Compassion…for Regular Folks (Part 1)Sermon by Jen GillumOkay, here we go. A testosterone surging teenage boy, a perimenopausal woman and her 80-year-old mother walk into a bar…. What, you want a punch line? Sorry. That’s just my life, folks! The joke is on me. (That part about the bar though is NOT a joke. That part I take seriously. It’s medicinal.) Yes. At age 52, I live with my almost 80-year-old mother. No, wait. SHE lives with me! (I know what you were all thinking.) Also, my son (soon to be a teenager) is sucking air in this home as well…trying desperately to find his way into manhood. And here I am. An older mom. A late, late bloomer in life—literally even, since I created new life when my own was potentially half over. Some might also say a slow learner—but WHEN I do finally get the lesson, I get it real good. Let me prove my point. When I was deep in the world of infertility treatments, secret hopes and silent shame and grief through miscarriages, somewhere along the way I said to myself: This is surely the hardest battle I will face. But when I had a pre-school child and my dad was in and out of Hospice and ultimately passed from this earth and my mom was left alone, I said to myself: This. This is surely the hardest thing. But then JUST a MERE 30 days after my dad had left us all, my husband revealed that he was leaving me. The marriage was over. And that little bomb of shock trauma, after I was fully able to let it land, I absolutely KNEW (if I survived it at all)—THAT would be the most crushing blow of my one, precious life. Not so much because of being without a partner, but because we had focused so hard and so long through countless procedures and surgeries on becoming a “family.” And the version of family I had convinced myself was best for our child, my one and only baby, got ripped away. I was fractured. Broken open. And I’m still kind of picking up pieces some days and re-assembling the puzzle of me and our family. Some days it’s rough and the scars are jagged. But most days it’s a beautiful mosaic. And although I would not wish that past pain on anyone, I also wouldn’t change any of it. On any day. Without ALL of those experiences, I wouldn’t be me. And I’m proud of who I’m becoming. But ONE THING is for sure and for certain. I DO NOT EVER say that something is the hardest thing anymore!!!!!! Except, you guys, so help me…living in the same home with my mother is THE HARDEST damn thing! See, told you I was a slow learner. JSo, what does this have to do with Compassion? Well, I guess number one is that I need some. I need some big time. Creating a home and a life for my son following my divorce where he was safe and loved and well taken care of was everything to me. I was scared. I couldn’t answer the question, who would be home when he got off the bus? He was not yet in kindergarten. It was a different time. There were lots of questions I could not answer. I was scared. My mom was alone and not in a great financial position.So, we did the thing that made the most sense at the time. Exit husband. Enter mother. Fear-based decisions are not always the smartest ones. And I’m going to straight up skip the worst parts of this story. The parts where my mom was in serious complicated grief over losing her husband. And I was either pissed off or,well, really super duper pissed off. And NEITHER of the people we were pissed off at were there with us, so you do the math. It was ugly, and there were times when I did not think we’d be able to continue under one roof. Sigh. But time kept ticking. Day by day. And here we are now. It’s been 9 years since my dad died. And 6 years of living under the same roof with my mom. Time does keep ticking. But not forever. These past two years have brought some noticeable changes in my mom. Loss of memory. Less willingness or interest in tackling things independently.
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