Life for a Child in the Library

Our 9-months-old son, TJ, only sits still for two things at this point: good food, and a good picture book. So I woke up this morning feeling inspired to take him on his first trip to the land of a thousand books. 

After our usual Saturday morning family visit to the coffee shop, my husband, Josh, and I filled out a couple of forms, and voila! We were proud new members of the neighborhood library, all wholesome and such. 

We strolled our little man into a section called “The Children’s Room” which is more like a full-sized library wonderland all by itself. It’s fun, and fresh, and even has a great selection of board books for little TJ’s age bracket. So exciting! And as an added bonus, we found a play area to let TJ out of his stroller and explore things, like he does. He went right up to a kid’s play thingamabob, and I figured he probably wouldn’t get bored with it for some time, because it didn’t belong to him, which always makes toys so much more interesting.  

Within five minutes, a little girl came up, and asked if she could play with the baby. She was maybe around 5-years-old. I said, “Sure! His name is TJ. What’s Yours?” 

We’ll Call Her Lily

Lily started spinning the little gears on the thingamabob, and TJ picked up the motion, so I thanked her for showing him how to do it. She was a bubbly, inquisitive little chatterbox, full of questions. “What’s this? What’s that? Can the baby walk? Can he play with this? Can he talk? Can he play with that? What’s this do?” 

I answered her questions as best I could, because sometimes even grown-ups don’t know what kids’ toys are supposed to do. Some things we just had to sit, and try to figure out together. 

At one point, Lily ran off and came back with a large stack of books she planned to build a house out of. “Great idea!” I said. “Then, you can read the walls, and look at all the fun pictures all the time! I wish all houses were made of books!”

She didn’t say anything, but her smile seemed to say that she thought so, too. TJ, Lily and I had ourselves a fun little time while my husband went off to explore the other sections of our beautiful, new library. 

I originally took a few pics to share on Instagram.
Little did I know the reality of the moment I was capturing.

About 30 minutes went by, and it was almost time for lunch, so we started saying our goodbyes to Lily. 

“Are you coming back?” she asked. 

“Yes, we’ll come back,” I replied. “Maybe we’ll see you here again.”

“Are you coming back today?”

“No, probably not today. But a different day, for sure.” 

“Is the baby coming back?”

“Well, he can’t come back by himself, but we will bring him back when we come.”

“I’m here all by myself.”

“You’re here all by yourself?” I repeated, thinking she was playing another make believe role. 

“Uh-huh,” she said. “My mama went to work. Ain’t nobody here with me.”

I just looked at her. Her face had become very serious, and for a brief moment I thought she might cry. But she just started wiggling again, instead. I was still not sure if I was supposed to believe her for real, or if she was just making things up because she didn't want us to leave. 

A woman had been sitting at one of the kiddie tables a few yards away, and every now and then she would look up at us, so I assumed that was the girl’s mother. I walked over to the lady, and motioned towards Lily. 

“Is she yours?” I asked. 

She looked at me a little surprised, and shook her head no. Then, I probably looked a bit surprised myself. But you know who did not look surprised?

“Oh, not again,” was the Librarian’s response when we told her there was a little girl claiming to be there all by herself. Frustrated, yes. But surprised? No. Apparently, it’s not unusual for the library staff to discover that a small child had been left there alone.  

Thankfully, I am only crazy in ways that are generally not harmful to children in any way. But what if I had been someone else?

I pointed Lily out to the Librarian, and told her the girl’s name. We checked out our baby books, and as we left, I overheard the Librarian approach the little girl. “Are your here with someone?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lily replied, nodding her head.

“Who are you here with?”

She said nothing at first. Then, as if surrendering in a corner, “Nobody.” 

“Should we do something?” I asked Josh, who assured me that we already did do something, and that the library staff knows what to do, and would take good care of her. 

What Kind of Mother?

It’s been several hours now. We’ve eaten our lunch. TJ is down for his afternoon nap. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Lily. I can’t help but wonder what happened after we left. What will happen to her later? I noticed she didn’t say her parents were at work. Just her mama. How will they confront the woman? Will they call the police? I hope they took Lily to the cafe area, and gave her something to eat. I hope she’ll be okay. 

At a different time in my life, I would have found it very easy to judge her irresponsible mother, blaming her entirely. She is what’s wrong with society! Am I right!? 

But that response does not come naturally to me anymore. As a new mom myself, my heart simply breaks for such a woman who felt her best option was to leave her child at a public library, and not with friends or family. Does she not have any? Or are they just that unreliable? I’m not saying that she did the right thing. I’m saying that maybe she couldn’t.

There are moments when my husband stops in the middle of whatever it is we’re doing, looks right at me, and sincerely tells me that I am a great mother. He thanks me for giving him such a beautiful son. And, I tell him that I could not be a good mother if he wasn’t such a good father. Neither of us are perfect, but we are in this together for the long haul. TJ is stuck with us both.

I also have a caring support system made of friends and family, and—I’ma just be real wit’ya—a therapist, a new mom support group, a Mommy’s Morning Out program, and a Catholic nun as my spiritual director. I have all of these people, plus a LOT of prayer, and just a tiny smidgen of anxiety medication, because yep! This is what it takes for me to feel like I’ve got a handle on being responsible for another human life in such a precarious world as this one. Some of these things I probably—hopefully—will not need forever. But here in the beginning? When my post-pregnancy body still feels so foreign, and my son is still not quite grasping the native tongue, and the challenges of new motherhood are still bringing up all kinds of issues from my own childhood that I now have the adventure of working through as an adult? You betcha! This chick needs HELP!!  

And even with all of this support, there are still days when I find this whole motherhood thing to be so overwhelming, like I am definitely losing my mind, and I wonder how any of us mommy creatures are able to come across as even remotely sane. 

I mean, do we though? Is anyone pulling that off? ‘Cause, good for you, lady! Whoever you are! You go! 

But what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t have all of this support? What kind of mother would I be for my son without his father doing his part? I can tell you right now. A lot more desperate than great.

Then What?

I noticed a good friend of mine post on Facebook that there was a nationwide rally to defund Planned Parenthood earlier today. The organization’s underground practice of selling fetal body parts has given fresh fuel to the fire of the pro-life movement. This volatile issue that the media would not touch for a long time is now back in headlines in a way that forces us to see beyond the “women’s rights” mantra to the fact that there really are tiny human lives involved here. 

I didn’t make it to the pro-life rally. Instead, while that was happening in another part of town, I was sitting on the floor in the children’s section of the library trying to explain to a lonely little girl that the toy we were looking at didn’t work, because the magnet was missing. And also, attempting to explain to her what a magnet is. 

Then, I went home and made chicken salad wraps wondering what Lily’s mother was like. Perhaps she had been a teenager when she had her. I imagined that maybe she went to an abortion clinic to consider her options when some brave pro-lifer outside the building talked her into keeping the baby. So she did. And that pro-lifer saved Lily’s life. Awesome!

Then what? 

For Life

My good friend, Kelly, just recently started an organization called Seneca, Choices for Life. It’s not your typical crisis pregnancy outreach. Among its many valiant goals, Seneca doesn’t just seek to convince pregnant women to keep their babies. They actually seek to help support these women in their motherhood by helping them with resources they’ll need, such as completing their educational goals, finding jobs, and finding childcare once they get one of those jobs. And get this! They even want to help fathers with the resources they need to be good daddies too, because they still realize that men are actually an important part of the parenting equation.  

Right now, Seneca is a tiny movement with an enormous vision. But I believe they’re onto something, because a truly pro-life vision gets the whole picture of the struggle for life, and it is an enormous picture. Abortion is not an isolated issue; it is a symptom of a massive, systematic brokenness in our culture. Trying to address the abortions by themselves is like trying to cut the golden flower off of a dandelion and hoping that it'll die. Everyone knows it'll grow back. Everyone knows you have to get the root, and those roots are deep. 

Photo courtesy Botanical.com.

It’s not enough to convince a frightened, unprepared pregnant woman to accept her responsibility as a mother. It is everything to let her know that she will not be doing it alone. 

And yet, that’s the very reason there aren’t many organizations like Seneca yet. It takes a moment’s worth of courage to stand on the side of the road, hold a sign and pray, but it takes an entire paradigm shift and lifestyle change to say that—when no one else will—we will help share in the responsibility for the very lives we are trying to save. We will help carry that load. 

That is what it truly means to be pro-life. And that is much harder than just saying, “Congratulations on your new baby! We are so glad you made the right choice! Now, may God bless you while you’re on your way! We hope you'll write!” 

What do we even mean by that? Are we not His hands and feet?

God, Help Us.

Maybe Josh is right. Maybe the library staff knows what to do, and how to take good care of Lily. If that’s the case, maybe they’ll inform the rest of us, and it'll all be settled. I’m guessing it isn’t the case, though. None of us really know what to do. But maybe we do have some ideas we could bring to the table. Maybe even a literal table, like at a Seneca meeting with people gathered around one. 

Because sometimes even grown-ups don’t know how to fix things that are broken. That’s when we have to just sit, and try to figure it out together. 

The Church, The Pedophiles, and the Filipino Party Tree

When I stepped onto the treadmill Monday morning the guy jogging next to me made some small talk, like people do whilst on treadmills.  “How was your weekend?” He asked.    

    

“Really good, actually!” I said.  “A friend of mine was ordained a Roman Catholic Priest up in Atlanta, so I went up and celebrated with him and some of my other friends.  It was really awesome.”

“Oh that’s cool!”

“Yeah!”  

“Did you tell him to stay away from little boys?”  

Stunned and deadpan.  “No.  I didn’t.”

...

I’ve recently been reading some CNN.com articles in a convenient effort to keep up with current events (Definitely open to other suggestions).  The Vatican has been making several appearances lately, what with Obama’s healthcare mandates, the leaky butler, and the renegade nuns (oxymoron) going back and forth with the Pope.  CNN’s rhetorically slanted coverage of these issues is frustrating enough, but then, for some reason I am always compelled to read the responses at the end.  Every single time, no matter what the issue is that’s being reported about the Catholic Church, more than one person makes a comment bringing it back to the pedophile priest scandals, and more than one other person makes a comment along the lines of, “Give it up, already...  The Catholic Church isn’t working anymore...  Nobody trusts the Vatican...  It’s time to hang it up...”  And my personal favorite of these comments: “You’ve had your time.  We call it ‘the Dark Ages’.” 

...

One particularly hot, summer day back in the 80’s, when I was about 5 years old, my Grandmother took me to this Filipino party somewhere out in the country.  Sometime after she had me stand on top of a table and sing a Whitney Houston song for everyone on the Karaoke machine, as per the usual, I went outside to find some other children to play with.  Usually at these Filipino parties there would be a bunch of children running around together somewhere, but here I didn’t see them right away.  (Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a story about a pedophile.  It’s going to be about a tree).  Then, several yards away, I saw a couple of little kids run off and disappear into the leaves of this giant tree in the middle of a field.  (See?  I told you.)  I don’t know what kind of tree it was, maybe an oak, or a maple... I wasn’t really aware of these kinds of details at the age of 5, but it was huge, and dense, and it had branches all the way down to the ground.  After I saw a couple more children run across the field and disappear into the tree, I decided to head towards it and check the tree out for myself.

    

The closer I got to the tree, the bigger it seemed to become.  As I approached, the tree appeared animated and alive with voices and laughter; leaves rustling around in random places all over.  I was timid and a bit apprehensive, but entirely drawn and curious.  So I went in.     

When I crossed the threshold of the outer leafy boundary, it was like stepping through a doorway to a different world.  The temperature dropped significantly in the coolness of its shade.  Rays of sparkling light were pouring in through the leaves, twinkling with their rustling movements.  Everywhere I looked, up and around, there were dozens and dozens of other children playing happily on the branches.  It was the kind of climbing tree that children live for.  These branches were so strong, sturdy and close together that we could climb very high and still feel very safe.  There was a boy who was obviously “it”, trying to tag some other children, so I joined right in with a loud squeal. He came after me as I climbed away from him like a little monkey.  We all played for hours in that tree, climbing up and down and around, talking, exploring, having our own little party while the grown-ups did whatever it is that grown-ups do when they get together...  Who cares?      

Now here is where I bring up webworms.  I don’t know about other parts of the U.S., but anyone who’s lived in the Midwest has seen the work of these nasty little things.  They live on the outer branches of trees, and you know they’re present when it looks like some dirty, flavorless cotton candy has attacked a tree branch and they both died in the battle.  Dirty, dead cotton candy on a dead tree branch.  Got it?  It’s actually really gross.  Depending on how many branches are affected, an infestation can make your trees look hideous.    

    

Now, let’s say for a moment that the Filipino party tree had webworms too.  Even though it didn’t in real life, it is not a far stretch of the imagination.  After all, it’s a great tree, which makes it very vulnerable to bugs that eat yummy trees.  Let’s even say that it had so many webworms, it appeared to be dying.  Looking at it from a distance, I would have seen the webworm damage and devastation caused to some of the more visible parts of the branches, and I might have figured the tree itself was sick and in the early stages of decay.  But here is the point: The little moth larvae we call webworms are not the tree itself.  They are the worms; the tree is still the tree.  And it is not going anywhere.  Webworms can’t kill a tree this strong.      

    

Standing outside of the Church and looking at her from a distance, especially with the slanted voices of misinformed skeptics explaining the circumstances in our ears, there is reason to be alarmed and somewhat grossed-out.  I have spent most of my life seeing it from this angle, so I understand.  But now, I have disappeared into the leaves with the other children who play in its expansive shade mixed with sparkling light.  I am currently sitting on a branch with my back resting against its massive trunk.  From this angle, it is not at all what you would have expected from the outside.  The closer we get to the center—which is the real presence of Jesus Christ himself—and the more time we spend observing the world from there, the more we are able to distinguish the Tree itself from the worms and know that they are not one in the same.  As we climb the branches, we learn to trust the strength of the real thing, and stay clear of the flavorless cotton candy-looking stuff.  We observe with curiosity and wonder the markings that tell the story of the Tree’s growth throughout her long history of becoming such a Tree.  Here, wind knocked off a branch.  There, lightening must have struck the side of the trunk many years ago.  Look, an owl must have lived in this hole at some point, or a family of squirrels.  “Tag!  You’re it!”  We grow to love the Tree itself and desire that she be free from the worms that plague her.  There is damage done, and some branches have been ruined, which is a grievous loss.  But it’s not the end of the Tree.  She is very much alive and well.  It is simply a time that requires intense pruning, which, as anyone who knows anything about trees can tell you, will only make her living branches stronger in time.      

    

It’s strange for the children to sometimes hear people observing from the outside refer to their Tree as “That dying webworm tree.”  We know that doesn’t even make sense.  These are only the voices of ones who have no idea just how deep these roots go, how much they have survived already, and the strength of the branches that hold the children up and keep them from being afraid.  The webworms will be done away with in time.  No doubt, more may come, and they will go as well.  But the Tree will remain right where she is, with children playing in her branches until the day has ended and the children are called to go home.  

“...and behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”  Matthew 28:20