Failing and Grace

"I feel like I'm failing most of the time."  My throat began to swell with the hard reality of that phrase.  The worst thing about parenting is the attention it calls to my own weaknesses.  Most of the time I feel like I'm being allowed to do surgery without having finished med school. 

"Oh, sweetheart.  You are a wonderful mother," my own mother's soothing voice came through the receiver.

"Oh, but I'm not," I cried.  At least I am not the mother I want to be. "I'm impatient, and short-tempered, and--I mean, I know these things about myself."  Or, better said, I am learning these things about myself, and I wish I weren't.  Parenting causes me to stretch in every direction, and even after all that stretching, I wish I felt like I was "there."  Instead I feel like I so often miss the mark, and all that is in sight is that raging gap between where I am and where I wish to be. 

Even when I try to do the right thing.  The good thing.  Like this trip to San Diego with Griffin.  I know he has been struggling.  WE have been struggling, this battle of wills it seems:  He doesn't want to do, but there are some things he must do...And so I made a goal that this trip was going to be all about Griffin.  We were going to do the things he wanted, on his schedule.  We were going to remember that we really do like each other, underneath it all.  I don't want him to feel picked on all the time, and I don't want to feel frustrated all the time, either.

"And?" mom questioned.

"And most of it has been good.  Really good.  But last night...ugh, it just breaks my heart."

The night before we had been on our way home to Mesa.  We had spent four terrific days in San Diego, just the two of us, and we had had a wonderful time together.  I said yes a lot.  Yes to a $20.00 bike surrey ride.  Yes to staying up late.  Yes to the bubble gun at Sea World.  Yes to two hours petting the stingrays.  Yes to playing in the park until it got dark even though I was hungry.  Yes to walking two blocks to use the gumball machine.  Yes to eating crepes outside.  Yes to sitting in the Shamu soak zone.  Yes to splurging for the Sea World Skytower ride.  Yes to staying at the beach "just a little longer."  Yes to games of "touched you last."  Yes to falling asleep watching TV.   Yes to buying Scooby Doo 2 to watch on the way home--A lot of yesses.

And I said "I love you" a lot.  And he said it back.  And we snuggled, and held hands, and played on the beach, and laughed, and talked.  And that was good.

Then on the way home we made an unexpected detour.  Having found out that my brother was getting remarried on short notice the next day, I decided we should make the trip and be there; the only downside was that is meant driving until 3 am.  And I was already tired of driving.  So was Griffin, but he was a good sport and watched Scooby Doo-2 ten more times over the next many hours.  Despite my useless pleadings that he use the earphones, that meant that I got to listen to Scooby Doo-2 ten more times as well.  Good times.  Good times.

By 11 pm that night, I was feeling the burn.  Even if we stopped in Vegas, it was at least two more hours of driving.  Shaggy and Velma were fraying my nerves.  We needed gas, and as we filled up Griffin asked if he could drink his very large, red Gatorade, which I had said "yes" to against my better judgement.

"Okay..." I said, unscrewing the lid and handing it to him, "but don't spill, okay?"

Moments later, as I was cleaning the windshield and trying to convince myself that two more hours of driving was not so very bad, I saw his eyes go wide, and I knew.  And when I didn't see him stoop to retrieve it, I knew that, too:  The bottle was sitting bottom side up, gurgling its vast contents onto the floor. 

I ran to the passenger side and pulled open the door.  "Griffin!  What are you doing?!  At least pick it up, son!"  The mess was everywhere, and what ticked in my brain was the extra 25 minutes this was going to add to our trip in clean up time.  My aggravation bubbled over.  "C'mon!  Are you kidding me?  Great.  Just great!  Argh...Move out of the way, son!  I can not believe..."  He sat there silently as I dabbed, and sopped, and scrubbed, complaining both over and under my breath.  Twenty five minutes later, the job was, indeed, done, and I had regained my cool enough to see my son.

Really see him. 

And I knew.  I knew his little heart was hurt.

I took a deep breath.  "Honey, I'm sorry I lost my temper.  I should not have yelled.  You are more important than this car.  I don't want you to think otherwise."  And then I took his face in my hands.  "I want you to know something.  You are a great kid.  You hear me?  You are...a great kid."  And that's when his eyes welled up with tears.

I am ashamed of myself, because I had given him reason to doubt it.  There it is again--that raging gap between where I am and where I wish to be.  I only hope that my failure is not so large that it swallows my children whole.

I am imperfect.  That is one thing that parenting is teaching me very clearly, but this I vow.  I will keep stretching; I will keep trying; I will keep loving despite my imperfections, because they are great kids, and though I sometimes feel that they deserve better than me, I have to believe in God's wisdom.  That He was not wrong in letting us improve one another at the same time.  That there is a built in buffer that offsets the natural failings that come with parenting. Some days I fail.  But some days I succeed.  I hope those days hold more weight.

All I can do is try and pray for grace--both from God and my children, those who see me in all my weakness--and that they will love me anyway, and know, wholeheartedly, that I love them.