When I was little I was “A lot of work”, a “Very needy little girl”, just “too full of energy, a child who “Asked too many questions”, a little girl that got told “Patience is a virtue” a thousand times a day. I was that child. Sounds exhausting.
I have vivid memories of my childhood. I remember whole conversations, experiences, situations, all in great detail. I am a sentimental person and I’ve held onto my memories, unwilling to let them go.
I have good memories, lots of bad ones, some just “ugh being a child sucks”, but overall I remember people never listening long enough, never stopping long enough, and getting left behind with something important to say, needing to be heard, needing someone, anyone to just hang in there and wait for the end, for the message, someone to say “Wow, hanging in there was difficult, but I’m glad I did” Incidentally, this happened to me a handful of times before I was 20. Once in sixth grade, because I had an awesome sixth grade teacher who went out of his way to make every single student feel valuable, important, and special. And then once in college when my favorite professor told me. “Holly when I finished that very first lecture I had with you, all I could think was this is my know it all student, blah blah. But shame on me, because I hung in there and I’ve listened. And what I’ve come to realize is that everything you have to say is important and useful. You’ve taught me to slow down and listen” The other handful of times were by a woman who took care of me and loved me, even though she didn’t have to. I have called this woman many things, my foster mother, my friend, almost like a sister, but now we know her as Asher’s Mimi.
It has never been a great mystery as to why I became a teacher and who inspired me to do so. And never a real mystery why I wanted to be a good mother more than anything else in life. But aside from these two teachers and a foster mother who really understood kids, no adult in my life was able to show me any sort of great patience. So I grew up with none. I can’t stand waiting in lines, time tables really bog me down, things like “Give me give five minutes” really drive me batty. I need fast paced conversation. Keep up people. Disney Land? Forget the kid not being able to wait in lines….damn. It’s one of the reasons I always answer “Epcot” when people ask me what I love most about Disney. I like walking around and getting instant gratification. Even things like starting a family, getting married, going to graduate school, the perfect job…..I was impatient. I couldn’t wait.
Sometimes God slowed me down. Haha Holly, you have to wait for your children because you have infertility. Married? No instead you’re going to adopt a teenager. The perfect job? Nope you’re going to need to muddle through a few until you find where you belong. Awesome creative conversations with my adorable toddler…no, SLOW DOWN, you have a special child. And all these things have been good for me and have required great patience. They have lead me to my life now. I am happy for the most part. I have a specific set of skills that make me valuable in my profession. I am a good friend, mother, sister, and I strive to be a good wife. It has been trying, but in these times I have been grateful for every single experience I’ve had with people who did not show me patience. They were examples of what I didn’t want to be and how to strive to become a more balanced person, one who can wait until things are supposed to happen, instead of trying to force them.
But Grateful for those experiences? Yes. I’ll explain why. Being a mother requires a great deal of patience, we all know that. Even the best mothers crack and lose it from time to time. But good mothers also need compassion and empathy. I feel like a lot of us in our rush to grow up, let go of our childhoods. We shouldn’t do that. We have to remember being a child, when little things felt HUGE and overwhelming. When things that seem so unimportant to adults, just take over little worlds. When an important point is muddled up in a long boring story that is spouted off in an unorganized, long manner….when you just need to hold on until the end to hear that important “little” thing….even if it means not answering the phone, putting down the laptop, losing a little bit of “me time” or setting dinner back 10 minutes. Good mothers need that.
And I need that more than I ever thought I would. I need the memories of what it felt like to be that little girl, who never felt heard, who never felt important, who wished everyday people had more patience. And I’m grateful for it. I am grateful for every single time an adult laughed me off, told me to wait and never came back to the conversation, every time someone did not hear me. I am just as grateful for that as I am for the handful of times I was heard.
I’m grateful because I have Asher. And Asher is a child that requires an incredible amount of patience. You really have to hang in there to hear him. Sometimes it means waiting until the end of a 20 minute dialogue from Lilo and Stitch to realize it was the only way he knew how to tell me that he loves his family. Because, “O Hana means family and family means no one gets left behind”. It means taking 50 deep breaths during a tantrum and sticking it out instead of walking away or getting upset, because usually it means that something is going wrong in a sensory manner, that he needs my help. It means listening to jargoning, patiently waiting for a message in language that is echolalic. Not losing it at the play space when I have to guide Asher through the signing and repeating of “I’m sorry friend” for the 80th time.
Patience. And I am not naturally a patient person, it was never really modeled for me. I never learned how to be. And to be honest, we just don’t live in a patient world. But when I want to snap, tune out, walk away, dismiss, I remember being that little girl and how big the little things felt and how it felt not to be listened to, to always be on punishment because it was easier to punish me than listen, to be misunderstood, and brushed aside as “very needy” And I know I will stick it out and I will hang in there for my son.
So I am grateful for the lessons I have been given in patience and how important it can be. Grateful for every single experience that has taught me that. How powerful and life shaping it can be when it is received, how it can change a kid’s world. So I will take the lessons I’ve learned and be patient with my son, always, because I love him and I believe that what he says should be heard, even if I have to pry it out of him, even if he tells me through tantrums and bad behavior or if he tells me through an ecrutiatingly long reenacted scene from Veggie Tales. He is valuable and he will grow up knowing that I know he is important. And maybe if I model it for him and show him what patience really is, instead of just telling him that patience is a virtue, maybe someday he’ll grow up and be an awesome dad, or friend. Maybe he’ll work with kids like himself or be an awesome sixth grade teacher, maybe he will be an example to all what this virtue of patience really looks like….who knows? But today I am grateful for patience and the strength to hold onto it and use it to be a better person.
I also want to say thank you to the few adults in my life that knew this and strove to be a model of this virtue even when I am sure it was difficult to do so. So thank you Peter Anti. Thank you Dr. Corinne Merritt. And thank you most of all Donna Webber. Thank you from the little girl I used to be and thank you from the woman that I have become.
