Always searching…

I always snicker when I see a “study” that  comes out stating the obvious, like “A Mother’s Instinct to Protect is Hardwired into Her Brain.”  They could have just called me or any other mother and saved themselves time and money. Occasionally I end up choking on my own snickering though, for silly studies do help me to understand my dreams.

I remember a very dear friend telling me once how she described me to others.  She said, “Oh Terri Jackson, sweet…do anything for you…just don’t touch her kids or say anything bad about her husband.”  Yeah pretty much. My mother wrote a letter to me when I was about 14, she wrote what characteristics she saw in me, what strengths she admired, what made her smile.  She wrote that I adored my brothers and was fiercely protective of those I loved.  Was true then, is still true now, becoming a mother only sharpened those instincts.  You know those goofy little quizzes we all take, to see what kind of dog you are, well I always come up as a German Shepherd. That’s me, checking the perimeters, wary of strangers, will circle back to check doors. I curb the impulse to nip at peoples heels to keep them tightly herded, some find it rather unsettling.

I began to understand why in my dreams I search for Justin.  In my dream I was driving and searching for him, and passed by him. Even my passenger exclaimed “There he is!” I quickly turned around and stopped and it wasn’t Justin at all, just a mocking face. I knew I had seen him, that smile, those eyes, and then it wasn’t him at all.  I don’t search for Justin in my waking hours, not consciously, it is just that nagging sense of missing him, of something not right. In some ways it is guilt, guilt for not protecting him, guilt for not being able to find him, guilt for him passing through death’s door without me, before me…how could I have failed him so…how could I have not kept guard?  Aren’t we as parents supposed to die first?  Nothing prepares us to have our child die, nothing.  We are inculcated from the time we are young to expect our parents to die. My father died when I was 13, my mother when I was 33, so we anticipate having our parents die, it does not diminish the sorrow or the pain of saying goodbye, but it is an expected grief.

There is an urgency to follow our child that has nothing to do with wanting to die, it has everything to do with finding them, to experience for ourselves what they experienced. We were supposed to go first. The thought isn’t that we do not love and care for those here still alive, it is about finding the one who is gone. And it is not unusual, it is not strange, it is a stage of grieving for parents.  We are hardwired to keep our children safe, to protect them, it does not matter whether they are 2 or 25, it is not something that one can just shut off when the child dies. For more than half my life my job was keeping him safe from harm, to register in my brain that I spoke to him, that he sounded good, that he was well, there is no switch in the heart to turn that off.  To be a mother is to have your heart beat outside your body, when that other heart stops beating it is as if my own falters and cannot beat without the other beating in harmony. Learning to live with that heartbeat missing takes a long time.  Our brains are complex, circuitry that is delicately connected has been violently ruptured, healing and re-connection requires time and peace.

To search for a child is not unnatural or strange.  The Blessed Mother and St. Joseph searched for Jesus when he was twelve. The Blessed Mother would not leave Jesus to carry His cross and die alone, she pushed her way through the crowds. I can picture her with such a single focused determination until she found Him.  An ancient homily from Easter Vigil speaks so beautifully of our Lord’s quest for Adam and Eve.

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”

Jesus told so many parables about searching for those who were lost, whether it be a sheep, a coin, a lost son, to search for those we love is not strange at all, we come by it quite naturally it would seem.  One of my  mother’s favorite poems was “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson, it tells of God’s unrelenting love for us, He longs for us, seeks our heart, searches for us.

Such little faith I have in the great God who spared nothing, not even His own Son so that we could be found in our Father’s house.  I do not wish to seem to be unfaithful or despairing of hope, but it is an enormous learning curve.  Jesus must have known how painful and difficult it would be for his disciples to be without Him, after all, He left His mother with them to care for them, to strengthen them, to remind them to eat. I am more a poor daughter of Eve than a daughter of Mary.

With time my unconscious will process through the  whirlwind in my mind, with time, with rest, with prayer.  All of which can be elusive, I find myself apologizing for needing those things, but to deny the need is foolish and prideful.  Jesus said to come to Him, overburdened and weary and we would find rest.  Lord, help me to be still so that I can find You.