I finally gave up staring at the ceiling in the dark and blinking, and I drew a bath at 3am.
(I’ve been having trouble sleeping)
I had rotated in bed long enough.
Maybe the hot water would help me.
Lately, I can’t turn my mind off.
I’m not sure if it’s the state of the world, my empathetic heart, or perimenopause hormones.
It’s probably a combination.
I had taken my phone with me.
I know. Screens. It’s probably not helping the problem,
but I’m finding it hard to pull away.
I decided maybe it would comfort me to look back on Facebook at some of my memories.
I have posted regularly on Facebook for two decades.
Like a scrapbook of the best years of my life, those memories are always good for a smile.
I am like so many moms who only kept a baby book for the first child,
but Facebook has every good photo and happy memory stored for each of my girls’ entire lives.
At times, it feels like those memories save me.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that particular date proved to be a big one for me.
We got one of our best kittens on that day.
It was the day I found “I Like it When I Touch a Fish:” One of my daughter’s most iconic drawings.
It was the day we had opened up our home to two orphaned girls from Burundi who were traveling with a children’s choir, trying to raise money.
They stayed with us for several nights, and seeing our home and plentiful food and possessions through their eyes absolutely changed me.
It was “The Day that I Returned the Barbies:”
A story that became family lore, because of the time when my girls were little that I had become so angry over their constant fighting over Barbies that I had shown up with a trash bag and shoved every single Barbie and Barbie accessory in it, telling them that if they couldn’t stop fighting, then they wouldn’t have any but the two naked, headless ones I left them.
I had kept those Barbies for four months to prove a point.
They still talk about seeing me walking in with that trash bag.
The day I gave those Barbies back went down in history as the Day of Ultimate Sharing.
You have never heard two girls be so demonstrative with their tones and words.
“Why THANK YOU, CHLOE! THAT IS VERY KIND OF YOU TO LET ME USE THAT SKIRT!”
“OF COURSE, TESSA! IT IS MY PLEASURE TO SHARE BARBIES WITH YOU.”
Their eyeballs were saucers.
I smiled in the bath, scrolling through good memory after good memory.
My shoulders relaxed.
Remembering joy is so healing.
And then I scrolled to a photo I recognized right away: The big white house in the country.
That day in time was also the day we were evacuated from the fire.
The house looked somewhat like a plantation.
It sat way back through the trees on a giant plot of land with black shutters and big white pillars.
We were evacuated for days.
We had left our home as half our city burned like a giant ball of red behind us.
We heard a gas station and the gun store explode as we drove.
The feelings were indescribable.We’d left so fast we grabbed the most random things. For instance: I didn’t pack underwear,
but I did grab my Cabbage Patch Kids from my childhood and a wet hair comb. You know. Priorities.
We had evacuated to stay with friends the next town over as we waited to see if our home was still standing, and while we were there, our friend got a call that a woman at their church was handing out meals to all the displaced people if we wanted to come and get some.
There were now 11 of us staying in that home, and 7 of them were children.
Free hot food was so welcome.
We drove up the driveway to the house that evening to get the food, and I felt like I was in a movie.
Who was this mystery woman in this giant house, handing out pans of food to strangers?
We walked to the door, and she gestured us inside with a smile.
I thanked her and looked around in awe at the lavish surroundings.
Her apron was dusted with flour, and she hugged us both and held on tight, then led us into her deliciously scented home and presented us with a giant packed-up hot meal, cooked for 15, and bags absolutely full of groceries.
Overwhelmed by this generous act towards us, strangers, I went to hug her.
Her arms like that of a dear old aunt:
Warm and soft.
Like the feeling of going home I longed for.
As she hugged me, she spoke into my ear words I will never forget,
“There is a light in you.
When everything else feels dark, remember that you were made to be the light, so let it shine.”
You guys, I bawled.
The perfect words for my heart, spoken by a complete stranger who was handing me a casserole and cookies.
And we all have the power to be it:
The light in this darkened land.
I cried again at the timing of the memory.
The “Light in me” has felt a little dimmed lately, to be honest.
I’m exhausted all the time.
Kindness seems harder to find.
Softness feels like it has to be actively searched for.
I’ve noticed the change inside.
I’m quieter. I laugh much less often.
I realized that night, in the bath, how much I needed the timely reminder.
I have spent time since that night receiving that food, wondering if that woman was an actual angel.
How did she know what I’d need then?
How would her words land so well again on the perfect night 9 years later?
There IS a light in me.
I know it as hope, love, joy, and belief in beauty.
Everything DOES feel dark right now,
just like it did then when I looked around at everything burning down around me.
Grey ash and smoke,
streetlights gone dark,
but then HOPE shone through all of it.
We rebuilt,
we came together,
we looked for the helpers around us,
and then so many of us became them.
That memory that night in the bath reminded me of who I am, and who I intend to keep being;
not only in the funny stories and great memories, but in the hope, love, and faith I do still have inside me.
Life has tried many times to snuff that light out with sleepless nights, circumstances, and discouragement.
I know it has for so many of us,
but,
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness cannot overcome it.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
