No vacation in the Caribbean planned? No without-the-kids-getaway scheduled for the waning summer days? No daily, two-hour jaunt to the gym in your immediate future? What? And you're still happy--no, even joyful? Then, you, like Kim, have found paradise! It's nice here, isn't it?
I only have a year left before I'm on my own." I can't help but wonder, "Did I do everything right?" or, "Am I going to function on my own or just implode?"
That's funny; I sometimes wonder the same thing, though not nearly as often as I used to. You see, dear boy, you don't have to do everything right and neither do I. We just have to get the important things right: faith and family. The rest is just details. And you will never be on your own, never truly alone, despite the way it looks right now. You will always have those important things--your faith and your family--with you wherever you go and whatever challenges face you. That is the real fruit of a truly happy childhood: you get to be a grownup knowing that God loves you without end and that we do, too...It's all good.
It must be that nesting urge, combined with all those rosaries, but my thoughts these days are turning evermore to hearth and home and how we can live here with the gentleness and grace of Our Blessed Mother. Donna Marie has posted such an inspiring look at Elegant Simplicity. And, in true traditional style, we’ve talked about it at 4Real. But still, my mind is a whirl. Where I am from, homes look perfect. But it’s been far too long a road back from the misery of perfectionism. I know that’s not what Our Lady wants for me and I know that’s not what the home of a lady is. Homes where ladies live are homes where the words of John Paul II are taken to heart by the homemaker who lives there:
By taking Mary into his own home, John showed her his filial affection...John's action was the execution of Jesus' testaments in regard to Mary. But it had symbolic value for each one of Christ's disciples, who are asked to make room for Mary in their lives, to take her into their own homes. By virtue of these words of the dying Christ, every Christian life must offer a space to Mary and provide for her presence.
Certainly a devotion to Mary is obvious in home where she lives. Carefully chosen statues and images are nicely displayed there. Alice is so good at welcoming Mary with style that rises above the cheesy, sanctimonious religious arts and crafts. If something is truly precious, it needs to look that way. Collections, whether they are polished rocks or religious icons, should never be clutter. Instead, if it matters enough to be invited into our homes, it should be treated and displayed like it matters. A cluttered, disheveled home is much like an unkempt, disheveled woman—certainly not the look of a lady.What is truly important is not the statue or the icon or any of the "stuff" at all, but the palpable presence of Our Lady and the way it is infused in the atmosphere.
However, homes of true ladies are not magazine-perfect, nor so clean that they are sterile. Instead, they are inviting. Beauty is not a buff, polished, dyed, surgically-corrected woman in clothes that could finance an Indian family for a year. Beauty is the acceptance of the body created perfectly for the soul He infused in it. It’s good stewardship and care of that temple. It’s attention to detail but not obsession and vanity. It’s being ladylike: with gentleness and grace that are a style of their own. And so it is at home.
Sights and smells and even sounds of those ladylike homes welcome the weary to stay and be comforted. Whether it’s a simple vase of flowers on a dreary January day or freshly squeezed lemonade in the heat of July, the home cheers its inhabitants while not being wearisome or ostentatious. It’s not about the show; it’s about ministering to souls with gentle, thoughtful, grace. And the homemaker who lives there calls frequently upon the Blessed Mother for the grace she needs to see to the all the details with calmness and composure.
The ladylike homemaker goes about her daily round with one purpose: to live as God wants her to live. It does no good if her house shines from top to bottom and her drapes coordinate perfectly with the upholstery and she has hand-glazed all her walls if she has done it all to impress her neighbor and she has been less-than-gracious to her children in getting it that way. We want to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, not as the lady across the street is perfect.
So what does that mean for a house with seven children, a dog, a traveling husband and a baby on the way (which means a mom of limited mobility and energy)? To some degree, it means lower standards and higher goals. It means I can’t be on the phone the way I was yesterday morning--trying to talk, barking at my kids, and becoming increasingly frustrated with everybody’s imperfections (not to mention their lack of cleaning finesse). It means I need to take a deep breath and think about how I want our home to be when we welcome our baby. What’s really important? Order? Yes. Beauty? Definitely. Comfort? Certainly. Peace? Absolutely. Perfection? Only in God’s way, in God’s time.
This one is for Lissa...
1. Set a time every day for a phone date. Even with the time difference, make it happen. What works for us when we're on different coasts is 6 AM for him in the west and 9 AM for me at home. Breakfast is finished and I plop people in front of Signing Time for half an hour, after explaining that I'm talking to Daddy and it's very important.
2. Remember the minutia. Some study, somewhere, proved that couples who remembered to tell each other little details of the day remained much more closely knit, despite the distance. It's the little things that nurture the intimacy of really knowing what your life is like. If you stop sharing the little things, eventually you stop sharing all the little thoughts. Then, it's harder to share the bigger thoughts and suddenly, you're back together in the same state and you each have separate histories.
3. Really work a private blog. This one goes with #2. Before I ever had a public blog, I set up a private blog for the sole purpose of sharing the little things with people close, yet far away. It was a place for all the silly things that our children say when Daddy is in a meeting and can't be reached by phone but you just have to tell him. Then, when it's a really late night on the west coast and it's already the wee hours of the morning on the east coast and he misses you terribly wants to check on his family, you're there on the blog, preferably with pictures.
4. Let your kids blog. My children love to post things they know will be read by Daddy and they absolutely live for his comments. This is a really precious means of communication for families who are apart geographically but want to stay tightly connected.
5. Have "Daddy rituals." Our three-year-old calls my husband's cell phone from her bed every night to sing him the song from Love You Forever. And then, no matter where he is or what client is sitting with him at dinner, he sings it back to her (I've never quite figured this out). On the very rare occasion that his phone doesn't work, she sings to his voice mail. We have precious recordings of our then two-year-old lisping "As long as I'm living, my Daddy you'll be..."
6. Make dinner every night and make yourself sit down and eat it with the children as a family just as if Daddy were home. Our meals are noticeably simpler when Mike's not here, but they are still family dinners. I fight the urge to get something done while they are occupied because it really seems important to them that I sit.
7. Consolidate trips out into "the real world." My children are older now and I can usually leave them home with my eldest when I have to run errands, but not so long ago, it was the errands that killed me. It's exhuasting to do all the running and you long for someone to call and ask if you need him to pick up a gallon of milk. See if you can trade off with a neighbor to go solo. Otherwise, get really organized and don't let yourself run out of milk.
8. Try to maintain social bonds. One of the hardest things about having him gone on the weekends is that everybody, everywhere is paired up. Your children feel his absence in the presence of everybody else's Daddy and you really feel alone in a crowd of couples. But if someone is kind enough to invite you over without your husband, take her up on it. It's nice to hang with grownups every once in awhile.
9. Acknowledge that you're it. You're all alone caring for the physical and emotional safety of a small crowd. There will be things you can't do because your time is very different from your neighbor's. And there will be things only your husband understands because no one else can empathize so well. Write it all down and talk about it during the next phone call. And then, be sure you sleep.
10. Seriously consider a twenty decade rosary. Take it from me and the lady who was pregnant with her eighth baby the entire time her husband was in Iraq, there is no other way to survive. Play the CD as you go to sleep and fall asleep praying. It doesn't matter if you don't finish your decades and it's way better than crying when your head hits the pillow.
*11. (sneaking this one in) Phone a friend. You've got the number.
Lissa is reviewing planners at the Lilting House and she has found a real gem today!
I'm Elizabeth. I'm a happy wife and the mother of nine children. I grab grace with both hands and write to encourage myself and others to seize and nurture the joy of every day. I blog here with my daughter, Mary Beth, a wholehearted young lady on the brink of adulthood.
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