She said, “You haven't written about
me.”
And she's right.
Technically.
All the things I have written since I
became a mother have been about her. She is my daughter. I am not the
person I am without her. But technically she's right. I havent
written solely about her.
So I thought about it. Why havent I
written about her? My most lame excuse is because she's hasn't moved
out.
Yet.
I haven't thought about life without
her and consequently life with her.
My other sorry excuse is that writing
has been much more difficult lately. Peri-menopause is
No. Joke. It
feels as if someone is stirring your brain.
Enough excuses.
The real truth is that I have always
always felt that I could never be a mother to a daughter. I was a
needy scattered daughter with a needy scattered mother. I was
terrified to have a girl and I have cried many tears over the
breathtakingly tender gift that is my girl, Bethany Kate. I often
feel that I have let her down and failed to be what she needed me to
be, a strong wise gentle woman. So when she reminded me (in her quiet
questioning way) that I had not written about her, I knew it was true
for all the wrong reasons.
So I began to pray and ask God what I
should write.
I prayed and prayed.
Then one day this picture popped in my
head.
2002. We were on her first trip to
Disney World. The whole family had flown to Florida to have a Disney
vacation courtesy of my in-laws who worked at WDW. This meant that
sometimes we entered the park through alternate ways. This morning we
were going in by way of a hotel that had beautiful topiaries out
front trimmed to the shape of different characters. At age five she
was actually a two year veteran of dance lessons and loved to watch
the “big girls” who danced “real ballet”. So when I saw the
hippo and alligator (from the movie Fantasia) on pirouette I
suggested she jump up on the low wall and pose with them for a
picture. I awkwardly did my ballerina imitation (”like this”).
She gracefully mimicked me (10,000X better) and I snapped away.
This is the picture the Lord reminded
me of.
Because of the story she recently told
me.
My grown kids are now of an age where
they delight in telling me the “real” story from their childhood
adventures. The things that happened when I left them alone, or at a
friends house, or the back story on getting away with something.
(They relish my dismay and disbelief at some of these tales. And
sometimes I wonder if we really were at the same place at the same
time.)
Anyway, she relates the back story of
this photo.
She says she had no idea what the heck
I was telling her to do. She had no idea that the bushes were animals
or that they were Disney characters or that they were doing ballet
poses. She was completely clueless as to why I had her pirouette. But
as you can see there she is. Mugging it up. All sweetly graceful and
little girl charm. Even a little goofy grin in the squinty hot
Florida sun.
And no clue why she was doing it.
That's my girl.
She has always - even when she didn't
know why - trusted me. And she has always had a tender heart to obey
what shes asked to do. I didn't make her that way. I certainly did
appreciate it when she was small as it made my crazy busy mama life
much easier. But that is the way she came to us.
Obedient. Compliant.
Even if she did question or rebel what
she was told to do, she still did it.
She would most always (she wasn't a
saint) obey.
It's a part of who she is.
Its not popular now to say a girl was
obedient. That she would do without question what you asked her to
do. And I know it isn't always good to be the “good” girl. But
she was and God has shown me that it is a part of her, her very heart
to comply, to yield to others but mostly to Him.
She was the quiet one. The baby of a
family of loud, exciting, daring, gregarious brothers. There were
often other loud rude boys around who ignored her or excluded her
from their good times. She tried to tag along but for the most part
made no waves.
She was my girl. My girly girl. So when
the boys were having their rough fun we did girl stuff. We did
dresses and Mary Janes. We did dance lessons and American Girl dolls.
We did doll houses and Madeline books. She complied with all the
girly things I wanted to do, even hair curlers and ribbons. I think
sometimes it was much more fun for me than her. She always went along
with what I proposed and we had fun together.
I remember one day we were at Busch
Gardens theme park. She and I had gone to the ladies room. It had a
full length mirror by the exit door. I stopped and checked myself and
told her “A lady always checks herself before she leaves the
restroom, to make sure everything about her is in place.” I twisted
in front of the mirror looking at myself with her in front of me, as
I stepped aside she delicately fluttered her arms over her head like
a flower and twirled around glancing at her self all the way around.
Like a daisy in the wind.
Obedient, with a twist.
She loved fiercely as a little girl.
She may have been the quiet one but she was your loyal companion if
you were her friend. It became unthinkable to have a celebration
without her pals. Heather was her super hero: her alter ego and
guiding light. Her fellow dog and horse worshipper and confidant.
They plotted business ventures together and talked the mothers into
driving them to various barns to muck stalls to save money for their
own horse someday. They had a kindred spirit that is true but
Bethany's willingness to follow Heather's lead was the cement that
held them together.
When she did get immersed into horses
it was this same urge for obeying that made her a firm horse woman. I
will never forget seeing this maybe 4'10” little teenage girl grab
a giant huge over 6' tall horse by the lead rope and jerk his
disobedient head down and bellow in her tiny voice “Walk On!” and
the behemoth trembled slightly then acquiesced to her command. He
could have easily shook her off like a fly but something stony in her
voice convinced him otherwise.
I loved working at the barn with my
Bethy Kate; switching roles and letting her be the teacher as she
patiently showed me how to muck and groom and feed the ponies she
loved so. One afternoon we were cleaning the empty barn as all the
horses had been turned out into the field. As we finished she
realized that a big storm was coming quickly and we had several
horses to bring into the barn, quickly. They were in separate fields
and had to come in separately. As we rushed out and began quickly
snapping lead ropes onto horses' halters the heavens opened up. How
we got all the ponies into the barn without slipping in the mud or a
horse running away across the pasture or one of us getting trampled
to death, only God knows. But my, how we laughed and laughed when we
finished, as we stood there completely dripping, drenched, wet to the
skin, in that barn, surrounded by the rain beating a tattoo on the
metal roof and the horses quietly munching their early dinner. I
didn't take lightly God's grace or the training she had instilled in
those beasts, that day.
My little girl has suffered because of
her obedient heart too. She has given too much to others and they
used it up and demanded more from her. She has loved and trusted
deeply that others were motivated by obedience too and it has hurt.
Sometimes I think she doesn't even know how unprecedented her golden
faith and trustful following appear to others. They don't think its
real. No one could love that sacrificially. But she does.
She does.
Now we are on the doorstep of her last
goodbye. She is ready to fly. She has put her hand in the hand of the
man God had planned for her. She looks into his eyes with that same
quiet obedience (and the same firmness of expectation). She is
trusting that the Lord has her next chapter in His hands and she will
follow – with doubts to be sure- but she will follow where He
leads. Because He made her that way.
And Jesse, even if she doesn't
know that the bushes are ballerinas.
If you ask her,
she will dance.
