A Little Bit of Grace

We had a horrible accident at our house yesterday. It was both gruesome and tragic. We've been able to keep a low profile so there are not dozens of news vans outside our house, though I did spot Telemundo sneaking around our backyard. The carnage was unspeakable; half of his face torn off, his eyeball ripped out of its socket, a large gaping hole where his right cheek used to be. We were not able to shield our youngest two children from this tragedy. They witnessed it first hand. Our middle son tried to stop the senseless mutilation, but he was too late. The damage had been done and there was no going back. Eugene lay there on the ground, three quarters of the bear he used to be with his innards strewn about the floor. Star, our 7 1/2 month old puppy, sat there next to her victim with foam still stuck in her teeth looking guilty, but satisfied.

My son and daughter, realizing the sensless injustice of it all, cried out in anguish. How could this be happening to them? They have been careful. They have taken the necessary precautions to avoid similar stuffed animal deaths. But now it was happening to them and with not just any stuffed animal, but with my bear, their mother's bear. The sacred bear that I have had for most of my 40 years. Psychological pathology aside (how many grown women still have their childhood stuffed animals on their beds?), this toy has significance. Everyone knows that you don't mess with Eugene. He is special. He is important. This dog is a relative newcomer to our family and with utter disdain, she completely disregards our code of honor and she actually turns on one of us.

Needless to say, Lee and I had to immediately launch our PR blitz and put a spin on the whole mauling incident. "Look, it's merely a flesh wound!" I explain to them, lightheartedly. "The 6" hole in his head isn't that bad. Look we can just scoop up all this stuffing and shove it back into the hole. With a little reconstructive surgery he'll be as good as new! A little disfigured and missing an eyeball, but practically just like new." Lee offers, much like the French woman with the facial transplant, perhaps we can graft another stuffed animal's face onto the missing part of the bear's right skull. Eventually we are able to coax some reluctant half smiles onto their faces, but they remained resentful to their canine sibling for the rest of the day. Sometime this week either Lee or I are going to have to smuggle home some 5-0 prolene, needles and needle driver home from the hospital to perform Eugene's microsurgery.

I think my middle son must have been harboring anger towards the dog all day long, because later that evening while she had her shock collar on, he shocked her with the dial amped up all the way to 10. He could offer no explanation for doing this other than, "I just wanted to see what would happen." Normally, we don't even shock the dog, we just push the button that emits an obnoxious tone and she stops doing whatever undesirable behavior in which she is engaged. Initially Lee and I were concerned that this might be an early indication of antisocial personality disorder, but luckily, our middle son doesn't exhibit a pattern of cruelty to animals. He just has a pattern of poor impulse control. It has been a source of frustration for me lately and I am feeling like a bad mother for being frustrated and angry about my kid's behavior.

By themselves, none of the incidents are that alarming, but when I lump them together, I get ahead of myself and worry that we are raising a derelict. Don't get me wrong, I love my son and he is incredibly cute and charming and mostly well-behaved, etc, etc but...I'm just frustrated. As your kids get older you realize what little control you have over them. They make their own choices, good or bad and our job is to instruct them as to how to make good choices. I've always had pretty good impulse control and my other two, for the most part, are pretty rule oriented. So, this one is challenging me and I don't like it and quite honestly, sometimes I don't like him for making my job difficult. If he would just do exactly what he was supposed to do all of the time, then I wouldn't have to be perplexed and I wouldn't have to worry. Which leads to a deeper consideration; am I more concerned about his welfare or how I look as a mother? Tricky. I know that I am concerned about him, but I also want a good grade in the mother department. This parenting expedition is more than I bargained for, at times.

I don't know, I guess I just need un poco de gracia. Actually, I need a whole lot of grace, which is what God demonstrates to me all of the time. It's much easier to be the recipient of that grace than to exhibit it to others. Paradoxically, it frequently easier to extend grace to complete strangers than to those that you love the most.

Well, it's first thing in the morning on Sunday morning and we are trying to rally our troops out of bed to go to the early church service before we cut down our tree. And the little guy about whom I have been talking has just hobbled out of bed and into my lap.

I had intended on writing about how my middle son didn't realize that I was funny ("You're funny mom?" he asked me one day when I wanted to know who they thought was funnier, me or their dad). I was going to parlay that whole bear mauling incident into how funny I really am, but I must have needed to discuss my feelings of inadequacy as a mother. Thank God for his grace and mercy which he bestows upon us each new day, regardless of whether or not we deserve it. Now if only I can learn to do that with my own children and those that I love...