Pieced Together – A Mother’s Story

by AN ANONYMOUS BATTEN MOTHER

I grew up in a family of story tellers. Every get together involved reminiscing and sharing the same old stories. Most happened before my time, yet I’ve heard them so much it’s as if I was actually there.

Many stories involve my Dad, his two brothers and his sister.   Many include their childhood shenanigans. They would be playing in the house and something would get broken. They would do chores and something would get broken. They would move furniture to turn the living room into a football field and something would get broken. The result would be my grandmother grabbing the glue and putting it back together.

I know these broken things on her shelves. They weren’t matching sets or family heirlooms. They weren’t pieces that were priceless or irreplaceable. But they were special to her. So as things broke, she could have easily thrown them out, but she chose to piece them back together. Displaying them once again in hopes that no one would see the damage that had been done to them.

I often think about these broken knick- knacks and feel we have a lot in common. All it took was one visit to the doctor’s office to knock me down and shatter me to pieces. As the doctor revealed our diagnosis, I wasn’t even sure what he was saying. But when he said it will affect other parts of his body and his longevity, I literally fell to the ground. I was completely broken. Not the broken that leaves you in two pieces. But the broken that shatters you. Picture a glass dropped from the highest cabinet in the kitchen and exploding into tiny slivers everywhere. I was that kind of broken. How would I ever get up off the floor?

Then I thought of the words written by my sweet little boy just 4 days earlier on his Star of the Week poster…I am a star because “I never give up.” That was the glue that started putting me back together.

I walked out praying, you know the kind of prayer that sounds like a jumbled ramble of words that even if God was yelling from the top of his lungs to guide me, I wouldn’t have even heard him. It was that kind of prayer. But, He glued me together enough to put one foot in front of the other to walk out of that doctor’s office.

We came home and I looked at our daughter. How is this ever going to be ok I thought and the glue started letting loose. She hugged me and asked if we could cuddle on the couch together. She held me tight. Gluing those pieces right back together.

That night on one of the first of many sleepless, tearful nights I said to my husband, “What are we going to do?” He said we are going to get up and go to work and school, just like we do every other day. Our children deserve us to support each other and not fall apart. His love for our family was the glue that I needed once again.

The days to follow, 902 to be exact, I have fallen apart and been glued back together more than I can count. If someone looked closely, they would see that I am not who I once was. Just like the knick -knacks on my grandma’s shelves, I am together, but a little different than I used to be. But as pieces break off, God finds a way to glue me back together. He provides glue from my family, from the courage of Craig and Charlotte, from the kindness of Mary Beth, from the encouragement of Danielle, from the strength of Wayne and Missy, from the knowledge of the scientific researchers and from the promise that He has a plan the far outweighs my understanding.