Someone told me that when they look around our world, they can’t see any good anywhere anymore. That they live with a broken heart and crushed spirit. That there is so much hatred and pain and suffering all around, they sometimes don’t want to get up in the morning. I don’t need to tell you where this person sees these things. There is trouble in this world, and there are bad people out there, it’s true.
But it’s not the whole story, or the only story, or the story that is worth the greatest of our time and energy.
If the sad things really break our hearts, they will motivate us to shine the best we can in the corner of the world where we have been placed. That’s called purpose, and without it, life gets harder.
I want to encourage that person, and all of us, to look around and see the good. Tell the good stories to your children. There is so much good around us, and we can be the good around others, if we focus on that. If we don’t get up in the morning, we can’t see the good or be the good.
Does my pity and sorrow change the world, or does my goodness change it?
Empathy: caring deeply about others and seeking to relate to their feelings in a way that moves us to help them. Empathy moves us to goodness. Caring about others drives us to get up, show up, and do goodness to them.
If our concern for the sadness that defnitely exists in the world cripples us, instead of sending us to encourage others, then it is self pity and not empathy. If our awareness that not everything and everyone is good causes us to stop seeking good entirely, then it is in fact misdirected.
Because I’m aware that not everything is good in the world, I want to get up in the morning and teach my kids what it means to be the good ones. Because of the beautiful little ones I’m here to protect, love and provide for, I rise and do my best to shine, so they can too. Their laughter brings me joy and in them I see the promise of goodness that is very definitely still in the world. Good not only is still here but is still the greatest force that exists and drives the majority of the people I know.
Don’t you know some pretty good people after all?
The latin phrase “dum spiro spero” means“while I breathe, I hope”.
I woke up this morning with breath in my lungs. My children woke with breath in theirs. If you’re reading this, then so did you. I’m grateful for that. It’s an opportunity to speak and encouraging word. It’s an opportunity to give of our abundance to someone less fortunate. It’s an opportunity to be present for the little ones I’m raising, in the hope that laughing together, reading together, and playing together, I can raise good people who make the world a better place. They already are, in fact, good little people who make the world better, my kids. I’m grateful for that too.
I can’t control that sad and bad things happen. I can only be a force for the good things.
How do we avoid losing hope? We like to talk about hope as if we either have it or we don’t. As if it’s a bird that either perches upon our hearts or flies away without our say so. This is flawed logic.
Hope is something we choose to seek and pursue, to take hold of it and hold on for dear life. We have to be intentional about that. We have to seek hope out.
We seek it in those we love, who love us. We seek it in our own hearts and minds. We seek it in God. We can even seek it on the internet!
One quick search for the words “good news” yields quite a bit.
I heard about a little boy who saved his sisters life.
I heard about multiple occasions where teens rushed into dangerous situations to help others.
…A child with a terminal illness who started a charity to give and encourage to others in the same situation.
…Organizations — people– fighting poverty and hunger.
…Neighbors banding together to help a family who suffered a loss.
…A teacher fostering a student in need (actually, quite a few of them).
…Families showing up every day for their children.
…Teachers working long hours and fighting for their students’ success.
…Nurses and doctors running towards people in dangers that a lot of us would run away from.
…Men and women running into burning buildings, risking their lives and sometimes sacrificing them to save others.
…Men and women standing in the line of fire to protect others.
…People paying other people’s bills in the supermarket, without even knowing that the person they helped needed it more than they knew.
…People surviving against all odds. Hope that we aren’t at the mercy of odds and fates.
Stories like that tell me beyond what I can ignore that there is a Force For Good working among us that is far more powerful than the bad.
There’s so much more. So much more. So much more good than bad in the world. So many reasons to have hope.
None of us who walk through this imperfect world are immune to suffering and struggles. One day I’m helping you, another day you’re helping me. We can only get through this life if we lean on each other, make the good, be the good, and see the good. None of us goes on forever, but we can leave behind some goodness if we choose it.
It starts with us, grassroots individuals in our homes and families, being good people, and raising good people.
Does that mean it’s always easy? NO!
Is it worth it? YES!
The best things are almost always the hardest, and the good is always worth the struggle! ALWAYS!
And here’s the catch, it doesn’t have to be big and it doesn’t have to be loud. There are quiet change-makers everywhere if you look in the right places, just offering a smile, just giving to a friend in need, just writing an encouraging note to a neighbor, just reading to a child, just speaking an uplifting word.
As parents, every day that we wake up breathing is a chance to pour goodness and love into the little humans who are looking to us to show them the good in the world. If we are faithful to carry out this most important duty to the world, we may elevate the goodness and kindness of future generations. What a legacy to leave behind — love for others. Empathy that moves to action. Goodness that walks around and speaks and touches people.
That’s what I want my kids to be, so I have to try and be that each day that I’m breathing. Some days I succeed and some days I fail, like all of us. But if I only see the bad, I might give up. If I focus on the sad, I might become paralyzed. I can lay in bed lamenting that the world isn’t perfect, or I can rise up and shine my light and make it a little more loving and kind. What should I choose?
I choose hope. I choose to see the good. If I hold on to the hope that is in my children, and in my God, and in my choices, then I can act in love and kindness.
Dum spiro spero. While I breathe, I hope.
Be the good, see the good, raise the good. Get out of bed. Rise and shine. Breathe and hope.
“Why is he like that?” a child asked innocently as she pointed to my son in his wheelchair. “Why does he have that thing?” pointing to his tablet.
I explain that he was born a little different and he uses his tablet to talk, making sure to add that he likes to watch football and is a big superhero buff. “I like that too!” the child replies.
Just like that, the world gets a little smaller and less lonely.
I love when kids approach us and ask those questions! Children are naturally curious, and I believe that young children are naturally inclusive. Throughout his years in school, there has never been a shortage of friends who are willing and eager to walk beside him, discover ways to make him laugh, push him on the swing, high five as they pass in the hall way.
I call those blessings, but there’s another name for it: inclusion.
My son has attended an inclusion school since kindergarten, this year he starts fourth grade. he has a paraprofessional who accompanies him into class and teachers who consider him as every other student. The result of his presence in class being normalized by the adults around him is that the students also find it very ordinary to have children with different abilities in their groups.
I could go on all day about the gift this has been to my son, and to me, because when I show up at his school, I never see a strange look directed his way. Never hear an unkind word spoken about him. He’s always in the middle of whatever the action is, whether in class or on the playground. Just where he wants to be, my little social butterfly.
It’s tricky being a social butterfly when you have different wings.
Not everyone in the world has the patience to wait while he plunks out his feelings on a tablet screen.
Not everyone understands that his speech difficulties say nothing about his intelligence. He’s not a baby, and he’s not clueless, he’s not even speechless — he just has to speak using a different skill.
I thought everything was accessible these days?
Not everyone realizes that there is a difference between accessible and inclusive. Let me give you an example that a friend recently described. For a playground to meet the written requirements of accessibility legally, it has to have a paved path. What it is not required to have is an accessible swing, equipment that a wheelchair can roll on, a slide that I don’t have to be the Hulk to hoist him onto. He can do no more at that park but sit and watch — not play.
We used to have a van with a wheelchair lift. When we go to the grocery store with a lift on our van, and park in the accessible parking space labeled “van”, very often the yellow lines beside the space provide insufficient room for our lift to open if there’s a car parked in the adjacent space. Even accessible spaces often aren’t really inclusive. Don’t get me started on the spaces with NO yellow lines at all.
My son’s class was attending their school play, and I showed up to sit with him. As his classmates filed in, they were seated together in rows, but the spaces for wheelchairs were at the back of the auditorium. My second grader sat with an adult at the back while his friends got to enjoy the play as a group. It seems like a small thing, but for a social butterfly with different wings, it matters.
This is beginning to sound like a rant, and it is not intended to be a rant. These are things that never crossed my mind before I gave birth to my son, or even after I had him, before he was old enough to think about these things. My intent is to speak about how important inclusion is.
Saving the butterfly
We were at the school garden, volunteering time one day, and my other son, the brother of my differently abled child, found a butterfly with a wing injury on the ground. Poor little thing doesn’t stand much chance in the wild. He came and asked me what kind of flowers it likes and then settled it in the greenhouse on a blooming plant in the hope — as vain as it was kind — that the little butterfly would have food while it healed in a sheltered place. It was so kind and my mother’s heart swelled.
Many people would have left it alone. Some might even have squashed it to put it out of its misery.
That butterfly is my son. He has the ability to soar, but he does it with different wings. Some cities, some schools, are still living without inclusion, and a lot of people don’t know that.
These butterflies I’m talking about, our differently abled children, are beautiful and the world will miss out on knowing them if something doesn’t change. A generation of children could miss out on friendships that expand their point of view. A future work force could lose the opportunity to see that everyone has purpose and everyone has something important to offer the world. A generation of butterflies could go through life with their wings clipped.
Let’s not allow that to happen. Let’s be the inclusive generation, and raise the next.
How? Here are just a few of many ideas! They spell out ABLE:
Ask! If you aren’t sure if something is inclusive, ask. Most of us moms are approachable and are very used to explaining our child’s needs. Ask, “If we meet at that playground, is there equipment he can use?” or ask the child, “What are your favorite things to do with friends?” You may find no one is very different after all.
Believe! Assume that it’s doable. Assume a mom will say yes to the invitation, that there is a food that isn’t even fancy that a differently winged child can eat. Assume it will be easier than you may imagine.
Lead! Be the first to ask, be open to someone new in your circle.
Enjoy! Take joy in learning all you can about new friends and their abilities, hobbies, goals and dreams.
When we are inclusive, we find that we are all a little broken but we can still lift each other and soar to new horizons. Together we can fill the world with beauty.
Comment below about ways you are practicing inclusion and ideas for ways we can all build a more inclusive and diverse world!
Once upon a time there was an occupational therapist who cared very deeply about her young patients. She looked around and noticed with sadness that the playgrounds around her were not inclusive for them. They couldn’t swing. They couldn’t slide. They couldn’t climb on the equipment. Yet, because there was a paved walkway, the parks met the requirements of “accessible”. It didn’t seem fair.
Luckily, this particular doctor was Dr. Nicole Julia, and she happened to be a dreamer. Her dream was so big that it went beyond her own city having a playground. It went to all the children living with different abilities, all over the world. She dreamed of a world where everyone is accepted exactly as they are and all children know deep down inside that they can do ANYTHING.
Thank goodness she did. Because her dream is coming true!
It begins with a series of books called the Able Fables. The first installment, Gary’s Gigantic Dream is charming. As a mom of a child with multiple special needs, it actually brought tears to my eyes. My son beamed as we read. He squealed with excitement as he saw Gary, a darling giraffe, receiving a green wheelchair just like his! He waved and laughed with delight at the images of featured children in the photo gallery at the back.
Kids just like him!Kids who are sparkling additions to the world we live in. Kids who deserve all the same opportunities as everyone else, beginning with the right to play!
There was even a space for my son’s own photo, and to fill in his own story and big dream, affirming that he is able just like Gary! I don’t think words can express what that meant to him, and to me.
We understood little Gary’s emotions as he chose and was fitted for his first wheelchair. We cheered as his chair empowered him to play and engage with other people. We witnessed him grow up and live his own dream of teaching other children that they can do anything they set their hearts to. Gary was inspiring, not only to my son but to me, to keep reaching for our own goals and believe that anything is possible.
Meet the visionary behind the Able Fables: Nicole is a down-to-earth person with a warm smile that expresses her genuine love for people. She describes herself as a “gymnast, turned diver” (by the way, she has caught a 7.5 foot shark!) “turned photographer, turned occupational therapist and author.”
When asked if she had always dreamed of being an author, Nicole told a pretty inspiring story. “No, I sure did not!…God has worked through me in incredible ways. When I was in OT school, I joked with my teacher that I would write a book on wheelchair seating and positioning after learning how comprehensive and individualized the process is. A year later, I was studying for boards in a coffee shop, and I had a poem stuck in my head out of nowhere. I grabbed my journal, and 30 minutes later, I had written my first book, and I cried (cus I do that a lot)!”
So what is inclusion, and why is it such a huge passion for her? Nicole shares, “Superficially, inclusion can be defined as the act of being accepted. At its core, inclusion requires profound love, empathy, understanding, and a willingness to steps outside of one’s comfort zone to invite an individual to participate fully in life’s occupations. Inclusion is holistic. To be included, one must be invited to participate in work, education, play, leisure, socialization, and the community. Why do I love it? Without inclusion, we are missing out on amazing people, new opportunities, and abundancy in life.”
Abuntancy in life sounds like a vision we all can get behind. In a world where it sometimes seems empathy is in short supply, Nicole is shining her light brightly by sharing her dream of inclusion with as many people she can! I thoroughly enjoyed hearing what she had to say about her vision. You can too, it’s all at theablefables.com!
Making a difference: As of this printing, well over 4,000 dollars has already been donated to building inclusive playgrounds by this passionate organization, and they are just getting started! Twenty per cent of sales from the Able Fables books will go to build inclusive playgrounds! Think what a tremendous impact that can make for children all over who are waiting and eager for their chance to play?
When I look over the Able Fables website, I want ALL the products! The clothing for kids and adults is adorable and colorful, featuring designs with powerful messages like, “We’re All Able!” and “What a lovely day to be inclusive!” On the website you can also download coloring pages featuring the adorable characters from the stories, and a guide to inclusive playgrounds!
The playgrounds are just one of so many reasons these books are important! Representation for children all over the world who are real and have real feelings is just as vital. I once went to my local library and asked for books about children with disabilities. They produced one book — one –and it was okay. It was meant to educate young children that everyone is different, not a bad goal by any means. BUT…there wasn’t a story in it. There was not a leader with different abilities setting the example of reaching for their goals and acheiving them.
The Able Fables have that. For those of us raising differently abled but very ABLE children, that story of a leader just like them is the IT factor that makes these books a dream come true. My son saw himself in those pages as strong, able, and needed by the world around him. You really can’t place a premium on that (but as a bonus the books are very affordable).
The second message of hope in the Able Fables series is coming soon, Lia’s Kind Mind. Featuring Lia, a little lion with a port wine stain birthmark on her face. Although she looks different, she knows she is beautiful, smart, and unique, and that her kindness is where her true value lies. She’s able, and can confidently reach for her dreams as a world class gymnast! We can’t wait to read it!
More titles are in the works, featuring children living with blindness, limb differences, autism and sensory difficulties, hearing impairment, chromosomal differences, and more — so make sure to follow this amazing series as child after child learns that they are able to be whatever they want to be.
Imagine that message making its way into classrooms across North America — and the world. Imagine a world where all children know, beyond a doubt, that they are able to make an impact for good. That they are important. That they can dream as big as anybody else. How important is that message, not only for kids living with different abilities, but for all children (and even adults)? Because really, kids with “special needs” have the same needs as everyone else: They need to be included, valued, supported, and loved. They need to play and dream and achieve.
We can create a world like this! We can give them playgrounds, we can give the gift of encouragement through the Able Fables books and the messages on the apparel, we can help the children around us to dream as big as Gary the Giraffe and Dr. Nicole Julia.
A few ideas of ways we can make Gary’s Gigantic Dream a reality in our own communities:
We can donate Able Fables books to our local schools and libraries!
We can gift Able Fables books to friends and family!
We can actively promote the need for inclusive playgrounds in our communities, and give to that worthy cause!
We can practice inclusion and show our kids that everyone is able by building strong friendships with people of diverse abilities!
We can read the Able Fables with our own children and raise up an inclusive generation of dreamers for a better world.
I thought about calling this post Cereal for Dinner, because that has saved me so many times. It was the best piece of advice I receved when tackling single momming for the first time. I felt like I was neck deep in quicksand just trying to keep my kids from sinking. Painfully aware that our life moving forward would look nothing like life had before.
One of the first things to go when I went to work full-time was time to cook. I felt guilty about it (although there was no need to feel that way).
One evening I was picking my children up from a place where they used to visit their dad. I felt haggard and was trying my best to hide it. It was a little past dinner time and we hadn’t eaten yet, and I was pinching pennies, but we were going to eat. Only I didn’t know what just yet.
The lady at the front desk, making small talk while we waited for the kids, asked what we were having for dinner. I forced a chuckle and said I wasn’t sure yet but something good.
In spite of my forced laugh, inside I felt tears sneaking their way out, which I tried to hide, but I think she knew. Just because someone asked what you’re having for dinner? Get a grip! I told myself.
This wonderful woman, who had been through the same hard transition we were going through, said, “You know it’s okay to have cereal for dinner, right? You are doing your best and there is a lot going on and sometimes just having cereal lets you have some time to relax with your kids instead of cooking and dishes.”
Searching now for words to describe the gift that her perspective gave me that day. Until that moment I had felt even more pressure to be perfect as a single mom than I had when I was married, and lots of pressure then too. It’s the world we live in isn’t it? There is always mom guilt for something, and we try to do it all, and we can’t because we are human. It’s okay. Give yourself grace and your kids a bowl of cereal. (Ice cream works too).
Sanity is healthy.
Time with my kids was more important. Them having a mom who was relaxed and had a little time for them in the evening was more important (and healthier) than all of us staying up late because dinner wasn’t ready and mom is overtired and now there’s dishes too. Happy together is healthier. Together is healthier.
As the truth of this all sank in, I felt like I wasn’t sinking quite as fast anymore — at least that evening — and so I feel a need to pass that along to you who might be in a similar boat. It’s okay to have cereal for dinner.
You and your children are on a journey together. Life is more than a long string of dinners. Life is messy. You can’t control it’s ups and downs. You can only do the best you can to major in joy on the way, and share as many smiles with your kids as possible while you have them. Seasons come and go. Cereal for dinner may just be a season, but it’s not an ugly one truth be told. It’s sweet.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying stop trying. But there are seasons in life when you need help and sometimes it comes in the form of a box in the pantry.
We don’t have cereal every single night, but there were seasons that were a combination of broke and busy when we had it every night for a few days in a row. Just when I was feeling guilty for it, one of the kids would exclaim, “Yay! We get cereal again! This time I’m having…” choosing their favorite from the pantry and feeling grown up because I let them pour their own milk.
They didn’t think I was a bad mom. They thought they were getting a treat and we got to read stories and cuddle on the couch a little bit and went to sleep smiling.
So now I’m going to get really deep here. Life is like a bowl of cereal, but not this one:
Life is more like this one, messy:
Only instead of that healthy looking grainy cereal, it would bee like those rainbow colored circles — crazy and not so pretentious, but still sweet.
P.S. Cereal for breakfast AND dinner happens too. And it’s also okay. Also approved are ice cream, donuts, crackers with peanut butter, popcorn, or basically anything that helps you stay sane as a mom on a night when you feel like crying over dinner.
Moral of the story: Sometimes cereal for dinner keeps life sweet. And making life sweet for your kids is never ever something to feel guilty about.
Maybe today you are in the place I was back then, in tears over the very daily question of what’s for dinner? Maybe you feel that yucky mom guilt and you wish you had more time with your kids. Or, maybe you can’t relate to this post AT ALL, and if that’s the case then good for you, but for those who can: You got this, Mama. It’s going to be okay.
Sweat dripped down my forehead and I rushed to the kitchen for a glass of water. The lump in my throat and gut seemed to have settled in permanently over the earlier weeks due to some personal struggles that our family was going through. I had scarcely ever felt as insecure as a mother as I did through that season, or even in the years since.
That night the feeling was palpable, almost audible, as if a malevolent figure stood behind me, hissing. “You’re not a good enough mother…your kids aren’t going to thrive…you’re going to lose at life, at family, at everything important to you…you are a failure…”
Somehow, as the same familiar discourse was playing in my ear and I could almost smell the stench of the deception, it hit me like a bayonet to the heart: I was in a war. Not against any person, but against that voice that wouldn’t leave, against the lies that whispered shame night after night, and against the tumultuous sea of emotions that were trying to gain ground in my heart, hitting me like a tidal wave threatening to take me out.
In that dark moment in the still of the night, my babies asleep in their beds, I stood my ground. I squared my shoulders. Something had to give and it couldn’t — could not — be me.
I had cried. I had tossed and turned. I had worried, with a nail-biting-sweat-inducing anxiety, for weeks.
Now something rose up in my heart and I spoke aloud into the darkness, “You can’t have me and you can’t have my children. I am going to win this battle — and this war! We are going to be okay!”
I drank my water, I went to bed and actually slept. The mom who awoke in the morning was a more positive and more present mother than I had been through most of the struggle.
Please don’t get me wrong, I AM NOT naturally brave or strong. The emotion, the “enemy”, that had worn me down so much during that season of life was Fear. My natural instinct is to protect my children and when something seems to threaten them, whether it’s disability, a bully, a tough emotion, or any other real threat, that thing rises up in me that does in most mama bears.
This time, it seemed so far out of my hands that I began to believe Fear’s lie that I couldn’t do it. If I couldn’t protect my cubs, despite my best efforts, well that felt…scary.
Fear is always a liar. He’s a nasty old man full of bitterness at his own failures, who masquerades as a terrible warrior coming for your family.
Listen to me: you are the warrior, and he is actually terrified of you. You have the power to stand and fight for your family. You are in the trenches, and if he takes you down he will move on to your children. You terrify Fear because he knows he can only gain ground if you give yours up. He can’t take you by his nefarious whispering. He can’t take you by lying in your ear in the still of the night. He can’t take you unless you let him shake you: and he knows it.
Which is what I had been doing, unintentionally. I let him rob my energy, which robbed time with my children. I let him rob my confidence, which made me less able to speak into them the good that I needed to. Oh, I was trying, but I was having my legs cut from under me by this villain I now know by name. This Fear.
Once upon another time, sitting in a clinic in Uganda with a little boy who was also fighting a battle of his own, some of the wisest words I ever heard came from that 12-year-old, and I have never forgotten. He said, “Sometimes life is hard but we just have to go through it. You will just go through it. I will just go through it.” We both came out the other side, as he predicted, not entirely unscathed, but maybe at least a little braver.
Back to that night in the kitchen: That defining moment in the midnight changed a lot about how I fight my battles. Have I ever slipped up again? Oh yes. Have I listened once in a while to those whispers and lies in the dark? Have I wrestled through sleepless nights? Yes, and yes. I’m still human. Life still ebbs and flows. But I learned something that night, even if I sometimes forget.
I learned that I have the upper hand, and when I play it, Fear shakes in his own dusty boots.
Here’s a short list of things that help me remember that:
Getting out of my head and into my body — run, dance, jump, scream and shout. Anything to remind you that you are a force to be reckoned with.
Journal it or speak it to an empty room. Getting your thoughts and feelings out and speaking affirmatons like, “We are going to get through this! I am going to win this battle for my kids!” is very powerful. You believe it a little more each time you say it, and some days that little more makes a big difference!
Connect with your kids and with a warrior queen mama friend who gets it. Spending time with the ones we love who love us back affirms our purpose and reignites the passion and fire we need to stand our ground for them.
Remember, there is hope. Every mountain, and I mean every mountain, has another side once you reach the precipice. It can seem like it’s taking forever, it can seem like relief is never coming. Hold on to your rope and press on, because you are closer than you think to that peak — and then it gets better.
Mamas, Daddies, you are in a battle every day. Whether you know it or not, whether you want to be or not. Fear is coming for our children. Will we fight for them? You bet!
Right now, we stand for them and by watching us stand they learn to stand for themselves.
Right now, we speak into the darkness on the sleepless nights, but they will have sleepless nights of their own. We teach them what to say to send Fear fleeing in the opposite direction.
Right now, we stand ground for our young ones. Someday they will need to stand their own ground.
Have we shown them the skills they need to stand in their hardest battles? Have we trained them to confidently win their wars?
This world won’t back down. A constant barrage of challenges are thrown our direction daily. Relational challenges, emotional challenges, financial, academic, career-related, spiritual challenges. We can feel like Fear won’t back down, so well…we can not back down either.
If we don’t give in when Fear comes calling, odds are in favor that our children won’t.
That, my friends, is how mama bear warriors win for their kids. Stay strong tonight, mama. You are a force to be reckoned with. Fear doesn’t stand a chance.
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