Broken Day

He asked me how it went. I knew he would. I told him maybe he could read about it later. For some reason I felt the need to remember and ponder over the morning before sharing it with him. Felt the need to let it set in, all those emotions that overtook me…the good, the bad, and the in between. I couldn’t put to words just yet how it all made me feel. And I wanted to…I needed to before sharing it with this soul friend of mine.

Leftover chocolate chip pancakes popped in the toaster for the kids, a few minutes to myself to help me look ahead at the day, kids coloring and singing “Bless the Lord oh my soul,” at 8 am. This day was a gift of sunshine that we thought was supposed to be rain. It would feel like a waste to sit inside when those rays could be nourishing our souls. Why not…it’s spring break, and the house is decent-Let’s do the park. So they pitch in. We pack lunchables and juice boxes and head out. I wasn’t going to, but somehow it seems like a coffee kind of day. I’ve had my own this morning, but we stop in at the town coffee shop anyways and grab one to go. We share sips as we walk, and it’s like it gives way to them sharing little parts of themselves.

They run immediately to the toys. I wonder why the park is just that much more exciting than the playset at home. It’s quiet all apart from those chirps the birds sing down on us. I push these children of mine-their light-weight bodies on the swings, the giggles erupt as I pretend to fall over…we are alone, and it is wonderful.

Then she came…this little girl with her mom. I’ve seen it before. I’ve been this scenario a hundred times over. Her little feet come near us, hoping to play. The mom on the park bench scrolling her phone, never looking up, never taking in the day. Never taking in her child right before her eyes. Not realizing she is four today, and tomorrow she is fourteen. It’s like she didn’t understand that in that moment her daughter was looking up at her with physical dependency, and in just a few short years those little hands will think they can do it all by herself. Maybe she’s not comprehending that this little one will always be little at heart, and she will always be emotionally dependent, even if someday she pretends otherwise. This brown eyed girl kept asking me as my hands were all full of baby, pushing two swings, turning my head to keep an eye on another, who would push her. “Who can push me?” I kept trying to stifle the annoyance this little girl was contributing to my day. Can’t she see I’m busy with my 5 kids? Can’t she see this is my family time? Time that I took out of my morning to try and be present? To make the present a present? And then I heard it loud and clear. It hit me square in the chest and put me to shame… “Can’t you see she’s broken?”

She questioned me again… “Who’s gonna push me?” It’s like all these broken pieces of her were trying to fit together somehow. She wanted me to fix what she didn’t even know was broken. I see her mom right there on that bench, fingers still moving over her phone instead of through her daughter’s deep brown hair. She’s missing it...I wish I could tell her she’s missing it. I can do this. I can push this little piece of broken, even though I want to turn away. I am disgusted with myself for wanting to turn away. She starts to cry, and just as I decide to move on over, I hear her mother, her safe place, “I can push you Fi-fi.” Maybe she hasn’t missed it. She walks over staring down at this piece of technology. I wonder what it’s giving her that her little girl can’t. “You are so whiny today Fi-fi…” Those are the first words I have heard her say to her miniture self. “I’m NOT. I’m not whiny.” Her safe place continues to look down at a screen. I try to ignore the whispering, the “I don’t want YOU to push me.” I see my 8 year-old staring. I wonder what she’s thinking….

“Why does she want you to push her so bad Mom?” She sits spider on my lap, and we swing like I did back in the day. I tell her to look over, take it all in. “She keeps looking at her phone?” I tell her that’s been me a thousand times over. It has. And I see it so clearly right now in front of me. “At least she’s on the merry-go-round with her, right? Even if she still has her phone?” I wish it were that easy. I wish being there, but not being present would help fix whatever broken there may be. These three oldest of mine take turns swinging with me. We try to reach the sky, because up there, there doesn’t seem to be so much brokenness. Up there it seems easier. My boy and I, we whisper about the brokenness we all see and feel. My four-year old, she sits on my lap to swing, all afraid she might fall, but trusting me not to let go. She nuzzles in tight to my chest, “I love my mom.” It freezes the broken for just a moment. Light shines through to my soul with all the sincerity a 4 year old can give in just three small words. This girl who has been my wild child, who I have wronged so many times… How can she not see my broken? I plant a kiss on her cheek, breathe I love yous back to her…she tells me she’s never wiping that kiss off. It will stay with her forever. Maybe someday it will heal some of her shattered places. Maybe it can be a flower, her own personal beauty, that will always return in the midst of her thorns. I enfold her into all my broken places.

The oldest two compete to break up the most amount of ground with the diggers. I hold the baby, help push the teeter totter holding up my girls. My kids-they tell me they feel more like kids when their feet are bare, with nothing inhibiting their movement, nothing restraining them from being the kids they are supposed to be. I understand this. Take the shoes and socks off. Cast off whatever is holding you back. And that little brown-haired girl comes up to me again, looking up at me with all expectancy, “Who can push me?” My heart is crushed under the weight of her devastation. My hands are full. How am I supposed to heal her broken? She sees my diggers and she makes her way to them. Maybe they can restore her. I see her slip her shoes off, and then her socks. They are weighing her down too. I can see her, all that child in her, wanting to belong.

My thoughtful one, she comes over, head downcast. I can see she is struggling with her own cut up places. The tears are stifled, but I see just one slip. “She asked if she could use my digger, and I know I told her yes, but me…but me and Jayden…we were seeing who could dig the deepest. And she's filling it all back in.” Sure enough-it's as if this girl...as if she's striving to fill back in her own empty places. More broken…why is there so much broken? How can I repair this? I draw her in, whisper slowly so she hears, whisper slowly hoping she remembers, “Everyone just wants to belong Kennedy…thank you for giving up that right. You didn’t have to…but that was nice of you. That was nice of you to want her to feel happy. That you wanted her to belong.” She notices this girl, this broken girl, who is breaking some of her own day…she notices she doesn’t have any socks and shoes on. She tells me she knows it’s right, but it’s hard. It’s hard to try and help someone else’s broken when it makes you feel broken too. She is wise beyond her years.

They walk away from us. The girl being dragged and the mom telling her that her Dad will be home soon. “Isn’t that nice?” She says she doesn’t want her Dad. She’s four and the last thing she wants is her Dad…she just wants to be unbroken. Her mom walks in front of her waiting for her girl to follow behind. Her safe place walks in front and waits for her to figure it out….I wish I could heal all her broken. All their broken.

Maybe it was just one of those days for that Mom and her daughter. I have been there. I have missed it time after time. But it was still broken. Seeing it all unfold there before us reminded me of the last time we went to the park. I was talking with friends. I suppose it has been about a year…it was the first time in weeks since we had been out since COVID hit. It was a time we weren’t sure if we even should be out, and a time before playgrounds shut down. I was wrapped up in those friends and all their broken. My kids tried telling me that a boy wasn’t being nice, that it wasn’t going well. I encouraged them to ask that boy to “Please stop,” and if he didn’t, that they shouldn’t interact with him. I basically told them to figure it out and leave me to my friends. They listened. On the way home I thought I had gifted them with such a blessing of going to the park. “Wasn’t that fun guys? It’s great we could go out!” My sensitive one…she broke into tears. “He kept following us and saying bad words. He said he was going to jump in the lake and kill himself. We were scared Mom.” “Why didn’t you tell me!?!?” I was horrified. And then it came…those crushing words… “Because you weren’t listening.” More broken…We talked about that incident, and we tried working through all the fragments. But it had already been broken. And we thought about that boy…where was his broken? Why did he seem so stuck on being mean and broken? We prayed for all the broken.

It hit me today. That maybe we don’t always love what we think we love. That we often subconsciously give way to things we don’t realize we love. It may be accidental, unintentional, but it’s happening every moment. I think I’m with my kids, but really I care more about my phone, my coffee, my looks, my book, about my alone time, or time with just me and their Dad. I think about me…I think I care about God, but I haven’t given Him one deep thought yet in this day He has made. I will keep striving. God keep giving me the grace only You can, to help me strive, to help me see what’s right before me. Help me see more of Thee…

He texts me a picture of the lunch I made before we left for the park-“Thanks honey!” He doesn’t usually do this kind of thing. But he knows. He knows I worked hard to gather a wholesome lunch for him, so he wasn’t stuck with the burden of feeding himself. I know he’s already preparing food for all those broken sheep. He knows I tried…and it heals some of the broken frustration he had of me running over the garden hose nozzle earlier. Another thing broken. He is thankful. And I’m ready to go home to him and our broken beautiful life. I pick up my phone, my baby, our belongings. I tell the kids to pick one more thing to jump on or slide down…because “one more” may be just what we need to top off this beautiful, broken day.