You Were Worth It

To my sweet baby,

Oh, if you only knew the nights and days I dreamt of how magnificent you’d be. How you’d grow into your marvelous self and thrive and be fully you, unapologetically. Every pregnant belly I’ve had, I’d grin as jabs protruded my skin and poking stole my attention; my imagination would run wild with adoration for you. One positive pregnancy test and I was smitten. Absolutely smitten, no matter what chaos swirled in our family or that the timing wasn’t ideal, you were coming and that became an overriding joy in all I did.

But with my joy, there always came a sting. You see, your mom has struggled with a lot of things in her life, but one thing has hung over her for too long – body insecurities.

I have teetered between morbidly obese and overweight (two pounds from a normal BMI) since I was six. I remember the first horrifically negative comment that made me question myself and my size … and I remember many more after.

These childhood comments started to shake my being and I no longer felt lovable. I felt unworthy and like I didn’t belong. I was embarassed. Ashamed. Humiliated. And somewhere in the messy thoughts circling in my brain, I decided I didn’t have the right or a voice to combat it. I didn’t belong and disgustingly fat became my identity.

I spent many years with doctors and dieticians, quick fix diets and drawn-out programs in hopes to find a “normal” body. From elementary school and well into my college years, my weight fluctuated in almost alarming ways. Good days were only if I was lucky enough to feel skinny, bad days were every other day. Clearly, my issues were deeper than anything a diet could fix.

I finally met your dad and I still struggled, but he brought some peace to my caged mentality. At my heaviest, he fell in love with me.

Your daddy never saw my weight. He saw the control and torment it had over me, but his love never hinged on such a thing. He saw something I didn’t know I possessed, and I never saw it because I was so preoccupied with my own outer shell. Your dad showed me I was lovable already, just as I was. He was (and continues to be) Christ to me.

It’s from this place of my war within that I wanted to write this.

Child, I struggled carrying you.

While other mothers have ridiculous nauseousness or other major physical ailments while pregnant, I fought my old battles of “being disgustingly fat.” I’d have days that my gratitude and happiness were so abundant that I was flying high, but more days than not I struggled.

You see, much of our society loves to focus on the size and shape of a body versus what that body is actually doing. Conversation between women, pregnant or not, are hyper-focused on weight. Some applaud a woman for little or no pregnancy pounds. Some gawk at the mom that “got her body back” in months (and some even weeks) after delivery. Some jabber about “cute pregnant women,” insinuating some of us are not-so-cute pregnant women. I don’t have to give you much time to guess if any of those statements applied appropriately to me.

I was a big mama when carrying you. Most people never commented, but some felt at liberty, and some often did with a twinkle in their eye (assuming you were to be a huge baby or triplets). They spoke totally not knowing the dagger they were thrusting at my already fragile self-esteem.

It wasn’t until a long drive home one day that I pondered these thoughts at a deeper level. The radio was off, your siblings had fallen asleep in the car and I was just left with the silence. Whether it was God’s whisper to direct my chaotic mind or a bunch of crazy turns bringing me there, a very brave thought popped in my head.

Carrying you proudly in utero was the most selfless and loving thing I could give you in that moment.

We talk a lot about postpartum moms after they have their baby and the sacrifices that she must now learn and adjust to. But what about the body-shamed mama of just carrying the baby inside? What about the mom that worked hard to lose those 120+ pounds earlier in her life, only to be told to eat a little more and gain weight for the health of that sweet child? I mean, in her mind, what if gaining that weight never stops?

Can you imagine the mind games? Can you even dare go there and guess what war wages in that mom’s brain?

I can, my dear one, because that was me. And honey, that was for you. I did that for you. With many sobbing days and attempts to close my ears to the comments (whether those were my internal words or comments from others).

It seemed the more I told myself (and sometimes others) that my size and weight didn’t matter (but just that YOU WERE THRIVING), people still felt a need to comment on how huge we were. It was hard. Baby, it was harder than hard for me. Give me the barfing any day over my mind games.

I know these baby-making years will be gone before I know it. I’ll be able to get my weight back to somewhat healthy and perhaps even maintain it for longer than a year or two, but I don’t want to forget these hard days. I don’t want to forget them because I know someone else out there will feel this way someday (maybe even one of my babies). And that someone will NEED another mama to say, “Hey, I get you! And you’re not alone.”

You could even add, “Wow, your body is amazing! Look at what it’s doing! You’re making a whole NEW human being. You are making the next generation in your belly and it’s spectacular to witness.”

Be a voice contrary to society’s natural rhetoric, dear child. Dare to speak LIFE to those fragile souls, those poor mama souls like your mom. Remind them what a gift it is to give life to a new creation that God Himself knit together.

And don’t forget, Satan yearns to steal the beauty from such a breathtaking miracle. Don’t let him. He’ll make the world belittle the process, too. He wants only to steal, kill, and destroy ANYTHING that is this good, this amazing, this miraculous.

Remember just as babies are applauded for coming out in all shapes and sizes, so should the women that bear them into the world. One does not deserve love and applause over another. And really, that applies to absolutely every human situation.

Society does not have the right to have that much say over you or your significance. Only God has that power. And my child, He is soooo pleased over you. You are His beautiful and precious creation. He is more smitten over you than I have ever been (so that’s a pretty outrageous amount) and long before I ever knew you’d exist.

So before I close, let me reiterate, my sweet one: as hard as it was for me to carry you in my womb, you were worth it. Every single teary day, every single pound and roll and war within – you. were. SOOOO. worth it.

I love you, precious child. Thank you for letting me be your mom, flaws and all.

Love, your Mama

A Start

“Lord, I don’t want to miss it! I desperately don’t want to miss You! Not again this year!”

I was explaining to my sister and niece the other day that it seems that every Christmas storms into my life with it’s busyness and cookies and presents and planning and when it’s done I feel like I missed it all. Everything. At least everything meaningful.

I often peer back at the rush of it and my heart aches with disappointment. I missed Him. Again. And I tread into the New Year with a bit of grief.

I remember one year sitting in the church pew as a teen feeling the same. I looked around at the others at the candlelit Christmas Eve service and all I could think was what was I possibly missing? Why does everyone see Jesus and the wonder and seem to “adore” Him and I am just grappling at having any connection with Him at all?

This morning my son is helping my girls set up their new princess legos they got from their auntie for Christmas. There’s an unadulterated joy in their voices and ramblings and I am still looking out the window and wondering.

Who AM I looking for? Is it really the Christ-child or is it someone else? Is it a feeling? If it is merely an emotion, I still don’t have a name for it. Whomever and whatever I am seeking, I am just weary of the seeking that never seems to be satisfied.

And if I stop in the tears and unsettling of the unknown, I wonder if that’s the point. The waiting. The desperate waiting for relief.

All over Scripture we see nature and people were WAITING for the Savior to come. Desperately looking in hope and expectation, knowing that God would fulfill His promise.

And when Jesus was born, all of creation exhaled. Whether they knew immediately He was physically present in their world or not, I imagine there being a flood of unexplained peace that just trickled into every crevice of the earth.

Hope was born.

And maybe that’s how it starts, at least for me. I must have a desperate craving for Him to really experience the communion I hope for. I must search for Him. Express it to Him. I have tasted His presence and anything less just seems so counterfeit.

Afterall, how precious is something that is easy to come by? That just falls in your lap? Or warms your heart at the first nonchalant mention?

So the first step is exactly where I’m at.

Jesus, I just want you. Everything else just leaves me empty. Let your birth bring a new perspective. And may the beauty and amazingness and craziness and miracle of You coming to earth start to penetrate within.

I just crave hope. I crave You.

And if you’re in the same spot as me, take heart. You’re not alone. Even in the midst of the world’s fake Santa Holiday delight, real. joy. lives.

His name is Jesus Christ.

He stands as ready as He ever has; even as ready as He was at birth and as He died on the cross…for you…for me.

He won’t come uninvited. He just wants an honest heart that craves Him.

And I’ll start there. In my waiting and my discomfort. In my hope and anticipation.

And if you’re with me there, maybe you can start there too. Sit in that melancholy, searching, wondering, the uneasiness, or maybe grief and feel it. Take your hands and give it to the Christ-child. Let it go and just let Him move.

He has come. He is here. He is coming again.

What’s in a word?

“Year of Unapologetic” is wrapping up and I am absolutely dumbfounded at what I’ve learned this year; I am amazed at how one word changed my outlook of myself, my world, my Jesus. When I chose it in January, I used it with pure skepticism that really anything positive would come from it but just a lot of made up confidence and stories.

As I ventured through the year with this word, I realized quick that it was definitely misunderstood. Some labeled it in conversation as a bit egocentric, especially in some of my Christian circles. It appeared that my focus was so much on ME, so much on bettering ME and understanding ME and valuing ME, and to be honest, where was Christ in that?

Um…everywhere.

I have brought these concerns to Jesus so many times, a bit embarassed and wondering, “Man, God, are these people right?” And every time I have prayed that prayer I get an all-encompassing peace (and sometimes even whispers within), “No, this is your journey. They don’t know your journey. This is your next step. Just. Keep. Going.”

I spent so many years burying my head in shame and fear and anxiety about who I was as Manda that it chained me from what God has been calling me to do. I have spent my life apologizing for myself in ways and areas that I have no reason to apologize for. I marked that as being kind and humble, but all it did was make me weak and spineless (and dare I say, ineffective) for God’s Kingdom.

To NOT live authentically as Manda, as the Manda God created with the passions and wildness and uniqueness and battle scars and rawness and realness that I encompass, is to miss a part of Jesus that I am meant to share. God speaks through these things and shines in the beauty and rough-edges that make up me.

A phrase hit me like a ton of bricks this fall, “You don’t know what’s on the other side of obedience.” I have run with this. I have learned to say yes to pretty much everything. It’s easier to say yes to things when you are living unapologetically and fearless. Even in the face of pure fear and uttering nonstop prayers as I kept taking next steps, it has pryed open my eyes to the amazingness that awaits on the other side of obedience.

You want a full life? Follow Jesus. You want a crazy life? Follow Jesus. Are you an adrenaline junkie (because I definitely know a few)? Follow Jesus. Take that step of obedience, no matter how small, and see a journey unfold. And not just any journey, but a journey that makes you swear you’ll never turn back.

In this year I have found my voice. I have found my voice and I am not too timid to use it. And just to be clear, not all words I say are good, but wow, sometimes the words that come out are so timely in my life or someone else’s life that I am just shocked. God has used my awkward bravery in ways that I cannot fully write out here.

Boldness, confidence, bravery, zeal, vision, passion – these have been the fruits of Year of Unapologetic. Daring to seek God for my identity and my voice and allowing His opinion to outweigh and even shut-up outside critics, this too has been fruit.

I look back at 2018 with grateful tears. How did I get here? How have I gotten this free and healed and empowered and alive?

Jesus. All Jesus. Saying yes to Him. Doing what sounds and looks stupid for Him just because I feel Him nudging me to do so. Living unapologetically, not for myself, but for Him and fully in Jesus.

What’s my new word for 2019? Every word seems lackluster after such an empowering year. But whatever word God breathes into my thoughts, I anticipate the adventure of it. And whatever He chooses, I am completely optimistic of a greater understanding of God and what He wants with me through it.

Ten Years of Compost

I am reading 6 parenting books, 3 Psychology-type books, and not enough of my Bible lately. I have 3 other books that help me formulate prayers for my sons, daughters, and hubby, and Jesus is Calling is always read with my morning cup of cold-brew. You’d think with all these words going from paper to my brain that I’d be exploding with ideas to write about. But no.

When I was in college (completing degrees in writing and Psychology… ooo… yes… impressive… but not), one of my professors touched on the thought of composting ideas, an awful way of talking about “writer’s block.” When nothing innovative is coming to screen or paper, just give it time – let it compost.

Well, I’ve run with that for almost ten years now. I have written here and there, but nothing like I have in school (although I was paying thousands for that and for a degree).

I feel like one big mass of events and one unacknowledgable creature of emotions because I have not sat down to actually see what this composting period has done. As a girl that wrote out her emotions for clarity (because I have always struggled with identifying what each emotion really is), I have had no writing or thinking or evaluating attached to these years; just survival.

Can I just breathe?

Can I just sit for a moment and be raw?

That back there, that last decade of chaotic life-building events and moments, that was crazy hard.

And beautiful.

I’m nowhere near the Manda that started that journey. I have cracked and bent and collapsed and exploded and released and birthed so much; many days it’s just hard to even recognize myself.

And (I think) I’m okay with that. That’s probably normal. We change in every season of our lives – some seasons you stretch more than others. And sometimes I have stretched so much I feel a need to re-introduce myself (Ha! No, seriously.).

But I am now realizing all that back there, including my lack of Manda, is not so much what I have to “sort through,” but more like it’s time to use my compost…and move on…move up.

A definition of compost is “a decayed mixture of plants that is used to improve the soil in a garden.”

My decayed plants are anything and everything from these last years – singleness to marriage, infertility to a mother of four in five years, weight gain to weight loss (To weight gain! Hey, being real here.), births to deaths, unemployment and insurmountable bills to debt-free and flourishing. My decaying plants are all of that and more.

So what in the world do I do with all these piles of compost?

I don’t sort it; I work it into my garden to improve the soil. I work it in to improve my future plants, my future years, the future generations, my children and their children. I work it. I use it. I already learned from it (whether I acknowledged it or not) and now it’s time to plant something NEW.

I let the mass of decay just mix all in and look at it as a whole instead of parts.

I survived. I’m grateful. I learned a lot so I could survive, but I am ready to grow.

This is the realization of newness. Anticipation without looking back. Taking my past, painful and tender, and instead of mulling on it, building from it.

I feel a loud echo within saying “It. Is. Time.” and I think this may be the foundation of me living this year unapologetically.

Here I go!

(Thank you, Rebekah Lynn, for these quotes you shared.)

Unapologetic

I have spent most my life apologizing. For being too fat. Too slow. Too needy. Too desperate. Too motivated. Too unmotivated. For having no kids to having too many kids. I have felt many things in my life have been scrutinized. If it wasn’t picked apart by someone else, it was most definitely picked apart by me.

There have been some major victories in my life, ranging from “beating the odds” of having kids to losing over one hundred pounds. Perhaps my biggest miracle is life itself; some days and years I thought it would be great to just not exist. And in these victories, I have often hung my pride.

But you know what’s ridiculous? If there are any medals to be hung about anything, they just melt away within moments. In a blink, there’s a new day with new amazements and new reasons to just. not. be. enough. Humans are so fickle.

My best friend, Rebekah and I went on a short reading voyage of picking one theme word for 2018. It seemed sentimental and an inspiring thing to do and we flung our thoughts and emotions into it. Five short days later, we arrived at conclusions. For me, I chose the word free.

I loved the idea. I envisioned saying yes to things that I normally would shy away from, strutting with confidence and courage and anticipation. But then I feared the reality of attempting to be free. I thought about seeing pictures or rehashing conversations and a sudden squash of embarrassment filled my gut. A shame of feeling too chubby when viewing the pictures or feeling judged or misunderstood by things I said. So, it had to change. Free didn’t seem right.

One morning I stood before the mirror. I was looking at my belly of fat and excess skin. I was looking at my face and the new lines that were slowly appearing. I looked at my hair that was absorbing every ounce of iron from our well water which made it orange instead of blonde. I looked at my moles that seemed to be exploding off my body (thanks, Mom). I looked at my blue eyes and five tattoos and teeth that were more yellow than white due to my coffee addiction. And though my body stole most of my gaze, I felt a weird surrender.

I knew this girl.
I knew this woman.
I knew her story.
This was me.

Every ugly day has brought me a deeper beauty that could never be contained on a mere body of bones, skin, and fat. These “flaws” tell my story, my journey, and my struggles along the way.

My word had to change. It was time to be…unapologetic.

What if I owned her? What if I stood tall, satisfied, unreformed by society? What if I just committed to being me and not look around for anyone else’s approval or disapproval?

What. would. happen.

I told Rebekah that I just wasn’t sure how this word would play out or what it completely meant. I am only month two into unapologetic and have to admit, I am still debating the girth of the word. While I picked it for very clear reasons, it is something I wrestle with everyday. But just as quick as I stated my uncertainties, Rebekah said, “Well, we have all year to figure that out.”

And yes. Yes, we do.

Lessons at South Friborg

The wind is howling outside. Trees shaking their new leaves and the lilacs popping out to give their spring scent. The skies are heavy gray and I am just waiting for the first raindrop. Somewhat revealing of my own mental place today. The kids are all napping, I have a cup of iced coffee at my side, and I am curled up with the blue afghan my aunt Bev made me two decades ago.

I am remembering her today. Remembering me. Remembering Heyma. Remembering Ruth. Remembering all the “hers” that I have lost sight of. Remembering the women that rooted me and the ones that have somehow shaken loose.

The howling wind takes me to my childhood. Watching the trees sway, I was somewhat fearful of damage, of what was coming, of the unexpected explosion that may just interrupt my world. I remember sitting on Heyma’s front porch, cuddled up with a quilt on her day bed, closed eyes, the wind comforting and concerning me all at the same time. The howling through the night that would shake the old windows of my room at home. The rattling rocking me to sleep.

I listened to MPR on my way to South Friborg Cemetery this morning. This was the only radio station I recall hearing in Heyma’s car growing up. My kids and I picked a few 

branches of lilacs at our house to bring to her grave today. Lilacs are about as symbolic of Heyma for me as her green eyes and red hair. We drove by the same fields, the same lakes and trees, and the same family farms she knew in her day. Man, how things have changed. How people have changed. How I have changed.

We pulled up to the cemetery, my kids wide-eyed. A sense of reverence settled in my body, something my kids have not learned yet, but will. We opened the heavy metal gate, the same one I remember as a kid when I visited this same cemetery with Heyma. I brought our lilacs and told Olivea and Tosten to collect some other flowers from the grass (dandelions).

We sat down by her gravestone. I cried. My kids were too enthralled by all the mysteries of a cemetery to truly relax, but they tried. They eventually got up and decided to explore, whispering, stooping to look at the pictures on each gravestone, picking more “flowers” and bringing them back to Heyma’s grave. And I sat. And sat. I am still not sure what Manda sat there, whether it the mother-of-three Manda or the eight-year-old Manda sitting, but I sat.

We eventually held hands, walking through the gravestones as I attempted to explain what a cemetery was. I explained who lived in the cemetery and why we visit them. I explained the respect that each grave should be given as we walk through. I explained eternity and death and life and a million abstract thoughts at once to my children…and they just giggled. They eventually ran off and collected more dandelions to decorate each gravestone.

And it all seemed so silly. Ridiculous even.

What does a child know about such things? About death and life and heaven and hell and cemeteries and people dying that are never suppose to leave? What do they know about the millions of tears that have dropped on this ground, the dashed dreams, the broken spirits, and incurable aches that have been placed here. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And they won’t…until it happens. And it will. It always does.

The wind howled again and this time with a chill. Olivea rushed to me and said, “I cold. We go?” And that’s exactly how it feels.

But I have to remind myself…this is not the end. It is cliche’, but for them, this is just their beginning. They will feel this brokenness and probably much more. They will be crushed in ways that I never had to experience and none of those before me ever had to. And the one they’ll be mourning might be me someday. It might be my husband. It might even be each other.

And that’s how the circle goes. Round and round, generation to generation, woman to woman. Human to human. Years keep clicking by and more are born and more die. My life is but a spark in an explosion of life.

And I must live now. My moment with them is now.

I am pretty sure if Heyma was watching this whole ordeal as we visited her grave today, she probably would have been full-grinned, laughing at my children’s pure pleasure of life as they traipsed around the cemetery. In fact, most people in that cemetery probably would have delighted in their joy. Because sometimes that’s what death is…joy. Joy at birth. Joy at death. Joy of the in between. And joy of eternity.

It can be joy.

I guess if there was one thing I could teach my kids about life and death it is that it’s all fluid. The world changes. Brokenness is guaranteed. And cemeteries, well, really, they are just the place of old bodies that couldn’t hold spirits anymore. And those spirits, some of them go to a much better place where joy is the only thing that is experienced. And Jesus, well, Jesus is as real as He ever was on earth…but more.

And when their smiles hit ear to ear I will smile back and say, “I can’t wait for that either.”

The Dance

“You are mine for all time.” I woke up from deadness. My eyes peeled open and my heart started to race.

“You are mine for all time…I want you to realize how utterly secure you are! Even if you falter as you journey through life, I will never let go of your hand” (Jesus Calling, page 73).

I remember in college God gave me a very clear image of my relationship with Him. In the middle of a very ordinary Sunday at Church of the Open Door, God was doing a dance in my head. His arms high and wide open, His eyes fixed on me, and He grinned and laughed as He flawlessly and beautifully stepped in rhythm to His joy. There wasn’t music, there wasn’t a beat, but He danced, to and fro, inviting me to join.

I remember seeing myself enter the picture of God’s dance, embarrassed that I didn’t know how to join Him. His smile only widened as I tried to take His hands and dance with, only to stare at my feet and stumble like a drunkard as I tried to learn the moves of His legs. He laughed again…always laughing. He took my chin and raised it up to look at Him.

When I looked at Him, when my eyes were locked with His, our legs and feet were in perfect sync. And as we continued to dance, I started to smile and laugh just as much as He did and I had never felt such perfect pleasure.

I lost that. I lost Him. I think bits and pieces have slowly torn away and I have forgotten that dance. Actually, I think I wasn’t even in the same room as that dance.

These past months I have been devastated. Broken. I would even say something as drastic as dead. I have been so focused on survival and trying to do everything in my life perfectly that I just worked myself to death. I felt like a workhorse, but the workhorse that no one saw was working. Giving and giving and giving and dying and dying and dying. In my death, I lost my Savior. I lost my understanding of Who He really was and is. I lost my identity.

As I cracked open my devotional last week to the date to read, the words were like a shock collar wake up: “You are mine for all time.”

For all time? I am HIS for ALL TIME? I know I used to be, but I still am? I am STILL His?

Someone saw me. Someone liked me. Someone took ownership over me, and not just ownership, but a jealous ownership. And He took me as I was. The messy, crazy, broken Manda that I was.

And then ”I will never let go of your hand.” You mean, God, you still have my hand? Really? Even after all that has passed through my life and all the death I have allowed myself to wallow in?

Weird things happen when joy returns. Visions return. Life returns. Resurrection begins.

I am not being overly dramatic, though I am not sure how to convey this in writing, when I write that these last few months have been the darkest I have felt in years…maybe even decades…life? I felt alone and what I always relied on to comfort was not satisfying. Even when I sought God, I felt like He was unmoved. He didn’t see me or hear me or even recognize my calling. This same God that had invited me to dance at the beginning didn’t even notice I stopped. He hadn’t even noticed I was a corpse.

But maybe He didn’t stop dancing. Maybe I wasn’t even dead. Maybe He just changed the dance. Instead of inviting me to join Him, He had to hold me in the dance. Rock me in tenderness. Whisper truth in my dead ear until my hardened heart heard.

“You are mine for all time.”

Ex-writer

I have been having an internal battle of what to write about. I mean, this is silly: I spent a ridiculous amount of money to go to a university so they could teach me how to become a more compelling writer. It should trickle out of my fingers onto the keyboard and on this screen without a second thought. Right?

Hey, I am a mom. A stay-at-home mom of three kids ages three and under – you’d think I have some pretty inspiring stuff to say, but I don’t. Not to mention, I have a past that was less than pleasant where I was so lost and so dead. Ideas should be squirting out of my ears (or welcome to motherhood).

I even started a conversation with my best friend Rebekah about it over a large bowl of fries at Granite City this Christmas. And this woman is smart, but wow, she said something jaw-dropping to me that I couldn’t rattle from my thoughts. She said, “Perhaps nothing is coming because you’ve already dealt with it all. Writing was a way that you could make sense of things from your past. Maybe you’re moving forward.”

Forward?

Woah.

I am teeter-tottering between finally walking away from my past with some type of acceptance and looking with full gaze at my present and my future. I have spent so much energy on the voices that crushed me, whether from others or myself, and I chose to believe them and allow them to shape my existence. But now that I see more of the grand picture, I see the truth. I see the intentions behind the voices that yelled defeat over me. I understand. I get it. And ironically, I am so over it. And whether it was the few voices of hatred or my very own, I have forgiven them. I have forgiven myself.

Last week Tyler was looking at a scrapbook I made of our dating years and we came across a picture of us two in the middle of a Minneapolis park. He circled his finger around my face. My very round face. Round with acne face. One thing stood out – my glowing grin and eyes. He said, “Look at how genuinely happy and carefree you were.”

I was a little dumbfounded. Maybe even offended? I was more than 100 pounds heavier there and if I would have been honest, I absolutely hated myself when that picture was taken. I was depressed. I ate all my emotions. I was in denial that I had garbage in my brain to deal with. But in this photo, my eyes were telling a totally different story.

Maybe that past Manda held a wisdom of her own? That Manda had something that THIS Manda didn’t have. What was it? And how did I misplace it?

I didn’t know.

I still don’t.

So here I am, wobbling over the line of releasing my past and plunging into my future. I don’t know where this is leading or where this will take my writing. Having this Manda and that Manda somehow meet and figure everything out sounds a bit disturbing, like maybe I have a mental illness or something, but I am certain that the mediation between the two will bring about something spectacular…like freedom…and maybe a new hobby that doesn’t include writing.

Somewhere In Between

“Heyma, it’s your little princess!” Mom said with an upbeat tone as we walked into her room at the Broen Home. I smiled and bent next to Heyma who was covered in one of her polyester pieced quilts. I haven’t been called that name for so long that it drowned my mind in a million memories. Though she had been sleeping, her green eyes opened and her face lit up in a smile.

Heyma’s smile is unlike any other. The wrinkles of almost 98 years of life gathering around her grin, her green eyes twinkling under her heavy lids, and her soft pink cheeks raising as if every wrinkle in itself was sagging a smile. I brushed my fingers through her coarse white hair and gave her a kiss on her forehead.

In my mind, I felt like I had to record every word. Every emotion. Every move and action and sound. I wanted to hold onto everything.

Once I started rubbing her arm and combing my fingers through her hair, she closed her eyes in complete comfort. I whispered “I love you” and gave her another kiss on the cheek. Her mouth opened, but only a groan came out.

I don’t need anyone to tell me what she can and cannot understand, so I said, “I know you love me too, Heyma.”

What do I know about Alzheimer’s and aging to 98 and getting closer to death? Nothing. I have no clue what it feels like to lose my parents and siblings and husband and even a grown daughter. I don’t know how it feels to forget names and memories. I don’t know how it feels to forget who I am or what I am to others. And I am not about to assume anything about Heyma…because she’s still Heyma. She could forget her name yesterday but remember “Amazing Grace” today. She may recall the endearing name “Little Princess” she called a chubby, blonde-haired little girl today and forget tomorrow. Her nurses and science and even my family can tell me she doesn’t understand much of anything, but she’s still my Heyma. So I’ll still talk.

While her eyes were cracked open, gazing at me, I thanked her for her love. For teaching me to bake and cook and sew and for all her yummy Lefse. Her eyes became big as cherries at the utterance of Lefse. I smiled. I soon followed with telling her memories about having grot for breakfast, hoping I’d get another response. Nothing. I guess Lefse was the winner today. I wish I had a roll of the stuff, buttered and brown-sugared, not that she’d eat it.

I saw her wiggling toes peeking from beneath the covers. I remember spending nights with Heyma and being abruptly woken by her in the morning doing leg exercises in bed, followed by massaging each of her feet and each little toe. I decided to rub her feet. She began to shift, her face crinkling, followed by a relaxed sigh.

I remember Heyma doing all these things for me when I was her Little Princess. She’d shower me in affection every opportunity she could, giving me hugs and kisses and brushing my hair with her fingers. I couldn’t but help feel like we switched roles, which we did. And for the first time in a long time, I was okay with that.

I had become so selfish as I became older. I couldn’t handle seeing her as she aged and changed and when she really couldn’t remember me. I’d visit her every few months, but it was nothing like every weekend or every summer day growing up.

When she was healthier, like just months ago, she’d laugh her operatic laugh at silly things, lick her lips from a little chocolate, and always said “yes” to a cup of coffee. She got to meet and even hold Tosten and Olivea, and I can’t but help grieve each future Hegseth that may never get to meet this bigger-than-life woman.

One day, my dad was holding little Olivea Jamae. She was smiling her toothless grin, having nothing to be happy about but the air she was breathing. Dad said, “I bet Olivea is just like what Heyma was like when she was a baby.”

I didn’t know what to say. I love Heyma so much that I couldn’t even begin to compare the two. One that was approaching 98 years of life and the other only five months.

As I looked in Heyma’s eyes yesterday, I saw Olivea. I dont know if it was a physical attribute or just the feeling of that drowning affection. I thought about the legacy Heyma has left. She being the oldest Hegseth, Olivea being the youngest, and me sandwiched somewhere between the two.

I want to hope a part of her will live on no matter when she leaves this earth. It’s cliché to say she’ll leave a part in each of us, but I need that today. I WANT to hear that today. I want to look at my daughter and believe she’ll be just like Heyma. I don’t want Heyma to go. I don’t want one single part of her to go…

But then I realize, when she lets go of this world, she’s free. Letting go allows her to be more Heyma than ever!

By this time, my tears were streaming down my face on the quilt over her. I whispered, “It’s okay, Heyma, if you want to go. You worked so hard here on earth. Your whole family is in heaven and the rest of us will be there soon.”

I sang “Jesus Loves Me” and rubbed her arm. She was so warm. Her hands have always been warm. I gave her one last kiss on the forehead.

I put my coat on and took one last look back, she was sleeping soundly. Drifting back to a world where she doesn’t have to be so confused.

I’m not saying this was my last time seeing her alive, but I’m not saying it won’t be either…so I must remember. And I do.

I love you, Heyma.