The flood of progress

And the love that swells within those rapids

This week marks the 20th birthday of my oldest child. Twenty years since I first held this boy. Twenty years since that cold, snowy March morning when the efforts of my very long labor finally resulted in the birth of my little Z. Thinking back on that tiny little human, the week when I labored and labored to bring him into this world, it’s hard to believe that 20 years have passed. Hard to believe that the child who changed my entire life is no longer the baby who made me a mother. No longer the little toddler who would stand at the window, excitedly pointing at the trash truck, saying, “GO! GO!” No longer the little toddler who waited until my back was turned to take long sips on the raspberry lime rickey I had gotten for the hot summer day. A day when I was solo parenting two-year-old Z and hugely pregnant with L. No longer the boy who wrote, directed, and filmed his first short film starring his three-year-old brother, who was so very eager to please his fancy director-cinematographer brother, but was just a little bit too young for the demands of the role. No longer the proud big brother who would reflect to me that he hadn’t spent enough time with his baby brother, M, and lie down next to him on the floor or my bed and chat away. No longer the boy who took a small, downed tree limb and carefully placed it across two large rocks, creating a gate into his imaginary world. No longer the boy who on a different walk in the woods, sat down on one of those rocks and declared it his resting place. No longer the boy who could escape into a book—whether it was a book that I, too, had loved, The Boy of the Pyramids, The Giver, A Cricket in Times Square, or books that weren’t written when I was young, City of Ember, Bone, or Tunnels—and then want to excitedly share the details, sentence by sentence.

And, thankfully, he is also no longer the boy who came home angry and withdrawn. The boy who was told by his principal that he was annoying, with his enthusiastic and rapid-fire chatter about all the things he was reading and learning. That this young exuberance was reason for another child to bully him. The boy about whom I went to meeting after meeting with a grown-up bully (who somehow had found his way into a principal position) to argue and fight for my child’s right to be educated in an environment that was safe and kind to him.

The boy whose exuberance and big smile slowly returned once we moved him to the public school. The boy who made a group of friends that same year who celebrated Friendsgiving at our house this past November. The boy who learned to play the piano and the violin. The boy who took over the stage and my heart as Prince Dauntless in Once Upon a Mattress; the Lion in the Wizard of Oz; Edmund in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; Willard in Footloose; and my most favorite, Inspector Cioffi in Curtains. The young man whose exuberance and enthusiasm came back with a vengeance when he found robotics. The young man who can talk about calculus and physics problems the way I could discuss psychodynamic therapy or the neurobiology of trauma.

The world we inhabit now is not the world he was born into; it is not the world that any of my three children were born into. It is not a world I even imagined could exist when they were young. And my heart aches that Z is coming into adulthood with a world that is on the brink of breaking in so many ways. The world of their childhood, with the reliably snowy winters with only a few days of bitter cold; the warm summers, with only a few days above 90 degrees—summers that you could survive without air conditioning. A government that largely functioned as it should, with political differences not yet splintering into a vicious dividing line. A community that embraced acceptance and inclusion, that saw diversity and equity as reachable goals, not divisive concepts that should be banned. A cultural shift toward recognizing that most things in life are on a continuum and not absolutes or binaries. Recognition that compassion and empathy are almost always the right choice. That children are developing humans and helping them to learn to be kind, thoughtful, and accepting adults takes time. That encouraging good behavior through fear may be easier in the short term, but has detrimental effects in the long term. That children—and adults—should always know they are loved and valued and wonderful. That spoiling is what happens to food that has been left out too long, not what happens when you love your children fiercely. That criticism and judgment breed self doubt and even self hatred. That children, just like adults, deserve explanations for why things happen, why rules are in place, why someone was unkind to them. They also deserve apologies. And love. Oh so much love. This is the world in which Z, his brothers, and their peers were raised.

So here, as I think about that tiny baby born two decades ago, to a version of me who was younger, more hopeful, more energetic, less sad and weighed down by the world, I feel sadness and heartache that he is coming into his adulthood in a country that is on the edge of dissolving close to 250 years of democracy so a few rich men can hold onto even more power and make more money. A dictator that is trying to erase identities, criminalize ways of being, takes pleasure in deportation, ban protesting, ban words, ban books, police thought.

But here is what I hold onto. In 2021, President Barack Obama sat down with Bruce Springsteen and recorded a podcast. They spoke about many things, but what has stayed with me is this passage when they were speaking about the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020:

I said this in the eulogy [for John Lewis,] “John, these are your children. They might not have known it, but you helped give birth to that sense of right and wrong in them. You helped influence them with that expectation that we’re better than we are.” My mother used to say sometimes if I wasn’t acting right, she said, “Listen, I don’t necessarily care if you believe in what I’ve told you to do, but if you do it often enough, that’s who you’re going to be.” And I think…young people [are] saying, “You’ve told us this is who we’re supposed to be. That all people are equal and we treat everybody with respect. You’ve told it to us often enough that maybe you didn’t even believe it, but WE BELIEVE IT. And we’re going to force you to adapt your behavior, your policies, your institutions, and your laws to what you told us was true. Because you may have been painting a fantasy to make yourselves feel better, but WE BELIEVED IT. AND NOW, WE ARE GOING TO MAKE IT TRUE.

~President Barack Obama

The destruction hasn’t decreased in the past week. The country is still looking bleak. Hard times persist for many. And harder times are likely ahead. But the cracks are forming. And getting bigger.

We are not the resistance, we are the flood.

Progress, as it turns out, is a mighty river constantly flowing forward, and little stands in its way for any length of time.

~David Todd McCarty

My hope? That the river that bore our children along through their early lives and is now coming up against a thick dam of resistance, hatred, and tyranny, is mightier than that concrete monolith. That the river, which is liquid, will get into the smallest cracks and start to break apart even solid rock. The river, which can, with just a little bit of acid, cause rocks to dissolve. The river, which when flooded, can become strong enough to take down a wall, will wash over it and find a way around it.

The flood is coming.

The love that I felt for Z on that early morning 20 years ago felt overwhelming, like a flood. I didn’t know my heart could expand so exponentially. I did not know I was capable of such all-encompassing love. And yet, I can tell you that I love him and his brothers even more today than I did on the day I first met them. I can tell you that as I watch them grow and blossom into the young men they are becoming, my heart grows and expands along with them. I love them for who they are, their loyalty to their friends; their dedication to learning and exploring, to making themselves better people; their voices—singing on a stage or in the shower; their love for their grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles; their talents whether mathematical or athletic or artistic; and their kindness, their empathy, their understanding of what it means to be a good citizen, a kind person, a dear friend, a loving son.

This kind of love can fell an unkind administrator, a self-serving coach. It can soften a hard fall, kiss away a scraped knee, gently hold a broken and bruised heart. It can quiet anxiety enough to compel a center stage performance; take a risk, a chance; set and reach a goal.

It can heal a nation on the brink of disaster, destruction, war.

Kindness.

Gratitude.

Empathy.

Love.

The groundswell is building.

Made up of many small and larger acts that remind us we are part of the current, we are moving forward, and we will not be stopped.

Happy birthday, my no-longer-little Z.

Words cannot express my gratitude for choosing me to be your mama.

Nor could they ever capture the depth of my love, the extent of my pride, the fullness of my hope for you.

Make way for a new day

Make room for a child

Make room for the sound of joy

You’re gonna hear it for awhile

We’re only here for a while

~John Gorka

All photos were taken by the exceptional Dana Giuliana, unless otherwise noted.

Thanks for spending some of your day reading this post. I hope it resonated. Periplum of motherhood and other wonderings is free. If you enjoy reading, please share it with friends!