Anne Lamott writes somewhere in one of her books about the only two kinds of prayers: please and thank you. I had actually forgotten this until I was recently re-reading Eat, Love, Pray and that author, I have forgotten her name, mentions this fact. As soon as I read it I was transported back to my more devoted Lamott days of the mid-90′s when Loren was still a tot and her writing struck such a nerve within me because her family of origin is so whacked that reading her words made me feel like my skin was a mile thick with the insulation and normalcy. Then, as now, the please and thank you thing spoke to me. Back then I still thought pretty seriously that my shit didn’t stink and so even though I believed her words, I didn’t completely buy them. However, when I recently re-read that passage I was so staggered by the truth that I had to put the book down to absorb it.
In the last few years I have spent a bit of time exploring faith and belief. I won’t lie, I haven’t spent endless hours soul searching or performing unsaid good deeds just because I can. My search has been mostly self-serving, a hope that perhaps I can better this existence where I have put my three kids or maybe explain why I have ended up living in a loft in my mother’s house. Losing my father definitely had something to do with it, the many chats with the priests after his death where they calmly and peacefully told me he had been granted a Golden Ticket to a Better Place and all I wanted to do was thrash and scream with grief. Since then I have offered up words, or prayers if I am being totally honest, in hopes that they will be heard and even answered if the wind is blowing in my favor. This year in particular I have pressed even more in the murmured word area. The combination of trying to get Devon to use his mouth for chewing and swallowing, trying to keep Loren from going down a dark road, maintaining a healthy balance with Cassidy’s sass, living with my mother and working in the most drama filled environment I have ever encountered, and that says/screams volumes, and I have reached my limit. Daily I offer up some sort of request to somebody or something somewhere. There are many pleases and thank you’s. Sometimes the balance tips towards self-indulgent prattering of pleas for help. Other times I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I actually have a roof over my head, even if it is my mother’s and not my own.
Today, as is my custom on most Tuesday mornings after Devon has OT, I stopped by the prayer room at church with all the candles, yes I am that stellar of a Catholic that I don’t know the correct name for that little room, and dropped quarters in the slot to light a candle. I always add a few extra in hopes that my wee bribe to The Above will expedite my requests. As I knelt there and faced the mountains under the watchful eyes of icons I wondered, as I always do, if I was wasting my time. But I said the words and asked for the help, and as I did the words I heard the most were please and thank you. I was grateful for the fact that Devon had an entire OT session without any tears and he actually chewed and swallowed the selections I packed. Cassidy and I had a fight-free morning that left me feeling as though I might not be a crap ass mom after all. There were just 18 days left of the school year, this means there will be 12 weeks when I won’t stress out about Loren failing biology. All said it was a heavy thank you morning. And it felt good. I don’t think I could ever admit to my family that this has become a weekly habit of mine, they would wonder where I had misplaced my cold, dark heart. But there is something about it that feels good, and for that I am grateful.
