Counting Marshmallows and IOUs

MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2011 9:09 PM, EDT

Counting Marshmallows and IOUs

Tiffany, Jayme and I grew up with an emphasis on sharing. We were 3 girls living with a hard-working Mama who spent the same amount of money on each of us at Christmas...to the dime. And she had to...because if she didn't, we were counting marshmallows. The marshmallows in our hot chocolate were always evenly split. God forbid someone have a single marshmallow more than the other two. And you should have seen us with three bowls of Lucky Charms! Before the milk went in, we each had our bowls of cereal dissected...divided up between marshmallows and whatever those other things are. And we couldn't just have the same amount of marshmallows total...we would trade purple horseshoes and red balloons and shooting stars until each sister had an equal distribution of each type of Lucky Charm marshmallow. I cannot imagine the anxiety that Mama must have felt over pouring three bowls of Lucky Charms!

I heard a great sermon Sunday about resilience. The priest said "blank happens," and then he said "in the sermon-version, things happen." Resilience is how you play with the hand you're dealt...how you determine if things happen toyou, or happen around you. I love it when you go to church, and you feel like the sermon was meant just for you. 

Life, of course, is no bowl of Lucky Charms. And we don't always get to beg, borrow or steal away our marshmallows. Sometimes you get more of the sugar coated multi-grain thingies. And sometimes you get an uneven distribution of marshmallows...and sometimes you get more of one kind than another. And sometimes you have way too much milk. And sometimes your spoon is just too big for your mouth (although I don't really have that problem).

My Aunt Tina used to tell me that your life is like a series of hills, and that you walk around with a little red wagon. God likes to put things in your wagon to challenge you, and the wagon gets heavy. Then, when you think it's too heavy, God throws a hill into the landscape, and you have to drag that God-forsaken wagon up a hill. You think you'll never make it, but before you know it you're at the top. And there you have it, a downhill trek. And the further you go, the less heavy your wagon gets. That's faith and resilience working together - knowing that God never fills your little red wagon to the point that you can't handle it, and God knowing how full your little red wagon can be before you break. Nathan asked me after I began treatment, "At what point do you think God will decide we're strong enough?" I answered, "I don't know...maybe after this...maybe." Mama sent him the little red wagon analogy in an email about 2 days later. God-wink.

I spend a lot of time telling people that "everyone has their own shit." And I mean that. No ones shit, no matter how bad, is worse than anyone else's. Everyone gets what they can handle...and what they can handle will build their character one way or another. It's how we learn from our shit and handle it that makes us who we are, and that is incentive enough to get through it with a smile on our faces...for our self, for our children, for our support system. It's the whole lemon, lemonade analogy. And it's not about counting marshmallows. It's not about having it worse than someone else. It's not about having more than someone else. Trust me, someone else has their fair share.

There is nothing fair or even about Mama being in Louisville every other week for 4 months. I love this time that I get with her. I lived in Wisconsin with her for 6 1/2 years. For 2 of those years, I lived 12 houses, a church and a schoolhouse away from her, and I miss the time that we got to spend together. But since I left Wisconsin, Mama has split her time very evenly between myself, Tiffany and Jayme. If she didn't, we would have noticed, and we would have said something. But every time she is here, I am reminded of the time that she will "owe" Tiffany and Jayme, even if it is only in my head and not theirs. I love this time with Mama, but I wish I didn't need it for this. I'm going to owe those sisters of mine a whole lot of marshmallows.