From the Wolf Den: Mud Song

As Wolf nears the end of his time at CHYC and three years of joy and sorrow for our family, we here at home celebrated another holiday without him. This Easter was filled with a bit more visceral emotion than those I've experienced in the past, in part due to the knowledge that our family will at last be collectively residing in one state instead of two come July. While I know in my heart I am not the same mother who waved goodbye in May 2009, anymore than Wolf is the same child who held his hands together to resemble a heart that evening, I am reticent to admit how terribly tenuous the road ahead truly will be.

It's been a week of trials in our house and I will freely admit Wolf has been on the back burner out of psychological necessity. His brokenness and my brokenness and our family's brokenness all combined together to create one Big Broken Thing that I just couldn't touch. Not this week. And I felt bad for that.

So, sitting right up front of our standing-room only church service this morning was me, the mom and wife of Family Broken, in between two of my three men. Easter, we heard our friend and pastor say, was about finding; an original game of hide-and-seek, as it were. Except we don't do the finding. Someone Else does; because we're too worn out to find Him ourselves.

My oldest friend, D. has posted similar thoughts this week about brokenness and difficulty and pain in parenting children with disabilities. It is dirty work, whether these kids be at home with us 24/7 or away, like Wolf. Just when we think we're on top of medications, behavior plans, treatment reviews, or dietary changes, somethings happens, and we're back to the beginning, stuck, as in a muddy puddle.

This is the Mud Song. It talks about that, and of being found. It's sad. It's happy. Just like parenting.

"...you made me yours, found my orphan heart, and brought it home, and I'm safe here and I sing..."