The other kind of failure

We had a good kind of failure a few weeks ago, but now we're in the midst of the kind of failure that a parent of a child with a medical device never wants to face.

We've been here before... Sis is on her second pacemaker due to the unexpected failure of her first one 5 years in. It seems weird to say, but when something fails unexpectedly it's so much easier. It fails, you find out, and before you have time to worry or be scared, you're in surgery and the failure is over. 

This one has been more dramatic, more drawn out. For over 6 months, Sis's left implant has been performing intermittently and causing her pain. We've been back and forth to her team. We've been troubleshooting. We've been paying to replace every piece of external equipment. As of Saturday (just weeks shy of 5 years in), it doesn't work at all, so we're heading back to the team for a final integrity test of the internal device this week. 

Decision: ex-plant and re-implant or ex-plant, period? Sis says NO re-implantation on the left side. She's done. She's weary and nervous and angry, and frankly, so am I. I am tired of surgical suites and doctors and decisions. When you get to this situation it really makes you question your past choices. Did I do right by her? Is she right when she points the finger at me and says "If YOU hadn't done this, I wouldn't be going through this." How do I respond when she says "You are not deaf. You just don't get it." Because she's right, I don't get it.

What I do get is her pain, her fear, her worry, her feeling of injustice - probably more than I'll ever be able to communicate to her. All I can do is be a cup she can pour her accusations, tears, frustrations and decisions into. So, if you see me misty-eyed in my office or my car, it's okay, I'm just letting her overflow out of me.

What Women Want (not the Mel Gibson movie)

Click on this and read it first, puh-lease!
Why We Don't Need "Women's Ministry"

This really is a blog post - even if I'm directing you toward someone else's wise words and writing, but if I ramble a bit here, then I think it counts enough.

This is an AH-mazing article - this is what I've been telling my husband for years. Women need women who will be real with them (maybe men do too, I don't pretend to understand what they need... I just press ahead through trial and error!). But I do know women, well, okay, I know one woman. And those are the friendships I crave and have been searching for for 20-some years. Honest, dependent, gritty, joyful, compassionate, celebratory, just-checkin'-in, just-thinkin'-about-you, just-givin'-you-my-honest-opinion, yes-you-can-just-drop-by and yes-you-can-call-me-in-the-middle-of-the-night kinds of friendship. It goes agains everything the world tells us we need to be real women (independence, self reliance, putting our own needs first), when in reality, NOT being those things is exactly what being a real woman is. The reason we crave relationships like this and the reason it fulfills us to have them is because that is how we were created. Embrace it girls and go stalk somebody until they become a real friend :)

"The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'" - Sigmund Freud

Geez, Siggy, we could have answered that in one blog post.

a good kind of failure

Last week I saw this, and it made me remember this, which got me thinking about, as a mom, how can I do this?!

How did I get there from images of photoshopped perfection and anorexic halloween costumes? Well, it's just the way my mind works, and honestly I think it's kind of always in the back of my mind - how do I get them out from underneath all of the world's bombardment of what they "should" be? I think the answer came to me this weekend, thanks to cheerleading. I can encourage and empower my kids by letting them fail.

Now before you start thinking I'm some sort of sadist parent, it's not that I want my kids to be failures. I just want them to fail... sometimes.

This weekend, Sis went through 2 days of tryouts for basketball cheerleading. She tried hard and she didn't make it. She was upset, but she handled it gracefully, thanking the coach for the opportunity and stating that she would try again next year. Part of me wanted her to make it, so that she could try something new, but I found myself happily content with the result. There seemed to be a bigger life lesson in NOT making the squad.

Kids today are constantly being praised for their successes and not their efforts. I don't want my kids to have their self worth tied to results. I don't want them to be scared to fail. I want them to know that if they aren't the best, if they aren't always successful, it doesn't mean there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

I have decided that my job is to get them out from under what society heaps on them by making them face their failures head on and helping them through it. As hard as it is for me as their mom, I will not let them always take the easy path. And in the end, I hope to help them to succeed at life by learning to fall gracefully along the way.

Our 14th!

A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. -- Paul Sweeney

Happy 14th anniversary Toad!!