mamelodi for the poor and I think how we live in a country so deeply roughly textured and so bursting with need and so alive with opportunity. I feel suddenly we should pray sitting there on the rocks – like it’s a holy moment and maybe we should take off our shoes because God is here and in every day ahead. We see an ant carrying a bee and I wonder why I doubt the God of impossible things. The clouds are purple grey and rumbling deep and there are showers of sun, then heavy drops in the dust.